Invisible Boy (20 page)

“Ouch.”

“Besides which,” she said, “this is
waaaaay
before Angie Dickinson made the world safe for female cops, okay? So I show up early for my very first eight-o’clock shift
on the job, and the desk sergeant takes one look at me in this getup—all sweet-cheeked and dewy-eyed—and starts screaming
about who’s the joker trying to fuck him in the ass by sending a goddamn
girl
over there, and how he doesn’t have enough shit to eat already without he’s gotta babysit Barbie and
Skipper
.”

“Okay, I
so
would have burst into tears, at that point.”

“Let me tell you, I’d already been through months of this shit, even before the academy. Shoulda heard my dad—and my
brothers
? You just get numb after a while if you’re lucky. And this jerk behind the desk, he doesn’t drag it out for too long. Just
throws up his hands after maybe five minutes and tells me, ‘Stay out of fucking trouble, don’t do
anything
, just go walk up and down the sidewalk in front of the station house so I don’t have to fucking
look
at you, honey, because I’ve got actual
work
to do here this morning.’ ”

“What time of year? I mean, is he throwing you out to wander around in the snow or something?”

“October,” she said, “piece of cake.”

“So you’re outside, walking back and forth on the sidewalk all day?”

“This is what I’m led to believe. And at first it’s really busy—eight
A.M.
, so you got the night shift leaving, morning guys coming in—a ton of people shoving around, right? In and out. And I’m just
trying not to get run down, minding my business, down the fucking sidewalk, turn around, back
up
the fucking sidewalk….”

I hear her take a sip of coffee or something on the other end of the line.

“And after a while,” Skwarecki continued, “I notice there’s this guy sitting on the curb, maybe twenty feet from the front
door? He’s got his head in his hands, knees pulled up, looking beat to shit, like the cat dragged him around the block all
night.”

“A cop?”

“Nah,” she said. “Just some guy. I’m walking past him thinking maybe Hispanic: two-tone shoes, little porkpie hat pushed back
on his head, one of those Cuban shirts—regular Mambo-King son of a bitch, except rumpled. Like he went out the night before
dressed pretty sharp but now it’s the next morning, right?”

“Just sitting there?” My butt was starting to fall asleep, so I stood up and refilled my water glass at the sink.

“I’m telling you, Madeline, the crowd thins out and the guy doesn’t
move
. Not like he’s a stiff or anything, but he just sits there—doesn’t look up, nothing. Every once in a while I think maybe
he’s
crying
a little, into his hands. But I’m supposed to stay out of trouble, right? So I just keep walking back and forth past him,
bored out of my freaking mind, nothing else to look at.”

“For how long?” I ask.

“Three fucking
hours
, Madeline, until finally I can’t stand it anymore. He’s sobbing by this point. Shoulders jerking around, all that.”

“So you talk to him?”

“I try to, except he looks up and he’s got snot running out of his nose, eyes all red, and he tells me ‘
No habla inglés
,’ right? But straight across the street there’s a bodega, so I go over there and try to find someone bilingual, could maybe
help me out with this guy.”

I swallow some water. “Mm-hmm…”

“And there’s this little boy, twelve years old, speaks a little English? So I drag
him
back over to this guy, and say ‘Ask him what’s the matter,’ and he goes
bi-bi-bip
and the guy tells him
bi-bi-bip
right back, and then the kid looks up at me and goes, ‘Hey, Missus, he sad ’cause he kill his
girlfriend
.’ ”

“Skwarecki, you are fucking
kidding
me,” I said.

“Hand to God, Madeline. So I go, ‘Ask him
when
,’ and it’s all
bi-bi-bi, bi-bi-bi
again—back and forth, the two of them—and the kid looks up and says, ‘Three o’clock this morning.’ ”

Her chair creaks in the background. “And I say, ‘
How
did he kill her?’ so the kid asks him, and then he looks up and tells me, ‘Missus, he shoot her.’ So I say to this kid, ‘Ask
him, where’s the gun?’ and when the kid does, Ricky Ricardo on the curb there reaches down the front of his pants and pulls
out a chrome-plated fucking thirty-eight, which he then holds out to
me
, barrel-first.”

“
Awesome
,” I said.

“Yeah, right? And I have a handkerchief in my pocket, so I pick the damn gun up with that—all dainty and shit—and shove it
in my purse-holster thing, and then say to the boy, ‘Ask him, where’s his dead girlfriend now?’ So the kid does and the guy
points across the street, and the kid tells me, ‘In that car right there, in the backseat under some blankets.’ So I go, ‘Ask
him will he come inside with me,’ and the guy listens to the kid and then he nods and stands up and trots right into the station
house with me, no problemo.”

“Dude,
Skwarecki
,” I said, sitting there in the dark and shaking my head in wonder.

“Maddie, you should’ve seen that desk sergeant. Pissed
off
? I’m
telling
you, fucking red in the face, jumping up and down, all, ‘I told you to stay out of
trouble
, not
talk
to anyone, and here you are, ya
stupid
bitch, dragging some nightclub
spick
into the station house—what’s your fucking
problem
? You fucking
deaf
?’ ”

I started laughing.

“And so of course I go, ‘
No
, sir, it’s just that this man committed a homicide late last night, and I’ve got the murder weapon in my purse and the vic’s
parked across the street in a Buick, and I thought you might want to take him into custody,
sir
.’”

I said, “You weren’t kidding about the whole fate thing. Jesus H.
Christ
.”

“Ach,” she said. “You wanna know from fate? The detectives upstairs stole the collar right out from under me.”

“Even so, that’s the best story I’ve heard in just about forever. You totally cheered me up.”

“You want me to
really
cheer you up?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“They’re going under.”

“Huh?”

“The two-bagger,” she said.

“Skwarecki, what is that,
golf
?”

