“This isn’t the right tape,” he said.

  “Guess Fred forgot he had surveillance installed,” Ward said. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t bring their secretaries home.”

  “So who has the tape from the night of the party?” Bliss said.

  “If it was Douglas the lawyer, he’d have said something by now.”

  “Maybe he’s saving it,” Bliss said. “He might soon be reading about himself in the Daily News—‘Hero Dad, Killer Cop?’”

  “Anyone at the party could have snatched the tape,” Ward said.

  “Maybe the perp took it,” Bliss said.

  “Or maybe it was never there,” Ward said. “Maybe the tape of Backyard Rapture starring Owen and Chantal was supposed to be in the machine and no one replaced it. That’s the scenario we’ll go with. Let Douglas try to prove something else.”

  They could both lose their shields for this. Or worse.

  “Seeing Owen getting serviced is going to make Douglas wish the surveillance never existed,” Bliss said.

  What if it had been Julia, he thought, on the tape, on the bench next to the smirking boy, reaching into his pants, touching him? It was her best friend, after all. The same age. So close. What would he do?

  “That night,” he said to his partner, “I panicked. I had this vision something was wrong. She’d never missed her curfew before. Never not called.”

  Just don’t come home dead, Lenny. I don’t want to be working your case tomorrow.

  “It’s okay, partner.”

  “No. Listen. I was so sure something was wrong. I could see it so clearly.”

  “She’s your daughter.”

  “My father never went looking for me,” Bliss said. “I guess I don’t want to be like him.”

  “Few of us do,” Ward said.

  Fred heard girls shrieking outside his house, and knew his son Holden had arrived from Hollywood.

  He opened the front door, saw Holden waving to the crowd from the top of the stoop. Next to Holden, Fred’s flaky brother-in-law Arnie, carrying both his and Holden’s bags. All the cameras were aimed at them. Reporters were shouting questions, shoving their microphones forward, hoping for an answer, begging for a few words from his son, as if he were a saint, someone holy who could save them from pain and pestilence, instead of just a horny, empty-headed, fourteen-year-old actor who had spent so much time in front of the television cameras that he probably didn’t know how to do long division.

  “Get in the house,” Fred said.

  Holden waved once more, eliciting another round of screaming. Fred grabbed his son by the arm and yanked him inside. Then he shut the door.

  “Dad,” Holden said.

  “It’s enough,” Fred said.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Fred asked.

  Holden went to open the door.

  “Don’t,” Fred said.

  “It’s Uncle Arnie, Dad,” Holden said. “You locked him out.”

  Holden opened the door and Fred’s brother-in-law struggled in, banging the suitcases on the table in the foyer, almost knocking over the bowl of Venetian glass fruit they had to take the special boat to get on the island near Venice, not the island everyone goes to, but another island, a smaller one, a special island that Nedra’s friend had already gone to to get her glass fruit, standing sweating like a pig by the furnaces so Nedra could watch them blow the glass fruit and the glass bowl to put them in, the same glass fruit and bowl they saw in a store the next day near San Marco for the same price only without spending the four hundred bucks to charter a boat.

  Hey, as long as it made her happy.

  “Dad,” Holden said. He spread his arms wide and gave Fred a hug. For a second Fred feared Holden was going to kiss him on both cheeks. He wanted see Sheena. He wanted to be with Marjorie the flight attendant. “You okay, Dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “At the club.”

  “I thought Arnie called her, to say when we were coming.”

  “She’s at the club,” he repeated. “She’ll be back soon. She’s spinning her Pilates or something.”

  Owen came downstairs.

  “Hey, Holden,” he said.

  “Hey, Big Bro,” Holden said, which was what he said in his sitcom to his sitcom brother.

  Holden hugged him, too.

  “Sorry about your friend,” Holden said.

  Shit, Fred thought. I should have said that.

  Then Holden clapped his hands excitedly.

  “Hey, I want to check out Dad on the news. I didn’t get to see the fight yet.”

  “It’s on CNN,” Owen said.

