Prosecutor's Office at Cadman Plaza over in downtown Brooklyn, I'd been his boy. Most of '01, '02, we worked out of Police Plaza in the city, we worked on terrorism. Things moved on, Lippert formed his unit on crimes against children.
Working on cases connected with children was what made Sonny Lippert nuts. It put him out on a fragile emotional limb, it caused his divorce, it made him febrile. Again I wondered why the bloody clothes had been left where they'd be so easily found? Was that the point? Was it planned? Was it the result of some crack-addled brain, another case of child abuse, another case where someone used a kid as a punching bag, a way to express a hideous rage? It didn't feel Russian; the Russians rarely did anything except for profit; even revenge had pretty much disappeared as a motive. The new age of Russian crime was entirely invested in money, and though you occasionally ran into someone who still cared about the myth, it was mostly the dough. Where was the profit in killing a little girl then burying her bloody clothes? I was still half convinced Lippert had over-reacted. No body. No report. No nothing except the clothes.
I hit the gas harder and slipped my Getz/Gilberto album into the CD slot. People put it down, the album; they said Stan Getz sold out when he got together with Joao Gilberto and the record sold millions. Snobs those people who loved jazz only if it was Ornette Coleman making weird noises. I listened to the warm music; it was sublime is all.
The music was sweet. Once I would have fantasized about Brazil, going there, hanging out, eating the food, going to Bahia and Rio, meeting the girl from Ipanema. All those years I wanted to travel, to be able to just go. I didn't care anymore. I didn't want to leave New York. I had been, Moscow, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Vienna, Bosnia, you know? Made up for lost time. No more.
I ran my hand along the cream leather seat of the red Caddy I'd bought with a windfall I got a while back. It was in the shop more than out, but I loved it. I had a good sound system put in. Lily had been embarrassed by it, but Maxie loved it; to her it was great, luxurious, easy riding. The kids could fool around in the big back seat.
It was almost new, big and smooth as silk. It was the kind of car—a Cadillac—I had wanted from the time I was a kid in Moscow and I saw one in a picture in an illicit copy of Life magazine someone sold me in my school's toilet. The toilet was the center of commerce for Moscow kids in those days.
It was Saturday, but I called Sonny's office and got Rhonda Fisher, his assistant, and she said there was nothing yet, Lippert wasn't back from Coney Island, there were no formal reports in, and I asked if she'd let me have whatever had come, fax, e-mail. I lied and told her Sonny said it was OK. Rhonda said if she could find anything she'd drop it off at my place because she was meeting her sister at a play in the city. I said could she drop it with Mike Rizzi at the coffee shop, and we stayed on the phone exchanging banalities about logistics until I hung up and called Mike and asked him to give Rhonda key lime pie on me. Lemon meringue, if he was out of key lime.
And then there was Ivana Galitzine with the gray eyes and the lithe body. I couldn't shake her image.
"Will you invite me for coffee again?"
7
Put on the TV! Put the TV on!
It was late Saturday afternoon and I was at Mike's coffee shop, listening into my cell phone and yelling out to Mike who was frying bacon for a BLT for me on the griddle.
Turn on the TV, and he reached up to the set he kept on a shelf over the glass case of green melon slices and red Jello; he switched it on in time for us to catch a glimpse of Sonny Lippert and me in Coney Island.
I sat on my stool and stared at the TV and thought about how often I'd heard it, someone calling: Put on the TV. Last time, a few weeks earlier, Mike turned it on and we saw the shuttle fall from the sky. It fell invisibly,
Working on cases connected with children was what made Sonny Lippert nuts. It put him out on a fragile emotional limb, it caused his divorce, it made him febrile. Again I wondered why the bloody clothes had been left where they'd be so easily found? Was that the point? Was it planned? Was it the result of some crack-addled brain, another case of child abuse, another case where someone used a kid as a punching bag, a way to express a hideous rage? It didn't feel Russian; the Russians rarely did anything except for profit; even revenge had pretty much disappeared as a motive. The new age of Russian crime was entirely invested in money, and though you occasionally ran into someone who still cared about the myth, it was mostly the dough. Where was the profit in killing a little girl then burying her bloody clothes? I was still half convinced Lippert had over-reacted. No body. No report. No nothing except the clothes.
I hit the gas harder and slipped my Getz/Gilberto album into the CD slot. People put it down, the album; they said Stan Getz sold out when he got together with Joao Gilberto and the record sold millions. Snobs those people who loved jazz only if it was Ornette Coleman making weird noises. I listened to the warm music; it was sublime is all.
The music was sweet. Once I would have fantasized about Brazil, going there, hanging out, eating the food, going to Bahia and Rio, meeting the girl from Ipanema. All those years I wanted to travel, to be able to just go. I didn't care anymore. I didn't want to leave New York. I had been, Moscow, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Vienna, Bosnia, you know? Made up for lost time. No more.
I ran my hand along the cream leather seat of the red Caddy I'd bought with a windfall I got a while back. It was in the shop more than out, but I loved it. I had a good sound system put in. Lily had been embarrassed by it, but Maxie loved it; to her it was great, luxurious, easy riding. The kids could fool around in the big back seat.
It was almost new, big and smooth as silk. It was the kind of car—a Cadillac—I had wanted from the time I was a kid in Moscow and I saw one in a picture in an illicit copy of Life magazine someone sold me in my school's toilet. The toilet was the center of commerce for Moscow kids in those days.
It was Saturday, but I called Sonny's office and got Rhonda Fisher, his assistant, and she said there was nothing yet, Lippert wasn't back from Coney Island, there were no formal reports in, and I asked if she'd let me have whatever had come, fax, e-mail. I lied and told her Sonny said it was OK. Rhonda said if she could find anything she'd drop it off at my place because she was meeting her sister at a play in the city. I said could she drop it with Mike Rizzi at the coffee shop, and we stayed on the phone exchanging banalities about logistics until I hung up and called Mike and asked him to give Rhonda key lime pie on me. Lemon meringue, if he was out of key lime.
And then there was Ivana Galitzine with the gray eyes and the lithe body. I couldn't shake her image.
"Will you invite me for coffee again?"
7
Put on the TV! Put the TV on!
It was late Saturday afternoon and I was at Mike's coffee shop, listening into my cell phone and yelling out to Mike who was frying bacon for a BLT for me on the griddle.
Turn on the TV, and he reached up to the set he kept on a shelf over the glass case of green melon slices and red Jello; he switched it on in time for us to catch a glimpse of Sonny Lippert and me in Coney Island.
I sat on my stool and stared at the TV and thought about how often I'd heard it, someone calling: Put on the TV. Last time, a few weeks earlier, Mike turned it on and we saw the shuttle fall from the sky. It fell invisibly,
Similar Books
