Day of Atonement (9 page)

“The answer?” The lanky boy held his crotch and said, “‘Six fuckin’ times a day? Dafuck is Tony’s
secret
?’”

The two boys cracked up.

“The addresses, boys?” Decker said.

“Sure,” the lanky kid said. “I love to help a man with a mission.”

After five hours of searching the streets, combing movie houses, discos, arcades, and finally the shelters, Decker was left with a giant goose egg. He called it quits at half past midnight and checked in with Jonathan and Shimon. Their door-to-door hadn’t yielded anything of significance. Jonathan reported that some of the boys Noam’s age had seemed uncomfortable as Shimon talked to the parents. Not trusting his memory, Jonathan wrote down the names and addresses—again infracting the religious law. But this was clearly a case of
pekuah nefesh
—the saving of life taking precedence over almost everything.

The Levines were all up and beside themselves with worry. Decker and Frieda Levine exchanged quick glances. Her eyes were red, her hands made raw by her own kneading fingers. The look in her eye had been nothing more than a fleeting moment, but, ah—what her expression had told him.

Please, help us, help
me
.

Where was
her
help when he needed her forty-one years ago?

But his heart couldn’t hold any anger—not at this time. He turned to the rest of the family and suggested they try to bed down as best they could. In the morning, Decker would talk to the kids. The next step right now would be to talk to the police and file the missing-persons report. The family wanted to come down with him, but Decker said no, it was better handled cop to cop. All he needed was a good clear picture of Noam, his physical stats, and what he’d been wearing when he disappeared.

Before he left for the police, he pulled Rina aside.

“You want me to walk you back to the Lazaruses’ house?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll wait here for you.” She brushed strands of limp red hair off his forehead. “You look exhausted.”

Decker smiled. “I’d be lying if I said I was spunky.”

“You’re a godsend. That’s what Mrs. Levine said. You were sent here by Hashem.”

“She said that, huh?”

Rina nodded.

“Everything is in the hands of God,” Decker said. “That’s a neat, compact way of dealing with your guilt.”

“Oh, Peter—”

“That was stupid.” He exhaled forcefully. “I really do feel sorry for her. For her, for the parents. It’s hell, no doubt about it.”

“I know you care,” she answered. “I know that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing. And don’t think the family isn’t grateful. That’s all they talk about—how fortunate they are to have someone like you at a time like this—”

“Rina—”

“They
are
fortunate.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. “Everyone has confidence in you—”

“Yeah, we’ve got a slight problem with that,” Decker said. “I’m in an uncomfortable position here. Depending on how this thing resolves, I’ll either be a savior or a bum, and neither of those hats wears well with me. If we don’t get anywhere by tomorrow, I’m going to recommend that Ezra and Breina hire a professional—”

“You’re a professional.”

“I’ve got a very demanding day job. I’m not interested in doing unpaid moonlighting.”

Rina didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Decker said. “I don’t care about the money—”

“I know you don’t.”

“I don’t want the responsibility, Rina,” Decker said. “The
whole situation is just too damn close to home. If it were my kid, I’d hire out. A good PI agency has networks all over the country, honey. They’ve got the interdepartmental contacts, the best skip tracers, and the
manpower
. They can cover more in a day than I could in a month.”

Rina said, “Ezra’s not a rich man. The only thing of value he owns is the house. How much do these agencies cost?”

That gave Decker a moment of pause. “If they find the kid quickly, it’s not that bad. And the good ones usually find them fast.”

“And if they don’t?” Rina said.

Decker sighed. “I’ll do what I can until the holiday is over. Then I want out. I’ll find the family the best PI available. One that
knows
the city of New York. Hey, if it was L.A., maybe I’d take another day or two. But I’m a foreigner here, Rina.”

“Whatever you want, Peter.”

Her voice was glum. Decker said, “You think I should do more?”

Rina sighed. “No…No, of course not. It’s just that…well…”

“What?” Decker said. “What?
What?
”

“I just know that…” Rina sighed again. “If it were Sammy or Jakey, I’d want you to handle it.”

“But
I
wouldn’t handle it if it were Sammy or Jakey. That’s what I’m
telling
you. I’m just one person and that’s a big problem. Plus, you don’t take on cases where there’s personal involvement.”

He realized he was shouting and dropped his voice to a whisper.

“This is what I call a swell honeymoon. First, I come out here, sentenced to be a weak substitute for your late husband—”

“That’s not—”

“Yeah, right. It’s not true. They love me for my hair color.”

“Peter—”

“I’m not saying anything against the Lazarus clan. Your former in-laws happen to be nice people. But look at it from my perspective, my background, then tell me I should feel right at home.”

Rina lowered her eyes. “I know it’s hard.”

