Brownstone

by Dean Kutzler

  After about four attempts, Jack tossed his cell phone on the nightstand, sat down on the edge of the bed and dropped his hands in his lap, frustrated. The file from his uncle’s computer wouldn’t unzip on his phone, probably too big. His laptop was busted. His head was throbbing like Poe’s manic Tell Tale Heart and he was exhausted from lack of sleep. He thought about calling Moe, disturbing his nighttime follies, but after checking the clock, 3:33 am, he was sure the redhead wouldn’t appreciate it. Too early to call Moe or get a new computer, too late to go back to bed and sleep, as if he could.

  “Damn,” he said, rubbing his head and knuckling his eyes. The bump was really painful. Maybe he shouldn’t have declined the ambulance when the police offered. At least they would have given him some good painkillers. Just this one time he’d have stepped off his soapbox against pharmaceutical drugs other than Advil, because the brownstone was void of the lifesaving drug for some unearthly reason. His whole body ached like he’d been thrown from a car crash. He practically had been from that toss.

  He stopped rubbing at his eyes and when they came into focus, he saw the empty shelf where the trophy had sat all those years, reminding him of its recent fate. He’d left the marble end in the kitchen after cleaning up the glass so he could glue it back together at some point. Might as well be now, while he waited for a decent hour to find a means of viewing the email Moe had sent.

  This time Jack threw on a t-shirt, slipped both feet into his slippers and headed downstairs. Once the retail hour rang and the stores were open, he’d get another laptop or find an Internet cafe if they still existed, so he could unzip the file and have a look. The documents Moe had peeked at definitely linked his uncle, without a doubt, to the religious quest of the dangerous organization—the same quest that he too, was now on. He had to see what was on that computer. The suspense was like a water main about to burst in his head. That, or, lightly touching his head, maybe it was fluid.

  He winced, looking down at the scratches in the floor where he’d face-planted the man into the broken glass, and sidestepped them to the basement stairs. Flicking on the light switch, the bare bulb chased the darkness back into the shadows as he padded down the steps once again into the damp atmosphere of the dirt floor room.

  He scanned the room for a second time and started with the obvious place. He walked over to the covered furniture. Pinching his nose and grabbing the mildew-ridden sheet between the tips of two fingers, he fluffed it and peeked underneath, wondering how many secrets this old place had to tell. Right now he’d just settle for the secret of the hidden bowling pin he thought, dropping the sheet and wiping his fingers on his shorts. The damned thing couldn’t have gone that far.

  He crossed the room to the workbench and knelt down, holding his goatee away from the floor as he peered beneath it. It wasn’t there either. Where the hell could it have gone? It wasn’t as if there were many places to hide. He got up, brushed the dirt from his knees, walked the length of the workbench and peeked around the corner in case the impossible happened and it had grown wings and flown into the next room. He shook his head for being silly. Just more antiques littered the room and he wasn’t touching any more moldy sheets.

  “Oh geez,” he said to himself, walking back towards the staircase. His head was still foggy from the bump. The trophy must have back-bounced off one of the stairs and slid between the steps. Ducking down and looking through the gaps in the stairway, he could see something behind them up against the wall. He would have just left it, but it was the only trophy he’d ever won.

  Sadness shot from his heart and spread through his veins, until it bled into his tender soul when he pictured his uncle’s proud face that day. Jackie boy bowled that final strike and earned that trophy. His soul ached not only for the treasured thought, but also because he’d never shared any moments like that with his father and never would, thanks to the organization. The loss of his father was starting to sink in. He couldn’t deny the greater love he’d had for his uncle, but the realization of all the chances he’d never get with his father, hit home. If it were the last thing he did, he would flush out this organization and make them pay for killing his family.

  Tears welling up in his eyes, he reached the staircase and heard the faint sound of music. His grip tightened on the railing and he was about to duck behind the stairs before he cocked his ear up towards the door. It was the theme song for True Blood. His grip on the railing eased.

  Who would be calling him this early?

  He bolted up the stairs forgetting about the trophy, praying it wasn’t more bad news. The only family member left was his mother and if something had happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. Anger rose as he slammed against the basement door and ran for the next set of steps. How could he have been so stupid? The dead priest had even warned him, but because of his blind trust in the police, he hadn’t made the connection. If this organization was as powerful as it was old, they’d have no problem switching out one of the police details Detective Scanlin had assigned to his mother.

  Jack’s instincts told him to trust the detective, but that said nothing for the rest of the force. Since he chose to protect his uncle’s reputation by keeping the detective in the dark about what he’d learned, he’d put his mother’s life at risk. He felt the world closing in, like the lid of a coffin giving way to the pressure of earth.

  He rounded the corner of the first floor banister, panic driving his legs, as he raced to the cell phone singing on the nightstand. Please, let it be anything but his mother. She’s all he had left. She can’t suffer at the fate of his ignorance. Three steps at a time, breaking his record, he bounded up the staircase in four pained strides, hooking the top banister with the crook of his arm. Like a fireman dismounting a fire pole, he swung his legs around the second floor landing and planted both feet, already in motion, on the rug runner.

