Too Quiet in Brooklyn (10 page)

The cameras focused on Barbara, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. She spoke briefly, asking for the return of her son.

“He’s all I have. My God, don’t hurt him, please, please, don’t hurt my boy.”

No questions were entertained. Date and time of future press conferences would depend on the cooperation of the public and developments in the case.

No Blood, Boss

“Bugger’s wet his pants, getting it all over me,” Ralph said.

“Put him on the ground, for Chrissake.”

Ralph laid Charlie on the ground and couldn’t help it. The tears came so he swiped at them, watching as Arrow knelt before Charlie.

“You damn pussy! What are you crying for?”

Ralph saw the needle when Arrow held it up and squirted it in the air.

He knew Arrow was angry, but he didn’t care. With one foot, he kicked the needle out of Arrow’s hand.

Arrow rose, clutching his wrist. “You son of a—”

Arrow threw a punch but Ralph was ready. He grabbed the fist in midair.

“Stop. You’re right, Ralphie. Ralphie, don’t. Listen to me. We don’t have to get rid of the boy… I was just teasing.”

But Ralph wasn’t listening. He lifted Arrow as if he were a paper bag. He squeezed Arrow’s neck until he heard the pop.

Ralph opened the trunk and got out the old tarpaulin and flung it over his shoulder. Carrying Arrow and the tarpaulin, he walked back to the rotten boat leaning on its side. He didn’t want the fishes to feed on Arrow’s body, not just yet, so he dumped Arrow into the boat. He felt around and found Arrow’s wallet. There were lots of bills, too many to count. He took the bills, closed the wallet, and stuffed it back into Arrow’s pocket. He took Arrow’s ball cap off Arrow’s head and put it on.

Then Ralph thought about the boss and what he’d say if he left Arrow’s body in the boat. The boss wouldn’t like it. He’d want Arrow to be fish food, so he looked around and found some big chunks of concrete with rusty rods sticking out of them and he threw them in with Arrow, stuffing them into all the pockets or sitting them nice on top of Arrow’s stomach. He rolled up Arrow and the rocks into the tarpaulin and wound the rope around the outside and tied the two ends together so it looked like the moon. With one hand Ralph lifted it up and tossed it high into the air. He watched it tumble end on end. It splashed into the water and disappeared.

Ralph backed up, his eyes on the bubbles in the water. He wiped his hands on his shirt and stood there trying to pray like his sister taught him, but all that came out was “asshole.” He should feel sad, but he didn’t. “Shouldn’t have done it, Arrow,” he said. “Shouldn’t have been so mean about Charlie.”

But Ralph was happy, too. For one thing, he had Charlie all to himself. And for another, the Yankee cap fit him real good, better than it fit Arrow. Arrow was letting his hair grow too long, and Ralph could feel the cap nice and snug on his head but not pushing on his brains. He smiled. And for a third thing, now he was on his own. He knew he could do it. The boss’d be proud of Ralph, too. No blood. Two down, and not a drop spilled and the old lady out of the boss’s hair. If the boss had more jobs like this, no problem, Ralph could take care of them, easy. He didn’t need anyone else with him. Just Charlie. That’s why Ralph was here in the first place, Arrow told him, to drive and to squeeze. The boss would thank him and clap Ralph on the back, now that Arrow wasn’t around anymore.

He remembered what Arrow had said about the big boss not wanting Charlie around. He had to think about that one. He had to think hard. And he had to think hard about Arrow and what he’d done so he could tell the boss why he had to squeeze him. No blood, boss, no blood. Arrow’s sleeping deep in the mud of the Meadowlands.

He picked Charlie up and fastened him into the back seat. Fishtailing a little in the sand, he drove off a little ways and stopped.

He got out and lifted the cap to scratch his head and looked at the plates on the Plymouth. Maybe someone had seen those plates. He remembered that neighbor, Hector something, a snoop with a big nose. He didn’t like the neighbor. His mouth worked back and forth when he looked at the Plymouth, walking around it and studying the plates. Well, maybe it was old, but it was his sister’s until she died. Then it was Ralph’s. So Ralph opened the trunk and dug out the New Jersey plates from the van. They’d be better than New York plates because after all, they were in New Jersey now. So he screwed the plates on, front and back and threw the old ones in the water and drove south on the turnpike.

