Love and Death in Brooklyn

by Glenville Lovell

  The woman Susan had called me about that Thursday morning had bitten off her boyfriend’s penis after he tried to force her to perform oral sex. I wonder if he’d considered the trade-off beforehand.

  The trend of warm winter days had not been broken, and today the temperature hovered near fifty degrees. I was dressed in black jeans, a thin black leather jacket, and a blue Dallas Cowboys cap.

  I found Susan behind her desk eating tabouli salad when I walked into her office shortly after three o’clock. Black wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose tip, she got up to greet me, trying to smile through a mouth full of food.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, putting her hand to her mouth. “You told me you’d be here about three-thirty.”

  “I got through at the bank earlier than expected.”

  “It’s just that she isn’t here yet,” Susan replied.

  She covered the plastic bowl and pushed it behind a gold paperweight against a pile of papers at the back of her desk, then came over and shook my hand.

  “You want me to come back?”

  “You kidding? I get to see so little of you. Do you want some salad?”

  “No, I ate lunch late. Still full.”

  Susan stood a head below me and looked up at me through grainy-blue eyes. Her silver crew cut smelled like shampoo and her perky smile exposed a gap between her front teeth. Even though her job brought her in contact with people who’d endured unspeakable horrors at the hands of criminals, I’ve never seen Susan without her perky smile. Today was no exception.

  “How’s Noah doing?” she asked.

  “Barely holding on. Tell me more about this girl.”

  “Don’t stare when you see her.”

  “Why, is she deformed?”

  “It’s temporary, thank goodness. Her boyfriend beat her up pretty bad.”

  “You said something about her reaction when she heard about Ronan’s killing?”

  Susan focused her eyes on my face. “It’s a hunch. But you used to say a hunch is a cop’s best friend.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She was being interviewed by a detective from the Seventy-second.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “A woman.”

  I chuckled. “You implying I don’t know any women detectives?”

  Susan wagged her finger at me. “They weren’t many in narco.”

  “Narco is tough on women.”

  “Chauvinist.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The news was on. And they were showing footage from the scene of Ronan’s murder. You should see the way her eyes and face changed. Stricken like she was having some kind of attack. She started shaking and stopped answering questions and ran into the bathroom and refused to come out.”

  “Maybe it reminded her of something else.”

  “Maybe. I had a hunch and called you. She was very disturbed by those pictures. I can’t describe the way her face changed. Maybe she knew Ronan personally. Maybe she was there and saw something. I acted on a hunch.”

  “Okay, I’ll play. What’s her name?”

  “J’Noel Bitelow.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Susan laughed. “You can say she was born for this role.”

  “Is her boyfriend in jail?”

  “The police can’t find him.”

  “What about the hospitals?”

  “Personally, I hope they find him dead. He’s better off as fish bait. Jail’s too good for people like him. Something weird is happening in this city. We’ve been seeing a lot of violent domestic rapes lately. Don’t know what it is. Some of them are very sadistic.”

  “When’d this happen? J’Noel’s attack?”

  “The night before Ronan got shot. She spent the night in the hospital and checked herself out the next morning. She didn’t even call the police. The attending physician, she called me and I took the police around to see J’Noel.”

  The phone on Susan’s desk rang. She picked it up and glanced in my direction and nodded just after she identified herself to the caller. The conversation was brief. After she settled the phone into its cradle she picked up a pen and scribbled on a notepad.

  “That was her,” Susan said. “She can’t make it. Said she doesn’t have anyone to look after her baby. I think she’s lying. I don’t think she planned to come. Here’s her address, and telephone number.”

  I took the paper she handed me and scanned the information.

  Susan reached for her salad. “It’s a long shot, but you never know.”

  BY THE TIME I reached the address Susan had scribbled for me, the blade of the afternoon sun had slashed Brooklyn in half. A salty wind disturbed plastic shreds on the dust-filled streets outside the three-story apartment building on Lincoln Place in Crown Heights where J’Noel Bitelow lived. I buzzed apartment 3A and waited on the slab of broken concrete outside the black metal door.

