What they always do.
He ask how old?
I told him eighteen.
Sal and Frankie giggling about the suits from the suburbs, straight guys who dole out cash for their sweet asses then take the PATH home to their pretty little wives.
Where was he from?
Who cares? He’s a dead man now.
That plum sauce, you eatin’ that?
At Broadway and 34th, the million eyes of the rain smash against the dusty windows of the rag trade, Lennie Mack at his desk, ledgers open, refiguring the numbers, wiping his moist brow with the rolled sleeves of his shirt, wondering how Old Man Siegelman got suspicious, threatening to call in outside auditors, what he has to do before that call is made… do for Rachel, and the two kids in college, do because it was just a little at the beginning. Jesus, two-hundred fifty thousand now. Too much to hide. He closes the ledger, sits back in his squeaky chair, thinks it through again… what he has to do.
From Times Square, the gusts drive northward, slanting lines of rain falling like bullets, exploding against the black pavement, the cars and buses still on Midtown streets, Jaime Rourke on the uptown 104, worrying about Tracy, what she might do with the baby, seated next to an old guy in a gray felt hat fingering packets of garden seed.
So I guess you got a garden.
My building has little plots. A smile. My daughter thinks I should plant a garden.
Eddie Gorsh sits back, relaxed, content in his decision, grateful to his daughter, how, because of her, there’ll be no more sure things.
Daughters are like that, you know. They make you have a little sense.
Near 59th and Fifth, a gust lifts the awning of the San Domenico. Dim light in the bar. Bartender in a black bolero jacket.
Amanda Graham. Martini, very dry, four olives. Black dress, sleeveless, Mikimoto pearls. Deidre across the small marble table. Manhattan. Straight up.
Paulie’s going to find out, Mandy.
Amanda sips her drink. How?
He has ways.
A dismissive wave. He’s not Nostradamus.
Close enough. And for what? Some nobody.
He’s not a nobody. He plays piano. A nice gig. On Bleecker Street.
My point exactly.
Amanda nibbles the first olive. What do you really think Paulie would do?
Deidre sips her drink.
Kill you.
Amanda’s olive drops into the crystal glass, ripples the vodka and vermouth. The smooth riffs of Bleecker Street grow dissonant and fearful.
You really think he would?
Over the nightbound city, the rain falls upon uncertainty and fear, the nervous tick of unsettled outcomes, things in the air, motions not yet completed. At 72nd and Broadway, it sweeps along windows coiled in neon, decorated with bottles of ale and pasted with green shamrocks.
Captain Beals. Single malt scotch. Glenfiddich. Detective Burke with Johnny Walker Black. A stack of photographs on the bar between them. Fat man. Bald. 3849382092.
This the last one?
Yeah. Feldman thinks it’s a long shot, but the guy lives in Tribeca, and it seems pretty clear the killer lives there too.
A quick nod.
His name is Harry Devane. Lives in Windsor Apartments. Just a couple buildings down from Lynn Abercrombie. Four blocks from Tiana Matthews. Been out four years.
What’s his story?
He works his way up to it by flashing, or maybe just rubbing against a girl. You know, in the subway, elevator, crap like that.
Then what?
Then he… gets violent.
How violent?
So far, assault. But pretty bad ones. The last time, the girl nearly died. He got seven years.
Ever used a gun?
No.
A sip of Glenfiddich.
Then he’s not our man.
At 93rd and Amsterdam, the rain sweeps in waves down the tavern window, Paulie Cerrello watching Jack Plato step out of the cab, taking a sip from his glass as Plato comes through the door, slapping water from his leather jacket.
Fucking storm. Jesus.
So? Gorsh?
I showed him everything. The whole deal.
And?
He ain’t in, Paulie. He’s scared of the slammer.
Paulie knocks back the drink, unhappy with the scheme of things, some old geezer scared of the slammer, the whole deal a bust.
So what now, Paulie? You want I should get another guy?
A shake of the head.
No, I got another problem.
He nods for one more shot.
You know my wife, right?
The rain sees no way out, no right decision, nothing that can slow the encroaching vise. It falls on bad judgment and poor choice and the clenched fist of things half thought through. At Park and 104th, it slaps against a closing window, water on the ledge dripping down onto the bare floor.
Shit.
Charlie Landrew tosses his soggy hat onto the small wooden table that is his office and dining room. Misses. The hat now on the frayed rug beneath the table.
Shit.
Leaves it.
Phone.
Yeah?
Charlie, it’s me. Lennie.
This fucking storm flooded my goddamn apartment. Water all over the fucking floor.
Listen, Charlie. I need to borrow some cash. You know, from the guy you… from him.
A hard laugh.
You barely got away with your thumbs last time, Lennie.
But I made good, that’s all that matters, right?
How much?
Twenty-five.
Charlie thinks. Old accounts. Too many of them. Past due. Lots of heavy leaning ahead. And if the leaning doesn’t work, and somebody skips? His neck in a noose already.
So what about it, Charlie?
Not a hard decision.
No.
The rain sees last options, called bluffs, final scores, silenced bells, snuffed candles, books abruptly closed. At Broadway and 110th, the windshield wipers screech as they toss it from the glass.
Listen to that, will ya?
Yeah, what a piece of shit.
A fucking BMW, and shit wipers like that.
Might as well be a goddamn Saturn.
The box shifts slightly on Luis’s lap.
I think it’s taking a crap, Angelo.
So?
So? What if it craps through the box?
It won’t crap through the box.
Okay, so it don’t. What we gonna do?
I’m thinking.
You been thinking since we left the Village.
So what’s your idea, Luis? And don’t say cops, because we ain’t showing up at no cop-house with a fucking stolen car and a baby we don’t know whose it is.
A leftward glance, toward a looming spire.
A church. Maybe a church.
The rain falls on quick solutions, available means, a way out that relieves the burden. It falls on homeless shelters and SROs and into the creaky, precariously hanging drains of old cathedrals.