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“Barba.”
“Hey, Liv,” he said, stepping into her office, “can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Now’s not a good time,” she answered with a gesture toward the paperwork spread across her desk.
“Right.” He hesitated, chewing the inside of his lower lip. “I just—”
“I’m a little busy, here. Is it about a case?”
“No.” He scratched the back of his head, seeming unusually agitated. “No, but I thought maybe we could get a drink and talk.”
“I don’t have time for this, and I’m not ready for that,” she said.
He nodded once. “Yeah, alright.” He turned away without another word, nearly colliding with Carisi.
Carisi drew up short and shifted aside so Barba could pass him, but said, “Rafael, hey. How you doin?” He touched Barba’s arm, forehead creasing in concern.
“I’m fine, thank you Carisi,” Barba said brusquely without pausing on his way by.
“If you wanna talk—” But Carisi stopped, watching after Barba for a few moments while the former ADA strode toward the elevator. Then, giving his head a little shake, Carisi turned and walked into the office. “He seem okay to you?”
“Here’s the file,” she said without answering, and he walked over to take the paperwork from her hand. “Christy will be here in half an hour if you want to stay for the interview.”
“Yeah.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta be out by—”
“Why wouldn’t he be okay?”
“Huh? Oh.” Carisi hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “He didn’t tell you?”
“We didn’t talk,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. “What happened?”
“Alex Muñoz got killed last night. I mean, he was a piece of shit, but with their history I thought he might still be upset.”
The guilt came in a rush and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could tell herself she was justified in her feelings of betrayal, that shutting Barba out of her life—at least temporarily—was her prerogative, and those things might be true. But they didn’t change the feeling of guilt.
***
“Captain Benson,” Lucia said in surprise. The older woman was closing Barba’s apartment door behind herself as she stepped into the hallway. “He’s not here, have you heard from him?”
“Not really,” Liv said. “He stopped by the precinct earlier but…You don’t know where he is?”
“No. I worry about him, he hasn’t been himself lately and now with Alex…You know Rafi, he doesn’t like to talk when something’s bothering him, god forbid he ask for help.”
“Yeah,” Liv agreed, glancing toward Barba’s door. “Is there someplace he goes when he’s upset?” It took her a few moments to realize that Lucia wasn’t answering, and she looked at the older woman.
Lucia was studying her and Liv resisted the urge to fidget under the appraisal. “I’d venture to say you know him better than I do, Captain. He’s never really confided in me, you know. Always needed to seem strong, my Rafi.”
“We had a bit of a falling out,” Liv admitted reluctantly. “To be honest we haven’t talked much lately.”
“Did he do something stupid?”
Liv hesitated.
“The thing you probably know about him is, even when he doesn’t do the right thing he always does what he thinks is right. Even when he was a little boy…” She trailed off and shook her head, raising her chin. “Well, never mind. He’ll return my calls when he’s ready to. Have a good day, Captain Benson.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Liv said.
“As long as you’re sure,” Lucia said, patting Liv’s arm on the way by, and Liv closed her eyes for a moment as she fought against the flurry of guilt and worry swarming her gut.
After a few seconds of debate, she pulled out her phone and dialed Barba’s number. The call went directly to voicemail. She sent a text instead: Sorry about earlier. Can we talk? It didn’t help her feelings of guilt to know that she wasn’t being fully honest. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about their friendship, but she also needed to make sure he was alright. He’d come to her, and she’d pushed him away. If he’d been reaching out for help and she’d shut him down without even trying to listen, she’d never be able to forgive herself.
The text said it was delivered, but there was no response.
She tried to think of someplace he might go, but her mind kept landing on Forlini’s. That had been their place for a while, but it had been his for longer. Now it was gone, though, and if he’d begun to frequent another bar then she didn’t know where that might be.
She tried to think of someone who might know, but if he’d made any new friends in the past couple of years then she didn’t know them, either. She shook her head and turned to leave, wondering if she should call Eddie. Or even Yelina. Maybe Barba had reached out to them.
