Antenna Syndrome Read online

  “You’d be surprised.” I’d worked on cases where people had professed love, done business deals, exchanged kiddie porn and plotted murder with people they’d only ever met online. The truth is out there, went that line from The X-Files, but so too was a lot of deception and fabrication.

  “There is someone else,” Vivien offered. “Not a boyfriend. More like a life coach.”

  “Name?”

  “Joey Myers. An astrologer, owns a bookstore in Chelsea. Marielle first got a reading from him a few years ago. They stayed in touch. He advises her on all aspects of her life...”

  “Where’s this bookstore?”

  “It’s called Metamorphosis. On 22nd near Eighth. I was in the city one day to visit Schiller’s gallery, so I went to see him.”

  “He read your horoscope?” Jack said.

  “The reading was Marielle’s gift to me,” Vivien said. “Another cash transaction.”

  “What did you learn that I couldn’t have told you already?”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said.

  Jack shook his head. His cynical expression implied what he was thinking. Marielle had lived a lonely existence, housebound her entire life, and her mentor was some new age kook who read horoscopes. How sad was that? I didn’t share the same perspective, but I knew many did.

  I took a last walk around the studio again, looking at Marielle’s paintings. Her technique was flawless, but what was it about bugs she found so beautiful? She should come live in my part of town. Maybe after she’d been swarmed by cockroaches in the elevator, she’d find better subjects for admiration.

  Jack walked me out. The dogs followed us, and one of them pissed on the Charger’s wheel before I left. By way of parting gestures, I’ve seen worse.

  Chapter 8

  I took the Long Island Expressway back into Manhattan. Now that I had a few leads, I wanted to run them down. Natalie Jordan had promised a bonus if I found Marielle before the weekend. I switched my goggles back into audio mode and searched for the two names Vivien had given me.

  Joey Myers’s name turned up in a few places. He had an astrology site with a weekly celebrity blog, covering Hollywood stars across the zodiac. He also covered crime, with analyses of terrorist strikes, public school shootings, and the rampages of serial killers, of which America had many.

  He was Vice-President of the New York chapter of the National Council of Geocosmic Research, which I assumed was a euphemism for an association of astrologers. But he was also had a degree in psychology from NYU, and worked one night a week as pro bono counselor at the campus drop-in center near Washington Square. Maybe an oddball, but an educated one with a social conscience.

  More pertinent, he ran an occult bookstore called Metamorphosis, located at 270 West 22nd Street.

  For Edward Crabner, the intel was scant. His name turned up only in a few posts to chess club sites. They were technical, typically critical of some gambit played out in major competitions. Obviously a chess nerd, but an angry one, because his exchanges with other chess aficionados turned into derogatory remarks and expletives until he got ejected from the discussion. John McEnroe of the chessboard.

  I wondered what Marielle had found attractive in him, but admittedly this was little by which to judge the man. I was usually a nice guy too, but sometimes I succumbed to occasional bouts of ranting at those who epitomized all that was wrong with our brave new world.

  I descended Ninth Avenue, turned onto 22nd Street and looked for a parking spot. I found one near Eighth, where two Afro-American gentlemen in their command post, an ancient Hummer that looked like it hadn’t turned its flaccid tires in a decade, stood guard over a string of parked cars. I pulled into an empty slot among them. One guy sauntered over, his hand on the butt of a machine-pistol. I powered down my window.

  “One hour deposit,” he said, quoting a two-digit figure.

  I gave him the money and locked the car. He returned to his Hummer. I went down the street to visit Metamorphosis, which I suspected was one of the last bookstores in New York.

  Outside the bookstore, a man with a bloody forehead lay on the sidewalk. He had white hair and a few days’ growth of silvery chin-whisker. He snorted in his sleep and fidgeted at his crotch like a kid in a wet dream. I stepped around him and went through the door.

