by Tim O'Mara
I looked at the card again. Edgar had penciled in the letters “wv” next to the plate number in question. I shook my head.
“Don’t you have to account for your time while you’re at work, Edgar?”
“Hey! I get more done before noon than most of those guys get done in the whole day. My supervisor knows that and leaves me alone.” He tapped the card. “You should get one of your buddies to run that plate.”
“Why would I want to embarrass myself like that?”
“You got two missing kids, a dead father, and a van doing surveillance outside the LKA of one of the kids. Why wouldn’t you want to run the plate?”
LKA. Last Known Address. Edgar loved that cop talk. If this conversation kept going, I was sure he’d work in BOLOs and APBs. I slipped the index card into my back pocket and said, “Thanks, Edgar. I’ll consider it.”
“Consider it?” I wasn’t taking him seriously enough. “Ray, if I were you, I’d—”
“Ask you to leave?” I warned. “I wouldn’t think of it. You’re on your best behavior, Edgar. Keep it up.”
“But…”
“Keep it up.”
The kid-at-the-carnival face disappeared and was replaced by the whatever-you-say-Dad look. I poured him a shot of Jack Daniel’s to ease the pain.
The door to the bar opened again, and Jack Knight filled the doorway. Just like that, the room grew darker. Damn, twice in two days. He had a case of Heineken under his arm and swung it on top of the bar. When he saw me on the other side, he leaned in for a closer look. His breath smelled as if he’d already started his celebrating.
“Well,” he said. “Found something you could do without hurting yourself?”
I ignored the shot and pushed the case of beer back at him. “You probably forgot bars have their own beer. That’s how they make money.”
“Didn’t know if this hellhole carried my brand, Teach. Whyn’t you just open me up one and put the rest on ice like a good boy?”
The people within earshot of our conversation stopped, listened, and waited for what I would say next. Neal O’Connor stepped out of nowhere and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Glad you could make it, Jack,” Neal said. “C’mon in the back and have a burger.”
“Soon as the teacher here serves me my beer,” Jack said, removing Neal’s hand by the middle finger and locking his eyes on mine. “I’m waiting.”
“I think Whack’s had enough, Neal,” I said. “Wouldn’t want him to take a nap while driving home.”
Jack leaned in again, quicker this time. “Nobody calls me that anymore, Raymond.”
“Maybe not to your face, Jack. But trust me…” I looked around the bar and then stage-whispered, “They do.”
“Still the wise-ass son of a bitch.” Jack pushed Neal away and made his way to the service station at the end of the bar. That’s where he bumped into Billy Morris.
“Problem, Jack?”
Jack looked at me and said, “Nothing I can’t handle, Billy.”
“Good, good. Glad to hear it. I can smell ya been drinking. Eaten yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Well, I can fix that. Where are those car keys I’ve heard so much about?”
“What?”
“The car keys. How’s about I trade ya a beer for them.”
“I got my own beer,” Jack said. “Just waiting on Raymond to give me one.”
Billy looked over to where I was standing and winked. “And he will. Soon as you give me those car keys, we’ll have ourselves a time.”
Jack looked at me and then at the crowd around him. After a few seconds of silence, Billy leaned into him and whispered in his ear. Jack smiled, reached into his pocket, and dropped his keys into Billy Morris’s outstretched hand. I popped open a Heineken and placed it on the bar, a few feet away from Jack.
“There ya go,” Billy said, slapping Jack on the shoulder. “No blood, no foul.”
Jack slithered over and grabbed his beer. He took a long sip and eyed me up and down. “We’ll talk later, Teach. Count on it.”
Billy spun Jack around and gave him a shove toward the back of the bar. He then came over to me. “Sorry about that, Ray.”
“You think that was a good idea, Bill? Inviting Jack?”
“You don’t exactly invite Jack to a party, Ray. He hears about it, and he comes. You wanna tell him he’s not invited?”
I thought about that for a bit. “He starts in again, he’s leaving.”
“He’ll be fine. I just gotta keep his keys away from him.”
“What’d you whisper in his ear, anyway?”
Billy grinned. “You want the exact words or an approximation?”
“Paraphrase it for me.”
“Told him not to waste his time with you. Now.” He slapped the bar. “You and I are having a drink.”
“I’m working.”
“You can’t pour and drink at the same time?”
I knew better than to argue with Billy. “Okay.” I reached into the ice and pulled out a longneck. Billy and I clinked our bottles and drank. “Thanks.”
“No prob. Hey, I heard about the two missing kids and their old man. The boy went to your school, didn’t he?”
“How’d you know that?”
Billy Morris shrugged.
“He’s one of mine,” I said. “I called in the body.”
“Crossed my mind that mighta been you in the papers. What’s the latest?”
“How much time you got?”
“Talk, son,” Billy said, pulling over an empty bar stool. “I am all ears.”
I got behind the bar and told Billy about my visit to Detective Royce, my trip upstate, and the hundred-dollar bill with Frankie’s handwriting on it I’d given to my uncle the day before.
“How’s the chief doing these days?” Billy asked.
“Same as always. He said he’d bring the bill to Royce. Then he chewed my butt off for getting too involved.”
