Nasty Cutter

by Tim O'Mara

  ‘No,’ Carlos said, his eyes on his mom. ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘That saves us a lot of time. You want to tell us why you felt the need to bring a weapon to school, Carlos?’

  He shrugged. ‘I wanted to show off, I guess. One of my friends told you I had it, right. Somebody snitched?’

  ‘Nobody snitched,’ I said. ‘Somebody – a friend – was looking out for you. They were worried you’d get yourself in trouble.’

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘I got suspended, didn’t I?’

  ‘Bigger trouble than that. Kids with blades sometimes end up using them.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have done that,’ his mother said. She looked tired, and I knew she had to go to work after this meeting; she was another parent at risk of pissing off her boss because her kid had done something. ‘He’s not that kind of boy.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But having a weapon on you can sometimes make you think you’re more powerful than you are. It can lead to bad decision-making.’ I turned to Elaine. ‘That’s why I asked the school counselor to be here.’

  ‘You gonna make me go to counseling?’ Carlos asked, not pleased with that possibility.

  ‘We’re not going to make you do anything, Carlos,’ Elaine said. ‘We’d like you to choose to go to counseling. The same way you chose to bring a knife to school.’

  Truth be told, we were going to make him go to counseling. That was the deal I’d made with my boss. Carlos gets to stay at our school, but he sees Ms Stiles once a week for individual counseling and once for group. He was getting off easy, and Elaine convinced me to make it seem like it was his choice. Give him some sense of the power he was obviously looking for.

  I explained to Carlos and his mother what the other option was. It didn’t take Carlos long to make the right choice.

  ‘OK,’ Elaine said. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon during gym.’

  ‘I can’t go to gym?’ Carlos said.

  ‘We all have to make sacrifices,’ I said. ‘This is one of yours. You’re going to like talking with Ms Stiles. She’s very good at what she does.’

  Mrs Negron nodded. Carlos was not happy. Too bad. I wrapped up the meeting, told Mrs Negron we’d be in touch, and sent Carlos off to class. When it was all over, Elaine said, ‘That was easier than I thought.’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘is why we get the big money.’

  The last of the kids heading home had gone. Quite a few were still hanging around the playground – some of them actually playing – while the rest just talked and hung out, knowing that as soon as they got home that was it for the day. Most of my kids lived in neighborhoods where a lot of their parents wouldn’t let them out after school. Hence, the longer they stayed ‘at school’ – even if that meant the playground – they could enjoy the company of their friends and avoid getting to their homework.

  I was heading up the steps to the school when my cell phone rang. It was Allison so I stopped and answered.

  ‘You didn’t get enough of me yesterday?’ I said.

  ‘I think Charles didn’t get enough of you, Ray. Again, it’s a good thing I’m not the jealous type. I just got off the phone with him, and you were a major topic of our conversation.’

  ‘What about the other topic of conversation?’ I asked.

  ‘His expert came by as promised,’ she said. ‘He studied the piece for over an hour and was quite impressed.’

  ‘What exactly did he say?’

  ‘He said, and I quote, “I see no reason to believe it is not the genuine item.”’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘It’s the real deal?’

  ‘That’s not exactly what he said, Ray. He needs more time to confer with his Klee expert, but at the moment, there’s none of the obvious signs of it being a forgery.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, almost to myself. I waved to a few teachers as they headed down the stairs. Josephine Levine had her usual large bag, which I knew was stuffed with lots of writing assignments that she’d be grading tonight. She gave me a big smile anyway. ‘Did he say anything about what it might be worth?’

  ‘He did.’

  She made me wait. She enjoyed teasing me when the opportunity arose. Most of the time I enjoyed it. This was not one of those times.

  ‘And …’ I said.

  ‘And … he said if it is a genuine Klee, it could be valued at over half a mil, maybe even pushing seven figures.’

  ‘Holy fucking shit.’

  ‘That’s not the term he used, Ray. But it’s close.’

  And we were just walking around the city with it yesterday as if it were nothing more than some Chinese takeout. What the hell was Mr Stern doing with a painting that could possibly be worth over half a million dollars?

  ‘And that was only one highlight of my day,’ Allison said.

  ‘Jesus, Ally. I thought my days were interesting. What else happened?’

  ‘Billy Taylor called me an hour ago.’

  ‘To tell you that his brother told him not to talk with you?’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ she said. ‘He said he wants to talk with me. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Even though his brother forbade him?’

  ‘It seemed to me that he wanted to talk to me because his brother forbade him. He seemed rather clear on that point.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He said he was tired of people telling him what to do and what not to do, and who to talk to and who not to talk to. He sounded like the way you describe your kids.’

  I gave that some thought. ‘Tomorrow, huh? That’s pretty quick.’ She’d just asked him about it three days ago at Marty’s shiva.

  ‘There’s more,’ she said.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘He said he’ll only talk to me if you’re there.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘He say why he wants me there?’

  ‘He did,’ she said. ‘He said your father was very nice to him.’

  ‘My father wasn’t even his lawyer,’ I reminded her. ‘Marty Stover was. Why doesn’t he want Marty Junior there?’

