The 25th Hour Read online

  Also by David Benioff

  When the Nines Roll Over

  City of Thieves

  About the author

  David Benioff is an author and screenwriter. His first novel, The 25th Hour, was adapted into a popular feature film. His short story collection, When the Nines Roll Over, received critical acclaim. He lives in Los Angeles and New York City.

  THE 25TH HOUR

  David Benioff

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in the United States of America in 2000 by Carroll & Graf

  First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © David Benioff 2000

  The right of David Benioff to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN: 978 1 444 73130 9

  Book ISBN: 978 0 340 82229 6

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Mom and Dad – thank you.

  Lyrics from ‘Up Against the Wall Redneck’ © 1974 by Ray Wylie Hubbard reprinted by permission of Tennessee Swamp Fox Music Company. All rights controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Inc. International copyright secured.

  Prologue

  They found the black dog sleeping on the shoulder of the West Side Highway, dreaming dog dreams. A crippled castoff, left ear chewed to mince, hide scored with dozens of cigarette burns – a fighting dog abandoned to the mercy of river rats. Traffic rumbled past: vans with padlocked rear doors, white limousines with tinted glass and New Jersey plates, yellow cabs, blue police cruisers.

  Monty parked his Corvette on the shoulder and shut off the engine. He stepped from the car and walked over to the dog, followed by Kostya Novotny, who shook his head impatiently. Kostya was a big man. His thick white hands hung from the sleeves of his overcoat. His face had begun to blur with fat; his broad cheeks were red from the cold. He was thirty-five and looked older; Monty was twenty-three and looked younger.

  ‘See?’ said Monty. ‘He’s alive.’

  ‘This dog, how do you call it?’

  ‘Pit bull. Must have lost somebody some money.’

  ‘Ah, pit bull. In Ukraine my stepfather has such dog. Very bad dog, very bad. You have seen dogfights at Uncle Blue’s?’

  ‘No.’

  Flies crawled across the dog’s fur, drawn by the scent of blood and shit. ‘What do we do, Monty, we watch him rot?’

  ‘I was thinking of shooting him.’

  Awake now, the dog stared impassively into the distance, his face lit by passing headlights. The pavement by his paws was littered with broken glass, scraps of twisted metal, black rubber from blown tires. A concrete barricade behind the dog, separating north-and southbound traffic, bore the tag SANE SMITH in spray-painted letters three feet high.

  ‘Shooting him? Are you sick in the head?’

  ‘They just left him here to die,’ said Monty. ‘They threw him out the window and kept driving.’

  ‘Come, my friend, it is cold.’ A ship’s horn sounded from the Hudson. ‘Come, people wait for us.’

  ‘They’re used to waiting,’ said Monty. He squatted down beside the dog, inspecting the battered body, trying to determine if the left hip was broken. Monty was pale-skinned in the flickering light, his black hair combed straight back from a pronounced widow’s peak. A small silver crucifix hung from a silver chain around his neck; silver rings adorned the fingers of his right hand. He leaned a little closer and the dog scrambled upright, lunged for the man’s face, came close enough that Monty, stumbling frantically backward, could smell the dog’s foul breath. The effort left the pit bull panting, his compact, muscular frame quivering with each rasped breath. But he remained in his crouch, watching the two men, his ears, the mangled and the good, drawn back against his skull.

  ‘Christ,’ said Monty, sitting on the pavement. ‘He’s got some bite left.’

  ‘I think he does not want to play with you. Come, you want police to pull over? You want police looking through our car?’

  ‘Look what they did to him, Kostya. Used him for a fucking ashtray.’

  A passing Cadillac sped by them, honking twice, and the two men stared after it until its taillights disappeared around a bend.

  Monty rose to his feet and dusted his palms on the seat of his pants. ‘Let’s get him in the trunk.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a vet emergency room on the East Side. I like this guy.’

  ‘You like him? He tries to bite your face off. Look at him, he is meat. You want some dog, I buy you nice puppy tomorrow.’

