Blood Count

CHAPTER 26

V irgil Radcliff caught up with me as I was leaning on a railing across from the Armstrong overlooking Jackie Robinson Park, trying to catch my breath, get some air.

“Hey.” Virgil leaned next to me and lit up a cigarette.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Upstairs,” he said. “I got my car out back, and when I was pulling onto Edgecombe Avenue, I saw you. What’s going on?”

All the time I had been on the roof, then with Celestina Hutchison, he had been with Lily.

“I thought you had a bunch of fucking cases to work?” I said.

“I had to take a break. I’m going to be on all night,” said Virgil. He looked up. The snow had finally stopped; the temperature had dropped. “Jesus, it’s cold.”

I didn’t know if Lily had told him about Simonova’s letter, that the Russian had left her everything. I didn’t feel like sharing, not then.

“How do you think Lily is doing,” said Virgil.

“I don’t know. You?”

“I think she’ll be fine once the funeral is over. Tomorrow, it’ll be better,” he said and then I knew she hadn’t told him, not about the letter, and I wondered why.

“I have to go,” said Virgil. “You have my numbers if you need me, right? Listen, Artie, you should go the party with Lily. I’ll probably be working all night.”

Nice to have the boyfriend’s permission, I thought.

“If you drive, take it easy. Lot of black ice under the snow.”

“Right.” I knew he wanted something.

“Streets up here can be bad. Hills, inclines can deceive you. Weirdest damn thing happened on election night, you know? Just a few blocks south.”

“What’s that?”

“So, there was this van that was parked on that street, and some asshole left the hand brake off, and it just slid down the street, and around the corner.”

I didn’t say anything.

“There was nobody in it. Nobody. It was just this empty silver van.”

“So?”

“I think we caught most of the event on camera. Not usually a lot of cameras up around here, nobody bothered for a long time, but that night there were plenty. We think some film crew caught it-they were passing, filming on their way to 125th street, and they caught it.”

“I have to go.” I was going home to change for the party, to look good for Lily.

I looked at Radcliff. He’d mentioned the silver van casually, brought it up almost as an afterthought. But why? Did he know I’d been there? Was my red Caddy-you couldn’t miss it-on a piece of tape, caught by some passing film crew by chance on election night? I’d half forgotten the fucking thing, out of control, passing me like some crazy ghost van.

Did Radcliff want me to know he knew, without actually saying it? Why? To put me on edge? Was he fishing? Was it just conversation?

“No kidding,” I said. “Yeah, weird, right, so see you.”

“Worse, Artie. I was telling Julius Dawes over at my house the other day you know, we were talking about it, how this van just keeps going, gets up speed, turns the corner and pins a young guy against a lamp-post.”

Dawes, I thought. Dawes had mentioned my car, the paint on my car.

“And?” I turned up my collar, tried to stay cool, though I could see in Radcliff’s face something bad was coming, some piece of news I didn’t want to hear.

“It kills him,” said Radcliff. “Even if it was an accident, even if it was just some fool left a hand brake off, or a drunk in another car who nudged the van out of place and set it rolling, we’re into vehicular homicide. Either way, I mean, that’s jail time, Artie, isn’t it?”