by Brian Selfon
He goes to the china cabinet. Brings down the book with the bribe money.
Henry manages a sleepy smile. “Is this the bomb?”
The book, as if in response to the question, flops open. Henry recoils from the lump of cash. Then a hesitant joy begins to light up his face. “My cut?”
“What? No.” Shecky slaps the book shut. “That’s not for you. That’s for your friend at the precinct.” He releases the book, which again flops open. “We’re going to need her help.”
“And what about my help?” Henry says. “You said we’d go over the numbers.” He nods at the book. “You came up with this number fast enough.”
“We’re going to talk about that.”
Henry pushes the book away from him. Crosses his arms. “How about now?”
Shecky goes to him. Places a hand, which may or may not be shaking, on Henry’s shoulder. “Hen, listen to me. I’m looking at the ledger. I was up half the night with it. I’ll go back to it today, while you’re managing the two heavies. And…” He freezes, remembering how yesterday’s conversation ended. “You got someone else for the dirties, right? Not your friend?”
Shecky’s hand is still on Henry, and he feels the shoulder muscles tighten. And is utterly unprepared for the calm.
“Don’t worry about anything.” Henry puts the money back into the book. Closes the book, pushes it aside, picks up his knife and fork. “I’ll take care of everything.” And then the food is going into his mouth, and the conversation—for Henry, quite obviously—is over.
Shecky remembers Henry’s nine-year-old meltdowns, remembers the teenage indignation. This don’t-give-a-fuck-ness is far more unsettling. And Shecky watches as Henry takes up a strip of bacon with his long fingers. Cuts into the flesh with his teeth.
chapter 9
Starr, Henry’s friend at the precinct, is a very good friend. And Uncle Shecky remembered right—she’s a fan of mysteries. And it’s smart to put the bribe money in a book. Henry can’t be seen just handing cash over to a police clerk. But this money isn’t for Starr, who’s not expecting anything. This is for Henry, who’s owed. So what to do with a thousand dollars?
The day of the murder, Henry swears he won’t waste a penny. He’s investing—in himself.
9:45 a.m., first stop, the Russian barbershop. They’re not Russians, of course, they’re Kazakhs—the Russians’ victims. In Russia they’d be among the unwashed and unwanted, but here in Brooklyn, they’ve been rebranded. Matt, as the barber calls himself, considers it the quintessential Russian joke: “It is bitter and it is not funny.” He talks as he trims Henry’s beard. “In America, Russia completes the conquest.” Identity crushed, identity overwritten, Henry loves this. Already knows the tip will be forty dollars. Matt has broad shoulders and hairy arms, scars on his face, dark medieval eyes. A part-time barber with rough hands, he cuts Henry’s hair better than anyone in Brooklyn. Gives good beard. Rumored to dabble in some serious nightwork himself when the pay is right.
“Same hair,” Matt says, “same head.” Matt says this every time Henry sits at his chair. Henry is supposedly a doppelgänger of someone Matt knew in Kazakhstan, a fellow prisoner at the complex where Matt did four years. Same hair, same head …
“I don’t like it,” Henry told Emil. A couple of weeks after the opening where they first met, they were at another gallery, sharing another joint in an overlit stairwell. “A copy of me out there,” Henry said. “What if he’s living me better?”
“That’s not even the question.” Emil tapped his big nose, his crooked mouth always on the edge of laughter. “What if you’re the copy?”
Henry leaves the barbershop with a snip and beard job he wants Emil to see. Today after the big carry, he thinks. I’ll buy him a round after he finishes the job.
Second investment in his best self: a visit to Pauper’s Palette, the art-supply store on Myrtle Avenue. Henry already has plenty of supplies, but Emil told him the store is “going gallery.” The second floor was being refitted for wine-and-buy evenings. “They’re going to put up local art,” Emil said. “Might as well be yours.”
