I was splayed out. I could rock back and forth, but that was about it. I got my first good look at the Roman-nosed Valentino in vest and shirtsleeves. He looked as though he should’ve been in pictures instead of a lice trap like this. He stared at me like a hyena on the prowl.
“Who are you?” I grunted.
“No names,” he warned. “According to the registry, you’re Jones. Yeah, sure. Braineater Jones.”
That was the second time somebody had called me that.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” the stranger said. “You can call me Mr. Lazar. That’s not my real name. I’m like you.”
9. Are there others like me? Yes.
10. Who is Lazar? What is his real name?
“No kidding,” I said into the mattress.
“Boy, you really are newly turned,” he said. “I thought I might sell you a bottle for the night, but you might be an unlifelong customer. I don’t normally take to childrearing, but a friend in need, you know.”
“Get bent,” I said.
“No, that’s what we’re going to do with you.”
Lazar, or whatever his real name is, flipped me onto my back. He pulled a bottle of Old Crow out of the bag and poured a little into the ashtray.
I guess there wasn’t a glass. I hope it wasn’t full of ashes. I couldn’t taste a drop.
“Here, have a little tipple of this.” He poured the ashtrayful down my throat.
I should’ve choked, lying on my back like that, but of course, someone like me doesn’t breathe. Rushing down my throat, it reminded me more of the liquid in my ear popping after a summer cold than taking a drink by choice.
I tried to keep an eye on him, but I wasn’t entirely sure why he was ripping the lamp’s power cord in half. Son of a bitch. If there were a deposit on my room, I would’ve lost every dime of it between the door and the lamp.
“Feel better?” he asked. “A little clearer?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Booze keeps the brain pickled,” he said. “It keeps people like you and me alive. Unalive. Whatever you want to call it.”
“What are we?” I moaned.
“Oh, that’s a big question,” Lazar said. “And not one for your unbirthday. You’re just a baby. We’ll get to all that, but hopefully after you’ve got a job and can start paying me for the sipping whiskey. The booze will keep your mind tip-top, but I’m sorry to say the body is another story. It’s a good thing our kind doesn’t feel pain, but, ah, this is still going to be a bit uncomfortable.”
He carefully peeled back the rubber from the severed end of the cord to reveal an inch of naked copper. He stuck the plug back in the outlet and started zapping me with juice through the wire. In, out, in, out. “Electrical stimulation” he called it, same as they did down in old Sinclair’s Jungle. It tickled. Anyway, old Lazar zapped the statue stiffness right out of me.
When he was done, he sat down on the edge of the bed. I offered him a Lucky, but he waved it away.
“Cigarettes will kill you.”
“Too late now,” I said.
“Filthy habit, anyway. Listen, the rigor—that’s what it was, by the way, rigor mortis—won’t come back as bad ever again. Keep drinking to keep your brain right. You may have to shock yourself now and then if it creeps back in, but I’ve shown you how to do it now. The important thing is, I’ll be around whenever you need some bootleg.”
I pointed at the open bottle. “How much for that?”
“That?” He scratched the back of his neck. “Consider that an unbirthday gift. But trust me, it’ll be your last free lunch in the Welcome Mat.” He stood and strode toward the door.
“How can I find you?” I asked.
“There’s a fence on Keene Avenue. There’s a little something extra in the back. You can find me there.”
Well, thank Jesus, Murphy, and Joe Hooker for that fellow Lazar. He might’ve seen me as an easy mark, but I’d be dead if not for him. Double dog dead. You know what I mean.
November 2, 1934
With my morning cup of Crow in hand, I’m going to take a minute to write about yesterday. I’m going to try to stick with writing every morning from now on. I’ve got to inject some structure into my life, or I think I might go mad. As long as I’m distracted, as long as I’ve got something to do, I can avoid thinking about the hole in my chest and the shattered discs in my neck and the briar scratches festering instead of scabbing and…
Dammit, I’ve got myself thinking about it now. Let’s move on.
