Brainquake Page 7

  His father’s dying words, “Red explosion,” came back to him, and an icicle slowly ran through him. In this last brainquake, the pink smoke did look a little red.

  Paul never had the chance to ask his father how red that explosion was. It could’ve been light red or blood red.

  “The race was fixed against us, Paul,” Barney once said when he learned of Paul’s pink brainquakes. “Nobody can climb into our brain and repair the damage.”

  The caterwauling got louder. It hurt inside his head, but he knew it wasn’t the noise. It was that red in pink, screaming that his sickness was getting worse. He climbed out of the taxi with his empty bag and loaded gun and slowly headed toward the shack.

  Paul walked past the four sentries that guarded the shack, remembered the way Barney had told him about them when he was small…

  A pile of shattered stone. “Meet Backfire, Paul. One of the guards. That rubble was under cannons that blew up their own gun crews in the American Revolution.”

  A pile of rotted beams over a deep pit.

  “Rathole is the second guard, Paul. In that pit the first gangs of New York used to hide.”

  Paul turned toward the half-collapsed warehouse beside the shack.

  “Hijack is the third guard, Paul. Your grandfather used to stock his hijacked bootlegged whiskey in that warehouse.”

  Paul’s eyes shifted to the remains of the graveyard.

  “Skullyard is the fourth guard, Paul. Used to be a very popular cemetery only people with dough could afford. It died when Thomas Jefferson got to be President.”

  Paul had learned to find his way home by those guards. He felt safe surrounded by them.

  Safe from the thousands of window lights of skyscrapers where night workers were cleaning up thousands of offices and vacuuming thousands of carpets and waxing thousands of corridors in the tallest giants in the world. They weren’t tall enough to stop the moonlight from hitting the lawn chair on the little square of dirt behind the shack. He sat down by the small table. On it, a half-filled bottle of orange soda was attacked by flies and mosquitoes. Next to the bottle was Paul’s pad and pencil.

  He remembered one day when he was nine his father sitting him down in the chair and telling him that although they owned the lot and shack, inherited from his grandpa, now some people were talking about buying it to put up another one of those giant buildings. His father knew nobody in City Hall to stop them from forcing him to sell. Their shack stood in the way of big business’ progress.

  Paul remembered the sickness that filled him. His father knew the shack was Paul’s castaway hut, the lot his island, the weeds his trees, the skyscrapers his clouds. His mother was already sick by then. Where would they move?

  In the end, the builders didn’t build. The seventies came, and the city’s brush with bankruptcy, and his mother died, and then his father, and here he was. Nobody had ever come to bother them again about buying the lot.

  Paul carried his bag and gun into the shack, placed them on the table in the small living room, went into the bathroom, turned on the light. In the mirror, he stared at his bandaged face, his torn clothes, and wondered if he’d ever see Michelle Troy again. His fingers fumbled as he undressed. Exhausted, he was asleep in a minute.

  13

  “So you drive a cab, Paul? Jesus.” Dr. Adson held his cigar above the X-ray of a brain on his desk. “If I pushed a hack, I’d blow my stack in a week.”

  Paul was waiting for the long ash to drop on the X-ray.

  “You picked a good word for your sickness,” Dr. Adson went on. “Brainquake’s a pretty fair description for your attacks. Like an earthquake, only in there.” He tapped his own skull.

  The ash dropped on the X-ray. Dr. Adson blew the ash away, shook the X-ray. “I’ll study this, probably need to take some more. How old are you?”

  “Thirty.”

  “How long’ve you been driving a taxi?”

  “Ten years.”

  “When did you have your first attack?”

  “I was fourteen.”

  “Heard a flute, you say, saw everything in pink?”

  Paul shook his head. “Not yet. Just headaches.”

  “Then over the years you heard the sound of the flute and began seeing things in pink?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Were you born a mute?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Ever institutionalized?”

  “No.”

  “Who taught you to talk?”

  “My parents.”

