Seven nights a week he’s at one place or the other, sitting at the table they reserve for him, listening to music (live at Mother Blue’s, recorded at Poogan’s), chatting up the Girlfriend of the Month, and brokering information. After the bars close—and both of his places stay open as late as the law allows—he’s apt to hit an after-hours club uptown.
But he gets home before the sun comes up, and stays put until it goes down. Danny Boy Bell is African-American, and the cumbersome phrase fits him better than black, because in point of fact he’s whiter than white, an albino with white hair and pink eyes and pale, almost translucent skin. Sunlight’s dangerous to him, and any strong light bothers him. What the whole world needs, he has often said, is a dimmer switch.
I sat where the TS had been sitting, and Danny Boy picked up his glass of iced vodka and told me he was glad I was alive.
“So am I,” I said. “Exactly what did you hear?”
“What I said. First the word came that you’d been gunned down in a restaurant. Then the bush telegraph ran a correction. It wasn’t you after all. It was somebody else.”
“A friend of mine. I left the table and the shooter made a mistake.”
“And didn’t know it until later,” he said. “Because he must have reported a successful mission in order for your name to be in the first word that hit the street. Who was your friend?”
“Nobody you would have heard of.”
“A square john?”
“A fellow Perrier drinker.”
“Oh, and that’s how you knew him? A close friend?”
“Very.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. On the other hand, Matthew, I’m glad you’re not on my list.”
“What list is that?”
“Just an expression.”
“It’s a new one on me. What kind of list?”
He shrugged. “It’s just something I did awhile back. I sat down and started writing down a list of everybody I could think of who was dead.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Well, he might or might not belong on the list, depending on who you talk to. Same goes for Elvis. But this particular list was limited to people I’d known personally.”
“And you wrote down their names.”
“It sounds stupid,” he said, “and I think it probably was, but once I got started I couldn’t seem to stop. I got pretty compulsive about it. I’d think of a name and I’d have to write it down. It was sort of like the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, except those guys got a wall, not some pages in a notebook. And they had something in common. They all died in the same war.”
“And the others were all friends of yours.”
“Not even that. Some of them I couldn’t stand and others were people I just knew to say hello to. But it was a trip, Matthew. One name would lead to another, and it was like dominoes tumbling over in your memory. I found myself remembering people I hadn’t thought of in years. Neighbors from when I was growing up. My pediatrician. A kid across the street who died of leukemia, and a girl in my fifth-grade class who got hit by a car. You know what I realized?”
“What?”
“Most of the people I know are dead. I guess that happens when you’ve been around long enough. I once heard George Burns say something like that. ‘When you’re my age, most of your friends are dead.’ Or words to that effect. The audience laughed, and I’ve never been able to figure out why. What’s funny about it? Does it seem funny to you?”
“Maybe it was the way he said it.”
“Maybe. And now he’s dead. George Burns. But I never met him, so he’s not on my list. And neither are you, because your heart’s still beating, and I’m glad to know it.”
“So am I,” I said, “but somebody wants to put me on the list.”
“Who?”
“I wish I knew,” I said, and filled him in.
“I heard it got nasty at Ballou’s joint,” he said. “It’s all over the papers. It must have been a bloodbath.”
“It was.”
“I can believe it. I didn’t know you were there.”
“A couple of hours ago I told a cop I wasn’t.”
“Well, I’ll never say different. Ballou really doesn’t know who’s sticking it to him?”
“No.”
“Got to be the same person that ordered you hit.”
“I would think so.”
“Whoever he is, he’s an equal opportunity employer. Hires killers in every available color. Black, white, and yellow.”
“A few white guys, if you count the pair who braced me on the street.”
“And you didn’t recognize anybody?”
“There was only one guy I got a really good look at. And no, I’d never seen him before. Next lime I see you I’ll show you his picture. In the meantime, I’d like to know what you know.”
“Less than you do, I’d have to say. The big news was that you were dead, and then the not-so-big news was that the big news was bogus.”
“The fact that I was alive was less newsworthy?”
“What do you expect? Look at the Times. They print corrections all the time, but they don’t stick them on the front page.” He frowned. “The other big item is that somebody’s going to war with Mick Ballou, and I have to say I know a lot more about that from TV than I hear through the grapevine.”
“Somebody’s got to know something.”
“Absolutely. The question is where do you start, and I’m thinking the shooter.”
“There were two shooters.”
“The black one, because the yellow one’s not talking, whereas the black one must be talking a blue streak, to add one more color to the palette. Incidentally, speaking of blue, how did you like Ramona’s fingernails?”
“I was meaning to ask about those. Does she paint them or is that their natural color?”
“Matthew, if you asked her she’d think you were serious. She honestly believes she’s got the world fooled. She doesn’t think anybody can tell.”
“Can tell what? That she paints her nails?”
“That she wasn’t born with a pussy. That she didn’t get those cantaloupe tits from a surgeon.”
“She’s what, Danny? Six-four?”