  ‘I asked him the exact same question.’

  ‘And what’d he say?’

  ‘It’s more what he didn’t say.’ And she paused, another opportunity to tease. ‘He made it seem like maybe Marty’s father was not very nice to him, though.’

  I took a few steps away from the shadows cast by my school building and stood in the sunlight. I let that last comment sink in before speaking.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Billy Taylor implied his own lawyer wasn’t nice to him? Did you ask him what he meant by that?’

  ‘No, Ray,’ she said. ‘It must have slipped my mind.’

  ‘Sorry. What did he say?’

  ‘He said he’d talk about it tomorrow. With you there.’

  ‘Did he say when and where? I have to work tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘He has to be at a dealership on the West Side at four o’clock. He wants us to meet him at a place called Clinton Cove. You know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s on the Hudson River, Fifty-Fifth and the highway. It’s about a block away from the dealership. He said he likes to hang out there when he’s got business over that way. Five o’clock work for you?’

  ‘I’ll make it work,’ I said.

  ‘I had a feeling you’d say that, tough guy. I do need a favor, though, Ray.’

  Another one? I almost said. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I promise I won’t use it for the story.’

  ‘What’s the favor, Ally?’

  ‘I wanna read over the files from the Taylor case.’ Before I could tell her why that was not going to happen, she said, ‘I know. “Fruit from the poisonous tree,” but I promise, I won’t put anything from the file in my piece. I just want to make sure I can validate anything he tells me tomorrow. It was over twenty years ago, his memory is likely to have some gaps in it.’

  ‘And you
want to help fill them in?’

  Silence. Then, ‘I’m going to ignore the sarcasm, because I know how sensitive the file is, how you obtained it, and what a big favor I’m asking. And, no, I’m not going to put words in his mouth. And I’m not going to ask any leading questions. I just want to see how closely he remembers what he told the cops and his lawyer all those years ago.’

  ‘The lawyer who may or may not have been very nice to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I closed my eyes and took in some sun as I considered her request. It felt good. It felt like spring. Opening Day was a few weeks away. I must have taken longer than I thought, because Ally said, ‘Ray. You still there?’

  ‘I’m here,’ I said, opening my eyes, realizing I was just putting off the inevitable. ‘I’ll bring the file by your place tonight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, the relief coming through loud and clear. She paused again for a few seconds, thinking or something else. ‘You went over the file, right?’

  ‘A little more than skimming, I guess, but I didn’t study it.’

  ‘Was your father mentioned at all?’

  ‘Just that he was present during some of the interviews.’

  ‘But he didn’t ask any questions or interact with any of the interviewees?’

  ‘Not that I could tell. Why?’

  ‘That means whatever your father did or said to Billy Taylor that was “nice,”’ she said, ‘had to be off the record.’

  She was right.

  ‘I guess we can ask him tomorrow if he remembers that.’

  ‘It’s on my list,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Seven o’clock good?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  As soon as I ended the call with Allison, my phone rang. It was Edgar. I hadn’t spoken to him in what seemed like a while.

  ‘How you feeling, Edgar?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m good, Ray. Went back to work today. Home gets boring.’

  ‘I hear ya.’

  ‘Anything new and exciting on your end?’

  That didn’t take long. I told him about my conversation with Allison and what her expert had told her.

  ‘Cheese and crackers,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a friend who deals with helping families recover lost art from Nazi Germany.’

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘Well, she’s kind of a friend. I did some work for her law firm a while ago.’

  I was about to ask what kind of work, but I realized it had to do with computers and stuff I wouldn’t understand. ‘So,’ I said, ‘families hire her to recover art work?’

  There was a pause on the other end. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘not her exactly.’

  ‘Then who exactly?’

  ‘A guy she works with. He’s been in the papers. Want me to call her for you?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Edgar. Allison’s got her own expert on this.’

  ‘Yeah, but mine’s a lawyer.’

  Like that was a selling point.

  ‘OK,’ I said, as much to satisfy Edgar as myself. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem, Ray. I’ll reach out to her. Let’s talk soon.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Glad you’re feeling better. Let me know when you’re up to dinner at The LineUp.’

  ‘You buying?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll call ya soon.’ Then he hung up.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The alarm went off the next morning at six-thirty as usual. My regular habit was to lie in bed for a few minutes, catch the sports and weather – All news. All the time – turn on the coffee maker, and hit the shower. After the weather guy said the temps were going to be in the low fifties under sunny skies, I did what any red-blooded American male who hadn’t taken a day off all year would do, I called in sick. Actually, our wonderful secretary Mary picked up and said, ‘You’re calling in well, Mr Donne. Enjoy.’ It was hard to slip one past Mary.

  I thanked her, and rolled over for another half hour, then got up and started my morning. I took my coffee out on the balcony and watched as my neighbor’s pigeons performed their own morning ritual: making circles above the buildings and then disappearing to who knew where. I raised my coffee cup to my neighbor who gave me a salute in return. With all the years we’d both lived here, we didn’t know each other’s name and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him on ground level.

