Chinatown Angel Read online

  “How are you doing, Samba?” asked the Greek.

  “I am no good,” Pilar said. “I forget my key.”

  “Again!” the Greek said, holding the door open for us. “Have you seen Irving?”

  Pilar grabbed the door. “I no see anymore.”

  “Well,” said the Greek. “His loss. Not ours. He’ll be back.”

  The Greek slapped me on the shoulder, saluted, and whispered, “Forward, captain, forward,” and quickly walked off into the dark.

  “Who’s that?” I said.

  “My good friend,” said Pilar.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “You too many question,” she said.

  “Who’s Irving?” I said, ignoring her.

  “Irving. Nice boy. Smart men. He was good friend. Now no more. Happy, meester?”

  “You have many friends.”

  “No,” she said with a shake of her hips. “I no have many friend. The world is my friend. I am Samba. I am Brazil.”

  We went inside. I heard voices in the hall, coming from behind closed doors, talking loudly, and smelled the sharp remains of all the foods boiled and baked and fried that night for dinner.

  All the way up to the fifth floor I kept watching Pilar’s skirt below her white winter coat. I could feel every step of her five-inch heels, red on the marble stairs, and I could taste her perfume in my mouth. I knew that I was fooling myself that this was just another part of the investigation, and I thought about Ramona, and I cursed my lying rotten self.

  When we got to the fifth floor, Pilar stripped off her coat and headed up one more flight to the roof.

  “I be back,” she said as she threw me her coat. I felt the fur. It was a fake.

  I waited maybe five minutes outside Pilar’s apartment until I heard a small dog barking and then a window opening. Someone was walking around inside. I knocked three times and the door opened and there was Pilar, holding a trembling Chihuahua.

  “Tah-dah!” she said. “Magic!”

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “You’d make a great cat burglar.”

  When I said the word “cat” the Chihuahua went crazy barking at me like I was some secret spy come to take him back to the hell he sprung from.

  “Baby,” Pilar said. “Is all right. Is only Chico.”

  I never liked Chihuahuas. People might imagine that if the devil has a dog, it’s a Doberman pinscher or a pit bull or a rott-weiller. But I know better. Chihuahua.

  “Come,” Pilar said.

  I followed Pilar into her apartment. It was all white: the walls, the couch, the lamps, the coffee table, the carpet—everything white.

  A makeshift altar (a familiar sight of religion at work or mumbo-jumbo up-close-and-personal, depending on who you asked) stood in a corner of the room. It was a white table stocked with white candles, water, dried fruit, cigars, coffee grounds, blue beads, feathers, black dolls in white dresses, and a statue of Saint Lazarus. Above the altar was a large laminated headshot of Kirk Atlas, looking impressed with himself in his tight T-shirt and jeans, grinning like a god. There was a DVD (Dead Poets Society) and a piece of paper with a poem on the altar, “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath. The poem was inscribed: To Pilar, Wishing you success & happiness over the next year. Love, Irving and Olga.

  A freezing wind came in through the open window. Pilar shut it.

  “I have good house, no?”

  “Yeah,” I said and she kissed me. I pulled back.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Twenty-two,” she said. “Everybody say I look older. But I have hard life in Brazil. My family is poor. No money. No shoes. No books. I beg on street in São Paulo.”

  She looked away. “I do many bad thing.”

  I couldn’t even imagine, so I didn’t try. I touched her dark face. Poor kid.

  “You’re doing okay now,” I said and pointed around the living room.

  Her eyes got wide. “Kirk.”

  She kissed my cheek and turned on some music. A husky woman’s voice sang “The Girl from Ipanema. . .”

  “Come,” she said, sitting, and slapped the plastic cover on the white couch.

  The dog started barking at me again.

  “Baby!”

  Baby, that rat in dog’s clothing with its big head and bigger ears, popping satanic eyes, and buzz saw teeth, ran around me, all nervous energy and trembling, barking like Lassie on crack. I stood there looking at Pilar as she bent over, grabbed the dog, and locked him away in the bathroom with a kiss. I knew what was happening. It was wrong, unprofessional, illogical, I know. But I hadn’t been with a woman in almost a year. Six months is almost a year. Pilar stood before me, her face just inches from mine. She kissed me again, this time on the mouth. I kissed her back.

