The cars were almost empty. She moved toward the middle of the train nearest the conductor, trailing him when he changed cars, hearing the strain in her own voice when she asked for help.
“Lady, you got one more stop. You want I should call the cops?”
“No cops.” She sat down.
BOWERY and Delancey was the seediest station in Manhattan. The newsstands and restrooms were long closed, a couple of tracks unused. She’d planned to race up the three-flight staircase, assuming she was in better condition than the junkie who chased her. But he got out near the stairs and stood with his arms spread, ready to catch her.
She turned, took off at a run toward a closed exit on the south end of the platform, slipped on something that smelled foul, and nearly fell. She slung her new bag over a shoulder, kicked off her shoes, and started to shimmy up the fence’s vertical rails.
She wasn’t fast enough. Her foot was within his reach when he caught up, and he was stronger than he looked. She screamed, when he pulled her off the fence, and she fell onto unforgiving, filth-encrusted tile. The visor of his cap slipped sideways, and he tossed it to the ground, shaking out a mane of dirty brown hair.
Colleen stared. Hazel eyes. Pointed chin. Wide mouth in a sneer.
Her mouth. Lips that belonged to Jenna.
She screamed again, and Jenna straddled her, a knee on each arm pinning her to the platform. Jenna wrestled off one of Colleen’s coat sleeves then fumbled in her own sweatshirt pocket, pulling out works and a bag. Colleen watched the needle in horror as the junkie bent forward to strap her arm. She struggled, but Jenna leaned forward, adding weight to the knees that held down her arms.
“Jenna. Christ, I’m clean.”
“You think I give a shit? You left me to die.”
“I didn’t!” Colleen gasped and flexed her arm, hoping to keep the strap from tightening. “It was crazy there, Jenna, nobody knew where you were. By the time I found you, they couldn’t bring you out of it.”
Arms still pinned, she raised her hips to unbalance Jenna, who swore and slapped her face. The second she had one arm free, Colleen aimed her fingers at her attacker’s eyes, but Jenna swatted her away like an insect.
“I thought you were dead.” Colleen’s words came out in a wail. “I swear. I never would have left you.”
“That’s bull. You sent me to stand in line for a noon delivery way stronger than I could handle. You practically handed me the needle.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near when you shot up.”
“You never tried to find me, after.” Jenna gave the strap a vicious tug.
“But the ambulance came. I heard them. They were taking you to the morgue.” It’s been years, she thought in dismay. Has Jenna been right across the bridge? “So where were you all this time?” she said, mustering a defense. “How come you never looked for me?”
Jenna sat back, eyes vague, but Colleen didn’t dare move. “In the hospital,” Jenna said. “Then, after . . . detox and mental wards, I couldn’t say how many. I kept . . . I keep going back on the street. I need dope to write.” Her eyes snapped to attention again. “Don’t turn this on me. No one saw you come out of that tenement fire alive, and you never showed up in the neighborhood. How was I supposed to know?”
“That first night, when you followed me—”
“I admit it was luck you moved down the street from the Sunshine, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out you’d be playing my role. You were fun to watch.”
“You knew?” Colleen tried to scoot backwards, without success.
“How could I miss? You showed up on the Bowery in my blue fox coat. I trailed you, to figure out if that chick in the boots with four-inch heels was really you. Then today . . . hell, Colleen. I saw you moving in on my family. Who’re they gonna believe? A washed up junkie with no ID, or a slick, fake Jenna Strickland? They don’t know me.”
When Jenna pulled a knife, Colleen sank back, her eyes tracking the weapon. “Let me go. I’ll give you everything. Anything.”
“I just want my damned ID.” Jenna slapped the inside of Colleen’s arm, raising the veins Colleen had carefully nursed back to health.
“Take it. Take the whole bag.”
Jenna ignored her. Her smile had returned. “I’ve got a sweet mix for you. A thousand mgs and a speed ball.”
“I don’t use anymore. You’ll kill me.” Colleen heaved against the knees that held her arms like a vice, twisting for a view of the platform. Empty.
“Give it up,” Jenna said. “You taught me to fight, remember?”
