“Will you listen to this guy, Dwyer? He’s chock-full of ifs, might-haves, and maybes. He’s also chock-full of shit.”
I didn’t react.
Dwyer, who had been eyeballing me, picked up the conversation. “And it was pretty convenient for you not to mention that one of those men on the stoop having a conversation with Ivanovich was a coworker of yours, Slava Podalak.”
“And you know this how?”
“Listen, asshole, we ask the questions,” Narvaez said, bumping me with his chest, trying to get me to take a swing at him.
“Stop with the bullshit, Narvaez.” I decided to beat him at his own game. “Real brave with that shield in your pocket, huh? If I ever hit you, you wouldn’t get up. Try me sometime when you can’t use that shield and your female partner to protect you.”
That did it.
“Any time, motherfucka,” he screamed, ripping his jacket off and tossing his shield case onto the ground.
Dwyer rolled her eyes and stepped between us, her back to me. She put her hands on Narvaez’s shoulders and pushed him back.
“Calm the fuck down, Richie. You’re embarrassing yourself and it’s not helping anything.”
“Don’t do that, Dwyer,” I prodded. “The neighbors want a good show. I wonder how many of them would be willing to report your partner for taking a swing at me. Come on, let him. It’s what he wants, and then I can kick the shit out of him.”
She turned her head and said, “You, shut the fuck up and get back by your car. Now!”
I complied happily, having changed the subject.
Dwyer didn’t look half as pleased as she approached. Apparently, she’d convinced Narvaez to stay where he was and to leave the rest to her.
“You’re not gonna do that to me, Murphy. I’m not a hothead and I don’t get distracted. So I’m going to ask you again, why didn’t you tell us that there was a conversation going on on the stoop prior to the homicide?”
“You’re a detective, Dwyer. You know how it works. Were you taught to volunteer answers to questions that aren’t asked? Were you taught to expand on your answers or were you taught to answer specifically only what you were asked? But look, forget that. Let me save us both and your asshole partner some trouble. I’m going to tell you a few things, but once I do I’m not going to answer any more questions without a lawyer present. I will tell you that I do know Slava Podalak. We do work together on the night shift at the Paragon Hotel. We even have a meal together every now and then. He told me he was going to Poland to attend a relative’s funeral. Is that last part true? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I can tell you I have no idea where he is if he’s not in Warsaw. Now, I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me how you got Slava’s name in the first place?”
She made a face and shook her head. “Afraid not. And just to let you know, Murphy, this is getting more serious by the minute for you and your pal Mr. Podalak.”
“How so?”
“Because the list of victims is growing. Last night we fished a floater out of Sheepshead Bay. His balls and cock were cut off and shoved down his throat. They taped his mouth shut with an entire roll of duct tape. ME says it was done while he was still alive. ME also says that probably wasn’t the worst of what was done to him. Apparently the guy had more broken bones than unbroken ones, and I won’t even describe how his skin was flayed off parts of him.”
“Who was the vic?”
“According to the papers we found on him, Mikel Borovski. Here,” she said. “He don’t look so good, but at least he wasn’t in the water very long. A day, maybe. They wanted us to find him. Didn’t cut his lungs or stomach. Didn’t weight him down.”
“How do you know he’s connected to the first vic, Ivanovich?”
She didn’t answer, just smiled at me.
“Oh, I get it,” I said, answering my own question, “the same way you got Slava’s name. Someone’s feeding you guys information.”
She reached into her jacket pocket and came out holding a photograph. “It’s Borovski. Do you recognize him?”
I did, even after the way he’d been abused. It was Slava’s friend Michael Smith, Mikel, the man I’d picked up from MacArthur.
“Sorry.” I handed the photo back. “Never saw him before.”
“Funny thing is we found a credit card receipt in his wallet from the Paragon Hotel, that dump you work at. Receipt was for a Michael Smith. That jog your memory any?”
I shook my head. “If he was in the water, how’d you find all this stuff intact?”
“Because the fuckers who killed him wanted us to find this stuff the same way they wanted us to find him. They wrapped his wallet and papers in a plastic bag. They’re sending somebody a message. Want to hear something weird?”
“Sure, since you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“He was a cop in Russia, or at least he used to be. Along with his fake credit card and papers we found his badge and ID. These Russians are sick bastards. They aren’t fucking around here, Murphy. Give us Podalak and we can protect him. And if I was you, I’d think about getting some protection for myself. The only rulebook these guys play by is that there are no rules.”
I was churning inside, but I made sure not to react. All I said was, “Can I give you and Narvaez a lift back?”
“How sweet of you to ask, but we’ll manage,” she said, and gave me the finger. “Go find that lawyer you keep talking about. You’ll need him. We’ll be in touch.”
Dwyer turned and walked back toward her partner. I got in my car and split before Dwyer had second thoughts about letting me leave.
On the ride home to the island, I put in a call to Alvaro Peña, gave him the tag number from the white Dodge van, and asked him to run the plate for me. He was quiet for a few seconds, his gears turning, deciding if he wanted to ask me what it was about. He decided not to ask. Smart man.
