Buried on Avenue B

by Peter de Jonge

  O’Hara loves that sparkle in the kid’s eyes, is unlikely to ever forget it, but as a mother, O’Hara is even more defenseless against the sight of the kid’s belly, his smooth skin stretched tight over his ribs and skinny arms. It reminds her of a picture she took of Axl when he was three or four. A friend of O’Hara’s came over and was playing with Axl in her mother’s backyard, holding a baseball bat sideways as Axl clung to it like the bar of a jungle gym. In the picture, the friend lifts the bat in the air, and as Axl hangs on for dear life, his shirt rides up over his navel, and whenever she looks at the picture she recalls exactly how the cool skin of her son’s stomach felt on her hands and lips. She knows it’s all evolution, like the sweet smell of a baby’s head, a way to make parents adore their offspring, take care of them, and even die for them. But did they really have to make the smell and touch that sublime? Obviously they did, because for some parents it’s still not enough.

  O’Hara’s mind jumped from the back of the van to the last known image of the kid alive, because she knows that here, alone in this windowless cell, is where he died. While the perps stuffed their faces in front, the kid slowly bled to death behind them on a thin foam mattress stained maroon black. Surrounding the mattress are mangled packages of gauze, cotton balls, and antiseptic wipes, and empty bags of M&Ms and Cheetos and two Superman comics, and everything is dabbed with bloody fingerprints, even the paint bucket the kid used as a toilet.

  Of all the stains, the most disturbing are the handprints on the flat gray metal walls. They are the same size as the ones stamped out of the gate at the community garden, but these are the prints of someone trying desperately to get out.

  When O’Hara stands up and turns away, she searches the garage for her new friend. “Hey, Porter, what happened to Mabel?”

  “As soon as they opened the van, she scratched on the back door and asked to be let out. She didn’t want any part of it.”

  CHAPTER 43

  FRAN LEBRIE SITS at the kitchen table and rubs the spot on her finger where her ring had been. She wears a large floppy hat tied by a string beneath her chin, and her delicate cheekbones are slathered with a silverish cream. “They said there might be a problem with the water,” says Lebrie, “and they were going to have to do a few tests. Had I drunk the water this morning? Had I used it to make tea or coffee? Had I washed my hands with it, and if I had, was I wearing my ring when I did?

  “I wasn’t sure if I had washed my hands, I told them. I’m not one of these people who wash or use a hand sanitizer every five minutes, but I knew that if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have taken off the ring, and I told them that.

  “ ‘Better safe than sorry,’ he said, ‘do you have any milk in your refrigerator?’ I was about to make a cake, so I actually had two kinds of milk—regular and nonfat. I asked, what would be better? ‘The regular,’ he said, and I’ll need a bowl.’ He got a bowl down from the cabinet and poured in about a cup. I remember my cat was going crazy for the milk, or maybe she was alarmed by my stupidity. Then he had me take my ring off and put it in the milk. ‘If there are any impurities in the water,’ he said, ‘the milk will counteract them.’ ”

  “How many men were there?” asks O’Hara.

  “Two.”

  “Two men?” asks Wawrinka.

  “And a boy.”

  “Can you describe them?” asks O’Hara.

  “They were such an odd group. One man was very big and heavy and dark, in his forties. The other man was slight and short and in his mid-twenties, if that. The boy was about nine, very thin with long blond hair, and had a limp. I still remember his smile.

  “I think that’s why I let them in,” continues Lebrie. “Because of the boy. I’m sure it was. The older man said his son had the day off from school, and had brought him along so his son could get a clearer idea of what his father did for a living. When he was growing up, he said, he didn’t have a clue what his father did all day at his job, and he vowed that when he had children they would get a chance to see him at his job. That’s why I let them in. Because of the boy and that story.”

  The afternoon they headed back from South Carolina, Wawrinka was still such a mess, she surrendered the keys to her precious Crown Vic and let O’Hara drive. For O’Hara it was refreshing to wake up less hungover than the person she was with, although in this case Wawrinka was dealing with too many tequilas as well as sex with someone of the wrong gender. In any case, it gave O’Hara time to think.

