Buried on Avenue B (24 page)

 

CHAPTER 61

O'HARA SLIPS THE
card into the lock and leads Krekorian inside. Between the closet, bed, and the wall, there is barely room for her and K to stand. In front of them, inches from the barrels of their guns, is the bathroom door. From behind it comes the sound of running water and nothing else.

O'Hara scans the cluttered space for the weapon. Clothes and trash, tossed everywhere, fouls the air. On top of the closet are the orange-stained wax paper and plate from his last meal, and hanging off the corner of the bed, a pair of mighty whities the size of a pillowcase. Maybe the gun is in the shopping bag, but O'Hara can't find the bag until she looks down and sees she's standing next to it. Inside, thousands in loose bills are piled like leaves, but there's no gun.

That could mean he didn't have one, or it's somewhere else in the room, or he's holding it in his hand on the other side of the door. In an instant, all the urgency and crap thinking of the last twenty minutes come back as its B side—panic. For the first time since she rushed them into the hotel, O'Hara appreciates the danger she has put them both in, and as she looks over at her partner, her vision tunnels.

Because O'Hara led them into the room, Krekorian stands directly in front of the bathroom door, with O'Hara just beyond him. Is K seconds away from getting shot? Is she about to get her partner killed? In her hand is a weapon O'Hara has never drawn in the field till now. The last time she fired it was ten months ago at the range for her annual certification.

O'Hara stares at the bathroom door and listens to the running shower. She wills the spout to be turned off and the water to stop, and to hear the scrape of grommets as the shower curtain is swept aside, but none of those things happen. All she hears is rushing water. When O'Hara glances at K's bullet-shaped head, his eyes are focused on the door.

If the perp has a gun in his hand, every second they delay increases their chances of getting shot. She tries to think clearly, but how can she when the reason they're in this position is that she hasn't been thinking at all? Instead, she reaches for the rage that has never been far since she saw the handprints in blood on the metal wall of the van, and turns the handle of the bathroom door.

Like the rug, it's wet, and slips in her hand. When she tries again and pushes it open, steam billows into her face, blinding her, and for the second time in a minute, she stands frozen, waiting to be run over or shot. Krekorian reaches behind her and opens the door to the hallway. Enough steam escapes for her to make out a shape in the shower. “Police officers,” says Krekorian. “Turn off the water.”

The perp doesn't respond, and Krekorian says it louder. “Police officers. Turn off the water.” As more steam clears, O'Hara has a better view of the pale figure wedged into the corner behind the clear plastic. His dark hair is bent under the shower head, and the water cascades off his massive back. O'Hara is struck by the paleness of his shoulders, the tops pink from the rush of scalding water. For a second she wonders if they got the wrong guy.

“Police,” says O'Hara. “Get the fuck out of the shower.”

When O'Hara turns toward Krekorian again, he has transferred his revolver to his holster and is holding the Taser. He raises the weapon to the level of the perp's elbow, slips his finger over the trigger, and inches forward until the front of the device almost touches the shower curtain.

“Hold on a second,” says O'Hara. She takes in the forward tilt of the perp's head, then sweeps the shower curtain aside. Fudgesicle's jowls are on his chest, and his arms at his side, but except for the angle of his neck and slack arms, nothing stands out, until she moves to the side and sees the part of his chest the water didn't reach. Running from neck to navel is a deep maroon stain that fans out like a '70s tie, and lying across the drain between enormous lime green Crocs is a straight-edged razor.

“I'll say one thing,” says K.

“What?”

“Great water pressure.”

 

CHAPTER 62

KREKORIAN CRACKS HIS
knuckles and squints into the sun. At 7:45 in the morning, St Mark's is far quieter than at 3:00 a.m. Except for a couple employed outliers hustling to the subway, the sidewalks are empty.

“Breakfast?”

“I was leaning toward a drink,” says O'Hara.

When they arrive, Milano's has only been open for minutes, but O'Hara's two fellow regulars are already perched on their self-assigned stools. Neither looks up as O'Hara and Krekorian sit between them.

“Good morning, Darlene,” says Holly.

