Hipster Death Rattle Page 6

  “Look, these slashings are Gang Tactics 101. I’m absolutely, absolutely certain that Cortés and the Quistadoreys are responsible. We know who they are. My people identify these gangstas ASAP, and then we circle them like sharks, all day, every day. Normally, they can’t go to the toilet without us being there to watch them wipe their asses.”

  “Ain’t that an image,” Petrosino said.

  “I say ‘normally.’ But the thing of it is—”

  “You can’t find him,” said Hadid.

  Tuchman knocked over his figurine and picked it up again. “It pains me to say it, but yes, exactly. Of course, I would appreciate you guys keeping your eyes and ears open for him.”

  “Anything else?” Petrosino said. “If we’re gonna have to coordinate, I’d like to know as soon as possible, so I can phone, tell the wife I’ll be stuck in meetings all day. No offense.”

  Hadid turned to look at his partner and realized he wasn’t all nicotine and hairspray.

  “None taken,” said Tuchman, a really obnoxious smirk on his face. He placed his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands together. “Now, keep your investigation low key. We don’t want the public to think that this neighborhood is suddenly a gang war zone. For now, we tell the press this is a string of coincidental separate attacks. No need for anyone to panic. Everyone go back to sipping lattes and shopping online. That’s our play. You understand?”

  “Right-o.”

  “My task force will do the heavy lifting, but per the chief, you will work with us on this, looking for witnesses, interviewing locals, running leads. And I’d personally like you to help us chat up some gangbangers we think have intel.”

  “Anything else?”

  “And send me a report at the end of each day.”

  “Why did I ask?”

  Tuchman smiled and stood up, making it clear to Hadid that the meeting was over.

  “And as always, always keep the lines of communication open,” Tuchman said. “And, Jimmy, I’ll try not to inundate you with unnecessary meetings.”

  Hadid followed his partner out of the office and quickly down the stairs. “So, what now, partner?”

  “I’m going out for a smoke. Maybe two,” Petrosino said. “But you stay here. I don’t want you to evaporate.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  To Tony, community board meetings in Williamsburg played out like professional wrestling matches: an uninterrupted series of chest-thumping, sleeper holds, and foregone conclusions. Amid the free-for-alls over affordable rents, new developments, and zoning, and cage matches over club licenses and liquor licenses, everyone understood ahead of time that the tag teams of developers and their political lackeys were going to walk away with the belt. The community organizers and housing advocates knew they would spend most of their time being smacked into a turnbuckle or crushed and twisted on the mat. Still, they showed up to fight. Which was, to Tony’s mind, either very stupid or very foolish. All this action took place at the Swinging 60s Senior Center, a squat cinder block building on Ainslie Street.

  Community affairs were Patrick’s beat for the Sentinel, but with him gone, Bobbert Swiatowski, the Sentinel publisher, told Tony to cover the next meeting. It meant he would have to pay attention to the issues, but Tony didn’t want to pay attention to the issues.

  “C’mon, you’re a good reporter,” Bobbert had said. “And I can’t get anybody else.”

  “I love the vote of confidence. How about triple the rate then?”

  “Triple! I could do it myself then.”

  “But you don’t want to. Double then. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal. Thief.”

  Tony found himself entering the shaky metal doors of the Swinging 60s Senior Center. At least the air conditioning was good. And there was free bottled water.

  He put one bottle in his messenger bag and was opening up another to drink when he heard a familiar voice call behind him.

  “Chino!”

  He turned, spilling water on his shirt.

  “Magaly!”

  “I don’t see you in years, then it’s two times in one week,” she said. Her thick, curly hair was barely tamed in a ponytail. She wore red plastic-frame glasses, the same design she’d had since she was a teenager. He guessed it wasn’t what she used to call a “contacts-worthy day.”

  “Are you stalking me?” she said.

  Tony stammered some meaningless noise.