“I don’t know, man,” Henry said. Echoing Emil’s words and phrases; catching himself, but unable to stop. “Do I have art?” His recent sketches and paintings resemble Emil’s, or works by artists Emil has introduced him to. Henry’s money, on the other hand, is never derivative. Maybe if he spends big here today, at Pauper’s Palette, it could give his art—if that’s what he’s making—a snowball’s chance. He spends with purpose. A new easel, new brushes, new 2B pencils—all Emil’s brands. Oops, forgot this, whoops, forgot that—back and back to the checkout line. At last he makes eye contact with the manager. She approaches. “Good to see you again,” she says, obviously mistaking him for someone else. Then she mentions artists as though they’re discussing mutual family, and he is immediately out of his depth. He nods knowingly, smiles hopelessly, when she jokes about “Cecily Brown’s scather at the Maccarone.” He’s never heard of Cecily Brown, never heard of the Maccarone, can’t imagine what scather might mean. But he nods and nods, and his desperation is hideous. She sees through him—he knows this. And what was he thinking, coming here? He set to invest a thousand dollars in himself as an artist, but here he is—at the fucking art store—hustling.
* * *
At the Thirsty Bear the walls are covered with native Bushwick art, and the most prominent of these is Emil’s mural in progress. In a corner of the mural is an angry face framed by crude, bright-purple tentacles. Tentacles are a signature detail for Emil, and the whole design here, Henry intuits, is a kind of tribute to Kehinde Wiley, the artist Emil apprenticed under a few years ago.
Kehinde Wiley—Henry flushes. He glances around as if afraid someone overheard his thoughts. Before Emil, Henry had never heard of Kehinde Wiley. Now Henry name-drops the artist at every bar in Bushwick, and he knows he’s doing it, and he can’t stop.
Henry orders a beer, Belgian and fruity. “Breakfast of champions,” the bartender says. Henry knows her. Some months ago they had a long weekend, though since then they’ve been just awkward-friendly. “New ink?” she asks, indicating his arm. His honey badger tattoo.
“New in two thousand ten,” he says.
“Well, I’ve never seen you with the lights on.”
Flirting for tips, everyone a hustler. He puts a twenty on the bar.
It’s a little after eleven o’clock. The haddock and chips he orders take ten minutes, and just when he’s squeezing a lemon wedge over the fish, his phone beeps. The bartender gives him a respectful nod and moves to the farthest register. He’s told her nothing of the family business, but word, it seems, gets around.
The beep, disappointingly, is just an alarm Henry programmed himself. Emil should’ve checked in by now. Should’ve gotten the bag to Cha-Ching Money Services, should’ve put through the first of his money orders. But Emil’s not bothering with protocol, it seems. Something small and mean inside Henry clenches up. This isn’t the first time Emil’s been late. Apparently Henry is someone who can be left waiting. Be forgotten.
The haddock tastes old and wet. He pushes his plate forward. Gives the bartender the nod. More cash on the bar, he stands. A trip to the bathroom, a face splash. Then he’s heading for the exit and can almost hear his uncle’s voice.
I told you so.
“Forget likable,” Uncle Shecky had said. “What you want is usable.” This was back in the winter, when Shecky was readying Henry to take over the runners. “You’re hiring someone who picks up and drops off. Right place, right time, with the right stuff—and all of it. They’re employees, not friends.” Maybe he was right, Henry at last acknowledges. Maybe he shouldn’t have given today’s job to Emil.
Henry loves his uncle. And fucking hates him for being right.
He texts Emil’s drop phone. Silence. Troubled, Henry finds himself taking his uncle’s perspective. Discovering in it a second layer of wisdom.
A runner must be dependable,
but they should also be expendable.
Running cash is easy—pick up, drop off—but easy isn’t the same as safe. Henry considers the size of today’s first heavy, a quarter million in dirty bills, and understands fully, for the first time, how it invites disaster. A bold runner will take off, while the gentle runner will be taken out.
He checks his phone yet again. Nothing. Where the fuck? Idiot, he thinks at Emil—just follow the fucking rules.
One foot out the door, Henry pauses. Turns. Takes a last look at Emil’s unfinished mural. The face encircled by tentacles seems anything but whimsical now, and Henry walks off feeling like he’s tossed his friend to all the demons of Bushwick.
