The Angel of Montague Street

by Norman Green

  I miss you, Noonie, God, I miss you. I always had to reel you back in when we were kids, I always had to track you down and bring you home, but I’m not gonna do it this time, this time I’m gonna let you go, you can stay out here with the birds. Go swimming whenever you feel like it.

  He felt the breeze pick up as he made his way back up the path, and wind-borne grains of sand pecked at his eyes. He stopped when he got to the road, at the end of the fence, tried to pull himself together. A tall, thin black girl wearing a blue denim miniskirt and a halter top walked by him, giving him a look on her way past, taking him for one more whacko standing by the side of the road. On the far side of the street a fat guy carrying a fishing rod, a white bucket, and a small beer cooler trudged in the opposite direction. Silvano crossed over and went to sit on the car and wait for Roland, who was still on the telephone.

  ROLAND DROPPED HIM in front of the St. Felix. It had been a quiet trip back, Silvano sitting in the passenger seat second-guessing himself, Roland driving, silent, probably doing the same thing. He pulled the car up into the no-standing zone in front of the hotel. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t think anyone will ask, but if they do, this little excursion didn’t happen.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “You really know someone in Defense, or were you yanking my chain?”

  “I know a lot of people. You’re interested in talking, I need to know your real name.”

  “Winston. Winston Taylor.”

  “All right, I’ll pass it on. Someone might get in touch with you, but you never know. They’ll come sniffing around, send someone to have a look at you. You decide to make the jump, don’t go on anyone’s verbal offer. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Cut the cards, is what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right. Listen, I’m sorry about your brother. He seemed like an okay guy.”

  Silvano didn’t know what to say to that, so he opened the door and stepped out. He leaned down and looked in. “See you,” he said. He shut the door and walked away.

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD SEEMED DIFFERENT, somehow, like he’d been gone a couple years instead of a couple hours. Before, he’d seen character and history, now he saw dirt. Someone had puked on the base of a small tree outside a bar on Clark Street. Half a block down, a lady stood at one end of a leash looking idly off into the distance while her little white dog stood at the other end and took a shit on the sidewalk. The woman who looked like Tip O’Neill’s sister stood in her usual spot outside the Margaret, silent this time, glaring belligerently at people going past. Silvano looked at her.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Assholes!” she exploded, her face red and her eyes clamped shut. “Whole damn city is assholes and eyeballs! Eyeballs and assholes!” She kept it up as he crossed the street and went down onto the Promenade. My good deed for the day, he thought.

  The buildings on the Brooklyn side of the Hudson all looked older than they had the last time he’d seen them, crumbling, decrepit, falling down. He hadn’t noticed, before, how the refuse containers in between the park benches were overflowing, how the flower beds behind the wrought-iron fences were littered with empty bottles and beer cans. He sat down on a bench and stared out across the harbor, looking past the Statue of Liberty, past New Jersey, even, out into nothing, listening to the whispered promises of some distant highway telling him those same old seductive lies, the ones he’d always been willing to believe before, stories about what he might find if only he’d take the trouble to go and look. A part of him still wanted to listen, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to talk himself into buying it this time around.

  I have to tell somebody, he thought, I have to talk to someone. Who the hell knows where Henry would be, this time of day? Elia’s probably still at work. He decided to go find a pay phone, see if he could get her on the phone.

  An unfamiliar voice answered the phone at Black and White.

  “Can I speak to Elia Taskent?”

  “Hold on.” It was a male voice. He heard the guy ask who Elia Taskent was, heard another voice, muffled, sounded like Sean O’Brian. A second later the guy came back on. “She didn’t come in today.”

  “No? She call in sick?”

  “Buddy, she ain’t here. Beyond that I can’t help you.” The guy hung up.

  Silvano stood there looking at the receiver in his hand. He could feel worms crawling in his stomach. Go look, he told himself. Go see if she’s at home.

  The lock on Elia’s door refused to surrender to his ministrations. After ten frustrating minutes he gave up and stood back in the hallway, tempted to just kick the door in, but then he reconsidered and headed for the roof instead.

