Fanatics (8 page)

9:02 A.M.

Walking the few blocks back to her office, Flo returned her thoughts to Cecil King and preventing his assassination.

But a call on her cell, not from Frank Murphy or Senator-elect Cecil King, but from homicide detective Sergeant Marty Keane, brought her up short.

More Ballz Busta.

The unrestful dead wouldn't let the living get on with staying alive.

“Can you help me?” Marty said, sounding besieged. “I got two more of Busta's women lined up for questioning. Both have records—vice and drugs—and neither one seems to be shedding too many tears over him. They're tough as nails, and I think I need your touch here, Flo. I got one in a bar with me, Maria Magdalena, she owns this place, at least on paper. The other one's downtown under surveillance in her apartment, that's Azalea Butte. Both got skin thick as elephants. We'll wait for you in the bar, a Latino joint up here in Washington Heights. Hernando's, it's called…”

9:11 A.M
.

In the basement garage of Brooklyn Police HQ, Flo requisitioned a car and driver. Frank Murphy had to stick with the senator-elect like white on rice if he was to keep Cecil King alive.

They took the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and rode up the West Side Highway into the Heights, a predominantly Dominican neighborhood that a couple of generations before had been as Irish as Dublin.

They exited the highway and stopped for a crosstown light next to a bodega, in the window of which was a large oil painting of El Salvador, a tan-faced, red-lipped Jesus, hair silky black and waved and held in place by a thorny crown, mournful eyes raised heavenward. Next to the portrait were bottles of Clorox, Coke, jars of Welch's grape jelly, an American flag, a long mirror.

Flo caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked as exhausted as she felt.

Above her, the sky was the color of faded newsprint.

Next to the bodega, on a billboard poster, two cats in formal evening dress, male and female, were stepping out for the evening. Flo had no idea what the dressed-to-the-nines cats were supposed to be selling.

On the opposite corner, astonishingly, a poster of the twice-life-sized body of Ballz Busta in his own designer-brand underwear. Luminously golden briefs. Next to him, two cowboys on horses: “
Jack, I got cancer…Smoking kills.
”

It was hard for Flo to take her eyes off the great selling machine that was New York. Dynamic marketing was everywhere you looked.

The car rolled on past mom-and-pop shops, hair salons, bars, and Laundromats. In a storefront church window, a half-naked Virgin grieved, her heart pierced with swords.

Next, red bras on dark-toned manikins.

A grimy, cluttered cell phone storefront…
F
OREIGN
C
ALLS—
C
HECKS
C
ASHED—
N
.
Y
.
S
.
L
OTTERY
T
ICKETS…
H
EY,
Y
OU
N
EVER
K
NOW…
A
D
OLLAR +
A
D
REAM…
C
AN'T
W
IN IF
Y
OU
D
ON'T
P
LAY
.

A restaurant called La Nueva Caridad,
Un cuadrangular en sabor
, “A home run of flavor.”

They stopped for a second light. On the corner, a
botanica
shop, the window a jumble of jars under a sign announcing
S
PIRITUAL
R
EADINGS AND
B
LESSED
O
ILS.
C
OURT
C
ASE
O
IL.
K
EEP
A
WAY
H
ATE
O
IL.
B
AT'S
B
LOOD
O
IL.
A
LL
R
ELIGIONS
W
ELCOME.
S
ANTERÍA.
V
ODOU.
P
ALO
M
AYOMBE.

Uh-oh. And trouble. A slap fight, man versus woman on the sidewalk outside the
botanica
, both engaged in combat as though waging a final death ritual, the opponents tan-skinned: the man lean, taut-bodied, smartly gelled black hair, wary under attack. She was thin, almost orange-colored, brassy, approaching pretty. Angry voices clearly heard.

She wailed, “Coo'sucka. Holding out? Shit. You got every penny.”

