The Weeping Buddha

by Heather Dune Macadam

  She reached for the doorknob with the strangest certainty that the door would still be open even after all these years. She could not imagine the loft ever being locked, and the past swung open as easily as if it were on hinges. Devon called from the bottom of the stairs, “Is anybody home?”

  “Come on up!” a shockingly young voice answered.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I used to live here. I thought I might stop by and see the place, do you mind?”

  A girl about twenty jumped up off the couch and stared at the stranger who had intruded on her home. Something about Devon must have assured her, though, because she sat back down. “Sure, come on in.”

  In the corner of the stairwell was the parking meter Todd and his brother had found on the street the night before he disappeared. It had taken two of them to carry it home, and they needed Josh’s help to get it upstairs. It was so heavy no one had ever bothered to move it again.The “Toys” sign was still on the wall, but Josh’s neon “Kosher Meat” sign was probably casting its greenish haze on Katiti nowadays.

  “You should lock your door,” Devon told her.

  “That’s so cool! When did you live here?”

  Devon told her.

  “Wow, I was five years old!”

  It had seemed long ago before, now it seemed that an eon had passed. Devon wanted to pinch herself; this girl could have been any one of them just a quick back-step in time. She had been replaced by a younger—hopefully less screwed-up—replica of herself.

  The loft had changed. The ceiling was no longer covered with a parachute and twinkling lights but had wallboard that smoothed out the rough edges of the room. The way to the roof was a stairway instead of a metal ladder, and there were skylights in the ceiling for extra light. The brick walls once covered with Godwyn’s murals of Ghana and street people were now painted bright white, along with the ceiling and the kitchen and the bathroom. The totally black and mirrored bathroom was bright and shiny with positive colors; the black couches, tables, and chairs that had made the place look so mod in the ’80s were now replaced with gentrified Pottery Barn furniture, trying too hard to look hip. It had never occurred to her why black was the color of the day back then, but now it seemed obvious—cocaine would have been invisible on white counters and tabletops.

  The floors had been sanded and polyurethaned into a glossy finish that held no resemblance to the rough, splintery wood that used to shred under Beka’s heels when she spun and twirled for them. The loft was as different as they were now, and like the loftmates, it had cleaned up its act. Devon looked around the space. When they lived there they had filled it with friends and parties so they wouldn’t get lost in the space. And here was this young girl alone on a Sunday afternoon waiting for life to take her on its ride. Was she fearful of what the future might hold? Devon felt as if she were looking back in time and already knew what was in store.

  “Who has the front room on the right?” Devon asked.

  The girl jumped up as if Devon had just invited her to join in a trip down memory lane. “That one’s mine!” Devon followed her into Beka’s old room.

  “There used to be a loft-bed up there.” Devon pointed above her head to where Beka had once slept.

  “Awesome, I was thinking of putting one in,” the young girl said.“It’s like synchronicity.”

  “Yeah.” Devon moved to the window, leaned her head against the glass, and looked out at where the Twin Towers had once reigned supreme, letting her breath fog the glass.

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Did you have my room?”

  “Um, no,” Devon faltered over the words, “my best friend did.”

  “Shoot, that’d be so cool to meet her. What’d she do?”

  “She was a dancer.”

  “Awesome. I’m a dancer, too! Was she anyone I would know?”

  “Beka Imamura?”

  “Are you kidding! I saw a tape of her in my dance-history class! She used those ropes and pulleys to dance off the ground.”

  “Beka hated gravity.”

  “Me too! Isn’t that awesome? It’s like synchronicity!”

  “Just like it.” Devon started down the hallway.

  “I wish she was here today,” the girl said dreamily.

  “So do I.” Devon looked at the stairs to the roof. “You mind if I go up?”

  The girl sat down on the couch cross-legged and opened up the magazine she had been reading when Devon first arrived, then nodded to the stairs. “Help yourself.”

  The air on the roof was colder than it had been on the street, but there wasn’t a strong wind and she peered across the haze of Manhattan, inhaling what seemed like fresh air. Leaning over the edge she looked down at the hundreds of people milling below. They looked like a river of molecules moving at the same rate of speed down one of New York’s main arteries. “Koyaniskatsi,” she mumbled under her breath.

  Beka had been doing a line of cocaine along the edge of the railing when Devon caught her with the straw up her nose. “Beka, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Nothing’s right, that’s what’s wrong.” Beka sniffled as if she had a cold. She had been sniffling a lot lately.

  “What’s this mean?”

  “Every night I have a dream that Todd calls me from that phone.” She pointed to the booth outside of Diamond Lil’s strip bar, on the other side of the street. “I go to the window and yell for him to wait for me, but he laughs and runs down the street jumping over parking meters. Sometimes it’s so real that I run downstairs …”

  “I was talking about drugs.”

  “Where is he, Dev?”

  “I don’t know, Beka. We’ll never know.”

  “What if they had found his sweater, or even a shoe?” Beka ignored her statement. “Do you think we would have found him then?”

  They stared out at the cityscape, silent except for Beka’s incessant sniffling. “I just want to die.” Tears were brimming in her eyes, but none fell.

