Hot Poppies

by Reggie Nadelson

  “Why shouldn’t he eat with them?”

  “Because Pete is also mighty fucking chummy with the Fujianese who support those same commie dicks on the mainland. The same fucking Fujianese only recently got some clout down here in Chinatown and want to grab whatever turf they can away from the likes of Henry Liu, turf being power, money, influence with the City. You got all that? As in turf war.”

  “So maybe Pete’s a peace ambassador.”

  “Pete cuts his deals with the reds. Pete’s also got an American passport. Pete plays it both ways.” Chen stopped for breath.

  Me, I hadn’t heard anyone call the commies reds for a real long time. “Sounds smart to me, Jer. Sounds like a guy who donates money to the Democrats and the Republicans.”

  I zipped up my jacket. Pete was a businessman. Jerry Chen was paranoid. “OK, so tell me, Jer. Every time you take a crap you call up Sonny Lippert?”

  “I see. You’re worried I’m in Sonny’s pocket, is that it?” Chen laughed. “I tried you a couple times today, you didn’t answer, I figured you don’t love me. I figured I had fucking bad breath. Lippert is a useful man. Lippert is interested in anything that ups his profile. I know he uses me. He uses you. I use him. I like you, Artie, but like I think I said once already, I’m bored with the games. If you want to help out with Rose or any of this shit, and there’s plenty of it, give me a call. OK? Just remember, I’m the good guy.”

  “So let’s have a drink. Toast the good guys.”

  “I can’t.” He looked at his watch. “I have a date. But let me share this with you. You saw the way the dead girl’s face looked raked? Like animals crawled over it? I guess you already figured out that the fuckwits that threw the spike at you used a weapon a lot like it on the girl. Well, I’m hoping we got a match with some partial prints that were found at Abramsky’s place. And I’m thinking that the weapon they used on the girl is the exact same one they fucking tossed at your head in the fucking warehouse.”

  On my way home, I found myself behind a blind man. The man’s seeing-eye dog pulled him along in the middle of the street like it was a ski run, the man laughing. The city floundered helpless, a big baby that flopped in the snowdrifts. The snow made a sponge for noise and there wasn’t any traffic anyway, so the only sound you could hear was the man with the dog laughing and laughing as he flew up Walker Street. I followed him until I got to Mike’s and went in for some smokes.

  “You checked out Rick’s place, like I said to?” Mike asked, tossing me some cigarettes.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you earlier. You’re running around in circles, Artie, you don’t listen to what’s going on. I told you. Recently I saw lights on in Ricky’s apartment. I been meaning to check. Gimme the keys,” Mike said. “I’m going up.”

  “You wanna play Kojak, I’ll go with you. I have the keys.”

  Mike locked the coffee shop and I thought, what the hell, you didn’t know. Someone mentions a building is vulnerable because the restaurant on the ground floor is not operating. People hear. Creeps hear.

  I used to leave my door unlocked and it made Ricky laugh. “What’s this, a macho cop thing?” he always said.

  “Something else, Artie. The Chink kid that came by my place.”

  I laughed. “Your Chechen. Right.”

  “It’s not the first time he’s been here. I didn’t tell you. I did some business with him before.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Remember when Rick was in the hospital and you and me and Hillel used to hang out?”

  “Sure. Sure I remember.”

  “Hillel was getting a raw deal on supplies, so I helped him out, well, I was real sorry I gave him the deal because it went sour. The kid was their errand boy.”

  Christ, I thought; the kid with the quiff. “Toilet paper?” I said.

  “Toilet paper, paper towels, paper cups. The kid was real anxious today, wired.”

  “It was a message?”

  “It wasn’t Pindar, the poet. One other thing.”

  “What, Mike?”

  “He asked me about you,” Mike said, and I felt like someone had grabbed my guts with a hook and yanked on it hard. “The kid asked about you, Artie. He knew your name.”

  Rick has the top floor of the building. The elevator opens into his apartment, and as I unlocked it, I banged on the door out of habit, like I always used to, to let Ricky know I was coming.

  “Jesus, it’s cold.” Mike shivered.

