Don't I Know You? (7 page)

Steven couldn't tell if he was talking to him. It didn't feel like he had relieved himself of anything. The more he told him, the bigger the whole problem seemed to get.

“Listen,” McGuire said. “I'm not gonna tell you what I think about your own little detective agency. You know what there is to think about that. You wanna do something? You wanna be involved? Start doing something that's gonna help.”

Now Steven was crying. “I don't want to do anything,” he said.

McGuire seemed not to notice. “She was your mother,” he said. “You're involved. And you've been making choices all over the place. Doing; not doing. They've all got consequences,” he said.

Steven sat there while McGuire read through the letters. At first he concentrated on crying. Then he concentrated on not crying.

“I was looking for her journals,” he said. “She kept journals.”

McGuire stopped reading. “D'you find them?” he asked.

Steven shook his head. Tell him about the voices, he thought. I heard a guy, he imagined saying. He went over what he knew. There was a guy in the apartment. Manuel let him in. It had to be someone Manuel knew. It had to be someone Manuel trusted. Phil, he thought. Anyone.

Tell him what you know
, he thought.
Tell him what you know and let him answer the questions. It's his job. He's trained for it
.

“Why would anyone care about me?” Steven asked.

McGuire kept his place on the letter with a finger. “I don't know. You tell me.”

Why wasn't he telling McGuire about Manuel and the guy? In school last year, five of the girls had gotten an unsigned letter. The person who'd written it made fun of them, listed their flaws. The person imagined lining them up and shooting them. Steven had had an idea of who the person was, but when the teacher had talked to each of them privately, Steven had said he didn't know anything. Two of the girls, he really liked. They were friends.

McGuire finished the letters and restacked them. “Not much here,” he said.

He stuck out his lower lip like he was thinking. “Listen,” he said. “Why doncha keep the people you're hanging out with to a minimum.” He tapped the letters against his thigh. “I wouldn't spend any time with Phil if I were you,” he said.

“Why?” Steven said. “Is there something you want to tell me about Phil?” It sounded like the kind of question McGuire would ask.

“No,” he said. “Not really. But he's the boyfriend. He's interested in you. You do the math, Sherlock.”

He stood. “Is there something
you
want to tell
me
about Phil?”

Steven didn't know what he thought about Phil anymore. He shook his head.

“Okay then,” McGuire said.

He handed the letters back. “You might be interested in the one on top,” he said. “Where's the john?” he asked.

Steven pointed, and McGuire palmed his head on his way by.

The letter was from Steven's father. It said she shouldn't worry, all boys, especially ones without fathers in the home, looked for male role models, and as far as he could tell from everything she'd told him, their boy was doing better than most.

The thought of them talking about him made him feel like laughing.

“Thanks,” he said when McGuire came back.

“Don't thank me,” he said. “He's your dad.”

H
is father came to Juan's for dinner. Juan's mom made Greek stuff, like he was someone special. Juan's dad got out the good glasses and offered his father the whiskey from behind the glass doors of the cabinet in the dining room. His father had a beer instead, and if someone had seen them all there, standing around the tiny kitchen trying to stay out of Juan's mom's way, they would've thought they did this kind of thing all the time.

His father leaned against the fridge, holding his beer down around his leg. He was wearing the same jeans and a clean T-shirt. His hair was stuck together a little from sweat.

Juan stared at him from a stool next to Steven's. Once, Juan had said that Steven's mother was hot, for a mom. It had been one
of those moments when you think you're on the same page as someone, and it turns out you're not even in the same book.

This was weirder. It didn't matter whose dad he was. They were both looking at a stranger.

His father said he was going to pay to have a notice in the
Times
. Juan's parents seemed impressed.

There was talk of what the papers had said.

Juan's mom asked politely about San Diego. Steven liked her Greek accent. She had a black braid that reached past her butt. She was curvy. Her name was Anna. She made giant paintings of jungles, and wasn't much taller than Steven.

Juan nudged his knee and bent his head slightly in the direction of his room. No one said anything when they got up and left.

