Fresh Kills (24 page)

I knew if I went to Shank's place, he'd slam the door on me if I was lucky, or stick a knife in my neck. I needed a line through to him. Farone Sr in Florida was Shank's friend, which left Farone's daughters, Johnny's sisters. Donna lived with the old man and I didn't trust her any more than I trusted him. There was another sister named Tina, like the mother. She lived on Long Island some place – Rockville Center, somewhere like that.

Tina was listed under her own name. I was pretty surprised when a girl answered, said she was Tina's daughter, Sara; she recognized my name and gave me her mother's cell. She sounded nice, a nice kid with a sweet voice, and it came like a kind of balm, the mood I was in, the things that were happening. Finally, I got lucky.

Tina Farone – they used to call her Little Tina because it was also her mother's name – was at Johnny's restaurant in Brooklyn having cocktails with some girlfriends when she answered my call and she said she'd wait for me and we could have a cup of coffee or something.

She was as sweet as her daughter had been on the phone, voice, face, demeanor, everything. Sitting opposite me at Johnny Farone's restaurant, sipping a mojito, Tina answered my questions easily. Smiled easily. I'd never met anyone with less guile.

Younger than Johnny, she was blonde and blue-eyed, and wearing a sky blue cotton summer dress. She was probably in her late thirties, maybe early forties, and I'd met her a few times at family affairs – the last time had been Billy's First Communion – but I'd never really talked to her. I ordered a beer. The waiter brought it and brought Tina another drink.

“I don't even like these things that much,” said Tina holding up her mojito. “They're supposed to be cool. How can I help, Artie?”

“You talked to your brother? He's OK, you know. Safe.”

“Yeah, I didn't even know Johnny had gone to London until he called me. I try to stay in touch, but we don't see each other much, hardly ever, truthfully speaking. It makes me sad, Artie.”

“You don't have to explain,” I said. “Poor bastard. Genia's hysterical about London, and she says she's not getting on a plane.”

“You want to know what I think, I think Genia's hysterical because Billy boy's in New York and she's scared of seeing him,” Tina said. “She was always so crazy about that boy that when the thing happened, it made her nuts. I don't mean to say anything bad about Gen, so I mean like off balance, you know?”

“You knew Billy was here?”

“Johnny told me.”

“Billy's good. He's with me.”

“I'm so glad,” Tina said. “But something's wrong, which is why you called me, is that right? Anything, Artie. Really.”

I leaned forward. “You know the Shank family at all? Stan Shank.”

“I knew them,” said Tina. “My father and mother were all tied up with them back when, very pally. You met my mother?”

I nodded.

“I try not to feel bitter,” Tina said. “My mom had me very
late in her life and it was a bad birth and she didn't want me at all, even though they named me for her, which I also hated because they called me Little Tina. You remember? They called Johnny ‘Junior', and me Little Tina and we hated how we were named for our parents.

“I knew my ma didn't want me from an early age, I used to hear her yell at my dad, but they were Catholics, you know, she got pregnant, in those days what could they do? When I was fourteen, I just thought to myself, get over it, Tina. Just get over hating your family, and I got myself accepted at a boarding school, it was Catholic but I had worked out that it had a kind of liberal faculty, which my parents didn't know existed. All I said was it was Catholic and some of the teachers were nuns, so everybody was like oh, this is great, Little Tina is a good girl, maybe she'll become a nun or something.” Tina picked up a glass of water on the table and drank it in a few gulps.

“I left home and that was it,” she said. “In college I met a boy from out west. For a while I wanted to be like a rodeo rider, I swear to God, don't laugh, and I went and worked out west, and wore stupid hats, and great outfits with chaps and spangles. I wasn't bad but every time I opened my mouth, they knew I was from Brooklyn, and it didn't play that great, even if I looked pretty good in the hats. They tried making it work calling me The Bucking Brooklyn Babe. No one bought it.” She laughed.

“What about the boy?”

