Feelers

by Wiprud, Brian M

  This landlord, he only squints and says nothing, as though what I had said was stupid. I continued.

  “Shirts. I am taking shirts to the cleaner.”

  “In a suitcase?” he snarled.

  “But of course, and why not, yes? This way they don’t get as wrinkled.”

  “But they’re going to press the shirts anyway, yes?”

  “If they are less wrinkled, my cleaner charges me less.”

  Now the landlord monster toad is looking more curious. “What cleaner you take them to?”

  “What cleaner?”

  “Chinks down the block?”

  If I say yes, he will check. Why does he care? Why would he do this? Because he is a landlord, and they live to snoop.

  “Nnnno. I take them to . . . New Jersey.” Even he wouldn’t go all the way to New Jersey to check on a cleaner to see if I was charged less for shirts that were wrinkled less.

  His eyes went wide. “Well, that would explain it.” For many Brooklynites, New Jersey is the object of suspicion and general disdain, like it was one large insane asylum. It doesn’t help that the state is host to towns with names like Weehawken and Hoboken and Piscataway—could they be towns where elves live? Anyway, as a rule of thumb, anybody who lived outside of Brooklyn, much less New York City, was clearly out of their mind and capable of anything, even charging to clean shirts by how many wrinkles they have.

  “You go all the way to . . . why d’you go all the way . . .”

  “My girlfriend—she lives there.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Morty? We got girls here in Brooklyn you can fuck. Lotta spic girls, too. You don’t need to go to . . .” he couldn’t even bring himself to say the state’s name, just jerked a thumb westward.

  I began moving to the front door, having thwarted my landlord like the conniving troll that he was. He was now thinking about the girl and not the suitcase.

  “They say you cannot pick your woman. She picks you.”

  “TED!”

  This was the voice—not a voice, because like a banshee, she never spoke—the choleric shriek of the landlord’s wife. It came from the gloom beyond his open apartment door. She was even more horrible than he, and he feared her like we fear landlords. She was so large she could not even leave their grotto. The woman’s howl made him cringe, and he eyed me sadly as he turned to retreat to his cave, as if to say, “You got that right, buster.”

  Olé! I was out the door with my money, and an hour later the eight hundred thousand in the Scottish suitcase was safely sealed in a storage locker. As you can imagine, I was flying. I’d scored the money free and clear.

  I could write my own ticket. I could accelerate my plans for the future, to reclaim my birthright.

  But like Pizarro with the wealth of Peru at his feet, I would be lucky to escape with my skin. He did not.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  I AM NOT A FORTUNE-TELLER, but if I were a gypsy, I might have foreseen what was happening thirty miles up the Hudson River at a state correctional facility. The date and facts are a matter of record, and as we know records make a dull story, and sometimes no story at all, really just a list of dates and times. I can only imagine the full series of events based on the facts as I know them now. But I will be brutally honest, Father Gomez: This is what happened in my life, my explanation, my confession, so I will paint you the full picture of Danny Kessel. Of what happened. Of how it all started.

  Danny was a model prisoner. In fact, they called him Mr. Manners. When the guards opened his cell for him to go in or out, he said thank you. When they served him slop in the dining facility, he said thank you. When he slid a shiv into the neck of a fellow prisoner who stole his cigarettes, he said sorry. A man has to do unspeakable things to survive in prison, to position himself so that he is not abused. Danny proved to be talented with a shiv—you know, a slim homemade dagger—and he became a hired killer. He had a reputation for being quick, decisive, unpredictable, and precise. And, of course, deceptively polite.

  Yes, they have hit men in prison, too. Sometimes a prisoner is being tormented by another and wishes to wreak vengeance. Sometimes a gang leader is sent to solitary and needs someone outside the gang to punish the prisoner who sent him there.

  Yet Danny did not start out as what people think of as a hardened criminal. He was the driver for an armored car heist. He and four others knocked over an Atlas Security truck collecting cash from supermarkets in Queens. They got away, too, but of course made mistakes and the cops came and shot them all up in a gun battle on the Coney Island boardwalk.

