“He wanted to see if he every time he hit the cymbals, flames would explode,” Lorca says.
“Did it work?”
“Not like we thought it would,” Lorca admits.
The cop reads from his notebook. “… Consistent refusal to abide by the city’s law of no smoking inside the premises.”
Lorca stubs out his cigarette in one of the bar’s ashtrays. “I can’t get used to that law.”
“It was passed in 2007.”
“Has it been that long? We’re all getting so old.”
“… Consistent refusal to stop serving alcohol at two A.M. I stopped in last night around three and saw fifty or so people cheering on a drummer dousing his drum set in lighter fluid.”
“If you think about it,” Lorca says, “it’s funny.” The cop’s expression doesn’t budge. “I’ll tell Gus no more fires.”
“That’s not all, Mr. Lorca. This property”—he points to the garbage bags, the stage—“is licensed as a bar, and a bar only. No one is legally allowed to use this property as a residence. How many people stay here every night, Mr. Lorca?”
The shape of the cop’s visit and the potential price tag form in Lorca’s mind. For years Renaldo let them go on all of it. Being exposed as a residence would be thousands of dollars. As long as the boys stay sleeping in the back, he can bargain this cop down. He raises his hands as if guilty. “I’ve been crashing here,” he says. “My girlfriend and I have hit upon hard times.”
The cop raises one eyebrow. “No one else?”
Sonny emerges from the back room. His hastily tied robe reveals his pale, hairless chest. A lit cigarette hangs from his lips. His slippers make hard scuffling sounds. He mutely acknowledges Len as he passes. “We got any eggs? We’re out in the back.” He checks the bar’s fridge and straightens up, holding a carton of orange juice.
Lorca says, “This is Len Thomas. He’s here because he’s gotten several calls about our club.” He turns to the cop. “This is Sonny Vega; he’s here because he has nowhere else to go.”
“You look familiar,” Sonny says. “Who do we know?”
“I doubt we have mutual friends.” The cop affects a cool lean but misses the bar with his elbow. He tries again while Sonny smokes and watches.
“There’re only two kinds of people in this city,” Sonny says. “Those who know each other and those who haven’t figured out yet how they know each other.”
“I’m from Boston,” the cop says.
“Well, hell.” Sonny gives a look to Lorca: I tried.
“Let’s talk this out,” Lorca says. “I’ll make eggs.”
“Mr. Lorca, you’ve received seven visits from Officer Renaldo. The time for talking is over.” The cop flips the notebook shut and hands Lorca a citation the color of emergency cones. Lorca scans it to locate the total. “You’re kidding.”
Sonny reads over his shoulder. “Holy shit.”
“You have thirty days to pay,” the cop says, looking satisfied. “I’ll be coming every night to check that the city’s ordinances are being respected. Another infraction and it’s your bar.”
Lorca follows as the cop strides through the vestibule, jolts open the front door, and turns. The flurries have lost their ambition, but the visit seems to have emboldened him. “Play by the rules, Mr. Lorca, or it’s your bar.”
Something about this man’s plumped-up face, the thought of pulling another T-shirt out of his duffel bag, the impending holiday, calcifies in Lorca. “Do you think this is fair?” he says. “Coming into a club with a list of infractions and a fee that, let’s be honest, there is very little chance I can come up with.”
“It’s not my choice,” Len says.
“It’s not your choice.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“I’m not asking that. I’m asking if you think it’s fair.”
A truck karangs by. The cop waits for it to pass. “Mr. Lorca,” he stammers.
“Call me Jack,” Lorca says. “Only my friends call me Lorca.”
Len Thomas opens his mouth to speak, but Lorca shuts the door. Pain pauses him in the vestibule by the stack of phone books. Though he is only forty, some unkind rod is normally clanging against his wrists and knees. A woman in his inner ear canal holds a relentless, intimate C and he is always shaking his head to clear her.
Lorca has never been a player but can tell even in recordings whether a guitarist is well rested or angry, where the piano is located in the studio. When he was a little boy, his father would choose a piano key at random, and Lorca would call out the note; correctly, every time. Charged by this special rite, his ears are virtuoso in shape. Well-formed lobes make lowercase j’s against his sideburns. Pert, stubborn tragus. When Lorca is engaged in listening, and he is always listening, his eyes and mouth harden and conspire toward his sharp nose, making him appear cruel.
Sonny sits at the bar, staring at the citation. “Are we screwed?”
Lorca’s hand fumbles on a lighter. It takes him three tries to get his cigarette lit. “I’ll call Uncle Ray for the money.”
“You realize that’s illegal,” Sonny says, about the cigarette.
“Everything is illegal.”
“Where’s Renaldo when you need him?”
Lorca holds the citation up to the light, as if it might be counterfeit. The impossible total. “Renaldo got promoted,” he says.
“Good for him,” Sonny says. “Deserves it.”
Lorca shakes his head. “Len Thomas from Boston.”
“You know what they say.” Sonny pulls mournfully from the carton of orange juice. “Never trust a man with two first names.”
10:00 A.M
Principal Randles halts, startling the height-ordered line that follows her.
“Children,” she says. “You should want to do right by the Lord. When you pray you should feel overcome by a sense of purity and rightness. The equivalent of lighting a white candle in a white room.” She lights an invisible candle with an invisible match. “Except …” She blows out the invisible match. “You are the white room and what’s inside you is the white candle.”
It is the same speech she made before Madeleine’s class received the sacrament of Reconciliation, unburdening themselves of every goddamn, and Confirmation, when the Holy Spirit said, Oh there you are, I see you. Madeleine did not feel like a white room during either of those sacraments but assumes she will when it’s time for the next one, Matrimony. Madeleine is double-bolt positive that every married couple is happy.
Principal Randles throws open the door to the church and ushers the children into pews to practice being white rooms. Madeleine flattens her back against the hard wood and waits to be overcome by light. Here it comes, she thinks. But it is a yawn. She smells the pine scent of mahogany cleaner. Her thoughts return to singing. Hit, hold, vibrato. She forgets to want to be a white room.
Sunshine swells into the church. How the stained-glass windows screw with it, cutting the light into shapes and hurling them around! An orange triangle on the donations box. Lavender octagons on an altar boy’s vestments. Madeleine doesn’t understand decimals but she knows red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple make a rainbow.
Around her, a group Amen. She has missed a prayer. Everyone crosses themselves. Everyone glances around for what now. “And now,” Father Gary announces, “Clare Kelly will lead us in the responsorial song.”
Miss Greene pads onto the altar’s carpet and whispers into Father Gary’s ear. He forgets the microphone. “Is she dead?” Frantic explaining. “Madeleine Altimari?” He pronounces her last name as if somewhere there is another, more innocuous Madeleine.