Chinatown Angel

by A. E. Roman

  “I don’t keep a bank account. I keep my money in a sock. It’s not big but it’s clean.”

  “You’re joking?”

  “I wish. I don’t joke about socks.”

  “You will stop harassing my family,” she said, suddenly forceful. She shook a bony finger at me, like it was a wand, and pounded the bed with her frail fist. I actually felt sorry for her.

  “I already have stopped,” I said.

  “I’m not a fool, Mr. Santana,” she said. “My people tell me that you’ve been trying to get an audience with Irving Goldberg Jones in prison. That you were hanging about with Marcos in Central Park and at his home just the other night. Even after you were paid not to do so. Tiffany is back. The guilty have been punished. You will quit this silly investigation of yours!”

  Then she lowered her head and sat so still that for a minute I thought she had dropped dead. Silence. After a long moment, Mrs. Josephine Rivera looked up at me again.

  I didn’t know what to think until she said, “Benjamin is dead. I am glad he’s dead. We’re all better off. You already know that Benjamin had molested children. What more do you want?”

  So that was it. She wanted to convince me that even if Benjamin Rivera, as portrayed in Irving’s short stories, had been murdered, he deserved it. But what about Pilar? Did she deserve it, too? Not by a long shot.

  “Benjamin had dirty habits we didn’t know about,” Mrs. Rivera said. “He inherited those dirty habits from his father. He had servants and a thing for young Asian girls. Very young.”

  “What about Samuel Rivera?”

  “Samuel likes big girls, thank God. The point is: Benjamin is dead and no one cares, Chico. Nor should they.”

  She didn’t seem to know anything about her own husband’s “bad habits” or maybe she was just playing dumb.

  “You think Marcos killed Benjamin?” I blurted out.

  I hit a nerve. Her eyes popped and she went pale and I thought she was going to have a heart attack and quickly started running the lessons I learned in CPR through my head.

  “I did not say that,” she said. “No one has accused Marcos of anything.”

  “Why are you paying for Pilar’s funeral after she blackmailed you?”

  “It seems like an appropriate ending,” she said. “I want to see it finished with my own two eyes. And now it’s almost over and you’re mucking about kicking up dust. And don’t act as if all you ever cared about was that girl Pilar or that Irving boy or finding out the truth about Benjamin’s overdose. I know all about you, Mr. Santana. I am sorry that your father was a drug addict. Perhaps you see something in Benjamin because he was also a drug addict.”

  “Hold on, lady.”

  “Your father was a doctor who helped the poor, Mr. Santana. That was his saving grace. Benjamin had no saving graces. Benjamin was not your father. You will help no one by digging into Benjamin Rivera’s death.”

  Josephine Rivera gave me a sinister look. “Do you think I am sick and senile, Mr. Santana?”

  Josephine Rivera knew about my father’s drug addiction and death and God knows what else. I was investigating her family and she was investigating me. You wanna play hardball? Hardball it is.

  “What about Irving? You feel comfortable sending an innocent kid to prison for a murder he didn’t do?”

  “Mr. Goldberg Jones is getting the best representation money can buy. I have already arranged it. I am not a cruel woman, Mr. Santana. There will be leniency once the truth about Benjamin is revealed in court.”

  “What about Olga and Tiffany’s guns? The ones with the mother-of-pearl handles. They both got those guns from Marcos, right? I bet Marcos has one just like it somewhere.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Where is the VHS cassette from the Chinatown Angel surveillance camera?”

  She looked away. I’d hit another nerve.

  I hit harder: “I think you know or suspect the same thing I’m starting to suspect or you wouldn’t be giving me this story to suggest that Benjamin maybe deserved what he got because he molested your niece and I should feel sorry for the poor girl and take the money and shut up and just go away. Did Pilar find the VHS cassette, Mrs. Rivera? Was your son Marcos on that tape? Your son Marcos killing his uncle Benjamin in the Chinatown Angel?”

