All The Way Gone
a novel by
D. James Eldon
Copyright D. James Eldon 2009
Smashwords Edition
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1
Vale of Cashmere
The on-again, off-again drizzle that has been falling over Brooklyn since dawn is off again. Prospect Park, with its trees still holding onto many of their leaves so late in the year, is damp, chilly, and gray as Jack Turner bursts through the tree line. Later, some witnesses will describe him as “frantic,” others will tell the police the man seemed deranged.
“Has anyone seen my wife?” he blurts out, dirt smudged across his running suit.
“Excuse me,” he says, breathlessly, reaching out to people as he moves quickly down the park drive. “Have you seen a woman … about this tall?” He holds his bloody, scraped arm out in front of his chest. “Short black hair, wearing a dark blue running suit with white stripes down the sides,” he motions his arms up and down his sides, resembling a man acting like a monkey to amuse children — but he’s not laughing. “And down along the pants.”
People shake their heads, “No, sorry.” Some are frightened by this man who himself seems frightened or crazy.
He keeps moving along the park drive, asking other runners, “Excuse me, have you seen a woman about this tall, with short black hair? She’s wearing a dark blue running suit with white stripes down the sides.”
“No, sorry.”
“Nope.”
“No … but are you OK?” one of them asks, but Jack keeps moving.
Two women walk around Jack, giving him a wide berth.
“What’s wrong with that man?” the older one asks.
“Nothing mom, he’s just upset about something. It has nothing to do with us.”
Jack continues past them to a grassy area, not far from the Grand Army Plaza entrance, known as Nellie’s Lawn, where a couple of Haitian boys are kicking a soccer ball. Jack describes his wife, but the boys shake their heads.
There’s a tear on the right knee of Jack’s running pants. His knee is cut. There’s dirt mixed with blood. Bits of dried leaves and dirt are ground into his pants. There are scratches on his chin.
“Excuse me, have you seen a woman about this tall with ….”
Detective Marty Lufkin pulls his pants up around his expansive waistline. He smiles as he tugs his rumpled shirt down in front, and says, “Kid let me tell you about bad backs, OK? I wrenched my back falling down a flight of stairs.”
“Were you in pursuit?” the rookie asks.
“Yeah,” Marty says running his palm over thinning, gray hair.
“Pursuit my ass, he was in pursuit of the men’s room,” Detective Ryan Sullivan, leaning against a row of steal gray filing cabinets, says laughing.
Sullivan, looking to the rookie like a much sharper cop, with his crisp white shirt, neat blue trousers and gold tie..
“OK, but I wasn’t drunk,” Marty laughs in response.
“You were drunk on duty?” the rookie asks a little horrified.
“I wasn’t on duty, kid.” Marty turns to Ryan, “You see the ideas you put in his head? Kid thinks I’m drinking on the job for chrissakes.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, turns to the rookie and rests a thick-fingered hand on the young mans shoulder, “Marty doesn’t drink on the job, kid.” He gently pats the rookie’s back, then turns to Marty, “OK?”
“Yeah. Now where … oh right, so two steps down and bam! The next thing I know I’m at the bottom of those steps, flat out. When I get up I feel this twinge in my lower back, but it didn’t feel like any big thing.”
“Next day though ….” Ryan prompts.
“Right, next day I’m in so much pain I can’t do nothing I don’t feel it in my back. So I go to this doctor and he says go see a chiropractor. The chiropractor, he does a little heat with a paddle thing, sonar something … sonogram?”
“Ultrasound,” Ryan says.
“Yeah, whatever the fuck he does, and then he says, ‘you should go for a massage,’ and gives me a phone number. So I give them a jangle and this Chinese broad answers.”
“Korean,” Ryan corrects him.
“Yeah. So I go over there the next day. It’s in this high-rise building in midtown with a doorman, decent digs, you know? This Chinese broad greets me.”
“Korean, they’re all Koreans,” Ryan inserts.
“Yeah, right. So this one walks me to a cubicle, I get undressed, wrap a towel on, hop up on the massage table, and put my face in the hole. This other broad comes in and goes to work on me.
“It’s a pretty good massage, she’s getting the kinks out nice and I’m feeling good and loose there. Then she says roll over, so I do. No sooner am I on my back then she’s snapped on a surgical glove and she’s reachin’ under the towel for my package!” Marty tries to look offended. Ryan simply smirks.
“And she says to me, ‘You want re-rease?’ and I’m thinking, what the fuck … my chiro sends me to a happy-ending joint? I can’t believe this. And, of course, I’m thinking, my wife would fucking murder me if she found out.”
“Not like she was doing anything like that for you anyway,” Ryan laughs.
“Shut up, knucklehead, and let me finish my story.”
Ryan raises his hands feigning surrender.
“So I say, ‘No honey, not today, thanks.’ And she shrugs, pulls the glove off her hand and tosses it in the trash on her way out. I get dressed and go out to the reception desk. The broad there asks me was everything OK. So I say, ‘Sure, everything was fine.’ Then she says, ‘One-hundred-fifty dollar.’ And I say, ‘One-hundred-fifty dollar what? It’s seventy-five what I was told on the phone.’ And she says, ‘Yes, but you have special massagee, one-hundred-fifty dollar.’ And I say, ‘I did not have special massagee, I had regular massagee.’ Now I’m pissed so I’m yelling and everyone in the joint is looking at us. Then she yells, ‘You had re-rease, you pay one hundred fifty’ and I yell back, ‘I did not have re-rease.’”
Ryan unable to contain himself says, “She’s got him mispronouncing it now … I love that.”
“Yeah,” Marty continues. “So finally I flash my shield and she shuts the fuck up right quick. I drop seventy-five in cash on the desk and walk out.”
Marty pauses and looks at the rookie with a straight face. Ryan is laughing silently, the veins of his thick neck pop under the ruddy Irish skin.
The rookie looks anxiously from Marty to Ryan and asks, “So did you go back and bust the joint or what?”
