by Matt Witten
Cole began whistling as he ambled toward me. I couldn't take it anymore. I did the quickest three-yard dash in history.
With dry leaves and twigs crackling under my feet the whole way.
Cole stopped whistling and came off the sidewalk. He headed straight for my juniper, arms swinging confidently at his sides. Backlit by the streetlight, with his nightstick and gun, he looked like a Saratoga Springs version of Darth Vader. I watched him, breathless and paralyzed, knowing that I was about to get my ass kicked and thrown in jail—
He walked right by me.
He went past my juniper and around the side of the house, then knocked hard on Zapper's back door.
The door opened, and I heard Cole say, "Yo." Then the door closed again, followed by silence. Finally I caught my breath and got up the nerve to creep back to the window and look in.
Cole and Zapper were talking. Or rather, Cole was talking, Zapper was just nodding. I aimed the video camera at them, almost without thinking, as Zapper reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He took about ten of them and handed them over to Cole, who stuffed them in his own pocket with a big shiteating grin on his face.
Holy tamale—I had just recorded a police payoff.
I could have danced all night. This was way cool—much cooler than the pissant drug deal I'd been aiming for.
Too bad I didn't have the audio for it, since Tony and the microcassette recorder were gone. ... Speaking of which, where was Tony? His jacket was still on the sofa, but he wasn't there.
Suddenly I heard another knock on Zapper's back door. It had to be Tony, wanting to come back in—but why? For his jacket? Jeez, forget the stupid jacket, kid, let's get the hell out of here before our luck runs out! Cole didn't look too pleased either. He stood to one side and watched as Zapper answered the door.
"Forgot my jacket," I heard Tony say. He slipped past Zapper and grabbed it off the sofa. Then he pointed at the TV and said something I couldn't hear. But Zapper and Cole must have heard him, because they both glanced over at the TV . . .
And in that millisecond when they were occupied with The Three Stooges, Tony snuck his hand under the sofa cushion, pulled out the little recorder, and stuffed it in his pocket.
So we had audio for the bribe after all—the sneaky little guy had left my recorder behind! With his street wisdom, he must have guessed that the drug dealer and the cop were about to engage in some kind of nefarious deal.
Tony bid them a friendly good-bye and took off. A moment later he was at the window beside me, and a few moments after that we were both sitting in my darkened kitchen, quietly celebrating.
"How'd I do?" Tony whispered excitedly.
Rewinding the microcassette recorder, I let Cole and Zapper answer for me.
"So you gimme a hundred bucks every week, long as you're in business, you got that?" Cole said on the tape.
"Yeah, I got it," Zapper answered.
We had those suckers nailed.
Two minutes later I was pouring glasses of milk for Tony and me when I heard Andrea's voice. "Jacob?" she called.
Yikes! Andrea's footsteps were hesitantly coming downstairs. Tony and I looked at each other. He slipped out the side door without a word. I stuffed the video camera in the cabinet under the sink and slammed the door shut.
"Jake, is that you?!" Andrea called again, in a frightened voice.
"Yeah, it's me," I called back, as casually as I could manage. "What's wrong, honey?"
She came in from the dining room. "I thought I heard you talking to someone."
"No, just to myself, as usual," I joked.
She looked past me to the table. "How come you poured two glasses of milk?"
I forced a laugh. "Jeez, I must be really tired. You want a glass?"
She didn't say anything for a few seconds, then she sat down. I tried to fill in the uncomfortable silence. "Sorry if I woke you up. I was having trouble sleeping, so I got out of bed."
She eyed me solemnly and said, "Jacob, ever since Pop got killed, I've felt like there's something you're not telling me."
No kidding. Maybe I should've told her about Tony in the first place. I mean, we'd always been a team, Andrea and I. It was time to come clean.
But before I could get the words out of my mouth, she asked, "Did you ... see anything that night?"
Something about the way she said it made my body tense up. What was she asking me exactly? "Like what?"
"I don't know. Anything."
My face suddenly got hot. "Are you asking me whether I did it?"