  Monty was not listening. He walked back toward his car, opened the trunk, pulled out a soiled green army blanket. Kostya stared at him, holding up his hands. ‘Wait one second, please. Please stop one minute? I do not go near pit bull. Monty? I do not go near pit bull.’

  Monty shrugged. ‘This is a good dog. I can see it in his eyes. He’s a tough little bastard.’

  ‘Yes, he is tough. He grew up in bad neighborhood. That is why I stay away from him.’

  The light shining down from above cast deep shadows beneath Monty’s cheekbones. ‘Then I’ll do it myself,’ he said.

  By now the dog had slumped back to the pavement, still struggling to keep his head up, to keep his glazing eyes focused on the two men.

  ‘Look at him,’ said Monty. ‘We wait much longer, he’ll be dead.’

  ‘One minute ago you want to shoot him.’

  ‘That was a mercy thing. But he’s not ready to go yet.’

  ‘Yes? He told you this? You know when he is ready to go?’

  Monty carefully circled behind the dog, holding the army blanket as a matador holds his cape. ‘It’s like a baby, they hate getting shots from the doctor. They’re screaming and crying as soon as they see the needle. But in the long run, it’s good for them. Here, distract him.’

  Kostya shook his head with the air of one who had long suffered his friend’s lunacies, then kicked a soda can. The dog’s eyes pivoted to follow the movement. Monty hurled the blanket over the dog and sprang forward, wrapping his arms around the dog’s midsection. The dog growled and wrestled with the wool, sinking his teeth into the fabric and shaking it violently, trying to break the blanket’s neck. Monty managed to stand, struggling to maintain his bear hug, but the dog, slick with blood, slithered madly in his grasp like a monstrous newborn. Monty lurched toward the Corvette as the pit bull released the blanket and turned his head, snapping viciously, his jaws inches from Monty’s throat. He clawed at Monty’s arms until Monty hurled him into the trunk, the dog still biting as he fell into the hollow of the spare tire, trying unsteadily to regain his footing as the lid slammed shut.

  Monty picked up the army blanket and returned to the driver’s seat. Kostya stared at the sky for a moment and then joined his friend in the Corvette. The entire encounter had lasted five minutes.

  ‘What goes on in your little head?’ asked Kostya, after Monty had tossed the blanket into the well behind his seat and started the car. ‘That was very stupi
d thing you did. Most stupid thing you ever did. No, I take that back. Lydia Eumanian was most stupid thing you ever did.’

  ‘I got him, didn’t I?’ said Monty, grinning. ‘A little of the tricks, a little of the quicks, boom! Nabbed.’ He checked his mirrors and pulled onto the highway, heading uptown again.

  ‘Yes. The quicks. Meanwhile, you are bleeding. You get bit.’

  ‘No, that’s the dog’s blood.’

  Kostya raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes? Because you have hole in your neck and blood is coming out.’

  Monty lifted his hand to his neck, felt the warm dribble of blood. ‘Just a scratch.’

  ‘A scratch, oh. Meanwhile, you bleed to death. And you need rabies shot.’

  ‘They’ll stitch it up at the vet’s.’ Behind them the dog thrashed around in the trunk, his bellows muted by the traffic.

  ‘What? The vet? You bleed all over car, you die, your father yells at me. Oh, boo-hoo, boo-hoo, you let Monty die. No, please. Go to Seventh Avenue, there is Saint Something, a real hospital.’

  ‘We’re going to the vet.’ The blood ran down Monty’s arm, soaking his shirtsleeve, puddling at the elbow.

  ‘Rule number one,’ said Kostya, ‘don’t grab half-dead pit bulls. We have people waiting for us, people with money, and you play cowboy – no, dogboy – in middle of highway. You’re bad luck; you put bad luck on me. Always everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Doyle’s Law. It is not just you and me when we go out, no, no, it is Monty, Kostya, and Mister Doyle of Doyle’s Law.’

