by Pete Hamill
Then one afternoon she got a babysitter for Nicole, right here in the loft on Greene Street, and filled half a jelly jar with Del Monte fruit cocktail, put about forty pills in her pocket and a driver’s license, and went off to join the skanks in Tompkins Square Park. The cops found her body hours later. Bent over on a bench with broken slats. No note. No farewell. Then cremation. Another sorry fucking tale that started in the 1960s and ended in the 1970s.
In the Paris bistro, Briscoe signaled to the waiter to bring fresh coffee.
–Where was I? Nicole said.
–After that night, you were at my mother’s house in Sunset Park. In Brooklyn.
–And where were you?
–When your mother died? Covering the Democratic convention in Miami. I flew home as soon as the call reached me at the hotel.
–That’s why we moved here to Paris?
–A few years later. Yes. After my mother died. Remember? She was helping take care of you.
Her jaw slack, Nicole stared out at the street in St.-Germain-des-Prés.
–It’s so sad.
–It is, he said.
She turned and buried her head in his shoulder.
–Oh, Daddy.
–It’s okay, baby, he whispered, while a few people stared at them. We get over almost everything.
We still do, he thinks. And gets up.
12:40 p.m. Ali Watson. Castle Bar, Livonia Avenue, Brooklyn.
He watches the street from a high plastic stool at the front end of the long bar, sipping a beer. Everyone is black. The bartender is large, young, mustached, his skin the color of coffee with lots of milk. His skull is shaved, and he talks with a small group at the far end of the bar. He is polite with Ali, but he knows a cop when he sees one. Ali slides off the stool and stands. The bartender walks toward him. The guys at the other end are silent.
–Take care, Ali says, and moves two singles toward the bartender. The tip.
–Yeah, the bartender says, and watches Ali leave.
Ali steps into the cold air, and turns right toward the far corner. Across the street when he was a boy there was a gymnasium on the second floor. All the Jewish gangsters went there to watch their properties in action. The last years of Jewish fighters. A guy named Bummy Davis was one of the fighters and he got killed going after some dumbbell who stuck up a bar. All of the players were gone by the time Ali was born, so Ali didn’t know the location of the bar. But everybody knew the story. He talked with his partner about it once, but Malachy Devlin had never heard of Bummy Davis. Then, one morning at the JTTF, he arrived in a state of excitement.
–Ali, that Bummy Davis you told me about? Last night, there was a show about him on ESPN. Couldn’t believe it.
–I wish I’d seen it, Ali said.
–I tried to call you, but—
The gym was a Baptist church when Ali was a teenager, and now it was a mosque. A very special mosque. Services were held in the wide-open space of the vanished second-floor gym. Young men moving on polished wooden floors, slamming heavy bags, turning speed bags into blurs, others boxing in a ring: the stuff of neighborhood legends, now replaced by prayer mats and submission to Allah. Mary Lou wondered why free men would bow to someone who wasn’t there and he could never explain to her why even he had once done the same. It was like trying to explain the myth of Midnight Rose’s, the candy store where the killers from Murder, Inc. met each night, down under the El at Saratoga and Livonia. The hit men loved egg creams and sharp clothes and killing people for a living. Laughing all the way. Or so the tale went.
When he took Mary Lou around Brownsville he told her about the place, and she asked, “What’s an egg cream?” Like someone from Minnesota. He had to explain that it was a soft drink, but didn’t have eggs in it, and she didn’t get it until finally he took her to the Gem Spa on Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan and she sipped her first egg cream, thick with milk and chocolate syrup and seltzer water, and said, “I don’t care what they call it. It’s great.”
Nobody has entered or left the mosque now in an hour. Drifters move along the avenue, passing the front door, lost in a fog of heroin or meth. For sure, not one of them longs for egg creams or for Allah.
Ali crosses the street quickly and walks to the door of the mosque. Blinds drawn within windows and the door. He rings a buzzer hard. Then again. Then knocks. It doesn’t matter who is watching him now. They know he’s a cop. Nobody comes to the door.
