Motherless Brooklyn

“Listen,” said Chunky, now trying to reason with me, as his gang’s morale and focus-and actual numbers-were dwindling. “We’re here on behalf of the big guy you’re talking about, see? That’s who sent us.” He offered the morphic resonance theory: “So if he scares you you ought to be scared by us, without us having to hurt you.”

“Guys like you could kill me and you still wouldn’t scare me,” I said.

“This was a bad idea,” concluded Pinched, and he, too, got out of the car. The front seats were empty now, the steering wheel unmanned. “This isn’t us,” he said, leaning back in, addressing Pimples and Chunky. “We’re no good at this.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’ll have to forgive us. This isn’t what we do. We’re men of peace.” He shut the door. I turned my head enough to see him scooting down the block, his walk like a hectic bird’s.

“Scaredycop!” I shouted.

“Where?” said Chunky, immediately releasing my arm. They both swiveled their heads in a panic, eyes wild behind the dark glasses, orange price tags dancing like fishing lures. Freed at last, I turned my head too, not searching for anything, of course, instead for the pleasure of aping their movements.

“Screw this,” muttered Pimples.

He and Chunky both fled the rental car, hot on Pinched’s heels, leaving me alone there.

Pinched had taken the car keys, but Indistinct’s cell phone sat abandoned on the seat beside me. I put it in my pocket. Then I leaned over the seat, popped the glove compartment, and found the rental agency’s registration card and receipt. The car was on a six-month lease to the Fujisaki Corporation, 1030 Park Avenue. The zip code, I was pretty sure, put it in the same zone as the Zendo. Which is where I was, as it happened. I rapped on the rental car’s glove compartment door five times, but it wasn’t particularly resonant or satisfying.

On my walk over to 1030 Park I flipped open the cell phone and rang L &L. I’d never made a street call before, and felt quite Captain Kirk-ish.

“L &L,” said a voice, the one I’d hoped to hear.

“Tony, it’s me,” I said. “Essrog.” That was how Minna always started a phone call: Lionel, itߣs Minna. You’re the first name, I’m the last. In other words: You’re the jerk and I’m the jerk’s boss.

“Where are you?” said Tony.

Crossing Lexington at Seventy-sixth Street was the answer. But I didn’t want to tell him.

Why? I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I let a tic do my talking: “Kiss me, scareyman!”

“I got worried about you, Lionel. Danny said you went off with the Garbage Cop on some kind of a mission.”

“Well, sort of.”

“He with you now?”

“Garbage cookie,” I said seriously.

“Why don’t you head back here, Lionel? We ought to talk.”

“I’m investigating a case,” I said. A guess tic eating a vest. “Oh, yeah? Where’s it taking you?”

A well-coiffed man in a blue suit turned off Lexington ahead of me. He had a cell phone pressed to his right ear. I aligned myself behind him and imitated his walk.

“Various places,” I said.

“Name one.”

The harder Tony asked, the less I wanted to say. “I was hoping we could, you know, triangulate a little. Compare data.”

“Give me an example, Lionel.”

“Like did you-Vesticulate! Guessticalot!-did you get anything out of that, uh, Zendo place last night?”

“I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Right now there’s something important, you ought to get back here. What are you, at a pay phone?”

“Vestphone!” I said. “By any chance did a carful of guys try to warn you off?”

“Fuck you talking about?”

“What about the girl I saw go in before Minna? Did you find out about her?” Even as I asked I got the answer to the question I was asking, the real question.

I didn’t trust Tony.

I felt the truth of it in the pause before he replied.

“I learned a few things,” he said. “But at the moment we need to pool our resources, Lionel. You need to get back here. Because we got some problems coming up.”

Now I could hear the bluff in his voice. It was casual, easy. He wasn’t straining particularly. It was only Essrog on the line, after all.

“I know about problems,” Isaid. “Gilbert’s in jail on a murder charge.”

“Well, that’s just one.”

“You weren’t at the Zendo last night,” I said. The man in the blue suit turned onto Park Avenue, still gabbing. I let him go, and stood in a crowd at the corner, waiting for the light to change.

“Maybe you ought to worry about your own fucking self and not me, Lionel,” said Tony. “Where were you last night?”

“I did what I was supposed to do,” I said, wanting to provoke him now. “I told Julia. Actually, she already knew.” I left out the part about the homicide cop.

“That’s interesting. I’ve been sort of wondering where Julia goes off to. I hope you found out.”

Alarms went off. Tony was trying to make his voice casual, but it wasn’t working. “Wondering when? You means she goes out of town a lot?”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, how’d you know she went anywhere?”

“Fuck you think we do around here, Lionel? We learn things.”