Uptown Thief (2 page)

Chapter 2

 

T
he cargo van sat at the snowy curb like a tropical fish in the middle of a vast white sea. Two inches of powder had accumulated on top of the vehicle. The van had been shrink-wrapped in a colorful vinyl advertisement: “The María de la Vega Health Clinic, serving the ladies of Manhattan since 2001.” The clinic's toll-free help line number and location followed. One vinyl patch on the bottom of the door was held down with duct tape.

The van sat in a loading zone in front of the Lower East Side storefront clinic. Three teenage girls hurried into the clinic through the snow, their tight jackets and jeans as bright as the van. A moment later, Marisol Rivera, a caramel-colored woman in her thirties, stepped out of the clinic door into the snow. She carried two plastic shopping bags of homemade sandwiches and a jug of imitation juice. Rush hour traffic sped past, turning the powder to sludge. In contrast to the teenagers' hot girl clothes, she wore a tailored suit sanding down her curves, and high-heeled pumps. Her hair was pulled back into a loose knot. Underneath the suit, she wore a fraying baby carrier with a sleeping infant snuggled against her chest, a son of one of the clients. With her free hand, Marisol tucked the blanket more tightly around him.

She crossed the grimy sidewalk and unlocked the back doors of the van with one of the keys from a ring on her belt. They granted her access to every lock in the clinic building—every door, desk, closet, file drawer, padlock, and supply cabinet.

The two women who trooped out to join her looked like opposites, although both were in their twenties. Jody was a six-foot blonde white woman in athletic gear. Tyesha not only contrasted in size and color—she was African American and much shorter—but also in style. She wore designer jeans and boots, with bling jewelry. The three piled into the clinic's mobile health van. The interior had a plastic corrugated floor, and the walls were stacked with milk crates, which held medical and outreach equipment.

Marisol pulled a clipboard off the wall, and sat cross-legged on the floor. She checked off items the van would provide during their run throughout Lower Manhattan that night.

Tyesha peeked into a wax paper sandwich bag, and her bobbed hair fell forward, obscuring her heart-shaped face.

“Peanut butter again?” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“That's government peanut butter,” said Jody, who had to crouch considerably to fit in the van. “No peanuts were harmed in the making of it.”

Jody was a fearless street fighter. The muscles in her arms and back rippled as she moved several heavy supply boxes. Tyesha piled the sandwiches into milk crates and poured the juice into a plastic dispenser.

“When I first started working here, we used to get turkey,” Tyesha said. “Real turkeys died for our sins back then.”

“These bitches need to be happy they're getting food at all,” Jody said, taking a sandwich.

“Hold up, ladies,” Marisol said. She brushed the snow from her hair. “Remember, you and our clients are not bitches. You are hoes.”

The women laughed.

“Bitches are dogs,” Marisol said. “But whores are . . . ?” She looked expectantly at Jody.

“Professionals who get paid.” Jody grinned and high-fived Tyesha.

“Thank you,” Marisol said. “Show some respect for the trade.”

Marisol stood to hand the clipboard to Tyesha, and Jody noticed the infant carrier.

“What the fuck?” Jody asked. “You brought someone's baby into our mobile health van?”

“The son of a client,” Marisol said. “She missed her last two counseling appointments and needs help.”

“Seriously, Marisol?” Tyesha asked. “You gonna add babysitter to your never-ending job description?”

“If you're gonna start a nanny service in the van, can we at least have heat?” Jody asked. “It's fucking freezing.” She tugged her cap further down.

“Waste of gas,” Marisol said. She unhooked some of the bungee cords that secured the milk crates. “We'll be out in a few minutes.”

Tyesha put on a pair of rimless glasses and flipped to the second page on the clipboard. “Should the outreach team bother to go by Vixela's anymore, after last night?”

“More underage girls?” Marisol asked. Vixela's was a strip club that advertised “private entertainment” in its warren of tiny back rooms.

