Chelsea Avenue Read online

  "Sure thing, boss."

  “Hi, Mrs. Dovinario, Bobby isn’t in any trouble. It's nothing bad, we just need to talk to him,” Manny told Bobby’s mom on her cracked front steps overlooking a new park and a great Mexican restaurant.

  “My boy is always in trouble. What did he do now? Finally kill someone?”

  “Nothing like that, ma’am. We just need to know if he was with a couple of people a few Saturdays ago, that’s all.”

  “Did you put the word out there?” she asked, pointing.

  Manny smiled. “Of course. He isn’t in trouble, or I wouldn't have said anything. Word will get to him, but I was hoping he was around so I didn't have to catch up to him later. I really want to close this out. You understand.”

  She didn't look like she believed him, and he didn't blame her. Some cops would butter her up, and when she told them he was in the back closet or at a girlfriend's house, they'd arrest him and drag him down to the station.

  "Let Bobby know that Officer Manny was looking for him; he knows where to find me.”

  She closed the door without comment, and Manny went back to the car, where Mark was staring ahead intently. “I think someone is hiding across the street near the dirt road, but I’m not sure.”

  Mark Dowd had great instincts for a cop, especially for a guy only two years removed from the Police Academy. Since becoming partners with him, Manny had been pleasantly surprised by his exceptional work ethic. Despite his bluster, nasty comments, and unbelievable appetite for a small guy, Mark Dowd was the cop you wanted to have your back. The little shit reminds me of me a few years ago, two years removed from the Academy and still getting a hard-on over the job, Manny thought.

  Manny drove the car away from the house slowly, pulling into traffic. When they were confident that their line of sight was blocked, Mark leapt from the car and ran behind the Mexican restaurant, circling around toward the park.

  At the next light, Manny made a left turn and made sure he used his blinker, his arm dangling out of the window as he tapped along to the radio that wasn’t even on. He circled the block slowly and wasn’t surprised to see Bobby, his leather jacket draped over one shoulder and his hair tied back in a ponytail, moving across the park in a half-crouch.

  When Bobby saw the unmarked car, he turned to flee and ran straight into Mark, who took him down in a chokehold. “Going somewhere?” Mark asked. He patted him down with his free hand.

  Manny helped Mark stand Bobby up and pushed him against the car.

  “I didn’t do nothing! What you got on me?” Bobby loudly proclaimed.

  “Shut up,” Manny said but stepped back. He glanced up to see Bobby’s mother at the window, shaking her head before moving away. “We can do this right here, in front of your momma’s house, or we can do this back at the station. Up to you.”

  “Damn, man, what you think I know?”

  “Plenty, but I only want to concentrate on one thing right now, and that’s your cousin,” Manny said.

  Bobby glanced back at his mother’s house. “Can we at least get out of Long Branch?”

  “As long as you're going to talk to us without your usual bullshit,” Manny said.

  “If I know something, I'll let you know. Just don't toss me in the backseat with the cuffs on. Let me get in myself and show me respect. I'll, in turn, respect you badges.”

  “I think I'm going to cry and chest-bump you.” Mark shook his head and smiled. “Get in the fucking car.”

  They drove down the shore and ended up at the decrepit boardwalk in Asbury Park. When Manny and Mark got out of the car, Mark glanced at the Stone Pony club and smirked. Manny gave him the finger.

  Bobby, who had been silent the entire drive, stepped out of the car and breathed in the salty air dramatically. “The M&M Boys caught their man. You two should have your own reality series. I’d watch it.”

  “You’d watch yourself getting busted on it.” Mark grabbed Bobby by the arm and guided him, roughly, onto the boardwalk. The three men, gingerly, stepped over broken, warped, wooden boards and twisted scraps of metal. They stopped at one of the few remaining benches left intact, and Bobby sat.

  “Let’s talk about your cousin, Louis,” Manny said and leaned into the seated Bobby. “Tell me what you know about last night.”

  “I wasn’t with my cousin; he owes me money and was ducking me. I swear.”

