As we turn onto Sanford, someone calls out Lily’s name. We both turn around and see Peter Wong getting out of the passenger side of a gleaming black Cadillac Escalade.
He walks up to us casually and puts his arm around Lily’s shoulders. The sun glints off the rock-star shades he’s wearing. He’s older, in his twenties or maybe even thirties; I don’t know what he’s doing talking to Lily, but I figure he must know her through her father, who owns one of the biggest dim sum houses in Flushing. As a big businessman, her father knows a lot of people.
“Dai Guo!” She smiles and kisses him on the cheek. She called him Big Brother, but the way he’s looking at her is anything but brotherly. His hand lingers on her hair as he releases her shoulder. He barely looks at me when she introduces us. I know he’s headed to the park too; he and his friends are always there.
They continue walking together, Lily between us so I can’t hear most of their conversation. He calls her Xiao Mei—Little Sister—and coos at her as if she’s a baby. She’s all giggly with him, which I think is gross. Still, I wonder what it would feel like if a guy like him paid so much attention to me, if I were that beautiful. He tells her about the kinds of things he can get for her from his “connections.”
“I already have a Prada bag,” I hear her pouting. “Can you get me a Louis Vuitton?” She pronounces it Loo-iss Voy-tahn.
As we near the entrance to the park, we can hear people on the basketball court, the slap of rubber on cement followed by occasional grunts and metallic dunks. The park, or Bowne Playground as it’s officially called, is divided into sections separated by chain-link fences: The basketball court takes up the most space and is flanked by a kiddie playground and a treelined yard where old men pass their retirement days on its benches, reading Chinese newspapers or feeding pigeons. I scan through the trees for a glimpse of Jimmy, but I can’t recognize his voice over the faraway laughter of children.
We reach the yard first and I see Peter’s friends there— four guys and three girls. Most of them go to my school, seniors reputed to be gangsters. They have claimed the concrete chess tables set in the corner, but instead of chess pieces, there are mah-jongg tiles. Despite the heat of the day, the guys are in black and have spiky hair like Peter, and the girls wear their hair long and carefully frozen into voluminous curls. They’re all smoking cigarettes; I wonder how smart that is, given all the hair spray in the air. Snippets of Cantonese, Mandarin, and Fujianese rise from their conversation.
I recognize one of the guys from my algebra class. He’s a few years older, but he’s in my class because he doesn’t speak much English. We’ve never talked to each other, so I just kind of nod at him. He gives me a strange look, as if he recognizes me but doesn’t know why.
To my dismay, Lily follows Peter to the girls’ table, where a new game of mah-jongg is about to commence. It’s hard to look away from the mesmerizing whirl of pink and green, as pretty manicured hands shuffle and stack the jade tiles expertly.
“You play MJ?” Peter is actually addressing me as well as Lily.
“Uh, not really.” I learned how to play from watching my mom and aunts, but I couldn’t see myself doing it, here, with them. It strikes me as just so Chinese. I mean, sure, I’m Chinese, but not the same way they are, or even the same way Lily is. I was born and raised on Thirty-Ninth Avenue, but my neighbors were Dominican and Jewish, not just Chinese. My parents work in Manhattan’s Chinatown and commute from Flushing on the dollar vans, my mom to a doctor’s office and my dad to a TV repair shop. I grew up hearing almost as much Spanish as Chinese, whereas Lily’s parents made sure that she stayed immersed in Chinese culture and cultivated friendships only with Chinese kids.
Lily nudges me and answers that of course we play. Peter motions for one of the girls at the table to make room for us as he goes to join the guys at the other table. One of the guys hands Peter something wrapped in a crumpled paper bag, from which he takes a swig. The girl, a senior I don’t know, scoots right over and starts resetting the table, scowling at Lily. She’s not the only one scowling, but Lily isn’t fazed.
I look through the chain link to the other side of the park and finally spot Jimmy on the ball court. His brow is furrowed with intensity, his muscular arms outstretched as he motions for Eric Martinez, another junior, to pass him the ball. Eric responds, twisting away from his guard and whips the ball to Jimmy, who in one smooth motion catches it and shoots it into the basket for a three-pointer. Despite myself, I cheer along with the folks on the other side of the fence, which gets me strange looks from my seatmates, Lily included.
