Hipster Death Rattle

by Richie Narvaez

  “Infeliciter, yes. Mr. Moran, I am afraid we have to talk.”

  “Was breaking the lock necessary? It was brand new.”

  “I tried to jimmy it, but I’m not as good with those things as I used to be. So we had to get a sledgehammer from my car and whack it open.” Litvinchouk patted the sledgehammer on the futon next to him. “It’s part of the landlord’s toolkit.”

  “You say ‘we?’”

  Just then the toilet flushed and a large Hasidic man stepped out of the bathroom looking like a black and white monolith. He wore the requisite beard, payot, yarmulke, vest, and dangling tzitzits, but his white shirt was sleeveless and showed off a pair of bulging arms.

  “This is Noah. My son-in-law. Impressive, am I right?” Litvinchouk said. “And let me tell you, that’s not all schmaltz. Search his bag, Noah.”

  The monolith went to Tony’s duffel, opened it, and turned it upside down.

  “I’ll make this quick, Mr. Moran,” Litvinchouk said. “I know you have a lot of straightening up to do. First of all, I want to apologize for what happened to you on that roof, a very, very sad thing, done against my advisement. My business associates are a little too proactive, but not without reason.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Frank Tomasello Sr. is an elderly man of means, has been blackmailed for almost two years now by certain individuals. He does not need to be blackmailed by someone new. By which I mean you, of course.”

  “Say again? Maybe I’m still back on that roof hallucinating, or maybe my brain really did get boiled. What’s this about blackmail?”

  “Mr. Moran, I don’t know you very well. I don’t know how well you lie. But I do know that you knew Patrick Stoller for several years and that, after his death, you went to his apartment, and it is there you got the flash drives. You had some on the roof, and now you have more of them.”

  “The flash drives. Are you saying Patrick was blackmailing Tomasello?”

  “I’ve already said too much, Mr. Moran.”

  The Yiddish hulk grunted, holding up the bag of flash drives that Gabby had dropped off at the hospital.

  “Ah, the kewpie prize,” said Litvinchouk, taking the drives. “This negates my previous offer of new residences for you and your mother. However, if you like I can replace the flat screen TV. I can call my guy and he can bring a new one here in ten minutes.”

  “What brand?”

  “Top of the line. Though what you really need is a new AC.”

  Tony shook his head. “Thanks, but no.”

  “Fair enough,” Litvinchouk said. “One other thing: Your friend Patrick liked to make copies. I trust these are the final bunch of them.”

  Tony said, “If you worried about my blackmailing you or the Tomasellos, you already know I’m too lazy for that. As far as any copies, I haven’t bothered. I’m not even sure what’s on them. You can trust me.”

  “Despite my best interests, I do trust you, Mr. Moran. However, my business associates, especially Frank Jr., are much more prone to…action, for lack of a better word. I would be careful, if I were you.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  Litvinchouk smiled. “Vale, Mr. Moran. Vale.”

  “Goodbye,” Tony said as they went out the door. “And thanks for flushing.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Magaly was almost finished packing. She had made sure to bring along her laptop and those flash drives Tony had called and asked her (three times) to bring. For no reason, she threw in a couple of pairs of her sexy underwear. She didn’t know why. This was an innocent trip, after all, an investigative trip. Sure, Tony was an ex, but he hadn’t shown any interest in rekindling anything but their friendship. Had he? She cleaned out the fridge. She had already spoken to her neighbors to check on her jungle of ferns, spider plants, and succulents. After that, she found she had nothing else to procrastinate with.

  Fine, then. It was time to break up with Luis.

  She had broken up with him six times already, and he had always found a way to worm himself back into her life and her bed. He was around her at work all the time. He called her obsessively. She gave in because she was weak and she was lonely. And she was stupid. She had been stupid. But now things felt different. And now she had to kick Luis out of her romantic life, once and for all. Which had nothing at all to do with this trip, right?

