LOSERS LIVE LONGER (Hard Case Crime Book 59) Page 4

  I reached for the bedside phone, read the instructions for an outside line, dialed out, and then the number. It rang only twice before she picked up. Gone were the days when my upstairs neighbor slept until noon, Tigger had a bambina now who got mommy up early.

  I simply told her I’d locked myself out, not wanting to get into it over the phone. Would she buzz me in?

  “Good thing you did it this month, Payton, and not next.”

  At the end of the month, Tigger and Company were moving out—not just out of the building, but the city. I refused to think about it, I didn’t even answer her, I was in locked-down denial. It was like facing an upcoming operation, a scheduled amputation. With any luck, I’d get struck by lightning first and never have to face up to it.

  I told her I’d be there in a few minutes.

  I stared at the cigarette butts in the ashtray. A pack and a half worth of Marlboro Lights.

  I had another call to make, but put it off until later. Not a conversation I was looking forward to.

  About to get up, I noticed the tiny red message bulb on the phone was lit. I followed the instructions for retrieving the message and heard a woman’s slightly accented voice say: “All set for 11:30, Yaffa Cafe.”

  I checked the nightstand clock. Quarter to eleven.

  I closed Owl’s briefcase and took it with me.

  At the hotel room door, I stopped for one last look around, feeling like I was forgetting something. My eyes went to the rumpled bedspread. Nothing was on it.

  The newspaper I’d tossed there was gone. She must’ve taken it with her. Not that that had to mean anything. If she’d taken the gun, she would’ve needed something to carry it out in.

  I was just puzzling over it when the bedside phone rang and I nearly jumped out of my borrowed socks.

  I went over, picked up, said hello.

  “Michael?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “May we speak to her?”

  We? Her?

  I said, “Ah, she just stepped out.”

  “We have that number for her.” She sounded official.

  “Oh, I can take it.”

  “No. Have her come by or call us here at the pier office.”

  “Sure, but—”

  She hung up on me, not so much as a have a nice day.

  Who the hell was Michael?

  I shrugged and filed it away. I left the room with Owl’s briefcase grasped in my hand. I felt like an upright citizen off to do an honest day’s work, which in a way I was.

  I now had a time and a place. I had direction.

  Somewhere out there in the city was a billable client.

  And I was going to find him.

  Chapter Four: HOMEWORK

  Leaving the lobby of the hotel, I almost collided with someone coming in. A stubby old man with bulbous features but no chin, black hornrim glasses, and a stiff gray pompadour. He was dressed in a white short-sleeve shirt and black trousers.

  We danced a few steps of the back-n-forth polka attempting to get out of each other’s way. My head couldn’t take the jostling. I turned sideways and let him pass. I grinned, but he didn’t make eye contact.

  Outside, I turned right and headed up Third, cut down the diagonal slice of Stuyvesant Street, back over to Second Avenue and Tenth.

  A passenger airliner shrieked and moaned overhead. I looked up to see a peerless blue sky, not a single shred of cloud in any direction, absolutely clear.

  It made me uneasy.

  The gleaming white airplane seemed kind of low. It must’ve been in a holding pattern for JFK. I watched it slowly creep across the narrow column of airspace above me. I was the only one around who seemed to take any notice. I was like a housebroken dog forever shy of rolled-up newspapers.

  When the plane finally passed out of sight beyond the edge of a roof, I moved again, breathing evenly.

  The briefcase barked against my left knee twice. I switched hands and it barked against my right knee. I couldn’t get the hang of it, just wasn’t executive material, I guess.

  I stopped on the corner a block from my building, by the end of the churchyard gate where for at least a dozen years the little black lady, Evelyn, used to station herself, bouncing change in her paper cup and exchanging friendly words with anyone who passed. She had died that January.

  I rattled my pockets for coins, none. Fished in my watchpocket and came up with a quarter, Oregon back. I left it right where she used to sit.

  Ahead, at the corner of East Twelfth, the commotion had died down, everything back to normal. People crossing the street, cars repeating that same sharp right onto Second, over and over where Owl’s body had been. As if nothing had happened.

