Buried on Avenue B (23 page)

 

CHAPTER 57

AT AWESOME TAXI MANAGEMENT
, days are divided into two twelve-hour shifts, one ending and one starting at 5:00 p.m. At 4:30, as the shifts cross over and the cars change hands, every bit of Forty-Fourth Street between Tenth and Eleventh, including the curbs, is running yellow. Behind the wheels sit dark, bearded men, whose stony countenances contradict the platinum strippers on their roofs. Fleet managers jockey vehicles into and out of impossible spots, hand off keys, and call out medallion numbers, while behind them in the brightly lit garages, mechanics furiously perform triage. Working on three or four cars at a time, they patch them up, and push them back out into the fray.

Among the Indians, Pakistanis, Afghans, and Ghanains are a smattering of locals, forced into cabs by hard times, and O'Hara fears that soon Axl will arrive for one of these shifts. Despite the vagaries in dress and grooming, the only substantive difference between drivers is
before
and
after.
Those who have just completed twelve hours of city driving are bleary-eyed and broken, their heels scraping the cement as they trudge to the subway. The new arrivals, whether sipping iced coffee, tea, or a muddy blend of herbs and roots, can still walk upright.

Across from Awesome Taxi Management is the back of PS 51, and Krekorian's car is tight against the fence that surrounds the playground. Working through the Taxi and Limousine Commission, O'Hara and Krekorian found that twelve '07 Camry's were on the street last night. Based on meter readings and drivers' logs, the most promising was driven out of ATM by fifty-seven-year-old Rachel Hadass, and as the two watch from K's Impala, a delicate bookish woman wearing madras shorts and a button-down shirt threads her way through the yellow gridlock.

An Indian with ferocious facial hair reroutes Hadass toward K's car, and O'Hara hops out to wave her over. Along with her iced coffee and sandwich, Hadass carries a copy of the
Quarterly Journal of Military History
. “Rachel, I'm Detective Darlene O'Hara, and this is Detective Serge Krekorian. Could you join us in our car? We need to ask you about one of your fares last night.”

“Two hundred seventy-eight dollars and fifty cents,” says Hadass, taking a seat behind them. “I thought I might hear from you.”

“Rachel, how long you been hacking for ATM?”

“Eighteen years. That's why they gave me a new Toyota.”

“They treat you pretty well?”

“They treat me ‘Awesome,' ” says Hadass, pointing at the sign.

“Can you describe the person you drove around for three hours?”

“He weighed four hundred pounds. Is that enough?”

“It's a start. What else?”

“About forty, very dark complexion, but not African American. Deep voice, and considering the ruckus, very calm.”

“What did he tell you he was doing?”

“Collecting rent.”

“And you believed him?”

“I did . . . almost. My grandfather owned a building in the Bronx. If you were feeling ungenerous, I guess you'd call him a slumlord. I learned from him that if people are dodging you, your only chance is to show up when you're not expected.”

“So this guy reminded you of your grandfather?”

Hadass shrugs.

“You said he was calm?”

“Every stop was World War II, but he walked back to the cab like he was coming from the newsstand with his
Post
.”

“Where'd you pick him up?”

“Ninth Street and Second, in front of Starbucks. He hands me three hundred dollars, says it's an advance on the meter, and has me take him to Hell's Kitchen. A basement apartment, not far from here. A couple minutes later I hear screaming in a strange language. Could have been Romanian, or maybe Armenian.”

“Did it sound like this?” asks Krekorian.
“Tvek' indz gumar, duk' khent' bitches!”

“Not really.”

“Then it wasn't Armenian.”

“Probably not. Anyway. There was a lot of carrying on and hysteria, then stone silence. Same pattern every stop. There were six all together.”

“He have a gun?”

“Possible, but I never saw it. He walked in and out, carrying a plastic shopping bag.”

“Where did you drop him off?”

“Seventh Street and Third, right around the corner from where I picked him up. He gave me the meter plus the three hundred dollars.”

“You see which way he went when he got out?”

“Toward St. Mark's. A guy his size couldn't have gone far. There's something you should know. He asked me to pick him up again tonight. Same place I dropped him off, at one thirty a.m. When I hesitated, he offered me a thousand dollars. At that point, I figured he probably wasn't collecting rent, so I took a pass. God knows I could use the cash, but it's not worth risking all this,” she says, holding up her coffee and a cucumber sandwich. Then she turns to Krekorian. “By the way, that smattering of Armenian, what was it?”

“ ‘Give me the money, you crazy bitches.' It's my motto.”

