Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(88)

“You got it. Extra cappy, right?”

“You bet.”

Rocky’s phone rings as he’s sipping his coffee and watching Richie layer a nice thick pile of thin-sliced capicola on an open hero roll.

He steps away from the counter to answer it. “Yeah, Manzillo here.”

“I got something for you,” Vic tells him. “Ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, just gimme a sec.” Rocky sets his coffee on the counter. His notebook is out in the car. He grabs a pen that’s sitting by the cash register and a napkin to write on. “What’cha got?”

“Dale Reiss. He and his wife are staying with the wife’s sister in Jersey City.”

“You sure? How do you know?” Stupid question, but Rocky can’t help asking it.

“I know, okay? The sister’s name is Jacky McCann. I’ll give you the number.”

Rocky jots it down. “Got anything on Jerry yet?”

“Not yet. I’ll get back to you when I do.”

“Thanks, Vic. I—”

“Owe me. Yeah. I know.”

Rocky can’t resist busting his chops. “I was gonna say I gotta go—my sandwich is ready. I’m down at Di Bernarducci’s on Broome.”

“Smart ass.”

“You know it.”

“Good luck, Rock.”

A few minutes later, Rocky steps out onto the street with the sandwiches, two coffees, a pack of Newports, his cell phone, and the napkin with the phone number scribbled on it.

Brandewyne is lounging near the car, smoking.

“You want to help me out here?” he calls. “I kinda got my hands full, and we need to get moving. We just got a break.”

“You mean besides the deli being open?” She stubs out her cigarette and reaches for the two coffees.

He fills her in quickly and takes a bite of the sandwich—extra cappy and extra roasted red peppers, just the way he likes it—before brushing the crumbs from his hands and dialing the number Vic gave him, glad things are finally starting to look up.

Mack takes a long last drag on his cigarette as he rounds the corner onto his block, sucking the smoke deeply into his lungs. He holds it there as he tosses the butt onto the sidewalk and stops walking to grind it out with his heel.

Damn, that’s good. Too good.

Having chain-smoked his way through a good portion of the pack he bought at the newsstand up by the park, he was planning to throw away the rest.

But why? Why not just take up the habit again? He only quit for Carrie. Exhaling tobacco into the damp night air, he’s struck by the dismal irony that she might very well have died of smoke inhalation—and that might have been the most merciful way to go, given the alternatives.

But maybe she was blown up in the initial explosion, or maybe she was burned alive before the fumes could smother her. Maybe she was one of the people who made the agonizing choice to jump from the tower. Maybe she crawled outside to a ledge, desperate for air, and fell. Or maybe she clung to life in that torture chamber until the collapse crushed her body.

Walking on toward his building, Mack reaches into his pocket and takes out his keys. Carrie’s gold wedding band dangles from the keychain; he fastened it there for safekeeping, uncertain what else to do with it for now.

It wouldn’t feel right to wear it around his neck on a chain, as his father wore his mother’s at first. Last month, the nursing home staff suggested that Lynn take it back, lest Dad lose it or have it stolen while he’s in the throes of dementia.

Picturing his once-robust father trickling drool and wasting away in a wheelchair, Mack wonders if there’s any merciful way to exit this world.

If there is, he sure as hell hasn’t seen it.

He trudges up the steps and is about to unlock the front door when it’s thrown open in front of him. Something—someone, a female someone, seemingly running for her life—barrels into him full force.

Mack teeters, almost falling backward off the stoop.

“Mack! Oh God, call 911! Hurry!”

The last time Emily was awakened by a ringing phone in the middle of the night, it was the emergency room calling to say that her father-in-law had been in a fatal accident. Mowed down by a bus as he exited his favorite cocktail lounge, old Morty Reiss was feeling no pain and probably never knew what hit him. But for a long time after that wee-hour call, Emily’s heart started pounding whenever the phone rang, at any time of day.

Now it’s past midnight, and the phone isn’t even her own. It’s her sister’s, and Emily’s first thought is that something must have happened to one of their parents down in Boca.

The phone rings twice and then stops. Either the caller hung up, or Jacky answered in the next room.

Dale, sleeping beside her on the futon, doesn’t stir as Emily slips out of bed and leaves the room. In the hall, lit by the dim bulb of a nightlight low on the wall, she finds her sister just leaving her own room, talking on the phone in a hushed voice.

“Hang on,” Jacky tells the caller, “my sister is right here.” She passes the phone to Emily.

“For me? Who is it?”

Jacky just shakes her head, wearing a cryptic expression.

“Hello?” Emily walks with the phone toward the living room. Jacky follows and turns on a light.

“Mrs. Reiss, this is Detective Rocco Manzillo with the NYPD. I’m trying to reach your husband.”