North River (15 page)

“Let’s eat,” Delaney said to the boy.

Carlito smiled: “Eat! Sí!”

At Third Avenue, they stopped on the corner as an elevated train pulled into the station. Delaney made a picture of Carlito with the El behind him, something that Grace would recognize. He had taken her on the El when she was a little girl, after the war.

“Subway!” the boy said in an excited way.

Delaney pointed at the ground. “No, the subway is down below. This is the El.”

“El?”

“Yes, and we’ll go up those stairs later and ride the El home. Let’s eat first.”

The odor of frying frankfurters drew him into a small place with stools at the counter and three small tables against the wall. The stools and table were full, a sure sign that the food was good. He saw some faces from the stoop of St. Agnes, all chewing, and leaned over the counter and ordered two franks and two orange drinks.

“Hot dogs,” Delaney said.

“Hot dog-sss,” the boy said, perfectly.

“This is mustard,” Delaney said, slathering his own frankfurter with the bright yellow sauce. “You might not like the taste, so first try mine . . .”

The boy examined Delaney’s hot dog with suspicious eyes. He pushed a tentative finger into the mustard and then tasted it. He made a face. No. He didn’t like mustard. Delaney handed him the plain frankfurter. With his small bare hand, Carlito had some trouble handling the roll and the hot dog together, and after the first bite, which he chewed earnestly, even thoughtfully, he took the frankfurter out of the roll and chewed it with increasing energy, alternating with bites of the roll. Delaney finished his own hot dog.

“That was
good,
” Delaney said.

“Mmmm. Hmmmm,” the boy said, working on the last succulent inch of his frankfurter.

“Want more?”

Carlito shook his head up and down, smiling with his mouth full. He swallowed and said, “Yes, please, Ga’paw.”

Please? It was the first time he’d heard the boy use the word. Did he teach him to say it, or did Rose? Delaney waved at the counterman and held up two fingers.

They climbed the stairs to the El, both a bit drowsy, their stomachs full. Delaney made a final photograph as the downtown train came into the station. There were plenty of seats, and the boy sat beside him and then turned and gazed out the window at the passing tenements. A light snow was falling. Across the aisle, a young Italian woman sat primly, purse on her lap, avoiding all eye contact. High cheekbones. High unlined brow. Long nose, a trace of down on her upper lip. She wore rouge and lipstick too.
Where does Rose go on Sundays? Is there a relative, friends? Is there a lover?
The woman got off at Fourteenth Street.

“Next stop,” Delaney said.

The boy turned from the window. Delaney squeezed his hand. Soon they would be home.

EIGHT

M
ONDAY MORNING WAS NOISY WITH HAMMERING AND SAWING
and the voices of workmen building the new passage from upstairs into the kitchen. When they were finished, Carlito would no longer be exposed to the germs of the patients on his way to lunch. It was noisy too with patients, during what Delaney called the Monday Morning Rush Hour. A man with an infected black eye. A six-year-old girl with raging fever and diarrhea. A fat woman with boils under each arm, screaming as he lanced them and cleaned them and covered them with wads of cotton. They came in one after another, gripped by the narcissism of pain.
Take me first, Doc. I’m hurtin’, Jesus, I’m hurtin’ . . .
Again, he did what he could. After the last patient left at ten minutes to one, Monique slipped into his office, with a grim look on her face.

“There’s a guy here to see you,” she said. “He showed me a badge. He says he’s from the FBI.”

“What does he want?”

“To talk to you.”

“Give me a couple of minutes.”

She closed the door behind her, and Delaney stood at his desk, his eyes moving across the walls but seeing nothing. Any cheap hoodlum could have a fake badge. They all had them during Prohibition. At least Rose and Carlito were out, off to a shoe store on Fourteenth Street, so neither would be touched by a new sense of alarm. But he didn’t like visits from people who claimed to be the FBI. An agent wasn’t here to get something for a migraine. He thought of Eddie Corso, and the secret admission to St. Vincent’s. But that was a local matter, not the concern of the Feds, unless he failed to declare the money on his income tax returns. But that would be next year. No matter what, he would never discuss Eddie Corso. But then, the visit might be about something else. Someone from the Frankie Botts mob might have called in a tip about Rose. That she was a Wop — without papers. Someone might know that she had killed her husband in the old country.

Or it could be about someone else, a patient, an acquaintance, a politician. He had no obligation to talk about what happened with patients. He was, in that sense, like a priest. He had been taught long ago that many secrets were passed in the office of a doctor, and none of them must leave. Still: the FBI? He must warn Zimmerman. And then had a sudden thought:
It must be about Grace.
He opened his door.

“Yes?” he said.

A young man stood up, holding his hat in his hands, and his coat draped over his forearm. His dark blond hair was cut short. He had pale eyebrows, pale blue eyes. About thirty. The young man moved past Monique.

“Dr. Delaney?” he said.

“That’s me.”

He flashed a badge.

“Edward Callahan,” he said. “FBI.”