“Who knows?” Tyesha said. “They wouldn't let us operate there.”

“Vixela won't let us park in front,” Marisol said.

“We were parked in the back alley,” Jody said. “Her security guys kicked us out.”

Marisol stopped counting HIV tests. “Out of the alley?”

“I fucking hate her,” said Jody. She gripped one of the crates. Inside were stacks of flyers advertising the clinic's gala fund-raiser. “When my ex-girlfriend started working there, Vixela promised she could make good money just dancing. By the end, she was fucking four or five guys a night to make rent.”

“Vixela's an old-ass hoe who's jealous of young girls,” said Tyesha. “All those pictures of her on the wall showing off her tits. Okay, I get it, Vixela, you were
va-va-voom
back in the seventies. But your moment has passed.”

“Like you always tell us, Marisol,” Jody said. “Don't build your whole life on being young and hot forever.”

“You'll stop making money for yourself and start making it for your plastic surgeon,” Marisol said.

Jody nodded. “When my ex worked there, we used to joke that she was fucking the guys just to pay for Vixela's cosmetic retrofitting.”

“I don't understand how she could be face-to-face with me and lie,” Marisol said.

“Cause that's not really her face,” Tyesha said.

They laughed. The baby murmured and shifted in the carrier.

“Marisol,” Tyesha whispered. “You should get that baby out of the cold. I can do the setup.”

“He's fine,” Marisol said, patting him. She checked the expiration date on a box of condoms.

“But won't the snow mess up your shoes?” asked Tyesha.

“Not these,” Marisol said. She looked down at her invincibility shoes, classic black platform stiletto pumps, with springy material beneath the balls of her feet that made the five-inch heels tolerable. “They're made outta some indestructible type of patent leather. Wind, rain, sleet, snow. Nothing fucks them up.”

“I need a pair like that,” Jody said. “What are they, Jimmy Choos?”

“No way,” said Tyesha. “Those are Vera Wangs, right, Marisol?”

“I don't know,” Marisol said.

“How can you not know?” Tyesha asked. “Take off the damn shoe and check the label.”

“That's the thing,” Marisol said. “I got them from this lady who sells shoes outta her trunk. She cuts out the designer labels and charges twenty-nine ninety-nine.”

“I love deals like that,” Tyesha said.

Marisol smiled. “My
mami
always told me that finding a bargain is God telling you He wants you to have nice things.” Her mother had described it like a signpost on the way to the good life. And occasionally Marisol saw her mother create the bargain herself by switching the price tags. Or in a big store she would take advantage of a missing inventory tag. This was also God, her mother had explained, because God created the opportunity.

Her mother was always cool and discreet. She never boosted any item unless it was a sure thing. Once she'd left her raggedy sneakers in the box at a department store and walked out wearing snakeskin stilettos under her custodian's uniform. She left the store with her head held high, children in tow. After they got back to their one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, her mother told them never to steal from people. Only stores.

“So, where does your girl sell the kickstunners outta her trunk?” Tyesha asked.

“Sometimes she's at West Twenty-seventh and—”

The van rumbled and tilted.

“What the fuck?” said Jody.

Marisol swung the back door open and sprinted out. The van was being lifted up onto a tow truck by a short, barrel-chested guy.

Jody balled her fists and advanced, but Marisol grabbed Jody by the hood of her jacket and pulled her back. “I'll handle this.”

The baby started to cry.

“What the hell are you doing?” Marisol asked the tow guy.

“We're repossessing the van for nonpayment,” he said. He pulled a lever, and the chains began to pull the van up onto the back of the truck.

“Bullshit,” Marisol said, over the baby's wailing. “Our account is up to date.” She bounced up and down, and the movement quieted the baby. Tyesha and Jody stood behind Marisol with their arms crossed. Several girls came out of the clinic and joined them.

“I just tow who they say. Tell your boss we're taking the van.”

