Sick Like That

by Norman Green

  “He hates the city, Sarah. You see, I knew you would say that. I know the guy, Sarah. You go to war with someone, you get to know them pretty good.”

  “Okay, fine, but how can you be sure these greaseballs are for real? Where my parents come from, okay, they don’t trust nobody from Palermo, believe me. How do you know they’re not trying to bring heroin into the country or something like that?”

  “Sarah, listen, you met this guy, you wouldn’t be worried, I promise. He just bought a house, big huge place up on the Jersey side of Staten Island. He’s having all his furniture and shit sent over here from Italy. And you can’t mess around with drugs in this place, Sarah, it’s a bonded warehouse. Or will be, when I finally get Customs up off their ass to come and make the final inspection.”

  “Customs? United States Customs? How the hell do you . . .”

  “I told you, it ain’t rocket science, Sarah, it’s just knowing some guys, that’s all. And you gotta admit, I know a lotta guys. That’s how business really works, Sarah, you gotta know people. It’s about relationships. It’s about knocking on the right doors.”

  She groped for a chair, sat down in it. “So you’re getting paid? Like with a check, not in cash, under the table?”

  “I’m on salary, Sarah. I work way more than forty hours for it, but I get a check every two weeks, taxes taken out and alla that. This is a regular job, for a real company. I mean, I ain’t saying Uncle Paolo ain’t kind of wack, okay, but he’s legit.”

  Her head swam. “I don’t know what to say, Frank.”

  He laughed. It was a sound she had not heard in a very long time. “No, listen, I understand. I know I ain’t got the best track record. But this is different, babe, this is just about finding a place where I fit in, and it’s about working hard. I just found the right place, finally. I wake up every morning before the alarm even goes off, and I feel excited about going to work. Can you believe that?”

  “Wow. Well, I’m happy for you, Frank. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. Listen, Sarah, I got some money for you. Call it a down payment on what I owe you. I’d like to come by and give it to you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She felt a flutter in her stomach.

  “I know, I know, you don’t trust me. I understand. How about we meet? We’ll have dinner at Costello’s, you always liked that place.” She could hear the longing in his voice. “You don’t have nothing to worry about, Sarah, I’m a new man. I don’t wanna do nothing to jeopardize my position.”

  They both managed to laugh over that.

  “I work most evenings, Frank. Let me check my calendar tomorrow and I’ll call back and let you know.”

  “That’s all I can ask for,” he said. “A chance. It’s all I can ask for, right? And more than I deserve, probably.”

  Five

  “Alessandra,” Sarah said, “what the hell did you do to Marty? We don’t hear a word for ages and then all of a sudden he’s calling up and screaming at me.”

  Al smiled.

  “No, for real,” Sarah said. “He called here like five times, I hadda quit taking his calls, he was so vile. There’s a bunch of stuff from him on your voice mail. Didn’t you talk to him about the deal you and I made?”

  Al shrugged. “I didn’t really get a chance. When he finally started to talk, he was so pissed I think you probably could have heard him from here if you’d had your window open.”

  “Al, he made some ugly threats. Are we really working on his license? I never thought about that.”

  Al nodded. “We are.”

  “He said he’s getting a lawyer, he’s gonna sue, he’s gonna put us out of business and get back every cent we made since he got hurt, he’s gonna see to it personally that you get put away for criminal impersonation and fraud . . . Can he really do that?”

  “Who knows? You were right not to talk to him, though. Give him some time to cool off. I’ll go back down there and see him again.”

  “You really think that’s a good idea? He was really hot.”

  “I can handle Marty.”

  “Yeah, but what if he tries to go through with this? We can’t operate without a license. I need this job, Al. Besides, you know, it’s been fun. I like doing what we do.”

  “Does have its moments, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I’m not exactly rolling in it, either, I need the job as much as you do. Listen, if it comes to that, we’ll go hire a license, Marty ain’t the only dirtbag ex-cop in town.”

  “Can we afford to do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we won’t have to. Let’s do this, let’s let Marty cool his jets for a couple days and then we’ll go talk to him. If he doesn’t want to play ball, then we’ll have to figure something out.”