Marty looks at him with the slightest trace of disgust and says, “Hey kid, I’m murder squad, not fucking vice.”
“So you didn’t do anything about it?” the rookie asks incredulously.
“Oh no, kid,” Ryan breaks in, finally controlling his laughter. “He found out that if he’d gotten a receipt, insurance would have reimbursed him for, like, eighty percent.”
“That’s right, therapeutic massage is a partially covered expense under our medical plan,” Marty says.
“So now he goes like clockwork every other week. They give him special massagee with re-rease at the regular rate and a receipt for one-hundred-and-fifty dollars, so the whole thing costs Marty not one dime.”
“But that’s fraud … and illegal … and … and what about your wife?”
“You got a lot to learn kid,” Ryan says.
“My wife left me for a contractor months ago.”
“And she wouldn’t have cared if she did know,” Ryan puts in.
“Shut up you,” Marty says.
“Yeah, OK stud,” Ryan laughs as he pokes at Marty’s flabby belly for emphasis.
Marty joins in with Ryan’s laughter as the rookie looks from one to the other, then turns slightly, stares at the crinkled notes taped up in a jumble on the dull green wall. Faces stare back from black and white photos, but they have no answers for the rookie, so he walks away shaking his head.
“I would say the kid is perplexed,” Ryan says with a smirk.
“He’ll be back, soon as he figures out how to fake a back injury. He’ll be wanting that number.”
A uniformed cop steps into the room and says to Marty Lufkin, “Detective? You got a minute?”
The initial rush of adrenaline has burned off and Jack is calmer.
A patrol car rolls along the drive. Jack waves for it to stop as he walks towards it. The car stops in front of the park zoo and Jack approaches from the passenger side, bends forward, puts his hands on his knees to see fully inside the car.
“Anything wrong sir?” Rodriguez, the cop in the passenger seat, asks.
“Yes, my wife … she’s … I can’t find her.”
“Was she here in the park?”
“Yes, we came out for a run,” Jack says running a hand through his hair, slick now from the cold drizzle that has started to fall.
“When was this?”
“About an hour ago, maybe longer, I don’t know. I don’t know what time it is now.”
Rodriguez glances at his watch, “It’s ten o’clock now, sir.” He takes Jack in, his overall appearance, his thin yet powerful build, torn clothes, scraped and dirty hands, the cut on his chin, the expensive sports watch. Judging from his hair and the absence of any lines around the eyes and mouth, he figures Jack for mid-30s.
“We got out here about eight this morning, she should have made the plaza by eight thirty. I went ahead … she was only a few minutes behind me, but she never made it to the end,” Jack says.
“Can you describe her for me?”
“Yeah, she’s five-foot-two, short black hair, brown eyes, about 110 pounds, 45 years old, but she looks younger. She’s wearing a dark blue running suit with white stripes down the sides and white sneakers.”
“Race?” Rodriguez asks.
“No we were just out for a regular run,” Jack says perplexed.
“No sir, what race is your wife, is she Caucasian like you?”
“Oh, oh … sorry, I’m …,” Jack touches his head and makes a little flipping motion with his hand. “She’s light skinned, half white, half Columbian.”
The cop in the driver’s seat, Officer Maloney, leans over a little to get closer to Jack and says, “Alright, we’ll put her down as Hispanic, OK?” He says grabbing the mic.
“Why don’t you get in and we’ll ride around, see if we can’t spot her,” Rodriguez says as Maloney gives the wife’s description to dispatch.
Jack opens the rear door and climbs in. When he shuts the door he thinks of a time years before when he’d been in the back of a police car, after a long, bad drunken night.
“You OK, pal?” Maloney asks, looking at Jack in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You look a might pale there, not gonna be sick are you?”
“No, no. It’s just being back here.”
“Remind you of something?” Rodriguez asks.
Jack hesitates a moment, then says, “All those shows. All those reality shows you see these days. The people in the back of the police cars, you never think of yourself there.”
“Uh huh,” Maloney says as he shifts into drive and rolls the car up the Park Drive, through Battle Pass, back the way Jack had come.
Rodriguez grabs the radio, calls into dispatch.
“Can we get a check on any ambulance activity around the park this morning, other than that kid who got hit?”
“Roger,” the dispatcher replies.
“Out,” Rodriguez says. He turns his head a bit toward Jack, “I’m thinking maybe your wife hurt herself.”
The windshield wipers make a loud, sudden noise as they scrape along the glass, streaking the droplets of water into one large swath, blurring the view.
“I thought of that. I ran home earlier to check the answering machine and my cell phone, but there was nothing.”
“These things generally work themselves out, sir. There’s always an explanation,” Maloney says.
They drive around the northern tip of the park, then south again on the main drive.
As they approach Center Drive, one of two transverses between the east and west sides of the main park drive, Maloney asks, “Would your wife have maybe gone through here or Wellhouse Drive?”
“We … no. At least I don’t think so, we were only going once around the park drive today,” Jack says sounding unsure.
The wipers scrape along the glass again then go quiet as the drizzle turns to rain.
They continue on the park drive until it loops around the lake at the southernmost section of the park. Once they’ve gone around the park completely, they drive through both transverses and back onto the main drive, heading south, then coming up over the northern tip, past Grand Army Plaza and then south, until they reach the 15th street entrance to the park.
Another police car is parked down the entrance road near the large columns that grace the roadway leading into the park, off Bartel-Pritchard Circle. They roll up alongside, lining up the driver’s side windows.
“Anything?” Maloney asks the cops in the other car.
“Nope.”
“Alright.”
“What are you gonna do?” the driver of the other car, Officer Gilroy, asks.
“We’ll take him in, let the dicks take it.”
Jack is looking out the rear window, back at the park drive.
“Hey what about that kid this morning, huh?” Gilroy says.
“Yeah, what a mess,” Rodriguez says.
“You ask me, it was only a matter of time before something like that happened, way those fuckin’ bikes come flying down that hill,” says Walsh, the cop in the passenger seat of the other car.
Jack is staring at a runner going past the horse corral.
