The kid stared at him suspiciously. "What is that?"
Willy paused and smiled as he turned away. "Good question. I hope it's the other shoe dropping."
Chapter 9
Nathan Lee had lived in Washington Heights all his life, and had done almost everything within reach to make a living. He wasn't a major player, just one of thousands on the hustle, a discreet man with a professionally short memory, who never forgot anything or anyone, knew how and where to get things done, and whose comfort level with things legal and illegal had finally reached an even keel. Just as he would never hold a nine-to-five job, he would also never touch anything that might cost him more than a night's detention.
That hadn't always been true, and his coming to terms with moderation owed a lot to Willy Kunkle.
All those years ago, before Willy left for Vietnam and while still a rookie on the NYPD, he stopped Nate Lee on a drug possession charge. The circumstances weren't egregious. It was a routine piece of business, but the laws were such, and Nate's record long enough, that had Willy actually arrested him, Nate, no spring chicken even back then, would have spent the rest of his life in prison.
That hadn't happened. For reasons neither man was likely to be able to explain, an odd connection was made that night between the troubled patrol officer who, unbeknownst to himself, was already in freefall, and the penny-ante street hustler one step away from a life sentence. Like one failing relay racer tossing the baton to the next man up, Willy spontaneously granted Nate absolution, with no strings attached. He merely poured the drugs into a storm drain, told Nate to nurture the gift he'd just been granted, and walked away.
The two never met again.
To Willy, the experience was like a passing inspiration, unsought at the time, inexplicable later, and finally all but forgotten. To Nate, however, it had more significance. He pondered the chances of being as lucky as he'd been with Willy, and found them slim enough to warrant his paying attention. Not that he then joined the church or found redemption. But he started thinking before he acted, considering his own survival, and never again put himself in such peril. After a couple of years practicing this new habit, he then thought a show of thanks might be in order, so he wrote a letter to Patrol Officer Kunkle, care of the NYPD, reminding him of that night without going into detail, expressing his gratitude, and hoping that everything in Kunkle's life was equally on the upswing.
He never heard back, never expected he would, but was content to have made the gesture.
Kunkle actually got that letter, a long time after it was sent. The police department forwarded it to Vietnam, where Willy opened it in an alcoholic stupor one night, and injected into its mundane wording an intangible significance. Some act of grace that he'd practiced without thought a seeming lifetime ago had been brought back to his attention in the middle of a hell on earth like some elusive sign. Willy kept the letter almost as a talisman, rereading it occasionally until it finally became lost in the wake of his turbulent travels.
When the young steerer mentioned Washington Heights, however, forcing Willy to think back not just to his childhood, but to when he'd walked the beat in exactly that neighborhood, the memory of Nate's letter came back to mind with abrupt and total clarity. That's why he'd referred to the second shoe dropping.
In fact, such a historic connection was by now becoming the norm. Since crossing the Harlem River, he'd been traveling backward in time like a man walking into freezing cold water. Mary's death, the fact that he'd been the one called to identify her, its happening in New York, seeing Bob and Andy, and finally his sudden recall of Nathan Lee's innocuous letter in relation to Washington Heights, were all part of a progressive pattern.
As Willy rode the subway north into Harlem late that night, he couldn't help but wonder whether-even hope that-the journey he was on might clarify more than just the questions surrounding Mary's death.
Because he was feeling the need for a whole lot of answers. Nathan Lee swung out the door and stepped lightly down the stairs of the apartment building fronting Amsterdam Avenue, a wad of cash tight in his back pocket. He'd known a man who needed a job done, and knew another man who could do it. That was largely the nature of Nate's existence nowadays, hovering in the middle of as much action as possible, like a party balloon being swatted from one table to another-he made it his business to pass between disparate people, and made sure that with each swat, he got a small percentage.
He looked up and down the sidewalk with a smile. It was long after midnight, which for him was mid-workday, and he was in the mood to see if he couldn't hit two scores in one night.
He turned south toward 155th Street and headed for his office, an all-night, pocket-sized general store selling everything from cigarettes to playing cards to soda and candy bars, and whose owner, Riley Cox, he'd known since Riley was a kid.
Nate had been a street hustler even back then. Part of his success now, in fact, lay in how old he was. Whitehaired, bandy-legged, and skinny as a pole, he was the epitome of the elderly black caricature, watching life passing by on the stoop of a brownstone. Except that he had too much energy for that. The combination of his appearance and his natural enthusiasm made him hard to resist and, more importantly, harder to target as a fall guy when things went awry. The tough people he often dealt with either protected him or dismissed him, but they rarely held him to blame. It was a blessing he nurtured and never took for granted.
He entered 155th and walked west, his feet moving to a tune that kept echoing in his head, something he'd heard on the radio last week. He saw Riley's sign in the distance, a yellow beacon offering friendship, comfort, and maybe a hot lead.
Now snapping his fingers to the tune, he rounded the newspaper rack outside and pulled open the glass door into a wall of warm, aromatic air, as embracing to him as a home kitchen on a winter day, even though the odors were of dust, cigarette smoke, and stale humanity.
Nate caught Riley's eye as he stepped inside and felt his opening one-liner die on his lips. There was nothing amiss about the tiny store. It was as busy as always, and even Riley looked almost normal. But you didn't know someone for decades without sensing that single element's being out of place. Nate stopped in his tracks, the door still open in his hand, and readied himself for a fast retreat.
"Hey, Riley. How's it keepin'?"
In response, Riley shifted his gaze to the nearest of the two aisles inside the store, the one that was just out of Nate's line of sight. Nate silently leaned to his left in order to get a better view, his hand still on the doorknob. Slowly, the aisle came into view, revealing a thin, hatchet-faced man with intense dark eyes and a shriveled left arm.
Nate, whose business was faces, didn't hesitate, even after all the years. He broke into a wide smile and released the door. Riley visibly relaxed. "Why, if it ain't Officer Kunkle."
"Long time, Nate," Willy answered.
Nate approached him with an appraising eye. "Not to be rude, but you're lookin' a little rough, if that's all right to say."
Willy let out a small snort. "Can't argue with the truth."
"What happened to you?"
"Took a ride along the bottom a few years back."
Nate stuck out his hand and Willy shook it, enjoying the warm, smooth feel of it.
"And the arm?"
"Bullet wound," Willy answered shortly.
Nate nodded sympathetically. "Oh, my lord. So, you're not with the police anymore."
Willy smiled thinly and gave an indirect answer. "You don't get that lucky. They can't fire you if you can still do the job."
Nate tried to hide his skepticism. "Hell, given some of your brothers, they're not even that picky. Why're you back, after all this time?"