Lush Life (56 page)

"In conjunction with . . ." Billy looked out at the assembled press, coughed, shifted gears. "Every life . . . ," then stopped to cough again.

Minette leaned into Matty, whispered, "That room . .

"My son . . Billy coughing and coughing like to die from it.

Finally one of the reporters stepped up and handed him a bottle of water, Billy taking the time to unscrew it to compose himself.

"My son, Ike, loved this city." He finally bore down, glaring at his notes. "Specifically, he loved the Lower East Side, both his ancestral"-without looking up, he gracefully extended his hand in a sweeping arc as if to suggest a kingdom-"and adopted home ... In the full embrace of that love ... he was gunned down in cold blood without profit by opportunistic and low-consciousness thugs. By opportun -
By gutless . . ."

Berkowitz, long-faced, his hands crossed over his belt, tilted forward to catch Matty's eye.

Matty reached out and touched Billys arm; the guy startled by the contact, but he got the message.

"My son, Ike, loved New York . . ."

From the basketball courts across the street by the live-poultry market, the teenage girls playing there abruptly filled the air with their profane and oblivious shouts, Billy closing his eyes, his face storming up red.

"My son, Ike, loved New York," warbling with rage now, "and this city chewed him up . . . This city has blood on its muzzle. This city . . Billy swallowed, then dropped his notes like litter.

"What does it take to survive here. Who survives. The, the already half-dead? The unconscious?"

Berkowitz gave Matty another look.

"Do you survive because of what is in you? Or because of what isn't . . ."

Matty began to reach out to him again, but Minette whispered, "Let him."

"Is, is heart a handicap? Is innocence? Is joy? My son . . ." Billy's mouth writhing. "I made so many mistakes . . . Please," looking out at the assembled, "who did this . . ."

"Raw stuff," Berkowitz murmured to Matty a moment after Billy stepped off into his wife's embrace, "but he forgot to mention the money."

Fully dressed, Eric sat on the side of his hospital bed still staring at his neighbor's TV long after the live feed of the presser had ended. A nurse's aide came in, pushing an empty wheelchair. "You look sad to be leaving here," she said. "What?"

"What is it." Kicking back the foot pedals for him. "Our fine cuisine?"

"Not tonight, my man," his neighbor drawled then changed the channel.

Within an hour of the presser being shown live on NY1, Matty and the rest of the squad were trapped behind piles of pink slips brought up in a constant stream from the Wheel downstairs, the detectives quickly filing them into Pursue and Not Entertained piles, the one's worth investigating running at about 10 percent of the lot, the other 90 percent the usual crackpots, chronic dime-droppers, and, his favorite, the grudge settlers, who offered up cheating boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, alimony skippers, do-nothing landlords, and deadbeat tenants; who offered up perps of the wrong race, wrong class, wrong age, and wrong neighborhood; shooters who lived on Sutton Place, on Central Park West, in Chappaqua, in Texas, in Alaska for now, but that's just where he's stationed; and as always, the Lords of Transportation calling in by the dozens: the guy was just at my token booth, on my train, on my bus, in my cab, in my dollar van, in my dreams; all of these invariably dropped into the Not Entertained pile; but how could you call it Not Entertained when it included an old lady in Brooklyn Heights giving up her son who lived in Hawaii but could have flown in for this, he does it all the time; when it included a collect call from Rikers, an inmate there giving up the judge who sentenced him and wanting to know if he could get that $42K in cash because he doesn't have a checking account; when it included a female cop in Staten Island calling in to drop a dime on her boyfriend, also a cop, who had just knocked up another female cop.

But then there was that other 10 percent, the Pursue pile, the un
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avoidables; the third-party verbals, people calling in to say a guy in Fort Lee, in Newark, in Bushwick, in Harlem, in Hempstead told me, or I overheard him say that he did it, or knew who did it, yeah, the dude has a gun, but I don't know guns; or better yet, the caller nails the right caliber; but even with those calls, no one ever knew anybody's real name: Cranky, Stinkum, Half-Dead, House, as in big as a . . .

The best, of course, were the guys they already knew from the neighborhood calling to drop the name of another guy from the neighborhood whom they also knew; a guy with the right kind of history, a guy who had friends with the right kind of histories; so-and-so from Lemlich who runs with so-and-so from Riis and so-and-so from Lewis Street, everybody having the proper pedigree for this . . . But so far they weren't getting anything that good.

"Yeah, this is Detective Clark from the Eighth Squad, who am I speaking to?"

"Who wants to know?"

Matty stared at the receiver. "Detective . . ."

"Oh, oh yeah, this is me who called about the reward?" "What do you got." Matty already mentally hanging up the phone. "There's this boy Lanny, I had heard him bragging about doing that other boy ever since the news was on today" "Yeah? Does Lanny have a gun?" "Yeah, uh-huh." "Do you know the caliber." "I think its like a .22."

Matty woke up a little. "How do you know him?" "He was in Otisville with my brother. He just got out." "Who did."

"Lanny. My brothers still in." "Really. What was he in for?" "Lanny or my brother?" "Lanny."

"A armed robbery on a boy in Brooklyn." Matty looked to Yolonda; maybe something here. "You know where he is right now?" "In the bathroom."

"When you say just got out,' how long ago?" "This morning." Matty flipped his pen. "So you comin' over now?"

Matty took down the address. Might as well. Guys like that always knew other guys.

"I got three people calling in on some dude Pogo from Avenue D," Mullins said from behind his pile of pink.

"Pogo from D?" Yolonda answered from behind hers. "I know him. He's a drug dealer. He's not gonna go robbin' anybody" "Fuck it," Matty said, "bring him in too."

"Ho shit, then there's this chinny-chin nigger!"

