The Railroad (20 page)

I jumped off the couch and stared angrily at the door. It could have been someone trying to sell me something. Or maybe it was a meter reader. That opened up a whole line of unpleasant possibilities; I’d begun to become delinquent with my bills in the previous few months and it wasn’t impossible that someone was coming to ask me for money. Then there was the possibility, however remote, that it was Bob Benoit or one of his friends ringing my bell.

I shuffled to the door and yelled, “Who is it?” My voice sounded raspy and weak.

“Are you sick or are you just hungover?” a muffled voice asked.

I rolled the voice over in my mind, knowing that it sounded frustratingly familiar. Then a face popped into my mind.

I opened the door and saw the same annoying face I’d just imagined. “I know. You weren’t expecting me,” Moskowitz said, smiling.

I wanted to ask him why he was on my porch, but I hadn’t come to dislike him enough to be rude. So I asked him in. Then I remembered the threat that Benoit had made about keeping watch on me. That made me want to ask him in all the more.

He stood in my living room and surveyed it like he was going to buy my house. “It doesn’t look much better, and I can assume from the way the couch looks and your red eyes that you’ve been sleeping.”

“And why do you care about all this?”

“I’ve been wondering what you’ve been up to. I came to the conclusion that you were drinking too much and sleeping late and pissing away your time. You look like shit.” He studied my bruises.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked him.

“No I didn’t come over for a drink. It’s two o’clock, Mike. Not exactly whiskey time.”

“Then I’ll have one.”

I walked into my kitchen. My walk determined and obviously angry. I could feel Moskowitz’s eyes on my back. He didn’t say anything; I knew he had the patience of the terminally self-righteous.

When I returned to the living room he hadn’t moved. His eyes tracked me as I plunked down my new bottle of Laphroaig, an ice bucket, and a glass on the coffee table. I dug my hand into the bucket, brought forth five pieces of ice and let them fall noisily into the glass. Then I took a knife, broke the seal on the bottle, pulled the cork and poured a very healthy drink.

“I really like the bottle in the armpit thing. You’ve become a very efficient drinker.”

“I practice every day.”

“And where is that getting you?”

“Where is it that you think I ought to be?”

“Not locked in a shithole of a house, drinking yourself to death.”

I laughed. Then I picked up the glass and drained half its contents. “Do you think I should be more like you?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Why did you come over here?”

“I told you a few days ago. I don’t like to see people fall into a hole and give up. You’re letting Benoit win.”

I gestured at my face and the bruises he’d no doubt noticed. “He already has.”

“No he hasn’t. This will go on his record. Along with the last time he came to your house.”

I stared. “What will go on his record?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“In answer to the question you’re going to ask: Yes. I know about the other night.”

“So why would you say he didn’t win?”

“He’s been embarrassed. He has to go for some kind of therapy. Group therapy actually. Can you imagine what that would be like for someone like Benoit? He can’t use his influence and get out of it. That makes it worse. He’s going to be like a bad boy being punished.”

“I won’t ask you how you know all this. But I’m getting the impression he won’t go to jail.”

“No he won’t. That was never a good possibility.”

“What about the other time he came to my house? Wouldn’t two times make him a repeat offender?

“Maybe if it was someone else. They don’t consider the first time assault. You didn’t get hurt.”

“Wonderful. And why wasn’t I invited to his trial?"

“He didn’t have one. It was a hearing with a judge.”

“They still could have kept me apprised.”

He grimaced. “To some extent the outcome was predictable.”

“That’s great.”

“It’s our justice system. He’s got friends.”

“Isn’t this going to make him angrier and more likely to come after me?”

“He is angry. But he won’t come after you for a while. Even he can take only so many risks.”

“Maybe he’ll get someone else to do it.”

“Probably not. If someone comes after you, well you know where they’ll be looking. His friends can’t protect him once he puts his foot in it.”

“So I have something to look forward to after some time goes by. Is that it?”

“What’s the saying about revenge?”

I laughed. “Best served cold. Right?”

“I think that might describe Benoit’s mentality.”

“I wonder if it occurs to him that he makes his own problems?”

“I doubt it. That would be painful. I’m sure he tries to avoid thoughts like that. “

I shrugged. “Okay. So maybe he’ll win in the long run.”

