Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

She said, “Doing my job. Projecting myself into the mind of the suspect.”

“Not a fun place to be.”

Never has been, baby.

She said, “Honestly, Pete, we’ve been expecting this. You know we have.”

“I haven’t.”

“Not this. You know what I mean. People see how easy it is to scare the world right to its core. Not so hard to fuck up the system, as it turns out. You can do a lot with a few deranged children and some hardware-store explosives.”

“Give me a break, okay? Sure everybody’s freaked out, but the world’s going on. One insane old witch and a couple of retarded kids are not bringing it all down.”

“I know. I know that.”

“So what are you saying?”

“You mind if I just go a little loose?”

“Nope. Go.”

“You’re probably right. An old witch and a couple of damaged children. But she told me she thinks history is changed by a small band of people.”

“That would be, say, a few thousand Bolsheviks. That would be entirely fucking different.”

“Of course it is. It’s entirely different.”

“Don’t use that voice with me.”

Pete would know about the voice. His mother had probably used it.

“Sorry. I’m just saying it seems possible, it doesn’t seem impossible, that this ragged band of crazy fucks we’ve stumbled onto is part of something bigger. Something with considerably more potential.”

“More of them?”

“She mentioned an extended family.”

“Christ.”

“She’s probably just crazy, Pete. She’s probably doing this all by her crazy old white-lady self.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“I don’t know what to think. Truly, I don’t.”

Pete shoved his hands deep into his pockets. His face was ashy, his forehead studded with sequins of sweat. She could see him, briefly, as a child. He’d have been balky and stubborn, furious at the slow-moving, ungenerous world. He would never have told anyone, certainly not his poor overworked mother, of his convictions about what whispered in the back of his closet, what waited hungrily under his bed.

Children know where the teeth are hiding They only tell us what they think we can bear Pete said, “You should go back and interrogate her.”

“I don’t interrogate.”

“Whatever. Go have a chat with the murderous old bitch.”

“Glad to. You’ve got more people coming, right?”

“About half the force.”

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“I was about to say, Don’t worry. Now why would I say a thing like that?”

“Take a cab back to the precinct, okay? I need all the boys here.”

“I love a cab.”

“Get the receipt.”

“You know I will.”

It took her a while to get a cab in a neighborhood this close to the projects. When a courageous soul finally stopped for her (Manil Gupta, according to his ID;

thank you, Manil), she let herself sink into the piney semidark of the backseat, watched the city slip by.

She asked Manil to take her to her apartment instead of the precinct so she could pick up her copy of Leaves of Grass. She might want to refer to it as she talked to the woman, and it seemed unlikely there’d be a copy lying around the Seventh.

Manil nodded and took off. Even if he was only taking her to East Fifth, she found it nice to be driven like this, to hand over control to somebody else. The late-night New York you saw from a moving car was relatively quiet and empty, more like anyplace else in nocturnal America. Only at these subdued moments could you truly comprehend that this glittering, blighted city was part of a slumbering continent; a vastness where headlights answered the constellations; a fertile black roll of field and woods dotted by the arctic brightness of gas stations and all-night diners, town after shuttered town strung with streetlights, sparsely attended by the members of the night shifts, the wanderers who scavenged in the dark, the insomniacs with their reading lights, the mothers trying to console colicky babies, the waitresses and gas-pump guys, the bakers and the lunatics. And scattered all over, abundant as stars, disc jockeys sending music out to whoever might be listening.

She got out of the cab at the corner of Fifth Street, paid Manil and gave him an extravagant tip. At first, as she approached her building, she merely understood that a small person was huddled in the doorway. Finding someone camped there was not unusual. She’d gotten used to stepping over drunks and vagrants on her way in. This one was smaller than most, though. He sat with his back against the vestibule door, knees pulled up to his chest. He was wrapped in a khaki jacket, army surplus. He was white. When she reached the bottom stair, she knew.

“Hi,” he said. Here was his voice.

Although it was hard to tell from his bunched-up position, she guessed he was just over three feet tall. A midget child. Or was it a dwarf? He looked out at her from the upturned collar of his oversized jacket. He had a pale, round face. Big, dark eyes and a tiny mouth, puckered, as if he were whistling. He might have been a baby owl, roosting on a branch.

“Hello,” she said. Calm. Stay very, very calm.

They were silent for a moment. What should she do? She could have the boys here in less than ten minutes, and she had his only exit blocked. Even if he managed to get around her, she could probably catch him.

Not yet, though. Not right this second. She mounted one stair tread. He didn’t seem to mind her coming that much closer. This might be the only chance to get him talking. After this, it would be the interrogators.

She said, “Are you all right?” He nodded.

Cat fingered the cell phone in her coat pocket. “Have you decided to let me help you?” she asked.

He nodded again. “And you’ve decided to let me help you, too, right?”

“How do you want to help me?”

“Every atom of mine belongs to you, too.”

“I know,” she said.

“I brought something.”

“What did you bring?”

He opened the jacket. Strapped to his tiny chest was a length of steel pipe. It seemed to be attached with duct tape. In his right hand he held a lighter, one of the cheap plastic ones you can get anywhere. It was red. He flicked it, produced a flame.

She drew a breath. Focus. Stay calm and focused.

“You don’t want to do this,” she said. “I know you don’t.”

“We have to do things that are hard sometimes.”

“Listen to me. Walt is telling you to do something bad. I know it seems like it’s right, but it isn’t. I think you know that, don’t you?”

He faltered. He looked at her pleadingly. He let the flame go out.

“You have to do it so it isn’t murder,” he said. “You have to do it with love.”

“You have a lot of love in you, I think. Am I right?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“And you’re alone now. Is that right?”

He nodded. “We moved out,” he said. “We’re not home anymore.”

“It’s just you now.”

“Well. Me and Walt.”

“Walt left you on your own?”

“It’s my time.”

“Are you afraid of Walt?”

“No.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I think maybe you’re afraid of getting hurt. I think you’re afraid of hurting other people, too. Is that right?”

“It isn’t murder if you do it with love.”

“Are you afraid you don’t feel enough love?”

“I guess.”

“I think you have a lot of love in you. I think you’re loving, and I think you’re brave. It’s brave of you to want to talk to me.”

“That’s nice. But it’s not true. You don’t know.”