Red on Red (23 page)

“Shit, Malcolm, there’s a war. How’d he get out of the army? He fight somebody?”

“That’s all he wanted to do. But no. He got sick. He didn’t even get sick—they found out he had something, a disease. What they call, you don’t got iron in the blood?”

“Anemia.”

“Yeah, it was that, but the opposite. He got too much. I don’t know what they call it, but I guess if you bleed there with it, they can’t fill you back up. Every guy in the world gets dragged there, they don’t want to go. He wants to, they won’t let him. Drop that on somebody who was pissed off to begin with, and what you got is Michael.”

“You think he’s gonna kill Kiko?”

“You kiddin’ me?”

“You think you can talk to him?”

“You been listenin’ to me?”

“You want him to wind up with you?”

“I don’t want me to wind up with me, you feel me? All I can do is talk, and I been talking! To you! My talking gets me to you. You guys are the ones gotta make things happen! And not happen! I ain’t gonna lie. Kiko dies, I ain’t gonna cry about it. He killed my brother. Milton. And I loved him. But I ain’t about getting even. I’ll take that, if it comes up, but I’m about getting out. You feel me? It’s in God’s hands. Yours too, maybe. Not mine.”

“Okay, Malcolm, I got you.”

“Michael ain’t even gonna call me. But if he did, I wouldn’t tell him you saved Kiko’s life, saved his kid. You know? You come to our house, all these people die; you go to his house, you’re all, like,
Baywatch—
lifeguards on the beach, pullin’ everybody out whose drownin’ and givin’ ’em mouth-to-mouth. Not for nothin’, Espo, but you can’t be like Santa Claus with him and Freddy Krueger with us. I know you ain’t wrong, what you did, but even if I talked to him, how could I tell him he ain’t right?”

“We deal with what we get dealt, Malcolm.”

“You ain’t kidding. You know what that muthafucka Kiko and his
crew do? These Dominicans, I don’t know, Espo—these are some bad people. They’re off, you know? Believe me, they are not like us.”

Esposito nodded, and Nick pursed his lips—
Us?
—as Malcolm went on. “This is what pisses me off. Kiko ain’t even in the business no more, he ain’t a hustler. This corner don’t mean shit for him. They kidnap other hustlers, their own kind, Dominicans. They wrap ’em up, with that plastic shit, like tinfoil? They wrap ’em up like mummies. They beat ’em and burn ’em with irons till they give up the work, kilos and kilos, like hundreds of thousands. Me, my people? We just makin’ a living, just—”

“What they do?” Esposito asked.

“Burn ’em with irons—”

“Plastic wrap, like for leftovers?”

“Yeah. The other day, I heard they took some kind of priest. Dominican kid I know, Flacco—he ain’t one of the bad ones, he still cool with me. He went to school with Milton. He felt bad—”

“Priest?”

“Yeah, minister, priest, whatever, one of them.”

“Nick, we gotta get out of here. And, shit, Malcolm—why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Malcolm stood up and stretched, aware the conversation was over. He smiled at Esposito and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“ ’Cause I didn’t know you. See how good things can be, now that we’re friends?”

A
random encounter, an offhand remark—the scraps of information were so slight by themselves, so persuasive together, that the detectives felt that destiny was in play in the discovery. Drug dealers had kidnapped a priest, were burning him alive. Nick and Esposito were as desperate to leave the island as any inmate, but the Department of Corrections bus, blue and orange, boxy and slow, rolled ahead of them at a lackadaisical pace. The guard at the gate avoided looking at them as he talked on his phone about how his backyard deck was refinished last year but the wood was already warping. When he finished, he didn’t hurry as he checked the trunk for contraband and hidden prisoners. The delays felt spiteful, and their absurdity tested Nick’s and Esposito’s belief in the moment, that it was inevitably theirs. Once they were out, Esposito flew through the toll on the bridge without stopping, and he barely touched the brakes on the mercifully clear midmorning roads. Nick called the squad and found Napolitano, who rounded up whoever he could. They would be waiting for them by the building. All the forces felt like they were again falling into place.

