"It's all focus,"the Prof confided. "Frankie's on the case, Ace. He's gonna play that tune straight to the moon, I can feel it."
"Me too," I said.
"What's wrong, schoolboy?"
"Who said—?"
"You don't need to say nothing, Burke—I can read your cards like they face–up."
I took a deep breath. Let it out. Spun it a couple of times in my mind. Then I said, "Here's what I know…so far," and told him the truth.
The ride back to the city was relaxed. Almost sweet with certainty, with triumphs assured. A future for Frankie…maybe one for us too. The Rover hummed through the night, Clarence at the wheel, the Prof riding shotgun. I was in the back with Frankie.
"I wish it would never be over," Frankie said.
"Tonight?" I asked him.
"Not that fight. I mean, not any particular fight. Just…fighting. I feel…right doing it. Like it's what I'm supposed to do."
"You can't fight forever," I told him. "You stay too long at the fair, you know what happens."
"Schoolboy's right," the Prof said, leaning over the back of the bucket seat. "This is about money, honey. We get the green, then we split the scene."
"I…guess so," the kid said. "I suppose I don't need to worry about it until the time comes, right?"
"Right," I assured him.
Saturday morning, I got up early. It was still dark out when I loaded Pansy into the Plymouth, figuring I'd give her a chance to run around a bit. I had plenty of time stretching out ahead of me—I was happy enough to take Fortunato's money, Piersall's actually, I supposed—but I wasn't going to do anything for it.
"Walk away," Morales had told me, so crazy–wild with rage that I couldn't even ask him what he meant.
But when the Prof weighed in on the same side, I knew it was the right one. "Some mysteries don't need solving, schoolboy," he said. "If the price is too high, just roll on by—with that stone–crazy motherfucker Morales in it, somebody's gonna die."
That's the thing about dynamite—once you got it lit, you better throw it away…fast.
I drove in a gentle, leisurely loop, checking the mirrors for tags, not surprised to find them empty. I went east on Houston, then south on Forsyth. I spotted a glowing dot of red. Refocusing, I could make out a pair of young men on one of the stoops. Very alert young men, sending off a signal as clear as a neon street sign flashing in the night—Keep Moving.
I drove the length of Allen Street. A hooker in black hot pants and yellow spike heels stepped off the curve, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and shot a hip at me in a halfhearted attempt to make one more score before it got daylight. At least a half–dozen working girls had been taken off that same block. Got into cars, got dropped off in the river. Streetside hooking, it's like playing roulette, with only the double zero paying off—the reason you don't see too many old hookers isn't because they lose their looks.
An old Chinese woman crossed in front of us at a light, a long pole across her shoulders with a bag suspended from each end. Like the yoke her ancestors had probably used in the fields—only this one helped her carry two giant clear plastic bags full of abandoned bottles. She was heading for the recycling center, where she could turn her harvest into cash.
I looked to my left. The cement railing next to me was topped with a line of wine bottles, carefully arranged like a menorah with the sacred Night Train as the center candle. The old woman passed them by without a glance—those bottles weren't any more recyclable than the losers who left them there.
Central Park had more room, but there had just been another bunch of rapes there. At that hour, it would be lousy with cops. Or should be, anyway. Besides, Pansy was a perimeter dog—she never ran far, even off the leash.
I took a left on Delancey, then cut left again on Chrystie, heading for this vacant lot next to the Manhattan Bridge. It used to be a hobo jungle, home to the homeless. A pair of activists had even pitched a big tepee there and lived in it—walking the walk, you had to give them that. But then some low–level drug dealer thought he'd been burned by one of the homeless guys. He came back at night with a few gallons of gas, did some burning of his own. One of the residents died. The city tore everything down, then bulldozed it. The evacuation was peaceful—the only way the cops would shoot to kill would be if the homeless occupied the stadium where they held the U.S. Open—sacred ground to our last pitiful excuse for a mayor. We got a new mayor now. The city's the same.