  “I don’t believe a word of that. Do you?” Mark asked, positioning himself behind the bench. “I can place at least three people who saw you and Louis on Joline Avenue around ten last night.”

  Bobby twisted his neck. “Not me.”

  “Surveillance cameras don’t lie,” Manny said and watched Bobby’s reaction.

  “Bullshit,” Bobby said and went to rise, but Mark pushed him back down. “You two are fucking with me, right?”

  “We’re not fucking with you yet, but we’re really close; you know what I’m saying?” Manny sat down next to Bobby. “You were with him, and I’d hate to think that family would do this to family.”

  “You know me, Manny. You know my whole family. I loved my cuz. Why would I do that?”

  “Then tell me what happened,” Manny said soothingly. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered the first one to Bobby.

  “We were working on something on Joline Avenue together since he owed me two large. Right in the middle of the exchange in the McD’s parking lot, Louis got out of the car and started walking away. I kept my cool even though the dudes there got fidgety about him leaving. I told them he had some problems and not to worry about him, but the fucker almost got me shot. I was pissed, I admit. Once I was done, I took off after him, but he was gone. I thought he was at Teddy’s hitting on that stripper he hangs with, but he wasn’t in there. I lost him, I swear.”

  Bobby took the cigarette, and Manny lit it for him. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Yeah, I do. If I’d known there would be a problem, I would have gotten a receipt from the dudes for the crack. What do you want from me? Louis would always be flighty and do his own thing for weeks at a time. He still owes me the money, and I thought he was hiding out until he turned it over, which he does occasionally. I put it out of my mind.”

  “Why are you running and hiding yourself?” Mark asked.

  “I got warrants on me, and that bitch in Highlands is trying to get me to pay for her baby and shit. That ain’t my kid.”

  “Tell Maury Povich that. What now, Manny?” Mark patted Bobby roughly on the shoulder from behind. “I say we shoot him and dump his sorry ass in the drink. You with me?”

  Manny lit his own cigarette and sighed. Why can’t this shit be easy like on Cops or Law & Order? Find a bad guy, get the bad guy to confess, and wrap it up with a drink at the half hour mark. “See, this is where we have a problem. Louis was cut last night on Chelsea Avenue and left to bleed out, which he did nicely. It happened about two in the morning: not that long ago. Not far from where you were last seen with him.”

  “You said Chelsea Avenue?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah. Why?” Mark asked.

  Bobby glanced at Manny. “Was it done there?”

  “Where?” Mark asked.

  Manny ignored the question. “Yeah, it was. We found him with his throat slashed and his body submerged.”

  Bobby put his head down. “That can’t be a coincidence, you know?”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to think that myself.” Manny leaned closer to Bobby. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do this.”

  Bobby looked haunted. “Louis worked for your family. It's the Chelsea Avenue Curse, dude. Anyone who had the connection is dying, but I had nothing to do with it. I swear on my mother's life.”

  “Is that the word on the street?” Manny asked.

  “For years, man. People stay away from you like the plague.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mark asked.

  “Me? Why?” Manny took a drag of his cigarette. He never actually smok
ed them, using them to get the perp to feel comfortable. Cigs were prison cash, and he knew to speak the language when he had someone in front of him. Now, he wanted to smoke the whole pack and follow it up with a shot or three of whiskey. “Because my family owned the place?”

  “Because people want nothing to do with the fire and Murphy's Law and all of it. You remind people of what happened, and everyone lost someone in that fire either on that night or in later years. Dude, this shit is never going to end until Long Branch is a ghost town.”

  Manny was shocked to hear this. He didn't dream people saw him this way or had these bad thoughts about him. He wasn't responsible, but he looked back and thought of the many looks he'd gotten over the years and how many friends were so distant to him. Manny glanced at Mark Dowd, who wasn't a local. Maybe Tankard had paired them together because of it. “Let’s get you back to Long Branch so your customers don’t get antsy.”

  Mark shook his head. “Anyone going to tell me what the fuck you two buddies are talking about?”

  “You don't even want to know; trust me. Just be glad you're not from around here.”

  “Shit, I tell you that every day.”

