The Prisoner of Vandam Street (7 page)

O
kay, where’s the guy who called 911?”

“Right there, officer. You all right, Kinkstah?”

“The guy on the floor? He called 911?”

“You okay, Kink?”

“Of course he’s not okay. You bastards all left and you told me you’d watch him.”

“When we left he was fine. He was sleeping. You said you’d be back sooner.”

“Mr. Friedman, can you hear me? Did you call 911?”

“He’s going to be okay. He’s just weak. He’s recuperating.”

“I’d be recuperating, too, if I was responsible for all these empty bottles.”

“He didn’t drink ’em. They did!”

“So arrest me. It’s legal, innit? Prohibition’s over, innit?”

“I’ll just tidy up now.”

“Don’t touch those empty bottles. What’s his given name?”

“Kinky. He has a few other given names but that should suffice for your purposes.”

“Kinky? What kind of name’s Kinky?”

“You don’t know who that is? That’s Kinky Friedman. He’s solved more mysteries than anybody else in New York!”

“Right!”

“Can he leap tall buildings?”

“Look, officers, there’s obviously been some mistake here. Mr. Friedman’s been under great strain and duress lately but it’s all normal and it’s all associated with the long and painful recovery period from malaria.”

“That’s right. He’s not himself.”

“He sure looks like himself. He seems to be coming around. Let’s ask him if he’s himself.”

“Mr. Friedman? Are you the party who called 911?”

“I’m sure there’s some mistake, officer.”

“The mistake was you guys leaving him here alone.”

“He was sleeping peacefully in his bed, mate. It’s legal to let a bloke sleep in peace, innit?”

“Bullshit!”

“Bollocks!”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’re a poofter.”

“Asshole
not
from El Paso!”

“My heroes have always been faggots.”

“That’s enough! We’ll take you all down to the precinct.”

“No, wait! He’s opening his eyes!”

I felt like a guy who’d been hit by a car in the streets of Manhattan. There was a circle of faces all around me, all slowly coming into focus, all looking very concerned. I’d been hearing every word for some time now, but I just hadn’t had the strength to open my eyes. Now I saw that Ratso, Brennan, McGovern, and Akerman were all there, with McGovern giving me a tentative thumbs-up sign that I didn’t really understand. There were also two faces I’d never seen before. They belonged, apparently, to two cops, a tall, thin white man and a short, chubby black woman. My four friends were smiling. The two cops were not.

“Did you call 911, Mr. Friedman?” asked the tall, thin, male cop.

I was sitting up on the floor now with Piers helping to support me. The 911 call seemed like a lifetime ago. I couldn’t seem to think coherently.

“Did you call 911, Mr. Friedman?” the short, chubby, black female cop demanded.

“Yes,” I said weakly.

“And you called to report what?” asked the other cop.

Images and words were now forming in my jumbled, fevered brain, but I was having a hard time sorting them out. I knew something terrible had happened. I just wasn’t sure what it was.

“Why did you call 911, sir?” asked the female cop relentlessly.

“Because tiny men with large penises were coming up the fire escape?”

“Sounds like Brennan,” said Ratso.

“Sod off,” said Brennan.

“He may have had a concussion,” said the female cop.

“There’s a bird on my back,” I said.

“Maybe Mr. Friedman needs to come in for a psychiatric examination,” said the male cop.

“He’ll be fine,” said Piers. “He’s merely experiencing a malarial relapse. Quite common in the tropics, actually.”

“Are you a doctor, sir?” the female cop asked Piers rather pointedly.

“I have lived amongst the aboriginals,” said Piers, who was obviously very drunk, “and I have witnessed a great many extremely graphic ceremonial and anatomical events, some of which I’m not at liberty to divulge. I have seen the songman point the bone at a rather hapless fellow who, of course, died a horrible death within forty-eight hours. They invariably do. I have witnessed the corkscrew-shaped penis of the redback spider which can kill a man within forty-eight seconds, usually after having been bitten on the buttocks while defecating in an outdoor loo. I have observed that the magpie has, proportionally, the largest testicles in the avian kingdom.”

Nobody was listening to Piers anymore, but he continued nattering on. By this time, McGovern and the male cop had gotten me to my feet and I was sitting in a chair sipping a hot tea Ratso had brought me. I was trying to remember why everybody was here when the cat jumped in my lap. Suddenly, it all began coming back to me in a cold, melancholy rush. I realized that the cops knew why I’d called 911, they just wanted to be sure that I knew why I’d called. And now, at last, it had come back to me. The cat and I both jumped up from the chair.

