Only Child (21 page)

• • •

"N
othing," Terry said, his tone somewhere between disgusted and offended. "Two of them, I don't think they even knew her."
"It was odds-against," I told him.
"Worth a shot," the Prof said.
"The one girl, Heidi, I think she was a friend for real," Terry said. "She was crying when we talked about it. But she said the cops had talked to her— talked to everybody in the whole school, she said. She didn't know anything."
"That wasn't our last chance," I assured him.
He didn't look comforted.

• • •

T
he girl in the pink T-shirt with a black "NHB" curling over her small, high breasts looked vaguely Hispanic. Maybe it was her long, dark hair, or the gold hoop earrings. But her voice was pure Ozone Park Italian.
"You look like you've been in some," she said, "but you're, like, too old now."
"I'm the manager," I told her.
"Manager? You must have us confused with the UFC or Pride, mister. The purses here are five hundred dollars, for the
top
of the card."
"That's all right."
"You mean him?" she said, tilting her head in Max's direction.
"Yep."
"You look like a grappler," she said to Max.
He bowed his head, very slightly.
"Doesn't he speak English?" she asked me.
"No," I told her, truthfully.
"He ever go No Holds Barred before? This isn't karate, you understand. People get hurt. . . ."
"We understand."
"Well, you bring him around, I can make him a match." She looked at Max appraisingly. "He's what, two twenty?"
"About that," I agreed. "But we'll go against whatever you've got."
"All right. Bring him down on Friday. Not this Friday, a week from."
"Uh, is anyone going to be taping?"
"Taping? You mean like for TV?"
"No. Just . . . You allow cameras?"
"No. No, we don't. The only video in there is what
we
shoot. If you want a copy, it costs—"
"But, sometimes, you let other people tape, don't you?"
"Where did you hear that?"
"Let me show you. I've got a machine in my car."
"Sixto!" she yelled.
The sound of feet pounding on boards. The door in the back of the dojo opened, and three men walked in. Triangle formation. The guy at the point was half a foot taller than Max and a hundred pounds heavier, with a shaved head and keloid eyebrows. His arms were so densely covered in apolitical ink— crosses, daggers, skulls— that they looked black.
"This guy's asking questions about taping. He says he's got something in his car . . ." the woman told him.
"What is this?" the big man asked, moving closer.
"I want to get my guy into a match," I said. "So I brought him around, find out what the deal is. See, I heard about this from a tape. . . ."
"
What
fucking tape, man?"
"That's what I was trying to explain to this young lady. I watched a piece of tape. Looked pretty good. In fact, unless I miss my guess, you were in it."
"Me?"
"Sixto, that must have been when—"
"Shut up, Vicki," he cut her off. Turned to me. "You trying to sell me something?"
"The opposite. I'm buying, not selling."
"Buying what, man?"
"Look at the tape first," I said.

• • •

"I
never saw this before," Sixto said, fascinated as he watched himself on the portable playback screen. "I took that motherfucker
down
!"
One of the men with him slapped Sixto's extended palm. Hard, signifying total agreement.
"So you said you were buying something . . . ?"
"What I'm buying is, who shot that tape?"
"This one here?"
"Yes."
"What's it worth?"
"Couple a hundred."
"Yeah? Give me the money."
"When you're done."
"I'm nobody to fuck with, pal. You just seen that for yourself."
"Right. And I'm
not
fucking with you. Who made that tape?"
He stared at me, letting his eyes glaze and his breathing go short and sharp. Prison-yard stuff. I looked between his small, close-together eyes, waited.
"I don't know his name," he finally said.
"What do you know?"
"I don't . . . Vicki, you know?"
"Yeah," the woman said. "He paid us; remember, Sixto? To tape just one match. Only we had to let him right in the ring. Remember . . . ?"
"Yeah! Now I do. Sure. That little guy was in-fucking-sane! We warned him he could get himself crippled, doing that. But he said that was okay, it was his risk."
"What did he look like?" I asked.
"He didn't look like nothing, man. About like you."
"White man?"
"Yeah, white."
"Anything else?"
"Vicki?" he asked, his tone respectful, not role-playing anymore.
"He had real nice teeth," she said. "All white and perfect. I remember those teeth."
"Good," I complimented her. "You have a fine eye. His face, did he have any scars?"
"He didn't look like
you,
if that's what you mean," she said, smiling.
"What size was he?"
"Next to Sixto, all men look small to me," she said proudly.
"Was he sporting gold?"
"No. Not that I could see."
I stroked her for a couple of minutes more, but she was dry.
"Appreciate it," I told her, handing over the money.
"What you said . . . when you came in, that was all bullshit, right?"
"Sure."
"What'd he say, V?" Sixto asked.
"He said this guy here," pointing at Max, "wanted to get into one of our events. He doesn't speak English."
"He's got the look," Sixto said. "You want to try me? Right here. We got a ring set up in back. Just for fun?"
"No thanks," I said. "We were looking for something a little more his speed."

