Pipsqueak (13 page)

Sloan hit Otto in the back of the head with the flat of the gun. That’s when the attack dog made his coup de grâce. Otto slammed his forehead into Sloan’s, the latter went limp, and I lunged for and snatched away the gun.

Otto got to his feet slowly, forcing a smile and rubbing the back of his neck.

“KGB
pizdyets, nah holidyets,
Garv.”

Chapter 20

A
fter dusting off Pipsqueak, I picked up the phone to call the police but heard Roger Elk’s admonition echo in my brain. I called him first. He wasn’t in, so I left an urgent message with his service.

“Now what’ll I do?” I groaned, holding Sloan’s gun by the barrel. Sloan was on his back, partially conscious, trying to blink his eyes open while Otto bound his hands behind his back with clear plastic packing tape.

“I dunno, Garv. Police, maybe, eh?”

“Okay, so I call the police and tell them this is the guy who shot Loomis, here’s the gun.” I nodded. “Right? This is probably the gun that killed Loomis. Of course, I’m holding the gun, it’s got my prints on it now, and the police are sure I was there. They still might think I killed Loomis. And Marti, she’s dead and can’t identify Cola Boy Sloan. Now it’s just my story, in which I say Sloan, disguised as a farm girl, struggled with and shot Loomis to steal a puppet and that Sloan may well have killed Marti, or at least may know who did it.”

“But why Garv kill Loomis?” Otto stood, satisfied that Cola Boy Sloan was well secured, and picked up his red fez. It said
Wiener King
across the front.

I handed Otto an ice pack for the back of his neck. “If I don’t call the police, I’m obstructing justice, I’m harboring a fugitive or something . . .”

“I smoke.” Otto slouched out the back door.

The phone rang. It was Roger Elk, and I explained the Sloan episode.

“Garth, don’t do anything until I get there.” He hung up before I could ask whether I should call the cops.

Sloan started to wriggle and cough and rolled onto his stomach with a low moan.

I looked Pipsqueak hard in the eyes. Obviously, there was more to this puppet than could be seen at first glance. Maybe something inside his head? There wasn’t room anywhere else to hide something. The rest of him was just pelt, and I couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary there. But the back of his head had heavy stitching through the fur, and it had obviously been done hastily. It would have to be carefully cut so as not to damage the pelt further. Squeezing his head lightly, I tried to discern what might be inside, but under a layer of batting I felt only a hard, uniform core. The thought of cutting open his head made me slightly dizzy, but it seemed the only way to figure out what all this was about, since nobody would tell me. And ultimately, it was probably the best way to save Pipsqueak himself. The sooner his head was emptied, separated from whatever the contraband was, the sooner they’d stop chasing him. And, of course, the better chance I’d have of holding on to the squirrel.

But I was still conflicted, and mostly preoccupied with hiding Pipsqueak until I could get rid of Sloan. Lord knew who might pop through the door next.

I don’t have a wall safe, but there are some loose floorboards in the living room that open into a cavity under the floor. Sloan was on the other side of the couch and his view was blocked, unless he could see through the narrow space under the couch. So I nestled Pipsqueak in a dish towel, wheeled my lion Fred off the carpet, lifted the boards with a butter knife, and wedged the puppet between the joists. As an afterthought, I tucked the gun in with him. It seemed a particularly sinister tableau. Squirrel puppet and a gun. From the way things were going, I’d have said Pipsqueak was the more dangerous of the two. With the floorboards back in place, I rolled out the carpet and wheeled Fred back into place atop the squirrel’s hideaway.

The buzzer sounded. Roger Elk must not have been far off when he called. I buzzed the front door, and a moment later the apartment door swung open. It wasn’t Roger.

“Well, howdy do?” Bing intoned, smirking at his friend Bowler as they entered. Bing was in a yellow sweater and bow tie, the skimmer tilted rakishly on his head. Bowler was still in his Lucky’s Speed Shop shirt.

Great. More pistols, but mine (Sloan’s) was under the floor. Like I would have done anything with it.

“Where’s the puppet, son?” Bing sniffed.

“Not here,” I said, hands half raised.

