Crooked Numbers (8 page)

A longer pause. This time I waited. “Ahh, Mr. D,” he finally said. “I told you, I don’t like talking ’bout Family business.”

“Come on, Junior. The girl threatened to toss me in the back of a van and practically drew blood from my wrist. The least you can tell me is who the hell she is.”

Again, I waited. Junior was probably wishing I’d never called him.

“She’s Tio’s cousin,” Junior said. “She’s from the other side.”

The other side?
“What? She’s a vampire?”

That got a laugh. “Other side of the bridge, Mr. D. She kinda runs things over there. I don’t know how much she and Tio talk these days.”

“Not too much, I’d guess. She pretty much told me she’d been watching me the last two days but didn’t know why I was talking with Tio.”

“And you told her?”

“Yeah, I told her. It was either that or risk the nails again.”

“Sorry, man. I’m gonna give Tio a call and let him know.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Thanks again, Junior. Tio said he didn’t know Dougie. His mom’ll be glad to hear that.”

“All good, then,” Junior said. “See ya ’round, Mr. D. Stay cool.”

“I’ll do my best. You, too, Junior.”

I was about to go down to the subway but decided to walk the rest of the way home. I needed the air.

*

I got back home about twenty minutes later. A large man wearing a trench coat, standing with his back to me, was waiting in front of my apartment. He held a rolled-up newspaper and tapped his leg with it. His other hand was up by his face, and then a plume of smoke rose above his head.
Oh, boy. What the hell was he doing here?

“Uncle Ray?” I said.

He turned to face me and grinned. He spread his arms out and said, “My nephew. The famous Raymond Donne.”

I stepped into his arms, and we gave each other a hug. He patted me on the back a few times, and I knew I’d be feeling that spot for the next hour.

“Why are you here?” I asked after we broke the embrace.

He held up the newspaper. “Had to swing by and congratulate you on your appearance in one of our fine city’s respected papers of record. What’s this? Something you do every eighteen months or so?” He stuck his cigar in his mouth, opened the paper, found the page he was looking for, and folded it over. “There you are, Raymond. Your mother must be so proud.”

“I haven’t spoken to her yet,” I said.

“Well…” He folded the paper back the way it had been and handed it to me. “I see you’ve got your own, but take mine, too. For your scrapbook.”

“Thanks.” I took the paper and put it under my arm with the copy Tio had given me. “You came all the way to Greenpoint just to give me a newspaper?” I asked, both of us knowing the answer to that question.

“Actually,” he said, then took a long drag from his cigar and let out a smooth stream of smoke. “Having lunch at Peter Luger’s this afternoon. Bunch of us from the academy—those of us still alive and not in Florida—still keep in touch, try to get together once a year before the holidays. Reminisce, shoot the shit, you know.”

I smiled. “That’s cool.”

He pointed to the newspapers. “Seems like you’ve been taking a little stroll down memory lane yourself, Nephew.”

“Yeah. I ran into Dennis Murcer yesterday. The reporter covering my kid’s—”

“I read the paper, Raymond.” He looked at the tip of his cigar and blew off the one-inch layer of ash. Eyes back on me, he said, “Had the weird feeling of déjà vu after reading that story. Made me very uncomfortable.”

“And why’s that?”

He grinned. “A year and a half ago, Raymond. Didn’t we have this very conversation a year and a half ago?”

I considered that for a while. “Absolutely, Uncle Ray. This has nothing to do with that, though. This was just me—”

“Sticking your nose into police business.”

“Keeping Douglas Lee’s story in the papers for another day or two.”

“Raymond,” he said, still grinning. “Don’t bullshit the man who taught you how to bullshit. It’s insulting.”

“Uncle Ray, all I wanted to do was get the reporter to do another piece on Dougie. I had no idea Dennis was the detective in charge. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’m glad he caught the case. He’s a good cop.”

“Damn straight he is,” said the man who had the most invested in that idea. “So your involvement in this case is over?”

“My involvement in this case is over,” I said, knowing my uncle liked to have his exact words repeated back to him to make sure I got it.

