A Manhattan Ghost Story Page 10

  “Art’s in Nice,” I said.

  The man’s smile became lopsided. He shook his head slightly. “I’m afraid that’s incorrect, Mr. Cray.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  He ignored that. “Your friend is here, in Manhattan.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “We believe he’s in Harlem, as a matter of fact.”

  “We?”

  He pulled a shield out of his jacket pocket, flashed it, put it back. “I’m with the NYPD, 22nd Precinct, Homicide Division.”

  “Uh-huh.” I stood. The man was not as tall as I, a good five inches shorter, in fact, but at least thirty pounds heavier, and that intimidated me. I said, looking down at him, “If I could help you, Mr. Whelan, I would, but I can’t, I really can’t; now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  He put his hand firmly on my arm. “When was the last time you heard from Mr. DeGraff, please?”

  I sighed, as if losing my patience. “I heard from him two days ago. He called me. From Nice.”

  “And what did he tell you, please?”

  I considered a moment. I thought it was likely that Art’s phone was tapped and that, if I lied, Whelan would know. I decided to tell the truth. “He told me that he had killed someone. A woman. He told me it was an accident, but that the police were looking for him and that he would probably be home early, before May—I’m subletting his apartment …”

  “Yes, I know,” Whelan cut in. His smile reappeared; it was genuine now. “Thank you.” He nodded to his right, to indicate the door. “You can run along.”

  I sighed again; he let go of my arm. I asked, “Is Art’s phone tapped?”

  “That’s restricted information, Mr. Cray.” He sat at the table I’d used, shrugged out of his coat, looked up at me. “Thank you, Mr. Cray. We’ll talk again, I’m sure.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Whelan,” I said, my voice rising in pitch because I was nervous, “if I could help you, I would. That’s the truth.”

  “Of course it’s the truth, Mr. Cray.” He picked up a menu, started glancing over it. I watched him a moment, decided he was playing games with me, shrugged, and left the restaurant.

  Understand that I was concerned for Art, he was a friend—hell, he had been a very close friend at one time—and I did not like the idea that the police were looking for him. I liked the idea even less that he had actually killed someone, that her name had been Phyllis Pellaprat, and that there seemed to be some strong connection between her and the woman I’d fallen in love with. I had no idea what that connection was. The woman in the snapshot over the fireplace was indeed the woman I’d been sharing the apartment with. But I’m a photographer, so I know that photographs are not always truth-telling (“But they are fairly true illusions, Mr. Pelleprat.” … “Yes, like our crumb cake.”), and despite her eccentricities and her odd comings and goings, I did not believe for an instant that the woman I knew as Phyllis Pellaprat was the woman that my friend Art DeGraff had beaten to death in December.

  No. That’s a lie.

  It was snowing lightly when I got to the building that Phyllis had taken me to for an evening with her parents. I stood out in front of it, near the street, put a wide-angle lens on the Nikon, focused, took several shots from various angles. I was pretending to work, and I wasn’t even fooling myself. I packed the Nikon away, went up the crumbling concrete steps to the front doors of the building, tried to pull them open, found that they were locked. I put my face to the glass in the doors, peered in, saw pretty much what I had seen with Phyllis—a telephone booth sans telephone, several overstuffed chairs, a set of elevators, doors wide-open. I straightened, stepped backward a few feet, looked up at what I assumed were the windows of Apartment 506, the Pellaprats’ apartment. I saw that one of the windows had been smashed and a sheet of plywood installed on the inside.

  “Shit!” I whispered, because I was certain I was at the wrong building.

  “You want somethin’ in there, my man?!” I heard from behind me.

  I glanced around. I saw a black man—in his early twenties, I guessed—dressed in a battered, grayish-brown winter jacket and shiny blue pants and black rubber, buckle boots, unbuckled. He had the unlighted stub of a cigarette stuck between his lips, and when he talked, it bobbed up and down in time with his words. He went on, “I mean you.” He didn’t move much. He had his hands in his jacket pockets and his elbows hard to his sides, his shoulders up. He looked very cold.

