Mitchell Smith (53 page)

“Hey , - - come on, now,” Leahy said. “Come on, now, swee him. theart.”

Fat face sagging, Elbe felt sorry for Samuelson was standing over by the bookcase. He had taken a paperback book out, and was looking at it.

“-Two, three guys jumped him with knives on the J platform,” he said.

‘—Little after nine. A lady other end of the platform saw ‘cm fightin’. Tommy took two with him, down under a train.” Samuelson closed the book and put it back.

“Let’s go. I want to go down there!” Elbe said. “-I’ll get dressed.”

She started out of the living room, but Terri Reise kept hold of her arm and said “No, no, honey . . .

“No, you don’t,” Leahy said. “You don’t want to go down there. -There’s nothin’ to see. CSIU’s just finishin’

UP ‘ - ‘Well Ellie said, and sat down on the couch.

“Well … who would have done that to Tommy?” She looked up at them as if they’d brought an answer for her.

“We don’t know,” Anderson said. I-But two of them are out of the picture now, anyway. Homicide and Major Crimes are all over town-no time off. We’ll get the third man, too.” He stood almost at ease in his handsome raincoat, looked only a little tired.

“I have to go see Connie,” Ellie said. ‘-Ffl get dressed.”

“You don’t have to, not right now,” Terri’Reise said, and sat down beside her. “Father Gruenwald’s over there, and people from the Commissioner and everything. -You just take it easy .I’ “Was it an accident?” Ellie said. ‘,-Some bums came by and that was that?”

, ‘Another goddamn Classman thing,” Leahy said. —An’ both from my Squad, an’ both in less than two fuckin’ weeks.” He took a handkerchief out of his right hand trench-coat pocket, and blew his nose.

“Guys fell with Tommy were white guys. Big. Good clothes,” Samuelson said. “—Other guy was a black guy.”

“A black guy . . .” Ellie said. “-Then Tommy was right all the time.”

“Right about what, EP” Anderson said. He’d been looking around at her living room, the pictures on the walls. Homer and Hargrave prints.

Copies of a Pissaro, a (one of his fairytale pic Vlaminck, an early Kandinsky of hers.

tures). Ellie was glad there was nothing there —I’d like to know what you mean by that.” Anderson stopped looking at the pictures, and looked at her.

“Never mind,” Ellie said. “You’ll see. -Some fucking people think they’re getting away with something, and they’re not going to. They’re going to be sorry - - . . ” She got up from the couch. “I really thank you for coming over. I want to thank all of you for coming over.”

She started out of the living room. “-I have to go to the bathroom,”

she said.

Ellie had been in the bathroom for a little while, sitting on the toilet in her bathrobe, when Terri Reise knocked softly, spoke through the door, and asked if she was O.K.

,,I’m O.K., Terri. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your coming over. -I really do.”

Later, Terri came back and knocked again. “Honey,” she said. “Would you rather we went . . . left you alone … T, “I suppose so,” Ellie said, sitting on the toilet.

“Don’t you want to come out … ?”

“I’ll come out pretty soon.”

Ellie heard Terri walk away, and then some people talking.

She was looking at the shower curtain. Beige fish with long, flowing tails. On lightly frosted plastic. The fish were bigger than she remembered. There weren’t so many of them, either.

“El’ - . . ?” It was Anderson. “El’, we’re going, now.

You are not-repeat, not-to report tomorrow. That court thing … you had a court thing tomorrow, I believe. The District Attorney’s people will get a postponement on that. We want you to take a few days off.

Just get the hell out of town … whatever you want. —O.K.?”

“O.K.”

“You come in after that, we’ll have a little talk. All right?”

“O. K.

“All fight. We’re going, now. -You get to bed, get some sleep.”

“O.K.”

There was more soft talk out there. More talk. Silence Then Ellie heard the front door close.

She sat on the toilet awhile longer, then stood up and took her bathrobe off, sat down again, took out her tampon and reached over to put it in the plastic bag in the wastebasket, She got up to get a fresh one from the counter beside the sink.

She looked at her reflection in the sink mirror, then reached down and put her left forefinger into herself a little way, took it out, and, watching herself in the glass, painted a faint rust-colored streak down her face from the inside corner of each eye. Once she’d done that, she saw tears, their trails broken, sliding down her face at last.

Weeping, she put her fight foot up on the side of the tub, inserted a new tampon, then climbed in, slid the shower curtain shut, the beige fish swimming into place, and took a shower, the water dialed quite hot.

