Too Quiet in Brooklyn (27 page)

Marie bent and pointed something out to Charlie and he jumped up and down, holding fast to her hand. I saw him skip by her side as she walked toward a carousel at the end of a wing. Perfect. I hung back just enough, and watched Marie buy two tickets and swing Charlie up onto a seat while she stood by his side. The calliope music started and the carousel slowly began to move and Charlie laughed as it picked up speed.

I paid for a ticket and hopped on.

“Do you remember me?” I asked when I’d gotten close enough to her.

She swiveled like she’d been slapped and her free hand went to her face.

“I’m Carmela Fitzgibbons’ girl, Fina, a little bit older now, maybe it’s hard to recognize me.”

Charlie stared straight ahead hanging onto the pole and the horse’s mane, kicking his feet to make the horse go faster.

Marie stared at me, her mouth open. “I think I do. Carmela from the bank?”

Her voice was deep, throaty. I could tell she’d been crying. Maybe on and off for many years.

“That’s right,” I said. “It’s been a long time. Hi, Charlie.”

He looked at me and waved.

Marie stared at me and the carousel slowed.

“Again?” Charlie asked.

“Let me buy,” I said and the worker guy sold me three tickets.

“I know about Charlie,” I said. “I’ve been asked to find him. Do you want to come with me? We can ride in your car or mine, but I’m taking Charlie home.”

She didn’t say anything, but her hand trembled. She was holding her lower lip steady with her upper teeth and staring into a pile of memories trying to decide what to do.

“If I leave him, he’ll kill me. If I go home, he’ll kill me. Not supposed to take the boy anywhere. Anywhere. But I overheard Winston and Harry talking. ‘Get rid of the boy,’ Winston said. I couldn’t let that happen.”

I looked at my watch. Three fifteen.

“Chances are he’s a little tied up right now and won’t miss you for a couple of hours. Federal agents have a court order to search your house.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Forty-five years with the man, and he’s taken almost everything from me. But I can’t let him kill a child.”

“Take a ride with me. It doesn’t have to be forever. And I think Charlie needs you now.”

“I have to potty,” Charlie said.

* * *

I waited until we were refreshed and out of the mall, Charlie tied down to the rear seat of my car, a picture book in his lap. Marie wanted to sit next to him. But before I started the engine, I texted Barbara with the news. I called and left messages on her cell and home phones, her work line. I texted Jane with a copy to Denny.

When Denny called, I said, “I’ve got Charlie and Marie Connors. She rescued the boy. We’re on our way to Brooklyn … They’re in the back seat of my car. Heading toward New York on the turnpike. Send an escort.”

“Stop saying ‘rescued.’ Ralph came the other night with Charlie. Ralph works for Winston.”

I put two and two together and knew who Ralph was, Winston Connor’s assassin, the guy who attempted to get me this morning. I let Marie talk.

“To give Winston credit, he took Charlie from Ralph when he realized what Ralph was.”

“What Ralph was?” I asked.

Marie shuddered and looked at Charlie, but he was busy looking at the pictures in his book. “Overly fond of ….”

“I get it now.” I gripped the wheel hard and drove.

“I’d taken Charlie to the mall so he could ride the carousel. After that, I was going to return to Winston … I think.”

“You got kids?” I asked.

“Six boys. They’ve got their own lives. They don’t talk to us, except for the youngest. He helps his dad. But the other five, we don’t see them. It’s better that way. I understand. They found a way out.”

“Maybe you’ll see them now. Do you have their phone numbers at least?”

She nodded, close to tears. She looked so frail, like a word could knock her down.

“Got any friends here?”

Marie shrugged and said, “I kept my apartment in Brooklyn. I haven’t kept in touch with my friends, though.”

Two seconds later, Jane called, breathless.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Long story. Marie Connors did most of it.” I gave her my tags and asked again for an escort.

Five minutes later, two New Jersey Troopers appeared, their sirens wailing. I pulled into the right-hand lane. One got in front, the other in back and we sped our way to the state line where two NYPD highway patrol chargers took over. They dropped us at the door of the 84th Precinct.

A crowd of reporters had gathered along with a bazillion cops. Mixed in with a swarm of federal agents, there was an impressive array of NYPD brass, including the bureau chief, the Brooklyn Borough assistant chief, commanders, the precinct captain, and the commissioner himself.

