Samaritan

by Richard Price

  Sighing, Salim lit another cigarette, stared out at the river again. “See, I should’ve knew better that my mother would’ve done something like that because she has always had a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, you know what I’m saying? Like a cougar eating its own young, but I keep wanting to believe that blood is thicker than water, so . . .”

  “So what did you do with the money you made from the shirts you did sell?”

  “What didn’t go from hand to mouth is in here.”

  Salim lurched off the wall and pulled an ATM card from the same rear pocket that held the blue carbon of the domestic violence report.

  He handed the card to Ray. SALIM EL-AMIN was embossed in the lower left corner.

  “I look at this ten times a day,” coming around behind Ray and leaning over his shoulder as if they were looking at baby pictures. “I can’t believe I finally have one of these. I never thought . . .”

  “I’m not going to refinance you for nine hundred T-shirts, Salim.” Ray instantly regretted stating the quantity, as if a lesser number could be acceptable.

  “Hey, I didn’t even come here for that. I just needed to talk to somebody and I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “In fact, I think the sooner money’s not a part of the deal between us, the more clearheaded we can be with each other, you know, relate to each other.”

  “Michelle, can she just . . . She can’t just take my son away, can she?” Ignoring Ray’s last statement.

  “I don’t know,” Ray said dejectedly. “Maybe she just needs to calm down, sober up or something.”

  “Because I already have one child I don’t see, but that was for the good of that child,” Salim said.

  “OK . . .” Ray refusing to follow up on that one. “You know where she is right now?” keeping it to Q and A.

  “She’s probably at her mother’s house, but I hear she’s going to Atlanta next week, moving down there back in with her first boyfriend or her aunt or somebody. And, you know, with parole I can’t leave the state. I can’t even go through the tunnel to New York, so if she takes Omar . . .”

  Again Salim sighed, his chest rising and falling once, a momentary silence coming down like snow.

  “And Ray, half the time she don’t even like Omar; he’s like a obstacle for her. The only thing she likes with him is fixing his hair, that’s about it. And I don’t know how to do that.”

  “What if she left him with you?”

  “Yeah see, I’d jump on that in a minute, but she knows that and she’d never, she’d . . . Ray, I swear, you never seen someone change so fast. Never . . .” His tears finally ran the rims then spilled. “So how’s your daughter doing?” he managed to get out, running the backs of his hands under his eyes. “How’s Ruby?”

  “I’m not doing nine hundred shirts.”

  “No, I know. Excuse me,” wiping his face.

  “At six bucks a shirt that’s fifty-four hundred dollars, Salim. I’m not doing it.”

  “All I want . . .” Salim locked his jaw in an effort to stem the flow. “All I want from you is to not lose your belief in me.”

  “All right, all right, all right,” Ray said softly to shut him up, then rose once again from the radiator. “C’mon now.”

  “Because my mother, Michelle . . .” His lips began to tremble, his jawbone bulging aslant.

  “Hey, c’mon, you stood up to worse. You told me that yourself,” Ray said, wishing he could leave this apartment, leave it with Salim in it.

  Salim extended his right hand palm down, back of the wrist domed up like the body of a jellyfish, the fingers dangling like tentacles, his left arm cocked wide for a wrap-around hug which Ray fell into awkwardly, patting his back, some sweet-scented oil rising from the kid’s jersey.

  “I will survive,” Salim said brokenly. “I will not sub-cumb.”

  “So on the intercom you said you had something for me?” Ray attempted to shift gears, to delay or possibly finesse having to come forth with the final no.

  “Oh yeah. Yeah.” Salim stooped to unzip his backpack, a waft of moldy dampness rising up, and from a thick folded-over pile peeled off the top two T-shirts, black and bizarrely oversize, quadruple large, like slipcovers for a chandelier.

  Unfurling them, Ray saw the “What’s Mine Is Mine” legend emblazoned across the chest, the caricature of the pint-size thug brandishing his hand cannon silk-screened onto the belly.

