“Ai, don’t say it that way. But, Chino, we know how that turns out.”
“Are you sure?” was what Tony was going to say, but he figured she was trying to make things easy for him. They had had fun, she was trying to say, so it was time to move on.
“What? What were you going to say?” she said.
“I was going to say something in Latin, but then I thought better of it.”
“Enough with the pretentious maxims, thank you.”
“I’ll just say, ‘Good luck to both of us then.’ Buena suerte.”
“That I like,” she said.
Tony kissed her on the cheek, awkwardly.
“Are you smelling my hair?”
“No, why would I smell your hair?”
He left soon after. A late summer heat wave had started, burning up the pavement, shimmering off the sidewalk. He thought it was too bad people weren’t allowed to walk around naked, it was that hot. Still, it wasn’t too hot to play pétanque.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Out in front of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, a brightly printed placard on an easel read:
Doo Wop Extravaganza!!
Starring The Excellents, The Accords + The Jackson Avenue Five & Jimmy and the Brooklyneers
$15 Proceeds benefit OLMC Youth Programs and Activities
No outside food or drinks allowed—Lower Stage
“Whaddya know,” Hadid said to himself. He could hear the music already. He walked in and down marble steps that reminded him of junior high school.
He paid his fifteen dollars and got a ticket for the buffet. He could see through an open door to the stage, and there was Petrosino in his green tux, standing next to three middle-aged guys wearing matching getups, white shirts, red bowties.
Only the first three rows of folding chairs were occupied and just barely. The other ten rows were all empty. Children ran around, a group of priests chatted on the side, and flocks of elderly people milled and nodded like pigeons.
Hadid didn’t recognize the song but he liked the tune. Petrosino and his boys moved pretty good for old guys. At the buffet, he got himself a big plate of lasagna and macaroni salad and potato salad. He took a seat in the empty back row.
On stage, Petrosino cleared his throat and said, “That was ‘A Place in My Heart’ by Joey Columbo and The Del-Chords, 1962, Taurus Records. The label only says Joey’s name, but he did it with the Del-Chords. All these guys were from Brooklyn, and Joey didn’t live too far from me. He used to run a lot of the sock hops we went to as kids. Some of you may remember him. Okay, this next song is for my beautiful granddaughter, Brittany.” Petrosino pointed to a young girl in a pink dress, running around and oblivious to what was happening on stage. “It was originally done by the Camelots, 1963, ’64. I hope you like it.”
The men began picking their legs up one at a time as if stomping and then, all with their right hands, tapped their mouths and sang, “Way-whoa, way-nan-nee, way-whoa, way-nan-nee, way-whoa.”
To his surprise, Hadid found himself tapping his feet along to the music.
After the song, Petrosino said to his granddaughter, “That was for you, honey. I know how you love Pocahontas.” But the little girl had her head down on one of the seats.
Hadid heard the little girl sob, saying, “No. Princess Elsa.”
After the set, Petrosino came right over to Hadid and shook his hand. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Nice tux,” Hadid said. “But you were great. Great job.”
“You should have heard me back when I could still do a decent falsetto.” Petrosino swung down to catch his granddaughter in a hug, but she wiggled away. He stood up. “Kids.”
“I didn’t know people still listened to this music.” Hadid was going to add something about hearing aids but dropped it.
“Doo-wop is forever, my friend. Good music is timeless.”
“I’m into more modern classics: Madonna, U2, stuff like that.”
“That stuff’s okay. I guess. Hey, how’s the Bronx?”
“Home sweet home. Thanks for the tip on that security job. I got an interview next week.”
“Oh yeah. Glad to hear it. You’re a good man.”
“Thanks, Petr…”
“Jimmy,” said Petrosino.
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“And how’s things with the wife?”
“One thing at a time.”
“Right-o. C’mon, I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Is your wife here? I’d like to meet her.”
“Yeah, sure. Just look for the Buick in the blue dress.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Litvinchouk shut off his station wagon. They were parked at the extreme end of the parking lot at the Sloatsburg rest stop in upstate New York. They were on their way to one of his friends in Albany. They would lay low there for a little while and assess their futures. They had spent the past week in hotels in Long Island, avoiding the police and Frank Jr., who had somehow found out about them. Litvinchouk was sure it was his former pupil’s inquiring and mischievous ways that brought Frank Jr.’s wrath down upon them. He considering calling Noah to take care of Moran, but what was done was done. What would be the point of revenge? This was the life he really wanted, wasn’t it? With his giant shiksa with her amazing mouth.
Still, he missed his kids an awful lot.
“C’mon, I don’t like dawdling like this. We have to get a move on,” said Jackie Tomasello, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “And you sometimes take a long time is alls I’m saying.”
“Exegi monumentum aere perennius,” said Litvinchouk, who opened his zipper. A cool breeze came through the open car windows. What a pleasure this was going to be!
“I’m all yours,” he said.
“I cannot resist this thing,” she said. But before she made another move—the station wagon was slammed in the back. Its rear wheels reared up.
“Jesus Christ!” Jackie said.
“Merda!” Litvinchouk had blood on his forehead from hitting the steering wheel.