  “No, I don’t want to discuss it and I can’t see you tonight,” she told him over the phone. “Honestly, I’m going on a little trip, a short vacation. I need it. I need a break.”

  “Wait. Vacation? With who?” he said.

  “I didn’t say I was going with anyone. Why can’t I be going by myself?”

  “Who are you going with?”

  “Fine. I’m going with—with my friend Chino. But we’re just friends.”

  “Your friend? I knew it. I knew there was something going on! You can’t do this to me. I care about you. I love you, querida. We are soulmates.” His voice broke and she could hear his sobbing.

  “Luis, listen to me. I don’t even know what ‘soulmate’ means. If you want to cry, cry to your wife. Don’t cry to me. I really have to go now. There is a taxi outside waiting, and he’s charging me by the minute. Bye!”

  She walked out, really ran, of her building, her luggage rolling behind her, and took the J train to the AirTrain to JFK airport.

  Tony’s mother hadn’t seen Magaly in years but as soon as she saw her, she said, “Mira la pelu’a!” and hugged her.

  “Bendición, Anna. It’s been so long. You look terrific.”

  “I went to the beauty parlor,” Tony’s mom said. And she’d dressed up for the flight.

  Tony asked her if she had brought the flash drives and her laptop, and she told him she had, and he looked weirdly happy.

  But then inside the terminal, Tony became more himself and grumbled about the long lines, and when they got on the plane he talked about how narrow the seats had become and how there were no more frills to flying because the terrorists had won. But when the plane took off, Magaly reached for his hand and he held it.

  They landed in San Juan and walked into the coolness of the airport. It took almost a half hour to get Anna’s luggage from the carousel. Outside, as the doors slid open, the heat felt deadly.

  “You okay?” she said to Tony.

  “It’s not exactly the temperature I would have chosen after recent events,” he said. “But I am glad to be here. Can I borrow your laptop and the flash drives?”

  “Sure. What’s the big deal with this anyway?”

  “I’ll show you later. Promise.”

  Magaly was going to ask him more questions, but then his mother interrupted. “He looks so skinny. Isn’t he skinny?”

  Magaly knew then that Tony had not told his mother about what had happened to him on the roof.

  Tony’s Titi Delia picked them up at the airport. Along the roads were a parade of palm trees, a sight she was always happy to see. The sky above was a sharp, clear blue, and at almost every traffic light stop, a man would come out from the side of the road, selling quenepas or mangoes or oranges, ripe and ready to eat. Everyone seemed to drive with lead feet on the gas, and Delia was speeding right along with them, zigging and zagging, and, if there were no oncoming cars, right through any red lights.

  Titi Delia drove them to her house, a modest single-floor house made of concrete and painted lemon yellow. There were gates on all the windows and the front door, but still it felt cozy.

  During the drive and seven times that night, Tony and Magaly were asked when they were getting married.

  They ate a late dinner, bistec encebollado with fried sweet plantains and boiled yucca and rice and beans and a salad of iceberg lettuce topped with peas and carrots. It was a good thing she had brought a wardrobe of baggy shorts and oversized shirts.

  That night she slept in the guest room with Tony’s mom, while Tony slept on the living room couch. The woman snored like a cannon, but Magaly found it weirdly s
oothing because it reminded her of her own mother’s snoring.

  The next morning at four a.m., she woke up to the sound one of Tony’s uncles arriving in a truck with a freshly slaughtered pig.

  While the pig roasted over half of a steel drum in the backyard—the smell of meat clinging to Magaly’s hair, her clothes, and filling her mouth and making it water—and after she had had far too many coconut-water-and-rums, served in actual coconuts chopped in half, and after Tony had stood up on a chair and told everyone no, no, absolutely not, they were not getting married and everyone should just stop asking but they just laughed and whistled, after all that, when some man who Tony said may or may not have been another of his uncles took out a cuatro, which looked like a midget’s guitar but it could make the happiest and at the same time the saddest music in the world, and another man, who may or may not have been Tony’s cousin, set up conga drums and two other guys, one with a tambour and the other with maracas, came out and soon an entire band was playing in the backyard, at that point Magaly reached out and took Tony’s hand.

