by Mark Dawson
Tramon looked over at his number two, a white kid called Styles with a dirty face and hair that had been forced into ugly braids, and told him that he was going home.
“A’ight,” Styles said. “You here tomorrow?”
Tramon said he was, stepped over the arms and legs of his regular clientele, and followed the corridor to the front door. He opened it. It was freezing, and his breath clouded in front of his face. December in Brooklyn could get cold, and the weatherman on WCBS had warned that they were due a major snowfall before the week was out. That had set Tramon to thinking. The cats who bought his heroin might find it difficult to get to him if the streets were buried under snow. He spoke to Acosta about it, and they were going to empty out the rooms at the back of the house and put in more mattresses. That way, his customers could buy their gear and more of them could stick around to use it. They’d be a captive audience, too. Provided they had the cash, Tramon figured he’d be able to push more than he usually did. He had applauded himself for thinking of the idea. Acosta encouraged his dealers to think like entrepreneurs, and the Dominican had told Tramon that he was impressed. He used the word ingenuity. Tramon Googled it and found the definition flattering.
The house was on the corner of Danforth and Crescent, just south of Cypress Hills station. It was a poor and down-at-heel part of Brooklyn that had been ignored by the tide of gentrification that had swept south out of Manhattan. Danforth Street was a two-block alley that ran east between Autumn Avenue and Crescent Street. The house was at the end of a row of attached brick buildings with bowed fronts that were typical to the streets in the area; some of them had ugly additions built, replacing what would once have been grassy front gardens. The house was shadowed by the elevated section of track that carried the J Train above Broadway, Fulton Street and Jamaica Avenue to the terminal at Parsons Boulevard.
Tramon crossed the sidewalk and opened the door of his 1976 Ford Gran Torino. It was the two-door hardtop, and he had picked it up from a customer in Woodhaven in exchange for him wiping out the debt that the man had run up. He put the car into drive and pulled away.
He didn’t notice the glare from the headlamp of the motorcycle that had been parked at the other end of the block. He didn’t notice as it, too, pulled away.
He didn’t notice as its rider settled in behind him, following at a safe distance on the quiet streets.
2
Tramon never felt like eating while he was inside the house. The atmosphere was so unpleasant, and he found that the smell of the addicts—the sweat and the filth—robbed him of his appetite. He wound down the window to breathe in the fresh, cold air and found that he was hungry. He diverted to the 7-Eleven in Ridgewood, parked the Torino in front and went in. He bought a sandwich and a six-pack and took them back to the car. He pulled away again, found his way to Broadway and settled in for the short drive to his place in McCarren Park.
He hit the lights on Union Avenue and glanced up into the rear-view mirror. The street behind him was empty. It was after midnight now, and there were only a few cars around. A police cruiser turned out of Heywood and rolled up alongside him. Tramon knew he was good: he wasn’t carrying his piece, he only had a few hundred dollars on him, and the car was registered to him, just as it should be. The knowledge gave him the confidence to glance across the cabin and out of the window, eyefucking the cop, who glared back at him sourly.
The light changed. Tramon let the cop pull out first, then tailed along behind him.
Tramon’s place faced the Williamsburg waterfront on the East River and had a view of the city from Lower Manhattan all the way up to the Queensboro Bridge. He parked the Torino in the garage and went up to the fourth floor.
His place was the corner apartment in a block and had big floor-to-ceiling windows that he left uncovered so that he could enjoy the spectacular view. It had rich, wide-plank American walnut floors, a custom-designed kitchen with a Sub-Zero fridge, Viking ovens, chrome hardware, and marble countertops with a pure crystal white backsplash. The bath was offset with custom tiling, and he had dropped a small fortune on contemporary chrome fixtures and a frameless glass-enclosed shower with rain head and separate soaking tub.
He went into the living room. He reached for the light switch and then paused, changed his mind and went to the window instead. He stared out at the view. It was the reason he had bought the place. The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were right in front of him, slender daggers that glowed in the darkness. His business was in Brooklyn, and it made no sense for him to go and live on the island, but he found it reassuring to know that he would have been able to afford it if he so chose. To have the vista laid out for him here, his own private show, was a reminder of what his hard work had made possible.
He saw the ghostlike reflection of the man behind him, but he didn’t have enough time to react; he felt strong hands on his shoulders before he was shoved, hard, across the room. He crashed into the sideboard and bounced back, turning around and walking into a straight right jab that connected flush on his jaw. It was a stiff blow, hard enough to tremble his knees. He was halfway through blinking the blackness out of his eyes when he was struck again, on the jaw once more, and he crashed back into the sideboard and slid down to land on his backside.
He was woozy, but remembered enough to reach up for the knife on the kitchen countertop. It was an instinctive reaction that was, perhaps, one that he might have been better to ignore. His face was at the same level as the attacker’s knee and, before he had even managed to slide his fingers across the smooth marble to the block, the man had kneed him in the side of the head.