29
(THURSDAY AFTERNOON)
I had time to think as I drove east along the Belt Parkway, the sun behind me and big jet after big jet paralleling my course along Jamaica Bay as they headed to the runways at JFK. We didn’t get big jets at MacArthur, 737s mostly, some commuter turboprops, and weekenders in their single-engine Cessnas. I guess when they built MacArthur they thought it would be a natural to take the spillover from Kennedy and LaGuardia. We were still waiting at MacArthur for the crumbs. That’s why the Bonackers had bought the Paragon in the first place. They heard that Southwest was going to go big-time at MacArthur and that JetBlue was this close to moving some of their flights over from JFK. But all that promise turned out to be what much of life is made of, false hopes and fever dreams. It was kind of like how people think of Long Island. They dream of the Hamptons and the Gold Coast, Fire Island and wine country, but what they get is Ronkonkoma, Middle Island, and Mastic Beach. Not awful places, just not anybody’s dream.
I considered trying to have Bill rearrange things so I could meet with Brother Vassily before my shift, but when I noticed Maggie’s condo complex looming ahead of me as I turned off the Cross Island onto the Northern State, I changed my mind. I had to clear the air with her and I wanted to make sure she was okay. I didn’t like that we hadn’t spoken since the other night, which was as much my doing as hers. It was just really hard for me, harder than I ever would have believed, to think of my life without her in it even if it was for only a few months. Four months ago, we were still just feeling our way around each other, trying each other on for size. I don’t think either one of us saw love coming. Does anyone ever?
There was an African-American woman at the security gate, a square badge I’d never seen at the complex before. That was good and bad. It meant I wouldn’t have to deal with the snarky asshole who was always at the gate, but at least he recognized me and didn’t make me go through the whole song and dance to get in. I gave the woman my name and told her who I was there to see, her build
ing and apartment number. She told me to hold on, that she’d have to call up to get clearance. I’d wanted to surprise Maggie, but maybe it was better this way.
“Okay, mister, go on ahead. Do you know where to park?” she asked, the gate raising up in front of me.
“I do, thanks.”
Maggie was waiting by the door, a wary look on her face. She looked tired, her hair was a mess, and her face was free of any makeup. The call from security must’ve woken her up. Pulling the door back to let me in, she said, “I don’t want to fight.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why?”
“Because I love you. Because I don’t like that we haven’t spoken. Because I don’t like how we left things.”
“You were the one who walked out of here, Gus, when I asked you to stay.” Maggie headed for the kitchen. I followed. “You want something to drink?”
“Glass of red wine?”
She poured the last few ounces of cabernet in the bottle into a stemless glass, handed it to me, and poured herself a few fingers of scotch. We raised our glasses to each other and drank with no joy. I put my empty glass in the sink and rinsed it. She lit a cigarette, arched her neck up, and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. I loved when she turned her head up that way.
“I know I was the one who left, but what’s the expression they use now, I needed time to process it?”
“Have you . . . processed it?” she asked, more than a little sarcasm in her voice, and then gunned down her scotch. She took a long drag on her cigarette and tossed it into the sink. It hissed when it hit a few stray drops of water.
“I think so. I was happy—am happy—you got the part. Nobody’s prouder of you than me. I just wasn’t prepared for you to go and to be gone for so long. I made assumptions I shouldn’t have made based on things I really hadn’t thought through. You can understand that, right?”
“I’ve been burned a lot in my life, Gus.” Maggie poured herself another. “I’ve let myself be used by men too many times. My ex used up everything I had in the tank so that I was running on fumes by the time we were through. I need someone who is on my side.”
I knew that when she brought up her ex, it was serious. She never brought him up. I used to think that was because we had a rule about harping on our exes. Nothing is less attractive than bitterness. Then I thought it was for my benefit, but really it was for hers. Whenever he came up, she relived the pain more than a little bit.
“No one has ever been more on your side than me, Magdalena. No one. Ever. I fucked up the other night. I’m sorry. I know I was being selfish. I guess I came here to say that. I don’t want to lose you and your going . . . when you told me . . . it felt like I was losing you.”
She came to stand by me, put her glass down on the counter, and laid her head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and we melted into each other. I raised my hand up and stroked her hair. We stood there like that, with no need to speak, for a good five minutes.
“Can we go lay down?” she said. “I worked last night and didn’t get home until ten this morning.”
“Sure.”
We walked into the bedroom and arranged ourselves in bed much as we had while upright in the kitchen. There were times when long, silent embraces were more powerful than any spoken declarations of love. She fell asleep in my arms and I guess I nodded off for a little while there myself. When I opened my eyes I checked my watch. Time to go. I gently rolled her onto her side, sliding my arm out from beneath her.
She was awake when I came out of the bathroom. I told her I had to get to work.
“I know, Gus,” she said, lingering sleepiness slurring her words.
I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Then it occurred to me that I’d been rude and hadn’t asked her about last night’s job. We always talked about her jobs. “Where’d you work last night?”
“A private party on . . .” She yawned and stretched. “A private party on a huge yacht in the Hudson. Paid great, amazing tips. Gave me a cushion for when I’m on the road. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“Don’t be silly, Maggie.” I sat down on the bed beside her. “We can’t pretend about that. Let’s enjoy the time before you go, okay? So whose big yacht was this?”