“Good morning. Holly, this is Serge.”

“What can I get you?”

“A Guinness.”

“And you, Darlene, the usual?”

“Please.”

Krekorian waits for Holly to deliver their drinks and walk away. “ ‘Good morning, Darlene,' ” he mimics. “ ‘Good morning, Holly.' ‘The usual, Darlene?' What the hell is wrong with you? You got exactly what you wanted. You made homicide at thirty-five. And you start your day here? You haven't changed a bit.”

“Isn't that a good thing, in a way?”

“Actually it's not. The idea of life is to change. That's the point.”

“Really? No one told me.”

“I'm telling you now.”

Krekorian is too weary to press the matter. He drains half his pint in one long sip, sits back in his stool, and closes his eyes. O'Hara is exhausted too, and in the last few minutes her spirits have dipped. Seeing Fudgesicle wedged under the shower head, so drained of blood he looked like an albino, was not unsatisfying, particularly since it's what he did to the boy, but it keeps him out of the box and keeps her from ever finding out how he could toss away the boy's life so cavalierly. She wanted to put him face-to-face with what he had done, and now she can't.

“There were four people in that unit that morning,” says O'Hara, “the old fighter, two perps, and the kid. Now that they're all dead. There's no one left to say what happened.”

“At least you put him out of business,” says Krekorian, “backed him into such a corner, he had no choice but to pull the plug.”

“Although for a second there I thought you were going bring him back à la Frankenstein. If you had zapped him with that Taser, he might have turned off the water and reached for the towel.”

“I guess I owe you for that one, Darlene.” He clinks O'Hara's cocktail with his pint. “Tasering a dead Gypsy is probably not good luck.”

“It was the least I could do,” says O'Hara. “I miss you, K.”

“Miss you too, Dar. God knows why.”

“By the way, Holly used to be Richard.”

“No shit.”

“Which I guess proves your point about people needing to change. Some more than others.”

Krekorian quaffs the last of his Guinness. “That's it. We had our drink. I need some sleep.”

“One last shot?”

“No. And you're coming with me. I'm not leaving you here.”

“Let me just go to the bathroom.”

O'Hara has avoided Milano's bathroom till now, but this morning she has no choice. As she steps through the door, she sees she's gotten a text from Axl, and her spirits spike.

Hi, Darlene. Glad you liked the show. Gotten a lot of positive feedback. Unfortunately things aren't looking good for the band
.
The new drummer turned out to be a dick. We got into a fistfight at our last rehearsal, and the bass player is talking about following his girlfriend to Vermont. I'm afraid the Flat Screens are fading to black
.

 

CHAPTER 63

THE GRAY-HAIRED WOMAN
shuffles from the counter, clutching a Coke and a paper bag. She wears a thin cotton dress that reaches the top of her flip-flops, and her neck and wrists are a welter of beads. Despite her choice of a rendezvous, she is bone thin, the kind of woman lucky enough to have shed her weight over the decades and streamlined for old age.

O'Hara has been waiting for an hour. She sits at a table in front that looks out at the pedestrians wilting in the heat on Third. The old woman takes the seat across from her and reaches into her bag for the cardboard jewel box and two plastic containers. The box, which bears the claim
AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF HAPPINESS
, contains four McNuggets. The plastic tubs hold her sauces—barbecue and sweet 'n' sour.

“You expected a man?” Through Miss Marla, O'Hara requested a meeting with the Big Rom, or whoever has jurisdiction over that part of the East Village that includes the community garden.

“Yes.”

“Most people do.” With cultivated precision, she lifts a tawny globule, dunks it in both sauces, and drops it into her mouth.

“I want to know what happened in Florida,” says O'Hara.

“Detective,” says the Big Roma, “I wasn't there. Fortunately, the person most responsible has done us all a big favor. Now the book is closed.”

“I still need to know.”

“Since when do you care about Gypsies?” The woman repeats her drill and licks the greasy crumbs from her fingers. Through parts not covered with grime or plastered with promotions, light slants through the window and bounces off the orange and maroon puddles.

