Manhattan Nocturne (2 page)
Read Manhattan Nocturne Online
Authors: Colin Harrison
I found the Houses. They were identical six-story brick buildings, and above the loopy scrawls and stylized threats and nicknames appended with RIP rose window upon window with bars on themâto prevent the young from falling out and the criminal from climbing in. Rap music pounded outward from all directions, cut through by the sound of dogs barking across the snowy mud at other dogs in other buildings. Elsewhere mattresses hung out like tongues, or the windows were decorated with old Christmas lights, some on, some off, or more graffiti, or rotting shelves of flowerpots, or riggings of clothesline from which flapped socks or panties or babies' pajamas. The scene was bizarre and ominous and in no way unusual.
Then I spotted the police and the firemen and the kids on bicycles. It's the kids that tell you whether the scene is still hotâthey lose interest quickly, especially when the gore is not as good as what they see on TV, and if they're milling around, starting to argue and roughhouse, then the situation is getting cold, the bodies gone, the witnesses hard to find. This scene looked like it had only about ten minutes left in it. I stepped through to get the story and was glad to see no TV vans around. The regular cops don't usually recognize me, but when somebody's been killed, a homicide detective is there soon, and often we've talked before. (I should admit right here, early on, that I've been sewn in with the cops for a while nowâone of the deputy police commissioners under Mayor Giuliani, Hal Fitzgerald, is my daughter's godfather, which is good and not good: you start trading favors, you forget what the sides are, you forget you're playing on opposite teams. This was another obvious fuckup that I didn't avoid.) The captain in charge, a tall guy with red hair, told me what had happened: a young father living on the fourth floor of one of the buildings had not paid his cocaine tab; some nice people had forced their way into his apartment to
scare him or to whack himâit wasn't clearâand ended up setting the place on fire. The captain recounted the incident duly, his eyes holding the brick horizon, thinking, it would seem, of anything elseâhis children, his wife, his boatâanything other than another case of what cops sometimes call “misdemeanor homicide.” You got anything more? I asked. Maybe there was a fight, he shrugged, or one of the bullets hit the gas stove. Or maybe the two shooters lit the fire on purposeâthe details were as yet unknown, since the girlfriend was in shock and had been taken to the hospital, and of the three other adults who had seen what happened, two were nowhere to be found (probably nervously drinking in a bar in another borough by now) and the third was dead. What was certain was that after the shooters left the apartment they had jammed an old bed frame between the blue metal apartment door and the hallway wall. The door opened
outward,
in violation of all relevant New York City public-housing codes, and thus the woman had been trapped in her burning apartment with her baby and a shot-up boyfriend.
scare him or to whack himâit wasn't clearâand ended up setting the place on fire. The captain recounted the incident duly, his eyes holding the brick horizon, thinking, it would seem, of anything elseâhis children, his wife, his boatâanything other than another case of what cops sometimes call “misdemeanor homicide.” You got anything more? I asked. Maybe there was a fight, he shrugged, or one of the bullets hit the gas stove. Or maybe the two shooters lit the fire on purposeâthe details were as yet unknown, since the girlfriend was in shock and had been taken to the hospital, and of the three other adults who had seen what happened, two were nowhere to be found (probably nervously drinking in a bar in another borough by now) and the third was dead. What was certain was that after the shooters left the apartment they had jammed an old bed frame between the blue metal apartment door and the hallway wall. The door opened
outward,
in violation of all relevant New York City public-housing codes, and thus the woman had been trapped in her burning apartment with her baby and a shot-up boyfriend.
I walked into the project's common area and scrounged around long enough to find one of the neighbors, a woman in her late twenties in a black winter coat. She lived across from the apartment in question. The interview wouldn't take long, just a few questions. So people will know what happened, I usually say, accompanied by some scribbling in a notebook (only rarely do I use a tape recorderâit scares people into silence, and besides, I always remember the good quotesâthey stick in your ear). The woman held a baby in a snowsuit on her shoulder, a baby most interested in this man who was a funny color. The black eyes in the tiny brown face searched mine, and for a moment the world was redeemed. Then I asked the woman what she had witnessed. Well, I wasn't expecting nothing to happen, she said, 'cause it was still morning and usually things like that don't happen in the morning, everybody be sleeping. She possessed a handsome face with strong features, but when she lifted her gaze up to the apartment, the windows of which had been shattered from the inside by the firemen's axes, I saw that her eyes were rheumy
and tired. The fire had smudged the brick wall of the building, and the firemen had hurled charred household items out of the window: a kitchen table, clothing, a few chairs, clothes, a baby's crib, a television, a box spring. Flung into the snow, the blackened wreckage looked like some of the assemblages you see in the galleries in Soho, an artist's pessimistic statement about whatever age we now live in.
and tired. The fire had smudged the brick wall of the building, and the firemen had hurled charred household items out of the window: a kitchen table, clothing, a few chairs, clothes, a baby's crib, a television, a box spring. Flung into the snow, the blackened wreckage looked like some of the assemblages you see in the galleries in Soho, an artist's pessimistic statement about whatever age we now live in.