She turned under the spray, breathing the warm mist, holding her face up so the innocent water might wash her tears and blood away. -It must have felt like this to Sally, if she cried at first, Ellie thought. Only the water was hotter, and she couldn’t turn it off.

When Ellie came out of the bathroom tying her robe, she thought she heard someone say something, and walked into the living room and saw Samuelson sitting in the easy chair-filling it-with Mayo curled in his lap. He was reading to the cat from a paperback book.

He looked up and said, “O.K. -So, how ya doin’?

when Ellie came in.

“I feel better, Max,” she said. She wasn’t sorry he’d stayed.

“Well, you’re not going’ to feel too good for a while Samuelson said,

“-‘cause you just lost the best partner going’.

“I know it.” Ellie sat on the couch. Her hands were trembling, so she folded them together and held them in her lap. “-It wouldn’t have happened if he just drove a car … if he hadn’t taken that fucking subway,”

“Maybe,” Samuelson said. “-Listen, this is a good book. Me and the cat, we were enjoyin’ it.”

“What is it?”

Samuelson held the book up so she could see the cover. “Wake of the Red Witch,” he said. “-It starts pretty good.”

“Yes, I liked it, too. I bought a lot of old paperbacks at Dog-Eared, over on the West side. -Why don’t you take it? I finished it.”

“You tryin’ to kick me out?”

“No. -You hungry, want something to eat?”

“You got peanut butter and jelly? -What’s so funny?”

“Nothing … Yes, I think I have. That’s what you want?”

“Sure. -What kind of jelly you got?”

“Blackberry,” Ellie said, “O.K.?” and got up from the couch.

“Oh … I guess that’ll be 0. K. ” He lifted Mayo gently down, and got up, too. “-Are we talkin’ crunchy here, or smooth?” he said, following her into the kitchen.

“Crunchy.”

“Oh … that’ll be O.K., I guess.”

“Max-do you want this sandwich? I don’t have smooth, and all I have is blackberry jam. Is that going to be all right?”

“No-that’s fine. That’s fine.”

Ellie got the peanut butter and jam out of the refrigerator, and two slices of whole-wheat bread, and started making the sandwich on the cutting board by the sink.

The peanut butter was cold and hard to spread, and tore the piece of bread a little. Samuelson, watching, murmured.

“Jesus Christ-what is it now, Max?”

“Nothin’. nat’ll be great.”

“How do you usually fix these things?” Ellie said.

“-How did Harriet fix them?”

Samuelson gave her a reproachful glance. He was standing in front of the refrigerator, obscurin it entirely.

“You take white bread,” he said, “-an’ smooth, an’ grape jelly, an’

salt.”

“Well, this is all I’ve got … and I’m crying on your sandwich,” Ellie said, and was as she picked up the second slice of bread, put it on top, and pressed it down a little.

“Needed salt, anyway,” Samuelson said, and took it from her.

When he was eating, standing, leaning against the counter, Ellie said,

“I want to ask a favor, Max.”

“Don’t hurt to ask.”

“I don’t have time tomorrow to do it-I’ve got a coupie of other things-and I want you to check up on Charley Ambrosio, fast, before he can get some bullshit story settled in.”

Samuelson slowly chewed and swallowed his bite. “What do you think?”

he-said. “You think he had some guys kill Tommy-just ‘cause they had a scrap?”

“Probably not-but I don’t want to miss anything, ax - I don’t want to take a chance. And I think Ambrosio is not a forgiver. -You want some milk?”

Samuelson slowly shook his head. “This is fine,” he said.

:,Will you do it, or not?”

OX.,” Samuelson said, and took another bite of his sandwich, “I notice you’re eating that,” Ellie said, “—crunchy or not.”

“I’m not so choosy I got to have everythin’ my way,” Samuelson said.

The phone rang twice, just after Samuelson left, but Ellie didn’t answer it. She was afraid it was Connie.

About half an hour later, it rang again, and Ellie felt she had to answer it, that everything would be worse if she waited.

“Ellie?” A man. She didn’t recognize his voice. “-It’s Phil Shea.”

“Hello .

“You let me know if there’s anything at all I can do for -Understand me?

Anything at all.”

you.

“Yes. Thanks,” Ellie said.

“Get some sleep,” Shea said, and hung up.

Ellie put the phone down, then picked it up again, and called Connie.

“Hello? -Ellie?”