“Damn right it’s hard. But I can handle it. And if I may say so myself, I was doing a fine job of adjusting until I got my long lost
mother
slapped in my face. I’m still reeling from
that
blow and
this
nightmare pops up. And now I’m supposed to be the objective, third-party professional.
For chrissakes
, Rina, the kid is my blood-nephew. I have a tangle of emotions inside me that’s going to take years to unravel. What do you
want
from me?”

“Oh, Peter!” Rina hugged him as tightly as she could. “I’m sorry!” She burst into tears. “I’m sorry!”

“Forget it,” Decker said, hugging her back. “I’m sorry, too. Part of me wants to walk away from this mess. And the other part is yelling at me to do more. And I’m not getting anywhere, which makes me feel like a failure. I’ve got plenty invested in this. I’m a juvey cop; I’ve located hundreds of missing kids.
I
, of all people, should be able to get somewhere.” He paused a moment. “Fuck this noise.” Then he said, “Pardon my Hebrew.”

Rina smiled, kept him locked in her embrace.

After a minute, Decker pulled away. “I’m going to talk to the police. File the report, see what I can come up with.”

“Want me to come with you? It’s only a ten-minute walk from here.”

“No.”

“I can just walk with you to the building—”

“No, I’ve got my map. I’ll be back in about an hour. Sure you don’t want to go home?”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” Rina said.

Decker smiled. “I won’t object.”

Boro Park was
under the auspices of the 66th Precinct, which local cops called the Six-Six. The building was tucked into the corner of Sixteenth and Fifty-ninth, a two-story brick rectangle attached to a taller towerlike edifice also made of bricks. It was a fortress that would have protected the Three Little Pigs from any wolf for many years to come. Atop the lower portion of the structure was an American flag waving in the breeze.

Outside the station were a black Ford LTD unmarked and three bright-blue-and-white cruisers perpendicularly parked on the sidewalk. Decker hopped up three concrete stairs, opened a rust-scarred door, and stepped into a sally port. The entrance was done in faded mustard tiles held together by black grout. On the floor were blocks of lackluster green marble surrounding a dim square of teal-blue marble. The ceiling plaster was buckling, ready to shower gypsum. Against the walls were a pay phone, a beverage-vending machine, a candy-bar machine, and a uniformed patrol officer. The cop was dark and short, had a thick black mustache, and needed a shave. His name tag read Melino. He wore a light-blue shirt, navy tie, navy pants, and rubber-soled black oxfords. He sized Decker up and didn’t like what he saw.

Decker was used to that. His height made many men
wary. Then he realized that Melino was staring at the bulge under his jacket. Decker said, “I’m a cop from L.A. I’m packing and I’ve got a license to carry in the state of New York.” He raised his arms in the air. “Check it out.”

The patrol officer strolled over, frisked him, and pulled the Beretta from Decker’s waistband. He stared at it, turned it over, then stared at it again.

He said, “Nice. Standard issue?”

Decker lowered his arms. “One of our options.”

“Nice,” repeated Melino.

“You want to check my carry license?” Decker asked.

The cop shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Decker pulled it out of his wallet. Melino gave it a quick glance, then returned his eyes to the Beretta. “You don’t have a clip.”

“I know that,” Decker said.

“This for show or what?” the cop asked.

“No, it’s my piece,” Decker said. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea to come in here with a loaded semi-automatic.”

Melino handed the gun back to Decker. “What can I do you for?”

“I need to file a missing-persons report,” Decker said. “A local boy—fourteen.”

“Local? One of the Hasids?” the cop said.

Decker smiled. The cop pronounced
Chasid
with a soft
h
, just like he did.

“Yeah, kid’s a black-hatter.”

“Is he a mental problem?” Melino said.

“Not that I know of.”

“How long’s he been gone?”

“About fifteen hours.”

“And you’re just filing a report now?” the cop asked. “Usually we get kids missing, we get a hysterical parent in here in two to three hours.”

“You get a lot of missing kids in this area?”

“Nah,” Melino said. “I can think of only a few in ten years. So many damn kids in this precinct it’s hard for a par
ent to keep track of them. This precinct’s one of the few in New York with a Community Patrol Officers Program—beat cops. When we get a missing kid, we assign a C-POP officer to go out and find the boy—they’re usually boys. We almost always find the kid at a friend’s house and he forgot to tell his mother where he went.”

“Yeah, I thought that might be the case,” Decker said. “Reason I didn’t file earlier is because I wanted to do a door-to-door and a street search—”

“You already done those things, there’s nothing more we can do except file the report,” Melino said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You a family friend or what?”

“A family friend.”

The cop said, “Go inside. Desk sergeant named Weiczorek will help you out.”

