“Maureen, I need to talk to you right away. It’s about Dennis…and Frank Sebastian.” A long pause. Maureen almost hung up. “Please, please call me. I need help. I need it bad.”
10
That afternoon, Maureen walked into Cargo toting three days’ worth of clothes and other essentials in a knapsack slung over her shoulder. She felt pretty much like she’d been run over by a truck. She had even nodded off for a minute in the cab, jumping awake with a yell that frightened the driver into nearly sideswiping a parked car. For the scare, Maureen added an extra five to the tip. Unimpressed, he sped off up Bay Street like he was glad to be rid of her.
Heading for the bar, Maureen saw Tracy. Standing behind the bar, her back to the room, she stood with a small clutch of customers watching the Sunday football game. The broadcast echoed through the mostly empty café. Maureen only knew Tracy’s name and the story of her boob job but relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. Even the sound of the football game set Maureen more at ease. Nothing says normal Sunday afternoon like giant millionaires beating the hell out of one another for fun and profit.
John stood on the outside of the bar, at the far end. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his glasses hanging from the collar of his black sweater. He hadn’t looked over when Maureen walked in the door. He was too absorbed in Molly, who was showing him a paper from the stack before her on the bar. She had a red pen in her teeth. Was she grading papers in a bar? Did teachers do that? John hadn’t looked over when Maureen arrived but Molly had, a fast glance. So fast John probably hadn’t even noticed. Molly looked ’cause she’s a woman, Maureen thought. She can’t not keep an eye on the door.
Surveying the room, Maureen spied Tanya tucked away in a dim corner, alone in a booth, half a cosmo before her. Maureen headed that way. Without even turning her head, sliding her eyes to the side, she snuck another look at the couple. Maybe it wasn’t John that stung. Maybe it was Molly and what she had that Maureen didn’t—someone at her side if she got in trouble. Not across the room, not in the apartment upstairs, but right next to her, practically inside her skin. Of course, women like Molly didn’t stumble around dark bars with cocaine hangovers, barging in on 3 a.m. blow jobs. Get over it, Maureen. You did it to yourself. And maybe to Tanya, who was now out of her seat and hugging Maureen like she was a long-lost sister back from the dead.
When Tanya released her, settling back into her seat, Maureen let Tanya’s hands slide down her arms and through her fingers. Poor Tanya. She smiled, bee-stung lips curling over perfect white teeth, her straight black hair falling in two perfect curtains on either side of her perfect face. She was, what, twenty-three? Twenty-four? Maureen realized she didn’t know. Wasn’t out of the question that Tanya was nineteen or thirty. The Life was funny and unfair in the way it added years to some people and took them away from others. Maureen thought of the way Paul had looked at her standing there in her bathrobe. One look at Tanya would melt that poor kid into a simmering pool of hormones, leave him seeping through the cracks in the street.
S-L-U-T, the other girls said. God, the other girls at the Narrows hated Tanya! Too young, too well built, too pretty. Working in bars, Maureen had learned fast that while a man couldn’t be too handsome, a woman could be too beautiful, especially in the eyes of other women. It was cheap envy and Maureen held herself above it. Of course, it helped that the other girls weren’t wild about Maureen, either, though they feared her in a way they never did Tanya. She knew they found her too bossy, too serious. Maybe a little too smart. Well, that was too bad. She had bills in the present and plans for the future. That wasn’t her fault any more than it was Tanya’s fault she was catastrophically gorgeous.
“Thanks for coming, Maureen,” Tanya said, her big hazel eyes blank and vacant.
Maureen disguised her exasperated sigh with a fake yawn. Tanya was high. Was now really the time? Well, when wasn’t the time for Tanya? “You’re welcome, T. After what happened, we could all probably use a little help.”
Tanya circled her fingertip around the rim of her martini glass. “Yeah. That.” She looked out the window. “I talked to Vic. He said we’re reopening on Tuesday. We may as well try and get back to normal, he said.”
“Vic say anything about a funeral?” Maureen asked. It was the first time she’d thought of it. Could you have a funeral with body parts? Did the family even claim those? She pictured severed arms and legs sliding around in a mostly empty casket. Gross. What was wrong with her?
