The Long Good Boy (25 page)

“And the other two, the ones Patrick killed?”

“Brothers,” she said. “They thought the third one might be a brother, too, Rendell they said his name was, that it was a family business.”

“But they didn't know for sure?”

“No, not at the time.”

“And now?”

“Oh, I wouldn't know that. I suppose if they ever catch him, one of Patrick's old friends would tell me, to give me closure. But I'm not privy to their ongoing investigations.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to say at the moment. It was getting late, and I thought I should go, try to get in touch with Chi Chi and LaDonna and make sure they were safe. But there was still one more thing to do.

“And where would the powder room be?” I asked. “All this wine …”

“Through the bedroom, Rachel. I'll just clear while you do that.”

I got up, and so did Frances. I watched her walk over to the dining room table, Sarah snoring lightly, and begin to stack the dishes. Then I headed for the door to her bedroom, making sure it closed partway behind me. She had a long low bureau and a tall one, probably Kevin's. The tops of both bureaus were covered with photos, all of their daughter, pictures of her as a tiny baby, Frances beaming at her, then Kevin. There were no pictures as she was growing up, with her parents and by herself, smiling, a happy child, a lucky child to have such doting parents. But there she was as an adult, tall, like her mother, not slight, like her father. But other than that, not resembling either parent, not in the least.

For a moment, it was difficult to catch my breath. But I tried, slowing everything down, trying to ignore what was in my hand and concentrating on getting air in and out of my lungs, on that and nothing but that. Still holding the picture, I went into the bathroom, laying it down on the sink, splashing cold water on my face. I studied the photo again, absorbing the stunning news it revealed, the last thing in the world I would have expected, the absolute last.

Frances was in the kitchen, soaking the dishes so that the dishwasher could get them clean. She wiped her hands, picked up her wineglass, and we walked back to the couch.

“You didn't mention that your daughter was adopted,” I said, still holding the framed photo.

“Oh, didn't I?” Dreamy again. “I couldn't have a child of my own. It was what I wanted, more than anything in the world, to have my own baby. But there was something wrong with my tubes, the doctor said. They tried to open them.” She winced at the memory. “But we weren't to be blessed in that way. And then Patrick was coming home from the job one night, on his way to the subway, and he heard her. She was in a Dumpster, wrapped in newspaper. She was just a wee thing, a newborn. He was alone, Patrick. He climbed in and lifted her out, and he held her against his chest. He knew what he should do, that he should take her to the station and turn her in. He stood there for a while, just holding her and watching her, and then he walked to the corner and put out his arm, and when a taxi stopped, he gave the driver our address.”

“And you just kept her?”

“At first. We knew it was wrong. But Patrick said that most of the children that were abandoned, the mother's never found. Or she's fourteen. And a crack addict. What kind of a life could someone like that give a child? What kind of person puts a baby in a Dumpster? Giving her up, giving her to the precinct, she could have gone back to a person like that, a dope addict, someone who'd abandon her again. We couldn't. Then, after a month, Patrick arranged for us to adopt her legally.” She looked into her lap for a moment, as if the rest of the story were there. “We thought there'd be trouble, but he worked it out. She was able to stay here with us. That's all I cared about. If he used some influence,” Frances shrugged, “if he bent the law, I don't know and I don't care. We knew we could give that baby what she needed. And we did.”

“And were they close, father and daughter?”

Frances's eyes flickered for just a second. “Oh, very,” she said. “They loved each other to pieces.”

Sarah woke up, and we all had coffee. Though I was anxious to get home, I stayed a while longer. Then, when I felt I could, I thanked Frances and said I had to go. She walked me to the door and hugged me hard.

“I'm glad you came,” she said.

“Me, too.” This time, I wasn't lying.

When I got outside, I didn't head for the subway. On Queens Boulevard I found a cab, and despite the cold, I rolled down the window halfway and sat right next to it, letting the cold air hit my face. And then I was home, in my office, Dashiell circling me and sniffing as if he hadn't seen me in years, the
Times
obit in my hand, the information I'd recalled right there in black and white. Mulrooney, it said, had been survived by a wife, Frances, and a son, Dennis, who was in public relations.

