The Wake

Max managed to convince the mysterious redhead, "Grace" to come to the Wake, mostly by promises of the food that Mira had arranged (apparently she had delegated the job to some stockbroker, who had made the odd choice of comissioning a food truck owner for the catering ). When pressed, Grace admitted that she hadn't eaten anything since the day before, except a small vanilla ice-cream cone—and that had mostly ended up in the stomach of a mournful-looking stray dog. She just didn't have the appetite, Grace protested.

Appetite or no, Max insisted that the woman get something to sustain her. She looked about ready to collapse, and frail enough for a sufficiently strong breeze to knock her over. Grace finally agreed to follow Max back to Dobrica's.

The food was delicious—hot burgers and chicken wraps, a far cry from the traditional small sandwiches and egg salad—but Max didn't give Grace much time to load up. She'd had an ulterior motive in convincing Grace to come, and for it to work, she needed to get the woman to the bar Mira had set up on the side.

After some minutes of subtle corraling, Max worked Grace over to the bar, which had already collected a sizeable group. Leon and Logan were nowhere to be seen—they'd probably left already—but Zoe was sitting there among the mourners, and Iris was hovering shyly on the fringes.

Grace didn't drink, but Max wasn't too concerned. A bar's atmosphere was nearly as important as its products. "So." She said, raising a beer to her mouth. "What's your story?"

I... well, it was very strange. I don't... you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

No, I mean, it was so bizarre. And anyway, it couldn't have been...

Well... all right. He beat up this man... my driver, actually, the driver I'd called for my car service. We were just talking normally and all of a sudden—John Riley, you said his name was? He told me it was Stills. I mean, I found out that was a lie, but... Anyway, he attacked the driver. Apparently he'd been trying to kidnap me—the driver that is. He and this strange woman brought me to a police station—yes, with Detective Fusco, exactly. And then there was this other strange woman there... They were all so sure that my life was in danger, but no one would explain why. They tried to move me, too, but we got in an accident, and...

I was... kidnapped, I guess, is the best way of explaining it. But it was so bizarre. I mean, I guess I don't really know what a normal kidnapping is like, but... it was just this old man. He had this English accent. We just sat around, drinking tea and talking about... all sorts of things. The whole thing was so horribly surreal, like some dream. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.

And then they just... let me go. I was blindfolded, but I don't know why... all they did was have me walk straight across a bridge, and the next thing I knew Detective Fusco was taking the blindfold off. John must have made some deal with them... or maybe he was always working with them, I don't know. But he told me I had this new job, in Italy managing an art gallery. I hadn't even interviewed for it. I don't know how he got it for me. There was a false passport and identity all set up.

No, I've no idea. The whole thing... I could never understand it. And I tried. It... it just overwhelmed me. I have never been so entirely confused. Sometimes I wonder if the whole thing was some... strange fever dream. And it ended with me waking up in Italy with a new job and identity, somehow.

But I don't know. I really don't know. I don't think I ever will.

Um... you mentioned he had a friend... Harold?

Well, it...

I mean, it's ridiculous. It couldn't really...

I used to... know a Harold. Nothing... really strange about that, I guess. Harold's a pretty common name, right? And my Harold... there was... there was an accident. Quite a long time ago. So it's really... sort of stupid of me to think they could be the same person.

It's just... the Englishman. He... he seemed weirdly interested in Harold. I mean, he seemed weirdly interested in everything, so that doesn't mean anything by itself. But it was the only direct question he asked, and the only thing he didn't seem to already know. It just stood out... I mean, why ask about someone who's been dead for so long?

And...

There was someone else. On the... I think it must have been a bridge, where they released me. I nearly tripped and fell over, and someone... caught me. I don't know who. They never said anything. Not Stills—John, sorry. And I can't think it was one of their men either... It's... wishful thinking but... with the man's questions I guess I...

I asked Stills. It was a crazy question, but with everything that'd happened, it made sense at the time. I asked him if he'd known Harold. If Harold had anything to do with what happened.

He said that he knew Harold loved me.

I can't help thinking... how did he know that?

I don't know. But I saw your article and... and I had to come. It's silly, but... I couldn't shake the thought that...

Well. What does it matter anyway? I'll never know now.

Maxine Angelis? Yes, I remember you. You interviewed me on the Peerson case, back in '07. Not the most favorable portrait.

Yes, that was AJ. He's fourteen. Esme took him back to the house, he barely remembers... ah...

I suppose I may as well tell you. It doesn't much matter now. It was some sort of Russian gang—involved with a case I was trying. Vehicular manslaughter, an open-and-shut case, it seemed... well, not inconsequential, but isolated. And then, as I was coming out of the courthouse, I got their call. They had AJ.