Everybody perched on the rails turned to Tristan, just coming out of the building, and started laughing.

It was Big Bird back in town from that special school and holding court.

"Where's your thing at, man?" Big Bird waggling his hot-dog-sized fingers under his own goatee.

"What you looking at.' Tristan murmured, addressing nobody. "You see me every day."

"What did he say?"

"He say something?"

"Least now we know why you grew that motherfucker to begin with," Bird said, wincing.

"But you don't know why I shaved it," Tristan couldn't help replying, although as usual, no one heard him.

Big Bird Hastings, all-city at Seward Park last year, was supposed to be in a fifth-year prep school outside Baltimore for high-prospect, low
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reading-level bailers; a place with tutors, where you had to wear a tie and talk about discipline and promptness all the time, but something happened up there and not only was Bird back after just a month but had enlisted in the army too.

"That's cool though, bra," Bird said. "You ain't afraid to show who you are. Most niggers 'round here got a scar like that, never leave the house. So you a heartful nigger, man." Big Bird tapped Tristan's chest with a slow overhand left. "Y'all got heart"

It was everything Tristan could do not to bust out in a grin.

"Why don't y'all come with us tonight," Bird still talking to him in front of everybody. "Met this girl at the recruiting center yesterday up in the Bronx? She got a whole bunch a female friends signing up too, ast me if I knew some boys 'round the way to party with, you know, like the last kick-up before all that ten-hut shit starts . . . You up for that?"

"Yeah." Tristan giving it a little smile.

The girls sounded good, but Big Bird calling him "heartful" like that rang in his head like a church bell.

"Bird, you all got room in that for everybody?" Little Dap raised a hand to Bird's Mercury Mountaineer with its Maryland plates sitting at the curb, then shot a look of undercover hate Tristan's way. Little Dap, Little Bitch.

"For Scar here?" Bird said, putting a hand on Tristan's shoulder. "Oh, hell yeah." Then started to walk to his ride.

"We gonna jump off round ten, awright?" Bird called back to the rails, got into his Maryland Mountaineer, then peeled out, Tristan watching until he disappeared around corner.

Scar.

"This Steak Lips," Matty asked, the heel of his palm starting to leave a permanent red half-moon on his forehead, "he's got a gun?"

He was speaking to the third of three people who had called in about some guy Steak Lips up in White Plains, each giving roughly the same story.

"Yeah."

"What kind?"

"I don't know. A gun."

"Where's Steak Lips live."

"With his aunt."

"Who lives where."

"She moved."

"In White Plains, though?"

"Could be."

"All right, let me do some legwork here, I'll get back to you."

Matty was about to punch Steak Lips into the city database, hoping they had one in the system, otherwise they were dealing with a homegrown Steak Lips, which meant driving up to White Plains and hooking up with the local PD, getting their Steak Lips picture in order to make an array for the three callers, so that everybody was on the same page as to exactly which Steak Lips they were talking about; Matty about to do this when Eric Cash walked into the room and all bets were off.

He walked directly to Matty's desk. "What do you need me to do."

"Where's your lawyer?" Matty asked calmly.

"Forget about my lawyer."

"What happened to you?"

The guy's face was a mess.

"Just, please," Cash said, "what do you need me to do."

The first step was to show him their Want Cards, their most likelies, the guy eagerly looking at all twenty-five faces as if looking for love, but it was a no go, which surprised no one.

"OK, look," Matty said, perched on the edge of the lieutenants desk. "What we need to do now is have you take us through the night again."

"I did that."

"OK, but the difference this time?" Yolonda slid closer to him. "And it embarrasses me to admit it, but this time we re listening with different ears."

For two hours they made Eric review every moment of the night: every bar, every encounter, every conversation with other parties, and when it came to the encounter to end all encounters, their demands became excruciatingly minute; angles of approach to 27 Eldridge, their own, the shooters'; the quality of light, who stood where, who stood in front of whom; any shred of recalled features, postures, hairstyles, wardrobe; any shred of remembered speech, their own, the shooters', in what sequence. He said this, then Ike said that, then he said this? Because the first time you told us . . . Any inconsistency in Eric's tale pointed out as gently as possible, backed with another reminder that he was a sacred witness now, not a suspect; then let's go back to the lighting, at what angle did it fall and on whom, and the gun; forgive us but just one more time, how did you know it was a .22? Then flight patterns, where did they run, did they go together or split up, were they running or walking, any third parties, any vehicles, any other people on the street . . . Two hours and nothing more than he had given them the first time; all three of them at the end of it looking like wet wash.

"All right." Matty stretched. "I think what I'd like to do is go over that sketch you gave us."

"I have to tell you," Eric said, gently massaging his fractured cheekbone, "it's more that I can recognize him than create him."

"Nonetheless," Matty said, then, "You want to get something to eat first?"

"Lets just do it," Eric said, dropping his head into the cradle of his crossed arms.

Yolonda moved in to knead his shoulders. "Oh my God," she said, "it's like you have golf balls under there."

As the sketch artist, carrying a portrait barely different from the one he came in with two hours earlier, closed the lieutenant s office door behind him, Matty looked to Yolonda with impassive disappointment, then uncharacteristically put his own consoling hand on the bleary, fuck-faced witness. "All right, Eric, we appreciate your coming in. I know we didn't exactly make it easy for you."

"That's it?"

"That's a lot," Yolonda said. "We can pick this up tomorrow."

"Maybe we should go back to the scene," Eric said, "I'm OK to do it. Maybe it'll shake something loose."

"You telling us how to do our job?" Yolonda asked mildly.

"No no no." Eric reached out for her. "I'm just suggesting."

"Eric," Matty said. "She's kidding you."

"She what?"

"I'm erasing the tension," Yolonda said. "You want to go? Let's go."