A Deadly Affair (9 page)

He had been half facing me as he talked. I had a hunch this was but another part of the act. Only I could not risk Henry’s life on a hunch! “Why can’t you let Helen go? She certainly has nothing to do with this?” My voice was shaking badly.

London shrugged his thick shoulders. “How do we know she has or she hasn’t—you won’t tell us? If you and Leon did Harry in, she could be part of the plan. Jose, stop stalling. Tell me what happened and I swear I will let your wife go at once.”

“What do you want of me! I can only tell what
did
happen….”

The phone rang, cut into my sobbing. London listened for what seemed a long time, then scratching the side of his head with his free hand he said, “You sure of this? Blood stains, high up on the factory wall
above
the warehouse? But how the hell can that be? Sure … must have weighed damn near 200 pounds. No, nothing here. Look I’m … Yes sir, off and running again. I’ll bring him too. Lab boys able to come up with anything about this?” Hanging up, he put on his coat, told me, “Get up, we’re going to the warehouse roof again. Harry must have grown wings.”

“What about my baby?”

“Work that out later. Now we—”

“The hell with later! I don’t want my kid left alone!”

“Then talk, you bastard!”

“I’ve told you all what happened….”

London opened the door, grabbed me by the back of the neck and sent me flying into the hall. After the hours of sitting, motion was a relief, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I saw the bright sun through a window. In the light London’s face looked very haggard. Way the sun was out, it had to be after ten. Henry always awoke at six … yelling his head off in a locked room, he might have fallen from his crib … in pain this second … or dead!

We went down the stairs and London told a new man behind the desk, “Will you tell Artie I’m taking the prisoner to the warehouse roof, to pick me up there.”

“All squad cars in use,” the desk man said. I glanced around wildly, hoping to see Helen.

London snapped, “That goddamn Artie and his fancy stomach—can’t eat in the joints around here. I’ll get one from the garage.”

The garage was a small building next door and the sun was a tonic on my face, but I didn’t give it any thought. A stooped man in coveralls who didn’t look like a cop told London, “Why didn’t you phone first? Only decent load I have needs a battery charge. Why don’t you flag down a radio car? Or wait a moment for me to—”

London cut him off with, “Make it snappy, Matt.”

“What snappy? If you’d called, given me a chance to—”

“Balls, I want a car not some chatter.”

The mechanic disappeared into the darkness of the back of the garage, behind some sort of wire wall. London and I were alone. I said, “About my baby, can’t you at least allow Helen to go home and bring him here?”

“Worried about your kid, Jose? Crap! You think so damn much of his life, why don’t you talk?”

The tenseness coiled up within me suddenly came apart like a striking snake. I could simply no longer control my anger. London was busy packing his pipe with tobacco. Then as he bent forward to light it, I struck him a Judo chop on the back of his thick neck. In my madness, the blow sort of half-landed on his shoulder, but the pipe flew from his mouth, bouncing toward the door, as he fell to his knees, then pitched forward on the dirty floor.

Glancing around quickly, shaking my numbed right hand, I walked out; forcing myself to walk slowly. Nobody stopped me, no one saw me.

Like a wild animal suddenly fleeing his cage … I felt free.
Free to run deeper into this nightmare, into the horror I was sinking in
. A
Hispano
who slugs a cop might as well commit suicide—it is one and the same thing.

But that didn’t matter … regardless of what torture awaited me, I had to get to my Henry …
now
.

I
WANTED TO
run back to our room, but it was too far and anybody running in New York City stands out. A bus was too slow and the subway too risky. I had a buck and change in my pockets and a few blocks from the police station I hailed a cab.

It was a luxury to sat back on the cool leather of the taxi, feeling so relaxed and exhausted I was on the verge of sleep, or passing out. I shut my eyes and the very motion of the cab was soothing. It felt so good I nearly forgot my troubles, and what a big mistake taking a cab could be. Certainly the police would question all taxi drivers near the station house.

