South by South Bronx

by Abraham Rodriguez

  26.

  he wanted to ram me, I could just sense it. His need to hit out, to get results to force the issue. He wanted to say it all along, just scream it: “You knew! You knew all along she was pulling that cheap trick.” He couldn’t get away with that, since I had urged him from the beginning not to follow. I had urged him on another path. The drink was rum, straight. No need for truth serum this time, more like bandages. There are plenty of shady spots and shadowy back tables. Places where the dudes at the bar never turn around to look. Cops can quietly go there and sulk.

  “I told you she was good.” Hoarse whisper. Hot rum shot to make a man wince. Finding that phone jammed into an empty seat took a piece right out of him. I had never seen a face so thoroughly slapped in my life, the moment that agent dug into the train seat and pulled out that vibrating phone. Lieutenant Mitchell was a sturdy bull of a man who couldn’t have been thrilled to get sent on this wild goose chase by some young goof with a letter from the DD/I. Nonetheless, there was no sarcasm when he asked, “Any chance she jumped this train?” Another example of the deep-hearted decency cops display to other cops and yes, even feds, when things go wrong.

  The station manager was talking to the dispatcher, who was speaking into his portable radio. They seemed to be waiting for some word from Myers. Fan out, search the weeds, patrol the small towns trackside? The motorman shot down the notion of a jumper. The safety features on these trains would insure that the crew would know about any open door. Had anyone spoken to the passengers?

  “That seat’s been empty since Grand Central.”

  It was Myers who put an end to the charade. “Lieutenant Mitchell, thank you for your trouble,” he said with a handshake. “She wasn’t on the train. Please thank your people for me.”

  An officer drove us back to the helipad at Pelham. There was hardly a word spoken. The chopper ride was the same, a solemn journey that felt like a bad tourist trip. The sun was high in the sky and filled the cab with heat. The world below slanted tilt like the view through a fish-eye.

  “You didn’t say I told you so,” he said. The churning blue East River bent below us.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “It’s only now that I’m hearing what you were saying.”

  I couldn’t read what was going through his mind. I doubted it would get me off the hook. I was “point man,” no matter what.

  “She’s forcing you to make a choice.” The sound of the chopper blades spinning made me feel I was talking in a vacuum, and talking louder only made it worse. “For all you know, she’s still in the Bronx, or Manhattan.”

  “How about for all you know?”

  His stare was more than just a challenge. The case was falling apart. He’d need to bring home something, anything. A pound of flesh, some result that would convince whoever hired him it was worth the investment. He may have lost the girl, but finding the money would be one big payoff.

  “I told you we should’ve hit Roman’s.” I said it like that was all he was going to get. “I would have never gone on this chopper ride, man.”

  “Pah. They told me you could find anybody.”

  “Boston’s not my turf,” I said. “Washington, neither.”

  The Bronx skyline shimmered on the water like a glassy mosaic. The captain had no problem working with the FBI. He handed the files over to me. I waited two cigarettes long while Myers argued with the DD/I, then his two team members jumped into their car and sped off. I drove Myers back to his car. We were almost there, but when he said that shit about needing a drink, I detoured to a dark rum place. I wasn’t looking for any hidden truths this time. I was stalling. I was just trying to put it off. Somehow I didn’t want to let Myers out of my sight. The thought of him disappearing, taking everything with him. I was damn sure now I needed that sense of resolution I had been putting off. Had nothing to do with her. If I let him vanish now, I would never be sure that he wouldn’t pop up again someday.

  The slow game was over. No more stakeouts informers insiders to build pathways to the top, no slow steady progress to “the man.” The FBI raided the files. They claimed every name every location, sent rats scurrying with wide sweeps. Went with the big show. Caps and jackets. FBI, DEA, ATF, all like husky fans in football parkas. They stormed up stairs, they pounded down doors. The department decided not to be outdone and launched their own HIGH-PROFILE DRUG RAID NEWS AT TEN reporters mass arrests cameras ratings sweeps. They were the big noise I was the small noise. I was good cop bad cop, I was give-it-a-shot-for-one-more-day cop, lost in the rush of blue uniforms and flak jackets.

