Lush Life (48 page)

"Where'd you get a hundred dollars, Lester?" Matty asked.

"Where?" He shivered, then coughed into his fist. "Oh, man, you don't want to make extra work for yourself with questions like that."

"No?"

"Seriously."

Matty let it slide.

"Nothing," Iacone called out.

"You do Brooklyn?" Lester asked.

"No, just Manhattan."

"Can you check Brooklyn? She scores on South Second, South Third. No one scores in Manhattan anymore, Manhattan's dead. You guys took care of that." Lester recrossed his knees, a slice of grimy red long johns peeking out between his pale blue ankle and the cuff of his jeans. "I mean, what the hell happened to her? She was going to take me to the hospital. I have fluid in my lungs."

"That's no problem, we'll get someone to take you soon as we're finished."

"Nothing," Iacone called out. "She got a third name?"

"She's not in the system, huh? Jesus. What do you think happened to her?" he asked Matty. "And me here . . . This is a felony too, right?"

"Not necessarily. Depends how you say what you say, you know, visa-vis sincerity, remorse."

"I am remorseful. I didn't menace, I didn't threaten, I didn't say anything, what's it, terroristic . . ."

"All right, just capture that in your statement. In fact, if you want, we can even write your statement for you. But what can I tell you that you haven't heard a million times before? You help us, we help . . ."

"You think this could go down as a pet lar? I just, I didn't even want, I picked the fucking thing up off the sidewalk. I didn't even think anybody was going to notice. When that big black guy started running after me, I was like, 'Here, take it.' 1 didn't even get to open the damned thing, I have no idea what was in there. Obviously I'm not a pro at this."

"Now, now, don't get down on yourself," Iacone said from Yolonda's desk.

"You know, I got to say right now we're pretty much eating out of garbage cans, me and Anita, but a few years ago? We had us a store worth like two hundred thousand dollars."

"Oh yeah?" Matty's turn to yawn. "What kind of store?"

"Was like a punk boutique?"

"No kidding."

"Can I have a cigarette? Jesus, I got to get to the emergency room."

"All right." Matty clapped his hands. "Here we go, onetime offer. Fuck the guys who shot that kid, just give us a stickup team, just some names, anybody you know works the hood. They check out, not only do you get a pass here, but we take you to the ER, get you squared away, then we go look for your girl."

"A stickup team?" Lester shrugged, recrossed his legs, looked away "You know, she used to use Carmen . Lopez. That was like her professional name at this one place out in Massapequa. She was a bar dancer, exotic, very good, very popular, had her regulars, guys who liked to see her and she could go to their houses, some of them, borrow thirty, forty dollars, but she's four months pregnant now, so . . ." Resting his brow on the curve of his free hand. "I don't know. Maybe it's time to go upstate. It's getting too hard out here, you know?"

"I know I just woke you, but I'm sure you're so dying to find out what happened with the kids in court yesterday, I figured you wouldn't mind."

"Ah shit." Matty palmed his face. The clock read seven. "Sorry." Too tired to work up an excuse. "So how'd it go . . ."

"Well, the Big One's out and back on the job."

"And the Other One?"

"You're gonna love this."

"Love what."

"Let me ask you, how big is your place?"

"Love what, Lindsay."

"And how's the neighborhood?"

"Love what."

"The family court judge? He's got no use for Eddie at all. Especially since he almost cost his older brother his job."

"You got to be kidding me."

"Said if he could, he'd throw Eddie in juvie."

"He can't do that."

"So he said. But he also said that if Eddie violates his probation in any way, shape, or form over the next three years, he is gone for good."

"Jesus. Is this kid going to straighten out?"

"Well, lets put it this way. This wasn't his first encounter with family court."

"You never told me that."

"Why, what would you have done, hop in your car, shoot right up, and give him a good talking-to?"

"I don't know." No. "He's my son too."

"Glad to hear it, because that brings us to the part you're gonna love. Basically, this judge, he just wants Eddie gone, out of the county. The family advocate mentions that his dad's a detective down in New York City, right? So the judge, his eyes light up, and he strongly recommends that perhaps it's time for young Eddie to live with his father, get some real parental supervision, since I apparently suck at it."

"What did you say?"

"I agreed."

"Lindsay . . ."

"I believe he needs about a week to off-load whatever dope they didn't find, then he's on the bus to you."

"Hang on, hang on. First off, I don't have any room."

"Eddie says you do."

"He said that?"

"Says you have a convertible sofa."

"Huh."

"He's a bit of fuckhead, but he's got a good heart. You'd probably like him."

"Huh." Then, sitting up, "What grade is he in again?"

As soon as he got off the phone with Lindsay, he started dialing Berkowitz at home to get a progress report on the great Sunday recanvass, but then remembered that it was only a few minutes past seven on a Saturday morning, so cut the call before it could ring through, telling himself to calm the hell down.

It was his day off, so he tried to go back to sleep.

Fat chance.

Everyone had come around the front of 22 Oliver to check out the new poster.

The fuck is this nigger," Devon said. "Look like Storm." "Who?"

"Storm, the X-Girl in the X-Men, had the weather powers."

"Yeah, that bitch was ablaze."

"Who was that"-Fredro snapped his fingers-"Jada . . ."

"Halle Berry, Halle Berry."

"Oh, I'd bone her in a heartbeat," Little Dap said.

"This dude got a beard, yo. Bone you in a heartbeat."

Tristan laughed like everybody else, the hamster in his charge looking up at him in surprise.

X-girl. Bitch.