  “Is good?”

  “Is very good,” I said and kissed her again.

  After, we were in her room, naked, empty Trojan wrappers scattered on the floor. She was on the bed. She rolled over on her belly. I caressed her fleshy bottom and said, “Tell me about Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany is very beautiful,” she said and wiped her sweaty face with her hand.

  “You’re very beautiful, too.”

  She shook her head. “Tiffany is more beautiful. She make the music.”

  “Tell me about Kirk or Marcos or whatever else he calls himself.”

  She said with affection, “When Marcos very young, he very skinny and small. Boy beat him in school. Girl call him sissy. So Marcos exercise and become like macho man. Make boom-boom on everybody. Kirk Atlas!”

  She suddenly got a burst of energy.

  “Kirk!” she repeated. She jumped off the bed, slipped on her panties, a Yale sweatshirt, and white furry slippers. She kissed me and walked over to a white dresser. She came back with an envelope and put it in my hand. It was full of cash.

  “Ten thousand dollar,” she said.

  “Ten thousand dollars? What’s it for?”

  “I buy you.”

  “You pay me?”

  “Yes. I pay you.”

  “I’m flattered. I don’t usually get paid for this.”

  “No. You stop find Tiffany.”

  I covered myself with a bedsheet.

  “You want me not to look for Tiffany?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re willing to pay me ten thousand dollars?”

  “Everything I have. Everything I save.”

  “You’re willing to give me your body and your life savings?”

  She lowered her head.

  “Why?”

  She looked up at me like an abandoned child. “Maybe you find Tiffany? Maybe you make her no come back?”

  “What do you mean I find her and make her no come back?”

  Pilar shrugged. “I no like Tiffany.”

  “Why?” I said. “What did she do to you?”

  Pilar screwed up her face and crossed her arms. I recognized the look. Ramona had it. That was it for tonight. No more information.

  “Listen,” I said, rising. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I’m going home to my basement apartment in the Bronx now and forget I was crazy enough to even come here. You’re a pretty girl. And you’re young. And I drank too much Coca-Cola. But that excuse will only get me so far. You call me when you’re ready to talk.”

  “No!” she said. Her face was panicked. She stripped off her sweatshirt and tried to push me flat on my back. She shook her head. “No more talk! No go! Kiss me!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why no?”

  “I wouldn’t respect myself in the morning.”

  Her brown eyes got real sad and I felt regret right away.

  I grabbed my pants and shoes and the mess I made, dropped the ten grand on the bed with my card, and moved quickly through Pilar’s apartment. As I closed the front door, I could hear her weeping in familiar starts and stops. I thought of my mother answering the phone the night of my father’s murder. It was that same quality of hurt in Pilar’s cr
ying.

  Outside. Cold wind slapping my face. Pilar’s building receding into the night. I walked quickly in the direction of my parked car wishing I had kissed Pilar goodbye. That’s when I heard a woman scream: “Chico!”

  I turned. I saw someone falling from the rooftop of Pilar’s building. I ran back as fast as I could, got out my pocket flashlight, shot through the open mouth of an alley, down a short flight of steps, through a long narrow corridor, to where that “someone” had fallen.

  “Pilar,” was all I could say, careful not to step in the blood.

  She was between the garbage cans, on her back, head busted open, bones shattered, one brown leg pulled under her body. Her Yale sweatshirt was torn where it probably snagged the fire escape on the way down. Her deep brown eyes were open in shock, a pool of blood circled her head like a furious halo. Her white furry slippers had come off and sat in a pool of red. Their little white hairs blew in the cold winter wind.

  I walked, fast as I could, out of that alley. But before I made it, I looked up and I saw a dark silhouette up against the white moon, peeking over the ledge of the rooftop that Pilar had fallen from. The person was wearing a dark hat. I stopped, stepped back, pointed my flashlight. The dark outline vanished.

  I ran and made it to the front door of the building, scanning the streets for that red Mustang and those two guys I had spotted earlier. Nothing. Nobody. I tried the door. Locked.

