“Well, we’d like to know who you’re working for, then maybe we can discuss how you’d like to die.”
“I told your boss Cooper everything.”
“Everything? Why don’t we believe you?” Mike held up my wallet then fished out a business card. “Jules Landau, private investigator. Landau. That’s a kike name, isn’t it?” They giggled. Even Sergeant Blake smiled a bit. Then Mike said, “Lucky for you it’s not a Greek name,” which brought down the house.
Ahmet’s hands slid away from my armpits, allowing me to balance by myself. With the training wheels off, I clenched my right hand into a fist then swung wildly with everything I had. The sensation of Mike’s lip splitting and smearing my knuckles with blood and saliva conjured an image of the collision like a still from a newsreel. I envisioned myself smiling with a kind of schoolyard bully satisfaction. For a long moment, I was a kid again, back on the playground, on top of the world. Then everything went black, although I felt hands gripping my shoulders, holding me upright, and then a dull throbbing on the right side of my head. A finger lifted an eyelid. My head erupted. I swallowed something then fell backward into a dark canyon.
—
A fixture of beveled glass crystals hung from the ceiling. The room tilted as I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot. I surveyed the room. Shelves of darkly tinted bottles. Toilet and sink in the corner. Metal folding chairs against the wall. I walked carefully to the door as the room toggled back and forth. Locked. I stumbled back to the cot.
Besides a slight headache, I had no qualms about lying on a cot in a strange room. In fact, I felt oddly content—a bit euphoric even—in a drowsy kind of way. Memories of the previous hours seeped in. They called me “detective,” even though I’m an investigator. Lots of people called me “detective.” They didn’t know the difference but so what? Let them think what they wanted. I was in deep shit. What would happen next? I felt really cool, like in a movie.
When I opened my eyes, Sergeant Blake, Mike, and Ahmet stared down at me. A scab peeked out from the Band-Aid on Mike’s upper lip.
“Ahmet gave you a chop to the temple,” Mike said. “That’s twice you’ve been clobbered in a short time. Your brain doesn’t appreciate this. He hits you too hard, you’re dead. Sometimes you think you’re okay and then later your brain bleeds out.”
“Thanks,” I said calmly, my slight lisp becoming suddenly pronounced. “Thanks for not hitting so hard. I think you drugged me.”
“You old enough to remember goofballs? We gave you something like that, just to calm you down—to help us talk.”
Sergeant Blake grabbed the three folding chairs and the men sat in a row along the edge of the cot. I looked again at Mike’s lip. Intense guilt ensued. “Dude, I’m really sorry for hitting you. God, I hate being like that. I’m not a bad guy, I swear. I don’t go around hitting people.”
“You want to make up with me, Landau? Tell me why you’re here and we’ll be pals.”
A strong desire to appease took over. “Ask Sergeant Blake! I wasn’t an asshole at your precinct, right? You and I got along. I did what you told me and I got to talk to Detective Cooper. We had a good conversation.”
“Yes, you’re a good man, Mr. Landau,” Sergeant Blake said. “Detective Cooper liked you too. Now just answer Mike’s questions and we’ll all be friends.”
“I reminded Detective Cooper I’m an investigator, not a detective—”
“Why did you come to Irvington?” Mike interrupted.
I started giggling. Unable to resist I said, “My health. I came to Irvington for the waters.”
Mike tried to suppress his smile but failed. “See, it’s just fun and games playing detective, right? You know fantasy worlds are a lot safer than the real world—right?”
“Jesus, relax,” I said. “I’m just trying to help Eddie Byrne find his girlfriend—hey, Ahmet! Are we good? I deserved that whack on the head, dude.” I offered my hand for a conciliatory shake. Ahmet didn’t bite.
“What are you doing here, Landau?” Mike said.
Suddenly the question sparked a strange empathy—as if I owed them an explanation. I described Eddie’s reluctance to talk—emphasized that he had every right in a free country not to talk—but framed my presence as a kind of peripheral approach to investigating, to see if some small detail would surface and inspire an insight. Mike whispered to Sergeant Blake. They stood then walked away to confer. I drifted into semi-consciousness, aware I was the subject of discussion, but still feeling really cool.
