Small Apartments (10 page)

The short one at the door said something. The tall one turned his head towards the door then looked back at Tommy. Tommy stared into the void—the black circles at the centre of the thief’s violet eyes. He recognized the reflection of his own orange goatee and crooked teeth. Oh no! thought Tommy. Oh God!

THERE IS NO REASON
for it, thought Tommy as he lay dying behind the counter of the 2-4 store with two bullets in his chest. It doesn’t make any sense for me to die. There is just no reason for it.

Little fish might never eat the big fish, thought Tommy as the darkness settled in around him, but little fish are always eating other little fish.

“
W
ELL, WHAT’S THE VERDICT?”
Burt Walnut asked Fred McNally from a telephone booth in front of Lorenzo’s Pizza on West Delavan Avenue in Buffalo.

“You were right,” said Fred. “Olivetti was dead before that fire ever started. The coroner said he found no smoke in the lungs. By his best estimate, Olivetti was dead seven hours, maybe more, before he burned in that barn fire.”

Burt took a bite of his pepperoni pizza. “What else did he say?”

“He said Olivetti’s spinal cord was severed. He broke his neck at the base of his skull, or had it broken for him. Bob also found several broken teeth in his mouth and part of his tongue was bit clean through. His guess for cause of death was some sort of violent, blunt trauma delivered from beneath his chin.”

“Ouch,” said Burt. “He learned all that from that crispy critter?”

“Bob Fields is good at what he does,” said Fred. “We also got a call from the Buffalo PD on the victim’s missing Chevy pickup. They found it on the eastside, stripped down and burned out. The plates were gone, but the
VIN
number matches up. What’d ya find out on your trip to the ice cream parlour?”

“Truth be told, Fred, I think I got our guy right here. He’s a tenant in the property at 100 Garner. His name is Franklin Franklin, if you can buy that. I got it off his mail. I got witness reports from the other tenants of him acting suspicious yesterday—banging around his apartment in the morning, not wanting the neighbour to look inside his doorway, packing his car after ten o’clock—stuff like that. I snooped around his apartment a bit, too.”

“Aw geez, Burt,” groaned Fred.

“Relax, I put everything back where it was. Listen, this fella had a
T
-shirt and a pair of shorts that smelled like smoke and what was probably turpentine.”

“Where are you now?” asked Fred.

“Eatin’ my lunch in front of a pizza parlour about four blocks south of the building.”

“Go sit on the house in case he comes back. I’ll call Buffalo PD and have them meet you with a warrant,” said Fred. “What’s this fella look like?”

“White, fat, and dopey by all accounts.”

BURT DROVE WEST
on West Delavan and turned north onto Grant Street. He heard police sirens wailing from what sounded like all directions. In his rearview he saw two Buffalo Police cruisers closing in on his tailgate. He pulled off to the shoulder as they sped by, lights flashing, sirens screaming. Burt got back on the road and tuned his cb radio to the police band. He learned that the Open 24 Hours store on the corner of Grant and Forest had been robbed and that the twenty-four-year-old male clerk was
DOA
.

“Damn waste,” muttered Burt, shaking his head.

He parked a few houses down from 100 Garner on the opposite side of the street and killed the engine. He belched. That pizza wasn’t half bad, he thought. He turned the key so he could roll down the automatic window and light a cigarette. The city cops will be here soon, thought Burt. But with any luck, fatso will be here sooner.

F
RANKLIN HAD NOT
been inside a bowling alley in more than fifteen years. He used to complain when Bernard dragged him along with his girlfriends, then one day Bernard stopped asking. Franklin did not like the smell of bowling alleys. And he did not like the concept of communal shoes. “Buy your own shoes,” Bernard would say. Franklin just had no interest in the game.

There were four people on the lanes, two sets of couples. Elmwood Bowl boasted twenty-five lanes on its marquee. Bowling alleys are enormous buildings, thought Franklin. That’s probably why they are always so cold. He looked at the numbers on the first bank of lockers he came to, they were all in the 300s. He found locker 131 and turned the key. There was never a doubt.

Inside the locker was a Nike shoebox. He lifted the cover and found a hand-held tape recorder with a Post-It note on it that said, “Play me first,” an Altoids breath mint tin, and a folded, brown 9 x 12 catalogue envelope which contained something thick. The box was heavy. He tucked it under his arm and headed out to his car. As he passed the counter, he tossed the miniature key in front of the clerk.

The old clerk was reading the sports section of the Buffalo News. He looked at the key, looked at Franklin, and returned to reading.

Franklin sat behind the wheel of his Pontiac T1000 and placed the shoebox on the passenger seat. He removed the tape recorder and pressed “play.”

“… those crazy bastards, they would have bitten off their fingers if I didn’t stop them.” Franklin stopped the tape. Bernard had forgotten to rewind. He rewound to the beginning, pressed play, and set the tape recorder on the dashboard.

“Hello Franklin, it’s your brother Bernard. I’m dead! It’s OK though, I don’t mind. Good job finding the locker Franklin—ve-ry cle-ver. I always said you were special. Y’know Franklin, I’m glad I’m dead because now I can tell you my story.

