Manhattan Is My Beat

"Right. Arnold Gittleman. Spinello and Gittleman testified against some syndicate guys in the Midwest."

"But if they already testified, why kill them?"

Sal laughed coldly at her naivete. "It's called revenge, sweetheart. To send the message that nobody else better talk. Anyway, Spinello took off-he didn't trust us to keep his ass safe and moved down to the Village on his own. Never told his handler about it. I was part of the team in the hotel in St. Louis guarding Gittleman." His cold eyes grew sad for a splinter of a second. Not an emotion he was used to, it seemed. "I went out to get some sandwiches and beer and those assholes got Gittleman and my partners."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged off the sympathy. "So I went undercover to nail the pricks." Sal looked at the house. "And we sure as shit did. Looks like they were the only ones too. We waited as long as we could here in case somebody else showed up. But nobody did."

"What do you mean, you waited as long as you could?"

He shrugged. "We've been cooling our heels outside here for five fucking hours."

"Five hours!" she shouted. Then it became clear. "I led you here! I was bait."

Sal considered this. "Basically. Yeah."

"You son of a bitch! How long've you been following me?"

"You know that old blue van in front of your loft? With all the tickets?"

"That was yours?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Sure."

"What'd you come up in my loft for? Earlier today?"

He frowned. "Actually, at that point, we figured you were dead. I was checking it out to see if your body was up there."

"Jesus Maria…" She nodded to the door. Ripped into him with a sarcastic "I hope when I escaped just now I didn't totally screw up your plans."

"Naw," Sal said, sipping more coffee. "It was good it worked out the way it did. They mtghfve used you as a hostage. It was-whatta you say?-convenient you got away when you did."

"Convenient?" Rune spat. "You used me. Just like Emily did. You followed me to Brooklyn to find out where Symington was. And you followed me here to catch them!"

Now Sal grew angry too. "Listen. For a week, I thought you might've been one of the hit team. Think about it. We have a city police report that you were on the scene just after the Kelly killing. Then, when I'm staking out the site of the hit-that tenement on Tenth Street-you go in. Then Spinello runs outside and vanishes, like you scared the crap out of him. And then we had more reports that somebody who fits your description,-except is about nine months pregnant-has broken into Kelly's apartment and ransacked the hell out of it."

"That wasn't me," Rune protested. "It was them."

"But you did break in."

"The door was practically open."

"Hey, I'm not after any B and E count. I'm just telling you why I didn't walk up to you and introduce myself. Shit. And when we figured out you were an i

"How were we supposed to know?"

"Anyway, yeah, they found your prints all over Spinello's safe house in Brooklyn. But we checked you out pretty good and you didn't seem like the sort that Haarte or Zane'd hire. I talked to Manelli about you and we decided you were pretty much who you seemed to be. Just a kid in over her head."

"I'm not a kid."

"Yeah, I wouldn't take points on that one. What the hell were you doing in this mess in the first place?"

Rune told him about Mr. Kelly and the money and the movie.

"A million dollars?" Sal laughed. "Gimme a break. Stick with lotto. Or numbers. Better odds, sweetheart." He nodded. "But, yeah, that's what Manelli was thinking-that Kelly's death was a mistake. Well, whatever… That woman's going down. It's the prosecutor's game now. Good thing we've got a star witness."

"Who?" Rune asked. Then, when he just gave her a wry look, she said, "Hey, forget it. No way. They'll send another Haarte after me."

"Hey, not to worry," Sal said, finishing the coffee. "The Witness Relocation Program, remember? You'll get a whole new identity. You can be anybody you want. You can even make up your own name."

Sal frowned: he must have been wondering why she was laughing.

"Well, what do you think?" Rune called.

She sat sidesaddle, five feet off the ground, on a huge armature that rose phallic and rusty from a complicated tangle of industrial machinery scrap. They were surrounded by piles of pitted chrome and girders, wire, wrecks of trucks, and turbines and gears.

Richard walked around the corner. "Fantastic."

The junkyard was off Seventieth, in commercial Queens. But it was oddly quiet. They looked west, at the huge slash of orange brilliance behind Manhattan, as the sun eased through strips of dark cloud.

"You come here much?" he asked.

"Only for the sunsets."

The light hit the twisted metal and seemed to make the different shades of rust vibrate. A thousand oil drums became beautiful. Spindles of twisted iron became filaments of light and coils of BX cable were glowing snakes. Rune said, "Come on up!"

She was wearing the Spanish outfit once more. Richard climbed up next to her and they walked along the armature to a platform.

They had a magnificent view of the city.

On the platform was an old picnic basket. A bottle of champagne too.

"Warm," Rune apologized, cradling the bottle. "But it looks classy."

When they'd snuck through the fence a half hour ago, Richard had gazed at the Dobermans uneasily and stood paralyzed when one sniffed his crotch. But Rune knew them well and scratched their smooth heads. They wagged their stubby tails, sniffing at the cold macaroni-and-cheese sandwiches Rune had packed in the basket before prancing away on their springy legs.

Rune and Richard ate until dusk. Then she lit a kerosene lantern. She lay back, using the picnic basket as a pillow.

"1 got another application to the New School," she told him. "I kind of threw out the one you gave me."

"You going to apply? For real?"

After a moment she asked, "I guess I'd have to take classes, wouldn't I?"

"It's an important part of going to school."

"That's what I figured. I'm not sure I'm going to do it though. I have to tell you." She snuck a furtive glimpse at his face. "See, this guy at the video store, Frankie Greek, remember him? Anyway, his sister just had a baby and she was a window designer and it turns out I can take her job while she's on leave. Only have to work half-days. Leave me free to do other stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"You know, stuff stuff."

"Rune."

"Oh, it'd be a radical job. Very artistic. In SoHo. Discounts for clothes. Slinky dresses. Lingerie."

"You're hopeless, you know that."

"Well, to be totally honest, I already took the job and threw out the other application too." She stared at the two or three stars whose light was bright enough to penetrate the city haze. "I had to do it, Richard. I had to. I was worried that if I got a degree or anything I'd get to be, like, too literal."

"We couldn't have that, could we?"

Then the stars were blocked out completely, as Richard leaned over her, bringing his mouth down slowly on hers. She lifted her head to meet him. They kissed for a long while, Rune astonished that she could be aroused by someone wearing a button-down shirt and Brooks Brothers slacks.

Very slow, it was all very slow.

Though not like slow motion in a film. More like vignettes, frame by frame, the way you'd hit a VCR pause button over and over again to watch a favorite scene.

The way she'd watched Manhattan Is My Beat.

Freeze-frame: The cloth of his collar. His smooth neck. His paisley eyes. The white bandage on her hand.