Delaney gestured for Callahan to pass into his office, then closed the door behind them.

“Have a seat,” Delaney said, moving into his own chair. “What’s this all about?”

“Excuse me for intruding on your busy day,” the agent said, sitting with a kind of performed ease in the chair reserved for patients. He placed a notebook on his knee and took a pen from his breast pocket. “Let me get straight to the point: I’m looking for your daughter.”

So that was it. I was right. Not Eddie Corso. Nor Rose. Grace.

“I don’t know where she is,” Delaney said.

“We think you do,” Callahan said, smiling in a knowing way, his voice dropping into a deeper tone. “You received a letter a few days ago. We think it was from her. From Grace Delaney Santos. It was postmarked Barcelona, Spain.”

“I assume you have a court order to snoop through my mail,” Delaney said.

“The letter wasn’t opened,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. Delaney noticed that his fingernails were perfectly trimmed and polished. His dark blue suit was well cut, almost as severely as the clothes worn by Mr. Cottrell. “Besides, we’re not specifically looking for your daughter. We’re looking for her husband.”

“I don’t know where he is either,” Delaney said. “I’ve never even met the man.” Callahan scribbled on a pad, taking notes. “I do know he’s a Mexican citizen. Beyond that —” He shrugged. “Why is the FBI interested?”

“We’ve had inquiries from the Mexican government,” Callahan said. “Mr. Santos is a member of the PCM — the Mexican Communist Party.”

“And?” Delaney said. “Is that a crime?”

“No, but bombing is. The Mexican government believes Santos was responsible for bombing two government office buildings in Guadalajara.” His tone was level. “They want to locate him before he bombs anything else.” He gestured as if he believed this was a bit of a stretch, but went on gravely: “They have reports he went to Spain, where all sorts of unrest is in the air. Or maybe even to Moscow. And that gets us back to your daughter, Grace. If anyone knows where Santos is, she should.” He smiled. “For all we know, he could be in the Bronx.”

“Or Brooklyn.”

Callahan laughed. “Worse — New Jersey!”

He stared at Delaney, as if hoping he would fill the void with words. Delaney stared back.

“So?” Callahan said.

“I’ve told you all I know. Which is virtually nothing.”

Callahan took his coat off his lap and laid it on the floor.

“Dr. Delaney, we might be able to help you with something. If you help us.” Delaney looked at him blankly. “We know you have your grandson here. We know you are, what’s the best way to say this? Under siege. From the Frankie Botts mob. We can do something about that.”

Delaney stood up. He noted Callahan’s dark brown brogans and their high polished sheen.

“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Callahan.”

Callahan didn’t move. He stared at Delaney, absorbing his own dismissal. Then he closed his notebook and reached down for his coat.

“Think about it,” Callahan said, and stood up to face Delaney. He smiled in a practiced way. Then handed Delaney a card. “Think about it.”

He went out, thanking Monique as he left. Delaney looked at the card, then placed it under his blotter beside the card of Harry Flanagan, the judge. Yeah, he thought: I’ll think about it, you son of a bitch.

Twenty minutes after Callahan left, Carlito rushed into the office and climbed onto his lap.

“Hot dog!” he said. There were still no verbs. “Hot dog, Gran’pa.”

Another advance: Ga’paw was now Gran’pa!

“You want hot dogs?”

“Hot dog.”

“Say: ‘I want hot dogs.’ ”

“I wan’ hot dogsss.”

His first verb. The verb “to want.” Everybody’s first verb.

Rose came to the door, smiling, her hair loose across her brow, cheeks still flushed from the February cold. She told him lunch was ready. He thought:
Where does she go on Sunday?

Rose lifted the boy and took him past the planks of the carpenters, the sawhorse, the toolboxes, toward the kitchen. There was an odor of cut wood in the air. The worker named Mendoza laughed and said, “Buenas tardes, niño,” and Carlos answered, “Bey-nas tardes.” The other workmen were gone, but Mendoza was eating a sandwich, sitting on the stairs. “Hello, Doctor,” he said. “Pretty busy here today.” Delaney told him it was always busy on Monday. Thinking:
We even had a visit from the G-men.
He asked Monique to try to find Zimmerman at St. Vincent’s and then walked into the kitchen.

“This kid wants hot dogs!” Rose said. “I gotta nice sandwich for him, un panino, and he keeps saying he wants a hot dog. He did the same up Fourteen’ Street. Hot dog, hot dog . . .”

Delaney smiled. She put the sandwiches before them, along with glasses of lemonade. Carlito’s sandwich was cut into quarters.

“I want hot dog,” the boy said. The verb.
That
verb. Rose ig-nored him.

Delaney thought the panino was delicious, and so did the boy; he held each piece in two hands and took small, methodical bites. The memory of hot dogs fled the kitchen. Monique poked her head into the room.

“I got Zimmerman for you.”

Delaney excused himself and took the call in his office.

“Everything okay?” Zimmerman said.

