South by South Bronx (21 page)

23.

He had the newspaper folded in one hand, the cell phone in the other. Walking first to the corner, then back to the newsstand. Stood right by the subway entrance, swaying like he might just get blown down the stairs by the rush of people, the crowded to-and-fro.

He read the article twice through. Why shouldn't he believe she was running for her life? It went far to explain her erratic behavior, her having whacked him—her inability to say. It seemed she was avoiding words. There was no Monk now to help him do the math. The fucker had clicked off and Alex couldn't get him, getting instead the voice mail, as if Monk had already taken what he needed and was now pounding words out of his typewriter. Alex would have to make it up as he went along. There was no way he was walking back to the shoe store. Something had changed. He was not trying to blur events or speed through them, blot out or slide past them. It involved him. He was part of the story. Monk was right: It's not about how meaningless things are; it's what you do to give things meaning.

He thought now about that ID card with the dead guy's picture on it, that authorization letter she had on her. It was addressed to a bank just a few blocks away. He had no problem remembering that, no problem walking up that gentle slope leading to 149th Street. The masses of people: She could be any one of those shimmery blurs in the distance.

He crossed Melrose, checking both sides of the street to see if maybe he had gotten it wrong. Once he crossed Van Cortlandt, he saw the bank.

The yellow rose will turn to cinder

and new York City will fall in

before we are done so hold me,

my young dear, hold me.

—Anne Sexton, “Rapunzel”

No despair like the present. No despair like the now to make her walk fast, look behind, check traffic lights. The mass of masses bubbling all around her. It could be written on any face that looked at her, every casual glance that might do a double-take: “I know you.” That cashier at the Hudson News when she was in Grand Central, black lady with shimmery Cleopatra hair, looking down on all comers with the same haughty arrogance royalty learned to project from birth, giving everyone short shrift as they stood in lines before her. A magazine, a newspaper, a stick of gum. She entered her prices fast, returned that change fast, hardly a glance, like she thought very little of people who wasted their money on such things. She liked to keep things moving, but the ones who came to her with a stack got a lingering stare as she typed in those prices. She got that raised eyebrow as the woman went through her papers, giving Ava the eye, the eye, three times the eye.

“You an actress?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, are you an actress? A dancer? A model? You have six different newspapers. You waiting for a review?”

The question had too much bite. It was a school feeling, as if the teacher was glaring down on her.

“No,” she said, “I'm waiting for my change.”

Was every eye on her? The baseball cap could not hide her. Being in the subway scared her. Tunnel walls flowing by in the windows. A screech, a wail, a sharp curve—the lights blinked. At that early hour on the northbound 5 train hardly anyone so in her car she was totally alone and she didn't like it. Call it red light green light or maybe it was yellow, the train hit a slow curve and struggled to chug. In one of those blinking-light moments when the third rail is not in contact with the car, the lights went out and stayed out. A total black, a creak to stop. A steady hum, then the snap of those smoky emergency lights. Reminded her of some solitary late-night jazz club where the pretty girl has that last drink at the empty bar before going home. Going home? Where was she going that was home?

The newspapers did not help. Flipping through them fast, she saw. Most were just words, two of them had pictures. The waves came. Like retching, like shock. Folded into a corner seat. Seeing David's name in the papers made it official. Their two names together sealed the deal. The train jumped forward, slow like the nudge of a friend.
Hey. You okay?
The lights blinked on bright. Black tunnel walls moving past windows. A relief to climb out to sunlight, but people, so many people rushing. So many eyes looking, staring, turning. Glances rebounding back to her. Maybe today she would not stand out, but how, when she felt everyone staring at her? In a bad dream, her steps went slow motion as she hurried her walk up 149th Street. She was reading building numbers. Went the wrong way first, and crossed Third Avenue. Right near that big department store, that long window of shoes. She felt an Alex pulse, paused, got stuck there as if waiting. The South Bronx is truly a small town. But the numbers were wrong, the focus was off. She doubled back, she doubled away.

The place was just off Van Cortlandt. It was a sharp memory blast, the same way we know things in dreams, with David walking alongside her looking as grim and as humorless as she had ever seen him.

“You have to be fast,” he said.

“I know,” she said back, hating the interruption.

“Faster.”

(Was it David or was it Alan, expecting results?)