Blue Mist

The blue mist was between us, I could tell by the way Denny closed the door and kissed me on the top of the head when he came home, his lips cold and flat and hard. I felt like a schmuck. I was the reason the dinner was cancelled, and it hadn’t been the first time, either. His mom probably worked all week in the kitchen, perfecting her burnt roast and soggy beans. Okay, so I hated going to his parents, I admit it, but I couldn’t help it this time. There’s only one way to get rid of the blue mist, and it better happen soon or I wouldn’t get any work done. I had to concentrate on my notes, crack open her computer, and study Mary Ward Simon’s reports or whatever they were. Hope she was as neat with her computer files as she was with her house. I sat at the dining room table with her Mac, my notes, and my mood.

Pans banged in the kitchen. A grown guy, one of New York’s finest, and he was like a bruised old lady throwing food around. Glass shattered.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“I think you got a brass monkey up your ass.”

“Right. Great talk for a woman.”

I didn’t do anything with that. Soon I heard him sweeping glass.

Silence needed to marinate him a little more before we could begin to talk, something I didn’t look forward to, so I went back to the deceased’s computer and turned it on.

A list of three users came up, Mary with the picture of a lion, Billing with an eight ball, Banks with a math formula. It’s never easy. I stared at the screen, but it was making my good eye water and my bad eye pulse, so I turned on the light. Better. I clicked on the lion and the password prompt appeared. There were no post-it’s with passwords hanging around, so I looked through my notes. Barbara would have given me her mother’s password, she seemed to know everything, but I found no reference to one. I looked hard at the lion and tried to be Mary Ward Simon, but I wouldn’t be breathing, would I, I’d be surprised and doing what the dead do before they pass over or whatever, maybe floating in the air over Charlie and reading him a story.

I typed “Charlie” and got the shaking window. I thought again and typed “Barbara” and got the shakes again. How many tries, I wondered, but that never stopped me. “barbara” didn’t work, but “charlie” did.

“Hungry?” Denny leaned against the door jamb, his arms folded.

I waited as long as I could before saying, “Nope.”

He went back into the kitchen and I heard the fridge opening, closing, knife cutting, eggs cracking, whisk whipping, butter sizzling, and a hiss of steam as the eggs hit the pan. One thing about Denny, he made the best breakfasts. He could live on them, and so could I. Matter of fact we did, the first year we were together. I smelled brown sugar bacon and heard the toaster pop. I smelled hot cinnamon.

Nothing on the desktop except icons in the dock. Figured. I opened her user folder and double-clicked on Documents. Empty. I looked through the other folders, Music and Pictures, tried Movies, and found nothing. Now I was worried. I might have to call my UNIX friends at Brown’s to help me out. But before that, I logged out and got the three user pictures again.

This time I chose Banks and got lucky on the first shot with MWS38CP. In Documents I found a bunch of folders: Citizens, Crown, Customers, Dollar, Excel Files, KPMG, New Century, Reliance, Heights Federal, Union, Valley, New Centurion. Most of these were banks, I thought—Heights Federal, for sure. My heart pounded.

Denny came in with a loaded tray, a pot of coffee, omelets, muffins, jam, thick cinnamon toast and cream cheese, a plate of bacon, and two bowls heaped with a quart of tutti frutti ice cream covered with maple syrup, just the way I liked it. He set it in front of me and kissed me full on the mouth. My resolve weakened.

“I didn’t mean what I said about ‘nice talk for a woman.’ The woman part just slipped out.”

I nodded, smiling and reached for the ice cream. I’m such a rotten ass.

“Your eye’s weeping. Gotta get you to the doc.”

I shrugged. “After we find Charlie.”

My phone rang. It was Cookie.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Some of us have serious studying to do.”

“So?”

“My Eagle guy just phoned. He heard that the Feds found the remains of a cargo van. Torched real good. Found it on a spit of land off the Belt near Bensonhurst. A 2000 or so Econoline. Original color white, but they found flakes of reddish paint. No plates.”

“VIN?” I asked.

“They don’t know.”

I took three bites of ice cream, slurped my coffee to get rid of the brain freeze, and told Denny.

