The Superman Project Page 5

  Father Ravi, The Wise and Magnificent Om.

  There goes my membership.

  I was on page 46, when Max, wearing blue pajamas and that red towel tied around her neck, came into the living room and insisted on doing her best dance moves in the Max Johnson Extravaganza, followed by impressions of Eddie Murphy in Doctor Dolittle and more magic tricks that mostly entailed my pretending not to see the coin she was hiding in her left hand as I drank my regular big cup of after-midnight coffee in front of the TV, saying, “Wow, how’d you do that?” as convincingly as I could muster.

  As I watched Max I caught a movement through the glass sliding door behind her and saw an uninvited guest slumping through the short wooden gate leading into the backyard past an old barbecue grill. The way he was walking said that he had no intention of asking for an invitation, whoever he was. He meant business. What kind, I was not about to find out with an eight-year-old in the room. I stood up.

  “Max.”

  “One more trick?”

  “No more tricks,” I said. “Boo!”

  Boo woke up, yawned, and looked up at me with that sleepy, “Was’up, bro?” look.

  “Gimme your hand, Max.”

  “Super Max,” she corrected me.

  “Super Max,” I repeated.

  Super Max gave me her hand, and I walked her and Boo toward the front door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “On a little adventure.”

  “I’m not dressed in my regular clothes!” Super Max said, pulling at her blue pajamas. “People will know my secret identity!”

  “That’s all right.”

  Max began sucking her thumb.

  “Max, stop sucking your thumb.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s nasty,” I said, unlocking the front door.

  “Why?”

  “Stop asking why.”

  “Why?” said Max and laughed.

  “Stop it or I’m gonna cut your hair.”

  Max, taking my threat seriously, grabbed at her pigtails and stood by quietly as I pulled open the door. A girl, early twenties, dark, black, short, thin and athletic with a short Afro, stood blocking my way in jeans and a black blouse.

  Boo started sniffing at her and wagging his tail.

  Some guard dog.

  Each time he went to the bathroom on the sidewalk and I picked up his deposit with a plastic bag, the ASPCA looked better and better. Now this.

  Make sure you let her know where we keep the safe, Boo.

  “Mr. Santana?” the girl said with a strong accent that I couldn’t place. It wasn’t Jamaican. I knew Jamaican. Some kind of African?

  She smiled with big brilliantly white teeth.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “We need to speak with you a moment, brother.”

  “Who is we?”

  She signaled at the uninvited guest, a tall, thin, young white kid now standing outside the sliding door. He had long greasy hair and a pockmarked face and wore dark brown khakis and a blue shirt.

  “That is my friend.”

  I let her “friend” in. He stank of cigarettes. Chain smoker. I knew the type. I was the type until recently. Very recently. He saluted me and then saluted Max, who saluted right back.

  Boo growled and circled and barked at him.

  It took you long enough.

  The long-haired young man jumped around as if he were being bit and his hand was shaking as if Boo were a pit bull and not a Chihuahua about three inches high.

  A grown man afraid of a Chihuahua.

  I took pity before the guy had a coronary or Boo got the wrong impression that he was actually a ferocious creature to be respected and feared and that he should be running things around here instead of me and pushed the little demon into one of the bathrooms.

  “Your dog has got good taste,” said the girl, glancing at her spastic friend with a little smile.

  “No doubt,” I said.

  “Greetings, little lady,” said the long-haired young man, a little embarrassed, catching his breath.

  “Greetings,” said Max. “Are you guys from the FBI?”

  “No, we ain’t.” The young man smiled.

  “You the ones who do the most-wanted posters in the post office on Brightmoor?”

  “Not us, man.”

  “I’m interested in being FBI,” Max said, then slit her eyes. “Are you two secret agents? What’s your name?”

  “We’re not using names tonight, little sister,” said the girl.

  “Of course, you’re not supposed to tell me your real name.” Max laughed. “You’re supposed to be a secret agent. How you gonna be a secret agent if everybody knows your name? But you can give me your secret agent name.”

  “Little sister has a good point,” said the girl.

  “You can call me the letter L,” said the long-haired kid. “You can call my friend the letter S.”

  “What’s this all about?” I said.

  “Perhaps you would like to escort the child into another room, brother.”

  Max shook her head and went to suck her thumb, but stopped herself. I guided her to her bedroom, handed her a book, and shut the door.

  “Did you hear from anyone with TSP yet?” said the girl calling herself the letter S tonight.

  “I don’t know TSP from ESP,” I said. “I’m in with the out-crowd.”

  “Doubt that, brother man,” said L with his speedy blue eyes.

  “What’s this about?” I asked. “Are you guys cops? Do you have a warrant?”

  “We don’t need no steenkin’ warrants, man,” said L and smiled like he knew me.

  “Title 18,” I said. “United States Code, Section 3107, empowers special agents and officials to make search and seizures only under warrant for violation of federal statutes.”

  “This is not a search or a seizure, man,” said L as if he were familiar with the practice.

  “What is it? Community outreach?”

  “Chico,” said the young girl. “May I call you Chico?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Call me anything you want. Just don’t call me Shirley. I hate when people call me Shirley.”

