Mr. Apology Page 32

  Fodor took a cigarette case from his pocket and removed a cigarette, which he lit with a flashy lighter. Nightingale watched this shimmery display of silver: It was like a conjuror’s sleight-of-hand, gone before he could register what he’d seen. Then he remembered that Eddie Fodor wasn’t married—he was one of those stonewall bachelors who see women in terms of their uses, particularly the employment that necessitates the parting of their legs. Chattels. The liberation movement had passed Eddie by.

  “When you called me you mentioned a guy called Sylvester, Frank.”

  “Right. We got this weak tip—it’s a vague shot, Eddie. He might be able to help us in a homicide inquiry.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “He might know the killer.”

  Eddie Fodor opened his briefcase. Good leather, Nightingale noticed. He wondered briefly if there was a lot of bonus money, danger money, in working Narcotics. Eddie probably didn’t spend very much on anything except his appearance. Flash Eddie Fodor.

  Fodor took a file out of his briefcase and threw it down on Nightingale’s desk. A couple of blurry photographs slid out—they were obviously the kind of pictures taken long-distance, the kind shot through the back windows of a florist’s van or a laundry truck that in reality contained narcs with cameras. Nightingale picked them up. One showed a bunch of people walking along a street; a red circle had been crudely drawn around one particular face. It was too indistinct to make the features out. A young guy, beared. But that was about it. The other showed a ghostly apparition stepping out of a subway exit.

  “I admit they aren’t exactly Ansel Adams,” Fodor said. “But the guy’s Sylvester Garincha, who’s a pretty smalltime dealer. A half-ounce of coke here, a half-ounce there. I haven’t had much time to bother with him, Frank. I get more interested in where these piddling half-ounces are coming from. A guy like Sylvester—he’s hardly worth hauling in. He’s the only Sylvester I know. So I figure it’s worth showing you.”

  Nightingale passed the pictures across to Moody, who looked at them and laughed. “Your guy must have Vaseline on his lens, Eddie. Either that or it was a real foggy day.”

  “Who gives a shit about their artistic value?” Eddie Fodor said. “You want to know about this Sylvester or don’t you?”

  “We want to know,” Nightingale said.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you,” Eddie Fodor said. “I know his turf. I know where he makes his connections. I don’t want him hauled in, Frank. I prefer him on the street, because I got something coming up where I think I can lean on him a little bit—you know the score.”

  Nightingale nodded. He took the pictures back from Moody. How was he going to identify Sylvester from these crummy snapshots? He’d seen clearer images on imported 8-mm massage-parlor movies.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to work it, Frank. I don’t want to be involved, you understand? It’s your business. I got things I don’t need to blow right now.” Fodor paused. He smoked the last of his cigarettes and dropped it on the floor. “I don’t know the guy’s hours, Frank. Like everybody else in his line of country, they’re highly flexible. Times Square …”

  “It figures,” Moody said. “We need pith helmets and survival rations, Frank, if we’re going into that jungle.”

  “You want this Sylvester or don’t you?” Fodor said.

  “Yeah,” Nightingale said. “What about Times Square?”

  “Okay. He sometimes hangs out in an arcade called Butch’s. Like I said, he doesn’t keep regular hours.”

  “Why doesn’t he have a home address?” Moody asked.

  “Kid, what the fuck do you want? You want to know he’s got a three-bedroom tract house out in Merrick, Long Island; he’s got two point five kids, a wife who bakes cookies for Thanksgiving, and the name of the company that holds the paper on his home? You’ve done nothing but bitch since I came in.” Fodor looked at Moody. “A home address. Jesus!”

  “I think he got the message, Eddie,” Nightingale said. He glanced at his former partner; he was a little red in the face all at once, fumbling for his cigarette case again, extracting a smoke, lighting it. “Say, Eddie, while we’re on the subject of Sylvester, did you ever run into a customer of his, a guy called Billy Chapman?”

  “William Arthur Chapman?” Fodor asked.

