The Superman Project Read online

  “I’m an engineer,” Pablo said and took a deep breath as if fighting for air.

  “Pablo!” Mrs. Sanchez scolded.

  “Well,” Pablo said, and gave his mother a look. Esther Sanchez shook her gray head, sucked her teeth, and looked away at Boo, who was snoring.

  “I’m in maintenance, right now,” said Pablo.

  “He’s a janitor,” said Mrs. Sanchez, turning back to us.

  “I maintain the building, Ma.”

  “Caramba! Janitor is a perfectly good word,” Mrs. Sanchez said. “He makes a good salary. I was head of housekeeping at the program and then personal secretary to the president Father Ravi until I retired because of my heart condition. Honest work is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not ashamed, Ma.”

  Pablo turned to me. “I’m not a member of TSP. I’m a janitor but it’s temporary. I write graphic novels.”

  “Comic books!” yelled Mrs. Sanchez.

  “How long have you been in maintenance at this TSP?” I asked.

  “A little over a year,” said Pablo, “since I graduated high school.” He went into his pocket and pulled out an asthma pump and something fell out on the dusty wood floor with a clack. I looked down and saw that it was a Superman—

  “Doll!” said Mrs. Sanchez and shook her head in disgust. “His doll.”

  “Not doll, Ma!” Blushing red, Pablo picked up the pocket-sized Superman. “Action figure.”

  “They look like dolls to me,” said Mrs. Sanchez. “It’s those dolls that keep you single.”

  “Well,” Pablo said, pocketing his doll. “We’re not here to talk about my doll—I mean action figures. We’re here to talk about helping Joey.”

  “Good idea,” I said, searching the desk drawer for my Timex watch and spotting my father’s old baseball signed by Roberto Clemente. I was seriously considering putting that baseball up for sale to some collector.

  “Do either of you know where Joey is now?” I continued.

  “We don’t know,” Pablo said. “Nobody knows. He calls on disposable phones, makes a request, and moves on.”

  “Can you tell me where you saw him last?”

  “Joey is a wanted man,” said Esther Sanchez. “Innocent. And a friend. Even if we knew where he was we wouldn’t tell you. What kind of people do you think we are?”

  “Sorry,” I said, flipping on the coffeemaker I kept on my desk. “I haven’t had my Café Bustelo yet.”

  “There are those of us,” Pablo said and glanced at his mother, “who understand that one of the greatest values is the love of a friend. When someone tries to destroy a friend and we’re forced to say goodbye to what was good and strong, we have to do something. After almost a year of solid friendship, I know this, Joey did not do anything to his wife Gabby.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’m sorry, folks. Don’t mean to be rude. But we need to get to the point here. How do you think I can—”

  Before I could finish, Mrs. Sanchez grabbed her cane, stood up with great difficulty, and said, “You, Chico Santana, will help Joey and find his wife Gabby Gupta. I don’t agree with my son that Gabby just ran away. I think there is a conspiracy against Joey. I believe people are capable of almost any kind of evil. We need you to find Gabby for Joey so we can all get on with our lives.”

  “Why do you think this is happening to Joey? If what you say is true and his wife didn’t just run off and he’s innocent of any wrongdoing?”

  “I think they just want him gone, hijo,” said Esther Sanchez.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Pablo. “But if it takes weeks, months, years, with or without you, Chico, I’m going to find Gabby Gupta.”

  “Before we agree to anything,” I said, “do you want to know how much I charge?”

  “Charge?” Mrs. Sanchez laughed.

  “Chico,” said Pablo, as if he weren’t just some snot-nosed eighteen-year-old kid, “there comes a day when every man finds what he is looking for. Lucky is the man who has eyes to see it. This may be your day.”

  “I’m gonna be late for church. Pablo!” With that, Mrs. Sanchez signaled Pablo to follow and left my office.

  Pablo Sanchez stepped to the door. “Sorry about that. I have to humor her. Church is very important to her now. She’s not so old but she’s sick. She almost died of a heart attack last year, that’s why she’s so skinny now. She—”

  “Pablo!” yelled a voice from the hall.

  Pablo watched the door.