Juan's room was really the pantry. It was too small for a twin bed; he slept on a camp cot. When Steven slept over, they folded up the cot and used sleeping bags. Even then, Steven always ended up with his face pressed against the books and toys on the shelves.

Juan closed the door and turned the ceiling fan on high. It sounded like it could come right out of the Sheetrock. They lay on top of their sleeping bags, staring up at the fan going crazy.

“He looks like you,” Juan said.

“Yeah,” Steven said.

Juan stuck his legs and arms straight up, like he was the letter
U
. “Let's read the letters,” he said.

“We did,” Steven said. “Me and McGuire.”

Juan seemed kind of hurt. “Well?” he said.

“Nothing,” Steven said. He thought of the letter from his father. He imagined the guy in the kitchen putting that letter in his
mailbox in San Diego. He wondered what his mother had written about. He didn't know his mother had written to his father. He didn't know his father had written back.

“What'd McGuire say?” Juan asked.

“About what?” Steven asked.

Juan looked at him like he was stupid. “About everything,” he said.

“I didn't tell him,” Steven said.

Juan dropped his legs and sat up. “You didn't tell him? You didn't tell him about what? About anything?”

Steven talked to the ceiling. “I showed him the letters. I told him where we got them.”

“Are we in trouble?” Juan asked.

Steven shook his head.

Then Juan said, “That's it? What did you talk about for so long?”

Steven tried to shrug lying down. It came out like a twitch.

“Why?” Juan asked, not even trying to keep how totally baffled he was out of his voice. “Why?” he asked again, more quietly.

“Because,” Steven said. He had no idea how to finish the sentence.

“Are you trying to figure things out for yourself?” Juan asked. “Do you not trust McGuire?” He threw some more theories out. None of them seemed right.

“I don't know,” Steven said.

“You're saying that a lot,” he said. He wasn't being mean.

“I know,” Steven said.

They were quiet. Something clanged in the kitchen.

Juan said, “You gotta tell someone about Manuel and the guy.”

“I know,” Steven said.

Juan said, “The guy is, like,
after
you.”

“Maybe,” Steven said.

“
I
should tell someone,” Juan said.

Steven felt bad that he was making Juan feel bad. “I'll tell him,” he said. “I just want to think a little more. I keep feeling like there's some little thing I'm forgetting.”

Juan didn't look convinced; he looked sympathetic.

“Maybe your dad could help,” he said. “I mean, if there's something about McGuire you don't like.”

They lay there. It was like their own little sweatbox.

“He seems okay,” Juan said.

Steven didn't say anything.

“San Diego could be okay,” Juan said.

He said it like he wasn't just saying it to be nice or make Steven feel better.

Steven stared at the fan. He picked a blade and counted its revolutions. “Would you think it was fucked up if I felt worse about leaving here than about my mom?” he asked.

Juan moved his arms and legs like he was making snow angels. He said, “Sometimes fucked up's just the play of the day.”

Someone knocked.

“Yes?” Juan said in his little old lady voice. “Who is it?”

“Uh, it's me…Steven's father.” He cleared his throat.

“We know who you are,” Juan said. “Enter!”

The door opened. Juan had to pull his legs up.

“Listen,” Steven's father said. “Anna just told me about the card.” He knelt down by Steven's head. “Are you all right?”

Steven nodded.

“What did Detective McGuire say?” he asked.

“He said the lab was going to look at it,” Steven said.

“Did he have any theories?” his father asked.

“I don't know,” Steven said. He looked at Juan.

“What do you mean? Nothing? He had nothing to say about this? Did he say you're in danger? Did he say there was anything we could do?” He was getting worked up. He stopped himself, took a breath. “Sorry.” He put a hand out like Steven was the one who needed calming down. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'll talk to him about it.”

Steven told him about the uniform guy.

“So, listen,” he said, “I think we better think about San Diego sooner than we planned. You could start the school year on time.”

School, Steven thought. “Last year,” he said, “we made a replica of a Colonial house.”

His dad and Juan didn't say anything. The fan was right over his father's head, like he was wearing some lunatic beanie.

