“She would have come back by now.”
“She’ll come back.”
“Maybe not tonight, though.” Even in the dimness, Joe could make out the sweat over Robbie’s upper lip.
“Then what? What are we supposed to do?”
“We’re supposed to go to Uncle Mike’s,” Robbie said, definitively, as if relating gospel. “Mom too.”
“Then let’s wait! We can’t leave the car. That’s what she said.”
“She’s gone.” The certainty in Robbie’s voice was black and terrible. “We can’t wait any longer. If they tow the car, Uncle Mike will help us get it back. Right now we can’t just sit here.”
“Nooo,” Joe said, aware he was whining like a baby. He didn’t care. He folded his arms over his stomach and pulled his legs up. It was a fetal position he couldn’t describe as such, but it was as natural as breathing.
“We’re going,” his brother said, opening the door and grabbing Joe’s right arm. “Come on.”
“We don’t know where to go!” Joe cried, the yellow glow of the dome light flooding his vision. His arm being pulled from his body felt like his insides being torn open. Outside the car, he stiffened with the chunk of the LTD’s heavy door as Robbie shut it. “The boat place,” he said, his eyes adjusting. “It’s that way, right?”
Instead of answering, Robbie jogged toward the edge of the traffic circle overlooking the path and the river. As Joe hustled to catch up, a big Chrysler approached, bathing them in light. The windows were open, and a long-haired man in the passenger’s seat leered at Joe, his eyes huge and crazy. The driver leaned forward, his face glowing green in the dash lights, screaming something profane. They broke into laughter and sped away. A cloud of exhaust stung Joe’s nostrils. Darkness reenveloped them.
“Robbie, wait! I can’t see!”
“Over here!” Robbie was standing at the concrete barrier that formed the edge of the traffic circle. To their left was a pathway that led down to the park, swallowed in blackness. In the distance were yellow and orange circles of light, bouncing lightly in the gloom. “The boats are right over there.”
“We can’t walk down there,” Joe said, shifting his eyes to the path. Robbie looked over and smirked.
“Scared? Nervous is why there’s new Soft ’n’ Dri.”
“Shut up.”
“She’s not down there anyways. She’d be back by now.”
“Maybe she needs help.” Joe stared at the boats, the forms of which he could make out now. They didn’t look like a happy collection of welcoming vessels, though. More like secret little tombs guarded by torchlight. Through the gloom he could hear clanking chains and the low squeak of twisting metal.
“She’s gone someplace else,” Robbie said. “We can’t sit out here waiting for someone to grab us. We need to go where people are.”
“We can find a cop, maybe,” Joe said. He had seen something like that on an episode of Baretta, a show he might have been watching a rerun of that very moment at home if he wasn’t stuck in this nightmare. “A cop could help us find her.”
“A cop? How?”
“You know, they’ll put us in a cop car, and we can drive around until we see her!”
“Cops are gonna be too busy for that.” Robbie injected authority into his voice. He was doing his best to distance his tone from Joe’s animated, hopeful one, something that Joe felt but could not articulate. Maybe it made Robbie feel better, like the strong older brother, but it made Joe feel like a baby. “Best we can do is hope the lights come back on. If things settle down, maybe we’ll look for a cop. Come on.”
He pointed through the traffic circle and east, to where there were headlight beams and red taillights sliding in and out of view every few seconds. But they looked tiny and woefully far away, on the other side of what seemed like an impenetrably dark space, a black field before the hulking shapes of buildings. That space, neither of them yet knew, was Riverside Park.
CHAPTER 18
Monday, July 17, 2017
Kings County District Attorney’s Office, Sex Crimes Unit
Brooklyn
2:15 p.m.
“That song,” Joe said, when Mimi asked if everything was okay. The two had exchanged pleasantries and small talk about Joe’s work in the Bronx DA’s office years back. Len was also present; they were getting started in Mimi’s office when Joe trailed off. Mimi and Len exchanged glances as Joe fell silent.