Negus was awake, sitting up with the aid of his adjustable bed, reading a magazine. He was hooked up to several machines by tubes attached to his arms and under his nose. It looked as if he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open or keeping his focus on the page. Boredom comes quickly in a hospital bed.
“Now, I would like to know who snuck that Black Booty magazine in here for you,” I greeted.
He lowered his magazine. A smile swelled like a pancake on the griddle to cover his face. “Blades, my dawg!”
He tried to lift his right hand to pound and grimaced, the arm drooping slackly back at his side.
“Take it easy, big man,” I said.
“You come to take me outta this fleabag?”
“What’s the matter, the nurses ain’t doing the midnight run these days?”
“What the fuck’s the midnight run?”
“If you gotta ask then you ain’t ever been to the party.”
His lips were dry and cracked and there was a drabness to his eyes, swollen the size of manholes as if he’d been rubbing them all day, except they weren’t bloodshot, just blank and scattered. Sun smashed a hot fist through the window chiseling vertical shadows on the walls. Despite the sun loitering in the far corner I knew that this room could feel like an old dark place and the occupant could quickly become invisible to himself when needles of pain jabbed him into denying the existence of his soul. I’d been where Negus was now, except that he seemed to be in much better spirits than I ever was when I got shot.
“You’re a lucky man, cuz,” I said.
He flexed an idle stare. “Tell me about it. The shit was point blank, cuz. Lucky for me, he got me on the right side. I barely twisted my body when I saw the gun. The bullet passed right through me just grazing my lung. That’s why I’m still in here. My lung had collapsed.”
“Did you get a good look at his face?”
“That’s all I see when I close my eyes. That forehead. He looks like Frankenstein’s bitch. You know him?”
“I’ve had that nightmare too.”
His eyes flickered, then he yawned as if he was tired. “I haven’t heard from River. You know what happened to her?”
“She’s safe. But it’s probably better that you don’t hear from her.”
He grimaced. “Leave her alone, man. This wasn’t her fault.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then ate my thought. In the affairs of the heart Negus was one of those men who followed a blind alley to its end, wherever it took him. Trying to change his course was like trying to wedge a crane from its moorings with a toothpick. No point to it. Nothing transformed a man like love, I’ve always heard. I looked out the window. My eyes followed the mountain of concrete that rose sharply up, and then I saw how the terracotta carvings were etched against the bright blue sky. To me it was an allegory of this city. It’s not always easy to see the beauty of New York until you’re forced to stop moving.
Negus picked up the magazine with his left hand and, bracing it against his lifted knee, flipped the page. “It’s you she’s really interested in, you know.”
I leaned against the window. “Me? What’re you talking about?”
“We used to spend half our time talking about you.”
“The day I came to the apartment you weren’t doing too much talking.”
A grin slipped from the chapped corners of his mouth. “We didn’t do much of that. She wanted to know everything about you. Why you left the NYPD. When did you get married. Where your mother lives. What happened to your father. Man, I was getting sick of answering questions about you. She’s obsessed with you, cuz.”
“You’ve had too many hits of that Vicodin, big man.”
“I was beginning to think she had some hidden agenda with you. Like maybe you’d been tapping that ass and promised her you was gonna leave Anais and then changed your mind.”
“Does she talk much about herself?”
He tilted his head to look out the window. “Naw. She’s kinda secretive about her own life.” He flipped the magazine across the room and turned his head. It looked lopsided somehow. “You know what I saw her do one time? I saw her put a loaded gun in her mouth and pull the trigger.”
“You shitting me?”
A crooked smile slowly bled into his eyes. “She’s not your average woman.”
“No, she’s your average madwoman.”
“She’s got issues.”
“Are you in love with her?”
He pulled his face in behind a mask. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore, Blades. You can understand why.”
“No doubt, big man. I’m gonna bounce for now.”
His stare was a knife cutting through me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“You promise to tell me the truth?”
“I’m always straight with you, cuz.”
“You fucking her?”
“No, man. Nothing like that.”
“I hear you.”
“It’s the truth, babe.”
He turned his face and closed his eyes. I looked around the room, at the shower of flowers, the small basket of fruit by the window, the get-well cards piled on the table, the little radio on a chair. I realized that the room was quiet. And that was the way Negus wanted it.
THIRTY-TWO
i didn’t go there to spy on Anais. Honest. I would admit to having a jealous streak, but I do trust my wife.
After I dropped my father off to do his Ground Zero walkabout the idea came to me that I should surprise Anais and take her to dinner at Sushi Samba. Her meeting on Seventh Avenue was supposed to finish at 6:00 P.M. Around 5:30 I curbed the SUV twenty feet from a hydrant one block away.
With half an hour to kill I decided to go have a cup of coffee. Whistling one of Marley’s tunes as I limped slowly back to Seventh Avenue I ran everything I knew about Ronan’s murder through my mind again. Detective Riley, with a caseload heavy enough for four detectives, must’ve been relieved when he discovered the murder weapon and a dead suspect. It couldn’t get any more convenient than that. Case solved.
