Respiratory Function, the Research Journal of the New York Hospitals' Endocrinology Association, and so on. Clearly Jay suffered from some debilitating respiratory problem and was more or less managing his own treatment, depressingly so. I heard myself exhale, out of dread, and put the materials back the way I'd found them. I checked my watch. Six minutes, for God's sake.
I returned to the bedroom and froze there- fascinated, saddened, perplexed. Inasmuch as Jay's life had a physical center, this was it, and what a lonely center it was, too. I saw no television, no personal mail, no sign of indulgent activity or relaxation. No wonder he hadn't told Allison where he lived.
Next to the bed stood a wooden desk and a chair. On top was a giveaway calendar from a heating oil company, and this- a full-height photo of Sally Cowles, taken at great distance. She was in her school uniform, walking on a sidewalk with two friends on a sunny afternoon. From the trees, I could see that the photo had been shot in the late fall or early winter. The girls wore coats but not gloves or hats, and the surfaces of the buildings around them suggested a well-to-do neighborhood in the city. Upper East Side, perhaps, behind them a flower shop. Was there a flower shop near Allison's apartment? Around the corner on the avenue? The girls were walking with unconscious happiness, knapsacks jingling, their school uniforms rippling, hair caught by the breeze, matching socks different lengths. I tried to picture Jay studying this photo. It was in no way overtly sexual, at least not to me. But certain men, I knew, were driven into a frenzy by the sight of a girl in a school uniform. The implied innocence sent them into spasms of lust, and despite myself, then and there I remembered a business trip to Tokyo almost ten years earlier when I was dragged by three drunken Japanese businessmen into a strip joint in the famed Shinjuku district, where along with two hundred more Japanese businessmen I watched one near-pubescent girl after another shed her plaid school uniform and bobby socks. The sight had left me cold- I prefer older women with the mark of gravity upon them, with eyes that smoke with the absolute lack of innocence- but the Japanese men were transfixed by the sight, a few even producing expensive cameras and unapologetically recording the open-thighed displays for later review. Was Jay such a man? I couldn't believe it, I didn't want to believe it.
What I wanted to do was listen to the answering machine message. Maybe Allison really did have his number. Instead I slid open the desk drawer, wondering if Jay perhaps kept his legal papers in there, such as copies of the contract for the building on Reade Street. But the drawer was empty, save for a few pens and rubber bands and a paper pad of order slips for Brooklyn Oxygen and Hospital Supplies, adorned with their motto, SAFETY, RELIABILITY, AND PROMPT DELIVERY. This, I remembered, matched the slip of paper Jay had given me two days earlier with the restaurant address where I'd met Marceno.
What else? Hurry, I told myself, find the important stuff. I spied a list tacked to the wall:
Every day:
300 push-ups, no O
500 sit-ups, O afterward okay
Read newspapers (for conversation)
Read one page of the dictionary
Maintain foot hygiene, inspect for infection
Don't obsess about FEV
So here was the O that had upset Allison. O for oxygen, oxygen clearly being delivered to the garage downstairs. This was why the garage door had been left open, so that the empty tanks could be picked up; in all likelihood, I realized, their delivery schedule corresponded to the regularly appearing O's that Allison had seen in Jay's date book. A man who needs oxygen delivered will know when it is coming.
There, a secret revealed, worth a lot more than my investment of five hundred dollars and a couple of subway rides. But what was FEV? And why might Jay obsess about it? Did the letters stand for someone, another young woman he was stalking? Next to the list hung a small framed newspaper clipping with a photograph. It showed a young man in a bulky baseball uniform and batting helmet swinging a bat. The swing is nearly over and he is off balance from the effort. The headline read CLANKS HOMER IN INTERCOUNTY CHAMP DUEL. I checked the date; the clip was fifteen years old.
John 'Jay' Rainey, of Jamesport, hit a towering three-run homer yesterday in the intercounty summer-league play at Bethpage High School, clinching their victory 3–1.