“Madeline, your
perps
—Teddy’s mother and the boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I said, comprehension dawning. “The two-bagger.”

“
Now
you’re cookin’ with gas,” she said.

“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe they’re dead.”

“Whaddaya—
dead
? Jeez, you want to give me a heart attack?”

“They’re
not
dead?”

Skwarecki started laughing. “Where do you come
up
with this shit?”

“Hey,” I said, “you tell me ‘bags’ and ‘under,’ I think funeral.”

“
Funeral?
” She cracked up.

“What?” I said.

She struggled for breath. “Listen to you, over here—regular fucking laugh riot, I swear.”

“Yeah, yeah, me and Phyllis Diller. We have a goddamn
gift
.”

She snickered again. “
Under
…”

“Skwarecki, I still have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Under
what
?”

“
Arrest
.”

“Oh,” I said. “Duh.”

“Yeah, well. Took you long enough.”

“So when does this happen?” I asked.

“Tonight,” she said. “We’ll bring ’em down here, get ’em in the box.”

“Skwarecki, that is the
best
news. Thank you for telling me.”

“Hey, I would’ve been trying to get ahold of you, anyway, give you a heads-up.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Bost is gonna need you to testify for the grand jury.”

“When?”

“Sometime this week, probably. The arraignment’s Monday, then she’s got about six days to go after an indictment.”

“So does she need me for the arraignment, too?”

“That’s just about bail. No point in you coming out for that.”

“Cool,” I said.

“You want to meet up maybe Tuesday morning, we can walk you through the rest of it.”

“I’ll give you a call from work first thing Monday, when I know my schedule for the week. Then I’ve gotta go meet my mother
for lunch or some shit.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “So we got you cheered up, now, or what?”

“Just like a whole new world,” I said, “all shiny and lemon scented.”

“Night, then. I gotta hit it.”

“Hey, can I ask one more question?”

“Sure thing.”

“Any idea which one of them killed Teddy?”

“We like the boyfriend, but we’ll charge Angela, too.”

“Did you talk to Mrs. Underhill?”

“Couple nights ago, right after I saw you.”

“How’d it go?”

“We’re thinking she’ll testify,” she said. “You did good.”

“God willing.”

“Yeah, right?”

I
finally slept okay, considering.

Dean woke up at dawn, his circadian rhythm still governed by some lingering neurochemical trace of childhood heifers and cornfields.
He went for a long walk but was back downstairs with Christoph by the time I’d stumbled out of bed myself.

Our host pressed us to stay on through lunch at the very least, but we extricated ourselves by pleading the onus of nonspecific
untended responsibilities back on Sixteenth Street, not to mention the time-suck logistics of returning my car to its barn
before catching a train into the city from Locust Valley.

“If you’d ever like to park it behind the office in New Jersey, you’re welcome to,” said Christoph. “It might be more convenient.”

He smiled at me, eyes crinkling up.

I thanked him for the offer just as Astrid wandered downstairs, wine-stale and bleary-eyed.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, taking in our little pair of bags perched stoutly by the front door.

“Needs must,” I said.

“Kiss-kiss.” She leaned in to assail me with a rank blast of ashtray and soured perfume.

I spoke into her ear. “Best to Cammy, and she owes me six Percodan.”

She pulled back, blinking at me. “Darling, no hard feelings? It was entirely necessary. We’d never have
survived
that wretched dinner otherwise.”

“Mmm… God knows we
all
have friends whose company one must be drugged to endure.”

Astrid clapped her hands. “That reminds me, I got you a present.”

She tripped lightly upstairs, returning moments later with a hefty and rather worn paperback book.

“I ran across this the other day and immediately thought of you,” she said, passing the volume to me.

I looked down to read its title. “This is quite… unexpected. I don’t know how to thank you.”

I wasn’t kidding. The book in my hands was
Mein Kampf
.

I peeled back its cover, hoping she’d inscribed some sort of punchline, or at least an explanation.

The book’s first page was blank but for an anonymous
$2.00
, scrawled in pencil across its upper right-hand corner.

“I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean,” I said, tucking the repulsive tome under my arm, “but I’ll certainly remember
our weekend here every time I see this.”

“What was
that
all about?” asked Dean as we drove away.

“I was hoping you might clue me in,” I said.

He shook his head, hands thrown up in dismay.

“Dean, I mean,
Mein Kampf
? What the
fuck
?”

I stopped at the end of their road, looking left for oncoming traffic. “Was that intended as, like, an expression of her marital
manifesto, or just some garbled-but-massive ‘Fuck you’?”

“Maybe it’s a cry for help,” he said.

“Like what? ‘Lassie! I’m trapped in a mineshaft! Run home and get the SS’?”

“ ‘Help me, Obersturmbannführer Kenobi! You’re my only hope!’ ” replied Dean, raising a fist to each ear for the full Princess
Leia.

“I just don’t get it,” I said. “I really, really don’t.”

“Bunny, there’s nothing
to
get. The woman’s just fucking nuts.”

He was right, not that it made me any happier. “You want to stop for breakfast?”

“Let’s wait for the Commack exit,” he said. “These people would put escargot in
oatmeal
.”

It took us five hours to get home, all told, what with Sunday traffic and the vagaries of the Long Island Rail Road, but I’d
rarely been so happy to be safely back in our tiny second-floor commune.

“Home, Sweet DayGlo Home.” I said and plopped down on the sofa, cheered by its very hideousness.

There was a note on the coffee table, pinned down under Sue’s bong and a lighter:

We’re out mocking the nouveau-riche at Barney’s. Sam Chinita’s for dinner?

—mwah mwah, S & P

Dean saw that the bong’s bowl was filled and flicked it alive with the lighter. After taking a long gurgling hit, he offered
it to me.