  “They deserve the Nobel Prize. Most parents drop kids in institutions. Out of shame, or they just don’t have the energy to deal with it. Are your parents alive?”

  “No.”

  “Did you mother have a brain disease?”

  “No.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “Cancer.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten.”

  Something in his voice. Dr. Adson said,

  “Did you see her die?”

  “Yes.”

  He jotted a note.

  “What did your father die of?”

  “Brainquake.”

  “I want to see his X-rays.”

  “He didn’t trust doctors.”

  “Terrific.” Dr. Adson shook his head. “Could’ve done you a favor if he had. Though who knows, plenty that goes on in there you can’t see on an X-ray. The brain’s a tricky rascal. Nerve cells and fibers that are a feast for jackals. That’s what I call the little bastards an X-ray won’t catch.”

  He slid the X-ray and his notes into a manila folder.

  “It’ll take weeks of treatment, more X-rays, more questions before I make up my mind about surgery. And if I do go into your brain, that’s no guarantee I’ll find that jackal. You understand?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Did your father see his brain split open like a quake hit it?”

  Paul nodded.

  “And did he hear the flute playing before the quake hit?”

  “No.”

  “What did he hear?”

  “Galloping.”

  “What kind of galloping?”

  “Horses.”

  “What did he do for a living?”

  “Bookie.”

  “How old was he when he died?”

  “Forty-nine.”

  “How do you know he died of a brainquake?”

  “He died in my arms.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Did he say anything before he died?”

  “Red explosion.”

  14

  The noon sky was being darkened by thunderclouds. In her small walkup, Michelle changed the water and carefully placed six long-stemmed red roses in the vase by the window. The nightmare still clung to her. If she hadn’t fainted when Frankie was shot dead…if she had picked up her baby from the carriage…

  Thunder brought rain. She glanced at her baby sleeping in the crib, sucking tenderly on some tiny toy, then from the fourth-floor window looked down at moving umbrellas hammered by rain and, thank God, saw no police cars waiting in the street. They’d offered; she’d declined. She had convinced Lieutenant Zara that cops hanging around the street to protect her would draw voyeurs and alert the press, make her life a circus and leave her less safe, not more. Lieutenant Zara had accepted her reason for not wanting protection, though she warned her not to let her guard down. If this Black Psycho was still out for money or for blood…

  A taxi stopped in front of the building, and she tensed, one hand clenching around the cord of her Venetian blinds. But a moment later, the driver stepped out with a familiar package in hand: a long-stemmed, cellophane-wrapped rose. She smiled as he climbed the short set of steps to her building.

  The delivery came as a relief, a small sign that maybe the last twenty-four hours hadn’t changed everything. Every day, for how long now? A new rose. A new blue envelope, too, with a new poem in it—but no name, nothing to i
dentify the sender. This was the first time she’d actually caught sight of the person leaving them. She plucked a dollar from her purse, went to the door, and listened to the footsteps of the taxi driver clapping up to the second floor, then the third.

  When she heard the driver’s footsteps reach her floor and then stop, she pulled the door open, catching Paul bending down to carefully place the rose on the floor. Paul showed no surprise at being caught. He showed no emotion at all, just straightened up with the rose in hand. She looked at his cipher face and wondered who’d sent him, day after day, with the anonymous gift.

  Paul couldn’t believe that she was within touching distance, smiling at him. Under his blank exterior, his heart was suddenly racing.

  She noticed his bruised face as he held out the rose. She took it, saw the blue envelope under the cellophane.

  “Thank you.” Her gentle voice matched her face. Her eyes matched her blue robe. “Are you the one who’s been leaving these every morning?”

  Paul nodded. Inside he was ashamed of himself. This was his chance to talk to her. He was a coward no matter what his father had said. He saw her hold out the dollar but didn’t take it.

  “Oh,” Michelle said, pulling back the hand with the money in it, “I’m sorry. He took care of tips, too?”

  Paul managed a short nod.

  She was more curious than ever. “Who is he?”

  Paul was bursting to tell her, but shook his head instead.