“Hell I did.” He slapped her hard. “You listen, witch. I seen you there. I got eyes, I can count. Four guys, not three. Four hundred bucks. You short a hundred, bitch.”

“Up yours, coolie.” She slapped him. “I oughta slice your face. Lissen up, dickless. You ever call me lying again?”

“Now c'mon, baby—”

“Baby? Don't you ‘baby' me.”

“Chiquita, I know what I seen.”

And she slapped him one last time, hard and fast.

The traffic light changed, and the aggrieved woman stomped across the street, head held high. Two small boys ran around the corner, laughing at the man rubbing his cheek, while above the botanica, a woman was watching from a tenement windo
w
, her arms resting on the sill. She was smoking a cigarette and smiling as if someone had just given her an unexpected birthday card and a hundred-dollar bill fell out. The woman at the window flicked her cigarette down into the street below and disappeared inside her apartment.

Welcome to uptown Manhattan, way uptown.

“We there soon?” Flo asked the driver.

“Couple more blocks.”

9:50 A.M.

A rainbow-hued neon sign swung above the bar entrance:
H
ERNANDO'S
.

Inside, the tavern was dim and deserted except for an impatient-looking Marty Keane and a woman working behind the bar.

Maria Magdalena.

If she had pink eyes, the woman would have been called an albino. Her skin was colorless as was her long wavy hair, save for a swath of dark red that stretched from the middle of her hairline all the way down the back, where her hair ended just above her waist. Slim, small-bottomed, long-legged. Tight black skirt, clinging white silk blouse.

“You too?” Maria Magdalena said to Flo. “You want to know about that son of a bitch? And that's exactly what he was, you know. Never had no mother, no way, born straight out of a bitch's butt. It was him turned my hair almost no color.” She fingered a few strands of hair. “Used to be all red. His knives and his guns and his johnson. One night, he's so mad at me, he starts shooting around my head so loud, I lost my hearing for at least an hour. He threw a knife at me, too, and whipped his thing out, saying he's gonna cut my belly open and get off on me in there, if I don't start producing more out of this bar. Next day, I got gray spots all over my hair. A week later, I got this.” Maria Magdalena lifted another length of long, colorless hair. “But the place is all in my name, and he put it there himself—taxes, he said—so I guess it's totally mine now. I'm checking it out with my attorney, but I'm pretty sure it's mine, free and clear. And so you, too, you want to know what I think?”

“Sure,” Flo said. “What do you think, who did it to him?”

“You got to be kidding, lady. Think? Today I'm the happiest woman in Washington Heights. I've been praying for this to happen. But don't go getting no ideas. Like I told your partner here, I got no—repeat,
no
—absolutely no clue who gave that mother what he got coming to him. But if you catch the badass who did it, you tell him on his way to the death chamber, I'll be praying for him. Drinking to his health, right here in my bar. Twenty-year-old Rémy. Want some? On the house, I mean. I got to have somebody to celebrate with. Your partner here's sticking with coffee.”

“I'll have coffee, too, please.”

Maria Magdalena poured a cup for Flo Ott, and topped up her own crystal snifter with another splash of Rémy Martin, twenty years old.

“To your health,” she said to the detectives, and raised her glass. “I know my health's gonna be a lot better from now on.” She sipped delicately at her brandy. “Now, what else can I do for you?”

“Besides you,” Flo said, “who else might be glad he's gone? Who else hated him?”

Maria Magdalena laughed. “Just about anybody I ever heard of. If that's a help to you.”

“Like who, please, some names.”

“Oh, I don't know. Try Azalea, I talked about her with your partner here. She's one, for sure. There's got to be others, but he didn't take me downtown much. I was his uptown squeeze. Or one of them anyway. And the only investment we ever discussed was this bar. But he must have owned dozens more. I mean, he was one rich mother. I bet you his widow is grinning ear to ear now, itching to hippity-hop all over his grave.”

“Not as far as I've seen,” Flo said.

