“Where’s my coat?” was the first thing I said to him when he walked in the room, escorted by two guards, two more at the door.
“It’s gone,” he replied. “I’d ask how you managed this, but you’ve long explained how useful all your diverse forms of currency are.”
“When you have a fleet of oil tankers at your limited disposal and the cojones to move anything under the sun, the world is your oyster.” In this instance all it had taken was an old fashioned five hundred k wire transfer. A bagatelle compared to the ownership he’d assigned me but, I’d put it on his tab.
“Bloody oysters. If I never see seafood again, I’ll be too happy. They eat pickled fish as a breakfast food. Shameful cuisine.”
“Like that time in Amsterdam for spring break. What was that place called that sold that bony fish sandwich on the water?”
“Are you referring to the place beside the brothel or the brothel?”
The humor felt heavy. I tapped my knee. “Who even knows anymore? We’re so damn young still. Feels like a million years ago.”
“That is true.” He said leaning his elbows wide on the table, combing together his fingers.
“What’s your plan to get out of this place?”
“Write a nicely penned letter to the queen requesting her intervention in the unlawful detention of an eighth cousin by one of her highly regarded royal subjects. Either that, or give in to the urge to kill everyone here.”
“I’m guessing a letter like that wouldn’t get that far. What does he want?”
“To break me.”
“So break.”
“I’ve discovered, quiet annoyingly, that I don’t.”
“So bend and make it look like a snap.”
“I’ve told myself that same thing on several occasions. Usually when I’m reading and these two gentlemen you see behind me are playing ping pong too loudly in the parlor room I occupy around-the-clock with them and the night shift boys, I fantasize about shoving those paddle sticks down their gullets. I fantasize too much in here, I think.”
“Freedom is a power thing. Denial of it must be much worse.”
“I need you to go to the park for me, Hunter. You need to find your coat.”
“Danny,” I dropped my tone, “you got way bigger—”
“Go to the fucking park, Hunter. If you can tell me it’s there, I will bend. But you don’t know what he asks of me. It won’t be freedom on the other side of these walls. There is no such future for me anymore. I’m as trapped here as I will be out there. Tell your coat I’ll figure something out and I will get back there eventually. Because when I get out of here, it will be on my own accord. My own terms, whatever they believe.”
“Not the kind of speech you want fallin’ on so many ears. I secured entry, not privacy.”
“I’m asking you to check,” He flipped over his palm on the table and I saw written on it an address, already aware of my warning. When he saw my glance, he closed his palm.
“I’m not checking shit, ya dumbass.” He resisted a smile.
“Yankee cunt.”
“Too far, the Yankee bit.”
“I’m on a string. Don’t fail, Hunter. It will be there. I’m certain.” He abruptly spit on his palm and wiped the flat of it across his chest, making the ink disappear.
“Take care of yourself in here, brother.”
“You as well. Don’t fail, Hunter.”
“What’s the name? That place, again, in Amsterdam.”
His eyes darted to a round glass security eye in the ceiling. He held up the back of hands, intersecting his thumbs, extending his fingers, then scooting back in his chair and departing with the guards through the automatic doors he’d entered. His only and final command.
“So I’m looking for a showgirl named Wings,” I muttered as I saw myself out.
I went to the address I’d locked in memory from Danny’s hand. It was a busted up old building off the park, sealed with a new plywood door. You couldn’t even get up the stairs as they were crumbling and taped off at street level. I left the stairs and made a line into the park from its rubbly stoop, thinking the address was a starting point meant to be X. Good thinkin’ from Danny considering the size of Central Park. It was summer and the park was at its busiest. I set a scope of a three-hundred-yard range in either direction from the entry point and began combing the park for Wings. Face after face, I saw and didn’t have a clue what to search for or how I’d know when I found it. I was looking for a woman alone, and not to be shallow but I was fairly confident she needed to be a nine, minimum, to get him off his crock this way. Other than that she could have been black, white, Latina, anything, and aged anywhere between the universal young bucks’ sweet spot of nineteen and thirty-two. With no luck I decided to try again on a different day of the week, different time. Get the laws of probability on my side. It may have been a fool’s errand but he hadn’t sent a fool to do it, so I tried to take it as seriously as I could. It kept me from thinking about what Hawk had done to Danny, caged ‘im like a possum. He got him, all right. You never try to half kill a man, I reminded myself.
