“Come on, Matt, I didn’t come here to argue. But it’s evident that this afternoon you are a nasty, surly, thoroughly unlikable human. Well fuck you, then. Now what happened last night?”
“I spent a couple of hours inside a refrigerator,” I growled, unable to kick my hung-up, drugged-out weariness. I must have forgotten my morning Geritol.
“They locked you in a refrigerator?”
“No they met with me in one. The bar’s cooler. It started as ‘they,’ but wound up me and their new honcho, Blue.”
“Blue?”
I explained. And recounted. Even pulled the notebook and leafed through. I liked Simon’s surprise. I drank my coffee, smoked my cigarettes, and spun my tale. Spicing here, flourishing there. I wanted the Avengers a done do.
It wasn’t gonna be. “A good start,” he said, fingering the second croissant. “This stuff edible?” he asked.
I pointed to my empty wrapper and shrugged. “You want me to meet with them again, don’t you?”
He picked a corner off his roll and placed it delicately into his mouth.
“Damnit Simon, eat the fucker, will you?”
He ignored me, chewed a couple of times, then pushed the croissant away. I picked it up and shoved it in my mouth.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “Why not nose around the neighborhood? With any luck we’ll get more information and you won’t have to freeze your chops.” A nasty smile broke across his face. “A refrigerator. Those assholes belong on ice or hanging from hooks.”
I flashed on Blue’s pathetic sincerity. “A little unforgiving, aren’t you?”
“Are you kidding? You read me the list of hate crimes they’ve committed.”
“Rubbing doo doo on synagogue doors doesn’t deserve the chair.”
“They assassinated a Rabbi, Matt.”
“According to Blue, the Avengers knew nothing about the killing. Kelly did it on his own.”
“Right. And the check is in the mail.” He paused, then raised his hands high. “It’s one thing to root for the underdog. But these people are scum. There aren’t any underdogs wearing swastikas.”
I was too tired, too irritable, to be anything other than perverse. “Their wiring is fucked, but they didn’t get there on their own.”
“The Jews didn’t push them there either. Or Blacks. What’s the matter with you?”
I’d run out of gas. I lit another smoke and shook my head. “All this faithfulness bothers me. You undergo a conversion, the Hasids do their number, even the Avengers have true belief.” I almost added that I had drugs, but didn’t.
Simon shook his head. “Not the same, Matt-man. My so-called conversion is not like the Avengers.”
Of course not; he was liberal. And I wasn’t sure what I was complaining about. Maybe I still felt lonely. I pressed my cigarette into the ashtray, lit another, and backed off. “Okay, Simon, I’ll talk to the people in the neighborhood and see what I can turn up.”
Simon stood and prepared to leave. “Good.” He casually added, “Listen, if you’re feeling a little lonely, maybe you’d like to come with Fran and me to the Temple.”
I waved him off. “No thanks. I’ll see enough Jews when I go back to the Yeshiva.”
“You know what’s been eating you? You want to go back to the Yeshiva. This is more than just gathering information. This is about being Jewish.”
I flashed on Yakov, then Yonah’s stern rigidity. Inexplicably I thought of Cheryl. I pushed everyone out but her and shook my head. “Sorry, Simon. Nothing more than simple garbage collection on the Avengers. Don’t worry, I won’t turn it into chicken salad.”
Simon nodded dubiously and moved toward the door.
“Before you go…”
He turned back.
“A free-lance is on to me, us. Knows who I am, who we work for.”
First worry, then anger crossed his face. “Jesus, Matt. You couldn’t stay clear of a fucking free-lance?”
“She must have picked me up at your office, Boss. She has a desk at the Record and I think it makes sense to feed her.”
“The Record? A Black woman is crazy enough to follow you onto Avenger turf?”
“If you want integration you start with housing not schools.”
“Matt, this isn’t funny. I wanted you quiet. Are you sure you don’t want to fuck her?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Simon. I’m old enough to be her father.”
I regretted my words the moment they were out. Simon’s annoyance instantly disappeared and the room filled with an electric tension. A hard, painful silence engulfed us. I quickly lit another cigarette, hid behind my coffee mug, and explained the deal I’d offered Cheryl.
