Red on Red Read online

  “Hah! Nicky! See ’em? Did you see their faces? God, this is fun sometimes….”

  Nick cringed, even as he caught himself laughing, too. Were they all perps and hangers-on? Or had the youngest one’s big sister just marched over to tell him, Cut this out and get home. You can make a life if you work hard and play by the rules. Still, it was funny, as long as it happened to someone else, as long as you could imagine that they deserved it.

  “Did you know them?” Nick asked.

  “Probably. I couldn’t see. But it’s a crack spot. One of Babenco’s.”

  “So that was kind of a tip of the hat to Malcolm Cole.”

  “You might say.”

  That was the kind of thing Esposito did often, a little reckless and almost righteous, and Nick wondered if he would have enjoyed it more if he could know for sure he wouldn’t be asked about it, later on, under oath. Nick grimaced at the thought, and Esposito smiled at what he mistook for a smile, for Nick’s appreciation.

  When they arrived at their destination, they straightened their ties and tucked in their shirts, checking themselves in the rearview mirror. The messengers should be respectable even if the message is not, and they headed into the projects. From the outside, the housing complex looked much as it might have on the drawing board in the late 1950s, the model modern city of redbrick towers grouped amid playgrounds and tree-lined lawns. Once the door of the Coles’ building was yanked open, however—the lock was broken, again—the lobby looked like a set from a 1970s movie, Gotham bankrupt and at bay. By Sunday night, the porters hadn’t cleaned in two days, the yellowed tiles had a urinal smell, and the floor was littered with trash. As they stepped in, three kids tossed their blunt—a cheap cigar stuffed with marijuana—and froze a moment, ready to run. Esposito raised his hands. “At ease, men. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

  They relaxed, and one giggled, while another bent to fetch the blunt.

  “Yo! You cops is all right!”

  “They not cops, dummy. They DTs.”

  “Homicide? Shit! Who got it?”

  Esposito stepped toward them and handed out his card to each, correctly estimating they would be more intrigued than repelled by his combination of real conversation and official status.

  “You’ll find out soon enough, guys. When you do, if you hear something, give me a call.”

  “Nah, man, we ain’t snitches.”

  “Snitches get stitches.”

  But even as they mouthed the slogans of defiance, each of them stared at their card as if it were a map to buried treasure, contact with a world they’d only seen on television.

  “I ain’t talking about snitching,” Esposito went on. “I’m going upstairs to tell somebody’s moms some bad news, and if you guys help me, I won’t have to tell somebody else’s moms the same thing next week.”

  Nick was intrigued by the way it was said here—“moms.” Plural or possessive? Neither, just slang, words thrown around. Nick didn’t speak the lingo. Best to say nothing. Snitches get stitches.

  “Also, there’s money in it.”

  “How much?”

  “You call me with something good, I’ll let you know.”

  The elevator opened, and the detectives stepped inside. Nick pressed the button for fourteen, blocking the panel with his body so the kids couldn’t see which floor he’d selected; they would know the family. They might be the family. As the doors shut and the elevator rose with a jerk, Nick asked Esposito how many Coles were left.

  “God knows. There’s a pack of ’em, mostly older. As far as I remember, some went straight, and some went straight to the streets. There’s two younger brothers. I think they’ve never been in trouble, grandkids, whatever. Malcolm, though—he was one tough kid, a real hard case.”

  There were families here that were inmate dynasties, generation after generation of wards of the state—killer, crackhead, whore, thief; the slow girl who got fat on paint chips; the lucky one in the wheelchair, with a settlement from when he was hit by a car. The clustered disasters made a certain grim sense: bad inputs and bad outputs. Other families were dizzyingly split—dead, jail, army major; dead, plumber, custodian, jail; jail, jail, hospital administrator. Most tragic were the families where the failures were harder to explain than the successes—two parents, churchgoers and job-holders, with four daughters who made six figures apiece, two sons who made their sneaker money sticking up old ladies in elevators. There were good people here, too—more than the other kind—but detectives ran into them less often. These people … Nick stopped the thought before he could be sure what he meant.

