Invisible Boy

by Cornelia Read

  I bulled my way forward into the slanting rain, shoulders hunched. I could see the twinned concrete hulks Skwarecki had described in the distance. There was another sculpture out front, stainless steel and a lot more modern. The rainy wind made it whirl like a giant cheese grater.

  The floor inside was dirty and wet. I got in line for the metal detector, scanning the crowd beyond until I saw Skwarecki waving at me.

  “No raincoat?” she asked when I’d made it through. “What do you, wanna to catch pneumonia?”

  We were in a tall atrium jammed with people. Dozens of voices bounced off the walls. Skwarecki walked point through the crowd, me trotting close behind. We passed several courtrooms. All I could see as we rushed alongside each set of glass-paneled doors was IN GOD WE TRUST writ huge on the far wall inside, above the head of a judge.

  Skwarecki flashed her badge to some guy in a beige uniform and said, “She’s with me,” before he waved us ahead into a long hallway. The names on the office doors we passed were a global mishmash: Tsangarakis, Seide, Murphy, Chu, Lapautre.

  We finally arrived at a reception area manned by a phalanx of no-nonsense-looking women whom my mother would have described as “salty old broads.”

  The one in the middle held up one finger until she’d finished transferring a phone call, then grinned up at Skwarecki. “What brings you down here this fine morning?”

  “Hey, Rosemary,” said Skwarecki. “We’ve got an appointment with Bost.”

  “I’ll let her know you’re here.” Rosemary handed me a register to sign and gave me a bar-codedGUEST sticker for the front of my coat, then buzzed us in past another sturdy set of doors.

  The hallway beyond was painted a shiny institutional green from the floor to waist level, with grimy white above. We passed a row of head shots, former DAs in sequence, from the twenties onward. I watched stiff celluloid collars give way to soft fabric, while bow ties morphed into Windsor-knotted four-in-hands.

  Bost’s office was right next to a group shot from the mid-seventies, judging by the stunning width of the attorneys’ lapels.

  Skwarecki rapped a quick “shave and a haircut,” then opened the ADA’s door. I followed her inside.

  Bost stood and reintroduced herself, hand stretched out across her desk to shake mine.

  “Detective,” she said, “thanks so much for bringing Ms. Dare down today.”

  Skwarecki nodded. “No problem. I figured she’d need a little help navigating—maybe we’d all get some lunch later.”

  We sat down in the visitors’ chairs. There were some snapshots and Xeroxed cartoons pinned to a corkboard behind Bost’s head, the window to her left giving a depressing view of the day outside. Next to me was a framed black-and-white shot of the old steel globe left over from the 1964 World’s Fair, in Flushing Meadows.

  “I see you’re admiring the Unisphere,” said Bost, “unofficial icon of Queens.”

  “It was always one of the first things I recognized outside the airport as a kid whenever I came east,” I said, “along with those towers that looked like they had a stack of pancakes on top.”

  “I’ve always loved that thing,” said Bost. “I remember my dad taking me right up into its shadow, all excited about the coming wonders of the Space Age.”

  “I’ve never seen it up close,” I said.

  “It’s huge—twelve stories tall. There were jets of water shooting up all around it back then. Spectacular.”

  “What are the rings for?” I asked, pointing at the three silvery trails circumnavigating the central globe.

  “Orbits,” said Bost. “They’re supposed to mark the paths of Gagarin, Glenn, and the Telstar satellite.”

  “Cool,” I said, turning from the photograph to look across the desk at her.

  “Aw, Christ,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

  I raised my eyes to the same spot, where a patch of yellowed damp was leaking through from above. Two fat drops plummeted to the surface of her desk, inches away from a fat manila file folder.

  Bost snatched the file out of the way as more yellow drops started plopping down, thick and fast. “Swear to God, this building…”

  Skwarecki stood up. “What say the three of us grab an early lunch?”

  “Brilliant plan,” said Bost, reaching for her coat.

  * * *

  We got a booth by the window at an Italian place halfway up the block on the other side of the boulevard.

