Arbor Hill Read online

  “First of all,” she said, “we took one trip to Italy a few years ago. And second, we haven’t yet reached that stage. We haven’t even started sleeping together again.”

  “Things take time,” I said, giving her a wink and chomping down on the pizza with abandon.

  Today, Val was wearing a black turtleneck over a black skirt, black tights, and black knee-high leather boots. Her long black hair was parted neatly over her left eye, and her makeup was perfect. A simple silver necklace hung over her chest and matching silver bracelets jangled as she sawed away at her pizza.

  We’d been seeing one another again, in the wake of the tragic death of her business partner at the John Patrick Designs women’s clothing shop they’d started together at a popular strip mall in North Albany. For now, Val was out of a job, which meant she was available for lunch. We’d been on and off for years, and right now, it looked like we were drifting back to on again.

  We were like magnets that way, Val and I. Endlessly attracted. At the same time, she was severely independent, and I was stuck in another age and another time and just as self-reliant. Which meant we were both two stubborn individuals, and stubborn individuals weren’t very good at arguing. They’d rather prove their points, right or wrong, by moving out of the apartment. What this meant, of course, was that stubborn individuals were often destined to be lonely.

  She ate her postage stamp sized bite of pizza, sipped on her little glass of Chianti.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, fella,” she said. “We’re just friends for now.” Now smiling. “But I do have to say, it would be so wonderful to see Venice again.”

  We ate for a while without saying anything. Rather, I ate and drank my Moretti beer. She nibbled.

  “Pregnancy,” I said, grabbing a second slice from the pie.

  Val looked at me, eyes unblinking.

  “Is that your way of making conversation, Keeper?”

  “Pregnancy,” I said, taking a big bite from the slice, the crust deliciously crispy, the sauce tangy but not overbearing, the prosciutto melting in my mouth. “How long would it take you to know if you were pregnant? I mean, could you find out in a day or two?”

  She sat back, knife in one hand, fork in the other, her eyes not locked on me, but laser beaming into me.

  “Something you wish to tell me, dear friend?”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Nothing like that, Val,” I said. “Believe me. I’ve been better than an ascetic monk on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”

  “Then why do you ask, Keeper?”

  I explained to her all about Jason McNamee with two ees. By the time I was done, I’d inhaled my second slice, and was on my third. Val was still on her first.

  “You’d better eat faster,” I said. “Pizza is disappearing more rapidly than you can say Eataly.”

  She placed her left hand on her flat tummy.

  “I’m already getting full. Eat away, Mr. Pizza.”

  The future suddenly looked bright.

  “So, what do you think about McNamee?” I asked.

  “I think the poor man got taken in the worst, most clichéd way possible.”

  “That’s what I think too. And the pregnancy?”

  “With the pregnancy test kits available over-the-counter these days, a woman can find out if she’s pregnant within hours of the deed. Maybe minutes. There’s even a pill you can take that will get rid of it.” Cocking her head, sadly. “If that’s what you want.”

  “The morning after pill. So I’ve heard. Kind of cheapens things, doesn’t it?”

  “You don’t believe a woman has the right to do what she wants with her own body, Keeper?”

  “What about the baby choosing what it wants to do with its own body?”

  She smiled. “Let’s not go there today, shall we?”

  “Understood.” I ate another slice. “To be honest, this case has me a bit perplexed. I’m not sure how to handle it.”

  She cut off another bit of pizza, popped it into her mouth.

  “That’s enough for me,” she said, pushing away her plate, leaving behind the crust. The best part. I finished a fourth piece and the only thing left over was that crust.

  “You mind?” I said, reaching for the crust, taking it off her plate before she could object.

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  I drank some beer and munched on the crust like it was desert.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “It’s not like what Missy did is all that illegal. It’s sort of grand larceny, but only sort of.”

  “Which is why the cops aren’t touching this,” she proposed.

  “Exactly. Only real crime here is McNamee’s dumb choice.” I finished off the crust. Suddenly, I felt cold and lonely now that the pizza was gone. “But here’s the deal. I don’t like what this woman pulled, and I especially don’t like the pregnancy bit.”

  “You think she’s setting him up for blackmail, Keeper? You either take responsibility for my new baby or I seek out a lawyer, kind of thing?”

  “I’m going to watch her for a few days. Maybe see what her deal is. See if she’s got more than a few suitors who sort of fit the profile of my newest client, Jason McNamee with two ees.”

  “Way to spend his money,” Val said, smiling naughtily.

  “Hey,” I said. “Pizza’s cost money. Man’s gotta make a living any way he knows how.”

  “Looks like Missy adheres to the same philosophy, big guy.”

  I got up. So did Val. As we were heading for the door, I was once more reminded of Italy.

  “So, what will it take for you to say yes to Italy in the fall, Val?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to go,” she said, her back to me. “It’s just that I’m not sure I shouldn’t distance myself from your romantic advances for a while longer.”

  “That’s a double negative,” I said. “Two double negatives, in fact.”

  “I know,” she said, heading out the door. “Life is like that sometimes.”