As she got in her car, though, she thought about something Barba had once told her about his childhood. She sat behind the wheel, thinking back. There’d been something about a broken arm, a stolen bicycle, and a place called El Pantano del Bronx—The Bronx Swamp.
Barba hadn’t shared many stories from his childhood, and Liv could understand his reticence. Despite their friendship, she hadn’t told him a lot about her own upbringing. The lack of specifics didn’t mean they didn’t understand each other’s history, though. In fact, it was their understanding of each other that made the details unnecessary.
She looked down at her phone. He’d read the text but had still not replied. She considered for a few seconds before sending another: I’m sorry. Please answer me. She waited, but the text didn’t register as delivered. Either he’d turned off the return notification, or he’d turned off his phone, but at least she didn’t get a delivery failure.
She started her car and made a quick call to arrange for Lucy to watch Noah for longer than usual, and then she pointed her cruiser toward The South Bronx on a hunch.
***
He was sitting on a short concrete wall, his feet dangling toward the littered ground as he stared at the weedy, abandoned train tracks. Liv stopped several yards away, her heart aching in her chest despite the relief of finding him.
There was no one else around as the sun dipped close to the uneven horizon, but she’d seen several homeless people on her way to the tracks. She’d steered clear of the tunnels, hoping Barba hadn’t ventured into their polluted depths even though she knew he and his friends had spent some time there as kids.
He was sitting on the graffiti-covered concrete, his palms planted on the edge to either side of his hips, his shoulders hunched. He was still wearing his suit, although he’d removed the tie and stuffed it into one jacket pocket. She could see the bright bit of red hanging out.
She approached cautiously, aware that she was likely intruding into a private moment and that she really had no right to expect a warm reception. His head turned at the sound of crunching gravel, and she saw his face register surprise before his expression tightened and became unreadable.
“Rafa,” she said quietly, stepping closer. “What happened to your face?” He had the beginning of a black eye with a red gash beneath.
“I went to see Yelina,” he answered, turning his attention back to the train tracks.
“Did she do that to you?”
“Her diamond ring did it. I’m lucky she’s not left-handed. What’re you doing here?” he asked without looking at her.
“Can I sit?” she asked, and he shrugged. She lowered herself carefully down onto the edge of the wall beside him, her shoes dangling toward the ground a couple of feet below. “I didn’t know about Alex, I’m sorry,” she said, looking at his profile as he stared ahead.
“He wasn’t worth mourning.”
“What he did doesn’t change your past, how important he was to you.”
He snorted humorlessly. “Ironic, really.”
She didn’t answer for long moments. Finally, she said, “I don’t like what you did, but that doesn’t mean I put you in the same category as—”
“How did you find me?” he asked, turning his head to look at her.
“You told me about the day Alex’s bike was stolen, and his father broke his arm.”
Barba looked away again. “Hm.”
“And he was going to run away to live down here in the tunnels. You and Eddie came with him, but you eventually convinced him to go home.”
“I should’ve let him go. Maybe he would’ve been better off, turned out differently.”
“He was your friend, Rafael.”
“Fuck lot of good that’s ever done anyone,” he said, his voice momentarily so raw that it made her eyes burn with unshed tears. He cleared his throat and gave his head a little half-shake, sounding almost normal when he continued: “We made a pact, anyway. Like the goddamn three musketeers, all for one and one for all. If he went, me and Eddie went. Twelve years old, like we knew anything about the world. We thought we had it bad at home with fathers who hated us? They were just the warm-up act.” He sniffed, watching from the corner of his eye as she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s freezing, you should get out of here.”
“Let’s go get that drink,” she suggested.
“Go home, Liv,” he answered quietly.
“You came to me because you wanted to talk.”
“Moment of weakness.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”
“I’m over it.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case, Rafael,” she said, and his lips quirked into a small smile as he tipped his head up to look at the sky. “You’re not alone,” she added.
