CHAPTER 3

Abroad expanse of yellowish white spread out about her. It was some sort of desert, only vaporous. The sky was knotted into a diamond blue fist faraway. Claire turned her back on it easily, so easily, sinking to the earth in a spot that was rich and turned, like after a flood rain. She wore her aviator sunglasses. I’m tough, they told the world. But I am innocent. Notice my very best white shoes. Her feet sunk in quickly, surprised by the sudden weight of her, muck oozing up through her toes in a fertile and cool eerie depth. There were worms, dozens of worms taking off in a frantic decampment, une échapper belle, till the whole mudsill broke and she stood, sliding upright down the fudgy ravine, an escalator passenger in any subterranean department store. It came to a halt beside a cascade of uncovered hair, Michael’s hair, from Michael’s gaping grave.

“Michael,” she whispered and reached out her hand, but he stayed where he was, face down in rude oblivion, preoccupied with his eternal sleep. Only his hair grew on, unstoppable, magnificent, alive with greedy, crawling maggots.

She woke up still calling his name. Her face, wet with tears, was jammed against the slanted attic wall. Claire looked at the peeling white paint for what seemed like a long time. Then, cautiously, she flipped her body over. Not too bad. On the table stood a bottle of bourbon with its own hefty dent in it. Ah, well. She got out of bed, reeled a bit, felt all right somehow, and careened down the stairs. It was barely light, but there would be no more sleeping for her. She brushed her teeth soundly, engrossed in this static melancholy, a little bit surprised and guiltily pleased to find herself alive. God, I’m famished, she said to herself. Obediently, her legs carried her straight to the kitchen.

There were four almost blue red tomatoes in the colander. She took the white bread down from the shelf. You could say what you wanted about how unhealthy it was, but when it was fresh from the grocer’s like this, light as a feather, and you slathered a couple of slices with mayonnaise, carved yourself some thick slabs of those wine red tomatoes, and jiggled some black pepper onto it—it was a deeply moving thing. She poured a glass of icy milk and ate off a sheet of paper towel, still drunk. This would be the time to photograph something, feeling like this, gently woozy and still half in touch with her nightmare.

She left before the rest of the house was up, heading south toward Jamaica Avenue, excited and nervous in the already gray dawn. The veins in her ankles and hands stood out disturbingly in the heat. What could you do? If age and the humidity didn’t get you, the alcohol would.

She remembered Johnny Benedetto with a sinking heart. How many attractive young women must he run into every day? On the job, at night, even in the supermarket. There was no end to the horror of possibilities.

The thing was—she strode purposefully along with her camera banging against her hip—that even if you did fall in love, you wound up eventually envying that person you were in love with. It was true. You envied him for the same silly reasons you fell in love with him.

You met him at a party, for example, where he stood against a wall eyeing you as though he could eat you up, his eyes ironic and helpless at the same time, longing for you and you knew it damn well, and then when you gave in, when you finally (after the initial mandatory and long-winded chase) let him, there you went feeling happy and safe for a perfect, incomparable, what seemed to be in hindsight ten short minutes, until you found him looking helpless with ironic longing at some stranger across another room … or street … or beach. And you envied him. You begrudged him the thrill that he was now feeling for someone else.

If she could become responsible for her own reality and keep it that way, she’d never have to feel that pain again. In went the color film. Jamaica Avenue was just what she needed, and she wanted it early, before the onslaught of heat would settle and paralyze the faces of the people. On second thought, perhaps she wanted just that. She hesitated. Up and down the broad street, shaded by the el train, nobody was out. She pointed her camera this way and that, felt nothing, put the camera down. No sense in wasting film. The Blue Swan Shoppe was on the corner and she decided to sit down in there for a bit. A cup of coffee and some air-conditioning would put her right back on the creative track.

The Blue Swan was not as she remembered it. They no longer sold penny candy at the cashier, or quarter candy for that matter. This was a place. Plastic turquoise booths and pink flamingo napkin caddies. There was no Architectural Digest on the magazine rack. Not even a Better Homes and Gardens or a humble copy of Mademoiselle. If you didn’t feel compelled to investigate such provocative headlines as: “Siamese Twins Invent Arthritis Cure” or “Liz Moves In … Lock, Stock, and Jewelry Box,” you were more or less out of luck.