“Maybe. I’m going to suggest that you leave Bardstown.”

“Why?”

“So he doesn’t win.”

“I’m not sure I care.”

“You’re not going to help Eileen and Megan by not caring.”

“You’re starting to get me angry. I’d still like to think that I live in a place where I can’t be run out of town by the High Sheriff because he doesn’t like my face.”

“You’re being obtuse just for the sake of it. I expect better from you.”

We locked stares. Then he looked away. “Why are you being such an asshole?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to let Benoit win. We can leave it at that. To tell you the truth, there’ve been a lot of people winning at my expense in my life in the last few months. I’m sick of it.”

His eyes narrowed; here was something he didn’t know about and that made him nervous. “Meaning what?”

“Oh nothing. I’m being perverse.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“You seem to think I want your help.”

“You can humor me.”

I debated whether I should ask him to leave. Then it occurred to me that this type of pious holier-than-thou crap Moskowitz was dishing out, was one of the things that made me leave the City in the first place. Barbara had been full of it and even Dennis had taken his shots at me. I was still angry and I thought I might as well get it off my chest.

“Okay. I’m from New York. I worked in the Wall Street area. Anything come to mind?”

His eyes clouded and I could see him grinding the facts in his head; he didn’t like not knowing.

“Oh,” he said finally. “That.”

“Yes, that. Why do you think I moved up here?”

“Well that’s just another obstacle, but it isn’t an insoluble problem.”

I laughed. Then I finished my drink, laughed again and poured some more whiskey into my glass. “What isn’t an insoluble problem, Moskowitz? You don’t even know what happened to me. You don’t know how bad it was. How do you know what's insoluble or not?”

“Well…” he started.

“You were going to give me an answer without knowing anything, weren’t you?”

He stared sullenly at the coffee table. “Okay. So I don’t know.” His eye rose to meet mine. “Tell me.”

I did tell him. And suddenly it seemed good to be talking about it. I was angry at the pricks who’d ruined my life and the lives of others and I was angry at Moskowitz as well. It all seemed to fit together. I must have gone on for half an hour. Moskowitz never moved; he just kept his eyes on my face. When I’d finished, he simply nodded his head.

I sighed. “Now you’re going to tell me that 9/11 is just another obstacle that I can handle.”

“Well isn’t it?”

“Not if you were there.”

“Okay. I’ll accept that for now. But you need to get out of here once in a while. How about coming over, no, not tonight. How about tomorrow night? My wife is a good cook. I told her about you.”

“What makes you think I want to come to your house? I only asked you over the other day to talk about Eileen and Megan. I don’t know you.”

“So? You will.”

“What is this all about?”

“Mike! I told you. I’m a Jewish mother. I won’t give up on anyone unless they become dangerous to me and my family.”

“Let me take a leak,” I told him.

“That’s fine. How about dinner?”

“Can you
wait
?”

“Not well.”

I waved him away and went to the bathroom. When I came out he was looking through my cabinet of books and movies. He had a few in his hand which he waved at me. “These are good. You should watch them. It’ll take your mind off yourself.”

“You really know how to sell yourself.”

He ignored me and continued removing movies at a remarkable pace. Suddenly he stopped at a particular cover. “Shit. You have good taste.”

I walked over and saw an old copy of
Fahrenheit
451
in his hand. “I am
David
Copperfield
," he said, smiling.

“I have no trouble believing that.”

He laughed. “No, that would be the book I’d be. Well, not really. I have my own favorite but I don’t like to give things away, but that book is mentioned in the movie. You’ve never seen the movie, have you?”

“Of course I have.”

“So what book would you be?”

His face fell as I burst out laughing. “What’s funny?” he said through gritted teeth.

“It sounds like one of those questions you get on those ‘new-agey’ personality tests. Like, if you were an animal what would you be?”

“That’s fair. But we’re talking about books now. Books are the guardians of civilization.”

I studied him. “You’re serious, now, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. To me, there’s chaos and then there’re books.”

“That’s an extreme position. Sometimes books bring about chaos.”

“That’s true. But those aren’t thoughtful books.”

“Like
David
Copperfield
?”

“Exactly.”

“So what book would you be?”

“I’ll tell you when I know you better.”

“You’re making me dizzy.”

