Fresh Kills Read online

  We were neighbors, Sonny and me. He had moved to a building in Battery Park City first, before Maxine and I moved into ours a few blocks away. We didn’t run into each other much, so I was surprised when I saw him.

  With the Hudson behind us, we leaned against the railing. Sonny looked up at the apartment buildings clustered here, a few blocks west of what had been the World Trade Center and was now a hole in the ground.

  “Listen, Art, man, I’m so sorry I was hounding you earlier. I’m fucked up with this case. I was waiting out here, hoping you’d come by, you know, so I could apologize. I get into that drift, you know, I get so fucked up with my past, thinking about the old days, my parents, I dream about them, I dream about falling between the crack in their beds like I did when I was a kid, only I keep on falling, and there are these other little kids only they’re missing limbs. Never mind. You think I’m fucking nuts, right?”

  “Sonny, it’s fine. Look, I’ll come over one night and we can listen to some music, right? What do you need from me?”

  “So I was waiting ’cause I wanted to apologize for the way I was with Billy Farone, I was just surprised to see him, you know, and also to ask you again if you could maybe help me out on Staten Island. This is for real, not to divert you from whatever you need to do or anything. It’s just for Rhonda. She feels lousy that she didn’t help these people, and there’s nothing she can do and she’s kind of obsessed with it. She already went and took food and money. The woman talks some English, but she needs someone who can speak the lingo. I don’t even mind riding out with you, like tomorrow morning, for instance. I have someone I need to see anyhow. I could do that, Art. I know the lay of the land out there in Staten, if you want me to come.”

  “So why don’t you do it?”

  “I can’t get involved with Rhonda’s personal stuff while I’m on the job.”

  “OK,” I said. “Sure. I owe Rhonda.”

  “You don’t owe her.”

  The champagne had warmed me up. “Yeah, I do. I owe her for taking care of you when you were fucking dying in the hospital, and her sleeping over in your room every night and busting their ass at St Vincent’s if they didn’t do the right stuff for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I said goodnight and set off for home, then I turned back.

  “You hear anything about the plane crash earlier?” I said.

  Sonny told me that the people in the smashed-up plane on the beach were a Russian family. Only the father survived along with the pilot, and the father was still critical.

  Lippert didn’t think them being Russian meant anything, just figured he’d pass it on to me. Didn’t think any of it meant a thing, except that people who took little kids up in planes like that were idiots. The plane had come from a place over in Jersey.

  “I talked to someone who talked to Cohen and I think we can forget it being anything except a sightseeing plane,” said Sonny. “The other Cohen, that is, man.” David Cohen was the city’s anti-terrorist czar and Sonny had a line to him like he had to everyone in town. “It was like they said on TV, it was an accident, the plane was a piece of crap and it broke up. And it doesn’t mean dick, you know, that kills me, man.”

  “Sure.”

  “You think they’ll ever put a building up where the fucking Twin Towers were, man?”

  “I don’t know, Sonny.”

  “They been fighting over that space like dogs over a bone. Jesus.”

  “Yeah, sure. Now they’re telling us the towers were never built to withstand a bad attack. Poor bastards died in it, maybe for no reason. You believe that?”

  Sonny looked up at the buildings again and then he laughed, a short snort of a laugh.

  “You remember how after 9/11 they said Bernie Kerik took an apartment where he could see right into the pit?” Lippert said.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Our beloved police chief, Christ, he was something. They said he used to pass out plaster busts of himself to people. They said he liked to go out on the balcony with his girlfriend, what was her name, Judith something, the publishing one, and she would lean over the railing with him behind her and they’d do it looking down at the pit. After all, 9/11 was what made him a hero, and he liked that, so that’s where he liked doing it with his girlfriend.” Lippert laughed. “You think it’s just urban legend?”

  “Who knows?” I said.

  “Artie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s Billy?”

  I gestured towards my building. “Upstairs. Asleep.”

  “Take him home to his parents, Art, man, as soon as possible, to avoid any trouble. I won’t say any more.”

  “What kind of trouble, Sonny? What do you mean?”

  “You know, man, keep the boy safe.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “You probably know what you’re doing, man.”

  “You sucking up to me?”

  “In your dreams, man.” Sonny said. “But you told Maxine you have the boy with you in the apartment, right? You should tell her. Go home and get some sleep. I got to go, too. I got some calls to make. I’m going to get the bastards who did the little girl in Jersey and all the others. I’m going to break whoever it is. See you tomorrow.”

  As soon as I opened the door to the apartment, I knew something was different. Couldn’t describe it. A smell. A feeling. I’d been snooping around apartments a long time and it just came to me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was drunker than I knew. Some of my CDs were on the table and I couldn’t remember if I’d left them there, but so what? So what if Billy got up and played some music? But what if someone else had been here?

  When I checked on Billy he was still asleep in the room where I’d left him – I’d never seen anyone conk out so completely – blanket over his head, feet sticking out at the bottom.

  In my bedroom, the shirt I’d taken off when I changed was on the bed where I left it, but it was folded differently, I thought. Maybe not. My head was fuzzy and I got undressed, then I put my pants back on and went downstairs to look for Jorge, the doorman, who was out front smoking.

