I spun around and jabbed the card at the last standing Cummerbund, his prep-school face snarled with confusion.
“Three.”
The card glowed blue. Nothing happened.
Cummerbund grabbed me by the shirtfront with one hand and fumbled for his gun with the other. I watched the card flashing blue in my hand, and I touched it to his plaid belly.
The hand on my lapel spasmed open, and the silent blue flash punched him back into the passing crowd and flat on his back.
“C’mon!” Nicholas had me by the arm, pushing me through a clot of gawkers. Angie and Otto were already running for the Vanderbilt Avenue exit ten yards away.
Freedom, and the Lincoln waiting at the curb. I flung open the passenger door.
Porkpie looked for his pals. “Say, what’s the big idea? Where’s—”
Nicholas jumped in the backseat and pressed his stun gun to Porkpie’s neck. “Easy, hotshot, or I’ll zap you like a june bug.”
Angie and Otto completed the Chinese fire drill, and as the doors were still closing we made our getaway, Porkpie pouty, the rest of us panting. “Left on 42nd,” I gasped.
“It’s illegal,” Porkpie complained.
“Do it,” Nicholas prodded, and put his fez on Angie. “Then make a right on Second.”
“GA-ZAP!” Angie high-fived Otto.
“Yes, of course!” he thundered.
I cocked an alarmed eye at the rearview mirror and my backseat pals, who were sharing smiles. “What are you people doing here? How the hell did you—”
Nicholas plucked the pen from my top pocket. “Transmitter. I bugged you.”
“You bugged me?” I felt my face heat with anger.
“Yeah, well, in truth, a little bird told me you’d been nabbed, but I used the bug to follow some of what was going on, so I could track you to wherever you were going. I had to find out what you knew. Which wasn’t much, I gotta tell you. I staked out the Hanover Square place in a cab. I saw you go splat against the glass. I was in the cab across the street, reading the paper. How’d you get so muddy, Garth?”
“They’ve got mud baths in there, and I was about to be drowned in one if I hadn’t bolted.”
“I put a call in to Angie and got her to pick up the stun guns from a friend. Then we waited in the cab for an opportunity. When you rolled out of the garage, we heard you tell Roger Elk about Otto at Grand Central. Being in a cab, we made it there first, enlisted Otto. Okay, boy, pull over to the curb here.” Nicholas prodded Porkpie. “That’s a boy. Pull the hand brake. Good. Now get out and scat, and don’t do anything cute. Your pals all got zapped, so you’re the lucky one. So far.”
Porkpie lit out like a bottle rocket, and I slid over into his seat and continued driving down Second Avenue.
“This rescue was a very dangerous thing to do.” I gave Angie the evil eye in the rearview mirror.
Angie threw her arms around me from behind. “I love you too, sweetheart. Thank goodness you’re all right!”
I was relieved she wasn’t hurt. “When did you get home, Angie? I was worried sick they’d round you up too.”
“Katie and I had lunch, then I went shopping, so I didn’t get home until around four. You okay, Garth? Did they hurt you?” She ran fingers through my hair, presumably looking for bullet holes or something.
“They thought about it, but no, I’m okay. Where are the police, for Pete’s sake?”
“The cops?” Nicholas sneered. “The cops would still have us downtown trying to convince them we were for real. There was no time for them. So where is Pipsqueak?”
“Back at the apartment. Under the floorboards, under Fred. But let’s talk about your little bird, your informant Vito.”
Nicholas paused. “Yeah?”
“I guess your bug didn’t hear my conversation with Vito?”
“Must have been too far underground. You didn’t tell him where Pipsqueak is, did you?”
“No. But that’s how I got it. Apparently he turned Sloan, who was trying to get Pipsqueak to you through me.”
“What happened to Sloan?”
“Last I saw they had him facedown in a mud bath.”
Nicholas gritted his teeth. “That’s bad. If Sloan talked . . .”
“Vito!” Angie said. “They might know Vito was an informer.”
“Better hurry. Those guys back there are going to drop a dime and they’ll be all over your place.”
We got there quick enough. Just too late.
