The Sea Beach Line (27 page)

Asher looked at Rayna and blinked. His mouth opened, then snapped shut. He picked a few objects from his pile, stuffed them into the pockets of his shorts, and tied the ripped Skynyrd shirt around his head like a turban. He looked at Rayna, then at me, his eyes filled with
confusion. Then he turned and headed off through the plaza, toward West Third Street.

“May God comfort you,” Rayna said, as he walked away, “among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”

Mendy came over and asked what it had all been about.

“He was really worked up,” I said. “Manic. Freaking out.”

“Yes,” said Rayna. “He was sad because his mother died. He's sitting shiva. Or he's supposed to be. His behavior can be forgiven, in these seven days.”

“The thing is,” said Mendy, “Asher's mother has been dead for three years.”

I went and sat down beside Rayna on the curb. There were tears in her eyes. I wondered if it was just that Asher's behavior had upset her, or if the encounter with the spirit world had drained her. Maybe she missed her own mother, who she'd mentioned the first time she lit Shabbos candles. I imagined my mother dying but didn't feel like crying, much less like going crazy and tearing up my clothes. Did this mean I was coldhearted or that I didn't have a very good imagination?

“This is bad,” Rayna said. “He should let his mother go.”

“Maybe he's sad about Milton,” I said. “He lost his only friend. Maybe that pushed him over the edge, and he's confused.” What would I do if I lost Rayna?

“Maybe that's so,” she said. “But then he should let his mother go, and mourn for Milton.”

I felt guilty about not speaking to my mother in so long. It wasn't because I was too busy; I had made a decision not to talk to her. She was no longer part of Al's world and had made a dedicated effort to make sure I wasn't either. If I talked to her, she would pull me back when what I needed was to pull close to Al. Though I wasn't talking to my family, they felt close because I kept seeing them in Al's sketchbooks.

Asher's junk was still lying on the sidewalk. The crumpled flannel shirt looked like a dead dog lying on its side. I understood why my mother felt the way she did about Al. He hadn't been a good husband. I once asked him about his relationship with my mother, when I was
fourteen or fifteen. Why had she kicked him out? Or why had he left? Didn't he love her? Didn't he love us? Where had he gone when he finally left?

“After your mother and I were split up?” he said. “I went upstate and worked at the Selkirk train yard.” We were eating onion rings at the Thessaloniki Diner in Sheepshead Bay. “These railroad jobs are very hard to get in America, but my old rasar—that would be like master sergeant in the U.S. Army—had become a big shot with Zim Shipping, working out of Virginia headquarters, so he called in a favor for me with his contacts at Conrail.” Al's stories always had a hookup, a connection to make things happen. I wished I had a connection like that now, to put me in touch with Al.

“Let me tell you what it has been like: one time, they have us cleaning up a derailment just about thirty, forty miles south of the yard. Engineer fucked up, went off the rails. It was tankers mainly, that they had been pulling, and there were pools of spilled chemicals all over the ground. A lot of it was bound for the Fisher-Price toy factory. They were still manufacturing the toys in America. They were still a couple years from going over to China.” Alojzy picked up three onion rings and shoved them in his mouth. He chewed them for a minute, then washed them down with the last of his beer and continued talking.

“It was the middle of the night, in nowhere upstate New York, but from somewhere comes this scruffles dog. Stray, no collar. He trots right up and starts drinking from one of the pools. We chased him off, but he keeps coming back. He had these big eyes, and these big floppy ears.

“I chased him off as far as I could. ‘
Yallah, kelev
.
Yallah yallah
.' But we are in full protective gear, and in my hazmat suit, I couldn't run so well. I felt like I was a cosmonaut running on the moon.

“And this dog. He was running with me, nipping at the baggy legs of the suit. He thought we were having fun, playing games. Finally, I hit him in the side of the ass with a rock, and he ran off to the top of a hill. Not a hill, just a little rise, but out of reach of my rock throw.

“He lay down low—not resting, but prone like a sniper—and looked back at me. He had the most betrayed look on his face. You
don't think of a dog as having such strong expressions on his face. But let me tell you,”—my father gestured at me with his empty beer bottle—“when your mother found out I cheated on her, the look on her face was not half as devastating.” I didn't like hearing my father say that, even though it was really the answer to the question I'd asked, or part of it. I knew that Al had hurt Ruth. Even though I didn't like what Ruth's choices meant for me, I knew she hadn't made them out of cruelty, but out of self-preservation. Al's story didn't end there.

“I went back to work. I could not worry about a stray dog's hurt feelings. We had work to do. A derailed train to clean up. This is a six-thousand-ton train, a dozen tankers ripped open, thousands of gallons of chemicals spilled. We came back the next night, and that dog was lying there, dead.”

13

REPOINTING IS THE PROCESS
of renewing mortar joints in masonry construction. It's necessary, from time to time, because the mortar goes quicker than the stones. I didn't know this until the contractors began to repoint the big red blocks of NYU's Bobst Library. The scaffolding slowed foot traffic on West Fourth, but that was preferable to having the stones fall on our heads. I kept watching the dealers in the park; their business didn't slow at all.

The repointing work started on a Monday, and was still going on Thursday. Rayna and I sat on the curb with Sonya, listening to one of her tales of woe. She and Lionel had been planning on sleeping on the subway the night before, but Lionel drunkenly pissed on the platform, right in front of a cop. He had some warrants for open containers, and got taken to the Tombs. Too scared to fall asleep by herself on the train, Sonya spent the whole night sitting up awake.

“Why don't you go take a nap in the park?” I suggested.

“Nah,” Sonya said. “I'm too wired now. There's no point in trying to sleep. Listen, I'm a Quaker. But sometimes I think about murdering that idiot. I'll put rat poison in his Steel Reserve.”

