Or up on the sidewalk in front of the Delphi, where Tommy held court.
Too melodramatic, I concluded. Besides, I needed the transportation to the Upper East Side.
The sun was to my left as I came off the Harlem River Lift to get onto the FDR going south. (Amazing how drivers with Hondas and Geos will yield during a center-lane merge when the other guy is driving a tow truck.) Yellow streaks looked like lightning on the choppy East River and bulging white steam rose from brick stacks on the Queens side. I wriggled out of stop-and-go traffic and eased over without incident to leave the highway at 96th. On the concrete island under the FDR, a scraggly man with a ratty beard and a big German shepherd held a sign that said his dog needed food. A good ploy, I thought, though it might’ve worked better with something smaller, something less able to fend for itself—an underweight Jack Russell terrier, maybe. I caught a red at 91st and York and watched a half-dozen kids, Bella’s age, use the basketball court for a roller-hockey rink.
I had choked at the Willet’s Point subway station. Choked. I ought to have Bascomb now, with Addison’s friends from the 1-10 descending on 35th Avenue, an EMT ambulance at the door to tend to the big guy’s nose.
I had choked. And I know damned well that by now I should—
Four years now and I still haven’t worked it out. And I know it, even when I’m telling myself I have.
I can deal with the senselessness of it and the emptiness I feel. I’ve become accustomed to the lack of their sound, their ideas, the lack of their affection. I don’t dwell on thoughts of their potential and I don’t ponder the possibilities. I asked only the simplest questions, ones where an answer was imaginable. You know, like, what would Davy do today? Just today. What would a boy going on six years old be doing? And what would Marina say tonight over dinner? What would she be working on now? Would we be back in Italy with new subjects for her to commemorate, to celebrate? Or would she be exploring here, New York, the East Coast, where? She hinted: On a morning in May six weeks before she died, we took Davy to the Cloisters.
She hated the way I carried him: near my hip, his little round diapered ass in my big hand.
At the Cloisters, she had an epiphany, she said. (Same word in Italian, though I didn’t understand at first.) Above the green cliffs that line the Hudson, on a hill in exquisite Fort Tryon Park, is a museum that’s essentially a replica, a reconstruction, of French cloisters created with pale limestone and pink marble from Spain. It houses medieval art from the world over: a hand scroll from eighth-century China; a baldacchino from 12th-century Burgundy; a wing of a diptych depicting the crucifixion of Christ created in 14th-century Tuscany; a 16th-century ivory mask from Nigeria. All in a setting that is tranquil, secluded, seemingly secure. Created by men of industry and of unimaginable wealth—John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and J. P. Morgan.
“America,” she said, with a knowing nod, a shake of a long, brown finger. “This is a metaphor for America.”
We were in the flourishing green garden of the Cuxa Cloister, having left the shadows of the processional walkway to step under the stone arches into the courtyard’s bright sunlight.
“That’s pretty good, Marina,” I said as I sat on a bench, shifting Davy and his rubber rattle to my lap. America, where the world comes together, still.
I watched a cardinal perched on the lip of the bird-bath in the center of the yard.
“Yes,” she said as she reached for the baby, “America. If you have enough money, you can recreate—is that the word, fare qualche cosa sembrarlo era?”
“Recreate. To create again, yes.”
“If you have enough money, you can recreate something so lovely that the people will forget he could go home again maybe. That this is what he has at home.”
I didn’t respond, I think, because I wasn’t sure I understood. Was she saying America is merely where we are until we return home? That we don’t ever cease to be immigrants in whom memory doesn’t exist separate from a longing that can’t be satisfied? Or was Marina saying that we’re lucky there is something lovely to remind us of home?
Now I was sitting in a tow truck on York Avenue, my hands gripping the wheel as if I were choking it, watching a man share a buttered roll with a dog. And I realized that my wife was telling me New York was not her home.
I heard a horn honk behind me; a bleat, a kind of “excuse me,” rather than a “move your ass” sound. I proceeded steadily along York, aside the rush on the highway. At the curb at 90th, a young woman in a long navy-blue coat held a colorful bouquet of tall flowers. She squinted as the sun shone on her face and held up her hand to protect the flowers as they wobbled in the wind.
