It was the monster frog, of course—my landlord. The monster frog’s belly stuck out of his green-and-white-striped pajamas like a hairy bloated cantaloupe, a cellophane-wrapped stogie in his top pocket, a Mets baseball cap on his head, green flip-flops on his feet.
God only knows what he was doing up at that hour, standing in the hallway, watching as the door slowly creaked open and I backed into the building.
I had collapsed into a sitting position against the wall, clutching my brain to make sure it did not leave only my eyeballs down here with the monster frog and the inevitable inquisition that I would now have to deal with after this ferociously long and complicated day.
“Did I scare yah?” He now stood over me, hands on his hips.
I could not imagine why he would ask such a thing when the answer seemed clear.
“Good God, man, what are you doing standing around in the hallway at this hour?” I had a hard time keeping the peevishness from my voice.
“My goddamn hallway. I’ll stand here all night long if I wanna. There’s people standing in the street talking, I was gonna go tell them to get the fuck away from here. Now I find you creepin’. Morty creepin’ in my hallway.”
Brooklyn: a borough of over two and a half million souls. Every year we have a couple hundred murders, double that number of rapes, double that number of assaults, and thousands and thousands of thefts. If any one of these were to happen in front of my building, I have no doubt my landlord would close his shades and plug his ears. But two men talking in muted tones at three in the morning? It is this that upset him enough to get out of bed, exit the building in his green-striped pajamas, and tell them to go away.
Then again, this is the man who feels up all the garbage bags for contraband—that is, recyclables. A year ago I tossed a small recyclable milk carton in the garbage, and I still hadn’t heard the last of it.
My skeleton and musculature slumped reluctantly back into my skin with my brain and eyeballs. I worked my jaw to make sure it might be able to form words.
“It is perfectly simple,” I began, not having a clue what I would say next—and knowing that nothing was simple anymore.
“You know those two out there?” he grumbled.
“I do not even know who you are talking about. I did not notice anybody.”
“Well, they’re out there, and they’re talking. In front of my building.”
Monsters lead small lives.
“I assure you that I . . . you see, it is my girlfriend.” When in doubt, blame it on your girlfriend or wife—other men are only too willing to accept this variety of excuse.
“Ooo. The one from . . . from . . .” He waved his thumb toward the west, unable to bring himself to say “New Jersey.”
“Yes. That is the one.”
“That figgers.”
“I was out with someone else, and I think she may be suspicious, so I wanted to be careful coming home. You are a man of the world, you know how it is.”
More like a man of the four-story brick building in East Brooklyn. I doubt he had left the neighborhood for twenty years. This didn’t keep him from tugging up on his pajama bottoms as if his cock were hanging down to his gnarled yellow toenails.
He sniffed and looked somewhere off into the middle distance, probably picturing his last conquest, sometime when Nixon was in China. I shuddered. I could only imagine what that lucky girl looked like, much less what they looked like together. I tell you, I gagged.
“You OK? Youse ain’t gonna barf in my hallway, are yah?”
“No, I am fine, really.” I got unsteadily to my feet, my stomach somehow being the last part of me to rise up from the floor. “Well, it was nice talking to you. Good night.”
“I tell you, Morty.” He was saying this to my back as I tromped up the stairs. “You got an interesting life.”
Interesting? The irony of that made me chuckle. “Good night.”
“And Morty . . .”
I paused.
“Yes?”
“No more milk cartons in the garbage. We’ll get a ticket.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
AS I REACHED MY FRONT door, I looked toward the floor for the gum wrapper.
Ah.
I neglected to put the gum wrapper in the doorjamb eighteen hours or so ago when I left with Fanny. Why? Because I knew the Balkan Boys had already been there. Back in that blissful, carefree world eighteen hours ago, I did not know Danny Kessel was hunting me.
I unlocked the door and stepped in.
I heard something move.
Who was it that turned into a pillar of salt? Medusa? That was me.
For about two seconds, until I heard the movement again, over by the couch.
A weapon. I needed a weapon, and fast.
A flash-fast mental inventory of my apartment zoomed in on the image of my baseball bat. I do not play baseball. I would venture to guess that most Brooklynites do not. But even as it may be customary in South Jersey to keep pigs inside your house or in California to keep your convertible Bentley in the garage, in Brooklyn most people keep a baseball bat somewhere handy. You know, just in case there is trouble. It is not like Brooklyn is particularly dangerous, do not get me wrong, but we are a cautious people, many of us having lived through times that were more dangerous. This weapon is customarily kept somewhere near the front door, where presumably a frontal assault on your apartment would occur.
Mine was in the coat closet. Near the front door, yes, but not next to the front door. I had moved it when straightening up my place for Fanny. To get it would require moving toward the person in my dark apartment and opening the closet and feeling around in there to find my bat. Far too many movements involved, and I would surely expose myself to being clobbered by the uninvited guest.
The kitchen. If I ran to my left, I would put distance between me and my intruder and have both knives and mop handy to defend myself. I began my dash for the kitchen even before I finished thinking about whether this was the best option.