  “C’mon,” she said.

  Tony said, “First of all, I don’t dance salsa.”

  “You do today.”

  He was awful, but his feet got the one-two-three when he was just letting go and not thinking about it, which wasn’t easy for him, she knew. Every once in a while he would get it just right and then sometimes hold his body close to hers as they spun around on the blacktop.

  “You know this is just going to make it worse for us with them.”

  “Shut up and dance,” she said.

  Later, bloated and greasy-fingered with pork, Magaly sat with Tony away from the swarm of relatives, or maybe the swarm had moved away to give them space. The palm and mango trees framing the backyard gently nodded in the night breeze, and the coqui frogs—nearly invisible in the thick fauna—began a chorus of their distinctive whistles.

  “That was the best roast pork I’ve ever tasted,” she said.

  “Pork! It’s good for you,” he said. “It’s a high-quality protein.”

  She was going to tease him, but instead she said, “It is, and it’s delicious. When was the last time you came to PR, Tony?”

  “Me? Maybe fifteen years.”

  “Wow, you shouldn’t go too long without getting in touch with your roots.”

  “My roots are in Brooklyn, embedded in the concrete.”

  “Grumpy,” she said.

  “True,” he said, and she knew he was going to kiss her and he did.

  “Hmm,” she said. “I was waiting for that.”

  He smiled. It wasn’t something he did very often, but it made him look good.

  “Maybe I’ve had too much coconut water and rum,” he said. “I should have asked you to marry me when I had the chance.”

  “Actually, you did.”

  “Oh, you remember that?”

  “I remember. But I thought you were just joking.”

  Tony frowned. “Maybe I was. I was an ass. An ass!”

  “You were still upset I dated your brother.”

  “You dated the whole block.”

  “Oh my god, not the whole block,” she said. “Well, half the block.”

  “That didn’t upset me,” he said. Then he raised his hand. “It doesn’t upset me anymore.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Never mind that. Come with me,” he said.

  In the living room, they could still hear people outside but they were alone.

  “Tony. I don’t know—”

  “Look at this.” He had her laptop out. “With my relatives all around, I didn’t get a chance to watch this until last night when everyone went to sleep. I’ve been dying to show you all day.”

  He patted the space on the couch next to him and put the laptop on her lap. He reached over to click “Play.” In the slight coolness of the room, she was conscious of the heat emanating from his body.

  “There’s no audio,” he said.

  The little screen showed a grainy and unfocused picture of a kitchen. She saw a sink and a stove.

  “Is that—?”

  “—Rosa’s apartment.”

  “Yes, I recognize the linoleum! It’s a really creamy yellow that always reminded me of banana pudding.”

  A figure—a man—came into the room. He had what looked like a potato sack. The resolution was not good at all but she could still see a green workshirt and working pants. His hair was curly and dark. Something was moving in the sack he carried. The man opened the refrigerator and took out a piece of something—maybe a piece of meat or cheese—and bent down and threw it under the stove.

  “Oh my god, Marte, the super, right?” she said.

  “That would be my guess.”

  The man picked up the sack and, standing up, opened it and upended it. One, two, three, maybe four mice spilled out and ran in different directions. The tape stopped.

  Magaly screamed. “That’s disgusting!”

  “Keep watching,” Tony said.

  “This guy, oh my god, oh my god—”

  “Wait, that’s not the best part. There’s a pause and then another video starts.”

  There were two men this time. One wore the green workshirt and pants. The other was fat and wore a blue polo shirt and a gigantic gold watch.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Magaly said.

  “It took me a minute to place him. But the watch stood out in my mind. That’s Frank Tomasello Jr.”

