by J. L. Abramo
Afterwards, Lorraine reminds Vota, they can drop her parents’ home and go over to the 25th Avenue train station to check if the homeless man called Sully had made it back from his weekend getaway in the Bronx.
Sandra Rosen sits in the front room of her apartment, a second-story floor-through in a brownstone on Garfield Place near 8th Avenue. She soaks her feet in a large basin of warm water and Epsom salts, sips from a snifter of brandy, and browses the latest issue of Runner’s World magazine.
Rosen has been running five miles, four mornings a week in Prospect Park. She is planning to increase her distance to six miles on Monday morning. She is already preparing for the New York City Marathon, nine months off. Rosen is determined she will be ready this time.
She grabs the phone receiver on the second ring. It is an update from the Precinct on the missing Addams boy. She jots down a few notes and calls the boy’s father.
“Kevin’s wallet was found,” she tells George Addams, “in the street along Ocean Parkway near Church Avenue. Can you think of a reason why he might have been in the area?”
“None,” says Addams.
Rosen isn’t really surprised; she has a strong idea that someone else drove the delivery truck. What puzzles her is that there was more than three hundred dollars in the wallet when it was found.
Detective Rosen doesn’t quite know how to phrase her next question, so she simply asks.
“Is Kevin an intravenous drug user?”
“Absolutely not,” says Addams indignantly. “What would ever give you that idea?”
She could say it was the hypodermic needle discovered in the back of the truck, but she decides not to mention it for the time being.
“I’m sorry, it’s just routine. We’ll have cars out all night, running between the grocery store and the spot where Kevin’s wallet was discovered, and we will continue to canvas the neighborhood around the grocery tomorrow. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”
Addams is afraid to ask what the detective thinks the chances are for Kevin’s safe return; Rosen is unwilling to volunteer an educated guess.
Rosen ends the call, drains her glass and realizes that her feet are sitting in a tub of ice-cold water.
Murphy is sitting at a small table in an office off the Lutheran Medical Center emergency room, looking over the names of all patients and hospital personnel known to be in the vicinity of the ER on the night the Pavulon turned up missing. The list is impressive, and Murphy doesn’t really have any clever ideas about how to narrow it down. He is beginning to think that it might have been more fun staying at home and watching Ralph suffer.
Samson sits with his father in the day room of the Jefferson Street Nursing Home, getting beat time and time again at checkers. Samson hates seeing his father in this place, but Isaac Samson insisted. Since Samson’s mother passed away nearly a year earlier, Samson begs his father at every visit to come to Douglaston to live with his family. Isaac refuses to leave the neighborhood; he has many friends in the area, including a few in the home itself.
“Besides,” Isaac says, slyly watching for his son’s reaction as he takes Sam’s last checker off the board, “have you had a good look at the nurses in this place?”
Tony Territo finally calls it a day at the dealership. Making the sale on the Mercedes was huge, and badly needed. Territo climbs into the Jeep and is reminded of how much he misses the BMW. He has been waiting more than three weeks for parts to arrive. Tony thinks it very ironic that he could literally build a car from the inventory down in the garage on 41st Street and has been having so much trouble finding what was needed to take care of his own vehicle.
Territo could have easily replaced the car, but he is strongly attached to it. It is a classic 1972 coupe and it has brought good luck to him for over ten years. The Belt Parkway accident didn’t do any damage to the chassis; the fix-up was completely cosmetic.
Territo uses cars from the lot or his wife’s Grand Cherokee while he waits for the BMW. The last of the parts is due in the next day and a paint job is scheduled for Tuesday. He has been assured that he will be back in the driver’s seat by Wednesday afternoon. He tries to think of it as something to look forward to. He tries not to think about having to see Dominic Colletti again, something he is absolutely not looking forward to.
Territo pulls the Cherokee out onto 4th Avenue and over to 86th Street for the short drive home.
Bruno Graziano has done an expert job laying out the Ventura boy for the wake. The small coffin is open. The cuts on the boy’s face are so well camouflaged, even the boy’s parents can almost forget they are there. The boy’s hands are arranged in such a way as to hide the mutilation.
Paul and Mary Ventura see the last of the mourners out to the street and then return together to the sitting room to be alone with their son for a while longer.
Bobby Hoyle sits in his jail bed after what they call dinner at the Rikers prison cafeteria. He is trying to read something he picked off a rolling book cart earlier that afternoon. Bobby is looking forward to lights out; it will be that much closer to the time he can get out of this ugly place.
When one of the other inmates walks into Bobby’s small cell, the look on the man’s face convinces Hoyle that his visitor is not there to borrow a cup of sugar. When the man suddenly assaults him, Bobby uses every frantic move he ever picked up on the street to fight off his attacker.
Minutes later, Bobby is at the bars of the main room yelling for a guard. The other man is lying still on the floor of Bobby’s cell, blood flowing from his right ear.
Susan Graham and David Levanthal enter the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, at the end of a six-hour drive from Vermont. Susan realized an hour out of Stowe that she had forgotten her ski boots at the lodge and Levanthal was unwilling to turn back, insisting that the boots would be shipped home to her long before she would be needing them again. They had argued for two hours and not said a word to each other for the last three.