I collapsed. There's no other word for it. The world just... it was crashing down all around me. My legs went nerveless; it was all I could do not to fall over. I sat down on the front steps of the courthouse and felt like I was drowning. Everyone around me was flowing past, unknowing and uncaring. I've never felt so crushingly alone, so suffocatingly helpless.

And then this man sat next to me. And he said: "Let's figure out how we're going to get your son back."

As simple as that. The man was a rock. I was falling to pieces, and he stood by and helped me through the worst week of my life. I couldn't think straight. But he did, and that's what saved us. My son wouldn't still be alive if not him. I wouldn't be alive if not for him.

He didn't ask for anything. He actually specifically asked that I NOT talk about it. I always wanted to... I felt like... he'd given me my son. I needed to give him something back for that.

And it turns out that all I can do is show up to his funeral.

Thank you for giving me that, at least.

No, is all right. I know I look terrible. I took red-eye last night, fly in just this morning. No have... I have had... no sleep for 20 hours.

I'm... sorry. My english is usually better. I have been too long away, I think. I spent most of my teenage years here in New York. My father was the Brazilian ambassador, you understand.

Oh, yes. He was new bodyguard of me. My boyfriend, he tried to have me killed. John saved my life. I just thought at first that he was very good at his job, but... thinking back I started to realize... it was very weird. Eventually I figured it out, but... I was back in Ecuador by then. I set up google alert for the phrase "man in the suit," it alerted me about your article. Dropped class to come here, but is no matter... macroeconomics is not terribly interesting in any case.

Well, it nearly ruined men for me. But also... John... he was so selfless. It made me ashamed, how I lived. Is hard, in any case, to keep partying after someone tried to kill you. But I felt as though my life had been saved for a reason. And if John was doing so much good with his...

I want to go into politics. Not an ambassador, like my father, but something. Anything, so long as I can help people. It seems the least I can do, after what John did for me.

Us? Um... banking. We met them...

They saved us from a bank robbery.

Right, yes. Saved us.

We were hostages.

Not the robbers.

Obviously.

Just last year. I had been... well, I suppose I can tell you now. I had some... trouble with the Brotherhood—a gang of sorts. My son was kidnapped.

I owe more to Harold, really. John helped—he saved my son, but Harold... Harold was a wonder. They had ordered me to put together a communication network, and I had no idea how to complete it. Harold perfected the work I started, gave me a final product to present to the Brotherhood. Without him, my son would have been killed on the spot.

I think he may have been a professor? I don't know. A brilliant engineer, certainly. I wonder to think what he could have created.

He shot somebody at our wedding.

No, it was my ex, he had a gun... it was just a moment. He literally drove up, shot Thomas, said congratulations, and then drove away. Couldn't have been more than two minutes.

It stuck in my head. I mean, it was just so bizarre.

Heck, no, I'm not one of you. Maybe I am. I dunno.

I just knew Riley. Not as "The Man in the Suit," just as Riley, this pain-in-the-ass, weirdly persistent cop who opened up a can of whoop-ass like no one's business. Got me on the trail of this major collar... personal business. Anyway. Got me out of a tight spot all right, but I just figured he was good as his job. Saw he'd been shot up, thought I should drop by.

But hearing all this... damn. Guess I was luckier than I thought.

I was dead. Now I'm not.

They stopped me, actually. I was planning to shoot this guy at my high school reunion... long story. They talked me out of it, basically. There was... also some shooting involved. A lot of shooting, actually. These guys with submachine guns came out of nowhere-I never really understood what it was all about.

John was there, yes... He was pretending to be this "Frank" guy from our school. Honestly it was more his friend, "Betty," who helped me. Small, middle-eastern? Wonderfully cute, awfully scary? Do you know what happened to her?

I see.

Well... it's maybe a bit odd, but... I sewed him up once, five or so years back. I was just a mortician at the time, working autopsies in the morgue, and this smallish man—Harold, I suppose he must have been—wheeled in your 'Detective Riley' on a stretcher. He'd been shot.

I don't know how. Rifle bullet. I didn't ask questions; they paid me too much money, I was half-convinced they'd kill me as soon as I was done. But they just left and I... now I am a doctor.

Naw, I was the first of y'all. This jerkass drug lord messed up my brother, so I was goin' hard for payback, y'dig? My man Reese, he showed up outta nowhere and knocked up those mothers they sent after me. That dude was baaaaaad, girl. Like some sorta superhero. Okami Kurenkyoumi, y'know?

What? Naw, he's this samurai... forget it.

Reese was solid. Set me up at this sweet school. Little rough fitting in at first, but I deal. The critics, they dig my whole gangster deal. Really sets me apart from the crowd, y'dig?

