Park Lane South, Queens (28 page)

“I like you a lot better,” she said. “You're more my type.”

“Oh, yeah?”

With that one shot of honesty he seemed to return to his complacent, obnoxious self.

“And now I'm very sorry I told you that,” she told him, annoyed.

“Yeah, well, that's you all the way: give an inch and take back a yard.”

“Am I? Am I really like that?”

“I don't know. Are you? What do you do, piece together who you are with your lover's odd remarks?”

“Jesus, I don't know.” She patted the Mayor's head. “Are you my lover?”

“I'd like to be.”

She looked up at him. “I've got to tell you something.”

“Tell.”

“I found this stuck in Carmela's car seat.” She handed it to him. “And don't go thinking it must be Carmela, because I happen to know that it couldn't be. So forget about it. But she's been seeing—”

“Fred Schmidt.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Those two have been painting the town. And they're pretty stupid if they think they're being sneaky. Then they've got that cabbage following them around everywhere they go. He sticks out like a sore thumb, with that red hair.”

Claire stared at him. “Who?”

“The jealous boyfriend.”

“Carmela has another boyfriend?”

“No. Freddy does. The one who's always hanging around here. Looking in the windows in the middle of the night. At first I thought he was spying on Zinnie. Then I figured out it was Carmela he had a case on. The jealous bartender. You must have seen him.”

“Now I know who Iris von Lillienfeld was talking about.”

Out the window came old “Sally Go Round the Roses.” That meant Zinnie was home. All the more reason not to go in.

“You know I've got to take this over to the station house, don't you?”

“Sure.”

“You want to come?”

“No.” Not only didn't she want to, but the wet grass had turned her backside into a dark, round embarrassment. “I'm going to change. Do you want to come back and eat here?”

He grabbed her wrist and turned it over to look at her palm. “There's this house up on Eighty-fourth Avenue for sale. I don't know. You're not thinking of leaving town or anything, are you?”

“Am I supposed to answer as a suspect or a potential girlfriend?”

“It's got a front porch with screens. And a fireplace.”

“Johnny, anything on Eighty-fourth is going to be outrageously expensive,” she heard herself conspire.

“Yeah, but this is a real wreck. Pretty, though. That's why I thought of you, like.” He coughed gruffly. “It needs a lot of work on the inside. But I figured you'd like an old kitchen from the forties.”

It was, as a matter of fact, the only sort of kitchen she did like.

“And the outside looks kind of like a Swiss chalet. I mean it could. It has a real low overhang. And I'm pretty good with my hands. Really.”

They searched each other's eyes excitedly.

“It's on a nice little piece of property, too. If I got a good price for my house. And I might. It's right on the track.”

She couldn't believe she was standing there discussing buying a house in Richmond Hill with Johnny Benedetto. Nor had she forgotten his nearness to the track. “Johnny,” she laughed. “Aren't we jumping the gun a little here?”

“No. We're drawn to each other. That's not going to change.” He let go of her hand. “Just keep it in mind.”

She shook her head with an adult flourish.

“You and I,” he looked her up and down, “we haven't even gotten started.”

“Johnny, we don't even know if we really like each other, do we?”

“Claire. You and I, we know we like each other. Really.”

Stan, at the window, pulling Mary's favorite red leaf around in the lettuce dryer, saw the two of them out there with their heads together. Now or never, he decided, and he went outside.

“And something else you might like to know about,” she was telling him. “That redheaded kid who works the bar at Freddy's? He thought I photographed him outside the church after the first funeral. And I have reason to believe that he's been spying in my window. Someone told me they saw him. I think.”

At least, they haven't gotten to the lovey-dovey stage, thought Stan. Mary would kill me if Claire took his camera before I told her about mine.

“Is that right?” Johnny seemed interested.

“I mean, I don't have it in for that kid or anything. Really. I would only like my cameras back if he had anything to do with taking them. I wouldn't press charges. I just want my stuff back.”

“Unless it's needed for evidence,” said Stan, immediately getting the gist of the conversation. “In which case you won't see any of it for a long, long time. Hi, Johnny.”

“How's the boy, Stan?”

“Good. Good. Which brings me to the reason I came out here. Claire, do you remember my old camera?”

