Specimen Days

  She sat on his sofa, declined his offer of a drink. She loved his apartment, felt appropriately guilty for loving it, but loved it all the same. Four big rooms on the twenty-second floor, twelve-foot ceilings. The people walking the streets below, trying to find the least bruised bananas at the corner market, hoping not to get hit by cabs—they had no idea what hovered over them, these oases of granite and ebony, these sanctuaries. The scorched plains rose to alpine peaks, where the wizards lived. Up here it was temple lights and a sequestered, snowy hush.

  Simon was a collector. Nineteenth-century maps, Chinese pottery, vintage toys, and music boxes. Cat kept meaning to ask him: Why those particular objects, out of all the things in the world? She hadn’t asked. She preferred the mystery. Simon bought and sold futures. He saw some particular significance in maps, pots, and playthings. She liked it that way. She spent enough time searching for explanations at work.

  Simon sat beside her. “What happens now?” he said.

  She saw the spark in his eyes. He was turned on.

  “They’re checking out my building. I don’t expect them to find anything.”

  “How can they not find anything?”

  “There are thousands of fingerprints in a building like mine. And…Well. It’s time you knew. We’re not really all that good at this. We work very, very hard. But a lot of the time we just end up arresting the wrong person, and that person goes to jail, and everybody feels safer.”

  Simon paused, nodding. He seemed unsurprised, or had decided to act unsurprised. He said, “The pay-phone thing is funny, isn’t it? Why not a cell?”

  “Cell phones have owners. This is brilliant, in its way. Low-tech is the best way to go. You pump a few coins in, say your piece, and run. We can’t watch every pay phone in the five boroughs. These little fuckers are smart.”

  “Do you think you’ll catch him?” Simon asked.

  “We have to. We can’t screw up something this big.”

  “And your role is?”

  “To go back to work in the morning and wait for another call.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now, yes.”

  He was disappointed, naturally. He wanted her careening around in an unmarked car. He wanted her cracking the case, saving the day. It was not sexy or interesting, her waiting by the phone. It was—just say it—too maternal.

  She said, “I was reading Whitman. At the same time some maniac was writing a line from Whitman on the wall outside my door.”

  “I’ve never read Whitman,” he said.

  Of course you haven’t. You’re Cedar Rapids. You’re Cornell and a Harvard MBA. Your people don’t do poetry. They don’t need to.

  Stop.

  She said, “Chapman was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he shot John Lennon.”

  “Why do you think the kid would choose Whitman?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out.”

  “Why did Chapman choose Salinger?”

  “Well, I’d say it was to feed his own narcissistic sense of himself as a sensitive loner. He identified with Holden Caulfield. Holden was right, and the rest of the world was wrong. Other people might think it was a bad idea to kill John Lennon, but Chapman thought he knew better.”

  “You think your kid feels the same way about Whitman?”

  “I don’t know. I’m talking to a Whitman person at NYU tomorrow.”

  “You tired?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  Cat slipped under the covers while Simon was still in the bathroom, performing his rituals. Simon’s bedroom was the sanctum sanctorum, the vault where the best stash was kept. Along the south wall, shelves offered row upon row of vases and plates and ginger jars, pale green and lunar gray. On the opposite wall a collection of old banks and music boxes looked back across at the pottery. Cast-iron Uncle Sams and horse-drawn fire trucks and dancing bears, carved boxes that still contained the favorite songs of people a hundred years dead. Little toys, behold the perfect serenity of a thousand-year-old jar. Pottery, never forget how much humans have always loved a sentimental song and the sound of a coin put by.

  Cat let herself sink into the fat pillows, the zillion-thread-count sheets. Of course she liked it. Why wouldn’t she? She’d gotten here by chance. If she and Simon hadn’t happened to go to Citarella at the same time (they had the best crab cakes; she’d had a craving for crab cakes), if it hadn’t been raining, if they hadn’t hailed the same cab at the same moment…

  Just like that. Just that quick and easy. A little banter in the cab’s backseat. (You sell the future? That is heavy shit. You talk to murderers? No, that is heavy shit.) A cup of coffee and that thing he did with his thumbs, hooking them around the cup rim, tapping out a little tattoo. He had pretty thumbs (she was a sucker for men’s hands) and a way of tucking in his lower lip—that was what made it happen, initially. Soon after, he proved to be one of those men who cared if a girl had a good time, and she appreciated that. Okay, he was more focused than passionate, his lovemaking had some hint of the deal about it (got to close this one, got to keep the customer satisfied), but still, he was sweet in bed, and she’d thought she could loosen him up, with time. There was his beetle-browed determination to see her come; there was the impossible beauty and sureness of his fat, white propitious life. His collections and his deep leather sofas, his gigantic chrome showerhead. Which had mattered more at first, the thumbs and lips and conscientious sex or the gear?

  The man. She wasn’t like that. She’d never gone for rich guys, even young, when she was proper bait.

