Fresh Kills (33 page)

The news on the car radio was still about London – the suicide bombers, the missing people, grieving parents and friends and children. I hadn't heard from Johnny Farone to say which flight he and Genia were getting. Saturday, he had said. It was Saturday now. Billy had stopped asking me about his parents.

Otherwise, he seemed fine. I didn't mention Luda's disappearance. There wasn't much I could do about it, and once word got out the whole city would go looking for her – she was a pretty little white girl with a sad story. I had called Sonny Lippert in spite of promising Tolya I wouldn't call. All that I could do was take care of Billy now.

I drove onto the ferry. The rain was over, clouds gone. The sun coming up was reflected orange and gold in skyscraper windows. Not so long ago a Staten Island ferry captain had
gone AWOL and his boat crashed and people were smashed up, maimed, killed. Today, the scene was benign, gilded, beautiful.

“Let's go out,” said Billy, so we left the car, bought some coffee and walked up to the top deck.

Leaning against the railing, we watched the city recede, the skyline, the Statue of Liberty, the slight dark blue chop on the water, the clear sky. The air was soft.

For a while we stood like that, not talking, Billy working his way through a couple of donuts he had taken from my place, his upper lip smeared with chocolate. The coffee in my hand was warm, and from time to time, Billy passed me pieces of donut, and I popped them in my mouth and made faces because the frosting was too sweet for me; it made Billy laugh.

“You OK?”

“I'm so good.” Billy was perched on a bench, looking out at the city, as it grew smaller. “It's so incredible. New York is the most awesome place in the world, isn't it, Artie?”

I told him I thought it definitely was and then he was silent, and I drank my coffee. I looked at my cell phone to see if there were any messages.

“It's pretty early for people to call,” said Billy.

“I was thinking maybe your parents,” I said. It was a lie.

I didn't want Billy knowing I'd put in a call to Andy Swiller, the doctor I met when I picked him up in Florida. I'd liked Swiller and trusted him as much as you could trust anyone who locked up kids.

Maybe Sonny was right and I was in denial about Billy. Anyway, I didn't tell him I made reservations on a flight to Florida for that night. Only way to keep Billy safe, I kept thinking. But who from? Far as I knew, Shank was locked up on Riker's.

In my pocket I had the keys to Hank's rental property over by Fresh Kills. It would be empty for a couple of weeks, Hank
had said. A beach was close by, some creeks too, where you could fish, a small boat tied up to the dock out back of the house. A quiet street, Hank had said. Not many neighbors.

I looked over at Billy who was tossing donut crumbs into the water. Maybe he could see fish below the surface.

Tuesday, four days earlier, we'd been on the beach at Coney Island. Went over to Brighton Beach where we had supper and walked around, then I had dropped Billy at the Farones' house where I left him for a while when I met Sonny Lippert.

What time had Stan Shank started following us in his maroon car? What time did I leave Billy at his parents' house that night, what time did I get back there and when did Shank call? How long was Billy alone?

I tried to work out where Shank had been when the boy on a skateboard was murdered, beaten, slashed and left near a garbage can over in Midwood. Reported as a gang crime. What time did it happen? Was it dark already? Had it been dark when I got to the Farones' house?

I was pretty sure it had been dark, but I couldn't remember turning on the lights when I went into the house. Couldn't remember if Billy had put the outdoor lights on when he went for a swim. Maybe he swam in the dark. I remembered: there had been a light on. I had watched him from the kitchen window.

“Artie?”

“What?”

“I said your name twice and you didn't answer,” said Billy.

“I was just drifting,” I said. “Thinking.”

“What about?”

“Nothing.”

A sharp breeze whipped against the boat and against my face. I zipped up my jacket. Billy looked up at me from his seat on the ferry bench and smiled. He really was a handsome boy.

But what kind of knife did the Midwood gang use on the
little boy on the skateboard? Someone had beat him over the head, but there had been knife marks too.

The ferry maneuvered into position to move into the slip; the boat's wake frothed up like egg whites.

“Shouldn't we get the car now, Artie?” Billy said. “Isn't it time?

