who couldn’t afford the stain of a bastard son. It was one thing to see Israel in the pictures Carmella had given me. It was something else to be standing in front of him. I wanted desperately to scoop him up in my arms, to swallow him up with eight years worth of love and pain, but I didn’t want to frighten him.
“Didn’t your mom teach you not to just open the door for strangers?”
“You’re not a stranger. Mom has pictures of you in our house. You’re her friend Moe. I saw you through the top glass on the door when I was coming down the steps.”
When he called me his mom’s friend, it hurt much worse than my gut. “So your mom talks about me?” I said, trying to smile through the hurt.
“Sometimes. She smiles when she talks about you. You used to work together, right, when she was a detective?”
“That’s right.” I put out my hand out and we shook. “I knew you when you were a very little boy.”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay.” I winked. “I do. Where’s your mom?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Can I come in?”
He thought about that for a minute. “My mom’s asleep,” he said. “I don’t think-”
“That’s okay, Israel,” Carmella called down from the top of the stairs. “Tell Moe to come in. And you, mister, get to bed. It’s late.”
“Mom!”
“C’mon, you, up here and to bed!”
“Good night, Israel, it was nice seeing you again,” I said, voice cracking. I patted his shoulder. “Listen to your mom and go on.”
“Good night,” he said without much enthusiasm, then turned and ran up the stairs.
I followed slowly behind him, my grip firm on the handrail. My knees were shaky and not from the wine and Grand Marniers. At the top of the stairs, Carmella kissed Israel on his forehead, gave him a quick hug, and gave him a gentle shove. He didn’t look back. I watched him disappear for the second time in my life.
Carm, dressed in a loose cotton T-shirt over faded and torn jeans, stared down at me. Her eyes were still a little cloudy with sleep. “Beer?” she asked, leading me into the kitchen.
“No, thanks. I remember getting into some mischief the last time we shared a beer in this kitchen.”
“I remember that too.” She stretched the sleep out of her muscles and yawned. “What are you doing here, Moe?”
“I’m a little drunk.”
“I can see that.”
“I didn’t know you had him here with you.”
“How could you know?”
“Were you going to tell me?” I asked, a sharp pain bending me over.
“Are you okay? Sit.”
She pulled back a chair for me and I took it.
“I ate and drank too much. My stomach’s been off lately. Sorry.”
“Can I get you something?”
“No. I’m okay now,” I lied. “So, were you going to tell me Israel was here with you?”
“I thought about it, but…”
“He’s a good boy. Handsome too. Best features of his mom and dad. Do you ever talk to-”
Carmella shushed me, shaking her head no and putting her finger across her lips. I got the message and moved on.
“He does well in school?”
“Top of his class and a good hockey player too.” She beamed like any proud mom.
“Hockey!” I snorted. “Mr. Roth would think it was funny that someone named for him would be a hockey player. He loved baseball.”
“Moe, what are you doing here?”
“I’m not sure. I came to see you.”
“No shit, really?”
“What did you know about your sister?”
Carm’s body clenched. I’d asked her precisely the worst question. “Why?”
“Because if you were hoping that the witnesses had somehow gotten it wrong, that Alta hadn’t ignored Tillman and that all the rest of it was some big misunderstanding… well, stop hoping. If there’s one thing I know for sure about any of this, it’s that Alta and her partner refused to help the guy. And to be totally brutal about it, it seems to me it was Alta’s call. She was the one who made the decision not to treat the guy. What I can’t understand is why.”
“I don’t know why, Moe. I did not know my sister except when we were little. You know my parents sent me back to Puerto Rico after… after the thing happened to me.”
“Was she a good big sister when you were little?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything now?” She was red with anger, but careful not to yell. She lowered her voice to a vicious whisper. “I did not ask you to be a psychologist for me. I asked you to-”
“People don’t change, Carm. My brother Aaron is pretty much the same as he was when he was eight years old, and your buddy and my little sister Miriam has always been a troublemaker. So, was Alta a good big sister?”
Carmella bowed her head. “Yes. She was always protecting me like I was her own. She was a mother bear. I think when I was taken as a little girl, it hurt Alta more than anyone. She felt like she didn’t do her job. Why don’t you go to the partner, Maya Watson, to ask her about Alta?”
“I will ask her, but it won’t get me anywhere. She was very cooperative until I brought up what happened with Tillman. Then she clammed up. I don’t know why. You’d think she and Alta would have been desperate to explain their side of things, but instead they refused to say a word about it. That’s only one of the things that doesn’t make much sense about this case.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to the High Line Bistro. On an EMT’s salary, you couldn’t afford an appetizer and a bowl of chowder in that joint. Their least expensive wine was sixty bucks. Coffee is seven bucks a pop. It’s not the kind of place people in uniforms go to. But Alta and Maya traveled over there from the other side of Manhattan for a quick lunch? I don’t buy it. And under careful questioning, some of the witnesses said that Alta and Maya were arguing when they came in. About what? It’s just weird, Carm. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t think they were there about lunch.”
“Then what for?” she asked.
“That’s the million dollar question. What the hell were they doing there?”
I think I had something else to say, but suddenly I was lightheaded. No, it was more than that. I was dizzy and my vision got hazy around the edges. My heart was beating its way out of my chest and up into my throat. My head, now impossibly heavy, fell back over the top of the chair. I could feel myself soaking through my shirt. I was nauseous as hell.
“Moe! Moe!” I heard someone calling my name, but from somewhere far far away. “Moe, are you all right? You look gray.” I felt a hand touch my face, my neck. “You’re clammy. I’m going to call 911.”
“No! No. Get me to the bathroom,” I slurred, holding my leaden arms out. “I’ll be okay.”
I was up, but not for long. My legs were deboned and demuscled. I remember feeling myself dropping. I don’t remember landing. It must have been a hell of a fall.
EIGHTEEN
I stopped at my condo for another shower and a change of clothing before heading over to see Detective Jean Jacques Fuqua. Neither the shower nor the new clothing made me feel like a new man. I was past the age
