South by South Bronx (18 page)

“I've talked to your captain,” Myers said, filling those glasses one more time. “You know what you can expect from him. You'll be putting your neck out, and for what? What did this lousy setup ever do for you? Is that really what you think I came here to talk to you about?”

The juke fell silent. Red lights, green lights.

“I still believe you're tied to it, Sanchez. I know it. Just give me the girl. You know it's got nothing to do with you anymore. This is bigger than your life as a cop. Give me the girl and you can go back to it.”

“Back to what?”

“Back to your life. As a cop.”

“You mean back to my UNlife. As an UNcop.”

His eyes seemed to be glowing.

“Cover me,” he said.

“And what about David Rosario? What about Anthony Rosario? What about them?”

My question floated in the
nada
of voices, forks, and spoons. A clatter of plates, the clink of glasses.

“They can take you with them,” he said.

All at once, the juke came to. Something by El Gran Combo to keep the senses edgy. The
empanadas
were sitting on small plates like lonely yellow eggs. The bottle was three-quarters empty. The shot glasses glistened wetly. Rum might fog things up for a bit, but what comes after the happy, after the slow dislocation of mind from senses—after the pensive, after the truth—is clarity, the loud waterfall sound that comes when you place a clean glass beside a dirty one.

I'd killed two people in the ten years I'd been a cop. I don't think about them very much. In both cases, the men were armed with guns. In both cases, those guns came swinging at me with full intent to do me harm. In both cases, I dropped them. Open and shut, me or him. To kill someone not pulling a gun on you, that was a different proposition. To perceive harm, harm coming or harm about to come, meant accepting a doctrine of preemptive strike, of acting on a perceived threat. This would be no open and shut, no clear case of a gun swinging my way. I just wanted to go somewhere and puke. If only he would leave me alone … if only she could … In the end they deserved each other, these Americans … we the people … you're either with US or against US …

“I went to see Roman today,” I said, starting slowly. “It seemed to me from the path she took after she jumped off that bus that she was going to see him. It might not have made much sense to anyone else that she would go to him, but I had a feeling. It turned out Roman was going to contact me. Roman and I had been in touch for a while. I had gotten him to testify in my Dirty Harry case, and … she brought him the tape. She had met him because of the cards … Roman makes cards.”

“He made these for David?” Myers was flipping the cards, examining them.

“These are spares. David Rosario used cards under this fake name to open a safe-deposit box account.”

“Why would he give these to you?”

My head was throbbing. I wanted to close my eyes, forever. “I'm supposed to give them to you.”

It was Daniel Santos on the juke now, rambunctuous pounding. The voices around us seemed to grow, people forms becoming shadows down by the bar where they collected in swaying clusters.

“I'm supposed to lead you away from Roman.”

“And why's that?” Myers had the cards flat on the table. He filled both our glasses.

“Because what you're looking for isn't in a bank. It's at this big old theater on Third Avenue. It's hidden there. The whole bank thing is a setup.”

“A setup?”

“That's right, Myers.” My stare was straight and hard. I had on my stiff poker face and he would never get past it. “We're supposed to do a bank search. Stake out some branches and hope to find her. She'll get away, and you'll think she took the money with her.” I was lighting another cigarette. “But the money will be sitting right here in the South Bronx, safe and sound. Roman didn't come out and say it, but he pretty much offered me the money to lead you away from there.”

“And what about the girl? Why would she drop you a tape? What did she want from you?”

I took a good deep puff, then swallowed down that shot. “She wants me to drop you.”

Myers laughed. “Great,” he said.

“She's going home. She didn't care about the money, Myers. She only wanted to fuck you over. I don't know what the hell you did to her.”

“She's a woman, isn't she?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it doesn't have to make sense. Listen, I really don't think I believe you for a minute.”

“You don't believe her either. But it seems she loved David Rosario. She didn't plan to take the money from him. She left it with his people. She delivered it, hid it, and is making her way home. Wherever that is. Do you know where she comes from?”

His eyes went blank for a moment, two dark coals.

“She's from Boston,” he said, reaching over to grab the cigarettes. He shook one loose.

“You were talking about choices,” I said, feeling like the entire room was starting to swim hazy. “She wanted to leave you that choice. You can chase after her, or you can go get the money.” I dropped the cigarette in the ashtray like I was disgusted, like I was through. “I don't think you'll get both.”

“What about you?” There was something on his face I couldn't identify, which twisted and disfigured those pretty all-American features. “You're telling me you decide at the last minute to do the right thing, and screw yourself out of a quick break with the past, along with some big cash?”

I closed my eyes I rubbed my temples I fought off the sick.