“If the kid was a Gypsy, then I care about Gypsies.”

“Because he was blond?”

“Because he was nine years old and locked in the back of a van for over a day as he bled to death. Because he had no family and no choice but to help a bunch of lowlifes prey on old people. You're right, I don't give a fuck about anyone but the boy. For the way he was treated, I hope bad
kasa
haunts all of you for the rest of your days.”

The part of the room where O'Hara and the old woman sit looks more like a shelter than America's favorite restaurant. Nearby, a woman stares into space, and a bearded man nods out in his panhandling prop of a wheelchair. Those who are more alert are preoccupied with their own fresh catastrophes, but the threat of bad
kasa
gets the old lady's attention.

“What makes you think he didn't have a family?”

“If he did, he would have been better off without them. They didn't take care of him. They didn't protect him. They didn't educate him. They didn't even set his broken leg. The only thing anyone ever did for him was bury him. Tell me what happened, or I'll lock up every Gypsy below Fourteenth Street until someone does.”

“Like I said, I wasn't there. I couldn't tell you if I wanted to.”

“Then find out. Ask around.”

“I'm too old for that. Besides, nothing would be gained.”

“A few months ago, the boy's body was moved from wherever it had been to the community garden. That was a very difficult, unpleasant job. Did you order someone to do that?”

“No,” says the old lady. “But I can tell you that whoever did, thought it was the right thing to do. They thought it was important for the boy to have a decent burial.”

“What was decent about it? And why take the risk to move him there?”

“I don't know.”

“You had a theory about why he'd been moved, take a wild guess.”

“I've guessed enough for one day.”

The old lady returns to her McNuggets, and O'Hara thinks about all the people who used the boy. To Fudgesicle and Popsicle, he was the master key who could unlock any door. For Pizza and Crisco, he was the little piece of business that took the stink off their scams, and to the photographer he was essentially the same thing. No doubt this bony old bitch found a way to profit from him too. Thank God, thinks O'Hara, for his skater pals. All they wanted was his company.

“By the way, whoever handled the funeral got most of it wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“The kid didn't like
Batman
. He liked
Superman
. He didn't give a fuck about the Yankees, and he thought Coldplay sucks.”

 

CHAPTER 64

FROM HER DESK
O'Hara can see the board. Whenever she makes the mistake of glancing in its direction, she sees “John Doe, 9, remains, 6th Street, Avenue B” and the blue line running through it. With his fetish for closure, Kelso wasn't going to waste any time crossing the homicide off the board. By the time O'Hara got back to the squad that morning, he had pulled a chair over to the wall and done it himself. But more disturbing than the false finality of the blue line is that the victim still doesn't have a name, and never will.

“You stop at the wheel?” asks Jandorek.

“No. I miss something?”

“A bunch of punks pushed a skell down the stairs to the R train at Union Square, fractured his skull in two places. He's not expected to make it. The vic has the same name as the old fart who thought the Terminator was our commander-in-chief.”

“Got to be another Gus Henderson. My Gus wasn't homeless.”

“Sixty-seven,” says Jandorek, reading from the sheet. “Lifelong junkie . . . record as long as the tracks on his arm.”

“What hospital?”

“St. Vincent's. My favorite.”

“I'll take a look,” says O'Hara, already out of her chair. “I'll call if there's anything.”

“Thanks. I'll check with the MTA. See if they caught it on film.”

Unfortunately the head nurse on duty is the imperious Evelyn Priestly. Before O'Hara can open her mouth, Priestly cuts her off. “No. You can't. Disturbing him now could kill him. That's why he's in intensive care.”

“I don't want to disturb him,” says O'Hara. “I came to see how he's doing.”

“You should have called, then. Saved yourself a trip.”

“Believe it or not, Gus is a friend. I met him working a case.”

“Well, your friend is in pretty bad shape. He's got a compound fracture in his skull, and he wasn't exactly a model of health to begin with.”

