A Well-Known Secret

by Fusilli, Jim;

  “You better bring flowers.”

  “Flowers aren’t going to get it done.”

  She shifted, bringing up her leg and tucking her white shoe under her. “She’ll forgive you. Eventually.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Eventually,” she repeated.

  As we approached NYU Medical Center, the big limo smacked into a deep pothole. Bella and I bounced. The crystal liquor bottles jangled.

  “Don’t just call,” she added as she retrieved the box that had slid across the leather seat. “Go talk. Apologize nice.”

  “Bella, I mean, your expertise. Where does it come from?” I asked.

  “I’m not an expert,” she replied calmly. “But I know you.”

  “I’m not the issue. Julie is.”

  She shook her head. “You.” She put the box on her lap.

  The limo drifted into the right lane, moving us toward the Houston Street exit.

  We thanked Darryl and he watched as I punched in the code and unlocked the front door. I heard him leave Harrison as Bella opened Diddio’s prize.

  “You sure you should be doing that?” I said as I hung my blazer on the newel post.

  “He asked me to,” she said. “He won’t be able to figure this out by himself.”

  “Let me rephrase. Do you think you should be doing that now?”

  The clock in the stove made the time 12:36.

  She kicked off her party shoes. “Dad,” she pleaded, “I’m having the best night of my life.”

  “OK, OK,” I said, waving at her.

  I could hear her humming as I passed her mother’s paintings.

  When I reached my study I hit the PLAY button on the answering machine to listen to Addison’s message, as Coombs had. As I eased into my hard chair, his baritone filled the small space.

  “Terry, Luther. Your guy Bascomb is a hard-ass piece of work. He wanted Danny Villa as his lawyer and when we told him about Villa’s arrest, he tightened up. I threw Mango’s name at him and he … No, he didn’t like hearing it. And I guess you might’ve heard by now but Villa’s got a story to tell us, something about a guy named Sixto. I’m going back in now.”

  “Press him on Ernie Mango,” I said to the recorded voice. “You’ll find why Sonia—”

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” Addison said. The little tape beeped and I watched it rewind and the machine shut down.

  “—had to be taken out now.” Talking to the darkness, I added softly, “If the diamonds are gone, why did Sonia have to die now?”

  When I returned to the kitchen, Bella had the DAT recorder out of the box. A Styrofoam cube rested on my chair and the box top lay on her manuscript.

  “Don’t lose any of that stuff,” I said as I went to the refrigerator.

  She rolled her eyes and went back to the directions.

  “You want something to drink?”

  “No.” She looked at me. “You know, this is easy to use, actually.”

  I grabbed the water, let the door swing shut.

  Bella took the microphone out of its plastic wrapping. “You see how happy he was?”

  I came around the table, I lifted the directions. As I refolded the accordion-style sheets, I snuck a peek. She was right. Seemed simple enough.

  Suddenly, she stood, pushing off the table. “I’m going up,” she said.

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m still happy,” she smiled. “I want to do my journal.”

  “You can do it down here, if you want. In the living room.”

  She came over to me.

  “You OK?” she asked.

  “Me? I’m fine. You?”

  “OK is not even close. I’m super!”

  She went up on her toes and kissed my cheek.

  “I’ll put that away in the morning,” she said, gesturing toward the DAT recorder, Styrofoam, plastic wrap.

  As she reached the stairs, I called to her.

  “Bella?”

  Her white socks had slid down her white stockings, and the shoulder strap of her pretty dress sagged.

  “You were great tonight, Bella.”

  She smiled at me. “Thanks.” Then she turned and went toward her room, humming a tune the Latin combo had played.

  I sat at the table and, sipping the cold carbonated water, listened as Bella went into her bedroom and then left it a minute later to pad down the hall to the bathroom. By now, her dress was on a hanger in the closet, her slip and undergarments were in the hamper in her room and she had on a mismatched set of pajamas or an old T-shirt of mine.

