Red on Red Page 16

  And then Jose’s smile faded from his face, and his breathing changed, much as his father’s already had; but where Kiko seemed to inhale and exhale rapidly without any profit in air, Jose was stopped like a bottle. Both Kiko and Jose would have screamed if they could have managed it. Kiko leaned forward and held him up, giving him a shake, as if the boy were a vending machine with a stuck quarter. He set him down again, from lack of strength. Golden little Jose turned pale, then blue, and Kiko became pale and stayed that way.

  “Do you believe this?” yelled Esposito, taking the measure of what was happening. He snatched up Jose and turned him upside down, with Jose’s back against his chest, and gave him a light thump—one—which brought a strangling sound, and then another thump, slightly harder—two—which caused a gargling spit, and a scream. Two it was, and he was turned around again, for Esposito to pluck out the chunk of pork from his mouth. Even as he began to shriek, Kiko’s desperate attempts at breath became more pained and failing.

  “You call an ambulance, Espo, I’ll try and help this guy.”

  Nick patted Kiko on the chest for a moment, as if he might get the engine started again. Then he checked Kiko’s pants pockets, front and back, without result.

  “Asthma? You have asthma?” Nick asked.

  There were weak nods, and Jose began to scream still louder when Esposito put him down. The detective picked up the radio. “Squad here, Central. I have a choking baby, severe asthma attack …”

  Nick asked, “Do you have an inhaler?”

  A nod, and fluttering eyelids.

  “Ah, shit.”

  Nick checked the pants again, and then Kiko’s shirt—Had he had a jacket when he’d come in? No?—before running to the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet—Hadn’t they checked here?—there were tampons, a hairbrush, bobby pins. The baby screamed and screamed, and Nick hoped he would scream more, as inspiration. And then he thought he could hear the wail of the sirens, thank God. Esposito kept the radio mike keyed on, so the dispatcher could hear the pandemonium, so the fear would carry over the air. Four blocks away, there was a hospital, and tanks of oxygen, but they needed air here, they needed more. Even now, Nick saw, Esposito’s instincts were that of an impresario. We gotta make this work for us, we gotta keep Kiko alive. The baby’s a sound effect. “Central, we have an adult male having a severe asthma attack, and a baby. The baby is turning blue, still choking. We need this forthwith. Can you raise EMS direct, get an ETA?”

  “They’re rolling up, rolling up now—you’re third floor?”

  “Third floor, Central. Can’t miss us.”

  Nick opened the door, so the tricky lock wouldn’t be a problem for the medics, and Mrs. Kiko pushed past, screaming, slapping him fiercely and catching a nail in his eyelid, before racing down the hall. Nick put a hand to the eye that burned, and followed, taking in what she did, guessing at what her first impression might have been. Kiko was on the couch, with the color and animation of week-old fish, and Jose had howled himself beet-red. Every breath he took in was expelled twice over, in volume that threatened to shatter glass. Nick hadn’t thought the baby could be uglier, but there it was, clock-stopping, mirror-breaking, dog-barking ugly. Esposito took hold of her shoulders, and she smacked him; he smacked her back. She fell, but he kept hold of one shoulder, and with the other hand he took hold of her face.

  “Mama! Inhaler!”

  Esposito mimicked the spray of medicine in the throat.

  “Donde! Donde!”

  The medicine in the throat, spray, spray. She paused for a moment, shaken, then went to work. She opened her purse, took the inhaler out, knelt down, and pressed it to Kiko’s mouth. She was easeful and expert, tucking the chin up, holding the nose, as she pumped the breath into him.

  “Tranquilo, papi. Estoy aquí…. Tranquilo … Sí.”

  It was the most beautiful thing Nick had ever seen with one eye, and even the baby’s screams softened into exhausted gasps as the paramedics burst in, four of them, with kits and carts and machines. Two went for the baby, two for the man, gently separating Mrs. Kiko to put on the oxygen mask, and though they talked and shouted to one another, it seemed that calm filled the room, and everyone now could breathe. A medic picked up little Jose. “Look at the poor little guy’s face.” He might have been talking about how swollen it was from crying, but Esposito and Nick looked at each other, and had to turn away, quickly, not to laugh.