“Vic said…Vic talked to the family,” Tanya said, her eyes welling up. “They don’t want anyone from the bar there. They blame us for what happened…for Dennis’s lifestyle.”
“Lifestyle? What lifestyle? He worked in a bar, he didn’t belong to a cult.” Maureen pulled a couple of napkins from the dispenser on the table. She reached across, patted a napkin at Tanya’s tears. “What a bunch of assholes.”
Tracy walked up to the table. “Everything okay?” She puffed out her bottom lip at Tanya. “You need something, sweetie?” Tanya shook her head. “Maureen?”
Well done, Maureen thought. Tracy remembered her name. And she’d had her eye on Tanya since before Maureen had arrived. She’d known from across the room that something wasn’t right, and she’d been delicate about letting Maureen know it. John would do well to hang on to this one.
“We’re all right,” Maureen said. “Let me get another cosmo for Tanya. And let me have a Stoli and grapefruit. Maybe a basket of fries, too. I gotta eat something.”
“I’m on it,” Tracy said. She held Maureen’s eyes for a long moment and headed back to the bar.
“The family,” Tanya said, when Tracy was out of range, “told Vic that Dennis wouldn’t have died if not for the drunks and drug addicts he worked with, that dragged him down. They actually said that. Can you believe it? I thought Vic was going to cry when he was telling me.”
Maureen swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. Like Dennis was a nine-year-old that the no-good neighborhood teens had corrupted with cigarettes and hits of cheap beer. He was a grown man who had made his own choices.
“Forget his family,” Maureen said. “Where have they been? Where were they before this happened?”
Tracy returned with the drinks and food. “I’ll run a tab at the bar.”
Maureen took a few long gulps of her cocktail, thinking of her own mother constantly ragging on her to get a life. Had Dennis suffered the same abuse? It was indeed enough sometimes to make you want to stretch your neck across a train track.
“What about you?” Maureen asked, picking a lone hot French fry from the basket. “They at least gonna let you go to the services?”
Tanya, tears rolling again, shook her head. “They didn’t know about me and Dennis. Nobody knew.”
“Except for everybody.”
Tanya grinned. It made Maureen feel good. “Except for that,” Tanya said.
Maureen slid her drink aside and leaned across the table. “You mentioned Frank Sebastian on the phone. You said there was some connection between him and Dennis.”
Tanya flipped open her cell and stared into it.
“T, it’s important,” Maureen said. “What does Sebastian have to do with you and Dennis?”
“Excuse me a second,” Tanya said, neither making a call nor moving from her seat. “It’s time.” Maureen pushed the basket of fries across the table, but Tanya held up her hand. “I can’t eat those. The grease, the fat. I’m not like you, lucky thing. I’ll put on five pounds looking at them.”
Tanya found an orange prescription bottle in her purse. She popped off the top with her thumb and shook out two pills. She considered them a moment, shook out a third, and downed all three with the remains of her first cosmo.
“I’ve been seeing a doctor, for anxiety,” Tanya said. “This thing with Dennis hasn’t helped.” She stuffed the bottle deep into her handbag. “Oh, my bad, you want one? Helps take the edge off.” Maureen nodded and Tanya reached into her bag.
> “No,” Maureen said, “I better not. I’m okay.” She moved her drink back in front of her, wrapped both hands around it. “I’m not saying you’re not okay.”
Tanya reached across the table, set her hand on Maureen’s wrist. “Don’t worry. I get it.” Tanya descended even further away behind her own eyes. Maureen swore she could see it happening, like watching someone sink beneath the surface of the sea. It was sad and frightening, and it meant she had to hurry if she wanted information. “Listen, does Sebastian know about you and Dennis? It’s important. Did you and Dennis ever talk about Sebastian?”
Even through the bright gloss, Maureen saw Tanya’s lips go pale as her mouth tightened into a thin line. Maureen still couldn’t tell if Tanya had heard a word she’d said. “Dennis died because of me,” Tanya said. “It’s my fault.”
That was news. “What’re you talking about?”