  God, he thought, looking down at the fire escape from above, God, don’t let this thing fall off the building, not today, and he dropped down onto it and made his way down to her floor. The windows in Elia’s apartment that fronted onto the fire escape were pinned closed from the inside, because what was a way out was also a way in. He peered into the darkened room in frustration, his anxiety building. He was tempted, once again, to simply smash his way inside. Great idea, he told himself. You’ll do a lot of good locked away for breaking and entering, and you can’t sit out on this rickety iron trellis much longer, either.

  There was a narrow ledge in the brick face of the building that ran horizontally under the row of windows on each floor, it was barely two inches wide. Her bathroom window was ten feet from the end of the fire escape, and it had been open when he’d visited her last. He went over the railing and put his toes on the ledge, holding on to the rail for support. Don’t lean in, he told himself, don’t freeze up, just get over there. This is idiotic, some small inner voice in his head was saying, this is the stupidest thing you’ve done in a while . . . Get on with it, he thought, his desperation overruling his common sense. He inched along the ledge, holding on to individual bricks with his fingertips, narrowing his focus until all he was conscious of was the feeling of weight on his toes and the gaps between the bricks he could feel with his fingers as he felt for the next hold. He reached the window and pushed it open, began breathing again, slid into the room.

  She wasn’t home.

  He had been worrying that he’d find her inside, beaten to death like Special Ed, lost to him forever, but she wasn’t. He could smell her in the room, though, the scent of the perfume she wore, traces of the soap she used. Droplets of water clung to the shower stall, and her towel was still damp. She got up and got ready, he thought, she went out of here this morning. Probably headed for work, he thought, although there was no way to know for sure. She might have had a test, or a doctor’s appointment.

  Black thoughts came into his mind but he pushed them away. God, You gotta help me, here . . . If someone has her, there’s nothing you can do, he told himself. Just go where they can find you, and wait. Is it self-centered, he wondered, to automatically assume her disappearance is related to you? Maybe she went off on business of her own. She does have a life, you know, had one long before you came along.

  You can hope, he thought, you can hope for that, but in the meantime you have to go someplace they would look for you, and you have to wait. He closed the window he’d entered through, let himself out of her apartment, listened to the lock snap shut behind him.

  NINE

  THE CRAZY ONE was not bad-looking, but she was too vacant, and besides, she hadn’t bathed in some time. The other one was not to Little Dom’s taste, either, too muscular, for one thing, too dark and too pissed off. He toyed with the idea of doing her, just to get at Silvano, cause him as much pain as he could, but he didn’t want to push her over the line into incoherence, because then she would be impossible to handle. He had them both stashed in the same hotel room, Iurata’s girlfriend lashed securely, facedown on the bed, gagged to keep her quiet. The crazy one was tied to a chair, she wasn’t gagged because she didn’t seem to have anything to say. She just sat there looking at him, she d
idn’t rage and scream and curse the way the other one had. God, what a waste. Too many trips without luggage, he guessed. She seemed compliant, though, and maybe it was just his general good mood, but he was actually beginning to like her. In the meantime, though, he needed her calm, she had to be sane enough to function, to talk, she had to be able to deliver her message. Why are you bothering with this shit? he asked himself. If you want to take Iurata down, you have to keep your mind on business. I can still fuck with Iurata’s head, he thought. As soon as you’re dead, he would tell him, I’m gonna do your girlfriend. Yeah, that was it. He felt better, warming to the idea. Every time she thinks of you, as long as she lives she’ll feel me inside of her, with every tear she cries for you, motherfucker, she’ll remember what I do to her. And you know what? No matter what she thinks of you now, she’ll come to hate you, eventually, you asshole, because all this is gonna happen to her because of you.

  He turned away from the window and walked around the bed, feeling the bitch’s ass on his way by. She recoiled from his touch as much as her bonds would allow, making angry noises in the back of her throat.

