1
O
ne of those special days, the kind of autumn afternoon when no one minds being in Manhattan, or even that it’s Monday.
A chill in the side streets where the sun keeps its shadows, a warmth on the avenues where the skyscrapers let the sun brush pocket parks and sidewalks. Suit jackets but not overcoats. Sweaters but not windbreakers. One last chance to sit by the fountain across from the Warwick and eat a hot dog from a vendor; one last chance to walk through Times Square before the wind grows winter’s teeth; one last chance to lie in the Sheep’s Meadow and pray for one more layer of tan.
The sky is sharp, the buildings have edges, and if the Halloween decorations were up two weeks early, it wasn’t as bad as the idiot on Fifth Avenue who had put a white plastic Christmas tree in his display window.
One of those special days.
* * * *
2
Tony Garza sat on the edge of his bed, head low, legs and feet bare, staring at the carpet whose faded design he had memorized a score of years ago, so familiar now he could shift the lines to make faces and continents without losing the original. Absently he scratched his stomach. Thinking he ought to clip his toenails again. Any longer they’d start shredding his socks. A hell of a thing, a man his age in his condition, walking around with holes in his socks.
A hell of a thing.
“Huh.”
He looked at his hands, then. Turned them over and checked the palms. He looked between them at the way his boxers were snug around his thighs and still no flab. He straightened. He pushed himself up and walked down the long hall of the Pullman apartment to the living room, stood at the window, and looked down at the street. The Monday morning rush was over, but they still cut through, thinking they’ll save time. He often daydreamed about unloading a box of huge tacks down there, just to see how many tires would blow before the idiots caught on.
Ari claimed it was just life in the city, nothing to raise your blood pressure about.
Maybe so, but it was still a pain in the butt.
He leaned closer to the pane, looking down the block. No police today. Only a small piece of yellow crime scene ribbon left, flapping in the wind. All that was left of cop cars and TV vans that had packed the street Saturday morning, cops and newsmen talking to everyone who ever took a breath around here.
They hadn’t paid much attention to him, standing on the stoop the next morning, a stooped old man with half a roast beef sandwich in one hand, horseradish stains on his shirt. A few questions, a take it easy old fella pat on the back, and they moved on to someone else.
The building’s super, Manny Pulero, low-slung jeans and grimy T-shirt, had popped out of his hole just long enough to ask what the hell was going on.
“Guy murdered,” Tony had answered.
“So what else is new?”
“My bedroom radiator’s still busted.”
Pulero, squat and dark, with a scrawny Zapata mustache, shrugged expansively. “So what else is new?”
And popped back into his hole.
Tony swore that was the only English the little bastard knew.
Yellow ribbon flapping in the wind.
Leaves dancing in the gutter.
He sniffed and faced the room, hands trying to find his pockets until he remembered he wasn’t dressed.
“I,” he announced to the old chairs, the old tables, the old wallpaper, the old rug, “am bored.”
Maybe it was time he visited some of the family.
Maybe not.
What the hell.
But as his left hand brushed over his cheek, he knew it was definitely time to give himself a shave.
* * * *
3
Ari Lowe sat in his kitchen, pushing a spoon through a cooling bowl of oatmeal, waiting until he could catch his breath. He had damn near coughed his lungs out a few seconds ago, and for those few seconds he was afraid the pressure in his head would explode something in his brain and leave him on the cracked linoleum floor, unable to call for help. Helpless as a baby fallen from its crib.
Dying.
He puffed his cheeks and blew out a long sigh, finished the oatmeal without tasting it, and sat back, hands still on the table.
He studied his fingers, more bone than flesh, and wondered what it would be like to be like Tony, still living as if he had another century ahead of him, still charming the ladies out of their drawers, still leaving parts of himself with women who didn’t seem to mind the disparity in age. Eating a decent breakfast, not this damn gruel. Eating roast beef and horseradish in the middle of the night, knowing he wouldn’t wake up before dawn with acid crawling through his system.
Jealous? No.
Envious? Yes.
But what is, is. If he kept this up, these daily comparisons, he’d end up sticking his head in the oven. Hell of a way to die, his ass in the air.
His daughter would have a fit.
He grinned, stood, washed the bowl, and the glass that had held his orange juice, and went into the bedroom where he made the bed, fluffed the pillows, picked up the dirty clothes from the day before and stuffed them into the bathroom hamper. Then he went into the living room and wondered if the rug needed vacuuming today. He had done it two days ago, but even closed windows let the city grit in.
Might as well.
