Motherless Brooklyn

by Jonathan Lethem

  “Whose address?” whispered Chunky in my other ear. He’d caught my hint. He was schooled enough in the clichés to be manipulable; his compatriots I wasn’t so sure of.

  “Tell me Ullman’s address,” I said for their sake. Man-Salad-Dress went my brain. I swallowed hard to keep it from crossing the threshold.

  “Yeah, I got it,” said the Garbage Cop sarcastically. “Whose else would you want?”

  “Ullman?” said Chunky, not to me but to Pimples. “He’s talking about Ullman?”

  “Whose! A! Dress!” I shrieked.

  “Aw, quit,” said Loomis, jaded by now. My other audience wasn’t so blasé. Pimples ripped the cell phone out of my hand, and Chunky wrestled my arm behind my back so I was wrenched forward nearly against the back of the driver’s seat, and down. It was like he wanted me draped in his lap for a spanking. Meanwhile, up front, Pinched and Indistinct began arguing fiercely about parking, about whether they’d fit in some spot.

  Pimples put the phone to his own ear and listened, but Loomis hung up, or maybe just got quiet and listened back, so they were silent together. Pinched managed to park, or double-park—I couldn’t tell which from my strained vantage. The two up front were still muttering at one another, but Chunky was quiet, just turning my arm another degree or two, experimenting with actually hurting me, trying it on for size.

  “You don’t like hearing the name Ullman,” I said, wincing.

  “Ullman was a friend,” said Chunky.

  “Don’t let him talk about Ullman,” said Pinched.

  “This is stupid,” said Indistinct, with consummate disgust.

  “You’re stupid,” said Chunky. “We’re supposed to scare a guy, let’s do it.”

  “I’m not so scared,” I said. “You guys seem more scared to me. Scared of talking about Ullman.”

  “Yeah, well, if we’re scared you don’t know why,” said Chunky. “And don’t guess either. Don’t open your trap.”

  “You’re scared of a big Polish guy,” I said.

  “This is stupid,” said Indistinct again. He sounded like he might cry. He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him.

  Pimples finally quit listening to the silence Loomis had left behind on the cell phone, shut it down, and put it on the seat between us.

  “What if we are scared of him?” said Chunky. “We ought to be, take it from us. We wouldn’t be working for him if we weren’t.” He loosened his grip on my arm, so I was able to straighten up and look around. We were parked outside a popular coffee shop on Second. The window was full of sullen kids flirting by working on tiny computers and reading magazines. They didn’t notice us, carful of lugs, and why should they?

  Indistinct was nowhere to be seen.

  “I sympathize,” I said, to keep them talking. “I’m scared of the big guy, too. It’s just you can’t throw a scare so good when you’re scared.”

  I thought of Tony. If he’d come to the Zendo last night shouldn’t he have triggered the same alarm I had? Shouldn’t he have drawn these would-be toughs, this clown car loaded with fresh graduates from Clown College?

  “What’s so not scary about us?” said Pinched. He said to Chunky, “Hurt him already.”

  “You can hurt me but you still won’t scare me,” I said distractedly. One part of my brain was thinking, Handle with scare, scandal with hair, and so on. Another part was puzzling over the Tony question.

  “Who was that on the phone?” said Pimples, still working on the problem he’d selected as his own.

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” I said.

  “Try us,” said Chunky, twisting my arm.

  “Just a guy doing research for me, that’s all. I wanted Ullman’s address. My partner got arrested for the murder.”

  “See, you shouldn’t have a guy doing research,” said Chunky. “That’s the whole problem. Getting involved, visiting Ullman’s apartment, that’s the kind of thing we’re supposed to scare you about.x201D;

  Scare me, skullman, sang my disease. Skullamum Bailey. Skinnyman Brainy.

  “Hurt him and scare him and let’s get out of here,” said Pinched. “I don’t like this. Larry was right, it is stupid. I don’t care about who’s doing research.”

  “I still want to know who was on the phone,” said Pimples.

  “Listen,” said Chunky, now trying to reason with me, as his gang’s morale and focus—and actual numbers—were dwindling. “We’re here on behalf of the big guy you’re talking about, see? That’s who sent us.” He offered the morphic resonance theory: “So if he scares you you ought to be scared by us, without us having to hurt you.”

