Sacrifice (6 page)

26

"W
e'll take my ride," Clarence said, standing in the parking lot.

"I'm not hitting Queens in a posse car, son."

"Posse? No, mahn, we will go in my car. A true West Indian car. Wait here."

He pulled up in an immaculate Rover 2000 TC, British Racing Green. I climbed inside. The black leather smelled new, the walnut trim gleamed. Clean and spare, letting the craftsmanship show.

"Very fine," I congratulated him.

"This is my baby," he said, flashing a quick smile.

27

O
n the way over, I read through the contents of a thick manila envelope Clarence handed me. All the police reports, a complete package, even the SSC records. SSC, Special Services for Children, the agency that investigates child abuse. It used to be called BCW, Bureau of Child Welfare. Now they call it CWA, the Child Welfare Agency. That's a politician's idea of social change—change the names. You can tell when someone first got stuck in the net by the name they call it. Same way you can tell how long a man's been in jail by his prison number. I didn't ask where Jacques got the records.

We took Atlantic all the way through East New York, turned left on Pennsylvania to the Interborough, found the Grand Central. Clarence pointed the Rover's nose to La Guardia.

We exited at Ninety–fourth Street, crossed over the highway. The hotel was a long, thin rectangle, the narrow piece fronting the service road to the highway. Clarence pulled in the back way. Plenty of parking.

"She's inside. Still lives here. You want to start with talking to her?"

They don't let you stay in those hotels once you lose your meal ticket—maybe the Sherlocks at SSC thought the baby really had run away on his own. "Let's wait a minute," I told him. "Get the smell."

He nodded agreement. I lit a cigarette—Clarence tensed, like something was going down. I pulled out the ashtray—it was a virgin. I rolled down the window, blew the smoke outside, felt him relax.

A corroding van sat diagonally across from us, grounded on four flat tires, an indistinct figure behind the wheel. An orange BMW approached. Stopped. Man on the passenger side stepped out, went over to the van. Money showed. A hand extended out of the van, a Ziploc bag held aloft. The streetlights caught the vials of crack inside, sparkling. Street diamonds.

"Rastas," Clarence said. Yeah. Ganja for fun, hard stuff for money.

A dog barked, close by.

A woman staggered out the side door, high–yellow complexion, wearing white shorts and white spike heels, her makeup as sloppy as the cheap wig sitting lopsided on her head. She stumbled, one hand against the wall to guide her.

"Crack whore." Clarence's flat, uninflected tour guide voice.

Four boys came out the same door, wearing black vinyl jackets draped to their knees. They swept the street with hard looks, challenging. The leader crossed over to us, the others flanking out behind. He stopped in the street, waiting. Clarence watched him the way a gorilla watches a jackal. I'm a vegetarian, you understand, but if you insist…

The leader veered to his right, moving off, shooting a last warning look. Clarence held the automatic calmly against his thigh, looking nowhere special.

28

T
he security guard at the door was a careful man, watchful that no visitor meant him harm. The tenants had to look out for themselves.

"Room 409," Clarence said, letting me lead the way. The same way you did in the jungle: point man on the alert, next man up with the heaviest firepower.

The stairs smelled of human waste. A large pile of it was on the second landing, wearing a blue–and–orange Mets baseball cap with matching jacket. He completed the ensemble with a regulation Louisville Slugger.

"What you want here, whitey?"

Clarence slid in next to me, pointed his 9mm automatic at the pile's face. "Business," he said, soft–voiced. "Maybe business with you. What you say, mahn?"

The bat clattered as it bounced on the concrete floor. The waste pile backed away, mumbling something.

Carpet runner on the corridor floor as thin as stockbroker's ethics. The walls were beige filth, the doors the color of starving roses. Numbers scrawled on their faces with black grease pencil. Murky light fell in spotty pools, most of the overhead fixtures wrecked—pre–mugging preparation.

We found the room near the end of the corridor. "When we get inside, follow my lead," I told Clarence, motioning him to one side in case they answered my knock cowboy–style. I put my back against the wall, reached over, and rapped lightly on the door.

Nothing.

I rapped again, hard. The door opened a crack.

"Who is it?" Woman's voice, phlegm–clogged.

Clarence answered her. "We come from your mother, Miz Barclay…she sent us. We have something for you.

"Emerson, he ain't here. I
tole
you."

Clarence pushed the door with his palm, gently. I followed him into the room. The woman walked ahead of us. Sat down on the bed. The room was long and narrow, dominated by a double bed. Bathroom door stood open to the right, Hollywood refrigerator against the other wall, two–burner hot plate on a shelf. A small color TV set sat on a black metal stand, complicated arrangement of antenna loops on top, looked like a model of the solar system. On the screen, cops wearing suits they would have had to explain to Internal Affairs were chasing drug dealers in their Ferrari.