“In her nylons. And big hands and feet, and an Adam’s apple, although that’s in line for a paring as soon as she gets the money together. All that and she’s still convinced the whole world thinks she’s the real deal. And before you even ask, you prying son of a bitch, the answer is no, I haven’t.” He poured some vodka, held it aloft, looked at the world through it. “Not that I haven’t thought about it,” he said, and drank it down.
“You could hardly help thinking about it.”
“She’s a nice kid,” he said. “She makes me laugh, which gets harder and harder to do. And the size, you know. That’s an attraction in itself. The contrast.”
“Whether it was God or the medical profession,” I said, “somebody sure made a lot of her.”
“Well, God made a lot of Texas, too, but that’s no reason to go there. But she’s attractive. Wouldn’t you say she’s attractive?”
“No question.”
“And of course she’s nuts. She is genuinely out there, and, you know, I’ve never regarded that as a fault in a woman.”
“No, I’ve noticed that.”
“So I’m tempted,” he said, “but I’ve essentially decided to wait until she’s had her Adam’s apple done. You know, with the height difference and all, that Adam’s apple would be hard for me to overlook.” He frowned. “Talk about losing the thread of a conversation. Where were we?”
“The black shooter.”
“Right, and here’s what I was thinking. The word got around that you were dead. Now that word could only have come from the man who thought he shot you—before he learned otherwise. So he’s a talker, and now he’s got something new to talk about. It shouldn’t be too hard to get a line on him. Sometimes you can backtrack a piece of information and see where it came from. Other
times you sort of circle around it.”
“Whatever works.”
“Keep in touch, Matthew. And one other thing. The guy knows he missed, and whoever sent him knows he missed. Either he’ll try again or somebody else will.”
“I thought of that.”
“Of course you did. That’s why you’ve got a bulge under your jacket. Nice jacket, by the way, bulge or no bulge.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, be careful, will you? And stay off my list.”
It was raining by the time I left Poogan’s. That reminded me, and I went back for my umbrella, which I’d left at Danny Boy’s table. The miracle was that I hadn’t left it at the meeting.
Cabs disappear when it rains, and I guess it had been coming down long enough to thin their ranks. I’d just about decided to walk the fifteen blocks when a cab pulled up and let out a fat black man who looked a lot like Al Roker, the jolly TV weatherman, but who was actually a pimp named Bad Dog Dunstan. If he was jolly, he’d kept the word from getting out.
He had two girls with him, and weighed as much as the two of them together. They hurried into Poogan’s, trying to keep their hair from getting wet, while he dug a roll out of his pocket to pay the driver and I held the door so the cab wouldn’t take off without me.
Dunstan’s eyes went wide at the sight of me, and I sensed that he’d heard the big news and missed the retraction. We knew each other only by sight and had never spoken, but I didn’t stand on ceremony. A passed-along cab on a rainy night seemed to me enough of an introduction.
“False alarm,” I said. “I’m not dead yet.”
He smiled broadly, but the effect was somehow more savage than jolly. “Glad to hear it,” he boomed. “We all dead soon enough. No need to rush the season.”
He went into Poogan’s. I got in the cab and went home.
Elaine was watching a Law & Order rerun on A&E, one of the earlier shows with Michael Moriarty and Dann Florek. We’d both seen the episode before, but that never seems to matter.
“I miss Michael Moriarty,” Elaine said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with Sam Waterston.”
“They always get good people.”
“But with Michael Moriarty, you can see the character thinking. You can just about see the thoughts.”
And a little later she said, “Why does the judge always suppress the confession and the vital evidence?”
“Because it’s true to life,” I said.
It was one of the darker shows in the series; the Colombian enforcer gets acquitted and the prosecution’s chief witness gets whacked after the verdict, along with what’s left of his family. Elaine said, “Well, doesn’t that just make you feel good all over?” and turned off the set and went into the other room. I picked up the phone and dialed the number Ballou had given me.
He answered on the third ring. “I hope you’re at the airport,” he said.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Nobody else has the number. It’s only the second time I heard it ring, and the first time was when I called myself from another phone, just to make sure the fucker worked. It’s a curious thing, having a phone go off in your pocket. I was a minute thinking what it was. What time’s your flight?”
“I’m not at the airport.”
“I was afraid of that. Are you at home?”
“I am, but why?”
“I’ll call you back on the other phone,” he said, and broke the connection. I hung up myself, and the phone rang almost immediately, and it was him.
“That’s better,” he said. “That’s an awful little thing for a man to be talking into, and you never know who might be listening to you. Some fucker could pick us up on his car radio, or the fillings in his teeth. I talked to Rosenstein and he told me I’d hired you. That was days ago, says I, and how did you even hear of it? It seems your lawyer called him. You’d think one of us was getting ready to sue the other.”
“I hope not.”
“I’d say it was unlikely. I’m glad for your help, but I have to say I wish you were in Ireland.”
“I may wish it myself before this is over.”
“What are you doing now? I’ll take the car out and pick you up, we can go for a ride.”
“I think I’m going to make it an early night.”
“I don’t blame you, but I’ve the urge to be doing something. I didn’t do a fucking thing all day.”
