No Good to Cry (15 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Frog Hollow was an old neighborhood in the shadow of downtown Hartford. A few blocks to the west, it had a used-up feel, rows of stolid three-decker brick buildings faded from too much sunlight and too little attention. Here and there a window was boarded up with plywood. A door had posted a sign:
Do Not Enter. Condemned.
Faded green asphalt-tiled porches sagged under patchwork tarpaper roofs.

I pulled up my old Beamer in front of Frankie's home, squeezing it between a Toyota with a flat tire and a Honda Civic with no license plate. While I locked my car—I don't know why because it was twelve years old now, hardly a car to steal—a sloe-eyed drunk tottered against a lamp post, careened into the front fender of my car, and waited for me to say something.

As I reached the second floor, jarred by a swell of rap music coming from an apartment down the hall, the door of 2A opened slowly, and Doris Croix stood in the frame, arms folded across her chest.

“I don't know why you gotta talk to me.”

“You're Frankie's mom.”

She turned and walked back into the room. She flicked back her head. “He told the police it ain't him that done it.”

“Still and all.” I followed after her. “There's a good chance he'll be charged.”

She turned quietly, her face near mine. Her breath reeked of stale cigarette smoke.

“I know the Orientals hired you to clear that Saigon kid.” A hesitant smile. “I guess it's a two-for-one deal. Clear one boy, the other walks. My Frankie.”

I smiled. “That's sort of the way it works.”

“But what do you want from me?”

She pointed to a sofa, and I sank deep into the lumpy cushions. I caught her smiling. “You got you five boys in the house, and every spring gives sooner or later.”

“Five boys?”

She held up her hand as if she planned to count her fingers. Instead she waved the hand, a throwaway gesture: what the hell. “Jail for one. Another got a job. Then there's Jonny and Frankie and little Pete, who's twelve. I had one baby that died. Hard to remember him. He was the first of them all.”

“I'm sorry.”

“He was the lucky one. He missed out on the hell that always follows us around.”

Quietly I surveyed the large room. No curtains on the windows, a clay pot of failing geraniums on a sill, too much furniture. The fabric on the sofa was patched with bands of black duct tape. On a side chair a giant overfed black cat stretched its paws, yawning. A coffee table of pressed board, the surface discolored from water stains from wet glasses and cups, concentric rings that overlapped, spread out across the table. An old-fashioned TV on a wire stand, switched on but the sound muted. Snowy figures fluttered across the screen. Doris Croix rushed to turn off the set.

“I sometimes forget it's on,” she apologized. “It's like—company.”

“Frankie's not home?”

She looked toward the door but said nothing.

She caught me looking around. “Can't do much on Section Eight housing.” Then she laughed. “Can you imagine what Sections One through seven look like?”

“Is Frankie here?” I asked again.

“They went to the bodega for cigarettes.”

“They?”

“Him and his brother, Jonny.”

“I'd like to talk to you—but also him.”

Her body sagged. “I told him you were coming. He's not happy.”

“I know. He's like Simon. He doesn't care.”

She shrugged. “You're a stranger.” She reached for a cigarette from a pack at her elbow. A Virginia Slim, which she lit by striking a match. She sat back and blew smoke into the air. “And maybe because they're just dumb kids who ain't got a clue how life works.”

“He's coming back?”

Again the shrug. “I hope so. But I'll tell you something. None of them listens to me. My husband, Jack—he beat it when my youngest was born. I mean, it's a winter night and he says to me that he gotta get cigarettes. He throws on his coat, walks out that door, and that's the last I seen him. Ever. The cops didn't give a damn. The point is I'm stuck with five rat-assed boys, and one after the other pushes his way around me.”

“They hit you?”

“One night I tell Jonny to do something—I mean, he's like fourteen then—and he smashes up the place. He breaks every dish in the kitchen, yelling and swearing at me. When it's all over and the place looks like a bomb went off, he stands up against my face, and says, ‘If you ever give me another goddamn order, I'll do this all over again.' The other boys see that, and, well, you know how the story ends.”

