The Mayor of Lexington Avenue (19 page)

“I haven’t talked to him. His mother called Marguerite.”

“That Puerto Rican bitch. You remember the gutter she put you in last time, don’t you?” Mike wouldn’t let anybody else get away with that kind of talk, but there were no percentages in having words with Nick.

“Look, Nick, this isn’t about her, it’s about my kid.”

“How old is he now?”

“Nineteen.” Just then, Angie set a large plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of Mike.

“
Mange, mange
,” Nick told him, gesturing with his hands like a benevolent despot. Mike dug in while he waited for the next question. He knew what it was going to be.

“How much?” Nick finally asked.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“Michael, Michael.” The hands were flying again. “Ten thousand dollars! I remember when I used to lend you a couple of hundred to get through the month and you couldn’t pay that. Anybody else woulda had their legs broken. Mike, this is a business. What kind of collateral you got?”

“Me. I’m a hard worker. I’ve got a decent job—” Nick cut him off.

“You know how much you gotta pay for ten thousand dollars?”

“How much?”

“Two hundred forty dollars a week. You probably don’t make much more than that. It’s a death sentence, Mike. I’d have to kill you for that kind of money.”

“I need it,” Mike told him. “I don’t know what the trouble is but it’s serious.” Nick just looked at him. He felt sorry for the poor slob. Pulling himself out of the gutter, then jumping right back in. He wasn’t going to have that on his conscience. Still, they went back a long way.

“I’ll tell you what, Mike. I’ll lend you twenty-five hundred and you pay me back a hundred twenty-five a week for twenty-five weeks. But if you tell a soul, I’ll have to cut your tongue out.” Nick smiled as he said it—the kind of smile that let you know he might be joking, but then again he might not.

Mike knew it was over. He wasn’t getting the money, at least not all of it. He took a drag off his cigarette.

“How about five, Nick?” Nick didn’t answer right away. He just looked at Mike. Took a sip of his wine.

“You know you’re one crazy son-of-a-bitch. All right, five. You pay me the same amount for sixty weeks, but if you miss a payment, I’m gonna treat you like everybody else.” Mike nodded. He’d lived in the neighborhood long enough to get the picture. “When do you need it?”

“Tonight.”

“All right. Be here at ten. Now finish your spaghetti and tell me what’s been goin’ on with you these last few years.”

Mike called Marguerite at 9:30 and gave her the bad news.

“It’ll just have to do,” Marguerite told him. “I know where you’re getting it from too, Mike. Nobody expects you to get your brains beat out.” Mike didn’t respond. He had a picture of little Rudy in his mind. He wondered what he looked like all grown up.
Will I ever see him?

Marguerite called Elena right away and gave her the scoop. “I’ll just have to talk her into taking five thousand,” Elena told her sister.

Marguerite paused before responding. She didn’t know if this was the appropriate time, but it needed to be said.

“You know he went to a loan shark to get this money.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I just think you should know, that’s all.”

Elena had arrived at Austin Reaves’s office a few minutes early so she could get the lie of the land before Tracey showed up. She was dressed in black, another purchase from the local thrift store. She’d read in a women’s magazine that it was a power color, and she wanted all the help she could get for the upcoming negotiation.

Tracey swept in promptly at nine. She also wore black, a suit. She invited Elena into the spare office and sat behind the desk, a definite power move. Elena could tell from the dark spots under her eyes that Tracey hadn’t slept well. That was a good sign. Maybe Rudy’s case was getting under that thick skin.

Tracey wanted to avoid Elena’s eyes as much as possible. She didn’t want to think of her mother and that one little picture on her father’s dresser. She didn’t want to recall the beautiful dark-haired woman of her childhood dreams. This was business. This was the essence of who she was. Or was it? Perhaps today would be the day she would find out. She took her father with her for insurance—perched him on her right shoulder. She needed his voice of reason in the event Elena’s eyes caught her off guard.

She began by reiterating how well the hearing had gone the day before. It was a move Elena had expected. She then talked about the additional evidence they could put on at trial.

