I had done a fairly poor job of stacking the trash and so used that opportunity to straighten out the mess.
There were maybe thirty boxes moved by the men into Chester’s make-believe office. They stacked them quickly and haphazardly; men in a hurry. The truck drove off and Chester and his men went back to sitting and laughing, drinking and making smoke.
I’d been working on the trash pile for forty-five minutes or so when one of the men, the white one, came across the street. He was walking toward me.
I considered shooting him.
It was one thing to have the urge to kill Little Exeter. After all, he might have been part of the scheme to destroy my life. But this guy walking across Flatbush, with his hands hanging empty at his sides, was no threat and I had no reason to harbor him any ill will.
I had been thrown back into the creature formed by my imprisonment. I was a rabid dog with hardly a scrap of civility to hide the shame.
The man passed near me, nodded a friendly greeting, and went on to a black Ford parked a few doors down. He drove the car to the storefront and then, with the help of Chester and the other man, loaded the boxes into the trunk and backseat of the automobile.
Nobody could ever say that criminals were at the top of their class in public school.
“Mr. Boll,” Arthur Bono said to my back.
“Yes, sir.” I turned away from my prey.
“Here you go.” He handed me three crisp new twenties.
“Damn,” I said. “I only figured to get about half this.”
“You made a deep dent in the room,” he told me. “And paying off the books costs a lot less. I’m going home now. You know, I don’t feel right being out at night.”
“Uh-huh.” I wanted to see what Chester et al. were up to behind me, but it made sense to maintain my subterfuge.
“You should buy you some new clothes,” Arthur advised. “You know clothes make the man. If you come back tomorrow morning you could finish the job and maybe make enough to buy a new shirt or even a jacket.”
I thought of the young men pinned to the corkboard in his office. He was trying to compliment me.
“I’ll be here at nine,” I lied.
The old man smiled, shook my hand, and turned away.
Chester was standing on the curb watching as his henchmen drove off in the dark Ford. He kept an eye on them until they had driven out of sight and then went back into his empty space.
I was right behind him.
19.
His left foot crossed the threshold, and mine did too. He felt my presence, but before he could respond I hit him in the back of the head with my .45. He went down on one knee and I hit him again—hard.
While he floundered on the green-and-black linoleum I did a cursory body search, coming up with a small-caliber pistol. Then I pulled the ceiling-to-floor curtains across the picture window and flipped the wall switch for the overhead fluorescent lighting.
Chester was holding the back of his head with one hand while trying to push himself up with the other. He was moving his lower jaw around as though he’d been hit there.
“Stay down,” I told him.
He stopped moving, and looked up to see me straddling one of the metal folding chairs. The .45 was in my hand, pointed at his forehead.
He was up on one elbow and confused, but when he shrugged, maybe a preparation to rise, I pulled back the hammer on the gun.
The fear factor of a cocking hammer is the real advantage of a six-shooter.
He stopped moving, but his eyes were hard at work.
He was long, strong, and considering his chances of turning the tables from a prone position.
“You do and I’ll shoot you in the knee,” I said, “still ask my questions, then walk out the back door, leaving you a cripple for life.”
“What you want, man?”
“You ran a woman named Nathali Malcolm some years back.”
His face twisted, trying to show without telltale words that he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Oh?” I mocked. “Did I say that I will shoot the other knee if I’m not happy with your answers?”
“What you mean, ran?”
“If you tryin’ to wait until somebody comes to the door,” I said, “I will shoot you in the face and take my chances with the rest.”
“That was a long time ago,” he complained.
“I’m askin’ right now. I’m not gonna do it again.”
“I haven’t seen Tatty since she got busted years ago.”
“You were both arrested, but they let you off,” I said. “You had twenty pounds of cocaine in the trunk’a your car and they didn’t even book you.”
“Who are you?” Chester Murray asked.
“Who was the last cop you talked to after they arrested you?”
“That was over ten years ago, brother. How you expect me to remember the last cop or the first?”
I stood up, my lips twisting in the anticipation of pain.
I was way out of balance in that curtained room. I should have taken the fishmonger’s offer and spent another day watching Chester and his men. I should have planned out the interrogation, but I was playing it fast and loose because sooner or later, I knew, the men who had framed me would catch on to my ad hoc investigation.
Chester pulled his head back, sensing my desperation.
“Cortez,” he ejaculated. “Detective Cortez. I didn’t get no first name.”
“What he look like?”
“I don’t know, man. That was a long time past, and back then I was high day and night. I think he was Puerto Rican. Short, you know? I don’t know.”
Something in my eyes was scaring the gangster. It scared me too.
“What was the deal he gave you?” I asked slowly.
“He didn’t want—he didn’t want me to make any noise about Tatty. He said that she had information he needed and he didn’t want no lawyers or nuthin’ askin’ about her.
“Is she your woman? Because you know that cop didn’t give me no choice. If I’d’a gone up against him he would’a put me down. It was her or me and—and—and he said he just wanted information. I figured me bein’ quiet would help us both.”
I was silent for quite a while then. Chester and I were looking at each other, but I was sure that we were both seeing things outside that storefront.
“What’s in the boxes your men drove off with?”
“You don’t know?”
“Don’t make me ask again, fool.”
“G-g-guns. It’s guns.”
Walking the six blocks to the parking garage, and then driving back to my place on Montague, I was going over and over recent events. From the college girl to A Free Man. From the old man across the street to Chester.
I was standing right at the edge of a line that had to be crossed sooner or later.
So far Chester was still alive. I was too.
“Hi, Daddy,” A.D. said when I walked through the office door.
“Honey. How you doin’?”
“Fine. You like my dress?” she asked in a bratty tone.
Standing up, she did a half turn. The dress was a dull orange color and the hem was down to her calf. It complimented her figure without broadcasting it. I knew that it cost $87.99 off the rack.
“Your mother let you wear that?”
“You remember this?” Surprise took over the spoiled look on her face.
“I was with her when she bought it. I’m surprised she still has it.”
“Mama don’t throw out nuthin’. I took it outta her back row in the closet.”
In some ways I’d be married to Monica for the rest of my life. At least we did this one thing right.
“Any calls?”
“A man came and said that he would be waitin’ for you at the wine bar.”
“What man?”
“White guy with funny eyes,” Aja said. “He said his name was Mel.”
Before going down the street to Laniard’s Wine Bar I went into my office and put away three shots of whiskey. I wanted a cigarette and lamented giving the pack away.
Wearing a dark cranberry jacket and walnut-brown trousers, he was sitting at a high stool at the window, looking out onto Montague. When he saw me he waved and maybe gave a wisp of a smile; mirth on the face of a demon. I was glad I’d had the whiskey.
I passed the ma?tre d’, a tall man in a black suit and tie. He gestured for me to wait, but I pointed at Melquarth, who, in turn, put up a welcoming hand.
I climbed up on the stool next to him.