She offered me a soda—“I only got diet Coke”—which I refused. She looked disappointed as she left the room. I heard her opening the refrigerator, the sound of bottles clinking, and she returned, a bottle of Coke in her hand. “I drink so much diet Coke they should put me on TV.” She held out the bottle, as if displaying it before a camera, and said in a deep rumbling voice, “Eats your insides out, folks. Pick some up today.”

“Tough sell,” I laughed.

“Don't matter.” She laughed as she gulped some soda and then put the bottle down on the table, immediately picking up the cigarette she'd left burning in an ashtray.

“Maybe you can help me?” I said to her. “Tell me what Frankie said to you about that day. Anything? I know he said he was at the arcade on Park with Simon, that he stopped in at the…you know, the VietBoyz storefront.”

She held up her hand. “Those are rotten hoods. Frankie talks to his brother about them. To Jonny. Like with admiration, I guess. But Jonny knows them. Christ,
he
goes there. He likes them thugs—the Oriental guy who comes from Chinatown. Killer, he says. Another guy just out of prison. Jonny knows him from a tavern on Capital. Piggy's, they call it. Jonny
likes
the fact that Frankie hangs out there.”

“But that afternoon…”

“Frankie says he didn't know about the guy dying until later—when that detective knocks on the door. ‘What are you talking about?' he says to him.”

“But then he remembered that he'd been at the storefront, no?”

“I guess so. I don't know.” Suddenly she looked exhausted.

“Was Jonny there that afternoon, too? I mean, the afternoon when Ralph Gervase died? Maybe he was there when the boys stopped in. Maybe he can tell me something.”

She gazed off into space. “I dunno. Don't hold your breath. I only know what I overheard, and that ain't much.” She hesitated. “But I can tell you that I hear Frankie and Jonny talking about it after the detective disappeared—and Frankie tells his brother it ain't him done it.”

“Maybe he lied to Jonny.”

She shook her head back and forth. “That would surprise me. You can't lie to Jonny, let me tell you. I seen Frankie try that, and Jonny smacks him across the mouth. Bloody nose. ‘You lie to me, you little fucker, you pays a price.' His words.”

“But now we're talking about a man dying.”

“Don't matter.” She stared into my eyes. “You think he cares about some old man dying? Or that Frankie might have had a part in it? Jonny is a piece of work. Let me tell you. Frankie—he got him a wise mouth and he thinks he's tougher than iron—but he's scared of his brother. Real scared. Jonny don't like something Frankie done, and he sits down for breakfast with a black eye.”

The door to the apartment opened. Jonny stepped in, tossed a pack of cigarettes onto a shelf near the door, and nudged Frankie into the room. The boy stood near the sofa, his eyes moving from me to his mother, his expression stony. “Well, I'm back.” Flat, bored. “Yeah?”

His mother prompted me. “Get this over, okay?” She kept her eyes on Jonny.

“Frankie, we had that talk at the diner, but since then—anything? Did you and Simon talk afterwards?”

“Naw.”

“You two took off with two Vietnamese guys.”

Jonny broke in, surprised, glaring at his younger brother. “Kenny and Joey?”

“Yeah, they gave us a ride.”

Jonny fumed and pointed a finger at his brother. “Christ, Frankie. I warned you about them two fuckers.” He turned away. “You heard me, you little shit-head.”

Frankie faced me. “I got nothing to say. I told you everything.”

“Nothing, huh?” I waited.

He tightened his face. “No. Nothing. I told that asshole Ardolino the same thing.”

“Christ, Frankie.” His mother took a drag on her cigarette.

“This is all bullshit.” Jonny had taken off his leather jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. He slipped into the chair, pulled his legs up onto an end table, and lit his own cigarette. “Frankie says he ain't done it.”

“JD told me…”

“Yeah, JD told you. The alibi, right?”

