Strega (12 page)

28

N
ONE of this was getting me any closer to the answers I needed. I pulled out the roll of bills Julio had handed me at the pier. There was a century note on the outside, and it was no Chicago bankroll—every bill was the same, fifty of them, all used. Five thousand bucks. Too big to be a tip for the Forest Park job and not enough for the work the girl wanted me to do—but just the right amount for a warning. In case I missed the message, the last piece of paper inside the roll wasn't green—it had a phone number and the name "Gina" in a spidery, old–man's handwriting.

I went back into the other room and got a piece of mirror glass with a small red dot painted in the middle. I set it up so I was comfortable and sucked a deep breath in through my nose and down into my stomach, expanding my chest when I exhaled. I kept working on this, taking the air deeper and deeper each time, forcing it down to my lower stomach and then to my groin. I kept watching the dot, waiting to go inside, setting my mind to take this problem with me. The dot got bigger and bigger, filling the surface of the mirror. I concentrated on the sound of my own breathing, picturing the breath moving inside my body, waiting for it to happen. Images floated in: all gray tones—the prison yard, Julio's lizard eyes, a pool of dark water, a street in the rain. I came out of it slowly, feeling the cold spot between my shoulder blades. My hands were shaking.

I lit a cigarette, blew the smoke at the ceiling. The old man was trying to tell me something, and him wanting me to do the job for the girl was only part of it. I didn't need the dough, for a change. The girl wasn't going to lay off, and the old man wouldn't call her off. I should never have taken any work from Julio. My parole officer used to have a sign in his office: "Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life." Sure. The trick is to make sure the first day isn't the last day.

I wanted to sleep for a while, but I knew what that meant. I wasn't tired, just depressed. And scared. It was safe in my office, so I wanted to stay. Some guys tried to sleep through their whole bit in prison. You could get all the medication you wanted from the unlicensed reject that passed for a doctor, and they let you have a TV in your cell too. But when they finally open the door, you could get killed while you were blinking at the light.

I always know what the right thing to do is—the hard thing. So I gave Pansy a pat, told her I'd bring her back a treat, and hit the street to buy some time.

29

I
PULLED out of the garage thinking about what I'd need to cover my trail. The Plymouth is legally registered—to Juan Rodriguez, who lives in an abandoned building in the South Bronx. I wasn't worried about it being traced to me: in the South Bronx, every abandoned building has dozens of registered voters—they never miss an election.

You have to change with the times—using Juan Rodriguez as an alias today was like using John Smith thirty years ago.

The name "Burke" was legally registered too—I took some of the cash from a decent score a few years ago and invested fifteen grand in a piece of a junkyard in Corona, a Queens neighborhood that's Italian to the south and black to the north, with an expanding seam of Puerto Ricans down the middle. I'm on the books as a tow–truck driver. Every two weeks, the owner mails a check for my salary to the post–office box I keep at the main station, across from Madison Square Garden. I cash the checks at this bar near the junkyard and give everything but fifty bucks back to the junkyard owner. It's a good deal for both of us: he gets a business deduction for paying an employee and I get a W–2 form and a legit source of income in case anyone asks. The owner even throws in a set of dealer plates I can legally slap on any car when I do salvage work for him. I give the desk clerk at the hotel where I used to live ten bucks a week for insurance, and I'm covered all the way around. If I get arrested, the desk clerk verifies that I'm a permanent guest and the pay stubs do the rest—I'm a citizen.

I use money orders to pay the yearly registration on the Plymouth. Juan Rodriguez is a straighter shooter: he pays his bills, never gets a parking ticket, and he's never in an accident. He insures the Plymouth through this outfit in the Bronx which specializes in cheap coverage. He even votes regularly. Not only that, he lends me his car whenever I ask him, and he's in no hurry to get it back.

When I have to use the Plymouth on a job, I get the Mole to strip off the paint. The cops are used to seeing old cars in the process of getting painted, especially in the neighborhoods I work. I also have some vinyl sheets in different colors I can just press right over the paint. That kind of cover doesn't last long, but I only use it for a few hours and then pull it off. The Mole has thousands of license plates in his joint—he takes a couple of them and splits them in half, then welds two halves together to make a new set of plates that won't come up on any computer.

Julio wasn't the only reason I had to see the redhead—I had to find out what she knew about me and then go back and erase the tapes.

As I drove through Chinatown, afternoon was fading into evening. The streets were clogged with women making their way home from the sweatshops—their eyes were down and their shoulders slumped, the only hope in their hearts that their children would have a better life. And as they walked from the blackout–curtained rooms, where a straw boss watched their half–paralyzed fingers fly over the sewing machines, to their walk–up apartments with toilets in the hall, other children took over the streets. But these children had no dreams. The Blood Shadows—they took their name from the chalk outline the police coroner draws around a body on the sidewalk. Wearing their trademark black leather coats, silk shirts, and glistening black shoes, they were living proof that hell is cold. The newspapers called them a "street gang," but they were nothing like the bopping gangs from East Harlem or the South Bronx. No cutoff dungaree jackets with their colors on the back for these boys. And no social workers either. Every year Hong Kong disgorges more of them, nobody knows how they get here, but they keep on coming. And America tolerates it like any toxic–waste dump as long as there's money in it for somebody. The Blood Shadows disdain common street mugging—they don't do their gang fighting with knives and chains. Chinatown runs on gambling and dope—organized extortion of these industries forms the Holy Triad, and the Blood Shadows were the sole survivors of a territorial war with other cliques for vulture's rights. The other gangs either merged with the Blood Shadows or got very dead. That left the old guard—what was left of the Tongs.

