A Well-Known Secret

by Fusilli, Jim;

  Meanwhile, we went easily along Canal. A pudgy old man in suspenders that kept his pants over his belly tried to cajole his bulldog to pick up the pace as they crossed gingerly on round cobblestone.

  All My Sons was playing at the Screening Room.

  “You think you’re hot shit because you’re connected,” McDowell ventured.

  I’m so connected I’m riding where the flashers and nickel-and-dimers go.

  He added, “Don’t need to know somebody to call the D.A.”

  “Maybe I should’ve told her I know you,” I said.

  “You don’t know me,” he scoffed.

  “Sure I do,” I replied. “You’re a cop but you’re not sure why. Maybe it’s the twenty-and-out. The OT at. Yankee Stadium, the easy parking with NYPD plates, the free fries at Nathan’s. Or maybe it’s the way that girl who wouldn’t go to the prom with you looks at you now when your uniform is pressed right and your hat is blocked the way it ought to be.”

  He tried to laugh it off, but I saw him stiffen.

  “You live in Queens in a neat little mother/daughter with a patch of grass out front,” I went on. “You’re proud of that house and you should be because your Mom and Dad worked hard to float you the money for the down payment. For fun you like to tool down to Atlantic City in your used Caddy, blow two hundred, two-fifty bucks on blackjack, flirt with the help, chase Chivas with good ol’ domestic beer. On the other hand, you’re thinking maybe next week you’ll go up to Fox-woods because you heard they’ll comp you if you tell them you’re on the job. How am I doing so far?”

  “You’re not even close, asshole,” he sneered.

  “Then let’s try this: You’ve begun to think the straight way with the good blue isn’t for you. You’re not going to be digging through rubble the next time some building goes down. Not you. That’s for a different kind of guy. You, you want to hook up with Tommy Mangionella because you think it’s a shortcut to where you deserve to be. You want him to notice you so you take a shot with that dumb play about voodoo. Voodoo, Christ.”

  “That’s enough, Orr.”

  “I could’ve told you. I know Tommy a long time, kid. He’s not going to mess up his good thing for anyone.”

  “I said slam it shut.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But when you tell Tommy I tried to call the D.A. before he could, tell him it wasn’t because you treated me like a perp. Or because you flexed your biceps for that terrified woman in the Volvo and that worn-down guy in the Strick.”

  “Listen, wise mouth—”

  “Tell him it was because you swiped the ten-dollar bill from under the rum glass Sonia Salgado had under the statue.”

  He let his glowering frown slip and his green-brown eyes went wide for a second. “Bull—”

  “Nobody but you. I saw it before Tommy came in and the other uniforms were in back when you were at the altar whipping up your theory.”

  We were across White and were coming up on Finn Square. McDowell checked the sideview on the right, passed an old Plymouth, then, slowing down the blue-and-white, pushed over to the curb to let me out.

  I stepped onto West Broadway.

  He leaned across and rolled down the passenger-side window. “You’re off about that ten-spot, Orr,” he said. He couldn’t have been less convincing.

  “Fine. Lay it on one of your partners. Lay it on Tommy,” I said.

  McDowell took his foot off the brake and let the squad car move. He was thinking of the best way to tell me to go fuck myself, but he knew he took off with the $10 bill so he let it slide. Or perhaps he was already thinking Mango saw that bill when he arrived and had come to the same conclusion I had.

  I walked toward Greenwich, toward the river.

  I had McDowell out of my head by the time I hit the front door.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Maoli was banging the old Hoover against the baseboard heating vents.

  I went straight to the back of the house. The phone number was on the Post-it note I’d stuck to the corner of the computer monitor.

  The phone rang and rang and then I heard a jarring sound, as the handset banged when the line came alive.

  Then there was the whirling sound of open air, the rush of public space, the rumble of city traffic.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Yes?” A woman, young, no accent. Not Dorotea Salgado.

  I heard a harsh, disruptive beep-beep, a mechanical squeal: A big vehicle, likely a wide-ass garbage truck, was backing up.

  She said, shouting, “Hello?”

  “It’s a pay phone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, a pay phone. No one’s here. If you’re expecting someone, that is.” A sweet voice, flat, unhurried.

