Lush Life (59 page)

"Besides, it's over. It was over the minute people knew to come here."

"Yeah, no."

"All these kids down here, they walk around starring in the movie of their lives, they have no idea." "No."

" 'Not tonight, my man'... I mean, where did he think he was?"

"No. Yeah."

"If you think about it, A. C.? The artificiality down there will be the truest part of the whole setup."

"Sure." Erics screen a blank.

"Anyways, I'd like you there." "OK."

"I need someone I can trust." "OK."

"Someone who keeps it to ten thousand." "OK."

"Yeah?" Steele poured him some more coffee.

"Yeah."

"It'll be a new start for you."

"Yeah." Sinking, then grasping, "Can I ask you one favor for this?" Steele waited.

"Let me offer someone a decent job down there. At least offer it."

"Offer to who, that waitress? Whatsit, Bree?"

Eric sat back.

"C'mon, Eric, the kid's a kid, let her live the dream a little." "OK."

"And, no more trying to sell coke in my place."

"No."

"All right then." Steele rose, made the sign of the cross, "Ego te ab
-
solvo," then disappeared behind a door.

Eric sat there, wondering what just happened.

Yolonda asked Matty if she could do the shooter solo; kids like this one were her meat and potatoes, and the last thing she needed in there when she started asking her touchy-feely questions was some big, bucket-headed Irishman inhibiting the flow. And he knew from experience that when it came to perps like Tristan Acevedo, it was sheer self -
destruction not to give Yolonda her way.

Nonetheless, the kid seemed unbreakable; as in, broken so many times there was nothing left to break; coming off as if he were sitting in the back row of a meaningless class, barely interested in his own lying answers as to where he had been that night, as to how he came upon the gun found under his mattress; indifferent to the point of boredom to all the contradictions pointed out to him in his narrative; indifferent to his own fate. None of which was a deal breaker in itself, since they did have the gun and Little Daps testimony, but they couldn't take a chance on this kid being stony now, then turning into a motormouth at the trial, revealing that Ike Marcus had brutalized his little sister or something, the DA winding up looking like a horse's ass.

After an hour Yolonda came out of the interview room at the end of their first go-round to get the kid a snack and give herself a breather.

"You're putting him to sleep," Matty said.

"Kid's retard tough," she said, blowing a strand of hair off her face. "I hate that shit. Kids don't care if they live or die. It's sad, you know? Fuck it. I'll get him."

Twenty minutes later, armed with a soda and a Ring Ding, she went back inside.

"Tristan, you grew up around here?"

"Yeah." Staring at his treats. "Some."

"Your mother had problems?"

"I don't know."

"You lived with her?"

"A little."

"How old were you when you moved out?"

"Which moved out."

"The first moved out."

"First grade."

"And why was that?"

"What."

"Why did you have to go?"

"I don't know."

"Was she sick?"

"Yeah."

"Drug sick?" He shrugged. "You were so little." Another shrug.

"You moved in with your grandmother?"

"Some."

"Then where?"

"My mother again some. Her boyfriend. I don't know."

"What else was it like for you as a kid?"

"Hah?"

"What kind of childhood did you have?" "I just told you." "Tell me more." "I don't know no more."

"You don't know what kind of childhood you had?" "I don't know. What kind a childhood you has?" his voice a querulous murmur.

"Mine?" Yolonda leaned back. "Bad. I was in foster homes because my mother was too high to take care of me and my father was in jail for dealing heroin. We used to stand on line for hours every week to get these big government blocks of cheese, then we'd take 'em home, cut 'em up into smaller blocks, and sell them to the bodegas. It sucked." It was all bullshit except for the cheese, but she got him listening. She reached out but didn't touch his left cheek, the scar running from there into the left corner of his mouth, then out the right corner, and continuing in a downward jag to the right side of his jawbone. "What's that from?" "I chewed into a cord." "A cord. What kind of cord?" " 'Lectrical."

"You what? You're lucky you didn't kill yourself."

Another shrug.

"Why?"

"I wanted to put my house on fire."

"Why?"

"It's a secret."

Yolonda had thought so. She had been in too many rooms with too many kids like Tristan not to be able to recognize that eerie stare of his, both averted and burning. "How old were you?" "I don't know. Five. Six."

"Aw, Jesus," sounding like she was about to cry. "And who did it to you?"

"I just told you, I did it myself."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Tristan."

"Nobody did nothing to me."

Yolonda stared at him, her chin resting on the knuckles of her fist.

"Did what," he said.

"Was it that asshole guy you live with?"

"No." Then, "I ain't telling you." Then, "But not him."

"OK."

"And I never did it to them." "The little ones."

"Yeah." Looking off again. "And I could've if I wanted to." "That's because you know right from wrong." Another shrug.

"You do." Touching his arm. "And for what you been through? You're strong. Stronger than anybody knows."

She could feel his tendons begin to unknot beneath her fingers. "If we ever get to be friends, me and you?" She waited until he looked at her. "I got some secrets that'll make your hair fall out." "Like what."

"My father was in jail, but not for drugs." "Then for what."

"You look at me and you answer your own question." He didn't look at her, couldn't look at her, she knew, if he expected to see his own experience mirrored there.

Just as well, since she wasn't crazy about this kind of lying. She squeezed his hand in communion.

"So, Tristan, this bianco on Eldridge, did you know him from before?"

"Before what."

"That night. That incident."

"No."

