Fade Away (1996) (12 page)

'Go ahead.'

'The call at nine eighteen p.m. came from a public phone located in a diner near Dyckman Street and Broadway,' she said.

'Isn't that up near Two Hundredth Street?'

'I think so. You want the phone number?'

Carla had called Greg from a diner on 200th Street? Weirder and weirder.

'If you have it.'

She gave it to him. 'Hope that helps.'

'It does, Lisa. Thanks.' He held up the paper to Esperanza. 'Lookie what I got,' he said. 'A real live clue.'

To be fair, the Parkview Diner lived up to its name. You did indeed have a view of Lieutenant William Tighe Park across the street; it was smaller than the average backyard with shrubs so high you really couldn't see the landscaped garden within. A wire-mesh fence enclosed the grounds. Hung on the fence in several places were signs that read in big, bold letters: do not feed the rats. No joke. In smaller print the warning was repeated in Spanish: No Des Comida a Las Ratas. The signs had been placed there by a group calling itself the Quality of Life Zone. Myron shook his head. Only in New York would this be a problem - people who could not contain themselves from the seductive lure of feeding vermin. Myron glanced again at the sign, then the diner. Rats. Quite the appetite-enhancer.

He crossed the street. Two levels above the Parkview Diner, a dog squeezed his head through the grates of a fire escape and barked at passing pedestrians. The Parkview's green overhang was ripped in several spots. The letters were faded to the point of unintelligibility, and the support pole was bent so far that Myron had to duck to get to the door. There was a poster of a gyro sandwich in the window. Today's specials, according to a blackboard in the same window, included eggplant parmigiana and chicken a la king.

The soup was beef consomme. There were permits from the City of New York Department of Buildings stuck on the door like car-inspection decals.

Myron entered and was immediately greeted by the familiar yet nonspecific smell of a Manhattan diner. Fat was in the air. Taking a deep breath felt as if it would clog an artery. A waitress with hair bleached to the point of straw offered him a table. Myron asked her for the manager. Using her pencil she pointed over her shoulder at a man behind the counter.

'That's Hector,' she said. 'He owns the place.'

Myron thanked her and grabbed a soda-fountain stool at the counter. He debated spinning himself in the seat and decided the act might be viewed as immature. Two stools to his right, an unshaven, perhaps homeless man with black Thorn McAn sneakers and a tattered overcoat smiled and nodded. Myron nodded and smiled back. The man went back to his coffee.

He raised his shoulders and huddled into the drink as though he suspected someone might try to swipe it in mid-sip.

Myron picked up a vinyl menu with cracked binding. He opened it but didn't really read it. There were a lot of worn index cards jammed into protective plastic cases announcing various specials. Worn was an apt description of the Parkview Diner, but it didn't fairly convey the overall impression. There was something welcoming and even clean about this place. The counter gleamed. So did the utensils and the silver milkshake maker and the soda fountain. Most patrons read a newspaper or gabbed with one another as if they were eating at home. They knew their waitress's name, and you could bet your last dollar she didn't introduce herself and tell them she was going to be their server when they first sat down.

Hector the owner was busy at the grill. Almost two p.m. It wasn't the height of the lunch hour, but business was still pretty brisk. He barked out some orders in Spanish, his eyes never leaving the food. Then he turned around with a polite smile, wiped his hands on a rag, and asked Myron if he could help him. Myron asked if he had a pay phone.

'No, sir, I'm sorry,' Hector answered. The Hispanic accent was there, but Hector had worked on it. 'There's one on the street corner. On the left.'

Myron looked at the number Lisa had given him. He read it out loud.

Hector did several things at the same time. He flipped burgers, folded over an omelette, checked the french fries. His eyes were everywhere -- the cash register, the clientele at both the tables and the counter, the kitchen to his left.

'Oh that,' Hector said. 'It's in the back. In the kitchen.'

'The kitchen?'

'Yes, sir.' Still polite.

