Feelers

by Wiprud, Brian M

  “I don’t know, Frog.”

  “You have my number—keep me informed of what’s going on, OK? Christ.”

  “Good night, Frog, I will call you.”

  “Take it easy, man, OK? And don’t go to the cops.”

  “Yes.”

  I heard his footsteps retreat rapidly.

  So what could I do that did not involve meeting with Wolfman or Danny?

  As I had done with Mim, I supposed I could try to fill in a few more holes in what I knew to try to get a clearer picture of what alternative faced me. If I knew how Mary was killed, or what the cops knew, perhaps that would tell me if Danny was hunting me, and I would know I was in the worst possible spot.

  Ah.

  I could not just walk into the police station and ask them the particulars of the case.

  But I could walk into the Brooklyn Gazette and ask Dexter, the clubfooted reporter.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  IT WAS AFTER ONE IN the morning. Why would I think to find Dexter at the paper at that hour?

  True, I did not know him well, but I read the Gazette, and Dexter had had a number of big stories, scooped the Manhattan tabloids a time or two on a big mob trial, had an exposé on Latino gangs that went national, and had won some journalism awards—something the Gazette was proud to note at every opportunity. Hands down, he was their star reporter. In barrooms across the borough, beery patrons wondered aloud if Dexter had outgrown the Gazette, and why he had not moved off to bigger and better things at the Manhattan papers. Some wondered if the Gazette and Dexter were becoming one and the same. It was said he had a bed under his desk and could be found in his office pounding out his stories late into the night. It was said he slept little.

  Through the heavy glass doors of the sleepy glass office building was a rent-a-cop and security station.

  “Is Dexter in? I am a friend.”

  The guard looked like he could barely stay awake as he poked and prodded his phone.

  “Hello, can you tell me if Mr. Lewis is in?” he said into the receiver. He had the roller-coaster accent of Jamaica. “Hold on.” He put the phone to his chest and looked to me. “Who are you, now?”

  I told him; he told them. He put the phone down, turned a sign-in book to me, and handed me a building pass. “Turd floor, mon.”

  Exiting the small elevator on the third floor was like falling into a cold lake of air-conditioning and fluorescent light. The reception desk was empty. Beyond that was the hum of ventilation and the flicker of computer screens. Cubicles stretched to the far side of the fluorescent lake and glass-wall offices on the far shore. The cubicles were empty. No people were in sight.

  “Ooo. Morty?”

  Far to my right, at an office in the corner, was a head sticking out of an office. It was mostly a bald head, with hair around the sides.

  “Dexter, hello.” I was a little taken aback. I had not seen him without his Panama hat and remembered him with a thick head of hair. Perhaps his hat was both his trademark and his camouflage.

  “Come!” He waved at me, smiling, and his shiny head retreated back where it came from.

  I found my way over to his doorway and was greeted by a grin and hearty handshake. “Morty, this is a huge surprise.”

  Dexter was in a white shirt open at the neck, brown suspenders, tan modified chinos, and black mismatched blocky shoes. His small, dark, cluttered office was stacked with papers, and the shelves crowded with awards large and small. There was also a photo of his parents, and of him at the mob trial. That there was no photo of bride and brood was not much of a surprise. A man must often choose between family and his ambitions.

  His Panama hat was on a coatrack in the corner.

  “Here . . .” Dexter cleared a stack of papers from a chair next to the door. “Sit, Morty.”

  I sat, and he lurched around to the other side of his desk and collapsed in his chair. There was a window behind him, looking east, and in the distance I could see the lights of Coney Island, the Parachute Drop tower clearly visible. His office’s fluorescent lights were not on, only an old lamp by his desk that looked like a flying saucer. It lighted his desk and little else.

  I have to say, as pleased as I was to find Dexter in his office at this late hour, I became a little worried by how overjoyed he seemed to be to see a man who was just an acquaintance, and probably a reminder of some pretty rough times in high school.

