Feelers

by Wiprud, Brian M

  That was another thing that bothered Danny. What was Martinez doing in the house next to his uncle’s? From the window of his uncle’s house Danny had watched as the two men went around back and broke into the neighbor’s vacant house. These certainly were not real estate agents or prospective buyers, and the one with the two-by-four kept prodding the tall, dark, and extremely handsome man like he was forcing him to go with him into the house. What were the two men doing upstairs when he entered?

  A careful search of the second floor and attic told Danny nothing.

  One thing was for sure: That thief Martinez would not come back to the house knowing Danny might be there.

  Which meant he had to go looking for me again.

  Yes, but where? How? His only connections to me were Dexter and Mary, and both of them were dead. The other connection was Dexter’s cell phone, which had my phone number in it. What use was that? Call that thief Martinez and politely invite him to come to dinner? He could not imagine I was that stupid.

  Thief Martinez. The saying “It takes a thief to catch a thief” was not unfamiliar to him, and so he thought his next move should be to consult with another house cleaner to find out where I might be.

  So he walked the few blocks to the boulevard of two-and three-story brick buildings, shops on the ground floor and residences above. Some of the windows of those residences had older women in housedresses leaning on pillows on the open window-sills. It is the time-honored pastime of many older Brooklyn women with nothing to do. They perch like magpies surveying their domain, saying hello to people they know on the sidewalk, and monitoring those they do not know. They also talk to each other. Well, not so much talk as yell across the street or down the block or even across the air shaft. What do they discuss? Their poor health. Why are they in such poor health? Because they spend all day perched in windows instead of moving around and keeping their blood moving. And they do not mind sharing their complaints with the entire neighborhood as they shout to each other across the street.

  The sight of these old bats shouting and complaining the afternoon away comforted Danny. It was good to see the old women still did this because it meant that some things had not changed while he was in prison. It made him feel that he might just be able to make it on the outside after all. Assuming he got the money. And stopped putting his ice picks in people’s chests.

  “Excuse me,” Danny shouted to a white-haired walrus in one window.

  The white walrus leaned farther out to get a better look at Danny. “Yeah?”

  “Good morning. I was wondering if you might know where I could find someone who cleans out houses.”

  “Outhouses?”

  Danny actually chuckled. “I’m sorry, what I meant was someone who clears out houses, like after someone has died, like that.”

  The white walrus’s button eyes shone a little brighter. “Ooo! Someone died? Who died?”

  Danny glanced around him and saw the other magpies—or walruses, or what have you—leaning a little farther out their windows, all ears. I think both walruses and magpies have ears, don’t they, Father?

  “Nobody you know, I’m sure,” Danny said.

  “If they live around here, I might,” the white walrus shouted.

  Danny ignored the question. “Do you know anybody? Or anybody who might know?”

  The white walrus looked unhappy but pointed up the boulevard. “Oscar’s.”

  “Oscar’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Excuse me, but what is Oscar’s?”

  “A tavern. Some of them feelers hang out there. Like vultures, they are.”

  All the other magpie walruses clucked in agreement.

  She looked down at Danny’s confused face. “It’s a tavern. Oscar’s. That way.”

  A few minutes later, Danny darkened the doorway to Oscar’s.

  He took off his sunglasses and stepped up to the bar.

  “Ooo!” Mim hooted. “It’s Danny Kessel!”

  Danny squinted and made out her pale, beehived form surrounded by newspapers at the end of the bar.

  The only other people there were Oscar and Slim Jim. Oscar was like a marble statue behind the bar, and Slim Jim was like a frozen Butterball turkey at the video poker machine.

  “Ooo.” Slim Jim backed away from his game. “He must be looking for Morty.”

  “Shaddap,” Mim snapped.

  Danny waited to see if any of them made a move. They did not.

  “Excuse me, but could any of you tell me where Morty is?”

  “See?” Slim Jim sidled closer to Mim, like she might actually be able to protect him.

  “We dunno where he is,” Mim croaked.

