C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-THREE
“
Y
ou had a long day,” Muriel said as Leonard Butts closed the kitchen door behind him and wiped his feet on the rubber mat. No one except door-to-door salesmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses ever knocked on the front door—family and friends came and went through the side door leading into the cheery kitchen where Mrs. Butts now stood, her hands covered in flour. A red-checked apron covered her fleshy body, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing her plump white forearms.
“Smells good,” Butts said, hanging his coat on the rack by the door. He lowered his stocky form into the nearest chair and rubbed his forehead wearily. The smell of meat sautéing in olive oil reached his nostrils, and he heard the comforting sound of sputtering fat in the broad iron skillet on the gas stove.
“I’m making your favorite, breaded pork chops,” his wife replied, kissing him on the forehead before returning to her work.
“That’s not on my new diet.”
“I know. I thought you could use something nice this week.”
“You’re too good to me,” he said, reaching for her.
“I’m covered with flour,” she protested, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, burying his head in her comforting bosom. Here with her in their warm and cozy kitchen, he could feel his body releasing the stress of the past few days.
“What is it, Buttons?” she asked when he released her.
He knew his face was damp with tears, but he made no attempt to wipe them off. He looked at the signs of domesticity all around him—his little wife in her cheery apron, the pictures of their son, Joey, smiling at him from the refrigerator, the hand-sewn sampler over the sink his mother had spent so many hours on when he was a boy, with its ornate stitching and brocade borders: GOD BLESS OUR HOME.
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Hwang in their kitchen. Would they take the pictures of their daughter off the refrigerator, because they were too painful to look at, or leave them to remind them of happier times?
“What’s wrong?” Muriel repeated, wiping at a tear with a floury finger.
“Another family lost their little girl,” he said. “And they tried to pay me to find her killer. They didn’t have the money, but they tried to give it to me anyway.”
“Oh, Buttons,” she said, cradling him in her arms.
“We know who the guy is—or probably is—but we haven’t got a lick of solid evidence yet.”
“You’ll get him,” Muriel said. “I know you will.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “God, I hope you’re right.”
Later that night, Leonard Butts crept down the hall and pushed open the door to his son’s room. A thin shaft of light from the hall lamp fell across the boy’s bed. Joey lay on his back, one arm flung over his head, the other clutching a baseball mitt. Pennants for all the major-league teams were carefully arranged on the wall above the bed—Butts remembered the rainy Saturday he helped Joey put them up.
A baseball signed by Derek Jeter sat in a glass case on the bookshelf. Joey’s dirt-encrusted cleats lay in the center of the room, where he had left them—no amount of scolding from his mother had so far affected his boyish untidiness.
The carelessness of youth,
Butts thought—and, he hoped, the freedom from care as well. He longed to keep his boy as far from the troubles of the adult world as he could.
Looking at Joey, his blond hair the same shade as his own at that age, his face so much like Muriel’s, with the same upturned nose and pointed chin, Butts felt a tugging in his heart that reached to the center of his being. Parenthood was so many things—all the clichés and all the pratfalls, the corny Hallmark sentiments and the frustrations. And there was a dark side too—sometimes Butts feared that Muriel loved Joey more than she loved him, and other times he was threatened by the boy’s promise, by the fear he would eclipse his father in all things.
But now, looking at his son sleeping so sweetly, surrounded by his beloved baseball mementos, Butts felt only tenderness—a swelling, all-enveloping love so fierce, it frightened him. If anything happened to Joey—if anyone were to hurt him, Butts thought—he would instantly slip from the ranks of law enforcers and turn into a single-minded beast bent on vengeance. Not justice—vengeance. In that way he was able to identify with the criminals he pursued, to understand their rage and fury. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine circumstances where he would feel exactly the same as the monster he now pursued.
These weren’t thoughts he shared with anyone—not his wife, not Lee Campbell, no one. It was as if saying these things out loud might release the demons of fate and start events tumbling down a disastrous path he was powerless to stop. He liked to think of himself as rational, but perhaps his Polish fatalism ran deeper than reason. You didn’t tempt fate, and you kept your head down so that the dark forces of evil didn’t find their way to your doorstep.
He took one last look, closed the door to his son’s room, and tiptoed down the hall to his bedroom, where his wife was waiting to welcome him with her plump, warm body.
C
HAPTER
S
IXTY-FOUR
T
he bleating of his bedside phone shook Lee out of a deep slumber. Thrashing around to throw off the covers, he knocked the receiver to the floor.