  Where was Myers? His agents went one way, he went the other. There were two FBI agents posted at my office door. The yellout between the captain and I had nothing to do with any of it. It was something that was a long time coming. When words tapered off, we stared and saw past each other. Planting my shield on that desk would be a formality. The captain was staring at a dead man. “At least try to put on a good show,” he said.

  Where was Anderson? Jackson Avenue, raiding Wiggie’s. A bad hallucinatory film. The ranks of them storming through smoky storefront glass

  what about when they’re coming for me

  flooding the street blue? Me running into an old theater like Lee Harvey Oswald, sitting there staring flickering images waiting for the moment when they turn off the film, waiting for the moment to spring. One fed two feds when have I ever seen so many feds in one place?

  A loud crash. Spray of glass. A rolling cloud of dirt. Anderson came at me through a crowd of flak-jacketed G-men. He wore the wide smile of a winner, a man in charge. The political front runner, the one who makes things go. He shook my hand, he escorted me through chaos glass and dirt to a place of words.

  “What an amazing job you’ve done on these files,” he said while I was cigarette cigarette, how had I forgotten all this time about having a smoke? I shuffled I shifted I searched my pockets. “Quite an interesting narrative. Interesting characters and situations. It’s almost like reading Balzac, except this is all real.” A boom and a crash. Fifteen agents stormed into Wiggie’s garage after tearing down the riot gate. When that one perfect white cigarette rolled free to tumble from some pocket somewhere, I went down after it. Picked it up off the sidewalk. Needing a smoke had nothing to do with dignity. A quick flick. Light. Draw. The deep exhale. Anderson was still talking and, I’m sorry, what was the question? I didn’t know what was on his mind or how he was planning to approach me. I could only see this mass of police machinery flooding this petty storefront. All that work to get to know what was happening behind the scenes now useless—connections, talkers, watchers, all fled to hole up somewhere else.

  “I didn’t have time to warn them,” I said.

  “You’re a strange cop. Compiling your stories as if it’s not this very ending they’re supposed to have. This is the culmination of your years of police work. This is the final result, what it all leads to.”

  Twisted. The very fibers. No nation no flag could ever explain away. The feeling between. Wiggie dragged and pulled arms pinned behind they were trying to duck his head down to force him into the van when he looked across he looked past his eyes locked directly with mine. He took a spit that got him bapped in the face, forced down, shoved into. A scramble of arms and legs. Thump and screaming.

  Myers gone missing. Why am I holding the bag? What’s in the bag? This started with a murder investigation, a double murder, can I make that point? What was the most important thing here? All this noise, all this empty show.

  “There’s nothing here,” I said, stepping up to bat. “You’ve got nothing on these people.”

  “They’ll all have their day in court.” Anderson frowned. “And you? Is it going to take a subpoena?”

  Now came the dizzy slow, the hit the bang the almost blackout. I was suddenly lying in the tub. Hot foamy water, churning bubbles. A warm hum. She was lying with her arms behind her head, sheen of soap film making her breasts seem sprinkled with glitter
. Her eyes: a calm dark radiance. She had packed her bags at the last minute and it was 4 a.m. and nobody cared. Started with the jangle jingle of that new ankle bracelet and newly lacquered toenails. Hibiscus oils and rose incense. There were flower petals on the bed.

  “Are you sure we have to do it like this?”

  The one time she asked. We weren’t using condoms anymore. I could stay inside her all after. Straight through to the second time after these slow talking moments. These touching moments, these soft slow—“Yes,” I said.

  “And what if something goes wrong?”

  “Nothing will go wrong.” I could tell that just by looking in her eyes. “In a week I come and meet you for our vacation. Just like we planned.”

  Sun. Sand. Beach. Spanish. Houses sold to foreigners on very favorable terms. We weren’t using condoms anymore. I could stay inside her all after.

  “We’re trying to have a kid,” I said.

