Adrian Del Valle - Diego's Brooklyn Read online

  “I was considering giving it to the police.”

  Smiling dismissively at her son, she shook her head and said, “Geeve eet to dee po-lice? No, no, no! They will have a big party with thees moe-ney, Diego. Go get dee moe-ney. We will do notheeng until we theenk abou’ thees.”

  Somewhat relieved, Diego left for the top floor. He silently passed 2A, with Mary’s snores reverberating on the other side of the door. He climbed the ladder and pushed the lid quietly to the side. Next to the chimney, he stood motionless for a moment with an image of his mother’s face when he finally put the money in her hands. He reached for the cap stone.

  “So now we’re going to find out what was so interesting up here…right, kid?” Scanlon stepped out from behind the chimney of the connecting roof next door.

  Diego’s head jerked around. Seeing the cop, he pulled away from the brick chimney and stepped toward the back of the building.

  “Well, now…so what have you been doing up here, huh, kid?”

  “N…nothing, looking for pinky balls, that’s all!”

  “Pinky balls? Oh, you mean those little rubber balls?”

  “Y-Yes. We keep losing them and they’re always getting hit up here.”

  “Oh! Right, right, right! So that’s why you come up here?”

  “Yes, officer.”

  Sympathetic, Scanlon softly added, “I see. Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.”

  The cop casually approached and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. His voice sounded low and eerily soft, the vibratos, spaced and resonant. “Ya see…I’ve been up here lookin’ around for a while. Funny…I didn’t see any balls anywhere up here. In fact, the roof’s as clean as a whistle.”

  Slam!

  Scanlon punched Diego in the stomach so hard it knocked the wind out of him. The boy doubled over and sank to his knees.

  Standing over him with disdain, the cop said, “See that, kid, I can hurt ya where nobody would ever notice it. I ain’t playin’ with you no more, I know you found the money and I want it. Right now!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Diego gritted his teeth and clutched his stomach.

  “You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Now, stand up.”

  Diego gradually got to his feet, and not one step from the back edge of the roof. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but his gaze kept shifting from the cop to the chimney, back to the cop, back to the chimney, back to the cop…

  “What are you lookin’ at?” Scanlon yelled.

  He scoured the roof, staring with inquisitive, glaring eyes. He turned to the boy and then back, but nothing was amiss, other than the opened hatchway.

  “Stay right there! Don’t move!”

  As the cop neared the chimney, he continued to look scornfully at Diego. He searched around and behind the bricks and the rest of the roof. “What’s over here, you little spic bastard. You better tell me or I’ll break every bone in your fuckin’ body. You hear me?”

  Diego, nurtured in obedience, didn’t budge. All he could do was hope that the cop didn’t look inside the chimney.

  Returning to it, Scanlon tapped the outside for loose bricks, all the while watching Diego for a reaction. When he reached the top, the boy twitched and nervously looked away.

  “Whoops! Huh? Did you say something?” The cop’s thin lips stretched into a grin. He felt along the cold surface of the capstones, turned toward the boy and said, “It’s here somewhere, isn’t it?”

  Leaning over the chimney on his forearms, he looked down the dark shaft, leaned forward and loudly exclaimed, “Well, well, well…what do we have here?”

  Scanlon’s voice echoed back from the depths as if it had returned from a deep cavern somewhere within the bowls of the earth.

  Reaching in, he pulled up on the rope and grabbed the steel box with his right hand while removing the capstone with his left. His joy suddenly turned to anger as soon as he looked back at the boy. A boy who’s lowered gaze played nervously on the dusty blackness of the tar roof.

  “I wonder what this could be?” Scanlon dropped the capstone on its flat side next to Diego. He opened the steel box and unraveled the brown paper. “Well I’ll be!” The cop’s overly, stretched grin returned.

  Fingering the bills, he knew immediately that it had to be the money the mob was missing, ‘though hiding the find from everyone else would be another matter. Who, besides the kid knew it was here—his mother, his fat, chubby friend, or perhaps both? The thought troubled him.

  “You know what? I knew there was something up with you when I saw you and your mother in church yesterday. Been spending this money, huh?”

  He slammed the lid closed and set it down on the roof, not far from the capstone. Scowling, he glared at the boy—a boy who was still looking downward without knowing what was to come next.

  The cop growled under his breath. For, what he saw was neither a boy, nor innocence, but only something that stood in his way—a lowly subspecies of little worth.

  The cop sneered. “You little shit!” There was no other way; he had to get rid of the problem.

  Afraid to get hit again, Diego squatted low and covered his head from the blows he knew would come raining down at any moment. He clamped his eyes shut, his mind completely void of anything other than the pain he would soon have to endure from the cop’s pounding fist.

  “You little son of a bitch! You thought you were going to keep all of this money, didn’t you, you spic bastard. Who the hell do you think you are that you should take it all for yourself?”

  Emboldened by his own words, the cop’s heart began to race from the thought of what he knew had to be done. He backed away a step and turned toward the front of the building.

  As hard a man as Scanlon thought himself to be, and was, doing the inevitable would be no easy task. He faced the boy once more, ready to put an end to the whole inconvenience. Stepping forward, his right shoe came down on the sharp corner of the steel box.

