The Finder

8

You do what you gotta do, and he was going to do it. Ray pulled his truck into the beach parking lot just as the sun went down. There was nothing special about the place except for the vista of water in front of it and a few red-hulled container ships out on the horizon. Trash and bottles. The kind of place teenagers used for drinking and screwing around, like he'd done when he was a teenager. Why would Jin Li be here with two Mexican girls in the wee hours of the night?

He parked in the far corner of the lot, away from the few cars there. He'd waited until dusk because he didn't want people to see him, and anyway, it was dark in the storm drains all the time. The lot was large enough that it had eight drains, and the question, he supposed, was where they went. Pete Blake had said they emptied into a gulley. Under most circumstances in New York City the drains would empty into the sewage system. But the elevation of the parking lot was four or five feet lower than the parkway fifty yards back and itself not much higher than the waterline, which meant that in a heavy fall storm when the tide was high, the waves probably flooded the parking lot. You couldn't have seawater draining into the New York City sewage system.

Each side of the lot had four drains, two on the corners and two centered in the middle. There was indeed a gulley of brackish water parallel to the lot, and Ray stepped through the high weeds and found a sizable pipe of corrugated aluminum. It was screened. He detected a thin whiff of excrement. He walked back to his truck and retrieved a pipe wrench and hacksaw from his toolbox. The pipe wrench was useless on the screen bolts, which had long ago rusted tight. He dropped into the grass. A sediment of rotted organic matter pressed against the screen. No one, including any New York City detectives, had opened that screen in a long time. But the screen mesh would be easy to cut. He sawed a large upside-down U and pulled down the flap. He peered in with the light. A long, dark, tight colon of a tunnel. The idea of crawling into it sickened him. But I'm just fucking crazy enough to do it, Ray thought. Plus my father was a great detective. He'd be doing this if he could. He left the tools on the grass, set out his flashlight ahead of him, and crawled in, the flap in the screen snapping back after he let it go.

Go, Ray, go, he chanted. The storm drain was a standard three-foot width that rose steadily as he crawled. The bottom of the drain was silted with sediment, as if he were crawling along a moist streambed. His pants were soon damp and then soaked through. The light revealed leaves, trash, and at least one dead squirrel. He came to a juncture where the large pipe split in two pipes, one going left, the other right. These, he assumed, drained from the two sides of the lot. Which one should he take? His nose told him the answer. The one on the left smelled of shit, plain and simple. He crawled into it and found the smell getting worse. He estimated that he was halfway to the parking lot. The firemen washing out the car would have run their hoses long enough to clean off the lot but not so long that they would driven the excrement all the way through the drains. The subsequent rainfall had been light, but even a few hours of it would have created a fair volume of runoff.

He crawled farther. If he switched off the light, the corrugated tunnel was completely dark. A wet, increasingly odorous dark. He switched his light on again and then began to find what he wanted to find. A tampon. A cigarette butt. He shined his light on the bed of the pipe and saw a toothpaste cap. What do people put in toilets besides waste? Damn near everything. He noticed a scrap of paper and picked it up. Too dark to see what it was. He stuffed it in his pocket. His coat would smell of shit when he was done, he knew. He crawled farther. Saw another scrap of something and put that in his pocket. The flashlight now revealed a long slick of rotting excrement, perhaps six inches deep, and at the far end, perhaps seventy feet away, a tiny square of pale night light where the drain opened to the world above. He would have to crawl seventy feet through shit. But guess what? he said to himself. This is nothing. You've seen much worse, pal. Just use some of the usual tricks. He pulled out two plugs made of tissue paper that he had dipped in mentholated jelly and put these into his nose. Then he unwrapped a wad of pepper gum and started to chew it. Last he pulled an air filter mask around his head. Just do it, Ray told himself. He shimmied forward on his belly, inspecting the detritus lodged in the shit. More tampons, then a baby's pacifier. People drop things in the toilet and think they magically disappear. He pulled a wiry thing and out came a woman's eyeliner brush. He dropped it and moved on. He came upon a slip of paper, a soggy colored napkin, and stuffed both into his pocket. Something else with numbers on it. Into the pocket. As he approached the tiny square of light, the shit became deeper, clogging the drain enough that he couldn't go farther. He reached out with his gloved hand and swept it across the shit. He felt three things. He pulled them to the flashlight. One was the end of a man's necktie. He discarded it. The second item was a dead mouse. A mercy he couldn't smell it. And the last item, he reminded himself. To the left. He swept his hand over the muddy shit until his finger found a child's sock. Useless. He stuck it in his pocket anyway.

He had reached to within ten feet of the drain and could even feel a weak draft of air from it. But the pipe was now clogged with vines. He took one last look around before retreating. What was this? A wet wad of shitty napkins with some kind of writing on them. He stuffed them in his jacket. Time to go. The pipe was too tight to turn around in, so he dutifully shimmied backward, feet first, until he reached the larger storm pipe, and there he could pull himself into a cannonball position, rotate, then shimmy face forward as the pipe fell in elevation before him. Downhill went much faster. He pulled himself through the U cut in the screen, then lay in the grass a moment, next to the tools he'd left there, apprehending how much human excrement he had caked on his knees, thighs, stomach, chest, forearms, and gloves. It was on his mask, cheeks, and forehead.