  At the fourteenth floor, a different music thumped through each door—R&B, salsa, reggaeton, until they came to a door marked with bumper stickers for a rap station. There was no sound inside, at least none they could hear, when they pressed an ear against the frame. Esposito hit the door with his fist a few times, waited, then turned around and gave it a few solid kicks with his heel.

  “Who?”

  “Police.”

  “Who?”

  “Police! Open up!”

  They could hear shuffling footsteps approaching. An eye appeared at the peephole, and a wary male voiced called out, “Nobody called the cops here.”

  “I know. We gotta talk to you.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “Shut up and get your mother.”

  There was no contempt in the tone, only a blunt indifference to a junior player trying to buy time he could not afford. The force of it, and the absence of anger, had a confusing effect on the other side of the door.

  “She can’t … I can’t … She’s sleeping.”

  “Wake her up.”

  The footsteps trudged away. Esposito muttered, “If she can sleep through this racket, God bless her.” Just when they were about to start pounding again, the footsteps returned, and the door unlocked. A wiry young man in pajama bottoms opened it with obvious reluctance. How many times had cops come to his door? He was brown skinned, and though he must have been at least twenty, his faint, fuzzy mustache looked like it could have been the first he’d tried to grow. A disdainful stare met their faces, turning to disgust as he looked them up and down. Nick noted the condition of his own shoes.

  “Wipe your feet.”

  The young man turned away before the detectives entered, to show that they were not worth his consideration.

  “She says to have a seat, she’ll be out in a minute.”

  They followed him down the hall, past a kitchen with a pot of rice on the stove, to a living room with two couches, one pulled out into a bed. On the walls were taped various certificates, attesting to attendance at drug awareness and parenting classes, a program called Positivity and Peer Pressure. The tattered curl of the edges added to the faintness of the praise. Two infants lay there; another toddler in diapers scrambled on the floor nearby. The uniform for a fast-food restaurant hung neatly on a closet door. The lights were dim, but the television was big and bright, with a video game paused; it showed a car chase on a city street, with gang members in an alley and snipers on a roof. Disapproving thoughts began to form in Nick’s mind as the toddler rushed over to him and hugged his leg. The young man leaned down and snatched him up.

  “No, Daquan, no. They ain’t your friend.”

  Nick stiffened at the child’s touch, but when the boy was taken away, he felt a twinge of regret. The hostile pomp showed the Cole kid had never been in trouble before—a real criminal knew to avoid needless provocation—but the act was aggravating. So it was going to be that way, was it? In the end, the undisguised enmity might make it easier; who wouldn’t rather break the heart of a bastard? No, it wouldn’t; the room wasn’t big enough to hold the hate as it was, and it was better not to add any more. Nick felt tired, and knew the pressure at the back of his neck would be a headache within the hour. He caught himself scowling, and made himself stop. Esposito maintained a tone of agreeable calm, as if they’d been offered tea on the verandah. The baby said the name
Michael, and Esposito picked up on it.

  “Michael, is Daquan your boy? I got a two-year-old at home, a girl. It’s a tough age.”

  The young man kissed the child, but pointedly watched the frozen TV screen instead of looking at Esposito. “He’s only one. He’s big. He’s my sister’s. She’s out … like always …”

  As Nick recalled, Esposito had three sons. He could have said so. He’d lied because he didn’t want to bring them into this, he didn’t want to think of this, with them. Still, he’d put out something of himself, connected on human terms. And the move had worked. The anger seemed to ebb slightly. The young man put the toddler down, collected the infants from the pullout couch, and brought them to a back room. He looked as if he suspected the detectives might take the children, as if Esposito might distract him with a comment—Hey, nice TV!—and slip a kid into a pocket like a shoplifter. And then Nick realized, they were there to take a child from this house, or at least tell of his taking. Go ahead, stay angry, and hide your babies. Keep away from the police. They bring no good news.

