Kids of Appetite (7 page)

Drag
.

Blow
.

Calm
.

“Hey, Harry Connick Jr., Jr. What's the word on the stream?” Honestly, had the bloated thing not been upright, I would have assumed it was dead. I dangled my legs off the edge of Channel à la Goldfish and waited for Vic to finish washing up and changing. He'd been pretty surprised by the available amenities, and I can't say I blame him. Unlike the greenhouse accommodations, though, these amenities were highly unauthorized. Gunther had no idea we'd figured out a way through the window and into the gift shop bathroom. Not that he had any reason to get upset; I couldn't remember the last time he'd had a customer.

The sky was still that cold gray, the color of a slow death, but at least it had stopped snowing for a beat. I lit another cigarette just as Harry Connick Jr., Jr., reappeared, floating the other way now. “You taking shortcuts, Junior?”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Shit!” I dropped my lighter in a narrow gap between two beams of the bridge, heard it plop into the stream below. “
Dude
.”

“Sorry,” said Vic, sitting next to me, his bloody jeans wadded in his lap. “You shouldn't smoke anyway. It gives you cancer.”

I smoke-glared at him as I took the next drag. Hold, exhale, keep up the glare. “Lots of things give you cancer.”

“True. But some things do so with a much higher rate of efficiency than others.”

“What would you know about it?”

He looked down at the stream when I noticed what he'd changed into: blue sweatpants. They had a Mets logo on the right thigh and elastic bands around his ankles that made the fabric bunch up like a bouquet around his lace-up boots.

“They're my Metpants,” he said.

I laughed a little puff of smoke. “Your what?”

“Metpants.”

There was just something so patently awesome about Vic wearing these pants, as if he'd glimpsed the world's stockpile of ammunition against him, shrugged, and tossed an extra crossbow onto the heap for good measure.

Metpants
. Vic's double-bird to the world. I loved it.

And just then I wished I'd given each of those kids on the bridge a swift kick in the junk.

He rolled his eyes around for a second, but only up and down, not side to side. I'd seen him do this a few times now, but it still took me off guard.

“Who's
Junior
?” he asked.

As if summoned by the god of goldfish himself, Harry Connick Jr., Jr., appeared below our feet.

“
That
,” I said, “is Junior. He's our goldfish. I named him Harry Connick Jr., Jr.”

“After the singer?”

“Yep. And actor. That guy does not quit. He's everywhere, especially during the holidays. Anyway, this summer there were dozens of goldfish, now this is the only one. Here, look.” I pointed about twenty feet upstream to a red object that resembled an upside-down salad bowl floating in the water. “That's a de-icer. It keeps the water at a high enough temperature to not freeze over. The thing is Gunther only put in one de-icer this year, which isn't nearly enough. So one by one the fish started dying until it was less Channel à
la Goldfish and more Plague à la Goldfish. They just couldn't survive.”

“Except Harry Connick Jr., Jr.”

I nodded. “The fish who does not quit.”

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“I like your greenhouse,” said Vic.

“It's weird, I know.”

“Not that weird.”

I gave him a classic
Are you kidding me?
look.

“Okay.” He nodded. “It's pretty weird. But cool.”

“Anyway, it's not permanent—just until we can afford better.”

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“I used to stare at this place,” whispered Vic. He pointed across the street. “I sat right there on that stone wall and stared at this orchard.”

“Really? You ever see us?”

He shook his head. “It was a while back. My grandparents used to live in this neighborhood, but they're—” He stopped abruptly, looked down at the stream. “Anyway. I thought it was kind of a weird bump.”

“Bump?”

“Coincidence.”

Vic pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the bottom corner of his mouth, and that was when I saw the scabs on his right wrist. There were five or six, varying in length, but all very thin. They weren't scars like the one on my head. And I had a friend in high school who cut herself regularly—
this wasn't that either. These seemed duller, more shallow or something.

He pulled his iPod from his jacket pocket, pushed his long hair behind both ears, and stuck in his earbuds.

Conversation over, I guess.

