It is a flyer, on yellow paper. A club invite. Around here, on weekends, it is not unusual to find kids on street corners passing out flyers. But not now, not in such rain, not when she has just lost someone who’s been following her for days. She is about to crinkle it up when a phrase catches her eyes. “HOTTEST PARTY OF THE MILLENIUM”—and underneath it, “COME THIS SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18, D WAVE D RAVE DJ SPOOKY & HIS FRIENDS!!!!!”
It is “DJ” that stops her heart.
DJ. The fourth member of the Fearsome Four. The missing KK. The orphan. The name has stuck with her from the first time she heard it. For no reason, really. It is not even his real name.
Instead of trudging through the rain, she runs for the underground hole less than a block away. She knows exactly where to go. She is almost elated at this sudden direction. And the man she just lost in the rain? Let him catch up with her if he wants to play real hide-and-seek.
18.
BOLTED ACROSS THE TOP WINDOWS of the three-story building is the dilapidated electric sign for EAST BILLIARDS, trimmed with blinking red lights. A couple of bulbs are broken; the line is not as smooth as it should be. The floor below is dark, blinds drawn, no sign of life. On the ground floor, three stores are jammed together. A Korean market. A nail salon. Santos Pizza, the third one is called, and Suzy wonders if Santos is as common a name as Kim.
The rain has not eased. Her clothes are soaked through. The forty-minute ride here has only made it worse. She can feel the chill in the core of every bone. She should have grabbed that bottle of echinacea. She ran out so fast that the bottle just fell from her hands, along with the clementines. And the gaping face of the man behind the cash register—probably the last time he would smile at her.
Climbing the stairs, she is surprised at how quiet it is. Not a peek coming from the pool hall above. But. then, she has never been to a pool hall before. Too decadent, where bad kids congregate and dropouts make trouble. What would Dad have said if he saw her here? And Damian? At least they had that in common, she thinks, quickly averting her eyes from the genitalia-shaped graffiti on the cement wall. When she reaches the third floor and opens the door, she finds a spacious room filled with pool tables. Some with solids and stripes dotting their green tops, and others sitting wide and empty. It is dark inside, the only light belonging to the foggy windows, through which the sky is barely visible.
“Hello?” Her voice rings loud, making an echo. Nothing. No one around. “Hello? Anybody here?” she calls out again. Strange, Saturday should be their busiest day. Maybe it is too early. Maybe they don’t open until late afternoon, like some restaurants. But, then, why isn’t the door locked? “Hello?” Suzy tries once more. No one still. Not much to see. A rickety soda machine by the entrance. A jukebox to its right that’s seen better days. A couple of Budweiser cans on the floor, which no one seems to have bothered to pick up. Farther in the distance is a partition; must be an office of sorts.
She is not sure what she expected. What is it that keeps tugging at her? When Detective Lester mentioned the Flushing pool hall where the drugs were found, Suzy remembered another pool hall, in Jackson Heights, which had been a notorious hangout in the mid-eighties. There were always rumors surrounding it, with gory details of gang rapes and drug deals gone sour. Everyone in her high school had heard of it. The kids whispered its name with awe and fear. The KK had still been active then, along with several other minor gangs whose names Suzy cannot remember now. Back then, it was just a rumor. It belonged to the underground world of the underground kids whose lives would never touch hers. That is, until now.
She is turning to leave when she is stopped by a sound behind the partition. “Hello?” she tries again, to no avail. Yet those rustling steps, an unmistakable murmur. Maybe there is more than one person there. Maybe they are in the middle of an important conversation and do not want to be interrupted. Suzy is tempted to turn around and walk out, but then she remembers the rain outside and hesitates. Besides, she is curious. Why wouldn’t the person answer her four hellos? What’s he doing there behind the wall? From the doorway to the cubicle is about fifty steps. Five rows of pool tables, two in each row, ten total. It is not such a great distance.
When she finally makes her way across the room and stands before the partition, she can hear a sort of humming from the other side. A staccato rumble, oddly youthful and cheery. She knocks before peering in, although the attempt is superfluous. Rocking in the armchair is a young man, with his feet up on the desk. His eyes are shut, his head bobbing to the Discman whose volume is high enough so that she can even make out the lyric. Some kind of rap. Hip-hop, he would insist. Obviously, calling out to him is useless, but she is uneasy about tapping him on the arm. She is standing there mulling over what to do next when, as if in a miracle, he opens his eyes and jumps out of his seat.
“Holy shit! You scared the shit out of me!” the young man screams, peeling the headset off his ears.
“I’m so sorry. I called you a couple of times, but you didn’t hear me.” Suzy panics as he flinches from her. “I really didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Fucking hell you didn’t; what the hell were you doing creeping up on me like that!”
“I was just… I didn’t know how to get your attention.”
“Yo, let’s forget it.” His face is turning red, as though he is embarrassed at getting so easily frightened. Then he reaches for the can of Coke on the desk and gulps it down, struck by sudden thirst. “Don’t tell my old man. He’ll whack me if he finds out I wasn’t minding the door.”
“It’s a deal, my lips are sealed,” she says in a conspiring whisper. His father must be the owner. Family business, not unusual.
“So what do you want? A table?” he says, looking her over once, not without a hint of amusement. He is barely twenty. Boys of his age, they have just one thing on their minds. Even when the woman is old enough to be their aunt.
“Are you open? Looks pretty dead to me,” she says, surveying the empty room.
“Sure, we’re open. I just haven’t bothered turning on all the lights yet. Too early, and no one’s here these days anyway. Why waste electricity?” He shrugs, strutting over to the wall to flick the switch. In an instant, the room turns fluorescent.
“Why no one these days?” Suzy asks, squinting her eyes as the white balls beam under sudden artificial bliss.
“Some trouble out in Flushing; the guys’re laying low,” he says, clicking the “Stop” button on his Discman.
“Can’t be good for business?”
“We’re used to it. It happens once in a while. Everyone crawls back sooner or later. This time, the deal’s bigger, so it’s taking longer,” he says with a purposeful toss of his hair, which is moussed into a ball of stiff spikes.