Brainquake (13 page)

He heard the flute and silently shouted,
Not now!

The brainquake hit.
In pink he saw the Boss putting a gun into the baby’s mouth. Paul seized the wine bottle, jumped to his feet. Glasses and dishes fell to the floor. He threw the bottle at the Boss, narrowly missing the baby
.

The quake stopped. Gone was the flute. Gone was the color pink.

Michelle shouted, “Are you crazy?” She snatched up her baby, who was screaming.

Paul stared at the broken bottle on the floor.

“The Boss had a gun in the baby’s mouth…”

“What are you talking about? What boss? You just threw a fucking wine bottle at my baby!”

“Was protecting him—”

“You’re insane!”

His hands hung limp. Face dripping with sweat.

Michelle grabbed her blue bag, slung her purse over her shoulder, ran out with the baby. Paul followed her, caught up to her by the alley.

“I’m not crazy. I swear. It’s just…my brainquake. I see things…”

“You threw that bottle at my baby, you bastard!”

Paul tried to stop her. She cracked him hard across the face.

“I’m being treated for it,” Paul said, his voice entreating. It was the most emotion she’d ever heard in his voice. “Dr. Adson. Brain surgeon. Says he can help.”

She stopped, stared at him, still furious, still cradling her baby’s fragile skull with one hand. And yet—this was the man who’d saved his life. He wouldn’t deliberately hurt him, that made no sense. But a madman doesn’t need to make sense.

“You’re a goddam maniac. You should be locked up! I don’t understand how the city lets you drive a cab—give me one good reason I shouldn’t report you, get your license taken away!”

“Not really a cab driver,” Paul said.

“What?”

“Michelle…”

“Explain, goddam it.”

He felt himself twisting again, his heart wrung in an iron grip. To make her understand was suddenly the most important thing in his life.

“License is phony. They gave it to me. People I work for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not a cabbie, I’m a mailman. A bagman—”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“You know what that is?” He could see in her eyes that she did. She’d stepped back, several steps.

“No way,” she said. “Fuck you. You’re just a lunatic. I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.”

“Then you’re worse than Frankie was!”

He shook his head. “I’m no criminal.”

“The hell you’re not!”

“I do deliveries, that’s all.”

“And throw bottles at babies!”

“It’s in my blood,” Paul rasped. “My father had the same jackal in his brain. Dr. Adson said it’s hered…hereditary. Help me.”

“I don’t care what you are, and I don’t care why you are that way. I can’t have you near my son. You get cured, we can talk. Not until then.”

She strode off. He watched her until she disappeared on the path leading to the alley.

At 6:30
P.M.
, while Paul was delivering heroin profits to a drop at a Long Island estate and Cornelius Hampshire was delivering a speech to the media about the importance of stopping the heroin trade, Lieutenant Zara got what seemed like the first break in the case. It came from a dead dog and an informer, a black teenager who called herself Red and was usually dependable. The dog, Ringo, working with police, had sniffed out a $3 million cargo of dope on the dock. Drug smugglers put out a $25,000 contract on the dog. Red led Zara through hundreds of wrecked cars in the auto graveyard to where a man sat hunched on the hood of a Caddy convertible, gazing at a dead dog laid out on the busted steering wheel. Red darted away before he could see her. Watching Lieutenant Zara approach, the man lifted the dead dog up like a produce sack. Blood had dried around its gut hole.

“This is Ringo. Give me my twenty-five thousand.”

This man certainly looked like he could be a psycho. And he was black. But that wasn’t enough. Zara had to make sure he was the one she wanted.

“Not till I know when you rigged the gun and the bomb.”

“Gun…bomb…”

“Gun. Bomb.”

The man smiled. “The exact time?”

“As close to it as you can remember.”

“When I blew a kiss.”

“You blew a kiss to the carriage? To the victim…?”

“To Lincoln Clinic.”

Psych ward. Protective custody. “How long were you there?”

“Six months.”

He hurled the dog at Zara. She jumped out of the way.

“They let me go this morning,” the man said, “because I’m not sick anymore.”

* * *

Also at 6:30
P.M.
: the two men who had stared at Michelle in the park were in their apartment on West 47th Street. They were, in fact, brothers. They were also gutter grifters. Muggers. Got by doing whatever would turn a buck.