  He looked at his watch. Another hour and it would be fully dark. He looked at the crazy one. “You think you can find Silvano Iurata?”

  “Probably.”

  He picked his bag up and plopped it on the bed between the bitch’s legs, unzipped it, took out his sawed-off shotgun. Most of the stock and all but a few inches of the barrel had been removed. What was left was barely eighteen inches long, easily hidden, incredibly lethal at close range. It was already loaded. He moved the bag and nestled the business end of the gun right up into the bitch’s crotch so she could feel it, but gently, gently. He went to whisper in her ear. “You better lie still,” he told her. “It’s not time for you to die yet.”

  He reached into the bag and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He stripped tape off the roll, wrapped it twice around the end of the shotgun barrels, then he grabbed a handful of the bitch’s hair, jerked her head back, ran the tape twice around her neck. Now the shotgun was a part of her, it would go everywhere she went, when she stood it would hang, suspended from the back of her head. He had a shawl in the bag, he would wrap it around her shoulders, walk next to her with his hand beneath the shawl, on the gun, nobody would even look twice. Just two good friends out for an evening stroll. He snickered, looked over at the crazy one.

  “You see that?”

  She didn’t say anything, she just nodded.

  “No way for her to get loose,” he said, “not alive, not unless I decide to let her go. I want you to remember that.”

  She said nothing, just continued to stare at him. He yanked at the ropes that bound her to the chair. When her hands were free, she rubbed her wrists, flexed her fingers, watched him as he finished untying her, freeing her legs, too. She shook her head, flinging that long hair back over her shoulders.

  He watched her for a minute. “Pay attention to me now. I want you to go find Silvano Iurata. I want you to tell him everything you’ve seen here tonight. Tell him about the gun, the duct tape, all of it. Can you do that?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “I want you to tell him he has to meet me, right now, tonight, at the southern tip of the Promenade, all the way at the end, past the entrance from Montague Street. I’ll be there waiting, and I’ll have his woman with me.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll give you two hours to find him. If you don’t find him, I’ll kill her. If you find him too late, I’ll kill her. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll kill her. Her life is your responsibility. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you. You want him tonight, you gotta give me carfare. I might have to check a few different places.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You want money from me?”

  She actually sneered at him. “I look like I’m rolling in it?”

  Shaking his head, he reached into his pocket and peeled a couple of twenties off his roll. He handed her the bills, then stepped back away from her, went over and opened the door. “Go now,” he said, watching her. “Hurry.” She stood up and walked out.

  He went over and lay on the bed next to the other one and began caressing her. She didn’t recoil this time, she just lay there. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you go,” he told her. “If you’re a good little girl, if you be quiet and cooperate, you’ll live through this. But I want you to understand, I don’t actually need you anymore. If you died right now, it wouldn’t matter. Do you hear me?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She nodded her head slightly.

  “Good,” he said. “We’re almost ready. You better hope she finds him.”

  The hotel had had a dumbwaiter once, the small square door was still there, painted shut. He walked over and kicked it. It buckled with the first kick but it didn’t give way. He put all of his anger into the second kick and the door shattered. He went over and looked inside, stuck his hand into the opening and felt the warm air moving up the shaft.

  In his bag there was a plastic jug full of gasoline. It had a timer and a blasting cap taped to it. He set the timer, wrapped duct tape around the jug, and suspended it in the dumbwaiter shaft, running the end of the tape out through the opening and down the wall.

  “Time to go,” he said, and he went over to the bed. “Now, if you want to survive, you’re gonna have to listen very carefully . . .”

  SILVANO HEARD THE SIRENS in the distance, not cop sirens, going swiftly, chasing someone, but slower moving, more insistent. He stood watching the usual evening parade on the Promenade, gay guys out shopping, walkers, joggers, a guy moving through the crowd selling nickel bags and loosies from a leather bag hanging from one shoulder. Word moved through the crowd, then, like a wave rolling up the beach, Margaret’s on fire, hey, the Margaret Hotel is burning, she’s going up like a torch, man, you knew this was going to happen, what a firetrap, someone probably fell asleep with a lit cigarette . . . They all hurried away to watch, and a few minutes later he was alone, leaning on the corner of the railing down at the end, northbound traffic rushing by not twenty feet below. It was a good move, he thought, torching the Margaret, he never would have thought of it.

