Park Lane South, Queens (8 page)

“No,” he feigned nonchalance, “I can't spell.”

“Uh … anyway, I wasn't thinking about anything. I didn't see who was in the car. But it was a man. A medium-build man. Not dark, really. I was looking at the license number and thinking that it was Buddha's year. It distracted me. And then I went back to sleep.”

“Buddha?”

“Yes.”

Johnny clicked his eyes into place. Was she kidding?

“And those are the two sets of numbers your father gave the desk clerk?”

“563 or 473. Yes.”

“And you don't know which?”

“No, I really don't,” she answered cooly. “The year of ascension or of birth. They're the only two I know. I tend to think it was 473. I feel more comfortable with that number.”

Freddy, Zinnie, and Carmela came out the front door together, toodle-ooed and off they went in their separate directions. Johnny watched Claire distribute her goodbyes. She really thought who the hell she was, didn't she? Buddha. Himalayas. Spelling.

She turned to him with puppy dog eyes. “Then you weren't with those playboys out in front of the pizza place?”

“No. Look, would you come with me down—”

“I don't date policemen,” she interrupted him.

Johnny laughed. “I wasn't asking you out on a date. I was asking you to come down to the precinct and look at some mug shots.”

“Mug shots?” Claire felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “But I never saw anybody!”

“Miss Breslinsky, you told me you had the impression of a man. Maybe you could look at some pictures and just eliminate … just give us an idea what kind of—”

“But I didn't see anybody! I have no idea who was in that car!”

He snapped his notebook shut. “Right. Thank you very much for your help, Miss Breslinsky.”

“You need not use sarcasm, detective. I really can't help you.”

“No,” Johnny narrowed his eyes and spoke directly to her ankles. “You really can't.” He started to take his dramatic leave but was stopped in his tracks by the sight of two stocky ladies trotting up the street with matching whale-sized handbags flailing. One of them, Errol Flynn, had taken the lead and was fencing the air with a turquoise umbrella.

“My mother,” Claire explained.

“Whoosh,” Mrs. Dixon dashed ahead of Mrs. Breslinsky up to the porch. “It's like a jungle!”

Mrs. Breslinsky, breathing swiftly, sank onto the top step.

“Aha! Another!” Mrs. Dixon broke lance with the web on the railing.

“Now why did you have to do that?” Claire asked her.

“Well, now, what do you mean, dear?” She wiped her umbrella with a hanky. “I thought you'd be pleased.”

Mary's eyes blazed. “We got a good ten of them on the way home. Well, Mrs. Dixon did. Good evening, young man.”

“Mother, this is Detective Benedetto. Detective, my mother, Mary Breslinsky, and Mrs. Dixon.”

“Are you coming inside?” Mary smiled hopefully at him. “It's cooler in there. Didn't anyone offer you a lemonade? Or a Coke?”

“I was just taking off,” Johnny thanked her.

Claire looked over at the von Lillienfeld house. Now there were no lights on.

“Isn't it a grand evening?” Mary sighed. “So tropical!”

Claire watched her Milky Ways ooze into neatly wrapped puddles. Grand evening? What was she talking about? It was so sweltering that she could feel her head begin to ache. It was awful. Why didn't he leave?

“Hello,” said Michaelaen from inside.

“What? Still up? Come give your old grandma a kiss.”

Michaelaen slid out the door and sidled up to his grandma. His mouth was full of cherry cough drops. Michaelaen loved those cherry cough drops.

“Who are you?” he said to Johnny.

“Just a cop,” Johnny looked into Claire's blue eyes.

That did it. She got up and went inside.

The Siamese named Lü who owned Miss von Lillienfeld crept under cover of night to the spot in the pine where the murder had happened. He didn't walk right on the spot but circled, eyes capable and cunning in the dark. Nothing moved. He went with a sorcerer's stealth, watching this way and that, but the spirit was gone. Lü the cat beat a swift retreat. It was not the dead one must fear but the living.

The Mayor stood beneath the lantern on White Hill. He watched Lü leave the woods and safely cross old Park Lane South. Lü still moved well for his age. He didn't have the Mayor's paunch or grizzled knees. Lü didn't bother to glance over. He didn't have the Mayor's breeding, either, for all his certificates of parentage, and took all displays of concern as signs of weakness. A regular Frankie bachelor. On separate sides of the street, they both tobogganed home.