I followed Billy down the stairs to the lower deck. A few cars were in front of us. While the ferry bumped the last few yards to the slip, we leaned against the hood of my car and shared a cigarette. The boat thumped against the wood of the pier. I tossed the cigarette butt overboard into the scummy water.

Stuff that had happened over the last three or four days, kept running in my head, like your tongue working at food stuck between your teeth. Billy had denied he'd been out of the apartment Tuesday night while I was drinking champagne with Tolya.

Tuesday night. Swore he didn't go out, and Jorge, the doorman at Battery Park City had also said he didn't think Billy went out. Wasn't sure. Jorge had gone on a dinner break. There had been something in the apartment when I got back, though: the way magazines on a table near the front door seemed to have shifted; a different smell. The next morning Billy brought me orange juice, but now I recalled there hadn't been any juice in the fridge. I'd forgotten to buy it.

Did Billy go out? Did he pretend he was in all night when he had really wandered over to Chinatown? But the boy in Chinatown kicked to death, that came later, didn't it?

Other gaps occurred to me. And the way Billy had begged for some time on his own. He wanted me to trust him so bad. Even Tolya had said the kid needed some freedom. There were the dolls. There was the frozen baby with the nut-like face. I didn't want to think about her.

Where the hell was Luda? I was afraid to ask Billy if he knew
where she was. Afraid he would lie. Afraid he would tell the truth. Afraid, and this was the thing I really believed most, that Billy had nothing at all to do with any of it and, if I asked, he would resent me for the rest of his life.

I unlocked the car, Billy slid into the passenger seat and I got behind the wheel. I reached for the radio, but Billy put his hand on mine and said not to put it on, it was so peaceful without the noise, and then he popped the last piece of donut into my mouth, said he had been saving it for me. He crumpled up the donut bag, scrunching it into a tighter and tighter little ball, and tossed it from hand to hand, looking out of the window, humming, glancing at me, smiling, but restless.

“What's wrong?” I said.

“Nothing's wrong,” he said. “Should I get out the map? Should I navigate? I brought the map.”

“Sure.”

Billy looked at the map he got out of his knapsack while I drove through the little town of St George.

“What's the address?” said Billy.

I told him. Intent on the map, he peered at it, tracing the roads with his finger, reciting the route first to himself, then to me.

“You find it?”

“I'm still looking,” he said. “I have to make sure that we get the best route. Otherwise, we could meander around for a long time.”

“Meander,” I said. “I like that word.”

I kept driving, past the rows of neat suburban houses, people still asleep inside except for one where an elderly man sat on the porch in his electric-blue pajamas, reading a newspaper.

Flags flapped in the breeze at strip malls, nail salons, Italian food joints. RV parks were filled with mobile homes.
In one park with a scabby baseball field, a lone boy hit balls listlessly.

I was lost again. Couldn't get the hang of the way the island worked. I pulled over to the side of the road, and peered over Billy's shoulder at the map he was reading. He told me where to go.

We drove. It was Saturday, nice weather, people hauling fishing poles up towards the boardwalk that ran parallel to the beach.

In a sort of campground just off the road were pickup trucks and vans that contained dogs, some of them in cages. A sign announced that it was Dog Day on Staten Island. A big trailer had a sign out front that advertised dog grooming. Kids in yellow T-shirts handed around samples of doggie treats to the dog owners. People sat on deckchairs in the camping ground, their dogs around them, and talked to other people surrounded by their dogs.

“What, Artie? You look weird,” Billy said. “We're OK now, we're on the right road.”

In the rear-view mirror, I saw a green Jaguar behind me. I kept driving steadily, not hitting the gas or looking over my shoulder. Then the Jag pulled up, passed. The driver, alone in the car, was a trim good-looking woman with prematurely white hair who wore a sun visor. On the seat next to her was a fancy white leather bag of golf clubs. “Dykes on spikes,” someone had cracked about women golfers. Who was it? I couldn't remember.