“Yes, sweetheart-it’s me .

“Listen, don’t be sad, now,” Connie said. “I believe in heaven, an’

that’s where he is. -So, don’t you be sad for a minute. Father said something’ like this wipes purgatory right out.”

“I’ll bet it does,” Ellie said. “I think you’re right. But we’re going to miss him so much. Marie

“Oh, no,” Connie said. “Absolutely not. He’s here -I don’t miss my Tommy; he’s right with us all the time.

here.”

“I hope so. Boy, I hope so.”

“He’ll look out for us the rest of our lives,” Connie said. “He won’t ever leave the house unless we go out, too. -I told Marie that, and she’s fine.”

::That’s god.”

It’s too obad about that dinner, though. I’ll tell you, Tommy would have loved that dinner. -everything’ was going’ to be perfect.”

“I was going to bring flowers.”

“You were? Well-I knew you were going’ to bring something’. I told Tommy, ‘Ellie isn’t comin’ over without something’ in her hands.” - I was going to bring flowers to match your plates. . -Gold-to match my chinaT

“Yellow and izold.” Ellie said. “Chrysanthemums. I saw some like that in Connecticut. They were beautiful.

“Perfect. That would have been perfect.

“Well, give Marie a hug for me,” Ellie said.

Silence.

“Connie… ?”

Silence.

“Connie… ? You O.K.?”

After listening for almost a minute, and calling Connie’s name twice more, Ellie said goodbye, and put down the phone.

Ellie thought of trying to go to sleep, but she wasn’t sleepy, so she went to the hall closet, got the vacuum out, plugged it into the outlet near the phone table, and started cleaning the hall with the floor-sweep attachment, moving the table aside to get at a small streak of dust under it. When the hall was done, she did the kitchen, too-then switched attachments to the carpet sweeper, did the bathroom and bedroom carpets very thoroughly moving both bedside tables in the bedroom, getting under the bed as far as she could reach-and that done, towed the vacuum into the living room to finish up an hour’s work, Mayo fleeing before her. He hated the machine’s whine and roar.

When the vacuuming was done, Ellie carried the machine back to the hall closet, took off the carpet-sweeper attachment and hose, and put everything away. Then she reached up to the top shelf, and got her paints, palette, and medium mixes down, and reached behind her winter coat and parka to haul out a small stack of stretched canvases-most painted over. She took it all into the kitchen, separated the framed canvases until she found a sixteen-inch square single-primed linen, with nothing on it but a charcoal sketch of Clara, naked, kneeling. There was also a small scratch sketch of Mayo in the lower left corner that was better than the sketch of Clara. -Easier, less effort to it.

Ellie took her three shoe boxes with her brushes, knives, charcoal, paints, copal, linseed, varnish and turps out to the living room, brought her palette, cotton rags. cup and canvas out next, set up her easel by the lamp, and put the canvas on it. Then she went back to the kitchen for old newspaper to put the stuff on, so it wouldn’t ruin the coffee tableto put under the easel, too.

When she was set up, Ellie tilted the shade on the floor lamp so the light fell over her left shoulder directly on the canvas. She’d have to paint a little hot throughout, to contradict that harsh yellow.

She went to the bedroom for her small radio, brought it out to the living room, plugged it in, tuned to WYNY for classic rock, and turned it low. Then she stood at her easel, closed her eyes, and imagined the walk at St. Christopher’s. She remembered the flowers very well, but not the stems. She imagined the walk at St. Christopher’s, then thought of a wind blowing-breezing down through the grove of little maples, combing across the grass . . . then hide-and-seeking through the flowers, separating them, tossing their bright heads, bronze, yolk, and gold, the small, rough-pointed palmate leave showing the slender stalks as smooth and fine a green as green glass rods.

She wiped the sketches almost away with a clean cotton rag, picked out a charcoal stick, sharpened it with a single-edge razor blade, and quickly drew three long stalks growing together up through the faint ghost of Clara, then a shorter, fraiier stem to the left of the others. The leaves curling, clustering together into dusty green scrolls and tangles. She could see these would be special flowers, not quite chrysanthemums, but almost.

Dream flowers. The blossoms held, and then exploding slowly from their small green cups. Still resting there, though, their soft bottoms still seated. Ellie saw she wouldn’t have to draw each petal, each blossom even lightly. Instead, she could sketch a small resting place for the proper kind of color. Each place shaped for a dab of color, a reminder that color must come there. Many small sketches, not one big one.