Empty Ever After (22 page)

THE RINGING IN
my head woke me up.

First, I felt for the lump on my head, then I reached for the phone. The swelling had receded a bit and the blood-stiff hair was gone. Hot showers are mostly forgettable events, but there are times when they’re just a notch or two below desperation sex. This morning’s shower was the stuff of top ten lists. My long nap had reduced my headache from crashing cymbals to the tinkle of a lone triangle and I no longer smelled like Sunday at Augusta.

“Yeah, what?” My voice was thick with sleep.

Silence.

“Okay,” I said, “I don’t have time for this bullsh—”

“How is your head?”

The voice was unfamiliar and it took a few seconds for the question to register. I guess there were parts of me other than my voice still thick with sleep.
Who knew about my head?
No one. I hadn’t wanted to bother explaining about my getting KO’ed by Bambi, so I’d left that part out of my call in to Carmella and she was the only person I’d spoken …
Holy shit!

“The head’s better. What should I call you?” I asked.

“Patrick.”

“Don’t be an asshole, kid.”

“No, really, that’s my name. It’s weird, right?”

“After all this, why are you calling me now? We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and me a headache if you’d have just talked to me this morning.”

“I’m scared of Ray.”

“Ray Martello?”

“Yeah. When I spoke to him he was crazy mad at me for letting you get that close.”

I started noticing things about the kid’s voice. His accent was mostly flat with a bit of a nasally twang. Half the kids that Sarah went to the University of Michigan with had that same accent. I thought about what approach to take with Patrick, if that was his name. Should I play the understanding, avuncular stranger or the outraged victim? Should I play softball or hardball? I went with hardball.

“Ray’s a scary guy,” I said. “What do you want from me and why the fuck should I care? Don’t forget, kid, you’ve spent the last few weeks terrorizing my family and committing felonies.”

“I didn’t know. I swear to God I didn’t know.” His voice cracked.

“What did you think you were doing?”

“Making a movie.”

“Don’t bullshit me, kid. I’m from Brooklyn and you’re not.” I threw a high hard fastball under his chin. “You need cameras to shoot a movie. Seen any of those around lately? Maybe when you got the job you believed that movie crap, but not anymore.”

“Okay, you’re right. I’m really sorry about what I did to your wife and all, but I was in too deep to …”

I had him and it was time to start pressing my advantage.

“How did Martello get a recording of Patrick’s—?”

“If I come in, can you protect me?” His voice took on a real urgency.

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” he said.

“You blame me for not trusting you? Why should I believe a fucking word you say?”

“I swear to God, Mr. Prager, I’ll come in. I just want to get away from this guy. He’s got a crazy temper. I thought he was going to kill me this morning.”

“That’s twice you’ve invoked God in this conversation, kid. Stop swearing to God and start giving me some proof I should trust you. Where did Martello get a tape of Patrick Maloney’s voice?”

“I don’t know. I swear to—Okay, forget that, but I really don’t know. He hasn’t let me in on any stuff that doesn’t directly involve me. I don’t even know why he hates you so much.”

“That one I have the answer to. Who’s the guy with the eye patch?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s an old cop friend of Martello’s dad. He drives me around some of the time. That’s all I know about him. We don’t talk much.”

“All right, kid, come on in.”

“No, you have to come get me.” It was his turn to play hardball.

I thought about calling his bluff, but couldn’t afford to let him get away again. Besides, if what he was saying about Martello’s temper was accurate—I had every reason to believe it was—and he sensed the kid was ready to bolt, he would cut his losses and get rid of the hired help. Bottom line was, I needed the kid alive. Without him there was no case.

“You win. I’ll come to you.”

Silence. He was having second thoughts. He might be scared but he was also likely sacrificing the most money he’d ever made. I helped his thought process along.

“Listen, Patrick, I’ll pay you to come in and I’ll do my best to shield you from the cops.”

“Twenty grand.”

“That means he’s paying you ten, some of which you’ve already received. Five,” I said, “and I’ll have it with me when I pick you up. If you help me put this cocksucker away, I’ll take care of you.”

“Okay. Two hours.”

“Where?”

“I’m pretty close to you.”

