CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (26 page)

F
ORTY
-F
IVE

W
hen I woke up I had it.

I was alone, except for the answer. It was different from what I’d thought, uglier in a way; it made me sad.

Under the circumstances I was surprised at myself for feeling that.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Lydia wasn’t here, and I was groggy, floating: Amy Isham and her trained insects. Wait until you come down, Smith. Maybe it won’t even look so true, then.

I groped through the tapes by the side of the bed, realized I couldn’t read the covers anyway. I fumbled one open, slipped it into the boom box. It turned out to be Liszt, the First Mephisto Waltz. The one Ida Goldstein said everybody plays. I don’t, but Artur Rubinstein seemed to want to, so I let him.

I worked my way to the bathroom and back. A nurse, not Amy
Isham but a solemn and sturdy Jamaican woman, brought me chicken soup with noodles in it. When the sun moved, I got out of bed just to open the blinds, a frivolous trip. I was proud of myself for making it. I listened to the wild, nasty cackling of the Mephisto Waltz again, and then Lydia came back.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I said. “Listen.”

I told it to her as it had come to me, as I had gone over it waiting for her, looking for the mistake that would make it not true. I hadn’t found one.

She didn’t either. “Wow,” she said. Then, “What are we going to do?”

“Robinson,” I told her. “And Lindfors.”

Lydia called Robinson at the station house. In twenty minutes he and Lindfors walked into my room.

Neither of them was smiling, and they didn’t start with the usual pleasantries.

“I understand you want to talk to us,” Robinson said. He stayed on the door side of the bed; Lindfors went around to the window side. “This better be something you’ve just remembered, not something you’ve just decided to come clean on.”

“Nice to see you, too, Lieutenant. Or it might be, if I could see.”

“I guarantee you it wouldn’t. What do you want?”

It occurred to me I didn’t often feel surrounded by only two people.

“I think I know who did me, and why. And who killed Henry Howe. And who killed Dr. Reynolds.”

“You know all this very suddenly.”

“It came to me in a morphine dream. It’s all theory. I have no proof.”

“Go ahead. Theorize.”

I did.

Lindfors, hands jammed into his pockets, paced the tiny room. He was a dark blur passing back and forth in front of the window, and I couldn’t watch him. I kept my eyes on Robinson, who didn’t move.

“Son of a bitch!” snarled Lindfors, when I was done. “Goddamn—”

“All right,” Robinson said sharply. He spoke to me, didn’t look at Lindfors, but Lindfors stopped pacing, stopped snarling, when Robinson spoke. “What if it’s true? How are we going to prove it?”

“Pick them up, for Chrissake,” Lindfors said.

“On what? The speculation of a drugged, beat-to-shit p.i. with an ax to grind?”

“You got a better idea?”

“I do,” I said.

They both looked at me, waiting. “I’ll wear a wire,” I said. “They’ll be expecting me. They’ll talk to me.”

“Wear a fucking wire?” Lindfors barked. “You need a goddamn guide dog to find your way to the bathroom.”

I didn’t tell him that I’d gotten rather good at finding the bathroom. “I’ll be out of here in a few days,” I said. “It can wait that long. I can do it, but there’s a deal that goes with it.” I told them what it was.

“I don’t like it,” Robinson said.

“I don’t either,” said Lydia.

I looked from one to the other. “You got a better idea?”

F
ORTY
-S
IX

M
artin Carter called me at a quarter to five. “What the hell happen to you?” he asked. “They tell me, you free to go, but you suppose call this dude. Then they give me a hospital number. What the hell going down?”

“Someone decided I wasn’t ugly enough.”

“Hard to b’lieve. How come the cops tell me call you?”

“Insurance.”

“You ever make sense?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“C’mon, man. Straight up: you hurt bad?”

“I was,” I said. “I’m okay now.”

“What happen?”

“You at a pay phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Give me the number. It’s a long story.”

I called him back, told him what I knew and what I thought, why he’d been arrested and why he was out.

“It was my fault,” I said. “Mrs. Wyckoff thought if there was an arrest, I’d go away. You were just unlucky.”