  A chorus line of women carrying Bibles and Watchtower magazines shuffled shoulder to shoulder down the wide sidewalk, pausing to offer me something inspirational to read. I declined with a polite smile and they continued down the street, their eyes weary but resolute, for Brooklyn was overtaxed with sinners waiting to be saved.

  A woman came to answer the door, a pudgy sour-faced toddler at her hip.

  “J’Noel?” I questioned, after she had swung the heavy door back.

  “Who’re you?”

  “Blades Overstreet. A friend of Susan Zenaro at CVCC.”

  “You a cop?”

  “No.”

  “What you want with me?”

  “Can I come inside?”

  “Why?”

  “Please, I don’t want to talk out here. Susan’s very concerned about you.”

  She never blinked as she stared at me long and hard, then she broke off her gaze and stepped back as the toddler began to cry. I passed through and she released the door. It clanked solidly behind me. Her head skillfully wrapped in cloth that matched her red glossy lipstick, J’Noel jingled like an African percussion band whenever she moved her right hand, which was encased up to the elbow in gold bangles. She might’ve been a pretty girl before her boyfriend got the inspiration that he was Mike Tyson. She had an apple stuffed in her jaw on the right side and a grape-sized chunk of flesh was missing from her left ear. Her left eye was so black it looked like she had a patch over it.

  She walked unbalanced, as if the lump on the right side of her face was too heavy to bear. I followed her one flight up a narrow, dark stairwell, cluttered with crushed empties and butts. She picked up Spiderman from the ground in front of her apartment and gave it to the youngster, who quickly stopped bawling, then pushed the door open. I followed her into a sparsely furnished room that was a spectacle of breezy living: shoes, toys, clothes, and children’s books scattered about like pieces of a puzzle.

  “If you here to get me to go to that victim’s place, you’re wasting your time. I ain’t no victim.” Her voice was whiny, not much thicker than her kid’s.

  “Can I sit down?”

  She pulled back a Bugs Bunny comforter to reveal a plush brown recliner, which had obviously found better usage storing toys.

  I shifted Spawn, the Hulk, and Wolverine out of the way and sat at the edge unbuttoning my leather jacket for comfort. She snuggled into a loveseat with the giggling little boy climbing up her back.

  “What’s the big guy’s name?” I said.

  She stared at me, her eyes blank and lost.

  “Your son,” I added.

  “Oh . . .Malcolm Junior. His father named him after himself. I wanted to name him Stephon after the basketball player. Stephon Marbury. You know him?”

  “Not personally. Good player, though.”

  “He’s from around my way in Coney Island. I should’ve named him Stephon. Now I have to call him by that muthafuckin’ name: Malcolm. I hate that sonofabitch.”

  “A lot of great people are named Malcolm.”

  “The only great thing about h
is father is when he ain’t around. Then I have a great time.”

  I chuckled. You gotta love a girl who still has a sense of humor with her face looking as if the kicker from the Dallas Cowboys had tried to put it through the uprights from fifty yards. She looked to be about twenty-five, but with her face so distorted it was a wild guess.

  “Did Malcolm do this to you?”

  She winced trying to smile. “You should see him.”

  “Yeah, can’t look like much of a man without his johnson.”

  “His what?” She laughed. “Oh . . . you can say his dick. It’s all right. I ain’t shy. He didn’t have much use for it anyway. Not even Viagra could get that shit hard. Come here all the time talking about suck it ’til it lift. I’d be dragging on that shit like a dope fiend on a crack pipe and still the shit be soft as ice cream.”

  “How long you known him . . . Malcolm?”

  “About seven years. He used to hang out around my school. He always had money to throw around. I didn’t get along with my mother and he was cute so I started going to his house after school. Then I found out I was pregnant. I had an abortion, but he was good about it. Said he would marry me and shit. I moved in with him after I graduated.”