Did you know the family involved? I asked the woman. Yes, I be in that apartment a hundred times. How did you find out what happened? I didn't need nobody to tell me, âcause I saw the whole thing myself. I be washing the dishes and I seen the smoke and everything out the window, and I told myself that don't look good, that look like Benita. So I call the emergency, and then I went downstairs. The woman glanced at me. She had more to tell me, and I waited. I don't usually press. People will say what they have to say. But when they get stuck, you can go back to the chronology. What time was this? I asked. Almost twelve o'clock noon. Okay, you were washing the dishes; what did you do when you saw the smoke, were you surprised? I was so surprise I drop a dish, matter of fact. What happened when you got outside? I was looking up at the window hoping that the fire department gonna make it pretty soon and then I'm looking up there when Demetrius, he come jumping through that window. He on fire, burning like, all over his shirt and hair and pants, and he holding Benita's kid, uh, Vernon, he only four months, and then Demetrius
fall,
he just fall and fall and
fall,
and I can tell that he gonna land
on top
of the baby, and I was worrying about
that,
and then just before Demetrius land, then he like, he do this little kind
of flip,
and he land on his back holding the baby
up,
like, I could see he did that on purpose so the baby be okay. Like, that was the last thing Demetrius ever did in his life, do that little flip and hold that baby up, âcause then Demetrius, he land on his back, just like
that
âand here the woman slapped one black hand smack flat on top of the otherâand he lay real still like, and I go running over and pick up Vernon 'cause I see Demetrius,
he
not gonna make it, and I check that baby over
good,
and then I thank the Lord,
'cause Vernon, he not hurt. Little shook up's all. He cry only a little bit and I put him up in my arms. But Demetrius look
bad.
He got blood coming out of his ears and then I saw how he was all shot up by them boys. Then I just hope that Benita, don't
she
come jumping â¦
fall,
he just fall and fall and
fall,
and I can tell that he gonna land
on top
of the baby, and I was worrying about
that,
and then just before Demetrius land, then he like, he do this little kind
of flip,
and he land on his back holding the baby
up,
like, I could see he did that on purpose so the baby be okay. Like, that was the last thing Demetrius ever did in his life, do that little flip and hold that baby up, âcause then Demetrius, he land on his back, just like
that
âand here the woman slapped one black hand smack flat on top of the otherâand he lay real still like, and I go running over and pick up Vernon 'cause I see Demetrius,
he
not gonna make it, and I check that baby over
good,
and then I thank the Lord,
'cause Vernon, he not hurt. Little shook up's all. He cry only a little bit and I put him up in my arms. But Demetrius look
bad.
He got blood coming out of his ears and then I saw how he was all shot up by them boys. Then I just hope that Benita, don't
she
come jumping â¦
The woman stopped and looked away, back toward the window. She shifted her baby, gave the bundle a pat on the rear. Anything else? I asked. Nuh-uh. I waited a moment more, looking her in the eyes. Thank you for your time, I said. The woman just nodded. She was not shocked or distraught, at least not apparently. The events in question did not violate her view of the universe, they were just further proof thereof.
I see a lot of this, to be honest, and there was no time to stand around and be mystified by the brutalities of urban life; the story was due in the paper's computer system by 5:30 P.M.âabout three hours. I had what I needed and was heading back toward the car, already composing the lead paragraph in my headâwhen my beeper trilled against my leg. GIVE THE CHICK A CALL, it said. Lisa, phoning from St. Vincent's Hospital, where she operates. A lot of reporters carry cellular phones, but I hate them; they tether you to other people's agendas and can interrupt you at the worst moment, ruin interviews. I walked around the corner to a little Dominican luncheonette, and when the bell on the door tinkled, a couple of the regulars turned around, and one boy of about eighteen slunk coolly out the back, just in case I was somebody he needed to worry about. They see a big white man who isn't afraid to be someplace, and so maybe I'm a cop.
There was a pay phone on the wall.
“You're due at that cocktail party tonight,” Lisa reminded me. “I put your tuxedo in the trunk.”