  Her face went cold and frantic and white as a snowstorm and she said, “You’re the detective, Mr. Santana. You’re the one who’s paid to deduce. Deduce. I’m just a sick old housewife.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Rivera.”

  “Will you stop your investigation?”

  I took a gold-wrapped chocolate. “Good night, Mrs. Rivera.”

  As I left, Mrs. Josephine Rivera said in a childish voice, “How much?”

  I kept walking.

  Money could do many things. But it couldn’t do everything. It could make murder go away, but maybe not. If I was smart, I would have taken more money and run. Why wasn’t I smart?

  That stuff about Benjamin being an addict and how that connected to my own father’s murder, that was some mumbo-jumbo, right? Right? Damn skippy. I took the elevator back down.

  But there was that lump in my throat again.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I ducked into the elevator and went up to the SoHo penthouse, ran down the carpeted hall and pushed open the door to Marcos’s apartment, which was always unlocked—a dare to anyone who would try and violate the sanctuary of Kirk Atlas. Considering Josephine Rivera’s worries, I decided to go in head first like a bull and see what broke.

  Marcos stood in the doorway leading out to the terrace, shirtless and sweaty, wearing red jogging pants, diamond-encrusted cross around his neck, holding a drink in one hand and a phone in the other. His hair was starting to grow in. It was black and sharp, sorta like a porcupine.

  “I don’t care what he wants,” Marcos yelled. “I’m negotiating with Sean Penn to appear in my next movie. Tell him I said he can go fuck himself!”

  Marcos hung up the phone. “What’s up, dude?”

  “I’m gonna give you a five count,” I said, looking down at him, accentuating my height and reach advantage. “And then I’m gonna give you a shot at that boxing match you wanted. And the only bells you’re gonna be hearing are the ones ringing in your head.”

  “Listen.” Marcos walked and reached into a drawer and pulled his .45 and laughed. “I could shoot you right now for trespassing.”

  “Where is the surveillance tape from the Chinatown Angel? The VHS cassette from the night your uncle Benjamin died?”

  “What?” said Marcos. “What are you talking about? What cassette? What is your problem, dude? You’re lucky I’m fond of you.”

  Either he didn’t know, or he was the great actor he believed he was. Someone entered from the master bedroom.

  Marcos turned. “Have you met Kathy?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We met earlier today.”

  Kathy, Josephine Rivera’s West Indian nurse, naked under a thin pink nightie, nodded, a bit ashamed, and turned to look out the wall-to-floor windows.

  “Show him the rock,” Marcos said.

  Kathy held up her left hand and showed a giant ring, not on her ring finger, without turning to face me. Not a diamond. Jade.

  “Did you think I got married, Chico? No way. It’s just a friendship ring. Right, Kathy? I’m done with Tiffany and all that mess. And no more Brazilians. Kathy got all that crap outta my system. I figure she saved me a couple of hundred grand in therapy.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks, dude. I mean that,” Marcos said, still holding the .45.

  He lowered the gun and went over and slapped Kathy’s behind. She flinched.

  “Who knew? Right, Kate?”

  Marcos took his new girl’s hand in his.

  “Who knew?” Kathy said and snatched her hand back.

  “Time of the month,” Marcos said and winked at me.

  Kathy didn’t react but kept her sad gaze on the river.
<
br />   The phone rang. Marcos picked up. “I’ll call you back, Mom. Yes. Kathy’s here. Yes. I’m happy. Yeah, Renata’s gone. Yes, I’ll try and be good to Kathy. No. Chico’s not here. Don’t worry about it. Yes. Yeah. Okay, okay. I love you, too! Bye!”

  Marcos hung up.

  “Where is the surveillance tape?” I said. “Why did you murder your uncle Benjamin?”

  Marcos looked at me with wide eyes.

  “Murder?” He lifted his .45 again. “I don’t know what your diagnosis is, dude, and I don’t care. I’ve been more than patient and generous with you. I like you but I don’t like you that much.”

