Not that hed ever been a full-time nut about keeping a running account. Just every once in a while something would happen to whip him back into line. Hed begin running around on Patti a little just after they got married and then wind up nearly taking a bullet in the head on a narcotics raid. Or hed start drinking again and Kayleigh would end up in the neonatal intensive care unit with a kidney infection.
But time goes by, nothing goes wrong, and you think you must be in the clear. Until your son joins the army without telling you and your retinas start deteriorating.
He squeezed the arms of his chair and started to get up, the clock on the kitchen stove still ticking loudly.
Closure.
That word that Tom Wallis had used kept bothering him. As if it were something real, something you could sleep on. He tried to be patient when people used that word, because what was the point? Closure was what they needed to believe was possible, like a benevolent God or Universal Health Care. But then you had Eileen Wallis running around after all these years, telling people her daughter was still alive. Didnt sound like she was anywhere near closure, did it?
Could be nothings going to happen right away. Your peripheral vision is going to progressively narrow down like a tunnel.
Stop that. Hed already decided he wasnt going to think about that. What about this case? He thought of twelve things he shouldve told Paul Raedo this morning.
This was never the perfect investigation. We gotta stick together here, Francis.
He realized hed always had half an ear out for it coming around again. Not that he had any doubt about Hoolian being his man. The kid had already had his day in court, hadnt he? Defense counsel had a ball cross-examining Francis on the stand, pointing out that Allison couldve easily made copies of her own keys and given them to other people. But the circumstantial evidence had buried Hoolian. So what if he hadnt testified on his own behalf? As soon as he got up on the stand, he wouldve choked on facts getting shoved down his throat anyway. Was it an absolutely flawless case? Of course not. But Francis had nothing to apologize for. The jury was able to connect the dots. Out just two and a half days before they convicted Hoolian for murder two. And if Judge Robbins nailed him for twenty-five to lifewell, that was his hard luck, wasnt it? Ralph Figueroa had been offered a plea of man one, five to fifteen, and decided to roll the dice instead. So FEA
fuck em all,
as it used to say on his Christmas card before Patti made him change it. Case closed.
He turned off the light next to the BarcaLounger and noticed how dark the room suddenly seemed. The total absence of light and discernible shapes making him aware of the settling noises of the house, the subtle creak of expanding and contracting wood. How did Shackleton do it? With no maps, no footprints to follow. How did he find his bearings in all that uncharted wilderness?
You going off somewhere without telling me?
Reflexively, Francis pulled the chain and turned the light back on so he could find his way to the stairs.
11
HUNGRY AND BONE-WEARY a few minutes before eleven, Hoolian walked into an old coffee shop that used to be called Leons on Second Avenue. His father once had a waitress friend there named Nita whod let him use the bathroom sometimes. Back then, it was a dowdy soup-and-burger place with a red neon sign, stale colored mints in a silver bowl by the cash register, and cheap blue coffee cups with Grecian columns on them. The new restaurant was called Café Florence; it had a plush green carpet, walnut-paneled interiors, and $8.95 tuna melts. But he took heart as he walked in the front door, noticing the same silver bowl of mints by the register.
The staff was starting to wipe down the tables, but Nita was nowhere in sight. A steak knife gleamed on the counter. Hoolian snatched it as he hurried to the mens room. Whatever the rules of survival were out here, nail scissors werent going to be enough protection, he realized after his run-in with the doorman.
He washed his hands twice with the sweet-smelling pink soap, fussed with his hair, noticing it was too long, and then came out trying to look chill. A waitress with a face like a fallen curtain was draining half-empty ketchup bottles into half-full ones.
Hoolian? She turned. Is that you?
He smiled and put his hand up, self-consciously covering the scar on his chin.
Look at you!
żĄNino!?
She hugged him. You all grown up. What happened to my little boy?
Shed changed as well. She used to be taut and angular, like a tango dancer, all imperious flashing eyes and haughty-mouthed like she was looking for a rose to bite down on. But the years had softened and kneaded her, rounding off the edges, adding a few doughy pounds, putting a little of the Madonna in her weary smile.
She let go to take a look at him. I thought they gave you twenty-five to life.
Well, Im out now. Least for a little while.
ĄBueno! ĄQue gusto!
Hoolian hesitated, realizing that already he was at the shady outskirts of his Spanish. The truth was, his father had taught him little and he hadnt picked up much more in prison, preferring to do his time in the law library instead of hanging with the Latin Kings and Las Neitas.
Your daddy always knew youd be all right. He used to say,
ĄNos se ocupe!
That kids stronger than I am.
He thought of the old man dying by himself at Metropolitan Hospital and felt poisonous fumes start to gather inside him.
So sit down, what are you doing? She nudged him toward an empty stool. Where you staying?
Staying?
You got a place to go?
He crossed his arms, holding back a wave of hunger and exhaustion. Im working on a few things.
But they aint gonna put you back in, are they?
Well . . . He winced and tried to appear sanguine. They havent really dismissed the charges yet. But thats just technical bullshit. I didnt have nothing to do with what they said I did. That girl was a friend of mine.
I know that, baby.
He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else was eavesdropping. My lawyer says I gotta try to help myself if I want to get my name back, but I dont know what the fuck Im doing.
The corners of her mouth turned down and he realized the boy she knew twenty years ago never used to curse.
Sorry. I been around bad people too long.
Its all right. Im just happy to see you.
He licked his lips, trying to ignore the gnawing in his gut. A twenty-dollar bill was trapped with a check under a salt shaker at the end of the counter. He thought about how easy it would be to grab it as soon as Nita looked away.
