Red on Red (29 page)

The women came into the chapel without his hearing them. Tricky, tricky sister. The first voice Nick heard was faintly nasal, prickly and poised, almost sure of itself.

“It’s just the body. It isn’t the head. The head’s in Italy. Right, Sister?”

“That is correct, Grace.”

Nick stood and turned. Grace was a pointy little thing, all straight lines and sharp angles, with thick black glasses, choppy bangs, and a tight ponytail. The modesty of her uniform, with its plaid skirt and light-blue blouse, was discordant, dissonant with the picture he’d seen, as if
she wore not merely a costume but a disguise. Almost like Allison, Nick thought with a shudder, muddling the transition of one geek-girl who became his wife, with the other geek-girl, who became the thing in the picture, third world junior hoochie, to be had for a pair of nylons and a Hershey’s bar.

“Hello, Grace. I’m Detective Meehan.”

Nick extended a hand and she took it, limply, with a kind of demure uncertainty. He turned to the nun.

“Would you mind if we spoke alone, Sister?”

This was always an awkward moment, separating a parent from a child for an interview. You had the boy in the hospital with the gunshot wound in the calf—a strict vertical path, through the muscle—who insisted that a stranger shot him, from across the street. You had the girl who insisted that the man in the elevator only punched her when he robbed her, but she jumped when the nurse touched her leg. You are telling them, in a roundabout way, that their child is lying; you trust that they will understand—or won’t understand—until it’s too late.

“Yes.”

“Thank you. It will just take a minute.”

Sister Agnes did not move.

“Sister?”

“Yes? I said I would mind. I will stay.”

“Ah.”

Grace took note of the adversarial tap dance and seemed pleased by it, but took care not to let it show too much. Nick was going to do the authority bit, the stern voice, the rote words of warning, but he didn’t know what he had in Grace—wild child, grieving orphan? But possibly an abuse victim, too, with her disappearances and sexual posing. If this had been just a runaway to return, Nick might have done it; but if this had been ordinary, he wouldn’t have bothered to take it this far. He would have told Ivan Lopez,
If you know where she is, go get her yourself
. But Ivan’s fear that there would be problems at the school if the sisters knew that Grace was not what Ivan had told them, what he had sold them, had become Nick’s concern as well. Whatever his frustrations with Sister Agnes—she had outmaneuvered him, she outclassed him at what was ostensibly his profession—he could address by scribbling that she smelled funny, in a cartoon with vigorous stink lines, in a bathroom stall before he left.

“Grace, your father told me that you didn’t come home last night. He was very worried about you. If you stayed with a friend, to do homework or whatever, you should have told him.”

The two easy outs he’d provided—that it was one night instead of three, and that there was an academic pretext—inspired a rich gratitude and some confusion. She looked down for a moment, then to the side. A classic liar face, touchingly amateur—a little ashamed, buying time to figure out the next part of the story. Which was to say, not a liar, not much of one before now. Nick wondered if it was too much for her to read the situation. Did she think of him as an ally of her father, whom she probably disdained, or had he provoked her to reappraise him, as competent, complex even? She fidgeted, and Nick could see the wave of indecision travel from her shoulders down to her feet. She held one foot behind the knee of the other leg, as if about to begin a jig. No, she was new to the lying game.

“I guess I forgot.”

The lazy, juvenile deception was enough to provoke Sister Agnes.

“Grace! You are many things, but not forgetful! A girl of your age does not forget to go home, or to tell her father! This was terribly, terribly naughty of you! Who was this young friend, with whom you had a sleepover on a school night? Was it another girl from this school?”

In her reaction, far more innocent than that of Grace or Nick, Sister Agnes had also built in options for Grace’s response, likely better than the ones that she was mulling over at the moment.

“No, Sister. Somebody from the block. I’m sorry.”

“I should hope you are, Grace, and I should hope that we shall not be hearing about this kind of ‘forgetfulness’ again.”

“I’m sure we won’t, Sister,” Nick said. “I can drive her home to her father, if you want.”