"We need to ask you some questions, ma'am. This guy, he is from Jacques. Understand?"

"Yeah." She never took her eyes from the screen.

I walked over, turned it off. Anger flickered in her eyes—she wasn't drunk.

Clarence drifted over to where he could watch the door, hand in his pocket. The woman lit a cigarette, retreating into dullness.

"The night Derrick disappeared," I asked her, "tell me when you first noticed him missing."

"I dunno. Maybe nine o'clock, ten."

"What did you do?"

"We…I went lookin' for him. Asked everybody. You ask them, they'll tell you."

"And then…?"

"We couldn't find him. So I called the cops."

"What time was that?"

"I dunno…maybe midnight."

The 911 call had been logged at 3:28 a.m.

"Where was Emerson?"

"Emerson don't stay here, mistah."

"Where was Emerson that night?"

"He wasn't here. I tole the cops. He wasn't here."

She wasn't going to tell us anything. Years of dealing with Welfare and Child Protective Services had perfected the sullen–hostile–stupid routine. The cops had already threatened her with a murder rap if she was shielding Emerson. She didn't look afraid of anything society had to offer.

"You got a silencer for that pistol?" I asked Clarence.

"I got this, mahn," he ice–whispered, taking a straight razor from his pocket.

"That'll do. Start on her arms—it'll just look like more tracks when they find the body."

She was off the bed, opening her mouth to scream as Clarence slammed her back down, driving his shoulder into her chest, stuffing a handful of the ratty bedspread into her mouth. He pinned her flat with one knee. The razor gathered light as if it were a crystallized gem, waving hypnotically before her eyes. Snot bubbled in her nose as she fought for breath.

I leaned over her. "You want to tell us, now? Before we start cutting?"

Her head nodded hard enough to snap her neck. Clarence pulled the bedspread from her mouth, shifted his hand to the back of her head, pulling hard on the hair to expose her throat. The razor was ready.

"You scream, it's your last one," I said.

"Emerson took him—I didn't do nothin'."

"I know. Tell me what happened."

"Derrick was bad. Emerson and me was…in the bed. Derrick wouldn't be quiet, so Emerson picked him up to give him a slap. Derrick wet on Emerson and Emerson punched him in the chest. When we got done…in the bed, Derrick, he was still layin' there. We couldn't do nothin' with him. Emerson put him in one of the bags."

"What bags?"

"Over there," she said, gesturing with her eyes. In the corner, a box of green plastic Hefty bags.

"Then what?"

"Emerson, he went out."

"What did he say when he came back?" I asked her, guessing.

"He say, nobody ever find Derrick. It's okay."

"How long was he gone?"

"I dunno."

Her theme song—but I believed her this time.

"Why'd you call the cops?"

"SSC was comin' the next day. To check on the baby. They took him away before."

"And cut your check, right?"

"Yeah."

"Does Emerson have a car?"

"No, he ain't got no car. He had a car, but…"

"Never mind. He calls you, right?"

"I ain't got no phone here."

"There's pay phones downstairs."

"He don't never call me. Sometimes, he come by."

"On check day?"

"Yeah."

I signaled to Clarence. He stepped away from her, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

My eyes caught a color photograph on the dresser, propped up in a goldtone frame. I walked over to it. The woman, standing next to a tall, sheik–handsome man with a mustache, wearing a cream–colored suit, panama hat.

I held it up. "This Emerson?"

She nodded.

I popped the picture out of the frame. "Fix it," I told Clarence. His razor sliced surgically, leaving me just the man's photo. I slipped it into my pocket.

"What gonna happen to me?" the woman asked.

"Nothing. You're okay."

"I'm pregnant, mistah," she said as we stepped out the door.

29

W
e exited the hotel into a blanket of misty rain. Clarence started to cross the street. I patted his arm to halt him.

"The car's over there, mahn."

"Emerson didn't have a car."

"So what we do?"

"What he did. Come on."

30

W
e walked down the block, heading for the lights of La Guardia Airport to the north. Pitch dark now, but the block was choked with humans. Wheeling, dealing, stealing.

"Too many eyes," I said to myself. We crossed the service road—stood on the other side. To our left, the bridge to the airport. A deep ravine underneath, cut down the middle by the Grand Central Parkway.

"Let's try down there," I told Clarence.

We stepped in carefully. The underbrush was so thick you couldn't see the ground. We worked our way downhill. I spotted a refrigerator crate lying on its side against a tree, motioned Clarence to be quiet. A man crawled out of the crate, shuffled off into the darkness. We followed a narrow dirt trail toward the highway. On both sides, humans. A whole colony of homeless, living in the jungle. I could feel the watching. No way Emerson buried a baby here without being seen.

