Red on Red (30 page)

“I can’t say that I do, Ralph.”

“One day you will, Nick.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“You got a lot going for you, Nick. I didn’t know you spoke Indian!”

Perez gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder as he walked back to his desk. It occurred to Nick that there was more emotion—not to mention actual contact—in that touch than anything that had transpired between Perez and Marina; it felt unkind to think it. He wondered if he should worry about Perez, now that his playboy exaggerations had taken on a more clinical aspect, and then he thought about the problems with his own marriage to a woman who actually existed. Next time, he thought, he might try something different. No one would be able to say he hadn’t given reality a fighting chance.

W
hen Esposito returned from court, it was afternoon. For a moment, Nick studied him, as if to see whether yesterday’s killing had changed him, had left a sign in his eyes, making them hard or haggard. There was nothing; he was the same. He swept into the room and tossed his coat over the back of his chair, dropping a case file onto the desk. He looked rested, fresh, ready for more. No ghosts for Esposito, thank you very much. There had been a contest, and he had prevailed. His indifferent vigor made Nick feel old.

“So, what do we got going on today?” asked Esposito, with an oddly satisfied air.

“The usual,” said Nick warily, unsure if he meant it, or even what it meant.

“Maybe you think so right now, but we got plans.”

“Plans?”

“Yeah, but I’ll get into that later—don’t worry, it’s all good! I stopped by the hospital. My buddy Fernando’s doing all right. He’ll be out in a couple of days. He loves us, he loves me. If there’s any voodoo favors you need done, let me know—love potions, backache, striking down your enemies. Sky’s the limit! His niece and her husband came to visit. He got so mad, they had to sedate him. He threw them out. But we gotta get ahold of them, get their statements, whatever workup needs to be done on the phone records, for the ransom demands. Not to mention getting hold of Kiko, this time for good. You ready?”

Nick picked up his coat. “We gotta put the funeral under surveillance, too.”

“Yeah. We got people for that, Fugitive Apprehension, warrants,
whoever. We don’t have to be there. Better for me not to be. At least not up close.”

“All right. Let’s do it.”

“Attaboy.”

They drove through Kiko’s old haunts, without expecting to see him. Esposito wanted to check if his people were around, to see if the operation had collapsed or the work was still getting done. There should be noise, if not news. Maybe Esposito would recognize a face on a corner; better yet, someone would recognize him and spread the word. Mostly he wanted to keep Kiko in the front of his mind, to show that there would be no rest until it was done. No grace period, no cease-fire, no time-out to bury the dead. Esposito saw someone and pulled over.

“This guy, what’s his name—Tino, that’s it. He was with Kiko when he shot the crackhead, Crazy Joe.”

Tino was short and big-bellied, nearly thirty, leaning against a broken pay phone beside a bodega. He stiffened when he saw them approach, but he was old enough to know not to run. He was old enough, too, to refrain from displays of overt hostility, to put on a show for the street, the three or four younger guys who waited beside him. He greeted the detectives with a curt nod, and raised his shirt to show there was no gun in his waist. Esposito stepped close to him, and Nick flanked him, to cover the little ones. The young guys were the danger, in their hunger for reputation. They were Kiko’s brother’s age. What was his name? Miguelito.

“What’s up, Tino?”

“What’s up.”

“You tell me.”

“You know.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“People say you people, one a you cops, killed Miguelito.”

“Which cop?”

“People say it was you.”

“That’s right. See? You know plenty. Where’s Kiko?”

“I dunno.”

“You seen him? When?”

“A while back.”

“Okay, Tino. Excuse me a minute, wouldja? I gotta make a call.”

Tino stepped back, thinking that Esposito was going to use the pay
phone, but Esposito put a hand on his shoulder. He reached into Tino’s shirt pocket and took out the cellphone. The younger ones stirred—“Yo! He can’t do that!”—but Tino raised a hand to quiet them. Esposito flipped the phone open and scrolled through the directory, to K.

