Visitation Street (35 page)

Despite the fresh air, the boat brings a sense of claustrophobia to the neighborhood. This was a place of space and water, but with the Houses in the back and now the boat in the front, Fadi feels trapped. He thought the ship would expand his world, blow the place open with activity. But for now it’s just sitting there, blocking the view.

In the last hour, the cruise terminal has come to life. A line of limos, taxis, and tour buses stretches from the ship back toward the expressway. The traffic pattern has been designed so cars can slip in and out of the neighborhood without passing through it, sliding in from the expressway on a small street guarded by police, avoiding Van Brunt, avoiding Red Hook.

Fadi watches as the cabs pull close to the ship, whisking passengers out of the neighborhood without a second glance. Busloads of people are taken from the boat, their feet barely touching down in Brooklyn. None of the arriving passengers notices his sign. No one takes a flyer.

Fadi leaves his chalkboard, hoping it will allure the cops if not the passengers. Two kids have been batting his balloons around until one popped and now hangs limp and withered. He heads back to the store to wait for something he’s not sure will ever happen—for the first passengers to decide to walk off the ship and avoid the line of taxis and limos.

Business is better than on the average Sunday, with people stopping by on their way down to the boat. By lunchtime things have started to taper off. In the early afternoon, Fadi sends Heba home with a sandwich. He stands in front of his store, looking at the boat at the far end of Visitation, then checking the water end of Van Brunt to see if Ren is approaching. He can’t believe the kid would miss the ship.

Christos steps out of his restaurant and looks up at his Cruise Café awning. “We get a supermarket. We get a ship. We get stuck with nothing.”

By nightfall the only business on Van Brunt to benefit from the cruise ship’s arrival is the bulletproof Chinese two doors down from the Greek’s. A line of Filipino and Thai deckhands runs from the greasy, scratched window in the shop’s interior down toward the Greek’s storefront.

In a month, visitors to Red Hook will dwindle. The joggers and Sunday strollers will choose other battles than the one against the bitter wind whipping from the bay. No one will respond to the For Rent signs on Fadi’s bulletin board. In a few weeks, when the clocks fall back, the tone of the neighborhood will change from a place of light and space to a neighborhood where echo meets shadow. And the Christmas lights that never come down will almost be back in season.

The first cycle of nightly news is replaying the footage of the “Best of Brooklyn” festival at the cruise terminal when a black kid in a hoodie comes into the bodega. “Welcome back,” Fadi says before realizing his mistake.

The kid lowers his hood, revealing a smooth shaved head and a round, inviting face. “You know me?”

“No,” Fadi says, interesting himself in the metro section of the
Times
. “Just trying to be welcoming.”

The kid nods. He pauses in front of Fadi’s bulletin board, scanning the ads. He tucks his hands into the pouch pocket of his sweatshirt. From time to time he glances at Fadi.

“Are you looking for something?” Fadi says.

“I’m looking for someone. Is this your place?”

“It is.”

“I think a friend of mine works here. A kid named Ren. Renton Davis. That’s his painting outside. Is he around?”

“I haven’t seen him in a few.” Fadi closes the paper and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Are you the boy he’s looking after?”

“Looking after?”

“With the groceries. He was always putting bags aside for someone.”

The boy eyes Fadi. “He sent stuff for my mom when she got sick, if that’s what you mean.”

“What’s your name?”

“Cree. Do you know where he is?”

“I don’t. I don’t even know where he lives.”

“Bones Manor.” Cree takes a newsletter from the counter, flips it over, and stares at June’s picture. “June Giatto,” he says. “That seems like a lifetime ago.”

“The guy who rescued her friend Valerie brought her in here. Laid her down right where you’re standing. I thought she was dead. She’s a good kid.”

“I know,” Cree says. “She’s cool.” He shuffles his feet. “I was on the pier that night.” He bites his lip and looks away. “It was amazing—those two girls just floated on moonlight. You know what I normally see by the water at night?”

Fadi shakes his head.

“Crazy shit. But those girls were like nothing else. They were
possible
.”

“You never told anyone you were there?”

“Only Ren. But he already knew. He was there too.” On his way out, Cree takes a newsletter, folds it, and tucks it in his back pocket.