The annual party, thrown by Hobbs, the billionaire Australian who owned the newspaper. As one of its columnists, my presence was obligatory. If he was the circus, I was one of the trained monkeys wearing a tight little red collar.
“I can't go,” I said.
“You said yesterday you
have
to.”
have
to.”
“You're sure it's tonight?” I checked my watch, anxious about the time.
“You said six-thirty.”
“All the management people will be there, sucking up to Hobbs.”
“What can I tell you?” she said patiently. “You told me you had to go.”
“Kids are fine?”
“Sally has a play-date. You're up in the Bronx?”
“Brooklyn. Fire. Guy jumped out the window with a baby.” I noticed the restaurant regulars watching me.
Yo, white motherfuck, what you doin' here spittin' fuckin' white-boy saliva on my pay phone?
“Anyway, I'll see you tonight.”
Yo, white motherfuck, what you doin' here spittin' fuckin' white-boy saliva on my pay phone?
“Anyway, I'll see you tonight.”
“Late or early?” Lisa asked.
“Early.”
“If you get home early enough, there's a chance,” she said.
“Oh? A chance of what?”
“A chance you'll get to make out.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh, it's
good
all right.”
good
all right.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” Lisa said.
“How?”
“Certain testimonials have been entered into the records.”
“Whose was the last one?” I asked.
“Oh, some strange man.”
“Was he good? Did he float your boat?”
“You lose your chance after eleven,” she said. “Drive safely, okay?”
“Right.” I was about to hang up.
“No! Wait! Porter?”
“What is it?”
“Did the baby live?” Lisa asked worriedly. “The baby who went out the window?”
“You really want to know?”
“You're horrible! Did the baby live?”
I told her the answer, and then I was gone.
Â
Â
There is, in the West Village, on one of the old narrow streets (I won't specify which one) lined with three-story, Federal brick row houses, a wall. A certain wall, located in the middle of the block, about thirty feet long, connecting two houses. It's made of glazed brick and is a good fifteen feet high. The brickwork itself is topped with an ancient, black wrought-iron fence about five feet high that gracefully billows outward and is impossible to climb. Above this fence, and in many places grown through it, are the thick branches of an ailanthus tree, a weedy, fast-growing nuisance of a plant, much given to the city's empty lots, that will contort itself into any shape in order to survive. It must either die by disease or be rooted out completely. This particular ailanthus is so tenacious in its reach toward sunlight that it seems to conspire with wall and fence to keep people out.
I've spent no small amount of time standing on the other side of the street with my arms folded, looking first at the tree and its tangle of branches, then at the fence, and then at the brick wall. Until last winter, examining the wall gave me some measure of reassurance. The wall is virtually impenetrable, and this is important, because set within it is a narrow doorway secured by a gateânot the usual rectangle of vertical iron bars but a solid steel-plate door that extends down to within a quarter inch of the brick walkway. You could slip a weekday paper under that gate with a bit of effort, but you couldn't push a Sunday edition through. The gate is an exact replica of one that hung there for more than a centuryâiron, brittle with age, rusted here and there, repainted black fifteen times. I hired a sixty-year-old Russian welder from Brooklyn to duplicate it in steel. Then the two of us tore out the old gate, hinges and all, and set the new one in its place, repointing the brickwork. I remember how pleased I was, thinking that it would be damn tough to get throughâyou'd have to have a sledgehammer and a hacksaw, you'd have to back a large truck against it, attach a couple of chains, and pull forward in low gear.
But it's where the gate leads that is important. Beyond it, surprisingly, a narrow, arched tunnel doglegs seventy feet back from the sidewalk. Rising and falling, the tunnel passes along the rear foundation walls of three houses dating from the 1830s, all of which have their formal entrances on the next street. This arrangement was written into the original deed of each of these properties, and, according to my real-estate lawyer, represents quite an anomaly in New York City real-estate law. Most residential property, of course, is defined or surveyed from a bird's-eye view, the footprint of the property or building a matter of lengths and widths. Not so with the tunnel. Legally it is three dimensional, “an arched passageway, of a height of five feet and nine inches,” says the original deed, “with slight variation thereof as it extends westerly.” It is a quiet and mysterious conduit, and on evenings when there is little traffic, you can hear water gurgling down the soil pipes of the adjacent buildings, or a piano being played in one of the rooms upstairs. Or the indistinct sounds of conversation. Thus does the tunnel feel like a dark umbilicus, passing closely and secretly past separate lives before opening at the other end into an irregular lot, twenty-one by seventy-four feet, opening upon what my wife and I fell in love withâhere, with the lighted twin towers of the World Trade Center looming not so far away, is what we were amazed to see: a small wooden farmhouse.
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