“Were you there?” I asked him.

He sucked on his cigarette, blew rings into the air. “I was gonna pick up the boys but the damn street was blocked. The Portuguese church down the block had some parade. The priest holding a statue, a brass band…”

Frankie jumped in. “Yeah, like a funeral. People…like in ribbons. With crosses. We saw that.”

I smiled. “Thank you. That's something.”

“How?” asked Doris.

“I don't know.” I waited a bit, then looked at Jonny. “I saw you on Farmington Avenue yesterday. On a motorcycle. With two friends. Maybe Asian. You had a fight with a driver.”

He seethed.“Christ, what are you—spying on me?”

“So it was you?”

“So what? There's a motorcycle shop at the end of the block. Next to Moe's. I get breakfast and a part for my bike.”

“Are you on Farmington Avenue a lot?”

Now he waited a bit. “None of your goddamn business, man.”

“Did you ever see Ralph on the Avenue?”

“Why would I? I don't know who the fuck he is.”

“I'll tell you. He lived in a group home. He drank a bit. He liked to walk up and down the street.”

“I seen a lot of people. And lots of old drunks on that street.” A harsh laugh. “I bet there's already a filthy drunk taking his place, annoying the shit outta folks.”

“He liked to pick fights with people.”

Another throaty laugh as Jonny shot a look at Frankie. “Well, so do I. The only difference is that I always win.”

“Always?”

He stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Fuck you.”

He stormed out of the apartment, his fist banging the door, and Frankie, glaring at me, squeaked out a “Goddamn” and followed after his brother. Their footsteps banged down the stairwell. Loud fiery curses.

Jonny's voice echoed in the hallway. “The guy's a fucking asshole, Frankie. He ain't gonna save anybody's ass.”

Whatever Frankie answered was lost in the slamming of the front door.

Doris Croix stood up, a sickly grin on her face. “Well, that went better than I expected.” She walked to the front window and gazed down into the street. “He's gonna get killed on that bike someday. And Frankie on the back, hanging on like a rag doll.” She sighed and looked for her cigarettes. “You have to go now,” she said abruptly.

“Tell me something, Mrs. Croix.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Frankie was involved in Ralph's death?”

She gave it some thought. “I don't know. Maybe not, as he says. It's just that he does everything else
wrong
. Like what you just watched happen here. He can be a bullshit artist, let me tell you. That's the least of his mistakes. But—look, I don't got time to care about it.”

“But he may be charged in Ralph's death. This time tried as an adult. Serious prison time. A man was killed. Maybe by his hand.”

“Look, mister,” as she pointed to the door with her cigarette, “if it ain't this killing, well, there'll be another down the road. Sooner or later one of my boys will get the chair.”

Chapter Seventeen

Jimmy and Gracie were now an old married couple, long settled into companionable silence. As I walked in late in the afternoon, the two of them were drowsing on the sofa. Jimmy's foot was still in a cast and elevated on the coffee table, his chest covered with the sports page of the
Courant
, a raspy snore escaping his throat. A bottle of Budweiser on the end table. No glass, I noticed. Empty.

Next to him Gracie snuggled into the end of the sofa, her arms folded across her chest. She wore a pristine blue duster covered with hibiscus blooms, on her feet the most outrageous pink slippers, an uncharted life form with their abundant furry fabric and gigantic pompoms. She snored in a wispy, hiccoughing hum. A syncopated rhythm as befit a former Rockette from the golden age. Just out of her reach on the end table was another bottle of beer, also Budweiser. Also empty.

I cleared my throat. Jimmy popped open one eye. “We're busy watching TV.”

“Then maybe you should turn it on.”

He glanced at the set across the room. “These new ones go off when you turn your head for a second.”

“Right.”

“What do you want?”

I stopped in every day, and every day he asked the same question.

“Work to do.” The same answer every day.

For a half-hour or so, until I noticed him starting to fade, we would discuss business, reviewing his cases I was finishing up. “I miss the view from the window,” he told me now.