  “But you. Nobody’s there but you,” I said.

  “Yes, but we’re only passing by.”

  “‘We’?”

  “My family and me,” she said. “We’re going to Ground Zero.”

  She was downtown, I figured. Maybe Dorotea Salgado lived near the quarter-a-call phone booth somewhere on the way to Vesey or Church Street from Union Square.

  As the coarse beeping grew louder, I asked, “Where are you?”

  “Iowa.”

  “No,” I hollered, “where are you now?”

  “I’m on West Broadway and Duane,” she said, shouting her reply. “Between Thomas and Duane, actually.”

  In front of the Odeon. About three blocks from here. If I asked Mrs. Maoli to cut the vacuum cleaner, I could hear the garbage truck without the phone.

  McDowell probably passed the booth as he circled back to St. Mark’s.

  “I have to go,” she said. “My family is waiting.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure. God bless,” she added as she hung up.

  I left my study and went into the living room as Mrs. Maoli began to lug the vacuum cleaner down the stairs. Though I heard her struggle as the machine clanged on the steps, I knew well enough that she’d refuse help: Since Marina hired her shortly after Bella’s third birthday, Mrs. Maoli had insisted on bearing her load, on doing her job as if merely a hired hand. It was more a statement of pride, of honor, than stubbornness, though she could be damned obstinate. I appreciated her diligence, dedication, reliability. More importantly, she loved my daughter and my daughter loved her.

  Throw-pillows were gathered in a bunch on the sofa, where I’d lain the night before and watched a turnover-plagued NBA playoff game in Boston. On the coffee table was an old copy of American Heritage with water rings on its cover. A well-worn paperback of Arrowsmith, its binding held together more by hope than glue, lay on the floor where it had fallen from my hand as I’d drifted off.

  I was still standing near the couch when Mrs. Maoli entered the room. She smiled politely, hopefully.

  “Mrs. Maoli,” I began gingerly.

  “Good morning, Mr. Orr,” she said. She let the vacuum stand and came over to fuss with the pillows.

  “Mrs. Maoli, I need to talk with you. If you have a minute …”

  “Yes. I have a minute.” She eased into the soft, patterned sofa.

  I sat at the other end.

  She folded her hands in her lap. The front of her black skirt was pulled tight across her lap. Her perpetual apron, with red trim and tiny red-and-yellow flowers, lay over her skirt. She wore gray, rubber-soled clogs that Bella thought would do her better than the old slippers she used to scuffle around in.

  “Did you hear from Dorotea today?”

  “No,” she said cheerfully.

  “Can you call her?” For some reason, I brought my right fist to my ear, mimicking the use of a telephone handset.

  “Call her?” She shook her head. “No …”

  “You don’t have the number.”

  “No.”

  “How do you contact her?”

  “I don’t und—”

  “How do you meet?”

  “Meet? I meet at the market.” She still had a heavy accent, still spoke simply, directly, despite more than half a centu
ry in New York City.

  “At Union Square?”

  She nodded. “I enjoy to walk,” she smiled.

  “I think you said she lived near the market.”

  “No, I see her at the market. Where she lives, I don’t …” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I see.”

  She inched forward and the smile began to drift from her plump face. “What has happened?”

  I looked away and saw her reflection in the green-gray TV screen. Her tattered dust cloth was in her apron pocket.

  I hesitated. “Mrs. Maoli, I have to tell you that … Mrs. Maoli, yes, something has happened.”

  “To Dorotea?”

  “No. It’s about her daughter, Sonia,” I said. “Sonia never had a child. Your friend’s story, it’s not true.”

  “I see.”

  “No child, no grandchild,” I added, quoting Julie.

  She nodded as her trepidation grew. “There is something more. …”

  “I’m afraid there is.”

  “You must tell me.”

  “Yes, I know,” I replied. “Mrs. Maoli, somebody killed Sonia. I went to her apartment and I found the body.”

  She sat motionless, and then tears welled in her dark eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She turned away and made a low disturbing sound. “It’s terrible.”

  “Yes. Yes it is.”

  She ran a small, thick finger across her cheek. “What can you do, Mr. Orr?”