“About a year ago,” Tanya said, “right before you got there, Dennis left the Narrows to open his own place over close to the ferry, by the ballpark. Where they were gonna build all those condos. Microbrews and burgers.” She looked around the bar. “I forget what he called it. It was kinda like this place. Anyways, the condos never got built and the bar went under in less than three months. Dennis had borrowed the start-up money, a lot of it, from Sebastian. Vic set it up; he and Sebastian go back.” She rolled her shoulders. “Dennis had nothing to take to a bank. His family practically disowned him when he said he was gonna open a bar of his own. They wanted him in law school. They treated him like shit. Never even came in to see the place.”
Tears came again.
“This thing with Sebastian, it was just supposed to be business, you know? Neighborhood business, one guy helping another guy out. But Sebastian got pissed. I don’t know what his problem is; he’s got lots of money.”
She wiped her eyes with a napkin, taking care not to smudge her makeup.
“Sebastian found out about me and Dennis,” Tanya said. “From Vic probably, though Dennis swore he hadn’t told anyone.” She tried to smile. “Who knows, right? You and everyone else at the Narrows figured it out. Prob’ly wasn’t that hard for Vic.” She lowered her forehead into her palm, letting her hair fall over her face. “Anyway, after that Sebastian got totally weird. He told Dennis to start making videos of the two of us, me and Dennis. Sexual videos. Sebastian was gonna do something with them, to make back the money, I guess. I don’t know the details, but they were supposed to get Dennis off the hook for the cash.”
“Jesus, Tanya, tell me you said no. Tell me you didn’t do it.”
Tanya nodded, covering her face. She peeked at Maureen through her fingers. “Just a few times. Dennis told me he’d doctor the video to hide our faces.” She moved her hands to her cheeks. “We decided to get really fucking high and get it over with. I figured, fuck it, it’s just sex. It’s not like I loved Dennis or anything, but I didn’t want to not help him when it seemed kind of easy. And let’s face it, I’m a sucky waitress and the other girls hate me. Dennis should’ve fired me a long time ago. And I was having sex with him already, because I wanted to and not to keep my job if that’s what you’re thinking, okay? So what was the big deal? Who would ever see it, really?” She paused. “Dennis was scared, Maureen. Sebastian said he’d make Vic fire him, that Vic owed him money, too, that he’d get other guys after Dennis, to do worse. To him and to me.” Tanya flattened her hands on the tabletop and leaned forward, close to Maureen. “Dennis told me Sebastian knows people, all kinds of people, through his security company and from when he was a cop.”
“Wait, wait,” Maureen said. “Hold on a minute. Sebastian was a cop?”
“Like a million years ago, twenty or something. He was some big hero over in Brooklyn.” Tanya took a big mouthful of cosmo. “Some fucking hero he is now, huh?”
Maureen stared across the table, willing any expression—confusion, pity, disgust—from her face. She resisted the urge to count up Tanya’s mistakes, the drugs, the self-deception, the bad decisions that led her to fucking on film to pay debts she didn’t owe. It wasn’t like Maureen hadn’t made her own mistakes and bad decisions, piling them one on top of another. She couldn’t decide what she felt, what she had a right to feel. But Maureen did know one thing: were she in Tanya’s place, she’d be swallowing pills six at a time, not three.
“I don’t understand,” Maureen said, “how this ends with Dennis on the tracks.”
“Dennis told me,” Tanya said, sniffling, “that he hadn’t given the videos over to Sebastian yet. That he was working out something else. Something that didn’t involve me.”
“What was this other deal?” Maureen asked. Some kind of blackmail? Was that why Dennis saw Maureen catching him compromised the other night as a lucky break, one he’d been hoping for? Or even one he’d set up? Maybe those cameras behind the bar had been running after all. Had Sebastian found out? “Do you know what Dennis had planned?”
“I never knew,” Tanya said. “Dennis told me not to worry about it.”
“And the videos? What about them?”
Tanya blew out a long sigh. She seemed to be gathering herself back together, relieved, maybe, to be telling someone her secret. I know that feeling, Maureen thought. Either that or the drugs were kicking in.
“That’s what Sebastian wanted to know,” Tanya said, “when he called me last night.”
“Oh, no.”