  Danny looked at Oscar, who shrugged.

  “I know where he lives,” Slim Jim said, raising his hand.

  “Shaddap!” Mim pushed him away from her.

  “For a hundred I’ll tell you where.”

  “Slim Jim!” Mim scolded.

  “Well, he’s gonna find Morty eventually, am I right? For a hundred I’ll tell you where he lives.”

  “For fifty,” Oscar rumbled, “I’ll tell you where you can find his foreman, Speedy.”

  “You rotten bastards,” Mim spat. “Danny, I ain’t telling you nothing for nothing.”

  “He’s right,” Oscar said, gesturing to Slim Jim. “Morty has to face the music sometime, and if Slim is getting something for it, I can, too.”

  You see, Father? These were my friends. As I pointed out before, New Yorkers have little sympathy and less tolerance for weakness. To their way of thinking, if I was in a jam with Danny, that was my own fault for being vulnerable. They could not make me any more vulnerable than I had made myself, could they? And if they could make themselves stronger at the expense of my weakness, that was the way of the jungle that was East Brooklyn.

  “Sorry, but I’ll give you both fifty for what you can tell me.”

  Of course, they began to do just that.

  That is when I walked in wheeling the motorcycle.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FIVE

  I HAD MANAGED TO LOSE the Malibu pretty easily. I took Fedder Alley, made a right on a street, then left into Mucklebust Alley, which is now a pathway where a car cannot travel. Then I went left again on a street, through a side yard, and soon found myself on the boulevard. That primer orange monstrosity was long gone.

  Where could I go? Not home. Fanny might have figured out who I was—why else would the mysterious motorcyclist steal the key? And under the helmet I was wearing the clothes she had seen that morning when we left my place and were accosted by my landlord. So I could not see how I could go to the storage locker. Besides, carrying the Scottish suitcase on the bike just seemed a recipe for disaster. The Malibu could pop up anytime.

  I wanted to get out of sight as soon as possible, then later go to my car.

  Oscar’s was nearby.

  “Oscar, my friend! Would you mind if I park this inside for a few hours?” I put my helmet on the bar where Buddy would be sitting before long. “I promise there are no leaks or anything. This is an emergency or I would not ask.”

  They all looked at me as if I were a ghost.

  Except for the tall one with the Gap hat and plaid long-sleeved shirt.

  He smiled.

  Like a puddle in winter, I froze.

  It was the man from the house. The man whose testicles I had bashed a few hours before. He was casually tucking two fifty-dollar bills back in his wallet. “We need to talk, if you don’t mind.”

  My eyes met Oscar’s, Mim’s, and Slim’s.

  “We didn’t tell him anything or anything,” Slim stammered.

  “Fellahs, if this is going to get messy, could you take it outside?” Oscar: what a pal. “This is my place. What ever is going on between you fellahs . . .”

  No accommodation for the weak.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, but there won’t be any trouble,” Danny said with a calming gesture of his hand. “I just want to talk
to Morty. At that table. Can I buy you a drink, Morty?”

  To tell you the truth, Father, my legs were shaking so badly both from the motorcycle and fright that if I had tried to run I think I would have ended up on my knees. Then I really would have taken a beating.

  Fate, you seem to be forgetting about my promise, about the money to a good cause.

  “I am sorry for before,” I finally managed to mutter. His blue eyes were looking straight through me. Like ice picks. How appropriate, yes? I saw him squirm slightly with the memory of my knee crushing his scrotum.

  “I startled you. It’s OK. Can we sit?” He waved a hand at the table, the one where Pete the Prick used to sit before he got an ice pick and a drag down into the Vanderhoosen basement. Where the Balkan Boys used to sit with Pete before they took a thumping from Pitu and Mamma.