“Damn!” he muttered, leaning down and fishing around under the bed. Retrieving it, he put it to his ear and sat upright against the carved Victorian headboard. “Who is it?” he barked, glancing at the clock, which read 7:05
A.M.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir.” The accent was British, distinctly working class, and he recognized it at once.
“What can I do for you, Sergeant Ruggles?”
Ruggles was Chuck Morton’s desk sergeant at the Bronx Major Case Squad. Efficient, devoted and helpful, he was the kind of right-hand man most station commanders could only dream of.
Ruggles cleared his throat. “Well, sir, I was wondering if you had heard from Captain Morton. I just spoke with his wife, and she says he hasn’t been home for several days.”
“Wait a minute,” Lee said, rubbing his forehead to clear the cobwebs from his brain. “Are you telling me that Chu—uh, Captain Morton—hasn’t been at the station house?”
“He didn’t turn up yesterday, sir,” Ruggles said. “When I called his cell phone, it bounced straight to voice mail. When I finally got through to his wife, she said she hadn’t seen him either. And he’s usually here by this time in the morning, but there’s been no word from him. That’s why I’m calling you, sir, seeing as you’re his best friend and all.”
“Christ,” Lee muttered, throwing off the covers. “I’ll call you back, Sergeant, okay?”
“Right you are, sir—thank you, sir.”
Lee slung the receiver back into place, threw his legs over the side of the bed and heaved himself to his feet, swearing. He was not a morning person.
He marched into the hall and threw open the door to Chuck’s room. His friend lay in bed, curled in a fetal position. He wasn’t asleep, though—his eyes stared blankly at the opposite wall.
“Hey,” Lee said. “What gives?”
Chuck didn’t look up.
“What’s going on?” Lee demanded, alarmed.
“I don’t feel well,” Chuck said, his voice shaky.
“Are you sick?”
“Not like that,” Chuck said, trembling all over. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
“How’s that?” Lee asked, but he already had a good idea about the answer.
“Like the walls are closing in. Like I don’t want to get out of bed or do anything. And scared. Really, really frightened.”
“Of what?”
“Nothing. Just frightened.”
“Shit,” Lee said, sitting on the side of the bed.
“What is it? What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re depressed.”
Chuck looked stricken. “You mean
this
is what it’s like? It’s—it’s unbearable. I just want to fall asleep and never wake up. Good God, Lee, why didn’t you
tell
me?”
“You can’t really make another person understand,” Lee said. “If you haven’t been through it, you can’t really know.”
“Goddamn it,” Chuck said. “I feel like I can’t face anyone. I just want to go back to sleep.”
Lee stood up. “Okay, first thing is to deal with the anxiety.” He went to the bathroom cabinet, pulled out a bottle of pills and shook one into his palm. He went back into the bedroom and handed it to Chuck. “Here, take one of these.”
“What is it?”
“Xanax. You don’t have any drug allergies, right?”
“No. What’ll it do?”
“Calm you down, take away the anxiety.”
“Cheers,” Chuck mumbled, popping it into his mouth.
“Now, you could go back to sleep, but why don’t you come to the gym with me?”
Chuck stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “What?”
“Build up some endorphins—maybe get you through the day at work, if you’re up to it. Get out some of that anger and aggression you’re turning in on yourself.”
“I can’t—” Chuck began, but Lee grabbed the sleeve of his pajamas and pulled.
“Yes, you can. Trust me—I’ve been there. You
can
get out of bed.”
“Goddamn it, Lee,” Chuck protested, but Lee refused to give up. He pushed and prodded until his friend made the few stumbling steps toward the bathroom. He waited in the hall until he heard the sound of water running.
“I don’t have a meeting until ten,” he said when Chuck came out. “If we go now, we can both get to work by then.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Chuck muttered.
“Yes, you are,” Lee replied, tossing him a sweatshirt and gym shorts. “Don’t think about what you feel like—just put one foot in front of the other.” He shoved a change of clothes for them both into a gym bag. “Come on, let’s go.”
The Xanax kicked in pretty fast, and Chuck followed him meekly up First Avenue to the gym on Twenty-third Street. Lee signed him in as a guest, then escorted him to the punching bag. He found a couple of pairs of boxing gloves and put one on Chuck.
“I haven’t done this since college,” Chuck protested.
“You were pretty good back then,” said Lee. “Just hit that damn bag with everything you’ve got.
