Holding Pattern (19 page)

“A damn nice secretary you have,” Ward said.

The police superintendent seemed to be looking off at a skyscraper, surprisingly small and dull in the afternoon sun. A heavy man, so heavy that he might at any moment fall through the floor and plunge forever downward.

“‘Go right in.’ Damn nice. It can’t be easy for her.”

The police superintendent made slow steps away from the window, toward his desk, then sat down leisurely in his big leather armchair, eyes trained on the desk, giving Ward time to study the lumpy mass of his head, to penetrate the armored skin and gaze into the black skull, where a dry cloud hovered, the gathered force of will, reason, and worry. Light from the window gave the desk a liquid glow, an ashtray floating there like a water lily. The police superintendent pushed his long thick fingers into the leather desktop—worms burrowing into black earth, the material stretching and squeaking—then joined the fingers of both hands in a meaty cup. He cleared his throat.

“Might we get to it.”

Ward said nothing, his seeking gaze ranging over the police superintendent’s oddly constructed face. A diminishing crop of brown hair. Small brown eyes under an overhang of heavy eyelids and thick brows, so deeply embedded that they seemed to be sinking into the quicksand of fat-headed flesh. A swollen church bell of a nose. A broad yard of chin. And large ears that flapped in butterfly-like delight at the slightest movement.

The police superintendent lifted his eyes to Ward’s face. “I cannot stress enough”—gesturing with his hands—“how important it is that we follow our plan to the letter”—his palm held upward in supplication—“unless you can adduce any legitimate grounds for some fresh course of action.” He locked his fingers before him on the desk.

Ward watched him in silence.

“I am sorry. Profoundly sorry. Every one of us should be entitled to a private corner in the garden.” The police superintendent shook his head, weary, defeated. “Alas …” He parted his hands, nothing to offer.

Ward wet his lips. “The wonder of it,” he said. “Your face takes me back. Alluvial. Ah, the joys of evolution.”

The lines in the police superintendent’s face grew tight, as if disparate threads of yarn had been yanked all at once. “If your associates had been more careful in their actions, perhaps we could—”

“My associates?”

“Yes. Speaking plainly.”

“Allow me a question.”

The police superintendent spoke no reply, watching Ward with a look of come-what-may.

“Did you by any chance spend your beloved lunch hour bobbing for ripe, juicy turds?” Just like that. He began unbuttoning his black overcoat.

The police superintendent watched the unbuttoning without comment, blinking each time a button snapped free. He stirred heavily in his seat, then pushed himself up from his chair and walked to a third massive window, his profiled face metallic and gray in skyscraper glitter, his gold necklace no longer visible to the casual or curious observer, safe under the depths of his collar. He extended his arm stiffly out in front of him as if preparing to bend it in salute, caught the soiled shirt cuff between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, unsnapped the button, then rolled the sleeve up his arm—dense wiry hair on the wrist, now the forearm—to the elbow. He did the same with the other sleeve. Stood still a moment with his arms hanging at his sides. Then he brought both hands to his chest and pulled violently at his shirt like some high-story flasher exhibiting himself to the world, buttons catapulting into air. He twisted backward and began freeing himself of the shirt—thin gold necklace, bare heavy shoulders, bare meaty back and arms—tilting his torso to one side, then the other, until both sleeves were free. That done, he crumpled up the shirt between both hands, his violent belly hanging like a mound of descending lava over his belt, and moved forward, the sausage rolls of his sides quivering with each step and the shirt trailing along the carpet behind him. He dropped the garment into a wicker wastebasket and resumed his station behind his desk, hands folded in his lap, watching Ward with murderous hatred.

Ward gripped the arms of his chair and scooted to the edge of the seat, face extended over the desk, in breathing distance. Immobilized, the police superintendent continued to glare at him, even as the sun began to suddenly shift its position, a spotlight pivoting around the police superintendent until it took up a new station, where it beamed down at him from a furious angle and fired his face, brick like in ever-brightening colors. This police superintendent, singled out for illumination, his chest rising and falling, crashing waves on his chest. After some time, his posture eased, his shoulders relaxed. He cupped his hands underneath his belly and began rocking in the chair, his nose hairs visible one moment, gone the next, visible, gone, and so on.