  Minutes later, she went back to her room and I heard the door close, the knob catch, and in my mind’s eye, I saw her dig out her marble-notebook journal, take a pencil from her cup, and jump onto her bed, landing in a cross-legged seated position. Words flowing on lined paper, the story of the best night of her life.

  A sidebar: My father the blockhead.

  And then it was quiet and I heard the kitchen clock tick and the refrigerator vibrate. Slipping the electronic equipment into their proper slots, I completed the puzzle and slid the Styrofoam into the box with a squeak that sent a shiver through me.

  I set the box squarely in front of Bella’s seat.

  I took another sip of water. Then I looked at my watch, as if it would tell me something different than the clock in the stove had. As if it would tell me morning had arrived and no ghosts had appeared during the long, billowing night and that something as mundane as the sun would relieve me of the weight of my reflections.

  I felt it coming on now; silence in the house. The prologue had begun: The trembling ceiling had flown away, the walls waffled, the floor caught fire. Alone, abjectly so, I was reaching for the lifeline, made not of rough hemp, but of sorrow, self-pity, torturing thoughts intended to make me feel better, to somehow assuage the burden of my own liability in creating this nightmare in which I live, in which Bella lives.

  “’Tis unmanly grief.”

  But Marina had come to me this morning in a train station in Queens, and again tonight as I held a fine woman in my arms. She had come in horror, screaming at the moment of her death. She had come in tenderness: Remembering I would never hold her reminded me of holding her, my hands on her warm, olive skin.

  Right now, in this chair, I can believe she is about to touch my shoulder, about to lean down and kiss my cheek.

  I feel her warm breath on my neck, my ear.

  “Terry, the children are sleeping now,” she beckons.

  I rise to join her, to kiss her before we sweep upstairs to our bedroom—

  I can’t live this way.

  It’s been four years, for Christ’s sake.

  I am alive now.

  There is so much to be done.

  A desperate man in the auto graveyards of Queens. A community leader taken away in handcuffs. A man at the end of a rope. A woman in my arms. A daughter: “I’m super!”

  I have to occupy myself at all times.

  Yes, I do.

  Arrowsmith is waiting in the living room.

  Yes and I’d taken a nap earlier today. I’d be awake for hours. I could give it the time, the attention it deserved.

  And then to my office: the early edition of the Times online.

  A full night, without ghosts, away from the abyss, from the molten fire.

  I turned and I saw Bella’s manuscript.

  EIGHTEEN

  There were two Roman Catholic churches within easy walking distance of Julie’s apartment: the Church of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on 33rd off Second, and Our Lady of the Scapular and St. Stephen on 29th. I chose the former. The other one sounded to me like the result of a merger of two old-money companies, neither of which could afford to alienate its shareholders by giving up its brand name. Besides, I couldn’t remember what a scapular was.

  The mid-morning sun spread its rays on the East Side, and the accompanying breeze, too placid to be called wind, gently nudged the bare trees. Rainwater on the gray sidewalk ripple
d modestly. With all quiet on wide 33rd Street, I set up with my back to the Kips Bay Towers, a block-long slab of concrete that wouldn’t have been out of place in Soviet-controlled Budapest. A blonde whose pajama top snuck out from under her waist-length jacket followed her plucky dog as it examined fire hydrants, NO PARKING signposts and tires for scents and information. Heading toward First, two young men walked together with a snap in their step, each with a copy of the fat Sunday Times tucked under his arm.

  At 10:30, the church started to empty. The dour middle-aged couples who exited first, heading off in different directions, were followed by three women who wore white stockings and rubber-soled shoes under pale raincoats and went east toward NYU Medical Center. A group of Asian women waited patiently behind two old, hunched women who navigated the church’s four short steps by clinging to its aluminum banisters, hanging on as a handful of kids younger than Bella squeezed by. Finally, Julie appeared, accompanied by a priest in his vestments. He was petite, with lively eyes and an attentive gaze, and he shook Julie’s hand as they parted.

