I Am God (10 page)

He opened it to look inside and there he found sheets of paper covered in rough but fairly legible handwriting. The handwriting of a man who was probably not very used to words, either spoken or written.

Ziggy started reading. The first pages were quite boring, filled with a life story expressed in a crude and sometimes disjointed way. He was a reader of books and knew when he was reading something by someone who had studied and could write. This wasn’t it.

But he became aware that the text was not without a certain fascination, even though the prose was certainly not a writer’s. It was what it said that mattered, not how it was written. He continued reading with increasing attention, and gradually the attention turned to interest and finally a kind of frenzy. By the time he reached the end of the letter, he couldn’t help leaping to his feet. He felt a slight shiver down his spine and the hair on his arms stood on end, as if he’d had an electric shock.

Ziggy couldn’t believe his eyes. He sat down again slowly, with his legs open and his eyes fixed on some undefined point. A point in time rather than in space.

The great opportunity had arrived.

What he had in his hands might be worth millions of dollars to the right people. He felt dizzy at the thought of it. The possible advantages for him made him forget the definite consequences for others.

He put the pages down on the bed with exaggerated care, as if they were fragile. Then he started thinking about how to take advantage of this unexpected piece of luck. What to do, how to distil this material in such a way as to arouse the greatest interest and get the greatest advantage.

And above all, who to contact.

All kinds of thoughts moved through his brain at speed.

He switched on the printer/copier and put the sheets of paper on the table next to the computer. The first thing to do was make photocopies. A copy would be enough to arouse someone’s interest and that someone would have to be willing to pay a tidy sum just to get hold of the original. Which had to remain in his possession until the deal was done. The original he would put in an envelope and send to an anonymous postal box he sometimes used. There it would stay until someone gave him a reason to go and get it out.

And that reason could only be a substantial sum of money.

He started the copying, placing the original of each page next to the copy as he did so. When it came to work, Ziggy was a meticulous person. And this was the most important work he had ever done in his life.

He placed one of the last sheets of paper on the glass of the scanner, lowered the lid and pressed the
start
button. The scanning light moved through the machine until it had the whole page in its memory. As it was about to print, the sensor warned that there was no more paper and an orange light started flashing on the left-hand side of the machine.

Ziggy went to get some sheets from a ream on a shelf of the bookcase and put it in the tray.

At that moment he heard a noise behind him, a slight metallic click, like a lock snapping. He turned in time to see the door open and a man in a green jacket come in.

No,
not
now,
not
now
that
everything
was
within
reach
…

But what he saw in front of him was a hand holding a knife.

It was clearly that knife that had been used to force the lousy lock. And from the look in the man’s eyes he realized that wouldn’t be the only use for it.

He felt his legs give way. He didn’t have the strength to say anything. As the man advanced on him, Ziggy Stardust started crying. He cried because he was afraid of pain, and afraid of death.

But more than anything, he cried with disappointment.

The Volvo moved smoothly through the traffic drawing it towards the Bronx. At that hour, going north could be a real journey. But once she left Manhattan, Vivien had found that the traffic was flowing smoothly. Since she had terrible the Triborough Bridge on her right, she had driven the length of the Bruckner Expressway in a relatively short time.

The sun was sinking behind her and the city was getting ready for sunset. The sky had a dark blue luminosity, so clear that it seemed to have been hand painted – the colour that only the New York breeze could offer, when it managed to blow clean that small stretch of infinity that everyone deluded themselves they had above them.

The car phone interrupted the music coming from the radio. She activated the speaker.

‘Vivien?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hi, it’s Nathan.’

He hadn’t needed to say his name. She had recognized her brother-in-law’s voice. She would have recognized it even in the clamour of a battlefield.

What
do
you
want,
you
son
of
a
bitch?
she thought.

‘What do you want, you son of a bitch?’ she said aloud.

There was a moment’s silence.

‘You’ll never forgive me, will you?’

‘Nathan, forgiveness is for people who repent. Forgiveness is for people who try to repair the harm they’ve done.’

The man at the other end waited a moment, in order to let those words vanish into the distance that separated them.

‘Have you seen Greta lately?’

‘And you?’ Vivien rounded on him, feeling the desire to hit him rise in her, that desire she felt every time she found herself in his presence or even just heard his voice. At that moment, if he had been sitting beside her, she would have smashed his nose with a dig from her elbow.

‘How long is it since you last saw your wife? How long is it since you last saw your daughter? How much longer do you think you can hide?’

‘Vivien, I’m not hiding. I—’

‘Spare me your crap, you son of a bitch!’

She had shouted those words. And she had been wrong to do so. The contempt she felt for the man should not be manifested with a roar. It should be expressed with the hiss of the snake.

And a snake was what she became.

‘Nathan, you’re a coward. You always have been and you always will be. And when things got too tough for you, you did the one thing you know how to do: you ran away.’

