world now, Harlem behind them, Columbia University and Barnard College to either side. Landscaped medians, carefully attended, run the length of each block. Even in the rain, even lit by the odd amber light cast by the street lamps, the contrast with the black and Latino neighborhood to the north catches Carter’s attention, as it has before. Thousands of tulips rise straight from the earth, tulips of every color, proud as soldiers on a parade ground. And there’s at least one cherry tree on every block. In another week, if the weather stays warm, they’ll be in their full glory. For now, their tight blossoms cast a fuzzy pink haze over the rain-slicked branches.
They crest the hill and head down toward 110th Street, another borderline. No more gardens, no more tulips or daffodils or cherry trees, no more Columbia University. They’re in an obscure neighborhood called Manhattan Valley. Twenty years before, Manhattan Valley was an open-air drug market that would have put a Moroccan bazaar to shame. Now it’s partially gentrified, like all of Manhattan. This is where Angel lives.
Carter double-parks in front of a fire hydrant midway between 108th and 107th Streets. He looks at Angel in the rear-view mirror as he releases the door locks, but he’s thinking of his sister. Only two weeks ago, he’d be heading for the Cabrini Nursing Home on the Lower East Side to pay Janie a visit, maybe read a little from the Bible. Angel looks back at him, catching his eyes in the mirror, and again he’s struck by her beauty.
‘This outfit you work with ...’
‘Pigalle Studios.’
‘Yeah, Pigalle Studios. Do you have some kind of stage name? So the clients know who to ask for?’
‘Sure.’
‘What is it?’
Angel’s smile reveals porcelain-white teeth. ‘Angel Face.’
‘OK, Angel Face, one more piece of advice. Over the next few days, you’re gonna be sorely tempted to tell somebody what happened. Don’t do it. As far as you’re concerned, everyone’s a cop. You run your mouth, you’ll go to jail. Let the cops prove you were in that house. Don’t help them. Benedetti was a mob guy and there are plenty of suspects out there, so it’s entirely possible the cops won’t connect you to him. In which case, it’s even more important that nobody else knows what happened. And get rid of the outfit, the dress and the shoes. Do it tonight.’
FOUR
Carter spends the evening, until ten o’clock, at Milton’s, a sports bar off Queens Boulevard in the community of Woodhaven. Milton’s is all about the American male’s addiction to athletics. Twenty flat screen televisions, small and large, suspended from the ceiling or attached to the walls, are tuned to networks telecasting every sport currently in season. Priority naturally falls to New York teams, the Yankees and the Mets, and to the ongoing play- offs in hockey and basketball. Lesser attractions play in the corners, a soccer match from England, thoroughbred horse racing from a California track. On a small set to Carter’s left, a mixed martial arts champion beats his hapless opponent to a bloody pulp.
Carter’s chosen Milton’s partly because it’s close to Janie’s condominium apartment, where he’s spending the night. But Carter’s also drawn to the bar’s vibrancy, and to its varied clientele. There are as many degenerate gamblers as there are sports fans, a few bookies taking last minute wagers, and a bevy of young women out for an evening with their perpetually adolescent boyfriends. They root their favorites on, fueled by alcohol, marijuana (the bathrooms reek of weed) and the cocaine peddled by Milton’s resident dealer, a small-time jerk named Sal who pretends to be connected.
Carter hangs by himself at a free-standing table near a back wall, munching on a hamburger and sipping at a mug of Bass Ale. He has no friends here, or anywhere else for that matter, but the intensely social behavior of the fans enthralls him. Carter believes that athletic contests simulate the more serious business of mortal combat, the big differences being that fans get to watch and the losers don’t go home in coffins. But the ability to slap a puck into a net doesn’t impress Carter, nor do the virtually subhuman fist fights between the hockey players. He doesn’t feel himself diminished by loss, or enhanced by victory, only fascinated by those who are.