I lock eyes with Lily and talk to her under my breath.
“Are you coming with me or not?” I tilt my head ever so slightly toward the court.
“No! I’m staying here.” She presses her lips into a fine line and whispers, “You should stay too. Forget about Jimmy. This is cool.” She accepts a Newport cigarette from a spiky-haired senior whose name I still don’t know.
“Fine. I’m going to go watch the game.” I get up, nod at the table, and walk away. There’s a large enough crowd over there that I feel comfortable heading over by myself. I take a seat at the edge of the bleachers. By now I’m so irritated with Lily that I don’t even have time to get nervous when Jimmy plops down next to me. He has a towel wrapped around his neck and his cheeks are flushed.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” He is speaking to me. He knows who I am.
“Oh, you know, just visiting a friend.” I look down and tuck my hair behind my ear. If I were Lily I would look up at him through my eyelashes and flirt. But I’m not, so I focus on how red my toenails are.
“You mean those gangsters over there are your friends?” He jerks his head in their direction. A few of the guys are talking with some Latino kids from the neighborhood. They all stand stiffly in a semicircle, menacing expressions on their faces. Peter seems to be negotiating with their leader, a dark, stocky guy with a shaved head and an oversized basketball jersey. They all relax when Peter and the guy shake hands, which they do in a hip-hop sequence: fists up, they grasp each other’s hands as if they’re going to arm wrestle, yank themselves toward each other, and bump chests. As their palms separate I catch a glint of light off little plastic bags.
“Those guys? Nah. I’m here with my friend Lily.” Who is over there with those gangsters, I’m thinking. Lily is studying her tiles, but even across the park I can tell she’s watching me from the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know you were going to be playing here. You’re really good.”
“Um, thanks . . .” He’s pulling the ends of the towel, rubbing it back and forth over his neck. “I uh . . . I’m glad you’re here.”
Before we can say anything else, he’s called back into the game. The sun feels good on my face.
* * *
And now, a couple of hours later, the sun is starting to set. The basketball game is winding down, without him for the last hour—Jimmy ended up leaving the game to come back to me on the bleachers, and we just talked about everything. He told me he thinks I’m the most mature sophomore he’s ever met. I played it cool and did not tell him how I’ve been practically stalking him.
Eric yells to him that it’s time to go, and as he turns to leave he bends and quickly kisses me on the lips.
“See ya at school!” He grins at me, then heads toward Union Street. I am too stunned to reply, so I just smile weakly at him.
But as the two of them walk off with some of the other ball players, one of the spiky-haired guys struts up to him and bumps him with his shoulder, hard enough not to be an accident. It’s my algebra classmate. Eric looks at him as if to say, What the fuck? but once he realizes who it was that bumped him, he just mumbles, “Excuse me.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Jimmy has his hands up the way basketball players do when they’re trying not to foul out. Behind him, Eric Martinez and the other guys who were on the court stiffen. Smiles disappear as fists tighten. Jimmy backs away, holdin
g his arms out from his sides to keep them at bay. His friends back off too. They’re not stupid.
“What’s your problem? Get the fuck out of my face!” Algebra is clearly drunk and enjoying the moment of power, but he doesn’t push it any further. He holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger out, and pretends to shoot Jimmy in the head.
Back at the chess tables, Peter and his friends are chuckling amongst themselves. The mah-jongg tiles have been packed up and the table is littered with several more of those paper bags.
An unfamiliar emotion washes over me as I watch Jimmy leave with his friends, who are no longer laughing and joking. My eyes burn with tears and the words come to mind: fear, shame, anger. There was just no reason for that, I’m thinking to myself. And this is what Lily thinks is so cool? I look over at her, now leaning languidly against Peter’s arm. Her fingertips are at her lips and I can tell that she’s as shocked as I am, but she’s trying to hide it, to look grown-up and still perfect.
“Let’s go, Lil.” I don’t even want to make eye contact with anyone else. She nods and reaches for her bag, but as she slides away from Peter, he grabs her arm and pulls her toward him in a gesture that’s meant to look gentle but isn’t.