  Sarah didn’t look happy with that. “Okay,” she said. “Do you honestly think, I mean . . .”

  “Right now, Marty is a mess. Believe it or not, he needs us. Give him a little time to figure that out. Meantime, you get anywhere with your Mrs. West?”

  “No. Well, not really. She faxed over what she had on Jake. I had some questions for her, but when I called her office I got some guy who was really nasty. He said he couldn’t answer any questions or make any comments. I left a message on her cell, but she hasn’t called me back yet. I’ll get started on my searches tomorrow. Listen, tomorrow I think I have to leave early.”

  “Yeah? What’s going on?”

  Sarah told her about the phone call from Frank.

  Al stared at Sarah, disbelieving. “Why can’t he send you a check? Do you actually want to sit down and have dinner with this prick? After what he did to you? Why would anyone want to give someone like him another shot at them? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure.” Sarah shook her head. “You must have heard the old line, ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s my son of a bitch.’ He’s really not a bad guy, Al, and he sounds different, Al. He sounds like an adult.”

  “Yeah, okay, fine. You musta caught him on one of his good days. I still don’t get why you have to meet with him. How much child support does he owe you, anyhow?”

  “All of it,” Sarah said.

  “What? What? He never paid you at all? He never . . .”

  Sarah shook her head. “Four years’ worth,” she said. “I never got a cent. He was pretty worked up when I moved out.”

  “Yeah, well, Jeez, I wonder why. Probably had something to do with him getting stuck washing out his own socks and shit. Probably missed having his own personal sex toy, too, even if it happened to be attached to you. You’d better not be going soft on me, Waters. You let this guy back in, I’m gonna hack off his balls, I swear to Christ.”

  Sarah started laughing, softly at first, but then harder, and it seemed to dissolve some of Al’s foul humor. “Ah, Jesus,” Sarah finally said, catching her breath. “I wonder if his voice would change back. He could be the world’s last castrate tenor.” She started singing an old Mario Lanza tune in a high thin Mickey Mouse voice.

  “Very funny,” Al said, trying to hang on to some of her anger. “You still haven’t told me why you want to see him.”

  The laughter drained out of Sarah’s face. “C’mon, you know how it is,” she said. “I loved him once.”

  Al waited.

  “Okay, maybe I hated him for the first two or three years after we split,” Sarah said. “But you know something, I ached for him at the same time. Maybe not him, exactly, but for the guy I knew he started out to be. That’s the guy I wanted. I guess I’ve sort of forgotten about him this past year. Right up until the other night.”

  “Good,” Al said. “Call him back and tell him to send you a money order.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Here we go,” Al said. “Whatever comes after the ‘but’ has to be a real winner.”

  “When you really love someone,” Sarah said, “I mean, when you sell out, when you really open all the doors, when you give everything you got, Al, it doesn’t stop just because the guy turns out to
be a bum. I will probably always feel something for Frankie. That doesn’t mean I’m letting him move back in.”

  “No? What does it mean, then?”

  “It means I want him to be okay. It means I want to believe that he got a real job, one with a future. I want him to be what he started out to be, I want him to find a nice fat girl and settle down with her and have a mortgage and kids and payments and all that. I want him to be happy. I want him to call me up saying he’s taking my son to a ball game.”

  “Sounds like paradise to me. And that’s why you gotta go meet him at this restaurant tomorrow night.”

  “I know I don’t have to do it,” Sarah said. “I’m not even sure I want to, but I think I need to. I need to let him see how it is.”

  “Yeah? What if he don’t wanna hear about how it is? What if he flips out?”

  “And acts like a two-year-old? It’s a distinct possibility. But I got a plan.”

  “A plan. Oh, great. This better be good . . .”

  TJ Conrad stared out the passenger-side window of the rented Malibu. “Tell me again,” he said, “what are we doing down here?”

