Potter's Field

by Rob Hart

I looked at Bombay and raised an eyebrow. “May I?”

  He shook his head. “Ignore it.”

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  “Dude, ignore it. It’s not worth it.”

  I wasn’t happy to defer to him, but I did.

  For as enlightened as New York is supposed to be, it’s often not. Bombay developed a thick skin over the years and didn’t much care about the harassment. I tried to pick up the pieces of our discussions. “So, do you at least want to come look at the place…”

  “Seriously though,” the guy said. He shuffled in his seat, turning toward us.

  They were older than us. Their eyes bloodshot. The guy’s words were slurred. His friends were smirking, not doing anything to dissuade his shitty behavior. Which made them complicit.

  The guy said, “How come all you Habibs works at gas stations and 7-11s and driving cabs and shit, huh? Like, it’s kinda weird, right? Do you have like a special website that’s only in Swahili, or whatever language you speak?” He pointed a finger. “That’s gotta be it, right? Kind of like how all you fucking towelheads knew how to get out of the towers on 9/11, right?”

  My temperature was rising in direct contrast to the temperature of the room, which was dropping fast. People were pretending not to look. Doing that thing where they were hoping someone else would intervene.

  Bombay dropped his head. More frustrated with me than them.

  “Please?” I asked.

  He raised his hand. “Fine. Go ahead.”

  I stood up. The three guys shuffled in their chairs a little but remained seated. Tried to keep it cool. Figured there were three of them and only one of me, and we were in the middle of a crowded café at four in the morning.

  They thought they had the advantage.

  The guy opened his mouth to speak again. Before he could get a word out I drove my fist so hard into his face it sent a jolt up my arm. His nose crunched and he fell back, crashing against the floor.

  Everything in the café stopped, everyone turned to look at us, the orchestral music still playing. A lovely soundtrack to match the pain blooming in my knuckles.

  His two friends looked at him instead of me. I picked up the ceramic container holding packs of sugar and smashed it onto the face of the guy to the left, then grabbed the guy on the right behind the neck and got close to him.

  “You and your friends ought to leave right now, or things are going to get a lot worse,” I told him. “This is me being polite.”

  The guy I hit with the ceramic was dazed. The guy I punched in the face, despite the blood trickling from his nose, he looked ready for a fight, but the third guy, the guy I didn’t hit, he knew how to read the room: no one stopped me, the waitress was standing with her arms crossed, so maybe this wasn’t a friendly environment for them.

  The third guy pulled the first guy to his feet and led him to the front. The second guy followed. I looked at the waitress and shrugged. She rolled her eyes and went into the back room. She returned with a broom and a dustpan. I took them from her and got to work cleaning up the shattered ceramic and sugar packets.

  “You gonna pay for that?” she asked.

  “How much?”

  “Couple of bucks.”

  “I’ll leave a nice tip.”

  I sat back down, my fist aching. I rubbed my knuckles with my good hand. Bombay was looking at me with that mix of frustration and concern, with a very slight dash of bemusement.

  Usually that was the end of it, but I guess one of those dummies decided to be a baby about it, because ten minutes later a pair of cops came in and pulled me outside. Brought me down to the precinct, fingerprinted me, stuck me in holding. Only night I ever spent in the Tombs, the detention complex in Lower Manhattan where you and wait until it’s time to appear before a judge. It’s a big, brutal monolith of a building, which is probably meant to give you a sense of what’s waiting inside. I say this now like it makes me a tough guy, but truth is, I was scared shitless in there. Literally. I had to use the can so bad but wasn’t prepared to do it in front of a crowd.

  The next morning I appeared before a judge next to a Latina woman in a rumpled suit—my public defender—and learned the charges were being dropped. As they led me out of court, she told me the guy I popped had gotten himself turfed from two bars before our paths crossed. At one of them he groped a waitress. He had enough to deal with, so he declined on pressing charges against me, and it made me feel even better about my choice to hit in the face.

