Hell Gate (25 page)

Logan’s clapping and laughing were almost at a fever pitch.

“And the answer is, Contraband in America—for almost a hundred years, this liquid was reputed to drive men mad,” Trebek read from the board. “MYTH OR MADNESS.”

“Was there a liquid opium?” Mike asked.

“If that’s your question, then you lose,” I said. “What is absinthe?”

“How did I miss that? The bartender in me should have known. But what’s the myth?”

“Supposedly it’s what Van Gogh was drinking the night he cut off his ear and gave it to a prostitute. Poe, Baudelaire, Wilde—a lot of far-fetched stories about how dangerous a liquor it is.”

In Le Zinc, the chic bar in Luc’s restaurant in the charming village of Mougins, he had a vintage poster of a madman drinking the green spirit, with the warning:
L’Absinthe Rend Fou
—absinthe makes you crazy. It had been banned in this country in 1912, and only legalized again in 2007.

“Lexi wins, Logan. Got to brush your teeth and get ready for story time.”

Mike flipped the child over his head and sent him running back to me. We went upstairs and after cleaning up, Logan went directly to the shelf in his room to grab a fistful of books and threw himself onto his bed.

“Which one do you want me to start with?” I asked, sitting beside him as he put his head on the pillow and snuggled against me.

“You’ve probably read that one a gazillion times,” Mike said, walking into the room. “Don’t you want me to tell you about the time your daddy and I had to battle the dinosaurs in Central Park?”

Logan was clapping his hands, so wired that I doubted he would ever sleep. “Yeah, tell that one.”

He was at the age when everything about the prehistoric creatures fascinated him. He could recognize the shapes of each species and knew their names, but couldn’t quite get the timeline that made Mike’s tales so outrageously fanciful.

Mike pulled up the rocking chair and placed it directly in front of Logan so the child could see every expression and gesture. There was no better storyteller I’d ever seen than Mike, as he primed the background for Logan—the “good guys,” Mike and Mercer—who were rookies in the Police Academy, setting out to protect the city from the invasion of the dinosaurs who had been hiding for centuries in the Rocky Mountains.

The story was complex and colorful. In addition to the wide variety of predators Logan knew, Mike made up dozens of others, colored them with stripes and polka dots, and crafted them to graze on favorite foods—the detectosaurus on police officers, the toddlersaurus on kids who didn’t go to sleep on time, and the Lexisaurus on babysitters who weren’t any fun to have around.

Fifteen minutes in, I was squished into the corner where the bed met the wall. Logan had laughed at the funny parts and practically crawled over my head when he was scared by the final confrontation near the zoo inside the park.

“Let’s not set up any night-m-a-r-e-s, Uncle Mike,” I said, spelling out the second half of the word. “There’s enough adrenaline going here to keep my guy up till dawn. I’ll really lose my job.”

“We always close happy,” Mike said. “Don’t we, Lo-lo-lo-Logan?”

The story ended with the dinosaurs agreeing to help Mercer patrol and keep the bad guys in line, with the swat of a long tail or the threat of a velociraptor claw.

“ ’ Nother one, Mikey. ’Nother one.”

Logan was exhausted but fighting the end of his happy evening.

“No way, my friend. That was a two-book extravaganza. Lexi has to read you something about bunnies or balloons,” he said, leaving me to calm the child. “I’ll be right downstairs, making sure your mom and daddy don’t come home while you’re still all wild and wooly.”

“And whose fault would that be?” I asked.

Mike leaned over for a hug and Logan locked his arms around Mike’s neck. When he straightened up, Logan came along with him. They kissed good-night as I scrambled out of the bed and smoothed it for the little boy to get ready for sleep.

I picked a brightly decorated book with a cheerful title that I thought would help soothe Logan, and read the short story to him. When that was done, I closed the light and lay down next to him for ten minutes, stroking his baby soft skin and feeling his warmth against me.

When he dropped off to sleep, I turned on the night-light and went downstairs. I could hear Mike in the kitchen.

“Did you eat?” he asked. It was almost eight thirty.

“Not yet, but there’s some meat loaf,” I said. “This is a really pleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?”

