Paradise Man (10 page)

“Ah, what do I care what Swiss does? He has his haunts. I have mine. When he comes into my territories with a pair of scissors, I’ll start to worry.”

“You kidding?” Holden said. “He wouldn’t touch your sketches. He worships every pencil mark. But he’s a fucking thief.”

“What did he steal?”

“My wife.”

And Holden went into his office. He put on the light and saw a headless chicken on his quilt. The chicken had feathers stuffed down its throat. It was a gift from the Bandidos, but how the hell did that bird get into his office? The Bandidos were always sacrificing roosters to that god in the red dress. They’d burn the chicken and drink its blood, but Holden’s bed wasn’t a religious altar. He took the chicken and marched out to the nailing boards.

“How did this get into my office?”

The nailers and cutters stared at him.

“I asked you a question?”

The cutters thought Holden had gone insane. That’s why he wore a turban. It was clear as a bell. Holden went around dancing with dead birds. But they started to shake, because he might just happen to shoot all of them in the head.

Nick Tiel came out of the designer’s room. “What’s up?”

“Nicky, who let a Bandido into my office?”

“Come on, Holden, we got alarms all over the place. No one can enter without the right key.”

“Then explain this,” Holden said, dangling the chicken.

“What is it? A fucking bird with feathers in its neck. The janitors were playing a joke.”

“Don’t say janitors, Nick. Janitors aren’t into voodoo. It’s a curse, meant for me.”

“We’ve been here day and night. Nobody walked that chicken into your room, unless he was invisible.”

Like Changó, Holden thought. Changó could build a wall of vapors around his red dress. Changó could have brought the chicken.

He’d gone to the Algonquin to collect money from a British furrier who owed Swiss a bundle. The furrier always traveled big. His name was Clive Exland. And he’d do a week at the Algonquin, steal whatever designs he could, and disappear. But Holden’s rats always knew when the furrier arrived. And Holden meant to squeeze him, but he was waylaid in the lobby.

“Holden, over here.”

Rex Abruzzi called him from that lounge at the Algonquin where all the Brits loved to have a drink. It was practically a British hotel. Rex was with his dad, the district attorney of Queens, and a woman wearing eyeglasses, a scarf, and a purple dress. Holden recognized Fay Abruzzi under the glasses and all the clothes. But she seemed slimmer, slighter in her dress, much slighter than Andrushka in Paris.

They were sitting around a table, the three Abruzzis. The district attorney shook Holden’s hand. “Good to see you, Holden ... heard about your head. Damn those blood feuds. We have some strange families in Queens. Hope you’re all right.”

He seemed wistful about the turban, as if Carmen were his own wayward child. He was a man of sixty, much smaller than his son, and eager to become a judge. He wore a flower in the lapel of his undertaker’s suit. That’s what Goldie would have called the district attorney’s dark sack. Holden was dressed in turquoise today. His handkerchief was island green. His pants were the blue of tropical water. Rex had dandruff on his brown suit. He could have stepped out of the Salvation Army.

Holden had become a snob. But he knew nothing about women’s clothes. He couldn’t tell how much Fay’s scarf was worth. He felt like an idiot who was wise in a couple of directions.

Fay wouldn’t talk to him. She looked like some dreamy bitch when Robert Infante arrived.

“Hello, Rob,” she said.

Infante had once worked for the D.A. He was a prosecutor in Queens until he waltzed over to the other side, but it hadn’t hurt his relations with Abruzzi. Robert was even more valuable as a mob lawyer. He put one arm around Holden. “Can you believe this bum? Looks like a blue diamond. And you can’t get near his tailor ... Fay, don’t be bashful. Give him a hello before he runs across the street and puts a few bad guys out of commission.”

“Robert,” Holden said, “thanks for advertising me to the district attorney.”

“Come on,” Infante said. “You’re among friends. What happened to Red Mike couldn’t be helped.”

“Goodbye,” Holden said. But Fay Abruzzi started to speak. Her mouth quivered. She lost that melody she’d had out in Red Mike’s bungalow.

“Mr. Holden, I wanted to ...”

She turned silent, retreated into her own sad song. Rex hugged his wife. “Holden, Fay’s had a scare. And the television people won’t leave her alone. The bastards call in the middle of the night, begging interviews. They want her opinion on crime. They want her on talk shows. We’ve had to change our number. It doesn’t help. The bastards keep calling. But you did save her life ... sit down with us, please.”

