The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  “If we make it there.”

  He chuckled and twisted his bulk to unfasten the door while I gathered the strength to walk from car to house. It was close, but we both got our respective tasks accomplished.

  “Coffee?” I asked, once we were inside.

  He nodded and walked around the remodeled apartment. I heard him call from the office. “You want me to park the body in here? The couch opens up?”

  “There or in the bedroom. Your choice.”

  He returned to the kitchen without his suitcase and looked around. “The quality of work is the same throughout both buildings?”

  I lit a cigarette and turned toward him. “Yeah. It looks pretty good, I think.”

  He grinned. “It looks terrific. Richard monitored the construction and decorating?” “Construction, mostly. Charles actually did the finish work.” He opened his mouth, and I leaped, “Please, no gay jokes.”

  “Pour the coffee, will you?” He shook his head sadly. “And stop acting like a shmuck. I was going to ask whether you let him work on your place. You have strong opinions about your home.”

  As soon as I finished pulling my foot from my mouth I apologized. “I’m sorry, Lou, sit.” I readied the mugs, then retrieved my stash from the living room. He eyed the silver container as I rolled a joint, but all he said was, “Good coffee.”

  “Thanks. Lately I’ve had a lot on my mind.” I wanted to convince both of us that he’d been wrong when he said no one mattered.

  He nodded and watched as I lit the dope and inhaled. He leaned over, reached into the ashtray, and stubbed out my smoldering cigarette. “You don’t need both of them going at once, do you?”

  I smiled as the grass found its way home. “They’re not the same, you know.”

  “Believe me, Matty, I know. What the hell is bothering you?”

  I pulled a problem off the bottom shelf, something I knew he could understand. “I got work from a guy I knew twenty years ago. I’ve used up the malls. But I don’t trust him, I have the feeling he was using me for something other than his case.”

  “Like what?” Lou was all ears, our fight pushed aside. He’d spent half a century with the Daley machine: duplicity grabbed his attention.

  “Maybe drugs,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “He claims someone threatened to link him with a twenty year old death. The police had it as an accident, but he wanted me to find the person anyway.” I shrugged helplessly. “He deals dope and I felt he was using me as a stalking horse.”

  Lou seemed almost pensive as he recapped. “He hires a private detective, lets that information out, then looks to see who it worries or who responds?” Lou paused. “You’re sure this old accident was really an accident?” he asked.

  “Mostly, but it happened to a kid the cops wouldn’t belch over.” I dragged deeply on the joint and began to relax. The conversation off-loaded a lot of the tension between us. “On top of everything, I got mugged.”

  Lou’s forehead furrowed, and he looked at me anxiously. “Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”

  “Just a scratch. But it reminded me how much I hate getting hit.” “This happened here?” Lou waved toward the alley.

  “No, The End. Where I was working.”

  “If the case bothers you and it’s unsafe, why not drop it?”

  I laughed. “That doesn’t sound like my Lou. You’re always pushing me into things.”

  Both of us had the same thought at the same time, but I spoke first. “I’m not talking about the buildings.”

  It was his turn to smile. “Good. So why not drop the case?”

  I shrugged and fetched more coffee. “I pretty much have. I was entranced with the old neighborhood, but it’s starting to lose its charm.” My mind flashed to a picture of Mel; I missed what Lou said next. I grimaced. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”

  “You really hate the malls, don’t you?”

  I thought about the mugging, the smell of the Wagon Wheel, and the interior of Blackhead’s apartment. I drank from my mug, then said, “I don’t hate them enough to continue with this shit. I just wanted to discover whether the mugging was connected to Blackhead.”

  “Blackhead?”

  “The guy that hired me.”

  “No wonder you can’t trust him. It’s a nickname, no?”

  I laughed again as more weight lifted from my back. I looked at the last part of the joint, but lit a cigarette instead. “Yeah. His real name is Emil.”

  Lou raised his thick brows. “That’s supposed to be better?”

