A Well-Known Secret

by Fusilli, Jim;

  After that, the site would only have been useful if I’d been interested in its forthcoming events—No Direction Home by Edwina Acuñar-Gonzalez was up now, through May 15—or if I wanted a hyperlink to TicketCharge. I wondered briefly if Majorelle had mounted Obligación. When I saw that the brief history section was but a few paragraphs long, one of which was a list of renowned Hispanic actors who had played the Avellaneda, I moved on.

  I went next on a search for information on Asher Glatzer, the man Sonia Salgado had killed some 30 years before. Fifty-nine hits but, remarkably, there wasn’t a single site that mentioned the murder. I did find an HTML site thrown up by a young boy in Haifa, Israel; Abba Glatzer’s father’s name was Asher. Abba was a good student and he wanted to be a pilot. He liked American music. Or he did in 1999, when he put up the site.

  “Hey.”

  I turned to find Bella in the door frame. She had a chubby pen stuck behind her ear, and over a rock-band T she wore a big, long denim shirt that she had bleached to a near-white. On her left wrist, she had a rainbow of perhaps 30 plastic bracelets. She had kicked off her shoes. One sock was yellow, the other a bright pink.

  “Do you remember that play we saw at the Public by that Cuban guy?”

  “Two Sisters and a Piano,” she replied. “At the little place.”

  “The Shiva, yes,” I confirmed. “What’s up?”

  “The checks.”

  She handed me a small batch of checks to sign.

  I lifted a pen from the off-kilter cup she’d made four years ago for my 32nd birthday and started quickly scribbling my signature on the line on the front right.

  “You’re not even looking at them,” she groaned.

  “I trust you.” I let her keep the family checkbook. Why not?

  “You know, you should be more serious about money.”

  “I don’t care about money, Bella. You know that.”

  “That’s not too difficult, Dad, when you’re a millionaire.”

  I craned my neck to look at her. Millionaire? We tried to live on $700 a week. I’d paid off the mortgage—against advice, but who in their right mind wants to wangle and worry to save a few hundred bucks in taxes?—and put my advance aside and set up her trust. Marina’s money is Bella’s now. One day I’ll tell her, but not yet: She’s already too interested in the stuff.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  She paused, then she said, “Mrs. Maoli is upset.”

  “I know.”

  She gestured with her head. “What did you do?”

  “What did I do?” I said, as I reached for the mouse to log off.

  She pointed to the computer monitor. “I’m not going to look.”

  “No?” I asked as I swung around in the chair to face her.

  “I learned my lesson.”

  I came home one wintry evening to find that Bella, hungry to know what was in her father’s mind, to know what had happened to her father’s spirit, had cracked the password on my Word program and read 18 months’ worth of diary entries. Not exactly diary entries: letters to her mother, often profoundly personal, certainly private. When I entered the study, her eyes were ringed in red and her nose was raw and balls of tissues were scattered on the floor. “You are heartsick,” she cried as she leapt into my arms.

  That night, I read what I had written. It was all sophistry, all self-indulgence: the spouting of a man seeking sustenance, solace, counsel from the dead. A man hiding in his own misery, an act of egoism absolutely unacceptable in a father.

  I believe Bella has forgiven me.

  But I haven’t written to Marina since.

  Why bother the stars?

  “We agreed not to speak about that,” I shrugged. “Now, about Mrs. Maoli …”

  “Yes …”

  “You know her friend asked me to find where her daughter lived.”

  She nodded.

  “I found it. And when I got there Sonia Salgado was dead. Someone had killed her.” I punched my hand, I put my hand on my throat. “Strangled.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yes, ‘wow,’” I said. “Now Mrs. Maoli wants me to find who did it.”

  She shifted.

  “This is a coincidence, Bella? The mother wants the address and the next day the daughter is dead?”

  “Maybe she wanted to warn her.”

  “Sure. Yes.”

  “Did you give her the address?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how can she be involved?”

