Shadow of a Thief

by Norman Green

  “Yeah? You wanna see it? Now?”

  “Why not. William, you ain’t gonna get that damn thing no cleaner. What you doing tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” William said. He rinsed the urn out one last time, then gave up on it. “Tell me, Tommy, what am I doing tonight?” He stuck the coffee urn in a closet and wiped his hands on a paper towel.

  Tommy dug in his pocket, fished out his car keys and tossed them to the kid. “You’re driving me and Saul here into Manhattan. We wanna go look at a building down in Alphabet City.”

  William drove carefully and well, with little of the aggression common among city drivers, and me. He kept glancing at me in his rearview mirror. “Saul,” he finally said. “You look like you got a story.”

  Tommy smiled and looked out the window. William glared at him. “Tell me why,” he said, “the craziest motherfuckers in the room always know you, Tommy. Tell me why.”

  “What’s that make you?” Tommy asked him.

  William didn’t reply, he looked at me in his rearview mirror again.

  Why not, I thought. “I met Tommy . . .” I had to stop and think about the math, which, as my friend Gelman has observed, isn’t my strong point. “A lot of years ago. When I walked in off Bedford Avenue, I didn’t know anything about you guys, I didn’t know what you did and I didn’t think anything would work on me, but it was a shot in the dark. I’d been on the street a couple years, at that point.”

  “You was on the street? For real? In Brooklyn?”

  “Here and there. I’d been in Brooklyn a while. I’d been living with my mother before that, but she was locked up by that time.”

  “Why they lock her up?”

  “She went crazy.”

  “They put you away for that?”

  “I don’t mean crazy in the usual sense. Criminally insane.”

  “Oh shit,” William said. “Sorry, man.”

  “Nothing to it,” I told him. “But you know how it is, William, you’re just a kid, you’re on your own, you got no one to point you the right way. Picked up a few substances, you know how that goes, found out too late I couldn’t put ’em down. Started wondering what would be a good way to kill yourself. I mean, I figured the shit was gonna take me out eventually, but it seemed like it was taking way too long. What I came up with, right, was I was gonna take a nice warm bath, shoot up after I got into the water, then try to cut my wrists just as the rush hit.”

  “You’re still here,” William said.

  “Yeah. Couldn’t find a bathtub.”

  Tommy was laughing softly and William glared at him again. “Motherfucker, you got no fuckin’ heart, you know that?”

  But by that time I was laughing, too.

  “So how was you makin’ it? You get into sales and distribution?”

  “No. I was a thief.”

  Tommy snorted.

  “Was. Past tense. Now I’m a contractor. But I started out stealing cars, there was a joint down on Flushing Avenue, they would tell you what they needed. Guy liked Hondas and Toyotas. Then the dude got busted, none of the other chop shops would trust me so I had to start doing break-ins and whatever. I liked warehouses the best, if I was careful I could hit them a few times before they woke up.”

  “Then you found us down on Bedford. Did you stick?”

  “I did okay for a while.”

  “What happened? Was it a skirt? Skirt take you out?”

  “You got to leave the ladies alone a while, William. Didn’t Tommy tell you that?”

  Tommy threw the kid a look. “Yeah,” William said. “I do recall, you know, hearing a word or two about the subject, ’bout once every five minutes . . .” He looked back at me. “So you gonna stick this time?”

  “I’m here now. What about you?”

  “No, man, I’m stickin’. I know what I want.”

  “You like Brooklyn that much?”

  “It ain’t Brooklyn,” he said. “My pops took off when I was six. My moms left me with her aunt. She was around for a while after that, but I ain’t seen her now in years. My mom’s aunt, she was okay. They made a place for me. But, you know, what you said, you got nobody to do for you, you start to run with the wrong people and shit, and they use you. You know, they get caught with the product, they goin’ away, but you just a kid, what they gonna do? Put you in juvie? So what? But then the day comes, man, you know how it is. You gotta go one way or the other. That’s when I found Tommy and them . . . And once you know, it’s just different. You know there’s a way. You know you don’t have to do none of that shit no more. Tommy went and fucked up all my excuses. And when you go into that meeting and everybody is glad to see you, and shit, and you miss a couple nights they come looking, you know what I’m saying . . . It’s different. Bedford is where I need to be at. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “So, you been in Brooklyn this whole time?”