  “Guys like you could kill me and you still wouldn’t scare me,” I said.

  “This was a bad idea,” concluded Pinched, and he, too, got out of the car. The front seats were empty now, the steering wheel unmanned. “This isn’t us,” he said, leaning back in, addressing Pimples and Chunky. “We’re no good at this.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’ll have to forgive us. This isn’t what we do. We’re men of peace.” He shut the door. I turned my head enough to see him scooting down the block, his walk like a hectic bird’s.

  “Scaredycop!” I shouted.

  “Where?” said Chunky, immediately releasing my arm. They both swiveled their heads in a panic, eyes wild behind the dark glasses, orange price tags dancing like fishing lures. Freed at last, I turned my head too, not searching for anything, of course, instead for the pleasure of aping their movements.

  “Screw this,” muttered Pimples.

  He and Chunky both fled the rental car, hot on Pinched’s heels, leaving me alone there.

  Pinched had taken the car keys, but Indistinct’s cell phone sat abandoned on the seat beside me. I put it in my pocket. Then I leaned over the seat, popped the glove compartment, and found the rental agency’s registration card and receipt. The car was on a six-month lease to the Fujisaki Corporation, 1030 Park Avenue. The zip code, I was pretty sure, put it in the same zone as the Zendo. Which is where I was, as it happened. I rapped on the rental car’s glove compartment door five times, but it wasn’t particularly resonant or satisfying.

  On my walk over to 1030 Park I flipped open the cell phone and rang L&L. I’d never made a street call before, and felt quite Captain Kirk–ish.

  “L&L,” said a voice, the one I’d hoped to hear.

  “Tony, it’s me,” I said. “Essrog.” That was how Minna always started a phone call: Lionel, itߣs Minna. You’re the first name, I’m the last. In other words: You’re the jerk and I’m the jerk’s boss.

  “Where are you?” said Tony.

  Crossing Lexington at Seventy-sixth Street was the answer. But I didn’t want to tell him.

  Why? I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I let a tic do my talking: “Kiss me, scareyman!”

  “I got worried about you, Lionel. Danny said you went off with the Garbage Cop on some kind of a mission.”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “He with you now?”

  “Garbage cookie,” I said seriously.

  “Why don’t you head back here, Lionel? We ought to talk.”

  “I’m investigating a case,” I said. A guess tic eating a vest. “Oh, yeah? Where’s it taking you?”

  A well-coiffed man in a blue suit turned off Lexington ahead of me. He had a cell phone pressed to his right ear. I aligned myself behind him and imitated his walk.

  “Various places,” I said.

  “Name one.”

  The harder Tony asked, the less I wanted to say. “I was hoping we could, you know, triangulate a little. Compare data.”

  “Give me an example, Lionel.”

  “Like did you—Vesticulate! Guessticalot!—did you get anything out of that, uh, Zendo place last night?”

  “I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Right now there’s something important, you ought to get back here. What are you, at a pay phone?”

  “Vestphone!” I said. “By any chance did a carful of guys try to warn you off?”

/>   “Fuck you talking about?”

  “What about the girl I saw go in before Minna? Did you find out about her?” Even as I asked I got the answer to the question I was asking, the real question.

  I didn’t trust Tony.

  I felt the truth of it in the pause before he replied.

  “I learned a few things,” he said. “But at the moment we need to pool our resources, Lionel. You need to get back here. Because we got some problems coming up.”

  Now I could hear the bluff in his voice. It was casual, easy. He wasn’t straining particularly. It was only Essrog on the line, after all.

  “I know about problems,” Isaid. “Gilbert’s in jail on a murder charge.”

  “Well, that’s just one.”

  “You weren’t at the Zendo last night,” I said. The man in the blue suit turned onto Park Avenue, still gabbing. I let him go, and stood in a crowd at the corner, waiting for the light to change.

  “Maybe you ought to worry about your own fucking self and not me, Lionel,” said Tony. “Where were you last night?”

  “I did what I was supposed to do,” I said, wanting to provoke him now. “I told Julia. Actually, she already knew.” I left out the part about the homicide cop.

