Beaker's Dozen

  But when it was over, Bucky’s stomach pumped, sleeping it off at St. Vincent’s, I had crawled back in bed next to Margie. Libby asleep in her little bedroom. I’d put my arms around my wife, and I’d vowed that after Bucky got out of the hospital, I’d never see him and his messy stupid dramas of faith again.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said to Margie, inert in her trach collar.

  “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean it. Of course I want to be here. I’ll be here as long as you’re breathing!”

  She didn’t move. IV bag emptying, catheter bag filling.

  Susan came in, her nurse’s uniform rumpled. “Hi, Gene.”

  “Hello, Susan.”

  “We’re about the same tonight.”

  I could see that. And then the Camineur kicked in and I could see something else, in one of those unbidden flashes of knowledge that Bucky called heightened connective cognition. Bucky hadn’t phoned me because he didn’t really want to know what had happened to those old people. He already had enough belief to satisfy himself. He just wanted J-24 cleared publicly, and he wanted me to start the stink that would do it. He was handing the responsibility for Rose Kaplan and Samuel Fetterolf and Lydia Smith and Giacomo della Francesca to me. Just the way he’d handed to me the responsibility for his break with Father Healey the night of his attempted suicide. I’d been used.

  “Fuck that!”

  Susan turned, startled, from changing Marge’s catheter bag. “I beg your pardon?”

  Margie, of course, said nothing.

  I limped out of the hospital room, ignoring the look on Susan’s face. I was angrier than I had been in eighteen months. Anger pushed against the inside of my chest and shot like bullets through my veins.

  Until the Camineur did its thing.

  A dozen boys crowded the basketball hoop after school, even though it was drizzling. I limped toward my car. Just as I reached it, a red Mercedes pulled up beside me and Jeff Connors got out from the passenger side.

  He wore a blue bandana on his head, and it bulged on the left side above the ear. Heavy bandaging underneath; somebody had worked on him. He also wore a necklace of heavy gold links, a beeper, and jacket of supple brown leather. He didn’t even try to keep the leather out of the rain.

  His eyes met mine, and something flickered behind them. The Mercedes drove off. Jeff started toward the kids at the hoops, who’d all stopped playing to watch the car. There was the usual high-fiving and competitive dissing, but I heard its guarded quality, and I saw something was about to go down.

  Nothing to do with me. I unlocked my car door.

  Jenny Kelly came hurrying across the court, through the drizzle. Her eyes flashed. “Jeff! Jeff!”

  She didn’t even know enough not to confront him in front of his customers. He stared at her, impassive, no sign of his usual likable hustle. To him, she might as well have been a cop.

  “Jeff, could I see you for a minute?”

  Not a facial twitch. But something moved behind his eyes.

  “Please? It’s about your little brother.”

  She was giving him an out: family emergency. He didn’t take it.

  “I’m busy.”

  Ms. Kelly nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow, then?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Then I’ll catch you later.” She’d learned not to argue. But I saw her face after she turned from the boys sniggering behind her. She wasn’t giving up, either. Not on Jeff.

  Me, she never glanced at.

  I got into my car and drove off, knowing better than Jenny Kelly what was happening on the basketball court behind me, not even trying to interfere. If it didn’t happen on school property, it would happen off it. What was the difference, really? You couldn’t stop it. No matter what idealistic fools like Jenny Kelly thought.

  Her earrings were little pearls, and her shirt, damp from the rain, clung to her body.

  The whole next week, I left the phone off the hook. I dropped Libby a note saying to write me instead of calling because NYNEX was having trouble with the line into my building. I didn’t go to the hospital. I taught my math classes, corrected papers in my own classroom, and left right after eighth period. I only glimpsed Jenny Kelly once, at a bus stop a few blocks from the school building. She was holding the hand of a small black kid, three or four, dressed in a Knicks sweatshirt. They were waiting for a bus. I drove on by.

  But you can’t really escape.

