The rain in New York was unforgiving. It stung your skin like daggers as it came down hard and fast, unrelenting and unmerciful. It blurred the street lights, the stars, the faces you saw everyday they were as familiar as the skyline. The strangers had faces and the friends had names and all you knew and you all saw became illusions in the cold, New York rain.
"The whole damn world's a mess, Jack, the whole damn thing."
Her hands were in her pockets, so deeply nestled inside he expected them to come out through an imaginary hole in the stitching.
"Bitter much?"
"If it's not one thing, it's another. Someone goes missing, you try and find them -- but you can't just find them, you have to know them first and then you find out they had an affair or they were being abused or they were the abuser or they robbed someone or they fell out of a tree when they were ten."
They stopped on the corner and she allowed her right hand to leave its cave as she passed off a dollar bill in exchange for a hot coffee that would burn her tongue and keep her warm for a few minutes, then grow stale and cold like the air and rain and she'd toss it into the trash can outside Morton's as they hit 56th.
"A tree?"
"A case a couple of years ago? Guy fell out of a tree when he was a kid, shattered his leg, it's never been the same. And now he blames the world for his limp, like we owe him something, so it's okay to hit his wife and kids and stop paying taxes. Something stupid like that, Jack. We'll find this guy, Vincent, and then -- then next we're going to walk in and someone else will be gone and I can't help but think -- are they going to be worth saving?"
Her breath came in steady puffs as the air caught it and they danced under the city lights for a moment -- her breath and the air; under the lights of the city that burned at night with pain.
"It's not for us to decide, " he offered, suddenly wondering where this cynicism was coming from.
"Who does?"
"It's not our job, Samantha. Our job is to find them. That's what we do."
"I know, I know, it's not that -- it's...thousands of people out there are missing and...who decides who deserves to be found?"
"I don't have the answers. Where is this coming from?"
She didn't speak for a moment, took her last sip from the coffee, that, like he predicted, had lost its edge, and threw it away, tucking her hands once more into her pockets.
"Little boy went missing three weeks ago upstate. We had a case at the time -- that rich bitch that faked her death so she could get more money for, who knows...her next makeover. Little boy and he didn't have a chance and maybe...maybe we could've been his chance but we were finding someone else who didn't give a damn that someone left this earth the night she decided more money was needed for that trip to Acapulco next summer."
She stopped him, putting a hand on his chest.
"Someone left this earth, Jack, that hadn't even been alive long enough to understand it. Some little boy who probably helped his mom bake Christmas cookies and wash dishes and --"
She slumped against the brick wall and the look in her eyes troubled him more than he wanted to let on just then, but he reached out, touching her cold face with his equally cold hand, and drew back when he met tears.
"It's not fair, Jack..." she whispered, a whisper he could hardly hear above the rain.
"It never is, " he whispered back, and wondered if she even heard above the screams in her head.
The rain teased their hair as it clung to the tendrils, dripping off drop by drop in a steady cadence as the angels cried with her, with him -- for a boy they'd never known and the ones they had.
The rain in New York tasted like blood -- blood and ghosts.
*
"The first two victims were single with no family to speak of and low-paying, grunt jobs. The third victim was married, had a successful job as an accountant. I don't understand his pattern here, " Alexis spoke as she shuffled the casefiles on her lap.
"There isn't one, " Matt replied, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel.
"All right, turn the car around, I'm going to curl into a ball for about a week and maybe I'll be enlightened."
"Well-rested, maybe. You want the answers, we have to go out and get them."
"Sometimes I hate this job, " she spoke with a mixture of bitter amusement and defeat.
"Didn't anyone tell you? That's a prerequisite."
*
"Tell me you've got something."
"I've got something."
Alexis stared down the Medical Examiner whose face betrayed nothing, but whose voice said, You are still shit out of luck.
"You don't."
"I don't."
Alexis rolled her eyes, crossed her arms.
"Why do you do that to me?"
"Makes me feel good. Hey, it got you grinning for two seconds, didn't it? I gotta be sarcastic as much as possible, you know, 'cause sometimes it gets really dead in here, " he said, wiggling his eyebrows at his own lame pun.