  Among the things she focused on were those Cartier boxes floating in the rancid water. If the jewelry hadn’t come from Levin’s place, and based on the condition of Levin’s place, it didn’t seem like they had, it meant that the perps had gotten into at least one other home, and more likely many. When they got back to Sarasota, O’Hara checked the logs between February 18, the day the van was rented, and March 3. She found that on March 2, Fran Lebrie, seventy-nine, had reported a burglary at her bayside home half a mile south of Levin’s, and that the responding officer found her so distraught, he concluded she would be of no value as a witness and gave her name to Elderly Outreach.

  “Can you give any more details about the men?” asks O’Hara. “You said the bigger of two men was huge. Do you mean tall or heavy?”

  “Both. He was well over six feet, and obese. I would say, more than three hundred pounds. And dark. Swarthy. He didn’t look at all like his son, but I didn’t think about that till later. Or maybe I did, and was just scared.” The woman rubs her hands together, and winces, reliving the incident.

  “The smaller man was less memorable,” continues Lebrie, “although I think he had earrings in both ears. He didn’t say much. The bigger one was in charge and did the talking.”

  “The boy,” says O’Hara. “Did he say anything?”

  “No. I remember him looking at the art. He liked it. I could tell. All the work is mine.” For the first time, O’Hara glances at the art hanging on the walls. Mostly it consists of assemblages of plastic action figures arranged in provocative ways—wrestlers from the WWF, athletes or superheroes. Perhaps, thinks O’Hara, they reminded the boy of the inflated characters in his comics.

  “What happened then?”

  “He asked me where my water heater was, and when I told him it was in the basement, he walked me down and had me show it to him. On the way he grabbed a spatula out of the drawer in my kitchen cabinet, and when we got to the basement and were standing in front of the water heater, he handed the spatula to me. ‘When I get back to the kitchen,’ he said, ‘I need you to knock on the water heater with the spatula and not stop until I tell you. That’s very important, and it’s important that you not stop or we won’t be able to figure out what the problem is. ’ He went back up the stairs, and I did as I was instructed and knocked the heater with my spatula. I did it for quite a while. I must have kept it up for five minutes or maybe even longer. Then I started to feel stupid, and then I started to feel scared. I was scared the whole time.”

  For the perps who prey on them, these old vics must seem like manna from heaven, well worth traveling a thousand miles for. They’re physically weak and easily intimidated. Even the plucky Di Nunzio recalled that the sight of the van made her fearful. And once they’ve been fleeced, they’re all but useless as witnesses. Their hearing, eyesight, and memory are rarely intact, and even when they are, the police dismiss them anyway, as the Sarasota cop did with Lebrie—and as she herself nearly did with Di Nunzio.

  “I called out to them and there was no response, and when I got upstairs they were gone. I took the bowl to the sink and poured out the milk, but by then I already knew that the ring would be gone. In my bedroom, drawers were open and other precious things were missing too, including a pair of matching watches my husband bought to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary.”

  The old people, thinks O’Hara, come for the sun and the beaches and the golf courses and each other, and the perps come
for them. Like fishermen, or that woman and her daughter trawling the aisles at Publix.

  “You know,” says Lebrie, “I got married when I was twenty, which of course was much too young. On the day of my wedding, I looked at my new husband and realized I barely knew him. But I was lucky. He turned out to be a perfectly lovely man. As you get older, everything gets taken from you. My husband died three years ago, but he had already lost his memory. Every month you lose something else or someone or some part of yourself. That jewelry is the least of it, but I had worn that ring for sixty years, and my hand feels funny without it. And I feel like such a fool.”

  “Well, I love your pin,” says O’Hara, referring to the bold geometric shape on Lebrie’s sweater.

  “Bakelite,” says Lebrie with a gentle smile. “And please don’t be alarmed by my appearance. It’s just sunblock. I came to Florida and discovered I was allergic to the sun.”

  CHAPTER 44

  “YOU ALL QUIET because you’re sorry to see me leave, or you still suffering from your little indiscretion?”

