The Movie Makers

by Gary Phillips

  “I am not concerned,” Simon said. “What bothers me is, how you discovered she came to me.”

  “We have eyes everywhere. Who crashed a car into her cab?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Someone rammed her taxi off the highway. Not long ago. We have the video. Security camera on a building nearby.” The Dean frowned. “Fiona and Bill ran off. They’re hurt, albeit not badly enough for my tastes.”

  Simon shook his head, wondering (not for the first time) what kind of man used words like ‘albeit’ in everyday speech. “Fiona and Bill make enemies like a dog picks up fleas.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my men who crashed into her.” The Dean, rather than suffer the indignity of begging for a light, chomped the unlit cigar. “So, who the hell did?”

  Simon shrugged.

  “Our purchased cop, he said the cab was on an airport run. They’re trying to get out of town.” The Dean laughed. “We have people at every airport, and Penn and Grand Central, and as many subways as we can cover. We will expose those cockroaches to the light, given enough time. Keep that in mind if she reaches out to you again.”

  “I’ll remember my rug,” Simon said. “Hundred dollars per square foot.”

  “As if you didn’t have the funds to repair it.” The Dean pointed the cigar at the lacquered woods and gold-leaf highlights of Simon’s office, the antique furniture, the ornate paintings hanging on the walls. “Fiona appears, you tell me. No equivocations, no prevarication. Understood?”

  Simon stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray by his elbow and lit a fresh one. His next smoke ring drifted into the Dean’s face. “I understand perfectly,” he said, stuffing the lighter in his pocket.

  The Dean’s cheeks colored heart-attack purple. “Fine,” he hissed through a tight throat. Slipping his unsmoked cigar into his vest, he stood and marched for the door, his men falling into line behind him. “Otherwise, this all ends in tears for you.”

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  PROLOGO

  The bicyclist stopped and watched a small herd of them emerge from Teddy’s. (The stained glass outside read “Peter Doelger’s Extra Beer,” but absolutely everyone in the neighborhood knew it was Teddy’s.) And right away the bicyclist, watching from the shadows under a tree on North 8th, picked out one of them as perfect.

  Organic, one hundred percent, artisanal, locally sourced hipster.

  Teddy’s used to be a great neighborhood bar. But now it was a bistro, one of hundreds, thousands, millions within a few blocks’ radius, all crowded and pricey and pretentious. Because of people like this.

  The herd parted, walking forward, some carrying on conversations with each other, yet all looking down at their phones. The one absolute perfect hipster separated like a scrawny calf from the fashionable herd.

  White. Check.

  Male. Check.

  In his twenties. Check.

  He ambled off alone on Berry Street’s narrow stone sidewalk, his man bun a tiny tumbleweed on top of his head bop-bop-bopping to some no doubt obscure tune on those headphones. Huge headphones trapping him in his bubble, cutting him off from the world, cutting him off from the sounds around him. The sounds of the bicyclist in the street, pedaling slowly, achingly, quietly as possible to keep up and still remain in the bike lane.

  The hipster wore a big and Brillowy beard that overlapped the keffiyeh wrapped blithely around his neck. It was a chilly spring night in New York City, and cold rain still glowed on the sidewalks, so maybe why the scarf. But there was no excuse whatsoever for the bright red cat-eye shades this late at night—three in the morning, the dark night of the soul—on this dark a street. Cat eye because ironic, obviously. Which made what the bicyclist had to do even more necessary.

  No—the orange flip-flops did that. The orange flip-flops slapping the wet sidewalk made this one’s death essential.

  On North 10th Street, the hipster took a left turn. Perfect. While much of that block had been renovated, turned into unattractive, industrial-looking, overpriced condos, some of the block was still old warehouses, decorated with the colorful honesty of graffiti. It was a quiet block. Desolate.

  The bicyclist hopped onto the sidewalk and, focused on the target, failed to notice a fire hydrant. Hitting it on the slick sidewalk, the bicyclist was almost thrown but stopped himself by stepping hard. The bike’s rear end lifted in midair at a forty-five-degree angle, back wheel spitting rainwater. It came down with a clang.

