“Keep your hands off the car,” Martin shouted at the patrolmen who were around the car. He went up to the window and looked in. “The Cuchifritos Brigade,” Martin said. Noise irritated Martin. He turned around and saw that the schoolyard fence was now made up of rows of young white faces pressed against the chain link.
“They shouldn’t be looking at a thing like this,” Martin said to Myles.
Myles, walking to the fence, called out, “Get out of there.”
“They got their brains blown all over the front of the car?” a kid said.
“Get out of there,” Myles said.
“That’s right. You wouldn’t know what brains are,” the kid said.
Myles slapped the fence and the kids jumped off and ran away. Martin’s voice called him back. “Go round to a butcher shop and get a lot of wrapping paper,” Martin said. Myles and Hansen drove to a supermarket in the Parkchester housing and came back with a roll of brown paper from the meat counter.
Martin nervously ripped off a large sheet of paper and pulled open the door on the driver’s side. A patrolman winced as he saw Martin’s hand covering the door handle, eliminating any chance of handprints being taken by the forensics unit. The patrolman walked away rapidly; he knew that if any of the lab men complained, Martin would blame the nearest uniformed patrolman. Martin leaned in and covered the face of Gigi and Victor. A tow truck raised the front of the car, then took it off the block, with Martin driving directly behind it and Myles and Hansen in the next car. Six blocks down, in front of St. Clement’s Church, the nine o’clock mass was just getting out as the tow truck went into a pothole, swayed, causing the car being towed to shudder. Inside the car, a crystal of air snapped open and the hand of the devil reached out and caused the butcher’s paper to fall from the faces of Gigi and Victor. A woman on the church steps, a woman with blue hair and both hands gripping her purse, swayed as if about to faint. Martin’s siren went off, causing the tow truck to stop. Martin’s hand waved for Myles, who ran up from his car as Martin ripped off a large sheet of paper and held it out the window. Myles went to the towed car, reached in with his eyes shut and placed so much paper over the dead faces that he appeared to be packing them in a barrel for moving.
As Myles walked back to his car, he found his hands covered with blood. Doing the work of the Lord, he told himself, but without conviction.
10
WHEN SHE AWOKE FOR work at 7:00 A.M., she was surprised to smell cigars, which signified that her father was up. As the hour was so alien to his habits, she felt that something extraordinary was taking place. She sat up quickly. At first, her guilt forced her to wonder if all this was over her seeing the Spic after work. Nobody saw me, she assured herself. Then she decided that it really didn’t matter anyway, for she would say if questioned that all she had done was to have coffee with this guy who worked for her and was receiving a civilized last chance before being fired. At ease now, she got out of bed, her body motions dissolving the last of the night’s sleep. He actually is a citizen, she said to herself, her mind going immediately and involuntarily to Maximo.
Putting on a white terry-cloth robe, she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She then followed the cigar smoke along the hallway from the bedrooms, past the den and into the living room, where the sound of her father’s voice, arguing in the kitchen, caused her to stop.
“So you got two guys sitting in the same joint with Paulie, am I right or am I a fucking cabbage?” her father growled.
“Right,” another voice said quietly.
“Yeah, the two was there,” a third voice said.
“So Paulie gets clipped and then the next thing, the two guys go, too,” Nicki’s father said.
“Two fucking Spics,” a voice said.
“I know they was Spics,” the father shouted, “but Paulie ain’t no Spic. He’s one of us. What I’m thinking is that one guy does the whole job on the three of them.”
A voice said something inaudible, then her father’s hand sounded on the kitchen table. “What is it you’re telling me?” he yelled. “You bring in some cockeyed kid which doesn’t know the day of the week. We know he probably can’t see a thing with that cockeyed eye. So you rely on him? Forget about him. I’m going with the fact that Paulie was in the room with two guys. Paulie walks out. Boop. Paulie’s gone. Now out walks the two guys. Boop, boop. Now the both of them are gone too. That’s three guys gone from the same room. I say they all got it for the same reason.”
“I can’t come up with an answer,” one of the voices said.
“Yeah, we axt everybody,” another voice said.
“Did any of you ast the Spics?” Nicki’s father demanded.
There were murmurs. “I’ll tell you what I think,” the father said, “I think some fucking Spic done it. I know just the guy I’m thinking of. I’d like to bite my whole face off, I let him come into my own house.”
“Teenager,” one of the other voices said.
“Who else could it be in the Bronx?” the father said.
“What do you think?” one of the voices said.
“I think he ought to get buried,” Nicki’s father said.
Nicki silently went back into the bathroom, showered and dressed for work. When she came back out, she walked loudly, as warning to those in the kitchen.
“There she is,” Mariani said, as Nicki came to the kitchen door. He was sitting over coffee with an old man named Sal, whom Nicki knew lived in Florida, and a big guy with thick black hair, the first gray showing at the fringes, whom she knew as Corky.
Smiling, Sal and Corky stood up and Nicki turned her fixed, vacant smile on them.
“Where are you going this early?” Mariani said.
“To work.”