She shrugged. “Some super-rich Russian guy.”
I went cold and rigid. Maggie noticed.
“What is it, Gus?”
I lied and changed the subject, sort of. “Nothing. Listen, I’m thinking of taking some time off before you go. How about we spend our nights together. You can come stay with me at the hotel or I can come stay here. We’ll go to the movies. I’ll even go to the theater with you.”
She laughed at me and pressed her hand to my forehead. “You have a fever or something? You hate the theater.”
I ignored the question but faked a smile. “What do you say? We can make a week of it and you can come work a case with me.” I explained about Linh Trang and Micah Spears. I didn’t mention a word about Slava or the very dead Goran Ivanovich.
“Let me think about it. I have a lot to get ready before I go.”
“Sure.”
I kissed her hard on the mouth. “I love you, Magdalena.”
As I drove out of the complex, the square badge smiled at me, winked, and waved me past, but I stopped.
“What is it”—she looked down at her sign-in sheet—“Mr. Murphy?”
“The guy who’s always here, the guy you replaced, what happened to him?”
“I hear he’s in the hospital over at Long Island Jewish.”
LIJ was just down the road from Maggie’s condo.
“He have a heart attack or something?”
“Nah, it wasn’t like that,” she said. “Some big Russian guy beat the piss outta him when he refused to let him through. That ain’t gonna happen to me.” She lifted up the right side of her tunic and showed me a nine holstered on her hip. “I worked Rikers for twenty years. That’s why they put me on the gate.”
I was only half conscious of the words she was saying to me. Between the Russian’s yacht and the beating at the gate, there was just too much coincidence going around to suit me. I tried Slava’s phone again.
30
(THURSDAY AFTERNOON, LATE)
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as inheriting friendship, but I had. Smudge was a spidery little man, an ex-con with every reason in his heart to despise the universe or God or happenstance, to hate whatever conspiracy of circumstance had led to his fate. He’d had botched surgery to his pronounced harelip, which, in a perverse way, served to draw attention away from the muddy, silver dollar–sized birthmark nestled between his right ear and cheek. The muddy birthmark was where the name Smudge had come from. But the cruelest thing of all about him was his born ugliness. The harelip and birthmark were like bad icing and a rotted cherry atop an already ruined cake. And if all that wasn’t quite harsh enough, he spoke in a nasal voice with a lisp so that when he said his name it came out as Thmudge. Yet in spite of the avalanche of karmic shit that had buried him beneath it, Smudge had faith. The kind of faith that was even the envy of Bill Kilkenny.
“Christ in heaven, if there was ever a man to turn his back on God, it would be that poor ugly little fella,” Bill had once said to me. “If I’d half his faith, I think I could have changed the world.”
Although Bill had left the church behind him after the rediscovery of his own faith, he had taken to attending Mass with Smudge about once a week. For his part, Smudge went to morning Mass every day. With Bill’s help, Smudge had landed a part-time job with a Catholic charity, delivering meals to elderly shut-ins. With the public assistance and food stamps he received, it was enough to keep his head about water, barely. And when I could, I got him odd jobs. He was a pretty re
sourceful guy.
“Hey, Guth,” Smudge said, opening the door to his Copiague apartment. He gave me what passed for a smile. “Come on in.”
Copiague was a bit of a dodgy town next door to Amityville—yes, that Amityville—not too far east of Massapequa. But Smudge could deal with dodgy and dangerous. He had a lifetime of dealing with it. Maybe that’s why he was such a resourceful SOB. He was used to dingy, too, always living quietly at the fringes. That kind of explained the affinity he and Bill had for each other. Both were used to having very little and living at the edges of where most of the rest of us lived.
“Hey, yourself,” I said, patting him on the shoulder, stepping into the little studio apartment above somebody’s garage.
“Can I get you a can of soda or water?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Sit down.”
There wasn’t much to choose from in terms of seating. Just a Salvation Army couch and a wobbly office chair that was now more duct tape than Naugahyde. I went for the couch. I looked around the place. There were piles of used paperbacks all over the place. The paneling was warped and bulged on either side of the crucifix hanging precariously in the center of the longest wall. The linoleum floor was shiny from wear, not from wax, and the place smelled of mold and neglect. Like I said, Smudge was used to dingy. Compared to prison, this was the good life.
He’d done a bid. That was where he’d met Tommy Delcamino, the man from whom I had inherited Smudge’s friendship. In fact, the only photograph in the place was a framed shot of Smudge and Tommy D, Tommy hugging his little friend, both of them smiling. So self-conscious of his mouth, Smudge didn’t smile a lot. When he did, it meant something, and by that smile on his face in the photo you could feel the love he had for Tommy.
I nodded at the photo next to the TV. “You miss him?”
“Tommy D? Every day. I pray for him and TJ at Mass. Like I told you once, without Tommy I never woulda made it through my time inside. He risked a lot for me to survive in that place. He was the only real friend I ever had . . . I mean, before you and Father Bill.”
What You Break Page 14