  Two of the medics were the ones from the Cole apartment, the Spanish woman and the white guy, and they looked at the detectives for a longer time than might have been considered polite. Esposito didn’t care for that. “We ask for you guys now in particular, whenever we try to kill somebody. You shoulda given us another five minutes.”

  “I didn’t say nothin’,” the white guy said, smiling a little. Nick couldn’t decide whether the smile was accusatory, or it displayed conspiratorial glee in some darkly imagined act.

  “You got a problem?” Nick asked.

  “C’mon now,” said his partner, the Spanish woman. “Let’s get these people out of here.”

  The other two medics went about their work in purposeful avoidance of the conversation, and Mrs. Kiko didn’t acknowledge whatever she might have taken in. She turned away from Kiko as he was lifted onto the stretcher and took Jose from the medic’s arms. His cries became soft and rhythmical. The crew began to pack up bodies and machines, and the detectives followed down the stairs. Kiko was strapped to the stretcher, and the caravan moved through the lobby, to the street, where two ambulances waited. Kiko was lifted into one, and wife and child followed. Before the door was closed, one medic peeked out the door.

  “Anybody under arrest here?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  The door closed and they drove off. The medics they knew stayed behind, and the woman approached Nick. His partner and hers stood apart.

  “How’s that eye? Can I look at it?”

  Nick took his hand away, and she took out alcohol and gauze from the back of her ambulance. She swiped it clean, and he flinched.

  “Don’t be a baby.”

  “I make no promises.”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  “What would they do?”

  “Topical antibiotic maybe. Not much.”

  “I want a glass eye.”

  “You can get one. You just won’t have any place to put it.”

  “What’s up with your partner?”

  “What’s up with yours?”

  “The last place we were? We were telling a family about their kid who got killed. That kid, he was killed by this kid.”

  “My God! And you can’t lock him up?”

  “We were trying. We were on our way until the asthma attack.”

  “My God! Well, my partner, he’s nice, he’s good—he’ll be good, but he’s young.”

  “We’re not.”

  “I know, baby, but try to stay that way!”

  She gave him a pat on the cheek and walked away with a little laugh, waving her partner into the ambulance. They drove off. Nick blinked a few times, and looked over at Esposito, who was standing alone, angry.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah.”

  Esposito fished in his pocket for the keys and looked down the street for the car; it seemed a long time since they’d come here. They looked up and down, like old men, believing it was not far, but remembering nothing. Had they taken the blue one, the green one? Nick followed Esposito when he crossed the street.

  There it was, the blue one, right there, with Michael Cole sitting on the hood. As they walked over to him, he stared back, not smiling, not angry. He took in Nick’s eyes for a moment, and then Esposito’s, and then he waited—one, two, three—before he sucked his teeth and spat.

  “You’re late.”

  Esposito was almost thankful for the distraction, after the loss of Kiko. “Did we
have an appointment?”

  “Somebody did.”

  “Who’s somebody?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I’m asking.”

  “I guess you gotta ask, ’cause I got the answer.”

  What did that mean? Nick and Esposito surreptitiously checked each other, shaking their heads. Do you follow this? No, me, neither.

  Esposito asked, “Anything we can help you with, Mike?”

  “I don’t need your help. You’re the ones, all empty-handed.”

  Michael drummed his fingers on the hood of the car and forced a cool half-smile. Nick had the feeling he’d practiced this conversation in the mirror, working on his gangsta-glib repartee like a Berlitz course. The labor he put into it made it ridiculous, but the ridiculous aspect made it seem dangerous, almost. Michael spat again, and the drool caught on his lip. He wiped it quickly with his sleeve, but the tough-guy effect had been ruined, and Nick joined the conversation to avoid prolonging the humiliating moment.

