The Man Who Came Back

Vincent walked around the boards to the home bench. The gate between him and Adrian stayed shut.

"You went to her apartment yesterday," he said. "You asked a five-year-old when I'd be here."

"I thought Elena would be home."

"When she wasn't, you could've left."

Adrian looked past him. Elena had stopped halfway down the stairs, close enough to hear. After a moment Adrian lowered his eyes.

"You're right," he said. "I should've gone."

Elena came the rest of the way down. "You knew she'd tell me you were there. You could have left your number with her without asking where anybody spent their time."

"I wanted to know whether someone else had been asking about the rink. I heard myself questioning her and kept going anyway." He looked at Elena properly then. "I'm sorry."

Vincent had heard Adrian apologize before. It was usually a brief courtesy he offered after a meeting had gone his way. This time he waited through the silence that followed. Elena buttoned her coat. She let him wait.

"Tell me what happened to my father," Vincent said.

Adrian rested both hands on the gate. The left one bent less easily than the right. Vincent noticed because he'd spent most of his childhood looking for that hand to catch him when he jumped from the low wall outside the house.

"Carlo came to the old terminal alone. I asked him to. He'd already taken me off the work, and I thought if I told him someone in the company was paying for information about the families, he'd give me another chance."

"Did you know who was paying?"

"I knew where the requests were coming from. The names on them belonged to men who couldn't have afforded what they were offering."

"What did my father say?"

"He asked me if I wanted to help the families or get my old job back. I took too long to answer." Adrian looked down at his bad hand. "The next thing I knew, there were men coming in from the parking lot. Carlo went for the side door. I got there first and held it while he ran. We made it to the road together."

Vincent remembered the terminal's grubby windows and the long stretch of sidewalk with nowhere to turn.

"Then what?"

"A dark sedan was waiting. One of the men caught me from behind. By the time I got up, the car was pulling away. Carlo was in the back seat. I saw him hit the window with his fist."

Vincent's fingers found the upper rail. His father had made it out of the terminal. He'd been alive long enough to be afraid in the car.

"Why did the report say he died in his own car?"

"Because that's where they found him. I saw the same photograph you did. I can only tell you he was alive when they took him."

"You let me sit through a funeral thinking he'd died on his way out of town."

"I was injured, and by the time I knew for certain he'd died, the newspapers were saying I'd died with him. I let them. Whoever sent those men had started on the families before Carlo was buried. I spent the next few months helping some of them move again."

"Did you ever pick up a phone and try me?"

Adrian shook his head once. "I thought you'd tell the people around you. I also thought you'd ask me why I'd been on that road with him in the first place."

Vincent looked at the gate. He'd expected a story about a man being out of options. Adrian had lived for six years with the option of making a call.

"There was a badge in the intruder's bag," Vincent said. "Your old staff badge. How'd it get there?"

"I handed it over when Carlo took me off the job. It went in the drawer where we kept old staff credentials. Ask who had that drawer after he died."

Vincent knew who'd taken charge of the office. Rafael had said it would spare Vincent the sight of his father's coat still hanging behind the door. That had been one kindness among dozens. Even now Vincent could see how easy it would be to make everything his uncle had ever done sound sinister, if he went looking for it.

"Did you send Danny to the locker?" he asked.

"I asked him to check the old stands. He's been keeping an eye on that corridor for me since I got back to the city. After somebody broke in today, I told him that if he found a case, he should get it out of the building."

"Where is it now?"

"I don't know. He won't answer me either."

Vincent believed him. Danny had dragged the mats back into place with one foot because both hands were occupied.

"Why come back this week?" he asked.

"Because the man who sent me this got in touch for the first time in two years. He said somebody was offering money for the addresses again. I came to warn Elena. By the time I got to her apartment, I was already thinking about what I'd do if she couldn't help me."

Adrian opened his coat slowly, drew out a folded photograph, and set it on top of the gate. "This was taken at a coffee shop in Queens this morning."

The photograph showed a woman in a burgundy apron stacking cups behind a counter. A handwritten sign in the window advertised soup. Somebody had written a name below the image.

Marisol Flores.

Beside the name was a time: 6:30.

"She's the woman with the broken wrist," Adrian said. "The time is when her son gets off work and meets her there. This copy came from a man who still owes me for getting his brother out. He saw it in a pile he was asked to deliver. There were other pages he couldn't get to."

Vincent looked at the shop's name in the window. He knew the block. There was a bus stop close enough to see the door from.

"Call her," he said.

"I tried the old number. It belongs to a man in Ohio now."

Elena reached over the gate and took the photograph. Adrian let go without making her ask twice.

"Her son used to skate," she said. "He was awful at stopping. He went straight into my knees once. She called him Matty."

Vincent looked at her. "Can you reach him?"

"I can try the coach he had after me."

Adrian straightened. "Give me the list if Danny calls. I've still got people who can get to the others."

"No," Vincent said. "If you want to help, tell Marco what your man saw and let Elena make her call."

Adrian opened his mouth, then looked again at the photograph in Elena's hand. He stayed where he was.

Vincent's phone buzzed. It was a number he didn't recognize.

"Mr. Romano?" The voice was faint, but Vincent knew it. "I got your message."

"Danny. Are you hurt?"

There was a pause long enough for Vincent to hear a car pass on Danny's end of the call.

"I don't know who to give this to," Danny said. "I need you to come in by yourself, and I need you to hear me out before you touch anything."