  Inside, the lights were off. From the rear wall, down aisles of Batman, Spiderman, Wolverine and X-Men, day-glow posters pulsed like heat lightning. Nostalgia was big these days, everyone wishing we could return to yesteryear before all this shit happened. Memorabilia was popular, anything that could transport us back in time. Surprising for this digital age, old comics and some magazines like Playboy commanded a decent price. Hence, my collection of Rolling Stone magazines that were waiting for the day...

  Behind the front counter sat a balding young man with his nose in a paperback, Spiders of Mars. On its cover, four huge red spiders were attempting to defoliate a leafy green lady. A stud with a sword and a codpiece was chopping away at them with heroic abandon.

  Opposite the counter were shelves of bottled water, coffee, canned milk, oatmeal, rice, beans, pasta, soups, liquor. Probably he had Cuban cigars under the counter too. Just about every retail outlet had turned into a flea market, whatever the proprietor could get his hands on.

  “Looking for something?” the guy asked me.

  “An astrologer.”

  “Occult, end of aisle eight.” He pointed the direction.

  “Not astrology books. A real live astrologer. You know a guy called Joey Myers?”

  “Yeah. This used to be his store.”

  “Not any longer?”

  “He sold it.”

  “When?”

  “Just a month ago.”

  “Who owns it now?”

  “Me and the bank.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  I gave him a business card and showed him my license. “I’m looking for a missing girl. She was friends with Joey Myers. I need to talk to him, see if he knows her whereabouts.”

  “I’m Dave Jenner. When Myers left, he gave me a forwarding address, but I don’t think it’s valid. A few things for him showed up in the weeks after he moved out. I forwarded them to the address he’d given but they all came back. I’ve tried calling him but it always goes straight to voice-mail. It’s like he didn’t want to be found again.”

  No surprise. Ever since the Brooklyn Blast, the population was jumpier than a colony of cockroaches exposed to daylight. Half the city had fled for greener pastures. Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave were moving upscale, jockeying for better housing, or getting closer to work or family. The courier business had delivery problems, and a lot of parcels went missing.

  “Landlord?”

  He pointed at the ceiling. “Third floor.”

  “Is he... you know... normal?”

  I had to ask because ever since the Brooklyn Blast a lot of weird shit was happening. Some people had been affected physically – by ambient radiation or pollution – while others had gone off the rails psychologically – having lost loved ones, gone bankrupt, or just couldn’t handle a disaster covering so many fronts. And everyone had a gun.

  “Normal weird, if you know what I mean. What can I say? He’s a slumlord but he quotes Nietzsche. I asked for an exterminator because the rats in the basement are eating the wiring. He says, ‘Once you had wild dogs in your cellar, but in the end they turned into birds and lovely singers.’ He’s as twisted as a pretzel.”

  “He in today?”

  “Third floor. Outside door on your left. Knock loudly, he’s got a bad ear.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, do me a favor? If you find Myers, give him his mail.”

  “Why not?” I held out my hand. Always a nice touch, when approaching someone who was trying not to be found, to hand-deliver some overdue bills.

  “This came just yesterday.” He pulled a large mailing envelope from under the counter
.

  It was a couple of inches thick, bubble wrapped, felt like it contained a hardcover book. Addressed to Myers at this location, with a month-old NYC postmark, but no return address.

