Alternate Side(29)

Jack had tried to ease past. The top of his side-view mirror became entangled with the bottom of the one on Ricky’s van at a moment when Jack was looking at his other side-view mirror and stepping on the gas.

(Nora could see it, could hear it, that horrible sharp sound of the mirror being torn off, the horrible sharp sound Jack would make deep in his corded throat as it happened.)

Jack kept going until his car was in the street, both his side-view mirror and the one on Ricky’s van hanging from a tangle of colored wires. In a rage, he leapt out and opened the trunk of his car, where he kept his golf clubs, and took out his three iron. Apparently everyone agreed it was a three iron.

“I tried to grab his arm,” Charlie said, which Nora knew was a foolhardy act when Jack Fisk was in a rage.

“Charlie’s just lucky Jack didn’t brain him,” Sherry said afterward.

What had sounded to Nora like a jackhammer was the sound of Jack hitting the side of the panel van with his three iron. Charlie said that was when the men from the SRO came to their windows and started yelling. Between that and the sound of the golf club hitting the van, Charlie insisted that no one heard Ricky yelling, “Stop! Mr. Fisk, stop, please!” until Ricky was right behind him and had jumped at Jack to try to grab his arm. By then the side of the panel van, once convex, was concave.

Who knew what the truth was? Jack said Ricky ran right in front of him, that he hit him by accident when he meant only to hit the side of the van. Ricky told the police Jack wouldn’t stop hitting him, which sounded not like an accident but like assault, which was what the cops charged Jack with when they took him downtown.

“Remember that time Jack told Ollie to be cooperative and polite if he was ever picked up by the cops?” Charlie said. “He should have followed his own advice.”

Ricky’s leg was fractured in two places, or three, or four, depending on who was telling the story. Jack had spent the night in a holding cell downtown, had been released immediately to one of his law firm colleagues, was at Rikers, was at home, depending on who was telling the story. Nora spent the day shaking on and off, hearing that sound again in her head, now that she knew what it was and what it had done. “It was an accident,” said Charlie, on his second vodka, and Nora put up a hand and said, “Don’t say that to me again. Don’t.”

“You are the only person who has been sensitive enough not to ask me a million questions,” Sherry said when Nora saw her at the corner three days later. “You, and Alma. She sent over a pan of chicken tetrazzini, which was nice, although it did suggest that someone had died. Jack ate most of it. He hasn’t left the house since it happened.”

“He’s taken off from work?”

“They’ve put him on some sort of leave until, in the managing partner’s words, this is all sorted out. It’s only the second time they’ve done something like that. The other time was a partner who was accused of beating his wife. He never came back.”

Nora was at a loss. Finally she said, “Do you want to go get a pedicure?” It was all she could think of, what Rachel always said to her friends when they were feeling low. Nora felt foolish as soon as she’d said it.

Sherry smiled sadly. “I’ll be all right. The good news is that there are enough Fisks in this city that it apparently hasn’t occurred to any of my patients that I’m married to the assailant. At least no one has dropped me yet.”

Right after the police had pulled away, Charlie had gotten into Jack’s car and backed it into his assigned space in the lot. Nora noticed that he had no trouble getting past Ricky’s van, although she wondered if that was because the van was narrower with the side bashed in and its side-view mirror hanging loose.

“Jesus Christ,” Charlie had said, looking down at Jack’s car keys and then putting them in his pocket. “Should I leave a note for Sherry that I’ve got these?”

“Don’t forget we have your keys,” Nora said to Sherry. “I can bring them over.”

“I don’t need them,” she said. “I’ve got mine, and as far as I’m concerned the car can sit there and turn to rust. I hope I never see it again.” Her voice shook slightly, and she compressed her lips “Have you seen the tabloids?” she said.

Nora had. So had everyone else. There were only so many dead-end blocks in Manhattan, and everyone they knew knew the one the Nolans lived on. Jenny had called her, every woman in the lunch group had called her, even Bebe had phoned from Florida. Nora had been short with all of them except for Jenny, who knew that Nora was what she called block-friendly with Sherry Fisk and had said, “I’m just calling to say that when you feel like talking about this I’m here, and if you never feel like talking about this, that’s fine, too.”

“And that’s why you’re the world’s best best friend,” said Nora, who didn’t feel like talking about it.

She certainly didn’t intend to discuss it with a reporter, although there had surely been attempts. Nora was walking Homer after work and a young man in a down jacket stooped to pet him. “Cool-looking dog,” he said. “I’ve never seen one with eyes like that.”

“He’s an Australian cattle dog,” Nora said.

“And you’re Nora Nolan,” he said. “From the jewelry museum.”

“Do we know each other?”