Codella met him at nine AM in the narrow coffee shop on Greenwich Street behind the Borough of Manhattan Community College. There was really no need for the meeting—Brandon had already given a detailed statement at Manhattan North—but Codella wanted to see him one last time. They sat across from each other in a tight booth for two, and he waited for her to speak first.
“I let myself suspect you for a little while,” she confessed.
He shrugged. “It’s understandable. I held the cup, and I didn’t tell you I’d gone back to Baiba’s that night. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s not important. But I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life.”
He looked surprised.
“You did. Just before Julia hit me over the head, I heard the elevator coming. She must have heard it, too. Who knows what she would have done to me if you hadn’t come downstairs. So I owe you my life.”
He looked down shyly.
“I’m thanking you,” said Codella. “You’re supposed to say you’re welcome.”
He smiled.
“You have a great smile. You could show it more.”
The waiter came. Codella ordered tea. Brandon ordered coffee.
“You saved Thomas Merchant too, you know. He probably would have died without the Naloxone. I’m not sure whether or not you’re happy about that.”
They both laughed.
“Ironically, I read about Naloxone while I was in Baiba’s apartment that afternoon,” he said. “I was trying to study for a test next week, and I couldn’t concentrate at all, except for that sidebar. I found it interesting, and I read it twice.” He rubbed his bristly chin. Was he trying to grow a goatee, she wondered. “I wish I could have saved her instead of him,” he added.
“I know. But we don’t get to choose who we save, and we can’t save people from the needs that compel them to do self-destructive things.”
“I did love her,” he blurted out like a guilty confession. His throat sounded dry.
“I know. And it’s good to admit your feelings. It’s liberating.” She thought of that night long ago when Haggerty had told her about the woman he’d loved and how she had humiliated him. She thought of all the shameful history she had kept to herself until Haggerty had teased it out of her.
Brandon nodded. “What’s going to happen to Merchant?”
Their drinks came. “Nothing, I suppose.”
“Shouldn’t he be arrested for what he did to Baiba?”
“Should he? Yes. But there’s no proof. All we know is that they were together on Monday night and he went to see her on Wednesday. The rest is he-said-she-said. His punishment will come in the form of Pamela Martinelli. She might have been on Merchant’s side two days ago, but last night she showed up as Julia’s pit bull and that woman will tear out anyone’s throat. She’ll make sure Julia has the best defense attorney money can buy, and the public isn’t likely to forgive and forget about Merchant’s transgressions when they get done spinning stories of Julia’s traumatic childhood.”
She watched Brandon add sugar to his coffee. “What will you do now, Brandon?”
His spoon circled the inside circumference of his cup. “I’m going to have my surgery in three weeks,” he said. “Before all this happened, Baiba gave me three thousand dollars. At first I wasn’t going to use it because I figured it probably came from the jewelry Merchant gave her. How else would she have had that kind of money? But then I decided if that was true, if she went to the trouble of selling the jewelry, then she was at least trying to get free from him. And she wanted me to have it. If I use it, a little bit of her will stay with me.”
Codella nodded.
“And after I recover from the surgery I’ll do my hospital internship, and hopefully they’ll hire me on.”
“You’re very courageous.”
“Not really,” he said.
“Oh, yes. You are. In so many ways. You saved me. You saved Merchant. And you have saved yourself.”
She saw his eyes become shiny with tears he wouldn’t shed. She put her hand over his. “We come from all over to live in this city. We’re all running away from something. Fortunately this place is big enough to absorb all our sorrows and all our bad memories. You’re going to do just fine.” She smiled, and she was thinking about her own younger self, the eighteen-year-old who had come to New York with no one and nothing except a dismal past she’d wanted to outrun. She leaned forward. “Can I tell you what I’ve learned from this case?”
He sipped his coffee and nodded eagerly.
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t try to forget the things that have happened. Bad or good. Don’t try to forget them. Just deal with them. Otherwise, they come back in ways you never expected.”
She stood and grabbed the check. She touched his shoulder. “Good luck with everything, Brandon. You know where to find me if you need anyone.”
Then she drove back uptown. Part of her was tempted to detour to the East Side, stop at Park Manor, and see Constance Hodges. But why? What would she say to the woman? I know you? I understand why you are so unhappy? I saw the same unhappiness in my mother?
Hodges was a sad, pitiful woman trapped in a subservient job the same way her mother was trapped in a subservient marriage. Neither one of them had Brandon’s courage or the resolve to break away. Their only self-expression was self-medication.
She steered the car up the West Side Highway. As she passed the light at Fifty-Seventh Street, she accelerated and the Upper West Side loomed on her right past the cliff of Trump Towers. She inhaled deeply. She was going back to her part of town, and she felt an unanticipated appreciation for this city that had taken her in and allowed her to start a new life. New York City could be so forgiving in that way.
Her head was still pounding, and she desperately wanted to sleep, but she turned off the highway at Ninety-Fifth Street and drove to the 171st. She found a parking spot right in front of the precinct, got out, and went inside. Behind the bulletproof glass, officers were doing what they always did. The rhythm of life in a precinct station never changed.
She climbed the stairs. Haggerty was sitting at his desk. He was on the phone, but when he saw her, he smiled with an “I’ll-be-right-off-don’t-go-away” wave of his hand. She stared into his blue eyes and waited for him to hang up.
“Well? Did he suspend you?” he asked when he got off.
“No.”
“Did he scream?”
“No.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Watch the news on Channel Two.”
“Only if I can watch it with you.”
She smiled.
“So are the two of you friends now?”
“More like two wolves who know their territory.” She reached in her pocket. “And speaking of territory.” She pulled out the small ring of keys she’d been carrying for the past two days. She set it on his desk in front of him, and he looked at it.
“What’s this?”
“You know.”
“Why?”
She sat on the edge of his desk and touched his face. “So you don’t have to ask the doorman to let you in anymore.”