The Whites: A Novel

by Richard Price

  At least Pauline had taken him in with an open heart; her only bone of contention, then and always, was his sullen demeanor. Not that she didn’t understand.

  After the nurse left, a volunteer grief counselor came by and touched his arm. “It’s so hard to let a loved one go. But you have to take comfort in the fact that even though she might be leaving you physically . . .”

  “Talk to them,” chucking a thumb toward his cousins, then leaving for the street.

  He wouldn’t attend or even help with the funeral; they could at least handle that. He had pulled the plug, and that was enough.

  Herbert and Stan: if they weren’t dead to him before, they sure as hell were now, letting him call down the Reaper on their own mother like that . . .

  Loss and loss and loss, each one unasked for, each one, come the end of the story, concluding with his hands gripping a scythe.

  “Hey, stranger!” his cousin Anita, like his aunt, one of the decent ones, instantly recognizing his voice on the horn after a year without contact. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I haven’t talked to you in a while.”

  “I know! How’s Sofia?”

  “You should see her.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “How about we come visit sometime.”

  “Say when.”

  She’ll go to better people.

  “Soon.”

  Loss and loss and loss, Milton seeing that house in Yonkers again, that smooth-sailing home.

  Why should they be happy.

  CHAPTER 9

  Billy didn’t find out about Sweetpea Harris having gone missing until a two a.m. playground shooting of a sixteen-year-old in Fort Tryon Park took him and Mayo over the Macombs Dam Bridge to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.

  The victim’s brothers were sitting in a small, dreary waiting room, three of them, mute and seething, visions of payback already playing in their eyes. They knew everything there was to know about what had gone down but he would have had better luck interviewing statues, and after twenty minutes of listening to himself talk, Billy got up from a coffee-stained couch with a blank notepad, just hoping that the aforementioned payback would occur after eight in the morning when he was heading up to Yonkers.

  It was on his way back to the nurses’ station that he first caught sight of the two homemade Missing posters push-pinned into the community announcements board, each featuring a low-resolution photo of Sweetpea Harris on purple printer paper that was bottom-fringed with tear-away phone number tabs, as if announcing the availability of a dog walker. Billy took one of the posters, stuffed it into his coat pocket, and moved on down the line.

  An hour later, after one of the doctors came out of the OR and told Billy that the vic would pull through, he returned to the visitors’ room to see if the good news would maybe, just maybe, get the brothers talking. But they were already gone, Billy once again praying that the drama to come wouldn’t play out until he was safely back in his own bed.

  As he was leaving the hospital, intending to head back to Manhattan and monitor the canvass around the crime scene, he nearly ran into an army of the victim’s other relatives bursting through the front door, those in front half-carrying the overcome grandmother as if she were their flagship. Billy was there for three additional hours, none of these further interviews yielding anything more than vaguely ominous variations on “They know who they are” and “I warned him” type pronouncements. Finally, the vic’s fourteen-year-old stone-faced sister chin-signaled for him to follow her into the ladies’ room, where she locked herself in a stall for a few minutes, flushed, and then left without ever saying word one.

  The folded Post-it was perched on top of the toilet paper dispenser, the name and address of the shooter written in strawberry-scented neon pink with a swannish hand. Two hours later, armed with a search warrant, Billy followed six Bronx ESU cops into a Valentine Avenue apartment, catching the fifteen-year-old actor already dressed for school, his mouth filled with Franken Berries, his gun in an Angry Birds book bag.

  Taking the kid to the nearest precinct, the 4-6, Billy handed him over for processing, then dragged himself upstairs to the empty predawn squad room in order to start banging out the requisite blizzard of paper. And when the day tour started rolling in at eight, he was still at it, blinking violently into the computer screen, his fingertips fluttering with the hour.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Billy looked up from his commandeered desk to see Dennis Doyle, a take-out coffee in one hand, a folded Daily News tucked up next to his ribs.

  “What’s it look like,” he said, flicking a finger against the screen.

  “Come take a break,” Dennis said, walking to his office.

  Billy followed him inside, planting himself next to a stack of manila folders on the lone couch.

  “So how’s she doing?”

  “Not great,” Dennis said, opening his paper.

  “The drinking?”

  “Everything.”

  A burly, expressionless detective came into the office without knocking, dropped a new folder on Dennis’s desk, and left the room.

  “You know, she called me the other day, told me Raymond Del Pino’s sister named her baby after her,” Billy said.

  “I know, Rose Yasmeen.”

  “She told me Yasmeen Rose.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Dennis said, glancing at the fresh reports.

  “Still, no one ever middle-named a kid after me, you know?”

  “It’s the least they could do, after all she’s been through.”

  “Listen, while I’m here . . .” Billy took Sweetpea’s Missing poster out of the side pocket of his sport jacket and handed it over. “You know anything about this?”

  Dennis read it and shrugged.

  “Look at the guy,” Billy said.

  “Cornell Harris?”

  “Sweetpea Harris.”

  “Redman’s Sweetpea?”

  “He told me Harris was half-living with his girlfriend on Concord Avenue. That’s you, so I’m thinking maybe she came in here to file a report.”

