Icarus. (29 page)

"He always wanted you to see this," Bryan said. "The Playhouse, that's what he used to call it."

Jack turned away from the photos, turned to face Kid's sidekick. "About the gym, Bryan. My offer's still on the table. If you want to go ahead and do it, I'll back you with half the money."

Bryan stared at Jack, obviously surprised by his words, and quite moved. But he shook his head, a very slight gesture, from side to side, and looked sheepish. "Naahhh," he said. "I don't have the smarts. You'd be throwin' your money away. Kid, he was the one with the knack. People wanted to be around him. He coulda made it work. But me… I'm just a brick wall with a limp."

Dom's roar surprised them both. "Hey, don't crap on yourself," he growled. "I hate that feelin' sorry for yourself shit."

Bryan was instantly mortified that he'd said the wrong thing around Kid's great friends. He began stammering and apologizing, his face turned red with shame, and Dom immediately backed off.

"All I meant," Dom said, his voice still gruff but a lot softer, "is that you were a player. I remember. I know how fuckin' good you were. Sorry, I told myself I'd watch my mouth today."

"No, no," Bryan stammered. "That's okay. I just, you know, I didn't mean to say anything that-"

Jack mercifully cut him off. He spoke quietly and soothingly. He found Bryan's embarrassment painful. The kid was too nice for his own good and he wanted to put him out of his misery as quickly as possible. "Dom's right, Bryan. I mean, about you being a hell of a player. A sensational athlete. What happened? How come you didn't go on with it?"

Bryan calmed down a bit. The flush in his face was diminishing. "All sorts of things happened," he said. "You know, I went to St. John's with Kid. Got a football scholarship. I was big then, I mean much bigger physically, maybe you remember, or you can tell from some of the photos."

"I remember."

"Christ, yes," Dom added. "You were huge."

"Well, some of that was natural. You know, the weights and stuff, my diet. But when I was a sophomore in high school, Coach thought I had real potential, thought I could get a scholarship as an offensive lineman. But he said I was too little for a big-time college program. So he steered me toward the juice."

"You mean steroids," Jack said.

"Yeah. I knew they weren't good for me, and Kid was really against me takin' 'em; he kept tellin' me I was nuts to do it. I mean, he never put a bad thing in his body in his whole life, but, hey, what chance did I have to go to college, you know? I mean, I wasn't gonna get any academic scholarship. So, anyway, we both make the team" – Bryan suddenly stopped and again his face began to turn red. "Am I talkin' too much? About me, I mean?"

"No," Jack said. "Not at all."

"We want to hear it," Dom added. "Go ahead."

Bryan hesitated but Jack nodded, a prod, really, so he went on. "Well, Kid and me, it was funny, because in high school he was the one, you know, he was the star. But at St. J's, I don't think he had the desire. I mean, he was still a helluva quarterback but he wasn't gonna go pro or nothing. And somethin' kind of happened to him, I don't know what. He kinda lost interest, you know?"

"It was after that thing happened with that kid on the team, the halfback," Jack said.

"That was horrible," Bryan said, wincing at the memory.

"I remember how it affected Kid. He was devastated."

"My memory's a little hazy," Dom said, "The guy got in an accident or somethin'?"

"He got hurt in practice," Bryan said quietly. "Harvey Wiggins. We were scrimmaging and he got hit. Hard. You could hear it, it was like breakin' a piece of chalk. Everybody could hear it. But Kid was right next to him when it happened. He said he could hear it most of all."

"Harvey broke his neck, didn't he?"

"Yes, sir. Paralyzed."

"Jesus," Dom said. "I forgot about that."

