Brooklyn Noir (32 page)

“What the fuck?” I said aloud. There was no one to hear me though. My dog had died of old age and the stray cat I’d taken in had gotten tired of me and moved on. It was just me and the peeling walls of the tiny wood-frame house. And all of a sudden that didn’t feel like much at all.

Ever since Stella had come along, I hadn’t dwelled on any of it. On being broke and close to forty and living in a condemned house that was so far gone no one bothered to come kick me out of it. But now, for mysterious reasons, Stella probably wouldn’t be back and there wasn’t much to distract me from my condition. I only had one thing left that gave me any hope, and that was my horse. As it happened, it was just about time to go feed her, so I put on my clothes and went out, heading for the barn a hundred yards down from the house. I don’t suppose too many Brooklynites have horses, period, never mind keep them a hundred yards from the house. But real estate isn’t exactly at a premium here at the ass-end of Dumont Avenue, where Brooklyn meets up with the edge of Queens.

It was close to dawn now and the newborn sun was throwing itself over the bumpy road. Two dogs were lying on a heap of garbage ten yards down from my house. One of them, some kind of shepherd mix, looked up at me. He showed a few teeth but left it at that.

Our little neighborhood is technically called Lindenwood but most people call it The Hole. A canyon in a cul-de-sac at the edge of East New York. It had been farmland in the not-so-distant past, then, as projects sprung up around it, it became a dumping ground. A few old-timers held on, maintaining their little frame houses, keeping chickens and goats in their yards. I don’t know who the first person to keep a horse here was, but it caught on. Within five years, about a dozen different ramshackle stables were built using old truck trailers and garden sheds. Each stable had its own little yard, some with paddocks in the back, all of it spread over less than five acres. Now, about forty horses live in The Hole, including my mare, Kiss the Culprit. I brought her here six months ago. It’s not exactly pastoral but we make due.

I reached the big steel gate enclosing the stable yard, unlocked it, and pushed it open. The little area looked like it usually did. A patch of dirt with a few nubs of grass fight-ing for life in front of the green truck trailer that had been converted to horse stalls. Beth, the goat, butted me with her head. The six horses started kicking at their stall doors, clamoring for breakfast, their ruckus waking up the horses in the surrounding barns so that, within a few minutes, the entire area was sounding like a bucolic barnyard in rural Maryland and, in spite of my troubles, I suddenly felt good all over. Particularly as I took my first look of the day at Kiss the Culprit. She had her head hanging over her stall door and was looking at me expectantly. She looked especially good that morning in spite of the fact that, by most standards, she’s not considered a perfect specimen of the Thoroughbred breed. She’s small with an upside-down neck and a head too big for the rest of her. She’s slightly pigeon-toed and, back in her racing days, she’d run with a funny gait that only I thought resembled the great Seabiscuit’s.

“Hey, girl,” I said, putting one hand on her muzzle and leaning in close to catch a whiff of her warm creature smell. She wanted breakfast though, not cuddling. She pinned her ears and tried to bite me.

“All right, then,” I laughed, and walked off to the little feed room.

I fed all six horses even though only Culprit is mine. I keep her here free but I have to look after other people’s horses in exchange. Which suits me fine. The only job I have right now is working as a lifeguard at a pool in Downtown Brooklyn. No way I could afford to pay board for my mare.

As the horses ate their grain, I started raking the stable yard’s nubby dirt, trying to make the place look presentable despite the fact that there were ominous puddles in front of the stalls and the lone flower box near the tack room had a propensity for killing anything we planted in it. This week it was working on terminating some hapless petunias.

I was raking pretty violently, trying to keep Stella out of my mind. The way her black hair fell in her face. The way her ass had hung out of her crappy cutoffs that first night I’d met her at the bar. I started focusing harder on the rake I was using and how it was falling apart. I envisioned a trip to the Home Depot out at Coney Island to get a new one. I imagined the brightly lit aisles full of useful items. Then I imagined Stella in there with me. I stopped raking.

I was standing there half-paralyzed by my thoughts when the front gate rattled and Dwight Ross suddenly appeared in the stable yard.

I wasn’t glad to see him and the feeling was obviously mutual.