“You’re right, act like they’re Lance Armstrong or something,” agrees Rodriguez.
“Alright, we better roll out,” Maloney says. “We’ll catch you later.”
“Later,” Gilroy says.
Maloney turns the car around and heads back onto the park drive. Jack looks out at the corral as they roll past.
Maloney looks at Jack in the rearview mirror, “Mr. Turner? We’re gonna give this over to the detectives, OK? We’ll keep an eye out, but you should talk to them.”
“OK,” Jack says absently, still looking out the window. There’s a long pause as Jack watches the horse corral disappear around the bend.
The rain has suddenly stopped.
When he can no longer see the corral, Jack faces forward. “That other cop mentioned something about a kid getting hit. What happened?”
“Oh, this morning, yeah, a kid got hit by a bicycle. Damn shame,“ Maloney says.
“When was this?”
“Around seven a.m.”
“Is the child OK?” Jack asks.
“Nah, he died at the scene. Head trauma. His mother was there, screaming her lungs out.”
“Thing of it is,” Rodriguez breaks in, matter-of-factly, “I think the bike guy figures he’s got the right of way, so running into someone isn’t his problem.”
“What makes you think that?” Jack asks.
“’Cause I remember the same guy got into it with a runner last year, I had to break up a fistfight between them, and the guy on the bike kept yelling about ‘right-of-way’ … that he had the ‘right-of-way.’ I told him that didn’t give him the right to run people down or punch them in the face, but I don’t think he got it.”
“He’ll get it now. They booked him on manslaughter charges, and somebody said the kid’s father is a heavyweight lawyer,” Maloney says.
“You think the guy’s gonna do time?” Rodriguez asks.
“He might, he just might.”
They pull into a spot in front of the 78th precinct house and all three of them get out of the car, walk up the steps, and enter through the large green door.
Jack notices that this precinct looks like every other one he’s ever been in, but it also resembles every public school he’s ever attended. He wonders if that’s intentional or a coincidence of city planning or finance. Build the cheapest structure that’ll last a century and only paint it once every other decade.
“Mr. Turner, wait here, please,” Maloney says, as he indicates a wooden bench attached to the bottom half of a brick and windowed wall. The window is the old-style safety glass with thin strands of twisted wire threaded through the panes, making small diamond shapes. This keeps the thick glass from shattering into dangerous jagged pieces if someone hits it hard or with a blunt object, like a chair or a bullet.
He wrestles a cell phone out of his pocket and hits the speed dial for his office.
“Keri Peterson.”
“Hi Keri, it’s Jack.”
“Oh Jack, hi. You not coming in today?” she asks in her usual cheery phone voice.
“Yeah … no … I’m not coming in. Is Melissa around?”
“I think she’s in her office with someone. Do you want me to see if I can get her attention?”
“No, just let her know I’m not coming in today, family emergency.”
“Is everything OK?” Keri asks using her concerned voice.
“It will be,” Jack says and runs his hand along the bench. “I’ll be in tomorrow. Just let her know for me, OK?”
“OK, Jack. You take care,” Keri says.
“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks.”
“Bye,” she says switching back to her cheery-girl voice.
Jack sticks the phone back into his pocket. If he acts like nothing is wrong, if he can convince others around him everything is normal, then it will be. All this will be alright, nothing is wrong; everything is as it should be. If only. If only everything weren’t so wrong, if only, if only, if only. ‘Just keep it together Jack,’ he thinks, ‘keep it together boy. We’ll get through this, if you keep your cool.’
“Alright Maloney, whaddaya got?” Marty asks.
“I got a guy here says his wife went missing in the park this morning. They went for a run together, he went on ahead and she never caught up.”
“Yeah, and, you think something else?”
“Well, first off, he’s got scratches all on his hands and face, he’s got dirt on his clothes and when we offered to drive him around, he got all hinky in the back seat of the squad car. I thought he was gonna toss he got so pale.”
“Did he say anything about it?” Marty asks, interested.
“Yeah, he said it reminded him of reality TV shows where you see people being arrested, you never think it’ll happen to you … or to him … you know.”
“I’m with ya. So what did you tell him?”
“I said we’d bring him around here to make a statement.”
“Did you tell him about the wait?” Marty asks, knowing the answer.
“No.”
“No you thought you’d leave the hard part to the professionals. Alright, what’s the guy’s name?”
“Turner, Jack Turner,” Maloney says sheepishly.
“He out front?”
“Yeah,” Maloney says, but doesn't move.
“Something else?” Marty prompts.
“It’s just … I’m taking classes in Criminal Psychology over at John Jay,” Maloney looks around to make sure no one else is listening.
Marty smiles his reassuring smile, but thinks, ‘Come on, come on.’”
“And I think this guy is lying about something.”
“Alright. I want you and your partner to write on this and give me the paperwork before you roll out of here. I want what we talked about here and anything else you can remember about your interaction with this guy written down, you understand?” Marty says sternly.
“Yes, sir,”
“Alright, get out of here and get typing.”
Maloney bolts out the door. Marty looks across the room at Ryan who shrugs his shoulders. Marty tilts his head back. Ryan points to the newspaper on his desk. Marty nods and walks out of the room.
A few minutes later, Jack steps into the detectives’ room with Marty following. He sits in the chair that Marty indicates. Marty sits behind his desk, strewn with papers and folders, a mug full of pens, days old copies of the NY Post, a paper cup with coffee stains around the rim and bottom, and a flattened brown paper bag with a last piece of this morning’s bagel sitting on it. Marty gives Jack his card and asks him the standard name, address, and phone number questions. He writes Jack’s answers on a narrow pad.
“OK, now, Mr. Turner, just tell me what happened, however you remember it. And give me as many details as possible. It’s been my experience that the smallest detail, something that seems insignificant could lead us to the answer.”
“OK.” Jack begins precariously, not sure where he should start. “I said we should go for a run — actually I can’t remember who suggested it, probably she did though. She’s been running more consistently than me the past few months. We used to get up at six-thirty and do five miles, first thing. Most mornings it felt like I woke up in the park after the first mile or so. But we were both in great shape then, really great.”