‘I’ve always provided for their needs. Sometimes, there are choices—’

‘You didn’t have choices,’ she interrupted him sharply. ‘You had responsibilities. And you should have assumed them. That lousy cheque you send every month isn’t enough to compensate for your absence. Or even to soothe your conscience. So don’t call me now to find out how your wife
is. Don’t call me to find out how your daughter is. If you want to feel better, get off your fucking ass and go see for yourself.’

She pressed the button so angrily to end the call that for a moment she was afraid she had broken it. For a few moments she looked straight ahead of her, driving and listening to the furious beating of her heart. A few ragged tears of anger ran down her cheeks. She wiped them with the back of her hand and tried to calm down.

To forget the place she had been that morning and the place she was going now, she took shelter in the one safe place she had: her work.

She tried to leave every other thought behind her and ordered her mind to concentrate on the new case. She recalled that arm emerging from the gap in the wall, the desolation of that shrivelled head resting on a shoulder that was only a residue of skin and bone.

Even though experience had taught her that everything was possible, that same experience made her fear that it was going to be very difficult to establish the dead man’s identity. Construction sites were much favoured by the underworld as places to hide the victims of mob hits. When it was done by professionals, bodies were often buried naked or with all the labels torn off their clothes in case they were found. Sometimes the fingerprints were erased with acid. Examining the body today, she had noticed that this hadn’t been done and that the labels were in their places, even though fairly deteriorated. That meant that this probably wasn’t the work of a professional, but had been done by someone without the cool head or the experience to eliminate all traces.

But who could have hidden the body in a block of concrete? It wasn’t an easy thing to do, unless you had expert help. Or maybe the culprit was an expert himself. Someone who
worked for a construction company. Whatever the motive, the crime could have been the isolated act of an ordinary man.

The only lead they had was those photographs, especially that strange black cat with three—

‘Shit!’

She had been so absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that the junction with the Hutchinson River Parkway was blocked by a line of cars. She braked abruptly, swerving left in order not to bump the car in front. The driver of a big pick-up behind her sounded his horn loudly. In her rear-view mirror Vivien saw him leaning forward and showing her his middle finger.

She usually hated resorting to certain things when she wasn’t on duty, but this evening she decided she was in a hurry. Her own distraction, more than the man’s gesture, had made her nervous. She took the flashing light from behind the seat, opened the window, lit it and placed it on the roof.

With a smile, she saw the man abruptly lower his hand and back down. The cars in front of her, in so far as they could, pulled over to make it easier for her to get through. She made her way toward Zerega Avenue, and a couple of blocks after turning onto Logan she reached the church of Saint Benedict.

She parked the Volvo in a free space on the other side of the street and sat for a moment looking at the light brick facade, the short flight of steps that led to the three entrance doors surmounted by pointed arches, the columns and the friezes with which they were decorated.

It was a recent building. Vivien would never have thought that a place like that could one day become so familiar to her.

She got out of the car and crossed the street.

The semi-darkness that makes it hard to tell the colour of cats was already in the air, but there was still enough light to
recognize a person. She was about to head for the priory when she saw Father Angelo Cremonesi, one of the priests attached to the parish, come out through the central door with a man and a woman. Confessions were usually heard on Saturdays from four to five, but nobody stuck rigidly to the rules, which in practice were quite flexible.

Vivien climbed the few steps and joined him. The priest stood waiting for her and the couple with him moved away.

‘Good evening, Miss Light.’

‘Good evening, father.’

Vivien shook his hand. He was a man in his sixties with white hair, a vigorous appearance and gentle eyes. The first time she had met him he had reminded her of Spencer Tracy in an old movie.

‘Have you come for your niece?’

‘Yes. I spoke with Father McKean, and we both think it’s time to see if she can spend a couple of days at home. I’ll bring her back here on Monday morning.’

Uttering the name of Michael McKean reminded her of him. He had an expressive face and eyes that gave the impression he could look through people and walls. Maybe it was because of this ability of his to see beyond things that he was always there when he was needed.

Father Cremonesi, who was docile but somewhat fussy, insisted on explaining the situation. ‘Father McKean isn’t here today, and he asked me to apologize. The kids are still at the pier. A kind person whose name I can’t remember offered them a trip in a sailboat. John just called me. He knows about your agreement with Michael and told me to tell you that they were just getting their things together and that they’ll be here soon.’

‘That’s all right’

‘Would you like to wait in the priory?’

‘No thanks, father. I’ll wait for them in the church.’

‘I’ll see you later, then, Miss Light.’

Father Cremonesi walked away. Maybe he had taken her intention to wait in the church for devotion. All she wanted for the moment was to be alone.

She pushed open the door and walked through the lobby with its light wood panelling, past the statues of Saint Teresa and Saint Gerard that stood in a niche in the wall. Another door, a less heavy one, led into the interior of the church itself.

