Fresh Kills (25 page)

“I'm not sure,” she said. “I guess Billy wanted to go back. He seemed anxious. You heard from his parents?”

“They're OK. That's not everything is it?”

Mary was silent.

“Where are the kids?”

“They went out for burgers,” said Mary, putting down the dish she was holding. “They always go to eat after the movies.”

“Katie too?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Artie, sweetheart, I think you should go home,” said Mary. “They'll be waiting for you.”

“They?”

“Hank wouldn't leave the boy alone, not after you asked him not to. Maybe the movie freaked him out,” Mary said. “Maybe it was the bombings in London. Everyone's a little on edge around here, it reminds us,” she added. “There was a lot of watching news and talk. You want someone to drive with you? One of the boys could drive you if you're feeling bad. What happened to you?”

“Mary?”

“What's that, honey?”

“What do you mean, the movie freaked Billy out?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“You ever meet a woman named Tina Farone?” I said.

“Related to Billy? To Johnny? The one they called Little Tina because her mom was Big Tina?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure. I knew her a little bit,” Mary said. “We used to be sort of friends, but we don't see that much of each other anymore. We used to take our kids for horse-riding lessons together, Teen was good, she could ride a horse, and I would say, where'd you learn to ride a horse growing up in Brooklyn, and she'd laugh, I remember, and show me pictures of herself as a cowgirl or a rodeo rider or some cockamamie thing. Outfits with spangles, little bolero jackets, big hats. I don't see her now, though, not really. I think she moved out to Long Island. I used to run into her at the mall here some of the time. Why?”

“She lived around here?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Her old man, John Sr, when he stayed with her, used to come around and shoot the breeze with Hank, and he made Hank feel it was like his duty to hang out with him because he had been a cop. I didn't like him. Hank tried to keep him away, but he felt dutiful, you know Hank, and John Sr wouldn't leave, he just sat around the back yard and drank beer and ate peanuts in the shell that he carried around in a paper bag, and sometimes I saw him throw the shells on the patio and Hank would pick them up. I was OK with the peanuts, but there was other stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“He used to stare at Katie when she was in her bathing suit, and once he made her sit on his lap. Finally I told Teen I didn't want him here, and that kind of broke it up with us, you know? John Sr, he'd be Billy's grandfather, isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“Hank took Billy to the city is all I know,” Mary said. “Let me get a doctor for you.”

“I have to go home.”

Out front of the Provones I was getting in my car when Stellene came out of the house.

“What is it?” I said.

“Artie, listen, Billy should be at his school or whatever, or at least with his parents,” she said. “Where are they, the parents?”

“In London. His mother is scared to get on a plane after the shit in the subways over there.”

“Jesus,” Stellene said. “Then you need to take him back to his school or just be with him.”

“Why?”

“I think he's scared of something. Katie told me,” she said. “We're close. I'm Katie's godmother, and she talks to me, and she said she really really liked Billy, I could tell anyway, she had that look, you know, like her mother, they have that thin skin and when they're happy it turns bright pink. So they sat together at the movies, and she said Billy was very polite. Maybe she was kind of miffed he didn't try to kiss her or anything. Afterwards, they all came out of the movie, and Hank was waiting to bring them home. Billy wasn't there. Katie said he just wandered off as soon as the movie ended. It took them half an hour to find him.

“Hank found him across the street at a diner by himself, eating a chocolate donut with colored sprinkles like nothing happened. He said he had felt hungry. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, and I asked Katie if she had the impression Billy was scared, and she said yes, even on the way to the movie, he was watching the cars that passed like he was looking for someone.”

“I'm going,” I said. “Call if you need me. You sure
you
should drive like that?”

“Yeah,” said Stellene, patting her belly. “Triplets. Can you imagine? So go home and be with Billy. He needs you.”

“But you like him, right?'

“Sure, Artie. I like him a lot. He was cute about me being so pregnant, asking me when I was having the babies and stuff. Go home.”

“Is Billy OK? What happened? Where's Hank?” I said to Lily who was waiting for me when I got home.

“Calm down,” she said.

Legs tucked up underneath her, a book in her lap, Lily sat on the couch with Billy beside her; his head on her shoulder, one arm flung over the back of the couch, he was fast asleep.

Untangling herself, Lily got up, pulled a blanket over Billy and said, “Everything's fine.” She was wearing a yellow cotton skirt and a sleeveless black T-shirt. Little diamond earrings I had given her a long time ago were in her ears. It was the first time I'd seen them in years.

“Where's Hank,” I said and fell onto a chair.

Stuffed with Percoset and Advil, I'd been nuts to drive myself home; weaving crazily through traffic, all I had heard were horns honking and drivers screaming at me.

“I'm taking you to the ER,” said Lily.

“No. Tell me about Hank. Where the fuck is he? Mary said he brought Billy home.” My hands were shaking.

“Hank said he had to go home,” Lily said. “I called here a while ago, I can't remember exactly when, looking for you and
Hank picked up the phone. He told me he was here with Billy, he brought him back because Billy said he had to go home, and he had keys you gave him so it was OK. Hank promised you he wouldn't leave him alone. Hank asked me where you were and I didn't know and he said could I come over for a while and stay with Billy. He sounded pretty desperate to get back to Staten Island. I remembered you always said Hank Provone was a good guy, so I came.”

“Mary didn't say anything about Hank needing to get home.”

“Who?”

“Mary Provone, Hank's wife.”

“I don't know about that,” said Lily. “By the time I got here, Billy said he was tired. I felt bad for him. He said you thought he needed someone babysitting him all the time. I said I didn't do babysitting and I was only here because I liked him and also I was hungry, so we laughed and I made some salami sandwiches – it was pretty much all you had in the fridge – and he passed out before we finished. I covered him up on the couch, and that was it. I tried you like a million times,” she said.

