The operator had a hoarse voice, as if she’d smoked since childhood. I told her about the bomb and I gave her the address. When she asked for my name, I reminded her that she had my cell number and could track me down in minutes. Then I cut the connection.
“I’m going in,” Rosenzweig announced.
“Can you handle something over your head?”
He thrust his left arm in the air, as if to demonstrate that it was fine, that he was ready to save his boy.
“Hey,” he said, as he brought down his arm, “there’s Solly.”
Beck was adding an armful of paintings to the growing pile, which now numbered about 35 or so.
“He looks like shit,” Rosenzweig added.
Lin-Lin was entering the brownstone, her bruised face knotted in determination.
“Tokyo fuckin’ Rose,” Rosenzweig muttered. He jabbed me with a bony finger. “I’m going to Charlton. You look out for the guy with the trigger. He’s—”
And suddenly, it went off: a muffled roar, a sonic implosion, molecules rupturing; orange light, then sounds of destruction, of collapse: cracking wood, flying glass, raw release. The explosion tore through the bottom half of Beck’s building, spewing debris onto King, onto parked cars on both sides of the street. Thick black smoke snaked into the air.
“Holy shit,” Rosenzweig shouted. “He killed her.”
Beck had frozen, mouth agape in shock. The paintings fell from his arms.
At the center of the block, the door of a silver delivery truck flew open and a man bounced out. Spry, spindly, he had a spiderweb tattooed on top of his bald head.
Vuk ran around the back of the truck, flung open the back doors and went toward the stack of paintings. Before I could break toward him, he had several in his hands and was hauling them to the truck.
I went forward, hard down King, through the cloud of debris, running in the center of the street, passing Beck, who, wobbling, bewildered, went toward his brownstone. Eyes wide, he brought his hand up, inadvertently knocking his cap off his head.
I came up along the driver’s side of the truck, as Vuk, determined, moving willfully, had dumped in a second batch. He had his back to me when I jumped him.
He was quick and he was capable, and he wriggled free of my grasp as we hit the sidewalk. He kicked at me, grazing my outer thigh, as he scuttled backward along the rough cement, trying to find room to leap to his feet. But before he could bounce away, I was on him again and I punched him hard just below the sternum and the air flew from his lungs. He pawed meekly at me, and I grabbed his head near the ears, near the green-blue veins of his tattoo, and I drove the back of his head hard into the pavement, and then I did it again. And then I did it again, and his expression moved from anger to pain to confusion to surrender, and I did it again and I saw the blood on the sidewalk and I stood. And I kicked him and I saw he was about to lose consciousness and I grabbed him and lifted him. But he was out now, so I let him fall. In the distance, the wail of sirens.
I turned. Neighbors had begun to collect on the street. They were in jeans and work shirts, and the older women wore housecoats. They were frightened, concerned.
Traffic—a yellow cab, several small cars—piled up on the block. Horns honked, rubbernecks craned.
Stunned, wretched, Beck was in his father’s arms.
The tinkling of falling glass. Smoke rising toward eternity.
A police car barreled down King. Red lights, a piercing wail.
I looked at Vuk. Blood ran from his scarred head.
Beck sobbed. Rosenzweig ran his fingers through his son’s thin hair.
The helicopter hovered above us.
I sat, elbows on knees, on the steps of a brownstone near the construction scaffolding that extended to Varick, away from the police activity, away from the EMS personnel who were turning it over to a team from the coroner’s office. Another emergency-services team had repaired the gash at the back of Vuk’s head, and now he was on his way to the precinct house.
I watched a cop in blue wave off the crowding, nudging traffic that demanded to turn onto King. I watched as a pert blonde did her stand-up for her station’s cameras; she shifted sideways to allow the camerawoman to frame her with the damaged building over her shoulder, and she dramatically stole a glance at a clipboard that held a blank sheet of yellow paper.
I watched as Rosenzweig tried in vain to console his son. The old man argued with detectives in dark coats who tried to talk to Beck, and he gave the finger to news photographers who had ignored the hastily arranged wooden sawhorses on Sixth.