"What did he do to you?" "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Then, leaning in, whispering, "I'm trying to help you."

He stared at her hand.

"He mustVe done something."

"Scared me."

"Scared you how."

"He started to like, step to me, and I flexed. Bap." "Bap. Meaning you shot him?" "I don't know. I guess."

"Just say it to me. Say what you did. You'll feel better." "I shot him."

"OK." Yolonda nodded, patting his hand. "Good." Tristan exhaled like something punctured, his body slowly sinking in on itself.

"I miss my grandmother," he said after a while.

Chapter
Eight.

Back at Chinaman's Chance, they sat facing each other in the otherwise shut-down club, the smell of Clorox wafting in from the front room.

"I don't want to know his name." Billys voice quivering.

"I understand," Matty said, thinking, Then move to Greenland.

"I don't want his name in my head." "No."

"I'm not going to ask to see him," Billy said.

"That wouldn't be a good idea."

"He said he did it?"

"Yeah." Matty sipped his third drink. Lit a cigarette. "Plus we have his partner and the gun."

"Why?" Billy scowled as if looking into the sun.

"Why'd he do it?" Matty expelled a shred of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. "Sounds like a robbery gone bad. Sounds like what we figured from the jump."

Billy did an abrupt half-turn to hide an anarchic gout of tears, then turned back. "Is he sorry?"

"Yeah," Matty lied, "he is."

They sat in silence for a moment listening to the Chi-Lites coming in from the front-room jukebox, the half-a-homeless-guy mopping the floor out there entertaining himself.

"So what'll happen to him." Billy asked.

"He's seventeen, so he'll be charged as a juvenile, but he'll get the big-boy treatment. The DA'll go for hard time, felony murder in the commission of a robbery, twenty-five years automatic."

"Huh," Billy breathed.

"Here's the deal." Matty leaned forward. "The DA keeps a score
-
card, OK? Now, this is a projects kid, nobody's stepping up for him, no family, nobody So, the guy knows he'll be going up against some Legal Aid lawyer, and its pretty much a slam dunk.

"Now, this lawyer, he'll bring up the kid's age, the fact that he's got no record, et cetera, et cetera, but the DA knows a winning hand when he sees one, so he'll stand pat on the twenty-five. Problem is, he'll have to go to trial to get that, which no DA ever wants to do, so then he'll come to you, as father of the victim, say something like 'We could stick it to him for the full quarter, but to spare you having to relive the whole thing in court, I'll let his lawyer plea out for twenty and you can just get on with your life.'"

"Huh."

"But what the DA won't tell you is that once he's inside, twenty, with good behavior, becomes more like fifteen."

"Fifteen?" Billy slowly raising his eyes. "How old is he again?"

"Seventeen," Matty said. "Which puts him back on the street at thirty-two."

Billy churned in his chair as if his back were killing him.

"I'm sorry, I'm just trying to give you the true picture."

"I don't want to know his name." Billy grinding in his seat.

"I understand," Matty said patiently, pouring himself another few inches from the bottle he had liberated from behind the darkened bar.

"In or out, he'll be in my life forever."

Matty's cell rang.

"Excuse me," half turning away.

"Got a pen?" It was his ex.

"Yup." Making no move to find one.

"Adirondack Trailways 4432, arriving Port Authority, four-fifteen tomorrow."

"A. M. or p. M.?"

"Guess."

"All right, whatever," glancing at Billy. Then, "Hey, Lindsay, wait." Matty lowered his voice, his head. "What's he like to eat?"

"To eat? Whatever. He's a kid, not a tropical fish."

Not a tropical fish; Matty hanging up in a rage; Lindsay always with that mouth, that superior attitude. He drained his fourth and glared at Billy.

"Let me ask . . . Are you still down here?"

"Kind of." Billy looked away.

"Kind of?"

"I just need to . . ."

"Because I want to tell you something," Matty said. "You got a nice family, you know?"

"Thank you."

Matty faltered, then . . . "So don't make this into a multiple."

"Don't what?" Billy said.

Matty held off for another moment; then, Fuckit, leaned forward again in the rattan chair, elbows on knees. "Here's what happens." He waited for Billy's eyes. "Any way you cut it, it's gonna be rough for you and yours for a long time to come, OK? But I swear to God, if you continue to bail on them like this, pretty soon everybody in your house is gonna start doing some variation of the same, and it's gonna be bad" Matty drew a breath. "Who finished the vodka, there was a whole bottle here yesterday, where's my sleeping pills, there was a whole bottle here yesterday, this is Officer Jones, I have your son here, your daughter here, your wife, your husband, lucky no one was killed but they failed the Breathalyzer, refused the Breathalyzer, this is Assistant Principal Smith, your son was fighting again, your daughter was stoned again, drunk again, found a gun in his locker, a bag of dope in her locker, this is Happy Valley Rehab, this is family court, this is the Eighth Precinct, the ER, the morgue, could have been an accident, could have been something else, that's what the autopsy's for, but just so you know, we found her in back of a club, in a motel room, a bus station, a dumpster, wrapped around a tree, a telephone pole . . .

"That poor Marcus family, they lost the one boy last year, now this."

Billy gawked at him, held out a hand like a stop sign, but Matty couldn't stop.

"Are you hearing me? Everybody starts closing doors on each other, and I promise you, I will stake my pension on it, someone else is not gonna make it."

"No, you don't understand." "I mean, Jesus, if I had a wife-" "I know, I know."