“What?”
“David, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need my bike.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m done sleeping. I’d love to stay ...” If there were an invitation. “But I’ve got work to do. No rest for the wicked.”
“I understand. Hold on one minute and I’ll let you in.” David shut the door and slammed home the deadbolt. She stood for a moment outside the locked door, feeling foolish. Surely he realized she would never violate his sanctuary if he requested privacy. She heard him scuttling around, some scraping, then the door swung open.
“Sorry about that,” David said, grinning foolishly.
“It’s okay. I understand.” The polishing stone was wet, the odd apparatus surrounded by splattered water. She couldn’t help wondering where he’d stashed the sword. The workroom was a museum of oddities, with hundreds of concealing places; among the old cabinets, beneath stacks of packing blankets, in tons of boxes arranged against the wall, in any of several old steel and wood cabinets. She forced herself to stop looking, and concentrated on fixing her bag to the back of the bike. When she finished, she turned, and David was waiting to take her in his arras.
“I’d love to have you stay. I really would. But I promised the client...”
She put a finger to his lips. “Hey, it’s all right. I understand. Work’s work. Call me?”
“Count on it.”
She put her helmet on, got on the bike, and walked it out the door into the alley. He’d shut the door and locked it even before she got the engine started.
It took Sara slightly over an hour to cover the sixty-five miles from Manhattan to Upper Salem, where Murray Rothstein resided in a twenty-two room, Richard Neutra-designed, retro-futuristic monstrosity that was meant to suggest a Superchief. Sara had ignored the PRIVATE ROAD signs and rolled up the seventy-five-yard red brick drive to the parking circle in front of the white and stainless steel house. A white XK8 and a Lexus sedan were parked in front of the square glass entry. Sara wheeled her bike up to the glass wall and left it there, beneath the stainless steel portocochere, while she rang the buzzer.
A moment later, the speaker grill snapped. “Yes?”
“Mr. Rothstein? It’s Sara Pezzini. I’m a New York City Police Detective. May I speak to you for a minute?”
“Just a minute.”
Five minutes later, Rothstein approached the door grumpily, clad in a white tenycloth robe loosely fastened at the front so that Sara had a better view than she wanted of his blue Speedos, a slight roll of fat spilling over the rim. He was damp, and his dime store flip-flops left a trail on the Spanish tile floor. The glass door opened, releasing an exhalation of chill air.
“Come in.” He turned, oblivious, and marched back down the hall. They emerged in a gleaming stainless steel kitchen, stovetop a single smooth surface, glass patio doors looking out on the pool area, which Rothstein seemed to have to himself that morning. He wheeled on her.
“Well? Who did I kill?”
He was a bantam rooster with tufts of white hair behind his ears. Sara bet they stood out like bird’s wings when they were dry. His beak-like nose and crane legs did little to erase the impression of some exotic bird. He crossed his arms.
Sara gave it a hint of blush. “It’s not about murder, Mr. Rothstein. It’s about a property you own: Waubeska Place in Brooklyn.”
“What about Waubeska Place? Christ, I got so many properties I can’t keep track of them all. Are you really a detective? You look like a chorus girl, please excuse my impertinence.”
Sara held up her badge, directing light from the extensive skylights into Rothstein’s eyes until he put a hand up.
“Okay! Okay! You’re a cop! What about Waubeska Place?”
“I have friends in that building. They were being harassed by a group of Puerto Rican kids. I got to know the gang members, and far from being hardened criminals, they’re just a bunch of kids who are at a loose stage in their lives. Three of them are carpenters. You have a couple unfinished apartments in that unit...”
Rothstein held up his hands and signaled like a railroad flagman. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Now I remember. Waubeska Place! I hadda give up forty percent of that building ’cause I got this furshtunker bleeding heart liberal judge, who thinks the world owes blacks a living! Excuse my harsh language, Detective, but I’m an old man, I been around, and I know how things work. Can I help it if the onsite property manager lets in some jerk, her second nephew twice-removed turns out to be a crack dealer? You have no idea the tsuris, being a landlord.”