“I am the boss,” Marisol said. “And if you wrongfully remove this vehicle, I'll sue your company in a heartbeat.”

“You tell his stupid ass, Marisol,” said Nalissa, a young woman with hair dyed bright carrot red.
“Defiende lo tuyo!”

The guy shut everything off and the van stopped moving. By then it was halfway up onto the truck bed. He stalked around to the cab and pulled out a cell phone.

“Crazy Spanish bitch,” he muttered.

“That's crazy Puerto Rican bitch,” Marisol yelled back. “Learn your geography.”

“Crazy Spanish bitch?” Nalissa said. “I'm a show you a crazy Dominican bitch!” She lunged toward the driver, but Tyesha and Jody grabbed her arms.

“Cálmate
, Nalissa
,”
Marisol said. “I got this.”

With all the noise, the baby began to squirm and fuss. Marisol pulled him out and held him to her chest. He reached up and played with the locket around her neck.

“Yeah,
papi
,” she said, opening the locket to reveal a little girl with two puffy blond pigtails and a missing front tooth. “You see that girl? That's Cristina, my baby sister.”

Cristina was six years younger and had been more like a daughter in many ways. Now that Marisol was in her thirties, the difference wasn't so pronounced, but when Cristina was a baby, Marisol had cared for her at night, while their mother worked. Holding babies always reminded her of Cristina. Their mother died of breast cancer when Marisol was in middle school, her sister in elementary. After that, Marisol had fallen solidly into the mother role.

As the baby tickled against her neck, Marisol had a bitter ache in her chest. Cristina was her family, the one person who really mattered.

The engine rumbled. Marisol cursed and handed the child to Jody. The baby wailed. Marisol kicked off her heels and handed them to Tyesha, then scrambled onto the back of the tow truck, slush dripping from her stockinged feet.

She opened the van door and yelled down to Jody, “Gimme the baby.”

“You want me to—?”

“Now!” Marisol yelled, stretching both hands out.

Jody handed back the screaming baby. Marisol slid into the van's passenger seat and locked the door. The tow guy came around from the cab of the truck with an armful of brake lights.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled over the noise of the engine.

Marisol rolled the window down a crack. “Watch your goddamn language in front of the baby.”

“You need to get down from there,” he said. “It's not safe.”

“I'll tell you what's not safe,” Marisol said, jiggling the baby on her knee. “Women working on the street with no health care. The city pays us to drive this van around and provide services for girls who can't come to the clinic.”

“I'm calling the police,” he said.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I'm calling the leasing company.” The baby flailed in her arms and knocked some papers off a bulletin board.

She dialed her phone, and asked for the manager on duty. As she waited on hold, she rummaged through the clinic supplies. “Are you teething,
papi
?” She found a tongue depressor and he began to chew on it.

The manager came on the line, as she dried the dripping slush from her freezing feet.

“This is Marisol Rivera, executive director of the Vega Clinic on the Lower East Side. There's been a mistake. They're trying to repossess our van.” Marisol only called it the Vega Clinic when she was particularly pissed off. The place was named after her mother, so she enjoyed saying the full name: María de la Vega.

“No mistake,” the manager said. “You've been late with every payment since last June.”

“I have an arrangement with your bookkeeper,” Marisol said. “She gives me until the tenth.”

“We have no record of that,” he said.

“Put her on the phone,” Marisol said.

“She no longer works here.”

“She was working there when we made the verbal contract,” Marisol said. “I have her cell number and I bet she'd testify in court.”

“What's the big deal?” he asked. “You'll get it back once you pay up.”

“The big deal is the thousands of dollars of medical equipment we have inside. Besides, your driver can't take the van anyway, since I'm sitting in it.”

“The van is already on the tow truck,” he said.

“I'm in the passenger seat.”

“You're what?”

“With a baby on my lap,” Marisol said. He was happily chewing the tongue depressor. “In fact, the van was occupied when the towing process started. Highly illegal.”