Bronx Requiem(18)

“No. I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”

Ippolito ignored the response and forged on. “Did he come here like he was supposed to when he got released from prison yesterday?”

“Yes. He come here like he was supposed to.”

“What time was that?”

“Last night. About eight.”

“How long was he here?”

“I give him some food. Maybe an hour he stays. Then he went out.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t ask?”

Again she stopped talking, but Ippolito and Palmer had no doubt she knew more than she was telling them. Palmer took a soft approach, speaking to Lorena Leon as if the two of them trusted each other. Not like the other cop in the chair staring at her.

“Come on, Mrs. Leon, it’s okay to tell us. Don’t worry. Where did he go? He must have said something.”

Lorena responded with a quick shake of her head. She grabbed the iron skillet with the pungent ground meat and stood quickly, her agility surprising both men.

Palmer took a half step back, thinking for a moment she was going to toss the greasy ground meat at him, or worse, try to hit him with the iron skillet.

Ippolito stood, thinking the same, and how embarrassing it would be to take down an old lady trying to hit them with a damn frying pan.

But the moment passed quickly as Lorena stepped around the coffee table, moving away from them, heading toward her kitchen.

She didn’t turn to them as she spoke. She yelled out, “He went to find his mandria daughter.”

Palmer whispered to Ippolito, “What’s mandria mean?”

“Worthless.”

Both men followed at a distance as Lorena walked into her small, cluttered kitchen. Now Ippolito hung back, letting Palmer stand in the doorway asking his questions.

“What’s his daughter’s name?”

“Amelia.”

“Johnson?”

“Yes, what other name?”

“Why did he want to find his daughter?”

She continued answering in a shout, never looking at Palmer. She dropped the skillet on the counter with a bang. Pulled out a bowl from a cupboard over the counter. Scooped and scraped the ground meat into the bowl. Shouting out information.

“Why shouldn’t he go see his daughter? He didn’t see her for so many years. He wants to see her, so I told him. Go to the Bronx River Houses. She’s in there. With her pimp. Derrick. Derrick Watkins. I know what she does. Like her mother. A whore and a drug addict.”

Palmer wrote quickly and carefully in his notebook.

“The same, the same. Always the same. Such a beautiful girl. Like her mother. And look what she does.”

Lorena was crying now, talking, ranting as the tears ran down her face, seemingly unconnected to any anguish. Her face remained without expression as she angrily wiped her tears with the back of her hand, as she continued to fuss with the food and the bowl and the skillet, scraping up the ground meat and wiping away the drip under her nose, as annoyed and angry at her crying as she had been at the two men who had come into her apartment. No sobbing, no hitch in her voice. Her tears seemed to be an independent part of her that she simply couldn’t control. Just like she couldn’t control what was happening around her.

She dropped the skillet into her sink and pushed past Palmer before he could step out of her way. She headed back to her small living room, away from them. She was done with them.

But Ippolito wouldn’t let her get away. He yelled out after her as she walked past him, putting enough into his voice to let her know this wasn’t over yet.

“Hey, Mrs. Leon!”

Ippolito walked after her into the living room. Palmer hung back. She stopped and turned to him, her old wet eyes blazing, arms crossed.

“What?” she yelled.

Ippolito saw Lorena was reaching a point he didn’t want her to go past.

“Just one more question, okay? Why did you let him come here?”

She lifted her chin at him as she answered, “Go ask the parole man. The black man and his friend.”

“What friend?”

“Someone who knew Paco in prison.” She paused, remembering the name. “Beck. His name is Beck. They made me take him, that’s why. They make me do it. Okay?”

Ippolito said, “You know his first name?”

“James. He and the black man, they say he can’t get out of prison without a place.” Lorena’s mouth formed into a tight line. She looked like a defiant child refusing to eat. She suddenly yelled, “They make me take him, okay?”

With that, she walked out of the living room, down a short hall to her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.





7

As usual, Demarco Jones drove the customized, all-black Mercury Marauder. Beck in the front passenger seat. Manny content to be alone in the back.

Nobody spoke much. Each of them dealing with their memories, sorrow, and anger.

Beck felt the pain more intensely than the others, for he had been much closer to Packy Johnson. He struggled with the loss of a true friend. And the terrible loss of a last chance for Packy.

Packy Johnson had lived forty-two years, thirty-two of which had been spent in juvenile institutions, foster homes, or prisons. Eighty percent of his life confined, focused mostly on simply surviving. And now, the chance for Packy Johnson to finally experience what a life freed from incarceration might have to offer him had been completely and irrevocably destroyed.