“Sorry,” Maria Magdalena said, and took a longer sip of brandy, her face sagging like a South Bronx tenement. “I'm real sorry I ever said that. Forget I said it. I guess they got kids, don't they? And it's never happy when a daddy disappears, I know that much. My own daddy got whacked. But once I get started remembering Ballz and his temper there, and the way he was so ferocious about money—it's hard to keep a cool head thinking about Ballz.”

“How long were you and the deceased in business together?”

“Three years, this Christmas. Hernando's here was a kind of holiday present.”

“Do you keep the books?”

“I never even seen the books. Ballz and his accountant handled all that end. I just run this place. Open up, close up, buy the booze, and pour the booze. That's it.”

“He paid you?”

“Every month, and pretty good, too. On that score, I got no complaints. Not me. I didn't go dipping in the till. Didn't have to. And quite frankly, if he ever caught me diddling, I was afraid he'd cut me up, like he said he would. And Ballz was a man of his word. He was just as proud of keeping his word, like he was of his music.”

Mr. Busta was a cultural giant, world renowned, a close friend of the mayor's and a great New Yorker…We are appalled and dismayed. We are distraught…

Maria Magdalena drained her glass of Rémy. “Oh yeah, on that count you could trust Ballz. Always true to his word. And the man surely had his way with words, that much you got to hand him.”

“How much did you know about Ballz Busta?” Flo had to force herself to say the name, which, in life or death, sounded equally absurd to her ears.

“Well, there's what you read in the magazines. And what you see on TV. I knew that much, Officer. And you got to admit, it's all pretty impressive. He came a long way, that man. But the word on the street was he was trouble, mobbed up, no matter who his fancy friends were. And I don't care who you are, everybody likes a bit of dodgy. I never asked him, of course, I didn't know nothing about that side, and I still don't. All I know is, I got this bar now, it's my livelihood. And it'll be my pension, I hope. But when he first offered me the deal, I was scared. I'll confess that much. Absolutely, I was peeing my pants. So I went over to see Mother Gloria. You know Mother Gloria? The one who reads the spirits? I heard she was just opening up a place here in Washington Heights—she got offices down in Brooklyn and out in Astoria, too—and I rushed right over to Mother Gloria, only a few blocks from this bar. I was almost her first customer in the neighborhood. I brought her a bottle of fifty-year-old Jamaican rum.
Fifty years,
you know what that goes for now? More'n most people round here make in a week. You should've seen her old eyes light up. She poured herself a teacup full, and she told me, ‘Grab him, he's your insurance, girl. Just don't go crossing him, and he'll set you up for life. Promise me you'll accept.' So I promised. And that's why I had no choice. I couldn't ignore a promise I made to Mother Gloria, God's gift to help people. So I accepted his offer. Damn, I couldn't go messing around and break my word to her. And I'm so glad I didn't. I'm happy.
Happy
. And I ain't guilty of nothing. No way. Working with Ballz is a promise I made to God and Mother Gloria. You want to know more about Ballz? About his killer? About
any
thing? You go see Mother Gloria, Officer, I guarantee you she can read the spirits. You ought to talk to her. She's not one of those shyster readers, she's authentic.”

“Did she know the victim?”

“I don't know, I don't think so. She don't discuss client confidences, certainly not with me anyway. I recommended her to Ballz. I said she'd be great for his business. And you know what he told me? He said I was a superstitious cunt, pardon my French, but those were his exact words to me. So now I sure don't want to go talking to his spirit. No way, José. Alive, Ballz was bad enough. But if you want a reference to Mother Gloria, I'd be glad to oblige. I send lots of my customers over to her and she sends them back happy to me. We got an understanding, her and me. She'll listen to me, if you're interested, Officer.”

“When I'm interested,” Flo said, “you're the first person I'll call. Thanks for the tip. We'll definitely be talking again, Maria, bet on it. We're not finished, not by a long shot. But I've got one more question now.”