Adele looked up from her paperwork and met Aviles’s bloodshot eyes head-on. “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a risk. If ICE approves, you will be issued something called an Order of Supervision, which will probably involve showing up at that office every three months or so. At any of those meetings, ICE could decide to rescind the order and immediately deport you. They don’t even have to show cause.”
“This is the bad news?” asked Aviles.
“No,” said Adele. “This is the good. A temporary reprieve.”
“Then what’s the bad?”
“We show up tomorrow,” said Adele. “They reject our application and handcuff you immediately. In which case, I’ve coaxed you out of sanctuary and basically handed you over for deportation.”
Aviles frowned at his callused hands. Adele noticed two small smudges of turquoise paint on them.
“I am very grateful for all you are doing for me, señora,” he began. “Please forgive me these questions. I am not an educated man.”
“You can ask me anything,” she assured him.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Can you file this paperwork without me?”
“No. They will likely reject the claim if you do not file in person,” Adele explained. “I’ve seen them reject a claim if a person sends in the wrong fee. Or fails to include an apartment number in their address. Or forgets to sign their application. We don’t want to give them any reason to reject you. So yes, you would have to accompany me. And yes, that might mean that you would be walking right into their hands. Doing Tyler’s and Donovan’s jobs for them. But I don’t see a choice,” she said. “If you stay here, they’ll come back. And I wouldn’t count on the synagogue to give you indefinite sanctuary. Some, like Max Zimmerman, would do it in a heartbeat. But others would not.”
Aviles pushed his knuckles to his lips again and bit down as he stared at the table. “This is all my fault.”
“The powers that be in Washington took away your temporary protected status,” said Adele. “This is not your fault.”
“Not the removal,” said Aviles. “Lissette.”
Her name came out a whisper. It hung in the air. “Your niece?” asked Adele. “How is her disappearance your fault?”
An ambulance sped by in the distance. The sirens made Aviles jump. Sweat beaded on his forehead. This wasn’t ICE he was afraid of. This was something else. Something he didn’t seem to want to tell her.
“Señor,” Adele said, leaning forward. “While I may not officially be your attorney here, I am functioning like an attorney. Anything you say to me will not go to the police.”
“I understand,” said Aviles. “But some things, I cannot say. Even to you. At least, not until I know I can protect my family.”
“You mean if you’re deported?” Adele exhaled. “Your wife and children are American citizens. ICE can’t do anything to them.”
Aviles regarded her from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “But there are people who can.”
“Maras?” Adele dropped her pen and stared at him. “Are you being threatened by gangsters?”
Adele saw the truth in his trembling lips.
Chapter 28
Michelle caught up to Vega a half block from the ACS building. He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched like he was fighting a stiff wind.
“Jimmy! Slow down!” She came up behind him and slipped her arm beneath his elbow. “Ay, bendito, you really know how to make an exit.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you did—”
“I’m furious.”
“I didn’t mean to walk out like that—”
“Not at you, mano. At Pop. At my mother.” She stopped in her tracks, forcing him to do the same. She spun him around to face her. “They should’ve taken you in and cared for you after that cop arrested your mother. It was a misunderstanding. Anyone who knew how rough ball games in our neighborhood were would have understood that. My parents should have stepped up.”
Vega could see she was genuinely upset. It touched him. He felt something well up in his heart for her. He wasn’t expecting that. He put his hands on her shoulders.
“Your mother was very young, Michelle. I didn’t realize that then. As a little boy. But now? With a nineteen-year-old daughter myself? I get it. She had two babies. Three, if you count our father. She didn’t need another—especially the child of her lover’s angry ex.”
“Yeah, but Pop—”
Vega’s father was harder to forgive. He was pushing thirty at the time. But even there, he knew.
“Our father is like water,” said Vega. “He follows the path of least resistance. And I’m quite sure your mother put up a lot of resistance. Probably, they had no idea it would take eight weeks for my mother to get me back. Probably, they thought it would be a few days.”