  Stepping between parked cars, I crossed 33rd and drew next to her as she headed toward Second, passing the Sacred Hearts rectory.

  She wasn’t glad to see me, but she was too polite to say it right out. She looked over her shoulder, back toward the church.

  “Thinking about praying?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  She had on a long blue coat and gray-blue slacks. Her familiar gold crucifix, which she hadn’t worn last night, lay atop her pale-blue turtleneck. She wore no makeup and her skin looked fresh and healthy.

  “Julie, I’d like to talk to you. Can you spare a few minutes?”

  “Terry, if—”

  “Julie, give me a chance to make good,” I said, cutting her off.

  She gave me an impatient glare as she stiffened. I could see she wanted to rip into me.

  She hung open her mouth and, annoyed, let her eyes drift. Then she said, “Fine.”

  “You have breakfast yet?”

  “No.”

  I pointed toward Second. A coffee shop was tucked between a Duane Reade and Kips Bay Hardware.

  We went west.

  Julie ordered a cup of tea and told me she was due at her parents’ place for their weekly family dinner. When the waitress returned with my toasted corn muffin, I cut it in half and pushed the small plate across the table.

  She sat back. There’d be no intimate gestures between us.

  As I retrieved the plate, I said, “Julie, first I want to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  I stopped. “You know.”

  She stared into my eyes. “I’d like to hear it.”

  “For not being as alert … For not being alert.” I put my hands on the table. “How’s that for an answer?”

  “Cute’s not going to get it done, Mr. Orr,” she said. “Not by a long shot.”

  “It’s what I’ve got, Julie,” I told her, as she sipped her tea.

  She put the cup on the saucer.

  “I’m here,” I said, “and that ought to mean more than words. All right?”

  “No, not really, but …” She shrugged.

  I was going to tell her she could do a lot better than me. But if she was as smart in romance as she was at her profession, she’d already figured that out.

  Julie said, “You look like you had a rough night.”

  “As a matter of fact, I had a remarkable night,” I replied. “I read Bella’s book.”

  “You did?”

  I nodded as I swallowed a chunk of the buttery muffin.

  “She said she didn’t think you would.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it’s a bit difficult to give a detailed critique of my daughter’s book,” I said. “She probably needs to spend a little more time with Edith Wharton and Henry James, and a little less with old newspapers and academia. Clearly, she memorized Riis and downloaded chunks of Gotham. And I’m sure her conclusions about—”

  “Terry …”

  “Julie, it’s … It’s, what? Amazing. And surprisingly insightful. Bittersweet. If I could get any distance from it, I’d call it unexpectedly spectacular.”

  “‘Unexpectedly’? ‘Surprisingly’?”

  “Well, she was 12 when she started it.”

  There are sections where Mordecai Foxx, Bella’s “unassigned” detective, is searching for eight-year-old Sophie, the abandoned Italian immigrant, in the squalid Five Points slums that—

  “Did you tell her?”

  I said, “She was still sleeping when I left.”

  “Will you?” she asked.

  “Of course.” I’d clipped a check for $400 to the title page—our original bet, I believe, was four-to-one against, as Bella proposed when I told her I doubted she’d stick with it—and I’d written her a note, telling her I’d be back or I’d call.

  “You might want to omit the ‘unexpected’ part,” Julie suggested. She squeezed a few drops of lemon into her cup. “Do you think it’s publishable?”

  “I’ve been avoiding that thought.”

  “Why?”

  Because I knew it needed work and I knew she might ask me to do it, and after I did it, I’d have to contact my ex-agent, and I’d be back where I was. Without having earned the right to be there, without having taken Weisz down.

  Even Harteveld would understand.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t want to create false hopes.”

  “Terry, she doesn’t care if it’s published. She cares only that you are impressed. And proud.”

  And she wanted a little more than that. Never has a grievance been aired so abundantly, so thoroughly, for a single reader.

  “I am proud and impressed,” I said. I knew I was smiling behind my tired eyes. “Very, to both counts.”