  But still, here she was, safe, in this bedroom, high above the streets. It was—admit it—a little fucked up. Probably. It was a little bit cold. Wasn’t it? She gave him street cred; she tickled his edgy bone. She made him more complicated. He gave her, well…this.

  And love. She did in fact love him, and he seemed to love her, too. She’d gone years without anything she could call love. She hadn’t expected Simon or anyone like him, but here he was. Here were his thumbs and lips and eyebrows; here were his gravitas and prosperity; here was his secret self, that tiny, harmed, indignant quality she sensed in him, thought she detected on his face as he slept.

  Simon came out of the bathroom naked, got into bed beside her. He said, “Do you think the kid will call again?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “You must have some idea, don’t you?”

  She said, “Once a perpetrator has initiated contact like this, odds are he’ll want to reestablish.”

  Screw it, talk dirty to him. You’re too tired to resist.

  “That figures,” he said.

  “What you try to do,” she told him, “is supplant the existing object. If you’re lucky, if you’re very lucky, you can become the person he loves and wants to destroy. He starts redirecting all that feeling to you.”

  Shameless. Not even true. Just sex talk.

  “Like you would in therapy,” Simon said.

  “Yes and no. You need to be compassionate but authoritative with someone like this. Somebody like this usually wants a boss. A voice in his head is telling him to do things he suspects he shouldn’t do. He wants a new voice. That’s probably why he called in the first place.”

  Was that enough? Now could they just have sex, or not have sex, and go to sleep?

  He said, “So, you try to become the voice in his head?”

  He ran a pink fingertip precisely along her forearm, as if he were reading Braille. They could make one beautiful baby together, no denying it. Caramel-colored skin, head of billowy curls. Cat was probably still young enough. Maybe she was.

  “Yeah,” she said. “As opposed to the aliens, or the CIA, or whoever.”

  “You try to be the new, better delusion.”

  “Right. And if that doesn’t work, you track the fucker down and blow him away.”

  That did it. Simon kissed her and worked his hand up to her breast.

  She woke at a q
uarter to four. She gave it five minutes, on the off chance, then slipped out of bed. She went into the living room, took Leaves of Grass from her bag, and started reading.

  I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

  And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

  And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,

  And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral, drest in his shroud,

  And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,

  And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,

  And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,

  And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,

  And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

  She put the book down and went to the window, looked out at the slumbering city. From here it was all lovely and remote, twenty-two stories below. It was lights and silence and the few stars bright enough to penetrate the city haze. There were the windows of Tribeca and then the empty sky.

  Where was the kid right now? Was he sleeping? She had a feeling he was not. She imagined him out there, as wide-awake as she was; he might be looking through a window of his own.

  Luke would be twelve now. Since he died she’d been sure he was somewhere; she’d known it as deeply as she’d known his presence inside her, shortly after conception. She’d never been religious. She hadn’t allowed grief to send her crawling to the church. That might have helped, but she hadn’t had it in her; it had seemed if anything like a final insult, to concoct sudden hysterical convictions about what she’d spent her childhood escaping. All right, take my baby, but don’t expect me to don the veil and kneel before the statue. Don’t expect me to clap my hands or raise my voice in song. If she’d done that, she’d have lost herself completely.

  And yet, Luke wasn’t gone. She had no idea where he might be. He wasn’t in heaven, and he wasn’t a ghost, but he was somewhere. He had not evaporated. She knew it with gut-level certainty. It was her only belief. That, and the workings of justice in a dangerous world.

  Danger—our true parent?

  Where do the dead live?

  These curtains—can Simon really be straight?

  She slipped into bed just before sunrise. She wasn’t sleepy, not even a little bit, but if she simulated sleepiness, if she acted like someone about to fall asleep, she could sometimes fool herself. Simon breathed steadily beside her, murmured over a dream. He never had trouble sleeping. She tried not to hate him for that.

  She was still wide-awake when her cell went off. It was ten minutes after six.

  “This is Cat Martin.”

  “Cat, I’ve got your caller. I’m patching him through.”

  It was Erna, from downtown. Cat’s heart quickened. Simon opened his eyes, blinked uncertainly. She put her finger to her lips.

  She said, “Go ahead, Erna.”

  There was the brief electronic hiccup of the transfer. Then there was his voice.

  “Hello?”

  He sounded even younger than she’d remembered.

  “Hello. Who’s this?”

  “Um. I called before.”

  “Yes.”

  Keep it calm. Keep it matter-of-fact.

  “I could get in trouble,” he said.

  “You’re not in any trouble at all, not if you let me help you. Did you write something on a wall last night?”

  “What?”

  “Did you write something for me last night? On a wall?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “What were you trying to tell me?”

  “Well. What it said.”

  Simon was sitting up now, watching her, wide-eyed.

  “Do you think it’s lucky to die?” she asked. “Do you think dying is a good thing?”