  “So, you going to jump or OD?” Beka had looked at her aghast.Devon pushed the coke off the railing and into the air. “You’re so upset about Todd, choreograph a dance for him. He deserved more.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “We all are, Beka. It’s what you do with your fear that matters.”

  Beka had moved out of the loft that week and come out to stay on the East End with Devon’s parents. She got clean and started to work on “The Weeping Buddha,” the dance that would thrust her into the spotlight and make Todd Daniels almost immortal. It wasn’t until today that Devon had realized that the loft was directly connected to Beka’s drug use, though. Beka had stopped using as soon as she moved out, and that meant one thing—one of the loftmates had been Beka’s dealer. Was that person also responsible for Todd’s disappearance?

  There was the distinct sound of metal grating against metal, either opening or closing, she could not be sure, but her first thought was that the girl had decided to lock her up on the roof. Devon spun around. The entrance was still open. On the neighboring building, however, a door was now opening, and Godwyn stepped out of the interior shadows.

  “Hullo, Dev.”

  “God.” She walked over to the edge of the roof. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking out Beka’s old escape route.” He shut the door behind him.

  “Escape route?” Devon remembered seeing Beka go up to the roof on New Year’s Eve, right after Todd had taken his fateful run around the block, but she didn’t remember seeing her come back down.

  “She brought some guy up here once,” Godwyn told her, “then leapt to the other side. When he wouldn’t follow her she told him to meet her downstairs—so they could go to his place. By the time he got downstairs she had locked the outside door and the inner door automatically locked behind him. Then she came back across the roofs and went to bed. He was locked downstairs all night.”<
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  “She loved to mess with guys,” Devon said.

  “I’ll miss that. I never understood how she and Gabe ended up together.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “I thought Gabe was gay.”

  She glanced across the roofs of Tribeca. “I don’t know what to think anymore.” She wondered why he had actually come up here, and if her presence had thwarted some plan.

  “Well, I’m off, see you later.” He walked back to the door and gave the knob a turn. “It won’t give.”

  “Is it locked or stuck?”

  He jiggled the knob. “Locked. Bloody hell.”

  “I guess you’ll have to jump across.”

  “God help me.”

  “Or I could.” He smirked at her and she smirked right back at him.

  Godwyn took a few steps back and started his run toward the edge, but hesitated a few inches from the ledge. He looked into the crevice between the buildings—it wasn’t even a full alleyway. “Shit, when you’re young and immortal you can do anything, but when you get older …”

  He turned to face her on the other roof and began his approach faster this time. “I’m too old for this shit!” he yelled as he leapt into the air between the two buildings.

  He landed on the edge of the roof. She grabbed his arms and steadied him there for a moment. “Don’t let go, mate.” Devon tightened her grip as Godwyn’s torso wavered.

  “It’s amazing any of you survived this long,” she said under her breath, pulling him onto the roof with a heave.

  The girl started off the couch as they returned together, but found Godwyn’s appearance quite humorous when Devon informed her that he had also been a loftmate. The fact that there was another entrance was not of great importance, Devon told the girl, since it could not be recommended as a safe mode of travel.

  Godwyn stood in front of the whitewashed walls, his face stricken with grief, and placed his dark hand on the chalk-white brick. “The world’s gotten so bloody white. I never thought I’d see this loft so fucking clean. Remember how we used to leave the door to the roof open and watch the snow fall inside?”

  “I bet it was wild!” The girl was jubilant.

  Godwyn encouraged her. “You have no idea.”

  “We should get going,” Devon said, looking over at the small alter ego on the couch.

  She stared back at them for a minute, sizing them up and probably deciding that despite their age they might have some inkling of hip left in them.

  Godwyn headed downstairs while Devon hung back, wishing she could say something to make this young woman’s life in New York City safe and promising. She looked at her for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to be her age.

  “You got any advice for living here?” the girl asked.

  Devon stopped on the once-black stairs. “Yeah, don’t do drugs.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I have gained insight into my real nature once, that is enough.

  —ZEN PHRASE

  Loch and Gary got tired of waiting for Aileen to return. And it was already getting dark when they stopped by the largest house on Rysam Street to see if Gabe and Beka’s attorney was in. He was, and he was busy packing his Mercedes.

  “Looks like they’re leaving town,” Gary surmised. “Nice to know Aileen’s information’s accurate.”

  “Mr. Barry Goldstein?” The detectives flashed their badges and smiled in the friendliest way they could, considering they were dealing with a lawyer. “We understand you might have some information on the Sag Harbor Pilates Studio, and we need to ask you a few quick questions about ownership of the business.”

  “This regarding Beka and Gabe’s deaths?” He did not look surprised.“Such a shame and a shock, of course my vacation would coincide with tragedy. What do you need to know?” He sighed with resignation.

  “Did Ms. Imamura and Mr. Montebello have a will?” Loch began the questioning.

  “They did.”

  “There’s some question as to the circumstances around their deaths, sir. We’ll need to know who the recipients are.”

  “Of course, there weren’t many. Just two in fact.”