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“Here,” said Vic, holding out an earbud.

“You're offering an earbud,” I said.

“I am.”

“I thought that was just something people did in movies.”

“Are you suggesting we're in a movie?”

“I wish.”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“Which movie do you wish we were in?” asked Vic.

I'd seen other people—usually in coffee shops, or that recently defunct outdoor café on Henley—speak to one another with this kind of fluid banter, as if the conversation had been all mapped out and memorized before the involved parties opened their mouths. I'd even been part of a few, but only with Coco—until now.

“
Apollo 13
,” I said.

“
Apollo 13
.”

“Sure. Tom Hanks in space. What, you're too good for Tom Hanks in space?”

“Things go horribly wrong for Tom Hanks in space if I remember correctly. Come to think of it, things go horribly wrong for Tom Hanks on deserted islands, too.”

“Au contraire,” I said, “Tom Hanks survives both space and islands.”

“Survival. That's your aspiration?”

“You bet your ass. Anyway, I love space.”

“What do you mean?” asked Vic.

“I mean, I love space. Black holes and dwarf planets and stars that faded to nothing decades ago but we can still see them—all that shit. Can't get enough.”

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“That's actually a common misconception,” said Vic.

“What is?”

“The idea that we're looking at stars in the sky that have already died and faded.”

“No, I'm pretty sure it's true. Because of the light-years, I mean—if a star died, we wouldn't know for, like, decades I think.”

Vic was quiet, but sort of shook his head in that way people do when they've got more to say—or worse, when they know they're right and you're wrong.

“Okay,
Spoils
,” I said. “Out with it.”

“It's just—most stars live for millions and millions of years. We live for eighty, give or take, and can only see around five thousand stars with the naked eye. The odds that one of them dies during my lifetime are pretty minuscule. Possible, I guess. But highly improbable.”

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“So I'm trying to decide if you're a show-off or a nerd or both,” I said.

“Nah, I just like numbers. Anyway, what do you think?”

“Honestly, I forget what we were even talking about.”

He held up the earbud again. “Maybe it's something people do in real life too.”

It was clear he wouldn't take no for an answer. I sighed, snuffed out my cigarette, and took the earbud. “What are we listening to?”

“You'll see.”

And he was right. I did see.

To say the song was beautiful was like saying the sun was hot, or the fish was wet, or a billion was a lot. It was opera, I think, or something like it, a duet, two ladies, both singing their hearts out, and even though it was in a foreign language, I almost cried because there was just something so familiar about their voices, like they understood my own personal sorrow on a molecular level.

When it was over, I handed the earbud back and was about to ask him what the song was called when he said, “I think we're being watched.”

A dozen yards away a pair of piercing eyes ducked behind a high snow embankment. A second later they reappeared, trained on Vic.

“That's just Zuz.” I smiled a little, wondering how long he'd been lying on his stomach in the snow. “He does that.”

“Does what?” asked Vic.

“He's just—very protective of his family.”

“So Zuz is protecting you from . . . me?”

“He spies on all the Chapters for the first few days. And don't call him Zuz.”

“Why not? You guys do.”

“First off, Baz doesn't. I mean, he could if he wanted. He's earned the right. You haven't. Not yet, anyway.”

Vic stared at the embankment. “Okay. So how will I know I've earned it?”

“You'll know.”

It was quiet again, the two of us sitting in the echo of a song.

“What about money?” asked Vic.

“What about it?”

“I mean, you have to have money to live, right?”

“Not as much as they'd have you believe.”

“Who's
they
?”

“You know.
They
. Like, the government and media and shit. The consumerist mentality and our propensity to price tag happiness.” Honestly, I had no idea what bullshit I was spinning, but it sounded good saying it. “Anyway, we've got a few early Chapters around town who help out, and Baz's job at Cinema Five covers the rest. He's been saving for a while now. Plans on opening his own taxi service—Renaissance Cabs.”

“Cool,” said Vic. “Why a cab service?”

I pulled my hair around to one side as Harry Connick Jr., Jr., swam lazily under our feet.