  Lucky me. I made my way for the closest bathroom, my stomach twisted in a knot.

  My first, last, and only night in a cell, surprisingly enough.

  I hadn’t slept well that night. And not because I was on a cold, hard bench, surrounded by the kind of guys who would carve out your eye to see what would happen. The thing that was keeping me up was what Bombay said after I sat back down at our table.

  “Did you really need to do that?” he asked.

  I nodded. “You know my philosophy on this. Some people need to get hit in the face. Next time he decides to be a bigot he’ll remember that. Now, do you want to come live with me, or what?”

  “No,” he said. “Because you like that stuff too much.”

  The sunlight coming through the blinds wakes me up. I climb to standing, feel my ribs shift. Stretch, but not too hard. Pull on a shirt and head into the living room. The apartment is empty. There’s a note on the kitchen counter from Bombay, letting me know he had an errand to run and he’d be home later. Sitting on top of the note is a key.

  The cupboards are bare so I figure on heading down the block. There’s a small diner by Borough Hall. Eggs and bacon and coffee sounds about right.

  The sun is blinding. I pull down my newsboy cap to make a little shade. My hand drifts to my pocket, like there might be a pack of cigarettes and a lighter there. I laugh. Quitting wasn’t so bad. I only occasionally want to trade a kidney for a smoke, but being home is already sparking old habits.

  It’s after lunch rush and the diner is empty, save a few people in suits, sipping coffee and taking refuge from the jumble of government buildings and offices surrounding us. There’s a lunch counter along the left side and tables to the right. I take a table at the back, figuring it’ll give me some room to spread out.

  A teenaged girl comes over and takes my order, which ends up being half the breakfast menu. By the time she brings over the coffee and a glass of ice water, I’ve got the loaner laptop set up. There’s a chalkboard behind the lunch counter with the wifi password. I log in and try to figure what I should do first. Which is plunk some of the ice cubes into the coffee and take a sip, the contact to my lips alone making the neurons in my brain spin faster.

  First I should figure out all the things I need to do.

  I take the laptop bag I swiped from Bombay’s, dig around until I find a fresh yellow legal pad and a pen. Make a list:

  Find a place to live

  Get a job

  Find Spencer Chavez

  See my mom

  Check on Crystal

  There’s some other stuff I could probably add to this, along with various subcategories, but it’s nice to have something written down. The last one surprised me a little because I wrote it without really thinking about it. There are a lot of people I’d like to check on, but it would be nice to know she and Rose are okay and settled.

  But that’s also a little less pressing than the other stuff on the list.

  It makes me a little guilty that seeing my mom is fourth. She should be first. But I need a little more time.

  First up, find a place to live.

  The waitress brings over the first of my plates and I alternate forkfuls of eggs and hash browns and sausage with clicks on Craiglist. I figured it wouldn’t be pretty. It’s worse than I thought. I search for the East Village, because it’d be nice to get back to the old neighborhood, but the first result is a studio going for $3,000 a month. And it doesn’t even look like a nice studio. The one-bedrooms are north of
that, which is sending my heart due south.

  That puts Brooklyn on the table. I check Park Slope, because I’ve heard that’s the cool neighborhood where everyone wants to live these days. Studios starting at $2,000. I don’t want to live in a fucking studio. Not that I wasn’t expecting this, but Portland and Prague spoiled me. Apartments with actual rooms.

  Forget it. I’ll come back to that.

  Next up: how to become a private investigator.

  This one, I know where to start, because I did look into it a few years ago.

  According to New York State law, I have to be at least 25, which is the only requirement I meet. Without a law enforcement background, you need three years’ experience doing work relevant to the job, or apprenticing with an actual private investigator. You also need to take a test.

  The waitress brings over a thick stack of steaming pancakes, which cheers me up.

