Fatherhood (9 page)

Plato, offended, squirming, a deal going south, Paulie will be pissed. No choice now but to play the bluff.

Take it or leave it, old man
.

Ernie, thinking of his garden, the seeds he's already bought for spring, seeds in packets nestled in his jacket pocket, thinking of the slammer too, how weird it is now, gangs, Aryans, Muslims, fag cons raping kids in the shower, deciding not to go back.

Sorry, Jack
. Rising.
I got a bus to catch
.

The eyes of the rain see the value of experience, the final stop of crooked roads. It falls on weariness and dread, the iron bars of circumstance, the way out that looks easy, comes with folded money, glassine bags of weed, tinfoil cylinders stuffed with white powder, floor plans of small jewelry stores, with Xs where the cameras are.

At 8
^th
Street and Sixth Avenue, Tracey Olson leaves a cardboard box on the steps of Jefferson Market. Angelo and Luis watch her rush away from inside a red BMW boosted on Avenue A, the rain thudding hard on its roof.

You see that
?

Wha
?

That fucking girl
.

What about her
?

She left a box on the steps there
.

What about it
?

That all you can say, whataboutitwhataboutit
?

Luis steps out into the rain, toward the box, the tiny cries he hears now.

Jesus. Jesus Christ
.

On 23
^rd
, the rain slams against the windows of pizza parlors and Mexican restaurants, Chinese joints open all night.

Sal and Frankie. Sweet and sour pork. Moo goo gai pan.

So, the guy, what'd he do
?

What they always do
.

He ask how old
?

I told him eighteen
.

Sal and Frankie giggling about the suits from the suburbs, straight guys who dole out cash for their sweet asses then take the PATH home to their pretty little wives.

Where was he from
?

Who cares? He's a dead man now
.

That plum sauce, you eatin' that
?

At Broadway and 34
^th
, the million eyes of the rain smash against the dusty windows of the rag trade, Lennie Mack at his desk, ledgers open, refiguring the numbers, wiping his moist brow with the rolled sleeves of his shirt, wondering how Old Man Siegelman got suspicious, threatening to call in outside auditors, what he has to do before that call is made … do for Rachel, and the two kids in college, do because it was just a little at the beginning. Jesus, two hundred fifty thousand now. Too much to hide. He closes the ledger, sits back in his squeaky chair, thinks it through again … what he has to do.

From Times Square, the gusts drive northward, slanting lines of rain falling like bullets, exploding against the black pavement, the cars and buses still on Midtown streets, Jaime Rourke on the uptown 104, worrying about Tracy, what she might do with the baby, seated next to an old guy in a gray felt hat fingering packets of garden seed.

So I guess you got a garden
.

My building has little plots
. A smile.
My daughter thinks I should plant a garden
.

Eddie Gorsh sits back, relaxed, content in his decision, grateful to his daughter, how, because of her, there'll be no more sure things.

Daughters are like that, you know. They make you have a little sense
.

Near 59
^th
and Fifth, a gust lifts the awning of the San Domenico. Dim light in the bar. Bartender in a black bolero jacket.

Amanda Graham. Martini, very dry, four olives. Black dress, sleeveless, Mikimoto pearls. Deidre across the small marble table. Manhattan. Straight up.

Paulie's going to find out, Mandy
.

Amanda sips her drink.
How
?

He has ways
.

A dismissive wave.
He's not Nostradamus
.

Close enough. And for what? Some nobody
.

He's not a nobody. He plays piano. A nice gig. On Bleecker Street
.

My point exactly
.

Amanda nibbles the first olive.
What do you really think Paulie would do
?

Deidre sips her drink.

Kill you
.

Amanda's olive drops into the crystal glass, ripples the vodka and vermouth. The smooth riffs of Bleecker Street grow dissonant and fearful.

You really think he would
?

