Pipsqueak

by Brian M. Wiprud

  Outside, I unlocked the doors to the Lincoln. Bowler shoved Sloan in the backseat, pushed him over, and got in behind the driver’s seat so he could keep a gun on me. Bing rode shotgun—or pistol, to be more precise. I drove, and moments later we were approaching the West Side Highway.

  “Let’s try south,” Bing suggested. “Take the West Side to Battery Place, what say?”

  I didn’t say anything for a while, busy formulating escape possibilities, like bailing out of a car going thirty miles per hour or running a light in front of a cop to get pulled over. I didn’t much care for the possibility that I might run myself over with the back wheels in the first scheme (probably wrecking the Lincoln), and the second was a long shot that would require finding a cop when you need one. I’ll stick to lottery tickets. And then there was the really extreme option of orchestrating a head-on collision with a light pole. I was wearing my seat belt, but my guests weren’t. That would have the advantage of sending Bing into the windshield, but the disadvantage of throwing Bowler on top of me with his gun. The doors would likely pin shut from the fenders shunting back, and I’d be stuck, unless the top popped open. Too much room for error, and besides, I hated the idea of wrecking the Lincoln.

  “So where are you taking me?” I thought I might as well ask.

  Bing’s pistol sat in his lap as he stuffed Captain Black in his pipe. “Just drive, junior. We’ll ask the questions.” And they might as well not answer mine. “Take the left lane.”

  At Battery, we weaved around into the Wall Street district, which just prior to noon isn’t overly busy with pedestrians, though by lunch the streets are swarming with humans on the feed. But delivery trucks cause minor backups on the narrow streets, which in combination with an infuriating number of one-way streets that always seem to be going the way you aren’t cost us a good fifteen minutes getting four blocks over to William Street approaching Hanover Square. Not that I was complaining; the longer the better. Though in that whole time, I didn’t see one good opportunity to make my escape. And not one cop.

  “Make a Ricky.” Bing pointed right, and I made the turn. “This driveway.”

  I stuck the Lincoln’s nose into a narrow drive facing a garage door in the wall of a building. A plaque by the door said BANK OF IRAN. Bing got out, went to a squawk box next to the door, pushed a button, and spoke into it. The door opened and I drove the Lincoln into a low-ceilinged, circular, pale-green room. Bing walked in after us and the garage door clattered shut. The room jolted, there was a loud whirring sound, the grind of chains and the click of gears. We were going down in an elevator.

  “Bank of Iran?” I said over my shoulder.

  “We’re no terrorists, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Bowler sneered. “The Iranians, they don’t use this place no more. This is a frozen asset.”

  I believe we sank two stories before the elevator clanked down to earth and a wall to our right rolled open. The room began to revolve toward the opening so that the Lincoln would be able to drive out. When it stopped revolving, Bing made like an airline-tarmac jockey and guided me to a parking space among a bunch of other vintage cars, mostly older than mine. The Chrysler sedan from T3 was among them.

  While these sorts of vehicular transports may sound exotic, New York’s parking garages—especially those in cramped quarters—have all manner of mechanical space-saving means to carry cars from street level to another elevation. Parking is such a commodity in Manhattan that people actually buy co-op parking spaces: patches of asphalt ten by sixteen feet. Elevators like the one at the Bank of Iran maximize the number of units for the developer. And for a bank, this lift had the added purpose of affording a secure egress for armored cars.

  I parked the Lincoln next to a bulbous black Studebaker, and when I got out I realized my knees had gone a little wobbly on me. I was scared, but no less ready to bolt at any opportunity. At the moment, though, the only course of action seemed a bit of levity.

  “Is this where they keep Lenin’s brain?”

  Bing and Bowler knit brows at each other, and finally the latter mumbled, “I thought Chapman blew Lennon’s brains all over the Dakota.”

  Hangdog Sloan finally spoke.

  “Listen, fellas, you gotta understand, Bookerman is nuts. You know what he’s trying to do?”

  Bing slapped him hard in the face and grinned. That was the end of that.

