Tower: A Novel (11 page)

As the weeks passed, stuff happened, small signs of thawing that went barely noticed. She’d catch me staring at her and she would take an extra beat to turn away. We’d reach for the same section of the paper and our fingers would brush, linger. Pure fucking electricity for me. Indifferent expression from her. All quickly forgotten. Took her once folding my laundry as a declaration of love. A man looking for signs can find ’em anywhere.

Then there was the kissing. It’s strange, kissing her had become everything to me. Can’t explain it, but her lips touching mine had become more meaningful for me than any full blown sex I’d ever had and I’d had plenty. During the week when my instructors would begin to drone on, often found myself daydreaming about holding her in my arms, the feel of her cheeks against my palms, the taste of beer on her tongue. Eventually, it stopped mattering to me that none of it mattered to her.

One Friday night her cell phone rang just as we were headed out the door. She picked up. She barely spoke, nodded her head a few times, hung up. Knew better than to ask. Asked anyway. Got no answer. No shock there, yet something had changed. Her body language was different. The awkwardness to the kissing had returned. She was very distracted and apologized several times for asking me to repeat myself.

When we got back to the apartment, Leeza Velez, U.S. Marshal headed straight into her room. Didn’t think anything of it. Had grown accustomed to being shut out the second the front door shut behind us. But as I lay half asleep on the futon in the dark, my head digesting some bit of info my instructors had fed me during the past month, I heard her. Velez was sobbing. Tried to ignore it. Sure. Couldn’t. Shuffled down the hallway to the bedroom.

“Hey, Velez, you okay?”

“Come in.”

Leeza was standing naked next to the bed, her body backlit by the dim bulb of a small reading lamp. Her body was everything I had imagined it to be. She was muscular and well defined without distracting rips and cuts. Her muscles, curved and sloped, making smooth transitions from one to the next. Her nipples were hard and larger than I’d envisioned. Her breasts were on the small side, but round and free from the pull of gravity. Her legs were like a sculptor’s idea of perfection: taut, lean, long, curved. It took more than near darkness to hide beauty.

When I moved my lips to ask, she pressed her index finger across my mouth.

“Sssshhhhhh.”

It was more a plea than a command. Leeza knelt down and took me fully into her mouth. From that second on, kisses weren’t ever going to be enough.

When I rolled over the next morning, Leeza’s side of the bed was cold. And when I opened my eyes, O’Connor was staring back at me.

“Morning, lad,” he said as plainly as if this was how he started all his Saturdays. “Don’t bother looking for her. Seems you two have broken up. Pity that.”

“What?” I asked though I’d heard him perfectly well. And when I scanned the room, I could see that any trace of Leeza Velez had been removed.

“You’ve done well, son. Time to move on.”

“Move on where?”

“Southie, South Boston.”

“But—”

“Get packed, probie,” he said. “You’ve got a week back home before you head to Beantown. It’s there you’ll learn to be a man. I’ll get us some coffees while you shower up.”

After O’Connor left, I hesitated. Could still taste Leeza on my lips and smell her scent in the air. Showered, removing more traces of Velez, but not all. Have to scrub my soul for that.

“In the house of the hangman

do not talk of rope”

—Stanley Moss, from his poem “The Hangman’s Love Song”

I
WAS A ZOMBIE.

Before Philly, I may not have had a firm handle on who Todd Rosen was, exactly. No, I was dead inside. Not dead, exactly. The dead can’t feel the hurt the way I can. No, was like one of those patients on the operating table who wakes up in the middle of their surgery unable to move, but exquisitely aware of the scalpel. Christ, wished the doctor’d just cut my throat and gotten it over with.

It was impossible for me to believe how deeply I’d entwined Leeza Velez into the fabric of myself. Fucking crazy that I could feel so utterly emptied and alone over a woman who’d shared herself with me for a solitary night. For all I knew Leeza Velez wasn’t her name. Maybe that was it. Her distance had let me create a life for us, a life for her not only that didn’t exist, but would never, could never exist. All of it woven out of a dangerous smile, brown skin, and meaningless kisses.

Brooklyn, Nicky, my dad were strangers to me, worse than strangers. Guess that’s what O’Connor wanted: vertigo, discomfort, disorientation. Had never been so off balance in my life. Sidewalks where Nicky and I had scratched our initials in wet cement with a stick, seemed foreign to me now. For fuck’s sake, I was foreign to my own self.