  Diego jumped quickly to the side as the cop stumbled toward him. At that same moment, Scanlon’s left shoe came down on the end of the capstone. His ankle twisted precariously, and ‘though he tried to regain his balance, the forward momentum forced him over the edge.

  “AGHHHHHHH!”

  Scanlon’s cry lasted a full second and a half. His neck hit the chain link fence three stories below, severing his blue uniformed body from his head. The body landed in the landlord’s tomato patch, with the head falling into the yard next door. It rolled with a spray of blood across a stone patio, sending the neighbor’s German shepherd to the far corner of the yard with its tail between its legs.

  Opening his eyes, Diego stared past his feet and into the yard. The horror of what had just happened frightened him so much, he froze there for a long while, unable to move. He glared intensely at the body dressed in blue, headless and lying within the remnant, grey stubbles of the tomato plants. The sight sickened him. He checked across the yards to the back of the houses on the other side and at the only windows he could see. Hearing nothing and seeing no one, he picked up the box and headed for the opened hatchway.

  Mary!

  He couldn’t go back the way he had come. He had to think. There was another way down. He used it before when playing ring ‘o levio, a hide and seek game that utilized the entire block as a playing field. And like that game, he crossed every roof on the block toward Bond Street. There, he climbed down a fire escape into someone’s yard, jumped a fence and strode casually through an empty lot to the street as if nothing had happened.

  Ding! Dong!

  Larry answered the door. “Diego! Whassup, Pal?”

  “Hey man, I never thought I’d be this happy to see you.”

  “Huh? What did you say?”

  “Um, nothing Larr. You mind if I hang out for a little while?”

  “Of course not. Say…you’re sweating bullets. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m all right. This jacket’s too warm, that’s why.
I’ll take it off.”

  “I’m watchin’ Roy Rogers.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “What’s in the box, Dieg.”

  “Uh…nothing! My diary, why?”

  “So, why’re you carrying a diary around?”

  “In case I want to add something important.”

  “Oh! What’re you writin’ about?”

  “Me! What else! It’s a diary.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. But what’s it say?”

  “I can’t tell you. A diary is supposed to be private.”

  “Yeah, I guess so…sorry.”

  6:32 P.M. 240 Dean Street

  The Front Stoop

  “Who called this in?” said Detective Williams to O’Brien.

  “Some lady removing clothes from the line. She said she thought it was some of her clothes, you know, blown off the line by the wind? She freaked out when she took a closer look over the fence and saw Scanlon’s body laying there without a head.”

  “I’d be shocked, too. Where’d they find it?”

  “The dog! He was chewing on it by the back fence. Our guys nearly had to shoot the damn thing in order to get it away from him.”

  “Well…here we go again. You take downstairs, Don, and I’ll see if Mary saw anything. You bring pictures?”

  “Yes, but I only have one set.”

  “Let me show them to Mary so I don’t have to go up again.”

  “Sure! What’s in the bag?”

  Ted opened a brown paper bag and showed him the packages of Twinkies crowded inside. “Don’t ask!”

  “I won’t.”

  Inside Mary’s room, Ted handed the bag to her. “I brought you these.”

  “Thank you, detective. I heard about the cop they found in the yard.”

  “So you know why I’m here?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “How did you know about the cop?”

  “I heard some cops in the hall talking and remembered seeing one go up to the roof earlier. So, when they were in the hall…”

  “Start from the beginning, again, Mary. You saw a cop go up to the roof…what time?”

  “I woke from my chair this afternoon and…”

  “What time.”

  “I didn’t look at the clock.”

  “Then, take a guess.”

  “Well, it was before the boy, downstairs, went to the store for me.”

  “Okay, then, it had to be around 3:00 when the kid came home from school?”

  “Yes, your right. Actually, it was before that, maybe 2:45-ish?”

  “Go on.”

  “I heard someone come up the stairs. I went to the door to see who it was.”

  “And?”

  “It was the cop. To tell you the truth, I was kind of glad, you know, with everything else that’s been going on around here?”

  “Sure…did you get a good look at his face?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him before.”

  “Oh! Where?”

  “On the street from my window, and also the same day the maintenance man was here.”

  “Val…the one who fixed the doors!”

  “That’s right.”

  “If I show you some pictures, do you think you could identify him?”

  “The cop? Yes. I think so.”

  Williams took out six pictures of policemen in uniform and placed them on her lap.

  Mary looked at each one carefully and stopped at the fifth one. “That’s him! That’s the one that was here both times.”

  “Both times? You’re sure?”

  “Yes! Once, when the maintenance guy was here and then again today, like I said.”

  “And you’re absolutely positive about that?”

  “I’m positive, and the other day, the maintenance guy read the name on his uniform out loud. It was Bob something.”

  “Bob Scanlon?”

  “Yes! That’s it…Bob Scanlon.”

  “Okay, that matches the name of the cop in the picture you just picked out. How about this last time, was there someone with him?”

  “No, I didn’t see anyone…only him.”

  “Not the maintenance man?”

