Free The Cold Room by Robert Knightly Page A

I’d come to pick her up after an overnight stay because her husband was in Dallas on a business trip that could not be interrupted for so mundane a task.
    Adele had been sitting with her back straight and her head up when I entered the hospital, enduring the frank stares of all who passed her by. I fell in love with her at that moment, with her pride, her defiance. You could kill her, but you couldn’t break her. A few days later, when she came to me, when I felt her breasts against my chest and tasted her lips, I knew there was no going back. If I lost her, I’d pay a price until the end of my days. Twenty minutes later, after a quick shower, I tried to call Conrad on his cell phone. If I could talk to anyone, it was Conrad, who knew me better than I knew myself. But Conrad was somewhere off the coast of Alaska, on a cruise with his girlfriend, Myra Gardner. He was reachable only when the ship was in port, which it apparently wasn’t because I was transferred, after a single ring, to his voice mail. I started to leave a message, then abruptly hung up. There was no point.

NINE
    B y Monday, I was in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach, popularly called Little Odessa. Upwards of one hundred thousand Russians and Ukrainians, most of them immigrants, are packed into Brighton Beach, enough to spill over into the communities of Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay. On the little shops along the streets and avenues, the signs are most commonly written in Cyrillic, and more business is conducted in Russian than English. There are grocery stores in Brighton Beach, no larger than bodegas, which carry ten brands of pickled herring and a dozen of caviar.
    The weather remained hot throughout and I was grateful for the deep shadow cast by the el on Brighton Beach Avenue as I made my rounds. My pitch to these Russian shopkeepers differed only slightly from my approach to the Poles of Greenpoint. I told the Russians that I was sure my victim came from Russia or the Ukraine, a white lie that netted me zilch, though I managed to post fliers in a number of businesses. Adele called me that evening, a few minutes before I entered the Nine-Two. Her mother’s endoscopy had revealed a small gastric ulcer that would be treated with antacids and a course of antibiotics. No surgery was foreseen, now or in the future. All concerned were relieved.
    Besides a muttered, ‘Uh-huh,’ I made no comment. I was waiting for Adele to say that she was coming home. Instead, she turned the conversation to the case.
    â€˜I set up that meeting with Dominick Capra. He says you should call in the morning and let him know where to meet you.’
    It took me a moment to remember that Capra was an agent with the Immigration & Naturalization Service. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll call him.’
    â€˜Corbin, don’t be so negative. He thinks he can help you.’
    â€˜I’ll definitely call him. So, when are you coming home?’
    Adele sighed and I knew the answer: no time soon.
    â€˜I need to think,’ she told me. ‘I have to take a look at my life. I have to take a look at the fact that every day I go out to a job I hate. Do you remember when I told you that I didn’t want to live a trivial life? Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not saying you, Corbin. You’ll never be trivial. You don’t have it in you. But I’m saying that I need time to think. Time and space.’
    This carefully prepared speech presented a line of reasoning familiar to Harry Corbin. You’re perfect, darling, the story goes, but my life is fucked up in every other way. So I’ve decided to leave you. That way I won’t be conflicted.
    At noon on Tuesday, I met INS Agent Dominick Capra at Pete’s Tavern near Gramercy Park. About my age, Capra was short and wide-shouldered, with a thickened nose red enough to hang on a Christmas tree. That nose reddened still further when he chugged a