A Quiet Vendetta (75 page)

He had called Carol earlier, from New Orleans. She had said nothing for a good three or four minutes while he poured out every thought and feeling, every reason he believed they should meet again. He had apologized for Saturday ten, twelve, perhaps twenty times, and finally, exhausted perhaps, she had said, ‘Okay Ray . . . for Jess. Same place, Tompkins Square Park at four. And don’t fuck this up, Ray . . . please don’t fuck this up again. Right now I don’t give a damn about how I feel, but I can’t have Jess upset any more, okay?’

Earlier, still aloft, Hartmann had glanced at his watch: it was gone twenty after two. Fifteen minutes, and the New Orleans-New York internal would land; he would be processed through the check-out desks and by three he would be on his way. He’d taken the earliest flight he could. There were questions to answer, even more to ask, and by the time John Verlaine had been given leave to drive Hartmann to the airport his nerves had been shredded.

‘You gonna fix this for keeps, right?’ Verlaine had asked him.

Hartmann had nodded but said nothing.

Verlaine had not pushed the issue. Everything that needed to be said would be said in New York. And so Verlaine had spoken of Perez, of the girl, of how everything they had imagined to be the truth had been nothing but a masquerade. They had been clever, they had planned everything down to the last detail, it seemed, and where the FBI had failed Perez had been quick to take advantage.

‘You think they bombed the FBI office themselves?’ Verlaine had asked. ‘You think the older guy and the son waited until Perez wasn’t there and then bombed it just to throw as much confusion into the situation as they could?’

Hartmann had shrugged, his eyes on the signposts along the highway that told him the airport was fast approaching.

‘It doesn’t make sense that it was Feraud,’ Verlaine had continued. ‘Feraud’s intelligence would have told him that Perez would leave the office during the day and would go back to the Sonesta.’

Again Hartmann had been noncommittal in his response.

‘I figure it was the son who bombed the office,’ Verlaine had concluded. ‘The son and the other guy . . . what was his name?’

‘Ten Cent,’ Hartmann had replied, and when he’d said the man’s name he’d felt as if he had known him, as if this character from Perez’s past was now as much a part of his own. Perhaps all of them would reside somewhere three inches back of his forehead forever. It had been a journey, that much at least; he had done what he’d been asked to do and he could not have been faulted for his co-operation and willingness. But the thing was over. It was done. And if they found Ernesto Perez they would take whatever action was required and Hartmann would not have to be involved.

In some small and strange way he hoped that the man would never be seen again.

And then Verlaine had taken a turn into the airport sliproad, and before they knew it they were at the Moisant International Terminal and Verlaine was saying something about coming back down to New Orleans some time, that it had been good meeting Hartmann, that he should stay in touch, give him a call . . .

And Ray Hartmann, feeling some sense of kinship and fraternity for this man, had looked at John Verlaine and smiled.

‘I won’t be coming back,’ he’d said quietly.

Verlaine had nodded. ‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘But you gotta say these things, right?’

‘Right,’ Hartmann had replied, and then he’d taken Verlaine’s hand and shaken it firmly, and then he’d gripped his shoulder and said, ‘It was good to have you in on this, and hell . . . you’ll have something to tell your grandchildren.’

Verlaine had laughed. ‘As if,’ he’d said, and then he’d let go of Hartmann’s hand and turned to walk back to his car.

‘Remember the trick,’ Hartmann had called after him.

Verlaine had paused and turned. ‘The trick?’

Hartmann had smiled. ‘The trick, John Verlaine, is to keep breathing.’

*

The flight had been brief. New Orleans to New York. A handful of hours over Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and then the east coast across Virginia to Maryland, and then Hartmann could see the Atlantic to his right, and the flight attendants were giving them an ETA on their landing.