“I was in charge of the chimney. I collected rocks from the park. We didn't use any glue. We raised the walls with tiny ropes.” He didn't know why he was telling them about this, but it felt good to do it. “It was cool,” he said.

“Sounds cool,” his father said. He sounded like he meant it. He stood. “Okay,” he said. “So let's think about that earlier departure.” He nudged Steven's foot with his own, and then he just stood there. For minutes.

“What're you doing?” Juan asked.

His father took them both in. “Nothing,” he said.

“Wanna sit down?” Juan asked.

He folded his long legs under him like a horse and balanced his beer on his thigh, and they sat there like that until Anna called them for dinner.

M
cGuire said they were free to go through the apartment. His father said they were leaving for San Diego in a week and complained about how long everything took in the city, about the lab turning up nothing on the notes Steven had gotten. Steven said he wanted to go through the apartment by himself at first. When he was ready, he'd let whoever come in with boxes and trash bags.

The second note was slipped under the apartment door. It hadn't been there when Steven arrived. It was there when he left. Same small envelope. No picture this time. Just a plain white card, same block letters. “I can't tell you my name. I'm sorry. Are you taking care of yourself?”

The third one was in his mother's locker at the hospital the day he went to go through that stuff. He almost missed it.

It was a postcard of San Diego's skyline. It said
San Diego
in
happy script across the front. On the back was written, “All the best for your new life.”

He knew he should've been scared. He felt the way you feel when you get picked out of the audience to help with the show. The notes meant the guy must know him. He'd met a lot of the guys his mother knew. A lot of them had liked pretending they knew him better than they did.

He didn't tell anyone. He folded them into quarters and put them in his shoe. Their hard edges poked him through his socks. At the end of the day, they were flattened and damp, and he moved them to the waistband of his underwear, worrying their edges and folds with his fingers until he fell asleep.

T
he uniform guy didn't talk much. Steven didn't take it personally.

At the funeral, there were two more uniform guys and a couple without uniforms. They stood in the back of the chapel trying to keep out of the way. Everyone knew who they were.

The service was a service. His mother was Catholic, but not a real Catholic, and had no brothers or sisters, and her parents were both dead, and his father was Jewish. The cops were the only interesting thing about the whole afternoon. Even the reporters had lost interest by then. Apparently, the longer a case went unsolved, the bigger the chance that it would never be solved. McGuire had said, “Generally, age is not good for a case.” A
luncher
, the cops called it. As in “We may end up eating this one.” He was learning all sorts of things.

Phil had been trying all week to see him alone. At the service, every time he headed toward Steven, one of the cops angled him
off. When Phil caught his eye, Steven acted like he had nothing to say about anything. But Phil wasn't stupid. He knew he was being treated like one of the bad guys.

There were people Steven knew and people he didn't. No one wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, and green and white Adidas.

The kids from school sat in a knot at the back. His teachers were there, and the principal. A woman he didn't recognize stared at him, crying. Christine kept catching his eye and blowing him kisses. Mrs. Carpanetti was there, in black with a black scarf on her head. Michael wasn't. Steven wasn't surprised. Michael wasn't into things like this. Manuel and Tina and the girls came in a few minutes late. Manuel gave him a little wave.

Juan and his mom and dad were in his row. His father sat on his other side. People looked at the two of them. He hoped they looked good together. Natural.

His father was wearing a black suit and a white shirt. He'd forgotten to bring a tie. He'd called and asked if Steven thought he should buy one. Steven had been surprised.

It was a closed coffin, and Steven had said no when the funeral director guy had asked if he wanted to see her before the service began. In the morgue, she'd been on a table in a refrigerated vault. Her head had been propped up on a black rubber block.

He'd said no when his father asked if he wanted to speak. No about having a party afterward.

He sat there on the hard chair in the suit his father had bought for him and imagined saying no to what he could, yes to what he had to. That's how his life would go.

The priest's mouth moved. Steven scanned faces and heads, thinking: You? You?

