A Deadly Affair (2 page)

It was five after two when I reached the garage. I didn’t stop for anything to eat. Mr. Jones, the manager, was already working on a truck. He just waved and didn’t say a thing about my being late. Mr. Jones was also a good man, for a
blanco
. Although, maybe if I was a white North American, he’d let me work on automatic transmissions in the downtown garage. Here, I was just a grease monkey, not a true
mecanico
… like it said on my school certificate.

As I put Harry’s things in my locker and started to slip into my greasy coveralls, I had the feeling of making a mistake. I should go to the police. But another voice inside me kept saying, “Jose, don’t be a fool … la
jara
have no love for
Hispanos
… They might even accuse you of stealing his wallet. Forget about it. This is not of your business. He can be in no trouble … All
blancos
are a little crazy, one never knows what to expect of them….”

Then suddenly I was stepping out of the coveralls. I picked up Harry’s things. As I passed Mr. Jones I told him, “Something bad has happened to a friend. I think I should go to
la
… the police.”

I didn’t wait for him to say yes or no. As I opened the garage door I turned and saw Mr. Jones still bent over the engine, his pale white face in deep contrast to the dark underside of the raised hood. His face didn’t look surprised, only a pale blank.
Un blanco
blank. He didn’t say a word but I knew when Mr. Jones looked that way he was very troubled.

T
HE SIGN INSIDE
the door read:

Then they had to have this thick, hand-painted arrow pointing toward the desk, as if anyone could miss the heap of ancient wood. While I was never inside a San Juan police station, the New York City station houses must be even more ancient. Behind the desk sat a thin, middle-aged man, his sandy hair in a losing fight with his billard-ball head. He wore a neat black tie, and a fancy gold badge pinned on a white-on-white shirt. He looked more like an office worker than a cop … until he opened his mouth.

When he looked up and saw me, a trace of annoyance crossed his skinny face before he spoke. “What do
you
want?” The way he said
you
insinuated that I was spoiling the air around him.

“I’d like to report Harry Simmons missing. I mean, I think he’s missing.” The station house seemed like the inside of an old tomb, gave me a bad feeling.

“Simmons?” big mouth repeated, and he was truly a
bocon
. “Hardly sounds like a relative of yours, Chico.”

“No sir, I didn’t say he was,” I told him, angry over the “Chico” thing, even if I guess I was expecting it. Maybe I was more angry at myself for saying “sir” to him. “The thing is, me and Harry are … sort of friends. He bas been missing since lunch. I can’t find him.” I had to hunt in my mind for the exact English words, as I grew tense.

Gold-badge gave me a bored smiled, proving he still had all of his tobacco-stained teeth. “And how it’s two thirty-four. How long has your
amigo
been ‘missing,’ about a whole hour?”

“About. I last saw him it was half past one, I think.”

“Forget it, boy, and go about your business. Unless there’s suspicion of foul play, a person isn’t considered missing for twenty-four hours. Also, it isn’t a crime for a man—I assume this Harry must be over eighteen—to take off.” He was talking like a kid reciting his lessons. But the tone changed when he suddenly asked, “You two have a fight?”

“No, we …”

“Boy, you got a record?”

It would be a great joy to put a headlock on his bald dome. I wondered why I’d ever bothered coming to the police. The police, even when they are one of ours, are good to keep away from. And
blanco
police just can’t be trusted. I said, trying to keep the sarcasm in my voice down, “Yes sir, I have a record: I got the Silver Star in Korea. But what has that to do with Harry?”

“You one of these smart ones? Scram out of here. If you don’t see your buddy by tomorrow, come back and report him missing.”

“But would he leave his shirt and jacket, with his store keys and his wallets?” I said, holding them all up for him to see. (I was most careful to say wallets—when the cops get on a Hispano, they might end up accusing me of robbing Rastello’s wallet.) “I last saw him stripped to the waist and all sweaty. Nor do I understand how he could have got out. We were practically in a cage, and I was standing by the single opening.”

“What the hell you talking about? What’s with a cage?”

“I meant we were playing handball over in the playground and the courts are all fenced in. Then Harry hit the ball over the wall and ran around into the other court to get it…. I haven’t seen him since. What am I supposed to do with his things? How will he open his
tienda
—his shop—without the keys?” I
had
to lapse into Spanish!

“What store? What was this guy’s name again?”

“Harry Simmons. Runs a butcher shop off Amsterdam Avenue, near Ganes Place.”