“Nan called me. She thought the babysitter needed a babysitter. Or maybe a straitjacket. She told me about your reaction and the nine-one-one call this afternoon.”

“I don’t need anything, actually, but I haven’t seen you—I mean, to talk to or anything like that—in far too long.”

Mike was taking things out of the shopping bag and stacking them next to the stove. “Forget the meat loaf. I stopped at Patroon. Ken loaded me up with a feast. Light a fire in the den and we’ll eat in there.”

I was thoroughly taken with Mike’s thoughtfulness and confused, as I had been for a very long time, by my feelings about him. I had wonderfully loyal and devoted girlfriends, but he was the man I had become closer to in the last ten years than any of the guys I had dated. I had fallen madly in love with Luc a year ago, but I loved Mike too—although I thought in a way that was not romantic. Every now and then a sweet moment like this presented itself, while I was too tired and emotionally wrought to figure out what was going on inside my head and heart.

“I’m starving. I could eat a bear.”

“Hate to disappoint but Ken was fresh out of grizzlies. Fix me a drink, will you?”

“Mercer put some nice white on ice.”

“White doesn’t go with bear—or with a porterhouse. I guess you haven’t spent enough time in France to figure that out.”

Ken Aretsky was one of New York’s great restaurateurs and a dear friend of mine. I had introduced Luc to him, because his upscale eatery on East Forty-sixth Street was a model of fine dining—first-class food, a wine list with incredible depth, and an elegant setting for any good meal—the kind of place Luc was planning to reinvent in his father’s style.

“I hope you brought sides. He’s got the best onion rings in the world—and garlic mashed potatoes. And sautéed spinach,” I said. “Can you tell I skipped lunch? You want vodka or red wine?”

Patroon was anything but a take-out place, yet Ken had frequently arranged deliveries to my apartment when he heard I was under the weather or hunkered down in preparation for a trial.

“You get the fire going, find the red wine, and I’ll set out the dinner. I know how much you go for guys who can cook,” Mike said.

I walked into the den. There were logs in the fireplace and matches on the mantel, so I poked around until the sparks seemed to take on the dry wood.

I went into the powder room and freshened up. I hadn’t put on lipstick or blush the entire day, and now I found myself borrowing Vickee’s things to apply a bit of makeup, brush my hair, and dab on perfume. I stared at myself in the mirror, barely recognizing the tense and exhausted face that stared back at me.

Then I checked the fire, which was going full force. The wine rack and bar were across the room, and I selected a nice California red to avoid any more conversation about France. When I picked up the corkscrew bottle opener, my stomach churned at the thought of Salma Zunega’s neck.

“You want to get the silverware and some napkins?” Mike asked. He had come into the room carrying a platter with a black-and-blue porterhouse for two that he had sliced for us. “Give me the wine opener. Bad territory for you to revisit.”

I passed it off to him and went into the kitchen. When I returned with the place settings, Mike had uncorked the bottle and set out the glasses on the table in front of the sofa. We both made another trip back to bring in the little plates with the veggies and potatoes that Ken had included, knowing my favorites.

“Sit down and help yourself,” Mike said.

“Let me just run up and make sure Logan’s out.”

I climbed to the top of the stairs and peeked into his room. He had curled up under his quilt, surrounded by his favorite stuffed animals, and was sound asleep.

I came back down as Mike was pouring the wine. He lifted his glass and clinked it against mine. “Cheers—here’s to everything you want in the New Year.”

“You make a resolution to be nice to me? That’s top of my list.”

“How could I be nicer than this? The best grub in town, a really fine house, a cute kid. You look great with him, Coop. You look like a natural with that little guy snuggled up tight against you.”

“Here we go again.”

“You have a good time in Paris?”

I didn’t answer.

“No, really. I’m being sincere now. Can’t you tell me if you had a good time?”

“I had a very nice time, Mike. Luc’s an easy guy,” I said, putting down my fork and reaching for the wineglass. Luc adored me and seemed to understand my commitment to the erratic lifestyle of a big-city prosecutor. “His life is so different from ours. There’s no urgency to anything he does, people’s lives don’t hang in the balance. A crisis is whether someone in the biz gets two stars or three.”

