Soul Patch

Chevrolet. I split before New York’s Bravest and Finest appeared.

I used a booth on Mermaid Avenue and got Melendez at home. If I felt weirder making a call in my life, I’d be damned if I could remember it. For fuck’s sake, talk about mixed emotions. My guts were twisted in bunches. I had stood there for five minutes with the phone in my hand, rehearsing what to say. But there was no rehearsing a conversation that might cover lust, guilt, murder, and betrayal. When she picked up, I found I could not speak.

“Moe, Moe is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I feel a lot of things about you, Carmella, but hate isn’t one of ’em. I think I wish it was. Things would be easier that way.”

“You were all I thought about today.”

I ignored that in self-defense. “That’s about to change.”

“Why?”

“Malik’s girl, Kalisha. .”

“What about her?”

“Someone blew her head off with a shotgun about fifteen minutes ago.”

“How’d you find out?”

“I was standing across the street.”

“What happened?”

“We talked, Kalisha and me, and we agreed to meet again to talk some more. I walked toward my car and that Camaro that tried to run me down the other day pulled up. She walked over to the passenger door and. . Bang! Bang! She was a mess. I found the Camaro in flames over by the creek.”

“Why kill the girlfriend?”

“I’ve got some ideas about that. You on tomorrow?”

“Uh huh.”

“Think you can get away from Murphy for lunch?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

“Moe.”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

I said I did, but I didn’t know a goddamned thing anymore.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mundane.

Given that in the last few days Larry Mac had either been killed or killed himself, that someone had tried to kill me, that I’d kissed Carmella Melendez, and that I’d witnessed a woman’s head being blown off and was reading about it at the breakfast table, you’d think mundane would be the last word to come to mind. But I had a family and a business and a house and taxes to pay. I had pancakes to serve to a little girl and I had to catch the mailman.

“Yo, Joey!”

But when Joey the mailman turned around, he wasn’t Joey. Years ago, there was a local New York kids’ show called The Merry Mailman. Well, not only was this guy not Joey, but he was as merry as a mortuary.

“Sorry,” I said, handing him some letters to be mailed.

“Gee, thanks, just what I need.”

I let that go.

“Did your neighbors move?” he asked.

“The Bermans? Yeah, they moved down to Boca about two weeks ago. Why?”

“Look at this crap!” Mr. Mortuary said, shoving a fistful of envelopes at me. “I have to carry all this shit around with me all day because some idiot screwed up their change of address card.”

I was seriously considering telling this numbnuts to go fuck himself, but thought better of it. You never want to piss a waiter off before he brings you your meal and you never want to screw with the mailman after you’ve just handed him the envelope containing your mortgage payment.

“Have a nice day. .” Asshole!

When I got back inside, Sarah was talking to someone on the phone. “Un huh. . Yeah, I’m in fifth grade. . Sometimes I help my mom out downstairs with her design work and my daddy takes me to the stores with him. .”

“Who is it, kiddo?”

“Excuse me a second,” she said into the phone. “A lady named Margaret,” she said to me.

“Okay, kiddo, I’ll take it from here.” Sarah handed me the phone.

“Hi, Marge.”

“Frank tells me you came by yesterday to talk to me about Larry.” Her voice was grave. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s not like that, Marge. I just wanted to talk, to try and jar your memory a little about Larry.”

“My memories of Larry don’t need any jarring, Moe.” She began softly sobbing.

Frank Spinelli was no fool. He understood his new wife very well. Margaret’s love for Larry was, indeed, a once-in-her-life thing. Although crushed by the divorce, Marge had probably kept the faint hope of some sort of reconciliation alive. She had married Frank Spinelli as revenge. It was foolish, of course. You can’t poke someone in the eye when they’re not looking at you. My guess was that when Larry had called Margaret a few weeks back to arrange for dinner, she had gone to the Blind Steer fully prepared to do whatever she had to, to recover at least some small part of what she had lost, her own dignity be damned. I can’t imagine how much it hurt when Larry failed to show.

“I’m sorry, Marge.”

“Don’t be. I just. . I just really miss him.”

“I know. He could be a real jerk, but. .”

“Christ, help me, I know.”

“I like Frank a lot,” I said, trying to change the subject, but her sobbing only got worse.

“It’s so unfair to him, to Frank.”

“I don’t think he’d see it that way. He loves you and he understands more than you think, Marge.”

At that very moment, Katy walked through the basement door, waving her portable office phone at me. Her face was as grave as Margaret’s voice had been.

“Excuse me for a second, Marge.” I covered the mouthpiece. “What’s up, Katy? What’s wrong?”

“There’s a Detective Melendez on the phone for you.”

“Tell her to hold on for one second while I get off this call, okay?” She shook her head yes and walked out of earshot. “Marge, listen, I’ve gotta go. Can we meet later, maybe some place you and Larry used to go when you first started seeing each other?”

“Cara Mia,” she said, without hesitation and without tears. “Do you know it?”

“In Bay Ridge?”

“That’s it.”

“Eight okay with you?”

“Eight.”

Katy must’ve heard me hang up, because she reappeared, portable in hand. I mouthed, “Thanks,” and took her phone. My day was about to take a sharp turn away from the mundane.

“Yes, Detective Melendez, what can I do for you?”

“They got your tag number,” she said.