  Jorge said that Billy had not come down from the apartment at all. He said he also went up to check on him once. Yeah, Jorge said he had been in the lobby the whole time, except for going to the bathroom once and out on his dinner break for like ten minutes. Just to pick up a breakfast burrito even though it was his dinner because he liked the burritos, homemade, he said, at the corner deli. Good coffee, too. A black and white cookie was what he had for dessert, though some of the time he went for an oatmeal raisin cookie or, if it was hot, maybe a Haagen Dazs chocolate-covered ice cream bar. Like everyone in New York, Jorge’s every meal was a complicated story.

  I didn’t think Jorge was lying about Billy, but his dinner break made me uneasy. I took the elevator back up and the woman in it stared at me because I wasn’t wearing a shirt. I couldn’t tell if she was disgusted or interested. I really was pretty drunk.

  “Tell Maxine,” Sonny had said.

  I didn’t want to lie to Max. I didn’t want to make a mess of things this time. We were married, I loved her, and we were friends. She wasn’t going to fall apart because I had Billy in the house for a few days. Why would she?

  Maxine was plenty tough. She was a 9/11 widow, and she had worked forensics in the days when they were bringing in pieces of the firemen who died; her husband had been one of them. They never found him, not even a little piece of finger, she always said. Not even a finger.

  I looked at my watch. It was one in the morning. Ten in San Diego. I dialed Maxie’s cell and waited.

  “Hi,” she said. “Hi!”

  “Where are you? Did I call too late?”

  “We’re on a dinner cruise in the harbor. It is so entirely gorgeous here, honey, I so wish that you were with us, it’s just beautiful. San Diego is so clean! The girls adore it, and they like their cousins, and wait a sec, no, never mind, they’re up on the dec
k. I think maybe I had a few too many glasses of wine, so if you think I sound silly, blame the vino. Also, I can’t believe this, but we met a retired guy who lives around here, he was sitting near us on the boat for a while, he says he actually designed the first space buggy, the thing they rode around in on the moon, this real American inventor type of guy. Back when. Said in those days he slept on a waterbed. He was reminiscing, don’t think they were connected. It’s so cool how people out here just talk to you. What’s up?”

  Max was exuberant, and I could picture her, long limbs stretched out, a glass of wine in her hand, engaged, chatty, charming everyone she met, including some guy who told her he designed the space buggy. At forty, Maxine looked ten years younger. She was smart and practical and she loved me. I didn’t want to lie to her. Still, I was nervous about Billy.

  I said, “Hey, are you smoking? Did I hear you exhale?”

  “I had one. I couldn’t help it. You?”

  “Me too,” I said. “I’m trying, but I had a drink with Tolya and I cheated. He wants to buy a wine bar.”

  “Jeez,” said Maxine.

  “I miss you.”

  “Me too. A lot.”

  “I have something I have to tell you,” I said.

  “You won the lottery?”

  “I wish.”

  “You won the lottery and you lost the ticket, but I love you anyway. Do you care that we’re always sort of broke?” Maxine said. “Do you wish you’d married some rich girl?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “OK, I’m a knucklehead as my uncles would have said. You could have married a rich one,” said Maxine. “You were hot when I met you.”

  Glad to avoid what I had to tell her, I said, “What do you mean ‘were’ hot?”

  “You’re married now.”

  “So it’s fun out there?”

  “Oh, Artie, honey, it’s amazing, the sun shines, the beaches are great, the zoo was fantastic, the girls are in heaven, I just so totally wish you were here. What is it? What were you going to tell me?”

  I told her. I said that I had picked up Billy Farone in Florida, like I’d told her, because his parents were away. I also told her he was here with me for a few days until they came back.

  What for, Maxine asked me, her voice crisp now. What did you do that for, she said. They should never have let the kid out. She told me she knew how I felt about Billy but it wasn’t my job to take care of him. Billy has parents, she said.

  “Listen to me,” said Maxine. “He killed a man.”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Artie? You there?”

  “It was complicated,” I said.

  “No.”

  “He’s different now. You’ll see. He’s fine.”

  “I don’t want to see,” she said. “I don’t want him anywhere near where my girls are, or our apartment, not now, or later. I don’t want anyone knowing he’s there. It makes us a target,” Maxine added. “If he’s there, then take him someplace else. I don’t want him around, and I don’t want to talk about it either.”

  “Wow, that’s tough.”

  “I’m sorry if you think so.”

  “You’ll see how different he is,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to see.”

  *

  In bed, I spent a lot of the night staring at the ceiling. It was Wednesday morning now. There wasn’t much noise, not even a garbage truck, just the distant hoot of a tug on the river. I saw the clock at three, again at four, and all I could think about was Maxine’s chilly tone when she refused to discuss Billy with me.

  I didn’t remember falling asleep. In the morning my head was killing me from a hangover. I reached for the phone to call Maxine, but it was five a.m. in California. There wasn’t much to talk about anyway. She didn’t want Billy here.

  Part Two

  Wednesday July 6

  10

  “Wake up, Artie.” Billy was standing over me with a glass of orange juice in his hand. He was wearing faded jeans, a denim shirt and his black sneakers. He was fine. It was morning.