I parked on Chrystie and climbed out. Ahead was a stop sign. The only way you could turn was right—to the left was a one–way discharge road for traffic exiting the Manhattan Bridge. A good spot—perfect sight–lines in all directions. I snapped the lead on Pansy's collar and crossed Canal Street to the vacant lot. Pansy's huge head whipped back and forth, a low rumble came from somewhere inside of her.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked her.
She just growled some more. Looking down, I could see the fur standing up at the back of her neck. I swept the street with my eyes. It wasn't empty—it never is—but there wasn't anything spooky around.
Once we got across the street, I unsnapped Pansy's lead. She loped away from me, moving in wide figure–eight loops, checking out the territory. Legend has it that Neapolitan mastiffs came over the Alps with Hannibal—if they were all as clumsy as Pansy, I'm surprised they didn't flatten the mountains. She crashed through piles of litter with abandon, occasionally scaring up a rat. She wasn't fast enough to catch one, and none of them were stupid enough to hang around, so every bout ended in a draw.
I leaned against what was left of a metal railing, lit a smoke, watching the morning light break over the top of the tenements to the east. Pansy appeared and disappeared over and over again in the shadows, her dark–gray coat blending perfectly. I heard the motorcycle before I saw it, the unmistakable sound of a Harley backing off through its pipes. The rider didn't even slow at the stop sign, just downshifted and turned left, going against one–way traffic, heading right for me. The driver's head was covered with a dark helmet and full face shield, but I knew who it was.
Morales pulled up to the curb. Sat on his bike watching me through the face shield for a long minute before he turned off the engine. He climbed off the bike slowly, pulled the helmet off his head with both hands. He kept those hands empty as he closed the ground between us, moving with the confidence of a man who could handle anything he was likely to run across. Which told me one thing for sure—he hadn't seen Pansy.
But I had. The big dog started to amble over to me. I threw her the hand signal for "Stay"—she stopped dead in her tracks, rooted and alert.
I turned to face him, keeping my hands well away from my body. He came closer, pulling down the front zipper of his leather jacket, taking his time.
"What?" I asked, opening my hands wide in the sign language for that question.
He halted a few feet away from me, grabbed his left wrist with his right hand, spread his legs wide to brace himself. "You're slicker than I thought," he said, his voice strangely calm.
So are you, I thought—tailing me on a motorcycle was smarter than I gave him credit for. "I can't keep doing this," I told him aloud. "Guessing what you're talking about every time."
"That's okay, punk," he said. "I'll do the math for you. I can't be in two places at once, you already figured that out for yourself. And you know I'm working solo too, right? You're a slippery sonofabitch, I'll give you that. You know I'm on you, so you use me for an alibi. I had the roles reversed—I guess you knew that too. I thought you were doing the work. Now I know better."
"You don't know anything better, Morales. Why don't you just lay it out, give me a chance to set you straight?"
"I'm already straight," he said, still relaxed. "It took me a while to put it together, but now I got it. And I'm gonna leave you on the street until I finish it. Leave you out here, dangling in the wind. Either you're running this whole thing or else you're just a tool. Don't matter to me—anytime I want, you're
going down."
"You're out of control," I told him. "I don't know what you got your nose open about, but it isn't me. I'm not in it."
"It's gonna be real easy," he said. "Anytime I want. Just find you alone—like now. You wouldn't be the first ex–con who resisted arrest."
I made a waving motion with my right hand. Pansy broke out of the shadows and started walking toward me, rolling her shoulders, moving with more confidence than Morales could ever put out, a "You talking to me?" expression on her face. Morales' head spun on his thick neck. "What the—!"
Pansy kept coming, padding forward noiselessly. Not playing anymore—working. I pointed to my left, keeping my hand stiff. Pansy hit the spot, turned to face Morales.
"You better keep him back," Morales said, his right hand flickering against the zipper to his leather jacket.
"She," I told him. "Pansy's a girl."
"Pansy? Looks like you and the dog got your names switched. You sure her real name ain't Burke?" Morales sneered. Not giving ground, playing by jailhouse rules—you turn your back, you get stabbed. Or fucked.
"She's my girl," I said. "You see how it is. Don't do anything stupid."
