paved with sobriety, hard work, honesty and commitment.
That frame of mind had served him well at work, for work was where he’d buried himself, and his office, narrow and cramped though it was, each wall covered with a pinboard displaying photographs and maps and crime scene details, was where he would ordinarily be found, often late into the night, sometimes in the early hours of the morning.
Morning of Friday 29 August he took a call right there in that same office, at the very same desk.
‘Ray?’
‘Carol?’ In his voice was a tone of surprise, beneath that a sense of concern that something bad might have happened to prompt her call.
‘How you doing?’ she asked.
‘I’m okay, Carol, I’m okay. How’s Jess?’
‘She’s fine, Ray, just fine. She misses you, and that’s why I’m calling you.’
Ray was silent. He’d learned to speak when he was asked, and the rest of the time keep his asshole mouth shut.
‘Saturday, a week on Saturday, September sixth, you can come meet us in Tompkins Square Park at midday. We’re gonna have some lunch together and you can see Jess, okay?’
Ray Hartmann was struck dumb for a second.
‘Ray? You there?’
‘Yes, sure . . . sure I’m here. That’s great. Thanks. Thanks, Carol.’
‘You’re coming because of Jess, not because of me. I need more time. I’ve been grateful for the time I’ve had, and I’ve thought about a lot of things. If you and I are gonna make it then we have a number of things to work out. Right now all we’re doing is making a little time for Jess, you understand?’
‘Yes, sure I understand.’
‘So you be there, midday a week on Saturday, and if things go fine then maybe you and I will start talking about what we’re gonna do.’
‘Right, of course, of course.’
‘So we’ll see you then, okay?’
‘Okay, Carol . . . I’ll be there.’
And then she hung up, and Ray Hartmann sat there with the receiver burring in his ear, his eyes filled with tears, a kind of idiot grin on his face.
Still looked like that when Luca Visceglia opened the door of his office and stood there with an expression Ray Hartmann had seen all too many times.
New York District Attorney’s Office Administrative Annexe B, nine-sixteen a.m., morning of Friday 29 August, and back of Visceglia were three men in dark suits, white shirts, dark ties, and all of them wore that expression: an expression that told Hartmann that he was once again about to collide with the business end of things, though in that moment, lightheaded with the thought that his wife might talk to him again, he had no clue about what they were going to say, and where those words would take him. Whoever these people were they had found him, found him all too easily, it seemed; apparently he had been the only Ray Hartmann in the entirety of the federal employee database system in Washington, and that database had been only the second they had searched.
An hour later and all the colors would be different, the sounds and images too, and Ray Hartmann would be driving along Flatbush Avenue in a generic gray sedan towards the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There he would find a waiting helicopter that would carry him and three New York FBI field agents to the airport. A handful of hours and he would be home, home in New Orleans, and though New Orleans was the last place in the world he would ever have wanted to go, he had no choice in the matter.
The world had come looking for Ray Hartmann, it seemed, and the world had somehow found him.
FIVE
Abused, disabused, rejected, forsworn to some sense of guilt, some sense of desperate self-reproach for the way in which these events had transpired, Ray Hartmann stood beside the window of a hotel.
Let the dead be buried
, he thought.
Let the dead be afforded whatever degree of respect they deserve, whether they be brother or mother or father, and if they deserve none then at least let them rest. Pax vobiscum
.
Desirous, perhaps, of some complete and
That frame of mind had served him well at work, for work was where he’d buried himself, and his office, narrow and cramped though it was, each wall covered with a pinboard displaying photographs and maps and crime scene details, was where he would ordinarily be found, often late into the night, sometimes in the early hours of the morning.
Morning of Friday 29 August he took a call right there in that same office, at the very same desk.
‘Ray?’
‘Carol?’ In his voice was a tone of surprise, beneath that a sense of concern that something bad might have happened to prompt her call.
‘How you doing?’ she asked.
‘I’m okay, Carol, I’m okay. How’s Jess?’
‘She’s fine, Ray, just fine. She misses you, and that’s why I’m calling you.’
Ray was silent. He’d learned to speak when he was asked, and the rest of the time keep his asshole mouth shut.
‘Saturday, a week on Saturday, September sixth, you can come meet us in Tompkins Square Park at midday. We’re gonna have some lunch together and you can see Jess, okay?’
Ray Hartmann was struck dumb for a second.
‘Ray? You there?’
‘Yes, sure . . . sure I’m here. That’s great. Thanks. Thanks, Carol.’
‘You’re coming because of Jess, not because of me. I need more time. I’ve been grateful for the time I’ve had, and I’ve thought about a lot of things. If you and I are gonna make it then we have a number of things to work out. Right now all we’re doing is making a little time for Jess, you understand?’
‘Yes, sure I understand.’
‘So you be there, midday a week on Saturday, and if things go fine then maybe you and I will start talking about what we’re gonna do.’
‘Right, of course, of course.’
‘So we’ll see you then, okay?’
‘Okay, Carol . . . I’ll be there.’
And then she hung up, and Ray Hartmann sat there with the receiver burring in his ear, his eyes filled with tears, a kind of idiot grin on his face.
Still looked like that when Luca Visceglia opened the door of his office and stood there with an expression Ray Hartmann had seen all too many times.
New York District Attorney’s Office Administrative Annexe B, nine-sixteen a.m., morning of Friday 29 August, and back of Visceglia were three men in dark suits, white shirts, dark ties, and all of them wore that expression: an expression that told Hartmann that he was once again about to collide with the business end of things, though in that moment, lightheaded with the thought that his wife might talk to him again, he had no clue about what they were going to say, and where those words would take him. Whoever these people were they had found him, found him all too easily, it seemed; apparently he had been the only Ray Hartmann in the entirety of the federal employee database system in Washington, and that database had been only the second they had searched.
An hour later and all the colors would be different, the sounds and images too, and Ray Hartmann would be driving along Flatbush Avenue in a generic gray sedan towards the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There he would find a waiting helicopter that would carry him and three New York FBI field agents to the airport. A handful of hours and he would be home, home in New Orleans, and though New Orleans was the last place in the world he would ever have wanted to go, he had no choice in the matter.
The world had come looking for Ray Hartmann, it seemed, and the world had somehow found him.
FIVE
Abused, disabused, rejected, forsworn to some sense of guilt, some sense of desperate self-reproach for the way in which these events had transpired, Ray Hartmann stood beside the window of a hotel.
Let the dead be buried
, he thought.
Let the dead be afforded whatever degree of respect they deserve, whether they be brother or mother or father, and if they deserve none then at least let them rest. Pax vobiscum
.
Desirous, perhaps, of some complete and
Similar Books
