That wasn’t the reason.
I had reservations, all right.
CHAPTER NINE
I had no sleep, and no solutions. What could I do about the Andanstans and the beach, the rash and the blood? What should I do about Deni and my dog, my mother and moving to Paumanok Harbor, the missing bird and missing Matt? The senior citizens getting older? I hope to hell no one expected me to do anything about that! And I prayed my father’s favor could be handled easily. Easier than dealing with Matt and my mixed emotions.
Van checked my computer for me, saw nothing suspicious, then went out to get us breakfast. He ordered me to stay put, as if I’d think of going anywhere with Deni and her accomplice on the loose.
I waited for my father’s call. Instead, sirens blared, not unusual for the city, but awfully loud and close. I looked out the window to see a cop car coming straight up my block. I doubted Van decided to take me to the bus stop in style.
I had to crane my neck to see down where the black and white stopped: right at my apartment, at the hydrant. A crowd gathered in the street, reminding me of when the troll came to town. That time no one saw him but me. Today, everyone was looking and pointing at the front of my building. I swear I had nothing to do with whatever happened. I hadn’t visualized anything but my own f-ed up life.
No way was I staying in the apartment when something way more interesting was going on. We could be under attack for all I knew. And I’d be safe enough, with the police already there. If Van could answer my phone, I could check out his crime scene, if that’s what it was.
When I got downstairs, I saw the noisy first-floor tenants in a huddle right outside the front door. I didn’t know them well, but I nodded and started to ask them what happened when I saw Mrs. Abbottini, on the ground. I ran toward her, pushing aside a florid-faced, heavyset policeman who kept asking if she needed an ambulance, where did it hurt, did she know her attacker. He wouldn’t let her get up from the pavement until he was sure nothing was broken.
She looked old and small and frightened, not like the battleax with dyed black hair I’d known forever. She grabbed onto my hand.
“It was him, Willy.”
“Him, who?” The cop nodded at me to continue, to get her to talk. “Somebody from the neighborhood?”
“No, the punk who brought the flowers. The ones you didn’t want.”
The cop mouthed, “Get his name,” but I shook my head. We didn’t know the kid. “Did he bring more flowers?” I looked around without seeing anything, except another, younger officer asking if anyone in the crowd had seen the attack. “Or another dead rat?”
The first cop raised his eyebrows. “You Willow Tate?”
I didn’t ask how he knew. I guess Van put in a police alert for the neighborhood. Either that or I was famous for being a troublemaker. I squeezed Mrs. Abbottini’s hand. “What did he want this time? Did he say anything?”
“He wanted my purse.” She held up the suitcase-sized black bag, the strap still clutched in her fingers. “That’s what I thought at first, anyway. But I held on tight. He knocked me down then. I still held on. No nasty delivery kid was getting my bingo money.”
The first cop shook his head in frustration. No matter how many times they told the old folks to give up their valuables and don’t get hurt, some codger tried to be a hero. “Tell your granny to give the mugger whatever he wants, nothing’s worth dying for.”
“She’s not my granny. My grandmother would have stopped the thief in his tracks, turned him into a frog, or set his hair on fire, wouldn’t she, Mrs. Abbottini?”
Everyone laughed, not knowing I meant it. Mrs. Abbottini smiled, to my relief. “That she would.” Then the smile faded. “She wouldn’t be lying on the street with everyone gawking at her.”
“They’re just concerned for you. But the officer is right. It’s only money. You should have let him have it.”
“No, Willow, he didn’t want the money or the credit cards. He reached for the keys. The keys to the apartment, the front door, the back door, my apartment, and yours, too.” They were all on a long chain clipped to the zipper pull of her pocketbook. She pulled it out to show me and the cop and the people circled around. “That’s what he wanted, Willy. To get in.”
Mr. Rashmanjari from the first-floor unit clapped. His wife bowed her head. “You saved us all, brave madam. We could all have been robbed or murdered in our beds. My daughters . . .” He let the thought fade away. “Such evil should not exist.”
