Restoration Heights

  “What else?”

  “Ass, for starters. What else do people think about when they rub their lamp?” He laughed like he had been savoring the joke for hours, and knocked down the middle third of his beer. Reddick realized just how drunk Harold was.

  “So the Genie is a pimp?”

  “A procurer, I said. When you say ‘pimp’ I think of some wannabe with a gun he never shot, with about three scared girls he has to hit to keep around. The Genie has a roster, sure, but it’s more like a...a family. Don’t get me wrong, those girls know who is in charge, but there is some reciprocity there. Some gratitude.”

  Reddick winced.

  “Anyway, it don’t stop there, neither. You and me got a problem, right?”

  “Do we?”

  Harold hit his beer. “I’m saying hypothetically. You and me got a problem, and I can’t handle it on my own, either because you got friends, or because there’s some politics I can’t get caught in, or whatever, I can go to the Genie to take care of it.”

  “Like, have me killed?”

  Harold shook his head. “It don’t come to that. Just have some boys come over, have a talk. A rough talk, maybe, but there’s no reason to go beyond that. No one wants that kind of trouble.”

  “So: drugs, sex, violence. Sounds like you do get three wishes.”

  “That’s a good one, brother. But that ain’t why they call her the Genie.”

  “Her?”

  “Oh yeah. Women can run shit now.”

  “Okay. So why do they call her the Genie?”

  “Because you don’t always get exactly what you ask for. You might get some approximate version of it. Like in those old jokes, you know, a married couple is walking on the beach and they find a bottle with a genie in it, and the man wishes that he was married to a younger woman, and poof, the genie makes him twenty years older.”

  “Oh right. Like the rich guy that’s jacked but has a small head.”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “Same thing. Guy gets three wishes, he wants to be rich, he wants muscles. Then he can’t think of what to use his last wish on, and finally says, how about a little head?”

  Harold laughed, long enough and loud enough to catch a frown from the lisping woman. “That’s pretty funny. I like that one. And that’s what I mean. The Genie does shit kind of like that.”

  “Why? Seems bad for business.”

  “What you get is always close enough. A friend of mine, a close friend of mine, he’s not too great with ladies. So he figures the Genie can help him out. He says, I want a girl with a big ass and freckles. And what shows up at his door? A fat chick with acne.”

  “And that’s okay?”

  “He laughed because he knew he had been got, and then he and this girl had a good time, and he was happy. Nothing is perfect. People who go to the Genie understand that. They know you can’t get exactly what you want, but as long as you get enough, you know, that’s it. It’s a compromised world we live in. They might complain later but that’s part of the chance you take going to her, is how you encounter her sense of humor. Is knowing she’s gonna fuck with you a little bit.”

  “So where’s her lamp?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Her lamp. Where do I go to summon her? To name my wishes?”

  “You can’t. She won’t help you.”

  “Because I’m white?”

  “How do you know the Genie ain’t white?”

  Reddick blushed. “Is she?”

  “No, brother, but that’s beside the point. I’m just saying think about why you assumed. Anyway, she don’t choose her customers by skin color. That’s not good business. You just aren’t the type. You have too much going for you.”

  “Am I really that much different from you? I work in a warehouse.”

  “Think about how we met before you ask that question. I don’t hold it against you as a man. But America treats us differently.”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with seeing the Genie.”

  “Look, what the Genie does—you’re right, people do it better all over the city. You can find better drugs, better ass, fake IDs, all that shit—you can find people that won’t fuck with you when they get it for you, too. But the Genie has been around here forever, from back when this neighborhood was rough, and she was there for people. She knew everybody, and could get heat off your back, could keep you alive, get you a fix if you needed it or find you a place to get sober if you needed that. She had a couple buildings that she used for business but if you was in trouble, she might let you stay there for free sometimes. Yeah, she’s trying to make money, and yeah, she’s got a weird sense of humor, but the people that go to her now, for the most part? They remember when they had no one else. So does that sound like you?”

  They drank in silence. Nearly a minute passed.

  “Just tell me where people go to talk to her. Even if I can’t go myself. I just want to know how it fits together.” He thought of Tyler’s pickups.

  “You aren’t going to let this go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Remember she hurts people.”

  “I won’t go there myself. I know my limits. I’m just trying to piece it all together.”

  “You have to swear to me that you will stay away. I am not responsible if you get yourself killed.”

  “Harold. I swear.”

  “There’s this dry cleaners on Grand Street. Back toward Clinton Hill. Clean City.”

  Reddick’s jaw clenched. “I think I know it.”

  “But you ain’t going.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t.”

  Harold focused his bleary eyes, taking in Reddick’s face. “What am I worried about anyway? If you walked in to Clean City they’d probably just ask you what you wanted cleaned. The Genie is a bunch of things, but she ain’t stupid. The way that neighborhood flipped, they’d probably make just as much money cleaning all the white people’s clothes.”

  He laughed again, resigned and anarchic, like a man making peace with misfortune. Reddick waited, held his laughter inside, thinking of the boy telling him to leave his coat, to fill out a ticket—a different sort of joke entirely.