“That’s because of the scotch. Anyway, I’ll leave. So what about dinner?”

“Okay! I give in.”

He took out a pad and wrote down directions. As he handed me the torn out page he said,

“When you come to my house, you can tell me what book you’d be. Humor me, okay?”

*

I made a call that afternoon. I wondered if it was worth it and if I wasn’t just making another enemy. In the end I was pissed and that's all there was to it. Handling Benoit’s assault charges through the local good ol' boys' network was wrong.

Since I was pissed I went straight to the top; I called District Attorney, John Arnotti. I was surprised when he took my call.

“Mr. Dobbs. What can I do for you?”

“Uh, I think you kind of whitewashed the Benoit issue.”

He sighed. “I won’t pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about. I do have some respect for you.”

“But not enough to invite me to the hearing or keep me posted on the outcome. And not enough to work within the rules.”

“Hearings are perfectly legal. This case was tried by the State of New York. Not by you. That’s how criminal cases go. I’m sorry you didn’t like the outcome.”

“You don’t think that Benoit got preferential treatment?”

“We try a lot of criminal cases, Mr. Dobbs. This is low priority. We got the case off the books and Mr. Benoit is receiving some treatment. He wouldn’t have gotten jail time under any circumstances unless he was a major repeat offender.”

“He
is
a repeat offender, something I think you must know.”

“What do you think we should have done? Executed him?”

“I think your sarcasm shows your weak position.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like the way my office does things, but basically it was a judgment call, as everything really is in the end. We don’t hand out sentences for low-level assaults like this. We did the best we could.”

“Okay. When he comes at me again, we’ll see how well you do. Maybe someone will find out that you showed favoritism to a man who’s probably friends with your friends. We’ll see how well you do then.”

I hung up just as I heard him begin to speak. It had given me a mild sense of satisfaction, but probably accomplished very little.

Chapter Eleven

That night I was sitting and sipping moderately at some Laphroaig when another creepy story came on the television. It seems that the
Chapter and Verse Killers
hadn’t given up. Another woman, Felice Hammon, had disappeared along with her son. Unlike the other abductions, this one had occurred in the victim’s house in the Upstate New York town of Multonville.This was well north of the last three disappearances, but like the last three, the numbers
4-5-1
were written somewhere at the scene in the victim’s blood. Like the others, Felice Hammon had recently been involved in litigation regarding the custody of her eight year old son.

I was sober enough for it to disturb me. But, more to the point, I began seriously worrying about Eileen for the first time since she left. Why hadn’t the connection occurred to me before? I supposed it was a combination of alcohol and denial.

Just then I wasn’t able to deny it any longer. Eileen and Megan were out there and someone was killing women running from abusive spouses. I could only hope that she was in some safe house somewhere, not driving around. I knew next to nothing about
The
Railroad
, and for all I knew, they were moved weekly just to keep them safe. I began to feel that ache below my ribs that I’d felt just after she left.

Almost as if on cue, the phone rang about five minutes later. I jumped, almost sure that it would be Eileen, as silly a thought as that was. I knocked the phone onto the floor before I could grab it and get it to my ear.

“Hello!” I almost shouted.

“Hitting the bottle, Dobbs?”

“Who is this?”

“An old friend.”

“I don’t know your voice.”

“You should get used to it. You’ll be hearing it one way or another for a while. Maybe in court.”

“I still don’t know who you are.”

“Maybe I like it that way.”

I was still shaking and this was making me angry. “I guess you don’t have anything to do that’s worthwhile.”

“Hmm. I used to have a family.”

It clicked. “Oh, hello Bob.”

“I’m glad you recognize me now.”

“If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Well I should thank you for chatting with me the other night.”

“Nobody asked you to show up.”

“That’s true. But I had concerns about you talking to Moskowitz. Now I have more concerns since the fuck came back to speak to you.”

“I didn’t invite him, and it’s none of your business who I speak to.

“You think I should stay away from you? That I shouldn’t defend myself?”

“I think you should find something to do with your time that means something. It seems all you know how to do is hurt people.”

“Oh boy. You are a good man. Is that why my wife was fucking you?”

“Maybe. I guess the real question is why she wasn’t fucking you.”

“Good! I like that. And why wasn’t she fucking me and fucking you instead?”