  Chapter 11

  July 8th 1997

  “Where does the time fly?” Liz Harrison asked aloud, aware that talking to yourself was the safest bet that you were loony, certifiably nuts, off your damn rocker, and just plain batty. “Oh well, it’s better than the alternative.”

  That would be that you didn’t know you were nuts, that you thought you were sane. Liz Harrison knew she was far from normal. She took another pill and rolled it inside her mouth, the acrid taste tickling her tongue. She always tried to keep it moving for as long as she could until the bitterness became too unbearable and she was forced to swallow it, dry, burning down her throat.

  She supposed that her shrink would give her a ten-minute dissertation about her self-inflicting pain and hatred toward herself and why she was taking medication meant to heal her and using it as a weapon.

  She once told her doctor that she had cut her wrists, and he had sat up in his chair, aghast. “This is a breakthrough. How come you never opened up like this before?”

  Liz had held up her wrists. “Because it’s bullshit. Just getting a rise out of you.” Her wrists, fragile and sun-kissed, were unblemished; no angry red scars ran horizontal or diagonal across them.

  The Woodbridge Mall was packed this early in the day, and she wished she’d woken sooner. She glanced at her watch, a Baume & Mercier Mother of Pearl-inlaid dial worth more than the $4,000 she’d purchased it for, and smiled. It was still before noon, and she’d already been to three department stores and used one of her husband’s credit cards in each of them, careful to spread the wealth evenly. “No point in using the same drab card over and over when you have so many options,” she said.

  Her husband, Colin, was currently away on business in Europe. She never remembered exactly which country he was in. It could be Germany or England or France, and he wouldn’t be back for another week. In that time, she would spend as much money as she could at the mall, getting her hair and nails done, dining out at the upscale restaurants in the area, and hitting some of the fast food joints as well. “I am in the mood for a Rutt’s Hut hot dog,” she said and nearly salivated at the prospect of getting two chili-covered hot dogs, greasy fries, and greasy onion rings.

  Despite her appetite, she was a thin woman with gorgeous curves and flowing, blonde hair. She had perfect teeth—thanks to hubby—and at forty, she was still stunning. She knew she could rival a woman half her age, and except for the teeth’s “improved” sheen and a few beauty marks that had been removed, she was all natural. No tummy tucks, no chin lifts, no engorged fake breasts like most of her friends. Liz Harrison didn’t need that. The fact that she could probably have a doctor on call for any of those operations and a plane waiting to take her to some exotic locale was good enough for her.

  Her friend Judy, married to a prominent brain surgeon in Manhattan, often commented about her shopping sprees with “the commoners, slumming in a mall in New Jersey.” Judy didn’t get it; she would never understand. Judy came from money, her daddy being a brain surgeon.

  Liz had to work for a living and earn every penny she ever made. Liz doubted that Judy had ever taken a job selling shoes to old ladies with bunions, hammertoes, and calluses; Liz had done that horrid gig for three years. She couldn’t remember half of the bad jobs she’d worked right out of high school or the slobs that worked there and owned the places.

  A lingerie store caught her eye, and she entered, fingering her wallet in her pocketbook and getting ready to spend more of hubby’s money.

  As she browsed through racks of dainty nighties and see-through panties, she thought of all the men in her life that she’d played and manipulated, and she wanted to smile but couldn’t. “I’ve broken some hearts along the way,” she purred. “Some that deserved it but some that didn’t.”

  She remembered this one particular guy who worked in the shoe store with her, and she smiled.

  “Mrs. Harrison, it’s time to leave.”

  “What?”

  Tony, her driver, was standing in the entranceway to the store. “We have to leave.”

  She laughed. “I make the rules, not my husband.”

  Tony was fidgeting. “It’s not Mr. Harrison’s rule, I’m afraid. We must leave now.”

  “I don’t think so.” Liz made a grand gesture of ignoring Tony and going back to browsing. Who did he think he was? He was the paid help, after all. What right did he have to cut her time short?

