Don't I Know You? (5 page)

D
etective McGuire called and wanted to talk to him. Phil handed the phone over and stood there next to him.

“So,” McGuire said. “How're you doing? Get any sleep?”

“Some,” Steven said.

“I need you to come down to the precinct,” he said. “I need your help on something.”

“What is it?” Steven asked.

“I'll explain when you get here,” he said. “Don't worry,” he added.

“What?” Phil mouthed.

Steven shrugged.

“Sorry,” McGuire said. “You're our go-to guy,” he said.

“Okay,” Steven said. “Now?” he asked.

“Whenever,” McGuire said. “Today. Soon. Now is good,” he said.

“Okay,” Steven said again. He waited.

Then McGuire said, “I guess Miss Mahoney didn't work out.”

Phil was standing in front of him. He held his hand out for the phone.

“It might be better,” McGuire said, “if you could come down by yourself.”

Steven looked at Phil. He still had his hand out. Phil had lied about knowing about Christine's allergies. Steven remembered him suggesting a hypnotist; the guy had cured him of his fear of flying and his three-pack-a-day smoking habit. Christine should try him for her allergies.

Steven handed him the phone.

H
e'd been to the 24th Precinct twice before. Once to register his bike and once to report it stolen. It was a gold Raleigh ten-speed. His mother had made him a deal. She'd buy it for him, but he had to work off half of it. Mom's Layaway, she called it. He'd thought the whole plan was unfair. She hadn't even taught him how to ride a bike. She'd tried, on the sidewalk in front of their building, but he'd kept falling off, scraping up his legs and arms, yelling at her, so she'd told him to forget it, she wasn't going through
that
again. One of her guy friends had taught him. The one Steven had introduced her to; the guy who'd helped him out that day he'd been lost. He'd been around off and on for a few months. One of the college kids. He had an old sports car and looked like he was trying to stare into the sun. He had an accent. In stores, he always joked about what Steven was going to buy him. It bothered Steven that he couldn't remember the guy's name. Steven had had some hopes for him.

The three of them went to the field in the park that had a slope
at one end. The guy told him to keep his feet off the pedals. The bike they used was purple, with a banana seat. It was too small, but the guy said that would make things easier. He set Steven up at the top of the slope and then let him go. It was hard to keep his feet away from the pedals, and he fell a lot. It felt like those dreams he sometimes had of trying to run down a flight of stairs too quickly. His mom watched from the bottom of the hill. The guy told him to aim for her. Steven was embarrassed when people noticed them. When Steven made it all the way down without falling, the guy clapped loudly twice. On his last ride, Steven kept pedaling, past his mother, off the grass onto the asphalt basketball court. He circled, his hands tingling from gripping the handlebars. He stopped across the court and watched her. The guy was walking over. In a minute, he'd hug her from behind and she'd turn to smile and thank him. She was laughing her real laugh. He started pedaling again. He circled in front of her. “It's as good as I thought it would be,” he told her. “I'm glad,” she said.

Manuel kept the Raleigh in the building's laundry room until Steven had done enough dishes, set enough tables, folded enough laundry. When Manuel brought it up Steven and his mom were waiting in the hallway, and when the elevator doors opened it was like they'd both won a prize.

It got stolen a few months after that from outside the Burger King on Broadway. Juan had ridden Steven home on his handlebars. Steven hadn't used his lock, but when his mother asked, Juan lied for him.

The station was as ratty as he remembered it. Fluorescent lights and paper cups, water coolers making their sounds. Out-of-date flyers on bulletin boards. Wanted people. Missing cats. Stolen
bikes. An old man cop behind Plexiglas with a little hole in it. He didn't want to think about what they'd found. Sometimes he felt like his whole life was a pile of things he didn't want to think about.

Detective McGuire came down the stairs. It looked like he hadn't changed his clothes. He had his eye on Phil the whole way over. He came right up to him, hand outstretched, like Phil was the guy he'd asked to see. When he finally looked at Steven, Steven felt himself get hot, but all McGuire said was, “Hey, bud. Good to see you again.”

