Brooklyn Bones (34 page)
The storefront was where I remembered it. It used to be a shop for smokes, Lotto tickets, and—maybe, probably, in the back—illegal substances. Though it was a bright summer day, there was no one on the street of mostly empty storefronts and no reason for anyone to be there. The alley was dark even in daylight, deeply shaded by taller buildings, the cracked pavement covered with rubble and oversize beer bottles. Probably worse, too.
The back door swung open before I even touched it and I stepped into a dark room. It was not dimly lit, it was completely pitch-black dark.
A voice came out of the darkness. “Thank you for coming,” a man’s voice, not at all as grateful as his words. “And be aware that there is a large, armed man near you.”
“What do you want from me? And where is my daughter?”
“She’s right here, as promised. Young lady, assure your mother of that.”
“Mom….” And then she was cut off.
My knees buckled at the sound of her voice. She was right there and I could not see her or touch her. I tried to keep my rage out of my voice when I said, again, “What do you want from me?”
“That package in your hand, of course. Yes, we saw it as you came to the door. Put it down and don’t look behind you. For obvious reasons, we do not want to be seen by you, but when you put it down, someone will take it into another room to look over. If it’s all there, we will disappear and leave your daughter behind. A nice neat plan. No one gets hurt and no one gets into any trouble.”
I put the shopping bag down. I heard footsteps behind me and I sensed a little light. Then there some noise moving away from me.
“I want to talk to my daughter.” I knew I had nothing to bargain with, and so did he, that voice. He didn’t even respond,
I stood and waited, trying to calm my raggedy breathing and telling myself, again and again, that it would be all right in just a few minutes.
I heard a noise in the alley, and sensed alertness behind me. Then it was gone.
I called out, “Chris,” but there was no answer.
“Chris, honey, are you there?”
“Yes.” Then she was cut off.
I was still trapped in that nightmare. Nothing could compare to this.
“Have any of you thugs offered Ms. Donato a chair?” It was James’ voice, distorted a little, but unmistakable. I was simultaneously both shocked to hear it and yet not even surprised. Of course. It had to be his.
There was soft movement behind me and I felt a seat press against the back of my legs. I collapsed into it.
“Please forgive them. You don’t get the highest class of help for this kind of work. This isn’t exactly routine corporate security. And please forgive me for putting you through this. I am not a thug, but you left me no choice.”
“Are you here?” I could not believe that.
“Aha, so you think you know who I am. No, of course I am not there in the flesh. I am on a remote connection so I can keep on top of what is happening. You will not be seeing me, and you will never be able to prove that I was even talking to you. Oh, by the way, I suggest you not even use my name, assuming you are correct about what it is.”
“I don’t understand…”
“What don’t you understand?” He sounded almost concerned, though that seemed highly unlikely. “That I am not there? Or that I am involved?”
I couldn’t even begin to list everything I didn’t understand, so he stepped into the silence, as if he too was uncomfortable, impossible though that seemed. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you—I have been so advised—but I don’t want you to think too badly of me. Your daughter has not been harmed; I don’t attack little girls. If you have done what you were told, this whole situation simply disappears into the air like a mist.”
“But why?”
I spoke into the dark, focusing on the voices in the room since there was nothing I could see. There was a tiny thread of light down near the floor. A door, I thought, into another room. That was all.
Chris must be there, in that other room.
“Ah, Ms. Donato you are still your inquisitive self. Surely you know all about this. Loving a child, protecting them when they make mistakes, catching them when they slip and fall. We all owe them that, don’t we?”
“Your son.”
“My son. I did nothing but make mistakes with him, but I could not let him go to jail for that one judgment-impaired night, the one at your house, now could I?”
“You helped him…”
“I had people who helped him. Yes, at my request. And I had people who helped keep it a secret all those years. People who knew, and learned it was to their advantage to forget. People I could help, through the years. People who didn’t ask questions when they might have. I saw to that in the earlier years, when it surely would have mattered. You must have guessed at some?”
“Brenda Petry? She was so scared about what I was finding, protecting her reputation? Was she there that night?”
Silence.
“She kept quiet and you helped her with business connections? And investing, maybe?”
More silence.
“Rick? Did he know something happened there? Or guessed?” I knew it as I said it. No one had to tell me. It had been in front of me all along. “Leary’s notes. Rick was on a missing child investigation. And he knew something? And he didn’t look?”
“Ah,” was all he said. All he had to say. “All along I knew someone might show up who would take the house apart, but as the years went on, it mattered less and less. I felt sure no one was still looking, no one would still care and certainly no one could find those old puzzle pieces.” He stopped, then went on, “I must have been losing my talent for outthinking the other players. You, my dear, turned out to be the wild card.”
“I don’t care about any of it now.” Perhaps I shouted it. “Let me have my daughter and as you say, the whole story becomes so much mist.”
“I made sure of that by telling you to bring every piece of information you have unfortunately dug up. Foolish of that old reporter to give you files. You could go now and spin this wild tale about an abduction and who would take you seriously? I have other people—they would destroy your reputation with just a few hints in the right places. Keep that in mind…after.”
I had to try not to scream at him. I had to try not to sound accusing.
“It was a long time ago. Why does it still matter to you? Keeping it a secret, I mean?”
“Well, I’m a businessman so let’s call it closing out my books. The doctors tell me the time for that has come, and I don’t have much of it left. The best doctors money can buy and all they can get me is a few more months. You understand? I may not have been much of a father—the one failure of my so-successful life—and my poor JJ wasn’t much of a son, but I can’t bear to end my life with the entire world learning that my boy was even more of a disgrace than everyone suspected. I’ve covered it up all these years. Do you think I was letting someone like you, a student, a nobody, wreck that?” Even through the speaker I could hear his voice shake.