“That petty operator.” He suddenly leaned down over the desk: it was frightening—he seemed terribly tall, a human jack-in-the-box. Sticking his sharp face near mine he asked, “Chico, when did you say all this happened?” The words stunk of stale tobacco.

“Just now. I mean … an hour ago. His store is still shut and … I waited around the playground, but I didn’t want to leave his things there. So I went back to work, then I thought I’d better come here.”

He sat down again. “You don’t smell of wine, Chico. You been playing the numbers with Harry?”

“Numbers? I told you, we only played handball. I know nothing about any numbers. Like I said, I didn’t know what to do, how he could have disappeared from the handball courts, so I come here to …”

“All right, shut it off. See them stairs back there? At the top you’ll see a door marked Detective Squad Room. You … can you read?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. You just go up there and ask for Detective London. Tell him your story. And get this jacket and crap off my desk.”

Walking up the steps I felt like a fool who was going deeper into a trap. I should have left Harry’s things on the handball court … but if they were stolen I’d be accused anyway, so perhaps this was the best thing to do. Only a
Hispano
is always better off
outside
a police station.

London looked like a cop: he had a strong face and a thick build. He was maybe a few years older than me, say about 32. He was a careful dresser—sharp clothes that avoided looking either cheap or expensive. Pointing to a chair in front of his desk, he asked what was on my mind. I put Harry’s things on the desk, sat down, and told him exactly what had happened. When I finished, this one lit his pipe and for a few seconds placed all his concentration on getting it smoking. About five other detectives—some you would never imagine were police—kept coming in and out of the room, typing, or working the phone. They had their coats off, showing the small hip holsters and guns.

It was very warm in the squad room, even with the noisy window fan which needed oiling. I was not only hot, I was becoming embarrassed. I walk off my job and the
la jara
payed no attention, as if I was talking for their amusement….

“You work pretty hard at the garage, Jose?” London suddenly asked me.

“I do not get fat at it.”

“And Harry Simmons probably has varicose veins from standing behind the counter all day. How come you two play handball during your lunch hour?”

“Well, as for me, I have always been big on physical culture. Back in … I used to play a good second base in school. I have even boxed in the Golden Gloves, and I was an amateur wrestling champion. The truth is, I thought I would turn pro up here, like my idol, the great Rocco. But I found they are only interested in heavyweights. I tell you all that to say this: on good days I usually go to the playgrounds for the sun. Then I begin hitting a handball around, by myself. Some weeks ago this Harry passed by and said he was a hotshot handball player, years back. That started us playing. On account of all the houses being torn down, Harry’s business is bad, so I doubt if he gets tired. Anyway, he began playing every weekday, for an hour.”

“You never knew Harry before?”

“No. Perhaps I see him on the street, but I am not sure of that,” I said. I wasn’t truly lying but there was no sense in bringing my cousin Louisa into this.

“You never played the numbers with Harry?”

“I told the man at the desk, downstairs, no, when he asked that. I didn’t even know Harry played numbers. What has it to do with this?”

Detective London puffed hard on his pipe, as if he thought it had gone out, before he told me, “We know all about Harry. He tried to bank the numbers some months ago. Had a beef with the syndicate—chased one of their goons out of his store with a meat cleaver. Of course he was penny ante, and knocking down the houses put him out of the racket. Tell me, many other people in the playground?”

“Except for the old man getting the sun—the one whose wallet is here—we were the only ones.”

London picked up the wallet, took out all that was left in it—Rastello’s social security card. “You say Harry found this yesterday?”

“Yes. Like I told you, as we were leaving yesterday Harry saw the wallet under the bench. The old man had already gone. There was eighteen dollars in it, the money folded as I told you. Harry said he would return it if he saw the old man, today.”

“The five buck bill folded in half and the ten dollars rolled up?”

I nodded.

“And Harry didn’t return the money or the wallet?”

“He said he was going to, when we finished playing.”

“This Rastello, he didn’t ask if you had found his wallet?”

“No sir, He never said a word to us—ever.”

“Not even a kid in the playground?”

All these pointless little questions were making me restless. “You see the playground is on the corner …”

“I know its location.”

“Then you must also know they have condemned the whole square block, except for the playgrounds. And the next block. They have knocked down all the old buildings. I hear they are going to build a school …”

“I’ve heard that too,” London cut in.

“Since everybody has been forced to move, there are no kids to play there. Even the attendant is gone. I suppose he only comes around to open and shut the grounds. Across the street there is the rear of a big storage warehouse—where I asked about Harry—and an empty factory building.”

“How about the workers demolishing the buildings: none of them eating their lunch on the benches?”