He walks to the corner and makes a right, heading for the lots behind the row of buildings. There are two rusting shells of automobiles in the space behind the mosque. And tire tracks in the mud, backing up, turning. He moves to the side, to avoid leaving his own footprints in the mud, and goes to the back door. Locked. He tries knocking again, sensing that nobody will answer. Thinking: Two mosques in one morning, without leaving Brooklyn. I should score some points with Allah. Inshallah.
He uses a Visa card to spring the lock, thinking: Too easy, then takes out his pistol, listens, and steps inside. The door has a wide, thick metal bar across it, but it’s not wedged into its slot. Someone has left and couldn’t close it from outside.
The lights are out, but he can see the large shapes in the leaking grayness of the rooms. He listens. There are the usual creaks from old buildings but no human sounds. No footsteps. No breathing. And yet he feels that someone is here. He moves forward on tiptoe. Pauses. Listens. Moves again, heading to where he knows the stairway is, and the living quarters where the imam named Aref seethes with daily bitterness. Ali has visited him over the years, as part of the job. To let him know he was being watched. Felt the anger that was never spoken. Put him on the master list. He might actually be here. Hidden in a bathroom. Lying flat in the large room upstairs. Holding a pistol. Ready to repel infidels. Or more likely: he drove away in the automobile that left tracks in the mud. Or—
He peers into the living quarters and flicks on a tiny flashlight. Bedclothes unrumpled on the narrow cot. Nothing in the sink of the small kitchen. No water on the floor of the stall shower. Some newspapers in English and Arabic. No signs of a woman or children, no clothes, schoolbooks, or toys. Aref chose to live in purgatory.
Ali goes up the stairs. A few steps creak. Nothing creaks back. He steps into Allah’s gymnasium.
There’s a body on the floor against the far wall. Lying on its back. There are two toppled lockers to the right of the body, their doors open. Ali lets his pistol hang loose at his side and takes out his cell phone. He moves closer to the body while dialing Malachy Devlin. He looks down at the body. It’s Aref, all right. His face has been battered, but it’s him. Blood spreads beneath his head like spilled paint.
–Hey, partner, Malachy says. What’s up?
–I’m in Aref’s friendly neighborhood mosque. He’s here on the floor, dead.
–Jesus.
–Call everybody, starting with the precinct. I’ll let them in.
–Right.
–And in my files, there’s a folder on my son, Malik. With photos. We have to put out a bulletin. Wanted for questioning. The whole Northeast. Use his photograph. Have an artist make a version without his beard or mustache. I think Malik might be driving the imam’s car. And shit, maybe I’m nuts. It could be some other guy. But look in Aref’s file. Get the make and license plate. Pass that on to everyone, starting with NYPD. Bridges. Tunnels. Arrest whoever the fuck is driving.
He glances at the toppled lockers.
–Ali, is this—
–I don’t know anything for sure. It could be about my wife. And the Harding woman. Or just about this asshole Aref. But it could get even worse than a double homicide. We need the bomb-squad guys here. Technical guys. The whole enchilada.
–Right.
–Later.
Ali hangs up. He goes to a wall switch and turns on the lights. He glances down at Aref, whose eyes are wide in shock. He turns toward the shrouded windows. Malik, he says out loud. I’m coming for your ass.
1:0
5 p.m. Consuelo Mendoza. Sunset Park.
At last, Norma is gone. The babysitting is done, and the talking is over. The older boy will be home in an hour, and now it is only Consuelo and little Timoteo. The four-year-old is watching a cartoon on television, his face serious, his intelligent brown eyes taking in everything, but seeming to doubt what they are seeing. Consuelo is cooking lunch for herself and the little one. Beef patties from the market on La Quinta. Bought two days ago, when she still had a job. Carrots. Boiled potatoes. Avoiding grease. Trying to look normal.
But Consuelo is taut and jittery with confused emotions. She remembers the details of the morning with Señor Lewis and the images of the past that the visit called up in her, the bedroom in Cuernavaca, the girl she was then, the wild passion of her young flesh, the way she felt about this man who was even then un gringo viejo. She had told Raymundo about Señor Lewis long ago, but certainly not all of what had happened. She would never tell him any of that. Even if he asked, she would lie. Men never understand.
