Caught Stealing ht-1

by Charlie Huston

  I move my clothes to the dryer and flip through the rest of the paper.

  The dryer stops drying and I get my clothes. Everything is piping hot and I’m tempted to change jeans right there just to get that toasty feeling on a chilly day. I settle for slipping on a warm sweatshirt. I fold everything and pack it all back into my bag. I haven’t thought about a beer in about an hour or at least no more than once or twice. Mission accomplished, I balance the laundry bag on my shoulder and go home.

  Outside my front door I shift the bag from my right shoulder to my left to dig for my keys. This is a mistake. I no longer have a left kidney. What I do have is a big hole held closed by a bunch of staples. When I stretch my left arm up to hold the bag on my shoulder, my staples also stretch. Or rather the flesh stretches and my staples stay right where they are. I gasp and squeak a little at the pain and drop the bag, spin around and do a little pain dance. Then I get my shit together along with my keys and put the bag back on my right shoulder.

  As I do this, as the bag is settling onto my shoulder, I register something in the window of the pizza place next door. There is a counter that runs along the front window of the place and people sit there to eat their pizza and you can’t see their faces and they can’t see out unless they hunch a little because the front window is plastered with Italian movie posters down to about a foot above the counter. The owner of this place is a huge movie fan. I know this because I get all my pizza there and we talk movies sometimes. He’s a nice guy and I always tell him he should take those posters down so people can see out and in through that nice big front window. But right now I love those posters. I love those posters because of what I just barely glimpsed on the counter: four beautiful, small hands, dressed to the wrists in Nike tracksuits-two in black and two in white. I feel certain that the pizza those hands are clutching is being shoved into the mouths of two hugeRussianic thugs with a fondness for light beer andfoofy pink cocktails.

  I drop my keys. I drop my keys in such a way that anyone sitting at the counter of the pizza place will be able to see me if I bend to pick them up. This is so fucked up. Careful to keep the laundry bag positioned in front of my head, I squat, bending at the knees, and pick up the keys. I have not moved the bag from my right shoulder since I caught my glimpse. I do not know what the hands are doing. Nor do I know for certain that they are the hands I think they are. But I am freaked out. I hurry to get the door open and drop the keys again. Fuck this. I squat again and this time I shift the bag just enough so I can peek up into the window of the pizza shop and see who exactly is at the counter and get this over with. It’s them. They don’t see me. I stand, work the key in the lock and am inside very quickly.

  Weird shit happens in New York. I have run into people on the street here who I knew once in elementary school back in California. It is not impossible that these boys live around here and just happen to likeMuzzarel’s Pizza. But I’m scared anyway because this is so fucked up. I am walking up the two flights to my floor and I am repeating a mantra to myself:

  – This is so fucked up. This is so fucked up. This is so fucked up.

  And that’s why I don’t really register the sounds coming from the hall just outside my apartment until I’m a few steps away.

  The knocking I hear coming from my hall might just be the exterminator, or a friend, or Federal Express with the bag I lost at JFK three years ago. But the presence of the Russiangoombahs downstairs makes me think otherwise. My feet are carrying me into view of whoever is there, and my sense of self-preservation makes an executive decision. I shift the laundry from my right shoulder to my left so that it will hide my head from anyone at my door. I ignore the pain this causes and step onto the landing. I do not stop. I turn and take the next flight up without ever looking at my door. All knocking and conversation has ceased and the only sounds are my steps and breathing and the ridiculous pounding of my heart. As I mount the stairs to the next floor and climb one, two, three, four, five steps, the noise behind me begins again. When I reach the top floor of the building, I stop. There are now three floors between me and whoever is down there.

  My side is screaming. But what really sucks, is that for the first time in days my feet hurt.