Simon seemed relieved when I broke the quiet. “Well, I’m sorry I blew up. Nothing goes down smooth with this case. Everybody wants to listen, nobody wants to talk.” He held out his hand. “Give me her card. I’ll work something out.” He looked at me then added, “She’ll make out okay.”
He watched as I copied the telephone number onto the empty McDonald’s bag before relinquishing the card. We walked to my office and he opened the door to the alley. Simon was outside when he turned back toward me. “You did good last night. I’m running into walls everywhere else. If you can keep getting me this kind of stuff, the walls won’t matter.”
I pounded my chest with my fists before I closed the door.
I couldn’t think of a reason to avoid the street. Most days that wouldn’t matter, but today, a late afternoon colorized Cagney shoving grapefruit wasn’t a strong enough bribe to keep me on the couch. I thought about visiting Julie but he’d think me too forward if I threw my arms around his legs and begged for more drugs. Lou was possible, but I didn’t feel too much like a Boychik. Truth was, I didn’t want friends, I wanted out. It just took a while to recognize the feeling.
Two hours’ digging through the White Avengers’ neighborhood had me reconsidering the grapefruit. People were as tight as Phil had promised. As if the neighborhood was the size of Texas rather than a single square mile. Folks acknowledged a rumpus with the Jews, but no one knew anything else. “Too many strangers been here recently,” was as close to an honest response as I got all afternoon. And close wasn’t enough.
Along with the stonewall came the sensation of being watched. I didn’t think it was Cheryl. Everyone I saw, when they weren’t staring at the sidewalk or glancing past my shoulder, snuck little looks. But that just made it difficult to pick out anyone in particular.
Coming up empty meant another visit with Blue and the khaki-clad Avengers. So I kept on trucking. I stopped at bars, sub shops, and hole-in-the-wall variety stores that still sold penny candy and six-packs of tiny wax bottles filled with colored syrup. By the time I finished my quest I’d gained weight, but not an ounce of information.
The sun was gone, the moon still hiding, when I called Simon from a phone booth. I wanted to blow off steam about my useless day, wanted permission to return home. Before I had asked, or even gotten angry, Simon told me that he’d unsuccessfully tried to contact Cheryl. The editor at the small newspaper was frantic because she hadn’t shown up for an appointment. The editor feared her absence was due to her zeal about snooping on the Avengers. Simon thought the man overwrought, assured me she was sleeping off her late night, and suggested I do the same. He promised he’d have Sadie ring her again.
I’d gotten Simon’s permission to crawl back onto my couch, but Cheryl’s no-show refused me mine. Her missed appointment had roused the kind of premonition that, in my life, had all too often been terribly correct. Hurting a young Black woman would not be off-limits to the White Avengers. I trusted my gut. And that meant a surprise visit to Blue.
When I got to the car I opened the door, shielded the interior with my body, and surreptitiously reached under the passenger’s seat. I pulled out the small lead pipe I’d kept in every automobile I’d owned since I was a teenager. The Equalizer.
I lifted a joint from the glove compartment,
smoked half, and pointed myself toward Buzz’s. As I walked away from the car I noticed my muscles were bunched, tight with a tense mad.
When I saw them cross the street it took a moment to realize they were coming at me. At first I didn’t recognize anyone since no one wore khaki. Maybe I should have paid more attention earlier to the hairs on the back of my neck. If I had, they wouldn’t have been able to force me into the dark, garbage can filled alley. But once I realized who they were, I wanted to get pinched. Saved me a trip to the bar.
They stopped pushing when my back was flat against a medium sized day-glo orange dumpster. Irrationally, I hoped the bright shine wasn’t fresh paint. I caught the glint of Fang’s golden incisors. I guess he liked to work with his mouth open; easier to drool.
“Blue too much of a man to show up?” I asked, testing their mood. And mine.
“I’m here Mr. Dick-tective.” Blue’s high voice trilled from somewhere in the alley’s shadows. He sounded happy, at home in a familiar environment.
“That’s a new one, Blue. ‘Dick-tective.’ I’ll have to remember it. Maybe I should write it down.”
