Queens Noir by Robert Knightly Read Free Book Online Page A

Because of the pregnancy, she lost her swimming scholarship. She was forced to drop out of her last year
of St. John's and had the baby shortly after she turned twenty.
Her mother refused to have anything to do with the child. Or
Eileen. After the baptism, Eileen reluctantly gave the baby up
for adoption.
    Then, the diaries showed, Eileen went into a period of
deep and prolonged depression. She reapplied for the Novitiate a year later, but Mother Superior said she was psychologically, morally, and spiritually unfit for the sisterhood. She had
no family to turn to. Her religious dreams were shattered. She
tried in vain to retrieve her baby from the adoption agency.
The Queens Family Court refused to restore custody of her
child because she was too emotionally and financially unstable. In thorough despair, Eileen ventured out onto the Throgs
Neck Bridge one summer night and jumped 120 feet into the
inky waters where she had lost her virginity on George Sheridan's boat.
    On a Friday morning in the second week of June, a quartercentury later, Nikki spied Dr. George Sheridan through her
telescope as he left his house in Douglaston for his morning
run. She timed it so that she ran into him twenty-two minutes later while descending from the Crocheron overpass of the Cross Island. He undressed her with his eyes so blatantly
that she feared he'd leave a stain. Then he sidled up and ran
alongside her toward the Bayside Marina.

    "What are you doing on Sunday night, doc?" she asked.
    "I'm free."
    "Thought I might take you up on that moonlight cruise."
    "Fabulous. Want to eat somewhere first?"
    "I'll pack dinner."
    "I'll pour you champagne. Where do I pick you up?"
    She told him she'd be waiting at 8 p.m. sharp at the little
fishing dock alongside the Cross Island between Bayside Marina and Fort Totten.
    "Date," he said.
    She promptly jogged up the ramp of the next overpass and
he headed on toward the Throgs Neck Bridge.
    On Sunday night, Dr. Sheridan showed Nikki how to start,
stop, and steer The Dog's Life as they cruised back to Little
Neck Bay from their tour of New York Harbor. Nikki wore
black Spandex clam-diggers, a black halter top, a black Mets
jacket, and a black Mets cap, which she tilted up when they
sailed under the chilly shadow of the Throgs Neck. Sheridan
cut the engines and suggested they go down on deck to "eat,
drink, and be silly."
    "Okay," Nikki said.
    He dropped anchor under the bridge as Nikki opened the
picnic basket and served chicken and broccoli tossed in a cold
penne with olive oil and thinly sliced red bell peppers, seeded
Italian bread, and a tomato and basil salad. He walked into
the salon and she watched as he poured a flute of champagne
from an already opened bottle of Roederer Cristal chilling in
a silver ice bucket. He made himself a Grey Goose and tonic. They headed back out of the salon and he handed her the
champagne as The Dog's Life lolled on the night tide.

    "You aren't having champagne?"
    "Real guys drink Grey Goose," he said. "From the glass."
    She smiled and they sat down and started to eat. She
watched champagne bubbles rise in the flute glass, each one
like a long buried corpse popping to the surface.
    "You like it out here?" he asked.
    "Nah."
    "Why?"
•
    She stood and carried her glass to the railing. She leaned
over it and swept her free left hand across the Throgs Neck
as she carefully poured her champagne into the bay with her
right hand, out of Dr. Sheridan's view.
    "Too beautiful a place to die," she said, her back to him,
lifting her empty glass and pretending to guzzle her champagne. She turned to him and forced a belch into her fist.
    He said, "Die?"
    "You told me your parents drowned here under the Throgs
Neck."
    He ate a bite of pasta, took a sip of his Grey Goose, and
leaned back in his deck chair. "You have a very good memory."
    "Yeah." She waved the empty champagne flute as she
took a sideways step across the deck. She knew it took most