“What? Pizza Palace?”

He grinned widely. “At night they have a huge neon-lit pizza in the window, with twinkling lights.”

“Yeah, seductive.”

“Don't play holier-than-thou with me, Rick.” A sidelong glance toward Gracie, rousing herself and listening to everything. “I've seen you swallow a meatball grinder from Subway in three real unattractive chomps.” He watched Gracie move into the kitchen.

“I had to. You were eyeing it with a rapacious look in your eye.”

He frowned. “I ain't never had a rapacious look in my eye. Ever.”

From the kitchen Gracie's amused soprano. “You can say that again.”

Jimmy leaned in, a conspiratorial whisper. “She's trying to kill me with good food.”

“Call the cops.”

Plied with a cup of coffee from Gracie, I ran through Jimmy's cases, bringing up his files on my laptop. But he lacked interest, his gaze drifting toward the window. The caged bird, I thought. Gracie buzzed around him, quietly placing another bottle of beer at his elbow, but largely silent. At one point I caught her eye, a cloudy, faraway expression that I found hard to read. Yes, I understood that she enjoyed Jimmy under her constant and loving care, but her charge was no easy task. Jimmy belched and grunted and heaved his way through her rooms. Perhaps their bizarre flirtation was best played out across a table at Zeke's Olde Tavern, neutral ground where the give-and-take of geriatric titillation had a natural end when last call was trumpeted. Proximity, alas, did bring—well, not contempt, but heavy sighing.

Jimmy watched Gracie's retreating back. “I'm hobbling on crutches to Zeke's tomorrow. The doctor said it's okay.”

“And?”

“And you gotta be there in case I fall.”

A short time later Liz waltzed in. “Does everyone leave doors wide open in this high crime neighborhood?” She gave Jimmy a quick peck on the cheek. Of course, he squirmed, delighted. She gave Gracie a quick hug, and I heard Gracie whisper to her, “We women have trials to bear, right, dear Liz?”

Liz nodded, mumbled something that included my name and a throwaway reference to our life in Manhattan. Liz poured herself coffee, and Jimmy and Gracie, next to each other on the sofa, began watching the local news, volume turned up because each contended the other was deaf but wouldn't acknowledge it.

Liz motioned me into the kitchen, where she closed the door behind her. “I need to talk.”

I pulled up a chair and poured myself another cup of coffee. When I went to put a second teaspoon of sugar into the cup, Liz reached out and touched the back of my hand. “You should cut that out.”

“Just one.”

She said nothing but watched me closely. When we were married, she fed me Brussels sprouts, kale, and seaweed. Protein smoothies the color of marsh grass. Sometimes I liked them.

“Talk about what?” I asked now.

Tapping her fingers on the enamel tabletop, she began, “The Tran family saga, Hazel Tran episode, continued.”

“Christ,” I swore. “Not Judd Snow?”

“Of course. The complication or rising action in this off-Broadway tragedy.”

“Tell me what happened.”

She sipped her coffee. “It wasn't pretty, Rick. But then I think most stories that involve Judd and Hazel these days are piddling tragedies.” She breathed out. “I had to go to a meeting at Town Hall but stopped at that little coffee shop down from the Farmington Country Club, next to the famous bakery I've never been in.”

“A digression, Liz?”

“I'm at the counter ordering a cup of java and I hear familiar, raised voices from a booth across from me. Of course, being nosy, I stepped toward the sound and came face to face with Hazel and Judd.” She made a face. “God hates me, Rick.”

“He hates everyone sooner or later. We tend to disappoint Him.”

“Hardly a Buddhist sentiment.”

“Don't tell Grandma I said that.”

“You know I will, but she won't believe me.” Her voice got low, confidential. “Anyway, they were obviously in the middle of a spat, Hazel fairly hissing her words and Judd, the lummox, grunting his disapproval. It all stopped, like a slap to the face, when Judd spotted me. His angry red face suddenly showed the peppy grin of a boy on a Sunkist TV commercial.”