Chapter 23
Don’t pull over! Keep driving!” Nicholas gripped my shoulder. I shrugged him off and screeched the Lincoln to a stop in front of Angie’s and my apartment building. Someone was parked in my space, and then some. Two squad cars and a brown unmarked car were parked at the curb. The front shop door—the one we never open—was hanging from its hinges, smashed like so much balsa wood. I found Angie at my side as we peered in the doorway, into our living room. I looked back and saw only Otto. Nicholas had disappeared again.
It was a wreck. You’d have thought the fire department had been there with their axes and an animal rightist’s bent. Small stuff like otters, pheasants, skunks, armadillos, and foxes was just tossed around. But the larger full-body floor pieces had all been chopped into pieces. Snout of a warthog. Tail of a mountain lion. Half a coyote head. Beaver feet. Bear haunches. Excelsior and sawdust from the older pieces were mixed with fluff and feathers from our overstuffed Park Avenue furniture collection. They’d slashed and thoroughly disemboweled everything from the love seat to the ottoman.
The aviary was untouched, as were some mounts out of easy reach (like the winter bobcat, thank God). I guess they didn’t bring a ladder.
The police turned our way as we stepped in.
“You Carson?” one cop said to me.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling slightly dizzy. Angie gasped and squeezed my arm. We stopped in front of Fred. His head was smashed, his eyes and jaw missing. The spine had been buckled, his legs ripped off, and a hatchet had diced his chest open. There was more excelsior to him now than pelt. Fred was dead, once and for all. So were the others.
The rug he’d been parked on was pulled back and the floorboards lay open, a dish towel and a gun next to the opening. Pipsqueak was gone.
“Detective?” The cop yelled to the back of the room.
Tsilzer appeared from the bedroom and eyed us speculatively a moment before entering the living room. The Embalmer appeared behind him, they whispered something to each other, and then approached. Not us, but a sheet covering something. The Embalmer knelt down and pulled the sheet back, secretly pleased.
“Recognize this person?” Tsilzer’s voice was flat.
“Dammit.” I turned away and gagged. It was Vito. His throat was slashed so deep it looked like he had a second mouth. Blood was everywhere.
“Vito Anthony Guido,” I gulped, steadying myself on a chair.
“I have to sit down.” Angie put a hand to her head and searched for somewhere to sit, unsuccessfully, so she went back out the front door and sat on the stoop. I heard her start to cry.
“You want to tell us about it?” Tsilzer sighed.
I rubbed my forehead. “I need to talk to a lawyer first.”
Yeah, great, a lawyer. Hopefully the next one would be more helpful than the last. With legal representation like that, who needs a penal system?
Chapter 24
Why, oh why didn’t I come from a broken home? Why couldn’t I have been the one with the leather jacket, the acne, cigarette behind one ear, pack of Luckies rolled up my sleeve, and a snide disposition, the type of teen who hung around street corners planning my next drag race or rumble? No, not Garth Carson. I had to be the one the toughs laughingly referred to as Bug Boy, the one whose best friend was a fat, myopic dweeb nicknamed Mushy. The girls liked me well enough. They cooed over my wild blond hair and deep brown eyes but couldn’t share in my enthusiasm for our protomechanical little friends of the order Coleoptera.
On
hot summer evenings that might have been spent swilling beer behind the supermarket or “parking” with “fast” girls, I lay in wait by our back porch light, Mushy devouring Devil Dogs at my side, hoping against hope that a shadow of a giant lucanidae might swoop within reach.
Not that I didn’t make a few attempts at delinquency. However, the local constabulary didn’t give me a chance to get off the ground. Mushy and I walked down to the bowling alley one night to play the new Evel Knievel pinball machine and were summarily stopped and questioned by the cops. Our pockets were bulging with quarters, which led them to believe we were the ones who’d boosted a soda machine at the Texaco. Then there was the time we had a late-night marathon of Stratego down at the river landing. Mrs. Krugel turned her telescope our way and next thing you know the cops were storming our supposed drug den.