She remembers the one named Jerry, the bald one behind the desk at the Chelsea Hotel, and how he asked her to step around to the side, behind the desk, so that nobody in the lobby could see her. And he handed her the sealed envelope.
–Now you have to hide this, Jerry said. Under your clothes. Don’t let anyone see it. Don’t open it until you get home, okay? That’s what Mr. Forrest says. Okay?
–Okay, she said, and turned away and stuffed the thick envelope under her belt. Then she went out into the dark morning and headed for the N train.
All the way to Brooklyn she worried that the envelope would slip. She clasped her hands on her waist, as if she had a tummyache, and tried even harder than usual to look ordinary, to look homely, to look unlikely to be carrying anything of value. The daytime crowd on the subway was less tense than the one at night. A dirty black man was sleeping in a corner seat, three lumpy plastic bags at his feet. Four standing schoolboys laughed and joked, joked and laughed. A uniformed cop leaned against a door. All the way to Sunset Park.
She let herself in with a key, and Norma called from the kitchen, where little Timoteo was staring into the yard. Smiles, laughs, a hug of her thighs from the boy. Consuelo took off her coat and stepped into the bathroom. Closed the door. She removed the envelope, laid it behind jars and small bottles inside the medicine cabinet. Later. Open it after Norma leaves.
Now she’s gone, with besos y abrazos, and the boy is eating. Consuelo goes into the bathroom, takes the envelope, uses her forefinger to open it.
And sees bills.
Not dollar bills.
She slides one out. Crisp and new. It’s a hundred-dollar bill. She has never held one before. She takes the others in thumb and forefinger. She begins to count. They are all hundred-dollar bills. Fifty of them.
Ay, Dios mío.
She holds the bills in her right hand and grips the bathroom sink with her left.
Ay, Señor Lewis.
Ay…
1:15 p.m. Malik Shahid. FDR Drive, Manhattan.
He is again playing a bored young man without cares, as he drives the Lexus uptown on the FDR. All the lanes are jammed, moving slowly uptown and down. The window open an inch. Hot in the car, with his coat. And the vest underneath. The holy vest.
To his right, the river is gray and dirty, with only a few small boats moving on its surface. In a narrow park, three flags are stiff with wind, blowing east toward Queens on the far side of the river. The gas gauge shows a quarter of a tank. Enough. No need to show his face at a gas station. The tire iron back there, in a Brownsville lot. The gun—He sees a police car in the middle lane on the downtown side, red lights turning, trying to push through to an exit. Lots of luck, assholes. Malik can’t push through, so why should they?
He knows that by now someone may have found Aref. Someone else with a key. A wife. A member. Maybe a cop. So what? By the time they get going, he thinks, I’ll be lost again. And I only need hours now to do what I have to do tonight.
He did look for a surveillance camera, out back of the mosque in Brownsville. But he realized a true search would take too much time. He jammed the tire iron in his waistband. Then got in easily: by knocking on the back door. He stared at the Lexus for a long moment, then knocked again. Aref answered. He didn’t recognize Malik with a smooth hairless face. Malik smiled and talked and used Arabic, and Aref remembered and led him inside. Malik said he just wanted to pray. Aref seemed skeptical but they went up together to the big prayer room. It was empty. Malik confronted him.
–Where’s the stuff? he said.
–What stuff?
–The stuff that goes bang.
Aref shook his head, speaking his own version of Jamal’s speech.
–That’s over, he said. We’re Americans now. All of us, Malik.
–Yeah. Until they come to arrest you.
–Maybe you should leave now.
–Maybe not.
Malik took the tire iron from his belt, hefted it, placed it under Aref’s nose.
–Is it in one of those lockers?
–Go look.
Malik shoved him toward the two tall lockers. With his free hand he opened the door of the one on the left. Prayer mats. Some clothes. No canvas bag with its precious contents.
He tried the second locker. Also unlocked. Same stuff. Then his rage took over. He grabbed each locker in turn and jerked it away from the wall. Both made metallic crushing sounds against the polished floor.
Fear rose on Aref’s face. Which is what Malik wanted to see. Aref glanced at the ceiling. Malik understood.
–Where’s the ladder? he said.
