Last Words

by Rich Zahradnik

  “A gang. They don’t like homeless people. They’ve chased us away before. Come with us.”

  “I’ll stay. Sounds like another good story to me.”

  “We’ll be on the pier with all the old railroad ties. Find me when they’re done here, if you’re not done in first.”

  Jansen was gone.

  Three men wearing motorcycle pants and jackets, leather shining in the firelight, stepped over the fallen plastic into the main room of the shelter. Each held a trash can lid and a different weapon—a baseball bat, an ax, and a sledgehammer. Red bandannas covered their faces. They kept up the racket on the lids with their weapons, as if trying to scare away animals in the forest.

  Taylor’s stomach tightened into a small, hard knot. He’d nailed some of his best stories scared out of his wits. This was at least a good story. Masked men chasing the homeless into the arctic night. Okay, a great story. But was having no plan at all really the best plan?

  The man with the bat held it straight up in the air, and the noise stopped. “John Henry, check down that hallway. See if any of them stayed behind.” Lowering the bat, he stepped around the fire and over to Taylor. “Lookie here, Mr. Bunyan.”

  “What’s that, Mr. Ruth?” asked the one with the ax.

  “We’ve got a hero tonight. After we warned ’em never to come back.”

  “Do you mean the poor homeless folks you frightened into the night? Oh, they definitely split, and fast,” said Taylor. “Scared shitless, I’d say. Why are you doing this to them?”

  Mr. Bunyan started chopping the bonfire apart with his ax. The light in the big space dimmed as he did. Pieces of burning lumber tumbled onto left-behind blankets, starting small, smoky fires. Mr. Bunyan didn’t seem to notice because he was so focused on destruction.

  “Hey, man, we got one of them crazy vets.” Mr. Ruth shouldered the bat. “Why do all you guys dress like you’re still in the fucking jungle?”

  “Not a veteran. Just a boring, old-fashioned newspaper reporter.” Taylor flipped open his notebook. He loved the power of a little pad to silence all sorts of assholes. “So you guys are the Street Sweepers. Is that a gang name?”

  Mr. Ruth smacked the bat into the palm of a leather glove. “What we’re doing is none of your fucking business.”

  “Really? Big brave men like you beating up on the homeless. You must want publicity for that.”

  Mr. Ruth poked him hard in the chest with the bat, knocking him back a step. So much for the intimidating power of his notebook. “These scum are ruining our city. They need to get the hell out.”

  The end of the bat slammed into the crook of Taylor’s shoulder. Pain shot down his arm. The guy was really starting to piss him off.

  “Beating up reporters gets secret groups and their secret names in the newspapers. All the newspapers.”

  “Fuck you.” Mr. Ruth wound up for a batter’s swing at Taylor’s head. He ducked under the wild arc. An opening. One, two to the groin. Mr. Ruth dropped the bat and bent to the ground, clutching his balls and groaning.

  Mr. Bunyan quit chopping and advanced on Taylor. Retreat now looked like the best option. He picked up Mr. Ruth’s bat and threw it spinning into the remains of the fire; sparks jumped as it landed. This froze his attacker for an instant, giving Taylor the seconds he sought to turn and bolt into the darkness behind, going for the back door Jansen and his people had used.

  Paul Bunyan took up the challenge, yelling as he came.

  Taylor made it five yards and caught his foot on something hard and heavy. He fell, scraping his knee badly on a cinderblock. Blood wet his torn wool pants.

  Mr. Bunyan closed the distance.

  Taylor rolled onto his back and fumbled for his brother’s last gift—given on his final home leave after a couple of mobsters threatened Taylor over a story—the pistol he wore in a holster strapped at his left ankle.

  He pulled at the gun but forgot to unhook the strap holding it in place. He yanked twice at the leather to release the catch. This was crazy. Why the hell did anyone use an ankle holster?

  Mr. Bunyan raised the ax.

  The strap came free and Taylor twisted the revolver, took a breath, pulled it straight out and rolled left as the blunt end of the ax head hit the concrete where he’d been. Sparks flew. The thing would have crushed his skull.

  He pointed high over Mr. Bunyan’s silhouette and fired. He’d never practiced with the thing, had absolutely no aim and was lucky he didn’t kill the man he was trying to scare.