  “Chico,” S continued. “You are not being accused of anything.”

  “That’s nice to know.”

  “This is a routine gathering of information, brother. There is nothing to worry about.”

  “You interrupt my quiet evening of eight-year-old entertainment. Why would I be worried? Oh, yeah. Let’s see. Because I don’t know what the hell you people are doing here.”

  “We understand that you are working for Joey Valentin.”

  “How do you understand that?”

  L looked at S and then back at me. “Top secret, man.”

  “How did you find me?”

  S looked at L and then back at me. “Also top secret.”

  “Do you guys come with batteries or are those sold separately?” I asked. “What do you want?”

  S looked at L. L nodded.

  “We’re with Joey,” said S. “It is our desire to help Joey.”

  “You do care about Joey, right, man?” asked L.

  “Where is Joey?” I asked.

  They both said, “We don’t know.”

  “He contacted us, brother.”

  “On a disposable cell phone,” I said. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What does Joey want with me now?”

  “Joey needs refuge,” said S.

  “Is he still in New York?” I asked.

  They both nodded yes.

  “A stick which is far away cannot kill a snake,” said S.

  “And washing down a bowl of beans with coffee is never a good idea,” I said. “But what does that have to do with me?”

  “Can Joey stay with you, man?”

  “Stay with me?” I said. “Where?”

  They both looked around the apartment.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Not right away, man.”

  “Not tonight, brother,” said S.


  “Yeah,” said L. “He has a place tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know,” they both said.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “Joey not only wants to hire me on an IOU basis, but he wants me to stick my neck out for somebody I haven’t seen in twenty years?”

  “If you do an illegal thing for a righteous reason,” said S, “that is also justice.”

  “Right on, man!”

  “I think that’s about enough,” I said, pulling the front door open and looking at L. “And you say the word man one more time, I’m gonna lose my mind and I ain’t got much to spare, so buenas noches . . . Man.”

  “We are just talking about helping your friend,” said S.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ve already signed up to help Joey find his wife. But I’m not gonna stick my neck out for the NYPD chopping block. I like my neck. It goes real nice with my shirts. So you tell Joey. You let him know when and if he calls you that I got his back in that department. But that’s enough. Joey wants to hold hands, form a circle, sing ‘Kumbaya,’ and share old neighborhood stories, tell him to come see me at my office and personally tell me something I don’t know about his missing wife’s whereabouts. In the meantime, no sleepovers, and you two can just blow. You know how to blow, don’t you? You just put one foot in front of the other and get to steppin’.”

  I stood there, waiting.

  S finally glanced at L and said, “Let us go.”

  “Wait!” Max said, jumping into the room again, excited. “I’d like to join you! I know this kid who shoplifts. I could catch him first. I got a couple of criminal types in my family, too. Only not my uncle Dean. He works at the Joe Louis Arena. He’s a criminal type, but he’s real nice to me. I would give him amnesty. I would like to clean up Detroit. If you want me to clean up other cities, I could. I’m not a boy but I’m strong. But I would like to start with Detroit because . . .”

  “We shall take your application into consideration, little sister,” said S, who bent down and smiled with those brilliantly white teeth and hugged and kissed Max on both cheeks and rose again. “Let us go.”

  “Alright,” said L, turning to me. “We’ll go to your office next time, man.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” I said, opening the front door. “Next time don’t be so shy and bring something that I can use. Maybe Ring Dings. I like Ring Dings.”

  As they went out, Max followed behind them spraying them with questions: “How much money you get paid for being a secret agent? I got Indian blood, is that okay? Could I tell people I’m with you? You want my fingerprints? Do you know the president?”

  “Enough, Max!” I said, pushing her back and closing the door. Max looked up at me with startled eyes. And for the first time since I had been watching over her, she uttered those three words that mostly parents, if they are human, will hear at least once in their lifetime from a child they are merely trying to love, to protect, and to raise. Max looked up at me, tears in her eyes, pudgy little brown fists flexing, angry and insulted that her interview had been so abruptly cut short, and screamed, “I hate you!” And with that, she ran out of the room, weeping. And now I’m hated by the eight-year-old entrusted to my care. Things could be worse, Santana, I thought. Worse? Man, I had no idea . . .

  I waited ten seconds and went out after S and L to see if I could catch some license plate action and get back to Max before somebody called CPS when my cell phone rang. Someone on the other end was screaming.

  “Somebody killed her! Somebody killed her, Chico!”

  I recognized Elvis’s voice.

  “Killed who?” I asked, stopping in my tracks. “Who’s killed?”

  SIX

  In forty-five minutes I was at the scene. The big postwar tenement was on Broadway and 162nd Street in Washington Heights (which Officer Samantha Rodriguez called Santo Domingo West) across from Flaco’s Pizza.

  Elvis was scared. Elvis needed help. He was sitting in a room with a dead body. He was covered with blood, and she was dead. He needed somebody on his side, somebody who wasn’t connected to The Superman Project. He was afraid of the police. He had had bad experiences with the police. He couldn’t reach Pablo. He needed my help. I told him that I would get there as fast as I could.