Beck howled at the fading sun, at its platinum rays. He tore off his worn blazer and threw it on the sidewalk and he kicked at it.
I thought, That’ll be on the cover of tomorrow’s Post.
Beck accepted his father’s embrace.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the explosion.
They were leaving me alone. A man in a red flannel shirt with a small dog had seen me pummel Vuk; he pointed to me with a sense of accomplishment, as I watched Beck’s paintings. When the cop approached me, I gave him my name and I told him to call Tommy Mango. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, “until you guys get all these things off the street.”
The least I could do now was keep an eye on Beck’s paintings.
I watched Beck sink in his father’s arms.
I shifted on the slate and hung my arm over the thick railing. I was trying to gather my thoughts. I saw that there were splatters of blood on the side of my right hand.
I realized I’d better call Judy, to save her from hearing about this from TV, a breathless Special Report from a woman who read from a blank sheet of paper.
And then I remembered that Mrs. Maoli watched the late-afternoon soaps and trailer-park confessions. If Bella was home, and if the camera panned King Street, and if she heard the name Sol Beck…
I left the brownstone and, keeping an eye on the paintings, went west.
FIFTEEN
It was a windless morning with a high sky that had been cleansed by last night’s obstinate rain. After I deposited Bella amid her cackling friends, I ran south along West, swinging east around the Battery through Bowling Green to South Street, past bustling, briny Fulton Street and the upscale shops of the Seaport. And then I thought, what the hell, and went over by Pace University and up onto the Brooklyn Bridge. I did the bridge, but passed on tacking on a couple more miles by challenging the Promenade and its view of the backside of Wall Street. Instead, I hung a huey and came back on the north side of the Roeblings’ span. The East River shimmered like glass beneath me, and bobbing ferries crisscrossed as they headed toward the old piers or uptown on their way to LaGuardia. I felt good, I felt fine, but I did not reach up and grab low clouds, I did not hear Copland’s “Fanfare,” and I did not feel a validating sense of accomplishment, of triumph, of, Christ, vindication. I kept running, and when a stitch caught me on my right side, I walked, passing the ass end of City Hall, then on Chambers to Greenwich.
After a shower, I dressed, threw down an orange and some flatbread and went via Hudson to Sixth, stopping first at an ATM on Worth. When I reached the courts on Houston, I found him where I thought he’d be. He was hustling a short, muscular man half his age. From a block away, I saw he was playing him nice, flicking the handball to let the wobbling guy make an easy return volley. After losing awhile, Jimmy Mango would turn his wrist, throw some backspin on the ball and Li’l Hercules would sprawl onto the cracked concrete.
I came up just as Mango lost his second game. He saw me and skidded away from his opponent who, between gasps, seemed on the verge of cockiness. “What the fuck, at least I’m learning, Howard,” Mango said. “Another shot, I think maybe, I don’t know, I could take you.”
Howard shrugged impudently. No way the little guy with the bony knees and the straw cowboy hat was going to beat a man who could bench-press 350.
“Guy’s got a set of guns,” I said to Mango.
“Howard? His arms a
in’t long enough to scratch his balls.” He ran his thumbs under the waistband of his sagging shorts. “I’m trying to get him up to $50 a game.”
“You’re down what?”
“Forty. At worst, I walk home with sixty. Best, one-ten.”
I dug my hand into the pocket of my jeans.
Mango grabbed my wrist. “Hey, hey,” he said urgently, “don’t produce here, Four. What the fuck’s wrong with you?” He shook his head. “I don’t want nobody thinkin’ I took Terry Orr for a couple of yards here. Man, you’ll kill my play.”
“Jimmy, here’s the 750—”
“You’re short,” he said.
“I’m giving you $20 an hour for 36, which is generous.”
“It was $50 an hour.”
I shook my head. “Plus the cops made you. You and that fuckin’ cab,” I said.
“That cab is a tank, man.” He smiled. “It’s got a backseat and a half. Know what I mean?”
