“Don’t be afraid,” little fish would say, as they’d swim past with their mouths agape. “Just take a last breath, and then swallow the water. For you, there is no escape.”
Terrified screams would ring in a concerto of death as the tunnel walls began to cave in. We’d all be crushed beneath concrete and grime, buried in a watery grave. I had no doubt that my very last thought would be exactly the same as the one I was having right now: Life would be so much easier if only I didn’t have to deal with lousy bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic.
The red taillights of cars glowed eerily on porcelain white walls as I carefully checked the tunnel again. Their luminous splotches resembled splatters of blood, which only added to my catastrophic vision.
I expelled a sigh of relief as I exited onto the street and was enveloped in a madcap swirl of activity. Gone was my nightmare, replaced by a multitude of people and noise. It was as if I’d been dropped in the middle of a movie.
The lights in high-rise buildings beamed like stars in the night. They twinkled inside their concrete and steel constellations. Their reflection bathed the road so that taxis speeding by were immersed in their glow. The stream of vehicles morphed into glittering yellow chariots.
The city’s pulse rippled through the air, and steam rose from beneath the street. It was as if Manhattan’s very soul were being stoked. New York was twenty-three square miles of high-speed energy and nonstop performance art. And at the moment, I was the only actor onstage, with 1.5 million residents comprising my audience.
An electric current raced beneath my tires, its vibration reaching up into my seat. A low roar announced that I was driving above a subway, and I knew right then and there that New York City was the greatest place on earth.
I drove the city’s width to the Lower East Side, parked in the municipal garage on Essex, and briskly walked home. Sherlock Holmes could keep London, and Poirot could have Paris. As for me, I’d take Manhattan over either, any day.
I’d chosen to live where New York first began, and where the term “melting pot” had originally been coined. At one time, this spot had been deemed the most crowded place on earth. It was a neighborhood that had seen countless waves of immigrants come and go. In that sense, little had changed. People continued to move in and out, leaving traces of their passage along the way. What had become altered was mainly its exterior.
Formerly squalid tenements had recently been gentrified, with hefty rents to match. There was still McDonald’s, with its ethnic offering of ranchero bagels, but the fast food chain was being steadily overrun by hip and expensive wine bars. My grandmother had once dreamed of escaping this neighborhood. Little would she believe this was where I had now chosen to live.
No matter. The area appealed to me with its eclectic mix of ethnic groups that merged into a unique native stew. Jews, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Chinese all crowded its streets in a concoction of young and old, hip and frumpy. The aroma of chicken soup from Jewish delis mingled with dumplings from Chinese restaurants, as Eastern European pickle shops vied for space with Turkish bakeries.
I took a deep whiff and the heady bouquet nearly carried me away. What brought me back to reality were a couple of roosters squaring off in an alley. The two cocks were about to duke it out over a piece of stale pizza crust. The scene managed to nail the Lower East Side’s plucky personality.
I approached my apartment on Orchard Street. As far as I was concerned, it was in the perfect location. My place was around the corner from El Sombrero Restaurant and Katz’s Deli, with Il Laboratoria de Gelato just down the block. Entering the building, I walked upstairs to the third floor. There was something comforting in knowing that my grandmother and mother had done the same thing before me. Call me crazy, but it made me feel as if I were still surrounded by family.
I opened the door and walked in to find Santou and Spam stretched out on the couch together watching the news. Jake’s arm rested on the fifty-pound pit bull, while Spam lay with his head nestled on his master’s chest. I took in the scene and quietly chuckled. The two had bonded ever since we’d found the pooch as an abandoned pup in Hawaii.
“Hey, chere. You’re just in time,” Jake said, gazing up at me from beneath a pair of hooded lids. “Look at this. Did you know that a dead socialite was found at the port today?”