“I told him I was supposed to come alone,” Steven said.

“I didn't think that was a good idea,” Phil said.

McGuire shrugged. “Not a problem,” he said, but he hadn't stopped watching Phil.

He took them into a small room with a table and four chairs. There was a shoebox-looking thing on the table. Out the window Steven could see the tops of the trees on 100th Street. The windows had built-in wire.

Panty hose had been inside her pants. They needed to know if either of them knew if they were hers.

“Inside her pants,” Phil repeated.

“What does that mean?” Steven asked.

Phil couldn't look at him. McGuire was sweeping him with his eyes in a slow, regular way, like he was following a hypnotist's watch, like it was a system he had worked out. Once, Steven and his mother had borrowed Manuel's metal detector and gone to Coney Island. It was like that.

McGuire cleared his throat. “Rolled up,” he said. His hands
moved unhelpfully in the air. “Placed,” he said, “within her undergarments.”

They were all staring at the box.

“Okay?” McGuire said, putting his hand on the box and looking at Steven.

Steven nodded.

McGuire opened the box and took out a plastic bag with the panty hose inside. His mother hated panty hose, especially in the summer. She was supposed to wear them to work, but sometimes she just shaved really well and oiled her legs with lotion and kept them a little tan. She used to sit in her window with her legs dangling over the edge to keep her tan up.

When she did have to wear them, she started taking them off even before she walked in the door. Sometimes she hopped the last few steps into the apartment, pulling them off one foot and then the other.

McGuire laid the bag out on the table like he was a salesman.

“They're hers,” Steven said.

Phil was surprised. “How do you know?” he said.

Steven pointed at the wide lace waistband that dipped in front. “She said she liked how this kind didn't dig into her tummy.”

Someone opened the door, looked in, and closed it again.

Steven looked at the panty hose, trying to smell them from where he was sitting. Her work clothes always smelled a little sweaty. It was hard work, she said, taking care of everyone.

McGuire asked if he remembered if she'd been wearing them the day before.

He tried to think. She'd been drinking coffee at the kitchen
table when he'd left for Juan's. When he tried to imagine what she'd been wearing at the beginning of the day, all he could see was that bunched-up dress. Something bitter worked its way into his throat.

“If she was going to work, maybe,” he said. “If she wasn't, then no.”

They kept looking at him.

“I can't remember if she was supposed to go to work,” he said. “Her shifts were always changing.”

He looked at them. He shrugged. A scuffle seemed to be going on in the hallway.

McGuire glanced at the door. “I better go see what's up,” he said, standing.

Phil said, “She was supposed to go to work. She was supposed to work eleven to seven. Come home. Have dinner with her son. Get ready to go out for ice cream. She was supposed to go out for ice cream.” He looked up at the detective. “You don't even know whether she got to work or not?” He stood up a little, but kept his knees bent, like he might sit down again at any minute. “What
have
you been doing? What
do
you know?”

Steven didn't like it when grown-ups argued. He didn't know he was supposed to have been home for dinner. He didn't know about the ice cream. If he'd come home for dinner, maybe none of this would've happened.

McGuire looked genuinely sad. Something hard hit the other side of the door. Someone told someone else to take it easy.

“I'm on your side,” he said. “I really am.”

Steven believed him.

“She went to work. She came home,” McGuire said. “She got the mail. She didn't make dinner.”

Steven interrupted him. “If I wasn't around, she usually didn't eat,” he said.

“We know what we know,” McGuire said. “We're just trying to know more.”

He told them to sit tight. When he opened the door, whatever had been going on out there seemed to have disappeared. A woman officer walked by with a big stack of folders. McGuire gave them the “one minute” sign with his finger and closed the door behind him.

They sat there, the panty hose in their little bag between them.

McGuire came back in. He wanted to know about Mrs. Carpanetti and her son, from upstairs.