"You better back her off," he warned. "She'd never make it…"
I stepped to my right, putting more distance between me and Pansy, widening the triangle, letting him see the truth. "I'm gonna say something to her," I told Morales. "Don't listen to the word—it don't mean what you think. She's gonna lie down, understand? Just relax…"
Morales took a step back with his right foot, ready to draw, but he didn't say anything.
"Pansy, jump!" I snapped.
The huge Neo dropped to the ground, but her eyes stayed on target, pinning Morales. She looked pretty harmless lying down, but I knew the truth—Pansy could launch out of that position as fast as a badger charging out of a burrow.
"You see how it is?" I asked Morales. "No way you get both of us. Not quietly, anyway. And it's gonna cost you something if you try."
Morales slipped his hand inside his jacket. Slow, watching Pansy, ignoring me. The pistol slid out. He held it against his waist, barrel pointing to the side. A semi–auto, not a revolver—I'd forgotten that they let NYPD boys carry nines now. "Take your best shot," he said. He was calm saying it—a hundred eighty degrees from the maniac I met in the parking lot a few days ago. Crazy then, calm now. Dangerous always.
"There is no shot," I said. "Like you said…another time, right?"
"I can get you alone. Anytime. Get you where there aren't any witnesses."
"That's what the Rodney King cops thought too," I said.
A thin smile played over his lips, but his ball–bearing eyes pinned me as tight as Pansy's pinned him. "I don't know how dirty you are," he said. "I don't know exactly what you done. So I'm gonna do you a solid—for old times' sake. Drop this shit, Burke. Drop it now. Stand aside. Don't get in my way."
"You want me to stay away from this Piersall thing, you got it," I told him. "I wasn't really gonna—"
"You know what I mean," he said. "Don't pull my chain. You chumped me off, but you can't middle me. There is no motherfucking middle on this one, understand?"
"Just tell me what you want me to do."
"Do the right thing," he said in his piano–wire voice. "Do the right thing. Or else, the next time you see me, you're gone, understand?"
"No," I told him, as honest as I'd ever been with a cop in my whole life.
"Then you're a dead man," Morales said, backing away.
I snapped my fingers. Pansy came to her feet, walked over to stand beside me. Morales straddled the bike, switched on the engine. He pulled on his helmet, watched us through the face shield
for a while. Pansy watched back, immobile as stone. Morales suddenly twisted the throttle and the bike shot off, still going the wrong way on a one–way street.
Maybe I was too.
I picked up a Daily News on the way back to my office, read it through while Pansy was up on her roof, looking for coverage of last night's fight. Not a line—I'd have to wait for a later edition.
Morales said he'd been my alibi. All I could make of that was that he must have been at the fights. Didn't make sense. He could tail me around lower Manhattan early in the day easy enough, especially if he didn't care about red lights or one–way streets. He had my car pegged. But so what? Even if he ran the plates, he'd only come up with Juan Rodriguez, the guy who lends me his car whenever I want. Juan Rodriguez is a hell of a citizen. Pays his taxes, stays out of trouble.
I'm Juan Rodriguez. It's not illegal to change your name if there's no intent to defraud. I did it a long time ago. Got a lawyer, did it right. You fill out this petition, explain why you want the name change. Then you publish a public notice that you're doing it, so if any creditors are out there they can move on you.
Actors do it all the time. Some people just don't like their names. Jews used to do it so they could get jobs. Irish guys did it so their mothers wouldn't know they were prizefighters instead of dock–workers. It's no big deal. Costs a few hundred bucks and then you're done.
When I filled out my petition, I said I wanted to honor the foster family who took me in when I was a kid. The judge liked that—it showed respect.
The foster parents I had when I was a kid, their name wasn't Rodriguez. And if I ever found them, I'd pay my respects all right…show them how well I learned what they taught me.
So I changed my name. From Anderson to Rodriguez. The only place I ever saw "Burke" written down was on my birth certificate. Baby Boy Burke, it said.
A train of lies, running on a crooked track. When I ran from that foster home, they locked me up. They kept doing it until I learned how to survive out here. Learned from the Prof, mostly.
"Stay low, bro—low and slow. Walk light, keep out of sight," he'd told me. I did just that, switching names, switching games. I'd used up the Anderson name years ago—too many people wanted to know how to find him. Rodriguez was the next step.
