He was about Pellam’s age, a few years younger maybe. Latino. He wore close-fitting jeans and a T-shirt, brilliantly white. He stood on the roof of a tenement, looking down, with dark eyes that even from this distance seemed to beam displeasure.

The man leapt from one building to another and was directly above him. Pellam could see only a silhouette. He was making his way east, along the roofs of the tenements.

Pellam turned and headed in the same direction. He paused at the corner, lost sight of the young man. Then, a sudden flash of white disappeared into a crowd of workers along Tenth Avenue. Crossing the street fast, Pellam tried to follow but the man had vanished. How the hell had he done that? He asked the workers if they’d seen anyone but they claimed that hadn’t seen anybody and the alley they stood in front of – the only place the man could have escaped – was blind. Barred windows. No doors. No exit.

Pellam gave up and returned to Thirty-sixth Street, wandering toward the charred remains of Ettie’s building.

It wasn’t the noise that warned him but its absence; some raucous hammering from the construction site across the street suddenly dulled, the sound absorbed by the young man’s body and clothing. Without even looking sideways at the running footsteps Pellam set the bag down and reached inside. He hadn’t yet found the Colt when a piece of metal – a pistol barrel, he guessed – touched the back of his neck.

“The alley,” the voice said in a melodic, Spanish accent. “Lessgo.”

NINE

His thick brows were knitted together and beneath them his lids dipped slightly as if he was nursing a deep grudge.

They stood in the alley behind Louis Bailey’s building, on greasy cobblestones. The smell of rotten vegetables and rancid oil filled the heavy air. Pellam stood, crossed his arms, glancing down at the tiny black automatic pistol.

Then he studied his captor again. A pink, leathery scar traversed the man’s forearm. It was recent. On his hand, in the Y between his thumb and forefinger, was a blurred tattoo in the form of a dagger. Pellam lived in L.A.; he recognized a crew insignia when he saw one.

Pellam asked, “Habla inglés?”

The man looked down into the bag. Keeping the automatic trained on Pellam’s chest he bent down and lifted the Betacam partially out.

“Appreciate your leaving that alone. It’s-”

“Shut up.”

The man didn’t find the Colt. He lowered the camera, stood up.

“You’re a Cubano Lord,” Pellam said.

He was as tall as Pellam. Most Latinos he knew were shorter. “I’ve been looking for you,” Pellam said.

“Me?”

“One of you.”

“Why?”

“To have a talk.”

His eyebrows twitched in surprise. “You talking now.”

“I’m doing a film on Hell’s Kitchen. I want to talk to some of the people in gangs. Or is it a club?”

“The other day, what you doing?”

“The other day?”

“What you looking for? Talking to people? On the street here. You taking pictures. What you do that for?”

Pellam remained silent.

The young man let a disgusted sigh ease from his lungs. “You gonna say we did it? You gonna say we torch that building?”

“I’m making a film. I-”

The terse young man’s brows nestled closer. “There a TV news show here. In the city. Latino station. You never hear of it, I know. They slogan is ‘Primero con la verdad.’ You believe in that? Is la verdad siempre primero with you? The truth?” Arms crossed again, he lifted a hand to his chin and with a callous thumb rubbed a short, deep scar below his mouth. “You some kind of reporter? You some kind of Geraldo?”

Pellam nodded toward the cobblestoned alley. “This where you play basketball? Have bake sales? Pony rides for the kids? All those things a club does?”

“What’re you asking me, man?”

“I heard some of your boys were hanging out here just before the fire.”

“You heard… So that make it true? A white man say los Cubanos burn down a building, so it true. A black man say it, so it true.” Pellam didn’t answer and he continued, “You no think this old nigger lady do it. You think I do it. Why? ’Cause you like niggers more’n you like spics.”

Pellam didn’t think more anger could be inside the young man but more anger now flooded his face. He shifted his weight on expensive running shoes and Pellam wondered if he was going to shoot. He glanced sideways for a place to roll. Wondered if he could get to his Colt in time. Decided he couldn’t.

Make the call – apologize or get tough?

Pellam frowned, leaned forward. He spat back, “I’m here to do a job. You don’t want to answer my questions, that’s your damn business. But I’m not interested in any fucking lectures.”

The dark eyes narrowed suddenly.

I’m gonna get shot. Hell. Should’ve kissed ass. Knew it.

But the man didn’t pull the trigger. And he didn’t pistol-whip him either – the second option, Pellam’d figured.

He put the gun away and walked around the front of Ettie’s building, gesturing Pellam after him. He ducked under the police line and walked up the stairs to what was left of the tiny entryway. Pellam dug the Colt out of the bag and slipped it into the back waistband of his jeans. He lifted the bag and walked out to the sidewalk.

With a booted foot the young Latino was kicking in the shattered front door of Ettie’s building. He shouldered his way inside, filthying his T-shirt on the charred wood. Pellam heard breaking glass and loud crashes. The man returned a minute later with a rectangle of metal. He tossed it to Pellam, who caught the heavy frame. It was the building directory. With a long finger the Cubano Lord tapped a name. C. Ramirez. “She my aunt. Okay? She live there with two niños. My mother’s sister! Okay? You figure it out? I’m not gonna burn down no building my family living in.

“And you wanna know something else? That lady, my aunt Carmella, she see one of Jimmy Corcoran’s micks drop the hammer on some guy last month and she testify against him. He up in Attica now and Jimmy, he no so happy about what she say. How you like that story, my friend? You like the truth now? The truth about a white mick? Now, get outta here. Get outta the Kitchen.”

“Who’s that? Corcoran? Jimmy Corcoran?”

The man wiped the sweat off his forehead. “You go back to you news station, you go back and tell them the Cubano Lords, they no do this kind of shit!”

“I’m not a reporter.”

“So now you no have to talk to me. You know la verdad.”

Pellam asked, “Your name’s Ramirez? What’s your first name?”

The man paused and held a muscular finger to his lips, silencing him, then pointed it at Pellam’s face. “You tell them.” His eyes sank down to Pellam’s boots then rose again as if he were memorizing him. Then he walked slowly out of the shadow of the ruined building into the crisp hot sunlight.

But Jimmy Corcoran was a ghost.

No one had heard of him, no one knew any Corcorans.

Pellam had wandered around the neighborhood, stopping in Puerto Rican bodegas, Korean vegetable stands, Italian pork stores. Nobody knew Corcoran but everybody had a funny lilt in their voices when they said they didn’t – their denials seemed desperate.

He tried a bodega. “He hangs out around here someplace,” Pellam encouraged.

The ancient Mexican clerk, with an immensely wrinkled face, stared at his fly-blown tray of lardy pastry, smoked his cigarette and nodded silently. He offered nothing.

Pellam bought a coconut drink and stepped outside. He mbled up to a cluster of T-shirted men lounging around a Y-stand sprinkler hookup and asked them. Two of them quickly said they’d never heard of Jimmy Corcoran. The other three forgot whatever English they knew.