  “The very same,” Nightingale said. Moody had looked up now, all interest, eyes sparkling.

  “I know the guy. What’ve you got on him?”

  “Suspicion of homicide, Eddie.”

  Eddie Fodor drew on his cigarette for a long time. “I busted him—oh, Christ, a few years back. Small-fry user. He rubbed me the wrong way, that guy.”

  “Like how?” Moody asked.

  “Bad chemistry,” Fodor said. “I don’t like space cadets like him. I don’t like drugs. I don’t like drug users. I don’t like the attitudes of druggies—”

  Nightingale held up a hand to stop this diatribe. Who needed to hear a catalogue of Eddie Fodor’s prejudices anyhow? “Yeah, sure, I understand—but what about Chapman? What do you remember?”

  “It doesn’t surprise me a bit, Frank, that you’re thinking homicide.”

  “Why?” Nightingale looked at Moody again; the young guy’s face was alight again.

  “Cocaine, right? You go at it for years the way Billy Chapman was doing, you’re gonna come up with your head pretty well fucked over. You’re gonna turn into a zombie that don’t know left from right. You’re gonna snap, Frank, like a fucking rubber band. If it ain’t imaginary insects eating your cheeks out, then it’s all kinds of weird imaginings that would make the lost weekend look like a Muppet show. Sure, homicide doesn’t surprise me, not for a moment.”

  Nightingale said nothing. He moved around his office for a while, thinking about that look on Moody’s face, as if the Boy Wonder had just been vindicated by the pope himself. Okay, one homicide, Nightingale thought—we all knew that much. But three? Three? “How far could he go, Eddie?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Would he be capable of more than one murder?”

  “Hey, Frank, you can’t tell with that kind of jerk. He could be capable of just about anything. Never underestimate the cocaine habit. Never make that mistake. You hear all this bullshit about how harmless it is—trust me. Trust me when I tell you I’ve seen it turn more lives inside out than junk.”

  Moody was on his feet now, flushed. He looked at Nightingale as if to say I told you so.

  Eddie Fodor turned towards the door. “Butch’s, Times Square. You’ll find Sylvester there. Just send the file back when you’re through. Don’t let it get lost in the paper shuffle.”

  “Thanks. Eddie.”

  “You owe me one.”

  Nightingale shook hands with Eddie Fodor. He watched him walk to the door. Then he remembered something and said, “Eddie, how about showing Doug your old party trick?”

  “Hey, you remember that?”

  “Who could forget it, Eddie?”

  Fodor approached Moody’s desk. Huge false teeth disappeared, first into the palm of his hand, then quickly into a navy-blue silk handkerchief he slipped out of his pocket. His face imploded like a squeezed sponge, the lips bent inwards, the cheeks sunk into great hollows and the tip of the nose sagged weirdly. Then he rolled his eyes and made funny noises. Nightingale laughed; it was a disgusting sight. Moody’s expression didn’t change. The teeth went back into place and suddenly the face was human again.

  “I used to do that at all the parties,” Fodor said.

  “It’s impressive,” Moody said. “I was spellbound.”

  “Where’s your sense of humor?” Fodor asked. He turned towards Nightingale. “Brings back all the old memories, doesn’t it?”

  “For sure,” Nightingale said.

  “Be seeing you.” And Fodor was gone.

  Moody looked across the room at Nightingale. “My stomach turned over, Frank. Did you find that funny?”

  “More nostalgic,” Nightingale said.

 
Moody was getting up from behind his desk.

  “Well, Frank, what do you think?”

  “About what Eddie said?”

  Moody nodded. “What he said about Chapman.”

  “Yeah.” Nightingale looked thoughtful. “He could be right. You could be right.” I’m beginning to feel like Thomas looking at the wounds in Christ’s hands, he thought. He stared at Moody a moment. “Okay, I’ll go along with you for the time being, Doug. I’ll climb down off my fence and tell you that I think there’s an outside chance—outside, mind you—that Billy’s our man.” Why did it hurt to come out with it just like that? At least it brought a smile to Boy Wonder’s face.