“Well, I like to think of it this way. You have a chance of sleeping with a man who’s at least a decent person as opposed to a pedophile. Which would you pick?”

“You have a nasty mouth!”

“That really hurts coming from a guy like you.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that you’re going to have a hard time making me feel bad about myself considering what I know about you.”

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know what you did to your own daughter.”

All I could hear was breathing on the other end. I wondered if he was getting himself drunk again as he spoke to me. “All you know is what my wife told you,” he said finally. “You don’t know what really happened.”

“So what really happened? If you really did it, then I’d think you wouldn’t care what a pussy like me thinks. You can't really say what you did, because you’re ashamed.”

I could hear the gears turning in his head. He was on the phone and that made him vulnerable. He wanted to be able to tell me that he did it, but that would just prove me right, and if he denied it, he’d be admitting that he was ashamed of it.

“I have friends, you know.”

“I guessed that. And you didn’t answer my question.”

His breathing became a little raspy and I could tell that he was agitated and probably drunker than I’d thought. “It’s the law of the jungle. You build something out of nothing. You make some money, you buy a house, and you make a family. Then it all fucks up because you married a bitch and she tries to take it all from you. Your house, your kid, everything. So what do you do? You fight back. How can you lose it all when you’ve put so much into it?” It seemed like he was talking more to himself than to me.

“I still haven’t heard an answer, Bob.”

“I have friends,” he repeated. “They think the way I do. We all came from nothing. You know where I come from, Mike?  I come from Hell’s Kitchen. Not the place you know now, but the
real
Hell’s Kitchen. Not
Clinton
.” He laughed. “Did you know that Hell’s Kitchen was full of French once? There’re still a few restaurants left there from those days. My dad worked as an assistant chef in Pigalle. That’s like the Village, but in Paris. He brought home shit each week for money. The head chef made the money. He worked there for years. He’d come home at night full of Merlot and sometimes he’d take a shot at my mother. That was the way things were in Hell’s Kitchen. At night I’d go out with my Irish friends and we’d steal hubcaps and drink wine. They called me the fucking frog, but I was there with them. And when I got a chance to get out of Hell’s Kitchen I got the fuck out of there. Now I own a chain of groceries. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re called FreshMart.”

I had. They were all over Rockland and Westchester and Dutchess Counties. “Congratulations, Bob. Was it worth the next seventy or so years of Megan’s life? Or Eileen’s?”

I heard a thunk in the background and, in an instant, I knew that Bob had a pair of nunchuks in his hand and he was flipping them, perfecting his technique. I’d been down that road myself a few years back. “My friends all came from places like me. Like Hell’s Kitchen. They built their lives from nothing. Just like me.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because my friends and I aren’t interested in how pussies like you feel. Or how bitches like Eileen feel. She couldn’t come close to doing what I’ve done. She’s just been riding on my coattails like any other leech. I talked to my friends about her. We all get together once a month or so and talk about our lives and what’s been taken from us. We all decided we won’t take it.”

“You’re going to have to live with what you’ve done, whether you have friends or not,” I told Bob. “You can’t get away from it just because you have some drinking buddies, and neither can they.”

“You could get a visit from my friends you know,” he answered.

My blood boiled. “And you could wake up and realize what you’ve done and slit your own throat,” I said quietly. I tested the waters for a moment and heard only Bob’s breathing. Then I hung up the phone.

*

“He made a threat,” I told Detective Wills the next day. “A clear one.”

“When was that?”

“Last night, about eleven.”

“You’re driving me crazy, Dobbs,” he said. “I’ve already gotten my ass chewed out by my boss for the trouble you’ve caused.” His voice sounded rough and full of fatigue through the phone. I suppose I wasn’t his biggest problem at the moment.

“Wait a fucking minute. I didn’t go to someone’s house drunk and attack someone. As much as you might want to kiss your boss's ass and kiss Bob Benoit’s ass, he’s the one who committed the crime.”

He groaned in frustration. “I know that. But you have no recording of the phone call and it wouldn’t be admissible if you did. So you can make your statement and it’ll go on record.”

“And what will happen then?”

“If you don’t press charges, nothing. If you do, then he’ll get his lawyers and tie you in knots. He’s probably going to try to do that anyway, somehow.”

