But when he made it through the heavy black curtains into the room, she wasn’t there.
Her replacement behind the bar was just as compellingly moody and distant, though, long and lean with plum-colored eyes and slick black bangs; and she served up his pilsner with a tight smile that made him want to chat.
“I was looking for Dora.”
“My English . . .” Squinting at him.
He waved it off, just conversating here; but she turned to the male mixologist, speaking to him in what Matty thought was Russian.
“She’s sorry,” the young guy said, “her English . . .”
“Forget it.” Matty shrugged.
“You said you are looking for your daughter?”
Tristan sat on the roof of his building looking out on the East River, its muscular flow gleaming beneath the light-strung bridges going across to mostly dark Brooklyn. What did that cop say the night him and Little Dap ran up here? A billion-dollar view on top of ten-cent people. Something like that. He scanned the top-floor windows of the nearest Lemlich high-rise, maybe fifty yards away, saw the lives in there like little mouse plays, mostly everybody watching TV or talking on the phone.
At night
All this light
And Im still
out of sight
movin like a ninja
He stopped, unable to come up with anything that rhymed with ninja, then switched the words around:
Like a ninja Im movin
It wasn’t coming.
He closed the notebook and walked to the opposite side of the roof to the spot where Little Dap had him hanging upside down that first night, upside down and looking at the sidewalk fifteen stories below.
Tried writing here.
Just a drop
That could stop
The pain
The brain
The insane flame
He draped himself over the edge, trying to get as close to the position that Little Dap had alley-ooped him into that night. With the low guardrail cutting into his hips, with more of his body over the side of the roof than not, he let his feet leave the gravel and tried to balance himself. He could do it for a few seconds, but then he started tipping forward and had to clutch the grillwork under his belly to catch himself, a bad thrill.
Little Dap. Little Bitch.
Dizzy but upright he walked back to the other side of the roof, took the .22 out from the back of his jeans, scanned all the living room windows in the building closest to him, all the mouse plays, then turning his head away, squeezed off two rounds before trotting back down the stairs.
Matty sat at his desk, elbows on the blotter, today’s New York Post before him and Berkowitz in his ear.
“Where the fuck does this guy get off—”
“Boss, I gave you the heads-up yesterday.”
“No way he’s doing this at the crime scene. He’ll never get the clearance.”
“Clearance? What are we going to do, lock him up? Look, he’s not a bad guy, he’s just, he’s flailing here.”
“Flailing.”
“That being said, I can’t actually see it being a bad thing, you know? Because unless someone picks up a phone, says a name, right now we’re nowhere.”
The DI muffled his receiver to talk to someone on his end, Matty closing his eyes as he waited.
“Yeah, so . . .” Berkowitz got back on the line.
“So what about it?” Matty said. “Do the presser, get that tipline ringing. I’ll take a bum lead over no lead at this point.”
Silence.
“The guy had to fly to Miami this morning to see his son’s grandparents, but he’s on his way back first thing tomorrow for this.”
“We need a letter of intent from the bank.”
“I believe that’s already been faxed to you,” Matty wincing as he said it.
“You’re pretty on top of this, aren’t you.”
“Honestly? It’s not my call, but I am desperate for something to go here, otherwise . . .”
“He wants this when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I don’t know, we have to see what else is jumping off around here. I know there’s a big immigration sting going down in Ridgewood tonight, DCPI’s definitely gonna want to run with that tomorrow. Maybe Friday’d be better.”
“Friday?”
“Call me tomorrow.”
Matty hung up and looked to Billy across the desk.
“Why am I flying to Miami?”
“Makes you sound like a guy with a timetable.”
“But I’m not really going.”
“No.”
“Friday . . .” Billy absently tapping the side of his head. “You know what I was thinking? Maybe I should sign up with Victims’ Services.”
“Definitely.” Matty nodded. “Get some help.”
“Well, no, I meant like, volunteer, you know, give help to others.”
Matty stared at his blotter.
“I don’t know,” Billy said. “Maybe not.”
Little Dap, who, from what Tristan heard, was not only scared out his ass last night, but wearing a mask like Jesse James the whole time, was nonetheless the one telling the story.
“Guy’s like, ‘Whup, whoa, hey, what’s, ’scuse me, fellas?’ you know, we’re like dragging him around the stairs, start going through his pockets like seventy dollars in there, Hammerhead said like eight hundred, so Devon’s bam bam bam, pounding on him, ‘You cheatin’ ass motherfucker!’ then I’m in the other pocket like, ‘Uhh, it’s right here,’ Devon’s like, ‘I don’t give a fuck! He shoulda said it’s the other pocket!’ Bap, bap, bap.”
Everybody was laughing, ho-shitting in the postschool afternoon.
They were all hanging in front of 32 St. James, perched on or leaning into the paint-chipped three-rung railings that ran along the wide steps that led to the lobby door.