A curtain of darkness fell over everything. He was aware of the side of his head bouncing against the floor before he blacked out completely.
3
Tramon was aware of a light shining directly at his face. His eyes were closed, the lids glowing so that he could see the lattice of veins that were spread across them. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again. The standard lamp with the adjustable bulbs had been moved across the room so that it was in front of him, and the light had been adjusted so that it shone into his face.
He had seen the silhouette of a man sitting behind the lamp.
“Hello.”
Tramon tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“How’s the head?”
He tried to move, but found that he could not. His arms were straight against his torso and his hands were in his lap. He opened his eyes and looked down: he had been trussed up with duct tape. He could see loops of it around his torso and arms; another loop kept his wrists together, and another secured his ankles.
“What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry about that. We wouldn’t have been able to have this chat otherwise.”
Tramon squinted through the harsh glare. He was sitting in his armchair. The light had been moved away from the wall so that it was directly in front of him. The man was sitting behind the lamp on one of his wooden dining chairs. The rest of the room was still dark, with the sparkle of Manhattan still visible out of the windows beyond.
“You’ve got a nice place here,” the man said. “How much would an apartment like this cost? A million?”
Tramon tried to focus on him. The lamp in his face made it difficult, but, as his eyes adjusted, he could make out a few details. The man was dressed in black. He was wearing gloves and, as he looked up at his face, he saw that he was wearing a balaclava.
“That’s all right,” the man said. “You don’t need to answer. I just need you to listen.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a concerned citizen. That’s all you need to know.”
“Yeah? That right? And you know who I am?”
“I know everything about you, Tramon. And you’re very boring. Small-time. So don’t waste your time thinking that you can frighten me.”
“What do you want?”
“You have a place on Danforth Street. Somewhere you do business.
”
“What’s it got to do with you, man?”
“You’re going to close it.”
“Say what?”
“You heard me.” The man reached up and adjusted the lamp so that the bulb shone directly into Tramon’s eyes. “I don’t want to see any more business being done there or anywhere near there. Understand?”
“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”
“Like I said—I’m just a concerned citizen.”
“You can take that and shove it up your—”
The man leaned forward and, before Tramon could react, he punched him, hard, in the nose.
“What the—”
He hit him again.
“Finished?”
Tramon nodded.
“Good. This is me asking you politely. I’d rather we could leave it at that. If I have to come and find you again, I won’t be so pleasant.”
Tramon felt the blood running across his top lip. “You know who I represent?” he mumbled.
“Of course. Carlos Acosta. And I don’t care. I’m talking to you, not your boss. Find somewhere else. Don’t make me come around again. You won’t enjoy it.”
The man got up. He went behind Tramon and, when he returned into view again, he was holding up a bundle of bills and the Beretta that Tramon carried in his jacket.
“You gonna rob me, too?”
“This is for making me come all the way over here.”
The man opened his jacket and shoved the bills inside. Tramon had hidden the money inside one of the kitchen cupboards. He couldn’t remember exactly how much was in the bundle—at least five grand. The man put the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and closed the jacket.
“What about this?” Tramon said, jerking his chin down to point at the duct tape.
“I’m going to leave you like that tonight so you can think about what I’ve said.”
The man went into the kitchen and came back with the roll of tape. He unrolled it around Tramon’s head, covering his mouth but leaving his nose clear. He cut the tape with a knife and patted it down.
“Remember,” he said. “Don’t make me come back again. I’m serious.”
4
John Milton went out into the corridor and followed it to the fire escape that he had used to gain access to the building. The door was still ajar; he pushed it open and climbed down to the ground. The apartment was in a converted warehouse right on the water. Milton had parked his motorcycle between a line of concrete posts that marked the end of North 3rd Street and the beginning of the narrow strip of land that ended with a fence and the river beyond it.
He took off the balaclava and stuffed it in his pocket. He took his helmet out of the top box and put it on his head. He slid onto the bike, switched on the ignition and kick-started the engine. It was a sixteen-mile ride back to Coney Island.
It was cold, he was tired, and he wanted to get to bed.
But he was satisfied, too.
He had staked out the shooting gallery for two days, identified the man in charge of it and then put him under surveillance. He had followed him home the night before and had determined that tonight was the night to act. As Tramon had stopped off at the 7-Eleven, Milton had made the decision to get to the apartment before him so that he could surprise him as he arrived. And it had worked very well.
Milton hoped that he had been persuasive enough.
Milton rode south through Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook and Sunset Park, picked up the Belt Parkway and eventually crossed Coney Island Creek. He saw the struts and parasol of the old abandoned Parachute Jump ride on the boardwalk, dominating the skyline ahead of him as he drew closer and closer to the sea. He reached West 24th Street. His building was an ugly, brutal monstrosity that seemed to crouch on one side of the road, facing a similar building set on the opposite side in a fashion that suggested that they might launch themselves at each other. It was arranged in the shape of a short T, with two broad wings on either side of a stumpy protuberance. The central spine was seventeen storeys tall, and the flanks were marked with dozens of stingy windows that did not admit nearly enough light. Trees had been planted around the perimeter of the building, but the winter had stripped the leaves and now they just looked like bare skeletons exposed in the cold.