  “I’m glad to find you in, Dexter. It has been a long time.”

  He didn’t answer this, just nodded his head and smiled. “You know, Morty, I haven’t forgotten that you were one of the few people back when, back in the day, who didn’t bust my chops about the foot. You were jake, and I appreciate that to this day.” He leaned forward on his desk, shoving a laptop computer to one side. “And yet I know we are not friends. There’s no reason, just that we only know each other from then. Am I right?”

  “Yes, of course. You seem very happy.”

  Dexter seemed to be hardly able to contain his pleasure. “Ooo. Happiness!” He held a finger aloft. “Somebody once said, ‘Happiness is satisfaction disguised as joy.’ ”

  “I suppose so. You are wondering why I am here.”

  His grin blossomed into a smile that spread across his stubble, his eyes shiny, his head shaking slightly. “I know why you are here.”

  “You do?”

  “Somebody comes to see me late at night I get all happy. Why? Because I know I’ll get a satisfied feeling, you know? Why? Because the only reason anybody comes to see me at an hour like this is to tell me something I might not know, and I get satisfied knowing things other people don’t.”

  “And this makes you happy. I understand.”

  He leaned back in his chair, out of the light, tapping his fingertips together. His eyes were twinkling with lamplight. “And I get a great deal of satisfaction trying to figure things out, putting one thing together with another until I understand secrets. You were at the Upscale Realty murder scene. I saw you there.”

  I guess my eyes widened, because he reacted by chuckling.

  “Don’t worry, Morty. I know you didn’t do it.”

  “Did someone say I did?” I found myself standing.

  “Relax, Morty, relax. Here . . .” He leaned down, and I heard the puff and soft thump of what must have been a college refrigerator door open and close. He set two Miller beers on his desk, opened both, and handed me one. “I also know the cops wanted to talk to you—what was it you said your name was? Bob? But you lit out. Don’t worry. I didn’t tell them who you were. I did go by your place looking for you later. Word has it you and Mary Duggin were good friends.”

  “Yes. I saw her earlier today.” I sank back into my seat. “You are right. I probably can tell you a few things—possibly related to her death—that you do not know. But I must make myself clear, Dexter. I not only came to give a little information but to get it.”

  He reached out and thumped the desk, a jaunty display of applause. “Morty, you and I might be friends yet. Glad to hear you say that. I don’t like idiots, and I would have been disappointed if you were an idiot.”

  Now I had to decide what to trade him for what I wanted to know, without dragging me into it. I decided to get what I could out of him first. That would help me decide how to massage the information. I didn’t need Dexter chasing my money and the story of how I got it for the Brooklyn Gazette.

  He waved a hand at me, for me to start.

  “I want to know what happened to Mary.”

  “Stabbed. Here.” He pointed to his eye.

  I shivered. Poor Mary. I really did like her. She had a good soul.

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “No.”

  “Any leads?”

  “You mean the police?”

  “Yes, do they have any suspects?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Any idea of . . . the nature of the crime? Was it a robbery?”

  “Petty cash miss
ing, looks like. He used the key from around her neck to open the strongbox.”

  I shivered again. My check was probably still in there, with the business name and phone number and the subject: “House Cleaning/Vanderhoosen.”

  “Of course,” he continued, “they don’t know what else may have been in there that the perp was looking for. Do you know, Morty?”

  “I’m not done. So are they convinced it was just a robbery?”

  “They’re not sure.”

  I wasn’t getting what I needed.

  “But you wanna know what I think?” I heard that giant black shoe bump the underside of the desk. “I think this guy did it.”

  He held up the flyer. The flyer the Wolfman had been passing around the bar. “His name is Danny Kessel. He got out of prison yesterday. Stole . . . but you know this, don’t you?”

  Reporters were as good as the police at reading people.

  “I know that flyer. A cop of some kind was passing it around Oscar’s.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I know you were there.”

  “Where did you get that flyer?”