  For weeks Michelle had suspected someone in the building, either a nut or some guy on the make. But paying a taxi driver every morning to deliver a rose—that ruled out a neighbor, and besides, it was a lot of trouble to go to. And expense. Who would do it? She’d never found any card with the florist’s name. The poems were always handwritten on plain blue cards.

  “Can’t you tell me anything? What does he look like?”

  Before he could answer, a sound behind her made her whirl—the sound of her baby gasping. Through the bars of the crib, she could see his tiny face turning blue. The toy he’d been sucking on was gone. “Oh my god!”

  She ran to the crib, leaving the front door open. Didn’t even hear Paul race in behind her. She lifted her baby out but didn’t know how to help him. He was struggling to breathe, choking to death.

  Paul lifted the baby out of her hands, carried him to the table, cleared the baby’s airway with a finger, then bent to perform mouth-to-mouth.

  Horrified, Michelle watched him inhale, then exhale air into her baby’s mouth. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Her baby was dead!

  But air filled the baby’s lungs. It cried. The crying got louder. Healthier. Michelle picked up the baby, held it close, walked back and forth, thumping the baby on the back. She was crying too, now. Twice in two days! Two times she’d almost lost her son, her baby, her only one. If it hadn’t been for…

  She turned to thank Paul.

  He was gone.

  She hurried to the window. Rain made it impossible for her to read the plate number of the taxi. But she saw him come out of her building and drive off.

  * * *

  That night it was still raining. The Boss was optimistic.

  “Jackal, huh? Well, if anybody can grab that jackal by the balls, it’s Dr. Adson.”

  She placed a wrapped stack of cash in Paul’s bag, covered it with a white sheet of cardboard, placed another similar package on top of it, covered that with another piece of cardboard, and placed a third package on top of that. Then a third sheet of cardboard.

  “Triple drop, Paul.” She closed his bulging bag.

  Wearing a raincoat with big deep inside pockets for gun and camera, Paul stood at the window watching the skyscraper lights blinking in the rain. In one of the deep pockets he fingered a tiny plastic lamb.

  “Top deck, Champ’s,” the Boss said. “Middle deck, the bank. Bottom deck, Menkin.”

  She gave him two keys on a ring. She held one up.

  “What’s this one for, Paul?”

  “Captain Blood.”

  “Stay overnight in Jersey. Grand View Motel. Don’t check in.” The Boss held up the second key. “Room four is reserved for you. Eight in the morning, Atlantic City will make a drop in room four. Use the van.”

  * * *

  Rain hammered the van as it pulled up in front of Champ’s Gym. He sprung a big panel door under the glove compartment, pulled out his bag, shut the panel, darted through the rain into Champ’s, and climbed the long, steep, narrow stairway, ignoring sign after sign urging him to GET IN SHAPE! and STAY FIT!

  He entered the gym. Men punching bags, lifting weights. He knocked at the office and the door was opened by a 70-year-old with a face that showed every one of the five dozen bouts he’d fought. Paul entered. The champ closed the door from the inside.

  The fighters plastered on the walls were the only witness to the top deck of cash being dropped into a big laundry bag. Paul left with his bag one-third lighter. The champ locked the door, filled the laundry bag with dirty towels, snapped a lock chain round the top, opened a side door. In an outer room, a man was going through an old physical culture magazine published by Bernarr Macfadden. In the corner were a stack of health magazines dating back sixty years. The man, whose cauliflowered ears and busted nose matched the champ’s, stood and put on his slicker. On its back was stamped MANHATTAN LAUNDRY. He swung the laundry bag over his shoulder and left through the back door.

  The rainstorm was building up. Paul drove through traffic, watching the wipers. Their sound was like the sound he made inhaling and exhaling into the baby’s mouth. Hoppie had taught Paul how to save the life of a drop in the middle of a drop. It took a long time to replace a dead drop.

  On the van’s phone, Paul called the bank. The contact would be back in the office in two hours. To kill time, Paul drove to where Michelle lived, parked nearby, watched the light in her window, pictured her with the baby.