There'd be others. I know how to do it now.
Morales could find all that out if he did the work, but it wouldn't bring him any closer.
No way he had me on 24–7. He'd told the truth about working solo. He didn't have a partner anymore—the psych report would have chilled that for sure. And even if he was on the rubber–gun squad, he'd have plenty of free time. And his own collection of unregistered pieces too.
I'd met Hauser near his office. Took the subway there. And I didn't come back with him. Unless Morales had a partner—hell, lots of partners—he couldn't have done it. When you take a subway and have a car waiting at the last stop, the trail goes cold.
So he knew about Frankie. That was the only way. He could have stumbled across it, just following me, but I didn't think so. It had to be something else. We didn't have a written contract with Frankie—it was a handshake deal. I couldn't work it through, how Morales would have figured it out. But he had to know—so that's the way I'd play it.
It was a little past noon when I walked over to Mama's. I didn't much care if Morales picked up my trail from there. In fact, part of me wished he would…something about that "alibi" crack he'd made earlier. For once in my criminal life, I'd be happy for some surveillance
On that Saturday afternoon in late September, I was as legit as I'd ever been. All paid up—clean, sober, and square. Dead even. Unless you looked back into my life—then I was dead wrong.
Before all this started, I thought I knew Morales. Not the way you know a man, the way you know an animal, know their limits. Dogs could be vicious or they could be sweet…but they could never fly. That's the way I knew Morales. He was an over–the–top, head–breaking, bend–the–rules, shake–and–flake, never–take, blue–badged dinosaur street–beast. He might shoot drug dealers in the back, but he wouldn't take money from them. "He's so honest he squeaks," McGowan told me once. "Those IAD quislings don't even give you a look, you're partnered with a guy like that—they know he'd arrest you his own str
ange self."
Could I see Morales as a killer? Sure. In spades. He was high–tension taut, so tight he was brittle. It wouldn't take that much to snap him out, send him off.
It wasn't just the psych report. When he'd braced me in the past, it was always a game. Macho–posturing, make–my–day crap. He was hostile, but always on the safe side of rage. In that parking lot in Midtown, he was stressed way past full boil. Before, he'd been calm. Not centered, the way Max is, but still within himself.
Nobody could switch like that. Unless…I threw it out as fast as it came up. Morales was no multiple personality—near as I could tell, he didn't even have one .
The white–dragon tapestry was flying in Mama's window. I went in the front door, just in case Morales was watching. Mama wasn't at her register—her post was covered by Immaculata, dressed in one of those Mondrian silk dresses she wears every once in a while.
"What's up, Mac?" I asked her.
"Mama is in the back," she said. "With Flower. Teaching her. I can do my work anywhere," she said, flicking a long–nailed hand at a stack of paper, probably case–summary reports on some of her clients. "So I told her I wouldn't mind taking the front."
"How's business?" I asked her.
"Booming," she replied. "Unfortunately. Hard times only increase stress—a lot of marginal families lose it when the money gets too hard to find."
Immaculata works with abused children and, sometimes, their families. "Mama's business, I meant," I told her, not wanting to get into Immaculata's stuff.
"Who knows Mama's business?" She smiled.
I walked into the back, looking for Mama. Nothing. I asked a couple of her so–called cooks—they gave me blank looks in exchange. I started for the basement. One of the cooks held up a "Stop!" hand. The guy by the back door said something in Cantonese. The cook halting me stepped aside.
At the bottom of the steps, I spotted them. They were seated at a black lacquer table that was much higher on Mama's side than the child's. The table didn't slope—it had been built with a stagger in the middle, like a stair step. I walked over quietly, not wanting to disturb the clear silence. Mama's part of the table held only a black vase with a single white lily standing. She rested one elbow on the table, cupping her chin in her hand, watching Flower. The little girl's tabletop had a stone inkpot, a pad of blotters, and some sheets of heavy, textured paper. Her hand held an ivory stylus. They both looked up as I approached and I could see they were dressed alike, in matching kimonos of plum–colored silk with a black design on the left chest wrapping around to the sleeve.
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