  All except Mr. Manners.

  They sent him away for fifteen years, and he was smart enough to claim he didn’t know where the money was. I say “smart” because he did know where the money was, and the others who did were all dead. No sense in losing fifteen years of your life for nothing, is there?

  Even as I was driving the Scottish suitcase full of money to the storage locker, this darkly handsome man was being led through the drab institutional hallways to the place where they process parolees. See, they did not know the bad but polite things he had done so expertly with his shiv. Only the other prisoners knew. Of course, Danny knew, and if you looked closely you could see it in his cold blue eyes. The same eyes that from the prison bus windows scanned all the strange SUVs on the highway, the billboards for Web sites, ads for cell phones, and fast food chains he had never heard of. You would not have known he was just a little bit afraid to be out. You would not have known when he stepped from the bus and entered the subway that he was confused by the fare card machine—he still had some tokens that were now worthless. He just walked right back out of the subway and began walking, eyeing police cars as though they might screech up alongside, throw him in the back, and take him back to Sing Sing. They would have, had they known what he was thinking.

  His first stop was probably a hardware or home store, perhaps some little mom-and-pop place on Queens Boulevard.

  “Can I help you?”

  Danny would smile at the store owner. A smile like that of a child, really. You know the kind—like everything was new and pleasant. Probably because it was. Nobody knew he had just gotten out of prison. Nobody knew he was a killer. Nobody was treating him like scum.

  Why would the owner suspect? Danny was wearing the suit and turtleneck he wore in court fifteen years ago. Never mind that the suit was a little tight around the shoulders, the lapels long, the belt bunching the pants around his waist.

  “Thank you, I could use some help. Could you tell me where you have the kitchen stuff?”

  “Housewares?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “No.”

  At this point, I imagine the store owner paused, sensing something, but not knowing what, before leading the parolee to the spatulas, meat thermometers, and turkey basters.

  “Here y’go.”

  “Thank you.”

  Probably a few minutes went by before Danny appeared at the register. It would not have taken long, because Mr. Manners knew exactly what he wanted, even though he told the store owner no.

  The owner looked a little uneasily at the assembled products. He thought about asking what Danny was making for dinner that would require three ice picks, a meat hammer, and boot laces.

  Small plastic shopping bag in hand, Danny began walking south, against the shadows of parking meters and hydrants toward Brooklyn again. He needed some privacy. But not for very long.

  So he probably stopped in a bar, which on a hot spring day was likely to be empty except for pensioners nursing beers while watching the latest from Pimlico on cable TV. He put a ten-dollar bill on the bar and ordered a cola, no ice. If it was a barmaid, she probably put a hand to her hair, maybe batted her eyelashes at the tall dark stranger.

  In the bathroom, he removed his jacket and struggled with the plastic packaging to open his purchases. The boot laces were threaded through holes he poked in
the lining of his jacket at the shoulders, dropping the ends down the sleeves. These ends he tied to the handles of the ice picks. When he put his jacket back on, the ice picks hung down the inside of his sleeves to his forearms, hidden. But all he had to do was shrug a certain way on one side or the other and the ice pick slid down to where he could grab it. He could not grab both at the same time, but how often does one need two ice picks to kill someone?

  The other boot lace he looped through the hole in the handle of the meat hammer. The loop was big enough to go over his wrist. This weapon he tucked in his belt, at his side.

  Then there was the third ice pick. He tried tying it to his leg, but it was too uncomfortable, so he just put it in his inside breast jacket pocket. Why so many ice picks? Probably an impulse purchase. Presented with a bounty of well-made shivs, and at such a low price compared to prison, I think he could not resist stocking up. They say you cannot have enough weapons handy in the lockup. Especially if you’re a prison hit man.

  Exiting the bathroom, he walked down the bar, picked up his change, and said thank you to the barmaid before walking back out into the bright sun. The barmaid shrugged and dumped his untouched cola in the sink.