Amen to that.
He whispered something to his wife and she pulled two young girls closer to her side. I did not think she spoke English. I knew the children did, because I’d heard them screaming at each other. The Rashmanjaris had only been here since June, and I’d been in Paumanok Harbor a lot of the months between. All I knew of them was they were a large, multigenerational family, with large lungs and loud voices.
Then Van appeared, kneeling at Mrs. Abbottini’s other side after a quick conference with the first responders, all of whom he called by name. He set down a large bag from the deli and took the shaking hand I wasn’t holding, prying her fingers off the purse. “Maybe he left fingerprints we can trace.” The older cop nodded and went back to his car to get a crime scene kit.
Van assured Mrs. Abbottini they wouldn’t take her pocketbook as evidence, then asked if she was injured. She said no and tried to get up.
He gently pushed her back. “I heard you put up a good fight, ma’am, saved the day, but you need to stay down until the EMTs get here to make sure.”
“No, I cannot stay here. I was on my way to church, where I go every morning. I need to light an extra candle today, in thanks that the motherf—”
Mr. Rashmanjari clapped a hand over a young boy’s ears. Van laughed and said, “I’m sure you can say your prayers in the emergency room.”
“Those places try to kill you so that you don’t bother them anymore.” She tried to shove Van’s hand away and sit up again, then groaned. “What if I broke my hip? Old ladies die of that. How’ll I get up the three flights of stairs? My sons’ll put me in a home, and never come visit. Ingrates don’t come now. What will I do?”
“You’ll be fine. You’re too tough an old bird to slow down,” I lied before she started to get weepy on me. “You saved the keys, didn’t you?”
That was all bull. She had a hard time with the third floor now. I never thought about what would happen when she couldn’t navigate the stairs. I guess I supposed her sons would take her to live with one of them. As for the keys she fought to keep, we could have changed the locks easily enough or put in a modern pass card system.
The heavyset cop huffed back and started dusting the pocketbook, over Mrs. Abbottini’s complaints that he was ruining her good bag. Van reassured her the black stuff could be wiped off. The younger policeman had a bullhorn out now and tried to get everyone to leave the area so the emergency squad could get through, but if anyone heard or saw anything, they should step forward now. No one moved except Mr. Rashmanjari, who said he’d heard the screaming and called 911. He only saw the back of a thin youth in jeans and denim jacket.
The younger cop came closer and looked over Van’s shoulder. “The ambulance is on the way, ma’am,” he said in a Hispanic accent. “Five minutes more.” Then he asked Van if she’d given a description of her attacker.
Van and the older cop shook their heads. “Vague, only. Young, white, evil eyes, pointy chin.”
“Please, ma’am, can you give us anything else? You said you’d seen him before. Does he live in the neighborhood?”
“Ask Willy. He brought her flowers.”
Everyone looked at me. “I never saw him. And the flowers started a lot of trouble. They had no florist card or anything to say where he got them, either.”
The Hispanic officer nodded. “We’ve been wa
tching, keeping an eye out. Willow Tate.”
He said it the way you’d say registered sex offender. But I guess my name or reputation got them here so fast, which had to be a good thing. “Did he say anything?”
“Yes, he said, ‘Give me the fucking keys.’ Not that I use words like that, you know.”
The cop’s lips twitched. “No, ma’am, I’m sure you don’t.” We’d all heard what she started to call the mugger.
“I didn’t hear him at first, too busy screaming at him to let go of my purse.” And she was hard of hearing, but I didn’t interrupt. “He yelled it real loud the second time.” Now she raised her voice to show us: “Give me the fucking keys!”
Mr. Rashmanjari urged his wife and children back into the apartment.
“Right. Got it. High voice? Low voice? Accent?”
“Not like yours.” She pointed toward the Rashmanjaris. “Or theirs.”