  “You know, I was going to say, you look the same,” she said. “You never change.”

  “It’s the Botox,” he managed to say.

  “Yep. Still the same. Listen, I heard about Patrick. I knew him. He was really a nice guy. It’s terrible what happened,” she said. “These slashings are crazy. It’s why I don’t stay out late anymore.”

  “Yeah, I had to ID his body at the hospital. He’s looked better.”

  “Oh my god, you’re horrible,” she said.

  “You’re right. It was actually pretty rough.”

  “Oh, Chino, I’m sorry,” she put a hand on his chest. “Come, the meeting’s starting. Sit with me.”

  Magaly directed them to seats near the front, by the aisle. The room was crowded, and Tony wondered if it was because of the issues or the air-conditioning. There were a bunch of people who looked like they needed to be seen as important seated at the long table at the front of the room.

  “I haven’t been to one of these in a very long time,” he said. “Who are the gasbags?”

  “See the man with the goatee almost in front of you, that’s Congressman Pedro Alvarado. More handsy than an octopus and more corrupt than the MTA. Next to him, that’s Representative Camila Santiago. I’ve hated her from day one, and day one was four terms ago. She’s tacky—yellow shoes, Chino! Yellow shoes!” Magaly seemed to be trying to whisper, but it was not something she was capable of doing.

  “What’s on the agenda?”

  “Most of the time it’s deciding who to give liquor licenses to. There’s another high-rise development going up. They give all this lip-service about affordable housing, but you should see what they think affordable is.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “You said it. Hey, are you free for dinner after this?”

  Tony thought about the thinness of his wallet. He knew she liked pizza. Maybe they would just get pizza. “Sure,” he said.

  During the meeting, several liquor licenses were indeed approved, and then there was a fierce debate over a development whose claim of low-income housing seemed extremely specious. A line of attendees queued up to speak to the board, including Magaly’s boss, Luis De Moscoso. He wore the same shiny suit he’d had on the night at the poetry reading. He must have snuck in to the meeting late. Tony hadn’t seen him come in.

  “As all of you know,” De Moscoso said, “I represent El Flamboyan, Brooklyn’s most comprehensive Latino cultural and community advocacy center. I have spoken at these esteemed gatherings before, but I like to keep coming back and continue speaking truth to power.”

  “Snooze,” Tony whispered.

  Magaly pinched his thigh. “Shhh. Don’t be a hater.”

  “Me? I don’t hate your boyfriend.”

  “Yes, I know you too well. He’s just a friend.”

  “I always let friends touch my ass.”

  “Shhh.” She pinched his thigh hard enough to make his eyes water.

  De Moscoso went on. “You guys are talking about putting in more apartment complexes, putting in new bars and new restaurants. But what I’m not hearing about is the people. What about the people? The people who have been here for over fifty years. The people who have invested their lives and their culture and their blood in the very fabric of this neighborhood. They’re disappearing. We have to keep their culture alive. Now it’s fading, not just in the Southside, but in all of Williamsburg because almost everyone has moved out. When you wake up one morning and you see the corner bodega has been replaced by another fancy new coffee shop or bistro, and you see your neighbors b
eing pushed out because they can no longer afford the rent, and all of a sudden your friends have disappeared into thin air, you begin to wonder ‘Am I next?’”

  A cluster of people in the back applauded. Tony idly wondered if they’d been paid.

  De Moscoso went on. “These developments, the rezonings, they are nothing but racist weapons of mass displacement used to push out the poor and all the long-term residents of color.”

  There was another rush of applause, much louder this time.

  Tony said, “Seems like somebody likes to hear himself talk.”

  “That’s for sure,” Magaly said, “but he’s not wrong.”

  Despite De Moscoso’s plea, and the mood in the room being decidedly against the new complex, it was approved by the Community Board anyway.