“You sure have a lot of questions,” I said.

“You don't have many answers.”

“I'll let Baz tell you about it. It's his thing.”

“Okay,” said Vic. “What about your thing, then? Coco said you just graduated?”

I smiled at him, grabbed his bloodied-up jeans, then stood and dusted the snow off my backside. “We should probably head back. I'll take these for you.”

“Mad.”

“Yes?”

“What's a Chapter?”

I turned and started back toward the row of greenhouses, Zuz close behind. “Patience, cockroach.”

* * *

It was a full ten minutes before Vic returned. During that time, I'd shoved his pants on the shelf next to the records, still unsure why I'd taken them in the first place. I then settled onto the couch, where I tried to immerse myself in
The Outsiders
, a feat that usually took very little prodding, but something about Vic's song had crept inside my brain, my veins, now pulsing through my body.

Zuz had “'Round About Midnight” by Miles Davis cranked on the turntable while Coco knelt over Vic's backpack, digging through his stuff.

“Coke, what are you doing?”

She pulled out some textbooks, set them on the coffee table. “Checking for contraband. I mean, we don't really know the guy. He seems nice, but what if he's one of those army-guys-turned-Taliban?”

“Coco, that's ridiculous.” I set the book in my lap. “Vic is
not
Taliban, and whatever's in his bag isn't fucking
contraband
. Do you even know what that word means?”

She whipped her hair around. “Do
you
?”

Zuz snapped twice. He hated when we argued.

Coco went back to searching Vic's bag.

“Coke, I'm really not comfortable with you nosing through Vic's stuff. He could be back any min—”

“Aha!” she said, pulling out Vic's jar.

In the light of day, it was obvious what it was. Coco set the urn on the coffee table.

“Contraband.”

“Sorry,” said a small voice. It happened just as I imagined: none of us heard Vic come in. He stood by the door, staring at us. “Guess I need to stop sneaking up on people.” In a daze
he walked to the coffee table and stood over the urn like a predator about to pounce on its prey.

“Well, I suppose you were right,” said Coco. “I'm a no-good street urchin.”

We all moved toward Vic as if a massive invisible magnet pulled us in, then stood around him and peered down at the urn.

“What is it?” asked Coco. “What's inside?”

Vic pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth. “My dad.”

It wasn't a whisper, but it might as well have
been.

Interrogation Room #3

Bruno Victor Benucci III & Sergeant S. Mendes

December 19 // 4:21 p.m.

“Vic, you're not listening.”

I stuff my handkerchief into my pocket, look around for a clock. As it turns out, time is hard to pass when you can't see it.

“Sorry,” I say. “What was the question?”

“Did Baz ever mention why Nzuzi doesn't talk?”

Mendes taps the edge of her file with her pen. She rarely writes anything, which makes sense, considering the whole conversation is being recorded. The pen she uses like a tiny drumstick, clicking it against the table, the pad of paper, the bracelet on her left hand . . .

Rhythmically. Rhythmically. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythmically.

Rhythmically. Rhythmically. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythmically.

. . .

“He did,” I say.

“And?”

Truth is, until the last twenty-four hours I didn't know many details about the Kabongo brothers' past life. But a lot has changed. And last night—or early this morning, I really couldn't say which—I'd learned plenty.

“The Kabongos were born in Brazzaville, in the Republic
of the Congo. Their whole family had to flee when Baz was ten, I think. Zuz would have been really young—and they had a little sister at the time too. They walked for months, ate and drank very little. People were dying all around them. Made it pretty far together until their father died of malnutrition.”

“That's terrible. You said Baz was ten?”

I nod.

“About how old do you think Nzuzi and Nsimba were?” she asks.

“By then, probably three or—”

. . .

Shit.

. . .

. . .

“Vic, you okay?”

. . .

I stare into Mendes's eyes, second-guessing everything. “How did you know about Nsimba?”

“What?”

“Before. Just now. You said, ‘Nzuzi and Nsimba.'”

