First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery (27 page)

I left my microphone on mute, every once in a while coming back on to give Melvin an encouraging

“oh yes, sir, spank this bad boy’s tush,” or “oh, thank you sir, that hurts so good.”

I final y settled on
Cherry Garcia
and turned around to see the chubby but cute goateed young clerk was listening to my every word. He stared at me open-mouthed, his hands in his front pockets. I shrugged. He gave me a leering nod.

Sure enough, Melvin noisily reached his fulfil ment within five minutes. “Thank you very much,” he said formal y. “Sometimes after we talk, I can go a whole day or two without feeling il whenever I see my boss.”

“Glad to help,” I said. We disconnected.

“Wow,” said the clerk as he rang up my junk food orgy. “That sounded like … something.”

His forehead was beaded with sweat and his jeans made his excitement clear.

“It’s a living,” I answered.

“You into that stuff in real life?” he asked, looking at the bruise on my cheek.

“No,” I said, hoping he’d give me my change real y quickly.

He leaned over the counter and whispered, “I am.” He pul ed the col ar of his shirt down to show me that he was wearing a dog col ar. “Woof!”

I nodded appreciatively. “Good for you.” I almost added, “Fido,” but thought better of it.

“Maybe one day we could get together,” he said.

I put my hand out for the change. He handed it to me, his fingers lingering in my palm for a second too long.

“I’m kind of seeing someone right now,” I lied.

“Me, too,” he said. “But I think my mistress would like you, too.”

“Let me get back to you,” I said, thinking,
doesn’t
anyone have straight sex anymore?

I opened the door to my apartment, noticing that the lights and radio were on. “I’m home,” I shouted.

My mother emerged from her—my!—bedroom.

“Bubbie,” she said, “how was your day?” Then she looked at my cheek and gasped, “What happened?”

“Oh,” I said. “Would you believe a crazy man on the street just ran up to me and did that?” I took my wal et out of my pocket. “He didn’t even want my money. Just hit me and ran off.”

“Poor baby,” my mother said, taking my shopping bag from me. “Oh, look—ice cream!”

She never did suffer from an overabundance of maternal concern.

“Oh,” she said as we sat at the kitchen table eating ourselves into oblivion. “I think that bitch Dottie Kubacki had one of her friends cal here tonight.”

“What do you mean?” I mumbled though a mouthful of chocolate.

“I picked up the phone and this deep voice said,

‘Tel the whore to stay away from us or someone’s going to get hurt.’ Can you imagine her cal ing me a

‘whore’ when she’s the one fooling around with my husband? What a bitch.”

I was pretty sure the cal wasn’t meant for her.

“It was probably just a wrong number,” I told her.

“Or a prank cal . It doesn’t sound like Dottie’s style.”

“The woman almost shot you to death!”

“Yeah, but to be honest, she didn’t know it was me. And I was peeping into her window at the time.”

“I stil say that woman is capable of anything,” my mother grumbled.

Just then, a crashing noise came from the window. We both turned to look.

Gunshots!

“Get down!” I shouted at my mother.

“What?”

I threw myself in her lap, knocking both of us to the floor. “Someone’s shooting at us!” I cried.

Apparently, Michael Harrington wasn’t going to be satisfied with a warning delivered by phone.

“Ow!” my mother screamed.

“Mom!” I would never forgive myself if my mother got hurt because of my involvement with the Harringtons.

“My hip!” she moaned. “Ow!”

Shit, she’d been shot!

I looked at her. “I’l cal the cops,” I told her. I was about to crawl to the phone when I looked at her again. “I don’t see any blood.”

“Of course there’s no blood,” she said, standing up. “You just almost broke my hip with that meshuggana move you pul ed. Are you trying to kil me?”

“Get back down!” I shouted, pointing at the window where more bul ets struck the glass.

“Someone’s shooting at us!”

“Those aren’t gunshots,” my mother said.

They weren’t?

I listened again.

The sound was more of a tapping then a blasting.

