Lost Hours Read online

  I walk slowly trying to avoid the loose floorboards that I have been after Matthew to fix since for ever; he always says he´ll fix them but never does. I don`t want to make any noise. I look at the living room, trying to focus on each detail. There are a couple of books I have never seen on the glass top of the center table. Matthew slippers on the carpet and the little music box my mom gave me when I was five, resting by the bowl where we leave our keys. Funny, I don´t remember having left it there. But I´m too drunk to remember anything, so I do don´t pay it no mind.

  The brown leather sofa is intact, there are no wine glasses or any other strange things. The chimney has not been lit, and the white see-through curtains, through which I can see the streetlights, are closed.

  The kitchen is strangely clean. I guess Matthew got home early. He´s a freelance graphic designer and his schedule is pretty flexible. One day he can get home at midnight while on others he is free at three in the afternoon. I presume he got bored and did some cleaning.

  I look back towards the entrance to see if there´s an unfamiliar coat on the coatrack. Nothing, there´s nothing unfamiliar. «Paula, you´re drunk and rambling… it´s time for bed!» I tell myself.

  The apartment is eerily quiet and my mind won´t stop playing games. I look at my watch again: six minutes to midnight, only four minutes have elapsed and my disquiet has turned them into an eternity. I sniff like one of those drug detection dogs. Again I perceive that unknown perfume; it seems to be coming from the bedroom.

  I walk towards the bedroom at the end of a short rectangular hallway, there´re two other doors: the bathroom and the study. I see him. Sleeping deeply, his muscular torso uncovered, his hair ruffled. Even with the effects of the drink, I stand at the door to contemplate him. I feel like a fool for thinking I´d find him with another woman. Matthew couldn´t do something like that to me. He loves me madly.

  PAUL

  Tuesday, October 8, 2013

  I can´t concentrate, the mess in my office puts me off and it´s quarter to midnight. I should get home, have a drink and ask Ana to give me a back rub. My bones ache, I guess it´s age.

  «You just turned thirty eight, that´s a long way from twenty, boy! » I tell myself, a nervous grin on my lips, it must be exhaustion, I squeeze my temples hoping to mitigate the oncoming headache. The printed words on the papers strewn over my desk about the murder of model Patricia Larson, begin to blur, tickling my tired eyes, blurring completely. I grab my gun, jacket and leave the office. Enough for one day.

  Nodding goodbye to my colleagues at the precinct, I head for my car parked on the street. October hit New York with unusual cold, there´s nothing left of the idyllic summer at the Caribbean beside Ana.

  Worn out, I drive afraid of falling asleep at the wheel. The excessively bright lights of New York distract me and I can´t avoid looking towards the street the way I used to do as a the young kid when he started working for the police department patrolling the streets. Always watching, observing, suspicions about everything around him. Occupational habit I guess.

  Four twenty or so year-olds hide to smoke a joint and drink cheap beer in a dark alley. Pshaw! Who didn´t do it at one point at that age? I stop at a light. Two chicks, also about twenty, walk arm in arm laughing unstoppably; their skirts are too short and two somewhat drunk guys start catcalling from a distance. I watch them carefully, they don´t look dangerous.

  I keep driving. Damn the New York traffic lights, always red, one after another! I drive through Soho down a narrow street and stop to stare suspiciously at a delivery man. Who delivers at midnight? The man looks at me, he knows I´m watching, but I suddenly realize he´s a computer service technician, working the graveyard shift. He enters a shop with half drawn curtains; on the window a sign advertises computer services of all sorts. A red head woman walks clumsily on her high heels. She´s quite drunk. She oscillates back and forth holding on to a wall, laughing raucously she enters an apartment building.

  I continue to drive; just a few yards to my place. I hope Ana´s prepared a nice dinner and saved some for me. Even cold would be fine, I could eat a cow. My stomach groans as I turn right onto Grand Street and then a bit further left on Wooster where I live with Ana.

  I drive into the parking lot, park the car and go up to the apartment on the lift to the third floor, grab the door keys from my left pocket and open the door.

