Lush Life (58 page)

"I know her voice," the man said.

"Can you describe her?"

"It was low, what I'd call caramel-toned, with a Puerto Rican inflection, talking to a African-American girl had braces that made slishing salivary sounds."

Matty closed his eyes, took a three-second nap.

"How about what she look like?"

"The Puerto Rican sounded on the petite side, the black girl overweight."

"Sounded?"

"I'm blind, son."

Tristan went back upstairs, crossed between the chair and the TV, Joe Torre on the postgame show looking like an undertaker, went into the bedroom, and without waking any of the little kids got the .22 from under the mattress. He came back out into the living room, stood behind the chair, and aimed the gun at the back of his snoring, slumping dome.

He didn't even know if there were any bullets left, and he couldn't quite get it up to find out, just stood there experimenting with the trigger pressure and glassily watching the TV, the muzzle almost kissing his ex-stepfathers scalp.

Derek Jeter came on, then an ad for Survivor: Komodo Island, then one for the new smaller Hummers, then the eleven o'clock news.

Hypnotized by the TV, he lost track of time so he didn't know how long the wife had been standing there, but there she was, on the far side of the dining table, just watching him with the gun to the back of her husbands head. They stared at each other in silence, the woman expressionless, Tristan unable to lower the gun, and then she just walked back to her bedroom without saying a word, quietly closing the door behind her. It was the most scared Tristan had been since that night; worse even, he could barely move, then his ex-stepfather cut loose with an abrupt and loud snort, and startled, Tristan squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked on an empty chamber.

Still thinking about the wife's deadpan face, Tristan went back to his bedroom and, just as she had, quietly closed the door behind him.

The full-up Mercury Mountaineer with Maryland plates abruptly pulled to one side of Clinton, blocking the narrow street and making Lugo slam on his brakes. The driver then leaned across his passenger to roll down the curbside window and hit on three girls sitting on a stoop.

Lugo tapped the horn. "C'mon, let's go there, Humpy."

Without taking his eyes from the girls, the driver just gave them a raised finger via the rearview and continued making his play.

"Oh no he di'ent," Lugo said to Daley to Scharf to Geohagan, then mounted the misery light onto the roof of the taxi.

Having found three sticky buds of Purp underneath Little Dap's seat, Lugo and Daley were by the Xerox machine, photocopying the contents of his wallet as the kid looked on from the minuscule holding cell.

"Hey, the last police told me anything under a dime bag is a walkaway."

"Did he now," Daley said.

"And that's a police sayin' it."

"What's this?" Lugo held up a much creased never-endorsed check.

"What." Little Dap squinted through the bars.

"This."

"Hah?"

"Who the fuck do you know in Traverse City, Michigan?"

"In where? Oh. Yeah. This dude gave me that. This guy I met." "What dude. What's his name. And don't bullshit me, its right on the check." Lugo hiding it now as if they were playing liar's poker. "Aw, man. Fuck I remember."

"OK . . . How about this," Daley chimed in. "What's Traverse City famous for, huh? This dude's your buddy, he'd've told you this. As a Traversian, he'd be very proud of this." "Hell I know. What."

"It's the cherry-picking capital of America, Fucknuts, and I don't think you know this guy at all except to jux him. We're calling up there first thing tomorrow, but you'll be right here coolin' your jets when we do. And if this is what I think it is? We're talking interstate indictability." "Ouch," Lugo said. "What?"

"Crossing state lines in the commission of a crime." "I didn't cross no state lines." "Your vie did."

"I ain't tell him to come." Little Dap blinking like a ship in the fog. "So he was your vie, huh?" "What? No. I ain't say that."

"Hey, you jux someone from out of state? That's a guideline felony." "A what?"

"Classical guideline felony."

"Plus this whole area is historically landmarked," Lugo reminding Daley, "which makes it . . ." "Pre-indicted." "As in federal." "And federal crime . . ." "Means federal time."

"The fuck! It's just a check, man, I ain't even cashed it!" "They'll just take him away from us, the feds." "I hate those pricks, everybody's bin Laden to them. Won't even listen to us."

"I don't feel too good," Little Dap slurred. "You're kidding me."

"Where am I?" Lolling his head, then resting it on the bars. "About two inches from a supermax."

"How about 1 get you a gun?" "Hey, that's our line." "You niggers always asking a gun." "We're all ears."

"Shit . . . What if I give you the shooter of that white boy?" "All ears, brother."

"But 'fore 1 tell you jack, you all got to get me some immunity. You know, like, first one talking gets the deal? You know how you do." "All ears."

Lugo woke Matty up an hour later.

"And after all that, he says to us, '1 want immunity.'" "And you said . . ."

"We'll see what we can do, but for now start taking plenty of C, B complex."

"Good." Matty got up, rubbed his face. He wasn't all that excited, but still . . .

"So, anyways, that's what the kid is saying, but who's to say" "All right, I'll be there in a few minutes." Then, reaching for his shirt, "So what is he, hard, soft?" "Butter."

After six hours of going over it, then going over it some more, Arvin "Little Dap" William's story still held water. He didn't know Tristan's last name, but he knew where he lived, and by the time Yolonda came in the next morning, Matty had already gotten all the vitals from the Housing Wheel.

An hour later, with Iacone and Mullins standing out of sight halfway down the hall, Matty murmured to Yolonda as he knocked on the door, "You sure you don't want to have another little one-on-one pep talk with him?"

"I'd like to drag this fucking kid out by his hair," she said through her teeth.

