Death Will Help You Leave Him (26 page)

“I left a message, but he hasn’t gotten back to me.”

“Never mind,” Barbara said. “I have it— she gave it to Bruce, and he gave it to me. It’s what she told him that’s interesting. She knows where Frankie was the night he died— at a meeting up in East Harlem, so not far from Luz’s apartment. We can look it up in the meeting book if we need to.”

“She was there?”

“Yes, and she talked to him. He got her a cab. Remember how it was pouring?”

“Did she tell the cops?”

“She didn’t tell anybody. She’s been in relapse. And there’s more— she was in touch with Kevin. She said she didn’t answer his voice mail when he called to ask her advice, probably about the confrontation or whatever he was planning, because she was drinking and completely wasted. But don’t you think she’s bound to know more?”

“Yes, I do,” Jimmy said. “We need to ask her if she saw anyone else from rehab at that meeting the night Frankie died. What he said to her. Who he left with. Whether she had any other conversations with Kevin that might have given something away.”

“I can’t make a program call,” Barbara said, “but you can. You can say you got her name from the book at some meeting or other.”

“I won’t even need to,” Jimmy said. “Give me the number.”

“Use the landline, so I can listen.”

“Don’t forget you can’t make a sound,” Jimmy said. “Only in extraordinary circumstances would I make a program call when I knew someone was eavesdropping.”

“I know, baby,” Barbara said. “We’ll figure out a way to make amends later. And don’t worry, I’ll be quiet.” She kissed him and vanished into the bedroom.

“Marla? Hi, it’s Jimmy from program. You got time to talk? I hear you’ve got a few days back. Congratulations!”

The conversation turned to Frankie’s and Kevin’s deaths quickly and without prompting. Marla started to sob, apologized, blew her nose audibly, and sobbed some more. Jimmy made no attempt to soothe or stop her. Barbara, listening with compassion, thought it wasn’t all about playing Sherlock. If they could find the truth of what had happened, maybe Luz wouldn’t be the only one who could start to heal.

“Kevin went to that uptown meeting with me,” Marla said. She drew in a tremulous breath. “We both felt pretty shaky coming out of rehab. You know how it is.”

“I sure do,” Jimmy said. “The stresses, all the pressure of regular life that you get away from in rehab, and the temptations on every street, the bars and liquor stores.”

“That’s it,” Marla said. “Only someone in recovery can understand. That’s why it’s so great to go to meetings. Kevin and I were supporting each other. We wanted to do a ninety in ninety if we could.” Ninety meetings in ninety days: total immersion in the program.

“And you ran into Frankie.”

“Yes. I felt so close to both of them. I know it’s no excuse, but I fell apart when they died, one right after the other like that, and that’s when I picked up. Well, I’d already slipped before Kevin died, or I would have been there for him, I swear I would.”

“I know,” Jimmy said. “Hey, it happens. They don’t call it a chronic relapsing disease for nothing.”

Barbara, quiet as a mouse on the extension, was moved by Jimmy’s kindness as much as by Marla’s pain. Her eyes filled with tears. She knew she had no right to share this private moment, the intimacy of two alcoholics talking.

“I keep thinking about that night,” Marla said. “Obsessing, wondering if anything I could have done would have made a difference. He got me a cab. If I’d insisted on him sharing it, if he hadn’t gone to his girlfriend’s apartment— Do you think she did it?”

“I don’t know. Did Kevin take the cab with you?”

“No, he ran into some people. They were going out for coffee. He liked that strong Puerto Rican coffee. He wanted to go to some neighborhood place with these other guys. But it was raining, and I was tired, and I wanted to get home.”

Barbara’s mind raced as Jimmy searched for the right question. Who had Kevin wanted to confront? It had to be one of the people from rehab. He’d been killed downtown, at the edge of the West Village. But the killer had come to Luz’s apartment. So he knew his way around East Harlem. Had Luz herself known any of them? No, of course not. She would have said so at the funeral if she’d recognized anyone.

“Was Frankie all alone at the meeting?” Jimmy asked. “Or did he come— and leave— with someone else?”

“Oh, yeah, one of those guys who came to the funeral came with him. He waited for him inside while Frankie got me the cab, so I guess they left together. Kevin was pissed off about it. It was a closed meeting, so this guy Frankie knew shouldn’t have been there— unless he was an alcoholic too. I don’t know if he was.”

