Fresh Kills Page 20

  “You asked me before and I told you, yes. I have to believe it. Otherwise it’s just some kind of Stalinist hell we’re living in where everything is determined. But you have to take care of him, either way. You love him, so you’ll look after him. That’s it.”

  “That simple?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what Tolya said.”

  “Tolya has wonderful emotional intelligence,” Lily said. “You wouldn’t always think it, not the way he acts like a hood and his business deals, but he has perfect pitch for what matters. I thought that the first time I met him.” She smiled. “In spite of his outfits.”

  “Sometimes I get jealous of you and Tolya. I mean sometimes I think you love him.”

  “I do love him. Don’t be jealous, though.” Lily patted my hand awkwardly, then pulled her hand away, picked up her glass, finished the drink. “I ought to go, Artie. I promised you, remember? When you got married to Maxine, I promised that I’d leave you be, I’d be good. I think I keep saying that, don’t I?” said Lily. “It was me that fucked things up with us, Artie, darling, it was me that ran away and married a man in London with a small designer car,” she smiled.

  “It was all my fault. Do you remember when you took me up on the ferris wheel in London that New Year’s Eve, the London Eye, you remember? You had a ring and everything and I just told you to forget it? It was a long time ago and I was a jerk. Listen, we had ten years together and then I ran away, and you found Maxine, and I don’t want to screw things up for you anymore, so I should go. I seem to be saying that a lot. I’m trying.”

  For a while, we sat side by side, Lily and me, leaning on the counter, listening to Bill Evans, not looking at each other.

  “Please stay,” I said. “Please.”

  Lily got up, went to where Billy slept on the couch and looked down at him.

  “He looks so much like you.”

  “You see that?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “I’ll stay a while.”

  She kicked off her sandals and settled into the big sloppy armchair where I sat sometimes and watched games on TV.

  I went over to her.

  “Not here,” I said. “Please.”

  Lily lay beside me, sleeping. Wide awake, I listened to her breathing. It was raining. I could hear the rain hitting the windows, and all I could think was that the windows needed washing, and maybe the rain would clean off some of the dirt and dust. I reached over and touched Lily’s long smooth back, but I let her sleep.

  For a while, a few minutes, or hours, I didn’t know because I didn’t look at my watch, I felt OK, and I knew I felt OK for the first time in a long time, since Lily left me. It was a kind of contentment.

  My father had never liked America. It wasn’t because of the politics. In the KGB, he had admired the opposition’s tactics back during the Cold War. I wished he could have come to New York.

  What he didn’t like was the idea of America, the obsession with happiness. It made people into idiots, he said, and what the hell was it? Contentment was the thing you wanted, he used to tell me. Happiness passed, he always said; happiness was fleeting, like Dynamo scoring a goal in the last second of the match.

  I don’t know, but I felt content. And happy. With Lily next to me, and Billy in the other room, I felt deeply happy. It was as if this was my real family.

  With Maxine, who was my wife, and her children, who were my stepdaughters, and who I cared for a lot, I sometimes felt restless. I had to try too hard, felt I was living the life I ought to want, the fantasy of a life other people thought I should have, the life they lived.

  That night in my loft with Lily and Billy, it all felt real.

  I thought it and then I began feeling lousy. I was a fuck-up. Maxine and the girls went out of town, and I was in bed with Lily. Tolya Sverdloff had been right when he told me once that I could never be happy without Lily. It had stayed with me. You’ll never give her up, Tolya had said. You’ll end up one of those sad old men who can’t stay with one woman.

  Part Four

  Friday July 8

  23

  By the time a smudgy gray light showed in the window, Lily was gone. I must have fallen back asleep, and while I was sleeping she got up and went home. I felt better because she had been there, and empty now she was gone.

  My bruises were killing me, and there were purple patches on my legs where the bastard had kicked me. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and reached for a pack of cigarettes I kept hidden from myself under the mattress. When I couldn’t find them, still naked, I went into the other room hoping Billy had a pack.