“No,” she said, wishing he would go away.

“Don't let's start arresting people here before we have anything on them,” Johnny joked, raising his hands above his head.

“No, of course not. It's just that—”

“The Contax,” Stan said happily. “You remember. From Zeiss Ikon. The one I brought home from Germany. With the 1.5 lens speed.”

Claire frowned. “The only reason I mention him is because I saw him again today and Stefan told me—”

“Oh, so you are still hanging—”

“No, I am not. A 1.5 lens speed?” She turned to Stan. “Gee. I don't remem—”

“Of course you don't, because you were just a kid when I was using it. Mom just happened to mention that you might get a kick out of it. It's just wrapped up in the attic doing nothing.”

“What's a 1.5 lens speed?” Johnny wanted to know.

“It's incredible,” Claire's eyes shone. “It's almost equivalent to a human eye … it lets you take a picture in candlelight. Without a flash.”

“And they don't make them like that anymore,” Stan bragged. “Incidentally, it has the largest base range finder for accuracy distance measuring. And of course a built in light meter.” He watched Claire's mouth begin to water. “The thing cost a thousand dollars in the forties. So you can imagine what it must be worth now.”

“A kitchen and a camera from the forties,” Johnny's hesitant smile lit up. “What else do you want in one day?”

“Yeah. Gee. What is this?”

Stan looked back and forth at them. Some sort of private joke.

Johnny sensed his discomfort (so did Claire, but she was hoping it would give him a hint) and he brought them back to Stan's camera. “So what did you do?” Johnny laughed, “take it off some dead Nazi?”

“In case you didn't know,” Stan caught him up short, “military law dictated that all cameras, guns, and binoculars be turned in, at risk of being shot. We were ordered to put all of these magnificent guns and cameras in piles on the street and run over them with a half-track. Oh, geez, it was heartbreaking.”

“So my father relieved the army of some of that diabolical task and sent a couple of them home,” Claire said.

“Well. You wouldn't want to see them destroyed. So you see, this camera”—Stan was just getting warmed up—“can handle speeds up to twelve fiftieths of a second.”

The Mayor rolled over onto his back and let the cool wet seep into his bones.

“Or, in layman's terms, one thousand two hundred fiftieths.”

“I'm glad you clarified that,” Johnny winked at Claire.

Claire smiled at him vaguely. She was far away, remembering another time and place. It was years ago. She'd taken a house on the island of Jamaica, in Negril. A magnificent little house, with a thatched roof and a small porch not twenty feet from the turquoise sea. Wolfgang had made a bevy of friends up at Rick's (where they all used to run into each other and watch the big orange sun plop into the ocean without fail each evening). She'd gone swimming every day. Lots of people would drop by and Wolfgang (an excellent cook) would concoct enormous meals. A lovely round woman named Emily, very shiny and black, had come with the house and done all of the cleaning up. “All your friends,” she would marvel to Claire, “are so sophisticated and chic. My, my.”

And then one day a new couple had arrived. They stayed in the house beside Claire's—alongside, not on the water. Their names, Claire remembered very well: Anthony and Theresa. They were on their honeymoon. Anthony, Emily had informed them while she swept the kitchen floor, drove a truck back at home where they came from. A small town, at that, on the south shore of Long Island. And he had a tattoo on his arm. “The south shore,” Wolfgang had said, stirring his meringue suspiciously. “Isn't that the wrong shore?”

No one had bothered very much with the honeymooners. And, if truth be told, neither had they bothered much with anyone. They were neither sophisticated nor chic. Claire used to hear them laughing very late at night. She would turn in her bed and look at the beautiful iridescent green chameleon that lived on her wall and she would listen to them. They really were sort of vulgar. Claire would wake up later and later each day, somehow unrefreshed, and fall into the light blue water, where she would stay.