He pauses.
“So we had talked about getting back to a routine, how it was easier when we did it together. This was our second time out since we talked about a routine. Just once around the park, a little less than three-and-a-half miles. We usually spent the first half running together, talking, going at her pace. A lot of times, I’d surge ahead. I usually pick up my pace and finish five or six minutes ahead of her.”
“What happens then, do you go home?” Marty asks.
“No, I wait for her at the end. I walk around a bit to catch my breath. She usually comes chugging along in a few minutes. I cheer her on, like it’s the finish of a race, to make it a little fun and maybe to ease that pang of guilt I feel about not having run the whole course at her pace. I don’t know.”
“So what happened this morning?” Marty prompts.
“I waited. I walked over to the water fountain, inside the entrance near Grand Army Plaza, then back to the park drive. I waited maybe ten minutes and she still didn’t come around that corner.”
“So what did you think?”
“I thought maybe she fell, tripped on something. I fell myself this morning,” Jacks says indicating the scratches and dirt.
“I see,” Marty says. “So what did you do?”
“I started walking back the way I’d come.”
“Which direction is that?” Marty asks.
“I don’t know.“
“You enter at Grand Army Plaza and go left or right?”
“To the left.”
“When you started running this morning or when you backtracked.”
Jack looks up at the shabby ceiling with its chipped paint and florescent fixtures tinged with black soot from years of neglect. After a moment he levels his gaze at Marty, says, “Backtracking … I went to the left.”
“OK, so you are going south on East Drive. Go on.”
“I figured I’d meet up with her soon enough, let her tell me what happened. I was sure it would be a good story.”
“Why? What made you sure it would be a good story?”
Jack is taken a little aback by this question. He’s not sure if the detective is fucking with him or what.
“’Cause we’re always telling stories, finding the humor or the stupidity of a situation. It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about us,” Jack says deciding to answer this guy straight out.
“Huh … OK. So you backtracked.”
“Yeah, right. After a little while when I’d gone past the zoo, I thought we should have met up by then, I started to get nervous. Maybe she’d fallen and really hurt herself, fractured something, and couldn’t walk. I broke into a trot, looking left and right,” Jack makes small seemingly unconscious motions with his head turning to both sides as he says this. He clears his throat and tilts his head up at the ceiling, takes a deep breath, then levels his head.
“Then what happened?” Marty asks quietly.
“I picked up the pace and began running. I ran until I reached the point where we’d separated.”
“Where was this?”
“By the horse corral.”
“Near Bartel-Pritchard Circle?” Marty asks.
“The fifteenth street entrance.”
“Yeah, same thing. OK, so that’s where you left her behind?”
“Where we … yeah, right, OK.” Jack says, trying hard to suppress his annoyance. “Once I got there, I knew something was wrong.”
“So at that point, what did you think had happened to your wife?”
“I figured she must have fallen, or collided with a bike or something and had to be carted off by an ambulance. I turned around and headed home.”
“Did you walk home?” Marty asks.
“No, I ran. What’s with these questions detective? I get the feeling you’re not listening to me, it’s more like you’re interrogating me,” Jack says, unconsciously and abruptly stabbing the toe of his right sneaker into the cracked linoleum, making a short, loud squeak
Marty grits his teeth at the sound, then composes himself, “I’m sorry, Mr. Turner. The way I ask questions, it’s just a habit from years of doing this job. I don’t mean anything by it. Please go on,” Marty says. “You were saying, you headed home.”
“Right, I thought if I went home I could see if there was a message on the machine or my cell phone. I thought for sure there’d be a message from her when I got home. But there wasn't. There was no sign of her. So I grabbed my cell phone and headed back to the park. I started looking for her along the second path on the other side of the park, across from the big field.”
“Sorry, which field, Mr. Turner?”
“The big one when you enter the park, there’s a big field in front of you. If you go to the left and down the main drive a little there’s a line of trees across from the field and through them there’s another little path that runs parallel to the drive.”
“I know where you’re talking about, that area’s called the Vale of Cashmere,” Marty says wanting to ask why he went down there to look for her, but doesn’t want to agitate Jack any further.
Jack says, “OK,” not quite certain what else to say, then goes on with his story, “I fell down a second time, tripped over some tree roots. I was a little upset at that point. I went back out to the road and started asking people if they’d seen her. I described her to anyone that would listen, but no one remembered seeing her. That’s what they said anyway. After a little while I saw a cop car coming down the road and I got their attention. We talked, they gave her description over the radio and had me get in the car. We drove around the park a few times and then came here.”
“Is there anything else you remember, anything that happened differently today?” Marty asks.
Jack leans his head back a bit and looks up at the ceiling again, then levels his head and says, “No.”
“OK. Do you have a photo of your wife that we can have?” Marty asks.
“Not on me, but I can get you one.”
“That’ll be fine, you can leave it at the front desk later this afternoon. Let me just …,” Marty says as he scribbles a few more words in his notebook. Jack looks around, taking the room in for the first time since sitting down. He sees the desks, all heaped with papers and coffee cups. The walls in need of paint. The listing file cabinets with their overstuffed drawers. The ever constant paper. On the walls, the desks, piled in a corner, on the window sills, stuck to the walls, the sides of desks, in the trash bins. Some old, crinkled and yellow, some new, pristine white, most of it somewhere in between, on it’s way to becoming cracked artifact. All of it on its way, at some point in the distant future, of being ash, then dust and finally nothing.
Marty finishes writing, looks straight at Jack and says, “Alright, Mr. Turner, now comes the hard part. There’s a twenty-four hour wait before we can begin actively working this case.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Jack asks, incredulous.
“Please, Mr. Turner. This is how it works. There are reasons for this.”
Jack stands up. “What reason is there for you not to be out looking for my wife?”
Marty remains seated, still looking at Jack. He pushes his chair back slightly to clear his left leg out from under the desk.