“Take the 750, Jimmy. Go back to Macho Man.”
“Leave it in your mailbox, Four.” He started to backpedal.
I told him to ring the bell. Mrs. Maoli would make the handoff. She’d serve him espresso and pignoli cookies. He’d be more entertaining than the tube.
Leo had thrown on a couple of pots of coffee, and when I entered the Tilt, the aroma seemed to beckon me, welcoming me as an old friend, as clearly as if it could crook a finger and dispense a smile.
“Mr. Media,” Big Leo nodded as he ran a damp rag along the bar. “With a bounce in his step.” This morning’s New York Times was spread open near his half-filled cup, atop an old Times-Picayune.
Diddio was hanging out of the jukebox, the worn soles of his black, high-top Converse All-Stars arched and nearly off the floor.
“D,” I said, “you missing a sock?”
He backed out of the machine and shut its twinkling, starburst lid. “No, but somehow I got an extra one. I think they breed or something, pop out a little brother now and then.”
He came toward me, dusting his hands on his already-dusty black jeans. His eyes were clear: too early for a joint, I guess. “Terry, Gabby’s right: You got to get a better P.R. agent for yourself. Two things in the paper, and your name isn’t in either of them. I know this woman, used to work at Polygram, got a little mustache on her, you know, but she wouldn’t let that happen.”
Metro Section readers were greeted with “Explosion in West Village Brownstone Kills One” on page one above the fold. Plenty of speculation, but nothing yet about the late Lin-Lin having hired Vuk, and not a mention of Edie. Detectives at the First made Vuk do a perp walk, and there he was in the Times, hands cuffed behind his back, head bowed; in the color shot, his green-black tattoo seemed to jump from the shiny dome, as if in 3-D.
On Tuesday, Amaral’s suicide got a box on B-8. I expected a follow-up this morning, with some healing words from Everett Langhorne. But nothing, at least not today.
“I ain’t met too many folks called Zoran Vuk,” Leo commented. He pointed to the side-by-side coffeepots. “Decaf?”
“High-test,” I said. “Let’s see what happens.”
“You must be tired.”
“I am tired,” I said. Whatever reservoir of adrenaline had been driving me had dried up. Bella’s pounding on my bedroom door had woken me from a deep, dreamless slumber.
Leo put an empty cup on the bar and I sat in front of it as he filled it. Behind me, the sweep of a steel brush against a cymbal, the easy chugging of electric guitar; a slow, steady blues, a baleful moan. Diddio joined in: “‘Wednesday’s worse and Thursday’s oh so sad.’”
He had a horrific singing voice that didn’t prevent him from detonating it whenever the inclination struck. “‘The eagle flies on Friday,’” he screeched, contorting the melody, bellowing like a sea lion.
“Don’t be breaking my glasses, D,” Leo grimaced and pointed to the overhead rack. He went over and cut the volume.
Diddio went silent. A critic immune to criticism, he didn’t complain.
And Leo returned to the Times, and Diddio drifted toward the pool table in back, and I put my elbow on the bar, and my head in my palm, and we settled in, killing time together, in silence except for the occasional wheeze of the coffeemaker and music that had been shifted to the background. On the overhead TV, a man seemed very serious as he read something that required a panorama of Herald Square, where a pigeon sat on Horace Greeley’s head.
I started to drift away, and in the gray light I saw her. We were in Peschici, with Rafaela. She had something to show us, she said, and this delighted Marina, because she had chosen this silver day to tell her sister that she was pregnant with a daughter, and that it was fine.
I’d fallen behind; they were up ahead, blue sundresses shimmering above sandals as they walked on the cobbled streets. We were weaving our way to the church, Chiesa Parrocchiale, to see the Pacecco De Rosa paintings, but I was craning my neck to examine the coarse white stones of an ancient castle, ruins that had stubbornly refused to surrender to salt air and time. And when I looked up, Marina and Rafaela were bickering. I couldn’t understand the bursts of Italian: something about a fire. Or flowers. Fiori, fioraia. And father; that I understood: padre. Some sort of sisterly squabble, I thought. Let me stay out of—
“Terry?”