  The clamor of agents and megaphones. The beep of a truck backing up. Another crash. I didn’t want to look at the people being pulled out, I didn’t want to see them. Watching Wiggie take a spit at me was enough. It was a cold strange feeling, a far deeper alone sense than any I’d ever had. Suddenly I wanted OUT, I wanted to tell Anderson everything because there had to be ONE PERSON one at least some place some fear, some big fear came and I think Anderson saw it on my face.

  “If you can get a subpoena,” I said, because I couldn’t tell him shit. I wouldn’t trust him, I couldn’t. I would talk to him “after,” not “before.” He might talk me out of it. He might insist there is a way for the system to deal with system-bred errors like Myers. It was a faith the bastard was pushing, a belief system. A fraud.

  “When I first noticed Myers’s interest in you, I figured it was just another in a long list of aberrations, the trademarks of his psychotic mind at work.”

  The room was warm, the lights too bright. There was a pack of cigarettes on the table. There seemed to be no conditions attached to them, but I fought the urge to have one. I thought about Myers talking about scopolamine. They could put that shit in cigarettes.

  Anderson sat across from me in the “after.” He ripped open three packs of sugar and poured them into his coffee. He had brought me a cup but I hadn’t touched that either.

  “It turns out, Myers hooked onto you for a reason.”

  The cassette recorder was also sitting on the table. I could look right into it, see the tiny tape spools spinning slow and methodical.

  “I’m not planning on making a statement,” I said.

  “Humor me. I’m lousy at taking notes.”

  “You told me you just wanted to talk.”

  “That’s all,” Anderson said. “And look. Whenever we want.” He shut off the machine with a click. “See that?” He switched it on again. “Whenever we want.”

  I looked in his face and I saw Myers. Good guys bad guys. Nobody plays fair when everybody’s looking to cut a deal. The wheel kept spinning. It lit up with colors as it turned, that glowing silver disc in the juke box. Anthony Santos: “CORAZóN CULPABLE.” Why this simple bachata song was dogging me I’ll never know. From place to place I could hear its strains, its insistent chorus coming at me from open windows, from passing cars, up and down stairwells and even here in this nowhere bar: “Yo sé lo que fué.” I had brief manic Vonnegut dreams. “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” I was with Anderson, I was with Myers. Two different moments on the same page.

  The drink was rum, straight. Not so much bandage now as liquid courage.

  “I can get the APB, I can get the coverage. Train stations, airports, bus terminals. So what? With the FBI in the picture, we get screwed the moment they find her.”

  “Myers. You’re doing it again. She knows those tricks, man.”

  “So what? Am I giving up now? Whose side are you on?”

  “You think that matters so much now? You ran off to chase a blip this morning and didn’t listen to me. I’ve been totally straight with you, but you didn’t listen!”

  Those Myers eyes. A dark shiny radiance, indecision mixed with regret. All those bad decisions. How one mistake follows another mistake follows another.

  “It’s true,” he said.

  “You can chase after her. You may even catch her one day, but you won’t get the money. Isn’t that why you came to begin with? She’s forcing you to make that choice.”

  He was looking up at me from the bottom of a well.

  “One or the other, Myers. You can’t have both.”

  He seemed to slowly grip himself. A dawning realization.

  “You’ve got to make a choice,” I said. Hadn’t I just lit that cigarette? I stamped out the fire, I crushed out the light. “I can’t lead you to the girl.”

  Myers tipped his head a moment, as if he had somehow discerned the high-pitched note of a transmitter. I was taking him back to Julio’s, a hazy rum flashback. The rhythm of the congas slowed the heartbeat. I thought back to the moment I’d asked him about David and Anthony Rosario. His face had gone blank, no flicker of recognition. How shrunken small they had become. Collectible homies from a gumball machine.

  “You made a deal with Myers?”

  (Even Anderson skips past the Rosarios, no matter how much I try and bring them in.)

  “I only told him I couldn’t lead him to the girl,” I said. “The rest of the math he did himself.”

  “And who gave him the idea you’d know where the money is?”

