CHAPTER 51

McCall got to the Starbucks on West Sixty-second Street a little after twelve noon. The playground of the high school across the way was jammed with students. He had promised Cassie he wouldn’t go back there and “spy” on his son, but he wanted to make sure Scott was okay. Dana came out of the Starbucks with a venti Sumatra Asia/Pacific extra-bold coffee in a white china mug and set it down in front of him. She looked across at the high school playground and the cross-currents of good-natured high spirits.

“Why don’t you ever walk over there?”

“I’m fine right here,” McCall said, with an edge.

“Sure. Enjoy your coffee,” Dana said, a little embarrassed that she might have crossed the line of server/customer relations.

McCall touched her arm as she turned away.

“Sorry. I’ve had a tough few days.”

She smiled at him. “That’s okay. We all have those. I’m breaking up with my boyfriend.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“His loss.”

“I’d say so.”

She smiled at him again.

McCall was expecting a hug, but it didn’t happen.

Dana walked back inside. McCall drank some coffee, searched the playground for Scott and found him. He was playing a pickup basketball game with his black friend against two other African American students, both of them in the Magic Johnson height category. Tough to dribble the ball past giants. Scott ducked under a block and took a shot. The basketball circled the rim and dropped through the net. His pal gave him a low five.

Then Scott did something that he hadn’t done in all the months that McCall had been coming to watch him.

He turned and looked through the high mesh fence across the street at the Starbucks. Obviously he was looking for him. Scott tossed the basketball back to his friend, putting up a hand—five minutes. He ran over to a break in the fence, dodged traffic as he jaywalked across Sixty-second Street and jogged up to McCall’s table.

“Mom told me you’d been watching me from time to time,” he said as he sat down at the table. “But you never let me know you were here.”

“I didn’t think it was appropriate. I promised your mom I wouldn’t do this again, but I wanted to make sure you were okay and back at school.”

“You mean after my ordeal?” Scott sounded caustic. “It was scary, yeah. But what was Mom going to do? Send a note to the principal? ‘Sorry, Scott can’t come to school because he was a hostage in that mob shootout at the City Hall subway station and he needs some time to recover.’ I don’t think so. Anyway, I wasn’t hurt and I’m not having nightmares about it.”

“That’s good.”

Now there was silence between them. Dana came back out, looked at Scott, and smiled.

“If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain. What can I get for you?”

“I’m fine,” Scott said.

McCall finished his coffee in a couple of swallows. Dana took his mug.

“One more venti Sumatra Asia/Pacific coming up.”

And disappeared inside.

Scott looked over at the noisy school playground, as if unable to meet McCall’s eyes.

“I guess Mom gave you the stay-away-from-us speech.”

“She did.”

“Tom wouldn’t want you coming around.”

“How do you get on with your stepfather?”

“He’s cool. He’s a tough guy, too, in a different way. He doesn’t kill people, but he intimidates the shit out of them. You know, criminals he’s prosecuting.”

“I’ve only killed people I had to. People who threatened the security of this country.”

McCall knew he sounded defensive and Scott looked at him.

“Then why did you resign?”

Now it was McCall’s turn to glance away.

“Sometimes the lines get blurred.”

“Between good and evil?”

“Between right and wrong. Those lines are thinner, harder to see.”

Scott nodded. “But Mom says you’re not working for the government anymore?”

“No.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“The same kind of work, but not for the government.”

“Then for who?”

Dana came out with McCall’s venti and set it down in front of him. She was in a hurry, more tables needing attention inside, and left.

“Maybe for her.”

“Do you know her?”

“Just to be served coffee.”

“Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“She might be one day.”

“And you would help her out?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do yet.”

Scott looked back across the street. His friend was weaving in and out of the bigger guys’ blocks and shot for a basket, but it hit the rim and bounced off.

“I’d better get back and help Kyle out. He’s getting his butt kicked.”

Scott got up from the table, still looking at the playground.

