the parking lot, I told him my theory about Project Rescue. ‘I think I was one of those kids, Mr. Smiley. But something went wrong and I wound up back in the system.’
“He told me I was crazy, that I didn’t know what I was talking about. ‘Project Rescue is about saving abandoned infants, that’s it. You need help, son.’
“‘You’re right. I do need help. I need you to tell me the truth about Project Rescue.’ We were standing so close to each other that we were almost whispering. ‘I’ve told you the truth. I can’t help you.’ He got in his car then, but before he closed the door, I flicked a copy of my card onto his lap. I could see by the shine in his eyes that I’d upset him, unnerved him. I thought if he knew more, that his conscience would eventually get to him one day. And maybe it did. Maybe that’s how he came to drive off that bridge on Christmas Eve. And if I killed him, then that’s how.”
I braced myself against the wave of grief I felt for my uncle Max. Even after all of this, it still hurt to think of him dying with all that sadness. The sadness had stalked him every day of his life, thieved every possible joy from him, led him to do unspeakable things. It had won.
“How did Ace know about this?”
“Your uncle told him,” said Ruby. “A few days before he died, he came looking for Ace. He wanted to make things right with Ace, help him to get clean, pay for rehab. He told Ace that the past had come back on him and he had to fix some of the things he’d broken. I guess he thought Ace was one of those things.”
I remembered my last conversation with Uncle Max and I wondered what he would have told me that night if my father hadn’t stopped him. I thought about what my father told me, about Max leaving Ace’s inheritance in a trust available only after he’d been clean for five years. Was he trying to make things right by Ace in doing that?
I looked to Ruby, who seemed not to know what else to say. She just stared at Jake, chewing on what was left of her nails. I guess the only thing that rivaled my fear at that moment was a crushing gloom that so much harm had been done, that so much had gone so irreparably wrong. Did I blame Jake for Max’s death? No. He had a right to seek his truth. Did I blame Max for what had happened to Jake? I still didn’t know. And I wasn’t sure blame was really all that important now.
“We have to go,” I said to Jake. “It’s been a half hour since I called.”
He looked at me in surprise, as if waiting for a reaction he didn’t get. Then he gave a quick nod. “Let’s go.”
On the way down the stairs, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket and a glance at the screen revealed that it was Detective Salvo. I didn’t dare answer. But it gave me an idea.
thirty
Anyone who has watched an execution will tell you that it’s an anticlimax. Families of murder victims, after raging for years, waiting through endless trials they hope will bring the killer to justice, death row appeal after death row appeal, finally come to gather in a sterile room. They watch justice behind a sheet of glass. They watch the killer die. All those years they’ve looked to that moment as the time when pain ends and healing begins. They imagine a weight will be lifted from their hearts, that their sleep will be free from the nightmares. But once it’s done, they’ll tell you the pain doesn’t go away. They are not relieved of suffering. Their grief is just as hot and bright as it was the first day, not mitigated in the least by the death of the perpetrator.
Maybe it’s because the concept of punishment is a false one, because through good or evil action everything around us is altered irrevocably. We are changed by the things we experience. The big things, the small things have their impact and can’t be undone. To judge those experiences, to hate the things that have happened to us is to hate who we’ve become because of them. I guess that’s why I didn’t feel angry as we sped in a cab toward Harriman’s office. I was afraid, I was grieved by the things that had happened, but I wasn’t cursing the day I leaped in front of that van to save a little boy. I didn’t hate my father for “flagging” little Jessie Stone, if that’s what he in fact did. I didn’t hate Jake for confronting Max. I couldn’t muster a feeling of righteous indignation. Because it’s like I told you, I believe in balance, in karma. That for every good there is a bad, for every right there is a wrong.
Of course, in that moment I wasn’t thinking of any of that. Every nerve ending was alive with fear for my brother, for my family, for what Alexander Harriman wanted from me. Once again, I found myself in a situation for which I had no frame of reference. I leaned forward in my seat, willing the cab to move faster, the traffic to clear. By the time we were in front of the Central Park West brownstone that housed Alexander Harriman’s office, I was suddenly stuck to the vinyl upholstery with dread.
“It’s okay,” said Jake, paying the driver and nudging me out onto the sidewalk. “If he wanted to hurt you, you’d be dead already.”
I had to admit there was a logic to this, but it didn’t make me feel much better. We rang the buzzer and I wish I could say I was surprised when the skinhead freak opened the door for us. He smiled as he patted Jake down and took the gun at his waist. He didn’t look as scary as he had come to seem in my memory of him. He had stubble on his jaw and his eyes were rimmed with girlishly long lashes. He smelled of cheap, heavy cologne.
“Nice,” the bald man said, turning the weapon in his hand, then removing the magazine and the round in the chamber with two quick maneuvers. He handed the empty gun back to Jake.
He looked at me and smiled that wolfish grin I’d seen once before. “I feel like we know each other,” he said.
“We don’t,” I answered, trying for cold and tough but just sounding like a scared kid. His smile didn’t waver. Do things like this happen to people? I was wondering, feeling that dreamy wobble to my consciousness again.
The last time I’d been in Alexander Harriman’s plush office, I’d been a different person…though it was only a few days ago. Everything looked different to me—the plush carpets, the leather furniture, the portrait of his wife and daughter hanging on the wall over the wet bar. What had once seemed elegant and comforting seemed tainted now.
“I am going to give you something, Ridley, that no one ever has,” said Harriman as we entered the room. His thug for hire left and closed the door behind us, but I imagined he wouldn’t go far.
“And what’s that?”
He was standing, leaning on the edge of his monolithic oak desk with his arms folded across his belly. He was handsome, seemed almost benevolent if you failed to notice the glint of steel in his eyes.
“The truth,” he said, raising his eyebrows and showing us his palms. “I’m going to give both of you the truth.”
“Why bother?” asked Jake. “Why not just get rid of us. It’s not like you haven’t tried.”
“Well,” Harriman said with a placating laugh, “I wasn’t trying to kill you, exactly. Just turn you off. Sometimes these things…You ask someone to do a job for you and they get a little carried away.”
“Anyway,” he went on with a dismissive wave of his hand, “I’m going to tell you what you both want to know, and then I’m going to insist that it stays here, between us. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I believe it’s the only way to get you to stop nosing around, short of actually killing you.”
“And why would we agree to this?” asked Jake.
“The knowledge of consequences. Ridley, if your brother turned up on an East Village sidewalk tomorrow, dead from an overdose, can you think of anyone who would be surprised? If your friend here disappeared without a trace, who—other than you—would miss him? Would you like me to go on or do you get the point?”
I got the point like a blow to the solar plexus. I nodded to communicate that.
“Where’s my brother?” I asked him.
“He’s quite a bit safer than he was when we found him. Sit down, Ridley. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you’ll be reunited with Ace.”
I sunk into the leather sofa, more because I felt like I couldn’t hold my own body weight than out of an urge to obey Harriman. Jake stayed by the door.
“What I am going to give you,” he said dramatically, “is what they call in law enforcement ‘the fruits from a poisonous tree.’ You’ll have the knowledge you seek, but you won’t be able to use it to bring justice—just as if it had been obtained in an illegal search and seizure. Your questions will be answered, but you’ll have to be content with that. Shall I continue?”
I thought about it for a second. Maybe, even after all of this, I didn’t want to know. What would I do with the
