Buried on Avenue B (20 page)

 

CHAPTER 51

THE STEEL STAIRS
are treacherous, particularly in three-inch heels. At the bottom, a round-shouldered crone in a Bart Simpson T-shirt points at a plastic chair. O'Hara takes it, the damp seat sticking to her thighs. With wobbly shoes, clinging dress, and deranged orange lipstick, O'Hara is cultivating early forties reality-show tragic, a guise she realizes is hardly a stretch, and as she dangles a shoe on her toe, her keeper assesses her from a cement ledge. Soft light leaks from behind the curtains of a basement window, and trickling down from the curb the Friday-night bustle of the Lower East Side.

After ten minutes, a metal door scrapes open. A surprisingly presentable young woman clambers to the street, and the crone slips inside. She reemerges with a toothless smile. “Miss Marla can see you now.” O'Hara steps from the stairwell into a small, dark, airless space, and as her eyes strain to take in the scene, the heavy door swings shut behind her. At her feet is a low table with a candle, and behind it, all but her face in shadow, squats Miss Marla. O'Hara sits across from her on a shabby ottoman.

“You seem troubled, my dear. What brings you to me this evening?”

“A decision,” says O'Hara. “An important one.”

Outside, O'Hara was handed a menu of offerings and prices, and when O'Hara slides over a stack of twenties and ponies up for the full $220 reading, Miss Marla springs for a stick of incense, which she lights with a plastic Bic. A brown plume corkscrews toward the ceiling, its spicy scent mingling with the smell of burned meat that seeps from behind a blanket partition.

In the dim light, O'Hara takes the measure of the woman across from her. Miss Marla has sad, shrewd eyes, a broad nose, and a defiant mouth that cuts through her fleshy face like a line drawn in the sand. It's a face born and bred for a mug shot, and O'Hara puts her in her late fifties. Marla's lower body is wrapped in a dark skirt, her enormous bosom covered by a cotton pullover, and like Sollie, her reading glasses hang from a string around her neck. She slips them on and reaches for O'Hara's hand, turning it palm up beside the guttering flame.

Minutes pass in silence as the psychic pores over O'Hara's palm and from the frowns that play across Miss Marla's face and the anguish in her eyes, it's clear that little of what she sees is anything to write home about. When the strain becomes too much, she looks away or glances sympathetically at O'Hara, gathers her strength, and dives back in.

Jesus, thinks O'Hara. I know I'm a mess, but what the hell? She tunes her ears for sounds of life beyond the blanket. The purr of a cat? The whisper of an old woman? O'Hara can't be sure. “I see that you are a serious person,” says Marla at last. “That's obvious. And ambitious. You are determined to accomplish a great deal in this life and have the ability to do it. Unfortunately, you are your own worst enemy. You behave rashly and impulsively, and these misguided actions undermine the effect of the many good things you do. It's a problem in your work, but worse in your personal life. Again and again, you jeopardize relationships that are most important to you.”

When Miss Marla glances at O'Hara, she can't conceal her satisfaction at having hit the mark. “You mentioned an important decision. What kind?”

“I'm about to sign a lease on a new apartment,” says O'Hara. “In fact, I withdrew the money this afternoon, so I can give it to the landlord tomorrow. Now I'm getting cold feet. Like you said, I tend to be rash, and I want to be sure I'm making the right decision.”

“Interesting,” says Miss Marla, and returns her attention to O'Hara's hand. “Rash in matters of the heart, cautious and diligent when it comes to finances.”

“I worked hard for that money.”

“I know you did. Where is it . . . the apartment, I mean?”

“A few blocks north,” says O'Hara, and studies the eyes studying her. Like many things about Miss Marla, they seem both defeated and unyielding. “East Sixth Street, overlooking the garden.”

Marla's eyes hold O'Hara's for a second, then dip to her palm. “Your new apartment will be a wonderful home,” she says, “exactly the fresh start you've been looking for—” Miss Marla is about to continue, but catches herself, stopped by something troubling, like a malignancy, she has spotted near the base of O'Hara's ring finger. “The place is a good choice, I have no doubt about that, but I'm seeing a dark spot . . . it's just a matter of figuring out where . . . it's on your money. Yes. I'm sure of it now. Somehow, a curse has attached itself to your money. Do you have any idea how that might have happened?”

“Not at all. Is there anything you can do?”

