"And what are you going to do with all this knowledge, baby? Go to med school?"
"I don't want to go to medical school."
"No, you want to live in a junkyard with this lunatic. Well, you're not."
"Mom…"
"Don't 'Mom' me, Terry. You want to end up like Burke? You like the idea of going to prison?"
"The Mole doesn't go to prison."
"Ask him why. Ask your teacher why he didn't go to prison."
"I know why, Mom. I know Burke took the weight for him that time in the subway tunnel. Mole told me all about it. That's what family does."
"That's what good criminals do, honey."
"That's the rules."
She grabbed the boy by his shoulders. Shook him roughly. "I know all about family. My biological parents taught me very well. They weren't family, so I picked my own. And we picked you. All of us, not just the Mole. You're not growing up in the underground. You're not going to spend your life like this."
Tears ran down the kid's face but his voice was steady. "I lived with them once. The citizens. Remember, Mom? Remember how you found me?"
Michelle dropped to her knees in the junkyard, clutching the boy's legs, crying. He patted her head gently, whispering to her. The Mole moved away. I followed him.
"It's not safe" is all he said.
"The operation?"
"The boy. He can't live out there. Maybe Michelle could. Go back and forth all the time. It's not right to split him like this."
We walked through the twilight, jagged shadows spiking from the cannibalized cars. I moved between two of the cars. Stopped short when I heard a snarl. A white pit bull was lying against an old Cadillac, tiny squealing puppies nursing underneath her. Even Simba stepped around her.
"I never saw a pit bull here before. I thought they were all dog fighters."
"Terry found her. They were fighting dogs on the other side of the meat market…you know just past where the trucks pull in?"
"Yeah."
"She lost a fight. They left her there to die. We fixed her up. Now she's part of the pack."
"Like Terry."
He didn't say anything for a while. I lit another smoke. We made a wide circle, giving Terry and Michelle plenty of time.
"The boy knows Hebrew too," the Mole said, defensively. I dragged on my cigarette, remembering the boy's Bar Mitzvah.
The kid already knew how to blow up buildings.
WHEN WE got back to the clearing, Michelle was perched on the Mole's oil drum, a fresh blanket beneath her. The boy was sitting on the ground, her hand on his shoulder. They were waiting for us.
The Mole went into his bunker.
"I'm still having the operation," she told me, defiance lancing through the fear in her voice.
I bowed.
A half-smile played across her lovely face. She patted Terry's shoulder. "Sweetheart, just tell me you don't want to be like Burke- that's all I ask."
"I want to be like Mole."
"Honey, the Mole's a genius. I'd never take that away from him. And he's a wonderful man in many ways. I know he's taught you a lot. And I know he loves you, although I'm sure he's never told you."
"He told me. He said he was proud of me."
"I know, baby. But…to live like this. You'll be a man soon. The Mole…I mean, you want to live out here? Never have a girl of your own?"
"I'll have a woman, when I'm ready. A mate. Like the Mole said. A man has to have a mate."
"But the Mole…he doesn't…"
"Mom, I thought you…"
It was the first time I ever saw Michelle blush.
33
WE WERE crossing the Triboro Bridge before Michelle spoke.
"You think the Mole feels that way about me?"
"You know he does. Always has."
She lit one of her long black cigarettes. "He never said…"
"Neither did you."
I hooked the East Side Drive, high-rise lights flashing past us.
"You miss her?"
"I'll always miss her."
"Belle's dead, baby. You know who I mean."
The Plymouth sharked its own way through the light traffic.
"Sometimes," I said.
34
I PULLED UP outside Michelle's hotel. "You working tonight?" she asked.
"No."
"Take me to the Cellar."
"Who's playing?"
"Who cares? If we don't like it we can split."
"Okay," I said, turning the wheel to slip back into traffic.
"Hold it! Where're you going?"
"You said…"
"Honey, I've been in a junkyard. Park this car, wait downstairs in the bar. I'll be changed in a minute."
Right.
35
THE BAR had one of those giant-screen TV sets suspended in a corner. I ordered a vodka and tonic, telling the barmaid not to mix them. Sipped the tonic.
Some pro football game was about to start. Three guys in pretty matching blazers were talking about it like they were about to cover a border dispute in the Middle East. "This is going to be a war," one of the white announcers said. The black announcer nodded, the way you do when you hear irrefutable wisdom. The guys along the bar murmured agreement. Sure, just like the War on Drugs. If it was really going to be a war, one team would blow up the other's locker room. The Mole was right- we could never be citizens. Where I was raised, there's no such thing as a cheap shot.
"What do you see as the key to this match-up?" one of the announcers asked.
The guy he asked said something about dee-fense. Chumps. The key is the team doctor. The only war in pro football is chemical.
The barmaid leaned over to ask me if I wanted a refill, her breasts spilling out of the top of her blouse. I thought of Candy and her silicone envelopes. What's real?
Michelle tapped me on the shoulder. She'd changed to a red-and-black-striped skirt that pinched her knees close, the hem just peeking out under a black quilted jacket with wide sleeves. Her hair was piled on top of her head, most of the makeup gone. She looked fresh and sweet. I left a ten-dollar bill on the bar and a cigarette burning in the ashtray. Nobody watched us leave- it was kickoff time.
36
I WAS GOING through the motions. Playing out the string. Not waiting for full bloom, like I had been all my life. Full bloom had come to me. Just for a visit.
Jacques called me at Mama's. He's a gun dealer, runs a sweet little operation out of a rib joint in Bed-Stuy. I found a pay phone, called him back.
"I have a client for some of my heating units, mahn"- his West Indian accent singing over the line.
"So why call me?"
"This client, he's one of those Haitians, mahn. Spooky, you know. All that zombie-talk…"
"Yeah." There's an army of Haitians between Brooklyn and Queens, waiting for the day when they take back their land from the Tonton Macoutes. They don't fear the living, but Papa Doc's spirit still frightens their children.
"I don't travel, mahn. You know this. And they don't come to my place. I need a traveling man."
"I'm not doing any deliveries."
"Of course not, mahn. You know how this works. You go there, they pay you. You call me. I tell them where to pick up the units."
"And I wait with them while they send someone to do the pickup?"
"Sure."
"How much you paying hostages these days?"
"Oh, mahn, do not speak like this. Nobody going to cause trouble. These are not drug dealers, you understand?"