Disturbed Earth

by Reggie Nadelson

  30

  His name was Herschel Shank. Heshey was what people called him, except when they called him Mickey because, in spite of his size, he was timid as a mouse. Sometimes, they actually called him Goofy.

  All this and more was scribbled by hand in the margin of a piece of paper in the file on Shank. Because Shank had been in and out of state institutions, misdiagnosed variously as schizophrenic or bi-polar before someone figured out he was mildly retarded. He was twenty-five. Apparently, for years, no one had wanted him at home.

  After he was diagnosed as harmless, his brother took him in and he was released permanently from the institutional treadmill. A job was found for Heshey and for years he stayed at it, working as an assistant janitor at a school in Sheepshead Bay. Like all school employees, he had been fingerprinted.

  So much information, so easy to get. I had fucked up just because I didn't notice the surveillance cameras and no one else did either. There was a trail of material on Shank: he had a social security number, a current driver's license with an address on it, and a brother who was a retired cop. Name was Stanley Shank.

  Shank was a name I already knew. Samson Britz had told me he was partners with old man Farone, Johnny's father. Shank who they called the "Keyster" because he liked scratching cars with a key. Farone, Sr., was older, probably Shank's mentor, his rabbi.

  I looked at the paper in my hand. Shank lived in Gerritsen Beach, a few blocks from Mrs. Farone. It wasn't far from the marina where they found May Luca's body.

  "I need your car," I said to Tolya.

  "I'm going with you."

  "What about your mother?"

  Tolya glanced at the bedroom where his mother had resumed sleeping.

  "She'll be fine," he said. "You don't trust me, do you? You want my fucking vehicle but you don't want me with you, is that it?"

  He took the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to me. He opened a closet and pulled out a ski jacket, a hat and gloves and threw them in my direction. From a shelf he got boots for me and dumped them on the floor then put on his own coat that resembled a big black animal.

  "Leave the mink, please," I said.

  "Why? You think I look like some fat transvestite fuck? I'm not coming with you anyhow, you remember, you asked me not to."

  I said, "I'm sorry. I am. Come with me." I put on the jacket.

  "I'll think about it," he said and opened the door.

  We went into the hallway and took the elevator down and I said, "Tolya?"

  "What?"

  "So, I have this thing going."

  "What thing?"

  "You're going to think this is crazy."

  "I know you're crazy."

  "There's this woman I like. I'm getting married."

  He was silent.

  "Tolya?"

  "Who is she?"

  "She's a really nice girl. She's a good friend. I like her, we have a good time."

  "I'm listening," he said, but I could see he had shut down.

  "What?"

  "You won't be happy."

  "Why the fuck not? I want a life. I'm sick of everything, I just want to stop."

  We walked out of the building without saying anything and when we got to the street, he hurried away.

  I wanted to call out. In that second I realized I'd been insanely stupid about Tolya. He was my friend; in the Russian way, he was completely loyal. It had hurt him bad that I seemed not to trust him. I hesitated. But I had to get to Shank, and I climbed into the yellow Hummer and turned the key. I hated driving it; people turned to stare; I felt like a monkey in a cage.

  Stanley Shank opened the door and let me in grudgingly. He wasn't surprised I had come, though. From another room I could hear the TV and the sound of voices.

  Shank was fat. He had soft heavy shoulders and a round head set between them like a bowling ball between mashed potatoes. His hair was thinning and his pants had slipped so the enormous belly rested precariously on his belt. I got the picture out of my pocket and held it up.

  "Is this your brother, Herschel?"

  "Half brother," he said. "My father remarried. She was younger. The woman."

  "He lives here?" Shank looked past me at the yellow Hummer. "That yours?" he asked.

  "Let's talk about your brother."

  "He uses the address. Sometimes he stays. There's a room for him over the garage. I'm a Christian," he said as if it explained why he kept his crazy brother at all, as if the deal with the room over the garage made him a good man. "Jesus," he mumbled and I couldn't tell if he meant it as the source of his religion or as an expletive about his brother.

  "The car is registered to this address," I said. "How did he get a car?"