Michelle gave him a shocked expression. “Are you saying you forgive them?”
Vega shook his head. “Not forgive, perhaps. Just . . . understand.”
People walked past them with shopping carts and strollers. Car horns sounded. Teenagers huddled on the corner by the bodega, smoking. Michelle barely registered any of it. She was a city girl. This was her home. It wasn’t Vega’s anymore. He tried to remind himself just how long ago all this was.
“I don’t think I’ll ever know who called in that child abuse accusation on my mother,” said Vega. “Or what the Bonillas did to me. But at least I know that my mother and grandmother didn’t abuse me. For that, I thank you, Nita.” Short for hermanita—little sister. Vega had no idea if he’d ever called her that before, but it suddenly felt right.
Michelle smiled, relieved. “Are you still up for Mama Linda’s?”
He wasn’t. Not really. But he felt he owed her something for all she’d done for him today.
“Okay,” he said, tapping her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
“We’re not going on a raid,” Michelle giggled.
“No, but we’ll need a can of it before we’re through,” said Vega. “And a case of Tums.”
* * *
Vega couldn’t recall the last time he’d been to Mama Linda’s. The place hadn’t changed in forty years. Roll-down metal gates sat like eyebrows above two plate-glass windows smeared with grease. Blinking neon signs advertised lottery tickets and cuchifritos in the same oversized lettering.
Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of deep-fried pork, garlic, onions, and chilis. There was a line at the counter. There was never not a line at Mama Linda’s. Women with rollers in their hair. Men in do-rags. A cluster of regulars by the lottery machine. On the tile wall behind the counter, a Board of Health designation hung in a grease-spattered frame. Impossible to read. Probably just as well. Vega suspected it was about as spotless as the criminal records of some of Mama Linda’s customers.
There were no menus. Everything was on the order board—none of it explained. If you had to ask what it was, you probably wouldn’t want to eat it anyway. Michelle ordered chicharrón de pollo sin hueso—boneless fried chicken chunks—with a side order of maduros—fried sweet plantains . Vega went with the comfort foods of his youth: the mofongo—Puerto Rican-style pork stuffing—with red bean gravy, two alcapurrias, and a piece of slow-roasted pork shoulder known as pernil. They both ordered Medalla Lights, a Puerto Rican brand of pale lager.
“My treat,” said Vega, waving her money away.
“Thanks,” said Michelle.
They took their trays to a small Formica-topped table that sat elbow to elbow in a row of three tables. Privacy was not Mama Linda’s strong suit. Nor was tranquility. At a booth in back, people played scratch-off lottery games—almost as much of a draw as the food—while heavily syncopated reggaeton music blasted over a tinny loudspeaker.
“I’m not going to eat for a week after this,” said Vega as he dug into the food. “I can’t believe I ate like this all the time as a kid. Only, it was my grandmother’s food—not Mama Linda’s.”
> “Your grandmother was a fantastic cook,” said Michelle.
Vega gave her a puzzled look. “How would you know?”
“When my mom was in high school, after her mother died, she lived with Gloria across the hall from your family,” Michelle explained. “Sometimes, your grandmother would feed her. This was, of course, before . . . everything.”
Vega put down his knife and fork. “You’re kidding. I guess that’s how my dad got to know your mom.”
Michelle stared at the grease forming little islands across her heavy white china plate. A fire truck passed by outside, its red flashing lights bouncing off the windows, sucking all the color from the room.
“Pretty crappy family history, huh?” asked Michelle. “I don’t blame you for hating all of them.”
Vega ran his finger along a bottle of hot sauce on the table. “I don’t know what I feel,” he admitted. “Mostly, I feel for my mother. For what they did to her. I guess if I hate at all, it’s on her behalf.”
“Your mom was long past it,” said Michelle. “You know that, right? She was on good terms with Pop before she died.”
