A Well-Known Secret

by Fusilli, Jim;

  My thought: This is some kid.

  I said good-bye again, and off Daniel Wu went toward Walker Street, accompanied by what was inside his own head.

  “No Mrs. Figueroa,” I said, sealing the door.

  “Gloria got sick. Dizzy.”

  My daughter had been escorted home from a party by a boy. A milestone?

  She danced over to the sink. “What kind of car did you buy?”

  “No car,” I said.

  “Couldn’t find anything?” She turned on the cold water and got her jelly-jar glass from a cupboard.

  “Bella, I hope you plan to sleep your customary twelve hours tonight.”

  She took a long drink. Then she wiped her mouth on her black sleeve. “Why?”

  “I’m out of here very early,” I said.

  “As long as you’re back in time.”

  “For?”

  “Dad.”

  “Kidding.”

  Another gulp. And she turned, drizzled dish-soap into the jelly jar, washed it and rinsed it and put it in the drainer to dry.

  “Did you get a tuxedo?” she asked as she bounded around the table.

  “I’m not wearing a tux, Bella.”

  “If he was winning the Nobel—”

  “If Diddio wins the Nobel Prize, I’ll wear a tux.”

  She went to the stairs.

  “Bella, dry your hair before you get into bed.”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she replied. “I won’t sleep now: too much energy. All that music, dancing. All of us in a big, perfect circle.”

  “Good time?”

  “Great time.” She smiled as I grabbed her coat to hang it up. “Thanks, Dad.”

  I nodded and watched as she went up the stairs. She was humming. A sweet voice, all over the place.

  “Bella, don’t open the door tomorrow for anybody.”

  She made the turn toward her room. I couldn’t see her.

  She shouted, “OK. I won’t.”

  I’d leave a note for her. I’d stick it on the back of the front door.

  Even if it’s Tommy Mango, I’d write. Especially if it’s Tommy Mango.

  THIRTEEN

  Back in black with Leo’s .38 against my belt, I got to chilly 35th Avenue before six, before the planes blasted overhead, and in the silence, I posted up by the abandoned brown LeSabre. Hiding in plain sight, I was stationed on a sheet of old concrete that had been poured ineptly into a flat clump, surrounded by thick, ruddy mud coated with a thin sheen of ice. In the silver light of a cold morning, the street was no less coarse and unattractive: Huge potholes remained, and loose trash was everywhere, surrounded by oil slicks and black dirt. Every 10 minutes or so, a car would use 126th to make its way to Northern Boulevard or the Van Wyck. Otherwise, this part of Flushing was Saturday-morning quiet. Even Chubby’s had yet to open its doors.

  Bascomb rolled up the street at 6:50 and, as I ducked down behind the Buick, he pulled up in front of his shop. Leaving the motor of his tow truck idling, the lumbering big man with the swollen nose withdrew a key from his pocket and opened his front door. As he went inside, he shut the door behind him.

  I came around the car carcass and moved toward Bascomb’s shop.

  When I reached the tow truck, I stuck my arm inside, cut the engine and took the key. Then I hit the horn.

  I shifted quickly to the side of the door.

  He was one step onto 35th when I hit him. A hard solid right to his sore, tender nose.

  Bascomb stumbled backward and I came in after him. Before he could recover, I hit him again, a right cross to the left temple, and he was hurt. As he fell back against his desk, his arm smacked against a wire basket that held receipts and other paperwork. The sheets fluttered and fell.

  I grabbed him by the collar of his work jacket and hit him a third time, again to the nose. Blood spurted: I’d probably broken it again.

  “Listen, motherfucker,” I told him, spittle dribbling into his face as I hovered over him. “I’m going to bust you up for coming at me, then you’re going to tell me about Sonia.”

  I pushed his head hard onto the concrete floor.

  The blood ran both ways down his cheeks. He tried to focus, but couldn’t.

  “It’s me, you fuckin’ loser,” I said. “Terry Orr.”

  “Mango’s man,” he managed.

  I had my knee on his chest now and I had my right hand cocked by my ear. “Don’t feed me that shit,” I said. “I’m not your friend Hassan.”