  I spotted the guy when I came out of the metroteller late Friday afternoon. I’d noticed him earlier, when I dropped off a suit at the drycleaner’s. This wasn’t the kind of thing I dealt with any more—but it happens. Somebody you collared eight years ago gets out and decides to get even. Or somebody spots you by accident and suddenly remembers some old score on behalf of his cousin, or your partner, or some damn thing you yourself don’t even recall. It happens.

  I couldn’t move fast, not with my knee. I strolled into Mulcahy’s, which has a long aisle running between the bar and the tables, with another door to the alley that’s usually left open if the weather’s any good. The men’s and ladies’ rooms are off an alcove just before the alley, along with a pay phone and cigarette machine. I nodded at Brian Mulcahy behind the bar, limped through, and went into the ladies’. It was empty. I kept the door cracked. My tail checked the alley, then strode toward the men’s room. When his back was to the ladies’ and his hand on the heavy door, I grabbed him.

  He wasn’t as tall or heavy as I was—average build, brown hair, nondescript looks. He twisted in my grasp, and I felt the bulge of the gun under his jacket. “Stop it, Shaunessy! NYPD!”

  I let him go. He fished out his shield, looking at me hard. Then he said, “Not here. This is an informant hangout—didn’t you know? 284 West Seventieth, Apartment 8. Christ, why don’t you fix your goddamn phone?” Then he was gone.

  I had a beer at the bar while I thought it over. Then I went home. When the buzzer rang an hour and a half later, I didn’t answer. Whoever stood downstairs buzzed for ten minutes straight before giving up.

  That night I dreamed someone was trying to kill Margie, stalking her through the Times Square sleaze and firing tiny chemically poisoned darts. I couldn’t be sure, dreams being what they are, but I think the stalker was me.

  The Saturday mail came around three-thirty. It brought a flat manilla package, no return address, no note. It was a copy of the crime-scene report on the deaths of Lydia Smith and Giacomo della Francesca.

  Seven years as partners doesn’t just wash away. No matter what the official line has to be.

  There were three eight-by-ten color crime scene photos: an empty rooftop; Mrs. Smith’s body smashed on the pavement below; della Francesca’s body lying on the floor beside a neatly made bed. His face was in partial shadow but his skinny spotted hands were clear, both clutching the hilt of the knife buried in his chest. There wasn’t much blood. That doesn’t happen until somebody pulls the knife out.

  The written reports didn’t say anything that wasn’t in the photos.

  I resealed the package and locked it in my file cabinet. Johnny had come through; Bucky had screwed me. The deaths were suicides, just like Kelvin Pharmaceuticals said, just like the Department said. Bucky’s superconnective pill was the downer to end all downers, and he knew it, and he was hoping against hope it wasn’t so.

  Because he and Tommy had taken it together.

  I’ve moved, Bucky had said in his one message since he told me about J-24. I’d assumed he meant that he’d changed apartments, or lovers, or lives, as he’d once changed from fanatic seminarian to fanatic chemist. But that’s not what he meant. He meant he’d made his move with J-24, because he wanted the effect for himself and Tommy, and he refused to believe the risk applied to him. Just like all the dumb crack users I spent sixteen years arresting.

  I dialed his number. After four rings, the answering machine picked up. I hung up, walked from the living room to the bedroom, pounded my fists on the wall a couple times, walked back and
dialed again. When the machine picked up I said, “Bucky. This is Gene. Call me now. I mean it—I have to know you’re all right.”

  I hesitated . . . he hadn’t contacted me in weeks. What could I use as leverage?

  “If you don’t call me tonight, Saturday, by nine, I’ll . . .” What? Not go look for him. Not again, not like thirteen years ago, rushing out in pants and pajama top, Margie calling after me, Gene! Gene! For God’s sake . . .

  I couldn’t do it again.

  “If you don’t phone by nine o’clock, I’ll call the feds with what I’ve found about J-24, without checking it out with you first. So call me, Bucky.”

  Usually on Saturday afternoon I went to the hospital to see Margie. Not today. I sat at my kitchen table with algebra tests from 7B spread over the tiny surface, and it took me an hour to get through three papers. I kept staring at the undecorated wall, seeing Bucky there. Seeing the photos of Lydia Smith and Giacomo della Francesca. Seeing that night thirteen years ago when Bucky had his stomach pumped. Then I’d wrench myself back to the test papers and correct another problem. If train A leaves point X traveling at a steady fifty miles per hour at six a.m . . .

