“I’m going to a place of peace, if you must know, Lionel.”
“A-what?” Prays of peach? Plays of peas? Press-e-piece? “You heard me. A place of peace.” Then a horn sounded outside.
“That’s my car,” she said. “Would you go and tell them I’ll be out in a minute?”
“Okay, but-pressure pees-that’s a strange thing to say.”
“Have you ever been out of Brooklyn, Lionel?”
Breasts, underarm hair, now Brooklyn-for Julia it was all just a measure of my inexperience. “Sure,” I said. “I was in Manhattan just this afternoon.” I tight=”0em” not to think about what I’d been doing there, or failing to do.
“New York City, Lionel. Have you ever been out of New York City?”
While I considered this question I eyed the cigarette, which had at last begun to singe the dresser top. The blackening paint stood for my defeat here. I couldn’t protect anything, maybe least of all myself.
“Because if you had, you’d know that anywhere else is a place of peace. So that’s where I’m going. Would you please go hold my car for me?”
The car service double-parked in front of the building was Legacy Pool, the furthest upscale of the Brooklyn competitors, with all-black luxury models, tinted windows, cell phones for the customers, and built-in tissue-box holders under the rear window. Julia was running in style. I waved at the driver from the stoop of her building, and he nodded at me and leaned his head back on the rest. I was trying out his neck motions, nod, lean, when the gravely voice appeared behind me.
“Who’s the car for?”
It was the homicide detective. He’d been waiting, staking us out, slumped to one side of the doorway, huddled in his coat against the chilly November night. I made him right away-with his 10 P.M. Styrofoam cup of coffee, worn tie, ingrown beard, and interrogation eyes, he was unmistakable-but that didn’t mean he had any idea who I was.
“Lady inside,” I said, and tapped him once on the shoulder. “Watch it,” he said, ducking away from my touch.
“Sorry, friend. Can’t help myself.” I turned from him, back into the building.
The elegance of my exit was quickly thwarted, though-Julia was just then galumphing down the stairs with her overstuffed suitcase. I rushed to help her as the door eased slowly shut on its moaning hydraulic hinge. Too slowly: The cop stuck out his foot and held the door open for us.
“Excuse me,” he said with a sly, exhausted authority. “You Julia Minna?”
“I was,” said Julia.
“You were?”
“Yes. Isn’t that funny? I was until just about an hour ago. Lionel, put my bag in the trunk.”
“In a hurry?” the detective asked Julia. I watched the two of them size one another up, as though I weren’t any more a factor than the waiting limo driver. A few minutes ago, I wanted to say, my hands-Instead I hoisted Julia’s luggage, and waited for her to move past me to the car.
“Sort of,” said Julia. “Plane to catch.”
“Plane to where?” He crushed his empty Styrofoam cup and tossed it over his shoulder, off the stoop, into the neighbor’s bushes. Thy were already decorated with trash.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“She’s going to a precipice, pleasurepolice, philanthropriest-”
“Shut up, Lionel.”
The detective looked at me like I was crazy.
My life story to this point:
The teacher looked at me like I was crazy.
The social-services worker looked at me like I was crazy.
The boy looked at me like I was crazy and then hit me.
The girl looked at me like I was crazy.
The woman looked at me like I was crazy.
The black homicide detective looked at me like I was crazy.
“I’m afraid you can’t go, Julia,” said the detective, shaking off his confusion at my utterances with a sigh and a grimace. He’d seen plenty in his day, could cope with a little more before needing to bust my chops over it-that was the feeling I got. “We’re going to want to talk to you about Frank.”
“You’ll have to arrest me,” said Julia.
“Why would you want to say that?” said the detective, pained.
“Just to keep things simple,” said Julia. “Arrest me or I’m getting in the car. Lionel, please.”
I humped the huge, unwieldy suitcase down the stoop and waved at the driver to pop the trunk. Julia followed, the detective close behind. The limo’s speakers were oozing Mariah Carey, the driver still mellow on the headrest. When Julia slid into the backseat, the detective caught the door in his two meaty hands and leaned in over the top.
“Don’t you care who killed your husband, Mrs. Minna?” He was plainly unnerved by Julia’s blitheness.
“Let me know when you find out who killed him,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you if I care.”
I pushed the suitcase in over the top of the spare tire. I briefly considered opening it up and confiscating Julia’s pistol, then realized I probably didn’t want to emerge with a gun in front of the homicide cop. He was liable to misunderstand. Instead I shut the trunk.
“That would involve us being in touch,” the detective pointed out to Julia.
“I told you, I don’t know where I’m going. Do you have a card?”
As he straightened to reach into his vest pocket she slammed the door, then rolled down her window to accept his card.
“We could have you stopped at the airport,” he said severely, trying to remind her of his authority, or remind himself. But that we was weaker than he knew.
“Yes,” said Julia. “But it sounds like you’ve decided to let me go. I appreciate it.” She palmed his card into her purse.
“Where were you this afternoon when Frank was killed, Mrs.
Minna?”
“Talk to Lionel,” said Julia, looking back at me. “He’s my alibi. We were together all day.”
“Eat me alibailey,” I breathed, as quietly as I could. The detective frowned at me. I held my hands open and made an Art Carney face, pleading for a common understanding between us-women, suspects, widows, whattayagonnado? Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em, eh?
Julia powered her tinted window back up into place and the Legacy Pool limousine took off, idiot radio trickling away to silence, leaving me and the detective standing in the dark of Baltic Street by ourselves.
“Lionel.”
Alibi hullabaloo gullible bellyflop smellafish, sang my brain, obliterating speech. I waved a farewell at the detective and started toward Smith Street. If Julia could leave him flat-footed, why couldn’t I?
He followed. “We better talk, Lionel.” He’d blown it, let her go, and now he was going to compensate with me, exercise his deductive and bullying powers.
“Can’t it wait?” I managed, without turning-it took a considerable effort not to swivel my neck. But I felt him right on my heels, like a pacing man and his shadow.
“What’s your full name, Lionel?”
“Lullaby Gueststar-”
“Come again?”
“Alibyebye Essmob-”
“Sounds Arabic,” said the detective as he pulled even with me. “You don’t look Arabic, though. Where were you and the lady this afternoon, Alibi?”
“Lionel,” I forced myself to say clearly, and then blurted “Lionel Arrestme!”
“That’s not gonna work twice in the same night,” said the cop. “I don’t have to arrest you. We’re just taking a walk, Alibi. Only I don’t know where we’re going. You want to tell me?”