Pepper decided. “No, it’s Miami Joe. He killed Arthur and took the money.”
“I have to get back,” Carney said.
“Sure.”
They drove two blocks in silence, then Pepper said, “You still got that thinking look.”
“What?”
“We met, way back,” Pepper said. “With your father at that old place you guys had on 127th. ‘The Montgomery’ carved out there on the front of the building. Sounded so fancy. Back then.”
They were at a stoplight behind a gasoline truck. “It wasn’t fancy,” Carney said.
“I said it sounded.”
“You knew him?”
“Big Mike Carney? You pulled jobs in Harlem, you knew Mike Carney. We pulled a lot of shit. He was good.”
“Good?”
“You kept the truck.”
“He left it.”
Pepper slapped the dashboard. “Still runs.”
Perhaps he’d ask about his father another time. This day he tried to imagine a young Pepper at the old apartment and wondered if he was one of the men who brought him toys, and if the cheap thing broke in his hands after five minutes, or ten.
EIGHT
Rusty was a law-abiding sort but had no love for its mortal representatives: sheriffs and deputies back home, cops and detectives up here. When the Klan burned down his father’s grocery store—the store drew a mixed clientele, and thus white business from Myrtle’s on Main Street—the sheriff said they might want to think twice about reopening. The sheriff spat tobacco juice into the ashes and looked bored. Probably his hand that splashed the gasoline. Rusty’s parents and sister relocated to Decatur, and Rusty picked up stakes to New York City. His mother had nicknamed him “Big Time” when he was a baby and when he stepped on the northbound Greyhound bus she said, “See, I told you.” The police ’round here were the same breed, but Harlem was so big and hectic Rusty figured they didn’t have time to hassle folks as much as they liked. Had to spread their hassle around, which suited Rusty fine. The detective who stopped in the furniture store that afternoon didn’t even have time for a proper bullying. He beat it for the door when Rusty informed him Carney was out.
* * *
*
“What did he want?” Carney asked. He’d returned to the office after dropping Pepper off and his mood was curdled.
Rusty gave Carney the detective’s card. Detective William Munson, 28th Precinct. Arthur had warned Carney that someone on Chink’s payroll would pay him a visit. To probe about the Theresa, but this also could have concerned certain merchandise for sale. He had pushed his luck and now luck’s opposite pushed back.
“Did Freddie call?”
“No.”
Rusty added that he’d made a big sale that afternoon, but Carney didn’t hear. Carney closed the door to the office and brooded over his afternoon with Pepper, and other troubles, until closing time.
The apartment door caught on the chain—only Alma latched it when he was out—and he had to knock to be let into his own home. A crook in the morning and this lady at night. He waited. The strange couple next door had left a bag of something foul outside their door and the marks and grime in the hallways stood out more than usual. Sometimes the train rumble moved through steel struts and concrete and into the building and he felt it in his feet, like now. How had he subjected his wife and child to this place for all this time?
Alma regarded him through the crack for longer than he thought necessary, and that was the first thing.
“May fell asleep in your bed,” Alma said. Elizabeth bided her time until it was safe to sneak out, or else she’d fallen asleep, too. “I was just cleaning up.”
Carney tried to shake off his mood. He joined her in the kitchen and pitched in. Pot roast and peas for dinner. Carney and his mother-in-law stuck to their quadrants in the small kitchen, squeezing past each other and apologizing too much when they got too close. From her silence, Alma had something on her mind and was being uncharacteristically reticent about making it known. That was the second thing. Carney said, “It’s cooled off.”
“It’s so hot,” Alma said. She rubbed the big white serving dish with the red-and-white-checkered cloth. The dish was one of her wedding gifts to them. It was notched and chipped now, with black splinter lines.
Carney waited, like he did when a customer acted squirrelly. Everything in the store too expensive, or they’d walked in on a whim and were searching for an excuse to split.
“Elizabeth fainting the other day,” Alma said. “That was a scare.” It had just been the day before. Why not say yesterday?