That was the first time I ever heard Ranger call Lamont by name.
We listened to our radio throughout the night. The city has several “all-news” stations, and we alternated among them. Several different homicides were reported, but none remotely matched the criteria we sought.
“Maybe they don’t know yet,” Michael finally said. “I mean, say she killed him indoors—the body could stay there for days without anyone discovering it, especially if she turned the air conditioning way up.”
“And that car would be hot,” Brewster chimed in. “So she’d want to keep it off the streets.”
“Sweep the ville!” Ranger volunteered.
“It would seem there might be too many houses,” I pointed out, spreading my arms to indicate the vastness of the city, as if this were the only impediment to his psychotic suggestion.
“I’ll keep monitoring the news,” Lamont promised, showing us a small bag full of batteries. “And we can check the papers, too.”
“How about we put it on the grapevine?” Brewster said, speaking out of the side of his mouth.
Michael, who refuses to accept that Brewster’s every word is some sort of re-enactment of the books to which he is addicted, immediately said, “No!” I noted the unnecessary sharpness of his tone. “This is ours,” Michael said, pointing his finger as if accusing Brewster of betrayal. “If people get the idea that car’s worth something, you think they’re going to come back to us if they spot it?”
“Man’s telling it true.” Lamont supported Michael—another uncommon occurrence. “We gotta keep this to ourselves. Remember, we’re holding aces. We’re the only ones who know. And we got nothing but time.”
49
Several days passed without incident. Each of us waited, each in his own way.
One especially fine day, Lamont and I were anticipating Brewster’s arrival—he had promised to bring some fresh batteries for our radio. The early-afternoon sun was still strong, and we relaxed under its soothing warmth. Our pleasure was enriched by the knowledge that the sun’s blessing was distributed without regard to status.
“I got them!” Brewster announced his arrival. True to his word, he had three packets of batteries, still in their plastic seals.
“You did well,” I told him.
“I found out something else, too!” he burst out. “This is really important, Ho.”
“Yes?” I said.
Lamont took another drink from his paper bag.
“I went to the library,” Brewster said. “The big one, on Forty-second. You know what Michael’s always saying, you can find anything there? So I figured I’d check the papers from other cities. Ones close to here, I mean, like over in Jersey. Maybe there would be something in there about a dead pimp. Or a missing Rolls-Royce.”
I said nothing. Lamont took another sip of whatever was in his paper bag.
“But there wasn’t anything, okay?” Brewster continued. “So I figured, as long as I’m there, I should see what they have on Rolls-Royces. I mean, like … research.”
Again, I did not speak. Again, Lamont’s response was to sip his elixir.
“You know what I found out, Ho? They only make a few of them every year, and they don’t sell most of them here. In America, I mean. The new ones, they’re called ‘Phantoms.’ That’s not just the make; that’s the model. Like, there’s all different kinds of Fords—you know, like, say a Ford Focus or a Ford Crown Vic—but not for them. Rolls-Royce, I mean.”
“That seems—”
“Nah, my man’s on the case, Ho,” Lamont said. He turned to Brewster, asked, “You mean, all the ones you could drive yourself around in, those are Phantoms, right?”
“Yeah!” Brewster said, even more excited by Lamont’s reference to him as “my man” than by his reaction to the “research.”
“And the ones you saw, the Phantoms, they all had tops?”
“Well, sure …”
“I mean, like, hard tops.” Lamont was encouraging Brewster’s initiative, for reasons I did not understand. “There’s no Phantom convertibles?”
“Deduction,” Brewster said solemnly, tapping his temple. “But here’s the really important thing about them.” He paused dramatically, then lowered his voice before saying, “They don’t come in white!”
“There are no white … ‘Phantoms’?” I asked gently, exchanging a look with Lamont.
“They don’t come in white,” Brewster repeated. “You know what that means?”
“No,” I said, speaking honestly.
“Means, who’s gonna be slapping a paint job on a Rolls?” Lamont explained to me.
“Because that would be … superfluous?” I asked.
Lamont and Brewster exchanged a glance before saying, “A pimp!” in a single voice. Lamont’s real world and Brewster’s fictional one intersected at that moment, as if synapses had connected in the same brain.
50
That two such disparate minds had reached the same conclusion did not create a solution. Weeks passed without a single mention of a murdered pimp in any of the media accessible to us. Though this in no way dampened the enthusiasm of Michael and Ranger, who continued to fuel each other’s fire, our treasure map was growing more tarnished with every passing day.
“I think Brewster gave us the true clue,” Lamont said to me one night.
“About the car being repainted?”
“No, Ho. When he said what they were called—those kind of cars, I mean. The way I thought it might have gone down, that was a shot in the dark. We’re spinning our wheels, I think.”
“You mean we have no traction?”
“People like us, we never have traction,” Lamont said, the poet in his soul overcoming his streetwise persona. “Life ain’t nothing but a roulette wheel. Everybody gets a spin, but we don’t all get to spin the same wheel. It don’t matter where the ball drops when all the numbers are zeros.”