“My middle name. Now you tell me what you doing up to the hospital.”

I told him about the beating I didn’t remember, about Snake and the ground-floor apartment two blocks from the Home.

“Son of a bitch.” Anger shook Carter’s voice through the telephone wires. “Son of a motherfucking bitch, do you that way. Talking about he doing it for me. I find that motherfucker—”

“You don’t even look. Carter, go home. Your kids need you.”

“That fucker. I ain’t letting this go, cuz. I owe you two now. You gonna get paid.”

“I’ll be out of here in a few days,” I said. “I’ll take care of Snake. When I do I’ll need your help, and I’ll call you. But you feel like you owe me something, this is what I want: go home. Take Granny and the kids to Mickey D’s for dinner. Eat something you have to chew.”

Carter was silent; then he laughed. “Mickey D’s. Shit. Awright, cuz. I ain’t looking for Snake. But if I come across him anyway—”

“Vanessa,” I said. “Rashid. Granny. Go home. I’ll call you.”

I was, in fact, out of there in a few days. My eyes were a little clearer, my legs strong enough to carry me out under my own steam, although I ran out of steam quickly.

Lydia and Bobby were both there the morning Dr. Horowitz released me on my own recognizance. “Come back in a week,” he told me. “Don’t drive.”

“You have to be kidding.”

“You’d be surprised what some people try.”

Before I dressed to leave the hospital, I made some phone calls.

“Are you sure you want it to be tonight?” Robinson asked. “We’ve waited this long.”

“Now that I’m out, maybe he’ll get nervous. I know I will. I want to get it over with.”

Bobby didn’t like the whole plan. “I fired you,” he growled.

“Uh-huh. I hired myself.” I hadn’t told him about Howe and Mike. There was a chance, small but worth clinging to, that if this worked out the way I wanted I might not have to.

It was a cold gray day, wind kicking up sidewalk cyclones, trees trying to shake themselves free of their last leaves. Bobby drove me home, not talking much. From behind dark glasses I watched the Bronx slide by, saw Manhattan grow, square-edged and indifferent, until it was suddenly life-sized and we plunged into it over the Second Avenue bridge.

We stopped at the deli for a few things—milk, bread, cigarettes. Bobby brought my bag up the two flights from the street, while I brought myself up.

“Want to stay a while?” I invited, reaching the summit where my sherpa waited. “Have some coffee? A drink?”

“No.” Bobby shook his head, put my bag down. “Kid, I don’t want you to do this thing tonight.”

“It’s all right, Bobby. I’m all right. See? I’m standing. I’m walking. I—”

“You needed a cripple to carry your goddamn suitcase. Kid, please. I’m asking you not to.”

“I have to, Bobby.”

His watery blue eyes looked me up and down. “Twenty-five years, you haven’t changed.”

“You, either.”

We looked at each other, then at ourselves: his cane and his useless left arm; my battered body, my growing collection of scars. I grinned, he laughed, and I started to laugh with him until, stopped by the pain in my ribs, I lowered myself onto the couch.

“Shit,” Bobby said. “Okay, kid. I’ll be back later to pick you up.”

“I’ll get a cab.”

“The hell you will.” He grinned a small, ironic grin, and then he left.

I spent the day at home. I listened to music, Scriabin and Bartok: quick, nervous pieces. I went through the accumulated mail. With
concentration and squinting I found I could read, though not for long. I slept, not as well as I wanted to. If I could have, I’d have paced, but that seemed like a bad idea, so I smoked.

Toward the end of the afternoon Bobby came back. I went downstairs when he buzzed, climbed into the car next to him. Lydia was in the back.

“What is this, a baby-sitting service?”

“Is that what you need?” Lydia asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. But there’ll be cops all over the place. I’ll have backup.”

“I used to be a cop,” Bobby said. “I know all about cops. Right now I’m a chauffeur and you need a ride, so I’d shut up if I was you.”

I did. Half an hour later we were back in the Bronx, in the station house, Robinson and Lindfors trying to fit me up with a remote microphone somewhere between my jacket and my Kevlar vest.

“Shit!” I winced as Lindfors pressed on the adhesive tape. “Watch it.”