I entered a small coffee shop across from the two-story building where Anais was meeting with the director of the play. It was dimly lit and empty. I plunked my tired ass down at a table near a window where I had an unobstructed view of the main entrance of the building. The pain in my knee had circled to the back of my thigh. I stretched the leg out and rubbed the area as a heavyset elderly man came to take my order.
“Coffee. Dark,” I said.
He looked at me through uninterested mud-colored eyes anchored in deep sockets, his cheeks red as strawberries. Then he turned and plodded away.
I finished three cups of coffee and a slice of carrot cake before Anais came out of the building around 6:15.
The coffee shop had attracted a few more customers by then. A young woman in a corner clucking like a bored hen into her cell phone; a mixed-race couple with a little girl, whose delight at having gotten her parents to buy her pecan pie made me think of Chez and left me smiling.
Anais exited the building buttoning her brown full-length leather coat. My knee had stiffened up and as I hurried to get up I knocked over the half cup of coffee, spilling it all over the table and floor. I left ten dollars and broke for the door before the proprietor could say anything.
Before I could call out to Anais I saw a black-caped Merkins spin through the revolving door of the building and stand beside my wife. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her to him. From what I could tell she went willingly. He leaned his face down as if to kiss her.
It might’ve been just a peck on the cheek, but just the sight of him holding my wife so close infuriated me. I didn’t know what to do. If I called out to her she might think I’d come spying, yet I knew I couldn’t just walk away.
A taxi pulled up and Anais got inside.
Then Merkins turned and started walking away from me down Seventh Avenue. I was feeling rather stupid now and could
think of nothing else to do but follow him.
He walked leisurely with an upright arrogance that only a man who believed himself to be blessed with brass balls could effect without looking stupid. After walking several blocks south he crossed the street and turned east down a tiny dim street, walking two blocks before pausing in front of an Italian restaurant at the end of the block. Then he went inside.
I reached the restaurant and stood outside trying to peer through the glass window. But it was one of those joints that took the privacy of its guests to the limit. Heavy red curtains spoiled my view. I thought of waiting until he came out but it was too cold and my knee was killing me.
The restaurant’s door opened and a couple draped in the matching leisure suits of love came out. I held the door open while they smooched their way onto the sidewalk, too smitten with each other to say thank you. I stepped inside where it was warm; a violent mixture of roasted garlic and fennel smacked me in the face. Hunger leapt to my consciousness. With it, the image of Anais kissing Merkins.
I searched for him in the tiny crowded room. No sign. A waiter brushed through a thick red curtain hiding a shiny door off to my right; it wasn’t the kitchen. That was directly ahead. I walked to the curtain, swept it aside, and opened the door onto another dining area, fancier, probably used for private parties or for meetings between crooked politicians and their marks, such as might’ve been taking place between Merkins and the dough-faced man sitting to his right.
There were only a few guests in this room. Merkins saw me approaching and sat straight up, his face turning coppery. He dipped a piece of bread in olive oil and when I was within range, like the cagey capitalist he was, went on the immediate offensive.
He turned to the pulpy man sitting next to him. “See this man; this is Anna Machel’s house-husband. You remember Anna. She’s that hot black chick who’s playing Grace in Dennis Hector’s revival. He’s the last of a dying breed, this man. An honorable man. A virtuous man. Don’t you know he came to my house the other day to ask me not to fuck his wife again? How does that register on your manly radar? I give it a fucking ten. He even threatened me. What do you think about that? This greasy ex-cop threatened me. But I’m not mad. He was trying to defend his wife’s honor. You have to admire a man like that.”
Fire erupted in my gut. I could feel acid bubbling and the walls of my stomach crumbling under my attempt to keep calm. I just wanted to put a finger in his eye and watch the blood run.
It was a bad decision to follow Merkins. Now that I was here I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t turn away.
Pinched-faced, he brushed a speck of lint from his black ribbed sweater. “Did your wife tell you about the time we rented a private jet and flew to Hawaii for a week?”
“No, she never mentioned that. She did tell me you had problems getting it up, though.”
He looked stricken, his eyes bulged then he laughed, pointing his fork at my chest. “That’s a good one. You’re tough, I gotta give you that. Must be those years on the streets stealing from dope addicts. She still likes it in the ass?”
The pot of acid in my stomach boiled over, spewing up through my chest, fricasseeing my brain. I leaped across the table, grabbed him by his throat, and began to squeeze. He opened his mouth to scream but the only thing that came out was masticated bread and saliva. All over my shirt the shit flew. My fingers locked into the soft pulp of his scrawny neck, lifting him out of his chair. His hands clawed upward, his face becoming redder than a ripe berry.
I dragged Merkins across the table, sending plates crashing to the floor. His face contorted as if he was trying to squeeze something through constricted bowels.
The wimpy walrus who’d been sitting next to him jumped up screaming; the commotion had brought patrons to their feet and waiters running. Someone bashed a heavy fist against the side of my head and two men grabbed hold of my arms. I dropped Merkins on the floor to shake them off. But having achieved their objective of getting me to loosen my stranglehold on my victim, they backed away.
