Page 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The children’s playground is built on top of a cemetery.

James J. Walker Park is in Greenwich Village on Hudson Street between St. Luke’s Place and Clarkson Street on top of what used to be aptly and not subtly called St. John’s Burying Ground. Even now, something like ten thousand corpses lie beneath the baseball diamond, the pickleball courts, the bocce courts, the children’s playground—and even the bench where I now sit with Victoria Belmond.

The only visible remnant of the park’s macabre past is the Firemen’s Memorial, a nearly seven-foot-high marble sarcophagus dedicated in 1834 to two very young firemen who died their very first day on the job. According to the memorial’s epithet, “Here are interred the bodies of Eugene Underhill, aged 20 years 7 months and 9 days, and Frederick A. Ward, aged 22 years 1 month and 16 days”—meaning that their remains are still in this sarcophagus sitting on a fence against a kids’ baseball field. For those who need an additional reminder, the bronze plaque, which I always read no matter how often I come here, reads:

THIS GROUND WAS USED AS A CEMETERY BY TRINITY PARISH DURING THE YEARS 1834–1898. IT WAS MADE A PUBLIC PARK BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK IN THE YEAR 1897–8. THIS MONUMENT STOOD IN THE CEMETERY AND WAS REMOVED TO THIS SPOT IN THE YEAR 1898.

Welcome to New York.

Lots of benches in New York City are sponsored—that is, someone donates money and gets a little plaque on the backrest—and this one is dedicated to someone with the last name Madoff. I don’t want to know more. Victoria and I sit no more than ten yards from the monument. Behind us, children are squealing on slides and climbing bars. In front of us, through the chain-link fence, little kids are shagging grounders and fielding pop-ups with enthusiasm and chatter. I like watching baseball. I think it’s the nostalgic echo. I see a field and I still remember the first time my father took me to a game at Shea Stadium when I was six. I still remember the smell of the grass and the echo when a small white ball connected with the wood of a bat. My dad bought me two pennants that day, one for the Mets, one for the visiting Houston Astros. “Because you should respect your opponent,” he explained. When I got home, I hung those pennants on my wall over my bed. As I aged, the colors faded, but I kept them on that bedroom wall until I came back from Spain and rid my room of all childish things.

I didn’t throw the pennants away, by the way. They are stored in a box in the basement. Make of that what you will.

Victoria and I haven’t started talking yet. A coach hits ground balls to three boys at shortstop. They take turns fielding the ball and throwing it to first base. There is a joyous and Zen routine to this, and for a few moments we just bask in this swaying back-and-forth.

“I didn’t know you were going to Spain,” Victoria says. “I guess I should have guessed.”

I wait. The coach hits a grounder. The tallest of the shortstops scoops it up as though there’s a giant magnet in his glove and throws the ball to the first baseman.

“What did you find?” she asks.

“Enough.”

We keep our eyes on the baseball diamond.

“I found out how I was scammed. I found out you did it to others. I found out you eventually crossed the wrong people. And I found Buzz.”

That gets her attention. “You found him?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“Nashville.”

“Tennessee?”

I nod.

She turns away, so I can’t see her face.

I say, “You didn’t know where he was, did you?”

It takes her a second. “No, of course not.”

“No, I mean…” I stop, try again. “Your father had me sign an NDA. You know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t betray your trust anyway,” I say. “But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Legally, I mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do,” I say. “Buzz told me when you two ran your scams on na?ve tourists, it usually lasted a day or two. Get in, get out, move on to the next mark. But you took longer with me. You kept stalling. I don’t know whether Buzz was full of shit or not, but he thought that you had genuine feelings for me.”

She still won’t face me.

“You remember me,” I say.

I lean forward now, so I can see her profile. Her eyes are squeezed shut.

“Victoria?”

Her eyes stay closed.

“Please,” I say. “For my sake, if not yours.” I turn my body toward hers. My hands are shaking. “You remember me, don’t you?”

And then she finally says it. “Yes.”

I almost ask her to say it again, but I don’t want to slow the momentum. “You remember Buzz too.”

“How is he?”

“He’s okay.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He works in film.”

She smiles now. “He loved films. We watched so many together and he would talk about how it was lit and the special effects. He was always testing that stuff. That’s why he wanted to go big when we faked a death—show his skills. But I shouldn’t have let him do that to you.”

“You did that to others?”

“Yes. But they were nasty, little boys. I didn’t feel sorry for them at all. They ran and never looked back. But you… I knew what we did would haunt you. I’m so sorry.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I wait. I want to see what she will say next.

“And Harm wasn’t lying, Sami. I did fall for you. He saw it before I did, I think. You were like this beacon of goodness in all this dark. I wasn’t worthy of it, but at least I could bask in it a little while. You know? You’d smile at me, and it felt like all the bad would go away. Like we could be happy. It was almost cruel. Being with you. You were everything I wanted, so yes, I kept making excuses, even though I knew it wouldn’t last. But I never forgot you. Or how I felt. Or what I did to you. And when I saw your photo on the news, when I looked you up and realized you hadn’t become a doctor like you said and so much had gone wrong, that’s why I came to see you. To let you know you hadn’t killed anyone. To let you know it was all okay and that I was sorry for what I’d done to that wonderful, sweet boy.”