  Before the end of the meeting, Congressman Alvarado addressed the recent slashings but said he would take no questions. “My friends at the 90th Precinct are doing their best and working on some very good leads.” He then quoted statistics that made the neighborhood sound as safe and peaceful as an empty church. Then he said everyone should continue enjoying their lives and feeling safe. Then he added, “Go, Nets!”

  As people were getting up, Magaly said, “Let’s go while my boss is busy working the room.”

  “Why? Could there be drama? Drama’s fun.”

  “Chino! Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I haven’t been here in years,” Tony said, “but it looks like there’s a private party.”

  Through the windows, a crowd of people were standing and drinking to salsa music. They had walked from the meeting to Gloria’s Spanish Food, at the corner of Grand Street and Union Avenue. The place had been there for as long as Tony could remember. The food was excellent, but he remembered they had increased their prices in recent years. It was definitely not a pizzeria. His wallet sighed.

  “I don’t see a sign,” Magaly said. “Do you see a sign? I think we can go in.”

  Before he could say anything, she had opened to the door.

  A short woman in jeans and a T-shirt that read “Gloria’s Spanish Food—The Best” came up to them immediately.

  “Hola, Gloria!” Magaly said. “Is this a private party?”

  “Hola, mi amor.” The old woman kissed Magaly on the cheek and said, “No, it’s a going-out-of-business party. Everything on the menu is half off.”

  Tony nodded. “So they’re going to turn this into some hipster bar?”

  “Who knows?” Gloria said. “They’re knocking down the building.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t care. I’m moving to Florida.”

  The place was small, the walls paneled in wood, and the panels covered with clocks shaped like Puerto Rico, maracas with the Puerto Rican flag on them, a framed poster that read “Borinquen. Donde he nacido yo”—Puerto Rico. Where I Was Born—pictures of Luquillo Beach, coquis, and Pedro Albizu Campos. People were crowded into the aisles, some drinking from plastic cups, some dancing to the salsa, some doing both. Tony and Magaly spotted an empty two-seater squeezed into a corner by the kitchen door. Tony plopped into the seat away from the door traffic.

  He caught Magaly shaking her head but didn’t know why. She sighed and said, “I remember when you used to hold the chair for me when I sat down.”

  “Yeah, before you yelled at me for being a sexist Neanderthal.”

  “I was so radical then,” she said, laughing. “Remember that white girl you ended up dating after me. What happened to her?”

  “She thought I wasn’t ready for a relationship.”

  “Imagine that. Maybe you gave her the ‘fat is good’ lecture too many times.”

  “Fat is good for you. You can’t live without fat. A lot of people don’t realize that their bodies need fat. In fact—”

  She held up a hand. “Chino! I heard it already. Ai, I’m so sad about this place closing. It’s like a kick in the gut. There are so few Boricua food places left around here. I don’t think people understand how emotionally exhausting it is to constantly see your community being knocked down and replaced!”

  Tony said, “The other day I walked by my old barbershop. It’s a Thai fusion place now, whatever that is. I used to go there to get my fades. I can’t believe I used to get fades.”

  “The Southside is all bars and restaurants now, everywhere! These white people don’t cook!”

  “Or they’re foodies or, worse, vegans.”

  “Exactly. So I can’t get my cheap lettuce anymore at the supermarket.”

  “But you can get kale now.”

  “Who the hell likes kale?” she said. “No one! Not really. Anyone who says they like kale is a liar.”

  “There’s no point in getting upset about it. The people with the money have the power and the privilege and always win. Semper idem.”

  “So just lay back and enjoy it while your community gets erased, you mean? No thank you, Mr. Sunshine.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “I’m just being realistic. By the way, I think my thigh is going to be black and blue where you pinched it.”

  Magaly laughed. “Good!”

  The owner came over and gave them two cocktails.

  “We didn’t order this,” Magaly said.

  “On the house! Rum and coke. Disfrúta!”

  Tony brought the plastic cup to his lips. “My god, I’m getting a buzz just from smelling it.”