  Well, it did not seem to me at the time like he was going to hurt me. As a matter of fact, I will be brutally honest: I was a little bit relieved. That may surprise you, Father Gomez, but if you have ever expected a bad thing, and then have it finally happen and it is not as bad as you thought it would be, then you will know what I am talking about. It was daylight, and I was in a public space with witnesses. He would not torture the information from me at Oscar’s Grille. He would not kill me in front of witnesses. So what was the worst that could happen? At least I could try to talk myself out of it.

  I was relieved that he and Fanny were not of one purpose. If he were driving the primer orange Malibu, how could he be here? And without Fanny? Whoever was with Fanny could not be half as dangerous as this ex-con with the Gap hat and nice manners.

  Danny shot a glance at Oscar. “Beer, please. You?”

  “I know what he wants.” Oscar sighed, no doubt thinking only of the fifty bucks he almost made. “What kind of beer?”

  “Ooo, what’re you, an idiot?” Mim cackled. “He don’t care what kinda beer. He’s just here to talk to Morty.”

  Moving sideways, and not taking our eyes off each other, Danny and I eased into chairs on opposite sides of the table. I felt if I so much as blinked he might do something violent. At the same time, as I said, my brain was telling me that there was no way he would pull something harmful in public.

  We waited.

  The drinks arrived.

  Danny leaned slowly across the table toward me.

  So did I. Except, of course, I leaned toward him.

  Our faces could not have been more than six inches apart, and I could see the jagged white scar on his lip fairly tremble.

  He said, “You found it?”

  I shook my head. “I found money. But I do not think it was yours.”

  He blinked very slowly, and when his eyes were focused on mine again he said, “What makes you think so?”

  “I will tell you this much: I did not find five million, not even close. If I may be brutally honest with you, I am doubtful you could fit five million dollars in peanut cans under a couch.”

  “Peanut cans?”

  “Yes. Tight ones.”

  “Tight ones?”

  “A tight one is a short can—usually a Planters nut tin—with a roll of cash squeezed ‘tightly’ into it. Some would have you believe that such a can of money is called a tight one because it sort of resembles . . . well, an asshole. It is what they call a play on words.”

  Danny looked away at the wall for a moment, biting his lip. “Under the couch? In cans?”

  “This is how I often find money in houses I clean. Old people stash money, then die, and nobody knows it is hidden under the couch, or in the drapery valance . . .”

  “Valance?”

  “Yes, it is the thing that goes at the top of the drapery, to shield the top. Do you think for a moment I would make up something as idiotic as this?”

  His eyes met mine again, but they were squinty. “I don’t know. How much did you find, then?”

  I figured I had better tell him. “One hundred and ten thousand dollars!” I made my eyes light up like I was excited beyond words. If he made me give him half or even the whole amount I just lied about, I would still be both alive and six hundred and ninety thousand dollars richer. I ask you, Father: Is a hundred and ten thousand dollars too much to pay for one’s life? To realize the dream of La Paz free and clear?

  “What were you doing in that house I found you in, with that other guy?”

  “He was trying to force me to give him the money because he felt cheated that I won the contract to clean the house. I told him I hid it where I found it, in the attic.”

  Danny’s eyes widened.

  “Excuse me, but you’re saying that you found it—”

  “Yes, at 804 Vanderhoosen.”

  “My uncle lives at 806.”

  “Yes? But that is next door to . . . is your uncle’s name Trux?”

  “No. Kessel. My father’s brother, Cuddy. That’s why you found it under the couch. I didn’t put my money in peanut tins.” He leaned back in his chair, crestfallen. “You’re right, Morty. It wasn’t my money that you found.”

  Could this possibly have gone any better? At that moment I felt so good that I actually felt sorry for him.

  “Danny, it is too bad. The cleaner of that house must have—”

  His eyes locked back on mine with the speed of a snake on a tiny defenseless mouse.

  “Who?”

  “Well, it could have been almost anybody, really . . .” At first, I felt alluding to Frog had been a blunder, but all at once, I realized that when Frog was buying me drinks and toasting to my good fortune, he was really toasting to his own. That when he wanted me to keep the cops off, it was for him, not me. That when Hugo called from the airport, the Swiss bank account . . .

