“Ahh, well, no point then, I guess.” She pulled the sheet up and turned over and burrowed back toward sleep.
* * *
Cassidy sat on the porch of Gracie Mansion and read a copy of the New York Post he had found on a table. Castro was inside the Mansion for a courtesy meeting with Mayor Robert Wagner. Some of his men walked around outside the house, incongruous in their fatigues, as if transported by magic from some jungle fight to the manicured grounds. They held themselves with the stiffness of men who felt out of place and were determined not to show it. Carlos Ribera came out of the house and took a chair at Cassidy’s table. He offered a cigar and lit one for himself when Cassidy refused. Ribera wore linen trousers and a pale gray silk guayabera shirt. He leaned back in the chair and extended his legs to rest his soft leather half boots on the porch railing. He was, as always, a man at ease in his surroundings no matter how foreign.
“I love New York,” Ribera said. “If I did not live in Havana, I would live in New York. Except the winter. I do not like the winter. But six, seven months of the year … There is so much art here, so much, what? Ferment. Things are happening here. You sense it everywhere you go. Something new is about to break loose. Do you feel that? I feel it all the time. I think if I am not here I am going to miss something wonderful.”
“Would you be willing to repeat that on television for the New York Tourist Bureau?”
Ribera laughed. “Sure. Why not?” He looked out at the men in fatigues on the lawn. One of them was doing a handstand while his friends applauded. “Who would have believed this six months ago? Eh? Fidel Castro meets with the Mayor of New York City. Six months ago there was every chance that he would be dead in the mountains, but now, Cuba Libre finally.” He looked over at Cassidy. “What? What?”
Cassidy pushed the newspaper across the table. It was folded open to the story he had been reading. Ribera picked it up and started to read. His face stiffened. He looked at Cassidy, glanced at the paper again, and then put it down on the table and pushed it away, dismissing it. The banner headline read EXECUTIONS IN HAVANA. “So?” he said.
“Funny way to start a democracy,” Cassidy said. “Fifteen-minute trials and then out to the wall.”
“These men put many people in front of the same wall.”
“And you hated them for it.”
Ribera took that like a punch, and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Every historic change is messy. And Castro offered people the choice. A million people came out in Havana to hear him, and when he asked if they should continue with the revolutionary tribunals and the executions, do you know what the people yelled? They yelled ‘Si!’ A million voices cried, yes. That is democracy.”
“Jesus, Carlos. Come on.” He could see the anger rising in Ribera.
“Who are you to criticize? The United States of America, the beacon of democracy and freedom? Unless you are a Negro, or a bracero who has come to pick your vegetables, or someone who joined a group that is now called Communist. You prop up dictators like Batista because it makes you money. You get rid of heads of state you don’t like, Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadegh in Iran, why? Because they were socialists. But they were elected by their people and thrown out by your CIA. Democracy. Freedom. America.” He stood and leaned over the table and poked a finger at Cassidy. “We will be better than you. We will show you how democracy works.” He threw his cigar out into the lawn and stalked away.
Ribera’s anger had the heat of a man who had been betrayed and could not admit it.
Orso came up the steps to the porch. He gestured at the disappearing Ribera. “What was all that about?”
“I suggested that standing a few hundred people up against the wall wasn’t the ideal start to democracy.”
“I don’t know. You shoot us; we shoot you. Seems democratic to me. You shoot us but we don’t get to shoot you, now that’s undemocratic.”
“I’m glad we’ve had this conversation,” Cassidy said. “It’s cleared up a lot of my confusion.”
“Bonner and Newly just got here to relieve us. Let’s get out of here.”
“Give me a minute.”
Cassidy looked around for Ribera. He wanted to make it right, but the big man had disappeared.
* * *
Cassidy and Orso picked up an unmarked car at the police garage and drove to Queens where the late Casey Allen had lived before someone shot him and left him in Central Park. The car was a 1956 Ford lugging eighty-six thousand hard miles. The worn shocks transmitted every bump and pothole to the spine. There was a lateral crack across the top of the windshield. The passenger seat sagged, tilting Cassidy against the door, and the perp seat in back smelled of vomit and disinfectant. Nothing but the best for New York’s finest.