  “Definitely not! After the cop went up to the roof, I went back to my chair and fell asleep.”

  “Did you actually see him climb the ladder?”

  “Yes.”

  “By himself?”

  “Oh, absolutely!”

  “Did you hear anything after that?”

  “No…like what?”

  “Like anything!”

  “No, I dozed off.”

  “Did you hear yelling or people talking up there?”

  “No! When I woke up, the TV was still on, so I watched the news, and later on I heard an ambulance outside and then some people in the hall right after that. Well…the police I mean. You know, in the hall. I was by the door.”

  “The Keyhole!”

  “Yes. That’s how I knew about the cop in the yard. I heard them talking.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did the kid go up to the roof?”

  “I don’t think so. I probably would have heard him if he had.”

  Williams toyed with his mustache while remaining focused on Mary. After a long pause, he finally said, “If you remember something else about that kid or anything about what we talked about, give me a call.

  8:32 P.M. The Roof

  “Where did Lieutenant Abrams go?” asked Captain Malone.

  “The Deli to get something to eat,” said Don.

  “He still has an appetite? Good for him. Did anybody talk to Scanlon’s wife?”

  “We’re getting ready to drive over there, now,” said Williams.

  The captain shined a flashlight on the capstone. “This was here all this time?”

  “Right there inside the chalk mark, Cap.”

  “Okay, what else ya got. Anyone see anything?”

  O’Brien shook his head no, his lips pushing sideways into his cheek as he flipped through the pages from his notes. “No one downstairs saw or heard anything. Nope! I got nothing concrete, Cap.”

  “What about you, Williams, was it Scanlon, yesterday?”

  “With the maintenance guy? That was Scanlon all right. We interviewed Val Castillo at his Hardware Store up the street on Nevins. He said Scanlon had to write a report. A description of the rooms, he said.”

  “Bullshit! He had no business up here. The Barnes case was nearly closed at the time, wasn’t it?”

  “Not totally.”

  “I’m not talking about City Hall and the 18th. I know all about that. I’m talking about right here!”

  “Right, Cap. Yeah, we were done interviewing the building. Forensics was done, also.”

  “Okay, so apparently Scanlon was on the hunt for the money?”

  “That’s what we figured,” said Don.

  “Did we get any prints off the stone?”

  “No, too porous. They got some off the ladder though…and the hatch. The ones on the ladder were from Scanlon of course and some contamination from the cops that first answered the call. We also have Joe Barnes and a kid from downstairs on both the ladder as well as the metal hatch.”

  “What kid?”

  “Uh…a kid named Diego Rivera who lives in 1A with his mother.”

  “How big is this kid? What do we know about him?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Cap, but he’s only fourteen and about this short.”

  “When was he on the roof last? You interviewed him, didn’t you? What did he say?”

  Don took out his note book and flipped to the page.

  “Monday, April 24th, 240 Dean Street, apartment 1A. Spoke to…”

  “Stop! Stop! I don’t need all of that! I only want the time. When did you speak to him?”

  “Oh! Almost two hours ago…6:43…in his apartment.”

  Good! And what did he say?”

  Don continued to read from
his notes:

  Likes to watch pigeons on roof across yard

  Looks for pinky balls on roof

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah! How about today…like this afternoon? Was the kid up here?”

  “I was coming to that. I wanted to first verifying why we found his prints on the ladder.”

  Don read on:

  Spent afternoon at friend Larry’s house after school

  Watched Westerns from 3:20 until 6:00

  “Okay…so you checked that all out and the boy claims he wasn’t up here?”

  “Yes, and that Larry kid’s mother was home at the time. She backed up his story, and besides her, Mary, the lady in the front room, according to Ted here, saw Scanlon go up to the roof before 3:00…by himself.”

  “2:45,” Detective Williams added.

  Malone took off his captain’s hat and ran his gloved fingers through greying hair. He glanced at the pigeon coop, all settled in its glow from a street light, and then stepped to the edge. Below, the neighboring yard was softly illuminated by a night lamp inside a kitchen window. In its expose lay the shepherd, curled tightly into a ball.

  “Hey, so forget that. But, are you guys thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

  “He tripped on the capstone all by himself!” Williams said, matter of factly.

  “Exactly! Scanlon was up here looking around, for what else…the money, right?”

  “Right!”

  “Right!”

  “He doesn’t see the stone, or forgets that it’s there, and over he goes.”

  “Then, how did the capstone get from the chimney to the back end of the roof?” said Williams.

  “Barnes! Who else! You said Scanlon came up here alone, right?”

  “That’s what Mary said, but that doesn’t explain the capstone. Somebody else had to be up here at one time or another.”

  “The kid!” said Don.

  Malone put his hands on his hips and stared into the distance. “Maybe! Did you ask him?”

  “He doesn’t remember seeing it there.”

  “When did you say the kid was here last?”

  “I didn’t!” Don checked his notes, turning and tracing the pages quietly with a moistened fingertip. Finally, he found what he was looking for. “Oh…okay…what I wrote down was that it was a couple of weeks ago. The kid doesn’t remember exactly when.”

  The captain, his hands now clasped behind his back, stared into the yard.