  “Hey, Milton,” Dennis called out.

  The detective came back in the room.

  “Can you check the 494s for this guy?”

  “Nothing there.”

  “Don’t you want to check?”

  “I was here when his sisters or whoever came in to file on him, but it was only twenty-four hours and they never came back, so . . .”

  “His sisters?” Billy asked.

  “Sisters, girlfriends,” the detective said. “You should ask Maldonado, he’s the one sent them away.”

  “Just do me a favor and check the 494s,” Dennis said. “Maybe they snuck back in when you were off. If there’s something there, don’t be a stranger. Otherwise . . .”

  When the detective left the room again, Dennis opened his newspaper and spoke in a low voice. “‘Sisters, girlfriends,’” shaking his head, “a real bloodhound.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t tell Yasmeen about this,” Billy said, reaching for the poster. “It could jack her up about Cortez again.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Dennis said. “In fact, take it the fuck out of here when you go.”

  After a few minutes of small talk, Billy went back out into the general squad room to finish his reports, then thought about checking to see if Sweetpea Harris was in the system somewhere. At first he balked, not wanting to leave an electronic trail and risk having to answer anyone’s questions, but then he did it anyway, masking his search with a half dozen other names, including Eric Cortez, only to discover that neither were incarcerated or had any warrants hanging over their heads. Which told him, after all was said and done, nothing.

  Realizing that he was in no shape to drive, Billy turned off his phone and crashed in the 4-6 bunk room, as fetid and rank as any he had ever known.

  When he finally made it home a few hours later, the TV was off. Eleven a.m. on a Saturday
morning and no one was watching cartoons, the house as quiet as a monastery. Given that Carmen’s car wasn’t in the driveway, he assumed that she had taken the boys somewhere, which was A-OK with him.

  Then Declan, still in his pajamas, came out of the kitchen.

  “Dad?” His voice high and tentative. “We lost Grandpa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean he’s not here. Did you check all the beds?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “The basement?”

  “He’s not here,” the kid’s voice starting to quiver.

  Millie walked into the room, Declan turning to her for help.

  “What’s he talking about?” Billy said.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  “Explain that.”

  “I come in this morning, the front door was open and he’s . . .”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “We did,” Millie said. “Your phone was off.”

  Carlos joined them in the hallway, the anxiety in the air inspiring him to hit his brother, who was too freaked by now to hit him back.

  “Where’s Carmen?”

  “She’s out looking for him.”

  “All right,” Billy said, the heel of his hand pressed into his forehead. “All right . . .”

  His first call was to his wife, but she had left without her phone, her “Killing Me Softly” ringtone playing in the kitchen, which made Carlos cry out, “Is Mommy lost too?”

  His second call was to the Yonkers PD, the desk sergeant on duty informing him that Carmen had already given them a heads-up over an hour ago.

  “All right, why don’t you get them dressed,” Billy said automatically, already roaming the neighborhood in his head.

  He began by driving the residential streets nearest to home, knocking on doors and asking his neighbors to take a peek into their backyards, many of them saying that Carmen had already been there, then branched farther out, hitting the nearest commercial strips, poking his head into every supermarket, bar, and pizza place within walking distance.

  At the corner of Mohawk and Seneca he ran into a trolling squad car—the only one assigned to the search, which infuriated him—the cops having no luck either. Then, fifteen minutes later, on a street of imposing Tudors and haciendas, he passed Carmen driving the other way, both cars hitting the brakes and nearly rear-ending each other as they simultaneously backed up at speed.

  “I was taking a shower, I came down, Millie’s cooking breakfast, she asked me if he was still sleeping upstairs,” Carmen blurted, her eyes wild in her head. “Nobody saw him leave.”

  “All right, just calm down, we’ll find him.”

  “It’s my fault,” yanking on her hair and then taking off again.

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” he said to the air.

  Forty-five minutes later, Billy pulled over alongside a junior high school ball field and forced himself to be still.

  OK, you’re him . . .

  There were dozens of mysteries to be solved. For starters, how does a man who can barely find his way around a reasonably small house, who has neither access to a car nor the wherewithal to drive one, make it from Yonkers, land of zero subways, to Harlem USA on his own. But there he was, Billy’s hunch playing out like a Powerball winner, his father, walking up and down Lenox Avenue between 118th and 116th Streets like he owned the sidewalk.

  For late March, the weather was downright balmy, the people mellow, and he had his father in his sights, so Billy remained in the car and watched the old man do his thing. He stopped and jawed with some old-timers who were sitting on the stoop of an abandoned brownstone cheek by jowl to a latteria on 118th. He bummed a cigarette from one of them, thumb-flicking a bent match against the friction strip of the matchbook with a practiced hand, even though, to Billy’s knowledge, his father hadn’t had a smoke since 1988, the year his wife had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Then, taking his leave of this crew, he shook hands all around before moving on down the block.

  On 117th, he helped a young Asian woman disentangle her Maclaren double stroller from a narrow doorway. On 116th, he told three kids racing scooters through a crowd in front of a ShopRite to put on the brakes. He made eye contact with everyone who crossed his path, but not in such a way as to give offense; he just wanted to let them know that he was back and that nothing escaped his notice. Lenox between 116th and 118th—in 1959, it had been his first foot post out of the academy.

