Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  Lastly, the stranger pointed to the wound on his head, passed an open hand down the front of his face, gave her a blank stare. He flattened his hand, made a chopping motion away from his chest.

  Nadia understood fully. The stranger was telling her what she already knew. That the head injury had caused him to forget. That he had no memory of who he was or what had happened to him.

  In and of itself, that information was insignificant. She and Griggor had already discerned that the tall stranger was suffering from amnesia. The importance of the morning’s development was that her gift had come out of his catatonic state. He was interacting. Expressing himself. Communicating the only way he could.

  Nadia was anxious to share the news with Griggor.

  When the old Romanian arrived that evening, Nadia met him with more enthusiasm than she’d shown since before the stranger arrived.

  “Ewan is much better today!” she declared with a gleam of excitement in her eyes. “He’s making eye contact. He’s interacting. He tried to speak, Griggor!”

  She hadn’t told Griggor about the stranger asking if Alex was safe on the Saturday evening after he’d woken up. At first, she’d thought it possible she’d imagined it, hadn’t wanted to sound foolish. If she told him now, Griggor would be upset with her for withholding the information.

  “So, he is not vanata (eggplant), after all, hey?”

  Nadia scowled at the old man’s mild kidding.

  “Anyway, he can’t. Speak, that is. Either he’s physically unable to or he can’t articulate his thoughts. I’m not sure which. Either way, it’s heart-wrenching, Griggor. He has no idea who he is, where he is or what happened to him. I feel so bad for him.”

  “Head injuries, they are tricky, hey? Injury is to left frontal lobe. Very close to what is Broca’s area. That is part of brain for controlling speech. Also some memory, hey?”

  “Yes, he’s obviously suffering from amnesia,” Nadia said impatiently. “What can we do?”

  “Amnesia, it is very interesting. Not so much for victim. I have done research. There is no treatment, Nadia. Nothing we can do.”

  Griggor knew Nadia didn’t want to hear what he had to say. That the stranger needed professional care. A neurologist. Otherwise, they could only wait. And hope.

  “This man, he is needing professional help, hey? I am sorry, Nadia, but I tell you this already. There is nothing we can do for him.”

  He was right. Nadia didn’t want to hear his comments. Ewan would come around. She was certain of that. He needed more time. Time to heal. Time to mend.

  “I must make examination.”

  As he had for the past week, the old Romanian found the stranger in the front room of Nadia’s apartment. Staring intently at the television. For the first time, the tall man turned away from the screen when the old man entered the room. Griggor placed his medical satchel on the floor just inside the door, greeted the stranger.

  “Alo, Ewan. How are we today, hey? Nadia tells me you do better, da?”

  The stranger had no idea who the old timer was. He didn’t think he was his father. An uncle, maybe? A neighbor?

  Griggor turned the television off, fumbled in his shirt pocket for his flashlight pen.

  “You do not mind if I make examination, hey?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Oh, scuzati-ma. Where are manners? I am Griggor. You do not remember me?”

  Despite what Nadia had told him, Griggor wasn’t expecting a response to any of his questions. He was pleasantly surprised when the tall man moved his head slowly from side to side.

  “Ah! So, you are hearing me, hey, Ewan? Good. Good. Also you understand questions, hey? Very good. Can you speak?”

  Again, the stranger moved his head slightly from side to side.

  “Okay. I am doctor. You are patient. I would like to examine please. Just move head da or nu for answers, hey? Up, down. Side to side. Da?”

  The stranger wondered about the old man’s accent. He thought it sounded European. Possibly Hungarian. Or Polish.

  Griggor smiled amiably as he shined his flashlight in the stranger’s eyes, got the proper response as the pupils dilated.

  “Do you feel nauseous? Vomitat?” he asked, routinely. “Does cap…head…does it hurt? Do you feel ill?”

  The stranger moved his head ever so slightly in answer to each of the old man’s questions.

  “Nu? Is good then, hey? Now, follow finger, please.”

  He held a finger directly in front of the stranger’s face, moved it right, then left.

  “Head still, hey? Just follow with eyes.”