  “I know why you’re here, Michael.”

  Michael rejoined the game, upper lip curling for a rancorous rejoinder. “Do you?”

  “Yeah,” said Nick.

  “And why are you here? Is it the same reason why I’m here?”

  The catechetical sophistication threw Nick for a second—to what end?—before he went for mood-stabilizing social worker cant.

  “Yeah, you’re here for your brother. Us, too. We do care—”

  Michael erupted in an eerie screech of laughter. “You don’t know my brother!”

  Esposito had heard enough of the obscurities and distractions; this was a dance that wouldn’t lead to a date. “Stop. Mike, I’m sorry for your loss, I really am. Your mother, your brother. Milton. And the other one, stabbed. I knew ’em all! You wanna kill Kiko? Man-to-man, I understand, and the reality is, I can’t really stop you if you’re gonna try. I wouldn’t cry, neither, if you did, but I’d lock you up after. Guaranteed. Life in jail, maybe it’s worth it. You’ll find out! This is the world. Welcome aboard! If that’s okay with you, it’s okay with me—let’s let everybody do their job here. In the meantime, get the fuck off my car.”

  The last words were a mistake, Nick knew. Michael tensed, and Esposito started to step to him, but Nick signaled him to stay, with a touch of his arm. Maybe not a mistake. Michael seemed disappointed that the confrontation had been denied him. He smiled at Esposito and fixed Nick with a hard glare. He sighed and slipped off the hood, dusting off his legs. Roll on, little nutball, roll on.

  “I’m like the Unknown Soldier …”

  “What?”

  Nick was curious, because Michael was entirely unlike the Unknown Soldier, in that he was known and not dead.

  “I pop out when you least expect it.”

  Nick refrained from laughing, though it almost hurt him not to; he couldn’t keep his eyes from rolling at the ridiculous boast, and that was a mistake. Michael caught it, and there was heartfelt hatred in the look he gave in return. He waited a moment—one, two, three—to show that he chose the time of his own leaving, before turning to walk away.

  When he had receded a sufficient distance, the detectives got into the car and drove off. Both of them were made uneasy by the way the incident had tipped between high lunacy and low comedy, how the moon-bat conceit had fed the menace. Esposito concentrated on the line of cabs that seemed to appear suddenly in front of them. He leaned on the horn and stepped on the gas, pointing his Roman nose ahead.

  “You know, Nick, I think he likes me better than you. I don’t think he likes you at all.”

  Rikers Island always looked more like a college than a jail to Nick, with its blocky modern buildings spread out over wide lawns. Big institutions looked like other big institutions, built to handle the volume. Rikers was another of the lesser islands of the city, a heap of nowhere in the dirty churn of the Long Island Sound, but you couldn’t call it one of the failed ones; it had found its function in the thirties, and its acreage had since doubled with landfill. In a city jail, the inmates were either awaiting trial or serving misdemeanor sentences, for up to a year. Each group had their own little bedside bottle of hope—I could beat this! Or maybe, Only two months to go! But you knew there was always the other bottle they could drink from, that made them think, From here I go north, for years and years, until I die, or until everyone I love forgets me. Maybe it was a kind of college; it was definitely an education.

  Every time Nick crossed the bridge from Queens to Rikers, he never thought as a cop. He looked at the curlicues of razor wire atop the hurricane fences, the water, the checkpoints, and had a brief daydream of escape, scanning the grounds to see how many guards he’d have to take out, scanning the water to see where the currents might take him. They were near Hell Gate, where the tides collided from the East River and the Sound. Not a good place to swim. Fear of shipwreck, fear of drowning, were plaintive in the names of the waterways—Spuyten Duyvil, Kill Van Kull, Gravesend Bay. Death by water, with the shore lined with spectators. On the little islands, you had as little faith in the system as you did in nature. Even if you weren’t a crook at heart, you knew how fast the world could turn against you.