He wasn't insulted or paranoid or scared, just fascinated, trying to see himself in this drawing, wanting to see himself, but he couldn't any more than he could see himself by looking in a mirror.

"You know who that looks like?" Fredro tapped the poster. "Who's the dude was in the movie, what's that, The Best Man, the, the light
-
skin dude got them lighty eyes?"

"Yeah, yeah, I don't know his name, though."

Crystal Santos, wary and eager, came out of the building into their stares.

"Ey yo, what's that green-eyed nigger was in The Best Man, had the guitar."

"Oh, I like him," she said. "Was in Big Mommas House too."

"Good for him, what's his name."

"I don't know."

Little Dap spit through the gap in his front teeth. "Still look like a bitch to me."

Tristan cocked his head and waited for Little Dap's eyes, but pretty much like he expected, they never came his way

At the tail end of the lunch hour, Harry Steele's culture dealer was sitting alone eating shirred eggs, tilting his head sideways each time he lifted a forkful from his plate, then lunging for it halfway to his mouth.

"Can I talk to you?"

The dealer looked around the room for a long moment, then took another lunge at his eggs. "What."

Eric stood facing him across the small table, his hands on the chair
-
back opposite. "I'm looking to get something, a little something going."

"A little something going. What kind of a little something going." Taking another sideways snap at his fork.

Eric sighed, paradiddled the wood under his fingers.

"Are you talking to me now or not?" The guy had yet to look at him.

Another squeamish sigh, then, "What do you think."

"What do I think? I think I'm not a mind reader, so why don't you just say."

Eric looked off and flicked the side of his nose. "What?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, what do you think?"

The culture dealer stopped moving for a beat then resumed eating.

"What's my name."

Eric knew but blanked.

"Right. In the six months that I've been coming in here, you have not so much as once exchanged a single pleasantry with me before, and yet for this you think nothing of making a beeline to my table. Why."

Eric searched the cavernous room for a reasonable-sounding response.

"I just have that, what . . . ferretlike air about me?" Looking at him for the first time.

"I apologize." Every day in every way, Eric sinking, just sinking.

"I come in here because the owner, your boss, happens to be a good friend of mine. I come in on my own for a peaceful meal, and his goddamn manager, of all people-"

"I apologize. I'm under a lot of strain right now."

"I read the papers."

"I know, I know I have no . . ." Eric dying to get back to the pulpit, imagining his grip on the seatback splintering the wood. "I'd appreciate you not mentioning this to Harry."

"I'll bet you would," disgustedly flipping his fork on the plate. _ "These eggs are like ice."

After everyone left, Tristan pulled the wanted poster off the wall by the mailboxes in his building, and, with the hamster in his charge, the .22 tucked in the small of his back, headed over to Irma Nieves's building, and do what . . .

Show her the poster and ask if she knew this guy? Ask her if it looked like him? Tell her that he knew who . . . that he was ... No. First say, Oh, I heard everybody was over here now. Huh. Then, Oh . . . you see this? Or . . .

When the elevator came, that fat boy Donald, the one everybody called Gameboy, was in it, the guys eyes like two BBs in a cave. And just like whenever Tristan saw him, he was carrying his game boxes: todays selection Tectonic II and NFL Smashmouth.

They knew each other by sight, saw each other almost every day either in school or somewhere in the Lemlichs, but never really spoke.

"You play that?" Tristan said as the car clanked upwards.

'Teh," Gameboy said, his eyes on the rolled poster. "That's that dude?"

As an experiment, Tristan unfurled it for his perusal, looked him in his tiny eyes.

"Police was mad sweatin' me on that." Gameboy's voice high and wheezy "But I ain't say shit."

"You know who it is?"

Gameboy pointedly looked at the hamster, then up at the ceiling of the car. "Little pictures got big ears, you know what I'm saying?"

Tristan didn't.

Then as the fat kid stepped out on his floor, "Dude ain't even from around here."

No one answered when he rang Irma Nieves's bell, although when he was back to waiting for the elevator, he could swear he heard laughing from behind her door.

At eight that evening Eric, pondering his dope-buying options and getting nowhere, heard the key in the door, a sound he hadn't heard in nine or however many months.

"Oh, sorry." Alessandra winced. "I thought you'd be at work." "Hey, it's your place." Eric shrugged. She flopped down next to him on the sofa futon. "Everything OK?"

"Carlos's aunt was giving me the evil eye."

"Oh yeah?"

"Catholic."

"I hear you." Eric staring at the TV as if it were on. "You're different," she said. "From him?" "From you."

"So you need the place tonight?" "1 guess. Start packing stuff up." "OK." He started to rise, gather a few things. "You don't have to run out." "No, I know, I'm just . . ." "Where are you going to go?" "I can call some people," then thinking, Like who. In the brief silence that followed he fantasized about knocking on Bree's group apartment door, he was sure it was a group apartment, her leading him to her room, that mattress on the floor. Overwhelmed, he sat back down on the futon. "I didn't mean to kick you out," she said.

"It's fine," avoiding her eyes, then, "So how's your thesis going?"

"Good."

"Great."

She slowly absorbed the lay of the room while gnawing on her thumb joint, a habit Eric had forgotten about and that tugged at him a little now but not enough.

"Have you seen the paper yet?" "You mean yesterday's?" "Yeah." Eric bracing.

"I did," she said. "I can't believe you came that close to dying." "What?"

"You read between the lines, it's kind of like that guy almost got you killed."

Eric's eyes started to sting.