Hot Poppies (7 page)

“All of them. Money is what we're talking. But this is bizarre.”

“Why's that?”

“These scumbags don't usually go after cops. Not white guys like you. There's no fucking profit in it. Still, you never fucking know, there's always a first time. Could be they made an exception of you,” he said, and I thought of the elevator that stank of green rot and it made my stomach turn.

“You're one of those guys who believe the city is a hundred per cent shithole, aren't you, Jer?” I said and Chen smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I believe it all, all the darkest fucking things you ever read about.”

“That's fucking paranoid.” I opened the car door again and made to get out.

“If you need me, Art, most nights I eat at Henry Liu's, OK? And like they say, if you ain't fucking paranoid, Art, you ain't paying attention.”

6

“Someone's asking for you, Artie.” Short and wiry, with sandy hair like Brillo, a crooked grin, and a fighter's shoulders, Mike Rizzi stood in the doorway of his coffee shop flagging me down.

Mike's place is on the ground floor of the building opposite mine. On my side of the street, most of the cast-iron buildings have been converted into apartments. A few of them, like mine, have great nineteenth-century period detail carved into the façade. On Mike's side, too, there are a couple of great buildings with columns and pediments. His side is still commercial, though the art dealers and film people have mostly elbowed out the tool and die shops.

On one side of Mike's is a tailor shop and next to it a wholesale fabric outlet. On the other side, there's a pretty ratty gym, then a drugstore and a parking lot. Above him is a sweatshop. I can look out of my window and see the gim-crack chimneys, and when it's hot, the stink of illegal cleaning fluid drives Mike crazy.

“Artie? I said someone's looking for you.” Mike jerked his head towards the coffee shop. “In there,” he said.

“Yeah, who's that, Mike?” I said. “Let me in, I'm freezing.”

Planted in the front booth of Mike's place was Sonny Lippert. As I entered the coffee shop, he saluted me with his cup. “Long time no see, Art, man.”

My legs were killing me, I was preoccupied with the dead girl, the spike, with Pansy. What's more, Mike's kid, Justine, was perched on a stool at the counter eating a jelly donut. She grinned and waved. I blew her a kiss. What I didn't need right now was Sonny Lippert.

“Take a pew,” he said. “I want to talk to you. I know you usually hang here, so I came over, just for you. Buy me some lunch?”

“I'm busy, Sonny.”

“You're not too busy to do breakfast with Jerry Chen.”

“How'd you know about that?” I sat down opposite him and while Mike brought coffee for me and seltzer for Sonny, Sonny let me dangle in the silence of the empty coffee shop.

“You look good, Sonny,” I tried to make amends. “Have the BLT.”

Past fifty-five, Sonny Lippert looks fifteen years younger, the tight curls still black, the skin smooth, the body maintained by a trainer who's at his office every day, the snazzy suits perfectly cut.

When I first got to New York, Lippert, who's a federal prosecutor with a fiefdom all his own, helped me get a job, then a Green Card. When I got sworn in as a citizen, he was there. I paid him back with help on several cases—his obsession was wiping out the Russian mob in Brighton Beach—and that was that. Recently, Sonny had been cross-designated from Brooklyn to Manhattan, to the Southern District. This means his office is on the edge of Chinatown, not far from where I live. Not far enough.

He's a real hot-shot with dozens of investigators who work for him and he oils his relationships with all the bureaus, but especially the police. Most times, it gets him what he needs.

“I'm sorry. I've got a few problems, Sonny.”

He drank his seltzer. “You can drink that horse piss?” he said, pointing at the coffee, shutting his eyes as if the idea gave him pain. “What kind of problems, man? Look, it's me that owes you this time. I know about the girl at Abramsky's, I had to figure you'd take an interest, being Hillel's your friend. I'm your friend, man, and I don't want to babysit your sorry ass again, OK?”

“Don't patronize me, Sonny.”

“Jerry Chen is very smart. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, so to speak. He keeps in touch. He's an obliging fellow. They think of me as one of them.”

“The Chinese, you mean?”

“A cop, man.” Sonny Lippert had been a cop a long time ago. He loves it. He walks the walk. Talks the talk. It makes his wife cringe with embarrassment, but he doesn't care.