  “Billy?”

  The sheets and blankets he’d used were neatly folded at the end of the couch. It was freezing in the big room with its high ceilings, and I went and turned off the air conditioner. Under the unit, Billy had plugged his cell phone into the wall to charge it. I picked it up.

  He had been taking pictures with it. There was a picture of me, and one of Lily – she looked very pretty in it – that I was staring at when I heard a key in the door. I scrambled to plug the phone back into the socket, then I ran into the bedroom, climbed into a pair of jeans and grabbed a gun I kept in my sock drawer.

  “Artie?”

  I dropped the gun, and went into the living room where Billy was standing, keys in one hand, in the other a cardboard tray that held coffee cups. Under his arm was a bag. He set the tray on the kitchen counter and unpacked the bag.

  “I went over to your friend’s coffee shop across the street, I got us some breakfast,” said Billy placing food from the bag alongside the coffee. “Coffee the way you like it, the guy, Mr Rizzi, told me, and toasted bagels, cinnamon raisin for me, and poppy seed for you, and plain for Lily – I hope that’s OK for her – and I also got a couple of jelly donuts, and Mr Rizzi gave me a slice of blueberry pie to eat while I was waiting. Is that OK?” He was anxious as he arranged the food. “Where’s Lily?”

  From his perch on a kitchen stool, Billy watched me carefully, his face pinched with concern.

  “It’s great,” I said. “I really needed some coffee, come on,” I climbed up next to him. I pulled the lip off the coffee carton; the steam felt good on my face.

  “Where is she?”

  “Lily had to go home.”

  “She’s so incredibly cool,” said Billy. “She came over, and she made us sandwiches, and she gave me all kinds of books.” He scooped some books up off a stool. “Look.” He put them out on the counter. “Baseball books,” he said, showing me The Boys of Summer and The Natural. “Stuff about fishing, an old-time one called The Compleat Angler. Also Lord of the Flies, which I read for English class, but I wanted to read over. Another one by Joseph Conrad. Lily’s so awesome. I think she actually likes me, not just because she’s your friend. She’s funny, Artie. She made me laugh so much. What’s the matter? You look weird.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me your parents called from London to say they were OK?”

  “Didn’t my dad call you?”

  “It took a while.”

  “My dad said he was calling you as soon as we got off the phone, honest to God, Artie, you know I would have called you, but he said he couldn’t stay on because he wanted to talk to you,” Billy said. “My mom is freaking out.”

  A glass of juice in his hand, Billy seemed distracted. He got off the stool and went to the couch. He dug his hands into the cushions, got down on his knees, searching for something, and then looked up, panic running across the handsome features.

  “What is it?” I said, drinking the good coffee and starting on a donut. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find my phone.”

  “You plugged it in the wall to charge, didn’t you? I mean you probably did,” I said. “Right?”

  Billy went to the socket underneath the middle window.

  “How did you know?” He looked up.

  “I just figured it made sense.”

  “I’m sorry about not telling you
my dad called sooner.” Billy’s tone was cool, as he unplugged his phone and headed towards the bathroom.

  “You OK?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing, Artie, OK? Nothing.” He was holding his cell phone. “I’m just going to take a shower, is that all right?”

  On TV that morning there was a story about a two-year-old boy who almost got caught in a garbage truck somewhere in the boroughs; I didn’t catch which borough, though it looked like Queens or Staten Island.

  The house had a medium-size lawn out front, and the distraught garbage collector was on the screen. The boy was in his mother’s arms, and she looked afraid to let him go.

  The boy had crawled into a green canvas duffel bag that got tossed into a black garbage bag, and then a big garbage can lying near the front of the house. The garbage man picked up the bag and tossed it into the truck, turned on the motor; the compactor started grinding.

  “I hear a scream,” says the garbage man in his accented English – he might have been from somewhere in the Balkans – to the camera. “I hear terrible scream and I run to turn off the compactor, and I see his little hands and arms coming up out of the garbage bag, struggling to get out.” He nods. “Yes. Three, four, ten seconds maybe before he is crushed. I get him free.”

