Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,31

go down to help them,” he said.

“Where?”

“The parthenon of justice.”

He looked older, more worn. With his haircut, the bald spot was more pronounced.

“They call it the Tombs. They’ll be arraigned in Centre Street. Listen, I need you to take my shift in the nursing home. I talked with Adelita. She already knows.”

“Me? What am I going to do with them?”

“I don’t know. Take them to the beach or something.”

“I have a job in Queens.”

“Do it for me, brother, will you, please? I’ll give you a shout later on.” He turned at the door. “And look after Adelita for me too, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Promise me.”

“Yeah, I will—now, go.”

Outside I could hear the sounds of the children following Corrigan down the stairs, laughing. It was only when the apartment had fallen into full silence did I remember that he had taken the brown van with him.

At a rental joint down in Hunts Point, I used the very last of my tips to make a deposit on a van. “Air-conditioning,” said the clerk with an idiotic grin. It was like he was explaining science. He had his badge name pasted over his heart. “Don’t run it too hard, it’s brand new.”

It was one of those days when the summer seemed to have fallen into place, not too warm, cloudy, a tranquilized sun high in the sky. On the radio a DJ played Marvin Gaye. I maneuvered around a low-slung Cadillac and onto the highway.

Adelita was waiting by the ramp of the home. She had brought her children to work—two dark beauties. The younger one tugged at her uniform and Adelita went down to eye level with her, kissed the child’s eyelids. Adelita’s hair was tied back with a long colorful scarf and her face shone.

I understood perfectly, then, what Corrigan knew: she had an interior order, and for all her toughness there was a beauty that rose easily to the surface.

She smiled at the idea that we should try the beach. She said it was ambitious but impossible—no insurance, and it was against the rules. Her kids screamed beside her, tugged on her uniform, grabbed her wrist. “No, m’ijo,” she said sharply to her son, and we went through the routine of loading all the wheelchairs and jamming the kids between the seats. Litter was pinned against the railings of the park. We pulled the van in under the shade of a building. “Oh, what the hell,” said Adelita. She slid across into the driver’s seat. I rounded the back of the van. Albee was looking out at me, and he mouthed a word with a grin. No need to ask. Adelita beeped the horn and pulled the van out into a light summer traffic. The children cheered as we merged onto the highway. In the distance, Manhattan was like something made out of play boxes.

We found ourselves snared in the Long Island traffic. Songs came from the back, the old folk teaching the kids bits and pieces of songs they couldn’t really conjure. “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “You Should Never Shove Your Granny off the Bus.”

At the beach, Adelita’s kids tore down to the waterfront while we lined the wheelchairs up in the shade of the van. The van shadow grew smaller as the sun arced. Albee dropped the suspenders from his shirt and opened up his shirt buttons. His arms and neck were extraordinarily tanned but beneath the shirt his skin was translucent white. It was like watching a sculpture of two different colors, as if he were designing his body for a game of chess. “Your brother likes those hookers, huh?” he said. “You ask me, they’re a bunch of rip-off artists.” He said nothing more, just stared out at the sea.

Sheila sat with her eyes closed, smiling, her straw hat tilted down over her eyes. An old Italian whose name I didn’t know—a dapper man in perfectly pressed trousers—dented and redented his hat upon his knee and sighed. Shoes were taken off. Ankles exposed. The waves crashed along the shore and the day slipped from us, sand between our fingers.

Radios, beach umbrellas, the burn of salt air.

Adelita walked down to the waterfront, where her children were kicking happily in the low surf. She drew attention like a draft of wind. Men watched her wherever she went, the slender curve of her body against the white uniform. She sat on the sand beside me with her knees pressed against her breasts. She shifted