  ‘Doyle? You mean Murphy.’

  ‘Who’s Murphy?’

  ‘Who’s Doyle? Murphy’s Law,’ said Monty. ‘Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kostya. ‘Him.’

  From that day on the dog was Doyle.

  One

  Monty has sat on this bench a hundred times, but today he studies the view. This is his favorite spot in the city. This is what he wants to see when he closes his eyes in the place he’s going: the green river, the steel bridges, the red tugboats, the stone lighthouse, the smokestacks and warehouses of Queens. This is what he wants to see when his eyes are closed, tomorrow night and every night after for seven years; this is what he wants to see when the electronically controlled gates have slammed shut, when the fluorescent lights go down and the dim red security lights go up, during the nighttime chorus of whispered jokes and threats, the grunts of masturbation, the low thump of heavy bass from radios played after hours against rules. Twenty-five hundred nights in Otisville, lying on a sweat-stained mattress among a thousand sleeping convicts, the closest friend ninety miles away. Green river, steel bridges, red tugboats, stone lighthouse.

  Monty sits on a bench on the esplanade overlooking the East River, his right hand drumming the splintered slats, the leash wrapped tightly around his wrist. He watches Queens through the curved bars of an iron balustrade, the Triborough Bridge to the north, the 59th Street Bridge to the south. Midway across the river is the northern tip of Roosevelt Island, guarded by an old stone lighthouse.

  The dog wants to run. He battles the leash, straining forward on hind legs, coiled muscles twitching, black lips drawn back from bright fangs. After four years of taking Doyle to the river, Monty knows that letting him loose would bring war to the esplanade. Maybe the pit bull would mount the Dalmatian bitch by the broken water fountain, maybe he’d brawl with the Rottweiler. No matter, splatter the pavement with dog seed or dog blood, sound out the vast arena with barks and yelps – Doyle is ready to go.

  The river flows forty feet below man and dog, muddy green, pierced here and there with the shimmer of aluminum soda cans. A freshly painted red tugboat, flanks studded with truck tires, hauls a garbage barge downstream. Seagulls circle above the barge, cursing each other, white wings translucent in the first minutes of daylight. They dive into the waves and snatch scraps of edible trash, swallowing with a quick jerk of the head.

  Doyle squats down on the pavement and watches the other dogs sadly, his mouth slightly ajar, his tongue leaping out now and again. A swollen-chested pigeon, clawed feet the color of chewed bubble gum, struts forward with bobbing head till the pit bull sends him flying with a casual growl. Three benches away a man practices his chords on a twelve-string guitar. Two young men in hooded sweat-shirts pass by, jeans worn below their hips, green letters tattooed on their knuckles. They nod to Monty but he doesn’t notice them. He is watching the river run south, the giant smokestacks of Queens blowing white clouds skyward, the tram rising from Roosevelt Island, the shine of traffic on the 59th Street Bridge. A plane climbs above LaGuardia and Monty follows its ascent, the left wing dipping as it angles west. He is intent upon the flight, the ease with which the silver jet speeds away.

  Monty feels tension on the leash spooled around his wrist. Doyle has risen again, to utter a sharp bark of warning at an approaching man. The newcomer stops and waits, a frightened half smile on his face. He is not dressed for the unusual warmth of this January morning: a long scarf looped twice around his neck, a heavy down parka splitting at the seams, rubber boots rising nearly to his knees. He steps from foot to foot, chewing his gum madly.

  ‘What’s up there, Monty? You’re out early today.’

  The plane has disappeared. Monty nods but does not speak.

  ‘You want to tell the dog to relax? Hey there, pooch. Hey, good dog. I don’t think your dog likes me.’

  ‘Go away, Simon.’

  The man nods, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’m hungry here, Monty. Woke up an hour ago, and I was hungry.’

  ‘Nothing I can do about that. Go up to a Hundred and Tenth.’

  ‘A Hundred and Tenth? Come on, I’m good.’ He reaches into his pocket and brings out a wad of five-dollar bills held together by a rubber band.

