The Straight Man - Roger L Simon (12 page)

I found him listed as apartment 9F on the building
register, but when I pressed the buzzer next to his name, there was
no answer. I pretended to fumble through the local throwaway paper
until a couple of women who resembled Aunt Sonya entered with
shopping bags. Giving them my best "I'm-no-mugger" smile
while mumbling something about the unspeakably high price of
sturgeon, I drifted in after them as they unlocked the lobby door.
Then I let them take their own elevator and rode up to the ninth
floor alone, emerging in a grimy, institution-green corridor, my feet
echoing off the worn marble floor. I had come a long way in my search
for Otis King.

I don't think I would have gotten any further had the
Satuloff family been spending that particular Wednesday evening in a
state of domestic tranquillity. But from the looks of things, the
Satuloff family didn't spend too many evenings in that state. Two
minutes after arriving on the ninth floor, I was standing by the
incinerator, studying the names on the doors and trying to decide
which one to knock on first, when Mrs. Satuloff and then Mr. Satuloff
came stomping in and out of their apartment, alternatively slamming
the door in the other's face as if this were their nightly ritual.
The Satuloff kids were visible across the living room, looking on
like spectators at a bullfight. It was ultimately Mrs. Satuloff, a
tall woman in a blue reindeer sweater and penny loafers, who came to
rest out in the corridor with the door finally, or semifinally, shut
behind her.

"One of those nights, huh?" I offered.

"You know the problem with men today," she
said. "They want you to be everything-wife, mother, wage earner,
support system, priest, rabbi, and mistress."

"It's their revenge for the women's liberation
movement."

"You're not kidding," she said. "My
first husband was so threatened by my working, I had to pretend I was
a housewife when we went to dinner parties. My second husband wants
me to earn more money, so I took two jobs and now he hates me. I
wonder what my third husband will be like."

"An ax murderer'?"

"
Sometimes I think it'd be better that way. At
least I'd know where I stood. You know what the problem is now? We're
all living in a sexual netherworld and nobody knows what the hell to
do. You ever talk to your average sixteen-year-old kid today? They
don't know if they're male, female, or kangaroo."
 

"I know what you mean. We got a guy right on
this hall named Jorge Mariposa."

"Oh, yeah, well, him. That's a different matter.
Nothing to do with sex whatsoever. Or not directly."

I didn't know what she meant, so I just nodded.

"I don't think we've met. I'm Alice Satuloff."

"I'm a cousin of the Freemans." I picked a
name off the nearest door.

"God, they're ancient. You deserve extra points
for coming around and spending time with them."

"I'm just an old-fashioned guy. What about this
Mariposa'? I saw him a couple of times. What does he do?"

"Well, I can't really say for sure. And I'm not
really into local gossip. You know, people who live in glass houses .
. ."

"I know what you mean. But every time I'm here,
he seems to be coming in the same time I'm going to work. Seven A.M."

She grinned. "That must be closing time at the
Club Los Cocos."

"The Club Los Cocos?"

"You must not be from around here."

"I'm not. I'm from, uh, Brooklyn Heights."

She looked at me strangely. "Don't you read New
York magazine? That new fast-lane place on Ninety-sixth and Columbus
where everybody's supposed to—"

Just then the door opened and her husband came out.

"I thought you were dying out here. Who's this?"

"The Freemans' cousin."

"Reilly," I said, pressing the elevator
button.

"Reilly? The Freemans have a cousin named
Reilly'?"

"Yeah. It is funny, isn't it?"

"They never mentioned having a cousin at all."

"He doesn't know about the Club Los Cocos."

"That's weird."

"Why's it weird? Not everybody on the Upper West
Side is a coke fiend. Some of us have healthier ways of dealing with
our depression, don't we?"

"Are you implying something, Alice?"

"I'm not implying anything. I'm just stating
what is obviously the case."

"What is obvious to you is not particularly
obvious to me."

"Oh, yeah? Well, why don't you tell that to the
guidance counselor at the Ethical Culture School who had to tell you
after fourteen years of family life that your own daughter . . ."