He was there too
. These words keep Fadi up all night. They run through his head on the bus from the subway. They distract him from paying attention to the jumper on the façade of the confectionery manufacturer.

Ren had never mentioned that he was near the water the night June disappeared. But he was certain that she wouldn’t be found. He’d discouraged Fadi from looking for her. Fadi knows it’s a long shot—that Ren is probably miles away from Red Hook—but he wants to know what the kid saw on the water that night. He wants to know why he never bothered to tell Fadi he’d seen the girls.

The neighborhood, just waking up, is bang and clatter. The first iron gates are rolling up. The early delivery vans are trundling over the faulty asphalt. Fadi walks past his store. When he gets to the water where Local Harvest will be, he doubles back. He finds a small cobbled side street with a derelict bus stop. There’s a man inside, huddled on the bench, keeping warm in his puffy black coat. He stirs as Fadi passes.

“Excuse me,” Fadi says. “Can you tell me where Bones Manor is?”

“A dollar,” the man says. His face looks like spent charcoal.

Fadi fishes out a five.

The man shakes his head, then coughs and spits. “Up there, there’s a hole in the fence. Between the iron walls. But they don’t want you.”

Fadi’s footfalls echo like gunshots. He walks parallel to the corrugated iron fence, searching for the gap. Soon he sees a corner that is bent back. He leans in close and hears the whisper and rustle coming from inside.

Fadi circles the block. Each time he passes the gap in the fence he rushes by. It is only when the first hint of sun dulls the sky over the Houses that he dares to peek inside.

A stagnant body of water, larger than a puddle and smaller than a lake, stretches out in front of him. Around it is a sparse shantytown of makeshift abodes—containers used as houses, lean-tos made from trees and tarps—a ghost town left to the ghosts.

He picks his way along the edge of the water and up onto a concrete platform that allows him to look over the lot. The water whispers as he passes. The reeds talk behind his back.

On the far side of the Manor, someone is bringing a small fire to life. Two figures huddle over the narrow flame, their thin shadows stretching across the water. The Manor has the same hungry, haunted look Ren first had when he turned up in Fadi’s store. Fadi can imagine him here, in this world that seems halfway between the living and the dead.

At the back corner of the lot, Fadi nearly trips over the little wino. He’s slumped underneath his coat. Fadi nudges him with his toe. The wino rolls over and curses in Spanish.

“Estaban,” Fadi says.

The wino opens his eyes. His shriveled face looks like a peach pit.

“I’m looking for Ren.”

The wino shakes his head.

“Ren. Renton. You know who I’m talking about.”

“No se.”

“Yes,” Fadi says. “Yes, you do. He works for me. He lives here.”

“
No mas
,” the wino says. He closes his eyes. Fadi nudges him again.

“Where does he live?”

“Gone,” the wino says. He flutters his hand in a wavelike motion.

“Where?”

“
No se
.” The wino pulls his coat over his head, blocking Fadi out.

Fadi hovers for a moment, wondering whether it’s worth his time to drag the wino from his sleep, to lift him and shake him until he tells Fadi what he wants to know.

Suddenly, the wino bolts upright. “The
recompensa
,” he says. “You come for the
recompensa
.”

“No,” Fadi says, “I’m only looking for my friend.”

“No friend.
El Diablo
.”

The wino’s words barely register. Fadi’s eyes are drawn to the mattress on which Estaban had been sleeping—a pink inflatable raft. He takes the wino’s arm and yanks him off his bed. Then he holds up the raft.

“Where did you get this?”

The wino shakes his head.

“Where?” Fadi says. His voice echoes off the metal walls. He feels the Manor shift as eyes peer out from behind tattered curtains.

“Ren-ton,” the wino says. He waves his hand toward two shipping containers next to each other.

Fadi lets go of the wino’s arm. The little man staggers backward.

A pile of rubble—concrete shards and fragments of rebar—blocks Fadi’s way toward the containers. He picks his way over this heap and arrives at the place the wino indicated. The door at the short end of one of the containers is open. The other container is shut tight.

Fadi slides through the opening, then pushes the door wider, letting in a dim rectangle of light. The container is clean. A pile of discarded bedding lies crumpled in the corner. Murals in Ren’s familiar style cover the walls. There’s a low shelf made from cinder blocks and boards along one wall holding several cans of spray paint. Fadi picks one up and shakes it, summoning the familiar rattle. Then he uncaps it, presses the button, and releases a hiss of paint into the air. He’s too late. Ren is gone.