  5

  I dropped Val off at her brownstone apartment building in historic downtown Troy, then I motored my fire engine red 4-Runner back across the river into downtown Albany. It was mid-afternoon which meant there was still plenty of daylight left for me to do some snooping. But snooping also made me hungry, which meant I’d have to stop for coffee and donuts first. Keeper the perpetually famished.

  I pulled up to the Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of Lark and Western and got out. There was no drive-thru in the heart of the city, which meant I’d actually be expected to expel energy reserves and order from the counter inside the facility.

  Oh, the humanity.

  At the counter, the kid asked me what I wanted. I ordered a large coffee—milk, no sugar—and two plain donuts. He poured the coffee, added the milk, and bagged the donuts. I gave him a five. When he went to hand me my one dollar and thirty-five cents change, I took the dollar bill and told him to keep the coins. He rolled his eyes, tossed it into the tips cup.

  “Next,” he said, his annoyed eyes already focused on the person behind me.

  Millennials. The generation of the entitled.

  Supplies in hand, I got back in the 4-Runner, turned the engine over. I was about to back out when I saw the note under the windshield wiper. Lowering the window, I reached around, grabbed it. Opening it, I read the three words scrawled in black pencil. Ticonderoga No. 2 if I had to guess.

  Don’t look now.

  I set the note down slowly, went for my gun. That’s when I felt the pistol barrel pressed against the back of my head. Slowly, I raised my hands, glanced in the rearview, locked my stare on his big brown eyes.

  “You gettin' soft and careless in your old age,” Blood said.

  I lowered my hands.

  I said, “Now that, my oldest and dearest ebony friend, is a great way to get yourself sundered.”

  “You ain’t got any other ebony friends,” he said, holstering his Sig Sauer semi-automatic.


  “It’s not the quality,” I said. “It’s the quantity.”

  “How many donuts you got in that bag?”

  “Not enough,” I replied.

  “Wait for me here,” he said getting out and coming around to the open window.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Somethin’ tells me you got a job. I don’t have any jobs right now, and I’m bored. You just hired your assistant.”

  “I did?”

  “Yup,” he said. “Now, how’s about a five. You can debit it from my payment.”

  I reached into my jeans pocket, pulled out the wad, handed him an Honest Abe. “Don’t forget to bring me the change,” I added, recalling the sour face of the kid behind the counter.

  “I’ll bring you the receipt too,” he said. “I’m conscientious when it comes to fiduciary matters.”

  He walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts.

  I stewed.

  But I didn’t stew for long, because the truth was, I had been planning on inviting Blood in on this case soon. By the end of the day. The majority of the work was going to take place in the heart of Arbor Hill, and I’d feel a hell of a lot safer if Blood were around watching my blind backside. But I had wanted to gather more info on Missy first in order to entice him. Turned out, however, he didn’t need much enticing.

  He sat in the shotgun seat, his own large coffee in hand, and his own bag of donuts. Blood was tall and ripped and resembled sculptured dark marble. In fact, I’d often wondered if he was, in fact, made of marble and somehow touched by the hand of God who then made the stone come to life. Despite the way he’d introduced himself back into my life that afternoon, I always felt a little better about myself when we were working closely side by side. Blood was a good man to have around in a pinch, and he had friends and contacts on both sides of the law which, in some cases, made him indispensable. Plus, he was just plain fun.

  He sipped his hot coffee out of the hole in the plastic lid.

  “So, what’s on the agenda, boss man?” he asked.

  I told him. Told him everything.

  “Missy runnin’ a scheme,” he said. “No doubt about that.”

  “That’s why I wanna try and find out the extent of it,” I said. “If it should happen that she’s got multiple boyfriends coming in and out, we got us a criminal operation. But if she took McNamee just because he presented her with an opportunity she couldn’t pass up, then he’s shit out of luck.”

  “This McNamee guy,” he said. “Can he be trusted, Keep?”

  “His check cashed.”

  “I know some people at the Department of Civil Engineering,” he said. “I’ll do an informal background check on the little guy.”

  “Can’t hurt,” I said, making a left onto Clinton Avenue, slowing down before pulling over along the curb, and killing the engine.

  “Missy lives a few doors up,” I informed him. “We sit here, we won’t look so suspicious.”

  “A big black dude sittin’ in the front seat of a bright red SUV with a stocky white dude,” he pointed out. “How’s that not gonna look suspicious in the middle of a hood like Arbor Hill? Somebody probably got us in their sites already.”

  “Number one, we’re packing,” I said, sipping some coffee, setting it down in the console cup holder, and removing a donut from the bag. “And number two, we’re super human. Anybody gives us any trouble, Blood, all we gotta do is give them the stare, and they’ll get the message quick.”

  “You losin’ it, you know that, Keep?”

  He ate some donut. Drank some coffee.

  I did the same. I only hoped Missy appeared before the coffee ran out.

  6

  As it turns out, we didn’t have to wait long. The front door to Missy’s five-story walk up opened, and she stepped out with a man who was most definitely not McNamee.

  Blood perked up.

  “That her?” he asked.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “That a boyfriend?”

  “Could be. Or it could be her brother.”