It was a series of negatives. I sat beside more single women in Central Park and struck up conversation, than an ant hill had ants. I got some numbers from it, too, but as far as the mission, I was coming up with the inside of a donut. The Beatles had a lot of fans in NYC. One night after bar drinkin’ and womanizing with amigos, I asked the cab to make a pit stop outside the address when I realized it was on the route to my evening companion’s abode. I stared up at the house from the front stairs. All the windows were boarded and it had the tell-tale signs of being a frequent issue for squatting. Squatter’s rights in NYC were a thing. You could park your piss jar in someone’s attic without them knowing and if you could getta’ trained mouse to deliver you some mail up there for a while, why, you had yourself a place. City signs warning prosecution were stapled to the plywood. In the dark, the neon signs against the geometrically spaced black recesses standing in for windowpanes glared like the structure was a many-eyed it, with an entryway like a gaping mouth, tongue extending downward.
“Wait here. I’m going around back.” I told my lady friend. She nodded.
It was a freestanding townhouse, but the sides between it and the neighbors were unlit and cramped. In my property search of the address, I’d learned it was tied up in a family dispute and had been for many years. A problematic eyesore for the neighbors, too. I shuffled through the space between homes sideways, avoiding an eclectic accumulation of trash fresh and old. Finally I reached the back and walked out into the cleaner air. There was a garden area the moon shone into perimeter lined by two layers of tattered fence. The first was splitting white wood, and the second, taller one, chain link; with a wall of brick buildings pressing against the rear fence line from block to block. The borders were overgrown, but the center was bald of growth and grass with a depressed wrought iron garden set rusting in the center. It was a bust.
Part of the back of the building I’d come around protruded into the space. The only part not made of stone. Coulda been a solarium in its day as it was mostly windows held together with wood. I cupped my hands and peeked in the slanting structure’s window to see inside. The moon lent little light; even then you could see a little pallet laid out in the middle of the floor. I went to the door and yanked around at it, but it was locked from the inside. I withdrew my hunting knife from my back pocket and extended its blade. Carefully I probed for the trigger in the mechanism in the doorknob lock and it sprung with ease. At the same time, something camouflaged in darkness barreled out from almost the wall itself and ran straight for me. I leaped back on my heels and landed outside the doorway. It ran right past me and sliced my shirt with a sharp little knife fully extended in gross irresponsible handling of an open blade. It shot around the way I’d come into the alley. I gave chase, flicking closed my knife, and caught up with them close to the outlet on the sidewalk. I bear hugged them from behind, wrapping my ar
ms around their upper chest and lifted them off the ground, before forcing them back down onto their feet. No kicking and wailing, they just locked up elbows out. As I was getting ready to apply a downward slam to the trespasser, they managed an efficient back heel kick to my groin and I doubled over, nearly dropping them. My knife fell. They kicked out twice very quickly putting it about seven feet away from us, somewhere under the garbage. I’d assumed it was a smaller fella from size and speed in chase. But when they turned around wielding the knife, it confirmed what the full breast area through the raggedy wrapped blanket, and what felt like layers of clothes—in the midst of a summer heat wave—had signaled.
“Stay back,” she said darting the knife. It was not a defensive posture, it was an offensive one.
“Easy,” I cooed out. I was coughing uncontrollably and holding my groin. She got me good. “I ain’t bringing you trouble.”