And although I'd never seen her dressed the way she had for her mother's camera, I'd know her anywhere. I was sure I'd be seeing her in my sleep for years to come. We had, after all, become quite attached in the short time since she'd hired me, using yet another name, her street name—not Denise, LaDonna.

32

She's a Lousy Cook, She Said

The answering machine was blinking. I hit the play button.

“Rachel, it's us. We don't want you mad or nothin', but it being a holiday, business always be brisk, menfolks feeling lonely or sick of they's family, so me and LaDonna's going on the stroll, but she says to tell you we promise to look over both shoulders at all times.”

Up there floating. Then LaDonna's voice.

“We be in the usual spot, you want us. Dress up, you coming. It's Thanksgiving.”

My mother, as a transvestite hooker.

No. Mulrooney's daughter as one.

I checked my watch. It was only seven-thirty. I had time to feed Dashiell, change, and get to Little West Twelfth Street in time to meet them. Was it the drugs that masked how much danger they were in? Whatever it was, this would not be the night off I'd planned.

I opened the foil package Frances had given me at the door and set it down for Dashiell—turkey, yams, green beans, a slice of apple pie. I never gave him sweets, but what the hell, it was Thanksgiving. I watched him nose each thing, eating the turkey first, then the yams. I could see from the expression on his face how their sweetness had surprised him, spreading sideways, filling his mouth and his senses. He took the beans one at a time, then touched the pie with his nose again. He stopped, looked up at me, then back at the pie, as thoughtful as a preacher, finally leaving it there untasted, walking into the living room and sighing as he lay down, someone's uncle, having eaten too much, about to loosen his belt and take a nap.

I showered and put together my holiday hooker outfit, topping it off in the traditional way with a feather boa, now dry, the bloodstains all but invisible. It was white again, the way it used to be years ago. Looking at it, draped over my shoulders, I knew it should be in a plastic evidence bag someplace at the precinct instead. I took one end, tossed it around my neck and over the opposite shoulder, and poked at my hair one last time. Like LaDonna said, it was Thanksgiving.

Dashiell was snoring when I came downstairs, but when I picked up his leash, he was on the job. We walked over to Washington Street, which was deserted, everyone having gone through the Holland Tunnel to have dinner with their parents by now, no one waiting on that long line to get back home yet. I had to find Chi Chi and LaDonna, and I had to find them right away. Once they started working, it would be much more difficult to locate them, and even if I did, much more difficult to get them away from the smell of holiday money.

I saw Chi Chi first, talking to a hooker I hadn't seen before, a short, fat girl with a red wig and way too much mascara.

“Excuse us,” I told her, pulling Chi Chi toward the corner, then around it, until we were under the sidewalk bridge.

“You don't want to go there,” she said, her eyes cutting toward Keller's.

“No, I don't. And neither do you.”

“I didn't say I was.” Shoulder hiked, jiggling Clint. “They'd be closed anyway. Vinnie wouldn't be working on Thanksgiving.”

“Everyone should have Thanksgiving off,” I told her, a little too loud.

“Yeah, right. Like it's a paid holiday for everyone,” she said. “I gots to pee.”

She crossed the street, walking toward the far corner. Had she suddenly gotten modest, or did she want another look at Keller's, see if the light was on after all? I was curious, too, because I'd lied to Chi Chi. I did want to get into Keller's. I wanted it badly.

I began to walk west, too, stopping when I got to the courtyard. Vinnie's car wasn't there in its usual spot. The lights weren't on either. I glanced down the block, but Chi Chi had disappeared. So I headed for the old chicken market next door, finding a stick at the side of their parking area and digging up one of the loose cobblestones, then leaving Dashiell at the base of the tree and taking the route I'd taken twice before, up to the roof. I duckwalked across the roof and climbed over the parapet onto Keller's roof. When I got to where their skylight was, I lifted the cobblestone and brought it down on the glass as hard as I could. The third strike did it, the glass shattering, a piece hanging down into the back room, held together by the wire but leaving space for me to see. I had a penlight with me, and lying on my stomach, leaning over the hole I'd made, I shone the light below.

