A Deadly Affair (10 page)

Helen shook her head. “Nothing on TV. I haven’t seen the papers but if there was, our neighbors would have told me—with joy.”

“This trouble May is in settles things: I must go to question her first, then Rastello. She should not face any mob alone.”

“She’ll probably call the police on you. Remember, she was the one who didn’t want us to buy the place.”

“True, but she would have given in if we had the money to buy, no matter whether she really wanted to or not. Also, she must be as anxious as I to find Harry’s murderers, and in her heart she must know I had no reason to kill him.”

“Nobody knows what’s in her heart, but if the police are watching her house, guarding it, you’ll walk into a trap. Let me go up to see her.”

I shook my head. “I cannot have you risk the baby to a mob, and as a hunted man it would not be safe to leave Henry with me. No, this is my work. I will solve this and you be careful—do not worry.”

“But Jose—”

“This is something I must do!” I snapped. I got control of my voice, added gently, “Helen, let us not argue; it is dangerous for me to even sit here so long. From the roof—and you must buy curtains at once—I saw two police follow you down to the Drive. They may return, for they sit in a car across from our room this second. Listen to me: I will go up and talk to May, if I can see her, and then find Rastello. At four o’clock I shall return here. You come to this bench, if you are not being followed, and wait. Do not look around for me—merely act as if you are out but to get more fresh air. I will be hiding and if I think you are being followed, I will not come to you.”

“But if you decide you can’t show your face, how will I know if you are safe or not? Jose, that tree from which the old man is still trying to get the silly eel down—leave this handkerchief of mine tied to a low branch—before you wait for me. In that way, even if you don’t show, I will know you are still free.”

“Good. If I cannot return, for any reason, I will phone Eric and tell him I am your cousin Mike. That will also be a signal I am okay but it is not safe to come to you.”

Helen nodded and squeezed my hand. “I’ll bring food and a thin blanket in the stroller. In this hot weather you can sleep out here in safety. But one thing I want settled: if you have not solved things by this afternoon, I insist upon seeing a lawyer. By God, we only
think
of buying a house and see the mess we’re in!”

I kissed her cheek, whispered, “It is best you leave now with the baby. I will walk out later.”

She stood up, the lovely deep brown of her skin, the straight way she held herself, the long dark braid of her hair like a warrior’s plume. How I enjoyed to unloosen the hair, bury my face in it. I never wished her hair to be soft, but hard and strong like my Helen’s spirit. Would I ever be able to do that again? Up here a
Latino
never truly knows if he will be alive from one day to the next.

With a delightful motion Helen bent down and put Henry in the stroller, although he cried out in protest for a moment. She started to walk away, then rushed back to me. “You can’t have any dough,” she said, opening her purse, taking out a couple of dollars.

I shook my head. She would need every cent we had for food. Who could say when I would be working again?

“Jose, it costs to ride the subway. You have to eat. I let you have your plan, now take this without fussing.”

I took one of the dollars and kissed her fingers. She stroked my sunken red eyes, then turned quickly and walked away, calling softly, “Remember, I’ll be here at four this afternoon.”

I sat there for another five minutes, giving her time enough to walk far away. The old fisherman kept jerking on the line stuck in the tree, cursing, and finally broke the line. He slapped his head in disgust. The eel, still wiggling high up in the tree like a snake, managed to pull the broken line loose and came tumbling to the ground. The other fisherman said loudly, “Got yourself a real fish yarn now, Charlie, using a tree instead of a fish net!”

They both thought this a great joke. I left the Drive hearing their laughter. I didn’t see any police and carrying my “order” I walked down the Upper Drive to 90th Street, then across to Central Park West and took the 8th Avenue subway to the Bronx. I didn’t want to see May Simmons, I had a feeling of danger, but I had to find out what she knew of Harry’s enemies.