  “You’re supposed to kill me,” he said, his voice steadier. “Get it done.”

  “You. You and your fuckin’ wrench. You’re the killer.”

  “Fuck you,” he barked.

  I reached into my sweatshirt pouch and pulled the .38. I rammed the barrel against his nose.

  He closed his eyes tight.

  “Enough of this,” I spit. “Enough jerking me around. You’re going to tell me what went on and you’re going to do it now, you piece of shit.”

  I jumped off. I felt good, I felt strong. Alive.

  There was a red mark where the barrel of the gun had been jammed against his skin.

  “Up,” I said. “Park your ass in that seat and start talking.”

  Bascomb rolled over, pressed his big palms on the ground and wobbled to his feet, then dumped himself into the wooden chair.

  “Go,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  I leaned over and, with the gun, pushed a stack of paper towels toward him. He grabbed one and dabbed at his nose.

  “Shit,” he moaned.

  “Don’t complain,” I said. “You’re breathing. Unlike Sonia, your friend from DeWitt Clinton.”

  He tossed the red ball of paper on the floor.

  The office was long and narrow and completely utilitarian: desk, coil-neck lamp, chair, paper, cup of pencils and pens spilled now on the desk, phone. Behind Bascomb was the entry to the bay where he stuck his truck when he had to. In the back of the room, an open door revealed a toilet and sink.

  Another blood-soaked towel fell to the floor.

  “I don’t know why you’re after me,” Bascomb began, as much in pity as in defiance. “I’ve got no business with you.”

  “You came at me on Forty-fifth Street,” I said, “by the Avellaneda. I’d—”

  “A job,” he nodded. “Nothing personal.”

  “A job? For who?”

  “Don’t,” he said with a smirk. “We’ve got the same boss. That’s fact.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have a boss.”

  “You know who hired me to keep you away from Ahmed,” he said plainly, still pressing a towel against the center of his face.

  The gun was growing heavy in my hand and I shifted it, and I let my hand rest on my thigh. Bascomb eyed the gun as it moved.

  “Start with that,” I said.

  “Jimmy,” he said, “all right?”

  “Not Tommy.”

  “Jimmy,” he repeated.

  “How did he know I was going to see Hassan?”

  “He followed you. When you got to midtown, he let me know.”

  “Where were you?” I asked. “You’re a disaster in midtown.”

  He frowned.

  I told him I’d followed him yesterday.

  “Driving in midtown,” he mumbled. “But I came in on the Seven train. I was at Port Authority when he called.”

  “Why is Jimmy on me?”

  “You don’t listen, Jimmy says.”

  I lifted the gun. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  He managed a crass smile. “I’d say you don’t listen at all.”

  “So,” I said, “you work for the Mangos. You do what?”

  “Same as you,” he replied.

  I’d started to catch my breath and the red flame of my fury had started to die down. But I wasn’t yet ready for riddles.

  “You think I kill for the Mangos,” I said. “So you—”

  The phone on Bascomb’s desk rang. I looked at it. />
  And he was on me: The big man came off the swivel chair fast and hard. He knocked me back and I hit the door frame.

  Before I could raise the gun, he grabbed my right arm with his thick left hand and he banged it against the frame, then again, again. But I didn’t let go and I got my left hand onto his slippery face and I pressed hard against his cracked nose. He stopped as if shocked, but quickly stepped back, shoved me and, when I spun on the door frame, drove a right deep into my kidney. I fell hard to my knees.

  Bascomb ran out and I could hear him go for his truck. When he saw that I’d taken the key, he slammed the door shut.

  I gasped for air as I rose. When I made it outside, Bascomb was running toward 126th.

  I set off after him, jamming the gun back into my sweatshirt pouch.

  He had a long lead on me as he turned left on 126th, moving toward the sun. I was having a hard time catching my breath and I was running awkwardly, without speed. When I reached 126th, I saw him. Despite his strange gait, he was at least two blocks ahead of me and on the other side of the long, wide street. I sucked hard, took in as much air as I could and ran faster, the gun jiggling against my belt.