“Do you think it’s a real priest?” asked Nick.

“No.”

“A reverend, a minister, something like that?”

“Maybe,” said Esposito, thinking aloud as he worked through the probabilities, skimming through his mental scrapbook of atrocities. “They got somebody special. These home invasions they do, they go for drugs or drug money, gambling spots. Sometimes they hit cash business people, who sell jewelry or deliver cigarettes to bodegas. Dirty money, clean money, as long as it’s cash. Dirty money is better. The victim’s not gonna go to the cops. But sometimes they get the wrong door, the wrong
guy. How long are they gonna burn the guy with the iron before they believe him?”

“Kiko makes more sense now,” Esposito continued, talking to himself as much as to his partner. “He’s a tough kid. I can’t believe he looked like he was gonna go so easy. The guy who had him in on the Rasta Joe shooting, he told me that when he brought Kiko in, he laughed and spat, wouldn’t give up the time of day. He’s gonna roll over for us when we got him on bad babysitting?”

“Maybe he’s not afraid of us. He’s afraid of Mrs. Kiko—he’s afraid he’s gonna get it from her, if we take the baby.”

“Maybe. But this is a guy who tortures people for money. He don’t give a shit if he kills the wrong Cole brother. There is no wrong Cole brother to kill.”

“We just surprised him?”

“We definitely surprised him. Milton Cole was old news already. He’s already in the ground. Kiko’s got a fresh one, and we almost walked into it. You know what he felt when we started talking about Milton? Relief! Can you believe this shit, Nick? He was happy to go back with us to the squad—it gets us off the block, away from the priest. We think we’re gonna get a statement from him, but the only thing he’s gonna tell us is, ‘Thanks guys, for the perfect alibi!’ ”

The meeting point was around the corner from the apartment, out of sight from the windows, wherever they were. Napolitano and Perez were there, and Lieutenant Ortiz and Garelick rolled up as Nick and Esposito parked. The situation was explained—the news from Malcolm; the sight of the man with the shopping bags full of plastic wrap; the five-story building, five apartments per floor. All were different men from the ones who had fussed over breakfast—taut and pointed, alive to the purpose. All had questions for Esposito.

“The guy walked up past you when you went to the second floor?”

“Yeah, but he would have kept walking anyway.”

“He didn’t hesitate, he didn’t look on two?”

“No.”

“But were you really watching him?”

“Yeah, we watched him. He stood out, and he was a little freaked by us. But there was nothing more to it, right then, and we had shit to do.”

“What do you think about the super? Any contact with him? Think he’s dirty?”

“The building is dirty—him, I don’t know.”

The superintendent of a ghetto building was always in a difficult position. Most landlords wanted a clean and orderly place—unless they were looking to sell it, or tear it down, or turn it over, in which case the dirt and danger were assets to drive the old tenants out. The super worked for the landlord, but the super also lived there, usually in a basement apartment, and had to deal with the tenants, face-to-face, day to day. In the worst buildings, there was often some kind of understanding, a fearful truce. Sometimes, the terms were more forthright and direct, and the super was an ally and employee of the hustlers upstairs.

“If we talk to him, we gotta leave someone with him, so he doesn’t raise the alarm.”

Garelick nodded. “That’s about my speed.”

“Because it’s a priest, Harry?” wondered Lieutenant Ortiz. “If it was a rabbi tied up in there, would you be the first through the door?”

“Not if it was a boxful of rabbis or a pope on a rope.”

“All right. Let’s hit it, then. Meehan, Espo, you work from the top down. Perez, Napolitano, from the bottom up. What did you say, five apartments per floor? Mark off the one you hit already. I’ll cover the street, in case somebody goes out the window. Harry, see if you can work through the tenant roster with the super, knock off any place that doesn’t fit. They could rent the apartment out from somebody, an old lady, whoever, or it could be vacant. Keep your phones on, and listen close at the doors. Any problem, we pull back, call in the cavalry. Remember, this is an investigation, not an invasion. Otherwise, somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

“What are we gonna go with—the ‘missing kid’ bit?”