  “I was looking for someone,” I told him, and smiled. I nodded at the building. “Her parents live here, I think.”

  “Only people livin’ in there is junkies, my man, and half of ‘em is dead, so why don’tchoo go back where you come from.”

  “Yes,” I said, and started down the steps toward him, “I will.”

  He nodded once at the camera. “An’ you can give me that before you go, okay?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.” I was halfway down the steps, and he was near the street. I turned right, so I was moving away from him. He came forward, stiffly. I glanced back, saw his left hand move in his jacket pocket, as if he were clenching something.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” I said.

  “I’m right behind ya,” he said.

  “I was just looking for someone, that’s all.”

  “Well, you found him,” he said. He was keeping his legs straight as he walked, as if his knees were locked. I realized that I could easily outrun him, if I needed. I turned my head, walked faster. The light snow had grown heavier in the last few minutes; a half-inch or so had accumulated on the sidewalk, and my feet were making slight crunching noises on it.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, thinking that I sounded foolish. I heard nothing. I turned my head, looked back. The man was once again in front of the Pellaprats’ building. He was facing it, his feet were moving slightly in the snow, and he was talking to himself, apparently, because I could see the stub of the cigarette bobbing up and down between his lips.

  I clutched the Nikon, hurried to Fifth Avenue, and caught a bus back to Art’s apartment.

  The electricity went out at around 10:00 that night. I looked out the front windows, at East 79th Street, and realized—because the street lights were out, too, and there were no lights on in any of the houses I could see—that we were in the midst of another blackout, like the ones in November of 1965 and July, 1979. It was a wonderful photo opportunity, I thought—New Yorkers coping in a sudden crisis; New Yorkers making the most of an abominable situation; New Yorkers taking what they could before the electricity, and then sweet reason, returned.

  I loaded the Nikon with some very fast film, a flash unit, and hurried from the apartment house.

  Someone in a big, dark Mercedes pulled up at an angle on the sidewalk so that his headlights were on the front doors of a house just down the street. A woman, in her seventies, I guessed, and dressed in a white nightgown and a short, brown coat, was being carried from the house. She had her arms thrown around the man carrying her—who looked nearly as old as she, but who was tall and solidly built—and she looked terrified. I saw all this in the glare of the Mercedes’ headlights. When the couple moved into the darkness, I saw little, only the Mercedes’ door being pushed open by its driver and then, apparently, the woman being put into the back seat.

  Just beyond, I saw several people standing on a set of front steps, one of them with a flashlight in hand, and I heard yelling from across the street, as if someone inconvenienced by the blackout was letting everyone within earshot know that he was angry about it.

  I turned left, toward Central Park. Fifth Avenue would have more traffic, and hence more light for shooting, plus more action, I guessed, than Lexington Avenue.

  I walked quickly. I nodded and smiled at a couple of people who had bravely come out to the sidewalk. One of them, a chunky, middle-aged man shivering in a pair of white pajamas and a black-and-white checkered robe, said, “Ain’t this the shits?” I said yes, it w
as the shits, but that I intended to make the most of it, and patted the Nikon. This seemed to unnerve him. “You some kinda pervert?” he asked.

  At Fifth Avenue I turned left. It hadn’t been more than ten minutes since the blackout began, but already a traffic jam had started, and there was a cacophony of horns blaring and curses being shouted. The air was foul and nearly unbreathable from car exhausts; a thick, grayish-white fog was settling in—a temperature-inversion phenomenon, I guessed.

  I stopped walking at East 65th Street, swung the Nikon up, took a few quick shots, started walking again. I heard from behind me, “Hey, mister, you want a puppy?”

  I did not turn around at once. I let the question swim about in my head a few moments. If I’d been asked to draw up a list of questions I would expect not to hear on Fifth Avenue during a blackout, that one would have been high on the list.