“As you know, in this suspect we are dealing with a man who has been fortunate enough to travel in some of our most distinguished circles, not to mention the”—he stroked hairs curling out of his chest like barbed wire—“access he has—”

“I’ve been thinking,” Ward said.

At these words, the police superintendent rocked to a halt and fixed his gaze on Ward.

“Would you take my hand in marriage?”

The police superintendent grabbed the edges of the desk and leaned in close. “Look! I am appealing to your—”

“Don’t refuse me.”

“—better nature.” His nostrils blew hot air into Ward’s face. “A selfless act. Lives in the balance. After all, you gain as well. Your time to shine.”

“So thoughtful of you. Such abundance of caution and concern.”

The police superintendent poised over his desk, staring at Ward, indignation, abhorrence, annihilation.

It was cold where he lay, and under his head was a cold pillow. The yellowed glow of street lamps seeping under and around the edges of the window shade, frail wisps of light spinning like ballet dancers in the dark, with a reserved wind tapping modest applause against the paned glass. He shut his eyes and let the world spin free. The next thing he knew, he had spun out of orbit, his brain ricocheting off the black walls of his skull. He opened his eyes and found darkness in slow dissolution.

“Everything all right in there?” A hand pounded muffled words into the door. He turned the cold pearl of his pillowed face in the direction of the sound. Still no visual evidence that the door even existed, but he knew it was there, shadows crawling—black crabs—in the strip of light under its frame.

He listened to the wet whine of the rusty radiator. Snuggled under the covers, nose-deep in layered warmth, peeking over the top quilt at the shadowed ceiling.

“Hey!”

“Just relax.”

“The police superintendent will be here soon.”

“Just relax.” He turned back the bedcovers. Shivered to a cold greeting of air. Kicked his feet out from under the sheets. Sat upright in the bed—a cot, really, a narrow iron frame, small and set low—lax springs sagging under his insignificant weight. Placed his feet on the cold wooden floor. Seeing the thin window shade aglow with faint illumination, he tried unsuccessfully to convince himself that he felt its warmth on his skin. He bent forward and fingered the shade, which snapped back up on its roller, allowing morning light to rush into the room like a gate crasher—he shut his eyes.

“Hey!”

The shade spun and flapped. Some comfort in its sound.

“Relax. I’ll be right out.” He opened his eyes and reached up and pulled the shade, and a measure of darkness, down to its proper place. The window was completely frosted. Impossible to see through. He crossed his arms tightly about his chest and trembled as he stood. Circled the bed, arranging the bedcovers—folding ends, tucking edges, patting surfaces smooth. Removed two small plastic freezer-storage bags from the nightstand drawer, angled the fingers of one hand, then the other, inside each bag—translucent mittens—and lined the insides of his leather loafers, which were stationed on the seat of a wooden chair, the one black suit he owned draped over the chair back. He set the shoes on the floor between the chair legs. Rubbed his fingers diligently and carefully over a spot on the blazer’s collar. Satisfied, he folded the suit across his forearm and carried it over to the closet, where he squatted and took his thermal underwear and wool socks from a cardboard box positioned in a corner, with two additional suits, one brown, the other dark blue, hanging above it. He set the several items of clothing on the chair, removed the top blanket from the bed, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, smoothed the bedcovers, and exited the room with the clothing bunched against his chest.

Hands shoved in his pockets, a young officer who had spent the entire night outside Ward’s door—his guardian, his warden—sat slumped over on a stool wearing his department-issued cap and jacket, the side of his young face barely visible in sixty-watt gloom. He turned his head and peered up at Ward, one corner of his mouth twisted as if he were biting down on something. The sight of Ward changed the look in his eyes, the angle of his chin, the red polish of his cheeks. He pulled his hands from his pockets, sat as straight as he possibly could on the stool, and redirected his gaze to a neutral wall.

Ward pulled one side of the blanket tighter about his shoulders. “Fine job,” he said.

The young officer remained perfectly still, like someone sitting for a photograph, though Ward detected a faint suggestion of some forbidden emotion rising into his face.