 

CHAPTER 58

O'HARA OPENS HER
computer on the front seat between her and Krekorian, finds the video from Wawrinka, and hits play. Once again the white Volvo drives up to the ER of Mother of Mercy Hospital. “The little guy behind the wheel is Popsicle,” says O'Hara. “The huge motherfucker asleep in the passenger seat is Fudgesicle.” They watch the smaller man hop from the front and hurry to the rear. Because she's waiting for it and not under the influence of cold remedies, she can see the instant when the giant wakes and registers where he is, and the violence with which he turns on his partner, defenseless with the boy in his arms, is more disturbing the second time around. At the same time, she is more affected by the smaller man's resolve, the way Popsicle clings to the boy no matter what, and it occurs to O'Hara that both of the men who stood up to Fudgesicle were barely over a hundred pounds.

“What do you think Fudgesicle is picking up?” asks O'Hara. “Popsicle's wallet?”

“No,” says K, “his phone.” The two watch the video a second time, and O'Hara closes her computer. She and Krekorian are parked just north of St. Mark's on Third Avenue. To afford a direct view of the spot where Hadass dropped off Fudgesicle the night before, they are facing south. Although Hadass declined the perp's offer to drive a second night, O'Hara and K have been staked out there since midnight, in the hope that another cabby will take him on his rounds, then deliver him to the same spot.

“I remember when this was a freak parade,” says Krekorian about the pedestrian traffic on St. Mark's. “Now it's college kids in flip-flops.”

“And have you seen the fucking Pinkberry next to Grassroots?” asks O'Hara. “Classic dive bars should get landmark status preventing anyone from selling frozen yogurt within fifty feet of them on either side.”

Despite the knee-jerk kvetching, O'Hara still appreciates the late-night hubbub of the downtown streets, still gets a kick out of the club kid working out his identity crisis in hot pants and platform sneakers. “I've been thinking,” she says, “about the cabby's description of the perp. His nonchalance, the way he didn't seem to give a fuck about anything. I'm pretty sure he's what Gypsies call
marime
. Like cops only hang with cops, Gypsies only hang with Gypsies, only it's much stricter. If you do something seriously wrong, you run the risk of
marime
. That means you're shunned, and banned from all contact. For a Gypsy, that's even worse than it would be for a cop, and that's how our perp is behaving, like a man with nothing to lose.”

“You were getting close,” says K, “so they cut him loose.”

“I think so. And now he's pushing back.”

A young musician walks by, carrying a guitar case.

“You never told me about Axl's show at Lakeside,” says Krekorian.

“It was great.”

“The kid has talent.”

“That's what I'm afraid of.”

The conversation turns O'Hara somber. She wonders if Axl will end up on
Behind the Music
or behind the counter of a Burger King. For a rocker, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot in between.

“Check it out,” says Krekorian. He points at the cab that's pulled to a stop on the east side of Third. The light on the roof switches from yellow to white, and after a long pause the back door opens on the traffic side. It takes another minute for a black porkpie hat to pop above the door and an immense rectangle of a man to emerge. As he walks around the back of the cab, he moves less like a person than a wave.

 

CHAPTER 59

FUDGESICLE LEANS OVER
a curbside counter, grabs a slice, and continues north, a paper plate folded in one hand, a Duane Reade shopping bag dangling from the other. He wears a white V-neck tee and light blue surgical scrubs, and O'Hara is amazed by how little attention an obese sociopath in a porkpie hat and translucent pants receives at 3:45 a.m. in the East Village on a summer night. For O'Hara the sight of the long-sought perp releases so much adrenaline, it's a struggle to think clearly, but to pedestrians, who surrender the curb to let him pass, he is a jet-lagged tourist who stepped out for a slice and a toothbrush, or a hospital orderly just off work. He doesn't rate a second look. O'Hara suspects the incongruous hipster lid is part of it. Somehow, it helps him blend in.

Moving directly toward them up Third, Fudgesicle appears smaller and larger than his description, more like five-nine than five-eleven but also significantly heavier, as if he's packed on another hundred pounds since the last entry into the database. His face is more bloated than in the picture, his eyes little more than slits, and, with those thirty-eight seconds of video fresh in her mind, there's something obscene about the laxness in his face and the way he's barely contained by his clothes.

“We got to call backup,” says Krekorian as he reaches into the glove compartment for the Taser, and attaches it to his belt. “He makes Goodman look like Buscemi. I don't think I'll be able to cuff him.”

“If the two of us can't arrest this load of shit, we should pack it in. He can barely walk.”

“He moved well enough to stomp his partner to death.”

“Let's see where he's headed. It's too crowded to grab him on the street anyway. Particularly if he's got a piece.”

When Fudgesicle gets within thirty feet, O'Hara and K scramble out of the car, and when he turns east on St. Mark's, they dodge the two-way traffic on Third and trail him from the north side of the street. From behind, Fudgesicle only appears to be rocking from side to side, his weight shifting from the outside of one green shoe to the other, yet somehow that propels him past a sunglass stall and a sports bar, where the jersey of the pitcher on TV is reflected in the window. A couple steps before Trash & Vaudeville, he turns his back on them again, and when he hitches up his pants and steps into the narrow entrance of the St. Marks Hotel, O'Hara sees that he's wearing lime green Crocs.

“So now we call backup,” says K.