“Triple Harrison, I want my fucking horse back,” Ross said.

Dwight Ross had always been on the thin side, but now he looked like a whisper would knock him down. His red hair needed cutting and, as he came close, I could see that his navy blue suit had pea-sized pills all over it.

“You stole my mare,” Dwight hissed, coming to stand two inches away from me. “Don’t fuck with me, Triple, took me six months to find you and I’m not leaving without my horse.”

“She’s mine now,” I said, trying to seem calm even though I was anything but. I pulled air into my lungs, trying to make myself huge. Dwight backed up a little and started looking around at the horse stalls. He located Culprit’s and started unlatching it.

“Don’t go in there, Ross,” I said. “Don’t touch that horse.” I felt myself getting hysterical.

“You want to take this to the law?” Dwight asked, as he got the latch undone and went to stand next to my mare.

“I don’t think you do,” I warned. Six months earlier, I’d been working as a groom, looking after Dwight Ross’s string of horses at Aqueduct Racetrack. One day about a month into my tenure there, I caught Dwight trying to inject E. coli into Kiss the Culprit’s knee. Of course, I hadn’t realized what was in the syringe at the time, but I could tell by the way Dwight jumped when I walked in that the massive syringe did not belong in Culprit’s knee. I’d already been suspicious about some of the stuff he was doing to his horses, though it wasn’t till that moment that I fully realized he was one evil motherfucker. He was trying to kill the mare to collect the insurance and split the proceeds with the owner.

I happened to have a pitchfork in my hand and I didn’t hesitate to use it. I pinned Ross to the wall and made him hand the syringe over and get out. He issued a few choice threats as he backed out of the stall. I figured it wouldn’t take long for him to make good on the threats, but for that moment, he had hightailed it away from the barn. I had skipped bail on a beef in Florida two years earlier so I wasn’t in a position to go to the authorities. I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving the horse there unprotected though, so I decided to take her. I went into Dwight’s office and forged the paperwork, then I loaded the mare into Dwight’s horse trailer. She walked into the trailer without fussing. It seemed to me she knew I was saving her. As I passed through security and drove the trailer away from the Aqueduct backside, I kept expecting to hit a snag and get caught. But I made it. I stashed Culprit at a little stable near Prospect Park while I figured out what to do. I was now unemployed and broke with a horse to take care of. I figured I’d make do though. All my life I’d been taking care of things, stray cats and dogs and crazy women.

After a week, I got the lifeguard job—swimming was the only thing I was good at apart from taking care of horses—and, not long after I’d made arrangements for keeping Culprit at The Hole, I’d moved into one of the abandoned houses just down the road. I hooked into the electric at one of the stables, and ran a hose in from the yard for water. Culprit and I had settled into a nice daily routine and we’d both been doing just fine. Until now.

Dwight Ross was still standing in my mare’s stall.

“Come on, Ross,” I said in a quiet voice, “get out of there. Now.”

At that he smiled. I didn’t see what was funny though.

“I had the crazy idea you’d be reasonable about this,” Dwight said, leveling a gun I didn’t know he had at me.

“That was a crazy idea, all right,” I told him. I could see worry in his eyes even though he was the one with a gun.

“I’m taking my mare back and I will hurt you if I have to,” he said in a shrill voice. He stepped out of the stall to reach for Culprit’s halter.

I didn’t think. Just grabbed for something. Turned out to be a shovel. Ross had his back to me. He heard me move but not in time. I slammed the business end of the shovel into the side of his head. He went down face first. Culprit spooked and her eyes got huge.

I walked over and put my palm over the end of my mare’s nose and brought her big head against my chest.

“It’s okay,” I told the horse as I scratched her muzzle.

I looked down at Ross. He wasn’t moving. I pushed on his shoulder, trying to turn him over. His body felt funny. His eyes and mouth were open. There was blood matted into his red hair. I realized he wasn’t just unconscious.

I started feeling dizzy and I couldn’t get myself to move. Culprit was looking at me with curiosity, her ears pricked forward.

“What do I do now, girl?” I asked. She just kept looking at me though.

It was getting close to 7 a.m. Pretty soon, people would be arriving at the other barns.

