Bronx Noir

She set it for the last weekday afternoon game of the season—so they would do it before his compañeros came around, before all the junkies were up and looking for their next fix. The weather had finally broken, and there was the first taste of fall in the air. The day was cool and overcast and he remembered that she looked more beautiful than ever, wearing a short baby-blue rain slicker over her shirt and shorts. It was also the first time that he could remember seeing her nervous—looking up repeatedly at the gray, swirling skies, wondering if the game was going to be called.

They had gone to the upper deck as always, and there, to his amazement, she handed him one of Roberto’s .38s, wrapped in a brown paper bag—the weight of the gun surprisingly, thrillingly heavy in his hand.

“You got this from him?”

“Tha’s right. You know how to use it?” she asked him, her face more serious than he had ever seen it.

“Course I know how to use it!” But he was still worried. “Don’ he got more?”

“Not anymore,” she told him, pulling back the edge of the baby-blue rain slicker, showing him the handle of another pistol shoved into the belt of her shorts there. His stomach nearly convulsed, but the sight of it there both excited and comforted him, knowing that they would be doing this together.

She waited until the Yankees began a rally, got a couple men on. Then she stood up abruptly, motioning for him to hurry.

“C’mon. We don’ know how much time we got.”

He saw that she had already plotted the best, quickest route out of the stadium, past the perpetually broken escalators. They were back on the street within seconds, legging their way rapidly up the hill on 158^th. Luis had felt his knees shaking under him, hoping it wasn’t visible to her—consumed by that falling sensation again.

They reached the building and ducked down the metal steps at the side, walking under a brick archway to the courtyard. She had gone first along the littered path, telling him to wait in case Roberto was watching. But they could already hear the whine of his saw, knew that he was preoccupied with his mysterious work. They could hear another sound as well. The noise of the crowd from the stadium beginning to rise—a short, tense, staccato cry, signaling something good; a hit, a walk, a rally in the offing. She looked back at him and bit her lip, touching the handle of the gun at her side.

“Hurry,” she ordered.

They went in the basement door, Mercedes first, Luis following. The whine of the saws stopped, and now Luis could only hear the noise from the stadium, gathering, growing. He could see Roberto in the far corner of the basement working on something over a pair of sawhorses. He slowly unbent and turned to face them as they came in, scratching at his hairy stomach. He looked as if he had just gotten up, Luis thought, his eyes squinting dully at them through his hideous insect glasses.

“Wait for it,” Mercedes told Luis.

“What? Wait for what? What he want?” Roberto asked, looking back and forth, from one to the other.

Mercedes didn’t answer him, only wandered casually off to one side, pretending to look at something, so that they formed a triangle with Roberto at the top. She put her hand on her hip—and then Luis could hear it. The cheers like waves, louder even than the blood pounding in his head. That low prolonged hiss, like the first lap of the waves coming in—

He thrust his hand inside the paper bag, felt the handle of his .38.

“Wha’s that? Money?” Roberto’s eyes gleamed with a sudden interest.

Luis said nothing, using the growing noise to slip the safety off. Feeling her eyes on him from the shadows across the room.

“What you doin’ here anyway?” Roberto turned his gaze on her, his brow creasing with suspicion. “You supposed to be at the game.”

Luis let the paper bag float to the floor, raised his arm. Roberto waved a hand at him dismissively, his eyes still on her.

“You go away, come back later. I don’ do business in the day,” he said.

That’s when the wave crashed over them all, the noise from the stadium suddenly one long, atavistic roar. He aimed the .38 at Roberto’s chest and fired, then he walked forward, firing again as fast as he could, making sure to steady the gun with both hands. The first shot tore through Roberto’s hairy bull chest and spun him around. The second one ripped into his back just under the shoulder blade, the third going through his neck and spraying a geyser of blood against the wall as Roberto fell forward over the sawhorses and Luis realized that he was almost on top of him, where his body was jackknifed like the butchered hogs that Luis loaded onto the trucks all day.