  The basement corridor had pipes all over the ceiling giving off the ping and hiss of a nearby steam-heat plant. We reached a stairwell and went up one flight into a wood-paneled hall with fluorescent lighting. Pushing through swing doors marked GYMNASIUM, we passed into a white tile locker room, at the end of which were linoleum swing doors marked BATHS. They swung open, and in walked Vito.

  Bowler put a hand on my chest. “Wait here.” He handed his gun to Vito and followed Bing and Sloan through the BATHS doors.

  I stared at Vito, who had the pistol trained on my chest. He was wearing a bowling shirt—you got it, identical to Bowler’s. Uniform of the day. He was chewing gum so hard that he was working up a sweat on his shiny shaved head. Before I said something ridiculous, like how surprised I was, or how maybe he ought to let me go for old times’ sake, he held up a hand to quiet me and took a step closer. His eyes were rimmed red, and he seemed under a tremendous strain.

  “What happened?” he whispered hoarsely.

  I shrugged. “Huhn?”

  “Sloan brought you Pipsqueak. What happened?”

  “Well, for starters, he pulled a gun on me, and so Otto came in and . . . well, we got Sloan taken care of when . . . I dunno why I should be telling you any of this.”

  “Garth, you gotta tell me where Pipsqueak is.”

  For some reason it hit me particularly hard, at that very moment, how absurd that sounded. I laughed and looked at the ceiling. I didn’t even know how to answer that.

  “Suddenly, after thirty-five years, everybody wants to know where Pipsqueak the Nutty Nut is, like it’s the most important thing in the world where this third-rate puppet—”

  “Look, Garth, I’m Nicholas’s informant. You need to tell me where it is so they don’t get it. Wherever you put it, it’s not safe from them.”

  “Gee,” I quipped. “Let me guess? You’re a naturopath?”

  Vito winced, seeing he wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “Look, Vito, I’m not telling anybody anything until someone tells me something. Like, what do naturopaths have to do with any of this?”

  “Garth, they can’t get hold of Pipsqueak again,” he gulped. “It would give them the power to completely alter our society. They’re fundamentalists, isolationists who want to turn the clock back, shun technology and the information age. The spheres can’t fall into the wrong hands—or any hands. The spheres must be destroyed.”

  “Spheres?”

  Vito didn’t get a chance to answer. Bing burst back through the doors, latched on to my arm, and dragged me into the baths.

  A row of tile tubs was on my left, matching showers on my right. Dead ahead was Bowler, holding a gun on Sloan. It was muggy, and the place smelled like a root cellar. Pipes lining the left wall were attached to the tubs, which were filled with mud the consistency of giblet gravy. Wet, flatulent burps rose up in gloppy bubbles.

  I unbuttoned my sport coat and pushed up my sleeves. Bing slapped a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward one of the tubs. I glared back at Bing with a quizzical eye. “What?”

  I looked around and suddenly noticed two eyes in the tub of mud before me. Then the outline of a slathered bald head and shoulders jutting from the steaming gunk. A hand emerged, picked up a dirty washcloth, and drew it across the mouth to reveal pink lips. The eyes focused on Sloan.

  “After all we’ve been through, you gave Pipsqueak back to the naturopaths?” I assumed that this must be Bookerman, but without General Buster’s white muttonchops and a pith helmet topped by a red parrot, I couldn’t be sure. His voice didn’t have the animated, announcer’s bass that I
remembered as a child.

  Sloan’s eyes were red with tears. He tried to keep the sobs out of his voice. “What you’re doing isn’t right, I tell you! They use color, you use sound, and everybody loses!” He turned to Bing. “It’s not about the music or nicotine! It’s about the spheres.”

  “Enough,” Mud Man barked. “Give him a bath.”

  Bowler and Bing hustled Sloan over to the next tub and, after a brief tussle, pitched him headlong into the mud, his hands still tied behind his back. Spatter flew from the tub, Sloan’s sobs of panic burst from gooey bubbles, the tan of his suit quickly disappeared. I got a glance at Bookerman, his head turned from the fracas to keep mud out of his eyes.