  A fist seized his heart and twisted. Not a single squad car in the street. No cops to protect her. Whatever the newsman had said on the radio didn’t matter. She was alone. The man who killed her baby’s father could walk in and throw another bomb into her apartment.

  Paul had a gun. He could protect her. He could stand watch all night. But what about the bank drop? What could he tell the Boss?

  Maybe Lieutenant Zara was with her right now, he thought—that was why there were no cops outside. He could go ahead with the drops, she’d be safe…

  In his mind, he again saw Michelle’s eyes sparkling when she asked about his roses—she wanted to know who sent them, what he looked like. They’d made her happy. He had made her happy. He suddenly felt filled with confidence, enough to tell her right now who sent those roses and who wrote those poems.

  Paul imagined himself jumping out of the van, running across the street and up the staircase. He would tell her. They would talk…

  His confidence melted. He could see her face if he told her he was her secret admirer. Yes. A taxi driver. With bruises and bandages and a voice like sandpaper.

  He would tell her, and she would laugh.

  Paul drove for blocks in the rain. When he phoned the bank, the drop was waiting. He parked at the rear of the bank. The office was big. The banker watched Paul stuff the second deck of cash into a big golf bag. Paul left.

  The banker counted the money, all two million dollars of it. In the morning he would deposit it in the Manhattan Cancer Foundation to be laundered through three other banks under other dummy names.

  Paul pulled up in front of the big window of the Hudson Café on the waterfront. He phoned the Boss to tell her he had made two deliveries, was going to eat at the Hudson Café before going to New Jersey. He ran through the rain and sat at a table near the window. He could see his van. He ordered veal cutlets, hashed potatoes, coffee. The television news was on. Someone was introducing Cornelius Hampshire who was being awarded the American Humanitarian Medal by the President of the United States for his contribution to the War on Drugs. He stood n
ext to George Bush, both men beaming, hands clasped. Paul turned back to the window.

  He sipped his black coffee. It was lukewarm and bitter.

  The veal cutlets were hard.

  On the TV, Hampshire was speaking: “…on the East Coast we’re seeing cocaine from the West Indies and Malaya. Many of the places that produce this poison are smuggling it to Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. We must join with our international allies to fight the scourge…”

  Paul ordered apple pie and another coffee, then left both untasted. He paid his bill and made his way back past the van to the pier.

  * * *

  Bombarded by thunder, lightning and seasickness, Paul wrestled with the wheel in the pitching cabin of Captain Blood, a 36-foot motorboat crossing the Hudson River, bucking wind, waves and slashing rain. He kept his eyes on the compass. He’d never be able to see the Jersey shore from this far. The sky was black.

  He was a bit over halfway across when a light beam hit the cabin. His right window was destroyed by machine gun bullets. Dropping to the floor, he fired three times through the window, shattering the searchlight on the pirate’s boat.

  Captain Blood came equipped with a pair of infrared binocs, the sort used by the Police Harbor Patrol. Looking through them, he saw the pirate boat bobbing in the water. No more shots were fired at him. Paul waited a full five minutes. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and hit more than just the light. If the pirate was dead, Paul had to get a picture of him for the Boss.

  He pushed closer to the pirate boat.

  Lightning revealed the pirate bumping against his own hull. Paul veered to avoid smashing the body. He throttled to idle, emerged into the rain, leaned against the rail, bent down as waves slammed the body to him, seized it. With both hands, he pulled it aboard, dragged it into the cabin, searched it for an ID, found none. He took a flash photo of the pirate’s face, dragged the body out, dumped it overboard, roared off.

  He was off course according to the compass, but through the infrared binocs he spotted what looked like the shore. His heart was trip-hammering, he was exhausted, ready to collapse. He couldn’t. He had to find a tree. Any tree. He spotted one, headed to it. He piloted the boat in until ground stopped him. He jumped out with his bag, tied Captain Blood to the tree.