Across the street from the Soho bookstore, the rain slammed against a three-story brownstone and fell in torrents around a green awning that covered the man in the long raincoat from all but the wind-driven sleet.
George Waxman tried again to light his cigarette and finally succeeded. He took a deep breath of the menthol-flavored smoke and waited for his associate to cross the street. Yellow cabs raced by, pounding into rainwater-filled potholes, and Waxman winced with each splash, imagining an old woman hurling insults at him and screaming: Your fault! Yours…
Waxman clenched his teeth, nearly biting through the cigarette, and his tongue. “Go away, Mother.”
Listen to me, boy!
Across the street, the man with a folded newspaper over his head waited for another series of cars and buses to drive past.
“Shut up.”
Sorry, boy. I’m waiting for you.
“Leave me alone.”
Like you left me? In pieces? After you caused the accident? You, crying, always wailing in the back seat. Your no-good father took one look at you and ran off with some whore, left me with your shrieking and whining, every waking moment.
“Mother, not now-”
Yes, now. The intersection, the bus… I know you remember it, I know you do.
“Please. I have work to do.”
Oh yes, your precious work. You think it will ease your conscience?
“No, mother. It’s too late for that. I was only four years old the day you died The day you murdered me.
“But I can still save others.”
The rain hissed off the sidewalk and guzzled into the drains.
He put his hands to his temples, then covered his ears and pressed as hard as he could. The image burned into the back of his eyelids: his mother’s head, severed as a jagged piece of that bus tore through the driver’s-side window, her eyes locked on his, lips still moving,
Victor Kowalski ran across the street, dodging a silver Honda. His pants were soaked and his shirt sleeves drenched. He had a leather case strapped over his shoulder.
The rain continued to pound out words on the canvass awning: You won’t be rid of me, Georgie. Even if you get past your precious lighthouse door. Even if you get the treasure.
Waxman froze. His mother had never talked about that before. For years her voice had haunted him, but she had never taken her comments beyond direct, guilt-provoking insults.
“What did you say?” He held out a hand to stop Victor from speaking.
A sound like laughter dripped from the brownstone walls and fell from the overflowing gutters. I see your future Georgie. Oh yes. Soon, we’ll have something in common. What comes around goes around, boy. Oh yes.
Again, the laughter.
“Mother!” Waxman hissed, then all at once the rain stopped, and the whispered voice with it.
“Sir?”
Waxman cursed, fuming at the dripping rainwater, the puddles, the filling drains. Then he glared at Victor. “What?”
“It’s her. Lydia.”
Waxman looked over his associate’s shoulder, back to the bookstore, where Caleb Crowe sat with his publicist at the coffee counter. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Using a different last name, but still her.” Victor’s eyes held that cold metallic glint common to people like him. Killers. Loyalists. As long as Nina was still out of commission, Victor was the best Waxman had to work with.
“Get me a report by eight p.m., and a transcript of what she said to him before you left.”
“Sure,” Victor said, wiping his dripping forehead. “Sorry I couldn’t stay longer. It looked like she was getting suspicious, and I didn’t want to risk Caleb recognizing me.”
Idiot. Who couldn’t blend in at a bookstore? “Fine,” Waxman said. “But begin surveillance; I want to know everything they say. Everywhere they go. Her, especially.”
As Victor walked away, Waxman lingered a moment, wishing he could trust him more, wishing he had confidence in the man’s abilities the way he had trusted Nina. She was sorely missed, in many ways.
He lingered on, until the rain came again and the whispers returned. They grew louder, more malicious, and Waxman felt a renewed chill down his spine that spread through his legs, numbing his feet and tingling his toes. He moved forward, stamping his feet. The whispers followed, and in every puddle he walked past he thought he saw his mother’s scowling face.
“Wait,” Waxman called, jogging after Victor. “We’ll share a cab.”