  I stop at the foyer to hang my jacket on the coatrack and look at my face in the mirror. I need a shave and rest. My Caribbean tan is completely gone, I look pale and there are bags under my eyes. I shake my head messing up my hair and open the door to the living room. Tonight Ana hasn´t fallen asleep on the couch watching some romantic movie on the TV; she loves those. I walk to the kitchen. There´s no dinner so a sandwich will have to do.

  As I´m about to open the pantry where Ana keeps the bread, I´m startled by a noise. It´s coming from the bedroom.

  «Your mind is playing tricks on you Paul. Fatigue is making you hear things», I suppress a laugh.

  But the hilarity ends almost immediately when I realize that they are real sounds. Groans, giggling, kisses.

  Like a bat out of hell I walk across the kitchen, the living room and down the narrow hall that leads to the bedroom. I take a deep breath and as I stand in front of the door I open it with great resolve.

  I wish I had never witnessed that scene. Never. It´s even more painful than what I experienced a few months back when a whole family was mowed down in a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side; even a baby and three children of three, five and seven were riddled with bullets.

  I stop paralyzed in the doorway, unconsciously reaching for the gun in my pocket.

  Ana´s straddling a man I´ve never seen before; muscular, heavily bearded and crawling with tattoos, who looks at me startled; at least he has the decency to stop the wild, vigorous movements I know so well and which he was performing as I opened the door. Ana trembles when she sees me, digging her nails into the wolf tattooed on her lover´s chest.

  “Ana” I manage to utter in a mere whisper. I can´t find my voice.

  “Oh my God… my God!… Paul, weren´t you supposed to work through the night tonight?”

  I´m infuriated by her question, as if having to work all night gives her the right to do as she damn well pleases, including this.

  “How long´s this been going on?”, I ask, at once aware that it´s not the first time she´s played around. There´s no answer. She´s still on top of the guy, his cock deep inside her. I want to shoot her. I want to kill both of them. Rage is burning my entrails, but I put the gun away and clench my fists tightly.

  “When I get back I want you out of here. Whore!”

  I slam the door creating a major explosion.

  Dragging my feet I walk heavy hearted back through the hallway, grab my coat and keys and leave the apartment. The only thing I want to do is stop at the first bar and get drunk until the sun rises.

  There are few people in the streets. In the background, I hear young voices, full of life and ready to have the world for lunch. How I envy them. I remember the drunk redhead walking out of Jimmy´s Bar on Thompson street, it must be open, so I head in that direction.

  The bouncer at the door gives me a dirty look, I ignore him and walk into the bar. There are lavender fluorescents over the bar which momentarily blind me. But my eyes, still showing the anger from what they just witnessed, get accustomed soon enough to the lighting. I find a place at the bar and without another word I order a whisky.

  “We close in twenty minutes”, the barman informs me.

  “That’s fine. I want a damned whisky”, I insist..

  The first shot. It burns. I try to remember the last time I drank alcohol.

  “Another whisky.” This one slides smoothly. I swallow it down in a single gulp and slam the shot glass on the counter.

  “Another.”

  My throat hurts, my head feels like it´s about to burst any second and I feel the fire on my cheeks.
But for the first time in a long time, the world around me and the pile of shit that is my life begin to fade.

  Ana. I loved her. It pisses me off that I loved her so much. What she´s done just kills me, what I have seen… I have given my all to her, worked real hard and done a shit load of over time in order to bring good money home. Sleepless nights working at the precinct, just so she could have a dream vacation on any of the island paradises of the Caribbean, with all the comforts I believed she deserved.

  I met her eight years ago at a crappy singles bar where she worked as a waitress. We fell in love -or so I thought-and we moved in together three months later.

  Thanks to my income, she was able to stop working so she could focus on her literary career-it was her dream to be a writer-but in those eight damn years, full of lies and deception, she has never published a thing. To tell the truth, I don´t think she ever put a word on paper. Now I realize the slut was humping the bearded, muscular tattooed guy -or others-while I bust my ass slaving for her. Who knows how many she´s taken to bed while I thought she was working on her first best-seller.

  “More”, I demand of the barman.

  He looks at me, snorts and reaches for more Whisky.

