6
To Willie’s surprise, and to Arno’s relief, the man in the storeroom wasn’t dead. His skull was fractured, and he was bleeding from his ears, which Willie didn’t consider to be a good sign, but he was definitely still breathing. This took the decision on what to do next out of Willie’s hands. He wasn’t about to let a stranger die on his floor, so he called 911 and, while they waited for the ambulance and the inevitable cops to arrive, he and Arno got their stories straight. It was a bungled holdup, pure and simple. The men had been looking for money and a car. They were armed and, in fear of their lives, Willie and Arno had tackled them, leaving one unconscious on the floor and forcing the other to flee, wounded.
Willie took one further precaution. With Arno’s help, and using a candle that he warmed and flattened on the radiator, he took the unconscious man’s prints by pressing his fingers against the warm wax. He then placed the candle behind a pile of old documents in the office closet, and locked the door. The man wasn’t carrying a wallet or any other form of ID, which Willie thought was odd. He knew that the cops would probably print him, but he also understood that Louis might want to make some inquiries of his own. To further assist Louis in any such endeavor, Willie told Arno to take some pictures of the guy using his cell phone. Willie’s cell phone didn’t take photos. It was so low-tech that it made a tin can on the end of a piece of string look like a viable alternative, but that was just the way Willie liked it.
Both Willie and Arno played their parts to perfection when the cops arrived: they were honest men faced with the threat of harm and, possibly, death, who had fought back against their aggressors and now stood, shocked but most definitely alive, in the center of the small business they had so determinedly defended. It wasn’t far off the mark either. The cops listened sympathetically, then advised them both to come down to the station the next morning in order to make formal statements. Arno asked if he was going to need a lawyer, but the detective in charge told him that he didn’t think so. Off the record, he said that it was unlikely any charges would be pressed even if the mook died. No DA liked prosecuting an unpopular case, and Arno was in a position to offer an ironclad self-defense plea. The next step, he said, was to identify the gentleman in question, since the only items in his pockets were gum, a roll of tens, twenties and fifties, and a spare clip for his gun. Willie and Arno did their best to look surprised at this news.
Willie reckoned they were 99 percent done when a pair of new arrivals, one male and one female, entered the garage. They both wore dark suits, and when they showed their IDs to the patrolman at the garage door he looked over his shoulder when they had passed and mouthed the word ‘feds’ to his colleagues inside, as if they hadn’t already guessed who the visitors were.
Willie’s face had been taped up by one of the medics. The medic had reset Willie’s nose in his office, thus saving him a trip to the hospital, and it was now throbbing balefully. Added to the nausea that he was still experiencing from his hangover and the comedown from the adrenalin rush of the fight, Willie was having trouble remembering the last time he’d felt so bad. Now, as he sat on a stool beside the busted Olds, Arno nearby, he watched the two agents approach and, with a dart of his eyes, signaled to Arno that there was trouble on its way. Willie was no expert on law enforcement, or the niceties of jurisdiction, but he had lived in Queens long enough to know that the FBI didn’t show up every time someone waved a gun in an auto shop, otherwise they’d never have time to do anything else.
The man was black, and introduced himself as Special Agent Wesley Bruce. His partner, Special Agent Sidra Lewis, was a bottle blonde with piercing blue eyes and a set scowl on her face that suggested she believed everyone she met in the course of her work was guilty of something, even it was only of thinking they were better than she was. They separated Arno and Willie, the woman taking Arno into the back office while Bruce leaned against the hood of the Olds, folded his arms, and gave Willie a big, unfriendly grin that reminded him of the way the gum chewer had smiled before Arno had knocked the smile from his face with a chunk of wood and metal.
‘So, how you doing?’ asked Bruce.
‘I been better,’ said Willie, which were just about the first completely honest words he’d uttered since the cops had arrived. He got the feeling that big old Special Agent Wesley Bruce here was well aware of that fact.
