Hurt Machine

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Lunch?”

  “Not yet, Moe, please.”

  “Fine.”

  I let her look to Ireland a little longer before asking my questions. When I finally asked, she seemed almost relieved.

  “Have you ever heard of Jorge Delgado?” I was staring at her profile.

  “That hothead? Yeah, I heard of him. He had a hard-on for Alta even before all this shit come down. Why you wanna know about him?”

  I didn’t answer her question, not directly. “Funny thing, Maya, when I was checking into who might’ve murdered Alta, a few people called her a dyke.”

  She looked gut-punched. “Guys are assholes like that. You know how it is. You were on the job. A woman don’t get wet for some man who’s hot for her and he starts that bullshit, the rumors.”

  “I didn’t say they were guys.”

  That really unnerved her, but she soldiered on. “Don’t matter who said it.”

  “Did you hear about Delgado getting killed in a car accident saving a little girl?” I asked, purposely trying to confuse her. I was basically interrogating her. She knew it and I knew it. And there were two methods that worked best for me: silence and confusion. Silence—giving her time to fill in the void—hadn’t worked on the almost hour-long car ride here, so I went with the other bullet in my gun.

  “Couldn’t help but hear it. Why you wanna know about Delgado? Why do you keep asking me about him?”

  “In a second. First, why don’t you tell me about the hard-on Delgado had for Alta even before all this shit came down?”

  Maya Watson went stiff as a board. “Take me home. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t’a come here with you. Take me home.”

  “No.”

  “Did you just say no?”

  “That’s about it. You wanna run away, I’m not gonna help. There’s several subway lines right over there at the Stillwell Avenue Terminal,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction from the water. “It’s only a block away. You need money for a Metro card?”

  “Fuck y’all!”

  “No, Maya, I’m not fucked. You’re the one who’s fucked and you’ll be fucked until you talk to somebody about what really happened that day at the High Line Bistro.”

  It really was amazing how liberating cancer could be. In the face of a possible death sentence, I didn’t much care about Maya Watson’s opinion of me. Cracks were starting to show in her castle walls.

  She hesitated, then said, “I can’t talk about it. I told you that.”

  “Are you gay too?”

  That really shook the castle walls. She turned to go, stopped, tears streaming down her face. “Leave me alone. Why can’t everybody just leave me alone?”

  “You are alone. I’ve never seen someone more alone in my life. That’s how I found you, eating yourself alive in that filthy apartment. You wanna go back there or do you want to live again?”

  She didn’t answer, but she didn’t leave either.

  “Was Alta a lesbian?”

  “Yes,” she said, walking back to lean on the rail for support. “But I wasn’t her type. She liked military types, younger chicks, white girls mostly. That’s what she said anyway.”

  “Did people on the job know she was gay?”

  “No. I mean, not for sure. People suspected. She never hit on anybody at work, but people hear things. They see stuff. One woman I trained with saw Alta in Chelsea with another woman.”

  “Is that what Delgado’s beef with Alta was about?”

  “Yes, it was. He had this crazy Puerto Rican pride thing and you know how Latin men can be, all macho and shit. If Alta was African-American or white or Chinese, he wouldn’t’a even given her a second thought, but because she was Puerto Rican … let’s say he tried to make her time at work as hard as it could be. He had a lot of friends in the department, people with sway, and he fucked with her. He had his friends mess with her schedule and shit. But why are you always bringing Delgado up?”

  I hadn’t planned on telling Maya yet, but I had her talking and I didn’t want to risk losing her now.

  “I spoke to a guy last night who was offered five thousand dollars by Jorge Delgado to hurt Alta. And by hurt, I don’t mean her feelings. He wanted him to break bones and, if he was so inclined, to kill her.”

  Maya’s face went blank, then icy cold. I was surprised the tears didn’t freeze right on her cheeks. “Why you talking to me and not the police?”

  “Because the guy I spoke to turned the job down and I can’t prove anything yet. Besides, Delgado is a hero, a dead hero. The time’s not exactly right to go making charges against him, not if I want to be taken seriously.”