“I play violin in the school orchestra. There’s a concert at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center tonight. It’s kind of a big deal.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’d like to come? I mean, if you can make it. If not, it’s cool.”

He wanted to leave, but somehow he couldn’t.

McCall reached up and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll be there,” he said quietly.

Scott nodded. McCall let go of his shoulder. There was a break in the traffic on Sixty-second Street and his son jogged back across and reentered the playground and stole the basketball away from one of his tall opponents and passed it to the black kid, as if he hadn’t stepped out of the game at all.

McCall picked up his new venti. He’d drink it down and watch the end of the pickup basketball game. Then he’d leave the Starbucks and wouldn’t return.

But he would be at that concert recital.

Now all he needed was a date.

*   *   *

McCall walked back toward his neighborhood. He noted a yellow cab waiting outside the Setai Hotel on Fifth Avenue at Thirty-sixth Street. A well-dressed couple in their forties were arguing loudly on the curb, the back door of the cab open. The cabbie waited patiently. The couple looked fairly intoxicated. McCall figured they’d just finished lunch at the Ai Fiori restaurant on the second floor. They both wore wedding rings. The wife’s eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and she was trying to get a word in, but her husband wouldn’t listen. He was shouting at her. Pedestrians avoided them on the sidewalk, but otherwise no one took much notice. This was New York.

The husband said something that sounded like: “You’re getting hysterical” and slapped her face. Then he shook her.

McCall was on the other side of Fifth Avenue. There was a break in the traffic. He took two fast steps to the curb, then stopped.

Kostmayer’s words came back to him.

You can’t save everyone, McCall.

He didn’t step off the curb.

The husband pushed his wife into the back of the cab and climbed in beside her. He gave an address to the driver and the yellow cab pulled out into the stream of traffic.

McCall took in a deep breath and let it out and walked on.

When he got to the antiques and collectibles store on Broadway he saw Moses through the window. The old man was gingerly lifting down a beautiful antique clock from a shelf. Beside him was a very attractive woman in her mid-thirties, McCall judged, wearing an expensive Soïa and Kyo double-breasted white belted coat with large black buttons. McCall entered the store and Moses gave him a nod.

The woman hovered anxiously.

“My dad’s an astronomer at the Fuertes Observatory in Ithaca and my mom collects antique clocks. I think this would be perfect, Moses, don’t you? It’s their fortieth wedding anniversary. What is that?”

Moses furrowed his brow.

“Ruby,” McCall said.

The woman looked over at him and smiled. “That’s it!”

Moses carried the clock to a counter.

“A lovely piece,” he said. “French Ormolu nineteenth century. The bronze statue is Urania, one of the nine muses in Greek mythology and the patron of astronomy.” He set the clock down on the counter and smiled at it like it was an old friend. “Urania the Heavenly, foretelling the future by the position of the stars.”

McCall took a closer look at the clock as he walked toward the glass cabinets of guns. Urania stood on one side of the golden gilt clock, a blue globe on the other. There were decorative embellishments of golden urns, rosettes, torches, laurel wreaths, and garlands. It was a beautiful piece.

“The hour and half hour are struck on a brass silvered bell,” Moses said. “Look it up on the Internet, it would cost you almost four thousand. On eBay, closer to three. I have it priced at twenty-eight hundred, but for a Ruby Anniversary?” He shrugged. “Twenty-five hundred.”

“Make it two thousand and you’ve got a deal,” she said.

Old Moses shrugged his acquiescence, like how could he argue with that?

She wrote him a check. “I’ll come back in an hour and pick it up, okay? You’re a lifesaver, Moses!”

She handed the old man her check, kissed him on the cheek, and rushed out the door.

McCall looked down at the various pre-1900 Remingtons and Colt revolvers. His Model P Peacemaker, Single-Action Cavalry Standard was in its place with the sign below it written in Moses’s copperplate writing: “Frontier Six-Shooter.” McCall glanced up. In one of the large gilt mirrors he could see Moses setting the astronomy clock down on his desk.