  “We’re getting warmer,” Moody said.

  “Sure,” Nightingale said. He reached for his overcoat and struggled into it. “Times Square, then. Lovely Times Square on a beautiful night in late fall.” He sighed. Sighing’s what I do best these days, he thought.

  Moody was pulling on his own overcoat. Nightingale stepped out into the corridor. Stanislavski appeared in a doorway, holding something in his hand. He stepped forward clumsily, like a huge disjointed string puppet. He held a bulky manila folder.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “It’s going to have to wait, Stan.”

  “Lieutenant, this woman came in—”

  “Put it on my desk. I’ll get to it when I come back, Stan.”

  “But lieutenant—”

  Nightingale reached the front door and turned to Moody, saying, “I hope you’re right, Doug. I really hope you are. It saves on the midnight oil. Three birds for the price of one, so to speak. Three eggs in one nifty basket.”

  Moody held the front door open for him and he stepped out into the night, pausing on the sidewalk, staring up at the dark sky, beating his palms together for warmth.

  “This way, if you’re correct, we can all get some sleep, Doug.”

  “I remember sleep,” Moody said.

  “I don’t,” Nightingale answered.

  2.

  The telephone. The telephone that brought so much misery into this room might now turn out to be the device that saves your life, saves Maddy’s too. It was an unpleasant irony. Harrison stood at the bedroom window, arms folded. Harrison. Harry Harrison. The voice came back to him with sharp clarity. What in the name of God have I done? What have I been a party to? Worse than a party, worse than some witless bystander, you didn’t stop when all the warning signs were plainly written in front of your face, you didn’t stop even then, when with only a slight amount of insight and less attachment to your beloved project you should have been able to read the violent graffiti on the wall. There was a dull pain lying in the center of his head. At least you feel pain, Harry; at least you’re alive to do that. Jamey doesn’t. Henry Falcon doesn’t. The nameless woman who was drowned in her own apartment—she certainly doesn’t.

  He turned to stare at the telephone on the bedside table.

  “What did the police say, Harry?” Madeleine asked. “I mean, did they give you a time when Nightingale would reach you or what?”

  “The guy I talked with said Lieutenant Nightingale would get back to me as soon as he could be located.”

  “Located? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Friday night in Manhattan—who knows how many goddamn strange messages they get or how many calls they have to answer that just turn out to be wild?” He went towards Madeleine, put his arms around her, tried to calm her. It was another unpleasant irony, but all he really wanted to say to her were two simple words: I’m sorry. What good would an apology be now? He gazed at the answering machine. He’d pulled the plug from the wall and now the device was unlit, dead. It hadn’t been the easiest thing to do even now, even after so much catastrophe, but he felt a singular sense of relief mingled with his disappointment. It was as if these two sensations lay in some uneasy balance. You kill the project that might kill you. Something else will come along; something new will occur to you—it’s bound to.

  “Harry, I can’t just sit here like this. I just can’t sit here and wait for the police to arrive. We have to get out of here.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Anything would be better than waiting. My apartment.”

  “Maddy, if he knows our names then he knows our addresses too.”

  “Then what should we do?”

  Harrison didn’t answer. He looked out the window at the night sky. You feel it out there, throbbing through the darkness. You feel this unavoidable sense of someone stalking the streets, someone moving with the night winds, scurrying through alleys, skirting the backs of buildings, passing the dimly lit windows of the city. Someone who wants you and Madeleine.

  “Harry, we can’t just sit here. I’ll go crazy.”

  The telephone interrupted her.

  The cops. The cops.

  He picked up the receiver. It wasn’t the police.

  “Mr. Apology?”

  The voice. Harrison momentarily couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “You’ve answered yourself. I can’t believe it, man. I’ve been longing to hear you in person. This is great.”

  Harrison felt a dryness at the back of his throat. You’ve got the killer on the line and you don’t know what to say. Suddenly you’re struck dumb, silent.