I left Dwight’s body in the stall but led my mare out and tied her up in the yard. I didn’t want her looking at the body.

I walked back to my house to get the car keys. My stomach was doing backflips. I went inside and it smelled a little like Stella. That didn’t help any.

I got my keys and went back outside. My ’86 Chevy Caprice Classic had once been blue but now it was just dirt-colored. It still ran though. The engine coughed to life and I drove to the front of the stable yard. I opened the big metal gates wide enough to get the car in, nosing it ahead slowly so as not to alarm Culprit. She stared at the car but she didn’t spook.

I dragged Dwight’s body out of the stall, pulling it by the feet. The head bounced along the dirt making a funny sound that made me sick.

I had to shuffle the shit in my trunk around. There were some empty feedbags, a small cooler, a horseshoe, and a pair of Stella’s panties. I made room, then hoisted the body in. Dwight Ross was much heavier in death than he’d ever been in life. I had to bunch him into a fetal position to get him to fit. I put the empty feedbags over his body, then closed the trunk. My heart was beating too fast.

I went and put Culprit back into her stall. I stood for a few minutes leaning my head against her muscular neck, getting strength. My mare just stood there, seeming to understand.

I made sure all the horses had enough water before getting in the car, driving it out, and locking the stable gates behind me.

The minute I pulled out onto Linden Boulevard, I found that I needed a cigarette. I hadn’t had one in four years. I drove a few blocks through thickening morning traffic. The sun was up high now, a glowing yellow ball in a faultless blue sky. The brightness made me need that cigarette even more.

I pulled off the road when I came to a little grocery store. Nosed the Chevy near the front door of the place and ran in. Asked for a pack of Newports. I was dying for a smoke but I didn’t want a brand I actually liked. I paid the thin old man at the counter and took the wrapping off the pack.

“No smoking in here,” the old man said. I nodded, pulled one cigarette from the pack, and stepped outside to light it. I figured I would smoke it there so as not to stink up the car. But my car wasn’t there. I looked left and right and ahead, to the thick traffic of Linden Boulevard. My car was gone.

I went back into the store.

“Yeah?” the old man said, cocking his chin at me.

“You seen my car?”

“What?” He sounded angry.

“My car, it was right there,” I said, motioning to the store’s tiny parking lot.

The old man just looked at me like I was a fool.

I went back out. Looked around some more. I felt my body getting heavier. I couldn’t stand up anymore. I sunk down to the lip of the sidewalk and held my head between my hands. Eventually, I lit the cigarette. It scorched my lungs and felt nice. A car pulled into the tiny lot and went right where my Caprice had been. Two teenaged girls got out. They both had oil in their black hair and the sun made it shine.

I smoked.

I’d had a lot of problems in my thirty-nine years of life, but never this many. I lit a second cigarette. I coughed a little but kept smoking anyway. The girls emerged from the store, both clutching bottles of Yoo-hoo. Seemed to me Yoo-hoo would be unpleasant at 7:30 in the morning.

Eventually, the thin old man came out of his store and told me to leave. I guess for the price of a pack of smokes, I was entitled to twenty-some minutes on his sidewalk, but no more. I got up and walked.

The air was getting warmer and the sun looked too big looming above Linden Boulevard. I imagined the giant orb swelling so much it got too heavy for the sky and came plum-meting down, plunging the world into darkness.

As I walked the few blocks back to The Hole, I kept glancing over at the cars that passed by on the busy avenue. None of them were mine.

When I got to Dumont Avenue, I stood there for a minute, at the periphery of The Hole, looking at the newly constructed houses that had recently sprung up all along the edge of the little canyon. Square cement boxes that already looked depressed, even though they were brand new and hadn’t killed anybody’s dreams yet.

I walked on down the dip where paved road gave way to dirt. The barns were humming with activity now. Feed was being dispensed, stalls were being mucked. These were comforting, normal sounds, but I didn’t feel comforted.

I went into Culprit’s stall and started currying her. Taking extra care with every aspect of the grooming procedure, knowing maybe this was the last time.

Two weeks passed. There was fear in me but I didn’t cultivate it. All I kept thinking was how I hadn’t meant to kill the guy. I’d never killed anything in my life. Not even a goddamned bug.