“I made a mistake,” I said, not sure if I was talking about now or then. “All I want is for you to go away. Take your feds and your Arabs and all your national security bullshit and just go away. Just leave the South Bronx out of it.”

The music was a loud pounding and I didn't even know what it was, some rhythmic plodding monster with too much cowbell, too much timbales.

“I'll cover you,” he said. “You've got a deal. Can we get the fuck out of here now? This music is driving me crazy.”

20.

Monday morning.

Drizzle gray. Sidewalks stained a dark wet. Streets usual with cars, peds. Cops cruise lazy. Riot gates rattle upwards. Boxes of cheap sneakers outside a discount store. An electronics store booming bass tracks.

The row of fluorescents make musical clinking sounds as they wake. Escalators grr to step. The coffee machine sputters as it delivers. Elevators hum steady on test runs and blink lighted numbers. A certain stockboy lingers around the cuties at the cosmetics counter. Bankable realities, predictable even in sleep. There was no thread, no link. Alex could come and go at any time. Nothing would be altered. He would not be missed. It was the daily rut of life that hinted at permanence.

Monk told him it wasn't a bad thing, to remember. He gave him a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's book,
The Sirens of Titan
. It told the story of the army of Mars. It was made up of people kidnapped from earth. The people had been implanted with devices that caused them intense pain should they disobey by trying to remember who they were or where they really came from—from earth, the very place they were being trained to invade and destroy. Monk said it was almost the story of Puerto Rico. It was the first real good laugh that Alex shared with anyone all weekend. It was always true: When dessicated images rushed in, out of sequence, Monk was the best person to clear up the fog. He could hammer out the narrative, form bridges between moments. How funny that this time it seemed Monk who needed a bridge, who hung on
his
words, whose eyes showed wonder and amazement. Alex suspected that Monk did not believe what he had seen, a form of madness that served as inspiration. Alex confirmed reality, and in that same way Monk returned the favor. After he left Monk's, though, something else sank in. It was the return to the inner click of the clock. The return SNAP like typewriter carriage to the monotony of everyday ritual. It hit him worse today, the climbing solo into the tiny red Honda Civic, the driving solo to work, the sense of weary surrender to the obligations of another Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday workday.

Henderson's department store was a block thick, 149th Street to Westchester Avenue. Five floors, twenty-one departments. Leading the way in the grand redevelopment of the South Bronx hub. Incorporated several independent businesses on the ground floor, including a restaurant, a photo shop, and a shoe store that ran along the Third Avenue side. In its long window, shoes struck poses. This was where Alex found Benny after he pulled up the riot gates.

Benny's problem lately was shoes. He had developed a severe fixation with them. He cut pictures from magazines and newspapers. He was banned from Miki's parties, because at her house shoes are removed and lined up in the entryway, two by two. Benny swiped shoes, swapping sometimes for whatever he had on. He asked Alex for catalogs, for lists of the best shoe stores in town. Looked up foot fetish clubs and websites. And he started making regular appearances at the shoe store.

“Not again,” Alex said.

Benny was standing in front of the long window. Clutching a coffee and waiting for the curtain to go up on his favorite
vitrina
.

“Hey, I'm fine, thanks for asking,” he said. “You don't have to act like I need therapy or something. I only came to visit. Maybe check out those new men's casuals that came in last week.”

Benny followed him inside. The store was not open yet. Mac was still vacuuming carpets. Adrian and Douglas were unpacking the last shipment in the stockroom. They knew Benny. They all said hi. Benny looked awful nervous standing around all those tiers of shoes. The delicate way the high heels were tilted, posed ladylike to accentuate those curves—the strapless sandals, furry mules, studded suede. His face was shiny with sweat.

“I don't think you should be in here looking at shoes, man.”

“It's not the shoes, Alex. Fixations always have their roots in something else. It's always like that. A man who collects stamps has a licking fetish. I just came to see you. Say hi. I know it must have been a long weekend. What with the anniversary and all.”

“Anniversary?”

“Yeah, this weekend. You can't tell me you forgot. Damn, I feel like one of those spots on THE HISTORY CHANNEL.
This Week in History
. Something special happened this weekend. Can you remember what it was?”

“This Week in History.”
Alex covered his face with his hands for a moment. “The first woman to fly across the Atlantic. 1928. Amelia Earhart flew as a passenger in a plane that took twenty-four hours forty-nine minutes to cross the Atlantic.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“The plane was a Fokker FVII-b,” Alex said.

“The lengths some people go to. I meant something personal. Something that happened to YOU personally three months ago this weekend.”

Alex shook his head, walking toward the stockroom. “I don't remember.”

“You don't remember. You think I believe that?”