  The building I live in is no palace, but when I first moved in it was inreally sorry fucking shape. A few years back, when the real estate boom finally reached Alphabet City, my landlord decided to spruce up a bit so he could jack up the rents on new tenants. For the purpose of making these improvements, he hired a group of retards who I’m sure were quite affordable. The way it worked out, this crew of mongoloids went through the building destroying all that came within their grasp, while Carlos, the building super, followed them around and redid all they had undone. I needed a few bucks and Carlos needed an extra pair of hands, so I helped him with some things, including tarring and papering the roof. This is how I came to have roof access in the building when no other tenants do.

  I’m standing in the hall on the top floor and I can hear the guys outside my door as clear as day. That is, I can hear that they have stopped knocking on my door and now there is only some shuffling and whispering. And then I hear what sounds like a door opening and more shuffling and a door closing and total silence. And I think,I really do, that those fuckers are in my apartment. What I want to do is,I want to call the cops. In this situation, there is no reason not to call the cops. People break into your apartment,people who seem to be associated with people who beat you bloody a few nights ago break into your apartment, and there is just no good reason not to call the cops.

  No reason except for the huge bag of grass sitting on my coffee table and all the paraphernalia it’s hanging out with.

  The door to the roof has a combination lock. I know the combination. I climb the half flight of steps to the roof door, work the lock and step outside. I finally put down the laundry bag because it’s really fucking killing me. I have to leave the door just a bit ajar, otherwise it will latch and if I open it, I’ll trigger the fire bar and set off the alarm for the whole building. I did this once when I was working up here with Carlos. He spewed out every curse word he knows in English and Spanish and a few inTagalog that he’d gotten from his Filipino wife. Afterwards, I bought him a beer or three and he forgave me, but it was a pain in the ass. Fire trucks, tenants in the street, traffic jammed up and all because I needed to go inside to use the john.

  So I leave the door a little ajar.

  I have no plan. I can still call the cops, but I figure the pot is a good enough reason to take a wait-and-see approach, at least for the moment. Especially since I have no clue what these guys are doing. I do not have nice things. There is some cash in my place and a couple standard appliances, but other than that, the weed is probably the most valuable thing I own right now. So I’m on the roof and I have no plan.

  I walk to the front of the building and, when I get close to the edge, I go down on my hands and knees and peek over. Good call. Black tracksuit and white tracksuit have moved across the street. They are standing in front of the tattoo parlor there and doing the “look how damn inconspicuous we are” thing. One is talking on a cell phone and the other is drinking a bottle of Yoo-hoo through a straw. They are both avoiding looking at my building. I have entered new territory. These guys are looking for me. I feel confident that they have my place staked out and are looking for me, acting as lookouts for the guys in my apartment. This has never happened to me before and I’m at a bit of a loss for the next move. And that is when I realize that it’s time to cut the crap because this is potentially a very dangerous situation and I should just call the damn cops. I creep back from the edge of the building, stand up and head for the door, which the nice fall breeze has apparently blown shut.

  For a moment, I think about just opening the door. Trigger the alarm and that would surely bring this whole thing to a swift conclusion. Bad guys dash out, fire trucks and cops show up, I tell the simple truth and, if I get snagged on the pot, well, so be it. Sometimes you j
ust have to be a grown-up and bite the bullet. Instead, I turn into Spy Boy and decide to climb down the fire escape to get a closer look.

  I used to break into houses. I was seventeen and couldn’t play ball anymore. My leg was so messed up I couldn’t play anything for a while. In gym I rode the bench with the burnouts and watched my jock friends play and thought about how I’d like to beat the shit out of their healthy bodies. After about a week, I started sneaking off with the burners to get baked behind the equipment shed. That’s how I met Wade, Steve, and Rich.

  Breaking into a house in the suburbs is easy. Unlocked doors are common and unlocked windows are universal. No one had an alarm back then. Rich and Steve only did houses they knew were empty. That was fun. You hop a fence and usually just go in the back door. You run the house quick, looking for cash or jewelry or drugs, just what fits in your pockets,then you get out. Wade liked to hit houses when the people were home. I liked it too.

