He found a shoe store a couple blocks over. Even better, it transpired that they had a sale on. Marshall bought a new pair of Doc Martens, and six pairs of socks, donated the old shoes to a homeless man camping outside the front window. A good score for the guy, Marshall thought. Ample sole-depth remaining, and the lace-fray was barely discernable. Marshall threw in a pair of socks, too. He found a gas station and bought a bottle of water and a packet of Tylenol, and checked himself out in their bathroom. The inside of his left cheek was raw and copper-flavored, and his saliva was bright red. The cheek was about twice its normal thickness. He took two Tylenol with water to dull the headache, and then broke in the new shoes with a walk over to the Paterson bus station. It turned out to offer that rarest of public facilities: a payphone. Its copy of the White Pages had been through a lot – tears, water damage, burn marks – but the P section was more or less intact, and Marshall found the confidential tip line for the New Jersey State Police. He told the operator he’d been camping near the top of the fire road and heard gunfire, walked down for a look and saw a guy sitting dead beside a van.
He caught a bus from Paterson over to Manhattan, and was home by one o’clock. His burner phone was in the gutter, not far from where Chris had made him leave it on the sidewalk. It was dead now from rain exposure. Marshall guessed Chris probably was, too.
It rained through the afternoon. He slept until four o’clock, woke to find the headache was improving, and the bruising to his cheek was now vividly described in blues and purples. He had a couple more Tylenol and worked on his Pollock jigsaw, battling the lower right quadrant. No joy today. He couldn’t see the lineups. He gave up and sorted out the new socks he’d bought, cutting them out of the packaging, removing the plastic tags, re-bundling them. Then he just sat there thinking about his Vialoux case. D’Anton and Renee Lewis, the mob man Mikey Langello. All the little overlaps he’d heard …
Five o’clock, he broke a new burner phone out of its box, and called Jordan Mora. No answer. He called Harry Rush.
Harry said, ‘You’re still alive, then.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You still angry I want nothing to do with pissing off mob guys?’
Marshall said, ‘You heard of a guy called Mikey Langello?’
‘Langello? Yeah. He was running the Brighton Beach outfit for a while.’
‘Not anymore. He’s AWOL.’
Quiet for a while. Harry said, ‘I already told you I want nothing to do with it. You’d be well advised to keep your distance, too. And you still need to come and collect your fucking jigsaw.’
He tried Hannah Vialoux.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey. Just me.’
Silence.
He said, ‘Marshall.’
‘Yeah, I know. I was starting to …’ She sighed. He heard it catch in her throat.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. I’m just glad you’re all right. I had a call … it was stupid, but I had a call last night, one of the cops who was here Friday. He said you hadn’t left any details and they still needed a statement from you. I told them your address.’
So that’s how they’d found him.
Marshall said, ‘Don’t worry. I spoke to them this morning.’
‘Oh, good. Yeah. It was still … they shouldn’t have even asked. It could’ve been anyone. Honestly, it’s like … people put you at ease with a bit of authority, you tell them anything. I didn’t even click until this morning, couldn’t believe how stupid I was—’
‘Hannah, it’s fine—’
‘And then you weren’t picking up your phone. I kept thinking … I was worried something might have happened—’
‘Hannah. It. Is. Fine. I’m fine.’
Now in hindsight and in the silence, he could hear how hard his tone had been. He laughed, trying to kill the moment, but it sounded brittle and awkward. The side of his head throbbed with renewed vigor.
He said, ‘Don’t go around and around thinking about that kind of thing. Just forget about it.’
Nothing.
Then she said, ‘So which cop was it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Who wanted to talk to you?’
‘I don’t know. I spoke to Nevins.’
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
He hated how he could do that to her. Lies flowing out like mercury.
She said, ‘I called him just now, he said he hadn’t spoken to you.’
‘Hannah, please relax. I left him a message. Everything is fine.’
Silence again. Then she said, ‘What is going on?’
‘Nothing is going on. But you can do us both a favor by forgetting about this. Just don’t worry about it. Please.’
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, ‘I was just calling to check that you’re OK.’
‘Yeah. I’m still alive.’
He thought he heard a smile.
She said, ‘Look, I just …’
‘You don’t have to – everything’s fine. Honestly.’
‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet.’
‘All right.’ He thought he probably did, though.
She said, ‘I was going to say: I’m sorry how I acted the other night. It’s just been … it’s been a pretty strange time.’