'A pay phone in the kitchen?'

'Yes, sir,' Hector said. He was on the short side, thin under his white apron and polyester black pants. His nose had been broken several times.

His forearms looked like steel cords. 'It's for my staff.'

'Don't you have a business phone?'

'Of course we do.' His voice spiked up a bit now, as if the question was an insult. 'We do a big takeout and delivery business here. Lots of people order lunch from us. We have a fax machine too. But I don't want my staff tying up the lines, you know? You get a busy signal, you give your business to someone else, yes? So I put a pay phone in the back.'

'I see.' An idea came to Myron. 'Are you telling me customers never use it?'

'Well, sir, if a customer truly insists, I would never refuse him.' The practiced politeness of a good businessman. 'The customer must come first at the Parkview. Always.'

'Has a customer ever insisted?'

'No, sir. I don't think any customers even know we have it.'

'Can you tell me who was using the pay phone at nine eighteen p.m. last Saturday?'

That question got his attention. 'Excuse me?' Myron started to repeat the question but Hector interrupted him. 'Why would you want to know that?'

'My name is Bernie Worley,' Myron said. 'I'm a product supervising agent with AT&T.' A product what? 'Somebody is trying to cheat us, sir, and we are not happy about it.'

'Cheat you?'

'AY511.'

'A what?'

'A Y511,' Myron repeated. You start tossing the bull, your best bet is to just keep tossing. 'It's an electronic monitoring device built in Hong Kong.

It's new on the market, but we're onto it. Sold on the streets. Somebody used one on your phone at nine eighteen p.m. on March eighteenth of this year. They dialed Kuala Lumpur and spoke for nearly twelve minutes.

The total cost of the call is twenty-three dollars and eighty-two cents, but the fine for using a Y511 will be at least seven hundred dollars with the potential for up to one year in prison. Plus we'll have to remove the phone.'

Hector's face became a mask of pure panic. 'What?' Myron wasn't thrilled with what he was doing - scaring an honest, hardworking immigrant like this - but he knew that the fear of government or big business would work in a situation like this. Hector turned around and shouted something in Spanish to a teenager who looked like him. The teenager took over the grill. 'I don't understand this, Mr Worley.'

'It's a public phone, sir. You just admitted to a product supervising agent that you used the public phones for private use; that is, for your employees only and denying public access. This violates our own code, section one twenty-four B. I wouldn't report it normally, but when you add in the use 0faY511--'

'But I didn't use a Y511!'

'We don't know that, sir.' Myron was playing Mr Bureaucrat to the hilt; nothing made a person feel more impotent. There is no darker pit than the blank stare of a bureaucrat. 'The phone is on your premises,' Myron continued in a bored singsong voice. 'You just explained to me that the phone was only used by your employees--'

'Exactly!' Hector leaped. 'By my employees! Not me!'

But you own this establishment. You are responsible.' Myron looked around with his best, bored expression - the one he learned while waiting on line at the Division of Motor Vehicles. 'We'll also have to check out the status of all your employees. Maybe we can find the culprit that way.'

Hector's eyes grew big. Myron knew this would hit home. There wasn't a restaurant in Manhattan that didn't employ at least one illegal alien.

Hector's jowls slackened. 'All this,' he said, 'because someone used a pay Phone?'

'What someone did, sir, was use an illegal electronic device known as a Y511. What you did, sir, was refuse to cooperate with the product supervising agent investigating this serious matter.'

'Refuse to cooperate?' Hector was grasping at the possible life preserver Myron had offered up. 'No, sir, not me. I want to cooperate. I want to very much.'

Myron shook his head. 'I don't think you do.'

Hector bit down and set his polite meter on extra-strength now. 'No, sir,' he said. 'I want to help very much. I want to cooperate with the phone company. Tell me what I can do to help. Please.'

