The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  His eyes returned to the full-length mirror as the lower part of his body rocked gently back and forth. Dimes to dollars his hand would have had company if I hadn’t been there. “Harry, man, I gotta go to my spot. How do I get out of here?”

  “Keep going straight until you get to the stairs. Go down and use the door on your right. Takes you into the sporting goods store. Anybody asks, tell ‘em you were with the Mole.” His eyes never wavered and his mouth never completely closed. Harry was falling in love.

  “Thanks for the tour.”

  “Yeah, sure, no problem. See you later.”

  I followed his directions and finally stepped into bright fluorescent lighting, took a moment to regain my vision, then looked at a broad-shouldered kid by my side.

  “Sir, may I see your identification? No one is allowed back there.” I fumbled for my wallet. “I was with the Mole.”

  His eyes widened. “The Mole showed you his tunnels?” “Yeah. I’m a substitute shamus.”

  The kid shook his head and waved at my wallet. “Don’t bother.”

  Harry the Mole had groupies. I wondered glumly whether I’d eventually have them too if mall work remained the pinnacle of my PI career.

  In the concourse I found a bench from where I could see most of my area. Someone had left the Herald and I got busy with the sports pages. Hourly rates had certain advantages.

  And serious disadvantages. I spent most of the day strolling into stores choking back ennui and its sidekick, lethargy. I never understood why I got repeat mall assignments since I rarely made any arrests, and the arrests I did make were invariably on some high priced klepto released before I finished the paperwork. Maybe admin wanted Caucasian bust stats.

  It was close to the end of my shift. I was hiding in the bathroom trying to escape the sweaty smell of aftershave and perfumed buying madness, when I decided to sniff around the holes instead. The sharp lighting from the stores fought its way through the irregularly placed, one-way mirrors and the pale glow cast a gloomy, checkered effect into the narrow, twisting passageway—a surrealistic path for a demented Jimmy Durante hat waving farewell.

  But I was coming, not going, so I started down the weaving walkway wondering whether I’d find the Mole in a compromising position. I hoped not.

  Once I’d gotten over the sneaky thrill of playing lead in The Invisible Man, watching people shop became a bore. I was sure Harry saw things I didn’t.

  I was peering into a record store when someone—I thought it was a he—parked in front of the mirror, catching me unexpectedly. The middle of my view was suddenly blocked by a tall, thin, threadbare peacoat with hair on the top. After my initial surprise, the endless day’s frustrations caught up with me, and I became irrationally annoyed because Peacoat placed the sole of its shoe on the wall, its heel catching the bottom of the glass. I decided to wait it out.

  Twice, I almost quit the game. His/her torn, jeaned butt was no Rubens, and I was near the end of my day. But before I finally decided, the coat, hair, and fanny slid off the mirror just out of my sight. I pressed my cheek against the glass, but all I saw was a shadow pass through the store’s doorway.

  I raced down the corridor in the direction I’d been moving, pausing briefly at each window for a quick, fruitless search. Then I decided to quit: no reason to work late on an unpaid, quixotic gender identification mission.

  Retracing my steps toward the bathroom I stopped three mirrors short of home. Right before the window stood the front of the Peacoat. The top didn’t look much different than it had from behind. He, and it was a he, stood staring directly toward me; the slit passing for his mouth opened, displaying brown, cracked teeth in a forest of hair.

  It wasn’t the teeth that bothered me, nor the look of insolence no amount of hair could cover. What bothered me was the reverberation deep inside my own waste dump of memories.

  The beard stared through the glass as though he knew I stood hidden behind his reflection. It suddenly became important to me to remember how I knew him. When he slowly turned and walked toward the store’s exit, I followed.

  After some hasty scrambling through the holes I picked him up downstairs in Designer Discounts. Again he stood, hands in pockets, scowling, looking through the glass, and I had the uneasy feeling he’d been waiting. A minute after I spotted him he turned, walked to a sock counter, and fingered the goods.