With so many questions mounting up and not much in the way of leads, I figured I should head over to Lazar’s pawnshop. Keene Avenue wasn’t exactly in the nicest part of the Welcome Mat, but I sensed it wasn’t the most degenerate place I’d ever set foot in. On the screen of the theater of my mind, I was struck by an image of a fecund bathhouse packed with hairy bodies.
Damn flashes of memory. It’s as if I’m seeing somebody else’s life in a nickelodeon.
Despite a few letters dangling from the sign, I identified the joint as Hallowed Grounds. What a ridiculous name for a pawnshop. But at least I wouldn’t forget it anytime soon. Not that I’m legendary for my memory.
The old, bald fence, quivering slightly with age, hunched over the counter. A scraggly cat prowled the store, having his run of the place. I was surprised there weren’t more scratches on the old guitars and milk bottles. Junk festooned the joint, and where there wasn’t junk, there was garbage. The entire back of the store was caged off, but I didn’t see a whole world of difference between the worthless items he kept under lock and key and the ones he left out as scratching posts for his pussy.
“I’m looking for Lazar,” I said.
He looked at me. Looked through me, maybe. His eyes are coated with cataracts, totally white and pupil-less, like a buzzard’s. Bald and blind. Mangy cat. Worthless store. Considering the way life gives with one hand and takes with the other, he probably goes home to Jean Harlow. “Never heard of him.”
“Maybe I ain’t clear.” I laid down a few wadded-up bills on the counter from my ever-diminishing supply. “I’m looking for a guy who called himself Lazar. Don’t know if it’s his real name. Don’t care. Probably not, actually. He said I could find him here.”
He snatched the cabbage off the counter. Maybe he wasn’t so blind after all. How could he see through all that chalky goo, though? Maybe he was so used to getting kickbacks for everything he just knew to take it.
“I know what you’re here for, but I guess you don’t know the password,” Baldy said. “If your friend from Slumberland didn’t tell it to you, I don’t know that he wanted you to get in.”
I kicked the counter. I didn’t do it to bother the old bat and certainly not to threaten him. I did it out of frustration. But he took it the wrong way. Or maybe the right way, from my perspective. Guess I don’t know my own strength.
He held up his arms to surrender as if he was president of a Banana Republic. “All right, all right! Come on back.” He opened up the cage. How unintentionally clever of me.
I assume even the cops don’t get past the cage much, unless they’ve got a warrant. Not that I’ve seen a single cop in the Mat yet. Doubt they come around much. But even if they did, Baldy could hide a speakeasy or an underground card game or what have you back there, and they’d be none the wiser.
As I walked back, I noticed a little silver flask in the cage underneath the glass. Must’ve been worth a little something. It had some Russki-Polski writing on it, though I couldn’t talk it.
Guess I’m not Russian either.
I grabbed it, though. It had a picture of somebody on it. Lenin? “How much for this?”
“What is it?” he said, slipping into the blind old codger role again.
I stuck it in his hand and let him feel it a bit.
“Oh, that?” he said. “Not subtle, are you?”
“How do you mean, friend?” I said.
/> “Coppers catch you with paraphernalia, they take it almost the same as having booze. Almost the same. Hey, you take it, buddy. We’ll call it even, so long as you don’t tell anyone where you got it.”
I must’ve really given him a case of knocking knees. “Thanks.”
I poured myself down a metal spiral staircase into the speakeasy.
Or is it called a clip-joint now? No, I suppose it’s still a speako, even if only the city is dry.
I didn’t spot Lazar anywhere, although honestly the joint was dead. (Ha!) Clearly no one trifled with the bartender, a bear of a guy who could’ve doubled as the bouncer. They probably saved on payroll that way, muscle and drink jockey all rolled into one.
He stood there wiping down the bar, and from the looks of it, he had had been wiping that rag in the same circular divot since Christ was a corporal. When he spotted me, he gave me a stunned look as though he had seen me somewhere before. Then he settled into all-business mode.
