The Devil_s Garden

THREE

Two hours after the party ended, after the crowd had departed and the mess had been cleared, Michael and Abby sat their daughters down for a solemn talk about the ground rules regarding their new little cars: no driving anywhere near the street, helmets always and, most importantly, no driving after more than two glasses of grape juice.

Michael thought his line was funny; Abby was not amused. She was not all that happy with her brother.

Michael pushed the cars to the double garage. The evening was quiet. The evenings were always quiet here. Through the trees he could just make out the lights from the Meisner house a quarter-mile north.

He tried to find parking spots for the little pink Jeeps in their already cramped garage. When he moved a pair of old bi-fold doors, he saw it. It was the sign from the window of the bakery. As always, it dragged his heart and mind down a long corridor of remembrance.

When Michael’s parents Peeter and Johanna Romanov immigrated to the United States from Estonia in 1971 the world was a very different place. The Soviet Union was still twenty years from collapse, and the process of escaping an Eastern Bloc country was both dangerous and expensive.

They settled in Astoria, Queens, in a small apartment over a shuttered retail store on Ditmars Boulevard near Crescent Street.

In July 1973 Mikhail Romanov was born at Queens Hospital. The next day Peeter applied to have the family’s last name changed to Roman, figuring that, as the Cold War still raged, his son would not be served well by such a Russian-sounding name, especially one so patrician.

Two years later, with a credit union loan, Michael’s parents bought the retail space beneath their apartment, and opened a bakery. Word quickly spread among the local Estonian, Russian, and eastern European residents of the neighborhood. On a block that boasted both Greek and Italian bakeries there was now a place where one could purchase fresh brown breads, gingerbreads, piroshkis, rugalah and, every Easter, their beloved kulich. Patrons no longer had to travel to Rego Park for their kartoshka.

But what made the Pikk Street Bakery special – the shop was named after the street in Tallinn on which Peeter had proposed to Johanna – was its old-fashioned wooden shelves, its linen tablecloths, is luminous display of candy bins stuffed with an unbounded selection of gaily wrapped confections, which turned the place into every child’s fantasy.

Perhaps what made it even more special, especially for the young mothers in the neighborhood, was Johanna Roman’s exquisite Estonian lace. Michael’s fondest memory of his mother was her sitting on the fire escape in spring and summer, her steel needles blazing, chatting with neighbors, her tapestry bag at her feet, the tote with an Estonian cottage embroidered on its side. Booties, blankets, hats, sweaters, especially her delicate Haapsalu shawls – Johanna always gave away whatever she knitted.

Her nickname for Michael – a private nickname, one Johanna never uttered in front of Michael’s friends on the block – was nupp. A nupp was a particularly difficult maneuver in knitting, one that required the left-hand needle to penetrate five stitches. Some women in Johanna’s circle called it “Satan’s contribution to knitting,” but Johanna Roman always meant it as a term of endearment.

Good night my little nupp, she would say to her handful of a son.

Michael always slept well.

In 1980, on a blustery winter day, Michael arrived home from school to find a stranger in their small kitchen above the shop, a large rockpile of a man, with a wide forehead, zinc-colored eyes, and a deeply cleft chin. He wore a pilled woolen coat and boots gone round at the heel. He ate sardines from a can. With his fingers.

The man was Solomon Kaasik, his father’s childhood friend from Tartu. Peeter Roman had sponsored the man’s voyage to America.

Every Sunday, for many months, Solomon would come for Sunday dinner, often with a small present for Michael, never without something to add to the stew. He would drink Turi vodka and smoke cigars with Michael’s father well into the night. Some evenings he would play chess with Michael, sometimes letting the boy win.

In the spring of Michael’s eighth year, Solomon ceased visiting. Michael missed his loud laughter, the way he would throw him on his broad shoulders with ease. Finally Michael asked. His father did not answer him, but eventually Johanna took Michael aside one day and told him that Solomon had fallen in with some bad people, the local vory. Michael was not sure what the vory were exactly, but he knew to be afraid of them. After much nagging, Peeter told Michael that Solomon had gotten involved in the robbery of a bank in Brooklyn, a robbery where people had died. He said Solomon was now in a place called Attica and he was not coming back for a long time.