“Thank you, Detective, but it is not school policy to release our girls into the custody of strange men. Excuse me. Perhaps I could have put that better. I think it best to call Grace’s father, Mr. Santana … Santana Lopez … Which is it, Grace?”

“His name is Lopez.”

“Yes. I will call Mr. Lopez and have him pick up his daughter. There is no great harm in this foolishness, Grace, but the three of us—you, your father, and I—will discuss the fact that events such as this are not to happen again. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Yes, Sister.”

When Nick echoed Grace’s response, it was not intended to be mocking, and it was not taken that way.

“Thank you, Detective. Is there anything else I can help you with? You can find your way out?”

“I’m fine, Sister. I can. Actually, would you be able to direct me to the men’s room?”

A
t the squad, Nick listlessly pushed papers around his desk. Esposito had gone downtown, to court, on the santero case. Nick had a few hours to play catch-up, on matters that had not grown more attractive with age. Grace’s picture disappeared beneath complaint reports and notes; he didn’t need to see her face anymore. Just below her was the confiscated snapshot of Maria Fonseca, happy at the beach. There were no bruises on her legs. How long before had it been taken, earlier that summer? Nick had folded the picture in half, so he didn’t have to see Costa. He was unwelcome in the family gallery. There was a phone call that had to be made. Nick would get to it, but at the moment he didn’t have the stomach for it. The phone rang, and Perez picked it up.

“Nick, for you.”

“Who is it?”

“I dunno, some foreign guy, sounds Hindu or something.”

Intrigued, Nick signaled to Perez to transfer the call. He had no Indians, no Pakistanis in his cases. Did Sister Agnes have a brother, some lethal fighting monk, who had found the cartoon in the bathroom?

“Squad. Meehan.”

“Good God, Nicky, you sound fierce! Even the rough ones, they must sit up when they hear that out of you!”

Indian! It was his father.

“Da! Hey, hi.”

Perez looked over, unsure what language was being spoken, wondering what talents Nick might have kept hidden. Nick shook his head, waved him away. This was the first time his father had ever called him at the office. His father mistrusted cellphones, didn’t understand them.
Before, he’d call Nick at his place with Allison, every week if Nick had not called first; now there was no need for the phone. Nick had come home late the last few nights and had left without seeing his father in the morning. The call worried him.

“I was thinking.”

The remark had been made many times across the kitchen table, but this new context was unsettling.

“You always are, Da.”

“I suppose I am, like everyone. But this is the thought, the one that stuck—we should go home.”

“How do you mean?”

“We should make a visit, take a trip. See everyone, catch up.”

“All right,” said Nick, agreeing without either consideration or reserve. “When?”

“Soon.”

“Good. Where?”

“My people and your mother’s. The grand tour. Ask Allison if you want, if you don’t mind me mentioning. If you don’t mind me being the third rail!”

“Wheel.”

“What?”

The correction was made without resentment. Nick was touched by the effort, the near-diplomacy of the phrasing. Nick was decorous but explicit in his response, as if he were explaining traffic rules to a tourist.

“Da, you were in Transit. ‘Third rail’ is where the power comes from on the subway, the electricity. If you step on it, you get fried. ‘Third wheel’ is a couple with a friend. They take him along, to be nice. Or her, so she won’t be lonely.”

The noise on the other end of the line was one that Nick had never heard before from his father, a giddy giggle.

“Third rail, third wheel, I can manage both!”

“I don’t doubt it, Da.”

“Will you be home for dinner tonight? I’ve made a pot of stew. It’s a winner, better than ever, if I don’t say so myself.”

The dish was his father’s favorite, and Nick liked it, too, but he hoped the question didn’t become a habit. As Nick had grown accustomed to the deprivations of bachelor life, he was determined to maintain its poor
benefits, and the first of them was the lack of such obligations. He also didn’t know what the day would bring.

“I can’t say, Da. Leave some for me, though.”

