Red Hook (17 page)

Jack scratched his nose. “Sorry about that. I guess I’ve been kind of tired lately.”

Embarrassed, Daskivitch looked up at the house. He brightened. “She’s nice, huh?”

“Michelle?”

“No.
Mother Teresa
.”

“
Yeah
, she is. “Your wife seems nice too.”

“So how’d the big first date go?”

“It was all right.” Jack grinned, despite himself.

“You sly doggee.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jack said. “We had a nice time.” He opened a couple of the beers his partner had brought. “Listen, I hate to bring up work, but did you ask anyone at the DOT if someone called looking for Ortslee?”

“I couldn’t find anyone over there who remembers anything. You know what it’s like, the bureaucracy…”

“What about the shoeprint from Ortslee’s living room?”

“Crime Scene ran it down. It belonged to some jerkoff EMS guy who answered the first call.”

“Shit.”

The women returned.

“That’s the cleanest bachelor’s apartment I’ve ever seen,” Jeannie said.

“How would
you
know?” Daskivitch asked.

Jeannie rolled her eyes and grinned.

While Jack brought out plates and silverware, his landlord kept everybody entertained. Mr. Gardner seemed like a different man. He showed off his fig tree, which he pruned carefully every fall and wrapped tenderly for the winter. He gave a tour of his flower beds—“aside from my name, I’m not really much of a gardener,” he joked—held everybody spellbound with an account of his landing on Guadalcanal in World War II, and flirted with Michelle. Jack even felt a twinge of jealousy, until he reminded himself that the man was eighty-six.

They finished Daskivitch’s six-pack of Heineken, and then Mr. Gardner went back into the house and came out with a six of Old Milwaukee. Jack brought out a bowl of chips and some onion dip; Mr. Gardner went upstairs and came out with a plate of Velveeta on Ritz.

After they finished the beers, Jack brought out a bottle of California white wine. Mr. Gardner surprised him by bringing out an ancient French bottle of red, some of the best wine he’d ever tasted.

The light dimmed and they all looked up as a little cloud slipped in front of the sun. “What are you gonna do?” said Mr. Gardner with a shrug. “You can’t fight City Hall.”

Jack sat on a picnic bench next to Michelle. He noticed that her shoulders slumped a little, and her teeth were a bit crooked. He liked her a lot. He watched her eat, watched the way her short skirt rode up over her thighs. Daskivitch and Jeannie grinned at him across the table, and he grinned back.

“I’ll go around the corner and get some more beers,” Daskivitch said.

“Do we really need it?” Jeannie said.

“I don’t know if we
need
it, but we’d
like
it.”

“Wait,” said Mr. Gardner, a bit loud after many drinks. “Wait.” He jumped up, grabbed an empty bowl off the table, and went into the house. He returned a moment later with some beautiful strawberries.

Jack lit a couple of candles; they flickered in the settling dark. Earlier in the party, Mr. Gardner had gathered a few of his roses and stuck them in a beer bottle. Now Michelle plucked some petals and floated them in a stone birdbath.

The table was covered with empty bottles and cans. Jack refilled Michelle’s glass, and she leaned back against his shoulder. He could hardly believe his luck. He smelled a sweet, subtle perfume, and he could have sworn that it was her natural scent. He realized that he hadn’t thought about Raymond Ortslee or Tomas Berrios for several hours.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” said Mr. Gardner. He looked across the table at Jack. “To good food and good conversation,” he said. “And to beautiful women in our backyard.” They clinked glasses all around. Mr. Gardner stood to raise his glass and nearly fell over backward. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” he shouted. “What are you gonna do? You can’t fight City Hall.”

The candlelight glimmered on the birdbath. Mr. Gardner staggered inside to go to the bathroom.

“Help me carry some plates in, honey,” Jeannie said to her husband.

“Where’s that bottle opener?” Daskivitch said, fumbling around the table.

“Gary.”

She must have pinched her husband under the table, because suddenly he blurted, “Oh.
Right
.” They gathered up some dishes and carried them into the house.

Jack reached up to brush a wisp of hair away from Michelle’s face. She let her head drop back and he stroked her cool cheek. Tentative, he pressed his lips against her neck. She twisted around and suddenly they were kissing there in the night.