David takes the 39th Street exit off the Gowanus and heads up 4th Avenue to Susan’s house on Bay Ridge Avenue.
Lou Vota drops Lorraine and her parents in front of the Marlboro Movie Theater on Bay Parkway. They will pick up tickets while he finds a place to park the car.
Vota can hardly believe his luck when he spots a black Cadillac limousine pulling out of a parking space up ahead as he is turning onto West 9th Street.
Sammy Leone pulls the Cadillac away from the curb and heads up West 9th toward 21st Avenue.
“How did it go with your sons this morning?” he asks.
“They assured me the problem will be settled tonight,” says Dominic Colletti from the back of the limousine.
Margaret Murphy sits in one of the two overstuffed armchairs facing the television in her home off Glenwood Road, close to Brooklyn College. She sits in the chair that her husband used when he was still alive. Sitting in Patrick Murphy’s chair somehow calms her anxieties. She is half-watching a typical Sunday night made for TV movie, the kind billed as family entertainment. From what Margaret has caught of the story so far, she wonders if the writer ever actually had a family.
Michael Murphy walks into the house and heads straight for the kitchen. He has passed his mother without saying a word. Margaret rises from her seat and follows.
Michael is rummaging through the refrigerator. He pulls out a large platter, leftover London broil from Sunday dinner.
“There are potatoes and vegetables,” his mother says. “Let me warm up a plate for you.”
“I’ll make a sandwich,” he says, grabbing a loaf of bread from the counter and a carving knife from a cabinet drawer.
“Your brother was here for supper. He was sorry that you weren’t home.”
“I bet he’s sorry he missed a chance to ask to see my license and registration. Did he bring beer at least?”
“That’s not fair, Michael. You know that your brother cares about you.”
“Sure, Mom, I know. Everybody worries about poor little Mikey
, everyone’s favorite failure.”
“Please, son.”
“I see how proud you are of Tommy. How proud you were when he made Detective. I couldn’t even pass the test for traffic cop.”
“Michael, I never wanted either of you boys to join the Police Department. And believe it or not, your father felt the same way. And I never loved the idea of your father being on the force. All we ever wanted was for you and Thomas to be happy.”
“Well I appreciate you wanting me to be happy, Mom,” says Michael, walking away toward his room with a plate of food and a bottle of Samuel Adams, “and I really hate to disappoint you. But I have other plans.”
He sits alone in a rear pew at Our Lady of Angels on 4th Avenue at 73rd Street. The church has emptied after the completion of the Sunday evening service. Father Donovan has disappeared to a small room behind the altar to remove his vestments. The man in the rear pew glances around the church, finding it both marvelous and frightening.
Father Daniel Donovan’s sermon had been about love and forgiveness, as the priest’s sermons often were. Love thy neighbor, turn the other check, repay evil with goodness.
Donovan always steered clear of the Old Testament. The man in the rear pew, clutching a large manila envelope in his lap, is immersed in the Old Testament.
How could he love his neighbor, when he saw himself as a man without neighbors? How could he turn his other cheek when he had already used both? One on the night his son died. The other on the day his wife left their home with his small daughter. How could he repay evil with goodness when the God of the Old Testament called out to him for retribution, demanded that he bear witness?
He rises and walks to a rack of candles along the east wall of the church. He lifts a wooden stick and lights a candle from the flame of another. He says a short prayer for his firstborn and for the other children God has asked him to reclaim, so that their elders can find repentance.
He steps into a confessional that stands adjacent to the prayer candles. He kneels and places the envelope on the floor of the booth. It is simply addressed in blue crayon to Father Donovan. Inside the envelope is a note in orange crayon on the blank side of a coloring book cover.
And with it the testimony.
He walks out of the large church doors. The evening has turned cold, the temperature dropping quickly after a fairly mild February afternoon. He pulls a knit cap onto his head and tightens his coat. He walks up 73rd Street to 5th Avenue.
As he walks toward 72nd Street, he sees a police car parked in front of a Mexican restaurant. Glancing in as he passes, he spots two uniformed officers at a small table. He thinks about Billy Ventura and Kevin Addams. He fights off the strong urge to go inside and tell these officers about his important work.
Landis is so hungry he could eat tofu. Unfortunately it wasn’t on the menu, so he and his partner opted for the chicken burritos. They have been waiting so long for their dinner order that Officer Landis is wondering if he should run back to the kitchen to help the cook catch the bird.
“Why in God’s name would this be taking so long?”
“Why do you think they call them waiters?” says Rey Mendez, grabbing the last tortilla chip.
At 69th Street and Fifth Avenue he turns toward home. Across the street, in front of the Alpine Movie Theater, a young woman is holding a microphone up to another woman’s face. He continues down 69th to his house just past Vista Place. He walks up to the porch and lets himself into the front door.