Unbeknownst to Jack, Ryan has risen from his seat. “OK, we know from experience that nine-and-a-half times out of ten, people show up, either they come home, or they reveal themselves in other ways.”
“Other ways? What does that mean?”
“Well, they use a credit card, or access a bank account. They get in touch with a friend or a family member or they finally call home to say they’re alright. Those are some ways. Or again, they just come home and tell their story about the detour they took.”
“Detour? What bullshit.”
Marty stands, though he’s a couple of inches shorter than Jack, his weight and the look on his face are slightly intimidating. Jack takes a half step back.
“Look, Mr. Turner, I know this is difficult, I do. But you have to believe me, most of the time they come back.”
“Come back? Are you suggesting my wife ….”
“Mr. Turner, I’m not suggesting anything.”
“And what about the times they don’t come back? What if my wife is one of those, then what?”
“Then we’ll find her. Look Mr. Turner, people don’t just disappear, OK? They don’t.”
“But what if she’s hurt somewhere or I don’t know … being held against her will?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack sees Ryan give Marty an uptick of his chin.
Marty says, “Let me ask you something, OK? Does your wife have any enemies, or do you have any that might want to do either of you harm?”
“No, of course not. That’s absurd.”
“Exactly. So my guess is either she ran into someone she knew and went off with them for some reason, or she stopped to help someone out and got caught up with them at the hospital or something. Whatever the case, she’s either on her way home now, or you’ll hear from her soon.”
“And if I don’t hear from her?” Jack asks skeptically.
“Then we’ll do what we can.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Turner, but again try to understand, if we spent time and manpower on everybody who came in here with a missing person story, we’d get nothing else done.”
Jack stands there a moment, thinking. “But what about Amber Alert, and all that?”
“That’s for kids, for children the rules are different, mostly because missing or runaway kids are at risk, adults can take better care of themselves. Plus, statistically, most of those kids aren’t runaways, they’re usually abducted by a parent in a messy custody battle, so the idea is to find them before they get too far. That or the kid ran away and they probably won’t last long on the streets before someone scoops them up. But even then, most runaways end up coming home when they get hungry or tired or cold.”
“You have an easy job then, don’t you? Just wait for them to show up. You get a lot of time for doughnuts and reading the Post, I suppose.”
Marty shakes his head, “There’s no need for that Mr. Turner. I’m bound by the rules and regulations of my job, I understand that you disagree with them, but it’s out of my hands. If you’re unhappy, you can complain to my captain, but this is standard procedure, I assure you.”
“Well, it stinks.”
“I understand, Mr. Turner. Please let us know if you hear anything and in the meantime I’ll get your wife’s description and that photo you’re going to get us in the computer. Our patrol units already have her description, so they’ll keep an eye out, OK? If she doesn’t show up by tomorrow, we’ll make the investigation official and we’ll do what we can.”
Jack hesitates a moment, realizes arguing further with this guy is futile and turns to leave.
“Take it easy,” Marty says to Jack’s back as he walks out .
While looking at the doorway Ryan says, “You have a way with people Detective Lufkin.”
“Ya’ think?” Marty asks.
“No, not really,” Ryan says as he sits down in his chair and smiles at Marty.
“Hey, what do you want? They expect they’re the only ones with troubles, come on,” Marty says as he sits back down and adjusts his weight in the chair.
“Yeah, they should talk to the Irish.”
“Why?”
“Nothing, it was a pun that didn’t work,” Ryan says and looks down at the newspaper on his desk.
Marty squints at Ryan, says, “I’ll tell you what with this guy, there’s something about his story. I don’t know.”
Ryan looks up, “What about it?”
“It’s too neat, like he thought it out or something, ya know?”
“You think he’s leaving something out?”
“Well, I don’t know, but get this, first he starts with this story about their running, then he gets into today and he trips up a little, did ya notice?”
“No.”
“Yeah, he said they usually run half-way together and then he pulls out ahead, right? Well he says he pulled ahead today at the horse corral, by fifteenth street, that ain’t halfway by a long shot. That’s like maybe a mile from Grand Army Plaza. I don’t know but there’s something about this guy I don’t like,” Marty says. “But she’ll turn up.”
“Yeah they always do, one way or another,” Ryan says looking down at the paper again.
“Let’s hope it’s in the good way, if she turns out to have run off with some other guy, I think Turner’s gonna blame me for not jumping on it first thing.”
“Yeah, you better light a candle.”
“Jews don’t do that shit.”
“Figure of speech, no offense meant.”
“None taken, ya fuckin’ Mick.”
“There it is again, that way you have with people.”
“Yeah, fuck you,” Marty says smiling, then stands up. “I’m going for coffee, you want one?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
“Alright,” Marty says, and strolls out of the room.
Jack walks into the empty house and stands in the middle of the living room. Leather couch, coffee table, book shelves, photographs of her, of them. He can’t look, but he can’t help looking. Not knowing quite what to do. He needs to get out of his running clothes, take a hot shower, and make something to eat. For now, he thinks, let’s stick with the basics.
He moves to the kitchen, past the refrigerator with more pictures of them, notes in her handwriting. She’s everywhere in this house. Thinking he can do this, he can get through this, he only needs a little help. He roots around in a drawer filled with junk until his fingers touch the edge of a small cardboard box. He stretches his hand to reach further back and wraps his fingers around it. Silently he thanks whomever from the last dinner party, left the half pack of Camel Filters behind.
Jack lights a cigarette, draws the smoke deep into his lungs and holds it there until it burns, then sighs the smoke out. It’s the first cigarette he’s had in over two years.
Though it burns his throat and lungs, and that first drag brings him near nausea, he realizes how much he’s missed smoking. While it increases his heart rate, in a strange way it calms and comforts. Something regular, routine, it reminds him of the days before he was married, when he had lots of time stretched out before him and he’d count it off by the cigarettes he’d smoke. The endless stream of lighting up, smoking, crushing out, lighting up, smoking, crushing out; a comfort in the routine of damage being done. There was something wonderful about the play of the smoke dodging in and out of shafts of light, from a lamp, or the morning sun. Even then he would smoke until it burned, until his eyes watered and his head ached, indescribably glorious and sickening all at the same time, and you wouldn’t understand if you’d never done it, you couldn’t ever understand the kind of wonderful pain and comfort a slow self-destructive act like that brings.