Colleen braced her bare heels on the gritty floor and managed to wriggle a few inches backward. Unbalanced, Jenna let go one arm, and Colleen made a grab for the knife. Jenna’s grip on the weapon was like iron, and she moved it relentlessly toward Colleen’s chest, but she only sliced through the bag’s shoulder strap and yanked it away.
Suddenly free, Colleen scrambled to her feet, while in Jenna’s hand, the blade drew a deep and crooked path down her thigh.
Colleen managed a few steps, then fell to her knees, clutching a column as if its solid weight would save her. She watched her own blood add color to the black graffiti some street artist had sprayed. Mouth open in horror, she turned to watch Jenna come at her.
As the needle bit her vein, she relived the torment of detox. Her crawl out of the nightmare. Her struggle for a real life. And now, wealth within her grasp . . .
Spinning out, she tried to drag in breath, but her lungs wouldn’t work. Darkness took her, as fast as the kick that sent her over the platform. She surfaced, briefly, when her body hit the tracks. She felt their vibration, but curiously, no pain.
A laugh sounded, far away.
Blackness, when it swallowed her, was warm and welcome.
MURDER ON THE SIDE STREET
Stephanie Wilson-Flaherty
THE view down each avenue includes the steel-gray silhouette of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The cuisine has expanded from the traditional pizza places and Chinese food takeout joints, to Mexican, Lebanese, and Thai. On the side streets, the Korean women carry umbrellas to guard against the sun, and the Middle Eastern women sweat under their headscarves and burqas.
Yep, we’ve got it all in Bay Ridge. From some pretty classy Italian restaurants that make the grade in Zagats, to Irish pubs with microbrews and decent grub, to basic, working-man dives serving Bud and shots, to hookah parlors with curtains in the window to hide whatever it is they actually do in there.
I’m a native, you see, who’s rapidly becoming a stranger in her own land. I’m not the latest model; there are quite a few miles on my odometer and, if I have my way, I’m going to clock quite a few more before the engine goes. Got an older, limestone kind-of, attached house with a floor-through layout. Since I retired, I spend a fair amount of time at the window, watching everybody, being nosy, yelling at the kids when they make too much noise, and looking in people’s windows.
That’s my favorite. I’m sort of like a Peeping Thomasina. But you can call me Sadie. I think there’s a song out there somewhere about a Tattooed Lady— you did get the rhyme there, I hope— but for me, no tattoos. Nothing exotic. I’m regular folk with a nosy nature, and I’ve got a story to tell about the goings-on behind the windows at number 366, down the street a bit and across the way.
So, a year or two back, a moving van pulled up across the street where Old Man Gemenelli lived before he died, and a couple of husky fellows moved in these gigantic pieces of furniture. We’re talking huge, old, mahogany wardrobes and massive, brocade sofas. The kind of furniture you don’t see any more. Stuff my granny had. The kind with lace doilies.
Well, that naturally got my curiosity going into high gear. I parked my butt into my front parlor chair, got out my binoculars, and settled in until the new neighbor showed up. Mentally, I put my money on a wealthy, older woman. Silvery-white hair in a bun, elegant walking stick, flowery dress flowing around her ankles. Of course, I’ve seen too many old movies, because what I eventually
got was an obese slob covered by a circus-tent sized muumuu in chartreuse, who climbed clumsily out of the back seat of a stretch limo. Her hair was a sickly yellow kind of greasy-gray. It was wiry and coarse, and I could’ve cut it better with a bowl and hedge clippers. The limo sped away. She leaned heavily on what I recognized as a genuine Irish shillelagh and gasped her way up the six stone steps to her front door.
While there is an eleventh commandment in New York that goes something like, “Thou shalt not know thy neighbor,” I’ve never been one for rules, so I was across the street and down the block before she made it inside the house.
“Hi, there. I’m Sadie. Welcome to the neighborhood. Can I help you with anything? Need a cup of sugar? Quart of milk? I would’ve baked a cake, but I didn’t know when you were coming.”
She leaned on her stick, half turned, and glared at me. Just as if she actually knew that I’ve never so much as baked a cupcake in my entire life. A lesser woman would’ve withered under her evil eye, but the not-so-domestic me persevered.