Over the nightbound city, the rain falls upon uncertainty and fear, the nervous tick of unsettled outcomes, things in the air, motions not yet completed. At 72
^nd
and Broadway, it sweeps along windows coiled in neon, decorated with bottles of ale and pasted with green shamrocks.

Captain Beals. Single malt scotch. Glenfiddich. Detective Burke with Johnny Walker Black. A stack of photographs on the bar between them. Fat man. Bald. 3849382092.

This the last one
?

Yeah. Feldman thinks it's a long shot, but the guy lives in Tribeca, and it seems pretty clear the killer lives there too
.

A quick nod.

His name is Harry Devane. Lives in Windsor Apartments. Just a couple buildings down from Lynn Abercrombie. Four blocks from Tiana Matthews. Been out four years
.

What's his story
?

He works his way up to it by flashing, or maybe just rubbing against a girl. You know, in the subway, elevator, crap like that
.

Then what
?

Then he … gets violent
.

How violent
?

So far, assault. But pretty bad ones. The last time, the girl nearly died. He got seven years
.

Ever used a gun
?

No
.

A sip of Glenfiddich.

Then he's not our man
.

At 93
^rd
and Amsterdam, the rain sweeps in waves down the tavern window, Paulie Cerrello watching Jack Plato step out of the cab, taking a sip from his glass as Plato comes through the door, slapping water from his leather jacket.

Fucking storm. Jesus
.

So? Gorsh
?

I showed him everything. The whole deal
.

And
?

He ain't in, Paulie. He's scared of the slammer
.

Paulie knocks back the drink, unhappy with the scheme of things, some old geezer scared of the slammer, the whole deal a bust.

So what now, Paulie? You want I should get another guy
?

A shake of the head.

No, I got another problem
.

He nods for one more shot.

You know my wife, right
?

The rain sees no way out, no right decision, nothing that can slow the encroaching vise. It falls on bad judgment and poor choice and the clenched fists of things half thought through. At Park and 104
^th
, it slaps against a closing window, water on the ledge dripping down onto the bare floor.

Shit
.

Leaves it.

Phone.

Yeah
?

Charlie, it's me. Lennie
.

This fucking storm flooded my goddamn apartment. Water all over the fucking floor
.

Listen, Charlie. I need to borrow some cash. You know, from the guy you … from him
.

A hard laugh.

You barely got away with your thumbs last time, Lennie
.

But I made good, that's all that matters, right
?

How much
?

Twenty-five
.

Charlie thinks. Old accounts. Too many of them. Past due. Lots of heavy leaning ahead. And if the leaning doesn't work, and somebody skips? His neck in a noose already.

So what about it, Charlie
?

Not a hard decision.

No
.

The rain sees last options, called bluffs, final scores, silenced bells, snuffed candles, books abruptly closed. At Broadway and 110
^th
, the windshield wipers screech as they toss it from the glass.

Listen to that, will ya
?

Yeah, what a piece of shit
.

A fucking BMW, and shit wipers like that
.

Might as well be a goddamn Saturn
.

The box shifts slightly on Luis's lap.

I think it's taking a crap, Angelo
.

So
?

So? What if it craps through the box
?

It won't crap through the box
.

Okay, so it don't. What we gonna do
?

I'm thinking
.

You been thinking since we left the Village
.

So what's your idea, Luis? And don't say cops, because we ain't showing up at no cop-house with a fucking stolen car and a baby we don't know whose it is
.

A leftward glance, toward a looming spire.

A church. Maybe a church
.

The rain falls on quick solutions, available means, a way out that relieves the burden. It falls on homeless shelters and SROs and into the creaky, precariously hanging drains of old cathedrals.

At 112
^th
and Broadway, a blast of wind hits as the bus' hydraulic doors open.

Eddie Gorsh rises.

Good luck with the garden
.

A smile back at the kid.

Thanks
.

I got a daughter, too
.

Then take care of her, and maybe she'll take care of you
.

Out onto the rain-pelted sidewalk, head down, toward the building, Edna waiting for him there, relieved to have him back, the years they have left, a road he's determined to keep straight. This, he knows, will make Rebecca happy, and that is all he's after now.