While the cop kept asking questions and getting unhelpful answers, I checked my watch. The bus I’d planned on taking had come and gone. There’d be another one in an hour or so, most likely with an empty seat, but I couldn’t leave my old neighbor lying on the sidewalk. Besides, those emergency rooms could be daunting. And someone had to call her sons.
And it was all my fault.
We could hear the sirens now. Mrs. Abbottini started crying and saying she didn’t want to go. Just help her up the stairs.
I choked back a tear or two myself. “I’ll go with you to the hospital, okay?”
She sighed and relaxed. Then she patted my hand. “I knew you’d do the right thing, no matter what your mother says.”
Van consulted with the other policemen, then reported to me, “The perp’s long gone, but there’s definitely a connection to your stalker. You’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave her. I promised.”
The older cop shook his head. “We can’t keep you in sight twenty-four/seven.”
“I know.”
“Lou ain’t going to be happy,” Van muttered.
Hell, I wasn’t happy.
* * *
I raced upstairs, got my cell phone, a pad, a book to read, and a good-bye treat to leave Little Red. I forgot about my father, breakfast, and the rash that was twice as red as it was yesterday. When I got back to the street, the EMTs wanted to put me on a stretcher, too.
The triage doctor at the emergency room didn’t think Mrs. Abbottini had broken bones, but ordered X-rays to be sure. While we waited our turn for that, I sketched what Mrs. Abbottini described.
I’m no police artist, and I understand they use computer programs to do this faster and more accurately, but the effort kept us busy for the seemingly endless hours we sat in dreary, crowded corridors and waiting rooms.
According to my neighbor, the mugger was short and thin. Not so much effeminate as wimpy, with long dark hair, not much of a chin, a nose stud, and small, squinty eyes, my interpretation of Mrs. Abbottini’s evil eyes. He wasn’t as young as I would have guessed. Mid-twenties, she thought, maybe, and stronger than he looked.
Of course anyone appeared strong to a little old lady.
We kicked around theories, that he was Deni’s boyfriend or brother, avenging the slight she imagined, or trying to please her by harassing me. I had no idea why he’d want to hurt me or Mrs. Abbottini.
The doctor we finally saw wanted to keep Mrs. Abbottini overnight, despite not finding any broken bones or irregular heartbeat. She refused. I tried to convince her, mostly because she looked frail and shaky and how the hell could I get her up the stairs? Ask the neighbors?
She thought the unmarried lawyers on the second floor were living in sin. The gay couple on the fourth floor definitely were. The way she spoke her mind, loudly, meant they’d drop her on the stairs. Besides, they all worked during the day. And Mr. Rashmanjari might have gone to work by now, also, and the children I saw appeared too small to be much help.
I left Mrs. Abbottini in a wheelchair by the hospital exit while I went to flag down a taxi, but Lou waited there, with an illegally parked silver Beemer. I never thought I’d be so glad to see him. This time he looked like a successful executive in an expensive suit and Gucci loafers. The man with him looked like a CIA operative, all muscle and dark glasses, buzz-cut hair, and phone wires in his ear. So what if he never smiled, I was happy to see him, too.
I told Lou I’d take Mrs. Abbottini to Paumanok Harbor with me as soon as she was well enough to travel. “She can’t stay here, for sure.”
Lou rubbed his recently shaved jaw and looked to see no one could hear us. “I’m not sure about that. Bringing a non-talent to the Harbor is never a good idea.”
Especially if there’s an epidemic. I saw no choice. I couldn’t go without her, not while she was on painkillers and told to stay off her feet and see her own doctor if she felt dizzy, out of breath, or got a headache. I had all three, plus horror at being responsible for the old lady. Maybe I could get one of her sons to come take care of her tomorrow.
I wasn’t getting on the bus today.
She was pale and stiff, obviously in pain trying to get out of the car. Lou declared he and his associate, Harris, would carry her up. And Lou would stay.
Fine, he could make her soup and see she had her pills on time. I’d try to get some work done.