“Sounds like Chief Donne. A steady diet of asses and other people’s balls.” Billy took another sip. “Tell him I said hey next time you see him.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really.” I remembered Edgar’s index card with the license plates on it and took it out of my pocket. “Well, maybe…”
“What?”
“How much would I be pushing it if I asked you to run a plate for me?”
Now he looked surprised. “You? Wouldn’t be a push at all. What’s up?”
I handed him the card. “That top one with ‘wv’ written next to it?” He nodded. “I’m kind of interested in who owns it.”
“And why would that be?”
“How about,” I said, “I tell you that I think it might have been involved in a ding-and-dent with one of the teachers I work with?”
Billy’s grin got bigger. “And how’s about I pretend to believe you but you tell me the real story later?”
“I can live with that.”
“Gimme your number, and I’ll call ya Monday.”
I pulled my newly charged cell phone out of my front pocket along with the slip of paper that had my new number on it. I read it off to Billy, who wrote it on the index card.
“Your memory going in your old age, Ray?”
“I just renewed it this morning. Got a two-year plan and a new number.”
“All right, then.” Billy shook his head and put the card into his pocket. “Going to Clemente and the Southside? Up to Highland? And now asking me to run a plate for a ‘friend.’” He rolled his shoulders and did a little juke with his hips. “You getting back in the game.”
“I’m not getting back into anything,” I said. “I’m just trying to help a kid.”
“Right.”
“You don’t know everything, Billy.”
“Well,” he said, “if there’s something I don’t know, I don’t know what it is.”
“You know, for a Brooklyn boy, you sound a lo
t like a country song.”
“Gimme a pickup truck and a banjo any day.”
Mikey was giving me his unhappy look, so I figured it was time to get back to work. I finished up my beer and offered Billy my hand.
“Thanks again, man,” I said. “I appreciate your help.”
“Son, this don’t come close to paying you back. I still owe you huge.”
“Don’t start. I appreciate your help. Leave it at that.”
“Whatever you say. But I know what I know.”
“I’ll see you before I head out.”
“What? You got a date or something?”
My turn to grin. “Something.”
“Oooh wee! That’s my boy. Back in the game.”
Billy Morris knows everything.
“See ya, Billy,” I said and headed down to the other end of the bar, where Edgar sat with an empty pint glass. When I filled it, I saw that his happy face had returned. “What?” I asked.
Edgar shrugged. “Nothing. I just saw you hand the license plate number to your good buddy, Billy Morris. Guess I wasn’t as far off as you thought, huh?”
“All right, Edgar. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. I’m betting it doesn’t. But you do not do anything like that again. I keep telling you, this is not some TV show.” I realized I was sounding like my uncle. “Got it?”
“I got it, Ray.” His smile grew bigger. “Just happy to be of service.”
“You are this close, Edgar.” I showed him a quarter-inch of space between my thumb and forefinger. “This close.”
“You know,” Edgar said. “If things jumped off over there—with that Jack guy?—I want you to know, I had your back.”
“That’s what kept me going, Edgar.”
“Just saying, is all.”
“Right.”
During the next two hours, I served a few hundred adult beverages and cleaned the same number of glasses. I met a few more guys I used to know, and Billy did a good job of keeping Jack away from the bar area. By the time I was able to take a breath, I looked up at the clock. Nearly four. I needed some real air and told Mikey I’d be stepping outside for a bit.
The Saturday traffic buzzed past the weekend construction work on the BQE above me. By the time they finished the present round of construction up there, it would be time to start the next one. Some guys probably put their entire thirty years in on one stretch of road. Working their whole lives rebuilding a ten-mile-long piece of highway, handing the job down to their kids, and starting the whole cycle over again.
I found a spot in the shade and used a bike rack next to a row of garbage cans to do some stretches. My knees were aching from the hours of standing and bending behind the bar. It felt good to let the blood flow. I was halfway through a thirty-second runner’s stretch, when a voice behind me said, “Did you finish early?”
I turned and saw Elsa. She had on a white sundress. With the sun behind her and a slight breeze blowing through the dress, she was a mirage, and I was a man dying of thirst.
“No,” I said, slowly lowering my leg to the ground. “I just needed some air.”
She looked up at the hazy sky. “Out here?”
“Different air. I expected you at six.”
“I finished my reading and thought it would be interesting to see how the police party. Research for my final paper.”
“Paper?”
“For my Abnormal Psychology class.”
I laughed. “That’s good.”
She looked at the front door of the bar. “Would you like to buy me a drink?”
“Absolutely.”
The air inside The LineUp felt better than it had before. Maybe it was the heat outside. Maybe it was Elsa. I got back behind the bar. She was standing next to Edgar, who was trying not to breathe too hard.
“Edgar,” I said. “This is Elsa.”
Edgar offered his hand. “Edgar Martinez O’Brien.”
“Elsa.”
“Edgar was just about to offer you his seat.”
Edgar practically jumped off of his stool and made a big gesture of wiping it off and displaying it for Elsa.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said, eyes on me. “I insist.”
Elsa slid into the seat as I asked, “What’ll you have?”