  “Not much,” I said, “unless you want to go to the market and see if she’s around. I’ll take you—”

  “No, no. What can you do about who has killed Sonia?”

  “Me?”

  “I am thinking—”

  “—that your friend wanted to warn her daughter,” I said, finishing her sentence. “That she knew someone wanted to hurt her.”

  “Yes. A mother would do that,” she said firmly. “Warn her child.”

  “I think we have to see what the police can do, Mrs. Maoli.”

  “The police, they won’t help find a woman who they say killed a man.”

  I wanted to tell her it doesn’t work like that, but I couldn’t.

  She pointed at me. “Do you know, Mr. Orr, that Sonia did not kill that man?”

  “Who told you this?” I asked.

  “Dorotea.”

  “Yes, but don’t you—”

  “And,” she continued sharply, “many people know this. Very many.”

  She sat back on the sofa, defiant now, as sorrow turned suddenly to anger, as tragedy aroused her sense of injustice. She may not have known Dorotea Salgado all that well, but she couldn’t tolerate the death of her daughter, a woman who, to her mind, had already suffered too much for too long.

  “Dorotea does not have a child now.”

  Nor does she have a grandson. Or a great-grandson.

  “That’s not right, Mr. Orr, you know … It’s not very—It’s not very right.”

  She folded her arms under her bosom and nodded knowingly.

  “All right,” I said finally. “I’ll make a few calls and I’ll try to find out what’s up.”

  She pushed her round frame off the sofa. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Orr.”

  “Stay here,” I offered. “Let me get you something. A glass of water. You should take it easy.”

  “No, Mr. Orr.” She walked past me and reached for the vacuum cleaner. “We have work we must do.”

  As she went by, I tapped my hands on my thighs. “OK, Mrs. Maoli.”

  I thought about heading to the Tilt for a bowl of Leo’s andouille gumbo, but, with memories of Sonia’s last act nipping at me, I set out instead for a bookstore. My gut was to go to the Strand on 12th, since they have everything, and at unbeatable prices. But no, not the anthology Cuban Theater in the United States, I was told. Seemingly sensible advice followed and, with a reviewer’s copy of Habegger’s bio of Emily Dickinson for Bella in a Strand bag, I set out for Lectorum, a shop on 14th that specialized in Spanish-language books and the works of Spanish-language writers.

  As I went north, I walked along a line of people, almost all men, that snaked out of Forbidden Plant, a comics emporium on 13th. Most in the queue were grown kids, in their 30s with jeans too tattered to be merely old, threadbare denim and Army surplus jackets, potbellies straining dark T-shirts with faded slogans, glasses with heavy frames, unkempt hair; all seemed happy enough in the cocoon with fellow members of a distinct class. Diddio would’ve fit in, I thought, as I crossed Broadway on 13th, where the New School’s green-and-white banners were tossed gently by the meek breeze.

  As I passed a restaurant specializing in sweet potatoes, a health club, the Quad Cinema and a guy who looked like Nicolas Cage entering the 13th Street Rep, my mind wandered back to D and then I let myself hear his voice. His is one of the voices I hear clearly, his tone, inflections.

  “Terry, man,” I heard him say, “you know how embarrassing it is to not have a date, man, to, like, my own thing? I’m sitting next to an empty seat, everybody else paired off.”

  “Not so embarrassing, D,” I’d reply. “Things happen.”

  “Yeah. To me.” He’d tap his chest. Or twirl his shoulder-length, too-black hair. “Just what is it, T, with me and these women?”

  “You haven’t met anyone who understands your charm. That’s it. Nothing more.”

  “You think?”

  “Sure.”

  “I got charm?”

  “Absolutely,” I’d say.

  “And women think this?”

  “Marina did.”

  “Ah, Marina, man.” I could hear him sigh. I could see him smile.

  Actually, Marina said this: “Terry, he is following you like a puppy.”

  I told her no. D and I are friends. For real.

  (Do daydreams require full disclosure? If so, back then I used to call him 3D and he called me Eeyore, his take on my given initials E.O.)

