Closing Time

by Fusilli, Jim;

  “Where are the kids from Amaral’s class?” I asked.

  “In the auditorium. They’re pretty upset, as you’d imagine.”

  “And the little girl upstairs?”

  “That’s Williams’s daughter.”

  I followed Addison past the rushing EMS techs to the security station. Reynolds was back on post, one hand clasping a wrist behind his back, his Beretta nine still holstered.

  “Can we get it?” the lieutenant asked without stopping.

  “I’m waiting for a call back, sir.”

  From the stairwell behind us, a walkie-talkie echoed and squealed.

  Addison made a sign to Reynolds that told the guard to contact him as soon as information arrived.

  As I went outside, Addison said, “They might be able to pull some tape on Amaral’s escape. There’s a security camera on the gate at 126th.”

  He went to the driver’s side of his car.

  “What the hell happened in there?” I asked.

  “Amaral knew what she wanted. The kids say they argued briefly and when she insisted, he picked the mug off his desk and slammed her upside her head.”

  “Got her good, didn’t he?”

  “Your man is strong,” he replied, “and he’s violent.”

  He likes that move to the head, I thought.

  Addison slid into the front seat. I waited and opened the passenger door. He signaled for me to get inside.

  As I sat, I said, “Guy jumps from a second-story window has got to be lucky not to break an ankle.”

  “He’s fucked,” Addison barked. “Everett’s good people.”

  “And Williams?”

  “I’ve seen her, here and around. If Everett likes her, that’s fine with me.”

  I didn’t reply. Denise Williams was a racist. But that didn’t mean her little girl had to see her with half a coffee mug jutting out of the side of her head.

  “Now listen to me, Terry,” he began. “You had some amateur-ass luck here. Or you did a good job.” He was looking straight ahead, toward the thick trees at the General Grant Apartments. “I’ll give you some credit for your work.”

  I knew where he was going. I decided to let him go. “And maybe you don’t care if you showed me up with Knight and with Everett,” he snapped. “But now you’re out of it. I don’t want to hear you, I don’t want to see you. If I do, I’m going to run your ass. I’ll lock you the fuck down until Gabriella turns forty. You hear me?”

  He turned to look hard at me.

  I met his gaze. He was boiling.

  “Sure, Luther. No hear, no see. Got it.”

  “Terry, don’t fuck around. Your way is not how it’s done.”

  I shifted and put my back against the passenger door. “What are you going to do?”

  He looked at me and he told me, but only after he was able to turn down the flame.

  “We’ve got a man at his apartment—”

  “A guy who doesn’t piss in front of the neighbors.”

  “Amaral doesn’t have a car, doesn’t have a license,” he continued. He flicked an index finger against the five on the other hand. “That means the airports, Port Authority, Penn Station—”

  “I got one other place for you to check,” I said as I took out my cell.

  “What happened?”

  Jackson said, “I can’t find your number.”

  “Well?”

  “I got something for you. May not mean much.”

  I could hear the dispatcher flipping pages. In my mind’s eye, I saw a clipboard and notes scribbled on the back of a form.

  Addison looked at me. Anger had given way to curiosity.

  Jackson said, “Over at Dyckman Livery they say a guy picked up somebody on 14th and Seventh at 12:45 on Saturday morning. Took him to Riverside and 165th.”

  Fort Washington Avenue was a block east of Riverside Drive. “Close enough,” I said.

  THIRTEEN

  The sun had dropped behind the office buildings on the Jersey palisades. A red-orange glow burned the horizon and, above it, the sky was a dull, muddy gray.

  On West Street, the cars that were headed north toward the Lincoln Tunnel, the GW Bridge, were in an orderly line as if parked three across, and on the other side, more cars slithering toward the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. A typical rush hour on the south end of the island: No one was rushing, all accepted their fate. Headlights on the west side, taillights on the east. In two hours, the parking lot would be a highway again. Now, under violet streetlights, the blacktop was a study in inertia.

  I squeezed past a white Olds and a burgundy Toyota hatchback, straddled the divider, then waited until a UPS truck rolled by. Then I made my way to the cracked sidewalk on the west side of the wide highway and started toward Little West 12th. Behind me, a car horn rang out, and others on both sides of the road joined in. Then a sudden silence and I could hear the river, its relentless ebb and flow, its persistent slap against the rotted piers, against stone retaining walls.

  I’d been waiting near the abandoned building at Jane Street, my back flat against cold brick, tucked in the shadows near a hissing hydrant, accompanied by the smell of rust and motor oil, of decay and abuse; by the memories of the edge of the blade against my chin. To ward off the cold as the sun began to tumble, I went west to Greenwich, pacing, trying to stay clear of trucks on the way to the Gansevoort Market and taxis circling west to go uptown. Then I buried my hands in my pockets and went back to Jane. From noon to now, I had waited and I watched.

  I knew Amaral wasn’t going to Fort Washington Avenue: By now, he knew he didn’t live there anymore. And he wasn’t going to take it out of town: He had unfinished business here. When Addison returned my cell phone, I left his car and kept walking until I could flag a cab.