“All right, Detective Meehan. ‘Squad. Meehan!’ Over and out!”

“Over and out.”

Nick laughed as he hung up the phone. He looked at Perez, who was now playing solitaire on his computer. The brief irritation Nick felt toward him passed, glad as Nick was with his father’s delight, knowing he needed Perez as a translator for his next task. All of these foreigners. Nick picked through the papers on his desk. There it was, the phone bill from Raul Costa’s house, the long line of grouped digits for the international call.

“Hey, Ralph, you busy?”

Perez hesitated a moment, wondering what kind of favor would be asked, before he realized that Nick had seen his computer screen.

“No, Nick. What do you need?”

“Notification. Bad news. My suicide the other day, the girl who hung herself. I got a number for the family in Mexico.”

“Jeez.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the story?”

“There isn’t one. Maria Fonseca, twenty-one years old, unlucky in love.”

“Shit. She leave a note?”

“No.”

“All right. You know any names, the family names?”

“Maria Fonseca is all I got.”

Perez shook his head and picked up the phone. He dialed the numbers with deliberation, two at a time, and waited.

“What time is it there?” Perez asked.

“I don’t know.”

“
Sí. Buenos días. Hablo del departamento de la policía de la cindad de Nueva York. Soy Detectivo Perez. Busco a la familia de Maria Fonseca…. Sí … Tengo noticias, son muy malas…. Sí …
It’s not the family house. It’s a pay phone at some kind of factory. They make clothing, I think. Maria Fonseca’s mother works there. Whoever picked up is going to get her….”

Less than a minute passed before Perez resumed his speech.

“Señora Fonseca? Es usted la madre de Maria Fonseca? Sí, habla el departamento de policía en Nueva York. Soy el Detective Perez….”

Nick pulled his chair in closer to Perez, as if it might help him somehow. As Perez broke the news, he held the phone out from his ear, and Nick could hear the wails on the other end. The details were supplied in small, controlled doses—days ago, hanging, boyfriend, morgue. Perez ran his fingers along his bald scalp, as if he had hair.

“She wants to know what will happen to the body. She can’t afford to fly her down there for burial.”

“The city will bury her.”

“In Potter’s Field?”

“Yeah.”

“Sí, señora …”

Looks of curiosity and concern passed over Perez’s face as he murmured various forms of condolence and assent, until something stopped him short.

“Shit … 
Lo siento, señora….
The lady says her other daughter, Mercedes, left to meet her, to come here and live with her. The kid’s fifteen years old.”

“How is she traveling? When will she get here?”

Perez found out that the sister was walking, trying to cross with a friend and a paid guide. If they made the border in Arizona, they would take a bus to New York. It could be weeks before they arrived, if ever.

“She wants to know what we’re going to do about her. What should I say?”

“Does she know anyone else in New York?”

“No. I already asked.”

“Take the girl’s information. We can report her as missing. It goes into a national database. If she’s stopped by cops anywhere, her name will pop up. That’s if she uses her real name.”

Perez took down the information for Mercedes and provided in turn the numbers for the squad and the morgue. He told Mrs. Fonseca that the police didn’t work with Immigration, that Mercedes would not be in trouble. She should call the squad. He said that the city was no place for a young girl like her. She should go back home. When Perez hung up the phone, he looked spent.

“Do you think she believed you? About Immigration?”

“I don’t know … probably not. She’s afraid of cops.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks, Ralph. I appreciate it, all your help with this. It was a tough call to make.”

“No problem. She sounded like a nice lady…. It’s too bad. I hope it works out for the kid. That kind of shit bothers me…. You know, what’s been so nice, hooking up with Marina—I mean, the sex is great, don’t get me wrong—but sometimes we just talk. I can tell her about anything, the Job, all the bullshit, all the bad stuff, like this. I can go on and on, you know? And she doesn’t say a word, she just takes it all in. She gets it. Know what I mean? It’s lucky. I’m lucky to have her. You got anybody in your life like that, Nick?”