Eddie, 27, was tall, well-dressed, the better-looking example of their parents’ genetic blend. On him the black hair and black eyes and heavy jaw had a certain charm. On Al—29, stocky, slouching—they just looked dirty and deep-set and unshaven. Eddie wore a suit, even when it was hot out, even when he didn’t have someplace to be. At least a suit jacket. Al wore whatever the hell his closet had in it.

The door buzzed.

Eddie opened it. Michelle strode in, handed the baby to him, then lunged like a jaguar at Al, punching, kicking, going for his face with nails extended. Eddie put the baby in the corner of the couch, pulled Michelle off Al, slammed her down beside the baby. The baby began to cry.

“He could’ve blown up our son!” Michelle shouted.

Al whimpered through blood. “It was timed to blow when the cops checked the carriage for prints!”

“The paper said it was a reverse-action bomb, you goddam moron!”

“Who knows about reverse action? I paid twenty-five bucks for it. The guy was hot. He told me what to push and took off!”

Al limped into the bathroom, came out with a wet towel, rubbed his face, continuing to whimper. “You wanted the cops to look for a psycho. I did my job. They’re looking for a psycho.”

“Why did you say a black psycho, Michelle?” Eddie asked.

“The cop was black. It came out of my mouth!”

“All right, all right. Let’s drop it.”

“If I hadn’t been on Frankie’s left side, the bullet would’ve got
me
!” She let that sink in for Eddie.

Al yelled, “I
told
you to stay on your left all the time, you bitch!”

Eddie smacked his brother. “If that bomb had killed our baby, Al, I’d’ve sawed off your goddam head.”

Eddie poured three bourbons, passed out the drinks silently.

“Anyway, it worked,” said Eddie. He was the only one who drank. “Cops think a psycho did it. Forget the fuck-up. Michelle’s alive. The baby’s alive. Forget it.”

“Eddie,” Michelle said very quietly, “you know I was cornered. Why I had to get rid of Frankie. If he found out you knocked me up, he’d’ve killed both of us. You know that.”

“Course I know that.”

“But from now on, Eddie, I don’t want to see your brother anywhere near me
or
the baby, or I split
with
the baby. Do you understand me?” She said this last facing Al, though she was still talking to Eddie.

“We need Al to help pull it off.”

“No, Eddie. He goes or I do.”

“Ed—!” This from Al. Eddie patted the air in front of him, trying to keep things from boiling over.

“Why don’t you go in the other room?”

“Ed!”

“Just for a minute. Michelle and I need to talk a bit.”

“A minute’s not going to do it,” Michelle said.

“You gonna let her talk to me like that?”

“Just go.”

“Just
you
don’t forget,” Al said, punctuating his remark with a jabbing forefinger, “one phone call from me to the cops, bitch, and you go away for twenty to life.”

“Eddie?”

“Better believe, I’m
this
close to doing it.” Holding his fingers a millimeter apart, right under her nose. “You’ll fucking rot in jail, while Eddie and I sit on a beach in old Me-hee-ko.”

“Eddie!”

“Go. Al? Go.”

Al went. Fuming, but he went.

“I’m not joking. About him.”

“Calm down.”

“I don’t trust him. I never have, but now…”

“You know he can hear you.”

“Let him!”

“Michelle…”

“He’s a loose cannon! He’s dangerous, could get us both—”

Eddie put a hand on her arm. When she looked in his eyes, he shook his head minutely. His voice dropped to a whisper, not even a whisper, his lips just forming the outlines of the words: “I’ll handle it.” Out loud, changing the subject: “Who was the guy?”

“What guy?”

“With you, on the bench.”

She took a deep breath, let it out. The bench. Oh. “That’s Paul. He’s…he saw what happened, offered to help out. You know, samaritan.”

“Great. All we need. A good citizen.”

“Not so good,” Michelle said. “Told me he’s a bagman.”

“A bagman?” Eddie’s expression turned sour.

“What?”

“A bagman doesn’t tell strangers what he does.”

“He’s sick in the head,” said Michelle.

* * *

Paul drove back to the shack after his last drop, found a longstemmed red rose wrapped in cellophane at his door. In the shack under the light his shaky fingers had trouble pulling out the small white card.

Who am I to judge you?