  Cross-legged on the floor, holding his phone in both hands, Billy watched the TV attentively.

  It was raining out, a dull, crummy kind of day, and I knew he was disappointed because he’d counted on us going fishing. He was mad because he knew I’d looked at his phone. An irritating flicker of tension snapped around the room, like an insect you can’t kill.

  I stayed at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee and working out what the hell to do. I had to nail Stan Shank.

  For the first time since I picked Billy up in Florida, he seemed restless, like he wanted to get away, or maybe he was just plain mad. He watched some more TV. Got up. Got a donut and ate half of it. Went to the bathroom. Washed his face. He was jumpy and so was I.

  When he came back from the bathroom, he fooled around with an electric scooter Tolya got him at the toy store. He didn’t want to talk. He thought I was treating him like a little boy. I told him I was thinking Johnny and Genia would be back the next day. “Fine,” said Billy. Nothing else.

  “What did you think of the movie yesterday?” I said.

  “It was OK.”

  “I thought some of the scenes where the people were fleeing, you know, were really pretty good,” I said. “Even if the creatures, the tripods, were kind of silly. Tripods, is that what they call them?” My own words sounded hollow to me.

  “Whatever,” Billy said.

  “The end was ridiculous, really sentimental.”

  “Same as in the book,” said Billy. “Same as HG Wells. I mean if it followed the book why was it ridiculous? I think it was great.”

  “You read the book?”

  He turned back to the TV.

  “What’s eating you, man?” I said finally.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on.”

  “Please, Artie, I just need to sit for a while, OK?” Billy picked up a book and started reading.

  I went into the bedroom and I was changing my shirt when Billy came in.

  “I’m sorry, Artie.”

  I turned around. Billy stared at me.

  “You’re all banged up.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Panic in his voice, he said, “Shouldn’t you go to some doctor or something? Are you going to be all right?”

  I pulled the shirt over my head.

  “I’m sorry,” said Billy. “I really am. I just feel sort of weirded out, I mean being with those people yesterday, and I know some of them, at least Mr Provone, know all about me, know what happened before, and then the movie and not knowing about my parents. I’m just a little strange today, it’s OK, but I shouldn’t be mean to you, you’re the last person on earth I want to upset. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey. You’re allowed. You want to talk at all?”

  He sat on the edge of my bed.

  “I’m scared, Artie. I know some of what’s been going on, like that car following us, and people calling and you being worried about me, and I know someone wants me back in Florida or maybe not around at all. You think I’m nuts?” Billy said. “Sometimes I believe what people said, that I’m wacko or I’m some kind of bad, what do you call it, bad seed, or evil, or something, and then I think, what would I do if it’s true? Where would I go?”

  I hadn’t seen Billy cry before; sitting on my bed, his eyes teared up and he rubbed his fists in them like a little boy.

  “You’re not nuts. You’re not bad. Shit really does happen is all,” I said.

  He wrapped his arms around himself and I sat down next to him and said, “It’ll be OK. I’ll make sure it’s OK. You believe me?”

  “I believe you,” he said. “I don’t want to make trouble for you, I hate that idea, I think people could hurt you because of me, I don’t want that.” He sat up straight, rubbed his eyes dry and said, “I’m good now. I’m fine.”

  “I really need your help.”

  Billy lit up. “You mean I can really help you on a case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. Great. I’ll do anything. Tell me.”

  “I’m going to really trust you.”

  “You can trust me, I swear.”

  “I have to go out, and I’m not going to get someone to stay with you, so you know I trust you, OK?”

  “Yes. For sure.”

  “I need you to be here and pay attention to anything that happens. I need you to listen for any calls. I need you to write down the names of anyone who calls and any messages. If anyone delivers anything, I want you to tell them to leave it downstairs near the mail boxes. I need you to watch from the window and see what’s happening on the street. Make notes. Take pictures. You can use your phone. Your phone has a camera?”