‘Yeah. I know. It’s fine.’
‘The funeral’s Tuesday morning. Tuesday at nine.’ She told him the address.
‘I’ll be there.’
‘All right. Great.’
He hit a block for a second, nothing to say. He watched a raindrop crawling down the outside of the glass. Inching, inching. Stop-start. Diverting one way and then back the other. He knew how it felt.
He said, ‘Look, I have to …’
‘Yeah?’
He was going to tell her he kept a gun on the edge of the sink while he showered, use it as subliminal evidence that maybe they weren’t going to be compatible. That really, it wasn’t even worth trying. But he wasn’t quite sure how to confess that without it sounding a little off. He didn’t want her thinking he was Timothy McVeigh. Then again, he hadn’t felt a need to confess all of that to Jordan …
He said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see you Tuesday.’
‘OK. See you Tuesday.’
He disconnected, and tried Floyd Nevins’ number.
‘Detective Nevins.’
Marshall said, ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up on a Sunday.’
‘Is that why you called?’
‘No. It was just something that occurred to me as it was ringing. That maybe you wouldn’t pick up.’
Nevins didn’t answer. Faint clangs and clashes from his end, maybe kitchen noise. Then he said, ‘Hannah Vialoux is worried about you.’
‘She mentioned that. Far as I can tell, I’m OK.’
‘I’m relieved.’
Marshall said, ‘Have you solved it yet?’
‘I can’t go into details with you.’
‘That sounds like a long way of saying no. Did you ask if anyone knows where this Langello guy is, exactly?’
‘I asked.’
‘And what did they tell you?’
Nevins dodged the question: ‘Have you solved it yet?’
Marshall said, ‘Yeah. I think maybe I have. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
The first train to Boston on Monday morning was at seven a.m. out of Penn Station. Marshall got there an hour early and bought his ticket at the Amtrak window. He went over to Dunkin Donuts and bought a coffee, and then wandered the concourse. He liked these moments, the feeling of being a normal member of society. Blessedly mundane, unremarkable. That said, he was probably the only person wearing concealer to disguise facial bruising. He went over to the payphones on the Amtrak concourse, and called the NYPD’s seventeenth precinct. He had a burner phone with him, but the coffee transaction had left him with change that he needed to jettison: there was no way to carry coins of varying denominations in a manner that wasn’t irritating. Plus he liked the novelty factor of using a payphone. Penn Station was one of the very few places in New York that still had them.
A desk sergeant picked up, and Marshall asked for Loretta Flynn.
‘She’s not in yet.’
‘It’s urgent. Can you put me through to her cell phone?’
‘What’s the nature of the call?’
‘I can’t discuss it.’
‘Right.’ The word drawn out so thinly, the t was almost lost. Marshall wondered if it was intended to convey skepticism, or just tiredness.
The sergeant said, ‘I’ll need a name.’
Marshall said, ‘D’Anton Lewis.’
Silence on the line for thirty seconds while he was transferred. Marshall stood with his back to the console, watching the crowd. Then the line clicked, and Loretta Flynn said carefully, ‘How can I help you?’
Marshall said, ‘It’s not actually D’Anton, and it’s not actually urgent, but I figure we should talk anyway. I was going to suggest another meeting in the back of your car. But this is probably a little easier.’
It took her a moment to recognize his voice. ‘Don’t waste my time.’
‘You need to improve your surveillance of Mr Lewis. The current system isn’t working.’
The rustle of an exhalation. ‘I’m hanging up the phone now.’
‘OK. It’s one of the few things that’s easier to do than to say. But if you hold on, I have more to tell you.’
Silence, but he hadn’t heard the beep yet. She was still there.
Marshall said, ‘Funnily enough, I think he’s being less than honest with you. Or has he told you about his missing wife?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I asked him yesterday about what happened to Vialoux. D’Anton told me his wife’s been missing for a couple months, and he asked Vialoux to find her. He thinks whoever has her also killed Vialoux. Possibly an ex-mob guy called Langello. I thought it’s the kind of information you might find useful.’
He hung up before she could respond, went over to the Hudson News and used his remaining change to buy a copy of the Times. The crowd was coalescing now, waiting for the track announcement. It was quite a spectacle. People all packed together, faces upturned, as if the departure boards described a future beyond that of a simple train ride. Then at five minutes to the hour the track number appeared, and he joined in with the swarm.