She stood there breathing hard ready to strike out. This one had been living street life some time. Fingernails tell you a lot. She had a beanie cap pulled down around her little pale face. It looked like her head was shaved under the cap because there wasn’t a lick of hair. Her eyes were lined black by thick lashes, and ungroomed brows with big eyes caught the moon. She was on me like I was a raider who’d come to ransack her village. I moved slow; so she could see me while I let go of my hurtin’ family jewels. She sprang her weight behind her knife, my avoidance reflex was quick, one could say ninja-like, but she got me on the wrist. I was simultaneously preparing a counter-lunge and disarm, but her ragged poncho blanket had opened up as she sliced me. The moon highlighted a curve in her belly in a sickle shape, revealing a tight pod attached to a skinny little figure. Game changer, right there.
My brows knit together but I remained prepared for engagement. “Whatever put you out here, you should go back home. Somebody’s probably missing you,” I said, using a negotiator technique to deescalate her threat perception of me. Her expression and continued aggression informed me that message had no resonance. I appealed elsewhere. “You need to be in a ladies’ shelter or that baby ain’t going to make it.”
She looked like I struck her. “No fucking small talk,” she snapped and whipped her knife at me again, coming up short. I stood stock still as she pranced on the tips of her toes and readied to slash again. I kept my hands up high showing her no intent. Her face may have been fifteen in street years as drugs and men hadn’t ravaged it yet, but her voice was mature, throatier with a little grit. Her reaction time was good. She’d survive for a while longer. The real ravage would come. Her eyes were locked on me, big and pretty and throwing off silver. This one wouldn’t be left alone for long. She’d squeeze out that litter, and a pimp would have her out in a week if she didn’t have one already. To each their own, I said to myself, unilaterally not a practitioner of intervention.
“I’m just looking ‘round at the house. I got a date out there on the curb, waiting for me. If you look around the corner you’ll see her. How about you go your way, and I’ll go mine?” I said.
She began taking small steps backwards, the grungy sneakers on her feet crunching cautiously on trash with familiarity. Then she darted off into the street. I ran out to the sidewalk and watched her run straight into traffic, almost hit by a car before she bolted down the sidewalk and into the park.
Not possible, I thought.
Felicity was leaning up against the cab, long brown legs bent beckoningly, gleaming under the streetlamp. A tight dress she probably wore only Friday nights and pretty makeup fitting for a Columbia law student looking for a night of fun with a rolling stone that gathered no moss, like myself. She raised herself off the car and made her way towards me on five-inch heels.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Runaway,” I commented, shaking my head. “I’m startin’ to hate this city.”
I took a look at the cut on my wrist, and my face screwed up with irritation. Long, but not deep. Not being pedantic about it, it needed a Tetanus shot. She was looking at it, too. “St. Louis was a much nicer place,” she commented.
I put my hand on her lower back and escorted her back to the cab. I acknowledge it got me off that women felt like they were crossing the ditch to play with me. Financial submissive role-play, a thought-shrinker in a lecture hall would probably incorrectly label it. I was no longer in the mood.
I swung the cab door wide. “You ever been to Belize?” I suggested, looking down the long street of car headlights. Looked like Christmas lights laid down in a model city to me. That was right. But that idea came on of a cleared off billiard table in the rank basement, of somebody with too much time on their hands. Tonight was fuckin’ with the scale. Felicity was already inside the cab. I was still holding the door when I looked down. Her eyelids lowered, confused but titillated, and a red lip quirked up. That look still got me off too, I guess. Good thing Danny wasn’t around to be superior about it. We took that cab right to the airport.
We came back, tan and salty, and I knew my next step was reporting to Reykjavik. I booked a return overnight connection in Amsterdam, for old times. I instructed myself to stop by the address on the way to the airport. I kicked around trash and retrieved my hunting knife. There was an old woman there, sitting upright in that pallet on the floor. She waved to me peeking through the window then threw her shit at me like a monkey at the zoo. I left wishing someone would level that house and put in a Steak’n’Shake. The world could use more Steak’n’Shakes. Maybe the fella in the rank house heard my request.
