"No news."
"Ivana?"
"Dead. Drowned."
"How did I get home from the hospital?"
"That Maxine Crabbe brought you home. She sat with you. You were frozen. You almost could have lost a hand. Also you had a fever and you were delirious."
Again I said, "What about Billy?"
"Nada," Sonny said. "No body, no kid, no nothing. I'm sorry, man. I am." Sonny sat on the edge of a chair next to the bed.
"You said you wanted me in a clean space, Sonny, you were thinking there were dirty cops involved? Someone like John Farone, Sr., Johnny's father? What about him? What about Stanley Shank?"
"I don't know. Farone, we had the house in Florida checked. He's there OK. He can't move. He's a sick old man, lousy lungs, attached to an oxygen tank he schleps everywhere. Billy's not with him. Farone and Shank, they were partners, you knew that, right? The old guy, the younger guy, they were tight, they liked to control their territory, even after they retired."
"Shank said he hated the Russians."
"It's an act," Sonny said. "It was perfect. They could do business because everyone thought they hated each other. And there were rumors, since the Howard Beach beatings. You remember? You remember the black kids that got beat up bad? Shank was always a suspect. Farone protected him. Shank's a creep."
"It's mutual. He hates your guts. He wants you out of Brooklyn. And me."
"You're one of them now, man? You're passing messages. You're so desperate about the kid that you're willing to be their messenger boy?" Lippert buttoned his coat.
"How come you always want to break my ass, Sonny?"
"I just came by to see you were alive and also to tell you that the girl drowned herself, OK? You tried to save her, you stupid bastard. You almost died." He looked at me. "I need you. I don't like it that you almost died, you got it?"
By now I knew the case wasn't only about Billy Farone; it was about the way business was done on the coast of Brooklyn. It was about fear. And money. If you made people afraid, you could own them.
Old man Farone, Stanley Shank, maybe others, they were retired cops who wanted the place for themselves. I didn't know yet if they were dealing meds, sex, kids, probably all of them. But they worked in tandem with some of the Russian creeps, overt, covert, it didn't matter so long as they made the dough. With some of it, Stanley Shank bought a party boat and named it Just a Fluke.
"Maybe it wasn't me they wanted out of the way. Is that what you're thinking?" Lippert could always read me. "Maybe it was you. Maybe they knew you were the kid's godfather, maybe they wanted to draw you in. Someone who knew you. Knew how you think. Buy you, own you, in return for Billy. Someone who knew you'd do anything for the kid."
I said, "You're saying someone set up Heshey Shank to snatch Billy Farone because they knew I'd get involved? Because they knew Genia's my cousin and I'd end up working the case one way or another, and I'd trip up and they'd be rid of me?"
"Hey, why not? They want you, they got you, they want me, they get me through you, either way, man, they win. I mean you're my boy, aren't you?" Lippert said.
"Get out."
"So, the girl, Ivana. You fucked her, man?"
I knew Lippert was upset I almost died and his way of dealing was dumping on me, but I felt lousy and I just said, "Get out of my place."
There were a million places Heshey Shank could have hidden Billy. His brother Stanley had a boat. He knew his way around the waterways out by the coast of Brooklyn. I knew, deep down, he had already unloaded the body. I knew that Billy was at the bottom of the marina, under the ice; until the ice broke up, no one would find him.
After Sonny finished breaking my balls, after he left, somehow I got up and took a shower and got dressed. I put on three pairs of socks. My legs trembled but I fixed some coffee, drank it, got downstairs, car keys in my hand. I had lost time. I had to get back to Brooklyn. I needed Zeitsev's help.
As I fumbled with the car door, Maxine appeared. Wrapped in a pink down coat, knitted hat pulled low, scarf twisted around her neck, her feet in old-fashioned red galoshes, she looked about twelve. In her arms was a bag stuffed with groceries.
"Where the hell are you going?" she said.
"I have to find Billy," I said. "Listen, thanks. Thank you for being with me." I kissed her and took the groceries. "I'll take them upstairs. How come you bothered with me? If I was you I would have let me suffer."
"It's mysterious to me, honey." She followed me into the building. "I have something for you," she said.
