Miriam treated me to a consulting-room smile then put her bag on Russell’s desk and flashed her hospital I.D. ‘You Lieutenant Russell?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You by yourself?’
‘Yes. Don’t worry. He’s not going to be a problem.’ She turned and treated The Man to a dazzling smile. ‘So, how are you, champ?’
‘He doesn’t understand English,’ I said. ‘You have to speak to him in Hebrew.’
Her faced soured. ‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘It depends on who he thinks he is.’ She turned back to Russell. ‘How did he get here?’
Russell gave her a quick run-down on the arrest and my Good Samaritan act.
Miriam turned to me. ‘Didn’t it occur to you to ring the hospital?’
‘You weren’t there,’ I said. ‘And the Manhattan General only gives out information on patients to listed relatives or their own physician. Besides, when he turned up in my office, I naturally assumed he’d been discharged. If the guy’s bananas, it’s your job to keep him tied down.’
Miriam waved me aside. ‘Yeah, okay, okay.’ She turned back to Russell and lowered her voice. ‘He looks harmless. I won’t bother to give him a tranquillising shot. We’ll just walk him out of here.’
‘Sure, whatever,’ said Russell. ‘You got an ambulance outside?’
‘No,’ said Miriam. ‘I didn’t want to spook him. We’ll take a cab.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want a squad car?’ said Russell.
Miriam shook her head. ‘A cab’ll do fine.’
I stubbed out my cigarette and addressed The Man in Hebrew. ‘Come on. It’s time to go.’
The Man and Rabbi Weinbaum rose together. Weinbaum took hold of The Man’s left hand and patted it – as if to console him.
The Man gripped him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘Walk in all His ways.’
Only Weinbaum and I knew what he was saying.
‘I will come and see you,’ said Weinbaum. ‘We must talk some more.’
‘What are they saying?’ asked Russell.
‘Goodbye,’ I said. Miriam and I moved towards the door with The Man between us.
‘Uhh, just one thing, Doc,’ said Russell. ‘Who brought this guy into the hospital?’
I froze with my hand on the half-open door.
‘That’s something we haven’t yet managed to find out,’ said Miriam. ‘I was called down to the morgue and found him lying naked on an autopsy slab with blood all over his back, wrists and feet.’
Russell’s nose wrinkled. ‘It’s original. What’s this, uh – psychotic cathexis? Some kind of brain damage?’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Miriam eyed me briefly, then went on. ‘Cathexis is a term used by pyscho-analysts. It’s the accumulation of mental energy on some particular idea, line of thought or action. And it’s described as psychotic when this kind of fixation is allied to a pathological mental state.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You see, Mr Sheppard’s problem is that he’s convinced he’s the Risen Christ.’
Weinbaum groaned and muttered something under his breath in what I think was Yiddish.
‘Oh, jeezuss,’ said Marcello, breaking his silence.
Russell shook his head wearily and waved us towards the door. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Just get him out of here.’
The three of us walked out of the station house with Rabbi Weinbaum on our tail. He stood and watched us as we hailed a passing cab and ushered The Man into the back.
‘Can we drop you somewhere?’ I said.
Weinbaum shook his head. ‘To think such things could happen,’ he sighed. ‘To a man with such knowledge …’
I reverted to my native tongue. ‘Don’t worry. He may get better.’ I shook his hand and climbed aboard. As we pulled away down the street I looked back out of the window. Weinbaum was still standing on the curb, tugging at his beard; and no doubt reflecting on the futility of learning.
The cab was a new model without the iron curtain between the rear seat and the driver so we kept the conversation down to guided-tour small-talk on the way uptown. New York after dark becomes another city as whole sections switch roles. Some not stirring until the trashman calls. Others blossoming like luminous night flowers; bursting into multi-coloured life. We crossed 20th Street, leaving the shuttered commercial section with its sculptured European facades, and its deserted side-streets full of ominous shadows and headed north towards the sky-high blocks of mid-Manhattan where the random pattern of lighted windows glowed like jewels set in pillars of obsidian. By day or by night, the visual impact of New York was always stunning, but when darkness fell, there was more to it than just the razzle-dazzle. The night swallowed up the extraneous detail allowing the eye to focus on the pure form of the city’s structures. Its essence. You became aware of the massive concentration of vitality, of worldly power: of the mother-lode that was there to be mined in those multi-storied mountains of free enterprise. When you paused to consider what New York represented and what it had to offer, it wasn’t hard to understand what drew men to ‘Brax’s dark banner.
At the Mayflower, The Man picked up his key from the desk and led us to the elevator with all the assurance of a blue-blazered loungelizard. A silver-haired couple stepped in behind us so we rode up to the third floor in silence. By some curious coincidence their room was on the same floor. We politely let them leave the elevator first then found ourselves following them all the way down the corridor and round this dead end to the right. It was quite bizarre. With each step, the atmosphere became increasingly electric. I could feel the waves of apprehension coming off their backs. I wanted to say something to reassure them but I had the feeling that if I addressed even one word to them they would have a heart attack. If I’d been them, I’d have probably been scared too. The one place you don’t want to be hit is in a lifeless hotel corridor; where there’s no point in running because there’s nowhere to hide; with all those closed doors that are going to stay closed no matter how hard you holler; until it’s all over. This couple’s ordeal ended at the door to Room 314. We left them, eyes averted, fumbling nervously for the key, and walked past to 315.