Holden saw that British furrier slip out of the hotel, but he couldn’t chase Clive. He sat down with the Abruzzis and his own lawyer.

People kept coming to the table, offering their regards to the district attorney and his daughter-in-law, and Holden wondered if the Algonquin was Abruzzi’s Manhattan office. People ignored the playwright, but they smiled at Holden, curtsied to him, and he grew miserable. Everybody knows I’m a bumper. I’m the man who murdered Red Mike.

He’d lost the British furrier. But he wasn’t so concerned with Aladdin’s affairs. He had his own business to worry about. He’d have to touch base with the Bandidos, but his rats were stingy on the subject of Big Balls. No one wanted to be firebombed. Holden had to trust his file cards, which were at least six months old. There was a bumper bar up in Manhattan north, a place where Marielitos with “
madre
” tattooed on their hands could meet.

The bar was in Inwood, under the elevated tracks. He rode up there with Harrington, his rat who’d brought Fay Abruzzi home from the Rockaways. Harrington’s was the one limousine service Holden ever used. Harrington had been a friend of Holden’s dad. They’d met in the Tombs.

Harrington kept peering under the el. He had a liver problem. He was gaunt and his face had gone yellow. Holden’s contributions to the limousine service kept him alive. But it wasn’t charity. Even with his yellow face, Harrington was the best chauffeur in town.

“Keep driving,” Holden said. “I don’t want the Mariels to see you.”

“But you might need a good getaway car.”

“I’ll walk out of this, thanks.”

“Holden, you’re as stubborn as your dad,” Harrington said, and he took off in his limousine.

Holden stood under the tracks. The bar had a shamrock in the window from its glory days when all of Inwood was a huge Irish football field. The bar was called County Clare, and the Marielitos hadn’t bothered to remove the name. Holden walked inside with his turquoise ensemble. He didn’t have prickles at the back of his neck. The only man he’d ever been afraid of was his dad. He’d tremble slightly in Holden Sr.’s presence. His dad was like a cold desert where the wind rattled your skull. Holden couldn’t even say what pleased his dad after living with him seventeen years. Holden moved out before his eighteenth birthday. He’d already bumped a man for the Swiss and didn’t feel much remorse. Bumping people was like visiting with Holden Sr.

He entered County Clare. The bumpers didn’t stop talking. They hardly noticed he was alive. But he knew he’d come to Changó’s house. Several of the bumpers wore
collares
of red and white beads. They had eyeglasses with one dark and one light lens.

Their neckerchiefs were blood red, the color Changó adored. They wore a brown shoe on their right foot, black on the left. One man sat at the bar in a red dress. He must have been the priest of the place. Holden sat down next to him and ordered a café cubano and a cream cheese custard.

“Hombre,” he said to the man in the red dress. “I’d like to meet Huevo.”

“Who wouldn’t?” the man said.

“He’s been sending me ticklers ... a rooster without a head.”

“That’s unfortunate, but Huevo doesn’t live here.”

“I can pay good money,” Holden said.

“Don’t insult us, señor. We know who you are. The paradise man. Finish your custard and get out.”

Holden looked past the man in the red dress and into all those eyeglasses with the one black lens, and he didn’t argue.

The barman wouldn’t take his money.

“Adiós,” he said. The bumpers didn’t answer.

A
jíbaro
followed him out the door. He had a black coat that was stitched to a brown sleeve. Goldie would have liked this guy. “Hey, Holden,” he said.

“Can you help me?”

“Not here, for Christ’s sake.”

The
jíbaro
led him away from the tracks and showed him a detective’s shield. “I’m Nunco. I work out of the Four-one.” An undercover dick from Fort Apache. Holden expected Paul Newman to pop out from behind Nunco’s black lens.

“You have a lot of
cojones
to come in here and ask for Huevo. It’s lucky they knew you. This is Don Edmundo’s bar. The men are loyal to La Familia. They didn’t leap when Huevo leapt. These Mariels hate that son of a bitch and are scared to death.”

“Do they figure you’re Changó with a brown sleeve?”

“Get outa here,” Nunco said. “The Bandidos made me years ago. They tolerate my ass. They used to be afraid of cops ... no more. They thought every cop was a jailer. But they’re not afraid of our jails. They’ve been to Rikers. They call it the Ramada Inn. Sometimes they talk to me like I really was a Bandido. That’s how comfortable they are with my face.”