  “Alta was a hero too,” she screamed in my face.

  “I’m afraid the rest of the universe doesn’t quite see her that way.”

  “Well, fuck them and fuck you.”

  “If I’m wrong, if they’re all wrong, explain it to me. Tell me what happened that day with Tillman. If there’s an explanation, people will understand.”

  I felt like I almost had her. She leaned into me, but she just couldn’t cross that line she had drawn for herself. I hammered away at her.

  “What is it you’re afraid to let people know? Are you gay too? Were you and Alta lovers? Is that the big secret? Christ, Maya, it’s the twenty-first century. Would it be worse for people to know you’re a lesbian than for them to think you cold-bloodedly let a man drop dead?”

  “I’m not gay,” she said, calm as could be. “If I was, I would be proud of it, not ashamed.”

  “Then what is it? What’s the big secret? What don’t I understand? What are you so ashamed of?”

  “Which way is the subway?”

  “That way,” I said. “Right over there: down the boardwalk, along Stillwell to Surf.”

  Maya pushed off the rail and started across the wooden planks toward the steps to the street. I kept pace.

  “Come on, Maya, what is it? What can be so terrible that you can’t even bear to think about it? Tell me.”

  She ignored me and kept on walking. She didn’t run, she didn’t even walk very fast. Finally, at the corner of Stillwell and Surf Avenues, across the street from the subway terminal, Maya stopped and faced me again.

  “You know, Moe, I think you’re a good man and that your heart really is in the right place, but you ain’t asking the right questions about the right person. There’s somebody involved in this whole mess that nobody wants to see for who he was, not really. Think about that and stop hounding me. Leave me be.”

  By the time my mind snapped back to the moment, Maya Watson was across the street and disappearing through the entrance of the Stillwell Avenue terminal.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was confused. Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last. Who the fuck was Maya Watson talking about? No one in this entire mess was innocent. I suppose she might have been talking about Jorge Delgado, but that couldn’t be right. Any fool could see I was already taking a hard look at Delgado and Maya Watson was no fool. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough at him to suit her or maybe she didn’t like the fact that Delgado—guilty of Alta’s murder or not—had been beatified in the press. I mean, getting killed while saving the life of a little girl is a kind of permanent baptism. One good act, your last act, and all your sins get washed away. It’s like getting dunked in the cleansing waters and never needing to come up for air. Is that what Maya was referring to? I don’t know, there was something obvious I wasn’t getting. Wouldn’t be the first time for that either.

  My cell phone vibrated and chimed in my pocket to remind me I had a voicemail message. I got off the crowded, noisy street and retreated to my car to listen. The car still smelled of Maya Watson’s vaguely sweet perfume. The message was from Detective Fuqua, but I would have recognized his voice even if he hadn’t given his name. He left his cell number and told me it was important to call him back as soon as possible.

  “Mr. Prager, it hurts my feelings when you do not pick up my phone calls,”
he said. “And it makes me suspicious as well.”

  “You sound like a jealous wife, Detective.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Sorry, but I was busy making arrangements,” I lied. “My daughter is getting married in a few weeks.”

  “Really? Fantastique! Mazel tov. You must be on schpilkes, on pins and needles, yes?”

  His French I might have expected, but his Yiddish caught me off guard. “Your Yiddish is good, Detective Fuqua. Are there many Haitian Jews?”

  “I worked in community relations in the Seven-One. Big Caribbean and Hasidic populations in the neighborhood. I got along very well with the Hasidim. They have great respect for the police.”

  “For the law, Detective Fuqua, not the police. Those are two very different things. Jews are naturally suspicious of agents of the state. Long history of persecution at the hands of those agents, don’t you know?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Tonton Macoute, Mr. Prager?”

  “Papa Doc’s own private little terror squad.”

  “Just so. No one need lecture a Haitian on distrust of the police.”

  “Fair enough. So you and the Hasidim made nice. That explains your Yiddish, but it doesn’t explain how you knew I was Jewish.”