“What about the FBI?”
I opened my eyes to the men seated as before. I said, “I don’t know any FBI.”
“We know the Feds are watching Eddie,” Mike said.
“Oh, no. He’s not dealing drugs! Eddie’s better than that.”
“He’s not dealing drugs,” Sergeant Blake and Mike said at the same time.
“Then tell the Feds they’re wasting their time.”
“We need to know what you know, Landau,” Mike said. “Like, why you came to this building.”
“Guys, I’m here to find out about Tanya, Eddie’s girlfriend. Nothing else. Christ, I’m tired.”
“You see anything in this building that’s gonna help you find her?”
I was just too damn tired to talk. That oversized chemistry set in the warehouse had no relevance to Tanya. But Mike kept asking, kept insisting I knew what Eddie was up to. Maybe it was my fault, maybe I got a little nasty because I thought I heard someone throw a chair across the room. I kept saying I only wanted to sleep but then the hands returned to my armpits and I stood again, dangling like a marionette. “Hold him still,” Mike said and Ahmet wrapped an arm around my chest then grabbed a handful of hair from the back of my head just before the first blow hit my mouth. The second followed closely and then another before I returned to the darkness.
Chapter 27
My face throbbed. Mike and Sergeant Blake spoke casually. So many things I could’ve done with my life. History professor, antiques dealer, lawyer, gemologist, park ranger, historic preservationist, geologist, linguist, bookseller, reporter, social worker, shop owner, real estate investor, arborist, or any other goddamn thing a white, upper-middle-class American male wanted to do. I chose private investigator, a path to lying on a cot and fearing that opening my eyes might provoke more violence. But to what end? Unless they were sadists, getting me to talk made more sense. If they had already used me up, I would’ve been re-homed somewhere in the Passaic River by now.
“I don’t know….What do you think the boss wants to do?”
“Depends on his mood…” Loud laughter. “And he knows that cop…could be tricky…attention he don’t want…”
I sat up. Darts of pain pulsated around my face. The guys continued chatting, apparently unconcerned with my resurrection. “…Yeah, but things are better than they used to be….I remember…”
My feet found the floor, provoking a glance. Games get boring when played too often.
I said, “You think I could get something to eat?”
Sergeant Blake took the cellphone off his belt, dialed a number. “Yep.”
Moments later, Cooper walked through the door. “He’s hungry,” Mike said.
“Get him something. How about toast? You like toast, Mr. Landau?”
“Love it,” I deadpanned.
“Good. Sergeant Blake, would you mind?”
Sergeant Blake walked out. Cooper sat in his chair. “How are you feeling, Mr. Landau?”
I walked to the mirror above the sink. Deep purple bruises blemished my mouth, cheekbone, and eye socket. “I feel just how I look.”
Cooper grimaced. “I’m sorry about that. But this was your choice. Violence is always a choice.”
“Whose choice was it to ambush me?”
“You chose to come to Irvington, right?”
“It’s a free country, right? I’m being paid to find a missing woman, right? I’m doing my job, right?”
“A f
ree country?” Cooper thought about it. “Well, Irvington’s reality may not fit into your idea of freedom.”
We sat in silence. Sergeant Blake returned with a plate of toast and several small packets of jelly. The three men watched me eat as if something of monumental importance hinged on the outcome.
“Anything else?” Cooper said.
“I want my wallet back.”
Sergeant Blake left the room, returned with my wallet, then stood by the door.
Cooper said, “You’ll find your wallet with everything intact.”
I stood. “Before you leave,” Cooper said, “tell me your impression—from what you’ve seen so far, I mean.”
I gave my best Are you kidding me? look. “You really think I give a damn about some bum-booze distillery? A ghetto full of poor people happy as hell to buy your cheap hooch with no labels? That’s what I call a captive audience. I get it.” I moved toward the door.
“Not just yet.” Sergeant Blake stepped in front of the door. “I can’t help but wonder if, maybe, later on, you might change your tune. I mean, little things might fall into place and then you might get a different idea.”