  In the dim light of what was left of the fire, Mr. Bunyan froze, ax high. Mr. Ruth was still prone. A gun changed everything for these bullies.

  “Enough of this.” Taylor got to his feet and circled left so both men were a good ten feet from him.

  “John Henry!” Silence. Mr. Ruth yelled the name again louder and the third man appeared.

  “Now, boys, if you’ll exit the way you came, this costume party is over.”

  The men left, walking backward, eyes on Taylor and the gun. Mr. Ruth, the last, gingerly stepped over the plastic, one hand still on his crotch. Taylor crept up to the gaping hole, gripping the pistol, his knuckles white. The men disappeared into the snowy blackness.

  Taylor went to the pier to retrieve Jansen and his people.

  “You surprise me again.” Jansen stamped out the last burning blanket. “Do you deal death with one hand and write it with the other?”

  “Hardly.” He shifted his gaze to the people putting the tarps and plastic back up. He was embarrassed. He hated thrusting himself into the middle of the story. “They weren’t interested in interviews. I didn’t like the odds.”

  “I pray they don’t return.”

  “Why are they harassing you?”

  “It’s a fucking ugly world.”

  “I was looking for a specific motive.”

  “I don’t have it for you. We have few fans.”

  “Do you think the Street Sweepers are killers?”

  “You mean the boy?”

  “Yes. It could be murder. Maybe it was them?”

  “They’ve threatened us and wrecked the shelter. I see them as bullies, and bullies are cowards.”

  “Cowards wouldn’t mind odds of three against one. Particularly if one was a teenager. Anyone who attacks the homeless is a suspect in the kid’s death.”

  “I told you he wasn’t homeless.”

  “What if someone thought he was?”

  Jansen might be willing to dismiss the idea. Taylor couldn’t. That gang was dangerous. If the kid turned out to be a murder victim, he’d need to find out who the Street Sweepers really were. He took out his notebook and leafed through the pages. His pulse had slowed down to near normal, but the gun tugged at his left ankle like a warm iron weight. Time to get back on track. To get the story, not be the story. “How can I find Voichek?”

  “I expected you’d ask. I’ll offer you a deal of a sort. We have another missing person, and I’m worried about him. He’s not someone who should be away this long. If you’ll check your sources, we’ll get Voichek in touch with you.”

  “Why the runaround? Just tell me where to find Voichek.”

  “I don’t know where he is. He’s out there somewhere. We’ll see him or hear of him long before you can check all the places the homeless go. Joshua Harper, on the other hand, doesn’t have Voichek’s survival skills. He’s been missing for four days. I’m worried about him. When you arrived tonight, I thought you’d come about him.” Jansen made Taylor sound like the Angel of Death.

  He didn’t like it. “I still don’t see—”

  “What if Joshua’s another victim? I’m talking about checking the police and hospitals. The morgue too. All those people you know. Joshua can’t survive out there. You check your sources, and we’ll find Voichek.”

  “Do you suspect a crime?” Taylor looked at Jansen.

  The hobo chief slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what to suspect.”

  “What can you tell me that’ll
help me track him down?”

  “He had a wife named Marion and a son he wrote to, at least for a while. He mentioned he worked a job until two years ago.”

  “Where?”

  “A place in the Bronx.” Jansen reached into the pocket of his long coat, pulled out a book, and handed it to Taylor. “He did that.”

  The binding didn’t have a title or publisher. The cover was stamped in gold embossed type: Graham Book Bindery, New York City, est. 1894. Inside, blank pages. The weight and quality of the paper stock varied throughout the book, heavy coated to tissue-thin. It must be some kind of sample. The cover leaf listed an address: 325 E. 139th St., The Bronx, N.Y. Joshua Harper’s name was written on the inside cover, in a flowing cursive that was almost calligraphy.

  Taylor noted down the company name and address and the wife’s name and circled that twice. “What does he look like?”

  “Five foot eleven, skinny, with curly black hair and blue eyes. He wears a black parka and brown work pants.”

  “That helps.”

  “So, we have an agreement? You’ll find Joshua. We’ll let you know when Voichek turns up.”

