But now, threatening Carmel and her family?
“I got mad and I said I couldn’t wait until the lease is up and he and his mother went away forever! And he said oh, they weren’t going anywhere. They checked the law in New York and as long as they pay the rent and don’t break the lease they can stay forever. Is that true, Mrs. Sarah?”
Sarah Lieberman said, “Yes, Carmel, it is true.” She rose and sat down at the Steinway piano she’d owned for nearly twenty years. It had been a present from her second husband for their wedding. She played a few bars of Chopin, her favorite composer and, in her opinion, the most keyboard-friendly of the great classicists.
Carmel continued, “When he left he said, ‘Say hi to your family for me, Carmel. Say hi to Daniel. You know, your husband, he’s a good carpenter. And say hi to Rosa. She’s a pretty girl. Pretty like her mother.’” Carmel was shivering now, tears were flowing.
Sarah turned from the piano and touched the maid on the shoulder. “It’s all right, dear. You did the right thing to tell me.”
The tears slowed and finally stopped. A Kleenex made its way around her face.
After a long moment Sarah said, “When Mark and I were in Malaysia — you know he was head of a trade delegation there?”
“Yes, Mrs. Sarah.”
“When we were there for that, we went to this preserve.”
“Like a nature preserve?”
“That’s right. A nature preserve. And there was this moth he showed us. It’s called an Atlas moth. Now, they’re very big — their wings are six or eight inches across.”
“That’s big, sí.”
“But they’re still moths. The guide pointed at it. ‘How can it defend itself? What does it have? Teeth? No. Venom? No. Claws? No.’ But then the guide pointed out the markings on this moth’s wings. And it looked just like a snake’s head! It was exactly like a cobra. Same color, everything.”
“Really, Mrs. Sarah?”
“Really. So that the predators aren’t sure whether it would be safe to eat the moth or not. So they usually move on to something else and leave the moth alone.”
Carmel was nodding, not at all sure where this was going.
“I’m going to do that with the Westerfields.”
“How, Mrs. Sarah?”
“I’ll show them the snake head. I’m going to make them think it’s too dangerous to stay here and they should move out.”
“Good! How are you going to do that?”
“Did I show you my birthday present?”
“The flowers?”
“No, this.” Sarah took an iPhone from her purse. She fiddled with the functions, many of which she had yet to figure out. “My nephew in Virginia gave it to me. Freddy. He’s a good man. Now, this phone has a recorder in it.”
“You’re going to record them, doing that? Threatening you?”
“Exactly. I’ll email a copy to my lawyer and several other people. The Westerfields’ll have to leave me alone.”
“But it might not be safe, Mrs. Sarah.”
“I’m sure it won’t be. But it doesn’t look like I have much choice, do I?”
Then Sarah noticed that Carmel was frowning, looking away.
The older woman said, “I know what you’re thinking. They’ll just go find somebody else to torture and do the same thing to them.”
“Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
Sarah said softly, “But in the jungle, you know, it’s not the moth’s job to protect the whole world, dear. It’s the moth’s job to stay alive.”
You want me to find somebody?” the man asked the solemn woman sitting across from him. “Missing person?”
The Latina woman corrected solemnly, “Body. Not somebody. A body.”
“Excuse me?”
“A body. I want to know where a body is. Where it’s buried.”
“Oh.” Eddie Caruso remained thoughtfully attentive but now that he realized the woman might be a crackpot he wanted mostly to get back to his iPad, on which he’d been watching a football — well, soccer—match currently under way in Nigeria. Eddie loved sports. He’d played softball in his middle school days, Little League and football, well, gridiron, in high school and then, being a skinny guy, he’d opted for billiards and pool in college (to raise tuition while, for the most part, avoiding bodily harm). But the present sport of his heart was soccer.
Okay, football.
But he was also a businessman and crackpots could be paying clients, too. He kept his attention on the substantial woman across his desk, which was bisected by a slash of summer light reflected off a nearby Times Square high-rise.
“Okay. Keep going, Mrs. Rodriguez.”
“Carmel.”
“Carmel?”
“Carmel.”
“A body, you were saying.”
“A murdered woman, a friend.”
He leaned forward, now intrigued. Crackpot clients could not only pay well. They also often meant Game—a term coined by sportsman Eddie Caruso; it was hard to define. It meant basically the interesting, the weird, the captivating. Game was that indefinable aspect of love and business and everything else, not just sports, that kept you engaged, that got the juices flowing, that kept you off balance.
People had Game or they didn’t. And if not, break up.
Jobs had Game or they didn’t. And if not, quit.
Another thing about Game. You couldn’t fake it.
Eddie Caruso had a feeling this woman, and this case, had Game.
She said, “A year ago, I lost someone I was close to.”
“I’m sorry.”
The iPad went into sleep mode. When last viewed, a winger for Senegal had been cutting through the defense, trying to open a way to goal. But Caruso let the sleeping device lie. The woman was clearly distraught about her loss. Besides, Senegal wasn’t going to score.
“Here.” Carmel opened a large purse and took out what must’ve been fifty sheets of paper, rumpled, gray, torn. Actual newspaper clippings, too, which you didn’t see much, as opposed to computer printouts, though there were some of those, too. She set them on his desk and rearranged them carefully. Pushed the stack forward.
“What’s this?”
“News stories about her, Sarah Lieberman. She was the one murdered.”
Something familiar, Caruso believed. New York is a surprisingly small town when it comes to crime. News of horrific violence spreads fast, like a dot of oil on water, and the hard details seat themselves deep in citizens’ memories. The Yuppie Murderer. The Subway Avenger. The Wilding Rape. Son of Sam. The Werewolf Slasher.
Caruso scanned the material fast. Yes, the story came back to him. Sarah Lieberman was an elderly woman killed by a bizarre couple — a mother and son pair of grifters from the Midwest. He saw another name in the stories, one of the witnesses: that of the woman sitting in front of him. Carmel had been Sarah’s housekeeper and Carmel’s husband, Daniel, the part-time maintenance man.
She nodded toward the stack. “Read those, read that. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Generally Caruso didn’t spend a lot of time in the free initial consulting session. But then it wasn’t like he had much else going on.
Besides, as he read, he knew instinctively, this case had Game written all over it.
Here’s Eddie Caruso: A lean face revealing not-unexpected forty-two-year-old creases, thick and carefully trimmed dark blond hair, still skinny everywhere, except for a belly that curls irritatingly over the belt hitching up Macy’s sale Chinese-made somewhat wool slacks. A dress shirt, today blue of color, light blue like the gingham that infected the state fairs Caruso worked as a boy to make money for cars and dates and eventually college.
Rhubarb pie, cobbler, pig shows, turkey wings, dunk-the-clown.