“Throwing a beach ball toward the sun?”

“Yeah, that one.” She fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. “He jumped up, obsequious to a fault, with that slimy grin he seems to have invented. For a handsome young man, he sure can look—ugly.”

I wasn't happy. “You should have walked away.”

“I should have walked away,” she echoed. “Indeed. Hindsight and all that. What I did do was the exact wrong thing. He asked me to join them and nudged Hazel, who'd been crying. She looked so—so hurt. I worried about her. I don't trust him. So I'm filled with a wash of conflicting emotions as I stared down into her face. I slid into the seat next to her. Big mistake.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“I learned more than I expected.”

I sat up, leaned forward. “Anything I should know?”

She drew her lips into a thin line. “Well, yes.” The last word stressed. “Otherwise, why am I talking to you now? Our days of end-of-the-day bedroom gossip are long over.”

“I sometimes wonder about that.”

She smiled, amused. “Sometimes you're actually right.” Another deep sigh. “Anyway, it was as though poor Hazel the doormat wasn't even there. Judd the Obscure starts to flirt outrageously with me. I mean, blatant. Fawning, humming, leaning across the table, resting his hand too close to mine, batting those eyelids as though he had cinders in his eyes. He tells me how beautiful I am—and I cringe. Something so wrong—a boy like that. To
me
. Hazel starts to sob again, and I pat her hand. Judd reaches over and grabs her hand, in the process grasping mine, squeezing it. I swear, I jumped as though I'd touched a live wire.”

“Christ, he has no boundaries.”

“This is an eighteen-year-old man who is one step ahead of the rest of us. He scares me. I swear I see him—or that red Audi—too often these days. Or, at least I think it's him cruising by. I'm backing out of the parking lot and down the street is a flash of red car. Judd, I believe.”

I rushed my words. “Then what happened?”

“Well, he dominates the conversation. But in the middle—I swear at one point he winks, and I shivered—he brings up an encounter with Simon and Frankie at the mall. He's trying to get to Hazel—to
hurt
her. ‘Your asshole brother,' he says to her. ‘A killer, they tell me. Your sad family.' Hazel cries louder now.”

“Why mention Simon?”

“Well, earlier that day they bumped into Frankie and Simon at West Farms Mall. Again. A bunch of kids, shooed out of the stores by security. Judd bullied Simon, calling him a wimp. ‘Like everybody in the Tran family.' His words, not mine. Simon starts getting tough, in his face, but Frankie barges in, actually shoves Judd. And for a second the two tussle until friends pull Frankie off.”

“Why would Frankie do that again?”

“Have you met the boy? He's a brawler, Rick. Fistfight, part two. But it seems he was angry because Judd had emptied his backpack during the first Punic War and had pilfered a video game. ‘It's a goddamn rental,' Frankie yelled at him. ‘They gonna charge me an arm and a leg.' ‘Fuck you.” Judd's words, not mine. Threats to kill each other.” Liz sat back. “Anyway, that's the Homeric tale Judd now tells me, spun with embellishment to impress. He puffed out his chest and waited for me to faint in the aisle.”

I chuckled. “I'm assuming you didn't?”

A shrug. “Not this time. The last time I fainted was when you proposed marriage.” A pause. “No, I'm wrong. It was when they refused to double bag my groceries at Fairway.”

“Was that what Hazel and Judd were fighting about?”

“I guess. ‘Simon the murderer.' Again Judd's chant, calculated to send Hazel off into a spasm of grief.” Liz deliberated. “And something else I just remembered. Another remark about the sad Tran family, even though he's sleeping with one of the members, I'm sure. He said he was sick of Wilson, the namby-pamby brother.”

“Yes, that's how he met Hazel. A chess competition at Kingswood-Oxford.”

“So I learned. Both are on the chess team. Judd taught Wilson how to play, and Wilson took off, beating him. Judd, infuriated, said, ‘I'm sick of that little creep.'”