At that point I got in the elevator.

11

The Club Los Cocos was like a bad set from Miami
Vice, with mirrored peach glass walls and ten-foot-tall brushed
aluminum palm trees that looked like they were borrowed from some
department store window. All the men were dressed up in cream-colored
suits and white T-shirts like Don Johnson, and the ladies weren't
wearing much of anything at all. They were dancing to a frenetic
salsa band that was moving up and down at an irregular pace on an
elevated platform.

I surveyed the room, trying to choose the right
person to guide me to Mariposa, when the sight of someone who was
hard to miss made that search irrelevant: Otis himself was dancing by
one of the aluminum palm trees. He looked wired to the ceiling as his
feet spun around and his arms flailed in every direction doing some
whacked-out combination of the pachanga and the kazatsky with two
Puerto Rican girls and anyone else who cared to join in. With his
celebrity and his zaniness he was making the evening for about half
the people in the room as well as for several burly Los Cocos
bouncers in orange mesh tank tops who looked on from a
ramp
by the side of the bandstand.

I made my way over to him, edging my way through the
dancers, but he spotted me before I could get him. "Ah, it's
Brother Dick! Brother Big Dick! I heard you was lookin' for me ....
Stop the music, you spic, wop motherfuckers!" he shouted to the
band. "We gotta stop this salsa shit for just one second. C'mon
stop, José, Carlos, Luis, Miguel, or whatever your name is. Stop!"
They stopped. Everyone in the room turned and faced Otis, who was
walking toward me, his face dripping with sweat. He put his arm
around my shoulder, hanging on me in stoned weariness. "Everybody,"
he cried out, "this white boy done come all the way from Los
Angeles, California, to see me." He looked me straight in the
eyes. "Well, you seen me, now fuck off'"

"All right. I'll leave.'.' I made a move to go.

"
Hey, my man, just kiddin' you. Can't you take a
joke?"

Otis flashed a sweet, little-boy smile. "What
you wanna do, anyway? Carry me back to El Lay, make some people rich,
play 1980s Stepin' Fetchit for the moo-vee companies? Yes, massa.
Yes, massa. Lawdy, lawdy." He wiggled his hands like a Holy
Roller. "That's who I am, man—Stepin' Fetchit. Ain't no
difference 'cept I say motherfucker and talk about how big my dick
is. That's what white folks love nowadays, cursin' niggers. How you
think Eddie and Richard got so big? You don't see white dudes sayin'
shit like that. Not even Sylvester Slambo Stallone. Not even
motherfuckin' Belushi said that kind of shit 'less he was imitating
black people. You want to laugh at us more, motherfucker? You wanna
see me dance? You wanna see me tap? You wanna see me shuck and jive
and get so stoned I can't even stand up and my life is a tragedy you
write about in one of your books of motherfuckin' sociology I can't
even read 'cause I got dyslexia and that ain't all? You want that?"
He grabbed my lapels. "Well, then, laugh, motherfuckah, laugh!"
he screamed at the top of his lungs and then clutched his stomach,
doubling over in pain.

"You all right?"

"
Yeah, yeah, man, don't worry about it." He
tried to smile again, but he kept holding his stomach. "I just
got a little bit of an ulcer, I read backward, and I got a heart
murmur. Other than that I'm fine. And I gotta go to the bathroom,
man." Still doubled over, he started heading toward the back of
the club. Everybody was staring at him now and I could see the
bouncers moving in.

"It's okay," I yelled. "I'll take care
of him." And I pushed him through to the back, into the men's
room.

He locked it behind us. "Okay, man, where's the
blow'?"

"I don't have any."

"
C'mon, don't give me that bullshit. Every white
dude in El Lay looks like you does coke. And don't tell me you don't,
'cause then I know you're a liar and I ain't never gonna trust you."

"Yeah, I've done coke. But I wouldn't give you
any, Otis."

"
C'mon, man, don't be difficult. You gimme a
little toot, you tell all your buddies back home you did nose candy
with the famous Otis King. That make you one down white boy with a
lotta class. The presidents of two fuckin' movie studios was beggin'
me to do coke with them. Little Jewish boys just like you. One of
them had a picture of Martin Luther King on his office wall."

