confused and puking up. I help him. He is grateful. Demasiado .”
“What’s that mean?”
“Too much.”
“What happened to it?”
“What?”
“The oxygen machine.”
“I take it away. I want to return to the rental company. Maybe I forget.”
“Where the fuck is it?”
“I can look,” he said, backing away from me.
“Did somebody tamper with it?”
“What’s it mean ‘tamper’?”
“Did somebody mess with it?”
“So many people go visit Mr. Washington, his friend, Miss McGee, who lives on fourteenth floor and runs down to nine to say hello, or bring food. The Russian bitch, too.”
“What did she have to do with him?”
“In this building, who knows?”
“What else did you do for Simonova?”
“For money. I told you, I changed her light bulbs, I cleaned up her terrace. She is Russian, she loves Russia, she loves the Soviet system, she has all the books, she tries to tell me, ‘Join union, join Party.’ Who in fuck is joining Communist Party now? She likes giving orders. Like all of them. Communists,” he said. “I grow up with this shit in Cuba, where for all my father’s life they shit on his head. But he says, ‘Fidel is good, Cubans is happy. Society is just.’ I come to America to escape that shit.”
“And Mr. Washington?”
“He is OK. This one I like, this Mr. Washington, sure. He is a gentleman to me. I even go to his funeral.”
“Who’s in his apartment now?”
“Nobody. Nice one. They call it classic seven. Somebody lucky will get it.”
“Do you think somebody hurt him?”
“You mean did somebody off Mr. Washington?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “It’s not my business,” Diaz said.
“Can you show me? His apartment?”
“Sometime. Now I have to work.”
“Start the fucking elevator,” I said to him, and he just grinned. Then he hit the button. I noticed he wore a ring with his initials:
UD.
“What’s the U for?”
He laughed. “Usnavi. You know what that is? My mami, she sees the sign near Guantanamo, U.S. NAVY, and she thinks if she gives me this name, it makes me American,” he said.
“Let’s get going, if you really have something to show me.”
Diaz led me down a hall, and as we passed the basement storage rooms, he glanced at Simonova’s, sealed up with yellow police tape now, and grinned.
Was it Diaz who beat me up?
A few minutes later, he turned a corner, led me into a room. He got a key from his pocket and unlocked it. “Here,” he said.
Inside was medical equipment. Wheelchairs folded and stacked. A few walkers propped against the wall. At the back were two oxygen tanks, cubes on wheels that looked like R2-D2. “You stole this shit?” I saw one of the oxygen tanks that looked like the one I’d put into Simonova’s closet earlier. Diaz must have swiped it. I tried to push past him. Diaz held his ground.
“My stuff. My shit,” he said. “I got other stuff I can show you, I got information. Maybe we can talk more some time.” He looked at his watch. “Right now I gotta go back up to the lobby.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Gotta go,” he said, edging me out of the room. He locked the door behind us jogged to the elevator. Punched the button and got in. I followed. Then I pushed him against the wall. I’d had it with the smug look on his face.
“What stuff? You want more money, that it?” I was furious. “You want to tell me what you were really doing on the roof? What about your pal, Carver Lennox-you work extra jobs for him?”
He shrank back from me but he managed to push the button. A few seconds later, when the doors opened on the ground floor, people waiting saw that I had a guy with dark skin pinned to the back of the elevator.
CHAPTER 24
Y ou can watch the moon rise right over there, nights when the sky is clear,” said Lionel Hutchison, when I found him on the Armstrong roof. I asked him if he’d seen Diaz.
“You think he’s up to something?”
“He said he’d been on the roof checking something.”
“Didn’t see him.”
“You know him well?”
Hutchison shook his head. “No need. Don’t like the fellow much, I admit.”
“Isn’t it cold, even for you, doctor?”
“Good for the health,” he replied. “And please do call me Lionel. You know, I used to belong to the Polar Bear Club. They swim out at Coney Island every year on New Year’s Day. Terrific,” he said. “I enjoy it here. I come on up mornings, before everybody is around, sometimes bring my coffee. You look cold, Artie. I’ll tell you what, see that toolshed? It’s not much in the way of shelter, but we can sit in there for a minute if you like.”
In the wooden lean-to, cigarettes in hand, Lionel offered me one, and I took it. He sat on a rough bench and I sat next to him. He got out his old Zippo, lit his smoke and mine. “Got this old lighter when I was in the service, back in the war,” he said. “I was just a kid, but did kill a few Nazis,” he added with satisfaction. “You wanted to ask me anything else about Diaz, Artie? Or you’re wanting to ask me some things now we’re out of Lily’s hearing?”
“Yes.”
“What is it you really want to know, then?”
“You knew Amahl Washington?”
“Of course I knew him. He lived here. He was the local councilman, as well, a very decent good man. What’s this about?”
“Did he die unexpectedly?”
“Yes, but he was a sick man, he had been ill for a long, long time. I see the connection you’re making. I’m not unaware.”
“Did you treat him?”
“I helped him out from time to time.”
“You come up here a lot?”
“Detective, just ask me your questions. You don’t have to make small talk.”
“When did Amahl Washington die?”
“I would say approximately six months ago. Let me see. It’s December. That was June. Died from his heart giving up the fight. Still, it was lung cancer that made it all happen,” said Hutchison. “I watched him suffer. Suffering is not noble, you know. Pain cripples our best selves and makes us hopeless at best, at worst evil,” he added. “Do you know how Marianna lost the tip of her finger?”
