When you reached the Jamaica railway station from out on Long Island you either walked across the platform to the connecting train for Penn Station, or you walked down the steps and into the hopped-up city streets of Jamaica. You could also cross to another platform through the connecting train, once that train opened its doors. I glanced again at the schedule. The train for Penn Station in Manhattan left Jamaica station four minutes after the Babylon train came in.
“What will they do to us, Billy?”
Handcuff us and drag us off to the police station, I thought. Then phone my mom. “Stay down,” I said to Amy.
I shot my head up to peer out. I was ready to duck back down but I didn’t have to do it. The cops were nattering away to each other. I guess they didn’t think we ranked up there with Bonnie and Clyde. Almost everybody was off the train by now. The older black cop pointed to the forward end of the train. He was telling something to the young white cop. The white cop nodded and began to walk toward the rear of the train — I ducked down.
“Amy, I think one of them is going to walk down the aisle inside. The other will stay on the platform. Flush us out like birds. Pick up your stuff. Let’s get near the door.”
I grabbed my suitcase in one hand and Iphigenia’s bag in the other. We scuttled down the aisle to the metal platform by the door. It was a question of timing. You were usually luckier if you prepared well, moved fast, and didn’t hesitate. But you had to remember that usually didn’t mean always.
I didn’t accept that. That was always my problem. I thought that if I wanted to do it, I could do it.
Three minutes passed. Getting on for three and a half. We had about thirty seconds before the train on the other track moved off toward Penn Station.
“Stay real low,” I said, “and follow me.”
We darted out when the black cop had his back turned to us for a moment; he was looking toward the staircase leading down to the street.
I crab-walked across the platform toward the New York-bound train, with Amy following. I had one foot inside the door of the train when Amy squawked. Sounded like distress. I glanced back over my shoulder. Crouching, carrying her two sacks, she had stumbled. One knee hit the concrete. “Ow,” she yelled. “Shit!”—her sacks went flying.
I dropped my suitcase and it clanged on the metal platform between the cars. I ran back three steps and pulled Amy to her feet. One knee of her jeans was torn. People were hurrying by us, because the train to Penn Station was about to shut its doors and take off.
The cop turned toward us. He yelled, “Hey!”
“Come on!” I tugged at Amy.
“My stuff…”
“Leave it!”
She ran with me and bounded up onto the train platform. With one hand, because I had Iphigenia’s bag in the other, I pushed Amy across the metal platform toward the far door of the train. Iphigenia was grumbling, chit-chit-chitting, telling me that she didn’t like all this rough stuff that threw her from one side of her bag to the other. Then I shoved my suitcase out the door we’d come through. It tumbled end on end and hit the leg of a man who was trotting toward the train. He yowled. He backed up into a fat woman who grunted and dropped a metal suitcase that she was carrying. All those people, backing up, bumped into the older cop who was doing his best to charge up the station platform.
I ran through the door of the train after Amy. We were out on the eastbound platform now. No cops here. The door behind us, the one we’d come through, began slowly to close. And the instant they closed, the train eased off toward Penn Station.
Amy and I sprinted down the length of the platform and ran down the staircase. The hot air and hot noise and hot smells of the street punched me in the face. People milled around us, headed here, headed there. Babble, babble, babble. Boom boxes were blasting. I looked behind us. No cops. They hadn’t made it through.
In the traffic I saw a flash of yellow going by. I yelled, the way I’d heard my dad do it: “Cab!”
The taxi swerved toward the curb and I yanked open the door. Amy jumped in, with me right behind her. Her sacks and my suitcase lay upstairs on the westbound platform.
Iphigenia kept complaining.
A horn blared behind us. “Move yer fuckin’ ass,” someone yelled. The driver dropped the flag and took off.
“Billy!” Amy’s face glowed a rosy pink.
She didn’t care that the knee of her jeans was torn open, didn’t care that she was bleeding, didn’t care that, except for our backpacks and the clothes she wore, she’d lost all her worldly goods.
“That’s just how Charlie would have done it,” she said.
