Antenna Syndrome

by Alan Annand

  After high school we’d parted ways, him attending law school in Chicago, and I didn’t see him for a decade. Then he returned a few years before the Brooklyn Blast, hooked up with some big players in town, and started making serious bucks. Now and again we’d get together for a drink, which is how we’d ended up in the same bar booth that night.

  Anyway, I’d defended him and he’d returned the favor. I’d spent a few days in hospital on his account, and when the cops tried to nail me instead of him for possession, Lutz had got me off. Ever since, I could always count on him for legal assistance at a rate that was almost pro bono.

  I told him about my case. Soon as I mentioned Harris Jordan’s name, he got interested. He’d have been a lousy poker player, I thought, watching him morph into a weasel – squinty-eyed, nostrils flaring, twitching to pounce.

  Our waitress returned with our food. We tucked in, and I made short work of it. A mild beating certainly hadn’t dulled my appetite. I kept talking between mouthfuls until I’d brought Lutz right up to date, including my unconditional discharge this morning.

  “A word of advice...” Lutz pushed his plate away and dabbed his lips with a napkin. “Get your goggles checked out before you do any more work on this case. You might have withheld Jordan’s name but while they had you in custody the cops could have used your goggles to map your movements yesterday. If they went to the trouble – but I’m thinking, why would they? – they might connect that East Massapequa address to Jordan. Then cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war...”

  “I’ve got a guy who can check them out.”

  “Get yourself checked out too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You slept in lockup, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They could have drugged you, inserted an implant.”

  “Shit.” I got a little queasy, thinking maybe I had an RFID in me. “Is that even legal?”

  “Depends on whether they got a warrant for it.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Did you not think for a minute when you took this case that you were entering a neighborhood that could be hazardous for your health?”

  “You know that line from Bob Dylan? Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

  “Who’s Bob Dylan?” He said it with a straight face, but he knew who I was talking about.

  “Seriously, you think they’d tag me, just by association?”

  “Stranger things have happened.” Lutz signaled the waitress for more coffee. “You watch the news. I don’t need to remind you what the rank and file thinks of Harris Jordan.”

  “But if the NYPD are as corrupt as he says they are, even if he gets elected, they’ll never work with him.”

  “I don’t know. The Commissioner’s one of the good guys, and at least he supports what Jordan’s been saying, that if cops were just paid better, they wouldn’t stoop to corruption.”

  “Hope springs eternal.”

  We finished our coffee and he drove me back to where I’d left my car yesterday. As we stopped for a traffic light I saw a young woman –perhaps once pretty – the left side of her face a patch of burned skin, a puckered hollow where an eye should have been. Her left hand displayed the same ravaged skin, like she’d fallen asleep under a sunlamp. Another reminder of the Brooklyn Blast – the environmental fallout, the plague of dermatological infections.

  Lutz let me off at the corner of 12th and Ninth. “Try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

  “Sure. Tell a farmer to stay away from manure.” I got out of the car. “Trouble is my business.”

  Lutz blew me a kiss. “If I’m not busy that day, I’ll come to your funeral.”

  Chapter 15

  At the bodega I found my Charger where I’d left it. I had a parking ticket and the hubcaps were gone but everything else was intact. Who said there were no miracles?

  I headed back to Metamorphosis to push Dave Jenner for more information. Maybe he knew more about Myers than he’d told me. Aside from stiffing his landlord, had Myers left any enemies in the wake of his departure? Had anyone else asked about his whereabouts?

  I returned to 22nd Street and rented another parking spot from the two Afro-American gents in the Hummer. A Closed sign hung in the front door of Metamorphosis. It was past ten AM. Did Jenner only open after lunch? Seemed unlikely, considering commercial rents. I peered into the darkened store. From the rear wall, a fluorescent green Hulk glared back.

  I saw motion in one of the back aisles. Two men were struggling, one astraddle the other and banging his head on the floor, like someone trying to crack open a coconut.

  The door was locked. I took out my pistol and rapped it on the window. The guy in the superior position paused. I banged harder. He climbed off his victim and came to the door.

  “We’re closed,” he said through the door.

  He had thick black hair, dark eyes and a nose like a tomahawk that spelled Native American. He looked about forty. Two parallel scars showed white across his swarthy cheek, and another scar was notched into his chin.

  “Open the door or I call the cops.”

  The door didn’t look that solid. I might be able to kick it open, but I didn’t want to hurt myself trying.

  We stared at each other until he unlocked the door. I went in and he backed away from my gun. Down the aisle the other guy was now sitting up. Despite a nose leaking blood on his chin, I recognized the store owner.

  “You okay, Jenner?”

  “Yeah.” He got to his feet and wobbled to the front counter, looking like a mouse after a cat had bored of playing with it. “This guy went all psycho on me.”

  I’d kept the gun vaguely turned in the other guy’s direction ever since I’d entered. Now I pointed it at his crotch, as if his dick were to blame for all this. “Show and tell, friend. Your name with some ID.”

  “Nick Walker.” He took a driver’s license from his wallet. The name and photo matched.

