“Yeah, your parents would have appreciated it,” I said. Lippert’s parents had been big Communists back in Brooklyn-it’s part of Sonny’s history; it never leaves him. Now, he stared at the paper and shook his head, deep in some memory of childhood.
“Does that help?” I said. “Is that it?”
Reaching into his coat pocket, Sonny took out two pictures and tossed them on the counter and said, “Take a look at these.”
In one photo was a dead guy on a slab at the morgue. The second was a close-up of the guy’s upper arm where there were some tats, Russian words circling his bicep.
“Same guy as they found the paper on?”
“Yeah,” said Sonny.
Naked, the dead guy had a huge upper body, heavily muscled arms, a slack face. A lot of Russians who work security in the city were once Olympic weight lifters, though I’d picked up at least one hood who’d been a nuclear physicist. Times change.
What were you? I always ask them. What were you back then, before the empire collapsed, before everything changed?
“What about the tats?” said Sonny.
I held up the picture.
“Jesus,” I said. “I never saw Russian tats like this, but it goes really well with what’s on the paper.”
“Yeah? What?”
“ ‘Workers of the World Unite. You have Nothing to Lose But Your Chains,’ you know that one, right, Sonny? I mean, ask yourself, is this guy the last crazy Commie true-believer left on planet Earth, except for maybe a few elderly ladies holding up pictures of Stalin on the street in Moscow? Maybe he belongs to a gang of old Commies. Maybe he strayed, turned capitalist, whatever.” I yawned. “I’m going back to bed.”
“You’ll help me with this one, won’t you, Art?” Sonny asked. “You could do me a favor and drop in on Jimmy Wagner.”
“What’s your interest? You’re retired. What do you want this for?”
“I’m consulting on certain cases that come my way.”
I saw now that Sonny was looking thin, old, his face lined.
“You feel up to working?” I was worried. Truth is, I love the man.
“I’m taking a few things on.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why’s anyone hustling right now? Tough times.”
“You have your pension, right? You told me you had some investments.”
He stared down at the remains of his breakfast.
Once upon a time, Sonny Lippert was the most connected guy in the city. He could raise anyone on a dime. You’d say, Sonny, I need a lawyer for a friend, I need somebody in forensics, a contact with the Feds, and he’d say, No problem, Artie, man, just give me a few minutes.
He had to be in bad shape financially. The meltdown was killing the city. Madoff had been arrested, but I didn’t figure Sonny for a big enough player to have put his money with the bastard.
“Sonny?”
“Just say I’m doing some consulting work, OK? Can we leave it at that, Art? OK? Please?”
“Sure.”
Sonny got up, put his hat on, tossed a five on the counter, thanked Mike for the bagel and coffee. “So I’ll figure on hearing from you by the beginning of the week, right? Just plan on working with me a couple days, maybe more, right, man?” he said. “And Artie?”
“What’s that?”
“Answer your phone.”
I went home, got into bed. Warm under the covers, drifting off to sleep, I forgot about Sonny’s case. I’d left the answering machine on again, too tired to bother. When it rang, I said out loud, “I’m asleep.”
The phone rang again. The answering machine clicked on. I was sure it was Sonny, and I yawned. And then I heard her voice. I grabbed for the phone as fast as I could.
“Artie? Are you there? Pick up the phone, please, Artie? I need you. Please. Hurry.” It was Lily.
CHAPTER 3
I need you.” Lily’s voice echoed in my ear as I got in my car.
I tried playing back what she had said, but I knew from her tone she must be in big trouble. I was still groggy with sleep, and all I had really heard was that she wanted me to hurry. I looked at the road. Saturday morning, early. No traffic.
I’d scribbled the address, in Harlem, on a scrap of yellow paper I put on the dashboard. 155th Street. I drove too fast, breaking the speed limits on the FDR.
Everything was gray, the tin-colored river where chunks of ice had formed, the buildings on the Queens side of the East River, everything except the red neon Pepsi sign. It was cold. I turned on the heater and put the radio on for the forecast. Snow. Fog. Cold. Sleet fell on my windshield.
I drove. I tried Lily on my cell over and over, but she didn’t answer. The only time I’d seen her in a year had been six weeks earlier, election night, the Sugar Hill Club in Harlem.
That night in November, when I see her, she looks wonderful. Her red hair sticking out from under a gold cardboard tiara, Obama’s name spelled out on it in glitter, Lily is wearing a white shirt, collar turned up in her jaunty way. She’s laughing. She doesn’t see me at first.
“Lily?”
“Hi, Artie,” she calls out to me, spotting me near the bar. “Hi,” she says, smiling, and then, for a moment, she’s swept away into the crowd.
This is why I’m here. This is why I drove uptown, why I had jammed my car into the tight spot on 152nd where I saw the silver ghost van.
I knew she’d been working on the Obama campaign, living uptown in a friend’s apartment. So when my pal Tolya Sverdloff had said, “Let’s go to Harlem election night,” I was OK with it. “I’ll meet you at the Sugar Hill Club,” I had said. I’d been here with Lily once or twice to listen to music. I figured she might show up.
In the club, the tension is electric, everybody waiting for the results. In the club I see white faces, black, Latino, Asian. People are yakking in Russian, Italian, French. Tonight everybody is a believer. Once Obama is elected, everything will change, people say. If it happens; when it happens. Soon.
The results are coming in, slowly at first. Inside the club, the TV hangs overhead like some ancient oracle, and with every win, the crowd turns to look.
Yes we can!
“Lily?”
Almost a year since I’ve seen her. It’s a year since we agreed to stay away from each other. No calls. No e- mails. I’ve kept tabs on her as best I can. We know some of the same people.
For a while I went to bars and coffee shops I knew she liked. Sometimes I went past her building on purpose and felt like an idiot standing on the corner of Tenth Street, watching out for her.
How long have I known her? Almost fifteen years, on and off.
The only thing I’d had from her all year was a handwritten note when Val died. Tolya’s daugther Valentina died and Lily wrote to me. Just that once. Only then.
Now, Saturday morning driving through the gray city dawn, sleet coming down on my windshield, Lily, her desperate phone call earlier, election night, were all rattling through my head. Like a maniac, I drove to Harlem, dialing her phone number over and over, hurrying to see her, to help her. Lily needed me.
“Artie? You knew I’d be here, didn’t you?” Lily says when she spots me at the club on election night. She’s close enough I can smell her perfume. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” She gestures at the TV. “I mean, if we win.”
“You’re superstitious?”
