Lush Life (30 page)

Then he spied Minette Davidson's phone number wedged into a corner of his blotter.

"She cut herself making a sandwich," Minette said.

"Oh yeah?" Matty didn't buy it. "She take stitches?"

"A few. We had to wait almost six hours for the plastic surgeon to show up, but finally."

"Good."

"You couldn't have called anybody at the hospital to speed things up last night, could you? Please say no so I don't kick myself."

"No."

"Thank you."

"She's OK?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

"Good." Matty's cell started to ring, his friend in Vice. "And I assume Mr. Marcus doesn't know about this?"

"Mr. Marcus?" she said, Matty picking up the edge. "How could he?"

"Right," he said, then, "Look, I know it seems a lot longer, but it's barely forty-eight hours," mulling over whether to initiate a morgue search.

"I know." She sounded too drained to care right now. "All right, then."

"Yeah, I'm sorry I couldn't help you out last night."

"Thanks. Thank you."

"And, as you know, my heart goes out to you and yours."

There was a moment's hesitation, then, "Thanks."

As you know, my heart goes out to you and yours; Matty wincing as he returned the call to Vice, which in turn triggered a call to Harry Steele.

"Professor Steele." Matty held his cell in the crook of his neck as he reached for an upright half-full coffee cup in his wastebasket from yesterday, drank the rest. "I have it from an impeccable source that they'll be running an underage ops on you tonight. You'll be needing to keep an eye out for a short Hispanic, red dye streak, pierced eyebrow, on the chunky side. Make sure you check her ID. Tell Clarence and work the door with him."

Out on Pitt Street a car drove by with a bass system so powerful that his pencils rolled across the blotter.

"I have no idea what time. It's not like a dinner reservation. Just invest in the vigilance, all right? Now ... I need something from you . . ." Matty about to ask him for help with Eric Cash when a commotion on the floor below made him hang up, the downstairs desk cop barking, "Hey, whoa!" followed by a rush of feet coming up the stairs, the desk cop in pursuit. "I said fucking haltl" Matty up and braced as the squad-room door whacked into the wall and Billy Marcus blew in, wheezing, stark-eyed, his liquored breath preceding him, announcing, "I know who did it," before being wrapped in a flying bear hug from behind, the desk cop's forward momentum toppling the both of them, Billy falling face-first with his arms pinned to his sides, his unprotected nose spraying blood across the floor as the enraged, winded 220
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pounder landed on top of him.

"I know who did it," Billy said again, the words this time coming out flattened and adenoidal as he sat in a tipped-back chair at the makeshift dining table, eyes to the ceiling, Matty standing behind him and holding a fistful of paper towels to his nose. "I know who did it."

"OK, good. Just take it easy." The 10:00 a. M. Scotch fumes rising into Matty's face made his eyelids flutter.

"'OK, good. Take it easy,'" Marcus mimicked, wheezing like a radiator.

"Mr. Marcus, do you have asthma?"

Billy. My name is Billy. 1 told you that"-he paused to draw breath-"the last time. Yeah, I do. A little."

Matty took Billys hand and placed it atop the paper towels, went to one of the empty desks, and took the Advair inhaler from the overnight kit John Mullins kept in his bottom drawer.

"You know how to use one of these?" Shaking it up before handing it over.

"Yeah, thank you." He took a hit with his free hand.

As he stared at Billy now from less than a foot away, it dawned on Matty that for all their encounters over the last few days, he had never gotten a good fix on Marcus's face. His features seemed both half
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erased and constantly fluctuating, as if the trauma had blurred him physically as well as mentally; his face normally nowhere near this puffy or gaunt, complexion this blanched or ruddy, eyes this muddy or fiery, hair this lank or wild. He seemed both older and younger than he was, his body slim and nimble, yet Matty had seen him move with the geriatric tentativeness of someone crossing an unfamiliar room in the dark; the bottom line here being that even from this close range and concentrating on the task, Matty still couldn't say what Billy Marcus looked like.

One thing he did know for sure, though, was that the guy was still wearing the same clothes from three days ago.

"God knows I'm not passing judgment, but are you drunk?"

Marcus ignored the question, dug a hand into his pants pocket, pulling out a crumpled page of that day's Post.

"Please." Offering it to Matty.

It was a page from the sports section, an editorial about the immaturity of the new point guard for the Knicks, then he saw the ballpoint scrawl running in the margin: 22 Oliver skinny caramel lat pink vel zip track st wash niks black.

"What's this?"

Marcus palmed his chest, then lowered his head between his knees.

"What is this."

Marcus lifted up, eyes to the ceiling. "I was," taking a breath, "I was at a newsstand, and there's the papers, and, the front page? If you saw, today, it had the building on Eldridge with the flowers and all? That picture there, on your desk?" He spoke with a chattering quickness now, as if the room were freezing. "And, standing next to me, is this girl, Latin girl, and she picks up the paper, looks at the photo, and her eyes got like, huge. And then she says, 'Oh, shit. I thought them niggers was hull shitting.'Then she puts the paper down and walks away, so, I follow her to see where she's going, because she said it like she had heard the guys who did it bragging about it, don't you think?"

Or had friends who told her about a neighborhood shooting that they had seen on TV. There had been a dozen half-assed leads like this.

"So you follow her."

"Yeah. A block into it I realized I should have bought the paper she was holding, you know, because it had her fingerprints? But ... I follow her to . . . What?" Trying to read his notes upside down now in Matty's hand.

"Twenty-two Oliver?" Matty said.

"Yes."

"The Lemlich projects?"

"Some projects, yeah. I can't believe I didn't catch the name."