He stops at Molasses Books, the best place in the neighborhood for art books. One hundred and eighty dollars from the self-investment fund vanishes. He also picks out something for Kerasha, takes all his new purchases home, then heads over to Maria Hernandez Park, where another $125 gets him a bag of quality kush. He makes sure to set aside a hundred for Lipz, something to tide her over until he works things out with Uncle Shecky. To show some appreciation for a friend who, for all her faults, notwithstanding her history of murder, has never ghosted him.
Minutes pass, hours. At three o’clock Emil still hasn’t checked in. Henry stops pretending everything’s going to fix itself. He goes home.
A new drop phone from the drawer. A walk around the neighborhood until he finds an unsecured Wi-Fi. He logs in to a throwaway WhatsApp account, which he uses to call—you’re welcome, Uncle Shecky—Starr, his friend at the precinct.
“I can’t talk,” she says. This is how many of their conversations begin: Starr is often mid-emergency.
“Just a quickie,” Henry says.
“No, really. The desk sergeant looks pissed. She’s walking over. Oh God!”
Henry usually enjoys his conversations with Starr, whose life, by her own retelling, can sound like a grand, blundering farce. But right now he needs an answer.
“Yes or no,” Henry says. “Anyone get dropped today?”
“This is Brooklyn, Henry. Someone’s always getting—”
“Any bodies?”
“No, but—”
Henry wants details, but he hears someone—the pissed desk sergeant, no doubt—telling Starr to “put down the phone. Are you working here, or are you getting fired?”
An unexpected turn of events: he asks Starr out to dinner.
Early evening, no message from Emil. Henry feels seasick. He regrets the mixture of alcohol and caffeine in his blood, as well as the line of Ritalin he snorted in his room. He can’t even think about eating, but here he is at Alan’s Happy Falafel. On the table: a basket of pita, bowls of hummus and baba ghanoush. Across it: Starr Richardson. Starr is an adorkable, voluptuous woman who has no idea how sexy she is. He’s painted Starr more than once, and from time to time he thinks about how much fun the two of them might have together. Without clothes. Neither has initiated anything, though, and Henry’s pretty sure it has something to do with her cat. Her commitment to that animal is formidable.
Also on the table: a strawberry milkshake, a coffee for Henry, a plate of fries between them. Next to the fries: The Accidental Alchemist. Starr was so grateful when he handed it to her, he almost regrets having taken out the money.
Another regret: still nothing from Emil.
“So Banana needs another biopsy,” Starr says, “which costs like two-fifty.” Banana is the cat. “And the vet lets me pay in installments, but I already owe her…”
“Sorry,” Henry says, maybe ten minutes into this story. “I need…”
Air. He steps outside, takes out his phone.
Purple sky, humid and hazy. The smell of weed. A muscle car on oversize wheels, a muscle man at the wheel, the stereo an eruption—amazingly—of smooth jazz. The muscle man scans the streets, begging to be challenged. Henry turns away. Pockets the phone, walks a block and a half, then pauses. Before him is an alley that passes between two brownstones and leads to the back lot of Alan’s Happy Falafel. Henry pictures Emil arriving here for his pickup. Pictures him passing between these brownstones, coming up on the garbage cans, the recycling bins. Scanning the windows, the fire escapes, the rooftops, as he was trained to. As Henry is doing now.
Something went wrong, he thinks. Something bad happened here. And maybe it’s because Henry already has doubles on his mind (same head, same hair), but even fear today has a second self. Did something bad happen to Emil, a wicked voice asks him, or did something bad happen because of him?
Henry empties the recycling bins. Empties the garbage cans, just in case. No money, no runner, a silent phone, no messages. Henry stomps a can half-flat. Hurls a metal lid against a wall—no, misses—cracks a window. A scream. It’s not Emil’s, of course, but to Henry it sounds like a late echo.
Back at the halal diner, Starr holds up a bit of baklava. “I saved you a piece,” she says, her fingers honey-wet.
“I need your help,” he says.
“You okay, Henry?”
He draws in a slow breath. “I can’t find my friend.”