  The stranger followed the finger, turning his head only slightly to do so.

  “Very good.”

  He checked the stranger’s wound.

  “Stitches, they are healed. I could remove today. If you do not object.”

  The stranger raised and lowered his shoulders almost unperceptively, which Griggor took as permission. He opened the medical satchel, removed a sterile cloth wrapped around surgical scissors and forceps.

  “Should not hurt more than to get brain operation, hey?” he said, chuckling at his own humor. “I kid you, of course.”

  The stranger sat passively as the old man doused the surgical scissors with alcohol, set to work. Griggor held the first stitch up in the forceps before dropping it onto the sterile cloth. He quickly removed two more.

  “First I stitch. Then I unstitch, hey?”

  He finished removing the sutures, placed his tools back into his medical satchel, snapped it shut, set it back on the floor near the door. He folded his arms over his chest, scrutinized the tall stranger.

  “So, you do not know who you are?”

  As he had before, the stranger responded with a slight movement of his head from side to side.

  “Do you know what happens to you?”

  Again the side-to-side head movement.

  “Do you know where you are? What day this is?”

  Another no, accompanied with a vacant, lost look of total bewilderment.

  If the tall man been involved with 9/11 or terrorists, as the Romanian suspected, he could be feigning amnesia. If that were true, however, he was doing a damn good job of it. Griggor was not easily fooled. This man’s confused state and memory loss seemed genuine.

  Could be he really can’t remember, Griggor conceded. Does not make him innocent.

  The stranger touched a hand to his head wound, looked at Griggor with the same questioning eyes he’d shown Nadia earlier.

  “You experience severe head trauma, my friend. We do not know how. Accident maybe. Perhaps you are mugged, hey? Now, body, it mends by self. Brain…how do I say this? It makes new connections, hey? Brain, many times, it re-wires by self when one area damages. Not always perfect, but better than nothing.”

  The tall stranger appeared to be listening. Griggor was pleased to see that his patient at least appeared to be aware of what was going on around him.

  “This…re-wire, it takes time, hey? No one can say how long. Every injury, every case, is different. There are no rules. No right. No wrong. For you, you lose ability to speak. I believe this maybe is temporary. It maybe comes back still today. Maybe tomorrow.

  “You also experience some memory loss. This is expected, hey? May be permanent, may be temporary. We do not control this.

  “Meantimes, there is nothing more we can do. We wait. We see how things go, hey?”

  The stranger was suffering from both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, which left him without the ability to either retrieve memories of previous incidents or to make any new memories. For him, each day was a new experience.

  While the tall man who was recovering in the care of Nadia and Griggor had no memories, his brother spent hours on The Pile remembering happier times. Recounting their youth.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 21

 

  “Wait. There’s two of you?”

  Aleks had run inside to grab a basketball, had
come out the front door of their house on Beverly to find Step with the brown-haired girl who’d just moved in across the street. She appeared to be about their age. Had a wholesome look. A flawless complexion. Hazel eyes. With a cheerful sparkle. A radiant smile that exposed a slight dimple in her left cheek.

  She looked from one boy to the other, shrugged indifferently. The fact that the tall boys were identical twins insignificant. Her club of new friends had just doubled its membership.

  “Hey. I’m Nikki. My family just moved in across the street.”

  She tipped her head toward the row houses on the opposite side of Beverly. Her voice conveying the same attitude all Brooklyn-born-and-bred teen-age girls paraded. An underlying toughness. A resolute confidence. A no-nonsense, “yeah-I-know-where-Brooklyn-at” brashness.

  “Hey. I’m Aleks. But everyone calls me ‘Bags.’”

  “Yeah? I hope that’s not because you travel so much.”

  The girl laughed at her own cleverness. Hers was a genuine, infectious laugh. Step nickered. Aleks was stunned silent for an instant. His deer-in-the-headlights moment lasting only a couple of seconds. He liked the girl immediately.

  “That’s good,” he admitted.

  He stooped, held a hand to his mouth, wiggling his fingers in his best Groucho Marx impression.

  “But I make the jokes around here,” he said, wagging his eyebrows.

