Feelers

by Wiprud, Brian M

  “Hiya. Nice night. Sorry if we woke you. It was inconsiderate.”

  “Damn right it was.”

  “Like I said, sorry. I’m Dexter Lewis.”

  “I ain’t shakin’ your hand. I dunno you.”

  “I just said who I was.” Dexter said this as if he were both amused and a little mystified. “And if you shake my hand and tell me who you are, then we will know each other. Am I right? You live here, at this address?”

  “Me?”

  “You came out of this building, didn’t you? You know, I can find out who you are through your address, but I find a handshake much more friendly. Right?”

  The man in the white-and-green-striped pajamas opened his mouth a few times to say something but hurried back inside instead.

  Adjusting his hat, Dexter turned to his car, a lopsided smile on his face.

  Fear. Uncertainty. Self-preservation.

  Works every time.

  Or almost.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A HAZY, UNCARING SUN ROSE over the Atlantic, the giant reflective eye of a predator watching Brooklyn as if it were a cowering rabbit. I stood at my bedroom window in just my underwear. A checkerboard of flat and pitched rooftops stumbled away to the east, melting into the orange haze of dawn. Even at that early hour you knew it would be the first truly oppressive day of summer. One of those days when you ask yourself whether a shirt is necessary. In just shorts and sandals, throw a towel over your shoulder and head out for the day. You put the towel on the car seat, then take it with you through the day so you do not leave sweat everywhere. A cotton barrier between you and seat backs all over town. Same as a shirt, yes? But cooler. This is fine for me, of course, because I have a good chest, with muscles and not too much hair. I think I have attractive nipples for a man. This would also be fine for someone like Fanny, who has great tits.

  Then the mind turns to the patrons at Oscar’s, who have—shall we say—more pedestrian body types. I would not want to walk in there and see that crowd without their shirts. Pale, matted, and flabby as corpses. A shirtless day at Oscar’s would be like a zombie happy hour. Not so happy.

  I suppose you would remind me, Father, that we are all God’s creatures.

  Anyway. I was looking out my window at that predator eye in the sky staring down on East Brooklyn and its alleys. I said it was uncaring because I was worried about what this day would bring. Whoever was up there, the mind behind that eye, I don’t think this God or what have you even knew of my problems. But I wondered if the eye could see what was to come, whether there was a way out, whether I would find it. Whether the eye could see me driving into La Paz, Fanny in the passenger seat with some silly sandals on her feet she bought in a junk shop, the eight hundred grand in the Camaro’s trunk, and Danny Kessel somehow dead, shot down trying to escape the police.

  And a predator’s eye? This day was lying in wait for me, like a cat at a mouse hole.

  I glanced back from the window at Fanny. As before, the sheet was wrapped around her like a giant white three-hundred-count cotton tentacle, one of her thighs and both legs fetchingly exposed below. The graceful sweat-kissed arch of her back leading to the smooth white shoulders. The wild mane of dark hair spilled across the pillow. The regal nose smashed into the mattress. The spark of drool coming from her luscious, distorted lips.

  The very picture of heaven.

  I have found it interesting that heaven and hell sometimes seem to crowd each other.

  Priorities. That was the only way to know my next move.

  I left the bedroom and carefully looked out of the front window to the street. Wolfman was gone, and the other cars on the block all seemed innocent enough.

  My keys were on the small table before me. The locker key’s glint seemed to be winking at me. I doubted the Balkan Boys were watching me now, as they were probably still at the hospital. Wolfman was off my butt. Speedy was probably tucked in bed with the girl on the window shade. The world was looking the other way. I could grab the cash and run. Sounds easy to do, just leaving Brooklyn, where I grew up and where I know all the places and people—but it wasn’t. As much as I longed for my ancestral home in La Paz, to connect with my heritage and my people, to start a new life, this is something that you prefer to ease into. If I grabbed the cash and hit the road, leaving most of my meager belongings, I would not be leaving so much as running. There is a big difference. And in some ways, I thought that I might yet outsmart that predator in the sky. Several good things happened the day before, as crazy as it all was. Then there was that fountain in that courtyard four thousand miles away. Did it have the Martinez coat of arms on it? Was it possible I had actually located—and could buy—my ancestral home? I could hardly wait to get to the library to check my e-mail.