‘Looks like our two friends picked the wrong guys to mess with.’
‘I guess so.’
‘You say they were looking for a car?’
‘A car, and money.’
‘You got much money here?’
‘Not a lot. Most people pay by check or credit card. We still get some that like to work with cash, though. Old habits die hard around here.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Bruce, as though Willie was not talking about cash payments but something else entirely. Willie tried to figure out what that might be, but there were so many possibilities from which to choose, legal and illegal, that he was spoiled for choice. Finally, Willie made the connection: like everything else that night, it was about Louis and Angel. The understanding did not affect his demeanor, but it made him dislike Special Agent Bruce even more than he already did.
In the meantime, Bruce gave Willie the hard eye. ‘I’ll bet,’ he said again. He waited. Willie could hear Arno’s voice coming from the office. He was talking a lot more than Willie was. In fact, Special Agent Lewis appeared to be having trouble just getting a word in.
Welcome to my world, thought Willie.
Eventually, Bruce seemed to realize that Willie wasn’t about to break down and confess to every unsolved crime on the books, and resumed his questioning.
‘So they wouldn’t have raked in a whole lot of money for their trouble, even if they had managed to get away with it.’
‘Couple of hundred maybe, including petty cash.’
‘Lot of grief for a couple of hundred. There must have been easier pickings for them.’
‘We don’t have a camera.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Security cameras. We don’t use ’em. Most places do now, but we don’t. Maybe they figured we didn’t have them, and thought, what the hell, let’s try it.’
‘Desperate times, desperate measures.’
‘Something like that.’
‘They strike you as desperate men?’
Willie considered the question. ‘Well, they weren’t friendly. I don’t know from desperate.’
‘I mean, they strike you as the kind of men who needed money?’
‘Everybody needs money,’ replied Willie simply.
‘Except our friend who got his head stoved in had four or five hundred in cash on him, not to mention a very nice gun. Doesn’t strike me that he was hurting enough to take down an auto shop for a double century.’
‘I got no insights into the criminal mind. That’s your department.’
‘No insights into the criminal mind, huh?’ Bruce seemed to find this funny. He even laughed, although it didn’t sound natural. It was as if someone had written the words ‘Ha. Ha. Ha.’ in front of him, then held a gun to his head and told him to read them aloud.
‘What about the car?’ said Bruce, when he was done laughing.
‘What about it?’
‘According to what you told the police, they drove here, and the other, uh, “alleged” thief got away in the same vehicle. Why would they need a car if they already had one?’
‘Could be they were planning a robbery and wanted something that couldn’t be linked to them.’
‘Would have meant killing you and your buddy, then, just so you couldn’t identify them or the car.’
‘Well, that’s why one of them ended up wearing a hammer instead of a hat. Look, Mr Bruce –’
‘I prefer “Special Agent Bruce”.’
Willie stared at Bruce impassively. There was a moment of strained silence between the two men, until Willie sighed theatrically and continued.
‘– Special Ag
ent Bruce, I don’t understand what your problem is here. We didn’t get a chance to make these guys a cup of coffee so they could sit down and explain their motives to us. They came in, busted my nose, told me what they wanted, and you know the rest.’
‘Yeah, I know. You’re heroes. There’s already a guy from the Post outside, waiting to take your picture. You’re going to be famous. Should be good for business.’
‘Sure,’ said Willie, a touch uneasily.
‘You don’t sound too happy about it,’ said Bruce.
‘Who needs that kind of publicity?’
Bruce’s grin widened. ‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘That’s just my point. Who needs it? Not you, and maybe not your partner in this operation.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you? Who bailed you out when you were in trouble back in the day? Your ex-wife wanted you to sell the business as part of a divorce settlement, right? Things weren’t looking good for you and then, suddenly, poof! You got the money to pay her off without having to sell. Where’d the money come from?’
Special Agent Bruce seemed to know a lot about Willie’s business. Willie wasn’t sure that he approved of his tax dollars being spent in this way.