  “What was that?” I asked as we scootched in across the red vinyl. “Are the pipes backed up or something?”

  Skwarecki laughed.

  “The prisoners are backed up,” said Bost.

  “How?” I asked.

  Skwarecki reached for her menu. “The floor above the prosecutors’ offices—it runs from the jail to the courthouse. The guards hate having to process the inmates twice, so if things get behind schedule they just lock the hall at both ends and let them all stew up there.”

  “You have fifty guys sitting around for five, six hours,” explained Bost, “eventually they gotta use the facilities.”

  “Problem is, there aren’t any,” added Skwarecki. “I mean, it’s a hallway.”

  I stared at the two of them. “That was piss?”

  They nodded.

  “Leaking through the goddamn ceiling?”

  Bost gave me a thumbs-up in confirmation. “Not like they don’t know we’re right under.”

  “Dude,” I said. “That is completely repulsive.”

  She shrugged. “My world, and welcome to it.”

  Skwarecki gave me a little punch to the shoulder. “You just gotta heart New York, am I right?”

  We were picking over our lunch plates, initial hunger sated.

  Skwarecki’d ordered the manicotti, Bost a Caesar salad. I was staring down at a platter of eggplant parm, hoping I could negate the image of felonious urine given enough red sauce.

  “The first step is the grand jury,” Bost said. “I’ll let you know when we’ll need you to testify as soon as it’s calendared.”

  “Will Teddy’s mother and the boyfriend be there?” I asked.

  “The proceedings are considered secret,” she said. “The defendants and their attorneys won’t be told what you said, or even that you testified. You won’t be cross-examined. The only people in the room with you will be myself and the grand jurors.”

  “No judge?”

  “Only very rarely, if there’s a procedural question. This isn’t a trial. I’m just asking the grand jury to decide whether or not it’s possible the defendants might have committed a crime. If the answer is yes—a ‘true bill’—I have permission to prosecute the case. The jurors draw up an indictment, listing the charges I’m allowed to file against the defendants.”

  “Is the answer ever no?” I asked.

  “I’ve never had that happen,” said Bost, “but we make a point of having a solid case before anything goes to a grand jury. Waste of time, otherwise.”

  “And you’re charging them both?” I asked.

  “We like the boyfriend for it,” she said, “but the mother saw what was going on. She didn’t step in. From a legal standpoint, that makes her equally responsible for her son’s death.”

  “She was there?” I asked.

  “When Teddy died?” replied Bost. “Yeah, she was in the room. She saw the whole thing.”

  “And she didn’t try to stop it?”

  Skwarecki nodded. “We’ve got her on video saying she didn’t lift a finger.”

  “ Jesus,” I said.

  “But she’s got a very good lawyer,” said Bost. “Marty Hetzler. He’ll try to get the charges against her dropped.”

  Skwarecki nodded again.

  “Marty’s right across the room, in fact,” said Bost. “Over at that big table. Snappy dresser, white hair.”

  I turned my head to check out the guy she’d described. He had on one of those striped shirts with white collar and cuffs, a thick gold bar-pin making the knot of his ti
e pop. His blue suit was double-breasted and nipped at the waist, peaked lapels sharp enough to inflict paper cuts.

  The guy started laughing like he’d just heard the best joke in the world, head thrown back so a thick piece of blue-white hair fell across his forehead.

  When he threw his arm across the shoulders of the fellow diner on his left, in apparent appreciation, I flinched in my seat and said, “Holy shit.”

  Skwarecki said, “What, you know Marty?”

  “I know Kyle,” I said. “The guy sitting right next to him.”

  32

  You know Kyle West?” asked Bost.

  “Jesus,” I said. “What’s he doing here? I mean, he used to talk about going to law school, but this is ridiculous. What is he, working for Hetzler?”

  “Kyle’s an ADA,” said Bost.

  “With you guys?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Thank God,” I said. “It would’ve been way too weird if it turned out he was working for Teddy’s mother.”