The place was not large. To the left, a bank of tellers behind glass. To the right, a few desks, a stairway leading down. There was still that thick cushiony carpet, that smell of cheap colognes clashing. She went down the thickly padded staircase and walked right up to the lady behind the bars in the cage.

the soiled uniform of the nazi

has been unravelled and reknit and resold.

—Anne Sexton, “Walking in Paris”

He was in the kitchen washing dishes when he heard the sound. Instinctively he knew someone was in the house. He picked up the serrated steak knife and crept into the living room. He had just passed the painting with the blonde lying on the island when the man crashed into him. Mink plunged the serrated knife into the man's gushy soft middle. It gave like a pillow.

The man fell back against the wall with an airless groan, teeth clenched, eyes rolling. “Ah shit,” he said. “What have you done?”

The man was a cop, blood spreading across the light blue shirt. His head tossed, his hat fell off.

“What did you do?” he muttered, eyes glassing up like he was slipping into a trance. He grabbed Mink's hand, still on the warm, quivering knife.

Mink kept pushing and twisting the knife into his gut even though he could see it was a cop. The policeman sagged, sad gray eyes open and unfocused. He pushed Mink off, who was too stunned to do anything. He just watched, mystified, as the cop went over to the couch and sat down. The knife in his gut was moving.

“What did you do?” he mumbled, blank eyes staring empty.

There were other cops in the kitchen, their walkietalkies chattering. It sounded like they were sitting at the table, playing cards. Mink was sitting on the floor, staring at the dead cop on the couch. Mink was thinking,
Come on,
man. Get up. You're faking
. He kept waiting for the cop's face to break out from rigid stone, for the eyes to snap to focus and the joke to be over. But the cop was dead.

The door buzzer woke him up.

Mink hadn't meant to fall asleep. He had painted all night and into the morning, cranked so high that when he took a stop, sleep fell on him like a blanket. The first big painting, colorful, naked, was no blocks and cubes, nothing hidden under shapes or edges. It was real skin, real waves crashing to shore, a real blonde on a real island. He had only slumped against the couch while waiting for Monk, fell into wicked dream and realized he had killed it. Stumbling to the door to find Monk standing there.

“I killed him,” Mink said. “I fucking murdered him in my sleep.”

Monk blinked. “Who's that?”

“The fucking cop,” Mink said, as Monk came in.

Mink added it up as he went, about how from time to time every artist has a cop inside, the keeper of authority and control. The one that says, hey, you can't go there. You can't do that. Don't go in that room.

“I stuck him right in the gut. The cop that kept me from painting. Some heavy metaphorical trip.”

Monk wore a quizzical, tilted grin. “So I take it you've been painting,” he said.

It could have been seeing Mink in that paint-spattered Ice Cube T-shirt, an old one from PREDATOR days that he had said was always his lucky work tee. Monk had never seen him in it.

“I take it you've been writing,” Mink said.

It could have been seeing Monk in that tattered PJ Harvey T-shirt, an old one from her 50 FT QUEENIE days when she wore a leopard coat. It was sleeveless and seemed to have been nibbled by rats around the collar. It was his lucky work tee. Mink had never seen him in it.

The glow was on both of them. They seemed startled, maybe a little clumsy. They were not used to being around each other when working. It was a new thing, and it left them feeling a little uncertain about how to proceed. There was all of a sudden no need to kill time, to fight clocks, to have a reason to talk. They were suddenly both busy.

“I brought the book,” Monk said.

Mink leafed through the pages, scores of pictures of Eva Braun. Once he saw her face again, bells of recognition rang. He knew now this was the face that had stuck in his memory since he first noticed it while watching TV with Monk. It had slept in him until he caught sight of the blonde in Alex's bed.

“This is the face,” he said.

Words were not coming so easily. Something had changed. Mink realized there was no way he could talk about it. There was only a need to show him, to share this thing that had happened to him. He had fear about it, but he also had a great desire to show Monk what he had done, what had changed. He shut the book.

“Come see,” he said.

Mink led him into the studio. The blond girl was lying on the island. The island was obviously Puerto Rico. The shape of it was clear. There was even a small bit of El Morro off the coast. She was stretched out, as if to soak up every last bit of sun and take up every last inch of island. She was, so far, naked, except for that red armband with a white circle in the middle which Mink chose to leave blank for now. Her skin tone, that sunny sheen, had the feel of the all-American girl Vargas was always putting on the bellies of B-17s. Mink's color attack had taken a new form, a chrome realism almost like sprayed-on Sorayama, a pastel glow like Rolf Armstrong, and yet the body had the sharp bite of a pinup by Peter Driben or Walt Otto, less the soft watercolor feel of these famous dream women. Monk's face changed when he saw her.