  Sun. There was so much of it—he had forgotten. He stopped at a bargain store where they have the racks of cheap sunglasses out front. He was a little frustrated by all the stupid sunglasses they sold, ones with strangely tinted lenses, and many looked more like goggles.

  I have to wonder if the clerk asked Danny if he was buying the sunglasses for his wife, because he purchased some giant black counterfeit Donna Karans. But how was he to know?

  Somewhere along his walk, I like to think he had to pass a cop standing on the sidewalk. Maybe just as he was exiting the bargain store. Maybe it was as he turned a corner. The ice picks in his sleeves must have felt like they bulged, and the meat hammer in his belt must have felt like it weighed ten pounds, but from life in prison, Danny was practiced at walking normally with a four-inch shiv up his rectum. By comparison this was a cakewalk. And why should a cop suspect him of anything? Every prisoner was suspect. Now he was John Q. Public.

  Did the cop look at Danny as he passed? Did he look at the man in the woman’s sunglasses and a turtleneck on a hot May afternoon? Did the cop sense anything at all? You know, many cops can almost smell a bad guy, having sniffed so many. But probably the cop just thought Danny was a little strange, or the cop was distracted, because obviously nobody stopped Danny and frisked him and took him in and got him back where he belonged, caged and bound in chains like the homicidal monster that he was.

  I only wish they had.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  REMEMBER WHEN I SAID BEFORE that I was not an idiot? Well, sometimes I wonder. What do you do when you come into a shitload of money? Well, some people with white picket fences, a minivan in the driveway, a wife, and a squad of bratty kids would pay down some of their loans. Others would seek investment counseling from their local banker.

  Feelers are fiercely competitive, and I told you how Pete the Prick had been busting my shoes about there being no tight ones in that house on Vanderhoosen Drive.

  And there is no denying: I was in a festive mood.

  Do you win the lottery and not tell anyone?

  Do you inherit a fortune and go home and watch a ball game?

  Do you win on the long shot at Aqueduct and not crow?

  So after checking to make sure my workers had finished loading and securing the Dumpster at the job site, I found myself strutting into Oscar’s Grille on the boulevard.

  The usual characters were there. Louie “Frog” Franco, a fellow feeler with long blond hair and loud shirts. He specializes in apartments, the quick buck. Hugo—I don’t know his last name—Frog’s foreman, a big man with a small voice like a cartoon squirrel. Buddy, the old-timer, was in his usual seat by the door and the pay phone, his OTB slips in a pile next to his racing form. His daughter, who looked as old as he was but dressed like a biker and who people called Buddy Dyke. The two of them were feelers that specialized in commercial properties and dealt in used office furniture. Slim Jim was at the digital jukebox—his name was a joke as he was like a human bowling ball, but also he was a repo man who broke into cars and stole them legally, often with a device known as a Slim Jim. Mim was a skinny old bird with oversized glasses and a beehive wig. I do not think she had ever been a feeler, just was part of the bar. She held down the opposite end of the bar from Buddy, like they each had their turf. She surrounded herself not with racing forms but with the daily tabloids and could be found at Oscar’s from opening to closing every day sipping Canadian and cola. Finally, at his table in the corner was Pete the Prick, back to the wall, a scotch and grapefruit highball in his hand. At his elbows were a couple of his heavy-lifting boys drinking pints. Not big but powerful, these were the ones we simply called the Balkan Boys who never wore anything but denim bib overalls, crew cuts, and scowls. I had no doubt that it would have been these two Pete would have sent to take the thirty-two tight ones from me had the Prick got wind of it soon enough. Those two looked like they just got out of prison and were not afraid of going back.

  “Ooo,” Buddy said as I came in.

  You will notice that in Brooklyn, people often say “Ooo.” Depending on how it is said, it can mean many things. Buddy said his “Ooo” up and then down, which I took to mean he knew about the tight ones.

  I smiled, but just a little, like I was remembering something from the funny papers. “Hello, Buddy.”

  “We hear good things.” Buddy planted his fist on the bar, waiting for a reply.