  I turned. A small boy was staring up at me. He was perhaps seven or eight years old and a little chunky—though that might have been an illusion, because his face seemed to have an excess of baby fat on it. He was dressed in a ragged, brown sweater and a pair of equally ragged, brown pants. At his feet, on the sidewalk, was a cardboard box, and in the box were six black, short-haired, long-eared, apparently mongrel puppies.

  The boy said again, “Hey, mister, you want a puppy?” and the most heart-rendingly plaintive smile appeared on his face, flickered a moment, and went out. He had a wisp of a voice, barely audible below the noise of traffic and shouted curses.

  I got down on my haunches, reached into the cardboard box, scratched a few ears and lifted one of the puppies out; it tried valiantly to stretch its neck out far enough so that it could lick my nose, and the sour sting of its breath hit me. I looked down at the boy again. “Where do you live? Do you live around here?”

  He answered, in the same small voice, “I don’t. I don’t. You want a puppy. You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  “Do you live over that way?” I pressed on, and nodded to my right, toward East 66th Street. “Would you like me to walk you to where you live? I’ll carry the box if you want.”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “It’s too cold for you to be out doing this, don’t you think?” I asked.

  His smile flickered on again, then off. “I’m used to it,” he said. “You want a puppy. You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  I took a deep breath, thought a moment, brought the puppy a little closer to me so it at last had a chance at my nose. I remember its tongue was warm and wet, and it took a real effort to keep from turning my head away from the sour smell of its breath. I said to the boy, “If I take one from you, will you let me walk you home?”

  He answered, “Can’t. My mother’s there. My mother’s always there.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Is she the one that sent you out here?”

  He nodded.

  “To sell these puppies?” I went on. “She sent you out here to sell these puppies?”

  He nodded again.

  “And where does your mother live?” I asked.

  “She don’t,” he answered. “You want a puppy? You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  “Sure I do, but as I said, if I take one from you, you’re going to have to let me walk you home. Is that a deal?”

  He nodded once. “Yeah. Sure. Which one you want? I got six here. I got two boys and four girls altogether. Which one you want?”

  I nodded at the puppy I was holding. “This one will do just fine,” I said. “Does he have a name?”

  “His name’s Mahoney,” the boy answered.

  “Mahoney? That’s a nice name. Where’d he get a name like that?”

  “From me,” the boy answered. “Mahoney’s my name, too.” He was beginning to sound less and less timid, and slightly more petulant than at first. “My name’s Mahoney,” he said again. “So my pup’s name’s Mahoney, too.”

  I stood, Mahoney the puppy still in hand. “You want to show me where you live now?” I asked.

  The boy answered, “My mom says it’s ‘unfinished business.’ She says it’s why I gotta come out here. I been out here a long time. You want a puppy? You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  “Yes. This one will do fine, just fine; two dollars is a good price.”

  “That’s Mahoney.”

  “Yes, you told me that.” I was growing impatient.

  ” ‘Unfinished business,’ that’s what my mom says.” He sounded much more petulant now—a little angry. “You want a puppy? You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  I glanced around, hoping to see a passerby who might lend a hand. No one was on the sidewalk, just the boy and his box of puppies. On Fifth Avenue, the traffic was beginning to move very slowly, which didn’t have any effect at all on the blaring car horns and shouted curses. I looked back at the boy. I did not remember putting Mahoney the puppy back in the box, but he was there, with his five brothers and sisters, and the boy was staring up at me and giving me his heart-rendingly plaintive smile again. “Hey mister, you want a puppy?” he asked once more. “You can have one cheap. Two dollars.”

  I did not answer.

  I had begun to have an understanding of, and appreciation for, what exactly was happening to me, and of the world I was being allowed into.

  So I backed away from the boy. I nodded, smiled. I said, “Maybe later,” and watched as he picked another of the puppies out of the box and held it out to me. “Hey, mister, you want a puppy? You can have one cheap.”

  I turned then, and walked quickly away from him, back to the apartment.