  Bost looked at Skwarecki. “He’s been a prosecutor in Special Victims for what, two years now?”

  “Just about,” said Skwarecki.

  “What’s Special Victims?” I asked.

  “Sex crimes,” said Bost. “He’s done a lot of good work, especially with kids.”

  “Our little Kyle?” I said.

  “Good people,” said Skwarecki. “ Seriously good people.”

  “Always was,” I said. “Haven’t seen him since college. And let me tell you, me and Kyle and our buddy Ellis? We used to drink.”

  Skwarecki slid around to the edge of the booth and stood up. “So let’s drag his ass over, already.”

  I watched Skwarecki walk across the room. Kyle looked up at her with a big smile on his face, and then she pointed over to our table. He saw me and slapped a hand over his heart, grinning even wider as he feigned cardiac trauma. He said something to Hetzler and then bounced up out of his seat.

  “Maddie Dare! What the hell brings you to fashionable Queens?” He slid in beside me and gave me a huge hug.

  “We’re getting her prepped for the grand jury,” said Bost.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, “tell me everything!”

  So I did.

  “And now you have to tell me why you’re yakking it up with that guy Hetzler,” I said.

  “The jury just came back on a case of mine,” said Kyle. “I kicked Marty’s ass—client got twenty-five to life.”

  “ Awesome,” I said.

  “This was Garcia?” asked Skwarecki.

  Kyle nodded, turning to me. “Maddie, the most adorable little girl, and so brave on the stand—I can’t even tell you.”

  “The father wouldn’t cop to it?” asked Skwarecki.

  “Total dirtbag,” said Kyle. “He dragged it out and dragged it out until he’d made her testify.”

  Skwarecki shook her head slowly. “You had him admitting to

  everything. Right off the bat.”

  “On video, no less,” said Kyle. “Bad enough, what he’d already put her through.”

  He shook his head. “Five years, Maddie. The most horrific abuse, and she’s only twelve now. Imagine?”

  “But you got the guy?” I asked.

  “ Nailed him,” he said. “Marty didn’t have a prayer.”

  I invited Kyle to dinner on Sixteenth Street that night, since he’d offered to drive me back to the city—or at least what he and I called “the city.” Skwarecki would’ve no doubt given us a ton of shit for making any such distinction between Queens and Manhattan.

  As Kyle slowed to make the turn onto our block in the dusky light, I saw a fat unconscious guy leaned up against a parking-sign

  pole. He was canted forward from the waist, belly mashed against thighs, knuckles nearly grazing the sidewalk, head hanging lower than

  his ass.

  Actually, it was his ass I noticed first. The guy’s pants were shoved down around his knees, baring a floating visual non sequitur of giant beige harvest-moon butt cheeks.

  “Did the Thanksgiving parade start early,” asked Kyle, “or did we just drive by an enormous naked ass?”

  “An enormous naked homeless ass. There was a paper cup by his foot with dollar bills sticking out the top. Kind of amazing it hasn’t been stolen.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention that next time anyone gives me shit about how Dinkins hasn’t brought crime rates down.”

  Kyle clicked on his hazard lights and double-parked behind a guy loading suitcases into the back of a station wagon.

  “How bad are they?” I asked.

  “Crime rates?”

  “You’re on the front lines. Are things getting worse, or has it always been this bad?”

  The station wagon pulled out and Kyle maneuvered into its spot.

  “It started out bad,” he said, pulling up the emergency brake, “and it’s been getting worse for thirty years.”

  We got out of his car and headed into the courtyard of One-Thirty-Five.

  I let us into the vestibule and stuck my key in the inner door’s lock. “You know, when I first came east for school—in seventy-eight, seventy-nine—there weren’t homeless people everywhere. There were, like, occasional bums, you know? But even in Grand Central there were only bag ladies—crazy old women in ratty fur coats. We could still use the bathrooms there. You didn’t see people begging everywhere, passed out on the sidewalks, all of that.”

  “You didn’t see giant asses on every street corner,” said Kyle.