“Here we go. ‘Kiko.’ Gotta be him, right?”

Esposito dialed the number and held the receiver out a few inches from his mouth, so it would sound like a bad connection, and offered a low, indistinct “Yo” when it was picked up. The little Miguelitos tensed up again, and Nick took hold of his gun, wondering if Esposito would take it to the next stage—
Where you at?
—in front of them, in their faces. Tino tensed, too; the affront was so purposeful and public that he wouldn’t be able to contain the corner if the Miguelitos made a move, and maybe he wouldn’t try to stop them. All were relieved at the next words.

“Kiko, this is Detective Esposito…. Yeah, that one….”

Esposito spoke quickly, and there was an edge to his voice, but he never yelled. The aura of control was compelling, to Nick and everyone else who heard it on the corner.

“No, you don’t know what happened. You ran. You left your little brother there. You left your baby brother to try and shoot it out with a bunch of New York City detectives. You ran away. I chased you. He didn’t run. He was still a baby, right? He didn’t know. How could he? And you pulled him in, to kidnap a priest, to burn him with irons,
las planchas
. A priest whose son is a cop, a cop in the DR. I wouldn’t think about going back there, Kiko. The cops there, they don’t mess around. You know that. There is no place for you now, Kiko, not in New York City or the Dominican Republic, not on heaven or earth….

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

Esposito nodded to Tino, and handed him back the phone.

“Kiko wants to talk to you. We gotta go.”

As they walked away, Tino began to chatter in speed-Spanish, a blur of words. The Miguelitos clustered around him, focused on the newest emergency, amazed beyond their immediate capacity for teenage rage. The detectives got into the car and drove away, without conspicuous speed. Esposito glanced out the window, but didn’t stare. The point had been made. Nick considered whether Esposito had planned the encounter, if he had withheld the plan from him. No, he thought, probably not, but they didn’t talk for a while as they drove off. He was bothered
by the freelancing, by such an impulsive confrontation. In his mind, Nick had pledged allegiance to his partner, had cut off rival ties to the finger-pointers downtown. Of course, he couldn’t explain that, but that wrong didn’t offset the rightness of Nick’s complaint. What had happened to Esposito’s old partner, with his suicide? He’d meant to ask, but the moment was never apt. It was a curiosity, no more than that, but curiosity was an underestimated force in human history. Apples and whatnot. Nick shook his head, trying to convince himself that his allegiance was well placed. It was, he thought, but he was still not happy. Esposito noticed.

“Want coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Here’s good. Lemme pull over.”

“I got it.”

“No, I got it, pal.”

When Esposito was back in the car, Nick ventured a comment. “You might have told me you were going to do that.”

“I would have, if I knew myself. Where do you think it gets us?”

Nick had to think about that. “One, it was very personal…. I guess there’s no way around that part of it. Two, you discouraged him from becoming an international fugitive, at least to the Dominican Republic, which is the only other place he knows. That part’s good. The bad part is, if he doesn’t become an international fugitive, he stays here. Options? Two—kill himself, kill you. Or somebody on your side, our side.”

“You, for example.”

“That would work, but I’m not worried. It would be random, whatever he could manage. Retaliation-wise. Whatever guys Kiko had before, he has less now. And I don’t think any of ’em is in a rush to die as a favor for anybody. They’re not in Gaza or Iraq. They’re not jihadis. Kiko doesn’t offer forty virgins in paradise.”

Esposito paused and considered. His qualification was not what Nick expected.

“Isn’t it seventy?”

“What?”

“Seventy virgins. Yeah, definitely, seventy.”

“What, you saw a brochure?”

“No, I just remember.”