Chapter 26
Amy’s eyes were roving all over the place. Her mouth had dropped open. The lobby of the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West was wood-paneled and had gold-framed oil paintings of tall sailing ships. When we approached the front desk, I sensed a slight stir among the members of the hotel staff who saw us push through the revolving door and march across the carpet. Amy’s jeans were torn and you could see blood on her knee. The only luggage we had left were our beat-up backpacks. We looked like a couple of raggedy country kids off the street.
Maybe this wasn’t going to work.
The desk clerk was tall and black-eyed, with a long face like a sheep. When he stared down at me the corners of his lips turned up, but you could see he was making an effort. His brass name plate said: MR. G. GARCIA.
I’d picked the Mayflower because I’d once heard my dad say, “It’s the best-priced of all the fine hotels. Smart show-biz people stay there. The views are as good as from the Plaza and the Sherry-Netherland. You pay for the view.”
He’d also praised the Plaza, the Pierre, and the Carlyle, but I knew they would be out of my price range. Not that I thought the Mayflower would be cheap — it was just that I had decided that staying at Uncle Bernie’s loft on Rivington Street would be asking for trouble. There could be cops at the door, waiting to pounce. I’d learned a lot in just three hours.
“Can I help you, sir?” Mr. Garcia had a pleasant and melodic Mexican accent.
My dad had said this was a show-biz hotel, so I said, “I’m in town with my sister to do a commercial. She’s never been to New York. We had a little accident at the train station and she skinned her knee. Mr. Garcia, after we’ve checked in, can we have some first-aid?”
“I am terribly sorry,” Mr. Garcia said. “The hotel is completely full.”
“Oh.” Such a thing had never occurred to me.
“May I offer your sister some antibiotic cream and a Band-Aid?”
In her bag at my side, Iphigenia went chit-chit-chit. She had taken a buffeting when we ran through Jamaica station, and now I think she was hungry.
“Be quiet,” I said.
Mr. Garcia stared at the bag. “May I ask what is in there?”
“My monkey.”
For a minute Mr. Garcia looked thoughtful, and he didn’t say a word. Then that false smile vanished. A real beam, showing yellow teeth, took its place. He said, “You are the boy does the candy commercial. The boy with the monkey.”
“That’s right,” I said, “and this is the monkey.”
“May I shake your hand?” Mr. Garcia said. “I love that commercial. It is better than most of the programs.”
He had a big, clammy, ice-cold hand.
“I’m Billy Braverman,” I said.
“Guillermo Garcia, at your service.”
“Mucho gusto en conocerle, Señor Garcia.”
“Ah! Hablas español, Señor Braverman? Just a moment, please. Let me check… sometimes there is a last-minute cancellation.”
Señor Garcia studied the screen of his computer and tapped a few keys. “You are in luck. Luciano Pavarotti was supposed to arrive this evening from Milano but he has put it back a week. I can give you and your sister a fifth-floor suite facing the park. How long did you wish to stay?”
Luciano Pavarotti had probably rented a suite big enough to house the whole chorus of wha
tever opera he was starring in.
“Señor Garcia,” I said, “the truth is, that’s probably out of my price range.”
“I understand. How old you are, Señor Braverman?”
“I’m twelve.”
“Will your parents be joining you?”
“No, they can’t make it this trip.”
He tapped some more keys. “Under the circumstances, Señor Braverman, I offer you a special junior performing artist’s discount. I give you the suite at our regular rate for a standard double.” Smiling, he scribbled a number on a slip of paper, then pushed the paper across the desk to me. It was more than I’d ever dreamed of spending but I didn’t see that I had any choice.
Half an hour later we were wandering around a two-bedroom suite overlooking Central Park. You couldn’t have squeezed the Metropolitan Opera chorus in there, but there was room enough for Luciano Pavarotti and his twin brother, and that’s saying something. Amy’s knee had been medicated and bandaged by the delicate fingers of Señor Garcia. Roses, gardenias, and other flowers bloomed from vases all over the place. A huge basket of cellophane-wrapped fruit sat on the coffee table. Amy slit the cellophane with a fingernail and pulled out a fresh peach for herself. I gave a banana to Iphigenia, who had begun to inspect the carpet for insect larvae. I bounced up and down on one of the living room sofas and thought about all the poor families in the world who had to squeeze themselves into one room half this size. I thought about stuff like that a lot. It didn’t help those poor people and it didn’t help me, but there was nothing I could do about it — the thoughts just came.