We were happy here. Why wouldn’t we have been?
I hit the blinker at 89th and turned right onto the narrow street, wondering if I could squeeze by that moving van up there.
I pulled over by a fire hydrant on the northeast corner of 89th and Third. Before I got out of the truck, I knew I’d arrived at the right time.
Looking through the dirty front windshield, I saw before Villa’s storefront office high-tech vans from WABC News, Telemundo 47 and the local Fox affiliate. And two blue-and-white NYPD cars. In the shade on the west side of the street, a crowd gathered: people peering up the block from the hair salon—curious women still in black smocks, towels on their damp heads—the jewelers, the Stargate Diner customers. From the apartment building above Villa’s, a couple in their sixties pointed at the scene below, narrating the budding action to each other.
I cut the engine, left the key in the ignition and scuffled across Third, waiting to weave through traffic that was held up by drivers rubbernecking at the scene.
On the sidewalk outside Villa’s, a cameraman from ABC was struggling to get the right backdrop for his setup and, as he shifted, his middle-aged partner with the microphone kept eyeing the front door, as if ready to burst forward to pose his lone question. The young woman from Fox held back, standing with forced casualness by her station’s van. Her camerawoman was doing the heavy work, jostling her way toward a good spot in the crowd. As she started to clear a path, I decided to follow.
As I squeezed past a burly man in a thick turtleneck, I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I turned fast.
It was McDowell. His cheeks were red and his hair disheveled. His eyes revealed that he hadn’t had much sleep since I’d seen him last night outside of Bascomb’s. He was wearing the same outfit, minus the stocking cap. Maybe the cap was only for muscle work.
“You should be happy, Tiger,” he said.
“Tiger?”
“Unless he called you,” he added. “He call you? He called the fuckin’ press, this guy.”
Now he even sounded like one of the Mangos. “Who?”
“Villa. We made him,” he said proudly.
“Made him for what?”
“For the Salgado broad.”
I looked at him. He was serious.
He said, “They found books of hers, plays, in there. You saw her place, everything neat and in a row. He took them when he killed her. Right out of the bookcase. Obviously.”
He smiled at me with his perfect little teeth.
Danny Villa stole books from Sonia Salgado. Sure.
“You’re free, Tiger,” McDowell announced as he slapped me on the sleeve. “Tommy says you can go home.” He let out a low chuckle. “And you thought it was black magic. Heh-heh …”
“OK,” I told him. Then I continued to press forward through the crowd, nudging the Fox camerawoman as I shuffled by.
“Hey,” McDowell protested. But it was too late. The crowd had closed behind me. His voice faded, disappeared.
As I arrived at the doorstep, I saw Villa standing in the middle of his waiting room. Flanked by two detectives, he wore a spotless blue suit, a white shirt, a blue-and-silver striped tie. In his lapel was a gold pin of an unfurled American flag and a Cuban flag, their poles crossed. As one of the detectives reached for his elbow, Villa stopped him by raising his arms, and t
he handcuffs, dramatically. He tugged at his French cuffs, damped down his silver hair and pronounced himself ready to go. Two uniforms came from Villa’s inner office; one carried three hardcover books in a plastic evidence bag. From here, I could see the titles: Cuban Theater in the United States. Cuban-American Theater. The Floating Island Plays.
“Ah, Mr. Terry Orr,” said Danilo Villa.
He stepped toward me and shook my hand.
“I myself have chosen to believe the contrary,” he said with a politician’s smile.
“And that would be?”
“You do not work for them,” he said. “In fact …”
One of the detectives, the less tolerant of the two, came forward and told Villa to move.
Villa looked at the long-faced cop and said, “I am telling my friend here something.”
“Talk to him at the arraignment,” the cop sneered.
“Perhaps you, Detective Brooks, prefer I tell the cameras instead.”
Brooks shoved his hands into the pockets of his black trenchcoat. “Go ahead,” he grunted, nodding toward me.