He was down the back in coach class, but he found a window seat. The train headed east into Long Island City and then turned north, following the river, the day just breaking. Weak light and a threat of rain. The old guy next to him was heading up to Cambridge, visiting grandchildren. He had four of them apparently, and he gave Marshall a biography on each as they headed up through the edge of Brooklyn. Marshall smiled and nodded, but he knew he wouldn’t have the stamina to make it through the entire family history. He looked out his window. Rust and dereliction out at the margins of the city. Still interesting though. He liked seeing everything, the outputs of bygone efforts, bygone lives.
His neighbor went off to the snack car, and when he came back he took a seat across the aisle, and the woman by the window on that side got to hear all about the grandchildren, too. Marshall read his Times. He watched the trackside landscape slowly changing, looking more like New England now, by turns suburban and then rural. Trees kinked and brittle in the cold. Like a blood-vessel diagram, a picture of the back of your eye. He had his printout on Renee Lewis with him, and he went over it again. The passport image, and the address for the therapist’s clinic she’d been visiting. Dr Ruth Davin. Beacon Street, over in Back Bay. Nice part of town.
It was almost eleven thirty by the time the train pulled in at South Station. The old guy followed him down the aisle to the door and gave him some more details on the grandchildren. He’d told the lady in the other window seat he had one granddaughter at college and another on a waiting list, but now they were both in a Master’s program at MIT. Marshall shook the guy’s hand and told him to enjoy his stay, and headed off west on Essex Street, through the bottom of the financial district. It felt five degrees cooler than in New York, and people up here always seemed to be doing it tougher. Homeless guys sleeping on the sidewalk, hanging out in storefront doorways. Little knots of them on street corners, blowing into cupped hands for warmth and then proffering them in the hope of coins. Marshall dealt out cash from Little Marco’s roll. He walked along the south edge of the Common and then up Arlington Street past the public garden, headed west again along Commonwealth Ave. He liked this part of town. Brownstone apartments overlooking the street with its tree-lined median and the statues of the venerated. Alexander Hamilton, and then some other guys whose plaques he’d have to read in order to remember.
He turned north and went all the way up to the Charles. Stiff cold wind coming in off the water. Plenty of traffic on Storrow Drive, following the riverfront, but not many people out walking. A few courageous souls in coats and woolen hats. Cambridge looking bleak and subdued under the heavy cloud. The MIT buildings were directly opposite, the far side of the river, and he thought of his friend from the train. Maybe right now, one or even two granddaughters were over there, grinding through a Master’s program. Couldn’t exactly fault the man for saying so, truth or otherwise. Marshall knew better than most people there were worse crimes than embellishment, padding out the CV of a loved one. A nice kind of deceit, really. Something good for someone you loved. Rather than something bad for someone you hated.
He walked over to Beacon Street and found Ruth Davin’s office. It was in a four-story redbrick building that also had a cardiologist and a fund manager. They all had their names and post-nominals in authoritative gold lettering on the street-front door.
The remaining units seemed to be private dwellings. Marshall went in and took the stairs up to Dr Davin’s office on the third floor. He wondered if the fund manager ever came in, have a session on the couch when the markets dipped. Maybe book in to see the heart doctor when things got really dire.
The reception area looked like an appropriately low-stress environment. Lots of low leather furniture, fat and shiny. A couple of side tables with vases of flowers. Flower paintings on the walls. Everything very conducive to positivity, Marshall thought. Or conducive to thinking about flowers, anyway. The reception counter was on his right, a door behind it open to what looked like an administration area. A desk back there and another flower painting on the wall. To his left was a closed door. The consultation room, presumably. Straight ahead was a window that faced the public alley that ran behind Beacon Street. Double-hung glazing with brass fitch catches on the rail. He went over for a closer look. The catches would pop open with a knife blade. If he had to, he could come up the fire escape and let himself in that way.
‘Good morning. May I help you?’
A woman was standing behind the counter. Thirtyish, red-haired, very polished. She must have been in the office. Totally silent. They obviously took discretion seriously.
The clock on the wall was at five seconds to midday. Marshall didn’t want it to catch him mid-phrase. He let it get to twelve, and said, ‘Good afternoon. Is Dr Davin available?’
‘No, she’s in session, and then she has another appointment until one thirty.’ She gestured at an iPad set up on a pedestal on the counter. ‘If you’d like to enter some details you can arrange an appointment. Have you visited us before?’