“Okay, okay. A cake would not be such a good idea, I’m sure, as you’re probably trying to watch your weight. Did you know they now say there’s more health risks from obesity than smoking? Of course, no one’s ever died from second-hand fat. But still, I could’ve offered you a salad, or maybe carrots. Carrots are good for you and they help your night vision. Did you know that?”
It was as though I had said “open sesame” to her emotional cave. The fire in her eyes tamped down to embers as a rueful, little smile chunked up the fat in her chipmunk cheeks.
“I did know that,” she said, a sad note to the words. “About the carrots, I mean. The fat part is not my doing.” She glanced upward. “He has made me this way. I used to pray it was different, but now I know from all the doctors that it’s not my fault. That leaves Him.”
Holy macaroni. I thought I’d heard it all, but this was a new twist in the chubster debate. That said, I don’t do politics or religion. Each to their own on Seventy-seventh Street.
“Well,” I said, “I just live down the block a ways and across the street.” I pointed. “And I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.”
“I surely do appreciate that, Sadie. You did say Sadie, didn’t you?” She waited for my nod. “I’m Margie and I just moved here from Kansas. Wichita, in fact. A great uncle of mine died and left me this place. I have no other family back in Kansas, and I didn’t really have any friends, either, so I decided to try life here.”
Thank goodness she didn’t tell me her name was Dorothy. Poor Margie really wasn’t in Kansas anymore. She and I got to be pretty good buddies over time. It turns out that Marge is not the sharpest thorn on the rose. She grew up bullied and picked on. Always chubby and never very bright, she picked up that evil eye business as a defense mechanism to mask one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever known.
Using the resources Old Man Gemenelli had left her— seems he was actually something like a third cousin, twice removed— Margie signed on with a domestic help agency to hire an aide who could come in a few days a week, shop, cook, do some light cleaning, and polish up the mahogany furniture that had been in Margie’s family for generations.
That was how Olga came into the picture. Apparently, Olga emigrated from Russia and lived two neighborhoods away in Bath Beach, where a lot of Russians live. Bath Beach and Brighton Beach are the big ones for the Russians. Interesting people. When I was kid, we were taught to hate and fear them and hide under the desk in case the Big Bomb came. Now, we’re taught to hate and fear their Mob. The Cosa Nostra of the Black Sea, since we don’t have so many Italian wise guys any more. The Italian Mob— what’s left in New York— has pretty much moved on to greener fields, like Staten Island and New Jersey.
So, Olga was a pretty blonde. Young. Well, younger than Margie and certainly younger than me. It’s hard to tell ages these days, what with self-help Botox and buy-on-time plastic surgery. She tended to wear these sky-high shoes, thigh-high skirts, low-cut, huggy tops, and she carried an enormous satchel-like purse. I understand those things can cost more than a thousand bucks, and much as they might look like Mary Poppins’ magic bag, they mostly seemed to tote flat shoes for when the sky-highs hurt too much.
Of course, I always kept my eye on things. I cased the joint on my daily five-mile hike around the ’hood, where I kept up my sources, nosed my way into the shops, and gossiped with anyone who would stand still for five minutes. Then, I sat my butt in the front parlor chair and watched the comings and goings, and occasionally used the binoculars to peek into other parlors and kitchens.
Kitchens were always my favorite. Since I can’t cook much myself, I’m endlessly fascinated with those who can. And even though I’m not much for rules, I do have principles. No bedrooms. Never used the binocs for bedroom windows. I’m a busybody, not a voyeur. And, I’ll have you know, I happen to have a pretty satisfactory sex life of my own. One day, when we have the time, maybe we’ll chat about him. Meanwhile, Olga was keeping company with some shady looking characters. Your basic big, black Lincoln Town Car glided up to the curb when she came out of the house of an evening. The windows were tinted so dark, that even eagle-eyed me couldn’t get a glimpse inside. And I’ll tell you, it made me so frustrated. I just knew that tinted car windows meant trouble.
Which meant it was time for a Plan B, which is what always follows a situation where simply peeping doesn’t get me the desired result.
“So, Olga. How’s it going these days?” I said one day, popping over from across the street, real casual-like as she was taking out the trash. We hadn’t talked much, but we did have the occasional social conversation.
