Antenna Syndrome Page 5

  She reached for the bill but I made it disappear in my fist.

  She shrugged and pointed down 14th Street. “Eighth Avenue. South half a block, Horatio Street. He lives in Belvedere Towers, apartment Forty-four.”

  “You sure he still lives there?”

  “Did three days ago, when I delivered some… medicine he’d asked me for.”

  “He’s sick?”

  “Not physically.” She shook her head. “Just twisted.”

  I gave her the money. She snatched it like a hawk plucks a pigeon out of mid-air.

  “What medicine?” The boy punched her in the shoulder. “Pussy cream?”

  She hit him back. I left them trading punches before they started to play pass-it-on. I bruise easily.

  Chapter 10

  Half a block down Horatio Street, Belvedere Towers was a five-story apartment building in white brick, the ground level of which had turned as brown as a decayed tooth at the gum line. Laundry fluttered like prayer flags on the railings of the fire escapes. Many south-facing windows had tinfoil behind the glass, testimony to a persistent urban myth that it would deflect radiation from Brooklyn. The pigeons had left their mark on the front steps, but I went up the stoop in two jumps without soiling my boots. Surprisingly, the front entrance was unlocked. I checked the lobby’s mailbox alcove and found “Scorpio” printed on cardboard in slot 44.

  Omitting a heads-up courtesy call on the intercom, I climbed the gritty stairs to the fourth floor, terminating insect life en route – crushing three huge cockroaches, hosing a dozen more with DDT as they fled my approach. Slightly winded from both the climb and the bug skirmishes, I knocked on the door of my quarry. From down the hall came the chukka-chukka rhythms of reggae music and the shrill laughter of a woman who was high on booze, dope or life itself.

  “Who’s there?” a man said from within.

  “Keith Savage.” I sensed someone eyeballing me through the peephole. “I’m looking for Joey Myers.”

  “How’d you get this address?”

  “Some street kid knows you as Scorpio.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Sure, but here I am.” I held the large envelope up to the peephole. “I’ve got some mail for you that turned up at Metamorphosis. Dave Jenner says hello.”

  Silence. Then the clatter of a bolt withdrawn, a lock turned. The door opened on a guy I’d have pegged as a high school gym teacher in his late 30s or early 40s. He wore red sneakers, tight jeans, a black T-shirt that showed his muscles, and a pair of red glasses. He had fleshy lips and black hair cut so short it looked like five-o’clock shadow.

  “What do you want?”

  “You still do astrology readings?” I looked past him into a sparsely-furnished living room.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I come in?”

  He locked the door behind me, crossed the living room and lit a stick of incense. I followed him, waiting for an invitation to be seated. There was music on his sound system, a heavy backbeat pumping a hypnotic dance track. I recognized it right away. Alison Goldfrapp’s Ride a White Horse. It made me nostalgic and sick all at the same time.

  “You mind turning that off?” I said.

  “What’s the matter, you don’t like music?”

  “I love music, but I can’t listen to that.” It brought up too many memories.

  “Why not?”

  “Play something else,” I yelled at him.

  He gave me a worried look, wondering if he’d just let a mental case into his apartment. He picked up the remote, killed the song and switched to something I didn’t recognize, some babe with a throaty R&B voice telling us how much he’d hurt her, again and again.

  I went to the window and looked outside. I couldn’t see Brooklyn from here, but the tears came up in a wave anyway and flooded my eyes so I couldn’t see anything anymore. Yet in my mind’s eye I could still see Gwen in the living room, dancing around the coffee table with Lily giggling in her arms, Goldfrapp cranked up on the sound system. And as I watched them, I was thinking this was one of those moments that ought to be captured on video for Lily to see someday in the future...

  ...And then in a flicker of images, like cards dealt at high speed, I saw Gwen and me on our first date in Brighton Beach, then getting married with all our family and best friends present, our week-long honeymoon in the Bahamas, Sunday breakfasts in bed and making love, Lily being born, picnics in Marine Park, taking Lily on the rides at Coney Island, kissing them each goodbye that last morning because I had to go into the city early for a job interview...

  “Hey, man, are you all right?” Myers came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  ...Sitting in the lobby of the Century-Paramount Hotel with a coffee while I read the paper, just killing time until my interview for the security manager’s job, and then the announcer interrupting the morning show to say there’d been a massive explosion in Brighton Beach. Then they cut to a reporter in Battery Park talking fast and furious about something that had just happened, and over her shoulder you could see a dark mushroom cloud rising above the skyline...

  ...A few of us stepped out of the hotel and there was practically a gale force wind blowing up Eighth Avenue – airborne newspapers, umbrellas going by like tumbleweeds, clouds of dust – and everyone was pointing at the massive cloud spreading over Brooklyn, casting a growing shadow on the borough, the city, and the lives of millions of people who’d never had a clue this would become the worst day of their lives...

  “Can I get you something?” Myers was saying

  I nodded my head. “I could use a shot of something, anything – whatever you’ve got.”

  There’d been many a day in the immediate aftermath of the Brooklyn Blast that I’d considered a shot all right – a fatal gunshot to the head with my own hand. I’d never thought I had the courage to face the loneliness. But somehow one day blurred into another and even after all the nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat, crying and hugging my pillow, I was still here...