Villa smiled as if to show his gratitude.
He turned to me and leaned closer. I could smell his woody cologne.
“Can you imagine,” he whispered, “that all of this began with a ticket for running a red light?”
I stepped back.
“Ah, you know,” he said. He waved a finger at me. “So you also are a clever boy.”
Brooks said, “Enough.” He turned to his partner and nodded: Let the perp-walk begin.
Villa dropped his arms and let them dangle. After wriggling his shoulders to get his suit to lie as he wanted it to, he turned sideways so he and Brooks could fit through the door frame. Villa wasn’t going out cowering in shame. He wasn’t going to miss a photo op or TV face time.
As they started to move into the crowd on Third, Villa looked back at me and said, “And to think I paid those damned tickets. Can you believe that?”
I stood in silence as I heard the crowd rush forward. Shadows disappeared as the TV crews went into action and the door frame filled with white light.
Villa did his first interview in Spanish with Telemundo 47.
I waited in the outer office for a few minutes until Villa, under a shower of still-camera flashes, was placed in the back of a blue-and-white, a cop’s hand on his silver hair. The uniform with the three books, the ones someone would insist Villa had taken from Sonia’s, had left and was replaced by two other young cops in blue who seemed for a moment not to be sure what to do next. I bet myself that they knew enough not to let me into Villa’s private office. I wanted to see what else had been planted there: Sonia’s statue of Santa Barbara, perhaps. A pair of her panties. What meager savings she’d been able to put together in Bedford Hills.
As I looked out onto Third, I saw McDowell. He’d hung his badge on a thin chain around his neck, and it bounced on his chest between the panels of his down vest. Pacing, he watched the crowd disperse. Like the uniformed cops behind me, he was waiting for instructions.
Finally, one of the uniforms asked me for ID. When I showed her my P.I. license, she nodded politely and told me to get out. When I started to protest, she told me to take it up with Brooks, whom I’d find at the 19th Precinct.
“What’s Villa charged with?” I asked.
“Brooks,” she replied.
I nodded amicably, not unaware that I had an unlicensed .38 in the pouch of my sweatshirt.
A man in a Burberry raincoat and a copy of Barron ’s under his arm stuck his head into the office to see what might happen next. When he was shushed away, he tsked his complaint, stiffened his thin neck and walked off.
When the last crew, the Fox team, finally packed up their van and pulled out, the last few people who’d been watching Villa’s show drifted off, and this small stretch of the Upper East Side returned to Saturday-morning quiet. McDowell, who was standing at the rear of a blue-and-white, started across Third; then, when he realized I was still inside, snapped his fingers. He turned as I came out onto the avenue.
“You’re going back downtown, right?” he asked as he crossed from light into shade.
I shrugged. I had a few calls I wanted to make. And I wanted to get off my feet for a while: My solar plexus ached like hell where Bascomb had abused it.
“I’ll give you a lift,” he said. “Maybe we’ll go see Tommy. He’d like that now.”
I looked at him. Out from behind the snappy patter, Officer McDowell had nothing to say. Villa had been hauled off in cuffs and somebody had told him that was a good thing. Tommy would be happy with him and he could now go back to doing whatever it was he liked to do.
“I got something for you, McDowell,” I told him.
“What’s that?” His question revealed no real sense of curiosity. He was still basking in his illusions, the satisfaction of the phony scenario. It was no wonder Tommy liked this kid. He was everything Jimmy wasn’t. Watchful, trustworthy, obedient. All he needed was a tag, a collar and a leash. Maybe a bone too.
I told him to follow me to the corner. When we reached 89th and Third, I shaded my eyes and pointed to Bascomb’s tow truck.
“What’s that?”
“You were looking out for it last night,” I said.
He froze; he didn’t reply.
“That’s Bascomb’s,” I added. “AB Towing and Repair. In Queens? Thirty-fifth Avenue?”
His expression changed and he bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he charged.
“Last night you and Jimmy Mango were looking for Alfie Bascomb,” I said. “There’s his truck. You want to know where he is, ask Tommy. He might know by now.”