• • •

"I
spent a lot of your money," Cyn said, pointing at a couple of cartons of videotapes. "I went as downscale as I could, but you can't tell from the labels— a lot of stuff they call 'amateur' isn't.
True
amateur stuff is actually more expensive, believe it or not."
"Did you look through it yet?"
"I figured you'd rather do it yourself," she said, grinning.
"Wouldn't you and Rejji recognize most of the . . . performers? If they were pros, I mean?"
"If it's our kind of stuff, we should," Cyn agreed.
"Then just save me the ones you don't," I told her.

• • •

"Y
ou got a good guinea suit?"
"Guido, or top-shelf?"
"Either one," Giovanni said on the phone. "Just don't get all Seventies on me, okay? I'm picking you up. One o'clock. Northwest corner of Hester and Broadway."
"One in the morning?"
"The afternoon," he said, sounding annoyed.

• • •

"Y
ou look fine," Giovanni said, taking in my loose-draped charcoal sharkskin suit and teal silk shirt, buttoned to the neck. "This hour, we take the West Side Highway to the Henry Hudson, we're there in an hour, tops."
"Where?"
"It's not the place," he said, "it's the person. How you doing?"
I knew he wasn't social-dancing. "I don't know," I said honestly. "There's things that might lead us in, but I can't tell. Not yet."
"You want to run anything past me?"
"No."
"I'm not asking for anything in writing, Burke. What's your problem?"
"The problem is, I have to ask
you
some questions. And the more you know about what I'm doing, the better the chance your answers won't be as good to me."
"Asshole!" Giovanni muttered, stabbing at the brakes as a white Corvette shot across our bow, heading for the Ninety-sixth Street exit.
"Good," I said.
"Good? What's good?"
"You're good," I told him. "A lot of guys would've lost it over something like that. Chased the jerk in the 'Vette down and—"
"—and what, grabbed a fucking bat out of the trunk and crunched him? I'm a businessman, not some stupid
cafone,
throw my life away over shit like that."
"That's what I mean; good. Something like . . . something like what we're doing, a short fuse could knock it off the rails."
"What do you want to ask me?" he said, finally getting it.
"You know
anything
about Vonni besides what her mother told you?"
"I . . . No, I guess I don't. You're not asking me if I ever saw her alone, or anything?"
"I'm asking you what I asked you, Giovanni. This isn't some grand-jury perjury trap."
"I know she was—"
"You know if she was gay?"
"What?!"
"Did her mother ever tell you Vonni was—?"
"No," he cut me off, face so tight I could see the skull beneath the skin. "Her mother never fucking told me Vonni
was
anything. Just what she was . . . doing, like. Sometimes. Where'd that come from?"
"The stab wounds," I said. "So many of them. The . . . you know, the way she was . . . mutilated. You're convinced that proves it was a message to you. But nothing I've come up with makes that work."
"That doesn't mean—"
"It doesn't mean anything," I conceded. "There's a bunch of other stuff, stuff I can't make anything out of yet. Or, maybe, there's nothing
to
make out of it. But when the cops find a guy hacked to pieces in his apartment, the first thing comes to their minds is, did he have a boyfriend? That kind of rage . . ."
"Yeah, sure. And so? How's a sixteen-year-old girl going to have that kind of . . . thing in her life, and nobody knows about it?"
"I think that's true, what you just said. And I also think, if she was . . . anything, it wouldn't matter— her mother would have told me. She'd love that girl if she was a mass murderer."
He stared at me, as if his eyes could decode my words. Said, "So why'd you ask me?"
"Sometimes, a kid will tell a stran— someone she's not close with, things they wouldn't tell their own mother, right?"
"I told you, I never spoke to her in my whole life. Not even on the phone," he said. A vein throbbed in his temple.