“I’m a crook, Franklin—a big one. I embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Weiner and Fish. Over the years I just skimmed a little off the top of each client’s billable hours. I called it Bernard’s Share. It’s amazing how fast it added up. So why didn’t I take the money and run? Why not relocate to some tropical beach and surround myself with luscious strumpets? Because, Franklin, I love Buffalo! It’s a great town! Just kidding. About Buffalo, not the money.

“The truth is, Franklin, I really am nuts. I lived out my final days in a mental institution because I’m fucking crazy! I was in absolute Heaven. I loved the people. I loved the food. I loved the medication. I wouldn’t have been happier anywhere else in the world. It was like you and Switzerland, Franklin. Would anything make you happier than waking up every morning and knowing you are in Switzerland? The mental hospital was my Switzerland.

“Seems crazy, huh? It is! Don’t fool yourself, little brother, we are all crazy. Everybody has his crazy secrets. Most people spend all day, every day, hiding their crazy secret from the world. Open up the breath mint tin.”

Franklin popped open the Altoids breath mint tin. It was filled with fingernails of all sizes.

“How about that, little brother? There must be hundreds of them in there. I collected them from the other mental patients. I told them it was my hobby. My hobby! Those crazy bastards, they would have bitten off their fingers if I didn’t stop them.

“So, now we get to the good part, little brother. Open up that envelope. There is $10,000 in there and a passport with your picture in it. Give it a look. Looks just like you, only skinnier I bet. Happy Birthday Mr. Mario Cardone of Philadelphia, PA!”

Franklin could not believe his eyes. He fanned the bills out in front of him. He had never seen so many $100 bills. Franklin scanned the parking lot nervously to see if anyone was watching him.

“There is also a slip of paper in there with a series of letters and numbers written on it. Don’t lose it, Chief. That is your new Swiss bank account. If I remember correctly, the balance is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 95,000 bucks. That’s a pretty nice neighbourhood. Nicer than Ashland and I’ll bet a lot nicer than that dump on Garner. I wish there could be more for you, but I have been indulging my vices for the last few years. All of my vices. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the money when I was alive, little brother, but it’s more fun this way. Besides, you would have made me feel guilty about how much fun I was having. You always had a knack for bringing me down. I hope you were able to get by these last four years without much money. I, for one, had a blast. A blast!

“I’m dead now, Franklin. I’ve been dying for a while. They tell me I have a tumour in my brain the size of a racquetball. ‘Cancer of the noggin’ just like mom used to say. I knew I was dying long before they told me, before the headaches became too much for me to bear. A man knows when he’s dying.

“Listen to me Franklin—I mean, Mr. Cardone. Get in your car—do you still have that Pontiac?—and drive straight to the airport. Start a new life. Go to Switzerland, little brother. Pack your big horn and buy a one-way ticket. This is my parting gift to you. But listen to me Franklin. This is your brother Bernard speaking to you from the other side. Go to Switzerland and be happy if that’s what you want. But if I can give you one piece of advice to make your remaining time on Earth more livable, it’s this: always remember that it doesn’t matter if you live in a small apartment or a mansion on a hill. It doesn’t matter if you live in a mental institution or on a beach in St. Croix. It’s all in your mind, Franklin. Happiness is a state of mind. Bon voyage, little brother. Go find your happiness.”

The wheels in the tape turned mechanically for a few moments until the player clicked off. Franklin slouched back into a fog of disbelief. He looked into his own eyes staring back from his new passport photo: Cardone, Mario. Philadelphia, PA. He was Italian now, just like Mr. Olivetti. I have never owned a passport, he thought. It just never came up. Franklin’s eyes were raw and watery. A tear streaked down his face and he caught it on his cheek with a hundred-dollar bill.

He was exhausted. So much about the last two days was just too much to absorb. And now the idea of waking up tomorrow in Switzerland was enough to make him lose sphincter control. That sonofabitch Bernard, he thought. He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel then head-butted the centre of it. The horn blew.

“Yo! Blow it out your ass, fatso,” said a high school kid as he walked with his date through the parking lot past Franklin’s car.

It’s not safe to be sitting here, Franklin thought. He hustled everything back into the shoebox and started the engine. If I’m leaving tonight, thought Franklin, I have to do two things first: pack my alphorn, and let out my dog. He pulled out of the parking lot and headed south on Elmwood towards 100 Garner.

I
NSIDE FRANKLIN’S STUDIO
apartment at 100 Garner Street, Burt Walnut and three Buffalo Police officers sat waiting for Franklin’s return. It was dusk. The lights were off inside the apartment, but there was enough light coming through the window to see around the room. One officer sat on Franklin’s orange chair on the side of the table furthest from the window. The second officer sat by the door on a black metal folding chair he found leaning against the refrigerator—apparently intended for company. The third officer was reclined on one elbow on Franklin’s bed. Burt Walnut was seated on the couch, petting Franklin’s hound dog.