Her words pummel me. They are supposed to be kind, but I don’t deserve them. She was right there, right in front of me, suffering, in trouble, and was I able to see or help?

“So why did you run?”

“When you saw me, I panicked. I knew that you recognized me. So you’d know I was alive and nothing bad happened that night. And I just…” She shakes her head. “It’s not just about you and me, is it, Sami?”

“What do you mean?”

She shakes her head again.

“Did you ever have amnesia?” I ask.

“I want you to promise me something first.”

“What?”

“Because it’s not so black-and-white. What happened. Some of it is real and some of it is not. But the important things? The things that really matter? Those are real.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I nod to keep her talking.

“They are such good, decent people, my family. What happened, all those years of torment, it haunts them. They were so hurt, and now I need to protect them. Do you understand?”

“No, not really.”

“You sense it, don’t you?”

“Sense what?”

“That they are kind. That they’ve been hurt and damaged, but when you strip away all the money and trappings, you can see their goodness.”

I think about it because it seems to mean so much to her. “I guess I do.”

“And I love them with all my heart, Kierce. Mom, Dad, Thomas, Maddy, my nieces—especially my nieces. I love them. And I love my life. You need to understand that.”

“Okay,” I say, just to say something because I don’t know what she’s getting at. “So what happened on New Year’s Eve? How did you end up in Spain?”

“Promise me first.”

“Promise you what?”

“That you won’t hurt them. That you’ll protect them.”

“Protect them from what?” Then seeing that isn’t going to get me anywhere, I go for the surrender: “I promise. I’ll protect them.”

“How did Harm end up in Nashville?”

“I don’t really know. He said something about you guys scamming the wrong guy. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah,” she says. “He’s the one who beat me.”

“The broken nose and shattered cheekbone,” I say.

She nods.

“Buzz said you both ran after he got released. But they caught him. He walks with a limp now.”

She closes her eyes again. “We were both damaged goods, Harm and me. I know we were con artists, but when you’re in it, it doesn’t seem so bad. You see some brat flashing money at a ritzy resort. So you take some. What’s the big deal? And Harm—I’m so glad he’s okay.”

“He said the same thing about you.”

“Wait. So he knows…?”

“He does now, yeah. He said to tell you that if you ever need him, he’d be there.”

It is then, right then, before she or I say another word, I see her eyes look past me and widen in shock. And then everything goes wrong. I don’t know if I heard the gunshot first or if I felt the hot bullet on my shoulder, a searing, blistering pain as it tore the skin. And I wonder now, as I wondered then, at the very moment, if the bullet had been a centimeter lower, if that first bullet had hit my shoulder bone in full instead of skimming the top, if that would have stopped the bullet or slowed it down enough so that it wouldn’t have continued and hit Victoria on the side of her neck.

Blood spurts from her artery.

She slumps down like someone has ripped all the bones from her body. I jump toward her. A cacophony of screams thrums in my ears. I reach out and grasp her neck, clasping my hand over her wound. At a distance it probably looks like I’m choking her. Her blood pours through my fingers, coating my hand. I grip tighter.

That’s when the second bullet hits me.

This one isn’t a skim. I try to fight through it, try to hold on to her neck, but it feels as though a giant hand has smacked me on the back. My entire body jerks forward, my head landing on the corner of the bench. I blink and try to fight it off. But I can’t anymore. I am lost.

And then there is blackness.

They bury Victoria Belmond five days later.

I stand by a tree, in the distance, my arm in a sling, still somewhat high on the opioids.

Turns out one of those baseball coaches hitting grounders in the park was an ER doctor named Ken Liss. Once he was sure that his kids were down and safe, once everyone seemed certain that the shooter had run off, Liss hurried over to Victoria Belmond, but there was nothing to be done. For my part, I was flat on my back, my eyes blinking into the sun, nearly floating in a thick pool of blood, very little of which, it turns out, was my own.

She bled out lying next to me.

Some would find poignancy or karma in that, my blinking into the sunlight once again, lying next to her dead body twenty-two years after she pretended something similar. But I am not one of them. I have been through my share of tragedies and the truth is each one gets a little easier. The first cut is indeed the deepest. You mourn so deeply, and when that wound is finally healed the scar tissue is so thick and protective that you can never quite get there again. You won’t let yourself. And so right now, as I watch the private family burial, I don’t cry.

But this death is crushing me.

Victoria/Anna was only forty-two years old. And now she is dead.

That’s pretty much the sum of it.

The second bullet hit me in the back near my upper shoulder. It was never life-threatening, but the throbbing pain seems to never quiet. It will take a while to heal, maybe months or even a year before I’m all the way back. The doctors did not want me to come today, but I have to be here. There is a certain momentum to everything in life. I am near the end, close to having all the answers, and I’ve lost a few steps now.

I can’t waste more time.