“I think we can focus on this Geronimo guy. I believe he is the murderer. We can tie the police department’s failure to find Geronimo in with their desire to frame Rudy. I think the jury will pick up on that fat little detective’s lazy-ass methods. I don’t think it’ll be hard for them at all.”

It was a good speech and it had the desired effect. Once again, Tracey had raised Elena’s hopes. What she failed to mention was the fact that the only
admissible
evidence had Geronimo down the street drinking a beer. Joaquin Sanchez’s conversation with Pablo at Rosa’s bar was all hearsay and totally inadmissible.

Elena didn’t respond and they were both silent for a moment. The subject of money was floating around the room like a hawk hovering over a crafty prey. Finally, Tracey had to move in for the kill.

“Elena, we need to talk about the retainer. The money’s all used up and then some. You remember our agreement. The retainer has to be replenished.” Tracey was prepared to accept ten thousand but not right away.

Elena was ready with a rapid-fire response. “I’ve lost my job, had to move out of my home. I’ve got a lump in my breast and I can’t even afford to go to the doctor, for Christ’s sake.” She wasn’t putting her five on the table either. Tracey sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Elena, I know this has been hard on you.”
You don’t know shit!
Elena wanted to scream, but she kept her composure. “But I’m running a business. I’ve got an office full of people and their families that I have to support. I can’t work without getting paid.” Tracey could hear the words coming out of her mouth. She knew how hollow they sounded. Knew this shouldn’t be about money for her either. But Daddy was whispering in her ear now, telling her she was doing the right thing. She had no choice. “A case like this, Elena, would normally cost at least fifty thousand dollars from start to finish. That’s why I normally require a twenty-five thousand dollar retainer up front. You’ve paid me fifteen thousand dollars. Pay me another ten and that’s all you’ll have to pay. You’re basically getting my services for half price. That’s the best I can do.”

Elena just sat there. Now was the time.

“I may be able to get five from my son’s father. He hasn’t seen his son in seventeen years but I think I could convince him to give me the money under these circumstances. He doesn’t have much, though.”

Tracey could see the play. She knew Elena already had the five but no more than that.
She probably worked the phones last night. She’s a smart woman. She knew what was coming this morning.
Deep in her heart, Tracey wanted to make it right for Elena. What was an extra five thousand dollars anyway? All she had to do was say yes. It was a win-win situation for both of them. But then there was Daddy. She could hear him sitting there on her right shoulder.
Don’t take the bait, honey. Don’t let her get away with this!
Another sigh.

“I’m sorry, Elena. Five thousand won’t do.” Tracey hoped that Elena had a few thousand more in her repertoire. If she did, Tracey would take it. Anything! Daddy be damned. But Elena just sat there silent. A moment later she stood up and walked out the door, leaving Tracey alone with her ghost.

Nineteen

J
ULY
1967

“Johnny, wake up!” Mikey whispered from his crouched position on the fire escape next to Johnny’s bed. It was 11:30 on Saturday night.

“Shhh. I’m awake,” Johnny replied. “My mom just went to bed about a half hour ago and my dad’s still watching TV.”

“C’mon, he ain’t gonna check on you before he goes to sleep. You’re fine.” Mikey could sound so convincing when he wanted to. But he was right. Johnny’s dad never came in to check on him before he went to bed.

“All right, gimme a second.” Two minutes later he was crawling out the window onto the fire escape. Then the two of them lit out down the stairs and up the alley to Lexington Avenue like tomcats on a midnight prowl. Ten minutes later, they were on Eighty-sixth Street.

The alley was often the boys’ method of travel in the neighborhood. It was the space between the backyards of the buildings on one street and those of the buildings on the next street over. Both backyards had fences that abutted each other. The fences were all different types and sizes. Travel in the alley consisted of negotiating the various fences while moving along. Both boys were expert alley climbers.

Earlier that evening on Eighty-sixth Street, they had helped fold the different sections of the Sunday paper into one giant sandwich. It was a ritual every Saturday night. Wooden tables were set up and the folding began. The boys weren’t paid and they didn’t even know who they worked for. It was just something to do.

There was a payoff of sorts. After the papers had been arranged in bundles and tied off with copper wiring—and after the boys had gone home and returned—they had the privilege of taking a ride with “Cuz.” Sometimes it was just the two of them. Some nights Eddie and Danny came along or the Curtins, two brothers who were friends from the neighborhood.