Ray Hartmann tried to remember how he had felt when he’d returned to New Orleans. He tried to convince himself that now he was
really
going home, but he knew he was not. Louisiana was there, there rooted in everything he was, and though he truly believed that he would never return out of choice, he also knew that he had those roots. Uproot, and the channels those roots left behind were still there, like fingerprints in the earth. The earth remembered, reminded you of your heritage no matter how far you traveled. He tried to persuade himself that home was not a location, but a state of mind. He tried to think of this a hundred different ways, but it would always stay the same. Perez had been right. New Orleans would always be a part of him, no matter where he went.

By the time he collected his bags from the carousel and made his way to the exit gates it was gone quarter after three. He hurried out and hailed a cab, told the driver he needed to be across the Williamsburg Bridge and to Tompkins Square Park in East Village no later than ten minutes of four. The driver, whose name was Max, sighed and shook his head.

‘You’ll be wantin’ a helicopter then,’ he said. ‘Williamsburg is jammed end to end. Truck took a spill about a third of the way down, took me the better part of an hour to make it across last time I tried. Might be better if we went up to the Queensboro and down Second Avenue through Stuyvesant.’ Max shook his head. ‘No, that way for sure will take us more than an hour. We’ll take a risk, eh? Let’s hope the Virgin Mary has a blessing for you today.’

‘Get me there however,’ Hartmann said. ‘Get me there before four and there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.’

Max grinned from ear to ear. ‘Hundred bucks and I’ll get you there last freakin’ Tuesday.’

The run was clear all the way to the Bridge, and Hartmann looked at his watch every three or four minutes. By the time they hit the first slow it was twenty-five after three. He was nervous already, and the mere fact that time was against him made it all the worse.

Max was no help. He insisted on detailing the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of pretty much every passenger he’d carried in the previous week.

Ray Hartmann heard the words as they battered each other out of the way to escape from Max’s mouth, but what he was saying and whether it was of any interest was lost on him. It was just a noise, like the noise of car horns blaring at one another as the traffic ground to a halt at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Hartmann looked at his watch for the hundredth time: three thirty-nine p.m. He swore under his breath.

‘What was that?’ Max asked. ‘You say somethin’, mister?’

‘The goddamned traffic!’ Hartmann snapped.

‘Told you so,’ Max said. ‘Took me near on an hour to make it across here last time.’

Hartmann wanted to grab Max by the throat and shake him until he collapsed. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He willed himself to believe that the traffic would suddenly ease up and start moving, that they would make it across the Bridge, that it would be nothing more than a right onto Baruch, left onto East Houston, right onto Avenue B and they would be there, pulling up alongside Tompkins Square Park, and he would be cramming Max’s hands with grubby ten-dollar bills, and he would be running, and there would be minutes to spare, and Carol would know that he
had
changed because this time . . .
this
time he had not broken his word . . .

The cars ahead seemed to have parked up for the afternoon.

Hartmann wound down the window and took several deep breaths. He clenched and unclenched his hands. A fine gloss of sweat had varnished his face, and beneath his jacket he felt hot and cold flushes running alternately. He thought he might puke. He could think of nothing but this tight sense of nervous impatience, desperation almost, that seemed to have assumed complete control of his mind and body. He wanted to get out of the cab and start running. He wanted to hurtle full-tilt between the lanes of cars and make it all the way on foot . . .

At three forty-nine the traffic started moving. They reached the end of the Bridge and turned right onto Baruch at four minutes past four.

Hartmann had lit three cigarettes against Max’s insistence that he not smoke in the cab, and each one had been left to burn almost to its filter before he threw it out of the window.

How much money he gave Max when the cab finally drew to a stop near the gates of the park Hartmann didn’t know. It could have been his life’s savings and he wouldn’t have cared. He even left his bag behind, and Max came after him, thrust the thing into his hands, and then stopped to watch as he charged across the grass towards the bandstand.

By the time Ray Hartmann reached his agreed rendezvous point with his wife and daughter it was thirteen minutes past four.

The bandstand was deserted.

