The Cursing Millions
Time wasn’t quite standing still.
I was laughing, listening to the radio telling me how bad the traffic was. Oh, New Yorkers could deal with almost any adversity, but driving in a steady snow wasn’t one of them. Four inches of packed powder could bring mighty Gotham to its knees. Just ask the driver in front of me or the one in front of her or the driver behind me or the one behind him. Maybe you should just take my word for it. By now, no one in a car in Manhattan was in any mood to answer questions.
I was laughing because this oil and water mixture of New Yorkers and snow is what had helped to kill a nuclear power plant on Long Island. In order to fire up a nuclear reactor you need to have an evacuation plan. Unfortunately, since Long Island is an island, the only viable means of mass evacuation is over the road through New York City. Even on a holiday in perfect weather, driving to and from New York is a nightmare worthy of a movie. As you might anticipate, it was rather an arduous task for the utility to put a positive spin on an over-the-road evacuation thru the city. But never underestimate the stupidity of bureaucrats. Never!
They were about to pass the plan. I guess the geniuses in Washington thought New York City residents were so tough, they wouldn’t try to save themselves. No, they’d just clear the roads and let their Long Island brethren pass right on through. Oh sure they would. And when they were done waving good-bye to the Long Islanders, the New Yorkers would all climb onto their rooftops, face due east toward the impending meltdown and collectively shout: “Fuck you, radiation. We can take it.”
Just when this ridiculous scheme was ready to sail, some stick-in-the-mud, liberal, left-wing radical, environmentally active, pinko, oddball kook asked this question: What if it snows? Troublemakers! God, don’t ya just hate ‘em? Well, eventually the state bought the plant and shut it down. So I guess we’ll never know what will happen if it snows.
My sputtering Volkswagen was about twenty feet closer to the Queens Midtown Tunnel than it had been just forty minutes ago. The hands on my watch moved even more slowly. But like I said, time wasn’t quite standing still. I had an eternity of seconds to laugh and ponder there in the snow and fumes and hardening dark slush. I shut my eyes and saw the cursing millions on their rooftops. I saw angry black children leaping from car roof to car roof trying to fly. I saw the jaws of the earth open, swallowing all the foolish men. I saw myself getting home sometime in early April. I opened my eyes and found the nearest hotel.
The Hindenburg
The Hotel St. Lawrence was a nondescript soot-faced building buried somewhere on Lexington Avenue below 34th Street. Its heritage could not be described as proud nor even once-proud. It’d never been a poets’ or musicians’ haunt like The Chelsea. Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe hadn’t slept there, so The Waldorf was safe. And at last check, the rat pack, brat pack, jet set and royalty still preferred The Plaza, Pierre and St. Moritz. What the Hotel St. Lawrence offered was rooms, plenty of them and, unlike the aforementioned establishments, at prices a little less inflated than the Hindenburg.
Actually, business at the front desk was pretty brisk, but not brisk enough for management to break out the “No Vacancy” sign. I had my pick of rooms. Wow! I could face brick, steel, or the street. I picked a room with the view, surrendered my credit card and got my key. How novel; a hotel that still used keys. It was real metal and everything, not some encoded piece of plastic. I hurried through the slip cover and green velveteen lobby and into the Seaway Lounge.
Just outside the cocktail quarters, an entire wall was covered in black and white publicity photos of mostly dead and totally forgotten comics. I went in anyway. I’d been in worse bars. I’d sat on less comfortable stools. I’d gotten slower, ruder service from nastier barmen and sipped flatter beer from dirtier glasses. I’d even seen uglier wallpaper in an acid flashback once. But, having noted all this, I wouldn’t bet that I’d be back at the Seaway Lounge anytime soon.
The room was an improvement. Not a quantum leap, mind you, but a step up. Its last facelift had been done when younger men wore acetate shirts and platform shoes. There were starving artist prints on the walls, but mercifully, no dead comics. The TV reception looked more like a blizzard than my view onto Lexington Avenue. Maybe I’d be headed back to the bar sooner than expected.
I dialed Kate Barnum’s number at The Whaler. I was ready to deal. Being indebted to Larry Feld made bargaining with Barnum seem like a minor detail. She wasn’t in. I tried her shack in Dugan’s Dump and listened to the phone ring endlessly. I stopped listening and lay back on the bed.