I went ahead to open the front door while Lou argued with Mrs. Abbottini about picking her up.
Before I reached the vestibule, though, Mr. Rashmanjari and his wife and two young sons and two little girls stepped out of their apartment.
He bowed slightly. “The brave lady can stay with us. On the first floor.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “But Mrs. Abbottini will be more comfortable in her own surroundings.” And not among dark-skinned strangers of a different religion and culture. If you didn’t go to her church and speak her language, with an Italian accent, you were a heathen, if not a sinner. I know, because she considered me a limb of Satan, and I’d been born right here in Manhattan. Mr. Rashmanjari did not need to hear a slight to his family and gracious offer, though, so I added that he already had a full house.
“My oldest daughter is away at college. Harvard,” he said.
“How wonderful, you must be proud.”
“And my oldest son and his wife and children moved to New Jersey where they have a backyard.”
“Great for the kids. But . . .”
He held his hand up and smiled. “And my esteemed mother-in-law returned to India last week.”
Ah. Maybe that’s why it seemed quieter. But Mrs. Abbottini and the Rashmanjaris? I was ashamed I didn’t know much about my new neighbors, their religion, their ways. That shame was nothing to getting my old neighbor hurt by someone with a grudge against me. What I did know was that with Mrs. Abbottini’s narrow mind and ungoverned tongue, she could start a range war right here on the East Side, by God.
“We would be honored to have Nonna Maria to stay with us. That means grandmother in Italian. She taught us.”
Nonna Maria? I’d known her forever and she never said to call her anything but Mrs. Abbottini. “You know her?”
“Of course. She passes every day for church. Such a devout woman is much respected. My youngest son helps carry her groceries and takes her garbage out. My third daughter learns to knit from her.”
I never knew that either. “But the imposition . . .”
“She can help my wife learn English and teach my sons about Yankee baseball. And show my second daughter how to cook American.”
American-Italian. “But she’s used to having a room of her own.”
“Of course. Nonna Maria can have the very valuable front room, where my esteemed mother-in-law stayed. We have already prepared it for an honored guest.”
“Did you say the front ro
om?” Supported by Harris, Mrs. Abbottini showed more life than I’d seen in years.
“It might be noisy, so close to the road.”
Mr. Rashmanjari was already directing Lou, Harris, and the old lady to the room, which had two windows facing the street. They had security bars on them, but nice curving ones, and window boxes planted with fall chrysanthemums. The room was small but clean, with a flat-screen TV.
Mrs. Abbottini had tears in her eyes. “I accept, with pleasure. Temporarily, of course. The doctor said a week.”
Mr. Rashmanjari bowed. “Of course.”
Except I doubted she’d give up that front view, if she didn’t insult the family into throwing her out. I was already wondering if I could get my mother to sublet Mrs. Abbottini’s rooms on the third floor when she came for her TV show, so I wouldn’t have to move or share my apartment with her.
Too soon and too much to hope for. I went upstairs to find Mrs. Abbottini’s nightgowns and pills and spare glasses. One of the Rashmanjari girls followed me to help carry some of her clothes and her jewelry box.
Then Nonna Maria wanted me to fetch the eggplant parmigiana from her freezer, so she wouldn’t feel so beholden. “And the olives and the bowl of antipasto.”
I didn’t know what dietary rules the family followed, but they could work that out themselves.
I found her address book and called one of her sons before I went back down the stairs that seemed steeper and longer with every trip. I found a listing for Antony at work, the one who used to shove things up his nose. He didn’t show his love by visiting, but let him find the scum who knocked down his mother, he swore, and the bastard’d be a stain on the street.
“The police are looking. But the reason I’m calling is that your mother is staying with the first-floor neighbors for now, the Rashmanjaris. She couldn’t manage the stairs, and I have to leave.”
I waited for Antony to make some comment about foreigners, but all he said was he’d been begging her to come stay with his family for years. Maybe now she would.
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