First Avenue (15 page)

Maria was the only passenger who got off the Number 7 bus at Third Avenue and Pike Street. Her newly plaited braids of black hair bounced against the back of her neck as her feet struck the sidewalk.

The Donut Shop was the only business on
Pike Street
that was lit brightly. She peered into the window and saw
Pierre
in the back beside the doughnut machine. She knocked on the glass door—too timidly for him to hear. She knocked a second time, more forcefully, and stood on her toes to make it easier for him to see her. He scowled as he looked toward her. He seemed surprised when she raised her hand and waved, but he was not surprised enough to erase the other expression completely.

When he unlocked the door, a boy about seventeen or eighteen stepped forward from a small group of kids who were standing at the rounded curb where it connected
First Avenue
and Pike.

“Are you open?” the boy asked.

“No,”
Pierre
said roughly. “It’s too early.”

“Got any doughnuts left over?”

“Sure, I got doughnuts. I don’t see you before. You got any money to pay?”

“We heard you give them away sometimes.”

“So you heard that? You heard
Pierre
gives away food?”

He spoke as if he were talking about someone else. Large sweat rings stained the armpits of his white shirt. She smelled the odor of his body in the open air. The boy asking for doughnuts did not come closer, nor did he answer
Pierre
.

“You wait here,”
Pierre
said. “I’ll find some for you. You come in,” he said to
Maria
. “I’ll show you where they are.”

Maria squeezed past him through the door. Once inside she stood away from him.
Pierre
closed the door and walked toward the kitchen.

“Back here,” he directed.

He opened the glass door of the doughnut case and put doughnuts into a paper bag with his bare hand. When the bag was full, he wiped his hands on his pants and handed it to her.

“Give this to him. All these free doughnuts. They will make me a poor man.”

She didn’t want to take the bag. It seemed unclean. She had no choice, however, unless she was prepared to walk past the boy and down the street again. It was only a paper bag, she reasoned. She took it from
Pierre
and walked to the door. She opened it and stuck the bag outside. The boy took it without saying a word, and his party followed him down
First Avenue
.

“Lock the door,”
Pierre
told her.

She turned the thumb latch and heard the metal click into place.

“You come too early,” he said as she walked slowly toward the back where he waited. “I don’t pay until six.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll start early.”

“You can dump those old doughnuts into the garbage.” He pointed to the case where he had gotten the doughnuts that would make him a poor man. “I have new pans ready.”

“Do you want me to clean the glass first?”

“Sure, why not. There’s soap in the back. Then you can clean the tables. We open at six.”

She found a rubber dish tub beneath the sink and rinsed it under the tap. Then she filled it with hot water, squirted dish detergent into it, and carried it to the doughnut case. She emptied and refilled the tub two more times before she finished. She took a fresh tub of water to the dining room and wiped down the tables that were still dirty from the day before. Without asking she got a broom from the back and swept the floor. The speckled white tile became marginally cleaner. It should be mopped, but there wasn’t enough time before they opened.

As she swept the floor, she heard the sound of engines rise and fall in time with the traffic light that hung suspended over the center of the intersection. Was one of the engines a police car? Was he out there now? She put her face close to the window so that it shaded the glass from the fluorescent kitchen lights and looked across the street to the old buildings where the street ended.

Six o’clock came and
Pierre
did not unlock the door. A customer pushed on it, expecting it to open.
Pierre
ignored him and continued making doughnuts. She busied herself away from the door so that customers would not look toward her. At fifteen minutes after six
Pierre
turned on the front lights and unlocked the door.

Their first customers were not customers. A dozen or more kids like those who had waited outside filed in and spread out among the empty tables. None came to the counter to order anything.
Pierre
watched them but said nothing. They divided into small groups. There seemed to be friction among several of them, and their language was often crude.

Pierre showed her how the cash register worked and stood beside her while she made the first sale. It was very simple. She didn’t need him to stand so close. Besides working the counter, she was to make coffee and keep the tables clean. None of the kids spoke to her, but she knew they were watching.

Outside, the buses began passing in large numbers. From the north and south, passengers got off at the corner. Some transferred to other buses. Some, working people who carried black lunch buckets or paper lunch sacks, came inside the Donut Shop and picked up a doughnut and a cup of coffee to go. They viewed the kids suspiciously.
Maria
wondered why
Pierre
allowed them to stay. They occupied the tables and bought nothing in return. He didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would let them stay for nothing.

Each time the door opened, she prepared her smile and felt both dismay and relief that it was not the policeman. Sometimes a customer would smile back at her. More often they would not look at her long enough to see her smile or to respond.