  “When I’m ready to go, we’ll go. I still have another wing of the mall to shop today.” She glanced back at the doorway, but Tony was gone. “Tony?” she shouted too loudly, startling an older customer standing close to her. “Sorry,” she mumbled and made for the door. Where did he go? Tony was usually her shadow, a hulking man in his mid-twenties who doubled as her driver and her bodyguard. He always gave her wide berth on these shopping trips, keeping one eye on her and another on the people. Not that she thought she was ever in any danger, but Colin insisted.

  It felt odd to her to not have him within earshot. Sometimes, in smaller stores like this, he would stand diligently in the entranceway and wait for her, always keeping her in sight. He’d smile slightly when she asked him an opinion on a new dress or jewelry, never answering her, always there carrying her bags.

  “My bags!” she shrieked, as she left the store. Five shopping bags were dropped, haphazardly, on the floor. Her bags. Scooping them up and not caring about the looks she was receiving, she began to scream Tony’s name. She would have added an expletive or three, but there were children within earshot.

  Tony was not in sight. “Where did you go, you bastard? I cannot wait to fire you.” She decided to move toward the car. Passing another clothing store, she cursed Tony’s name, noting a sleek black dress in the window that she would look great in. Her bags were getting heavy, and she realized that Tony never complained about them, merely trailing behind, store-by-store, without a word. “What the heck is wrong with him?” Did he want to get fired? Had Colin not paid him? Was there a better job waiting for him, and he wanted to get fired?

  “I need to go, Mrs. Harrison. I’m sorry.” Tony was standing at the car, the trunk opened.

  “Help me with my bags,” she managed before dropping one on the ground of the parking garage. “I can’t wait to call Colin when we return to the house.”

  Tony picked up the bags and placed them in the trunk. “I’ve called a cab for you.”

  “What?”

  “I need to go somewhere, and you can’t come.”

  “I don’t think so.” Liz pushed past Tony and got into the backseat. “You’re taking me home.”

  Tony shook his head. “There is something I have to do that doesn’t concern you.”

  “I’m your boss, and you’re on the clock, so it does concern me. You’re acting so unlike you. Just take me home.”<
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  Without a word, Tony shut the trunk, got into the car, and tore out of the parking garage. He moved the car deftly in and out of traffic at an alarming rate of speed.

  “Slow down! And you’re going the wrong way!”

  Tony ignored her, heading the car south down Route 35. He blasted his horn at a slower car ahead, almost scraping the sides of the car as he passed. At the exit for I-95, he shot past another car, blowing through the tollbooth without stopping.

  “Are you nuts? Are you on drugs or something?”

  “I’ll drop you off as soon as we get there,” Tony said through gritted teeth.

  Liz watched as the speedometer rose to 110 miles per hour. “A trooper is going to pull you over.” They were still heading south, in the opposite direction of where she lived. Liz grew increasingly uneasy. “Are you kidnapping me?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  Tony glanced back at her, and she saw fear in his eyes. “I don’t know. I just know that I have to be somewhere very soon.”

  “You’re making no sense. What if I offer you a raise? Ten percent, and you turn this car around and take me home.”

  The highway ahead was free of cars in the passing lane, and Tony buried the needle of the speedometer at 120 miles per hour.

  “Twenty percent?”

  “It’s not about money; it’s just something I have to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been called to do this.”

  Jeanine Vargas walked away from her son’s football practice and began heading east, unaware that she was doing anything odd. For some reason, she felt at peace, her financial problems far from her mind. All the stress of the last six months—the doctor bills, the deterioration of her stepfather’s body, and the burden of just trying to live a normal life with her family—was gone.

  A car filled with high school boys drove by, and someone whistled at her. She laughed. Even on the wrong side of thirty, she was still attractive with full lips and her blonde hair pulled up and back. Her sister-in-law would always tease her about her “big, 80s Jersey hair,” and she knew that the look was dated, but she refused to do the sensible mom thing and get her hair cut short and bland. She prided herself that, while all of Jesse’s, her son’s, friends’ parents looked the same, she stood out. The fact that she was pretty and knew it helped as well. Many a boy had chased her in high school, the same high school that she was now walking away from.