Motherless Brooklyn

“I appreciate that,” went the other voice. “But things have gotten complicated.”

“They know about the contract for the building,” said Minna.

“No, I don’t think so.” The voice was weirdly calm, placating. Did I recognize it? Perhaps not that so much as the rhythm of Minna’s replies-this was someone he knew well, but who?

“Come inside, let’s talk,” said the voice.

“What about?” said Minna. “What do we have to talk about?”

“Listen to yourself, Frank.”

“I came here to listen to myself? I can do that at home.”

“But do you, in fact?” I could hear a smile in the voice. “Not as often, or as deeply as you might, I suspect.”

“Where’s Ullman?” said Minna. “You got him here?” “Ullman’s downtown. You’ll go to him.”

“Fuck.”

“Patience.”

“You say patience, I say fuck.”

“Characteristic, I suppose.”

“Yeah. So let’s call the whole thing off.”

More muffled footsteps, a door closing. A clunk, possibly a bottle and glass, a poured drink. Wine. I wouldn’t have minded a beverage myself. I chewed on a Castle instead and gazed out the windshield, brain going Characteristic autistic mystic my tic dipstick dickweek and then I thought to take another note, flipped open the notebook and under WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES wrote ULLMAN DOWNTOWN, thought Dull Man Out of Town. When I swallowed the burger, my jaw and throat tightened, and I braced for an unavoidable copralalic tic-out loud, though no one was there to hear it. “Eat shit, Bailey!”

Bailey was a name embedded in my Tourette’s brain, though I couldn’t say why. I’d never known a Bailey. Maybe Bailey was everyman, like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. My imaginary listener, he had to bear the brunt of a majority of my solitary swearing-some part of me required a target, apparently. If a Touretter curses in the woods and there’s nobody to hear does he make a sound? Bailey seemed to be my solution to that conundrum.

“Your face betrays you, Frank. You’d like to murder someone.”

“You’d do fine for a start.”

“You shouldn’t blame me, Frank, if you’ve lost control of her.”

“It’s your fault if she misses her Rama-lama-ding-dong.

You’re the one who filled her head with that crap.”

“Here, try this.” (Offering a drink?)

“Not on an empty stomach.”

“Alas. I forget how you suffer, Frank.”

“Aw, go fuck yourself.”

“Eat shit, Bailey!” The tics were always worst when I was nervous, stress kindling my Tourette’s. And something in this scenario was making me nervous. The conversation I overheard was too knowing, the references all polished and opaque, as though years of dealings lay underneath every word.

Also, where was the short-dark-haired girl? In the room with Minna and his supercilious conversational partner, silent? Or somewhere else entirely? My inability to visualize the interior space of One-oh-nine was agitating. Was the girl the “she” they were discussing? It seemed unlikely.

And what was her Rama-lama-ding-dong? I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about it. I pushed away a host of tics and tried not to dwell on things I didn’t understand.

I glanced at the door. Presumably Coney was still behind it. I wanted to hear not if my life depended on it so we could rush the stairs.

I was startled by a knock on the driver’s window. It was the doorman who’d been watching. He gestured for me to roll down the window. I shook my head, he nodded his. Finally I complied, pulling the headphones off one ear so I could listen.

“What?” I said, triply distracted-the power window had seduced my magpie mind and now demanded purposeless raising and lowering. I tried to keep it subtle.

“Your friend, he wants you,” said the doorman, gesturing back toward his building.

“What?” This was thoroughly confusing. I craned my neck to see past him, but there was nobody visible in the doorway of his building. Meanwhile, Minna was saying something over the wire. But not bathroom or depended on it.