  I put it in my tote bag and went outside to find the upstairs door. The small foyer was lit by a naked bulb at the foot of a stairwell. I took out my DDT spray and climbed the stairs. There were dozens of silverfish, some as long as my middle finger. I stomped the slowest and sprayed the fastest of them as I advanced to the third floor.

  ~~~

  I knocked a dozen times before the landlord answered the door. He was a round little man with a shiny black suit and a nose you could have built a synagogue on. He glanced at my hands to see I wasn’t carrying a gun, and my feet to see I didn’t have cloven hooves. Apparently I passed inspection. He hooked his hand towards me like a bear snatching a salmon.

  “Don’t stand in the hall. I wouldn’t want the ceiling should fall on you. What are you, a bill collector?

  He went behind his desk, an elephantine construction of teakwood that couldn’t have weighed less than a ton. It was an excellent testimonial to the structural solidity of the building. Heavy wire mesh covered a dirty window behind his desk, while a wooden bookcase of musty old tomes leaned against one wall.

  “I’m looking for Joey Myers, who used to own the store downstairs.”

  “Myers!” He banged his fist on the teakwood desk. I could hear gorillas and rhinos fleeing through the jungle timber. “He owes me six months’ rent.”

  “Know where he lives?”

  “If I knew, would he still owe me?”

  “Ever get a collection agency after him?”

  “Good agencies won’t take small jobs these days. And they want thirty percent. I look like I have that kind of money?”

  “Any idea where I can find Myers?”

  “Two weeks ago I saw him outside a games arcade on 14th and Seventh. By the time I got off the bus and walked back, he was gone.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “About forty. Good teeth, shaved head. Flashy clothes. Snake tattoo around his neck. Fit, like a guy who works out. Maybe if I was younger, I’d have got him in a head-lock and hurt him a little, showed him I meant business. But I’m too old for that now.”

  “You don’t believe in living dangerously?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully and took a walk around his desk. He ran a hand over the dusty bookcase and raised his eyes to a cluster of cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling.

  “I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.”

  “Troubled times for the superman, huh?” I wished I had time to sit and talk with him. There was a holy quietude about his office. But I had an appointment with an elusive astrologer and I couldn’t linger.

  Chapter 9

  I checked out Myers’s forwarding address, at 18th and Tenth. The super was a beast with facial tats and teeth sharpened to canine points. She knew all her tenants’ names and pointed out that Myers had given his apartment as #69 in a building with only 24 units. She was still laughing at my expense as I headed back to the car. I went looking for the games arcade where Myers’s ex-landlord had seen him hanging out.

  14th Street in the Meatpacking District was a gritty conduit of commercial traffic, tough guys riding shotgun in trucks transporting contraband, stolen goods, industrial supplies, anything for the black market. I left the Charger in front of a bodega on 12th whose Hispanic owner, armed with a sawed-off shotgun, promised my car would remain untouched for a flat fee. I was thinking I should have taken a taxi to make my rounds, but cabbies were also extortionists on wheels, so what could I do?

  I put on my eMask and followed the traffic up to 14th. Kids in motley gear, with chains for belts and knives in boots, slumped on the sidewalk in dopey stupors while others panhandled. In the last two years, most kids under sixteen had been taken away by families intent on self-preservation. Those that remained were strays.

  After the Brooklyn Blast, society had split along economic lines. Most upper class folk had fled the state. Many in the middle class cashed in and moved to distant suburbs or up-state. The lower class had hunkered down to hope for the best. But these days, hope had a short shelf life.

  Despite the fallout, five years of massive clean-up had scrubbed the city to a degree that the environment was moderately habitable. Despite the devastated economy, for every two jobs destroyed, a new one emerged in essential services or infrastructure rebuilding. Some days it seemed like New York might come back from the dead.

  The youthful unemployed fended for themselves, like feral cats living off garbage in back alleys. A journalist had done a story on NYC street kids, dubbing them the Alleycat Cohort.

  A pack of scruffy punks occupied the corner of 14th and Seventh, many without respirators or the cheapest face masks. Suited up in anti-pollution gear, I shook my head in dismay. New York air was still a fog of pollutants, and some of these kids were virtually naked. Rack it up to the arrogance of youth, thinking they could smoke crack, have bareback sex and share needles without Death looking over their shoulders. But Death ruled the streets now, and he wasn’t looking the other way. If anything, their attitude made him take notice. Death was bored too, and there was nothing like a little street action to keep him on his game.

  I was glad I’d brought my pistol, not to mention knife and pepper spray. No telling when some kid might come to the end of his rope and decide to go out in a blaze of meth-fueled glory, taking out any innocent bystanders who got in his way.

  Across the street, a giant screen showed two space-age gladiators in a clash of guns, laser swords and hand-to-hand combat. Heavy metal thundered from speakers a deaf man might have designed to inflict pain on mankind. Atop the screen a ribbon of blood-red light flashed Universal Games.

  This could be it, said the not-quite-dead optimist in me, indulging in a hope, however baseless, that I might quickly locate Joey Myers.

  Skirting some puke on the sidewalk, I entered the arcade. The air was so thick with smoke – contraband cigarettes and ganja – that fog lights couldn’t have penetrated the murk. I shuddered to the sounds of heavy metal on one hand and game noise on the other – stuttering gunfire, clanging weaponry, shrieking metal, screaming victims. Dante should have stuck around a few more centuries, he could have saved himself describing a hell that man would create all on his own.

  I did the circuit through the sturm und drang, looking for someone of Myers’s description. At least the demographics were right. Most gamers were guys in their 30s and 40s, typical of a generation that had never left their parents’ homes. These grown men were all strapped into chairs, 3-D helmets over their heads, hands white-knuckled on joysticks, adrenaline coursing through them like fire in a matchstick factory. I wondered how many of them, sedentary and ill-nourished as they were, risked death by heart attack while immersed in virtual realities of chaos and peril.

  At the front counter a 50-year-old guy sat at a computer, pummeling an electronic percussion pad with drumsticks. I cupped hands to mouth and mimed screaming through a megaphone. He tugged his earphones off and raised an eyebrow.

  “Seen Joey Myers around?” I hollered.

  “Don’t know him,” he shrugged.

  “Astrologer.” I gave him the physical description the landlord had provided. “Used to run a bookstore on 22nd Street.”

  “A bookstore? People still buy books?”

  “A place called Metamorphosis.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “If it did, would you even hear it?”

  “What?”

  I opened my wallet and gave him a bill. “Ask around. If you find him, tell him to call me. I’ve got some rich clients for him.” I wrote what he needed on a scrap of paper.

  He glanced at it, nodded and put his earphones back on to resume drumming.