“You got a fresh mouth for someone whose ass is stuck up against a garbage can. When we’re done with you, you might not be able to write much of anything. Of course, you don’t really have to write, do you?” He stopped, then slipped an excited giggle. “But the mud needs her hands, don’t she?”
I felt the muscles on my arms tighten. The way Fang and friends were spaced I could almost walk out of this. Unless they had a gun. Unless I wanted to stay.
And I did. All the strength I’d been using to repress and deny since the case began was transforming into livid anger. I felt the bile well up in my stomach and into my mouth as I tried to keep control. “What are you trying to tell me, Blue?” My voice was tight with tension.
“I’m telling you you’re a lying asshole. And that mud cunt won’t be writing for a while. That’s what I’m telling you,” he shouted triumphantly.
I slipped my hands carefully to the lead pipe waiting in my pocket. I gritted my teeth. “Jesus, Blue, whacking a woman. I thought better of you. I thought Kelly taught you to be somebody.”
I heard the crunch of gravel but Blue still remained out of view. “Yeah, well I thought better of you too, you lying bastard.” His voice was raw with a lifetime of betrayals. “You work for the fucking Horn who shot Kelly.”
Since I was the latest betrayal, he meant for me to pay for them all. “Who told you that?”
“Don’t start with me, I fucking trusted you.” His words quivered with rage. “You’re nothing but a lying piece of shit.”
He was angry. Big fucking deal. I was angry too. Angry about the betrayals in my own life. Angry enough to feel my heat slipping into a recognizable chill. A chill that had Cheryl’s smile stuck in the center, somehow superimposed over an image of Yakov’s lankiness. Only now the image produced no warmth, no protectiveness—just cold, hard rage.
“Okay, Blue, I work for the Rabbi. So what? According to you, you and your cattle had nothing to do with that. Now why don’t you tell me where the lady is, and we’ll both let bygones be bygones.”
He wasn’t going to let anything be gone, and neither was I.
“How the fuck do I know?” Again he giggled. “Try City Hospital. That’s where they usually take muds.”
My rage took the shape and gleam of a blade. I was sorry I hadn’t brought my gun. “Takes a real tough man to hurt a little girl, huh, Blue?”
“About as tough as it takes to beat on a Judas. I’m tired of all this talking. Give it to the lousy fuck,” he screamed, “hurt him bad!”
They tried. And tried for a very long time. But they tried without guns or knives and eventually were little match for the Equalizer. I was in a frenzy about Cheryl, about Yakov, and whatever else had been preying on me since I first talked to Simon. I enjoyed the thud and crack of lead on bone. Things moved so rapidly I couldn’t see whom I was hurting but at one point Fang started crying and crawling on the ground moaning, “My teeth, my teeth, I gotta find my teeth.” For a fleeting moment I wondered whether I’d panned gold, then stopped wondering and kicked him in the belly.
I didn’t get off free. With five on one, even a stupid five is gonna do damage. I knew I was bleeding, that my face was eating a lot of fist, and someone kung fu’d me in the chest with their boot. I knew my rib was bruised or busted. I thought my nose was broken. Again.
But every time I focused on Cheryl’s bright smile I clubbed harder. If I left them their heads they were going to have serious headaches, I exulted for one delirious, delightful moment. That’s when it registered: I was binging on my own violent hate spree.
And suddenly lost all taste for blood. I was lucky that a couple of uniformed police ran into the alley, or I might have let myself get really trashed. The cops quickly got control of the situation—guns can do that. They barked their orders and lined up everyone who could stand. Everyone, that is, except Blue. He had avoided the Equalizer and disappeared.
After the crowd was sorted and identified, one of the cops returned to his blue and white to place a call. I leaned against the dumpster listening to ten minutes of moans, curses, and commands before I was released. I wasn’t sure whether the rest of them were waiting for an ambulance or a paddy wagon. I was suspicious about my quick getaway and felt like asking if it was a professional courtesy. But my adrenaline was flagging and, in its place, the first rush of the Avengers’ damage. I just kept quiet and did what I was told; hell, my mouth hurt.