He flicks ashes into the pristine stainless steel sink, looks down and notices the dirt on his running pants, then looks at his hands. Walking into the bathroom, Jack sees himself for the first time today.
He reaches into the shower and turns the hot water on full, takes a last pull on the cigarette then tosses it into the toilet . While the shower heats up, he gets out of his soiled running gear then slips under the water and stands there letting it wash over him.
After eight or ten minutes of standing under the running water, he reaches for the soap, and washes away the dirt of the park. He finally turns off the water, then leans his hands against the tile wall with his head bowed. For a moment he thinks, this is a dream, when I wake up she’ll be here, and all my mistakes, my sins, will be forgiven.
He steps from the shower, towels off, and moves into the bedroom. He pulls on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sticks his feet into an old pair of worn, black scuffs, then moves back to the kitchen. He lights another cigarette and turns to make coffee.
Three cigarettes, two cups of coffee, and a bowl of cereal later he wonders what to do with the rest of the day.
As the head snaps backward, the short, tight black hair shimmers violently in the dim light from the small windows above her.
Blood trickles out of her right nostril, mixed with mucous and tears. The eyes are wide with fear, but she can’t make out her surroundings. Pain shoots up from her wrists to her shoulders as she tries, but cannot get her hands out in front of her body.
She rolls and bounces against the hard floor beneath her. Tears streak her slightly bruised cheeks and she has stopped trying to scream as it only hurt her tongue straining against the cloth in her mouth.
Hand- and leg-cuffed to a Catharine Wheel, upside down, the blood fills his head, making his face a bright shade of red.
The Mistress is tall with frail-thin, spindly legs balancing on six-inch spike-heeled patent leather boots. She weighs maybe 105 pounds at most. Her latex clad frame and china-plate white skin made him hard the moment he first saw her.
But now, half an hour or so into the session, there is something missing, something that isn’t quite working for him: It all seemed so perfect, her outfit, her build, her deep blue eyes like the sky after the sun has dipped below the horizon, her hair, her long, straight, shiny raven hair. She is without doubt the fucking dominatrix pinup for the millennium.
But something isn’t working.
She seems detached, and not in the way mistresses are supposed to be. This is passionlessness. She is genuinely bored and showing it.
“Fuck this,” he says. “You’re not into this. I can’t believe you charge five hundred bucks an hour and you can’t even pretend to try, not even a little.”
“Shut up,” she says, with what sounds like an Eastern European accent, but too vague to determine which specific country she is supposedly from.
“No seriously. This is bullshit, I’m done. Uncuff me.”
“No,” she says a little excitedly. She moves closer and bends at the knees, legs apart, balancing her weight on the front of her thigh-high black boots. She puts her face so close to his he can smell the thick mascara of her heavily made-up cat-like eyes.
“Is this uncomfortable?” she asks with the slightest hint of enjoyment creeping into her voice.
He thinks, great, now she’s getting into it, with what, twenty minutes left?
“It’s more annoying than anything else.”
“It’s more annoying than anything else, what?” she demands.
“What?”
“It’s more annoying than anything else, Mistress. Always address me as Mistress,” she commands.
“How about, fuck you, undo me,” he replies, exasperated.
“Never address your mistress like that, ever, you piece of dogshit.” She is almost shouting. She shifts her right foot back slightly and slaps him hard across his upside-down red flushed face.
He smiles, says, “Come on bitch, you can hit harder than that.”
She stands quickly and jerks the wheel around to bring him perpendicular to the floor. With her left hand still on the wheel for leverage she slaps his face once more.
“You cunt,” he says.
She spits in his face and his dick becomes instantly hard.
Blue fucking steel, baby, he screams in his head, hard blue steel.
With her latex-gloved left hand she grabs hold of his hard penis. “That’s better my precious, much better,” and she slowly strokes the hard, veined shaft. “You should always stand at attention for your mistress.”
He thinks, Shut up and pull that fucking thing. He says, “Oh yeah, baby.”
She stops moving her hand. “Mistress,” she says flatly.
“Mistress, yes, yes, mistress,” he whispers.
As she begins stroking his dick again he swears, then says, “I am humbly sorry for offending thee. Now please don’t stop stroking my cock until I come, Mistress of mine.”
He smiles as she dribbles a large gob of saliva onto his fully engorged pecker, without missing a beat of her stroking hand. He whispers inaudible pleas at her while she purrs and moans softly in his ear.
“Come for your mistress, come for me now you little piece of pigshit. You foul dirty boy. Shoot your load for me now,” she says in her best loud commanding voice with severe emphasis on the last word.
He shudders, jerks a little moving the wheel slightly to his right, then a spurt of sticky white cum shoots onto the floor as he sighs. Two or three smaller dabs land on her gloved forearm.
“Such a naughty, dirty dog you are. Dirty, dirty boy. Naughty little pig boy.”
He thinks, Shut up you bitch and cut me loose.
This scene figures as a five out of ten on the entertainment scale, overall. The ending was good, the outfit and body phenomenal, but too much bullshit to get to the end. The erotic part of giving up control is lost on him, but he does love the gear. It dawns on him that he gets into more trouble and plain bad scenes by being attracted to those who really aren’t doing it for the sex or the kicks. He knows from experience that only those new in this business are even remotely interested in sex, but at least the good ones pretend to care if you get off or not.
But being on the tied-up end of this BDSM thing is for the birds as far as he’s concerned. He’d much rather be the one controlling the action. Happy to have tried it though, sex scenes being like spinach, you don’t really know if you’ll like it until you try it, and then there are so many different ways to go about it.