Finally the couple was leaving. Anthony, to everyone's amusement, had rented a boat to come and pick them up and take them near the airport so that they wouldn't have to drive halfway around the island in some dusty taxi. They had to wade out a good ways into the water to get into the boat. Claire had gone out with Emily to watch them go. They were very excited. There were gifts galore for family back on Long Island. Cheap, touristy gifts, but that was the idea, Theresa had defended them when one fell into the water and Anthony made fun of her distress. At last everything was on the boat. Out went Anthony with a last-moment-in-paradise dive. Theresa gathered her lavender dress around her (she was a big young girl) and out she walked, very slowly, erectly, forever holding this moment in her memory. Something caught in Claire's sophisticated heart. “My, my, my,” Emily observed. “Now there goes a happy girl. A happy girl.”

Claire had never forgotten either of them. And all of those fancy friends they'd spent their time with there were gone, forgotten and invisible.

“Claire?”

“Yes?”

“Don't mention this to anyone,” Johnny said, tapping his shirt pocket, referring to the cufflink.

“No, I know. I won't. And Johnny? Come back safely.”

Michaelaen trollied round and round his room. The waddle truck he sat on was for small boys but sometimes he would get back up on it for old times' sake. He could think and look at the television at the same time. “Mister Rogers” was on, and even though he'd let them all know he didn't watch him anymore, he did, and he even liked him a lot. Especially when they did the land of make believe. Michaelaen unwrapped his peanut butter cup and popped it into his mouth. There it would melt ever so slowly until it was the best taste in the world and then he'd chew his brains out. Mommy didn't go for that at all. She'd make her eyebrows wiggle down and then she always told what a good thing it was that the job had a dental plan, but she didn't say it like it was a good thing. Worriedly, he eyed the closet where his secret box was. He knew the marble was still in there because he remembered when he put it in there how it had looked. It had looked nice. He had to bring it back though, or maybe someone else would get in trouble, like Miguel. Poor Miguel. They'd sent him far, far, far away. He'd promised Miguel he'd put the marble back and he was going to only … and Grandma always said if you didn't do the right thing it would come back at you. So he was going to put it back. If he could just remember where the cufflink was. He scratched his head. He'd better check once more. He might have overlooked it when he'd gone in there to stash the pecan shorties. But no, he didn't think so. It would be much better to have them both when he went back, so he wouldn't have to go back there twice. Just the thought of going back at all made Michaelaen's whole head swim. Uh-oh … it could have fallen out of his pocket the same as his quarter had done that time.

First Michaelaen pretended that it didn't matter so much and he kept going in a circle around his room. Only he knew one thing. He didn't want anyone to get in trouble because of him. So he better not tell anyone. Maybe he could tell Johnny. He chewed the skin just healing around his tender thumbnail. But if he told, he could get Mommy killed. His breaths came short and quick and on his tongue he met that eggy, awful taste of blood.

In the kitchen it was busy and still. Claire sat at the table and chopped garlic and piñoli nuts into basil leaves and olive oil. The air was full with the fragrance and her taste-buds were almost anesthetized with the clovelike snap of the basil. She felt herself charmingly domestic and she hummed “Au Claire de la Lune.” It was, she noted, imperative to have a western window like this in the kitchen. She even liked her mother's ginger red geraniums at the moment, all lit up like a
Ladies' Home Journal
. Of course, she would have done it a bit differently, with dwarf hollyhocks, perhaps, or even blooming king aloe and New Mexican cacti. She sliced a lemon in half and caught the bursting juice with the rim of the bowl. There were limitless possibilities. Although she wasn't sure if that house had a western window in the rear. Already she was scheming, she reprimanded herself. Of course she knew exactly which house it was he'd meant. It was the old Patton house. She'd passed it many times on her walks with the Mayor. She'd even looked at it, now and then, for its simple prettiness. She hadn't known that old Miss Patton, an old-world sort of still-wore-a-hat-to-tea old lady, had died. She was the kind of woman who'd leave a good spirit in the house, a Katherine Hepburn sort of a woman, both elegant and salty. And the house, if she remembered correctly, had nice, big, square rooms. She found herself mentally decorating the bedroom in dim yellow chintz. And then imagining Johnny, cold legs from night duty, climbing on top of her under the quilt, raising her nightgown and warming his hands underneath her soft hips … She caught her breath and cleared her throat and threw another clove of garlic in. Not to mention the twin dogwood in front of the house. Pure billowy white in the springtime and red as maple ivy in the fall.