I was never that kind of cop. I didn't go to other cops' houses much. People would say, “So what's it like being a cop?” I don't know.

“Artie? Man? You with me?”

“So you're a cop. So that means everyone I take a meeting with reports to you on it?”

“I don't know. Might only be Jerry Chen, babe.” He looked out the window. “Don't get involved in this thing, Art, sweetheart, not without telling me.”

“You're not interested in the Chinese, Sonny.”

“Russians, Chinese, it's all the same. Cubans. Albanians. There's Vietnamese in East Berlin shooting AKs. There's East Germans swiping nukes from the Russkis. There's crazies in Hungary cutting up Arabs for body parts. The whole frigging commie bunch got let out of jail. And they're everywhere. They're here. They want a big piece of pie. They want the whole pie. You think Russians and Chinese don't get into bed together? They been doing it to each other in the ass since the 1950s. Before that. Where's your historical perspective, Art, babe? Wait until China really gets its hands on Hong Kong and the financial dominoes go down all in a row. Just wait for it.”

“Thank you for the history lesson. You ever heard of a Mr Snap, Sonny?”

“What the fuck's a Mr Snap?”

“A guy that takes pictures of Chinese girls.”

“For you, I'll ask around. You know I'm your friend, Art, and I want you to take care, OK? I already know that you got your head banged in a warehouse by some dirtbag. Next time they'll cut your head off. Chinatown might be around the corner, man, but it's not your turf. You need eyes there, an ear. You need a whole etiquette book. There are rules. Behaving like the schmendrick you obviously are could end up them dissecting you. You fuck around, they'll carve you up like Peking duck.”

“I like Peking duck.”

“Very nice, Art. Very funny. Talk to me, man, I'll help you. Like we always help each other. Anyhow, I can get you something you want.” Sonny stretched his legs. He wore beautiful brown boots instead of the usual tasseled loafers. Who was it said a man's vanity is invested in his clothes? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? No, it couldn't be, Dostoyevsky was always too hung up on Christ and sin to think about his shoes. I read all that stuff a long time ago. I forgot most of it.

“What is it I want, Sonny?”

“Your job back.” He got up and put some money on the table. “I love you, Art. But you're a fake. You say to me, I hate the life, Sonny. I want a change. I call up this professor I know at Columbia, I say, Mrs H, I got this cop. He graduated college, he speaks languages. Smart. He should go to law school. But you didn't send the applications in, did you? So don't kid yourself, toots. You need the life, it's the air you breathe. That's why you're up to your ass in this Chinatown thing when you could have walked away.”

Sonny put on his sheepskin coat and his leather gloves.

“Art, babe, if you are in it, watch your back,” Sonny said as he got ready to leave. “Keep me posted how you go, OK, and follow the money.”

“Where to, Sonny?”

“In the end? I figure, in the end, it's Hong Kong.”

Hong Kong. What's he talking about? I thought. I waited while Sonny buttoned up. Hong Kong was a dot on the rim of China a zillion miles away, another planet from this frozen city and the miserable murder of a local girl. It was the snow making him nuts.

“Mikey? How many inches?”

“Sixty, Artie. More coming.”

It was the snow. People were talking bullshit. Sonny was at the door and he said, “So did I tell you I got a part in the new Pacino movie? Lines also.”

“Good for you, Sonny. I hope you win an Oscar.”

Seeing Sonny leave, Justine jumped off the stool and pulled at my hand. She was twelve, very pretty and completely self-possessed, and she said, “Come outside,” and pulled me into the street. She knew I'd do anything for her.

“Put on your jacket,” Mike yelled.

“You any good at math, Artie?”

“I stink at math, you know that. What's going on?”

Opening her mouth, she collected snow on her pink tongue, stalling.

“What?”

“So, OK, like I don't want to make my pop nuts, you know, but I saw this thing on TV about a kid that was snatched from a bus stop.”

The second day of the storm, the street was nearly empty. The few people who skidded by barely noticed us, a guy and a little girl, backs against the coffee-shop window, mouths open, eating snow.

“Artie?”