“Yeah. Anybody got a picture?”

Napolitano pulled out his wallet, and took out two little photos, portraits of a boy, a girl, in First Communion costume, the boy in a dapper suit and bow tie, the girl in a white lace dress with a veil. Hands folded in prayer, the smiles goofy and beatific. He handed the little girl to Esposito. At other times, there might have been a wisecrack; not today.

“I want it back, Espo.”

“I promise.”

The answer was grand, Nick thought. Napolitano was not worried about the picture. It could be replaced. The detectives couldn’t be, or at least they liked to think so. Esposito was making guarantees, more than
he had a right to, but his confidence rang out like a trumpet, brassy and gladdening. They walked around the corner and filed in, according to assignment. Lieutenant Ortiz loosened his tie, sat on a car hood, and lit a cigarette. Garelick disappeared down the alley. Napolitano and Perez each took a door in the lobby, leaning in to eavesdrop. Esposito called softly to them as he and Nick mounted the stairs.

“There won’t be kids there. There should be loud music, TV, to cover up the conversation, any screams.”

Both nodded as Nick and Esposito went ahead. Though there was no need for silence, they stepped carefully up the chipped marble steps, stopping at each floor to listen, before ascending to five. Music throbbed from behind at least one door on each floor. At the top, Nick and Esposito each chose a door, to listen for the something, the nothing, that might tell. Nick remembered his patrol days, when he’d get a report of a gas leak. The firemen would press their faces into the doorframe, close enough to kiss, sniffing for the odor, however faint. You have more sense, more senses, than you know. You have to pay attention, pay and pay. The doorframe was tobacco-brown, the paint troweled on in rough annual layers, and he scanned it for roaches before wedging his head in, cupping an ear—muttery, dim news in Spanish,
noticias
. He looked over at Esposito, who was already knocking across the hall, briskly, not too loudly, attempting to be casual. Nick did, too, leaning back in again to hear if there were footsteps, scrambling to hide, or the lax padding, barefoot or in slippered feet, of an ordinary woman answering an ordinary door on an ordinary day. Good people wonder who it is at the door; bad people know. There was a slow, rhythmic swoosh, an off-beat two-step, of calluses on old floorboards, an innocent sound, an innocent rhythm.

“Sí?”

“Policía, señora.”

“Sí? Por qué?”

Nick looked over at Esposito, who had another woman at her door, younger, in her late forties, in a bathrobe. He had the picture of the Napolitano kid, and they were talking.

“Have you seen her? She’s missing. Everybody’s very worried. Do you have kids? Who do you live with? Is there anybody inside who might know something?”

“My God, what happened? Is she all right? Did somebody do something to her?”

“We don’t know, miss. Your name is?”

“Colon. Awilda Colon.”

Nick rapped again on his door.
“Abrir la puerta, señora. Esta la policía, quiero hablar …”
As if he could talk. The peephole darkened for a moment. The woman was looking to see if the face, the suit, matched the bad accent. When she opened the door, he saw a thin woman, wary but civil, nearing eighty, with a meringue of white hair and a black housedress.

“Sí?”

The detectives drew both women out into the hall, so the information could be pooled.

“Could you talk to this lady for us? Could you ask if she’s seen this girl?”

Esposito handed the picture to Awilda, who walked over to the old woman and showed it to her. They chattered rapidly in Spanish, with dramatic interruptions and exclamations.

“Yes, she says she’s seen her!”

“Here? In this building?”

“Hang on—”

The operatic volleys went on for a minute, with fluttering hands clutching hearts and heads in turn. They were caught up in the drama—too much, maybe—imagining things in their desire to help. Nick’s heart stirred, too, drawn into the passion play of a child who was not there.

Awilda asked, “What’s her name?”

Esposito hesitated, unprepared. “Her name?”

“What’s the little girl’s name?”

“Grace,” said Nick, unsure what prompted him to speak.

“Ay, dios mío!”