It’ll kill time.
Then he’ll walk down to the Korean’s to get the paper, see if there was anything new on the murder. Which there wouldn’t be. Same old thing—another dead body, no witnesses, no clues, police expecting a break any day now.
And Ari Lowe had slept through it all, had to wait until his friend told him all about it the next morning.
The way Tony had told it, it was actually kind of funny, but it didn’t stop him from feeling a little queasy.
Murder. Right here on the block. First one that he could remember. People beat each other up, had screaming fights after midnight, broke in now and then to swipe TVs and VCRs, whatever loose change they could find.
But murder?
And he missed most of the excitement?
Something, he thought, is missing here.
Yeah, he answered sourly; your goddamn life.
Which reminded him, as he laughed, that he’d better check the cupboards and refrigerator. Tomorrow the guys were coming over here for a change, and he had to make sure there was enough to feed them. Tuesday night at the trough. Then he had to check the cards, the chips, deal himself a few hands to be sure he hadn’t lost the touch, see to it that Tony didn’t forget to get the beer.
Not so bad when you thought about it.
Not so bad at all.
* * * *
4
“Nobody answers, Mom.”
“That’s okay,” she says as she replaces the receiver.
“But why not?”
She laughs and gives the little cowboy a gentle shove. “Out to lunch, shopping, going for a walk ...lots of reasons. It’s the middle of the day.”
He pouts and says, “I want to go.”
“I don’t think so, hon.”
“Why not?”
She points at the driver, who’s standing near the back of the bus, one of the shiny panels cocked open. His hat is in his hand, his hand is on his hip, and he’s shaking his head angrily at another man beside him. The second man wears coveralls liberally smeared with dirt and grease.
“I think we’ve got engine trouble,” she says.
“Does that mean we have to stay?”
“Joey,” she says sharply. “Stop whining. We can’t do anything about it, so there’s no sense getting upset.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
He glares at the two men. “So what do we do until they’re all done, Mommy?”
“Well...” She looks around, every so often exchanging what-can-you-do glances with other disappointed passengers. Then she says, “We can always have some ice cream,” and points at the snack bar.
&n
bsp; “Chocolate?”
“Whatever you want.”
The little cowboy puts a finger to his chin and pretends to think about it. “Okay,” he says at last. “But I want to try another number first.”
* * * *
5
Dory Castro woke with a splitting headache, groaned aloud to be sure the world knew of her suffering, and sat up as slowly as she could to keep her head from rolling off her neck.
Brittle sunlight filled her bedroom.
Outside the window she could hear the grumble of an idling truck, the yapping of her neighbor’s dog, the near-hysterical shouts of her neighbor trying to shut the damn dog up. A couple of preschool kids shrieking as they played.
An ordinary day in suburban Philadelphia.
Thank God, she had taken the day off. Early on, she had learned that returning to work the Monday after a conference was about as productive as trying to roll grease up a hill. Now she would be able to grind the liquor and boredom out of her system before she set foot in the office. Where, no doubt, there’d be a million questions about Rainer’s death. Possible suicide, or so claimed the local news programs; word had gotten out that he was on the shortlist for a pink slip.
Not that she would have anything to tell them—she had been in the shower at the time the creep had taken his dive, and didn’t even know what had happened until she showed up at the meeting, properly apologetic for her tardiness, ready to go.
Naturally, the day’s schedule had been canceled once the word got out, and some jackass from Colorado even wanted to put together an impromptu memorial service. For the company’s image.
Yeah. Right.
The people from the Atlanta office had pretty much left before lunch. For her and some of the others, however, it was sightseeing in the afternoon, the executive suite thrown open that night for what was supposed to be a respectful gathering, for what turned out to be a hell of a party that introduced her to a guy from Wisconsin. Damn good looking. Buns to die for. An ego in bed that sorely tempted her to break the rules, do two in a single day.
Temptation, however, wasn’t strong enough for such drastic action.
Besides, when all was said and done, she hadn’t felt like it.
“Bad, girl,” she said, giggling, as she wandered through the townhouse, T-shirt and panties, searching for a reason not to go back to bed.’ “You are just plain bad.”
She found it downstairs, in a framed picture on the mantel of her gas-log fireplace. There she was, and there they were, all of them grinning like idiots at the camera.
“You guys,” she said fondly.
She wondered if it would be appropriate for a couple of tears now, to prove how she missed them.
She could feel them at the corners of her eyes, ready to fall, but with no one watching, there wasn’t much point.