Serena shivers as she holds the microphone. The woman who has come out from the show at the Alpine is thrilled to be chosen for an interview. She claims that it was a great date movie. It might make good copy if Serena had any idea what it meant. On top of that, the woman doesn’t appear to have a date. Serena hopes that the recorder is getting it, because she can barely pay attention. She sees a car turn onto 69th Street, a pair of skis strapped to a rack on top.
It has Serena thinking of yet another of the many things she would rather be doing.
He takes the bottle of Scotch into his son’s room. He sits on the floor and begins drinking, surrounded by toys.
David Levanthal double-parks in front of the house, gets out of the car, opens the trunk and removes the suitcase without a word. Susan Graham picks up the suitcase and walks to her door, without a word.
As Levanthal’s car pulls away, Susan realizes she is glad to be back home.
EIGHT
February. The day has turned much colder. All of the warmth is inside. The time in Vermont passed quickly. The drive home was interminable. Back to work tomorrow. First a shower, a brandy, a cup of coffee. First get into the damned house. Holding the screen door with her left foot, suitcase in left hand, keys in right hand searching for the lock. Unlocked, front door pushed open, stepping inside, screen swinging back, placing the suitcase down, shoving the front door shut, locking door, switching on living room light. Home sweet home. What’s wrong?
A feeling. Something you feel walking into a house Sunday evening for the first time since leaving it Friday afternoon. A feeling you have walking into a house that you had left unoccupied for the past fifty-two hours. A feeling that someone has been here while you were away.
And then just as quickly the feeling is gone.
She picks up a few pieces of mail at her feet, tosses them on the small table in the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee. Carrying the snifter of brandy with her to start the water in the shower because it takes a while to get hot. Another sip of brandy, placing the brandy glass on the bathroom sink, stepping into her bedroom as she slips off her jacket, tossing it with her right arm toward the bed, right hand now to the light switch as the left hand pulls off shoes, right hand already working on her blouse buttons, left hand on zipper of skirt—wait a minute.
That feeling again.
Someone has been here?
Now, why would you even want to think something like that?
And then she finally turns toward the bed where her jacket has been casually tossed across the knees of a 170-pound surprise guest.
The call comes in on 911. The caller is trying to remain calm.
“Do you know the person in your bed, Miss?”
“No.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“The house next door, my neighbors’,” she says, giving the address. The neighbors spy through assorted windows.
“Is the man dead?”
“It’s a boy, a big boy. I don’t know. I think so.”
“Don’t go back to the house. A squad car is on the way. Please stay on the line until the officers arrive.”
Landis feels the cell phone vibrate. An emergency call to an address six blocks away. Landis and Mendez rush out to their car just as the waitress is finally coming to the table with their chicken burritos.
Mendez hits the siren as Landis makes the turn onto 69th Street, tires squealing.
Serena Huang, shivering from the cold in front of the Alpine Movie Theater, looks up from her tape recorder and watches the patrol car scream toward 6th Avenue.
“I think I hear a siren,” Susan Graham says into the receiver.
And the neighbor asks, “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“Say again, please,” says the emergency operator.
“I said I hear a siren.” And it’s right out front, and it goes silent, and the two uniforms are at the door. And they are in the neighbors’ house, moving to her. And one of them takes the phone from her hand, and the other wants to talk with her and has to take her shoulders and sit her down on the nearest chair as she finally comes out of the fog she has briefly visited.
Less than five minutes later, Landis and Mendez are moving to the front door of the adjacent house.
The door is opened, suitcase on the floor to the left of the door. Water running somewhere, the smell of fresh coffee, guns drawn, heading to the bedroom. Coming into the room. Body on bed. Male. Age nineteen. Twenty tops. Lying on bed
with legs straight, together. Arms straight, at sides. Woman’s jacket across knees. Eyes closed. Mendez looks for a pulse, touching nothing but the boy’s neck, transfixed by the cuts on the boy’s face.
Landis is staring at the numbers written in crayon on the wall above the bed.
“Dead,” says Mendez.
They go through the rest of the house, quickly, thoroughly.
They have spent four minutes in the house and spoken only one word between them when Landis picks up the phone with a rubber-gloved hand to call Homicide.
The call to Homicide is routed to Chief of Detectives Trenton. When he hears of the cuts and the numbers on the wall, Trenton tells the dispatcher to call Samson only.
Samson has just walked out of the nursing home and almost makes it to his car when his cell phone rings. He wonders why he is being called for a homicide in the 68th Precinct. Samson is at the scene in eighteen minutes. He meets Landis at the door. Before Samson can ask, Landis tells him that the evidence guys are on the way.
Samson is taking everything in as he scans the front room of the small, one-story house. Samson cannot touch anything, but he can look. There will be a house full of people soon. More uniforms to secure the scene, evidence technicians, ambulance personnel, the medical examiner. There is already a crowd forming out front. Samson goes through each room very quickly, trying to form a first impression while it is still fairly quiet and uncluttered. He comes finally to the bedroom, finds Mendez posted at the door, and walks in. He confirms that the man, no, the boy on the bed is in fact dead. Whether or not this is ruled a homicide will have to be officially determined by the M.E. But hey, this kid didn’t die of natural causes.