Brainquake (15 page)

“Paul. Trouble.”

“Can you come here?”

“Yes.”

He put the phone down and said, “She’ll come through.”

He placed his gun on the table.

“Use this to scare them off till I get back with the money.”

Paul ran out.

* * *

10:20
P.M.
the Boss was boiling with anger.

“Did you sleep with her?”

“Yes.”

“In the sack, hard-ons talk.”

“She thinks I’m a taxi driver.”

“Hard-ons trust any pussy.”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Hard-ons name names.”

She crossed the room, picked up an empty bag, returned, opened the bag, began to place packages of cash in it. But not cash for him, not cash to save Michelle’s life.

He scribbled on a scrap of paper where she lived. “You’ve got to lend me the ten grand. I’ll pay it back. Work it off. I promise.”

It was a strain for him to get so many words out.

“If you pay, she’s hooked. Next week the same threat for another ten grand. It’ll go on till they bleed you dry. Forget them. I was going to phone you in the morning, but might as well make this drop now. It’s in Philadelphia. Leave now, you beat the traffic.”

“Send someone to take care of them. They’re coming back. Have someone waiting outside. One phone call from you, they’re gone.”

“Hits are not in my department.”

“You’re the Boss!”

“Every boss has got a boss.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

“Use my can. Vomit her out of your system. Anybody who married Frankie Troy’s got to be a whore.”

“She’s got a baby.”

“Lots of whores are mothers.”

“She’s not a whore.”

“If you see her again, I stop covering for you. Understand?”

There was a voice inside her crying,
Why are you being so hard on him when you were so understanding with Zookie?
But she knew the answer. First of all, Zookie needed the money for his sick daughter. But more than that, Zookie could take care of himself. Wouldn’t let some manipulative little twat twist him around her little finger. Paul…

She saw Barney’s eyes silently begging her to take care of his son, protect him.

Her voice softened. “You’ll live, she’ll live. They’ll bleed her for whatever cash she has, but they won’t kill her. Hell, she probably has the whole twenty under the bed, was just seeing if she could get you to eat it instead.” The Boss gave him a key. “Gray roadster parked in front. Hyped to 120 mph.” She wrote a number on a slip of paper. “Memorize this phone number, then tear it up. Pick up that
Time
magazine.”

Paul did.

“The face on that cover is Mr. Railey. Burn his face and his name in your head. When you get to Philadelphia, call that number. Railey will answer the phone. He’ll tell you when and where to meet him. Deliver the mail only to Railey. Understand?”

Paul nodded. She closed the bag, gave it to him.

“I’ll contact Railey, tell him you’re on the way.”

* * *

11
P.M.
Paul turned off the highway into the gas station, parked near the phone booth, opened the bag, opened each envelope, counted the money, closed the bag, stared at nothing. Beads of sweat. His face a cipher. He put the bag on the floorboard, got out of the roadster, walked seven steps into the phone booth, dialed, his eyes on the roadster.

“Hello,” the Boss said.

“I opened the bag.”

“Deliver the mail, Paul.”

“They’ve got to be hit at midnight. In the street. Not in her apartment. When news says they’re dead, I make the Railey drop.”

“Paul—
please
make the delivery.”

“No hit…you’re out ten million.”

He hung up, dialed Michelle.

“Paul! Where are you?”

“Highway.”

“I can’t face them alone!”

“I phoned the Boss. She doesn’t want to lose the ten million I’ve got in my bag. Those brothers’ll die at midnight. But don’t wait there for them—you should get out now. Meet me in back. Leaving now to pick you up.”

It was the longest speech of his life.

* * *

11:00
P.M.
the Boss was still sitting like a marble statue, staring at the red phone. The cat jumped on her lap. The Boss picked up the phone, dialed, knowing she was killing Paul.

“Hello.” Max’s voice seemed so far away.

The Boss hung up. She couldn’t kill Barney’s son.

* * *

11:40
P.M.
Michelle was waiting in the shadows by the rear entrance to her building. The baby in her arms was asleep. The blue bag dangled from Michelle’s wrist. She shifted her shoulderstrap purse away from the baby’s face, heard the honking.