  The bicyclist froze. But the hipster hadn’t noticed a thing. Bubble.

  “No one there is who loves a hipster,” the bicyclist whispered.

  Leaning the bike against the hydrant and taking out the machete, the bicyclist caught up to him halfway down the block. Swung hard. Bang, right in the keffiyeh. It got stuck on the neck bone.

  Cat glasses slipping, the hipster mouthed one word: “Fuck.” Or it could have been “Fleek.”

  The bicyclist slashed him again across the face, aching to wipe those glasses from existence.

  Back on the bike, the bicyclist pedaled home. It was a chilly night, but tomorrow would be much warmer.

  CHAPTER ONE

  To Tony “Chino” Moran, the whole thing was ridiculous. First of all, staring at him was a small pod of tourists who had made the trip to Brooklyn from their Manhattan hotel no doubt, a family by the looks of their matching polo shirts and plaid shorts. The mom and dad aimed pad-sized cameras at him from the side of the pétanque court. As if he were an animal in a zoo. An animal! Their matching offspring gawked, while simultaneously texting.

  Ridiculous.

  Ever since Tony was a kid coming to McCarren Park, there had always been soccer players, softball players, handball players, stray toddlers, stray drunks, stray soccer balls. And always that one breakdancer spinning on a flattened box, practicing for the day backward-worming became cool again. In some distant future. The last twenty years had added bicyclists, skateboarders, hipsters, yuppies, purebred dogs, and baby strollers (of phenomenally increasing dimensions—large enough to rent as studios).

  But now: tourists. Hordes of them, sometimes bussed in in large numbers from the city that never sleeps, the capital of the world.

  People who came to the park to watch other people come to the park.

  Ridiculous.

  Second, the latest annoying heat wave had refused to dissipate. It wasn’t even summer yet. If this kept up through August, the streets would run with sweat.

  Tony wore loose clothes but still the heat and humidity clung to him like plastic wrap. The pétanque court sat out in the open, in the corner of the park near the track and the soccer field, next to the handball courts and the Italian ice man who—if he kept ringing that bell of his and shouting, “Iceeeee, iceeeeeee here. Come get it!”—would get a solid two-and-a-half-pound pétanque ball thrown at his face.

  Third—and truly bizarre—this guy Yogi Johnson, some stoner hanger-on, some guy who had only recently started playing and was strictly mediocre, but had now, somehow, out of nowhere, acquired superhuman accuracy and control. Bastard.

  “I’ve got the qi working,” Yogi had said to no one in particular, karate chopping the air, strutting around the court, his graying blond dreadlocks flopping under a red bandanna. “The qi is on!”

  With a careless, epileptic toss, Yogi had made his ball land decisively—barely any sand rustled—close to the cochonnet (the small target ball), on the court, closer than anyone else.

  Qualem blennum! thought Tony. Idiot.

  So it was Tony’s turn now. The object of the game was to toss hollow metal balls called boules as close as possible to the cochonnet, displacing if necessary any balls nearby. They were playin
g triples—two three-person teams. After a brutal back and forth for most of the game, Tony’s team had been closest. But now Yogi’s ball sat nestled against and in front of the cochonnet, guarding it like a Park Slope helicopter parent. Tony would have to throw what was called a carreau—a difficult shot that would knock away Yogi’s ball and place his own on the same spot.

  The game was in Tony’s hands. Wonderful.

  Tony crouched low on the packed sand of the court and concentrated on the cochonnet, trying to visualize his play. In the background, pad-sized cameras snapped.

  “You can totally do it.” Eric was clapping his hands to encourage him. “You can totally carreau.” If Eric had used those hands more athletically, Tony wouldn’t be in this spot.

  “The carreau does not want to be had. Man ain’t got the qi working,” shouted Yogi, while performing something embarrassing to watch, something between a tango and tai chi. “Nope. Not today.”