Mendes flushes, flips through some papers in the file in front of her. “You mentioned a sister—”

“Not by name.”

“It's common Congolese practice, naming twins Nzuzi and Nsimba. I just assumed.”

“I never said they were twins.”

It wouldn't be that difficult to learn information about the Kabongos' lives before resettlement in the States. Baz mentioned organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Red Cross—certainly, there were records, documentation outlining their
experiences. But it does make me wonder what else Mendes knows, and to what lengths she's gone to gather information.

She sips her coffee, checks her watch. “Anyway, you were about to say why Nzuzi doesn't talk.”

I run my hands through my hair. “I don't really feel like talking specifics. The kid saw some pretty horrible things at a pretty young age, Miss Mendes. If he doesn't feel like talking, I don't blame him. To be perfectly honest, considering all he's been through, I'd say he's coping fairly well.”

Rhythmically. Rhythmically. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythmically.

. . .

Mendes pulls a manila file out of nowhere, drops it onto the desk. Something about it is terrifyingly simple, like a lone stranger's face in your own family's portrait.

There's a knock on the door, quickly followed by the entrance of a guy in a suit, and a shock of red hair.

“Detective Ron,” says Mendes. “This is Vic Benucci.”

Detective Ron nods at me, his eyes landing on my face. In a matter of seconds, I see the forced casualness, the attempted internal explanation, followed by the nothing-to-see-here smile, and finally—the slow look-away.

If I had a nickel for every slow look-away . . .

“What's up?” says Mendes.

“It's not good,” says Detective Ron, totally avoiding eye contact with me now.

“Ronald, what?”

Judging from Mendes's tone, I'm guessing Detective Ronald is the Hackensack Police Department's resident Frank. He does seem to have a certain French poodle quality about him.

“We keep calling,” says Ron. “She doesn't answer.”

Across the hall, I catch a glimpse of Mad's yellow hair in
the door window. It's crazy: you can miss just about anything when it belongs to the right person. Mad is my right person, ergo, I miss her hair and her shoes and her just-about-everything, pretty much.

“Leave a voice mail?” asks Mendes.

“Tried. Her in-box is full.”

I feel a sudden dryness on the back of my tongue, a twitch in my ear, a mighty aplombness in my belly. I knew they were trying to get ahold of Mom, but the reality of seeing her here . . .

When she shows up, she'll just have to wait. I'm not stopping now.

“Okay, keep trying,” says Mendes. “And let me know the minute you reach her.”

On his way out the door, Detective Ron gives Mendes a peculiar smile. Over the years, I've become something of an expert smile-reader, as if my own inability to grin affords me a heightened awareness of others'.

. . .

. . .

“So,” I say. “Detective Ronald.”

“What about him?” asks Mendes.

“He's your bitch, isn't he?”

Mendes crosses her arms, says nothing.

“Question,” I say. “Does he just relish being the dude outside the door? To be honest, I always thought it was a bit of a chump's errand, you know?
Hey, you know what you'd be
perfect
for? Sitting. In the hallway
.”

Mendes unclasps the manila folder in front of her, pulls out a few sheets of paper. She flips them upside down, folds her hands across the top.

“Vic, have you ever heard of touch DNA?”

. . .

“No.”

She picks up her pen, holds it in the air. “We've been sitting here for just over an hour. During that time, my body has shed roughly thirty thousand skin cells. Now let's assume only a fraction of those cells transferred from my fingers to this pen—maybe .01 percent. So about three hundred dead skin cells. Or we could be extra conservative and cut that by a third. Let's say one hundred of my dead skin cells are on this pen. Do you know how many cells a lab needs to develop a person's DNA profile? Seven, maybe eight. That's touch DNA.” She slides the envelope across the table. “We pulled DNA off the murder weapon, compared it to nuclear DNA also found at the scene, then ran the results through what's called the Combined DNA Index System—CODIS, for short. It's an FBI database that contains DNA samples of known felons.”