Ooops. OK, maybe I did overreact. Had I taken my medicine today?

“Someone’s throwing something at the window,” she said. “Rocks or … pebbles. I haven’t heard that sound since …”

Hip hurting or not, she ran to the window like a schoolgirl. She flung it open and we heard him outside: “Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”

My father’s singing voice was legendarily bad, but my mother’s face glowed as if she was listening to Sinatra.

I joined her at the window. My father was standing on the street in a white tuxedo and tails. He held a bouquet of blood red roses. A white limousine was parked on the street behind him, the driver holding the door open.

A smal crowd gathered behind my father. More street theater. These are the moments New Yorkers live for.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair,” my father cal ed.

My mother blushed and waved him away.

“Come on,” a guy who looked like a construction worker (and was actual y pretty hot) cal ed out to her.

“Give da guy a break.”

“Come, fair lady, upon my glorious steed.” My father gestured towards the limo.

My mother blushed and put her hands on her cheeks.

A

fifty-something

African-American

woman

shouted at us, “Honey, if you don’t get your ass down here, I’m going with him!” The crowd laughed.

My mother turned to me. “What do I do?”

“Wel ,” I said, “you could hop on the fire escape and climb down, but since you’re wearing white slacks, I’d probably take the elevator.

“Should I forgive him?”

“I don’t think you have anything to forgive him for, Mom. He never laid a finger on Dottie Kubacki and you know it.”

My mother smiled wisely. “You see, what he’s doing now? I think this is what I needed.” My father began singing again “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do …”

My mother leaned out the window. “If I come down, wil you promise to stop singing?”

The crowd laughed.

“You cal this singing?” my father asked. More laughter.

“What I cal it,” my mother said, “is very sweet.” This time, the crowed “awwwed.”

“I’l be right down!” my mother shouted and she skipped—actual y skipped!—to the door. “I might not be back tonight!” she tril ed to me.

“You better not be back!” I cal ed back to her.

“I love you,” she said.

“Love you too, Mom.”

I watched for a minute as my mother emerged from the lobby door and ran into my father’s arms.

Given that she had at least thirty pounds on him, most of it in the bosom, I was surprised he didn’t fal over.

The crowd cheered. So did I.

And not just because I had my apartment back.

My father watched as the limo driver guided her into the backseat. When he closed her door, my father turned to me. “Not bad for an old man, huh?”

“I’m proud of you Dad,” I said, my eyes for some reason fil ing with tears. Must have been relief.

“Your old man, you have to admit, he’s stil got it,” my father said. “Now, you won’t miss her too much, wil you?”

“I’l survive.”

“You’re a good boy. Thanks for looking after her.”

“Thanks for taking her back!”

My father climbed into his seat and the limo took off. The crowd dispersed, except for Construction Guy who stayed looking at me. I looked back. I’d guess he was maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

Dark skin and dark eyes. Italian or Latino. Built like a tank.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I answered.

“Pretty crazy family you got dere.” His accent was pure Brooklyn.

I laughed. “Yeah, wel , they’re the only one I have.”

“So tel me, cutie,” he yel ed up. “Think I could get you to throw down your golden locks, too?” It was tempting. God knows I deserved something fun after the day I had. “It’s not a good time,” I said.

He pointed to my cheek. “I can see that.” I chuckled. “Believe it or not, that’s the least of my problems.”

“Sounds like you could use a good massage.” He winked, grinning at the obvious lasciviousness of his suggestion.

That sounded good. “Some other time?”

“Real y?” he said. He grinned ear to ear. Damn, he was cute.

I realized I spent the past few years waiting for Tony or having sex for money.

It had been a long time since I dated an attractive boy just for the sake of a date.

“Sure,” I said, reassuring him as much as me. “I’d like that.”

“One second,” he said. With a great leap, he jumped up and launched himself onto the railing of the fire escape. He pul ed himself up to the first floor landing. “I’l be right dere.”