“What is it?” she said. But she saw what he was looking at through the rearview mirror. It was Frank Jr. Her husband and his favorite goon, the one with the scar on his face.
Frank Jr. came up to the side of the car. “So, where do you lovebirds think you’re going?”
Litvinchouk surrendered to the inevitable. Quod differtur, non aufertur.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
All he ever wanted to do was be in a band, didn’t matter if it was good or not.
Gunnar Neumann biked fast as he could, jumping curbs, cutting off cars, working up a good sweat on a mid-August night. He had been staying with Lizbeth, an old bandmate from his old band the Plaintive Gunsuckers, occupying her couch in Bushwick, sometimes occupying her bed, like old times. But that afternoon, when she was out at her job at Sephora, she texted him saying she’d just “FCKIN SAW YR FACE” on the cover of that day’s Metro and that he should “YR FOR REALZ FACE. GT THE FCK OU NW.”
Gunnar had planned to stay another week or two or more. But Lizbeth was the serious type, so before she got back and kicked him in the balls, which she had done in the past, several times, he got his things and, at twilight, headed out.
He put on his hoodie and wrapped a bandanna over the bandages on the lower part of his face like a bandit. His lovingly curated beard collection was far behind him now.
He had emigrated to Brooklyn from Bernau bei Berlin, to live in the city where some of his all-time favorite musicians use to work and love and dream. Iggy Pop! The Ramones! Patti Smith! Blondie!
Now he was headed for Harlem, where three people he knew from his other old band, 7 Pods of Pepper, lived. They were cramped into a studio in a recently renovated brownstone and could barely make the rent. So maybe they’d be open to making room for one more body. He just had to cross the Willy B Bridge to get to Manhattan. The cops would be watching the trains, he figured, watching for cars. But there couldn’t be enough cops to watch the bike p
ath, right?
To get to the bridge, he took back streets as much as he could. Still, he felt like he was being watched.
On Metropolitan Avenue, he stopped and looked back. Far behind him, there was some Mexican delivery boy on a bicycle. A nobody.
Gunnar crossed into Continental Army Plaza to approach the bridge. In the plaza was a statue of George Washington on a horse facing the bridge and pointing his back and the horse’s ass toward Brooklyn. The plaza was empty except for beer cans and garbage and two delivery boys hanging out by their bikes. No cops anywhere.
He sped up and onto the pedestrian walkway on the northern side of the bridge, standing up and pumping the pedals to take the steep uphill. The on-ramp was caged on all sides with metal barriers painted a dyspeptic pink. He didn’t see anyone, not even a Hasidim, who were always walking back and forth on the bridge.
At the top of the on-ramp, he looked back. Another guy on a bike, standing up, pumping his pedals, way behind him.
Wait. Was that the same delivery boy he spotted back on Metropolitan?
Couldn’t be. They just all looked the same.
There was a right-angle turn to the left and then immediately another to the right. As Gunnar rode through, he passed three guys standing by their bikes. More Spanish kids. They were all in hooded sweatshirts. Local kids, getting high probably.
Most of the walkway sat above the bridge’s car traffic and next to the tracks for the elevated M and J trains. They rattled by every few minutes, in a cloud of ground metal that got into your lungs and into your snot. The sun had set over the city, and underneath the canopy of the brick towers and the suspension cables of the bridge, the walkway was dark. The best light was from the electric skyline of Manhattan ahead. The city that never sleeps, Gunnar thought. The city where he had come to fulfill all his dreams.
Just as Gunnar passed the Brooklyn side of the bridge—the water looming underneath where he was, the abandoned factory with the gigantic “Domino Sugar” logo way over on his right—he came upon a group of teenagers, lined up on either side of the path.
He recognized it for what it was. A gauntlet.
He spun the bike around. They were there, too. They moved closer together, blocking the way.
There must have been twenty of them, maybe thirty. All Spanish. All gangbangers in the same clothes, same colors. Their uniform.
Before he could react, one of them came from the side and knocked him and his bike down. Another kicked him, with metal-tipped boots. He reached for the machete, inched the handle toward him by his fingertips. But just as he grasped it, someone stepped on his hand, pried it out, took it away.
They were saying things to each other, yelling, in Spanish. He didn’t understand a word. They didn’t even try to take his money. They continued to kick him, pulled him away from his bike. He tried to crawl out, to make it back down the bridge, even if it had to be on his knees.
He felt ribs break. And his cheekbone. Teeth.
And then he was being lifted. They raised him up and above themselves, and he was in the air like a crowd surfer at a rave.
Then one hand after another moved him forward.
He realized he had been screaming, telling them to leave him alone, pleading for his life. His voice was hoarse from it.
He felt a breeze. He wasn’t over the walkway anymore. He was being held right at its edge.
And then, first one voice said, and then another, shouting, chanting: “For Beyoncé!”
Gunnar thought it was a weird thing for them to say, since he didn’t read the U.S. newspapers, so he didn’t know that Beyoncé was the name of the girlfriend of Eladio Cortés, head of the Southside Quistadoreys, the girlfriend who was accidentally shot and killed by a police officer, as part of an investigation into the local slasher killings. He had no idea that they blamed him for her death, in a roundabout way.