The old men had first tried to recruit the Hong Kong boys to their own use, but that wasn't working anymore. The old men retreated deeper and deeper into the networks they had spent years developing—but all their political contacts were useless against young boys with flat eyes and hungry guns, kids who didn't play by the rules. The old folks didn't have a chance. They had to import muscle while the kids were growing their own.

I nosed the Plymouth through the alley in back of the warehouse. Clotheslines stretched across the alley, and children ran past, shrieking at each other in a mixture of English and Cantonese. The kids were like birds in a jungle—everything was safe as long as they were making noise. When they went silent, a predator was walking the trails.

I pulled around the front and into the garage. I left the engine running while I pulled the door closed behind me. The Mole had once offered to wire the door so a light would blink and tell Max someone was around, but Max bowed his thanks and said he didn't need it.

I wasn't going to call the redhead from anyplace that could be traced—with cocaine accounting for half the gross national product of the city, half the pay phones in town have been tapped by one agency or another. I'd have to wait for an hour or two anyway. When Max didn't materialize on the landing at the back of the garage, I made a pillow out of my jacket, put it against the passenger door, and stretched out. I put on a Judy Henske tape and listened to her raw–silk voice sing "If That Isn't Love" while I smoked a cigarette in the soft darkness of the garage.

Max might be back in five minutes or five hours. In my life, time isn't important—so long as you're not doing it inside.

30

S
OMETHING dropped onto the Plymouth's hood from upstairs, waking me up. I glanced through the windshield—it was a new deck of playing cards, still in the original box. Max was telling me he wanted a rematch of our last game of gin, and warning me not to cheat.

I pocketed the cards and went through the downstairs door all the way to the back. We had a little table back there and a couple of chairs. The table held a big glass ashtray and a chrome ghetto–blaster some would–be mugger had donated to Max. A true liberal, Max never called the police, realizing that the young man needed rehabilitative services instead. He left that task to the emergency ward.

Max floated in the side door, bowed to me, and made a motion like he was dealing the cards. I opened the new deck and riffled them between my hands, getting the feel. Max reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out one of those thick telephone message pads they use in government offices—we used the back for a score sheet. We play three–column gin: 150 points a game, twenty–five for a box, double for a schneid in any column, and double again for a triple. The stakes are a penny a point—first man to a million bucks wins the whole thing. I looked through our stack of tapes, asked Max which one he wanted me to put on. He pointed to Judy Henske. I slammed the cassette home and put the volume on real low. I know Max can't hear. I used to think he listened to music by feeling the bass line in his body or something, but Henske's voice doesn't get real low. One time I slipped a Marie Osmond tape on the player. Max listened for a minute, pointed to me, made a face to say "You
like
that shit?" and hit the "stop" button. He reached in, pulled out the cassette, and crushed it in one hand. He threw the mess into a bucket we use for a garbage pail, folded his arms, and waited for me to display some better taste. I still don't think he can hear the music, but maybe he can feel how I react to it. Lucky there's no bluffing in gin.

We were about an hour into the game, with Max ahead for a change, when Immaculata came into the room from behind Max. Her long black hair was pulled back into a severe bun and her face was scrubbed clean of makeup. She was wearing a white jersey sweatshirt that must have belonged to Max—it was big enough for two of her. She bowed to me in greeting as she put one hand on Max's shoulder. Her long nails were lacquered a shade of purple so dark it was almost black. Max reached up to touch her hand, but he never took his eyes from the cards. The first time Immaculata had walked into our clubhouse like she belonged there, I felt a stab of something—but it passed. She did belong there.

"Hey, Mac," I greeted her, "we're almost done."

Max reached across the table and snatched the score sheet from in front of me. His score was under "X" and mine was under "O"—we'd started playing tic–tac–toe first, years ago, and Max wanted to keep the same identifications just because he won the last time—Orientals are superstitious people. He handed her the sheet. His meaning was obvious— it was me who was almost done.

That did it—being ahead was bad enough, but bragging about it was gross. I immediately knocked, going down with two aces and a deuce— four points. Max spread his cards: three queens, three fives, and three tens. The only other card was my missing ace—an under–knock—worth four boxes and fifty points and the fucking third column too. The miserable thug couldn't keep the smile off his face as he handed me the pencil to total things up. Mac went to the hot plate in the corner to make some tea for her and Max—there was apple juice in the refrigerator for me. Max had cut deeply into his ongoing deficit with that last score.