He stepped back. He tried to conceal his surprise, his concern.
“Did you tell him Bascomb took off on you?” I asked. “That he left town? He didn’t …”
He frowned. And then he seemed to get angry. “You—”
“Christ, Tommy is going to blow,” I said, cutting him off. I gestured toward Villa’s storefront. “He went to all this trouble because you told him Bascomb was gone.”
“Aw, you don’t know shit,” he said finally.
I stepped out onto the avenue and stuck my hand in the air. Up at about 86th Street, a row of taxis waited for the light to change.
“The key’s in the ignition,” I said. “Drive it down to Elizabeth Street.”
McDowell looked at the tow truck, looked back at me.
“You’d better get with it, kid,” I added. “You’re no player. You’re being played.”
The cab I thought I’d get pulled over for a fare at 88th. I got mine out of the second wave: one of those minivans designed for four people, at least. A poor substitute for a good ol’ Checker.
I told the cabbie to go west at 97th and take Columbus south.
“Eventually,” she said.
We left McDowell, who was somewhere between befuddled and furious, at the curb. After cutting across the Upper East Side on 91st, we entered Central Park at 85th and motored steadily to the West Side. As we cruised under new buds on thin boughs, I looked up and saw the singular towers of the grand buildings of Central Park West. And as I started to drift, I remembered it had been only Wednesday that I’d been trying to shake McDowell as he tailed me through the park on my way back downtown. Little wonder Tommy Mango wanted me to stay home. His problem: how to ensure that the link between his father and Sonia Salgado remained unknown. That he’d gotten a call on the case of Sonia’s killing seemed to make it easy for him to handle it. Simple B&E, he said.
Then comes along this guy, this ex-jock, ex-writer, hothead fuck who barely knows what he’s doing …
Or was it more sinister than that? Why did Tommy have to cover up a more-than-30-year-old link, a dubious one in a certain light? A bright lawyer would have no problem making it look like a coincidence, just a hardworking cop doing his job.
What was he thinking when I called him? “A fuckin’ break.” Or: �
�Not this pain in the ass …”
I heard a voice. “Your phone.”
“Huh?”
“Your phone is humming.”
“Thanks,” I said. I felt a twinge in my lower back as I arched to undo the handset from my belt. The gun shifted in my sweatshirt. “Hello?”
“Lieutenant Addison wants you.”
“Bella?”
“Dad, Saturday is my day to sleep,” she complained. “Arrgh.”
“You sound like you’re sleeping now.”
“In thirty seconds, I will be,” she said. “Lieutenant Addison is home.”
“Bella?”
“I sleep now. …”
“They found your friend,” Addison said. “In Woodside. He was trying to get on a bus.”
We were leaving the park at 66th. An egg truck was backing toward Tavern on the Green, and a bay horse and his carriage in the cul-de-sac had to move aside. The sluggish, thick-bodied horse, accustomed to anything, shuffled without lifting his head.
“He was probably trying to get to the LIRR,” Addison continued. “He lives out in Far Rockaway.”
“You would’ve found him sooner or later,” I said.
“Not too hard to find a man stumbling around with blood all over his shirt, his face, his hands.”
A nose broken twice is bound to make a mess. “Yeah, well, I appreciate it,” I said. “I—Hold on.”
I leaned forward and asked the cabbie to get on Broadway.
“What happened to Columbus?” she asked as she adjusted the pink frames of her glasses.
“It’s all right,” I told her.
She shrugged as I returned to Addison.
The lieutenant said, “You’re in a cab. Where are you going?”
“Listen, Luther, thanks for—”
“Not so fast, son,” he said. “What’s it all about?”
“This is the guy that came at me on Forty-fifth with the wrench. Bascomb.”
“Now you’re even. So?”
I said, “Last night, Jimmy Mango and one of Tommy’s boys were looking for him.”
“Interesting. But in and of itself, Terry—”
“He’s done time, Luther, back in the seventies, for assault,” I said. “Hit a cop.”
A Well-Known Secret Page 20