  “Are you sure you are equal?” Marina asked. We had just left the Bottom Line and we were going to walk for a while in the late-summer air. Diddio had decided to stay behind for the second set. Marina wore a thin black sweater over a simple pale-blue blouse, a black skirt and leather sandals, and I suggested biscotti on Cornelia Street and she agreed.

  “Friends are equals, no?”

  “No. I think you are not equal,” she said. “I think you have resources he does not.”

  As I turned on Sixth, I realized I’d passed at least a dozen college students, girls who seemed not much older than Bella, who might’ve been happy to accompany D to the dinner, if they knew him as I did, as Bella did. But, since they didn’t, they’d probably think he was no different than any other guy who felt fine when he was in his own world and thoroughly uncertain when he wasn’t. Poor D. He never was much good with women, a very bad thing for a guy who wants so bad to be loved.

  The play Sonia Salgado was reading in the moments before she was killed was written by Isolina Leyva and it was called Obligación. I read it as I picked at salt-cod cakes at Pico, a first-class Portuguese restaurant across from my home on Greenwich. Since mid-October, five weeks after 9/11, I’ve eaten at least once a week in a TriBeCa restaurant. I was going to do that until the neighborhood either regained the bounce in its step or disappeared.

  As I took a bite of lemon-and-grapefruit side salad, I reviewed Leyva’s play. It’s the story of young love, battered by circumstance and manipulated by an industrialist father, told through Marta, who, as a teenager in 1959, fled Cuba with her wealthy family to Little Havana in Miami. She pines for her boyfriend Juanito, never believing he’s abandoned his promise to join her until the end of Act I, when she’s told by her father that Juanito died trying to reach her.

  In the second act, it’s years later, and we learn that Juanito has been laboring all the while as a groundskeeper at the Biltmore Hotel, not far from Calle Ocho where he and Marta were to rendezvous. He didn’t come to her, we learn, because Marta’s father thr
eatened to harm his family if he did. (“What is the love of a poor boy worth?” the father sneers.) Marta, a mother now, lives in luxury on Brickell Avenue, not very far from the small apartment occupied by Juanito, now known as Juan. Of course, neither knows of the other’s presence.

  In the third act, Marta and Juan finally reunite; deus ex machina: Marta’s daughter is to have her 15th birthday celebration photos taken at the Biltmore, where Marta, a widow, sees Juan toiling amid the eucalyptus and salal.

  She returns to meet secretly with him and the life that could have been is revealed, with revelry and tears. But the ending is bittersweet: Affluent now, a success in her new homeland, Marta cannot join Juan, though she is free to do so. He is a poor man, a laborer; her father’s daughter, she is a woman of standing in her community, of responsibility. They must be satisfied with their memories, with dreams of what might have been.

  Christ. What tripe.

  At least it wouldn’t be expensive to mount, I thought as I flagged down the waitress for my check. It required three pairs of actors—each progressively older than the last—to play Marta and Juanito in the three acts; another for the father; and a bunch of people who’d try to make their parts sound better than third guy/waiter on their résumé. Leyva demanded that the staging be sparse, almost Spartan, which ought to hold down costs: In the directions, he had written, “It is a story of emotion, of aspiration, not of possessions and details.”

  It was also a story of people who didn’t get to live the life they believed they would, who might’ve had a chance to reconnect with a lost dream.

  The Avellaneda had a Web site, of course, and the theater’s founder was listed as Safi Majorelle. A cute alias, I thought. He had invoked the New Yorker’s prerogative to reinvent himself, and I wondered if he was signaling his ethnic background with the new name. Was he French, as Jacques Majorelle had been? Or, as the name Safi suggested, did he have family in Morocco where Majorelle painted the kasbahs of Irounen and built his gardens in Marrakesh? As I scrolled, learning he still ran the place as president and artistic director, I found a photo that was probably taken 20 years ago: Majorelle had black, brushed-back hair, an immaculate pencil-thin mustache, a knowing smile on his angular face. He wore a bright yellow scarf and what appeared to be a black smoking jacket. He seemed neither particularly French nor Moroccan, but a sort of nonspecific southern European or North African. And to add to the ethnic confusion, the mission of the Avellaneda, the site said, was to present exclusively the works of Cuban-American playwrights.