Maybe she would give them a call. It had been a while. And she really did miss them, in a bizarre kind of familial way. While she was at it, maybe she’d even give Pop a ring. At least he hadn’t condemned her after Arturo had walked out; at least he hadn’t implied, or said outright, that it was all her fault. At least Pop didn’t sing the same damn song—no children to hold the family together, married to your job, what did you expect, Dory? You want Artie to do the housework in addition to his own work? What kind of woman are you? Is this the way you were raised?
She closed her eyes quickly, turned away from the fireplace, and willed her fists to open.
It took a while.
It took a long while.
Once she thought she was ready, she went into the kitchen, made herself some toast and coffee, and brought the plate into the back room.
“Hi,” she said.
The sunlight didn’t seem quite so brittle anymore, not the way it lay across the wood, making it shine in spite of its age, in spite of its condition.
She sat on the bench, put the plate beside her, and let her fingers hover over the keys. Sensing. Almost dowsing. Until they flexed once, ready, and she scarcely felt the ivory as she swayed in time to a torchlike, Memphis-inspired, only lacking a hard bass “String of Pearls.”
Glenn Miller wouldn’t approve, but she didn’t give a damn.
He was dead.
She wasn’t.
Not yet.
With any luck, Greta Holtz, the neighbor with the dog, would complain to the police about the music. The police would show up sooner or later, Dory would smile and apologize and suggest that Greta cut her damn dog’s tongue out. An old routine. The cops didn’t care. They hated that dog, anyway, and they didn’t much care for Greta, either. Always bitching about the neighborhood kids, the cars not parked in their appropriate spots, supposed prowlers in the middle of the night...
Dory had a feeling rookies were specifically assigned to this area, to break them in, to give them a taste of Greta to prepare them for their destiny.
Maybe she should help them out.
Two in one day was always out of the question.
Two in one week, though, was something else again.
She played on.
Just a little louder.
* * * *
6
Ida Lefcowitz dithered at the front door. She had to go out. Prescott needed his food and got awfully testy when he wasn’t fed on time. Just like her late husband, and wasn’t he sorry now that she had named that fool animal after him. Still, she loved the hairy little thing, and he needed his food.
But she was afraid.
The nearest store was the Korean’s, and while she didn’t mind talking to him even if he didn’t have the sense to learn decent English, it meant going by that other place.
It meant maybe seeing him.
Even crossing the street and going down the other side, she still might see him.
She didn’t think she could stand it.
All weekend she had stayed home, huddled in her chair, the TV on but unwatched, waiting for him to come to her door, smash it down, and murder her. Sneaking Prescott out only after dark, hushing him, praying that he wouldn’t take very long. Like some kind of criminal, she was. Like some kind of prisoner.
It wasn’t meant to be that way.
All she had done the other night was get back home, had her coat and gloves off, realized she had forgotten the skim milk, and went out again. Stood on the sidewalk, one finger on her chin, trying to convince herself she really needed that milk, but she hated walking without Prescott to guard her, and he had already fallen asleep in his bed.
That’s when she had seen the shadows on the sidewalk.
Two of them, although she honestly couldn’t be sure. Her eyes weren’t bad, but at night they weren’t as good.
Two of them, looking as if they were dancing down there; then suddenly, only one of them, walking away, the other vanished. Gone. Without a sound. Making her wonder if she had actually seen it at all.
But it had been unnerving enough to send her straight back inside, explaining to a grumpy Prescott that she would wait until morning to get the milk, she didn’t need it to get to sleep.
That other shadow had to be that awful Mr. Garza. Who else on the block was that big?
Then the police came—did you see anything last night, ma’am, anything strange?—and she found out.
She found out.
And she couldn’t stop thinking that maybe that awful Mr. Garza had seen her, too.
In that one horrific moment, she had told the police she hadn’t seen a thing, had been inside all night, watching the TV and reading the paper. She had lied, and they had gone away—if you think of anything, ma’am, just give us a call—and for the first time in years she regretted living on the first floor.
He was big enough to look right in. She was positive of that; he could stand on the sidewalk and look right in and see her and let her know that she was next.
Because he knew.
Several times she considered calling her son on Long Island, but she already knew what he would say.
“Mother,
don’t get involved.” Or, “Mother, it was dark, and you know full well that Mr. Garza is over eighty. You really think he could do something like that?” Or, “Mother, do you know how late it is? Can’t we talk about this in the morning?”
Mother.
She clasped her hands at her bosom.
In the Mood - [Millennium Quartet 02] Page 16