“Are you Polly?”
The slime draining from his nose was beginning to bother me. I wanted to tell him to clean his fucking nose. I had no idea where we were; I had a faint sense that I might’ve lost consciousness but I wasn’t sure. I felt like my head was in a vise and someone was trying to twist my body into a corkscrew.
“Who sent you?” Nasal-Drip said. When he breathed he made a shallow nasal whistle on the intake.
“Nobody sent me.”
“And Nobody’s your name, right?”
“My name’s Blades.” Ah, the rhythm was coming. I could hear my breath.
His face twitched into a lopsided smile; if you could call the shape his liver-thick lips had assumed a smile.
“You came to see Polly all by yourself?”
I nodded. It hurt even to move my head up and down.
“You a cop?”
I thought for a second whether saying I was a cop would save me further punishment or even death. I decided it wouldn’t matter. “No,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Who’s this man you’re looking for?”
“Broad. Tiny fish eyes. Silver hair. Bullet forehead.”
“What do you want with him?”
“He threatened my family. Frightened my wife.”
The four of them broke into laughter. I didn’t know what was funny about what I’d said.
The man on my right put a gun to my head and said, “We should kill him.”
The car came to a stop on a quiet street. I tried to peer outside. An elevated train rumbled on old tracks not far off. Somewhere else close by the surf was up, a hollowed out sound as pure as a thought.
The back doors opened and the two men who’d boxed me in slithered out.
“Get out!” the man with the scar ordered.
I tried to move but the lower part of my body was paralyzed.
“Get out!” he squawked again.
The men outside the car grabbed my legs and dragged me outside. My head struck the metal edge of the door. My body landed with a thud on the hard cold asphalt and the left side of my head was flushed with warmth. I didn’t touch it but I knew it was blood.
Bright lights approaching fast. A vehicle stopped with a screech of tires. Voices. Orders. Somebody landed a kick to my ribs. I heard my breath zip out of me with the force of an exploding cannon. Before the blackness swept over me I smelled rubber burning on the asphalt. I heard more voices. Somewhere the sea was calling my name and I wanted to get there as fast as I could.
TWENTY-THREE
i woke thinking I was in the arms of my wife. That was before I felt the pain. And then I wasn’t even sure where that was coming from. My head? My arm? My back? A golden light dazzled my eyes, making it impossible for me to see. I tried to call Anais’s name but my tongue was wrapped around a stake. Then I heard a voice and the golden light melted away, leaving silver tails in my vision.
“Blades?”
First I saw the smile, the long sharklike teeth, the pink lips stretched thin then slowly closing in an O around concern. It wasn’t Anais. It was Special Agent Sallie Kraw.
“Where am I?” I struggled to get up.
“Don’t move. Relax.”
I looked around me, becoming aware of the shiny interior with small shelves and rows of blue and yellow packages. There were lights flashing somewhere. Was it outside, or inside my head?
“You’re in an ambulance,” Kraw said.
Ambulance. I let the word tumble around in my brain. What the fuck am I doing in an ambulance? Then I remembered the fall from grace and the blow to my head on the way down. I managed a smile. “You’ve been following me?”
“Somebody’s gotta look out for you.”
“Couldn’t you’ve looked out a little sooner? Like before I became a football?” I realized I was lying on a stretcher. I tried to sit up again but could only get my head off the pillow.
“Don’t try to move. You’re hurt.”
I closed my eyes and felt my mind reach out for darkness again. Then came a man’s voice pitching through the blackness.
“Mr. Overstreet, how’re you feeling?”
I opened my eyes. He was leaning toward me smiling that painted smile he was trained to give nervous patients. But his eyes were a million miles away.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s good,” he said. “But we’d like to take you in to have you checked out. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t need to be checked out.”
He’d already punctured a vein in my arm and attached a drip. I reached up and ripped it out. A small amount of blood seeped from the tiny perforation in my arm.