I opened my eyes to find Addison, in black and white, a diamond shape woven into the center of his thin tie.
“What’s wrong?”
He replied with a shake of his head.
I turned to Leo, who was slowly working his way through the Science section, examining a drawing of what appeared to be a kangaroo with wings. “You got iced tea back there?”
Addison interrupted, “No, it’s not necessary. I won’t be long.”
I stood. “Something up?”
“Let’s talk.”
I gestured to the back of the musty bar, where two padded vinyl booths sat under dim lights near the pinball table and a column of empty beer bottles in reinforced cardboard cases.
I followed Addison toward the red booths, past Diddio, who was asleep on his stomach on the pool table. He took the side facing the bar, with his back to the Tilt’s only rest room and Leo’s cramped office. I slid in across from him.
“That’s the rock critic, isn’t it?” He pointed to Diddio.
I nodded.
“I suppose somebody might think that’s cool,” he said. “If she was fifteen.”
“Leave him alone,” I replied, thinking he was off by a few years. “He’s a good guy.”
He frowned his disapproval. “The chin?”
“Fine.” I touched the new round bandage I’d put over the scab after I returned from my run. “What’s up, Luther?”
“I don’t want you to read about it.” He dropped his hands on the old, Formica-coated table. “We’ve got a few complications.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “You know how the thing he hit him with was wiped clean? Whoever wiped it left traces of semen on it.”
“And …”
“The semen belonged to a man whose blood type was B positive.”
“And it’s not Amaral’s type?”
“Not according to the school’s record,” he said. “But it’s Andre Turner’s type.”
“And how many other people?”
“About one out of every ten.”
“That’s 800,000 people in Manhattan alone.”
He brought up his right hand. “No need to get defensive, Terry.”
This kind of cautious logic, this hedging, conveyed reasonably, paternally: I’d heard it before from Addison. Weisz, he told me several times, many times, “is a suspect, Terry. Nothing more. You seem to want to forget that.” Twelve people saw him standing next to Marina as she screamed, saw him staring at Davy, who was trapped in his stroller. But Weisz is only a suspect.
I said, “Amaral confessed.”
“To you.”
“He confessed,” I repeated.
�
�Explain the semen.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. How about this: Turner saw Amaral kill Brown and tried to help by wiping the Club down.”
“With something with his semen on it?”
“Amaral said an old guy was doing Turner. All right, so the kid cleans off so he can go back to work. He comes up to West Street and he sees Amaral smack Aubrey Brown. Something tugs at his conscience and he tries to help his teacher. But he uses the same rag he used on his woody.”
“An interesting theory,” he muttered. “Maybe Turner will tell it another way.”
I shifted on the sticky plastic. “You haven’t found him yet.”
Addison sat back. “You know where he is?”
“Little West 12th. The piers,” I replied. “Somewhere.”
“Loose ends, and it’s not done until Turner comes clean.” He slid to the edge of the booth and he stood. “We’ll find him. Here, somewhere.”
I followed as he started toward the door.
He stopped at the pool table, scooped up the cue ball and dropped it near Diddio’s ear. When Diddio failed to react, Addison said, “Pot coma.”
“Probably,” I lied.
We reached the front of the bar.
Addison stopped, reached over and extended his hand to Leo. “Good to see you again.”
“Yeah,” Leo said, taking it. “Likewise.”
“Terry, say hello to your godmother,” he added dryly. Sharon.
I said, “Why not?”
I looked through the dusty blinds. Addison’s car was on the sidewalk, all four tires on gray cement.
He bounced into his seat and slipped the key into the ignition. As he looked back at the bar, he tapped the side of his head with a finger, telling me, once again, to be smart.
“He gone?” Diddio asked as he sat up on the pool table.
Leo told him yes.
de. The sun had made its w Diddio swung his legs around and jumped down. “Man, that guy gives me the heebies and the jeebies.”
Closing Time Page 24