by A F Carter
were definitely touching her when I opened the door. So,
Miss, what did he actually say?”
193
V4782.indd 193
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
A. F. CARTER
We’re in each other’s heads now, whirling around, playful
as kittens. “He offered me fifty dollars for half-and-half. I always thought half-and-half was something you find in the
refrigerator.”
“And look,” Ortega points. “There’s the fifty dollars
between his fingers.” He shakes his head. “Know what? I
could be mistaken, but it looks like he was trying to shove
that bill into your mouth.”
“Before he shoved in something else.” I put my hand on
my hips. “And I’m a respectable woman.”
Ortega jerks his chin at the man, who’s hastily slips the
fifty into his pocket. “Take off, jerk. Right now.”
A quick learner, the man heads for the stairs, weaving a
bit. I start to speak, but Ortega holds up a hand. A minute
later, as his head disappears, the man yells out, “Fuck you!”
We laugh, the both of us, but only for a few seconds. Then
we’re in each other’s arms, our mouths joined, the two of us equally heedless. Consequences are for later. Consequences
be damned.
“Wow.” He allows his hand to linger on the side of my face
for a few beats, then drops it to his side. “What’s your name?”
he asks.
“You don’t recognize me?”
“Oh, yes, I recognize you. I just want to know the name
you call yourself.”
“Eleni.”
“And the woman I took to the morgue? Her name is Mar-
tha, right?”
194
V4782.indd 194
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
ALL OF US
“Do you mean the woman you took to the morgue when
you could have done the ID in our apartment using the med-
ical examiner’s website?”
His face reddens, the skin above his cheeks turning
the color of polished mahogany. But he doesn’t apologize.
“And the woman I met first, on the sidewalk outside your
building?”
“Serena.”
“And the first time? When Greco and I notified you of
your father’s death?”
“Kirk. He’s a boy.”
His laughter is without derision. It continues on for a
moment, until he says, “May I kiss you again?”
Slower this time, slower and deeper and so confident in
my response, in his. This is a road we haven’t traveled and
the outcome is entirely unknown. As for me, the idea that someone could know who we are and still want me is one
I’ve refused to entertain.
He steps back. “Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to see the room where my father died.”
“Why?”
“Since when do crazy people need reasons?”
I laugh and he joins me. “Well, there’s nothing to see.”
He reaches behind him, turns the knob, and pushes the door
open. “The bed and the bedding have been taken into evi-
dence, but you’re welcome to look.”
He’s right. Except for a small table and a chair, the
room’s empty. No bloodstains anywhere, on the floor or the
walls.
195
V4782.indd 195
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
A. F. CARTER
“I came to do a final check,” he explains. “We’re turning
the room back to the hotel this afternoon.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No, not today.”
Neither of us speaks or moves for a moment. But there’s
nothing awkward about the pause. The outcome’s not in
doubt. I can see that in his eyes, as I’m sure he can see it mine. I finally reach out to run the flat of my right hand,
gently, from his chest to his waist. His flesh is unyielding, but the smile that lights his face can’t be faked. He takes my hand and brings it to his mouth. My whole body’s on fire by
this time. My crotch is near to molten.
He lowers my hand but doesn’t let go. Still, his touch is
gentle and I know I can pull away if I want to. I know he’s
giving me a final choice.
“Shall we?” he asks.
“We shall.”
On our way to the stairs, we pass an empty room and duck
inside, clothes flying in all directions. I’ve always believed that the size of women relative to men is one of the great
cosmic injustices. Especially because it’s one of those always-was-and-always-will-be situations. It can’t be remedied and
there’s no escape. Yet that resentment inevitably vanishes
when I hold a man in my arms like I’m holding Bobby Ortega.
All in an instant, as if the outrage had been felt by someone else, probably Martha. Now I want to feel Bobby’s strength
as I dig my fingers into the bunched muscles of his shoulders, as I grip the backs of his arms. I want to be overwhelmed
196
V4782.indd 196
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
ALL OF US
without being forced. Which is exactly the way I feel when
Bobby lifts me and lays me on the bed, when I drape my
arms across his back, when his mouth drops to mine.
I’d be hard put to name a sexual act I haven’t performed
at one time or another, but I know a kiss to be more intimate than any joining of body parts. I’m thinking that Bobby
knows it, too. Like he knows who we are, what we are.
Like he knows that the woman holding his cock isn’t even a
whole person but some fragment of a deranged freak’s imag-
ination. He knows, and he doesn’t care.
Bobby’s first kisses are tender, almost kind, deepening
only as my body responds. “What a woman you are,” he tells
me. “What a woman you are.”
