One Way or Another(47)

They sat on deck, gazing at the lights twinkling on shore, the flickering red and blue bar signs, the yellow streetlights, the darkness above picked out with a few stars and no moon. Both were comfortable with the dark, comfortable with each other, neither had any secrets the other did not know. At least that’s what Ahmet thought. Mehitabel knew differently.

She recognized that Ahmet had the ability to overcome his circumstances, to become whatever any new situation asked of him. Ahmet was mercurial, a personality jack-of-all-trades: humble when needed, authoritative when he wanted; and always, underneath, the one in charge. Except with her. She was the only person Ahmet needed. She believed that without her, Ahmet could not exist. He’d asked her the other night what they should do about Angie.

She kept her eyes straight ahead. “Nothing,” she said. “For now, anyway.”

“She bothers me,” he said. “Her very presence bothers me.”

“Is that why you want Marco to paint her portrait?”

He sipped his brandy silently for a while, thinking about it, then he said, “I want that portrait so I can forget the look in her eyes when she was drowning. I have to change that. Remove it from my mind permanently.”

“I can do that for you.” Mehitabel thought of how much pleasure she would derive from that.

Ahmet thought about it too. “Later,” he said finally.





32

Rather than do battle with Brooklyn’s motor traffic, Marco rented a bicycle. The fact that it was bright orange and had racing wheels made him feel ready for the Tour de France, though Brooklyn’s downtrodden streets seemed light-years from the cobblestones and small cafés, the cups of coffee under yellow umbrellas with the wind blowing your hair and Em tucking into the croissant Marco always shared with her. So, all right, it wasn’t good to feed a dog a croissant, but it made a change from the mastodon bones and Em loved it. She would eye him guiltily, as though she knew it was wrong, always licking off the strawberry jam first, like a child with a treat. Marco knew of no other dog that liked strawberry jam, and of course he gave it to Em infrequently, and never, ever gave her chocolate, even when she asked for it. Dogs and chocolate were a no-no.

But Em was not with him today. His trip to Brooklyn promised the unexpected and he would never subject his dog to any possibility of danger. What that danger might be, as yet he had no clear idea. Just that something was not right.

The apartment building Angela Morse had lived in was brick, faced with peeling limestone of a color that Marco thought might be described as dung. Dingy too; definitely not a place any parent would want their daughter to live, with its unwashed windows, dirty front steps, and the swing door propped open with a pile of bricks that looked permanent.

He climbed off the bike, wondering what to do with it. On this street, even chained up, it would be gone in minutes. Finally he hefted it under his arm, negotiated his way past the pile of bricks into a foyer—it was a hallway; “foyer” was too grand a word for the long, narrow area overlit with fluorescent tubes so every crack and crevice, every dust ball and pile of unswept litter showed up in fine detail. He felt very sorry for Angie Morse.

A handwritten sign on a flimsy wooden door to the left of the hall said this was the manager’s office, and gave a phone number in case he was out. Which, after ringing the bell and standing waiting, then hammering on the door and waiting, Marco decided he was, when he showed up. Right behind him. A big man with the overstuffed body of a weight lifter, muscles bulging, neck straining, wife-beater shirt sweat stained.

“Wha’ the f*ck ya wan?” he asked, fixing Marco with a glare from behind black sunglasses.

Marco quickly decided he’d better play it nice. “Sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for Angie’s place.”

“Angie Morse, y’mean? That woman owes two months’ rent, I’ve been after her for days. You wastin’ yo’ time, bro, I’m bettin’ Angie’s not comin’ back.”

“In fact, sir,” Marco remained polite, “that is true. Poor Angie will not be coming back. I know you’ll be sorry to hear this, but Angie is dead.”

The man took a fast step back. He eyed Marco up and down, stiff with tension, ready to strike. “Wadd’ ya do to her?”

“Angie had an accident. She drowned.”

“Y’mean, like here? In the river?” He took off the dark glasses and stared hard at Marco. “She wouldn’t’ve gone swimming, not the type.…”

“Not here,” Marco said. “It was off the coast of Turkey. She fell off a yacht.”

The tension left the man and he flung back his head, throat rippling in a laugh. “You got the wrong girl, there, bro. Angie never went on no yachts. She worked as a hostess at that steakhouse, uptown, smart place. All the guys hit on her. She told me so. I kinda like Angie, she’s okay, y’know, just got a raw deal in life, way some of us do.…”

“She fell off a boat. A fancy yacht. I was there. I saw her fall. I tried to save her.” If he was to get any information at all Marco knew he had to convince the guy he was on the up-and-up. “Look, I’ll level with you, I know Angie was murdered.”

Shocked, the guy held up his hands, palms out. “Whoa-ho-ho, feller, don’t tell me no more, I don’t wanna know about no murders, I don’t give a shit who, what, where, when. Let Angie RIP, and that’s it for me.” Turning, he strode quickly away.