It had seemed too easy—that a guy with Cooper’s reputation would just let me walk. I knew damn well private investigating could be dangerous, especially if organized crime was involved. But to disappear over bootleg booze?
“Why would I give a shit? I’m just trying to find Tanya—”
I looked at Sergeant Blake and then back to Mike and Cooper. As if choreographed, they both stood and walked to the door. Sergeant Blake opened it. Ahmet walked in and took a seat. Before the others left, Cooper said, “But can I take that chance? Relax awhile. Let me think about it.”
—
You didn’t become kingpin by taking chances. Cooper knew a missing private investigator would attract little attention. He had everything to lose by letting me go and nothing to gain. After enough time passed some would say, He knew what he was getting into. Others might say, He got what he deserved.
Ahmet had moved his chair near the door, where he sat with his face behind a Turkish newspaper. I paced the room, noted the distance between the other chairs and Ahmet, then tried to calculate how quickly I could fold a chair before Ahmet recognized a threat—that is, if he bothered to look.
“Hey, Ahmet, I don’t think they locked the door.”
A guttural chuckle emerged from behind the paper. “You going somewhere?”
I put my hand on the back of a chair and lifted it a few inches off the ground. “Your boss doesn’t like to take chances.”
Another throaty laugh. “You have no chances.”
The chair didn’t fold as expected. I struggled with the seat, trying to stay calm. Anger at my ineptness replaced any inkling of panic. When I glanced again at Ahmet, he was already coming at me. I swung the chair in front of me just in time for Ahmet to pluck it from my hands, slam the seat flat, then throw it at my feet.
“That’s what you wanted, no?”
I grabbed the chair and held it up, hoping to smash Ahmet’s head with the heaviest part of the chair—where the legs, seat, and hinges folded together. Ahmet mocked me with his casual posture and smile, egged me on with hand gestures and words in his native language. I lunged toward him then retreated in a feigned assault. He flinched, I swung the chair at the side of his head. Ahmet blocked the blow with his forearm then cried out as blood trickled down his arm from where a rivet had torn his flesh. I jammed the chair into his stomach, which had no ill effect but allowed him to take hold and shove the chair back into my abdomen, dropping me to the floor. As I gasped for breath, Ahmet lifted me from behind in a crushing reverse bear hug. Adding a dash of humiliation, he leaned back on his heels then swung me around in clumsy pirouettes.
Helpless as I was, Ahmet’s embrace afforded me enough physical stability to allow a rational assessment of my predicament, thus fostering a thought regarding the proximity of my feet to Ahmet’s knees. I lifted my right leg as high as I could, then exerted every last bit of remaining energy in a downward thrust, crashing the heel of my shoe against Ahmet’s locked knee. I saw and heard the “crack” of a baseball hitting the bat’s sweet spot, followed by a primal scream as Ahmet took the path of least resistance, dropping to the floor over his shattered leg.
I sat a few feet from the writhing man, unaffected by the sight of Ahmet’s right shin bent queerly at a ninety-degree angle below the knee. Slowly, I got to my feet then opened the door just enough to poke my head out. Ahmet’s groans leaked into the empty hallway. A sense of urgency hit me but I couldn’t leave yet, not without first taking care of Ahmet. The bedsheet from the cot tore easily into strips. Ahmet tried to resist, but with every move the pain discouraged his ambition. After tying his hands behind his back, I gagged him with a few strips then wrapped his mouth shut, tying the strip behind his head.
Once again, I poked my head out the door. The room was in the middle of a long hallway that I guessed ran the length of the building. One direction probably led to the office where I had entered. The other direction probably led to the lab where the front door was located. I took a last look at Ahmet, momentarily considered the magnitude of his discomfort, then closed the door.