They drove around for a while, having exhausted their immediate
store of conversation. Esposito drove more slowly than usual, his ordinary impatience in abeyance, as if to spare his partner any more nervous strain. Nick noticed, and the implication of frailty got on his nerves. He’d been troubled by the stunt with Tino, irked—at the correction of trivia—more than he’d like to admit. And his mind had been fidgety since the morning’s non-meeting with IAB. Esposito noticed his mood, but he didn’t push it. Nick remembered something from earlier on and broke the silence, hoping to show he wasn’t annoyed.

“What are these plans you mentioned? For tonight?”

“I won’t tell you now. You’re mad at me.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“See?”

“You are an asshole. Now, what’s with the plans?”

“You got something lined up?”

“My father made a pot of stew. It’s not regular stew. It’s a stew for the ages, I’m told. What do you know about stew?”

“I work with him.”

Esposito was immensely pleased with his joke, and it did cut the tension. Nick smiled, in spite of himself. “Fuck you. What do you got for tonight?”

“Wait. Watch. It’ll all work out. Trust me!”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Yeah, well—Whoa! Would you look at that!”

Nick never got to see whatever unique beauty had transfixed Esposito, because as the car stopped short, Nick’s coffee spilled over his shirt and tie.

“Shit!”

“Shit, sorry! Shit!”

“Shit.”

Nick spent some time examining his shirt. It had been white. The tie would also have to be cleaned. Esposito looked over, laughing and apologizing. Nick found himself peculiarly relieved, now that his previously free-floating irritation was now grounded in fact. His mood could be changed as easily as a shirt, he thought, the idea warming him like the liquid soaking through to his chest. And now he could force Esposito to drop his coyness about the evening’s plans.

“Nice work. So, is dinner on you, or just the dry cleaning?”

“It is a night out.”

“What? Who? Where?”

“Why? You got a date with Daysi?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“You gotta pick out a restaurant. On the classy side. You’re a downtown guy. You can handle that.”

“I used to be. Not classy—I mean—Are you kidding me? C’mon!”

Nick couldn’t quite believe the idea, and he was almost afraid of how happy it made him.

“Why do you like her?” asked Esposito in a teasing tone, as if he were hosting a talent show. “What do you know about her?”

“Not much.”

“I do. She’s divorced, one child. Her birthday is in November. She loves museums. Her favorite painter is a guy named van Goo, something about sunflowers. She’s tired of assholes looking to hit on her just because she’s sexy and because she has money. She doesn’t meet the guys she wants to meet, where she is. She just wants someone, she says, someone she can talk to. I think she’s full of shit, in a cute way. But so am I.”

Nick had to think for a while. He still hadn’t taken it in. He didn’t feel as old anymore, or maybe he just didn’t mind. Van Goo? That didn’t matter. Nick needed to be clear. “ ‘Ortega Florist. Daysi Ortega, proprietor.’ ”

“Sí, amigo.”

“You called her. For me, not for yourself?”

“Of course. I’m a happily married man. You? You need to get laid. You’re lucky you saw her first.”

“You called her, for tonight, for me. And she said yes?”

Nick was touched, deeply, by the first thing, then the second, so much so that the trespass did not bother him as it otherwise would have.

“So, where do you want to take her? She’s in midtown now. You just have to tell her where. Seven o’clock.”

“That’s an hour and change…. Where my wife was the other night looked good.”

“There’s an endorsement. I wouldn’t bring it up at dinner. What kind of food?”

“French, I think.”

“Perfect. Continental, you might call it. What’s the name of the restaurant again? Where is it?”

Nick told him, and Esposito flipped open his cellphone, to call Daysi.

“Hey, Daysi, day’s eye, this is your detective friend. One of them, you’re right. Nick’s picked a place…. No, I never been there. If you don’t like it, call me and we’ll ditch him, find a joint, just you and me…. Well, you never know, do you? See you.”

The click of his phone when he hung up had a decisive sound, of clean closure. That should have been his call, Nick thought, but then again, he should have made it yesterday.

“Hey, Espo? Thanks.”

“You need a little push sometimes, Nicky boy.”