Hartmann stood there, pale and drawn, covered in sweat, his bag dropped at his feet, everything inside him tightened up like a fist, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

He swore three or four times. He scanned the people nearby. He started walking one way, and then he turned and walked the other. He saw a child with a woman, he opened his mouth to speak, and then he realized the child was a boy and the woman was old and gray-haired and walking with a cane.

He backed up against the cold concrete base of the bandstand. He felt his knees giving beneath him. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. His heart was trip-hammering like it intended to overload and stop and send him crashing to the ground . . . and sometime later someone would find him and call the police, and the police would call the emergency services, and they would come down and find him dead and cold and stiff and . . .

Ray Hartmann started to cry. He went down on his knees, his face in his hands.

This is what you get for everything you didn’t do
, his inner voice told him.
This is what you get for being a lousy father and never paying attention, and never helping Jess with her schoolwork, and drinking when you said you wouldn’t. This is what you get for being a loser, born and bred, and no matter what you do now you will always look back at this moment and beat yourself to death about it, because this is everything that your life will ever be, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it
. . .

And then there were footsteps, the sound of someone running, and for a moment he paused, instinct like radar tuned to every sound around him, and Ray Hartmann looked up, and through his tear-filled eyes he saw her . . .

‘Dadddeeeeee!’

He stood up slowly.

He surveyed the faces before him. He took one step forward and gripped the edge of the lectern.

It’s not here for notes, he thought. No-one brings notes to say what they have to say here. They put this here so there’s something between you and them . . . something for you to hold onto if you feel you’re going to lose it. If you feel just like I feel now
. . .

‘Hi,’ he said.

There was a murmur from the gathered ensemble of people. Men, women, young and old, dressed every which way, nothing similar between them, except one thing, and that was something you could never see, and in most cases would never have guessed, but they were all here for the very same reason.

‘Hi,’ he said again. ‘My name is Ray.’

And there are times when he finds it hard to believe that he ever jeopardized what he possessed, as if only a crazy man could have failed to recognize what was here
.

They came back at him then, a chorus of acknowledgements and nods of approval.

‘My name is Ray. I am a father. I am a husband. I am an alcoholic, and until a few months ago I was drinking.’

And there are times when he looks at his own reflection in the mirror and asks himself if he ever really knew himself, or anyone else for the matter
.

There was a murmur of sympathy, and then beneath that a ripple of applause, and Ray Hartmann stood there, his heart beating, and he waited until the crowd had settled down before he spoke again.

‘I blamed my wife, I blamed my job. I blamed my own dad because he was a drunk too. I blamed it all on the fact that I lost my younger brother when I was fourteen years old . . . but the truth of the matter, and this was the hardest thing of all, was that I was the only one to blame.’

Time, he knows now, does not heal. Time is merely a window through which we can see our own mistakes, for those seem to be the only things we remember with clarity
.

Again there were murmurs of consent and agreement, and once again a ripple of applause that spread through the crowd.

‘Some time ago I went home to New Orleans, and there, again because of my job, I met a man who had spent his life killing people.’

Jess speaks to him, and in her voice is the same feeling, the same emotion that she always possessed. She does not care to remember the time he was away, as if that was merely a blip on the heart monitor, and now it has passed it can be forgotten so easily
.

Ray Hartmann paused and looked at the faces watching him. He wanted to be outside in the car with Carol and Jess. He wanted to be anywhere but here, but he knew, knew with all of his being, that this time he was going to keep his side of the agreement.

‘See it through, Ray,’ Carol had told him. ‘See it through this time . . . start it and finish it, no matter what it takes, okay?’

And he watches Carol. This is the girl he fell in love with, the girl he married, and in her he finds everything that he knows he could ever want, and in some small way he believes he will spend the rest of his life measuring up to that
.

‘And I listened to this man, and despite all the terrible things he had done, all the lives he had destroyed, there was one thing that he taught me. He taught me that the strength of family is the only thing that can really see you through.’