“That doesn’t help me, kid.” I wasn’t going to call him Patrick again if I could avoid it.

“Manhattan Court, number sixty-nine, downstairs. It’s a garden apartment that he rented for me.”

“Manhattan Court over by Coney Island Hospital?”

“That’s it.”

“You
are
close. Two hours?”

“Bring the money,” he said, all the big bad fear gone out of his voice.

I thought about calling Katy and Sarah, but I remembered what her shrink had said. I could serve this kid and Martello up on a silver tray and Katy would still resent me. She had to deal with her issues and I had to deal with mine. That worked for me, for the time being.

 

SQUEEZED IN BETWEEN Avenues Y and Z and perpendicular to Ocean Parkway, Manhattan Court was a small, forgettable block of post-Korean War garden apartments with a row of low-slung garages behind. The “gardens” out front were actually lawns of weeds cut low to give the illusion of grass. Each unit had a brick and concrete stoop just large enough to hold a few beach chairs and a portable charcoal grill. I suppose Manhattan Court and the surrounding blocks of garden apartments must
once have seemed like a little bit of heaven in the concrete and asphalt world of Brooklyn. Now it seemed in need of repair or bulldozing.

I knew Manhattan Court because Crazy Charlie had lived there. Charlie and I went to Cunningham and Lincoln together. We called him Crazy Charlie because he would do shit no person with half a brain would do. You tell him you’d give him twenty bucks to climb the Parachute Jump and he’d say, “Fuck, yeah,” and climb it. Most kids, me included, were afraid to climb the fence that surrounded the ride, but there was Crazy Charlie two hundred fifty feet in the air screaming for his twenty bucks.

He also tended to be loose with his fists. For him, one a day wasn’t a vitamin, but a description of how many fights he averaged. Sometimes he took Sundays off. “I’m a good Catholic,” he’d say. Crazy Charlie didn’t care how big you were, who you were, or who you knew. If you pissed him off—and, trust me, it didn’t take much to piss Crazy Charlie off—he was going to smack you. Of course, throwing the first punch didn’t always equate to victory I’d seen Charlie get the shit kicked out of him on more than a few occasions. There’s no future for guys like Crazy Charlie. Last few times I saw him was in the mid-’70s when I was still on the job. I’m walking by the holding pen at the Six-O and I hear someone calling my name.

“Moe fuckin’ Prager, that you?”

“Crazy Charlie, what the fuck you doing in there?”

“I ain’t Crazy Charlie no more, Moe. I mean, I’m still crazy, but it ain’t dignified for a man, that name, you know what I’m saying?”

“What are you going by these days?”

“Charlie Rolex.”

“Selling fake watches, huh?”

“Good fakes. But yeah, a man gotta make a livin’ right?”

“Right.”

“So you should come by one day and have a beer with me.”

“You still on Manhattan Court?”

“Yeah. My dad bit the big one, but Mom’s still kickin’.”

“Okay, Charlie Rolex. I’ll do that.”

And I did.

When I went over to his house that last time, he was shirtless, wearing an army helmet, and drinking beer out of a mixing bowl. Oh, yeah, he also had a loaded police special on the table. He let me drink my beer out of the can and we talked about the nutty stuff he used to pull. After a few minutes of reminiscing, he leaned over to me conspiratorially and whispered, “You’re a Jew, right?”

“You know I am, Charlie.”

He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “You don’t see any of your people in jail.”

Well, actually I did, but Charlie wasn’t up for a debate.

“No, Charlie, you don’t.”

“See, that’s what I’m saying.”

Frankly, I had no idea what he was saying and I got out of there a little while later with fake Rolexes for Aaron, Miriam, and me. They all broke the first time we put them on. A few years later I heard Charlie had taken to living on the streets. From there it was only a short drop off the edge of the earth into oblivion. Like I said, there’s never any future for guys like Charlie Rolex.

I put Charlie right out of my head the minute I turned left onto Manhattan Court from East 6th Street. Carmella and Brian Doyle were probably already here. I told them to park blocks away and walk into their positions: Carmella across the way on the even side of the street and Brian Doyle atop the garages around back. There was good reason for the precautions. Martello hadn’t shown up for his shift that day—neglecting to call in sick—nor, apparently, had he returned to his house in Great River. Missing a shift without calling in meant he was getting sloppy, and sloppiness from a guy like Martello was a sure sign of desperation. To me it felt like he was preparing to cover his ass and that meant trouble for the kid.