It was Axel’s again. Nicky’s idea, of course. Said it was fine when he asked if that suited me. What did it matter? Once pain hits a certain threshold, you might as well see how much you can take. And man, I was like a flashing neon sign, alternating between deadness and the pain. On. Off. On. Off. On… But it was more than Leeza. It was what I’d become, what I’d let myself be turned into. Looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. Christ, I thought, a cop, a fucking cop!

Nicky threw his arm over my shoulder, kissed me on the cheek. “C’mon, Todd, drink your beer and cheer up.”

“You ever meet anybody that cheered up on demand?”

“Griffin.”

We both had a laugh at that. Didn’t last long.

“Jesus, pal, I never seen you like this. Wanna talk about it?”

“What’s to talk, Nick? She walked out on me.”

“Did you see it coming?” he asked.

“Maybe. Guess I didn’t really know her.”

“Who knows any woman?”

Wasn’t inclined to argue.

He checked his watch. It was getting close to ten. On O’Connor’s orders I’d ask to meet with Boyle. Nick had made the arrangements. Shrugged his head that we better get moving. Stood with my beer glass in hand, prepared to chug the rest, when some drunk asshole stumbled into me. The rim of the glass smacked me in my teeth and the beer poured onto my jacket.

Next thing I knew, Nicky had me in a bear hug. The drunk was laid out, donating a generous amount of blood to Axel’s barroom floor. He made a feeble attempt to rise up on his elbows and knees. Kicked him full in the ribs as Nick tried forcing me to the door.

“Holy shit!” he said, struggling to get me into his car. “Are you like seriously deranged?”

Couldn’t answer, the adrenaline burning inside.

“That guy was six six and you dropped him with one punch.”

For the first time in my miserable life I was raging.

“Fuck on a bike, bro. Even I would be afraid to take your ass on. That bitch made a man of you. You’re one dangerous motherfucker all of a sudden.”

Dangerous, yeah, that was me. He only knew the half of it.

“Let’s go,” was all I said.

Riggio’s Clam House was a hole in the wall, but a legendary one. Situated at the corner of Emmons Avenue and Ocean Avenue, directly across from the footbridge that spanned the ass-end of Sheepshead Bay, Riggio’s had been the setting for countless shady deals and more than one mob hit. In the summer sometimes, Nicky and me used to take the bus down here and fish off the bridge. Seemed like a million fucking years ago. But so did every good thing in my life. Exercised the good sense not to try and recall what those were.

Although I had asked for the meet, it was Boyle picked the location. The prick had nothing if not a sense of drama. With him it was hard to know the reasoning behind his decisions. Him and his donkey-fucking logic. Did he just want to stick it to the guineas by talking shop on their turf? Did he already know I was a cop? Would Griffin be waiting to put one in my ear? The setting was convenient enough. Could dump my dead ass directly in Sheepshead Bay or haul it to the marshlands of nearby Gerritsen Beach. Maybe he had a boat waiting and would drop my weighted body in the Atlantic off Manhattan or Plumb Beach. There was no shortage of places to dump a body in this part of Brooklyn. Or maybe Boyle just liked raw clams.

When we got there, Nicky parked around back. The stink of the discarded seafood rotting in the dumpsters overwhelmed the smell of the sea itself. Thought, no, that rotting smell was me. If Griffin was waiting around the turn, who gave a fuck?

“What are you smiling at?” Nick wanted to know as we turned the corner.

“Nothing, Nicky. Nothing.”

Boyle and Griffin were seated at a table in the rear of the dimly lit clam house. It was what you’d expect, red and white checked tablecloths, flickering candles, and Chianti bottles covered in wicker and dripped wax. Boyle got up to greet me as if I was a brother gone for five years instead of a flunky gone a month or two. Hugged me, slapped my back, tousled my hair. Griffin curled up the corner of his mouth. Said nothing. That was like effusive for him.

“Sit!” Boyle ordered. We did. “I heard of your troubles, boyo. Nothing will gut a man like a woman. You learn your lesson and move on. In the future, you won’t let it happen to you again. If the opportunity should ever arise for me to teach you boys how it’s done, how to deal with a woman proper, I will. That’s me word. Do you think she was stepping out on you?”

“No.”

“Were you on her?” he asked.

Could feel the rage again. Tasted it.
Fuck, rage had flavor and it was nothing like bacon or pussy.
How could this prick even ask me that?