  I drink it down. My head begins to spin, my mouth is dry and my tongue seems anesthetized.

  “Another”

  I can´t speak any more. My eyes itch, I want to cry. Even better, scream. I want to scream, get in the car, head for the nearest cliff and scream to get rid of all the rage curling up inside me.

  We wanted to have a kid; Ana wanted it anyway, but I doubt it would be mine.

  “More whisky”

  We could have been happy, maybe had a kid or two. Boys, I would have liked boys so I could teach them to play basketball or football. Maybe they would have gone for baseball. Whatever, to do with them what all fathers do.

  “Hey mishter! Whishky here.”

  Another drink. I push it back and It´s no longer necessary to ask for them, the bartender is standing right there with the bottle, pouring. It´s hard to speak in the state I´m in. I feel sorry for myself; disgusted. The bartender looks at me feeling sorry, he looks blurry to me. Right now, I could hardly describe him, all I´m aware of is his balding blond hair, baggy eyes and wormy complexion. He can´t be past thirty.

  I think about Ana again, barely holding back tears. I keep the pain under control. She wanted to have a girl, she´d even chosen a name for her: Chloe. She would have been called Chloe and she would have been as beautiful as Ana. I imagine her with her blond wavy hair, which I´d have to battle each morning to make a proper braid. In my mind´s eye I can see Ana´s big vivacious green eyes, her loving look in our best moments and how they never fail to inspire tenderness in me. Lies! All of it fucking lies!

  My lips are burning but I keep pushing them back. I am suffering hallucinations, feeling her meaty lips on mine. Her playful tongue entwined in mine and her breath, always sweet and with an intense chocolate flavor. Her smile, capable of making the toughest mornings cheerful, the bitterest nights, when life seems to have turned its back on you, bearable. That smile infused me with a desire to live, to go on when I was in danger of losing all desire for life after witnessing the horrible crimes, the violent deaths, the extremely harsh cases so common in my line of work. She would massage my back, caress my cheeks and tell me it would all be alright. And meantime, she was humping others behind my back.

  “I said I want more!”, I scream at the bartender.

  The bouncer at the door comes for me and literally drags me out the door. I pull out my badge on him but that gets me no breaks. He laughs and with a scornful grin pushes me on my way, stumbling and tripping down the Soho . It´s past one in the morning, I´m cold. I want to sleep.

  I wake to the insistent ringing of my phone vibrating in my pants pocket. I look around me, disoriented. Last night I dropped out at the entrance to an alley that stinks of rotten meat and dead cat. I don´t even know how I got here. It´s overcast, it looks like it´ll start raining anytime, and without looking at my watch I guess it isn´t seven yet.

  “Detective Tischmann”, I answer with a sleepy grating voice. My tongue´s still asleep and my mouth furry. The cell phone seems to weigh a hundred pounds.

  “Detective, there´s been a murder at the DIC Advertising Agency at twenty five, thirty third”. It´s my underling, Stuart Landman on the line. Thirty eight years old, short, pudgy and insecure, he really won the lottery getting into the force.

  “Shit”. It´s all I can say after a few seconds of silence, “I´ll be there in about half an hour.”

  I break off and looking at the screen on my phone I find there are ten missed calls from Ana. I ignore them. As soon as I get my bearings, I head for my apartment, just a few blocks from where I passed out. I hope Ana´s not there. I need a shower and a change of clothes, I stink of whisky and sweat.

  I walk quietly through the door, as if I was entering someone else´s space. It´s as quiet as a grave in the living room. I guess Ana got the message and left after I caught her cheating on me. I go into the kitchen and find a note from her stuck to the stovetop. I can tell her hand was unsteady as she wrote, her writing is not round and perfect as usual.

  We have to talk Paul, it´s a mistake, we have to solve this like grown-ups. When you come back I will not be here, but please, call me. We can fix this. We still can.

  I love you.

  I tear the note into a thousand pieces pouring out all the rage that´s still inside me. I take an invigorating cold shower, change my clothes and drink a cold cup of coffee from the kitchen counter. «Now that´s better», I say to myself looking in the mirror before leaving the house. I try to smile but I just can´t, Ana´s messed me up, inside and out.