  Tired of my lost cause I had just decided to leave when Peacoat picked up a pair of socks and retreated behind the counter outside my field of vision. Then I noticed Harry enter the store. I watched as he moved his bulk purposefully toward the sock bin, tongue flicking rapidly over his partially open mouth.

  When the Mole moved out of my sight I dashed to the nearest door, opened it, and startled customers in the rear of the adjoining bookstore. I grunted through the staring people, walked down an aisle, and out the door.

  The afternoon crowd was thinning into a suppertime lull, but a circle of curious onlookers had gathered in the concourse in front of the department store. Shouldering my way through, I saw the Mole and Peacoat eyeing each other like Abbott and Costello. I stopped moving when I heard the Mole’s enraged voice.

  “You stupid, ugly bastard, you’re going down for socks? Four stinking dollars’ worth! They were on sale, for Christ sake! It’s assholes like you that make me rich.”

  I edged closer, but they were so angry that neither noticed me. Two glittering black coals shot sparks from the holes left for his eyes in Peacoat’s full-face beard. He looked like a street lamp with hair on the end of it. A red-faced Harry dangled a pair of handcuffs from his fat hands.

  “I don’t make you rich, you fat slob! The rich make you rich, just like they give their guard dogs steak. You’re just a German shepherd that can’t see the leash!”

  The words dripped with a nasal singsong sarcasm that shook my skull. Twenty years is a long time to remember anything, but I remembered the voice.

  “Ain’t no way you’re going to get them on me, Porker. You try, and I’ll bite your fat fucking ear off.” He waved long, bony-white, nail-bitten fingers toward the cuffs.

  Harry glanced at the growing number of onlookers and tried reason. “Everything will go easier if you just come with me. Then I won’t have to use these or call for backup.”

  “Call your fucking backup. I don’t go nowhere with police washouts.” His voice had the grind of dry metal twisting against dry metal. I’d hated it twenty years ago, and I’d heard enough to hate it now.

  The Mole didn’t like being called a washout, but Peacoat always had an instinct for the short hairs. I took a deep breath and stepped through the front row. “Blackhead. Long time no see.” He seemed surprised to hear his name, and I waited silently while he tried to make me.

  Hairy looked relieved; people sensed an end to the confrontation and the circle began to splinter. “You know this smartass?” he asked.

  I nudged them to the side of the concourse as I answered. “Years ago. I was a street worker in The End and he was one of the kids.”

  “Shoulda left him on the street. Asshole was sitting on the floor pulling the damn socks on his feet. They were on sale,” the Mole added incredulously.

  “Yeah, I heard.” I looked at Blackhead and realized he was holding his shoes. He stared at me, oblivious of Harry’s comment. I hoped he would stay quiet. He opened his mouth, but I moved between him and the Mole. “Why don’t you lay him on me?”

  “That’ll cost me money.”

  I looked around and urged the last of the spectators away. “How many did you score today?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Twelve,” he said, pride poking through his gruffness.

  I looked at him with genuine respect. “Jesus, Harry, you must have eyes behind your head.”

  A small flattered grin flashed across his round face as he weighed my proposal. “I suppose it wouldn’t break me”—he glanced at the clock on the far wall—”I still got time to make up for it.” He frowned. “That is
, if this skinny turd hasn’t hung a sign on me.”

  I sensed Blackhead start. When I looked his mouth was open, and he was staring at the Mole with amazement. “The fat man is a bounty hunter? That’s pretty sick shit, Washout.”

  “Shut up, jerk.” I shook my head at Harry. “Maybe I should have left him in the damn street. He’s an asshole, Mole, but he’s an asshole I know. I’ll owe you one.”

  Harry was stuffing the handcuffs back into his pocket. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll bust two in the time it takes to do this freak’s paperwork. You gonna be here tomorrow?”

  “I haven’t checked.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll see you.” Blackhead was already yesterday’s news as Harry waddled back toward the department store. Before he disappeared through the entrance he turned and stared. For a second I thought he had changed his mind. But all he said was, “It’s someone, but it ain’t the Dough Boy.”