We reached the highway, turned left, in the direction of Manhattan. Cars shot by only a couple of dozen feet away—we were invisible.

"How we gonna find anything out here, mahn?"

"Keep quiet, Clarence. Let me work."

The monster's work. Being him. He didn't have a car. He had a body. He didn't have time.

Feeling my way.

Moonlight glinted on tree branches. Taking me back to the jungle in Biafra a long time ago. This time, hunting. Then, I was the prey.

Voices. Chanting sound from above us, high on the rise. We started up the hill. I looked back at Clarence—the pistol was in his hand, face set.

We stepped into a clearing. The moonlight slanted, pulling my eyes to a gnarled tree growing on a sharp angle out of the sloping ground. Something…I looked closer. Suspended from a rope, a leather bag, maybe two feet long, banana–shaped. The seam was closed with heavy stitches, crosshatched with long pins, pearly red and white heads in an alternating pattern. The bag swung gently in the night, like a lynched man. I felt the fear imploding in my gut. My hands shook.

Clarence saw it too. "Juju," he whispered. "Very bad, mahn. This is an
evil place."

We skirted the tree, climbing toward the top. The chanting came closer. Then we saw them. A phalanx of black males, standing in a wedge formation. Wearing long white shirts with little round collars, black pants. Looking out over the rise, the leather bag swinging down below them. Clarence raised the pistol, sighting in.

I whispered, "No!" Tugged at his sleeve, pointing to our right. He shuddered, his whole body shaking.

I took the lead. We worked our way about another quarter mile in the direction I'd pointed, climbed down to the highway.

"He couldn't go that way," I said, pointing back to where the chanters worshiped the leather bag. "We've got to cross the road. Ready?"

Clarence nodded. We waited for a break in traffic. Made a dash for it. Waited on the highway divider for another break, charged across to the other side.

We skirted the airport, the giant planes fog–shrouded, only their lights visible, following the chain link fence. No place to hide a body. We came to a residential block running parallel to the airport. Turned right.

"What you looking for now, mahn?"

"Water," I told him. Thinking back to prison. Watching and learning. Studying the freaks. They're always magneted to water. I remember asking the Prof about it, one cold day on the yard, trying conversation to keep warm.

"How come the skinners always work near water, Prof?"

"It's astrology, schoolboy. The stars in the sky never tell a lie—you know what they say, you can find your way.

"Astrology is bullshit."

"No, bro', here's what I know. The true clue—the real deal. Inside, a man's not blood, he's water. That's what we are, mostly water. The moon pulls the water, the tide takes the ride. Same moon pulls on us."

"So how come the freaks…?"

"The moon's for seekers, schoolboy. Some it pulls strong, some it pulls wrong.

I knew there was water out there. Rikers Island stands just to the west of the airport. Nice name for a jail. I remembered hearing the water from my cell window. Emerson must have done time, must have been there too. He'd know.

The chain link fence made a ninety degree left turn. I looked up at the street sign. Nineteenth Avenue.

Big white metal panel on the fence, red and black letters: NO TRESPASSING.

"In there," I told Clarence, pointing.

The bottom of the fence had been pulled loose. Clarence held it up like a blanket off the ground. I slid through on my belly. He lay on his back, bench–pressed the fence off his chest, used his legs to push him under.

The jungle was thick on the other side. A clear path to the water, well worn.

Dampness muffled the airport sounds. Behind us, lighted houses, parked cars. Ahead, black water. I knew its name from the maps I'd read in jail—Bowery Bay.

The path disappeared. The undergrowth was belt high, cuppy ground below pulled at my feet. We pushed our way through, reached the edge. Thick wooden posts stood upright between cracked slabs of concrete. Scuffling noises, scratchy sounds. Rats.

"I don't like it here, mahn."

The Rock was straight ahead. To our left, the Hazen Street Bridge. The one that carried busloads of humanity every Visiting Day, some hearts full of pain, some mouths full of dope, to be exchanged with that first kiss, contraband–sweet.

We walked to the edge. Looked down. I found a fist–sized stone. Tossed it in. Listened for the sound.

"Deep water." Clarence.

"Deep enough," I said, watching the softly lapping current. Remembering how cons used to study the tide tables like it was the Bible. Rikers Island wasn't Alcatraz—plenty of guys had made it outside the wire, gone into the water and lived to tell about it, usually Upstate.

"This is it," I said to Clarence. "This is where he dumped the baby's body. Derrick's in there."

Clarence looked out into the night. His young man's voice fluttered in the dark mist. "No, mahn. I don't think so. I think maybe the devil has him."