TWENTY-SEVEN

My cell phone rang as I approached Maya Watson’s condo. I let it go to voicemail. I had taken the thing with Delgado as far as I could take it until I got word from Brian Doyle. Even with Feliz’s confirmation of what Joey Fortuna had told me the previous evening, I still didn’t have enough to go to Fuqua. As good as Delgado looked on paper, the paper itself was as thin and fragile as a tissue. All I had was a dead hero fireman who had been angry enough to have hired someone to hurt Alta Conseco, but just because he’d tried to hire a hitter once didn’t mean he’d tried it again or that he had killed Alta himself. Delgado’s “One down, one to go,” comment to Nestor Feliz about Alta’s murder wasn’t exactly damning evidence. Most of the city probably thought karmic justice had been served when they read the headlines the morning after Alta’s murder.

Regardless of my good fortune—if that’s what it was—in stumbling across Jorge Delgado, I needed not to fall in love with him as a suspect. I had to block out his love song to me from the great beyond. A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good thing and if you love a suspect too much, it’s impossible to remain skeptical. I knew that better than most. I wanted to run Delgado’s name past Maya Watson. I guess I could have called and asked or called to warn her I was coming, but I wanted to see her face, to judge her reactions. And even if her reaction supported my belief in Delgado as the most likely suspect, there were still things about the case that bugged the shit out of me. I didn’t buy for a second that, on their salaries, Maya and Alta had gone to the High Line Bistro to grab lunch. And if they weren’t there for lunch, what the fuck were they doing there? What were they arguing about when they got there? And the ultimate question still remained: Why, in spite of their training and spotless performance evaluations, had they stood by and let Robert Tillman go untreated? What good would it do Carm, I wondered, if I could wrap up her sister’s murderer in a tidy package with a silken bow, but not explain why her sister had simply let a man die? Someone had those answers and I meant to get them.

The bruise in the atmosphere around Maya Watson’s condo development had healed a little more since my earlier visit. Kids were outside playing and none of her neighbors gave me the evil eye as I approached Maya’s door. This time, when she opened up to let me in, there was a hint of a smile on her face. Her hand wasn’t shaking and there was no cigarette burning between her fingers. The place still reeked of them, but her windows were open and the living room drapes were pulled back to let the sun stream in. The drapes danced to the tune of the ceiling fan and the shadows danced with them. But it was all part and parcel of a false promise, a lie with a brief shelf life that Maya was telling herself, an attempt to wish herself back to Kansas from the dark depths of her personal Oz. It was as if she were telling herself it was all going to be better now, but I could see it wasn’t. The lies we tell ourselves are always the worst lies of all.

Some of the sunlight from the living room managed to bend its way into the kitchen, but only enough to show me just how false hope could sometimes be. The kitchen was still an utter mess: a platoon of unwashed coffee cups stuffed with half-smoked cigarettes covered the entire table. Bulging plastic garbage bags were stacked in a pyramid at the side of her refrigerator and the sink was piled above countertop level with dirty dishes. Worst of all, that hint of a smile on Maya’s face had so thoroughly vanished that I questioned whether it had actually been there at all.

“Okay, this is bullshit!” I said, grabbing two of the garbage bags. “Where are you supposed to throw the trash out around here?”

Stunned, she said, “There’s cans around back.”

“Go take a shower and get dressed while I clean up in here.”

Maya opened her mouth to object. What was I doing there and who was I to order her around in her own house? Instead, she did as I asked. People have an amazing talent for self-preservation and she understood in her bones how desperately she needed to get out of her self-imposed prison. All the sunlight and fresh air in the world weren’t going to make that place anything but a prison cell until she walked outside and faced the world.

The trash was gone and most of the dishes were done by the time she reappeared. For the first time I saw how tall Maya really was. The weight of the controversy and the grief over Alta had literally compressed her. With makeup covering some of the stress lines, I could see what a complete knockout she was. And even in a simple gray, v-necked tee, jeans, and low heels, her athleticism showed through. She moved with the grace and ease of a cat. The best part was that hint of a smile had returned.

“Go open the rest of the windows and turn on every fan you’ve got, while I finish the dishes. Then we’ll get out of here.”

She’d come this far with me and I guess she didn’t see the point in arguing with me now. She turned and left the kitchen.

“Come on, we’re going for a ride,” I said after I finished drying my puckered hands, putting her hand in the crook of my elbow. “How do you feel about hot dogs and french fries?”

She didn’t answer, not with words, but with a smile.

The hardest part for her was the stroll from her front door to my car. Maya dug her fingers into my arm as we walked. She kept her eyes straight ahead for fear she might crumble at a disapproving glance or worse, that she might run back to her solitary confinement. We didn’t talk much along the way and I was glad of that. We both were. The two of us knew, I suspect, that I wasn’t a boy scout and that although my heart did ache at her dilemma, I had motives beyond doing my good deed for the day. We had made a silent bargain: she would let me get her out of her dungeon and I could ask for something in return, but that was for later. Now she just wanted to enjoy her freedom.

Carmella had said it, Coney Island was where I was my most comfortable. It was the place where I most belonged in this world and the world most belonged to me and when we stepped out of my car and up onto the boardwalk, it seemed the right place to have brought Maya Watson. She took deep breaths of the salted air, her first free breaths in months. The breeze was light and cool off the water, cutting against the intensity and warmth of the sun. Sea gulls complained noisily at water’s edge, fighting over some scraps of discarded food or the last bits of rotting flesh sticking in the overturned shell of a horseshoe crab. Maya was leaning over the guardrail, her eyes peering so far into the distance she might have seen Galway Bay.