  “That’s interesting. I’ve been sort of wondering where Julia goes off to. I hope you found out.”

  Alarms went off. Tony was trying to make his voice casual, but it wasn’t working. “Wondering when? You means she goes out of town a lot?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anyway, how’d you know she went anywhere?”

  “Fuck you think we do around here, Lionel? We learn things.”

  “Yeah, we’re a leading outfit. Gilbert’s in jail, Tony.” My eyes were suddenly full of tears. I knew I should be trying to focus on the Julia problem, but our betrayal of Gilbert felt more immediate.

  “I know. He’s safer there. Come in and talk, Lionel.”

  I crossed with the crowd but stopped halfway, at the traffic island in the middle of Park Avenue. The thumbnail of garden was marked with a sign that read VALIANT DAFFODIL (N. AMERICA), but the ground was chewed and pocked and vacant, as if someone had just dug up a plot of dead bulbs. I sat on the wooden embankment there and let the crowd pass by, until the light turned red again and the traffic began to whiz past me. A strip of sunshine laced the avenue and warmed me on the bench. Park Avenue’s giant apartment buildings were ornate with shadow in the midmorning light. I was like a castaway on my island there, in a river of orange cabs.

  “Where are you, Freakshow?”

  “Don’t call me Freakshow,” I said.

  “What should I call you—Buttercup?”

  “Valiant Daffodil,” I blurted. “Alibi Diffident.”

  “Where are you, Daffodil?” said Tony rather sweetly. “Should we come get you?”

  “Goodcop, buttercup,” I said, ticcing on through my tears. By calling me Freakshow—Minna’s nickname—Tony had cued my Tourette’s, had cut right through the layers of coping strategies and called out my giddy teenage voice. It should have been a relief to tic freely one who knew me so well. But I didn’t trust him. Minna was dead and I didn’t trust Tony and I didn’t know what it meant.

  “Tell me where your little investigation led you,” said Tony.

  I looked up at Park Avenue, the monolithic walls of old money stretched out, a furrow of stone.

  “I’m in Brooklyn,” I lied. “Eatmegreenpoint.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s in Greenpoint?”

  “I’m looking for the—Greenpope!—the guy who killed Minna, the Polish guy. What do you think?”

  “Just wandering around looking for him, huh?”

  “Eatmephone!”

  “Hanging out in Polish bars, that sort of thing?”

  I barked and clicked my tongue. My agitated jaw jerked against the redial button and a sequence of tones played on the line. The light changed and the cabs crossing Park blared their horns, working through gridlock. Another raft of pedestrians passed over my island and back into the river.

  “Doesn’t sound like Greenpoint,” said Tony.

  “They’re filming a movie out here. You should see this. They’ve got Greenpoint—Greenphone! Creepycone! Phonyman!—Greenpoint Avenue set up to look like Manhattan. All these fake buildings and cabs and extras dressed up like they’re on Park Avenue or something. So that’s what you’re hearing.”

  “Who’s in it?”

  “What?”

  “Who’s in the movie?”

  “Somebody said Mel—Gisspod, Gasspoint, Pissphone—”

  “Mel Gibson.”

  “Yeah. But I haven’t seen him, just a lot of extras.”

  “And they really got fake buildings out there?”

  “Did you sleep with Julia, Tony?”

  “Why’d you want to go and say that?”

  “Did you?”

  “Who you trying to protect, Daffodil? Minna’s dead.”

  “I want to know.”

  “I’ll tell you in person when you get in here already.”

  “Dickety Daffodil! Dissident Crocophile! Laughable Chocodopolus!”

  “Ah, I heard it all before.”

  “Likable lunchphone, veritable spongefist, teenage mutant Zendo lungfish, penis Milhaus Nixon tuning fork.”

  “You fucking Tugboat.”

  “Good-bye, Tonybailey.”