  “I don’t know. But, Bella, one thing you’ve got to realize is that Sonia Salgado is … is not admirable. I mean, she killed an old man. I mean, really killed him. Slashed him, savagely.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “You know, these people who are killed, Bella, they just don’t close their eyes and they’re dead. It’s painful, it’s degrading; and then they’re gone. And their dreams die with them.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “This complicates things. I mean, just because Mrs. Maoli believes that her friend is a nice old lady doesn’t make it so. And just because the nice old lady says her daughter is innocent … What else is she going to say?”

  “OK,” she said abruptly. “I got it.” Then she began to toy with the colorful array of bracelets on her forearm. “I got it. Geez, I’m trying to understand, that’s all.”

  “Understand what?”

  “If you said no to Mrs. M.”

  “No,” I replied, “I told her I’d look into it.”

  “Will you?”

  “Bella …”

  “Despite what she did?”

  “What Sonia did … It seems to start there.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I said, “OK?”

  She shrugged. “Dead bodies. But you’ve got to help Mrs. M.”

  “I think we agree on that.”

  I turned back to the checks. I’d let Bella choose the pattern: white sails on a lake, the horizon visible through pine-covered mountains.

  I was searching the soapy water for the last fork from our quick dinner when the doorbell rang.

  Bella yelled from upstairs. “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know.” I grabbed the dish towel and cut the radio on top of the refrigerator. Sibelius’s Concerto in D Minor came to an abrupt end.

  “If it’s for me, I’m here,” Bella added.

  I looked into the peephole.

  “It’s not for you,” I shouted, then I opened the door.

  Mango made a laconic gesture and told me to come out onto Harrison.

  “You can come in, Tommy,” I said.

  He stepped aside so I could go down the steps.

  I had the dish towel in my hands and no shoes on my feet as I went into the evening chill.

  Mango’s black Town Car was running. Steam rose from the tailpipe.

  He let the front of his black-leather coat hang open. The knot of his white tie was undone; now the tie made an X that was held together with a silver bar.

  The concrete was cold and the street was dark. The violet streetlight on Greenwich flickered unevenly.

  “You didn’t call,” he said.

  “The number wasn’t hers. Dead end.”

  “You tell the D.A. that?”

  I didn’t bite. “No. I didn’t get a callback.”

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of his long coat. “McDowell says you’re a pain in the ass.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Listen, Terry,” he began. He looked at his buffed shoes and he looked up at me. “You’re out now. You got me?”

  “How do you figure that, Tommy?”

  “I don’t see a role for you is what I’m saying.”

  He was starting slow, but I knew him well enough to understand he could ramp it up fast.

  “I’ve got to close my end,” I said. “I got the mother to talk to.”

  “The mother’s been talked to,” he replied sharply. “And the D.A.’s been talked to, an A.D.A.,
and not Knight, that melanzana friend you got.”

  “‘Melanzana,’ Tommy?” The word, Italian for eggplant, was a nasty pejorative for successful blacks among people like Mango. “Where’s that coming from?”

  “Don’t be cute, Terry. I told you I don’t want you fuckin’ up this thing. It’s a B-and-E gone bad and I’ll close it like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “B-and-E? What did she have to steal?”

  He pressed on. “Building full of ex-cons. They steal anything, these guys.”

  I kept quiet.

  “What do you think?” He stepped closer to me. “You and me, we play nice, Terry. Let’s leave it that way.”

  I looked down at him. “Long day, Tommy?”

  He started to come back at me, then he stopped. He smiled and he shook his head. “Maybe that’s it. Long day.” He chuckled. “Maybe you ain’t the only pain in the ass.”

  A cab took the yellow on the broad avenue behind the cop.

  He patted me on the arm. “Look, we all got responsibilities”—he nodded toward the house—“and you’re trying to find this guy Weisz. What I’m saying is maybe you keep your concentration here, where it ought to be, and I’m with you.”