  I checked my Timex. It was 2 A.M.

  I flipped open my cell phone. I called the police and gave the dispatcher the details and the address.

  “Yeah,” I said, “she’s dead.”

  THREE

  I was part of an Astoria mob standing across the street from the crime scene. Police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, sirens, and badges had invaded the silence of early morning on Dit-mars. I stood on the sunny sidewalk in the cold, collar up, head full of cotton. I puffed on a cigarette that I had bummed off a Pakistani man in the crowd and scanned the worried faces, looking for the Greek or the two thuggish guys with the red Mustang.

  I saw Officer Jessica Torres signal for me from across the street. She ordered the crowd to stay where they were on the sidewalk. I stepped into the street and walked over.

  “Looks like a jumper,” she said, all brunette crew cut, broad backed and broad shouldered, pale chubby hands on her gun belt, leaning on one hip like a tough cowgirl, annoyed by my continued presence and questions. “We have your statement, Santana. Thank you. You can go home now.”

  I looked away from Officer Torres and saw a familiar figure in blue among a gaggle of New York’s finest at the mouth of the alley where they found Pilar’s body.

  I tossed my cigarette. “Samantha!”

  Samantha turned, looking over the heads of the other cops. She saw me and walked through the crowd. “Chico?

  Samantha Rodriguez, petite, long black hair tied up on her head, lovely brown skin, Mexican-American from Queens, got a B.S. in criminal justice from John Jay, and then headed for the police academy. To save innocent lives. We had a thing once, years ago. I hadn’t seen her since. It was quick and painful.

  “You know this guy?” said Officer Torres.

  “We went to John Jay together,” Samantha said. “What happened, Santana?”

  “She yells out. I turn. She’s tumbling off the roof.”

  “You saw her jump?” said Samantha, both hands playing at the edge of her gunbelt.

  “I saw her fall,” I said. “And, as I was telling your compatriot here, I saw somebody else up on the roof.”

  “You saw her pushed?” asked Samantha.

  “No,” said Officer Torres. “He saw her fall and then he says he saw somebody up on the roof.”

  “Male or female?” said Samantha.

  “It was dark,” said Officer Torres, kicking a greasy paper plate off the sidewalk into the curb. “He don’t know.”

  “I’m just saying that there was somebody else up there,” I said.

  “We got your statement,” said Officer Torres, exasperated.

  “What was the nature of your relationship?” Samantha asked, crossing her arms.

  “Pilar was part of a case I’m working on,” I said, stamping a foot down on my discarded cigarette. “I thought maybe she knew something about a girl I’m tracking. I was invited.”

  “What did you fight about again?” said Officer Torres and spit into the gutter.

  “I didn’t say I fought with her.”

  “You were with her,” Torres said, fishing now, flipping open her notebook, maybe showing off for Samantha. “Why did you leave?”

  “It was late,” I said.

  “Where were you going?” Torres said.

  “Home.”

  “You slept with her, right?” Torres said.

  “Yes,” I said and looked at Samantha, who frowned.

  “Do you usually sleep with leads?” said Torres, glancing at Samantha with blue accusing eyes.

  “Only if they ask real nice,” I said. “There was somebody on the roof.”

  “Okay,” said Torres, flipping her notebook closed. “This isn’t helping. We have your information. We’ll call you if we need anything else, Santana.”

  “What about the two guys outside the building?”

  “We’ll ask around. Woulda made our job easier if you had gotten the plates.”

  “What about the Greek?”

  “I said,” snapped Torres, hand at the edge of her gun belt, “we’ll ask around. Is there anything else you’d like to add before you go besides no information on anonymous Greeks you don’t know the name of in Astoria?”

  “I’m a bad swimmer?”

  “We’ll call you if we need you,” said Torres. “I’m going back in. Coming, Sam?”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” said Samantha.

  Officer Torres smiled sarcastically at me, cocked her head to the left, said “Good night, Kojak,” and sauntered away, like she had just shot down a local town drunk who was dumb and intoxicated enough to believe himself a faster draw.

  “What’s her problema?” I said.

  “She’s okay,” said Samantha.