“What about them?” Steven asked.

McGuire shrugged. “You know, whatever. Are you friends? What're they like?”

They'd been around forever. They lived upstairs. For a couple of years, Michael and Steven had done stuff together, stuff that made Steven embarrassed to think about. And then, when Steven was ten, it had stopped. “They're good,” he said.

“Was your mother friends with them?” McGuire asked.

She didn't like how much time he spent with Michael, but she didn't have anything better for him to do, so mostly she'd left them alone, warning him sometimes not to be stupid. “She liked them okay,” he said. “They weren't really
friends
. Sometimes they watered our plants and stuff.”

McGuire wrote something down.

“Did you and them have a regular Tuesday thing?” he asked.

Steven didn't know what he meant, and then remembered the nature shows. His mother couldn't believe the things he forgot.

“Yeah,” he said. “Nature shows. But I stayed out late with Juan.”

McGuire nodded. “All righty,” he said.

He had one more question. Had either of them seen her address book?

Phil frowned a little, like he was working hard on the problem.

McGuire was watching them.

“Phil has it,” Steven said.

No one said anything for a minute. Phil was still frowning.

“We took it to make some phone calls,” Phil said.

“I didn't take it,” Steven said.

They both looked at him. It was the kind of quiet that was really loud.

McGuire nodded. “I figured there was an easy explanation,” he said. “There usually is.”

He put his hand on Steven's shoulder. “Let me have a minute,” he said. To Phil, he said, “Why don't you have a seat by my desk. I'll be with you shortly.”

He got up and held the door open for Phil. There was a uniform guy waiting there. Steven looked out the window. Phil told the detective sure, no problem, and only glanced at Steven before leaving the room.

H
e had the afternoon to himself. He spent it poking around Sam's room, trying to come up with details that Juan would like. She hid her diary in her underwear drawer. It seemed kind of
unimaginative. Her closet was filled with labeled boxes and file folders. She had a shoe rack and a special hanger for belts.

He found an old pack of red modeling clay and warmed it and worked it as he slid open drawers and checked under the bed. The dye of the clay came off on his hands. He made a series of little monsters. One with an open mouth and bug eyes. One with a hat. Years ago, he'd made, and tried to sell around the neighborhood, his Tiny Terrors Series. Tiny versions of famous villains. His mother still had his Phantom of the Opera and his Creature from the Black Lagoon on the kitchen windowsill.

He made a final curled, sleeping monster, and lined them all up on Sam's desk. Maybe she would like them. He washed his hands, found a pair of drumsticks in a box marked
INSTRUMENTS
, and for the rest of the afternoon, drummed along to her record collection.

H
is father didn't take him to a restaurant. They took a taxi all the way to Forty-ninth and First. There was a tiny store on a part of First Avenue that slanted downhill. Harry's Chicken. The left side of the sign was about two feet lower than the right. In the tiny window, you could see Harry cooking chickens on a grill that took up half the store.

His father was excited. He hadn't been here for three or four years. He wondered if Harry would remember him. It was the best chicken in the city. You couldn't get stuff like this in San Diego.

Like chicken? Steven thought. Then he thought, four years. He'd been eight. He tried to decide how weird he thought it was
that his father was thinking about chicken. He remembered his mother saying something about his father being at his best when he was eating or talking about eating. She said it was a thing Jews and Italians had in common. That and fights. And the belief that actions had consequences. And guilt. Those last two, she said, were connected.

Harry remembered him. Harry wore thick black glasses and white butcher clothes and one of those white paper soda jerk hats. He had grease stains all over his apron. He was missing a lot of teeth. The few he had were crooked. Steven liked him.

They took the chicken and the sides of cole slaw and potato salad to a park his father knew on the East River. There were trees, but it was mostly concrete, shaped to fit between the buildings and the FDR Drive. It was all fenced in, down at the bottom of a long set of black stone stairs. People were letting their dogs run around without leashes.