Sara let him ramble. When he paused for air, she resumed. “Sir, I understand how frustrating it must be, but surely, at this stage in your life, you’ve reached a level of success that keeps you insulated from the daily grind.”
Rothstein looked around, as if to reaffirm his wealth. “You might say so. So what’s your point, young lady?”
“I would like you to let the Romeros use those apartments while they fix them up. I know these boys. They know what they’re doing. Instead of the property standing vacant, you could be renting it out. In the meantime, they’ll fix it for free, if they can stay there while they’re doing it.”
“The reason those apartments are vacant is because they’re in the part of the building controlled by the federal government. If they were in my sixty percent, I’d fix ’em up.”
“Then what have you got to lose?”
Rothstein raised his eyebrows. “What, indeed? If you’re asking for my permission, go ahead. But don’t come crying to me if they knock you on the head and attack you behind locked doors.”
“I appreciate your frankness.”
“All right, enough, already! It’s Sunday. I don’t want to hear business. You’re welcome to join me. My daughter Roberta is about your size. I’m sure we have a suit somewhere.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rothstein, I’ll take a rain check. I have to get back to the city. I’d appreciate it if I could use your phone.”
He pointed to a wireless on the counter. “Don't call Singapore.”
The meeting between the residents of Waubeska Place and Los Romeros took place at one p.m., in the lobby and on the front stoop of the building. Jorge wore a three-piece suit like something out of Saturday Night Fever, with a long, pointy, open collar, and a snap-brim fedora. Hector wore white linen pants and a silk shirt. Mrs. Finkelstein made raspberry strudel that disappeared faster than free beer at a ballgame.
There were five Romeros present, the core homies, and a dozen residents, including Ben and Mrs. Milman from the third floor. Jorge brought two cases of Tecate. Ben offered him sips from a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps he kept in the pocket of his heavily pilled Cardigan. Lupe did not attend.
Ben, Howard Lubar, Frank Hernandez, and Mrs. Finkelstein discovered that they shared a passion for baseball with Jorge and Hector. None of them could fathom how Robert Ruiz, an up-and-coming rookie with the Yankees, could have thrown his career away by stealing teammate Derek Jeter’s glove and bat, which he sold for a fast twenty-five hundred.
“One of my homies did that to me," Jorge said, “I’d light him up.”
“Light him up?” Lubar asked.
Jorge made a gun out of his right hand and picked off a few ghost targets. “You know. Blam blam blam.”
“Are you carrying a gun now?” Lubar asked.
Jorge made a pained expression. “No, ese. It’s just an expression. I ain’t never shot nobody.”
“But do you have a gun?” Lubar persisted.
Jorge made an expansive sweep of the room with his arm. “Man, we all got guns. My choice is the Glock nine, even if it does that have that stupid trigger safety. You?” Lubar looked startled, as if he’d discovered a spider in his cottage cheese. “Me what?”
“You got a piece?”
“A piece of what?”
“Howard!” Ben snapped. “He’s asking you if you own a gun!”
“Certainly not! Why would I need a gun? Why do yo
u need a gun, if you’ve never shot anybody?”
Jorge looked surprised. “Man, are you for real? If you’re a man in this countiy, you have a gun. I don’t mean to insult you, dude, it’s a cultural thing. I come from a culture of machismo. I had a gun for ten years now, ain't shot nobody yet. Ain’t sayin’ they ain’t a lot of punks packin’, that maybe shouldn’t. All I’m sayin’, a man should have a gun.” Ben looked like he was about to volunteer something. Sara stepped to the center of the foyer and waved her arms. The front door was propped open with a rubber wedge, admitting warm afternoon air, circulating lazily up through the building and out a skylight, courtesy of a large ceiling fan.
“Hey, listen up, everybody!” The hubbub immediately stilled. “I want to thank the residents, especially Ben
Weiskopf and Mildred Finkelstein, for pitching in and providing refreshments. Thanks also to Jorge for bringing the beer. You all know we’ve had trouble with gangs in the past. My Mend Jorge assures me those days are over.” Jorge raised a clenched fist. “Power to the people!” “You got that right,” Hector said, not so loud.