CHAPTER 3

Abroad expanse of yellowish white spread out about her. It was some sort of desert, only vaporous. The sky was knotted into a diamond blue fist faraway. Claire turned her back on it easily, so easily, sinking to the earth in a spot that was rich and turned, like after a flood rain. She wore her aviator sunglasses. I'm tough, they told the world. But I am innocent. Notice my very best white shoes. Her feet sunk in quickly, surprised by the sudden weight of her, muck oozing up through her toes in a fertile and cool eerie depth. There were worms, dozens of worms taking off in a frantic decampment,
une échapper belle
, till the whole mudsill broke and she stood, sliding upright down the fudgy ravine, an escalator passenger in any subterranean department store. It came to a halt beside a cascade of uncovered hair, Michael's hair, from Michael's gaping grave.

“Michael,” she whispered and reached out her hand, but he stayed where he was, face down in rude oblivion, preoccupied with his eternal sleep. Only his hair grew on, unstoppable, magnificent, alive with greedy, crawling maggots.

She woke up still calling his name. Her face, wet with tears, was jammed against the slanted attic wall. Claire looked at the peeling white paint for what seemed like a long time. Then, cautiously, she flipped her body over. Not too bad. On the table stood a bottle of bourbon with its own hefty dent in it. Ah, well. She got out of bed, reeled a bit, felt all right somehow, and careened down the stairs. It was barely light, but there would be no more sleeping for her. She brushed her teeth soundly, engrossed in this static melancholy, a little bit surprised and guiltily pleased to find herself alive. God, I'm famished, she said to herself. Obediently, her legs carried her straight to the kitchen.

There were four almost blue red tomatoes in the colander. She took the white bread down from the shelf. You could say what you wanted about how unhealthy it was, but when it was fresh from the grocer's like this, light as a feather, and you slathered a couple of slices with mayonnaise, carved yourself some thick slabs of those wine red tomatoes, and jiggled some black pepper onto it—it was a deeply moving thing. She poured a glass of icy milk and ate off a sheet of paper towel, still drunk. This would be the time to photograph something, feeling like this, gently woozy and still half in touch with her nightmare.

She left before the rest of the house was up, heading south toward Jamaica Avenue, excited and nervous in the already gray dawn. The veins in her ankles and hands stood out disturbingly in the heat. What could you do? If age and the humidity didn't get you, the alcohol would.

She remembered Johnny Benedetto with a sinking heart. How many attractive young women must he run into every day? On the job, at night, even in the supermarket. There was no end to the horror of possibilities.

The thing was—she strode purposefully along with her camera banging against her hip—that even if you did fall in love, you wound up eventually envying that person you were in love with. It was true. You envied him for the same silly reasons you fell in love with him.

You met him at a party, for example, where he stood against a wall eyeing you as though he could eat you up, his eyes ironic and helpless at the same time, longing for you and you knew it damn well, and then when you gave in, when you finally (after the initial mandatory and long-winded chase) let him, there you went feeling happy and safe for a perfect, incomparable, what seemed to be in hindsight ten short minutes, until you found him looking helpless with ironic longing at some stranger across another room … or street … or beach. And you envied him. You begrudged him the thrill that he was now feeling for someone else.

If she could become responsible for her own reality and keep it that way, she'd never have to feel that pain again. In went the color film. Jamaica Avenue was just what she needed, and she wanted it early, before the onslaught of heat would settle and paralyze the faces of the people. On second thought, perhaps she wanted just that. She hesitated. Up and down the broad street, shaded by the el train, nobody was out. She pointed her camera this way and that, felt nothing, put the camera down. No sense in wasting film. The Blue Swan Shoppe was on the corner and she decided to sit down in there for a bit. A cup of coffee and some air-conditioning would put her right back on the creative track.

The Blue Swan was not as she remembered it. They no longer sold penny candy at the cashier, or quarter candy for that matter. This was a place. Plastic turquoise booths and pink flamingo napkin caddies. There was no
Architectural Digest
on the magazine rack. Not even a
Better Homes and Gardens
or a humble copy of
Mademoiselle
. If you didn't feel compelled to investigate such provocative headlines as: “Siamese Twins Invent Arthritis Cure” or “Liz Moves In … Lock, Stock, and Jewelry Box,” you were more or less out of luck.