Claire avoided the greasy-looking tables and sat down at the counter. The dark smells of last night’s cold chili and salsa hung low in the air and on the counter there was a large tray of refried banana cut up into squares. The atmosphere conga’d with soft cucaracha from a younger Tito Puente. You couldn’t help but mull over the gregorian orange that tapered the oilcloth in tiptoeing poodles. A throwback, no doubt, to the mystical Irish who had once lived above these stores. Different cups of tea entirely. Now Puerto Ricans, Indians, Peruvians, and Guyanans paid rent for the privilege of dreaming in the drone of the great roaring el.

They were darker, these people. Their dreams were not as grand and so they would inevitably make out better; rent a store, work day and night, buy the store, work day and night and weekends, too, buy the building. And then rent to the next generation of foreigners who lollygagged in.

“Heezha cawfee,” the kinky-haired matron clunked the cup down onto the counter.

“Thank you.”

“Better tuck innat camera, honey.” The waitress eyeballed right and left. “They’ll grab that from ya. Don’ worry!”

No, they won’t, thought Claire. She gave the waitress a conspiratorial wink and made a show of settling it into her lap. The coffee was good. One thing the Latinos had brought with them into the neighborhood was good, rich coffee. There were all sorts of gooey apparitions made out of sugar, but no, thought Claire, she’d just have a cigarette instead. She was forever having something sweet or a cigarette instead. Michaelaen had told her that she smelled like an ashtray. That was nice. Don’t worry, he’d patted her arm with his small hand when he’d seen her face fall, he liked a good ashtray. What generous grace from one so young.

Claire gulped down her coffee, paid, and staggered into the street. There was no reason for her to feel depressed and so she wouldn’t. She’d find something to shoot, by golly. Looking at the filthy gutter, she was surprised at how improbable that prospect seemed. Nothing romantic there. Just like any other dirty place the world over. Impatiently, she walked up the avenue, past her father’s still-unopened hardware store, past Gebhard’s Bakery and its buttery smells, when she happened to catch her whole profile in the store window. She’d never seen anything like it. Not on her. But this was her mother’s silhouette, not her own! She sucked in her gut and kneaded the inch of new blubber that encircled her waist. All these American delicacies. Claire remembered herself, not too long ago, eating everything she wanted, everything in sight, really, and never putting on a pound. Her models used to watch her enviously as she’d polish off the remains of their pasta. Well, those days were gone, it seemed. She was back in Queens with no real money, no real plan, and a very real belly. She stopped suddenly and wondered if this was it? The doubts that had haunted her throughout her life … was this to be the realization of them?

In Europe, during her jetsetting years, she’d always thought, oh, if only she could get away from the superficiality of her life, the whole frivolous life-style, and find a quiet place, a gentle place where she could meditate and become herself, everything would be all right. Then, when she finally had made the break and found herself in the Himalayas, there were moments when she would fathom that that was all nonsense, too, all of it, from the filthy Europeans traipsing downheartedly off to their gurus to the gurus themselves. Trying so hard not to try. And she’d thought that what she really should do was go home, back to her parents and Queens and all the things she’d tried so hard to leave behind. If she could just get back there and make an honest life for herself in the place she was put on earth to surface out of, she might put some order to the chaos. She even thought she’d get back here and all the inspiration would miraculously fall into place. Well, here she was, and what if her fears proved true afterall? What if there was only so much she had had to give and it was already gone? Perhaps she just should have moved to the city. There is a certain solid difference between Manhattan crazy people and Queens crazy people and 111th Street had a few perfect specimens of these walking up and down it. Here, if the old folks talked to themselves they would do it under their breaths, not out loud like in the city. And they didn’t wear glamorous cast offs worn to shreds. These people had bought their own clothes with their very own pension checks and they wore them with a differential smugness, hunched into twelve-year-old shiny polyester shirts … old white people who found it cheaper to eat out (six rolls in a basket and crackers) and certainly easier than waiting on long lines at Key Food. Everybody hated Key Food—the confusion, the fluorescent lights, the unsatisfiable hunger it emptied into you, and the waxed, unbelievable fruits plump with gas that left you with nothing more than mealy tongue.

