by Susan Daitch
Jacky’s had been on Fifth Street for decades, but it had only a month left before the rent was due to be tripled, and it would close. Marnie was on to her second gin and tonic, I estimated, when I walked in. She often said that she had a hollow leg, and I’ve found this to be true, but I also hoped that she wasn’t mixing gin with Klonopin. Marnie was beautiful without trying, regardless of what she did on impulse: cut her hair really short, get eighteen piercings along the edge of one ear so its rim glittered with fake rubies, eat only carrots for a week till her skin turned yellow; it didn’t matter. Legs bare from the bottom of her black miniskirt to her gunmetal high-tops with red laces, she was already entertaining two guys, who were listening patiently while she told the story of the time she did a light show for a band that she actually hated but the drummer kept hitting on her while she was working and nearly caused a whole line of lights to come crashing down.
“And then, this is really messed up, but the pyrotechnics guy was a real ass. I mean, if I’m high half the time he’s full-time, you know what I mean? And he nearly burned the Bowery Ballroom down. Hey, Stella! You look awful. This is—what are your names again?”
“Luke.”
“Roy.”
“Stella, meet Cool Hand Luke and Judge Roy Bean. Roy and Luke, meet Stella Dallas.”
The Paul Newman and Barbara Stanwyck movie references were lost on Roy and Luke. I’d never seen them at Jacky’s before, but that wasn’t necessarily significant. Jacky’s had once been a sports bar and, as if clinging to an old driver’s license, still had a collection of baseball bobbleheads going back to very early Willie Mays and Roger Maris on a shelf above the bar. The block changed and changed a few more times, the sports bar gave way to people like Marnie and me, and we, in turn, were being displaced by a crowd that fetishsized the drinks of our parents’ generation, oddly enough. Trendier bars were encroaching and would take over.
“Have I seen you before?” Roy asked. It wasn’t a line. He sounded genuine, but I didn’t think he was a buyer or a seller from Claiborne’s. He was wearing a purple NYU Law T-shirt. Luke’s was gray and read BQE. Marnie traced N-Y-U on Roy’s chest, then asked Luke if he went to Brooklyn-Queens Expressway University. Only Marnie could say this in a way that was utterly charming rather than insulting.
Luke scrolled through his phone and held up an image of the Daily News. My picture was a small square embedded at the bottom of the front page, which he helpfully enlarged.
“You got fired!” Marnie screamed. “This next round is on me.”
“Marnie, could we please not talk about it?”
They read about the heist on their phones anyway. In an effort to change the subject, I asked Luke and Roy what they did.
“I do intellectual property law, copyright-infringement cases—that kind of thing,” said Roy.
“So if I find I’m working on a forgery you’re the guy to call,” I said.
“You are Judge Roy Bean!” Marnie’s voice went up an octave. Roy looked uncomfortable. “Stella, what do you care if it’s a forgery? You’re just paid to make sure it looks good.”
“I don’t restore or interfere. I try to save what’s already there.”
“I’m not the one you call, then.” Roy looked contrite. “I’m disappointed.”
“You can call me.” Marnie put her arm around Roy, and he looked quite recovered.
“Let’s say an artist included an image of a mouse in his painting,” Roy said. “It’s not Mickey Mouse, exactly, but it kind of looks like Mickey. The ears are different if you look closely, but the snout is very Mickeyish. Disney certainly thinks so, and they’re extremely litigious. How much of the mouse can be seen as Disney, and how much is the artist’s own invention? Disney is very aggressive. They gobble up art that they even suspect of being derivative. To say they have a huge legal department is an understatement. I defend the little guy.”
With a totally straight face, Luke, Mr. BQE, said that he was a tenant relocator. Everyone laughed. Including a stranger standing within earshot. “That’s why I need a lawyer.” He jerked his head in Roy’s direction. There was an awkward silence, and I got the feeling Marnie wanted us to disappear so she could be alone with “the judge.” I took the hint, so when Luke’s eyes wandered to the dartboard at the back of the bar, and he asked me if I wanted to play, I said sure.
I have pretty good hand-eye coordination, and couldn’t do my work as well as I do if that weren’t the case, but Luke’s game was outstanding. He was scoring doubles and triples, while I was lucky if I landed in the yellow or black outer rings. I watched him stand sideways to the wall, so that his throwing arm and his eye were aligned, spine straight, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before he threw. Only his arm and his hand followed through to the throw. He never blinked. He was totally cool.
When we returned to the bar, Roy and Marnie were nowhere to be seen.
“Your friend got lucky,” I said. I wondered if they were headed to Roy’s place, wherever that was, and imagined a loft full of paintings of Disney characters. Marnie’s was just around the corner, but she may not have cleaned in several weeks. We had another drink. Luke didn’t offer to pay; maybe tenant relocating was going through a slow period. I put paint-tinged cash on the bar, and asked if he could clean the bills. Cool Hand checked his phone quite a bit. What is quite a bit? Since everyone does this all the time, I’m not sure. Marnie’s highs can be infectious, and maybe I wanted his undivided attention, or thought I did. It was clear that his undivided wasn’t exactly forthcoming, so I decided it was time to head home. He offered to walk me to my door, but I said I’d be okay. Then I leaned over, tapped my number on his phone, and told him to call me. I kissed him good night, then was on my way.
