2 Grand Delusion (13 page)

I put the copies in a large brown envelope and wrote on the front
to be opened in the event of my death
. Then I drove to a Federal Express dropoff point, where I sent the copies off to Judy at the
Daily Saratogian
.

I felt silly. Melodramatic.

On the other hand, I reminded myself as I knocked on Zapper's back door at six-thirty that evening, these weren't exactly Boy Scouts I was messing with.

Still wearing the same tight jeans and loose shirt he was wearing last night—and presumably still wearing the same knife, too—Zapper opened the door.

As soon as he saw me, he tried to shut it again. His muscles were about five times larger than mine, but I had the drop on him. I barreled through the door, knocking him backward, and headed straight for his VCR. "What the fuck—" he began, but I cut him off with "Shut up, chump," and by the time he recovered from his shock I had the tape in the slot and the TV on. I pushed the play button. The power of TV is so great that Zapper lay off me and waited for the show to begin.

But once it began, Zapper didn't seem to enjoy it much—even though he himself had the starring role.

On the TV screen, Zapper was either scratching his balls or masturbating. Then he answered the door and took five bucks from Tony.

Meanwhile, live and in person, Zapper bared his gold caps at me and snarled, "You fucker, you and that little punk set me up!"

"No, Tony didn't know anything about it," I lied quickly. "Hey, if you're not having fun, I tell you what. I'll fast forward to—"

"Hold up!" he said, staring at the screen. It was blank, because the videotape had reached the point where I was hiding in the bushes from Cole and just taping the ground. "What is this shit? You peckerhead," he chortled, poking me jovially—and painfully—on my shoulder, "you ain't got squat! Ain't got me laying the rock on him. How you gonna prove the kid ain't just paying me back for some pizza?"

He was right. I'd been hoping he wouldn't notice that. But fortunately I had my ace in the hole. I poked him jovially—and as painfully as I could—on his shoulder. "Keep watching, my brother. The best is yet to come."

Feeling like one half of some bizarre dysfunctional Siskel and Ebert team, I stood beside Zapper with my arms folded and watched. The blank screen was suddenly replaced by an image of Zapper and Cole. The on-screen Zapper was taking cash out of his pocket, counting it, and handing it over to the cop.

The live-and-in-person Zapper stiffened with fear as I piled on the pressure. "I'm thinking of selling the video to one of those real-life cop shows on Fox," I said conversationally. "Or maybe I'll just give it to a real-life D.A. down in Ballston Spa, see how he feels about you bribing an officer of the law. Should be worth a couple of years in a state facility, don't you think?"

I had to hand it to Zapper, he kept his cool. "Fuck you, you still got the same problem. How you gonna prove I ain't just paying him for a used TV set?"

Without saying a word, I took the microcassette recorder out of my pocket and turned it on.

"So you gimme a hundred bucks every week, long as you're in business, you got that?" Cole said on the audiotape.

"Yeah, I got it," the Memorex Zapper replied—

But then the live Zapper lashed out with his arm and banged the recorder out of my hand. It hit the floor and went silent. In a flash, Zapper's knife came out of its holster. He pointed it at my chest.

My knees turned to jelly. But there was no turning back now. "I have other copies of that tape—" I said in a terrified, high-pitched voice.

He backed me up against a wall, his long, curved knife wiggling in front of my eyes.
"Fuck you want from me, muthafucka?"

I took a deep breath, but my voice still sounded disturbingly like Tiny Tim's. "I want to know what happened that night."

His knife point touched my left nipple, right above my heart. "I don't know nothing, dickweed! I was sleeping!"

"Bullshit,"
I squeaked.

Zapper stared at me briefly, then his eyes flicked away. And in that moment when his eyes flicked, I knew it really
was
bullshit—he was lying through his caps. And I also knew, somehow, that he didn't have the balls to stab me. I reached out and pushed his hand away—the hand that was holding the knife.