“Where?” Bowler prodded. His nasal voice sounded like the one on my message machine.

I thought a second. “Not here. If I do lead you to him, I need to be sure you won’t kill me.”

Bing adjusted his skimmer and exchanged glances with Bowler.

“Let’s go, champ.” Bowler helped Sloan to his feet and shoved him out the door.

“After you, sport.” Bing waved his gun at me. “We’re going to take in the sights from your convertible. Top up, don’tcha know.”

My Rottweiler was still out back, probably on his second smoke. I could only hope he wouldn’t come barging into the room and get shot. And thank the Lord for the Acme Crafts yak sessions with Katie for keeping Angie away while this was going on. At least Roger Elk was on his way and knew the score. Between him and the cops, and maybe Nicholas, they might just find me. Assuming these guys didn’t mean to kill me. Ransom? Me for Pipsqueak? They obviously knew Nicholas, but did they know he was my brother? I guessed not, so I wasn’t sure whether they thought there was any leverage there for ransom. Ultimately, I think they grabbed me because they didn’t think I was telling the truth and were going to question me further. Torture? I shuddered, turning my thoughts away from soldering irons and hobby tools.

Outside, I unlocked the doors to the Lincoln. Bowler shoved Sloan in the backseat, pushed him over, and got in behind the driver’s seat so he could keep a gun on me. Bing rode shotgun—or pistol, to be more precise. I drove, and moments later we were approaching the West Side Highway.

“Let’s try south,” Bing suggested. “Take the West Side to Battery Place, what say?”

I didn’t say anything for a while, busy formulating escape possibilities, like bailing out of a car going thirty miles per hour or running a light in front of a cop to get pulled over. I didn’t much care for the possibility that I might run myself over with the back wheels in the first scheme (probably wrecking the Lincoln), and the second was a long shot that would require finding a cop when you need one. I’ll stick to lottery tickets. And then there was the really extreme option of orchestrating a head-on collision with a light pole. I was wearing my seat belt, but my guests weren’t. That would have the advantage of sending Bing into the windshield, but the disadvantage of throwing Bowler on top of me with his gun. The doors would likely pin shut from the fenders shunting back, and I’d be stuck, unless the top popped open. Too much room for error, and besides, I hated the idea of wrecking the Lincoln.

“So where are you taking me?” I thought I might as well ask.

Bing’s pistol sat in his lap as he stuffed Captain Black in his pipe. “Just drive, junior. We’ll ask the questions.” And they might as well not answer mine. “Take the left lane.”

At Battery, we weaved around into the Wall Street district, which just prior to noon isn’t overly busy with pedestrians, though by lunch the streets are swarming with humans on the feed. But delivery trucks cause minor backups on the narrow streets, which in combination with an infuriating number of one-way streets that always seem to be going the way you aren’t cost us a good fifteen minutes getting four blocks over to William Street approaching Hanover Square. Not that I was complaining; the longer the better. Though in that whole time, I didn’t see one good opportunity to make my escape. And not one cop.

“Make a Ricky.” Bing pointed right, and I made the turn. “This driveway.”

I stuck the Lincoln’s nose into a narrow drive facing a garage door in the wall of a building. A plaque by the door said
BANK OF IRAN
. Bing got out, went to a squawk box next to the door, pushed a button, and spoke into it. The door opened and I drove the Lincoln into a low-ceilinged, circular, pale-green room. Bing walked in after us and the garage door clattered shut. The room jolted, there was a loud whirring sound, the grind of chains and the click of gears. We were going down in an elevator.

“Bank of Iran?” I said over my shoulder.

“We’re no terrorists, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Bowler sneered. “The Iranians, they don’t use this place no more. This is a frozen asset.”

I believe we sank two stories before the elevator clanked down to earth and a wall to our right rolled open. The room began to revolve toward the opening so that the Lincoln would be able to drive out. When it stopped revolving, Bing made like an airline-tarmac jockey and guided me to a parking space among a bunch of other vintage cars, mostly older than mine. The Chrysler sedan from T3 was among them.