  It unnerved him, though. Margaret was where he’d been keeping them, that’s what Mrs. Clark had told him. She hadn’t seen it, going in, he had carried her in there unconscious, but she knew it as soon as she came to, the place had a distinctive smell, and then, of course, she had walked out under her own power, and there was no mistaking it. He had to believe what she said, had to trust this wasn’t some delirium, some walking nightmare of her own imagining, had to hope she hadn’t left out anything important. He had to depend on her, is what it boiled down to, and he was uncomfortable depending on anyone, let alone her. She might have the best of intentions, but that didn’t mean she was in more than incidental contact with reality.

  “How did he know,” Silvano had asked her, “how did he know that you knew me?” She had the impression that Little Dom had been watching, she’d seen him in the Montague, hanging around, spreading a few bucks, asking some questions. He had jogged off, then, not stopping at the St. Felix for a weapon.

  The fire made him nervous, they always did, you could never be sure what would happen in a fire, and maybe Domenic had fucked up, maybe the building had gone up so fast that he hadn’t gotten her out, maybe Elia was trapped in there with him right now, and how many others were going to die in that stinking dump this night, people who didn’t get the word in time, or were too old to move fast enough, or maybe just drunk and passed out, waiting for the flames? The thought agitated him, and though he knew he had to stand and wait, his feet itched to run, to charge in, the way he usually did, go for it, go find her, drag her out. He couldn’t see the Margaret or the fire from where he stood, but he could see an orange glow haloing the buildings between the two of them, more sirens from fire companies farther away, coming hard. Smart, he had to admit it. Nobody would remember anything about this night except the hotel going up, it was a primal thing, big bonfir
e in the dark, everybody wants to go dance around it.

  He saw them then. It looked like they were arm in arm, taking their time, working their way toward him, past the empty park benches. When they got closer he could see the silver tape around Elia’s neck, some of her hair was caught up under it on one side. She had some kind of gray thing around her shoulders, reminded Silvano of the serape men wore down in Colombia. She wasn’t looking at him. She walked with her head down, listening to Domenic, who was leaning down, whispering in her ear. He glanced in Silvano’s direction, a smile spreading across his face, but he kept his head down, his voice in her ear, one arm hidden behind her, up under that gray thing, where the shotgun had to be. God, Silvano thought, I’m just gonna bother You about this one time . . .

  He hadn’t seen Little Dom since they were both seventeen. Dom had kept on growing after he left. He was about Bonifacio’s size now, still had all his hair. He looked like he’d spent some time in the gym, he was a little paunchy but not bad, he carried it okay. He was jittery, though, kept talking to Elia, kept looking around, laughing nervously. Silvano wiped his palms on his jeans and calmed himself, controlling his breathing, pushing his heart rate down, clearing his head. He focused on the two of them, tuning out the fire engines, the traffic noises below, putting his anxiety high up on a shelf. He turned his back and leaned on the railing, looking at the lights of Manhattan winking off the surface of the East River, over where one of the Staten Island Ferries vectored into the current, lining up for the slip.

  “Silvano Iurata.”

  He could hear triumph in the guy’s voice. They came up and stood next to him at the railing, Little Dom right at his elbow, Elia on the far side. He wants me to try for him, Silvano thought. He wants an excuse to blow her head off, right here. “Hello, Domenic.”

  “I want you to know I didn’t fuck your girlfriend. I might, though, later on.” He chuckled.

  Silvano leaned forward, looking past Domenic. Elia’s face was white, and her jaw was clamped in anger. “You all right?” he asked her. She closed her eyes, nodded twice. Good thing she ain’t the one with the gun, he thought. She looks like she wants to kill both of us.