by Jason Starr
He picked up the phone and dialed her number. When she answered he didn’t know what to say.
“Uh . . . Rhonda?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Mickey.”
She waited a few seconds then said, “Hi.”
“I just called to see what’s up,” Mickey said.
“This isn’t a good time,” Rhonda said.
Mickey pictured the Jewish guy sitting next to her.
“I called you the other day,” Mickey said. “Did you get my message?”
“Sorry, I’ve just been really busy.”
“Yeah, I know, you had a big Thanksgiving dinner at your house.”
“How did you know that?”
“I just figured you did.”
“I really have to go now.”
“Is somebody there?”
“No, I just have to go.”
“Do you want to go to a movie with me tomorrow night?”
“I can’t. I really have to go, okay?”
“Okay, but—”
She hung up. Mickey called her back and the answering machine picked up. When he called again a few seconds later the line was busy.
Mickey pictured Rhonda and her new boyfriend in Rhonda’s room, on her bed, making out, starting to have sex. He tried calling her a few more times but the line was still busy, then he called Mrs. Turner.
“Oh my God, Mickey!”
Mrs. Turner sounded even more upset than she had the other day.
“What happened?” Mickey said, starting to panic himself. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, God, Mickey,” she said, crying. “Oh, God. It’s not fair, it’s not fair!”
“What?” Mickey said. “What happened?”
Mrs. Turner cried even harder and louder, breathing heavily. Finally, she said, “He’s dead! They found his body in the Hudson this morning. My baby’s dead!”
15
FOR A LONG time, Mrs. Turner couldn’t speak clearly, but she finally explained what had happened. Early this morning, a guy fishing off a dock near Dobbs Ferry in Westchester had spotted a body floating in the Hudson. The body was badly decomposed but the police had determined that the person had been dead for about a week. The Westchester police contacted other police departments in the New York area about missing persons and found out about Chris. Using Chris’s dental X rays the Westchester police were able to ID the body.
Mrs. Turner stopped talking and there were just the sounds of her sobbing. Mickey knew he had to say something, something that would sound right.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Why’d this have to happen to him?” Mrs. Turner said. “Why’d it have to happen to my little boy?”
“Do they know how he died?” Mickey said.
“He got shot,” Mrs. Turner said. She cried for several seconds then said, “They found the bullet in his chest.”
“Holy shit,” Mickey said, trying to sound surprised. “Who could’ve shot him?”
“I got no idea,” Mrs. Turner said. “Everybody loved Chris.”
Mickey stayed on the phone with Mrs. Turner for a few more minutes, and he was relieved when she said she had to go.
Sitting at the end of his bed with his eyes closed, Mickey knew the police would come to talk to him soon. They would match Chris’s blood to blood found in the Manhattan Beach house, and then they would talk to Chris’s friends to see if they knew anything. Even if they denied it, the old guy who’d seen them getting into the car would be able to ID them. Mickey imagined Filippo breaking down and admitting everything, or, more likely, Filippo telling the cops Mickey Prada killed Chris.
Mickey couldn’t believe Ralph had fucked up so badly, and he worried about the other things Ralph was supposed to get rid of—the laundry bags filled with their clothes and the things they had stolen. Mickey couldn’t remember if he’d checked all the pockets of his pants. Maybe he’d left something in a pocket, or maybe Ralph or Filippo had.
At one point, Mickey dialed 911, ready to tell the police everything. He’d explain how Filippo had killed Chris by accident and how he’d had nothing to do with it. But when the operator answered, Mickey realized what he was doing and hung up. Calling the police now would be crazy. Even if they believed that Chris’s death was accidental, they would still arrest Mickey for robbery—armed robbery. Mickey remembered being in the car Ralph had stolen on the way to Manhattan Beach that night. He’d had his chance to get out then and he didn’t take it. All he could do now was pray he didn’t get caught.
The rest of the evening Mickey waited for the police to arrive. Every time a car drove by he was convinced it was a police car, and every time a car stopped and a door closed he imagined it would only be seconds before his doorbell rang. He might have slept for an hour or two, but in the morning he felt like he’d been awake all night.
At work, every time a customer came in Mickey looked up from whatever he was doing, expecting to be arrested.
Charlie noticed Mickey acting strangely and said, “You all right?”
“Fine,” Mickey said.
“You sure?” Charlie said, “ ’cause you don’t look too good.”
“I said I’m fine,” Mickey snapped.
“All right,” Charlie said. “Damn.”
Mickey went to lunch at John’s Pizzeria, across the street from the fish store. After he ordered a slice and a grape soda, he turned around and saw a cop standing on line behind him.
Mickey felt his face getting hot but he tried to stay calm.
“How’s it goin’?” the cop said to him.
“All right,” Mickey said, his mouth so dry he could barely speak.
Mickey paid for his food and sat at a table in the back, facing the door. The cop took his time at the register, joking around with the guys behind the counter, then he took his order to go and got into his double-parked squad car.
As Mickey ate his slice quickly, taking big bites, he decided he had to stop living his life in fear. Maybe the police would catch him, maybe they wouldn’t, but he just had to forget about it.
