When he returned, he found Esposito finishing a plate of stew, and a story about how he once caught a fugitive perp from a triple shooting by spreading a rumor that he was seeing the man’s girlfriend. It was one of the standards from his repertoire, and Nick knew it well. Esposito made repeated, purely professional visits to see her, and upon leaving the apartment, he’d always make a fuss of buttoning up his shirt, fixing his tie, checking to see if his zipper was zipped. Word traveled, and the perp was arrested trying to knock down her door.
“The best part? Later on, I did hook up with her. She was a little … cutie. Ecuadorian, I think. Sandra? Something like that. She came down to see me testify at his trial. The guy took a plea right then and there. Fifteen years.”
Nick was apprehensive about how graphic Esposito would get in his telling, and he was relieved at the effortful delicacy of “cutie.” His father listened avidly, offering back lively “Ah”s and “No!”s as if he were in a revival tent. It heartened Nick to see him like that.
“A ladies’ man, I knew you were, Espo. Me and Nick, well … How would you put it, Nick? The Meehans haven’t that gift, or maybe we’re inclined to wait our turn. Is that right? No—”
“Are you kidding, Sean? You should see the broad Nick went home with last night! Awesome, really unbelievable. You gotta see this woman. You wouldn’t believe—”
You gotta shut up, Nick thought. He thought it with some violence, so much so that Esposito knew it at once, and there was a Mexican standoff of distressed expressions—Esposito at Nick, seeing the gaffe, the breach of privacy; Nick at his father, knowing that he had not followed the same path of rugged, lonely duty; his father away from both of them, simply sad again, and deciding it was none of his business. Nick’s anger at Esposito dimmed when he saw his woebegone grimace, the genuinely stricken contrition. He had never seen that before; he had almost assumed that Esposito was immune to guilt or shame. Nick’s idea of Esposito changed, and it was the dueling imbalances, the sea-sickening shifts in the ground with the two men who amounted to his family, that inclined him to hold steady.
“Well. All right, Da. We got … things to do. Espo?”
Esposito stood slowly, extending a hand across the table.
“Mr. Meehan, thanks for lunch. It was great.”
“Anytime, lad.”
His father sounded vague to Nick, which troubled him, as did Esposito’s chastened return to formality. Too much and too little were equally poor choices. They were escorted down the hall, and when the door closed behind them, Nick heard the lock click.
“Nick, I am so sorry. The last thing I wanted was—”
“I know. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You meant well.”
Nick strained for a dismissive, affectionate tone, and the words came out of him more credibly than he’d expected. Esposito had done far more for him than he’d done for Esposito, and there were other accounts he never wanted to settle. Beyond that, Jamie Barry would be waiting.
Nick saw Jamie leaning against the lobby door and waved him in, giving Esposito an elbow. Jamie walked over, slurping a coffee that Nick guessed was half-sugar, casting surreptitious glances behind him like a confidential agent. Esposito took out another set of pictures, looking at them first, to make sure they were the right ones. Black-and-white mug shots printed on letter paper, six of them, six young black men, the pages folded in half, lengthwise, so that the name and the rest of the information was hidden on the back. Jamie would only see faces, one at a time. He studied each for a minute, then moved on to the next.
“Nah, none of these guys.”
“None?”
“Listen. To me, they all look alike, but none of them was him.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Who does he look most like?”
“I mean, a little like this one, a little like that.”
Jamie shrugged, and Nick was impressed by how he had adjusted in twenty minutes, from hophead punching bag to portrait connoisseur. He picked Malcolm, and another, with diffidence. They bore a closer resemblance to Michael than the others, for what it was worth, which was little. Esposito pushed on.
“What is it about either of these guys that rings a bell?”
“What rings a bell? A punch in the face. Whaddaya think?”
Esposito grabbed Jamie by the shirtfront, and Nick signaled him to lay off as Jamie protested.
“Take it easy! Nick, c’mon, you know me! You want me to say something different, I’ll say what you want, but these guys ain’t the guy. The two I picked are close, but that’s it!”
