Jordan had been surprised by the sudden gleam of intelligence in the man’s eyes. Up until this point, their dealings had been entirely professional.
‘I confess I’d like to be in your place,’ the man had continued, without waiting for a reply. ‘In any case, wherever you’re headed, have a good trip.’
Jordan smiled and thanked him with a nod of the head. Then, without another word, the big man had gone out and closed the door behind him – and Jordan was left alone.
As soon as the truck had turned the corner, he moved away from the window and walked over to the threadbare couch in front of the fireplace, grabbed the waterproof backpack in which he had placed the few clothes he might need on the road, picked up his helmet, and put his gloves and ski mask inside.
He had let his apartment through an agency to a stranger – an out-of-towner named Alexander Guerrero who was moving to New York. Although this guy had only seen the apartment in photographs sent as email attachments, he had enclosed, along with his references and the appropriate guarantees from the agency, a cheque for a deposit and six months’ rent in advance – thus becoming the new tenant of a good four-room apartment on 54 West 16th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Well, congratulations, Mr Guerrero, whoever you are . . .
Jordan hoisted the backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door, the sound of his steps on the bare wooden floor echoing strangely in the half-empty apartment. He had just placed his hand on the door when the phone on the mantelpiece rang.
He turned slowly and stared at it. He had sent AT&T a cancellation notice a few days earlier, and was surprised the number was still connected. The phone kept ringing, and Jordan debated with himself whether or not to pick up. He wasn’t at all curious to know who was calling him, or why. In his mind, he was already on the freeway, shooting across the landcape, the white line in front of the bike reflected on the visor of his full-face helmet. He hadn’t left New York yet, but it was already a memory – and not a very good one.
There had been a time when this city had meant something to him. After all, it had given him the opportunity to be what he wanted to be. Then, one day, he had been forced to make a choice – the kind of choice you cannot reverse – and he had learned that whatever life gives you, you have to pay back. And he had certainly paid more than his share. When he’d had enough of paying, he had decided to abandon the city and put his apartment up for rent.
With a sigh, Jordan threw the backpack and helmet down on the couch, and lifted the receiver.
‘Yeah?’
He heard a muted rhythmical noise in the background, from which a familiar voice emerged.
‘Jordan, it’s Chris. I called you on your cellphone but it was off. Thank God you’re still in the city.’
Jordan was surprised. His brother was the last person from whom he would have expected a call. There was a nervousness in Christopher Marsalis’s voice and something new, something he would never have thought to hear.
Fear.
Jordan pretended not to notice. ‘My cellphone isn’t working too well right now. I was just about to leave town. What’s up?’
Chris paused for a few seconds, which was also unusual for him. He didn’t usually give anyone – himself included – a moment’s respite.
‘Gerald has been murdered.’
Jordan had a sudden feeling of déjà vu. He realized that, in a way, it was a piece of news he had been expecting for some time. He had felt it hovering over his head like a premonition every time he thought about his nephew.
He managed to keep his voice calm, not to let his brother’s mood infect him. ‘When?’
‘Last night. Or this morning, I don’t know. The gallery owner who handles his work dropped by his apartment very early and found the body.’
Jordan couldn’t help thinking it was highly unlikely that son of a bitch LaFayette Johnson had been paying a social call at that hour of the morning. Nobody had ever managed to pin anything on him, but everyone knew how he paid for his protégé’s work.
‘Where are you now?’ he asked his brother.
‘I was in Albany for a meeting of local Democrats. As soon as I heard the news, I got on a helicopter. We’re about to land at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. Christ, Jordan, I was told they found him in a terrible state . . .’
Chris’s voice shook, as if he was on the verge of tears. That, too, was new.
‘I’ll be right there,’ Jordan said.
‘Gerald was living . . .’
Jordan noticed that his brother had referred to Gerald in the past tense. He himself felt strangely reluctant to bury him just yet. ‘I know where he’s living,’ he said. ‘At the end of Water Street.’
He was about to hang up when Christopher added, ‘Jordan . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m glad I found you.’
Jordan was not sure what to say, so he simply repeated, ‘I’ll be right there.’
Sometimes New York seemed like a living thing, which would continue to function even if all the human beings suddenly disappeared. The lights would still come on and off, the subway would still run, and the taxis would still cruise the streets even when there were no people waiting on street corners. In the same way, if he tried to leave now, Jordan had the strangest sense he’d find an invisible force-field around the city, making him stay somewhere he had no desire – and no reason – to stay.
He took off his boots, unzipped his leathers, slipped out of them in a single expert movement, and laid them over the back of the couch. Opening the rucksack, he took out a pair of sneakers, a shirt, a pair of jeans and a simple leather jacket – clothes he’d imagined he wouldn’t need until he was many miles away.
As he sat down to tie his shoelaces, he saw something sticking out from between the cushions on the couch. He slid his hand under the seat and took out an old, slightly faded colour photograph. Jordan remembered it well. It had been taken at Lake George, where he and his brother had gone fishing with a group of friends. The two of them were standing side by side, the reflection of the water like a halo behind them. Both were smiling.
