Motherless Brooklyn

I locked the car and rehearsed a few imaginary options. I could go back to the Yorkville Zendo by myself and have a look around. I could also seek out the homicide detective, earn his trust, pool my knowledge with him instead of the Men. I could walk down Atlantic Avenue, sit in an Arabic storefront where they knew me and wouldn’t gape, and drink a tiny cup of mudlike black coffee and eat a baklava or Crow’s Nest-acid, steam and sugar to poison my grief.

Or I could go back into the office. I went back into the office. Gilbert was still fumbling with the end of his account, our race up the ambulance ramp, the confusion at the hospital. He wanted Tony and Danny to know we’d done all we could do. I laid the notebook flat on the counter and with a red ballpoint circled WOMAN, GLASSES and ULLMAN, DOWNTOWN, those crucial new players on our stage. Paper-thin and unrevealing as they might be, they had more life than Minna now.

I had other questions: The building they’d spoken of. The doorman’s interference. The unnamed woman Frank lost control of, the one who missed her Rama-lama-ding-dong. The wiretap itself: What did Minna hope I’d hear? Why couldn’t he just tell me what to listen for?

“We asked him, in the back of the car,” said Gilbert. “We asked him and he wouldn’t tell us. I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell.”

“Asked him what?” said Tony.

“Asked him who killed him,” said Gilbert. “I mean, before he was dead.”

I remembered the name Irving, but didn’t say anything.

“Somebody’s definitely going to have to tell Julia,” said Danny.

Gilbert grasped the significance of the notebook. He stepped over and read what I’d circled. “Who’s Ullman?” said Gilbert, looking at me. “You wrote this?”

“In the car,” I said. “It’s the note I took in the car. ‘Ullman, downtown’ was where Frank was supposed to go when he got into the car. The guy in the Zendo, who sent him out-that’s where he was sending him.”

“Sent him where?” said Tony.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “He didn’t go. The giant took him and killed him instead. What matters is who sent him-Failey! Bakum! Flakely!-the guy inside the place.”

“I’m not telling Julia,” said Danny. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Well, it ai tellin;t gonna be me,” said Gilbert, noticing Danny at last.

“We ought to go back to the East Side-TrickyZendo!-and have a look around.” I was panting to get to the point, and Julia didn’t seem to me to be it.

“All right, all right,” said Tony. “We’re gonna put our fucking heads together here.”

At the word heads I was blessed with a sudden vision: Lacking Minna, ours, put together, were as empty and tenuous as balloons. Untethered by his death, the only question was how quickly they would drift apart, how far-and whether they’d burst or just wither.

“Okay,” said Tony. “Gilbert, we gotta get you out of here. You’re the name they’ve got. So we’ll get you out doing some hoofwork. You look for this Ullman guy.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Gilbert wasn’t exactly a specialist in digging up leads.

“Why don’t you let me help him?” I said.

“I need you for something else,” said Tony. “Gilbert can find Ullman.”

“Yeah,” said Gilbert. “But how?”

“Maybe his name’s in the book,” said Tony. “It’s not so common, Ullman. Or maybe in Frank’s book-you got that? Frank’s address book?”

Gilbert looked at me.

“Must still be in his coat,” I said. “Back at the hospital.” But this triggered a compulsive self-frisking anyway. I patted each of my pockets six times. Under my breath I said, “Franksbook, forkspook, finksblood-”

“Great,” said Tony. “That’s just great. Well, show some initiative for once and find the guy. That’s your job, Gilbert, for chrissakes. Call your pal, the garbage cop-he’s got access to police records, right? Find Ullman and size him up. Maybe he’s your giant. He might of been a little impatient for his date with Frank.”

“The guy upstairs set Frank up,” I said. I was frustrated that Gilbert and his jerk friend from the Sanitation Police were getting the assignment to track Ullman. “They were in it together, the guy upstairs and the giant. He knew the giant was waiting downstairs.”

“Okay, but the giant could still be this guy Ullman,” said Tony irritably. “And that’s what Gilbert’s going to find out, okay?”

I raised my hands in surrender, then snatched an imaginary fly out of the air.

“I’ll go up to the East Side myself,” said Tony. “Take a look around. See if I can get into this building. Danny, you mind the store.”

“Check,” said Danny, stubbing out his cirette.

“That cop’s gonna come back around,” said Tony. “You talk to him. Cooperate, just don’t give him anything. We don’t want to look like we’re panicking.” Implicit in this assignment was the notion of Danny’s superior rapport with the fucking black cop.

“You make it sound like we’re the suspects,” I said.

“That’s how this cop made it sound,” said Tony. “It isn’t me.”