Now outside the room, a feeling I associated with Amy’s intuition directed me to turn right. I jogged down the hallway, enduring the throbbing pain bouncing around my face, but worried more about the few options available to evade someone appearing at either end of the corridor. About thirty yards from the end of the hallway, I noticed a single bulb illuminating the opposite side of the glass door. Beyond the glow, darkness. Ahmet had originally appeared from a dark corridor connected to the office. My spirits soared, although the emergence of Cooper, Mike, and Sergeant Blake from the shadows—about to push their way through the glass door—delayed an attempted dash to freedom.
I ducked into a doorless work space, then crawled under a utility table where several stacks of boxes offered refuge. The room had an earthy, dead-plant odor, and the only light was whatever spilled in from the hallway. While approximating the progress of the three men chatting quietly as they walked down the hallway, I noticed several crumpled pieces of paper on the floor. I crawled over to one of them. The paper cracked easily and smelled like brewed tea. In poor light, the ornate handwriting and mysterious images brought nothing to mind. I moved closer to the doorway for better light and recognized a logo with five arrows splayed above and below a capital “R.”
“Lafite Rothschild 1947,” the yellowed label read. I grabbed several more scraps. “Mouton Rothschild 1945,” “1982 La Mission Haut-Brion,” “1978 Romanée-Conti.”
On the table, tea bags steeped in a bowl of water. I grabbed a handful of paper from one of the boxes. Vintage labels laid out three to a page, waiting to be aged in tea. A small oven at the end of the table sat ready to bake in the appropriate antiquity. Hundreds of corks filled several other boxes. Scattered across one table were lead capsules, sealing wax, and rubber stamps with vintages and French estate names. The men’s voices became louder. I ducked back under the table. They passed the doorway. Moments later, Ahmet’s howls of agony raced down the hallway.
A fresh round of throbbing ricocheted around my face as I stood and bolted down the hall. Once through the glass door, I sprinted toward the glow of the office light where my adventure had begun. Outside, the wet, cool air refreshed me, felt good against my face, prompted me to run faster. Not until I found my car and turned onto Springfield Avenue did I begin to relax.
Chapter 28
Expressions of horror on their pretty brown faces reflected my battered appearance.
“I’m so sorry, mister!” the tall girl said. “We told you it wasn’t safe for white men to walk around.”
“Call the police,” the other girl said.
“No!” I said. “I’m fine. Do not call the police. I’m going to rest awhile then go to the airport. Okay? Promise me you won’t call the police.”
Both nod
ded. Both were crying.
Once back in my room, I collapsed into the bed’s crevasse. I relived running through the dark corridor before busting out into the cool air. All the doors had been unlocked, coming and going. Only a handful of people in the building. No security except a few cameras. Apparently, they had no fear of discovery. My presence had been a surprise. I drifted off, wishing I had a gun in my hand, then awoke less than an hour later knowing that I should get the hell out of town.
I ate another peanut-butter sandwich, packed, gave each girl a hundred-dollar bill, then drove to the airport, where security inquired about my face then disappeared for several hours with my IDs. Not until midafternoon did they allow me to pay an additional fifty dollars to book another flight.
—
I turned off all the lights in my apartment, preferring only the residual glow from the streetlamps. Punim strolled out of the bedroom then jumped onto the coffee table. She sat watching me with her tail wrapped tightly around her legs. She appeared well.
I swallowed a couple of aspirin then lay on the couch with two ice packs covering my face. In the background, an analysis of new information loitered, waited for integration with Tanya, Eddie, Margot, and Doug. Punim landed on my chest then stretched out across my torso. The barrel of my Glock stroked her back. I put the gun on the coffee table then rested my hand next to her belly. It was good to be home.
—
The three pairs of eyes were on me again. I smelled chemicals. A chloroform mask lay over my nose and mouth. The escape and reunion had been a dream. The disappointment ached.
“Wow, it’s dark in here.”
The familiar voice dissolved the men into the light of a gooseneck lamp. I removed the ice packs and sat up.
“That was a fast trip—oh, my god! What happened?” Amy’s look of shock did not diminish her beauty.
“It’s nothing, really. It only happens during a crime investigation. I think it’s an immune system response.”
She sat next to me. Her eyes jumped around my face. “You were badly beaten. It’s not funny.”
Gold Coast Blues Page 14