  “It doesn’t seem little to me,” says Wawrinka. “I feel like a sellout.”

  “Imagine how I feel after spending the night with Mabel. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell Bruno.”

  “Some free advice, Darlene.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t.”

  O’Hara’s flight is in less than three hours. Wawrinka intended to take O’Hara to her favorite seafood shack, a spot under the drawbridge called Ernestine’s, but O’Hara insists they use the time for one last look at Levin’s apartment. Now that they know the perps’ MO, she wants to see if something had been stolen that they hadn’t noticed. Once there, she figures they might as well polish off Levin’s last two Amstels, which they are doing on the small porch off the living room, which looks out over some spiky crabgrass and then the beach and Gulf.

  “From the gut-shot way Porter was staring as the car drove off, you must be a real natural. First time out of the gate like that.”

  “A natural slut more like it. Like our old pal Di Nunzio.”

  “To Sharon,” says O’Hara, extending her Amstel.

  “To Sharon,” echoes Wawrinka, meeting it halfway. “And I guess Lebrie’s spatula clears up the mystery of Levin’s wooden spoon.”

  “Yeah,” says O’Hara, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a spoon or spatula is just something to bang on the water heater so the perps know it’s safe to ransack the rest of the place.”

  “Those are some canny motherfuckers. They talk their way in, so it’s not breaking and entering. Then they pepper her with questions and knock her off her balance.”

  “Fuck them,” says O’Hara. “They think they are so smart, but really they’re goons, scaring old people as much as fooling them. And the kid is just a prop. A way of taking the stink off them, reducing suspicion, getting folks to let down their guard. A throwaway prop they let bleed out on a sponge in back while they’re eating burgers and fries.” She thinks of the mother and daughter at Publix, and all those Madonna and Child paintings at the Ringling Museum. Every scam goes down a little easier, she thinks, if you throw in a kid.

  When they’ve finished their beer, they do a final walk-through, O’Hara smiling wistfully at the useless angel asleep at her post, her cheeks and thighs as chubby as those old-time circus performers’. Nothing seems to have been taken, and there’s no sign that anyone swept through the place with bad intent.

  What they do find—in a bowl on the dining room table—is a small key for a safe or lockbox. If the box is gone, maybe the perps took it on their way out, removed the contents, and dumped it somewhere before they unloaded the van. But five minutes later O’Hara spots it, apparently undisturbed on a shoulder-height shelf of the bedroom closet. It’s less a safe than a container, shaped like a small suitcase, made of heavy-gauge plastic designed to protect the contents from fire or flooding. However, it’s nearly as heavy as a safe, and it takes the two of them to get it down off the shelf and carry it to the dining room table.

  The key works, but there’s not much of value inside, at least not to thieves. What it contains is the memorabilia of an illustrious boxing career, starting with a stack of old newspaper stories chronicling the teenage exploits of Bunny “Schoolboy” Levin. One yellowed clipping from November 15, 1937, is illustrated with a photo of Levin in shirt and tie and sweater vest being mobbed by his adoring classmates. “After his stunning knockout, Levin returns to South Newark H.S. a conquering hero,” reads the caption. Beneath the brittle pages, with their antiquated typefaces and layout, is a small cardboard box containing the pin Levin earned for winning the lightweight division of the 1937 Golden Gloves, and beneath the box, in the well of the compartment, a plastic bag. When O’Hara peers inside, she sees Levin’s old silk boxing trunks with the Star of David on the leg and his shockingly delicate lace-up shoes.

  “Like going to war in boxers and ballet slippers,” says O’Hara.

  “I say we give the pin to Sharon,” says Wawrinka. “God knows she deserves it. Besides, she saw Ben’s last bout. February 5, 2007, Sweet Tomatoes, stopped after three seconds of the first round by knockout.”

  “If you count Sweet Tomatoes and the golf course, Levin may have had the longest career in boxing history. How about you give the pin to Sharon, and I’ll call Sol about the rest.”

