Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics by Tim McLoughlin

willing to spread some of it around, I was willing to take it.

    So I went to Sunset Park and spent some time in the streets and some more time in the bars. Sunset Park is in Brooklyn, of course, on the borough’s western edge, above Bay Ridge and south and west of Greenwood Cemetery. These days, there’s a lot of brownstoning going on there, with young urban professionals renovating the old houses and gentrifying the neighborhood. Back then, the upwardly mobile young had not yet discovered Sunset Park, and the area was a mix of Latins and Scandinavians, most of the former Puerto Ricans, most of the latter Norwegians. The balance was gradually shifting from Europe to the islands, from light to dark, but this was a process that had been going on for ages and there was nothing hurried about it.
    I talked to Herrera’s landlord and Cruz’s former employer and one of his recent girlfriends. I drank beer in bars and the back rooms of bodegas. I went to the local station house, I read the sheets on both of the burglars and drank coffee with the cops and picked up some of the stuff that doesn’t get on the yellow sheets.
    I found out that Miguelito Cruz had once killed a man in a tavern brawl over a woman. There were no charges pressed; a dozen witnesses reported that the dead man had gone after Cruz first with a broken bottle. Cruz had most likely been carrying the knife, but several witnesses insisted it had been tossed to him by an anonymous benefactor, and there hadn’t been enough evidence to make a case of weapons possession, let alone homicide.
    I learned that Herrera had three children living with their mother in Puerto Rico. He was divorced but wouldn’t marry his current girlfriend because he regarded himself as married to his ex-wife in the eyes of God. He sent money to his children when he had any to send.
    I learned other things. They didn’t seem terribly consequential then and they’ve faded from memory altogether now, but I wrote them down in my pocket notebook as I learned them, and every day or so I duly reported my findings to Drew Kaplan. He always seemed pleased with what I told him.

    I invariably managed a stop at Armstrong’s before I called it a night. One night she was there, Carolyn Cheatham, drinking bourbon this time, her face frozen with stubborn old pain. It took her a blink or two to recognize me. Then tears started to form in the corners of her eyes, and she used the back of one hand to wipe them away.
    I didn’t approach her until she beckoned. She patted the stool beside hers and I eased myself onto it. I had coffee with bourbon in it and bought a refill for her. She was pretty drunk already, but that’s never been enough reason to turn down a drink.
    She talked about Tommy. He was being nice to her, she said. Calling up, sending flowers. But he wouldn’t see her, because it wouldn’t look right, not for a new widower, not for a man who’d been publicly accused of murder.
    “He sends flowers with no card enclosed,” she said. “He calls me from pay phones. The son of a bitch.”
    Billie called me aside. “I didn’t want to put her out,” he said, “a nice woman like that, shit-faced as she is. But I thought I was gonna have to. You’ll see she gets home?”
    I said I would.
    I got her out of there and a cab came along and saved us the walk. At her place, I took the keys from her and unlocked the door. She half sat, half sprawled on the couch. I had to use the bathroom, and when I came back, her eyes were closed and she was snoring lightly.
    I got her coat and shoes off, put her to bed, loosened her clothing, and covered her with a blanket. I was tired from all that and sat down on the couch for a minute, and I almost dozed off myself. Then I snapped awake and let myself out.

    I went back to Sunset Park the next day. I learned that Cruz had been in trouble as a youth. With a gang of neighborhood kids, he used to go into the city and cruise Greenwich Village, looking for