9 A.M., your bench in the park.

Ivory Face

They kissed.

People passed. Mothers pushed carriages. Kids were playing. It seemed like an eternity. From the moment he ran through the park and spotted her on the bench near the bend in the path, he was sure it was a mirage. Then he sat down by her, and they instinctively kissed without touching each other.

When they stopped kissing on the lips, she kissed him on his eyes and nose and cheeks. She saw tears in his eyes. But the spark was in them too.

“You shouldn’t have told me, Paul.”

He knew what she meant, didn’t want to hear it, but she persisted.

“I’ll never let anyone know,” Michelle said. “But what if they found out?”

“The Boss is good. She’s my friend.”

“She?”

He nodded.

“How good a friend?”

“She sent me to the doctor.”

“She knows you’re sick?”

“Wants to help me.”

“Still. You can’t tell her about me.”

Paul opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.

“If you tell her, they’ll kill both of us. I don’t want my baby brought to an orphanage by a cop.”

“I won’t tell her.”

“It will be dangerous for you to see me again.”

“I have to.”

“I know,” Michelle said.

At that instant, Al and Eddie came around the bend. They walked over to the bench, stood in front of Paul and Michelle.

“I told you guys already,” said Michelle, “I’m not—”

“But you are, Mrs. Troy,” said Eddie. “You most certainly are. You are the widow of the late Frankie Troy, God rest his soul, and who else are we supposed to talk to about the money Frankie owed us?”

Paul stood.

“You can sit down again, big boy,” Eddie said, letting his suit jacket fall open and the gun at his hip show. “Unless you’d enjoy a 45-caliber enema.”

Michelle put a hand on Paul’s side, holding him back. To Eddie she said, “If you don’t stop harassing me, I’m sure that officer will be glad to discuss it with you…”

Al and Eddie looked in the direction she was nodding, saw the approaching cop. Eddie backed off, buttoned his jacket. “Get the money, Mrs. Troy.”

They walked off.

Paul started after them, but Michelle pulled him back to the bench.

“Forget it…they’re just con men, leeches…it’s because my picture was in the paper, they figure I’ll be an easy mark. They claim Frankie owed them and how would I know he didn’t.” She kissed his hands covering hers.

“I don’t know,” Paul said finally. “Maybe Frankie did owe money. They sounded serious.”

“Trust me, Paul.”

“I do,” he said. “But I don’t want you to be alone when they come again.”

“So come over.”

“Tonight?”

“Whenever you want to.”

“Dinner?”

“Bring some food. I’ll cook it.”

Paul glanced at his watch. “Dr. Adson.”

She squeezed his hand for luck, they kissed and he left.

Al and Eddie followed him to his parked taxi, watched him get behind the wheel and drive off.

“Given any thought to finding a new job?” said Dr. Adson.

Paul shook his head.

“Got to get your nerves settled and stop your brain from pressure it doesn’t need. Driving a cab in this city’s no way to do that.”

Just to be saying something, Paul said, “I’ll look.”

“I know a man running the cemetery north of Van Cortland Park. Plenty of quiet out there.”

Paul shook his head.

“Not for you? All right. Another friend of mine works in the Public Library, at 42nd and Fifth. Microfilm department. Quiet. No stress. No customers barking at you. I can ask him. If it’s no dice, I’ll ask around.”

Paul nodded. He knew Dr. Adson was trying to be helpful. But it wasn’t his job that caused his brainquake, any more than being a bookie had caused his father’s.

He looked across the desk at a row of X-rays of his brain resting on an illuminated stand.

“A few questions I didn’t ask the last time, just for the record. Okay?”

Paul nodded.

“At any time do you suffer poor balance?”

“Sometimes. Heights.”

“You feel unsteady in high places?”

Paul nodded.

“Elevators?”

Nodded.

“What about muscle stiffness?”

“No.”

“Tremor? The shakes?”

“In elevators.”

“Short-term memory problems?”

“No.”

“Speech problems you were born with, so let’s put that aside. You don’t have Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. I found some signs of degenerative brain disorder.” Dr. Adson leaned across the desk and, with the dead end of his cigar, tapped an X-ray on the stand. “But you don’t have a tumor.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve got to find the jackal, see what it looks like when it’s attacking the good cells.”