  “I’ll be in touch. Call me if you hear anything—anything—about Voichek. Or if anyone else goes missing or is attacked.”

  Taylor walked toward the doorway to the outside. One of the homeless, a smaller bundle in the shadows, cried out, “Good night, John-boy!”

  Taylor reached for the plastic tarp.

  The same voice, almost a whisper, “Good night, John-boy.”

  The unfinished freight terminal fell back into the snowy darkness as he walked east on 48th at a little past eleven. The .32 was warm against his left ankle, and with its presence as a goad, he picked up the pace. After his fumbling encounter with the Street Sweepers, he was pretty sure he couldn’t get the gun out fast enough if he were attacked in this neighborhood where muggings were the least of the crimes.

  He tried a pay phone at Seventh Avenue, next to a combo peep show/porn shop. No dial tone. A barker in front of the show waved at him like he had a secret to share.

  The flashing, dancing signs of Times Square were turned off because of the energy crisis, replaced by plain old billboards, and the light that remained at the Crossroads of the World was a kind of dusk-at-night. He took the stairs down to the R train. On the subway ride, he considered his deal with Jansen. He didn’t mind the extra work. He traded information all the time. Jansen just might be right: his people would find Voichek faster out among the homeless. Besides, he had other work. Checking missing persons to try to ID the dead kid. That would now serve double duty since he could see if anything had been reported on Harper as well. Maybe there was a pattern with these homeless deaths? Real digging required there.

  He rode the R to Queens, got off at the Forest Hills-71st Avenue stop and arrived at his house on Fleet Street just before midnight. The place looked little changed from the night of the fire six months earlier. Scorch marks gave all the windows angry black eyebrows. A third of the roof was gone, covered by a tarp. The wind drove against it, making the same cracking sound as at the homeless shelter. He’d spent fifteen hundred so far on Maloney and Maloney. They told him they were doing important structural work under the roof. Hearing that didn’t cheer him up. It would go quicker if he could spend more. He couldn’t.

  Inside the 20-year-old Airstream in the driveway, he sat on the narrow bed that doubled as a seat in the kitchenette-cum-bedroom. He turned on the radio and opened the half-sized refrigerator. Two six packs of seven-ounce Rolling Rocks, a package of olive loaf, a jar of pickles and eggs. He liked things that didn’t go bad. He popped the cap off a pony, finished it with four quick swallows, and opened another. Tiny beers were Taylor’s concession to the possibility that his father had passed on his alcoholism. If he drank in small measures and never for breakfast, he’d be okay.

  He tuned in WABC on the Emerson all-in-one stereo system. “Have You Ever Been Mellow?”

  “No,” he said aloud.

  The song ended. “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers followed. This Taylor liked. “Some Kind of Wonderful” by Grand Funk was next. Not really his kind of music, but he appreciated the way the band drove their sound. He opened another beer in celebration of two decent songs in a row and was immediately disappointed when the DJ announced, “A debut at number ten on the charts. Luuuuv this one. ‘Get Dancin’ by Disco Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes.”

  He switched to WNBC. Again, “Have You Ever Been Mellow?” Shit. Why aren’t they recording any good rock ’n roll anymore? Why do I sound like an old fart?

  He flicked cassettes around in the shoebox next to the stereo, pulled out Lou Reed’s Rock ’n’ Roll Animal, and polished off another Rolling Rock pony as “Sweet Jane” ended. There were four long tracks left on the live album. He allowed himself one beer per song. He pulled himself under the blankets and started to review the day but almost immediately saw Laura’s eyes, her smile then her neck and curves. Who was he trying to kid? Even if he could face her, he couldn’t bring her to a trailer parked in his driveway. The damn house was months from being finished. He fell asleep thinking everything in his life was on hold.

  PART II: Wednesday, March 12, 1975

  Chapter 4

  An explosive crash. Taylor took the steps two at a time from the 6 train up to an overcast day at Third Avenue and 138th Street. Down toward 137th in the direction of the Deegan, flames leaped up through a roofless six-story apartment block. Fire engines poured water on one more building burning in the South Bronx. Looked like a four-alarm call. A wall collapsed, sending the flames higher. The blocks between Taylor and the fire weren’t city blocks, but a waste of rubble except for one lonely three-story brownstone so far untouched. How long would that one last?

