Chapter 17 #3
“Because… because I’ve memorized every intro Bruce ever recorded, and the ones that connect with his father are heartbreaking.
But I think that’s because his father, for all his faults and flaws, meant well, you know?
I just… my dad’s doing his best. You know that.
Started calling me once a week. Asked for pictures of you.
Just… did he even try to connect with you? ”
Joey wanted so badly to tell him that yes, yes his father had been a human being, but he opened his mouth to lie and that’s not what came out.
“One of the housekeepers used to feed this stray cat,” Joey said finally.
“I liked it. Fed it too. It was filthy. Stevie got home one night, and I’d just bathed the thing, dried it off.
It was eating tuna in the kitchen. Fucker saw me there, feeding the cat, and he grabbed both of us—cat by the neck, me by the ear, and threw us in the basement—cat fell and broke its leg on the way down.
Dad told me he’d let me out when the fucking cat was dead.
Told me I could kill it quick by breaking its neck. ”
Gideon’s breath had gone all funny in the dark. Uneven and choppy, like he was injured.
“What did you do?” he whispered.
Joey let out a humorless laugh. “Well, first of all, it wasn’t the flex the old man thought it was.
I’d seen the gamekeeper coming in and out of the basement from a pile of rocks.
It used to be a servant’s entrance, and then there’d been a cave-in, but the door remained, and if you weren’t too big and wide, you could weasel your way through.
” He paused. “I was too short to reach the light,” he said thoughtfully.
“One of those ones that hangs by a cord from the ceiling. It took me a long time to pick up the cat, wrap it in my shirt, and make my way outside.” He could smell it.
The dankness of earth and mold and of rotting blood.
He’d realize later that it wasn’t just the animal’s blood.
His father knew every part of this basement—except the hidden door.
When people talked about bodies in the basement, Joey knew that some people had real bodies in the basement, because that terrible, claustrophobic moment in the dark, he’d tripped over at least two shallow graves.
“What did you do with the cat?” Gideon asked.
“I put it in the housekeeper’s car,” Joey said.
“She quit that night, and I figured she would after she watched him throw us in the basement.” He laughed a little.
“A few months later, I got a note passed to me in school by a teacher who knew her. It was a picture of the cat, sitting on the porch with her. Leg seemed to be healed okay.”
“That’s real good,” Gideon said, his voice evening out a little. “And you?”
Joey shook his head. “I dunno. Stevie saw me, no shirt, blood all over me, and didn’t even ask about the cat.
I think he figured I ate it, or maybe didn’t think about the body rotting down there or something.
But he let me out the next day.” Another one of those broken little laughs.
“The gamekeeper brought me dinner and a water bottle—to drink from and piss in, he told me.” Then, because it was important; Gideon knew this for some reason.
“Wasn’t my last time in the basement. I figured out where the light was, mapped the whole thing in my head.
Figured out that the old man didn’t know where the secret door was because it was behind this sort of fake wall, and I kept it a secret.
It’s funny,” he said, although it really was the furthest thing from funny.
“There’s at least five shallow graves down there, but if the old man had even thought to look outside that fucking basement, or improve it, or pay off some schmoes to fix it, he would have figured out he didn’t have to live with his own goddamned bodies in the fucking basement. ”
Gideon had shuddered then, visibly. “So no, then.”
“No what?” Joey had forgotten the question.
“No, you didn’t connect with your father.”
Joey’s laughter had the bright red tint of hysteria to it. “No. I did not connect with my father.”
“But that’s okay,” Gideon said, and Joey saw his hand reaching in the darkness while he used the other to drive.
Joey seized it, realized that his own was clammy and he was shaking from telling that terrible story, the thing he’d never spoken of, on this quiet, spooky drive from New Jersey to Manhattan.
“Why’s it okay?” he asked, his voice smaller than he remembered.
“’Cause you connected with the gamekeeper,” Gideon said.
“And the cat,” Joey said, thinking about his fondness for Crosby and Garcia’s cat. “I think I like cats.”
“Good,” Gideon said, squeezing his hand.
“And I like you,” Joey said softly.
“Also good.”
Joey had used his free hand to call up some more Bruce on his streaming service, and they let the music speak for them all the way back to the city.
RIGHT BEFORE the trail ended and the gravel driveway began, Joey paused before peeling off and took a solid measure of Crosby.
Back in March, Crosby definitely wouldn’t have been able to fit through this passageway—his shoulders were wide and he’d put on muscle like the football player he’d been in college.
But that was before the weeks undercover, losing nearly sixty pounds to stress and a peptic ulcer, and finding his way back.
He didn’t look like death anymore, but he was still a big guy, and Joey wondered if he could make it through.
“Whacha thinkin’, Carlyle?” Crosby asked.
“I’m trying to figure out how much weight you lost in the last few months, you big tubby bastard. This passageway isn’t for football players, and I don’t want you to get stuck, ’cause that would suck.”
Crosby grunted. “Yeah, it fuckin’ would. Where is it in the house?”
They’d studied schematics on the way in, so Joey gave him a quick sketch about the kitchen and the door almost hidden by the walk-in refrigerator that led to the stairs.
“It’s not easy,” Joey said. “I mean—if Dad’s got his goons there, you got a lot of people to shoot through.”
Crosby nodded and then said one of those things that made all that effort he put into looking like a meatloaf disappear.
“Yeah, but if Gid’s hurt, you’re gonna need a way out that ain’t gonna kill him.
And I’m pretty sure all those goons are gonna be focused on the front of the house where Harding’s about to throw his little party.
You think you’ll have comms in the basement? ”
Joey grunted. “Naw. Don’t think so. Lotta rocks.” He glanced at Pearson. “You got a problem with small spaces?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Honestly, you had me at bodies in the basement. I’ve never seen the set of a horror movie.”
God, Joey loved his team.
“All right. Crosby, find your own way in, and don’t get shot.”
“Yeah, you neither. And don’t get stuck either, ’cause seriously….” He shuddered. “That sounds like a fuckin’ lot.”
And then he reached out and gripped Joey’s arm and leaned his head in to touch foreheads briefly. Joey returned the gesture, his heart suddenly full. His brother. His team. He remembered what Gideon had said about who would pick Joey up if Gideon didn’t come home one day.
And he realized that Gideon had been right. He had family here he’d never reckoned on.
After a quick fist bump with Gail—who told him he’d better not be fucking bleeding when she saw him next—Crosby was gone, and Joey gave Pearson a grim look.
“Ready for the horror movie?” he asked.
“Lead on,” she said.
And with that, he took two steps up toward the rock face and disappeared.