“So locating this car is a gamble we could never win?” I asked, attempting to translate Lamont’s metaphors.
“No, bro. Folks do hit the lottery, right? It can happen if it can happen.”
“I do not—”
“I think we’ve all been looking for a phantom, Ho. Just like Brewster said. Only not some car’s name, a phantom for real.”
“You mean, like, a ghost?”
“Yeah, brother. Just like that. The way I see it, we’re looking for something that was never there to begin with. And while we doing that, the one real thing we got—Brewster’s library, I mean—it’s slipping away. The man’s running out of room.”
51
Hours passed in silence. Without so much as exchanging a look, we arose as one and began to walk.
Neither of us spoke.
Hours later, we reached my shrine. We stood across the street from a magnificent limestone building, an ornate structure that proclaimed its craftsmanship and solidity, as if to distance itself from those chrome-and-glass boxes which dominate the city’s skyline.
On the third anniversary of Chica’s death, a series of events had occurred within that building, events as mysterious and inexplicable as a group of insane individuals executing a demonstration of perfect teamwork.
The chain began when a man in some sort of Army jacket lit the rag wick of a glass bottle filled with gasoline and soap chips, screamed “Incoming!” and threw it at the entrance to the building. The man immediately disappeared into the night, as if his mission had been completed.
When the doorman ran out to investigate, a large black man staggered into his path, drunk and hostile, demanding money.
As the doorman attempted to extricate himself from the black man’s drunken embrace, an individual clad in a black bodysuit with a yellow skeleton drawn on it charged into the lobby. The creature’s face was covered with an orange Halloween mask; he carried a large can of black spray paint in each gloved hand. The security cameras recorded him shrieking in rage as he madly sprayed each lens into blindness. Had their audio been su
fficient, they might have recorded a string of rhyming epithets—”Bad! Mad! Sad! Dad!”—as the skeleton fled.
As the doorman was shouting at the drunk never to come back around his building again or he would summon the police, an elderly man slipped inside unseen, tapped each of the four elevators to summon them down to the first floor, and began the climb to the penthouse, using the stairs.
The stairway was well lit, but apparently never used by the building’s residents. The man moved from shadow to shadow without difficulty, for he had become one himself.
Chica’s stepfather answered the doorbell. The gods were gracious that night—he was alone in his apartment.
52
The following morning, the newspapers reported that Chica’s stepfather had either leapt or fallen from his private balcony to the street below. One of his friends speculated that the stress of his long-running lawsuit—he had sued Chica’s mother for libel and slander—had taken a terrible toll on him.
An autopsy revealed alcohol in his blood at the time of death, but the coroner said the amount was considerably short of the legal standard for intoxication.
Although he left no note, the death of Chica’s stepfather was eventually ruled a suicide. Because he had been alone the night he plunged into the welcoming blackness, no other explanation fit the known facts.
53
As we stood together in the approaching darkness, Lamont ceremoniously handed me a tiny, corked bottle of sake, then unscrewed the cap on a much larger bottle of clear liquid. Uniting our traditions, together we poured an invisible “X” onto the concrete, which I then set ablaze with a wooden match.
54
One night—I know it will come in the night—I will finally be free to depart this world. Only then will I be able to offer my haiku to Chica.
Until then, I struggle to make it worthy of the spirit I must become before I may apologize.
Obstacles lie in the path of attaining my spirit. I have no fear of them, but for one.
Time.
55
It is said that the true meaning of Hell is the knowledge that there is a depth yet below, and what was floor may become ceiling.
This is truth. The most wretched of this earth are those who know there is always something worse yet to come.
The worst despair of all is to accept the inevitability of further descent. In the utter blackness of such a pit, any door marked “Exit” will be opened, eagerly and blindly.
Some choose hope. Michael’s “mortal lock” dream is his shield, just as the belief that sufferers will be rewarded in some mystical Afterlife shields others.
Some renounce hope. Ranger knows he will die in battle. This does not frighten him; it comforts him.
Lamont maintains total faith in his ability to “roll with” whatever might occur.
Target cannot envision tomorrow—he has the immunity of the truly insane.
Only Brewster had failed to develop an internal defense of his own.
56
“It’s all coming down,” Brewster told us that humid summer night. “Everything. Everything’s all coming down.”
He spoke as carefully as a man defusing a bomb, as if he realized any display of emotion could be fatal. Each of his words was a separate, measured entity. His lips barely moved. His body was so rigid that it vibrated—any sudden movement could shatter him as easily as a dry twig in the hands of a curious monkey.
Lamont instantly deduced that only one thing could reduce Brewster to such a state. He patted the air in front of him, signaling us all to silence.
“You sure?” is all he asked.
“The sign is there,” Brewster said. His voice was mechanical, purely a transmitter of information.
“Let’s check it out,” Lamont said.