“I hear the great chefs kill themselves over that, Coop. I wouldn’t make fun.”

“I’m not. It’s just like living in a fairy tale to fly away from home, leave all my cases for a week, and suspend time in a kind of fantasy life in the middle of the most beautiful village in the world.” I stopped for a minute and put my head back on the thick chenille pillow. “I just don’t know where this is all going.”

“Mind if I take this other end piece?” Mike asked without waiting for the answer. He was eating through all the conversation, as he always did. He handed me one of the enormous onion rings and I munched on it while I watched the flames dance in the fireplace.

“What about you?” I said.

“I’m chewing. You know how you always tell me not to talk with my mouth full?”

I leaned forward and cut a few more bites of steak for myself. Mike had been in love with an architect named Valerie who had survived a bout with breast cancer, only to die in a freak skiing accident more than a year ago.

“I know what Val’s death did to you,” I said. I thought I knew its impact as well as anyone, because of my own immeasurable loss. “She wouldn’t want you—”

“Here’s what’s stupid, Coop. Number two on my list of stupid things people say, okay?”

Mike’s number-one peeve was the word
closure
. He hated that families of murder victims thought the arrest or conviction of a killer would bring closure to their painful journeys. Instead, while it offered some sort of resolution, he knew that nothing could ever provide what people really wanted—to see their loved ones again, to undo the crimes themselves and the irreplaceable loss of a human life.

“Sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean—”

“Number two, Coop. How does anyone know what Val would want? She’s dead. Why are folks always so sure what the dead would want? People use that expression all the time and I happen to think it’s stupid. Maybe she’d want me to go to a monastery and meditate. Maybe she’d want me to try out at first base for the Yankees. I didn’t know she was gonna die so I really never asked her what she’d want.”

I could see that I’d touched a raw nerve.

“Objection sustained,” I said, and Mike smiled at the legalese. “Let me rephrase that, Detective Chapman. Does what I want count for anything?”

“Depends on what it is,” he said, stabbing another piece of steak and holding it out like an exhibit before putting it in his mouth. “If it was this particular piece of meat, I’d have to say it doesn’t matter what you want.”

“I take it you’re dating again.”

“Spinach is good for you, blondie. Put some on your plate,” Mike said. “I’m trying to get myself out there.”

“That’s great. I really think it is. It’s time, Mike.”

“You know me. Most of the broads I meet are too high maintenance.”

“Rumor has it you met a judge at Roger’s Christmas party.”

“I—I met a lot of people at the party. Saw a lot of old friends.”

“And left with a very attractive judge. Want to tell me about her?” I pushed my plate away, kicked off my shoes, and curled up on the sofa.

“You crack me up, Coop. You got me tailed? Which of your girls has the big mouth?” Mike said, reaching over and taking the steak from my plate.

“What’s to say the judge isn’t talking?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Not with her.”

“Judge Levit,” I said. “Fanny Levit. Just appointed, Civil Supreme. Age?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“Hmmmm. An older woman.” Mike had turned thirty-eight in the fall, six months ahead of me.

“By a year.”

“Lighten up, Detective,” I said, sticking my toe in his side. “How many times have you seen her?”

“I met her at Roger’s. Took her to dinner the other night,” he said, getting to his feet and carrying our dinner dishes into the kitchen.

“So why
are
you here?” I called after him. It wasn’t the few sips of wine I’d had that was making me feel frisky.

Maybe Mike was stuck with the same dilemma I was, wondering how our superb professional partnership would be affected by a change in personal direction. At the same time it both interested and frightened me. Once we crossed the line of intimacy, we’d never be able to work cases together again.

He returned from the kitchen carrying a bowl stacked high with profiteroles—Patroon’s best dessert and one of my sweet-tooth weaknesses—covered with chocolate sauce.

“I’m here ’cause of you,” he said, handing me a spoon and offering first dibs on dessert.

“Sometimes you come out of nowhere at me, Michael Patrick Chapman, and I am so pleasantly surprised,” I said, reaching over to brush the crumbs off his sweater.