Paradise Man (11 page)

“I told you. To talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I took you from Red Mike and gave you back to Rex and your father-in-law.”

“But no one consulted me about it. I wouldn’t have minded a few more days without my clothes ... I liked the breeze on my body.”

Holden stood up. “That’s enough.”

“But I’m not finished yet, Mr. Holden.”

“I’m not Mr. Holden,” Holden said. “I’m Holden.”

“And I’d prefer it if you called me Fay.”

“I can’t. I mean, I talked to you once ... at the Algonquin. You hardly said a word.”

“But you’ve seen me without my clothes. And we did talk ... after you shot Michael and his brothers.”

“That was different. I was on the job. It wasn’t a social occasion.”

“It could have been. I might have cooked you a meal if you’d let Michael live.”

Jesus, Holden thought, this woman had dropped her wig somewhere. “Look, I appreciate the effort. But I’m tired, Fay. I’ll take you home. We can talk again.”

Her eyes lowered, and he felt a certain pity for her. She’d been caught in some crazy battle between the district attorney and the Pinzolo boys, and she’d flipped out in that bungalow.

“The ‘S’ is for Sidney,” he said. “But don’t you dare repeat it.”

She smiled. “Sidney. It’s a good name. I’d like to call you that.”

“Only in private,” he said. “I have a reputation to consider. If people started saying Sidney to me, I’d have to bump them or leave town.”

He managed to coax her out of the building and into a cab. She was a silent creature in a purple dress, looking out the window like a lost animal. Holden had the urge to stroke her hair.

She lived on Madison and Sixty-ninth—but when her doorman rang the apartment, Rex wasn’t there—and Holden didn’t feel like leaving her all by herself.

“Is your old man at the theater, rehearsing a play?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “Try Muriel’s. He’s with all his whores.”

What could Holden do? He stopped at Muriel’s townhouse on East Fifty-fourth, asked Fay to sit in the cab, and entered with the key Muriel gave to her choice clients. The men in Muriel’s parlor made a fuss over Holden, and Muriel herself admired the whiteness of his turban.

“God, you’re handsome in that hat. It goes with all the blue.”

“Where’s Rex? His wife is waiting.”

“Holden, you should have brought her upstairs. We could have gotten her into a rummy game while Rex washes up ... try the south room. You’ll find him.”

But he found Gottlieb first.

“What were you doing in Inwood?” Gottlieb asked.

“I went looking for Huevo.”

“In La Familia’s own fortress? You always freak when you get back from Paris. Don’t go there again.”

Scolded by a seventeen-year-old boy ... His reputation had slipped among his own society of rats.

“I can’t get to Huevo without his
madrina.
And what am I supposed to do?”

“Wait,” Gottlieb said.

“Is Nick Tiel around?”

“Yeah, he’s doing hash in one of Muriel’s closets.”

“Take me to him.”

“He might not appreciate that.”

“Take me to Nick.”

And Gottlieb showed him to a closet on the same floor. Nick was all alone with a little bubble-pipe in his mouth, sucking at the coals. His eyes were yellow, but he didn’t have that frantic look he carried around with him in the designer’s room. A fucking artist, Holden thought. Bleeds himself for the Paris show and he has to suck his pipe on a Saturday night. Holden was glad he couldn’t design a coat. He’d have to live with patterns in his skull. He’d rather bump than caress a designer’s dummy.

He marched upstairs to Rex. The playwright was lying with Melissa, the debutante of the month.

“Rex, your wife’s downstairs. She’s a little spooked. I think you should go to her.”

Rex blinked from the pillows. “You brought my wife to Muriel’s? You told her where I was?”

“She already knew.”

“You could have denied it.”

“I’m not a marriage counselor. Get the fuck out of bed.”

“Don’t you talk to me like that. My father’s the DA”

“Yeah,” Holden said, tossing a stocking at Rex. “A D.A. who orders hits.”

“My father never—”

“Shut up,” Holden said, and took the giant by his shoulders and hurled him into the door. Rex swung at Holden like a pathetic windmill. Holden ducked under Rex’s fists and socked him in the stomach. Rex sat groaning on the floor.

“Help me dress him,” he told Melissa, and they got the playwright into his pants, shirt, and shoes. They didn’t bother about his underwear. Holden liked this skinny girl. Muriel would find a senator for her, or some mob millionaire.