  You pick a house. What you’re looking for is no lights at all or lights in one room only. A house where all the people are sleeping is a charge, but a house where someone is awake is unreal. You test the side garage door and go in there. Once in the garage, you can get a feel for what’s going on in the house. Andno one locks the house door to the garage. You slip into the house and listen for the TV. Thursday night in the eighties and everyone in America is watchingThe Cosby Show,Family Ties,Cheers,Night Court, andHill Street Blues. For those three hours you could do whatever you wanted. Walking past the open door of the family room, you peek in and see Mom, Dad, and the kids grouped around the set. Even if you asked directions to the bathroom no one would look up. Sometimes it was too easy.

  I was at it for a few months until I got busted. The cops stopped me and Wade after we did a house. All they were looking to do was hassle us for being out after curfew, but we smarted off and they got us with cash, a bottle of Valium and some lady’s engagement ring. I quit after that. My folks picked me up at the station and I quit. They looked so disappointed. I didn’t see much of Wade and Steve after that, but I stayed close to Rich.

  The fire escape for my apartment is at the back of the building. I move down it quick and easy, or as quick and easy as I can with the pain in my side. I stop when I get to the floor above mine. The fire escape extends down at a sharp angle, half ladder/half staircase, and dumps you about a foot to the left of my bedroom window. Unless one of these guys is standing right at the window, I should be able to creep down and press myself against the bricks between my place and Russ’s. From there I can listen and decide if I can afford to take a peek or if I should just get the hell out.

  I relax. I am ready to start down the steps. And the dog in the apartment I am outside of starts to bark bloody murder.

  I don’t think. I fly down the steps and flatten myself against the bricks. The only way I can be seen now is if someone sticks their head out the window. I wait while I catch my breath and the dog winds down. No one opens my window. I am calm. I settle against the bricks and listen. They are in there. I can hear low voices and what seems to be a great deal of rummaging and low-key destruction. The sound is a bit faint and does not seem to be coming directly from my bedroom just inside the window. I decide to take a peek. I turn so that I face the bricks, inch over to the window and dart my right eye out and back as quickly as possible. And I see nothing. I breathe. Slowly this time, I poke my head out enough to see a wide swath of the bedroom and living area and I see nothing. No people, no signs of search or forced entry. I see only Bud sitting on my bed where he is not allowed and looking at me with an expression that clearly says: “What the fuck are you doing?” Yes, the searching sounds are in fact coming from behind me in Russ’s apartment.

  I repeat the process. I edge to Russ’s window and do the quick peek and get an impression of a big mess and some people. I do some more breathing and go back for a better look. There are three guys in there; I’m not sure what they look like because the blood pounding in my temples keeps blurring my vision. One of them is big, one is small, and one is medium.The Three Bears. Russ’s apartment is being broken into by the Three Bears. The thought makes me giggle. I hold it in, and it almost bursts out again. I have to get off this fire escape before I start to laugh. I go back to my bedroom window, which is locked, of course, but my bedroom has two windows and the second one is unlocked. It is, however, a few feet beyond the fire escape. But right now I want to be in my apartment and that’s all I know.

  I climb over the rail. I plant my left foot on the escape and grip it with my left hand and stretch. If I hadn’t had a major surgical procedure in the last week, this would be easy. As it is, it hurts like hell. I bite my lip to keep from shouting and it makes my eyes water, which, for some strange reason, makes me want to sneeze. I plant my right foot on the window ledge. The window is not ajar, so I can’t get a grip on the lip. I have to press my palm flat against the glass and push up. I don’t have enough leverage. I’m going to have to get lower. I loosen my grip on the escape just a bit and bend at the right knee while I stretch farther with my left leg. My staples dig in and my left arm is sore and I press my palm against the window and push up with my right arm and leg and tears are now streaming down my face and as the window lurches open I sneeze massively and throw myself into my bedroom as my left foot slips from the escape.