Her fingers fluttered nervously. "No, it's just, I mean . . ."
"You mean what?" I asked angrily.
The fingers stopped fluttering. "I don't know what I mean. You sneak off in the middle of the night doing God knows what, and you won't tell me. Jacob, I don't know who you are anymore."
She was gazing deep into my eyes with an unfathomable expression. Something inside of me snapped. It was bad enough I was facing a lifetime in jail, now on top of that I was supposed to Work on Our Relationship, too? Forget it. I didn't know what unspoken message she was giving me, and I didn't want to know. I just wanted to get the heck out of the house before I said or did something I might regret.
"I'm going out for pancakes," I said through gritted teeth, and headed for the door.
As I stormed out she called, "Jacob, don't walk away mad!"
Heck, I wasn't mad. I was furious. I was so sleep-deprived I got an attack of galloping paranoia. Except for little snotnosed Tony, I thought, there wasn't a single soul in the world I could trust.
I drove out to the Spa City Diner. But this time their pancakes didn't taste so good.
Andrea and I did patch things up later that morning, when my paranoia subsided. She said I'd misunderstood her, and of course she knew I was innocent. And I told her I believed her.
And I did, I truly did. But I also had a gut feeling that things would never be quite right between us until I found the killer.
My strained conversations with Andrea were veritable models of emotional clarity, though, compared to the phone calls I had later that day with my father and my three siblings. They all decided many years ago that my wanting to become a writer was proof I was completely nuts (and of course they were right). But then when I hit my thirties, I crossed them up by doing all kinds of incredibly normal things. I married a nice Jewish girl, had two kids, and bought a house and a minivan. My family of origin tentatively began to wonder if my sanity was perhaps not a totally lost cause. Especially after I struck it rich with that hack movie.
But now that I was accused of murder, all of their original doubts about me resurfaced in a hurry. Our phone calls were filled with tears, protestations, and strained silences. My father, as usual, didn't have the foggiest idea what to say. He rarely does, which is ironic because he's a professor of linguistics. My older brother wasn't much better. My younger brother said some blithely encouraging words and got off the phone as fast as he could. My sister cried so hard, I got off the phone as fast as I could. Screw it. The only good thing I'll say about these little chats is, I managed to overcome the childish desire to tell my family that my older brother's pinches had started this whole mess.
But enough dwelling in the past. In the late afternoon, after indulging myself in a desperately needed nap, I told Andrea I was going to spend a couple of hours by myself taking a peaceful walk in the state park. She didn't believe me, but she let me go. What else could she do?
I hopped in the car and drove down to a video store in Clifton Park, fifteen miles south, where they'll copy videotapes for you without asking any embarrassing questions about copyrights. I made a copy of the payoff videotape, then headed over to an audio store in Clifton Country Mall and got the microcassette tape copied too.
I put the copies in a large brown envelope and wrote on the front to be opened in the event of my death. Then I drove to a Federal Express dropoff point, where I sent the copies off to Judy at the Daily Sara
togian.
I felt silly. Melodramatic.
On the other hand, I reminded myself as I knocked on Zapper's back door at six-thirty that evening, these weren't exactly Boy Scouts I was messing with.
Still wearing the same tight jeans and loose shirt he was wearing last night—and presumably still wearing the same knife, too—Zapper opened the door.
As soon as he saw me, he tried to shut it again. His muscles were about five times larger than mine, but I had the drop on him. I barreled through the door, knocking him backward, and headed straight for his VCR. "What the fuck—" he began, but I cut him off with "Shut up, chump," and by the time he recovered from his shock I had the tape in the slot and the TV on. I pushed the play button. The power of TV is so great that Zapper lay off me and waited for the show to begin.
But once it began, Zapper didn't seem to enjoy it much—even though he himself had the starring role.
On the TV screen, Zapper was either scratching his balls or masturbating. Then he answered the door and took five bucks from Tony.
Meanwhile, live and in person, Zapper bared his gold caps at me and snarled, "You fucker, you and that little punk set me up!"