  Sirens wailed in the opposite direction, to the north, where black smoke corkscrewed into the sky. The acrid smell of cooking plastic caught at the back of his throat. This happened daily, unreported by any of the newspapers, which all considered half a dozen fires too commonplace in the South Bronx. Even the Daily News had given up.

  At a little past eight, Taylor arrived at the Graham Book Bindery. It was still standing. He was relieved and just a little amazed. The place was a relic, built when factories were temples of commerce, with an art deco facade, carved eagles on pillars standing on each side of the front door, and some sort of naked god grasping a book crowning the roof. A warehouse next door was boarded up. The lot on the other side contained nothing but broken bricks.

  Inside, his optimism faded. The reception area had been ransacked. Papers carpeted the floor. A single chair lay on its side by the water-stained front wall. The Graham Book Bindery, while standing, looked like it had been abandoned.

  “Hello?”

  “Back here.”

  He followed the hall toward one lit doorway. This was a whole lot of effort to track down a missing homeless man. He didn’t care. Chasing a lead on Joshua Harper was better than obit duty. Hell, working any lead was. Maybe he’d find someone was killing off homeless people. The City Desk couldn’t ignore that. He stopped at the open door. A balding old man sat on a folding chair sifting through files, tossing most on the floor, putting a few in a box.

  “I’m Taylor from the Messenger-Telegram.”

  “We stopped advertising ten years ago.”

  “I’m a reporter. I’m trying to track down a former employee.”

  “We have many, many of those. My brother-in-law moved everything over to Jersey City a month ago. Fired all the union men. Smart Yid, my brother-in-law. I’m packing the last of the records.”

  “Would you have any information on a Joshua Harper?”

  “I’m not taking personnel. That’s next door. Help yourself.”

  “What will happen to this place?”

  “Did you see the neighborhood?” The man nodded his egg-shaped head at the room’s single window.

  “The building’s going to burn? Accidentally?”

  The old ma
n laughed until he started wheezing. He took a puff on a thin black cigar and wheezed some more. “The smart Yid isn’t paying insurance anymore. He doesn’t care what happens so long as it’s off his books. This place is a total loss. Property value, zero. The South Bronx, zero.”

  Taylor went into the next room, which was windowless and lined on both sides with gray file cabinets. He pulled the drawer marked “H-J,” and to his surprise, found “Harper, Joshua” after quickly fingering manila tabs fuzzy from use and age. Tracking someone down was like this. Either easy, or very very hard. He flipped through smeared carbons of memos that said Harper had been cautioned three times for drinking on the job and finally fired for having a bottle at his machine. The home address was 90 52nd Avenue in Queens. That was Elmhurst. Any worries he had about this trip being a waste of time vanished. Something good was going to come from following this lead.

  “Thanks.” Taylor stopped in the doorway. “I found a file. You certain you don’t remember anything about Joshua Harper?”

  “Not a thing. I’m just my brother-in-law’s accountant. The dumb Yid who gets to pack the tax files. Whoever Harper was, he was lucky he got out when he did. It’s time to move on. Saw it in Europe. I’ll see it again. Of this, I’m sure. We’ve all gone to Jersey and we’re not looking back.” He stopped sorting. “You said you write for the newspaper.”

  Taylor nodded.

  “I buy five newspapers every day. Four New York dailies, yours included, and Foverts.”

  “The Yiddish daily?”

  “Foverts was the first paper I read when I got here. First paper I could read in America. Back then, before the war, the Bronx was the Borough of the Jews. Half here were Jews. Touch any person on the street, and it’s 50-50 he’s a Jew. That wasn’t true anywhere in the Old World.”

  “That’s not true in the Bronx anymore, either.”

  “Indeed. So I buy all these papers. They report the South Bronx is burning up four blocks a week. I read that twelve square miles will be destroyed by year’s end. I read the city has lost almost half a million people since 1970. I don’t read all this in one big article. It’s in bits and pieces, sprinkled through different stories, like a puzzle I’m supposed to solve. There’s no one big picture of this calamity. No one is trying to solve it.”