Super Series (Book 4): Supervised (11 page)

Mike sidestepped the Nathaniel topic so I couldn’t quite tell if he believed me or not. “I don’t care if you never call me your boyfriend. I’m fine with what we’re doing as long as you get a lot more truthful me. I want you to do what you say you’ll do. Is that too much?”

“No.” My voice was very quiet. I wasn’t even sure he heard me. He may have been asking for the one thing I couldn’t give him.

Mike stood up. “You keep acting like I’m asking for more than you want. But the thing is, I don’t think you even know what you want. That’s what I can’t work with.” Mike stood up. “I’m going to give you some time to think. When you figure out what you want, come find me and we’ll decide where to go from there.” And then he was gone.

I kept painting through all of it. The only difference was that now I was painting and crying.

Chapter 17

After I finished the painting, I cleaned up and took a shower. The crying made the painting take longer than I’d anticipated and I still needed to pay a bill. I got dressed quickly and headed out. A stop at the ATM and forty minutes on the 2 train later, I was in the Upper West Side at my parents’ place. I got in using the key I’d never given back when I moved out last summer.

“Hello? Dad? You here?” I called out once I was inside. I heard someone coming toward me and figured it was my dad. But it was Rodney that came around the corner. I hadn’t seen Rodney since Ella had taken me to his gym last year. “What are you doing here?”

Rodney was wearing a pair of jeans and a red sweatshirt. He hadn’t lost a bit of muscle mass since I’d last seen him. He was still a walking brick wall with a funny haircut. “Hi, Audrey. I just watching the game with your dad. I’m going back to Ella’s now.”

“Oh.” I started to take off my winter layers and put them on the coat rack in the foyer. He started to the process in reverse, putting on all the armor he’d need to face the cold.

“I’ll see you around, Audrey. Maybe if you come back into the gym, I can train you,” he added.

Rodney was a trainer at Ella’s gym. I was pretty sure that’s how they met. The last time I’d been there, I’d gotten stuck on the treadmill and ended up sanding my face into a bloody mess. Of course, he didn’t know that. “Oh, Rodney, I’m just gonna be fat.”

His eyes got big. “What?”

“Yeah,” I said, stuffing my gloves into my coat pockets. “I like eating. I don’t like running. I don’t think I should have to live in a world where I pay someone every month to go do something I hate. So no more gym for me. Guess I’ll just have to be fat.”

Rodney gave me a weird look. “See you around, Audrey.”

“You already said that.”

“I guess I did,” he chuckled. He left, closing the door behind him.

I shook my head.
There goes my future brother-in-law.

I found my dad in the living room sitting on the couch with the TV blaring something that looked a lot like basketball. Assorted snacks were on the coffee table. I plopped down next to him and grabbed a handful of chips. “Hey, Dad.”

He didn’t take his eyes off of the screen. “Hey. What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” I said through a mouthful of chips. “Where’s Mom?”

“Some charity thing.”

“Figures,” I mumbled. “What was Rodney doing here?”

“Watching the game.”

“Why?”

“Why not? He’s a Knicks fan. Any Knicks fan is welcome in this house.”

I rolled my eyes. “But do you really think you should be hanging out with him? Ella is probably going to break up with him again. Or at least she
should
break up with him again.”

Dad playfully punched me on my arm. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that guy. He’s nice. He’s got a decent paying job that he seems to like and be good at. He’s good to your sister. You could do a lot worse. And until you bring around someone worth talking about, how about you lay off all the judgment, huh?”

There was something final about his tone. I decided to let it go for now. We sat there in silence saved for the sound of the chips crunching in my mouth. The game ended and Dad switched over to some old black and white movie on cable. “So what are you doing here anyway?”

“Oh. I almost forgot.” I went back to the coat rack in the foyer and grabbed the envelope from my coat pocket. “Here,” I said, handing it to Dad. “I wanted to bring over what I owe you this month.”

Last year, when I got audited by the Super Council, one of the reasons was that I hadn’t been paying my Council dues. My dad helped me get back up current but only if I paid him back. And not like all the other times I’d promised to pay him back when he got me out of a mess—I had to pay him. So for the past few months, I’d been making payments.