"No, Tony didn't know anything about it," I lied quickly. "Hey, if you're not having fun, I tell you what. I'll fast forward to—"
"Hold up!" he said, staring at the screen. It was blank, because the videotape had reached the point where I was hiding in the bushes from Cole and just taping the ground. "What is this shit? You peckerhead," he chortled, poking me jovially—and painfully—on my shoulder, "you ain't got squat! Ain't got me laying the rock on him. How you gonna prove the kid ain't just paying me back for some pizza?"
He was right. I'd been hoping he wouldn't notice that. But fortunately I had my ace in the hole. I poked him jovially—and as painfully as I could—on his shoulder. "Keep watching, my brother. The best is yet to come."
Feeling like one half of some bizarre dysfunctional Siskel and Ebert team, I stood beside Zapper with my arms folded and watched. The blank screen was suddenly replaced by an image of Zapper and Cole. The on-screen Zapper was taking cash out of his pocket, counting it, and handing it over to the cop.
The live-and-in-person Zapper stiffened with fear as I piled on the pressure. "I'm thinking of selling the video to one of those real-life cop shows on Fox," I said conversationally. "Or maybe I'll just give it to a real-life D.A. down in Ballston Spa, see how he feels about you bribing an officer of the law. Should be worth a couple of years in a state facility, don't you think?"
I had to hand it to Zapper, he kept his cool. "Fuck you, you still got the same problem. How you gonna prove I ain't just paying him for a used TV set?"
Without saying a word, I took the microcassette recorder out of my pocket and turned it on.
"So you gimme a hundred bucks every week, long as you're in business, you got that?" Cole said on the audiotape.
"Yeah, I got it," the Memorex Zapper replied—
But then the live Zapper lashed out with his arm and banged the recorder out of my hand. It hit the floor and went silent. In a flash, Zapper's knife came out of its holster. He pointed it at my chest.
My knees turned to jelly. But there was no turning back now. "I have other copies of that tape—" I said in a terrified, high-pitched voice.
He backed me up against a wall, his long, curved knife wiggling in front of my eyes. "Fuck you want from me, muthafucka?"
I took a deep breath, but my voice still sounded disturbingly like Tiny Tim's. "I want to know what happened that night."
His knife point touched my left nipple, right above my heart. "I don't know nothing, dickweed! I was sleeping!"
"Bullshit," I squeaked.
Zapper stared at me briefly, then his eyes flicked away. And in that moment when his eyes flicked, I knew it really was bullshit—he was lying through his caps. And I also knew, somehow, that he didn't have the balls to stab me. I reached out and pushed his hand away—the hand that was holding the knife.
"Listen, moron, I'm not playing," I said, and although my voice wasn't back to normal, at least I no longer sounded like I was getting ready to sing 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips." "I'm facing a murder charge. You don't help me, I'm taking you down with me—"
"It weren't my goddamn night!" Zapper burst out wildly. We were both taken aback by the suddenness of it. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. He spoke carefully, his eyes begging me to believe him. "See, Dale be doing the selling that night, not me. I be sleeping, I swear. I didn't wake up 'til I heard the yelling and the shot. Time I found my knife and got up, you was already out there, with your hands in the air and that cop on your ass."
I almost believed him. But then he gave me that tell-tale eye flick again. Ignoring the knife, I stepped up and put my face two inches from his. Aside from the caps, his teeth were white and well kept, which surprised me; somehow you don't expect drug dealers to have good dental habits. "Buddy, I'm giving you five seconds to get real. Then forget it. Pack your bags. You're going to Coxsackie Correctional for an extended visit."
An angry light flared up in Zapper's eyes, and his grip on the knife handle tightened. Uh-oh. Had I fatally overestimated Zapper's punkiness?
But the moment passed, and he sagged and sat down on the sofa. "All right," he said wearily. "Yeah, fuck it, I'll tell you."
He sighed heavily. I waited, goosebumps rising all over me. The truth at last.
"Like I told you, I heard some screaming, and the gun. But then I heard a car."
I waited impatiently for more.
"I heard a car start up."
