Motherless Brooklyn

“You trying to make fun of me here, Alibi?”

“No, no, I’m a big fan of Skursvshe.”

“Who?”

“The Artist Formerly Known As Plinvstk.” I couldn’t quit tackling the glyph. I plopped the magazine on the counter and Jimmy,e Korean proprietor, said, “For Frank?”

“Yeah,” I gulped.

He waved my money away. “Take it, Lionel.”

Back outside, the cop waited until we’d turned the corner, into the relative gloom of Bergen Street, just past the F-train entrance and a few doors from L &L’s storefront, then collared me, literally, two hands bunching my jacket at my neck, and pushed me up against the tile-mosaic wall. I gripped my magazine, which was curled into a baton, and the bag from Zeod’s with sandwich and soda, held them protectively in front of me like an old lady with her purse. I knew better than to push back at the cop. Anyway, I was bigger, and he didn’t really frighten me, not physically.

“Enough with the double-talk,” he said. “Where’s this going? Why are you pretending your man Minna’s still with us, Alibi? What’s the game?”

“Wow,” I said. “This was unexpected. You’re like good cop and bad cop rolled into one.”

“Yeah, used to be they could afford two different guys. Now with all the budget cuts and shit they’ve got us doing double shifts.”

“Can we go back to-fuckmeblackcop-back to talking nice now?”

“What you say?”

“Nothing. Let go of my collar.” I’d kept the outburst down to a mumble-and I knew to be grateful my Tourette’s brain hadn’t dialed up nigger. Despite the detective’s roughhousing, or because of it, our frenzy had peaked and abated, and we’d earned a quiet moment together. He was close enough to invite intimacy. If my hands hadn’t been full I would have begun stroking his pebbly jaw or clapping him on the shoulders.

“Talk to me, Alibi. Tell me things.”

“Don’t treat me like a suspect.”

“Tell me why not.”

“I worked for Frank. I miss him. I want to catch his killer as much as you.”

“So let’s compare notes. The names Alphonso Matricardi and Leonardo Rockaforte mean anything to you?”

I was silenced.

Matricardi and Rockaforte: The homicide cop didn’t know you weren’t supposed to say those names aloud. Not anywhere, but especially not out on Smith Street.

I’d never even heard their first names, Alphonso and Leonardo. They seemed wrong, but what first names wouldn’t? Wrongness surrounded those names and their once-in-a-blue-moon uttering. Don’t say Matricardi and Rockaforte.

Say “The Clients” if you must.

=”0em” width=”1em” align=”justify”›Or say “Garden State Brickface and Stucco.” But not those names.

“Never heard of them,” I breathed.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Believemeblackman.”

“You’re fucking sick.”

“I am,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry. Your man got killed and you’re not giving me anything.”

“I’ll catch the killer,” I said. “That’s what I’ll give you.”

He eased off me. I barked twice. He made another face, but it was clear it all would get chalked up to harmless insanity now. I was smarter than I knew leading the cop into Zeod’s and letting him hear the Arab call me Crazyman.

“You might want to leave that to me, Alibi. Just make sure you’re telling me all you know.”

“Absolutely.” I made an honorable Boy Scout face. I didn’t want to point out to good cop that bad cop hadn’t learned anything from me, just got tired of asking.

“You’re making me sad with your sandwich and your goddamn magazine. Get out of here.”

I straightened my jacket. A strange peace had come over me. The cop had caused me to think about The Clients for a minute, but I pushed them out of view. I was good at doing that. My Tourette’s brain chanted Want to catch him as much as miss him as much as a sadwich but I didn’t need to tic now, could let it live inside me, a bubbling brook, a deep well of song. I went to the L &L storefront and let myself in with my key. Danny wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The phone was ringing. I let it ring. The cop stood watching me and I waved at him once, then shut the door and went into the back.

Sometimes I had trouble admitting I lived upstairs in the apartment above the L &L storefront, but I did, and had since the day so long ago when I left St. Vincent’s. The stairs ran down into the back of the storefront. Apart from that inconvenient fact, I tried to keep the two places separated in my mind, decorating the apartment conventionally with forties-style furniture from the decrepit discount showrooms far down Smith Street and never inviting the other Minna Men up if I could help it, and adhering to certain arbitrary rules: drinking beer downstairs and whiskey upstairs, playing cards downstairs but setting out a board with a chess problem upstairs, Touch-Tone phones downstairs, a Bakelite dial phone upstairs, et cetera. For a while I even had a cat, but that didn’t work out.