  “Where’d he get so much money? Was he dealing?”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “You think every black man with cheese be dealing?”

  “No,” I said.

  “He ran with a crew out of the projects in Coney Island. That’s where I used to live with my dad. I moved in here by myself a year ago. Couldn’t take his friends. Bunch of muthafuckin’ know-nothing idiots. He’s been coming around trying to get me to move back to Coney Island. He’s good to Malcolm Jr., though. That night he came up here I wasn’t in the mood. He got mad. He’d been drinking or something. We started to fight. He bit my ear. Pulled out a pistol. Said he would kill Malcolm Jr. if I didn’t give him some. I couldn’t believe he said that. About his own son. Even if he was joking. Shit! How you gonna say shit like that about you own son? I told him if he left Malcolm alone I’d give him a blowjob. I bit off his dick and left him here screaming and took Malcolm and ran.”

  “Did you know Ronan Peltier?”

  Her eyes blew open wide. “Who?”

  “The politician who was shot in Fort Greene the other day.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I want to find his killer.”

  Her face slouched; her good eye dimmed. Sunlight faded through the unwashed window. The red lipstick was beginning to smear and she looked as if she’d been drinking blood. “Who the fuck are you? I don’t know what Susan say to make you come over here but I don’t know nothing ’bout that shit. You must be crazy.”

  “Were you in that area that night?”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near there.”

  “Susan said you got very upset when you saw the news about Ronan.”

  “She don’t know what upset me. I wasn’t even looking at that shit.”

  “If you know something about Ronan’s death, please help me.”

  She scratched her neck with blunt fingernails. “You a cop, ain’t you? I bet you a cop.”

  “I’m not. But I used to be. If you know something but you’re afraid to speak because of a threat, the police can offer you protection,” I stressed.

  “Yeah, like they protected my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “A few years ago my brother witnessed a drive-by in the Pink Houses. The police said if he testified they’d protect him. He testified at the grand jury but never made it to the trial. Got parked having waffles at IHOP one morning.”

  “That politician was a friend of mine.”

  “So? Why should I give a shit about you or your friends? I don’t know you. Get the fuck out my house.” She stared at me, her red lips trembling.

  I was too stunned by the suddenness and hostility of her expression and the broken cadence of her angry fluttering eyes to get up immediately. When I recovered I got up and opened my wallet, taking out one of my cards, which had both the numbers to the club and my cell phone. I handed it to her. “If you feel like talking I’d appreciate it if you got in touch with me.”

  She took the card and ripped it into two pieces, dropping them to the floor next to her. “You can let yourself out.”

  I CRAWLED DOWN the dark stairwell feeling as if someone had just beaten me about the heel with a crowbar. I’m sure J’Noel would protest my feelings of pity, but what did the future have in store for a woman like her? She might get some measure of satisfaction withholding information from me, but would she survive her next brush with an abusive boyfriend? Would she be able to break out of that violent cycle? I hated to think of what I would do to the man who tried to abuse my daughter that way.

  NINE

  o n my way home I picked up Chesney from the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, where she’d spent the afternoon with her friend from next door. When we got home Anais was already there, having made good on her threat to take a cab instead of letting me pick her up. Chez was very happy to see her; even happier with the bag of goodies Anais presented her after they’d hugged. Then she bounded up the stairs to unload the tropical fish Anais had bought for the tank she kept in her room.

  With Chez upstairs I took the opportunity to fill Anais in on what had transpired between River and me. Already fuming over my plan to hunt Ronan’s killer, she was even angrier about my decision to stash River in my old co-op in Carroll Gardens.

  I’d bought that apartment when Anais moved out west. We lived in it together for a short while after she returned, but it’d been empty since we bought this house on Maple. I had not yet made a decision about whether to sell or lease it. Since it was just there gathering dust at the moment I saw no harm in letting River stay until she figured out what the hell she was going to do. Of course, I could’ve done it without telling Anais, but by telling her I hoped to remove any appearance of impropriety. Anais had a tendency to think that every beautiful woman who smiled at me was itching to get inside my pants. I didn’t want to aggravate her already jealous nature.