‘That is very sad,’ said The Man, as he opened the door.
I shrugged. ‘It’s the way things are.’ I ushered Miriam into the room then called out to the couple. ‘Good night.’ They didn’t reply. They were still looking for their key. Or pretending to, while they waited for us to go inside. The Man was right. It was a sad state of affairs when you had to lock and chain yourself inside a hotel room and look through a peep-hole to make sure that the guy who announced himself as Room Service wasn’t carrying the carving knife instead of the chicken sandwich.
Once inside the door however, I pushed those thoughts aside. I grabbed Miriam and hugged her happily. ‘Doctor, you were absolutely fantastic.’
As we parted, The Man grinned broadly and put his arms across our shoulders. And we each put an arm around him as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. For one brief moment, we formed a victorious trio. We were like the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all. It felt great.
‘Don’t let’s get too excited,’ said Miriam, as we became our separate selves again. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet. If that guy Russell decides to check up at the hospital – ’
I waved her worries aside. ‘He won’t. He’s like everybody else. One whiff of religious mania, and they tune out.’ I broke into a laugh. ‘And the incredible thing is that, in the end, what got us off the hook was the truth. Or, at least, ninety-five percent of it.’
I took a look around The Man’s hotel suite. After all, I was paying for it. It was a three-roomed unit. The living-room had the usual sofa flanked by low tables and reading lamps, a couple of armchairs and the statutory colour TV. The covers and the matching curtains were a nice flowered print in blue, white and green. The bathroom was small but had everything. The bedroom furnishings were standard and colour-matched to the living-room
. The bed itself was big enough for Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice. For a man who didn’t sleep, or need it for anything else, it was a terrible waste of space.
When I came back to the lounge, Miriam had made herself at home in one of the armchairs. The Man had kicked off his shoes and was sitting cross-legged on the settee. I pulled the other armchair in closer, and told Miriam about my run-in with Ritger and Donati on the stairs and of my suspicions that they had pocketed the bag of dope to boost their take-home pay. By maybe as much as fifty grand a piece.
‘But that’s terrible,’ said Miriam.
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘But, on the other hand, it saved me having to post bail. And gave you the chance to be a hero.’
She gave me her outraged citizen look. ‘You mean to say you’re not going to do anything about it?’
‘Let New York’s Finest take care of it’s own,’ I said. ‘We’ve got enough to worry about.’
She frowned. ‘Such as?’
‘Lots of things,’ I said. ‘Loose ends. Little things that don’t add up. It may not turn out to be important, but it worries me because I can’t put my finger on it.’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Surely you can give me a for instance.’
I leaned over and offered her a cigarette and got the use of her lighter in return. ‘I’ll give you two,’ I said. ‘I’ve been going over what Larry Bekker told me. The Narcotics Division teams working out of the Seventh Precinct are only concerned with organised crime. Any arrests they make would normally be in pursuit of an on-going undercover investigation. Random ‘buy and busts’ are handled by the Street Enforcement Unit based in the Twenty-third Precinct. Or guys on the drug detail at Manhattan South.’
‘You’re getting too technical,’ said Miriam. ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me?’
‘The Man got arrested by the wrong people.’
Miriam switched her eyes from me to The Man then back again. ‘Maybe they thought he was someone else. It could explain why they didn’t press charges.’
‘Yes, maybe …’ I looked at The Man expectantly. He gazed at me steadily, but didn’t say anything. ‘It’s the dope that really bugs me. When Ritger and Donati drove away, they knew I was a lawyer. Even so, that six-ounce bag went missing somewhere between 42nd Street and the Seventh Precinct House. Let’s assume Ritger and Donati stole it. Even if they didn’t, they’re involved. There’s no doubt about that. But if The Man was just a face in the crowd, and they didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, how did they know that, when I came down to bail out my client and found that he was miraculously ‘clean’, I was not going to raise the roof with cries of ‘police corruption’?’
She tried to puzzle it out. ‘Maybe they figured that you’d put your client’s interests first.’
‘But Miriam,’ I said, ‘how did they know that? What made them so sure? As Russell reminded me, I’m an officer of the court. Those guys had ripped off a good fifty grand’s worth of uncut dope! A kid fresh out of law school could have done a deal with the D.A’s office over that. The Man could have turned State’s evidence and walked. We might even have been Federal agents. In which case, the shit would have really hit the fan. No matter how you slice it, the same question keeps coming up. How did they know I’d keep shtum? What made them think they could get away with it?’
Miriam eyed me. ‘I think the real problem is that smart lawyers think everyone else is as devious as they are. Maybe this Ritger and Donati are a lot dumber than you think. And has it occurred to you that the bag might not have been full of dope? Maybe, when they opened it, they found it really was icing sugar.’
I frowned, then looked at The Man. ‘Was it?’
A smile crept into the corners of his mouth. ‘It was by the time we got downtown.’
