Fresh Kills (21 page)

“You talked to everyone you know over there?”

“Yes,” she said.

Awkwardly, I let go of Lily and sat on the arm of her couch. She was wearing cut-off jeans and an old black T-shirt, her red hair was stuck on top of her hat and she was barefoot. She looked worn; the skin under her eyes looked bruised. On the wooden coffee table, among the piles of books and magazines, was an ashtray full of butts and an empty wine glass stained red from the dregs.

“What about what's his name?”

“You mean the guy I married briefly?”

“Yeah. Him. The one with the little designer car. I'm sorry, honey, I shouldn't joke.”

“Yeah you should. It's the only thing to do. He's fine. He called me. He's fine and I'm sure his car is fine.” She smiled. “He'll have theories already about what happened. He'll have the politics of it all nailed down. Shit, Artie, I don't know anything anymore. How did I ever feel so certain? What kind of fucking arrogance was that? Where's Billy?”

“I left him with Hank Provone over on Staten Island. You remember Hank? Big guy who was my partner?”

“I always liked him. I used to fantasize we could live an ordinary life like Hank and Mary.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Hank said hello. Listen, Billy's parents are in London and I can't get through, so I'm feeling a little fucked up about it. I don't want to lay it on you, but I can't talk to anyone else.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“I think they're probably fine.”

“You tried the hotel?”

“I got the number from Johnny's restaurant and I called, but
I can't get through anywhere,” I said and now it hit me, suddenly, like a ton of bricks, hit me that maybe Johnny and Genia were dead. Could be dead. Weren't coming back. I'd thought about it earlier, but not seriously. It was too improbable. Only around fifty people had died, the reports said.

“Take it easy,” said Lily. “You want me to try some people in London?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the Farones' cell phone, or their hotel. Artie?” She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses, poured a couple of drinks and handed me one.

“Thanks. What the hell did Lippert want, calling you?”

“He just said he was looking for you. He was calling around. Said to call him.”

“He sound crazy?” Already I could feel myself getting dragged into Sonny Lippert's case, not the Gorbachev woman, but the dead girl in Jersey.

“A little crazy. Drink up.”

“I like it when you baby me,” I knocked back half the Scotch.

“Let me make some calls,” said Lily, took the number I gave her, went to her desk, opened a fat address book and picked up the phone.

For a while, I drank the Scotch, Lily called London, the TV played. I thought about Billy and what I'd do if Johnny and Genia were dead. After a while, Lily turned around.

“I didn't get them, but I got the concierge at their hotel who saw them this morning early, before anything happened, and they were asking about directions for Sloane Street because the woman – it must have been Genia – wanted to go to Armani there. He said she had red hair and sounded Russian and I asked was the husband fat and American, I didn't know how else to put it, and he said yeah. They asked if he could get them a reservation at the River Cafe for lunch after they went
shopping,” said Lily. “I mean that's totally in the wrong direction from any of the attacks Artie. I made him ask the doorman if they went out after that, and the doorman was Russian, or Serb or something, and had talked to Genia, and they did go out, really early before all the shit started coming down. So probably they got stuck in Hammersmith. I'm rambling.”

“Where?”

“Hammersmith, where the River Cafe is, miles from anywhere.”

“You love London, don't you?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Only you could get everyone in a hotel helping you.”

“I mean it's not definite because no one knows if they actually went to those places, and I called the River Cafe and they never showed up, but the whole city was gridlocked, so it doesn't mean anything. I just think it's OK. I made friends with the concierge and he said he'd really try to find out what he could.”

“You're wonderful. Thank you.”

Weirdly, for Lily, she blushed. “Yeah yeah. No big deal. It's nothing.”

“You're embarrassed.”

Lily got up from her desk, took off her glasses, and came over to sit near me on the couch.

“Artie, darling.”

I put my arms around her, and she leaned against me.