Dad didn’t even open the envelope. He just stuffed it into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Thank you. And don’t forget to keep up with your Council dues, too. Don’t make me check up on you. You’re too old for that.”

“Yeah, I’m handling that. And I only have a few more payments to you before I’m paid up with you, too.”

Dad gave me a big smile. “Look at you, Junior. You’re becoming a real adult.” He started ticking off things with his fingers. “You’re paying your Council dues. You’re paying back money you owe. You’ve got a job you haven’t been fired from yet. You have your own apartment to go to when you take leftovers home. You’ve got yourself a secret boyfriend—”

“I don’t have a boyfriend!” I cried. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

Dad took a swig of his beer. “Just keep saying it until somebody believes you.”

I thought about what Mike had said last night. I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do but I knew that something was stopping me from just walking away. “I don’t really know if I’m ready for all of that anyway.”

There was a sudden seriousness in the air. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. Just make sure you don’t let anybody think you’re ready when you know you’re not ready.”

Suddenly I realized that Dad was wearing an orange and blue flannel shirt with a big rip in the sleeve. Could he really own more than one of those? “Where’d you get that shirt, Dad?”

“From the cleaning lady.”

“What?”

Dad popped a chip in his mouth. “When your mother doesn’t like something I have, she gives it to Blanca, the cleaning lady. Then I get it back from Blanca because she likes me better than she likes your mother. I only wear it when she’s not around and eventually I put it back in the closet. Then the process starts all over again.”

“That’s insane.”

He shrugged. “It’s what works for us.”

My parents were interesting. They may have both been Supers but they were complete opposites in every other way. And they worked just fine. “How did you know you were ready with Mom?”

“When she told me I was, Junior.” We both laughed. That sounded a lot like my mom. She tended to get what she wanted. If she wanted to be with someone, them not knowing they wanted to be with her probably wouldn’t stop her.

But something Dad said got me thinking. I suddenly knew where we went wrong with the whole El Gato thing. “Dad, I gotta go.”

Chapter 18

I left my parents’ place and caught a cab to Flushing, Queens. Just me getting a cab was a miracle. Normally, cabs don’t stop for me. As a lifelong New Yorker, I should have been able to hail a cab but I just couldn’t do it. Maybe cab drivers thought I looked shifty. Or maybe I just looked poor. Honestly, I couldn’t really argue with either of those assessments.

But fortunately on that day, that cabbie took pity on me and picked me. Either that, or he was new and hadn’t honed his cabbie senses yet. Either way, I needed to get to Queens quickly and I didn’t have time to dick around with the subway. On the way, I tried to call Nathaniel four or five times, but he was sending my calls to voicemail.

The cabbie dropped me off at the house we’d raided the other night. I ran up to the door and knocked on it. Moments later, the nurse opened the door and immediately recognized me. “Oh, no you don’t, Missy,” she cried in her thick Caribbean accent. “You get out of here before I call the cops. I won’t have you disturbing Mr. DeLeon, again. His blood pressure is through the roof!”

I raised my hands in the universal surrender gesture. “I know! I know! I’m not here to cause any trouble. Me and my friend were just trying to visit Mr. DeLeon the other night and got the visiting times mixed up.”

She glared at me suspiciously. “He can’t have visitors now, either. He’s tired. Come back in the morning.”

“Cool. You said he lives here alone but he does have a family, right? Like maybe a son?”

The nurse hesitated but finally said “Yes. He has a son. One son. Lenny Jr, actually.”

Jackpot
. “Do you know where he lives?”

“No. But he works at a mechanic shop in Brooklyn. Over there off of King’s Highway. Fatty’s Auto Body Shop, I think. He sometimes comes right from work, wearing the uniform and all. I have his number, though.”

“Perfect.”

*****

My lucky break with cabs had ended. So, I took the subway to the East Flatbush mechanic shop that the nurse had given me. Before I went down into the subway, though, I tried to call Nathaniel two more times. He still didn’t answer so this time I left him a voicemail. “I need to talk to you! The reason I thought that picture of the DeLeon was El Gato was because it was his son. It was a really old ID picture but that’s what his son looks like now! His son is El Gato! I’m going to his job now. It’s a mechanic shop on Avenue D. Call me back!!!”