  “No problem, man. I understand,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  Pablo went into the black bag marked Cosmo Comics slung across his shoulder and pulled out a wedding photo. In the photo, Joey was still tall, muscular, dark, cheerful, with long black glossy hair. He wore white linen pants and a white jacket with a red turban. His cheerful bride Gabby was also wearing white linen. She was tall, pretty and shapely, an Indian girl (not native American but Indian-Indian, Asian Indian). They were smiling on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry.

  “Where’d you get this?” I asked.

  “Joey gave it to me.”

  “So he didn’t just call you,” I said. “You met up with him.”

  Pablo Sanchez was lying to me to protect the whereabouts of Joey Valentin.

  “Pablo!” the voice yelled again.

  “Sorry,” Pablo said to me and turned to the door again. “Coming, Ma! Excuse me, Chico. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I said. “We should talk about my fee first.”

  “Well,” Pablo said, “I thought maybe, since you knew Joey, grew up with Joey, maybe you believed in something bigger than yourself.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I believe in one day being able to afford cable television. Other than that, the list is pretty slim. I can’t afford to help you pro bono. I need money, or I’m outta business.”

  Pablo spotted my father’s old baseball.

  “That’s signed by New York Yankee Roberto Clemente,” I said.

  He picked it up.

  “Roberto Clemente wasn’t a Yankee,” he said. “He was a Pittsburgh Pirate.”

  Roberto Clemente wasn’t a Yankee?

  “Pablo!”

  “I gotta go,” Pablo said, almost terrified. He put down the baseball and handed me a big fat book and said, “See you tomorrow! And don’t worry about money, Chico. I’ll get you something better than money,” and rushed out of my office.

  Better than money?

  Pablo reminded me of some fairy-tale innocent trapped in a dungeon, awaiting rescue. A guy who wouldn’t steal a loaf of bread if he was starving. I looked at the big fat jacket blurb on the book Wrestling with The Superman by Father Ravi.

  Shatter your Idols

  You have the POWER to perfect yourself

  Male or Female

  You are THE SUPERMAN

  Pablo Sanchez really was something. Not a sucker, not exactly. He was just one of those guys who felt responsible for everyone and everything. Not me, boy, not anymore, I thought as I grabbed Boo, a plastic bag, and his leash and turned off the lights, locked my office door, and headed outside for a walk and then a class trip to see Willow Mankiller Johnson in Parkchester about a favor.

  But if I was so much smoother than Pablo Sanchez, why was I popping four aspirin and taking that autographed Yankee baseball and that stupid book with me?

  Oh, yeah, I thought, jogging behind Boo down the stairs, half asleep, head still pounding, going to buy a hot dog with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut at the local rat dog sellers, that strange rip in my lower gut, feeling heat-sick. No matter what, this day was gonna be special. If I was wise, like Boo earlier, I woulda just gone back to sleep.

  Why am I not wise?

  TWO

  It was 1:00 P.M. in Parkchester and the air conditioner was on full blast. I had jumped on the Downtown 2 train on 149th to 125th Street where I jumped on the Uptown 5 train until we came up out of the underground tunnel at Whitlock
, rising up across the familiar Bronx River and the sprawling tenements of the Bronx to the Parkchester stop.

  As soon as I got to the apartment, Willow turned up the AC, handed me an ice-cold Malta—my weakness—one of many—hinted at what she wanted, and left the room. I slammed back my Malta, which Nicky called Porto Reecan soda and Officer Samantha Rodriguez compared, not without disgust, to drinking milk mixed with Pepsi.

  To each his own.

  The two-hour snooze I got last night, the coffee, and the Malta failed me. I fell asleep and the nightmare came back and when I awoke I knew the answer to Willow’s question.

  I can’t do it. I can’t do it and I won’t. Not for Nicky Brown, who called from Atlanta and suggested that Willow give me a ring. Thanks, Nicky. Not for Willow Johnson, who I hardly knew except for one case.

  I admit it, Willow’s new place was real nice. Willow’s grandfather, Kenneth Johnson, lived seventy-five years, working as a bus driver in the Bronx for twenty of those years, burying his wife a year before his seventy-fourth and then dropping suddenly, leaving his kin his only worldly possession—a co-op apartment in Parkchester.