And me, fool that I am, I believe him. And I don’t resent
his craziness being crotch centered. No, right now I don’t
resent anything, not even the near certainty that I’ll be
replaced before dawn. I raise my hips, an invitation he readily accepts. I whisper the words I know he wants to hear.
“Fuck me, Bobby. Fuck me now.”
He slides one arm beneath my lower back, the other
beneath my shoulders. Then he rises to his knees, taking me
with him. I can feel my brain shutting down, a flush building in my face and throat, and I know I’m going to take Bobby
home tonight. Fuck the rules. Fuck Martha and her gray
world. I want, just this one time, to lie in my own bed with a man in my arms. I don’t care if he arrests me tomorrow.
197
V4782.indd 197
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MARTHA
I wake up on the edge of the mattress, staring at a crack in the wall. I’m usually quick out of bed, but I can’t seem to
get my body moving. My brain, either. Numb is too strong.
I’m not numb, just desensitized. I’m drifting and not caring, my eyes glued to the same crack that’s been there since we
moved in.
Sound returns first, a siren outside my window, Sarah
Bennet’s dog barking in the apartment upstairs, the elevator rattling. And something else, something I can’t quite identify. Something familiar yet utterly strange. I struggle for a few minutes, until my sense of smell kicks in. Then I know
but still can’t accept the obvious, incredible truth.
There’s a man in my bed. A man. In my fucking bed.
And I’m naked, not even panties. And the bureau’s on the
other side of the room. And I feel him stir beside me.
“Eleni?”
I leap out of bed as though launched from a silo. I want
to fly into the bathroom where there’s at least a towel even if the lock doesn’t work. But the damn bed is so close to the wall I have to inch my way down to the foot. All the while
198
V4782.indd 198
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
ALL OF US
knowing, as I know that every demon in hell joined in a
round of applause at our birth, that the bastard’s eyes are
glued to my ass.
I close the bathroom door and lean against it, my ear
pressed to the wood. There’s no sound of pursuit, no follow-
up to his saying Eleni’s name. Now what?
Now I realize that I reek of whatever games Eleni played
last night. I find myself vowing to kill the bitch even if it means killing myself at the same time. I turn on the shower
and jump in without giving the water time to heat. The
blast that hits my body is so cold I want to scream. If I do, of course, Eleni’s boyfriend will come running to the rescue.
I fold my arms over my chest and suck down a breath until
the water finally warms.
I calm slowly as I scrub away. Until I’m able to admit that
the flesh I inhabit will never be my own. It’s rent-a-body, a low-end lease on a few hours of life. Eleni shouldn’t have
brought anyone home. She’s never done it before and there’s
no forgiving her now. But it’s done, in the past, and the clock only turns in one direction. I not only have to get this asshole out of our house, I have to convince him that he’s not
welcome to return.
I turn off the shower and sit on the rim of the tub for
a moment. I’m starting to think that I don’t give a damn.
Everything’s crazy now and our shitty lives are falling apart.
I don’t have the patience for gentle persuasion, so why not
give in to the rage we all, even Tina, fight so hard to contain?
There’s a metal candlestick with a heavy base on the bureau.
If necessary . . .
199
V4782.indd 199
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
A. F. CARTER
When I finally open the bathroom door a few inches, I
find our bedroom empty and the door on the other side of
the room closed. A trick? To lure me out in the open? I’d
laugh if the possibility didn’t parallel many of the games our daddy played with us. But there’s no choice here. Whoever
was in my bed is in the kitchen now. Frying bacon, which
I smell as I leave the bathroom. Bacon is a rare treat for us and we never have it in the house. That means Eleni’s lover
bought it, which also means that he intended to stay the
night. As the bitch surely knew.
Somehow, I’m not surprised to find Detective Ortega by the
stove, irresistible Detective Ortega, at least to poor Eleni.
Ortega’s a good-looking man. It’s undeniable. Perhaps forty
years old, he’s strongly built and confident enough to be char-ismatic. But he’s also a cop who’s tricked us once already. I know Eleni and some of the others believe we’ll never be
sent to a prison. But as far as I’m concerned, this is a distinc-tion without a difference. Units in psychiatric hospitals set aside for the criminally insane are as violent as any housing area in any penal institution. As violent, but far more
unpredictable.
Ortega glances over his shoulder. His gaze is a little too
intense for his ready smile. “Martha?”
“Good guess, Detective. Now what?”
“Look, I’m sorry about this morning. I fell asleep. It won’t happen again.”
“Bullshit. You bought the groceries last night. You meant
to stay.”
200
V4782.indd 200
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
ALL OF US
He looks at me for a moment, then asks, “So, how do you
like your eggs?”