The cop is waving his flashlight at a banged up dirty cargo van that was white once, but at present appears speckled and spotted with differing shades of black and gray, like some strange four-wheeled animal.
The driver turns the wheel to the right and slowly brings the van into the makeshift search area off to the side of the Flatbush Avenue extension that leads to the Manhattan Bridge.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the driver mutters. “Be cool, be cool,” he coaches himself.
The young cop approaches the driver’s side window, “Sir, routine stop. We do random checks of vehicles using the bridge. Would you mind telling me what you are carrying in the van, sir?”
“Just myself and some tools in the back. Nothing big. It’s mostly empty back there,” he says, the sweat on his upper lip and forehead glistening in the streetlamp light.
“Would you mind if I have a look sir?” the cop asks as he takes half a step back, noticing the driver glancing at his left hand resting on his gun butt.
“But there’s nothing to see. You can stick your head in here and see for yourself, it’s practically empty back there,” the driver says, turning around himself, in an effort to show the cop how easy it is to look in the back. Twisted around like that, he doesn’t see the cop turn his body sideways, making himself a harder target.
A second cop appears in the driver’s side mirror, standing at the rear of the van.
“Sir, please step from the vehicle,” the first cop says.
Nervousness being contagious they each appear a bit jumpy to the older cop at the rear of the vehicle. He slowly unholsters his weapon then lets his arm hang loose and natural by his side, unseen by the driver.
As the driver opens the door he keeps talking, the words coming faster now, “Sure, sure, officer, sure, no problem. You want to see an empty van, I’ll show you an empty van. No problem, no problem.”
At a gesture from the first cop, the driver begins to walk toward the back of the van. The cop at the rear takes a few steps sideways, away from the vehicle, as the first cop follows the driver while unholstering his weapon, keeping it down by his side, out of view, as his sergeant has done. The second cop begins to sidestep his way to the right rear of the van, looking the driver intently up and down, trying to see signs of a weapon underneath the gray sweatshirt or the leg of his jeans..
When the driver reaches the rear of the van he looks first at one cop then the other, flanked on both sides.
“If you’d just open the van for us, sir.”
“Sure, it’s unlocked, you could open it yourself. It’s empty except for the toolbox, you’ll see, nuthin to see.”
He grabs the door handle so tightly his knuckles blanch white. He swings the door open, then undoes the catch on the left-hand side door and swings that open as well.
As both cops peer into the back of the van, the driver suddenly takes off running, going directly between the two cops. Instinctively they both raise their weapons, but neither pulls the trigger as he runs past.
With his handgun still raised, the first cop yells, “Don’t run, asshole!” He holsters his piece, looks at his sergeant, says, “I hate it when they run,” then takes off at a flat-out run after the guy.
The sergeant yells after him, “Get ’em!” Then he trots over to the squad car, hops in the driver’s seat, grabs the mic, and says, “Dispatch, this is unit five-two at special sector one, foot of the Manhattan Bridge. We’ve got a white male, five-foot-nine, two hundred pounds, short brown hair, wearing blue jeans and a black nylon parka. He’s running south on Flatbush. Suspect is fleeing a search of his van. We’ll need the boom boys down here to check this out, over.”
“Roger … what about the perp, Sergeant?”
“Jimmy’s after him, on foot. Send someone up this way on Flatbush to pick ’em up.”
“Roger that, out.”
A few minutes later, two squad cars come tearing down Flatbush Avenue, lights flashing, sirens wailing. They come to a screeching halt, blocking two lanes of traffic. It seems all four cops jump out at the same moment.
“You OK, Sarge?” one of them asks.
“Yeah boys, take it easy. Didn't’cha stop to pick up Jimmy and his little friend?”
“Nah,” says another one.
“But we called for an ambo to pick the perp up off the sidewalk,” the first one says and all four laugh.
“Jimmy’s having himself a little workout,” the youngest of them says. They all look at him as if he ought not speak of certain matters. “Running after the guy, I mean,” he says in a failed attempt to recover.
“So what’s the ambulance for?” the sergeant asks.
“Guy fell down pretty hard, looked like to us anyway. Scraped his face up a bit.”
“Uh huh,” the sergeant replies, unconvinced.
A large truck rolls up on the scene and three men in flak jackets with BOMB SQUAD emblazoned across the back jump out. The oldest of the three approaches the sergeant.
“Hey Mike, how ya doin'?”
“I’m OK, Bobby. How’s by you?” the sergeant asks
“I could complain, but it wouldn’t change a fucking thing.”
“True.”
“So, what have we here?” Bobby asks as the other bomb squad men open two small doors on their truck and pull out large orange flame retardant gear.
“Probably nothing, but we pulled this piece-a-shit van over and the guy gets real nervous, won’t shut the fuck up, then he runs on us.”
“Who was with you?”
“Jimmy McNally.”
“Rally McNally. That kid belongs in a zoo. You let him chase the guy on foot?”
“He’s good at it.”
“You’re his sergeant,” Bobby says shaking his head.
“That I am. Anyway, standard procedure is call you guys, so that’s why we’re all here.”
The bomb squad duo help each other climb into their astronaut-like outfits: Buttoning each other in and checking safety catches and locking down zipper fobs to insure they won’t inadvertently catch on anything.
“OK, you staying as senior man on this?”
“Until the Lieutenant or Captain come along to take over,” the sergeant says.
The two-man bomb squad team each grab an end of the large steel box that contains their tools, hoisting it up out of the truck and laying it gently on the ground.
“Alright, can you get your boys directing some of this traffic they’re building up? I fucking hate working with horns blowing, ruins my concentration,” Bobby says even though his job is to stay out of the blast area while the two younger men work with the suspected bomb package.
“Sure,” the sergeant says and turns to the four cops who showed up earlier and gets them in a huddle for a quick briefing.