  A little clicking around and I reaffirm my understanding that I need real, on-the-books experience in the field. Then I learn that acting as a private investigator without a license is a class B misdemeanor, which is good for up to a year in jail.

  The most sensible thing to do would be to apprentice. I do a search for private investigators and find a few offices in the immediate area. Click on one and it takes me to a slick website with a picture of a stone-faced guy sitting at a desk, the bay behind him. His name is Jay Gunner and he’s a former NYPD detective. Seems like the perfect job for him. Jay Gunner is a cop name. Retired after 30 years on the job. He looks like a no-nonsense guy. I like no-nonsense. I bookmark the website.

  Next up, Spencer Chavez.

  I have the list of places he frequents, but figure it would be best to learn a little more about the local heroin scene. See if it matches up with Ginny’s apocalyptic warning.

  Typing “Staten Island heroin” into Google returns pages upon pages of links. Most of them from the local paper. Little things, like task forces and community meetings and arrests. But also some bigger pieces—obituaries and interviews with families whose kids had overdosed. Then: deep dives by glossy magazines. There’s a big piece in The New Yorker. If The New Yorker cares about shit happening on Staten Island, it must be a big deal.

  I forward that and a few other articles to my e-mail so I can read them later. Then I click through the local paper’s stories. Look for common names and threads. If there’s anything familiar.

  Because I need to talk to someone, and after reading through two dozen articles, I know exactly who: Kathryn Petersen-Wichnovitz. Director of an organization in Port Richmond called Project Sanctuary, a treatment and recovery center. She’s quoted in most of the articles I read and has a strong grip on the scene.

  Plus, she’s not a cop, which means she might actually talk to me.

  My phone buzzes. A text from a number I haven’t plugged in yet: Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit? Bombay tells me you’re home and you haven’t called me? The fuck is wrong with you?

  I write back: Sorry. Where are you now?

  On the ferry to see your stupid ass.

  I’ll head down to the terminal and meet you.

  I flag down the waitress and ask for the check as I pack up my things.

  This is good. Lunette can probably help with at least one of the items of my list.

  The ferry terminal has a Dairy Queen. After all these years, New York has arrived—at least, for people who measure economic success by the influx of shitty chains. I stand outside the storefront, across from the set of doors where passengers will disembark from the next boat.

  The wave that comes through is mostly tourists, wandering in a daze, looking for their path back to the Manhattan. Most tourists don’t come to the island and stay—they take the ferry because it’s free and there’s a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. They turn right back around, much to the chagrin of basically every business and arts organization on this island.

  I see Lunette before she sees me. She’s got new glasses—big clear plastic frames on her small face, her blonde hair stuffed up under a gray cap. Long wool jacket a color somewhere between maroon and purple. I move toward her and she sees me and breaks into a run, slams into me. I wince as pain echoes through my torso, but I shrug it off and pull her close. Cigarettes and perfume. That Lunette smell.

  “You’re home,” she says. That little hint of a Russian accent slipping between her words.

  “I’m home.”

  “And you didn’t call me.”

  “It was on my list for today.”

  She smiles, smacks me in the arm. “How is Stanislav?”

  Her cousin, Stanislav, who gave me a job at his apartment-rental company in Prague while I was living there. Great guy. Voice like a cartoon bear. One of the few things I’ll miss about that town.

  “He says he misses you,” I tell her. “He said you should come visit.”

  “Maybe one day,” she says. “So can we go outside? Have a cigarette?”

  “Sure.”

  We walk through the terminal toward the promenade, exit through the doors and walk to the railing, the skyline crystal across the calm water. A lot of construction next to the terminal. Something’s going up in the space between the ferry and Staten Island Yankee stadium. Lunette offers me a cigarette and I wave her off. She puts it between her lips and lights it. I’m thankful at least someone doesn’t have an outsized reaction to me not smoking.

  “What’s the story here?” I ask, nodding toward the construction.

