Page 2 of The Writer

[Shaw] Looks like it. There’s an inscription on the back of the watch. It says “Lucky.”

[Second voice unidentified] I think I know who that belongs to.

[Shaw] You do?

[Second voice unidentified] Robert Morter. Head of park services.

[Shaw] You recognize this watch?

[Morter] Not the watch, the name.Lucky. We’ve got a guy on grounds crew who goes by Lucky.

[End of recording.]

/MG/GTS

NOW

CHAPTER TWO

DECLAN SHAW WAS a good cop.

Is a good cop, he tells himself.

Because until he actually jumps, he is still living in the present tense. And that’s the rub, right? Anyone can find a deserted subway station; anyone can inch up to the edge of the platform and wait for the next train. But how many can actually work up the balls to launch themselves from the platform to the tracks? There is a science to it. Jump too early, and you’ll end up under the train. Too late, and you’re bouncing off the side. The key is to be in the air, meet the metal head-on. No pain, just lights-out.

The Eighty-First Street station is a dirty little secret known to New York’s Finest. It’s directly under the Museum of NaturalHistory on the A/B/C lines, and once the museum closes for the night, the platform becomes a ghost town. Also a suicide hot spot. Few trains stop. Most speed up as they shoot through because there is a tacit understanding among engineers: If you’re going to hit a jumper (and odds of that are high at the Eighty-First), you want to do it quick.

The faint rumble of a train in the tunnel, maybe a minute out.

“Do it, you pussy. You’re bleeding all over the nice white paint.” Declan’s voice sounds foreign to him, and the second the words leave his mouth, he gets all self-conscious about it, like talking to himself is the craziest thing in his life at the moment, likethatis where all concerned observers should be pointing their fingers.

The blood is coming from a cut on his hand. Nothing too serious, just a scrape. But enough to make a mess of the metal pipe above his head. The one he’s been holding for the better part of an hour. Without letting go, he inches closer to the edge of the pavement and stops when his shoes are half on, half off the concrete.

Declan tests the angle.

The balance.

Tenses his leg muscles.

Relaxes.

Tenses again.

Draws an oily, humid breath, lets it coat his throat when he swallows.

The train grows louder.

In his fourteen years with NYPD, Declan knows of four other cops who died in this very spot. Probably holding thesame damn pipe. There’s no plaque or commemorative photo on the wall, but when he closes his eyes, he can feel them standing right there with him. He can hear them quietly counting down the seconds until that train emerges from the tunnel. He can feel their hands on him, ready to give him a little shove. A little encouragement.

Ain’t no thing, one of them mutters.We got you.

Bend your knees. Makes it easier to push off, says another.

It was the next one that got him. The next one struck him like a gut punch, because it sounded like his father.

You best be sure. ’Cause there’s no coming back.

“There’s no coming back from what I’ve done either,” he tells him. His voice carries a faint echo with all the tile.

---