I followed to where he pointed at the TV. Damn! A reporter was broadcasting from the same exact spot where I’d been standing earlier this morning. Magda could be seen in the background wearing her flowered babushka. But the camera didn’t stop there. It made sure to pan over to her silver tin can of a home, the Kielbasa House, with its name prominently displayed on the side. No wonder she’d been so nervous during our meeting. Why didn’t the news crew just pin a big red bull’s-eye on her?
“Oh God. Why do they have to do that?” I groaned.
“What? Show the murder scene?” Santou asked, as I leaned over and gave him a kiss.
But he wasn’t about to let me off that easy.
“Come back here, woman,” he said, and pulled me down for another as Spam joined in to lick my face.
I curled up in Jake’s arms and jockeyed with Spam for space.
“No. Make sure to show the one possible witness to the crime,” I explained. “See the woman in the babushka? That’s Magda, and the Kielbasa House is her mobile luncheonette. She’s been sleeping inside there. Magda had a perfect view of what went on when the body was dumped.”
Jake gave a low whistle and shook his disheveled black curls. “The press. You’ve got to love them. By the way, did you know that the victim was Bitsy von Falken?”
I nodded, my face rubbing against his stubbled cheek.
“Interesting timing,” he continued. “There are rumors that her husband’s company is in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I immediately followed up.
I admit it. Part of my interest was purely professional, while the other half was because I loved gossip.
“Hyde Barrow is about to come under investigation for investor fraud,” he explained.
Santou was again working for the FBI, having spent a year in Hawaii recovering from a back injury. He’d been assigned to the Manhattan office after I’d put in my own request for a transfer. My superiors in D.C. had been more than happy to comply, and promptly plant me in Newark.
New York had been a hard adjustment for Santou to make, though he was happy to be in the field again. He’d grown up in Louisiana with its bayous, gators, and Cajun food. New York was a completely different world for him. But it was one that Spam and I both loved.
Spam was thrilled with all the new odors to be sniffed on each corner, and there was a park just around the block. As for me, I was once again mastering the fine art of dashing between moving cars, using my horn too much, and viewing eye contact as an act of overt aggression.
It was true. Living in a city apartment did take some getting used to. Santou still referred to our place as the equivalent of a veal pen. I considered that a small price to pay for any number of reasons, not the least of which was its sentimental value.
The apartment had not only been my grandmother’s, but was also where my mother had grown up. Besides, it did have a certain charm. The place boasted wide plank hard-wood floors and taller-than-average windows. Granted, there wasn’t enough hot water and the radiators pumped way too much heat. But that’s what windows were for. I simply cracked them open and let the cool air blow in. The only drawback was that the apartment also came with the city’s very own version of wildlife: cockroaches, creatures that I’d always detested.
I left Jake and Spam on the couch and walked toward the kitchen, my antennae set on high alert. If the apartment was a veal pen, then the kitchen was the size of a thimble. No problem. Few people cooked in the city, anyway. It was a shortcoming that suited me just fine. After all, this was the land of takeout. Which was why I was surprised to spot a large, round Tupperware container sitting on the counter.
“Wha
t’s this?” I called to Jake.
“Gerda dropped it off. It’s half of a cake that she baked,” he responded.
Gerda wasn’t only our neighbor, but so much more. She and my grandmother Ida had been in a concentration camp together. Gerda was a young girl at the time, part of a group of youngsters that had drawn butterflies on their barrack walls using fingernails, pebbles, and whatever else was available. My grandmother, who’d been a few years older, had done what she could to keep them all safe.
After liberation, the two were inseparable and had immigrated to New York together. They’d shared this apartment until Ida got married. Then Gerda had moved next door.
“Of course, it looked much different back then,” Gerda once laughingly told me. “I think the word ‘hovel’ would have best described it.”
I used to sit as a child and listen to her tales of pushcart vendors and Yiddish theater, entranced as she played the piano and slipped pieces of candy into my eager hands. If I listened closely, I could hear strains of music coming from her place even now.
