"Wow," I remarked. "That"s love." He looked at me. "Of cannolis," I amended quickly. I drank some more wine.
Something dawned on him, and he jumped up from the table. "I almost forgot! I brought you a T-shirt." He pulled it out of the grocery bag and held it up proudly. "You can"t get these in any store."
I looked it over. "What size is that?"
He looked inside at the tag. "Triple extra large. I took it out of Fred"s locker."
I stared at it, horrified. I could have covered my dining-room table with it. "Are you suggesting that I need a shirt that big?"
"No, I took it out of Fred"s locker. I just told you that." He looked disappointed that I wasn"t more excited.
I imagined getting one that was close to my size, not one for the both of us to live in. "Thanks," I said.
"It"s not like you can wear it out in public. It"s police-issue. It"s from the Fred Wyatt Law Enforcement collection." He folded it and put it back on the counter. He sat back down at the table.
"Thanks. Whenever I wear it, I"ll think of Fred." I made a face and got up to finger the T-shirt. I held it up to my face, taking a deep whiff. "Does it have the eau de cranky cop smell?"
He pretended to laugh, but it looked more like a wince. "Such a funny lady." He gave me a sly smile. "Maybe you could wear it when you"re performing your Joyce-reading lap dances."
The phone rang. I jumped up and answered it, and when I heard his voice, I covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Crawford, "Ray."
Ray was annoyed again. I wanted to scream into the phone, "Listen, buddy, if anyone should be annoyed, it"s me!" but of course, I didn"t. I listened patiently. "h.e.l.lo, Ray."
Crawford stood and mouthed, "Where"s your other phone?" I pointed above my head. There was an extension in the guest room; he left the kitchen and went up the stairs. I could hear the floorboards creak over my head and an almost-inaudible "click" as he picked up the extension. He was listening to our conversation, and I didn"t feel any need to tell Ray. Ray kept nattering on.
". . . so, I spent the day with Klein and do you know what he bills per hour?" I didn"t answer, so he told me. "Five hundred dollars! Can you believe it? But if it keeps me out of jail, it will be worth it. You have to believe me, Alison . . . I didn"t do it. I knew Kathy, but I didn"t kill her. I bet it was that crazy boyfriend of hers, that Vince hoodlum. Do you know him?" I remained silent, and he continued with his rant. "He"s crazy. She always felt threatened. She told me several times."
I imagined that I heard Crawford breathing on the other end of the phone, and that made listening to Ray almost tolerable. "And you called because?" I asked.
Ray paused for a second before starting up again. "I need to tell you something, Alison, before you hear it from someone else."
And then I knew where this was headed. Crawford must have changed position above me, because the floorboards creaked a little more. I was embarra.s.sed now that he was on the extension; now he had to hear the lies and half-truths that I had heard for so many years. He would think I was a giant a.s.s. I held my breath for a minute while Ray got up the courage to reveal his indiscretion. Although it would be humiliating for me to hear it with Crawford listening, I couldn"t pa.s.s up the opportunity to make Ray confess.
"Kathy and I had a relationship, Al. We were in love," he said, sounding almost sincere.
I couldn"t even respond. This was worse than what I normally heard from Ray. Usually, it was "she didn"t mean a thing to me." Now, he was telling me that he was in love with a girl half his age. And she was dead. I leaned over and tried not to puke.
"Thanks, Ray. I"m glad I heard it from you and not from someone else," I said, as graciously as I could.
He let out a breath, relieved by my reaction, I suppose. "You"re a cla.s.s act, Al. You always have been."
My tongue loosened by the wine, I remarked, "No, Ray, I"m a f.u.c.king idiot, and I always have been." And with that, I put the phone back on the receiver. I couldn"t stand his complimenting me on my graciousness and cla.s.s. I was an idiot, and now Crawford knew it, too. I held on to my stomach for a few more seconds, a wave of nausea flowing over me. Ray and Kathy? It was too much for me to comprehend, especially after my epiphany about Terri. If he was capable of an affair with a girl-a teenager, really-what else was he capable of? When I thought about it, I really didn"t want to know.
I strode toward the front door, catching a glimpse of Crawford at the top of the stairs. I ignored him and walked out the front door, down the front steps, and out into the night, the soft rain mixing with the tears running down my face.
Seventeen.
Crawford was wise and didn"t follow me.
