Motherless Brooklyn

“I told you, I don’t know where I’m going. Do you have a card?”

As he straightened to reach into his vest pocket she slammed the door, then rolled down her window to accept his card.

“We could have you stopped at the airport,” he said severely, trying to remind her of his authority, or remind himself. But that we was weaker than he knew.

“Yes,” said Julia. “But it sounds like you’ve decided to let me go. I appreciate it.” She palmed his card into her purse.

“Where were you this afternoon when Frank was killed, Mrs.

Minna?”

“Talk to Lionel,” said Julia, looking back at me. “He’s my alibi. We were together all day.”

“Eat me alibailey,” I breathed, as quietly as I could. The detective frowned at me. I held my hands open and made an Art Carney face, pleading for a common understanding between us-women, suspects, widows, whattayagonnado? Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em, eh?

Julia powered her tinted window back up into place and the Legacy Pool limousine took off, idiot radio trickling away to silence, leaving me and the detective standing in the dark of Baltic Street by ourselves.

“Lionel.”

Alibi hullabaloo gullible bellyflop smellafish, sang my brain, obliterating speech. I waved a farewell at the detective and started toward Smith Street. If Julia could leave him flat-footed, why couldn’t I?

He followed. “We better talk, Lionel.” He’d blown it, let her go, and now he was going to compensate with me, exercise his deductive and bullying powers.

“Can’t it wait?” I managed, without turning-it took a considerable effort not to swivel my neck. But I felt him right on my heels, like a pacing man and his shadow.

“What’s your full name, Lionel?”

“Lullaby Gueststar-”

“Come again?”

“Alibyebye Essmob-”

“Sounds Arabic,” said the detective as he pulled even with me. “You don’t look Arabic, though. Where were you and the lady this afternoon, Alibi?”

“Lionel,” I forced myself to say clearly, and then blurted “Lionel Arrestme!”

“That’s not gonna work twice in the same night,” said the cop. “I don’t have to arrest you. We’re just taking a walk, Alibi. Only I don’t know where we’re going. You want to tell me?”

“Home,” I said, before I recalled that he’d been to the place I called home once already this evening, and that it wasn’t in my best interests to lead him there again. “Except actually Iȁd like to get a sandwich first. I’m starving. You want to get a sandwich with me? There’s a place on Smith, called Zeod’s, if that’s okay, we’ll get a sandwich and then maybe part ways there, since I’m kind of shy about bringing people back to my place-” As I turned to deliver my speech my shoulder-lust was activated, and I began reaching for him again.

He knocked my hand away. “Slow down, Alibi. What’s the matter with you?”

“Tourette’s syndrome,” I said, with a grim sense of inevitability. Tourette’s was my other name, and, like my name, my brain could never leave the words unmolested. Sure enough, I produced my own echo: “Tourette is the shitman!” Nodding, gulping, flinching, I tried to silence myself, walk quickly toward the sandwich shop, and keep my eyes down, so that the detective would be out of range of my shoulder-scope. No good, I was juggling too much, and when I reticced, it came out a bellow: “Tourette Is the Shitman!”

“He’s the shitman, huh?” The detective apparently thought we were exchanging up-to-the-minute street jargon. “Can you take me to him?”

“No, no, there’s no Tourette,” I said, catching my breath. I felt mad for food, desperate to shake the detective, and choked with imminent tics.

“Don’t worry,” said the detective, talking down to me. “I won’t tell him who gave out his name.”

He thought he was grooming a stool pigeon. I could only try not to laugh or shout. Let Tourette be the suspect and maybe I’d get off the hook.

On Smith Street we veered into Zeod’s Twenty-Four-Hour Market, where the odors of baloney and bad coffee mingled with those of pistachio, dates, and St. John’s bread. If the cop wanted an Arab, I’d give him an Arab. Zeod himself stood on the elevated ramp behind the Plexiglas-and-plywood counter. He saw me and said, “Crazyman! How are you my friend?”

“Not so good,” I admitted. The detective hovered behind me, tempting me to turn my head again. I resisted.

“Where’s Frank?” said Zeod. “How I never see Frank anymore?”

Here was my chance to deliver the news at last, and my heart wasn’t up to it. “He’s in the hospital,” I said, unable now to keep from glancing nervously at the homicide detective. “Doctorbyebye!” recalled my Tourette’s.

“Some crazyman you are,” said Zeod, smiling and arching his hedge of eyebrows knowingly at my official shadow. “You tell Frank Zeod asks, okay, partner?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do that. How about a sandwich for now? Turkey on a kaiser, plenty of mustard.”