  I walked to my building and pushed the buzzer for T. Fitchet, Penthouse.

  The intercom speaker clicked.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s the plumber, I’ve come to fix the sink.”

  Speaker click.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s the plumber! I’ve come to fix the sink!”

  Click.

  “Who is it?”

  I hollered, “IT’S THE PLUMBER, I’VE COME TO FIX—”

  The door buzzed and I pushed it open.

  At the first landing, I stopped at my office door, tried the knob—yep, locked—and set down Owl’s briefcase, then went up the next flight to get my spare keys from Tigger.

  Her door was open and I walked in.

  She wasn’t in the front hallway. She wasn’t in the living room, either. Her array of computer monitors unmanned looked like an abandoned UFO console, hard copies of design projects draped over lamps and chairs like hastily discarded alien star charts. I went further in, calling out, “If you’re naked, I warn you—I brought my pastels.”

  I turned the corner into the kitchen nook and Tigger was seated at the table with two men with shiny black hair dressed in shiny blue suits, a sheaf of legal documents spread out before them.

  She stood up—a short trip, she’s only five-two— dressed in a belted blue-striped cotton dress and black regulation-issue army boots. She swept out her right arm, flashing her four-aces wristband tattoo.

  “Payton, this is my realtor Mr. Ecuador—”

  “It’s Acquidar, actual—” Mr. Ecuador tried to assert.

  “—and my accountant, Midge,” Tigger swept on.

  “How’ya doin’,” Midge said.

  “Hi.”

  “My downstairs neighbor, Payton Sherwood. A noted investigator, no doubt in disguise at the moment. We’re finalizing details on the closing. I’ll get your keys.” Her grin was so wide and cunning, her silver and turquoise septum-pierced nose-ring tapped her two front teeth.

  She got me the keys and walked me to her door. I asked where the little bambina was. Her 18-month-old, Rue, was off with her father; Retz’s visiting parents—Rue’s grandparents—were off “taking in” the Museum of Modern Art.

  “I told them she’s too young for it. Better off plantingher under a tree in the park for an hour.”

  “She’d like the mobiles.”

  Tigger grunted, non-committal.

  “What’s with the Charlie Chaplin shoes?” she asked.

  “You’re the second person today to tell me I look like a clown.”

  She raised a pedantic finger and corrected.

  “So far. I’m the second person today so far—it’s not even noon yet. So what’s with the shoes?”

  I told her how I found the shoes after locking myself out, but nothing about the accident, Owl’s death, or what I’d done after. Partly because it would take too long, mostly because I didn’t trust her reaction. The thing with Tigger Fitchet was: never did know which way that tree was going to fall. More often than not, right smack on top of you.

  I said thanks for the keys, I’d bring them back.

  She said, “Well…maybe you should…you know…”

  “What?” She gave me a look and I gave it right back to her.

&nbs
p; “Nothing,” she said. “Bring them back.”

  I turned to go, but stopped and said as naively as I could, “Okay, who are those two guys really?”

  Her fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows sank in a frown.

  “Payton. It’s really happening.”

  “O.K., don’t tell me. Be that way.”

  I tried a hasty retreat, but she put the Vulcan neck-pinch on me before I took a step.

  “What’ve you been up to? You look…different.”

  My subtle lycanthropy showing. It’d begun.

  “Nothing, let go. Release release.” She unclamped her hold on me. “Ow. I’ve gotta shrug these shoulders, you know. I’ll call you later.” I went downstairs, but didn’t hear her door shut until I was at mine.

  Yeh, see what you’ll be missin’ out on, missy? The exotic air of mystery—won’t get that when you move out to Melonville.

  I opened my door, nudged Owl’s briefcase in with my foot.

  As soon as I sat down behind my desk, I found my sneakers I hadn’t been able to find before, right where I’d kicked them off. Some detective.

  I undid the laces on the black shoes, removed them and the socks. I washed my feet in the bathroom, toweled them, then put on a pair of clean white socks, sat back at my desk and put on my sneakers.