“Where is everybody?” Mr. Gardner called out, his stocky figure emerging from the back of the house.

Jack groaned.

“I found a couple more beers,” Mr. Gardner called out, clunking them down on the picnic table.

Daskivitch and his wife returned. “Sorry, but we have to hit the road,” he said.

“Thanks for a lovely night,” Jeannie said.

If Jack had been sober, he probably wouldn’t have said it, but he leaned forward and pressed his face into Michelle’s hair. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “I’ll drive you back in the morning.”

He had no idea what she would have said if
she
was sober, but she wasn’t. She nodded yes. “I’ll get home on my own,” she told Jeannie and Daskivitch.

They stood up.

“Where’s everybody going?” said Mr. Gardner.

“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”

He and Michelle walked Daskivitch and his wife out to their car.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jeannie asked Michelle. Checking to make sure that she wasn’t being taken advantage of, Jack supposed.

“I’m fine,” Michelle answered. As if to demonstrate, she slipped her arm around Jack’s waist.

“Well, all right, then,” Jeannie said. She seemed a little taken aback, but Jack figured she and Michelle could sort it out later.

“
You
okay to drive?” he asked his partner.

“Jeannie’s gonna drive. I was drinking for both of us.” Daskivitch winked at him.

They got in their car and left.

Mr. Gardner was fumbling around the picnic table in the dark, gathering up the dirty plates.

“It’s okay,” Jack said. “We’ll take care of it.” For once, leaving some dirty dishes for a while didn’t bother him.

“You sure?” Mr. Gardner mumbled. “I c’n help.” He took a step and tripped over a lawn chair. Jack bent down to find him splayed across the lawn.

“Is he okay?” Michelle whispered.

Jack wasn’t sure. He was thinking about old people and broken hips, but Mr. Gardner sat up and laughed. “Just like Buster Keaton,” he said.

“Let me help you upstairs,” Jack said.

“M’okay.” Mr. Gardner got to his feet and set off down the garden path, but he looked like he was about to buckle. He made it up the stairs under his own steam, but Jack followed one step behind to catch him if he fell. “M’okay,” he said. “Really.”

Jack opened his landlord’s door and took the man’s arm to lead him in, but Mr. Gardner pulled away. “Okay now. G’night. You gave a good party.”

Jack thought about Michelle waiting for him out in the garden. He figured Mr. Gardner could probably make it to his bedroom by himself.

“Sleep tight, Mr. G.,” he said. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

He sat down on the picnic bench and Michelle leaned back against him. He inhaled her soft scent, slid his hands over her silky blouse, cupped the liquid weight of her breasts. She started to tremble.

Ten minutes later they were inside lying on his bed. Jack tried to get her bra off, but the hooks snagged. He gave up for the moment and traced his fingertips down the smooth valley in the center of her back. He thought of the ripe strawberries; pictured her licking the juice off the side of her hand.

He leaned over her and pressed his lips down to hers. Desire surged, and tenderness. He had a vision of a life like this, in which time was something to be savored rather than gotten through.

Michelle raised her head from the pillow and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Maybe you should check on him.”

“What?”

“Your landlord. Maybe you should go up and make sure he’s okay.”

“He’s all right.” Jack thought of Mr. Gardner mowing the lawn; building the barbecue brick by brick. A strong old man. Vigorous. He reached up again and this time the bra unhooked like magic. He pulled Michelle’s panties down over her hips.

A few minutes later he pushed into her, that sweet moment that made this world seem like the perfect place to be. He pressed his face into the sweaty crook of her neck.

Michelle moaned and circled her hips up to meet him.

J
ACK WOKE AT ELEVEN A.M.,
head throbbing. His mouth felt as if it were stuffed full of socks. He stretched out his arm, but the other side of the bed was empty. He had a vague recollection of Michelle getting up early and kissing him goodbye.

Should he get up? He didn’t have to work today; if he wanted to, he could spend the rest of the morning asleep. He rolled over; memories of the night came back and he smiled. Until more memories returned.

He sat up, listening. Usually, at this time of day, Mr. Gardner would have the radio on loud in his kitchen.

Silence.