  "I gave him an old car so he could go to work. It was a piece of crap but I got it tuned up. It was OK to get him to his job. He works at a copy shop off Brighton Beach Avenue."

  "You're a cop, right?"

  "Was. I was on the job. I retired."

  I said, "You didn't think about it when your brother didn't show up for a few days?"

  "No. Like I told you he moves around. He's twenty-five years old. Something the matter with him?"

  "I think you already know."

  "Listen, I don't fucking know what you mean. All I know is that I heard from Samson Britz and Britz said I owed him and I told him, OK, I knew Farone, sure, he was my partner. Now tell me what's wrong with Heshey?"

  "And you like doing him a favor, Britz, I mean."

  "Don't we all," he said. "I'll tell you something, detective, I'll tell you why we're standing in the hallway here and I don't ask you into the parlor for a cup of coffee with the family, OK? You want to know?"

  "Sure." I waited.

  "Britz asked me to say hello to you if you came by," Shank said. "But I don't like you, though, or your Russians, and I hate that prick Lippert you work for. I can't stand him. He doesn't understand anything. He's a fucking liberal, man, and he's a snob, and I don't trust him, I don't like him, I don't think he's in any of this except for the glory. Maybe money."

  I didn't answer.

  "Listen, I get it. I can talk some Russian. The army sent me to language school and I came back and I went on the job, it was the seventies, and they threw me into it, no one else spoke any Russki and the thugs out here bit my head off. I got beat up and one of my kids got hurt. I don't like them. Or you," he added.

  "What about your brother? What about him and the little boy? We have pictures. We have pictures of your brother and that boy in the Honda. Your car. The boy is John Farone's grandson, John, Sr., your ex-partner, maybe more than your partner. Isn't that right? Wasn't Farone your first boss, your rabbi?"

  "Yeah, he was. I was a kid, twenty years old, he took care of me when we partnered," he said.

  "You knew the kid that disappeared is his grandson?"

  Shank stayed standing but he put one hand against the doorframe as if he needed support.

  "I heard that, sure I did. I called him in Florida to say I was sorry. You don't think word doesn't get out? You've been messing around with forensics, with the people downtown, you been calling and making waves with old man Farone's wife that tossed him out on some stupid trumped up thing about little girls, just like they tried to lay on me.

  You think I wouldn't know? I don't believe it is what. Heshey is a retard, my father married an idiot after my mother died, a Russian, a Jew. She calls the kid Herschel. Then when he turned out to be a moron, she dumps both of them. OK, so Hesh was slow in school, but he was harmless."

  "Then where is he?" I said.

  "My father's dead." His face was closed, expressionless.

  "I mean Heshey."

  "I don't know. He took the car. He said he was going away for a few days. Before the storm. He said he had to be like a grown-up and he wanted to go away by himself."

  I said, "And you thought maybe he'd never come back, right? Maybe he would go forever and you wouldn't have to bother with Heshey anymore?"

  "Get out," he
said. "Get the fuck out."

  I was halfway out of the front door. Then I turned around and said to Shank, "So where did Heshey say he was going?"

  "Fishing," he said and slammed the door in my face.

  It wasn't until I was halfway to Farone's restaurant that I realized I'd met Stanley Shank before.

  It took me a couple of minutes to play his face back through my memory, and at first I put him somewhere by the coast, somewhere with water, until I remembered: Stanley Shank was the owner of the party boat when Billy and me went night fishing; he was the guy who took our money when we made it by a couple seconds onto his boat that was called Just a Fluke.

  31

  A couple of bussers sat in Farone's empty restaurant, playing cards, drinking coffee, gabbing in Spanish. Stranded by the storm, they had stayed over at Farone's. Most of them, the bus-boys, were Dominican and lived in Washington Heights up near the Bronx. There were no customers.

  On a stool Johnny Farone sat, alone, a glass half full of red wine in front of him, his elbows on the bar, his head in his hands.

  He looked up and saw me; his eyes were bloodshot.