  CHAPTER 2

  PAUL

  Wednesday, November 9, 2013

  I arrive at the DIC Agency´s corporate office at seven forty. There´s a great commotion around the dead body which, by the way, I haven´t seen yet as I stand on the spotless white marble floor at the office entrance.

  Today´s protagonist is lying in one of the inner all-glass meeting rooms. The office is modern and regal.

  The area has been cordoned off and a handful of forensic cops are laboring in full concentration. Even the smallest detail missed could affect the investigation and the tension in the room is palpable; they need to get done before the employees arrive. The body should be taken out ASAP, even if the work at the scene of the crime continues.

  “Detective, fortunately the agency´s employees haven´t arrived yet. That could get messy.” Stuart greets me and tries to keep up with me while he nervously fumbles with his thick framed glasses. “Josh Parker,” he tells me, “his throat was slit last night. The janitor found him this morning around six thirty. Poor woman, they had to give her some counseling. Want a coffee Tischmann? You don´t look so good.”

  “Thanks Stuart.”

  I lose sight of Stuart as I approach the crime scene. Ducking under the police line, I quickly forget the accumulated exhaustion so as not to miss any clue or evidence that might help us with the investigation. My eyes are too used to scenes like this, so I am not affected in the least; seeing a young guy, elegantly attired with a fitted suit on a buff body -like my wife´s lover-drenched in blood from a deep and precise cut on his neck. The killer had a lot of guts, and he must´ve been experienced; a real pro. He broke the glass partition in the meeting room and with a sharp shard of glass cut the victim´s throat deftly. It doesn´t look like a first time job. You can still perceive the fear and bewilderment on the light colored eyes staring vacantly; he knew he was to die momentarily. His twisted mouth shows he suffered. He took a while to die, he probably had enough time to repent from all his sins.

  “It appears to be a score-settling. Probably drugs.” Says Laura, one of the forensic team. She makes it a real treat to come to work; looking at her makes the ugliest crime scene bearable. She´s tall and thin, always wears a ribbon to hold her black mane, but when we
´ve been out to the karaoke or to have a couple of beers at a bar, she has let it down and it´s just spectacular. Add to that a pair of stunning green eyes – which at the moment hurts too much to see as they remind me of Ana´s.-

  “He doesn´t look like a junkie,” I retort taking my first look at the body. At first glance, this Josh guy seems to have led a healthy life, free of bad habits or vices.

  “We´ll have to wait until we questions the other employees, we need to know who was the last person to see him alive. However, we found traces of cocaine in his nostrils.” States Laura very professionally.

  “Bad business.”

  “It´s too early to determine anything, we have to wait for the tox screen to see where that takes us. What Is crystal clear is that the murder was set on snuffing this guy’s life.” She concludes looking at me in the eye and shaking her head.

  “And our job is to find who did this and why. Good job, Laura.”

  I quickly don rubber gloves and grab a magnifying glass crouching to scrutinize the bloody tiles in more detail. «My God, what a massacre. » I muse. I hope the glass from the broken partition has some of the murderer´s blood on it, not likely if were dealing with a pro, which seems to be the case from the nature of the wound on our dead friend´s neck. The technician has taken some blood samples and there doesn´t seem to be a mix, the only DNA present is that of the victim.

  While de CSIs continue to take pictures of the crime scene, y keep scrutinizing the floor, particularly in one corner which the janitor probably missed. There´s an ample collection of hair. I know it might not provide a clue to the case because many people come into this meeting room, but the key might be in one of them. I collect them carefully with a pair of tweezers and bag them as evidence. Maybe one of them will lead us to previous crimes that might point to the murder in this case. Envy, a settling of accounts, drugs, competition. Who knows. In an Agency of the caliber of DIC, anything can happen.

  Suddenly, a woman´s screams fill every corner of the Agency. As I look up, I see a tall, scrawny woman, about six feet tall. She´s wearing a tight black dresse with badly matching white gym shoes. Her blond hair, messily held in check by a ribbon. In her blue eyes, you can see fear, confusion, over-work and near madness.