A Better Place to Be Page 12

  Lowenstein studied him for a moment before nodding. “I’ll take that as a huge compliment.”

  “You should; it was.”

  “Have you seen and spoken to her lately?”

  John shook his head. “I have not seen her since the day I said goodbye to her, here.”

  “Have you had any gin?”

  John paused for a moment. Then he smiled broadly. “Absolutely. I have a gin and tonic on my two days off, and sometimes when I get out of work. I go to a little neighborhood place, on Sunday and Monday nights, my nights off, and have one.”

  Lowenstein did her trick of raising a single eyebrow. “Just one?”

  “Just one. I don’t need to drink, but I enjoy having one when I’m off. A cocktail before dinner. Sometimes I have one with dinner as well.”

  “Good. So, tell me what’s the real reason for this visit, besides wanting to ‘catch up’?”

  “To thank you, and to tell you I am living my life exactly the way I want.”

  Lowenstein gazed at him for several seconds. “And?”

  “And nothing. I did change jobs.”

  “Really? Accounting?”

  He laughed aloud then. “I told you when I left here, I will never do that...never be an accountant again. No, I found the perfect job.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m the night watchman at Miller’s Tool and Die in Freeport.”

  Lowenstein stared at him, her mouth agape. “Seriously?”

  He laughed again. “That’s the second time I’ve laughed in a single day. A record, I think. Yes, seriously. It is the absolute perfect job. It’s what I have been seeking without knowing it.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s not get psychological about it. I like the job. I interact with a few people, but mostly, I do things by myself, which makes me happy.”

  “Happy, John? Or just able to exist without hassles.”

  His mouth went dry. He took a couple of slow breaths. “Dr. Lowen—”

  “—stop. Call me Elyse. It’s about time you did. Just do me one favor. You are not officially my patient any longer. Tell me the truth. The real reason.”

  He adjusted himself in the seat, exhaled slowly and said, “Elyse,” tasting the word for the first time. “I’ve made a nice life for myself. I don’t have a lot of bills, my room, my car, and my insurance. I have discovered that I truly like working at night, I enjoy the calmness of the night, and I love sleeping until mid-day, and then doing whatever it is I want until it’s time for work. I don’t need to make a lot of money, just enough to live and to put some away for when I’m older. That’s really it, no bull.”

  Lowenstein nodded. “Good.”

  “Six months ago, I received a letter from Judge Gallagher’s office: he kept his word. My record was expunged. That’s when I was able to get the night watchman’s job.”

  “I knew about the letter. I received a copy as well.”

  “I just wanted to tell you, and to thank you for what you did for me.”

  “It was my job.”

  John shook his head vehemently. “Now who isn’t telling the truth? No, Elyse, I don’t think you consider what you do to be a job. I think you’re one of those people who can’t help but to...help those who need it.”

  “Is that why you send a hundred-dollar donation to the halfway house every month?”

  Caught by surprise, it took a moment for him to speak. “How did you know?”

  “Because Doctor Abilene decided to find out who was sending it.”

  “It was a money order, untraceable.”

  “Remember, we’re shrinks, which is the same as saying we are detectives. The money orders all came from the same bank. Dr. Abilene’s brother is an FBI agent. He asked his brother to find out. It took him a day.”

  “Then you’ve known all along?”

  “For the last two years anyway.”

  “I hope it helps.”

  “With the government cutbacks, every penny helps. And John, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I just wish you hadn’t found out.”

  “And I just wish you would dump the wall you built and bring someone into your life.” With that she looked at her watch and declared, “Time’s up.”

  John stood. “Elyse, please don’t misunderstand: I like my life exactly the way it is. It’s a good place.”

  She came over to him, took his hand firmly and shook it. “A good place, I’m sure; but I think there’s better place for you. May you’ll find it one day.” She released his hand. “Can I give you a hug?”

  He didn’t answer, he lifted his arms, let her come close, and as she hugged him, he put his arms around her as well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Miller’s Tool and Die Company, Freeport, NY. Three years later.

  John pulled the Honda into his parking place, locked the car, and got out. It was seven-thirty. His shift would start at eight. As the night watchman, he worked from eight p.m. to four a.m., keeping close to the same shifts as the local police.

  When he’d started, three years earlier, his boss explained the shift schedule when the man took him on a tour of the metal storage areas surrounding the building. “We’ve found it’s better to have our watchmen know the policemen on shift. We don’t have a lot of crime, mostly kids trying to tag the walls or sneak in for whatever reason. We’ve had and continue to have issues with addicts—more in the past than now, but they still like to slip in behind the fence and shoot up. For both types, there are lots of liability issues.”

  He paused and motioned toward the road just as a police car drove by. “Knowing the men who ride patrol makes keeping us free of problems a bit easier.”

  John shook his head. The part about the addicts was a constant problem, the kids not so much. In the three years he’d worked here, he’d had his share of addicts that he’d either chased off before they shot-up, or called the police if they were too high to move. He didn’t like calling the police on them, but he also knew it was safer for them because of the chances of overdosing. He’d only had three overdoses so far, but the newspapers were saying that there were bad drugs on the street and overdose deaths were turning into an epidemic.

