Bronx Requiem(5)

He turned in to a long corridor with gate after gate angling into the passageway. Gate 313 was the farthest away. The only passengers in the entire area were standing in one ragged line, their bags resting on the floor at their feet, waiting at gate 310.

Beck checked his watch. Only four minutes late, but there were no passengers in front of gate 313. For a moment Beck thought, could I have missed everybody? No. Impossible. He checked the information board at the gate to make sure he was at the right place. The schedule listed all the small towns where the bus stopped. Various notes and pages of information were taped to the board. It all seemed messy and improvised, but it did list Eastern Correctional Facility as one of the stops.

Beck looked around for someone who resembled Packy. Nothing.

He checked back up the corridor and saw a blue rectangular booth with the company logo across the top: ShortLine. A fit-looking black man wearing a crisp white shirt sat at a desk in the booth. Beck tapped the window a few times to get his attention.

When the man looked over at him, Beck pointed down the hall and shouted through the speaker vent: “Hey, what’s with the bus that’s supposed to be at gate three-thirteen?”

The man motioned for Beck to hang on and picked up a phone.

Beck waited patiently, trying to tamp down the anxiety tightening his chest. Why the f*ck can’t this go right today?

Getting a prisoner released on parole from a maximum-security prison in New York State took an enormous amount of effort. Countless hours providing everything the facility parole officer required: Approvals for housing. Employment interviews. Enrollment in programs after release. Assignment of a supervising parole officer, a field officer, confirmation of jurisdiction. There seemed to always be one more thing to do.

Beck and his lawyer, Phineas Dunleavy, had been through it before. They had a third member of the team, Walter Ferguson, a senior parole officer who had helped navigate the rough patches, pushing and coordinating with the facility parole officer at Eastern Correctional to keep the wheels slowly turning. But if one person in the process went on vacation, or somebody dropped the ball, or lost a form, if a prisoner became sick, or suddenly got transferred to another facility, or any number of things happened, the process could be delayed for weeks and sometimes months.

Everything had been done, prepped, and set up. They had sent Packy’s dressing-out clothes to Eastern, a prepaid cell phone they were supposed to give him on release, and the maximum of two hundred fifty dollars in cash. It had all been arranged, and now this.

Finally, the bus employee got off the phone and shouted at Beck, “Bus broke down near Ridgewood, New Jersey. They’re waiting for a new bus.”

“When was that?”

“About forty-five minutes ago.”

“So when will it get here?”

The bus employee gave Beck an apologetic look. “I don’t know, buddy. They got to wait for another bus. Ridgewood is about forty minutes out. Depending on traffic.”

“And the replacement bus hasn’t arrived yet?”

“I don’t think so.”

Beck muttered a thanks and turned away. The man hadn’t caused the situation, and he obviously couldn’t do anything to help.

He checked his watch again. The bus probably wouldn’t be in until around seven-thirty.

He walked back toward gate 313, pulled a slip of paper from his back pocket with Packy’s cell phone number, and dialed it. The call went directly to voice mail, telling Beck the phone was turned off.

He left a message anyhow. “Packy, this is James. I’m at Port Authority to meet you, but I found out your bus broke down. If you get this message, call me back, but just hang in. I’ll be at the gate when the bus comes in. Don’t worry about being late. I’ll be here whenever you get in. Call me when you get this message.”

Beck recited his cell phone number twice. He hung up and was about to call Walter Ferguson, the parole officer in charge of Packy Johnson, to make sure Packy had boarded the bus, when he saw Demarco Jones approaching from the other end of the long corridor.

He raised a hand so Demarco would see him.

Demarco approached Beck with his usual effortless stroll. He wore a fitted black T-shirt, lightweight black cotton slacks, and Kenneth Cole slip-ons, no socks. His clothes and relaxed manner, however, didn’t soften his appearance. When people saw Demarco Jones they generally walked around him, or quickly past him.

Beck asked, “Where’d you park?”

“Up top.”

“It wasn’t full?”

“Not for me it wasn’t. What’s up? Where’s Packy?”

“Goddam bus broke down. Won’t be here for about an hour.”

“Always something. Did you call him?”

“Yeah. Straight to voice mail. I got a feeling he never turned the phone on.”

Demarco squinted, trying to remember. “Were there cell phones when Packy went in?”

“Yeah, sure. 1998.”

“I bet Packy never owned one.”

“Probably not. Lot of shit he never owned in the last seventeen years.”

“What do you want to do? There’s more pleasant places to wait than here.”

“How much time you got before you have to meet your client about that security job?”

Demarco checked his watch. “Twenty-two minutes. But she’s always late.”