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  Let’s forget the heartbreakingly cute kid with the box of puppies for a moment. Let’s forget the four painfully thin teen-age girls hailing a taxi, the man in the threadbare, gray, pinstriped suit, the young guy with the ragged T-shirt, the man in the unbuckled rubber boots. And let’s go back a few years.

  It pertains. Hell, everything does. Which is something else that I’ve learned in these past six months. That everything pertains. Everything’s germane. What has gone before goes again. And again. And again. And what will be is. And ever shall be.

  Let’s even forget Phyllis Pellaprat. Let’s set her aside anyway. Very gently.

  And let’s stuff Art DeGraff into a box somewhere. Into a very small box. It’s where he belongs, after all. It’s where he very well may be at this moment.

  And let’s go back to a time before I was screwing my cousin Stacy, to a time when my parents both were alive and avoiding each other around the house.

  It was a big house. The kind you see quite a lot in Maine—white clapboard siding, black-shingled roof, wraparound porch. A very functional and livable house, good for sleeping in, and for eating Thanksgiving dinner in, and for waking up in on Christmas morning.

  Quite a few people were laid out in that house. Several uncles, an aunt or two, a young cousin who fell through the ice on Miller’s Pond early one March morning. She was five. A nice little kid. And, Christ, there was a lot of crying the day that she was laid out.

  The house had two living rooms. One was called a parlor, though it was architecturally identical to the other. It had a red brick fireplace in it, and oak floors. A small, dark-blue-and-white braided throw rug had been put at right angles to the big arched entrance way, and another parallel with the front of the fireplace and five feet out from it. The room was well furnished, with carefully chosen pieces from the late Victorian period. We never had a TV at home—my father wouldn’t allow it—but he did install a Zenith table radio in a corner bookcase in the parlor. The radio was used occasionally by my mother, who liked to listen to a Bangor top-40 AM station; it dismayed my father, who was of the opinion that the only real music was baroque, though, to his credit, he never said much about it.

  The cousin who went through the ice was laid out in the center of the room in an open coffin. Her name was Rebecca. I remember going over and looking at her and thinking that it was too bad a litt
le kid like that had to die. I was not quite thirteen at the time, and I remember that Rebecca’s parents had told her more than once not to go out on Miller’s Pond. And I remembered that Rebecca had protested that if she was old enough to do this and old enough to do that, how come she wasn’t old enough to go out on Miller’s Pond? To which her parents could answer only, “Because we said so.” I remember they were there, too, in the parlor, both weeping softly in straightbacked, wooden chairs set up close to the coffin.

  Rebecca was buried the next day.

  The day after that, I went to Miller’s Pond myself, out of sheer morbidness, I think. Twelve-year-olds seem to have a propensity for it, this particular twelve-year-old, especially.

  Miller’s Pond was near a long-abandoned gravel pit just a mile or so from Lewis Street, where we lived. It was ten feet deep at the center, several hundred feet wide at its widest point, and it was sheltered on all sides by deciduous trees—maples, oaks, and tulip trees especially, which were very tall. These trees were bare then, because it was still only the first week in March, and there were wide, irregular patches of snow everywhere.

  The pond itself was iced over, except randomly near the shore, where brackish water was visible, as it was at the center, where Rebecca had fallen in and where her would-be rescuers—a sixteen-year-old boy named Hymie Simms and his older brother, Timothy—had also fallen in. They had been able to swim to safety. Rebecca’s body was pulled out an hour later by a local volunteer fireman. She hadn’t drifted far; Miller’s Pond was stagnant, without currents.

  No one was there the day after she was buried. It was a still, cool afternoon, the sunlight pushing through a high haze and diffusing into a pleasant, soft glow.

  I saw a child, dressed in a green snowsuit, appear at the edge of the pond across from me, hesitate for a moment, and then step out onto the ice. I called to her: “Hey, you shouldn’t do that!” She looked up at me, across the pond, a distance of several hundred feet, appeared to smile, kept walking out onto the ice.