The other man looked as overgrown as a football player, one long past his glory days. His head was uncovered and shaved, and he had an s-shaped scar running from the right side of his mouth and down his chin. It gave him an expression that was probably intimidating in most circumstances, but it was diminished by a bad sunburn all over his face. Still, the gun he carried gave him a serious air as well.
Magaly had her hands in the air. Tony did the same. He looked for Angela, but she was gone.
“Okay, where’s Marte?” Frank Jr. said.
“He’s gotta be inside,” the other man said.
“Check it out.”
“So nice to see you again,” Tony said, in what he had to admit was a poor effort to delay death. Or give Angela time to do whatever she was doing. Which, he hoped, was not running away.
“Give me the flash drives,” Frank Jr. said. An emu calmly walked in front of him, and he had to step once, twice, three times to keep the gun aimed at them. “Holy fuck! What the fuck are these fucking things?”
“Emus,” Tony said, remembering an article he had done once on raising exotic birds for meat. “They’re the second-largest living bird by height, after ostriches.”
“What the fuck? Guy, give up the flash drives.”
“What flash drives?”
“Yeah, right. Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Fine,” Tony said. “I already gave what I had to Litvinchouk.”
“What’s this? When?” Magaly said, but Tony wouldn’t look at her.
“That lyin’ kike Jew bastard,” Frank Jr. said. “He thinks he’s the big shit, but he’s not.”
“Wow,” Tony said. “So I guess you don’t like the fact that he’s fooling around with your wife. But I guess he would use the word ‘schtupping.’”
Frank Jr. didn’t look surprised, but he said, “No fucking way.”
“You ever been in his station wagon? It reeks of coconut lotion, you know, the kind that Jackie wears. And I saw a big, bright bangle there, the kind that does not belong to Litvinchouk’s devout Hasidic wife.”
“You’re pulling my chain.”
“Ask her. Watch her face. It’s hard to hide the look of love. Or lust. I’m guessing they use the back of the station wagon as a honeymoon suite. Lots of room back there for cultural exchange.”
The faded footballer came out of the house, looking confused and neon red. “There’s nobody here.”
“The fuck!” Frank Jr. said. “Check around back.”
The footballer turned around the corner at the same moment the Doberman leaped. The formerly chained dog got him by the wrist holding the gun. The gun dropped, and the footballer tried to knock it off but the dog’s jaws were clamped tight. Blood sprayed.
Frank Jr. shot once, twice at the dog, and the footballer grunted, “Don’t shoot me,” and in that moment Angela hit Frank Jr. with the barrel shotgun, using it like a staff. He dropped to the ground, dropping his gun. She flipped the shotgun around and aimed at him.
Frank Jr. made it to his car in a stumbling dash around a peacock. The footballer had somehow gotten himself free and jumped into the car, holding his bloody hand. They went in reverse and sped away in a whirl of dust and exotic feathers.
The Doberman chased the car into the road.
“I told you that dog was possessed,” Angela said.
The blood on the ground reminded Tony of Patrick’s dead body. He looked away. As he did, he saw Magaly throwing up and at the same time gently pushing away a peacock who seemed very interested in what she was doing.
Tony asked her, “Why didn’t you use the shotgun? Shoot up in the air or something?”
“I don’t have no bullets.”
Magaly wiped her mouth and said, “Thank you. You saved our lives.”
Angela had a huge grin on her face. “I’ve been ready for them. It’s been keeping me up for months. I’m glad it finally happened.”
“They might come back,” Tony said.
“That’s okay. I’ll call my cousins and they’ll stay with me. I got fifteen cousins, and they got bullets.”
“Hey, where was Jorge?” Tony asked.
Angela ran back into the house. “Under the bed. I pulled the sheets and he came down and then I stuffed him under.”
Inside, Jorge was wedged under the bed pretty good. It took all three of them, using all their strength, to yank him out. But he looked in much worse shape than before. He barely seemed to be breathing, and his face was turning purple. They carried him to Angela’s car, and she raced off to the hospital.
Tony and Magaly walked to their car.
“Your turn to drive,” he said. “If you’re up for it.”
“I can do it. Let’s just get out of here before the tarantulas attack.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Magaly was shivering and still nauseous with adrenaline. But she was able to keep the car steady and straight on the road. The drive back to Tony’s aunt’s house was taking forever, and they were covered in blood and dirt and puke.
She looked at Tony. He still seemed to be in shock as well. “So you spoke to Litvinchouk about the drives?” she said. “You gave him yours?”
“Yeah. He broke into my apartment with a walking, talking golem. They took the drives from my bag. But I knew you had your copies.”
“Good thing I like free things.”
“Good thing,” Tony said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. These last few days have been spectacularly unreal.”
“I do wish you had told me. But hearing you apologize for something may be the high point of my day. And that was quite a day.”
“Listen, my family will have a lot of questions when they see us,” Tony said. “And I’d rather leave them out of this. Do you mind if we stop somewhere and get cleaned up?”
The sun was getting low in the sky, and the roads, which were not always well lit, were getting harder to navigate.