  Blackhead stood shaking his head, a scornful look on his face. “Ain’t this a trip? The original bleeding heart social worker doing security for a bourgeois mall. I’da never figured you for a cop, you were always such a big nanny.”

  I waved my arm toward the center rotunda. “I’m touched you remember me at all, Blackhead, but you have your classes confused. This place is a step up from bourgeois. Why don’t you give me the socks and put your shoes back on?”

  He looked at me contemptuously. “Give you the fucking socks? Are you crazy? I put up with insulting shit from a fat tub of guts and you want me to give back the socks? You want ‘em? Take ‘em, cop.”

  No way I was going to touch his feet. “I’m not a cop.”

  “What are you then? I didn’t think malls hired social workers.” A nasty grin crossed his face. “Of course it might be a moneymaker. You might be helping the nervous middle class overcome their spending anxieties?”

  It had been a long time since I’d thought about The End, and my memories almost crowded out his sarcasm. “I’m a PI. What do you do when you’re not stealing socks?”

  Another brown-chipped-tooth grin split his thick beard. “Nothing as exotic as mall security.” He sat on the polished tile floor and pulled on his shoes, over the stolen socks. When he stood back up, I looked at his added inches. “‘The more things change, the more they stay the same,’ huh, Blackhead.”

  He started for the mall’s exit. “Don’t call me Blackhead. I haven’t been called that since I was a kid, and I don’t like it.”

  “Is there anything you do like?”

  The suppertime shoppers gave way as Blackhead grunted his way through. He leaned his tall frame forward as he walked, moving close enough to create discomfort in anyone he was behind.

  I kept my eyes on his long, scrawny neck, hustling to follow before the gaps closed. We made it to the exit in record time until I remembered I hadn’t punched out.

  “Slow down, man. You still didn’t tell me what you’re called?” He stopped and turned around. “Emil.”

  “Emil?”

  “Yeah, that’s my name. I guess your cop friends all call you ‘Flower Child.’“ “I don’t have any cop friends. Matt works fine.”

  “What happened to Jake?”

  I grinned. “I dropped the nickname when I went into the detective business. I didn’t want anyone to confuse me with Jake Gittes. I like my nose.”

  He turned toward me. “Who the fuck is Jake Gittes?” I shrugged. “Never mind.”

  “Well, Matt, are you leaving or what? I don’t feel like jawing in Yuppie World.”

  I almost felt good about reporting to the detaining room. “Sorry, Emil, I can’t leave. You ever see the rest of the gang?”

  A dark look crossed his face but all he did was grunt. “What gang?”

  “You know, the kids you ran with.”

  He shrugged. “Some of them.” “Well, say hello for me.”

  He turned his back without answering and almost ran down a pair of packed jeans pushing a stroller. He started to snarl, then turned back to me with a strange look on his face. “Tell ‘em yourself. It wouldn’t kill you to visit The End once in a while. You used to say it was the first place that felt like home.”

  I was surprised to hear my words thrown back at me. “You have a good memory, Emil.” Another strange look crossed his face. “Too good,” he said, quietly.

  I watched as he ducked and disappeared through the revolving door. Halfway back to the detaining room I grew annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to thank me.

  “Lou, this is the third time in the past two weeks you’ve hocked me about the buildings. Everything here is fine.” I was still smarting from Blackhead’s final remark, and this telephone call just added to my defensiveness. I suppose it showed. Lou’s wheeze worked overtime to keep his exasperation under control.

  “You tell me everything is fine but you don’t send the details. Boychick, we invested a lot of money in the renovation. I don’t think it’s asking too much to see some pictures.”

  I looked at the joint in my fingers. I’d torn the paper, and most of the dope had spilled onto the desk. I felt a wave of guilt thin my irritation. We hadn’t invested money, he had.

  “I know Charles does the managing,” Lou continued, “but you’re my partner. If I can’t get the straight dope from you, I’m out in the cold.”

  Dope he could get. “Listen, I send you all the important information.” “But the pictures. I can’t visualize things from here.”