He made a call and scribbled some notes on his napkin.

“These guys aren’t going to torch a van before destroying the VIN. They’ve been removed or filed down. Some of Jane’s folks are looking through the rubble now for pieces of the frame. Insurance companies know all the places to look, and I’m sure someone on her team has called them. Maybe they’ll get lucky, let’s hope so.”

“Any human remains?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Good.”

“Fina, that means nothing. First of all, we don’t know whose van this was, not yet at any rate. And second, that fire could have been fed by any number of agents that can make it hot enough to disintegrate the devil’s tail. Not even bones would survive the blaze.”

I bit down.

He looked at me with those eyes I can’t resist. Damn, but he’s too good for me.

I thought I saw a smile cross his face. “But he did say they found a kid’s picture book wedged between the rocks about five-hundred feet from the site. Something about a tree.” He kissed my neck. “Do you think tomorrow’s going to work for dinner?”

“Better tell your mother no. This is my chance, this case. Besides, I feel like something’s going to break and it’s going to be me that makes it break.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “We don’t talk much about what’s between us. We never get round to the real words, do we?”

“Denny, now’s not the right time.”

“I know, I know.”

He tried to hide his disappointment by turning on the TV.

I sat next to him on the couch. Nice and close. But in a few minutes my phone vibrated. I looked at the text and smiled. “What do you know, it’s Jane feeding me info.”

“Torched van?”

“Yup. No VIN, telling me about
The Giving Tree
.”

I texted back to her, “Charlie’s favorite book,” and asked her what happened at the morgue.

For a reply I got, “She’s your client.”

I smiled. I was going to get just so much from Jane and nothing more.

“What did you say you majored in?” I asked him, even though I knew full well it was something to do with numbers.

“Tell you what, you help me with the dishes and we’ll look at those Excel files together,” he said.

“Better yet, you look at the Excel files while I do the dishes.”

* * *

I looked over my notes, planning my next moves and decided I needed to talk to Barbara. When I’d moved her car earlier, I wrote down her tags and peeked in the glove compartment where I’d gotten her address, insurance particulars from her registration, and other papers she’d stuffed in there. She lived in the two-hundred block on Clinton, nice neighborhood. I knew Cobble Hill well and I could have knocked on her door, but looked at my watch and decided I’d better phone first.

“The police just called,” Barbara told me when I called her mobile. “They found
The Giving Tree
. I’m sure that means Charlie’s alive.”

I didn’t think finding Charlie’s picture book in the tall grass near a torched-out van was a good sign, but I wasn’t about to share my opinion with Barbara. I’d be disabusing her of hope. I couldn’t help it, Emily Dickinson’s poem started rolling through my head, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” I used to recite the whole deal to myself, over and over after Mom died, listening hard for the tune coming out of the feathery thing’s beak, but in the beginning, I never heard it. Even now I have days when I think it’s all bullshit, but tonight it was my prayer for Barbara and for Charlie.

The trip to the morgue had worn her out, Barbara told me, a big hint for me not to visit. “At first she didn’t even look like my mother. I thought it was a grotesque joke that someone was playing. I still can’t understand it. When I woke up this evening, I thought I’d been dreaming. I felt it all over again, like I was hearing the news for the first time.”

I knew what she meant. I wished I could see her face as she talked to me, but I could tell by her voice the loss and the pain were getting to her. I could almost hear the tears sizzling through the phone lines.

“Is your friend with you?”

She hesitated just a second too long, but told me he’d arrived and was a comfort and she’d just gotten up, somehow managing to sleep for a few hours. I’ll bet.

“Although what he sees in me now, I don’t know. One minute I’m here, the next I’m not. One minute I’m yelling at him and telling him to get out, the next I’m crying and telling him how much I need him. I’d like to punch him in the groin, I love him so much. I’m not in control, a bitch.”

I laughed, relieved. It was what I needed to hear from Barbara. “Sounds like grief to me.” I asked her if they were going to release the body and she said they had. She’d called the minister and the viewing and funeral were early next week. She needed to call distant cousins, but the church was taking care of everything and one of her mother’s friends was planning the service, even helping her write the obituary.

“One thing I forgot to ask, the name and address of your ex.”

Silence on the other end of the line.