“Cuervo Margarita,” she said without pause. “Frozen. No salt.”
I shook my head and grinned.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. That’s the third time in five minutes that you’ve surprised me.”
She put on a serious face. “Do I look like the Shirley Temple type?”
Not in that dress.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just … I don’t … Let me get that margarita for you.”
Along the way to the other end of the bar, I opened a few Buds and poured three pints. By the time I brought Elsa’s drink to her, she was engaged in a deep conversation with Edgar. Edgar said something I couldn’t hear, and Elsa threw her head back in laughter.
“What’d I miss?” I asked.
Elsa thanked me for the margarita and took a sip. “Edgar was just telling me a story about his work. A conversation he overheard.”
“Overheard or eavesdropped on?”
Edgar got defensive. “I may have … accidentally … tapped into the wrong line. It’s easy to make a mistake with all those wires.”
“And so hard not to listen after you … accidentally tap into the wrong line.” I thought about Edgar’s trick earlier in the week with the cell phone. “Edgar,” I said, “is a bit of a techie.”
“Techie?”
“A high-end nosybody.”
“And Raymond,” Edgar said, catching the look on my face, “is one heck of a guy.”
“Yes,” Elsa agreed, her eyes resting just above the rim of her margarita glass as she took another sip. “He seems to be.”
“Is this the ‘something’ you mentioned earlier?”
“Billy,” I said, turning to the voice. “Didn’t see you there.”
“I’ve added stealth to my long list of admirable qualities.” Billy raised Elsa’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Billy Morris, ma’am.”
“Elsa Ramos.”
“Raymond hinted that he had someone coming by, but he neglected to elaborate.”
Edgar stuck out his hand. “Billy. How are ya? Edgar Martinez O’Brien.”
“Nice to meet ya, Edgar.” Billy studied Edgar’s eager face for a few beats and said, “We know each other?”
“No, no,” Edgar said and cleared his throat. “I’m a friend of Raymond’s.”
“Then we know each other now.” Billy looked from Edgar to me and asked, “You guys work together?”
“Not yet,” Edgar said.
“No,” I corrected. “Edgar is … just a friend.”
“Just a … I gave Ray those—”
“Who was just thinking about leaving,” I said.
Billy clapped Edgar on the neck. “Ahh. Too early for that. We’re just getting started.”
“Yeah, Ray,” Edgar said. “We’re just getting started.”
“We,” Elsa jumped in, “have dinner reservations for six o’clock.”
“Yes,” I said. I looked around the bar and over to the food table. “Things seem to be under control. Maybe we should think about heading out.”
“You gonna leave my Q early? You know the rules, son.”
I gestured with my eyes at Elsa. “Sometimes we gotta break the rules, Billy. Based on … exigent circumstances.”
“I hear that,” Billy said and took a deep breath. “Don’t mean I gotta like it. Mrs. Mac needs, I can always jump behind the bar for a spell. But we are going to get together soon. You gotta come over and see the new digs.” He placed his hand on Elsa’s back. “Maybe you can bring a friend. Or something.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“And I’ll do my best about that other thing,” he said. “The van plates.”
I grabbed my umbrella and explained to Mikey that I had to leave. Before he could argue, I walked out from behind the bar. I said a few quick good-byes and made it over to where Elsa, Billy, and Edgar were. Billy gave me another hug.
“Take care of yourself, son.”
“You, too, Billy.”
Elsa took my hand and said, “It was nice meeting you both.”
“You, too.”
“Same here, Elsa.”
I told Edgar to make my apologies to Mrs. McVernon and escorted Elsa out of the bar into the hot Brooklyn air.
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what?”
“For the six o’clock reservation idea. I haven’t been around those guys for a long time. I forgot how exhausting they can be.”
Elsa smiled. “I am … something, aren’t I?”
“All right. That was just something I told Billy,” I explained. She gave me a blank look. “He asked if I had a date, and I didn’t know what to call it so…”
“I understand. Really.”
“Good. The restaurant’s only a few blocks away. I figured we could walk it, and then I can get you a car service back to your place.”
“We’ll see.” She took me by the hand again. “We’ll see.”
I found myself liking the tone of her voice the more she spoke. Asking her to dinner had been a good idea.
“Hey, Teach!”
I tightened my grip on Elsa’s hand and picked up the pace a little.
“You gone deaf?”
I stopped and turned. Jack Knight had a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other.
“Go back inside, Jack,” I said.
He took a few steps closer and said, “You ain’t gonna introduce me to your friend?” He squinted at Elsa. “You datin’ civilians now, huh? That figures.”
To Jack, any member of the nonwhite, noncop population was a “civilian.” It was a much more acceptable word in public than “nigger” or “spic.”
“Go back inside, Jack.”
“Your boyfriend tell ya what a great and honorable policeman he was, Missy?”
“I was hoping to hear about it over dinner.”
“Ouch,” Jack said. “She speaka the English real smooth there. She do the horizontal mambo the same way?”
I let go of Elsa’s hand and stepped in front of her. She held on to my elbow as I said, “Watch your mouth in front of the lady, Jack.”