When Mickey returned to the fish store, Charlie was finishing ringing up a customer. Mickey watched Charlie keep the twenty the customer had given him and make change from the cash register. Maybe Charlie was right—if he was careful there was no way Harry would ever catch on. Mickey had seen Harry’s books last year when Harry had asked for help getting his corporate tax return ready. The Vincent’s Fish Market books were a mess, and there was no way for Harry to keep track of exactly how much money came into the store and how much went out.
When Charlie left on his lunch break, Mickey couldn’t stop staring at the cash register. If he could make some fast money by stealing from Harry, he could pay off his debts to Artie and the funeral home and start college in the fall.
A few minutes later, a woman came into the store and bought twenty-eight dollars worth of fish. She handed Mickey two twenty-dollar bills. Mickey held the bills in his hand and gave her twelve dollars change from the register. When the woman left the store, Mickey pocketed the twenties.
The next customer came in and paid Mickey with a ten-dollar bill for an eight-dollar order. Mickey kept the ten and gave the customer two dollars from the register.
When Charlie returned from lunch, Mickey was in a better mood and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say sorry for the way I’ve been acting all day. I guess I was just upset about my friend Chris.”
“What happened to him?” Charlie asked.
“He’s dead,” Mickey said.
“Seriously?” Charlie said.
“Yeah,” Mickey said. “He was shot—last week, but they just found his body.”
“Oh, shit,” Charlie said. “Man, I’m sorry.”
During the afternoon, Mickey took another sixty dollars from the register and then he replaced the change he had taken out. For the day he’d netted fifty-nine dollars.
When Harry came to the store at six o’
clock, he looked at the day’s receipts and said, “Slow day, huh?”
“Yeah,” Mickey said, trying not to smile.
MICKEY WAS ON his way up the driveway, heading toward the entrance to his apartment, when a man’s voice behind him said, “You Mickey Prada?”
Mickey turned around and saw two men in suits—a short, stocky guy with slicked-back blond hair and an older, taller guy with gray hair.
“Yeah,” Mickey said thinking, This is it.
The taller man, the one who’d called out Mickey’s name, said, “I’m Detective Frank Harris and this is my partner Matt Donnelly. We’re with the Sixty-first Precinct, Manhattan Beach. We understand you were friends with Chris Turner.”
“That’s right,” Mickey said, managing to stay calm.
“Mrs. Turner told us we could find you here,” Harris explained. “Did Chris tell you where he was going last Saturday night?”
“Last Saturday night?” Mickey said, as if trying to remember.
“We believe he was shot to death during a robbery of a house on Hastings Street in Manhattan Beach last Saturday night,” Harris said.
“A robbery?” Mickey said. “Jesus.”
“Did he tell you anything about this?” Harris asked, opening a small pad.
“No way,” Mickey said. “I had no idea.”
“Were you friends with Chris a long time?” Harris asked.
“My whole life,” Mickey said.
“Do you know a guy named Ralph DeMarco?”
“I don’t know his last name,” Mickey said, “but Chris has a friend Ralph on our bowling team.”
“Heavy guy, balding?”
“Sounds like the same guy,” Mickey said.
“Did Chris say anything to you,” Donnelly said, “about doing anything with DeMarco last Saturday night?”
Mickey shook his head.
“When was the last time you saw Chris?” Harris asked.
“Last Thursday night,” Mickey said. “I was over at his house watching TV.”
“Just for the record,” Harris said, “where were you last Saturday night?”
“Home,” Mickey said, “watching TV in my room.”
“Was anybody with you?”
“My father,” Mickey said, “but he’s dead now.”
“Mrs. Turner told us,” Harris said, “we’re sorry for your loss.”
The way Harris said it Mickey knew he couldn’t give a shit.
“Thanks,” Mickey said.
“Well, I think that should about do it for now,” Harris said. He put his pad away in an inner-jacket pocket and took out a business card and handed it to Mickey. “Do us a favor. If you hear anything, anything you think we should know about, give me a call at that number. There’s an answering machine so you can leave a message.”
“So you really think he was killed robbing a house?” Mickey said.
“In all probability that’s what happened,” Harris said. “The bullet that we found in the victim’s body matched a bullet found at the scene of the robbery. We think the bullets were fired from the same gun.”
“Jesus,” Mickey said.
Mickey watched the detectives walk away, then he went up to his apartment. He undressed and took a long shower. Eventually he fell asleep in front of the TV, but he kept waking up every hour. At six-thirty, just as the sun was starting to rise, he gave up trying to sleep and drove to the luncheonette on Nostrand and I. He sat at the counter and had bacon and eggs, orange juice, and a cup of black coffee. The guy next to Mickey got up and left a copy of the Sunday Daily News on the counter. Mickey thumbed through the main section, finding nothing about Chris, then he left the luncheonette and drove to Rhonda’s block.
He parked directly across the street from her house. He checked his watch—seven-fifteen. It was too early to ring the bell; besides, her father might answer. He would just have to wait for her to come out. It was his day off work and he would wait all day if he had to.
