Richard Price - The Whites

“His sisters?” Billy asked.

“Sisters, girlfriends,” the detective said. “You should ask Maldonado, he’s the one sent them away.”

“Just do me a favor and check the 494s,” Dennis said. “Maybe they snuck back in when you were off. If there’s something there, don’t be a stranger. Otherwise…”

When the detective left the room again, Dennis opened his newspaper and spoke in a low voice. “‘Sisters, girlfriends,’” shaking his head, “a real bloodhound.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell Yasmeen about this,” Billy said, reaching for the poster. “It could jack her up about Cortez again.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dennis said. “In fact, take it the fuck out of here when you go.”

After a few minutes of small talk, Billy went back out into the general squad room to finish his reports, then thought about checking to see if Sweetpea Harris was in the system somewhere. At first he balked, not wanting to leave an electronic trail and risk having to answer anyone’s questions, but then he did it anyway, masking his search with a half dozen other names, including Eric Cortez, only to discover that neither were incarcerated or had any warrants hanging over their heads. Which told him, after all was said and done, nothing.

Realizing that he was in no shape to drive, Billy turned off his phone and crashed in the 4–6 bunk room, as fetid and rank as any he had ever known.

When he finally made it home a few hours later, the TV was off. Eleven a.m. on a Saturday morning and no one was watching cartoons, the house as quiet as a monastery. Given that Carmen’s car wasn’t in the driveway, he assumed that she had taken the boys somewhere, which was A-OK with him.

Then Declan, still in his pajamas, came out of the kitchen.

“Dad?” His voice high and tentative. “We lost Grandpa.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s not here.”

“What do you mean he’s not here. Did you check all the beds?”

“He’s not here.”

“The basement?”

“He’s not here,” the kid’s voice starting to quiver.

Millie walked into the room, Declan turning to her for help.

“What’s he talking about?” Billy said.

“He’s not here,” she said.

“Explain that.”

“I come in this morning, the front door was open and he’s…”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“We did,” Millie said. “Your phone was off.”

Carlos joined them in the hallway, the anxiety in the air inspiring him to hit his brother, who was too freaked by now to hit him back.

“Where’s Carmen?”

“She’s out looking for him.”

“All right,” Billy said, the heel of his hand pressed into his forehead. “All right…”

His first call was to his wife, but she had left without her phone, her “Killing Me Softly” ringtone playing in the kitchen, which made Carlos cry out, “Is Mommy lost too?”

His second call was to the Yonkers PD, the desk sergeant on duty informing him that Carmen had already given them a heads-up over an hour ago.

“All right, why don’t you get them dressed,” Billy said automatically, already roaming the neighborhood in his head.

He began by driving the residential streets nearest to home, knocking on doors and asking his neighbors to take a peek into their backyards, many of them saying that Carmen had already been there, then branched farther out, hitting the nearest commercial strips, poking his head into every supermarket, bar, and pizza place within walking distance.

At the corner of Mohawk and Seneca he ran into a trolling squad car — the only one assigned to the search, which infuriated him — the cops having no luck either. Then, fifteen minutes later, on a street of imposing Tudors and haciendas, he passed Carmen driving the other way, both cars hitting the brakes and nearly rear-ending each other as they simultaneously backed up at speed.

“I was taking a shower, I came down, Millie’s cooking breakfast, she asked me if he was still sleeping upstairs,” Carmen blurted, her eyes wild in her head. “Nobody saw him leave.”

“All right, just calm down, we’ll find him.”

“It’s my fault,” yanking on her hair and then taking off again.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” he said to the air.

Forty-five minutes later, Billy pulled over alongside a junior high school ball field and forced himself to be still.

OK, you’re him…

There were dozens of mysteries to be solved. For starters, how does a man who can barely find his way around a reasonably small house, who has neither access to a car nor the wherewithal to drive one, make it from Yonkers, land of zero subways, to Harlem USA on his own. But there he was, Billy’s hunch playing out like a Powerball winner, his father, walking up and down Lenox Avenue between 118th and 116th Streets like he owned the sidewalk.

For late March, the weather was downright balmy, the people mellow, and he had his father in his sights, so Billy remained in the car and watched the old man do his thing. He stopped and jawed with some old-timers who were sitting on the stoop of an abandoned brownstone cheek by jowl to a latteria on 118th. He bummed a cigarette from one of them, thumb-flicking a bent match against the friction strip of the matchbook with a practiced hand, even though, to Billy’s knowledge, his father hadn’t had a smoke since 1988, the year his wife had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Then, taking his leave of this crew, he shook hands all around before moving on down the block.

On 117th, he helped a young Asian woman disentangle her Maclaren double stroller from a narrow doorway. On 116th, he told three kids racing scooters through a crowd in front of a ShopRite to put on the brakes. He made eye contact with everyone who crossed his path, but not in such a way as to give offense; he just wanted to let them know that he was back and that nothing escaped his notice. Lenox between 116th and 118th — in 1959, it had been his first foot post out of the academy.

Billy finally stepped out of the car.

“Hey, Officer,” calling to his father over the roof, then coming around to open the passenger door.

“Dad, how’d you get here?” he asked as casually as he could.

“My driver.”

“What driver was that?”

“Frank Campbell.”

Billy took a breath. “Frank Campbell is off today, Dad,” afraid to remind him that his personal driver for his last three years on the Job had been dead for a decade.

“Well, then whoever was covering for him.”

Breathe…

“Do you remember his name?”

“Didn’t catch it.”

“Was he in the bag or plainclothes.”

“Plainclothes.”

Another old-timer, this one a handball-gloved double amputee in a wheelchair, rolled past the passenger window at eye level, caught sight of Billy Senior, and reversed his ride until they were face-to-face. Then, winking against the smoke streaming up from his lip-locked cigarette, the guy crisply, sarcastically saluted, before resuming his journey.

His father was not amused. “How the hell did he make bail?”

“Dad,” Billy tried again. “Your driver, what did he look like?”

“Beefy, Hispanic, on the quiet side.”

Billy stared out his window until the numbness passed. “Did he say anything to you?”

“He said, ‘Where to, boss?’ I said, ‘Where do you think?’ But I had to tell him, so yeah, it couldn’t have been Frank.”

“And where did he pick you up?”

“Right in front of the house. Caught me by surprise when I went out to get the paper.”

Think…

“What kind of car was he driving?”

“The usual.”

“What’s the usual, Dad?” The stress of keeping it light starting to make his voice climb.