‘A good Samaritan,’ he said.
‘What was his name?’
‘Came through an agency. I don’t recall any names.’
‘Yeah, Last Hope Investments, which was in existence for about as long as a mayfly.’
‘Long enough to help me out. That’s all that matters to me.’
‘You ever pay back the loan?’
‘I tried but, like you say, Last Hope don’t exist no more.’
‘Hardly surprising, if they go around making loans and then not seeking payment on them. Curious name too, don’t you think?’
‘Not my problem. I declared the loan. I’m all straight.’
‘Who owns this building?’
‘Property company.’
‘Leroy Frank Properties, Incorporated.’
‘That’s it.’
‘You pay rent to Leroy Frank?’
‘Fifteen hundred a month.’
‘Not much for a big place like this.’
‘It’s enough.’
‘You ever meet Leroy Frank?’
‘You think if I worked in a Trump building I’d meet Donald?’
‘You might do, if he was a friend of yours.’
‘I don’t think Donald Trump is friends with many of his tenants. He’s the Donald, not –’
‘– not Leroy Frank,’ Bruce finished for him.
Willie shook his head, a simple man faced with someone who seemed intent upon deliberately misinterpreting everything that was said.
‘I told you: I never met no Leroy Frank. I cover my rent, I run my business, I pay my taxes, and I never even got so much as a parking ticket in my life, so I’m all square with the law.’
‘Well,’ said Bruce, ‘you must be just about the honestest man between here and Jersey.’
‘Maybe even further than that,’ said Willie. ‘I met people from Jersey.’
Bruce scowled.
‘I’m from Jersey,’ he said.
‘Maybe you’re the exception,’ said Willie.
Bruce looked momentarily confused, then decided to let that particular conversation slide.
‘He’s hard to trace, this Leroy Frank,’ he resumed. ‘Quite the paper trail around his companies. Oh, it’s all clean and above board, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a mystery. Hard for a man to stay so enigmatic these days.’
Willie said nothing.
‘You know, what with this threat of terrorism and all, we’ve been spending a lot more time looking into finances that don’t add up like they should,’ said Bruce. ‘It’s easier than it used to be. We got more powers than before. Of course, if you’re innocent then you’ve got nothing to fear –’
‘I hear Joe McCarthy used to say that,’ said Willie, ‘but I think he was lying.’
Bruce realized that he wasn’t getting anywhere for the present. He took his considerable weight off the Olds, which seemed to groan with relief. His grin faded and his scowl returned. Willie figured it was only ever going to be a short vacation for that scowl at the best of times.
‘Well, I guess I’ll be going, but we’ll be seeing each other again,’ said Bruce. ‘You happen to meet the mysterious Leroy Frank, you tell him I said hi. Unfortunate that all of this should happen in one of his properties. Be a shame if someone suggested to the press that it might be worth looking into the ownership of this place. It could threaten his anonymity, force him out into the light.’
‘I just pay my money into the bank,’ said Willie. ‘The only question I ask is, “Can I get a receipt?”’
Special Agent Lewis emerged from the office. If anything, her expression looked more pinched than before, and she was practically shaking with frustration. Willie suppressed a smile. Arno did that to people. Trying to get answers from him when he didn’t want to give them was like trying to straighten a snake. Bruce picked up immediately on his partner’s unhappiness, but didn’t comment upon it.
‘Like I said, we’ll be back,’ he told Willie.
‘We’ll be here,’ said Willie.
As the two agents departed, Arno appeared beside him.
‘Gee, that lady was tense,’ he said. ‘I liked her, though. We had a nice talk.’
‘About what?’
‘Ethics.’
‘Ethics?’
‘Yeah, you know. Ethics. The rights and wrongs of things.’
Willie shook his head. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘You’re making my head hurt even more.’
He called Arno’s name just as the little man was preparing to disappear into the night. ‘Be careful what you say on the telephone,’ he told him.