While these sorts of vehicular transports may sound exotic, New York’s parking garages—especially those in cramped quarters—have all manner of mechanical space-saving means to carry cars from street level to another elevation. Parking is such a commodity in Manhattan that people actually buy co-op parking spaces: patches of asphalt ten by sixteen feet. Elevators like the one at the Bank of Iran maximize the number of units for the developer. And for a bank, this lift had the added purpose of affording a secure egress for armored cars.

I parked the Lincoln next to a bulbous black Studebaker, and when I got out I realized my knees had gone a little wobbly on me. I was scared, but no less ready to bolt at any opportunity. At the moment, though, the only course of action seemed a bit of levity.

“Is this where they keep Lenin’s brain?”

Bing and Bowler knit brows at each other, and finally the latter mumbled, “I thought Chapman blew Lennon’s brains all over the Dakota.”

Hangdog Sloan finally spoke.

“Listen, fellas, you gotta understand, Bookerman is nuts. You know what he’s trying to do?”

Bing slapped him hard in the face and grinned. That was the end of that.

The basement corridor had pipes all over the ceiling giving off the ping and hiss of a nearby steam-heat plant. We reached a stairwell and went up one flight into a wood-paneled hall with fluorescent lighting. Pushing through swing doors marked
GYMNASIUM
, we passed into a white tile locker room, at the end of which were linoleum swing doors marked
BATHS
. They swung open, and in walked Vito.

Bowler put a hand on my chest. “Wait here.” He handed his gun to Vito and followed Bing and Sloan through the
BATHS
doors.

I stared at Vito, who had the pistol trained on my chest. He was wearing a bowling shirt—you got it, identical to Bowler’s. Uniform of the day. He was chewing gum so hard that he was working up a sweat on his shiny shaved head. Before I said something ridiculous, like how surprised I was, or how maybe he ought to let me go for old times’ sake, he held up a hand to quiet me and took a step closer. His eyes were rimmed red, and he seemed under a tremendous strain.

“What happened?” he whispered hoarsely.

I shrugged. “Huhn?”

“Sloan brought you Pipsqueak. What happened?”

“Well, for starters, he pulled a gun on me, and so Otto came in and . . . well, we got Sloan taken care of when . . . I dunno why I should be telling you any of this.”

“Garth, you gotta tell me where Pipsqueak is.”

For some reason it hit me particularly hard, at that very moment, how absurd that sounded. I laughed and looked at the ceiling. I didn’t even know how to answer that.

“Suddenly, after thirty-five years, everybody wants to know where Pipsqueak the Nutty Nut is, like it’s the most important thing in the world where this third-rate puppet—”

“Look, Garth, I’m Nicholas’s informant. You need to tell me where it is so they don’t get it. Wherever you put it, it’s not safe from them.”

“Gee,” I quipped. “Let me guess? You’re a naturopath?”

Vito winced, seeing he wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Look, Vito, I’m not telling anybody anything
until someone tells me something
. Like, what do naturopaths have to do with any of this?”

“Garth, they can’t get hold of Pipsqueak again,” he gulped. “It would give them the power to completely alter our society. They’re fundamentalists, isolationists who want to turn the clock back, shun technology and the information age. The spheres can’t fall into the wrong hands—or any hands. The spheres must be destroyed.”

“Spheres?”

Vito didn’t get a chance to answer. Bing burst back through the doors, latched on to my arm, and dragged me into the baths.

A row of tile tubs was on my left, matching showers on my right. Dead ahead was Bowler, holding a gun on Sloan. It was muggy, and the place smelled like a root cellar. Pipes lining the left wall were attached to the tubs, which were filled with mud the consistency of giblet gravy. Wet, flatulent burps rose up in gloppy bubbles.

I unbuttoned my sport coat and pushed up my sleeves. Bing slapped a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward one of the tubs. I glared back at Bing with a quizzical eye. “What?”

I looked around and suddenly noticed two eyes in the tub of mud before me. Then the outline of a slathered bald head and shoulders jutting from the steaming gunk. A hand emerged, picked up a dirty washcloth, and drew it across the mouth to reveal pink lips. The eyes focused on Sloan.