“Nope,” I told him, wondering if he was trying to trap me with his silly questions. “Mostly they eat lunch in their trucks. I know because Harry and I once tried to get them for a game of doubles. Anyway, they weren’t around today, there’s a strike of some kind. That’s what I heard at my garage. The fact is, the whole area is very quiet except for some drilling going on in the street in front of the warehouse. That’s a block away.” I felt rattled, going into so many details.

“Is Harry married?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t phone his house. May, that is his wife, she does not care for me.”

“You’ve been to his house?” The surprise in his voice was like a slap on my face.

“Sure, last night. My wife and I went up. Harry wants to sell it to us. But his wife—I don’t think she much liked the idea of … Spanish people moving in. It’s up in the Bronx, a nice section.”

“You have money to buy a house in the city? How much do you make as a mechanic?”

“$69.83 take home pay. My wife is soon coming into two thousand dollars. She is an Indian and the government forced her tribe to sell some land for a power plant up near Canada. What they call … termination. The government suddenly cancels an old land treaty. My wife says it is a bad thing to sell the land, but there was nothing she could do about it. What’s this to do with Harry being missing?

I could actually see the curiosity on London’s face as he asked, “You married an Indian? What do your kids look like, Jose?”

“My son looks like a child, not like a freak.”

To my amazement he answered in good Spanish, “Easy. I meant nothing by the question.”

“You speak Spanish well,” I answered, also in Spanish, although I do not like speaking Spanish in front of a
blanco
.

“I have taken a course in it, since the neighborhood changed.”

I had nothing to be ashamed of about my family. I told him, proudly,” As you can see by the brown of my skin, I also have Indian blood in me—Carib. My Helen looks like an Island woman, until she talks. We have one child, a handsome brown boy.”

“Have you been in America long?” London asked in English, lapsing into typical
blanco
arrogance.

“I was born in America.”

He sighed, knocked his pipe ashes into a wastebasket. “Come on, stop it. How long have you been up in New York?”

“About four years. When I got out of the army and graduated mechanics’ school, I came here.”

“Finished college on the G.I. Bill myself. I was a Marine.”

“We of the 65th Puerto Rican Infantry covered the Marine retreat in Korea.”

He sighed again, then examined Harry’s things, carefully going through his wallet. Finally he told me, “Jose, your story sounds crazy as all hell, but neither can I buy a guy leaving his keys and a wallet with twenty-seven dollars. We’ll keep the stuff here and take a walk to the playgrounds.”

When we got there the place was still empty, of course, the whole block quiet. I guess they had knocked off drilling on the other street for the day. The sun was out as strong as the silence. Pointing with his pipe, London said, “All this equipment and not a child using it. Give you odds the next playground down the line is jammed this very second.”

There was nothing I was expected to say to that, so I nodded toward the wire fence surrounding the entire playground, told him, “The fence must be 25 feet high …”

“I make it about 18 feet.”

“Okay, but still plenty high. And as you see, the handball courts are partitioned off from the rest of the playgrounds by their own fence. The only way onto—or off—the courts is there where I was standing, taking off my shirt.”

London nodded as we crossed to the courts, then asked, “Got a ball with you, Jose?”

He said it like he wanted to play a game. “Nope. Harry was chasing the ball. Whoever hit the ball over the wall went after it. He ran around to the other court and that was the last I see of him, or the ball.”

“I used to play four wall. Ever try it?”

“Nope,” I said, nervously.

“Much faster game,” London said.

I had this crazy feeling he had come with me but to take a walk, get some sun. All these foolish questions and statements, as if we were killing time. While each second I remained away from the job, the farther my rear could be in that sling.

London said, “Let’s see: Harry hits the ball over and runs around to the other court … like this.” I followed the detective as he walked around the wall which separated the two courts. The wall stopped about two feet from the fence on each side so a person could go from one court to the other. The second court was almost all in shade by now. “That would make Harry never more than about … 60 feet from you. Now show me exactly where you were standing.”

We walked back to the first court. I said, “I was warmed up, so as soon as Harry started after the ball, I went over by that entrance—where our clothing was—peeled off my T-shirt. That took perhaps a second. Then I leaned against the fence, getting the sun. I figured Harry was sneaking in some rest on the other court, or maybe fixing his shoes or gloves. Anyway, after waiting a few moments, I called out for him to make it snappy, that I did not have all day. I called again, shouting, because of the racket the drilling was making. I get no answer. I walk around to where we just were. No Harry. I kept calling and looking. Still no Harry.”