“Don’t leave me, Little Sister. It’s early. We’re going to a party. I want to show you off.” He looks me up and down. Without his sunglasses his eyes look dead serious and kind of scary. “You can go home.”
“No, Tina’s my best friend. I can’t go without her.” Lily shakes her hair as if to clear her head of cobwebs. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a party at Kuo’s place, the Tulip. It’ll be fun. We’ll make a karaoke video.” His voice is too sweet when he speaks to her.
A lump forms in my throat. Even I’ve heard of that nightclub, the Yellow Tulip. It’s always in the news; it’s been raided several times for prostitution and there’s a shooting there every other weekend. Of course, I can’t say any of this. These are probably the people who do the shooting.
“Isn’t that a bar?” I ask innocently. “Lily and I can’t go. We’re not twenty-one.”
This makes everyone laugh. Except for Lily, who is staring at me as if I should spontaneously combust.
“What? They know how old you are,” I whisper to her.
“No they don’t,” she hisses. She pulls me aside as darkness descends on the playground. Most of the group staggers out of the park, but Peter lights up a cigarette. His cell phone blares an electronic waltz and he answers it, leaning against the gate. The streetlights cast a shadow of the chain-link fence, crosshatching Lily’s face.
I whisper to her: “Lil. You can’t be serious. Isn’t he like thirty? He knows your dad, so he’s got to know you’re only fifteen. He’s not someone you should be messing with.”
“Look. If you want to go out with a nobody, that’s your problem. I think you can do better. But don’t you ruin this for me. I really like him.”
“You mean, you like ‘Big Brother’s’ connections.” I point at her expensive purse. “By the way, it’s pronounced Loo-ey Vee-tawn.” Her face twists, and she looks like she’s going to cry. I’ve pressed her button. Her dad didn’t always own his restaurant; he started out in the business as a dishwasher. “I’m really sorry. It’s just—”
“It’s just that you’re jealous,” she states flatly. “They chased your little boyfriend away and now you don’t want me to have any fun. Well, I’m sorry if they want me at the party and not you. Maybe we’re just too different. Maybe you’re not my best friend after all. Maybe you’re nothing.” She steels herself for a fight. The defiant set of her chin makes me think of her mahjongg partners.
It’s the liquor talking, I tell myself. I imagine what would happen if she were to go with them to the Tulip. Peter Wong and the drunk, sexy, teenaged daughter of his business associate. Algebra shooting invisible bullets with his thumb and forefinger. I imagine her beautiful hair splayed out across a dirty, beer-soaked stage.
With a grace worthy of a professional athlete, I reach under her arms and tickle her. At first she looks at me as if I’ve gone crazy, but as she begins to giggle she realizes what I’m doing, and her laughter turns intense, and then furious. She tries to fend me off but she’s too drunk and I’m too quick, having trained myself since childhood to know her weak spot. Laughing and sputtering uncontrollably, she can’t even turn away from Peter when a stream of vomit erupts from her mouth and all over his Bruno Magli shoes. The look on Peter’s face as he studies his sopping shoes, before he turns and walks away, says it all.
The party is over.
CRAZY JILL SAVES THE SLINKY
BY STEPHEN SOLOMITA
College Point
When the over-muscled hulk in the studded leather jeans smacks the fat guy in the polka dot sundress, the eight patrol officers gathered around the small TV in the muster room cheer loudly. The body builder is a prostitute, the fat guy a prominent New York politician. The video is evidence discovered in the apartment of an extortionist.
Groans and cat calls greet the white guy’s flabby thighs and flaccid penis when the hulk tears off his dress. When the fat guy turns to reveal a cotton-white ass the size of a watermelon, the boys nearly fall off their chairs.
I’m the only woman in the room, Officer Jill Kelly, and I feel sorry for the fat slob in the dress. I wonder what it’s like to be a City Councilman, a Catholic, a husband, a father, a transvestite in a hotel room with a leather boy. The truth is that I can smell his desperation. The truth is that some cop’s gonna leak the tape and the fat guy’s life is gonna drop out from under him like a body through the trap door of a gallows.
“Jill? The captain wants to see you.”
