He snatched the money and the ticket out of my hand, inspected the ticket on both sides, as though maybe I was trying to pawn a forgery off on him.
“It’s good for thirty days,” I said. “You just walk up to the counter, hand it to them, and they’ll give you cash for it.” Behind him, through the metal gates of the cemetery, I saw the front door of the main building open. A short woman in a black coat and hat stepped out. Eva Burke. She was talking to a man, hadn’t looked this way yet.
“Come on,” I said. “Make up your mind. You want the money or not?”
Of course he did.
“Get in,” he said.
It took a few minutes for him to settle up with Mrs. Burke. I watched impatiently through the dark glass of the hearse’s curtained rear window as another fistful of cash changed hands. This guy was making out okay for a morning’s work. And I didn’t begrudge him his little windfall. I just wanted him to get on the road.
He walked around to the front and got in. There was a Plexiglas partition between us and it muffled his voice. “You can sit up here if you want.”
“That’s okay,” I called back.
“It’s a long ride.”
It was. But other motorists, and toll booth clerks, and cops, could see the occupants of the front seats. They couldn’t see me back here. “It’s okay,” I said again.
“Want some music?”
“Fine,” I said. “Whatever you want.”
He thumbed the controls for his CD player and a woman’s voice came on, singing in Russian. It was just as well. I wasn’t in any condition to listen to music I could understand.
The back of the hearse was like the rear of a station wagon, only longer, with a metal grab bar on either side and rubber traction strips along the carpeting. It felt like being in the trunk of a car, only with a little more room and a little more light. A little. I threaded one arm under a grab bar to keep from sliding all over when the driver took a curve.
I tried not to think about Dorrie’s trip up from New York in this very car, lying where I was lying now, penned tightly in her coffin. It felt like ages ago, not days, that I’d seen her last, that I’d talked to her and held her. It felt like ages ago that I’d been in Susan’s apartment. Two murders ago. Damn it, the story was on CNN now—it wasn’t just local news anymore. How had this happened?
I thought about asking the driver to drop me somewhere in Jersey, or hell, to turn around and start driving west—anywhere west, anywhere other than back to New York.
But where could I go? With practically no money and the police after me—and a debt I still hadn’t paid. Because Dorrie’s killer was still free. I’d made a promise to her, and I’d made one to myself, and everything I’d gone through would be for nothing if I abandoned it now.
I heard the driver say something in Russian and then a reply in Russian from his dispatcher, butchered by static. What were they talking about? For a terrible instant I was convinced it was me, that the driver knew exactly who I was and was inquiring about whatever bounty the NYPD might have placed on my head. I tried to listen for the syllable “Blake,” but it was hopeless with the music playing and the partition swallowing half of every word.
“Hey, mister,” the driver said. He twisted a knob and the singer’s voice dropped off. “When we get to the city, I drop you on the west side, okay?”
I pictured him pulling into some waterfront garage full of hearses. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to brave midtown traffic just for me. He’d want to unload me as quickly as he could.
Unless, of course, he was actually planning to deliver me to whichever precinct house Mirsky worked out of.
“The west side’s fine,” I said. Knowing I wouldn’t wait to be dropped off, that at the first red light I’d pop the back and run like hell. Even though he probably wasn’t planning to turn me in, probably had no idea who I was, probably thought I was just some freak who got off on riding in hearses. But I couldn’t wait and find out, just in case.
I shot a look at the watch on my wrist. I’d be early for the time I’d worked out with Susan, but not all that early. And the Ramble would be a safer place for me to wait for her than out on the street.
“Can you go up Central Park West?” I said. “Maybe drop me somewhere in the seventies?”
He shook his head. “I need to be on Eleventh Avenue.”
“Could you at least get me to Columbus?” I said.
The driver’s expression in the rear-view mirror looked pained. “You can’t walk a few blocks?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s just that I’m late for a meeting.” It was an idiotic thing to say. People with meetings don’t ride to them in the back of a hearse.
He punched his horn, swerved around another car.
“I’ll give you another twenty dollars,” I said. “Okay?”
He muttered something.
“What?” I said.
“You know how we say in Russian?
If only that were true, I thought.
The first red light we hit was near Tavern on the Green, and I was out of the car and over the wall before he knew it. I’d hesitated before leaving the twenty in the back. But I’d said I would, and I did.
I raced past Sheep Meadow, which on a summer day would have been filled with sunbathers and voyeurs but this time of year was empty. I found my way east toward the least developed part of Central Park, the portion the designers had left wild, untouched. It was called the Ramble and in the 1970s was mostly known as a place gay men cruised for anonymous sex. AIDS brought the level of activity down; Giuliani’s tenure as mayor took its toll as well. And then 9/11 happened and no one felt much like fucking in the bushes. But all things pass, and I imagined activity was probably up again.
But not in the middle of the afternoon on a cold fall day. Brisk winds had more power to keep crowds away than all the terrorists and mayors in the world, and I saw no one on the heavily wooded paths now. At one spot, deep in the forest, a steep-sided boulder loomed. We’d found it together, Susan and I, and she’d know it was where I’d meant she should meet me. The same qualities that made it a perfect summer trysting spot made it a good choice now: you could see people coming from any direction, and unless you were standing, they couldn’t see you.
I climbed it and waited. While I waited, I tried to coax one more call out of my cell phone battery, but it was futile.
I was cold and felt exposed on the flat surface of the rock. There were patches of sparse grass that shivered when the wind blew them, and I shivered too. On every side, the trees had started losing leaves, and with every breeze a few more would fall.
Shortly after two, Susan showed up. She was wearing the same heavy coat she’d had on the day before, and it didn’t make climbing the rock easy. I leaned over the edge and held an arm out for her. She ignored it, climbed the last few feet on her own. When she was sitting next to me, she peeled off her gloves and then slapped me barehanded across the face.
“What was that for?” I said. My glasses were hanging crookedly and I straightened them.
“Where’s my goddamn wallet?” she said.
I reached into my pocket and dug the wallet out, deposited it in her outstretched hand. “Susan, I’m—”
“I don’t want to hear it, John.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What the hell’s wrong with you? The police are looking for you.