  Esposito had engineered a little lie to conceal their errand, not out of any particular mistrust of the Department of Corrections, but because it was no one’s business. Inmates kept close watch for breaks in routine, to see who was called away; among the staff, carelessness could be as bad as outright corruption. A chance meeting might lead to a chance remark, to a girlfriend, a brother, a friend, and news of a conversation might find its way back to the neighborhood before the detectives did. It didn’t even have to be true for people to die.

  Malcolm Cole had a history of ulcers, and it was arranged that he would claim to have an attack on the days he wanted to speak to them. Esposito knew a nurse at the Rikers infirmary who would relay the message and reserve an out-of-the-way examining room were they could speak. Her name was Audrey, and she was tanned, short, and curvy. After leading them to the examining room, she winked and walked away. Nick wasn’t introduced. She was pleased to play the part; all of them were. Conspiracy is a kind of religion, bringing solace to people in dark places, lending significance to their losses. Malcolm was in a hospital gown, waiting with a wry smile. There was an ease in his body, a poolside slouch as he reclined on the examining table.

  “Hey, Malcolm, how you doin’?”

  “Not bad, not bad.”

  “They treating you okay?”

  “I been in worse places. Yo, Espo, you look sharp today!”

  Esposito was in a black suit, with a red shirt and tie. Nick thought he looked like a racketeer in a school musical.

  “Thanks, pal. So, what you wanna talk about?”

  “I got shit for you.”

  “I’m here.”

  “You lock up Kiko?”

  “No. I went to talk to him yesterday. I wound up saving his life, his kid’s life. His wife called a lawyer from the hospital. He’s not gonna talk to me now.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do now?”

  “I don’t know, something. I’ll figure it out. What else you wanna talk about?”

  “I got guys who got bodies, uptown, Harlem, Bronx. I got guys who even got bodies in Brooklyn.”

  “You see any of this, or you just hear about it?”

  “Both. What does this do for me?”

  “It depends. I can’t give you numbers. I can’t say, ‘This many murders, this many years.’ Five don’t get you ten, two don’t get you five. I can say, you help me, I’ll help you. Nobody ever got burnt working with me, unless they tried to burn me first. We get along, you come out ahead.”

  “We both come out ahead.”

  “That’s it. Tell me about one you saw, the last one you saw.”

  “Kiko, last summer. Him and his cousin, the one … I shot, did the drive-by on Little T, in the projects by me. Little T was my man. I came up wi
th him. He raised me in the trade.”

  “The one … I shot.” The hesitation was brief, and inspired not by conscience but by tact, choosing simple words carefully, without pride or shame.

  “Wasn’t it Little T who killed Fafa, the month before?”

  “They said it was, but it was Dirty Moe.”

  “Dirty Moe worked for Fafa?”

  “Nah, Fafa worked for Dirty Moe.”

  “Little T shot Fat Hector?”

  “Everybody know Little T shot Fat Hector. Back up, back up. With Dirty Moe and Fafa, it had nothin’ to do with that. Fafa threw a bottle, scratched Moe’s car. It had nothing to do with work. And we didn’t have no problems with the Dominicans before Kiko. We was mad cool before then. Kiko come from wherever, decides he has to tighten shit up, playin’ Scarface. Fat Hector was his man.”

  “And you saw ’em shoot Little T? What did you see?”

  “I saw Kiko with the cousin—that cousin, the one I did. He leans out the window with a big silver burner, and it was—Pa! Pa! Pa! Three shots. He hits Little T twice, the neck and the leg. Little T, he just sits down and looks at me, like, ‘Can you believe this?’ ”

  “Who drove?”

  “Kiko.”

  “Who shot?”

  “The cousin.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw ’em, I saw ’em both. Plus, it was Kiko’s car, a white Escalade, Jersey plates, spiderweb rims. He never let anybody touch it. He shot a crackhead through the foot for sneezing on it.”