No, let’s face it. You couldn’t beat where you were from if you were after sorting yourself out, untangling the web of who you were, beneath the influence of all the world. Hadn’t Swamiji told her just that when he’d seen her off at the bus depot? They’d sat together and scarfed down three or four masala dosa between them. Swami had licked his fingers and bobbed his head this way and that with pleasure and they’d both drunk still another nice black tea. It had struck her as so absurd to see him sitting there in the dusty hubbub after the tinkling quiet of his small walled garden, but then he was a very unusual swami, not megalomaniac at all like the others she’d investigated. He was a good little swami. Kind. A little bit of St. Francis what with all the broken down animals he had recovering at the ashram. Which is what might have accounted for his lack of popularity with the Western truth seekers. They tended to go more for the well-swept ashrams. No, he was not grand at all except for deep in his heart. Rather a catholic sort of swami, if one looked at it in the old Mediterranean way. Gee, she missed her dear, smelly little fellow with his magical eyes. She wondered what he’d make of the murder. “Well, well,” he would say, “veddy bad. But would it be better if we did not know about it? No. Certainly not. And if we know, must we not do something about it? Certainly. If only to pray. Well, well. And so we shall pray.”

Claire bent her head and repeated a couple of well-chosen mantras. When she looked up the sky was moving to the north, and so did she. It hadn’t been easy to leave Swamiji. And only much later had she realized that it had not been easy for him to instruct her to go. Any Western woman was a boon to an ashram. And Claire especially had been nice for him to have around. She was tidy, for one thing. Best of all she’d shared his love of plants and helped him to categorize and bottle herbs. But it wasn’t until Delhi and the outdated Western music piped into the airport lounge—“… you always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows,”—that she knew he had loved her. Well. She’d loved him, too.

Claire passed the Holy Child Grammar School, where she’d gone as a child. She and Michael used to ride to school and park their bicycles right against that very chain link fence. She hung her head and crossed the road toward the church. A lovely old place it was, orange-bricked and landscaped in green, early Spanish Mission style mostly, but with Roman effects: flabbergasting stained glass and cathedral-like heights. There was a dark and hollow coolness to it, not unlike the Baths of Istanbul. She thought she might go in, just to sit down in the darkness and get out of the heat for a moment, but there seemed to be a funeral going on. Wasn’t it awfully early for a funeral? She walked around the corner to the front. How horrible those black hearses were. Eerie, like that in front of the low-hanging gray sky. Claire stood stock still. She poised her camera. The doors of the church drew open and a swarm of people suddenly filled the tall steps. There were so many that they toppled onto one another. A stout young woman in black keeled over the white coffin and passed out. There was a great deal of jostling, someone was yelling, and almost all of them were in tears above the small white coffin.

Then it hit her. It was the child who had been murdered. They must have upped the hour of the mass to avoid the media. There was no shortage of cops. Twelve of them, she counted. And the captain. Very grand looking with gold braid and hair parted cleanly by a razor. Cops were used to funerals, weren’t they? Claire stood there, hypnotized through the lens, but she couldn’t bring herself to shoot. She had the perfect angle and the right long lens and she knew she’d make the cover of the Post in a minute, but there was no way she could shoot that wailing herd as they moved toward her. No way. If there was one thing that she had learned from life it was that you did not make your fortune from the private agonies of victims. You just didn’t. If there was any sense to the world, to her own existence, it wasn’t going to come from giving life to that picture. Some things, Claire knew, just weren’t worth being paid for. She lowered the camera.

Several people, those daily churchgoers who had no relation to the funeral but who stood around caught up in the drama, watched her curiously. One nervous-looking young man with red hair made a move as though he were coming over to say something, perhaps chastise her for her camera, but he changed his mind and turned away. The cries from the murdered child’s mother echoed horribly through the vestibule. Then thunder rolled not too far off. No doubt it was raining already over Manhattan.