  The living room was filled with windows and sunlight, freshly painted walls and freshly polished floors, and Gaudi prints. There was a giant TV. No trash, no dirty dishes, no mice, no cockroaches. Not bad. A kitchen table in the corner held books and dictionaries for Italian, French, and Spanish. I looked up and saw these things hanging on the walls, like giant spiderwebs attached to long white feathers—dreamcatchers.

  I jumped up, walked to the window, and looked out at Parkchester trees beaten down by the hot summer sun. I heard voices coming from the next room. They grew louder. Three voices laughing, when there should only have been two. Willow and her niece, Max. The third voice? I wasn’t sure. Then I heard, “Aye, nena!” and laughter and then I smelled something cooking.

  I sniffed at the air.

  Lotions and potions.

  Perfumes and bath powders.

  Mascara?

  Sofrito!

  And I knew.

  Mimi!

  Mimi, fifty-three years young, and my father had grown up together dirt poor, without shoes or indoor plumbing or much to eat, in the small town of Carolina, Puerto Rico. Mimi’s husband Esteban, my father’s best friend and motorcycling buddy, grew up with them and became a civil rights lawyer in the Bronx. When my father was murdered, Esteban searched for his killer for over two years. He couldn’t sleep, took to drinking and walking after midnight all over New York, from the Bronx to Brooklyn—returning days later hurt, tired, and filthy. Finally, Esteban never came back. He had called Mimi, who worked to put him through law school, “my little jibara,” my little peasant, and he loved her and kissed her as much as my own father loved and kissed my mother.

  Mimi and I have some kind of unspoken agreement, a contract. She never talks about my mother and father and I never talk about her Esteban.

  And when money was tight all over and Mimi’s investment company lost her entire life’s savings in bad real estate investments and she needed cash to keep her apartment and her Cuchifrito restaurant on Brook Avenue open, I gave. I gave everything I had saved away from the Kirk Atlas case, and the new stuff hadn’t exactly been bouncing in.

  And now, what was Mimi doing there? Were she and Willow in cahoots? And what the hell is cahoot? And how long was I asleep? It made no never mind.

  “I won’t,” I muttered. Why does it always have to be me? I gotta get outta here. Escape, Chico! Make haste, son, escape!

  I turned and headed for the front door. I was running back to 149th Street. Move now, explain later, amigo.

  Someone entered the room. I turned and saw a kid standing before the swinging kitchen door, looking up at me all innocent and curious. She was eight years old and small for her age, a chubby black girl in pigtails, thick lips and glasses with silly black frames, wearing orange shorts and a striped shirt. She was also wearing a red bath towel tied around her neck like a cape—probably because she had overheard me mention The Superman Project to Willow. She called herself Super Max and was also holding a cardboard box. Willow had introduced her as her niece, Max, short for Maxine, which she hated being called. Maxine, she said, was a sissy’s name.

  “Mornin’, sir,” said Max, and beamed a charmer’s smile at me.

  Sir? Did this kid just call me sir?

  “You fell asleep, sir.”

  “Very perceptive,” I said. “You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes. What’s in the box?”

  “Gizmo. Wanna see?”

  “Sure.”

  Max approached with her box. Inside was a black kitten, minus a foot.

  “What happened to its foot?”

  “I saw these kids back home in Detroit,” Max said. “Carrying a box, yelling, ‘Cat for sale! Cat for sale!’ I looked into the box and saw these big blue eyes lookin’ up at me. He looked as if he was smiling at me. The bad boys told me how the mother cat had chewed off his leg. They were going to take him to the ASPCA and have him put to sleep if they couldn’t sell him. I paid them two dollars, all my money in the world, and brought him home.”

  I looked in the box again. Gizmo was full of life—scratching, swiping, jumping, meowing.

  “He’s a good cat,” Max said. “He’s not any trouble. He doesn’t miss his foot. I think it bothers other people more than it bothers him. He’s a happy kitty. They were gonna put him to sleep, just because he wasn’t like the other cats. Can you imagine that, sir? That’s not right, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “And stop calling me sir. At ease, soldier.”

  Max gave me a confused look, said “Huh?” and cracked up laughing for no apparent reason. Kids can be goofy like that.