“Are you wired?” Holden asked.

“Would I walk in here with a fucking microphone? They’d chop me in their kitchen and serve me as cheap steak. They’re telepathic, Holden, just like a witch. They could tell if a man was wearing a wire.”

“What about Huevo’s witch, his
madrina?
Do you know who she is? I can lay some money on you.”

“Shh, don’t talk money,” Nunco said. “How do I know you’re not an IAD man?”

“Do I look like a cop? How could I be with Internal Affairs?”

“You’re fucking untouchable. You whack this guy, that guy, and you’re still on the street.”

“Forget I ever talked money. Can you tell me the most logical candidate for Huevo’s
madrina?”

“There is no candidate.
Madrinas
and logic don’t mix. Can I drive you anywhere, Holden?”

Nunco brought him back to the Algonquin, but the British furrier had checked out. Holden would have to grab him next season. He returned to the fur market. It was Saturday night. Even Nick’s aristocratic nailers and cutters would be gone. And Nick himself? Smoking hash or lying down with a debutante at Muriel’s, because Nick hated to be alone. He needed the cutters around him when he was scribbling the outlines of a coat. He’d never married. He’d choose a girl at Muriel’s, be attentive for a month, and then abandon her to the fury of his designing board.

Holden took the freight car up to Aladdin, and unlocked the elevator door. The factory was dark, but Holden could smell the skins nailed to the boards. He was about to enter his office when he felt a sudden tickle. His bumper’s intuition told him that his bedroom-office was boobytrapped. He expected a firebomb to explode in his face on the other side of the door. He removed his turquoise coat, held it in front of him like an asbestos cape, undid the locks, and shoved into the room with his Beretta.

A body flitted around in the dark.

“Stand still, or I’ll turn your head into bumpkin soup.”

The body paused and Holden put on the lights. It was Abruzzi’s daughter-in-law in the purple dress.

“How did you get in here, Mrs. Abruzzi?”

“I came with Robert ... he let me stay.”

“He unlocked my office?”

“Yes. Isn’t he your lawyer?”

“That doesn’t give him the right of entry.”

“Well, he has your keys.”

She wasn’t such a gloomy bitch in Holden’s office. Her Rockaway melody had come back to her.

“What does the ‘S’ stand for?”

“‘S’?”

“On the door. S. Holden, it says.”

“Why’d you come here?”

“Because I wanted to talk, and I couldn’t do that with Rex around. I didn’t mean to startle you. But my father-in-law told me you were badly hurt on my account, that Michael’s sister tried to kill you.”

“He kidnaps you and you call him Michael?” Holden said, profoundly jealous.

“What else should I call him? I lived with him and his brothers six or seven days.”

Holden returned the gun to its cradle and put on his turquoise coat. “Mikey made you walk around naked. Didn’t that bother you?”

“At first, yes. But I understood the reason behind it. He didn’t want me running away. And where could I run without my clothes?”

“And Eddie and the Rat never patted your behind?”

“Michael wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“They didn’t say things to you, rotten, lousy things?”

“Yes, they did, but I got used to it after a while. They were like children. It was the only kind of talk they knew ... I’m a sociologist. At least I was before I married. Modes of speech interest me a lot.”

“And you were interested in Ed and the Rat?”

“Immensely ... I cooked for all the brothers. I mended their shirts.”

“I didn’t save you. I interfered with your life. You would have been happy to stick it out in the bungalow for a year.”

“No,” she said. “I have two little girls at home. I couldn’t have abandoned them.”

“Mrs. Abruzzi, Mike was my friend. I loved those boys. I might not have killed them if Rat hadn’t paraded you in front of my eyes.”

“He’s a child, I told you. He liked the power of bossing me around.”

“I suppose you would have joined their gang in another week?”

“No. But I might have continued cooking for them.”

“Did you tell it to Rex?”

“Of course. He laughed about it. But he was worried ... until you brought me home.”

“I didn’t bring you home. Harrington did.”

“But he works for you. And he was very fond of your dad.”

“Jesus Christ, did Harrington open up on the ride?”

“A little.”

Holden sat down. “I’m speechless,” he said. “I assume the world is one thing, and suddenly it’s another. Why’d you come here?”