Things could be worse.

Back at the house, he removed the items from his pockets, set them on the back porch, then stripped to his underwear, left his clothes and shoes outside, and went into the house. After showering and pulling on clean clothes, he placed the items in a pan of warm water, rinsing off the shit and mud that adhered to them. With a bit of soap, the sock proved to be white, with ROBERT PETROCELLI JR. hand-lettered in indelible ink on the sole. The napkins were all cocktail napkins, the kind found at better restaurants. They were printed Jeannie amp; Bill's Wedding and, below that, Sammy's. A wedding reception. The paper with numbers on it was a credit card receipt issued to one Flora Silverman. Another piece of paper proved to be the soggy business card of one Fareed Gelfman, a sales associate at a used car emporium in the Bronx. On the reverse was written "Call me at home" and then a cell number. The last piece of paper was crumpled around a wad of chewing gum. The paper was so saturated that to pull on it would tear it. This Ray took to the kitchen. He put the wadded-up piece of paper on a plate and set the plate in the microwave. Ten seconds was probably enough to loosen it. When the timer went off he removed the plate and set it on the table, where he gently pulled the edges of the paper and found a photograph of a skinny white man with dozens of ear piercings performing fellatio on an obese black man. Very interesting, except that it was useless to him and he crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash.

The other pieces of information might tell him something. He made a big cup of coffee, then got out his father's old street maps of Brooklyn and Queens. Both were served by the municipal sewerage system, but to the east, as the two boroughs met Nassau County and building lot sizes got larger, making the transition from dense row housing to the classic suburban grid, some houses and businesses still used septic tanks. He looked up Robert Petrocelli and found one listed in Ozone Park, Queens. He marked the Petrocelli address. Then he looked up Flora Silverman in Queens and Brooklyn. There was no listing. But the place of business on her credit card receipt was a sushi restaurant in midtown Manhattan. The sewage certainly hadn't been picked up in midtown Manhattan. She'd crumpled up the receipt and thrown it into a toilet in Queens or Brooklyn. Not much to go on. He looked up the name on the next piece of paper: Sammy's Catering and Music Hall, We Do-Wop Weddings, Anniversaries, Bar Mitzvahs, Birthdays. This address was a mere nine blocks from the Petrocellis, also in Queens. My shitty information is pretty good, he thought.

He dialed Sammy's and spoke to the receptionist. "Hi," he said. "I'm new to the neighborhood and I saw you do a big business."

"We're always busy," came the reply. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, actually I'm wondering if you can recommend a sewage service."

"This some kind of joke? It's eight o'clock at night!"

"No, no joke. I saw you had a truck out there maybe a week ago and I can't remember the name on the side and figured if you used a service it would be-"

"We mostly use Victorious," said the voice. "Sometimes Town Septic. I can't remember who it was last week. It's a big truck, that's all I can tell you."

"Thanks," said Ray.

Next he dialed Fareed Gelfman.

"Yo," came a voice with rap music in the background.

"I'm trying to reach Fareed Gelfman."

"He's in the hospital."

"What?" said Ray.

"Yeah, some dude went upside his head, beat him down bad."

"Why?"

"Oh, you know Fareed, man. He's alway poppin' on the women. Seems he gave his business card with his cell number on it to some girl who had a boyfriend and the dude went apeshit on him."

"Where'd she live?"

"With her boyfriend. Queens, Brooklyn, some shit like that."

"Thanks." Ray hung up. He dialed the Petrocelli number. A little girl answered.

"May I please speak to your mother or father?"

"Wait a minute."

"Yes?" came the voice of a busy woman in her forties.

"Mrs. Petrocelli, I'm calling from Town Septic."

"Yes? So late?"

"I'm wondering if you would consider using our services."

"We always use Victorious. Says Vic's on the side of the truck. Annie, go wash your face."

"I realize that, but I hope you'll consider our services."

"Vic's has same-day pump-out. We have pipe problems in the basement, and with all the kids, it clogs up."

"I see."

"We been using them for years. Also, Richie plays on my husband's softball team. Annie, you're a mess."

"Richie?"

"The driver for Vic's."

He sipped his coffee. "I see."

"So I'm sure your prices are like competitive and all, but we're not interested." She hung up.

Crawl around in some shit and you learn some things, he thought. He went back to his father's phone books. There were eight Vic's in Queens, but none were sewage operations. Brooklyn had twelve businesses with the name Vic, including barbershops and deli and pizza places, and one of them was Victorious Sewerage, located in Marine Park-not exactly close to the service addresses in Queens.

He dialed the household he'd called earlier.

"Hello?" came the voice of an exasperated mother. "What is it?"

"Hi, I called from Town Septic, earlier."

"I thought we were done."

"I'm just calling to clarify. You use Victorious Sewerage in Brooklyn?"