  “Oh, but Mr. Prager, I know many things about you that you might not suspect. We should discuss them over lunch.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “That seems like such a waste of time, non? Why wait until tomorrow when you are sitting in your car on Stillwell Avenue at this moment?”

  My skin prickled and I felt a solitary bead of sweat roll along my ribs. “How the fuck do you know where I am?”

  “Such language, Mr. Prager. As I said, I know many things about you. I am sitting at a table on the other side of Nathan’s with too much food for me to eat myself. Come join me. I do not enjoy dining alone.” He clicked off.

  As I walked the two hundred yards from where my car was parked to where Fuqua was sitting, I didn’t waste my time looking for the cops who’d been assigned to follow me. In the big crowds around Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs on a sunny June day, I could have been there for hours and never found them. When I was on the job, cops pretty much sucked at this sort of thing because they were almost all white males who might as well have had COP stamped across their foreheads. But since 9/11 and since the ranks of the department had opened up to women and every ethnic group you could imagine, things had changed.

  “Mr. Prager, come sit,” Detective Fuqua said, standing to greet me with his right hand extended. I shook it with no enthusiasm and sat across from him. “It is a glorious day, is it not?”

  “Weather-wise, yeah. Perfect. I love days like this in Coney Island.”

  “Yes, perfect for a stroll with a beautiful woman like Maya Watson.”

  “Get to the point, Detective.”

  “Was Miss Watson any more forthcoming than she had been? Did she say anything helpful?”

  I stifled a laugh.

  Fuqua was confused. “Something is funny?”

  “In a way. All I managed to do was to piss her off enough to take the train back to Queens.”

  “That is unfortunate. Please, I forget my manners, take a hot dog.”

  “I’m suddenly not very hungry,” I said.

  “Some fries, then, at least. I adore Nathan’s fries. They are most unique in flavor.”

  “I hear it’s because they use some corn oil in the deep fryer, but who knows?”

  “Indeed, who knows? It is the flavor which matters.”

  The aroma of the steam and oil coming off the fries was almost enough to make actually tasting them superfluous. Almost. I took a thick, ridge-cut fry, dipped it in ketchup, and bit into it. Ummm. The crisp brown and salted skin crunched and the moist, soft potato melted in my mouth. If there were things I would miss when I was dead, Nathan’s fries would be one of them. If I knew I was going to have a last meal, they would be on the menu.

  “Would you like me to purchase beers so that we might drink to the wedding of your daughter?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “A pity.”

  “So, Detective, can we get to the point of this?”

  “Jorge Delgado,” he said, before biting into a hot dog.

  “What about him?”

  He finished chewing. “Let the man rest in peace, Mr. Prager.”

  “He’s gonna rest in peace regardless of what I do. He’s dead.”

  “But there is his family, his memory to consider.”

  “No, not if he killed a woman in cold blood.”

  “That may be, but you have been stirring the hive. And even very peaceful bees will sting when they are sufficiently agitated.”

  “Just tell me what you’ve got to tell me, okay.”

  “Bon. Good. Let me then speak plainly so that you might understand. Jorge Delgado did not murder Alta Conseco.”

  “And you know this how?”

  He laughed. “Because I have received indisputable word of this from on high.”

  “You and God been chatting lately, have you?”

  “No, this comes from an even higher authority, Mr. Prager.”

  I understood, of course. “The brass.”

  Fuqua shrugged his shoulders. “I could not say.”

  “Too bad they didn’t use the overtime money they wasted having me followed around to actually help you find Alta Conseco’s killer.”

  “Yes, too bad. As sad as that may be, Mr. Prager, I have already looked into Delgado as a suspect.”

  “And …”

  “Nothing.”

  “In other words, the city needs a hero and Jorge Delgado’s been elected. The brass has been told, probably by the mayor, that no one is going to ruin the coronation. Not me, not anyone. And they told you to tell me.”

  “For what it is worth, Mr. Prager, I sincerely do not think Delgado murdered her.”

  “Is this your voice I’m hearing or is it the word of the brass gods?”