Although deeply saddened by these events, Peeter Roman visited Solomon often. When Michael turned nine, his father talked the guards into letting Michael see Solomon. To Michael, Solomon looked thinner, but harder. He had new markings on his arms. He no longer smiled.

On July 4, 1983, just a few weeks before Michael’s tenth birthday, he sat in the window overlooking Ditmars Boulevard. Below him, neighborhood kids threw cherry bombs, M80s, fired bottle rockets. Michael was forbidden to leave the house unaccompanied by his parents – there was always a story of a child losing a finger, an eye, something worse – so Michael leaned as far as he could out the window, the smells of spent gunpowder filling his head. The shop closed at seven PM. Every few seconds Michael would glance at the clock. At seven sharp he ran down the stairs.

At first he thought he had mistakenly taken the back stairs, for he heard none of the familiar sounds – the pans being washed and put away, the sound of the Hoover being run, doors locked, register closed out. But he was on the front stairs, and the shop was quiet.

Something was wrong.

Michael crouched on the stairs and looked into the shop. The plastic OPEN sign had not been turned around on the door. The neon display in the window still glowed.

By the time Michael rounded the platform at the bottom of the steps, he saw it. It was a picture that would live in his mind and heart forever.

The bakery was covered in blood.

Behind the counter, where his mother always stood, chatting with customers, filling white boxes with pastries and rolls, her laughter a sweet song soaring over the sounds of traffic on the street, the entire back wall had been painted crimson. The cash register had been pulled from the counter, and lay on its side, emptied, like a gutted dog. Michael saw his father’s creased brown shoes, ever covered in white flour, sticking out from behind the main oven, all around them thick dots of scarlet in the spilled sugar.

His heart black with fear, Michael crossed the room to where his mother lay bleeding. She did not open her eyes, but in the moment before she died she whispered softly to him.

“Zhivy budem, ne pomryom.”

It was an old Russian phrase meaning If we will be alive, we will not die.

Only much later would Michael learn what had happened. He would learn that two young men – not neighborhood men, Ukrainian men from somewhere called Red Hook – had come into the shop and demanded money. Once they had everything in the register, they cold-bloodedly shot Peeter and Johanna Roman. The sounds of the gunfire were masked by the sounds of the fireworks. While Michael sat upstairs, resenting his parents for being so old fashioned as to not let him play with fireworks, they lay below him, his father dead, his mother dying. Even at the age of nine he vowed to never forgive himself.

The police investigated the crime, but after six months or so the case went cold. Michael was taken in by cousins. He withdrew completely in his grief and sorrow, into the worlds of Jack London and Zane Grey. He didn’t speak for nearly a year. His grades suffered and he grew terribly thin. In his eleventh year he began to come out of it, and it was during that summer that news came to his household. Michael overheard his cousins talking of a grisly discovery made by police. It seemed that two men were found hanging from a girder beneath the Hell Gate Bridge near Nineteenth Street. The men were naked, brutally beaten, and had their genitals removed. Carved into their chests were two numbers: 6 and 4.

The address of the Pikk Street Bakery was 64 Ditmars Boulevard.

When Michael turned eighteen, and began what would become monthly visits to play chess with Solomon Kaasik, a tradition the two men maintained for many years, he walked into the room, met Solomon’s lupine eyes and, with a slight nod of Solomon’s great jaw, Michael knew. It was Solomon who had put the hit on the two men. Although Solomon could have revealed this many years earlier, he had waited for the right time. He had waited until Michael was a man.

It was in this moment that Michael Roman considered, for the first time in his life, the true heart of justice, both old world and new.

Twelve years later, on a frigid Bronx thoroughfare, when his world exploded and white fire rained down around him, Johanna Roman whispered to him once more, this time from beyond the grave, and Michael realized that these things were one and the same.

Abby was prone on the bed, reading the Daily News. In the corner of the room was a five foot pile of presents. Sitting on the bed, Michael kissed her on the back of her neck. Michael Roman loved the back of his wife’s neck.

“Man, look at all this loot,” he said. “Maybe we should have a party for them four or five times a year.”

