Free Fresh Kills by Reggie Nadelson Page B

like to kill them,” said Bobo. “You know?”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œIs it a problem?” he said. “You want me to go back?”
    â€œYou think the glass could have been an aquarium?”
    â€œA what?” he said.
    â€œLike a tank for fish. A fish tank?”
    â€œSure, could have been.”
    â€œWhat did you do with it?”
    â€œI put it in with the other garbage. Is that OK?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhich kind of bastard did this, Artie?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. I didn’t want Bobo raising an alarm, so I added, “Maybe just some garbage man that was a slob, you know?”
    â€œYeah, Artie, that sounds like what it was.” He was eager to please me. “One other weird little thing.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œNear the glass I found this plastic, I don’t know, like a toy castle or something. That’s what it was, come to think of it, Artie, it was like this little toy castle with turrets and all.”
    Later that night, when Billy was fast asleep, I wandered around the apartment feeling restless. I turned the TV on, then turned it off, sick of the news. I put on a Stan Getz album called
Spring Is Here
that always made me feel better. Over the speakers was the photograph of Getz by Herman Leonard. Sid McKay had given it to me when I got married. Poor, dead Sid.
    Music still playing, I went and took a hot shower, made coffee. I wondered if I should take a trip out to Brooklyn to confront Stan Shank and knew it was a stupid idea. I had no realevidence it had been Shank who threw garbage on the Farones’ lawn.
    Let it go, I told myself. Leave it be. All I wanted was to protect Billy and he was safe now in the city, in my apartment, mine and Maxine’s and the twins’. I went and checked on him in Millie’s room where he was sleeping. He didn’t stir.
    There was plenty of space for him here. The girls could double up for a while. If things went OK while Billy was out of the facility in Florida, they might parole him. It was a fantasy, it wouldn’t happen, but I hated for him to go back to the place where he had nightmares about dying.
    I had called Maxine when I went to Florida to get Billy. I knew she didn’t like the idea of him and wouldn’t want him in the apartment, but she didn’t say it, assuming he’d be with his parents in Brooklyn. I didn’t mention he was with me. He’d go to Brooklyn Friday when Johnny and Genia got back. Maxine wasn’t due in until Sunday. Anyhow, maybe she’d change her mind when she met Billy.
    I wanted a drink, but there was no Scotch left and I didn’t feel like a beer. Being in the apartment without Max and the girls and the noise they made depressed me. I had hated leaving my loft for this apartment, but Maxie wanted it so bad. It was a condo with her name on the deed, a view of the river, a good school close by, a bedroom for each of the twins. She could walk to work, something she had never done in her whole life, she told me. She had always taken the train, sometimes two subways and a bus.
    I pretended to like it. She didn’t seem to notice – or maybe she didn’t mind – the thin walls, the cheap burgundy carpet in the hallways, the noise of the couple upstairs screaming at each other. To her, it was the best place she’d ever lived, and just coming home at night to Battery Park City and our apartment in a brand new high rise lit her up. I loved her loving it and I wanted to feel the same way. I tried.
    I went out onto the little balcony where, if I leaned over, I could see the river, the bike path along the Hudson, the young trees and grass that reminded me of the suburbs. Leaning against the railing, a boy and girl, maybe nineteen, twenty, were locked together munching on each other. I felt old. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. I went back into Billy’s room. In the living room I