Will already had loaded Noboro’s bags in the car. Noboro bowed to each of us, and Nora gave him a hug. We said good-bye again, and he was gone.
Nora invited Ray and me to ride with her in the mornings, to the surprise and delight of us both. With Noboro gone, we didn’t want to leave Lennie without a companion on his walks, so Ray and I alternated riding and walking. In the evenings of his riding days, Ray talked with me about conversations he was having with Nora. They mostly concerned ideas and books, especially poetry. He never mentioned Tamara and rarely spent time with her anymore. When I encountered her around the grounds, she was distant and subdued as Nora grew more animated and engaged.
The week after Thanksgiving, I was in New York every day and, to great jubilation within the Circle, had closed the sales of two of Ray’s larger paintings to Jack Blanford for more money than Marvin Platz had paid—twenty-five and twenty-seven thousand dollars. I engaged an accountant to help Ray with his taxes. And Lennie and I agreed with Ray that on Sunday evening the three of us would drive into New York, men only, at Nora’s insistence, and let him buy us our long-awaited celebratory dinner.
As the time drew near, Ray again grew anxious about the choice and location of the restaurant. He apparently pictured the streets of New York as more dangerous than the weight room at Lorton. He was only slightly mollified when I told him the restaurant we’d selected, The Post House, was located in one of the best neighborhoods on the Upper East Side.
We left for the city at five, and were noisy and happy in the car. Once in Manhattan, we cruised around the East Sixties until Lennie found a parking spot west of Lexington Avenue on Sixty-Fourth Street, only three blocks from the restaurant. It was a quiet residential street of expensive single-family town houses. We walked the long cross-town blocks toward Madison Avenue, but when we’d almost reached Park Lennie snapped his fingers and said, “Damn it. I left the cigars in the car.”
He asked us to wait, then walked back quickly to get them. Ray and I stood in the cold, leaning against the ironwork gate of a brownstone.
“Are you as hungry as I am?” I asked Ray, but he didn’t answer.
He was looking toward Park Avenue, where two men had turned the corner onto 64th.
“Heads up! Watch out for Raider!” he said to me softly.
One of the men had on a Los Angeles Raiders sweatshirt, with the hood pulled up. Both of his hands were in the front pouch pocket. The other man was wearing a leather bomber jacket. Ray was generating a tremendous inner tension, as if a big watch spring inside him was winding up small and tight. The one with the Raiders sweatshirt walked up to us calm as could be, with Leather Jacket a pace behind, looking both nervous and sick. Under the hood of the sweatshirt, Raider reminded me of Charles Bronson, only this guy was younger and uglier. Adrenaline flooded my system as he stopped in front of us, and I considered running or yelling for help.
“What are you girls doing out here tonight?” he asked. Leather Jacket looked nervously back toward Park Avenue. It was a winter Sunday evening, and at that moment Sixty-Fourth Street was deserted. Lennie was probably in his car right now at the other end of the block, getting the cigars.
“We’re not looking for trouble,” I said. “We’re waiting for a friend.”
“You see friends coming?” Raider asked Leather Jacket, who had circled around us and was now blocking the sidewalk from the way we had come.
“Faggots don’t have no friends,” he answered.
“What do you guys want?” I asked.
“We’re undercover police working p.m. street detail,” said Raider. “Show me some ID.”
He kept his left hand in the pouch pocket of the sweatshirt while extending his right impatiently. I was momentarily confused, unsure whether to believe him. They didn’t seem like cops to me, but what do I know about undercover p.m. street detail? As soon as Lennie arrived, the situation would be explained. After all, we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were waiting for a friend.
Ray and I both reached for our pockets. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I kept my billfold. From inside his coat, Ray drew the miniature Japanese sword that Lennie had given him and, using all the tension coiled in his body, stuck it right below the “e” in “Raiders” on the guy’s sweatshirt. The knife went in deep.
“Fuck you,” said Ray.