Jane met my car and somehow got us through all the emergency vehicles, squads and unmarked cars to the podium. My eye throbbed like hell. By this time, Marie was shivering, but she held Charlie in her arms and whispered something. He smiled and waved to the crowd. A thousand lights flashed.

“Where’s Barbara?” Jane asked.

“I’ve got calls in to her.” I shrugged. Jane was acting like it was my fault we couldn’t reach her. She was right, I didn’t have control of my client.

“What about his father?” I asked.

“He’s on his way,” she said.

“Daddy!” Charlie yelled.

The crowd went crazy.

After the commissioner thanked the chief and his crew for their work, the FBI’s chief investigator spoke. “What you did, Mrs. Connors, was heroic. You saved Charlie’s life.” Cameras flashed. Marie stared into the lens like a soul caught between heaven and hell. I think there were tears in her eyes.

Celebrating Too Soon

Once the hullabaloo died, Jane, Denny, Willoughby, Cookie and I sat in our dining room polishing off three large pizzas from Grimaldi’s while they got me all updated. Cops and detectives swarmed Dumbo, Fulton’s Landing, Vinegar Hill all morning and afternoon doing a door to door and hadn’t found the perp. Not a sign.

“And all this while I’m taking my test?” Cookie said. “I aced it if anyone’s interested.”

“He’s dead or he’s gone to ground, hiding in some basement. Maybe he’ll die there and we won’t find him for a dozen years. Don’t forget he’s got a car, and we thought we saw him traveling down Henry Street this morning like a bat fleeing a fire. I say he’s lurking in the shadows ready to pounce.”

And on the word “pounce,” Willoughby pounced.

Cookie rolled her eyes. “This guy for real?”

We were happy. Celebrating. No denying. Not one computer plugged in.

One woman called the hot line, swore she saw the man in the sketch.

Jane’s imitation of her was perfection. “‘He tried to rape me, I swear it,” she got up, prancing around the table. “Got his big dick out and was pumping it something fierce. I took one look at that flagpole and I spread myself like angel wings all the while praying to the Virgin. … Don’t let him touch me, Holy Mary, Mother of God! Didn’t he get scared when he saw me spread-eagled. Ran away like a greased rabbit.’ But the witness swore he wasn’t wounded. She didn’t see him limping. ‘But would you notice a gimp leg in the face of that huge shlong?’”

“His name’s Ralph,” I said. “Marie told me, and her husband called him a pervert. Ralph’s been contracted to get rid of me.” I smiled. “The truth is spilling out of her. She’s had it. The final straw? When she overheard her husband telling Harry to get rid of Charlie. The blinders she’d been wearing for forty-five years dropped off like hot coals.”

“Wonder how that happens,” mused Jane. “Married to a guy forty-five years and you don’t see what he’s like until all of a sudden? I don’t get it. What happened?”

“Maybe it was grace,” Willoughby said, wiping pizza crumbs from his shirt.

“It was Charlie,” Cookie said. “He was the grace. Marie couldn’t stomach the death of a child.”

“I don’t get why she married a man like Winston Connors in the first place, but she did. The blinders must have been on way back then,” I said.

“Of course they were,” Jane said. “In her day, women got married when they were girls, just out of high school. Now they wait a good long while, live with a guy.”

I nodded. “Smart lady, Marie. Gracious. I remember her from family Christmas parties at the bank. And she remembered me, too, but said I looked older.” I smiled at my quiet revelation. “That’s how I got her to go with me, I figure. We just started talking in the mall, like two old acquaintances, you know. Simple as that. No rat-a-tat-tats. No shrinks with loud speakers.”

“Women should run the world,” Cookie said.

Jane nodded. “The Feds spent an hour questioning Marie, but the woman was exhausted, and we persuaded them to stop with the interrogating until tomorrow. So we’ve got guards on Marie, and on you two and Cookie.”

“Me? Nobody knows me,” Cookie said.

“All the same, we’re covering our bets. You went missing for quite a while.”

“Yeah, you did a Barbara on us,” I said.

“She’s another one we’re watching,” Jane said. She looked hard at me. “Client or not.”

I shrugged. “Charlie’s the one I’m worried about. Is he with his dad?”

“Yes, and we’ve got two policemen guarding them until we can put all the devils to bed. That includes Connors and his crew, too, not just Ralph, although right now, he’s our biggest concern.”