Starr lets out a noise. Henry feels himself on the brink of tears, but he clenches his fists. He can’t melt. He needs to know where his friend is, needs to know if … the money …
If Emil took the money and ran.
Fuuuck. If only there were something he could do. To not know like this. Frozen, with movement possible, no action … He tightens his fists till they’re shaking and then gets a text from Lipz:
Tiger back from aunt’s. Whupping ass tonight. You in?
Henry feels the rush coming on. Finally, fucking finally, here’s something he can do.
chapter 10
Emil smirks, remembering Henry’s Super Important Rules.
Don’t open it, don’t weigh it, don’t hold it up to the light.
Christ, Henry takes himself seriously. On the day of his murder, Emil gives the bag a good ass-grab. Hey, Henry, how’d you like that? Imani wouldn’t like this, Emil taunting and acting lewd. She’d be jealous—yes, even of this bag. So why not go all the way? He could cut a hole in the bag and make love to the money—now that would make for a high-concept video game. Money Ba(n)g, Imani could call it, and the challenge is to make love to as many dollar bills as you can before the clock runs out.
Running cash. Seemed such scary, serious work the first time. Now he has his fun with it.
Emil stops at a bodega. Doesn’t buy anything at first, just studies the candy racks. Revels in the over-bright colors, the hideous contrasts, every wrapper a study in power clash. A packet of Skittles in his pocket, he heads back into the heat. Climbs the steps to the aboveground platform of the M train. Garbage on the tracks, food bags and hats, magazines and paper cups—everything here is filthy and shapeless. Emil has no use for it. Behind the benches, though, movie posters are mounted on the corrugated sheet metal. Imani would know the actors. The video games she works on are cerebral and edgy, but her taste in movies is straight Hollywood. More than once he’s snuck up on the house, slipped into their second-floor apartment, heard the big orchestra swell, and peeked in to see her crying over her laptop. Her face electric blue in the monitor light.
The train comes in. The rails shake and whine, then the dirty machine lumbers up, brakes squealing. He catches himself swinging the bag. Realizes he’s aroused just thinking about Imani. At ease, soldier, he tells himself. Make your stopover, then finish the drop, then you can have your fun.
On the train he holds the bag by its neck with one hand and hugs it with the other. Henry would not be happy with him: train travel is against the rules.
“Blues and wolves are everywhere,” Henry had said during training, “but they’re not the only danger.”
“Cameras?”
“Friends.”
But you’re trusting me, he thinks affectionately now.
“You take the train four times a day for a month,” Henry had continued, “and you’ll never run into anyone. But the on
e time you’ve got a bag, it’s your fucking life reunion. Your fourth-grade homeroom teacher. Every ex and her sister. Some old roommate, some aunt you thought was dead—when you’re carrying the bag, they’re all on your train.”
“They’ll ask about the bag.”
“They’ll fuck your brain. They’ll make you self-conscious. You’ll act suspicious. You’ll think they’re suspicious, and that’s the shit part of working street,” Henry said. Working street—Henry was obviously in one of his grizzled, seen-it-all gangster moods. Jim Beam sometimes does that to him. “It cracks your capacity for trust.” Emil likes the accidental poetry that sometimes comes out of Henry. Loves the self-conscious, half-apologetic glances that follow. Imani would adore Henry, Emil knows, but he’s been careful to keep the two from meeting. His lives are already entangled enough.
The train doors open, the train doors close. A concept for a new work explodes into life. Henry angular, Henry muscular, Henry a racehorse of a young man. He faces away from an anvil, head in his hands. Farrier tools scattered around his feet. All blacks and grays and browns, but from Henry’s eyes, the whites shine. The work could be faux woodcut, Lynd Ward minus the class-struggle allegory, Raymond Pettibon without those fucking text bubbles.
The work turns in his mind, and he’s calm until he’s jostled. Passengers mass at the doors, which close on someone’s rolling suitcase.
Where am I?
A glance at the window plucks him from his vision. This is the Myrtle Avenue stop. Across the platform is the Z train, an express that will shave five minutes off his stopover. If he can make it.