I scanned the cars parked on both sides of the street. I had already circled the surrounding blocks a few times checking for pewter Yukons. None in sight. It was a good sign, but didn’t mean Martello hadn’t taken the same precautions as Carmella and Doyle. He was, after all, a cop and knew what we knew. At this juncture, however, I was certain he would be more concerned with being expeditious than judicious. I parked my car directly in front of number sixty-nine, collected the kid’s five grand, and got out. Traffic was streaming in both directions along Ocean Parkway as I stepped up onto the stoop. I found comfort in the din of the traffic. I felt for the bulge at the small of my back and found comfort in that too.

The heavier front door pushed right back, exposing the staircase that led up to the second floor apartment and, on my right, the door to the kid’s apartment. Ignoring the bell, I rapped my knuckles hard on the kid’s door and waited. I could hear the sound of the TV coming through the door, but no footsteps.

“Hey, kid! Patrick, it’s me. Open up.” I wasn’t shouting exactly. I tried the bell and waited a minute. Still no footsteps. I called the kid’s cell phone. I heard ringing through the door. The ringing stopped when I hung up. I dialed Carmella.

“What?” she whispered.

“Maybe trouble.”

“You want me to come across the—”

“No, stay put and keep your eyes open. I think the kid may have bolted or is ready to bolt. Call Brian and give him the heads-up.”

“Okay.”

I knocked again. Nothing. I tried the doorknob. It turned easily and the door fell back, but stopped after only a few inches. A dim shaft of light filtered through into the dark hallway. I pushed harder without completely shouldering the door and it moved a bit more, but not much. There was definitely something propped against the other side. I peeked through the four inches of space I’d managed to clear and was relieved not to see arms and legs. While I still couldn’t look around the door to see what was blocking it, I saw the kid’s cell phone on a beat-up coffee table. The sound from inside had come from a boombox stereo sitting on the bare wood floor, not from a TV.

“Kid. Patrick. Come on, it’s me, Moe,” I called, a little more urgency in my voice this time. No response. I hit the door square with my right shoulder and it gave way. I patted the wall for a light switch and found one. An overhead fixture came on and I saw the red plastic milk crate full of dumbbells and weights that had held the door shut.

I was standing in the living room. The coffee table and the boombox were the only things in there. This apartment had the same layout I remembered from Crazy Charlie’s. There was a dining room ahead and to my right, a galley kitchen off that, a hallway to the left of the dining room with a bathroom on the right, a large bedroom on the left, and a small bedroom at the end of the hall. I slid my arm around my back, under my jacket, and pulled the .38 from its holster. I knelt down and killed the music.

“Kid. Patrick. I’ve got your five grand in my pocket.”

I took the slow, measured steps of a tightrope walker, letting my gun hand lead. The dining room and kitchen were clear. There was no furniture in the dining room and no food in the kitchen. The living room closet set beneath the stairs up to the second floor was empty. When I stepped into the hallway a little gust of wind hit me square in the face. There must have been a window open in one of the bedrooms. A thunderstorm had been brewing all day and I smelled its inevitability in the air. There was another scent in the breeze that I couldn’t quite make out.

The bathroom was the size of a closet and nothing much larger than a water bug could have hidden in there. The small bedroom was even more empty than the other rooms. It was totally barren except for cobwebs and
the window was shut tight. No one had set foot in the room for weeks. The uncorrupted layer of dust on the floor told me as much. Stepping back toward the last unexplored room in the house, I caught another rush of air. Now I knew what that other scent was hiding behind the humid musk of the storm: blood.

“I’m coming in there, motherfucker!” I screamed like a madman and kicked the door above the knob. The door flew away and I ran in blind, fueled by fear and weeks of frustration. Crazy Charlie would have been proud of me. Not five feet through the door I tripped over something and crashed to the floor. Looking back, I saw what had taken my feet out from under me. This time, it wasn’t a fawn.