“Yes, but —”

“But what?”

“A guy from the FBI was here a little while ago. In case he comes poking around the hospital, you don’t know anything about my personal life, especially my daughter. I’ll be at rounds tomorrow and explain everything.”

“You just did,” Zimmerman said. “I only know you from the halls of St. Vincent’s.”

“How’s it going there?”

“I want a vacation. Just one hour. Or two hours, go see a movie. I hear they’ve got sound now.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Back at the table, Delaney finished his sandwich and sipped the lemonade. Thinking: How did Rose find lemons in February? Then she pointed at Carlito’s feet.

“Look at what I got. On sale, one dollar, off a pushcart. Buster Browns!”

Carlito held up his left foot and pointed at the shoe.

“Hoo-shine!”

Delaney wrote a quick note to Grace, telling her about the visit from Callahan. His tone was flat and cold.
Don’t mail any important letters to the house. I’ll send you an address that’s safe. You can blather away about simple stuff, the cathedrals, Goya. Just nothing that you don’t want to share with the FBI.
He asked Monique to mail the letter, but not from here in the neighborhood. She gave him a knowing look. It wasn’t necessary to mention the FBI. Then Delaney went off on house calls, and his rage began to build.

As always on Monday, his last stop would be on Mott Street, in Chinatown. From a pay phone on Canal Street, he called a lawyer named O’Dwyer, who confirmed that he didn’t need formal paperwork to have Carlito living with him. If the boy stayed six months, Delaney could apply to become the legal guardian. So he knew that the FBI could not use Carlos to force him to take the king’s shilling, as Big Jim used to call it. Later, at Angela’s, he would arrange an alternate address. He called Rose too, said he would be a little late, but that they would all go to Angela’s. “Good,” Rose said. “I’ll make the boy take a nap. And hope he don’t dream about hot dogs.”

Now he was turning right off Canal Street, into Mott Street and a flood of Chinese faces, most of them male. Even under Roosevelt, there had been no change in the laws against Chinese immigration. But Chinese seamen could jump ship, slipping into the water off Coney Island, or just walking down the gangplank in Red Hook, and make their way to Mott Street or Pell. They could come down the Hudson Valley from Canada. It wasn’t as easy for women. Still, there were a few women in Chinatown, and that was why he was here.

He crossed the street at Transfiguration Church, which in the nineteenth century had consoled the Irish poor from the Five Points and now served the Italians from Little Italy. He glanced at the church. A few older women moved in and out of the front door, dressed in black. Maybe this is where she goes on Sundays, Delaney thought. Maybe she comes here and listens to mass. Maybe she meets people from the old country. People she can talk with in Italian. Even a few people who knew Enrico Calvino in Agrigento, and knew that God would forgive her for breaking the man’s head
.

At 26 Mott Street, he pressed the bell for the top floor and casually looked around to see if anyone had followed him. Nobody had. Or at least no Caucasians. The door clicked and he climbed the stairs, carrying his black leather bag. On the top floor, Tommy Chin was waiting for him, smiling broadly. He was dressed sharply, wearing a suit with razor creases that broke cleanly over polished leather shoes.

“Hey, Doc, how are you?”

Tommy Chin was second generation, and talked like Cagney. He shook Delaney’s hand and smiled broadly.

“I’m okay,” Delaney said. “Just a little beat.”

“You want coffee?”

“That’d be good.”

Delaney followed Chin into his office, with its two windows opening into the yard, its desk, its framed photographs of Chin with various politicians and police captains. There was a second door, and Chin cracked it open and said something in Chinese. He waved Delaney to a chair and then sat behind his desk.

“How’s it going?” Delaney said.

“Lousy. Everything’s slow. Nobody’s got much money, this goddamn Depression, and the first thing these guys do is cut down on ginch. All the wives must be happy.”

“Or deeply
un
happy.”

Chin laughed. A Chinese woman came in, about fifty years old, her glossy black hair pulled back in a severe way, carrying a tray of coffee and sweets. She nodded at him in a wordless, intimate way. Delaney had known her since before the war, before Molly, before everything. Liann. He had treated her for gonorrhea three times, but she never gave it to him. She smiled, nodded, vanished.

“Where are the ladies?” Delaney said.

“One flight down, waiting for you,” Chin said. “The usual place. You know, Monday is Monday, the day we’re closed. They go and shop. They eat somewhere, usually some American place. They listen to the radio. Maybe they dream about some rich guy that’ll take them away for good. The usual stuff broads think about.”

As they filled cups with coffee, Delaney wondered if Tommy Chin was now selling cocaine and heroin out of the building, in addition to women. Or supplying shmeck to Frankie Botts. To keep tradition alive. Long ago, ten years before the war, when Tommy Chin was just a tough teenager, this was a famous opium den. Society ladies came every day to smoke a pipe and maybe get fucked by young Chinese guys, including Tommy Chin. The place wasn’t exactly a pleasure dome, but it did offer pleasure.