  “You know, Terry,” she said, “you’d be a sweet man if you didn’t have your head up your butt all the time.”

  She nodded triumphantly. She was letting me off easy.

  “Jule, I need to apologize for something else. About this Salgado thing, there’s a few things I haven’t told—” She held up her hand. “Bascomb’s been arrested, Villa too,” she said. “And Tommy Mangionella is telling people you might’ve killed Sonia Salgado.”

  “Yeah, and Bascomb asked for Villa to be his attorney.”

  “That doesn’t seem unusual. You saw them together, Terry.”

  “Julie, Danny Villa is Luis Sixto.”

  She sat back. “What?”

  “Hiding in plain sight, more or less,” I replied. “A bunch of cosmetic surgery. A phony bio.”

  “Are you certain?”

  I nodded. “And Safi Majorelle was Ahmed Hassan.”

  I reached for an inside pocket of my leather jacket and withdrew the old photo of Hassan and Sixto. I pushed it across the table.

  Julie studied it, then looked up at me. She tapped a finger on Hassan’s footnote. “Majorelle and Villa,” she said. “Their aliases.”

  “Seems so.”

  “My goodness,” she said, shaking her head in quiet disbelief. “Can it be so?”

  Now it was my turn to tap the photo.

  She said, “Well, we’ll know if it’s true once Danny is printed.”

  “It takes days to match fingerprints, doesn’t it?”

  “A myth, at least since IAFIS opened in ninety-nine,” she said, holding up two fingers. “Two hours.”

  I finished off the last of the muffin and downed the coffee.

  “You know, I always wondered about Danny,” she mused. “So suave.”

  “El Caballero,” I said. “The Gentleman.”

  “Could it be he didn’t want to get into the system?” she asked.

  I shrugged. He was going to be telling his story to somebody. A man who had reinvented his life and gotten away with it for 30 years had a lot to say.

  “So where does that leave things?” she
asked as she lifted the photo and slipped it into her coat pocket.

  “Well, if you guys play it right, in a couple of hours you’ll know who killed Glatzer and Sonia.”

  “You’re not going to get off that, are you? Idealizing Sonia Salgado isn’t—”

  “Julie, let’s assume she didn’t kill Glatzer,” I said. “Can we do that?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Go ahead.”

  “She’s out of Bedford Hills with a grievance, right? I mean, she knows she didn’t do it.”

  “Are you saying she knows who did?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “With her gone, that thing is closed.”

  “Yes, but now this …”

  I sat back. “A simple B-and-E gone wrong. Could’ve been beautiful.”

  “But then you showed up,” she laughed.

  “Sonia had to go,” I went on. “The question is why.”

  “And the answer is … Terry?”

  “Sonia knows about the link with Mango. Maybe she doesn’t know who killed Glatzer. But back then, Sixto had to tell her about the cop on the Bowery who chose the mark.”

  She shook her head. “This only works if Sonia didn’t kill Glatzer. And the man’s wallet was in her room.”

  “Jule, I never said she wasn’t involved somehow,” I explained. “She dipped Glatzer’s billfold.”

  “Ah, Sonia isn’t perfect,” she said, with a sarcastic dig.

  “I’m not idealizing her.”

  “You heard that? I wasn’t sure …”

  I nodded.

  She leaned her arms on the table. “Terry, you don’t have it. Sorry.”

  “It fits, Julie,” I said.

  “Not unless Bascomb gives up Sixto for Glatzer or unless Sixto knows Bascomb killed Sonia and tells us.”

  I realized that she was right. It might be her job, the NYPD’s, the D.A.’s, to finish it off, but I was the one who was trying to pull it together. I had to keep working it until it was done.

  “You think Bascomb will talk?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him. I doubt Sharon will let me on this one.” She smiled, nodded at me. “Because of you.”

  “What about Sixto?”

  “Danny’s too smart to talk without a deal,” she replied. “He won’t roll over on Bascomb until he has one.”

  “Maybe someone in your office will interview Tommy.”