  “I don’t think I want to yet,” the boy said.

  “Who is it who wants you to die?”

  “That’s how it works. I didn’t know. It’s murder, if you don’t go, too.”

  “Is somebody telling you to hurt yourself?”

  “I beat and pound for the dead.”

  “That’s Whitman, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Walt Whitman. Did you learn those words from Walt Whitman?”

  “No. Walt doesn’t talk like that.”

  “Where did you learn them, then?”

  “They’re from home.”

  “Listen to me. Listen very carefully. Someone is telling you to do things that are bad for you, that are bad for other people. It’s not your fault. Someone is hurting you. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come there and help you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t need to be afraid. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of, but you have to let me help you. Tell me where you’re calling from. You can tell me that. It’s all right.”

  “The next one is today.”

  “Tell me what he’s making you do. You don’t have to do it.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Don’t go. You’re in trouble, and it’s not your fault. I can help you.”

  “Do you think a great city endures?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Goodbye.”

  He hung up.

  Simon said, “That was him.” He all but quivered with fervent competence.

  “It was him.”

  “What did he say?

  “Just sit tight a minute, okay?”

  Her cell went off, as she’d known it would. It was Pete.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said.

  “Where was he?”

  “Pay phone in Bed-Stuy.”

  “They’re doing another one today.”

  “So he says. What do you think?”

  “Off the top of my head, I’d say I’m not sure.”

  “Thanks for sharing.”

  “I’d say he’s serious.”

  “I’d say so, too. What was all that shit about Walt?”

  “Frankly, you’ve got me there. The little fucker seems to have memorized the whole book.”

  “He says the words are from home. What’s that about?”

  “They’re loose, Pete. As you know.”

  “How soon can you be in the office?”

  “Twenty minutes. Give or take.”

  “See you there.”

  She clicked off. Simon stared at her, all executive readiness.

  “Got to get to work,” she said.

  “Right,” he said.

  He was so fucking gorgeous like this, he who was a potent figure in his own circles but a spectator in this one, a wife if you will, lying here looking at her with those impossible agate eyes of his, hair electrically disordered, face bristling with stubble. It seemed for a moment that she could stop, she could just stop; she could blow off her job and move with Simon into his realm, his high-octane but undangerous life, the hush and sureness of him, buying and selling the future, seeking out maps and jars and bringing them home. She was on her way to a grim office where the equipment was outdated and the air-conditioning prone to failure, where most of her coworkers were right-wing zealots or B students or just too peculiar for the corporate jobs that claimed the best and the brightest; where the villains were as pathetic and off-kilter as the heroes; where the whole struggle between order and chaos had no beauty in it, no philosophy or poetry; where death itself felt cheap and cheesy. She wanted—how could she possibly tell him?—to take shelter in Simon, to live peacefully alongside him in his spiky and careless beauty, his electrified contentment. She wanted to abandon herself, to abide. But of course he wouldn’t want her that way.

  She got out of bed. “Call you later,” she said.

  “Right,” he answered.

  They both paused. Now would be the time for one of them to say “I love you.” If they were a
t that point.

  “Bye,” she said.

  “Bye,” he answered.

  It was Halloween at the office. She’d never felt the air so agitated. This was what never actually happened: a psychopath announcing his intentions, with every indication of follow-through. This was movie stuff.

  Ed was just shy of coming in his pants. His hair, what was left of it, seemed to be standing on end. “Hot damn,” he said.

  “They find anything in Bed-Stuy?” she asked.

  “Nope. I wish I could talk to him.”

  “And what would you say?”

  “I think he needs a father figure.”

  “Do you?”

  “Don’t be offended. You’re doing a fine job with him.”

  “In my way.”

  “No offense. I just think maybe a guy could get more out of him. It’s the luck of the draw, him calling here and attaching to you.”

  “You don’t think a woman is as effective with him?”

  “Hey. Don’t get all Angela Davis on me.”

  Ed was one of the new breed, the guys who seemed to think that if they were right up front about their sexism and racism, if they walked in and sat down and just said it, they were at least semi-absolved. That if racism was inevitable, it was better, it was more manly and honorable, to be candid. She, frankly, preferred secrecy.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

  “A bad dad is telling him to do bad things. A good dad might have a better chance of telling him to do good things. A mother figure doesn’t have the same authority. She’s a refuge. She can’t contradict the bad dad. She can only console.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I hope you’re wrong about that.”

  “I hope so, too. We’re going to get this little fucker.”

  Ed had the killer buzz in his voice. He had the pure, shining conviction of the almost smart. When Ed went on like this, Cat heard the ping inside her head. Here was a true murderer.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to get him.”

  Pete came into the cubicle, with black coffee for her.

  “You’re sweet,” she said.

  “We’re nowhere,” he told her.

  “We’re never nowhere.”

  “They’ve run dental records on more than two thousand missing kids. They got no matches to the teeth we found.”