• • •

The subway was almost empty at that hour and it was after eleven when I reached her station. I had found a paper on the subway but there was nothing in it about Harry’s death, or about his house being stoned. Up this way a Spanish delivery boy wasn’t too common, but no one seemed to notice me. At her corner I stopped to tie my shoe, and study the block. Nobody was around, and the three cars parked on the street seemed empty. Evidently the police were not even guarding her house against the mob, which aroused my suspicions: the cops might be waiting inside the house. The Simmons rear yard backed up to the yard of a house on the next street, the back yards separated only by a crumbling white picket fence. I walked around to this other street, to the house in back of Harry’s. Although the owner of the house was probably one of the mob, I felt safe knocking at his back door … carrying an “order.” I had a good view of Harry’s home and except for an upstairs window being cracked, it looked okay.

I knocked again on the door and was about to head for the fence when a very tall women in a nice white light dress opened the door. She was about six feet tall, thin as death eating a cracker, with her blue-tinted hair in a tight bun like a crown on top of her very pale powdered face. She would have looked very mean if it wasn’t for her mild eyes. I told her, “Groceries for Mrs. Simmons.”

“This isn’t the Simmons’ house.” If the eyes were mild her voice was brittle as stone.

“The man tell me house in the middle of the block,” I said innocently, playing the clown.

“You have the wrong street. It’s that house over there.”

“Perdone
. Be okay if I go over the fence?”

“What’s the matter with your eyes? Have you been drinking?”

“Oh, no. I work all night at another job, then work during the day, too. I never sleep, I love to work.” I told myself to cut the sarcasm.

“You’ll get sick doing that. Yes, you can go over the fence. Only be careful. Ready to fall apart as it is. Whole neighborhood is going to pot.”

I kept my mouth shut to that, merely touched my paper hat and walked across her yard and stepped over the fence. I knew she was still standing in her kitchen doorway, watching me. Fortunately Harry’s rear door was on the side of the house and out of the thin one’s sight. There was also a window cracked on this side of the house. I put the “order” down, took off my hat, and listened carefully at the door. I didn’t hear a sound. If there were police inside, they were indeed quiet. Perhaps May wasn’t home? The mob might have frightened her away. For some reason, maybe my deep fear, I almost hoped so.

I knocked and at once heard fast steps coming toward me. The door opened: May Simmons looked awful. Her blonde hair was stringy, her thin face drawn and full of red splotches. She was wearing a wrinkled blue suit and white blouse, no shoes—her painted skinny toenails looking obscene. May was so tired she was stooped over while her hands nervously fingered a rosary. I realized she probably had been up all night, same as me. She came awake upon seeing me, asked, “What are you doing here?” Her voice wasn’t nasty, only weary.

Trying to be casual, I looked past her into the kitchen, part of the living room. No police. I told her, “I heard about the mob last night. How is it you haven’t any police protection?”

“That. Some crazy kids got out of hand. I’m glad the cops let you go. I told them I didn’t think you could have done it.”

“Can I come in?”

“Of course. I’m so tired and mixed-up … Come in.”

I walked into the kitchen and shut the door. I didn’t hear any other sounds in the house. I felt much better. “If I can help you against the mob … You see, I feel it is my fault.”

“You shouldn’t. It really wasn’t.”

“No, last night, after I left here, some young punks jumped me. I had to knock them down and they must have stoned the house to get even.”

“Sit down … Jose,” she said pointing toward a kitchen chair. She sat on the other side of the table, working the rosary in her lap. “I’m so bushed half the time I’m floating. Listen, forget the mob. Wasn’t a mob but a couple of kids, probably given a few bucks by one of the local real estate outfits around here. They’d like to start panic selling—make a big fast buck buying up the houses in a cheap hurry. Some of the neighbors even came over this morning, to say they’d stand by me—and you. Told me the same thing was tried when the first Jewish family moved in, years ago. Now there are a dozen or so Jewish families in the area and nobody thinks anything of it. Punk kids don’t worry me. And a radio car passes here every 15 minutes or so. Joe, last night, why didn’t you tell me Harry was dead?”

Her deep, veined eyes were staring right into me. I asked, “You think I killed him, too?”

“I can’t think about anything, very clearly. But why did you lie to me last night when you knew?”

“I didn’t know Harry was dead, then. He had … somehow … vanished and I came up to see if he was back. But I could not tell you he had disappeared. For all I knew he might have been on … some personal business.”