“I can’t understand why Barbara hasn’t called. By now she’s got to know Charlie’s home.” I was quiet for a space, a good long space. “I think something’s wrong.”

There was silence.

“Marie’s the one I feel sorry for,” Cookie said. “She’s dead meat, I swear to God.”

We stared at her.

“Well you read about it all the time.”

“Read about what?” Willoughby asked.

Jane frowned. “Don’t say that.”

Cookie was applying lipstick. “Figure it, she’s a dead head unless she finds a super smart shrink. Married to the same guy for forty-five years, sucked every ounce of gumption out of her, and what’s left?”

“C’mon, we said we were going to celebrate, not talk shop,” Willoughby said.

“This isn’t talking shop, this is talking life,” Jane said.

Denny perked up. “She’s got six sons. One of them must have kids. So there you go, there’s a life.”

I had to say something, didn’t I? Open my big mouth and get right in there. “Get with it, this isn’t the nineteenth century. You think a woman has to have offspring to have a life? Do you think that’s it for us?”

Now there was real silence, the red kind.

“No, I didn’t mean … I just meant … the woman she’s become, a gangster’s wife. She’s the wife of a fraud, a crook. All his life she’s stood by her man, not saying a word. To me, he’s no better than the Godfather, a serious prick. She overhears the remark about getting rid of Charlie and leaves. Finally she’s had enough. But after the leaving, what does she have? Nothing, she’s a woman with nothing. Think about it. She might have a nice bank account, but how far is that going to get her? She’s got squat.”

That was Denny covering his tracks.

“Not as far as the courts are concerned,” Jane said.

“And besides, she kept her apartment in the Heights, don’t forget.”

“That’s where she is?” Denny asked.

“Why wouldn’t she be there? It’s her place,” Willoughby said.

We looked at Jane.

“They’re keeping her in an undisclosed location, at least for tonight. Chief’s orders. Got a surveillance on the apartment. But nobody knows that. New Jersey and FBI picked up her car in the Freehold Mall parking lot. They’re going over it for evidence.”

“They love doing that,” Willoughby said. “Probably in Quantico as we speak, giving those clowns something to do.”

I wondered what Marie was feeling, now that Charlie was gone and all the life she was used to, bridge once a week with her friends or whatever, going to church on Saturday afternoon, the first cup of coffee in the morning sipped from her favorite cup, all her comforting rituals, everything was over for her. If there was a hero in this whole thing, it was Marie. She saved Charlie’s life and lost her own, at least for now. She’d have to start over.

But something else Denny said started my mind going. Something that struck a chord. Something about Barbara. Because right now, she was the mystery.

Then I remembered something. I texted my FBI guy asking him for the list of plates on the three black Mercedes parked in the Blue Eagle drive.

And he texted back, “Sent them hours ago. Check your email.”

Sure enough, they’d been sitting in my inbox for hours. I should have seen them long ago. It all fell into place—Barbara’s leave from her law firm, her erratic behavior, laughing, crying, disappearing, dressed up on a Saturday morning. I should have tailed her, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d known about the Mercedes in Blue Eagle’s drive because all along I should have known where she was going. All along, I should have suspected.

“The tags on the boyfriend’s car?” I asked, my face red.

“What boyfriend?” Willoughby asked.

“Barbara’s. My client’s. They turned up on a car parked in the Blue Eagle’s drive.”

There was a hush as my heart went south. “I should have seen it before,” I said, my blood rushing and my ears pounding. My voice trembled. God, don’t let me cry. “I should have seen it.”

“What are you talking about?”

I stood. “C’mon, we’ve got to get to her before—”

“Slow down. What are you talking about?” Jane asked.

“She’s talking about Barbara,” Cookie said. “She knows something bad’s happened. She’s like this when she knows too much, like animals before a tsunami hits.”

I was about to try Barbara again when Jane’s phone started ringing and we all jumped.

I remember Jane nodding and listening for what seemed like hours but was only seconds while the four of us sat waiting for her. I remember Willoughby picking up crumbs from the table and eating them. I remember Denny whispering ‘Good work’ in my ear and hugging me, not quite getting it, sweetheart that he was, but trying to understand, really working at it. I loved him for that, or at least I thought I did, and we’d be happy if only the stone in my throat would stop choking me.