Raider stayed standing for a moment, then dropped to the sidewalk and thrashed around on his side, as if he were having a seizure. There was terror in the eyes of the man in the leather jacket when he saw that my hand was still inside my coat. He said, “No, no,” then turned and ran.
Ray grunted, “Nice, Bradley.”
“My God, Ray! Are you crazy? He might be a cop!”
“I don’t think so.” He looked down at the stabbed man, who was still writhing on the ground. “He’s not a cop. He’s a punk who wanted our wallets. Aren’t you?” he said to the man, kicking his ankle tentatively.
Raider was beyond answering. He stopped thrashing and rolled onto his back, his body shaking uncontrollably. His mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, but no words came out, only foamy bubbles of bloody spit.
Lennie came hurrying up.
“You should have seen what almost happened!” he said. “This guy was running so fast down the street he practically . . .”
He saw Raider lying on the ground, still quivering in a pool of blood, just as I noticed a light turn on in a window across the street.
“Oh, my God!” Lennie said.
“Time to go,” said Ray, still watching Raider shake and bleed. The black cloth of his sweatshirt was glistening, and you couldn’t read the writing on it anymore.
“What happened?” asked Lennie.
“I had no choice,” said Ray. “Let’s get out of here. Someone’s sure to come.”
I surveyed the block. It was still deserted. But someone might very well be watching from a window.
“We can’t leave him, Ray,” I said. “He might die. And what if he is a cop?”
“A cop!” said Lennie. “Oh, shit, Ray.”
“He’s already dead,” said Ray, “and I told you, he’s not a cop.”
“The guy’s still moving,” I said.
“Yeah, but he’s dead. He just doesn’t know it. I’d better get my knife.” He leaned over Raider, gripped the handle of the sword, and jerked it out. A small gray bird flew out of the dying man’s mouth and landed on a tree branch above us. The bird turned its head sideways, looking at the scene on the street below with one eye, then flew away.
“Did you see that?” I asked, but they were already running toward the car.
“Come on,” Ray called to me. “It’s time to go!”
CHAPTER XI
◊
Half an hour had passed since the incident on Sixty-Fourth Street, and my heart was still pumping so fast that my vision was blurred. As the scene played over and over in my memory, I kept seeing those bloody spit bubbles. Had I really seen that bird fly from Raider’s mouth, or was I now imagining it, my mind subconsciously embellishing the story?
Lennie was driving down the highway erratically. “Please,” I pleaded. “Slow down and stay in your own lane. If you keep driving like this we’ll be killed before they can send us to jail.”
“Who’s driving this car anyway?” Lennie shouted.
“We’re not going to jail,” said Ray. “Those guys weren’t cops. They were punks who wanted our wallets. Did you see Raider’s friend? I didn’t know a white guy could run that fast.” He turned to me in the backseat. “Some safe neighborhood!”
“Hey, Ray! It was Sunday evening on East Sixty-Fourth Street. New York doesn’t get safer than that.”
“Which is what I’ve been warning you about all along,” said Ray. “The whole place is crawling with punks. Don’t you ever read the newspapers?”
“Well, I’ll be reading them now. Imagine the headline,” I said. “Undercover Officer Murdered; Three Face Charges. This story will be big news.”<
br />
“I don’t think so,” said Ray.
We were heading north on the Taconic. I saw the road sign in the headlights—Millbrook: 60 Miles.
“My God,” said Lennie. “I still can’t believe this.”
“Don’t imagine that headline,” Ray said. “Imagine this one. Worthless Punk Found Dead in Street; No One Gives a Shit, and they don’t print the story because it’s so boring. There wouldn’t be room for the crossword puzzle if they wrote about every asshole who fucks up and gets killed.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Lennie.
“Wait a minute,” I said, hardly believing my ears. “We’re not going to the police?”
Nora saw our headlights when we pulled into the driveway. When she came in to the sitting room dressed in jeans and a sweater, she found the three of us pacing the floor.
“What are you doing home so soon?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
No one spoke.