I grabbed Agent Kraw by the wrist. “Get me outta here.”
“You were unconscious, Blades. You might have a concussion,” she said.
“Just another name for a bad headache. That’s what Excedrin was made for.”
“I can’t let you go until I’m sure you’re okay, sir,” the young attendant said, his voice firm and official.
I pulled myself to a seated position with Agent Kraw’s help. “Are you gonna take me to my car or am I going to have to walk?”
She turned to the attendant in his wrinkled blue uniform. “He’s not gonna go.”
The attendant shrugged and peeled off his gloves. He leaned forward and said something to the driver in the cab of the ambulance. The engine surged to life.
With Agent Kraw’s help I staggered outside and stood up in the street, my knees feeling like loose springs. She held me steady as the ambulance drove off, its lights whorling but without the wail of the siren.
“You want to go somewhere to clean yourself up before I take you home?”
“No thanks.”
“What’s your wife going to say if she sees you like this?”
“She’s used to seeing me like this.”
The agent looked at me with a bewildered grin.
“It’s just a joke,” I said. “Where’s your car?”
“Across the street. You sure you’re okay?”
I smiled weakly but with confidence. “Once I see my wife I’ll be a thousand percent better.”
TEN MINUTES LATER we were whooshing past darkened service stations and closed up restaurants along Coney Island Avenue. My head was beginning to lose its clogged-up feeling, but the dull headache had grown in intensity. I was bleeding from a cut on my elbow and I knew I had a welt on my forehead. But I was alive.
“Why did you go into that restaurant?” Agent Kraw said, taking her eyes off the road for a second to glance at me.
“I love Russian food.”
“Looked like you bit off more than you can chew.”
I was slightly amused but did not show it. “Is that the best you could do?”
“You’re playing with quicksand, you know.”
“I only play with my wife.”
“Tough guys don’t last, you know. They die horrible deaths. Because there’s always somebody more desperate. You’re not dealing with street-corner addicts here, Blades.”
“Someone threatened my family. I’d sell my blood before I let anyone hurt them.”
“Who threatened your family?”
“Someone who looks like he’s been using his face to hammer out dents in a car.”
“Oh that’s real helpful.”
“He’s just ugly. Silver hair. Husky.”
“Sounds like Parkoff. We think he’s the one who threw Konstantin out of the hotel window.”
We reached my car curbed at a bus stop on Kings Highway. Agent Kraw parked behind the Volvo and looked at me. “You smell like you showered in a still. You gonna be okay?”
I got out and spoke to her through the open door. “I’ll never get drunk again. And you should stop following me around. I really don’t know where she is.”
She handed me a card. “Call me if you need anything, Blades. You’re a liar but I don’t want to see you dead.”
I took the card and closed the door.
I felt like I’d been run over by a bus. My groin hurt and my legs were limp noodles. I managed to drag myself into my car with some effort, where I sat letting the pain stirred up by my effort dissolve. Agent Kraw was still parked behind me. I fumbled through my jacket pockets for my keys. It took me a few seconds but I finally got them out and poked the Volvo’s ignition. The quiet purring of the old car’s engine was a comforting sound. I tooted my horn and drove off.
TWENTY-FOUR
i slept like a man in a coma, opening my eyes around 10:00 A.M. the next day to a pain in my knee so severe I almost cried out. My mind still pitched in fog, I looked around for Anais before realizing I was not in our bedroom. I’d slept in the guest room.
It was Friday. The drapes had been pulled—Anais must’ve come in while I was asleep—still the room was gloomy dark. Outside a dense rain whipped ropes of water with stunning rapidity at the window pane, slapping hard and flat with a heavy thump, as if a giant hand was trying to break through the glass. Sitting in bed I watched the smooth sheets of water spill off the window like a waterfall as the rest of my body weighed in with its assortment of pains.