Some time later, Ward came down the hall in sock feet, fully dressed otherwise, with the blanket shawled (sprawled warmth) around his shoulders; he was saddened to discover the young officer still at his post outside his room, now leaning forward on the stool, hands stuffed inside his pockets, head bowed, teeth chattering. For a moment Ward’s hands and legs refused to carry him forward, his thoughts spiraling around him in dark constricting bands. Before long he was able to move close enough that, if he so chose, he could offer a full sentence or two of consolation and support. However, his thoughts were soft in his wet insides like the tissues of coral but petrified when they hit the air. He settled on putting a firm hand on the officer’s shoulder, a touch that altered the crumpled tone of the other’s body.

Ward entered the room, dismayed to find the police superintendent stretched out on his cot, arms folded, pretzel-like, behind his head—not unlike how Ward himself might have been positioned in times past, less somber days—the mattress sagging under him, white bottom almost touching the dark floor, and the high sack of his belly like some missile preparing for launch through the ceiling. His breathing, a labored wheezing, did not come easy, some beached sea creature. He adjusted himself, turning slightly, bed-springs straining and squeaking. It was only then that Ward saw a white derby adorning his windowsill, drawing attention like some ill-placed trophy.

He stood there, astounded. “Glad you see fit,” he said.

The police superintendent turned his head and looked Ward up and down, disgusted, an action of such surprising force that Ward’s lips parted like a budding flower, shocked air pushing through, the bones in his legs starting to crumble and powder.

“Have a seat.”

Ward collapsed into the chair beside the bed.

“Crazy damn hours.”

“Don’t blame me.”

“No, I won’t. I can send your friend a note of thanks and—”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Oh no? Then how would you describe him?”

Ward sat there watching his other.

“Please, hold nothing back. I wish to make every effort to understand.”

Ward shrugged the shawl from his shoulders, onto the chair back, and bent forward in the chair, the plastic-lined shoes at his feet. “There’s nothing to understand.”

“No?”

“No.” Ward tugged and pulled at the tongue of one shoe as he began to squeeze and wiggle and stomp his foot inside it.

“Indeed. Not surprising, your curious—”

“Why don’t we just go?”

“—range of reasoning.”

“Kindly spare me the sermon.”

“Certainly. They don’t pay me to preach. What would you care to hear? You would care to hear that—”

“We have someplace to go.” He squeezed in the second foot and stood.

“No? Perhaps if I kneeled down and—”

“You wallow!”

The police superintendent popped upright on the bed. “Nothing could wallow like you.” He sat there on the bed staring up at Ward, his still form merged with the coarse sheets, the iron cot, a carved figure leaning out in relief from the substance that contained it. The radiator popped and hissed in the silence.

“Are we going to sit here all day?”

“May you rot.”

“Take comfort in the thought.” Ward lifted his overcoat from its closet hook and slipped inside it, his body mockingly insubstantial, the padded wrapping loose on his frame, like a hospital gown. But the police superintendent made no effort to move, anchored to stubborn place, unable to pull his hate back inside him link by link.

“Why don’t I meet you downstairs,” Ward said.

These words might have gone unheard or escaped comprehension. It was only when Ward started for the door that the police superintendent took to his feet and blocked his exit. He smacked his palms against his trouser legs to rid them of lint, shook the lapels of his overcoat, and brushed his hair flat with the sides of his hands. Then he eased around Ward, lifted his white derby from the windowsill, and fitted it onto his head. He pulled the door open—he did not hurry—and motioned for Ward to go through.

The winter sky was high and clear above short snowbanked streets. White wonder, enormous pancakelike flakes falling to the earth in rapid succession, blown aloft again in fierce twirlings. A car idled in fixed brilliance, all metal and glass. The hard-of-muscle young officer who’d guarded Ward’s room tugged harder at Ward’s elbow. Ward bent into the car and settled back onto the rear passenger seat. The officer slammed his door tight against the wind and cold, and in that instant, the front passenger door hinged open, snow rushing in with malicious intentions of beating the police superintendent to his seat. Only when his door slammed shut did he thoroughly examine his white derby for damage. The young officer took the other end of the rear passenger seat and shut the door. He turned his face to the glass, a full yard of leathered space between him and Ward. A second uniformed officer positioned himself behind the steering wheel and eased the smooth-running car forward. “Coldest day of the year,” he said, black-gloved fingers drumming on the wheel.