Night Secrets (27 page)

H
e was on his second shot of Jameson's by the time midnight rolled around. The usual crowd was mulling over the day's losses, mostly old-timers staring listlessly at themselves in the mirror that stretched out across the full length of the dark, splintery bar.

Frank sat at a table in the back. He could see the traffic along Eighth Avenue very easily, despite the grayish clouds that rose from the steam cart at the front of the room. A small white-haired man was standing behind it, cutting two-inch thick slices of corned beef while an old woman waited for it, her small red tongue flicking hungrily as she watched.

The old woman was about halfway through her sandwich when Ortiz finally came through the door. He stared around a moment, craning his neck until he spotted Frank at the back of the room. He looked disappointed to find him there, hunched his shoulders slightly and sauntered back to him.

“So, I'm here,” he said gruffly as he sat down.

Frank took out his notebook.

“Christ, you ain't even gonna spring for a drink?” Ortiz said.

Frank signaled for a barman, and he stepped over immediately.

“Gimme a margarita,” Ortiz said. “Straight up, with salt.”

The barman looked at Ortiz as if he were some creature from another species. “We don't have mixed drinks.”

“You don't have mixed drinks?” Ortiz squealed. “What kind of fucking bar is this?”

The barman's eyes squeezed together, and the tattooed belly dancer on his upper arm did a quick bump and grind. “We don't have mixed drinks,” he repeated glumly.

“He'll have a beer,” Frank said quickly, to ease the tension.

“Beer?” Ortiz blurted. “I don't want a …”

“Beer it is,” the barman said crisply. Then he spun around and disappeared.

“Classy fuckin' place,” Ortiz muttered.

Frank opened his notebook. “This has to do with a woman,” he said.

Ortiz laughed. “Don't everything.”

“This one is accused of murder,” Frank added.

“Oh, so tha's what this is all about,” Ortiz said happily. He looked relieved. “That killing over on Tenth Avenue.”

Frank nodded.

“Jesus, man,” Ortiz said excitedly, “I ran right into that fuckin' thing. I was right in the middle of it.”

Frank turned to a blank page and moved his pen into position. “I want you to tell me everything you know about that night.”

“I told it all to the cops.”

“This time it's to me,” Frank told him. “Maybe you'll remember something.”

Ortiz began, but spotted the barman walking toward him with the beer. He waited until after the first long drink to begin.

“Well, I was working the third shift that night,” he said.

“Midnight to eight?”

“Tha's it,” Ortiz said. “We call it the ‘suicide shift,' because you're out on these fuckin' streets, you know, when you gotta be crazy to be out there.” He shrugged. “But in this neighborhood you got a lot of people that don't do nothin' 'cept at night. They sleep the fuckin' day away, and at night, tha's when they get goin'. So we got deliveries from midnight to eight. It ain't a lot of 'em, but enough to matter to the store, you know, so they got to provide the service and all, 'cause if they don't, they lose these night types.”

“When did you get the call from the woman on Tenth Avenue?” Frank asked quickly, trying to keep him focused.

“It wasn't no call.”

“What do you mean?”

“She come in, that woman,” Ortiz said. “She didn't call for nothing.”

“She came into the store?”

“Tha's right.”

“Had she ever done that before?”

“I ain't never seen her in there,” Ortiz said. He grinned. “And I woulda noticed her. Because she was real fine, you know?”

“What time did she come in?”

“Musta been around three-thirty in the mornin'.”

“Was anybody with her?”

Ortiz shook his head.

“Are you sure?”

“She was alone,” Ortiz repeated. “I woulda noticed if she been with somebody.”

Frank nodded. “So she came in the store. Then what?”

“She did some shopping,” Ortiz said. “I seen her scooting around the aisles, you know, gettin' this and that. She was movin' real fast, like she was in a big hurry.”

“You watched her the whole time?”

“Well, the store was empty, and it gets boring. So, when a fine thing like that comes in, it sort of gets you workin' at it again, you know?”

“How long was she in the store?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“So she didn't buy very much.”

“No,” Ortiz said, “just a few things.”

“And she looked like she was in a hurry?”

“Movin real fast, yeah.”

“What happened when she finished getting whatever she needed?” Rank asked.

“Well, Gloria run it through the register, like always. Then the woman paid, and Gloria done what she was supposed to do next.”

“Which was?”

“She bagged the stuff.”

“Where were you?”

“I was standin' at the end of the counter,” Ortiz said. “Sort of watchin' the whole thin', Gloria doin' the baggin', and that woman. She was the one I was watchin'.”

“What was she doing?”

“She was puttin' her change away.”

“But she didn't take her groceries,” Frank said.

“No, she didn't,” Ortiz said. “She looked at Gloria and she asked if the stuff could be delivered. Gloria said yeah, okay, that was good, and the woman gave her the address.”

“Then she left?”

“Tha's right,” Ortiz said. “And I didn't see her again ‘til I brought the stuff over.”

“How long did that take?”

“About ten minutes.”

Frank wrote it down, then looked back up at Ortiz. “When you got to the place on Tenth Avenue, what happened?”

“I went on in.”

“You went in?”

“Tha's right, like I said.”

“You didn't knock at the door?”