  A moment later, Michael Cole returned with his mother on his arm, shuffling out from the dark hall in a worn blue flannel robe. She was a heavy woman, breathing heavily, who carried herself as if she were getting tired of the weight. She settled into her seat with a long exhalation. She patted one arm of the couch as if it were a friend, and mopped her brow with a damp washcloth. Little Daquan ran to her and held her leg, before waddling over to the TV to slap the screen.

  “There, now. My pressure’s no good. I had a stroke since I seen you last, Detective. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I haven’t seen Malcolm.”

  Esposito leaned down and touched her hand.

  “I’m sorry Miz Cole, it’s not that. I got some bad news.”

  “He was arrested?”

  Michael broke in abruptly. “They don’t come to tell you that, Mama. They ain’t that nice—”

  “Quiet now, Michael. Go get me some water. Let these gentlemen get to the business they come for. What is it?”

  She looked up, wide-eyed and ready for the blow.

  “There’s been a shooting….”

  And then she looked down, mopping her brow again, shaking her head. “Malcolm?”

  Esposito nodded and looked to Nick. His fumbling in his pockets for the license provoked a scowl from Michael, and it was a long minute before Nick found it and handed it over. Miz Cole glanced at it, like it was a receipt. She had gotten one before, at least once; she thought the bill had been paid.

  “Is he … ?”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  Michael left for the kitchen and returned with the water. He sat beside his mother, holding her as she sobbed, and placed the glass of water on the arm of the couch. Daquan turned from the television and ran to her, stumbling after three steps to fall on his face. His piercing screech joined his grandmother’s low moan. Michael leaned over and scooped him up, and Miz Cole clutched him to her chest.

  “My baby … poor baby … My Lord …”

  The three generations huddled as one on the couch, woeful arms entangled, and grief seemed to flow through the bodies. Esposito picked up the license and stepped back a few paces. Nick had already given them room. The apartment was hot, and it felt like their wailing was using up all the air. Esposito waited for a minute, and then another, but no more. The Coles had lifetimes to mourn; the detectives did not.

  “Miz Cole, when’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Only yesterday.”

  The disclosure struck Michael like cold water, and he sat up straight. “Ma, don’t tell ’em nothin’! They don’t care. They ain’t here to help us! They glad Malcolm’s dead! Shit, I bet they killed him!”

  That was a turn that Esposito was not willing to let the conversation take; he didn’t expect to get much from them, but he would not allow Michael to open another front of the war.

  “Easy now, Michael. We are here to help. And you gotta help us find out what happened, because whatever Malcolm did or didn’t do—I don’t know, I wasn’t there—it ain’t right what happened to him.”

  Michael shook his head but fell quiet again, and the family slid back into grief. The glass toppled from the arm of the couch and broke on the floor. Nick picked up the bigger pieces and left for the kitchen.

  “Let me get you some more water.”

  The kitchen was narrow, and even though Nick was alone there, it felt crowded. A frying pan with a turkey leg sat on the stove, the grease congealing; the pot of rice was crusty at the edges. There was a clean glass in a cabinet and several dirty ones in the sink. He didn’t think Michael would take anything from him, not even a glass of water from his own house, but he washed an extra glass and filled up two. Nick was about to step out of the kitchen when the front door opened, and another young man walked in.

  “Mama? What happen? What’s goin’ on?”

  Though Nick had only seen his picture on the license, he knew it was Malcolm Cole. The air seemed to thicken now to a viscous gel, and no one could move through it; if any of them had tipped over, it would have taken half a minute to hit the ground. Malcolm looked ahead, at his mother and Esposito, then to Nick, a few paces away in the kitchen, close enough to cut off his escape. The possibilities played across his face, the simple switches clicking in his mind. Yes or no? In or out? Fight or flight?

  Miz Cole made the decision for him, in a weak, high, curiously singsonging voice: “Malcolm, these men …” Every Sunday of her life, she had raised her hands to attest to the resurrection. Now she saw but could not believe. “These men told me that you was dead!”