  “Mary’s desk. It was sitting right there. The cops let me hang around the crime scene. But this isn’t that one. Once I saw it, I realized somebody was looking for a con. This is a prison photo. How would she have it unless somebody was canvassing the neighborhood?”

  “You know who the cop was that was handing it around?” I asked.

  He tossed the flyer on the desk. “Not yet. I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I do not know. But I know he drives a black SUV.”

  “Morty? Tell me something I don’t know for a change. I’m not an idiot, either.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes for what must have been thirty seconds.

  “I see,” he finally said, breaking eye contact and leaning back once more in his chair. “So. If you won’t tell me, it means that the information you have about this might implicate you or someone you care about. Hmm?”

  I looked at the ceiling.

  “Now what could a feeler have to do with all this?” He, too, looked to the ceiling, as if reading my thoughts up there. “Well, that is something of itself. You know, if you’re somehow mixed up in this, Morty, I might be able to help. If you help me. Otherwise, I have to go out on the street and spend all kinds of time asking questions about you, where you hang out, who you hang out with . . .”

  Fanny. He would find out about her, and the tight ones, and figure it all out in a short time, I was sure.

  I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, making a show of my anguish.

  “OK, Dexter, I will tell you. But you must believe me that I am an innocent party in this who has been drawn into harm’s way. I think maybe Danny Kessel thinks I recovered his money. I cleaned the house owned by his uncle. I found a little money. But not five million, I swear before God.”

  His eyes: squinting. His lips: pursed. I was being examined very closely.

  “Look, we feelers often find money. Ask Frog.”

  “Frog?”

  “Yes, Franco, he hangs out at Oscar’s. He does apartments, mostly.”

  “Mostly . . .”

  “He does the occasional house. Did one next door to the Trux place.”

  “Trux place . . .”

  “The place I cleaned, Danny’s uncle.”

  “Hmm.”

  “So I found some money. And as I often do, I shared some of it with the day laborers. They went out drinking, and word got out that I had found a lot of money. It is unfortunate that my discovery comes at this time, when Danny—”

  “Not five million?”

  “Not even close. It was more than I have ever found. But if it was five million . . .”

  “You wouldn’t be here now. You’d be long gone.”

  I clapped my hands. “As you say.”

  “But nobody knows for sure that Danny hid the money in the house, right? You haven’t run into him yet, that right?”

  “I have only run into Wolfman, at Oscar’s. But he is parked outside my apartment right now.”

  “Wolfman?”

  “Yes. The cop with the flyers. Very hairy man. I think he shaves his nose.”

  Dexter chuckled about that. “And he’s staking you out?”

  “Yes. The idiots down at Oscar’s sold me out for a hundred bucks. Mim—”

  “Mim?”

  “An old-timer, sits at the far end of the bar. She recognized the photo, knew it was Danny, knew that Danny’s uncle lived there on Vanderhoosen Drive . . .”

  “And ’cause there were the rumors of the money . . . got it.” Dexter began to rock in his chair. He was liking my story. Probably because it was the truth. “And you won’t go to the police because . . .”

  “Hey, I got that money fair and square. The next of kin signed a release of all the house contents to me. All a hundred percent legal. The cops will take that money away as evidence or something. I got plans.”

  “Plans?”

  “There is a place I want to buy. A place far from here, start a new life.”

  “You lived here all your life. You don’t like Brooklyn?”

  “You would not understand. It has to do with my family. I want to buy my family’s house back in . . . well, out of the country.”

  Dexter was now playing with a pencil, tossing it in the air and catching it.

  “Morty, this is one fucked-up story. Thank you. I owe you one.”

  “All I ask is that you try to help get me out of this. I am not the bad guy.”

  He caught the pencil and pointed it at me. “Just the lucky guy.”

  “Almost lucky.” I stood and began pacing. “Shit, man, I got nowhere to go. I cannot even go home. Wolfman is waiting for me.”

