Red Hook (12 page)

“What?” I said and my voice boomed out in the deserted space under the tracks.

“Come,” he said and found the entrance to an abandoned warehouse.

We went in. The place was stacked with empty boxes, and the high windows were encrusted with dirt.

I followed Tolya up a couple of flights of stairs to a back door that he unlocked. He walked out on to a loading dock that led straight on to the elevated railway line.

“Is illegal,” he said when we were both outside. “Is trespassing to come here, but I come anyway.”

Tolya seemed to move lightly across the tracks, though the place was overgrown with weeds and grass, knitted together so it caught at your ankles. I stumbled, got my balance. I stood up. I looked out west.

We were only a couple of blocks from the river, but the buildings and the old shipping terminals separated us from the water.

“What the fuck is this place?” I said.

“The High Line,” he said in Russian. “It was built in the late 1920s, used to run to the tip of Manhattan when Manhattan was still a big port. Carried the goods down to the water. At the other end it connected with the trains, the old Empire Line. In 1980, it was abandoned, just like that. Look, look at the Deco detail on these railings, look, Artyom.” Tolya was ecstatic. He put his arms out wide. “After a while, after the ships stopped coming to Manhattan, the warehouses die, the High Line dies, nobody does anything,” he said. “Now everyone wants. Like Red Hook,” he added. “Like every piece of the city. People are fighting over industrial bones of New York, Artyom. Rotting docks and grain docks and container ports and rusty warehouses and cast-iron buildings and meat packing plants and places that made car parts, and printing presses. Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx. Up here on the High Line some people want to put galleries for art, others want to tear it down to use the land. Everyone thought the city was dead three years ago and now they grab at it, people betray each other for tiny little pieces. I came to New York, I thought it was the modern city, but it is old and beautiful.” Tolya closed his eyes, then opened them. “Old, beautiful, crazy. Who knows. I want this so much, but it is owned by the railroads, it is private property, but I want it. Look at how seeds blow in and take hold and all this green grows, like a jungle in the sky. To have a
piece of this would make you a king of New York, right, Artemy?” he asked, and then burst out laughing. “I don't get, of course, but I can dream.”

Something about Tolya made me feel he wanted me to know he was connected to this place. I didn't understand why, but I knew he needed me to know. Maybe it made him feel he already owned it.

“Let's go,” I said and looked down. The grass grew thick under my feet, and the old tracks were supported by iron struts that were spaced far apart. There was jagged wire and broken glass.

We started back. Tolya tripped and I caught him. He was breathing hard. He had always been big, but he seemed tired, out of breath, sick.

“Sometimes, Artyom, I come up here at night, like a thief, like a spy,” Tolya said.

It was something Sid McKay had said of himself as a child. A child spy, he had called himself.

When we were back on the street Tolya said, “So will you take a ride with me, Artyom? You're not working? You have time for me?”

I looked at my beeper. There was nothing. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“What is all this ‘thank you' bullshit, Tol?”

For the second time that day, he was strangely tentative as we walked back to his car. Again I had the sense that something wasn't right.

“Your Valentina is lovely,” I said. “She's a terrific girl.”

“Yes, but is self-conscious,” he said. “I offer her
plastic surgery for the finger, but she says no, this belongs to her past, this horrible thing they do to her, cut off her finger, bastards who kidnap her when she was a little girl in Moscow. Who does this shit, Artyom? But she says it is part of my story, Daddy. Part of my own narrative. What does this mean?” He turned to look at me, face drowning in sadness. “This is American, that you must have a story?”

“Yeah. Beginning, middle, end. Like a sitcom.”

We got to his car and he added, “Suddenly Valentina is grown up, and we are in Miami where she is living with her mother, and she says, Dad I want to join up with you, work in your business in New York, I want to leave Miami, other girls are doing this, and I say, I don't care what are other girls doing, I say, go to college, but she wants experience, she wants more, more experience, more life, she says, what kind of life? She is nineteen. This is life, to be model and work in real estate?”