  I realized that the only one who might be watching me now was Danny. True, he was the rottenest banana in the bunch, but at least the field of pursuers seemed to have thinned a little.

  But what of the five million? Even if Danny caught up with me, I did not have it to give to him. I seriously doubted he would accept eight hundred grand. If only I could find out who did have it, or had the rest.

  My thoughts turned to Dexter, my clubfooted friend at the Brooklyn Gazette. I had to wonder what he and Wolfman spoke of on the street last night, and I knew it could be important to how I should proceed. I wanted to know if Wolfman was off my trail so that I did not get blindsided.

  I went to my wallet for the card he gave me when he dropped me off.

  “Morty,” Dexter said as he handed me the card, “keep in touch. I’ll help if I can. But you have to know—I’m after a story. It’s what I do. Understand?”

  I understood. I was grateful at least Dexter was after a story and not me—that is, if it is possible to separate the two. I trusted him only so far.

  Dexter, on the other hand, trusted himself too much.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  DANNY WAS IN HIS MOTEL room, half asleep, watching the friendly people on the morning shows. The petty cash he stole from Mary was on the dresser. On the bed next to him was his cell phone and a check. My check. The one to Mary for the house cleaning, with my phone number on it. Even he knew it was too early to call me, but he was waiting to do exactly that.

  There was a knock on the door, and he waited for it to happen a second time to make sure he had not dreamt it.

  He stood, drew a sheet over the phone and check on the bed, and placed a pillow atop the money on the dresser. Danny smoothed his hair and carefully put on his jacket. Especially the right sleeve.

  The sleeve with the remaining ice pick in it.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  DEXTER’S NIGHT HAD BEEN A busy one. Aside from scaring off Wolfman from in front of my building, he managed to do some research back at his office, stop by to wake Frog and interrogate him, and visit the house on Vanderhoosen Drive. Dexter could have gone home at that point, gotten some sleep, but there was one more thing he wanted to do. It was a long shot, but worth a try. Just as the sun was coming up, as I was looking out the window across the Brooklyn rooftops, he was pulling into the parking lot of the Luna Motel—the bump and thump.

  He had spent many hours parked out in front of the bump and thump. Watching and waiting. Especially as a younger reporter. Before he had dirt on everybody who was anybody in Brooklyn, he would do this to get compromising information on people. Local businessmen, small-time politicians, what have you. These were little fish swimming in and out of the bump and thump, cheating on their wives, on their girlfriends, and sometimes both. Dexter had no interest in ruining their lives, but little fish know things about larger fish, who know things about big fish, and there are scams going on all over the place, cushy deals, kickbacks—wherever business and politics cross paths, corruption is sure to follow.

  To uncover what was up and break a new story, all Dexter really had to do was extort information from the little fish and work his way u
p to the big fish. In part, this was how he built his career with the Gazette. So while other people his age were out drinking and chasing girls, Dexter in his twenties was more or less watching other people fuck.

  How had Dexter known to target the bump and thump? It was the only place to rent a room for a night in the neighborhood, and he knew Danny’s relatives no longer lived around there. Other than the Brooklyn Bridge, my hometown is not much of a tourist destination, especially out east. East Brooklyn does not really have any reputable motels, only the other kind. When your relatives come to visit Brooklyn they stay on your couch. The idea of Uncle Pete and Aunt Fran staying in one of these motels would not even enter your mind.