I walked down the street, feeling sad, woozy, and overly full from the dinner of wine and pizza. I reached the end of my block and was about to turn onto Broadway, thinking about the cannolis I had left behind, when a car screeched to a stop next to me. It was a Lincoln Navigator, black, with tinted windows. Loud, insistent rap music could be heard before the owner rolled down the back pa.s.senger-side window. I stood under the streetlight and leaned in to see who was in the car, a.s.suming it was one of my neighbors inquiring as to why I was walking in the rain. Before I could get a good look, the back pa.s.senger-side door opened, and just like in my dream, two strong arms reached out and attempted to pull me into the car. Only this time, I didn"t get kissed. And the arms didn"t belong to a cop.
When I realized what was happening, I pulled my body away and went into a full sprint. I stumbled in my clogs-sorry now that I had put them on my still-sore feet-and started running back toward the house, which was at least an eighth of a mile away. The rain was heavy, and I was drenched. The gravel crunched under my feet and made traversing the wet street in the clogs even more difficult.
The car screeched to a halt behind me, and I ran as fast as I could toward the house.
I could see it in the distance; the front door opened. I heard footsteps gaining on me as I watched Crawford amble down the front walk, umbrella in hand. G.o.d, he"s slow, I thought, watching him take a leisurely stroll in the rain.
I screamed as loud as I could, but I knew the loud music would drown my voice out. "Crawford!"
Two hands grabbed me from behind and dragged me backwards. I screamed again and Crawford looked up the street, grabbing his gun off his ankle and getting into a crouch. But he didn"t shoot. I was in the way, an arm around my neck, being dragged toward the SUV. The hand at the end of the arm had a bandage across the palm. I struggled and fell to the ground, taking my a.s.sailant down, too. I got up and attempted to take off again, but whoever it was that wanted me grabbed me by the ankle, making me fall flat on my face on the pavement.
I struggled to get up again but was dragged down. I heard, "Get her!" as we went down again. I rolled away from him and into a sewer grate, hitting the curb hard with my right knee. I was pulled up again and dragged backwards, this time, a little closer to the stopped car. My feet were off the ground and I clawed at the thick forearm around my neck.
Crawford was running toward the car, his gun out in front of him; he had it in a two-handed clasp. I was almost to the car as I heard the music get louder and my attacker scream, "He"s a f.u.c.king cop!" obviously noticing the gun and the NYPD shirt. Those white letters against an inky blue background were hard to miss; I guess that was the point.
"Police! Let her go!" Crawford screamed.
The arm around my neck tightened, and the air to my windpipe was cut off. I"m going to die out here, I thought to myself as my eyes watered. "Shoot him!" I croaked with the air that remained in my lungs.
But he wouldn"t, and I knew it. I was a shield.
We continued moving backwards until I felt the seat beneath my legs.
The arm loosened around my neck. "Crawford! Help me!" I cried as I was pulled in and thrown into the backseat.
I hit my forehead on the way in as the door swung closed. I immediately put my hand to my head and felt a giant goose egg grow under my hand, but I didn"t feel any blood. I righted myself on the seat and attempted to get my bearings, but the speeding car and the loud music, coupled with what was probably my second concussion in as many weeks, made control of my limbs almost impossible.
I turned and looked out the back window but could only see Crawford"s back as he ran down the street and back to the house.
Vince was driving. Not being familiar with pharmacology (where was Ray when you needed him?), I didn"t know what he was on, but it was obvious that he was on something. My guess was his drug of choice, Ecstasy, but I couldn"t be sure. He was tense, high-strung, and agitated. He turned around and screamed something at me which sounded like "Where are those papers?" but I didn"t have a clue as to what he meant. I attempted to put my seat belt on so that if we had an accident, I would at least be strapped in. It took me a few minutes, but I did it. And then I noticed the guy sitting next to me, the one who had succeeded in dragging me into the car.
It was John Costigan from my Shakespeare cla.s.s. He was a star athlete on a full athletic scholarship who played basketball, baseball, and lacrosse. He was big-Crawford"s height-but had thirty or forty pounds on him. Since I was bigger than Vince, they probably figured John was the one who could manhandle me successfully. I had always imagined John to be the all-American boy; he was blond, handsome, and polite. He did well in my cla.s.s and his other cla.s.ses and was on the honor roll every semester. I couldn"t imagine how he had gotten mixed up with Vince and in this kind of situation. I looked over at him in disbelief. "John?" I asked, still holding my head.
He didn"t answer me and stared straight ahead. He didn"t look high like Vince, but he looked agitated. I tried Vince.