"We know it."

"And so, she went into the building, I didn't think it was smart to follow her past that, so I wrote down what she was wearing, as you see, and I came straight here."

Marcus hadn't blinked once since Matty and the other cop had lifted him off the floor.

On the other hand, 22 Oliver wasn't a bad address for this; it lay in the general direction of the shooters' flight pattern, and they'd been guessing the Lemlichs from the jump.

"And this is her description."

"Yes."

"Can you read it for me?" Handing him back his writing.

"Skinny, caramel Latina in a pink velour zippered tracktop, stonewashed jeans, and black Nikes."

"How old about?"

"High school."

"And where was this newsstand?"

"Eldridge and Broome? You know, right around the corner from . . ." Marcus shook up the inhaler but forgot to take another hit. "Don't you think this is a good lead?"

"We'll check it out. But can I ask . . ." Matty hesitated, then, "Billy, why are you still down there?"

"Why?" He gawked incredulously.

Matty retreated.

"So when are you going over?"

"To?"

"Find that girl." "Soon." "How soon?"

"As soon as I get you squared away." "Come again?" "Get you home." "No."

"Your wife's been here. She's out of her mind trying to find you." Billy looked away.

"And your daughter was in the hospital last night." "What? What happened?" "She cut herself." "Cut herself?"

"I believe she's OK," Matty said, "but she did take some stitches. You should go home and find out, don't you think? I can have someone drive you."

"But you say she's OK?"

Matty felt like smacking him. He gestured to the phone on his desk. "Call your wife, tell her where you're at." "I will." Looking away, his hands in his lap. Fuck it, Matty would call her himself later. "I need to go with you," Billy said. "Go where?"

"On this." Nodding to his writing. "Mr. Marcus, we don't do that."

"You have to. That description I gave you is a million kids. I'm your eyes."

Matty often wondered what was worse, knowing who killed your son, your wife, your daughter, or not. Having a name and a face to go with your demon, or not.

"You have to." Billy nearly lunged out of his seat. "Grant me my . ..." Then, losing track of what he wanted to say, he finally blinked, then seemed unable to stop blinking. "I'm not as drunk as you think. And I'm not as crazy."

"I never said any of that."

"It's a good lead. I know it. I'm begging you."

Yolonda walked into the office carrying a cafe con leche.

"I miss anything?" Then seeing Marcus: "Oh my God," her voice automatically shifting to high and tender. "How are you doing?"

"I overheard a girl talking about the shooting and I followed her to a building."

Yolanda looked to Matty, who shrugged and said, "I was just telling Mr. Marcus here that we'd check it out, but that he can't really come with us."

Yolonda blew on her coffee. "Why not?"

Matty picked up the phone and handed it to Billy. "Call home." Then took Yolonda by the elbow and walked her around to the dining alcove.

"What's wrong with you?" His face inches from hers.

"Oh, big deal, let him go for the ride."

"He hasn't been in contact with his family for days."

"Sounds like you."

"Funny. The guy is out of his mind."

"Of course he's out of his mind. I take one look at him and I see he needs to do something, feel like he's doing something, or he's gonna kill himself."

"Then let him take care of his family. That's doing something."

Yolonda shrugged, sipped her coffee.

Jimmy Iacone, preceded by a swirl of night funk, came toddling out of the bunk room, a towel and a toothbrush in his left hand.

"Do you have any idea how loud you're talking?"

Matty looked out into the big room, Billy hanging up the phone after having talked to his wife, supposedly talked to his wife. He then grabbed a notepad off Mullins's desk and began writing.

Matty walked in a tight circle as Yolonda sipped her coffee. "He does not leave the car."

"So Mr. Marcus." Yolonda twisted around, hooking an elbow over the seatback. "I know this is a loaded question, but how are you holding up?"

"Not . . . I'm trying to, to, you need to use your mind, to, to battle this?"

"That's good," she said, squeezing his wrist. "But you need to be patient. This isn't some ladder you climb, every day better than the next, do you know what I'm saying?"

But Marcus had already tuned out and was lifelessly staring at the world running past his side window. Sitting across from him, Jimmy Iacone was doing pretty much the same, the both of them looking for the moment like bored kids on a long trip. The car was suffused with the smell of alcohol coming through someone's pores, but it could easily have been Jimmy's.

"And your family," Matty said, trying to hold Marcus's eyes in the mirror. "How are they holding up?"

"They understand," Marcus said distantly.

"What," Matty said. "They understand what."

Yolonda touched Matty's arm. The steno pad Marcus had liberated from the office was lying open in his lap, Matty reading what was written there via the rearview:

have i ever been a comfort to you

"And your daughter?" he kept it up. "How's she doing? How was the hospital?"

"I have, I used to have childhood asthma?" Marcus said to Yolonda. "It's back. Thirty years and it's back."

"That's the stress," Yolonda said.

"No, I know that, I know . . ."

"Trust me, it's the stress. I had this lady once? Her son-" Yolonda cut herself off. "Anyways."

As they pulled up on the Madison Street side of the Lemlich Houses, Marcus stared at every passing tenant as if he couldn't quite get his eyes to open wide enough.

"Here's the drill." Matty twisted around. "We have your description of the girl, we have the address. Detective Bello and I are going in and trying to find her. Detective Iacone will stay here with you. If we come across anybody who looks likely, we'll walk them past the car. You make your ID to Detective Iacone. Under no circumstances are you to leave this vehicle. Do you understand?"

Still wobble-mouthed with concentration, Billy continued to search every face that came past the car, every set of nickel-plated eyes.

"Do, you, understand."