Losers Live Longer Read online

  Dresser drawers empty, Owl hadn’t unpacked. I found his suitcase on the floor by the far side of the bed.

  Inside were a couple days’ worth of clothing, neatly packed: three white dress shirts, one yellow sports shirt, a pair of tan khaki pants, four pairs of boxer shorts, and five pairs of socks. Only other thing, a zippered toilet bag with a denture brush in it, tooth polish, an old fashioned razor, and a can of shaving cream.

  I helped myself to a pair of brown argyles before shutting it up again. Then sat on the bed, unlaced the shoes, and slid them off. The bottoms of my feet were streaked black like I’d been kicking Alice Cooper in the face. I wiped them on the bedspread before putting on the socks. My ankles were bleeding.

  I put the shoes back on. It was an improvement.

  I went over to the wastebasket and picked out that plastic wristband. It had been stretched apart, not cut. I turned it over looking for outpatient info, but both sides were blank. I pocketed it, I was a magpie for clues.

  Back to the bathroom to splash water on my face.

  I left the briefcase for last because I already saw what it contained. The contents were like the bottom left drawer of my own desk, full of red wires, black wires, white wires, and gray wires bound with rubberbands. None longer than three feet and each with a different end attachment, a phone jack, a microphone plug, an alligator clip, a suction-cup device, a USB connector—whatever a P.I. needed in the course of his work. A wafer-thin digital recorder. I switched it on, but it was blank.

  I sifted through the rest: stopwatch, pocket binoculars, magnifying glass with light attachment, brown work gloves, assorted batteries, a pack of blue Bic ballpoint pens, large and small paper clasps and paperclips, a disposable camera with 24exposures (none of them used), an old mercury oral thermometer, a clear plastic ruler, a compass, and a black plastic box for a .32 automatic with an extra full clip inside and a rag and brush for cleaning, but no gun. Great.

  A simple matter, he said. Soft work, he said. Nothing rough.

  Sticking out of a pocket sleeve under the lid was a bus ticket folder. Inside was a round-trip ticket, New Hampshire to New York City. He’d expected to go back Sunday morning.

  It was nothing I could use, though. What was I missing?

  I thought back to the indisputable techniques of investigation my old boss at Metro, Matt Chadinsky, tried to drum into me during some of his loftier harangues. Most of it bullshit on how no one ever rewarded you for doing the job better, that doing the job better was the reward. But one of his more useful axioms had been, “Never look just with your eyes.” Poke into every hollow, he’d say. Get dirty. People lose things all the time that drop into tight spots and corners, dirty places they don’t want to reach into.

  I slid my hand down into the pocket sleeve, dug to the bottom. It wasn’t dirty inside, it was smooth. At first I thought nothing was in it, until my fingertips snagged on a corner and I pulled out a color photograph.

  A 4x6 snapshot of Owl standing with a thin young girl about twelve years old with shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair, a flattish nose, and big ears. He was crouched so their heads were at the same level. Both mugged for the camera, teeth bared in fierce smiles. The girl’s nose was wrinkled-up in a snarl. The flash camera colored both of their eyes hellhound red.

  They were casually dressed, the girl in a pink t-shirt and blue jeans with swirly embroidered rhinestone designs.

  Owl wore a plaid sport coat, open-collar shirt, and gray slacks. Behind them was a large potted rubber-tree plant and a pale-blue wall with a partly visible sign, the word GATE in black letters.

  I turned the photo over. No date written on the back, only one word in blue block letters: ELENA. I pocketed it.

  Still hadn’t found what I was looking for, what I needed. A scrap of paper or anything with a local phone number or address that would lead me to Owl’s friend, the client he owed a favor, connecting me to the job he’d hired me for. But nothing.

  My force of purpose going down the drain, nothing left behind but the gurgle. No job, never was really hired anyway.

  I didn’t know what I’d been thinking, maybe couldn’t know. Do dogs think when chasing a squirrel? It’s just part of them, an impulse that defines what they are. Problem was, some chased their tails with equal enthusiasm.

  Practical matters came back into sharper focus. I had to get back into my office and only two people in the metro area had a spare set of my keys, and one of them I hadn’t spoken to in over five years.

  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 a
t 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.

  “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.