Robinson took over from Lindfors. When he finished, I put my jacket back on and he said, “Are you sure you can do this? You don’t look too steady.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I want this over with. I want to go home and not come back here. Let’s go.”

Bobby told me to watch myself, and I said I would. Lydia said nothing, just looked serious. I kissed her cheek; she smiled a little.

I rode in an unmarked car with Robinson, Lindfors behind us. We went north up the Concourse past the Bronx Home, then east, to the tired brick building that was our first stop.

Robinson pulled to the curb, left the car running as he got out. Carter was waiting on the stoop. He slid behind the wheel.

Robinson leaned in the window. “If anything happens to this car—”

“Y’all just send me the bill,” Carter said.

Robinson straightened, his face hard. He walked to the other car, got in beside Lindfors.

Carter drove around the block, turned south on the Concourse again. The car wasn’t big, but the engine was powerful; I could feel how ready it was for whatever was coming. I wished I felt that way myself.

I looked over at Carter. He didn’t look back.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“Seem to me you say that the last time.”

“You didn’t have to do it last time either. But that wasn’t a setup. This is.”

“Maybe you wrong.”

“I don’t think so.”

He was silent. We drove down the hill by the Home, parked across the street from the playground. We sat for a long minute, as though we had agreed to do that. Then we got out, walked together through the twisted gate.

The wind was cold. To me, everything was softly out of focus, haloed streetlights pulling shadows from smudged unmoving figures. There was no basketball this time, no pretense of a game. They were all there, Snake and Skeletor and Einstein, some of the others from the apartment; and Speedo was there too, with his baseball cap and his scowl. The wind turned, blew from behind us, pushed us toward them.

“Yo,” Snake grinned as we neared. “You looking better, my man.”

He lifted his hand. Skeletor moved forward. I stopped.

“I’m unarmed,” I said. “I have five broken ribs and I don’t want that bastard touching me.”

Snake nodded. “I’m down with that. Ease off, homey. White meat working for us now.”

Skeletor glared at me, started to protest.

“Yo!” Snake snapped. “Where you going with that shit, homey? I say ease off!” Skeletor shifted his glare to Snake. He didn’t move back, but he didn’t frisk me, either.

“And you ain’t got to worry about the Rev.” Snake looked at Carter. “I heard ’bout Lindfors deal he offer you. I heard what you tell him. The Rev can say what he want, don’t matter shit. He still a Cobra. Just like the rest of you niggers. Once you got it,” he tapped his right arm, “you don’t never lose it.”

Carter’s eyes met Snake’s. He said nothing.

“Now.” Snake’s gold tooth glittered as he smiled at me. “My man Rev say you got a report for me. Say you got it all dee-tected, who fronting these fake Cobra jobs.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Only they’re not fake.”

“Say what?” Snake’s smile vanished. “Jump back, Jack. I ain’t pulled that shit.”

“No, not you. You were too busy protecting your boys by blowing Dr. Reynolds away.”

“Yo, my man.” Snake shook his head in warning. The Cobras, some muttering obscenities, circled closer. “You gonna end up with trouble behind that shit.”

“As soon as you found out Henry Howe was dead,” I said to him, ignoring the others, trying to slow the racing of my heart, “you thought you’d better go get the photos. You’d been willing to pay Howe a little extra to keep his mouth shut about Dr. Madsen, but you didn’t want those photos ending up with anybody else. Like the cops.”

“Yo, Snake.” That was Einstein, looking a question at Snake. “You was paying that fat motherfucker? What photos he mean?”

“Photos that could have gotten an investigation going,” I said. “Something that most likely would have ended with Dr. Madsen in jail.”

Snake glanced from Einstein to me. He shrugged, folded his arms across his chest. “Man, no big thing. Chump change. Two-fitty a month. Easier than smoking him. Plus, he useful to the Cobras.”

“To your boys,” I said. “But once he was dead, you wanted those photos back. So you went to his place. He also had something Dr. Reynolds wanted back, a name on a card. Reynolds was there first, making a hell of a mess. He saw you. You shot him. And you never found what you wanted.”