  Like a ripple down the bar, each patron turned to look my direction.

  “Yes?” I tried not to look at anyone but Buddy and Buddy Dyke sitting next to him.

  “Yes,” says Buddy Dyke, her black T-shirt bulging with muscles and tits like battleships.

  Oscar approached from behind the bar, nodding. His face and bald head was like something carved from stone. It looked like it had been around for a million years. “Hiya, Morty. Ginger and cognac?”

  “Sure.”

  “So?” Buddy was waiting.

  I shrugged, and he looked exasperated.

  “Tight ones?” Buddy Dyke rolled a finger in the air. “We hear you found a hundred of ’em.”

  “A hundred?” I shook my head, but I was smiling. “That is crazy. I never found a hundred tight ones.”

  Now Slim Jim rolled over to join the interrogation, his piglike eyes sparkling with curiosity under his Mets cap. “So how many was it?”

  I looked at the ceiling as if I were indulging children. “Look, my friends, I almost always find a little something extra. It is no big deal.” That was more for the Prick’s benefit. I could feel him squirming over there in the corner, but I would not meet his eye.

  “But we heard—”

  “I do not care what you heard, Slim,” I said, laughing lightly, the way I imagine people do at cocktail parties. “People hear all sorts of things. Rumors.”

  Oscar’s boulder of a head leaned across the bar as he set my drink in front of me. “Over at the chica bar some of your boys are throwing money around.”

  “They just got paid. I gave them a little extra. Does it surprise you that they are spending it?” I shrugged, real cool customer, enjoying my secret. There was no way I was going to tell them anything more than I had already. Besides, they already knew I had scored big. Was I to tell them it was eight hundred grand?

  “Forget it, morons!” Mim crowed from across the bar, running an arm across her mouth to mop up the spittle. “Youse think he’s gonna tell you if he scored big? Why should he?”

  “Ooo. Who asked you?” Buddy and his daughter said in unison.

  Mim belched. “ ’Cause I’m tryin’ tah read over here the papers.”

  “Morty?” Frog was gesturing for me to join him and Hugo. “Let us buy you a drink. Come on.”

  So I went farther down the bar and took a stool just dow
n from Frog and several up from Mim. Frog was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with big pineapples on it. His blond hair was slicked back, and he smelled like aftershave. A lot of aftershave.

  Oscar set us up, and Frog raised his glass for a toast. “To good fortune. May it smile on us all!”

  “Amen,” Hugo squeaked. It was cruel of God to give a man the body of a rhinoceros and the voice of a dog toy. His pants and T-shirt could have made a circus tent. Two bar stools were necessary to support him, and I felt a little safer drinking with Hugo what with the Prick and his pals eyeing me from the corner.

  I grinned, clinking glasses, locking eyes with Frog. His eyes said he knew I scored big, but they also said he didn’t begrudge me my luck.

  “So it was the place over on Vanderhoosen, eh?” Frog cocked his head.

  “We cleaned it out in one day, worked hard, made an honest dollar.”

  Frog laughed and elbowed Hugo, who didn’t seem to notice he was being nudged any more than a hippo knows a bird is perched on his back.

  “I did the place next door a couple weeks back, for High Class Realtors. Bid on that place you did myself. What a dump. Smelled like old man piss. Didn’t look like there was nothing to salvage.”

  There was a pause.

  “Well,” I began, but more for the Prick’s benefit than for Frog’s, “sometimes you have a feeling about a place. Yes?”

  “Yes. I know.” Frog threw back his drink, clunked the glass on the bar, and raised his hands as if surrendering. “Sometimes you have a feeling about a place, that you might find something. It’s that feeling that’ll put you ahead in this game. I’ve scored my share of tight ones on a hunch. But the smell of old man piss . . . I never find anything in a place where they can’t hold their piss.”

  Hugo shifted on his stools and eyed me in the mirror behind the bar. His neck was so thick he had trouble turning his head. “Well, I guess there are exceptions to every rule. Am I right?” It was as if there were a helium leak just where Hugo sat.