Wallflower

'We'll stay in touch. Won't we?'

'Yeah, we'll stay in touch,' Janek said to the closing door.

He was dreaming when, at six the following morning, his ringing telephone woke him up. As he groped for the receiver, he tried to recapture his dream, but the details were instantly lost to him, leaving him with nothing but a vague sense of dread.

It was Monika, and the fine clarity of her voice quickly drove away his demons.

'I was worried, Frank. You didn't call.'

'Sorry. I got back too late. I figured you'd be asleep.'

'I've been thinking about you, imagining what you've been going through.

I wish I could be there with you now.'

Wasn't she fabulous! Perhaps Venice had been more than a dream.

'I love the glass,' he said.

'I hoped you would.'

'I put it by my window. I want to look at it every day, to remind myself of Venice and how I met you there and what we found together.' He pulled himself short. 'Hey! I better shut up. This is getting sentimental.'

'Don't be afraid of sentiment, Frank.' 'No, Monika. But sometimes I'm wary.' And then he poured out to her everything that was bothering him: the way Jess was stabbed, the gluing, the decadent boyfriend, and finally the diary.

'I couldn't bear to read it. I don't know why. First I thought it was her handwriting; then I realized I was afraid of what I'd have to read. Boyce almost leered when he offered it to me. I guess I didn't want… what? Disillusionment. Then, when he told me about her, that gang she was running with, having sex wearing a blindfold while the other kids watched… I don't know. I've seen a lot, maybe as bad as it gets, but I never connected Jess with anything sordid. Of course, it wasn't necessarily ugly. It all depends on how she approached it. She was a grown woman. She had every right to live her life. But still, I can't seem to come to grips with it. It's as if there was a part of her I didn't know.'

Monika told him she thought that if he just looked at it in a certain way, he wouldn't feel so confused. As for Jess's secrecy, she assured him that that was not at all uncommon in a young person, especially with an older person the youngster loves.

'I think she knew that to you she would always seem a perfect little girl. And I think it's a sign of her love for you that she didn't want to disturb your illusion.'

'Okay,' he said, 'that makes sense. But this sex thing-'

'Don't dwell on it, Frank. She sounds to me like a fairly normal young woman, fully entitled to her secrets, insecurities, struggles, her groping expressions of sexuality. No one is obliged to be a moral paragon. And there's so much in her diary that sounds positive. The fact that she broke off with the rotten boyfriend and started seeing a therapist is an excellent sign. And the fact that she tried to reach you when she felt she was in trouble@at alone should tell you how much you meant to her. I hope you don't love her any the less for what you've found out.'

'Nothing in the world could make me love her less,' Janek said. Then he started to choke. 'God! I don't want to break down again.'

'Please don't be embarrassed with me.' He smiled. 'I just hate the clichd. You know: toughNew-York-cop- with-feelings.' 'I never thought of you as tough.'

'How did you think of me?'

'You were the big American I kept running into all the time, whom I lured into following me.'

He smiled. She really was the best thing to happen to him in years.

There was a tremendous amount of mail waiting for him at the post office, so much that the clerk suggested he borrow a mail sack to carry it home. Junk mail, bills, magazines, and then, among the letters, one that didn't look right. He picked it out of the multitude and examined it carefully. It bore no return address. His name was handwritten in block letters on the envelope: 11 LIEUTENANT FRANK JANEK.' The postmark, dated the day after Jess's killing, told him it had been mailed from Green kill Prison. He ripped it open, read it quickly, then threw it down with disgust. The text,

unsigned, was short and to the point: 'JANEK, I SLEEP BETTER KNOWING YOUR GODDAUGHTER IS IN THE GROUND.'

The road into Green kill is as stark as the old red-brick buildings that comprise its campus. The complex looms upon a hill. Beneath its walls cows graze fields, a pastoral touch which, though meant to calm the inmates, only enrages them by mocking their confinement. Below the fields there is a moat, and below that interlocking rolls of razor wire. That October day, beneath stone gray clouds, Green kill had a brooding presence. As Janek entered, he felt the screaming silence of the place and the stem essence of its gloom. But most of all, he felt the weight of unserved time.

He showed his badge, parked in the visitors' lot, then waited in the reception area until his visit was cleared by the warden's office. He checked his gun and ammo with the property clerk, was frisked by a gate guard, passed through the electronic barriers without setting off any alarms. Then he was escorted to a small plain attorney's room.

Rusty Glickman, dressed in blue denim, was waiting for him in a cheap plastic chair set up before a battered wooden table.

'Pleasure, Janek,' he said. But as he sat down, Janek responded only with a look. It had been fifteen years since he'd last seen Glickman. Now he wasn't certain he'd recognize him if he passed him on the street. Glickman's tight black hair had mostly fallen out, replaced by a grayish fringe. His taut, lean body had gone to fat, and his breath stank of tobacco-not surprising since lung cancer, caused by excessive smoking of cigarettes, was the most frequent killer of lifers. But as Janek studied Glickman, he recognized the expression around his mouth. Even fifteen years of incarceration had not extinguished the sneer that said, 'Whoever you may think you are, to me you're a total piece of shit.'

'What brings you around? Social call? It's been what? Fifteen years?'

Again Janek didn't bother to answer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the letter, and placed it flat on the table. Glickman glanced at it. 'So?' 'You wrote it.'

'So what?'

'Why?' Glickman shrugged. 'Why not?' He smirked.

Janek slowly moved his head in close, deliberately invading Glickman's space.

'I know you re slime. But what could you possibly have against Tim Foy's daughter?'

'I got nothing against her. I didn't even remember he had a daughter till I read about her in the papers.'

'So why?'

'You, the big shot detective from New York, got the balls to come up here and ask me that? I thought you were supposed to be smart, Janek.' Glickman's voice was loaded with scorn. 'I saw this shitty miniseries where this actor-what's his name, he's a lot better-looking than you-where he struts around making like he's so fucking brilliant. Lieutenant Frank Janek the character was called.

What a pile of shit.'

Janek stared at him. 'Once a psychopath always a psychopath.' He stood. 'I don't need your abuse.' He moved toward the door to call the guard.

''Cause of you, I gotta spend the rest of my life in a rathole while you get to run around in New York playing Great Detective. You ask why I wrote you about the girl. I wrote you so you'd come up here and I could look into your eyes and see your pain. That's all I wanted.

Now I'm satisfied. I've seen it. It looks pretty good to me. I like seeing you in pain, Janek. Like I said, it's a real pleasure.'

'Guard!' Janek shouted, then waited facing the door. No matter what Glickman said to him, he vowed not to react. But Glickman was on a roll. He had only a few more seconds and nothing to lose.

'You call me slime. You're the slime, Janek. You and your buddy-what's his name?-Foy. And his little cunt of a daughter, too.

That's what she was, wasn't she? A little cunt, a slut, running around, twitching her horny little ass in the park. Know something?

I'm glad she's dead!