“Here I am, the famous financier and philanthropist, and the only thing people will be talking about will be this new scandal about my boy. Just like my poor friend Brooke Astor with a public scandal on her deathbed. Making sure that story remains buried where it has been and still belongs, in the past, is the last thing I can do for my son.”
It sounded more like the last thing he would do for himself. I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t say, “What about that poor girl, and the people who loved her?” I couldn’t say anything. Not until I had Chris safe in my arms and out of this black hole.
There was the sound of the outside door scraping along the floor, and then a bright beam of light was cutting wildly into the darkness. I was almost blinded when it hit my face. Then as it danced crazily across the walls, I had glimpses, like flashes of old, jerky film, of a cellar-like room and of a large man moving quickly. Then, suddenly, the light stopped flying around the room and landed on me, and Mary’s voice was saying, “Why, Mrs. Donato, what are you doing here?”
I could barely see her face, not enough to see an expression, but her voice was confused. “Did I invite you here? It’s one of my hangouts but I don’t remember doing that. How careless of me. Not that you aren’t welcome. And this other man? Your friend?” She swung the flashlight back to him where he was planted in front of the door.
He looked nervous and confused. And familiar. He was the man who took photos in front of my house. Of course.
“A gun?” Mary was saying. “My, my. Not a very polite way to make a visit. Not at all. Let’s get some more light in here.” The clicking sound of a switch and suddenly there was a bare, dim bulb overhead, hanging from a string. The man held up a gun, moving it back and forth from me, to Mary, to me, as if he could not decide who was more dangerous. I was way too frightened, then, to see that how ridiculous that was.
She sighed. “Boys and their toys. You want to play a game?” Then she started flicking the light switch on and off. On. Off. On. Off. He was shouting at her, and in the flickering, I could see him frantically waving his gun. The erratic light didn’t give him a chance to aim it anywhere.
I stood up, prepared to take any opportunity. The light went on for a split second and I was ready. The chair was light enough to lift, heavy enough to do damage. I heaved it at him and heard a satisfying crash, and then a deep moan.
Then the light went on and stayed on. Mary shouted, “Ha!” and smacked him on the side of his head with her flashlight, while I picked up his gun. We were both breathing hard.
There were noises from the other side of the door, scuffling feet, a shouted “What the hell…”
I stood behind the door, gun up. Did I know how to use it? No. I hadn’t touched a gun since I had a friend who was a rookie cop. I hoped I had seen enough cop shows on TV to look competent and scary. Really scary.
Mary was daydreaming, admiring her long silver flashlight, so I reached over myself and turned the light out. I would open the door into—I hoped—a bright room, and coming out of darkness I would be safer and scarier. I hoped.
I took a deep breath, prayed to the deities I don’t believe in, held the gun up in a way I hoped was threatening, and pushed the door open. In a split second I took in Chris, handcuffed to a chair; two men with guns pointed at me, and Steven. I pointed my gun right at him, locked eyes, and ignored everything else. “Drop the guns to the floor. I mean it. James, if you hear me, tell them. I am pointing a gun at your other poor excuse for a son.”
At the edge of my vision, I saw Chris’ eyes open wide.
“And I mean it too,” Mary piped up. “I have your back. My gun is right here.” I thought it was just her flashlight but I could not look.
James calmly said, “Better listen to the ladies.”
The sound of hardware hitting the floor told me no one was taking any chances on my gun or Mary’s.
“Erica,” Steven stood up, “This is all a misunderstanding. You must know…I couldn’t stop this….but I made them include me…to make sure nothing happened to Chris….”
“Go to hell, Steven. Here you are, and here is my daughter. There is no misunderstanding.” Without turning my eyes away from him, I added, “One of you untie her from that damn chair.” When she was free, I said, “Chris, honey, get up, and move away, behind me. Can you take my phone out of my pocket ? And call Russo? Call 911 AND Russo?”
“No need,” Mary sang out. “Cavalry is on the way.”
“What?” Several voices said it all at once.
“I followed you here. I wanted to tell you something. This is not a nice place at all, very creepy, this block, so I called from the phone at the gas station. Lucky I had some change on me, safe in my shoe! I was a secret caller. I said I heard gun shots.” She smiled a loopy grin. “Figured that would get some fast attention.”
A minute later, or a second later, the room was full of men in blue windbreakers with real guns in their hands, and Chris was in my arms. There was a kind of organized chaos all around us, questions, shouting, protests, but we just held each other, crying, while Mary looked around with satisfaction and a vague smile, repeating, “Like I said.”
It took a few hours to sort it all out. And then it took a few more days, a few more weeks, and a few more months.
At the moment it all happened, I was insisting they call Lt. Russo. Steven and the other two men were insisting it was all a mistake. They were assured they would have an opportunity to explain it all to someone higher up the food chain.
Chris was alternating between insisting that it was not a mistake and she had been kidnapped, and apologizing to me. Mary was sitting on a chair suggesting drinks all around to celebrate.
The uniformed cops kept us all there and told us to keep quiet while they asked questions and made phone calls. I turned my back on Steven when he tried, again, to talk to me, and I held Chris tight. In short order, all three men were bundled into a police car and Chris and I were more politely ushered into another. When we left, Mary was insisting she had no interest in talking to anyone and wasn’t getting into anyone’s car, police or otherwise.
At the station, Chris talked to Russo alone, in spite of my doubts. I talked to him, while a young cop offered to get Chris a slice of pizza and another took her off to clean up.
