Robert Tanenbaum: Outrage

However, the brass was all over violent attacks on women because of the Atkins murder. There’d been insinuations from some media outlets that the NYPD, in particular the detectives working out of the Forty-eighth’s detective squad, had messed up because the murder happened during the day and the killer had gotten away clean. The case had received a lot of press-particularly from one Ariadne Stupenagel, who’d been nosing around through unsolved murders in the five boroughs and was apparently using Atkins as her story’s centerpiece.

Brock thought the attacks were unfair. Actually, violent crime had dropped significantly over the past two decades in the Forty-eighth, an area of the Bronx described as “economically disadvantaged” and filled with a lot of low-income residents.

Rapes tended to fluctuate year by year, averaging three to four dozen. But robberies, which had numbered a thousand or more per year in the early nineties, were now a third of that. There’d been 137 murders in 1990, which dropped to a couple dozen ten years later and had been holding steady at less than a dozen for the past couple of years, and detectives like Brock were beating the national average at making arrests.

Still, the press barked and the brass sat up and listened. They wanted the Atkins killer and they wanted him bad. “Before he kills somebody else,” the captain in charge of the detective squad said. “Or life around here is really going to get miserable.”

So Brock and the other detectives were putting a little more into anything that sounded like a possibility. And this guy had attacked Tate during the day, even if it was a little early; he also used a knife and wasn’t just trying to rob her. The problem was Brock had no idea what he was looking for; no one had seen a suspect in the Atkins case.

Tate shrugged. “He was behind me, but I’d say a little taller than me, and I’m five-seven.”

“What color was his sweatshirt?”

“Gray. A light gray.”

“What about pants?”

“Jeans. I didn’t really look at him. I was trying to keep my eyes to myself.”

“I understand,” Brock said. “But sometimes you never know what question will stimulate a memory. Was there anything unusual about him? A scar you might have noticed? Maybe a tattoo on one of his hands?”

Tate shook her head. “I didn’t see anything like that… He had bad breath.”

Brock laughed. “Don’t they all? Dental hygiene is not a priority with most of the bad guys I meet. What was his voice like? Gruff? High-pitched?”

“He had an accent.”

“Any particular kind of accent? Hispanic?”

“Yeah.” Tate thought about it for a moment then added, “I think so. Or maybe something else. I’m not sure.”

“No problem, you’re doing real good,” Brock said. “So he grabs you and says something. What was it again?”

“He said that if I screamed he was going to cut my head off,” Tate replied. “And he called me a name. Something like ‘sucka’ or ‘sooka.’ Then he said we were going to ‘get busy,’ which I guess meant he was going to rape me.”

“Then Mr. Tierney shows up and yells. You fight with the guy and you think you got him pretty good?”

Tate nodded and demonstrated how she’d struck her attacker with her elbow. “I know I hit him hard because I heard him give like a little grunt and he sort of let me go. That’s when I got away.”

Brock made a note and smiled. “Good for you. I hope you cracked his friggin’ skull, pardon my French.” He closed his notepad. “I think that’s all the questions I have for now. I have your number, and we’ll call if we need you.”

The two stood up and shook hands. “So what happens now?” Tate asked.

“Well, I’m going to get an officer to drive you home,” Brock said. “And while he’s doing that, I’m going to have dispatch put out a BOLO-that stands for ‘be on the lookout’-for someone who looks like your guy. Dark hair, dark eyes. Maybe Hispanic. Five-nine or so. Slight build. Wearing a light gray sweatshirt and jeans. Maybe we’ll get lucky and one of the patrols will see him.”

“I’m easy, easy, easy like Sunday morning. I can kick a stupid nervous joint when I’m yawning.” Felix Acevedo practically skipped down Anderson Avenue on his way to Mullayly Park while reciting the lyrics to Common’s “Take It EZ.”

As far as he was concerned, the previous night at the Hip-Hop Nightclub couldn’t have gone better. Even his run-in with Maria Elena’s boyfriend- former boyfriend, he thought-had been a blessing in disguise after Alejandro Garcia stepped in and then the girl had said she thought he was sexy.

When she said that he’d panicked and taken off for the men’s restroom. He sat in one of the stalls to pull himself together and considered whether she was hinting that he should ask her out. But where would he take her? He didn’t have much money. Then he thought about asking her to go for a walk and he’d give her the ring. But after some more thought he’d decided to talk it over first with Alejandro.

“A diamond ring?” Garcia asked when Felix told him hours later. “Where’d you get it?”

“I bought it,” Felix had replied, fishing it out of his wallet and handing it over to his friend.

“Bought it, huh?” Garcia said, holding it up so that he could read the inscription. “It says ‘Always,’ but someone filed another word off of it. Who’d you buy it from?”

“A guy I know from Mullayly Park,” Felix replied. “His name is Al Guerrero. He’s a friend and sold it to me for twenty-three dollars and sixteen cents. It used to say ‘Always, Al.’ But he broke up with his girlfriend and she gave it back. I filed the ‘Al’ off.”

“Yeah, I see that, homes,” Garcia said. “But you know it’s probably hot, Felix. Stolen. You shouldn’t be buying diamond rings from guys on the street.”

Felix looked crestfallen. “I know,” he said. “I just get tired of being teased because I don’t have a girlfriend, and I thought maybe if I had a nice ring…”

Garcia put his arm around his shoulder. “It’s okay. You didn’t know. But next time, say no.”

“I will, Alejandro,” Felix replied, then he brightened. “Do you think I should give it to Maria Elena?”

Chuckling, Garcia shook his head. “No, I’d hold off on that for a bit. She just got out of a relationship, and it’s too soon. Especially for diamond rings. Maybe ask her to a movie or something first if you want.”

Felix considered the advice and then nodded. “You’re right. It’s too soon. I’ll wait until after our date to give it to her.”

Unfortunately, he never got the chance to ask Maria Elena out. He kept watching for the opportunity, but she seemed to have other people around her the rest of the night. And then Alejandro told him he was leaving and that if he wanted a ride home in the limousine, they had to go.

Wishing there were more of his neighbors out and about at two A.M. so they could have seen him, Felix had stepped out of the limo feeling important for one of the few times he could remember in his life. The back window came down and Alejandro poked his head out. “If your dad gives you any more shit,” he said, “I want you to tell me. It’s not right he beats up you and your mom. Someday, somebody’s got to put a stop to it.”

Alejandro drove off and Felix crept into the family apartment. He paused at the door and was happy to hear his father snoring on the couch. Once the old man passed out, the fire alarm in the hallway, even if it had been in working order, wouldn’t have awakened him.

In the morning, Felix got up early, pulled his light-blue Georgetown Hoyas sweatshirt over the T-shirt he’d worn the night before, and left the apartment. He wanted to miss his father’s foul mood when he woke up hungover. Standing on the sidewalk for a moment, he decided to head to the park even though none of his crowd would be there yet. It would give him time on a park bench to rehash his recent victories so that he could tell the others, whose faces he pictured turning green with envy.