  The kitchen door swung open again and Willow Mankiller Johnson came in, walking tall with that reddish brown skin of hers and those impossibly dark Cherokee eyes and that long, thick black braid perched on her shoulder like a snake.

  “Mire, mire, Yankee!” Willow said, holding a second bottle of ice-cold Malta. “Look who’s awake!”

  She was like a giant black swan. An Indian arrowhead hung from a black leather cord around her long neck. She wore cutoff blue jeans, daisy dukes and a peasant blouse, a tattoo on her upper arm, a dreamcatcher. She had bare feet and legs that went on for miles.

  Someone cleared her throat.

  I turned my head and saw that Max was watching me stare at Willow’s legs, and she smiled as though she had caught me with a blackbird in my mouth.

  “What’re you lookin’ at?” I said.

  “Nothin’,” Max said and smiled even wider.

  Kids!

  “What time is it?” I asked, taking the second Malta from Willow, looking around uneasily.

  “Max,” Willow said, ignoring my question. “Bring Mimi’s flan for Uncle Chico.”

  Uncle Chico? Que hablas, Willis? I ain’t nobody’s Uncle Chico.

  “Okay!” Max yelled gleefully and ran from the room.

  “Mimi’s here,” said Willow.

  “I heard,” I said. “What’s she doing in the kitchen?”

  “Making pasteles.”

  I could always count on Mimi. She had gotten a bit nutty when I opened my office on 149th Street. She started to drop by, unannounced, to clean it, no matter how much I objected. One time she faked an attack and actually threw herself down on the floor, clutching her breast, so that she could look under my desk and see if there were any dust balls. “All better,” she said as I helped her up.

  Thanks for stopping by, Mimi. Really. Now drop the Pine-Sol and step away from the file cabinet.

  God bless her.

  Pasteles. Plantains, basil, sofrito. I loved pasteles and Mimi knew it. Malta, flan, pasteles. Willow was playing hardball and Mimi was in on it! They were even letting me eat dessert before the main course to get what they wanted! Brother, that’s just evil!

  It’s a conspiracy. Get out, Chico! Now!

  “What do you think of M
ax, so far?” Willow asked.

  “Seems like a nice kid,” I said. “Why’d your sister send her to you?”

  “It was me or a foster home.”

  “Where’s her father?”

  “Dead. He was shot in the fine city of Detroit while going to work. Nobody caught for it.”

  “That’s tough,” I said. “That’s too bad.”

  “Max really likes you.”

  “I have a magnetic personality.”

  “You have a way with kids. You’d make a great father, Chico. I can tell.”

  “Well,” I said, checking my Timex, “on that note, I better get going.”

  “Max is staying with me awhile.”

  “I know, you told me.”

  “As soon as my sister sorts through the funeral mess and she finds a job, she’ll be back in Detroit. It’s only for the summer.”

  “You told me.”

  “Max is really sad and confused about her father.”

  I nodded. “Tough break.”

  “My sister just wants me to look after her until things cool off and she’s back on her feet.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said, standing up and going for the front door.

  But Max returned with a silver spoon and two flowery plates piled with two hunks of Mimi’s flan. Max announced that there was only enough extra cinnamon for one serving. I looked down at my plate; my flan was the only one spattered with fresh brown cinnamon.

  Charmer.

  “You slept more than three hours,” said Max, handing me my plate.

  “And why not?” Willow said. “Sleep is good.”

  “You hardly moved or anything, sir.”

  “Sounds like me.”

  “We thought you was dead,” Max said.

  “Were dead,” Willow corrected.

  “We thought you were dead,” Max repeated. “But Auntie said dead men don’t snore like that. You snore like an animal!”

  “Max!” Willow snapped.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Stop calling me sir, Max. The name is Chico.”

  “Sorry, Uncle Chico.”

  “Turn on the TV, Max. So Uncle Chico can relax.”

  Before I could protest, Max grabbed the remote and flicked on the giant TV. Willow grabbed my arm in what felt like an attempt to break it. The girl was strong. Cherokee strong. She grabbed my plate of flan and dragged me down on the sofa beside her. As clumsy as a mother bear, Willow put her long right arm around Max’s shoulder and her left arm around me.