Recursion(18)

And one voicemail.

He presses Play, brings the phone to his ear. “Hi, it’s Joe…Joe Behrman. Um…can you please call me as soon as you get this? I really need to talk to you.”

Barry immediately returns the call, and Joe answers before the second ring, “Detective Sutton?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“On the train back to New York.”

“You have to understand, I never thought anyone would find out. They promised me it would never happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was scared.” Joe is crying now. “Can you come back?”

“Joe. I’m on a train. But you can talk to me right now.”

For a moment, the man just breathes heavily into the phone. Barry thinks he hears a woman also crying in the background, but he isn’t sure.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Joe says. “I know that now. I had this great life with a beautiful son, but I couldn’t look myself in the mirror.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t there for her, and she jumped. I couldn’t forgive my—”

“Who jumped?”

“Franny.”

“What are you talking about? Franny didn’t jump. I just saw her at your house.”

Over the static-laced connection, Barry hears Joe breaking down.

“Joe, did you know Ann Voss Peters?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I was married to her.”

“What?”

“It’s my fault Ann jumped. I saw an ad in the classifieds. It said, ‘Would you like a do-over?’ There was a phone number and I called it. Ann told you she had False Memory Syndrome?”

“Correct.” And now I have it. “It sounds like you may have it too. They say it travels in social circles.”

Joe laughs, but the sound is full of regret and self-hatred. “FMS isn’t what people think it is.”

“You know what FMS is?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me.”

It becomes quiet over the line, and for a moment, Barry thinks he’s lost the signal.

“Joe, are you there? Did I lose you?”

“I’m here.”

“What is FMS?”

“It’s people like me, who’ve done what I did. And it’s only going to get worse.”

“Why?”

“I…” There’s a long pause. “I can’t explain. It’s insane. You need to go see for yourself.”

“How do I do that?”

“After I called that number, they interviewed me over the phone, and then took me to a hotel in Manhattan.”

“There are a lot of hotels in Manhattan, Joe.”

“Not like this one. You can’t just go there. They invite you. The only access is through an underground garage.”

“Do you know the street address?”

“It’s on East Fiftieth, between Lexington and Third. There’s an all-night diner on the same block.”

“Joe—”

“These are powerful people. Franny had a breakdown when she remembered, and they knew. They showed up. They threatened me.”

“Who are they?”

There’s no answer.

“Joe? Joe?”

He hung up.

Barry tries to call him back, but it goes straight to voicemail.

He looks out the window—nothing to see but darkness occasionally broken by the lights of a house or a station scrolling past.

He turns his focus toward those alternate memories that found him at the diner. They’re still there. They never happened, but they feel just as real as the rest of his memories, and he can’t square the paradox in his mind.

He looks around the car—he’s the sole passenger.

The only sound is the steady heartbeat of the train speeding along the track.

He touches the seat, runs his fingers across the fabric.

He opens his wallet and looks at his New York State driver’s license, and then his NYPD badge.

Taking a breath, he tells himself—You are Barry Sutton. You are on a train from Montauk to New York City. Your past is your past. It cannot change. What is real is this moment. The train. The coldness of the window glass. The rain streaking across the other side of it. And you. There is a logical explanation for your false memories, for whatever happened to Joe and Ann Voss Peters. To all of it. It’s just a puzzle to be solved. And you are very good at solving puzzles.

All that’s bullshit.

He’s never been more afraid in his life.



* * *





When he steps out of Penn Station, it’s after midnight. Snow is pouring out of a pink sky, an inch already collected on the streets.

He turns up his collar, raises his umbrella, and heads north from Thirty-Fourth.

The streets and sidewalks empty.

The snow dampening the noise of Manhattan to a rare hush.

Fifteen minutes of fast walking brings him to the intersection of Eighth Avenue and West Fiftieth, where he cuts east across the avenues, colder now that he’s walking into the storm, the umbrella tilted like a shield against the wind and snow.