"Listen, moron, I'm not playing," I said, and although my voice wasn't back to normal, at least I no longer sounded like I was getting ready to sing 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips." "I'm facing a murder charge. You don't help me, I'm taking you down with me—"

"It weren't my goddamn night!"
Zapper burst out wildly. We were both taken aback by the suddenness of it. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. He spoke carefully, his eyes begging me to believe him. "See, Dale be doing the selling that night, not me. I be sleeping, I
swear
. I didn't wake up 'til I heard the yelling and the shot. Time I found my knife and got up, you was already out there, with your hands in the air and that cop on your ass."

I almost believed him. But then he gave me that tell-tale eye flick again. Ignoring the knife, I stepped up and put my face two inches from his. Aside from the caps, his teeth were white and well kept, which surprised me; somehow you don't expect drug dealers to have good dental habits. "Buddy, I'm giving you five seconds to get real. Then forget it. Pack your bags. You're going to Coxsackie Correctional for an extended visit."

An angry light flared up in Zapper's eyes, and his grip on the knife handle tightened.
Uh-oh.
Had I fatally overestimated Zapper's punkiness?

But the moment passed, and he sagged and sat down on the sofa. "All right," he said wearily. "Yeah, fuck it, I'll tell you."

He sighed heavily. I waited, goosebumps rising all over me.
The truth at last
.

"Like I told you, I heard some screaming, and the gun. But then I heard a car."

I waited impatiently for more.

"I heard a car start up."

I waited again. But this time nothing else came. So I prodded, "Yeah, and then what?"

"That's it. When I looked out the front door, the car be driving off real fast. So I figure that's who killed Pop."

"What kind of car?"

"Fuck should I know, man, it was dark outside," he said irritably. "The car was, like, medium size, and some kind of dark color. Yo, I make up some extra stuff if you want, just to get you to leave my house, but anything else I tell you be a lie."

I stood there trying to stare into his soul, as he gazed up at me innocently from the sofa. Was that
it?
Was that all I would get out of this creep? I had just pulled off an incredibly clever undercover operation, suitable for
NYPD Blue,
and all I'd get for my trouble was some half-ass story about a barely seen, darkish, medium-size car?

I tried a new tack. "What was your relationship with Pop?"

He lifted his thick shoulders. "Man was my landlord. I wouldn't say we had no deep
relationship
—"

"Come on, you were bribing him, just like you bribed that cop on the video."

"No way. Pop didn't go for that kind of shit—"

"Do I look like a fucking idiot?!" I ejected the tape from the VCR and held it up. "See you in a few years. Don't forget to pack your toothbrush—"

"Yo, yo, keep your pants on!" Zapper smiled ingratiatingly. "Man, you one tough motherfucker. You want some Coke or something? I mean, like Pepsi type of Coke?"

Well, what do you know—male bonding at last. "Sure," I said, and sat down in a coffee-stained metal folding chair.

Zapper got two cans of Coke out of the refrigerator, tossed me one, and sat back down on the sofa. We popped the tops and had a sip. Then he cocked his head at me. "So tell me about this big-ass Hollywood movie of yours," he said. "Got any brothers in it?"

"Yeah, the main character's buddy is black."

Zapper rolled his eyes, annoyed. "How come the hero dude is always white and the buddy's always black? Why don't they ever do the other way around?"

"It's screwed up, what can I say? So what was the deal with Pop?"

Zapper took a long swig, then burped. "Yeah, man, I bribed him, all right. Top of the rent, I had to sling him a hundred a week, just like with this new guy Cole." Zapper shook his head with grudging approval. "That cracker Pop had him one hell of a setup. Was getting grease from me, and some more grease from his other houses, and Arcturus—"

I was so surprised I spilled Coke on my pants. Maybe I could wear them with my grape-stained shirt.
"Arcturus?
How was he getting money from Arcturus?"

"Man was a mastermind at getting paid. That was his thang."

"Are you positive he got money from them?"

"Yo, it's what he told me. Boastful motherfucker. I don't play like that myself. I believe in keeping my private business private, know what I mean?"

"What did he say to you, exactly?"

"Hey, I didn't write it down. Man come over here one Friday night to get his money, and I'm having trouble finding it in all my different pockets, so he be yelling at me to hurry up 'cause he got four other collections to make that night, and he name the places and one of them was Arcturus."