It's not finished,” Mink said.

Monk was chewing on a thumb, eyes glued to the painting.

“I was going to tell you,” he said, “that the night we fought, I saw this blond woman climbing up the fire escape, all the way up to Alex's apartment. I thought I imagined it. It was a kind of waking dream, the spark plug I needed to get started on my book. Then Alex came to me this morning and told me about this blond woman he woke up with.” Monk came closer to the painting, as if he wanted to breathe in the oils.

“She climbed up the fire escape?”

“That's right,” Monk said. “Her name is Ava Reynolds.”

“Ava who? You mean you know her?”

“She climbed into Alex's bed.”

“I saw her in Alex's bed.”

“Did you see her in this morning's EL DIARIO?
“

Monk pulled the newspaper from his backpack.

“Holy fuck, it's her, isn't it?”

Monk was staring at the painting.

“It's just the best thing you've ever done,” he said.

24.

“Get the fuck off me,” she said.

The two guys who grabbed her couldn't be feds. They were both big-shirted baggy-panted street clichés, regulation baseball caps set at the proper angles. One of them had a jacket on, could have been leather—and inside that pocket, a gun. He made sure she saw it.

“You just come and shut up,” Leather Jacket said, again flashing the pistol. She jerked her arm away and tried to pull herself free of the other one, but he had a strong grip.

She had just left the bank. She had walked down the block and had just reached the corner when the two approached, one from either side.

“I said get off!”

The shove and pull got worse. People walking by now started to pull away, to stare. The two guys were trying to move her along fast, across Van Cortlandt. People started to gather.

“Hey, whassup with that?”

“Yo, get off her.”

“What are you people doing?”

“Somebody call the cops.”

Leather Jacket held up a wallet that flipped.

“I'm a cop, I'm a cop,” he said, struggling with her while flashing some tin. They were dragging her toward Melrose. All sudden, a black 4x4 braked with screech. Its back hatches flipped open as the two steered her toward it. A very annoyed car let out a long honk.

“Come on!” One-Eye appeared at the hatch, seemingly unwilling to step out. “Hurry up!”

Now Ava really squirmed, struggling to get to the gun in her purse. Baseball Cap had the purse almost off her arm, gripping strap tight. Leather Jacket had the other arm.

“Ava! Stop fucking around and get in, we're trying to help!” One-Eye yelled.

“Fuck you!” she shouted back. She slipped and fell, struggling to pull the purse loose from Baseball Cap's grip.

“I'm calling the police,” a woman said.

“Who the fuck are you?” a big guy with a Puerto Rican flag on his sweatshirt said, stepping right in Leather Jacket's way.

“Leave her alone,” a young girl said, while picking up the Alex cap, which had flown off Ava's head.

Ava kicked Baseball Cap in the gut. It was a loud, resounding blow executed with such precision and style that the crowd went
“Whoah!”
It sent him tumbling backwards, pounding into a parked car whose alarm began to peal. She had the purse now, reached into it and drew the gun.

“Oh shit,”
the crowd said, pulling back to scatter.

The car alarm twittered like psycho birds dueling. A woman screamed, people ran. One-Eye tumbled out of the 4x4 and tripped on the sidewalk. Leather Jacket was pulling his gun when Alex came out of the crowd. He punched Leather Jacket in the face in a forward motion, swift and sure. The sound was like the CRACK of a rifle shot. Leather Jacket fell hard, his gun clattering on the sidewalk. Now there were running bodies everywhere, screaming cars honking. One-Eye was scrambling up to his feet when Ava kicked him in the face. Another rifle CRACK. His head snapped backwards and his body rolled into the gutter.

“Jesus,” Alex said, grabbing her by the arm because it looked like she was going to kick him again. “Come on,” he said, pulling her down Melrose fast.

Siren sound, car alarm, what was that cracking sound? Could be shots, the peep squeal of a speeding cop car or two, traffic honking mad and the murmur of people seeming to open way for them as they ran down a street of small stores, of loitering types checking out skirts and tops on racks, boxes of sneakers, and those two small tenements that were mostly stoops and big windows up to only two or three floors.

“Jesus,” he said, “will you put that shit away?”