Casey Allen lived on 145th Street, a blue-collar neighborhood of single-family houses off the main drag of Jamaica Avenue. The Allen house was a two-story wooden building halfway down the block whose first-floor exterior walls were covered with vinyl sheets patterned as bricks. Orso found a parking place between a three-year-old Studebaker and a Nash Rambler, and they got out and walked back to the house. Cassidy rang the doorbell. They waited under the shade of an aluminum awning painted to match the dark red of the concrete walk. “The old biddy up the way is giving us the eyeball,” Orso said. A woman at a house two doors down turned away and went back to trimming bushes in her front yard when Cassidy looked over at her. A moment later the front door opened a foot and a woman looked out at them through the gap.
“Yeah?” She was a good-looking woman in her late twenties. She had a fierce, strong-boned face with dark eyes deep set under heavy, black eyebrows. Her thick, dark hair was barely controlled in a ponytail by a strip of yellow cloth. She held a feather duster in one hand and wore a yellow rayon blouse with a round collar and tight, dark green Capri pants that showed off her narrow waist and good legs, and matching green sandals with high wedge soles. “Whatever it is I don’t want it.”
“Mrs. Allen?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“My name’s Cassidy. I’m a detective with the New York Police Department.”
Her fear was almost instant. “Oh, no. Oh, shit. Is it about Casey? What happened to him? Is he all right?” One hand flew to her throat in a gesture of panic, and she dropped the feather duster.
“May we come in?”
She stepped back. Her eyes were wide. Cassidy and Orso stepped into the narrow front hall, and Orso closed the door.
“Is he all right? Tell me he’s all right.”
“Mrs. Allen, is this your husband?” Cassidy showed her the photograph of Casey Allen.
She stared at it and then looked up, stricken. “Yes. What’s wrong with him? He’s dead, isn’t he? He’s dead.” She crumpled the photograph and slammed her clenched fists against her temples and howled like an animal and then turned and stumbled away.
Cassidy started after her as Orso said, “I’ll go get her some water,” and went down the hall in search of the kitchen. Cassidy found her in the living room, a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot box dominated by a large mahogany-cased television facing two Barcaloungers, clues to how the Allens spent their evenings. Sliding pocket doors were open to a small dining room with a Formica-topped table and four chairs. Mrs. Allen was curled on the living room sofa, her howls of anguish somewhat muffled by the back cushions where she had buried her head. Cassidy crouched by her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. Allen…” She flailed backward blindly and hit his arm, and he gave up and backed away.
Orso came in with a glass of water. Cassidy gave him a look and a shrug. What do you do with a hysterical woman? Orso went to the sofa and crouched down by her head and began to talk to her softly in Italian. After a while she calmed. When she sat up, her eyes were swollen and her face was puffy and raw. She took the glass from Orso and drank some of it, and gave it back to him and sighed heavily. Orso nodded to Cassidy. Cassidy sat close to her on the narrow coffee table in front of the sofa, knee to knee,
reducing the space between them to intimacy. “Mrs. Allen, what’s your first name?”
“Theresa,” she said dully.
“Theresa, tell us about Casey. When did you see him last?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think back. Was it last week? The week before?”
“I don’t know. The week before, I guess.”
“Do you remember what day?”
She took the glass out of Orso’s hand and drank some more, and then put it on the table and turned to look at Cassidy. Her dark eyes were glazed with tears and impenetrable. “Thursday, I guess. Thursday night, because we like to watch The Untouchables, and then he went to bed, ’cause he had to get up early. I watched the news, and then did the dishes. He was already asleep when I went up, and then he was gone in the morning before I got up.”
“Do you know where he was going on Friday?”
“He had work in the city. He was doing renovations for some rich people over there near Central Park, tearing down a wall and building, like, a dressing room for the woman or something.”
“What’d you do when he didn’t come home that evening?”