Fadi exits the container and closes the door. The little wino is peeking at him from behind the rubble heap. Fadi walks away.

At the entrance to the Manor, Fadi pauses and looks back. The sun has broken through the jagged skyline of the Houses, illuminating the murky pond and the drab concrete landscape. It has pulled the shipping containers from the darkness, highlighting their muted colors—red, blue, or orange metal.

The locked container next to Ren’s former hideout does not have these industrial hues. Unlike the others in the lot, this one jumps from the dreary landscape of the Manor with a vibrant swirl of deep blues and swampy greens.

Fadi immediately recognizes the seascape depicted on the ridged metal as the bay beyond Valentino Pier. He sees the distant skyline of Manhattan, the looming hump of Governors Island, the suggestion of Staten Island. As the sun jumps the final hurdle of the projects opposite the Manor, it lands squarely in the middle of the container, illuminating a round spill of moonlight. Centered in this opalescent shimmer is a pink raft with two figures silhouetted against the reflection of the full moon.

Fadi does not have to pry open the door to the sealed container to know that this is where Ren hid June in order to protect Cree from a crime he didn’t commit. This is the place that Ren had suggested with his hypotheses and hints. This is the secret grave that no one except the wino ever suspected. This is where the
recompensa
lies.

A
few more days is all he needs. That’s all. In lockup there had been nothing but time, identical days endlessly repeated, each one providing a chance to make good on yesterday’s mistakes. Improve yourself. Educate yourself. Atone. But out here, time slips through Ren’s fingers. He can’t slow it down, he can’t rewind. He can’t undo.

He’d tricked himself into believing that he’d win Cree over, get him to come adventuring without explaining himself. Without coming clean. But the fine CO lady, the one who brightened up the wards just by passing by, had made him. Screamed to high hell as if she’d seen a ghost.

How come these Red Hook girls couldn’t stay out of trouble, first those white girls, then Monique? Ren had been tailing Cree the night Val and June hit the water in their raft. His plan had been to sidle up to Cree on the pier, open up a conversation, and figure a way into Cree’s life. But then the kid had started following the girls on the raft, tracking them from pier to pier.

Ren had kept close to him, so close in fact they’d nearly collided in the park in front of Valentino Pier. Ren had just enough time to hide behind a low wall before Cree rushed past him, jumped in the water, started swimming for the girls.

Ren ran to the pier. The current was swirling. Cree was thrashing out toward Val and June. Ren could see that the boy would have to turn back before he made it out to the raft. After five minutes, Cree gave up and let the waves bring him in.

Cree was paddling back to shore when the raft flipped. Ren could see one of the girls still clinging to the raft. The other was flailing in the drink. As Cree hauled himself onto the beach, Ren took two steps down the pier, ready to reveal himself to Cree, yank the boy back in the water, and head toward the raft. But the dark water with its hidden currents scared him. If Cree couldn’t fight the current, Ren knew he didn’t stand a chance. He never learned to swim before getting locked up. He couldn’t take more than a few strokes without panicking. Val and June had already been pulled apart by the current. The boys would never reach the raft in time.

Before Cree could catch sight of him, Ren hopped over the side of the pier, crashing onto the jagged rocks and sand below. He scanned the bay. The raft was floating empty in the direction of Governors Island. He began to head along the shoreline, trying to keep pace with the raft, hoping the girls would be swept in the same direction.

Just once he took his eyes from the water, checking over his shoulder to see if Cree had made him. But all he saw was the boy’s silhouette heading across the park away from the pier.

Farther up the shore, Ren caught sight of a white shape, fish belly pale in the moonlight. Val was swimming toward a rocky outcrop, paddling with weak strokes. A tugboat was passing too close to the coastline, churning a wake that roiled the water and sent waves crashing into the shore. Before Ren could reach Val, one of these waves lifted her and knocked her into the rocks at the foot of the parking lot. The tide pulled her out and another wave sent her back in. Val sank from view. When she resurfaced, she was no longer paddling, but floating limp, letting the water buffet her.