His father nudged him and mouthed, “Okay?”

Steven nodded.

She said he was the slowest boy in the world. She said he'd forget to put on clothes if she wasn't there to remind him. You should just get down on your knees and thank God for me, she said.

The day before she died, they were wrestling on her bed. He was wet from the shower, and she said by the time he got his jammies on, she'd be an old lady. He pulled back hard to get out of her grip, misjudged the edge of the bed, and put his knee down on air. She grabbed his arm. His head stopped inches from the floor. They were like those ice skaters from the Olympics.

He turned away from his father a little, shielded his arm with his body, and pushed his sleeve up enough. The bruise was the size of her thumb, small and oval. Every day he made sure it was still there.

“What're you doing?” his father whispered.

“Nothing,” he said, letting his sleeve fall.

His father moved in closer, tucking Steven under his arm. He didn't seem like the person his mother had described. He didn't seem like just some rich guy. If his mother had liked his father more, it might've made everything easier now.

I
t wasn't hard to find Manuel after the service. Tina kept hugging Steven, then pulling back, holding his shoulders, looking at him and crying. She hung on him; her girls hung on her, one to each leg. They were some kind of giant puppet, some extinct animal.

“Tina,” Manuel said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “give the boy some air.”

She shrugged his hand off. “I'll give you some air,” she said without any crabbiness at all.

He sighed and reached down to the girls. “Come,” he said. “Let your mother alone.” He took the girls across the room to the flower arrangements by the front door.

Tina leaned in close. “Your neighbors,” she said. “My door doesn't stop ringing with people wanting to know business that isn't theirs.”

Manuel was pointing to flowers and the girls were announcing the colors. His back was to Steven.

His father was next to Manuel, waving Steven over. Steven could see the black limo out the open door behind his father. He wondered if he could ask for Manuel to ride with them.

His father and Manuel started talking. When had they met? The girls played hide-and-seek behind the men's legs.

Could it have been his father in the apartment? He tried to hear the voice for the nine-hundreth time. “I owe you.” “I owe you.” He watched his father's mouth and laid the line over what he was seeing.

“Mrs. Carpanetti,” Tina said. “She's the only human being in the whole building. She asked about you, and nothing else.”

A reporter, Steven thought. Could it have been a reporter? He didn't think Manuel would've let a reporter in.

Manuel was nodding and looking at his feet. It was weird to see him in something other than work shoes. He was acting the way he acted around people he worked for.

Juan came over. “The car's ready,” he said. “Your dad said to get you.”

“I need to talk to Manuel,” Steven said.

“My Manuel?” Tina asked.

“Here?” Juan said.

Steven asked Tina if she'd mind telling his father that he needed a minute, and asking Manuel if he'd come over.

She looked a little surprised, and a little like she was about to smile, but she said, “Sure,” and headed over to the two men.

Juan said, “What're you thinking?”

“I need to know who was in the apartment,” Steven said.

“I know,” he said. “But now? Here?”

The three grown-ups were talking. His father checked his watch. Manuel looked over. Steven tried to make his face look kind.

Juan swung Steven's arm a little. “Are you okay?”

Everyone was worried. Everyone had been watching him for warning signs, danger signals. First, they'd been worried he'd be feeling too much. Then, not enough.

His father was walking out to the limo driver. Tina was rounding up the girls. Manuel was heading Steven's way.

“One thing about my mother dying,” Steven said. “It's a whole lot easier to get my way.”

“Steven,” Juan said. He almost never used Steven's real name.

“I'm okay,” Steven said.

He could see Juan deciding to let it go.

“Maybe your life is gonna be better,” Juan said. But when he saw Steven's face, he apologized.

T
hey sat in the room they'd just come out of. The coffin was gone. The chairs were lined up as if things were about to begin instead of already over.

Manuel sat the way he sat in the old dining chair he pulled out to the stoop. His expression said: I'm worried.

“Who was with you the other day in the apartment?” Steven asked.

He tried to watch Manuel the way McGuire watched people. He had no idea what he was looking for. There was more worry. He couldn't tell if Manuel was thinking about lying.