  Frog had cleaned 806 Vanderhoosen a few weeks back. Frog had the five million and was escaping to Switzerland with it. By that time I figured he was over Greenland somewhere in first class, thinking about how he used me and my legitimate find of eight hundred thousand dollars, my life in jeopardy, as a shield for his escape.

  Bastard. No sense protecting him now.

  I was not an idiot for the slip about the house cleaner, only for letting Frog pull the sheep over my eyes.

  “Frog has your money.”

  “Frog?”

  “Yes, Louie ‘Frog’ Franco. It was he who cleaned 806 Vanderhoosen Drive two weeks ago, and he was at the airport an hour ago. I got a call from his foreman, who was trying to find him. I fear he is probably over Greenland now, drinking cold duck and eating soft herbal cheeses and laughing, the dirty bastard.” I reached out and put my hand on Danny’s forearm. “I will tell you where he lived, and you can ask his landlord, and wait, but he will not be returning unless he is a bigger idiot than I am. I will put you in touch with his foreman, who will tell you the same story I just told you. I am sorry, Danny.”

  At this point our conversation had reached conversational levels. Oscar, Mim, and Slim were agape, meaning their mouths were hanging open with surprise. Of course, it was Mim who spoke first, and quietly for a change.

  “Ho-lee shit.”

  That pretty much said it all.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-SIX

  SO WE WERE SITTING THERE at Oscar’s, four of the five of us agape (not me—I had a sympathetic, sad smile on my face), when Buddy came barging into the bar talking.

  “Ooo: You won’t believe it. Hugo beat up Frog at the airport. Frog is at East Brooklyn Hospital, and Hugo is at a precinct in Queens. It took a buncha TSA guys and a loada cops just to take Hugo down, like baboons on an elephant. Whatsamatter?”

  Buddy looked at each of us in turn until finally his eyes came back to Danny, who shot to his feet, put on his sunglasses, and walked out the door.

  “Who wassat?”

  “Danny Kessel,” Mim barked.

  “It was Frog that had his five million!” Slim sank onto a bar stool, amazed.

  Oscar began to tap a beer for Buddy. “I think Danny is headed to East Brooklyn Hospital to get Frog to tell him
where it is.”

  Buddy pointed at me, cocking his head. “Then it wasn’t you who found his five mil?”

  “Idiots.” I shook my head wearily. “I kept telling you people that I did not have the five million, but you did not listen. I cleaned the place next to Danny’s uncle’s place. It was Frog that cleaned that house and found the money. Now I’m guessing that Frog tried to make off with the money, part of which was Hugo’s, and that made Hugo very angry.”

  Buddy slid onto a bar stool. “Ho-lee shit.”

  “That’s what I said.” Mim chuckled.

  I stood, picked up the helmet from the bar, and went over to the motorcycle.

  “Where you going?” Mim asked.

  “To return the bike, of course.”

  “Somebody gonna call the cops?”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Danny,” she said.

  “As far as I know he has not done anything wrong. If he has, it is up to the police to catch him. Or that detective who was here. I want nothing more to do with Danny Kessel and that five million.” I slid the helmet on my head and wheeled the bike back out into the late-day sun.

  It had turned humid as hell, and by the feel of it, we were in for a thunderstorm, the kind we often get on summer afternoons.

  I stopped at an ATM for more cash, returned the bike to the furniture store kid, handed him the second hundred, and walked to my car. It had a ticket on my windshield. Expired meter.

  I am telling you this very plainly, Father, because I was mentally exhausted, just going through the motions. A great weight had been lifted from me, and my mind was free of knots.

  Well, there was the matter of Fanny. Too bad, a very attractive girl, and I liked her, but that bitch had played me for an idiot. But I had the locker key, didn’t I? Who was the idiot now?

  The most important task was to move the money to a new location. The reason? Because as soon as I did that, Fanny and whoever was her accomplice in the orange Malibu would no longer know where the new storage locker was.