“Child, there's always something Miss Marla can do. But I'm going to need your help. It's going to take all your strength as well as mine. I can tell you're not a person for whom money is the most important thing in life. The people you love are far more precious. But ignore the curse, and it will spread until it poisons everything. Did you say that you have the money with you tonight?”

“I do. Just over three thou—”

“The amount is unimportant,” says Marla, cutting her off. “I don't want anything to distract me.” From the same dark space below the table from which she pulled the mangy stick of incense, Marla removes a red kerchief and a flacon of perfume. She flattens the kerchief on the table and sprinkles on a few drops. “Now,” says Marla, “it's okay to take out the money. Just place it on top, but do it carefully. Place it directly in the middle.”

No sooner has O'Hara produced a fat envelope marked “Rent/Security
”
than Marla pushes to her feet and disappears behind the blanket. In less than two minutes, Marla returns to her seat and drizzles a few more scented drops on the envelope. Then she enfolds it in the kerchief, and secures it with a knot.

“Because our foe is dark and underhanded, we will fight it with what it fears most. We'll fight darkness with darkness,” she says, and as she swoops across the table and grabs O'Hara's hands, she blows out the flame. The darkness is so sudden and complete, it feels as if the floor has been pulled out from under them and they're falling together through black space.

Miss Marla speaks softly at first, but soon is stomping her feet and rocking in her chair as she spews a torrent of what must be the vilest oaths and imprecations. At one point, Miss Marla becomes so enraged she pulls one paw from the sweaty pile and shakes her fist at the ceiling. Marla maintains this violent intensity as long as humanly possible, and when she pulls out her Bic and relights the candle, her ravaged face is flushed.

“Should I take out the money?” asks O'Hara.

“Not yet,” says Marla, fighting for breath. “The curse is too strong. Even after what we've done, it will take three days for it to die. Take the kerchief home, place it in the back of a dark drawer, but don't go anywhere near it until Monday morning. This is very important. If you don't wait, little bits of the curse will remain, and eventually return as powerful as ever.”

Mindful of her instructions, O'Hara carefully deposits the fragrant bundle in her bag, then peers at Marla. Marla stressing the importance of not touching the kerchief till Monday reminds O'Hara of the warning Fudgesicle gave Lebrie. “Whatever you do,” he told her, “don't stop hitting the water heater.” As O'Hara considers how the scams and scripts are refined and honed over the years, she feels as if she is looking through Marla at the dark face in Fudgesicle's mug shot. Marla is nothing if not observant, reads the shift in O'Hara's eyes.

“Is something the matter?”

“Depends how you look at it.”

“What is it, my child?”

“You're under arrest.”

 

CHAPTER 52

FIVE BLOCKS AWAY
on Pitt Street, O'Hara and Miss Marla face off again across a second crappy table in an even less pleasant space. Round two is in the interrogation box in the second-floor detective room of her old precinct, the 7, and Marla's right wrist is cuffed to her chair. “Sorry about the harsh light,” says O'Hara, nodding at the bare overhead bulb. “Someone keeps swiping the candles.”

Between them, giving off a heady bouquet, are two rectangular bundles in matching red kerchiefs. As Marla looks on glumly, O'Hara unknots one, unveiling a stack of filthy newsprint. “Why, Miss Marla, there's nothing here but worthless paper! No wonder you preferred I wait to open it till Monday.”

Now O'Hara undoes the second parcel, the one she found under Marla's ass after she yanked it out of the chair to read her her rights. “By the way Marla, what's this fragrance—Shalimar?”

“Tommy Hilfiger.”

“Oh, yeah? It's ghastly.”

This kerchief contains the rent money, and O'Hara counts every last one of 106 twenties. “It's all here—five thousand, three hundred. Since it's over three thousand, we got you for grand larceny, third degree. You're going away for a while.”

“What do you want from me?” Earlier in the evening, O'Hara got consults at three other neighborhood parlors, and cooling their heels in the holding cell are Dame Olga, Madame Irma, and Lady Nadia. As O'Hara got Marla printed, she made a point of parading her past their crowded cell.

“Information,” says O'Hara, “about these two.” She removes the kerchiefs and replaces them with the mug shots she received from Wawrinka. “This one goes by Johnny George, George Johns, Skigo, and Fudgsicle, this one by Nick Adams, Nick Miller, Tom Marks, and Popsicle. Fudgesicle and Popsicle are a burglary team and work out of town. Sometimes they work with this boy.” O'Hara adds a closely cropped picture of Hercules. Just seeing the pictures of Herc and the two perps side by side pisses O'Hara off.

