“You bein’ funny, man, or just stupid?”
“Watch your mouth or you’ll be getting a lot sicker a lot quicker.”
He made a series of rapid snorts that passed for laughter. “That’s funny. It rhymes.”
“Thanks, Shakespeare, but I’m not trying to be funny.”
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that — ”
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. You’re sick. Now what’s your name?”
“Man, forget my name. Just let’s get this over with. I need to get well. And I can’t get fixed up until I talk to you. So what’d’ya wanna talk about?”
“1055 Coney Island Avenue,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Why’d you send me there? What was I supposed to find there?”
“Hey, man, look, I heard you wanted to know where your old lady was on a certain night between certain hours. Well, that’s where she was.” He wiped his nose on his ratty coat. He’d done that so many times, both sleeves had crusty, damp streaks. “Can I go now, huh? I answered your question.”
“Soon, Shakespeare, soon. How do you know that’s where Mindy was?”
“Because I know, man.”
“Wrong answer.” I turned to walk away.
“C’mon, man. Where you goin’?”
“To tell your connection you gave me gotz and that you’re full of shit.”
“C’mon, man, don’t do that. Don’t be that way.” He dropped to his knees. “Don’t make me beg you.”
“Begging’s not the issue. Answers are.” The guy was a wreck and I guess I ached for him a little. It would have been hard not to, but aching for him wouldn’t get me the information I needed.
He wiped his nose with his sleeve again. “Okay, okay, all right. Answers.”
“I’m waiting,” I said, acting like a hard guy.
“Mindy, that’s your old lady, right?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a part of, like, this group.”
A little bell went off in my head and I remembered what Susan Kasten had said the night before. “The Committee,” I said, “is that the group?”
Shakespeare’s bloodshot eyes got wide. He didn’t answer, but nodded yes over and over again.
“Is Susan Kasten a member of the Committee?”
“Yeah, man, yeah. Can I go now?”
“You ask me that again and I’m gonna kick your ass. You understand me? And get up off your knees, for chrissakes.”
He stood, but immediately doubled over in pain. “Sorry, man. Sorry. It’s just that I gotta get well. I gotta.”
“Okay. So, Mindy and Susan are part of this Committee. Who else?”
“I can’t, man. I can’t.”
“Just a few more questions and then you can go.”
“You’ll tell Lids I did the right thing? You’ll tell him?”
“I’ll tell him.”
“You promise, man? You wouldn’t fuck with me like that.”
“I promise, Shakespeare.”
“God bless you.” He was back on his knees, grabbing at my hands.
I pushed him away and he toppled over like a rootless tree. “Get up. Get the fuck up, already.”
As he struggled to get up, I thought I heard something: the creaking of a boardwalk plank, shuffling feet in the sand. But when I looked around, Coney Island was just as dark and deserted as it had been a few seconds before. Shakespeare got as far as his knees. When I saw that was probably as far as he was going to get, I started up again.
“Black guy with pink blotches all over his face and hands,” I said.
“Abdul?”
I played along. “Yeah, Abdul. Tell me about him.”
“What about him?”
“Anything.”
“He calls himself Abdul Salaam. Means soldier of peace.” He laughed that snorting, machine gun laugh. “But his real name is Ricky Barnett. He comes from some little town in the Midwest somewheres, Effingberg or Effingham, some shit like that.”
“Great. Now that we got his bio out of the way, tell me what he — ” I stopped, because whatever it was I’d heard before, I heard again. “Get up, Shakespeare. Get up!” I yanked him to his feet by the shoulders of his coat. He was as light as a bag of leaves. “Get the fuck outta here. Run! Run!”
It was no good and it was too late anyway. Instead of running, Shakespeare just kind of melted. He collapsed into a ball of himself, throwing one arm over his head and the other around his ribs. I spun to look behind me, but before I had fully turned I was tackled from behind. Two sets of strong hands held me down. A gag was shoved in my mouth, and a bag or pillowcase was slipped over my head. Tape was rolled around the bag to hold it closed around my neck, but not so tightly I couldn’t breathe. My hands were taped behind my back, my ankles taped together, and I was dragged across the boardwalk — the toes of my Converse sneakers made a dull sound as they caught in the spaces between each plank — down the steps, and onto the sand. I was shoved face first onto the sand and then … nothing. I heard the soft shushing of feet walking away from me and then their pounding on the boardwalk stairs. Was I scared? Yeah, I was pretty fucking scared, but for some reason not as much as I should have been. I sensed that whatever this was about, it wasn’t about me.
Then I heard Shakespeare doing what he did best: begging. “Please, man, don’t hurt me. I’m hurtin’ so bad already, man.”
There was no response. I winced, expecting Shakespeare to take a beating. I knew this was no mugging. For one thing, the guys who dealt with me had left my watch on my wrist and my wallet in my pocket. For another, muggers in Brooklyn didn’t make like the Mission: Impossible team just to rob two schmucks on the boardwalk. Besides, one look at the two of us would have told even the most amateur thieves that we weren’t worth the effort. No, this wasn’t about robbery. As I waited for the beating to begin, I imagined the snap of Shakespeare’s bones, his screams. None came. What I heard instead was this:
“Thank you, man. Thank you. God bless you.”
A few seconds later I heard something being dragged, tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump, across the boardwalk. Feet scurried. Then there was just the sound of the subway, the waves, the whining of the wind through the rides to keep me company. When I was sure I was alone, I began moving my wrists in opposite directions. At first the tape gave only a tiny bit, and my arms wearied pretty quickly. Still, in about a half hour I had worked the tape loose enough so that I could free my right hand. I was totally free of everything else in short order. Shakespeare was free, too: free of the cold, free of hurt, free of pain, free of this world. I found him seated on the bench where we’d met, a belt strapped tightly around his left bicep, and a needle sticking out of his left forearm. There were so many needle marks stretching along the underside of his forearm that it looked like a subway map. At rest, without his constant movement, he looked much more in tune with death than life. I suppose that would have been okay with me if dying had been his choice and not someone else’s. It might also have helped me a little if I didn’t feel like I was as much to blame for his death as the needle sticking out of his arm.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
None of it seemed like a dream. People always say this or that felt like a dream, but nothing feels like a dream but a dream or, in this instance, a continuous nightmare. After last night I thought I might never sleep again. I ran all the way from the boardwalk to Lids’s building, my legs churning as much out of panic as anything else. First, I ran to get away from Shakespeare’s body. Then, as it dawned on me how close I’d just come to my own death, I ran harder. Once I’d been hooded and bound, those guys could have done anything to me and there wasn’t a thing I could’ve done about it. They could have shot me in the back of the head or carried me into the shallows and dropped me in the surf to drown. That really freaked me out, not the drowning so much as the thought of dying cold and alone. I didn’t want to die cold and alone. Just thinking about it had me crying as I ran. I’d shed some tears at Mindy’s bedside, but before that it had been a long time since I’d cried. I used to pride myself on that. There were no more tears by the time I got to the lobby of Lids’s building. He wasn’t home.