The gray roadster whipped round the corner, stopped in front of her. Paul hopped out, helped her and the baby into the passenger seat. For ten minutes Paul kept his eyes glued to the road and the speed down to 40 mph, stopping at all red lights. Then Michelle spoke.

“Right after you phoned, one of them came back. Al. He didn’t want to wait for Eddie. He got rough.”

She felt Paul turning his head to look at her. She turned to face him. In the light of a passing streetlamp he saw her bruised face, the blood running down from her mouth.

“He pushed me around, said if I didn’t lay him before Eddie got there, he’d beat up on the baby.”

“What did you do?”

“I shot him. Dead.”

“You left the body
there
?”

“What else could I do?”

“Cops’ll be after you!”

He made an abrupt U-turn into approaching headlights. She instinctively pressed the baby closer as she slammed against the door. Paul steered between two trucks, raced back to her apartment, missed blinding lights charging at him, lunged past more trucks.

Michelle saw headlights filling the window, shut her eyes, swallowed diesel stench, kept her eyes shut.

Paul kept weaving out of the path of approaching headlights, darting in, darting out. Behind them, above the din of trucks, they heard a siren. In his rear-view mirror, he spotted the police car’s blinking blue light coming at him like a comet.

Paul swerved between two trucks as the police car’s deafening siren screamed past him. The screaming got weaker. Michelle opened her eyes. Paul reached the cross street, turned into it against oncoming traffic, stopped short, dousing his lights automatically.

Halfway down the block, they saw blinking lights of police cars and ambulance in front of Michelle’s apartment building. Paul made another U-turn, drove off. His red lights came on, then turned the corner.

The tunnel between Al’s lower teeth at closest focus was a cutaneous crypt. His tongue drooped down a corner of his mouth through red lava. Fingernail scratches were red trenches in a Sahara wadi. The ceiling bulb reflecting in his frozen eyes was elliptical Daliism. Taken by the police photographer for his personal collection, the photos would eventually win acclaim when he published them in an art book selling for fifty dollars a copy.

He returned to the mundane official coverage of Al sprawled on the floor littered with red roses and pieces of broken vase. It was boring but the picture editor had a hard-on for that stuff. Picture editors had no taste. They had no imagination, nor artistry. Rarely would one of them understand the many things a corpse reflected other than a body on the floor, in a tub, in the street. They were antiquated. Like Norman Rockwell today.

To catch the impact of sudden death, it took art. Only an artist could make that impact memorable, breathe life into death. Take this body. It was so goddam corny the photographer wanted to gag. Not the slightest spark of anything original to it. He could write the whole story of it himself, in words of one syllable. The man, the girl. The want. She’s shy. He takes. She shoots. He’s dead. She runs. One day he would have his book, and it would haunt everyone who saw it, because all kinds of violent death caught a different picture of beauty, of nature that homicide created. This shit here? Was why newspapers were used for lining litterboxes.

The flashbulbs didn’t make Eddie blink. He ignored the man taking pictures of Al. He ignored another man dusting everything for prints. Even the overturned chair. Eddie was watching Zara’s high-heeled shoes advancing, avoiding the broken glassware and dishes and cups and the remnants of lamb chops.

Zara stopped in front of Eddie. A few feet away from her, the coroner’s physician was writing his report of just another murder in his tiny notebook.

Zara said, “You came in, you found Al dead on the floor like that. Is that what you said?”

“Yeah, just like that,” Eddie mumbled.

“You called the police right away.”

“No. I told you I examined him.” Eddie held his hands up. The fingers had streaks of blood on them. “He was stone dead.”

“So you called the police.”

“Yeah.”

“You touched nothing else here.”

“Nothing. What’re you grilling
me
for? I wouldn’t kill my own brother.”

“Brothers do. Cain and Abel.”

A cop brought Zara a plastic bag. She initialed the card attached to it, glanced at her watch, entered the time on the card. Eddie stared at Paul’s gun in the plastic bag. It left with the cop.

“What was Al doing here?”

“Trying to collect ten grand she owed us.”

“So she shot him.”

“Yeah.”