Somebody drummed their knuckles against the door. I let them drum for a bit before answering. And like some witless schmuck, I just flung the door open without inquiry.
“Queen-sized bed,” Kate Barnum commented, looking beyond my shoulder. “That’s good.” She sounded as if she’d made a short detour at the Seaway Lounge before coming my way. “Take this,” the reporter shoved a brown paper bag into my hands and removed her coat. The bag contained some bags of bar nuts, barbecue chips, a full bottle of Grand Marnier and a six pack of Diet Coke.
“You’ve been-” I began.
She cut me off with a light kiss. “Yes, Klein, I’ve been following you around all day. You’re quite the fellow about town. That’s a fascinating assortment of acquaintances you’ve got, but we can talk about that later. I am tired of talking just now.”
She kissed me again and I returned the favor in the growing darkness. The flavors on her tongue-orange, smoke and brandy-began to overwhelm my senses. The kisses deepened quickly without the pretense of challenge and surrender. There seemed an urgent sadness in all of this, a hemorrhaging emptiness and not all of it hers. But as I pulled her familiar sweater off, the apparent urgency diminished.
“Wait,” Burnum demanded, literally holding me at arms length.
She reached into the goody bag which I’d unconsciously let fall at the first sign of passion. The bottle of Grand Marnier appeared in her hand. She broke the seal and took a prodigious gulp. She put the bottle down and finished undressing without my help. I walked to the bed. That seemed to please her. But when I reached for my belt buckle, she shook her head violently. That would be her job, her candy.
I rolled over. She was at the bottle again. She turned the bottle over on her bare breasts and rubbed the resulting stream into the thin patch of hair below her waist. Barnum turned to me, seemingly startled that I was watching. I took the bottle, then a drink, and then her.
Her breasts were surprisingly solid, sticky to the touch and sweet to my taste. Her nipples spread wide over the front of her breasts and their bloom was brownish. I had dreamed them differently, but their real feel and flavor did not disappoint. I played hard with the bumpy brown circles of skin, capturing her erect nipple between my top and bottom teeth.
“Bite, goddamit. Bite!” a breathless voice begged.
I bit hard, very hard.
“Christ!” she cried. I’m. . I’m. ” her body arched like the back of a bronco, throwing me off to the side.
I moved to mount her, but she held back.
“Wait,” she coughed in the deepening night and fumbled along the rug. “Here,” she handed me what might’ve been a wet nap, but since we weren’t eating ribs or lobster. .
I didn’t put it on and tried to move my mouth along the dried brandy river, into her positively soaked crotch.
“No!” she pushed me off the bed, her feet against my shoulders.
When I crawled back up, I found her knees down, tucked and spread. Her head faced away from me and a pillow was wedged under her breasts. The full pink of her lips seemed to glisten with a light of their own. I rolled the latex on and went looking for that light.
As I was about to enter she reached back and guided my penis into a spot above where I was aiming. God, it was tight and I could feel the muscles fairly close around me. A groan rose up from Kate Barnum that spoke volumes of the thin lines separating pleasure and pain.
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“God, Dylan,” she gasped. “Hard. Just hard.”
I pounded into her, slapping my mass against her with each thrust. It was over quickly for me. The explosion burned right through me, so intensely that I couldn’t judge whether any of this was hard enough or long enough to suit Kate Barnum.
I staggered into the bathroom. She followed. We showered in silence. We didn’t kiss. We touched only through the medium of soap. None of it had been about romance anyway. Punishment? Manipulation? Maybe. But surely not romance. . Our fucking was food shared between the starving, food we might otherwise have ignored.
“I need you to find out what you can about the dead woman,” I spoke straight out. We were back in bed, ignoring what had just passed between us.
“Why? Can’t his royal highness, Larry Feld, defender of any and all scumbugs be bothered with such small details?” she asked with feigned surprise.
“Next question,” I waved her on.