As I walked, I imagined him drinking alone or picking up someone else, but then so what? He had my number. I was feeling absurdly hopeful. It was great never to have to go back to Claiborne’s. Luke would call me in the morning, I would find another job, I would get a rescue dog I’d been planning to adopt for years but my hours at Claiborne’s made it difficult. I would move, change my name. Ashby would never find me. Now I could do whatever I wanted to. Life would go on.
The entrance to my ground-floor apartment has two doors. The first one is an iron grille just under the stairs that go up to the brownstone’s first floor, where my landlady lives. The space under the stairs serves as a vestibule, where the mail drops through a slot in the wrought iron. Here I leave boots, hang jackets. The second door is locked more seriously than the curly iron gate, and leads to the apartment itself. The motion-sensitive light was out, but I could feel my way in the dark. There was something taped to the inner door. It felt like an envelope. My landlady was still in Florida. Only she had the key to the outer door. When I got into the hall, I turned on the light. No name or address on the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven brown envelope that was taped to the inner door. It was completely blank.
Inside were three photographs. The first one was of me leaving Claiborne’s, carrying all my stuff; in the second, I was listening to my messages; and in the third I was asleep on my bed.
I ran out into the street, which was L-shaped and without a lot of streetlight coverage at night. The street had eyes, but I didn’t know where they were. A row of garbage cans housed in a wooden structure could easily hide an average-size person. The sound of metal on metal scraping came from under a stoop. I ran. Parked cars seemed unoccupied, but it was too dark to know for certain. Anticipation of horror is like inhaling caustic, noxious fumes. You don’t know exactly where the vat of acid is located, underfoot or overhead; you just know that it has your name on it. The photographer who watched me leave work, unlock the door to my apartment—where else had he seen me? When had the surveillance started? Fear eats at the soul. My street was a minefield. I was running, but it felt as if my feet stuck to the pavement and lifted only in acute slow motion. I ran toward the avenue, which, even at this hour, would be better lit. There was a twenty-four-hour
bodega across the street, if I could make it that far.
I wasn’t going to make it that far.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Stella.”
It wasn’t a question. The hand shoved me hard and fast, then pushed me toward a black unmarked car.
“Don’t turn around. Move quickly.” I was swung fast, but, still holding on to my keys, without looking I slammed the guy in the jaw but was easily overpowered and shoved into his car in a matter of minutes.
My kidnapper looked more like someone who had just arrived from Marrakech than from his actual point of origin, which was the Bronx. Complete with square diamond earrings that stuck out like headlights: Demetrius Pitt. He rubbed his jaw. I rubbed my arm where it had been twisted.
“What’s going on? You have an unusual way of making an arrest.”
“No, Stella. I’m off the case. I’m off everything. I’m about to be suspended and probably fired, but I have maybe a day left before the news trickles to the rest of the department. I want to show you something.”
We got into the car. The pictures spilled out of my hands and onto the floor as he lurched from his double-parked spot and turned into Nostrand Avenue.
“Is that why you didn’t call ahead?”
“I don’t have your number.” This was nonsense. The police had all my information.
“It exists. It’s not hard to find. You found my address.”
“Somebody leave you a greeting card?” He pointed to the pictures I was picking up off the floor.
“If only you’d been a few minutes earlier.”
“Maybe I was.”
“Did you see anyone break in, tape this to my door?”
“I guess I wasn’t that early. Story of my life.”
I handed him the envelope, and for a moment he stopped driving as if he worked for Nascar.
“It looks like the photographer was staking out Claiborne’s for the thieves—and there must have been a group of them in order to steal the painting and move the body, all within about fifteen minutes. For perverse reasons, some organizations like to document the aftermath—what and when the police do what they do. It helps them stay one step ahead. The photographer must have seen you leave Claiborne’s, then tailed you home, I would guess. You saw the face of one of them. You’re a huge liability.”
“This is not comforting.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Why didn’t they kill me when they had a chance? Why shoot film when you can shoot the person.”
“This I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.”
We turned down Flatbush Avenue. There wasn’t much traffic at that hour, but when we encountered even a little congestion he turned on the siren.
“Suspicion of rigging evidence to secure a conviction.” He said this as if he were giving traffic directions, calm and noncommittal. It was a foolish question on my part, but half of me was still playing darts at Jacky’s Fifth Amendment, and half was still running away from my apartment. My brain hadn’t yet caught up with the Stella Da Silva who was in an apparently unmarked police car racing down Flatbush Avenue Extension. How Demetrius was still able to use this vehicle I didn’t ask.
“So why are you jumping ship? Or were you pushed?”
“You know I’m not going to answer that question.”
“As a detective you know who did it, but you don’t want to rat out the rat who’s been tampering with evidence.”
I’d hit a nerve, and Demetrius’s mood changed on a dime. He accelerated, and I braced my hands against the dashboard.
