Neptune Avenue

by Gabriel Cohen

  He realized, lying next to her after, that he usually just thought of his body as a hollow shell, a vehicle for moving his mind from one place to another as he worked. He fed it, he slept, he felt himself slowly age, yet his flesh was of little importance to him. But this woman had the power to return him to himself, to help him feel a richness of sensation again, a powerful connection to the living world. He almost shivered with a realization: it was more than that—he was not just passionate about the sex. Something seemed to be happening that he had given up hope of ever experiencing again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE NEXT DAY, JACK left Linda Vargas to her pursuit of the Lelo case, while he spent another fruitless morning pursuing his Crown Heights murder. (The thought of Semyon Balakutis messing with the fish company manager riled him up, but the possibility of another dead girl turning up seemed more urgent.)

  The average murder was committed within a social network. There were dis murders (homeboys who shot each other over some stupid slight); turf murders (drug dealers fighting over corner sales spots); and the increasingly popular “I loved her so much I had to kill her” crimes. In most of these cases, the victims knew the perps, and the vics often had criminal records themselves, and there was often someone involved with a powerful motivation to snitch. There were witnesses, or the killers were dumb enough to brag about their deeds. The problem in this case was that no one would go around bragging that he had killed due to his own sexual inadequacy. The Crown Heights killer had chosen private crime scenes, and his victims might be totally outside his normal circles.

  Jack’s discussions with Kyle kept popping into his mind, and he couldn’t help wondering if the Crown Heights assailant was Jewish, and how the answer would play out on the streets and in the press. He shook his head: this was a pointless line of thought—he just needed to follow the evidence and make sure he nailed the right guy.

  A great deal of work had already been expended. All of the neighbors near the crack house and the community garden had been canvassed, without a single witness coming forward. No common thread had been found in the lives of the two victims. Jack had even had someone at the DMV look up recent traffic-enforcement activity near the crime scenes. (He was thinking about how, back in 1977, the Son of Sam had been caught due to a traffic ticket.)

  He thought about Shantel Williams’s last minutes, that night in the garden. The girl had been seriously intoxicated; he hoped, for her sake, that she had not known that anything bad was going to happen until the last possible minute. It had been a moonlit night. He imagined her stumbling down the garden path, past plants shining in the silvery light, with someone at her side. Someone who didn’t inspire fear or a wish to flee … Someone she knew? Someone she felt comfortable with? There had been no eyewitness reports about her entry into the garden; he needed another angle.

  The beaver fur still seemed like it might provide the answer. He could have easily imagined the perp wearing a fur coat or jacket if it had been winter, but the temperature had been in the seventies or eighties every night for the past couple of weeks, and such attire would have stood out to even the most casual passersby. The fur seemed to suggest a sort of bravado; it made sense, maybe, as a symptom of the man’s overcompensation for his sexual inadequacies. What could it have come off of, though? Jack smiled, sitting at his desk and thinking of seventies exploitation flicks, pimps strutting around wearing crazy outfits, fur-trimmed capes or fur hatbands or big hats trailing fur tassels. … Such attire wouldn’t play too well in today’s Crown Heights, though, especially in the solidly respectable neighborhood near the community garden.

  He ran “uses for beaver fur” through an Internet search engine and found some interesting commercial Web sites. One advertised beaver fur bedspreads and throws—again, not likely for summer use. Another offered a variety of other products made from the fur: a belt buckle, a saddle blanket, a fur-covered pen, car seat covers … He sat for a moment examining the accompanying photos. It was hard to imagine someone using the car-related product in hot weather—unless the car was always air-conditioned. He thought about vinyl car seats and how they could be brutally hot to the touch after sitting in direct summer sun. Would a fur cover make them feel hotter or cooler? He smiled again: Hell, beavers still wore the damn stuff during the summertime. He sat thinking about it for a few more minutes, and then he circulated a computer memo to patrol officers and traffic-enforcement agents working in the area, briefing them on the case and asking them to keep an eye out for anything unusual.

