Brooklyn Noir

by Tim McLoughlin

  “Hey, look at him,” Sean whispered to Brian. “Is he awake yet?”

  “Hey, buddy! You awake?” Brian barked.

  Blond guy’s eyes opened, suspiciously, like he’d been awake and listening to them for a long time.

  “Yeah, Brian,” he sneered. “I’m awake.”

  “How do you know my name?” Brian accused.

  “You and your pal, Sean, have been using up all the fucking oxygen in this van for the last hour or two, that’s how, genius.”

  “So who are you, asshole?”

  “The name isn’t Asshole, it’s Frank.”

  “Do you know why we’re here?” Sean said flatly, now a good cop to Brian’s bad cop.

  “We must all have something in common, right?” Frank smiled. “I’ll save you two some time: I’m a trader for Pettigrew Dean and I live on the Upper East Side in the city. I’m forty-one, single, I don’t gamble, I don’t owe anybody money, I don’t deal with the mob, I don’t have a criminal record, I don’t go to the Alibi, although I own some property in Fort Greene and Park Slope, and I don’t read Star Trek novels …”

  Frank was kind of enjoying this.

  “… And, oh yeah. I know her too.”

  The air in the van went ice cold as Sean’s eyes shot quickly to Brian, then back to Frank. This was seriously fucked up now.

  “I heard all about you guys.” Frank narrowed his eyes at Sean. “The time she brought a glass of fresh orange juice and a clean towel to you as you were stepping out of the shower and you just walked right by her. That fucking slayed her. She never forgot it.”

  Sean crumbled at the memory; he’d never told anyone about that. He felt nauseous.

  Frank turned to Brian. “And you? Yeah, she told me all about you and how you twisted her inside out like a game. How cold you were, how you used her for fun and then fucked her over. She didn’t see anyone for almost a year after that, she just holed up in her apartment and didn’t go out. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Brian admitted quietly, as the bravado slid off his face like he’d been caught by his mother. He leaned back, away from the light of the van’s harsh bare bulb. It never occurred to him that there would be real dam-age. Everybody played hard, it was part of the game.

  “Yeah, guess not,” Frank said coolly, his pale hair and pale eyes seeming to soak up the light. “Did you know she six different anti-depressants that year? Did you know she started having a hard time leaving her apartment? Did you know she thought everything was her fault, that she was a terrible person? She thought there had to be something wrong with her for everyone to keep treating her like this, right? By the time I met her, she was so fucking fragile, I thought I’d break her if I held her hand.”

  Frank was furious now.

  “How did you meet her?” Sean asked quietly, staring at the floor. Was that blood?

  “At a dinner party.” Frank’s voice quieted at the memory. “We were sitting next to each other and she was just starting to go out again, but she was so gun shy, she was really having trouble talking to me. It took an hour to even drag a conversation out of her. She couldn’t function at all, so I asked her about what she did, and then we talked about movies, cool flea markets, what we were reading, all kinds of stuff.

  “I liked her,” Frank recalled, moving his head from side to side. His neck was cramped from leaning over for hours. “She seemed sweet and, I don’t know, textured in some way. She wasn’t glossy at all and I could tell by the way she hunched her shoulders and shuffled when she walked that something bad happened to her, she’d been thrown away. She seemed really hurt and tired when she finally told me about it all. It made me furious, and sad, like, how dare they? How dare … you?

  Frank seemed larger now, and Sean and Brian had lost their swagger, shamed.

  “So I kissed her hand goodnight, really gently, and I gave her my phone number so she could decide if she wanted to talk to me. I left it up to her, we’d talk when she was ready. I wasn’t going to press her. It was two or three weeks before she called me, and she was so nervous that I knew she’d been practicing what she was going to say. I’ve gotta tell you, it was so sweet it tore my heart out. She said she had to find a bedside table and did I want to go scout some places on Washington Street? Saturday afternoon, easy enough, no pressure, so I said, yeah, sure. I got there and she was dressed up more than usual, like she’d really thought about what she was going to wear. She had this flared black-and-white tweed skirt and black shoes with a strap across them, like showgirls wear, with this burgundy coat that had a fur collar, and this dark red lipstick sort of smudged like it was an accident. She looked like an old-fashioned movie star on her day off. Adorable, totally adorable.