  It was just a game. Nothing to worry about. No pain, no pain. If only he hadn’t bet twenty bucks on it. Twenty bucks he couldn’t afford to bet, with his savings currently undernourished and freelance work becoming as frequent as free lunch. Fourth and most ridiculous.

  Sweat trickled down Tony’s back into his shorts. He made a line of sight down his straightened arm toward the cochonnet. He breathed in and, with an exhale and a flip of his wrist for backspin, tossed. Camera snap.

  The heavy ball arced high in the air. It landed on Yogi’s ball with a hollow knock, moving it just out of the way and sticking in place. Sand stirred. But Yogi’s ball wiggled backward on some anomaly of sand and moved to the side, knocking another of Yogi’s team’s balls closer to the cochonnet. Camera snap.

  “Crap,” Tony said. His ball and the other ball hugged the cochonnet. It would be close.

  Both teams walked up and hovered over the balls to debate. “Sssoooo close.” “No qi, I’m telling you.” “I think you did it, Tony. You totally did it.” “Merde.” “I don’t know, man.”

  The referee, Pepe, a wiry man with a barbwire mustache, took out a hand-carved measuring tape dispenser from his back pocket. He bent down, cigarette in mouth, and measured the distance of Yogi’s teammate’s ball from the cochonnet. “One and three-quarter inches, baby,” Pepe said, puffing. And then he measured Tony’s. “One and…one and, uh oh, one and seven-eighths.”

  “It’s ours!” Yogi said. “Yes! Praise the universe!”

  Ridiculous.

  Tony went to shake Yogi’s hand. “Good job.”

  “The qi was on fire, man.”

  “Something was on fire all right,” Tony said, getting a full whiff of the marijuana cloud around Yogi.

  “You gotta work on your qi.”

  “I can tell you where to put your qi.”

  “You really need to lighten up, man.”

  Gary, who had been standing on the sidelines, walked up to Tony. “Pay the piper.”

  Tony reached into his wallet and got out a twenty. A lonely ten-dollar bill remained. “I hope every beer you order is flat,” he said.

  “C’mon, it’s just a game,” Gary said. “Speaking of which, you playing Saturday?”

  “Nah. This Saturday I’m at the paper.”

  “The paper that pays ten dollars a story?”

  “Fifteen dollars,” said Tony.

  “Fifteen! Big money.”

  “I do it for the glory. Hey, how’s the new place, by the way?”

  “Ah, we’re going to have to move again. You know I had to sell my condo in Manhattan to pay for my co-op here, and now Julie decides it’s a nice place to visit, but she doesn’t want to live here, you know what I mean? On top of that, the cost of living is killer. You know how much a hamburger costs at the joint down the corner from my house? Forty dollars. It’s a decent hamburger, but for forty dollars it should give me a blowjob and make me breakfast.”

  “That would be quite a hamburger.” Tony shook his head. “Man, if you’re finding it tough, imagine the rest of us.”

  Gary smiled good-naturedly. “You coming to Tim Riley’s for, you know—” He pantomimed the pouring and drinking of a pint of beer. “I’ll buy the rounds.”

  “Thanks. But not tonight. It’s Thursday.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Okay, see you soon then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, watch out for the Slasher Gang.”

  “Is that what they’re calling them now? A few slashings and everyone goes crazy. First of all, statistically, I’m unlikely to be attacked. And second, I’ve got my shield.” Tony handed over his messenger bag. “Feel that.”

  Gary hefted it and said, “Damn. What the hell do you have in there?”

  “Laptop. Notebook. Extra T-shirt. Socks.”

  “Socks?”

  “Clean socks. And of course my pétanque balls. It should block or slow down any machete. If it doesn’t break my back first.”

  “Sure, tough guy.” He gave Tony a man-hug and walked off for the bar. “Stay safe.”

  Tony put his messenger bag over his shoulder. It was as heavy as Catholic guilt, but he needed everything in there, every day.

  He stopped to wipe sweat off his face and neck. The pod of tourists still stood there, watching the pétanque court as if they expected a Disney musical to burst into life on it.

  As Tony passed them, the Tourist Mom said, “Could you recommend a good authentic local restaurant, something very Brooklyn?”