“Where did it happen that the kid got snatched?”

“Bed Stuy,” she said.

“So, look, you don't live in Bed Stuy, do you? There's always stuff, you know that.”

“I know.”

“Also, you know I'm always there for you. You know anyone comes near you, they're toast. Right? And I'm right there. Across the street. Look. Your own personal bodyguard.”

“Like Whitney Houston.”

“Exactly. So, if you want, you could come over again soon. Watch some tapes with me and Lily. And I'll make pizza again. Home made,” I said. “Come on, kiddo, it's cold.”

Inside, Justine curled up in the booth and, in the warm air, fell asleep. I drank some coffee and thought about Sonny's visit. He was right. It wasn't my turf. I could get cut up. I looked at Justine. I was a lot more scared than I let on.

“So what's happening, Mikey?”

Mike looked anxious. I moved to the counter where he was pouring ketchup out of gallon jars into squeeze bottles. He works like a dog, he runs a one-man neighborhood watch, taking packages for everyone on the block, looking out for the kids, he lets me use the place as an office when I want. Mike was Ricky Tae's friend before I moved to the block. He's a good guy, but his wife is always on his back. Lina's always pushing him to open a fancy menswear shop in SoHo. Lina's a very pretty blonde, but she's ambitious and has vulpine eyes and long arms that seem ready to snatch you and hold you hostage.

An Italian guy, Mike Rizzi grew up over on Mulberry Street, but he's obsessed with Greece. Early on, he figured that the owner of a Manhattan coffee shop with a picture of the Aegean on the wall and a lifetime supply of cups with a classical-type frieze, Greece was his destiny. So on Mike's wall are pictures of Telly Savalas, Anthony Quinn as Zorba, even Mrs Papandreou, but this was for the customers, he claimed. “I was raised to be a classical scholar,” he would say when he was plastered on ouzo.

“Spit it out, Mike. I have to go.” I'm next, I'm next—I couldn't get it out of my head.

“Chink came by,” he mumbled.

“What? Mike? Speak to me, man.”

Mike poured some coffee. “Chinese guy, some kind of slant. Whaddya call 'em, Oriental guys down in Russia? Cheech 'n' Chongs?”

“Chechens, Mike.” He knew, of course. Like half New York, Mike's an equal opportunity racist. Mostly he just vents, though, and he would put his hand in a lion's mouth to make you happy.

“So what did he want, this Chechen?”

“Chink, he was a Chink.” Mike grew angry. “They get special treatment from the cops down here. Take the fucking vegetable wholesaler moved in round the corner, you know? He's Chinese. He dumps his stinking stuff on the sidewalk. Everybody from here up to SoHo screams. Nothing happens. Then I got to worry about which mob I could use to pick up the Chink vegetables. Jesus.”

“Is there a reason you're telling me this?” I asked, but a couple of customers arrived, Mike got busy fixing food, and the phone rang.

“It's for you,” he said. It was Lily. I said I was coming over, she said she was working. I said I was coming anyway and I hung up and got into my coat. Secretly, I was fucking pleased Sonny told some law professor I was hot stuff; I wanted to tell Lily. A lot of stuff had happened since the day before and I needed to see her real bad.

“Artie? Listen, I meant to tell you, there's been some lights on up in Rick's apartment a couple times. Probably just his mom cleaning up, or something. Right? Right, Artie?”

“Something like that, Mike,” I said, but I should have paid more attention. I should have paid attention to Sonny and the noise of the spike when it whistled past my head, I should have listened to what Mike was telling me, but I didn't. I was thinking about Lily.

7

I first met Lily Hanes outside St Vincent's on a hot summer night when I was waiting for someone to die. It was almost two years ago. She had been a witness to the killing and we met up, her with the red hair that she constantly pushed out of her face and the long tanned legs. It took me some time to get her to go out with me, but since then there have been a lot of dinners. By our third date, I was already hooked. We were driving to Sag Harbor for the weekend and she said, “So, do you have a gun?” and I said, “Sure I have a gun, I'm a cop. You want to see it?”

In the long line of New York lefties Lily comes from, guns are considered the devil's work, but she took it gamely and held it between her thumb and her forefinger.