For a moment he sat looking at the faces as if they were those of two strangers. Physically, he and Christopher were very different. Only the eyes were identical. They had different mothers but the same father, and their blue eyes were the only inheritance Jacob Marsalis had divided equally between his sons.
Jordan stood up and placed the photograph on the mantelpiece, then picked up his helmet and headed for the door, with the absurd feeling that the images in the photograph were doing the same thing – that they were turning their backs on the room and walking away towards the lake in the background.
As he emerged onto the landing, from an apartment on the floor below came music, played excessively loudly. Jordan recognized a track by one of his favourite artists, Connor Slave, the new cult figure of American music – a sad, rather bitter song called ‘Song of the Woman Who Wanted To Be a Sailor’ – the story of someone longing for something they would never be able to attain. Jordan liked it. Maybe he identified with that woman standing on the cliff, looking at the sea on which she would never sail.
He went down in the elevator. On the street he was greeted by the light of a benevolent sun neither he nor the city deserved. As he crossed, he found himself thinking about the young man everyone knew as Jerry Ko, who had aspired to be the most significant figure in the New York avant-garde. A lot of things were going to be said about him and, unfortunately, almost all of them would be true. The newspapers would go to town on his difficult childhood and turbulent youth, his dependence on drugs and sex in spite of the fact that he belonged to one of the most high-profile families in the city.
On the opposite side of the street was a diner that was one of Jordan’s regular haunts. He had often whiled away the hours there, joshing with the waitresses or just staring into the distance, searching for a solution he never found. Over time, he and the owner, Tim Brogan, had becom
e friends, and Tim allowed him to keep his motorcycle in the little yard in back.
Walking past the windows, Jordan waved at a waitress in a green uniform who was serving two customers sitting at the table facing the street. As she had her hands full, she replied with a nod of the head and a smile.
He slipped into the alley and then turned right into the yard. Standing next to his motorbike, which was covered in a dust sheet, was Annette, another of the waitresses, taking a short cigarette-break. Jordan was familiar with her story. Her husband had long been fighting a losing battle with alcohol, and a few years earlier her son had been in trouble with the police. When she had turned to Jordan for help, he had taken pity on her and done what he could to help. Annette didn’t talk about her husband these days, but her son had a job now and seemed determined to stay out of trouble.
‘Hi, Jordan. I thought I’d find an empty place here this morning instead of your bike. I was sure you’d be gone by now.’
‘So was I. But someone’s decided otherwise.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Yes.’
Her face darkened for a moment. ‘We all have our troubles, Jordan.’
Jordan approached the bike and started removing the sheet, until his shiny red Ducati 999 was revealed. Used to it as he was, he was still susceptible to its charms. It was the kind of bike you loved not only for its performance, but even more for its appearance.
‘It’s a beautiful machine,’ Annette said.
‘Beautiful and dangerous,’ Jordan replied, folding the sheet.
‘No more than a lot of things in this city. See you around.’ She threw her cigarette on the ground and carefully stubbed it out with her foot. Then she turned and went back inside the diner.
As Jordan switched on the ignition and buckled on his helmet, it struck him that he was about to do something he’d done many times in the past – something he’d thought he’d never have to do again: head out for a crime scene after taking a call. But this time it was different. This time, the victim was someone who was part of his life, even though he had long ago chosen not to be part of anybody’s life.
But that was a minor consideration. The important thing was that Jerry Ko’s real name was Gerald Marsalis and that, apart from being Jordan’s nephew, he was also the son of Christopher Marsalis, the Mayor of New York.
CHAPTER 5
Jordan turned onto the final stretch of Water Street. By this time of day, the light was dividing the street exactly in half. Right and left, sun and shade, hot and cold.
The media were already out in force. There were print journalists moving about as best they could between the police cars, and trucks from Eyewitness News and Channel 4 parked on the square at Peck Slip. A woman reporter from the 24-hour news channel NY1, whose name he couldn’t remember, was broadcasting live with the cordoned-off area in the background. Their prompt appearance had to be connected to the fact that there was always some cop in the force who was paying his mortgage or his son’s college fees by playing the profitable role of ‘reliable source’.
Jordan parked his bike where it would remain in the shade, in order not to find the saddle boiling hot when he came back. He then walked casually towards the building as if he was merely another curious bystander, keeping his helmet on his head in order to avoid being recognized. If there was one thing he didn’t want or need right now, it was to be mobbed by a crowd of reporters wielding microphones.
Jordan had reached the barrier. There was an opening just in front of the main door of the building, where two officers were keeping guard. He knew one of them from Headquarters at One Police Plaza, which was only half a mile away. The officer had already stepped forward to bar his way when Jordan’s head emerged from the helmet. The other man recognized him and opened the barrier a little more to let him through.
‘Good morning, Lieutenant.’
‘I’m not a lieutenant any more, Rodriguez.’
‘No, of course not, Lieut— I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK, Oscar. Are they all up there?’