  Nikki was amused. The rules of New Yorker conduct allowed only guarded enjoyment, however. Until this tall boy proved himself worthy of genuine respect.

  “I guess you’ve already met ‘Badger,’” Aleks remarked.

  “Step,” his twin brother muttered from under his hood.

  The name piqued the brown-haired girl’s curiosity.

  “Badger?”

  “Yeah. We call him ‘Badger’ because he’s so stubborn!”

  Aleks used the basketball to nudge Step’s hooded head. Step twisted around, swiped at the ball. Aleks pulled it back, out of his brother’s grasp.

  “Stubborn Badger,” he teased.

  Step stood, kept his head down but turned toward the brown-haired girl.

  “The badger is actually revered by American Indians. For its independence. Determination. Persistence.”

  He faced Aleks before finishing.

  “And fearlessness.”

  “Yeah. They’re stubborn!” Aleks continued his ribbing. “We should call you ‘Mule.’”

  Analytical as ever, Step delivered his comeback in a deliberate manner.

  “That doesn’t make any sense, genius. ‘Mule’ doesn’t work with our last name. That would be like calling you Ox...”

  He paused for dramatic effect. Aleks pinched the basketball between an elbow and ribs, threw his hands up inquisitively.

  “Because?”

  “You’re dumb as one!”

  Nikki snorted out a laugh. Aleks didn’t think it was so funny when he was the butt of the joke.

  “Yeah, well. You’ll always be Number Two, dip shit,” he growled. “Get it? Number Two? Dip shit?”

  Nikki observed the confrontation with mild amusement. She was used to seeing guys arguing, demeaning each other, even fighting, to impress a girl. Establishing the “peckering” order, her early-bloomer, over-sexed Puerto Rican friend, Josie, liked to say. Nikki found it uncomfortable, however, to have two brothers she’d just met squabbling to win her over. She was just looking to make friends in her new neighborhood.

  “Must be cool to be twins,” she remarked. “All I have is my brother, Matt. And he’s a moron.”

  Still grousing, Step mumbled.

  “Yeah. I know how that goes.”

  He sat back down on the stoop. His head tucked, his hands in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. Aleks could tell his brother was falling into one of his foul moods. He hated Step’s funks. Chalked his brother’s moodiness up to that mysterious teenage plague. Puberty. He knew how to bring Step around. His exaggerated cockney accent, which Step found so childishly annoying, though amusing, usually put a smile on his moody twin’s face.

  “I say, mate. Ef we uz su’er ’eroes, we’d be Ba’man an’ Raw-bin, we would.”

  Step kept his hands in his pockets, his head tucked.

  “’E’s a bi’ unner thuh weh-thuh, ’e is,” Aleks said to Nikki, who thought the accent was hilarious. “We’d be thuh Green ’ornet an’…”

  He paused to allow Step to fill in the blank. When Step didn’t respond, Aleks nudged him.

  “Ka’o, ma’ey. Thuh Green ’ornet an’ Ka’o. Come on now.”

  Nikki giggled silently into the hand she’d covered her mouth with. It was almost imperceptible, but the slightest trace of a smile snuck across Step’s lips.

  “’Ow’s abou’ ef we uz dee-teh’ives, mate? We’d be Sherlock ’olmes an’ Doctor…?”

  Again Aleks paused, hoping Step would fill in the blank.

  “Watson, by Jove!” Aleks exclaimed. “We’d be Frank an’ Joe ’ardy, we would. I say, old man, we’d be Star-sky an’ ’utch!”

  Nikki couldn’t help herself. She snorted as she attempted to stifle a laugh. Which seemed to give Step the courage to weigh in, his cockney accent sounding more like a Boston Southie.

  “We’d be Sahjun’ Joe Frahday an’ Offissah Bill Gahnnon.”

  He spoke without looking up. His voice broadcast from his hooded head.

  Behind Step’s sweat-shirted back, Aleks gawked with amused bewilderment. He could never understand why Step just never got it. Aleks had purposely selected the names Holmes, Hardy and Hutch so he could drop each “h.” Like a true East Londoner. Step had chosen Sargeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon. Not an “h” to be found. He’d also pronounced their names using a Boston accent.