"About Billy?"
"Yes."
In my apartment, I put the groceries away and started for the door.
"I'll come with you," she said.
"I can't ask you to do that," I said.
"Why not? We're friends aren't we? You're in trouble aren't you? Who the hell else can you ask?" She grinned. "Come on, let's get the fuck on the road. I'll tell you while we drive."
I looked at Maxie with her long loose limbs like a rag doll's and her pretty, humorous face. She was warm as toast. She could keep quiet. She could keep things to herself if you were troubled.
With Lily it was different. I had been obsessed with her, but Lily always told you what was on her mind and sometimes it was like a slap with an open hand. But she was never coy, never unsure. When she almost died, later when she went away, I felt like someone cut off my oxygen. She loved the music I loved, she was a real grown-up, she called me on the stuff where I was stupid, I loved being in bed with her.
With Max it was different. She felt like a younger sister. She was crazy about me and had been for years. She was completely transparent, and suddenly I thought: I could make a life with her. I loved her twins. I was getting sick of being alone and getting older and looking at myself in men like Sonny Lippert who spent nights at the gym. I was stupid. I still don't know why Lily left me, not really. She didn't say. She just said she was going. She couldn't stand New York anymore, she said.
"Artie? Honey? Come on."
I put my arm around Maxie's shoulder and for a second, while we stood in the street, she leaned on me, just listed in my direction. I liked her a lot. I kissed her. I knew it was a big deal, her helping me, after she'd said she was in love with me and I'd responded like a jerk. The generosity of her coming by made me love her. Maybe I was in love with her, after all. Maxie Crabbe would take care of me. She was still young, she was only thirty-eight; maybe we could even have a kid.
"You know what?" I said.
"What?"
"Let's get married."
"You're serious?"
"Yeah. I am serious. I really am. Is that OK?"
"You thought about it?"
"I thought a lot."
She smiled and kissed me. "Get in the car."
We got in and I turned the engine on. My mind was racing, the clock in my head ticking, the heater coming on in the car, the news radio blasting out details of another alleged kidnapping, this one on the Upper West Side. I forced myself to pay attention to Maxine. It was how I'd lost Lily, obsessed with work, not paying attention. I wasn't going to do it again. I couldn't afford it.
"Maxie, listen..."
"They pulled you out of the ocean half dead, you're feeling desperate about Billy, so let's wait until the case is over, OK? I don't want you saying anything you have to go back on later, OK? Just think about it. If we're OK with each other when this case is done, and then if you still want to, so maybe I'll meet you at City Hall." She was breathless. "Give me a smoke."
I handed her the cigarettes and said, "I thought you'd want a church."
"I did the church thing with Mark. I had the white dress. I had six bridesmaids in peach charmeuse. I had all of it. Once was enough. Anyway you don't believe in God."
"I told you once, if you want a church, I'm good with that. I will wear a tux and a ruffled shirt and the girls can throw rose petals."
She smiled. "Gosh, for being in the middle of a case you're very eloquent. I mean, w
ow, Artie. That's really nice. I like that."
I glanced at my phone; there was a message from Tolya.
"You know my friend from Moscow, Tolya Sverdloff, right?"
She looked uncomfortable.
"What's the matter?"
"He's friends with Lily Hanes, isn't he?"
"So?"
She tried to smile. "I don't really live up to Lily, I mean, she was a very smart woman, educated, gorgeous, high flying," she mumbled. "You know."
"Don't be ridiculous. You live up to anyone. More than." I leaned over and kissed her.
But she was right. I'd introduced her to Tolya once and he was cagey; he was polite, he shook hands, he smiled, he exuded charm, but he did it on automatic pilot, and she knew it.
"You want to hear what I have? I'm very good on blood."
"I know you are." Forcing myself to concentrate on her, I said, "Are you alright?"
"I'm good." Waiting for me to drive off, she pulled some notes out of her purse. "Look, I came over because I found something out. I had to sneak it, but I got there." Softly, Maxie added, "It's not his blood."
"What?"
"On the clothes. It's not Billy Farone's blood."
"How could they make that kind of mistake?"