“I remember!” I shouted. “It’s all coming back to me! The guy across the street was hurting the woman!”

The two cops were giving me encouraging nods now. I walked quickly across to the kitchen window and they followed me like two little puppies. The cat followed, too, but not like a puppy. Cats never follow like puppies. They follow only because they know that some day the opportunity may come for them to lead. The Village Irregulars stood around looking like somebody’d hit them with a hammer. They didn’t know whether to shit or go bowling. You really couldn’t blame them, however. They didn’t know that malaria lets you see the world as it really is.

“I was standing at this window,” I said to the cops. “The lights are all off now, but the last time I saw her she was down and she hadn’t gotten up.”

“Point to the appropriate locations where this assault took place,” invited the female cop.

“Right about there,” I said, pointing to where I’d seen the lighted window. “Definitely third floor. Just above where that garbage truck is parked.”

“You guys stay here,” said the male cop, as he and his partner headed for the door. “We’re going to check this out right now.”

After the cops had slammed the door, I stood at the window for a moment, watching the street. Then I relit my cigar and turned around. Everybody in the room stared at me with a look of naked curiosity in their eyes. Everyone, that is, except the cat.

I
ndubitably, the dynamics had now changed. The cops, at long last, saw me as a good citizen and a reasonably reliable witness to a crime. The Village Irregulars looked like they didn’t have a clue as to what was happening. I wasn’t going to tell them too fast. I picked up the cat, an act she did not especially enjoy, and took her over to my desk, and we both sat down together. It didn’t take long for the proverbial shit to hit the proverbial fan. Ratso, practically salivating to play his role as Dr. Watson, was the first to head up the inquisition.

“Kinkstah!” he said. “So who’s the mystery woman, Kinkstah?”

“I have malaria, Ratso. I hardly know who
you
are.”

“You mean you’ve never seen this woman before?”

“Sometimes I don’t know who I am—”

“Let me get this straight,” said Piers in a loud, stentorian voice. “You witnessed something in an apartment across the street in the brief occasion all of us were gone from the loft?”

I didn’t love the doubtful tone that permeated Piers’s line of questioning. I wasn’t feeling all that well anyway, so I didn’t answer. I just decided I’d hold my breath until I popped. If the Village Irregulars didn’t choose to believe me, that was their problem.

“Do you really think you witnessed a crime, Kink?” said McGovern, in a voice reserved for a foreign exchange student.

“That malaria’ll play tricks on you, mate,” put in Brennan.

“Oh, I get it,” I said, with growing irritation. “No one believes I saw something.”

“We believe you
think
you saw something,” said Ratso. “In light of your condition this past week, all the fever and crazy dreams and hallucinations, not to mention your restless spirit being confined here to the loft, it’s just possible that you—”

“Made it up?” I said defiantly.

“Not ‘made it up,’ ” said Ratso. “Perhaps just
imagined
it?”

“You do have a very vivid imagination, Kink,” put in McGovern, not unkindly.

“I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’m well aware that I’m recuperating from an illness. And I’m grateful to you guys for looking after me—”

“You’re not just recuperating,” put in Piers. “You’ve been cookin’ on another planet most of the time.”

“Remember
The English Patient,
mate?” said Brennan.

“Yeah,” I said. “I saw the movie with my dad and it lasted about seven and a half hours. Afterward, my dad said: ‘War is hell;
The English Patient
is tedious.’ What the hell’s
The English Patient
got to do with anything? The guy was totally out where the buses don’t run. I’m perfectly sane and sober, which is more than I can say about some of you.”

“That’s because you ain’t the English Patient, mate,” said Brennan maliciously. “You’re the soddin’ Jewish Patient, ain’t you?”

“The Jewish Patient,” laughed McGovern, with his loud Irish laugh. “That’s a good one.”

“Calling me names doesn’t change what I saw,” I said, striving for a little dignity amidst the laughter and good-natured jibes of my friends. “I saw a man practically beat a woman to death in an apartment right across the street from where I’m sitting now. I didn’t see the woman get up. For all I know, the bastard might’ve killed her.”

“You’re sure they weren’t practicing tai chi?” asked Piers.

“Or rehearsing for an off-off-off-Broadway play?” asked McGovern.

“Or filming a rough sex porno flick?” asked Brennan.

I didn’t answer. I just stroked the cat and did my best not to stroke out with irritation. Not being believed by people who say they are your friends is always a nasty pill to swallow. It’s almost as bad as watching a man try to kill a woman with his bare hands.