  We spent the rest of the day rediscovering how much we liked each other. Lou avoided any talk about Martha, and I didn’t ask. We toured the buildings, his impressions from my apartment reinforced. He especially loved the sky lighted, postage-stamp indoor garden Richard had crafted between the buildings. So much so, that he began to excitedly outline plans for the expansion of our empire. I didn’t think he really meant it so I let myself enjoy his enthusiasm. If I had believed him it would have ruined my day.

  We had dinner at a fish place on the pier. Luckily, our crustaceans had managed to creep through last summer’s red tide unscathed. It didn’t bother Lou that he’d eaten seafood on the plane. Whenever he visited, he felt compelled to bottom fish.

  After dinner I spoke to Mrs. S about the Thanksgiving plans and reported back to him. I tried inviting Julie, but he wasn’t home. I’d try again the next day.

  My misgivings began to center on my ability to tolerate a holiday scene. Despite the pleasant day, I still felt a strong undertow toward my privacy. Nonetheless, for the first time in what seemed like a long while, I went to sleep without a pill. Apparently, anxiety had taken time out. At least until tomorrow when the three of us—Mrs. S, Lou, and myself—would meet to cook. That is, three would meet, two would cook.

  Lou slipped out early the next morning, and returned with enough food for a sit-down with an army of ants. He must have strapped the enormous bird on his back to get it home. He stood, partially hidden by the bags on the kitchen table, breathing heavily. “You know, for all the times I’ve been here, I’ve never walked around the neighborhood. I always told myself I’d rather spend the time inside, or with Mrs. Sullivan. I didn’t want to admit I was intimidated.”

  I thought he referred to the drunks who, despite the city’s intermittent roundups, thought my neighborhood home. But then he added, “I always believed I could deal with different kinds of people, but I’ve never felt comfortable with what they call ‘New Age.’”

  The expression “New Age” seemed incongruous coming from this Damon Runyon character. “New Age?”

  “You know, artist types,” he grumbled.

  I didn’t understand. “Your daughter was an artist type.”

  He stopped rummaging in the food. “I know. That’s why I was happy she married you. I had someone to talk to.”

  I didn’t want to continue this conversation, but heard myself protest, “Come on, Lou. You never had trouble talking with Chana.”

  “I did okay, but you helped. She was different from me. I had to fight for everything, and I swore she wouldn’t.”

  “She loved and appreciated you.”

  He sat down in a chair behind the bags while I leaned up against the sink. “It wasn’t a question of appreciation. Certainly not love,” he said thoughtfully. “Just different experiences. My world was stuffed with minefields waiting to explode. Trust was something built with power. In the beginning you cracked a few skulls, later, you jerked around jobs. For Chana, trust was built right in.”

  What he said was true. Chana saw people’s meanness as a shield for their frailty, a cry for affection, for love.

  Lou broke into my thoughts. “With you, it was different. Even though you were much younger than me, and could understand Chana’s point of view, you were a lantzman. You saw things with one eye like her, the other like me.”

  I felt my molars grind against the bitter
sweet ache of loss. “You underestimate your ability to appreciate things that aren’t familiar,” I deflected. Protected…

  He peered out from behind one of the bags. “What do you mean?” “Take Charles…”

  Both his arms shot up in the air. “You take Charles.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” I paused for a moment and found him looking at me intently. “You have an attitude about gays. But you like Charles. You especially like Richard. The idea of gay disturbs you. Charles and Richard don’t bother you at all.”

  His fingers pulled at his thick eyebrows as he blurted, “That’s exactly what I was going to say about the neighborhood. Before I left this morning, I thought I’d hate walking around here. But the sun was out, I wasn’t too cold, and I actually liked it.”

  He stood up, began to pull the food from the bag. It felt as if he had more to say but, after a lengthy silence, I moved to the table and helped him sort the groceries. “You better like the neighborhood, you have an investment in it.”

  He chuckled, relieved to have the quiet broken. “Believe me, Boychick, I’ve invested in plenty of things I couldn’t stomach. That’s something Chana wouldn’t have understood.”