  “Is it the police, Harry?” Madeleine asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Hey, man, what’s the matter? Can’t talk? Something bothering you?”

  “Listen—”

  “Go right ahead. I’m all ears, man.”

  “You sonofabitch—” He heard his own angry voice, his own failure to be reasonable, rational, to say anything that might mean something to this madman. What could he hope to say that was meaningful anyway with a guy like this? You couldn’t get through. He fell into silence, listening to the sound of the caller breathing.

  “Hey, I didn’t exactly expect this kind of welcome, Apology. I feel we’ve known each other for such a long time that we’re real close friends.”

  “Look,” he said. “You’re making a mistake if you think you’re scaring me. You’re making one big error. For a start, the cops are on to you. They’ll be here in a matter of seconds.”

  “Yeah? I got news for you, Harry, old pal. I can get to you faster than any cop can. I can be there in a few seconds.”

  Nearby. A phone booth nearby. He tried to remember where the nearest one was but he couldn’t bring it to mind. He felt a sudden touch of fear, the cold breath of something nameless and faceless on the back of his neck, a shiver going up his backbone like a series of tiny iron filings rushing to the heart of a magnet. Then he thought: Wait, pretty soon this Nightingale will call and then the streets will be alive with the noise of sirens, lights flashing, tires screaming, footsteps rushing through the building. Why did he suddenly wish he could run the movie of his recent life backwards to that point where he’d talked Madeleine into helping him put up the handbills, back to that point where he might have raised his hand like a traffic cop and said, No, this is pointless, this project doesn’t make any goddamn sense?

  “You still there, Mr. Apology?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “How does it feel, Harry? How does it feel to know that this is the last night of your life?”

  Harrison said nothing.

  The caller went on, “I’ll miss you, you know that? I’ll miss our relationship. I think you’ve really been good for me, Harry. You gave me an outlet, somebody to talk to even if it was only a machine. But I’ve got to save myself, understand? I’ve got to look out for my own interests, and the more I keep talking to you, the more I start to feel real vulnerable.… You’re learning too much about the things I’ve done and I don’t think I care for that feeling. I’m sorry, Harry. I’m really sorry.…” Sudden laughter. Then a quick intake of breath. “No hard feelings, huh?”

  No hard feelings. Harrison said, “It’s up to you. But like I said, the cops are going to be here in
a minute—”

  Click. Nothing. He was talking now to a dead line.

  He slammed the receiver down. He moved towards Madeleine.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Harrison nodded.

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “What did he say, Harry?”

  “He’s in the neighborhood somewhere.”

  “And he’s coming here?”

  “I guess that’s his intention.”

  She turned her face this way and that, panicked, seeming to search for something that she could reach which would bring about a solution. Then she stopped and pressed her face against his shoulder. He wondered how he could even begin to console her. What was he supposed to say—that there was a good bolt on the front door? God damn it, he thought. It has to start here, right now; it has to begin with taking some kind of positive action, something that might lead them back to normality, back to the kind of life they’d been living before any of this started happening.

  She drew her face away from his body. She was listening to something, her head tilted slightly to one side.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything. What is it?”

  “Just listen. Did you hear that?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t heard a thing.

  “There’s somebody out there. I heard somebody move on the stairs, Harry.”

  He turned his face towards the bedroom door. Waited. She was very tense against him, her breathing stilted, quick, as if her lungs were beginning to fail inside her.

  “There,” she whispered.

  He listened—what was it? Some strange scuffling sound, a foot scraping across a floor.

  “You must hear that,” she said.

  He nodded. He went out of the bedroom and across the floor of the loft and he searched around for something he knew he’d dropped several days ago—but where was he supposed to find it among all the junk that lay scattered underfoot? The noise came again, closer this time. He bent down, searched the debris, his fingers finally encountering the cold metallic feel of the object he wanted. It was the surgical scalpel he’d used on Albert—which seemed a long time back now, when he’d been somebody different. He stood upright and stared towards the door.