Alexis nudged Matt with her crossed arms.
"We've got a regular Groucho Marx here tucked away in the morgue. Next thing you know, the Knicks are going to lose the playoffs."
An avid basketball fan, hopelessly enamored with the Knicks, his partner managed to remain blissfully unaware of the team's failures.
"They already have, partner."
"Damn."
She dropped her arms.
"So, you haven't gotten prints from any of the victims?"
The Medical Examiner sighed, removed his gloves, and pulled the sheet up over the victim.
"We've got an impartial print from Stephanie Meslin, but there's a lot of possible matches. Plus, you have to consider another possibility."
"What's that?"
"The hundreds of illegal immigrants in this city whose prints aren't even on file, " Matt said, finishing off the coroner's thoughts.
"Exactly."
*
Not that you expected much from apartments in this part of Queens, just north of Hollis Court Boulevard; the part where you weren't sure walking in public, with a gun, at night was even safe, because they looked at you like they were sizing you up, determining how much you were worth and how many guys could take you down.
And maybe they wouldn't kill you, or maybe just not right away. But that was Queens and you expected it.
Now the Bronx -- the Bronx he wouldn't walk into even with a gun. He'd heard the hardened inner city cops, guys who grew up in Brooklyn and Alphabet City, talk about places they wouldn't go into, especially at night. And the Bronx was one of them. Maybe because they lived there and knew all too well what went on.
Knowing all this, and hovering above the noisy din of distant sirens, blaring rap music, and switchblades popping in and out in intimidation, he ran a brief hand over the butt of his trusty, government-issued piece and relaxed.
Standing in the apartment, he regarded how dumpy it was, even compared to the rest of the apartments on this block. A small fridge, barely, it looked, functioning, rested in the far corner of the room, by the window and kitchen counter. A few dirty socks were thrown over the microwave and a pile of laundry so high you had to pick your foot up at least three feet to step over it, sat in the middle of the living room.
The pile at least seemed to have an organization to it; mildly dirty, dirty, and shirts he could swear were growing mold.
Martin waited for the landlord to tuck his keys away and explain exactly why his building seemed incapable of heat on this chilly day in the city and why his own clothes resembled those of his tenant's.
Apparently, he didn't care. Or he didn't know. Martin wouldn't put either notion past him.
"So what can you tell us about Vincent Marro?" Vivian asked.
Martin took the opportunity to do a cursory scan of the apartment, rested on a few folders he wanted to look into.
"Vinny? Model tenant. Clean, quiet, always up on his payments."
The clean part seemed like a stretch, but neither agent could vouch for the rest of that.
"He talk to you much?"
"Saw him off and on, we made the usual small talk about work, life in general. Just bullshit."
"He talk to you about work a lot?"
"Like I said, we weren't pals or nothin'. Says he likes his job, it's rewarding, yada, yada."
"Do you know if he had any friends in the building that could help us?"
"Check 4C, next door."
"Thank you."
The landlord turned to leave, wiped at some grease on his shirt, then turned back around.
"You gonna know in a week or so if he's dead or not, 'cause I'm losing money on this room."
Martin and Vivian looked at each other sardonically, unsurprised by his comment.
"Uh, we'll let you know."
He shrugged and left.
"Nice guy."
"If I died, you'd wait a few weeks before clearing off my desk, right Viv?" Martin remarked lightly.
"I'd give you a month, Martin, " she smiled.
"Thanks."
*
Beat cops, it seemed, were less inclined to help you, as though they were pressed for time and resources and maybe you should just hurry this up and leave. He wanted to put them in his place, just for a day, see how they made out.
God, had he been like that once? Traffic vioations, parking citations; hard day's work. Danny waited patiently for the cop to come back from the copy room, watched him tuck his belt around his round stomach, and pretend he was tough.
Boy, these guys could be intimidating.
"So, what did you want to know?"
"Vincent Marro -- you worked with him, right?"