Decker passed through the entry cubicle and into the main precinct.

And he’d thought his station house was in need of repairs.

The room looked like an unfinished basement. There were exposed pipes and electrical wires vining down the walls, fluorescent tubing running across the ceiling. Immediately to his right was a wall lined with rusted file cabinets that probably contained old cases—all out in the open. The main reception area was about twenty by forty feet, bisected by a corridor floored with the same washed-out-green marble he’d seen in the sally port. The corridor led to a wall made up of the same mustard tiles and several closed doors—no doubt the offices of the higher-ups. In the back corner was a table that held two computers with keyboards, a typewriter, a pea-green phone, a paper cup with lipstick marks, and a stack of papers defying gravity. Above the table were more exposed wires, a junction box, a wall-mounted cabinet of keys, a small map of the precinct, and a framed
RAPID MOBILIZATION PLAN
hung too high to be effectively read—even for a man his size.

Flanking the corridor on the right was a long cubicle en
closed by a one-way mirror—probably the dispatch area. In front of the mirror were royal-blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor and a seven-foot locker decorated with a poster of a group of police officers, the caption saying that New York was looking for “
THE FINEST
.” On the left side of the walkway was the reception desk, fronted by a four-foot-high wooden barrier that spanned the length of the room. The front desk was filled by a computer, a log-in sheet, and loose papers. Behind the desk was a cork bulletin board covered with memos, business cards, wanted posters, and two Polaroids—a snapshot of a missing old man and a picture of a pit bull. Under the dog someone had written,
“He goes for the nuts.”

The place smelled old and tired. Decker thought about a policeman’s lot in life, then felt something nuzzle his leg—the mangiest golden retriever he’d ever seen. He thought of his own dog, an Irish setter. On her worst days, Ginger never looked so disheveled. The dog’s breath was noticeable even though Decker’s nose was a good six feet above the animal.

“Our mascot,” said a male voice. “Gertrude.”

The man was sitting behind the reception desk, doing some paperwork, eyes focused downward. He had a broad face made wider by a crushed nose, and a square jawline. His eyes were deep-set, his brows heavy and continuous. His lips were full, and a cigarette was dangling from his mouth.

Decker said, “That dog’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ugly doesn’t bother me,” the man said. He looped his hand over his shoulder and scratched his back. “It’s the fleas that are the real killers.” He looked up from his desk. “You waiting for someone or what?”

“I need to file a missing-persons report,” Decker said. “You Sergeant Weiczorek?”

“I was last time I checked my birth certificate,” Weiczorek said. “Which precinct are you from?”

“I’m not with NYPD,” Decker said. “It’s a local kid. I’m doing a favor for the family.”

“But you’re definitely a cop,” Weiczorek said. “You got the look.”

“Los Angeles,” Decker said.

“Can spot ’em a mile away,” Weiczorek said. He stubbed out his cigarette. “Hop over the fence. Tell me about the kid.”

Decker stepped over the wooden barrier. The precinct was having a quiet night—a few uniforms wandering in and out, muffled voices dispatching calls from behind the one-way mirrored cubicle, not a perp in sight. He gave Weiczorek Noam’s vitals, then showed him the picture. Weiczorek punched the data into the computer.

The desk sergeant said, “Sometimes another precinct will pick the kid up without ID. Computer will spit out anything that seems like a match. Takes a few minutes.”

Decker nodded, stared over Weiczorek’s shoulders, hypnotized by a flashing
waiting
that blinked on the computer screen.

Weiczorek seemed hypnotized too. Without looking up, he said, “You do a door-to-door?”

“Yes. Nothing.”

“Street search?”

“Five hours.”

A sudden scream echoed through the walls.

I know de law, man! I wan’my fuckin’ phone call!

Weiczorek looked up and called, “Melino, take care of Mr. Torrentes.”

Melino disappeared behind the mirrored cubicle.

“You’ve got your holding cells pretty close to the desk,” Decker said.

“That’s cell in the singular,” Weiczorek said. “And yes, it is close to the front desk cause we ain’t got no room anywhere else. If we run outta room in the cell, we chain ’em to the pipes. Once, a perp took offense to this and gave himself a shower with thirty-degree water. Goddamn place oughta be condemned.”

Weiczorek scratched his head and said, “Here we go…
The Seven Two has a kid. That’s Crown Heights—another pocket of black-suiters. Boy like yours would certainly blend in there.”

He picked up the phone and dialed the precinct. Decker held his breath as Weiczorek asked about the pickup.

Weiczorek said, “Yeah, I’ll wait.” He turned to Decker and said, “They’re checking it out for me.”

Melino returned, announcing that Mr. Torrentes had apologized for using bad language.