‘Sure, on the top floor. The Mayor hasn’t arrived yet.’
‘I know. He should be here any minute.’
Officer Oscar Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m sorry about your nephew . . . Mr Marsalis.’
‘Thanks, Oscar. Can I go up?’
‘Sure. Nobody said so openly, but I have the feeling they’re waiting for you.’ Rodriguez stood aside to let him enter the building.
As he went up in the elevator, Jordan recalled that he had never visited his nephew’s loft. One evening, though, he had met him by chance at Via Della Pace, an Italian restaurant in the East Village. Gerald was with a group of young men and women whose appearance and behaviour seemed perfectly in line with his lifestyle. They all had the same expression on their faces – a mixture of arrogance and nihilism. From the way they deferred to Gerald, it was clear that he was their leader. When Jordan had approached the table, his nephew had interrupted the speech he was making to his friends and looked his uncle in the eyes, without surprise and without pleasure.
‘Hello, Gerald.’
His nephew had grimaced. ‘Gerald is history. It’s a name that doesn’t belong to me any more. Nothing’s left of what I was before.’
‘Nothing and everything are extremes. Sometimes it doesn’t take much for them to meet.’
‘Fine words, Father Marsalis. I didn’t know you’d become a philosopher. If you came in here to give me a lecture . . .’
Jordan had shaken his head slightly. ‘No, I came in here because I was hungry, but I think I came to the wrong place.’
‘I think you’re right.’
Silence had fallen, the kind of silence that always falls between two people who have nothing more to say to each other. Jordan had turned and walked away. In the indistinct buzz that had followed him, he had made out one phrase: ‘Just a cop.’
That was the last time he had seen his brother’s son.
When the elevator doors opened, the first thing that struck him was the strong smell of paint. The door of the apartment was wide open, and inside, the Crime Scene team could be seen going about their business. Given the identity of the victim, it was obvious that no effort would be spared.
Presumably Christopher had informed them of his arrival, because Detective James Burroni came out on the landing before the officer guarding the door of the apartment could bar his way.
‘It’s OK, Pollard, I’ll deal with it.’
Jordan had known Burroni a long time and knew he was a good officer. They had worked together in the Ninth Precinct when that was still a frontier outpost, but had never been on especially friendly terms. Jordan couldn’t blame the man for his attitude. Nobody readily forgave a colleague for being simultaneously a well-known figure in Homicide and the brother of the Mayor. It was obvious that many people thought his rapid rise had more to do with family connections than merit.
Jordan felt strangely like an intruder, being here at a crime scene, even though the crime concerned him personally. And he had the impression Burroni was thinking the same thing.
‘Hello, James.’
‘Hello there, Jordan. Sorry to be meeting because of something like this.’
Jordan made a vague gesture with his hand, as if to dismiss the awkwardness of the moment. They both knew the score.
‘Come in. I warn you, it isn’t a pretty sight.’
As he followed Burroni, Jordan took a rapid glance around. The indescribable chaos of the loft was illumined by a limpid spring light that seemed strangely peaceful in a place like this – a place from which Jerry Ko had waged war on himself and the world.
And then he saw him.
Jordan did all he could to remain impassive. He crouched beside his nephew’s body and contemplated the wide-open eyes, the doll-like red paint, the grotesqueness of his position.
‘So far,’ Burroni said, ‘we think he was strangled first and then arranged like that. Death took place a few hours ago.’ r />
Jordan indicated the clear areas on the wrists and ankles where the paint had come away. ‘These marks will have been left by whatever was used to immobilize him. Maybe adhesive tape.’
‘Looks likely. That should come out in the post mortem.’
‘What else is the crime team saying?’
Burroni shrugged, indicating the rest of the loft. ‘Have you seen this place? It doesn’t look as if it’s ever been cleaned. Whatever we find could have belonged to anyone, any time over the past hundred years.’
‘And what’s this stuff?’ Jordan pointed to the victim’s finger stuck in his mouth and the blanket he was holding pressed to his ear.
‘Glue. They’ve taken a sample and should be able to tell us something once they’ve analyzed it.’
‘And the paint?’
‘He painted himself. His dealer says he often used this technique in his work.’
At this point, Christopher Marsalis himself arrived, followed as always by his right-hand man, Ruben Dawson. They heard him from the entrance, berating the Medical Examiner.
‘Christ, doesn’t it mean anything any more, being the Mayor of this fucking city? Do what you have to do! Get the body out of here as quickly as possible!’
Still crouching, Jordan waited for the moment when his brother walked past the shelves and was able to see the state his son had been reduced to.
And that was precisely what happened.
Jordan saw Christopher’s face first turn to stone then somehow crumble, and his eyes become strangely opaque. He didn’t know how much longer his brother had to live, but Jordan knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had died at that moment.
Chris turned abruptly and disappeared behind the shelves. Jordan stood up. Through the paint cans, he saw his brother hide his face in his hands. He went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Christopher knew it was him without seeing him.