• • •

"H
i, Gio," said the dark-eyed girl with a Bronx accent, a lot of lipstick, even more mascara, and still more hair. She looked up at him from behind the receptionist's desk.
"Hey, Angel. How's my girl?"
"I don't know," she said. "How
is
she?"
"Don't be like that, baby," Giovanni said, taking her hand and kissing it.
"Oh, don't play with me," she said, pouting her lips. "You've got so many women, I'm surprised you can remember my name."
"I'm going to surprise you
good,
one of these days," he said, smiling.
"I wish!" the girl said. "I know he's waiting for you. Wait, I'll go back and tell them."
I guess she could have used the phone on her desk. But then Giovanni wouldn't have gotten such a good look at what he'd been passing up.

• • •

"U
ncle T!" Giovanni crossed the room to where the remnants of a man sat in a wheelchair, his wasted frame propped into position with carefully wedged pillows. Giovanni bent to kiss the old man. "You look a hundred percent better than the last time."
"Who's your friend?" the man said, his voice sandpapery but clear.
"Uncle T, this is Nick. Nick, my Uncle T."
"I'm honored," I said, offering my hand.
"You Irish?" the man asked.
"Me? No. Why?"
"The Irish, they got that bullshit thing down perfect. Or maybe you seen too many movies, huh? You so 'honored.' "
"I didn't mean to insult you," I said tightly. "Giovanni told me you were a very important, very special man. I didn't think he brings just anyone here to see you; that's all I meant."
"Yeah?" he said, making no secret of studying my face. "But I don't know you, right?"
"No. You don't know me. And I don't know anybody you know, either." I looked over at Giovanni, said, "You want me to wait outside?"
"Stay right here," he said. "Uncle T, he's just looking out for me. Like he always does."
"Sit down, sit down," the man said, gesturing to a pair of pinkish side chairs. "Don't pay no attention to my bad temper; it's the fucking chemo— takes all of the sugar out of your blood."
"But it's working," Giovanni said. "That's the important thing."
"It's not working, Little G," the man said, sad and loving, the way you tell a kid Christmas is going to be lean that year. "What it's doing, it's keeping the
lupi
back in the hills, that's all. They're just waiting for the right night. That's when they come, you know. In the night."
"Hey! You don't know—"
"I know," the old man said. He turned to me. "You think I care about who
you
know? Like your bloodlines? Where you come from? You know how I get my name? Little G, he give it to me. When he was a baby, he couldn't say my name, 'Carmine.' What he says, he says 'Tarmine.' What kind of name is that? So we made it into 'T,' just for him."
The old man shifted his head slightly, making sure he had my eyes.
"Little G called me 'Uncle,' " he said, "because he couldn't call me 'Pop,' the way he always wanted to. You getting this?"
"I got it," I promised.
He read my face for a full minute. Then he nodded.
I looked over to where Giovanni was sitting. His thumb was pressed against the wall, making a screw-driving motion.
"Anyplace you can smoke around here?" I asked.
"Outside," the old man said. "They got a little patio thing. Ask the girl out front."