Cuz was a smallish man, always on the move, always talking, always smiling. He acquired his nickname simply because he called everybody Cuz. It was only natural that the boys responded in kind. Nobody knew his real name.

When Cuz was ready, they loaded the papers in the back of his truck, a smallish box truck with no back door, and hopped in. Cuz’s route was a rambling, no-holds-barred race from Eighty-sixth through the streets of Harlem. At every small candy store or newspaper stand, Cuz would stop and yell back to the boys how many bundles to unload. They’d throw the bundles onto the sidewalk and off they’d go again. It was the middle of the night, it was dangerous, and it was the ride of their lives. Cuz sped through the streets and the boys either sat on the bundles and smoked cigarettes or hung on to the handles on the back and played “bustin’ bronco” as Cuz hit every pothole on the route. They didn’t appreciate that one slip and their lives might come to a tragic end. Neither did Cuz.

This Saturday night it was just Johnny and Mikey on board and they spent the entire trip riding the handles. Johnny’s foot slipped several times but he hung on. It was a rush. Afterwards, the boys were walking home still pumped up, still ready for some action. It was three o’clock in the morning.

“Hey, look at this!” Mikey called Johnny over to a little red Mustang convertible that was parked on the avenue. “The keys are in there.” He waited for Johnny to come over to look, waited for Johnny to make the suggestion. Johnny hesitated. It was a wild idea, but he was afraid. Mikey was still waiting. What the hell, Johnny thought.

“Whaddya say, Mikey, let’s go for a spin.” Mikey didn’t hear the commitment he was looking for. He decided to stall until he got it.

“I don’t know. It’s dangerous.”

“We’ll bring it back. Park it right back here. Nobody’s around. Nobody’ll ever know it was gone.”

“Are you gonna drive?” Mikey goaded him.

“Sure, I’ll drive.” Johnny had never driven a car before in his life.

The first few blocks were the roughest as the Mustang lurched forward and stopped, lurched forward and stopped. Finally, when he realized there was a very real possibility that he might go flying through the windshield, Mikey took over.

“Pull over here slowly. Put it in park. Easy.” Johnny took one last shot at killing them both before slamming on the brakes and easing the car into park.

“I’ll drive,” Mikey told him as he opened the passenger side door and got out. Mikey had driven a car many times on his uncle’s farm in Patchogue.

Pretty soon they were gliding down Lexington Avenue with the convertible top down and the stereo blaring. There were no other cars on the road at that hour, so the boys had the limelight to themselves.

The patrolman spotted them at the corner of Forty-fifth and Lex as they flew by. The speed wouldn’t have woken him but the music sure did. He also noticed that one of the headlights was out.

In the Mustang, the Stones were singing “Satisfaction” as loud as the radio could play it when Mikey just happened to glance in the mirror and saw the flashing lights—no way could he hear the siren. He wondered for a moment what he was doing wrong. He wasn’t speeding—maybe a few miles over the limit but that was supposed to be okay. Then reality set in: He was in a stolen car! There was probably an APB out! No time for rational thinking. Mikey gunned the engine.

Johnny was sitting in the passenger seat playing his imaginary drums as Mick wailed, oblivious to the crisis, until he was almost propelled into the back seat.

“What’s goin’ on?” he yelled at Mikey. The speedometer was rising: seventy, eighty. Suddenly Mikey lurched the car to the right and sped up Thirty-first Street to Park Avenue, where he made another right on two wheels and headed uptown. Johnny was in shock! What the hell was going on? Mikey hadn’t answered him. He was too intent on his driving. After a few seconds, Johnny looked behind. He counted four sets of flashing lights about three blocks back.

“Holy shit, Mikey!”

“How far back?” Mikey shouted.

“Three blocks but they’re gaining.”

“We gotta do something.” That sounded like a good idea to Johnny. They were doing ninety and the terror that eluded them on the back of Cuz’s truck had finally caught up with Johnny. “Get ready,” Mikey yelled over the still-blaring radio. “I’m gonna slam on the brakes. Then get out and run. Find an alley.”