  I hung up and called Mimi to watch Max and then I put out an S.O.S. to Officer Samantha Rodriguez, and using terms like help and emergency and I’ll owe you and make it up to you, I swear and please, baby, baby, baby, please, I convinced her to meet me in Washington Heights.

  Before the crime-scene tape went up; before the police kept the crowds back; before forensics took what evidence it could; before the medics pulled up and were told this wasn’t their day; before the police photographer took pictures of the victim, there was just me, Elvis, Samantha, and the body.

  I jumped out of the gypsy cab into the humid night. Some dropped-out and unemployed teenagers in sandals without socks were interrupted from selling nonprescription drugs to nightcrawlers and sleepwalkers and exhausted workers who mostly looked at them like pariahs.

  Knowing that poverty and need, like pain, breed all forms of doubtful escape routes, I went past a dark young man about five-foot eleven, around 117 pounds, in dirty rags and sobbing, crap in his wooly hair, pulling a small shopping cart filled with pieces of metal, wood, wire, and a plastic bag packed with empty bottles and cans. A skinny pit bull was hitched to the young man’s shopping cart by an electric cord, which was tied to its rope collar.

  I walked past them all toward Officer Samantha Rodriguez, petite, long black hair, lovely brown skin, off duty, in civilian clothes—a charcoal gray ruffled blouse and blue jeans and open-toed shoes. She had pretty feet, small, pretty brown Mexican feet.

  Focus, Santana.

  “A dead body,” she said as I approached. “Is that what it takes to get you to call me?”

  “No,” I said. “But it helps.”

  She threw a fake punch at my chin. “Good to see you, too. But I don’t like this. Why am I here?”

  “This Elvis kid doesn’t trust cops. No offense. He’s hysterical and afraid to make the call. Afraid he’s going to be blamed or something. And you’re here to help me have a look around. Make sure your brothers in blue understand I’m one of the good guys.”

  “I wouldn’t call you one of the good guys but I would call this a misuse of my badge.”

  “Happens every day for the wrong reasons,” I said. “You’re helping to even the score.”

  I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

  “Cholo,” she said, snatching her hand away.

  “No,” I said. “Chico. Shall we?”

  The elevator was busted, so we walked up to the fifth floor.

  I heard barking from the Sanchez apartment. Samantha knocked, and Elvis answered, crying. Three pug dogs sniffed and barked, trying to get past him.

  “Oh, Chico!” he said, weeping like a child. He smelled like beer. I saw two popped caps and bottles of Presidente sitting on a coffee table. Could you blame him?

  “What happened?”

  “She was in Pablo’s room as usual,” he said, between hysterical sobs. “Playing country music on the computer.”

  “Country music?” I repeated.

  Elvis nodded his head frantically. “I know. The door was open. I came in, with my flowers and candy. I went into Pablo’s room and found her there on her stomach.”

  There was blood smeared on Elvis’s white baseball cap, X-Men T-shirt, his Hawaiian shorts, and caked on his hands and under his fingernails.

  He noticed me and Samantha staring.

  “I touched her, Chico,” said Elvis. “I panicked. I tried to see if I could help. She’s dead. There’s blood everywhere.”

  “What happened, son?” asked Samantha. “Was she shot? Stabbed? What?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elvis. “I didn’t see a gun or a knife or anything. They’re gonna think I did something, huh? They won’t believe me. I was the only one her
e. They’re gonna think I did it, huh?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Elvis. You stay here.”

  I patted Elvis’s shoulder and slipped on the blue plastic gloves that Samantha handed me and we went down the Sanchez’s living room, which was filled with multicolored furniture and dominated by a Dominican flag and a giant watercolor print in a gold frame—Jesus Christ, white clouds, blue sky, brown mountains, with children and animals gathered around him, and white doves hovering above his head. He looked as though he was laughing at something a child had said. It occurred to me that I had never seen a picture of Jesus laughing in all my time at St. Mary’s.

  I moved along a hall behind a trail of bloody footprints. A foul stench emanated from a room with a white door and a sign that said:

  Fortress of Solitude

  Do not Enter without Knocking

  Please

  I heard the trembling falsetto of Freddy Fender singing “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” Fender, a Mexican-American, was one of the few country musicians my folks ever listened to (ex–Negro League baseball player Charley Pride was another), so I recognized it. He always sounded like he was crying, whether he sang in English or Spanish. I didn’t mind Freddy so much, I thought, as I turned to Samantha and said, “I bet that brings back some memories, huh?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Samantha.

  “Freddy Fender,” I said.

  “Who’s Freddy Fender?” said Samantha, adjusting her gloves.

  “Bad Mexican,” I called her as we followed the bloody footprints and pushed open the door to Pablo’s room and stood in the doorway. The light was on, and the TV was, too. Superman II on DVD, frozen to the scene at the start where three villains in black leather, two males and one female, stood under a blinding white light. I vividly remembered watching that movie years ago, Joey and Nicky sitting to the left and right of me. Next, the three villains would disappear, punished. A voice, like the voice of God, would intone: “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”