  Above us, a plane leaving LaGuardia fought to gain altitude, to rise toward the strips of cloud. Roaring as it rose, it ripped the uneasy silence.

  Bascomb kept tilting to the right as he passed the gates that let the cars into Shea.

  The big man surprised me. He moved well now, despite his bulk, his work boots. But I was drawing up on him as my legs found their rhythm, my sneakers pounding hard on the asphalt.

  We were running through the vast lot, with its 25,000 or so empty lanes, cutting across faint yellow lines, careening past green Parks Department trash cans. Bascomb was now beyond the center-field side of the horseshoe-shaped stadium and I was coming up on him. To my right: the empty stadium and a splash of color from its orange, red and blue plastic seats, gone as fast as it appeared. Pale brick on the stadium façade. Small puddles on the blacktop and the bottom of Bascomb’s boots. Flat silver light and I felt fine.

  The tracks of the elevated 7 line hung over Roosevelt Avenue. Beyond that, more asphalt, more emptiness, fences. I knew the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center was on the other side of the wide avenue. The old World’s Fair—the Unisphere, the Hall of Science. If Bascomb ran to the park, I’d have him.

  I’d have him if he kept going toward Roosevelt Avenue: four lanes of traffic under the elevated train tracks. He’d have to stop until he could barrel across.

  I was getting closer, closer.

  Bascomb suddenly zigzagged to his left, toward spiral steps inside a circular chain-link fence. As he left the lifeless light and ran toward the stairs, I followed. If he was going to cross the avenue from above, avoiding the rush of traffic below, I’d catch him before he made it to Flushing Meadows. A straight run had turned into an endurance contest. I knew my body was ready for it. I doubted his was.

  I went through the gate of the rusted fence and onto the cement stairs. I’d lost sight of Bascomb, but I heard him: echoes of his heavy boots on the concrete overpass. He was above the highway, heading toward the old World’s Fair. Despite the pain from his cracked nose, the big man hadn’t stopped for air.

  A killer was on him. He believed that. That’s what was driving him. Jimmy Mango said so. Maybe Tommy said so too. And the killer had a .38 he might use.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, snapping myself around on the cold handrail, I saw him at the end of a long, tile-lined corridor and he hesitated. He looked left, he looked right. He went right.

  I followed. I hadn’t stopped and I was drawing nearer.

  Bascomb went for the light at the top of the high stairs.

  As I reached the stairs, I heard a roar, an enormous rumbling sound, the rush of motion, energy, vigor.

  Another plane?

  I took the stairs two at a time.

  When I reached the top, when I stepped into the silver light, I saw it.

  A subway train.

  Long rack of cars, rectangles in dark red. Doors open, people easing inside, moving indifferently, tabloids tucked under their arms, sauntering, as if it wasn’t all wrong.

  Bascomb jumped the turnstile, dodged along the platform, skidded into a car in the center. Panicking, he continued to move on the inside. I saw him. He stumbled past silver handrails, past outstretched legs, and he opened the door and went into the next car.

  I stood still. With the pale, open sky above me, I did not move.

  The conductor looked out. She looked at me. She went back inside and made the doors close.

  The subway train grunted, it lurched slightly and then began to ease out of the station and I watched as it went, as it pulled away, gained speed, grew smaller. And I looked at the rails, the thick, splintered wood on which they rested.

  And though there were taxis, vans, cars below, rushing along the avenue—sudden, colorful blurs catching the morning light—I did not see them. I was somewhere else.

  Marina, leaping down into the mire surrounding the tracks, scrambling, crying out in horror. Davy screaming his baby scream, little hands groping at air, his perfect baby face coated by filth, by blood. The light of an incoming train growing brighter, stronger. Marina, realizing time is about to end, cannot lift her baby from the stroller, she grabs the stroller with Davy strapped inside and she turns and she thinks and what will be her thoughts are unmistakably obvious:

  Terry, where are you?

  Terry. Terry!—

  “Where are you?”

  “Queens,” I said, “by Shea.” I was walking along 126th, next to an empty lot.

