Blue Belle (3 page)

9

TERRY SAT between us on the front seat. I lit a cigarette. "Want one?" I asked him.

"Michelle doesn't want me to smoke," the kid said, his angelic face giving nothing away. Michelle gave him a kiss. The Mole was teaching him science; I was teaching him art.

"I got to meet a guy, Terry," I told him. "You'll have to ride the trunk, okay?"

"Sure!"

"And when I'm finished, I'll take you back to the Mole."

"I can't go right back," he said.

I looked over at Michelle. "Why not?" I asked him, watching her eyes.

"Mole says he has work to do. Someplace else. He says for you not to bring me back until after six."

"How about if I bring you back to Lily's? I'll roll by in a few hours."

"Why can't I hang out with you?"

Michelle patted him. "Burke has work to do, baby."

The kid was hurt. "I do work too. I help Mole. Lots of times."

"I know you do, baby," she said. I shot the kid a warning glance. If Michelle wanted to think the kid helped out by holding the Mole's soldering iron, that was fine with me.

We rolled into the Wall Street canyon, following Michelle's directions. She had customers down there too. I pulled over to the curb.

She gave Terry another kiss and flowed from the car. We watched her make her way into the building. Watched men turn to look at her, thinking they had never seen a woman with so much style. I used to wonder what men would think if they knew the truth, but I don't anymore. The man waiting for her knew the truth.

10

I WHEELED the Plymouth around the corner and slid along until I found an empty spot, just past the little park where they assemble crowds who want to visit the Statue of Liberty. A lot of people bring their cars down to the river to work on them. Guys were changing the oil, draining radiators, doing tune–ups. I pulled over and popped the trunk. The inside was lined with the padding that furniture movers use. A steel box in one corner covered the battery; a fifty–gallon fuel cell took about half the storage space, but there was plenty of room for a man to wait comfortably. A neat row of quarter–inch holes was punched through the tip of the trunk. I pulled the piece of duct tape away so air would circulate. "You know where everything is?" I asked the kid.

He looked at me the way the Mole does sometimes, his eyes shifting to the cable that would open the trunk from the inside and let him out. He knew he could also get out through the back seat if he had to. Two plastic quart bottles were bolted to the side of the trunk, one full of a water–and–glucose solution, the other empty. A man could stay there for a couple of days if he had to.

I pulled a thick roll of neon–red tape from the trunk, peeled off a precut piece, and handed the end to Terry. He pulled it taut, and we walked it over to the hood. It fit perfectly. Another piece went over the roof. One more for the trunk, and we had a distinctive racing stripe from front to back. Terry took the rubber block I handed him and smoothed out the little bubbles under the tape while I attached a foxtail to the antenna and snapped some blue plastic covers over the parking lights in the grille. I pulled another set of license plates out of the trunk and screwed them on over the ones I'd been using. In ten minutes we had a different car. With untraceable plates.

Terry patted himself down, making sure he had his butane cigarette lighter. Michelle didn't mind him carrying the lighter. It was a gift from the Mole. Loaded with napalm. The tiny Jewish star the kid wore on a chain around his neck gleamed dull against his pale skin. It was made of steel. "They took gold from our people's mouths to make their evil ornaments," the Mole once said, explaining it to me.

The kid made himself comfortable. I closed the lid and climbed back inside. On schedule.

11

THE LIMO was already there when I pulled up. I left the Plymouth a half–block away and walked toward the blacked–out passenger windows, hands in my pockets. He must have been watching my approach. The door swung open.

I handed him the foil–wrapped disk. Watched as he carefully opened it, smearing any fingerprints that would have been on it if I had left any. He held the paper away from me so I wouldn't get a look at the magic name. His hands shook. His tongue ran around his lips. He was looking at his ticket up the ladder.

"This is it," he said. Reverent.

"Good. Give me the money."

"Sure. Sure…" he said, almost absently, reaching in his briefcase, counting it out, not making a ceremony of it this time. Handing it over to me, not even watching as I buried it in my coat pocket.

I reached for the door handle. "Wait a minute," he said.

I waited, my hand wrapped around a roll of quarters in my pocket, measuring the distance to the spot just below his sternum, breathing through my nose, calm.

"How did you get this?"

"That wasn't our deal."

"I'm just curious."

I looked at his face until his eyes came up to mine.

"Ask Mr. C.," I advised him.

