Sinner's Ball

by Ira Berkowitz

  “What a guy!” she said.

  “That’s it?”

  “Not in the mood.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Then why the moping?”

  She folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on top.

  “Justin and I had an argument.”

  “Over what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If it were nothing, you wouldn’t look suicidal.”

  “I haven’t seen or heard from him in a week.”

  “Even at school?” Allie said.

  “Nope,” she said. “And I’m worried about him.”

  “Did you call him?” I said.

  She nodded. “His father keeps answering.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  “I didn’t talk to him.”

  “Why not?”

  She threw me a look indicating rather strongly that I had just asked the dumbest question she had ever heard.

  “He’s his father!”

  16

  DeeDee wrinkled up her nose.

  “Smells like dead fish,” she said, as we took in the tired Bensonhurst neighborhood in the late-morning light.

  They were the first words she’d uttered since we boarded the N train an hour before.

  Our excursion to the depths of Brooklyn to see Justin had almost died aborning. First it was on. Then it was off. Then came the issue of what to wear, followed closely by the question of how Justin would react when she appeared on his doorstep. All her issues were discussed and, I thought, settled. But the “dead fish” crack told me that DeeDee was wavering again.

  Most of the houses were attached two-family numbers. A couple had snowmen in front. And more than a few sported a Saint Mary on the half shell on their postage-stamp lawns. Thanks to the Department of Sanitation snowplows, cars were buried up to their windows in hard-packed snow. Overhead, gulls floating in the crystal blue sky searched for a meal. Their prospects weren’t promising.

  Justin’s apartment house, a dreary-looking four-story rectangle the color of soot, was the largest building on the block. An entrance alcove opened on a courtyard. In its center was an ornamental urn surrounded by a small fenced garden matted with long-dead flowers.

  There was one apartment on either side of the alcove. Neither had a number. But the one on the right had a ramp.

  “Justin’s apartment is C2,” she said. “On the right.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The ramp. His father’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “You never told me.”

  Her eyes suddenly flashed. “Since when do I have to tell you everything?”

  I put her outburst down to hormones and let it pass.

  Her hand reached for the doorbell, then dropped to her side.

  “What now?” I said.

  “You do it.”

  “Right. I forgot. His father may answer.”

  I rang the bell. It was one of those two-tone chimey deals.

  DeeDee moved behind me.

  A few long seconds later the door opened. A middle-aged man in a wheelchair eyed me suspiciously. His left eye sported a shiner.

  I stepped aside, putting DeeDee front and center.

  “My name’s Steeg. My friend, DeeDee Santos, is here to see Justin.”

  She threw me a look that would have turned a gorgon to stone.

  “Uh, Mr. Hapner. Justin and I are, uh, friends. From school. And I… haven’t heard from him. I, uh, just wondered if he was all right.”

  Hapner’s milky blue eyes shifted from DeeDee to me, lingered a bit, and lit on DeeDee again.

  “He’s never mentioned your name.”

  This was as close as I’d come to seeing her cry.

  I draped my arm around DeeDee’s shoulders.

  I did a poor job keeping the edge from my voice. “Trust me,” I said. “They’re friends.”

  “Justin’s in his room. Sleeping.”

  DeeDee wriggled away. “Maybe we should go, Steeg.”

  “I’ve forgotten my manners,” Hapner said. “Justin doesn’t have many friends stop by. Come on in.”

  Hapner’s motorized wheelchair gave a low hum as it rolled backward down a short foyer to the living room.

  DeeDee went first. I followed right behind.

  The apartment was neat and simply furnished. The layout was pretty basic. Eat-in kitchen off the foyer. Two bedrooms off the living room. One door open. The other closed.

  Photos of Justin sat on every flat surface. In all but the photos of him as a young toddler he appeared detached. Posed. Staring either directly into the lens or off into the distance. There was nothing recent. And, surprisingly, no photos of Mom.

  “Was Justin expecting you, DeeDee?” Hapner said.

  “No. It’s just that we kind of had an argument …”

  “I’ll get Justin,” he said, motoring his chair toward the closed door. “Justin. You have company.”

  I heard a muffled, “Who?”

  “Your friend DeeDee,” Hapner said.

  A few moments passed and then the door opened a crack. When Justin saw it was DeeDee, it opened wider.

  Justin, wearing jeans and a Mets sweatshirt, stared at DeeDee with a look of confusion. “What’re you doing here?” he said.

  “I was worried,” DeeDee said. “It’s been a week since I heard from you. And …”

  I noticed that Hapner was watching Justin closely. Justin threw him a hard stare and he looked away. His attention switched back to DeeDee.

  “How did you get here?” Justin said.

  “My friend Steeg brought me.”

  Justin’s eyes settled on me. Then he turned to DeeDee.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, heading for the door.

  “You’ll need a jacket,” she said. “It’s freezing.”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  After they left, Hapner looked at me and half-shrugged.

  “You know how it is at this age,” he said. “Be happy when his hormones settle down.”

  Hapner motored over to me and held out his hand.

  “Forgot my manners again,” he said. “I’m Troy.”