  While Wawrinka climbs the stairs to Di Nunzio’s place, O’Hara heads back to the tiny porch and gets Klinger on her cell. “Sol. It’s Darlene O’Hara. I’m at Ben’s place right now. I found some things you need to see.”

  “Can’t it wait till the morning?”

  “No, you gotta come right now. I’m heading to the airport in less than an hour.”

  “But Pettit’s working on a one-hitter. He’s pitching a gem.”

  “Sol, don’t be a schmuck. Get your ass over here pronto. And come round the back to the porch.”

  Twenty minutes later, O’Hara hears the big Lexus turn into the driveway. Then she hears the thunk of the heavy door and Klinger’s footsteps, first clicking on the cement, then crunching the crabgrass. When he turns the corner, O’Hara can see his white leather loafers.

  “Sol, up here.”

  “I see you, Darlene. This is nuts.”

  “I got a question about those nights when Ben had a fight and would come by your building and stand under your window. You remember how he would whistle?”

  “Like it was yesterday,” says Klinger. “Two at a time, one long, one short, like this.”

  Klinger tries to whistle but starts crying before he gets out more than a little stream of air. Nevertheless, O’Hara leans over the railing and lowers the bag to within a couple feet of his outstretched hands.

  “Hey, Sollie, catch.”

  PART III

  CHAPTER 45

  O’HARA BROUGHT TWO things back from Sarasota—the seeds of a cold, courtesy of JetBlue, and the twenty-four-sheet Strathmore sketchbook she tossed into her shopping cart at Publix—and on her first morning back in the city, she drops the pad on the bar of Milano’s, beside her grapefruit juice and vodka. As she reacquaints herself with the ghostly chiaroscuro of the downtown dive and stews over the lack of progress in her homicide, she flips the pages until she stops at the sketch of Levin’s wooden spoon she made in the phone booth of the Longboat Key Public Library. The crude rendering reminds O’Hara of her and Wawrinka’s visit to the home of Fran Lebrie, and in the space below the spoon, she scratches out a companion drawing of Lebrie’s plastic spatula.

  The drawings aren’t half bad, thinks O’Hara. With the right frame, maybe she could sell them to the Chelsea gallery that shows the late great Freek Staps. Call it Cop Art. Then O’Hara starts to hear them, not the drawings but the utensils, or at least the sounds they’d make smacking the steel casings of the water heaters. Soon a nice little geriatric rhyt
hm section is percolating inside her head, the slap of Lebrie’s plastic spatula punctuated by the pop of Levin’s spoon. The spatula sounds delicate and feminine and more like jazz. The spoon is more rock ’n’ roll, like that drumstick on a cowbell at the start of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen.”

  The distinct sounds draw O’Hara’s attention to a difference between the two drummers. At some point early on, Levin stopped banging and returned to his bedroom to confront the perps, while Lebrie did as she was instructed and kept the beat going in her basement. Why did Levin figure out that the two guys from the water authority were impostors before Lebrie? Lebrie is a sharp lady, yet she kept slapping till the perps and her jewelry were long gone, while Levin grabbed his gun and headed back down the hall. Did he notice something she didn’t, or was it simply a disparity of nerve? Or was he more foolhardy? Certainly, her fear of what might happen if she walked in on the perps as they rifled through her drawers was sensible.

  O’Hara takes a sip and picks up her pen again. In the space below the drawings, she writes “Gus Henderson” and shifts her attention from the Gulf of Mexico to East Third Street. Ever since O’Hara buckled herself into her seat for the return flight, she’s been sorting through the perplexing disparities and consistencies between what Henderson claims to have done and what she now knows. Combining and recombining the various pieces is like trying to line up the squares in a Rubik’s Cube, and the fruitless twisting and turning is starting to mess with O’Hara’s equilibrium.

  According to Paulette, Gus claimed to have killed a large black man, then buried him under a shady tree in the community garden. Instead of the victim he described, they find a nine-year-old blond boy, but the location is spot-on, and now one of the perps, who was with the boy, turns out to be not large and African American but large and swarthy. Is that a coincidence? If so, it contradicts a fundamental axiom of investigative work, which is that there are no coincidences.