Matty knocked again, and a woman wearing yellow Playtex cleaning gloves peered through the width of the top chain, then opened up when she saw the badge.

"We'd like to speak to Tristan," Yolonda said. "He's not in trouble or anything."

"Tristan?" her face crinkling with anxiety as she reflexively looked towards a bedroom. "You should wait for my husband."

"We'll be quick," Yolonda said.

Leaving Iacone in the living room, Matty, Yolonda, and Mullins walked past two small kids quietly watching TV to the bedroom, Matty sliding the woman off to the side before opening the door.

Tristan sat on the foot of the bed hunched over his spiral notebook, his Beatbook, alternately squinting at his ex-stepfather's House Rules and dropping rhymes.

Rules by fools to be observed by tools

Don't dicker with my liquor

Drugs are quicker make you sicker

Blood runs thicker in the street where we the elite defeat any kind of heat you want to bring aint no thing, Im a player a slayer so be understandful of the handful that I am

Shadows darkened the page, Tristan looking up to see the three detectives standing over him.

And if you say obey?

"Get up, please?"

"Hold on." Tristan still head-down, scribbling as he gestured for them to wait.

You better pray

Cause its a brand new day

Then hands on his biceps lifted him like a child, the notebook hitting the floor.

It was midday and Eric was trying to remember how to get out of bed. At this point in time no one seemed to care whether he was human garbage or not, and it was just killing him.

The indifferent choir in his head consisted, among others, of Ike Marcus's father, those two detectives, and Bree.

Strangely, Ike Marcus himself was not among them; most likely because he had died oblivious to what Eric was about to do or not do for him, although they would play catch-up somewhere soon enough.

There was no office for assistance here, no grievance committee, no redemption center.

And then he saw Harry Steele's gift basket.

Eric sat at the granite kitchen island under the parti-colored wash of the stained-glass Star of David.

"I hear you fired Danny Fein," Steele said.

"Didn't need him anymore." Eric looked off, his kneecaps pumping under the table. After half a lifetime in Steele's service, it still made him nervous to be alone with him outside of a restaurant. "OK."

Eric sipped his cold coffee, then stared at the dregs like they were legible.

"What," Steele said.

"What?"

Steele breathed through his nose, his restless gaze all over the room, critiquing, redesigning. "Anything else?"

With his eyes beading wetly at the corners, Eric took the plunge.

"I'm a thief."

"You're a thief."

The quiet came down again, accentuated by the ticking of an unseen clock.

"I shave points off the tip pool, once or twice a week, comes to about ten thousand a year going back about five years. Maybe a little more. I fuck everybody Waiters, the bar, busboys, runners. And you. Ten thousand about. Every year."

"You' re serious, Steele said.

Eric didn't respond.

len.

"Yes."

"I actually figured you for about twenty." "What? No."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Why?"

"You re supposed to keep your mouth shut." "What?"

"Everybody steals from me. They just don't piss me off by telling me about it." Then, "Ten," shaking his head.

"Yes."

"Compared to everyone else around here? The bar? The kitchen?"

This wasn't going the way Eric envisioned.

"What's your problem exactly?" Steele asked.

"My problem?"

"What, your conscience is bothering you? And so you want me to do what. Fire you, sue you, press charges, what . . ."

"I want to pay you back," Eric said by reflex.

"Not me. You're talking the tip pool. You have to track down all those busboys over the years, all those three-weeks-and-see-ya waitresses from God knows where."

Eric sank into a hopeless silence.

"You know why you're telling me? Because you feel bad about yourself, about Ike Marcus, and you want somebody to punish you or forgive you or who the hell knows." Steele shook his head in marvel. "Ten thousand. My kid's babysitter probably steals more. My kids steal more. Jesus, do you have any idea what I take out of there?"

"No."

"Well, that's a bit of good news."

Eric looked down at his fingers, twisted between his legs.

"You're a good guy, Eric, I've always known that."

"Thank you," Eric whispered.

"And you're my guy." Steele leaned forward. "As I am yours, yeah?"

Eric balked a tic, then, "Yeah," then just let go in a gush of gratitude, "Yes."

"You come to my home for some kind of exoneration or, or validation, and 1 can't even begin to give you enough . . . Years together, you and I. You're like family You are family"

"Yeah."

Steele got up, Eric following his lead, but Steele gestured for him to sit and brought a fresh press of coffee to the table.

"That being said"-he poured-"you must be pretty tired of this neighborhood."

"Yeah."

"Raked over the coals like that."

Eric couldn't answer.

"Well, then here's some good news for you . . . I'm opening a new place."

"I heard something about that," Eric's voice quickening. "Harlem? I could go for that."

"That's still just a rumor, but I'll tell you what's for real." "OK."

"Atlantic City."

"Where?"

"I've been in meetings with the Stiener Rialto, they're developing a new concourse off the casino floor."

"Where?"

"You know how in Vegas they've got the Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, and whatnot? . . . Well, these guys want to create a Little New York arcade, historical, three sections, Punky East Village, Nasty Times Square, and Spirit of the Ghetto Lower East Side."

"Atlantic City?"

"You know, tenements, pushcarts, no synagogues of course, but an egg-cream joint, and for the high rollers, a Berkmann's."

Then, seeing the vapor-locked look on Eric's face, "I mean, you and I know ten years ago Berkmann's was a crack squat, but it looks like it's been there forever, and what's the difference? This whole neighborhood, I mean, it's all what the realtors want it to be anyhow, right?"

"Atlantic City?"