“What’ll it be?” Hercules asked.
Being low on funds and lower on patience, I opted to get right down to business. I plopped down in a stool right in front of him, real casual-like. “Looking for somebody.”
“Beat it,” he said. He turned around as though a couple of customers were hidden back with the bottles and jars.
“His name,” I said, “or anyway, he called himself—”
“Hey!” The gorilla turned back around. “I told you to scram.”
“I’m new to all this.” Earnestness was the name of the game. I could’ve played a real Studs Lonigan tough guy, but the difference between snarling with the blind old fence and that big gorilla was that only one would make me put my money where my mouth was.
He looked me up and down. The towel never left his hand. Instead of rubbing the bar nervously, he wiped his hands nervously. “You are, aren’t you?” He sounded as though he could scarcely believe me.
I shrugged. I didn’t even know what we were talking about anymore.
He pinched his nose. At first I thought maybe it was some funny way of saying “I’m right there with you.” He started blowing, though, as if he was sneezing but holding it all in. Then his eye popped out.
It was a sign. He surreptitiously popped his eyeball back in, but judging from the clientele, he probably didn’t need to. The few in there were either dead already or too swacked to care.
“Thank God,” I said. I pulled open the shirt I was swimming in to show off my bullet hole. It was rotting a little and itching a lot. I’d have to look into purchasing some eau de cologne. The bartender stuck his finger in my hole.
Is that a violation? Wish he would’ve bought me dinner and flowers first. Maybe it’s pretty normal in our world. What do I know?
“You’d better watch your booze intake,” he said. “It keeps your brainwheel turning.” He slapped some liquid bread onto the counter. “On the house. Welcome to the club, kid. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Eh, they call me Jones.”
“So what do you need again?”
“Looking for a guy calls himself Lazar.” The mook’s expression was blank. “Might be a pseudonym.”
“A what?”
“You know, a fake name.”
“Well, fake name or not, I never heard of him.” The gorilla shrugged. “Sorry.”
I took a pull from my oat soda. I pulled the old billfold out of my pocket to take a look at how bad I was doing. That was the first time I noticed it was engraved with a rigid eagle and the letters WH.
WH. Not ER. Hmm.
11. Who is “WH” and why was his billfold in Rothering’s house?
The barman had turned around to show he was done talking to me. I tugged on his stained, white button-down.
“Hey, you know where I can get some work?” I showed him my all-but-empty billfold.
“Well,” he said, “that rich lady’s been crying over there in the corner all morning. She’s always a big tipper. Maybe you can help her out.”
I thanked him and dropped some change on the counter. The woman wasn’t really crying. I guess we don’t have tear ducts, or they’re empty. She sat there sobbing and rocking and going through the motions of weeping without actually doing it. It was the most pathetic thing I’d ever seen in my solid day and a half of unlife.
I tapped her chin. It seemed like the thing to do. “Hey, chap up.”
She snorted the nonexistent boogers into her nose and wiped the invisible tears from her eyes with a handkerchief.
Habits, huh? They’re a bitch.
“Who are you?” she sniffled.
I bit into my forefinger to give myself a moment to think, but I stopped when I realized I was about to sever it. “Call me Jones.”
“What’s your Christian name?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They call me Braineater.”
“That’s horrible!” she cried. That set off a whole new round of imaginary crying.
“Okay, okay, cheer up, pretty momma,” I said. “It ain’t that bad.”
“It’s a slur,” she said. “You shouldn’t let them call you that.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Would you call a wop Ginzo or a harp Mickey?”
Oh. Now I got it.
“It don’t bother me,” I said. “Everybody’s gotta be called something.”
“But don’t you know your real name? Mine’s Claudia. Claudia Winston.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I tipped my lid. “Listen, nobody here could help but miss the waterworks. It’s like Niagara Falls’s dog got shot, you know, if it was all dried up. But anyway, maybe I could help.”