  There was no need to ask the question. The implication was clear.

  “You’re right, Tommy. Responsibilities.”

  “Good, Terry.” He started toward the car. “Maybe I’ll see you at the Delphi, huh? Buy you some French toast, something.”

  I left the street and was back inside before he drove off.

  FOUR

  With Julie Giada, it couldn’t be just warmed-over, 25-cents-a-pop, machine-made coffee in paper cups. It had to be fresh-brewed in matching mugs with plump bagels, low-fat cream cheese, glistening fruit—strawberries, juicy purple grapes, slices of fresh peaches. No way the D.A. caters this quality stuff.

  “Julie,” I said as I inched into a chair in the conference room, “you are unbelievable.”

  “What?” She sat with her back to the floor-to-ceiling rack of West reporters, case summaries that were referenced often and had to be back on the shelf before the borrower left for the night. “You have to eat.”

  “I don’t know that we have to eat this well,” I said. “You shouldn’t spend your—”

  “It’s not all that much. See?” She smiled as she pushed a small paper plate and a plastic knife and fork toward me. “Go ahead.”

  I put a few strawberries and peach slices on the plate. I usually don’t eat breakfast, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. I had the impression she’d begun working on this spread shortly after we cut the line last night.

  She put the top half of a sesame bagel next to the fruit.

  “Go crazy,” she said, as she dabbed her fingers on a paper napkin. “How’s Gabriella?”

  “Fine, great. You know. A wonder. Who knows?”

  Julie nodded and smiled. She had a pleasant face, not unappealing, the kind that emitted a sense of hope, of openness, despite dark brown eyes that drooped a bit at the corners; in fact, in a certain light, Julie glowed. She kept her immaculately groomed brown hair pulled back, clipped tight and parted on the right, which, along with a cute, short chin, served to make her face seem rounder than it was. She was a little shorter than Bella; with her serious business heels on, she might be about the same height.

  She usually dressed conservatively. Today, she wore a collarless black jacket, a matching knee-length skirt and black flats. I figured she was due back in court at ten.

  “Is that a new blazer?”

  She gestured to the brown tweed thing I’d put on over my jeans and a white button-down.

  “I haven’t bought a new blazer since the last century, Jule,” I told her. “That the file?”

  She said yes. “I’ve got to get it back to Sharon.”

  “She know what happened yesterday?”

  “Of course.” She tapped her fingernail on the file. “It’s my job to tell her what may come in before it does.”

  “And?”

  She took a sip of her coffee. “It’s as I said. Sonia Salgado Arroyo was a bad puppy, Terry. The life of that old man meant nothing. He had the diamonds and she wanted them.”

  Julie put down her cup, picked up a plastic knife and, with a backhand jab, gave a terse demonstration.

  “Diamonds?” I took a bite of a peach slice; Christ, it was soft, sweet, fresh.

  “Glatzer was carrying a cache of diamonds.”

  “Really?”

  “Not so unusual back then,” she said, “to barter with another merchant, repay a loan. Probably not now, though. I don’t believe anyone’s walking along the Bowery with six hundred thousand dollars in uncut diamonds under his shirt.”

  “Are you telling me Sonia Salgado killed Asher Glatzer to rip off six hundred K in diamonds?”

  “I’m saying they found the old man’s wallet in Sonia’s room and they found the paper sheath Glatzer and his sons used to hold the diamonds buried in the trash in the basement. With Glatzer’s blood on it.”

  “And no diamonds.”

  No, she said with a shake of the head. No diamonds.

  “She say where the diamonds went?”

  “She claimed she lifted Glatzer’s wallet on the Bowery but knew nothing about the diamonds or the killing.”

  “The knife turned up?”

  Julie said no.

  “Anyone else implicated?”

  She shrugged. “She passed off the diamonds, that’s for sure, unless they’re still hidden in a drainpipe somewhere. So she had a partner, but she wouldn’t give him up.”