“I spoke with the landlord, Murray Rothstein, and he’s agreed to let the Romeros have the two vacant apartments on the second floor in exchange for fixing them up. As most of you know, three Romeros work as carpenters, and they assure me that they will finish the job in two months. Those two months will be a trial period to see if we can coexist.”
“Time we done with them, those apartments will be like a palace,” Jorge stated. “Donald Trump will be standing in line.” He said it again with a carnival barker’s conviction. “Standing in line!”
“Rothstein!” Ben spat like a piece of bad fish. “That goniff!”
“Mr. Rothstein was very nice. He didn’t have to do this. Let’s give it a chance, shall we?” She gave Ben a dazzling smile.
He nodded and smiled back. “Yeah, you’re right. You know what you are, Detective Pezzini? You’re a fixer-upper. You find problems and you fix ’em.”
“She’s a saint!” Mildred Finkelstein said.
Sara laughed. “And on that note, I gotta go."
When Sara knocked on the Guttierez door, Syreeta answered, electric swirling lollipop drilling into her teeth. She stood there, mouth buzzing, staring over the chain. Sara showed her the badge. “May I come in?”
The girl closed and unlatched the door, opened it, and returned to her place in front of the color console, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Is your sister in?” Sara asked.
A shrug, without looking.
“Hello!” Sara sung. There was no answer. She went down the hall to the closed bedroom doorway and knocked on Lupe’s door. She felt, rather than heard, a subtle bass line and figured Lupe was plugged in. She tried the door. Unlocked. She swung it open. Sure enough, Lupe was seated cross-legged on the bed, back to the door, big pair of earphones clamping down on her glossy black hair, bouncing slightly to the bass, surrounded by CDs.
Sara moved into the girl’s line of sight. Lupe lurched once, as if zapped, and whipped off the headphones. “What are you doing here?”
“You know the Romeros are in the lobby.”
“I know.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“How should I know?”
Sara snagged a folding chair, the only piece of sitting furniture in the room, and sat on it backwards, arms on top of the back. “Only reason I’m here, girlfriend, is to see if you’re okay. I understand why you don’t want to run into any Romeros right now.”
“I hope you’re happy with him, 'cause he dump you in a New York minute.”
“I told you, Jorge is not my boyfriend. You’re young. You’re very pretty, smart as a whip, and you have special abilities. The whole world is yours, Lupe, if you’ll give it a chance.”
“Here it comes,” the girl sneered. “Stay in school, don’t be a fool.”
Sara stared at her, unblinking. The girl fidgeted, shuffled CDs. “How you get that power?”
“Excuse me?”
“You a for-real witch. I saw you fall from that crane. All of a sudden, your whole body zipped up tight in some kinda armor. Then you bounced. How did you do that? How did you get to be a witch?”
“I’m not a witch.”
Lupe looked bemused. “Hokay. I see where you goin’. What are you then, a mutant?”
Sara gave a tight little smile. As good enough an explanation as any.
“How can I help you?”
“You remember that little seance we had here the other day.”
“I remember you cornin’, I don’t remember what happened.”
“You were possessed. It’s okay. He’s not coming back.” Not here, at least. “See, I dig the way you do that. Maybe we can trade secrets.”
Lupe shrugged. “I don’t know how I do it.”
“That’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”
Sara let herself out. The party was still going on in the lobby so she took the stairs four flights up to her unit. The air conditioner was going full blast in her bedroom. She went inside, shut the door, and phoned Lee-sha Bachman in Newton. The woman answered on the first ring.
“Miss Bachman, it’s Detective Pezzini.”
“Have you caught my father’s murderer?”
“Not yet. But I expect something to break soon. There have been several promising developments.”
“I heard somewhere that if you don’t catch a killer in the first twenty-four hours, the odds against catching him increase astronomically.”
“Well, those are the statistics, but every case is different.”
“Well, who do you suspect?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then why did you call?”