  “We started dating and I spent a lot of time with her. She was real cautious and warned me to go slow with her, that she needed time to work some things out and could I deal with that? I said, sure, she was worth it. So we started talking every day, then we were traveling together, like she’d come out to my place in the Hamptons for the weekend and she’d stay over at my apartment a few nights a week. We were going to the opening of a new club, Plush, you know that one? I took her shopping for a dress, and I guess that freaked her out because she wasn’t used to being treated well. Do you believe no guy had even sent her flowers? I mean, fuck.”

  Sean looked at Frank and Brian across from him. He wondered who was thrown in the van first.

  “So I took her on as kind of a personal project. Get her out, get her to take some classes … We started to take trips together, she got more social, and I started seeing a real difference in her. We’d go to art openings, I took her to some dinner parties, and I’m thinking she could be a good corporate wife, like do charity work during the day and take care of the house stuff. Plan the vacations and take care of the kids—I mean, I’ve got to start thinking about that because I’m not going anywhere without the wife and family thing … Company’s not going to promote someone who doesn’t fit the picture. Clients don’t trust a guy handling their money who’s not like them. Like, if you’re forty-five and still running around? Forget it. Doesn’t matter how good you are.

  “Now it’s been a few months and I’m thinking she might be the one. So I start training her like they trained me at PD—I start teaching her about my job, how to make chitchat at a charity event, negotiate with antiques dealers … had to get her out of that place in Fort Greene. I’m thinking if it works out, I just might marry her, but we never talked about it.

  “Anyway, we’re out at a club for some party and we end up barhopping all over town with friends. It’s really late and she says she wants to go to this one bar by her place, some shithole on Myrtle Avenue, so we end up there and she’s drunk, really drunk. She’s wearing this little foufy lavender dress and the place is pretty crowded, it’s hot, she’s almost cross-eyed she’s so plowed. She wants to dance, and I’m like, forget it, but she drags me downstairs to the basement, it’s like this private VIP room, real dark, no bouncers, couple of guys in suits getting smashed at a table, two or three people smoking, whatever. She starts dancing with whoever, but she keeps looking back at me to see if I’m watching her, like it’s a private show for me, like it’ll turn me on or something.”

  Frank’s legs were pressed tightly against each other, as though he needed to push against something, but he could only push against himself.

  “She doesn’t get the response she wants from me, like she’s trying to punish me, get me jealous, see how much I really care about her. So she gets on a table to dance and she can barely stand up, and everybody’s looking at her. Her hair’s all over the place, and her makeup’s smeared and she’s glistening like she’s sweating to death or her body is trying to push all that fucking booze out, and I look at her. I just look at her, horrified. This is who she is No matter how much I try to do for her, how much I try to teach her, she’ll never be what I need. She’s not marriage material, she’s a fucking mess and now she’s looking ugli
er and uglier. I kissed that? I thought I could love that? And I start getting pissed off, she wasted my time, I tried to her and this is how she humiliates me?

  “Now, I’m not that buzzed, and when I see this going on, I sober up real quick. She’s dancing with any guy in the room and rubbing up against them, rubbing her ass against their crotch like she’s a fucking stripper and she wants me to watch. She wants me to watch her. She hasn’t had sex with me because she says she needs ‘time,’ and I’m fine with that. For fuck’s sake, I’m patient as hell because I think she’s worth it—and she ends up rubbing her pussy up against some drunk guy in a bar?”

  Frank’s eyes were blazing now.

  “The place empties out and it’s just us and these four guys in suits, and they’re out celebrating a birthday or big promotion or something, and they are nasty drunk. They all take turns dancing with her—well, it’s more like dragging her at this point, she’s so dizzy. She keeps looking around like this isn’t fun anymore, and she’s trying to find me so I can save her, but I’m just sitting in this one shadowy corner and she doesn’t see me. The other guys don’t know we came in together, and they can’t see me either, so they think it’s just them and her. Like, time for a private show, okay?