  I swung my legs over the bed, took the orange juice, drank some, realized I was naked and Billy was looking at me. I got back under the covers and finished the juice, not knowing why it made me uncomfortable, him seeing me like that.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That was great.”

  “Service with a smile,” he cracked. “You want me to make breakfast for you? I’m a pretty good cook. Mom taught me.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost nine.”

  “Shit,” I said. “It’s late.”

  “For what?”

  “We’re going out for breakfast. You feel like making coffee, though? You know how?”

  “Artie, I’m fourteen.” He left the room and I went and took a shower, got dressed and went into the kitchen where Billy was making coffee. He poured some into a mug. I drank it.

  “Good. Thanks,” I said. “You like music, Billy?”

  “Course. How come you’re asking?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “I like it a lot, all kinds of stuff, I even like to listen to classical music, like Ellie plays.” Elena, his older half sister, Genia’s daughter by her first husband, played the flute with an orchestra in Seattle. “I looked at some of your CDs,” Billy said. “Was that OK?”

  “Sure,” I said. Come on. We have to stop by my loft. You remember? The place I lived before Max and I got married. We’re going to stay there, you and me, so I need you to get packed.”

  “I guess Maxine doesn’t want me here,” said Billy and I wondered if he’d been listening in to our conversation and tried to remember if I had called Max on my cell or on the land line. Land line, I thought. Had there been a click? Stop it, I thought to myself. Stop.

  I didn’t lie to him either.

  “She doesn’t know you yet.”

  “It’s OK, Artie. I understand,” he said. “I’d like to stay at your loft. I always loved it there when I was little.”

  “We’ll be there together.”

  “You mean you and me?”

  “Yes. Billy?”

  “What?”

  “Did you go out at all last night?”

  “No way.” He said, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t go out without telling you. I got up and you weren’t around, so I had a cigarette, I’m really sorry I did that, Artie, I’m so totally sorry, and I went back to bed. I know you have like a life, I want that for you, and I just figured you went out to get a drink, or something. But maybe you could let me know next time, ’cause I was sort of worried, which is dumb.”

  I felt bad. I had accused him of something I’d done, and I said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I gestured at the newspapers piled on the couch. “You were reading?”

  “You don’t believe me, or what?” His tone was soft, a little disappointed, but not hostile. “About going out?”

  “I believe you. So what do you read first in the papers?”

  “When I’m away, when I’m down there, you know, in the place in Florida, I like reading stories about New York. Sometimes I can’t remember myself when I was younger and living at home, I can’t feel it, and reading stuff about New York helps me.”

  “I feel like that sometimes, the thing about remembering myself in the past.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think they felt anything?”

  “Who?”

  “The people in the plane?” he said.

  “Probably not.”

  “I wish I knew how they felt.”

  “Why?”

  “To understand more. Who are we having breakfast with?”

  “After we drop your stuff at my loft, we’re going over to a friend’s, Tolya Sverdloff, who has a place in the Meat Packing District. He’s pretty crazy and he was a famous rock star in the Soviet Union. Also, his Russian’s a lot better than mine, so you could practice with him if you wan
t.”

  “I’ll get my stuff.”

  Billy went into the bedroom and came back quickly with his duffel bag and fishing gear. We left the apartment together, and I got my car and we rode over to Walker Street where my loft was, left his things, then headed for Tolya’s.

  “So, listen. I have to check something out today,” I said. “It’ll only take me a couple of hours. You think you could maybe hang out with Tolya? Then I could pick you up and we could go fishing.”

  “Can’t I go with you?”

  “Not this time,” I said.

  “You have any cigarettes left?”

  “You’re worse than me,” said Billy and started laughing, which made me laugh, too, and he got out his pack of cigarettes. There was only one left.

  For the first time since yesterday I didn’t look over my shoulder. We shared the cigarette, Billy and me, like kids smoking in secret, passing the smoke back and forth, still giggling.

  “Surprise! Surprise, surprise.” We were barely through the door, when Valentina Sverdloff, Tolya’s daughter, was all over me, kissing my cheek, greeting Billy, introducing us to the little girl who grasped her hand as if for life support and whose name was Luda.

  Val had brought Luda back from Russia and she barely spoke English. In Russian Val told Luda I was her dad’s friend and like family and she should call me Uncle Artie. Then I introduced Billy. He couldn’t keep from staring at Val, who was beautiful and then, when she kissed him, he turned red and looked at his feet.

  “I wanted to completely surprise you, Artie, darling, you didn’t know I was home, did you? I made Daddy promise to absolutely not tell you. Should I still call you Uncle Artie too?” said Val, letting go of the little girl who climbed into a red egg-shaped chair where she dangled her feet over the edge.

  Luda was about nine, with a solemn Slavic face, big eyes, and thin blonde hair in pigtails fastened with floppy pink satin bows. She wore pink shorts, shirt and sandals. In front of her was a large plasma screen that hung on the wall and on it, encouraged by Val, she watched The Incredibles. Every few seconds, she glanced away from the TV and at Valentina as if to make sure she was still there.