The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons by Gregory Lamberson Page A
Authors: Gregory Lamberson
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turning red. Offering them a weak smile, he wondered if their support would have been as strong if they’d known he had snorted cocaine only thirty minutes earlier.
Across the street, a Crime Scene Unit vehicle and a news van competed for a parking space. Jake had no desire to be in the spotlight. Lighting a cigarette, he turned his back on the cops and strode uptown, the clapping fading behind him. Nicotine soothed his nerves but did nothing to decelerate his heartbeat. Pedestrians moved toward him in jerky starts and stops, like figures in a silent film. Traffic noise intensified, and he flinched at a honking car horn. After two blocks, he flicked his cigarette at a storm drain and hailed a taxi. Inside the car, he rolled down the window and took several deep breaths. Closing his eyes and willing his stomach to settle, he tapped one foot on the floor. Five minutes later, as the taxi crossed Central Park, he still saw Dread and Baldy lying dead on the floor, covered in blood.
I killed two men
, he thought.
I had no choice
.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art came into view as the park opened onto the Upper East Side. Jake had never been much of a museum-goer, but Sheryl had made it one of her missions in life to civilize him, and he had grown to appreciate the treasures within the sturdy structure. The cab turned left on Museum Mile and he gazed at the people sitting on the Met’s front steps and alongside the decorative water fountains outside the museum, stagnant in the wake of water restrictions. Turning right, the cab cruised the congested shopping district on Eighty-sixth Street, in the One-Nine Precinct. Another right turn and Jake got out at the corner of First Avenue and Eighty-fourth Street, his muscles uncoiling in the still air of the quiet neighborhood. He entered his building, a five-story walk-up, and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, pulling himself along the railing. By the time he reached the door to his apartment, his heart had started hammering again and he felt winded.
Wiping his forehead on his coat sleeve, he dropped his keys. He scooped them up from the welcome mat and let himself inside. Sunlight flooded the silent living room, silhouetting the plants hanging before the windows. He closed the door and locked it. As much as he wanted to hold Sheryl in his arms, he needed privacy more. Opening the front closet door, he reached up to the shelf and took down an aluminum attaché case. Kneeling on the floor, he thumbed the dials on the combination locks and the tabs sprang open.
His personal Glock lay within its foam rubber compartment in the case, along with two magazines of ammunition and a silencer. He had bought the weapon for home protection only, and the silencer had been a gag gift from his colleagues in Special Homicide after he had put down his first case as Primary Detective. Sliding his fingers between the edge of the foam padding and the metal rim, he removed the false bottom containing the gun and its accessories. A rubber-banded bundle of twenty-dollar bills lay at the bottom of the case, nearly ten thousand dollars the last time he had counted it. He removed the cash and cocaine from his coat pocket and added them to the cache. Then he set the false bottom in place and locked the case, which he returned to its spot on the closet shelf. He hung up his coat, went into the eat-in kitchen, and guzzled a glass of water. Only ninety minutes before his IAB interview, and he needed to shower and brush his teeth.
His mouth tasted like death.
Jake had been sitting in the waiting area of Internal Affairs Bureau, located on the sixth floor of 315 Hudson Street, for forty-five minutes. The carpeted room resembled the reception area of a doctor’s office more than an entry to a branch of the NYPD. The buttoned-down investigators passing through projected the professional demeanor of lawyers rather than the urban grittiness of cops. Jake’s heart rate had decelerated, but sweat continued to
Across the street, a Crime Scene Unit vehicle and a news van competed for a parking space. Jake had no desire to be in the spotlight. Lighting a cigarette, he turned his back on the cops and strode uptown, the clapping fading behind him. Nicotine soothed his nerves but did nothing to decelerate his heartbeat. Pedestrians moved toward him in jerky starts and stops, like figures in a silent film. Traffic noise intensified, and he flinched at a honking car horn. After two blocks, he flicked his cigarette at a storm drain and hailed a taxi. Inside the car, he rolled down the window and took several deep breaths. Closing his eyes and willing his stomach to settle, he tapped one foot on the floor. Five minutes later, as the taxi crossed Central Park, he still saw Dread and Baldy lying dead on the floor, covered in blood.
I killed two men
, he thought.
I had no choice
.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art came into view as the park opened onto the Upper East Side. Jake had never been much of a museum-goer, but Sheryl had made it one of her missions in life to civilize him, and he had grown to appreciate the treasures within the sturdy structure. The cab turned left on Museum Mile and he gazed at the people sitting on the Met’s front steps and alongside the decorative water fountains outside the museum, stagnant in the wake of water restrictions. Turning right, the cab cruised the congested shopping district on Eighty-sixth Street, in the One-Nine Precinct. Another right turn and Jake got out at the corner of First Avenue and Eighty-fourth Street, his muscles uncoiling in the still air of the quiet neighborhood. He entered his building, a five-story walk-up, and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, pulling himself along the railing. By the time he reached the door to his apartment, his heart had started hammering again and he felt winded.
Wiping his forehead on his coat sleeve, he dropped his keys. He scooped them up from the welcome mat and let himself inside. Sunlight flooded the silent living room, silhouetting the plants hanging before the windows. He closed the door and locked it. As much as he wanted to hold Sheryl in his arms, he needed privacy more. Opening the front closet door, he reached up to the shelf and took down an aluminum attaché case. Kneeling on the floor, he thumbed the dials on the combination locks and the tabs sprang open.
His personal Glock lay within its foam rubber compartment in the case, along with two magazines of ammunition and a silencer. He had bought the weapon for home protection only, and the silencer had been a gag gift from his colleagues in Special Homicide after he had put down his first case as Primary Detective. Sliding his fingers between the edge of the foam padding and the metal rim, he removed the false bottom containing the gun and its accessories. A rubber-banded bundle of twenty-dollar bills lay at the bottom of the case, nearly ten thousand dollars the last time he had counted it. He removed the cash and cocaine from his coat pocket and added them to the cache. Then he set the false bottom in place and locked the case, which he returned to its spot on the closet shelf. He hung up his coat, went into the eat-in kitchen, and guzzled a glass of water. Only ninety minutes before his IAB interview, and he needed to shower and brush his teeth.
His mouth tasted like death.
Jake had been sitting in the waiting area of Internal Affairs Bureau, located on the sixth floor of 315 Hudson Street, for forty-five minutes. The carpeted room resembled the reception area of a doctor’s office more than an entry to a branch of the NYPD. The buttoned-down investigators passing through projected the professional demeanor of lawyers rather than the urban grittiness of cops. Jake’s heart rate had decelerated, but sweat continued to
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