  I climbed up on the stool next to him. To shake him out of his torpor I said, very softly, "Genia took your money, Johnny. It's Genia that's been ripping you off. Did you know and not tell me? What else is there that she's keeping to herself that's going to kill your little boy? If he's still alive. If Billy's alive."

  "I thought it was her," he said. "I wanted you to find someone else, I prayed for it, man, that it would turn out to be a crooked accountant or a slime ball maitre d'. Anything. I couldn't stand it, the idea, I give her everything. I told her she could have what she wanted, but she needs the secrets. You understand that, Art? She has to have secrets from me. You get it? I don't get it. That's why I don't go home, that's why I sleep in the fucking office here. She told me: don't call the cops. So she calls you. Now she's mad at you, she says, Artie betrayed us. He's like his old man that was a spook. I don't know what she means. I listened to her, and I did what she said and now I figure now my boy is dead because of it." Tears streamed down Johnny's face.

  I took a photograph out from my pocket and placed it on the bar and said, "You ever see this guy?"

  Johnny looked at the picture of Heshey Shank.

  "Is this him?"

  "I think so."

  "I never saw him," Johnny said. "Oh shit, man, I never saw him and he took my boy. But why?"

  "Talk to me, Johnny. What is it you didn't tell me about Billy?"

  He picked up his wine.

  "She made me promise, Genia made me."

  "I love Billy," I said. "You know that, right? You have to help me.

  He said, "Genia thinks Billy isn't right. She wants to take him to doctors and stuff, she thinks he's sick in the head. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? I tell her it's just a phase, let him grow up. I say let him spend some time with my mother, the older people are patient, don't make him play with kids he doesn't like, but Gen thinks she puts an evil eye on him. She says when he was little he spent time with her old man, that general, you know, that's dead now, and he scared Billy. Then my ma tells me Billy's not even mine. I'm fucked up, Artie. I don't know what's what anymore."

  Johnny turned his head in my direction and his face was uncomprehending.

  "You believe it, that Billy isn't yours?" I asked, as gently as I could.

  "I don't know what the hell I believe anymore. I'm just scared. I'm scared shitless, they took Billy, they killed the Luca girl, they snatched the kid in the city. Maybe it's them terrorists. I don't know."

  I was dry as dust from talking and a sore throat and I reached over the bar for a bottle of water and drank some. Next to me, Johnny stared straight ahead and in the mirror his face and mine were reflected behind the bottles.

  "Johnny, tell me what's wrong with Billy, tell me, OK? I'm on your side." I said it softly in an even voice, then added, "I don't want to have to go to Gen, I don't want to, she's already hysterical, she can't focus."

  "I wish the weather would fucking clear up," he said. "I think of Billy out there alone and no shoes, maybe, they took off his shoes and cut off his shirt with a razor, I heard the reports, and he's out there with some creep and it makes me crazy and I don't know what to do. Maybe he froze to death."

  "I'll help you, I will, but you have to give me something to go on." I put my hand on his arm.

  "You knew all along it was Gen taking the money?"

  "It looked that way."

  "Yeah, I know," he said. "But why? I give her everything she wants. I say, whatever, you can have it, but why would she want cash?"

  "I don't know. Let's talk about Billy."

  He said, "You heard Gen was with Zeitsev, right?"

  "I heard. Is it true?"

  "Yeah, it's probably true. But what could I do?" Johnny mumbled. "Everyone was nuts, 9/11, that shit, everyone running around crazy, everyone fucking everyone and crying all the time, and people with the fucking yellow ribbons and memorial services and we knew loads of those guys, cops, firemen from over by Rockaway. So I thought it would pass. It didn't pass, you know? It just seemed like things got better, but they didn't." He paused and wiped his eyes. "I love him, Artie, man, Billy is still my kid."

  "Tell me about him," I said again.

  "I think it was my old man that ruined him. You know about my old man, the way he felt up little girls, you heard? I'm not saying he did anything to Billy, but Billy was crazy for him, he just seemed like a really cuddly grandpa. We didn't know dick about his other pastimes until maybe it was too late. And the Luca girl. Billy was friends with her. She was the only kid in the neighborhood that played with him. Sweet girl, OK? He wore her red T-shirt. The one they cut off him. And the old man touched her, and my ma went crazy.