“You just want one of the iPods.”

It was true. Michael was still using his battered Sony Walkman. And listening to the New York Dolls to boot. He had to get with the times. “You know me too well.”

“It’s a living.”

“Are they asleep?”

Abby laughed. “They ate a pound of sugar. They’ll fall asleep sometime in August.”

“I suppose I have to call and thank your parents.”

Michael was kidding, and Abby knew it. Dr Charles and Marjorie Reed were in Austria, or Australia, or Anaheim – it was hard to keep track of them. But they had sent checks for Charlotte and Emily, $10,000 each, earmarked for their college funds. Abby’s parents had always been a bit cool toward Michael. They were never crazy about their blue-blood daughter marrying a lawyer, especially a civil servant lawyer. But if Michael had to choose between seeing them, or padding his daughters’ college fund, there was no contest.

“I’ll let your conscience be your guide on that one,” Abby said.

Michael flopped back onto the bed, turned on his side, facing his wife. “Do you think they had fun?”

“Four year olds always have fun, Michael.” She stroked his hair. “They would’ve had fun with a cardboard box and a broken frisbee. Besides, the party wasn’t for them, you know.”

“It wasn’t?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “My love, you are so naive.”

“Who was it for?”

Abby turned to face him. His skin was clear and pale, with the lightest powdering of freckles, her eyes the color of semi-sweet chocolate. She had her ash-blond hair pinned up, but some of it had escaped, and now softly framed her face. She still looked at least five years younger than she really was, but her experience – the practice of holding life and death in her hands for almost a decade – had brought something to her eyes that spoke more of wisdom than age. She still gave him butterflies. “It was for all the other mothers on the street, of course. It’s a competition.”

“What kind of competition?”

Abby sat up, energized. “Okay,” she began, counting it off. She’d obviously given this some serious thought. “Number one. The catering. Did we have expensive catering – as in did we just go with the hot dogs, mini-burgers, and pizza – or did we spring for the chocolate fountain? Two. Do we have eucalyptus outdoor furniture or did we go for the teak? Three. Do we have an in-ground or above-ground pool? Four. Did we have a band or just the clown -?”

“I have to tell you, that was one weird frickin’ clown,” Michael said. “Miss Chicken Noodle 1986.”

“I think she was non-union.”

“But we did have a pony. Don’t forget the pony.”

“The pony was a big plus.”

“Even though he crapped in the azaleas.”

“Ponies will do that.”

“Man,” Michael said. “I had no idea about any of this.”

Abby touched his cheek. “My city boy.”

Michael glared. “City boy? City boy? Didn’t you see me with the Weed Eater out there this morning? There is not a man in any one of the five boroughs who can handle a piece of lawn maintenance equipment like that.”

Abby smiled the smile, the one that always started a shiver somewhere around Michael’s forehead and traveled to all regions nether. “Yeah, well,” she began, moving closer, looking at his lips, “I’ve always said you were a man who could handle his equipment.”

Michael smiled, kissed his wife on the nose, got up, bolted into the bathroom, brushed his teeth. When he came out, Abby was sitting up in bed. The only thing she wore was a beautiful navy blue silk tie. It still had the price tag on it.

“That’s the one?” Michael asked.

Abby nodded. It was a ritual for them. Before every big case she would buy him a new tie, a lucky charm to wear during his opening statement. She had not failed yet. With Abby’s magical neckwear Michael had a 100 per cent conviction rate.

“Professor Roman?” Abby asked, gently unknotting the tie and placing it on the nightstand.

“Yes, Nurse Reed?”

“I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

Michael pulled off his shirt. He now had on just a pair of light green hospital scrubs. “Of course.”

“Which of the Bronte sisters’ books would be your favorite?”

Michael laughed. “Well, let me think about this for a second.” He slipped out of his scrubs, under the sheets. “I’d have to say my favorite would be the one about Jane Eyre’s sister Frigid.”

Abby snorted. “Frigid Eyre?”

“Yes. It’s the story of a homely English girl’s quest for sexual adventure.”

Abby shook her head. She put her arms around Michael’s neck. “I can’t believe we never made the connection. Charlotte and Emily. I mean, how many years of higher education do we have between us? Fifteen?”

