LUSH LIFE

Lush Life by Richard Price: Novel about a homocide investigation set in the lower east side of Manhattan. "I like hanging around with cops doing patrol because it's like being a suba diver, you see deep underwater stuff about the city that you never would have seen otherwise.”





“This city,” Lester Kaufman said, one knee crossed over the other, a cuffed hand dangling languidly from the restraint bar, “people are doing so well, you know? But you can't ask them for shit anymore. It's never been so bad.”

Matty grunted in sympathy.

Clarence had told Matty that the first thing this guy had said when he grabbed him after the attempted purse snatch in front of Berkmann's was “Let me go and I'll tell you who shot that white kid.”

“I swear, man,” Lester said to Matty for the tenth time in the last half hour, “I just said that like in a panic. Like the first thing that came into my head. What's left of my head.”

Unfortunately, Matty believed him.

Lester yawned like a lion, revealing a dull steel ball pierced through his tongue.

Iacone, roused from sleep for this, yawned in response.

“But I'll tell you, man. I'm really worried about my girlfriend. I gave her a hundred dollars to get me something, you know, get me well? She said fifteen minutes, then left me standing there three hours. I had no idea where she went, what happened to her. Fifteen minutes...I mean I never would have done that if she didn't leave me there like half the night watching everybody coming out of that place for smokes, drunker and drunker, half the damned bags right on the sidwalk.” Another titanic yawn, the dirty, dull tongue-pierce winking.

“Sucks,” Iacone said. Strapped for a partner, Matty had cajoled him out of the bunk room with the promise of overtime and an easy commute.

“I mean I'm fucked, I know it, but can you just check your computer, see if she's in the system? I'm hoping she just got collared, nothing worse, but...”

"What's her name?”

“Anita Castro or Carla Nieves.”

Iacone rose and went to the screen on Yolonda's desk.

“Where'd you get a hundred dollars, Lester?” Matty asked.

“Where?” He shivered, then coughed into his fist. “Oh, man, you don't want to make extra work for yourself with questions like that.”

“No?”

“Seriously.”

Matty let it slide.

“Nothing,” Iacone called out.

“You do Brooklyn?” Lester asked.

“No, just Manhattan.”

“Can you check Brooklyn? She scores on South Second, South Third. No one scores in Manhattan anymore, Manhattan's dead. You guys took care of that.” Lester recrossed his knees, a slice of grimy red long johns peeking out between his pale blue ankle and the cuff of his jeans. “I mean, what the hell happened to her? She was going to take me to the hospital. I have fluid in my lungs.”

“That's no problem, we'll get someone to take you soon as we're finished.”

“Nothing,” Iacone called out. “She got a third name?”

“She's not in the system, huh? Jesus. What do you think happened to her?” he asked Matty. “And me here...This is felony too, right?”

“No necessarily. Depends how you say what you say, you know, vis-a-vis sincerity, remorse.”

“I am remorseful. I didn't menace, I didn't threaten, I didn't say anything, what's it, terroristic...”

“All right, just capture that in your statement. In fact, if you want, we can even write your statement for you. But what can I tell you that you haven't heard a million times before? You help us, we help...”

“You think this could go down as a pet lar? I just, I didn't even want, I picked the fucking thing up off the sidewalk. I didn't even think anybody was going to notice. When that big black guy started running after me, I was like, 'Here, take it.' I didn't even get to open the damned thing. I have no idea what was in there. Obviously I'm not a pro at this.”

“Now, now, don't get down on yourself,” Iacone said from Yolonda's desk.

“You know, I got to say right now we're pretty much eating out of garbage cans, me and Anita, but a few years ago? We had us a store worth like two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Oh yeah?” Matty's turn to yawn. “What kind of store?”

“Like a punk boutique?”

“No kidding.”

“Can I have a cigarette? Jesus, I got to get to the emergency room.”

“All right.” Matty clapped his hands. “Here we go, onetime offer. Fuck the guys who shot that kid, just give us a stickup tem, just some names, anybody you know who works the hood. They check out, not only do you get a pass here, but we take you to the ER, get you squared away, then we go look for your girl.”

“A stickup team?” Lester shrugged, recrossed his legs, looked away. “You know, she used to use Carmen Lopez. That was like her professional name at this one place out in Massapequa. She was a bar dancer, very good, very popular, had her regulars, guys who liked to see her and she could go to their houses, some of them, borrow thirty, forty dollars, but she's four months pregnant now, so...” Resting his brow on the curve of his free hand. “I don't know. Maybe it's time to go upstate. It's getting too hard out here, you know?”