  John went into the office, opening the two locks with his keys. The evening guard—a part time man who worked the four to eight shifts, and the eight to four on John’s days off—gave him a half salute from his desk. “Evening, Peter, how’s the night?” He asked him the same question he did every night when he came on.

  “Quiet, easy as always,” the man said. He pointed to the television screens. “Rodrigo called, his wife is in labor. He can’t come in.”

  John nodded. “Good for him. No problem, I’ll handle his four to eight shift.” Rodrigo was the other part time guard, who took over at the end of John’s shift. A New York born Puerto Rican, Rodrigo supplemented his day job as a taxi driver by working part time at Miller’s on the four a.m. to eight a.m. shift.

  “I’ll be back in a few,” he told Pete and went to the locker room, where he changed into his uniform. The uniform itself had been an issue when he first started at the company. Most guards are bigger than John, broader as well. It took proof that John was staying longer than a few weeks for Miller’s Tool and Die to have the uniform company custom order three special uniforms for John.

  During that first year, John took several police-run courses for security guards, and was also offered the opportunity to train with weapons. He turned the weapon training down. He had no intentions of shooting anyone. One of the benefits of having been at Brookville, was it had taught him to exercise, which John had continued to do every day after he had returned to the real world.

  After dressing, and at seven-fifty, John punched in and went into the yard, where he did a single round to make sure all was in good order. While Miller’s primary business was as a tool and die company, it also had a secondary scrap metal business. Not the junkyard type, but the metal that construction sites and sm
all manufacturers needed to dispose of, and the metal stored in these areas created both nooks and crannies and lots of hidden shadows for people to slip into, away from the cameras’ visibility.

  The yard, and its passageways between piles of metal, both shiny and rusting, was something John could navigate with ease. The circuit took him nine minutes: at exactly eight, he returned to the office and relieved Peter.

  <><><>

  At ten minutes after eight, after finishing his and Rodrigo’s shift, John changed into his civvies and, as he was leaving, waved to the office staff just entering. He’d gotten a call at seven, from Rodrigo, who told him of his son’s birth.

  In the parking lot, Howard Stafford, the owner of Miller’s Tool and Die, was just getting out of his beamer. John veered toward the man who had married Lawrence Miller’s daughter. “Mr. Stafford,” John called.

  Stafford paused to greet John, his hand outstretched. “Good morning, John. Is Rodrigo okay?”

  “Oh, yes. His wife gave birth, a boy.”

  “Wonderful. What did they name him?”

  John stared at Stafford and then shrugged. “I forgot to ask.”

  Stafford laughed. “No problem. We’ll find out. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  “You do the same,” John said and went to his car. A half hour later, he pulled into the driveway of his boarding house. Because John had decided that the nomenclature of boarding house didn’t quite fit, and rooming house didn’t either, he had taken to calling it his private B & B.

  On the rare occasions John worked the four to eight shifts, he would have breakfast with whichever boarders were eating. Today had become one of those days.

  He went into his room through the porch door, dropped his light jacket on the bed and went into the dining room. There, the table was still set, and one of the boarders, Sammy Jenks was just finishing his coffee. Jenks was in his fifties, with a full head of salt and pepper hair, sharp green eyes, and a large mouth overshadowed by an even larger nose. Taller than John by five inches, he was one of those men who always had a five o’clock shadow, even after shaving.

  “Morning, stranger,” Jenks said. Jenks had been at the boarding house for two years. He liked the quiet man, who was almost as solitary as himself. Whenever chance put them together, they talked on a variety of subjects.

  “Just getting in?”

  John nodded. “Worked the second shift. You off today?”

  Sammy shook his head. “Just finishing breakfast. I have about a minute before I got to skedaddle.”

  “In that case, have a good day.”

  Sammy stood. “Do the same, John.”

  John waved as Carmen, carrying a plate of eggs and two slices of toast came out of the kitchen. “Morning, John, I saw you pull up and thought you’d be having breakfast.”

  John smiled at the woman who ran the boarding house along with her husband. “Thank you, Carmen.”

  “Always my pleasure. Let me know if you need anything else. Coffee?”

  “No, I’m going to sleep after. Still have to work tonight.”

  John ate the eggs and toast while watching the Today show. Ten minutes later, he brought the dishes into the kitchen, said thank you to Carmen, and went to his room, undressed, and went to bed.

  He stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, waiting for the tiredness he felt to blanket his mind and, finally, when it did, he turned on his side, looked at the empty pillow next to him, and said, “Goodnight, Claire,” as he did every time he went to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Syosset, NY The Pub at Northern, one year ago.

  More than just a little strange, was the only way he could describe how he felt sitting at the bar next to Sammy Jenks on his night off. Sammy had caught him in a weak moment, on his night off, and talked him into going to The Pub On Northern, to hear the piano player.

  The pub was half full of mostly couples on this Sunday night. He, Sammy, and a few other men sat at the bar. A couple of women were intermingled between the other men. There were two seats open to John’s right and one to Sammy’s left.