  Each moistly redolent shirt was spattered with a pinkish spray of bleach, one along the arm and collar, the other across the back, the visual impact both ugly and violent.

  “Obviously I was hoping to make a more attractive presentation to you,” Salim said with what to Ray’s ear sounded like rehearsed regret. “Anyways, that’s one for you and one for your daughter.”

  “Hang on, just . . .” And in a fit of suspicion Ray reached into the backpack himself and plucked out another T-shirt at random; this one was, if anything, more grotesquely marred than the two Salim had offered him. He then plucked a second shirt from the pile; same story; then a third; Salim stepping back almost respectfully now, as if Ray were a customs inspector.

  “The running around I had to do to get these made?” he said. “It makes me sick just to look at them.”

  Ray yanked out another, then another; it quickly became apparent that Salim, rather than attempting to scam him with the offered T’s, had in fact, selected the two least disfigured ones as gifts.

  “I’ll still try and sell ’em,” Salim said. “I got no choice, but . . .”

  “OK, look, I’ll go for half,” Ray said down low.

  “I don’t think I can get fifteen each anymore.”

  “I’ll go for another four hundred and fifty.” Ray looked away.

  “Say what?” Salim blinked.

  “What I said,” Ray still looking away; chiding himself, You asked for this . . .

  “Oh, man, Ray,” Salim, exhaling gratitude, stepped forward.

  But, smiling tightly, Ray danced back from a possible further embrace.

  “But that’s got to be it,” he said. It was as much a plea as an edict.

  Chapter 25

  Interviews—February 25

  The enforced idleness of having two hours to kill before her nine o’clock meeting with Danielle and Nelson heightened Nerese’s eagerness to have at Freddy so intensely, that she nearly had to recite to herself out loud the lessons of a lifetime: Close in slow. Interview by interview. Don’t, do not, skip. In an effort to eat the clock, she decided to check in on Ray again—their daily chess matches having taken on a not unpleasant life of their own for her—but as she rolled into his parking lot in the early-to-bed stillness of a Little Venice evening, she saw Salim and his ever-present backpack passing through that solitary cone of streetlight again, same as she had two nights before when she first brought Ray home from the hospital. The kid was heading for the gates at a brisk clip, his face creased with agitation, the burning tip of his cigarette restlessly tracing zips of light against the night.

  “Hey,” she said, rolling up alongside him.

  Salim reared back at the sight of her, his hands briefly rising and falling with exasperation before he could rein in the body language.

  “How you doin’,” he said lifelessly, taking a step back from the car.

  “You just coming from Ray’s apartment?”

  “Yeah, uh-huh.”

  Nerese reached across the front seat and pushed open her passenger door. “Get in.”

  He took another step back, quickly scanned the darkness—no help there—then did as he was told.

  After a few minutes of driving in silence, Nerese nodded to the backpack, which now sat in his lap. “You have anything in there you don’t want me to find?”

  “Nope.” Salim stared straight ahead, his mouth in a constricted pucker.

  Nonetheless she pulled over next to a streetcorner trash basket. “You sure?”

  “You can look for yourself,” he said flatly, still not t
urning to her.

  She pulled away from the curb, the silence once again beginning to build as she drove into the heart of Dempsy.

  Salim, most likely conditioned to accept these things, hadn’t even asked her where she was taking him, just went with it, his face locked into a mask of forbearance; only once, at an interminable red light, did he turn to her, halfheartedly asking, “So how’s your evening, you having a good evening?” before returning his eyes to the road, not expecting and not receiving an answer.

  Nerese walked him into the Northern District precinct house, one hand at his elbow, the other holding his backpack away from her body as if it were filled with bees.

  The interview room, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, contained a card table and two chairs, the one on casters for her, the folding chair for him.

  “Salim.” Nerese leaned across the table. “You and I, we’re going to have a conversation right now, and, the deal is? If you lie to me at any point in this conversation? If you hold out on me, withhold information from me at any point in this conversation, and I find out about it?—which I no doubt will, and quicker than you think—I personally guarantee that you will be elderly the next time you breathe free air.”