"Something like that. They got trucks all over out here. I have no idea if it's Brooklyn. Now please don't call again, I got kids to put to bed."

He hung up.

"I want the report," came a voice from the living room.

He found his father lying back staring at the ceiling.

"I crawled in, found some stuff. They suggest a Brooklyn company called Victorious Sewerage."

"Local?"

Ray told him about the map and phone calls. "Maybe I should tell Pete Blake."

His father waved a disgusted hand. "He'll figure it out sooner or later. Plus, you don't know much, anyway."

"I know the shit probably came from pipes or septic tanks cleaned by this Victorious operation."

"You go there tomorrow, ask questions, find this Richie guy."

"Just walk in?"

"Yeah, just walk in, Ray. Find him, follow him. Exactly what I would have done."

Ray studied his father. This was the face my mother kissed as a nineteen-year-old, he thought, this was the face that had walked the beat, voted for Nixon in '72, with most of America, then been glad when he resigned, who had questioned hundreds of suspects, heard every line of bullshit and weaseling, was an awkward dancer and a moderate drinker, a man who often visited his wife's grave, took a little fold-out chair and battery radio with him, sat there an hour listening to the Yankees game, his hand on the tombstone.

"Dad, you need a shave."

His father grunted. "You drinking coffee?"

"Yes."

"Gimme some of that. Haven't had coffee in-"

"Is it all right?"

"What's it going to do, kill me?"

He handed his father the cup. He drank slowly. "Mmn."

"What'll it be, electric razor or a blade?"

"Blade. Who is the barber?"

"Me."

He got a basin of hot water and a towel and shaving cream and a safety razor. He wet half the towel and softened up his father's face. His father closed his eyes and sank back into his pillow. "Feels good," he muttered.

Ray lathered up his father's neck and cheeks. It had been many years since he'd touched his father's face so much, maybe since he'd been a boy.

"You know, I worked a lot of missing persons cases," his father began, as if he'd been thinking of Jin Li since the morning. "Maybe forty or fifty. And what you see with them is that the people who are missing because they are hiding don't stay hidden for very long. They start moving around, they get restless. Folks get-"

"Hold still." Ray went under the chin with the safety razor.

"— lonely. I used to map out who a person knew, who the family was, the best friends, the old girlfriends."

The coffee was making his father talkative. "So how does this apply to Jin Li?"

"There's no family in the city?"

"No. She's from China."

"Friends?"

"I didn't know her very long before she broke it off."

"Boyfriends?"

"I have no idea."

"How long from the moment you met her until the first event in the bedroom Olympics?"

Ray remembered. "Two days."

"Don't think you get any credit for that, either." His father rolled his eyes toward the window. "Has orgasms easily?"

He nodded, feeling too embarrassed to say this to his father. "Do I get any credit for that?"

"No, of course not. It's the woman, always. How long was she in the country before meeting you?"

"Three, four years, maybe."

"Pretty girl, new in town, lonely. There've been plenty of guys, is my guess. She might have gone looking for an old boyfriend."

The idea made him wary. "Maybe."

"Easy on the cheek there. You see her apartment?"

"Little place way up in the nineties on the East Side. Very small."

"Not in Chinatown."

"Hated Chinatown. Too Chinese."

"Anything in her apartment?"

"Usual stuff. Dresses. She spent most of her money on clothes."

"No car?"

"No."

"Did you ever stay in her apartment?"

"Lots of times. Ate breakfast out."

"What did she read?"

He patted his father's cheek. Smooth. "Everything. She reads English perfectly."

"But spoken not so good."

"Spoken very good. It's the pronunciation that is hard."

"The palate hardens at some young age."

"She can understand any spoken English, except perhaps any really hard accents, like a deep Southern accent."

"So really she could go anywhere in the States easily enough." His father lifted the coffee cup again.

"That's what I'm saying."

"Did she have a secretive nature? Don't think, just answer."

"Well-"

"Just answer yes or no."

But before he could, Wendy came in, her long shift about to end. "Coffee!" She turned on Ray. "He can't be drinking coffee!"

"I asked for it," said his father.

"I am sorry!" the nurse said to Ray. "I think you just don't understand here. I think you need to be a little more sensitive to the situation. I realize that you have not spent much time with people who are"-she glanced at Ray's father-"who are sick and dying, yes, we can say that, but-"

"What was that?" croaked Ray's father suddenly. "What did you say about my son?"

The pretty young nurse turned to him and spoke more gently. "I said, I know he has not spent much time around people who are-"

"That's exactly what I thought you said." His father lifted both arms in excitement, pulling on his tubes, turning his fevered eyes directly upon her. "Let me tell you something, lady, my son Ray there has spent years around the dead and dying, he has seen fields of the dead, laid out in rows by the hundreds, burnt, crushed, drowned, he has seen the dead buried by the thousands, he has held the tiniest little babies that were-"

"Dad, Dad, that's enough!"

His father glared at the young nurse, who, for her part, looked at Ray in stunned wonder, at last realizing-as had another woman a few nights earlier-that she had no idea who he was.