  The man was good, doing covers of all the current pop songs interspersing older ones as well. He was more a soft rock and light jazz pianist, with a likeable but average voice. They’d been at the bar for almost an hour; John nursing a gin and tonic with a club soda on the side while the entertainer did his version of the Piano Man’s ‘Piano Man’. Two couples were trying to dance to it on the small parquet dance floor off to the side of the piano.

  “Not bad, eh?” Sammy asked.

  “Not bad, not great, but good enough,” John agreed.

  As he spoke, the door opened and two women entered, looked around, and went to the seats next to John. Both were in their late thirties or early forties, of medium height, and pleasant to look at. The one who sat next to John, had light brown hair, green eyes, and a pleasant face. Her friend was a bottle blonde, with dark brown eyes and a large mouth with too much lipstick.

  John smiled and nodded at the women as they sat. The one next to him nodded back and then turned to her friend. “Wait, you’ll see, he’s the best.” When she finished speaking she nodded toward the piano player.

  Sammy leaned toward John, and whispered, “When’s the last time you were with a woman?”

  John shook his head. “A while,” he responded, self-consciously.

  Sammy stayed close to John’s ear. “She’s interested in you. She keeps watching you from the corner of her eye. Take a chance.”

  John looked straight ahead, directly into the mirror. He’d taken a few chances in the past couple of years. He’d been successful twice, and had enjoyed a nice dinner, but conversation came hard for him, and the dates were never repeated.

  He kept staring into the mirror, looking at himself and the woman next to him. He compared his features to hers. He knew he was as far from handsome as Christmas was from July. He was probably too short for the woman, and was completely uncertain as to whether he wanted to risk it or not.

  “Take a shot,” came another whisper into his left ear.

  He turned to Sammy and shook his head. “I came for the music and a drink.” He picked up his drink, sipped, and set it down. “That’s all I’m here for.”

  <><><>

  John sat on his chair, a book forgotten in his hands as he stared at the window. The blinds were drawn, and the single reading lamp reflected from the white plastic slats, which seemed to bring a little extra light into the room.

  He looked at his watch. It was one a.m. He told himself he should get some sleep so he could get the chores he needed taken care of in the morning. Working nights had its good points and bad ones. The bad were that there was never enough time between waking up and going to work, to accomplish more than one or two things. John had learned how to deal with this, early on, when he was doing maintenance for AIS. His day off was for chores such as banking, shopping, and anything medical.

  He had a one p.m. dentist appointment, followed by shopping, and then dinner with his brother, who had called yesterday to say he was flying in today. He hadn’t seen his brother in over a year, and was looking forward to it.

  He’d gone to California on his last vacation, just about a year ago, and spent the two weeks at Christopher’s house with Emily and their two kids. In the time since he’d last seen them, the kids had grown by leaps and bounds. One was twelve and the other almost ten. He knew Christopher would pressure him to come again this year, which he already knew he would do.

  He closed the book, exhaled slowly, and got into bed after making sure the alarm was set for nine. He would have breakfast here, then start his chores.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  "I am the midnight watchman down at Miller's Tool and Die.

  And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by.

  A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite.

  And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right.

  And Lord, Lord, Lord she was a
lright.

  ~~~~~

  Present day, Long Island, May 19th

  The phone rang at noon, an hour before his alarm was due to go off. It was Sunday, the first of his two days off. John groaned awake, reached for the cell phone, and swiped across its surface. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry to wake you, John, it’s Pete. I’m sick, some sort of virus, been running a fever all night. Couldn’t make it to my day job. My wife is dragging me to the emergency room.”

  “Damn, Pete, sorry to hear that. No problem, I’ll cover your shift tonight. Let me know if you need me tomorrow night too.”

  “Thanks, John, I appreciate it.”

  He hung up, shrugged, and closed his eyes in an effort to get some extra sleep. He gave up ten minutes later, sat, and massaged his eyes with his fingertips. “Rise and shine,” he told himself. He had a doctor’s appointment at two-thirty and had planned to do his weekly minimalistic grocery shopping after the appointment. The shopping would now have to wait until tomorrow. He didn’t mind covering the four to eight shift, after all, he had no better place to be.

  Standing, he headed to the bathroom. He had four hours before starting work.

  <><><>

  May 19th, Present Day, Eastern Diner, Long Island.

  Leaving Miller’s Tool and Die, John drove to Sunrise Highway, made a right and went another half mile to the Eastern Shore Diner. Not only was this one of the best-known diners on the island, he thought their food was the best as well and ate there frequently.

  John turned the ten-year-old Honda Accord off the highway and into the parking lot of the Eastern Diner. Rolling to a stop, three spaces from the closest parked car, he looked into the windows of the chrome and turquoise diner, a landmark on Long Island’s South Shore.

  He reached to turn off the ignition, but paused when the News Radio 88 weatherman began his forecast.

  ‘The unusual May heat wave continues; tonight, we’ll see temperatures in the

  mid-seventies, but tomorrow, May twentieth, the sky will be cloudless again