At nine o’clock, Mickey was still sitting in his parked car, watching the house. No one had come or gone. Then, at around nine-thirty, the shades opened over the windows of the room on the second floor facing the street. Mickey wondered if this was Rhonda’s room. His palms started to sweat as he imagined seeing her through the window. But whoever opened the shades moved away quickly, and Mickey couldn’t tell who was there.
The stitches in Mickey’s right hand were starting to itch badly, and he remembered how he had been supposed to go to a doctor to have them removed. Using the pen knife on his key chain Mickey started picking at the stitches, removing them one by one.
At about ten o’clock, Rhonda’s father left the house. Mickey ducked down quickly, peering over the steering wheel as her father got into the station wagon that was parked in the driveway and drove away.
A few minutes later, Rhonda’s stepmother left the house, wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and Mickey ducked down again. He waited awhile then sat up, seeing she had jogged halfway up the block. He didn’t hesitate. When she turned the corner, he got out of the car and walked quickly toward the house. He’d rehearsed what he was going to say, but now it was all jumbled in his head. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to blow this chance.
He rang the doorbell, counted to ten, and rang it again. He was about to ring it a third time when the door unlocked and opened. Rhonda was standing there in sweatpants and a big white T-shirt. Her hair was messy and she had no makeup on, not even lipstick. She looked like she had just woken up, but she still looked great.
“Hi,” Mickey said, smiling.
Rhonda seemed surprised when she’d opened the door; now she just looked angry.
“What are you doing here?” she asked coldly.
“I just came to talk and tell you how sorry I am for whatever I did.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Rhonda said.
“I want to talk to you,” Mickey said. “Come on, let me in.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rhonda said.
“Please,” Mickey said. “Maybe we could go somewhere. I have my car—”
“No,” Rhonda said. “Look, I don’t know why you can’t understand this, but I don’t want to see you anymore. You have to go.”
“But I don’t understand what I did wrong,” Mickey said.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just . . . You just have to leave, okay?”
“It’s just what?” Mickey said.
“It’s nothing.” Rhonda turned around for a second, toward the inside of the house.
“You have a guy in there?”
“What? . . . No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Then why can’t I come in?”
“You have to go home, Mickey. Please.”
Rhonda tried to close the door, but Mickey stuck his foot in front.
“What’s his name?” Mickey asked.
“Please get out of the way,” Rhonda said.
Using his shoulder, Mickey pushed the door open and made it into the foyer.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Rhonda screamed. “Get out of my house!”
Mickey looked beyond Rhonda but he didn’t see anyone in the living room.
“Is he upstairs?” Mickey asked.
“There’s nobody here,” Rhonda said.
“Then what’s wrong with you?” Mickey said. “Why are you treating me this way?”
“You better get out of here right now,” Rhonda said. “I’m warning you, I’ll scream for help.”
“I know you love me,” Mickey said. “I remember how you looked at me that first time we met in the fish store. We’re perfect together.”
“Please just leave me alone,” Rhonda said, backing away.
“I can’t live without you,” Mickey said.
“What are you talking about?” Rhonda said. “You don’t even know me.”
Mickey took a step toward her. She grabbed the object nearest her—a heavy glass vase from o
n top of a side table— and held it above her head.
“Leave right now, you lunatic,” she said, the vase shaking in her hands.
“Come on,” Mickey said, “just put that down so we can talk.”
Mickey lunged toward her and tried to grab the vase.
“Come on, give it to me.”
“Let go!”
“Come on.”
Mickey was starting to pry the vase loose when it smashed onto the floor, shattering glass everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” Mickey said, “I didn’t mean to do that. Please stop crying. Just stop crying!”
Mickey tried to hug Rhonda when the front door opened behind him. Mickey turned and saw Rhonda’s father enter the house, holding the Sunday Times.
“What the hell’s going on here?” her father asked.
Rhonda rushed to her father and stood next to him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” her father said to Mickey.
“He just came in,” Rhonda said, crying. “He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave!”
“That’s not true,” Mickey said, “I just—”
Rhonda’s father grabbed Mickey’s arm near the shoulder and pulled him toward the door. Her father wasn’t a big man—he was several inches shorter than Mickey and probably about ten pounds lighter. Mickey stopped, a few feet in front of the door, and her father couldn’t pull him any farther.
“Get out of here, you son of a bitch, or I’ll call the police,” her father said.
“This is just a misunderstanding,” Mickey said. “I was just trying to talk to her when the vase broke—”
“I don’t give a shit what happened, I want you out of my house right now!”
He yanked on Mickey’s arm again. Mickey wouldn’t budge and her father was pulling the sleeve of his shirt, stretching the collar, twisting Mickey awkwardly. Mickey pushed him back, trying to get free, and then her father pushed his open hand into Mickey’s neck. Mickey had a sudden gagging sensation then he cocked his fist.
“Don’t!” Rhonda shouted.
Mickey lowered his fist, realizing what he had almost done.
“I didn’t mean that,” Mickey said to Rhonda. “I just wanted to talk to you.”