  “My own. Delgado’s name came across my desk almost immediately. He apparently made no secret of his distaste for Miss Conseco. And while his alibi for that evening would not hold up in court, there is no proof he was anywhere near the Gelato Grotto when Alta Conseco was killed. There is not a single piece of forensic evidence linking him to the crime. I have showed his photograph in an array to everyone who gave a statement that evening. Not one of them identified him as a person they saw on the night in question. Not one of the employees identified him. I canvassed West 10th Street on my own time. Nothing. I even had an informal meeting with Mr. Delgado not unlike the one the two of us are sharing at this moment.”

  “Funny how none of this turned up in those notes you shared with me,” I said.

  “Not funny. Purposeful. The minute I heard about Delgado’s heroics, I made a separate file for safekeeping. I have my ambitions, and ambitions are best served with ammunition to back them up.”

  “You’ll go far, Detective Fuqua, but be careful. I had an ambitious friend just like you once.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got too close to the sun and his wings melted.”

  “I will keep that in mind.”

  “Do that. Did you know Delgado tried to hire someone to hurt Alta?”

  “And did this gentleman take the job?” Fuqua asked.

  “No.”

  “Would you be willing to produce him for questioning on the subject?”

  “I don’t think I’d be willing nor would he to volunteer what he knows.”

  “In that case, Mr. Prager, I would urge you to let this go, please. There can be nothing good gained. No matter who the murderer of Miss Conseco might be, the fact remains that she and Miss Watson stood by and let a man die.”

  “All right,” I said, “you’ve done your job. I consider myself thoroughly warned. I will let the Delgado thing go for now. I don’t need any shit before my kid’s wedding, but I’m not gonna stop looking into Alta’s murder. That I won
’t do.”

  “That is only fair, I think.” He stood to go, leaving a table full of mostly uneaten food.

  “Detective,” I called after him. “I’m curious. What happened to your refrain about all victims being equal in murder?”

  “The tune I have just sung to you was not my own composition. My own song is unchanged.”

  “That’s right, you have ambitions.”

  “I am not ashamed of that.”

  “Neither was my friend. He wore ambition like a badge of honor. Problem was, he forgot about the other badge he carried, the one that really mattered.”

  Fuqua winced. That stung. Good. Fuck him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I’d been warned off cases before and, in the scheme of things, Fuqua had carried it off pretty well. He’d been fairly direct without getting all heavy-handed or nasty about it. There had been no direct threats to me or to the people close to me. He hadn’t gotten clichéd by listing the myriad ways the city or state could hurt my business. He didn’t try to bullshit me about it being his bright idea to make me get in line. In fact, I don’t think he enjoyed doing it at all. But he had the curse of ambition same as Larry McDonald. He saw big things for himself and didn’t think clean living was going to get him there. The fuck of it was, he was right. Larry Mac hadn’t climbed so high on the ladder by being a good cop—which he was, mostly. I believed Fuqua believed what he said about Delgado not being the murderer. Now maybe I was willing to believe it too.

  That’s the thing about perspective. It had been what, two days since Delgado appeared on my radar screen? And in that short time, his initial appeal had lost much of its luster. Not all of it, most of it. That aria he had been singing to me, while not a faint whisper, was not exactly a siren’s song either. Did any of what Fuqua told me totally eliminate Delgado as a suspect? No, the late Mr. Delgado still had his charms. He’d hated Alta Conseco even before the incident at the High Line. He’d been angry enough to hire someone to maim if not kill her. And in spite of the fact that I trusted that Fuqua was telling me the truth, I was too familiar with the allure of ambition to trust him too much. If he could prove to the brass he had put me off Delgado, at least temporarily, there was probably a big reward—a bump up in grade or a plum assignment—coming his way. Apparently, a lot of powerful people had gone all in on making Delgado the next saint of New York. It wouldn’t do to have your new martyr found with a woman’s blood under his fingernails. Mostly I was clinging to Delgado’s possible guilt because I didn’t know where else to go.