“I think this was all meant for Luciano Pavarotti,” I said.
“Is he some foreign movie star?”
“An opera singer.”
“Well, you’re one up on him. You’re a TV-commercial star. Billy, this must be costing you a fortune.”
“I’ve got a debit card.” I still had $20,000 in the Modern Age money fund account in case of emergencies — like this one.
While Amy ate her peach, I called Uncle Bernie.
“Where are you, Billy?”
“At a hotel in the city.” I told him what had happened at Babylon and Jamaica.
“My sister called the cops on you? Jesus. I’d say that was overkill.”
“I would say so, too, but I guess that depends on how you look at it.”
“Diana’s high-strung. I know, I grew up with her. She doesn’t get her own way, she breaks out in hives and she yells at you until the Prozac calms her down. You better call her and let her know you’re all right.”
“I know she’s going to call you—that’s why I didn’t come down to you today. I didn’t want you to have to lie to her. And you won’t have to, because you don’t know where I am.”
“I don’t. You didn’t tell me. You said you were at a hotel, right? You didn’t say which hotel. You didn’t even say you were in a hotel, just at one. For all I know, you were in a phone booth in the hotel lobby. All I remember is that you told me that you were fine and nobody should worry. Right? You are fine, aren’t you? You’re not in some joint that’s crawling with cucarachas?”
I looked out at Central Park. From Central Park West a horse-drawn carriage wandered around Columbus Circle in the direction of Fifth Avenue. The Mayflower’s flags fluttered in the breeze.
“No cucarachas in sight,” I said.
“Good. You take care of yourself, kiddo. I’ve got that money for you so I know I’ll see you. Until then, keep in touch.”
I agreed to do that. We said goodbye.
“Let’s go shopping,” I told Amy. “Iphigenia needs a cage.”
She bounced to her feet. You tell a female person that it’s time to go shopping, and she lights up.
Something occurred to me. I had close to $15,000 in cash with me. I had put it in a brown manila envelope, and the envelope was in my backpack. But I didn’t want to walk around New York City carrying all that cash. My mom had been mugged in broad daylight, and if it could happen to her it could happen to me.
I asked Amy for her advice. I didn’t say I had $15,000 — I just said I had some cash.
“Put it under the mattress,” she said.
“That’s where people always hide their money. If a thief broke in, it’d be the first place he’d look.”
“The fridge?”
“Good idea. But I saw that in a movie. What if the thief saw the movie, too? I’ve got an idea. Come on.”
Amy followed me into my bedroom. There was a king-size bed in there, and a sofa, and two easy chairs. I mean, it was a humongous bedroom. Pavarotti needed a lot of maneuvering room.
I got down on my knees and slid the money envelope under the sofa, as far to the back as I could reach. It was a tight fit.
“Good,” said Amy.
I sat down and made a list of the things I had to do, and the things I wanted to buy when we went out. I had my debit card in my wallet, plus a couple of hundred dollars in tens and twenties, and I stuffed another thousand worth of hundreds down my underpants. I handed Amy two twenty-dollar bills.
“What’s that for, Billy?”
“Mad money.”
“What’s mad money?”
“Haven’t you ever been on a date?”
“Only with you.”
The poor kid.
“If you get mad at me,” I said, “you can use that money to get back to the Mayflower on your own.”
“I won’t get mad at you.”
“Well, if for any reason we get separated, you’ve got the taxi fare to get back here.”
“Billy,” Amy said, “I am never going to get separated from you.”