My mind was slowly emerging from last night’s fog and I didn’t like what was before me. I reached up and caressed the bulge on my forehead, which only registered a dull ache. There was also a pain in my elbow. That too was manageable. It was the sting of my ego that disturbed me more than anything. I was caught flat-footed last night because of arrogance and carelessness. How could this have happened to me?
I rolled over and looked at my knee. It was swollen to the size of a baseball. Fully awake now, and shamed by the memory of my folly, I tried a dismount from the bed that would’ve made an arthritic old woman laugh. Rolling to the edge of the bed I planted the good leg on the floor, standing up by grasping the headboard so I could lift the wounded knee off the bed.
I limped to my bedroom. Anais was long out of bed. In the bathroom I took a one-legged leak. I braved the mirror offering myself a smile of condolence. The golf ball on my forehead was now the color of raw beef. After brushing my teeth and gargling with mint Listerine I found Icy-Hot and a bandage in the medicine cabinet. I massaged the spongy gel into my knee. No afterburn.
Deciding to save the bandage for later I limped downstairs taking the allotted fifteen minutes for such a maneuver on one leg. My knee had warmed up some and was more flexible by the time I reached the living room.
Anais’s truck was not in the garage. I hobbled to the study and tossed myself onto the couch. I was breathing heavily and I could sense myself becoming irritable. I was annoyed that Anais was not around. Irrationality was a sign of tension.
I picked up the phone and dialed my father’s number in Barbados, a call I’d been contemplating for some time. He sounded as if he’d just woken up himself.
“What’s up, Pops?”
“Blades! You’re going to live long, son. I was just telling my friend here that the last time I heard from you I could still bend over and touch my toes.”
I tried to sound amused. “What friend is that?”
“Lady friend.”
“Listen, Pops, I’ve got some bad news.”
He sighed softly. “Should I sit down?”
“It’s Noah. His son was murdered.”
His voice rushed out hoarse and quiet. “Ronan’s dead?”
“And somebody took a shot at Noah three days ago.”
“Is Noah okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. Ain’t easy to kill that old lion.”
After a long pause, he said, “I can’t imagine what state Donna must be in. When did this happen?”
I waited a second. “Monday before last.”
“Fuck! And you’re just now calling me?”
“Actually, I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell you.”
“When’s the funeral?”
“In four days.”
“I’m coming up.”
“Did I hear you say you’re coming up?”
“I’m coming.”
“You’re coming back for Ronan’s funeral but you couldn’t come back for me twenty years ago?”
“You’re a grown man, Blades. To hell with it.”
“I suppose I am,” I said quietly.
After I hung up I sat thinking, wishing I could’ve been excited about seeing my father in New York. Seeing him in Barbados was one thing. New York presented a genre of problems far beyond anything I wanted to contemplate right now. The safety of my family was a bigger concern. The eagerness of his decision to return made me wonder if the idea hadn’t already been in his mind. It sure sounded to me as if he’d been looking for any opportunity, any excuse. But why now?
AFTER BANDAGING MY KNEE I got dressed and left the house. Though I was hungry I didn’t eat. Irrationality was getting the better of me again. A dark anger percolated through me like alcohol through a drunk. I was sitting on the kind of frustration I used to ride when a particularly nasty drug dealer I’d busted walked away scot-free because the D.A. screwed up or, as happened in several cases, the defendant somehow managed to imbue some lonely female juror with a sense of pity, thereby securing an acquittal. In the past whenever I felt like this I would take my rage out on some dim-witted drug suspect, beating the poor fellow until he was too afraid to do anything but shit himself.
I corked my anger long enough to call Anais’s cell phone. I wanted to know where she was. She was at a meeting in Manhattan with Pryce Merkins. That bit of information didn’t make me sparkle in the least, but I knew my wife was no pushover when it came to business or anything else, so I arranged to have dinner with her later and hung up.