“Give her a chance,” I said. “Some kids grow up fast.”

“So you'll take a ride with me? You're OK for that?”

“They'll beep me if they want me. I'm OK. Where do you want to ride, Tolya?”

“To Brooklyn,” he said.

“Big place Brooklyn,” I said, figuring he wanted to go out to Brighton Beach where he kept an apartment, maybe get some food, maybe buy the Russian papers. I figured it for a trip out to Brighton Beach.

“Yes,” he said, and I didn't know if he was avoiding the question but all he said was, “I'll go upstairs and get your jacket,” then walked a couple of steps to his building and lumbered through the door.

*

I didn't know if I was surprised when Tolya pulled off the BQE, cut under the Gowanus, parked near a chain-link fence on the Red Hook waterfront, got out and gestured for me to follow him.

Silently we crossed some tufts of dry scabby grass and I almost tripped over a Snapple bottle. There was a Snapple factory nearby. Made from the best stuff on earth, the logo on the bottles said. Best stuff, I thought. Sure.

A security guard who was smoking and leaning against the fence put up his hand, but Tolya went over and talked to him, the guy shrugged, straightened up, threw away his butt and looked respectful. Then he held open the gate and we went through. More weeds covered an expanse of ground where there were cars rusting, and we went out to the edge of a decayed dock.

Tolya sat on an overturned crate and motioned for me to sit beside him on a second box. Beyond us, spread out, spectacular against the hot sky, was the river and the city. The sun lit up the water so it glittered.

I kept my mouth shut about Sid, but I wondered if it was accidental, Tolya bringing me here the day after Sid called, the day after the guy died in the inlet. I figured I'd wait and see if he mentioned it. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe that was all. I didn't like myself much for not telling him. Tolya stretched out his arms again as he had on the High Line earlier.

“Pot of gold,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Imagine, Artyom, imagine to be here on edge of the
world, Statue of Liberty in front, New York City there, ten minutes, and all this,” he said. “Imagine new buildings, imagine marinas and boats, imagine a brand new city.” Tolya's eyes were half shut as he squinted into the hard light. Again came the sound of his breathing hard, trying to catch a breath.

“You sound like shit,” I said.

He didn't answer.

“Are you listening to me?

He said, “One day I am coming from Brighton Beach to the city and I stop and I think this is beautiful, and I buy a few little buildings here,” he said. “Most already sold. There is guy, big guy, same like me, and I ask him, can I buy some from you, but he says, what fun is it if you sell your buildings, and I understand, so I buy what I can and I look for more. Land. Like always. Every century.”

“Sure,” I said. “Fine. So what's stopping you?”

He shifted his weight on the box. “Information,” he said. “Who has rights, who owns what, who in city makes promises.”

Sometimes I wondered how the hell he made all the money, tons of money, money mountains, that he used to buy the buildings, more and more every year. He bought buildings like I ate pie. He said it was just good business and tried to get me in on stuff. I couldn't. I didn't have the dough and I never would. I didn't want to think about what kind of deals he did, either. I didn't ask about money. It was part of the deal. We were friends. We had shared more than a pood of salt as the Russkis said, and that was it. I had pushed him on his
business stuff once and it almost killed our friendship. He did what he did, I thought; as far as I knew, what he did was legal, more or less. Anyway it was only financial stuff. Not insider trading, either. It was only real estate, stuff everyone did, one way or another.

“Something else is eating you. Tolya? Are we talking some fucking Russian thing?”

He hoisted himself to his feet. “Artyom, sweetheart, everything is a fucking Russian thing for us, you and me,” he said. “Everything. You want that we deny this, but it never goes away. Never. I wish it would go.”

It was the first time I'd heard him talk that way. Usually it was me. I put my hand on his arm, and said, “What?”

“I have become American citizen. US. Wave the fucking flag,” he said.

“When?” I didn't smile, I swear to God, I just listened and didn't say anything.

“Last month. I applied over a year ago, it takes fucking four hundred days until I finally got the passport.”