  BY THE TIME HE ended up in Zhenya’s apartment again, in the early evening, he was doubly grateful to be off duty.

  It didn’t matter if he was coming off an afternoon shift or an evening one; they were already settling into a routine. First, a kiss in the foyer, which usually led them straight back to the bedroom, followed by a cocktail out on the balcony, savoring the view of beach and sea, and then dinner, either prepared in her small kitchen or ordered in. (Normally, he would have enjoyed taking her out, but both had their reasons not to be seen together in Brighton Beach, and by the time he got to her place, he didn’t feel like driving elsewhere.) It didn’t matter; there was something magical about this bubble they had created together, and neither wanted to leave it. He had not invited her to his place yet; it was still haunted by his memories of Michelle. He supposed her place felt odd to her too, with Daniel’s clothes still in the closet and his shaving things in the bathroom cabinet, but she didn’t comment on it.

  Tonight she had convinced him to try sushi for the first time. She had ordered in, not from a Japanese restaurant, but a Russian place on Brighton Beach Avenue. (It made sense: these Russians were used to living in seaside towns, and they had always had a taste for fish, whether pickled, smoked, or fresh. Jack couldn’t help thinking of Daniel’s company in the Fulton Market, but the adventure and ritual of the meal—the pink scraps of ginger, the blast of green wasabi—distracted him.

  “Would you like another drink?” Zhenya asked, on the balcony, after. She sat with her bare feet up, arms around her knees.

  Jack set his glass on the little side table. “I’m good. In fact, I’m great. Thank you.”

  The beach and boardwalk were crowded below. Zhenya was staring at something way off and up. He followed her gaze out and found a kite hovering in the late day sky, its beribboned tail whipping in a stiff shore breeze.

  He watched Zhenya watch the kite. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t say much in general. In fact, he had never met a less talkative woman. It wasn’t just the language barrier. She didn’t seem to feel any need to tell him about the events of her day or ask him when his next day off was or anything. She was self-sufficient, like a cat that did as it pleased, that didn’t bother to try to ingratiate or assert itself. Sometimes he wished she would talk. The sex was great, but it occurred to him that it could also act as a substitute for conversation. He didn’t really want to discuss Daniel, but the topic was always there, lurking beneath the surface, and eventually they’d have to bring it up.

  Zhenya tucked a strand of fine blond hair behind her ear and licked her lips, dry from the sun and wind. What did he know about her? She was from a small town near Kiev—not far from where his own grandparents had been born, actually; she had shown him on a map. When he had asked about her parents, her voice became quiet and small. Her father, she said, had been sent away when she was a little girl.

  “For what?” he had asked.

  She shrugged. “He was a Jew. And he was not afraid to talk.”

  “He was a political prisoner?”

  She nodded, her face etched with pain. “When I am small, I am only allow to see him three or four times. The place where he is staying: very bad.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died in prison. Nineteen eighty-eight. He never was coming home, and he never saw end of Soviet Union. When my mother dies, five years ago, I have no reason to stay there.”

  She and Daniel had met just af
ter she arrived in the States, when she was working as a waitress in one of the boardwalk restaurants in Brighton Beach. Now she was thinking about taking courses at Brooklyn College, studying business, perhaps, or communications. She had even confided once, shyly, that she had thought of being a weather reporter on TV. She was young enough to see life as a field in front of her, open with possibility.

  He wondered how much she cared for him. It was funny: he had been skittish at first, once burned, twice shy and all. He had expected that he would soon feel a need to back away from his emotions, but the fact that she demanded so little of him left him continually intrigued, as if he was always leaning toward her.

  The kite traveled across the sky, and she followed it with her intense green eyes. He heard a shout down on the beach, and when he looked up again he saw that the kite’s string had snapped, and it was plunging around in wild circles over the beach. He followed it until the wind sent it careering around the corner of the condo development.