“What was the trip to the Diamond Ex-”
“Let’s get something straight,” I stepped on her words. “You’re gonna get your fucking story. I was ringing your house when you knocked. But how I dig and why I dig is my turf. Don’t step on it. When I ask you to dig,” I flattened her nose with my left index finger. “You dig. I’ll worry about what your shovel brings up,” I pulled my finger in. “I want to know about the dead woman.”
“Yes Tarzan,” Barnum mocked me with a bow, her still bare breasts brushing the covers. “But if I can’t come along for the ride, what guarantees do I have that you’re giving it to me straight?”
“My word.”
“Your word?” She lit a cigarette.
“That’s all you get,” I grabbed the cigarette and took a puff. “And if,” I coughed the smoke out with my threat, “I catch you pullin’ what you pulled today, it’s no deal. No story. Don’t follow me again. Don’t have me followed. I’ll be lookin’ now.”
“I get the whole story, unedited, unwashed?”
“Dirty as a clamdigger’s toenails,” I assured her.
“Let’s drink on it. Pass me the Grand Marnier,” she pointed out its hiding place.
I leaned over the bed’s edge, recouped the quarter-filled bottle and took a choking swig. Kate Barnum snatched the bottle, matched my swallow and killed the bedside lamp. She moved near me and let the remainder of the bottle flow into my lap. Even in the blackness, I could see that she had moved to clean up the latest puddle. She cleaned and I let her.
Someone Else’s Toy
Kate Barnum had gone. The sun was strong. Most of the snow had turned itself into sewer juice. And the list of John Francis MacClough’s former partners was waiting for me at Larry Feld’s office. I tried to strike up a conversation with his secretary, but she blew me off like last year’s lint. She did, however, give me a condescending scowl when she noticed that my attire hadn’t changed since yesterday. I didn’t take it too much to heart and left Mary to wither and die. Hopefuly, sooner than later.
The top four or five names were familiar to me. I’d already met some of these guys at Emerald Society functions MacClough had dragged me to. One or two of them had even graced the Rusty Scupper with their presence. They’d be easy enough to talk to. Lord knows, they seemed to have an endless stream of Johnny MacClough stories.
It was John’s early running mates that concerned me. They were old school boys from a time when patrolling a beat meant using your feet and not a steering wheel. In their day, all lunches were free, drinks were always on the house and everyone in the precinct had pockets padded by local businessmen. Their weakness for the payoff wasn’t at issue. It was accepted by everyone, except Al Pacino, and condoned at the highest levels. It’s just that old-timers didn’t believe in talking to non-cops. That was a real barrier. That and the fact that one of John’s ex-compatriots was five years with the angels and another lived in Yuma, Arizona.
Cops, all cops, are such suspicious bastards. I’d have to tread lightly, but not so lightly as to reap no results. It would be like tap dancing around a land mine. One misstep, one wrong question and they’d tip Johnny to my game. I couldn’t afford to have things blow up in my face; not yet, anyway. I decided to use the wheeze about throwing Johnny a big party and how it was a total surprise type deal and, while we’re on the subject, do you remember any of his old flames? The line hadn’t worked on Larry Feld, but nothing ever fooled Larry and I was fresh out of alternative ploys.
I started by calling on the cops I’d met and moved onto the ones I’d heard Johnny mention in stories or in passing. Some of them were still on the job. Some were in various states of retirement. By nightfall I’d been in every borough of the city, seen the insides of three precinct houses, walked the floor at Bloomingdale’s with the assistant head of security and shared overcooked shepherd’s pie with one of John’s ex-partners who ran a failing Irish pub in Greenpoint. By nightfall I’d run out of even vaguely familiar names. By nightfall I’d been almost everywhere, but gotten nowhere.
Oh, my approach seemed to go over smoothly enough. I got a warehouse full of feedback on the subject of John Francis MacClough, but nothing in the warehouse was worth my while. Everyone wanted in on the party for Johnny, Everyone offered to help. Everyone loved MacClough. Everyone had a few choice Johnny MacClough stories. Everyone told me his favorite. Everyone remembered the sergeant’s wife Johnny had porked on a dare or the Puerto Rican deli girl who went down on Johnny in a beer cooler during the ’77 Blackout or Johnny and the twin nurses. No one remembered anyone who fit the dead woman’s description. No one recalled Johnny ever having a pet name or a nickname. Certainly not Johnny Blue.