“If she shot him, don’t you think she’d’ve made sure his body wouldn’t be found here?”

“Who knows what was in her head? All I know, her gun was on the floor and she was gone with her baby. This is her joint. What’s the big grilling about? Instead of asking me questions, you should be out hunting down that bitch. That’s your job, Lieutenant.”

Zara moved away to make room as the technicians swept through. Eddie saw the two men carrying the big canvas sack put it on the floor next to Eddie and pull down the zipper the length of his brother’s body.

“How did she come to owe you ten grand?”

“We were partners with Frankie Troy in a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Poker.” Eddie watched them put Al into the canvas sack, shove one of his feet in deeper, and zip the sack closed. “We staked Frankie a few grand in a floating game.”

“Where was the game?”

Eddie watched his brother carried out in the sack.

“Frankie never said. He won twenty, he owed us ten. We couldn’t find the bastard.”

The others left. Only one cop remained.

“How do you know he won?”

“Phoned he’d pay.”

“How long’ve you known his widow?”

“We didn’t even know he was hitched until we nailed him in a cafeteria. Coupla days ago. Maybe three days ago.”

“Why didn’t you get the money then?”

“He was climbing the wall like he needed a fix. He gave her the twenty grand to get her back in bed. She ran off with their baby.”

“How did you get her address from him?”

“We leaned on him a little.”

“How little?”

“Al grabbed his balls.”

“So Frankie also gave you this phone number.”

“That’s right, and I called her.”

“No muscle talk?”

“Business call. She had our money. We wanted it.”

“How does Black Psycho fit in?”

“Al and me figured the Psycho arranged the game, paid the hotel, called the players.”

“You and Al did time for robbery.”

“We were innocent.”

“Where’d you get the money to stake Frankie?”

“Saved up.”

“How?”

“Why d’you need to know?”

“I need to.”

“Peddling phony watches in Central Park.”

“We’ll let that go. Did you ever contact the widow face to face?”

“Yeah, last night we dropped in to remind her.”

“What time last night?”

“About ten.”

“Was she alone?”

“In the sack with a guy named Paul Page.”

“She introduced you to him when they were in the sack.”

“I got his name from his driver’s license. He said he was a hack jockey. We smelled his stink right away.”

“What kind of stink?”

“He got her to stash the money. Frankie’s dead. The jockey got himself a muffin weighing twenty grand.”

“Did you threaten her?”

“No threat. We told her we’d come back in a day or two for our money and we left.”

“A day or two, then you come back the same night.”

“Less time for her to ditch the money.”

“Why didn’t she shoot you, too?”

“I told you! Al got here first.”

“To push her around a little before you showed up?”

“Hell, no. I got tied up in traffic.”

“Eddie, you got free board and bed in the psych ward for five weeks last year.”

“I was using. I’m clean now.”

“Maybe you got back on it. Maybe rock’s got you roller skating on the ceiling fast enough to rig that gun in the carriage.”

“She rigged it! She wanted Frankie dead so she could keep all the twenty grand.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Eddie. She was next to Frankie. A hair apart. Your bullet could’ve hit either one. You figured the survivor would be scared shitless and pay off.”

“Bullshit, Lieutenant!”

“You’re sweating.”

“You’d sweat if a badge tried to nail a phony on you.”

“You rigged the bomb, Eddie. You made up this Black Psycho.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“To make us comb New York for him.”

Eddie jumped up.

“Maybe Al pushed her around a little and she raked his face a little, but that bitch was alone with my brother and he never carried a gun. She shot him point blank in the face, and then she lost her shit and dropped the gun and grabbed her baby and ran off with twenty grand. She’s a killer and you know it! And if you badges don’t nail her
I’ll
nail her, and you can haul me off her bloody corpse and I’ll be happy to face the judge!”

Late news volume had been lowered. Window shade had been pulled down. Lowered voices were reporting news. In the faint light coming from behind the open bathroom door, the baby was sleeping in the middle of the motel room’s double bed. On the baby’s left, the blue diaper bag. On the wall, a sketch of a 17th-century farm captioned
PETER STUYVESANT’S FARM (THE BOWERY)
.