  Two messages flashing on the machine. I played them.

  But only one of them was new, the first message was Owl’s call. I listened while pouring loose tobacco into a cigarette paper, rolling it, licking it, letting it dry a second before setting it on fire. I lit up, so eager I even took in the match sulfur. I drew deeply and held it. The smoke tasted delicious and foul streaming out my nose and falling from my lips.

  “…at Metro. I’m calling to see if you’re available today to hel—” End of Owl’s message, cut off where I’d picked up.

  The new message was from my mom, received at noon, calling to ask if that was near me where that young actor who played that doctor on that comedy series set in the hospital died—they say he shot up drugs? You know who I mean, the one on that series that used to be on, who played the doctor? Where is the Meat Packing District? Is that near you? How close— Time expired.

  I picked up the phone, but not to call my mom.

  No use putting it off any longer. I dialed the number of Metro Security, got the switchboard, and asked for Matt Chadinsky, giving my name.

  He didn’t keep me waiting, but his first words were, “What is it? I’m busy here.”

  “Owl’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “George Rowell, he’s dead.”

  “Bullshit, who told you that bullshit?”

  “No one told me. I’m telling you. He died this morning, here in the city. Hit by a car on the corner outside my building.”

  “Are you shitting me? What was he doing there?”

  “Coming to see me?”

  “What for?”

  “To hire me.”

  “You’re shitting me. You sure it was—”

  “I’m sure. I’ve got his toolcase here in my office.”

  “He left it there?”

  “No, it’s…I took charge of it,” I bobbed.

  “What did the blues say?”

  “What do they always say?” I weaved.

  “Was it a hit and run?”

  “No. Driver remained at the scene. Livery cab. Looks like an accident.”

  “Where’d they fucking take him?”

  “I didn’t, uh…”

  “No shit, I can imagine.” He coughed and spat in my ear, I was glad it was over the phone. He sighed a powerful gust of disgust. “Hohhh, I’ve got calls to make. Stay put!”

  He hung up.

  I switched on the radio and tuned in local news. Nothing about Owl’s death, but I hardly expected it. An advertisement came on for an institute specializing in wounds that won’t heal located in Sleepy Hollow. I switched off thinking of that poor Headless Horseman and his wound that never healed properly.

  I went over and turned on the TV. Didn’t have a cable box, but I’d attached the old line directly to the back of the set and still picked up the feed for NY1, New York City’s 24-hour cable news channel. I also got a few other stations and listened to the audio of scrambled signals whenever a movie channel aired Murder, My Sweet or The Big Sleep. I’ve seen them so many times, I didn’t even need the pictures to watch ’em anymore.

  Nothing about an old man’s death in a traffic incident on NY1. Their top local story was the ex-sitcom star that’d died the night before of a heroin overdose. It was a big story, had to be if my mom saw it aired nationally.

  Craig Wales had overdosed in a back room at the club hosting the after-party for a premiere of his first feature film. What made it even more sensational was that, on behalf of a fan website devoted to the TV show he used to star on when he was still in his early teens, Healthy Assets, he’d been blogging the entire event via text message, right up until the hour he died. The TV screen was flashing excerpts alongside an old photo of him wearing a doctor’s white lab coat. His last blog entry began, OFF 2 *^* w/ MC!!!

  I tried to suss it out. OFF 2 *^*. Well, but of course, it was so simple a five-year-old could make it out. Quick, run and get me a five-year-old. It made me wonder what direction our language was headed in. Rebuses and charades, grunting and pointing?

  At the left-hand corner of the TV screen was the current time and temperature. 11:11 and 81 degrees.

  I emptied my pockets on the desk. The photograph of Owl and the girl, Elena; the pink parking garage ticket; the three handbills, Owl’s hotel receipt, my business card…what else had there been? The money. She had taken that, but anything besides? Couldn’t put my finger on it. I looked at the wristband I’d found in the hotel wastebasket. Nothing new came to me.