  “Outlet malls,” she says. “And a wheel. Like the London Eye, but bigger.”

  “Good god.”

  “Only a matter of time, right?” she says. “The tide was due to crash here.”

  We lean against the railing, look out over the water. The next boat is pulling out. The horn sounds, thrumming across the bay. It’s cold, but that pleasant kind of cold where you feel good to be outside. Maybe a little invigorated.

  “Where will you live?” Lunette asks.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “I can help.”

  “Can you?”

  She nods. “My new lady friend does real estate. She can find some places. What’s your budget?”

  “I’d like to keep it to under two grand a month. Fifteen hundred would be ideal. No roommates.”

  Lunette huffs out a little cloud of smoke and laughs. “You think you’ll be able to live in this city at that rate?”

  “Hope springs eternal. Where you living these days?” I ask her.

  “Brooklyn,” she says. “Bushwick. I don’t like the apartment. I don’t like my roommate. I’ll probably leave soon.”

  “Where to?”

  “Bombay’s building, probably.”

  I look at her, smirk. Bombay is from Staten Island so it’s not entirely out of bounds he’d end up here. “That’s a little surprising.”

  “Why?” she asks. “I can get a two-bedroom for what I pay for a studio in some shitty neighborhood. And in Brooklyn, anything worth doing, you have to wait in line for an hour. It’s quiet out here.” She takes a long, thoughtful drag of the cigarette. “I could do with some quiet.” She flicks the cigarette to the ground and crushes it under the toe of her leather boot. “I could also do with a drink. Let’s take a walk.”

  It takes ten minutes to walk to Cargo, a bar I used to frequent when I lived in this neighborhood. We grab a booth in the back. A waitress comes over and takes our order; coffee for me, Pinot Grigio for Lunette. We glance at the menus but I don’t think either of us is hungry. Me because I just ate and Lunette because she’s never hungry.

  On the walk over we made it through most of the catching-up stuff. When I left she was dating my cousin Margo. Things fell off and Margo is currently home for the holidays. I’ll see her when she comes back. By the time our drinks arrive I’m ready to get down to business.

  “So,” I tell her. “I’m working for Ginny again.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “It’s not like before,” I
say. “One of her girls is missing. This is on the up-and-up.”

  “Is it ever that way with Ginny?”

  “Kid is missing, parents are upset. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that’s enough for me to at least poke around a little. And she’s willing to pay me a ridiculous amount of money to do it. Thing is, you might be able to help.”

  “How so…”

  “He’s into heroin.”

  Her back goes rigid. Eyes cold. “I’m clean.”

  I reach across and put my hand on hers, losing my train of thought for a second. “How long?”

  “Four months.”

  “That’s great.”

  “It is,” she says, pulling back her hand to take a sip of her wine. “It’s also real fucking hard. Do you know how many people I had to cut out of my life? I can’t even think about them. So this is the first and last I’m going to say on the subject: find someone else to help you. I love you, but not even for you.”

  I put my hands up. “Say no more. Topic off limits.”

  She nods. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m happy for you. It’s a good thing.”

  We sip our drinks, using them to fill the silence. I go looking for a lighter subject, figure on telling her my new career aspirations, when someone yells out, “Hey!”

  We both look up. Standing over the table is a skinny kid with shaggy brown hair and thick black-framed glasses. Behind him is a heavyset Latino cook, arms folded in a don’t-fuck-with-me manner. The skinny kid looks at me and nods, confirming a suspicion. “I remember you. You have to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “You came in here last year,” he says, his fists clenching and unclenching. “That stupid fucking game. You came in and attacked me.”

  It takes me a second, flipping through memories in my head like cards, until I find what I’m looking for. When Chell got killed, she had been working in a hardboiled live-action role-playing game—this goofy thing where you went around the city “shaking people down” for information. I figured someone involved in the game had killed her, so I played along for a bit. Problem is, I’m not very patient and no good at rules.