I sat there trying to put it all together, but Zapper beat me to it. "See, Jacob—that's your name, right?—Jacob, my man, be all kinds of people would want to kill Pop. In some kind of financial dispute, know what I'm saying?"

I nodded. "But what I don't get, why would any of those disputes have happened
here?
Behind your house? That doesn't make sense."

"Maybe they got pissed off and followed him here."

"And another thing I don't get. I bet it took me a full two minutes after the first scream before I made it out to your backyard. I don't believe it took you that long to just get up and look out your window."

"What can I say, man? When I get woke up in the middle of the night after some serious partying, I ain't no Deion Sanders."

I looked hard at Zapper.

He flicked his eyes.

He was lying to me again. Why?

I took another sip of Coke. "I'll bet you're half right," I said. "I'll bet Pop did die in an argument over bribe money." Then I set the Coke down on the floor. "But I don't think it was someone else. I think it was you. I think you killed Pop."

I'd made this accusation once before, the last time Zapper and I chatted. But that time I hadn't totally meant it, because I still had my money on Tony as the murderer.

This time, though, I meant it. And Zapper knew I meant it.

There was a silence in the small room. Zapper sucked in a scared breath.

Then he laughed. "Yo, didn't your mama never teach you no manners? Here I invite you into my home, give you something to wet your lips, and now you gonna go and accuse me of murder? Shame on you," he said, wagging a finger at me. "Shame on you."

Usually I like to have the last line. But his line was so nicely done, I didn't think I could improve on it. Especially since being in the same room with a guy I thought was a murderer kind of interfered with my powers of speech.

So I just picked up my videotape and my busted microcassette recorder and walked out.

14

But now what? How could I get solid evidence against Zapper?

Or was I jumping to conclusions too quickly, just like the cops did? Might the murderer be someone else Pop had extorted money from, someone like . . .

Dennis O'Keefe?

My heart skipped a beat. Was Zapper right about Pop getting grease from Arcturus? And if so, could my old hippie friend have killed Pop?

No, impossible; homicide wasn't one of the Twelve Steps.

And yet . . .

Maybe killing a crooked cop would appeal to Dennis's "Challenge Authority" philosophy, especially if that crooked cop was shaking Dennis down for money he didn't have. And especially if that crooked cop was popping him hard enough to make him scream that horrific scream I'd heard, and he grabbed the gun in self-defense.

As I walked back home from 107,1 stopped in my backyard. I closed my eyes and tried to hear that scream again. It had been high-pitched, like a woman's or a child's shriek. But as I'd seen in my recent tête-à-tête with Zapper, when you're scared silly your voice does funny tricks. Also, I was half asleep when I heard the scream, and my aural memory was blurry. The scream could easily have come from Dennis.

It suddenly struck me that I had taken little Tony to a possible murderer's house for safety. Not the most brilliant of moves. Maybe I should go there now and confront Dennis, and move Tony elsewhere.

Or maybe I should go right over to Cole's house and show him the incriminating tape. That way I could blackmail him into helping me with the investigation. I'd get the cops to actually do their job for a change.

My thoughts were interrupted when I somehow got the sense I was being watched. I turned. It was true. Zapper was eyeing me malevolently through the busted slats in his Venetian blinds. I waved. He withdrew from the window and disappeared.

I could theorize about Dennis all I wanted, but I'd bet my credit card limit that Zapper was the killer. After all, Pop died only fifteen feet from Zapper's house, and like they say,
location, location, location.

The major reason to doubt Zapper's guilt was that he was a musclebound, cowardly punk. But hey, even a cowardly punk can kill, if he's pushed to the wall. And Pop pushed people, no question; look what he'd done to me that night. Turned me into a stark raving lunatic.

Some words got stuck in my brain—"if he's pushed to the wall." That was exactly what I was doing to Zapper right now. What if he sold himself some crack tonight and filled up with pharmaceutical courage? He wouldn't suddenly take it into his head to kill me . . . would he?