“At least have some coffee first.”
“Thanks, but I have to be in early and I’m running late already.”
“Take the car,” Mariani said.
“No, thanks, I have my bus.”
“Why don’t you want the car?”
“Because I take the bus.”
“Well, then, here. Wait a minute.” Mariani stood up, his hand bringing out a sizable fold of money.
“I don’t need anything,” Nicki said.
“Take something. Take a cab into work.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a thing. See you.”
“How do you like this kid? Doesn’t take a thing and runs off to work. She’s a real citizen.”
The other two laughed. Nicki did not. “That’s what I am,” she said. “A real citizen.” The smile fixed, she went out the front door to walk to the bus. She would borrow the car for shopping, or for a trip to prison; she would not take the car to work for the day. That would be the same as owning the car. And most certainly, she would not buy one by herself. When they arrested her husband, they grabbed the car, and when she asked for the car back after the case was over, she was told that under the law there had been a trial to determine if the car had been used in a crime, and the car had been found guilty. A yellow Lincoln Mark IV and a husband went out of her life in one case. She earned enough money to buy a car of her own, but she was sure the agents or police would find some way to take this one, too. Once, a vice-president at work suggested to her that she attend night college in order to improve her chances of advancement. When she told him that her parents did not like the notion of her continually taking the bus home at night, the vice-president of the bank said that she should simply use a car. “I’ll never pay for another car,” she said. “Around here, even the police steal cars.” The vice-president didn’t understand it, but Nicki, who was minus a Lincoln Mark IV, knew exactly what she was saying.
Walking the three blocks to the bus station, she thought of Maximo again. No movie star should ever get killed, she reminded herself flippantly. On the bus, however, the realization that another’s life somehow rested in her hands was bewildering. She thought of the first time she saw Maximo, sitting in Teenager’s car. They mostly get killed in c
ars, she told herself. She shuddered. Across her years, she had overheard dark talk in her house, but it always was conversation through which she could walk without the words registering, a commercial playing for a product whose name never is retained. This was different. Supposing Maximo was sitting in a car with Teenager? Would I have to live with that on my mind? Imagine being haunted by somebody I hardly know.
As she knew no way to call Maximo, she sat at her desk, looked at the faces of the hundred and twenty-five people who were in her charge, and hoped that Maximo would call. He still had not called her by midafternoon, and she began to ask herself why she was so certain that he would call. It was ridiculous, she told herself, for he had only called her once, and now she sat here as if he were supposed to be calling on a schedule. Then she assured herself that he would be calling continuously, and for a long time, because she was a white woman. Call now, she said to herself.
When Maximo didn’t call by five-thirty, she put her cigarettes into her purse and called her mother to say that she was going to shop for a few hours.
“Why don’t you wait until tomorrow night and we’ll go together?” her mother said.
“I just want to walk through Macy’s for a while,” Nicki said.
“What is this walk through Macy’s? You come out of there at night, you could get killed on the street by some dirty nigger.”
“Ma, it’ll be light when I leave there.”
“So they do it day or night.”
“I’ll be home by a quarter to nine,” Nicki said.
“All right,” the mother said reluctantly. There was a pause, caused by thousands of years of living by suspicion. “Are you sure you’re going shopping?”
“Ma.”
“All right,” the mother said.
Nicki walked slowly to Macy’s, arriving at six-fifteen to find the jeans department crowded. She bought one pair of Calvin Kleins that she did not need, but bought in order to show her mother that the evening was spent legitimately. She walked the one block to the Statler Hilton Hotel and entered the lobby at seven o’clock.
He calls it the bar course, she said to herself. If I ask for the bar course and they send me into a bar and I find him carrying ice around like some other Puerto Rican busboy, then my father’s people won’t have to kill him; I’ll strangle him right here, she said to herself. She paused inside the lobby and thought about what she was doing. Are you crazy, she asked herself, talking to a guy you don’t even know and telling him something like this? Supposing he runs right to this bum he hangs out with, this Teenager, and tells him? Oh, for sure he’ll tell him. No, you can’t be serious doing a thing like this. Daddy will kill me.
A cardboard sign tacked to the top of the bulletin board said, “Martense Bar Review Course, Manhattan Ballroom.”
Without thinking, she stepped into the ballroom elevator, getting off in an entranceway that had been made for people coming to see Glenn Miller and now was a place where people stamped out cigarettes. She stood at one side of the doorway and looked into the ballroom and saw only a couple of people seated on folding chairs at long tables. She lit a cigarette and watched the elevator doors as they opened to allow bright young faces to walk off, the American faces that Nicki disliked so much. Their heads look like they all had just been rolling around in a clothes dryer, she thought. Neat, lifeless hair, long faces with almost no distinguishing marks and eyes that were, most serious offense of all, completely unmysterious.
She waited for fifteen minutes before Maximo arrived. She felt the sensation of somebody foreign, a beard, dark deep eyes that kept things hidden, prominent cheekbones. Nicki would have liked it even better if Maximo wore an earring.