“What did you really have it priced at?”

“Two thousand, but people like to think they’re getting a deal. You’ve come to visit your Peacemaker Colt Revolver?”

“Today I’m in a buying mood. You said it was a tad over two thousand? I need to feel like I’ve got a deal out of you.”

“We’ll call it fifteen hundred.”

“I’ll take it,” McCall said.

Old Moses looked very pleased. He shook out a ring of keys, unlocked the back, and lifted out the Colt revolver.

“The case is in the back. I’ll get it.”

He set the Colt down beside the antique clock on his desk and disappeared into his storeroom at the back. A few moments later he reappeared with a redwood box that smelled as if the tree had just been cut down in the forest. He opened it. The outline for the revolver was lined with velvet. The old man set the Peacemaker into it. There were empty slots for bullets.

“You want the 44–40 Winchester cartridges? I have them. No extra charge.”

“I don’t intend to fire it, but sure, go ahead.”

Moses shuffled into the back and came out with a box of cartridges. He took twelve of them out and fitted the cartridges into the empty ammo spaces.

“I see that you’re limping, Mr. McCall.”

“Stubbed my toe.”

“And your face is marked up.”

“I got into a fight.”

“The young hoodlums you saw here in my shop have not been in for their weekly cut. None of the merchants in the neighborhood have seen them.”

“They won’t be back,” McCall said.

Moses looked up.

“You are responsible for that.”

“I had something to do with it.”

Moses closed the redwood lid and snapped it shut. McCall glanced at the Rolex Yacht-Master II in blue on his wrist. The one souvenir he’d kept from being Vladimir Gredenko. He had one more errand to run. Then he’d go home and change clothes.

“I’ll need to pick this up later.”

“I’m here till ten o’clock.” The old Jewish man’s eyes twinkled. “Hot date tonight?”

“I’m not sure,” McCall said. “I’m going to have to ask her.”

“Be fearless.”

Moses picked up a small shopping bag with ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES written across it, again in Moses’s copperplate hand. He eased the Colt box into the shopping bag. McCall paid him fifteen hundred in cash.

“There will be others demanding a piece of my life,” the old man said. “They will move into the neighborhood. They will come and see me. They will take their pound of flesh.” He shrugged. “That’s the way it is.”

“If that happens, call me.”

McCall picked up one of Moses’s cards from the desk and wrote his phone number on the back. He gave it to the old man. Moses held it in his slightly palsied hands.

“May I share this with the other merchants in the neighborhood?”

“You may.”

Moses put the card into a drawer in the desk.

“Enjoy your purchase. It has been yours for a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

Moses smiled. “You will see.”

He held out his hand. McCall shook it and walked out of the antiques store.

*   *   *

They walked into Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center arm in arm. McCall had met her and Fooz just outside Dante Park on Broadway at West Sixty-third Street. He knew there was a manhole cover on Columbus Avenue just below the Leon Lowenstein Center at West Sixy-first. Candy Annie looked beautiful in a pink sleeveless maxi dress that went down to her ankles with a high collar at her throat. McCall had got it for her at the H&M store on Fifth Avenue in midtown. She wore customized sparkling glitter and leatherette pale pink shoes with buckles that he’d bought at Prada on Fifth Avenue. He’d brought the clothes and shoes down to her in the subterranean tunnels and had asked if she was busy tonight. She’d laughed and said she might be able to fit him into her social calendar. Her hair fell down her back in a flowing auburn wave. She had on just a little makeup, a touch of eyeliner and rouge. She didn’t need much. She looked radiant. Jackson T. Foozelman had watched them walk down Broadway with tears in his eyes.