“We got mugged,” Lennie said finally.
Her hand flew up to her mouth and her eyes widened. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Lennie. “But we’re still shook up.”
“Ray! Your hand!” she said. She lifted his arm and he didn’t protest. “I don’t see the cut . . .”
Ray stood there silently.
“That’s blood from one of the muggers,” said Lennie.
Ray pulled his arm away from Nora and sank into the couch to the right of the cold fireplace.
“Will someone please tell me what happened?” she said.
Lennie and I looked at each other, then back at Nora, but neither of us said a word.
“Please,” she said. “Ray? What happened?”
He buried his head in his hands, then answered her. “A couple of punks wanted our wallets. I had to hurt one of them.”
“He stuck him with one of the little swords,” said Lennie.
“So it was self-defense?”
“You might say that,” I answered.
“Will someone please tell me what happened?” she pleaded.
There was a bar in the corner of the room. I fixed myself a Scotch and soda and took it back to the footstool beside the fireplace. I wished that a fire were burning so the heat could blast me. The temperature had dropped outside, and the room was chilly.
“Can we make a fire?” I asked.
“Tell me first. Please,” said Nora. “I need to know what happened.”
“Tell her,” Ray said to me.
The first sip of Scotch and soda went down my throat and revived me. We hadn’t eaten dinner.
“Lennie went back to the car because he forgot his cigars,” I said, “so Ray and I were standing on the sidewalk waiting.”
“Where was this?” asked Nora.
“South side of Sixty-Fourth Street, east of Park. We were waiting for Lennie to come back, and two tough-looking white guys came around the corner. One of them called us ‘girls’ and asked what we were doing hanging around.”
I took another sip of my Scotch.
“And?” asked Nora.
“I asked him what he wanted, and he said they were undercover cops on p.m. street detail.”
“What’s ‘p.m. street detail’?”
“Who knows? But that’s what he said. He kept one hand in his pocket, real threatening, and told us to show some ID. Instead of a wallet, Ray took out his sword and stuck the guy. He went down hard and died.”
“He died!” said Nora.
She looked at Ray, who’d sunk into the leather sofa, his head now thrown back, eyes closed, and said, “Oh, Ray.” She sat down in an armchair.
“The guy didn’t give me any choice,” he said. “I wasn’t going to hand him my wallet. I had five hundred bucks cash in there. Anyway, he might have killed us. He wasn’t a cop. He was too interested in whether anyone else was coming. A real cop wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Is that all?” asked Lennie.
“No,” said Ray. “The other guy was a junkie. He was starting to get sick. Didn’t you see his face, Bradley? They were cruising, looking for marks, and thought they’d found a couple. That cop stuff was obvious bullshit to get our wallets. That’s not an original line, you know.”
“The sick-looking one did keep turning his head,” I said. “He was nervous.”
“A real cop owns the street,” Ray said. “He wouldn’t be worried if anyone was coming.”
“I think Ray’s right,” I said.
“So what do we do?” Lennie asked.
“There’s nothing you can do,” said Nora. “Anything you do will only make things worse.”
“There’s always something you can do,” said Lennie.
“Listen to Nora,” I said.
They all stared at me.
“If we go to the police, Ray will go back to prison. Just for carrying the sword while on parole, if nothing else,” I said. “No one saw us except the guy in the leather coat, and he’s probably a junkie.”
“But if they were cops?” asked Lennie.
“We’ll read about it in the newspapers and we can decide then. We need patience, like Noboro taught us.”
No one spoke. Lennie moved to the bar and made a drink for himself and Nora, then one for Ray.
“I can’t go to bed yet,” said Lennie. “I’ll build a fire. It’ll give me something to do. Maybe we’ll be hungry later on.”
“I’d like a fire too,” said Ray. “But first I need to wash up.”
Lennie left the room to get wood and Ray went to the bathroom. When they were gone Nora asked me a question.
“What do you think, Bradley? Did Ray have to kill that man? Did you see a weapon?”