As always, Tristan had one of the hamsters with him, those long fingers of his extending like suspenders down the front of the boy’s shirt.
He took a few steps away from the others and picked a spot where, if he called for someone, he would have to leave his perch and go to him.
“Dev, yo”—Little Dap snapped his wrist across his body—“the boy’s wound tight.”
“Ey, yo.” Tristan nodded to Little Dap, who ignored him. “Yo.” Staring at him until he reluctantly slid off the rail and trundled over.
“The fuck you want?”
“Give me a dollar.” Looking away from him as he spoke.
“A what?”
“I need to get him a Nesquik.” Rippling his fingers on the hamster’s shirt.
“So?” Little Dap shrugged. “Get him a motherfuckin’ Nesquik.”
“Give me a dollar.”
“Is you deaf?” Walking away.
Waiting until Little Dap had hopped back up onto his perch, Tristan said it again and no louder than when he was standing right next to him. “Give me a dollar.”
Little Dap looked at him.
“Give me a dollar.” Staring at him until he came back down.
Clucking his tongue, Little Dap stomped back to Tristan and slipped him a bill. “Just to hear you quiet,” then stomped back to his aluminum perch, Tristan watching him go.
They were knocking on doors again, this time in the Walds, looking for the grandmother of a kid traffic-stopped last night in North Carolina heading for the city with four shopping bags full of handguns in the front seat, including three .22s; no one home; then drove to the Cuban place off Ridge for some coffee.
As Yolonda went to the bathroom, Matty stepped back outside and encountered a crime scene across the street in the Mangin Towers so fresh that people were just now coming out from wherever they were hiding when the shots went off. Without going back in for Yolonda, he ditched his coffee and hustled over just as the ambulance pulled up, the medics inside sitting tight until the first patrol car swung in directly in front of them, the body waiting patiently on the pavement.
/> The first few moments were a riot of people running both to the scene and away from it, of uniforms corralling and expelling and securing, no one paying them any attention, the sound track a cacophony of crying and screaming and sharp, angry male barking, both civilian and municipal; Matty content to just stand there while it sorted itself out.
And then he spotted the girl standing in the shadows of the building breezeway, quietly crying. Hands in his pockets, he got within conversation range, then looked away from her.
“White man in a suit,” she muttered.
Matty tilted his chin towards Yolonda, just now crossing the street.
“You want to talk to her instead?”
“Her?” The girl pulled a face. “I hate that bitch.” Then tilted her chin to Jimmy Iacone, just rising from a sedan. “The fat guy.”
“You know Katz’s?” Matty asked without looking at her.
“My cousin used to cut meat there,” she said, “till that bitch locked him up.”
“All right, just start walking to Katz’s, the fat guy’ll be right behind you.”
Ike had to be reburied. He was laid out on the futon in Eric’s flat, which now had a high footboard attached, which was good because it blocked his view of the body.
Then the two guys Eric had been waiting for finally showed up with the half ki of coke that he ordered. They laid it out on the drainboard by the sink. The only problem was that he had gotten mugged and so now he had to go to the Diners Club building to get the cash to pay for it, which meant leaving these guys alone in here with Ike’s body, but he had no choice. He wanted that coke for the road trip he planned to take directly after the funeral. He was going to go straight north, possibly past Canada, and was really jacked about it; in fact it would be his reward; that and the coke, for putting up with this whole reinterment, reburial thing, which was Ike’s sister’s idea.
As he walked out of the flat, leaving the two drug dealers, the body, and the coke behind, he was surprised to see that his building had come back to life with the tenants of a hundred years ago, everybody walking, running, trudging up and down the stairs carrying all sorts of shit—suit patterns, buckets of water, chamber pots—the entire building reeking of sweat and heavy cooking and excrement. But that was OK too because if anybody happened to go into his flat while he was out and see the half ki just lying there, unless they were Hudson Dusters they wouldn’t even know what it was, so . . .
But halfway to the Diners Club building in Times Square, he recalled something funny about all those reanimated tenants: yes, they were dressed for the turn of the century in battered derbies and tattered waistcoats and multilayered dresses, but they had long, curved nails on their left pinkies like all the pimps and hustlers and every kind of mack pappy player back in the seventies, the sole purpose of which was to more easily scoop coke from a baggie . . . so that couldn’t be good. There was nothing to do but race back to Stanton Street and make sure the phony greenhorns weren’t hitting on his stash.
And sure enough, when he busted back into his parlor, a dozen of them were bending over and snorting away. But hang on, the coke was still on the drainboard; they were behind that obscuring footboard bending over Ike’s body, noisily dipping and snorting and please, God, can you wake me up, but when he does, Eric is in a hospital bed, the right side of his face is on fire, and it’s worse.
Eight hours later, a few minutes past midnight, Matty was on the roof of the precinct smoking a cigarette and looking at Brooklyn.