Myron sighed, gave it a few seconds. The diner bustled. The cash register dinged while the guy who looked homeless with the Thorn McAn sneakers picked out greasy coins from a dirty hand. The griddle sizzled. The aroma from the various foods battled each other for dominance with none winning outright. Hector's face grew more and more anxious. Enough, Myron thought. 'For starters, you can tell me who was using the pay phone at nine eighteen p.m. last Saturday.'

Hector held up a finger imploring patience. He shouted something in Spanish to the woman (Mrs Hector maybe?) working the cash register. The woman shouted something back. She closed the drawer and walked toward them. As she drew closer, Myron noticed that Hector was suddenly giving him an odd look. Was he starting to see through Myron's rather husky load of bull-dooky? Perhaps. But Myron looked back at him steadily and Hector quickly backed down. He might be suspicious, but not suspicious enough to risk offending the all-powerful bureaucrat by questioning his authority.

Hector whispered something to the woman. She urgently whispered back. He made an understanding 'ah' noise. Then he faced Myron and shook his head.

'It figures,' he said.

'What?'

'It was Sally.'

'Who?'

'At least I think it was Sally. My wife saw her on the phone around then.

But she said she was only on for a minute or two.'

'Does Sally have a last name?'

'Guerro.'

'Is she here now?'

Hector shook his head. 'She hasn't been here since Saturday night. That's what I mean by figures. She gets me in trouble and then she runs out.'

'Has she called in sick?'

'No, sir. She just up and left.'

'You got an address on her?' Myron asked.

'I think so, let me see.' He pulled out a big carton that read 'Snapple Peach Ice Tea' on the side. Behind him, the griddle hissed when fresh pancake batter touched down upon the hot metal. The files in the box were neat and color coded. Hector pulled one out and opened it. He shuffled through the sheets, found the one he was looking for, and frowned.

'What?' Myron prompted.

'Sally never gave us an address,' Hector said.

'How about a phone number?'

'No.' He looked up, remembering something. 'She said she didn't have a phone. That's why she was using the one in the back so much.'

'Could you tell me what Ms Guerro looked like?' Myron tried.

Hector suddenly looked uncomfortable. He glanced at his wife and cleared his throat. 'Uh, she had brown hair,' he began. 'Maybe five-four, five-five. Average height, I guess.'

'Anything else?'

'Brown eyes, I think.' He stopped. 'That's about it.'

'How old would you say she was?'

Hector checked the file again. 'According to this, she was forty-five. That sounds about right.'

'How long has she worked here?' he asked.

'Two months.'

Myron nodded, rubbed his chin vigorously. 'It sounds like an operative who goes by the name of Carla.'

'Carla?'

'A notorious phone fraud,' Myron continued. 'We've been after her for a while.' He glanced left, then right. Trying to look conspiratorial. 'Have you ever heard her use the name Carla or hear someone call her Carla?'

Hector looked at his wife. She shook her head. 'No, never.'

'Did she have any visitors? Any friends?'

Again Hector checked with his wife. Again the head shook. 'No, none that we ever saw. She kept to herself most of the time.'

Myron decided to push a little further and confirm what he already knew.

If Hector balked at this stage, so what? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

He leaned forward; Hector and his wife did likewise. 'This may sound insensitive,' Myron whispered, 'but was this woman large chested?'

Both nods were immediate. 'Very large,' Hector said.

Suspicion confirmed.

He asked a few more questions, but any useful information had already been culled from these waters. Before leaving, he told them that they were in the clear and could continue to violate code section 124B without fear.

Hector almost kissed his hand. Myron felt like a louse. What did you do today, Batman? Well, Robin, I started off by terrorizing a hardworking immigrant's livelihood with a bunch of lies. Holy Cow, Batman, you're the coolest! Myron shook his head. What to do for an encore - throw empty beer bottles at the dog on the fire escape?

Myron exited the Parkview Diner. He debated going to the park across "e street, but suppose he became overcome by a lustful need to feed rats?