  I handed it back. “What’s going on here?”

  “He barged in here looking for Myers,” Jenner said. “I said it wasn’t me but before I could even show him some ID, he punched me in the face, knocked me down and tried to crack my head open.”

  “What’s up?” I said to Walker.

  “Case of mistaken identity,” he said.

  “Obviously. But why’d you want to lay a beating on Myers?”

  “He’s been messing around with a married woman. I just wanted to throw a little scare into him.”

  “Out of sheer moral outrage, or is this a working gig?”

  “I don’t take on anything unless I can really get behind it, know what I mean?”

  “Sure.” This case I was working wasn’t nearly so much about the money as it was my personal effort to restore family unity and the larger social order.

  “Who sent you?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Does he live in Long Island? Nod if you need to deny you said anything.”

  He nodded.

  “Jack’s afraid to get his hands dirty?”

  Walker cocked his head at me, realizing I was already a step or two ahead of him.

  “Funny,” I said, “since just yesterday he’d mentioned he used to be a bouncer. Maybe he doesn’t have the juice for that any more, or else he was just too busy mowing the lawn...”

  Walker shrugged. “So I made a mistake. Now what?”

  I turned to Jenner. “Want to press charges?”

  Jenner and Walker exchanged looks. Walker tried on contrition. Jenner expressed doubt.

  “Not really,” Jenner said.

  “How much did Jack pay you?” I asked Walker.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “What have you got on you?”

  Walker showed his wallet. Less than a decent day’s wage.

  I gave his money to Jenner, a token of apology for hurt feelings and bloody nose. I told Walker to go wait outside, I might have something for him that would make this all good. He went across the street and
sat in a black Camaro with hood scoops and a jacked-up rear end.

  Alone with Jenner, I asked him whether anyone else had been looking for Myers. Nobody. Had anyone other than the landlord been stiffed by Myers, or nursing a grudge? None that he knew. I warned him to set aside any more packages for Myers, and let me know as soon as anything arrived. I reminded him of the obvious, Myers was in deep trouble.