Claire headed home. There was no traffic on Myrtle Avenue. There never was. Just the shiny trolley line still taking off in both directions. Lord, the cries of that poor woman! How did Zinnie do it? She saw pain like that all the time. And worse. No, there couldn’t be much worse than that. In Richmond Hill, no less.

The nearer Claire got to her block, the more those spider webs were noticeable. The old Queen Ann houses looked, in the overcast, almost vaporous. If she shot with a breath-steamed lens it would look downright enchanted. She finished the whole roll of film standing there by the mailbox. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it, the romanticism of her reality. Finding beauty right where it was. No more robbing the East … no more hupla onto a plane to go look for legendary sights: … the faceless Buddhas of Bāmiān … or the islands of the Maldives, sprouting up like jade mushrooms in a perfect turquoise sea. How many other photographers had shot those jewels before and after her? And what had they become, exquisite cigarette placards? No, this—this was it right here. It would have to be. It was, after all, what she wanted. Hers. No one else’s. As for her blubbery middle, there were a variety of steps she could take. She could stop eating altogether. But then of course she’d smoke nonstop. No, she’d have to find a more gymnastic approach. Swimming? Swimming would be ideal except that she had no car to carry her to and from the beach. And the thought of swimming in an indoor pool left her limp with apprehension. No, swimming was out. Tennis was too expensive. What did one do without money? One jogged. Claire quickened her pace with a breast-rattling jiggle. It was not the most difficult of sports. She checked an impulse to light a cigarette as she walked along figuring all this out. It wouldn’t hurt to be fit. She’d been postponing it so long now that she wondered if she was convinced she’d fail. Nonsense. She wasn’t a child. Or had she turned back into one when she’d come home? She certainly had reverted to her adolescent messy self. Just look at her unmade bed and the lump of clothing she’d left on the floor.

She would change. She would change everything about herself. She wasn’t doing anyone any good in this suspended state of trying not to worry about things. If one wanted to worry, one should get on with it so as to go on from there. What was it Swamiji used to say? “Curl up inside fear to find surrender. Then defend your right to overcome.” Claire smiled to herself. Perhaps it would work out after all.

“Hi,” she said as she came in the back door. “What’s the matter?” Mrs. Dixon and her mother sat morosely at the kitchen table. Zinnie, just home from her midnight shift, hung over the counter with a tall glass of iced coffee and a case of bloodshot eyes.

“It’s the Mayor,” said Zinnie. “He’s grounded.”

Claire looked at the dog on the floor. He raised his brown eyes to her and gave a minor salutory flick of his tail.

“He got a ticket,” said Mrs. Dixon.

“For doing it on von Lillienfeld’s front lawn,” sighed Mary.

“A hundred bucks,” said Zinnie. “Wait till Dad finds out.”

“The thing was,” Mary sulked, “that we were warned. I mean, that’s what your father will say. Everyone knows you’re not allowed out without your pooper scooper or a good brown paper bag and a leash. It’s just that the Mayor is so used to being out on his own. Poor pooch.”

“Poor Pop,” Zinnie said. “A hundred clams.”

“And there’s nothing to be done,” said Mrs. Dixon as she hurled yet another sugar rock into her coffee sludge, “It’s territorial, you know. You can’t stop that in dumb animals. He lusts after her poodle.”

“I saw the officer out there,” Mary shook her head and laid each finger on her breast. “I saw him and I thought, oh boy, somebody’s going to get a ticket. But I thought it would be for parking. You know how they slink about checking for outdated registrations and too many inches from the indiscernible curb. Sure, that’s their bread and butter.”

“Traffic,” snarled Zinnie. “Regular cops wouldn’t be bothered. They’d just give you a warning.”

“I was out in the yard hanging Michaelaen’s clean laundry—”

“Where is Michaelaen?” asked Claire.

