Adrian Del Valle - Diego's Brooklyn (17 page)

“Jess, and Louie chase those bad boys away. I remember what ju told to me.”

“Right, well, we came here a few times after that.”

The door to the kitchen opened and this time it was Anthony. He came out carrying their plate of zeppoli’s and sodas. “Looka who we gotta here…Mr. a Diego. And who’s a thisa beauty?”

“Hi Anthony, this is my mother.”

“So young, and with a face like a the angels. That’s a fine aboy you gotta there.”

“Gracias.”

Anthony sat with them and reiterated the story about the gang of kids that had given Diego and his friends so much trouble. “Nunzio, heeza ina the Brookaleen detention.”

“The Atlantic Avenue Jail? What for?”

“Stealeen the cars. He’s a big athief, thata boy.”

After finishing most of the pizza and getting ready to find a cab, Diego looked out of the window to where Louie and his wife, Yolanda, were approaching the pizzeria.

As soon as Louie entered the restaurant, he scanned the room. “There you are!”

“Louie! What a surprise,” said Diego.

“Ant’ney called me and told me you wuz in here. Hi, Ana, you remember my wife?” Louie took a second, long look at her. “Wow, now dats a plate o’ meatballs. Ana, you look like a queen!”

Ana blushed.

From behind Louie, a tall man around Ana’s age stepped forward.

“This is my older brother, Danny. He ain’t neva been married ‘cuz he been too busy playin’ in traffic.”

“Hi, Ana. Nice to meet you,” said Danny.

Ana looked back flirtatiously, ‘though with a hint of shyness. “So why ju playing een dee traffeek?”

“I’m a bus driver.”

The get together lasted for over an hour. When Louie and Yolanda got up to play records on the juke box, Diego took the opportunity to use the rest room. Ana found herself alone with Danny.

“Why done ju get marry, Donny?”

“I never met the right one.”

“Not even to geeve a ring?”

“Yeah, I got close a few times, but you know how it is, we bus drivers work crazy shifts…weekends, holidays. It can be stressful at times in a relationship and who’s gonna put up with that?”

“That ees too bod.”

“I was with the last girl for seven years. I really thought she was the right one, but she walked out on me. She hated my hours. Heck, I only have another five years to go for my pension.”

“Five jears? Ju are too young. What weel ju do then?”

“Move! I’ve been thinking…maybe to the island. It’s quieter out there. I thought I’d take the test for the Post Office…get another pension going. At least they have regular hours and I’ll still be outside. It’ll be good for me to walk a little after so many years behind the wheel.”

“I con understond that, Donny.”

The table filled again as everyone returned to their seats. After the music selections played themselves out, they all exchanged goodbyes. Danny gave Ana and Diego a ride home and walked them inside.

“Ju want some coffee, Donny?”

“I have to go in early tomorrow and need to get some sleep. Coffee keeps me awake. But thanks anyway.”

As he left, he shook hands with Diego before stepping through the outside door. Addressing Ana, he said, “I’m glad I met the both of you today.”

Ana smiled sweetly from her doorway. “Bye, Donny.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said Diego. That front door was fixed, but it still doesn’t work very well.”

Danny stepped out onto the stoop, still searching for the words he could have said to Ana, but nervousness was still keeping his mind a horrible blank. He said goodbye again to Diego and took four steps down before turning around with a thought.

“Say, would you mind if I go back in for a second to ask your mother if she could go to a wedding with me?”

Diego brightened with an all knowing grin. “Not at all, Danny. I think she would really like that.”

Monday afternoon.

Standing in front of D’avino’s, Scanlon eyed the open door left ajar by Karen’s two girls.

There’s something on that roof that has been interesting that kid. Not only that, but he and his mother sure seem to be spending a lot of money, lately.

His watch read 2:47. He crossed the street and went up to the top floor, the heavy footsteps, alerting Mary to the keyhole.

The heavy steps continued as the cop walked down the hall toward her, and then the reverberating sound of size 12 shoes on metal as he purposefully climbed the steel ladder.

Relieved to see that it was only a cop, Mary settled into the easy chair and as usual, dozed with the TV left on.

Fifteen minutes later, Diego closed the outside door and entered his apartment. “Hi, Mom!”

“How was school?”

“Okay…pretty good, actually.”