  I thought of Ava Reynolds. I thought of the can of worms I would open if I mentioned her. Would Anderson know she was the one who led Myers to me? He sure was no poker face. He couldn’t be playing the same hand as Myers.

  “I gave him the idea,” I said.

  The rum had its effect.

  “She was just a bait to lure you away from the money,” I said. “The money is hidden in the bowels of the old Majestic Theater on Van Cortlandt. The captain wants a nice highprofile raid from the department side. We can give it to him. While the lieutenant and his boys are making the big splash, you and I can settle this.”

  There was nothing broken about Myers now. Maybe the rum had fired up his blood, lit up his mind. Maybe he was at his best at times like these, when things go wrong and he has to do the dodge ball. The dark glassy aspect to his eyes had nothing weak about it. He tossed back that shot and laughed.

  “Yeah, right. As if it would even be there.”

  “It’s there all right.”

  “Really. And it’s going to sit there all snug and patient and wait until you and the entire New York City police force just walk in and get it?”

  “That’s right.”

  (Light another cigarette. Make a lot of smoke.)

  “And this Roman guy, he’s just going to sit tight and let you?”

  “Sit tight.” I laughed. “That’s exactly right. Sit tight. I like that.” I laughed again, Myers cocking his head, not getting it. “Myers, there is only one person directly linked to the money right now, and that person is Roman. I told you I saw him yesterday.”

  “So?”

  “So after he told me where the money was, I couldn’t let him go. He might disappear with the money, or just disappear, and I might need him. The FBI won’t need scopolamine to get him to talk.”

  Now Myers started laughing. Then he stopped. “Get the fuck.” It was dawning on him now. “You didn’t.”

  I shrugged, puffing on the cigarette. “I beat him, I cuffed him, I threw him in my car.” Right in front of his boys, redfaced and confused. Were they supposed to do something? You wanna do something? I’M A COP! I’d screamed. “I took him someplace I know, someplace safe.”

  “You’re trying to shit me, Sanchez.”

  “Tied him up, hand and foot. Gaffer’s for his mouth. There’s an old bed in an old shed. Isn’t that a country song?”

  “You should stop trying to shit me, man, because—”

  I dropped the two Polaroids on the table. One was of Roman’s face befo
re I taped his mouth. The other was of him gagged and bound and lying in the bed. An old bed in an old shed. I tried to sing the tune but couldn’t quite hit it. Myers stared at the pictures, eyes disbelieving, mouth twisted to mock. His head slowly shook no no no.

  “Where do you have him?”

  “Like I would tell you. Every person connected to the money in this case has been murdered. You’re the last person I would tell.”

  “Fuck you, Sanchez. You ain’t got shit.”

  “Actually, I do got shit. I got ten million. I guess that’s the last thing left that can save your case. I mean, short of you eliminating every trace this ever happened—but the FBI is on it now. It might be better for you to turn up with the money. Give you some collateral. You can set yourself up again. Choice choice choice, it seems every time we end up talking about this choice you have to make. You can choose not to believe me. I can choose to go to the FBI.”

  Myers eyes glass. Spacey. “Why don’t you?”

  Slow grin. “I’m Puerto Rican,” I said. “I don’t like the FBI.”

  Myers smile vague. I could tell he was working all the variables. He could probably hand me over to the FBI, show I was involved, give them my information about where the money was. But that meant the FBI would get it. He could put a bullet in my head anyway, collapse the case, wipe the traces and vanish—but no money, no guarantee of getting it if anything should happen to me. Outside of Roman, I was the last direct link to the money. And I had denied him Roman.

  “The classic Daffy Duck conundrum: Should I shoot him now, or wait until I get home?” His eyes went blank, empty. “I should just shoot you now, should I shoot you now? A place like this, people won’t even turn around. A simple dispute between cops … Look, okay, okay.” Myers seemed like a person having a three-way argument, interrupting himself to interrupt himself. “Fine, fine, look—okay, I’ll do this, I’ll do it your way, but on this one condition. If for some reason the money isn’t there—” “It’ll be there.”

  “—if it isn’t there, then I want Roman. You give me Roman, understand?”