“Down at the store with your father. I was out in the yard watching this officer and not even thinking about the Mayor. Well, if the truth be known, I did sorta see ’im outa the corner of me eye like. But I thought he’d take off toward the trestle the way he normally does. Don’t ask me why he chose to come lumbering back to me this particular mornin’. You know the way he is, he’s got no use for me unless it’s five and he’s droolin’ after his dinner. He never notices me in the mornin’ as a rule. But wouldn’t you know the officer comes marching over, as efficient as you please, and says, ‘That your dog, ma’am?’ Now what was I to say?”

“You could have said no and gone into the house,” Zinnie said.

Mary shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t deny my own dog. Sure that would be denying one of your own.”

They all turned silently to look at the Mayor. Clearly penitent, he sighed with them in unison.

“Anyway,” Mary’s tone changed, “I did try to sneak into the house, but the dog came wollypoggely up to me, happy as good-all to see me.”

“I tried to help her out of it,” Mrs. Dixon said. “I came running over, didn’t I?”

“That you did.”

“Did you tell him that Zinnie was on the job?” Claire asked.

“Sure, Mrs. Dixon told him that. He didn’t care, though. Heartless man. And not at all proud of his uniform! Ice pop stains all over his front. Grape, no less. And we, law-abiding citizens in every other respect. Oh, wait till your father hears this one.”

“It was von Lillienfeld who went and reported the dog, you mark my words,” Mrs. Dixon scraped her chair along Mary’s good linoleum. “Nobody else has that much brass. She’s a bad one. Shut up in there like some old witch.”

“Now,” Mary wailed, “he won’t be able to go out at all without his leash. Come to think of it, I don’t even know where we’ve put the old thing, it’s been so long since he’s had it on. And haven’t I better things to do with my day than to have to go traipsing here and there after a dog who’s used to being everywhere at once?”

“Well, I’m not walkin’ ’im,” Zinnie said firmly. “He won’t walk anyhow. He just sniffs in one spot if you’ve got him on a leash.”

“And how would you know that?” Mary doubled her chin. “As if you’ve ever walked him!”

“I passed by the church,” Claire changed the subject. “The funeral for that little boy was going on.”

“No fooling? Already? That must have been mobbed. Did you go in?”

“Uh-uh. I just caught them coming out onto the steps. It was really awful.”

Mrs. Dixon stood up heavily. She didn’t want to talk about that again. “I think I’ll be off,” she said.

“Oh, and thank you again, Mrs. Dixon,” Mary gave her her face of holy sympathy, “—thank you for helping me with the officer.”

Mrs. Dixon winked and closed the door.

Mary eyed the scrape in her linoleum.

“Not that she helped you any,” Zinnie said.

“Oh, hush. She means well. She hasn’t much to do now, with Mr. Dixon gone.”

Zinnie gnawed at her thumbnail. “I really feel like walking over there and giving von Lillienfeld a piece of my mind. The frustrated old bitch!”

“Now you don’t know if it was she who called,” Mary warned.

“Come on, ma. Don’t be naive!”

“I’d rather be naive than judgmental and presumptuous. Conjecture is the ignorant man’s tool.”

“Look. He poops there every day, doesn’t he? Who else would have a reason to call? And that brownie didn’t show up here without somebody calling.”

Claire looked up. “Does he really? Every day?”

Mary sniffed. Zinnie stuck her face in the fan.

“I’d better get Michaelaen’s shirts off the line.” Mary heaved herself up. “It looks like it’s ready to pour.”

“Want some coffee, Claire?” Zinnie asked when she had gone. “You look all done in.”

“I hit the bourbon last night. And you don’t look particularly fresh yourself.”

“I had a collar. Nice one. Took an uzi away from a six-foot black.”

“A coon?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?”

“I mean calling a guy a coon.”

“Oh.” Claire felt her face redden. “I just meant … I mean there are blacks and there are coons. I was thinking more of the apparition than of the choice of words. As a matter of fact, I thought cops talked like that.”

“Maybe they do. Maybe I even used to. I mean, I did. Maybe I just grew up, you know. Like when I started living on a higher level.”

“Touché.”

“You’re welcome. Look. My partner’s black. He wouldn’t let nuthin’ happen to me. He’s a real hot shot. You understand? When it comes to backup, he’s right there. Okay?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry.”