“Are ju hungry, Hijo?”

“Not right now.”

“Ju should eat sometheeng. Eet ees not good to go all day weethout eating sometheeng. I con make ju some hamburger and fresh fry if ju like, or maybe ju want some…”

“Mom…Mom, hold on for a second. First of all, they’re called French fries, not fresh fries. But besides that, I’ve been thinking. I need to tell you something really important.”

“Importante? What ees eet, Mijo?”

“You better sit on the couch. This is a real loo loo.”

“A le lo li?”

“No, no…it’s…it’s not about island music.”

“Mine goodness. What ees dee mattor?”

“It’s nothing bad. It’s about the money I found.”

“Dee feefty doe-lars? I know. Eet’s all gone. Done worry about thees.”

“No Mom…I didn’t tell you the whole story.”

Ana read the worry on Diego’s face. As they both sat on the couch, she reached for his hand and with surety and a consoling tone, said, “Whatever eet ees, we con feex eet.”

“Mom, it’s nothing like that. It’s kind of good actually.”

Ana sat up and attentively focused on her son.

“Okay Mom…it’s this way. You remember when I found the money, right?”

“Si, of course.”

“Well…it wasn’t fifty dollars.”

“Oh?” Ana straightened.

Diego took a deep breath, looked into her attentive, brown eyes, and with reserve, softly said, “It was ten thousand dollars.”

Speechless, Ana’s lower jaw dropped. Her eyes opened wide and she sank into the sofa. “Ten thousond doe-lars? Oh mine goodness!” Covering her mouth, she gasped through her fingers.

“Take it easy, Mom. It’s all there.”

Ana bolted upright, calmed herself and said, “So…where ees,
there
?”

“The roof!”

“Here? Thees roof? Thees roof ope here?”
Her forefinger was left pointing at the ceiling.

Diego quietly nodded.

Turning from him, she thought long and hard. “Thees ees bad moe-ney. Eet ees dee moe-ney every bodee ees lookeeng for.”

“I know, but that’s over. Nobody knows about it but me.”

Shaking her head, Ana said nothing else, but remained silent while contemplating about what to do.

“Mom?”

“No! I’m theenkeeng!”

Her son waited with a held breath.

“Did you tell this to ju friends?”

“No, nobody.”

“Not to Meester Jacksown?”

“Nope!”

“Not even to ju friend, Larry?”

“Nope, not even Larry.”

Ana continued to think, then finally said, “Go get dee moe-ney. Bring eet here. We will kept eet quiet for now.”

“I was considering giving it to the police.”

Smiling dismissively at her son, she shook her head and said, “Geeve eet to dee po-lice? No, no, no! They will have a big party with thees moe-ney, Diego. Go get dee moe-ney. We will do notheeng until we theenk abou’ thees.”

Somewhat relieved, Diego left for the top floor. He silently passed 2A, with Mary’s snores reverberating on the other side of the door. He climbed the ladder and pushed the lid quietly to the side. Next to the chimney, he stood motionless for a moment with an image of his mother’s face when he finally put the money in her hands. He reached for the cap stone.

“So now we’re going to find out what was so interesting up here…right, kid?” Scanlon stepped out from behind the chimney of the connecting roof next door.

Diego’s head jerked around. Seeing the cop, he pulled away from the brick chimney and stepped toward the back of the building.

“Well, now…so what have you been doing up here, huh, kid?”

“N…nothing, looking for pinky balls, that’s all!”

“Pinky balls? Oh, you mean those little rubber balls?”

“Y-Yes. We keep losing them and they’re always getting hit up here.”

“Oh! Right, right, right! So that’s why you come up here?”

“Yes, officer.”

Sympathetic, Scanlon softly added, “I see. Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.”

The cop casually approached and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. His voice sounded low and eerily soft, the vibratos, spaced and resonant. “Ya see…I’ve been up here lookin’ around for a while. Funny…I didn’t see any balls anywhere up here. In fact, the roof’s as clean as a whistle.”

Slam!

Scanlon punched Diego in the stomach so hard it knocked the wind out of him. The boy doubled over and sank to his knees.

Standing over him with disdain, the cop said, “See that, kid, I can hurt ya where nobody would ever notice it. I ain’t playin’ with you no more, I know you found the money and I want it. Right now!”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Diego gritted his teeth and clutched his stomach.