Claire avoided the greasy-looking tables and sat down at the counter. The dark smells of last night's cold chili and salsa hung low in the air and on the counter there was a large tray of refried banana cut up into squares. The atmosphere conga'd with soft cucaracha from a younger Tito Puente. You couldn't help but mull over the gregorian orange that tapered the oilcloth in tiptoeing poodles. A throwback, no doubt, to the mystical Irish who had once lived above these stores. Different cups of tea entirely. Now Puerto Ricans, Indians, Peruvians, and Guyanans paid rent for the privilege of dreaming in the drone of the great roaring el.

They were darker, these people. Their dreams were not as grand and so they would inevitably make out better; rent a store, work day and night, buy the store, work day and night and weekends, too, buy the building. And then rent to the next generation of foreigners who lollygagged in.

“Heezha cawfee,” the kinky-haired matron clunked the cup down onto the counter.

“Thank you.”

“Better tuck innat camera, honey.” The waitress eyeballed right and left. “They'll grab that from ya. Don' worry!”

No, they won't, thought Claire. She gave the waitress a conspiratorial wink and made a show of settling it into her lap. The coffee was good. One thing the Latinos had brought with them into the neighborhood was good, rich coffee. There were all sorts of gooey apparitions made out of sugar, but no, thought Claire, she'd just have a cigarette instead. She was forever having something sweet or a cigarette instead. Michaelaen had told her that she smelled like an ashtray. That was nice. Don't worry, he'd patted her arm with his small hand when he'd seen her face fall, he liked a good ashtray. What generous grace from one so young.

Claire gulped down her coffee, paid, and staggered into the street. There was no reason for her to feel depressed and so she wouldn't. She'd find something to shoot, by golly. Looking at the filthy gutter, she was surprised at how improbable that prospect seemed. Nothing romantic there. Just like any other dirty place the world over. Impatiently, she walked up the avenue, past her father's still-unopened hardware store, past Gebhard's Bakery and its buttery smells, when she happened to catch her whole profile in the store window. She'd never seen anything like it. Not on her. But this was her mother's silhouette, not her own! She sucked in her gut and kneaded the inch of new blubber that encircled her waist. All these American delicacies. Claire remembered herself, not too long ago, eating everything she wanted, everything in sight, really, and never putting on a pound. Her models used to watch her enviously as she'd polish off the remains of their pasta. Well, those days were gone, it seemed. She was back in Queens with no real money, no real plan, and a very real belly. She stopped suddenly and wondered if this was it? The doubts that had haunted her throughout her life … was this to be the realization of them?

In Europe, during her jetsetting years, she'd always thought, oh, if only she could get away from the superficiality of her life, the whole frivolous life-style, and find a quiet place, a gentle place where she could meditate and become herself, everything would be all right. Then, when she finally had made the break and found herself in the Himalayas, there were moments when she would fathom that that was all nonsense, too, all of it, from the filthy Europeans traipsing downheartedly off to their gurus to the gurus themselves. Trying so hard not to try. And she'd thought that what she really should do was go home, back to her parents and Queens and all the things she'd tried so hard to leave behind. If she could just get back there and make an honest life for herself in the place she was put on earth to surface out of, she might put some order to the chaos. She even thought she'd get back here and all the inspiration would miraculously fall into place. Well, here she was, and what if her fears proved true afterall? What if there was only so much she had had to give and it was already gone? Perhaps she just should have moved to the city. There is a certain solid difference between Manhattan crazy people and Queens crazy people and 111th Street had a few perfect specimens of these walking up and down it. Here, if the old folks talked to themselves they would do it under their breaths, not out loud like in the city. And they didn't wear glamorous cast offs worn to shreds. These people had bought their own clothes with their very own pension checks and they wore them with a differential smugness, hunched into twelve-year-old shiny polyester shirts … old white people who found it cheaper to eat out (six rolls in a basket and crackers) and certainly easier than waiting on long lines at Key Food. Everybody hated Key Food—the confusion, the fluorescent lights, the unsatisfiable hunger it emptied into you, and the waxed, unbelievable fruits plump with gas that left you with nothing more than mealy tongue.