Red on Red (15 page)

“You want me to talk to him?”

“Why? Your Spanish is worse than mine.”

“Yeah, but I’m fluent in Stupid.”

“Fine. Let’s get some coffee first.”

Nick followed Esposito into the meal room. Esposito rummaged through the drawer below the coffeemaker: ketchup packets, duck sauce, hot sauce, salt and pepper, but no sugar. The coffee club had been run by an elderly and meticulous detective named Gerhard who had taken great pride in it. Every morning, there had been bagels and rolls, and on Sundays, fresh Italian pastry from Arthur Avenue. Since his recent retirement, three successors had quit amid constant insults to their efforts; as a result, the position was vacant, and the squad had degenerated into barbarism, sneaking and pilfering private pints of milk. Esposito unstuck a sugar packet from between two mustards, muttering in disgust.

“If Gerhard could see this, he’d be rolling in his grave.”

“Is he dead?”

“Beats me. As far as the coffee club goes, he might as well be. Do you want to do it?”

“God, no. Somebody should, though.”

“Yeah.”

Esposito took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator furtively, casting a glance out across the squad room, and poured the last of it into their cups. They drank them quickly.

“How’s the hunt for Kiko?”

“I got him. Name’s Babenco, too, might even be a real cousin. He’s got a couple of collars, drugs, a gun. He beat a shooting last year, on Amsterdam. I remember it. He shot a bum in the foot. Uncooperative. He shouldn’t be too hard to find. Wanna go out now?”

Nick could see that Esposito was impatient, anxious to move. Nick wasn’t. If they caught up with Kiko tonight, it would be another twenty-four hours before they were done, straight through, at a minimum. Nick knew he had something to do tonight; it escaped him at the moment, but it would come. And he wanted to finish up the case at hand. Esposito took all of it in with a look, and resigned himself to respite. “All right. We’ll get going on that tomorrow. Now’s not good anyway. He’s probably out and about. Let’s finish up with your guy there.”

Rodriguez was hunched over the pictures, twitching, and didn’t look up when the detectives walked in. That was good; it meant that he was concentrating.

“Okay, Jose. Who is she?”

“The lady … maybe I drive her?”

Rodriguez shrugged and looked at them weakly. Esposito leaned in
to face him, elbows on the table, gathering himself. He repeated the response slowly, as if it were unbelievable, offensive, painful to speak. “The lady. Maybe I drive her.” This is how he would spend the energy that would have gone into chasing Kiko. They tag-teamed, hitting Rodriguez with questions before he could think.

“Not good enough. What do you mean, you drove her?”

“She had your number. Your personal number, not your cab company.”

“I don’t got cab company…. I got me. I drive Mexican people. They call me, I drive them.”

“Let me see your livery license.”

He gave them a fearful look.

“Let me see your driver’s license.”

His eyes widened further, and he began to fish through his pockets.

“I no got it with me…. My name, Jose Rodriguez. You check on computer. I got license.”

Esposito grabbed his arm and gripped it tightly. “ ‘You check on computer. I got license.’ Guy! Listen to me! I can play dumb with the best of them, but you’re reachin’ here! You’re pushin’ it! This is box-of-rocks dumb. This is Forrest Gump dumb. This is Polish-joke dumb. And I don’t like Polish jokes! My partner here is Polish. On his behalf, I find them offensive! You know how many Polacks it takes to screw in a lightbulb? ‘I don’t know, I’m a Polack!’ What are jokes? What are numbers? Who am I? Am I talking now? I’m so dumb, I don’t know! That’s what you’re doing now, Jose Rodriguez! You gotta tell me who she is, or where she’s from, or where she works, or lives, or I’m so stupid I might try to call my wife and get Immigration instead! I might try to throw you across the room and miss! You’d land clear out of the country, in Mexico!”

Jose Rodriguez shrunk back in his seat and blinked. Nick, too, was startled by the force of it, was disquieted by the genuine aggression that had inspired the cockeyed harangue. He doubted Rodriguez understood one word out of ten, but one of those words had to be “Immigration.” Still, it seemed to work. When he sat up straight again, his memory had been refreshed. “Okay … maybe … maybe, I think, I think I know where I see her before.”

“Fine, good, let’s go,” said Esposito, cheerful again. He had sent out his bad mood to do good work. Nick wished he could master the same trick.