I waited again. But this time nothing else came. So I prodded, "Yeah, and then what?"
"That's it. When I looked out the front door, the car be driving off real fast. So I figure that's who killed Pop."
"What kind of car?"
"Fuck should I know, man, it was dark outside," he said irritably. "The car was, like, medium size, and some kind of dark color. Yo, I make up some extra stuff if you want, just to get you to leave my house, but anything else I tell you be a lie."
I stood there trying to stare into his soul, as he gazed up at me innocently from the sofa. Was that it? Was that all I would get out of this creep? I had just pulled off an incredibly clever undercover operation, suitable for NYPD Blue, and all I'd get for my trouble was some half-ass story about a barely seen, darkish, medium-size car?
I tried a new tack. "What was your relationship with Pop?"
He lifted his thick shoulders. "Man was my landlord. I wouldn't say we had no deep relationship—"
"Come on, you were bribing him, just like you bribed that cop on the video."
"No way. Pop didn't go for that kind of shit—"
"Do I look like a fucking idiot?!" I ejected the tape from the VCR and held it up. "See you in a few years. Don't forget to pack your toothbrush—"
"Yo, yo, keep your pants on!" Zapper smiled ingratiatingly. "Man, you one tough motherfucker. You want some Coke or something? I mean, like Pepsi type of Coke?"
Well, what do you know—male bonding at last. "Sure," I said, and sat down in a coffee-stained metal folding chair.
Zapper got two cans of Coke out of the refrigerator, tossed me one, and sat back down on the sofa. We popped the tops and had a sip. Then he cocked his head at me. "So tell me about this big-ass Hollywood movie of yours," he said. "Got any brothers in it?"
"Yeah, the main character's buddy is black."
Zapper rolled his eyes, annoyed. "How come the hero dude is always white and the buddy's always black? Why don't they ever do the other way around?"
"It's screwed up, what can I say? So what was the deal with Pop?"
Zapper took a long swig, then burped. "Yeah, man, I bribed him, all right. Top of the rent, I had to sling him a hundred a week, just like with this new guy Cole." Zapper shook his head with grudging approval. "That cracker Pop had him one hell of a setup. Was getting grease from me, and some more grease from his other houses, and
Arcturus—"
I was so surprised I spilled Coke on my pants. Maybe I could wear them with my grape-stained shirt. "Arcturus? How was he getting money from Arcturus?"
"Man was a mastermind at getting paid. That was his thang."
"Are you positive he got money from them?"
"Yo, it's what he told me. Boastful motherfucker. I don't play like that myself. I believe in keeping my private business private, know what I mean?"
"What did he say to you, exactly?"
"Hey, I didn't write it down. Man come over here one Friday night to get his money, and I'm having trouble finding it in all my different pockets, so he be yelling at me to hurry up 'cause he got four other collections to make that night, and he name the places and one of them was Arcturus."
I sat there trying to put it all together, but Zapper beat me to it. "See, Jacob—that's your name, right?—Jacob, my man, be all kinds of people would want to kill Pop. In some kind of financial dispute, know what I'm saying?"
I nodded. "But what I don't get, why would any of those disputes have happened here? Behind your house? That doesn't make sense."
"Maybe they got pissed off and followed him here."
"And another thing I don't get. I bet it took me a full two minutes after the first scream before I made it out to your backyard. I don't believe it took you that long to just get up and look out your window."
"What can I say, man? When I get woke up in the middle of the night after some serious partying, I ain't no Deion Sanders."
I looked hard at Zapper.
He flicked his eyes.
He was lying to me again. Why?
I took another sip of Coke. "I'll bet you're half right," I said. "I'll bet Pop did die in an argument over bribe money." Then I set the Coke down on the floor. "But I don't think it was someone else. I think it was you. I think you killed Pop."
I'd made this accusation once before, the last time Zapper and I chatted. But that time I hadn't totally meant it, because I still had my money on Tony as the murderer.
This time, though, I meant it. And Zapper knew I meant it.
There was a silence in the small room. Zapper sucked in a scared breath.