“No, you’re right,” Magaly said, and suddenly she felt a little nervous twitch, a different kind, not a nauseous kind, in her stomach. “That’s a great idea.”
Driving south, they found a cheap hotel in Guayama, by the southern side of the island. It was nowhere near the more exclusive hotels on the beach, and the room had taped-up windows and broken screens. But the air conditioner worked lovingly.
She called room service and asked them to run out for a bottle of rum and some soda.
In the meantime, Tony wrote up everything that had happened into Magaly’s laptop. Then he called his mother and aunt to make sure they were okay, although he said he didn’t think Frank Jr. would try anything else till he was back on his own home turf.
The rum arrived and Magaly poured them two strong drinks.
She thought about what they had gone through and the only thing she could think of to say was “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit,” Tony agreed. He sat down on the bed and said, “There sure are a lot of mosquitoes in this room.”
“I don’t see any,” Magaly said. “Ow. All right, maybe that one.”
“We better wash our clothes. We can wear towels while we’re here.”
Magaly looked at Tony and remembered how they used to be so long ago, when they were young and lean and crazy for each other. He looked older, more vulnerable, sitting there pulling his shirt off. She thought of the first time she had seen him undress. She made a decision.
“We don’t have to wear towels,” she said, unbuttoning her blouse and coming closer to him. An innocent trip, an investigative trip. She pulled him up to her. “Not if we don’t want to.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The day before they flew back to New York, Tony’s mother asked him to take her for a drive.
“Why don’t you ask Titi Delia?” he said.
“No, you go with me.”
“Ma, I really don’t want to put you at risk.”
“He’s better than he thinks he is,” Magaly said.
“No, no,” his moth
er said. “We take a little drive. Just me and you.”
So Tony drove his aunt’s little blue car very slowly, as his mother gave directions.
“Everyone is passing us,” he said.
“Let them. They ridiculous.”
She led him to the town of Bayamón, and once there to the Puerto Rican National Cemetery.
“Are we going to visit Abuela?” Tony asked.
“No, I saw her yesterday. Park over there, under the tree.”
“Then why are we here? Tell me you’re not showing me your burial plot. Because you’ve got a long life ahead of you.”
“Venga,” she said.
They walked for a long while in the cemetery. It was different from most cemeteries Tony had seen, not because of all the crosses, but because of all the palm trees waving their leaves above the tombstones. The ultimate Caribbean getaway.
“Aqui,” his mother said, finally.
Tony squinted at the tombstone his mother pointed to.
“This is your father,” she said. “You haven’t been here since you were a baby.”
The tombstone read “Juan Antonio Morán Ortiz.”
“I was eight.”
“You was still a baby.”
“Jerry comes with you every year to see this?”
“Yes,” she said. “But he stay in the car.”
“That sounds just like Jerry.”
“Your father was a good man. I met him at church,” she said. “The same day he made love to me in his car.”
“Ma!”
“He was a good man. He worked hard. Too hard.”
“But he left you. He left the family.”
“No, no, no,” she said. “He came here. He thought he could find work. He got a job at a factory. He used to send money for food. And then he stopped. Then his brother called me and told me he pass away. Heart attack.”
“I didn’t know that. Why didn’t I know that?”
“That’s the past,” she said, which Tony knew was her way of ending the subject. Before he could ask more, she said, “You know, that girl Magaly is very beautiful. She loves you.”
“Ma, we’re in a cemetery.”
“I didn’t say anything. You could make me some beautiful grandkids with her.”
“Don’t you already have enough?”
“Cranky. Always cranky. Marry that girl already. Show her what you got.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that.
“Ma. Do you want to go live with Jerry? Or do you want to stay in Brooklyn?”
“How? I can’t afford nothing.”
“Ma, I’m sorry. I wish I could find you a new place. I wish I had the money. I wish I wasn’t such a useless ass.”
“Dios mio,” she said. “You are not a useless ass. I don’t mind living with your brother. The neighborhood, it’s changing. It’s changed. My stores are not there. All my friends are gone, God have them in heaven. It’s time for me to go. You’ll be all right.”
“Okay, Ma. If you say so.”
“But you better visit!”
His mother crossed herself and then began to pray silently, moving her lips. Tony nodded at the tombstone. They both stood there in the sun by the grave.
While waiting for their plane to take off, Tony’s mother ate half a cheeseburger. Even though he had his own, he knew she would give him half of hers. He took it but didn’t eat it.
Magaly, who had only had a yogurt, took the half-a-burger. “You seem grumpy again,” she said. “You weren’t grumpy for like a whole day or two there, and now you’re grumpy again.”
Tony slid his French fries over to her. “Now that we’re going back, I’m angry, very angry. It’s not just Litvinchouk and Tomasello and the harassment, it’s the possibility that Patrick and Kirsten—”
“Were not the people you thought they were?”
“Yeah, and—”
“The fact that they may have murdered Rosa?”
“Yeah, of course that, but, well, I should have seen it. At least gave it a thought. I was an idiot.”
“Your investigative skills are a little dull, that’s all.”
