Queens Noir (22 page)

"He's tired," said Portillo. "Come on, junior, one good one
here."

Javier brought his knee up high and whipped his arm
around. The ball started chest high and broke down and to
the left. The batter flailed. Strike three.

"I'm guessing he's an El Duque fan," said Michaels.

"Better believe it," said Portillo. "He was so happy when
the Mets brought him back."

Wilco was down to their last licks. The batter, a muscular
twelve-year-old, was the kid who had put the ball to deep
center before. He swung confidently, then stepped up to the
plate. He took Javier to a full count, then, like the previous
batter, fouled several pitches off.

Portillo looked at Michaels and grinned through the fake
beard.

"Gonna give him the hook again?" speculated Michaels.

"Just watch," said Portillo.

Javier reared back and threw it hard, right down the middle. The batter swung and connected, a line drive up the middle. Javier stuck his glove in front of his face in self-defense
and managed to catch it.

Perfect.

Javier's team swarmed the mound and lifted him exultantly
above them. His mother was screaming from the bleachers,
and he pointed at her in triumph.

"Some game," said Michaels.

"Yeah," said Portillo, taking off the black hat and wiping
his brow with his sleeve. "Okay, let's go."

They walked casually away from the field toward Thornton, the rest of the crew falling into place behind them. As
they turned the corner, Michaels produced his handcuffs.

"Hands behind your back," he said.

Portillo complied, and Michaels cuffed him. The prisoner
van pulled up. A uniform patted him down. "He's clean."

"Strip him when you get inside, just to be safe," said
Michaels.

Portillo turned and looked at him as they put him inside.
"Thanks," he said.

"You want me to tell them what happened?" asked Michaels.

"Nah," replied Portillo. "It's the best day of his life. Can't
spoil those."

They closed the doors of the van and drove off. Carter
stood by Michaels.

"How on earth did you know it was Portillo under that
getup?" demanded Carter. "He looked kosher to me."

"See any Hasids up by the seminary?" asked Michaels.

"Well, no, as a matter of fact, I do not," replied Carter.
"Why is that?"

"Because it's a seminary, not a synagogue. Seminary's
where you learn, synagogue's where you pray. And it's Saturday morning. Hasids are in synagogues, not at ballgames."

"Damn. So what happened between you two?"

"We bonded," said Michaels. "Baseball does that ... What
do you say we get some lunch? I have this strange craving for
bagels and lox."

et's get this party started!" Lily calls out to me from
across the street. She's late, as usual. I've been waiting
for her by the train station on the corner of Main and
Roosevelt, breathing in the greasy aroma of hot dogs and frying noodles from various sidewalk carts. Sunlight washes over
Main Street and its procession of festive store signs, all red
and yellow with black Chinese lettering. As Lily approaches,
the traffic lights change; cars brake at the crosswalk in succession, like they're bowing to her. She smiles brightly and bumps
her hip against mine. I roll my eyes at her and don't bump
back, but inside I'm relieved that she even showed up. Today
is important: I'm determined to talk to my crush, Jimmy Lee,
a junior at my school. I know he plays basketball at Bowne
Park on the weekends, so I made Lily promise to come with
me so that I could "run into him" there. We head down Main
toward Sanford Avenue, weaving around weekend shoppers
and double-parked trucks.

"Think he'll be there today?" I ask.

"Who? Yao Ming?" she says, her dimples showing.

"Stop calling him that." I poke her arm. "You know his
name.

"Hey, look! There he is."

My breath catches in my chest. I look around without
moving my head, hoping that he's too far away to have heard me talking about him. We're approaching the underpass of
the Long Island Rail Road station and I expect to see him
perusing magazines at the newsstand, or worse, walking right
toward me. But Lily points to a store window with a life-sized
poster of Yao Ming, the NBA player from China, and starts
cracking up.

"Oh, reeeeally funny, Lil," I say with as much sarcasm as
I can muster. I exhale through my mouth, the tension in my
neck subsiding. "You almost made me puke, you know."