The crying girl from the Mangin Towers had given it all up to Iacone over two franks and a Cel-Ray. The shooter’s name was Spook; the victim, who pulled through in surgery, Ghost; the jokes to come off those two tags unbearably predictable. The beef, if anybody cared, was over some other girl named Sharon who didn’t like either of them and was going into the army next week anyhow.
She’d given it all up to Iacone right down to the location of Spook’s bedroom in his grandmother’s apartment in the Gouverneurs; but instead of immediately heading over there with the kid most likely in hiding somewhere else right then, after some minor agonizing Matty had made the decision to sit tight.
Experience had shown him that when it came to self-preservation, the overwhelming majority of knuckleheads out there were terminal amnesiacs; hopefully, if they gave Spook enough downtime, he would come home on his own, and so they had held off; were still holding off.
Matty checked the time; one more cigarette, then do it.
His cell rang.
“Oh.” Minette.
“Hey,” Matty said calmly, as if he’d been expecting the call.
“I’m sorry, I thought . . .”
“This is Matty Clark.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Everything OK?”
“What? Yeah, well, yeah.”
“What.”
“Billy checked in to a hotel. That Howard Johnson’s down by you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He says he needs to be near the precinct. That you’re working together.”
“You know what? People go home every day. It’s called commuting.”
“Look. If that’s what he needs to do . . . But let me just ask. That is what he’s doing, right? Helping you?”
“Believe it or not?” Matty watching from above as Quality of Life made a car stop just off the Williamsburg. “At this point, yeah, he is.”
“OK. That’s good. I guess.”
“He’ll come home.”
“I know.” Her voice a husky hush.
“So you’re OK?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t . . .”
“I would.”
For a few seconds the silence hung between them like a weighted curtain.
Then Yolonda stepped up behind him. “Are we gonna capture this mutt or what?”
The whole thing went down as easy as delivering the mail: Matty bookended by Yolonda and Iacone, ringing the bell, Spook himself coming to the door barefoot and with a sandwich in his hand. A two-shot derringer lay on the kitchen table behind him, clearly visible from where they were all standing.
Matty said, “Let’s not get your grandmother all upset. Just come out in the hall,” and he did.
And that, was fucking that.
A textbook arrest perfectly played from crime to cuffs. This was how to get the job done. This was how it was supposed to go down; Matty wishing, as he head-steered the silent, pliant Spook into the backseat of his car, that he had never even heard the name Marcus; Ike, Billy, Minette, any of them; imagining what a bowl of cherries his life would be if the goddamned kid had only gone and got himself killed last week three blocks south in the Fifth.
On Thursday Matty started calling Berkowitz at nine, leaving message after message, each one a little testier than the last, Billy sitting in the chair opposite working a rubber band like a spinning wheel around the fingers of one hand. A whole day before the most optimistic go time for a presser, he was already dressed in a sports jacket and tie. At eleven, still not having gotten a callback and with Billy alternately staring at him and taking endless trips to the bathroom, Matty told him to go home or wherever he was staying these days, and he’d contact him as soon he got through.
When Eric opened his eyes, two detectives were at his bedside, a black woman in a pantsuit and a Chinese guy in a three-piece.
“How you doing?” the woman said, offering him a blur of names as the other one stepped off to take a quick call. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?” as if he were giving her shit.
The other detective snapped off his cell. “Sorry.”
“He doesn’t want to tell us what happened,” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
“It was my own fault,” Eric said.
“All right.” She shrugged. “It was your own fault. Just tell us who else was involved.”
“Nobody.” Flinching as he s
aid it. He should have said, They came at me from behind.
“Well, if this ‘nobody’ comes back, they might just want to finish what they started,” the Chinese detective said. He had a surprisingly heavy accent for someone who had made it out of uniform, Eric thought, but what did he know.
“Look, we can’t make you tell us.”
“That’s right.”
The female detective shrugged, not really giving a shit but pissed at the stonewall.
The other one’s cell went off again and he stepped away to take it.
“Ow,” Eric said, then went back beneath whatever drug they had put him on.
Berkowitz didn’t return Matty’s call until one in the afternoon.
“What’s up?”
The blitheness of the question told Matty everything he needed to know about the nonstatus of the presser.
“Well, he’s here.”
“Who is?”
Matty stared at the receiver in his hand. “Marcus, he took the red-eye in from Miami.”
“Yeah? How’s he doing?”
“He’ll be better after tomorrow’s presser.”
“Tomorrow?” Berkowitz said as if it were news to him.
It was as if the two of them were in a play, neither allowed to acknowledge that they were simply reciting lines.
“OK,” Berkowitz said. “What’s the reward up to now?”
“Forty-two thousand dollars,” Matty said slowly.
“All right, you know what? I need to get back to you. I just have to talk to a few people.”
• • •
An hour later Billy came back into the squad room.
“What’s happening?”
Lush Life Page 40
