Tiger (2 page)

The words were spilling out of Kyle now, a stream of anger and sadness. His lower lip trembled and his face flushed red in embarrassment. Wally suddenly realized that Kyle wasn't about to wait for Lewis to arrive—he was plowing forward and laying out his story right now . . . for her. It crossed Wally's mind that she could stop him, but she didn't want to.

“It's like he got over my mother so fast,” Kyle went on. “Really fast, like in days. So we had this fight, and he tells me how I idealized my mom too much and that, by the way, she's not even really my mother. Then he says he was with another woman before my mom, but she went psycho and took off right after she gave birth to me.”

“That's a lot for you to hear, all at once,” she said.

“I mean, my old man is a total liar, and I don't believe anything he said about my birth mother. I want to find out who she is. And meet her, you know? But my father . . . he'll never let go of me. I know things—about who he is, about things he's done.”

“What do you mean? What has your father done?”

Kyle just shook his head and looked away, suddenly evasive. Wally began to wonder if Kyle's situation was more than she could handle. Had she made a mistake by letting him get started?

“You know, Kyle, my boss will be in really soon. Maybe the best thing—”

“How long would it usually take you to find someone?” he asked.

“Uh . . . well, that depends,” she stammered a little, realizing that in his current state of mind, Kyle wasn't going to be happy with the answer. “Finding your birth mother could be difficult or it could be easy, but there are other issues to work out first—”

“What issues do you mean?” Kyle asked. “You'll find her for me, right?”

Wally hesitated, and Kyle saw it.

“If your mother can be found, we'll find her,” Wally assured him, but she heard a twinge of hesitation in her own voice.

Kyle heard it too, and shot her a distrustful look.

“You said that's what you do here.”

“Yes, but there's a process to it. The idea is to bring people together in the right way, when they're ready for it to happen.”

More than half of the reunions between separated family members ended badly, even in the best of circumstances. From what Wally could tell, Kyle's circumstances were complicated, maybe even explosive.

“But I
am
ready,” Kyle said as if she were accusing him of something.

“You're in a rough place right now,” Wally said. “I get that. But you need to understand something: finding your birth mother won't solve the problems you're having at home. Things are going badly with your father, and you're reaching out for something that feels like a solution. I get that, but you have some steps to take first—”

“What are you talking about?” Kyle cut her off.

“There's a therapist we refer a lot of clients to, and she's really good. There are ways to get you into a safer living situation, also.” She could see that Kyle was struggling to understand what she was saying. “We have strong connections at Social Services, plus some private groups that help out in these situations. A friend of mine is with the NYPD, so we can—”

“A cop? Why?”

“To start with, I think that bruise on your face was made by a closed fist. You've described your father as dangerous and violent.”

Kyle was silent for a moment, his jaw clenched in anger.

“This was a mistake,” he said, rising quickly to his feet. “I'm sorry I wasted your time.”

He headed for the door.

Wally felt a stab of panic—she stood and went after him.

“Please don't go,” Wally said. “This is my fault. My boss will be here soon. . . . ” She reached out and tried to hold Kyle by the arm, but he shrugged her off.

“Forget everything I told you.”

Kyle rushed out of the office. Wally ran after him as he made his way down the hall.

“I promise we can help you, Kyle!” she called out, feeling desperate now.

But Kyle never looked back. Wally watched helplessly as he hurried down the main stairs and disappeared from view.
Shit!

LEWIS DIDN'T ARRIVE UNTIL ALMOST NOON.

“Hello, Wallis,” he said as he entered, his faint Australian accent lending him a jaunty, gentlemanly air. He hung his fedora and overcoat on the hat rack by the door. For a man somewhere in his late eighties—he refused to verify his exact age—Lewis was still strong and sharp. His taste in clothes had frozen in limbo somewhere in the early fifties; he always dressed like a detective in an old black-and-white Humphrey Bogart film.

Wally could almost feel herself radiating an aura of guilt.

“Uh oh,” Lewis said when he turned to face her. “How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad,” she said, anxiously flicking the corner of the musty old case file she was working on.

