“Mr. Barch called,” she answered. “He said that either you pay up by Friday or he’s going to start eviction.”
It was the square shape of her face and the heaviness around her eyes that made her ugly. When she was young gravity was in suspense but he should have seen the curtain coming down.
The kids were in the living room. The TV was on but no one was watching. The oldest boy, the red-headed Dimitri, was reading a book. He had ochre skin and green eyes. But he had Leonid’s mouth. Shelly, the girl, looked more Chinese than anything else. They used to have a Chinese neighbor when they lived on Staten Island. He worked at an Indian jewelers’ center in Queens. Shelly was sewing one of Leonid’s jackets. She loved her father and never questioned her mother or the face in the mirror.
Shelly and Dimitri were eighteen and nineteen. They went to City College and lived at home. Katrina would not hear of them moving out. And Leonid liked having them around. He felt that they were keeping him anchored to something, keeping him from floating away down Forty-second Street and into the Hudson.
Twill was the youngest boy. Sixteen and self-named. He’d just come home after a three-month stay at a youth detention center near Wingdale, New York. The only reason he was still in high school was that that was part of his release agreement.
Twill was the only one who smiled when Leonid entered the room.
“Hey, pop,” he said. “Guess what? Mr. Tortolli wants to hire me at his store.”
“Hey. Good.” Leonid would have to call the hardware man and tell him that Twill would open his back door and empty out the storeroom in three weeks’ time.
Leonid loved him but Twill was a thief.
“What about Mr. Barch?” Katrina said.
“What about my dinner?”
Katrina knew how to cook. She served chicken with white wine sauce and the flakiest dumplings he had ever eaten. There was also broccoli and almond bread, grilled pineapples, and a dark fish sauce that you could eat with a spoon.
Cooking was difficult for Katrina since her left hand had become partially paralyzed. The specialist said that it was probably due to a slight stroke. She worried all the time. Her boyfriends had stopped calling years before.
But Leonid took care of her and her kids. He even asked to have sex with her now and then because he knew how much she hated it.
“Did anybody else call?” he asked when the college kids were in their rooms and Twill was back out in the street.
“A man called Arman.”
“What he say?”
“There’s a little French diner on Tenth and Seventeenth. He wants to see you there at ten. I told him I didn’t know if you could make it.”
When Leonid moved to kiss Katrina she leaned away and he laughed.
“Why don’t you leave me?” he asked.
“Who would raise our children if I did that?”
This caused Leonid to laugh even harder.
He reached Babette’s Feast at nine-fifteen. He ordered a double espresso and stared at the legs of a mature woman seated at the bar. She was at least forty but dressed as if she were fifteen. Leonid felt the stirrings of the first erection he’d had in over a week.
Maybe that’s why he called Karmen Brown on his cell phone. Her voice had sounded as if it should be clad in a dress like that.
When the call was answered Leonid could tell that she was outside.
“Hello?”
“Miss Brown?”
“Yes.”
“This is Leo McGill. You left a message for me?”
“Mr. McGill. I thought you were in Florida.” The roar of an engine almost drowned out her words.
“I’m sorry if it’s hard to hear me,” she said. “There was a motorcycle going down the street.”
“That’s okay. How can I help you?”
“I’m having a problem and, and, well it’s rather personal.”
“I’m a detective, Miss Brown. I hear personal stuff all the time. If you want me to meet with you then you’ll have to tell me what it’s about.”
“Richard,” she said, “Mallory. He’s my fiance and I think he’s cheating on me.”
“And you want me to prove it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t want to marry a man who will treat me like that.”
“How did you get my name, Miss Brown?”
“I looked you up in the book. When I saw where your office was I thought that you must be good.”
“I can meet you sometime tomorrow.”
“I’d rather meet tonight. I don’t think I’ll get any sleep until this thing is settled.”
“Well,” the detective hesitated. “I have a meeting at ten and then I’m going to see my girlfriend.” It was a private joke, one that the young Miss Brown would never understand.
“Maybe I can meet you before you see your girlfriend,” Karmen suggested. “It should only take a few minutes.”
They agreed on a pub on Houston two blocks east of Elizabeth Street, where Gert Longman lived.
Just as Leonid was removing the hooked earphone from his ear Craig Arman entered the bistro. He was a large white man with a broad, kind face. Even the broken nose made him seem more vulnerable than dangerous. He wore faded blue jeans and a T-shirt under a large loose knit sweater. There was a pistol hidden somewhere in all that fabric, Leonid knew that. Nestor Bendix’s street accountant never went unarmed.
“Leo,” Arman said.
“Craig.”
The small table that Leonid had chosen was behind a pillar, removed from the rest of the crowd in the popular bistro.
“Cops got their package,” Arman said. “Our guy was in and out of his place in ten minutes. A quick call downtown and now he’s in the Tombs. Just like you said.”
“That means I can pay the rent,” Leonid replied.
Arman smiled and Leonid felt a few ounces being placed on his thigh under the table.
“Well, I got to go,” Arman said then. “Early to bed, you know.”
“Yeah,” Leonid agreed.
Most of Nestor’s boys didn’t have much truck with the darker races. The only reason Nestor ever called was that Leonid was the best at his trade.
Leonid caught a cab on Seventh Avenue that took him to Barney’s Clover on Houston.
The girl sitting at the far end of the bar was everything Katrina had once been except she was blonde and her looks would never fade. She had a porcelain face with small, lovely features. No makeup except for a hint of pale lip gloss.
“Mr. McGill?”
“Leo.”
“I’m so relieved that you came to meet me,” she said.
She was wearing tan riding pants and a coral blouse. There was a white raincoat folded over her lap. Her eyes were the kind of brown that some artist might call red. Her hair was cut short-boyish but sexy. Her tinted lips were ready to kiss babies’ butts and laugh.
Leonid took a deep breath and said, “I charge five hundred a day-plus expenses. That’s mileage, equipment rentals, and food after eight hours on the job.”
He had just received twelve thousand dollars from Craig Arman but business was business.
The girl handed him a large manila envelope.
“This is his full name and address. I have also included a photograph and the address of the office where he works. There’s also eight hundred dollars in it. You probably won’t need more than that because I’m almost sure that he’ll be seeing her tomorrow evening.”
“What you drinkin’, guy?” the bartender, a lovely faced Asian boy, asked.
“Seltzer,” the detective asked. “Hold the rocks.”
The bartender smiled or sneered, Leonid wasn’t sure which. He wanted a scotch with his fizzy water but the ulcer in his stomach would keep him up half the night if he had it.
“Why?” Leonid asked the beautiful girl.
“Why do I want to know?”
“No. Why do you think he’s going to see her tomorrow night?”