I made two long strides before my feet shot out from under me and I was landing on my back, the air whoofing from my body.
Idiot. I had forgotten about all the junk that was still thrown around the floor. I slipped on a book or something.
Well, I thought to myself, this is it, the intruder will be on top of me in a moment, knife to my throat, or bashing my skull in with a brickbat.
I didn’t have much time to dwell on my fate, because there was a woman screaming. In my apartment. Somewhere over by the couch. All I could see was small splotches of light from the windows in stray patterns across the dark cave of my apartment. It was like some kind of eye test or something the doctor gives you.
Of course, I figured whoever this woman was in my apartment was being attacked by the intruder, so I scrambled to my feet and charged in that direction.
My forward motion was stopped somewhere over by the coffee table. By the lamp—but I did not remember a lamp in the middle of the living room, and it hit me sideways. The intruder had swung my floor lamp at me. The blow landed on the side of my chest and spun me rather than stopping my forward progress. I knew my shins were approaching the coffee table, and I knew that would really hurt, so I vaulted for the couch.
I landed on someone there, the woman. I know this because what I landed on screamed even louder than before. More like a shriek.
The impact of me hitting the couch thrust the back of it against the windowsill, and the spring-loaded shade shot up into the roll with a sharp slap. Street light filled the apartment, spilling across the couch, the coffee table, the floor lamp on its side in the middle of the living room.
There, beside me—well, technically sort of under me—was Fanny, her eyes as wide as pizza tins, her tiny fists held up over her head as though she thought this might protect her somehow.
“Where did he go?” I shouted.
“Morty!”
Thinking she saw the intruder behind me, I spun around.
<
br /> Nobody.
I looked back at Fanny.
“Where is he?”
“Morty, you scared the ever-livin’ shit outta me!”
My brain chemicals swirled from panic and confusion to reason. I pointed a finger at Fanny.
“You are the only one here? Yes?”
“Yes.” She folded her arms. A sulk was setting in.
“Ah.”
“Morty, why—”
“What are you doing here, Fanny? How did you get in?”
“I felt guilty about making you keep all your things on the floor. So after my bath . . . you know, you should lock your front door, Morty. Anybody could walk in here. Intruders could walk in here.”
I slumped back into a puddle at the end of the sofa. “Well, it was locked when I just got here.”
“That’s because I locked it to keep out intruders.”
“Yes, my sweet, but you see, when I heard you move I thought you were an intruder, so I made a dash for the kitchen but tripped on all my belongings on the floor—”
“Of course you did, because you leave your front door unlocked so they can get in. If you locked your door you wouldn’t—”
“Yes, I hear you Fanny, but to be brutally honest, I do lock my door.”
“Well, it wasn’t locked when I got here.”
I felt the growing bruise on my side where the floor lamp had hit me, and there was a dull warm spot on my back where I had fallen onto the floor. “So it is my fault that I tripped over my possessions on the floor. It is my fault that—in my own home—I got hit in the chest with the floor lamp, is this what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.”
There was an uncomfortable silence—as there often is after a man’s logic has been made into a pretzel by a woman’s.
Fanny was angrily staring at the ceiling. She was in shorts, with a tight tank top. In the low light I could not make out colors. Her dark hair spilled fetchingly over her shoulders. Her nicely curved legs were drawn up and swiveled to one side, so that I could make out the delicious curve of her bottom.
I reached over and began to stroke her thigh.
“What are you doing?”
There is of course no explaining to a woman that when it comes to sex, the male mind will render almost any diverting altercation trivial.
I leaned down and kissed her kneecap.
“Querida, this is all just an unhappy mix-up. If you think about it, it is funny, yes?”
“No.”
“I come home, and I trip over my books and things in the dark thinking you are an intruder, and here you are, thinking I am an intruder. It is ironic. Irony is not something to fight about.”
I moved closer to her, a ripple of pain shooting up my ribs, and began to stroke both thighs. Her arms were still folded, her gaze at the wall, her mouth sucking on her teeth in anger.
“Fanny, even with the mix-up, I am very pleased to see you. I have had a really rough day. You would not believe it.”
“And just what are you doing coming in at this time of night?” Her eyes slashed at me briefly before returning to the wall. “Did you know you have grapes in your freezer?”
“Yes. Would you like some?”
“No.”
My resolve to bed her wavered slightly. As I had just said, and as you know, Father, I had had a very trying day. To cap it all off, I now had to tangle with a petulant woman. I was not sure I had the strength.
“Everybody has gone crazy. They think I have a large sum of cash, and they are following me. It took a while to shake them, to get back here safely. You cannot believe what I have been through.” I briefly wondered what Dexter was discussing with the Wolfman, and whether they were still down there bothering the monster toad.
Fanny’s eyes were trained on me. “Large sum of cash? You mean money?”
I have never found women to live up to the avaricious nature that is sometimes ascribed to them. Still, the mention of this money seemed to have turned Fanny’s mood.
“Yes, my sweet. When I clean houses, I sometimes find cash, which is legally mine. I found some the other day, but rumors about how much exploded, and everybody thinks I have truckloads of cash hidden somewhere.”