“I would have made a party for you.”

“Yeah, and to eat? Red, white and blue American cheese sandwiches?”

“You passed your citizenship test?”

“I can tell you names of all presidents of US, OK?”

“Congratulations,” I said. “But I mean, so how come? You always told me you don't like America that much.”

He shrugged. “I do it for my girls, OK? I do, but I am not happy. It makes me feel unreal. I do not feel American. New York's different. It's OK. Also, I have
my little apartment out by Brighton Beach. I can hide out. Feel Russian.” He snorted ironically.

“The girls are citizens already,” I said.

“Listen, I did this, I like having passports. One is good. Two is better. Three excellent.”

Tolya put his hand on my shoulder to steady himself.

“Let's go drink something,” he said. “Let's drink.”

He walked back towards the street and the SUV and I went with him. He looked tired.

“There are guys I used to know who are looking over my shoulder, Artyom,” he said. “Every time I put money down on a piece of real estate, I discover these guys are trying to steal it from me. Russian guys. Guys with guns. In Moscow, you want to be in trouble, get in the way of guys buying real estate. You understand? And they buy everywhere, not just Russia, everywhere.”

“Who are they?”

“You don't know who because they have agents, I mean big players, oligarch type, I don't say names aloud; not even to myself do I whisper names, OK, you know who, you know, they don't get hands dirty anymore, they stay very quiet. These I never scared of but they have younger guys, agents they call them, who work for them who do anything. Give me one of your cigarettes, please, Artyom, I have no cigars.”

I handed him the pack; he didn't light up.

“They don't care, these people who do actual jobs,” he said. “They are like nihilists of nineteenth century, you know? Nothing matters at all with them, they can live, die, no difference, this makes them very good at making money because it doesn't matter, they buy and
sell anything, uranium, opium, plutonium, art, illegals for work, girls for sex, children for sex, oil, cars, body parts, auto parts, real estate, armies, weapons, anything anywhere. Make money. Feed bosses. Oligarchs have so much money, Artyom, they are kings, they own whole countries, and their children are like princesses. Nothing can touch them.”

I looked at his face. I wondered if Tolya's fear connected to Sid or the dead man, Earl. Paranoia grabbed my gut then let go. There wasn't any connection. How could there be?

“And you want this,” I said. “This kind of money, the power?”

“Yes,” he said, then started walking quickly to his car. “Come on.”

We got into his Escalade and Tolya reached into the pocket of his yellow shirt, took out a small brown envelope and gave it to me.

“I want you to know everything in case something happens, so you'll make sure they're alright, the girls, and my ex-wife, and you, Artyom. I've made you my executor, though not a lot is written in my will.” He laughed. “I am a US citizen but not necessarily a complete supporter of the US tax code. Never mind.”

I opened the envelope. There was a key for a safety deposit box.

“This is a bank key for my safety deposit box,” he said. “I will tell you which bank where. If anything happens, you go there first. You don't help do anything else. You don't call cops, you don't do anything, you go to box before they seal it and you take what's inside.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It's just a safety deposit box key, OK? It's not the secret to the universe, it's not the da Vinci fucking codes, Artemy, just a key to a box with paper, so you go and take what is in it and you give everything to Valentina who is oldest of my children in her soul, and smartest, OK?”

“Why not give her the key?”

“Safer with you. I never felt vulnerable before, but now I feel, OK? So you'll do this.” It wasn't a question.

I nodded and put the envelope in my pocket. “Are you sick?” I said. “Tell me.”

“No,” he said, but I didn't believe him. He added, “You promise? No matter what? No matter who is officially asking questions?”

“Yes.”

“When I was hurt in the winter before the last, when I am lying in the hospital and cannot talk, I think: I have to do this. I have to give the key to Artemy. I have to ask him.”

He had been hurt bad with a knife on the Billy Farone case when I was on it. He went looking for the creeps involved, and they hurt him, they stuck a big fishing knife with a serrated edge deep inside him, and I found him lying in lousy Coney Island Hospital.