"The blood on the clothes. Some of it was Billy Farone's, according to the blood type his mother gave, but most of it wasn't. Once they knew he was missing, and his mother ID'd the clothes, they assumed it was his. No one paid attention. Everyone was too busy. It was like 9/11, you know? People doing the minimum."
"Anything on the blood?"
"Some of it was an animal's," she said. "The blood."
"What?"
"That's why I had to come," she said. "Slow down. You'll kill us."
"I'm sorry." I was thinking about Billy.
"I don't understand, but maybe you will. I just want it all to end. I hate it. I have two girls I'm afraid to let go out of the house. I walk them to school. Another woman brings them home. I can't leave them for a minute."
"Listen, Maxie, look. I want you to go home and get the girls and go back up to Mark's mother, or stay home with them. I don't think this is random, this thing with Billy. Even if he's dead, and I think he is probably dead, I think I'm involved, and I don't understand how, not yet." I forced myself to say it. Billy was dead. Billy dead. "I'll drop you."
"How are you involved?" she said.
"I'm not sure, but go home and be with your girls. Please. I'll drop you at the subway."
"You can always call on the cell," she said. "I'm always there for you."
"I love you for it, I really do," I said. "What kind of animal?"
"Probably a cat."
34
Saturday evening, candles reflected in the windows, music floated out over the high-ceilinged room in the apartment on Riverside Drive. It was a piece for flute and piano. On little gold folding chairs, attentive listeners, parents, friends, teachers, were focused on the students who played on a small stage at the end of the room in front of the bow windows that looked over the Hudson.
The room, the shelves full of books, the polished floor and worn but silky Persian rugs, the music, it was a world apart, as far from Brooklyn as you could get, and the cold and death. It could have been the Moscow I grew up in, the cultured audience, everything in a surreal suspension of other worldliness, the gorgeous music as its soundtrack.
It was Genia's daughter, Ellie, who played the flute. She was tall and slim and wore a clinging red dress. Her neck was long, her arms were slightly muscular and bare and she held the flute to her mouth as if it were part of her body. The audience was rapt. At the piano, a boy in a white shirt and a black bow-tie was bent low, watching his own fingers fly across the keys.
I stood near a window and glanced at the Hudson white with ice. If it cracked, if the waterways around the city thawed, the bodies would bob up from under the ice. Billy Farone's body, bloated, the flesh raw, the face distorted, destroyed, would surface somewhere in Brooklyn, somewhere in the marshlands or off the beach. Elem Zeitsev was at the back of the room. I'd called on his cell phone after I dropped Maxine. I'd been on my way to Brooklyn when it occurred to me to call Zeitsev. He told me about the recital. He'd meet me, he said.
Genia wasn't at the recital. She was at home waiting for Billy. But Zeitsev was here, leaning against the wall at the back, wearing an old corduroy jacket. From the time I'd opened my eyes that morning in my own bed, Lippert staring at me, I had worked every lead I could. I was at the recital because when I called Zeitsev, he told me he was coming, and I figured maybe he could help after all. He still had connections. The local cops out by the coast worried me more than he did, more even than the thugs who had worked for Zeitsev's father.
At the back of the room Zeitsev leaned against the wall and watched. I saw there was a patch on the elbow of his jacket. He could have been the parent of any kid in the room. Zeitsev always knew his part; he always, in a subtle way, dressed for it. In one hand he held a bouquet of pink roses wrapped in white tissue with a white silk bow. I edged towards him.
On a large table near Zeitsev were plates with Pepperidge Farm cookies—Mint Milanos, someone whispered to me—and gallon jugs of white wine and large plastic bottles of Sprite and Diet Coke. Plastic glasses were stacked nearby.
I leaned over and whispered to Zeitsev, "I need to talk."
No, he said. We would wait for Ellie's performance to end and give her flowers. Her mother couldn't come, so we would wait. He looked gray, his skin, hair; his face was folded with weariness and slack with fatigue.
"Do you like this Poulenc?" he said nodding towards the musicians, then added, "I'm not really crazy about the flute."
I shrugged and under my breath, I said, "I need you to tell me what you know about Billy Farone."