He clutched the back of Rex’s shirt and marched him down to the taxi cab. He opened the door, shoved Rex inside, noticed the dark outline of Fay. She troubled him. He signaled to the driver, and the cab disappeared down the block. But he couldn’t shake that image of the daughter-in-law with burning eyes in the back of a cab. Damn, Holden thought. Another leopard girl.

W
HENEVER HE BEGAN TO
drift into some long mystery, Holden performed his own kind of calculus. Parrot + Mistress + Marielita = what? It had to be the little girl. She was the answer to why Huevo wanted him dead. Even if he’d become her dada, he’d still have to interview her. He arrived on Oliver Street and didn’t have the heart to challenge the girl. Mrs. Howard redid his turban while the Marielita watched.

“Loretta, she has to be Huevo’s daughter ... or niece. There’s no other explanation.”

“Huevo’s black. Does this girl look black to you?”

“He could have married a gringo?”

“He’s not into that kind of marriage.”

“Jesus, she talks to her dolls. She talks to you. If only we could get a name out of her. It might help.”

“I got her name.”

The bumper froze. “Thanks for volunteering the information.”

“Holden, I’ve had other things on my mind. I take your calls from morning to midnight. I have to interpret some pretty weird stuff and act like a priest to some of your spies. I protect you from all that. And I have to fix a menu for the girl and wash her hair.”

“What’s her name?”

“Barbara.”

Holden ground his teeth like his dad had always done. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “She could be the missing
madrina.
Don’t you get it? Barbara is Changó’s Christian name. She’s involved with the cults. I’m telling you. The little bitch drinks chicken blood.”

Mrs. Howard slapped his face. He couldn’t pull a gun on a woman who was the nearest thing to a mother he’d ever had. The last time she’d slapped him, Holden had been twelve. He’d peeked at her in the bathroom, spied on her while she washed her breasts. He remembered the slow journey of the sponge, the dreamy look in her eye. He’d coughed and Mrs. Howard turned to stare at him. She came to Holden without covering her chest and slapped him. Twenty-five years ago.

“You apologize to Barbara, or get yourself another answering service.”

He looked at the bitch, who hugged her doll, and Holden wondered if that doll had any of Changó’s features. “Didn’t mean it,” he said.

“Dada.”

“Mrs. H., can’t you get her to increase her vocabulary?”

“You try.” Mrs. Howard left him with the little girl.

“Barbara, do you remember chickens, chickens on a fire?
Gallo, gallo rojo.”

“Rojo,”
she said. And Holden pressed his advantage.

“How old are you,
querida?”

“Ocho,
” she said. Eight. So she had to have been born before the boatlift. She was a pilgrim, like Holden himself.

“Where’s your mama?”

“Mama dead.”

“She die in
Los Estados Unidos
?”

“Sí.”

“And who’s been raising you?”

“Holden and Mrs. Howard.”

“Before that,
querida.”

“La nada,”
she said.
“Querida
raise myself.”

“You’re a fairy child, an elf.”

“
Sí
.”

Holden took a crayon from Barbara’s coloring box and copied an executioner’s heart in the webbing of his thumb. He crumpled the “tattoo” until most of the heart disappeared.

The Marielita laughed. “Your hand likes to talk.”

He had her now. She thought he’d created a hand puppet. He blew words into his fist.

“Hello, Doña Barbara.”

She giggled and tossed her head. “What is your name, señor?”

“Huevo.”

Barbara eyed the puppet. “No, señor. It’s Holden, I think.”

“I’m Holden,” Holden had to say. He was trying to destroy the girl’s will. But this baby Santa Barbara was much too clever for him.
“Querida,
” he said, hiding his hand. “Do you have a friend, a
dueña
who looked after you ... before you met Mrs. Howard?”

“Sí
. Dolores.”

“Was she skinny or fat?”

The Marielita pondered with a finger in her mouth. “Fat.”

Holden kissed the girl, grabbed her in his arms, felt all her mysterious odors, set her down in the middle of her dolls, and went looking for Loretta Howard. Loretta was doing Holden’s books, with a gun strapped to her side.

“We have a possible
madrina,”
he said. “Named Dolores. Can you check her out?”

“I’m not a goddamn agency, Holden. I’m a gal with rheumatism. It’s lucky I had a crush on you while I was living with your dad, because you drive me to distraction. Holden, you just can’t win. You’re out there freelancing, and you can’t even tell who you’re freelancing for. Your dad didn’t have much brains, but at least he worked for one man.”