  “Whoa! National coverage,” Holden said. “Way to go, Pop!”

  Before Fred could say anything, Holden had sprinted to the library. Fred followed, arriving in time to see himself on TV getting the shit kicked out of him on the national news.

  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Fred watched in disgust as he got smacked in the nose, kneed, punched, and kicked.

  “Ouch,” Holden said.

  They had two different angles, one of which they slowed down, so everyone could, in the words of the broadcaster, appreciate the unprovoked savagery of the attack. They would probably play the footage over and over for weeks, like the Rodney King beating.

  Fred wanted a Scotch, but it was too early. They showed yet another angle. Here Fred was greeting Rick, the dead boy’s father, who was smiling broadly. At least everyone would see clearly how Fred had been sucker punched. Though looking at it now, Fred could easily see the anger in Rick’s eyes.

  “Way to kick back, Dad,” Holden said, commenting on Fred’s spastic attempts to keep Rick away when he was on the ground. “I used to do that when Owen was pummeling me. It must be in the genes.”

  They laughed—Holden and Owen and Arnie.

  Fred turned away from the television. He thought about Dom, the boxer, the ex-cop. Dom wouldn’t have been lying curled up in a miserable ball on the street kicking like a spastic six-year-old. No. Dom would have ducked, slipped the punch, and then countered with some kind of combination. Dom would not have lost his composure. Dom would have stayed on his feet, grabbed Rick by the balls and squeezed them until tears poured from Rick’s eyes and he passed out. That’s what Dom would have done, what Fred should have done, what they should be showing on the national news, that you don’t fuck with Fred Gelman. But Fred had panicked. He had punched like a pussy. He had kicked like a girl. And a nation was watching.

  Dom was going to fuck Rick up. Dom would do for Fred what Fred couldn’t do for himself—get Rick’s testicles between his brutish, boxer fingers and clamp down tight.

  “C’mon, Dad,” Holden said, “lighten up.”

  “The kid’s right, Fred,” Arnie added. The fawning little prick. Fred couldn’t believe this dipshit dick-in-the-air was taking care of his son. The guy still had a ponytail, for Chrissake. Fred wanted to get the kitchen shears and lop it off. Mincing spineless little toady.

  “Just want you to know, Arnie,” Fred said, “it won’t be long before Holden will be living on his own, then I’m cutting off your stipend and you can try working again for a living. Toothpaste. Right, Arnie? Isn’t that what you used to do? Commercials for toothpaste? Close-ups of Close Up? And how many takes to get the little bit at the end curled up just right, that perfect crest of Crest? A hundred and twenty? A hundred and twenty takes of fucking toothpaste being squeezed on a toothbrush! Mr. Toothpaste. Isn’t that what they called you in the biz? Huh? Huh Arnie? Huh, Mr. Toothpaste? So shut the fuck up.”

  Arnie hung his head like a little kid. Fred had no pity.

  “And as long as you’re in my house, Mr. Toothpaste, get rid of that ponytail. Now go to your room, and don’t come out until you cut it off.”

  “I won’t be talked to like that,” Arnie said, but he was already easing his way out the door.

  Jesus, things were totally out of control. Fred hit the remote and turned off the TV. Unison groans of protest issued forth from his progeny.

  “Dad!”

  “It’s not healthy to watch your father getting beat up,” he told them.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Owen said, hanging his head. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Yeah, well, you should have thought of that before …” And he was about to say, before you whacked your friend over the head. Jesus, how could he think that? How could he believe his own son was guilty? Wasn’t there something which prevented those thoughts from occurring? Some parental instinct insuring that, no matter what happened, Fred would always believe his son to be innocent? But Fred knew he had the uncanny ability to override any parental instincts, spending their birthdays closing deals instead of helping blow out the candles, sleeping through Holden’s school plays, coming late for little league. Any parental instincts he had left were now just broken and rotting stumps.

  “I gotta go lie down,” Fred said. “My head is throbbing.”

  He went down the hall to his bathroom.