I told the driver to stop, paid him off. I was about four blocks from my hotel. I had to stop sleeping with my brains if I wanted to stay out of jail: here I was heading straight for our room where the police would most certainly be awaiting me with open arms and night sticks. But how else could I reach my baby?

I walked past our street—without seeing anybody in front of the hotel—and turned into the next block below. I stepped into a small apartment house as if I belonged there, ran up the five flights to the roof. No one was on the roof and neither did I have a story ready as to what I’d say or do if I was stopped—and a
Latino
seen on a roof would be stopped. Crossing this roof in the hot sun, I jumped down on the another, across one more, then walked carefully around an air shaft, scrambled up a small wall, and finally came to the roof I wanted: the one opposite our room.

On my belly I crawled to the edge … and what a view I had! There was my Helen walking around in a pair of old blue jeans, and a thin bra very white against her golden brown skin. She was dressing Henry and except for an intense look on her long face things seemed very normal. I lay there in the hot sun, my mind whirling with big thoughts and tiny ones. Like, how we’d certainly have to put up curtains at once, no matter what Helen said—we were practically living in public. There was the sudden relief that the baby was okay, mixed with the bitter realization I had been a sucker. London had angered me into charging wide open after all … his lies about Helen being at the police station and Henry alone in the room! Of course he hadn’t expected me to get away, but now I was not only suspected of murder, but wanted for slugging a cop. Of the two, for a Puerto Rican, the second was worse. If they caught me, they’d work me over until I was dead or crippled for life.

The tar paper on the roof was hot and melting under me, as if to remind me of the hell I was in. If I hadn’t belted London … they could have grilled me from now on and I would never have cracked. If … if. I
had
clipped a cop. Instead of lying here in the sun feeling sorry for myself, I had much to do and little time in which to do it. I needed to eat and drink, or I would faint. I had to find Rastello the sun-bather. Somehow I had to get in touch with Helen. And the main thing—I had to find Harry’s killer, or killers.

That was the big thing I had to do because by now the police would be convinced I was the murderer. I had run, which was sufficient sign of guilt for them when it comes to one of us. I had not only run, I’d socked a cop; the police would now spend all their time hunting for me … and allowing whoever had killed Harry to get away. So the only thing for me to do, was find the killer.

How absurd and easy it was to say!
The only thing for me to do, was find the killer
. Who knows how to find a murderer? What do you do? Where do you start, if the police didn’t know who? Crazy as it seemed, perhaps I could show the police their job, for I
knew
Rastello was lying about not seeing Harry and me. I would question him. And May—she must know something about Harry’s enemies. Yes, I would come up with the true killer and then the worst that would happen to me would be a beating. Once the murderer was found,
la jara
would let me return to my family alive—I hoped.

I watched Helen slip on a thin polo shirt. Then she adjusted her blue jeans, put Henry in his stroller and started for the door. I could have shouted or waved at her, but if the cops were watching the house below, I’d be trapped. She left the room and I knew where she was going: on sunny days she took Henry down to the Lower Drive and watched the men fishing, the boats passing on the dirty Hudson. I almost felt hurt: Helen was going about things so normally, as if I and my big trouble didn’t exist. But I knew that wasn’t so—what else could she do?

I sat up on the roof, licking my dry lips. I had to get away from here. This was one of the fairly swank houses salted in with the slum-hotels they allowed us to live in. Anyone seeing me on this roof would immediately phone the police. But I waited until Helen came out on the sidewalk below, aware of the way she walked—an Indian proud of
her
land. She pushed the stroller toward the Drive as I expected and—how glad I was I had been wise enough not to call from the roof—I suddenly saw two men step out from a car parked across from the hotel, and follow her. They even looked like detectives. They all strolled down to the upper Drive and when Helen crossed with the baby, one of the men followed. I had a bird’s view from the roof and a few minutes later I watched him return, say something to the other dick, dismissing Helen with a wave of his heavy hand. They walked slowly back up the block, lit cigarettes, and shook the sweat from their hat bands. They sat in their car again, waiting for me to show up at the hotel. They must have figured Helen, only being out to air the baby, would be a waste of time tailing. Well, their laziness was a break for me.