  Step looked up, anticipating Aleks’s and Nikki’s praise. Nikki waited for Aleks’s reaction. Aleks always found Step’s incongruity hilarious.

  “I thin’ ’e’s gah’ ih!” he lied, laughing loudly.

  “By Jove, Ah’ve gaht it!” Step replied in his Boston accent.

  Nikki burst out laughing. Satisfied he’d made the brown-haired girl laugh, Step joined in.

  The three teens didn’t realize it at the time, but that dialogue marked the beginning of a relationship that would last through four years of high school.

  Aleks, Step and Nikki coasted through those high school years as though they were triplets. They went everywhere together. Movies. Korner’s. School sporting events. Dances. They learned to drive together. To drink together. They even attended their junior and senior proms as a trio.

  Through it all, they remained “just friends.” Three teens who enjoyed one another’s company. If either of the boys had romantic feelings or intentions for Nikki, they were repressed. Sports kept them preoccupied. Basketball that winter, when they made the varsity team. Soccer in the spring. Any physical contact between either of them and the brown-haired girl was limited to playful nudges. Innocent snuggling. Friendly hugs.

  They spent a glorious summer together after their freshman year when Nikki introduced them to beach volleyball. Only fifteen years old, a growth spurt had pushed the twins over six feet. With their height advantage and instinctive athletic ability, they were naturals at the game, instantly adept at spiking. Honing their skills on the beaches of Brooklyn that summer, they became a formidable two-man tandem. The timing of their sets and spikes was precise, flawless, unrivalled.

  As sophomores, the Bagdasarian brothers helped put the Midwood boys’ volleyball program on the map. In their junior and senior years, they dominated the Public Schools Athletic League, as well as the state tournaments. Meanwhile, Nikki became a three-year starter on the girls’ varsity team.

  Eventually topping out at six-foot, five-and-a-half inches and six-foot, five inches, respectively, Aleks and Step also evolved into star basketball players, leading the Midwood Hornets to consecutive conference championships. They had the uncanny ability of knowing exactly what the other was going to do and when. A pick an
d roll. A back door cut. A give and go. They played as if they were mentally conjoined. Being brothers was almost an unfair advantage.

  Their high school ride over much too quickly, the trio graduated from Midwood High School with the rest of the Class of ’84. The three innocuous teens had metamorphosed into ambitious young adults. The boys were headed to NYU in the fall to pursue MBAs in finance. Nikki, meanwhile, unexpectedly moved to Phoenix, Arizona, with her parents. Where her electrician father had gotten a job stringing wire in the quickly-metropolizing desert.

  The brown-haired girl with whom the boys had shared their adolescence left with a tearful good-bye, but little regret. Happy to have avoided the usual Brooklyn entrapments. A teen-age pregnancy. An early marriage. A career in cosmetology or food service. All of the above.

  Knowing her invite to “look me up, if you’re ever in the area” would never be fulfilled, she kissed both Bagdasarian brothers on the lips, got in her parent’s car, never saw them again.

  With adulthood brewing like a summer storm on the horizon of their potential, the Bagdasarian brothers stepped into their future together.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 22

 

  Sunday, September 23: Day 12 post-9/11

  The day after the stranger had communicated with Nadia via his impromptu sign language began as every morning had since he’d awakened in the room in Nadia’s apartment. He had no memory of who he was or where he was. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there or how long he’d been there. He didn’t know what day it was. Or what year. He had no idea what had happened to his head.

  And he had no memory of his act of charades with Nadia the day before. Or of Griggor removing his stitches.

  He knew only that he didn’t know anything.

  The day progressed uneventfully. The stranger watched the news, slipped into frequent periods of semi-consciousness. If he dreamed, he retained no recollection of his reveries.

  Once the tall stranger had come into their lives, Griggor made certain to stop by Nadia’s every day. Though he didn’t ordinarily show up until evening, he was there for breakfast some days. Nadia would serve the old man something to eat, bring him up to speed on the day’s developments before he headed upstairs to see his patient.