  It was cold. The windows were normally kept locked, but it was freezing and I noticed right away one of the window locks was horizontal. Someone had been here. A careless cleaning woman, I assumed, at first. The Palazetti furniture was covered with sheets. I checked the closets.

  Like mine, Rick’s living room is separated from the kitchen by a long low counter, only he put in a slab of dark green marble with white veins. “Beautiful stuff.” Mike ran his hand idly along the counter, then picked up a plastic bag from the surface.

  Alongside the bag were a few tools, including a flat knife like painters use. Mike turned it over. The apartment was quiet. The refrigerator shuddered. The old floorboards creaked under my feet. Then the phone rang and the answering machine picked it up. Ricky’s voice, like a ghost’s, played into the quiet loft.

  Mike examined the plastic bag and the knife. “Someone’s been working up here?”

  “What?”

  “This shit looks like plaster,” he said. “I’m gonna check out the bedroom, and then let’s get the fuck out. With Ricky away sick, this place gives me the creeps. I’ll be back in a second.” Mike made for the hall.

  What repairs? What plaster? No one had been working up here.

  “Mike?”

  There was no answer. “Mike?” I played back the previous ten seconds while I scanned the apartment and I saw it. I hadn’t seen it when Mike picked it up, but I saw it now: the red Chinese characters on the side of the plastic bag, the white powder inside it, the four long lines of the powder laid out carefully on the counter. The green marble with its white veins had acted as camouflage. I saw it now clear as day, clear as snow. I didn’t have to taste it to know it was heroin.

  “Mike, get out of there. Mike!”

  “What? What? I got to check the bedroom,” he said, reappearing. I wanted him out. Mike talks tough. But I didn’t want another friend getting beat up because of me. I didn’t want Justine to see her dad get whacked.

  “Let’s go. Now. Please.”

  “What’s with you, Artie?”

  “Just fucking listen to me,” I said under my breath. “I think we should just leave. Come on. You get the elevator, I’ll turn off the light and we’ll just go, like we came up.”

  The elevator didn’t move. Someone was holding it on another floor. Maybe someone was loading up gear for a ski trip. Maybe not.

  “Stairs?” Mike said.

  “No. Not from here.”

  “Move, fuck you,” Mike screamed at the elevator. He was panicky.

  I rammed open the window. “Come on.” We climbed out onto the fire escape and I shut the window, but there was no way to lock it from outside.

  Somehow, in the dark, the wind howling, we made it to the roof. A gust of wind came out of nowhere and picked up an umbrella from the party the night before, tossing it into the air like a spear. Between us, me and Mike, we yanked open the fire door and got down the stairs to the street.

  “Jesus, man,” Mike said. “What’s going on here?”

  “Someone’s dealing in there. Someone was cutting stuff, bagging it. It wasn’t plaster. It wasn’t cement.”

  “Who?”

  “Who knows? Anyone. One of the Taes’ ex-waiters. Someone that came to clean Rick’s place and made a copy of the key. Anyone. But that apartment is like a trap, back where the bedroom is. Look, if someone heard us coming and they hid back in the bedroom, they might have been feeling trapped. People who deal do not react well to feeling trapped. I’m not
saying there was anyone there, I’m just saying it was a good idea to get the fuck out. Are you OK?”

  “Yeah,” Mike said. But I knew that it shook him up. When he got into his car he didn’t invite me home for Lina’s pot roast Saturday like he usually does, and I was betting he didn’t want me around Justine right now. I was trouble.

  In the wind, the building moaned. Behind apartment walls, dogs, housebound and restless, scuffled along the floors like rats, and the cat on the fourth floor screamed from boredom. In my apartment, I got a sweater and a bottle of Scotch and went back up to Ricky’s to lock the window.

  The plastic bag was still on the kitchen counter, so were the white lines of powder. I had a gun and I checked the bedroom, the bathroom, slamming doors hard, the noise intended to warn off any creeps. I could have called in some outside help, but with the snow everyone was working overtime. I didn’t want to call the Taes if I didn’t have to; they had enough grief.