  “I saw somebody.”

  “Hombre, you know the drill,” said Samantha. “We’ll run a checklist for signs of foul play. Questioning whoever needs to be questioned. Search the apartment and see if there’s anything missing or funny.”

  “Something’s funny all right.”

  Samantha Rodriguez took out a pen, grabbed my hand, and wrote her number on my palm. “Call me if you need someone to talk to.”

  I looked at the number as she held my fingers.

  “Still drawing at the Metropolitan?” she asked.

  “I don’t draw anymore.”

  “How’s Ramona?”

  “We’re not together.”

  She shook her head gently and said nothing.

  I shook my head, too.

  “Nicky?”

  “Barcelona.”

  “Bueno,” she said, all dark brown eyes and Mexican features. She released my fingers. “It’s good to see you, Chico. Stop following strange girls home. We’re not in college anymore. I’d kiss you, only my commanding officer is watching. Call me.”

  FOUR

  Mimi’s Cuchifrito was located on Brook Avenue in the South Bronx. I lied to myself that I was only going there to stand still a minute, catch my breath, gulp down a cup of strong Puerto Rican coffee, maybe a roll with butter. Bullshit. I sat at the counter with a copy of the New York Post and ordered two freshly battered and deep-fried potatoes and washed them down with two large cups of sugary iced coco juice.

  Mimi’s Cuchifrito ain’t exactly known for its healthy eating. Sweet plantains, codfish, chopped beef, are all battered and deep fried. Even the menu is deep fried.

  “Chico!” Mimi yelled, coming out of the kitchen, blowing me a kiss and wiping her fingers on her blue apron. “Boricua!”

  Mimi was smart, proudly fat, an explosion of red hair and miles of
cleavage, fifty-three years young. She was in blue jeans that were too tight and a low-cut orange blouse over enormous breasts. She wore too much makeup—eyeliner, lipstick, rouge, powder, perfume, and anything that she could spray or rub or apply without developing a fatal skin rash. Mimi was, besides my buddy Nicky Brown, the closest thing I had to family. Mimi never had children. She couldn’t. I didn’t have all the details. I didn’t want them.

  “Did you call Nicky?” she asked. This was her way of saying that she was worried about me.

  “Not yet.”

  “Momento,” Mimi said.

  She turned to the men who were playing dominoes at the opposite end of the counter, and delivered a joke in Spanish. Her small male audience laughed hard and loud and slapped their rough peasant hands on the slick white counter.

  I tried to stuff down the last of my second papa rellena, when my belly began to ache. I looked up at the faded photo over the stack of white Styrofoam cups. It was an old childhood shot of Mimi, Nicky, and me outside a Times Square movie theater during Easter. I swore that Nicky, sporting an Afro and a brand-new lime green Easter sweater that matched my own (thanks to Mimi), was looking down at me, disappointed. Bad Chico.

  I thought back to Nicky and his father, Carlos Brown, and the summer Nicky killed him.

  Nicky was just going home to Summit Avenue for a visit, a simple South Bronx visit—that was all. He told me he greeted his neighbor Mrs. Hernandez, who was sitting on the stoop “drinkin’ one of those Porto Rican sodas”—Malta—and watching over her three boys as they played stickball. He waved hello to her and the old Jewish landlord, Mr. Schwartz, who always seemed to be wearing the same brown vest, white T-shirt, and brown porkpie hat. Schwartz, the only Jew in the neighborhood, lived on the first floor with his fat wife, three German Shepherds, and a pretty sixteen-year-old daughter named Rachel. He was out walking his dogs—Cujo, Killer, and Sweetie—when Nicky went past them into his old building. Up the three flights of stairs Nicky went when he heard a scream that almost forced his heart out of his chest. The scream was ancient and familiar. It was his mother’s scream.

  Nicky grew up on Summit Avenue with this scream, with his father getting drunk and losing at numbers and crashing his rusted Pinto into every fence, tree, and mailbox in the neighborhood. Nicky’s mother, Dorothy, fought back with tooth and nail and hammer if she had to, but always got worse than she gave. Nicky came into the world, he said, with “a slap in my face and a kick in my ass.”