  Dexter struggled out of his seat and staggered over to his coatrack. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” I watched as he slid on his Panama hat. It was like watching a soldier put on his helmet.

  “We have a date with the Wolfman.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ARE YOU SURE THIS IS the best idea?” I was sitting in Dexter’s Mustang convertible, one of the new ones, in black. The top was down, yet somehow Dexter’s Panama didn’t ever seem in danger of flying off as we drove over. Perhaps he flexed his head muscles to keep it on, I do not know.

  “First rule of journalism: Go to the source. Besides, how would you get home otherwise?”

  I shrugged and climbed out of his car. Better him than me—nobody better to put one over on a cop than a reporter. Besides, I was beat. It was almost two thirty. I could hear the siren song of my pillow.

  His car growled around the corner onto my street, and I stayed by the corner watching.

  The Mustang’s taillights flared as it pulled to a stop next to the Wolfman’s SUV.

  I watched. Dexter lurched out from the driver’s door and leaned in the open passenger window of the SUV.

  That was my cue.

  My building is two in from the boulevard. There is nothing but sidewalk, signs, and a couple small dying trees. The brick buildings are at the back of the sidewalk. No bushes or anything like that to block the view from the SUV. Only parked cars along the entire length of curb down to my building.

  So I ran at a crouch behind the parked cars, dodging the street hardware as I went. At the spaces between cars, I shot an eye out to my left, toward the SUV, the Mustang, and Dexter. Each time there was a flash of streetlight and a glimpse of the cars across the street. It was like a slow-moving motion picture, frame by frame, interspaced with a view ahead along the sidewalk, sign posts, streetlamp, and skinny trees.

  In front of my building I stopped and got an eyeful of the Mustang and Dexter standing at the SUV. Gently, I fished my building keys out of my pocket so as not to make any jingly sounds. I found the front door key—but also saw the key to the locker.

  The locker with the eight hundred grand in it. This was all worth it, right? I did a flash review of the evening.

/>   Buying grapes and flowery trash can. Fanny’s voice on the phone about the bath. At Oscar’s, realizing I was in deep, deep shit. The itchy cop and crime scene at Mary’s. Running down Speedy on the boulevard. The sweet massage from the chica. Mamma and Pitu beating the crap out of the Balkan Boys. Mim spewing. Frog frightening. Dexter Lewis pointing his pencil at me and saying, “Just the lucky guy.”

  There I was crouching behind a car, like a criminal, in front of my own apartment, caressing a silver key to eight hundred grand and savoring my dream of my La Paz birthright.

  I gave my head a shake. Daydream once you’re inside, idiot!

  Confirming that Dexter was still blocking Wolfman’s sightlines, I scuttled like a crab up to the apartment vestibule, slid the key in the lock, and gently swung the door open.

  Halfway open, it stopped.

  I shoved, and it seemed to shove back.

  My breath stuck to the back of my tongue like a mollusk—I dared not move. There was someone in the vestibule.

  No, you idiot—look, it’s the wooden door wedge.

  From the street, I heard Dexter laugh about something—and at first I thought it was at me, but he couldn’t even see me from where he was talking to Wolfman.

  I pulled the door open a little, reached around, and moved the stupid wedge the landlord keeps there for propping the door open. Next I knew I was safely in the light of the vestibule, mailboxes on the wall above me.

  Which reminded me: I had completely forgotten about the white envelope from the genealogical people. The one containing my ancestry. I could picture tossing it on the backseat of the Camaro, the white envelope wedged in the corner when I shoved the Scottish suitcase into the backseat.

  I slid the next key into the next door and pushed it open into the hallway, keeping an eye out the window to see if Dexter was still standing there. Yes, they were still out there. And I was undetected.

  Still crouching, I pushed the door closed and turned.

  “What the hell is this?”

  You have heard the term “jumping out of one’s own skin”? My muscles and skeleton dashed up the stairs leaving only my skin, brain, and eyeballs in the front hall.