Merkins struggled to his knees. It was not the most graceful recovery you’ll see. He was frothing at the mouth like a poisoned dog; the front of his shirt looked as if a downtown painter had used it for a canvas. He straightened up with the help of his porky friend.
He wiped a wedge of creamy drool from his mouth and tried to smile. “So, you think you’re a bully?”
I stood breathing deeply, pissed at myself for losing my composure.
“But I’ll forgive you this time,” he said. “My present to Anais. But the truth is, Blades, I’ve already fucked your wife, there’s nothing you can do about that. Even donning a King Kong suit won’t change that.”
I could feel my skin burning as if someone had whacked me with a hot stake. I had to get out of there. I turned and walked past the line of busboys and waiters who, like fighter jets from an aircraft carrier, had been scrambled by the manager to protect his establishment. At the door I passed two uniformed NYPD cops entering the restaurant. They didn’t try to stop me.
I DID NOT sleep well that night. Every time I closed my eyes I felt myself swimming in a pool of dark memories: working the night shift as a narco, searching flophouses for snitches; sitting in oily foul-smelling rooms waiting for an unwashed addict to shoot up so he can remember what it was he was supposed to tell you. And then when he got high and puked all over himself, his eyes grainy as salt, his breath putrid as a rotten tomb, you felt obligated to clean him up so that the rats didn’t feast on his sodden body. And everywhere I went I felt as if there was someone watching me from the shadows, someone with an inescapably familiar smile, someone tall whose presence I yearned for and at the same time wanted to spurn; but I was powerless to resolve the stalemate.
I woke from the dream with my stomach in a knot. And you thought when you left narcotics you left that world behind.
It was close to midday before I crawled out of bed. Anais was preparing an omelet when I came downstairs.
She heard my shuffling footsteps and looked around. “I was wondering if I’d have to call Emergency Services to revive you.”
I kissed her just as my stomach funneled gas up my throat. I turned my head to burp. “Excuse me.”
“Are you okay?” She rubbed my cheek gently, the way my mother used to do when I was a boy.
“Why’d you let me sleep so late?”
“I checked in on you a few times this morning. You were out cold.”
“Bad dreams.”
“I was just making breakfast to bring upstairs to you. Once I’d resuscitated you I was going to fuck you back into a coma.”
“I love when you talk dirty in the morning.”
“You love when I talk dirty anytime.”
I laughed. “Where’s Dad?”
“Noah picked him up an hour ago.”
“Where’d they go?”
“I don’t ask two grown men where they’re going, especially when none of them ain’t my husband.”
Anais circled juice, toast, half a block of Guido cheese around a plate with omelet and slices of tomato. I sat down and she took up a position leaning against the fridge.
“Chez left her lunch again today,” Anais said.
I sliced the block of cheese with a long knife. “I used to do that all the time.”
Anais hitched the sleeves of her black V-neck sweater and said nothing.
“Is there something bothering you?” I said.
“No. Why?”
“Sit down.”
She walked to the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee in a black mug.
I had not told Anais about my run-in with Pryce Merkins at the restaurant. And though she had said nothing I suspected that she knew and had somehow decided to take a wait-and-see approach, which was unlike her.
She sipped again from her black cup and looked at me, her eyes big and bright as seashells on a Caribbean beach. “I’ve decided to do that play.”
I got up and walked to the coffee po
t. Anais always let me pour my own coffee. It was a ritual in the morning that defined how I was going to approach the day. I poured a large cup and tasted it. It was sour in my mouth and I wanted to spit it out. I returned to the table where Anais was now sitting. I felt like kissing her. “I’m sure you’ll be great.”
She looked up; her mouth was shaped like a heart. “You’re not angry?”
“I may be thin-skinned when it comes to certain things, but I’ll never stand in the way of your work.”
“I’m glad we didn’t have to fight over this.”
I smiled and looked into her eyes. “You got the power, babe.”
“Okay, Blades, I know when you get that patronizing tone. What’s the real deal?”
“I just wanna ask you one question. Tell me about L.A.”
“What about L.A.?”
“Did you sleep with him in L.A.?”
Her voice turned salty. “So I slept with him in L.A. We were separated.”
I got up from the table. “Look, if you want to do this play, go ahead. But if I end up strangling this muthafucker, it’s on you.”
“You are sick, Blades. You are a sick bastard.”
I cut another slice of cheese, stuck the knife in the center of the block, and walked away.
I GOT a call from Toni later that afternoon while I waited to pick up Chez from school.
“Blades, are you going to come and see me when I go into the hospital?”
“When’re you going into the hospital and why?”
“A week from today. For my operation.”
“Which operation is this?”
“Bilateral orchiectomy.”
“Come again.”
“That’s when they remove my balls.”
“Ouch!”
“No, Blades, good riddance.”
“You sure you want to do this, big man?”
“Big woman, if you please. And yes, this is my dream. You know that.”
“It’s a hard concept for me to grasp, you understand.”
Love and Death in Brooklyn Page 22