“Shee-it.” Snake rolled his eyes. “Now, I ain’t saying that go down, ain’t saying it ain’t. What I’m saying, it ain’t your business, white meat. Other things, they your business.”

“Did you know Madsen was paying Howe over the same photos? Same price?”

Snake cocked his head, scowled at me. It was the scowl Speedo wore. “Fuck. That true?”

“It’s true.”

“Shit.” Snake shook his head. “Motherfucking bastard. Well, don’t matter now.”

“It does,” I said. “It means Howe was used to playing both sides of the street.”

“So?”

A powerful gust of wind came barreling down the playground,
shouldered through the group. I staggered, almost fell. Carter grabbed my arm, steadied me; then he let go.

“So?” Snake said again, leaning closer.

“You told me you collected a thousand a month from the Home,” I said.

“Man, I know that shit. What you—”

“They pay fifteen hundred.”

Silence. The Cobras’ eyes flicked warily from me to Snake, to each other. Snake’s eyes never moved. I wished mine were clear, wished I could see what was in Snake’s, but I knew it wouldn’t help. I had Carter; somewhere, in dark parked cars at the edge of the playground, Lindfors and Robinson and some uniforms were listening for their moment. That would have to be enough.

“That sorry-ass white mother!” Snake snarled. “He wasn’t dead, I’d smoke his white ass myself—”

“No,” I said. “You don’t get it.”

“Fuck that! Man, fuck that shit! Don’t get what, white meat? What I don’t get?”

“Howe was greedy, but he was careful. He wouldn’t have asked for fifty percent more. It would’ve been too risky.” I checked around me for the other Cobras, to know where they were. “My guess is that he was skimming an extra hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty. Skeletor took the rest.”

“Yo!” That was Skeletor. “Yo, motherfucker! What shit you talking, white boy? I stomp your ass, motherfucker!”

“Like you did before,” I said.

Skeletor grabbed for me. Carter put himself between us.

So did Snake.

“You best listen to my man,” Carter said quietly, eyes on Skeletor, speaking to Snake.

Carter and Snake moved slowly aside; Skeletor and I were facing each other again.

“You’d been doing this for a long time,” I said to Skeletor. “Snake wouldn’t have trusted Howe, but he trusted you. You were skimming from every payment he collected for the Cobras.”

Snake stared at Skeletor as I spoke. A car drifted slowly by, its stereo thumping up from the pavement.

“It was fine,” I went on, “until Howe found out. I don’t know how that happened. Some casual word, some mistake. Maybe something
you said yourself. Anyway, he didn’t care, he just wanted some. Otherwise, he’d tell Snake.

“So you cut him in. But you didn’t like it. And you wanted to do something about it, but you didn’t know what. Then someone killed Mike Downey. It wasn’t the Cobras, but it was done to look as though it was.

“And the guy who did that gave you a great idea, didn’t he, Skeletor?” Because of the deal I’d insisted on with Robinson I was careful not to say who it was; Bobby might hear this tape someday. “You could kill Howe and make it look as though it was the same person, for the same reason, whatever the hell that was. Nobody except Lindfors really thought it was the Cobras. I practically told you that myself.

“And everything was fine. Snake would get another liaison and you’d be back in business, except you’d probably be a little more careful this time. Then Carter got arrested, and Snake hired me. That was a problem, but the solution was simple: fake another fake Cobra killing. Do me.”

“Yo!” Skeletor burst. “This ain’t nothing but bullshit, bitch. Talk about I’m stealing from my main man. Talk about it was me done you! Man, I do you now, you cocksucking faggot!”

He made a grab for me. Snake pushed him back as I said, “I saw you, Skeletor. I recognized you.”

“Man!” Skeletor’s arms waved wildly; he tried to push past Snake, to me. “Lemme at that motherfucker, Snake! White faggot, talking shit!”

“Yo.” Snake’s voice was deep and harsh. “Yo, nigger. You do me like that?”

“What?” Skeletor stopped. Everything stopped: traffic, the wind in the trees, my heart. “What? Fuck, Snake, man, he lying! I never touched the mother! Snake, man, how you think I’m gonna play you?”