I stood under my grape arbor, gazing through the busted slats of Zapper's blinds as if that would help me understand the busted slats of Zapper's mind, when my six year old ran out of the house. Or, as he would immediately correct me, my six and one-quarter year old. He jumped into my arms, calling out "Daddy! Daddy!"

I kissed him. "Hi, Raphael."

He threw me an exasperated look. "No! I'm Leonardo!"

"Sorry, I keep getting it mixed up."

"That's because we never see you."
Ow!
Stab in the heart. "You can tell I'm Leonardo because I'm wearing blue. And you know what Splinter says?"

"Hey, Leonardo, why don't we go inside? Then you can tell me all about Splinter."

And that's what we did. I decided that spiriting Tony away from Dennis's house could wait until tomorrow, especially since I couldn't think of a safe place to take him to tonight. God knows my own house didn't feel real safe these days.

So I took Leonardo inside, double locked all the doors, closed all the curtains and windowshades, and put the kid on my lap. By the end of the night I hadn't gotten any further in my hunt for the murderer, but I did learn everything there is to know about Splinter, who, for those of you not in the Ninja Turtle loop, is a big rat. But not just
any
big rat: He's a true spiritual leader, the wise old guru of the sewers.

I wish I'd had some of Splinter's wisdom myself that night. Maybe then I would have foreseen what was about to happen in just a few hours. Maybe I could even have stopped it from happening.

That's a thought that will stay with me until I die.

I was awakened by the sound of a car backfiring.

But it didn't take me long to remember what that sound really meant the last time I heard it. Hot prickles raced up and down my spine. Andrea, annoyingly true to form, was still asleep. I jumped out of bed, opened the curtains, and peered out the window.

Nothing but darkness and déjà vu.

Someone could be bleeding to death outside. I had to go and help them. I might be able to save their life.

But there was a teensy little downside to going out there and doing the Good Samaritan thing: I might get busted for murder again.

What would
you
have done? Been a hero or covered your ass?

Me, I stayed inside and dialed 9-1-1. What can I say?

"There's been a shooting at 107 Elm Street," I spoke into the phone.

"Who's calling, please?" a woman asked. I hung up and waited in my house for the cops to come, wondering who had been shot and if they were still alive or dead. In my mind's eye, I saw someone's life's blood flowing out as they lay there helpless and alone because I was too scared to get involved.

I felt full of self-loathing. Youthful Idealism meets Middle-Age Cowardice. And Middle-Age Cowardice kicks butt.

Maybe I'm being unfair to myself. The thought of getting jailed again and leaving my children fatherless was just too painful to deal with. So is that cowardice, or love?

I wish all the moral choices were simple again, like when I was younger and you were either for the Vietnam War or against it. When we were always right and our parents were always wrong.

Fortunately for my conscience, the cops came pretty quickly with their blaring sirens and squealing tires. Through our front window I saw my new pals Manny Cole and Lieutenant Foxwell, along with about four other cops I recognized from my recent misadventures. I noted with disappointment that Dave was nowhere to be seen. Well, he probably wouldn't be any help to me anyway; he was too busy covering his ass with the chief.

The sirens finally woke Andrea, and she stood beside me at the window. "What's going on out there?" she asked.

"Let's go find out."

"We can't leave the kids."

"Okay, you stay here. I'll be right back—"

"No."
Andrea shoved me backward, practically throwing me onto the bed. "You're not going anywhere.
I'll
go."

"But—"

In the other bedroom Raphael started wailing, then his older brother joined in. "Get in there
now,"
Andrea ordered. "Your kids need you."

So I went to their room and lay in bed with them.

And that's how I missed seeing Zapper keeled over in his open doorway with his head blown off.

From Andrea's description, and from the vomit odor she emitted when she returned home, I gathered that the dead man was not a pretty sight. In a way, I was relieved that he was so emphatically dead. It meant that even if I'd dashed outside the moment I heard the gunshot, there's no way I could have saved his life.

But that still didn't stop me from feeling guilty. Because I had a strong suspicion that the hustle I pulled on Zapper was somehow the reason behind his head getting blown off.

