Brooklyn Bones (6 page)

“None of your business.”

“Yes, it is. I’m standing in for your dad.”

“
Did he ask you do that, before he left? Check on me? He did, didn’t he? What nerve!”

“Nope.” His red face contradicted his perfect composure. “Nope, I’m just looking after your welfare. I know at least a couple of likely single cops I could bring around.”

“Oh, pul—eeze! If they’re old enough for me, they’re divorced with lots of baggage. I have quite enough of my own, thank you very much.”

“We all do, honey,” he said gently. “Your dad too. We work around it.”

I didn’t want to talk about that, not at all, so I changed subjects on him, “What happened with you and Dad? Was it that woman?”

“Ah, maybe. And he didn’t like some of my friends, too.” Another long silence, then he said, “Hey, I’ve got a good idea. Send Chris off to that camp she wanted, with her friend. That should sidetrack her. You rip out the fireplace, put up new drywall, paint it, wallpaper. By the time she’s home it will all be forgotten.”

“I doubt it. She’s pretty stubborn.” But, I thought, it would be wonderful if he were right.

“Now there’s a surprise. Your kid, and Len’s grandkid? Stubborn? How could that have happened?”

“Besides, you have no idea what those camps cost. I’m barely covering her school fees, even with her scholarship. Add up my fellowship, social security, Jeff’s insurance and I’m still barely hanging on. I already wake up worrying at two a.m.”

“How about the Uncle Rick camp scholarship?” He halted my protests with an upraised palm. “I’ll get a check in the mail tomorrow. Honey, you need to get her out of here for a while. Trust me. I’ve got good instincts.”

When I tried to say more, he stopped me again. “She’s the closest I’ll ever come to a grandkid. Let me do this.”

Then he went back into the house and shouted up the stairs, “Christine Marie, get your cute butt down here and say good bye!”

She came charging down the stairs, threw herself at him for a good-bye hug, but said, “I’m still mad at you.”

He chucked her under the chin. “I love you too.”

I walked him to the door and saw him off. Mary was out there, leaning on my fence, as if she’d been waiting for me.

“You have a gentleman caller? How very lovely that is. Now, dear, I did have something very, very important to tell you.” She looked confused. “I can’t quite, quite remember what it was. I believe it was about the police coming. Or maybe it was about gentlemen callers. I know it will come back to me in a minute.”

“Well, you can just tell me about it whenever it does. How’s that?”

She brightened up. “Wait. I do know. I have it right here.” She was pulling an astonishing variety of junk from her skirt pockets—empty potato chip bags, advertising flyers, Kleenex, cigarette stubs, a half-eaten apple. “Here it is!” She handed me a scrap of paper with a dim row of numbers and letters scrawled on it.

“I don’t understand. What is this?”

She looked all around, and up and down the block, then leaned over and whispered, “License plate, dear. That terrible man who was yelling at you. Thought you might like it.” She smiled sweetly. “Now I’ll go on about my business.” Off she went, down the block, heading to who knows where. And I had the license plate number. Maybe we could nail the s.o.b. after all. Always assuming this was a day Mary was living in our world and not one of her own invention.

Chapter Five

My first thought the next morning, before I even opened my eyes, was Mary. I rolled over in bed and called the precinct with her information. The officer on the phone promised to pass it on when the right man came in, but I thought I’d better call again later, just to make sure.

My second was that stupid local gossip board. There it was, right at the top, a photo of our house and another series of questions
.
Even in my anger at having my very own life out there on the blogosphere, I noticed that the writing seemed a lot more literate than the person I had confronted. He had certainly been taking pictures, though. I assured myself this would stop if there were no more news, and at the same time, I thought about writing an angry post myself. I needed to think that over. I had been making promises not to be such a hothead.

When I finally went downstairs I found Joe sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee and looking thoughtful.

“What is going on? Are you waiting for your crew?”

He only said, quietly, “I heard an interesting story about you this morning from one of your neighbors. Have you completely lost your mind?”

I had intended to tell him a highly edited version of what happened yesterday. I did want him to keep an eye open for that car. It seemed I no longer had that choice, and realistically, Chris would have blabbed anyway. When I finished telling him the whole story, he told me, still quietly, that I was a complete idiot.

“I don’t know about that,” I protested, without a lot of conviction.

“Whatever he was or wasn’t up to, he sounds like a nut case. You should have called me. For crying out loud, Erica, what if he’d punched you? Don’t you know there are people who worry about you?”

“Well, what if you were here, and he punched you?”

He gave me a don’t-be-stupid look and said, “I’m not you, obviously. I could have punched him back. You weigh—what? Hundred and ten?”

“You know what? Yes, it was dumb, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t let him scare me. And I did make him leave us alone, so good for me!”

He laughed and shook his head. “All right, small but fierce, good for you. And if he didn’t scare you then, how about now?”

“OK. Now I am scared. Or, sort of nervous, anyway.”

“I’m glad to see you still have a little sense. I’m going to get some supplies out of the truck and my crew will be here any minute.” He stood up. “Try not to do anything dangerous before then. Think you can manage that?”

At that moment I knew I could lean on Joe but I didn’t want to. He is older than I am, but not at all old enough to be a father figure. That’s not our relationship. He’s more of a big brother figure, my neighborhood buddy. We hang out, we barbecue, we kid each other. He shovels my walk, I advise him on his complex love life. That’s how it has always been from the first time we met, when a cousin of my husband sent him to help me with a house repair.

His work crew began drifting in and soon they were ripping out the scary bathroom with the hole in the floor.