  THAT NIGHT we ate dinner at a Malaysian restaurant in the Park Slope neighborhood where I grew up. Memories of my childhood came flooding back as we walked along President Street past four-wheel-drives parked on both sides of the busy street—the vehicle of choice in this mixed middle-class neighborhood, home to many college professors and artists—past potted plants jammed in ground-floor windows of restored brownstones, past couples strolling with their children. I remembered racing my brother, Jason, along this same street on our way to Prospect Park. Often, without our parents’ permission, we would head in the opposite direction: to the park on Fourth Avenue. Once we crossed Fifth the neighborhood changed abruptly. Stately brownstones gave way to brightly painted row houses; the pavements, no longer well maintained, were full of cracks; there was laughter and cursing on the streets; women and men kept the stoops warm, drinking from long bottles of beer; the passionate voices singing love songs on the radio were in Spanish. We preferred this part of the neighborhood. It was more alive, more mysterious.

  Anais loved to dine out. And food had always been my secret weapon whenever I needed to break down her resistance. Plying her with exotic food and wine had always worked to get me out of messy situations. I’d even called ahead to make sure my order of flowers had arrived and was placed at our table. Nothing was working tonight. She brushed aside my questions about her trip with indolent stares and monosyllabic grunts.

  Unable to engage her in any meaningful conversation, I finished my chili shrimp in coconut sauce and sipped my Chardonnay. She toyed with her pan-seared sea scallops in silence. I tried to make eye contact but she ignored my searching gaze. Once in a while I would catch a spark in her brown eyes behind the look of torment plastered on her face. In her current mood the possibility was faint, but the thought of making love to her later was never more tantalizing.

  WHEN WE reached home Chesney was alre
ady asleep. The sitter, Jovan, a sixteen-year-old Brooklyn Tech student from next door, was watching TV and yacking on her cell phone in the living room. I paid her and she left.

  “Would you like a drink?” I said to Anais.

  She was halfway up the stairs when she stopped and turned her head just enough for me to catch a glimpse of her drained face. “No, I’m going to bed.”

  I began to unbutton my shirt at the foot of the stairs. “Look, Anais.”

  Maintaining her distracted expression she turned completely around and sat down on the stairs leaning her head on the rail. “What?”

  Edging up to where she was sitting I stood over her, reaching down to finger her blue silk scarf. She folded her lips into a tight ball and looked up at me. Her eyes were tired, but the gloss of her dark skin was still new, like the shine of a freshly minted coin.

  I reached down and traced her mouth with my index finger. Her body stiffened, but she did not move. Had to circle the warm flesh of her mouth several times before she relaxed, releasing her lips from their self-imposed prison. Slowly she stood erect, licking my finger. Leaning my body into hers now, in the most affectionate manner I knew. We stayed this way for a long time. Then her arms curved around my back and she rested her head on my shoulder.

  “I know this is a lot to have to deal with your first night back.”

  “I only have one question. Are you fucking her?”

  “I love you too much,” I said.

  “A yes or no is what I’m looking for.”

  “No.”

  She smiled weakly. “I missed you.”

  OUR BEDROOM looked out onto a patio and below that a garden surrounded by a high evergreen hedge. In our king-sized bed we took turns undressing each other. When my turn came I could not help but feel lucky. Her body was as firm as when I met her ten years ago, and if anything she was even more beautiful today. Over the years the confidence she had developed as a woman and her awareness of her own beauty had become a part of her physicality, producing a sensuality cauldroned in playfulness and candor. As I peeled off her black silk shirt I admired her flat hard stomach. While she wasn’t a gym rat, Anais took care of her body with a daily regimen of exercise and dance classes.