I laughed. And that made him laugh too. It was good to know that he could turn the tables on whoever had it in for us.
‘It’s not all that funny,’ said Miriam. ‘We still have to face the fact that ‘Brax – or somebody – went to the trouble of planting that stuff. We know why. The question is how – or when?’
The Man shrugged. ‘It could have been in the store where we bought the wind-breaker. Or in Times Square.’ He looked at me. ‘I was wearing it unzipped. It was pretty crowded down there.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And you took it off in the movie-theatre remember? You put it on the seat beside you.’
He nodded. ‘That’s right. And a guy came in half-way through and sat next to it.’
‘I want to ask you something,’ I said. ‘And if you can get inside our heads you must know the answer to this – were those cops real cops, or ‘Brax’s agents?’ I kept my eyes fixed on his.
His eyes didn’t waver. ‘They weren’t demons in disguise, if that’s what you mean. They were people, just like you. But it’s not quite as simple as that. All of you, at one time or another, act as ‘Brax’s agents. He exercises a controlling influence over all your lives, yet most people remain blind to his presence. Because they are unaware of their inner self. Their true identity. They don’t know they are held prisoner, and would laugh if you suggested the idea to them. Everybody has been brainwashed into believing that they are bound to the physical universe. That beyond the external world of sense-perception there lies only the fathomless void of non-being. And his most recent achievement has been to persuade the majority of the world that he, ‘Brax, does not exist. Thus enabling your materialist philosophers to prove, with the aid of ‘Braxian logic, that the concept of a Supreme Creator is a groundless primal myth.’ He paused to let that sink in, then added, ‘By the way, I can’t get into everybody’s head. I told you up at Sleepy Hollow that it was easy to shut me out. If I’ve been inside yours, it’s because your minds opened up to let me in.’
His answer was instructive but it hadn’t told me what I really wanted to know. ‘Are you trying to tell us that there isn’t a way to head off trouble? That you didn’t know you were going to get busted?’
‘No. What I’m saying is that I can’t stop it happening.’
‘You stopped me going down the elevator shaft,’ I said.
His golden eyes fastened on me. ‘Did I?’
I held my ground. ‘Didn’t you?’
His look softened. ‘Don’t be misled by what you’ve seen – or what you think you’ve seen. I may have the edge in the long run, but there are limits to my power in the temporal dimension.’ He smiled. ‘I may be batting on the side of the angels but we have been known to miss a curved ball.’
Tremendous.
‘So in other words,’ I said, ‘all we can do is stand there and take it on the chin.’
He waved his palms upwards and outwards. ‘It’s what the Twelve had to do.’
‘Yes, but you gave them a big boost,’ I countered. ‘You put their brains into orbit at the Feast of Pentecost. When they got arrested and beaten, they didn’t feel a thing. They even knew how to walk through locked doors.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t give you a magic wand, Leo. You’ve already got what it takes. It’s up to you to learn how to use it.’
He was right, of course, but that still left me with backlog of unanswered questions. I couldn’t get rid of the nagging suspicion that we were the victims of a well-intentioned snow-job. I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. I got to my feet. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to have to leave it there. It’s been quite a day.’
‘Yes, for me too.’ He uncrossed his legs and got up from the sofa.
I offered my hand to Miriam. She rose and took it obediently but her eyes told me she would have preferred to go on talking. The Man walked us to the door.
‘I take it you know about room service,’ I said. ‘I mean if you want food, or anything, all you have to do is …’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’
I gripped his hand. ‘Listen, I’m going to be in court all day again. And the same thing goes for the rest of the week. I’d like to duck out but it’s a big case a
nd, well – you know how it is.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I may not be here anyway.’
‘Yeah, well, just in case you are …’ I pulled out my wallet and handed over two fifty-dollar bills. I was turning into a real Daddy Warbucks. ‘I’ll call you between four-thirty and five. If you’ve got any problems before then call Miriam – or Linda. But go easy with her. You had her in tears today.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ He bussed Miriam on the cheek. ‘Take care …’
‘You too,’ she said. This time, her knees didn’t fold up under her. But then, she was a New Yorker too. Give us time to catch our breath and we can take anything and everything in our stride.
When we reached the street, it was such a nice night, we decided to walk up Central Park West to my apartment on 75th Street. Hand in hand like fifteen-year-olds on their first date. But privy to the greatest secret in the world. I don’t know what strange alchemy was at work but by the time we reached my front door, any lurking ‘Braxian passion I harboured had quietly disappeared. Miriam made me an ice-box raider’s sandwich and we took it to bed with two mugs of hot milk. She claimed to have eaten but she still managed to chisel me out of the third deck which held most of the Polish salami.
Afterwards, we snuggled down amongst the crumbs and embraced each other lovingly. Somehow, it seemed enough. As if, in some as yet unspecified way, we were now different. Special.
In the darkness, we gently untangled our limbs and turned on our sides to sleep. I felt Miriam’s body hug the zig-zag made by my own.
‘Leo,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘You didn’t tell me you went to the movies.’
‘Oh – didn’t I?’ These black-out inquisitions are a big favourite with Miriam.
‘No,’ she said. ‘What did you take him to see?’
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