Quiet and somehow reassuring. Like she thought whatever inner trouble had brought him here might manifest, break through the facade.
Marshall said, ‘No, I haven’t.’ He brought out his printout on Renee Lewis. ‘Actually, I just had a couple questions. You might be able to help me.’
‘Oh. OK.’
He went to pass her the paper, poised for his have-you-seen-her routine, but then he stopped.
He looked at the iPad, thought for a moment.
‘Sir?’
‘Sorry, just thinking.’ He folded the paper and pocketed it again. Smiled apologetically. ‘Maybe it’s easier if I make an appointment.’
‘Sure. Of course.’
She gestured again to the iPad on the counter. ‘If you just touch the new client icon …’
He did so, and the iPad screen refreshed and showed a list of questions. Name, date of birth, address, gender, preferred pronouns, telephone number. Stuff about his medical history when he scrolled down. He entered his name as Michael Langello, and selected he/him from the pronouns menu. There looked to be about seventy different options. In the phone number field, he entered the number for his current burner. The address section he filled with streams of random symbols: dollars and pounds and carets and exclamations. What he hoped resembled the output of a computer gone haywire. He left all the medical history questions blank. The iPad didn’t seem to mind. It let him click through to the next screen and read Dr Davin’s debt collection policy. Heavy stuff. If you didn’t pay, they sent someone after you, apparently. He ticked the box to say that was all fine, and it gave him some more dropdown menus with available appointment hours. Marshall selected one at random, tomorrow afternoon at three p.m., touched the little icon that said CONFIRM. The screen refreshed and showed him a green tick.
‘All OK?’
He looked up, saw her smiling at him from across the counter.
‘Yeah, thank you.’ He tried to imbue his own smile with a battler’s quality: down on his luck, but making the most of it. Getting there. He stepped away, and saw her own expression softening a little, Newton’s law in human terms: the force of perceived courage bringing an equal magnitude of sympathy and admiration. He felt the burner phone in his pocket buzz, no doubt a confirmation text for his appointment.
He headed for the door. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘No trouble.’
He stopped suddenly, like he’d just remembered something. He winced, touched his brow. ‘Oh, sorry. Man, I’m just not thinking at the moment.’
He’d caught her returning to the office. She moved back to the counter, looked at him pleasantly.
He issued what he hoped sounded like a self-deprecating chuckle, ran a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, with everything going on, the brain’s in a bit of a blur.’ He twirled a finger, as if trying to catch himself up with his own reality. ‘I moved house a couple days ago, but I’m still … I can’t remember if I put in the new address or the old one.’
‘Oh …’ She sat down, shook a mouse to wake up a computer screen. ‘What was the name, sorry?’
‘Langello.’
He spelled it for her. If she recognized it, she gave no indication.
‘And what should the address be?’
Good question. Marshall said, ‘Nevin Place.’
He leaned on the counter as she typed. The edge of the monitor was right there by his elbow.
‘Nothing’s come up …’
‘Oh damn …’ He invented another street: ‘I must’ve put the old place. Mora Way …’ He spelled that for her, too.
More typing.
‘No. Sorry.’ Shaking her head slowly. ‘I can’t see anything.’
Marshall said, ‘Oh, damn, really? So what comes up under my name?’
‘Let’s have a look. Langello …’
He watched the keyboard as she typed Langello, watched her hand moving to the mouse, the double click, and Marshall touched the corner of the monitor, swiveling it towards him a fraction, and then leaned over for a view of the screen. Subtle and reflexive, he hoped. The automatic gesture of any reasonable person being thwarted by I.T.
There were two entries under Langello.
Marshall’s was the first, the address field full of random symbols: dollars and pounds and carets and exclamations, like some kind of coding error. The next entry showed an address on Bloomfield Street, Dorchester.
Langello, Michael.
Marshall said, ‘Well, I don’t know what’s happened.’
‘It looks like some kind of error maybe.’
‘Oh, yeah. Look at that.’
He pulled his phone from his pocket, as if about to answer a call. She was looking at him enquiringly, patient, accustomed to working with the harried. Or maybe skeptical and hiding it well, running the math on the likelihood of having two patients called Michael Langello.
He made an apologetic gesture, as if hostage to the whim of his imaginary caller, headed for the door. ‘I guess I’ll sort it out tomorrow at the appointment. Thanks for your help. Times like these, it makes a big difference.’