James Siegel - Detour

“Professionally?”

“Huh?”

“Are you a lawyer too?”

Julius seemed to think that was funny. “Nuh-uh. I was on the other side, you might say.”

“What other side?”

“He was representin’ me.” Julius had a long scar that trailed down his right hand and onto his wrist.

“Oh. Miles was your lawyer.”

“Thas right. Juvenile court. Going back some now. I was one badass then, okay? I was into shit.”

“He helped you.”

“Sure. He helped keep my ass out of juvenile jail.”

“He got you off?”

“Kinda. Why you so curious?”

“I’m just making conversation.”

“That’s what you’re doing, huh?”

“I don’t really know anybody here.”

“Really? I’m real tight with them.” Julius smiled.

“Why’d you come?” Paul asked.

“Told you, Miles worked his juju, kept me out of juvenile prison.”

“So he did get you off.”

“You want the whole 411, huh? Hey, I was into shit. I shot somebody. He got me classified . Antisocial gangsta . They stuck me in the loony bin till I turned eighteen and walked.”

“That was okay ?”

“Okay enough. Not bad. You zoned on lith and drew pictures. No one bothered you too much. I read a lot. Hung out in the library. I got my degree. When I walked, I had somewhere to go. Saved me from the fucking wolves.”

“How long were you there? In the hospital?”

“Long enough. Walked into the zoo at fifteen.”

“ Zoo? You said it wasn’t that bad.”

“Nuh-uh. We called it the zoo ’cause it was across the street from the Bronx Zoo. You could hear the elephants at night, man. Sometimes the lions. In the spring they took us there on retard patrol. Got us llama food—half the kids ate it. That was fucking hysterical.”

One of the mourners, an old Jewish man with a thick gray beard, was staring at them disapprovingly.

“Back in the ’hood that’s known as disrespectin’, ” Julius said.

Paul gently steered Julius to another part of the room, ostensibly in search of edible food.

“You kept in touch with Miles?” Paul asked after a suitable platter had been scoped, located, and raided.

“Kinda. Now and then. After I made good, I called—just so he’d know we all didn’t end up dead. He was cool.”

“Yes,” Paul said.

IT WAS TIME TO GO.

Julius had left a few minutes after talking to Paul, announcing his departure at the front door.

Julius is leaving the building, he said. No one seemed particularly unhappy about that.

Paul was wondering what he was going to tell the bird-watcher. A vague progress report hinting at promising leads and imminent results.

He said good-bye to Rachel and the boys. She seemed relieved to see him go.

On the way down the brownstone steps he bumped into someone going up.

He glanced up to say excuse me, then stopped himself.

“If you can tell me where the car is parked?”

Moshe was dressed in impressive funereal attire, black silk suit with charcoal tie and a knit wool yarmulke attached to his hair with a bobby pin. He wasn’t alone.

The man that Paul clobbered over the head was standing in Paul’s face. He had a freshly stained bandage wrapped around his forehead.

Paul could feel his physical menace like a disturbance in the air.

“The car, Paul? Where is it parked, please?”

“Queens,” Paul said.

Paul had abandoned the car in Long Island City before taking the train back into the city.

“Queens,” Moshe repeated. “Any particular part? Near Corona Ice King, maybe? Best ices in the city, you would not believe it. Which part of Queens are we speaking about here?”

“Long Island City. Twenty-fourth Street off Northern Boulevard.” Paul was keeping the man with the CCCP tattoo firmly in view. It was hard not to—he was still in his face.

“Good of you to tell me. Appreciate it.”

A moment of silence. Not that it was quiet . The air was humming with possibilities, most of them unpleasant.

“You seem nervous, my friend,” Moshe said. “Spider land on you again?”

Paul stood still as Moshe moved past him up the steps. Paul managed to stand his ground as the Incredible Hulk followed. When Moshe reached the door, he turned around.

“You should relax a little. I’m in cash business, my friend. No cash, no business. Understand?” He nodded at the door. “The man I was doing business with is deceased. A shame.” He smiled, turned, then looked back as if he’d forgotten something. “Maybe you should not relax too much. My comrade here is righteous pissed at you.” He laughed out loud and went into the house.

FORTY

Paul found himself walking around in a constant cold sweat.

He could hear his wristwatch ticking.

He dreamed Joanna was dead. He was at her wake, talking to Miles.

One morning he thought he heard her voice behind him on the street. When he turned around, it was a young mother pushing a carriage and talking on her cell phone.

Interrogations were called debriefings now. They felt the same. Paul’s progress report was derided for what it was—the essay portion in a test he hadn’t studied for.

“In other words, Paul, you got ugatz, ” the bird-watcher said. “It’s back to rat school for you.”

“I need a little time,” Paul said.

There was a problem with needing a little time. There wasn’t any.

He needed to come up with something if the bird-watcher was going to save his wife. If she was still savable.

Now that he was an unofficial DEA rat, he was allowed to sleep in his own bed. Not sleep. Toss, turn, stare wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Two seconds after he’d entered his apartment, someone was knocking on his door.

Lisa again.

This time he couldn’t pretend no one was home.

When he opened the door, she practically fell into his arms.

“Where is she?”

Paul was momentarily confused as to which she Lisa was referring to. Neither one, of course, was currently available.

“Where’s the baby?” Lisa said, scanning the four corners of the room like an eagle-eyed real estate agent, which, in fact, she was.

“There was a problem,” Paul said, ready to trot out the story he and Miles had concocted for general use.

“Problem? What problem? Where’s Joanna?”

“Bogotá.”

Lisa pushed her blond hair back with one hand. She was one of those East Side women who’d crossed the park—born to money that had inexplicably dried up, but still looking very trust-fund.

“Joelle’s visa wasn’t in order.”

“In order? What does that mean?”

“It means it wasn’t functional. We couldn’t get her out of the country.”

“Oh, Paul. That’s terrible . So what’s going on? What are you doing about it?”

“I’m working it out from this end.” Now that Paul was actually trying out the story, he thought it held up pretty well. He himself was a different matter. He wasn’t holding up pretty well. Fatigue seemed to have settled into his bones.

Lisa must’ve sensed this, because she went to embrace him again, bestowing a comforting hug and lingering there long enough for Paul to lean against her.

She smelled like home.

LATER, WHEN JOHN RETURNED FROM WORK, LISA CALLED A babysitter and they both came in, toting a bottle of cabernet.

It was wonderful to see John.

It was terrible to see John.

He was Paul’s best friend, the guy with whom he’d spent more time than he cared to remember, sitting in various West Side bars, relating the ups and downs of baby-making. The guy who’d bucked him up and, on more than one occasion, dried him out.