WITH ITS PROXIMITY to the city, low rents, and low profile, Union City is a perp haven, like the woods around a medieval fortress. Its harsh clogged streets are a parking nightmare, particularly on a Saturday, and because you never know when a Jersey cop with a hard-on for the NYPD will tow you for sport, O’Hara circles for twenty minutes rather than pull over in front of a hydrant.
The address she got out of Marla, written on newsprint in the block letters of a five-year-old, is on a block of dreary two- and three-family homes. A raspy voice barks through the intercom, and a door opens on the third floor. “Pizza,” calls O’Hara.
“Who is it?”
“Darlene O’Hara, NYPD. I need to talk to you.”
At the top of the stairs, O’Hara displays her shield. As she catches her breath, she tries to determine if the woman in the doorway is the woman with bad skin referred to by Sollie and the skaters. The woman, who is petite and wears a dark skirt, is not unattractive, and although her skin bears a few residual acne scars, they’re not striking this morning. “Come in,” says Denikov, “My house is your house. Make yourself at home.”
The apartment contains no rugs, pictures, or curtains. What little furniture there is could be packed up in an hour. Nevertheless, the hospitality appears genuine. Soon after O’Hara sits at a stark white table, Denikov places a steaming paper bowl in front of her. The reddish broth contains a stub of corn, a carrot, and a chunk of meat.
“A simple boyash,” says Denikov, “a stew, but we like to dress it up a little.” She slides over a tray crowded with mysterious condiments.
Throwing caution to the wind, O’Hara takes a spoonful. It tastes as advertised—a simple stew—and feels good on her scratchy throat. From the corner of the room comes a burst of gunfire. A boy about thirteen lies on his stomach in front of a large TV. He wears a headset and wields a joystick. On the screen are images of urban warfare, soldiers fighting house to house. Beside him is an acoustic guitar.
“Giuseppe is playing with his friends on the phone,” says Denikov.
“A handsome young man,” says O’Hara. “Your son?”
“Grandson.”
“I take it he’s already dropped out of school.”
“Make up your mind,” says Denikov as she lights a Menthol 100. “You NYPD? Or you children’s services?” Behind her, a young man in his early thirties enters the kitchen from a back room, ladles some stew into a bowl, and retreats to wherever he came from.
“And him?”
“Juice, my son. Giuseppe’s dad. He sits in his room all day and takes Vicodin. It makes my heart sad.”
“I got your name from a fortune-teller named Miss Marla.”
“Oh, really. And how is Marla?”
“About the same, I guess.”
“Still running scams out of her little offisa on Clinton? Still got the hunchback working for her?”
“Yeah. In fact, Marla read my fortune last night. Discovered I had a curse on my money that had to be removed pronto.”
“I bet she did,” says Denikov. A smile ignites her brooding face.
“Then I read hers in my little offisa at the back of the Seventh Precinct. It didn’t look so hot either.”
“At least, until she offered up my name. Out of curiosity, what did that fat, lying whore have to say about me?”
“Good things, mostly. She thought you might be able to help me. I’m working on a case involving an old man who ended up dead in his condo outside Sarasota and a boy who ended up dead in the East Village. Marla said you took some cash from the old man in Florida.”
“There are lots of old men in Florida, Detective. The state is full of them.”
“Makes it convenient, doesn’t it? Having so many in one place. This one was named Ben Levin.”
“Sounds like a nice old guy. But the name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Give yourself a second.” O’Hara deals out pictures of Fudgesicle, Popsicle, and Hercules. Again, seeing the three together disturbs her. “In the meantime, maybe this will help. These two are a burglary team. They were in Levin’s condo the day he died. This boy, who had blond hair and a limp, was with them.”
O’Hara leans forward and nudges the picture of the boy closer to Pizza. “They let the boy bleed to death in the back of a van. How would you like it if someone treated your grandson like that? Like a piece of trash?”
Pizza pushes the picture back and crosses her arms.
“I don’t recognize any of them,” she says. The playful tone is gone.
“Do you mind if I ask why you call yourself Pizza?”
“That’s what they used to call me when I was young. I had bad skin.”
Why would a person with bad skin give herself a name so loaded with adolescent cruelty? Particularly a woman? It makes no sense. At the same time, however, the story of Pizza’s name and how she got it convinces O’Hara that the woman in front of her is the one Sollie was talking about; a person who would name herself Pizza, who would take what they called her and appropriate it for her own purposes, is the same kind of person who would use her bad skin to convince an old man she could care about him. It’s how her mind works.
“Never heard of a blond-haired gypsy boy with a limp? Sure? Or this three-hundred-pound bag of shit? They let the boy bleed to death for a couple days in the back of a van. Like an animal. Now that Giuseppe’s out of school, how’s he going to earn a living? He’s going to end up in one of those burglary teams too, right? You want the same thing to happen to him?”
“No one treats a child like that.”
“They did. Believe me. You should have seen the mattress. It was soaked with his blood. And I think you know who all these people are. If I find out that’s true, I’m going to make it my business to track you down, I don’t care how many times you jump in your caravan.”
“I know Ben Levin,” says Denikov, her arms still crossed. “But I never met him, I swear. I just talked to him on the phone.”
“How did you meet him?”
“The lava line.”
“The lava line?”
“Yeah. For lahvers.”
“You mean the love line?”
“Yeah. A chat line. I talked to him, got to know him a little, became friends, and he lent me a little money. And I mean a little. I have too much conscience, it’s my fatal flaw. But I know someone who doesn’t have that problem, who took him for a lot. A whore named Crisco.”
What’s with these names, thinks O’Hara. Pizza, Juice, Crisco. “So what, you passed the old man’s number on to Crisco?”
“Look around. Look out the window. Now look at me. Do I look like someone who can afford to be generous?” Denikov turns her attention from O’Hara to the back of the living room. “Giuseppe,” she says, “sing a song for Darlene. Giuseppe, please.”
“What do you want me to play?”
“Something pretty.”
He strums his guitar and without self-consciousness hums along to what sounds like an old Gypsy ballad but turns out to be the theme for The Godfather. Giuseppe’s voice and playing are lovely, but the effect is undermined by O’Hara’s knowledge that Denikov is using her grandson the same way the perps used the kid, the same way the woman in the Publix used her girl. Giuseppe, with his sweet voice and grandmother’s soulful eyes, has probably been burglarizing homes for years.
“Giuseppe, knock that shit off,” comes the pissed-off voice of his father from the other end of the apartment. “I’m trying to get some sleep.”