“What’d I do? I went nuts. He calls if he’s going to be late. I called the place where he was working, but there was no one there, just one of those answering things you can talk into. I tried the next day. Same thing. I called the hospitals. I went down to the police station, but, like, that was a waste of time. They patted me on the head and told me to go home, he’ll show up. You know what they said? They said sometimes men roam. What the hell does that mean?” She gulped air. “What happened to him?”
“Someone shot him.”
She wailed and put her head down on her knees. Cassidy reached over and patted her on the back to comfort her. “Theresa, did he have any enemies?”
“No.” Head down, muffled.
“You’re sure? No beef with anyone? No arguments about work?”
“No. He was a good worker. No one ever complained.”
“Did he owe anybody money?”
“No. We were doing good. We were saving. He was going to buy a pickup or a van so he could haul stuff himself and not pay.” She straightened. “Who did it? Why would anyone do that?”
“Do you know the people he was working for, Robert and Jane Hopkins?”
“Me? No. How would I know them?”
“Maybe you were in the city and you went over to say hello to Casey.”
“Uh-uh. Nah.”
“Did he talk about them at all?”
“No. Not much. I mean, he said they were fancy people with a lot of money. He said the guy had really nice clothes.”
“Did he say anything about her?”
“No. Not really. He said she was nice. She wasn’t stuck up or anything.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.” Flatly. Looking straight into his eyes the way people do when they want to convince you they’re not lying. Orso saw it too, because he gave a tiny gesture with his head. Cassidy got up from the table in front of Theresa, and Orso moved in and began to talk to her quietly in Italian as Cassidy left the room.
He walked down the hall to the kitchen and drew a glass of water from the sink and stood looking out the back door while he drank it. The yard was half concrete and half grass, and flowerbeds ran along the wooden fences that separated it from the identical yards of the neighbors. The grass was sparse and weedy, but the flowerbeds were newly planted with flowers. He had never noticed so much spring planting in the city before. Now everywhere he looked someone was putting in flowers. Had it always been like that? His mother had planted flowers in the backyard of the brownstone on 66th where they had lived until her death, but he had paid no attention and he could not name the ones planted here, though they seemed familiar. Where had he seen some just like them recently? At Leah’s? Yeah, maybe there. He opened the door and went down the steps into the yard and ducked under the laundry hanging on clotheslines and walked out to the small garage that backed the yard. The garage was Casey Allen’s carpentry workshop. A workbench ran along one wall. Hand tools hung from a pegboard above it. Paint cans lined the shelf underneath. A drill press, band saw, router, and table saw stood along the opposite wall. Double doors gave out to an alley.
When Cassidy came back into the house, Orso was waiting for him in the front hall. Theresa Allen lay on her back on the sofa in the living room with a wet towel on her forehead.
“Her sister’s coming over. Be here in ten minutes. She’ll be okay. Wops are tough.”
“And?”
“I told her we’d let her know the minute there was anything.”
“All right. Good.” He gestured with his head toward the door. Orso nodded.
“Theresa, addio.” She did not answer and did not watch them go.
They walked to a bar Orso had noticed on Jamaica Avenue. It was a workingman’s joint, quiet, dark, smelling of spilled beer and ancient tobacco smoke. At this time of the day the place was almost empty. Four men playing dominoes at a table near the back of the room slapped the tiles down with sharp cracks. A solitary drinker nursed a beer at the far end of the bar. The bartender slid a cloth back and forth across the polished wood while he watched them come. He was a sharp-faced, foxy-looking man with fading red hair.
“What’ll it be, Officers?” He wore a slight grin as if savoring a private joke.
Orso studied him for a moment and then nodded in recognition. “O’Malley, right? You worked the Seventy-ninth in Bed-Stuy back in, what? Forty-eight.”
“Yeah.” He pointed a finger. “Orso, right?” His grin got wider. “Yeah, I never forget a guy I worked with. So you must be Cassidy. Threw that fuck Franklin out a window. Twice!” He laughed. “What a fuck that guy was. Running whores and working Vice at the same time. I mean, pick a side of the street and work it, but don’t do both. Beating up those women too, wasn’t he? What a shit. Too bad you weren’t a couple of floors higher when you tossed him. What can I get you?”