He was talking about the gun that was still in her hand. She rushing along with him, trying to shove the gun in her purse. It was bumpy going, and that sharp turn made Alex almost take her arm off.

It was a small electronics shop. Huge speakers boomed bass all the way from front to back, more like a corridor than a room, mile-long counters on both sides stuffed with car stereos mixers receivers turntables car speakers while flashing lights and that intermittent strobe seemed to flow with that thumpy creeping Jay-Z.

Alex moved fast, negotiating tight turns around stacked boxes and booming speakers right to the back of the store. The people behind the counters seemed to know Alex, nodded to him. Alex waved, kept moving to the back, where past some boxes piled haphazard was a small staircase leading up to a steel door with a yellow plastic chain across it. A bearded man with shaggy hair was sitting there right at the end of the counter.

“Hey, man,” he said to Alex.

“Is Preacher up there?”

“Yeah, but he—”

Alex didn't wait for it. He stepped over the plastic chain and pulled Ava along with him so she almost tripped on it, on stairs stumble quick, going up fast. Alex said something over his shoulder, pushed open the metal door. Cacophony noise voices all ceasing sudden as he stepped out with her and closed the door behind slam.

They were outside, in a cool rush of quiet air. It was an alley, just brick all around and sky above. Directly across from them was a steel staircase going up to another steel door. Alex pulled her up the stairs.

“Where are we?” she said.

He opened the next door. They were in the hallway of one of those small tenements. Stairwell to the left, long hallway on the right leading to vestibule. Beyond that, street. The walls were orange, floor tiles the honeycomb kind found in old bathrooms.

“I know this guy,” Alex said, taking a moment to just breathe in the hallway silence. “His name is Preacher and he lives upstairs. Owns the building. Runs the store. Are you okay?”

She exhaled, checking through her purse. She stared at him with round, hopeless eyes.

“I lost your hat,” she said.

“Come on,” he said. “My car's parked near here.”

They headed down the small stoop, right out on Third Avenue. They moved fast along the crowded street, crossed to the other side, walked down 158th where Alex's red Honda was parked. Once inside, they waited in the insulated silence of the doors' after-slam. There was not much on this street: the backside of some department store, the loading dock, a plastics factory. Behind them it seemed miles of neat, clean empty lots, sparkly chain-link sealing them off like farmland waiting to be seeded. It was a breathing space, a deep exhale. Alex started the car. A low blast, a low rumble. A steady hum.

“That one-eyed guy,” he said. “I know him. What's he after you for? Is he involved in the murder?”

“No,” she said, throwing him an inquisitive squint. “He was supposed to help me.”

“I guess he changed his mind.” The car whined as he backed all the way down the street. He made a sharp right, went straight two blocks, then sped along 156th Street.

“How do you know about the murder?”

The last sharp turn made her buckle her seat belt. She clutched the purse tight up against her chest.

“It's in the paper,” he said. “Why didn't you tell me you were in trouble?”

“I didn't want to involve you.”

“You could've told me,” he insisted, as if insulted. Why was the car engine so loud? Was he really driving so fast?

“I could've taken you to the cops. I don't normally think of involving cops, but you know … you're white. They'll help you.”

“I can't go to the cops.”

Red light.

Alex braked, tire screech, a shudder jolt. Turned to look at her real slow and careful. “And why can't you go to the cops?” (Getting a good look at her eyes, green and wide and staring right back.)

“They're the ones who are after me,” she said.

Green light.

Alex pressed down the gas. Car surged forward, swerve-jerked as he made a right. Where was he going?

“Shit,” he said, seeing a dark blob in the rearview mirror. “There's a black van behind us. Wasn't it a black van?”

“That's not it.”

He made a left at this big Taj Mahal building and hit Kelly Street. A calm, treelined road with rows of quaint, old private houses. He slid into a spot by the curb and shut off the engine. She sank lower in her seat while Alex sat still, staring at his hands gripping the wheel.

There was absolutely nothing on the street, not even passersby. It was like driving into a postcard. A silvery sun streaked the rows of three-story Dutch houses. There was a soft swishing sound that seemed to slow everything down to a crawl. She looked back. A black man swept his stoop with calm, even strokes of a broom.

“Why did you do this?” she said, not looking at him.

“You're welcome,” he said back.

“You don't know what you've gotten yourself into.”

“Maybe now you can tell me.”