“Hey. It’s all right. You saw the funeral, eh?”

“Mmm. I saw them put the coffin into the limo. It was white.” She looked sadly at Zinnie. “You should have seen the poor mother.”

“I wish Daddy would get back with Michaelaen. I hate to go to sleep without seeing him.”

“He’ll be back, don’t worry. People don’t die just because you love them, you know.”

“What a strange thing to say! How the hell did you realize I felt like that?”

“I don’t know. I guess because it’s the way I feel and so naturally assume you’ll feel that way, too. We may be very different, but I did have a hand at raising you when you were small, you know.”

“You keep telling me.”

“Uh-oh. Do I?”

“All the time. You make me feel like a little kid. And I’m not.”

“I wish someone would make me feel like a little kid.”

“That’s another thing you always do. Make yourself sound like a brontosaurus.”

“Hmm. The thunder lizard. Extinct American dinosaur. You know, I’m just going to prove your point by saying this, but it reminds me so much of how you used to think big animals would come in the window and eat you while you were asleep. Remember?”

“No. But I do remember you sitting up late with me and reading me stories. Judy Bolton and Nancy Drew. You remember that? And Carmela would report us?”

They smiled at each other.

“I think I’m going to take up jogging,” Claire announced. “I’m too fat.”

Zinnie looked at her through half closed lids. “You can’t jog, Claire. You smoke. Not for nothing, but the two don’t go together. Why don’t you just stop squirreling Michaelaen’s stash of Ring Dings. That might help.”

“Yeah. He’s changed his hiding spots on me, anyhow. I thought I’d give it a go, though. Cut down the smoking at the same time.”

“Give it a go, eh? Well, good luck. What brought this on?”

“Uh … Michaelaen, to tell you the truth. He told me I smell like an ashtray.”

“My son the worrying wart.”

“He wasn’t worried. He was simply stating a fact.”

“Yeah. Well. His little means are more devious than his ways.”

“As are yours.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Meaning you never said a word about the murder since it happened. You just let everybody talk and you listen. Like you’ve got some seedy ideas of your own that you won’t let on about.”

“I don’t. Honest. I wish I did. Look. Maybe it was one of those crimes that never gets solved. Happens all the time. I mean, if the guy had buried the kid, that’s what might have happened. The way I see it, though, is this: he leaves the body in the wide open like that just so people do find it. That’s what worries me.”

“Because?”

“Because if no one does find him, he’ll do it again. Maybe. Sometimes it’s some nut job just passing through. Gets off a plane at Kennedy, kills one here, one there along the way … leaving a trail of bodies from here to L.A. You never know. I’ll let you in on something if you promise not to tell anyone.”

“Now who would I tell?”

“I dunno. Carmela. Can’t you just see her doing a daily on the progress of the 102? She eats this kind of stuff up.”

“You can’t really blame her. It is intriguing.”

“Intriguing? It’s macabre.”

A bolt of lightning lit up the backyard and rain came down in a sheet. Mary flew into the kitchen with a basketful of laundry. “Not that one of my fully grown daughters would come out and give me a hand!” she cried, but she wasn’t angry, she was thrilled to feel the sudden rain. Her blood pressure was right up there and her cheeks were pink with pleasure. She pounded barefoot through the house, now dark, now bright with the powerful storm.

“Not a word?” continued Zinnie.

“Don’t be silly.”

“Well. Besides his little pocketful of possessions: a boy scout knife, baseball cards, and a couple of other things, the kid had a man’s new cufflink on him. A roulette wheel. Like a real one. With a little bead in it. On the top was a neat little knob that you could spin the bead with.”

“So?”

“‘So’ she says. You’re right. It might mean nothing at all. But if Miguel—that was the kid’s name—if Miguel knew the guy who killed him … if he’d met with him before, that might be just the kind of thing that would entice a little boy into the woods, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. Except that that could have come from anywhere. His father—”

“Didn’t. They checked.”

“Or an uncle—”

“An uncle could have killed him, too.”

“What a thought!”

“What a thought that anybody would have done it.”