  The light in the room was weaker this time. It might have been late afternoon or early evening. There were dishes in a dish rack by the sink when before there had been none. Junior lifted the top of the stove. He turned and Marte handed him something—Magaly couldn’t make it out. The man bent into the stove, like a man checking under a car hood. He was screwing something in. He closed the stove and wiped the top down with a rag. He said something to Marte, then he threw the rag onto the floor and then dragged it with his feet, taking measured steps, walking backward out of the frame. Wiping away footprints.

  “Okay,” she said. “Oh my god! Did you see what he did?”

  Tony got up and brought her another beer. “That’s evidence of harassment. We could go to the police with that.”

  “I need to get a copy of this, Tony. How the hell did you get this video?”

  “It was in Patrick’s stuff, in a couple of those flash drives I gave you. There are also a lot of documents I’ve just started looking through. But it looks like Patrick loved to make copies, for some sort of insurance.”

  “But why was he making a video in her apartment in the first place? Was he a peeping tom?”

  “Peeping in her kitchen? Knowing Patrick, my guess is that he was videoing it for her.”

  “But why?”

  Tony stood up and paced around the room. Magaly liked watching him think, liked hearing him talk.

  “Well, according to Rosa, the abuse had been going on for a while,” he said. “Maybe she wanted evidence to catch somebody in the act. Or maybe she talked to him, friendly neighbor, and offered to do this for her.”

  “I never thought of her as overly friendly. But it’s possible. So he put a camera in her place to catch the super?”

  “Yep. It looks that way.”

  “But why didn’t he show this to the cops or the Housing Authority or to me and to El Flamboyan. We could have done something.”

  “Well, I have a theory. But now I know for sure this is why they broke into my apartment and why they threw me on the roof.”

  “This still doesn’t explain what happened to Rosa. Do you think that Marte and this Frank Jr. guy, you think they killed her?”

  “I don’t know. Can I borrow your phone?”

  “To call the police?”

  “Not yet. I want to call Gabby.”

  “Your ‘niece.’”

  Tony waved a finger at her. “Be nice.”

  She had to go find her phone. Once she did, she gave it right to Tony. After he made his call, he g
ave it back.

  “Hey, you got a few messages on there,” he said.

  Magaly checked. They were thirty-seven texts and four voicemails. All from Luis.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  When Tony said that Magaly and he were going to go do something, his mother gave him a saucy smile.

  “Have fun,” his mother said and winked.

  “It’s not what you think. Are you going to be okay here?”

  “I be fine,” she said, and he knew she would be, staying at his aunt’s house all day, sitting on the porch. It was her idea of the perfect vacation. His mom said, “Hurry up! I want grandkids!”

  Tony and Magaly got a ride to the car rental company, and he got the keys from the rental agent and began to hand them to Magaly.

  “What are you doing? I don’t drive,” she said.

  “I don’t drive either.”

  “Carajo, one of us has to drive.”

  “Well, I mean, I do know how to drive,” Tony said. “I just haven’t driven in years.”

  “Exactly. Who needs to drive in New York City?”

  Tony twirled the key fob in his hand. “Okay. Let’s say I drive now, and then on the way back you drive?”

  “God help us both. But if I drive us off a mountain road, I want you to take the wheel.”

  “By that point, we’ll be dead.”

  “I just don’t want to be found dead at the wheel. They’ll say, ‘Look, I told you women can’t drive.’”

  “You’re insane,” he said.

  “Let’s go, chauffeur.”

  When he had called Gabby that morning, she told him she had found more than twenty-three Angela Romans who lived in Puerto Rico. It was boring, she had said, but she crosschecked their names on social media. In less than an hour, she had eliminated sixteen who were teenagers or very young, four who were elderly and had died, and two who enjoyed superhero cosplay. On Instagram, she found an Angela Roman who was older, #semiretired, and her location was tagged as Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But there were several recent posts and pictures about problems moving to a house in Cayey. It was a solid lead, and Tony hoped that by finding her, he would be able to find the super, Jorge Marte.