  “No, William. I been all over. I only got back to Brooklyn a few weeks back.”

  “Where was you at before this?”

  “Maine.”

  “Maine?” He said it like I’d said Mars. “What’s up there?”

  “Ocean,” I told him. “Rocks. Fish.”

  “Yeah? You hit meetings while you was up there?”

  “No.”

  “They didn’t have no meetings there?”

  “I’m guessing they probably had enough meetings, but I didn’t want to hear it. Not right then.”

  “You was still tryina figure it out,” William said, nodding. “Done that. Mix up a little bit a this and a little bit a that, some of this in the morning and some of that at night, I get it right this time, man, you’ll see, no, serious, I be all right this time around, don’t look at that, that ain’t nothing but a little blood, you know what I’m saying, that’ll heal right up . . .” Tommy and William were both laughing, but it was all right, because the kid was right. The oldest lie in the world, and the most lethal, is the one you tell yourself. I’m okay, I can do this myself. This time will be different.

  I got this.

  William turned on to Tenth Street and parked next to a hydrant halfway up the block. Tenth was quieter, that time of night, than I had thought it would be. “That’s it, up there,” I said. “Where the awning is. Los Paraíso.”

  “Bet you didn’t think you’d be looking at paradise right here in Manhattan, did you William?” Tommy said.

  “Nah,” the kid said. “Way I figure, Garden of Eden was probably down where they got Rio now. I seen pictures, they got Jesus up on the hill, blue ocean, blue sky, green jungle. Good place for snakes. Didn’t even look real. Looked like a painting.”

  “Tenth could be in a painting,” I said. “Van Gogh, maybe.”

  “This block ain’t so bad. Why did they brick up them hotel windows? One on each side of the door right there. Did a shit job of it, too.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Your eyes must be better than mine.”

  “Bricks be all crooked,” he said.

  “Well, anyway, those street-level spaces are not part of the hotel. Hotel starts on the second floor. You don’t think this block stinks? Got your gang kids up on the corner . . .”

  “No,” William said. “This place is happening. Gentrifyin’. All the gays, the waiters and the musicians and all them have packed up and went out to Greenpoint, they can’t afford to live here no more. You could buy one of these buildings right here, you could double your money in about five years. Double your money, man. If them bricked-up storefronts ain’t part of the hotel, what are they?”

  “I don’t know. Probably empty.”

  “Empty?” William sounded skeptical.

  “You would live on this block?”

  He looked around. “Little close to the projects. Not horrible, though.”

  “What about the kids up on the corner selling dope?”

  “I see ’em,” William said. “But they ain’t selling nothing.”

  “What do you mean?�
��

  “Look at ’em up there. They just hanging. Ain’t got they minds on business.” He was right, the few kids that were left didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the potential customers coming up the block. “Boss man come by and catch ’em, he tear they little candy asses up.”

  “Maybe he’s scouting for a better corner to do business on,” I said. “If the neighborhood is coming up like you say, maybe he won’t last here much longer.”

  “Tell you the truth,” William said, “he shoulda been gone already. And them guys runnin’ ladies outa that hotel, they ain’t gonna make it neither. New people ain’t about puttin’ up with that shit, not around they kids. You said these guys ain’t been busted yet?”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “Funny. I’ma go talk to them kids one minute. Be right back.” He reached for the door.

  “No, I’ll go.” Tommy and I said it, almost at the same time.

  William turned and looked from my face to Tommy’s and back. “You guys are old, man. Them kids ain’t gonna tell you shit. Sit tight.”

  Tommy sighed and sat back. We watched William go. “Nice kid. You got him living in your house, am I right?”