I had visitors at the hospital. Molly, of course. My dad. Arthur spent more time with me, in part making sure that even if the Belmonds may want to terminate my employment, I get all monies due. In fact, Arthur wants to insist that I get extra cash, some kind of workman’s comp for suffering an injury on the job. I tell him to let that go. The Belmonds have lost a daughter. Twice, in a sense. Their loss is unfathomable. I can see it now in their thousand-yard stares. They spent eleven years in the dark thinking she was gone forever. They got a reprieve, a miracle, and now, fourteen years later, when everything seemed pretty damn good, grief has thrown them back into that bottomless, dark pit.

From this distance, I can see and even feel the devastation. Archie, Talia, Tom, Madeline, Vicki, Stacy—they all have the grief-stricken faces of someone surprise-punched in the gut. Talia and Archie are leaning on one another—literally, that is—and I keep looking for the poignant or meaningful when there is nothing.

The casket is lowered. Talia Belmond’s knees buckle. Archie, fighting off his own collapse, holds her up. Thomas steps forward first. He throws ceremonial dirt on top of the casket. Archie half carries Talia toward the recently dug hole. They both do the same. Archie keeps his eyes on the casket. The sadness emanating off him almost makes me take a step back. He raises his eyes and meets my gaze. I try to hold it, try to offer up something like sorrow or regret.

Archie signals for Thomas to help his mother. Thomas takes her arm, and Archie trudges toward where I’m standing alone. I brace myself, not sure what he is going to say or do. As he walks toward me, I remember Victoria’s last words—her last request.

That I protect them.

When Archie reaches me, I say the obvious: “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” he says. He gestures toward my sling. “How are you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Archie looks up and blinks into the sky. “We don’t blame you,” he says. “I want you to know that. And yet…”

I stay silent.

“I don’t understand any of this,” he says. “What sort of danger did you bring to our lives?”

The pain in his voice almost makes me recoil, but I fight it off. He doesn’t mean to hurt me here. He genuinely doesn’t get it, but then again neither do I.

“I shouldn’t have hired you. I should have just let it be. But I tried to control it instead. And you can’t. Not back then. Not now.” His eyes meet mine. “I blame myself. I killed her by stirring this all up.”

It’s not true, but it won’t do any good to tell him that.

“Mr. Belmond,” I say, clearing my throat. “We still need to find her kidnapper.”

He looks lost. “What?”

“It could be connected—”

“Don’t the police think the man you got released from prison did it?”

That is the most common theory right now—that I was the intended target, not her. According to Marty, the police are investigating the possibility that Tad Grayson wanted revenge on me and that Victoria was just an innocent bystander.

Made sense.

“The police dragged Tad Grayson in for questioning, but his lawyer, Kelly something—”

“Neumeier,” I say.

“Right, whatever. She came with him. She asked the police what hard evidence they had tying her client to the shooting. When no one had a decent answer other than this revenge motive, she smiled and said, ‘Come on, Tad. Let’s get you back to your mother.’”

“Yes,” I say. “And that’s a strong possibility. But before she died, Victoria told me some things you should know.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know if now is the right time—”

“Don’t start with that,” Archie snaps. “What did she say?”

I let loose a deep breath. “That she remembered Spain. That she remembered me—”

“Hold up. Are you saying her memory returned?”

I don’t know how to word this to a grieving father, so I just spit it out. “I think she always remembered.”

I expect this to shock him, but I don’t see that here. Then again, he’s grieving and numb and maybe nothing can shock him anymore.

“What else did she say?” he asks.

“That she loved her family more than anything,” I reply. “That you were all kind and decent. She made me promise to protect you.”

His eyes close. A moan escapes his lips. I should let it go, but I can’t.

“What did she mean by that?”

He doesn’t reply. I press a bit more.

“Protect you from what, Mr. Belmond?” I ask. “What do you need protection from?”

Archie Belmond takes a step back. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice strained now but no longer just from grief. There is something else there, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. “But it’s over now. Do you hear me? Please let us be.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns then and walks away. I stay where I am. Soon the silence is shattered by leaf blowers and lawn mowers and the whir of the yellow backhoe tractor as it covers her casket with the remaining pile of dirt. My shoulder is throbbing. I don’t care. I’m in mourning too, I guess, though it’s a very different version from anything I’ve experienced before. I am not a religious man, but I do my versions of a prayer. It is mostly asking the dead what my next step should be. There is no answer, of course. I didn’t expect one.

I reach into my pocket, shake out a pain pill, and swallow it. I don’t have to worry about operating a vehicle. Craig dropped me off with my own car. He ran to some price club to stock up on items and he’s on his way back now. I turn to head toward the parking lot where he’ll be waiting for me. That’s when I realize that Talia Belmond is standing behind me.

“They think she was hit by a bullet intended for you,” she says to me.

I say nothing.

“Do you think that’s true?”

“It’s the most likely theory,” I say.

“But not definitive?”

“No. Not definitive.”

Talia Belmond looks toward where I’d been standing with Archie Belmond minutes earlier. “What did my husband tell you?”

“To let it go.”

“That’s understandable. He means well.” Then she turns and starts toward the black car. “But don’t listen to him.”