Richard Hawke - Speak of the Devil

“Don’t sweat it,” Ray said. “The cat’s a menace.”

The Bia family had moved to an apartment building on Eastern Parkway, only a few miles from their old home. Specifically, Mr. and Mrs. Bia had moved there once the last kid had moved out of the house. I learned this from Mrs. Bia, Donna’s mother. She was a frowning square-shaped woman wearing a faded pale blue apron. Nothing about her suggested a hellcat had sprung from her loins. She said she had not laid eyes on her daughter in over three months. The name Roberto Diaz meant nothing to her. I told her that it was very important I speak with her daughter. She shrugged, then stepped into the kitchen, emerging a moment later holding a piece of paper. Today seemed to be piece-of-paper day. She handed it to me. “This is where she lives.”

I looked at the piece of paper, which bore a phone number: 917 exchange. Cell phone.

Mrs. Bia went on, “I had to give Donna a hundred dollars to give me this number. I told her if her father or me die one day, maybe it would be nice if she got a phone call. This is my own daughter. I have no idea where she lives. I don’t think maybe she lives anywhere. All the time Donna is growing up, she is beautiful, and people tell her she is beautiful, and they tell me what a good future she will have. But you have to make good decisions to have a good future. Donna is nothing but bad decisions. So now? As far as I’m concerned, she gets what she deserves. We gave her a pretty face and a nice home. What more can we do?”

I thanked her for her time and gave her my card. “If you hear from her.”

She slipped the card into her apron pocket. “I am not holding my breath.”

From the hallway, I tried the number. I was spilled into a voice mailbox. The recorded voice was yelling to be heard above a background din. “ This is Donna! Not here. Leave a message and I’ll call you !”

I was tempted to leave her a message to call her mother. But I restrained myself.

THE MOVING COMPANY WHERE DIAZ HAD WORKED OFF-AND-ON WAS called U-Move. It was located in a cinder-block building off Fourth Street. A light-skinned black man shaped like a cheeseburger heard me out. His name was Rodney. He sat at a gray metal desk in a small cement room with a buzzing fluorescent light hanging overhead. A half-naked woman in gold boots glowered angrily from the calendar on the wall behind Rodney’s desk.

Rodney was working on a medium-sized pizza and a bucket of Pepsi. He offered me a slice of the pizza and seemed relieved when I turned it down. Rodney’s job seemed to be to answer the phone and put the caller immediately on hold. He did it as easy as breathing.

I didn’t exactly ask, but he explained how U-Move operated.

“We hire out a crew chief and a driver, that’s all. Crew of two. We figure out from talking to the customers how much stuff we’re gonna be moving. If it’s a big job, gonna take more than two, we pick up extra manpower. We call them cash crew.” Rodney plugged the hole in his face with a large bite of pizza, chased by a hefty splash of Pepsi. He continued, chewing as he talked. “Crew chief and driver are on the payroll. The extra manpower gets theirs in cash. Off the books. Less paperwork.”

This last statement was borne out by Rodney’s office. The only paper I spotted, other than the napkins on his desk, were the calendar pages below the half-naked woman.

Rodney folded a slice of pizza in on itself, lengthwise. I feared he would inhale the whole thing at once, but he didn’t. He chomped down on it.

I asked him about Roberto Diaz. Rodney remembered him.

“Sure, we used him sometimes. What a jerk, huh? Shooting up the parade like that? I had no idea the guy was like that. We’ve been sweating it they don’t find out and put the company’s name in the paper. That wouldn’t be so cool with the customers.”

“Did he work here on a regular basis?”

The fat man shook his head. “He was never on payroll. He was strictly cash crew.”

“How does that work? The cash crew. You just keep a list of available names?”

“Not really. We’ve got some, but that’s mostly up to the crew chief to hire out. They got friends or people they know. We tell them not to hire garbage, but a good crew chief isn’t going to hire garbage anyway. He’s the one who’s got to work with the guy.”

“You didn’t consider Diaz garbage?”

Rodney licked his index finger. It looked like he was licking a small sausage. “Nah. I mean, I didn’t really know the guy. Saw him a couple times. He came in here once and put his feet up on my desk. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t pull a gun when I told him to take them off. But he seemed okay. Nobody called in any complaints about him. Past that, I don’t care.”

“Let me tell you who I’m actually looking for,” I said. “I’m looking for a friend of Diaz’s. A guy named Angel. You wouldn’t know anything about him?”

Rodney answered immediately. “Shit, yeah, I know who you’re talking about.”

My heart hiccupped. “Is that right? You know Angel?”

Rodney nodded. “Bastard robbed one of our customers, better believe I know him. Son of a bitch walked off with a box of jewelry and a box of booze. The woman we were moving caught him red-handed. He was stashing them away in his car. All sorts of hell, believe me. This woman busted Angel, and he called her a cunt to her face. Sweet, huh? Her kid was right there. We had to do the whole damn move for free to keep from being taken to court.”

I asked, “How long ago was this?”

Rodney chased some pizza dust off his face. “I don’t know. Two years? It’s been a while. Maybe longer. Three years.”

“I’m guessing Angel was cash crew?”

“Totally. Guy like that?”

“You wouldn’t have an address for him, would you?” I asked.

Rodney shook his head. “I told you. No paperwork.”

“How about a last name?”

“Angel? Sure. Ramos. Angel Ramos. What’s up? Is he in some kind of trouble? He call someone else a cunt?”

“He stole something.”

“Yeah? What’d he steal?”

“A person.”

“Shit. How do you steal a person?”

“Usually with violence.”

The phone rang. Rodney strangled a napkin between his hands and picked up the phone. “U-Move. Hold on.” He said to me, “So you’re trying to find Ramos?”

“That’s right.”

“Hold on.” He jerked open a side drawer on his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. Finally, some paperwork. “Eight oh seven President. That’s in the Slope.”

“What about it?”

“We’re moving a family out of there today. Started at ten.” He checked his watch. “They should still be loading.”

“What’s that got to do with Angel Ramos?”

Rodney was finished with his pizza. He pulled a pack of Rolos from his shirt pocket and began picking expertly at the foil. “Angel’s brother is a crew chief. That’s how we got Angel in the first place. He’s running the job in Park Slope.”

My heart did another one of those hiccups. “Angel’s brother?”

“Yeah. Victor. He’s a good dude. Nothing like his brother, except…” Rodney loosened the top Rolo from the pack and popped it into his mouth. “They’re twins. Creepy as hell, man. They look completely alike.”

VICTOR RAMOS HAD AN ANGRY RESTING FACE. SMOOTH. NO CREASES, with eyes that were like a simmering python’s. Pale, like Gabriella Montero had said. A pale swamp green. He was seated on the front steps of 807 President, staring into space, when I came up the walk. Despite the cool temperature, he was dressed in a muscle T-shirt. A glaze of perspiration covered his skin. He wore a pair of canvas work gloves and looked like he probably stood six-one or so. His chest was broad, his biceps the size of small pigs.