Of course, for Michael, this was not a rare occurrence. He was twenty-nine before he realized that the ABC song was the same melody as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. In his time he had once prepared a closing argument in a homicide case in less than an hour – with a vicious hangover, no less – and could recite the contributors to Black’s Law (Eighth Edition) by rote. But the subtleties of “Twinkle, Twinkle” were lost on him.

The subtleties of Abby Roman’s body, however, were not.

Midnight. Michael stood in the doorway to the girls’ room. Abby had been right. The girls were both still awake. He entered the room, kneeled between the beds.

“Hi, Daddy,” Charlotte said.

“Hi ladies,” he said. “Did you guys have fun today?”

They both nodded in unison, yawned in harmony. Sometimes they were so different in their outlooks, their problem-solving skills, it was as if they were not even related. Charlotte with her ability to divine logic from chaos. Emily and her sense of color and flair for the dramatic. Other times, most of the time, they seemed to be of one mind, one heart, even more so than the connections that bound most twins.

Michael glanced over at the corner of the room. Their little table was set for tea. It was, as always, arranged for three people. They never put a stuffed bear or bunny in the third chair. It was always just empty. It was one of the many mysteries that were his daughters.

He turned back to the girls as Charlotte pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She crooked her finger, beckoning Michael forward, as if to share a secret. He leaned between the two girls. They often did this when they wanted to tell him something together, an exercise that often ended with a kiss on each cheek. The kiss part was supposed to be a surprise.

“What is it?” Michael asked.

“Ta tuleb,” the two girls said softly.

At first Michael thought he misheard them. It sounded as if they’d said “tattoo” or “the tool.” Neither interpretation made sense. “What did you say?”

“Ta tuleb,” they repeated.

Michael leaned back, a little surprised. He looked back and forth between his daughters, at the four big blue eyes in the soft blush of the nightlight. “Ta tuleb?”

They nodded.

The phrase brought Michael back to his early childhood, to evenings above the Pikk Street Bakery, nights when he would be reading comic books while he was supposed to be doing his homework. When his mother, looking out the kitchen window, her long steel knitting needles in hand, saw Peeter Roman turn the corner onto Ditmars Boulevard, she would yell “ta tuleb!” up the stairs, and Michael would immediately get back to his studies.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Charlotte and Emily looked at each other, shrugged, slipped under the covers. Michael took a moment, still a bit bewildered. He tucked the girls in, planted kisses on their foreheads.

On the way out of the bedroom he stood at the door for a moment, thinking.

Ta tuleb was an Estonian phrase.

His daughters did not speak Estonian.

Michael walked into the small room on the first floor that served as his office, flipped on a light, opened his briefcase. He studied the photograph of Falynn Harris. She was only fourteen.

Falynn was the daughter of Colin Harris, a Long Island City florist who had been gunned down two years ago in April, murdered in cold blood by one Patrick Sean Ghegan. Ghegan, along with his younger brother Liam, were the demon spawn of Jack Ghegan, a former mid-level Queens mobster currently doing life-plus in Dannemora.

Falynn, who was sneaking a cigarette behind the store, saw the whole thing go down through the back window. She was so traumatized by the horror of the crime she had not said a single word since. And she was the state’s star witness.

Michael Roman had won RICO cases, had prosecuted some of the most hardened career criminals ever to pass through the New York state legal system, had successfully tried two death penalty cases, including the infamous Astrology Killer, had more than once reached for something that far exceeded his grasp, only to thrive. But this one was special. And he knew why. He had lobbied long and hard to get it.

The question was: Could he get Falynn to talk to him? In the next forty-eight hours, with the specter of Colin Harris standing over them, could he get her to remember?

If we will be alive, we will not die.

Coffee. He needed coffee. This was going to be a long night.

On the way to the kitchen he stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced up at the slightly ajar door to his daughters’ room.

Ta tuleb, he thought.

It was an Estonian phrase that meant: He is coming.

As Michael Roman entered the kitchen and took the French press out of the cupboard, a question flitted around his mind like a gypsy moth drawn to a light bulb.

Who is coming?