A Cast of Killers (32 page)

"Don't know any old lady," she corrected the
boy. "And I know that you do." She wagged a playful finger at him.
"But why don't we eat first?"

If some sugar daddy was taking care of Little
Pete on the streets, he wasn't doing a very good job of feeding
him. The child ate two large double cheeseburgers, a mountain of
french fries and even a bowl of overcooked green beans when Auntie
Lil insisted. To her surprise, while Little Pete was obviously
hungry, he did not gobble. In fact, he had nice table manners and
kept his napkin nearby so he could frequently scrub his mouth. He
even ordered milk, which amused Auntie Lil. That hard outer crust
concealed a little gentleman inside.

By the time his plate was empty, some of the
hard angles of Little Pete's face had smoothed and he no longer
perched on the edge of his chair. He sat back in contentment and
the slightly sleepy look that crossed his face made him seem, for
just a moment, like the little boy that he was.

"Why you think I know this lady?" he asked
Auntie Lil slowly. "I never seen you before. You her sister or
something?"

"You've never seen me, but I've seen you,"
Auntie Lil lied, not answering his other question. Let him think
she was Emily's sister. Perhaps he would talk more. "I saw you one
night near the twenty-four-hour photo store," she lied. "You were
running away. I know why you ran. It was the photos of Emily,
wasn't it? The photos of her dead that upset you."

"She was nice lady," he protested. For the
briefest of seconds, his lower lip trembled. "I ran because I had
to find Timmy. I knew he'd want to know."

"Is Timmy your friend?' she asked gently.
"Was Emily a friend of Timmy's, too?"

"Sure, Timmy's my friend. We're buddies." He
stared at her defiantly, as if he expected her to challenge his
contention that he had a friend. "And that lady was his
grandma."

"His grandmother?" Auntie Lil repeated. "You
mean, they were related?"

"Don't know about that." He stared down at
his hands, saw they were fists, and self-consciously uncurled them.
His fingers began to drum nervously on top of the small glass
table. "But he called her grandma," he admitted. "And she was as
good as a real one. She let us watch TV at her house when we could
sneak away from… "He stopped, looked outside as if he were being
watched, then continued. "Once she baked us a pineapple upside-down
cake and let me and Timmy eat the whole thing."

"You've been in her apartment on Forty-Sixth
Street? Next to the Jamaican restaurant?"

He nodded and told her more. "Once she
brought Timmy to see a play. And she said she could help him, that
he wouldn't have to do… some things anymore. That maybe she could
get him a job somewhere. And then she promised to help me, too. She
was going to give us tickets to Los Angeles, she said. We wanted to
go where it was warm. She said it was a nice town."

"Los Angeles?" Auntie Lil asked. "Was that
your idea or hers?"

"Hers. Timmy kept telling her he was scared
because the winter was coming. He hated the cold weather. She said
she'd send us to L.A."

"What happened to her?" Auntie Lil asked
softly. "Do you know who killed her?"

His lower lip trembled and he shook his head
furiously. "Don't know. First time I knew she was dead was when I
saw those photos. We was supposed to see her the next day. It was
my birthday and she had a present for me. Like she had one for
Timmy on his birthday. But I never got the present." He stared into
the tabletop. "She was nice to me. Said she could be my grandma,
too. That it was okay to call her 'Grandma' like Timmy did. It was
out on the streets that she'd been poisoned or something. But I
don't know who'd do a thing like that."

"Did she ever tell you anything about
herself?" Auntie Lil asked. "Where she was from? How she knew
Timmy? Why she was being so nice?"

"Like what? Why you want to know?" He stared
at Auntie Lil. The hard, suspicious expression flickered into view
and disappeared. "She was nice to us 'cause she liked us."

"Don't you realize that she was murdered?"
Auntie Lil asked gently. "Don't you want to find out who did
it?"

The hard look came back for good. "I find out
who, I'm gonna bust him," Little Pete said angrily. He jabbed with
a fist for emphasis, imitating his television heroes and their
cartoon courage.

"She never told you about herself?" Auntie
Lil persisted. The little boy shook his head. "What about Timmy?
Did he talk to her more? Can you get him to talk to me?"