“With a woman?” May asked, taking a pack of cigarettes from the kitchen table drawer, offering me one. When I shook my head she lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke which floated over the table like a tiny fog coming in from the sea. She and Louisa loved to blow smoke.

“I did not say with a woman. I do not know anything of his personal business.”

“You don’t have to kid me, Joe. That was Harry’s way of getting crocked. Worse things become, the more he was sleeping around, like an eager tomcat. He’d have been better off hitting the bottle, as I do. Only today the stuff let me down, as it always does when you need it the most. Don’t strain your sore eyes to look so puzzled, it’s very simple. The world can be on fire but if you’re well stoned all that matters is crossing the room to a chair. That becomes
the
great problem. If you can’t solve your other troubles, you may at least be a success in life by making the chair in safety. Harry’s ‘living dangerously’ was sneaking in and out of bedrooms. Perhaps, in fairness, I should take part of the blame—I wasn’t made for a troubled marriage. There were problems neither of us could manage …”

“What kind of problems, Mrs. Simmons?” I cut in, thinking this could be the lead I wanted.

“Money is all kinds of problems. The store was slowly killing Harry. It was his tiger by the tail … Tell me, what happened on the handball courts yesterday?”

“What the police must have told you. Harry ran to the other court after a ball … and I never saw him again … alive.”

She nodded, as if it was all very clear to her. “I told him not to play. Man his age and size has to think of his heart.”

“Mrs. Simmons, there are things I must know. Did your husband have enemies? Who would want to kill him?”

“As I told the police, he had no enemies. If more people wanted to kill Harry, he’d be alive today.”

“That confuses me.”

“You can’t understand it. You see Harry was a pusher, that was his way of life. Mine, too. When he was courting me I was a secretary to a dress manufacturer downtown, and there was a
prize
pusher—what I’m saying is, Harry had things down pat. By the time he was 31 he would have two or three butcher shops, a chain of them when he was 38, then retire and play the market before he was 50. A real pusher has enemies, Harry was never able to get off the dime, never could get past being small time. I think he killed himself.”

“Suicide? But how … Did you see him?”

She nodded, puffing faster on the cigarette, her face going so pale I was afraid she was sick.

“He could not have done all that … to himself. What about his trouble with the numbers syndicate?”

“All hot air. Harry often talked about the dough to be made in the digits, so when does he go into the racket? When the people are gone from the houses, when they start knocking down the buildings,
then
he takes the step. In a matter of days there weren’t enough people left to play numbers or buy meat. Some of the goons threatened him, that’s a fact, but they also realized it was all a tempest in an empty teacup. No, somehow he killed himself; took out.”

“Why do you keep saying that? He was in a good mood when I saw him last … alive. Full of pep.”

“He talked about suicide a couple of times, going to do me the big favor, so I made him cancel his insurance policies and—”

“He has no insurance?”

“Not a nickel. I took care of it myself, to get suicide out of his mind. He took the little money we got from the policies and threw it into the damn store. That’s exactly how things have gone with us all along—two months after we cash his policies, he’s dead.”

I tried to think. I wanted to ask where she was yesterday around lunchtime, but that was silly, she couldn’t have smashed Harry up so. Nor could I picture any man wanting May enough to kill for her. I asked, “If he was a … ladies man, might not some husbands have been after him?”

She shook her head fast, lit another cigarette before she said, “The cops asked that too. Harry was a careful and small time lover boy. A woman owed a few bucks and was a deadbeat, Harry took it out of her hide, that sort of petty stuff.”

“Did he ever mention a man named Frank Rastello?”

“Jose, I’ve been through all this with the cops. I never heard the name before they asked me. They told me about the wallet. Don’t worry, Harry wasn’t going to give back the money.”

“Have you any idea why the bills were folded in odd ways?”

“No. As I told the police, he had no enemies and while I don’t know how, in my heart I feel he killed himself.”

• • •

I stood up. My head hurt from trying to think, and lack of sleep. If he had no enemies I was wasting time here. I had to find Rastello. Harry probably didn’t tell his wife all his interests; no man does. I said, “I have to go. I hope you will not be bothered with the mobs anymore.”