  “Going undercover,” Al told him. “Jesus Christ, TJ, I thought this would be fun. I don’t wanna go to this place all by myself, it would look weird, so I need a guy, but if you don’t wanna do it I’ll drop you off, you can catch a cab home, I’m sure I can find someone willing to submit to a free dinner with me, it can’t be that bad, for crissake.”

  “Relax, will you? I didn’t say I didn’t wanna do it.”

  “No? You had other plans tonight, you should have said.”

  “I don’t have other plans, Al.”

  “What’s the fucking problem then? You don’t wanna do this for me? You don’t wanna hang out with me, is that it? Because, believe me, if you find my company so—”

  “Al, stop, I give up, you win.”

  “I win what?” she yelled. “What do I win? What’s my fucking prize, huh?”

  TJ put his hands in his hair and pulled. “God, please, make her stop.”

  “Stop what?” Al was getting louder. “What is it that you want me to stop doing? You want me to stop talking? Is that it? Why don’t you go buy a goddam blow-up doll if that’s what you want? You could sit her there in the passenger seat, she’ll just stare out the window with her mouth open! How about that?”

  “Al, you’re making me nuts.”

  “I’m making you nuts? Listen, you jerk, I asked you if you wanted to come, you said okay, and now you’re acting like you’re gonna get your fingernails pulled out or some shit.”

  “Do they scream at you while they pull out your fingernails?” TJ mumbled.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I said,” TJ replied, in a nearly normal voice, “women are terrorists.”

  “That’s not what you said.” She was still steaming, but she wasn’t yelling anymore. “What do you mean, women are terrorists? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  TJ nodded calmly. “It’s true, you’re emotional terrorists, every one of you. Listen, the average guy getting into a fight with the average broad, it’s like Gilligan picking a fight with Mike Tyson. He’s gonna get his ass kicked, okay, he might get his ear bit off, too, and afterward he’s still not gonna know what the hell he did wrong.”

  “Oh, for crissake,” Al said.

  “No, it’s true. Think about it. You guys, you think, that’s what you do all day long, every day. I mean, we can’t see into your brains, but we know it’s very busy up in there, you got shit going on all the time. I mean, look at you! You ain’t saying anything right this second, but them fucking wheels are turning up in that head, don’t tell me they ain’t, I can smell the smoke. But when you look at a guy, chances are you know exactly what he wants.”

  “Oh really? Is that it? Is that all women are good for? You just wanna—”

  “Listen to me, Al. Guys are basic creatures, that’s all I’m saying. You see a guy sitting quiet in a chair all by himself, he’s not into anything deep or dark. Chances are he’s thinking about one of four things: sports, beer, sex, or cars. Maybe work. That’s it, Al, we got that stuff covered, we’re happy as shit.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “That’s a different topic. Come on, don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right. You guys are not like us. We can never tell what you want. Hell, half the time you don’t know what you want, either. We can’t win. And you know what makes it even worse? I lose, that’s okay, at least it’s over. Right? Right? Wrong. It’s not over, nothing is ever over. The thing might be dead, okay, but you’re not gonna bury it, no, you’re gonna take the body back home and stick it in a closet somewhere. And then when the fancy strikes you you’re gonna haul out the stinking, mummified corpse and then we’re gonna have to do this same dance all over again. And I’m gonna lose then, too, and you know what? I still won’t know what I did wrong.”

  Al watched him. What you did wrong, she thought, you didn’t convince me that you aren’t going out the back door and nailing some chick that has twice my bra size and half my IQ. That’s what you did wrong. You never let me know if I’m good enough . . . She knew that she would never have the courage to tell him that. “Let’s start over,” she said.

  “Good.” He exhaled loudly. “My name is—”

  “Cállate,” she said. “Shut up, you asshole. Here’s what’s going on tonight. You and I are going to go eat dinner at this joint down in Gotti country. Supposed to be good. A friend of mine is gonna be there with a guy. Okay? She trusts the guy, sort of, and I don’t. If he gets out of hand, okay, I’m gonna intervene. If that happens, your job is to run and have this car right outside the door to this place, engine running, passenger-side door open, your foot on the gas and your hot little hands on the wheel so that when I haul her out of the joint you and I can get her away from there before anything serious can go wrong. Got it?”