She's laughing so hard no sound is coming out of her
mouth.

"Um, maybe you're the one who's gonna puke. You
okay?"

She nods and gasps. I'm tempted to tickle her sides to
make her throw up-she's always been sensitive like thatbut I'm too anxious to get going.

Jimmy Lee looks nothing like the famous athlete, but he's
6'2"-way taller than most Asian guys-and he plays on the
basketball team. That was enough for Lily to make fun of him.
It made no difference to her that he's Korean.

"Really, quit calling him Yao Ming. Jimmy's not even
Chinese."

"I know," she sighs. "Well, he's far from perfect. A jock.
What's he going to do for you? Buy you pom-poms?" She
catches her reflection in the window of a cafe and runs her
fingers through her hair.

Lily Tong is the kind of girl who makes heads turn. She's
only fifteen, one year older than me, but she looks at least
twenty. She's curvy like the women in the music videos, and
she wears her makeup and hair like she's one too. As usual,
she's dressed in something slinky: an expensive, cut-up T-shirt
that keeps falling off her shoulder, low-cut jeans that hug her curves, and black pumps. Dangling off her arm is a new purse,
its print of interlocking letters broadcasting its expense. Along
the street, old Chinese ladies carrying plastic bags full of groceries pause from scrutinizing vegetables to shake their heads
at her disapprovingly. Men gawk at her from the open backdoors of restaurants; one worker almost falls from his perch on
an overturned bucket into the pile of carrots he's peeling. As
usual, Lily pretends not to notice, but she lifts her chin a little
bit higher, and swings her hips a little bit wider.

I hold my head higher too, proud to be her best friend. At
51511, I'm taller than Lily, but I look like a child next to her, in
my maroon tank top and green Old Navy cargo pants. Even
if I had the courage to wear the kinds of clothes as Lily, everything would just hang on me loosely. My hair falls straight
down in stringy strands no matter what I do to it, so I never
even bother curling it like Lily does. I'm glad that I chose to
paint my toenails red instead of pink; at least my feet look
grown-up.

As we turn onto Sanford, someone calls out Lily's name.
We both turn around and see Peter Wong getting out of the
passenger side of a gleaming black Cadillac Escalade.

He walks up to its casually and puts his arm around Lily's
shoulders. The sun glints off the rock-star shades he's wearing. He's older, in his twenties or maybe even thirties; I don't
know what he's doing talking to Lily, but I figure he must
know her through her father, who owns one of the biggest
dim sum houses in Flushing. As a big businessman, her father
knows a lot of people.

"Dai Guo!" She smiles and kisses him on the cheek. She
called him Big Brother, but the way he's looking at her is anything but brotherly. His hand lingers on her hair as he releases
her shoulder. He barely looks at me when she introduces us. I know he's headed to the park too; he and his friends are
always there.

They continue walking together, Lily between its so I can't
hear most of their conversation. He calls her Xiao Mei-Little
Sister-and coos at her as if she's a baby. She's all giggly with
him, which I think is gross. Still, I wonder what it would feel
like if a guy like him paid so much attention to me, if I were
that beautiful. He tells her about the kinds of things he can
get for her from his "connections."

"I already have a Prada bag," I hear her pouting. "Can you
get me a Louis Vuitton?" She pronounces it Loo-iss Voy-tahn.

As we near the entrance to the park, we can hear people
on the basketball court, the slap of rubber on cement followed
by occasional grunts and metallic dunks. The park, or Bowne
Playground as it's officially called, is divided into sections
separated by chain-link fences: The basketball court takes up
the most space and is flanked by a kiddie playground and a
treelined yard where old men pass their retirement days on
its benches, reading Chinese newspapers or feeding pigeons. I
scan through the trees for a glimpse of Jimmy, but I can't recognize his voice over the faraway laughter of children.