  “I love it,” Magaly said, taking a good sip. “So, what do you do? You still playing bocce almost every day in the park?”

  “It’s pétanque.”

  “It’s the same thing, Chino.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “It looks the same.”

  “The strategy is completely different. You should see us play.”

  “If I want to take a nap in the park, sure.”

  “What have you been up to? How’s the family?” he said, changing the subject and mentally preparing for the long monologue he knew would follow.

  Magaly told him about how her parents still lived on the same old apartment building, still together after many years on-again, off-again, and all his abusive behavior, they didn’t want to leave a place they’d known for so many years, and her half-brother’s wife might have AIDS, might not, they were drug users for over twenty years, met in a shelter, fell in love, her sister looked like a man trying to look like a woman but hated being called “transgender.” “I don’t get it,” Magaly said. Her other sister was happily married to a man she was sure was gay, divorced him, and it turned out he had a wife and a whole other family in the Bronx. “Why can’t we ever get happily ever after? Does anyone?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  Magaly ordered bifstec but changed her mind when she heard Tony ordering chicharrónes.

  “I haven’t had chicharrónes in forever,” she said. “And I love the way they make them here.”

  “Then you should have them.”

  “So, how is the reporting business? I hate to say it, but I lost track. I remember you were at the Daily News.”

  “Yeah, I was a stringer for the Daily News for a while, but then I branched out to some other locals, and I did that for as long as I could stand it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, number one, editors were telling me, ‘Hey, I love your story. But I’ll only print it if I can share the byline.’ Blackmail! Number two, I wrote at least four stories about our former businessman mayor—you remember him?—and they all got nixed for no reason. One editor told me later that the mayor was too popular, they didn’t want to lose readers. Number three, the pay started getting smaller and smaller. I was doing all these interviews, all this research and getting paid less than a barista. After a while, I realized I could make just as much money doing articles I could write in my sleep. In fact, I think I did write a few in my sleep. Now I write for the Sentinel, as well as an online content aggregator, and I even edit resumes on the side. Which is probably the mos
t lucrative thing I do. I have a bunch waiting for me at home, but if you want me to look at yours, I’ll rush it to the top of the pile at no extra cost. I live check to check, week to week. I just scrape by, but I don’t have to answer to anyone, which is exactly how I like it.”

  Magaly nodded, sucking one of the ice cubes out of her cup and crunching on it. “Listen,” she said. “I have to ask: Is your paper going to do anything about Rosa Irizarry? It’s almost a full year since her disappearance.”

  “Funny you should ask. I had been talking to Patrick about her, and he said he was going to do something. My mother knew her, too, not well, but they came to the neighborhood about the same time.”

  “You should do the story then.”

  “Yeah, right. First of all, I don’t know very much about it.”

  “Don’t you read the articles in your own paper?”

  Tony shrugged. “It wasn’t in my section.”

  “¡Carajo!”

  “Come on, tell me about it.”

  “Well, she was a really sweet old lady—okay, not always so sweet. She could get mean. She threw a spoon at me once when I went to counsel her. She was being harassed by her landlord to move out.”

  “She had a rent-controlled apartment?”

  “Yes, they are as rare as a unicorn or an honest politician,” she said.

  “Or a unicorn riding an honest politician.”

  “Exactly, and that’s $250 a month when some hipster or yuppie would be willing to pay five, six, seven times that for the same space. They could do a basic ‘upgrade’—new fridge, paint job—and then shoot the price up to market value. That’s why they wanted her out.”

  “Urban renewal.”

  “First, it was the usual tactics. They turned off her heat. They turned off her hot water and then all her water. But that lady toughed it out. She grew up in the mountains, so that was nothing for her. And then they had the nerve to start putting roaches and then rats in her house! And this was a lady who prided herself on being immaculate immaculate. Not a crumb in the house. But she would wake up and there’d be roaches all over her floor, on the walls.”