  The top half of my body flops into the apartment, my hips caught on the sill, my legs dangling outside the window and more searing pain radiating from my side. There are quick footsteps next door as someone runs to Russ’s window. I drag my legs inside, shut the window and curl into a quiet ball in the space between the bed and the wall. I hear the window next door open. I hear someone climb out onto the fire escape. I sense someone at my window looking in. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

  I stay like that until I hear them leave Russ’s apartment about fifteen minutes later. Then I getup, go to the bathroom, and puke. Big surprise: Throwing up makes my staples hurt. But I don’t appear to have popped any of them during all this. Adrenaline is leaving my body and in its wake it leaves a huge craving for booze. I drink some water. I straighten up my apartment. I remember my laundry on the roof and decide to leave it there until later, tomorrow even. Then I smoke a roach, flush the rest of my high-grade Virginia pot, make a phone call and play with Bud while I wait for the cops.

  I tell them about everything except the grass. First, I tell the uniforms who answer the call. I tell them about getting beat up. I tell them about finding the tracksuits outside my apartment. I tell them the idiotic tale of my climb to the roof and descent by the fire escape. They’re pretty nice on the whole and only laugh a little about what an asshole I am. Then Detective Lieutenant Roman of Robbery/Homicide shows up.

  If the job description for a great cop said “dark, brooding, efficient as hell, and looks great in a black suit,” then Detective Lieutenant Roman would be your guy. He asks me all kinds of incisive questions as we sit around in my apartment and all he ever looks at are my eyes and his little notebook.

  – How many people did you actually see?

  – I think five, altogether.

  – Why “you think”?

  – I didn’t get a very good look through the window, so there might have been more. But I know there were the two guys downstairs and I definitely saw three in Russ’s apartment.

  – Russ is Mr. Miner, your neighbor?

  – Right.

  – Tell me about the guys downstairs.

  – Two big guys, they were in the pizza place next door and when I got to the roof they were watching the building from across the street.

  – These are the two who beat you up last week?

  – Right.

  – And when they came into the bar that night, did they ask for Mr. Miner?

  – No. They didn’t ask for shit except a couple drinks. Then they went haywire.

  – OK. The guys in Mr. Miner’s apartment, what can you tell me about them?

  – Uh, one guy big, even
bigger than the two Russians.

  – Russians?

  – The guys who beat me up, the guys in the tracksuits, had accents. I think they were Russian or Ukrainian or Polish.

  – You said Russian.

  – Or Ukrainian or Serbian forall the fuck I know, justRussianic.

  – OK. What about the big guy in the apartment?

  – Big. And I think he was Latino or something.

  – Hewas, what, dark?

  – Yeah, dark skin, butlightish. I mean he might have been black, but not dark black.

  – Brown complexioned?

  – Yeah.

  – Hair?

  – Lots of it, I think.Long hair, black. That’s what I think.

  – OK, who else?

  – A small guy with bright red hair.

  – Carrot topped?

  – No,real red, might be dyed kind of red.

  – Fire engine?

  – Almost.

  – Good, that’s good.

  – Yeah?

  – What about the third?

  – Uh, not much.Averagish size, dark hair, and wearing black, I think.

  – You think he was wearing black?

  – He was definitely in black or very dark blue.

  – OK.

  He looks at his notes and waves one of the uniforms over. Without saying anything, he takes the uniform’s notebook and flips through it, looking for something. He hands the book back to the uniform and takes another look at me. And hereally looks at me, Imean, he looks me up and down like he’s sizing me up for a secret mission or something.

  – Can you tell me, this is difficult and I don’t want to compromise you, your friendship with Mr. Miner, but can you tell me, is Mr. Miner involved in any illegal activities?

  Well, fuck, what do I do with that?

  – Fuck, I don’t know.

  – This is crucial. You understand that, yes? If your friend is in danger, we need to know everything there is to know.

  – I understand.