My next call, to Negus’s house, came up empty. I tried his cell. Nothing. I drove along Atlantic Avenue past stores selling antiques, past Middle Eastern stores growing in popularity for their spices and scented coffee, stopping outside Chesney’s school on Court Street just for my peace of mind. Then I threaded the dense traffic to the club, where I planned to do some work.
I found Negus in the office chatting on the phone, his large feet, encased in brown Adidas sports shoes, tilted onto the desk. Didn’t sound like business. His yellow linen shirt had a satin sheen. I’d seen him in that shirt before and liked it then. Today I wasn’t liking anything about Negus.
I limped back outside for a cup of coffee, hoping to calm my ragged nerves.
NEGUS WAS still on the phone when I returned. I circled him like a hungry tiger and he looked up, his eyes leathery brown.
“You talking to River?” I said.
He whispered quick good-byes and hung up. “Couldn’t you’ve waited until I was finished? Goddammit!”
“She’s in big trouble, Negus. Did she tell you that?”
He took his feet off the desk and stood up. “It ain’t nothing we can’t handle.”
“We? Are you Batman and Robin now? You’re in over your head, Negus.”
“Get over yourself, Blades. You think you’re the only one who knows how to handle shit?”
“You ain’t even funny, Negus.”
“Fuck you, Blades. We don’t need you.”
“Is she still in your apartment?”
“Don’t worry you little head of curls, baby.”
“I’m trying to help you, Negus. I’m trying to stop you from having your dick served to you on a spit.”
“Man, what’s your problem? Don’t you already have a wife?”
I stepped back to look at his bone-bright face. “It’s your dead, cuz.”
THAT NIGHT Anais came to bed in a purple teddy smelling like a flower. Her locks were loose about her face, hanging black beads from a bearded fig tree. I was lying on my back, naked from the waist up, my eyes open but my mind not in the room. She laid herself out on top of me, kissing first my cheeks then munching my lips. Securing a dark nipple in her mouth she sucked with fervor.
On any other night I would’ve risen with speed, ready to slay the dragon of my wife’s passion. Not tonight. My mind was lost
in a dank everglade of doubt and fear. I could not get Negus and River out of my mind enough to enjoy the sensations Anais’s mouth was delivering to my body. Hell, I couldn’t even feel them. I knew they were there because Anais was a great lover. She knew just how to kiss me and where in order to heat my blood. My blood was too toxic to flow tonight.
It didn’t take her long to realize her machinations were useless. She leaned close to my ear. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“I don’t know.”
She licked my ear. “Relax, baby.”
“I’m trying.”
Anais rolled off me; her left leg draped lazily across my groin. I breathed deeply, trying to bring my attention back to my wife. Christ! I must be crazy thinking about Negus and River at a time like this.
“Blades, you’re thinking about that crazy guy from yesterday, aren’t you?”
“I’m just tired, I guess.”
She massaged the hair on my chest lightly. “You wouldn’t be trying to hustle me now, would you my darling?”
“I can’t imagine how I’d get away with that.”
She pinched me. “You’re right. What happened to you last night is nothing compared to what I’m gonna do to your ass if you don’t have a good reason for turning me down.”
“I’m sorry, honey. We’ve got a big show at the club tomorrow night.”
“I don’t want to hear about the club. I want to hear what’s really on your mind.”
“I think Negus is in trouble.”
“Negus loves trouble.”
“Big trouble. He’s hooked up with River. He’s got her stashed somewhere.”
Anais sat up, got down off the bed, and walked to the love seat in the far corner. I twisted my head to follow her. She sat with her legs drawn up, her head bowed, touching her knees. A wedge of light cut through the parted blinds illuminating the outline of her muscular thighs. I could see the dark juncture of her pubic hair at the end of those thighs. For a moment I felt a surge of excitement. I loved when I caught her sitting like this.
“Blades, if Negus can handle the pussy let him handle the other shit this bitch is floating in.”
“Her name is River.”
“I do not care if her name is Ocean.”
Love and Death in Brooklyn Page 17