Danny looked the same when he came through the automatic doors. Long white scrub beneath short sleeve dust blue ones. His forearms looked like he’d joined an arm-wrestling league since he’d been on his mission and dropped down a stone or two. He met me at the table and sat.
“I’m stoppin’ by Holland on the way back. Gonna go see if Carla is still working in that hash shop. If memories recall, you took a good likin’ to her.” Other fish in the sea, Danny.
“Memories expire.” He paused. “Perhaps this trip you’ll get a replay of that wonderful night walk we took along the water afterwards,” he continued, sounding extra Prince Charles. Wonderful walk, my ass. We were jumped in a robbery attempt by a local gang that hit college kids flashing currency around town. Danny couldn’t embrace carrying small bills; but we weren’t kids. Me and Danny held our own. They were on the ground, four of them, and we were able walk way. It gave us a second wind, and we stayed out till 6:00 a.m. His eyes weren’t matching up with his tone.
“The weather is nice outside, my guards have told me,” he commented. “Too nice for a coat.”
“I wouldn’t have one even if it weren’t. Thanks to you. And your tab is running up. They asked for more money this time.” All the guards were different this time. The big Aryan buck-toothed one who had stifled a friendly smile when Danny insulted the ping pong, notably.
“There is no sum that will get me out. This will be the last time,” he said, and I thought he meant he’d made a deal, but the corner of his eye shifted, confirming. Coming back a second time was a bad idea. He continued like someone had flipped a minute glass. “Spend. Efficiently. Outsource the search.”
I followed his lead. “What is it you had me looking for? A goody two shoes carrying Witness pamphlets or a bombshell in her underwear?”
“A woman waiting for me,” he said tightly. “Medium height. Long dark hair. Olive fair skin with hazel eyes. Hazel, amber, and gray. Studying in the city to be a CPA. Smart. Graceful, kind. Sexy. Have our Sikh friend search,” he instructed me. Damn, he was being sloppy. He needed to get out of here.
“No one like that, Danny. No one like that anywhere,” I assured him. My mind ran involuntarily. An image flashed from the sort; of an accountant Suzanne I met on a blanket in the grass, reading. Blue eyes. Eyes, I narrowed. One surfaced. Pregnant. Impossible. Just science. He’d explained after I asked why he showed up on my pasture as a freshman using his dipstick irresponsibly, he’d fell into a pile o
f pussy with a lot of rumor. If it wasn’t his—impossible. Angelique but she worked on Broadway and was coffee toned. One Micah. She never heard of him. We hooked up. Sorta ended. It was becoming a challenge to not show him what I really thought about it all. A quarter second had passed.
“That’s not possible,” he refuted. He didn’t believe that though.
“Incorrect, amigo. We’re a heap of animals. We hump, we lift our leg to piss, and we keep it moving. There weren’t any angels sitting with a box chocolates holding a balloon with your name on it. That dump house was overrun with…immense and ordinary despair. Look. Give him what he wants whatever it is and spring yourself outta the mousetrap.”
“She moved on, then.”
“You’re up next.”
“I’m not ready to sign my life away just yet.”
“What life would that be? Couple’a months ago you didn’t even want it.”
“I’m here, still. Don’t count me out, Hunter. Don’t ever count me out.” This time when he flipped his palm over, something slid down and a pair of brass knuckles appeared out of his sleeve. He slid a finger in one at time making no disturbance to the guards behind him.
Mm. “Have you considered you lost your mind that night you went out to kick the bucket?”
“Everyday. And other theories, on worse days. It’s possible we’re not truly here right now.”
“You’re preachin’ to the minister, brother.”
“The place in Amsterdam. Luven’s.”
“Luven’s,” I repeated. “That was it. Why’d we keep going back to that place to eat?”
“Because I was fucking the waitresses.”
“Mm. I knew that.” The sliding doors opened and in entered two more guards. “Here come the Dutch.”
Last chance. “Hers?”
In the Land of Milk and Honey Page 34