“What does that mean?”

“The faculty advisor likes Wilson more than Judd. In some community outreach program he has upperclassmen visit local boys' and girls' clubs to teach chess. Judd considers it a rung of Dante's hell. The advisor put them together, and all hell broke out.”

“Wilson is studious.”

Liz laughed out loud. “And, I gather, arrogant. What roiled poor Judd on the way to a missed anger-management class is that Wilson repeatedly tells him—and I quote Judd's high-pitched imitation of Wilson—‘I just realized I'm smarter than you, Judd. Quicker. I just realized it.'”

I burst out laughing. “I would've loved to have heard that. That little pipsqueak taking on the bully.”

“So Judd starts yelling at Hazel about the egomaniacs in her family, and Hazel sits there trembling.”

“And then you left?”

“No, I stayed to listen to Hazel's surprising revenge.” Liz's eyes sparkled. “Of course, I stayed.”

“Tell me.”

Her eyes flashed. “One of the reasons I'm telling you this, Rick, is that Judd kept hissing one word at her. ‘Simon.' Then ‘Guess who's going back to the slammer?' At first Hazel begged him to stop, but he yelled, ‘No, you stop.' That made no sense, of course, and she looked at me, as if I could translate her boyfriend's verbal hieroglyphics. I wanted to get away, but I felt protective of her.”

“How did she get back at him?”

“It was as though something finally clicked inside her, some flash that told her she could get Judd. That she had ammo to defeat him.”

“Tell me.”

Liz's fingertips played with the coffee cup, but finally pushed it away. “She must have seen something in his face because in her next breath she leveled a salvo into his bloated ego.”

“Like?”

“‘I'm not coming to your house anymore, Judd.' That stunned him. She told him. ‘Your father came on to me again.' It was an explosive line, said evenly, deliberately.”

“Again? He's done it before?” Foster Snow. The playboy in a college boy's clothing scooting around town in the sports car.

The kitchen door opened and Gracie walked in, the two empty beer bottles in her hands. She walked by us, set the bottles on the counter, but turned toward us, listening.

Liz glanced up at her, smiled, but stopped talking.

“How did Judd react to that?” I went on.

“Steamed. He slammed his palm down on the table. ‘Are you sure?' he asked her. ‘Yes,' she told him, ‘your father is a creep, Judd. He tries to be…you know…near me. When you're not looking, he…'” Liz stopped, glanced at Gracie, and explained to her. “Hazel Tran and her troglodyte boyfriend, Judd Snow.”

Gracie was nodding. “I know all about it. I have ears, Liz.”

“I feel sorry for Hazel.”

Gracie made a face. “I don't.”

That startled me. “Gracie, what?”

She pulled out a chair and sat down, folding her arms on the table. “One thing I learned when I was a young girl starting out, when I traveled with Bob Hope to Korea. I was barely sixteen. Then in Manhattan, at Radio City. What I learned is that a girl gotta be ready for anything. Hazel runs into a schmuck like Judd. Sometimes young girls are like wind chimes waiting for a breeze. Talk to her, Liz. Tell her to run.”

Liz was smiling. “Exactly, Gracie. But she can't see beyond Judd's controlling hand.”

“Then she's a fool.”

Jimmy called from the living room. Gracie threw back her head and roared. “Obviously I haven't learned the lesson myself.” She sailed by us, back out into the living room.

“Finish the story, Liz.”

She leaned in. “I'm sitting there, witness to the scene, but Judd doesn't care. He lost it. Of course, he already knew about his father's peccadillos. And, I guess, Daddy's attraction to pretty Hazel. It wasn't the first time, I'm guessing. He stood up, slammed some cash onto the table, threw a warning look at her. But as he moved, his arm slid against my shoulder, a deliberate move, and he whispered into my neck, ‘If you give me a minute, you'll beg for an hour.' And he was out the door.”