I’ve never been able to pin down the reasons, but the authorities automatically sense I’m suspect. Despite Angie’s protestations to the contrary, I’m certain there’s something about my demeanor that inspires passing police to give me a second, searching look. Nicholas lived up to this genetic predisposition. In an indirect and unfair way, I blamed him for my portion.
Our grandfathers were doctors, our grandmothers of sodbusting, pioneer-gal stock. Our father was the professorial type, our mother the quiet homemaker. Perhaps the bad chromosomes jumped a generation. Great-Uncle Thaddeus was spoken of in hushed tones, and out of the hearing of youngsters. In later years, I interrogated my mother at length about Thaddeus, but she pulled her “Oh, I really don’t remember” bit, adding only that he was “a roustabout out west.”
Had I not misspent my youth in studiousness, I might have been better prepared for the hand of jokers that life has been dealing me of late. Clearly, the fates intended that I should be a criminal; otherwise, I would not spend so much time at police precincts or need a standby attorney.
The day after the wrecking ball clobbered my collection, Dudley fixed me up with his cousin, Alex Stein, a lanky, earnest fellow with dark black-framed glasses, thick black hair, and a red sweater vest. He seemed competent, but what did I know? Except that Dudley had come through for me with the Dudco™ Card.
Darling Angie stayed home while I went to see Stein. She was dealing with the insurance, getting the door fixed, and cleaning up the apartment with Otto. The cops questioned the Russki gnome briefly but gave up any ideas about hauling him in after a protracted discourse on the KGB, hot dogs, and California nude beaches. Oh, and fast-walking women.
After going over my story with Stein, we proceeded to an interview with Tsilzer down at the precinct station. I spent the better part of an hour telling my story—the portions my counsel let me tell, that is. Like Roger Elk, he had me “massage” my telling of the events surrounding the dead woman on my stoop so that my inkling about her identity was suitably glossed over.
I filled them in on Pipsqueak, retros, Sloan, the color-flash conspiracy, Bookerman, tuning spheres, naturopaths, Roger Elk, Mortimer, the Cummerbunds, the assault on Nicholas, the Hanover Square retro digs, my kidnapping, Vito, and my rescue. Alex had me reword my telling of the rescue to omit mention of the stun guns, use of which is illegal in New York. I simply said that my friends surprised and distracted my captors—true enough—so that I could dart from their phalanx and dash from the Vanderbilt exit.
In the time it took me to tell this tale, they had a chance to look into some of the details. The Bank of Iran retro HQ was locked up, no one home. Nicholas was at large, not home either. The Church of Jive hall was also vacant. Scuppy wasn’t scheduled to play at Gotham Club anymore, and the phone number the club management gave them for the Swell Swingers was a pay phone at a Bronx train station. Messages for Roger Elk with his service were as yet unanswered. And as for Bookerman, they made inquiries of his last known place of residence, a Chicago suburb.
“Lew Bookerman, formerly of The General Buster Show, is dead,” Tsilzer intoned dubiously.
“Dead? Can’t be. I mean, they all refer to Bookerman. The retros, I mean. Roger Elk.”
Tsilzer checked a sheet of paper in his hand. “February twelfth, 1996. He crashed into a bay on Lake Michigan. Went through the ice, so they couldn’t recover the vehicle until spring. They never found it, or the body. He was declared dead a year later by the courts. His money and assets were turned over to the corporation, Aurora, run by his nephew.”
That rang a bell. Aurora . . .
“Naturally, Garth can’t be sure it was Bookerman.” Alex recrossed his legs. “He only saw him covered in mud and had never even seen him out of his General Buster costume, and even then that was over thirty years ago.”
Tsilzer shook his head. “We’re having a hard time substantiating any of your claims, Mr. Carson.” He looked me in the eye. “That’s a problem.”
“Wait a minute.” I snapped my fingers. “Roger Elk. He had a plaque on his office wall, some honorarium from the Aurora Corporation.” Tsilzer sighed, but jotted that measly morsel down anyway. Then he slid an 8x10 photo across the table. “Recognize him?”