  They sat for a while in easy silence. Jack sighed with contentment as the day’s problems drained from his mind.

  Off to the west, the glowing orange orb of the sun seemed trapped in the spokes of Coney Island’s Wonder Wheel, and then it sank lower and disappeared below the horizon. The air grew cool as a soft mauve light settled over the beach and deepened in hue.

  He turned back to find that he had become the subject of her inquiring gaze.

  “May I ask a question?”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  She reached down and grasped her toes. “Semyon Balakutis—you will stop him?”

  He refrained from wincing. Talk about a mood spoiler … He nodded. “He’s smart—but not smart enough. I promise you: I’ll stop him.” He tensed. “Why? Has he bothered you?”

  She shook her head, but he was not entirely convinced. He stared at her, wondering if she had received any threats. “You’ll tell me if he calls or anything, right?”

  She nodded slightly but didn’t speak.

  LATER, HE LAY IN bed next to her, listening to her even breathing. Sleep eluded him—too many thoughts buzzing around inside his head again. He thought of Semyon Balakutis’s angry face—and Andrei Goguniv’s frightened one. He turned to Zhenya; she lay with her back to him, one bare, fragile shoulder exposed in the dim light. Don’t worry, he thought. I’ll take care of you. He was realizing what he had really missed: it wasn’t having someone to love him—it was having someone to love.

  He moved closer and slipped his arms around her. He held her for a moment, his hand resting against her belly. But then he started thinking about the smooth rise of her breast, and his hand moved north, as if by its own volition, and he was cupping the firm liquid weight of it, and he felt her nipple hardening into his palm.

  His heart started beating faster. Good grief, he had been prepared to slide into a sexually subdued middle age, but here he was, like a teenager again. Even so, he would have resisted the urge to wake her, but she arched back against him subtly, like a cat stretching, and he was emboldened to slip his hand down between her thighs, and he heard her breath catch and then its rhythm grew quick and eager.

  They stayed awake for hours.

  LATER, HE WAS HALF awakened by the sound of a cell phone, but it wasn’t his ringtone. The faint light in the room said early morning. He felt Zhenya slip out of bed and heard her pad across the floor. She picked up her phone and went out into the hall. He thought he detected some sort of surprise or unease in her voice as she answered, but she was speaking in Russian. She softly closed the bedroom door, and he was so tired that he dropped back into sleep. Soon he was deep into a dream.

  He was sitting in a little cabin of the Wonder Wheel, and Zhenya—excited—sat next to him. At ground level the noise of the amusement park was deafening, but as the wheel turned it lifted them above the chattering hordes, high above Coney Island. The beach expanded out to his left, dotted with thousands of half-naked sun worshipers, and the sea spread out to the curve of the horizon. He looked straight down. From above, the park resolved into a bright, orderly grid. As their car rose toward the top, 150 feet in the air, the din of the rides disappeared, giving way to the gentle whisper of a shoreline breeze. Twisting in his seat, he could look back at the Cyclone, cars full of tiny screaming patrons plunging down its slopes. Farther back, he could see the apartment towers of Brighton Beach. And then he turned back toward Zhenya, but somehow she had disappeared—and he was sitting in a huge underground cave with Daniel, and the man was rubbing his bald head, and warm water was pouring down from somewhere up above, and Daniel was trying to tell him something, but the sound of the rushing water was too loud—

  He woke to an empty bed.

  Groggy, he got up, wearing only his boxer shorts, and he looked for Zhenya in the other rooms of her apartment. He found a note on the kitchen counter. “Sory. I hav many erends today. Will call U later. xoxo, Z.”