That train ride had to be the longest one of my entire life. Knowing that I had been right all along about El Gato but just had a few details off was excruciating. It was times like this I really wish I had the power to fly.

I got off the subway and checked my phone but there were no missed calls or texts from Nathaniel. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t responding. He had told me how important this task force was for him at least four or five times every time I talked to him. Why was he blowing me off when I knew exactly where to find the one guy he wanted to catch so badly?

While I was still wondering why I was being ignored by the most dedicated Super I’d ever met, I ran right into Nathaniel at the intersection. Literally. I bumped into his chest, let out an “Ooof!,” and fell to the ground.

Nathaniel was in a dress shirt, a pair of khakis, and a tie. He reached down to help me up. “Are you OK?”

I stood up with a flushed face, embarrassed that I’d fallen down again in front of him. “Where have you been?! I’ve been calling and texting you.”

He helped me up. “I was in a meeting in Yonkers. By the time I got your message, it was faster for me to just come.”

“Yonkers? How did you get here so fast?” He gave me a look that said I should think before I talk. “Oh yeah, you can fly. I forgot about how awesome you are.”

Nathaniel ignored my sarcasm and steered me down east 51st toward Fatty’s. “How did you find out where he worked anyway?”

I grinned as I told him how amazing I’d been. “I went back to the DeLeon’s house and the nurse was there. I knew she would know if he had kids because they would probably visit their sick dad.”

“Smart.” It was one word but it was as if he had write me a five-star review. I tried not to melt right into the sidewalk right there. And that’s when he ripped the carpet from underneath me. “I want you to stay out here. I’m going to go inside and find out if he’s here.”

We were standing in front of Fatty’s, which was a rundown mechanic shop. It was on a one-way street with a row of cars parked down the left side of the street. Some of them were obviously being worked on because they were in various stages of repair. On the right was what looked like a salvage yard with cars that weren’t ever going to run again. Beyond that was an open garage door. “But why? I’m the one who got us here. I should go in with you.”

Nathaniel gave me a patronizing look. “Audrey, you did a good job getting us here but it’s important that we handle this delicately.”

“Delicate is my middle name, Nathaniel!” I can’t even believe I got that out without laughing. But I was grasping at straws. I just didn’t want him to bench me, again.

“We don’t have time for this. Do what I ask you to do. Stay here. Don’t move.” He turned and strode into the garage, leaving me to be irrelevant all alone on the street. I was fuming. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you could have seen the smoke coming from my ears. Or maybe he could see it. Maybe he just didn’t think I was important enough for him to care.

*****

Left on my own outside of the shop, I considered my options. I thought about following Nathaniel inside. It’s not like he could kick me out. It might draw too much attention to us and give El Gato an opportunity to escape. And then I remembered that he could still get me in trouble with the Council. So, I leaned against a light pole and played lookout for the second time in one week.

Everything was looking really boring. No one was around. Nothing was moving. It was so quiet and I was so preoccupied by my frustration that I almost missed it when Lenny DeLeon, Jr. came out of the back of the shop.

He was wearing coveralls and a hat. He wasn’t running but he was walking as fast as he could without actually breaking out into a run. If I hadn’t been seeing this guy’s face in my dreams for the past week, I might not have recognized him. But my gut told me that this was the guy I’d chased outside of that warehouse that night.

But I’d been down this road before. I pulled out my phone and dialed the number the nurse had given me. The guy in the overalls paused, pulled out his phone, and answered it. “Hello?”

I called El Gato by his real name. “Lenny?”

“Who is this?”

I hung up. From where I stood, I could see him look at his phone, shake his head, and put it away. El Gato pulled out a set of keys and clicked the remote. About 30 feet away, a car’s headlights lit up. Although it was dark, I was standing right under a street light. I wasn’t hidden. Yet, he didn’t even look my way. He headed straight to the car, got in, and started it up.

No, not again!
Nathaniel was still inside the shop. He had left specific instructions for me to stay here and not to move. But I’d let El Gato get away once and I couldn’t let it happen again. And I still couldn’t whistle.