I made the sign of a man rolling dice with his eyes closed to show that it was pure dumb luck, and Max made the sign of a man playing the violin to show how sorry he felt for me and my dismal lack of skill.

Max stashed the score sheet and lit a cigarette. He used to light up whenever he needed only one more card for gin. As soon as he realized I'd caught on to it, he just plain stopped smoking while we were playing— a typical fanatic. Immaculata brought the tea and the apple juice on a little tray and lit a cigarette of her own. I made the sign of talking into a telephone, telling Max I needed to plug into the phone system of the architects who had the building next door. I started to get up and Max held out his palm in a "stop" gesture. He turned to Immaculata, pointed to me, and waved his hands in front of his chest, fingers curling back toward his face. He was telling her to get on with it—whatever it was.

"Burke," she said, "I'm having a problem with my work. Max insists you could help me with it," she said, in a doubtful voice.

"I'll do what I can," I told her.

"I'm not sure there's anything you
can
do," she said. Her English was perfect, the mixture of French and Vietnamese in her voice sounding exotic but not foreign. "When I interview abused children…about what happened to them…like you saw with the dolls?"

I just nodded, listening.

"Well, if they're old enough to really talk, what I have to do is get it all on tape. You can't take notes…you just distract them if you do…they want to know what you're writing down. And we may have to use the tapes in court. You understand so far?"

"Sure," I said.

"Anyway, for these children, what we're working on is something we call 'empowerment.' It just means that sexually abused children have no sense of power over their own lives…these children are always in fear—they never feel really safe. The goal is for them to eventually be able to confront their abusers, and feel safe while they do it, okay?"

"Okay."

"So they have to feel in control. They have to believe that they're on top of the situation—even when they're working with the therapist."

"How come they don't feel in control when the freak isn't in the room with them anymore?" I asked her.

Immaculata looked at me, two long dark fingernails against her cheek, thinking. "Wait here, okay? I want to show you something."

She patted Max on the shoulder a couple of times, probably their signal that she was coming right back, and went out the way she came in. Max leaned back in his chair, looked over at me, and moved his fingers on the table top to make the sign of a trotting horse. He looked a question at me. I nodded in agreement. Sure, I was still betting on the horses—what was I supposed to do, open a fucking IRA? Max made the sign of opening a newspaper and glancing through it, and looked another question at me. He wanted to know which horse was the latest object of my interest. I shrugged—I didn't have a paper with me. The bastard moved his two fists like he was holding a steering wheel—didn't I have one in the car? Okay. I trudged out to the Plymouth, snatched the
Daily News
off the front seat, and went back to our clubhouse. I sat down and opened it to the right page as Max drifted around behind me. I ran my finger down the page until I came to the seventh race, showed him Flower Jewel, and waited. The line of Flower Jewel showed 8–4–3 reading across from her name—she had finished dead last a week ago, fourth the time before that, and third before that. Max pointed to the "8," put four fingers on the table, and moved them like a pacer would run, the two outside legs forward, then those on the inside—that's why they call them side–winders. He paced halfway across the table, then broke into a gallop—the two front legs moving together. He looked a question at me. Yeah, I told him, the horse had broken stride in the last race. I held up my right fist to indicate my horse, started to move it across the table in a circle. Then I had my left fist cut in front, with the right veering off to the side. My horse had broken stride, but she had been interfered with by another—not her fault.

Max smiled knowingly. He rubbed the first two fingers and his thumb together in the sign for money, shrugged his shoulders, and spread his hands to ask how much I'd invested. I held up two fingers. Max reached over and pulled one toward him—he wanted to take half my action. The last time he'd done that was the first time he'd ever bet on a horse—back when Flood was here. And we'd won. I hadn't hit a horse since— maybe my luck was changing. But it was probably just that Max was standing up with me. He knew I'd been blue, and his own good fortune in finding Immaculata made him feel even worse for me.

When I wrapped up my sentence for the heroin scam, Max took me over to the warehouse and handed me an old airline carry–on bag. It was stuffed with money—almost forty thousand bucks. He took a paper packet of sugar out of his pocket, tore it open, and dumped the sugar on the table. He spread it flat, then divided it precisely in half with one fingernail. He swept half off the table into his hand, and pointed to the other half, and then to me. I got it—from the day I got arrested, he'd put away half of every score he'd made and saved it for me so I wouldn't have to start all over when I got out.

I didn't know what to say. Max cupped one hand on the table and used two fingers to burrow through it. The Mole. He put one hand on his chest, and spread the other wide in a gesture of impassioned oration. The Prof. The bag was half of everything they'd all made while I was inside. Then he touched his heart with his fist, and extended an open hand to me. Telling me that money didn't square the debt—he would always owe me.

I've done time with a lot of gangsters over the years. The cream of the crop, the real elite, were the "made men," the guys who get to cut their fingers and swear undying loyalty to some boss. They keep their mouths shut and do their time, just like the movies say. When they finally make it back to the streets, they get a kiss on both cheeks and a few bucks from their boss. And they call themselves "wiseguys."