“That doesn’t seem to be the case, Olivia,” he murmured. “The sky shouldn’t look any different from here than anywhere else, but somehow it does. They’ve cleaned this place up a lot in recent years, it doesn’t really feel the same anymore. But the sky looks the same. We used to sit right here…”
She watched a tear roll down his cheek, and she wanted to comfort him. She wanted to take away his pain, but she couldn’t. All she could do was listen.
He sniffed again and lowered his chin to look along the tracks past her, gesturing with a hand. “When we were a little older, Alex used to buy drugs in the tunnels. Eddie and I would tag along because that’s what we did, although Alex left us behind in a lot of ways even before we split off. And then Yelina changed everything. But this place, before all that, this is where we vowed that we would always be brothers, come hell or high water. And that day after his father broke his arm for having his bike stolen? When he had a fresh new cast and tear tracks down his cheeks? That was the first time I realized that his home life was even more fucked up than mine. That was the moment that I thought…if we could just stick together, we might actually make it out alright.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, reaching out to lay a hand against his back. The moment she touched him she saw his face crumple, and the sight of his pain sent her own tears spilling down her cheeks.
He dropped his face into his hands, barely choking back a sob. “I know I shouldn’t be sorry he’s dead,” he mumbled hoarsely, “but Jesus Christ do I miss him. The boy he used to be. I loved him.”
“I know.”
“Everyone I love ends up hating me.”
She slid her hand across his back and put her other hand on his arm, leaning against him. “That’s not true, Rafael, and the fact that you still love people who've hurt you doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re kind and compassionate and—”
“Stupid.”
“No.”
“I hated him for what he did, but now that he’s really gone all I can think about is how he was before.”
“It’s okay to grieve your friend,” she said, rubbing his back.
He was silent, but she could feel his body shaking as he fought against his emotions. After a few moments he drew a ragged breath and lifted his head. His face was splotchy, glistening wetly in the late day sun. He swiped an arm over his red-rimmed eyes. “I’m not grieving him,” he muttered, staring across the train tracks. “Just a ghost.”
“Tell me about him,” she suggested, but he shook his head.
“The truth is, I never liked the person I was when I was with him. I thought my parents wanted me to be more like him. He thought his parents wanted him to be more like me. If we’d stayed here, we eventually would’ve destroyed each other. We got out, but for years I was still…competing. Driven by jealousy and ambition and bitterness.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said quietly. “I know you, Rafael.”
“What you knew was a character, the person I thought I could become if I pretended hard enough.”
“Bullshit,” she said, and he turned his head to look at her. His face was etched in raw pain, and the gash under his eye had reopened; he had a small smear of blood high on his cheek. “I’ve known hundreds of men like Alex Muñoz,” she said, “but there’s only one you. You are the best man I’ve ever known, Rafael, and that’s the truth.”
Fat tears spilled from his eyes. “Still?” he asked hoarsely.
“Always. No matter what,” she said, and when his body turned toward her she pulled him into a hug. He grabbed her so tightly she could barely breathe, burying his wet face against her coat as his arms went around her.
After a minute he sniffed and pulled back, swiping at his eyes with his fingers and smearing more blood. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have come to you, I just…couldn’t think of anywhere else. Anyone else.”
“You can always come to me, Rafa. I’m sorry I let my anger get in the way of being your friend when you needed me.”
“You don’t owe me anything." He hesitated. "Hurting you is the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“You did what you thought was right, and that’s one thing I’ve never doubted.” She cupped her hands to his face. “I love you unconditionally, too. I just wasn’t brave enough to say it. I miss you, I miss us. Please come with me, we’ll clean up your face and talk.”
“I want to get drunk, actually,” he said.
She smiled, leaning in to kiss his forehead before lowering her hands. “You have a new place since Forlini’s closed?” When he shook his head, she said, “Then let’s go find one together.”