  The suffocation was starting. Since Lou’s wife, Martha, had died, calls from Chicago had come with increased frequency, jammed with increased demands. The unsent snapshots were just the latest.

  Resignation replaced my guilt. “As soon as I get the camera from the shop I’ll take the pictures.”

  “You can’t borrow a camera?”

  “Jesus, Lou, don’t you have anything better to do than worry about this?”

  “What’s to do? I have time to attend to our business now, that’s all.” His voice suddenly guarded.

  “What about friends?” The image of the crowded temple during Martha’s funeral crossed my mind. I’d known about Lou’s political importance before his retirement, but I had been staggered at the turnout. Half of Chicago had been there.

  “Friends,” he snorted. “How many times a week can you talk about ‘the good old days’?” “Lou, you’re backing yourself into a corner.” And into me.

  “You’re warning me about corners? Mr. Cus DiMato himself? Instead of my corners, worry about your own. If you just took care of what I ask, we wouldn’t have a problem. The way you do things makes me feel like you don’t care about the buildings.”

  His combativeness was back, and I started to reroll the dope on my desk. “Look, I’ll send the pictures as soon as I can.” I felt ashamed of the sharpness in my voice. I didn’t want to drive him away, but the more he demanded the less I could deliver. I could only hope the long-standing warmth between us would, whatever his demands, whatever my reactions, remain intact.

  And it took remembering those feelings to stay quiet when he said, “Maybe it would be better if I paid a little visit, Boychick. Something tells me I’d see the buildings quicker that way.”

  I tried not to react to the fingers reaching around my throat. I didn’t think his “maybe” meant maybe. “That would be nice, Lou, it’s been a while.”

  “Well, I’ll think about it,” he said, sounding as though I’d done the inviting. “Check with the camera store anyway. They might give you a loaner.”

  “Sure.” Maybe they could throw in a thousand free miles.

  I was relieved to be off the phone. A familiar sensation but, until the last few months, not one I’d associated with Lou. I rubbed my eyes and tried to push my reaction away. When Chana and our daughter, Rebecca, died in the accident, Lou and Martha stood strong as I slowly pulled together the shattered fragments of my life.

  I took a long drag of the grass. It couldn’t have been easy for them. Chana had been their only child. Now Martha
was dead, and I sat in my office, fighting with the guy when he needed me the most. I bit the end of the joint where a seed blocked the smoke’s passage and inhaled. As much as I wanted to help, my relational ties were no match for my emotional claustrophobia.

  I put my bare feet up on the desk and looked at the forest-green walls and cream woodwork. After the accident Lou had bought this six-flat to give me something to do. When I’d gotten involved in the detective business, he’d bought the six-flat next door and made us partners in both. Lou had even hired Richard, an architect and Charles’ live-in lover, to renovate and attach the buildings.

  It was through Richard’s insistence and craftsmanship that I had an office at all. He stole some cellar and designed a new kitchen at the end of my interior hall. Then he transformed the old kitchen into an office. Somehow, he’d managed to keep the Forties feel of my place intact. Something I appreciated, psychologically unprepared as I was to leapfrog decades.

  Unfortunately, the renovation mostly meant a longer walk from the bedroom to refrigerator. Who needs an office when you’re malling for work?

  The joint had gone out. I relit it and a cigarette. I had never imagined myself a landlord and Lou’s reminder served to unleash more memories from the past. Hell, one of my shining moments had come when a group of neighborhood people organized a rent strike and takeover from a usurious landlord: I still remembered the looks on their faces when I got the damn boiler to work.

  We’d won the battle, though the war had been lost long before I’d set foot in The End. In a neighborhood ravaged by neglect and poverty, a call for a minyan would have gathered newspaper-shoe’d bag ladies, crazies, grifters, and professional do-gooders. A neighborhood where what little money there was flowed in only one direction—out. But The End was the neighborhood where I had fought for Truth, Justice, and what I believed was the American way. A community where I could escape from my own desperate youth. Or so I had imagined.