I made two more stops on my trek back to Sound Hill. One for gas and a piss in Syosset. The other detour had to do with a stranger’s name on a list in my pocket.
Terrence O’Toole was an aging, pot-bellied giant with a red veiny nose to shame Rudolph and a manner crustier than week-old French bread. He answered his front door armed with a dangling cigarette, a can of Coors and an expression as sour as a barrel full of pickles.
“I don’t know you,” he accused, blowing smoke and the sick smell of burped up beer down to me.
“That’s right. You don’t.”
“What you selling then? Nevermind,” the giant raised a meaty paw to cut off any answer I might have. “Whatever it is, I don’t want any. I don’t need any.” He stepped back and started closing the door.
“Wait a fuckin’ second, goddamit!” I blurted out in unthinking frustration.
The door reversed its direction. A beer can fell and one of those huge hands snapped out at me like a lizard’s tongue. Clamped firmly around my throat, it reeled me into the vestibule. O’Toole was one strong old man. He could easily have kicked my ass up and down the block without breaking a sweat.
“What was that, mister?” he tightened his grip about my neck. My head felt like an overfull water-balloon.
“John Mac-” I coughed, not having enough air for the last syllable.
“Who?” O’Toole loosened the lizard’s tongue a bit.
“Johnny MacClough. I’m here about Johnny MacClough.”
There was no further change in the relationship between his hand and my throat, but his sour face mellowed some and his eyes rolled back into his skull. I figured he was running over what was left of his memory. How much remained was a toss-up. Age takes it toll and noses don’t get that red and veiny from the sun.
“What about Johnny?” the old cop had finished cross-referencing.
I didn’t respond immediately, instead pointing to the proximity of his fingers and my windpipe. He made like Pharaoh and let me go. I was still a little nauseous and light headed, so O’Toole guided me-pushed me, really- into his kitchen and sat me down at the table. Something hissed like a rush of steam and an open can of beer appeared before me.
“Drink!” he ordered.
I drank.
“Now what’s this about Johnny?”
I told him about the par
ty.
“You’re full of shit, mister,” the old cop smiled at me for the first time with evil, crooked teeth. “You could just have easily called me about this party as shown up at my door at night in the middle of winter. Come on now, you can do better than that. You couldn’t fool my dead granny with that party yarn. What gives?”
“Nothin’,” I stood up to go. “Forget it. Sorry I bothered you.”
“No ya don’t,” something quick and powerful shoved me back into my seat.
“I didn’t make detective, but don’t ever mistake that for stupidity. I just never looked good in a suit. Now spill.”
I spilled. I spilled like an open milk carton turned upside down. He heard it all. He heard all about my Christmas Eve. He heard all about the ratty mink coat, Johnny Blue, my broken pint glass and the orphaned heart.
He saw tracks in the snow and blood in the snow and death in the snow. I introduced him to Kate, Larry, Mojo, Sylvia and the pinky-ringed sapling in Dugan’s Dump. He listened without emotion, taking it in with a sip now and then. He burped like a cannon when I finished.
“She had some funny kinda name,” the giant finger-combed his thin wisps of white hair. “Something biblical. Andrella, maybe. Something like that. I don’t know. Christ, it was a fucking lifetime ago.”
“You remember the girl?” I jumped up.
“Are you deaf, boy?” he growled and pointed me back to my seat. “I had johnny straight outta the academy; greener than clover and chestier than a motherfucker. But he had the curse of instinct. A natural born cop, that one. Could smell trouble a block before I could see it and I was no slouch.”
I didn’t doubt it.
“Johnny,” the giant continued, reaching for a bottle of Murphy’s Irish, “only had one blind spot.”
“The girl,” I offered.
“The girl,” he accepted with a nod. “I tried warning him off her, but Johnny was a kid. Kids don’t listen. See him,” pickle face pointed to an ornately framed photo of an elephant-eared boy in Marine blues. “That was my son. Told him not to join up. Coulda gotten him onto the force, but kids don’t listen. Got himself killed during Tet. It killed his mother too.” The bitter man lobbed his shot glass at the photo and missed.
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