We reach the yard first and I see Peter's friends therefour guys and three girls. Most of them go to my school, seniors reputed to be gangsters. They have claimed the concrete
chess tables set in the corner, but instead of chess pieces, there
are mah-jongg tiles. Despite the heat of the day, the guys are
in black and have spiky hair like Peter, and the girls wear their
hair long and carefully frozen into voluminous curls. They're
all smoking cigarettes; I wonder how smart that is, given all
the hair spray in the air. Snippets of Cantonese, Mandarin,
and Fujianese rise from their conversation.

I recognize one of the guys from my algebra class. He's a few years older, but he's in my class because he doesn't speak
much English. We've never talked to each other, so I just kind
of nod at him. He gives me a strange look, as if he recognizes
me but doesn't know why.

To my dismay, Lily follows Peter to the girls' table, where
a new game of mah-jongg is about to commence. It's hard to
look away from the mesmerizing whirl of pink and green,
as pretty manicured hands shuffle and stack the jade tiles
expertly.

"You play MJ?" Peter is actually addressing me as well as
Lily.

"Uh, not really." I learned how to play from watching my
mom and aunts, but I couldn't see myself doing it, here, with
them. It strikes me as just so Chinese. I mean, sure, I'm Chinese, but not the same way they are, or even the same way
Lily is. I was born and raised on Thirty-Ninth Avenue, but
my neighbors were Dominican and Jewish, not just Chinese.
My parents work in Manhattan's Chinatown and commute
from Flushing on the dollar vans, my mom to a doctor's office
and my dad to a TV repair shop. I grew up hearing almost as
much Spanish as Chinese, whereas Lily's parents made sure
that she stayed immersed in Chinese culture and cultivated
friendships only with Chinese kids.

Lily nudges me and answers that of course we play. Peter
motions for one of the girls at the table to make room for us
as he goes to join the guys at the other table. One of the guys
hands Peter something wrapped in a crumpled paper bag, from
which he takes a swig. The girl, a senior I don't know, scoots
right over and starts resetting the table, scowling at Lily. She's
not the only one scowling, but Lily isn't fazed.

I look through the chain link to the other side of the park
and finally spot Jimmy on the ball court. His brow is furrowed with intensity, his muscular arms outstretched as he motions
for Eric Martinez, another junior, to pass him the ball. Eric
responds, twisting away from his guard and whips the ball to
Jimmy, who in one smooth motion catches it and shoots it
into the basket for a three-pointer. Despite myself, I cheer
along with the folks on the other side of the fence, which gets
me strange looks from my seatmates, Lily included.

I lock eyes with Lily and talk to her under my breath.

"Are you coming with me or not?" I tilt my head ever so
slightly toward the court.

"No! I'm staying here." She presses her lips into a fine line
and whispers, "You should stay too. Forget about Jimmy. This
is cool." She accepts a Newport cigarette from a spiky-haired
senior whose name I still don't know.

"Fine. I'm going to go watch the game." I get up, nod at
the table, and walk away. There's a large enough crowd over
there that I feel comfortable heading over by myself. I take a
seat at the edge of the bleachers. By now I'm so irritated with
Lily that I don't even have time to get nervous when Jimmy
plops down next to me. He has a towel wrapped around his
neck and his cheeks are flushed.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" He is speaking to me.
He knows who I am.

"Oh, you know, just visiting a friend." I look down and
tuck my hair behind my ear. If I were Lily I would look up at
him through my eyelashes and flirt. But I'm not, so I focus on
how red my toenails are.

"You mean those gangsters over there are your friends?"
He jerks his head in their direction. A few of the guys are
talking with some Latino kids from the neighborhood. They
all stand stiffly in a semicircle, menacing expressions on their
faces. Peter seems to be negotiating with their leader, a dark, stocky guy with a shaved head and an oversized basketball
jersey. They all relax when Peter and the guy shake hands,
which they do in a hip-hop sequence: fists up, they grasp each
other's hands as if they're going to arm wrestle, yank themselves toward each other, and bump chests. As their palms
separate I catch a glint of light off little plastic bags.