The limo was pulling away before I took three steps back to the Plymouth.

12

I DIDN'T know if the lawyer had other eyes around, so I drove away slow, sliding through the maze of streets parallel to the river until we got back to the open piers a few blocks uptown. I stripped the tape off the car, pulled the foxtail, and popped off the parking–light covers. I tossed everything inside the trunk, reaching inside to get a screwdriver for the plates. Terry never moved, lost inside the darkness. "Want to get something to eat at Mama's?" I asked softly. His little fist tapped against the fuel cell once. Yes.

13

THE PLYMOUTH pushed its anonymous nose past the entrance to Mama's restaurant, giving me a chance to read the messages. Mama used three identical dragon tapestries for a window display: one red, one white, one blue. Tourists thought it was patriotic. Only the white dragon stood in the window. No cops inside—no other trouble either.

I pulled around to the alley in the back. The alley walls were whitewashed, garbage cans neatly stacked, tightly capped. A calico cat the size of a beagle sat on top of one of the cans, marking his territory. A short set of Chinese characters in foot–high black letters stood stark against the white wall. Max's message to anyone who might have stupid ideas about asking Mama for a contribution to their favorite charity.

I popped the trunk and Terry climbed out, shaking himself like a dog coming out of water. The back door was steel, painted the same color as the building. You had to look close to see it. There was no doorknob. I pushed against it, and Terry followed me inside. We were in the kitchen. Half a dozen young Oriental men were scattered around. Two of them were tossing handfuls of meat and vegetables into a set of giant woks while a third man stirred, a flat wooden tool in each hand. He rapped sharply on the rim of one of the woks. Another man came forward, his hands wrapped in rags. He grabbed the wok by the rim, dumped the contents into a metal pot, and dropped the wok onto another burner. He tossed in a glassful of water, swirled it around, dumped out the water, and put the clean wok back in front of the cook. Handfuls of pea pods, water chestnuts, and some red stuff I didn't recognize flew into the empty wok. A vat of rice steamed against one wall. None of the workers gave us a glance. A fat man sat at the door connecting the kitchen to the restaurant, a tapestry the size of a tablecloth covering his lap. The tapestry rested on a wood frame, like a small table, the cloth reaching almost to the floor. The fat man's eyes were lost in folds of flesh, no more visible than his hands. I stopped in front of him, one hand on Terry's shoulder to show he was with me. The fat man's head held solid, drawing a bead. I didn't rush him. I knew what he was holding under the tapestry frame. Finally, he tilted his head a fraction of an inch. Okay. We went into the restaurant.

Terry and I took my table at the back. The place was empty except for a young woman and her date. She was wearing tinted aviator glasses, a string of pearls over a black silk T–shirt. A skinny, mean–faced woman with capped teeth. Her date had a neat, short haircut. The kind of tan you can buy without getting near the beach. He looked like a sheep that worked out a lot—taut lines, stupid eyes. She was asking the waiter a series of intricate questions about how the food was prepared. He answered every question with the same Cantonese phrase, reading her like a menu with only one dish on it. This went on for a couple of minutes, until Mama climbed off her stool by the cash register at the front and came over to them. She wore a bottle–green silk dress cut tight all the way up to the high mandarin collar and flowing loose from the waist down. Her hair was pulled back in a glossy bun, her broad face unlined. Only a fool would try to guess her age; only a fool with a death wish would ask her.

The waiter stood aside as she approached. She bowed gently to the woman and her companion.

"You have questions?"

"I certainly do. I have been
asking
this gentleman if you use MSG in the preparation of your food. Our diet doesn't permit…"

Mama stepped on the rest of the sentence. "Oh, yes. Plenty MSG. No problem."

"You don't understand. We don't
want
any flavor enhancers in our food. MSG causes…"

"MSG in everything here. Soup, vegetables, meat. Special stuff. Plenty MSG."

The woman gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't you have provision for preparing meals
without
MSG?"

"Why you want that? MSG in everything. Good for you. Make blood nice and thin."

The woman looked over at her date, a pained expression on her pinched face. I lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke in her direction.

"You have a No Smoking section, I presume?"

"You want cigarettes?" Mama asked, innocently.

"No. We don't want cigarettes. And we don't want MSG. Is that so hard to understand?"

Her date looked uncomfortable, but he kept quiet.

