Thursday 13th, 8.44 a.m.
Ida sat in the waiting room feeling like an ocean of black water was pressing down on her. She looked up and saw the policeman in the seat opposite her had fallen asleep. And here she was, alone, with a .38 that was half out of rounds.
She wondered how long the surgery would take, how long till she found out if he was going to live. A bullet to the chest. The doctors had taken him into surgery. If it had hit his heart or lungs, it’d take a miracle for him to survive. She dry heaved, and the policeman woke up and looked at her.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
Ida nodded, wooziness sloshing about her head.
‘You want me to get you a bucket or something?’
She frowned at the mention of a bucket, then realized why he’d said it and shook her head.
‘I’m gonna get a water.’
She rose and swooned. The policeman caught her. He helped her upright.
‘You sure you’re OK?’
She nodded.
‘Don’t go too far,’ he said.
Ida teetered off towards the water cooler. She kept going, turned a corner, found the restrooms. They were filled with a harsh electric light that burned her eyes and an acrid smell of lemon bleach. She splashed cold water on her face and its chillness soothed her skin. She looked at herself in the mirror and the person who stared back might well have been a stranger.
She’d returned to Gabriel’s around seven. There had been no answer at the apartment. She’d spoken to the concierge. The man had palmed her off. She’d persisted. He told her there’d been a shooting out on 3rd Avenue. She raced round the corner, into the middle of a crime scene. She spoke to the passers-by who were gathered on the corner watching, the storekeepers, the newspaper boys. An old man had been shot in the early hours, had been taken to hospital.
She ran over to the police, asked if the victim had been identified as Michael Talbot. She told them she was a colleague. After twenty minutes of fruitless questions and answers from both sides, she was in a cop car being driven over to the hospital. All she’d learned was that Michael was still alive, and that he was the only casualty – there was no mention of Gabriel’s niece, or Faron, or anyone else.
When she got to the hospital, the doctors had told her Michael was in surgery. A delicate operation, they’d said. She asked if anyone had contacted the next-of-kin and was told Michael’s wife had been notified early that morning in Chicago and that she’d told them she’d catch the next train to New York.
They took Ida to the waiting room and when she checked the corridor leading to the operating theatres she was shocked to see there was no one guarding him, just a single policeman there to keep an eye on things. Hospitals weren’t safe. Even if Michael pulled through, they might come back. She’d sat down opposite the cop and waited, leaving only to go to the payphone a few times to call Carrasco. But he was nowhere to be found. She left messages. It would be her and the sleeping cop against whoever came to finish off the job.
She couldn’t help but imagine the worst – the doctor coming in to tell her that Michael was dead, that he’d lost too much blood, that there was an infection, a clot, that the bullet had punctured his lung, ripped through his heart, that she’d have to identify the body. She imagined how Annette would feel. She remembered the pit of despair she’d fallen into when her own husband had died. Anger filled her. She had to find Faron and bring him to justice. For Michael. For everything her friend had done for her, for everything he had taught her. She owed him.
She left the bathroom and walked back to the waiting room, turned a corner and saw two men heading towards the corridor that led to the operating theatres. There was something in the two men’s stride, in the look on their faces. They had cop written all over them, but what type of cop?
They reached the start of the corridor. Ida followed them, watched as they approached the swing doors that led to wherever it was the doctors were trying to save Michael’s life. She fumbled for her gun, pulled it from its holster. Pointed it at the backs of the two men.
‘Freeze,’ she shouted.
The two men spun about to look at her. They reached for their guns on instinct, then saw the .38 in her hands and stopped, confused by the sight of a woman holding a gun in a hospital waiting room. She heard gasps from the people behind her. She heard footsteps. The sleeping cop had woken up, was by her side. He looked from her to the two men.
One of the men addressed the beat cop.
‘We’re here from the DA’s,’ he said. ‘You want to tell us what the hell’s going on?’
The beat cop looked at Ida.
‘Ma’am, put down the gun,’ he said.
‘I want to see ID,’ she said.
The men gave the beat cop are you serious looks. The beat cop shrugged.
The men reached into their pockets, slowly, and pulled out their wallets, held up their badges.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked them.
‘They’re with me,’ said a familiar voice behind her.
Ida turned to see Carrasco walking up the corridor.
‘Put down the gun, Ida,’ he said. ‘We’re here to guard Michael.’
She almost burst into tears. She dropped her arms to her sides, shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She put the gun back in its holster. Carrasco hugged her and she felt the weight of black water shifting.
Carrasco said something to the two men and they strode off down the corridor, then Carrasco and Ida turned and went to sit in the waiting room. She looked around her and saw all the other people staring.
‘I thought they were here to kill him,’ she said.
‘He’s still in surgery, Ida,’ Carrasco said. ‘They’ll wait to see if he lives before they try again.’
She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m not thinking straight.’
‘You know what his status is?’
‘Bullet to the chest. That’s all they said. They’ve been operating for hours. It doesn’t look good.’
He took this in, nodded.
‘We’ve got this, Ida,’ he said. ‘You can go home if you want. Get some rest.’
At the mention of home she thought of Chicago and wanted to cry. She thought of her hotel room, and it seemed to her about as welcoming as the morgue.
‘I’ll stay,’ she said.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
She told him about Gabriel and the airport and Michael staying back to look after Gabriel’s niece. When she’d finished he gave her a funny look.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘There’s something else. It wasn’t just you and Michael they attacked last night. Tom too. Up in Rikers. He would’ve been killed if a guard hadn’t walked past. That’s where I’ve been this morning, the Rikers Island infirmary.’
Ida nodded, took this in. They’d planned the attacks all at the same time – Gabriel and Ida at the airport, Michael at the apartment, Tom in the jail.
‘How was he?’ Ida asked.
Carrasco shook his head. ‘Had a face like a balloon. But he’ll be fine. Thing is …’ He gave her a sorry look. ‘Thing is he’s going to change his plea. He figures if he pleads guilty they won’t try to attack him again, he might actually survive prison. Soon as his lawyer gets there they’ll make it official. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.’
Ida’s heart sank. A guilty plea would mean a plea hearing in front of the judge, admission of guilt, confession. It would be all but impossible to reverse. Once the plea hearing happened, Tom would be looking at forty years, best-case scenario.
Carrasco took some papers from his pocket.
‘The phone records from O’Connell’s old boarding house,’ he said. ‘Where he received the call from Cleveland last month.’
Ida glared at the papers.
‘What’s the point?’ she said. ‘It’s over. We’ve failed.’