A photo of Arambula trying to cover his face as he enters his apartment building runs with the story.
Now I know what Lars meant when he said Marisa got “great stuff” from the neighbors: I hope they send him back to Mexico. Nice. She probably got a whole earful from this lady about her tax dollars and how great people have it in jail. I like to think of New York as a really tolerant, broad-minded place, but sometimes New Yorkers fuck that up.
I’m surprised that the information I gave Lars about Sara Wyman saying she was considering a divorce is absent, but at least her pregnancy made it in. The story makes it seem like an arrest is imminent, but reading between the lines I can see that the only information they actually have is that this man was questioned, and that he has a petty record. My hunch is that Larry Dunn, or whoever was working the Shack, simply got DCPI to tell him that, yes, they’d brought him in for questioning. Being questioned isn’t indicative of anything in itself, but it sure does look bad in the paper.
I met Marisa Hernandez once around Christmas when she relieved me on a stakeout of a livery cab driver accused of sexual assault. We hung out together in the lobby of his apartment building near the mall in Elmhurst. Most of the time you can’t hang out in people’s apartment building lobbies waiting for them to come home, but if the person you’re trying to “get” lives in public housing, the rules change. Technically, you’re still supposed to be buzzed in, but the doors are almost always open or unlocked. And if not, it’s not terribly difficult to find someone to let you in. The men mostly don’t care; you can just follow them inside. Women are more suspicious, but if you say something like “I’m going up to 11B,” they’re likely to let you pass. Best bet is a woman with a stroller; just hold the door for her. Marisa, I found out that evening, was from New Jersey and had been a stringer for a little over two years. She’d gotten married a couple months before and said she went to Sri Lanka for her honeymoon. We chatted for about twenty minutes while I filled her in on which floor the livery driver lived on (five), which entrance he was likely to use (southwest), whether there was any problem with security or ornery maintenance people (no and no).
I call the desk to get Marisa’s cell number. She picks up on the first ring.
“Marisa,” I say, “it’s Rebekah from the Trib.”
“Hey, how are you?”
“Good, sorry to bug you, but I have a question about the Arambula story.”
“Oh God,” she says, sounding exasperated.
“What?”
“Did you see the story?”
“Yeah.”
“That lady didn’t say, ‘I hope they send him back to Mexico,’ like that. She said, ‘If he did it, I hope they send him back to Mexico.’ If!”
“That’s a big if.”
“Exactly,” says Marisa. “That’s exactly what my husband said.”
“Did you get any sense about him? Like, did people seem to think he was capable of something like murder?”
“Not really. Everybody that I talked to who admitted to knowing him-which was only, like, three-said he was a great guy unless he was drinking. But even when he was drinking, they said he’d just get sloppy and, like, take a swing. I asked about the prostitution thing, and nobody wanted to touch that. I don’t think it’s that uncommon, though. A lot of the guys down there are single, they live in these cramped apartments and work and send money home. It’s biology.”
“But people weren’t saying, like, he’s creepy or angry…”
“No. Everybody was shocked when I told them what they brought him in for. You were on the body, right?”
“Right. They had me in Borough Park today, at the funeral.”
“Did you get that she was pregnant?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Great shit.”
“I don’t think they were happy about the anonymous source.”
“Oh, please, like their standards are so high.”
“So are you gonna say anything about the quote?”
“Probably not,” she says. “What’s the point? I’ll just remember I have to be extra fucking clear the next time Lars is on rewrite.”
I thank her and hang up, which is when I see that I’ve missed a couple texts from Tony. Last night he sent: how’d it go?
And just a few minutes ago he sent a photo. It’s a little grainy, but the image seems to be of a harbor, looking toward the Statue of Liberty.
I text back: where r u? sry I missed ur txt last night; fell dead asleep early
red hook; everything go ok with saul?
ish…
dinner plans?
not yet:
Tony picks me up at eight. He’s wearing cologne, but not too much. I didn’t even think of perfume. We drive to Bay Ridge, where his friend Marie, a chef, and her partner are doing a tasting menu to test out some new dishes. The restaurant is a small, glass-front place off the main drag. It’s almost absurdly cozy inside, the lights low, candles everywhere. Tony takes my coat and hangs it inside his on a hook at the entrance.
“It’s really nice in here,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “They did a great job. Six months ago this was a Chinese takeout.”
A woman wearing a tie comes to hug him.
“You forgot parsnips!” she says, like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
“Parsnips!” says Tony, slapping his forehead with his hand. “Rebekah, this is Marie. She owns the place.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“Thanks,” she says. “We try! This guy spent all afternoon shopping with my sous chef and forgot parsnips.”
“I hear,” I say, trying to seem as cheerful as she is.
“We actually called a car,” she says. “Sent a busboy out for them at five.” She shakes her head, amused. “We’ve got you two by the window,” she says, gesturing to a table in the corner. Cops and soldiers, I’ve been told, like sitting in the back corner of restaurants so they can survey the room and no one can sneak up on them. For a journalist, though, the window is what you always want. Especially in New York-a million stories a minute rush by, and no one faults you for staring out a window.
“I love sitting by the window,” I say.
“Good,” he says, and smiles.
The moment we sit down, a waitress appears with two flutes of champagne. I’m trying to stay in the moment, but something about drinking champagne seems wrong. Miriam isn’t celebrating. Neither is Chaya, or Yakov.
Tony tells me a little about Marie-they grew up on the same block and both their dads died when they were in high school. Marie’s dad in a construction accident, Tony’s dad of cancer. After a few minutes, the waitress reappears to explain tonight’s meal, which will be six courses, paired with wine. Some of the words she says are new to me: amuse, terrine, langoustine, and béchamel.
She sets down the “amuse,” which comes in the same kind of spoon they give you with hot-and-sour soup at a Chinese restaurant.
“This is a butternut squash soup with sage and toasted pumpkin seed. Enjoy.”
Tony and I slurp our spoonful of soup. It is very, very good.
I drink more champagne and look out the window. It’s a busy night in Bay Ridge. Bundled-up couples and groups are hurrying from one place to another, laughing and rowdy.
Tony’s phone rings. He looks at it, then silences the call.
“So,” I say, because I can’t get it out of my mind, “I saw a dead body again yesterday.”
“Another one?”
“The same one, actually, but close up. I saw her at the funeral home. There was no autopsy,” I say quietly, looking around me. No one is paying attention. “And now she’s in the ground.”
“No autopsy?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Saul says no. I saw her taken away by the Jewish van, then I saw her in the basement of the funeral home, like, twelve hours later.”