  Marcos pointed the gun at my face. “Now leave, or I’ll add some decorations to your tree.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Have it your way,” Marcos said and started toward me, gun raised as if to hit me on the skull. I stood with my hands low, waiting for the assault. I had already been knocked out once on this case. One more time, and I’d have to turn in my private detective flashlight and matching key chain. Confusing action-hero fiction with fact, he lunged at me. Maybe that shit works in the movies, but I ducked and flipped him. I heard a loud thud when Atlas’s head hit the floor as if someone had slammed a melon against a drum. Even Kathy said, “Ouch.” He dropped the gun but got up. You almost had to admire his stupidity if not his lack of training.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Kathy yelled.

  Atlas charged at me again. I punched him two times with a hard right and tried to lay him out for good with a nasty chop to the head. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and a lot harder. Atlas fell back in a red rage and snatched the .45 off the floor and fired.

  “Marcos!” yelled Kathy.

  I felt nothing. I heard nothing. I saw nothing.

  “Chico?”

  Atlas and Kathy were staring at me like I was a ghost. I reached down and checked myself for holes. Nothing. I looked behind me.

  There was a crater the size of an elephant’s foot. Just above my head. Right between the Doomsday movie poster eyes of Kirk Atlas.

  “Dude,” Marcos said, in shock. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” I marched over to him, grabbed the .45, and hit him in the jaw. He slammed against a wall and slumped down to the floor. Kathy ran over and held him in her dark arms, rocking him like a baby, caressing his head, cooing, “It’s all right, honey. Everything’s gonna be all right. Kathy’s here. Kathy’s here.”

  “Benjamin Rivera,” I said. “You killed him.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Marcos.

  “Your uncle Benjamin was a molester.”

  Marcos held his bloody nose and yelled, “Why would I kill Benjamin for molesting Olga?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Olga Rivera returned to her apartment at the Arcadia West after spending most of the day at a place called the Bowery Poetry Club, reading and drinking coffee alone. She came back out of her building around 11 P.M. Freshened up and in different clothes. Strange fact, Olga Rivera left her apartment wearing a blond wig. I had not totally changed my mind about Kirk Atlas being guilty of murdering his uncle for love and profit but things didn’t make sense again (if Benjamin had not molested Tiffany) and all roads kept leading back to Olga.

  The small club was dimly lit. The kids were young. They danced or stood around talking in groups, sloppy drunk at two in the morning.

  If you gave the disc jockey a few dollars or paid for his drink, he would play your favorite song.

  I sat, sipped my White Russian, and watched the young dancers, feeling like the creepy old dude at the club who refused to accept that the days of the Hustle and the Macarena were over. I was watching her. I had been following her most of the day and then followed her to the nightclub. She was all skinny legs and hips stuffed into a tight, black, spaghetti-strap dress, no glasses, blond wig.

  A boy in sneakers and jeans threw himself down at her feet and snaked across the dance floor on his belly.

  As the music pumped away, I watched her shaking her groove thing, slapping her little hips, flailing her thin arms above the electric beer signs.

  When the music stopped, I decided to confront her and deliberately caught her eye. She saw me and wobbled toward my table. She was wearing green contacts.

  “Hello,” she slurred.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Dressing up,” Olga said. “Being silly.”

  “I hardly recognized you. Where’s Albert?”

  “I don’t know,” Olga said, adjusting her blond wig. “He broke up with me.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Why did he quit you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Olga said, gesturing to the dance floor. “This is my night. My own thing. What are you drinking?”

  “A White Russian.”

  Olga lifted my glass to her lips, drank, then said, “I’ll get you more.”

  “No. No more.”

  She put a hushing finger on my lips and walked unsteadily through the crowd toward the bar.

  She returned from the bar with two White Russians.

  “Drink,” she said.

  I drank, and she told me that she was there that night to forget, to laugh, to dance.

  “Let’s dance, Chico.”

  Olga dragged me to the floor, and I moved with the music. She felt good in my arms. When the music stopped I looked into her eyes and said, “Where’s the third story?”