Lewis sighed, and turned to retrieve his hat and coat from the rack.

“Come along. Everything goes down better with dumplings.”

There was a Mandarin place with pretty good dim sum on Second Avenue that Lewis loved. The place was loud and steamy and already crowded when they arrived, but the staff treated Lewis with deference—he and Wally were given a table immediately, and a quick nod to his favorite waitress was all it took to order two lunch specials.

“Tell me,” Lewis said as soon as their order was placed.

“We had a walk-in this morning,” she began, already dreading his reaction. “Carmen wasn't in yet, and the guy was in rough shape. More than anything, I think he needed someone to talk to.”

“Wallis,” Lewis gave her an exasperated look, “please tell me you didn't do the interview.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “Not intentionally. But we were sitting there waiting, and he just started talking.”

Lewis sighed. “And what happened?”

Wally described the entire session with Kyle. She kept checking Lewis for his reaction, but his expression revealed nothing. Lewis had heard a million tragic stories in his years with the Society. It took a lot to impress him.

“I see,” he said evenly, when she was done.

His calm demeanor only made Wally more anxious about what he was thinking. She caught herself holding her breath in anticipation and let it out.

“And how would you grade your performance?” he finally said.

“Well, the session ended with him running out on me. I never had him fill out a bio sheet, so I don't know his full name or any other specifics that would help us follow up,” Wally said, feeling even more ashamed as she heard herself listing her failures. “He was upset when we started, but worse when he left. He might actually be in danger, and now there's nothing I can do to change that.”

“Rough morning,” Lewis said. “And a little bizarre, don't you think?”

“I guess,” Wally said, though she hadn't seen it that way, before. “Yeah, he was a little ‘out there.' Whatever's going on has got him incredibly stressed. But that was no reason for me to fumble it so badly. I think I'd give myself an F.”

“I think that's about right,” said Lewis. “On the bright side, you now have a better appreciation for how fragile the process can be.”

“Lucky me.”

Their food arrived, and they began eating in silence. Wally, however, soon lost her appetite. After slowly consuming half his plate of dumplings, Lewis dabbed his mouth with his napkin and studied her for a moment.

“So,” he said, “your failures are obvious. Tell me what you did right.”

“Uh . . . ” Wally tried to think, but she was still too upset to dissect the situation objectively.

“Very well,” Lewis said. “Allow me. First, you showed confidence in your ability to do this job. That's something to build on, even if that confidence was premature. Second, from what you've said about Kyle, you made a correct assessment of his state of mind. The turmoil in his life would make him a bad candidate for our process at this point, and you were right to be direct with him about that.”

“Okay,” Wally said, grateful that Lewis was being generous with her.

“What you're doing right now is a bigger mistake than all the rest,” Lewis added.

“What do you mean?”

“You're beating yourself up. You think you broke this young man, but in fact he was already a train wreck when he walked through the door. Do you understand?”

“Maybe. But I still feel like I let him down.” Wally wasn't willing to let herself off so easily.

“I understand, but there must be boundaries. Kyle's well-being is not your own personal responsibility. We have to maintain a certain distance, the way a good surgeon might with a patient he finds on his operating table. It's why doctors aren't supposed to practice medicine on people they have a personal relationship with—because their emotions might compromise their ability to do their job. Doesn't that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess so. . . . ”

“And this is a philosophy you can apply in your personal life, as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm referring to Tiger.”

The mention of her Russian brother caught Wally by surprise. On her own time, she had used some of the Society's resources in an effort to find him, wherever in the world he was. So far she hadn't had any luck, but she would never stop looking.

“Lewis—”

“I know you're preoccupied with the idea of finding your brother, and you've been using some of the Society's assets in an effort to locate him.”

“I should have told you—”

He held up his hand to stop her. “I don't object. I hope you find him, of course.”

“Thank you,” Wally said.

“Your brother is on your mind a great deal.”

“All the time,” Wally said.

Lewis knew more details about Wally's life—her
entire
life—than anyone else in the world. He was the one person she could talk to frankly about everything.