  I turned out the lights, pulled a sheet off a leather chair in the corner of the room, put the Scotch on the rug, the gun on my lap and sat down to wait in the dark. Whoever had been in the apartment earlier would be back to get the goods. I was sure of it.

  Sitting in the dark, I thought about Pansy. If I didn’t help her, she would be next. She would be dead like her friend Rose. “I’m next.” Where was she, I wondered? Maybe she was already dead. Maybe there was a serial killer out there in the city who liked hitting Chinese girls. Maybe there was some gang thing in Chinatown going on that I could never penetrate, never understand. Maybe it was the kid who asked Mike about me. Maybe it was the guy who took the pictures. Mr Snap.

  Whoever took the picture of her had killed Rose or knew who did. Mr Snap. Instinctively I knew it. I had to get into the lab on Ludlow Street, but there wasn’t anything I could do, not at midnight in the middle of a blizzard. I thought about the freight elevator and I began to sweat. Without warning, my leg cramped.

  In my socks, I got up, wiggled my foot, went to the window and opened it. Outside, a few night owls moved languidly, as if they were drugged. Stoned on snow. It was beautiful out, but dead.

  Up here in Rick’s apartment at the top of the building, you couldn’t hear anything from the other lofts. None of the sounds of life—radiators, people, music, dogs, babies—nothing. I never noticed it before. Before, there had always been music playing, people yakking. Now, it was like a padded cell. I closed the window and sat down again. I was so tired.

  It was like being alone on an empty liner in the middle of the ocean. I couldn’t see anyone or hear anything. But I knew that, in spite of the storm, whoever had been in Ricky’s apartment earlier that day would come back for the stuff. The white lines were laid out, the heroin was cut, the bag was full. Dread spilled over me because I knew. I knew that the bozos who attacked me in the elevator were coming here, into my building, onto my turf. Whoever had been here would be back tonight.

  10

  “Hello, Artie.” When she saw me, she looked surprised, but not scared. Not really scared.

  You enter an apartment, a man comes at you out of the dark with a gun, but even before you’ve really seen him, you’re not frightened. Maybe it was the drugs she was doing. Maybe nothing bothered her, maybe she expected me. I wondered if, somehow, Dawn Tae had expected me.

  A long sable coat clutched around her, she was quick as a cat as she backed up to the green marble counter. Before I could get to her, the plastic bag with the Chinese characters had disappeared into her handbag and so had the lines of powder.

  With a faint smile, daring me, she set her bag on the counter, perched on one of the bar stools and let the fur coat slide halfway down her shoulders.

  “I guess if I told you I came to get some things for Ricky, you wouldn’t believe me. Would you, Artie?”

  Dawn arched her back. She was thin and her face was as haggard as it had been the night before, but now she looked sexy. She wore a white silk shirt and a short leather skirt. There were diamonds in her ears and she fiddled with the long string of pearls around her neck.

  “Can I have a cigarette?”

  “Sure.”

  “Was it you here earlier, Dawn?”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago? Two? When I came up.”

  “No. Before that.”

  “Who left the window unlocked?”

  “I don’t know. Me, maybe.”

  “You’ve been here before? Other times?”

  “Once. Twice. Oh, don’t ask me. Please,” she said. “Do you want to look in my bag, then, Artie? Go on. It’s a nice bag. Have a look.” She picked it up and held it out, testing me. Testing the friendship. I shook my head.

  Dawn didn’t run. She didn’t say anything. She smiled at me, got off the stool, crossed the few feet between us and seemed to slide into my arms.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please. Take me away, Artie, OK? Just take me somewhere. You always took care of me. Only you, Artie. Be a friend, darling.”

  So I didn’t ask and we left Rick’s apartment and went down to mine. Dawn surveyed the loft.

  “You kept it the same. I’m glad. I always loved it here.”

  I glanced out the window. A limo was at the curb.

  “Yours?” I said.

  Dawn looked out. “Yes. Do you want me to tell him to go away?”

  “Let him stay. You’ll need a ride home, my car’s bust,” I said, and she smiled because she knew I was kidding myself, knew she wasn’t going anywhere that night. “She’s become a cunning girl,” Mr Tae had said.