Rainey, who is leading the Bulldogs in slugging this season with sixteen round-trippers in twenty-three games, had every ballplayer's dream come true when he was recently signed to a minor league contract by the New York Yankees, following his second college season. Rainey will report to their double A farm team in three weeks.
His homer came off of Tino Salgado, Bethpage's ace pitcher who went 6–1 during the regular season. Salgado had been throwing a shutout until the Bulldog's homer.
'I got a good look at it,' Rainey said after the game. 'I'm just glad we won.'
To be signed to a minor league baseball contract is quite an honor, of course, but this is not what caught my attention. The article suggested that Rainey's condition worsened after the date of the article, for no major league team signs up a prospect without giving him a thorough physical first. Martha Hallock had mentioned an accident. Was this the cause of Rainey's trouble?
Time to leave, no matter how much I wanted to stay. But at the door I was drawn back to the oxygen chamber, so sleek and streamlined, a bullet-shaped casket. I touched the spring-loaded door and it rose slowly, revealing a white, body-length cushion. Its spotlessness was depressing. Just about the loneliest place imaginable. Inside was a reading light and a pad of paper and pen. I flipped open the pad: Dear Mr. David Cowles, said the first sheet. This is an extremely difficult letter to write. For many years now — The letter ended. The next sheet said, Dear David Cowles, Many years ago, your late wife, Eliza Carmody- The third sheet said, Dear David, My left ear has a small bump on the inside of the curl of cartilage. It's not something people usually notice but Now I heard something outside, or perhaps downstairs in the garage. I'd taken too big a chance as it was- on the premises almost twelve minutes. I dropped the pad of unfinished letters back into the chamber, pressed down on the lid until it clicked shut, and glanced around the room to see that nothing had been disturbed. I slipped out the door and locked it from the outside again, not bothering to kick aside the broken glass — then pushed back inside the door, cursing
myself, and stepped straight to the answering machine. Keeping on my glove, I pressed PLAY.
'Listen, you peckerass!' boomed Poppy's voice through a squall of static, 'just pay these guys some fucking blood money, all right? Herschel's family, somebody working for them, are here. They're here! Right here, okay? Found me at the diner this afternoon. Did you tell them I eat there? I don't get it, Jay. They got me. They're listening to every word I'm telling you right now. Said they knew something about Herschel, I said I didn't know what. I said okay I called in the ambulance but he was already dead. They think we killed him! They're not going to the police, either. That's what they say, anyway, what-?' The voice became indistinct. 'Yeah, they got- I mean, I told them your phone number, Jay, and where your girlfriend at the steakhouse works, okay? I got to give them something, that's all I got to give, and I don't know what else to say. I told them that's all I know. Just pay them, Jay, just-'
That was it. End of message. My fingers trembled, but I hit the memory button for old messages. Nothing. Time to go. But I didn't. I did one more thing; I dialed my new cell phone from Jay's phone. His number popped up on the display, and I saved it.
This done, I shot out of the room, pulled the door behind me, and scooted down the stairs. I kept my cap low and turned downhill on the street. Had anyone seen me? I caught a getaway taxi on Third Avenue, and the driver flicked on some kind of Indian or Bangladeshi stand-up comedy show. Urmatta-eshi-ohvalindi-halaloo, came a man's voice. Heh-heh, came the response. Durmeshala-burmatta-valnahnah-galod-pulurshindaloo! And then, Heh- heh.
I settled into my seat- Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan would take a while. I didn't want to keep thinking of Jay as an adversary, for clearly he was living under desperate circumstances, to a degree I hadn't realized before. But that same desperation worried me; a man who needs oxygen tanks at night is not as scared of lawsuits and other threat sas is another man. It was also true that my illegal entry of Jay's premises hadn't resulted in any information that would help me deal with Marceno. What, then, had I learned? H.J.'s men were threatening Poppy. I needed to tell Allison to watch out, didn't I? And Jay, involved with Sally Cowles, was trying to draft a strange letter to her father. Had he bought the Reade Street building for some reason involving them? What else? The cartilage in his ear was related to the problem. He had a refrigerator full of black-market pharmaceuticals. He was obsessed with someone or something named FEV.
