Pete Hamill - Tabloid City

— Right.

— Later.

Ali hangs up. He goes to a wall switch and turns on the lights. He glances down at Aref, whose eyes are wide in shock. He turns toward the shrouded windows. Malik, he says out loud. I’m coming for your ass.

1:05 p.m. Consuelo Mendoza. Sunset Park.

At last, Norma is gone. The babysitting is done, and the talking is over. The older boy will be home in an hour, and now it is only Consuelo and little Timoteo. The four-year-old is watching a cartoon on television, his face serious, his intelligent brown eyes taking in everything, but seeming to doubt what they are seeing. Consuelo is cooking lunch for herself and the little one. Beef patties from the market on La Quinta. Bought two days ago, when she still had a job. Carrots. Boiled potatoes. Avoiding grease. Trying to look normal.

But Consuelo is taut and jittery with confused emotions. She remembers the details of the morning with Señor Lewis and the images of the past that the visit called up in her, the bedroom in Cuernavaca, the girl she was then, the wild passion of her young flesh, the way she felt about this man who was even then un gringo viejo. She had told Raymundo about Señor Lewis long ago, but certainly not all of what had happened. She would never tell him any of that. Even if he asked, she would lie. Men never understand.

She remembers the one named Jerry, the bald one behind the desk at the Chelsea Hotel, and how he asked her to step around to the side, behind the desk, so that nobody in the lobby could see her. And he handed her the sealed envelope.

— Now you have to hide this, Jerry said. Under your clothes. Don’t let anyone see it. Don’t open it until you get home, okay? That’s what Mr. Forrest says. Okay?

— Okay, she said, and turned away and stuffed the thick envelope under her belt. Then she went out into the dark morning and headed for the N train.

All the way to Brooklyn she worried that the envelope would slip. She clasped her hands on her waist, as if she had a tummyache, and tried even harder than usual to look ordinary, to look homely, to look unlikely to be carrying anything of value. The daytime crowd on the subway was less tense than the one at night. A dirty black man was sleeping in a corner seat, three lumpy plastic bags at his feet. Four standing schoolboys laughed and joked, joked and laughed. A uniformed cop leaned against a door. All the way to Sunset Park.

She let herself in with a key, and Norma called from the kitchen, where little Timoteo was staring into the yard. Smiles, laughs, a hug of her thighs from the boy. Consuelo took off her coat and stepped into the bathroom. Closed the door. She removed the envelope, laid it behind jars and small bottles inside the medicine cabinet. Later. Open it after Norma leaves.

Now she’s gone, with besos y abrazos, and the boy is eating. Consuelo goes into the bathroom, takes the envelope, uses her forefinger to open it.

And sees bills.

Not dollar bills.

She slides one out. Crisp and new. It’s a hundred-dollar bill. She has never held one before. She takes the others in thumb and forefinger. She begins to count. They are all hundred-dollar bills. Fifty of them.

Ay, Dios mío.

She holds the bills in her right hand and grips the bathroom sink with her left.

Ay, Señor Lewis.

Ay …

1:15 p.m. Malik Shahid. FDR Drive, Manhattan.

He is again playing a bored young man without cares, as he drives the Lexus uptown on the FDR. All the lanes are jammed, moving slowly uptown and down. The window open an inch. Hot in the car, with his coat. And the vest underneath. The holy vest.

To his right, the river is gray and dirty, with only a few small boats moving on its surface. In a narrow park, three flags are stiff with wind, blowing east toward Queens on the far side of the river. The gas gauge shows a quarter of a tank. Enough. No need to show his face at a gas station. The tire iron back there, in a Brownsville lot. The gun — He sees a police car in the middle lane on the downtown side, red lights turning, trying to push through to an exit. Lots of luck, assholes. Malik can’t push through, so why should they?

He knows that by now someone may have found Aref. Someone else with a key. A wife. A member. Maybe a cop. So what? By the time they get going, he thinks, I’ll be lost again. And I only need hours now to do what I have to do tonight.

He did look for a surveillance camera, out back of the mosque in Brownsville. But he realized a true search would take too much time. He jammed the tire iron in his waistband. Then got in easily: by knocking on the back door. He stared at the Lexus for a long moment, then knocked again. Aref answered. He didn’t recognize Malik with a smooth hairless face. Malik smiled and talked and used Arabic, and Aref remembered and led him inside. Malik said he just wanted to pray. Aref seemed skeptical but they went up together to the big prayer room. It was empty. Malik confronted him.

— Where’s the stuff? he said.

— What stuff?

— The stuff that goes bang.

Aref shook his head, speaking his own version of Jamal’s speech.

— That’s over, he said. We’re Americans now. All of us, Malik.

— Yeah. Until they come to arrest you.

— Maybe you should leave now.

— Maybe not.

Malik took the tire iron from his belt, hefted it, placed it under Aref’s nose.

— Is it in one of those lockers?

— Go look.

Malik shoved him toward the two tall lockers. With his free hand he opened the door of the one on the left. Prayer mats. Some clothes. No canvas bag with its precious contents.

He tried the second locker. Also unlocked. Same stuff. Then his rage took over. He grabbed each locker in turn and jerked it away from the wall. Both made metallic crushing sounds against the polished floor.

Fear rose on Aref’s face. Which is what Malik wanted to see. Aref glanced at the ceiling. Malik understood.

— Where’s the ladder? he said.

Aref said nothing, and stepped past the fallen lockers and opened a closet door. There was a ladder, along with buckets, brooms, two mops. Malik stared at the ceiling, and saw a small ring in a depressed circle.

— Go up and get it, Malik said in a low voice.

Aref did what he was told. He climbed the ladder and pulled on the ceiling ring. A hinged panel opened. He reached in, swung around, and held a dark blue canvas bag.

— Now hand it down, Malik said. Gently.

Aref came down several steps and passed the bag to Malik, who grabbed it with his free hand. His eyes on Aref, Malik hugged the bag with the hand holding the tire iron, and pulled the zipper open with his other hand. Peered into the bag. Felt his blood pulse as he saw what he had hoped for. Closed the bag. And Aref began to run for the door.

Malik dropped the bag and went after him. Wrapped an arm around his neck. Turned Aref violently. And smashed the tire iron against the side of his head. The older man made an incoherent sound, full of shock and fatalism, and fell to the floor. Malik smashed the front of his face. Once, twice, then again. He waited. The older man did not move. Did not breathe.

— Stupid motherfucker! Why’d you do that?

There was no answer. Malik hurried to the blue bag. Unzipped it. Laid the tire iron on the floor. Then lifted out the black polyester object within. Opened it to its full width. Saw the hooks and cords, the small gray device with a white button. Saw the canvas slots snug with red bars. He glanced at Aref, who was not moving. Then he slipped off his coat and tied the vest across his chest and pulled his coat over it. Time to go.

He returned to Aref, and went through his trouser pockets until he found the car keys. And two twenty-dollar bills. He whipped off a scarf from Aref’s neck and wrapped the tire iron in it and then headed down the stairs.