After my grandmother died, an aunt took over the apartment. But she’d been getting on in years and had recently decided to move in with her daughter. I’d come back just in time to claim it as my own. Upon arriving, I’d immediately been adopted by Gerda. Or maybe we simply picked up where we’d left off so long ago.
“Oh yeah. And Terri’s going to join us tonight for dinner. Apparently, Eric’s working late and Lily has a date. I guess he’s feeling a little blue,” Santou informed me.
No sooner had he said the words than our buzzer rang.
“Let me in before I freeze to death out here,” Terri wailed over the intercom.
I buzzed him up and unlocked the door.
“For chrissakes, Rach. Tell me again why it is that you live all the way downtown?” Terri groused as he breezed inside. “It’s certainly not for the charm. I swear to God, sometimes I think that you’re bound and determined to channel your dead grandmother. Not a good idea. So let me save you some time and trouble and perform a quickie exorcism.”
Terri threw his arms wide open, as if he were about to placate the gods.
“Ida, for the love of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, please let your granddaughter go! There, that ought to do it. Now maybe you and Santou can move closer to civilization.”
Terri was apparently feeling close to the spirit world tonight. His blond curls bounced on the collar of his faux rabbit fur coat, as he sank into my latest Salvation Army got-it-for-a-steal chair.
Terri Tune had been my former landlord in New Orleans. Since that time we’d become fast friends. He was the girl that my mother had always hoped I would grow up to be. Instead, she’d ended up with a daughter who’d gone into law enforcement, lived in jeans, and carried a gun.
Terri was stylish, well mannered, musically talented, and had the skill of a makeup artist. He’d recently moved to New York with his significant other, Eric. I’d helped them out a few years ago when Eric’s daughter, Lily, had run away. Now the three of them lived as a family in Chelsea, a section of Manhattan famous for its brownstones, hot new art galleries, and gorgeous men.
Terri removed his coat and I took a closer look at my friend. He’d already been tan, but was now as brown as a tobacco leaf.
“What’s going on? Did you take a trip to Miami that I don’t know about?” I asked, secretly envious that he might have escaped to someplace warm in the middle of winter.
Terri preened in his chair with the insouciance of a Vogue model. “It looks pretty natural, huh? I didn’t go anywhere other than the local tanning salon on my block.”
“Actually you’re looking a little too well-baked,” Jake astutely observed. “Maybe you should think about laying off the sun lamp for a while.”
Terry glared at him as though he were nuts. “Don’t be ridiculous. Being this tan is all the rage. Besides, I have to do something to combat the winter doldrums. And I’ll have you know that I don’t use a sun lamp, but the latest cutting-edge technique—UV-free airbrush tanning, which doesn’t harm or age the skin. Speaking of which, you could stand a dose of it yourself,” he advised Santou. “Anyway, what else can I do? I’m chained to a phone in a windowless office five nights a week. It’s not like I can get away. My boss keeps promising that we’re going to move, but so far I haven’t envisioned myself in new headquarters any time in the near future.”
“Maybe what you need is a new crystal ball,” Jake commented wryly.
Terri was working as a telephone psychic these days. In fact, he was in such high demand that his company had recently given him a hefty raise. Terri swore that he’d inherited the gift of second sight from his mother. True or not, he’d clearly tapped into something astounding. “Mr. T,” as he was professionally known, had become so popular that there was talk of putting him on his own cable TV show.
“On the bright side, I’ll still be in showbiz. And who knows? Maybe it’ll help me to get a decent gig as a female impersonator again. I’d thought San Francisco was tough, but New York is totally ridiculous,” Terri had complained. “Sure, I could work in a schlock club for next to nothing. But Eric and I are planning to get a weekend house, and my boss just agreed to give me a 401k.”
Even I could foresee bright things in his future.
Spam began to whine as we walked out the door without him. The poor pooch couldn’t understand why we didn’t cook dinner on the beach anymore.