Well... I mean, the other guys buy the whole act, yeah. They just know gangsters from movies and such. If I went for real, they wouldn't believe it. It's messed up, I know.

Huh? Uh... I guess it must have been his own money. Some sort of trust, I looked it up a few years back. Said it was from my Uncle Ernie, which was bullshit, but I didn't say anything. It was pretty sizeable, I was sort of surprised someone with that kind of cash would be going all vigilante on the streets. Sorta like Batman, but you don't really expect people to act like that, y'know?

That was the thing. Like, I go for this comic-book style in my art, y'know? Sort of an Elijah Price type style, if you're familiar with his work at all. And a lot of the other artists they're all like 'aw,man, that's kid stuff. Them superheroes, they're a lot of bull.'

And I always think: 'No, they ain't. I knew one, and he was hardcore legit.'

Yes, you perhaps see my picture... I model sometimes.

Ah me? No... not here for Riley. I come to see Fusco. He... he save my life, years ago. Where is Fusco?

Many thanks. I go to Fusco now.

I was operating on... I can't even remember now. Some businessman or other. I got a phone call, they said they'd kill her if I didn't botch the operation. I dragged out the surgery as long as possible, but I felt so helpless... I didn't know that I had any choice.

I went out to get some air. I was crying, I didn't even hear the other orderly come up behind me. And suddenly, this nurse starts talking to me—saying they're working to save her, just to give them more time

I never saw his face. It wasn't John—she can tell you about him. And Fusco—that article of yours is nice, but their partnership goes back a ways longer. Yeah, I figured you knew already.

Things went bad—there was an insider on the operation. The orderly and I... we worked together to save his life.

And then I never saw him again.

Slowly, the crowd thinned. Last toasts were given, people left, stumbled out to their cars. Max was one of the last ones to leave, and shook Mira's hand as the woman was locking up the ballroom.

The parking lot was brightly lit, but largely empty. Grace (who Max had lost track of in all the stories) was standing all alone by the road, staring up at the sky.

Max, without really knowing why, walked over to her. "You all right?" She asked.

"I... I don't know." Grace looked up at her. "I heard so much... in there." She swallowed. "It... it couldn't have been Harold." She said, a desperate smile on her face. "Not... not my Harold, anyway. He died. I know that. And if he hadn't... well, he would have told me. We would have done... whatever it was. Together."

Max just nodded, unsure of what to say.

"But... it did sound like him." Grace smiled. "The little things he..." She broke off. "He... he was sweet, Harold was. And he... he always wanted everyone to be safe."

Max felt she really ought to say something. "He would have wanted you to be safe."

"I wouldn't."

There was really nothing to say to that.

Grace closed her eyes. "It couldn't have been Harold." She repeated. "And I'll never know for sure. But..." little tears trickled out the corners of her eyes. "...if it was... I guess it's good to know... what he died for."

Again, Max felt that she should say something, but couldn't think of anything.

Suddenly a loud bark rang out across the parking lot, saving her the trouble. Grace's face collapsed in annoyance. "How on earth...?" she muttered turning toward the sound.

A mangy-looking German shepherd bounded out of the dark parking lot and ran up to them, wagging its tail eagerly.

"Look, I told you, I don't have any more." Grace addressed the dog. "See?" She spread her hands to indicate their emptiness. "No more! Go bother someone else now!"

The dog stopped in front of Grace, looking up expectantly, still wagging its tail, either ignorant or unimpressed with the woman's diatribe.

"Not your dog?" Max asked. For some reason the dog looked familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on why.

"Seems to think he is." Grace sighed in exasperation. "I should never have given him that ice-cream cone."

"He's got some sort of harness." Max bent and fingered the tag. "Hm. No owner. Just 'Bear.'" She stood up and dusted off her hands. "That's weird." She looked over at Grace. "You could drop him off at Animal Control."

"Could." Grace agreed.

Bear looked up and whined.

Grace rolled her eyes. "Oh, fine." She said, shaking her head. "Come on, then." She snapped her fingers and the dog jumped to its feet. "Just one night, okay?" She insisted, starting to walk. "My place in Italy doesn't allow dogs. I just don't like thinking of you sleeping out here tonight."

Max grinned. "Goodbye, Grace." She called.

Grace gave a distracted wave. She was already disappearing into the darkness of the parking lot, Bear trailing behind her obediently.

Walking alone through the parking lot slightly unnerved Max—a lingering issue she'd had since her near-death experiences. The blinking security cameras around her were some comfort, but she still tensed when she saw the figure standing by the curb, then relaxed as she recognized Fusco, occupied at a small booth, not even looking in her direction.

As she got into her car, she mused that Fusco was using a payphone, and she couldn't remember the last time she had seen someone do that.

/

A/N: Thanks for reading!