"Yes," he said. "I've done everything I could think of. All week. You must know that. I've been everywhere. I've used everyone."
"Now," I said. "Tell me."
"Wait," he said.
I said, "I can't wait."
Around us people in baggy cords and floral skirts and sweaters and glasses heard us and looked annoyed.
"Alright," Zeitsev said, "let's go."
In the kitchen a woman in a brown dress was preparing gray dip and, when Zeitsev approached, she set down the can of Campbell's cream of mushroom and took the flowers and the note for Ellie.
"At least she'll know I was here," Zeitsev said. "I'll come back afterwards and take her out to dinner."
We went downstairs and stood in the art deco lobby.
I said, "Tell me. Now."
Already he was walking through the lobby, through the front door and down the block until we reached a bar.
"Come on," he said. "I need a drink."
We sat together and ordered Scotch. The place was half empty. A row of men sat at the bar and watched basketball on the overhead TV.
"You're not close, you and Genia," Zeitsev said. "This is about Billy as far as you're concerned, isn't it?"
"How do you know?"
"I know because Billy told me. He woke up one night sweating and calling for you and I said what did you dream and he said, I dreamed Artie was dead and I was crying." Zeitsev hesitated.
"You were sleeping at Genia's?"
"Johnny was out of town," Zeitsev said, then added, "You've heard that Billy's my child."
"Yes."
"I don't know if it's true," he said. "I think it's true," he added. "I hope it's true."
"Why?"
"I feel it," he said. "Look, there are too many people involved." He drank down his drink and ordered another one and, waiting, stared at his hands. "Farone's idiot mother who throws out her husband because he used to put his hands up the little girls' skirts, including Elena."
"Genia told me."
"Farone believes Genia had an affair with me," he said.
I picked up my own drink and said, "Johnny's not going to kill his kid over it," I said.
"That
crazy girl Ivana Galitzine listened to her aunt retail stuff that Genia told her, and that they both told some psychic they visited. I hear she's dead. She walked into the ocean, I hear," Zeitsev said.
"Yes."
"I hear you tried to save her."
"You get around," I said. "Tell me about Billy."
"He's not completely like other children." Zeitsev took his fresh drink from the bartender and drank half of it. "He's a strange kid, very smart, obsessive, but wonderful in his own way, and with help he could be fine. I keep telling Genia, but she says Johnny won't take him to a doctor, and she's scared to let me help and meanwhile Billy's become a pawn. He's trapped in their fearfulness. Her Russian madness, his macho sense that no boy of his should need a shrink. I tried to talk to Billy but he won't talk to me. He talks to you, though. Genia told me."
I said, "We go fishing. We talk about fishing. Does it have a name, what's wrong with Billy?"
"Maybe you don't see it because you have some bond with him, and you're patient and there's the fishing," Zeitzev said. "I think he's autistic. Or some form of autism, they have this thing, Asperger's syndrome, there's a lot of it, boys mostly and the kids can seem almost normal, but they're not. They have all kinds of problems. They're very very smart, at least some are, but they see everything in pictures instead of in a linear, verbal way. There's often too much noise in their heads, too many colors. They turn away from emotion. Many of them are obsessive." He paused and looked at me.
"Most of all they don't really get other people. Billy can't take it in, how other people feel, do you see? He can't connect. It's like this whole fucking country, you know, we're so obsessed with ourselves, we're like little children, we can't judge what anyone else wants or thinks, it's like that, and now everyone's terrified and my kid's in danger," he said. "Or dead."
"Please, no metaphors."
1 m sorry.
"Go on."
"I watched him the few times when I was over at Genia's. He could never judge other people's feelings or sense that he could upset them. Once, Genia found him submerged in the bathtub with his eyes open. Johnny was at the restaurant, she called, hysterical, and I drove over. Billy almost drowned. I realized he was trying to get a fish-eye view," he said. "I begged her to take him to a doctor, there are good doctors, there are special schools, but Johnny didn't want it and she was scared of him and his mother and someone finding out she had come here illegally. I said, look that's all over. You're married to an American. You're American. You have an American child. She didn't care."
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