Motherless Brooklyn

let the crowd pass by, until the light turned red again and the traffic began to whiz past me. A strip of sunshine laced the avenue and warmed me on the bench. Park Avenue’s giant apartment buildings were ornate with shadow in the midmorning light. I was like a castaway on my island there, in a river of orange cabs.

“Where are you, Freakshow?”

“Don’t call me Freakshow,” I said.

“What should I call you-Buttercup?”

“Valiant Daffodil,” I blurted. “Alibi Diffident.”

“Where are you, Daffodil?” said Tony rather sweetly. “Should we come get you?”

“Goodcop, buttercup,” I said, ticcing on through my tears. By calling me Freakshow-Minna’s nickname-Tony had cued my Tourette’s, had cut right through the layers of coping strategies and called out my giddy teenage voice. It should have been a relief to tic freely one who knew me so well. But I didn’t trust him. Minna was dead and I didn’t trust Tony and I didn’t know what it meant.

“Tell me where your little investigation led you,” said Tony.

I looked up at Park Avenue, the monolithic walls of old money stretched out, a furrow of stone.

“I’m in Brooklyn,” I lied. “Eatmegreenpoint.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s in Greenpoint?”

“I’m looking for the-Greenpope!-the guy who killed Minna, the Polish guy. What do you think?”

“Just wandering around looking for him, huh?”

“Eatmephone!”

“Hanging out in Polish bars, that sort of thing?”

I barked and clicked my tongue. My agitated jaw jerked against the redial button and a sequence of tones played on the line. The light changed and the cabs crossing Park blared their horns, working through gridlock. Another raft of pedestrians passed over my island and back into the river.

“Doesn’t sound like Greenpoint,” said Tony.

“They’re filming a movie out here. You should see this. They’ve got Greenpoint-Greenphone! Creepycone! Phonyman!-Greenpoint Avenue set up to look like Manhattan. All these fake buildings and cabs and extras dressed up like they’re on Park Avenue or something. So that’s what you’re hearing.”

“Who’s in it?”

“What?”

“Who’s in the movie?”

“Somebody said Mel-Gisspod, Gasspoint, Pissphone-”

“Mel Gibson.”

“Yeah. But I haven’t seen him, just a lot of extras.”

“And they really got fake buildings out there?”

“Did you sleep with Julia, Tony?”

“Why’d you want to go and say that?”

“Did you?”

“Who you trying to protect, Daffodil? Minna’s dead.”

“I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you in person when you get in here already.”

“Dickety Daffodil! Dissident Crocophile! Laughable Chocodopolus!”

“Ah, I heard it all before.”

“Likable lunchphone, veritable spongefist, teenage mutant Zendo lungfish, penis Milhaus Nixon tuning fork.”

“You fucking Tugboat.”

“Good-bye, Tonybailey.”

Ten-thirty Park Avenue was another stone edifice, unremarkable among its neighbors. The oak doors split the difference between magnificence and military sturdiness, tiny windows barred with iron: French Colonial Bomb Shelter. The awning showed just the numerals, no gaudy, pretentious building name like you’d see on Central Park West or in Brooklyn Heights-here nothing remained to be proved, and anonymity was a value greater than charisma. The building had a private loading zone and a subtle curb cut, though, which sang of money, payoffs to city officials, and of women’s-shoe heels too fragile to tangle with the usual four-inch step, too expensive to risk miring in dog shit. A special curb man stood patrolling the front, ready to open car doors or kick dogs or turn away unwanted visitors before they even tarnished the lobby. I came down the block at a good clip and swiveled to the door at the last minute, faking him out.

The lobby was wide and dark, designed to blind an unfamiliar visitor coming in from the sunlight. A crowd of doormen in white gloves and familiar blue suits with black piping on the legs surrounded me the minute I stumbled through the doors. It was the same uniform worn by the lugs in the rental car.

So they hadn’t been lugs by training-that much was obvious. They were doormen, no shame in that. But men of peace?

“Help you with something?”

“Help you sir?”

“Name?”

“All visitors must be announced.”

“Delivery?”

“Have you got a name?”

They encircled me, five or six them, not on special assignment but instead doing exactly what they were trained to do. Loom in the gloom. In their white gloves and their right context they were much scarier than they had been loaded into a rental car and fumbling as hoods. Their propriety was terrifying. I didn’t see Pinched, Pimples, Chunky or Indistinct among them, but it was a big building. Instead I’d drawn Shadowface, Shadowface, Shadowface, Tallshadowface, and Shadowface.

“I’m here to see Fujisaki,” I said. “Man, woman or corporation.”

“There must be a mistake.”

“Wrong building, surely.”

“There is no Fujisaki.”

“Name?”

“Fujisaki Management Corporation1D; I said.

“No.”

“No. Not here. That isn’t right.”

“No.”

“Name? Who’s calling, sir?”

I took out one of Minna’s cards. “Frank Minna,” I said. The name came easily, and I didn’t feel any need to distort it the way I would my own.

The band of doormen around me loosened at the sight of a business card. I’d shown a first glimmer of legitimacy. They were a top grade of doorman, finely tuned, factoring vigilance against hair-trigger sycophantic instincts.

“Expected?”

“Sorry?”

“Expected by the party in question? Appointment? Name? Contact?”

“Dropping in.” “Hmmm.”

“No.”

“No.”

Another minute correction ensued. They bunched closer. Minna’s card disappeared.

“There may be some confusion.”

“Yes.”

“Probably there is.”