“Lewis,” she continued, “I think a lot about how luck plays such a huge role in how our lives turn out, and we have no control over that. Tiger and I are brother and sister—same genes, same parents—but I grew up on the Upper West Side, with every imaginable advantage in life. Tiger basically raised himself on the street—”

“You were on the street also, Wally.”

“By choice,” she said adamantly. “That's the difference. He became a hard, violent person because that was the only way he could survive. It isn't fair.”

“You want to find him and help him.”

“I want to find him. I don't know if he would accept help from anyone, least of all me. If I had the chance, though, I think I could even things out a little. Maybe tip the scales back in his favor.”

“And what else?”

What else did Wally want? She wanted to turn back time. She wanted her mother, Claire, to be alive again. She wanted Shelter Island never to have happened.

She wanted the nightmares to stop.

“I don't know what I want,” she said.

“All right. But as you try to figure that out, I want you to remember something. This applies to Kyle, and even to your own brother: however pure your intentions are, no one can fix another person, not really.”

WALLY GRABBED THE SUBWAY BACK TO GREENPOINT and dragged her exhausted self the two blocks from the station to her address near McCarren Park. It was a renovated three-story industrial building, a beehive of former sweatshops converted into a dozen small lofts. Wally's one-bedroom unit was on the roof. It had the smallest square footage of all the spaces but the luxury of an airy rooftop that was hers alone.

A sweet, mossy aroma emanated from the turtle tank, greeting her as soon as she walked through the door. She needed to feed Tevin, a baby snapping turtle that had already grown two inches since she'd bought him on impulse from the pet store a month earlier. The smell of the tank had gotten stronger over the past few weeks. Wally would have to clean out the habitat soon, before it went completely native with algae and other disgusting things.

She grabbed a chunk of frozen fish from the freezer and set it on the rock island at the center of the large tank, but Tevin remained motionless, floating on the surface of the water and ignoring the food. He kept his cold, inscrutable gaze fixed on Wally, and she imagined he was more interested in eating one of her fingers—or even her nose—than what he'd been offered. With jaws as powerful as a pit bull's, young Tevin was fully capable of harvesting one of Wally's body parts.

“You're welcome, beast,” Wally said.

Wally threw off her work clothes and pulled on stretchy black yoga pants, an oversized green sweatshirt, and sheepskin boots, happy to be comfortable and warm after a difficult day. She made a cup of hot chocolate and opened the sliding door onto the rooftop deck, where she sat down at the used set of wrought-iron patio furniture that she had bought—along with most of the loft's furniture—from a local thrift shop.

Like the rest of the loft space, the deck seemed only halfway put together—Wally had signed the lease only three months earlier, once she had finally admitted to herself that she could not live in the fancy Upper West Side apartment she'd inherited after her mother's death. There were painful memories that came with that place, of course, but it was more than that—her mother's old apartment was very upscale and luxurious, and Wally felt she hadn't done anything to deserve that kind of lifestyle.

Along the perimeter of the roof were half a dozen new planter boxes with big, unopened bags of fresh potting soil waiting beside them. A local nursery had delivered it all for her, but nothing was planted in them yet. When it had come time to choose, Wally stood before the massive, confusing display of seeds at the nursery, paralyzed by indecision. Was she a flower person, a vegetable person, an herb person, or what? All three? Each packet of seeds came with a chart of its particular seasonal planting schedule, and the information overload had forced Wally's brain to shut down.

Her only other addition to the outdoor area had been a few strings of white Christmas lights around the perimeter, giving off just enough light to illuminate the space with a warm glow. Wally left the lights off for now, though, content to sit in the cool, quiet darkness of the early evening, watching the last traces of sunlight fade away behind the Manhattan skyline.

She enjoyed the peace for all of two minutes before there was a knock at her door.

“NYPD. Open up.”

Damn it
, Wally thought, spilling her cocoa a little as she jumped up from her chair, pissed off.
Again with this shit
.

