Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [48]
“I don’t think I want to hear about this at breakfast,” Laura said. She was sitting across from Roger, pouring milk over a bowl of cracked wheat cereal with raisins in it.
“The guy must be a frustrated surgeon. Or a butcher.”
Laura stood up and stalked to the window, standing with her back very straight and staring out over the fire escape.
“Take it easy,” Roger said. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”
Without turning around, she said, “Two weeks ago, the morning after another girl was killed the same way, I found what might be blood on Davy’s shirt.”
“So?”
“I found blood on his shirt this morning, too. Do you want me to show you?”
Roger picked up his cup, then paused, as if he’d changed his mind about coffee this morning. He placed the cup perfectly in its saucer. “No. I don’t see the necessity.”
“We could ask Davy if there’s a necessity.”
“Simple as that?”
“Yes.” But she knew it really wasn’t that simple. She was terrified of how Davy might reply. Even more terrified of what might follow. The media, the police and judges and juries, the system. Once the system, this city, had you by the throat, it shook and shook until there was nothing left of you. It might do that to Davy. To his family. Wasn’t it always the family’s fault? Over and over you heard that, how the killer was himself a victim.
Look at me. His mother. Look what I’m thinking. A victim and killer. Beautiful Davy.
It could be true. That terrified her more than anything.
Still, she had to know for sure.
“We could find out without telling Davy,” she said.
“It’s absurd even to think such a thing.” Roger sounded angry now. She understood why.
“We can’t simply do nothing. At least we can figure out what to do if we must do something.”
“I don’t follow you,” Roger said, sipping his coffee and making a display of calm.
“I don’t want you to follow me,” Laura said. “I want you to follow Davy.”
Two weeks later, when Davy emerged from his room after doing his homework, he said goodbye, then left for one of his unannounced destinations. This time neither Laura nor Roger pressed him for an explanation. Roger counted to twenty, then followed Davy.
“You’ll phone me?” Holly said as her husband left the apartment.
“I’ll phone you.”
Roger followed his son to a subway station, then boarded a car behind Davy’s and watched at each stop until he was among the passengers streaming out onto the platform.
Davy had gotten off at a stop in the Village. Roger hurriedly squeezed through incoming subway riders before the doors slid closed, then followed him up to the street.
It was a warm, pleasant evening, and plenty of people were out strolling the sidewalks and eating at outdoor cafés, so it was easy to keep Davy in sight without being noticed. He was unhurried yet seemed to walk with purpose, as if he knew where he was going rather than simply ambling around enjoying his surroundings.
Davy turned a corner, then made his way through a maze of narrow, crooked streets that were fairly dark but less crowded. Roger had to fall back, and it became more difficult to follow without being seen.
Suddenly Davy slowed and looked about, as if searching the block of old brick apartment buildings for an address. Roger picked up his pace, and from the other side of the street saw Davy enter the lighted vestibule of a beat-up structure whose bricks had years ago been painted white. Davy craned his neck slightly as if speaking into an intercom.
Roger jogged a few steps and saw that there was no inner door that needed to be buzzed open; Davy had simply announced himself. Roger watched his son take two wooden steps to a small landing and rap gently with his knuckles on the door to an apartment on his left. Moving closer still, Roger glimpsed a tall, thin, blond girl open the door and usher Davy inside.
Roger walked back across the street and studied the windows of what must be the front west ground-floor apartment, the one Davy had entered. There was protective iron