Benny was the kind of person who you walk away from, who follows. Belinda was the same. She liked to mark anniversaries. There was that one month anniversary, that two month anniversary, that third month. Alex always forgot. Now she was gone and there were no more anniversaries to forget. There was no point now in paying storage costs. He had planned to waste away the weekend in a mad, delirious blur. It might have been just that, if he had maybe followed Monica upstairs. Maybe then, no flowered dress hanging from his shower curtain rod.

“Considering all that,” Benny continued, “I thought it would be a very long weekend. The stiff need for extra medication. So I really only meant to ask you about the drinking.” A whole wall of ladies' pumps, climbing steep to stiletto, gave him pause. “So how's the drinking?”

“No,” Alex said.

“Is that what you've been doing, piling useless facts in there to cram out the unwanted? Amelia Earhart, Jesus Christ. Look, I brought you a coffee. Help sober you up. You know I don't drink coffee. I don't do stimulants of any kind. You know that.”

Benny tried to hand him the coffee but Alex wouldn't take it. He had pulled out feather duster number seventy-eight quill, and was stroking the curvy strapless sandals with it.

“Oh yeah,” Benny said, stepping back to watch. “Do that.”

Alex stopped stroking. He grabbed the coffee, uncapped it, took a sip. Mac had just finished vacuuming. Adrian put the finishing touches on a sign for the window.

“Okay, here.” Alex handed Benny the feather duster number seventy-eight quill. “Just look busy.”

Benny snatched that shit and began right away dusting, at first too furiously so the high heels fell over from his overeager. Alex had to calm him slow him remind him that the shoes weren't going anywhere. They were his captives, his willing playthings. He could take his time and treat them like ladies. And so Benny calmed down, gradually working himself up again so that by the time he got to the
chancletas
he was sheeny with sweat.

“Six months, three months, does it really matter? You probably meet a new woman every day. Every new one takes a coat of paint off the old one. Does it work like that? It's a cycle, a mechanism. It's always related to something else. Maybe guilt? You'd be surprised how often guilt comes up at all these encounter sessions, I've heard it a million times. It's all about habits, man. That's what I've learned. A cigarette, a drink, a cup of coffee—it becomes a habit. Habits are hard to break, unless you replace one habit with another. Andrew Weil says that. It's the same with dieting.”

He gave Alex a poke with the feather duster number seventy-eight quill.

“You have to burst the old bubble. You have to create a new habit, man.”

Benny escorted him outside as if he knew it was time for the cigarette to go with the coffee.

“Don't fool yourself.” Benny handed him the feather duster number seventy-eight quill. “By perpetrating these cycles of repetition, you keep the past alive. You're not getting over anything. On the contrary, you're making it a bigger part of your everyday life.”

Benny handed him a card.

“Sexaholics Anonymous?”

“That's right, bro. Could really help you. I have a FEAR OF CROWDS group session coming up. I gotta get on the subway.”

Benny gave him a pat on the shoulder, then headed up the block toward the train. He gave Alex a glance back, an admonitory finger-wagging.

Alex sipped the coffee. Lit a cigarette. Thought about her and felt a nervous twitch in his guts. He was thinking his life had always been meaningless. This memory-no-memory thing was just a symptom. A man wouldn't waste time trying to remember things that don't matter. He hadn't been trying to remember. His thing was forgetting. This time he felt differently about that. He had never had to think about this process before. It was unconscious, a result, whether drinking or not, whether some button he unconsciously pressed or not. This time, he was thinking about it.

Alex was thinking that he wanted to remember. He wanted to see her clearly, coming and going. He wanted to remember every moment that went down, whether bed whether fire escape window whether she was whispering in his ear. “I was never here.” He had never been around anyone who tried to make him forget. That was new.

He was staring across the street now, at the grandiose Banco Popular. The permission letter that she had in her things had this address on it. It was one of those little synchronicities that left him a little more pensive.

“I think you'll see her again,” Monk had said. Why? Why did he get that feeling?

“I think you're wrong,” Alex had replied, as Monk walked him downstairs. They'd stopped by Hector's newsstand on the corner, the place where Monk punctually picked up his daily copy of EL DIARIO. “I have enough meaningless experiences. Maybe it's why I prefer to forget.”

Monk had seemed to accept that as he nodded to Hector and grabbed his copy of the newspaper. “But maybe the thing isn't so much about how meaningless things are,” he said, “as how much meaning you are willing to give them.”

Now out on the street he started to think about the meaning or not-meaning of wasting his time working in the shoe store today. He had no desire to go back in there and try to have a normal day. He had never felt such a strong impulse to just walk away from it. When Adrian came out looking for him, he felt like smacking the guy.

“What is it? What? Can't you do anything yourself? Can't a guy have a cigarette in peace?”

Adrian grinned. “You're crabby,” he said.

The coffee left a black stain on the sidewalk.