“Look, guys,” said Ratso, seemingly coming to my rescue. “Let’s suspend reality for a moment and give the Kinkstah a chance. Maybe he
did
see something.”

“Of
course
I did.”

“Of
course
you did,” said Brennan, patting me on the back patronizingly.

“Look, mates,” said Piers, “the Kinkster’s been through quite a rough row as it is. Let’s not rush to judgment on this matter. The cops are checking things out across the street and I’m sure they’ll do a very thorough job. Then they’ll come back and report what they’ve found to us. In the meantime, all we have to do is wait.”

“Why don’t we have some of this while we wait?” said McGovern, extracting a very large joint from somewhere on his very large person.

“Are you crazy?” said Ratso. “The cops’ll be back here any minute.”

“Don’t worry, mate,” said Brennan, taking the joint from McGovern and firing it up. “Kinky’s cigar and the four inches of cat shit on every flat surface around here will mask any offending odors.”

“That’s right, mate,” said Piers, taking the joint from Brennan, inhaling a superhuman hit, and passing it along to me. “The cops’ll never notice. When I first walked into Kinky’s flat, the cat shit combined with the stale cigar smoke was almost enough to make me gag. Have some, Kinkster. We may be waiting a long time.”

I took a puff of the joint and passed it along to McGovern. Only Ratso refused to partake. Instead, he went around the loft opening a number of windows to the frigid night air.

“That cold air rushing in’ll be good for somebody with the fever, mate,” said Brennan.

“Not to mention,” added McGovern, “that it smells worse outside where all the garbage trucks are parked.”

“One of us has to keep a level head around here,” said Ratso defensively. “Otherwise the cops are liable to haul all our asses in.”

“Don’t worry about the coppers,” said Brennan. “They probably found a doughnut shop and forgot all about us. That little black treacle
looks
like a doughnut.”

“That’s alarmingly racist,” said Ratso.

“It’s also alarmingly sexist,” I added.

“It’s also alarmingly late,” said Piers, with a yawn. “I think I’ll crash for the night. I’ll take the couch.”

“I’ve got the couch,” said McGovern.

“I’ve got the couch,” said Piers. “I thought you looked quite contented on the floor the other night.”

“That was because I couldn’t get to the couch,” protested McGovern.

“I’ve come halfway around the world to get to this couch, mate,” Piers continued. “Why don’t you let me have it?”

“Okay,” said McGovern belligerently. “I’ll let you have it.”

With that he took a big, drunken windmill swing at Piers Akerman’s head which, had it connected, no doubt would have caused the Aussie to see every star in the Southern Cross. However, the blow went wide and the result was the rather unseemly spectacle of Piers and McGovern grappling around with each other like two de-ranged polar bears at three o’clock in the morning in the middle of the loft. Piers, who was no small man himself, almost managed to wrestle McGovern to the floor at one point, but he slipped on a cat turd and had to confine his efforts to retaining his own balance.

“No break dancing!” shouted Brennan, pointing and laughing at Piers.

Piers was heading toward Brennan like a drunken, angry bee when a sharp series of knocks were heard by all on the door of the loft.

“Open up!” came a no-nonsense voice. “Police!”

“How’d they get back in the building without the puppethead?” I asked, not unreasonably.

“You have your methods, Sherlock,” said Ratso. “They have theirs.”

Ratso walked over and opened the door but the cops did not come in. Instead, they stood out in the hallway, conversing with Ratso in low tones. Occasionally, we could see Ratso nodding his head, as if in approval or understanding. After some time, Ratso closed the door and walked slowly back into the living room. On his face was an expression of something approaching sadness.

“Well,” I said. “Did they check the third floor?”

“There is no third floor,” said Ratso. “The third floor’s just an empty warehouse. No one lives there. But they did interview all occupants, and there weren’t that many apparently, on the fourth and second floors of the building. Nobody saw or heard anything.”

I sensed a cold knot forming at the pit of my stomach. It felt like I was the only sane person in the world. Either that, I figured darkly, or else I was a good deal sicker than I thought I was. Either way, I was numb. I could not speak. As if in sympathy to my sensibilities, a silence prevailed in the loft for a long moment. Then, at last, Ratso spoke in the hushed, somber tones usually reserved for the dead or dying.

“Well,” he said. “I guess that settles it.”

“Not quite, mate,” piped up Brennan. “There
is
one question.”

“What’s that?” asked Ratso.

“Who gets the couch?” said Brennan.