Wally tended to inspire protective instincts in older men—except for her actual father, ironically—and one of those men was Detective Atley Greer of the
20
^th
Precinct in Manhattan, the neighborhood where she had grown up. Greer was friends with the local precinct captain in Greenpoint, and he'd arranged for the foot patrols to keep an eye on Wally. At least once a week they came up with excuses to sniff around her apartment, and tonight she was in no mood.

Wally opened the door to find two very young cops whom she hadn't seen before. She knew the minimum age for a probie cop in the NYPD was twenty-one, but these two looked barely out of high school. One was tallish and thin and maybe of Indian descent and the other was white and a little stockier, with curly blond hair that was kind of cute but would definitely
not
help him intimidate perps on the street. Wally thought that if she ever saw these two in civilian clothes, she would figure them for chess-club dweebs.

“I don't even want to hear it,” Wally began before either officer could speak. “Leave me alone. Now and forever.”

The cops were obviously thrown a little by her attitude, but eventually the curly cop spoke. His nametag read
GARTH
.

“We, uh . . . we got a call about a domestic disturbance—”

“No you didn't, Garth,” Wally snapped. “I know your captain told you to check up on me.”

“Uh, that's absolutely not true, ma'am,” said the taller cop, a terrible liar. His tag read
SHAHI
. “When we receive a call on a domestic, we're obligated to—”

“You're calling me
ma'am?
” Wally objected. “Really? I'm at least four years younger than you, and you guys barely look old enough to shave.”

The situation was interrupted, thankfully, by January and Bea—Wally's neighbors from downstairs—who arrived at her door, looming behind the cops. The appearance of Wally's “protection detail” had become so routine that the girls were completely unconcerned.

“Uh oh,” January said, checking out the cops. “Are you headed for the slammer, Wally, or can you come out with us tonight?”

“These Eagle Scouts were just leaving,” Wally said.

The rookie cops gave each other looks and turned on their heels, both eager to move on.

“Don't be strangers,” January called after them in a flirty tone.

January was a very tall, curvy redhead, nineteen years old with the cockiness of a strong, competitive athlete. She played volleyball for a local junior college in the hopes of landing a scholarship for a Division
1
school and worked at the coffeehouse on the corner, with Bea, to pay her way. Bea was a first-generation Cuban-American, smaller and not as aggressively outgoing as January. She still got plenty of attention because of her fine, sensuous features—her long dark hair and huge brown eyes were guy magnets.

These college girls were different kinds of friends for Wally—they seemed completely carefree, blessed with an optimism about the world that she had never felt. They were also rule breakers, in a way that Wally appreciated—she'd first met them when they had scaled the fire escape up to her apartment, unannounced, and offered her free cable TV. Apparently, Bea was good with mechanical things, and she'd pirated the feed for the entire building.

For Wally, hanging out with January and Bea was always like a little vacation from her life, and in the few months she'd known them Wally had come to appreciate their influence.

“We're going dancing later,” said Bea. “At Cielo, in the city. That DJ Louise is spinning Latin electronica tonight.”

“Thanks, but I'm not really in the mood.”

“We reject your antisocial funk, Stoneman,” January said. “Dance or die.”

“No, seriously—”

“We'll be back for you at eleven,” said Bea.

Once the girls were gone, Wally retreated into her apartment and picked up her cell phone. She dialed Detective Atley Greer.

“Make them stop, Greer,” she told him as soon as she heard him pick up the line.

“Who are we talking about?”

“Your junior narc squad. It's too much.”

“Speaking hypothetically,” he answered, “if I
had
arranged for a low-profile police presence at your location, what would be the harm?”

“I'm trying to fit in around here. That's gonna be tough with your uniformed probies busting in on me every other day.”

“Wallis—”

“I'm doing fine, Greer. Really.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“It's okay to acknowledge that the world can be a difficult and frightening place,” Greer said. “Don't forget, kid . . . I was there, too.”

“I remember.”