“She was?” That was news to Vega. An image of his mother flashed through his head. The way the light caught the lenses of her glasses, magnifying those big dark eyes that took in everything. That slight inhale of breath she used to give before she spoke, as if her words could never entirely express what was inside her. She was a private woman—private, even to him. There was a lot his mother never told him after she moved back to the Bronx. She had to die for him to know she’d had a secret lover all those years.
“Pop wanted to come to your mother’s funeral,” said Michelle. “But he figured it might upset you. That’s why I came alone. Hell, my whole family would’ve come otherwise. Even my mom.”
“Your mom?” asked Vega, surprised. “I wasn’t even allowed to say her name growing up.”
“That’s ancient history, Jimmy. They were over it at the end. They both understood that Pop couldn’t stay faithful to any woman. That’s not right, I know. But they stopped taking it personally.”
The heat inside Mama Linda’s was stifling. Or maybe it was just the heavy food and heavier conversation. Vega pushed his plate to one side. He was anxious to get his mind off all this ancient drama and back on the case. “There’s some stuff I found out last night about Talia Crowley,” said Vega. “You want to walk and talk?”
“Too many eyes and ears?” she asked.
“No,” said Vega. “I can’t hear myself think.”
She grinned. “You’re getting old, mano.”
* * *
Outside, a train rumbled by on an elevated track. Michelle waited to speak until after it had passed.
“Can we walk over to Rosedale?” she asked. “My boys are staying with my mother this afternoon.”
“Your mom lives in the projects?”
“The rent’s reasonable,” said Michelle. “My boys prefer it to our building because of the basketball courts and playground. And besides, there are a lot of good people there.”
“Yeah, but it’s the bad ones that make life hell for everybody else.” Michelle was right. He was getting old and suburban.
On the walk over, Vega filled Michelle in on Talia Crowley’s pelvic inflammatory disease and undiagnosed STD.
“You know,” said Michelle, “pelvic inflammatory disease can cause infertility.”
“She was pregnant when they got married.”
“Sure. When they got married,” she said. “But Talia was thirty-four. She lost the baby. PID might have been a factor.”
“You think?”
“It’s possible,” said Michelle. “If Crowley gave it to her, he might have cost her any chance at ever having a baby. That could make a woman pretty angry. Maybe angry enough to want to ruin the man who did it.”
Ahead of them loomed four ten-story tan-brick buildings. The Rosedale Projects. A chain-link fence surrounded a playground and four half-court basketball courts in the center. Vega heard the thump of balls bouncing on concrete and the soft swish of chain mail as they cleared the nets. As a boy, Vega and his friends used to refer to a half-court game as “shooting some chink,” based on the sound of the balls in the nets. It wasn’t until Vega saw an Asian man blanch at the phrase that he understood how he and his friends must have come across.
“What you’re telling me,” said Michelle, “is that Talia might have threatened to expose the DA—which is reason enough for him to kill her.”
“Except he’s got an ironclad alibi,” Vega reminded her.
“Then he got someone else to do it.”
They found an empty bench near the playground and sat down. Rap music blared from the windows of a passing car, the bass notes loud enough that Vega could feel them through the soles of his boots.
“I told Greco everything you’re saying to me,” said Vega. “He said my findings could just as easily prove why she committed suicide.”
“So that’s it?” asked Michelle. “He’s just going to shut us down? With all our unanswered questions?”
“Unless we can find some hard evidence that Talia wasn’t alone the night she died,” said Vega. “So far, I’m coming up empty-handed.”
Michelle went to speak, but her attention was drawn to something over Vega’s shoulder. He turned and followed Michelle’s gaze to a Hispanic couple walking out of one of the buildings. The man was dressed in basketball shorts and a sleeveless top, his prison-chiseled biceps covered in tattoos. He had his arm around a girl in a shiny pale pink jacket and skimpy hot pink shorts, propping her up like she was drunk or high or both. He was half walking, half dragging her to the street corner.