"Vince, what is this all about?" I asked, feeling nauseous and dizzy. As Vince took the corner to merge onto the exit for the Saw Mill, a sea of red swam before my eyes, and I struggled to stay conscious. Vince, seeing the stop sign at the entrance to the parkway too late, jammed on the brakes; the car skidded forward on the wet pavement and my head hit the seat in front of me.
"Vince, where are we going?" I screamed.
He kept driving, careening down the winding Saw Mill River Parkway and changing lanes every time a slower car got in the way.
We were going ninety miles an hour; the illuminated speedometer was visible from the backseat. I grabbed Costigan by the shirtsleeve and begged him to get Vince to slow down. He turned and looked out his window and didn"t respond.
We sped past the Yonkers exits and the exit for the Cross County Parkway. As we approached the entrance for Moshulu Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway and entered New York City proper, Vince stayed to the right toward the Henry Hudson Parkway. Three police cars came out of nowhere, two staying on either side of us and one behind us.
"Tell me what you want, and I"ll give it to you. Just stop!" I screamed. I found the b.u.t.ton to roll down the window and did. I turned and looked out the window; the police car was a blue-and-white NYPD cruiser. Or not. I"d have to ask Crawford, if I lived, if that const.i.tuted a cruiser.
Vince rolled the window up from the control panel on the front seat. "Just give me the f.u.c.king papers!" he screamed again.
"What papers?" I asked, and turned to Costigan. The music was so loud that I wasn"t even sure I heard Vince correctly.
The police stayed to our sides and behind us. Costigan screamed at Vince to pull over, but Vince ignored him. Vince reached behind him and tried to grab me, but I ducked out of the way. I had once encountered a rabid racc.o.o.n going through my garbage; the look in his eyes was similar to Vince"s: beady, red, and filled with anger. He kept one hand on the wheel and continued to search for something on me to grab. I pulled my legs up and kicked him hard in the back of the head. He screamed in pain and anger as two pounds of solid Swedish clog construction hit him above the ear on the right side of his head. Costigan looked surprised but didn"t do anything; I got the sense that he was a reluctant partic.i.p.ant in this caper.
Vince pulled a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at me. "If you tell anyone, I"ll blow your f.u.c.king head off," he said calmly, keeping one eye on the road while turning to look at me. He rested his gun hand on the back of the front pa.s.senger seat; it was centimeters from my face.
I burst into tears. "What are you talking about?" I asked. I tried to slouch down and make myself small, but the gun hung above me.
We were at the merge onto the Henry Hudson Parkway southbound, the oldest, most winding highway in New York City. On a good night, it was treacherous, and all New Yorkers who took the road knew it; on a rainy night and at high speeds, it was instant death. Vince apparently wanted to get us all killed.
Vince crashed through the toll plaza, taking out an EZ-Pa.s.s lane and breaking the gla.s.s of the booth itself. I saw the raincoated toll collector in the next lane dive for cover and a New York City cop run out of the office area on the northbound side of the highway into the last lane. He had his gun drawn but didn"t get off any shots, as far as I could tell. The car bounced back and forth as we entered the lane of traffic and I saw three police cars about a half mile down the road, parked across both lanes and blocking our way. In the distance, the lights of the George Washington Bridge twinkled.
I don"t know if it was from shock, fear, or a heart attack, but I pa.s.sed out.
When I awoke, we were still on the southbound side of the parkway, facing in the wrong direction. We had apparently skidded across the highway and into the cement embankment that led to Fort Tryon Park. I saw the sign for the park but I didn"t want to think about how we got there or why we were facing in the wrong direction. Vince was half-in and half-out of the car, the windshield bisecting him and the airbag supporting his dangling legs. Blood covered the windshield, front seat, and dashboard. He was dead. Costigan was next to the car, on the ground, a state trooper standing over him. His hands were laced behind his head and he was flat on his stomach, crying. I was still strapped in, surrounded by deployed air bags, and with the exception of the goose egg, relatively unharmed. The door opened, and the second trooper looked in.
"You OK, ma"am?" he asked, a fresh-faced baby in a uniform with a baggie covering his hat.
"I hate the "ma"am" thing," I said, and vomited out the door of the car, a projectile stream of pizza and red wine. The trooper stepped back and averted his eyes from the carnage. I unbuckled my seat belt and said a silent thank-you to Crawford for always reminding me to buckle up; it had probably saved my life. I eased myself out of the car and attempted to stand, but went to my knees in a puddle of mud, oil, and the contents of my stomach. The jeans and the clogs were done for good.
