But here, here was the beauty part. By Minna’s own admission, he’d buried the lead: L &L Car Service-it wasn’t really a car service. That was just a front. L &L was a detective agency.
The joke Minna wanted to hear in the emergency room, the joke about Irving, went like this:
A Jewish mother-Mrs. Gushman, we’ll call her-walks into a travel agency. “I vant to go to Tibet,” she says. “Listen lady, take my word for it, you don’t want to go to Tibet. I’ve got a nice package tour for the Florida Keys, or maybe Hawaii-” “No,” says Mrs. Gushman, “I vant to go to Tibet.” “Lady, are you traveling alone? Tibet is no place-” “Sell me a ticket for Tibet!” shouts Mrs. Gushman. “Okay, okay.” So she goes to Tibet. Gets off the plane, says to the first person she sees, “Who’s the greatest holy man in Tibet?” “Why, that would be the High Lama,” comes the reply. “That’s who I vant to see,” says Mrs. Gushman. “Take me to the High Lama.” “Oh, no, you don’t understand, American Lady, the High Lama lives on top of our highest mountain in total seclusion. No one can see the High Lama.” “I’m Mrs. Gushman, I’ve come all the vay to Tibet, and I must see the High Lama!” “Oh, but you could never-” “Which mountain? How do I get there?” So Mrs. Gushman checks into a hotel at the base of the mountain and hires sherpas to take her to the monastery at the top. All the way up they’re trying to explain to her, nobody sees the High Lama-his own monks have to fast and meditate for years before they’re allowed to ask the High Lama a single question. She just keeps pointing her finger and saying “I’m Mrs. Gushman, take me up the mountain!” When they get to the monastery the sherpas explain to the monks-crazy American lady, wants to see the High Lama. She says, “Tell the High Lama Mrs. Gushman is here to see him.” “You don’t understand, we could never-” “Just tell him!” The monks go and come back and they’re shaking their heads in confusion. “We don’t understand, but the High Lama says he will grant you an audience. Do you understand what an honor-” “Yes, yes,” she says. “Just take me!” So they lead her in to see the High Lama. The monks are whispering and they open the door and the High Lama nods-they can leave him alone with Mrs. Gushman. And the High Lama looks at Mrs. Gushman and Mrs. Gushman says, “Irving, when are you coming home? Your father’s worried!”
INTERROGATION EYES
Minna Men wear suits. Minna Men drive cars. Minna Men listen to tapped lines. Minna Men stand behind Minna, hands in their pockets, looking menacing. Minna Men carry money. Minna Men collect money. Minna Men don’t ask questions. Minna Men answer phones. Minna Men pick up packages. Minna Men are clean-shaven. Minna Men follow instructions. Minna Men try to be like Minna, but Minna is dead.
Gilbert and I left the hospital so quickly, and drove back in such a perfect fog of numbness, that when we walked into L &L and Tony said, “Don’t say it. We already heard,” it was as though I were learning myself for the first time.
“Heard from who?” said Gilbert.
“Black cop, through here a few minutes ago, looking for you,” said Tony. “You just missed him.”
Tony and Danny stood furiously smoking cigarettes behind L &L’s counter, their foreheads pasty with sweat, eyes fogged and distant, teeth grinding behind their drawn lips. They looked like somebody had worked them over and they wanted to take it out on us.
The Bergen Street office was as we’d renovated it fifteen years before: divided in two by the Formica counter, thirty-inch color television playing constantly in the “waiting area” on this side of the counter, telephones, file cabinets and computer on the rear wall, underneath a massive laminated map of Brooklyn, Minna’s heavy Magic Marker numerals scrawled across each neighborhood, showing the price of an L &L ride-five bucks to the Heights, seven to Park Slope or Fort Greene, twelve to Williamsburg or Borough Park, seventeen to Bushwick. Airports or Manhattan were twenty and up.
The ashtray on the counter was full of cigarette butts that had been in Minna’s fingers, the telephone log full of his handwriting from earlier in the day. The sandwich on top of the fridge wore his bite marks. We were all four of us an arrangement around a missing centerpiece, as incoherent as a verbless sentence.
“How did they find us?” I said. “We’ve got Frank’s wallet.” I opened it up and took out the bundle of Frank’s business cards and slipped them into my pocket. Then I dropped it on the counter and slapped the Formica five times to finish a six-count.
Nobody minded me except myself. This was my oldest, most jaded audience. Tony shrugged and said, “Him croaking out L and L as his dying words? A business card in his coat? Gilbert giving out names like a fucking idiot? You tell me how they found us.”
“What did this cop want?” said Gilbert stoically. He would deal with one problem at a time, the plodder, even if they stacked up from here to the moon.
“He said you weren’t supposed to leave the hospital, that’s what he said. You gave some nurse your name, Gilbert.”
“Fuck it,” said Coney. “Fuck some fucking black cop.”
“Yeah, well, you can express that sentiment in person, since he’s coming back. And you might want to say, ‘Fuck some fucking black homicide detective,’ since that’s actually what you’re dealing with here. Smart cop, too. You could see it in his eyes.”
“Fuckicide,” I thought to add.
“Who’s going to tell Julia?” said Danny quietly. His mouth, his whole face, was veiled in smoke. Nobody answered.
“Well, I won’t be here when he comes back,” said Gilbert. “I’ll be out doing his work for him, catching the motherfucker who did this. Gimme a coffin nail.”
“Slow down, Sherlock,” said Tony, handing him a cigarette. “I wanna know how’d it even happen in the first place? How’d the two of you even get involved? I thought you were supposed to be on a stakeout.”
“Frank showed up,” said Gilbert, trying to flick his depleted lighter again and again, failing to make it catch. “He went inside. Fuck. Fuck.” His voice was clenched like a fist. I saw the whole stupid sequence playing behind his eyes: parked car, wire, traffic light, Brainum, the chain of banalities that somehow led to the bloody Dumpster and the hospital. The chain of banalities now immortalized by our guilt.
“Inside where?” said Tony, handing Gilbert a book of matches. The phone rang.
“Some kinda kung-fu place,” said Gilbert. “Ask Lionel, he knows all about it-”
“Not kung fu,” I started. “Meditation-”
“You’re trying to say they killed him with meditation?” said Tony. The phone rang a second time.
“No, no, we saw who killed him-Viable Guessfrog!-a big Polish guy-Barnamum Pierogi!-I mean really big. We only saw him from behind.”