I looked at my phone. “The battery's dead. I think the phone is fucked. Someone kicked me in the general area where I had it in a pocket.”

“You really need a doctor, darling,” Lily put her hand on my forehead.

“That feels good.”

It was late now, dark out. I was so sore I could barely move. If I went to some emergency room, they'd leave me lying on a gurney half the night, and I didn't think the guy who beat me up ruptured anything essential. They might not let Lily stay with me, and I wasn't leaving her, not now.

A hot bath would be just as good. I went into the bathroom and turned on the taps.

“You want a drink?” Lily called from the other room like she had a million times before.

“Yeah,” I said, and I heard the clink of ice, and then the sound of Bill Evans playing “I Should Care”, a track from the
Town Hall
album I loved. Both of us loved it.

Lily brought the drink into the bathroom, sat on the edge of the tub while I drank it, her face damp from steam. Then I sank into the water and stopped thinking.

Later, sitting on one of the kitchen stools, Lily held a glass of red wine, not drinking it, just staring into the liquid. She put the glass on a table and got up, stretched and looked for her bag, which she found on the floor. She put it on her shoulder and turned towards the door.

“I should get going,” she said. “It's late.

“Don't go,” I said. “Please. I need you. I'm scared.”

She leaned her hip against my kitchen counter, and picked up an orange and rolled it between her hands.

“What of, darling, what are you scared of? Was it the dolls?”

I shook my head and sat down on one of the stools at the counter near Lily.

“No.”

“What, then?”

“Myself. Billy. People like Stan Shank who want him dead.”

“Who?”

“It doesn't matter. A creep.”

“What else?”

“Maxine doesn't want Billy around,” I said.

“She has children, it makes you irrational,” Lily said. “I understand that.”

“Even Billy's mother doesn't really want him.”

“So, there's only you.”

“You like him. Lily?”

“I like Billy a lot,” she said.

“I just keep thinking about the dolls in that refrigerator in the warehouse, and how they looked like the dolls at the toy store. I couldn't say it before, not even to myself.”

“Go on.”

“I'm afraid of what people believe Billy did. That someone wants to set him up.”

“And how much you care about him? That, too?”

“I don't know.” I picked up the bottle of Scotch Lily had left on the counter and poured some for both of us.

“They made him well in Florida, didn't they?” said Lily, sipping her drink.

“You really believe that's possible?”

“You asked me before and I told you, yes. I have to believe it. Otherwise it's just some kind of Stalinist hell we're living in where everything is determined. But you have to take care of him, either way. You love him, so you'll look after him. That's it.”

“That simple?”

“Yes.”

“That's what Tolya said.”

“Tolya has wonderful emotional intelligence,” Lily said. “You wouldn't always think it, not the way he acts like a hood and his business deals, but he has perfect pitch for what matters. I thought that the first time I met him.” She smiled. “In spite of his outfits.”

“Sometimes I get jealous of you and Tolya. I mean sometimes I think you love him.”

“I do love him. Don't be jealous, though.” Lily patted my hand awkwardly, then pulled her hand away, picked up her glass, finished the drink. “I ought to go, Artie. I promised you, remember? When you got married to Maxine, I promised that I'd leave you be, I'd be good. I think I keep saying that, don't I?” said Lily. “It was me that fucked things up with us, Artie,
darling, it was me that ran away and married a man in London with a small designer car,” she smiled.

“It was all my fault. Do you remember when you took me up on the ferris wheel in London that New Year's Eve, the London Eye, you remember? You had a ring and everything and I just told you to forget it? It was a long time ago and I was a jerk. Listen, we had ten years together and then I ran away, and you found Maxine, and I don't want to screw things up for you anymore, so I should go. I seem to be saying that a lot. I'm trying.”

For a while, we sat side by side, Lily and me, leaning on the counter, listening to Bill Evans, not looking at each other.

“Please stay,” I said. “Please.”

Lily got up, went to where Billy slept on the couch and looked down at him.

“He looks so much like you.”

“You see that?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “I'll stay a while.”

She kicked off her sandals and settled into the big sloppy armchair where I sat sometimes and watched games on TV.

I went over to her.

“Not here,” I said. “Please.”

Lily lay beside me, sleeping. Wide awake, I listened to her breathing. It was raining. I could hear the rain hitting the windows, and all I could think was that the windows needed washing, and maybe the rain would clean off some of the dirt and dust. I reached over and touched Lily's long smooth back, but I let her sleep.

For a while, a few minutes, or hours, I didn't know because I didn't look at my watch, I felt OK, and I knew I felt OK for the first time in a long time, since Lily left me. It was a kind of contentment.

My father had never liked America. It wasn't because of the
politics. In the KGB, he had admired the opposition's tactics back during the Cold War. I wished he could have come to New York.

What he didn't like was the idea of America, the obsession with happiness. It made people into idiots, he said, and what the hell was it? Contentment was the thing you wanted, he used to tell me. Happiness passed, he always said; happiness was fleeting, like Dynamo scoring a goal in the last second of the match.

I don't know, but I felt content. And happy. With Lily next to me, and Billy in the other room, I felt deeply happy. It was as if this was my real family.

With Maxine, who was my wife, and her children, who were my stepdaughters, and who I cared for a lot, I sometimes felt restless. I had to try too hard, felt I was living the life I ought to want, the fantasy of a life other people thought I should have, the life they lived.

That night in my loft with Lily and Billy, it all felt real.

I thought it and then I began feeling lousy. I was a fuck-up. Maxine and the girls went out of town, and I was in bed with Lily. Tolya Sverdloff had been right when he told me once that I could never be happy without Lily. It had stayed with me. You'll never give her up, Tolya had said. You'll end up one of those sad old men who can't stay with one woman.