Bobby turns to go back to his team and sees them grab a few smaller cases from the truck and lay them on top of the larger six-foot steel container. These men — focused, dedicated — never speak to each other while working. They don’t need to talk because from the time of their first training together up until this point, they have said all they need to say to each other. They both know what the other wants. What they honor and respect most about the other is his ability to act, to move through the steps necessary to bring home the conclusion this job demands of them. Failure is not an option, though it does loom out there as a possibility. So they respect it as they do each other, with silence.
Other cars arrive on the scene. In the end two lieutenants, a captain, and half a dozen uniforms are milling about when the sergeant approaches his lieutenant.
“If it’s alright with you sir, I’d like to roll out and check on my man at the precinct.”
“Yeah, sure. And, oh, Sergeant Lopez, I heard the guy fell while running, so go through the paperwork carefully with McNally. Make sure that boy doesn’t fuck this up.”
“I’ll take care of it, Lieutenant.”
“See you back at the station.”
Another squad car, lights flashing, silently rolls through the traffic, and pulls into the makeshift checkpoint. There is a quick whoop-whoop sound as the driver taps the siren briefly to catch the sergeant’s attention. The car is still rolling as Jimmy McNally pops open the rear door and jumps out.
“Hey Sarge, where ya’ headed?”
“To see you,” Lopez says as he moves toward the vehicle. The two officers in the front of the squad car get out and nod at the sergeant.
The driver says, “Hey Sergeant Lopez, how you doing this fine evening?”
“Fine Dugan, just fine, and I suggest you keep your Irish ass on this side of the scene for now, captain’s over there and I heard him tell the LT he didn’t want to see any more people on the scene.”
“Sure Sarge. Boom Squad come up with anything yet?”
“Not yet,” Lopez says looking not at Dugan, but at Jimmy McNally.
“Who’s on it?”
“Bobby’s team.”
“The Mexicans? Shit those boys are serious,” Dugan says bobbing his head up and down in complete agreement with himself.
“As cancer. Only the best on my details, only the best,” Lopez says then walks over to Jimmy. “Walk with me, McNally.”
Jimmy turns and falls in step with his sergeant. They walk a little way out from the crime scene, out of earshot of the other officers.
“You go with him to the ER?” Lopez asks.
“Course Sarge … I ….”
“Jimmy, shut up,” Lopez says stopping and turning to face McNally. “Just answer my questions for right now, OK?”
“Yeah,” McNally says, a little hurt.
“Anything broken on the man?”
“No.”
“Any stitches?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“His chin and his lip.”
“Did he loose much blood?”
“Not much, no.”
“They didn’t hook him up to any bags or nothing?” Lopez says looking straight at McNally.
“Nah, just cleaned him, stitched and bandaged him, that’s all,” McNally says hopefully.
“How’d you tell it to the doctor?” Lopez says looking past McNally at the traffic.
“He fell face-first into the sidewalk, ripped his mug open on the cement, oh, and he chipped a couple of teeth.”
Lopez tilts his head down, “And what story do you think the suspect will tell?”
McNally doesn’t answer. Lopez looks up at him.
“Jimmy,” Lopez says flatly.
“Yeah Sarge, I’m thinking.”
“Oh, is that the sound your brain makes when it’s working hard?” Lopez says as he puts his head down and smiles slightly.
“What sound?” McNally says unable to see Lopez’s face.
“Tell me Jimmy,” Lopez says looking up, his face implacable now.
“He’s gonna say I knocked him off his feet. That I rolled him over and rapped him in the mouth with my flashlight,” McNally says trying to sound offhanded.
“He gonna say your light bust his face and chip his tooth?”
“Teeth. Yeah probably.”
“Jimmy. Jimmy. You know why I sent you after him?”
“Because I could catch him,” McNally says proudly.
“Exactly. That’s it, catch him, cuff him, read him his fuckin’ rights, not bust him one in the kisser,” Lopez says, his voice rising slightly at the end of the sentence.
“It was more than once.”
“Jimmy, shut the fuck up,” Lopez says flatly. “Just shut up.”
McNally looks down at the tops of his black leather shoes. Lopez stands there thinking about his time on the job, thinking how many kids he’s seen chewed up by their inability to control their own emotions. For most that he’d known, getting busted off the job was the best thing for them as well as for the department.
But he saw something in this one, something you didn’t see in many other young cops. The kid had a knack, undeveloped and transitory right now, but with practice, experience, and guidance, this kid might actually make a great cop someday; if he doesn’t get in his own way, of course.
“Alright Jimmy, you got any friends here on the scene, anybody you can trust?”
“Yeah, sure … all these guys.”
“Jimmy. Someone you can trust,” Lopez says as he places his hand on McNally’s shoulder and looks him straight in the eye.
“Yeah, yeah Sarge,” McNally says softly.
“OK, don’t tell me anymore. Go find your friend and take care of that flashlight, ya understand? Once we get back to the house and the guy tells the dicks his story, LT’s gonna ask to see your light. They’re gonna run it for blood traces, but they’re gonna come up empty, got it?”
“I got it Sarge. I appreciate this.”
“Jimmy, I wipe my ass with your appreciation. Ya understand? Smarten up Jimmy. Show me your appreciation by using ya head. You got potential, but you also got a temper. Get a hold of your emotions or they will run you right out of this job. Now, fuck off. I’ll see you back at the house.”
“Thanks Sarge.”
“Yeah, get outta here before the Captain sees you.”
McNally turns to walk back toward the crime scene.
“Oh and Jim.”
“Yeah Sarge?” McNally says and turns around to face Lopez.
Lopez takes a step closer, “You probably etched your badge number on the bottom of that light so take care of the battery cap as well.”
“I wouldn’t of thought of that,” McNally whispers almost to himself.
“Calm down kid, you’ll be alright,” Lopez says and pats McNally lightly on the chest.
“Yeah,” McNally says, then turns and trots back to the two cops who drove him to the scene.
Sergeant Lopez watches him go, thinks, ‘you did the right thing Miguel, the right thing for everybody.’
He looks up the road for a moment, then turns and saunters back to the crime scene. As he approaches the squad cars on the periphery of the scene, he hears McNally ask Dugan if the bomb squad has found anything yet.