  Salim nodded, gape-mouthed now, either screwed or bewildered, she couldn’t tell which yet.

  “However, if you come clean with me? As easily as I can fuck you to death I can also make this a semi-skate, do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “Can I ask you something?,” tentatively raising his hand as if he were in a classroom. “How come police, every time before they interrogate you they have to start out with this big speech about how they’re gonna mess you up if you lie.”

  “Let me hear you say you understand,” Nerese said, not in the mood.

  “I do,” as solemn as a marriage vow.

  “What’s with you and Ray. What’s with all the visits.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Friend . . .” Nerese took a shot. “He gives you money, though, right?”

  Salim hesitated, then, “Yeah, but not like a handout. He invests in my business.”

  “In your business.” She let the phrase hang.

  Salim hauled his backpack up onto the table, the abrupt weight making it wobble and shudder on its matchstick legs. A river-bottom rankness filled the air of the small windowless room as he unzipped the largest pouch, and pulled out two fistfuls of damp T-shirts, black randomly riddled with pink—Nerese thinking, Tie-dyed?—each one silk-screened with his Bad-boy logo. “Six to make, fifteen to buy. Business.”

  “For seven thousand three hundred dollars I hope to hell you have a lot more to sell than just those.”

  The kid’s startled expression confirmed the number.

  Fucking Ray; Nerese suddenly had to fight down an impulse to laugh.

  She gestured for Salim to reload his goods, not wanting anything between them on the table.

  “So what’s been going on with you the last two nights.”

  “Like what,” his face was pinched with incomprehension.

  “I saw you coming and going from Ray’s apartment twice now, each time looking like you were ready to blow a gasket.”

  Salim blinked at her, then abruptly snapped into focus. “Aw, man, you don’t want to know.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No, I’m just saying”—taking a deep breath—“I have a domestic situation in my home.” He straightened up, fished a blue duplicate of a domestic violence report from his back pocket. “Ray was helping me with advice.”

  Nerese skimmed the sheet: Woman on a warpath. “What kind of advice.” She held on to the document.

  “I don’t know, like . . . don’t let her get the upper hand, she likes it when you’re down and out, and other stuff. I don’t really remember off-the-cuff per se, because I have pressures on me right now? It’s like . . .” The kid worked his mouth wordlessly. “It’s like, these days? I swear to God, everything’s a blur.”

  “A blur,” Nerese repeated as if chewing it over. “Let me ask you . . . You have any idea who might’ve assaulted Ray a few weeks back?”

  Salim slowly shook his head. “Not really.”

  “You didn’t do it, did you?” Nerese said it as lightly as she could.

  “Excuse me?” Salim went motionless, his head cocked in disbelief.

  Nerese said nothing, just met his eye with that placid unwavering gaze.

  Salim leaned back and took in his surroundings as if for the first time: the barren room, the pitiless light. “Oh. Whoa. Unh-uh. No way. This is like a frame-up. Ray’s my boss. He’s my teacher. He’s my friend. I brought my son into his home. You barking up the wrong tree for sure.”

  Nerese stared at him. Then stared some more.

  “Hey, I’m not saying there are those who wouldn’t, but no way can you lay that on my doorstep.”

  “Those who wouldn’t, like, who?”

  “How the hell do I know!” His face abruptly coloring. “I’m just saying in general. People. You’re police, I need to school you about this?”

  “Did you—” Nerese cut herself off, rephrased. “Who did you talk to about him?”

  “Ray? Lots of people.”

  “Like who. Give me names. Give me the name.”

  “I don’t know! I just said my old teacher’s helping me get on my feet, I didn’t say, ‘Here’s where he lives, go take him off.’ Why would I do that, huh?” Salim near-shouting now, the corners of his mouth dotted with spittle. “What’s in it for me,” hitting himself in the chest.