“Thanks, Crowley. I need to get away from this.”
Bushy enough to conceal small game, Sergeant Crowley’s eyebrows rise to form lush semicircles as he jerks his chin at the TV. “I woulda predicted this was right up your alley.”
* * *
Captain McMullen’s office is another world altogether, a quiet, clean world-unto-itself. Instead of peeling green paint, the captain’s walls are lined with expensive paneling. Instead of scuffed linoleum, his floor is covered by a Berber carpet flecked with beige and gold. His walnut desk is big enough to land helicopter gunships.
I close the door behind me, shut out the squeals of the fat politician, the mindless comments of my peers. Captain McMullen is nowhere to be found, but the man seated behind his desk is very familiar.
“Whadaya say, Uncle Mike?”
Deputy Chief Michael Xavier Kelly offers a thin smile. He has a very narrow face with a prominent jaw that dominates veal-thin lips, a button of a nose, and blue glittery eyes that rarely blink. Uncle Mike is Deputy Chief of Detectives and heads the Commissioner’s Special Investigations Unit, an attack-dog bureau far more terrifying to ranking officers than Internal Affairs.
“Jill Kelly,” Uncle Mike squawks, “in the flesh.” Thirty-one years ago, as a rookie on foot patrol, Uncle Mike took a bullet that passed from left to right through his neck. Now he can’t raise his voice above a hoarse whisper. “Take a seat, Jill. Please.”
I do as I’m told. “So, how’s Aunt Rose? And Sean?”
“Fine, fine.” Uncle Mike walks his fingers across the desk and over a bulging file. “I hear the boys have taken to calling you Crazy Jill.”
“I consider it a compliment.”
My admission evokes a raspy laugh, immediately followed by the most somber expression in his repertoire. “I came here for a reason,” he announces. “Tell me, do you believe in redemption?”
Ah, right to the point. I was a naughty girl, a girl in need of punishment, but now I can make it up. Just do Uncle Mike this unnamed little favor—which will not turn out to be little—and retrieve my working life. Uncle Mike will pluck me out of the 75th Precinct in the asshole of Brooklyn. He’ll restore me to the Fugitive Apprehension Squad and the SWAT team. I only have to do this one little favor.
* * *
It was last August and blazing hot. I was in an uninsulated attic, looking out through a window at the house across the way. The man in the house, George Musgrove, had butchered his ex-wife, then taken his three children hostage, naturally threatening to kill them as well. At the time, I was part of a SWAT team assigned to eastern Queens, a sniper, and my orders were to acquire a target a.s.a.p., then notify the boss. The first part wasn’t a problem. When I came into the attic, George was standing in a bedroom window, completely exposed. He wanted out by then, but didn’t have the balls to kill himself. That’s what I figured, anyway. Just another suicide-by-cop.
I had my partner call down to the CO and explain that I was thirty yards away with a clear target, and that I couldn’t miss. But Captain Ed McMullan—known to his troops as Egg McMuffin—turned me down flat. The hostage negotiator, he told my partner, was confident. Musgrove would be talked out eventually. There would be no further loss of life.
All through this back-and-forth, Musgrove stayed right there, right in front of the window with a cordless phone pressed to his ear. And I started thinking, Yeah, most likely he’ll give it up without hurting the kids. Maybe even nine out of ten times he’ll surrender. But when you consider what happens if he ends up in the wrong ten percent, a hundred percent is a lot better than ninety. I was in a position to guarantee those kids would survive and I exercised my options.
If Uncle Mike hadn’t intervened, I would have been charged with disobeying a direct order, and might have faced criminal charges. But that was Uncle Mike’s way. Clan Kelly first became prominent in the NYPD a hundred years ago, when Teddy Roosevelt was Acting Commissioner. Clan Kelly is still prominent today. This was especially relevant to Uncle Mike, who fully expected to become the next Chief of Detectives. Obviously, the Kelly name could not be besmirched. We were a self-policing family and a Kelly could be punished only by another Kelly. Thus, at Uncle Mike’s behest, my gold shield was taken away and I was exiled to the Seven-Five, there to languish until he needed a favor.
New York City Noir Page 98