“You … drive me?”

“The hell with that. Drive yourself. We’ll follow. I ain’t the driving police. I don’t care if you’re running a submarine service up and down the river.”

Esposito stood up and extended a hand, indicating the way out. Nick scooped up the photos and pocketed them. Outside, Rodriguez headed tentatively to a beat-up old Lincoln and waited for the detectives to get into their car. Esposito kept his eyes on him as he started the engine. He asked Nick, “How much do you think he understood?”

“Bits and pieces. Enough, I guess.”

“Yeah. Hey, you’re not Polish, are you?”

“I have my moments.”

“Don’t we all. See, Nick? I told you I was fluent in Stupid.”

“We all have our moments.”

Rodriguez pulled out cautiously, and drove south on Broadway at a geriatric pace. His brake lights were off only for seconds at a time. Nick took the license plate down, as if it might have mattered; the car wouldn’t be his. Nick had to remind himself that he was not investigating any crime. The case was a tragedy, nothing else. There were facts he had to find out, but if he didn’t find them, the only difference would be that she’d be buried in Potter’s Field instead of some dusty corner of Mexico. Still, Nick felt his duty to the dead, a notion as old as the fear of fire. He had been bound to her when he’d knocked her down. When Rodriguez made a right on 181st Street and pulled over at a store, they parked behind him. Nick walked up beside the driver’s window. Rodriguez gestured to a florist shop, the gates half-down over the windows, covering a climbing bank of yellow roses, white lilies.

“Here. She work here, sometimes.”

“Okay, you wait, one minute.”

Esposito waited beside the cab, blocking Rodriguez’s exit, as Nick went to the store. He tended to believe Rodriguez, or at least believed that this was the best they would get from him. Nick could pick up a wreath, if nothing else. The door was locked, and he tapped on the glass, drawing an older Spanish woman to shake her head and point to the clock. Nick shook his head in return and showed his shield. She nodded and approached to let him in, offering a quick, reflexive smile. She waved Nick in and walked to the back.

“Un momento, señor.”

“Sí, señora.”

Another woman came out from the back, in a white dress, summery as she strode down the green aisle. She was younger than Nick by a few years, but not young in her eyes, which were strikingly green and, he somehow felt, always open. Her hair was tawny blond and lighter than her skin, and her smile was bright and easy; the mix of dark and fair in unexpected mixture caught him up for a moment.

“Yes, Detective?”

“Yes.”

She extended her hand, and Nick took it, and he could smell her perfume amid the flowers.

“Can I help you?”

“I hope so.”

Nick withdrew his hand and fished in a pocket for the Polaroids.

“A woman died yesterday, and we don’t know who she is. Someone told us you might know her. Would you mind looking at some pictures? They’re not pretty, but it’s important we find out who she is, so her family knows. Would you mind?”

“No, not at all.”

The older woman came out from the back as he spread out the pictures on the edge of a counter that held bouquets of fall flowers, yellow and red, with autumn leaves scattered amid the petals. She clutched the younger woman’s arm and leaned in, both women looking at once. The older woman gasped—
“Ay, dios mío!”
—even before she took in the face, but the younger looked closely, carefully, before they leaned back and conferred.

“Es Maria, de Mexico?”

“Sí, es Maria, pobra niña. Ay, dios mío, pobra mujer …”

The older shook her head, crossed herself, and stepped back. The younger looked down for a moment, and was about to speak, before there was another tap on the glass door. It was Esposito. The older woman opened the door for him, and he half-stepped in, looking for the nod from Nick. When he got it, he tossed a set of keys back out toward the street, so Rodriguez was free to leave. As Esposito sized up the scene inside, Nick could see he reckoned several kinds of luck had been hit upon at once. Nick touched the pictures to return attention to them as Esposito joined in.

“So, you know her as Maria?”

“Yes, she used to come around at the end of the day, buy the older inventory to sell on street corners.”

No one had ever made the word “inventory” sound so sensual.

“And she was Mexican?”

“I think so. It’s a Mexican business, the street vendors, anyway. Her accent, her look, everything about her was Mexican. But I’m just assuming.”

“You didn’t know her last name, did you?”