“Never,” I heard myself say, the rage subsiding, slightly.

Boyle must’ve seen it in my eyes. Seemed well pleased. “Let’s order.”

Boyle ordered about two dozen clams of various sorts, so I guess that cleared up any questions I had about why we were here.

During dinner, Nick described what I’d done to the big man at Axel’s. Now it was Griffin who seemed impressed. Actually stopped chewing for a second.

“Listen, Todd,” Boyle said between bites of cheese cake, “I’ve a partner in South Boston could use an extra hand for a coupl’a weeks, someone from outside his patch, if you catch my drift. Would you be interested in doing me the favor? Seems to me you could use the distraction and I would be inclined to show my appreciation.”

“Would I get to use my hands?”

“Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so it’s said. Well, the devil don’t do much playing in South Boston.”

Later learned, and at quite a cost, his assessment was as wrong as wrong could be.

“When do I leave?”

“Not before dessert, at least. Eat up.”

“He was one of those guys, that rare breed, that when people mentioned his name they’d automatically lower their voices and mentally make the sign of the cross.”

—Rick Marinick,
Boyos

A
WEEK AT HOME
hadn’t done much but make things worse. My nerves were raw, ends frayed by the time I hit the Boston train. Think I would have walked if Boyle had asked. Wanted out, out of my dad’s house, out of Brooklyn, out of my own skin. Settled for out of Brooklyn.

I’d seen Boyle only once again after our dinner in Sheepshead Bay, back at his office, Griffin, as always, by his side. It was then he handed me my ticket and an envelope fat with cash.

“You mind yourself,” he said. “Rudi’s a tough son of a bitch, but do what he says and you’ll be well served.”

“What’s the money for?”

“Think of it as an advance.”

“An advance?”

“Don’t worry, boyo. You’ll earn every penny.”

Griffin curled his lip at that. Nodded his head slightly in agreement. This was serious. For Griffin this was practically a display of fear. I didn’t give a shit. Thought, bring it on. Bring the fucker on. Went back to Brooklyn, laid in my bedroom for days trying not to think about what I couldn’t stop thinking about. Memory is the curse of humankind. Wondered did dogs or cats torture themselves this way? Christ, hoped not, the poor fuckers. Nicky kept calling. Went drinking with him again, but only for an hour and not at Axel’s. Tried to bring Leeza up once. Saw the look on my puss and segued quickly to another subject. Smart man, my old pal Nick. My dad steered clear. The only time in my life I appreciated his near invisibility.
Thanks, pops!

Dreamed a lot during the week. Kept picturing Leeza swinging from the big old oak in front of our house. Could never see her face in the dreams, but I knew it was her. The neighbors didn’t seem to notice or, if they did, they didn’t care. Apparently, as long as it wasn’t that miserable bitch Sophie, any naked woman could hang herself in front of my old house. Wonder what Robert Frost would have made of my neighbors. And yeah, fuckhead, I know who Robert Frost was.

The whole train ride up I occupied myself by thinking of just how O’Connor knew I’d be asked up to Boston. Was he like psychic? Maybe he’d called the Psychic Hotline and they’d seen it in the stars.
You’ll meet the woman of your dreams. You’ll have a bright future if you invest in high tech start-ups. And, by the way, that schmuck you’re training will be asked to work in Boston.
Somehow doubted that’s the way it went.

O’Connor had a snitch on the inside in Boston. That gave me cold comfort. Meant that someone up there would know who I was, what I was. Didn’t need police training to know that a rat has a peculiar sense of loyalty, loyalty to self. If the rat was willing to flip on a guy who scared Griffin, he wouldn’t think twice about rolling on me to save his own neck. Brooklyn schooled me on that.

Boston, Philadelphia, anywhere: all equals to me. A fat, unshaven bastard with a wind-fucked comb-over met me at the station. Smelled like beer and onions and his jeans rode low enough to reveal the top of his plumber’s crack. Delightful. Said his name was Finney. Guess I believed him. Didn’t offer to shake my hand. Worked for me. Wanted as little personal contact with old Finney as could be managed. Just sitting in the front seat of his 1979 Buick Electra 225 made me want to shower. The vinyl stank worse than the driver and the carpeting, what was left of it, was covered in cigarette filters, beer cans, and porno magazines.

“Watch the hole in the floor,” was the other sentence Finney had uttered.