"Oh sure, sure. Didn't spend a lot of time with the guy, whatever, but yeah, talked stocks in the locker room now and then."
"Yeah? How about that Dow, huh?"
"Well, if I knew a damn thing about that stuff, I might be livin' in Greenwich right now, 'stead a picking my butt here."
Danny chuckled. Sometimes he missed the overt crankiness these guys exuded everyday.
"I hear you. Listen, have you seen Vincent's partner, uh, " Danny flipped a few pages over his notebook, searching for the name he'd written down, "Jeffrey Pesna?"
The officer leaned forward on his elbows, tipped his hat forward to a friend, absently replied, "Wandering around here somewhere. Pretty swamped you know? Partner's missing. I think he's in near the interrogation room back there." He pointed his finger behind him.
"Thank you."
Danny tucked his notebook back into his coat, navigated his way through clicking computer keys, slamming locker doors, frustrated Jets fans, and perps getting hustled around for being just plain stupid, as usual.
Familiar, that's how it was. Danny breathed in, smiled, watched an unruly suspect flinch away from a cop. This job had its rewards.
*
If he could compare it to something tangible, Jack would write the last few years of his marriage like a mournful ballad, one perhaps generally played for the dead, because, that's what it felt like. A death. Like life, like an enthusiastic sonata, his marriage began happily, emblazoned in perfection.
The beginning of his marriage, the first few years of his children's lives, was like Handel's Hallelujah chorus. Then, it sort of just...broke. There were these faint chords now and then that were still perfect, like Hannah's first day of school, Kate's first pageant, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and birthdays.
But he started forgetting the harmonies and solos, the rises and falls of each note. It became that ballad, like Toccata and Fugue, or a depressing piece from Tchaikovsky or Bach.
The last year, especially, was the kind of ballad you would play in mournful remembrance of the dead. Dead. How ironic, he thought. He couldn't touch life anymore, felt trapped in the shadows of what had become this mediocrity.
He was hoping, maybe, he could hear that chorus again. It had given Handel hope, given the people who heard it hope; hope and faith and...God, did he ever need those things.
"Jack, " she spoke, beckoning him to bed.
He crawled next to her, shivered against her cold hand. Christmas would be here soon, he couldn't leave her now. There never seemed to be a good time.
"Bad case?"
"Nah, pretty easy. Cop missing. I think the brother had something to do with it."
"Does he have any family?"
"No, alone in a little apartment in Queens."
"Alone..."
"Alone, " she said again, quietly, as though turning the word over in deep thought, thinking maybe they would be that way at some point in their lives.
She ran a hand against his shoulder and he took it, held it, wondered why it didn't feel like home to him. How would it feel, he thought, to be alone? To come to the end of your life and reflect, digress on the things you should've done and be utterly alone with those shortcomings. Cold. It would be dark and cold and your life would be in shadows and you'd wonder...where was the happy ending?
Maria wasn't stupid; very smart, in fact, and felt without him speaking, the great distance they still had between each other, the distance they perhaps couldn't overcome ever. So she smiled a smile he couldn't see and rolled over, left him alone with those thoughts in shadows.
He lay there, thinking of the people who never felt love, not even once, their entire life. Maybe they were better for it, maybe worse. He started forgetting what love felt like. How was it supposed to feel? Were you supposed to wake up and remember that you didn't have to hurt anymore?
Faith, he supposed. You had to have faith that you would feel it and know it and it wouldn't leave. So maybe he hadn't ever really felt love, not the kind you're supposed to feel anyway.
He rolled over as well, and their cold backs touched each other, skin on skin and miles apart and he buried his head into his pillow against the mournful echoes of a decayed marriage.
Jack heard whispers too.
Whispers of Hallelujah.
And he couldn't touch them, because they were places far away from here, embodied in a single soul he'd written away like a descrescendo. Where was his breath mark and half rest? His pause in life to find himself?
He was lost.
Lost in the whispers of Hallelujah he couldn't see and couldn't touch.
Because whispers were just breaths we forgot to take.
And Maria was the person he forgot to love.