She put her hand on mine. “Finding money must be exciting.”
“It is in my blood. I am descended from conquistadors; finding treasure, it is what my people have been doing for centuries.”
“What’s a conquistador?”
“A conquistador is a Spanish explorer and fortune seeker. All my books, like the ones I tripped over, tell stories of how they came to the New World and brought home to Spain gold and riches. Some of the time, anyway.”
“That would maybe explain the way you talk. Do . . . what do conquistadors do with money when they find it?” She drew her nails lightly down my forearm. This is something that gives me an almost automatic erection. I cannot tell you why. You would have to ask Pizarro, my penis, and as yet he has not spoken aloud.
I moved up next to Fanny, and she slid down, her big brown eyes looking up into mine. The anger was gone.
“Well . . . we put it in a safe place.”
“Here?” She reached a hand up to stroke my neck.
I shook my head slightly, smiling at her. “Here is not safe for money.”
Her eyes turned playful. “I don’t think your place is safe for me, either. There’s an intruder, and I think he’s about to attack me.”
She was right.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
SO WHERE WAS DANNY WHILE all this was going on? Back at the bump and thump. Had Charlie Binder followed his original plan to show the motel night clerk the mug shot, instead of sitting in his car in front of my building, annoying a monster toad in white-and-green-striped pajamas . . . well, things might have turned out differently. Or if he had chosen to go a second time to the torn screen door at 901 East 109th Street and found Rude Man’s corpse.
But I was the hot wire linked to what he thought was his money. Thanks to my cohorts at Oscar’s.
What did Dexter say to Charlie there on the street in front of my apartment?
“Nice evening.” Dexter smiled. At that moment I was hiding up at the corner ready to sneak into my building. Ready to be scared shitless by my nosy landlord and then be scared shitless by Fanny the intruder.
“Yeah,” Charlie replied flatly, eyeing the man in the white Panama hat.
“I bet you’re looking for Morty, am I right?”
Charlie did not reply. He was thinking about the pistol he kept under the driver’s seat.
“The reason I ask is because, well, I don’t think he’ll be coming home anytime soon.” Dexter followed this statement with a helpful smile.
“How’s that?” Charlie felt it was probably best not to divulge anything he didn’t need to.
“You’re not the only person looking for him. People wanna know about that money they say he found. I’m not sure he really did, but . . .”
“People?”
“Yeah, all kindsa people. Not sure which kind you may be, not my business.”
“Who are you?’
“Dexter Lewis. I work for the Brooklyn Gazette. Reporter.”
Charlie tensed. This was not good. As every cop from Canarsie to Carlsbad knew, an unexpected reporter is always a bad thing.
“I’m following this myself,” Dexter continued, holding up the entire conversation. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not after the money, just the story.”
“Maybe you’d better not follow this one.” Charlie tried to smile. “I know people at the precinct here. This is none of your business, capisce?”
That made Dexter laugh. “Hey, I do, too, what a coincidence.” He held up a hand and began to count them off on his finger. “There’s Captain Tom Farfel—I was at a cocktail party at his house last week, I’m surprised I didn’t see you there. You know Tom finally got that in-ground pool? Chief Detective Grimes was there, an old fishing buddy, we
go every year for fluke in Barnegat Bay. We musta spent an hour talking about stripers. And the Brooklyn DA was there, too—Phil Greene. Yeah. The Gazette supported him in the last election, stand-up guy. I wrote the endorsement myself.”
Charlie squirmed in his seat, the pelt of hair on his back becoming like a wet sponge from sweat.
“Anyway, if you wanna find Morty, I’d forget about hanging around here. You missed the boat. There musta been five cars out here waiting last night, and Martinez never showed. They say he’s gone to ground somewheres. Mighta even left the state. Anyways, wait if you want, I just thought I’d give you a tip. And now that there’s a murder connected with this . . .” Dexter read Charlie’s face. “Oh, you didn’t know? Looks like someone offed Mary Duggin over at the real estate office, the one that reps the house where Morty found the money. You know the place? Sure, if you’re here, you musta been there. So I’d watch it if I were you, because the boys at the local P are looking for suspects. I think maybe you better get in touch with your pals and let them know you were there and that it wasn’t you who killed her. You know, just to be on the safe side. That’s what I would do. You know them as well as I do, I’m sure they’ll understand you were just there . . . what were you doing there?”
Charlie started his SUV. “I get it.” And he drove off down the block.
Dexter jotted down the license.
It was times like these that Dexter believed his own hype. He wasn’t just a good reporter, he was almost a superhuman reporter. He knew people so well, what made them tick—and what made people tick was fear, uncertainty, and self-preservation.
That’s how he got me to spill the beans, after all. I did what was obviously in my best interest. Or so it seemed at the time.
“Ooo. What’s going on out here?” A man in green-and-white-striped pajamas was standing on the sidewalk, hands on his hips. “You got any idea what time it is? People in this neighborhood is tryin’ t’sleep.”
Struggling with his clubfoot, Dexter made his way over to this man. I could have watched this part myself had I not been engaged in a bullfight at that moment.
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