  Billy finally stepped out of the car.

  “Hey, Officer,” calling to his father over the roof, then coming around to open the passenger door.

  “Dad, how’d you get here?” he asked as casually as he could.

  “My driver.”

  “What driver was that?”

  “Frank Campbell.”

  Billy took a breath. “Frank Campbell is off today, Dad,” afraid to remind him that his personal driver for his last three years on the Job had been dead for a decade.

  “Well, then whoever was covering for him.”

  Breathe . . .

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Didn’t catch it.”

  “Was he in the bag or plainclothes.”

  “Plainclothes.”

  Another old-timer, this one a handball-gloved double amputee in a wheelchair, rolled past the passenger window at eye level, caught sight of Billy Senior, and reversed his ride until they were face-to-face. Then, winking against the smoke streaming up from his lip-locked cigarette, the guy crisply, sarcastically saluted, before resuming his journey.

  His father was not amused. “How the hell did he make bail?”

  “Dad,” Billy tried again. “Your driver, what did he look like?”

  “Beefy, Hispanic, on the quiet side.”

  Billy stared out his window until the numbness passed. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He said, ‘Where to, boss?’ I said, ‘Where do you think?’ But I had to tell him, so yeah, it couldn’t have been Frank.”

  “And where did he pick you up?”

  “Right in front of the house. Caught me by surprise when I went out to get the paper.”

  Think . . .

  “What kind of car was he driving?”

  “The usual.”

  “What’s the usual, Dad?” The stress of keeping it light starting to make his voice climb.

  The old man went off somewhere.

  “A Crown Vic?” Billy leading the witness, but Frank Campbell always drove him around in a Crown Vic.

  “A Crown Vic,” Billy Senior laughed. “Boy, that takes me back.”

  “Dad,” he begged.

  “And by the way, somebody’s got to tell that kid to make sure the paper lands on the porch. It goes on the grass and the dew just soaks right through.”

  Billy’s father was a big hit at the 2-8, two blocks west of Lenox, the commanding officer remembering him from 1985, when he was a rookie up here and Billy Senior was the West Harlem division captain, and happily giving him a house tour while Billy, waiting for the relevant street camera uploads, made his calls. First to home, Carmen crying with relief and maybe something a little edgier, then to the WGs, seeing if anyone could help him find a safe house for his family until this psycho was caught.

  At one point or another over the past twenty years, they had all given temporary shelter to each other, Billy moving in with Pavlicek and his young wife when he lost the house in Staten Island to his ex, Yasmeen moving to Pelham to help Pavlicek take care of his young son after his wife’s collapse and institutionalization, Pavlicek sending the adolescent John Junior to live with Billy and Carmen when he and the kid needed a time-out from each other. Later, Jimmy Whelan had stayed with Yasmeen and then Redman when one of his endless string of basement super’s apartments had flooded, although no one ever wanted to move in with Whelan. Then there was Redman staying with Billy and Carmen after his second or third wife had caught him with his
third or fourth wife and set the funeral parlor on fire, and Yasmeen again, taking Carlos and Declan in that long-ago black summer when Carmen was unable to leave the bedroom and Billy had his hands full simply coaxing her down the stairs.

  And now, once again, every one of them coming through: Jimmy offering his cabin in Monticello, Yasmeen the summerhouse in Greenwood Lake, Redman a two-room apartment directly above the funeral parlor—although he advised Billy to “think before you say yes”—and Pavlicek, the grand prize winner, offering them their choice of twelve newly renovated flats in buildings spread out over the Bronx and upper Manhattan, as long as they didn’t mind the constant racket made by his nonstop work crews.

  The uploads from the street cameras, when they finally came in, just added to the mystery, the Lenox Avenue tape showing Billy Senior arriving there on foot after having turned the corner from West 115th, the tape trained on 115th showing him once again on foot after having turned the corner from Adam Clayton Powell, which he entered from 113th, and so on, the precinct tech tracking his progress in reverse until an out-of-commission camera on 111th and Frederick Douglass Boulevard ended the trail with no sign of the car that had dropped him off somewhere south and west of where Billy had found him.

  “The hell with that and the hell with that,” Carmen clutching her head. “I’m supposed to take the kids and live where, upstate New York? On top of some dead bodies in Harlem?”

  “Harlem’s totally different now.”

  “I don’t give a shit if it’s the new Paris. I’m just not taking my kids to live in a funeral home. Where’s your head at, Billy?”

  They were standing face-to-face in the toy-strewn living room, each of them alternately crouching and then shooting upright to body-English their arguments, raising and then lowering their voices as the awareness of the two freaked-out kids in the house went in and out of their consciousness.

  “Pavlicek has a dozen clean apartments all over the Bronx,” Billy pleaded.

  “Clean as in vacant, as in no furniture, no bedding, as in no anything.” She straightened up and took a breath. “The point is, Billy, I have a job, they have school, and we’re not having our lives uprooted by some sociopath. But do you want to do something for me?”