“Beer for me,” Cassidy said.
“Yeah,” Orso said.
“Knicks okay?”
Both men nodded and O’Malley went to the cooler to draw a couple of bottles, brought their beers, and then went off to carry drinks to the dominoes players.
Orso and Cassidy banged bottles and then took the first long, cool pulls.
“What’d you get from her when you were speaking Italian?” Cassidy asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing much. She said she loved Casey Allen more than anything in the world, but every once in a while, something really angry would come through. Nothing specific, but I bet that one can go off like a rocket. Sicilian. Man, some of them have tempers. She seemed pretty goddamn torn up.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes. At least until I saw the sofa. Did you notice?”
“I can’t say that I did. What about it?”
“It’s new.”
“No.”
“Not new, new. New to the house. There are deep dents in the rug where the old sofa used to be. The new one doesn’t match them.”
“Wow. Sherlock fucking Holmes. No detail gets by you.”
“Elementary, my dear Cassidy.”
“Maybe they just moved it around.”
“No. It can’t match them. The new one’s legs are much farther apart.”
“The piss sofa.”
“Could be.” Orso looked pleased with himself.
“I’ll give you one more. The garage out back is a workshop. Paint. Sawdust. One thing’s missing. There’s no chair. If you had a workshop you’d want a chair for when you got tired, a chair you didn’t care about. Get paint on it. Sawdust. It wouldn’t matter.”
“The chair he was sitting on in the park.”
“Could be.”
“She did it. She popped him.”
“Maybe. But how did she get him from a Hundred forty-fifth and Jamaica Avenue to Central Park and Seventy-second?”
The barten
der brought them two more beers and a bowl of popcorn. “On the house. You guys on the job?”
“Yeah,” Orso said. “You been in here long?”
“Bought the joint the year after I put in my twenty. Six years ago.”
“Do you know Casey Allen lives over on a Hundred forty-fifth?”
“Sure. Good-looking Irish guy. Drinks Jameson, beer back, sometimes a Guinness stout. He comes in a lot, except lately I ain’t seen him.”
“Do you know his wife, Theresa?” Cassidy asked. “Does she come in here too?”
“Oh, yeah.” He shook his head wearily. “Times I wish she didn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“That woman’s got a temper on her. Casey lived around here all his life. He’s got friends. Some of them are women, you know, but friends. I mean, who knows what went on in the past, but now friends. They come by to say hello, it don’t matter if they’re with husbands, boyfriends, Theresa goes nuts. She went after one with a beer bottle. I finally had to tell her to stop coming in here.”
“What about him? Did he play around?”
“If he did, I never saw it. Man, he couldn’t get enough of her. What do they call it? Besotted? The way he talked about her, it was like he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. Loved her. Loved her. What’s this all about?”
“Somebody shot him.”
“No shit? You think she did it?”
“It’s beginning to have that smell.”
“Did she grow up around here?” Orso asked.
“Nah. Bushwick, Rego Park, somewhere over there where the Italians live.”
“Keep this under your hat, okay, Tim? We don’t want to spook her.”
“Yeah. Sure. I can keep my mouth shut.”
After the gloom of the bar, the afternoon sun was like a slap in the face. “Do you think he’ll talk about it?” Cassidy asked.
“I don’t know. Probably not. He was a good cop.”
“Okay.”
They walked back to 145th Street where they had parked the car. The old woman was still tending her front yard a few doors down from the Allen house. She stopped what she was doing and watched them as they came down the street. Cassidy veered over to speak to her. She stood ramrod straight with her hand clenched around the top of her rake handle like a warrior with a spear. She was tall and lean, and her sharp, pointed face was topped by a cap of gray curls sprayed to the hardness of china. Her mouth was a smear of dark red lipstick. She wore trim blue cotton trousers and a white shirt open at the collar that revealed a gold crucifix on a thin gold chain.
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