  “Now go wash your face. You don’t want to scare off customers.”

  ~~~

  I crossed the street and joined Walker in his car. He was smoking a contraband cigarette. He offered a pack of Eagle Clouds. For a banned substance, they were ubiquitous. They were Canadian, smuggled across the border via the St. Regis Reserve that straddled the St. Lawrence River, a reversal from the traffic of twenty years ago. Shit happens.

  I lit up, relishing the sweet taste of organic tobacco and all its guilty pleasures. Tobacco had been illegal in New York for many years, ever since Commissar Bloomberg had turned his tough-love affection on an unsuspecting electorate.

  “So what’s in this for me,” Walker said, “now that I’m out of pocket, and still haven’t found Joey Myers?”

  “You can stop looking. He’s in the hospital.”

  Walker assessed me with grudging respect. “You beat me to the punch?”

  “Yes and no.” I told him about Myers’s encounter with the jumping spider and my small role in saving his life.

  “Shit.” Walker powered his window down and flicked his butt into the street. “I can’t beat the shit out of a guy on life support.”

  “If it’s any consolation, you can lie to Jack. Say you kicked his nuts six ways to Sunday, and put him in intensive care. I doubt Myers’s story made the news, so Jack will never know. You’ll get paid.”

  “Why you want to help me out?”

  “Because I have a soft spot for Native Americans.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That’s Chief Sitting Bullshit to you, friend.”

  Walker laughed and fingered another cigarette from the pack. “Seriously, what do you want?”

  “When did Jack ask you to throw a scare into Myers?”

  “He called me late last night, sounding like he had a load on. He told me this astrologer had messed with his wife’s head, gave her all kinds of crazy ideas. He just wanted me to discourage the guy from any further, um, consultations.”

  “All he gave you was a name and an address. You never bothered to look for a picture so you’d recognize Myers?”

  “My bad,” Walker shrugged. “How was I to know the guy’d sold his store and moved on?”

  I chewed over my options. I wasn’t sure I needed help on this case but I could afford to dole out a little cash. Although he’d fucked up royally here, it might be worth a few bucks to turn Walker from a liability into an asset. I’d thought there was something hinky about Jack Randall right from the start. Having Walker in my temporary employ might guarantee advance notice of any games Jack might be running behind my back.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said to Walker. “You do this for a living – play rough with mistaken identities?”

  “Times are tough,” he shrugged. “I used to work high-rise construction but business is bad. Now I pick up what I can – pest extermination, copper mining, escort service, salvage – whatever pays the rent.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Hunts Point.”

  “Nice.” A waste water treatment plant, and a view of Rikers Island from across the East River.

  He shrugged. “The air’s not bad. Sometimes you can even leave a window open at night.”

  “Sweet. Just like the good old days.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Listen, I could maybe use you for a little help...”

  “What’s the gig?”

  I sketched the outline of my case. “It’d mean you don’t do any more work for Jack, or at least not unless you’ve cleared it with me. I’ve got enough problems without him putting obstacles in my way. You got a problem with that?”

  “No. I don’t owe him anything. We used to knock about in the old days but we don’t see much of each other anymore.”

  “Except when he wants you to lay a beating on someone.”

  “That was a one-off deal. Usually he’s a pretty hands-on guy.”

  “So am I. But let’s not get to the point where I have to prove it to you.”

  Chapter 16

  Walker agreed to tell Jack he’d laid such a beating on Myers that he’d be in the hospital for a few days. He’d keep me advised if Jack had any other assignments that might interfere with my case. From my end, I promised to call on him as soon as I needed help. I reminded him I’d spent the night in jail and might be under surveillance, so no unnecessary contact.

  On my way back to the office, I swung by Chelsea Park and circled it until I spotted a guy called Dachshund, on account of his short legs and long torso. I tapped the horn and rolled down the window. He got up from where he’d been sitting under a tree and approached me, waving something like an airport security wand. He wore camo jacket and pants, which was why I’d circled the block three times before spotting him.

  “Whazzup, man?”

  “I had a sleepover in lockup. They may have tapped my goggles. I need them cleaned.”

  “Whatcha got?”

  I showed him my goggles.

  He tossed off a figure. “End of day soon enough?”

  “Fine.” I gave him the goggles and the money. “I might also have been tagged. If so, I need an extraction ASAP.”

  “Gimme a sec.” He stood and rested his elbows atop my car roof. I heard him say something about clinic hours and assumed he was checking an online schedule via his goggles. He lowered his head to window level. “Can you get to 55th and Eleventh in the next hour?”

  “Sure.” It was just thirty blocks away, in my condo’s neighborhood.

  He took out a small notepad and wrote an address with a phone number. “Get a carwash, ask for Anastasia, they’ll take care of you.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  “Commission comes off the other end. See you this evening for your goggles. Gotta go. Incoming.” He turned and walked away. I heard him say hello to someone, then no, I’m not handling that shit any more, but I know a guy...

  I drove up Tenth to 57th, found the carwash near Eleventh. I drove the Charger inside, told the sponge monkey to give it a wash and a wax, and asked for Anastasia. He took a pack of cards from his desk, checked a wall calendar and gave me the eight of clubs. He walked me to the curb and pointed to a building across the street.

  “Apartment 808. Give Anastasia this card.”

  I followed his directions. My fleeting fantasy of some hot Russian babe evaporated the moment she opened the door and I saw a woman who looked like a potato dumpling left out in the sun too long. Anastasia wore an ill-fitting white nurse’s smock that seemed to have buttons missing in all the wrong places, giving me an unwelcome view of her deeply-trenched doughy bosom.

  “So, you catch bedbugs sleeping with po-po?”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh at her accent, sense of humor, or her turn-of-the-century slang. But since I was the supplicant here in the church of technology, I played nice.

  “I need to get checked out, make sure I’m not carrying an RFID.”

  “You strip, please.”

  “Right here?” I knew this was illegal, but I’d expected something more office-like than a poorly-furnished studio apartment. A sofa-bed and two chairs faced a wall-mounted screen, with a long counter separating the living space from the galley kitchen.

  “You prefer bathroom?” She pointed to the door. “You still come out naked.”

  I took off my clothes and stood naked before her. She took something from her pocket that looked like a skinny little dildo and ran it all over my body, lingering in every location that was hairy and offered loose folds of skin, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  “Spread l
egs, please.”

  I did as she instructed. She wasn’t down there ten seconds before her hand-held unit bleated.

  “Okay. You got bug up your ass.” She laughed.

  “Are you serious?”

  She pulled a stool out from the kitchen counter. “Up here, please.”

  “Is that clean?”

  She sighed, sprayed the counter with Lysol and wiped it with a paper towel.

  I mounted the counter and lay on my back with legs spread and calves hanging off the sides. She applied a local anesthetic to my scrotum and set a kitchen timer for five minutes. While waiting for it to take effect, she held a finger to her lips and showed me a number on a slip of paper. I nodded. She took my wallet from my pants and laid it on my belly.

  I gave her the cash and put my wallet under my head for a pillow. The timer went off. She took a scalpel and tweezers from a jar of alcohol, put on a pair of illuminated magnifying glasses and sat on the stool at the end of the counter. It was over in a minute. She showed me the tiny device, not much bigger than a bedbug, that she’d removed from a small puncture beneath my balls.

  “Made in China.” She dropped the RFID in a paper cup and put it the microwave. She gave it thirty seconds on high and I heard a distinct pop.

  “Thanks.” I dressed and left. In the lobby I met a man heading for the elevator with a playing card. And he didn’t look like he was on his way to a game of one-card poker.

  ~~~

  Since I was in the neighborhood, I returned to my condo at 55th and Tenth. Although we’d been struggling financially even before the Brooklyn Blast, Gwen and I’d been prudent enough to buy house and life insurance. After the radioactive dust had settled, its payout had provided me enough money to kick-start a new life. After the panic selling had reached its nadir, I’d bought a condo near the bottom of the market. At least I had a place to live, which was more than some could say.