  “Are you going to tell my parents on me?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “How much you’re willing to help me,” I said. “What can you tell me about Irving’s Chinatown Angel stories?”

  She sighed. “Is that what you want? The third Chinatown Angel story? What if I told you a better story? Would you leave me alone then?”

  On 62nd Street, we went through the revolving doors of the Arcadia West, past the doorman, into halls that reverberated with echoes that seemed to start even before you entered. The halls were a hive of vanilla doors and chocolate walls, clean and glossy.

  We got off the elevator and entered Olga’s apartment, and it was like walking into a roll of fresh bread—warm and homey, and the air was sweet.

  I’d already been there, but she didn’t know that and it’s not in my nature to search and tell.

  Olga opened her purse and took something out, something I couldn’t see. She turned to the right, and I saw it—her mother-of pearl-handled gun. She held it.

  “Do you always have that gun?” I said.

  “Not always. I was thinking of going to the shooting range on 23rd Street today.”

  “It is a dangerous city and you live alone now. Maybe you should have a gun. I’m just not so sure you should be carrying it around as much as you do.”

  “Why were you following me?” Olga asked.

  Note to self. Get better at following suspects.

  “I didn’t do it,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Kill my uncle Benjamin.”

  Olga sat down on the sofa and placed her thin hands over her eyes.

  “Irving’s stories are true. Am I wrong? I’ve seen two so far. What is the third story about?”

  Olga rubbed the top of her own head as if she were soothing a small child.

  “I wanna help Irving. He was your friend once. How did you come to find your uncle’s body?”

  “I was looking for Albert at the restaurant.”

  “Tell me everything, Olga. Now’s the time.”

  Olga took a crumpled letter off the coffee table. “I got accepted to Harvard Law School.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Olga said and gave a small cynical nod. “But I’m not going, I was only doing it for my parents. I’m going to be a poet. Tonight, I was nervous about Harvard, about my future. I couldn’t sleep. I called Albert so that he could come over and comfort me and he told me it was over. So I went dancing.”

  “Why did you attack Tiffa
ny that day in Chinatown?”

  “Because she deserved it,” she said.

  Olga removed her green contacts, dropped them on the floor, and put on her glasses. Her eyes looked like two black marbles in a fish tank.

  “Growing up Tiffany always had boys wrapped around her finger. She manipulates men. I hate her, she hates me.”

  “I don’t think she hates you. She’s your sister.”

  “Yes. She’s my sister. I loved her once, too. I don’t anymore. She never showed me any respect as an older sister. When she left, I was happy and I hoped she was happy wherever she went. But I was in no hurry to see her come back.”

  “Why?”

  “She was the center of everything in my family. That wasn’t good enough for her. She gets what she wants when she wants it. Always has.”

  “And you?”

  “I have Albert,” she said. “I had Albert.”

  “Did you have a boyfriend before Albert?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody you liked?”

  “I liked me. Albert was super-smart and down to earth and he liked me, too. So of course I liked him back. I wanted to expand my heart and mind in all directions and yet, for years, I cast my pearls before those spoiled rich swine at Dalton and Columbia. Then I met Albert at my uncle’s restaurant.”

  “What did you do with your pearls then?”

  “I cast them at someone who could appreciate them. I gave them to Albert.”

  “So he became your boyfriend?”

  “The best. The first. My Albert. Mine.”

  There was a steady sadness in her eyes. She was much too thin, but the eyes. They were determined eyes. Eyes like a camera. Maybe that’s what Albert loved.

  “Talk to me,” I said. “And maybe I can have a chat with Albert.”

  Olga dug out an asthma inhaler from her bag and took a pull on it. She looked at me.

  “How did Irving get those stories for his trilogy?” I asked. “Marcos told me that you were the one molested by Benjamin, not Tiffany. He told me that the family knew but kept quiet about it. Made Benjamin apologize and you accepted and all was forgiven.”

  Olga’s face was very still.