  If a bullet leaves a gun traveling at one thousand five hundred feet per second, it can tear off a human head. Nobody realizes that but people who have seen it. Soldiers. Doctors. Cops.

  After a while I’d realize I was staring at the wall again, and picked up another paper. If 3X equals 2Y . . . Some of the names on the papers I didn’t even recognize. Who was James Dillard? Was he the tall quiet kid in the last row, or the short one in shoes held together with tape, who fell asleep most mornings? They were just names.

  On the wall, I saw Jenny Kelly holding the hand of Jeff Connors’ little brother.

  At seven-thirty I shoved the papers into my briefcase and grabbed my jacket. Just before I left, I tried Bucky’s number once more. No answer. I turned off the living room light and limped along the hall to the door. Just before I opened it, my foot struck something. Without even thinking about it, I flattened against the wall and reached behind me for the foyer light.

  It was only another package. A padded mailer, nine by twelve, the cheap kind that leaks oily black stuffing all over you if you open it wrong. The stuffing was already coming out a little tear in one corner. There were no stamps, no address; it had been shoved under the door. Whoever had left it had gotten into the building—not hard to do on a Saturday, with people coming and going, just wait until someone else has unlocked the door and smile at them as you go in, any set of keys visible in your hand. In the upper left corner of the envelope was an NYPD evidence sticker.

  I picked up the package just as the phone rang.

  “Bucky! Where are—”

  “Gene, this is Jenny Kelly. Listen, I need your help. Please! I just got a call from Jeff Connors, he didn’t know who else to call. . . . The police have got him barricaded in a drug house someplace, they’re yelling at him to come out and he’s got Darryl with him, that’s his little brother, and he’s terrified—Jeff is—that they’ll knock down the door and go in shooting . . . God, Gene, please go! It’s only four blocks from you, that’s why I called, and you know how these things work . . . please!”

  She had to pause for breath. I said tonelessly, “What’s the address?”

  She told me. I slammed the receiver down in the midst of her thank-yous. If she’d been in the room with me, I think I could have hit her.

  I limped the four blocks north, forcing my damaged knee, and three blocks were gone before I realized I still had the padded envelope in my hand. I folded it in half and shoved it in my jacket pocket.

  The address wasn’t hard to find. Two cars blocked the street, lights whirling, and I could hear more sirens in the distance. The scene was all fucked up. A woman of twenty-one or twenty-two was screaming hysterically and jumping up and down: “He’s got my baby! He’s got a gun up there! He’s going to kill my son!” while a uniform who looked about nineteen was trying ineptly to calm her down. Her clothes were torn and bloody. She smacked the rookie across the arm and his partner moved in to restrain her, while another cop with a bullhorn shouted up at the building. Neighbors poured out onto the street. The one uniform left was trying to do crowd control, funneling them away from the building, and nobody was going. He looked no older than the guy holding the woman, as if he’d had about six hours total time on the street.

  I had my dummy shield. We’d all had our shields duplicated, one thirty-second of an inch smaller than the real shield, so we could leave the real one home and not risk a fine and all the paperwork if it got lost. When I retired, I turned in my shield but kept the dummy. I flashed it now at the rookie struggling with the hysterical girl. That might cost me a lot of trouble later, but I’d worry about that when the time came.

  The street thinking comes back so fast.

  “This doesn’t look right,” I shouted at the rookie over the shrieking woman. She was still flailing in his hold, screaming, “He’s got my baby! He’s got a gun! For Chrissake, get my baby before he kills him!” The guy with the bullhorn stopped shouting and came over to us.

  “Who are you?”

  “He’s from Hostage and Barricade,” the rookie gasped, although I hadn’t said so. I didn’t contradict him. He was trying so hard to be gentle with the screaming woman that she was twisting like a dervish while he struggled to cuff her.

  “Look,” I said, “she’s not the mother of that child up there. He’s the perp’s little brother, and she sure the hell doesn’t look old enough to be both their mother!”