Not that I harbored any special love for the man, but still. We'd drunk Coke together. Classic Coke, no less.

I didn't feel inclined to share this information with the cops, who rang our front doorbell ten minutes later. By now Andrea, the kids, and I were all cuddling in our queen-sized bed, while I told them a story about the Ninja Turtles helping the Red Sox win the World Series. Obvious fiction, of course. Even if Ninja Turtles really
do
exist, the Red Sox will
never
win the World Series.

I ignored the doorbell at first, since I knew it was cops. But when they rang a second time, and a third, and the kids started getting upset, I threw on some clothes and opened the front door.

"We'd like to ask you some questions," Lieutenant Foxwell began, as Cole stood beside him glowering at me with pure hatred. Judging by his expression, he wouldn't be content to just gouge at my eyes this time. Instead he'd scoop them out of my face and eat them raw for a midnight snack.

Why was Cole so enraged at me? Was it because he thought I was a cop killer, or was something else going on here, too?

Wait a minute.
How much did Cole know?
Had Zapper for some reason
told
him about my incriminating videotape?

I gasped inwardly. What if Cole learned about the videotape, figured it was on its way to the D.A., and got scared Zapper might cut a deal to save his own skin.

"Why don't you come with us to the station," Foxwell said flatly. It was an order, not a question.

But I couldn't tear my eyes away from Cole's furious scowl. What would this bad seed do if he thought he was facing jail time?
Would he kill Zapper to shut him up?

It made sense. And there was something else scratching away at my brain, too. What was it?

I tried to track it down, but Foxwell was saying, "Mr. Burns," and firmly taking my arm.

I yanked it away. "You got questions, ask 'em right here and now."

"You can come with us voluntarily," said Foxwell, "or we can arrest you."

"Hey, let's bust the shithead anyway," Cole threw in.

"Your call," Foxwell told me, his face expressionless, a mask. "Which way you want to go?"

I stared fearfully at Foxwell's blank face. Did he know that Cole was a crook? Were they in on this together?

Would they kill me on our way to the police station, and say I was resisting arrest?

Or was I ascending new heights of paranoia?

"Don't hurt my Daddy!" Raphael screamed from the top of the stairs. I looked up; my family was looking down at me and the cops in horror.

Leonardo shouted at the cops, "If you hurt him, you're dead meat!"

I gritted my teeth, then forced myself to laugh. "Don't worry, kids," I said, "these are
good
policemen, not bad ones. I'm going with them for a little while to help them out. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Can you finish the story about the Red Sox first?" Leonardo asked.

I eyed Foxwell. He shook his head no.

"Ask Mommy to finish it," I said, and walked out the door. I'd have gone upstairs to kiss the kids good-bye, but I was afraid I'd break into tears.

I walked over to the cop car with my head down, avoiding the eyes of Lorenzo and my other neighbors who were watching from their porches. But I did look over toward the front steps of 107, where I saw Dale, Zapper's crimie.

He was sitting on the steps with his head between his knees, distraught. A policewoman had her arm around him, trying to calm him down. I briefly entertained the idea that he might have shot Zapper in some drug dispute—hadn't Tony mentioned that Dale had a gun?—but his grief seemed too genuine.

I looked away from him and searched the sidewalks and porches for Dave. I didn't see him, though. Where was he?

I got hit by a new dread: Now that Zapper had been killed, Dave might feel compelled to come forward and say he saw me holding a knife on Zapper yesterday. Then I'd be in deep swamp goo for sure.

I got in the backseat, as Foxwell and Cole got in front. Cole turned and threw me a nasty grin—

And finally my wayward mental synapses hooked up, and I found the source of that insistent scratching in my brain.

It was something Dave said to me yesterday . . . or rather, something he
didn't
say. When I asked him who he believed had killed Pop, and he suddenly made like a clam.

Now I was pretty sure I understood why. Dave had been too loyal to his fellow cops, or too scared of retribution from the chief, to say out loud what he suspected.

Which was that Pop was killed by another cop. Some cop who wanted a piece of his lucrative extortion scam.

Some cop like Manny Cole.