“He talked like Dennis had never canceled their deal,” Tanya said. “Which I don’t understand, because Dennis had promised me he was working everything out.”
Apparently not, Maureen thought, or he wouldn’t be dead. “What did you tell Sebastian?”
“I told him we’d made the videos.” Tanya looked down into her drink, shifted her eyes to her lap. “Except for some stuff I hadn’t let Dennis do yet. I’m not, like, a prude or anything but some of the stuff?” Tanya seemed to shrink, to become suddenly tired and small. “Some of what Sebastian wanted sounded like it would’ve really…hurt. I think that’s why Dennis decided to stop, to not hurt me or, you know, humiliate me. And him, I guess. Any more than we already had.”
“But Sebastian wants them. Who’s got them? You?”
“They’re at Dennis’s place, on the camera.”
“I don’t like where this is headed.”
“I need you to come with me over there,” Tanya said, “to find the camera. I can’t go alone. Those other bitches at work, they hate me. They can’t be trusted with a secret like this. But you can, Maureen. You’re straight up and you always treated me right. We always got along, you and me. Like friends.” Tanya reached out for Maureen’s wrist again, grabbed it tight with both hands. “Sebastian said things to me. He told me he was gonna have his movies, even if he had to start from scratch and make them with me himself. He threatened me with things. Those guys that watch the parking lots by work, all up and down Bay Street, I don’t know if you know this but they all work for him; that’s Sebastian’s security company. Some of them have driven me home from work. They know where I live.
“I don’t want Sebastian to have those videos. Not for me, but for Dennis. Dennis went back on Sebastian for me. But I’m afraid of what Sebastian will do if I don’t hand them over. It’s shitty, I know, to give them up now. I should stand up for Dennis.” She paused, staring at Maureen. “What do I do?”
Maureen opened her purse. Somewhere in there was Waters’s card. She found it, pushed it across the table. Tanya kept her hands under the table but leaned forward to read the card. She looked up at Maureen. “Detective? You’re talking to the cops?”
“They came to me,” Maureen lied. “They look at things like Dennis’s death, to make sure there’s no foul play and stuff. It’s standard procedure.”
Tanya furrowed her brow. “No cops have called me.”
Damn, Maureen thought. Maybe she’s not as high as I thought. She faked a smile. “Alphabetical order. M comes before T.” That seemed to satisfy Tanya. “You need to call Water
s.”
“I don’t know,” Tanya said. “If Sebastian finds out, it’ll make things worse.”
“You tell Waters that Sebastian threatened you with rape, for chrissakes, and Sebastian won’t have the chance to do a damn thing.”
“Nobody ever said anything about rape. Jesus, Maureen, Sebastian’s famous. Besides, he was a cop. Waters is a cop. What makes you think Waters is gonna choose us over him?”
Maureen swallowed hard. Tanya had a point. She thought of the men Paul had let into her apartment. But Paul wasn’t hard to fool. Suits and guns weren’t proof those guys were cops. There was no proof they had anything to do with NYPD, past or present. They could’ve been from Sebastian’s security service. That would make sense. Besides, she’d already spilled her guts to Waters; she’d already made her decision, right or wrong, to trust him.
“T, don’t be stupid,” Maureen said. “You said yourself Sebastian stopped being a cop a long time ago. Call Waters.”
Tanya opened her phone. “I’ll put his number in my cell, call him in the morning.”
“Call him now. Please. For me.” She took a deep breath. “You’re not the only one having trouble with Sebastian.”
Tanya stared back at her, struggling to compute Maureen’s words, the drugs overriding the last of her lucid circuits. Maureen realized, too late, that she’d gone overboard, talking about cops and rape and Sebastian. Full of pills and guilt and fear, Tanya had started shutting down. “I can’t talk to a cop tonight. Do you have any idea how fucking high I am right now?”
“Waters won’t care,” Maureen said.
“Do you know everything this cop cares about? You talk about him like you know him. Do you?”
“No, I don’t. I met him this morning.” She looked up at Tanya. “My place got broken into last night.” She waited for Tanya to make the connection. She didn’t. “He’s helping me out.”
The Devil She Knows Page 10