The fans gathered before the largest television emit a collective moan. The New York Yankees are playing the Boston Red Sox and one of the Boston players – Carter doesn’t know who – has hit a home run. Carter watches him jog around the bases, then watches a series of replays, none of which alters the outcome. Two men standing at a table only a few feet away attempt to hide their satisfaction. They’re gamblers, these men, and they’ve bet against the home team, a fact they’d just as soon keep to themselves, but which doesn’t escape Carter’s attention.
Carter finishes his hamburger and orders another beer from a harried waitress. Despite the charged atmosphere, his thoughts turn to his sister’s ashes drifting on the gray waters of the Hudson. Janie was his anchor. Tending her gave him purpose, much as athletic contests give purpose to Milton’s patrons. But there’s always another game for the sports fan, another season, another chance. Janie can’t be replaced, or so Carter thinks as he tips the waitress when she returns with his beer.
‘Thanks, sport,’ she says with a wink.
Like most males, Carter’s easily distracted. He’s also a master of the hook-up, the casual encounter, sex as pure sensation. An Australian merc named Arthur had explained the principle on a rooftop in Basra while they awaited the appearance of a doomed tribal sheikh.
‘Friction, that’s all it is, mate. Friction, friction, friction. The testicles are two organs that fill up every forty- eight hours and have to be emptied. There’s nothing more to the game.’
Now Carter observes the bar maid’s butt as she sashays across the room, his gaze speculative. Was she flirting? Or is flirtatiousness part of the show? Angel had flirted with him as they walked to the van, describing this fantasy and that. Not only didn’t he blame her, Carter was impressed with her control, and her obvious skill at projecting unfelt desire.
The beauty of the hook-up, Carter thinks, is that you can be certain your partner is attracted to you, at least physically.
But the waitress flirts with her next customer and with the next, leaving Carter to conclude that she’s just not into him. Carter isn’t disappointed. He finishes his beer and heads back to Janie’s apartment, walking the few blocks beneath clearing skies.
An hour later, still restless, he stands in Janie’s gallery, a narrow hallway lined on both sides with photographs taken many years before. The newest, judging from the Chevrolet parked at the curb, dates back to the 1950s. On this night, Carter’s eyes are drawn to one of the oldest photos, a wedding portrait. Here the groom is seated in a finely carved chair while the bride stands to his left and slightly behind him. She wears an embroidered white dress, tightly pinched at the waist, with a high collar that rises almost to her ears. Her veil drops from a spray of flowers to brush the floor.
Carter steps a bit closer. The bride’s lips are thin and her eyes appear sad to him. The groom isn’t smiling, either, although it’s hard to be sure because he sports a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache thick enough to obscure his mouth. In any event, they don’t touch each other, don’t stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, don’t exhibit any sign of affection. They might be strangers hired for a photo shoot.
These are photographs, Carter assumes, of his relatives, his and Janie’s, a family legacy. There can be no other reason why Janie went to the trouble of framing and hanging them. But Carter doesn’t know who they are because Janie compiled the photos after he left for the military. He’s searched the apartment for some sort of inventory and taken several of the photos out of their frames, hoping to find them labeled. Not happening. Janie has taken their identities with her. There was a time, of course, while Janie was still being cared for at home, when she might have identified the anonymous faces, might have connected them, one to the other. But Carter was in Sierra Leone, a soldier of fortune dumb enough to believe that blood can lead to anything but blood.
Soldiers learn to sleep when the opportunity presents itself and Carter nods off shortly after he gets into bed and pulls up the covers. Most nights, he sleeps soundly for about six hours and awakens refreshed. But on this night he rises just before dawn. Outside the room’s single window, the spring air is filled with birdsong.
Carter lies on his back, overwhelmed by the tattered remains of a dream. He’s in bed, as he is now, but there’s no room surrounding him, no walls, no floor, no ceiling, no sky, no Earth, no wind, no sun, no stars. He is utterly alone.