“We got married, we got divorced. I'm married to a great guy now, who is not from the west. Mack's a dentist on Long Island, and he's a nice Jewish man who's happy for me to keep my own name which my mother never forgave me for, the Jewish part, and I have a great daughter – you talked to Sara – but yeah, I knew the Shanks some.”

“What do you know?”

“I knew that Stan Shank and my old man were tight, they'd been cops together,” said Tina. “They did business together, not entirely kosher, I'm pretty sure of that; they ran things in this part of Brooklyn. They weren't real players, they did little deals, electronics, toys, stuff they said fell off the back of a truck, stuff like that, and they could be harsh if someone got in their way. Cops that didn't play ball with them. Black people who had the temerity to show up over in Howard Beach to do business. It was the Russians they hated, though, because the Russians moved into Brooklyn, and they were smarter than my dad and Shank.” Tina clasped her hands together on the table.

“So they took it out on their own women. My mom is half Polish, which my father claimed was the same as Russian, and Shank's stepmother was Russian, she's dead now, and her and his pop, who is also dead, thank Christ, had Herschel. They called him Heshey.”

“Go on.”

“Weird thing is Stan Shank also married a Russian. It was some kind of bond with those men, they married Russians and they got off on making fun of them and the women took it because they were immigrants and they thought, what else could they do, you know? My old man's in Florida. Shank's retired. Thank God. There were others.”

“Shank had kids?”

“A boy that died, and a girl. Debbie. It made him crazy the boy died. God knows why, the boy had Down's syndrome and no one ever talked about it.”

“You knew her? You knew Debbie?”

“Yes. She was OK, younger than me; I used to babysit her back when. I heard after she finished high school, she beat it. Went to live in Italy or something.”

“You kept in touch?”

“I'll see if I can get a number.”

“Anything else about your father?”

“Son of a bitch just sits in Florida and drools.” Tina looked at her water glass. “What's going on, Artie, honey? Is this about Billy?”

“If you can get that number, that'd be great. Tina, how come they let Billy visit with your old man in Florida?”

She looked into her glass, then picked up her purse, extracted a lipstick and a compact and began fixing her mouth.

“It was never little boys they wanted, you know? They didn't touch the boys,” said Tina softly. “My father adored Billy and Billy was crazy for him. They went fishing and stuff, he was a great cuddly granddad for the kid. You knew my mother threw my pop out of the house after forty-seven years because he was supposedly feeling up little girls?”

“I knew.”

“I don't think him and the others had sex with kids or whatever, I just think they liked looking, maybe they felt them up if they got a chance,” Tina said. “Which was plenty bad enough. Those men thought they were like little dolls, you know. I heard they figured if they were tender with them, or whatever, if they didn't hurt them, or what they figured was hurting them, it didn't matter. It was like they were playing with them in their old man's fucked-up view.”

“How do you know?”

“Like I said, I heard. I picked up stuff my mother told me. I put stuff together. I knew about those little girls.”

“Including you?”

“Not me. Never. Thank God.”

“Your sister, Donna?”

“I don't think about it. Donna, who should have been a nun or a saint, took the old man on when my mother threw him out.”

“What about Shank's daughter?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure the men got to Debbie,” said Tina.
“She was only a little kid. I should have done something. Is Billy in trouble?”

“I don't know for sure. Someone doesn't like it that he's home for a while,” I said, then wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

“I think I know how to reach Debbie Shank. Give me your numbers, Artie,” Tina gathered up her purse, rose, hugged me and started for the door slowly, all the brightness gone. I went with her.

“Where is Billy now?” she said. “Maybe you should be with him. Artie, I don't want to alarm you and I don't know anything, but I would be with him all the time, at least until Johnny gets back from London, you know? Shank's a bastard. He made his half brother Heshey's death into a cause.”

“Billy's safe on Staten Island with friends.”

We went out to the parking lot and as Tina got into her car, I wondered if I should have told her anything about Billy at all. I called out but Tina was already pulling away in her SUV and she didn't hear me or pretended not to.

I got in my car and for a few blocks I followed Tina, wondering who she talked to. She was the only person I ever heard call Billy “Billy boy”. Except for her father in Florida.