  The groceries were finished. For a few seconds we were silent, dragged out of ourselves by the sensibility of someone no longer present. Lou finally broke the hush. “So where is Mrs. Sullivan? I thought we were supposed to cook today!”

  And cook they did. My fears about a lack of oxygen had been greatly exaggerated. Everybody was on their best behavior, having fun. I grew momentarily anxious when Charles dropped by wearing a flamboyant green and gold scarf wrapped gypsy-style around his head. But conversation focused on the dinner and the decorating. At least it did after the round of Joan Crawford jokes.

  Lou laughed along with everyone else, and so did I. The apartment filled with smells and sounds that it, and I, found unfamiliar. It had been a long time since there were more than two people in my kitchen. And when there were two, it usually meant trouble. Or drugs.

  When the telephone rang I left the noise to answer in the office. In the quiet moment before picking up, I had a shot of missing Boots. She belonged, somehow, with the odd clutch of people in the other room. But when I picked up the receiver it wasn’t Boots.

  “We have to talk.” The voice was low and husky, but I could hear the iron.

  I sat down, opened the desk drawer, and fiddled with the roach box. The other night must have left her feeling overexposed. Hell, it had driven me underground. “Sure. Look, if it’s about the other night…”

  “This is not just about the other night.”

  It was impossible to miss the current of rage. I understood: my medicine had been depression. “You sound chilly, even for November.”

  “Chilly or not, I want to see you soon.”

  I flipped open the lid and stared into the box as I spoke into the phone. “Listen, Mel, I know I’ve disappeared for the past few days. The other night affected me too.”

  “I’m sure it did but I prefer to talk in person.”

  It dawned on me that I hadn’t gotten high all day. I felt a wave of tension, took the box out of the drawer and said, “Name a time.”

  “Aren’t we solicitous?” she said harshly.

  Jonathan had told her I was nosing around Peter’s accident, and she probably thought I still was. I was a dunce not to have realized it sooner. Somehow, I’d imagined that, once I took myself off the case, the subject wouldn’t come up.

  “When do you want to meet, Mel?” “Tonight.”

  I listened to the noise from the other room and shook my head. It wasn’t often I was reluctant to leave home because of fun. Then I thought of the other night—Melanie, naked on my lap, taking me somewhere I’d thought dead and buried. “Tonight’s fine, Mel. Where and when?”

  “The storefront closes at ten-thirty. Why don’t you meet me there at eleven?” “The storefront?” Hers hadn’t been a question; mine was.

  She chuckled sarcastically. “This isn’t going to be like the other night, Matt.”

  “I could only hope.” Hope to ease some anger, that is. I didn’t want to fight with her. “You’re lying to me.”

  It hadn’t worked. “Listen, we’ll do this in person.”

  “Count on it,” she snapped. “Tonight, not twenty years from tonight.” “I’m not usually that late. See you at eleven.”

  I heard laughter from the kitchen, but the voices sounded a long way off. My fun afternoon had become something I had to survive. I opened the hand-painted wooden box and extracted a long roach. I lit up, and felt the comfortably familiar sense of withdrawal.

  I heard another peal of laughter, and felt myself lose air. I smoked the roach down to my fingers, lifted the telephone off the hook, then slammed it back down. I must really be crazy; what the hell did I have to say to Boots?

  I smoked another roach before I forced myself back to the kitchen. As the afternoon dragged into dinnertime and dinnertime into night, I moved farther toward the group’s periphery, distanced by my inability to check a growing apprehension.

  Lou’s arrival had artificially removed me from the swamp generated by my night with Melanie. Her telephone call threatened another immersion. Frequent retreats to the office and bedroom helped stave off overt public hostility, but it couldn’t shut down an intense desire to be on the couch.

  On the couch, but not alone. Despite my reluctance about admitting to my lies, and the fear of ricocheting memories, I wanted to see her. My body tingled when I thought of her. Mel shook me in a way I hadn’t thought possible. And if that shake contained difficult, painful moments, they were, at least, honest moments. Moments reflecting the best and worst of my life.