  Ten-thirty Park Avenue was another stone edifice, unremarkable among its neighbors. The oak doors split the difference between magnificence and military sturdiness, tiny windows barred with iron: French Colonial Bomb Shelter. The awning showed just the numerals, no gaudy, pretentious building name like you’d see on Central Park West or in Brooklyn Heights—here nothing remained to be proved, and anonymity was a value greater than charisma. The building had a private loading zone and a subtle curb cut, though, which sang of money, payoffs to city officials, and of women’s-shoe heels too fragile to tangle with the usual four-inch step, too expensive to risk miring in dog shit. A special curb man stood patrolling the front, ready to open car doors or kick dogs or turn away unwanted visitors before they even tarnished the lobby. I came down the block at a good clip and swiveled to the door at the last minute, faking him out.

  The lobby was wide and dark, designed to blind an unfamiliar visitor coming in from the sunlight. A crowd of doormen in white gloves and familiar blue suits with black piping on the legs surrounded me the minute I stumbled through the doors. It was the same uniform worn by the lugs in the rental car.

  So they hadn’t been lugs by training—that much was obvious. They were doormen, no shame in that. But men of peace?

  “Help you with something?”

  “Help you sir?”

  “Name?”

  “All visitors must be announced.”

  “Delivery?”

  “Have you got a name?”

  They encircled me, five or six them, not on special assignment but instead doing exactly what they were trained to do. Loom in the gloom. In their white gloves and their right context they were much scarier than they had been loaded into a rental car and fumbling as hoods. Their propriety was terrifying. I didn’t see Pinched, Pimples, Chunky or Indistinct among them, but it was a big building. Instead I’d drawn Shadowface, Shadowface, Shadowface, Tallshadowface, and Shadowface.

  “I’m here to see Fujisaki,” I said. “Man, woman or corporation.”

  “There must be a mistake.”

  “Wrong building, surely.”

  “There is no Fujisaki.”

  “Name?”

  “Fujisaki Management Corporation1D; I said.

  “No.”

  “No. Not here. That isn’t right.”

  “No.”

  “Name? Who’s calling, sir?”

  I took out one of Minna’s cards. “Frank Minna,” I said. The name came easily, and I didn’t feel any need to distort it the way I would my own.

  The band of doormen around me loosened at the sight of a business card.
I’d shown a first glimmer of legitimacy. They were a top grade of doorman, finely tuned, factoring vigilance against hair-trigger sycophantic instincts.

  “Expected?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Expected by the party in question? Appointment? Name? Contact?”

  “Dropping in.” “Hmmm.”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  Another minute correction ensued. They bunched closer. Minna’s card disappeared.

  “There may be some confusion.”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably there is.”

  “Wrong building completely.”

  “Should there be a destination for a message, what would a message be?”

  “On the chance that the destination in question is this one. You understand, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “No message,” I said. I tapped the nearest doorman’s suit breast. He darted back, scowling. But they were penguins now. I had to touch them all. I reached for the next, the tallest, tried to high-five his shoulder and just grazed it. The circle loosened around me again as I spun. They might have thought I was staining them with invisible swatches of blacklight paint for future identification or planting electronic bugs or just plain old spreading cooties, from the way they jumped.

  “No.”

  “Look out.”

  “Can’t have this.”

  “Can’t have this here.”

  “Out.”

  Then two of them had me by the elbows, and I was steered out onto the sidewalk.

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  I took a stroll around the block, just to glean what I could from the north face of the building. I was shadowed by the curb man, of course, but I didn’t mind. The staff entrance smelled of a private dry-cleaning service, and the disposal bins showed signs of bulk food orders, perhaps an in-house grocery. I wondered if the building housed a private chef, too. I thought about poking my head in to see but the curb man was muttering tensely into a walkie-talkie, and I figured I’d probably better distance myself. I waved good-bye and he waved back involuntarily—everyone’s a little ticcish that way sometimes.

  Between bites of hot dog and gulps of papaya juice I dialed the Garbage Cop’s office. The Papaya Czar on Eighty-sixth Street and Third Avenue is my kind of place—bright orange and yellow signs pasted on every available surface screaming, PAPAYA IS GOD’S GREATEST GIFT TO MAN’S HEALTH! OUR FRANKFURTERS ARE THE WORKING MAN’S FILET MIGNON! WE’RE POLITE NEW YORKERS, WE SUPPORT MAYOR GIULIANI! And so on. Papaya Czar’s walls are so layered with language that I find myself immediately calmed inside their doors, as though I’ve stepped into a model interior of my own skull.