“I’ll say one thing. Inanimate objects sometimes carry messages.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like from the dead.”

“Oh, please stop. You and your heebie-jeebie nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense.” And why did a roulette wheel cufflink ring a bell?

“Right. Out with the Ouija board. I could clobber Daddy. He knows how worried I am to have Michaelaen out. Why doesn’t he bring him back? Sometimes I think he’s being purposely annoying. He is. He does it because he thinks that now that the cat is out of the bag and everyone knows that Freddy is gay, that means that Michaelaen is his. It’s like his macho power trip. Meanwhile, he was the one who was so hot on me marrying Freddy in the first place. Sure. Cause he thought Freddy was on his way to playing pro ball.”

“Wait a minute. The guy fooled you, didn’t he? Why shouldn’t he have fooled Daddy? You’re just mad at all men because Freddy turned out gay.”

“Just the opposite. I never felt more gently inclined.” She made a vulgar, rhythmic movement that made Claire laugh. “Anyhow, I’m going up there tonight. To Freddy’s. You wanna come with me?”

“No. I’m afraid of Freddy. He’s so caustic and witty. He makes me feel vaguely stupid.”

“He thinks you’re beautiful. No. He says you’re not really beautiful but you have these moments when you shine through and emote pure beauty.”

“Freddy said that?”

“It’s disturbing, he says.”

“How horrible. Now I’ll never know when he’s watching me if he’s thinking I’m having a moment or not. Not that I should care … but women do care even if we don’t really. Something diabolical in us wants everyone we meet to fall in love with us if we think there’s a possibility, however remote. It pleases our ravenous vanity. Isn’t it unhealthy? How can women ever unite?”

“We can’t. So why don’t you come tonight?”

“Money, for one thing.”

“I have money. Anyway, Freddy would never let us pay. I thought you said you had some money saved.”

“Yes. For rent. For Mom and Dad so I’m not a total parasite. And to pay for film, ciggies, coffee, chemicals.”

“In that order.”

“That’s not nothing, you know. And paper. Good-quality paper.” Claire’s eyes lit up when she said “good-quality paper.” “Besides. Why do you always have to go to Freddy’s?”

Zinnie looped Michaelaen’s yo-yo around her finger and coiled it up. “I feel guilty not going. I feel like he needs my support. Only I can’t pick up anybody there or I’ll feel more guilty. In front of him, I mean. It’s a no-win sitch. What the hell is that?”

“What?” She was trying to remember where she’d seen a roulette wheel cufflink before. Or had she never seen one?

“Those. Those muddy pots.”

“They’re my herbs. The one you’re pointing to is borage. Or it will be. The others are basil, thyme, coriander, marjoram, chamomile, and comfrey.” She didn’t mention the cannabis she’d started in the yard. She’d only planted it for fun, really. To see how well it would flourish.

Zinnie looked into the pots with distaste. “Yeah. But what are they for?”

“I like them, Zin. Wait till they begin to grow. You’ll like them. You will.”

“You talk about them like they’re new little folks who just moved into the neighborhood.”

Claire opened the refrigerator and idly watched its contents. Mary had a whole boat-load of ribs going on in there, soaking up something nice. That would be for tonight. There was a bowl of rhubarb. Hmm. A couple of fat, soggy leeks. A half a cantaloupe. Oh, no. A big hunk of Tilsit. She shut the door with self-preserving swiftness.

“How ’bout a little music?” suggested Zinnie, who shared her father’s passion for the stuff. Only her taste ran more to the Motown classics of the fifties and sixties. And whereas his were kept in an orderly file, hers were strewn about the house. She didn’t know where anything was, but she had all of them: the Temptations, the Supremes, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Four Tops. She picked one up from behind the Mayor’s box and dusted it tenderly in a circle. “Here we go,” she blew on the needle and let it drop.

“Aaaa million to wa-un,” Zinnie sang along with the opening line, “—that’s what our folks think about this love of ow-ers.…”

Claire clapped her hands with delight. “You sound just like him,” she cried. “Really!” And it was true. Zinnie had it down. The only thing that stopped her from using her powerful, sweet voice more often at home was her own father’s embarrassingly rapt attention. Wherever he was on the property, if Zinnie would start to sing he would come rushing through the house and stand harrowingly still, and the next thing you knew his eyes would fill with tears. Zinnie didn’t go for that. That sort of stuff was for the birds.