The rain moves on, northward toward the Bronx, leaving behind new beginnings, things learned, lessons applied. At 116
^th
and Broadway, Jamie Rourke steps out into the million, million drops, thinking of Tracey and his daughter, how he shouldn't have said what he said, made her mad, determined to call her now, tell her how everything is going to be okay, how it's going to be the three of them against the world, a family.

The rain falls on lost hopes and futile resolutions, redemptions grasped too late, fanciful solutions. At 116
^th
and Broadway, it falls on Barney Siegelman as he steps out of a taxi, convinced now that his son-in-law is a crook, news he has to break to his wife, his daughter, the whole sorry scheme of things unmasked. He rushes toward the front of his building, feels the rushing tide up the sidewalk to Our Lady of Silence, where a cardboard box lies beneath a ruptured drain, a torrent gushing from its cracked mouth, filling the box with water, then over its sodden sides and down the concrete stairs, flooding the sidewalk with the stream that splashes around Siegelman's newly polished shoes. He shakes his head again. Tomorrow he'll have to have them shined all over again. He peers toward the church, the stairs, the shattered drain pipe, the overflowing box beneath it. Disgusting, he thinks, the way people leave their trash.

THE FIX

from
Murder on the Ropes

I
t could have happened anytime, on any of my daily commutes on the Crosstown 42. Every day I took it at eight in the morning, rode it over to my office on Forty-second and Lex, then back again in the evening, when I'd get off at Port Authority and walk one block uptown to my place on Forty-third.

It could have happened anytime, but it was a cold January evening, a deep winter darkness already shrouding the city at six
P.M.
Worse still, a heavy snow was coming down, blanketing the streets and snarling crosstown traffic, particularly on Forty-second Street, where the Jersey commuters raced for a spot in the Lincoln Tunnel, clotting the grid's blue veins as they rushed for the river like rabbits from burning woods.

I should tell you my name, because when I finish with the story, you'll want to know it, want to check it out, see if I'm really who I say I am, really heard what I say I did that night on the Crosstown 42.

Well, it's Jack. Jack Burke. I work as a photographer for Cosmic Advertising, my camera usually focused on a bottle of perfume or a plate of spaghetti. But in the old days, I was a street photographer for the
News
, shooting mostly fires and water main breaks, the sort of pictures that end up on page 8. I had a front page in '74, though, a woman clinging with one hand to a fire escape in Harlem, her baby dangling from the other hand like a sack of potatoes. I snapped the button just as she let go, caught them both in the first instant of their fall. That picture had a heart, and sometimes, as I sat at my desk trying to decide which picture would best tempt a kid to buy a soda, I yearned to feel that heart again, to do or hear or see something that would work like electric paddles to shock me back to my old life.

Back in those days, working the streets, I'd known the Apple down to the core, the juke joints and after-hours dives. I was the guy you'd see at the end of the bar, the one in a rumpled suit, with a gray hat on the stool beside him. It was my seed time, and I'd loved every minute of it. For almost five years not a night had gone by when I hadn't fallen in love with it all over again, the night and the city, the Bleecker Street jazz clubs at three a.m. when the smoke is thick and the riffs look easy, and the tab grows like a rose beside your glass.

Then Jack Burke married an NYU coed named Rikki whose thick lips and perfect ass had worked like a Mickey Finn on his brain. There were lots of flowers and a twelve-piece band. After that the blushing bride seemed to have another kid about every four days. Jack took an agency job to pay for private schools, and that was the end of rosy tabs. Then Jack's wife hitched a ride on some other guy's star and left him with a bill that gave Bloomingdale's a boner. The place on Eighty-fifth went back to the helpful folks at Emigrant Savings, and Jack found a crib on West Forty-third. Thus the short version of how I ended up riding the Crosstown 42 on that snowy January night in the Year of Our Lord 2000.