As for Terri, he needn’t have attempted to exorcise Ida. The neighborhood had already done that pretty much on its own. We hit the street and were immediately swept up into cool pop heaven.
We passed a café where a muffin and tea cost an easy ten bucks. Unbelievably, teenage kids were its main clientele. I used to wonder how they could afford it until, one day, I saw them glued to their laptops. They sipped tea while buying and selling items on eBay for profit.
Equally strange was that formerly staid Ludlow and Rivington Streets were now the main axis of hip. It’s there that chi chi clubs drew crowds every night of the week. And while one could still haggle for bargains on clothes and leather goods, the old Jewish stores were rapidly being replaced by trendy designer boutiques. Anything to do with Ellis Island was suddenly tres chic.
We strolled by a pickle store where the smell of brine rolled over me in a wave of remembrance. I used to come with my grandmother when a pickle cost only a nickel. The store owner liked to joke that was still the case today; the only difference was that they now had to charge forty-five cents in tax.
“Let me guess. We’re going to that Dominican dive that you like so much,” Terri predicted as we rounded a corner.
“That’s amazing. You got it on the first try,” I replied with a grin.
This was what I considered to be the Lower East Side at its best: a place where the cost of each dish was under twelve bucks. We feasted on garlic shrimp, fried pork chops, rice with Dominican sausage, and bananas drenched in honey.
“Next time, I get to choose the place,” Terry said, popping a breath mint into his mouth after dinner. “Now I have to head off for the salt mines.”
“Don’t worry. I predict that some day soon, you’ll be rich and famous,” I assured him. “Just wait and see. Word of your psychic ability is going to spread, and all New York society will be clamoring at your door.”
“Brad Pitt, I’ll make time for. The others will just have to wait their turn,” Terri responded and gave me a kiss.
“But we’ll get our fortunes told for free, of course,” Santou joked.
“For Rachel, yes. As for you, I’ll probably charge double,” Terri saucily retorted, and grabbed a cab to work.
Jake and I slowly made our way back home. It didn’t matter that it was cold. Santou pulled me close and my world became warm.
“You haven’t mentioned how work is going lately,” Jake said in passing conversation.
He should have known by now that was enough to open a can of worms.
“Same old, sa
me old,” I replied. “I’m not allowed to take a case unless a perp walks into my office, slaps down a few dozen dead endangered species on my desk and says, ‘Here. This is just so you’ll know that I’m smuggling.’ And we can both guess the likelihood of that.”
I looked off to my left while crossing Delancey. The Williamsburg Bridge loomed with its cables as taut and strong as the muscular arms of a construction worker. We continued past weathered tenements on narrow streets. Each was draped with vinelike trellises of old fire escapes. It wasn’t necessary to peek around the buildings to know that behind each one lay New York’s version of an urban backyard. I already knew because I had one of my own.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m just treading water and trying to minimize whatever loss I can. The problem is that I’m not making any headway,” I groused.
What I didn’t say was that deep down, I was bone-tired of constantly fighting, and worried that my fire was beginning to die out.
Santou was wise enough to not say a word. Instead, he continued to hold me close, and I knew that he had unspoken worries of his own.
What gnawed at me was being stuck in an office where I was viewed as nothing more than window dressing. How was I supposed to develop cases when I felt so trapped?
My foot struck something hard and I tripped, nearly falling flat on my face. It was Santou’s steadying arm that saved me. I examined the offending item with my toe. It was a tree root that had pushed its way up through the snow and ice from beneath the pavement. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Adapt and thrive. Otherwise, leave or die. There was simply no other choice.
Four
Jake and I headed out together early the next morning. I made my way toward the parking garage while he took Spam for a walk. I stopped at a nearby newsstand and bought the daily paper. There it was in bold, black letters strewn across the front page. The headline blared, BITSY VON FALKEN FOUND DEAD IN ABANDONED JERSEY LOT.
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