  “How do you—” the uniform began, but the girl let out a shriek that could have levelled buildings, jerked one hand free and clawed at my face.

  I ducked fast enough that she missed my eyes, but her nails tore a long jagged line down my cheek. The rookie stopped being gentle and cuffed her so hard she staggered. The sleeve of her sweater rode up when he jerked her arms behind her back, and I saw the needle tracks. Shit, shit, shit.

  Two backup cars screamed up. An older cop in plain clothes got out, and I slipped my dummy shield back in my pocket.

  “Listen, officer, I know that kid up there, the one with the baby. I’m his teacher. He’s in the eighth grade. His name is Jeff Connors, the child with him is his little brother Darryl, and this woman is not their mother. Something’s going down here, but it’s not what she says.”

  He looked at me hard. “How’d you get that wound?”

  “She clawed him,” the rookie said. “He’s from—”

  “He phoned me,” I said urgently, holding him with my eyes. “He’s scared stiff. He’ll come out with no problems if you let him, and leave Darryl there.”

  “You’re his teacher? That why he called you? You got ID?”

  I showed him my United Federation of Teachers card, driver’s license, Benjamin Franklin Junior High pass. The uniforms had all been pressed into crowd control by a sergeant who looked like he knew what he was doing.

  “Where’d he get the gun? He belong to a gang?”

  I said, “I don’t know. But he might.”

  “How do you know there’s nobody else up there with him?”

  “He didn’t say so on the phone. But I don’t know for sure.”

  “What’s the phone number up there?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t give it to me.”

  “Is he on anything?”

  “I don’t know. I would guess no.”

  He stood there, weighing it a moment. Then he picked up the bullhorn, motioned to his men to get into position. His voice was suddenly calm, even gentle. “Connors! Look, we know you’re with your little brother, and we don’t want either of you to get hurt. Leave Darryl there and come down by yourself. Leave the gun and just come on down. You do that and everything’ll be fine.”

  “He’s going to kill my—” the woman shrieked, before someone shoved her into a car and slammed the door.

  “Come on, Jeff, we can do this nice and easy, n
o problems for anybody.”

  I put my hand to my cheek. It came away bloody.

  The negotiator’s voice grew even calmer, even more reasonable.

  “I know Darryl’s probably scared, but he doesn’t have to be, just come on down and we can get him home where he belongs. Then you and I can talk about what’s best for your little brother . . .”

  Jeff came out. He slipped out of the building, hands on his head, going, “Don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me,” and he wasn’t the hustler of the eighth grade who knew all the moves, wasn’t the dealer in big gold on the basketball court. He was a terrified thirteen-year-old in a dirty blue bandana, who’d been set up.

  Cops in body armor rushed forward and grabbed him. More cops started in to the building. A taxi pulled up and Jenny Kelly jumped out, dressed in a low-cut black satin blouse and black velvet skirt.

  “Jeff! Are you all right?”

  Jeff looked at her, and I think if they’d been alone, he might have started to cry. “Darryl’s up there alone . . .”

  “They’ll bring Darryl down safe,” I said.

  “I’ll take Darryl to your aunt’s again,” Jenny promised. A man climbed out of the taxi behind her and paid the driver. He was scowling. The rookie glanced down the front of Jenny’s dress.

  Jeff was cuffed and put into a car. Jenny turned to me. “Oh, your face, you’re hurt! Where will they take Jeff, Gene? Will you go, too? Please?”

  “I’ll have to. I told them it was me that Jeff phoned.”

  She smiled. I’d never seen her smile like that before, at least not at me. I kept my eyes raised to her face, and my own face blank. “Who set him up, Jenny?”

  “Set him up?”

  “That woman was yelling she’s Darryl’s mother and Jeff was going to kill her baby. Somebody wanted the cops to go storming in there and start shooting. If Jeff got killed, the NYPD would be used as executioners. If he didn’t, he’d still be so scared they’ll own him. Who is it, Jenny? The same ones who circulated that inflammatory crap about a Neighborhood Safety Information Network?”