  As he ran down the hallway, he noticed the theme song had stopped. It didn’t matter now, he realized. He was wasting his energy, because whatever happened had already happened and nothing he could do now would change that fact. He was paying his price for withholding evidence from a crime. A crime in itself—felony, actually. At the time, he thought the choice was his because he was protecting his family, his uncle’s reputation. He couldn’t have been more wrong. His uncle was already dead. What did his reputation matter? Where was the judgment?

  He crossed the bedroom, his heart racing from the mad dash and sat down on the bed, forcing his lungs to slow down. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt along the nightstand, leaving a sweaty trail before he grasped the cell phone. He flipped it over in his hand, willing his thumb to tap the HOME button and illuminate the screen.

  When he opened his eyes the screen read: ONE NEW MESSAGE UNKNOWN CALLER. The phone gently shook in his hand from a tremble that started in his gut and radiated throughout his limbs. His worst fear was playing out. With a reluctant thumb, he tapped the PLAY button.

  ‘Jack, I need to see you right away! You must come to the church at once. Sorry it has taken so long, but I needed to wait for permission from the Monsignor before I was allowed to search Father Angeli’s office. Come as soon as you hear this message. You are going to want to see what I have found, Jack!’

  The phone call had been from Father Alazar. Relief worked as a salve, quickly cooling the burning nerves that had set Jack’s body trembling. He’d been given a temporary pardon for his actions. The first call when daylight came, before the locksmith, would be to hire personal bodyguards for his mother. With the fortune his uncle had left him, it was the least he could do to protect her. He should have thought of it sooner, but he wasn’t used to having so much money. The expensive option never occurred to him. There were a lot of new changes that he would need to adjust to.

  Although relieved the call hadn’t been about his mother, new concerns worried Jack. Why had Father Alazar called at such an early hour? What could be so important that couldn’t wait a few more hours? He didn’t know, but from t
he urgency of Father Alazar’s call, he wasn’t waiting another second to find out. A whole week went by without one lead, now he had two.

  Jack walked to the dresser, pulled out a shirt and pair of pants and tossed them on the bed. He knelt down, raising the comforter and reached under the bed. His fingers felt around the fabric until he felt the slight give where he’d hidden the key. Certain it was still safe once he felt the odd rope shape, he stood up, finished getting dressed and left the brownstone.

  He zipped his coat standing at the top of the steps to the brownstone and took a deep breath. The early morning air had a chill and the sun wouldn’t replace the nighttime city lights for another few hours or so. It was too early to mess with a cab, so Jack checked subway times on his phone. If he hurried, the N train arrived at 4:01 a.m. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and ran down the steps towards the subway entrance.

  Beneath the building’s shadows of twilight, the man sat further back into the darkness of the rented BMW parked across the street. Once the sight of Jack’s head disappeared down the stairwell of the subway, he sat back up and reached for his coffee on the dashboard. When he took a sip, his shirtsleeve eased back over his wrist, exposing a star-like tattoo visible under the streetlight before it automatically shut off from the approaching dawn. He’d sent his wounded failure of a partner, Wilhelm, back to face his fate. He deserved whatever happened. They had all been trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat and even though the orders were not to kill Jack Elliot, Wilhelm had failed a simple task and allowed himself to be bested by a lunatic with a cheap trophäe. He would wait, for now, and see if the man returned.

  Standing on the platform, Jack grabbed his goatee and held it steady after the wind from the N had blown it sideways. Tips of hair wiggled at the bottom of his grip like weeds in the wind while the train screeched to a halt. Jack boarded, squeezing in between the other early morning commuters and a few seconds later he was seated as the N sped its way down the track.

  The trip lasted about thirty minutes as the train repeatedly stopped and started, thinning out the passenger load, until it reached the City Hall stop, Jack’s destination. The subway car’s door slid shut with a hiss and the stale scent of urine wafted past his nose as he walked through the subway, up the exit stairs and out onto the street.

  The sun crested between the skyscrapers, briefly warming the side of his face on the short walk from the subway entrance down Broadway and to St. Paul’s Chapel where he would meet the priest. It was almost five a.m. when he reached the church and the Financial District would be beginning its slow wind-up into its full swing of business hustle and bustle within the next couple hours.

  The church reminded Jack of St. Peter’s, where his uncle’s service had been held, with its similar Greek revival design and corrugated columns, only less stately in appearance, surrounded by black wrought iron fencing and a graveyard out back. People say it was a miracle that the church, being so close to Ground Zero, survived the 9/11 attack unscathed, with not even a single broken window. The church tirelessly aided the courageous recovery workers throughout the 9/11 crisis. Now the windows were dark, no lights on or signs of Father Alazar inside.