Sure, Billy had been on his own for a while on Wednesday morning, the time I'd left him at Tolya Sverdloff's so I could take a run at Vera Gorbachev's case. Billy told me he'd left Tolya's to get ice cream. Mint chocolate chip. When I got home I found him in front of my building eating it. Told me he'd already eaten a Cherry Garcia cone from Ben and Jerry's and looked a little worried in case I said it was
too much, the Cherry Garcia and the mint chocolate chip. Same thing that night after the party at the toy store. All he did was leave and go home to my loft. Billy was a city kid and he could get around. Knew the subways. Knew how to get a cab.

“Got it,” Billy pointed to the map. “I found a really good way to get there.”

“What?”

He tapped the map. “Make that right over there,” he said.

“Billy, listen I have to tell you something.”

“Sure. I know something's been bugging you. Go on.”

“Luda's disappeared.”

He put the map down and half turned towards me. “What do you mean, disappeared? I talked to her yesterday.”

“I went over to Tolya's while you were asleep. She disappeared. She walked out of the apartment or someone took her, and she's gone. She's just gone. You know anything at all about it? She say anything to you?”

“No. Course not. I would have told you.” Billy looked surprised and maybe a little hurt. “Course I would.”

“You're sure?”

“Sure. I really liked her. I felt she was like a younger sister. Oh, shit, Artie, that really sucks,” he said and I saw he was on the verge of tears. “We should go back to the city,” said Billy. “We should go back and help them find her. Where are you going? That's not the right way at all.”

We didn't go back. We kept going. I told Billy there was nothing we could do about Luda. I knew I was driving in circles but I didn't want to stop, didn't want to get to the house where we were going. I felt like I was losing my mind.

Up around the north-eastern edge of Staten Island I could see the Bayonne Bridge that linked it with New Jersey. In the car, Billy moved closer to me, for comfort or as a gesture of affection – I couldn't tell.

“You have any gum, Artie?” he said. “I need something, mints, gum, something, I'm really trying not to smoke, I mean if I keep smoking, by the time I'm your age, I'll have been smoking for like over thirty years. I'll be dead, and also second-hand smoke is shitty for other people, so I'm trying.” He reached into the pocket of my jacket. “I used to think it was cool when I was a kid, but it's not cool.”

I told him to get his hand out of my pocket and made it sound like I was kidding around when I pushed him away. It didn't take Billy ten seconds, though, to find his missing cell phone.

For a while, Billy just held his phone and stared at it and didn't say anything. I told him I was sorry; I said I'd found it and meant to give it to him but the words were hollow and we both knew it.

The image of the frozen baby in the freezer, buried between plastic bags of blueberries, came up from nowhere. I couldn't get rid of it no matter where I put my attention, the road, the scenery; like floaters, those strange spots that sometimes drift into your vision, and you can't get rid of, the baby stayed in front of my eyes.

Billy's silence unnerved me. He sat, body rigid, straining against the seat belt. He didn't ask me if he could drive, even though there weren't many cars on the road and usually, if the roads were empty, I let him. He didn't put his feet on the dashboard like he sometimes did. All I could see was his profile. He didn't look at me at all.

When I started to apologize again, he finally turned his head slightly, looked at me and made it clear he didn't want to talk. Unsure about the road I was on, I reached for the map and asked for his help. Billy passed the map over silently.

Taking the dolls out of the toy store would have been easy for Billy. Kids everywhere. Luda screaming. Parents arriving to take their children home. No big deal for Billy to take the dolls, leave the store, get a cab or take the subway.

For all I knew, he had stashed them at my place – under the bed even – that night before he put them in the fridge in the Chinatown warehouse, if that's what he did. His prints weren't on them, but so what? Then I thought about the latex gloves in my loft. Billy said Mike Rizzi had forgotten them.

Billy's expressionless face, rigid limbs, his refusing to talk, made me suspicious. The suspicions hit hard and made me feel cold.

“You're shivering,” he said.

“I'm fine. Thanks. What about you?”

He shifted on the seat slightly, so that he half faced me while I drove.

“It's mine,” said Billy “The cell phone is mine and I would have given it to you if you wanted, I'd give you anything of mine you wanted, but you just took it while I was asleep.”