“No, I’m sorry … but there are other girls who come in. I’ve seen her with them. They’re Mexicans, too. I don’t know if they’re family, but I bet they know who she is. They’re a little standoffish with you gentlemen, but I’ll ask. Do you have a card?”

Nick had already taken one out, but Esposito beat him to the punch, offering his own.

“I’m Detective Esposito, by the way. Pleased to meet you, and you, señora. Are you sisters?
Sorores?
No?
Madre? No creo!
It’s Detective Meehan’s case, but you can ask for either of us. And you are …”

She handed out two cards of her own:
ORTEGA FLORIST, DAYSI ORTEGA, PROPRIETOR
. They were simple, in black italic script, with red and green vines making neat columns on each side. They were understated, elegant, like the word “proprietor.”

“So, a florist named Daysi. Does that mean the same in English?”

“Yes, we just spell it differently in Dominican, in Spanish.”

“Somebody’s pointed that out before, haven’t they?”

“You’re not the first.”

Nick enjoyed Esposito’s stumble more than he should have, but she seemed to take no offense. Esposito was undeterred. “The first detective, though, right? The first to notice it right away?”

“The garbageman noticed it, too. And the super, and half the bums on the block.”

Esposito laughed again, because he knew it was no stumble. Even to step on her toes was a kind of touch, and Nick hadn’t touched her. He’d only thought about it.

“The name comes from ‘day’s eye,’ like the sun, because the flower looks like the sun,” Nick said. Daysi looked at him and smiled.

“This is not a detective who just notices,” she said. “This is one who knows.”

If only that were true! Because the pleasure of that moment was so intense,
Nick knew he wasn’t having a seizure but what could be considered a cardiac episode—a minute bodily mutiny as his heartbeat upticked from one-two, one-two to waltz time. Esposito laughed again and put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. Nick wondered if his partner had seen that he might need steadying.

“He knows a lot, my friend Nicky does, and what he doesn’t, he wants to find out. Which means we gotta come back to see you. Do you need anything? Can we bring anything?”

“What would I need?”

“I don’t know,” he mused, looking around. “Dirt?”

“No, I think I’m fine, dirt-wise…. Nicky? I should have something for you in the next day or two.”

“ ‘Nick’ is fine, Ms. Ortega. I’ll stop by.”

“Nicky, please, call her Daysi,” Esposito said.

“You can.”

“Thanks, Daysi. I’ll see you.”

They shook hands, and Nick turned away, Esposito a half-step behind. At the door, Esposito stopped and turned again.

“There’s just one more thing, Ms. Ortega …”

“Yes, Detective?”

“Don’t leave town.”

Her laugh was easy and musical, and began even before he finished his fake tough-guy admonition. Nick laughed, too, as they walked back to the car.

“I’ve always wanted to say that,” Nick said.

“I say it all the time.”

“To who? I’ve never heard you.”

“I say it to my wife and kids whenever I’m mad at them.”

“Does it work?”

“They haven’t left yet.”

“She was something, huh? Daysi?”

“ ‘Like the sun, the day’s eye.’ I could have cried.”

“She liked it.”

“Hey, and you thought you had that useless bullshit in your head for no reason, right? Little did you know, right? It makes you think, there’s gotta be some kind of plan….”

“That’s a little deep for you, Espo, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, probably I should stick with bad movie lines. What next?”

“I dunno. My mind’s not exactly in the game right now. Gimme a minute.”

“I’m not talking about work. Daysi! C’mon, man, you gotta get in there! This is the game! Don’t walk away from this, don’t let this drop!”

“Yeah … well …”

“ ‘Yeah, well’? That’s what you got for me? C’mon, Nick, you gotta go for this, or I’m gonna be back at that store tomorrow. I’m gonna buy so many flowers for my wife, she’s gonna think I’m cheating on her, and she better be right. You’re lucky you saw her first.”

As they drove off, Nick looked at his phone—a missed call, another blocked number, no message. The semi-police or the semi-wife? Yes, that was it. He remembered what he had tonight. He snapped the phone shut. He’d made a deal, too. As they turned off 181st, he saw a small, dark figure on the far corner, near the turn for the highway, with armfuls of flowers for sale. She would be back tomorrow, here or somewhere else. As Nick had said, his mind was not in the game.

“Listen, can you run me to midtown?” Nick said.

“Yeah, no problem. What is it?”

“Dinner with my wife.”