Arno looked puzzled. ‘All I ever say on the telephone is “It’s not ready yet”,’ he said. ‘That, and “It’s going to cost you extra.” You think the FBI might be interested in that?’
Willie scowled. Everybody was a comedian. ‘Who knows what they’re interested in,’ he said. ‘Just watch what you say. Don’t speak to any of those reporters outside. And show some respect, dammit. I pay your wages.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Arno, as the door closed slowly behind him. ‘Me, I’m gonna buy a yacht with my money this week . . .’
Louis made the call just as soon as the bodies had been disposed of. It was a matter of priorities. He left his name with the answering service, thinking, as he did so, that the voice on the end of the line sounded very similar to that of the woman who answered all calls for Leroy Frank. Maybe they incubated them somewhere, like chickens.
His call was returned ten minutes later. ‘Mister De Angelis says he will be available at twelve twenty-six tomorrow, around seven,’ the neutral female voice told him.
Louis thanked her, and said that he understood perfectly. As he hung up the phone, memories of previous meetings flooded back to him, and he almost smiled. De Angelis: of the angels. Now there was a misnomer.
Shortly after seven the next evening, Louis stood on the corner of Lexington and 84th. It was already dark. The sidewalks on this odd little stretch of the city’s thoroughfares were relatively quiet, for most of its businesses, the odd bar and restaurant excepted, were already closed. A damp mist had descended over Manhattan, presaging rain and lending an air of un reality to the vista, as though a photographic image had been placed over the cityscape. To the left, the vintage sign over Lascoff’s drugstore was still illuminated, and if one squinted, it was possible to imagine this stretch of Lexington as it might have looked more than half a century earlier.
The Lexington Candy Shop and Luncheonette was a throwback to that era. In fact, its roots were older still: it had been founded by old Soterios in 1925 as a chocolate manufactury and soda fountain, then passed on to his son, Peter Philis, who had, in turn, passed it on to his son, the current owner, John Philis, who still operated the register a
nd greeted his customers by name. Its windows were filled with special edition Coca-Cola bottles, along with a plastic train set, some photos of celebrities, and a bat signed by the Mets’ pure hitter Rusty Staub. It had been known as ‘Soda Candy’ to generations of children, for that was what was written above its door, and its façade had remained unchanged for as long as anyone could remember. Louis could see two of its white-coated staff still moving around inside, although the front door was now locked, for the Lexington Candy Shop and Luncheonette only opened from seven until seven, Monday to Saturday. Nevertheless, the green plastic mat remained outside the door, waiting to be taken in for the night. On it was written Soda Candy’s numerical address: 1226.
Louis crossed the street and knocked on the glass. One of the men cleaning up glanced sharply to his left, then emerged from behind the counter and admitted Louis, acknowledging him only with a nod. He closed and locked the door before he and his companion abandoned their tasks and disappeared behind another door at the back marked ‘No Admittance. Staff Only.’
The place was just as Louis remembered it, although it had been many years since he had been inside. There was still the green counter, its surface marked by decades of hot plates and cups, and the green vinyl stools that rotated fully on their base, a source of endless amusement to children. Behind the counter stood twin gas-fired coffee urns, and a green 1942 Hamilton Beach malted machine and matching Borden’s powdered malt dispenser, along with an automatic juicer from the same period.
Soda Candy was famous for its lemonade, made to order, the lemons squeezed while you watched, then stirred with sugar syrup and poured in a glass with crushed ice. Two glasses of that same lemonade now stood before the man who occupied the corner booth. The staff members had dimmed the fluorescents before they left, so it seemed to Louis that the old man who waited for him had somehow sucked the illumination from the room, like a black hole in human form, a fissure in time and space absorbing everything around him, the good and the bad, light and not-light, fueling his own existence at the cost of all who came into his sphere of influence.
The Charlie Parker Collection 5-8: The Black Angel, The Unquiet, The Reapers, The Lovers Page 104