  “Then she falls over backwards on a cocktail table, knocking all the glasses on the floor, and she’s yelling, ‘Frank! Frank!’ but she’s slurring so bad they think she’s yelling, ‘Fuck! Fuck!’ And one guy says, ‘Whatever the lady wants, right?’ and they all start laughing as they unzip their pants. Now she’s screaming and crying and trying to push them off, and they turn her over so she’s face down on the cocktail table, and the ashtray flips over and a glass breaks on the floor, and one by one they all fuck her. They fuck her till she throws up. She’s covered in come and sweat and vomit and she’s moaning, her eyes are rolling in her head. Her dress is shredded and her panties are twisted around one leg like they just got ripped off the other, and there’s blood on her leg …”

  Horrified, Brian and Sean couldn’t take their eyes off Frank as he spoke, but they didn’t see him. All they saw was their own picture of her, helpless and screaming on a table, like a still photo from their own personal film.

  “… And all I can think is: You fucking whore. I mean, we never even slept together! When she said she needed ‘time’ to work some things out, I was fine with that, but hey, give it away to some guys you meet in a bar? Go ahead! I’ve gotta tell you, though, when I saw her face all blurry and mashed on that table, slumped over like a rag doll, I thought, ‘Well, guess you worked it out, huh?’

  “After they all left, I dragged her out of there to her apartment and she was moaning and crying the whole way. It was around 5 a.m., and I left her in front of her apartment. I was done with her. Done. This was the fourth time I had to teach some woman a lesson and I was sick of it. After everything I do for them and they … Why can’t they just … Yeah, I dumped her. I fucking dumped her on the sidewalk.”

  Frank sat back, satisfied. Sean and Brian stared at each other with their mouths slightly open, knowing their rankings had changed.

  For a long time, they sat in silence in the windowless van. No one knew what to say. Close enough to talk but not to help each other. Sean wondered why they weren’t gagged too? Why would someone want them talking to each other? What were they supposed to figure out?

  As the van slowed and finally stopped, they looked at one another anxiously, listening to the sound of water in the background. Ocean? Lake? River? They couldn’t tell. Then the clang of equipment, metal and heavy.

  “I know why we’re here,” Sean gasped, his voice crumbled like soft charcoal. He was always the last to figure everything out.

  “It’s our turn to get dumped.”

  SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS

  BY C.J. SULLIVAN

  Bushwick

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like this—not here. What was she doing on this filthy block back in Bushwick? This was not how it was supposed to play out.

  She shook her head as she thought about her parents’ warnings. She had been taught—over and over—to stay away from ghetto gangsters, those who lived to pull down their own kind who try to get ahead. She had been raised to be a striver and an achiever—a woman who would reach and attain the American Dream, and bring pride to her Puerto Rican ancestors and family name.

  Rosa Lima silently cursed herself as she made her way up Knickerbocker Avenue. At the corner of Himrod Street a bone-chilling winter wind ripped through her suede coat. She shivered as she thought of her parents. They had been right. Every last frightful thing they ever told her had come true. The longer she lived the smarter they became. But since she was little, Rosa always had to test limits. She took nothing on face value. Now it was all right in her face.

  A few months ago everything was going so well. Maybe too well. And she let her guard down and let him into her life. It felt right. He was smooth and handsome—looked and styled himself after the actor Benjamin Bratt. She liked that he was a Latino on the fast track to a better life. As her mother would say, “He cleaned up well.” And she liked his recent pedigree. He went to NYU, was pulling down good grades and talked a good game.

  Now she saw just how blind she had been to who he really was. The warning signs were all there. She just hadn’t seen them. Or didn’t want to. It was like she saw only his shadow. She knew he was rough around the edges and had a temper. When she rode around Brooklyn with him in his leased Acura he was always getting into arguments with other drivers. She’d seen the sawed-off baseball bat under his seat, but he’d never attacked anyone—at least while she was around. She wrote it off to his Latino temper. More telling—and how she ignored this was still a mystery—was that he was always getting called on his cellphone and whispering to whomever was on the other end. Then he had to rush off and end their dates because, “I got some business I gotta go to take care of.”