  He smiled. “Of course. You see this street here,” he said, pointing to North 12th. “If you go up this street, about eight blocks, you’ll find a place called Mack…Donald’s. You’ll love it.”

  “Thank you,” the whole family seemed to say in unison. “Thank you very much!”

  Tony put his earbuds in, moved forward, and left the park smiling. If the pod followed his directions, they’d end up in the East River.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At the Bedford Avenue subway station, several blocks from McCarren Park, commuters filed non-stop into and out of the entrance like they were on conveyer belts. This was not rush hour. This was three o’clock. On a slow afternoon. Tony merged into the queue and inched down the stairs with the riders. A train was rattling in, but the people in front of him walked at a zombie’s pace, as if they weren’t in the greatest city in the world where things were supposed to move fastfastfast. Tony zigzagged around the zombies, swiped his MetroCard at the turnstile, and hopped down the stairs to the sweltering underground platform.

  An L train was pulling in from Manhattan.

  The train disgorged itself of dozens and dozens of commuters, but it remained full. Tony shrugged off his messenger bag and slid sideways into the heavily air-conditioned subway car, which smelled, as New York City subway cars tended to do in warm weather, like hot dog broth, sweet coffee, and dried urine.

  Some yutz wearing a backpack almost large enough to hold an average American child leaned against the middle pole, blocking its use by anyone but the yutz. So Tony was forced to squeeze past him and hold onto a bar above the seats. Below him was a hipster couple, holding hands and reading their devices. The woman had arms green with tattoos and hair blue with dye, and she nibbled on a half-eaten scone. Her beloved wore an abundant Smith Brothers beard, covered with stray crumbs.

  The train lurched into motion.

  With a rattle of doors, a subway preacher came in from the next car and, neck veins bulging, exhorted the passengers (a trapped audience) to find salvation in Christ. This was why scientists created earbuds. Tony turned up the volume on Tom Waits.

  At the Montrose Avenue stop, he got out and walked four blocks to a brick-faced apartment building. A three-unit row house with shingled siding that looked like pieces of an ugly, fuzzy-but-comfortable green and pink and gray sweater. Two-bedroom, heat and hot water included. Tons of dining and shops, and laundry literally steps away. Tony let himself in with his keys.

  “Hey, Ma.”

  Tony�
��s mother was as solid as a stove and not much taller than one, with a soufflé of gray and copper hair. “Niño. Entra. Entra,” she said. “Sit down.”

  “It’s warm in here.”

  “I just turn on the air condition.”

  “Just now? You should keep it on all the time in this heat.”

  “I’m not married to Con Edison,” she said.

  She put a plate of spaghetti with chicken and a bottle of beer in front of him. She always kept beer in the house for Tony. There was no telling her not to. Although he would’ve preferred if she spent the money on something else. She sat down and watched him eat.

  The kitchen was lined with dark fake-wood paneling that had likely gone up in the ’60s. The stucco ceiling was just as ancient.

  “You look skinny,” she said.

  “I’m fat.” Tony smacked his soft middle.

  “You’re skinny.”

  “You always say that. Anything new?”

  Both of her hands shot up in papalesque fury. “They closed my ninety-nine-cent store!”

  “The one here on Bushwick Avenue?”

  “Right at the corner,” she said. “They close. Now I have to walk three more blocks.”

  “It’s important to get those ninety-nine-cent bargains.”

  Picking up on the sarcasm in his voice, she said, “Smartypants. They cheap. Everything is so expensive at the supermarket.”

  “You’re completely right. It’s probably going to turn into another CVS or TD Bank,” Tony said. “Just what the world needs.”

  “You want some more spaghetti?”

  His plate was still half full. “Give me time to eat this, Ma. What’s up with the landlord, by the way? Anything happen with that?”

  “They still going to raise my rent. Nine hundred dollars! That’s double.”

  “Almost double.” Tony couldn’t help correcting her. “You’ve been very lucky so far. But that’s why you need a lease. Needed. I told you.”