Little Pete considered this. "I don't know.
Timmy's scared. First I seen her dead in the photos. And then he
seen an old lady coming out of her apartment and this man was with
her, he thinks it was a cop. He ran away. Says he's real scared.
And he's sad about Grandma dying. Real sad. He says something's
going on and he don't understand it. But he won't even tell me what
it is, so he ain't gonna talk to you none."

"Isn't going to talk to me at all," Auntie
Lil corrected automatically, but her heart wasn't really in it.
Little Pete tried on bad grammar like he tried on his street
accent—sporadically and not very well. It was posturing and nothing
more. Besides, her mind was on more important things. "What do you
know about Timmy?" she asked. "Where is he from?"

Little Pete shrugged. He wasn't interested in
people's pasts. He had run away to start a new life, not dwell on
the old one. And so had his friend, Timmy. "I think he's from
Texas," he finally offered. "That's all I know. Says his daddy was
mean to him and his momma wouldn't stop it. Ran away. Came here.
That's all I know."

"You can't tell me anything else about him?"
Auntie Lil demanded.

"Well, he's kind of weird," Little Pete
admitted. "Do I get dessert?" he added hopefully.

"Of course you do." She waved Billy over and
soon Little Pete was digging into an enormous ice cream sundae, the
treat bringing back the little boy in him. "What else do you know
about Timmy?" Auntie Lil persisted.

Little Pete shrugged. "He's kind of spooky
about religion and stuff like that. He likes to hang out near that
church. But he never goes in, he says. Just kind of hangs around
outside and looks in when they're praying."

"What church?" Auntie Lil demanded. "You mean
the one on Forty-Eighth Street?"

The boy nodded, his mouth crammed with
chocolate syrup and ice cream. "The big one," he muttered through
his dessert.

"St. Barnabas? With the soup kitchen? Where
Bob Fleming sometimes takes people to eat?"

Little Pete nodded again. "But not Timmy. He
won't go inside. Like I say, he just watches through the door
sometimes."

Now it was Auntie Lil's turn to drum the
glass tabletop with her fingers. "Who would want to kill Emily?"
she asked sharply.

Little Pete looked up in mid-bite, startled.
"Don't know," he protested. "She was a nice lady. She was gonna
give me a present."

Auntie Lil sighed and her mind wandered over
what she had learned. Emily had cared about this young boy, Timmy,
enough to let him call her "Grandma." And he had hung around St.
Barnabas. But, according to Little Pete, never went in.

"How old are you?" she asked Little Pete.

"Now I'm twelve," he answered proudly.

"How old is Timmy?" she continued.

"Timmy's older. He turned fourteen last July.
He was born on the fourth of July," he added helpfully.

Auntie Lil sighed. She would have to talk to
Timmy herself. "Can you get him to talk to me?" she asked again,
letting warmth creep into her voice for the very first time. In
fact, she was trying her best to plead—which was distinctly against
her nature.

Little Pete shrugged and shook his head. "I
can try, but I don't think he'll do it." The boy shrugged again.
"Says he's cursed."

"Cursed?"

Little Pete scooped up the rest of his sundae
and carefully finished every drop. "Says everyone that tries to be
good to him ends up dead." Little Pete looked her right in the eye.
"I wouldn't want to help him if I was you."

"What about you?" Auntie Lil pointed out.
"You're his friend and you're not dead."

"Me? I'm too little for no one to bother
about. Besides, I'm too smart." The little boy finished licking his
spoon and let it fall into the dish with a clatter. He winced and
looked sideways at Billy, then slowly rose before freezing in
indecision.

"It's okay. He knows I'm paying," Auntie Lil
assured the boy. "You can go now if you want."

"Man don't like me," Little Pete
confided.

"I guess not. You steal his things." Auntie
Lil spoke calmly and without judgment. Little Pete shifted
uncomfortably from foot to foot and ducked his head. Either he was
ashamed or he was trying to say something that was difficult for
him to say.

"About the dinner," he finally said in a
voice so soft that, even leaning forward, Auntie Lil caught only
part of it. "Thanks. But I got to go."

