Christopher Smith - Running of the bulls

It was rust-spotted and fender-dented, but its engine was strong and it drew no attention on these streets, which, Carmen knew, was the reason he bought it in the first place. He hit a string of green lights and sailed to 145th Street, just off the Harlem River, where he parked across from Maria Martinez’s tenement and sat waiting with the engine off for the police to bring her home.

Carmen rolled down the passenger window and watched the activity on the street. It was almost midnight and the sidewalks were alive with the homeless, whores and pimps, pushers and addicts, their sunken faces occasionally caught in the trembling headlights of passing cars. Here, the streetlamps were dark. The city refused to pay for bulbs that were constantly being smashed by gunfire. Instead, the major source of light came from a storefront, where a couple was freebasing coke.

“Stay here,” Spocatti said.

He opened the door and stepped out. Carmen looked in the side mirror and watched him move down the sidewalk until the shadows and the night slid over his back and engulfed him. She didn’t know where he was going or what he had in mind, but his trust in her had weakened and she was surprised by how much that bothered her. She’d been in this business seven years and she’d never been caught. Her hits were as daring as his, her reputation just as solid. She had nothing to prove and yet she obviously tried to impress him when she pushed Hayes out the window. Why? What was it about him that made her want to be viewed as an equal in his eyes?

What was it about herself?

She leaned against the seat. What had Martinez seen? Anything? It all happened so quickly, Carmen couldn’t be sure. She played the movie of her memory through her mind and saw only a badly edited, disappointing blur-Hayes kneeling, mouth bleeding, head lowered, falling through. Everything else was lost in the dizzying rush of adrenaline that had overwhelmed her at that moment and she realized now just how wrong she’d been to go against the plan.

She looked for him in the side mirror, but all she could see was a dim stretch of empty sidewalk fading into darkness. It occurred to her that being here was not about killing Maria Martinez or learning what she might have seen. Rather, this was about saving face, fixing the past, re-instilling faith in Spocatti, and moving on with what they’d been hired to do. If she failed? Spocatti might shut her out completely.

The door swung open and he stepped inside. Carmen cupped a hand over the interior light and waited for it to dim. She glanced down at his hand and saw in it a tiny plastic bag, a spoon, a syringe. He tossed it all onto the dash and looked across the street. “Anything?” he asked.

She looked at the gleam of that syringe and shook her head.

Spocatti reached for the bag and the warped metal spoon with its blackened tip. The bag was filled with white powder. Cocaine or heroin, she couldn’t be sure. He emptied it into the spoon and told her to hold it.

She held it.

He heated the spoon with a lighter. The powder liquefied and boiled. A curl of smoke swirled. He dropped the lighter in his lap, reached for the syringe, filled it.

He gave it to Carmen. “Martinez was once addicted to heroin,” he said. “Tonight, she saw a man commit suicide. She saw his head explode and she saw what was left of him while she was questioned by the police. She’s lost her faith in God and mankind. She’s tired. She lives in this wasteland. She works three jobs and still she struggles. No one’s going to be surprised if they find her pumped full of this shit.”

Carmen nodded. It would work. And then something-a glimmer, a flash of light-caught her eye and she looked across the street, where a patrol car was slowing to a stop alongside Martinez’s apartment building.

Carmen watched a woman open the passenger door and step out. She was a cop and she was immediately followed by the driver, a tall man in uniform. The people on the street parted and walked their separate ways. Maria Martinez, seated in the back of the cruiser, made her appearance last. She was still in her pale blue work uniform. She was saying something Carmen couldn’t hear.

And then Spocatti’s voice, low, closer to her ear than she would have liked: “This is a simple hit,” he said. “Nothing but an accidental overdose. Don’t disappoint me again.”

They waited for the police to leave before alighting from the van and moving across the street. Martinez lived on the second floor. Carmen followed Spocatti up two flights of stairs and down a dim hallway. The building seemed exhausted in the August heat, as though its slanting walls and sinking ceilings, desperate for relief, were trying to lean against one another for support. Here, the temperature was well past eighty and the air, heavy with humidity, stank of something sour.

Martinez’s apartment was at the end of the hall, last door on the right. Spocatti moved past it and stepped into deep shadow. He drew his gun, cocked the trigger and tapped his foot.

Carmen knocked twice on the door and waited. There was a silence followed by a woman’s voice, so high and thin that Carmen questioned whether it belonged to the heavyset woman who just emerged from the cruiser.

“What?” the woman called. “What is it?”

Carmen checked the hallway, saw in a thin tunnel of light a cat strolling in her direction-golden eyes flashing, white paws padding, tail held high against the stained wall. Dangling from the cat’s jaws was a mouse, its wiry gray tail flicking at the very tip.

“Mrs. Martinez?”

Silence.

“It’s the police, Mrs. Martinez. Could you please open the door? We need to ask you a few more questions.”

“Come back tomorrow.”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“Me and my kid are tired.”

Kid…? “Please.”

Martinez started unbolting the locks.

Carmen glanced over her shoulder at Spocatti, but couldn’t see him in the shadow. She turned back as the door parted on its slender metal chain. Maria Martinez peered out, her mocha pudding face and bloodshot eyes stamped with fatigue.

In the room behind her, Carmen saw a pretty young girl sitting at the brightly lit kitchen table. The sight caused her to pause. She didn’t know Martinez had a daughter. The child had dark hair and dark skin, a narrow nose and a delicate build. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair, her eyes closed, face on the table, dead asleep. If Carmen had a daughter, it might resemble this child…

“Who are you?” Martinez asked. “You wasn’t just here.”

Carmen showed Martinez the badge Spocatti gave her upon leaving the van. “I’m Detective Martoli,” she said. “Chief Grindle sent me to speak with you.” She looked the woman full in the face and waited for some sign of recognition. There was none and Carmen questioned whether this woman had ever seen her. “May I come in?” she asked. “It’ll take just a minute.”

“Your minutes take hours. I wanna get some sleep.”

“It’s only a few questions.”

“I already told you people what I know.”

“The chief has a new lead. He wants me to discuss it with you. I promise this won’t take long. Three questions and I’m gone.”

Martinez glanced past Carmen to the very place Spocatti stood in shadow. She hesitated, moved to speak, but then shook her head and removed the metal chain. She opened the door. Carmen watched her face, tried to read her expression. Had she seen Spocatti? Wouldn’t she have slammed the door shut if she had? “All right,” Martinez said. “But only a second. I’ve got jobs tomorrow.”

Carmen stepped inside and glanced fleetingly at the child, who now was sitting up, her head bobbing, then lifting to dip again. She seemed oblivious to Carmen’s presence, as though she already was lost to the vague world of sleep.