  Of course, checking the Luna was not a sure thing, but it was a percentage play, and Dexter knew he had to work Mary’s murder as fast as possible to stay ahead of the police. To his advantage, it took the cops a half day or so to stop filling in forms and filing reports and to start getting down to the business of actually looking for the perpetrator. Plus the cops had families. Many slept at night. Dexter did not.

  As I was considering the sun’s predator eye, Dexter left me a message on my cell phone, which was still on night mode: off. Then he left his car for the motel lobby. Apparently he didn’t see the sun, not the way I did, or maybe he would have stayed in his Mustang. It is hard to say why he left the car, why he did not continue to wait outside to see if Danny would appear. I guess we all get impatient. And as we have seen, Dexter was not shy about approaching strangers.

  He determined from the desk clerk that a man fitting Danny’s description was staying in room 404. He had to knock three times before the door was answered.

  I can only imagine what Danny thought when he opened the door and found a clubfoot in a Panama hat standing outside his door.

  “Are you Danny Kessel?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Probably your only friend.”

  Danny did not like this one bit. He had no friends. Not in a long time. So immediately this man was lying to him. Was this the guy who went to Clara’s house, looking for him? Clara would have mentioned the hat and clubfoot for sure.

  “Really?”

  “Can I come in? Really shouldn’t discuss this in the hall.”

  “Please.” Danny took a step back.

  “Thank you.” Dexter lurched into the room, over to the window. Danny closed the door behind him; he knew this could not be a cop. Detectives do not wear hats, and if they did, it wouldn’t be a white hat. Also, he was pretty sure the NYPD wouldn’t hire a clubfooted person.

  “I know about the money, Danny. And so do other people. You’ll never get it like this.”

  “Like what?” Other people . . . was it one of them that visited Clara?

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Please explain.”

  Dexter’s eyes drifted to the pillow on the dresser, then to the sheet in an odd position on the bed. Danny followed his gaze and tensed.

  “The money is gone, am I right? It’s not where you hid it fifteen years ago at your uncle’s, is it?”

  Danny did not answer, only moved his right shoulder nervously.

  “And now,” Dexter grinned, “you think you know who may have found it.”

  Looking at the floor, hands dug into his pockets, Danny moved away from the door, closer to Dexter. “Please, go on.”

  “You’re looking for this person with the idea of making him give it back. You spent fifteen years waiting to get your hands on the money. You earned it, right?”

  “Where did you come up with all this?”

  “This is what I do. Find things out. Tell stories. You have an interesting story, Danny. I think it deserves a happy ending. I can help you write that ending. But not if you go for the money. You killed Mary Duggin to get the name of the house cleaner you think has that five million. There was a flyer with your mug shot on her desk, and a private eye asking questions about you all over the neighborhood. How long do you think before the police find you?”

  “Could you please tell me exactly what you’re suggesting?”

  Dexter folded his hands and touched them to his lips the way a minister does when delivering the final thought in a sermon. He was smooth, all right.

  “Two ways this can end, Danny.” Dexter held up a finger. “One: The cops find you, and if you break for it they’ll shoot you down. They have a long memory—they know how Joey killed that detective years ago. They’d like nothing better than to shoot you.”

  Dexter held up two fingers. “Two: You come with me, we go down to the precinct, and you turn yourself in. Let’s face it, Danny: You were out, what, less than twenty-four hours and you murdered someone? You don’t belong out here. You know that, don’t you?”

  Danny knew Dexter was right about that last part. His brother-in-law Jonathon had said pretty much the same thing. He did not belong out on the street. “You’re not a cop?”

  “I’m a reporter, with the Brooklyn Gazette.” Dexter put out his hand, chin raised, head tilted in a kindly and forthright manner. “Dexter Lewis.”

  Danny knew he did not belong on the street, but he knew he did not belong back at Sing Sing, either. He had no friends, no family. His only connection to the world, to his past and his future, was the millions that had been in the floor. It was the only thing he had to lose.

  Stepping closer to Dexter, Danny swung his right hand forward casually as if to shake hands.