Hey, didnt you use to babysit kids at our building? He forced himself to focus again.
Course. Thats how I knew your father. I was a part-time nanny over there. Mrs. Foster in 9B.
Lady getting a divorce? He pictured a middle-aged woman striding through the lobby in denim hot pants and thigh-high suede boots on her way out for a night on the town.
Nitas mouth became a stern bottom line. Too busy arguing with her lawyer about alimony and going out with married men to take care of her little girl. I swear, there were days I was bout this far from putting that child under my arm and taking her home with me.
So you knew all the old gang from the building.
Hell, yeah. I was the Don Corleone of the Nanny Mafia back in the day. And I used to go out with Willie the handyman.
Slick brother who worked the back elevator?
Yeah, thought he was so fine.
Wayward Willie, his father used to call him. Because you could never raise him on the walkie-talkie when you needed him. Always horsing around with other guys in the basement or taking a little too long to put a washer in somebodys sink when the cute new maid was around.
He was tight with old Nestor, wasnt he?
Who?
Hoolian wondered if he should dare to hope. He was so famished and tired that he couldnt tell what he needed more, a good meal or help with his case.
Nestor. The porter, who worked downstairs. Old guy who played piano. I think he was from Santo Domingo. Stooped little wiry dude. Looked like you could knock him over with a peashooter until you saw him carry a refrigerator on his back.
Oh,
Nestor.
She clapped her hands. The Cha-Cha Man.
Thats right.
Oh sure, I remember that little
bribón.
He could
play,
bro. You know he was in Cuba a couple of years and played in one of the best bands in Havana before la Revolución?
No, I didnt know that.
It embarrassed him to admit how incurious hed been. Back then, Nestor was just an older man who worked for his father and played dominoes with him sometimes. It never occurred to Hoolian to ask if hed had a family anywhere or another life. Not just because Nestors English was so patchy. Thered been another barrier, a kind of wounded reserve to the man, as if he were some sort of fallen aristocrat refusing to speak of old troubles.
Oh, yeah, Nita said. We used to go sometimes after work to La Fuego up on 112th Street. They had an old Wurlitzer in the corner and after you got a few tequilas in him, he could really wail.
Tango,
mambo, bolero, puchanga, meringue, bugalu,
anything. He had us dancing up on top of the bar. Why you want to know about him?
I think he could help me out.
An old married couple lingering in a back booth waved their check at Nita, wanting her to adjudicate some petty dispute between them.
My father wrote me a letter in prison, saying he ran into Willie one night at a bar on Second Avenue, Hoolian explained. And after theyd had a couple of drinks, Willie said that Nestor once kinda hinted to him there was something he never told the police. But Papi was never able to track Nestor down and find out what it was.
And you really think thats gonna make a difference now?
Its the best I got so far. He foundered for a second before bucking himself up. Check it out. Nestor was working in the basement that night. And there were only two ways out of our building. Front and back . . .
He grabbed a napkin and a pen that had been lying on the counter, and began to sketch out the scenario. For years hed been so pent up, trying to tell his story to anyone whod listenother inmates, guards, senior counselors, chaplainsthat now he could scarcely keep his hand steady from the excitement.
. . . and the fire exit in the basement leads out into the alley behind the building, he pressed on, drawing lines and arrows. After midnight, the front door is locked. You need a key to open it even from the inside. He looked over, making sure she was following him. Youd have to wake Boodha the doorman in the lobby to open it for you. Or youd have to have a key yourself, like one of the tenants. And the only other way out of the building was through that fire door down in the back, right past that big overstuffed chair where Nestor slept.
She touched his shoulder as if she wanted to interrupt, but now that the valve was open there was no shutting it off.
So if he testifies he saw something or someone else go in and out of the building between like midnight and ten in the morning when they found her, then they gotta admit they framed me.
Didnt the police try to talk to him before, though?
Yeah,
right,
he said with a sneer, picking up speed to try and get around this dangerous hairpin turn. A cop and a prosecutor who didnt speak Spanish. You know what happened. They intimidated the shit out of him. This little guy barely speaks English, wasnt in the union. Didnt even have his green card. He knows theyve already set me up. They werent going to let anything get in their way. So of course he was going to tell them what they wanted to hear. No, I didnt see nothing. So he gives a bullshit statement to the ADA, blows town before trial because he didnt want to go to court to testify and then get deported back to Santo Domingo. . . .
The more he talked, the more convincing he sounded even to himself. Yes, a great injustice had occurred here. Someone had to pay for what they did to him. All he needed to do was get ahold of the old man and twist his arm a little to make the rest of the world see that.
I bet hes still around, he insisted, putting the pen down and presenting her with his sketch. He couldnt have been that old.
Honey, he wouldve been sixty then if he was a day.
He registered her remark as just a minor scratch on his heart. If I could just get to him for a little while . . .
Muchacho . . .
. . . Im sure hed back me up. He owed my father. . . .
Baby. She patted his hand, not even bothering to glance at his drawing. I think hes dead.
What?
Last I heard, he was sick. He told Willie he had liver cancer and he was going back to the DR to see his family.
But that doesnt mean hes
dead,
he said. Did Willie get an address for him?
Willie? She snorted. I aint seen that
bastardo
in years. Turned out he had a wife and kids in the Bronx and another family down in San Juan. How do you like that? It took me until 86 to figure that all out. You just never know with some people.
Maybe he got cured, Hoolian persisted, his sense of hope a match in the wind. Liver cancer dont always kill you, does it?
Honey, he was half crazy to begin with.
Are you sure?