Marla leans over and studies the pictures with the same ostentation she brought to O'Hara's palm. But this time, she comes up empty. “I've never seen any of them. I'm certain.”

“Really? A striking pair like this doesn't jog your memory?”

“No.”

“Same thing with a blond Rom kid? I suppose there are so many they all blend together? Marla, I'm beginning to think you're a lot like me, your own worst enemy.”

“I've never seen or heard of any of them. I swear it.”

“How about two female Gypsies who work with them? One with bad skin, the other kind of a hottie? Both bilked the same old man, and both used the boy.”

Marla makes a sign, then mimes spitting over her shoulder. “I don't associate with burglars.”

“You're better than them?”

“I don't break into homes.”

“No, that would be bad
kasa
,” says O'Hara, throwing out a word she picked up online.

“You speak Rom?” For a second the apprehension in her eyes seems almost genuine.

“Marla, I agree with you about one thing. I don't think you're as bad as those two. They're scumbags. You're a scoundrel. But it's eleven twenty on a Friday night, and the only one you've given up is Tommy Hilfiger. That means you're going to spend the weekend in central booking. You been to central booking on a weekend? It's a warehouse of lost souls. People screaming and fighting, going to the bathroom in front of you. On Monday, if you make it that long, you're going to Rikers, another bad place, full of people with nothing to lose.”

“For telling a fortune?”

“For grand larceny. Third degree. But most of all for lying to me.”

“I don't know them. Any of them.”

O'Hara reaches across the table for Marla's uncuffed hand and turns it palm up. “I see awful things, Marla. Things you don't deserve. Blood and death . . . actually, it's not all bad. I see good things too . . . like love.”

“Yeah?”

“A very big love. African American. She's going to introduce herself in the shower along with five of her friends, and she's going to hold something sharp to your neck. . . . After that it gets fuzzy. Probably just as well.”

“Pizza,” says Marla.

“You hungry?”

“That's her name. Pizza Denikov. I heard she scammed an old man in Florida pretty good. She lives in Union City. Got a pencil, I'll give you her address.”

 

CHAPTER 53

WITH ITS PROXIMITY
to the city, low rents, and low profile, Union City is a perp haven, like the woods around a medieval fortress. Its harsh clogged streets are a parking nightmare, particularly on a Saturday, and because you never know when a Jersey cop with a hard-on for the NYPD will tow you for sport, O'Hara circles for twenty minutes rather than pull over in front of a hydrant.

The address she got out of Marla, written on newsprint in the block letters of a five-year-old, is on a block of dreary two- and three-family homes. A raspy voice barks through the intercom, and a door opens on the third floor. “Pizza,” calls O'Hara.

“Who is it?”

“Darlene O'Hara, NYPD. I need to talk to you.”

At the top of the stairs, O'Hara displays her shield. As she catches her breath, she tries to determine if the woman in the doorway is the woman with bad skin referred to by Sollie and the skaters. The woman, who is petite and wears a dark skirt, is not unattractive, and although her skin bears a few residual acne scars, they're not striking this morning. “Come in,” says Denikov, “My house is your house. Make yourself at home.”

The apartment contains no rugs, pictures, or curtains. What little furniture there is could be packed up in an hour. Nevertheless, the hospitality appears genuine. Soon after O'Hara sits at a stark white table, Denikov places a steaming paper bowl in front of her. The reddish broth contains a stub of corn, a carrot, and a chunk of meat.

“A simple
boyash
,” says Denikov, “a stew, but we like to dress it up a little.” She slides over a tray crowded with mysterious condiments.

Throwing caution to the wind, O'Hara takes a spoonful. It tastes as advertised—a simple stew—and feels good on her scratchy throat. From the corner of the room comes a burst of gunfire. A boy about thirteen lies on his stomach in front of a large TV. He wears a headset and wields a joystick. On the screen are images of urban warfare, soldiers fighting house to house. Beside him is an acoustic guitar.

“Giuseppe is playing with his friends on the phone,” says Denikov.

“A handsome young man,” says O'Hara. “Your son?”

“Grandson.”

“I take it he's already dropped out of school.”

“Make up your mind,” says Denikov as she lights a Menthol 100. “You NYPD? Or you children's services?” Behind her, a young man in his early thirties enters the kitchen from a back room, ladles some stew into a bowl, and retreats to wherever he came from.