I heard the chatter before I saw anything, then the light hit one of them, his onyx eyes looking up at me. I could see three of them, big city rats, and lots of droppings on the floor. I dropped the cobblestone through the hole and watched them scatter. The small room was filled with boxes. They were stacked everywhere, boxes the processed pork would fill on its way to restaurants and hotels, the thought of what I was seeing more than enough to make me want to spend the rest of my life eating nothing but carrots and broccoli. I stayed another minute or two, shining the small light on every corner of the storage room. I suppose the drugs could have been there, but I doubted it. Too many people would have entry to this space; the door probably opened at the start of business each day and locked again each night, not because what was stored there was so precious but to keep the rats at bay, to make sure no one left the door ajar by accident. Why not just let the cat in there? But then I took one more look and I thought I knew why. One of the rats was inspecting the cobblestone now, nearly as big as the cat and more than likely twice as tough. Perhaps the smell of the cat kept the rats out of the office, out of the refrigerator. But clearing the rats out of the meat market was not even a possibility, not unless the method you used resulted in a hole bigger than the Grand Canyon and a mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles.

Crouching low, I skittered across the roof, back to the roof of the old chicken market, and down the tree into the dark courtyard. With Dashiell close to my side, I headed next door just in time to see Vinnie's car pull in, to watch him make it do that little dance, pulling in and out of the spot until he had it perfect. I stayed back, behind one of the bushes, crouching low and waiting. Then I heard her. She was crossing the street, one hand in her hair, her legs stiff and moving fast. I expected a yoo-hoo, but Vinnie heard her, too, and no one needed to say a word. He waited, the padlock in one hand. As she got there, he snapped it shut on one handle, pushed the door open, and walked in first. It was Chi Chi's hand coming back out that pulled it closed.

I stayed where I was, Dashiell on a down right next to me, waiting for the light to go on upstairs. Then we ran through the courtyard, opened the door, and were in the refrigerator. I'd seen the toolbox the first time I'd searched with Chi Chi upstairs covering for me. She was doing it again, only this time she didn't know it.

I opened the cabinet under one of the cutting blocks and took out the tools, finding a hammer and a crowbar. Then I grabbed one of the towels the butchers used to wipe their knives on. There was no longer time for anything but quick, no matter how crude. I slipped the end of the crowbar between the floor and the trapdoor, right where the lock was, wrapped the towel around the end of the hammer to deaden the sound, and smashed down on the top of the crowbar as hard as I could. The lock gave, and knowing one of the things I'd find for sure, I opened the trapdoor anyway, peering down into the blackness of the subcellar, where the pipes of the hundred-year-old refrigerator system that cooled most of the meat market were located. The smell hit me first. Like the smell of a dead animal, musky, moldy, vile enough to make it difficult to inhale. I wrapped the boa around my mouth and nose because it was all I had. The only thing that would get anyone to go down there was a sound all the butchers dreaded, the dripping of melting ice. But Vinnie may have had another reason to do it. And therefore so did I.

There was a metal ladder going straight down. I left Dashiell above but took the crowbar with me, hearing the population below stirring. Then, halfway down the ladder, I took yet another chance. I banged the crowbar against one of the metal rungs of the ladder, hoping the rats would disperse at the strange noise. I didn't plan to stay long, but crouching in the area beneath Keller's, I could see no place where Vinnie could have secreted the drugs. I didn't find them, in fact, until I had used the crowbar to open the old wooden door that led to the area under Jeffrey's, and there they were, kept off the damp ground with boards resting on cinder blocks. They were in a pair of two-drawer file cabinets, neither one locked. Why bother, with rats to keep anyone sane away? Hearing scratching noises too close for comfort, I banged on one of the cabinets, then opened one of the drawers. It hadn't been a cash box Vinnie had gone to find. He was paying Chi Chi in merchandise.

I kept the light high, shining it ahead of me, hoping not to see the denizens whose space I was temporarily sharing, and made my way back under Keller's and up the ladder in record time, closing the trapdoor, leaving the toolbox where it was, and running out the door after Dashiell, the crowbar still in my hand. I must have dropped it in the courtyard or on the sidewalk, because later, when Chi Chi emerged, I no longer had it, nor did I know where it had gone.