“All right, Jamie. Here’s your money, the ten I promised. Espo, you got what he had before—eleven bucks? Good looking out, Jamie, but don’t be hustling in front of the building. It kills your father to see it. You gotta quit this.”
“Yeah … I know,” he said, with a wistful and downcast pause. And then he looked up at Nick, offering a twitchy wink and smile, his last gag, his send-off. “I quit every day….”
The three of them walked outside, but only Jamie had a spring in his step as he headed downtown, at a brisk pace, without looking back.
After crossing the bridge, they checked in with the guards at the front and then headed for the infirmary. The wind was chillier here, coming off the Long Island Sound, but the day was still balmy. Speedboats left rapier-like white traces behind them and leapt up to cross the greater wakes of freighters; planes took off from LaGuardia and cast racing shadows on the shimmering water. To the east, the span of the Whitestone Bridge connected Queens and the Bronx with a gracious symmetry, three pairs of cables draped between two piers; to the west, the island-hopping centipede tangle of the Triborough knotted Manhattan to them as well. It must have been a cruel view for the prisoners, all the transit and travel, the pleasure and the progress, the symbols of things and the things themselves.
Esposito’s nurse—Audrey from Astoria—led them again to an examining room in the back, betraying no recent intimacy. Though Malcolm was friendly, the visit didn’t begin as the first had, with the sense of clandestine fun. Nick hadn’t considered how much Malcolm had done for them already. He had instigated the santero rescue, sparing a life and claiming one in revenge. Nick wondered which meant more to him, gave him greater solace. He wore an orange jumpsuit with a kind of light and knowing irony, as if it were a Halloween costume. He shook the detectives’ hands, and they sat down, facing one another. Esposito waited a few seconds for Malcolm to fill in the pause. It was an interrogator’s technique, and Nick wondered why he bothered; was there any need for a contest of wills? The moment passed, and the corner of Malcolm’s mouth lifted into a grin.
“That was fast! I mean, not Kiko, but his brother. Even better! Now he know what it is to bury his people…. It was you, right? It was you, Espo, what done him?”
Esposito nodded, and Malcolm’s smile covered the whole of his face.
“I heard about it. Then I read it in the paper, somebody had it. I had to check myself a minute, calm down, you know? In here, you ain’t supposed to be all ‘Yippee! Yahoo!’ when a cop shoots one of us. ’Specially when it’s the cop that locked you up.”
“I could see how that might come off wrong,” agreed Esposito. “Did you hear about the guy here? He fell, split his head? Just today?”
“Yeah, why?”
“What did you hear?”
“I heard he fell, split his head. Spanish dude … Why, he roll with Kiko?”
“Yeah. He was in Kiko’s crew. Nothing funny about it?”
“Yeah, it was funny. It was like he slipped on a banana peel! There’s all kinds of rumors—there’s gonna be—but all guys got to do here is talk…. I know a guy, he was there on the tier when it happened. The lights go out a second, dude goes down the stairs. But he was alone, nobody was next to him. It wasn’t like he was sliced, or birthday-caked, or nothin’.”
Nick had to ask. “Birthday-caked?”
“They do that when you sleep. They put tissue
between your toes, hold you down, light it up like candles. Sometimes they splash a little lighter fluid, whatever, to help it go.”
Nick withdrew his feet slightly below his chair, and Malcolm was kind enough to pretend not to notice.
“Nice,” said Esposito, pulling the conversation back. “With the guy, though—there was a power failure?”
“I dunno, I guess. The lights went out in the building.”
“Did they go out here?”
“I dunno. I was in the yard.”
“Act of God, I guess.”
“No shit! If I knew he was with Kiko, maybe it woulda been different…. Nah, I’m cool. I’m workin’ with you, I am. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you done for me, for my family.”
That was one way to see it, Nick supposed. A view that was both harsher and kinder than Michael’s, the inside and the upside. Closer to the truth, Nick thought, and yet selective to a degree that was either brilliant or batty. The detectives had still scared his mother to death and put him in jail, for life or close to it. Hard to get around that; Nick doubted he could have himself. But this was the broader perspective—past was past, and they had to move on, didn’t they? Malcolm was an American, an optimist, a can-do man. Another likeness between Malcolm and Esposito, the hope so potent it seemed heartless, in certain lights. And that was not the only resemblance, Nick realized. If Malcolm took after Esposito, Nick had a bit of Michael in him, in his reluctance to let go. It didn’t flatter either of them.