  Fred dug out his cell phone and called Sheena, waking her up. He told her to get on the next plane and come see him. He’d booked her into a suite at a posh little hotel on Madison. Then he called Marjorie, just to touch base. Maybe she had seen the news and would take pity on him, invite him over, but she wasn’t in her room. She was probably moving to the new hotel. The same one he just told Sheena to go to. That would be convenient.

  Then he called Douglas and, after threatening to fire him and find a new lawyer, got Dom’s number. He wanted to talk with the ex-boxer directly. He turned on the television, saw himself again, on the pavement, being kicked in slow motion. Rick wasn’t even in jail, wasn’t being held, his grief excusing his violence, mitigating it. In the top corner of the screen they showed a photo of Holden, almost as if he were looking down at his own father and watching as he got the shit kicked out of him.

  He called Dom, left a message on the boxer’s machine concerning Rick and what he wanted done.

  The message was short and sweet.

  It hadn’t working out quite the way he’d planned. Beating up that man, the father, wasn’t enough. Rick needed a gun. So he had gotten into his Saab and driven up to Harlem.

  They were supposed to have guns in Harlem. He heard about it in the news, read about it seemingly every day in the papers. The problem of too many guns on the street. Well, he’d been driving for an hour already, he’d been looking in the street, he didn’t see any guns or anyone who looked like they might sell him a gun. Maybe it was too early in the day. Or something. But all he could think was that someone was doing some serious false advertising.

  He turned onto 123rd and Lenox. He was trying to figure out why the street was lined with trees, why the brownstones had flower boxes in the windows. A man was sweeping the sidewalk. Sweeping! What was the deal here? This was supposed to be Harlem—burned-out buildings, people living in empty lots under lean-tos made from scavenged pallets. He drives up to Harlem to get himself a gun and instead he finds a page out of House & Garden. Where were the crackheads? Where were the young thugs, the pockets of their leather jackets filled with semiautomatic weapons instead of slingshots? The young boys carrying .22s instead of baseball gloves? He figured that once he was above 125th Street they’d be selling Saturday night specials at stands on the corner like hot dogs, from blankets spread on the sidewalk, in the grocery right next to the milk and orange juice. He could get the bullets from candy dispensers instead of gum or M&Ms. Or they’d give them as change instead of pennies.

  One lousy gun was all he wanted.

  But there were no gun stands, no vendors. This wasn’t any way to run a business. No salespeople on the floor? A customer waiting, a customer cruising in a white Saab and no one trying to help him? This was a joke. What was going on? He wanted service. He wanted to speak to someone.

  Where was the manager?

  He turned south and drove slowly around Marcus Garvey Park. Parks were good. Kids with malicious intentions hung out in parks, waiting for someone who wanted to buy a gun to pull up to the curb. He cruised slowly around the perimeter, staring at everyone he passed, getting curious looks in return. (Curious, but not suspicious.) Maybe they thought he was a cop. Maybe they thought he was a pimp looking for some new talent, a real estate agent looking for cheap property, a slumlord checking on his buildings. He drove by an old lady pushing a shopping cart filled with laundry and thought she must have pistols folded in her towels, bullets in the washcloths. He drove past a guy in splattered overalls carrying a gallon of house paint in each hand. He surely had a couple of .22s in each can. Why wasn’t he selling? Why wasn’t anyone open for business today? It wasn’t Sunday. He read every day about some heinous crime committed by someone with an illegal handgun. Where were they?

  Jesus Christ, where were all the guns when you needed one?

  The newscasters made it seem like any twelve-year-old who wanted one could buy a gun. Well, maybe Rick needed to find himself a twelve-year-old to buy one for him.

  His son had been murdered. He should get some kind of dispensation. A coupon good for one gun at any street corner in Harlem. He was entitled to whatever he wanted.

  My son was murdered! I just want a gun! I’m entitled!

  He banged on the horn, pummeled the horn, the Saab bleating his pain to the world.