  “And who would they be?”

  “Edilio Ferraro and Devon Halsey. Halsey is the executor.”

  “Halsey?” Gary asked.

  Loch tried not to shudder; if the press got hold of that information the department would really be tied to the whipping post. “How did it break down?” He chose to focus on their suspect.

  “Ferraro gets the bulk of the estate with a stipulation for an arts foundation to be started in their names. Halsey gets a small percentage of the estate property. I am the executor.”

  “Shit.” Loch, normally well in control of his emotions, cussed and kicked a rock down the driveway.

  Goldstein leaned against the trunk of his car. “In the event that their heirs have predeceased them, there is a stipulation for the land to be preserved for wildlife. The buildings are to be used to house poor artists, who can apply for one-year residencies through a fellowship that will be administered by my law firm and funded by the sale of Gabe’s art.” He lit a cigar and chuckled. “Of course, they both wanted their names to come first, so Beka finally figured out a way to make that possible: The Montebello-Imamura Center for Art and Movement Exploration and the Imamura-Montebello Wildlife Preserve.”

  “How much is the estate worth?” Gary asked, as he too kicked a stone across the driveway. “And are there any liens on it?”

  Loch liked the question and looked at the lawyer closely—the motive for most murders was money. Where was the money?

  “No liens. Property is worth much more than money out here, detective. The land itself is worth millions—not including his other properties and the sale of his art—who knows how much.”

  “Jesus,” Gary cussed under his breath. “Excuse me.”

  “Quite all right,” Mr. Goldstein said. “It’s a lot of money.”

  “Quite a motive for murder,” Loch mused.

  “Don’t get me wrong, detectives, I like Edilio Ferraro just fine, but if he inherits the estate, the provisions for the land are null and void. He could, if he chose to, litigate against the provisions of the will and do just about anything he wanted to with the property, including sell it to the highest bidder.”

  “Any idea why Gabe put the land up for sale?”

  “It’s a feeding frenzy out here, gentlemen. My client wanted to liquidate his assets in case of a messy divorce and reinvest in something more secure, like Switzerland.”

  It was Loch’s turn to chuckle—that sounded like Gabe. Most artists weren’t businessmen as well, but Gabriel Montebello had been both—Loch wasn’t so sure he had ever been an artist. “Just a few more questions if you don’t mind.” Loch glanced at his notes. “Had any legal separation papers been filed?”

  “Not that I was made aware.”

  “And the value of his art after death?”

  “It will go up, and then it will go up more.”

  “Why Edilio? He was Beka’s business partner.” Loch could not imagine everything going to the man his wife was sleeping with.

  “Gabe was very fond of Edilio and didn’t have any family, or none that he cared to speak of.”

  “Where are you going?” Gary asked casually while indicating the bags in the trunk.

  “St. Barts.” He smiled, disarmingly. “Here’s my card if you need to reach me.”

  “You’ll be taking care of the estate when you return?”

  “Or after your investigation is done. Between FedEx, faxes, and email, no one will even know I’m gone. This is the information age, gentlemen.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” Loch lied. He was more confused now than before.

  “Sometimes we lawyers can be.” Goldstein flicked the ash of his cigar across the driveway and watched the detectives head back to their car.

  Devon and Godwyn came down the last steep flight of stairs from the loft
slowly, somberly.

  Godwyn stepped back and took one last photo of the fire escape above them, then began to rewind his film.

  “This whole day has been a reunion of ghosts,” Devon whispered.

  He turned to look at her.

  “It is, God. I can feel Beka watching us. And Gabe. And Todd. We’re standing in the very place where Sam and I last saw him.” A pain shot through her eyes, warning of a headache. They walked down the street, barely jostled by the thinning crowds as dark descended over the city. Shops were disappearing as quickly as the light faded and soon, except for the fast-food joints, Canal Street would look almost exactly as it had in the ’80s.

  “Why wasn’t Edilio here today?” Godwyn looked at Devon with narrowing eyes. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “You don’t know where Edilio is, do you?” Devon asked.

  “No, but he must be devastated. They’ve been lovers for years.”

  “Edilio and Beka?”

  “No, Edilio and Gabe. Beka never told you?” Devon stopped cold. “I used to live upstairs in Gabe’s building, remember? You’d be amazed at the boys who tromped through Gabe’s building.”

  “Did Beka know?”

  “Beka was never prudish. She got everything she wanted, money and prestige, sex on demand. Gabe was very bisexual.”

  “Beka just wanted someone to love her,” Devon said sadly.

  “Love wasn’t enough for her. It never is for performers.”

  They continued down Canal Street to Broadway Bob’s old subway stop. He kissed her good-bye—not the same kiss he had planted on her all those years ago, but a gentle quest for friendship during a confusing time. She kissed him back and watched as he headed down the stairs to catch the A train to Chelsea.

  Without the entourage in tow, Devon stood outside the subway entrance looking thoughtfully at the place where Broadway Bob had once sat on his grate with his brown tweed suit coat wrapped tight around his distended belly, smoking his cigar.

  “‘Dem Aliens come and take him,” he’d said.