We moved in silence, surrounding Brewster as we proceeded. “Point,” Ranger hissed, as he slid into position so that he would be the first one of us anyone would encounter. Following his silent commands, I slid to the back, Lamont and Michael each walked alongside of Brewster. Target orbited around us.
57
The sign was there. And it was just that: a sign, not an omen requiring interpretation. Its meaning was as literal as Brewster’s speech had been.
Lamont’s forecast that soon there would be no room left in Brewster’s library was now moot. The building that housed Brewster’s library was marked for demolition. A “Total Green Technology” twelve-unit condominium was to be erected in its place.
The sign informed all that a prospectus was available for review, as well as architectural renderings and a “cyber-tour.” The new building’s “open” design would allow for “individual personalization” of each unit by its purchaser.
Demolition was to commence in three months.
For Brewster, it was all coming down. The floor of his personal Hell had suddenly opened beneath his feet.
58
“Move out!” Ranger commanded. “Soon as it gets light, this is gonna be a hot LZ.”
We walked all the way to the pier without exchanging another word, Brewster always in the center of our protective diamond, carried along by the waves of our motion. As we moved, I deliberately avoided contemplation of the task facing us. My immediate concern was protection of our moving band—and any loss of concentration would diminish my abilities.
But even on full alert, some part of my mind could not help wondering how Ranger knew that remaining next to Brewster’s building might cause the young man to disintegrate. Or had he perceived danger of another kind, one that might pose a threat to us all?
I banished this thought by recalling the words of one of my teachers. “If you ask, ‘Why is this man attempting to injure me?’ you create a space within which his weapon may enter. Analysis is proper before combat, so that a strategy may be formulated. Analysis is proper following combat, so that one may refine technique and correct mistakes. But analysis during combat invades focus. And whatever robs you of focus always aids your attacker.”
59
Seated in a circle under the pier, we all looked to Lamont.
“We gotta move my man’s stash,” he summarized our task. It prompted a “Stash! Bash! Crash! Trash!” outburst from Target that we all ignored.
“We need the specs,” Ranger said.
“It’s all books,” Michael told him.
“Ranger knows it’s all books,” I interrupted, recognizing the slight shift in Ranger’s shoulders that always accompanied any perception that he was being mocked. “His question was quite reasonable. We have to move objects. How can we do this without knowing the total size and weight?”
“How are we supposed to—?”
“Brewster knows,” Lamont cut Michael off. He turned to the young man, said: “Give us the numbers, bro.”
Brewster slowly rotated his head to face Lamont, his frozen mask flexing only slightly.
“Dimensions,” Michael explained, switching from his earlier sarcasm to sympathy as if the former had never existed. “You know your books, Brewster. Maybe they’re not all the same size, but if we had some basic info, we could work it out.”
“Are all your books not somewhat similar in size?” I asked, very gently.
“Dies! Rise! Prize! Lies!”
The last word of Target’s string triggered something within Brewster. His posture grew less rigid. Lamont handed him a cigarette, no small gift in our world. He was aware that smoking always brought Brewster closer to the world of his books.
Brewster took the cigarette, still moving stiffly. But when he said, “Thanks, pal,” to Lamont, we could see he was going to return to us.
Lamont struck a match, cupping it carefully. There was no wind, but both Ranger—who does not smoke—and Brewster were adamant about shielding any such flame. Brewster took a deep drag, and nodded in satisfaction as he channeled one of the protagonists in his sacred books.
“The library is all paperbacks,” he said, talking out of the side of his mouth. “Not the crap
they sell now, reprints. These’re all paperback originals, see?”
Lamont nodded his approval, whether of Brewster’s starting to talk or because of some philosophical agreement with his “old school” standard, I could not tell.
“They’re all approximately four inches wide by seven inches tall,” Brewster said, with the self-assurance of a man stepping out of a quagmire onto concrete. “Depth varies, but somewhere between one-half and three-quarters of an inch. A lot of them are even thinner.”
“They’re in those bag things, though, right? To protect them?”
“You got it,” Brewster answered Michael.
“All right, we have to figure that adds something. Say we round it off to three-quarters of an inch apiece. So how many are we talking about here?”
“Four thousand, seven hundred, and twenty-nine,” Brewster answered without a pause.
“A little under three hundred running feet,” Michael said, just as quickly. “Weight?”
“Under five ounces, all of them.”
“Maxes to three quarters of a ton,” Michael shot back. “Figuring we have to box them up for transport, probably brings it closer to one ton, total.”
“Got boys all over this city driving those dumbass pickup trucks like they live on a fucking farm,” Lamont mused.
“You move ordnance, you draw fire,” Ranger warned.
“This ain’t no—” Lamont began, before catching my warning look, and smoothly ending his sentence with: “—job for a pickup. What we need is a van. Not one of those soccer-mom things, something like they use to deliver things.”
“Who delivers at two in the morning?” Michael said, as if we had already agreed that deep darkness was an essential element of our plan.
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