He got out of bed, pulled on some boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Heart knocking, he opened his apartment door. The hall light was still on. Mr. Gardner turned it off without fail at sunrise every morning.

He stood still and listened carefully: no sound from Mr. Gardner’s apartment upstairs. Maybe he just went out. Jack told himself.

He returned to his apartment and stepped into a pair of pants. He went back to the front hall. “Mr. Gardner?”

Silence. Motes of dust settled over a big plastic plant in the corner.

Gingerly, he climbed the stairs.

He paused outside the door. No sound within. He knocked softly.

No answer. The old guy was pretty hard of hearing. He rapped on the door again.

“Mr. G.?” he called out. “It’s Jack.” No point in giving the man a heart attack by sneaking up on him.

I’ll call, he thought. Maybe he’s just in the back and didn’t hear the door.

Ignoring his own aching head, he jogged downstairs. After he dialed the phone, he heard it ring upstairs. One ring, two rings…Six rings…Nine.

Panic sheeted his heart. He went out and climbed the stairs again. “Mr. Gardner?” he shouted. He tried the doorknob. It turned easily and the door opened. His stomach dropped. Mr. Gardner would never have gone out and left his door unlocked.

Tensing, he pushed the door fully open.

The kitchen was empty. The air inside was stuffy and warm; the apartment smelled old. He looked around carefully, as if entering a crime scene. There was the massive stove, there was the lazy Susan with the butter cookies, the Tupperware container with the grocery coupons—but there was no sign of the old man.

He stood in the doorway to the back hall. “Mr. Gardner?” His voice sounded hollow and weak.

No answer.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he called out. “It’s Jack.”

Halfway down the hall, he peered into the living room. There was the giant old TV, the same one that Mr. Gardner and his wife had probably watched
The Jack Paar Show
on decades before. A flattened pair of leather slippers lay on a throw rug in front of the La-Z-Boy. No Mr. Gardner.

Holding his breath, he turned down the hall toward the bedroom. The house was so quiet he could hear the kitchen clock ticking behind him. He pushed the half-open bedroom door. The dry hinges creaked.

Mr. Gardner was on the floor, half lying, half sitting, propped against the edge of the bed. He had pulled a quilt off the bed and it was clenched in his left hand. His head shifted an inch. He opened an eye and stared up at Jack. He was trying to say something but one side of his face wouldn’t move.

W
HEN THE PHONE RANG
Ben was enjoying a guilty pleasure, watching
America’s Funniest Home Videos
on TV when he should have been working on videos of his own. He set down a handful of popcorn, wiped his hand on his pants leg, and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” a man said gruffly.

“Yes?”

“Is this Ben…Ben Leetner?”

Every time he got a phone sales pitch, they invariably screwed up his last name.

“It’s
Light-ner
. And I’m not interested.”

“Is your father named Jack?”

Ben sat down slowly. His father’s job was dangerous. His dad had always minimized the risks when he talked to his family, but all the same, in some back part of Ben’s mind, he had been dreading this call since he was old enough to think.

“Is he…Is he dead?”

The man laughed. “Hey, fellas,” he said to someone in the background. “The kid wants to know if his old man’s dead!”

“What’s going on?” Ben said, angry now. “Who the hell is this?”

It took almost forty-five minutes for the car service to pick him up and get him to Midwood. Once there, the driver couldn’t seem to find the address. They finally stopped a Hasidic man striding past. He seemed irritated by the question, but he pointed the way.

Monsalvo’s. With its old Rheingold sign blinking in the window, the bar looked like a dive.

“Can you wait here for a minute?” Ben asked the driver. “I should be right out.”

“No problem,” the man said, picking up a copy of the
Daily News
from the seat next to him and shifting forward to catch the light from a street lamp.

The door swung shut behind Ben. Even though it was a weeknight, the place was crowded and smoke hung thick in the air. The big, red-faced bartender noticed him looking around anxiously and walked over to the near end of the bar.

“You Jackie’s son?”

Ben chewed the inside of his cheek and nodded.

“He’s in the back room. Come on, then.”

The man came around the bar and led the way toward the back, parting the crowd brusquely.

“How did you know to call me?”

“His wallet was on the bar. Your name was in the wallet.”

“Is he all right?” Ben asked as they made it through the last of the drinkers.