The deserted dead-end street on Staten Island, which seemed to be full of dead-end streets, was where I got lost after I took a wrong turn not far from Hank Provone's place. I wanted to see Billy. I didn't like the way Tina Farone had called him “Billy boy”, and I wanted him with me. Wanted to take him back to the city with me. Keep him safe. My car was making crazy noises and I hit the brakes and got out.

My head under the hood, me poking around in the engine – pointless, but I figured I'd give it a shot – someone kicked the backs of my knees so hard my legs buckled and I folded up on the ground and lay there. It was sudden. It came out of no place and for a split second I wondered if I was dead before I blacked out.

While I was lying on my side, he kicked me again. Kidneys, I thought, and I went out again. There was nothing, no threat, no dread, no anticipation, just a sudden overwhelming, blinding pain, and another blow, and then the feeling that my guts had wrenched themselves loose, and I was falling and then nothing. I seemed to spin down into a black hole.

I didn't know if I was out for sixty seconds or an hour, I
didn't know if I was bleeding inside. My hand reached out for something to hold on to, and I managed to grasp the fender of my car. I didn't have the strength to hang on, my hand fell back, my whole body trembled, burning, bruised, the worst pain I'd ever felt. When I opened my eyes, I was lying next to my car, the pain so intense I had to close them again.

Where was I? In a way I didn't really care because my whereabouts seemed a lot less interesting than a way to ease the pain. I tried to roll over and tears poured out of my eyes. I waited. I smelled the faint, green smell of fresh-cut grass. It was drizzling, and the rain and tears ran down my face. When I opened my eyes again, I didn't know if I was asleep or not, or unconscious, but the only thing I thought about, the only person I wanted, was Lily.

Where the hell was Billy? I was hallucinating now, or was I? I couldn't remember where I had left him, and I didn't know if he was alone or if someone had snatched him off the street. The panic made it hard to breath. My stomach clenched up like I was going to vomit.

The rain that fell was erratic and thin, as if God, like an old man, got up in the night to piss on me. It was getting dark. My head hurt, and I couldn't concentrate, and I thought about believing in God, and wished I could. Somehow I crawled into my car. When I tried to turn the key my hand was shaking too hard. I waited.

In the glove compartment I found a half-empty bottle of Poland Spring and a plastic jar of Advil and I took four of them, figuring it would ease the pain enough so I could drive. I managed to start the car up.

I backed out carefully as I could, turned the car around, tried to get my bearings, tried to figure out if it was one of Stan Shank's creeps who kicked the crap out of me, when I knew what was happening: Shank's plan wasn't to hurt Billy; it was to set Billy up. Shank wanted to prove Billy was bad, get Billy
arrested, sent away for good, maybe to avenge Shank's half brother Heshey, maybe because Shank was a vicious bastard.

Little Tina Farone or her old friend Debbie Shank might give me something I could use against Shank, though I wasn't sure about Tina at all now. Shank and his crowd wanted Billy gone or dead and they'd do anything, hurt anyone to make sure it happened. And that included me. Mainly me. Billy wasn't safe without me. He wasn't safe with me.

“He's not here,” said Mary Provone, who was standing at her sink, rinsing dishes, chatting with Stellene who was at the kitchen table. “You look like shit, Artie, sit down for God's sake. Stellene, get him a glass of water and some coffee, or maybe you should lie down. I'm gonna call a doctor, honey, we have a friend a couple blocks over who's a good guy, good doctor, he'll come over if I call unless you want to go to the ER. Artie, you listening to me? Sit down.”

“What do you mean not here?” I said.

Stellene poured me a glass of water. I drank it all and asked for more right away.

“What else do you need?” she said.

“Something for pain.”

Stellene found some Percoset in the kitchen table drawer and handed me one.

“I could use two,”

“One's enough. You take too much of this stuff, you get crazy. I mean really like hallucinogenic. What's so funny?”

“I'd love to be hallucinogenic,” I said. “Never mind. Why did Hank take Billy to the city?”