“Well, I don’t have proof yet. And I need it. Listen,” he said. “I have a pretty good idea where to start. But there’s still something else that’s bothering me. This video evidence is fine, for a start, but it’s not the whole story. I want to go to the police with as much as I can—”
“You want to break the story? Pitch it to the New York Times?”
“First of all, it sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but something like that, yes. Second, I get that Patrick and Kirsten may have been blackmailing Litvinchouk and Tomasello, and that they may have had something to do with Rosa Irizarry’s disappearance and death. But then Patrick goes and gets himself slashed to death. Which seems like an awful lot to happen to one guy. I mean, it’s either cruel justice or a hell of a sucky coincidence.”
“I thought you thought coincidences only mean something because we try to make them mean something.”
Tony smirked. “Why do you remember everything I say?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like you say anything interesting.” She winked at him and then said, “Is there anything else I can do?”
“You’ve done plenty,” Tony said. “And I don’t want you to get into more trouble.”
“Please! I faced down guns and only threw up once. What’s your next step?”
“I have to talk to Bobbert about something he said, something that’s been bothering me.”
“If you need me, will you let me know?” she said.
“Yes,” he said, and then he kissed her.
From her seat, his mother clapped. “About time!”
The public announcement system announced a delay because of an incoming tropical storm. The takeoff was bumpy. The plane’s rivets clattered. As it began to climb, Tony reached and held Magaly’s hand.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Brandon Taylor’s vape needed to be where he could see it, or where he could get to it easily. If he could have, he’d have it permanently attached to him somehow. But it wasn’t like he was addicted or anything. He just loved vaping. After all, the desire to vape was miniscule compared to the cravings he used to feel for cigarettes. He used to think about smoking 24/7, and when the urge came, he never said no. But with vaping, no, with vaping, he didn’t really get a strong urge to use it. Well, all right, he did, maybe, sure, but nowhere near the intensity of an analog.
And now that he was thinking about it, he had to have one, but because his stupid new roommates were in, he had to go out. Katrina didn’t care, but Scott, Christa, and Stacey were adamant about what they called his “cloud coverage.” So it was out on the sidewalk for him, like a steam-powered leper.
It was a lovely morning for a smoke. Not a cloud in the sky. Only the ones he made himself.
He didn’t mind his new roommates, really. Well, he did. He really preferred his old roommates—they were all smokers—but he had recently had to vacate the loft he shared with them. Luxury apartments on South 1st, glass façade, glass-enclosed mini-balconies, floor-to-ceiling windows. $5,500/month. The developers were supposed to divvy up the loft into four bedrooms, but Brandon and his three roommates lived without walls for months. And then the building was suddenly condemned, and they were forced to leave the building ASAP and go scrambling for apartments. Brandon had landed this three-bedroomer, sleeping in a sleeping bag at the foot of someone else’s bed.
But he had heard good things about Hoboken. Nice views, quick commute.
He was thinking about going to McCarren to see if those pétanque guys were around when out of the fog around his head he saw a man on a bicycle coming toward him, wearing a balaclava. The bike looked familiar.
He saw the blade and instantly he thought: “SLASHER.”
And then it was too late, the blade cutting through his brown skin and leaving him dead on the sidewalk, his vape still tightly clutched in his hand.
; CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Bobbert Swiatowski sat in his office staring at the computer screen in front of him, at the few words he’d typed more than an hour ago. Light streamed in through a small window at the top of the outer wall. He wished he drank because it seemed to help other people when they got like this. But he didn’t, and besides it was only nine o’clock in the morning.
There was a knock on the door frame.
It was Tony. He looked tan and healthy, thinner—but that was probably because of the roof thing. But he didn’t look grumpy. No, instead, he looked angry. In that moment, Bobbert knew that Tony knew.
“I’ve been expecting this,” Bobbert said.
Tony picked up a stack of copies of the Sentinel and saw down in the guest chair.
“I started thinking when you said a burglar came in through the bathroom window,” Tony said. “You were probably just trying to say something but weren’t thinking straight. You and I both happen to know that sadly, very sadly sometimes, we are not gifted with a window in our bathroom here. Now, you could have made a mistake and meant that tiny thing.” Tony pointed to the small window in Bobbert’s office. “Or even the window in the writers’ office. But today they all look just as dusty and dirty and painted shut as they did a month ago, a year ago. No one broke in here. So you lied, and it was a bad lie. Unless it was a purposeful lie. Maybe you wanted me to know.”
Bobbert had a hard time looking at Tony in the face. Instead, he focused on the calendar behind and above Tony’s head. “I’ve thought about a lot since I saw you at the hospital. I’ve thought about a lot of things.”
Tony said, “Whoever wanted the flash drives from Patrick’s place tried to break in there. The Stollers told me. Their dog warned them. So figuring out that I had copies of the flash drives was no leap of logic for anyone watching Patrick’s place, or who may have been following me.
“But only one person could have told Litvinchouk and Tomasello that Gabby had flash drives from Patrick as well. That was why she was attacked. But she was smart enough not to carry them with her all the time. She told me she had them in her apartment with her three other roommates, and at least two are unemployed at all times, so there’s always someone home. Good security.”
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