  Bing and Bowler backed across the narrow room away from the erupting mud tub, eyes averted, arms over their faces, and before me lay an open path to the door. Heart tight as a fist in my throat, I took two big strides, slipped on the mud, and pitched headlong toward the door. Behind me I heard a shout.

  I bumped into the door and pulled myself onto my knees. Bookerman, a pillar of barking mud, was standing in his tub. He was pointing at me but yelling at Bing and Bowler. They were on the floor, trying to scramble to their feet. I skittered out into the locker room. My ears pounding, I ran toward the Exit sign and into the paneled hallway.

  Bing and Bowler burst through the doors behind me, and I dashed around the corner, then up a flight of stairs and down another hall until I thrust through a set of swinging doors into an office area full of people. A woman in a funny little winged hat and a Speed Shop bowling shirt sat at a green monochrome computer monitor, typing. A man in round specs, slicked-back hair, and Speed Shop bowling shirt worked with colored markers on a poster at a drafting table. A hairy, bullnecked man in a Speed Shop bowling shirt was in a heated conversation on the phone. In a glassed booth filled with recording equipment were technicians—in bowling shirts with the red dice—making CDs and cassettes, the attached recording studio empty except for mics and music stands. Checkers, that professor or whatever from the Church of Jive, was there in his trademark suit, pouring himself a cup of coffee. They all went slack-jawed at my sudden appearance, and I vaulted over a low partition, aiming at an Exit sign on the other side of the room where sunlight spread under the door. Poster Boy lunged at me as I passed, but I shunted him off with my shoulder.

  Past the doors was a wide, short staircase down to the building’s street exit. There were two red-diced greasers guarding the glass doors, one sitting casually on the desk corner and the other leaning back in a chair at the desk. I had the advantage of surprise and was determined to use it. Instead of trying to skirt around them, I ran right toward the desk, screeching like a chimp on fire.

  The one leaning in the chair fell back, tipping over a plant behind him. One down.

  The other, unfortunately, sprang up and fumbled for his gun. I grabbed a brass lamp from the desk and flung it at him as I ran to the door. From the corner of my eye, I saw him dodge to one side. The shatter and clang told me the lamp had hit the marble wall. But it delayed his gun grab long enough that I made it to the doors.

  They were locked, and I hit them like a bug on a windshield, a muddy brown smear. Office workers strolling to lunch outside looked up in mild alarm at my spattered shouting and pounding visage. The driver of a cab across the street gave me an annoyed glance from behind his newspaper. A terrier heading for a hydrant ten feet from me darted away, his owner dragging him to the other side of the street.

  “Mr. Carson, please—”

  I spun around, stomach acid stinging my tongue and adrenaline blurring my vision. A crowd had gathered behind me on the staircase, a big gang of menacing people in black bowling shirts. It was like league night gone terribly wrong. The greasers had guns drawn, and Bing and Bowler stood glowering next to them. Checkers parted the crowd and approached. He crouched down next to where I’d slumped to the floor.

  “There’s no way out, Garth, but there’s also no need to panic. Calm down, breathe easy, nobody is going to hurt you, we just want to talk to you, that’s all.”

  “What about Sloan?” I gasped.

  “He’s fine, Garth. He just had a little accident, but he’s better now. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, a shower perhaps, then we can talk and work this whole thing out.” He chuckled, all friendly-like. “Boys, help Mr. Carson to his feet, all righty?”

  I looked back out the doors as they stood me up, taking a last grasp at hope that somebody out there would help me. The cab zoomed away, and I felt a sudden pain in my shoulder where one of the greasers was holding me.

  And just before I went beddy-bye, I caught the fuzzy image of Roger Elk holding a syringe.

  Chapter 21

  It took me a while to make out that the bright light overhead was a bare lightbulb and not the sun or some alien abductors descending on me. I had no idea how long I’d been out or where I was. On a bunk in a windowless cinder-block storeroom. I rolled over to the wall, my consciousness still full of glue so palpable that my mouth felt like I had just drunk Elmer’s. My eyes had no compunction to stay open, and I think I slept for a while before waking again, this time more definitively. Proof positive, I sat up and looked down at my shoes, then my pants, and then my shirt and suspenders. They’d cleaned me up and changed my clothes. I was now dressed in one of their Lucky’s Speed Shop bowling shirts, baggy gray slacks with cuffs, argyle socks, and oxblood leather shoes. So much for the serenity of my sport coat, oxford shirt, chinos, and sneakers uniform. I looked ridiculous, of course, but reasoned retro clothes were the only kind they had around. I noted my wallet and the contents of my pockets in a plastic bucket by the bed. They had been thoroughly searched.