One of the masonry workers approached the table as we were talking, and awkwardly pretended to survey our selection. When I came over to see what he was after, he pulled a thick folded manila envelope from a side pocket of his tool belt and jabbed it at me.

“What's this?” I asked, not reaching for it. Roman hadn't said anything to me about passing on another envelope. If it was something else, I wanted to be careful.

“It's a scam,” said Sonya. “Or a subpoena. Subpoena servers like to put on disguises. Don't touch it.”

“Is it a subpoena?” I asked him. I didn't know what I could be subpoenaed for, but it seemed like a possibility. Maybe the storage space was evicting me? Maybe I was being sued by the family of the kid who went insane from the acid? Maybe Al was being sued for something, and they didn't know where to serve it? Could he be running from something as mundane as a lawsuit? Maybe it was a grand jury subpoena.

“Don't speak English,” the worker said with a thick Slavic accent.

“
Govarish po Rusky
?” I tried.

“Look,” he said, in English. “I'm not involved. I'm just to give you this.” He jabbed the paper again, and I took it. “I go back to work now.”

Could this be a message from Al? Had he heard that I was selling on West Fourth Street, and found a way to send me a package?

I left Rayna to watch the table and went off into the park to open the envelope. Whatever this was about, I didn't need the news broadcast all over the street. I ripped the paper eagerly.

Inside the envelope was a cell phone. Was Al only a phone call away? In the bottom of the envelope I found a slip of paper that read, “Call Roman. Number in phone.” My heart sank when I saw that the name was Roman, not Al. Still, it could be something worthwhile.

The contacts only listed one number, and it didn't have a name listed. I pressed “call.”

“
Allo
.”

“Roman,” I said. “It's Izzy.”

“I know. I have this number. It's absurd I had to buy you a phone to get in touch with you. It is pay-as-you-go, so no name attached, but still, be careful what you say on a cell phone.”

“Okay. Thank you. Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?” It must be something urgent if he didn't want to wait for my periodic phone call. Maybe Al had been located? Maybe this
was
a message from Al, in a roundabout way.

“Yes, of course there is. You might be willing,” Roman asked, “to do a larger favor for us?” No message from Al, and no news of Al. Fine. At least it was a chance to further develop my connection with Roman and Timur.

“Absolutely,” I said. Roman had not gone to such lengths to arrange the previous, smaller favors, so this had to be something more important. I was pleased to have the chance to prove myself to the men who had known my father. I wanted to show that I was as strong and reliable as he was, and would do any job that he would do.

“Good. I am glad. I happen to be coming through the area this afternoon. But I would prefer not to be seen too near the park. Can you get away from the books for a few minutes?”

I was eager to hear about this “larger favor.” There were intrigues afoot. I had speculated about blackmail and fraud when I held the files. Goldov had referenced Al's involvement in buying and selling something illicit. Timur mentioned art at the restaurant. It could be anything. The true natures of the other favors were obscured by layers of paper and cardboard. There was going to be a conversation about this one, though. The covers would be opened.

At three p.m., I left Rayna to cover the table, and went to meet Roman in the spot he designated, a bench on LaGuardia Place next to the statue of the old mayor himself. Roman had a cap pulled down over his face, but his bulky figure was hard to miss.

“Izzy, thank you for meeting me.” He didn't rise to greet me.

“My pleasure.” I sat down, and we shook hands.

“How is business today?”

“It's going fine.”

“Fine. Good. I won't keep you long, then. I asked you about some men, about ten days ago.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“They have all been in the park almost every day. They seem to be the main guys selling, in fact. Lots of customers. They start earlier than any other dealers.” Roman nodded.

“This was my understanding. Thank you for helping to confirm it. You see, because of the police attention, no one can keep their stuff in the park itself.” I nodded, thinking about Malachi sending Merlin off on his bicycle. “So the stuff is kept in spots on Sixth Avenue, and the men come to get it from there.

“As in any business, there are rules. The problem is, the man that runs one of these distribution points, a newsstand, does not want to play by the rules anymore. He has tried to cut the usual supplier—a friend of ours—out of the equation. The men whose name I gave you are no longer buying from our friends, and yet they are still well supplied. We have had eyes on the newsstand itself, but your eyes in the park help confirm this also.” Roman's eyes darted around, making sure no one had come within hearing distance of us. “And all this is no good. When things are upturned like this . . . it causes problems for everyone, not just the supplier losing money. It causes chaos. Is bad for everyone in the park. Do you follow?”

“Sure,” I said. “I'm with you.” Everyone had a set of rules. The police had the state's law. Religious Jews had halacha. Roman was talking about a law of the streets, now. A code amongst criminals. I didn't know this set of rules was different or better than any other, but if it was the law Al followed, I'd try to follow it too.

“Good. Now, this is where you come in. Listen closely. No, no, put the pen back in your pocket. Don't write this down, just remember. Tomorrow morning, you will leave your storage space earlier than usual.” It made me uncomfortable that he knew what my normal departure time was, but it was no secret. “Be on the corner of West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue at five a.m. You got all this?”

This was the moment when I could have said, no, I didn't get all this. I would not be on that corner at that time. I didn't want to know about the drug business. I didn't want to help faceless people stay in power. But then, I had already made my decision about the situation, without even realizing it, when I agreed to watch the dealers, and
report on their actions. Maybe I had made the decision even earlier than that, when I moved into the storage space.

“Got it,” I said. Tough guys were making moves, and the drama would unfold with or without me. Better with me. I wanted to know every hidden thing and see how the strings were pulled. I had come this far and wasn't going to back out now, not like I had all those years before.