  Myers went to the kitchen. I used those few moments to wipe the tears from my eyes and take a few deep breaths. Was it really five years ago? And yet it still seemed like yesterday...

  Chapter 11

  Myers came back with a can of Miller. “Mercury retrograde,” he said. “Like trying to drive by looking through the rear-view mirror.”

  “Tell me about it.” I turned my back on the Brooklyn of my shattered dreams, sank into a chair, and drank half the can in one gasp.

  He studied me. “Going through a tough time? Need some perspective, a sense of when this period will be over and you can turn a new page?”

  All true, but I shook my head. “I’m not here for a reading. I’m looking for Marielle Jordan. Any idea where I can find her?”

  “You’re a cop?”

  “Private investigator.” I showed my license. “She’s disappeared and her family’s worried. I need to make sure she’s all right.”

  “Family offering a reward?”

  “Good information’s always worth something.”

  “Got cash on you?”

  “I’ve got a lot of things on me,” I said obliquely. “Be nice and you’ll get your share. Get funny, you’ll wish you had Medicare.”

  “No need to make threats. I’m an honest citizen.”

  “Maybe. But hard times make for hardened people.”

  He shrugged. “Tell the truth, I don’t know a Marielle Jordan. Only Marielle I know is a Randall.”

  Bingo! Perhaps for the sake of her father’s privacy, Marielle had used Jack and Vivien’s surname. “How do you know her?”

  “She contacted me through my website a couple of years ago. I’ve given her a few readings.”

  “Ever meet her?”

  “She had mobility issues, couldn’t come into the city. We did her readings online.”

  “How often did she consult you?”

  “First time, a general reading, about two years ago. Nine months later, another session o
n career. She needed to select an agent so I helped her with that. Six months ago, a compatibility analysis for her and some guy. Since then we’ve done another two readings, still regarding the same guy.”

  “Remember his name?”

  “Eddie.”

  “How’d they look together?”

  “In my opinion, not good.”

  “An abusive relationship?”

  “Not really. As far as I saw, they were attracted to each other. But sometimes, no matter what the chemistry, a relationship spells bad karma. Mix charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter, it’ll blow up.”

  “Did you tell Marielle that?”

  “You know people when they’re infatuated. They just want you to endorse what they’re already into, like it was all in the stars. Between you and me, I think she was already half in love with him.”

  “What do you do in a case like that, just go with the flow?” In my experience, therapists almost never advocate any particular action. They just lay out options and consequences, and encourage you to make your own decisions.

  “No. I have my ethics. If I start giving readings just to tell people what they want to hear, I’m finished. If I don’t respect the gift God gave me, I could lose it like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “You could also lose a client.”

  “So it goes. I wished her luck in finding love and happiness. I just didn’t think she’d find it with him. I urged her not to commit, but to wait for something better. Eddie might make a good platonic friend, but he had too many issues to make a good partner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s pissed off at the world, ready to pick a fight with anyone. She’s sensitive, needs love and compassion. They’re an example of that old saying – misery loves company – but it’s not going anywhere good.”

  “Can you check her file, see if there’s anything I can use to find him?”

  “What’s in this for me?”

  “Good karma?”

  “Money talks, bullshit walks.”

  I ignored that for the moment. “I also need her coordinates.”

  “You didn’t get that from the family?”

  “I’m gathering up loose ends in case she had secret email accounts, extra phones, that sort of thing.”

  “Sure. We’re all coming unraveled, struggling to keep it together, know what I mean?” He rubbed his thumb and first finger together.

  “Sure. Get her coordinates and whatever you’ve got on Eddie. I’ll pay your hourly fee for the information.”

  “Two pieces of information. Two hours worth.”

  “Okay.” I took out my wallet. I was starting to feel like Santa Claus and it was a long haul to Christmas. Thank God I had cash in hand.

  He left the room and came back with a printout of her coordinates, plus the name of Edward Xavier Crabner and his birth date. The first was old news, the same as Vivien had given me, but the latter might prove useful. If there was more than one Edward Crabner in town, a middle initial and a birth date would single him out.

  I gave Myers the money. He held the notes up to the light to check their holographs. Satisfied as to their authenticity, he stuffed the bills into his pocket.

  “Aside from her career and her love life, did Marielle have any other questions? Health, finance, whatever…?”

  “Now that you mention it, in her last consultation she asked me whether it’d be a good time – astrologically speaking – for her to get fitted with prosthetics. She’d heard about some clinic in Tribeca that specialized in leading-edge prosthetic limb technology.”

  “Do you recall the name of the clinic?” I was ready to give him more money for the name of the place.

  “It’ll come to me.”

  “While you’re thinking about it, here’s your mail.” I handed him the padded envelope that had recently arrived at the bookstore. “Why’d you give Jenner and your landlord a phony forwarding address?”