  I took his hand. “I’m just Steeg.”

  “Odd first name.”

  “Family name. Never cared for my given name.”

  “Then Steeg it is,” he said.

  Each piece of upholstered furniture was tightly sealed in a plastic cocoon. Hapner and my mother, Norah, had to have had the same decorator. I settled in on the sofa. The cushion crackled under my weight.

  “Can I get you something? A drink, perhaps?”

  “Nothing, thanks.” I pointed at the shiner. “Looks pretty nasty.”

  Hapner caressed it with the tip of his finger.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, with a weak smile. “Turned around too quick and whacked myself with a doorknob.”

  I reached over and plucked a photo from an end table. It was a shot of five-year-old Justin staring away from the camera while sunbathing on a flat outcrop of rock on the shore of a lake.

  “Good-looking kid,” I said.

  Troy Hapner took the photo, looked at it, and put it back.

  “Yeah, he was,” he said.

  “Doesn’t look too happy.”

  “Some kids hate being photographed,” he said, looking at the door. “I wish he had worn his coat.”

  “Teenagers are indestructible,” I said. “I don’t see any pictures of Justin’s mother.”

  “Since she died I keep them in albums.”

  “What happened?”

  “Something I don’t talk about. Too painful.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and stared at the door. “They’ve been gone a long time.”

  “It’s only been a few minutes,” I said.

  He looked at his watch. “Yeah, but …”

  “Surprising that Justin doesn’t have many friends stop by.”

  “H
e doesn’t have many friends.”

  “How come?

  Hapner tapped a knee. “He spends a lot of his time looking after me. And the rest of it with his nose buried in books. IQ is off the charts.”

  “I guess there’s a downside to genius.”

  “The other kids in the neighborhood see him as a bit of a nerd.”

  The door flew open and Justin rushed in.

  “Where’s DeeDee?” I said.

  “Outside,” he said, walking past me and into his room.

  The door slammed shut.

  “What was that all about?” Hapner asked.

  I went outside and found DeeDee crying.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Take me home, Steeg.”

  It wasn’t until the train pulled into the 14th Street station that DeeDee opened up.

  “We’re finished,” she said.

  “I’m really sorry, kiddo. His idea or yours?”

  “His.”

  “Did he give a reason?”

  “He said I didn’t need him in my life.”

  “Did he offer specifics?”

  “No.”

  I smiled. “Do you want me to beat him up?”

  It was our private joke whenever DeeDee’s world was in danger of falling apart. It usually got a laugh.

  But not this time.

  DeeDee said she needed a good, long cry. I took her home, tucked her into bed, and headed for Feeney’s.

  “Your brother was in a while ago,” Nick said. “Looking for you.”

  “What does he need now?”

  “A miracle. He just got the news. An indictment’s about to come down.”

  17

  Dawn Reposo’s apartment building still looked like something floating in a petri dish. I was back for a second visit because my brother’s string was running out, and because something Martine Toussaint had said was still echoing in my head.

  Whores lie!

  It was a truth I should have remembered.

  They lie to their johns, their pimps, the police, and sometimes to their friends. Deception is their survival mechanism.

  And I had the feeling Dawn was playing me. Sure, sending me to Martine could have been a tip of the hat for old times’ sake. But Dawn said that she and Martine had a history. Maybe having me traipse around Martine’s business was a way for Dawn to settle old scores. Or maybe it was an easy way of getting me out of her face, stopping me from asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

  Lots of maybes, and only one way to find out.

  A haggard, portly black woman in a flowered housedress answered Dawn’s door. She looked forty, but was likely half that age. I could hear children playing in the background.

  “Yeah?” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Looking for Dawn Reposo,” I said.

  “Don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “How long’ve you lived here?”

  “Fuck is it your business?”

  “Look, all I—”

  “You from that clearing house that gives out million-dollar checks?”

  “Nope.”

  “Get lost,” she said, slamming the door.

  I didn’t have much better luck at the bodega next door.

  There were a couple of bikers all decked out in their colors, a burnout trying to keep warm, a Hispanic guy leafing through the porn magazines, a few women with spiked rainbow hair and so many piercings their faces looked like pincushions. It was as if I had stumbled into a rest stop for the freak parade.

  I walked up to the counterman.

  “Seen Rickie around lately?”

  “Rickie who?”

  “Rickie, the pimp,” I said. “Lives upstairs.”

  He shook his head. “Cleared out about a week ago,” he said. “Was real quick. One day he’s here. Next day he’s gone.”

  “What happened to his girls, Dawn and Gloria?”

  “His bitches? Guess they went with him.”

  “You said it was real quick.”

  “Yeah. Couple of guys came in asking about Dawn. Told’ em where she lived.”

  “And?”

  “Next morning Rickie came in and I mentioned that some guys were looking for Dawn. Cleared out that day.”

  “What’d they look like?”

  “The guys? White. Didn’t take a picture of ’em for my memory album.”

  “Rickie say where he was going?”

  He made a big show of searching the counter. “Must’ve lost his itinerary.” he said. “Look, I’m busy. Go bother someone else.”