  ~~~

  Out on the street, I felt high after all that second-hand smoke. I too
k out my vaporizer and inhaled some therapy to establish a new baseline.

  “Spare change, man? I got a sucker for a fifty-dollar match on Stellar Combat. All I need’s another five to get it on.” The kid hustling me was nineteen going on thirty, with greasy brown hair, an alky’s nose and a big square belt buckle whose bas-relief design featured a naked woman riding a chimera. She was twisting hell out of the lion’s mane and he looked like he loved it.

  I gave the kid a ten and said, “Know a guy called Joey Myers? Snake tat around his neck, does horoscopes?”

  The kid turned and whistled. “Hey, Bambi.”

  A petite blonde tossed a tangle of hair over her shoulder and tottered up on high heels. Although surely underage, she wore a black mesh top through which I clearly saw her pale breasts, and a pair of jeans that some cat had used to sharpen its claws.

  “Guy’s looking for Scorpio. You know where he lives.”

  “That’s Myers’s street name – Scorpio?”

  “Right.” Bambi stared at me, her mascara-encrusted eyelids twitching like centipedes in death convulsions.

  “He live around here?”

  She lit a cigarette and adopted a thoughtful pose, like she had to think about it, in reality probably just waiting for some money to appear. “Why you want him? You a cop?”

  “No. I have a package for him.” I showed her the padded envelope.

  She held out her hand. “I can give it to him next time I see him.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said. “But I can give you some cash for his address right now.”

  Her pupils flared a tad as she looked me up and down, trying to decide if she could pump me for more.

  “Right now,” I repeated, as I took out a bill and snapped it between my fingers, “before you get greedy, and I talk to everyone else on the strip.”