“I don’t know. Everything was so confused. From the way the guy had his hand in his pocket, he might have had a gun. Ray acted quickly, but maybe that’s what was needed. The guy he killed definitely started it. We were just standing there minding our own business.”
“So the man got what was coming to him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The whole thing is like a bad dream.”
I wanted to tell Nora about the little bird flying from the man’s mouth, but I couldn’t.
“I’ve gotten to know Ray better in the last week,” she said. “I had my doubts when Lennie first got so involved, but I’ve been starting to think he’s done the right thing, getting Ray out of prison. His story is amazing. You ought to ask him to tell you about his life. None of us can judge him after all he’s been through. He’s been talking with me about his work. Now this has to happen.”
Lennie returned with an armload of wood and stacked it on the iron grate along with three sticks of my Georgia fatwood kindling. Ray came back, a wet ring around the cuff of his sleeve where he’d tried to wash out the blood. He sat on the couch and watched as Lennie built the fire.
Ray didn’t speak at first; he only watched the growing flames.
“Damn it,” he finally said. “I don’t want to go back to prison.”
The four of us stayed there all night. At first we stared into the fire. Then we ate sandwiches while Lennie played classical music on the stereo. The sound was so beautiful that I could hardly keep from weeping, but then the intensity of my focus started to fade, the music began to sound flat, and everyone agreed when I said we should turn it off.
At four, we dimmed all but one of the lamps, stacked more logs on the fire, and dozed fitfully on the sofa and chairs. I couldn’t sleep. The wood was dry and flames were shooting into the chimney flu, sucked up by the strength of the draw. Sparks flared like fireworks against the screen, and the pulsing glow lit the room. At least Ray had taught Lennie how to build a decent fire.
Shortly after seven, the sun came up and I rose from my chair. I knew Ray was awake when I left for the Quaker Cottage because his eyes were open, but he didn’t move from the chair where he’d finally settled for the night. It was just as well. Now that it was morning, we all needed to be alone, in the same way that last night we’d needed to be
with other people.
I didn’t have any appointments in New York today, but I showered, shaved, and dressed for the city. I had to get away from Schoolcross and just think. As I was going out the door, Ray came up the porch steps. We passed each other, eyes averted, and both grunted, “Mornin’.” In my sidelong glance, he appeared to have aged overnight.
I got to the Dover station in time to catch the 8:20 a.m. During the train ride to Grand Central Station, I tried to keep my mind blank as I looked out the window, but it kept wandering back to the bloody spit bubbles coming from Raider’s mouth. When I’d gotten off the train, I stood on the platform, motionless. I had nowhere to go. Ray’s show had been taken down from Edison’s Electric gallery. Six of his smaller pieces were being stored at Schoolcross, and I’d arranged for the rest to be kept safely in the back room of a gallery on Madison Avenue. I didn’t have any appointments, and I couldn’t even go to my own apartment.
Finally breaking my inertia, I left the platform and stopped at a newsstand. I bought a Daily News, a New York Post and a New York Times, and stood there going through each carefully, page by page. There was no mention of an undercover police officer, or anyone else, being killed on Sixty-Fourth Street.
After walking out of Grand Central onto Forty-Second Street, I headed west toward the public library on Fifth Avenue, then continued past the porno parlors that line the block. On an impulse, I ducked into a storefront that read, “Playland—Open 24 Hours” and paid a three-dollar cover to a Hispanic man wearing a pork pie hat. Behind him stood a three-hundred-pound black guy with a gold front tooth, probably the bouncer. I had no idea what I was doing there.
Playland was enjoying a brisk business for ten on a Monday morning. Assorted customers were scanning the offerings, carefully avoiding one another’s eyes. The front room opened into another, the gays’ room, but I didn’t go back there. Instead I followed neon arrows up a stairway to the “twenty four hour live sex shows.” When a change vendor stood directly in front of me, I gave him a five-dollar bill to make him go away, and he handed me metal coins that looked like subway tokens, only bigger.
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