I sat at my computer, door shut tight, working, but the noise and chaos on the second floor soon made concentration impossible. I wasn’t expected at my part-time job today, which made it the perfect day to go in and get a lot done there, while escaping from the noise and confusion here. Not everyone would be thrilled to spend a morning looking at microfilm of decades-old neighborhood newspapers, but I was. Perhaps the seed was sown in third grade, when I read the Little House books and the Betsy-Tacy books and realized there was something called “a long time ago” where little girls like me lived very different lives.

An hour later I was in my cubicle, glued to my desk, buried deep in my printouts and news clips when I heard a tentative, “Excuse me? They directed me here at the entrance. Would you be Erica Donato?”

“Uh, yes.” I dragged my brain back from Brooklyn in the 1950s and I’m sure I looked as unfocused as I felt.

“I’m Steve Richmond, Darcy’s friend. You look busy. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”

Oh, crap. I’d completely forgotten we had an appointment. He was tall, slim, dark-haired, in tan pants and a striped dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, matching tan jacket slung over his shoulder. Loosely knotted silk tie. Elegant Mark Cross attaché, just like Darcy’s—the reason I recognized it—in his hand. Nice enough but I was busy.

He didn’t look that sorry. He sounded tentative but he looked confident.

“Yes.” I almost stuttered it, I was so surprised. “I’m sorry…Darcy…she didn’t say you would be….”

“Were you expecting someone different?”

“Yes, I was.” I might have sounded indignant. “I was expecting a gray-haired guy in a Brooks Brother suit. She said a friend of her dad’s. I’ve
met
her dad.”

“Ah, you were expecting the traditional model. I’m sorry to disappoint you.” He leaned over and whispered, “We haul those guys out of storage to meet with the major investors.” And he smiled. “I do play golf with her father, but I went to business school with Darcy.”

I gave up. “Come on in.” I waved to the only chair in my tiny, cluttered space. “Just what is it that Darcy thinks I can do for you?”

“She says you are an expert in the history of Brooklyn neighborhoods.”

“I don’t know about that. I am writing a dissertation, and I am working here on an exhibit…”

“I’ve known Darcy since b-school and her judgment of useful sources is never wrong
.”

“That’s exactly what I have found!”

“So there.” He smiled. “She can’t be wrong about you. Let me explain the problem I am working on. I have a client who is thinking about a major investment in this part of Brooklyn. I can’t say more as it’s entirely under the radar for now. He wants to do it right and he also wants to do it without a lot of controversy. We’re just in the early stages of defining what the ‘right way’ would be and that means getting a lot of background.” The polite tentativeness was gone. He was all business, crisp and to the point. “Could you help with that? There would certainly be a nice consulting fee. We don’t expect you to give away your time and expertise.”

I was flabbergasted. I really had no time. None. But I sure could use the money. And what was this mysterious project anyway?

I looked at the pile of work on my desk, the calendar on my wall with looming job and academic deadlines, and thought about how one of the deadlines was Chris’ next school payment. So I held my breath and said, “Yes.” Followed immediately with, “What would you expect from me?”

“Why don’t we start with a conversation and see what develops?”

I nodded, keeping quiet so I would not say something dumb, or inappropriate, or unbusinesslike. Business to me was maybe a neighborhood hardware store. A construction crew. The guy who fixed my ancient plumbing. I sensed I was now in a whole different realm.

“We are starting with the basic assumptions that development is neutral. It can be positive for some and negative for others; it is possible to create new properties for profit while preserving neighborhoods and also, alternatively, to wreck them.” He added, with a self-deprecating smile, “We also know that the very word ‘development’ is liable to raise fears and lead to—let’s say, confrontations. My client really, and I mean that strongly, does not want that. So they—my client—feels that we will do a better job if we get a good sense for how these things have played out in the past.”

“That’s where I come in?”

“Exactly. Am I making sense so far?”

“Sure. It’s way too complex an issue for a quick discussion though. There are whole academic careers built on this topic.” I remembered he went to Harvard Business School with Darcy and added, “As I’m sure you know.” This was not, after all, a high school student doing a social studies assignment.

“For now, we need a get-smart-quick orientation. The view from 40,000 feet, let’s say. How about some case studies? That’s how we like to organize information and it’s a great way to focus it for the client. Can you give us examples of some situations that were done well, and some disasters?”

“Hmm. Probably. Let me give it some thought. Can I send you a list? Do you specifically want Brooklyn? That’s what I know best.”

“Exactly. Some very local examples would have the most impact.”

“My own neighborhood is practically a case study in neighborhood change and it will probably be one of the examples in our exhibit. Where I live is on the very rough edge of a highly gentrified area…”

“Park Slope, right? Near Darcy?”

“Park Slope, yes. Near Darcy, no. Big difference. Huge. She lives in the very gentrified section. Let me see if I have some pictures that would show you the difference.” I looked over my paper-covered desk and started moving things around. “Somewhere in here. Aha.”

I handed him a booklet about the posh historic district, and some recent photos from other, less renovated blocks. He lined up the two sources side by side on the edge of my desk, and turned the pages with interest. “I’m seeing what you meant. Here we have the historic district, looking pretty shabby, right? And here, after what I guess is considerable restoration. And revived main street shopping too. Skyrocketing property values here?”

“See?” He smiled. “You are already earning a fee, with this material and the idea of some interviews. Let’s say….”

“Well, well, well. It’s Steve Richmond! I just got your message. What brings you across the river to my world?”

I looked up and it was the director of the museum, standing right there at my cubical entrance. Smiling. That had never happened before. I was sure he did not know my name.

Richmond stood up and grabbed the boss in an enthusiastic handshake. “You got my message! I had business at one of the courthouses and came over to get a little education from Ms. Donato here. She is a friend of a friend.”