  “I was so far behind in my rent I was ready to declare bankruptcy. I had to drop off the radar just to avoid collection agencies. Not to mention some other shit I can’t discuss…”

  He opened the large envelope and drew out a thick hardcover book. He ran his fingers over the cover. “Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs. Pop astrology but she made a million off it, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  He opened the book at random and recoiled in horror. A red spider the size of a large grape catapulted out of the book and landed on his neck. He screamed, swatted it away and hurled himself off the sofa.

  The spider jumped halfway across the living room. I leaped from my chair, adrenaline kicking in for fight-or-flight. I swung my tote bag at the spider as it sprang at me. I’d never seen a spider move so fast. It scared the shit out of me. I knocked it to the floor but before I could stomp on it, the damn thing jumped again and landed on the bookcase.

  Myers fell thrashing to the floor, gagging as pink foam gushed from his mouth.

  I pulled out my DDT spray and tried to hose the spider. Missed. For a minute, we chased each other around the living room. Then it leaped halfway down the hall. I went after it, swinging my bag like a maniac. Another jump carried it into the bathroom. I appeared in the door just in time to see it squiggle down the bathtub drain.

  I flung open the medicine cabinet, grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it down the drain. Fumbling a matchbook from my pocket, I dropped it alight into the tub. A tower of invisible heat erupted from the drain, melting a strip of shower curtain. The air suddenly stank of burned plastic. A small cloud of scorched hair hovered over the drain. I turned on the faucet and left it running while I puked in the toilet.

  I hurried back to the living room and knelt beside Myers. An ugly welt had risen around a puncture wound on his neck. I felt for a pulse and got a weak signal.

  I phoned 911. A dispatcher transferred me to a paramedic and I granted him access to my iFocals so he could examine Myers. He was alarmed at the swelling that had already emerged around the spider bite and told me what to do for Myers until the ambulance arrived.

  I found some antihistamines in the medicine cabinet, opened two capsules and spilled the contents into a glass of water. I propped Myers up and poured most of it into him. I got an ice cube tray from the fridge, emptied it into a plastic bag and draped it over his throat.

  Having done all I could, I took advantage of what little time I had before the ambulance showed up. First, I killed the feed to the 911 paramedic, because I didn’t want anyone looking through my iFocals.

  Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, I quickly searched Myers’s office. On his desk were an old computer, some astrology books, and a few loose file folders with astrological charts and notes. Nothing relevant to my case.

  A cabinet contained folders filed alphabetically. I thumbed through the ‘J’ section, didn’t find ‘Jordan’, then remembered what Myers had said and looked through the ‘R’ section to find ‘Randall’. The file contained several charts – Marielle, Eddie Crabner, Jack and Viv Randall, Harris Jordan and Natalie Dunning – and several pages of notes.

  I took pictures and transferred them all to virtual storage under a false name in the cloud. I covered my digital tracks as best as I could. If they wanted, the NSA or the IRS could follow this, but why would they bother?

  I checked on Myers, who was still breathing. I finished my beer and waited for the ambulance. In hindsight, I should have split, but I was afraid he might go into convulsions and, with no one to help, might choke on his vomit and die. I had enough on my conscience already, I didn’t need that.

  Warily, I picked up the book from the envelope. Someone had cut a three-inch square hole in the bulk of the book’s pages, large enough to hold a spider. So this was no accident, but a booby-trap... I put the book back on the floor where Myers had dropped it, and put away my gloves.

  The paramedics arrived minutes later. They gave Myers an injection and rushed him out on a gurney. One of them told me to stay put, the po
lice were on their way up, and they’d want to talk to me.

  No problem, I said.

  Big mistake.

  Chapter 12

  The plainclothes cops were both in their forties. Mundt was a big blond with a pair of shoulders Atlas would have traded the world for. He had a tanned face the color of fresh clay, but flattened as if someone had hit it with a shovel. His partner Boyle was a skinny little guy with bags under his eyes and black hair tucked wetly behind his ears.

  The first thing they did was confiscate my iFocals. They both had goggles of their own, but theirs were SeeWorlds, a Chinese knockoff of the Google Glass 8, a clunky predecessor of more compact designs that had hit the market.

  After examining my ID, they made me empty my pockets and bag. Boyle found the wad of cash I was carrying and took a minute to count it, his lips moving as he thumbed his way through it like a blackjack dealer on speed.

  I gave them an abbreviated version of why I was here. They poked around Myers’s apartment and found half a kilo of weed in the kitchen pantry. They kept looking until they found a 100 ml bottle of amyl nitrite in the fridge. Mundt took three cans of beer from the fridge and we sat together in the living room while Boyle rolled a joint.

  I recalled what Bambi had said at the games arcade, about delivering some “medicine” to Myers. More likely it was the other way around, or she was a courier for his product.

  I wasn’t worried about the weed. Marijuana was now legal and the police didn’t give a shit about that anymore. But a controlled substance like amyl nitrite could earn someone a heavy fine, and now it was my problem as much as Myers’s.

  I wondered about these cops. They were much too casual for the situation and it worried the hell out of me. My imagination spun out various scenarios. If Myers died, they could pin his death on me to give their crime resolution stats a bump. Not to mention, hasten me to the nearest private prison, where profit-minded wardens offered cash incentives for any felons the police steered their way.

  “Here’s to the High Life.” Mundt slurped from his can.