The first stop we made was an internet café on Seventh Avenue. Amy had a Coke while I sent an e-mail to my mom at her office in Sag Harbor, with a copy to my dad at Schreiber, Braverman on East Fifty-sixth Street. He was only a few blocks away from our hotel. He could have been on the moon, though, for all the chance we had of bumping into each other. That’s one of the great things about New York.
Dear Mom & Dad,
I am fine. But we lost our two black duffel bags and my blue suitcase on the station platform in Jamaica when the cops chased us. Maybe you could call the cops and see if they found any of that stuff, although probably other people picked it up and ran off with it.
I promise to call you by Friday afternoon and then we can talk. I need a few days to think about what to do. If you don’t chase us we’ll stay in New York. So please trust me, and call off the posse
I have money with me, and we are in a comfortable place. Have faith in me.
Love from
Billy
After the internet café we set out for Macy’s. My mom’s favorite department stores were Saks, Bloomingdales, and Bergdorf Goodman, but I had heard her say, “Macy’s is where you go for one-stop reasonable shopping.”
On the way down Broadway Amy ate two hot dogs with relish and mustard, and I found a place that sold veggie falafel rolls, and we drank jumbo-size glasses of fresh-squeezed o.j. Then we had Italian ices in a cone. We passed through Times Square which used to be the sleaziest part of Manhattan but they’ve fixed it up so it’s only about the fifth sleaziest part. Amy pulled out one of her twenty-dollar bills and from different vendors bought a cardboard kaleidoscope, a hot pink feather boa, a frog pen whose eyes bulged when you squeezed it, a throwaway camera that took wide-angle photographs, and a wind-up pair of red lips that ran around on the sidewalk in circles.
When we reached Macy’s, Amy stopped dead in her tracks. Macy’s occupies a square city block so that it’s the largest store in the world. The lights made you blink and put on sunglasses. You could look across the store for what seemed like half a mile. She said, “Holy moley.”
“Before we go nuts,” I said, “let’s buy the cage for Iphigenia.”
We took the escalator up to the pet department. It was on a high floor so that before we reached it we’d had an overview of cosmetics, lingerie, Junior Miss clothes, l
adies’ sportswear, shoes, blenders and microwaves, electronic games, telephones, computers, men’s suits, beds, convertible sofas. The air buzzed with the excitement of buying and selling and people getting what they wanted and sometimes even getting what they needed.
I looked at my list. We bought a bird cage just like the one I’d left behind on Hedges Lane. It was five dollars cheaper than the one I’d bought out on Long Island. That made me feel good. This place was full of bargains.
Once you start spitting out money on bargains, it’s hard to stop.
“Suitcases,” I said.
In the luggage department we bought a black sack for me and a red sack for Amy. We put all of Amy’s things — the kaleidoscope, the boa, the frog pen, the camera, and the wind-up lips — into her red sack. I paid cash. I had paid cash for the cage, too.
“Now,” I said, “think about what you lost. What do you need to replace?”
In the Junior Miss department we were taken care of by a Mrs. Krinsk. She had gray hair but she’d put a blue rinse on it so she looked a little like an extraterrestrial. She helped Amy pick out socks, underwear, T-shirts, teddy tops, a pink nightdress, a pair of khaki shorts with what looked like a dozen pockets, a purple cotton terry zip-up jacket, a T-shirt with a picture of Madonna on it, and a new black headband because the old one was so ratty. I said to Amy, “Those sneakers are pretty scuzzy, too. Why don’t you get a new pair?”
“Okay.”
She picked out a pair of white Nikes with blue and red lightning stripes.
By now her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes sparkled. She pointed down to the hole in the fabric of her left knee.
She wanted washed-out blue Levis 501s with a button fly. Nothing else would do.
Then, somehow, from the sale rack, she was holding in her hand a beautiful Mexican white cotton blouse with hand-stitched flowers on it.
“It’s on sale,” she said. “Twenty nine ninety five.”
“Get it.”
“Okay. And listen, Billy, my cashmere sweater was in the duffel bag. The gray one you bought for me in the Bargain Box. I loved that sweater.”
Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 04 - BOY ON TRIAL - A Legal Thriller Page 21