  “How’d you guess?” Tommy said.

  “You set this up?”

  “No,” Tommy said. “But I was watching him wrestle with that coffeepot while you were telling me about this joint. Seemed to me that William would probably see things that you and I might miss. Us being old, like he said, and whatnot.”

  “Speak for yourself. For real, that’s why you had him drive?”

  Tommy was watching William. “Do you remember what it felt like, when you first came in? Remember the first time you found out you could do something useful? Wash a pot, say. Put some chairs away. Sweep up the butts out by the back door.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wasn’t that a revelation? In that one moment you go from a lying, thieving, conniving punk-ass junkie to a contributing member of something. Why are you still here, Saul? Why are you still alive? You ever think about that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What possible reason could there be for you and me to be here? When I was in the life, I should have died a hundred times over. William up there, he gets to know you a little bit better, maybe he’ll tell you about the bucket of shit he was in when he walked through the door a while back. He could have gone away for a long time, but he didn’t. Got lucky, did some of the right things. And if your mother was just a little bit quicker, she could have stuck you good and proper. And I’m guessing that wasn’t the only time you went dancing with Mr. D.”

  “No, maybe not.”

  “I’m gonna make you a promise, Saul. If you really make it, okay, if you get your shit together this time, you’re gonna be sitting in a room some night, and some guy is gonna come walking through the door who needs to hear it from you. Not from me, not William, not anybody else, either. You. And if you ain’t there, he turns around and walks right back out.” He stared at me. “I don’t care if you believe this or not, but there’s a reason you’re still here.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  William was squatted down on his haunches, making him shorter than most of the kids who were gathered around him. “The kid was right. They wouldn’t have talked to either of us.”

  “No,” Tommy said. “Probably not. So maybe you’ll see some good from tonight. But William will, too.”

  “Doing something for me, you mean. Something he ain’t getting paid for.”

  “Saul, you know what they call us in the emergency room? Users.” He laughed. “How’s that make you feel? Where I work, they don’t even know. They got no idea what I was. All they know about me is that I’m good to have around when you’re in a tight spot. Guy who did my performance review last summer told me so. Said, ‘I can’t promote you and I can’t get you no more money, Tom, but you’re a good man and we’re lucky to have you.’ I woulda took the money, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t mind, Saul. I don’t mind being a good man to have around.”

  “Beats being a user.”

  “That it does. Here come William, let’s see what he got.”

  William slid back into the driver’s seat. “Fernando,” he said. “Fernando was with the 10–60s, some bunch a losers who mostly run downtown from here. Fernando used to come once a day, more or less, drop off the product, pick up the money, keep everyone in line. The kids ain’t seen Fernando in a couple weeks. Day or so after he went missing, some friend of Fernando name of Domonic showed up, said he’d be running things a while, but he got himself put in the hospital and he ain’t been back. Kids don’t know what to do, they still scared of Fernando, they know if he shows back up again, they better have his money, so they sittin’ on it.”

  I didn’t see what all that had to do with me. “Interesting. Was it a big Haitian who bounced Domonic around?”

  “No. Kids say it was cops. I mean, you always hear that, but it don’t happen that often. Cops don’t generally put you in the hospital and then walk away, not no more, anyhow. They go to that much trouble, they gonna lock your ass up, that’s the business they’re in. But the kids are convinced it was two white cops worked over Domonic. Busted him up, told him not to come back.”

  There it was again. “So you don’t think it was cops?”

  William looked up and down the street while he thought about it. “I woulda said no,” he said. “But in this neighborhood, okay, them kids ain’t been rousted outa here, and them ladies doin’ business up in that hotel ain’t been busted, and two and two don’t add up to five. You know what I mean? And cops go with hookers like salt go with pepper. Just sayin.”

  “What’d you tell the kids?”

  “What could I tell ’em, man?” he said, in a sadder, quieter voice. “Go home? Go back to school? Them kids are throwaways, man. They got nothing to go back to. There’s nothing I can tell them.”