I ran across the roofs, the way I’d come, and down to the street. The janitor, a large plump old man with thin hair so red it had to be a cheap dye job, was polishing the door brass. As I breezed by he asked, “Hey, where you been?”

“Making a delivery,” I said, without stopping. And that gave me an idea for disguise. Most of the big stores along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue used
Hispanos
for deliveries—but rarely ever for clerks, of course. (As a delivery boy there was less chance of being noticed.)

I crossed West End Avenue, feeling naked and exposed. At Broadway I stopped for an orange drink and a doughnut. There was a supermarket a few stores away with some cans and boxes of trash outside. I picked up a good-sized carton, then some empty cereal and soap powder boxes. By turning them open side down and stuffing them in the carton, it would look like I was carrying an order. A clerk was watching me through the window. I took the boxes inside, politely asked him, “Okay if I take these? My kid wants to play store?”

“Sure, but not very sanitary,” he told me and his tone added, “But then, what difference would that make to
you
people?”

I asked him to sell me a paper bag for a nickel and with the grand gesture he tossed one at me, saying, “Now beat it.” He was merely a pimply-faced jerk of a
blanco
kid who badly needed a swift kick in the can. Outside, I made a clumsy square hat out of the bag, something like printers make. I noticed many delivery men wore them. Putting this on my head and with the “order” on my shoulder—masking one side of my face—I could safely go almost anyplace.

I headed for the Lower Drive: to anybody but the detectives I would merely be another Puerto Rican goofing off to talk to his girl. Helen always sat near a certain patch of grass which was clean enough for Henry to crawl around on. I stopped to “rest” on a bench as soon as I was in sight of them. Everything seemed okay: a few mothers wheeling kids, a colored maid with a little blonde girl on a fancy scooter, two elderly men sitting on the wooden railing facing the river, and patiently fishing. One of them had the wiry build of my father. He might also be fishing this very moment down on the island. I didn’t know why I thought of him suddenly—he probably didn’t even remember fathering me. An
intelectual
, yet he would not hesitate about working in the cane fields and wear a broad brimmed straw
pavas
. It gave him a chance to spout about our history. Was he still a follower of Campos, still a radical? One merely said it was a good day to my father and he would answer that in 1929 the average weekly wage of an entire island family was less than $7 a week. Or that in 1933 on the sugar raising isle of Vieques, the whole population of 11,000 only made $500 a week.

Why was I thinking of him now, in my time of terrible need? He was probably still the idealist, and his hobby still knocking out kids, planting the “strong seed for the future,” as he once had the nerve to tell me. Well, the hell with him … even if it relaxed me now to think about him. If he had stuck to an office job, perhaps I would not be up here, hunted by the police. That was a foolish thought which I had no time for, certainly not now.

I stood up and walked toward Helen. I darn near cried because I swear it was tiny Henry who first recognized me. He started to crawl toward me, a smile on his chubby brown face. Sitting down beside Helen I whispered, “Don’t make a fuss.”

“What … Lord … Jose! I just phoned the police and they … What happened to your eyes? They’re so red … bloodshot.” She was trying hard to hold back the tears as her hand stroked mine.

I quickly told her all that had happened to me. When I asked if the police had been rough when they questioned her, she said, “No one has questioned me. I waited and waited for you this morning, and just now, I phoned from downstairs. I spoke to Detective London. He said he was busy and not to worry….”

“London told you that a
few minutes ago?
”

She nodded. “Yes, he did ask over the phone if you had any family here, and where I came from.”

“He didn’t say anything about me punching him, breaking away?” This was as weird as Harry’s vanishing.