  He remembered something about an early morning phone call but wondered if he had dreamt it. As he made himself a cup of coffee, he noticed that dirty dishes were piling up in the sink. Then he saw some Cheerios spilled on the little kitchen table, and a few on the floor. He was starting to realize something about Zhenya. She would slip out of her clothes by the side of the bed, and he was always happy to witness that, but then she might leave them puddled there for several days. Or she would finish painting her toenails and leave the polish bottle and dirty cotton swabs sitting by the side of the couch. Hell, it was her place, and Michelle had always teased him about his neatness, but still—he didn’t think it was neurotic to not want to see food left on the kitchen floor. And he had exaggerated her beauty. She was attractive, there was no doubt about that, but she wasn’t the perfect vision he had made her out to be in his first throes of desire. She had her physical flaws, just like everybody else, and a closet full of tacky clothing.

  He shook his head; he was just grumpy this morning. Seeing Zhenya’s little messes made him feel as if he were her father or something. Christ, he wasn’t that much older. … He refilled his coffee cup and slumped down at her table. What was he doing here? Was this some sort of midlife crisis? Next thing he knew, he’d be wearing designer jeans and dyeing his hair. He frowned. The girl was lovely, but what did they really have in common? Where did he think this could ultimately go? He scoffed at himself. He had been starting to think he was falling in love. Pah—it was just infatuation, pure and simple. He wanted some company, someone to eat dinner with, to watch a little TV with. He hoped to get laid now and then. And it was the same old stupid middle-aged-guy story: he wanted to be with someone young, with fresh skin and no wrinkles, someone who could help him ignore his own aging body.

  Over the years, he had seen so many people who had died suddenly, been shot, stabbed, strangled, electrocuted with radios thrown into their baths. But it wasn’t a gruesome death he was afraid of, no—it was growing old. Getting sick, becoming infirm, becoming helpless, being alone.

  Oh well, at least there was one bright side: he hadn’t abandoned some perfectly good wife in order to play out this little fantasy.

  He took a shower, briskly washing his body, as if scrubbing himself free from foolish notions.

  After, as he dressed, he picked up his cell phone from her bedside table and slipped it into his pants pocket—and felt a crinkly piece of paper that he didn’t remember putting there. He took it out and unfolded it. A note: I will mis you all day. Luv, Z.

  Big dope that he was, it made his heart light up all over again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “SEX CRIMES,” JACK SAID.

  “Huh?” Kyle Driscoll looked up from his desk, where he was busy eating a steak-and-cheese sub.

  “Our Crown Heights killer,” Jack said. “This guy didn’t go from having a little problem getting it up to suddenly going around murdering multiple victims. That’s like zooming from zero to sixty in two seconds. You gotta go through some gears first, and I would guess he’s got a record for more mino
r offenses. I’m betting sex crimes.”

  Kyle set down his sub. “I already went through all the convictions in this area in the last five years. And I cross-referenced for the ones that included attempted strangulation.”

  “You’ve been doing an excellent job,” Jack said, and he meant it. Despite their occasional touchy moments, he had grown to like the young detective and was proud of the way the man was handling his first homicide. But you could always dig deeper. “The thing is,” he said. “We’ve been looking for convictions. Maybe our guy was involved in a case that never got that far.” He was thinking about Semyon Balakutis and his trail of dropped charges.

  The other detective frowned. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but this case is turning into a real pain in the ass.”

  “C’mon,” Jack said, manufacturing enthusiasm. “Patience and perseverance made a bishop of His Reverence.”

  Kyle raised his eyebrows. “Kind of a strange motto for a guy with a name like Leightner.” But he raised his hands in surrender. “I know, I know: it’s all about the legwork.”

  “Tell you what,” Jack said. “You start calling cops in the neighboring precincts, and I’ll call everybody I know in the D.A.’s office.”

  FIVE HOURS LATER, THEY stood in a hallway of the Seventy-first Precinct House. Both men were excited, though Jack was too much the veteran to show it.

  “You ready?” he asked gravely. A lot might be riding on this interview; it didn’t happen every day that detectives could talk to one suspect about two different homicides. He straightened the knot of his tie, a pre-game tic. “Remember: let’s start things off nice and easy.”