“Where are we going?” I had thought Demetrius’s sudden appearance was like being thrown a lifeline, but if he was off the force there was no reason to believe he was pulling me to shore.
“You’ll see.”
“You’ll see? That’s not very reassuring. How about I jump out at the next light.” All the doors were automatically locked. I wasn’t going anywhere.
We were close to the river, driving through the Farragut projects, past twenty-four-hour check cashing, Naval Uniforms and Supplies Depot. Demetrius drove into the castlelike Sands Street Gate entrance of the Navy Yard, down Fourth Street, and parked near one of the dry docks. The Navy Yard is a combination of use and decay. A billboard from the seventies still read, BUILDERS OF THE WORLD’S MIGHTIEST WAR SHIPS.
He got out of the car, and we walked the short distance to a dry dock that looked like a very elongated version of the Colosseum. Because it was drained of water, you could see the tiered structure of the basin, where enormous ships were worked on and repaired. The iron remains of tracks ran along the edge of the dock, and gulls perched on the outline of massive abandoned cranes that no longer functioned. There was some water at the bottom of the dock, and in that water was a body that was in the process of being hoisted out. We walked to a cluster of police cars at the edge of the water. Yellow tape cordoned off a section of road and dock. Demetrius spoke to one of the guards, and we were in.
“It must have floated down the East River and into Wallabout Bay,” said one of the detectives, leaning against his car.
“I don’t think the currents would take the body so far off course. If your boy was originally dumped in the East River, it wouldn’t float in here. It would’ve ended up along the waterfront farther down near one of the bridges or out to sea altogether,” another said, pointing in the direction of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.
“You think it was dumped here?”
“Possibly. Have to see how much water is in the lungs.”
The body was brought all the way up to the roadway at the top of the dry dock. A lit tent had been set up nearby, and the corpse was placed in it. The coroner arrived like a man used to being woken in the middle of the night but still not happy about it.
We were going to have to wait for the coroner to do his initial assessment. Only a woman who arrived a few minutes later was allowed in. While we waited, Demetrius asked me if I wanted coffee. I did, actually, but I knew there was no place to get a cup anywhere near the dry dock. We stood around in silence until we were motioned in.
“Do you think you can handle looking at the body? It might be your mystery guest from Claiborne’s. The one nobody but you seems to have laid eyes on.”
“Sure,” I said, and we approached the tent.
The torso was encircled by a spiral tattoo of a snake, mouth open just below the clavicle, tail pointed down toward the crotch. The body had been stripped of its clothes, but I recognized the shreds of the costumes from the pile in front of Las Meninas. I’d guess no one else in the city was wearing brown velvet pantaloons that night. Although it’s a big place. You never know.
“Do you know this guy?” Demetrius asked me.
I shook my head.
“I’m not even sure it’s a guy,” the coroner interjected.
“Has the body been in the water long enough for this kind of decomposition?” I asked.
“No.” The coroner looked at us over the edge of his half-glasses.
The body had no identifiable genitalia.
He continued to speak out loud as he wrote on a clipboard. “The general shape, muscle mass, hair distribution indicates male, but only partially. Hips on the wide side. Thin arms. Chest narrow. There are faint scars where breasts might have been, but nipples intact. No penis, but no vagina, either.” He touched the area between the body’s legs with some kind of probe.
There was also a woman examining the body, a forensic marine biologist introduced as Dr. Korenev. I was never introduced to the coroner, and he remained a preoccupied and irritated presence for whom the problems of corpses provided a job, while living humans were bundles of shortcomings. Dr. Korenev was of a sunnier disposition. She looked like Veruschka, a similarity that was lost on neither the coroner nor Demetrius. Her job, as she explained it, was to try to ascertain the time of death based on the marine life that seek food and shelter, tiny colonists who feel that in a body they have hit a watery jackpot for
food and reproductive opportunities.
“We’re looking for diatoms, bacteria, larvae in the internal organs,” she said, shaking my hand, obviously mistaking me for someone in a position of authority. “They will usually be found on the left side of the heart in salt water as liquid is absorbed into the lungs.” Then she unpacked a portable polarizing microscope, the same kind I’ve used for analyzing chips of paint. While I used the microscope to examine the presence of brilliant color structures, she saw teeming, wiggling life under the lens. We compared notes on different kinds of lenses. Dr. Korenev was intrigued and wanted to visit my lab. I didn’t tell her that I was no longer affiliated with one, but I accepted her card: Dr. Ilka Korenev, Aegir Labs. The coroner interrupted us.
“Are you people part of this investigation?” He was not happy to have an audience while he did his inspection, though it couldn’t have been unusual for him.
“Yes, of course,” Demetrius began but said nothing more.
“I didn’t get a look at his face when he was in my studio, but I recognize the costumes from the floor that looked like they were from the painting,” I said. All that seventeenth-century velvet and lace would have had to leave stray fibers. Demetrius suggested that he was killed on a plastic sheet that had been prepared in advance, so the body could be transported without leaving bodily fluids or anything else.