“Yeah, the Swiss. Loretta, I work for him too.”

“But he has you bouncing all over the yard. You belong to Infante. Then you’re Edmundo’s child. Then who knows? You mess with the Marielitos, Holden, it’s like being in outer space. They got the witchcraft. All we’ve got is spies.”

“Why are you so ornery today?”

“Because I’m worried about you,” she said. “You’re not even kin. You’re a white man who kills a lot of people.”

Holden hugged her and she started to cry. “Don’t you play sweet with me. I’ll find that old Dolores. Give me a couple of minutes ... well, go on out of here. Can’t I have a little privacy?”

He strolled Loretta’s rooms with nothing to do, looked in on the little girl, but she was occupied with her dolls, and Holden didn’t want to disturb her. She sang to each doll in a tongue he couldn’t understand—neither Spanish, nor English, nor a mix of both; it was like a whisper, a constant hiss where he couldn’t locate the syllables. A language a man or god might use to fool his jailors.

Loretta called him back to her code room.

“There is a Dolores. She runs a religious store on the Lower East Side.”

“That’s not Huevo’s territory.”

“But she’s a witch. That’s what matters.”

“A hefty woman?” Holden asked.

“How the hell should I know? She has a
botánica.
She sells dust that can make a Bandido disappear.”

Holden stood like a boy in front of Mrs. Howard. “Can I take Barbara to see the witch?”

“Certainly not.”

“But I won’t be able to tell if she’s our Dolores.”

“You’ll have to use your head.” Loretta touched a loose cotton string on Holden’s turban and started to laugh. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to make fun. But you are a sight ... we’ll take the girl together. No harm done. If Dolores throws her powder at us, we’ll sneeze it back into her face.”

And so they dressed Santa Barbara, allowed her one doll, and Loretta got Harrington on the line. That yellow-faced man was waiting outside on Oliver Street like some lost Mohican, and Holden couldn’t figure how he had the time to get there. Harrington’s garage was in Brooklyn. He must have crossed a bridge that no one had ever heard about. It spooked Holden to have a chauffeur like that. He wasn’t into magic. He understood the value of a yellow face. Harrington’s liver was eating him alive. Holden believed in intuition, luck, and loyal friends, but he wasn’t going to be cursed by a chicken without a head.

It was only a seven-minute ride to Madison Street. The
botánica
was near a supermarket that had more aisles than Holden had ever seen. He could have traveled to Avignon along those aisles, but he hadn’t come down here to sink into some past he couldn’t even recall. The
botánica
had relics in the window, Santa Barbara and other saints. Flowers, shrubs, herbs, roots, medicines that could heal or make a man sick. It meant nothing to Holden, whose only voodoo was a Beretta .380 above his heart.

He went into the store with little Barbara. The
botánica
had an aisle of crazy plants. The woman who tended them wasn’t fat.

“Dolores?” he asked, pulling on the little girl’s hand to feel if there wasn’t a bit of electricity between Barbara and the
botanista.
“Dolores?”

“What you wish?”

“A potion,” he said. “A potion that can make a man appear.”

The woman scrutinized him. “I have not such things to sell.”

“But it’s a particular man. Lázaro Rodriguez.”

“I do not know him, and if I did, why would I tell a stranger?”

“I’m not a stranger. Lázaro and I share the same child.”

“Please, if you are a policeman, I have nothing for you. I do not interfere ... please.”

“Can you take a message to Lázaro. I didn’t hurt his child.”

“Please, I am not political ...”

There was nothing for Holden. He’d come to the wrong witch.

He walked out with Barbara and began to sneeze. He had a garden in his nose.

Holden couldn’t believe it. The bitch was in his office again. He wanted calm, an evening of quiet with
Casablanca
and the file cards he’d brought with him on
botánicas
and African gods, like Oyá, Changó’s mistress, who borrowed his thunder whenever he was in jail. Oyá wasn’t as temperamental as the thunder god. And she didn’t wear a red dress. But she had her own river, the Niger, and she’d navigate it with her nose above the swell, like a crocodile. And now Abruzzi’s daughter-in-law had interrupted his investigations and his dreams.

“Did Infante let you in again?”

Fay wouldn’t answer, and Holden went searching for Infante, because he didn’t care for uninvited guests, even if they were pretty. He found the lawyer in Swiss’ old office.