Maximo pushed through the crowd. “The doors opened and I look past this guy and I got the best surprise I’ve had in a long time,” he said.
“Thank you,” Nicki said.
“Are you going to sit through this whole thing? It’s long.”
“No, I have to go home. I just have to say something to you.” She stepped out of the doorway and went a few yards down an empty hallway. Don’t leave him with any doubt, Nicki told herself. Say exactly what he has to know. And make sure that you don’t tell him one thing he doesn’t need to know.
“I’ll make it fast because you have to go to school,” Nicki said.
“I don’t care,” Maximo said.
“No, listen to what I say. I want to see you again.”
“Terrific.”
“But I can’t ever see you again if you hang around your friend.”
“Teenager.”
“That’s right. If you even sit down to have coffee with him, then you won’t see me anymore.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Never mind why I say it. Just listen to what I say. If you think that you want to see me again, then don’t be on the same block with your friend. You’re going to have to take my word for what I’m saying to you.”
“I barely know you and here you’re telling me who to be friendly with,” Maximo said.
“It isn’t that at all. Listen to what I say. I say the truth. So if you want to see me again, then you can’t be near that Teenager. Even once.”
“Tell me why,” Maximo said.
“Because it’s you and me against the world, dear.” Her cheerfulness as she said it caused Maximo to forget about his concern for a moment and laugh.
“That’s the way it is,” she said. “So it’s up to you. If I hear from you again, then I know you’re listening to what I say.” She looked into his eyes, cocked her head, smiled and walked to the elevator banks.
She moved to one side as a crowd came off the elevator. She stepped into the empty elevator and just before the doors closed she smiled out at him and said, “Remember what I say.”
I see her twice and she cannot remain away from me, Maximo told himself proudly.
Inside the ballroom door, he met another student who had been at Harvard. His name was Woolcott and he was a bony frame fed by watercress. He had light hair as short as fingernails and wore a three-piece suit so severe and dull that it appeared to have been taken off the back of a retired Protestant as he dozed through the afternoon at some Ivy League club.
“What have you been doing?” Woolcott said.
“Thinking,” Maximo said.
“No job?”
“I’m about to start looking.”
“Where?”
“In the Bronx.”
“What would you go to the Bronx for?” Woolcott said.
“That’s where I’m from,” Maximo said.
“But you’re not going to stay there?” Woolcott said.
“I’ll try.”
“What will you do up there? You’ll wind up with the Legal Aid trying to help one person at a time in some crummy robbery and you’ll get nowhere.”
“I was thinking of something broader than that,” Maximo said.
“Well, you can’t do anything broader than start with a large firm,” Woolcott said. “I’d guess where I am does more public service work than the whole Bronx put together.”
“Where are you?” Maximo said.
“My father’s firm. You know that. Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett. One of the partners was the Secretary of State. I consider that public service.”
“I guess so,” Maximo said. “What do they pay you there?”
“Thirty-two five to start. Come on, Maximo, you know what they pay people like us. What’s the most you could get in the Bronx?”
“The place I’m thinking about, the Legal Services office, pays maybe fourteen.”
“I’d say that thirty-five is a lot more than fourteen.”
“What do they have you doing for that kind of money?” Maximo asked.
“You do legal research until you’re admitted to the bar. Right now, I’m doing things on investment capital.”
“I’m sure that’s very good,” Maximo said. “I believe I’d prefer something like the Bronx Legal Services. Maybe work on cl
ass actions. Get involved in community work. Politics maybe.”
“Well, if you want politics, we have a partner who was a federal judge. And my father is on the bar association committee that picks judges. You can’t get into heavier politics than that,” Woolcott said.
“I’ll see,” Maximo said. He walked to a table and sat down.
Through the evening in class, the thought grew on Maximo that Nicki could have been telling him the truth, that there was serious trouble centering on Teenager. After the lecture, he went to the Bronx and started looking for Teenager. He found him in the ChibCha on Tremont Avenue, a nightclub that lived up to the definition: the cocktail hour at the ChibCha began at 10:00 P.M. and by 11:30, when Maximo found his way into the place, Teenager and a party of ten were just sitting for dinner.
“I want to talk to you,” Maximo said.
Teenager held out his hands. He had Luisa Maria on one side of him and Benny seated on the other.
“First you have something to eat with us, then we will talk. We have all night to talk,” Teenager said.
“I have to tell you,” Maximo said.
“So you will tell me after we eat.” He had Maximo sit down next to Benny, and immediately resumed holding court.
“I am the president of the business,” Teenager said to Benny.
“Yes.”
“And you are the vice-president. If something happens to me, you become president.”
“What do you say this for?” Benny said. “Nothing ever can happen to you.”
“An accident,” Teenager said. “It happens to Kennedy. Someone is out there who does not like me. Maybe someday I will not see him in time.”
“Never,” Benny said.
“Or somebody could make up a lie and get me in trouble.”
“We will take this guy off the count,” Benny said.
Teenager said to Luisa Maria, “What would you do if someone made up a lie about me?”
Forsaking All Others Page 13
