Red on Red Page 17

  “Crazy Joe? Rasta Joe?”

  “Shit, you know Joe?”

  “Yeah, I know him. Another guy had the case.”

  “What he tell you?”

  “He told me that Joe said it was a hunting accident, he was wrestling with an alligator.”

  “Ha! What you do?”

  “We didn’t go looking for alligators.”

  “You know, Crazy Joe, he really had a alligator? That’s why he said it. Kept it in his bathtub, fed it chickens. Live chickens, real chickens. You know they sell ’em on Tenth? What they call ’em, ‘vivo—’ ”

  “Vivero,” Nick said.

  “Whatever. That was when I was a kid.”

  A meditative look crossed Malcolm’s face, as if he were viewing his life so far, and it wasn’t half-bad. A sweet youth, which ended yesterday—crack and alligators, few regrets. From there, he detailed three more homicides, two of which he’d witnessed, and four more shootings, one of which might have been a homicide, but he hadn’t waited to see how it had ended. Nick believed what he had heard. Malcolm didn’t try to show off, and his memory of events was detailed without being suspiciously complete. An informant like Malcolm was money in the pocket, a skeleton key, a passport. These were spatter-pattern cases, a bloody mess at first look, and second, and third, until the fine tip of a red droplet pointed you in the right direction. Esposito knew some of the cases, to some degree, and Nick filled a notebook with specifics of who had stood where, and how many shots had been fired, and what time it was when it happened, and who drove what after, to test what Malcolm offered against what they’d find in the case files, to match the unstable brilliance of the been-there moment against the documents and diagrams.

  There was a blitz of nicknames—Cagney-era gangster monikers, scumbag moderne, Spanish. Nick had offered the word “vivero.” Otherwise, Nick stayed out of the conversation. These were all perp-on-perp hits, thug family fratricides. It was not his cup of shit. But it was Esposito’s. He understood them, understood the contest, the battle for territory, meat, and mates. He liked these cases because they were like him. They were Espositos in parallel, in reverse. It was one of the reasons he was so good at this, Nick reflected—Esposito didn’t hold it against them. Nick’s partner leaned forward on the chair, hands on his knees, and Malcolm was in the same position until he let out a breath and listed back on his seat—enough for now. He lounged on his side, playing with a fold of his ludicrous hospital gown, and smiled.

  “So. We good? ’Cause I got plans.”

  The remark struck both detectives; the tone was so politely peremptory, an executive brush-off. Esposito took pains not to appear snide. “You have a lunch meeting, Malcolm? Tennis lessons?”

  Malcolm laughed. “No! I’d take ’em, though! You wanna get lunch, you wanna play tennis, I’m all in! My plans, they ain’t for today. I got a lot positive goin’ on, real positivity.”

  Esposito looked to Nick, who was unhelpful. Nick had gotten tired of the hoodlum almanac, but he couldn’t stand the word “positivity,” the jargon of parole board karaoke. Umm, and I know now I gotta be a leader, not a follower….

  Malcolm took no offense. “I got kids, a wife, business—legit. A couple of ’em, doing good. What you think I been up to since I been on the run? You think I’m just another raggedy-ass street hustler, every dollar I get I put into gold for my teeth?”

  Nick thought it best not to answer. Esposito, in his shrewdness, answered with a kind of question of his own. “I heard you was down South, in Carolina somewhere.”

  “Close!”

  Malcolm’s teasing reply gave Esposito a chance to maneuver again. “It don’t matter to me, Malcolm. For one, the sooner you get out, it means the better we done by each other, so I’ll be waiting for you when you get out the door. We’ll go out for a beer. Second, I ain’t the drug police. Whatever cash you got, whatever you came out with, good for you! I ain’t gonna try and game you for hints, where you got all those coffee cans full of twenties and fifties, where you got ’em buried.”

  Malcolm smiled again, shaking his head. “That’s funny, that’s good. But nah, I got two laundries, a barbershop, in a town down in Georgia. My sister, she’s assistant principal at the high school. My wife, she sings at the church. Property taxes, business taxes, they are nothin’ down there. It’s beautiful, when you’re on top. You think my kids are little hood rats, shit in their Pampers, brought up on food stamp formula, government cheese? I been out of this, awhile now. I was up, checkin’ on my moms. Milton, he was my little man. Was gonna take both a them down with me, take ’em in and set ’em up. I ain’t been on the run. I just moved. Hey, Espo, look at your partner! He thinks there’s only one system where I fit in!”