“No! I asked if he had heard about Mrs. Simmons and he said he had. I left word with Eric as to where I’d be, in case you returned. You
hit
him? Oh Jose, that’s real trouble!”

“I lost my head. They were torturing me with a lie that you were in the station house and Henry was alone. I should have known not even the police could make you leave the baby.”

We were both silent for a moment, in a cloud of doom. Looking about to be certain we weren’t being watched, I went over and gave Henry a big hug and kiss as he tried to put his little fist in my ear. I told Helen, “You don’t know how glad I am to find you here….”

“Don’t talk as if you don’t expect to see us again,” she said, and a certain hardness had returned to her voice, as when she would be arguing with me to leave New York City. It was good to hear, also gave me strength. “Jose, we must keep in mind nothing really bad has happened. You didn’t kill Harry and even punching a cop … isn’t murder.”

“But not far from it,” I said, giving Henry a final pat and sitting on the bench with Helen again. One of the fisherman began to reel in his line. He suddenly jerked the rod and the fish on the line shot up in the air and back over the man’s shoulder, high into a tree not far from us. I almost laughed. “The fool, why doesn’t he stand on the rocks below the walk?”

“Must be afraid of slipping. I have often seen him do the same thing. Now he will spend a lot of time trying to get the lousy eel down from the tree. But the fish is not our trouble. What should we do now, Jose?”

“I know what we must do, but not
how
. I can only clear myself by finding Harry’s killer.”

“All right, now stop talking like a TV hero. I think first we should contact a civil rights organization, or the Office of The Government of Puerto Rico—”

“Why?” I cut in. “Will they find the murderer? That’s my job.”

“
Jose
, let the police find the killer. What we must do is get the cops to understand that you didn’t mean—”

“Okay, I’ll go directly to London this second and beg his pardon!”

Helen’s long fingers stroked my hand. “Honey, don’t be angry. Of course you can’t go to the police, but somebody else should, at once. Somebody they will listen to, a lawyer who can tell them you broke away only because you were worried about me and the boy.”

“Sure, I can see a lawyer doing it for
me!”

“He will do it for money, as for anybody else; we shall hire a lawyer.”

“With what? Helen, don’t you understand I have only a few hours, a day at the most, before they catch me.
I have to act now!
Suppose I became a policeman, like I talked of last night, what would I do to catch a killer?”

“Jose, I cannot repair a car by wishing the knowledge, and you are not trained as a cop. Listen, let me at least talk to a lawyer. I can tell him about the money I’m getting …”

“No!” I told her, feeling sick. “You yourself said it is blood money, so it must be put to good use. For a house, okay, but to waste it on something which isn’t our fault, that is not right.”

“What good will I be without you?” Helen asked.

“Look, let me try something, for a few hours, first.”

“Try what?”

“We have this edge on the police; we are sure I had nothing to do with Harry’s death. The police have been wasting all their time on me. Therefore I should first find out what enemies Harry had. Also, I must see the sun-worshipper, Rastello. He’s in this or he would not have lived. So I will try to find him and also question May about Harry’s enemies in the numbers racket.”

Helen nodded. “That sounds smart. I thought of going up to see May myself, if she would wish to see me. She has enough trouble, as I heard on the TV news this morning.”

“What trouble?”

“Some people busted the windows of her house during the night, and shoved threatening notes under her door. If she should sell to us …”

“Was she hurt?”

“Not according to the TV. Must be rough on her, coming on top of the shock of learning of Harry’s death.”

I had a new idea. “Perhaps this mob had something to do with Harry’s death? I mean
how
he was killed is so fantastic … one second he’s on the handball court and the next he is terribly beaten and up on a warehouse roof. So, there must have been several men involved to carry him up to the roof. Also, I think I heard London get a phone call this morning about they now think Harry was first on the empty factory roof, which is even higher up, and dropped to the warehouse roof. I think if we can learn
why
Harry was killed, we will be able to find out how. Was there anything on the TV about me? Or in the papers?”