“Speaking of family,” Nick remarked. “How about your brother? Does he come by, or call?”
“Nah, he wouldn’t, like I said.”
“Who does call? Who visits?”
“My sister, a couple of friends.”
“What do they say about him?”
“That he’s mad crazy about shit. He’s hot to pop somebody. He was pissed off when you got Kiko’s brother before he did. Now he has to find somebody else.”
“How about us? He talk about goin’ after cops?” Esposito was quick to ask it, and Nick was glad he did.
“C’mon, man. That’s my blood you’re talkin’ about.”
“No, Malcolm. It’s my blood,” Nick said, and he wasn’t angry, but he wanted to know. “Not my relatives—I love ’em, don’t get me wrong, I do—but I’m talking about real, actual blood, the stuff inside my body. I like to keep it there. Esposito, too. Has your brother talked about killing us? Killing cops?”
The silence now belonged to the detectives. It was theirs to work, to put into play. Malcolm thought for a while, and Nick could see him deciding whether what he’d say next was a betrayal. He looked down and rubbed his cheek. He had decided. He looked up at both detectives, from one to the other, eye to eye. There was no need for the words. It would be easier this way, at least at first.
“Does he got a gun?” Esposito took the same measured tone Nick had. There was no cause for accusation, no benefit to it.
Malcolm shook his head. “But he can get one, anybody can.” Asked and answered.
“Who does he want?” Nick asked. “Me? Esposito? What has he said? Who did you hear it from?”
Malcolm took a breath, then grabbed hold of his chin, pulling down a few times, as if he had a beard. Nick didn’t know whether this was hard for him or he wanted to make it look like it was. He would say it, they knew, and they waited. Malcolm tilted forward, elbows on the knees.
Esposito leaned toward him, in the same posture. “All right. You understand, this is not just whether we get hurt. It’s whether he does. He goes nuts, tries to hurt a cop, odds are he loses, Malcolm. Maybe he gets the jump on some random rookie, walking down the street, but what is he gonna do? Tell me, what is he gonna do? Punch him? Shoot him?”
“He don’t got a gun—that I know about.”
“So you said.”
“I don’t know how he’s gonna get it out of his system, whatever it is. All I know, somethin’s gotta get out of it, and I don’t know on who. You guys ain’t first. Kiko is. That much I can bet. Like I said, I wasn’t told direct by him. My sister told me, people I know. And I know Michael. Somethin’s gonna go. Michael don’t mouth off like that, he don’t talk shit. I’m surprised he talked, said anything at all. But he walked my sister from one coffin to the other, Milton and Mama. He squeezed her hand in front of each one. Said he’d make this right.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing. Like I say, he ain’t much of a talker. But she knew what he meant.”
“Could you talk to him?”
“If I got out, maybe …”
“That’s out of my hands, Malcolm, for the here and now,” Esposito said. “So, what do we do to calm him down? Find him a job? Buy him a puppy?”
Malcolm returned his head to his hands, leaning down to think. “Nah, he hates dogs. He’s scared of ’em.” He had given more thought to the pet than the job offer. “Kiko, he still on the run?”
“Yeah.”
“The funeral today?”
“The wake is.”
“All I know, ain’t no way Kiko gonna walk away without sayin’ goodbye, without showin’ his face, somehow. I said my goodbyes. You let me. You helped me do it. That’s why I’m talkin’ to you, workin’ with y’all. Michael knows it, too—he knows Kiko’s gotta be there.”
“That’s gonna be bad, Malcolm.”
“I know.”
All of them leaned down, elbows on knees, chins in hands. It was Malcolm who sat up first. “So who’s gonna change his mind?”