  “Hold on,” he replied, keeping his voice soft, low. I heard the rustle of sheets, the groan of bed springs, the swing of a door: He was putting on a robe, moving away from his wife, taking the phone to the next room.

  “All right,” Luther Addison said.

  “I lost him.”

  “Who?”

  “He got on the train and I lost him.”

  “The subway?”

  I nodded.

  “Terry?”

  “The subway.”

  Addison understood. He’d seen the bodies. Marina’s, Davy’s. The stroller, crushed, shredded.

  “What’s it all about?”

  “A guy, Alfie Bascomb,” I told him. “He’s involved in this thing I’m working on.”

  “The Cuban woman.”

  “He told me he’s a killer,” I said. “Whether he’s the killer …”

  “Alfie Bascomb,” Addison repeated.

  I gave him a brief description that boiled down to a big guy with a rap sheet who now had a broken nose and blood on his soiled work shirt.

  “He might still be on the Seven line,” I added. Or he got off a few stops up on Roosevelt Avenue and was doubling back. He had another key for his truck somewhere in his shop. He’d take the truck and he’d go where he had to.

  “All right.”

  I could’ve told him Sharon Knight knew all about it. But she didn’t. I hadn’t told Sharon or Julie about Sixto, Ernie Mango’s involvement, about one of his sons telling Bascomb I’d been hired to kill him.

  “Luther, what you want to do is grab him before he can get to anyone involved in this thing,” I said.

  “Why’s that?”

  I’d reached 35th Avenue. As I turned, I saw Bascomb’s truck. It was still in front of the shop.

  “It’s kind of tangled up,” I replied. “Maybe you’ll get something out of this guy. Press him on Mango.”

  “Tommy Mango?”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got to catch my breath,” I said. There was no sense in telling him the truth. He’d only try to talk me out of it.

  “Terry, are you OK?”

  “Sure.” I passed Chubby’s. A fat man was wiping down the counter.

  “Terry, let me get you a ride back.”

  I put my hand on the bac
k of Bascomb’s truck. “I got a ride.”

  “Go to the one-ten,” he said. “I know the commanding officer. He’ll—”

  “Luther, I’ve got to go,” I said as I went toward the black door. “Bascomb, OK?”

  I turned off the cell phone.

  It wasn’t hard for me to guess that Addison would call his friend at the 1-10 as soon as he got off the line with the Transit Authority cops. I had to move fast.

  The phone on Bascomb’s desk had rung at about 7 A.M. It might’ve been somebody paging him for a tow, but I was betting the big man had a cell in his car for that kind of business. Maybe he’d come to the office at a predetermined time to take one special call.

  I stepped over the scattered paper on Bascomb’s floor, kicked aside a bloody towel and grabbed the phone. I tapped *69 and got the number. When a canned voice asked me if I wanted to connect with the number, I said yes and heard a series of beeps.

  The phone rang and rang and then the call went to an answering machine.

  “Buenos días, esta es Danny Villa. Yo he dejado la oficina …”

  Villa had called Bascomb at 7 A.M., then shut down his cell phone.

  Maybe he’d be in his office by the time I reached Manhattan.

  I went outside and, pulling the key from my coat pocket, climbed into the cab of Bascomb’s tow truck.

  FOURTEEN

  I took the Grand Central Parkway over Randall’s Island to the Triborough, accompanied by new knowledge: A tow truck rides a hell of lot smoother than anyone might’ve imagined. Automatic transmission with the press of a button on the dash; cruise control, which I might’ve used if I’d once gotten the thing over 55; power brakes; power steering; the works. Finding guys stuck at midnight on 95 or 278 brought in good coin.

  I was going to ask the guy at the tollbooth if I looked like I belonged behind the wheel of a 20,000-pound truck, but Bascomb had E-Z Pass and I slid through without having to stop.

  So I made it from Queens to Manhattan without getting pulled over, without having to explain why I had stolen Bascomb’s tow truck and why I was carrying Leo’s hardware in my sweatshirt.

  I thought about driving the truck to Little Italy, parking it on the curb in front of Marco’s, the bar where Ernie Mango drank himself stupid.