  ‘Put that away,’ snaps Monty, and Doyle snarls.

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m just saying I’m not looking for a mercy pop.’

  Monty stares at the lighthouse across the river. ‘I’m over, man.’

  Simon points to a trail of small scabs along his throat. ‘Look at this. Cut myself shaving this morning – four times! I can’t keep my hands steady. Come on, Monty. Help me out here. I can’t go to Harlem – look at me. Who do I know in Harlem? They’ll gut me up there. I’ll be like Jerry running from Tom. Need my cheese, Monty, need my cheese! I’m starving, man.’

  There is a long silence and then Monty stands and walks toward the man, closer and closer until their faces are inches apart. ‘You need to leave me alone, friend. I told you, I’m out of business.’

  Doyle sniffs at Simon’s boots, then raises his head, snout climbing the man’s leg. Simon dances a half step, trying to keep away from the dog without startling him. ‘What are you talking about? You worried about me narking you out? Look at me, man. You know who I am.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me. I got touched. Game over. So back off and go home to your lawyer mother or go to a Hundred and Tenth Street, whatever you want. Just leave me the fuck alone.’

  Simon blinks and stumbles backward, tries to laugh, looks behind him, looks down at Doyle, rubs his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Five years I’ve been coming to you. All right, no problem. I’ll leave. There’s no need to be nasty.’

  The dog is anxious to move; he tugs at his leash and Monty follows him past the concrete chessboards where the two of them have stood in the summer crowds, watching the duels. Little Vic used to play here; Little Vic who had been grand master at Riker’s Island until a Russian got busted on forgery charges and demolished him in four straight games. But no hustlers punch their chess clocks today; too early on a winter’s morning. The rubes are all home eating breakfast.

  Monty and Doyle walk west, pausing behind a fence to watch a basketball game, the teenage players taking advantage of the warm air, one last game before school. Doyle sniffs posts that stink of yesterday’s piss. Monty assesses the ballers quickly, accurately, and disdainfully. The point can’t make an entry pass to save his
life; the two guard has no left; the big man down low telegraphs his every shot. Monty remembers a Saturday when he and four friends owned this court, won game after game after game until the losers stumbled away in frustration, an August afternoon when every jump shot was automatic, when he could locate his teammates with his eyes closed and slip them the ball as easy as kissing the bride.

  Man and dog walk down a cascading series of steps into the courtyard of Carl Schurz Park. A square of black bars encloses two rows of stunted gingko trees, their leaves shaped like Japanese fans. Old people, enjoying the weather, gather on the benches that line the gated plot, throwing crumbs to the birds, reading the back pages of the Post, chewing potato knishes. Black women push white babies in plastic strollers. Jagged boulders scrawled with paint serve as markers on the slopes surrounding the courtyard: MIKO+LIZ;84 BOYS; THE LOWLITE CRUZERS; SANE SMITH. Sane Smith was here. Sane Smith was everywhere. Sane Smith is dead, having jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. At least that was what Monty heard. The farthest-ranging of New York graffiti artists, Sane Smith wrote his name on billboards and highway overpasses and water tanks everywhere from Far Rockaway to Mosholu Parkway, Sheepshead Bay to Forest Hills, New Lots to Lenox. They’ll be scrubbing his name from walls for the next hundred years.

  Doyle pauses to inspect the treasures held in an orange wire-mesh garbage can, but Monty pulls him forward. As they wait for the light to change on East End a fire truck rumbles past, the men on board big-boned and confident, slouched and ready in their high boots. A rear-mount aerial ladder, thinks Monty, and he watches the red truck disappear to the north. You could have been a wonderful fireman, he tells himself. Instead he is here, walking his dog in Yorkville, staring at everything, trying to absorb every detail, the way fresh asphalt spreads like black butter across the avenue, the way taillights at dawn flash and swerve, the way bright windows high above the street hide people he will never meet.