“Didn’t he get his phone call?” Weiczorek asked.

“First thing, Sarge,” Melino said. “But he was too stoned to remember it.”

“Did you log it?” Weiczorek said.

“You bet,” Melino said. “Made it at ten-oh-seven.”

Weiczorek waved his hand in the air. “Idiot don’t remember a damn thing.” He picked up Noam Levine’s picture and said, “You know, this one looks familiar.”

“Where do you think you know him from?” Decker asked.

“I think he’s one of the wilder boys around here,” Weiczorek said. “Every so often, the boys in this area go nuts, start breaking things. These teenage boys sit all day in school, studying till dark. No physical activity, hormones running wild, no contact with the females. Just awhile back a group of ’em smashed up a parked bus that runs through the area on Saturday. It was a pile of junk by the time we got there and the little suckers ran off before we could catch any of them. Think the rabbis helped us out?”

“No?”

“Couldn’t squeeze a drop of piss out of them as far as who the perps were. But they assured us that they’d take care of the boys who did it. This kid…” Weiczorek hit the photograph with the back of his hand. “I think he was one of them.”

Decker nodded, not surprised at all. “You get into a lot of conflicts—”

Weiczorek interrupted him with a palm-up sign. “Yeah,
I’m still here. No, that’s not him. Thanks.” He hung up. “Unless your boy’s got nappy hair and a dark suntan, we ain’t talking about the same kid.”

Damn, Decker thought.

Weiczorek said, “You was saying before I interrupted you?”

Decker thought a moment. “I just wondered if there was a lot of tension between the locals and the law.”

“Not much,” Weiczorek said. “They’re pretty easy once you know what to expect. You don’t muscle these people around. They get mad—not violent but stubborn as a constipated mule. Give you an example. About three years ago one of the officers who hadn’t worked long in this district gave a jaywalking ticket to one of the rabbis. Well, it was on a Saturday and the rabbi wouldn’t sign the ticket cause it was against their law to write on Saturday.”

Decker nodded.

“The young buck…” Weiczorek smiled. “He thought the old man was bullshitting him and was determined to show him who was boss. He hauled the old man into a cruiser. Next thing he knows he’s got about a hundred rabbis and associated black-suiters laying down in the street. The officer and his car ain’t going nowhere.” Weiczorek laughed. “A week later the guy transferred out of here. Know where they sent him?”

“Where?” Decker asked.

“Williamsburg.” Weiczorek burst into laughter. “He thought
these
guys were bad, those blackies in Williamsburg don’t take no shit. Mean, rotten tempers. They got this cattle call—
chaptzum
. It means grab him. Someone calls out
chaptzum
and every person on the block comes pouring out and pounces on the poor schmuck who made the mistake of mugging the wrong person.”

Weiczorek laughed again.

“About a week ago, the Nine-Oh found three Puerto Ricans beat up pretty bad and stuffed into an empty trash bin. Nobody died and the PRs ain’t talking, so we really don’t
know what happened. At first, we thought it was some sort of turf thing with the gangs—who cares about them beatin’ each other up, right?”

Decker nodded.

Weiczorek went on, “Except one of the cops duly noted that the PRs had been shitcanned in the Jewish section of Williamsburg right next to one of their all-boys high schools. Course no one will say nuttin’—you question the rabbis and all of a sudden they only speak Yiddish. Been living in this country for all of their lives, and they only speak Yiddish.”

“Weird,” Decker said.

“Glad to hear you say that,” Weiczorek said. “I think it’s weird, but what do I know? You hear them in their schools, teaching the first-graders ‘
Das es ein A. Das es ein B
.’” He shook his head. “Wanna know my opinion, I think those Puerto Rican scumbags were up to no good and the Jew boys
chaptzummed
’em.”

Weiczorek ruminated on his theory for a moment. “I say more power to them. They want a safe neighborhood, they’re not afraid to fight for it.”

“They take care of their own,” Decker said.

“Exactly,”
Weiczorek said. “Gotta take care of your own. That’s the trouble with America today. Everybody’s only looking out for themselves.” He scratched his head again. “Sorry we couldn’t give you good news. I’ve got the family’s number; I’ll personally keep my eyes open. Maybe something’ll turn up. Usually, the kid comes home after a few days. Course, that doesn’t make the waiting any easier.”

Decker felt sick. The prospect of facing the family was wearing him down like sand in a motor. And he knew that there was going to be a big scene at the suggestion of putting some new blood on the case.

Stubborn as a constipated mule
.

Not the type of people to let go easily.

“Let me ask you this,” Decker said. “Think he might have holed up in Prospect Park?”

“Not likely,” Weiczorek said. “Being a native, he’d know better. Besides, it’s cold outside.”