She slides a photo of a man across the table. I don't know him, or at least I don't think I do. He's so badly beaten, it's hard to tell. The picture is a close-up of his face, his wounds and bruises so severe, you might think you were looking at a fresh corpse.

“Who is this?” I ask.

Mendes sips her coffee. “When they arrived in the States, Baz and Nzuzi were categorized as M4 refugee minors, meaning they had no relatives here and knew no one. They were placed in the foster care system almost immediately, with a family in Syracuse. Things go well for a number of years—Baz graduates high school, moves out, gets a job at a local electronics store. Eventually he meets some bad dudes who get him mixed up in their shit. The family says they're done. They have a biological son and don't feel they can trust Baz anymore.”

“You said he moved out.”

“He did, but Nzuzi was still there, so Baz was coming around all the time. So once the Syracuse family bows out”—Mendes nods at the photo in my hand—“Thomas Blythe steps in. Single father, decent home, decent job. Eventually the care is approved by Catholic Charities. By all accounts, Mr. Blythe did the Kabongos an incredible kindness, taking Nzuzi in.” She reaches out, taps the photo. “And this is how Baz repaid that kindness. Beat him within an inch of his life.”

. . .

“So he
is
alive, then?” I ask.

Mendes slides another photo across the table. In this one, Thomas Blythe is in a hospital bed, half a dozen machines around the room, tubes running along (and
into
) various parts of his body. His face appears to have healed for the most part, though there are some visible scars.

“This photo was taken a couple of months ago by a nurse who takes care of him. He's in a coma, Victor. On life support. If you call that living.”

I am an eternal blank page.

“What makes you think it was Baz?” I ask. “This man—”

“Thomas Blythe.”

“He's in a coma, you said. So we can't know what really happened.”

Mendes slides the third and final sheet of paper across the table. This one is very different from the first two. Across the top, it states in bold lettering,
CRIMINAL HISTORY REPORT
. Below that, Baz's face stares up at me. It's him, but it's not. There are no smiles from his mouth or his eyes. It's a cold photo, gray and hard, hard and heavy, heavy and horrible. Baz-in-the-photo doesn't require the truth, or speak
of the provision of the Living God. Baz-in-the-photo doesn't take the bread off the burger, or quietly pass on soda. Baz-in-the-photo breaks my heart.

To the left of his picture, a list of descriptions includes sex, race, place and date of birth, height, weight, and identifying marks.

“This is what I meant when I said he fell in with some bad dudes,” says Mendes, tapping a line halfway down the page.
Prior convictions.
There is only one: Grand larceny in the fourth degree (
“Suspect stole a Lexus LS 600 value est. over 150K . . .”
). “That's a Class E felony,” says Mendes, “which accounts for his DNA landing in the CODIS database. As I understand it, there was a bit of leniency with sentencing, considering he had no priors, but he did serve the minimum of one year in prison.”

Do you need help? Did you hurt anyone?

Baz's questions weren't conjured from thin air; they were pieces of his past. His no-stealing rule, too, now carried far more weight.

The document goes on to say Baz had been suspected of being involved in one case of assault and battery, and another case of kidnapping.

Mendes reaches over, picks up the picture of Thomas Blythe, stares at it while she talks. “There was no sign of forced entry into Blythe's apartment. Nothing was stolen. No instrument or weapon was used in the assault of Mr. Blythe, and the wounds were consistent with those of a fist. Repeated and forceful blows by someone who possessed great strength. And I would guess—plenty of rage.”

Fingernails. Push. Deep into the skin of my right forearm.

Push and hold.

Harder now.

I am an old habit.

“Baz Kabongo is not who you think he is, Victor. And he's counting on you to be a follower. To be
his
follower. He's counting on you to be stupid. I'm counting on you to be smart.”

Mendes's voice is dull, fuzzy, like she's speaking through a walkie-talkie from some far-off land.

A bad connection from Singapore.

I stare at Baz's rap sheet, my eyes focusing on a single word. “Kidnapping?” I say.

. . .

. . .

“Victor. Did Coco ever talk about her father?”