Aref said nothing, and stepped past the fallen lockers and opened a closet door. There was a ladder, along with buckets, brooms, two mops. Malik stared at the ceiling, and saw a small ring in a depressed circle.
–Go up and get it, Malik said in a low voice.
Aref did what he was told. He climbed the ladder and pulled on the ceiling ring. A hinged panel opened. He reached in, swung around, and held a dark blue canvas bag.
–Now hand it down, Malik said. Gently.
Aref came down several steps and passed the bag to Malik, who grabbed it with his free hand. His eyes on Aref, Malik hugged the bag with the hand holding the tire iron, and pulled the zipper open with his other hand. Peered into the bag. Felt his blood pulse as he saw what he had hoped for. Closed the bag. And Aref began to run for the door.
Malik dropped the bag and went after him. Wrapped an arm around his neck. Turned Aref violently. And smashed the tire iron against the side of his head. The older man made an incoherent sound, full of shock and fatalism, and fell to the floor. Malik smashed the front of his face. Once, twice, then again. He waited. The older man did not move. Did not breathe.
–Stupid motherfucker! Why’d you do that?
There was no answer. Malik hurried to the blue bag. Unzipped it. Laid the tire iron on the floor. Then lifted out the black polyester object within. Opened it to its full width. Saw the hooks and cords, the small gray device with a white button. Saw the canvas slots snug with red bars. He glanced at Aref, who was not moving. Then he slipped off his coat and tied the vest across his chest and pulled his coat over it. Time to go.
He returned to Aref, and went through his trouser pockets until he found the car keys. And two twenty-dollar bills. He whipped off a scarf from Aref’s neck and wrapped the tire iron in it and then headed down the stairs.
Thinking: Gotta be a gun here somewheres. Into the small bedroom. Feeling around. Lifted the mattress. There it was. A .38, like his so-called father used to have. Loaded.
And now he’s in the Lexus on the FDR, East River Drive, heading to East Harlem, to a parking lot he used back in the day. The .38 under his ass. He sees people in other cars smoking cigarettes, using cell phones, texting on BlackBerrys. They’re all going somewhere. To see wives and friends or friendly neighborhood pushers. Malik is heading for the night. For the finale. Thinking: It’s just me now. M
e and Allah. My woman Glorious is dead. My son is dead without ever breathing the air of the world. My infidel bitch of a mother is dead. Her rich blonde motherfucking slave owner is dead. Now Aref is dead, and I’m driving his Lexus. He was dead before I killed him. An imam with a Lexus: that’s why he’s dead.
Thinking: More people will be dead before the midnight hour. Including me. Around the world tomorrow, millions will celebrate when they hear the news. They will pray for me. They will call to me in Paradise.
Now I have my tools. All I need. Now I go on, alone.
1:35 p.m. Helen Loomis. South Street Seaport.
She is out at the end of the pier, in wool hat, long down coat, boots. Smoking a cigarette, her back to the wind. She is alone. Nobody else smokes anymore. Below her, the East River swirls and eddies, the water opaque. A lone gull flies a tour of inspection, searching for scraps to be shared by the sheltering flock. A tug moves north to pass under the bridges, heading for the Bronx. Off to her right, she can see the four masts of the Peking. She knows it was built in 1911 because she wrote about it for the World when two dopes dressed as pirates tried to rob it. There are no people on the wooden deck. Directly behind her is the three-story mall, full of shops, a kind of nautical theme park for people from out of town. Inside, she could have been in Des Moines. Some shops were closed for good. Others catered to the few customers. They were offering maps, New York souvenirs, cheap little versions of the Statue of Liberty or the World Trade Center or the skyline. Junk destined for garage sales in distant cities.
But back there, behind her, a short walk under the FDR Drive, into the square that is now perfectly cobblestoned and perfectly empty, was the place where every Friday was a good Friday: Sloppy Louie’s. She sees them now, all of them, loud and laughing and cocking a hoot at the world. They ordered the freshest fish in New York, cod and fluke and halibut, still icy from the fish market up past the square. They made fun of everybody, including themselves. Newspapermen.
The whole thing is shuttered now. The fish market is gone to the Bronx. The aroma of fish replaced by the exhaust of stalled cars on the Drive.