  If Addison wanted to stand on Fort Washington Avenue with his thumb up his ass, fine. Who gives a shit?

  I went home, threw on old black jeans, sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt, asked Mrs. Maoli to stay through dinner and came back out. And I went where I knew Amaral would be. I wanted to be there to finish it.

  He had tried to save Montana. Then he killed for him. I wanted to know why. Then I wanted to end it.

  When I was huddled on Jane Street, shivering and shuffling, I had time to think. I stared at the mustard-colored building and I thought.

  I’m going to get this done.

  I embarrassed Addison. So be it. Pushing me away brought me back hard.

  What kind of man will be so easily discouraged from doing what he really wants to do? Has to do.

  I hadn’t been paying enough attention to Bella. If that was true …

  The best thing I can do for her is to find out how to take down the man who killed her mother and brother.

  A daughter without a baby brother, without a mother.

  A boy wears a scar his father gave him as he tried to save his mother’s life.

  A sad-eyed painter, rejected by a heartless father, finds solace in a brutally ambitious wife.

  There’s a moon up there. It’s cold, it’s lifeless. An empty, mottled ball in the sky.

  I needed to do this thing and I needed to do it by myself.

  On West Street, I went toward a break in the fence. Twilight, and I knew where Amaral would go.

  It was almost six when I got to the Sealand container that sat abandoned on the crumbled pavement by the pier. And then I came around to its back doors: one was off its hinges, the other was closed—an ineffectual guardian of privacy for hookers and their johns, for junkies. On the soil that had erupted from under the splintered concrete, used condoms and crack vials testified to the container’s sordid utility. Ready to look inside the box, I had my back to the thumping, slapping river, to the vanishing strip of light at the horizon, and I moved carefully. And I came out from behind the door and looked in and I saw Amaral.

  He stood at the far end of the container, 40 feet away. I ducked to enter and stared at him. He stood straight, his eyes wide behind his round glasses. />
  He wore a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and his conservative blue-and-yellow tie was at half-mast. I stepped inside the long, narrow box.

  “I’m—I’m waiting for someone,” he said.

  His voice echoed in the container and a metallic ringing remained after his words had disappeared.

  “I know. Andre. Andre Turner.”

  He tilted his head. “Who are you?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “I’m not—I’m not who you think I am.”

  “I think you’re Perry Amaral,” I told him. “I was at the school today.”

  “You—” He stopped. “Denise. How …?”

  “She’s not dead.” Unlike Aubrey Brown. “Stitches.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know what?”

  “I can’t believe I—”

  “Hit her? Sure you can. That’s your move. The whack in the head.”

  He said no.

  “Somebody saw you,” I lied. “Not far from here.”

  “I—I live in the neighborhood,” Amaral offered.

  “At 455 West 14th.”

  He frowned and his small voice tried to rise up to challenge me. “Who are you?”

  “I was at the school today. And I didn’t call him Montana, did I?”

  He seemed to realize that he had placed himself in the container’s corner and he shuffled toward me, dragging his shoes across the soiled wood floor, hugging the tattered wood on the walls.

  “Tell me,” I said. “A divorced man, his son taken away. He finds a child who needs someone … Is that why you moved downtown? To be near Andre?”

  Amaral hesitated. “Better conditions.”

  “No, not really. I think it’s Andre. He’s here.”

  Amaral didn’t reply. Then he said, “My student. He’s my student.”

  “Still?”

  “No, I mean he was my student. He had to leave us.”

  “Why?”

  Amaral touched his glasses. “Several—different reasons. He couldn’t keep up.”

  “Because of what he experienced.”

  “Yes.”

  “You tried to help.”

  “I did.”

  “But …”

  Amaral looked at the dank floor. “I failed.”

  “Happens.”

  Amaral shrugged.

  “But he still needs you,” I said.

  “He doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “I spoke to him, you know.”

  Amaral looked at me. “How is he?”

  I said, “He’s the same. He’s working. You know what I mean?”

  He nodded slowly.

  A short snap of wind off the river pushed the container.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you knowing. A friend would know. You are friends, right?”

  “I would say so.”

  “Good friends?”

  He hesitated. “OK, yes.”

  “He’s like a son?”

  Amaral shook his head. It was a slow, deliberate denial. Or a painful affirmation.

  “He comes to your apartment?”

  Amaral didn’t reply.

  “That’s natural. The streets are a hard way to go.”

  Amaral interrupted. “Yes, he comes to my apartment.”

  “You let him use the bathroom?” I led. “You feed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he spend the night there?”

  “Almost never,” he said.

  “Once a week? Twice?”

  “Not so often.” Then he added, “All right. Maybe twice a week.”

  “He comes to you when he needs you,” I said. “No problem there.”

  For a moment, Amaral seemed to drift, then he straightened up, his back now taut against the container wall. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Why not, Perry? We’re almost there.”

  I looked at him. There was nowhere to run. Despite inching forward, he was still some 30 feet from the door, where I stood.