"I guess that's what did it, 'cause after that the stuff we were doin' didn't seem so important to Kid. He never played the same, you know? Still, on a team the quarterback's the one. Gotta protect him at all costs. So I used to block like crazy for him, maybe so nothin' like what happened to Harvey could happen to him. I wouldn't let nobody touch Kid. My job was to keep him safe, so that's what I did. After my freshman year, there was some talk I could be a third-, maybe even second-team Ail-American. Not bad for Division 1 – AA. But in the last game of the season, I blew out my knee. ACL, really bad. And I don't think the surgeon did a great job. It just never rehabbed right. So, junior year, I didn't have a thing. I mean, I tried and all, but I couldn't move worth shit – sorry – I couldn't hardly move at all. So I got cut."

"What happened then?"

Bryan looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Jack said, "with school."

"Oh, hell, without football, what was I gonna do at school? I mean, maybe you noticed, but I ain't the brainiest guy in the world. And Kid left, you know, kinda ran away, really, didn't he, and I didn't really know no one at St. J's anyway. So I dropped out, worked at a few gyms, trained people, that kind of stuff. That's what I been doing. Until Kid came back and we started talking up our whole gym thing again. And then… well… and then this." He waved his hand toward the room above them. "This" meant the funeral. Kid's suicide.

"Why did Kid leave St. John's?" Jack asked. "After that junior year?"

Bryan looked flustered. Jack thought he was not used to being asked questions. He seemed unsure of his ability to take the thoughts in his head and translate them for other people.

"I don't really know," Bryan said, but he looked uncomfortable and Jack thought he knew more than he was telling.

"Did it have anything to do with what happened to Harvey?"

Bryan looked even more uncomfortable. Jack suspected he was not used to analyzing other people's actions. "He was a restless guy," Bryan said finally. "The thing about Kid was, he was never satisfied with what he had. I mean, he had a cushy life at school. The star of the team, all the girls he wanted. But that wasn't enough. Hey, for me that woulda been more than enough. For almost anybody. But not him. I don't think he knew what he wanted… he just wanted more. So he left to go find it."

"I wonder if that accident had anything to do with Kid becoming a physical therapist. If he felt responsible in some way."

"I just don't know," Bryan said.

"Why do you think he killed himself?" Jack said very softly.

"I don't know," Bryan said miserably. "And I've thought about it a lot. A lot. Sometimes I feel like I haven't thought about nothin' else since it happened. But I don't have a single idea in my head. All I know is he wasn't the only one who died. I swear to God, sometimes I think he took me with him."

She'd seen it in the paper. The Daily News. Page fourteen. A small story in the lower right-hand corner. She was not surprised, of course. Although she mourned and she grieved. Not as much as she needed to, though. She hadn't had the time to mourn properly. For one thing, Joe had been with her the whole time, almost since the moment she'd gotten home that evening. It wouldn't do to let on too much to Joe. For another, she had things to do. Calls to make. Loose ends to take care of and details that had to be kept quiet. Still, she could not pretend to be herself, and the next morning, she saw Joe watching her. She knew that scrutinizing gaze and she couldn't help but think: He knows. And then she almost laughed out loud because her next thought was: Of course he knows. Who was she kidding? He'd always known. The only question was how much he knew.

She would miss Kid. She would miss her wonderful and precious possession.

But already she was realizing she wouldn't miss him as much as she thought she would.

Because he never should have tried to leave her.

He should never have tried to think about or talk about or finally even do the unimaginable.

So, yes, she would miss him. But she was already wondering how long it would take her to find a replacement.

– "-"-"SAMSONITE It's all they were fucking talking about. At the club. All night long. The bartender, the bouncer, the waitresses. Even some of the customers.

Mr. Wonderful was dead.

They all said he killed himself. But she knew differently, didn't she? She sure as hell knew fucking differently.

At least she thought she did.

No, no, she definitely did. There was no fucking question about it. It took her a while to remember but it always took her a while to remember stuff. So she wasn't concerned. She knew something was bothering her and then she remembered what it was. Then, when she did, something else started bothering her.

Because once she remembered, she remembered something else. Congratu-fucking-lations, she thought to herself. Two biggies in one day. And of all the fucking things she'd have to remember, it would be these two, wouldn't it? There was an old Russian proverb: The more you forget the longer you live. But, no, not her. She was American now, so she remembered.