She realized she didn’t know the color of his eyes. The picture in the book was black and white. The other was too far away. He might have changed from the picture. He might have gotten fat or lost his hair. His smile might be different. If he walked through the door, she might not even recognize him.

That was one reason not to tell her father about the job. She wouldn’t want to explain how she would recognize the policeman. Her father would never understand. She could imagine his reaction. “A job? Where? For what?” That was no way to meet him. “How much will you see if he comes in for a few minutes?” he would ask. What if he doesn’t come in at all? She could hear his arguments as if she had thought of them herself.

She wished
Pierre
would stop watching her all the time. He must think she was going to steal his money. Would it help if she told him the truth, if she told him she would work for nothing? Somehow she didn’t think it would help.

She recognized the old man who closed the door carefully behind him. He had been a customer the day before when she had been the customer, too. He lost his balance for a moment when he turned from the door and changed his direction toward the counter. She was afraid the foot of one young boy might trip him, but the boy pulled his foot out of the aisle just before the old man passed.

“I’m glad to see you back again, young lady,” he told her. “Have you had a vacation?” He smiled at her practiced smile. He had missed a portion of his cheek in shaving.

“I think you have me mixed up with somebody else,”
Maria
said. “I just started today.”

The old man studied her face more carefully.

“Oh yes, I guess I have.”

“What would you like this morning, sir?”

“A cup of coffee would be good. Oh yes, and one of those twisted things. I like those in the morning.”

Maria opened the doughnut case and selected the largest cinnamon twist. She put it on a small paper plate, then poured coffee into a plastic cup from the fresher of the two pots warming on the burners. The old man counted change from his coin purse and put the coins on the counter.

“I believe that is the correct amount,” he said.

“Yes. Why don’t you sit down, sir. I’ll bring these to you.”

“Why, thank you. I’ll just sit right over here.”

He headed for the table closest to the counter.
Maria
followed him with the coffee and twisted doughnut. If she ever told her father about the job, she could say she took it to help old men to their tables.

Sam waited until seven o’clock to take the boxes to Mr. and
Mrs.
Sanchez
.
Sanchez
was at the door, as though he had not moved from it, dressed in the same faded denim shirt as the day before. This time
Sam
did not feel like an intruder.

Mr.
Sanchez
moved one of the two chairs close to the bed and sat down on the bed beside his wife.
Sam
sat in the chair. Already they knew their places.

“Baby
Olivia
was not abused,” he began. “She died from dehydration, from lack of water.”

Sanchez translated to his wife. She nodded slowly that she understood and
Sam
continued.

“We don’t know any more about
Alberta
. She is still missing, but as I said before, I fear something has happened.”

Again he watched the translation and the solemn nod of understanding. How much more could they take? The process was only beginning. For them it had begun much earlier, he reminded himself.

“I have papers here for you to sign to receive the body. I’m going to tell you that I think it would be a good idea to have the body cremated before you go back home.
Olivia
has been dead a long time.”

It was a suggestion presented at the Coroner’s Office by the deputy in charge.
Sam
was grateful for it. He realized that if the Sanchezes saw the decomposed and surgically mutilated body, they might never have peace again. He could tell from the tone of her voice that
Mrs.
Sanchez
opposed the idea, but then
Mr.
Sanchez
spoke again and it seemed that the grotesqueness became clear to her. Reluctantly she agreed. Baby
Olivia
would be cremated.

“I have a photocopy of a picture of
Alberta
and the baby,”
Sam
said. He removed a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket.
Markowitz
had given it to him earlier in the morning.

He unfolded it and handed the photocopy to
Mrs.
Sanchez
, who took it from him as delicately as she would a sacred document. She held it with the tips of her fingers and then gently touched the faces of the mother and baby as though she were trying to feel more than a flat, unresponsive surface.
Mr.
Sanchez
looked away with tears in his eyes, but for the longest time
Mrs.
Sanchez
did not move her gaze from the picture. When she did, she was more composed than he thought possible.

“It’s the only picture we found. I’ll make sure you get the original when the investigation is over.”

“And that will take some time?”
Sanchez
asked.

“Yes. I’m afraid so. There is a good man in charge. Detective Markowitz. You met him.”

“Yes,”
Sanchez
said, “and you. You will look after this, too.”

“Yes,”
Sam
said. In their trust they reminded him of his parents.

“I have these forms,” he said, wanting to move away from such thoughts. “You must sign them to approve the cremation.” He flipped through pages on his clipboard and pulled the forms from below. He had not wanted them on top. “It can be done this afternoon. I can arrange that, if you’d like, and bring the ashes back here to you.”