That was the question he left them with, as they headed out of the building. They still had to meet a supervisor from the Department of Corrections, and they were late. They walked awhile, then returned to the car to drive. Acres of landfill and dozens of boxy buildings, parking lots, and fields, all fenced in, the fences topped with razor wire. More than twenty thousand people once lived here. Now it was less. Still, this was its own city. They drove around slowly, making one wrong turn, then another, guided from one point to the next by random guards, leaving work, or going to it from their cars in the lots. All of them stopped at the sight of a slow-moving car. There weren’t many visitors here in private vehicles. The reaction was always wary, the directions offered with a note of relief. “Yeah, okay, here’s where you go….” The building was found. Esposito had a name to ask for, a Captain Terence Smolev. They had spoken on the phone.
Captain Smolev came out to meet them, with a grip-testing handshake and a uniform that was as crisp as a marine’s. Esposito managed a more cheerful greeting than Nick did, but both of them were anxious to leave. The appointment had been made, and it had to be kept. City agencies can be like society ladies, thin-skinned and grudge-holding about matters of etiquette. If the detectives skipped this meeting, the next time they went to see an inmate, he might suddenly be sent to court for the day.
“Good to meet you, detectives. Is there anything I should know about this?”
“No, not that I know of,” Esposito said. “It’s a big case, so there’s always gonna be questions. At least we’ll be able to say we came out here, we talked to you. It is what it is.”
“I get it. No problem. What do you want to look at? We have video. It’s not great. We lost power for a couple of seconds. Or if you want, we can go to the scene.”
“Let’s do the scene first.”
Smolev led them to a secure room, to check their guns, before heading out to the unit where Miguel had been housed. They were examined from behind a camera, then a Plexiglas screen, before they were buzzed in; in hallways, barred gates swung closed behind them before the next gate opened. The inmates had been put into their cells while the detectives were there, and a few had begun to complain—hoots and curses, the look-at-me! noises. There were three levels on the tier, two flights of steel stairs leading up on each side from a concrete platform on the floor. Smolev took them to the platform on the far side.
“This is it, where he landed. All mopped up already. In fact, it was mopped ju
st before he fell. One of the officers noticed that. It’ll be in the report when it’s done. There was a little puddle on the top. Maybe soap in the water? Who knows?”
Esposito walked up to the top of the stairs, counting them. Twelve. Not much height there, but in a contest of skull versus concrete, you needed very little momentum when you had the right angle. The one-punch homicides, they happened now and then—the uppercut that connects, the head on the curb, the horrified seconds that pass as the winner sees how thoroughly he has won. Jamie could have been that, earlier today. Esposito laid a hand on the banister, then yanked it back, as if stung.
“Sharp there,” he muttered, giving his hand a shake before looking down. “Loose screw … Well, I guess we’ve seen what there is to see. Captain?”
From there, Smolev led them to the video monitors, back in the administrative building. As they walked, Nick tapped on his watch, and Esposito nodded. Nick couldn’t think what they needed to do next, exactly, but it wasn’t here. The video was not much more revealing. A bank of monitors, each split into multiple screens; a digital system, decent quality, but several price points below what you’d find in the average shopping mall.
“Fortunately for us, the guy fell in this unit. The video is good there. We had a mini-blackout, an outage for a couple of seconds, but the surveillance system runs on a separate power source. There isn’t much light, but the screen just gets kinda dark, not black, and you can pretty much make him out.”
A technician had the footage cued up and waiting. The second tier by the stair was empty before Miguel walked up to it, then stopped, as if called to. He put his hand down, then pulled it up, as Esposito had; then it went dark.
“No sound?”
“No.”
“Can we see it again?”
Miguel stopped, looked, and put his hand up and down, as before, and you could see the figure pitch forward, a second of denser darkness. It was what it was.
“You have a camera on the floor?”
“Coming up.”
Two groups of inmates, both talking, one an animated storyteller, arms swinging, the rest laughing at his joke. A corrections officer walked across the floor. The screen went dark for three, four, five, six … six seconds, and then the lights went on again. All had frozen, and then the officer did a little crab-step backward, three or four paces, lifting up his radio, ready to be jumped. Three or four of the inmates fell into combat stances, with balled-up fists, held up to throat level. A few more seconds passed, and then one of the inmates ran over to where Miguel lay. No one had been near the stairs, not within twenty feet. The officer rushed to follow and pushed the inmate back.
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