  “The more I see of Manhattan,” Tommy said, “the more I like Brooklyn. Let’s get the hell out of here. Saul promised us a cup of coffee.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I spent the night in a noisy little hotel in Sheepshead Bay that Tommy knew about. I was not, initially, a big hit with the night manager, given my general appearance and lack of luggage, but there’s nothing like a couple of crisp Ben Franklins to inspire confidence and win new friends. After those two bills changed hands, all I got from the guy was one raised eyebrow. “It’s a long story,” I told him.

  “I have no doubt.” His tone said that he’d heard them all.

  But, of course, I couldn’t sleep.

  A late-night NA meeting will do that to you sometimes. It can wind your mental mainspring tight and set you digging in your attic whether you like it or not. I sorted through the junkpile for a while, but there was really no profit in it, not that night. I was not what I could have been, I got that. Some other time, I told myself. Some other time I’ll figure it out, see if there isn’t some path by which I might become a good man to have around when you’re in a tight spot. In the meantime it seemed an unrealistic goal, so to break the spell I forced myself to think about William, and his reaction to the Hotel Los Paraíso. It seemed obvious that William had come to the that meeting right off the street, because he knew more about the retail drug trade that any casual observer would. But credit where credit is due, I found out over late-night coffee that the kid was back in school. And in the years I’d been gone, Tommy, the ex-biker, had gotten his EMT ticket and now worked for a private ambulance company.

  I’d never had much luck with school. And how do you do that anyway, how do you decide, okay, I’ve had enough of being a thief, now I want to go about the process of becoming . . .

  What, exactly?

  Shit, thieving was all I was ever good at.

  And someone had my prints on a water glass. Ironic, I guess, someone had broken into my room, for a change, and stolen something of mine, with my prints on it, then planted it at a crime scene. Funn
y, even, I suppose.

  What were the chances that someone had been a cop? Someone with hep C had killed five women in NYC in the past two years. And someone else, a cop or someone with good cop connections, had heard about it, killed Melanie Wing first and then Annabel, copied the MO.

  Another thing that bothered me was William’s confidence that the drug kids would not be tolerated on Avenue C and Tenth, not if it was a neighborhood on the rise like he said. “No street girls, neither,” he’d said. “You didn’t notice? No street corner ladies.” Yeah, but there were plenty inside the hotel, I told him. Even some independents. “Different business,” William said. “But it is funny that they’re still there.”

  You think the cops made the street girls move, I’d asked him.

  William hadn’t thought so. “The serious money is up inside that hotel. They got a real nice spot. You think them guys wanna drag ass all the way out to Long Island City someplace? No way. They wanna stay right where they at. Last thing they wanna see is the neighbors saying, ‘Look at these damn kids selling that shit up on that corner, we got to clean this block up.’ Nah-ah. Something big and bad out there in the dark, comes out once in a while to keep all the little fish scared off.”

  I owed William.

  “Mac, you sleeping?”

  “You fucker . . . I’m too old for this shit, Saul, I need to get my sleep.”

  “You remember the place I told you about, down on Tenth?”

  Mac sighed. “Yeah. Hookers.”

  “Mujer de la vida.”

  “Okay,” he said groggily. “Call girls, not hookers, so what?”

  “You told me to follow the money, you remember that?”

  “Yeah,” he said, coming awake. We were in his backyard now, talking about something he knew. “So how many girls they running?”

  Nine, Gelman told me, plus a few part-timers. Did he say nine? “Call it ten or twelve. We talking a lot of money here, am I right?”

  “You kidding? Do the math, Saul.”

  “Arithmetic ain’t my forte.”

  “Okay, figure ten, to make it easy. Ten ladies times a net of what? A grand a day, per? Something like that. Figure you got a thirty percent overhead . . .” I could almost hear the gears spinning in his head. “Annual net of something over two million, would be my seat-of-the-pants estimate. But I’m probably close.”