  “I’m all right, Ma.”

  “But they said—”

  Esposito took the ID and held it up. “Who did you give this to, Malcolm?”

  Malcolm thought with effort, as if his mind now had to move through the sticky stuff that held their bodies. It was not a hard thing to remember, but he didn’t want to succeed with the recollection. He looked down at the floor.

  “My brother Milton. To Milton, Ma. He wanted to go out tonight, to a club.”

  “Oh … now … no.”

  What sense it must have seemed to switch. Malcolm as Malcolm was a wanted man. Milton as Malcolm was a grown man. Stay out of jail, get into the bar. A win-win.

  Miz Cole looked at Malcolm and smiled, as if determined to relish this one moment of the miraculous before she was subsumed by the next waves of grief. No, this would be all for today. Her eyes fluttered and then her head sank to her chest. Her arms loosened and the baby slipped down to her lap.

  Nick picked up his radio. “We need an ambulance here, Central, forthwith … and send another couple of units for backup.”

  “What’s your condition there?”

  What was the condition here? Head-on collision of two tractor trailers loaded with bad karma? He didn’t want a hundred cops barreling in, but they might need reinforcements. Malcolm had rushed to his mother on the couch. He didn’t need to hear that he would be coming with the detectives, though he had to know it. Nick stepped back and muttered into the radio, “Cardiac, plus one under.”

  “Can you repeat that?” Nick did not want to announce to the room that Malcolm was under arrest.

  “Negative. Two units and an ambulance.”

  Nick lowered the radio and checked his watch—11:35. A bad time, the shift change. The four-to-twelves had gone into the precinct, but the midnights had not yet come out. They had a few minutes, at least. Esposito helped the Cole brothers lay the mother on the floor, and said to Nick, “Stay back. Give us some air.” He meant for Nick to block the door. “Go get a pillow,” he told Michael, which sent him to the back. Malcolm fanned his mother with a little towel. He looked up at Esposito and asked, in a jarringly plaintive voice, “Can I stay with my moms?”

  Possessive now, not plural.

  “Sure, yeah. Of course.”

  Michael returned with the pillow, and they gingerly lifted the head. She wasn’t breathing.
The Coles looked on helplessly.

  “All right, you guys. Your moms needs your help and I’m going to tell you how to do CPR. One of you has to breathe for her, and one has to press down on her chest. Five short pushes—lock your arms out, hands together—then one breath. Okay now. Ready?”

  Esposito took Malcolm and had him crouch beside her. Esposito put an arm around Malcolm’s shoulder, then patted his back, his flanks, a friendly gesture that also felt for a gun. He guided Malcolm through the chest compressions, then told Michael to hold her nose for the breaths.

  “Good. Let’s go now. One, two, three, four, five. Now a breath. One, two, three, four, five, breath. Good. Keep going. Michael, count out loud.”

  Esposito stepped back to let the resuscitation proceed, despite its lack of promise. The Coles worked with visible anxiety and little aptitude. Malcolm’s compressions were jerky and light, and Michael’s breaths were shallow. Michael counted with hesitation, trying to follow his brother’s rhythm but throwing him off and being thrown off in turn. He called out each number with a soft uncertainty, as if he were taking a stab at a math problem. “Three … four? Five?” Malcolm stopped when the baby let out a wail and fell onto his grandmother’s breast. He picked up the child and laid him on the couch, returning to the compressions with still less enthusiasm. He stopped again when he knelt on a shard of glass—“Shit!”—and did not rush to return after he brushed it out. Nick checked his watch. Four minutes had passed. She was past saving, and they now operated purely on pretense, giving the Coles busywork until backup could arrive. Esposito would have told them to do calisthenics or a rain dance if he’d thought they would fall for it. His mission remained fixed, even as the Coles’ world changed as if struck by a meteor, with extinctions and evolutions proceeding with unreal speed.