Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)(8)
Carney had time to kill. He called home and told John that he’d be back late. “There are Swansons in the freezer,” he said. “Your mom is back tomorrow and she’ll probably make you something good. If she’s not too tired.” The train from Chicago got in around noon—it could go either way. May cackled in the background. “Tell May she’s in charge.” He hung up.
When May was younger, there was a face she’d put on when she got intemperately excited, this mask of joy. The face drew from Elizabeth’s features, but Carney was proud to have contributed. He didn’t realize how much he missed it until the Jackson 5 came along. Half her conversation these days came from 125th Street flyers: “It all goes back to the miseducation of the Negro, Daddy.” Black Power guys and their pamphlets were worse than Jehovah’s Witnesses. Stopping him on the street: “Where do you stand on Mozambique?” What did he know about Mozambique? But when Carney hollered across the house that the Jackson 5 were on Flip Wilson, or the jaunty opening chords of “ABC” capered from the living room Panasonic, it conjured that face from bygone days. He was going to get her tickets.
Busy boys, the Jackson 5. He didn’t know if they were sexually active, but they were certainly promiscuous, with sponsorship deals with no less than three breakfast cereals. May and John crooned their Alpha-Bits commercial all the time, in constant harassment: “Grab your Alpha-Bits and come with me, we’ll eat through the Alpha-Bits from A to Z!” The lyrics made sense, Carney allowed, but they were dumb. Fold-out posters from Super Sugar Crisp boxes covered May’s room, joining those from Flip and Tiger Beat. Her bedroom was a glossy temple to the Boys from Gary, Indiana. Jumping, dancing, lounging in the park, solo and in group shots, bounding onstage in funky harlequin outfits and silvered space-age jumpsuits, every image equipped with their otherworldly smiles.
May entered a Teen Beat contest to “Win a Banana Split Date with Michael!” in March, and Tiger Beat’s “Win a Roller Skating Date with Michael!” in April. She was passed over, despite her impressive essay on why she deserved the honor: “Michael is for the people, like me.” To one-up Super Sugar Crisp, Alpha-Bits started including flexi 45s of “ABC” and “I Want You Back” in their boxes, which in turn drafted Honeycomb into the novelty collectibles arms race. Honeycomb’s secret weapon: balloons in the shape of the Jackson 5’s heads and imprinted with their likenesses. Macabre tokens all, but May would not be complete until she got the Michael.
The quest continued for weeks. Supermarkets were declared “lucky” or “dead,” corner grocers struck off the list or patronized with feverish dedication. Word among the junior set held that a bodega on 132nd had cracked the code. Carney received orders to check it out.
He ripped the top off the cereal box and rummaged. “The Michael!”
“It’s Marlon.”
“It looks like Michael.” The latest Marlon joined the sagging menagerie (four Jermaines, three Jackies, sundry Titos and Marlons) on her windowsill. It took fourteen purchases. Like everything in life, the Jackson 5 promo was rigged. Carney approved: Teach ’em early.
The pay phone rang. “Smile for the birdie.”
Carney searched around. Across the street was a restaurant called El Viejo Gallo. He squinted. Perhaps there was a phone in the vestibule as you walked in. He looked up—Munson could be in any of the buildings surrounding the park.
“Behind you,” Munson said.
The nine-story building sat at the southern tip of a wedge-shaped block. The eastern side was a street he’d never heard of—Edward M. Morgan Place, which ran for a block and a half before it turned into Riverside Drive. A block and a half, shit. Morgan should have killed more Indians or stolen more money, everybody knows that’s how you get the long streets. Munson buzzed Carney in.
The detective was holding the apartment door ajar when the elevator doors opened, posture indicating a gun held out of view. He motioned Carney over with a jerk of his head and made sure no one else stepped out of the car.
The one-bedroom apartment had been cut out of a larger unit, the decorative moldings terminating at the new walls. Munson told him to make himself at home and returned the .38 to his duty holster.
The place was a mess—if Carney lived there, his kids would be pushing a broom to earn their goddamn allowance. Last he knew, Munson lived downtown somewhere with his wife. This joint was a hideout, with just enough furniture to make it habitable. Bring a girl here, maybe, if you straightened up. Nothing personal in sight, save for a three-foot-tall ceramic imp, red-and-black in a Chinese style, which had the markings of a souvenir you’d swipe at the last stop of an all-day bender. It was set at a forty-five-degree angle to the wall, as if sneaking away from something unsavory.
Munson walked past Carney and shut the bedroom door before he could get a look inside.
“Dead body?”
“Some of those Laugh-In girls sleeping it off.”
They sat on the couch, a sad, shoddy piece you’d carry out same day from a discount store. Munson sunk in with a sigh. He looked terrible. Pale, unshaved, blond hair spiking around the new bald spot on his scalp. When they first met, Munson had been stout and solidly built, one of those cops you think twice about starting with. The detective had softened over the years as he availed himself of the myriad perks of his job, the steaks on the house and the free rounds. Lumpy, like an army bag full of soiled laundry that had sprouted legs. Now he’d shed some of that bulk and looked harrowed, slimmed down in a way that you’d mistake for an exercise regimen if you didn’t know it was from running from something that was gaining on him.