“Is good,” she said in her throaty Boris-and-Natasha, cartoon way. “Margie is good and I make money.”
“Yeah,” I said with a glance at her feet, “I noticed the new shoes. Must give you, what, six or eight inches more in height? Must make you tower over the new boyfriend.”
She looked startled. “New boyfriend? New boyfriend? Why you think new boyfriend?”
“Oh, you know, the guy with the Lincoln Town Car. Picks you up. I assume you go on a date.”
“No, no. No date. No boyfriend.” She actually looked a little frightened and threw a glance to the left and then the right. “Is brother. Brother comes, takes care of sister.”
“Okay, okay,” I put a soothing little croon into the words. “It’s your brother. That’s okay. As a matter of fact, you ought to introduce me to your brother. We could chat about Russia. Just like I chat with you. I love Russians, you know.”
Now that was not so true. I mean, it wasn’t exactly false, but it was a stretch. I don’t actually judge any nationalities in particular, except for the Irish. I actually do love the Irish. I’m part-Irish, but only a little bit, so that’s not it. I haven’t really analyzed it, but I think it has something to do with beer. On second thought, make that the real thing— you know, something like a Guinness. Dark, malty, room temperature, and sippable. No guzzling your stout. Just build it and sip.
“No, no,” she said, louder this time. Then, she dropped her trash bag into the receptacle and slammed down the lid. “No meet brother. He not like people. He not like you. Goodbye now.”
She raced up the steps and slammed her way back into the house. So much for Plan B. Margie appeared in the front window and waved a happy little wave. She looked much better. Had cleaned up pretty nicely with some time and attention. Even lost a little weight. Not much, mind you. But a little. She said that He had heard a little bit of her prayers. I said to just keep eating more carrots. We each work in our own mysterious ways.
The Lincoln Town Car stopped coming to the house. I noticed that right away, but I was suspicious. Sure enough, after a few days, I had it figured out. My surveillance tracked pretty little Olga as she tripped her way on tottering heels to the far side of Third Avenue, where the Town Car picked her up.
So, it was no surprise to me when I heard the news that Olga had been murdered.
Russian Mob. I knew it. Had to be. It made the local paper. She’d worked late one night at Margie’s. Left on those tottery high heels in the dark. Had not quite turned the corner onto Third Avenue and was shot.
In the head. Close range.
Some rumors said a mugging. A robbery gone wrong. But she still had the five-hundred dollar shoes, the two-thousand dollar purse. Her rings. Her Rolex. I mean how does a domestic house aide get the money to buy all that designer trash? Use your noodles, people. It was the Mob. Had to be. So, now Margie had to hire a new domestic house aide. She called the agency, and some girls and some older women came to be interviewed. Margie asked me to help. And after a batch had come and gone, we sat in her kitchen and had tea. I can boil water, you know. I just don’t bake.
When the subject of Olga came up, and I don’t really remember why it did, all of a sudden, Margie turned a sheepish look on me.
“You know,” she said, “you’re my best friend in the whole wide world, except for Him.” She gave that little upward look she does. “And of course, He already knows, but you don’t.”
“Huh?” I said, really pretty surprised by now. “Know what? What’s up, sweetcakes? Something bothering you?”
“No,” she said, with a serious look and slightly lowered brows. “Nothing is bothering me. I’m perfectly happy. I just wanted to tell you that I shot Olga.”
Well, you could have blown me down and rolled me into New York Bay. Marge may not have shot either the sheriff or the deputy, but here she was, telling me that she had shot our Russky.
“Are you sure?” I asked, and don’t remind me about how dumb that is, because, of course, she would have to be sure to say something like that. But I had to ask. I really had trouble believing it.
“Yes, I’m sure. He told me it was okay.” Little look upward. “And, well, I’m pretty good with a gun. I am from Kansas, you know.”
That really was the story. Olga was involved with the Mob, and she and they were going to kill our little— okay, not so little— Margie, knowing she was not a rocket scientist and knowing she had money. They were going to break into the house, rob her, and kill her. No witnesses. Apparently, more than one older or disadvantaged person has been targeted by these kinds of thugs. The girlfriends seem to be happy to put up with a little domestic drudgery for the greater gains at the end.
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