  “Well I’ll tell you,” she said calmly. “If the actor on this turns out to be someone you talked to, or bragged to, or anything of that nature and it’s a name you could’ve given me right now, but didn’t? There’s no accessory status in this state, and I’m gonna make sure you go down for attempted homicide, aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit both just like the scumbag who did it. So I’m gonna ask you one last time . . .”

  The kid cut her off with a gagging sound, Nerese at first thinking he was choking on something before realizing he was attempting a laugh.

  “The po-police, man. It’s like, no matter how hard I try, ha-how much I strive and suffer and persevere . . .” He leaned back and covered his mouth, his face roiling with blood. “Man, I don’t even know why I fight it. You-you all don’t want me to be any other way. It’s like I got a brand on me or something. I brought my son . . .” Banging the table, then covering his mouth again.

  Nerese glanced at her watch: 8:15.

  “You know what? Fuck it. Why don’t you all just save your ass some waiting time and lock me up for future reference. I mean, I’m here already, you know what I’m saying? So just go and get it over with.” His eyes became slick and shiny; Nerese thinking, Crybaby. “’Cause I’ll tell you, I’m starting to give less and less of a fuck each day, these days, so . . .”

  Salim cut himself off, waved her away, then sat with his face averted, his jaw taut and bulging with outrage.

  Nerese nodded as if sympathetic to his plight, understanding at that moment that she was sitting across the table from a killer.

  Although she was fully aware that her dry threats and galling implacableness were at the root of his sputtering fury right now, something about how that fury expressed itself—not so much his choice of words but how quickly he had come to the edge of tears, the way his face and body and gestures had gone through what seemed to be nearly uncontrollable changes—told her this kid was both weak and dangerous. His mastery of day-to-day tribulations, which were close to innumerable in his world—this interview right here, for example—yielded far too readily to an explosive despair. And given that in Salim’s neck of the woods there were so many kindred spirits for him to bump into, there was no doubt in her mind that the kid was a loaded gun and given enough time he’d inevitably go off.

  “So what happens now,” he demanded, his arms folded across his chest.

  There was nothing to hold hi
m on, nothing he’d done as far as she knew. He might or might not consider Ray as his friend, his mentor; he might even revere the guy—and Ray, in his desire to do the right thing, most likely saw this relationship as some kind of Give a Damn love match—but the fact of the matter was that every future encounter between them would increasingly play itself out like a game of Spin the Bottle with death.

  “Can I go?”

  “Let me ask you something,” Nerese tilted her chin at him. “You say Ray’s been backing your play?” nodding at his rolling stock, all zippered up at his feet.

  “Yeah, I just told you that.”

  “So how much of a return has he been getting on his investment?”

  “Nothing with me sitting here so why don’t you all cut my ass loose so I can go back to work and then we’ll see.”

  Nerese sat double-parked in front of Salim’s apartment house on Tonawanda Avenue. She watched as the kid walked from her car to the building entrance, then did an about-face at the last minute to hook up with three young men coming out from the vestibule into the street. Salim had three too many friends right now, as far as she was concerned, but before she could brood on it any further, her cell phone rang.

  “Make it good,” she said.

  “I’m always good.”

  “Bobby?”

  “Your guy’s phone records read like a thriller.”

  “How so,” losing sight of Salim as he went around the corner with his homies.

  “OK. The last outgoing call made on the day of the assault was to Garden State Taxi at four-thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Four-thirty. That’s pretty much in the ballpark of when it happened. Garden State Taxi?” She reached for a notepad.

  “To call a cab, I guess,” Sugar said.

  “He’s got a car.”

  “Maybe it was for someone else. Maybe someone else made the call, you know, needing a ride out of there.”

  “The actor?” Nerese didn’t think Freddy was that stupid.

  “I don’t know. I called them to get the dispatch log for that day? No extra charge, by the way. They don’t have any record of sending a car to 44 Othello, so it’s . . . Maybe the guy realized like at the last second what a bonehead play that would be, calling for a cab out of there, and hung up or something, I don’t know.”