  The door to Another Chance was locked. I looked in the window. It was dark.

  I walked across the street to talk to my favorite doorman. He was out in traffic trying to hail a cab for a blue-haired woman swathed in fur. She was standing under the canopy looking at her watch and tapping her toe.

  “Hey,” I said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Wonderful!” he said. “The guy who almost cost me my pension.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Said all I’m gonna say.”

  “What do I have to do with your pension?”

  He waved his arm, took a deep breath, and blew his whistle.

  “Cabs are like cops,” he muttered. “Can’t get ’em when you need’em.”

  “Talk to me about your pension.”

  He looked at me. “You still here?”

  “Did someone threaten you?”

  He put his arm down and turned to face me.

  “You gotta understand the situation,” he said. “The wife has emphysema real bad. To boot, the sack of shit my daughter married ditched her. Now she and her two kids live with us in a one-bedroom. And I had a triple bypass a year ago.”

  “Sorry for your troubles.”

  “Thanks, but it don’t pay the bills,” he said. “This shit job and my pension do. And without them I’m fucked. Get the picture?”

  “Tell me who threatened you, and I’ll take care of it.”

  “You ain’t got the juice.”

  18

  The gods of fortune are a whimsical, capricious lot. When they’re not playing Whac-A-Mole with your future, they’re dreaming up other ways to have a good belly laugh. But every now and again, just to keep you in the game, the sadistic bastards throw you a bone.

  On my way home from a thoroughly unsatisfying day of detecting, I dropped by Feeney’s. To my utter delight, Ennis and Riley, the two heavies from Martine’s office, were sitting at the bar.

  I jerked my chin in their direction. “How long have they been here?”

  “Maybe a half hour,” Nick said. “Said they knew you. Wanted to know what time you usually came in.”

  “Really.”

  “Your eyes are getting all nuts. Is there a problem?”

  “For them, maybe.”

  A couple of steelworkers in hard hats sat at the end of the bar getting an early start on the weekend. At the other end, Frank Ennis and John Riley were drinking beer straight from the bottle and doing a pretty good job of ignoring me. Two unused mugs sat on the bar between them.

  I walked up to them.

  “Gentlemen,” I said. “I hear you’re looking for me.”

  “Well, if it ain’t the guy with one name,” Riley said.

  They slipped off the stools, leaned back, and each set an elbow on the bar. They were going for nonchalance but couldn’t quite pull it off. Legs spread a touch too far apart. Weight evenly balanced on the balls of their feet. Ready for what whatever might come their way.

  Their wait was going to be real short.

  “Glad you’re here, boys,” I said. “Stopped by to see Martine, but the place was all locked up.”

  Ennis jabbed Riley in the ribs. “What’d I tell you, Johno? The guy’s a pit bull. Sinks his teeth into something and don’t let go.” He looked at me. “So, what can we do for you?”

  “This is kind of backwards. Nick says you were looking for me. But since you asked �
� Did you boys pay a visit to Dawn Reposo?”

  “Don’t know the name.”

  “Sure you do,” I said. “She’s an old friend of Martine’s.”

  “You remember, Frank,” Riley said. “The whore.”

  The muscles in my neck tightened.

  “Oh yeah,” Ennis said. “Skanky little thing. We did stop by. Martine wanted to set up a lunch. Kind of pick up where they left off. But she was gone.”

  “Any idea why?”

  Riley flashed a really unctuous smirk. “Does a whore need a reason?”

  Ennis’s laugh sounded like the rattle of dried leaves.

  I noticed that Nick was listening to this little byplay with avid interest. And from the corner of my eye I saw Kenny sitting in a back booth playing solitaire. But his Glock was on the table.

  They both knew what Ennis and Riley were about to find out. It didn’t matter what Dawn did for a living. She was my friend. That meant that these clowns were about to have their lights put out.

  “I got a question for you, Steeg,” Ennis said.

  “Ask away.”

  “What’s it gonna take for you to go away?”

  “From what?”

  “Stop bustin’ my balls. You’re a washed-up alky cop. A miserable excuse for a husband. Should I go on?”

  “Please do.”

  “Your life is a high-wire act. Lots of derring-do, but you just keep tumbling off. And all you’ve got to show for it is a shitbox flop in Hell’s Kitchen. Quite the résumé.”

  “You done sweet-talking me?”

  “You gotta want something, and Martine can make it happen.”

  “A sit-down with some of your girls, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Ennis shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”

  “What’re you afraid of?”

  “You’re a dumb fuck,” he said. “Deserve what you get.”

  “Beats being a pimp.”

  It was worth a shot just to see his reaction.

  Ennis’s face went dark.

  Riley put a meaty hand around Ennis’s biceps and tugged.

  “Let’s get outta here, Frank,” he said. “It’s not what we’re here for.”

  “Don’t go,” I said. “The party’s just about to get started.

  Ennis shrugged his hand off.

  “You don’t know who you’re fucking with, Steeg,” he said. “Imagine your worst fear. Then dial it all the way up.”