Shelter Island. Wally's father, Alexei Klesko, had shot Greer in the shoulder, and the cop had endured months of rehab just to get back on the job. The role he'd played in her survival that day had cultivated in him a sort of fatherly preoccupation with her well-being. Wally owed him something for what he had done, but the interference in her daily life was unacceptable.

“You go through something like that,” Greer said, “you come away with scars. No one is immune. It's too much to carry by yourself. Let me help.”

“I'm dealing,” Wally insisted.

“If you say so. But when friends offer help, think about accepting it.”

“I will, Greer, if you start thinking about boundaries.”

Greer was pathologically annoying, but Wally also knew that he wasn't necessarily wrong. She was glad when January and Bea showed up at her door at eleven—right on schedule—both dressed in black skinny jeans and loose, layered tank tops, their beautiful faces made up just enough to give them an edgy club vibe. Wally was dressed down a little—in a fitted black T-shirt with jeans and flats—but the girls were excited just to find her ready and waiting.

“Nice,” said January, giving Wally the once-over.

They took the subway to the Lower East Side, reaching the club before midnight. They joined up with a group of January and Bea's other friends from the city—six party girls, all fired up and ready for the night. Wally did her best to relax and avoid thinking about how different she felt from the carefree, uncomplicated party girls.

The massive bouncer had bulging arms and an intimidating scowl on his face, but he raised the rope for the girls without hesitation, not even bothering to check their fake IDs. Being young and pretty in Manhattan definitely had its advantages.

The inside of Cielo felt a little claustrophobic, totally packed with dancing twentysomethings and teenagers with fake IDs. A DJ named Louise something was spinning some really loud Latin electronica, the synth percussion mixed so heavily that Wally could feel each electronic drumbeat like a little punch in the chest, right at her heart. She had an immediate and primal reaction to the music, and she felt it pulling her—irresistibly—onto the dance floor.

January, Bea, and most of their friends peeled off toward the ladies' room to score drugs—they were mostly into coke these days. Wally was about to object, but she figured there was no point—they had already heard her argument against dope and shrugged it off. Wally remembered Lewis's words—
you
can't save another person, not really
—and instead she went on ahead and joined the swirling, throbbing ocean of young people already dancing.

The massed bodies were packed in close, their motions in sync with the synthesized Latin drumbeats. The air was thick with the heat and moisture of the sweating bodies, and Wally closed her eyes as she began to move with them. Almost no one was dancing in couples—they all moved in a collective mob—and Wally released herself into it, eager for the moment when she wouldn't feel like a separate person at all but just one element of the whole, throbbing tribe.

As she heated up, other bodies touched hers, their skin hot and wet. January and Bea suddenly appeared in front of her, euphoric smiles on their faces. Their drugs were already kicking in, and Wally realized that she must have lost track of time, which felt good. Her friends wrapped her up in sloppy, doped-up hugs and hung for a moment around her neck.

“We love you, Wally,” Bea said.

Wally knew it was the drugs talking—X-induced affection—but she didn't mind. It was a nice thing to hear, so what was the harm? The three of them danced facing each other for a long time, the continuous music track never letting up but veering off on different paths, momentary explorations into parallel universes of tweaked, frenetic sound. After a while, January moved in close to Wally and held up a small pill between her fingers, pale green with a little question mark on it, offering to place it on Wally's tongue. But Wally shook her off with a smile and kept dancing.

Wally and the girls gave their bodies over to the music, venturing wherever the DJ led them. Before long Wally was working her body as hard as she did at Orson Dojo, her shirt soaked with sweat and clinging to her. She felt warm on the inside too, and thought she could stay there dancing all night. She closed her eyes and imagined it, the dance floor teeming for hours with those like herself who had surrendered to the mesmerizing sound, January and Bea close by through all of it.

Before long, though, something interrupted the feeling—something barely perceptible. Wally felt a shiver travel down her back, as if a door had opened somewhere and let a draft of cool, uninvited fresh air into the room. She opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of a single, unidentifiable face—was it a man or a woman?—staring at her through the crowd of dancers. The mass of bodies shifted, blocking her view, and when a gap opened up again the person was gone.