“What other day?” he asked.

“I was there,” Steven said.

“You were there,” he repeated, as if Steven were speaking another language.

He was thinking. “The window,” he said.

“Who was it?” Steven asked.

They'd never talked like this with one another. Manuel glanced toward the door. It stayed closed.

“
Hijo
,” he said. It sounded like he was going to say something else, but then he didn't.

He sat up straight. His jacket was an old winter one, too warm and too small. His big wristbones poked out of the sleeves like Frankenstein's. He looked right at Steven. “I was there; you're right. But there wasn't no one with me.”

Steven's face, his neck, the top of his head got hot. “You're lying,” he said.

Manuel kept his eyes on him and shook his head. “Just me,
hijo
.”

Steven felt five years old. Tears were starting. “So what were you doing there then?” His voice was wrong. “I could tell Detective McGuire,” he said.

“You could do that,” Manuel said.

“Why're you lying to me?” Steven said.

Manuel looked at the space where the coffin had been. He rubbed his kneecaps with the heels of his hands. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“You don't lie to me,” Steven said. He'd meant it to sound fierce. It came out something else. More tears. His stomach again. “You like me.”

Manuel nodded. “I do,” he said.

Steven couldn't stop crying. He hit his cheek with an open hand. He did it again.

Manuel reached over and held his wrist. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said. He sounded like a train.

“I can't tell you nothing,” he said. “But you gotta trust me. It wasn't no one did those things to your mama.”

Manuel's big brown hand was around his own skinny wrist.

He put his other hand on the back of Steven's neck and pulled him in. The top of Steven's head butted him in the chest. He smelled of his little girls and the lobby. Steven looked at the floor between their feet. The door opened. Steven could hear the sounds of the front hall clearing out.

“Don't go,” he said.

“No, man,” Manuel said, his hand rocking Steven's neck. “For sure, I won't.”

H
is father said that Steven needed to “talk to someone.” Steven figured getting through an hour with anyone would be easier than arguing with a father he didn't know at all.

After, he told his father that the lady had been good. He wasn't lying, but he knew he wasn't going to tell her about what Manuel
had said, and if he wasn't going to talk about that, he didn't see the point of talking at all. He told his father that he didn't want to see her again.

His father asked him to think about it.

He said he would.

T
he week after the funeral, a couple of days before they were leaving, McGuire called off the uniform guy. “No more notes,” he said. “Seems like our guy's gonna leave you outta all this.”

Tell him about Manuel, Steven thought. But he didn't.

“Let's go get some weed,” Juan said. It was like he'd been trying really hard to be good while they focused on more important stuff, but now that the uniform guy was gone, it was permission to be normal again. They'd gotten stoned twice. But it was normal to act like they did it all the time.

They went to the head shop on Columbus. It was between two brick buildings, a narrow alley with a door and a roof. A small Indian woman sat at the back end of it, unable to push her chair more than a few inches from the end table she used as a desk. She used a watch calculator to save space. The walls were lined with sheets of pegboard. Feather and bead earrings, bracelets, and necklaces hung from metal hooks. Cellophane packages of incense. Dark brown bottles of oils and stuff. Scarves and hats hung on clothespins from the ceiling. Nickel and dime bags of pot in small manila envelopes. Everything was small. It was like shopping for drugs in a dollhouse.

They went to Central Park, one of those little gazebo things by
the pond. There was Burger King stuff on the bench that someone had just left there, and a crumpled condom in the corner.

They sat on the edge of the railing, their backs to the path. The feeling of being stoned was good. The feeling about being stoned wasn't. Nothing could get rid of the weirdness in his stomach.

“It could be Manuel,” Juan said, like he knew Steven didn't want to hear it.

The sky was the color of sour milk. The backs of his thighs were sweating. Everything smelled worse in the heat.

“He liked her,” Steven said. He'd started thinking about her in the past tense. Just in the last day. “He likes me,” he said.

“He
lied
to you,” Juan said.

“I know,” Steven said. “I was there.”