“When I first got sober, my sponsor told me it was a successful day if I got through it without picking up a drink.”
“Then I had a most unsuccessful day,” he said, “for first I drank myself drunk and then I drank myself sober. Your sponsor. That’s the Buddhist, the one who was killed?”
“That’s right. And what he told me was perfectly true. If I didn’t drink it was a successful day for me. And it’s a successful day for you if you’re still alive at the end of it.”
“Ah. I take your meaning.”
“You want to fight back, but first you have to know what you’re up against. And that’s where I come in.”
“It’s detective work, is it?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve nothing to work with. Are you getting anywhere?”
“It’s hard to tell. But I’m working a couple of different angles, and if one of them doesn’t work then another one will.”
“Jaysus, that’s the first good news I’ve had all day.”
“It’s not even news. I’m just getting started.”
“You’ll bring it off,” he said. “Ah, I wish you were in Ireland but I’m fucking glad you’re not. We’ll find out who he is, this dirty bastard, and we’ll get him. And we’ll kill him.”
“Yes,” I said. ‘We’ll kill him.”
George Wister had called while I was at Poogan’s, and he called again Tuesday morning and told the machine he wanted to talk to me. He sounded as though he meant it. He left his home number and said to call him there up until noon, and at Midtown North after that.
I had breakfast and read the paper. A few minutes before eleven I called him at the precinct and whoever caught the call told me he hadn’t come in yet. I left my name and said I was returning his call. “He has my number,” I said, “but I’ll be out all day. I’ll try him again later.”
I went and sat at the window and watched the rain.
Around twelve-thirty I called his home. The area code was 914, which would put him north of the city, most likely in Westchester or Orange County. A woman answered and said I’d just missed him. I left my name and said I’d try him at work.
Later on I called TJ to see if he wanted to take a run out to Williamsburg with me. He wasn’t in his room across the street, so I called his beeper number. I hung around for fifteen minutes, then gave up. I put on my windbreaker and remembered to take an umbrella. Elaine caught me at the door and asked if I’d be home for dinner. I said I’d catch something on the run, and if TJ called to tell him it was nothing important, I just wanted company.
I rode the A train to Fourteenth Street and transferred to the L. My father died on the L train. He was riding between two cars, and he fell, and the train ran over him. I suppose he ducked out for a smoke, although it was no more legal to smoke on the platform between the cars than in the cars themselves. For that matter, you weren’t allowed to ride between the cars like that, smoking or not. He was probably liquored up at the time, which may have had something to do with his decision to slip out for a cigarette, and with his falling, too.
I never ride the L train without thinking of that. I’d probably get over it if I rode it on a regular basis, but it’s the line that runs across Fourteenth Street and under the East River, then through north Brooklyn until it ends up in Canarsie. I haven’t been on it often enough over the years for my mind to tire of reminding me each time of how my old man died.
Not as though it were the L train’s fault. I couldn’t blame the train, and I couldn’t really blame him, either. Shit happens.
Fort
y years ago, that was. More, closer to forty-five.
“A little different from the last time you saw it,” Ray Galindez said. “We pulled off all the asphalt siding. I’ll tell you, there must have been one hell of a siding salesman came through Brooklyn back in the early fifties. When me and Bitsy bought this place, I don’t think there were two houses on the block didn’t have some kind of siding covering up the brick. Now that green monstrosity across the street is the lone holdout. I don’t know why anybody ever thought that crap was a good idea.”
“Isn’t it supposed to cut your heating bills?”
“That’s what we’ve got global warming for. But it was some job, puffing it off and repointing the brick. I had help working on the brick, but me and Bitsy did the rest of the work ourselves.”
“I guess that’s where your summer went.”
“Spring and summer both, but it’s worth it, you know. And real satisfying. Which is more than you can say for the job these days. Come on in, and what can I get you to drink? There’s coffee, but it’s like superstrong. Except you like real strong coffee, don’t you? You sure you’re not Puerto Rican, Matt?”
“Me llamo Matteo,” I said.
We sat in the kitchen. They’d bought a narrow two-story row house on Bedford Avenue, midway between the subway stop and McCarren Park. The neighborhood, Northside, was turning increasingly artsy, as were nearby Greenpoint and much of the rest of Williamsburg. Industrial buildings were being converted to artists’ lofts, far more affordable than those across the river in SoHo and TriBeCa, and little houses like Ray and Bitsy’s were shedding their siding like butterflies emerging from cocoons.
It was an unusual neighborhood for a cop to choose but a natural one for an artist, and Ray was both. A police sketch artist, he had an uncanny ability to render in black and white the images summoned up from a witness’s memory. And there was a further dimension, a genuine artistry that had led Elaine to request a drawing he’d done of a chilling sociopath as my Christmas gift to her. Then she’d engaged him to draw her long-dead father, working not from photos but extracting the man’s features from her memory. She’d since given Ray a show in her shop, and steered some commissions his way. Someday I wanted him to do a real portrait of her, but right now I needed him to do that same thing the city paid him to do.