The first thing she remembered was weird enough. But the second thing was even weirder.

The second thing was: Jesus fucking Christ. I think I fucking killed him.

– "-"-"THE ENTERTAINER One of the dancers from the club had called to tell her. Ex-dancer, whose stage name was Torre but whose real name was Sue Ellen. Torre didn't work at the club anymore. She'd gotten a little too fat and had been fired. So she worked at a place out in Queens now that was really the pits. Real lowlifes and bad tippers. But she knew Kid, too, and she'd heard about it so she'd called.

That night at the club, she wondered if anyone would say anything to her but nobody did. She kind of felt like talking but she didn't really know who to talk to. At some point, while she was sitting with a client, she'd said, "Someone I know just died. Fell off a roof," and the guy had said, "Yeah? Tell me about it," but she knew he didn't really want to hear about it, he just thought that maybe she was vulnerable and could use it, so she shook her head and didn't say another word.

Around one or so, Kid's friend came in. The one she always saw around and even talked to sometimes and whose name she could never remember. Kid's shadow. She watched him while he stood at the bar and had a beer and she didn't think she'd ever seen anyone quite as sad. Somebody must have called him, too. He was like some poor, friendly puppy who'd gotten his leg run over by a car and all he could do was cry and wait for someone to come help him.

She thought that maybe she should be the one to help him, then thought, What am I doing? It was the last thing she needed. Really and truly the last thing.

She watched him over at the bar. She wondered if he knew about her and Kid. He'd seen them together but she never had a clue what Kid used to talk about. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe it was okay to talk to him. She knew that he was nice but she knew if she talked to him one thing would lead to another. He'd want to come over and he'd want to touch her and she'd probably let him. But then he'd start to think that maybe this was going to be a regular thing. And it couldn't even be a sometime thing. Okay, so he was nice and certainly good-looking and his body looked like it was amazing. But he didn't have any money, that was clear. Plus, he did have that look to him, that puppy look, and the last thing she wanted around her all the time was a puppy – a poor puppy – nipping at her heels and wanting her to take care of him.

He looked up and saw her looking at him and he smiled at her, a really sad smile, but she turned away as if she didn't recognize him.

She did not want a puppy under her feet. Especially a puppy who knew Kid.

She realized she'd hardly thought about Kid at all. It was strange. She wondered what her psychology professor would say about that. She thought maybe she would ask him, but then she realized she did not want to talk about Kid with her psych prof. That would be really and truly dumb. Although the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. She could see herself telling him how she had known Kid and now he was dead and how he had died and that she wasn't thinking about him at all and wasn't that strange?

She didn't really believe in heaven, but she thought there was just a chance that Kid could somehow be up above, looking down and watching her talk about him to the middle-aged professor who she knew drooled over her and probably stayed awake at night thinking about what she looked like naked. Kid would look down and see that and hear about the way he'd died and how she didn't care.

She smiled at the image.

Really and truly smiled.

It would kill him all over again, she thought. Es verdad. It really and truly would.

– "-"-"THE MURDERESS She didn't think that anyone had seen her.

Well, sure, people had seen her, it's not like she was invisible. But no one had really seen her. Noticed her. Paid attention to her, is what she really meant.

That was good. She did not need to be noticed. Not with all that was happening. And certainly not with all that had happened.

She knew she shouldn't have gone to meet him. Goddamn Kid, with his tousled hair and that crooked little grin. Why couldn't she have stayed away? She'd been doing so well. She'd been on her way. And she'd been so… so damn sophisticated. Damn him for coming to see her, for begging her to see him, for telling her all the things he told her.

Just because he knew about her, knew about her past, that didn't give him the right to do what he did. Nothing gave him that right.

She felt herself getting angry again.

Then she stopped. Maybe there was no need to get angry. Maybe there was no need to be afraid, either. Kid was dead now.

So maybe it was all over.

Maybe this was the end of it.

She hoped so.