Milton parked his bike next to a utility pole. He had left a thick lock and chain fastened around the pole. He unlocked it, fed the chain through the wheel, and locked it again.
His apartment was on the fourteenth floor. Milton went in through the door and tried the elevator. It didn’t come. He went to the stairs and started to climb.
Milton had done his homework. Most places available in the area at less than a thousand dollars a month were shared, and shared accommodation was something that Milton was not interested in investigating. He preferred his solitude, and he suspected the ‘young creatives’ who were advertised as already in residence in most of the available apartments would not have taken too kindly to someone like him as their co-tenant.
He had logged onto Zillow and increased his maximum rent to $1,100 a month. That had presented him with a few more options that bore more promise. He had selected one—a one-bedroom apartment—and visited to check it out. The landlord was a Russian who either spoke no English or had no interest in conversation. He had unlocked the door and invited Milton to take a look around with a grunt that suggested he was putting him out by making him come over here. The apartment was tiny: a small kitchenette, a bathroom and a tiny sitting room with scuff marks on the tile indicating the spot where a bed must once have been positioned.
Milton tried to haggle, but the landlord greeted his efforts with a shrug and a sneer that suggested that he was wasting his time. Milton decided not to take offence and said that he would take the place. It was a little expensive for his present circumstances, but, if he was economical in the other areas of his life, he thought he would be able to manage.
Milton was tired as he finally reached the fourteenth floor. He followed the corridor to his door, unlocked it and went inside.
He took off his jacket and hung it and his helmet on the pegs that he had put up on the wall just inside the door. He went to the window and gazed out. He was higher than almost all of the surrounding buildings, so he had a wide and spectacular view across Surf Avenue down to the boardwalk, the beach and the Atlantic beyond. The beach was out of season, so the attractions and the arcades and the restaurants were all mostly unlit. The neon that would have bathed the Ferris wheel was gone, leaving the structure naked and vulnerable standing before the vastness of the night and the sea. The odd car hurried to its destination and, far out at sea, there was the glimmer of lights from a freighter, but, save that, it was quiet and calm.
There was something about the seaside in winter that had always appealed to Milton. It was romantic and sad. Milton’s childhood had involved time spent in melancholic places like this and coming here had reminded him of it, just as he had hoped it would.
He took off his clothes, filled a glass with water, gulped it down, and went to bed. The sheets were icy cold, but Milton hardly noticed. It had been a long day and he was asleep within moments of his head touching the pillow.
5
Milton had set his alarm for six. He would have preferred to have had an extra hour or two of sleep, but he had a busy schedule today and he meant to keep to it.
He dressed in his shorts and a faded old AC/DC T-shirt, put on his running shoes and took the stairs down to the ground level. He opened the double doors and paused in the bright sunlight to push his earbuds into his ears. It was bitterly cold: his breath steamed in front of his face as he pressed play on his phone’s music app and set off to the south. He had put a playlist together years ago, and as he heard new songs that he thought would fit onto it, he simply tacked them onto the end. He started today with the Jane’s Addiction cover of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ playing as he pounded down West 24th Street toward the sea.
He reached the end of the r
oad and took the ramp that brought him up onto the boardwalk. The promenade was much wider than any that Milton had ever seen back home. Strips of weather-beaten boards were laid end to end, a zigzagging pattern interspersed with vertical stripes and bordered to the left and right with metal fences. Victorian-style lamps and benches were set at regular intervals on the side of the boardwalk nearest to the sand, with trees opposite them. The beach itself was broad, the sand running down for a hundred feet to the deep blue of the ocean.
There were a handful of men and women out with him at this early hour. The tractor that the city used to rake the beach was ahead of him to the east, sweeping back and forth to pick up the litter that had been deposited by the overnight tide. There were a few other joggers and an old woman who Milton remembered from previous mornings, always out with the same tiny dog. Milton was passing by the Aquarium when he saw the slender figure of a girl down by the water’s edge; she was wearing a wetsuit and looked as if she was ready to go out for a swim. Milton shook his head: he had considered adding a swim after he had finished his first run here, but had decided to postpone it until the Spring when the water was a little warmer. The girl stepped into the water and kept walking out; she was braver than he was.
Milton picked up his pace, Perry Farrell’s whoops fading out to be replaced by The Beatles and then The Kinks. He ran toward the huge red-painted lattice that comprised the Parachute Jump, the defunct amusement ride that stretched two hundred and fifty feet overhead and had once been the main attraction for the long-since-closed Steeplechase Park. He ran on, easing into a comfortable loping stride that ate up the distance. He followed the boardwalk all the way to Brightwater Avenue to where the planks descended and were eventually submerged beneath the encroaching sands. He stopped to take a breath and stretch out his legs and then, ready once more, he turned back and retraced his steps.