  Thirteen

  Cask was a short walk from Ti-Ti’s. It was after five but a haze of mauve sunlight lingered on the brim of the sky, the first sign of lengthening days. He wondered if the snow would stop, at least for a few weeks. For now it lay piled along the boundaries of the street and the sidewalk, charcoal-gray with filth, the romance of it exchanged for nuisance, for hazard.

  He saw her through the window as he approached—the same woman, on a stool behind the counter. The glass front and warm lighting made a display of her striking looks. Men outside took long, clinging glances as they passed. She ignored them.

  He went in with his hands up, signaling surrender. When she saw who it was her face hardened. She stood.

  “You’re not welcome in here. This is my store, there’s no manager for you to appeal to, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not here to buy anything.”

  She shook her head. The dark ring around her eye had ripened to yellow. She kept the tumbling mass of her blond hair on that side, masking it in shadow. “I was pretty clear last time.”

  “And I was an asshole.” He lowered his right hand, extended it toward her. “My name is Reddick.”

  She stared for half a minute before she responded, then shook his hand limply, her skepticism intact. “Mia.”

  “So do you agree?”

  “About what?”

  “That I was an asshole.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure, if that’s what you want to hear. If it will get you out of my store, then fine. You’re an asshole. Happy? Now go.”

  She had a faint accent, something he couldn’t place. East
ern European, he thought—mild enough that he hadn’t caught it last time. “That’s not why I’m here. I mean, not the only reason. I’m here to listen.”

  “Why do you think I have something to say to you?”

  “Because I know who the Genie is.”

  She didn’t flinch at the name. “So what? I already asked Ju’waun about you. You’re nobody.”

  “Then it shouldn’t matter if you answer a couple of questions.”

  “You haven’t asked me a question.”

  “Fine. How do you know Ju’waun and Tyler?”

  “None of your business. Next question.”

  “Do you work for the Genie?”

  “Nope. Next question.”

  “I was hoping for actual answers.”

  “We all have hopes. Next question.”

  “What is your relationship to the Genie?”

  “She’s my landlord.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. You done?”

  “Do you know a girl named Hannah Granger?”

  She didn’t stop to think. “Nope.”

  “Ju’waun does. So does Tyler.”

  “They know a lot of people I don’t know.”

  “Why am I being told not to ask about them? About Hannah?”

  “I don’t see why you’d expect me to know. Or care.”

  “Because Hannah Granger disappeared Sunday night. And Ju’waun and Tyler were two of the last people to see her.”

  He thought he saw the last sentence register—she blinked slowly, her mouth tightened. Maybe it was just irritation. She reached for a glass, poured two inches from an open bottle of Malbec on the counter and drank it.

  “Who is this girl to you?” she asked.

  “Let’s say she was a friend of mine.”

  “What time were they with her?”

  “At least until midnight.”

  “They were with me after that. And there was no girl.”

  “With you?”

  “Look at that. Turns out I could help after all. You should have been nice from the beginning.”

  “What were they doing with you?”

  “Now you’re back where you started, and I told you: it’s none of your business.”

  “I’m not trying to pin this on them. Don’t think that. I just want to find out what happened to Hannah. Maybe if I could talk to them, if you gave me one of their phone numbers.”

  “Look. I’m sorry about your friend. I hope you find out what happened. But those two aren’t involved. Okay? Go look somewhere else.”

  She raised her chin to make her point, dipping her hair away from her face. The swollen flesh below her eye called her a liar.

  * * *

  He grabbed a six-pack on the way home. The apartment was his for the night, territory won from his fight with Dean and Beth, the wounds too fresh for a reconciliation. He was grateful for the time; he had work to do.

  First: try to fill in the other half of his map, balance his uneven attention. He still didn’t have Ju’waun or Tyler’s last names but he had more data than the first time he researched them. He went to Facebook, typed in the Genie, got a list of women. Sorted it by city, cross-referenced to friends named Ju’waun, Tyler—every instance of the name, one at a time. Nothing. He went to Instagram, searched hashtags for their names, location tags for Cask. Learned Mia’s last name, used it to find a photo of her with other women, clutching each other for a selfie, blowing kisses at the camera, winking. Taken at some club, a lounge on Tompkins. Her friends white, black and Hispanic, the crowd behind them mostly black. Then he searched her page for Ju’waun and found a photo of the two of them. Reddick squirmed in his seat, the thrill of revelation passing like a tremor through his body. She had tagged him in it. He followed the tag to Ju’waun’s page and finally got his last name, Ju’waun Stills. He combed through his images, his tags. It was everyday stuff, friends, parties, memes. He saw a cramped room with mattresses carpeting the floor, seam pressing against seam—a window somewhere up high, other towers crowding the view, their redbrick and bland architecture suggesting the projects. Where? More digging and he found it. Lafayette Gardens, on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy—not far from Clean City. He went to the location tag, which had a handful of photos and videos from a single user, a community organization. A party, a BBQ—an ad hoc rap battle. A cappella, adults and kids in a circle, clapping time, cheering the dense wordplay, the sharp resolutions. Three videos, thirty seconds a pop, just a few bars, each one featuring a different kid. The last one was Ju’waun, labeled “J-Sword devastating flow.” He listened, twice—the enunciation was clear, the delivery polished, even if the rhymes were simple. He went back through his round of searches using J-Sword instead of Ju’waun. There was a second account listed under this nickname, with more photos of Ju’waun and his friends—in Lafayette Gardens, in Fort Greene Park. They were followed by long comment threads—boasts, exhortations, occasional disses. He found Tyler’s face, attached to a pseudonym—Remy. He saw two phrases repeated: “Sons of Cash Money” and “Heirs to the Throne,” in the comments but also on the profile pages, referring either to a single group with multiple names or a pair of overlapping groups.