Our little table is already set and there’s a plate of English muffins, toasted and buttered, in the center. As I slip a muffin onto my plate, Ortega sets a mug of coffee beside me.
“My old man,” he tells me, “ran a lunch wagon, back when
the Brooklyn waterfront was still industrial. On weekdays, he opened at six in the morning and closed at six at night. He also put me behind the grill when I was ten years old. Summers,
Christmas vacation, spring vacation. I’d stand on a wooden
milk crate and cook. So, how do you like your eggs?”
I know I’m being seduced, but I don’t care. That’s because,
after all the years in therapy, I’m not seducible. I shift my focus to what Ortega might know about the investigation.
What he might know and what he might reveal.
“How ’bout a cheddar omelet?” he asks. “My specialty.”
“Fine.”
The cop turns and busies himself. He strips the bacon
from the pan and lays the slices on a dish towel (clean, if I remember right). Then he drops a chunk of butter into a second pan, whisks four eggs in a bowl, pours the whisked eggs
onto the melted butter. While the eggs solidify, he grates the cheese.
I admire precision, the efficient use of any resource,
including my own labor. You can accomplish far more if you
organize your day than if you let the day happen to you.
This is a principle that doesn’t interest Eleni or Serena. And why should it when they contribute nothing to the welfare
of our household?
201
V4782.indd 201
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
A. F. CARTER
Ortega slides the bacon onto a plate and carries it over. A
minute later, he lays the omelet in front of me. “There ya go.”
The omelet’s beautifully cooked, the cheese runny, the
bacon crisp. Not exactly haute cuisine, but exotic enough for a body that usually breakfasts on bulk granola. I’m working
on the last English muffin when Ortega finally speaks.
“Know what? Me driving you to the morgue wasn’t what
you think it was.”
“Do tell.”
His thin smile seems more or less obligatory. “First, I
was strongly attracted to Eleni, still am. She’s an amazing
woman, totally fearless. As for the formal identification of the body, I admit to using it as a pretext.” His smile widens.
“You know, to see her again. I never thought for a minute
that she wouldn’t be there when I returned in the afternoon.”
“Gimme a break, detective. You could have done the ID
the first time you met Eleni.”
“Maybe I wanted to spend a little time with her.”
“That much is obvious.” I slide my plate into the middle
of the table and take up the blue mug that holds my now-
tepid coffee.
“I did play you,” Ortega finally admits. “To an extent. So,
how about I try to make it up? Ask me any question. If I can’t answer, I’ll say so. Otherwise, I’ll be honest.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
He laughs and I find myself liking him, even though
I’m sure liking is the very emotion he wants to evoke. “Go
ahead,” he tells me.
“Are we suspects?”
202
> V4782.indd 202
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
ALL OF US
“We searched your home, Martha. A judge signed off on
the warrant.” He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t be asking
that question.”
“Tell me how my father was killed.”
“He was stabbed, which you already know because we
confiscated your knives when we executed the warrant.”
“I’m asking for details. I want to know what happened in
that room and when it happened.”
Ortega lays his hand on the table and takes up that sin-
cere expression he’s so good at. “I can’t go there. Crime scene details are always used strategically, mostly during interrogations. For example, we use them to verify confessions or
to lure suspects into lying. Remember, anything you say can be used against you. What we never do, on the other hand,
is casually share those details with a suspect. Now, I don’t think much of my partner, in general or as an investigator,
but he’s the lead on the case and I’m not willing to cut his legs out from under him. Ask me anything else.”
“Fine, I will.” It’s not fine, but I’m looking into his eyes and he’s not flinching. He won’t be moved. “Are there any
other suspects?”
“Many others. Let’s start with a paroled con who lived
with your father at the Kirkland Housing Facility in the
Bronx. The Mott Haven section to be more exact. His name’s
Alfred O’Neill.”
I lean toward the cop. “Let me guess. About five, ten, two
hundred pounds, tree-trunk neck, bowling-ball arms, jail-
house tattoos that reach his ears.”
“You know him?”
203
V4782.indd 203
10/2/2019 4:57:37 PM
A. F. CARTER
“He was around here the other day.” I continue before
Ortega reacts, but I’m sure he observed my little pause.
There’s something we don’t want him to know. “Why is
O’Neill a suspect?”
“He was at the Golden Inn that night, in the room with
the victim at one point. He lied about it at first, but after we confronted him with his prints, which we found in several
places, he admitted to being in the room before Grand was
killed. The way he tells it, he and your father went there
almost every night.”
“Why?”
“The answer to that question came from the hookers
who use the hotel. O’Neill and Grand were dealing opiates,
including heroin. They had an arrangement with the desk