  Instead, he pushed an ice pick into Dexter’s chest.

  The penetration of the cartilage and muscle sounded like someone snapping a celery stick.

  Dexter did not know what happened at first. “Ooo, hey, whoa . . .”

  Then he took his hand away from where Danny pushed his chest and saw the blood.

  Eyes wide.

  Grin now grimace.

  “Jesus Christ!” Dexter staggered back, fumbling for his cell phone.

  “Sorry.” Danny batted the cell phone from Dexter’s bloody hand and kicked the clubfoot out from under him. Dexter fell on the bed trying to yell but only gurgled with panic.

  With the bedside phone, Danny proceeded to smash Dexter’s face. The whole phone, base and all, the receiver and cord jumping all over the place. The forensics people could not be certain how many times he hit Dexter’s face, but the phone was in about a dozen bloody pieces when Danny finally stopped.

  What was left of Dexter slid off the bed to the floor; on the white sheets was the silhouette of his head in scarlet blood. It was like some art project from grade school where you trace your hand to make a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Down at the front desk, the night clerk’s shift was ending, and he glanced at the phone switchboard. The red diode for 404 was blinking—receiver off the hook. Common enough. Probably someone knocked it off the base during some sex thrashing.

  They say pride arrives before the fall. For Dexter, I think it was the handshake.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  IT WAS ABOUT THAT TIME that I was turning on my cell phone and waiting for the ridiculous thing to find a signal. I never could understand how the phone could start every day telling me there is no signal when it is four floors up and in direct line with the cell tower. It tells me this for five minutes until it seems to suddenly decide to go look for a signal and finds one. I will be brutally honest—I don’t know how the things work to begin with, but this is like plugging a lamp into a wall socket and having to wait for the bulb to find the electricity.

  So I set the idiotic phone on the coffee table and picked up the floor lamp, the one Fanny had slugged me with, which was still on the floor. It was one of those cheap black standing lamps with a saucer-shaped disc that shines the light on the ceiling. The saucer was dented and came off in my hand when I tried to secure it back in place. I put it next to the door to take down to the trash on my way out. I could see what I had tripped on. I went over and picked up the book I had stepped on. The cover had torn off, but I recognized it as t
he biography of Cortés. Now there was a guy who got into a lot of trouble, and often managed to get out of it somehow. I tossed the book on the shelf and surveyed the rest of the stuff. I hoped Fanny would let me put this stuff away soon. I was getting tired of looking at it, much less tripping over it.

  Hmm, Fanny. I wondered if I should wake her and have sex or whether she would be too grumpy. It was not even six o’clock, and I have never known a woman who really enjoyed having her sleep interrupted for any reason. Still, it was worth a try. If the day went very badly, or if I was somehow killed, at least I would die knowing I had had sex that morning and the day was not a total loss. This is the way men think. Perhaps with the exception of priests, I do not know.

  So I was on my way to the bedroom when my phone suddenly realized that there was a megawatt cell tower five blocks away. It cheeped. That meant a message. I stopped and looked at my caller ID. Dexter’s number. I was about to dial and see what the message was when the phone cheeped again, but longer. There was an incoming call. I did not recognize the number.

  I do not know about you, Father, but for me, there is virtually no good that can come from an unexpected early morning phone call. One’s mind always turns toward death—someone has died. However, when my phone rings at odd hours and displays a number I do not know, it is almost always Russians. Drunk Russians who leave slurred messages in Russian that I cannot understand. Somehow, they misdial my number, and in their drunken state they fail to listen to my message, because if they did they would know I was not the person they were calling and would not leave long messages in slurred Russian. I could only imagine what they went on about.

  So I let the call go into voice mail and dialed up my messages.

  “It’s Dexter. I had a very interesting conversation with your friend Frog. Meet me at the house on Vanderhoosen at noon.”

  So I tried calling Dexter to find out what Frog had told him, but there was no answer.