  While I suppose I should have felt betrayed, I felt mostly like a fool. It all made sense now. Well, sort of. Pretty big coincidence that Elk just happened by at the police barracks out there in Jersey, huh? Or, gee, could it have been that “Cola Woman” Sloan reported back to his superiors that there was a witness, and Roger swept in to do a little damage control? I suppose it turned out quite conveniently for the retro barrister that he could pull my strings from day one. My squirrelly friend and I were two of a kind: puppets. You might think being played for a fool would make me ashamed. What it did was fill me with resentment, anger, and, ultimately, resolve.

  I looked beyond my shoes at the bucket. I picked it up and started to paw through my effects, numbly putting my credit cards, license, and registration back into my bifold. I picked up the Palihnic Insurance Investigations pen, eyed it thoughtfully, and clipped it into my shirt pocket. It must have been in my jacket, still there from our late-night car ride out to Brooklyn. I wondered briefly if Nicholas still looked like Uncle Fester and where his search for Cola Woman Sloan might have led him. Then I scooped out the change and picked up the envelope, the one I’d stuffed in my pocket before leaving home. It had been opened, and inside was a short letter, a wallet-sized blue card, and a small foil packet emblazoned with the words FREE GIFT! This was not my new bank card. The letter read:

  Welcome to the Dudco™ Shoppers Club! Enclosed is your membership card, which . . . I tossed the letter aside. Just what I needed, junk mail in jail.

  I got to thinking, and picked up the letter again. There was the symbol of a songbird at the top.

  . . . entitles you to an electrifying array of discounts at local retailers displaying our emblem. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to, and this card is your self-defense against paying full retail. Each card is personalized and contains your secret code. Dudco™ is proud to be able to offer you this service and the security of knowing that we will protect your personal information from junk-mail lists. So enjoy the benefits of your membership, and with just two strokes of the card free yourself from the onslaught of price gouging like one, two, three. FREE! Also, please find enclosed the therapeutic shoe magnet insoles, free with this introductory offer! Put them in your shoes and enjoy immediate satisfaction and the therapeutic PROTECTION these magnets provide! />
  The postmark was New York, the songbird cartoon at the top, Dudco—this was Dudley’s handiwork.

  I ripped open the foil packet and found two small brown plastic semicircles that felt like floppy refrigerator magnets. Didn’t look very high-tech, but I dutifully took off my shoes and inserted them at the heels. After relacing the shoes, I stood up and found the insoles comfortable enough.

  I picked up the blue card and held it up to the light. It wasn’t completely opaque, and I could make out a matrix of microelectronics under and around the magnetic strip. The card was so small and thin, I wondered if even Dudley could have packed a punch in such a small thingamabob. Then again, you hear tell of the inquisitive types who get electrocuted by tinkering with the innards of disposable flash cameras. And his little antitheft devices packed quite a wallop.

  If the Dudco™ Card really was a weapon, I’d have to test it. I debated what to try zapping with the card. I decided against the lightbulb, not knowing what would happen if I put a static charge into a 120-volt AC system. An electrician I’m not, but for all I knew, the card might backfire. Likewise, I also decided against my bed frame, unsure of whether there was some taboo against metal-zapping. I mean, assuming it was like other Dudley products, it was meant to zonk people. I wondered how it was the card wouldn’t buzz me, but reasoned it might have something to do with the insoles, which perhaps worked as grounding wires or something.

  The cinder-block wall would at least absorb an electrical charge, so I decided it was to be the test subject. The underlined type in the letter—just two strokes of the card—indicated to me that I was supposed to draw the card between two fingers, count one, two, three, and then point. An arrow on the front of the card marked the electromagnetic muzzle. I hoped.