“One of the men we saw in Brooklyn at the funeral left the meeting in East Harlem with Frankie the night he died?”

“Yeah. Wow, I never thought about it that way. It sounds freaky. When you crawl into a bottle the way I did, you don’t do much thinking, do you?”

“No, you don’t,” Jimmy said. “You crawl into the bottle because you don’t want to think or feel.”

“You got that right,” Marla said. “I pray to God I never have to do that again. I know, never say never— one day at a time.”

“Marla, listen, this could be important. Can you identify the guy from Brooklyn? Did you know who he was?”

“Why? Do you think I should tell the police? Nobody introduced me to all those people. They didn’t really want to meet Frankie’s friends the drug addicts, and I was too busy freaking out at the time anyway.”

“If you know something,” Jimmy said, “it would be better if you told.”

“Like being honest?” she said. “Yeah, I don’t want to rack up any more guilt for my Fourth Step inventory, if I ever get that far. Hey, I just smiled— talking about it with you has really helped. I feel better. ‘We’re as sick as our secrets,’ right?”

“Yeah, honesty is good,” he said, “and I’m thinking safety too. You didn’t know the guy’s name, but could you describe him?”

“I think I could,” she said. “Oh, shit, you know what? Kevin had met a bunch of them on family day at rehab. Frankie introduced him as one of his friends from men’s group. That wife of his didn’t want to know from women friends. Civilians don’t understand.”

“Kevin had met Frankie’s family at the rehab?”

“Yeah, so of course he had to pay his respects at the funeral. He knew all their names.”

The package lying in the street caught my eye right away. Park Slope was the kind of neighborhood where they kept the streets clean. The thick parcel of heavy paper tied up with twine could have been anything. It had probably been carried in the plastic supermarket bag that would have long since flown away on the wind if the package hadn’t trapped a corner of it. It lay like an illegally parked car in the gutter near a hydrant. It might have been tossed from the trunk of the black Mercedes pulled up a tad too close to the yellow line that marked the curb a couple doors down from Carola’s.

It didn’t look like garbage. Someone’s laundry? Someone’s dinner? Curious, I went over and picked it up. I caught the plastic bag, too, before the wind whisked it away. It was white with black lettering, the letters crumpled in on themselves. I pulled the bag out flat between my hands. Not supermarket.
Supermercado
. I didn’t think there were any supermercados in Park Slope. Maybe a bodega or two on 7th Avenue or farther away from the park. The package felt soggy but not completely soft, like half defrosted food. I held it up and sniffed. Was I imagining a faint spicy aroma? I thought of Proust. Well, I thought of all I know about Proust, which is that the guy in his book remembered seven volumes worth of shit from his past because he sniffed some cookies. Not only was the scent familiar, but I had seen a package exactly like this recently.

Pasteles!
I flashed on Barbara turning from the kitchen counter, saying, “Oh, Luz, you shouldn’t have.” And Luz saying, “You told me once your mother said a good guest never comes empty-handed. My
tias
say the same.” And Barbara wailing, “Ohhh, I just ordered Chinese. Shall I call them and cancel? I love
pasteles
!” And Luz convincing her to freeze them, saying her own freezer was full of them, Tia Rosa always made too many, and she loved Chinese food.

If Luz’s
pasteles
hadn’t made it to Carola’s, then neither had Luz. What had happened? Had the stalker followed her to Brooklyn? Had he attacked her? Had she run? But if she ran away, why wouldn’t she have run straight to Carola’s? If she’d gotten there safe, either the guy would have given up and gone away, or they would have called 911. No cop cars. No sign of disturbance on the street except the discarded
pasteles.
And no one had retrieved the package. It was well wrapped, and it had thawed only a little.

What next? Ring Carola’s bell? I still clutched the package of
pasteles
in both hands
.
I put it down on the closest surface, the trunk of the black Mercedes parked too close to the hydrant. It bounced. The package bounced. For a moment it didn’t compute. Then I heard the thumping on the inside of the trunk door. Every time it thumped, the package jumped. After half a dozen more thumps, the package slid off the polished metal surface and fell to the street again. By that time, I had my mouth down close to the keyhole. Stupid of me, because trunk keyholes don’t have holes in them like the locks on old-fashioned wooden doors. But it was all I could think to do. “Luz!” I shouted. “Luz! Are you in there?”

“Bruce? I can’t get out.” I could hardly hear her.