It was a hobbling Chester to my car, every breath followed by a small gasp caused by the pain in my chest. There was no reason to holler for Mr. Dillon since I’d be okay in a couple of days, but I decided to visit an emergency room. City’s.
Four interminable, almost intolerable, hours later, I was once again released. Most of the hurt brought to heel with prescribed codeine, the rest ignored in the rekindling of my anger after I sneaked into my new friend’s room. Blue had been right about the hospital. He’d also been right about Cheryl needing a vacation. The Avengers had broken bones in both her hands. She was lying on top of the steel bed’s covers, her slanted eyes open but blitzed on hospital dope. Despite the drugs, pain kept flooding her face, tugging at its angles. But all she would blurrily talk about was her shame for revealing my identity, for compromising a source, for setting me up. I listened as her contrition joined with my own. Eventually, I put my finger on her lips, sat down on the bed, and lightly ran my hand over her forehead. I sat with her until she stopped apologizing and fell into a deep medicated sleep. Then I stayed stroking her head until I felt numb.
When I limped out of the pastel-stark, false-friendly hospital, it was light outside; my long afternoon and night finally over. But with its conclusion came soul-rocked, apartment-locked, days of self-recrimination. Days of almost unendurable longing for my dead daughter.
I tried shutting everything down with my legal and illegal drugs. They didn’t do the job. After an initial dose of anesthetized stupor, I couldn’t keep Yakov, Cheryl, or Rebecca out of the night. Sleep turned traitor, ceaselessly jolting me with eye-opening nightmares. A cigarette, more sleep, another vignette. Sometimes about Rebecca, sometimes about Chana, sometimes Cheryl and Yakov. All had the same conclusion: I was always too late, too incompetent to prevent the grisly horror. It didn’t take a Freud freak to realize what I’d been fighting. And who had been running barefoot behind my anxiety, my denial, my rage.
The nightmares began stretching into the day. Days. I pulled the phone, shut down the clocks, refused visits. Part of the day I spent high, part I spent drunk. The nights were spent drunk and high. Every television show reminded me of walking a colicky baby, pushing an umbrella stroller, rolling a ball on the floor. Of having embraced a life I never thought possible. But each memory carried me closer to that ugly week in the hospital waiting for my family to die. Waiting helplessly, stuck to a brown Naugahyde couch in the visitors’ room, dreading t
he worst. And finally getting it.
Every room I limped through, every mirror I saw, reflected my dime-short, day-late identity.
I was tired of being the last to know. For yet another time I’d let my life’s shortfall transform into hate. My fight with the Avengers had been nothing more than a rabid blood hunt. I’d wanted to beat their bodies. I’d brought the Equalizer hoping to split their ignorance, hungry for the pleasure in my lack of control.
I thought of Blue lurking somewhere in the city and remembered Rabbi Sheinfeld’s “choose your enemies well…”
Maybe it was the acknowledgment of my grief for Rebecca, the sadness and shame in my violence. Maybe it was the chemicals, but I began to crawl out from my cloud of self-loathing. I started sleeping without company. Enough sleep to let the grass, codeine, and Valium meld with the solitary rhythm of recovery. I inspected my injuries, as if the light green swelling around my eyes, my splotched chest, or my painful breathing could somehow ease a troubled conscience. But it wasn’t until days later, when I stood under a hot stinging shower, my tears mixing with the spigot’s, that I could think of Becky without the despair I’d been fighting since this case began.
When I first heard about Simon’s Temple-joining, I’d felt lonely, left out. Difficult but doable. Only I hadn’t anticipated meeting Yakov or Cheryl. Hadn’t expected the case to unleash a tidal wave of paternalism. Of yearning. With no simple solution of joining Big Brothers. When I needed to belong, I wanted the real thing. I wanted my family. I needed what I could never have.
I stared into the medicine chest mirror relieved that I didn’t resemble Blue. I just looked like a banged-up me.
I restarted my clocks, plugged in the phone, and eased off the painkillers. I opened the door for Lou and even ate his cooking. He knew me well enough to accept my morbid silence, liked me well enough to keep everyone else at bay.
Finally, toward the end of the week, I felt patched together enough to try and explain some of what had happened to Simon.
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 64