I did. It was Sloan, who looked like he was lying in an alley somewhere. His face was dark purple, his white eyebrows and hair in stark contrast. He was still muddy from the baths. A vintage necktie was wound so tight around his neck that it had cut into his skin. At least his throat hadn’t been slashed like Vito’s.
He’d talked, given up Vito, and they killed him anyway.
I looked away. “That’s Sloan.”
“Surely you don’t have any grounds to charge my client in either of these murders?” Alex snorted.
“How about obstruction of justice? Once he got wind of this whatchamacallit—‘retro’ conspiracy—and its ties to the murder of Tyler Loomis, he was obligated to tell the police.”
Alex threw up his hands. “Garth only definitively knew the connection once Sloan came to his home with the puppet and admitted to the murder. Immediately afterward, two thugs kidnapped him. You know, Detective Tsilzer, you should be equally concerned with Mr. Carson’s kidnapping. He’s a victim, not a perpetrator.”
“Carson called his lawyer, not the police.”
“Garth has a right to legal counsel and every reason to suspect he’d be questioned upon matters that might be incriminating.” Alex shrugged. “If you want, let’s take it to a judge.”
Detective Tsilzer rubbed his mustache, stared at his notepad thoughtfully. I glanced at the mirrored wall behind him, wondering how many cops and ADAs were back there scrutinizing my performance. With a heavy sigh and a screech of his chair across the floor, the detective got up and stepped out of the room. Before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of the Embalmer’s waxy countenance.
Next to him, with his back toward me, was a huge man with a shaved neck. I figured that cop would sure give Mortimer a run for his money.
Stein put a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think they have anything to hold you on, Garth.” He whispered, his lower lip jutted in a gesture of certainty. “I don’t even think they have any idea what’s going on.” He fixed me with a searching look. “I mean, it’s pretty far-fetched, even if it is one hundred percent accurate. You should be aware, however, that if for any reason your recollection of this story changes, it could make things difficult for us. That is, it could appear that you were obstructing justice.”
I didn’t say anything. He had a right to be skeptical, and I guess I appreciated what he was trying to tell me. Would that I could have obliged.
“I mean,” he added, “if by the time he’s returned you have any additional or revised statements or information, I don’t think it would go against you. If, however, we leave here, and certain aspects . . .”
“Stein, that’s the whole story, as whacked-out as it happened.”
He patted my shoulder. “Just so you understand.”
On cue, Tsilzer reentered the room, hands in pockets, staring at the floor. The door was open. “You can go.”
Stein picked up his briefcase and put
a hand on my back. We headed for the door, but Tsilzer used a finger to hold me back and said, “If any of this bullshit is true, you’re in a lot of trouble with these people, my friend. Watch yourself.”
As soon as we were out of the room we saw Angie in her fleece coat coming out of another room with the Embalmer.
“What is she doing here?” Stein protested to Tsilzer.
“We asked if she’d come down and answer a few questions.” Tsilzer shrugged. “She said fine.”
I gave Angie a reproachful glance, and she returned it with a defiant one.
“We’ve got nothing to hide,” she pronounced, and walked out under the Exit sign. Stein and I followed, and after a few cups of coffee (Stein had a Fab Form) at a diner around the corner, we determined that her version was very close to mine. In fact, it was probably one of the reasons they let me go.
Outside the diner, Stein gave me his beeper number. “Now, Garth, you should know that you probably have not heard the end of this. In fact, you may find that the police are watching you. That’s okay. In fact, it’s better than okay. It’s desirable. It would be a good thing for them to see you, observe you at your normal routine with no suspicious activities or visitors, including your brother. You see what I’m saying?”
I did, nodding dutifully. Bore the police to tears.
Stein hustled off to a deposition, and Angie and I started the walk home. It was overcast, and a cold gusty wind convinced me to turn up my sport-coat collar.
“I did right, didn’t I?” Angie prodded.
I took her hand. “In the final result. Which is, I guess, all that matters.”
“You know, if nothing else, I wanted to make sure they got the whole story, even if you did decide, for some reason, to hold something back. I’m worried, and I want the police on our side.”
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