For a while we sat together and watched TV, not talking. I knew I should get over to meet Sonny Lippert. I knew I should go. I'd go soon. For now, I couldn't. I couldn't leave her. All I could do was sit by Lily and hold her and try not to let her see I wanted to cry.

“You might have some competition,” said Lily softly against my ear, but I knew from her voice she was only joking.

“Who?”

“I'm teasing you,” said Lily. “Valentina, Tolya's daughter, has been calling me endlessly, asks my advice, talks to me about her work. She took me out to breakfast this morning. She's an adorable girl. She has what I think the kids call a woman-crush on me.”

“I don't blame her. I have one of those.”

“You're not a woman, idiot.” Lily reached for a black and red lacquered Russian box I once gave her. It was empty when she opened it. She wanted to smoke, she said.

“I don't have any cigarettes.” I said. “I'm trying not to. You want me to go out for some?” I stood up and when I looked back down at Lily, she was crying.

“What's the matter?”

“I don't know what to do without you.” She fumbled with the empty box.

For a moment I stayed standing, not because I wanted to leave her, but because I didn't, and what might happen scared me. I thought back over all the times we'd been together: the night I met her when my uncle Gennadi was dying in the hospital; when she adopted Beth in China; in London when it never stopped raining and she went away with someone else.

It felt as if everything I'd done, good, bad, anything that mattered, Lily had shared. She knew all about the Soviet Union because she had worked there as a reporter, and she understood the strange place I had grown up. Somebody asked me once what the most important thing that had happened to me in the last ten years was. I didn't answer, but what I thought was: meeting Lily.

I could talk to her. People always think that with guys it's the sex, and it was that, too, with Lily. But the talking mattered. Even when she made me crazy, I knew that she got it, got me. She loved the music I loved.

The first time we went out it was to Bradley's on University Place, long time ago, before it shut down. A good trio had been
playing – I couldn't remember the name. Lily had liked my music, the musicians I liked, even before she met me. I looked at the TV and saw more pictures of a terrorized London. If the world was cracking up again, I wanted to be with Lily. I'd stick with Maxine, but I had to see Lily. Talk to her.

She got up slowly, said, “I need a shower,” and left the room. I could hear the water through the bathroom door. I sat and waited for her. Sonny Lippert could wait.

I listened to the shower and thought about going in and getting under the water with her and other stuff, but that would have made everything impossible. Instead, I went into the kitchen. I couldn't find the coffee. Lily had fixed it up, everything was different and there were new wood cabinets and appliances.

“Hi.”

Hair plastered to her scalp from the shower, Lily came in wearing a starched white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and black jeans. She put her bag on the kitchen counter.

“You changed it. The kitchen, I mean.”

“Yeah, you like it?” said Lily.

“A lot.”

“I made them keep the pipe. Look.” She touched a piece of old steam pipe that ran up the kitchen wall. “I said they had to keep it. The contractor thought I was nuts.”

“What did you keep it for?”

“You don't remember?” Lily reached up and pointed to a faint mark on the pipe, which was painted creamy yellow like the rest of the room.“One of the first times we went out together, we were going to hear music at the Village Vanguard, I think it was, you came to pick me up, and you had a gun in an ankle thing. You took it off and you got your handcuffs, which I guess you had in your pocket. Anyhow, you handcuffed the gun to the steam pipe. You guessed I didn't like guns, and you just did it.”

“I forgot.”

“I always remembered you doing that,” she said. “You seemed very cool.”

“Then you found out the truth.”

“I liked you even better when I found out you were as big a mess as the rest of us.”

“The kitchen looks really nice now.”

“I finally earned some money for a change,” Lily said. “I sold out. I did some work for a PR firm, that kind of thing. I just got bored with politics, monitoring everyone's behavior, especially mine. God, was I righteous. So I'll be on the PC shit list, I can live with that. I think it was when I was working for some NGO, you know, and I realized they were a lot more interested in gender politics in the office than actually getting something done in Africa. They bored me. I bored myself.”