  But she found it easy to go light on him. Rosa felt bad for him because she realized he was up against being born and raised on the rough streets of Bushwick, and the ghetto was stronger than any emotion Rosa could muster. The darkness of these streets couldn’t be cracked by sunlight or love. But Rosa believed that she would get him out of this and they could start a new life.

  Now the whole script was flipped. She was being pulled into his world. A world her parents had invested a lifetime of savings to keep her out of.

  His left arm was hanging around her shoulders and he was getting heavier. She took a deep breath and hoisted him up. He gasped and said, “Rosa, Rosa, easy, please. It hurts but keep moving. Just don’t stop.”

  “I got you. Don’t worry.”

  She held him tight as she waited for the light to change. An old woman in a worn cloth coat stood on the curb staring at them. The woman took a hesitant step away and said, “Child, that man he is bleeding. Bleeding bad.”

  Rosa wanted to scream and run. She said, “Yes, I know … I know. He had an accident at work. We’re going to the doctor.”

  “You should call an ambulance.”

  “The doctor is on the next block. We’re fine, thank you.”

  The woman walked away shaking her head. Rosa crossed the street as two Latino youths walked by leering at her. One kid looked her up and down, licked his lips, and then kissed at her. The other one laughed and said, “Yo, mami, you got some fine high-water booty. Drop that dope and come with me.”

  Rosa shot them a dirty look and hissed, “Punks. Get out of here, you little maricons.”

  The kids kissed at her and walked away laughing as they bopped into a pizzeria. Rosa kept moving. She let out a long sigh and realized he was getting heavier and she didn’t know if she could drag him the whole way. She wanted to stop for a moment and lean against a car. Get her breath and strength back.

  “Rosa, come on. Keep going. Don’t stop! I’m bleeding, dammit. It hurts. It’s burning my gut. Oh, man, it hurts. Oh, it hurts so bad. Damn. I’ma get that punk-ass Chino. He dead. He a de
ad man!”

  Rosa put her head down and pushed on. She turned to look behind and saw drops of blood in the dirty slush and snow on the avenue.

  “Carlos, listen baby,” she said, “you’re bleeding bad. Real bad. That wound could kill you. You have to get a doctor to take care of it. We should go to Wycoff Hospital. It’s just around the corner.”

  Carlos hissed, “Dammit, woman! Listen to me. Just get me to Mama’s! No hospital. What do you think, they just going to stitch me up and not call the cops? Mama will take care of it. She always does. Come on, hold my weight and let’s step.”

  Rosa and Carlos hobbled down the street as shoppers passed by, staring at the attractive girl holding onto a grimacing young man with a hand to his stomach, thick blood dripping through his fingers.

  Rosa had been raised in Bay Ridge, the only child of an accountant father and a mother who worked as an administrator for the Parks Department. Her parents had saved for many years to leave Bushwick and buy a two-story brick on Colonial Road near the water at 91st Street. They always joked with Rosa that they were “cash poor and house rich.”

  Rosa loved running through the sprawling home but she’d been lonely in Bay Ridge. She was the only Puerto Rican child on her block, and the other kids—and most of the parents—shunned her. She was teased constantly. As she walked home from school, a clique of older girls on her block would chant, “Mira, mira, on the wall, is Rosa the biggest spic of all?”

  She would pass them and not even blink. Kept her eyes straight and acted like she didn’t hear a thing. Her mother told her that they were nothing more than a pack of barking dogs.

  “Would you get mad at a dog in a yard behind a fence yapping at you? You ignore it and walk away. Treat them the same way.”

  Rosa’s mantra as a child was, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never harm me.” But that only worked until she reached her room, where she would fall on her bed and scream into her pillow. She knew her mother didn’t want to hear it. She was on her own as most children are. Adults forget to ease the pain of youth. Wiping her eyes, she would look up at her wall at her favorite poster of Lou Diamond Phillips posing as Richie Valens for his role in La Bamba She would stare into his face for hours until she would hear him sing softly, “Oh, Rosa.”