  “Was it just Reagan, or what?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “I read some old essay about living in Manhattan, E. B. White or something,” I said as we started up the stairs. “And he was talking about how they had wicker seats on the subways. Fucking wicker, can you imagine? But then you read about gangs in Five Points, back in the day—people getting garroted in hansom cabs, race riots in Astor Place a hundred years ago—and I just wonder if it’s all because there are too many people smashed in together here. If it’s always been this ugly.”

  We walked into the apartment and I turned on the hallway’s light. No one else was home yet.

  “The homeless stuff was partly Reagan and partly Koch,” said Kyle. “Reagan cut federal funding right and left, but it was Koch’s decision to shut down mental wards around the city. You’d see people walking down the street still wearing their hospital ID bracelets. And then a lot of SROs shut down—hundreds of hotels where you used to be able to get a cheap room by the week.”

  “Want a beer?” I asked, stepping into the kitchen.

  “Sure.”

  I opened the fridge and grabbed two Rolling Rocks. “And the actual crime stats?”

  “Worse. Like I said, a thirty-year upswing. But that’s complicated, too.”

  I twisted off the beer caps and handed him a bottle. “So is it about drugs? I mean, maybe this is really stupid, but I always think of The French Connection and then that scene in The Godfather where they discuss the Mafia getting serious about heroin—so that’s the seventies.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “And God knows you and I were up close and personal with the influx of coke in the eighties.”

  “No shit. I watched that wave build from Studio Fifty-four on up through the advent of freebasing, at which point I drew the line.”

  “So to speak,” he said.

  “Sorry,” I said, and we clinked our beers together. “Let’s go grab the sofa before everyone else gets home.”

  The whole gang was in residence, still talking about drugs and crime over a fine dinner of Szechuan.

  “Swear to God,” said Sue, spearing a pot-sticker. “It was a whole year before I realized ‘bodega’ wasn’t Spanish for ‘crime scene.’ ”

  “Crack made everything worse,” I said.

  “It’s been fucking horrible here,” said Kyle.

  “Not just here,” I said, thinking of Syracuse.

  “Thank God for the War on Dr
ugs, right?” said Pagan. “Because that’s been fucking brilliant.”

  “Fucking morons,” I said. “Nancy-goddamn-Reagan-‘Just Say No’ Buttheads.”

  “Your tax dollars at work,” said Sue.

  I nodded. “Partnership for a fucking Drug-Free America. It’s all just the same old shit.”

  “Same as what?” asked Kyle.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Like the crap brochures they used to have lying around in the back of my middle-school library back in California? All this Reefer Madness ‘It leads to harder stuff!’ scare-tactic crap, mixed in with bullshit like ‘Here are some names that criminals use for Marihuana’—spelled with an ‘h,’ mind you—”

  “Like ‘tea’ and ‘maryjane,’ ” said Kyle.

  “Exactly. I mean, slang last current when used by jazz musicians in nineteen fifteen?” I said.

  “We had those brochures too,” he said.

  “And now we just have the fried-egg TV ads with ‘This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs,’ ” said Pagan. “It’s just flailing. A flailure.”

  Sue scooped some dry-fried string beans onto her bowl of rice. “Thank you, George Bush.”

  “Look, the only thing the War on Drugs has done is made it harder to buy weed,” said Pagan.

  I added, “And then made coke tacky and ubiquitous, before fueling the innovation of crack.”

  “It’s still just coke,” said Sue. “It’s just cut less and doled out in cheaper portions.”

  Kyle shook his head. “Except the mandatory minimum sentence is different for crack versus powder. Which is not a good thing.”

  “Why?” asked Pagan.

  “Because powder is suburban and crack is urban,” said Kyle. “So you get poorer people doing a lot more jail time for a far smaller quantity of the same drug, since nineteen eighty-six.”

  “How much smaller?” she asked.

  “They call it the hundred-to-one drug-quantity ratio. Five grams of crack gets you a mandatory five years in prison. And that’s just for possession. You’d need to get busted with five- hundred grams of powder before you’d be looking at that same five years.”