  He said, “It’s not fair. To be judged.”

  He was chasing the thoughts in his clouded mind. His eyes rolled up into his head, then he opened them wide, then blinked several times, exaggerating the gesture.

  I listened to the river, to the car horns on the highway.

  “You do what you did, you get judged, Perry.”

  “No one asks why.”

  “I’m going to. I will. But I need to know.”

  “Need to know what?” he snapped. An attempt to be firm again; he was becoming agitated, more agitated.

  I said, “Something that might explain why.” I held up my empty hands. “Let me try something, all right? All right?”

  “Yes, all right.”

  “When Andre stays with you, he sleeps in your bed, doesn’t he?”

  “You can’t ask me that.”

  “I am trying to understand, Perry.”

  “No. That’s not a question. You want to judge—”

  “Perry, it’s a question. Andre sleeps in your bed, doesn’t he?”

  “You want—” He suddenly stopped. Then he closed his eyes.

  “You and Andre have been lovers. Haven’t you?”

  He looked at me. He was confused. There was nowhere to go. It was out now, the darkest secret.

  “I don’t—I don’t know how it started.”

  Suddenly, his agitation abated and his false bravado vanished, and Amaral put his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket and edged into the shadows. “I don’t know how it started.”

  “Tell me about last Saturday morning, Perry.”

  “I went to see him. I mean, I tried to find him. And I did … find him.”

  “All right,” I said. “Where?”

  “Near the piers. Behind the buses.”

  He’d gone north of Little West 12th, up by the yellow brick terminal, the buses shut down for the night, sand in mounds for the inevitable snow, the faint scent of gasoline, dark, restless water.

  “That’s where he goes,” he added.

  “Was he alone?”

  “No.”

  “Was he with Brown?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know the man he was with,” Amaral continued. “They came. They came to …” He came off the wall and faced me. “This one was white, my age. He was … servicing Andre.”

  “What happened?”

  “Andre mis—he misunderstood. He said I was messing up things for him. He said I was invading him.”

  ‘“Invading him’?”

  “He misunderstood. I wanted to see if he was all right. Safe. That’s all. I wasn’t spying on him. I was looking—”

  “You were lonely,” I said.

  Amaral nodded. He sighed, “I’m always …”

  “But you argued. So you left.”

  “I left,” he agreed.

  “And then?”

  “I saw the car sitting there, the taxi. I just wanted to get away.”

  “And, Perry? What happened?”

  “I got in. And he was looking at me.”

  “Aubrey Brown.”

  “He was staring at me. His eyes, in the rearview mirror.”

  I’d seen Brown’s eyes. Penetrating. Ghostly.

  “He told me to get out,” Amaral added.

  “Why?”

  “He thought I was on the piers with Andre. He thought I was …”

  “A john?”

  “… scum. Those eyes—He accused me. Like everybody, when they … when they think they know …”

  “You hit him, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Perry, you hit him.”

  “I hit him.” He opened his mouth and tilted back his head to choke off a cry.

  “You hit him with what, Perry?”

  “The steering-wheel lock. It was on the floor, under the seat.”

  “Then?”

  “I—I don’t know. I ran.”

  “You killed Aubrey Brown, Perry.”

&n
bsp; “It was a mistake. He was accusing me. I just—It gets worse and it gets worse—”

  I said, “What are we going to do now?”

  He frowned severely, shook his head and then he looked at me. “‘We’?”

  “You and me. We.”

  “No, no. That’s—I’m alone.” Then his voice grew softer. “Alone.”

  I watched him as he struggled to continue.

  “It all fell apart,” he said finally.

  “I unders—”

  “One thing, another thing,” he mumbled. “My family. All of this … I lost myself. It’s unfair.”

  I watched him. He let his head fall back, as if he wanted to study the box’s dented ceiling. “What will happen?”

  “I think, Perry—”

  He looked at me. Then he took several small, lurching steps toward me. Then he seemed to stagger.

  And he pulled his hands out of his pockets.

  In his right hand was a small gun, tarnished silver, black.

  “It’s unfair.”

  He lifted the gun.

  “Perry, think this through,” I said quickly.

  He slowly brought the small gun to his chin.

  “Nothing now,” he said as he slid the gun up his chin and pressed it against his lips.

  “Perry, wait.” I came off the door.

  “No family. Disgrace.”

  I was about 10 feet away.

  “Nothing now,” he repeated.

  He jammed the gun into his mouth.

  He closed his eyes.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The sharp crack gave way to a muffled blast. Amaral pitched forward, collapsing at my feet, the gun skidding out of his hand.

  The ugly sound reverberated in the box and, as the red mist settled, I could smell blood and death.

  Above the metallic echo, I heard the flapping wings of a flock of pigeons bursting from their perch.

  I looked down.

  I thought I was going to be sick.

  “Christ.” I turned away.

  I asked the Midtown dispatcher to put me through to Lt. Addison. The mention of Amaral’s name made it happen.

  I was standing outside the container. The cracked pavement seemed to undulate under me.

  The cold, sobering air felt good on my face.