He dropped his cigar to the ground, stepped on it, then kicked it into the gutter. “Good,” he said. “Because I have no desire to go through what we went through the last time.”

“I have no intention of that happening either, Uncle Ray.”

He let out a big laugh. “The road to Hell, Raymond. I believe you had
no intention
the last time, as well.” He held up his hand, anticipating my next words. “I know. This time is different.”

“It is,” I said.

He looked me in the eyes for a few seconds. “Okay,” he said. “We going to see you and Rachel for Christmas dinner?”

No one changes a topic faster than Uncle Ray. “That’s the plan,” I said.

“Good.” He stepped over and pulled me into another hug. “Your mom’s gonna be there. And Reeny’s brother, Max.”

Reeny was my uncle’s second wife, and her single brother was always invited to family functions—I think with the intention of him and my mom getting together. Not only was this never going to happen, I had the strong feeling Max was gay. An issue never discussed at Raymond and Reeny Donne’s very Catholic kitchen table.

“I’m there,” I said.

“Outstanding,” my uncle said. He motioned with his head up the block at a black town car illegally double parked, and said, “There’s my ride. Don’t wanna keep the boys—or my steak—waiting. Stay in touch, Nephew.”

“I will, Uncle Ray. Thanks for the extra copy.”

*

When I got upstairs, I threw the papers on the couch, and went to the kitchen. I needed something hot to drink and started up the coffee machine. It probably wouldn’t be as good as Boo’s, but it’d have to do. My kitchen is almost all windows, and they provide me with an outstanding view of the Manhattan skyline. A mess of gray and white clouds was coming in over the buildings from Jersey, and I remembered the guy on the radio this morning saying we were probably in for some flurries.

I took two steps back from the counter and got into a runner’s stretch position. My knees were starting to feel the walk home in the cold. A hot shower would help, but I knew I needed to get my ass—and my knees—over to Muscles’s and do some real rehab. It had been over a year since I’d last had to use my umbrella as a cane. If I didn’t keep ahead of it, I knew I was going to be right back where I had started.

When the coffee was done, I took a cup into the living room to check out the paper. I was about to open it, when I noticed the message light blinking on the phone. The number next to the light blinked, “9.” Uncle Ray wasn’t the only one to read about me this morning. I took a sip of coffee and pressed the
PLAY
button.

Ten minutes later, I had listened to messages from my mother, my sister Rachel, Edgar, a few others from The LineUp, Uncle Ray, and Elaine Stiles, the school counselor. Edgar thought the article and picture made me look “cool.” My mom was proud and had already bought out all the papers in her neighborhood. Only Elaine and Rachel asked me how I was feeling.
Good question
.

I opened the paper and turned to the article. It was a half page—Saturdays are slow news days in the big city—and the picture of me looking down at where Dougie’s body had been found took up a chunk of that. Allison had done a good job recapping the story, connecting me to Dougie, and commenting on how the cops were conducting a thorough investigation. All in all, exactly what I had hoped for. I grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table, scrolled down to Allison’s number, and dialed.

“Hello, hero,” she said.

“Don’t start. I just called to say thank you.”

“I was about to do the same, Ray. Really. My bosses loved the piece, and they promised to let me get at least one more in. How about Dougie’s mom? She happy with the way we handled it?”

“She’s my next call,” I said.

Pause. “You called me first?”

“To say thanks.”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Hey. What are you doing tonight?”

In a day full of surprises, here was another one. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess I don’t really have any plans.”
Great, Ray. You don’t sound too much like a loser.

“Well, now you do,” Allison said. “You know the new club on Metropolitan Avenue? Used to be a kosher deli or Laundromat or something?”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“I gotta be there tonight. The paper’s doing a new series: Saturdays at Eight. They want to spotlight the new hot spots around the five boroughs. Get the young readers turning the pages. Bullshit, if you ask me. All the hipsters get their info electronically or by word of mouth, but when your editors went to journalism school with Cronkite and Murrow, what do you expect?”

“So,” I said, “you’re a crime reporter during the day and a trendspotter at night?”