She gave me a face like a patient being told the doctor had made a mistake and it wasn’t the clap after all—just a bad case of chafing. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly impose, Mr. Jones. Not without compensation.”
Well, yeah, that was the idea.
Hmm. Then again, it seems as though maybe I had played a skirt or two like a fiddle in my old life. I seemed to know exactly what to do.
I grabbed up her hands. “Shh, shh. We’ll worry about all that later. Just tell me about it now.”
“Very well then,” she said. “I’m a reverse widow.”
“Howzat?”
“My husband is still breathing.”
Oh. Must be a big problem in our community.
“So you can’t go back?”
She shook her head and started mock crying again. I could tell I would be there for the rest of the morning if she went on in that fashion.
“I’m certainly resigned to that,” she said. “Really, I am. I understand that the children wouldn’t want to have to look at some kind of monster and pretend it’s their mother. And Howie, he wouldn’t… Well, I mean, would you?”
Aside from dressing like some kind of Victorian damsel, she wasn’t too hard on the eyes, death and dying and rot taken into account. I would’ve given her a jolly old humping. “You look fine,” was what I said instead.
She blew her nose into her hanky and left it on the table. I waited for her to continue.
“It’s not that I resent not seeing them again. I fully understand it. It’s just that not seeing them—as in not seeing them seeing them—well, that’s too much for my silent little heart to bear.”
I tried to puzzle out what she meant. “You want… a photograph?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” she said, “Or not entirely. I had a photograph. I want it back.”
“Well, where is it?”
“Well, when I woke up as one of us—one of our kind—I was fortunate. Grave robbers had opened my mausoleum.”
“Fortunate how?”
“Could you imagine being trapped like that? Dreadful, even the thought of it! But my memory was ailing, as yours no doubt was when you crossed over.”
“Yeah,” I said, not adding that I was still in that unenviable state. “How long does that usually last?”
“Oh, it varies from person to person,” she
said, waving off my concerns with her still-dry handkerchief. “It was only a few weeks for me. But when my memories finally came back, I realized those grave robbers had left a heart-shaped hole in my chest.”
“It broke your heart to lose that photo?”
“No.” She opened her corset to show me where the thieves had carved a heart out of her bosom. “They took my locket. I suppose it must’ve been a bit embedded, so they carved around it. I’ve got a ring-shaped hole in my finger, too.” She tugged at her glove to show me the next gruesome bit of her body the thieves had violated.
“That’s… that’s all right. I believe you. Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
That set off her phony-baloney boo-hoo-hooing, and finally I had to buy a round of firewater to turn off the “waterworks.”
“I did go to the police,” she said. “I went there to the 1-2-5. I sat in the waiting room all day. All day. They kept walking by me, waiting for me to leave. And I asked again and again to be seen. But they wouldn’t see me. Finally a detective came out, and I thought, ‘At last, someone will help.’ But you know what he said?”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said, ‘I think it’s time you left.’ They refused to see me. Like I was a pariah or something.”
“They never help our kind,” the bartender said. “Pretend we don’t exist. Cops only help breathers.” He wasn’t really eavesdropping, but he wasn’t really not either.
“It was just like that,” Miss Claudia said. “Like I was invisible or something. Like I didn’t count.”
I said, “You count. We all count in our own little ways. Even if they can’t count our heartbeats, we count. I’m going to get your locket back. I promise.”
All my other questions have to take a back burner now. I’ve got a new number one question.
1. Who stole Miss Claudia’s locket?
I’m also running dreadfully low on Crow. I’ll have to do something about that.
November 3, 1934
Another night in the rundown dumpfest. Good old Room 217. By all measures, this should be my last. If the innkeeper gives me one more funny look, I’ll clock him in his ugly mug. But even if he wasn’t getting so damn wary, my stack of bills is down to a leaf and an IOU.
Braineater Jones Page 3