“I'd rather clock you on the head.”

“That doesn't work with me.”

She was looking around, shifting in her seat. “Are we staying here?”

“I need a smoke,” he said.

She undid her safety belt with a click. He thought she would go. She must have thought that too. But she didn't move. He felt calm, as if he knew her difficulty with words quite well by now. He did not force it. He waited. He pulled out his tobacco. She watched him. She shook her head slow.

“Why did you have to do this?” she whispered.

“You left your dress in my bathroom,” he said.

He started to roll. The calm steady working of his fingers mesmerized her.

“Do you want me to roll you one?”

She went freeze for a moment, unable to use words. “I only want a few puffs,” she finally said.

Now came that feeling of hesitation again, his, hers. She clutched her purse. He seemed about to say something, but nah. The calm steady working of his fingers. The voice she was hearing now was not Alan's. It wasn't Leni, Marlene, or Anne, but Sarita. Crystal clear through dream like a movie voice-over. “You'll be with someone,” she said, “but don't fear him. He has strong guardians.” An urge to stay. An urge to run, but to where?

“I've known a lot of people who were in trouble with cops,” he said, licking his cigarette shut. “What makes them want to come after you?”

“It's not the cops. It's Alan.” She found it hard to look directly at him for too long. She did it in small bursts. “He uses cops, but they don't know. They don't know what's behind it. Hardly anyone does.”

“But you know?”

“Yes. Alan is what some people call a ‘fixer.' People hire him to fix things when they go wrong. He was into some dirty business with David.”

“The guy in the paper?”

“That's right. David's brother was a drug dealer. He stole something from some terrorists. David helped him hide it. The feds were on to the terrorists. They're mad it got stolen. They want to get it back.”

Alex rolled the window down a little and lit the cigarette.

“That part wasn't in the paper,” he said.

“The paper's not going to tell you that part.”

The first fiery puff. (After that, it's downhill.) He passed it to her. A breathing in, a communal slowing of time which all cigarette smokers smoking together are familiar with. She puffed. The steady swish of that broom, sweeping away.

“I used to work for Alan.” Her face looked different now, impenetrable and hard. “He sent me in to get the package from David.”

“The paper said you were his office assistant.”

“Yeah. Isn't that a bitch.” Her eyes were glassy strange. She passed the cigarette back. “I was supposed to find the package and betray David.”

Alex took in smoke slow. Sometimes you can get more information than you want to know about a person.

“Did you?”

The question froze everything. She covered her face a moment. (There was absolutely nothing on the street.) Alex saw how her green eyes tended to go brown in sunlight, how her blond in sunlight tended to go red. He had grown so tired of senseless weekends and events that created no chain, served no purpose. He had gone after answers this time, but now felt reluctant to hear more.

“I wish you would drive,” she said, words muffled by fingers.

“I haven't decided about the cops yet,” he said, contemplating cigarette tip.

“Your question wasn't specific,” she snapped. “Did I what? Did I find the package or did I betray David? Which one do you want?”

“I want both.”

“Yes,” she said, fingers massaging her temples. “I found the package. But I betrayed Alan.”

A strange burn hit his stomach. The tenseness was coming back. He checked the rearview mirror, adjusting it to get a better view of the street. She turned her face away. He nudged her with the cigarette, almost as if to remind her he was there, they had a deal, they were smoking together. She looked at him, her eyes red-rimmed. She took the cigarette.

“I promised David I wouldn't let them get it.”

“But Ava, these people … there's feds involved.”

“To me it's just Alan. I worked for him. You don't know the kind of person I am … I've been. I've been no person. I became somebody different with every job I do for him. I'm sick of not being a real person. This time with David … I really was Ava Reynolds. I felt like a real person. He made me feel so real.”

Alex wondered. Her eyes so glitterful for someone, made him think of things he had forgotten, thought he had forgotten. Some things buried deep some place.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Alan killed David and his brother because of me. I know it. I betrayed him. People died because of me.”

Alex felt a deep dark heat. He closed his eyes. (She nudged him with the cigarette, almost as if to remind him she was there, they had a deal, they were smoking together.) He wished he could have admitted something like that. It was a realization that bit at him with piranha precision. Why now, these Belinda thoughts? She killed herself. He hadn't pressed any buttons or pulled any triggers. Benny told him, always told him she was sick, it wasn't his fault. But what if that one last betrayal was what did her in?