“You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Now, stand up.”

Diego gradually got to his feet, and not one step from the back edge of the roof. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but his gaze kept shifting from the cop to the chimney, back to the cop, back to the chimney, back to the cop…

“What are you lookin’ at?” Scanlon yelled.

He scoured the roof, staring with inquisitive, glaring eyes. He turned to the boy and then back, but nothing was amiss, other than the opened hatchway.

“Stay right there! Don’t move!”

As the cop neared the chimney, he continued to look scornfully at Diego. He searched around and behind the bricks and the rest of the roof. “What’s over here, you little spic bastard. You better tell me or I’ll break every bone in your fuckin’ body. You hear me?”

Diego, nurtured in obedience, didn’t budge. All he could do was hope that the cop didn’t look inside the chimney.

Returning to it, Scanlon tapped the outside for loose bricks, all the while watching Diego for a reaction. When he reached the top, the boy twitched and nervously looked away.

“Whoops! Huh? Did you say something?” The cop’s thin lips stretched into a grin. He felt along the cold surface of the capstones, turned toward the boy and said, “It’s here somewhere, isn’t it?”

Leaning over the chimney on his forearms, he looked down the dark shaft, leaned forward and loudly exclaimed, “Well, well, well…what do we have here?”

Scanlon’s voice echoed back from the depths as if it had returned from a deep cavern somewhere within the bowls of the earth.

Reaching in, he pulled up on the rope and grabbed the steel box with his right hand while removing the capstone with his left. His joy suddenly turned to anger as soon as he looked back at the boy. A boy who’s lowered gaze played nervously on the dusty blackness of the tar roof.

“I wonder what this could be?” Scanlon dropped the capstone on its flat side next to Diego. He opened the steel box and unraveled the brown paper. “Well I’ll be!” The cop’s overly, stretched grin returned.

Fingering the bills, he knew immediately that it had to be the money the mob was missing, ‘though hiding the find from everyone else would be another matter. Who, besides the kid knew it was here—his mother, his fat, chubby friend, or perhaps both? The thought troubled him.

“You know what? I knew there was something up with you when I saw you and your mother in church yesterday. Been spending this money, huh?”

He slammed the lid closed and set it down on the roof, not far from the capstone. Scowling, he glared at the boy—a boy who was still looking downward without knowing what was to come next.

The cop growled under his breath. For, what he saw was neither a boy, nor innocence, but only something that stood in his way—a lowly subspecies of little worth.

The cop sneered. “You little shit!” There was no other way; he had to get rid of the problem.

Afraid to get hit again, Diego squatted low and covered his head from the blows he knew would come raining down at any moment. He clamped his eyes shut, his mind completely void of anything other than the pain he would soon have to endure from the cop’s pounding fist.

“You little son of a bitch! You thought you were going to keep all of this money, didn’t you, you spic bastard. Who the hell do you think you are that you should take it all for yourself?”

Emboldened by his own words, the cop’s heart began to race from the thought of what he knew had to be done. He backed away a step and turned toward the front of the building.

As hard a man as Scanlon thought himself to be, and was, doing the inevitable would be no easy task. He faced the boy once more, ready to put an end to the whole inconvenience. Stepping forward, his right shoe came down on the sharp corner of the steel box.

Diego jumped quickly to the side as the cop stumbled toward him. At that same moment, Scanlon’s left shoe came down on the end of the capstone. His ankle twisted precariously, and ‘though he tried to regain his balance, the forward momentum forced him over the edge.

“AGHHHHHHH!”

Scanlon’s cry lasted a full second and a half. His neck hit the chain link fence three stories below, severing his blue uniformed body from his head. The body landed in the landlord’s tomato patch, with the head falling into the yard next door. It rolled with a spray of blood across a stone patio, sending the neighbor’s German shepherd to the far corner of the yard with its tail between its legs.

Opening his eyes, Diego stared past his feet and into the yard. The horror of what had just happened frightened him so much, he froze there for a long while, unable to move. He glared intensely at the body dressed in blue, headless and lying within the remnant, grey stubbles of the tomato plants. The sight sickened him. He checked across the yards to the back of the houses on the other side and at the only windows he could see. Hearing nothing and seeing no one, he picked up the box and headed for the opened hatchway.