  “You already know it does.”

  “Can you do all that?”

  “Sure,” he said, but he was disappointed.

  Billy knew I had fabricated work for him when he wanted to work a real case with me. I saw it in his eyes. Not for the first time, I saw my father’s cool blue eyes in Billy’s. Maybe the intensity was genetic, too, except I didn’t believe in the bullshit genetics that made you a creature of your ancestors.

  “Artie?”

  There was something different about Billy now, a tiny change in the way he looked at me. Knowing I had half made up work for him, he felt betrayed.

  He returned the high five I gave him. He made a joke about Sherlock Holmes. But when I went downstairs and looked up, he was in the window, leaning on the wide sill. He waved a yellow pad and a pen, but he didn’t smile.

  Pain shot up my arm as I closed the heavy front door to my loft building. I didn’t have time to see a doctor. It was Friday already and Max was coming with the twins on Sunday. She didn’t want Billy around. I had to figure out what to do with him.

  I got Johnny Farone on the first try. He promised he’d get a flight the next day, come hell or high water. He said it, come hell or high water, Artie; if I have to leave Genia in London, I’ll get a plane. Saturday. For sure. I want to see my boy, he said. I told Johnny that I’d seen his sister, Tina, and he asked about her mournfully and told me he didn’t get to see her much.

  “I love Little Tina,” said Johnny. “Her and Gen doesn’t get along that good,” he added. “I wish I was at home, Artie. I mean I just want to be home, you know. I don’t even understand half what they’re saying over here.”

  “Yeah, well have a safe trip.”

  I crossed the street to Mike Rizzi’s coffee shop where I sat at the counter. Nobody else was in the place. I held up a pack of cigarettes, Mike nodded and I lit up.

  “Friday, thank Christ,” Mike said. “I’m tired.”

  Friday. If I could pin the business with the dolls in the
warehouse on Stan Shank, or at least implicate him or his creeps for attacking me, if I could convince Sonny Lippert to pick him up, maybe I could keep Billy safe from Shank for a while.

  I drank a cup of coffee and accepted a piece of cherry pie that Mike said was a new recipe, which included lemon zest. The Times had written him up for his pies. On the wall, framed in gold, the article hung next to the 9/11 memorial portrait of dead firemen in heaven. Beside it on a shelf was a small TV, which Mike had tuned in to Fox News, which was showing the attacks in London. I thought about how many times I had sat here, smoking, eating pie, looking at disaster on that TV.

  Mike, tanned from his vacation in Greece, glanced up, and shook his head, and went back to reading a pie magazine. I was already on the phone, calling Lippert, then Britz, trying to find some information on the dolls. Stan Shank had been a cop, so his fingerprints would be available for a match. I closed my phone.

  “You want to talk, Artie?” Mike Rizzi asked, looking up from Pie Annual.

  “I don’t know,” I said.”

  “Good pie, right? Fresh cherries, man, this is the best season I ever seen, red, white, every kind of cherries, big as marbles, bigger. You have to use fresh, you can’t freeze them like blueberries, I got ten quarts of blueberries out in my freezer out back in the alley, but I put them in Ziploc bags, two cups each makes a perfect pie, but I’m saving them for fall when there’s only apples and pears, you know? I use a little brown sugar,” said Mike. “I thought about getting rid of that fucking freezer, some months I don’t even use it, but what the fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’m just in a mood,” said Mike. “Stuff in London got to me.”

  “I have to go, Mike. Can you do me a favor?” I could ask Mike pretty much anything. He kept an eye on everyone on the block, it was his turf, and I’d known him since I moved in.

  “Sure.”

  “My nephew, you know, Billy?”

  “Yeah, he was in the other day, wanted some ice cream, right, came in for breakfast this morning.”

  “Could you keep an eye on him. I mean you have my keys, could you run up in a couple hours, just make sure he’s OK, bring him some donuts, something, so he doesn’t think I told you.”