“Lunch?”

“Not yet, Moe, please.”

“Fine.”

I let her look to Ireland a little longer before asking my questions. When I finally asked, she seemed almost relieved.

“Have you ever heard of Jorge Delgado?” I was staring at her profile.

“That hothead? Yeah, I heard of him. He had a hard-on for Alta even before all this shit come down. Why you wanna know about him?”

I didn’t answer her question, not directly. “Funny thing, Maya, when I was checking into who might’ve murdered Alta, a few people called her a dyke.”

She looked gut-punched. “Guys are assholes like that. You know how it is. You were on the job. A woman don’t get wet for some man who’s hot for her and he starts that bullshit, the rumors.”

“I didn’t say they were guys.”

That really unnerved her, but she soldiered on. “Don’t matter who said it.”

“Did you hear about Delgado getting killed in a car accident saving a little girl?” I asked, purposely trying to confuse her. I was basically interrogating her. She knew it and I knew it. And there were two methods that worked best for me: silence and confusion. Silence—giving her time to fill in the void—hadn’t worked on the almost hour-long car ride here, so I went with the other bullet in my gun.

“Couldn’t help but hear it. Why you wanna know about Delgado? Why do you keep asking me about him?”

“In a second. First, why don’t you tell me about the hard-on Delgado had for Alta even before all this shit came down?”

Maya Watson went stiff as a board. “Take me home. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t’a come here with you. Take me home.”

“No.”

“Did you just say no?”

“That’s about it. You wanna run away, I’m not gonna help. There’s several subway lines right over there at the Stillwell Avenue Terminal,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction from the water. “It’s only a block away. You need money for a Metro card?”

“Fuck y’all!”

“No, Maya, I’m not fucked. You’re the one who’s fucked and you’ll be fucked until you talk to somebody about what really happened that day at the High Line Bistro.”

It really was amazing how liberating cancer could be. In the face of a possible death sentence, I didn’t much care about Maya Watson’s opinion of me. Cracks were starting to show in her castle walls.

She hesitated, then said, “I can’t talk about it. I told you that.”

“Are you gay too?”

That really shook the castle walls. She turned to go, stopped, tears streaming down her face. “Leave me alone. Why can’t everybody just leave me alone?”

“You are alone. I’ve never seen someone more alone in my life. That’s how I found you, eating yourself alive in that filthy apartment. You wanna go back there or do you want to live again?”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t leave either.

“Was Alta a lesbian?”

“Yes,” she said, walking back to lean on the rail for support. “But I wasn’t her type. She liked military types, younger chicks, white girls mostly. That’s what she said anyway.”

“Did people on the job know she was gay?”

“No. I mean, not for sure. People suspected. She never hit on anybody at work, but people hear things. They see stuff. One woman I trained with saw Alta in Chelsea with another woman.”

“Is that what Delgado’s beef with Alta was about?”

“Yes, it was. He had this crazy Puerto Rican pride thing and you know how Latin men can be, all macho and shit. If Alta was African-American or white or Chinese, he wouldn’t’a even given her a second thought, but because she was Puerto Rican … let’s say he tried to make her time at work as hard as it could be. He had a lot of friends in the department, people with sway, and he fucked with her. He had his friends mess with her schedule and shit. But why are you always bringing Delgado up?”

I hadn’t planned on telling Maya yet, but I had her talking and I didn’t want to risk losing her now.

“I spoke to a guy last night who was offered five thousand dollars by Jorge Delgado to hurt Alta. And by hurt, I don’t mean her feelings. He wanted him to break bones and, if he was so inclined, to kill her.”

Maya’s face went blank, then icy cold. I was surprised the tears didn’t freeze right on her cheeks. “Why you talking to me and not the police?”

“Because the guy I spoke to turned the job down and I can’t prove anything yet. Besides, Delgado is a hero, a dead hero. The time’s not exactly right to go making charges against him, not if I want to be taken seriously.”

“Alta was a hero too,” she screamed in my face.

“I’m afraid the rest of the universe doesn’t quite see her that way.”

“Well, fuck them and fuck you.”

“If I’m wrong, if they’re all wrong, explain it to me. Tell me what happened that day with Tillman. If there’s an explanation, people will understand.”

I felt like I almost had her. She leaned into me, but she just couldn’t cross that line she had drawn for herself. I hammered away at her.

“What is it you’re afraid to let people know? Are you gay too? Were you and Alta lovers? Is that the big secret? Christ, Maya, it’s the twenty-first century. Would it be worse for people to know you’re a lesbian than for them to think you cold-bloodedly let a man drop dead?”

“I’m not gay,” she said, calm as could be. “If I was, I would be proud of it, not ashamed.”

“Then what is it? What’s the big secret? What don’t I understand? What are you so ashamed of?”

“Which way is the subway?”

“That way,” I said. “Right over there: down the boardwalk, along Stillwell to Surf.”

Maya pushed off the rail and started across the wooden planks toward the steps to the street. I kept pace.

“Come on, Maya, what is it? What can be so terrible that you can’t even bear to think about it? Tell me.”

She ignored me and kept on walking. She didn’t run, she didn’t even walk very fast. Finally, at the corner of Stillwell and Surf Avenues, across the street from the subway terminal, Maya stopped and faced me again.

“You know, Moe, I think you’re a good man and that your heart really is in the right place, but you ain’t asking the right questions about the right person. There’s somebody involved in this whole mess that nobody wants to see for who he was, not really. Think about that and stop hounding me. Leave me be.”

By the time my mind snapped back to the moment, Maya Watson was across the street and disappearing through the entrance of the Stillwell Avenue terminal.