And with a final chant, they flung him far over the side, out over the protective railing and out over the shiny darkness of the East River.
There was nothing underneath him, like the end of a billion nightmares. Falling, spinning, he smelled the chemical smell of the river, wondered how long it would take to hit its surface. He wondered if he would survive and be able to swim to shore. He wondered what diseases he would catch in the dirty water. An East River ferry to India Street was passing right at that moment, and before Gunnar collided with its prow—at almost a hundred miles per hour, the impact like a gigantic bullet hitting his entire body all at once—he looked again and saw the electric lights of the skyline of Manhattan. The City of Dreams. The City that Never Sleeps.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe numerous pints of thanks to beta readers Stoney Emshwiller, Andrew Nette, Julia Pomeroy, Ernesto Santos, Alex Segura, and Erich Wood, with special perfect Manhattans of gratitude to Ralph Westerhoff and Christine Debany, for their guidance, their glazed ham, and their friendship. Thanks to forensics experts Barbara Butcher and Jonathan Hayes. Thanks to the super-supportive members of the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, but especially to Bernie Whalen, for his police insights, and to Gerald M. Levine and Sheila J. Levine, who said, “We might be able to recommend an agent.” Thanks to Diane Stockwell, for being the kind agent kindly recommended by Gerald and Sheila. Mille grazie to the incomparable Annamaria Alfieri, for believing in me more than I did. Thanks to Ellen Finnegan, my Creative Writing teacher at Brooklyn Tech High School, in whose lively and encouraging class I wrote my first crime fiction story. Saludades to my friends and family from the Southside—there are way too many to name, but they know who they are, and this, I hope, won’t be the last time I thank them — and to the bricks, the blacktop, the smell of the Southside itself for inspiring me. Thanks to my Brooklyn brother Reed Farrel Coleman, the mensch of mystery writers, and thanks to and a fawning fan crush for Sara Paretsky, who was generous enough to read this work. Thanks to Stacey Emenecker, for insight into PA, to Leen Al-Bassam and Charles Salzberg for needed and heeded advice, and to Scott Emmons, for looking over my mediocre Latin. Thanks to Eric Campbell and Lance Wright of Down & Out Books for liking my words enough to publish them. And super special, lifetime of Malibu Bay Breezes thanks to my lovely wife, Denise, for putting up with a writer in the house.
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Born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Richie Narvaez is the author of Roachkiller and Other Stories, which received the 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection. His work has appeared in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, Latin@ Rising: An Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Long Island Noir, Mississippi Review, Murdaland, Pilgrimage, Shotgun Honey, and Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder. He teaches writing at Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. He lives with his wife in the Bronx. Hipster Death Rattle is his first novel.
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BOOKS BY RICHIE NARVAEZ
Roachkiller and Other Stories
Hipster Death Rattle
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Here is a preview from Ten-Seven, the fourth Penns River crime novel by Dana King.
Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.
1.
Vicki Leydig didn’t gamble. Drank a little, and the Allegheny Casino had the cheapest booze in Penns River. When Mary Zelesko asked if she wanted to go to the casino—oh, and Doug Stirnweiss would be there—Vicki thought a few beers might not be a bad idea, summer coming on after a miserable winter.
She and Doug maybe on the brink of becoming a couple. Mary—a primary source on all Doug-related scoop—said he would’ve asked her for sure if they’d met a few months earlier, before his divorce became final. Two years since the formal separation, Doug as checked out of that relationship as he’d ever be, the final decree hit him like a death in the family. Which it was, Vicki thought, in a way. The death of a family. Two little kids Doug adored. She liked that about him, that it meant some
thing, the recognized end of what had been the focus of his life.
Doug not much of a gambler, either. Told her once he’d made the obligatory trip to the casino when it opened, lost five dollars in a slot machine, didn’t make another appearance until table games came in last spring. Liked blackjack because it was quick and didn’t require a lot of concentration like poker or craps. Left him free to bust stones with the other players, like he was now, Vicki and Mary on stools near the table, drinking beer and watching and listening.
“What’s that on your hand, man?” Doug talking to the guy at the next stool, early thirties, hair, beard, and waist all in need of a trim.
“Steelers logo.”
“My ass. Let me see that thing.” To the dealer: “Hit me.”
Bust. The guy held out his hand. Doug took hold of it for a better look. “That is the sorriest Steelers logo I have ever seen. What’d they soak you for?”
The guy passed the other hand over his cards, sticking on eighteen. “To be fair, they didn’t have much to work with.”
“What, your hand the wrong shape for tattoos or something?”
“There was another tattoo there already.” Dealer hit on fifteen, drew a six. Bastard. “They were covering it up.”
“What was the old one?”
“Girl’s name.” Bets were made.
“Really?” Doug pulled the hand for a closer look.
“Can I have that back?”
“I’m just looking.”
“How bad’s your eyesight?”
Doug released the hand, checked his cards. “I’m good.”
They played a couple of hands. Doug tried to start a conversation with the dealer, a real sourpuss more interested in checking out Vicki and Mary than blackjack.
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