“Smokey Robinson,” Zinnie rolled her eyes when the song came to an end. “Vintage class, doncha think?”

“Zinnie? How did you find out about that cufflink? You saw it when you saw the body?”

“Nope.”

“So how? You’ve been poking around at the 102, haven’t you?”

“Why not? What are you lighting up a cigarette for? I thought you were going to quit.”

“Cut down. No one ever said anything about quitting.”

“What are you? Worried I been talking to his royal piece of ass?”

“His who?”

“Miss innocent. You know who I’m talking about.”

“Oh. Him. Why would I care about him? You do mean the big arrogant one?”

“Ha. That’s funny. That’s exactly the way he described you: the little arrogant one. No, wait. He said the little snotty one.”

“I don’t care what he said.”

“Not much you don’t.” She leaned over the sill. “Boy. It’s really wailing out there. I hope Daddy brought Michaelaen indoors.” She opened the freezer, cracked the ice cube tray into the sink, and tinkled more ice into her glass. “You know what I think? I think he likes you.”

“Tch.”

“He was married, you know.”

Claire said nothing.

“Apparently, the lady didn’t let her right hand know what her left was up to. I mean, she screwed around.”

“Zinnie, I don’t care about Johnny Benedetto. Really! So stop speaking about him.”

“Yessir!”

They listened to the rain.

“Tell ya one thing, though. He’s a crackerjack detective. All sorts of commendations and sharpshooter medals. And he’s handy. He even fixed Furgueson’s old bomb of a car for him.”

“Here comes your son,” Claire picked the curtain up with her toe, “—followed by our soaking father.”

In they came, joyfully splattering water onto everything. The Mayor, quite recovered from his run-in with the law, greeted them in his effusive style. His alarming baritone went off at irritating three-second intervals, insisting they join him in the old sit-beg-give-take, tradition being the cornerstone of culture. Off he flew then with his Milk Bone, on a successful tournée of the dining room table legs. Back he gallivanted for a culminating snortle under one of Mary’s many scatter rugs. Crunchy scatter rugs.

Mary swept the bone bits up with a bored sigh and dumped them into his toy box. They could talk about the ticket later on. Stan looked tired and she didn’t want him worrying about the hundred dollars now.

“We wuz at the junkies!” Michaelaen shouted. “We sold the brass pipes and we got fireplace irons!”

“How enchanting,” Mary said. “What’s next? A fireplace?”

“Who’s minding the store, Pop?”

“Hank’s there. I been lettin him open up the last week or so. Get to spend some time with my grandson, right, pardner?”

“Right!”

“I thought you didn’t trust Hank.”

“Oh, he’s all right. He’s good with the Spanish customers. That hot tamale music doesn’t bother him.”

“Nuthin but spics on Jamaica Avenue, anymore,” Mary shook her head.

“Hispanics, Mary,” he glared at her. “Whatta you wanna do? Teach the kid here to be a racist?”

“You’re the one who always says you’re gonna sell out because of them!” Zinnie laughed.

“Whatever. I’m just waitin for the Koreans with a bag of cash. When they come in, I’m selling the business. You watch.”

“You wouldn’t do it, Dad. You say so but you wouldn’t.”

“Ha. You watch. I’ll retire.”

“I’ve been wanting you to retire for five years,” Mary said. “That neighborhood is going to the devil. But you won’t retire. I know you.”

“Oh, yes, I will. Or I’ll look for a new store up in Kew Gardens. You watch.”

“And pay those rents?”

“The Jews are the only ones who can pay rent?”

“That rent? Yeah.”

Michaelaen losing interest, put his hand in his blue jeans where it felt good.

“Jesus! Mary,” Stan shouted at her, “can’t you stop him from doin’ that?!”

“Give him one a your cannons, Pop,” Zinnie narrowed her eyes. “Let him play with something more to the point.”