“So if I get beat up again, you’ll come to visit me in the hospital, won’t you?”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic. My hands are tied. If you want to press charges, do it, but there isn’t much I can do. All you have is an alleged threat on the phone. It won’t mean much.”

“Thanks, Detective. I feel very protected. I’ll sleep better knowing that.” Then he hung up on me.

*

The directions were clear and it turned out that Moskowitz only lived twenty-five minutes away. Consequently, I missed the majority of the rush hour traffic and made it there just before 6:30.

I had expected something just above a hovel, but his house surprised me. It wasn’t enormous, but it had a sun room and even a Spanish Mission roof. I commented on it as I walked in.

“I like California,” Moskowitz told me as though that explained everything.

Kate Moskowitz was also a surprise. I had expected a somewhat mousey flower-child, bowed by the task of taking care of a man who was always busy. What I found was a dark, big-eyed beauty, with hints of some exotic origin. “Katey’s mother is from Peru,” Moskowitz told me, clearly used to the curiosity.

“He likes to tell everyone that. I think it makes him feel special somehow.”

I didn’t want to pursue it so I made a remark about the parquet floors, something I’d learned to do in the yuppie circles of New York. That set Moskowitz off on a fifteen minute tirade about his house and his difficulties in buying it. I nodded and exclaimed appropriately as he pointed out the various highlights of the house, waiting for him to wind down. “Stevey has lots of energy,” Kate told me, smiling. “Now that he’s made you tired, why don’t you go into the dining room? I’m about to bring dinner out.”             

Steve came with me into the dining room and made me a Laphroaig neat, while I waited. “I was so thrilled to have this again when I came to your house that I went out and got some. It still tastes like peat moss.”

“True,” I said, taking the drink and sipping. Almost as if on cue, Kate came in with a tureen. Moskowitz bounded up and took it from her just as a boy of about eight came running in. He looked at me and said, “Is this the Yuppie?”

“Ex-Yuppie,” I told him, ignoring Kate’s wince.

“Steve has trained him in radical politics. Say hello, Andrew.”

“Hello,” Andrew said simply and sat down.

The tureen turned out to contain Ratatouille which I hadn’t had in years. We made chit-chat over that and some hard bread. What followed was a Chicken Marsala that made my mouth water and then some Raspberry Sorbet for dessert. Andrew had been eyeing me for most of the meal. Finally he got up the courage to say what was on his mind.

“When are you going to introduce him to Aunt Melinda?”

“Oh god, Andrew!” Moskowitz moaned. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m telling the truth, Dad. You always tell me to do that.”

“That was a possibility, not a certainty. Mike’s been through a lot lately. You can’t just pull a relationship out of a hat.”

“Sorry,” the boy said. Mother and father exchanged looks.

After dinner Moskowitz suggested that we go to his office to talk. He took the Laphraoig and two fresh glasses with him. We settled in and I sipped at my drink, not staring at anything in particular. I expected some kind of sermon. I wasn’t disappointed.

“I had wanted to discuss getting a gun with you. Then I thought about it and I realized it would take months of dedicated training before you knew how to use one. At least effectively. Not knowing guns can get you into trouble”

“Like what.”

“Like shooting yourself by accident. Like shooting someone else by accident. Like not using it when you should. Or displaying it as a threat when you shouldn’t.”

“You clearly don’t think that much of me. I know how to shoot a gun. I had one for years.”

“Oh,” he responded after a pause. He clearly wasn’t comfortable being blind-sided by facts.

“And why would you think I’d be so stupid even if I didn’t know how to shoot.”

“It’s not you. It’s the way things are. Since most of your time is spent being depressed and drinking, I doubt you’d have the focus to know how to use a gun.”

I wanted to argue, but I knew he was right. “I’m not much on focus lately.”

“For good reason, though I don’t think it has to stay that way. I noticed all the philosophy and religious texts you had in the house. I guess you tried the self-help thing and it didn’t work.”

At that moment I hated Moskowitz. He must have realized it because he smiled. “I have a tendency to get under people’s skin. I try too hard sometimes, but let me get to my point. If you’re not going to become a Navy Seal in the next month you are in danger. I think you should go back to the City.”

“Oh God. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No. I know you left it for a reason but living a long life in Manhattan is better than living a short life in that Addams Family house you live in.”