LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 22

"Well, it sounds like you're doing a wonderful job. Tell me more."

"Let's see." Frank stretched on the bed, reveling in Gail's voice. "It's been a h.e.l.luva couple weeks. For that matter, a h.e.l.luva last six months. I wonder what I'd be doing right now if I hadn't called Joe that night."

"I can guarantee you wouldn't be talking to me."

"Or sleeping in a cop's guest room in New York, and certainly not tracking down leads in my father's murder. It still sounds weird saying that. My father's murder. It's almost like having an out-of-body experience. I think I'm still kind of numb around it. And that's okay. I need some distance to be able to do this. But you know what? I didn't call to hear my own voice. Tell me about Gail."

"Gail's all right. It's nice to see Trina. I miss her. I should take a weekend off and go up to my mom's to see everybody."

"You should. It'd be good for you to get out of the morgue and spend more time in the fresh air. How much of that s.h.i.+t can you breathe before it gets to you?"

"Oh, come on. I'm lucky if I spend a couple hours in there. You know I'm always in a meeting or at the university or in my office. I'd love to be in there more."

"Well, I'm glad you're not. Can't be good for you."

"Hey, congratulations. When did you get your medical degree?"

"Same time you went into stand-up comedy." Gail laughed, making Frank smile again. "Think when I get home you can squeeze me in for dinner? Sometime between your day job and your night job?"

"I'll check my schedule," Gail a.s.sured.

"You do that. Let me know."

"I will."

To postpone hanging up, Frank asked how Gail's co-workers were, her boss, even her cats. When the clock on the nightstand flicked to midnight, she said, "I'd love to talk to you all night but I should let you get back to Trina."

"Yeah. We're going to watch a video. Romantic comedy. You'd hate it. You should get to bed. It's late there."

"Yeah, I know. See you when I get home?"

"You bet. Get some sleep, copper. Good luck tomorrow."

"Thanks. Say hi to Trina for me." There was a pause at Gail's end. Frank had seen the women in Gail's family close ranks around each other and she guessed they hadn't been happy about Frank dumping Gail. "Or don't," she added.

"Yeah. Maybe later."

"Right. Well, have fun."

"Okay," Gail answered softly. "Sleep tight."

Frank hung up, too wired to sleep. She paced the small room, sipping Perrier and pausing to write in her notebook or check her father's file. In between, she tried not to read too much into why Gail wouldn't say hi to Trina for her.

CHAPTER 38.

After Annie went swimming on Sunday morning she and Frank headed for the Baruch Houses. Frank asked, "Was that true what you told Cammayo yesterday, about wantin' to be a cop?"

Annie offered a crooked grin. "Let's just say I went to Brooklyn College and one day there was a car crash out front, okay?"

Frank tried not noticing the familiar sights outside her window. "So why did you?"

"Steady paycheck. Good benefits. Good pension. Somethin' different happenin' everyday. You?"

"Same," Frank fibbed.

Crossing Ca.n.a.l Street Annie asked, "You ever been in Baruch?"

Frank nodded.

"It's the largest public housing project in Manhattan. Got twenty-four hundred apartments."

"I know."

"How do you-? Don't tell me you lived in Baruch, too."

"Last two years of high school."

"Where else?"

"That's all. East Village, to Masaryk, to Baruch."

Annie went quiet and Frank liked it that way. Her eyes skimmed the skyline, refusing to dip to street level. Even after Annie parked Frank averted her gaze.

"What?"

"What, what?" Frank countered.

"Whaddaya lookin' for up there?"

"Nothin'." Frank got out. She let Annie lead the way even though nothing had changed in twenty-seven years.

A man in torn clothes started toward the detectives. Recognizing the car and making them for cops he retreated. The women climbed to the fourth floor and found the apartment they wanted.

"You okay?"

"Peachy."

Annie shrugged and rapped hard on the metal door.

"Who is it?"

"Police."

"Police?"

"NYPD. Open the door."

There was grumbling but after a series of locks tripped, a thin, ashen-skinned woman opened the door. Unkempt and red-eyed, she bounced in her own skin. A crackhead.

Holding her ID out, Annie asked, "Rosalia Calderon?"

"She ain't here."

"Are you Flora Alvarez?"

"Yeah."

"Can we come in a minute?"

"For what?"

"We'd like to ask you some questions."

"I ain't done nothin'!"

"Not about you. About an old homicide, when you would have been about five."

"Five?" came the shouted reply. "Don't know nothin' about no homicide when I be five."

"You might be surprised how much you remember. Can we come in?"

"I don't know." The woman looked over her shoulder, pulling at a twist of hair. From inside the apartment a television and a radio blared.

"I promise we'll only be a minute."

Flora pulled the door open.

"Do you live here?"

"Don't it look like it?"

As Frank took in the blankets on the couch, empty Rheingold cans and full ashtray, Annie asked, "How long have you lived here, Miss Alvarez?"

Flora raised a hand over the floor. "Since I was dis big."

"Would you have been livin' here in nineteen sixty-nine?"

Struggling to make the calculations, Flora finally agreed, "Yeah, I'd a been here."

"Who else was living here then?"

"My mother. My father was dead. He was a electrician. He got shocked to death when I was four. My brothers woulda been here." She scowled, reaching for a cigarette. "Pablo woulda still been here. Maybe. No," she decided, lighting her smoke and inhaling deeply. "He be gone by then. I remember he left in winter."

"Who's Pablo?"

"My brother."

"How many brothers do you have?"

"Two. Well, three, maybe. I don't know."

"You don't know how many brothers you have?"

Alvarez scratched under her hairline. "Pablo he took off in asixty-nine and we ain't seen him since."

"Why'd he take off?"

Alvarez shrugged. "Berto said a dealer be lookin' for him and he had to go. Owed the man lotta money is the story I always heard."

"Who's Berto?"

"Roberto. Roberto and Edmundo my brothers."

"You're sure Pablo took off in asixty-nine?"

"Yeah."

"And it was winter?"

Alvarez bobbed her head without hesitation. "Pablo had his own bed and when he left, I got one of his blankets."

Annie and Frank looked at each other.

"And no one's heard from him since?"

Alvarez blew smoke. "That boy prob'ly been dead a long time now."

"Why do you say that?"

"He a junkie," the woman stated wistfully. "A junkie ain't long for this world."

Alvarez's foot bounced and between drags she beat a steady tap-tap-tap with her cigarette on the ashtray.

Frank told her, "Describe Pablo for us. The last time you saw him."

"That was a long time ago," Alvarez answered, gazing back into the past.

"Try. How tall was he?"

"Taller than Berto, by a little. Skinny. He was always skinny but he got skinnier after the junk. He wunt light like me. He was dark, like our daddy. And handsome, too. Before the junk, I remember dat. He used to swing me around atil I be dizzy. He made me laugh. He made me a doll once. Outta wood. He liked to carve things. I remember dat. He be always carving some'tin'. He was nice. I liked Pablo."