“And him?”

“Juice, my son. Giuseppe's dad. He sits in his room all day and takes Vicodin. It makes my heart sad.”

“I got your name from a fortune-teller named Miss Marla.”

“Oh, really. And how is Marla?”

“About the same, I guess.”

“Still running scams out of her little
offisa
on Clinton? Still got the hunchback working for her?”

“Yeah. In fact, Marla read my fortune last night. Discovered I had a curse on my money that had to be removed pronto.”

“I bet she did,” says Denikov. A smile ignites her brooding face.

“Then I read hers in my little
offisa
at the back of the Seventh Precinct. It didn't look so hot either.”

“At least, until she offered up my name. Out of curiosity, what did that fat, lying whore have to say about me?”

“Good things, mostly. She thought you might be able to help me. I'm working on a case involving an old man who ended up dead in his condo outside Sarasota and a boy who ended up dead in the East Village. Marla said you took some cash from the old man in Florida.”

“There are lots of old men in Florida, Detective. The state is full of them.”

“Makes it convenient, doesn't it? Having so many in one place. This one was named Ben Levin.”

“Sounds like a nice old guy. But the name doesn't ring a bell.”

“Give yourself a second.” O'Hara deals out pictures of Fudgesicle, Popsicle, and Hercules. Again, seeing the three together disturbs her. “In the meantime, maybe this will help. These two are a burglary team. They were in Levin's condo the day he died. This boy, who had blond hair and a limp, was with them.”

O'Hara leans forward and nudges the picture of the boy closer to Pizza. “They let the boy bleed to death in the back of a van. How would you like it if someone treated your grandson like that? Like a piece of trash?”

Pizza pushes the picture back and crosses her arms.

“I don't recognize any of them,” she says. The playful tone is gone.

“Do you mind if I ask why you call yourself Pizza?”

“That's what they used to call me when I was young. I had bad skin.”

Why would a person with bad skin give herself a name so loaded with adolescent cruelty? Particularly a woman? It makes no sense. At the same time, however, the story of Pizza's name and how she got it convinces O'Hara that the woman in front of her is the one Sollie was talking about; a person who would name herself Pizza, who would take what they called her and appropriate it for her own purposes, is the same kind of person who would use her bad skin to convince an old man she could care about him. It's how her mind works.

“Never heard of a blond-haired gypsy boy with a limp? Sure? Or this three-hundred-pound bag of shit? They let the boy bleed to death for a couple days in the back of a van. Like an animal. Now that Giuseppe's out of school, how's he going to earn a living? He's going to end up in one of those burglary teams too, right? You want the same thing to happen to him?”

“No one treats a child like that.”

“They did. Believe me. You should have seen the mattress. It was soaked with his blood. And I think you know who all these people are. If I find out that's true, I'm going to make it my business to track you down, I don't care how many times you jump in your caravan.”

“I know Ben Levin,” says Denikov, her arms still crossed. “But I never met him, I swear. I just talked to him on the phone.”

“How did you meet him?”

“The lava line.”

“The lava line?”

“Yeah. For lahvers.”

“You mean the love line?”

“Yeah. A chat line. I talked to him, got to know him a little, became friends, and he lent me a little money. And I mean a little. I have too much conscience, it's my fatal flaw. But I know someone who doesn't have that problem, who took him for a lot. A whore named Crisco.”

What's with these names, thinks O'Hara. Pizza, Juice, Crisco. “So what, you passed the old man's number on to Crisco?”

“Look around. Look out the window. Now look at me. Do I look like someone who can afford to be generous?” Denikov turns her attention from O'Hara to the back of the living room. “Giuseppe,” she says, “sing a song for Darlene. Giuseppe, please.”

“What do you want me to play?”

“Something pretty.”

He strums his guitar and without self-consciousness hums along to what sounds like an old Gypsy ballad but turns out to be the theme for
The Godfather.
Giuseppe's voice and playing are lovely, but the effect is undermined by O'Hara's knowledge that Denikov is using her grandson the same way the perps used the kid, the same way the woman in the Publix used her girl. Giuseppe, with his sweet voice and grandmother's soulful eyes, has probably been burglarizing homes for years.

“Giuseppe, knock that shit off,” comes the pissed-off voice of his father from the other end of the apartment. “I'm trying to get some sleep.”