  “Got it,” he said. “Am I getting paid for this?”

  “Yeah, right. Tell you what, you do everything right and you don’t piss me off any more tonight, we’ll see if there’s something we can do for you.”

  “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Freebie, then. In the meantime, can we talk about cars?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “Or beer,” he said. “Or sports. Or . . . What was the other thing?”

  “I forget,” she told him. “But you wanna talk sports, you better stick to baseball, I don’t like football and I don’t wanna hear about the fucking Knicks.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  Costello’s occupied a long low building that sat on a narrow strip of land between Knapp Street and Shell Bank Creek in Brooklyn. FINE AGED BEEF, the sign said, as well as FRESH SEAFOOD and ITALIAN SPECIALTIES. In warmer weather the waterway behind the restaurant would be full of sport-fishing boats, but this time of year the water was cold, gray, and empty. Sarah Waters stood out in front of Costello’s looking lost inside an oversized wool coat, her head turtled down inside the high collar. TJ Conrad and Alessandra Martillo sat inside the Malibu and watched her from a parking spot down the block. “How’d she get here?” TJ wanted to know.

  “Dunno,” Al said. “Took a cab, probably.”

  “Expensive cab ride,” TJ said. “I guess she couldn’t ride with us. Kind of spoil the surprise if someone saw her getting out of our backseat.”

  “Well, yeah,” Al said. She was surprised that Conrad would think of something like that, she thought it unlike him to be concerned about the comfort of someone he didn’t really know.

  “Why’s she standing out in front like that?” he said. “How come she don’t wait inside?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he told her to wait for him out front.”

  “So what? It’s freezing. You wouldn’t do it. You’d wait inside.” He looked at her. “Especially wearing that jacket you got on. Ain’t you got anything warmer?”

  “I’d wait in the bar,” Al said. “For abo
ut fifteen minutes, maybe.”

  “You figure she’s more domesticated than you?”

  Al shrugged. “Well, she used to be married to this guy. They got a kid together. You like that better? You think you’d be better off if I was more like her?”

  “Lotta guys think that way,” TJ said.

  “What about you?”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Don’t start up yelling at me again. What it means, it ain’t my business what you do. Just seems smarter to me to wait inside, unless you think you gotta follow this asshole’s instructions.” A big shiny black Chevy Suburban rolled up to the front door. It was lifted, had tinted windows and chrome spinners. The driver’s side door opened and a tall guy wearing black jeans and a leather jacket got out. “You figure this is him?” TJ said.

  “Maybe,” Al said. “How do you know he’s an asshole?”

  “Come on, she’s our girl, so he’s gotta be the bad guy. Besides, he made her stand out in the cold. Makes him an asshole.”

  “Are all you guys as primitive as that? I can’t see him now, can you? What’s he doing?”

  “He’s around behind the truck, he’s greasing the parking valet.”

  A much shorter man came around the back of the truck, got in behind the wheel and drove it away, revealing Sarah Waters, her hands in her pockets, talking to the tall man. “Must be our man,” Al said.

  “Let’s see if she goes in with him,” TJ said.

  “Why wouldn’t she go in with him, after all this trouble?”

  “She don’t look happy. And you see the way he’s standing? Kinda like, half bent forward? Either he’s got a sore back or he was expecting her to hug him and she ain’t coming across.”

  “Not bad,” Al told him. “You looking for a job?”

  “Always,” he said, not looking at her. “Long as I don’t have to paint, I hate painting. Look, they’re going in, we better move it.”

  Inside, Costello’s smelled like garlic, rare steak, fish, and tomato sauce. The maître d’ was a broad-chested, big-bellied man with gray hair, a pockmarked face, and heavy-lidded eyes that looked like they’d seen a lot of history. TJ stepped away from Alessandra to shake the man’s hand. Money passed smoothly as TJ murmured in the man’s ear. The guy nodded once and led the two of them to a table by a window. Sarah and Frank Waters were seated about twelve feet away. “Very good,” Al told him. “What did you say to that guy?”