"Everybody smoke here. Even cooks smoke, okay? Plenty MSG. No American Express." Mama looked at her, smiling. "Not for you, right?"

"It certainly is not," said the woman, pushing her chair back. "Come on, Robbie," she said to the sheep.

"Have a nice day," Mama told her. She watched the woman and the sheep walk out the front door, giving their table a quick wipe. She looked around her empty restaurant and smiled. Business was good.

I slid out of the booth, bowed to Mama as she approached. Terry bounded over to her, his arms open. Mama clasped her hands at her waist, bowed to the kid. It stopped him like he ran into a wall, confusion overflowing his face.

"Easy. Move slow, okay?" She smiled down at him.

"I was just going to…"

"You going to kiss Mama?"

"Sure!"

"You see Burke kiss Mama?"

"No…"

Mama's face was calm. Set. "Mama kiss babies, okay? Not kiss man."

Terry stared at her face, figuring it out. Knowing by her tone not to be afraid. "I'm not a man," he said.

"What, then?"

He looked at me for help. I blew smoke out my nose. I didn't know the answer. He took a shot on his own. "A kid?"

"Only two pieces," Mama said. "Baby or man. No more baby, time to be a man."

"I won't be a man until I'm thirteen."

"Who says this?"

"Mole."

Mama glanced over at me. "Bar Mitzvah," I told her. "Jewish ceremony."

"Good. Not
official
man until thirteen, right?"

"Right," Terry told her.

"Start now," Mama said, bowing to him again. Case closed.

Terry bowed.

Mama sat down across from me. Terry waited, saw there wasn't going to be any more instruction, sat down too. Mama said something to the waiter. He disappeared.

"Soup first, okay?"

"Can I have fried rice?" the kid wanted to know.

"Soup first," Mama said.

The waiter brought a steaming tureen of Mama's hot–and–sour soup. Three small porcelain bowls. Mama served Terry first, then me. Then herself. I pressed my spoon against the vegetables floating in the dark broth, taking the liquid in first, holding it above the bowl, letting it cool. I took a sip. "Perfect," I said. It was the minimal acceptable response.

Terry pushed his spoon in too deeply, covering it with vegetables. He carefully turned the spoon over, emptying it back into the bowl. Tried it again. Got it right. He swallowed the spoonful, tears shooting into his eyes. His little face turned a bright red. "It's good," he said, his voice a squeak.

Mama smiled. "Special soup. Not for babies."

I took another spoonful, swallowed it slowly. Let it slide down, breathing through my nose. Terry watched me. Tried it again. Smaller sips this time.

I threw a handful of hard noodles into my bowl. Terry did the same. He watched as I spooned off the top layer of liquid, mixing the last spoonfuls with the vegetables, not chewing any of it, gently breathing through my nose. The kid went right along.

When my bowl was empty, Mama spooned it full again. Terry was right behind me. Mama called for the waiter. He took the tureen away. Came back with a heaping plate of fried rice for Terry. The plate was beautiful—big chunks of roast pork, egg yolk, scallionsuueach grain of rice floating on top of another into a perfect pyramid. The kid's eyes lit up. He dug in without another word. I helped myself to a few forkfuls, bowing my acknowledgment of perfection to Mama.

Terry was halfway through the giant mountain when he looked up at Mama.

"What's MSG?" he wanted to know.

"Bad stuff. Special salt. Make weak food taste strong, okay? Chemical. Fake. No good for you."

Terry smiled at her, putting it together. "No MSG here, right?"

Mama smiled back at him. "Right."

I lit another cigarette. "How's business?" I asked her.

"Always same."

I put the money from the lawyer on the table. Split it into two piles. "For Max," I told Mama, touching one pile. "For the bank," I said, touching the other. Mama would hold the money for me. Her bank didn't pay interest. In fact, she took a piece for a storage fee. But her bank was open twenty–four hours a day and it didn't file federal paper every time you made a deposit.

Mama's long fingers flashed over the money, faster than a black–jack dealer's. The two piles became four. She pointed at each in turn. "For Max. For the bank. For Mama. For baby."

I nodded agreement. I knew the pile marked for Flower had some of my money and some of Mama's. Max knew nothing about it—it wasn't his business. Whenever Mama saw Immaculata, she would have a pink silk purse in her hand. "For baby," is all she ever said.

Down where we live, every day is a rainy day.