“The cheap fucks won’t spring for another reporter, so those of us still lucky enough to be hanging on to our jobs get to take turns club-hopping. And you, my friend, get to tag along. Come on, whattaya say?”

“They serve beer?”

“And apple martinis.”

I laughed and grabbed a piece of paper off the table. “What’s the address?”

She gave it to me. “Eight o’clock, Ray. And dress … hip.”

She’d never seen my closet. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Later.”

After she hung up—and I got the smile off my face—I called the Lee home. A woman’s voice I did not recognize picked up. “Lee residence.”

“This is Raymond Donne,” I said. “Is Mrs. Lee home?”

“The teacher from the newspaper?” A slight Southern accent.

“Yes.” I was already getting tired of this. “Is Mrs. Lee there?”

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “They’re all still at the cemetery. You didn’t go to the church, young man?”

“No, ma’am. I didn’t.”

“That’s okay,” she reassured me. “Gloria told me you didn’t strike her as a church-going person. But you seem nice just the same.”

“Thank you,” I said. “When’s a good time…” There was no way to finish that without sounding stupid. “When would I be able to speak with Mrs. Lee?”

“She wants everyone to know she’ll be expecting them at the apartment tomorrow afternoon. Anytime after one. I’m back here taking calls and cleaning, getting the home ready for tomorrow.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

“It’s what family does,” she explained. “I went to the church, but I don’t much care for cemeteries.”

Like the rest of us enjoyed them.
“Okay, then. Thank you, Miss…”

“Dutton. Missus Sarah Dutton. Gloria’s cousin from Virginia.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dutton. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You better, young man. I know Gloria’s expecting
you
especially. And I’m sure there’s a whole buncha others who would like to meet you.”

“I guess that settles it then.”

“It most certainly does. Oh,” she said. “Don’t eat a big breakfast.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I hung up the phone, threw my sneakers, a pair of shorts, and a shirt into my gym bag, and grabbed one more cup of coffee before heading out to Muscles’s. I was trying to locate my keys when I remembered one more call I wanted to make. It took me a minute to find his card.

“Murcer,” he said.

“Dennis, it’s Raymond.”

“What can I do for you, Ray?”

So much for small talk.
“I just wanted to check in, see how the article was received on your end.”

He laughed. “My end received it just fine. Any piece that says how hard we’re working to solve a case gets received just fine. It didn’t hurt to have your name—your uncle’s name—attached to it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It gets me into restaurants all the time.”

He waited a few beats before saying, “What’s that?”

“Nothing. Hey, about the gang angle?”

“I told you yesterday,” he said, “the Family’s got a loose structure. It’s hard to get a handle on it, and the word on the street ain’t been much help.”

Okay,
I thought.
Let’s see how he receives this.
“I may have some information related to the Family.”

I thought I heard him swallow. He may have been eating. “What’s that, now?”

“A former student of mine,” I said. “He turned me on to a guy who has an inside track on the Family.”

“Interesting, Ray. And what did you do with this
inside track
?”

“I had breakfast with a guy this morning.”

“And…?”

“The guy I spoke with said he—the Royal Family—had no connection with Douglas Lee.”

“And I should believe that why?”

“Because the guy didn’t have to meet with me, and had no reason to lie.”

“Everybody’s got a reason to lie, Ray. Your uncle taught us that. This guy you spoke with, he a member of the Family?”

“I promised not to tell.”

Another laugh. “Jesus. You’ve had quite an astounding two days keeping your nose out of this business. You get to check out a crime scene with a reporter
and
the investigating detective, your name and picture get in the papers, and now you’re cultivating confidential informants. Tell me again what you do for a living these days.”

I ignored that. Largely because I knew where he was going, and he was right.

“I did find out something I
can
tell you, Dennis. If you’re interested.”

He swallowed again. “Enlighten me.”

“One reason it might be hard to get a read on the Royal Family is they seem to have different leadership on each side of the bridge.”

“You’re going to have to explain that. I’m just a cop.”

“One of the people I spoke with,” I explained, “told me there’s Family on both sides, and they don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on Family business.”

“This just hearsay, or you got something to back it up?”