“Hang on, Luz. I’ll get you out. Isn’t there a safety catch inside the trunk?”

I thought she said, “I can’t.” Then I realized it was, “No hands.”

Shit! Was she tied up in there? Who had done this to her? Carola? Then I’d better not ring her bell and ask to borrow a crowbar.

In our misspent youth, Jimmy and I had acquired a number of skills they didn’t teach in school. Jimmy’s talent for electronics reached its full maturity when the Internet came of age. I’d picked locks since long before then.

“Hold on, Luz. I’ll get you out, but it may take a few minutes,” I shouted, my lips close to the sheet of metal between us. Maybe it would conduct sound, like those telephones kids used to make out of string and orange juice cans back in the days before Instant Messaging. “Can you hear me?”

I laid my ear against the cold metal.

“Yes! Hurry!”

Now what did I have on me to tease open the damn lock? It had been a while since I’d needed this skill. I dug my hands into my pants pockets. I hadn’t emptied them in a long time. My fingers read Braille over a ton of junk till I found a nest of paper clips. Some day I’d have enough recovery to stop stealing office supplies. I fished them out. They were fluffy with lint. I blew on them, straightened a couple out, and got to work.

It didn’t help that my hands felt like two bunches of sweaty thumbs. Luz had stopped thumping, but I felt hyperaware of how near she lay.
Easy does it
. “Thanks for sharing,” I growled back at the still, small voice. I didn’t know I’d said it aloud until I heard Luz’s anxious query. “It’s okay!” I shouted down to her. I knew she could hear me jiggling the lock. What had the fucking woman done to her? Where had she meant to take her? Had she stashed her in the trunk and gone calmly back into the house to read the kid a story? The nerves at the back of my neck jumped at the thought she might come out again.

Easy does it.
Maybe she didn’t mean to take her anywhere. Once she had Luz tied up, she could do whatever she wanted right here. She could smother her and not even lose the parking spot. As far as she knew, no one knew Luz had come. Carola could wait till the alternate side parking changed and then drive somewhere and dump her. New Jersey. Bear Mountain. Smart of Luz to use her cell phone. How had she managed it? Carola was twice her size, but she must have fought her off as long as she could. I remembered Carola was bigger than me. Better get Luz out and scram before she came out again.

Ahhh. The lock yielded at last. The trunk door swung slowly upward on its own. I reached for Luz before I could see her. Her trembling hand shot out and clutched my forearm so hard it pinched the skin. She wasn’t tied up? She almost fell out of the trunk, scrambling up with most of her weight on me. I grabbed her by the shoulders. She gave a cry of pain.

“Sorry!” I gripped her around the waist instead, drawing her up and forward as she got first one leg and then the other over the rim of the trunk and eased herself to the ground. She looked grimy and disheveled but unharmed. “Are you okay?”

“No, I am sorry. I think he broke my arm.”

“Don’t try to move it. How’s the other one?”

“Pins and needles. I was lying on it. I couldn’t reach anything.”

“Hey, you managed to let me know you were in there. What did you bang with?”

“My knees. My head. They hurt, but my arm is the worst.”

“Listen, I have a bandanna. We’ll make you a sling and get the hell out of here. We can get a cab back to Manhattan. Or take it straight to the nearest hospital. That would be better.” I was babbling. And I didn’t realize until I thought
bandanna— pocket
that I still clasped her around the waist. She kept pouring out the story.

“He waited for me outside. I don’t know how he knew. I tried to think while I lay there in the dark.” She shuddered and nestled closer. Her head fit right in under my chin. “She told him, or maybe he tricked her into calling me. I never saw her.”

My arms tightened around her.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s over. I’ll get you out of here.” Comforting her seemed so important that it took me all that time to do a double take. “He? It wasn’t Carola? Who—?”

About a ton of muscle landed on my back. A hairy arm locked tight around my neck. Vinnie! I reeled from the blow. Luz spun free and fell back against the trunk. I wrestled with a mass of writhing muscle. I felt like the Greek guy with the couple of king-size snakes. I fought back with teeth and elbows and stomping feet. We fought dirty back in Yorkville. Brooklyn, too. I narrowly defended my crotch from a knee like a mallet striking upward. I wrapped a leg around the back of his knee and punched him in the gut. If I could trip him, that would help. Even better if he cracked his head. He fell back with a grunt. I felt pleased until I saw him use the breather to pull out a knife.