Monkey-like, he climbed the metal structure, displaying a natural grace and limberness that belied his muscular build. In a minute, he was standing by my window.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” Up close, he was a total snack. “That was pretty slick.”

“Wel .” He cocked his head, “I’m a pretty slick guy.”

“I’m Kevin,” I said.

“Romeo,” he put out his hand.

“You’re kidding.”

“What?”

“You just climbed onto my ‘balcony’ and your name is ‘Romeo?’”

He shrugged. “That’s what they cal ed me. Romeo Raul Romero.”

I bit my tongue. “That’s quite a name.”

“Yeah, my parents real y had a hard-on for de letter R, huh?”

I smiled. “It’s a very handsome name, Romeo. It fits you.”

“Ya think?” He leaned in closer.

“Uh-huh.” I leaned in a little, too.

Romeo planted one on my lips.

In the movie
Norma Rae,
Sal y Fields is being pursued by an unattractive but intriguingly-Semitic liberal activist played by Ron Leibman. Just in case his every characteristic and frequent use of Yiddish wasn’t enough to let you know he was Jewish, they saddled him with the name Reuben Warshowsky.

In any case, at one point Rueben expresses his sexual interest in her. She kisses him, explaining that if the kiss is good, the rest wil fol ow.

If she was right, then Romeo was real y, real y good.

I know, it seems crazy that after the day I’d just had I’d be standing by my window under a ful moon being kissed by a beautiful stranger who scaled my fire escape. But on the other hand, would I ever get a better excuse for acting a little crazy?

You know what they say: When God closes a door, he opens a window.

I just happened to be kissing a dark-skinned boy with biceps the size of my thighs through that window right now.

I pul ed away. “That was nice.”

Romeo raised his eyebrows. “It gets better.”

“I bet. One second.” I got a pad and pencil. “Can I have your number?”

He wrote it down for me.

“OK, Romeo,” I said, “I have to crash.”

“If you don’t cal ,” he warned, “I’m gonna be back out here in a white suit with flowers and a limo. And I’m gonna sing. If that’s what it takes.”

“How’s your singing?”

“My kissing’s better.”

I smiled. “Next time. Maybe I’l even let you use the front door.”

His face grew serious. He put his hand on my cheek. “Did a guy do this to you? Cause I’l fuck him up if you want me to.”

“No.” I told him the lie about the stranger on the street.

“A cute little guy like you needs some protection,” Romeo told me. “I wouldn’t mind looking out for you.

If you wanted me to, dat is.”

“I take pretty good care of myself,” I said. “But I can always use a friend.”

Romeo extended his hand. “Friends, then. At least to start.”

“Friends.” We shook hands.

“OK,” I said, pushing him back. “I’l cal you.” Romeo leapt up, grabbing a rung on the fire escape above me. He showed off with an effortless pul -up.

“I’l be waiting,” he said. He dropped back down, and ran down the fire escape, jumping off the last landing and landing cat-like on the pavement.

“Good night, cute Kevin,” he cal ed.

I waved goodbye and closed the window.

I cal ed Freddy and told him about my parents’

reconciliation and my flirtation with Romeo.

“Wow,” said Freddy. “That could be two times in one month you get laid without getting paid.”

“Ha ha,” I said, thinking that counting my last encounter with Marc Wilgus, it would actual y be three.

“No, I think that’s great. You have to wash that cop right out of your hair, darling. Ow! Watch the teeth!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing, I was just saying that you’ve already gotten over Tony once. Just move on.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I said more confidently than I felt.

“That’s my boy. I’m very proud of—hey, what did I tel you about those teeth?”

“Umm, do you by any chance have someone there?”

“The boy from the coffee shop tonight,” Freddy said. “I think he’s part vampire.” I heard a muffled defense in the background.

“No, dear, those aren’t ‘love bites,’” Freddy said to his guest. “Love bites don’t break the skin. And it’s too hot to wear a turtleneck, so watch the hickeys, too. Mmm, that’s better.” To me: “So, what’s your next move.”

“Why don’t we talk tomorrow?” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt.”