For a second, O'Hara doesn't respond. She's back in Sarasota in the foul-smelling efficiency with the grifter mom, the man on the toilet, and the scruffy girl staring at the TV. It's doubtful that under any circumstances, O'Hara would have the wherewithal to twiddle her thumbs on the curb as the perp disappeared into the hotel, but after realizing that she had been within fifteen feet of him before, it's impossible.

“We do that,” says O'Hara, “brass will close off the whole street and turn a simple arrest into Iraq. I've been this close to this motherfucker for weeks. I'm not going wait around all night while they play soldier.”

“The perp's not going anywhere, Dar. We have time to do this right.”

“Let's give him five minutes to get to his room. We don't need a shootout in the lobby. Give him a chance to get separated from his gun, if he has one, maybe fall asleep. Then we go in and suss it out. If it's more than we can handle, we call in the cavalry.”

Although O'Hara's voice sounds reasonable, the words coming out of her mouth aren't, and even she knows it. For a couple minutes, the two stare across the street at the fleabag SRO turned cut-rate tourist motel, the more astute hustlers in the crowd noting the twin bulges beneath Krekorian's blazer.

Since logic didn't work, Krekorian appeals to her self-interest.

“We need someone to cover the exit. What if he makes us, goes out a back door, and hails a cab. I know you've been on this guy for a long time. All the more reason you don't want to be the one responsible for letting him slip away.”

“You're right,” says O'Hara, stepping off the curb and nearly into the path of an eastbound cab. “We got to go in now.”

 

CHAPTER 60

DESPITE O'HARA'S HEAD
start, Krekorian reaches the entrance ahead of her. His gun, already out of the holster, is against his hip. There's no space in the old flophouse for a lobby, just another corridor that runs past a tiny office to the ground-floor rooms. The night clerk, a short-haired woman, sits in front of a computer screen. A lip ring centers her earnest midwestern face and a vinelike tat crawls out from under her shirt at the elbow and neck.

As O'Hara displays her shield, she reads the girl's name on the tag pinned to her shirt. “Anna,” says O'Hara in a soft voice. “I'm Detective Darlene O'Hara, and this is my partner, Serge Krekorian. The large man who just entered the hotel fits the description of an important suspect. Did you see him go into his room?”

“There's nowhere else he could have gone.”

“How about a fire exit?”

“That would have set off an alarm.”

“Does his room have a window?”

“Not one that opens.”

“What room is he in?”

“One eleven,” she says, glancing at her screen. “Registered as Bob Geis.”

“Anyone with him?”

“No.”

“Has he had any visitors?”

“Not since I arrived at midnight.”

“How about the rooms next door and above him?” asks Krekorian. “Are they occupied?”

Anna looks at her screen and shakes her head. “We have fourteen guests tonight. Except for an elderly man at the other end of the hall, they are on the top two floors. Most guests request that, but we don't have an elevator.”

Krekorian, who now holds his gun in his jacket pocket, gestures at the computer. “Is there any way you can tell us what's going on in his room?”

“Only if he's on the phone or ordering a movie,” says Anna. “He's not.”

“We're going to take a look,” says O'Hara, and slips down the hallway so quickly Krekorian has to hustle to catch up.

“You're scaring me, Darlene. You're moving too fast. You don't have a plan.”

“My plan is to arrest this motherfucker and put him in the box. I have some questions to ask him.”

“You're not thinking straight.”

“Just want to take a look.”

The two follow the ratty red runner down the hallway. The city is sprinkled with fleabags transformed into cash cows with little more than paint and wallpaper, but here its humble history is particularly transparent. The only flourish is a couple Mediterranean window scenes in recessed spots on the wall. Room 111, the second to last on the right, has a red door and gold numbers. A
DO NOT DISTURB
sign hangs from the knob.

Krekorian pulls out his gun, and O'Hara puts her ear against the door. She can't hear a thing, but considering the number of rock shows she's attended and her notion that earplugs are for pussies, that doesn't mean much. She crouches at the foot of the door and presses her fingers against the synthetic fiber, trying to clear enough space below the door to see if the lights are on inside, but the rug is too thick. It's also damp, and when she glances up and mouths the word “wet” for Krekorian, she sees that the placard dangling off the knob is wet too.

While K guards the door, O'Hara goes back to the office and returns with a coded card she uses to unlock 113, the room next door. O'Hara sees why they only get $119 a night. It's barely big enough for a queen-size bed. Instead of a closet, there's a coffin-shaped frame against one wall with a couple hangers. Above the bed is a photo of an Italian village, and beside it, on a tiny table, a stack of tinfoil ashtrays. The bathroom has a shower in the corner and black-and-white tiles. When O'Hara leans against the tiles, she can hear the shower running next door. “The guy's in the shower,” she whispers when she steps back into the hallway.

“Maybe,” says K, his eyes dark and angry. “Or maybe he isn't. Maybe he's on the other side, waiting for us.”