  Nick shifted in his seat, uncomfortable at having been caught in his assumptions. There was so much more to Malcolm than what Nick had first supposed, days ago, in the project apartment, grimy and poor, luckless and mean. No, that hadn’t even been the first mistake. The first had been believing him to be the blasted corpse. But the surprise of seeing Malcolm walk in the door had been no greater than now, with his revelations of substance and sense. Or on the jaunt from jail to the funeral home, from hell to hell, when he gave thanks. “Even a day like today …” These truths did not cancel one another out—ghetto predator, Mayberry shop owner, paterfamilias—but Nick could not quite reconcile the contradictions, could not see the whole man made of such outlandish parts. It was a relief when he remembered he would not have to. Malcolm was a killer, and he had been caught. The job was done. Everything else was positivity.

  “Yup, family—that’s what it’s all about,” said Esposito, casual in his segue. “So, you talk to your brother? You talk to Michael?”

  Malcolm’s eyes tensed a little. “Nah. He hasn’t been to see me, I don’t call. What he do?”

  “It’s not what he did. He didn’t do anything. But I’m worried about what he might do. Do you worry about him?”

  Malcolm eased and tensed again. “We never been close. Not since I was little. I got a big family, and we got different fathers. Lots of us, with half-brothers and sisters we’re never gonna know. My father? Mine was never there. Michael—Michael and Milton—their daddy looked to be a real daddy, to me and them both. He worked. He was a doorman downtown, at a rich white people building. He took us to the beach once, in the Bronx. He had a car. I never seen that. I never seen sand. Can you believe that? Ten years old, I knew what street was, I knew was dirt was, but I never seen sand, never stepped on it. My feet didn’t believe it. It was like a made-up thing, like snow for a Puerto Rican or something, you know? Big fat guy, his name was Jerry, Jeremiah. He was sweet as pie. He bought me a bike. Then, heart attack. Pop! Done. We had in-and-out daddies after that, some of the old ones, sometimes new. Back like it was before. Me and Michael, we was close till then, but I didn’t mind both ways. I liked the ‘Didja do your homework’ daddy, but when he died, I didn’t have to do homework.

  “Milton always looked up to me, but Michael, after that? Michael looked away. Michael is the older one. He’s in his twenties. Milton was … I don’t know, but I guess he wasn’t twenty-one, or else … or else he wouldn’t need my ID.”

  Malcolm’s aspect darkened, and Esposito pushed ahead, so Malcolm wouldn’t dwell on what couldn’t be changed.

  “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  “About six.”

  “About six?”

  “There’s half-ones and step ones I lose count of.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway. Michael, he wasn’t the same after. Never was a happy-go-lucky kid, but after, he was as fun as a funeral. Worked hard, good at school—he went, even when it snowed! Hot, cold, wet—he went to school, whenever it was open. Couldn’t play ball, couldn’t hit a ball if you tied it to the bat. He woulda had the black beat off him at school, in the neighborhood, if it wasn’t for the rest of us. He had glasses. You remember my brother Nelson? They called him N-Dog?”


  “Yeah, I remember. Stabbed at a club? Downtown?”

  “Three years ago, God bless. Him, me, our whole peoples, that was what let Michael be Michael. You know that my man took violin lessons for a while? Shorty walkin’ around the projects with a violin case and glasses. That’s not even like havin’ a big ‘Beat me!’ sign on your back. That’s like advertising on the radio. It was all us, respect for us. He played like crazy after Jerry died. First it sounded like he was frying cats, but nobody could say nothin’. He was special, he was sad, and then he got good. He got mad good, all this old-timey shit. I don’t even know what it was—classical shit, I guess, I don’t know. All these songs, it was like the movies, when the nicest white girl dies. Sad and special, just like Michael. Everybody wanted him to shut up, and he wouldn’t, and then nobody wanted him to stop, and he did. He is one backward mother…. It was right before I went upstate—a two-year bit, for hustling, but you knew that, right?—that he quit. He joined the army. Something to do with 9/11 maybe, but I don’t know, I don’t think it had to do with that. I think he just wanted somebody to fight with.

  “I gotta laugh at you guys—no disrespect. You guys figure, we’re brothers, we’re like … brothers. But it ain’t like that. I went upstate, he went into the army. We both got back, the same time. My moms had a party for both of us, but Michael wouldn’t come.”

  “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.”