  Everything but the photo, I sealed in an envelope. The photo I folded into my wallet.

  I took off my shirt and put on two new ones, one a bright lime-green t-shirt with a white collar, and, over that, a button-down long-sleeve blue dress shirt, which I buttoned all the way, except for the collar. It wasn’t a fashion statement, these were my work clothes. In case I was spotted, I could shed the dress shirt and, at least superficially, become another person.

  From a desk drawer, I got a folded paper painter’s hat and stuck it in my back pocket for the same reason.

  Finally, I slipped on my battered old camper’s watch.

  Checked the time against NY1 before switching it off, just as the handsome young face of Craig Wales flashed once more on the screen. The news loop reporting his O.D. was coming round the bend again, round and round all day long, same on every network, until it was no longer sensational or shocking, merely predictable, monotonous as a carnival wheel’s odyssey.

  I left the office with keys in hand and someplace to go.

  Chapter Five: LEGWORK

  It was a short walk to the Yaffa, back to St. Marks Place and a block east, and with my sneakers on almost a pleasure.

  Yaffa Cafe was a holdout from the old East Village, an enduring landmark still standing and in operation. It had survived the wave of upscaling gentrification that had swept through the neighborhood because it was a favorite with the yuppie crowd and tourists. Probably half the place’s income came on the weekends from late-night snackers and afternoon brunchers.

  It was still early for the lunch crowd, but the sidewalk tables were almost full. I didn’t go in, just took up position on the opposite side of the street and watched, pretending I was carrying on a cell phone conversation. My empty left hand held to the side of my face, I rattled off inane drivel.

  It dates me, but I recall a time when a person couldn’t stand around doing nothing without someone wondering what he was up to, maybe even approaching and asking outright, “What are you up to?” To stand around without attracting attention, a guy had to be smoking a cigarette or reading the paper. But that all changed when 90% of the population began walking around with cell phones attached to their heads.


  I repeated my location in a too-loud voice, then said, “Ah, yeh…hmm what…uh-huh…right, yes…eleven… before, uh-huh…” And on and on in a constant spiral, like a toilet that won’t quit flushing.

  To nail the cell phone disguise, you have to be completely unaware of and unresponsive to your immediate surroundings. Having a real phone isn’t even necessary; they’re so compact nowadays, just holding a cupped hand to the ear does the trick.

  I’ve picked out undercover cops trawling for drug dealers around the neighborhood using the method with real phones and, no doubt, actually conversing with someone at the other end, but they blow it by noticing me when I clock them. A true cell phone zombie you can stare at for hours and they’re unaware of your inspection. Off in another dimension, a connecting anteroom between themselves and whoever they’re talking to, half-between here and there, but nowhere.

  I said my location a couple times and paced ten feet one direction, ten feet the other direction, keeping my vision wide, attention on Yaffa.

  Most of the people at the sidewalk tables were finishing late breakfasts, so by half-past eleven half of them had gone. But they weren’t my primary interest. I only watched the people who left to determine whether they were followed or not. It wasn’t foolproof. If the person doing the following were halfway decent I might not even tag him or her, and all of this would be for nothing.

  But luck was on my side, because he sucked. I pegged him as my squirrel before he even got underway. He loitered on the same side of the street as me, but he stood directly opposite the cafe while I was positioned about thirty feet farther east, watching from an angle.

  He was a rail-thin twentysomething with a shaved head darkened by a bluish five o’clock shadow. Eyes squinted in Internet slits, from too long gazing in dim light. He had the complexion of a trout’s belly. He wore tan corduroys and a gray work shirt with a name stitched over the pocket: Jeff.

  While everyone around him—young men and women in tailored suits hurrying west in the direction of NYU or the subway, younger men and women in soiled black jeans and skeleton-and-skull t-shirts slouching toward Tompkins Square Park to sleep, old women pushing wire carriages off to the grocery store—was going someplace, leaving someplace, all in varying degrees of hurry, his sole movement was to lean on one foot, then the other, and back again, like a top-heavy metronome.