  Back inside, I was about to jump in the shower when a thought occurred – reoccurred? – to me: I hadn’t been to the gym in over a week. Muscles would be glad to see me. He wouldn’t say as much, but it would be there in the way he chastised me for not coming on a more regular basis. I decided the shower could wait.

  As he often did, Muscles waited for me to start walking backwards on the treadmill before engaging me in conversation. One of these days he was going to distract me a little too much and I’d go flying.

  ‘Shame about Marty,’ he said. ‘He was a good guy.’

  I’d forgotten that Muscles was a corporate sponsor of Marty’s charity. Although he would have made a great mentor, Muscles didn’t think he had the time so he just wrote Marty a generous check every year.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I heard you donated a two-year membership for the benefit.’

  ‘Least I could do. How about you? What’s been keeping you away this time?’

  I went through the usual litany of work, having a girlfriend, the whole past week heading out to the Island twice. He didn’t look like he was buying any of it.

  ‘You gotta be more consistent with coming here, Raymond,’ he said. ‘I keep telling you you’ve made good progress. Now you gotta keep it up. You’re at the age now where all this work’s gonna pay off when you’re older. Don’t you wanna run around with you grandkids?’

  ‘I don’t even have regular kids yet,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Yet,’ he repeated and walked away to harass another client. I thought back to my morning coffee and how nice my non-conversation with my pigeon-loving neighbor had been. I did another twenty minutes on the treadmill, worked on my core, and went through the regime Muscles had designed for me to keep my knees working. After the workout, I told myself, I was getting a cheeseburger.

  I spotted Allison from across Twelfth Avenue; she was on her cell phone as usual, oblivious to the rest of the city. As I crossed the avenue, I saw she was standing next to a sign that stated cyclists must dismount at that point. Then I watched as a biker came within inches of knocking her down. Must have been a tourist who didn’t read English, or an alien who didn’t know what a guy on a bike with a red line going through him meant. Or, more likely, a New Yorker who felt that signs applied to other people, not him.

  When I reached her, I said, ‘That was close.’

  She looked up from her cell. ‘What was close?’

  I shook my head. ‘Never mind.’ I kissed her on the cheek. ‘Are we early?’

  She looked at her cell again. ‘Right on time,’ she said. She turned around to face the river and we both noticed him at the same time. Billy Taylor was standing on a little pier that jutted out into the Hudson. He was reaching into a bag and throwing what looked like small pieces of bread into the water. We headed over to him.

  ‘Isn’t this the part where you tell me to do most of the listening?’ I asked my reporter girlfriend.

  ‘Preferably,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how the conversation goes. He did request – insist – that you be here after all.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I almost forgot.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out the file I’d given her last night. ‘Thank you again.’

  ‘You learn anything new?’ I asked, putting the file in my bag.

  ‘Nope. It was all pretty much what the papers ran with twenty years ago. I was able to access a lot of the coverage through my paper’s archives and I even watched some of the TV news stories from back then. Marty Stover knew how to work the media.’

  I recalled my father saying something along those lines. My dad, on the
other hand, went his whole career – shortened as it was by his heart attack – never being mentioned in the news, print or TV. Just the way he liked it. Marty, the few times he’d had a case big enough for media attention, ate it all up. He even had special suits made just for those occasions, similar to the one he’d been wearing the night he was killed.

  We were about ten feet away from Billy when Allison said, ‘Mr Taylor?’

  Billy Taylor turned to look at us, a piece of bread in his hand. It took him a little while to remember who we were. He absentmindedly tossed the bread into the river and said, ‘Ms Rogers. Mr Donne.’

  ‘Allison and Ray,’ Ally said. ‘Thank you for meeting with us.’

  I looked down into the river and saw a group of about a dozen geese and a few ducks competing for the bread. The slight breeze coming off the water reminding me that, as nice as the weather had been the past week, April was still about two weeks away and we probably shouldn’t pack away our sweaters and winter jackets just yet. Mother Nature had a habit of teasing New Yorkers with temperatures pushing sixty degrees in March only to throw a snowstorm at us in early April. She’s funny that way.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Billy said. ‘My brother doesn’t know I’m here, by the way. I probably should have told him or at least contacted my lawyer, but …’

  But his lawyer was probably still Marty Stover. And he was dead.

  ‘We understand,’ Ally said. ‘Do you want to go somewhere warmer to talk? I know a good diner over on Eleventh.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I like it here. Guess I’ll have to tell him before it makes the paper, though.’ He looked down at his aquatic friends and dumped the rest of the bread into the water. He rolled up the bag and stuck it in his jacket pocket. Then he showed his empty hands to the ducks and geese as if they’d understand the gesture. ‘Something my mom always told us. Don’t waste what you can use. I keep the ends of the bread in the freezer so when I get to the water I can feed the ducks.’ He pointed over to a sign that prohibited just that. ‘I ignore those rules. I know why they got them. You don’t want the birds to be dependent on humans for food, but I like feeding them, so. …’ He gave his shoulders an exaggerated shrug. I guess once you’ve spent ten years in prison for sexual assault, ignoring the DON’T FEED THE WILDLIFE sign didn’t seem like a big deal.