"I'm here to take you back to Malibu, Otis."

"
You wanna take me back to that fascist
motherfucker Bannister and you ain't gonna give me some coke? That's
no way to build a relationship. You got no sense of social etiquette,
my man."

"l thought you liked Bannister."

"Liked Bannister? I was playin' along with the
motherfucker. How'd you like to be locked in handcuffs half the day
while listening to some bullshit about your mother? Motherfucker
treats me like an infant and then expects me to be a grown-up. Hey,
man, don't worry about it. C'mon, please please please. Just one
little snort. When Kid Siena gets back, he'll pay you back double,
triple, give you one of them big, juicy white rocks just for
yourself, make you feel like your own Prudential Life Insurance
advertisement, know what I mean?"

Just then there was a sudden bam! and the bathroom
door flew open. The van driver was standing there, his hand buried
deep in his pigskin suede jacket right at the bulge of what I guessed
to be a .38.

"Who the fuck is that?" said Otis.

"Get outta here, nigger shit." He lifted
Otis by the shirt front and pitched him out the door. Then he reached
for the .38, but I didn't wait to see it. I ran straight at him,
ramming him into the side of the bathroom, the mirror collapsing to
the floor. Then I made an attempt to knee him in the groin, but he
was too strong for me. He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me
around, hurling me toward the toilet and pulling out his gun in one
motion. He raised it to eye level, about to blow me away, when I
heard shouting from the club. One of the Los Cocos bodyguards
appeared at the bathroom door, and the driver wheeled about instantly
and slammed him across the face with the butt of his gun, sending the
bodyguard flying back into the club on his knees like a splayed
turkey. People started screaming and running for their lives. Before
he could turn back to me, I held my breath and dove through the milk
glass bathroom window, no idea what was on the other side.

It proved to be a row of garbage cans, some of them
unfortunately without their tops. I bounced off them right where my
ribs had cracked, then rolled behind a few of the cans just as three
shots from an automatic went whistling past me. I didn't know whether
to run or pray or piss in my pants. I didn't do any of them but edged
farther behind the cans, pressed my body against the ground, and lay
as still as I could. The air was misting slightly and the pavement
was still damp from the rain. I heard the driver climbing out of the
window and then two solid thuds as he landed on the ground what
sounded like fifty feet away. I stuck my hand in the open garbage can
nearest me but couldn't find anything more helpful than some
left-over onion rings.

The driver began surveying the area, walking first
down the alley, then back in my direction, the soles of his feet
slapping the wet asphalt. I twisted silently onto my back and slid my
arm into the next garbage can. It felt damp and putrid, but I was in
no mood to be fastidious. I fumbled through what seemed like
yesterday's Caesar salad and then something mushy like
au
gratin
potatoes, when my hand hit hard wood.
A handle. I didn't know how long it was or what it was, but there was
no research time left. The man was within ten feet of me now. I
grabbed the handle, rolled to my right, jumped forward and swung,
smashing him across the nose. I could hear a sharp crack along his
bridge as he cried out and the gun went off, crumbling brick behind
me.

This was survival time. I kicked him straight in the
nuts and slammed him in the jaw again with the handle. He went flying
backward, then crumpled against the garbage can, blood flowing
rapidly from his nose, his head lolling forward. I slammed him one
more for security, dove for his gun, and grabbed it. It was a Walther
automatic. I stuffed it under my jacket; then I looked at my own
weapon. It was a plumber's plunger. I tossed that away and stooped
over the man, patting him down for identification. I found his
wallet, but not surprisingly there was nothing in it except about a
thousand dollars in cash. I stuck that back in his pocket, then
checked his neck and face for any identifying marks. There was
nothing remarkable, so I ripped open his shirt. A series of small
orderly burn scars ran across his muscular chest from his left
pectoral down to his belly button. I was no expert, but it sure
looked as if at some point in his life this sonofabitch had been
tortured.