  Eventually, The Great Chefs of the Six-flat filtered home. It was a relief when Lou walked Mrs. S back to her apartment, and I was finally alone. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived.

  Lou wheezed his way to the couch, beer in hand. I stood next to the television and asked, “Can I get you anything?” There was time before my appointment, but I didn’t want to hang around the house. With only Lou present, the nearness of alone would become overpowering.

  Lou rotated on the couch and looked at me. “What’s going on?” he asked somberly. “What do you mean?”

  “Matty, you weren’t the same after the telephone call.” “It was that apparent?”

  He swallowed his beer and shook his head. “I don’t know what anyone else sees.”

  I parroted my lie to Melanie in order to smooth my way out the door. “It’s nothing, really. Something related to the case. I’m going to meet with someone to tie up those loose ends.”

  Lou grunted and shifted his bulk around on the couch. “I thought you were finished with your case?”

  “It’s just a chance to know for certain.”

  He looked at me watchfully. “You have to go now? I was hoping we could iron out some things tonight… find a way to work together on our buildings, for me to be more involved. But we can’t take care of business unless we talk.”

  I heard the condemnation and felt my stomach sink when “more involved” hit the air. “I wish you had said something earlier, Lou. I didn’t know you wanted to talk tonight.”

  His mouth curled downward, his fingers feeling for his eyebrows. “You think everything can just take care of itself, don’t you?” He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.

  My rule was no more than one confrontation a night; so I tried to placate him. “Not everything, just as much as possible.”

  His cheeks started to puff. “Always with the jokes. That attitude is the reason you work in malls.”

  “Christ, Lou, I made an appointment, that’s all. I don’t work nine-to-five. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. What’s wrong with you?”

  His eyes bulged, then retreated. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Every time I try to become involved with the buildings, you disappear. Call after call. Each time you have another excuse to change the su
bject, or hang up. Now it’s this.”

  “This is no excuse. You heard the phone.”

  “You can’t postpone? This Pimple character and his case are more important than taking care of our business?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’d rather fight with him than you.”

  He waved disgustedly then said, “You’re worse than a brick wall.” He looked like he was going to throw the beer can at me.

  I started to respond but he angrily shook me off. “Just bring me the remote, will you? My feet are killing me. I’ll spend the night with the television, since you have so many important things to do.” He turned away and stared at the blank screen.

  I wanted to grab him and tell him he was too heavy to hitch onto the back of a life I could barely pull myself. But I didn’t. I wanted to scream that he was choking me, but I didn’t do that either. I just found the remote and dropped it gently onto the couch.

  When I got to my bedroom I pushed away fat fingers of depression with a nip bottle from the collection under the bed. I felt my shoulder twinge gently when I reached for my leather, thought about taking the gun, then thought better. I was on my way to eat crow, not kill it. I no longer cared about Sludge and his boys. Or even Emil. Like the knife slash itself, the beating seemed distant, irrelevant rather than important. When I passed the living room on my way to the alley I waved goodbye. Lou, apparently lost in a “Lucy” rerun, didn’t return the gesture.

  I drove directly to The End. I didn’t pass “go” or collect two hundred dollars. I couldn’t even manage a what-to-do or where-to-stop. The storefront seemed like a rotten idea, and I wasn’t going to pay Blackhead a social call.

  I parked the car deep in the bowels of The End, and decided to walk. At first I was hesitant, but got pissed at being scared off the streets. I regretted leaving the .38 and reached under the seat for the small lead pipe. Keeping an equalizer was a habit since high school, though since high school, one that hadn’t been necessary.

  The outdoors was a relief, though I knew it was only a matter of time before I found it cold. I shoved the pipe into my pant pocket and started back through time. The abandoned cars often rested on milk crates, windshields shattered, wheels stripped to the axles. In the old days the milk crates had been metal; now they were plastic. Back then, the storefronts were chain-linked, now they were sardine canned against the same people their owners would greet early the next morning, smiles pasted to their faces, their palms up.