“You know those two?” asked Vega.
“I don’t live here,” said Michelle. “But no, I don’t recognize them. She looks doped up.”
Vega agreed. The young girl’s head flopped back. Her ponytail had hair sticking out of it. The man with the tattoos looked nervously down the block, like he was expecting a ride that was already late.
Vega rose from the bench. He couldn’t, in good conscience, allow an obviously intoxicated young woman to be dragged into a car.
“You’re not going to intervene, are you?” asked Michelle.
“This is the Bronx, Jimmy. People have to be visibly hemorrhaging before I call nine-one-one.”
“I just want to see what’s going on.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
Vega kept his hand on his hip as he approached. He didn’t have his gun. He didn’t carry in New York City—the paperwork for a concealed carry was a nightmare. But the man holding on to the girl wouldn’t know that.
The girl was young. She had thighs like saplings and very high heels. One of the straps wasn’t buckled properly. She didn’t put those shoes on. Someone else did.
“You there!” Vega called. He flashed his badge. From this distance, the man would think he was NYPD. “What’s wrong with that girl?”
The man turned his head. One dark eye looked straight at Vega, the other wandered like a marble in a tin can. He removed his tattooed arm from the girl’s shoulder. She dropped hard to the sidewalk, her pink jacket riding up, showing nothing but a black halter bra beneath.
He ran.
“Call nine-one-one,” Vega yelled at Michelle. “Stay with her.”
Vega raced ahead. He was in the wrong frame of mind for a chase. He was off-duty, unarmed, and out of jurisdiction. His heavy, greasy lunch sloshed around in his stomach like a football in a washing machine. His boots were better suited to navigating the mud around the Brighton Aqueduct this morning than the gritty pavements of the Bronx. Most of all, he wasn’t wearing a Kevlar vest. If the man he was chasing had a gun and decided to use it, the game was over.
The man dashed across a busy street, barely skirting a gypsy cab, the driver giving him both the horn and the finger. Vega was betting that wasn’t his girlfriend he’d dropped to the pavement back there. It was some junkie he’d sold
a lethal mix of heroin to. Or maybe a prostitute he’d just paid in dime bags. Vega noted the girl’s hot pink shorts. Then again, his own daughter walked around in hooker chic half the time. All the teens did these days.
Vega tried to cross the same corner as the tattooed man with the lazy eye, but he couldn’t get past the traffic. Up ahead, a dark blue sedan screeched to the curb. The man jumped in and the car roared off.
Vega raced back to Rosedale. A crowd of people had formed a circle in the courtyard by the playground. Young men in basketball shorts. Kids with skateboards. Mothers with babies on their hips. Vega looked around for an ambulance. Or at least, a police car. But this was the Bronx. Patrols arrived slowly. Ambulances, sometimes not until you didn’t need one anymore.
He pushed his way through the crowd to see Michelle hunched over the girl, performing CPR. “Stay back!” she huffed out between compressions. “Give her room!”
Vega knelt beside Michelle. She was sweaty and exhausted from the effort.
“I’ll take over,” said Vega. He shrugged off his jacket and leaned over the girl, pressing down on her slight rib cage, counting out the compressions to the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive,” as he’d been taught. Her skin and lips were blue. But even so, Vega registered a familiarity in those dimpled cheeks. The same ones that stared back at him from that photo in Talia Crowley’s sweater drawer, and again, on her asylum application at ICE.
Deisy Ramos-Sandoval.
They’d found the missing Port Carroll teenager.
They’d found her too late.
Chapter 29
“We have to call the police,” Adele told Edgar Aviles, pushing herself up from the conference table. “We have to tell them that gangsters are threatening your family.”
“If ICE grants me a stay of removal tomorrow, I will tell the police everything,” Aviles promised. “But until then, no. I have to be able to protect my family. I can’t leave them defenseless.”
“The police can protect your family.”
Voice with No Echo Page 20