  “You find out anything about the mother?” I asked.

  “Nothing much.”

  “You got a photo?”

  She nudged aside the file to reveal a standard letter envelope that bore the New York County crest. When she shook it, out slid an old black-and-white head shot. I spun it toward me. It was Dorotea Salgado.

  “That’s her,” I said. “When was this—”

  She gave me the date. Twenty-eight years ago.

  “Any idea where she was going?” I asked.

  “She never went anywhere and she let the passport expire.”

  “Her maiden name is Arroyo?”

  Julie nodded. That’s why she called her daughter Sonia Salgado Arroyo. Many Hispanics took their mother’s maiden name as their surname. Sonia probably dropped it to Americanize her name. Or because her father insisted.

  “What about Mr. Salgado?” I asked. “Any word on him?”

  “Died when Sonia was eight or nine, I believe. Working on the Triborough Bridge. Landed on Ward’s Island. Arturo Salgado.” She picked up a strawberry and took a slow bite. I put the photo back into the white envelope.

  “Well,” I said as I pushed back my chair, “we’ll see where it takes us.”

  “‘Us.’”

  “The royal ‘us.’”

  “I see,” she answered. She dropped the tiny green leaves from the top of the strawberry onto a plate. “But it’s taking you somewhere. …”

  “Mother asks me to find daughter. Daughter is killed the next morning. Tommy Mango tells me to stay home.” I shrugged. “It is what it will be.”

  She leaned forward, placing her arms on the table. “Terry, you understand we’re not in this. Not yet, anyway. Not until Sharon says.”

  Since Sharon was the executive A.D.A. who ran the homicide bureau, she’d be in it soon enough. “When do you—”

  A slim man in an impeccable blue suit with a black alligator briefcase at the end of his arm went by. He stopped, backed up his long stride and peered into the conference room.

  He looked only at the fruit. He sang, “Julie …” He had sky-blue eyes and sharp features and he wore a cologne that blended licorice and sandalwood.

  “There will be leftovers, Chad,” she said tersely.

  “You angel, you,” he said, smiling as he resumed his stroll down the corridor.

  “Good friend?” I asked as I stood.
>
  “He’s all right,” she replied.

  “He interested in you?”

  “It’s more likely that he’d be interested in you,” she nodded. “Isn’t that the way?”

  I let her pass and we went out, leaving behind the scent of peach and sesame.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked. At the end of the long corridor, a photocopy machine hummed and churned.

  “I’m going to look for a way to go back thirty years.”

  She tilted her head in confusion.

  I said, “This girl is clever enough to ditch the knife and pass off the diamonds, but not smart enough to get rid of the wallet. And she brings the victim’s blood into her home.”

  “And that doesn’t work for you?” she asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  I thanked her and told her I’d be in touch. “And the breakfast was great, Julie.”

  “You patronize,” she chided. “You ate less than half of a peach and two strawberries.”

  “I was leaving the rest for Chad,” I replied.

  “Poo,” she said.

  “Well, there’s no rebuttal for that, Jule.”

  We shook hands. Julie had a good, firm handshake.

  Who knew The Daily News was no longer in the Daily News building?

  The giant globe still spun slowly in the lobby of 220 East 42nd, but the Art Deco edifice, put up in 1930 and a landmark now, was home no longer to the tabloid’s editorial staff and printing plant. It cost me 50 cents to buy a copy at a deli and learn from the masthead that it’d gone across town.

  I grabbed another cab in front of the Pfizer building and told the driver to head toward 11th.

  “You know the News isn’t there anymore?” I asked as we left the curb.

  When the man laughed, the skin on his face crinkled like parchment paper. “Of course. Ain’t been there for a good long while.”

  “Oh.” It had taken them two years after the News building opened to discover that the globe was turning the wrong way. Dumb bastards.

  He said, “Hey, you heard about that old Pfizer building back there?”