  "May's mother went nuts too, of course, and said Billy could never see May again, she said Billy probably inherited his granddad's, you know, tendencies, which is bullshit, Artie. Bullshit. He's a little boy. He sat in his room for weeks afterwards and if I tried to explain he would just sit and rock and shriek her name."

  "Go on," I said.

  "We didn't know until last Christmas, that's when the girl's mother told him never come in this house again and then told us why. She's dead. Billy's gone. Then Gen told me my old man done it to her girl, too, to Ellie. I mean he didn't fuck them or nothing, you know, but he liked to feel them up. Or maybe he did worse. I don't know. I can't think about it. He's my father, Artie, " Johnny said, and wiped his eyes. I didn't want him to stop. Go on, I thought, keep going.

  "My ma threw him out. My pop was furious, he needed the kid, he said, he'd come here and cry. Billy felt deserted. He loved his grandfather. He's not like other kids. He's very smart, creepy smart, he can talk like grown-ups, he talks like people in books, he can remember things, he can remember like a hundred kinds of fish from a book, he can remember the colors of fishing flies, gaffer hooks, knives, he can make fancy flies. He sold some to people. We used to go by the Aquarium over by Coney and he'd stay for hours and hours and hours looking in the tanks. Sometimes I see him at home staring at the fish tank for hours. He makes up ways to feed them, it's really fucking weird, he says you have to release the fish food in a certain way. You tell him, listen, it's time to go to school and he screams. I said to Gen this kid needs some discipline, but she says, no he needs a doctor. She wants to take him to a different city for a doctor. She doesn't want people knowing. She thinks they put people who need help in a nut house. I say, Gen, honey, it's not Russia, it's not the old days, she won't let me help." Johnny stopped suddenly. "My God, Artie, I don't know what to do," he said.

  "Do you think Genia's glad Billy's gone?" I said, getting out some cigarettes and offering them to Johnny, who shook his head. "I know this is tough but she wouldn't let me call the cops and I had to and then she got mad and I had to ask myself, does she even want Billy back?"

  He shuddered. "I don't want to think about that," he sa
id. "I can't think about it. What should I do? Tell me. I'll do what you say, Artie, I'll do whatever, even if Gen doesn't want it. Anything. I'll ask Zeitsev for help, if I have to. You think Billy is his kid?" he said suddenly. "I don't care if he is, I just want him back."

  "You never saw this guy, Heshey Shank?"

  "I knew a cop named Shank," he said. "Stan Shank, right? Sure. He partnered with my dad. My old man loved him. He loved him more than me."

  "Heshey, the guy we think took Johnny, is Shank's half brother."

  "Oh Christ," Johnny said.

  I said, "I have to see Genia. Stay here, OK. Just sit tight. In case anyone comes. Is she alone?"

  "I think she has a girlfriend with her."

  "What girlfriend."

  "A friend from Russia. Marina something, I think."

  "Try to remember her last name."

  "G, something with a G."

  I thought of Ivana, the jogger from the beach. Her aunt was friends with Genia.

  "Is it Galitzine?" I said to Johnny.

  "Yeah, her. Artie, man, listen I'm useless, but I want my boy back. Tell me, anything, I went to the bank." He pulled a wad of money out of his back pocket. "Take it. In case. I don't care how much. I'll sell the restaurant. I know you'll find him, you were like another dad for him. I was never jealous, I mean I was a little bit but I saw how good you were for him. OK? You'll find him?"

  "I'll try, Johnny," I said, and he hugged me, then turned to talk to one of his guys who approached the bar.

  The guy, a tall man with a solemn face, held out a piece of paper.

  "They put this under the door in back," he said with a heavy accent. "Just now. I seen it slide under."

  Wordlessly, Farone looked at the sheet of paper and passed it to me.

  On the single sheet of cheap copy paper was the face of a clock drawn in perfect detail. The hands showed midnight; next to the twelve was a drawing of a bomb exploding.