  Dawn sat on the edge of my sofa, took out a portable phone from her Prada bag and called home. “Fine,” Dawn said. “I’m fine. Don’t worry if I’m late. If I don’t get home until tomorrow. I’m with a girlfriend,” she cooed reassuringly into the cellphone—to her mother, to Pete? Dawn flipped her phone shut. “Do you think I can have some wine, Artie?”

  “White?”

  “You remember.”

  There was a pretty good bottle of Chablis in the fridge. I opened it and sat next to her.

  “Hello, Artie, darling.”

  She drank steadily; we emptied the bottle, then, carefully, she put her glass on the floor.

  “I’m grateful, Artie. I knew Pa would do something idiotic, like asking you to follow me. I knew, but what could I do? He has to show he’s trying to help, you had to honor his request.”

  “I wasn’t ever going to follow you, you know that,” I said, but she put her hand over my mouth.

  “So you did what he asked but you let me know. Thank you.” She kissed my cheek.

  I had promised Mr Tae I’d find out what was wrong with Dawn. I had taken his money. But I knew all along what was wrong. Dawn was taking drugs, smoking something, shooting up. Maybe, I should have asked. The truth is, I liked her being with me in my place again, snow outside, the feeling there were only two of us, no one else, cruising the city in the building that was a ghost ship. I liked it a whole lot, but it was risky stuff. Dawn was Pete’s wife, Martin Tae’s daughter.

  “So how are you?” I said.

  “I’ll tell you.” She reached across me for the wine bottle and her sleeve grazed my arm.

  “There’s Scotch.”

  “Scotch would be lovely,” she said. “You know, for months I’d wake up in my bed in Hong Kong and I’d think, soon this will be over and I can go home. Do you understand, Artie? And then I’d open my eyes and I’d think, this is my home. This is it.”

  I got the Scotch. She wandered around the room, her hand brushing old possessions of mine that she recognized, a chair, the stereo, some pictures she helped me buy when I had a little dough.

  “I loved Hong Kong at first. Rich people making money, going to China, cutting deals. The house was beautiful. I didn’t want to live with his family, though, so Pete bought me another house. I had a job. I was always good at money. There was his mother, she was very anxious for grandchildren, but Pete never really pushed. Maybe it was the miscarriage.” Sh
e held onto the back of a chair. “My feet are wet, I think.”

  Dawn perched on the edge of a stool, her back to me. Almost primly, she took off her boots, then her pantyhose. When she moved, the coat fell off her shoulders again and the leather skirt rode up over her thighs. It was hard not to concentrate on the fact she had nothing on under the skirt. From her bag she took a little gold box and ate something out of it.

  I grabbed the pill box. “Don’t.”

  “It’s only Valium,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about me.” Abruptly, she changed the subject. Tell me about you. Tell me a story.”

  “What kind of story?” I leaned my elbows on the counter and looked at her a few inches away seated on the stool, ankles crossed like a girl.

  “Where you’ve been, what you’re doing. Do you remember when you first bought this loft? Remember? Ricky fell for you first, then he discovered you liked girls. He introduced us. I fell for you. I wasn’t even in grad school. I was just starting Yale. I came home and I thought you were the cutest guy I’d ever seen.”

  “Ten years ago. Ten?”

  “Yes.”

  “You weren’t bad yourself.” I didn’t know what else to say. This was a courting ritual and I didn’t know the moves Dawn had in mind, so I leaned on my elbows, poured more Scotch into glasses, and waited.

  “You were so up about everything. Like a kid let out of jail. It didn’t matter—movies, music, riding your bike, sailing a boat, eating. And New York. Just being here seemed to charge you up like a lightbulb. You were so determined to be happy.”

  “I was happy.”

  “You were a real cop, I was impressed. Also, you had dimples. I thought that was very sexy.”

  “The dimples or the gun?”

  “Both. And you were family. In a way, you reinvented us as a family because you wanted one so much. We were yours, all of us, Rick, me, the parents, even Uncle Billy. You made us feel better about ourselves.” Dawn crossed her legs. “God, I was crazy about you.”