He dashed out the door, blending into the new
evening's shadows and reappearing clearly in the illuminated
harshness of the occasional streetlight that lit Eighth Avenue at
night. Auntie Lil stood in the window, following his small figure
through the clusters of theater patrons hurrying toward their
shows. The boy walked quickly, head down, minding his own
business—the very first rule of life on the street. Halfway down
the block, something caught his attention. Perhaps he heard a
shouted greeting, or a warning whistle. His head jerked up and he
looked furtively around, then turned and raised an arm in greeting.
Another small figure hurried across the avenue to Little Pete. They
met beneath a streetlight and Auntie Lil saw the glow of a head of
nearly white hair. Timmy. Had he been standing on the far corner,
waiting for Little Pete? Waiting for a report back on her? The two
boys gave each other a high-five hand slap, then turned down
Forty-Sixth Street and quickly disappeared from view. Just as
Auntie Lil was about to return to the table and settle the bill,
she saw a by now familiar figure hurrying down the block, right
behind the two boys. Or was it simply a coincidence that all were
heading down Forty-Sixth Street? Whatever the reason, Leteisha
Swann, woman of the night, disappeared into the very same darkness
that had swallowed Timmy and Little Pete only a few seconds
before.

"Find out anything?" Billy asked from behind.
She jumped in alarm and he steadied her with a very strong arm.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to spook you."

Flustered, she fussed over to her table and
hauled her pocketbook onto a chair. "How much do I owe you?" she
asked.

"Nothing at all." He began to clear the
dishes from the table and ignored her protests. "Listen, lady,
whatever it is you're really doing, you got that little monster to
act like a human being. So maybe you're not all bad. Forget about
the bill. I mean it."

"No, I insist." She held out some bills.

Billy pushed her hand away and sat down
across from her. "What you owe me is to listen to what I have to
say," he told her quietly.

She stiffened, but remained silent.

"Around here," he said softly, "people have
two faces. The faces everyone in the neighborhood sees. Those are
the happy, smiling 'I'm a great guy, let me buy you a drink' faces.
And then you have the faces that tell the true story. The faces
that come out the second a door is shut and it's okay to let down
your guard."

"What do you mean?" Auntie Lil asked,
suddenly frightened.

"What I mean is that I can tell you were
feeling sorry for that kid. And I got to admit, he acted okay in
here tonight. But I've seen him punch old ladies in the stomach for
their pocketbooks. I've seen him wave over greasy old men with one
hand and pick their pockets with the other. He's an animal and
he'll turn on you like one. And he's like just about everyone else
in this neighborhood. I know because I grew up here. And the name
of the game is survival."

"Even for you?" she asked softly.

"Even for me. If someone or something ever
threatened my family, for instance, this nice guy you see here
would disappear. Like that." He snapped his fingers and Auntie Lil
jumped at the sharp crack. When he saw she had not yet been cowed,
he continued. "I'll tell you another story," he said. "Last week a
couple of guys came in. They looked kind of familiar to me. We
stared at each other for a few seconds—and then we all remembered.
We'd gone to Sacred Heart together twenty, twenty-five years ago.
Played stickball, ran in the streets when we were bored. Stood
around looking at girls walking by. Tried to get beers out of old
man Flanagan. Those guys had been my best friends in third and
fourth grade. And I'd known them all through high school. And here
they were, back bigger than life. Both of them decked out in gold
chains and floor-length fur coats. Italian loafers. Hundred-dollar
haircuts. Thousand-dollar suits. A tan BMW parked out front. And a
wad of cash that would choke one of those horses over in Central
Park."

"Mafia?" Auntie Lil asked.

"Doubt it. They're Irish boys. Mafia don't
trust them." He leaned forward again. "The point is, after they'd
been here about fifteen minutes, they ask me if I'm interested in
something very, very special. I say, 'Sure. Why not?' One of the
guys goes out to the car, brings back a box, says I'm not going to
believe this. 'You'll really get off, Billy,' he tells me and pulls
out a stack of magazines."

Billy stopped and his mouth
turned down in pain and disgust. "I can't tell you what was in
those magazines because it would make you sick. But it could have
been my Megan on those pages. Or my son. And it damn sure was
somebody's kid. And those guys, those smiling buddies who had been
my best friends at one time, had grown up and grown fat and rich on
that filth. Those magazines sold for twenty-five dollars apiece.
When they saw I wasn't interested, they acted a little hurt that I
didn't appreciate the favor, but hey, there were no hard feelings.
The Fifty-Second Street gang faces came back in an instant. They
were the boys again—joking with me, slapping my hands, everything
was buddy this, buddy that. Like they'd pulled out
Sports Illustrated
instead. And you know what? I was buddy, buddy back to
them."