Do it!
” he commanded when his friend hesitated.
Chuck began slowly, then got faster and faster, until finally he was whaling away at the bag, punching furiously, his breath coming in short gasps.
“Sometimes it helps if you swear,” Lee suggested.
“Goddamn—fucking—
crap
!” Chuck bellowed, his face crimson. “
Goddamn fuck me!”
Finally he stepped back, sweating, his blue eyes clearer.
“How do you feel?” Lee asked.
“Better. Not great, but better.”
Lee got on the other side of the bag and slammed his own fists into it while Chuck took a break. They traded back and forth like that until their shoulders ached and the sweat poured down from them, landing in fat droplets on the floor. A couple of beefy weight lifters making the rounds of the Nautilus machines stared at Chuck from time to time as he whaled away, muttering curses under his breath. Finally he stepped away and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel.
“Want to spar?” Lee asked.
“Really?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Okay.”
“You want headgear?”
“Nah, I’m okay.”
They faced off in a corner of the room, gloves up, eyes locked. They danced around each other for a while, until Chuck threw a tentative left hook.
“Come on,” Lee muttered. “Do it like you mean it.”
Chuck responded with a hefty uppercut followed by a series of quick jabs. The last punch landed in Lee’s ribs, throwing him off balance.
“Nice,” he said, coming back with a combination he’d been working on: three jabs, a right hook, left uppercut. The uppercut landed on Chuck’s chin.
Chuck smiled. “Oh, you wanna play rough?”
He came in like a hurricane, throwing punches left and right in such quick succession, Lee had trouble parrying them. All the fury of the last few weeks of his life seemed to gather into Chuck’s upper body, sending him into a frenzy of blows. Lee took a hard punch to the stomach, followed by a left hook to his head that sent him reeling. He sank to his knees, his head spinning.
“Oh, shit! Sorry,” Chuck said, bending down to help him up.
“Hey, it was my idea,” Lee said. “I have only myself to blame.”
“You might have a shiner,” Chuck said, examining his right eye.
“Serves me right. So how do you feel?”
“Better, thanks.”
“Had enough, or shall I give you another licking?”
“Can’t wait to see what Elena Krieger says about your black eye.”
Lee rolled his eyes. “Just as long as she says it in German.”
Chuck grinned. “Be still, my beating heart. That woman is trouble. Sexy but trouble.”
So is your wife,
Lee thought. They showered and changed into the clothes Lee had brought. Looking at his face in the locker room mirror, Lee didn’t see much of a bruise around his eye, though he was feeling a little dizzy. He didn’t mention the car accident and concussion to Chuck—it would only make him feel guilty.
“Thanks,” Chuck said as they stood on the windswept plaza in front of the gym. “I won’t forget this.”
“I’m glad you feel better,” Lee said. “This could be a single episode, but just be aware it might return.”
“I’ll remember that,” Chuck said, his voice husky. “Thanks.” He reached out as if to shake Lee’s hand, then grabbed him in an awkward bear hug.
When they stepped apart, neither of them made eye contact.
“Okay, I’m going to catch the train to the Bronx,” said Chuck.
“Oh, shit! I forgot to call Ruggles back.”
“I’ll call him on my cell,” Chuck said. “Thanks again.”
“Sure—anytime.”
He watched his friend stride away in the direction of First Avenue, energy and bounce back in his step. He hoped Chuck would never again have to experience the deadening pain of clinical depression, but part of him—the part that knew too well how misery loves company—didn’t want his friend to get off quite so easily.
Lee had been doing pretty well lately, but it wasn’t so long ago that he was frozen, immobile, on his couch, unable to move, surrounded by an eternity of pain, jittery and exhausted all at once. When he was having a bad episode, he had no memory of what life had been or might be without depression. There was no past and no future, only the gray haze of psychic pain and the unbearable burden of consciousness.
He chided himself for wishing that kind of suffering on his friend as he crossed Twenty-third Street, heading toward the Thirteenth Precinct. He was early for the meeting and had just enough time to grab a bagel for himself and Butts at Ess-a-Bagel. He was curious to see if Butts had managed to get hold of their main suspect. Interviewing Edmund Moran would be interesting, to say the least, he thought as he headed south on First Avenue, the sun glinting on the damp pavement. There was a smell of expectation in the air, and he increased his pace as he loped past the rows of Christmas trees for sale, anticipation tight in his throat.