  In a far corner of the park he saw some boys hanging out, looking his way, attracted by the horn. They were in their early twenties. That was good. Early twenties, black kids. A few even had their hair in cornrows like Latrell Sprewell. That suggested anger. Antisocial hatred. Now he was getting somewhere.

  He pulled up to the curb near where they stood and rolled down his window. The young men stared at him through hooded eyes. Rick waved to one of them, beckoning him to the car. They didn’t move. No one moved. What was going on? A white guy in a Saab wants something, you’d think they would jump at the chance. It was only then that he realized he should probably be a little bit nervous, being alone in Harlem. But he wasn’t. There was nothing to be scared about, because the bigger fear, that he wouldn’t avenge his son’s death, that he would do nothing, that he would live the rest of his life seen by Ellen as the man who did nothing, that fear eclipsed any other.

  Finally one of the kids sauntered over to the car. Rick could see tattoos on his arm, earrings dangling from both ears.

  “You 5-0?” the kid asked.

  “No. I’m Rick,” Rick said. “I want to buy a gun.”

  “A gun.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “I have cash.”

  The kid raised his eyebrows.

  “Cash is cool,” he said. He scrutinized Rick, then the car, searching for clues which only he understood. He looked around, down the street, up to the rooftops.

  “Let me see some ID,” he said.

  Rick showed him his driver’s license. The kid examined it carefully.

  “You are Rick,” the kid said.

  “I told you,” Rick said.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Rick,” the kid said, pronouncing it very properly, his imitation of a white guy. “How are you this fine day?”

  “What about the gun?” Rick asked.

  The kid thought for a moment, then leaned down and spoke in a soft voice, his lips quite close to Rick’s ear.

  “I tell you what,” the kid said. “For two hundred dollars I can sell you some loaves of bread. Now if there happens to be something else inside that shopping bag with the bread that I didn’t notice, well I guess that would be just a lucky accident.”

  The kid smiled. Bright white straight teeth. A radiant smile. Rick smiled back. He wanted Ellen to see him, the way he was taking control, making something happen.

  “I could use some loaves of bread,” Rick said. “About two hundred dollars worth would be fine.”

  “Let me talk to some of my boys,” the kid said. “Be back here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, and by the way, Rick, you prefer Wonder or Pepperidge Farm?”

  Chantal was on the couch, her mom on one side, her dad on the other. She held her favorite stuffed animal in her arms. Across from her sat the woman detective. Garcia. She spoke with a slight accent. She was youngish and wore a bit too much makeup. She made a big deal about pulling the armchair close to the couch, like they were in cahoots together, the girls against the boys, maybe. While Garcia was dragging the chair over, the gray jacket she wore over the matching skirt shifted slightly and Chantal could see she had a gun on her hip.

  The other detective, Ward, stood near the window, away from them, but not too far away. Listening. Mr. Bliss, Julia’s father, was apparently waiting outside.

  Garcia wanted to know what she remembered about the party.

  She described coming into the townhouse, seeing Ben in the fur coat.

  “Did Ben say anything to you then?” Garcia asked. “When he was dressed in the coat?”

  “No,” she said. “Nothing special.”

  Come into my furry lair. My furry lair.

  “Did he seem worried? Preoccupied?”

  “Not really.”

  Let me kiss the ring.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  “No.”

  I love you, Chantal.

  But after that, the party was kind of a blur. She recalled dancing with Malcolm, but the rest of it wasn’t there, in her head, the way her memories usually were.

  “Did you have a lot to drink?” Garcia asked.

  “No,” Chantal said. Then to her parents, “Really. I’m not just saying that. But I remember feeling really weird.”

  Detective Ward then came forward and whispered something in Garcia’s ear. Garcia nodded.

  “How many drinks did you have?”

  “One, I think,” she said.

  “Did you make it yourself?”

  She tried to remember. At his parties, Owen kept everything in the kitchen. She didn’t remember going into the kitchen.

  “I don’t know.”

  “So someone might have made the drink for you.”

  “I guess.”

  “What do you usually drink at parties?”

 

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