“Didn't have to,” Ortiz said. “It was already open.”

“She'd left the front door open?” Frank asked doubtfully.

Ortiz shrugged. “Hey, man, I thought it was funny, too, but I said to myself, I said, ‘Hey, man, she probably knows you're right behind her with the stuff, so tha's how come she just left it open.'”

“So you just went in?”

“Tha's right,” Ortiz said. “I sort of poked my head in there and I guess I said something. You know, called something, like, ‘Hey, delivery's here,' something like that. Then I walked on in.”

“What did you see?”

Ortiz shivered. “Man, it was
weird,”
he said. “Like from
Nightmare on Elm Street
, you know?”

“What was weird?”

“Just her, you know, standing there.” He shivered again. “She'd just done it, you know. The blood was still dripping from the razor. And she was just standing there, with her arm raised up over her head, like she was about to slice her again.”

Frank nodded and wrote it down. “Standing where?” he asked when he'd finished.

“Over that other woman, the dead one.”

“Tell me exactly how she was standing.”

“
Over
her, like I said,” Ortiz told him. “With this weird look on her face.”

“Her face?” Frank said immediately. “She was facing you?”

“Yeah, facin' me.”

“And you were standing at the front of the room?”

“Behind some kinda curtain.”

“A beaded curtain, right?” Frank asked. “Red beads?”

“Yeah, red beads.”

“And she was facing you with her arm in the air?”

“And the razor in her hand, you know, and it was drippin',” Ortiz said. He laughed dryly. “It's funny what you notice. I noticed it was still drippin'.”

Frank wrote it down. “Where was the body?”

“It was on the floor,” Ortiz said. “And like I told you, she was standin' over it.”

“Where were her feet?”

“Sort of spread apart,” Ortiz said, “one on each side of the other woman's head.”

Frank's pencil stopped. “Head?”

“Tha's right.”

Frank tried to picture it. “So she was facing you with her arm in the air and the razor in her hand?”

“Yeah.”

“And her feet were on either side of the other woman's head?”

“Tha's the way it was,” Ortiz said flatly.

“Did she see you?”

“I think so.”

“What did she do?”

“Nothin'.”

“Did she come toward you?”

“No.”

“How about her arm,” Frank said. “Did she lower it?”

Ortiz shook his head.

“So she just stood in place, and let you look at her?”

“Yeah, for just a second,” Ortiz said. “Then I got the hell out of there.”

“And called the police,” Frank said.

“Tha's right,” Ortiz told him. He took a sip of the beer. He looked pleased with himself. “So tha's the story.”

“What'd you do with the groceries?” Frank asked.

“Huh?”

“The groceries,” Frank repeated. “They weren't in the room.”

“In the room?”

“The woman's place,” Frank said. “The cops checked out everything. They never found any groceries.”

Ortiz suddenly stiffened. “What are you talkin' about, man? The cops didn't find no groceries?”

Frank shook his head.

“But I dropped 'em, man,” Ortiz said insistently. “Like I told them cops, I dropped the bag, man. I dropped it right by that curtain.”

Frank gave him a withering stare. “Well, nobody found them, Pedro.”

“Tha's why them cops kept coming back to me, then,” he said, almost to himself.

“They fingered you at first,” Frank told him, “because of the groceries, because they were missing.”

“But the woman confessed,” Ortiz said. “So I'm off the hook, right?”

“Except that the groceries are still missing,” Frank said darkly.

Ortiz took a quick nervous gulp of the beer. “I dropped them by that fuckin' curtain. Tha's all I know, man.”

“Well somebody got rid of them,” Frank said.

“Not me, man,” Ortiz said edgily. “I didn't do nothin' to them groceries.”

“Do you remember what they were?”

“They was groceries, tha's all.”

“Well, you were standing right there when Gloria bagged them,” Frank said.

“I seen what they was,” Ortiz told him. “They was the usual thing.” He went through the list. “Some tuna, some bread and mustard and stuff like that. Some peanut butter and crackers. She had some fruit, too, apples and shit. She started to buy a quart of milk, but she decided not to, and just left it in her basket. And she had a magazine or something, and one of them little car games, and a …”

“Car games?”

“Yeah.”

“What's that?”

“They sell them on a rack by the checkout counter,” Ortiz said. “It's in a little plastic packet and it's full of little games and puzzles for kids to play with when they're on a trip. I seen her grab it.”

Frank remembered them now, remembered buying the same sort of thing for his own daughter when she was nine or ten, remembered how she would sit silently in the backseat of the car as they all drove toward his hometown, the sound of her fingers as she played, the calm shirr of her breathing.

“And the woman took one of those games?” he asked intently.

“Yeah, she did.”

“And it was put in the grocery bag like everything else?” Frank asked excitedly. “With all the other stuff she bought that night?”

Ortiz nodded. “Yeah, I seen Gloria put it in there. It was stickin' out of the bag when I got to Tenth Avenue.” He smiled at the irony of it. “Just a little game, you know, like for a child.”

Suddenly Frank saw the little room with its small chair and tiny square of foam rubber, then the hook-and-eye lock, which had been screwed too loosely into the doorjamb to hold an adult inside, but which would have worked just fine if the prisoner was a child.