“You don't bore me.”

“I was glad Sonny Lippert called me, I had an excuse to call you.”

“I would have called you anyway.”

“They played ‘Someone To Watch Over Me' that time we went to Bradley's, didn't they?”

“Don't.”

“Darling, maybe you should call Lippert now,” said Lily.

“In a minute.”

“Maybe I got you over here on false pretenses,” she said. “I just wanted to talk to you first.”

“First?”

“Before Sonny gets you involved in another case. Before you have to take Billy back to Florida.”

“Why would I take him back now?”

In the living room, we sat on the worn gray couch, and Lily played with the blue and red kilim that was thrown over the back of it.

“What's wrong?” I said.

“I shouldn't say it.”

“You can say.”

“I don't get why we're not together,” said Lily. “I mean I get it, I was a jerk, you married Maxine, and who could blame you? I mean in the bigger way, I don't get why it was so fucked up. Why I fucked it up. Never mind. I just mean that I miss you.”

“It will be OK.”

“How?”

“It just will. Somehow.”

“You have such an optimistic streak,” she said. “It's like you're still an immigrant who thinks he's lucky to be here and somewhere the streets are actually paved with gold.”

I laughed. “I do?”

“Yeah.”

“I should go.”

“I'm going with you,” Lily said.

“Did Sonny Lippert tell you what he was calling about?”

“He just said he wanted you, and there was some kind of tip-off about something, but he started rambling about something from his childhood, so I wasn't sure.”

“Did it sound bad?”

“Call him.”

“Yeah. It's probably just him ranting about something he read in Tolstoy or remembered from his childhood in Brooklyn, he probably just wants me to listen. I'll call.”

After a couple of tries I got Sonny on the phone. He was terse. Not rambling. Told me where to meet him. Now, he said, coldly. Where the hell were you, Artie? I've been calling you.

Lily put on her sweater, and shifted her bag onto her shoulder, took my hand, and said. “You should call Billy before we go.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason you left him safe with Hank on Staten Island,” Lily said. “You don't need me to spell it out. Make sure he's safe.”

“What did you mean before when you said I'd have to take Billy back?”

“I didn't mean anything. I meant at some point. Let's go, Artie.”

I meant at some point
. I thought about the maroon car and Stan Shank's ugly voice on the phone warning me to get Billy out of Brooklyn. Was that what Lily meant? Did she know something? She was half out the door, busy with her keys and then the elevator button.

She kissed me. “It doesn't matter anymore if you're married to Maxine, or anything, even if we can only be friends, so long as we can see each other, as long as we can talk.”

“Yes,” I said and the elevator doors opened and we went out into the street together.

Lily had a new black Honda, and we sat in it, not talking.

“You have a car now?”

“Go on, torture me about my lack of commitment to the environment. It's OK. I'm getting old, I need a car. It's just easier when Beth's here, I can take her places. The truth is I like having it,” she said, her eyes on the road, turning left on Broadway, driving faster. Lily was a lousy driver.

“Call Billy,” she said, wobbling between a couple of trucks and a taxi. “You'll feel better if you know he's safe.”

“Watch the cab,” I said. “Did Lippert say something about Billy to you?”

“Call.”

I got out my cell and dialed Billy, and he answered right away. He told me he hadn't heard from his parents. He said he was fine. He was sure everything was OK. I asked if Hank wanted to talk to me.

“He's cooking steaks,” Billy said. “He's wearing a big apron and a silly hat, and he's outside grilling steaks as big as my head,” he added. “I'm watching the game, Artie, and we're all hanging out. The weather isn't so great. I'm really OK with hanging out here until you come. We can fish later, right? Or tomorrow, we have time, right?”

“You like her, Hank's daughter, Katie?”

“Artie! Stop asking me. It's none of your business. Yeah,” he said. “I kind of like her. Mr Provone said we could go to a movie or something.”