They were a few minutes late, so McCall chose a row near the back. Up on the stage was the Glee Club of Scott’s high school, at least forty of them, a full orchestra. All of them were dressed formally, the boys in tuxes, the girls in long elegant gowns. Scott was one of six violinists in the second row. The auditorium was packed with parents and friends and teachers. McCall noted Cassie and Tom Blake in the third row. Candy Annie settled into the seat next to McCall and grabbed his hand. Hers were trembling.

“So many people,” she whispered.

“None of them are here to hurt you, Annie,” McCall said softly.

“I know that. It’s just … I don’t see anyone for days, unless it’s Fooz dropping by to check up on me.” She looked at McCall with shining eyes. “You’re my only visitor from the upworld. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to seeing you.”

“You know what would be better?” McCall’s tone was gentle. “You living here in the upworld. You’ve got a job. We meet for a coffee at Starbucks and you tell me all about your week.”

“Too scary.”

“You’re here. No hyperventilation. No panic attacks.”

“I’m loving it,” she whispered.

“All it takes is time, Annie.”

She nodded, as if this was a revelation.

The lights went down and the audience quieted and the performance began.

The high school orchestra played Broadway show tunes. They started off with old favorites, from Damn Yankees, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, Fiddler on the Roof, Annie, and went on to A Chorus Line, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Rent, and The Lion King. Scott and the six violinists did their thing. McCall felt a sense of pride he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. His son did not stand out from the others in the orchestra, but he didn’t need to.

McCall thought he played a hell of a fiddle.

The performance lasted seventy minutes without an intermission and at the end the orchestra was given a standing ovation by the audience. McCall and Candy Annie were on their feet applauding with everyone else. The high school students bowed and curtseyed. McCall noted that Scott was looking around the auditorium. Finally he spotted McCall at the back and his face broke into a smile. He made eye contact and nodded. McCall nodded back.

In the third row, Cassie turned and saw McCall standing in the second-to-last row. She looked a little startled to see Candy Annie beside him, probably because she was so young. Cassie regarded him coolly, but it was clear she was glad he had made the effort to be there. Beside her, Tom Blake looked back to see what had caught her attention. She turned him back and shook her head and they both continued to applaud their son. The audience sat down and the student orchestra did an encore of numbers from Wicked. Then there was another standing ovation and the performance was over.

McCall wanted to get out of there quickly. He didn’t want a confrontation with Cassie and her husband that would make Candy Annie uncomfortable. He’d have liked to congratulate Scott, but it was enough that his son knew he had been there.

McCall and Candy Annie walked back up Broadway to Dante Park. Fooz was waiting for them on Broadway in front of the Dante Alighieri statue. Candy Annie grabbed his hands.

“Fooz! Wait till I tell you about it! It was fantastic! I have to change. You guys make a screen around me.”

She took a Puma bag from Fooz and darted back behind the big DANTE PARK sign. McCall stood on one side of her and Fooz on the other. Candy Annie grabbed clothes out of the Puma bag, stepped out of her dress, and slipped off her Prada shoes. She pulled on her jeans, dropped a sweatshirt over her head, stepped into her pink Reeboks, and laced them up. She put the folded dress and the shoes carefully into the Puma bag and handed it to Fooz.

“We need to go,” he said.

He walked away and waited for her.

“I have your envelope of money,” Candy Annie said to McCall. “I want to give it back to you.”

“Keep it. You’ll need it when you come back to the upworld. We’ll find you a nice apartment. Walk through Central Park. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“I will consider it,” she whispered.

She kissed him on the lips and took Fooz’s hand. They walked quickly up West Sixty-third Street toward Columbus Avenue, Candy Annie talking nonstop about the music and the performance. McCall thought of her descending back down into the subterranean passageways and returning to her half-tunnel home. He felt a pang of despair. But there was hope for her. He believed he could coax her back up into the real world.

But am I doing the right thing for her?

The real world had claimed the lives of the two women McCall had truly loved.

*   *   *

He watched McCall walk away from the old black man and the young bitch and followed him.