  Jack tugged at the iron gate, rattling its padlock and stirring a bunch of pigeons to flight. They manically fluttered their way out from behind the inlaid wooden statue of the church’s namesake, St. Paul, sitting vigilant in the rafters above the church entrance. The days of unlocked churches have long since passed and this church didn’t officially open until ten a.m. Maybe Father Alazar had unlocked one of the other gates.

  He walked the entire perimeter of the church’s iron fencing and tested each entrance. All locked. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and tapped the call log entry for Father Alazar’s number. He started to wonder if his attacker had come here in search of the priest. The call went straight to voicemail. He left him a quick message, warning him about the attacker and tapped the END CALL button. He backed against the iron fence. Carefully, he searched the few faces of onlookers that passed on Broadway for any telltale signs of discovery.

  So far, none the wiser.

  He needed to find a way into that church. Father Alazar could be in trouble this very moment. He had an idea. It wasn’t the greatest idea, but it was all he could come up with, if he didn’t get arrested first.

  Running up Broadway and cornering onto Vesey, he ran the length of the street and cornered yet again onto Church Street towards the graveyard behind the church. The church was like an island on its own block. His pace slowed halfway down the street as he sized up the subway entrance sitting next to the wrought iron fence. The subway entrance was closed due to the ongoing construction at Ground Zero, which is why he had to take the N and walk down Broadway to the church.

  He waited until no foot traffic was in sight and stepped up onto the stone foundation surrounding the iron fence. He tested the strength of the fence, shaking it with his left hand and making sure it was sturdy before he took a firm grasp. As he held onto the fence, he raised his leg and put his foot on top of the metal post that secured the railing going down the subway entrance. Once he was confident his grip was solid, he hoisted himself up. Hand over hand he pulled himself up, using the bars of the fence like a rope until he was standing atop the post.

  Standing vulnerable alongside the fence, he had to work quickly before someone saw him and called the police. There was no time for finding his nerve, only time to react. After the head-plant he took earlier, this should be a breeze. He shifted his weight to one foot and dangled the other. With both hands firmly grasping the fence, he readied his body and took a deep breath. He carefully raised the dangling foot to the top of the ironwork and nestled it between the spikes until he was standing spread eagle between the post and the fence. He took another deep breath and counted to three, then pushed off with the leg balancing on the post, using the strength and inertia of his body to propel himself over the fencing.

  He should’ve planned the landing.

  In his haste, he worried his strength wouldn’t be enough to catapult him over the fence. Maybe it’d been all the kickboxing classes or a surge of adrenaline or a combination of both.

  He sprung over the fence like his shoes were made of bed springs, soaring through the air like a wingless bird and landing on the edge of the curb at his midsection. He moaned into the grass. His top half lay sprawled out on the lawn, left arm over his head and his legs on the sidewalk. Spitting out grass, he turned his face and saw how close he’d come to hitting the trunk of the tree.

  Ouch!

  No time to whine. He rolled over and quickly got to his feet, ducking behind the tree in the graveyard. Plucking a stray leaf caught in his goatee and brushing the rest of the debris from his clothing, he inspected the damages. He pulled back the tear in his coat and winced at the chunk of skin missing from his elbow. It was almost a perfect landing.

  Almost.

  He snuck a peek around the tree when he heard a woman’s voice. A tall, thin Asian woman was briskly walking by on the sidewalk outside the fence. He stood still, eyeing her around the bark of the tree, listening intently. Beautiful jet-black hair billowed around the woman’s head and bounced with each stride she took in impossible heels. Just another annoying cell phone person oblivious to the world, chatting and walking. She hadn’t seen his acrobatic move and if she had, she ignored it like a true New Yorker.

  Double-checking for more foot traffic and making sure it was clear, Jack took off weaving between the headstones, heading for the church’s door. The sun was gaining on the sky and it was becoming more difficult staying hidden in the dusky shadows of the protective elm that nearly split his skull.

  His feet clattered up the wheelchair ramp like a clumsy kid racing to the end of a diving board until he reached the door. He pulled on the handle. Locked. Cupping his eyes with a hand and squinting through the window, he barely made out the makings of an office: desk, chairs, cabinets.

  No Father Ala
zar.

  “Father Alazar!” he yelled, knocking on the door and losing any element of surprise. He thought about calling the police for a hot second, but then he’d have to admit to withholding evidence and explain how he had gotten through the locked gate. Shaking his head, he wasn’t ready to go that route just yet.

  He clattered back down the ramp and ran the length of the church to the front and tried the first door with no luck. Scanning the busy street, making sure he hadn’t drawn any attention, he crossed the porch around Brigadier Montgomery’s monument and tried the second door, also locked. He didn’t know what to do, but knew he didn’t want to be seen on the front porch from Broadway. So he ran around back to the graveyard where it was more secluded under the elm tree. He hoped it would hide what he was about to do next.