  “Cash Money, Lafayette Gardens” in his search engine brought him to Cash Money Brothers, a violent gang that ran Lafayette Gardens from the nineties to the middle of the aughts. The leadership had been eradicated in a series of prosecutions lasting nearly a decade—a period that coincided with Clinton Hill’s gentrifying ascent. Reddick had walked past the towers a dozen times—they seemed peaceful, green, well kept. From a southbound window you would be able to see Restoration Heights, the two developments mirrored across blocks of shifting territory, their cosmetic similarity a kind of mockery. No one he knew had ever gone inside Lafayette Gardens, the projects rimmed by an invisible wall that radiated the shame of their contrast with the booming neighborhood, the blatant declaration that there were two countries here, their borders inviolable. Clinton Hill’s new white arrivals crossed the street, walked on the opposite sidewalk, unable to say what frightened them more—the projects or their own complicity in the forces that sustained them. Their faces dazed with the knowledge of their own cowardice.

  Reddick found nothing about Sons of Cash Money or Heirs to the Throne in the news, so he went back to social media, found them both on Twitter. He thumbed through Remy’s and J-Sword’s timelines—chronicles of their aspiring rap careers, boasts that might have referred to actual crimes or might have been layered metaphors, the slang so thick it bordered on code. The narratives were distinct from those on the account Ju’waun managed under his own name, edgier, more frantic, the kid committed to a double life. Reddick found links to more freestyles, all of the rap stuff tagged Heirs, Heirs to the Throne, HTBOYZZ, HTNIGGAZ, a flood of variations on the phrase. He worked backward, carefully reading each post, noting the day. On Monday, the morning after, he found a brief conversation between the two accounts. J-Sword to Remy, “shit popped off last night,” Remy’s response, “ay she got caught slippin,” and J-Sword ending with, “all good find me this afternoon,” tagged, “Sons of Cash Money.”

  It could be nothing. It could be everything. If it was a reference to Hannah it was suicidally reckless. He clicked on the Sons of Cash Money tag. It was littered with a similar disregard. Everyone using the tag—presumably other members of the group—bragged about violence with transparent euphemisms. Settling old beefs, starting new ones, minor robberies or just chest-pounding grabs for status. Sons of Cash Money linked to other crews that used their accounts the same way, as a forum to assert their power, to reach the intended audience of their actions, some of them hiding under pseudonyms but many of them not, enthralled by the swaggering self-assurance of youth or lost to despair, to a genuine indifference to their fate.

  He stood up and opened another beer. Voic
es drifted up from the street, laughter; Saturday night in Brooklyn carried on in spite of the razor cold. He went to the window. Figures on the sidewalk were cloaked and hooded like monks, their identities, their destinations, concealed. Reddick watched until his beer was half-finished and then grabbed his phone.

  “Thomas?” He had dismissed Dottie’s claim that Hannah went home as an obvious lie, designed to keep the day running smoothly. But it was worth double-checking if he could.

  “Did you find her family, in Oregon?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Leland never heard anyone mention their first names. But she does recall that they were from Portland.”

  “Portland. Are you sure?”

  “Quite.”

  “What about the party—what did Buckley and Franky argue about?”

  “There was a disagreement. However, no one was willing to discuss the subject. I gathered that it was something personal.”

  If it was an affair it would explain their reticence. “Any other information? How they met? What she did for work?”

  “Mrs. Leland said that Hannah had recently left her job when they met, and that it was in the arts. She recalls her making a joke—something self-deprecating about it being boring work for creative people. She believes she never actually mentioned a name.”

  “What about how they met?”

  “She could offer more details about this—she was there when it happened, at an event at MoMA last summer. Mr. Seward was one of several donors being honored at the event.”

  “But not Mrs. Leland, I assume?”

  “Or course not. Her interests do not intersect with the Modern’s. At any rate, she recalls it quite clearly because it was Mr. Seward who met her first. I believe she approached him to discuss some painting he owned, and after they chatted for a few minutes, he introduced her to his son.”

  “And Buckley was smitten just like that? It didn’t take him very long to try and tie her down.”

  “I don’t see why it would have done. She already had the thing he wanted most—his father’s approval. The rest was inevitable.”