It was cool here, quite dark, and silent. The altar at the far end of the one nave held out a promise of welcome and refuge.

Whenever she entered a church, Vivien found it hard to feel the presence of God in it. Young she might be, but in the time she had spent on the streets she had already met too many devils, and had felt just a weak human being shaken by the confrontation. Here, in this place, with these images, this longing for the sacred built to satisfy the needs of man, in the light of the candles lit in faith and hope, she couldn’t share even a small part of that faith and that hope.

Life
is
rented
accommodation.
Sometimes
God
is
an
uncomfortable
character
to
have
around
the
house.

She sat down on a pew at the back. She realized one thing. In what for all believers was a place of peace and salvation, she had a gun hanging from her belt. And in spite of everything she felt defenceless.

She closed her eyes, replacing the dim light with darkness. While she waited for her niece Sundance to arrive, the memories arrived, too.

The day when she was sitting at her desk, just opposite the Plaza, in a chaos of papers and telephone calls and her
colleagues joking and chattering. Then something happened that she would never forget. Detective Peter Curtin
unexpectedly
appeared in the doorway. He had been working at the 13th Precinct until quite recently. Then, in a Shootout during a police operation, he had been quite seriously wounded. He had recovered physically, but emotionally he had realized he wasn’t the same person any more. Under pressure from his wife, he had put in for a transfer. Right now he was with vice.

He came straight to her desk.

‘Hi, Peter. What are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you, Vivien.’

There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice, which made the smile on her face fade quickly.

‘Sure, go ahead.’

‘Not here. How about going for a walk?’

Surprised, Vivien left her desk, and soon they were outside. Curtin set off in the direction of Third Avenue and Vivien fell into step beside him. There was tension in the air and he attempted to lighten it. For whose sake she wasn’t sure.

‘How are things? Bellew still keeping you all on a tight leash?’

Vivien came to a halt. ‘Stop beating about the bush, Peter. What’s going on?’

He looked at her from another place. And it was a place that Vivien didn’t like at all.

‘You know what this city’s like. Escort services, crap like that. Asian Paradise, Ebony Companions, Transex Dates. Eighty per cent of the places that advertise massage, health treatments, that kind of thing, are covers for prostitution. It happens everywhere. But this is Manhattan. This is the centre of the world, where there’s more of everything …’

Peter came to a halt, and finally made up his mind to look her in the eyes.

‘We had a tip-off. A luxury apartment on the Upper East Side. Used by men who like very young girls. Boys, too, sometimes. All minors, anyway. We went in, rounded up the people we found. And …’

He made a pause that for Vivien was a premonition. In a thin voice, she uttered a supplication as long as a single word. ‘And?’

And the premonition became reality.

‘One of them was your niece.’

The whole world started whirling like a carousel out of control. Vivien would have preferred to die than feel what she was feeling just then.

‘I was the one who went into the room where …’

Peter didn’t have the strength to add anything else. But his silence let Vivien’s imagination run wild and that was worse.

‘Luckily I knew her and managed by a miracle to keep her out of things.’ Peter put his hands on her arms. ‘If the story gets out, then social services get involved. With a family situation like yours it’s possible she’d be put in an institution. She needs help.’

Vivien looked him in the eyes. ‘You’re not telling me everything, Peter.’

A moment’s pause. Followed by something he’d have preferred not to say and she’d have preferred not to hear.

‘Your niece is doing drugs. We found cocaine in her pocket.’

‘How much?’

‘Not enough to suggest she’s dealing. But she must be doing quite a bit every day if she reached a point where …’

Where she prostituted herself to get money, Vivien completed the sentence mentally.

‘Where is she now?’

Peter gestured with his head towards a point somewhere along the street. ‘In my car. A female colleague is keeping an eye on her.’

Vivien shook his hand, to convey her gratitude and feel his warmth in return. ‘Thanks, Peter. You’re a friend. I owe you one. Hell, I owe you a lot.’

They walked to the car, Vivien going that short distance like a sleepwalker, with an urgency in her and at the same time a fear of seeing her niece and …

… the same anxiety with which she was waiting for her now.

A sound of footsteps behind her made her open her eyes again, bringing her back to a present that was only a little better than the past.

She rose and turned towards the entrance. Her niece was there, holding a gym bag. She was as pretty as her mother, and, like her mother, she had been broken in some way. But for her there was hope. There had to be.

John Kortighan had stayed back, in the doorway. Protective and vigilant, as always. But so discreet that he did not want to intrude on this private moment. He simply gave her a nod that was both a greeting and a confirmation. Vivien returned the greeting. John was the right-hand man of Father McKean, the priest who had founded Joy, the community that was taking care of Sundance and other kids who’d been through similar experiences.