Sara could sense Bachman’s anger and impatience, although she’d kept her voice neutral. Why did she call? Out of guilt, perhaps, for initially leaving Bachman out of the loop? Out of genuine concern? To cover her ass? “I’m calling to tell you that I’m confident we’re going to find the person who did this.”
“Well, I appreciate that. The next time you call, I hope you have better news.”
Click.
I deserve that, she thought. Before she could set the phone down, it rang.
“Sara, it’s David.”
He sounded breathless. Her heart did a stutter-step and dove for daylight. “Hello! I was just thinking about you!” “Yeah, well, about tonight...”
For one awful second she thought he was going to cancel. Her brain turned into a strobing file search as she sought the reason why. Came on too strong? Another girlfriend? Not ready to commit to a serious relationship? Freaked out she was a cop? “Yes?”
“Is it all right if I meet you at the party? I’m really sorry, but I’m working on a rush job that has to get done, and I still have a little ways to go. It’s going to take me right up to party time. So I thought I’d just meet you there, and we’d take it from there.”
Her heart performed a complex series of aerial maneuvers. “What kind of job do you have to do on a Sunday night?"
She could hear the grin through the phone. “A lulu. I’ll tell you all about it. Tell me what you’re going to wear so 1 can wear something complimentary.”
Dreamboat, she thought. “Emerald sleeveless dress, one over-the-shoulder strap, and matching heels. And a jade necklace."
“You look beautiful already. The other women will hate you.”
She sighed theatrically. “That’s the burden I have to bear.”
“Okay. I should be there by seven-thirty. Love you.”
Her apprehension gone, Sara let the receiver float back into the cradle while she floated into the bathroom. Pause. She’d planned taking the bike to Manhattan and stashing it at Dave’s place. That was now out. The journey by bus and subway would take at least an hour, and she did not relish doing it in her little green dress. On the other hand, if she threw on black leather jacket, de rigueur for residents of Manhattan, she could project enou
gh attitude to keep the creeps at bay.
Or, she could pack her tank bag and ovemighter as cunningly as a Chinese chess master, and use the facilities at the station house. She might even luck out and cop a ride with a patrol. That way, she’d have her bike in the morning when she went to work.
All righty then, she decided. By motorcycle to the world. She took a shower, hair down, and spent a half hour drying it. She pulled out the cheap, motley-patched leather overaighter she’d bought for seven bucks in Playa del Mar and cunningly packed it with her green Jil Sander—it really was wrinkle-proof—her green Louis Vuitton high-steppers, a hair dryer that resembled a radar gun so much she’d used it to freak speeders, and her makeup kit. She’d ride clean and make up at the station house. Last but not least, the little bottle of Hugo Red. She pinned her hair up and slapped a Yankees cop on top. One bag looped over her shoulder, gripping another in one hand and her helmet in the other, she made her way down the stairs, let herself out the back door, and ambled across Prospect Place.
The newly installed and vigilant security cop waved to her. He looked like a native of Central America. Sara hoped he at least spoke English. It was nearly six when she hit the Brooklyn Bridge, and traffic was light. The motor pool at the station was jammed tight, but hers was the only bike. Of course. Sharpe had told her he’d be working security tonight.
Bernadette Goines was ending her shift as Sara applied makeup in the women’s locker rest room. She’d let her hair down and tied it loosely at the nape of her neck with a black velvet ribbon.
“You like to start a riot the way you look, girlfriend,” Goines told her, dabbing at her face with a piece of brown paper towel.
“Thanks, Bern. Rough night?”
“John comes at me with a Swiss Army Knife. ‘Gonna put my brand on you, honey,’ he says, right before I clock him between the eyes with my leetle brass fran’.” She held up a set of brass knuckles that must have weighed a pound.
“Nice.”
‘Then some sheik wants me to join him and a few other select buddies on his yacht. But by then, the sun was cornin’ up and I was NOT goin’ down, no more, not today. I’m headin’ home, I’m catching some shuteye, and then Waggles and me are headin’ upstate to a little B&B and some R8tR.”
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