There's nothing worse than the ICU at night. What's intensive is certainly not the care. As O'Hara walks by the open doors, she sees wispy old people alone on their backs, their eyes enlarged and scared. In the endless corridors, there's no help in sight, only the somnambulant shuffle of the occasional nurse's aide or a janitor walking behind his polisher. What is intense is the quiet and sense of incipient death and the smell of the disinfectant used to scrub it out.

O'Hara sits on a bench across from the nurses' station, finds Paulette's number, and sends her a text. “Paulette, I just heard Gus got mugged in the subway. How did that happen?” Out of the corner of her eye, O'Hara watches Priestly at her desk. When the nurse leaves her station and steps into the elevator, O'Hara finds Henderson's room and slips inside. From a chair in the corner, she stares at Gus's bandaged head, his fragile hold on life reflected in the rising and falling numbers on the monitor above his bed.

O'Hara looks at her phone again. Still no response from Paulette. She should be here, thinks O'Hara, and is surprised that she isn't, particularly when she recalls how gingerly she removed Gus's hand from her ass that afternoon in the garden. How the hell could she have let Gus slip out of sight? The guy can barely move. How was that even possible?

Gus's personal effects are in a plastic bag on the table. O'Hara doesn't recognize any of them, and there's no sign of his glasses. She gets out of her chair and walks to the head of the bed. Without glasses, Gus barely looks like himself. In fact he isn't Gus, not the Gus Henderson she knows.

O'Hara bends closer to the battered face and realizes she got the math of junkiedom wrong. A sixty-seven-year-old who has been an addict for forty-six years doesn't necessarily look eighty-five. He just looks like crap. But that's not the real issue. If this guy is the real Gus Henderson, who is the demented old fart she's been dealing with?

Her Gus Henderson wanted to get something off his chest. He knows about a body buried in the garden that he has no good reason to know about. He has a picture of a willow in his cigar box. He said he killed a big black guy, and one of the perps is dark and very big. And then he changed his mind and decided that maybe he was white. One fucked-up detail and coincidence after another. But if Gus Henderson isn't really Gus Henderson and is someone else with an actual connection to the perps, all these details become a lot less fucked up and a lot less coincidental.

The implications put O'Hara's brain on tilt. As she sorts them out, the pale stranger on the bed opens his eyes as if from a nap. “How you feeling, pal?”

“Perfect.”

“Seriously?”

“How do you think I feel? I feel like shit.”

“Gus, there's a guy going around saying he's you.”

“Why would anyone do that? I don't even want to be me.”

“I'm wondering the same thing. He's about ten years older than you at least. Thick black glasses. Jet-black hair.”

“He have a pretty black girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?”

“Tall woman, from the islands, way too young and cute for that bowlegged old fart?”

“Now that you mention it.”

“His name is Emmanuel Robin. Everyone calls him Manny.”

“How do you know him?”

“I don't even remember anymore. It's been so long. He's got a repair shop in Alphabet City. Does a little bit of everything—luggage and jewelry repair, haircuts and shaves. You got a high pain threshold, you could probably get a root canal. You're a cop, right? A detective?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You give even the slightest shit about the motherfuckers who tried to kill me, or you just come here to ask me about an old Gypsy?”

“I do care about you, Gus. Really.”

The basement apartment, thinks O'Hara. The stew burning on the stove twenty-four hours a day. The simple fucking
boyash
.

“Did you say Manny's a Gypsy?”

“So you don't give a fuck about the people who rolled me down the stairs? You couldn't care less.”

“That's not true, Gus. Tell me what you remember about last night.” O'Hara reaches into her bag and takes out a notebook. “Did you get a good look at any of them?”

“I get it—now you're going to act like you care. Very convincing. Nurse!”

“Gus, you got to calm down. You need to rest.”

“Fuck you! Nurse! Nurse!” Gus pushes himself up so violently, he disconnects several tubes from his arm. That sets off an alarm in the nurses' station. When Priestly rushes into the room, she finds O'Hara beside the bed, notebook in hand.

“How do you live with yourself?” asks Priestly, euphoric with disdain. “Gus, I'm very sorry that you were disturbed. Detective O'Hara assured me you two are old friends. Is that true?”

“I've never seen this cunt in my life.”