  “She must like her brother a lot, Keep, judgin’ by the way she’s kissin’ him.”

  “Yeah, Blood,” I said. “There’s that.”

  “He must like her a lot too,” Blood added. “Because he handing her a stack of cash.”

  The young man turned and headed back down the steps. He crossed over the sidewalk, got in a black BMW, and took off. He was taking a chance driving that expensive ride into this war zone of a neighborhood regardless of how quiet it had been for the past hour or so. I shifted my eyes back to Missy. She glanced over both her shoulders, then looked at the time on her wristwatch. She then about-faced and disappeared back inside the building.

  A couple of minutes later, another car pulled up. This one wasn’t as nice as the Beemer. It was a silver minivan. The back window was partially covered with stickers of white stick-like people who represented your average nuclear family. Mom, dad, little boy, little girl. Even the family dog.

  A man in a blazer and tie got out, came around the front of the van, made his way up the front steps. He rang the doorbell and waited. When the door opened, she stuck her head out and once more looked around before kissing the man on the mouth. They then both disappeared inside.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” I said to Blood.

  “Me thinkin’ our little blondie runnin’ a shop of ill repute,” he said.

  “Her primary target being white, middle-aged, under-sexed suburbanites,” I said. I looked at Blood. “But I’ve got an idea.”

  “Oh no,” he said.

  “You’re a single guy. You got the Tinder app on your smartphone?”

  A dark cloud seemed to descend upon the vehicle’s interior. Blood slowly turned and peered into my eyes. Rarely did he show emotion, so when he did finally offer up a smile or a scornful frown, you knew he meant business either way.

  In this case, I got the scornful frown.

  “You think a man like me need a cheap cell phone app like Tinder to get laid?”

  “Match dot com?” I posed, not without a grin.

  “You playin’ with fire, boss man.” He just eyeballed me for a few silent beats until he pulled his smartphone from the interior pocket on his leather coat. He tapped the screen a few times, and the Tinder app came up.

  I laughed.

  “Say it ain’t so, Blood.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Tinder can be fun. Especially when you sittin’ at a bar all alone. Times have changed. People like communicatin’ by text now. They like instant gratification. But the point here is that I don’t need Tinder. You dig?”

  “Yeah, Blood, I dig, as usual. Think we can get Missy to respond to your request?”

  “If she on here,” he said, “how could she resist?”

  Blood had a point. Women found him irresistible. Most women, that is.

  “But what if she doesn’t like black guys?” I pressed.

  He looked into my eyes.

  “All white girls like black guys,” he explained. “The hip ones anyway.”

  “I’m not sure how hip, Missy is,” I said. “But give it a shot.”

  He started scrolling through the possible dates on the Tinder app. While he did, he explained that his settings were fixed so he would have access to any single Tinder woman within a half mile radius. Glancing at the screen, I watched as the nameless faces came and went. Black women, white women, Hispanic women, Asian women, and even Muslim women in burkas. Made me want to sing We are the World. Until a certain blonde woman appeared.

  It was Missy.

  “What happens now?” I said.

  “I click on the heart, let her know I’m interested.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “Tinder will suggest she email me right away.”

  “Tinder doesn’t waste time.”

  “This the twenty-first century, Keep,” he said. “The millennial generation don’t like to wait for anything. They entitled to what they want, and they
want it now.”

  “No truer words, Blood.”

  While we waited for a response from Missy, my eye caught two young men approaching my vehicle. Young black men—one wearing a black Oakland Raiders baseball cap with an extra wide brim, the other with long dreads. They were both dressed in baggy, low-hanging ghetto jeans and long parkas. They had that hip-hop way of walking about them. Part walk, part dance, part attitude. Mostly attitude.

  “We got company,” Blood said. “You let me handle this, Keep.”

  “If you insist,” I said.

  The two young men came up on the 4-Runner and stopped. Dreads maintained his position on the passenger side while Oakland Raider came around to the driver’s side. I offered him a Keeper Marconi smile. He opened his parka, showed me the semi-automatic that was tucked into his pant waist. When I glanced over my shoulder, I could see that Dreads was in the process of showing off his own semi-automatic to Blood.

  “I don’t know about you, Blood,” I said. “But I sure am scared.”

  “Give me a minute,” he said, opening the door.

  He got out, standing tall and rock solid. Dreads took a step back. An uncomfortable step.

  “Help you boys with somethin’?” Blood posed.

  Dreads glanced at Oakland Raider, then back at Blood. He was scared. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he was tickling the pistol grip, the way he was shifting on the balls of his feet like he couldn’t find a comfortable position in which to stand.

  “This our block, you dig?” Dreads said. “You don’t park here, you don’t got permission.”

  “Gospel,” Oakland Raider barked. He seemed the more confident of the pair.

  “Last I heard, young man,” Blood said, “this a free country.”

  Dreads laughed. He was trying to play the tough guy. But he wasn’t tough. I focused on Oakland Raider standing right outside my door. He seemed relieved he didn’t have to stand up to Blood. That he had an entire 4-Runner separating him from the mountainous man.

  “So then, gentlemen,” Blood said, “how would you propose we resolve this little issue of our parking on your block?”