The trooper handed me a tissue, which was like putting a cork in the Hoover Dam. I blotted my mouth as best I could and used the bottom of my T-shirt to take care of the rest. He stood a good distance away, eyeing me. When he was sure I wasn"t going to hurl again, he asked me if I wanted to sit in his car. I took his hand, and he placed me in the back seat, my legs sticking out of the car. I lay there and heard various vehicles approach-an ambulance, more police cars, the coroner"s station wagon, and a tow truck. It was about twenty minutes later that Crawford appeared.
He peered into the car through the back driver-side window where my head was; to me, he was upside down. The window was open slightly. I could tell that he was wearing a combination of the sad face and the really bad-news face, but was trying hard to look impa.s.sive.
"Don"t make me look at you upside down," I said from my p.r.o.ne position.
His smile looked like a frown from my angle. He moved around the car to the side where my feet were. He crouched between my knees in the open doorway, his hands hanging down between his legs. "I heard you threw up." He took stock of my clogs and jeans.
"It"s become kind of like my calling card," I said, and put my arm over my forehead.
"The trooper put in for retirement." Cop humor.
I sat up and waited while a wave of dizziness came and went. "Is this a cruiser?"
He took a look at the car. "No."
I sighed.
"You put up a h.e.l.l of a fight," he said quietly.
"Thank you."
"I think I"ll ask the head of cop school if we could start wearing clogs."
"Such a funny man," I said, and touched my head.
"You should get looked at," he said.
"You know, this time I have to agree with you," I said, a gag rising in my throat. His face went white, and I put my hand to my mouth until the feeling pa.s.sed. "False alarm," I said. He put his hand out to me and helped me from the car. Another ambulance had pulled up, and an EMT raced over and took me to the back of the vehicle. I stepped up into the brightness of the ambulance and sat on a stretcher in the back. The EMT stayed outside to talk with one of the policemen at the site, who looked like he was itching to get into the ambulance with me.
Crawford flashed his badge and held a finger up to indicate "in a minute." I guess I had to be questioned again.
Crawford sat next to me on the stretcher and took my hand. "I"m staying with you."
I nodded.
"I don"t want you to end up with a Bic pen in your throat."
I looked at him, not sure I had heard him correctly. Maybe I was hallucinating now.
He lowered his voice. "EMTs are a little overzealous. No matter what"s wrong with you, they"ll want to cut you open. Got a concussion? They"ll give you a tracheotomy. If I don"t stay, you"ll end up breathing through a Bic pen sticking out of your throat. Or worse." He sounded like he had experience with this. He got up and opened one of the metal cabinets. Medical supplies were stacked neatly inside.
I wasn"t sure what was worse than a Bic pen sticking out of one"s throat and didn"t want to venture a guess. "Any Bic pens in there?" I asked.
He shook his head and pulled out a big, soft ice pack, which he put on the counter and smashed with his fist. After he worked it back and forth, it was ice-cold. He put it to my head and told me to hold it there. "They"re also big on cutting your pants off."
My eyes got big. I"d rather have a tracheotomy.
He pressed the ice bag to my head, holding his hand over mine. "I fell down a flight of stairs once and broke my arm. The next thing I know, I"m on a stretcher in my underwear."
"Any pictures of that?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I was out of there before Crime Scene and their cameras showed up." He laughed. "Thank G.o.d."
He told me what happened after he saw the SUV pull up and Costigan dragged me into the car. He got one shot off at the car, but Vince was going too fast for it to have any effect. He had run back to the house and called in the Navigator"s license plate and general direction. Although I thought the police had been chasing us because of Vince"s speeding, it was actually because of Crawford"s all points bulletin. Now I could tell Max that I had been part of an APB. She would love that.
"Did Vince say anything to you?" he asked.
"The only thing I remember is him screaming at me about "papers." I don"t know what that means. John didn"t say anything." I closed my eyes. "Vince kept trying to grab at me, but I kicked him in the head."
"Vince is dead," he said.
Thank G.o.d it wasn"t because I kicked him in the head. "I know," I replied. "Is Costigan all right?"
His face turned cold and angry. "He"s fine. Until he gets to lockup in Rikers."
"He didn"t hurt me, Crawford."
"You could have been killed," he protested. "And that"s before you got into the car." He looked away.
The activity outside was starting to subside. Costigan left in a state trooper"s car, and the ME"s car drove away, presumably with Vince"s body. I peered outside and saw flares on the highway, a cop directing traffic around the wreckage. The rain was falling steadily and hitting the already slick roadway. The rubberneckers were out in force.
The fact that I still had my life hit me like a ton of bricks; I closed my eyes, and a faint image of my mother"s beautiful face was imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.