Call Me Brooklyn Page 9

Ms. Zadie Stewart is a normal, run-of-the-mill executive, although if you picture her dressed in some other outfit, you can make out that she’s not half bad . . . and that’s it, Gal, whatever else you want to make of it, there’s nothing more. She seemed very busy and, in spite of her apprehensions, wasn’t too bothered by the fact that Mr. Ackerman showed up in person to hand her the envelope despite her protests that it wasn’t necessary.

  What did you tell her?

  That I lived less than fifteen minutes away, that I had spent all morning writing and needed to stretch my legs and after hearing her voice I couldn’t resist the temptation of meeting her in person. Don’t laugh, that’s exactly what I said.

  And what did she say?

  She thanked me, called her assistant, and asked her to please show Mr. Ackerman out. Before I left, I shook her hand and she smiled. Slightly.

  What’s she like?

  She seems intelligent.

  Physically. If I were to follow her.

  Black hair, dark skin, maybe Italian or something. Tall, with black-rimmed glasses, gray blouse and skirt.

  What time does she leave?

  Well imagine that, I forgot to ask her. If you want, I’ll go back in and find out. I think you’re going to have to wait a while. If you’re lucky, she’ll go out for lunch, and since this place is so nearby the office, she may even show up here. I should probably leave, so she doesn’t see me with you. Seriously, Gal, I’m outta here. I don’t have all day to be playing detective.

  Thanks very much, Marc. Are you going by the Chamberpot tonight?

  No. I have a date with Zadie at La Côte Basque. The dream of a lifetime fulfilled, having dinner at Truman Capote’s favorite restaurant. I can afford these luxuries now, they gave me a raise, I forgot to tell you. So, good luck with your Nadia. Au revoire.

  Thank you, Marc. I really appreciate it.

  For you, baby, anything.

  But Zadie Stewart didn’t go out for lunch. Around twelve thirty, a heavy thunderstorm started up and the café stayed fairly deserted. I ordered something to eat, and then one coffee after another, to pass the time. After I ordered my fourth cup, the waitress took pity on me and started coming over to chat during her free moments. Around three, I almost left. I asked for the check, explaining to the waitress I was supposed to have met someone but that the other person seemed to have forgotten. It happens, she said, smiling. I gave her a good tip and said good-bye. When I got to the door, though, I changed my mind. Seeing me back at the same table, the waitress smiled and brought me a cappuccino. On the house, she said. At five, when all the offices spewed out all their employees at the same time, I decided to wait outside. I found a spot directly across from Leichliter and Associates. At five twenty, I set a limit on the amount of time I would wait, and then another and another. It took a concentrated effort to convince myself that it was absurd to throw in the towel after so much time invested, especially since I knew that Zadie Stewart still had to be inside the building. A little after six, I saw her come out with a man who was wearing an elegant suit. Just as Marc had said, she was slim with a dark complexion. She too was wearing a suit jacket, and she did in fact have black-rimmed glasses. Zadie Stewart and the man chatted for a few minutes by the front door of the building. I crossed the street and, knowing that they wouldn’t suspect me, I pretended to look at a window display, dangerously close to them. It wasn’t long before they parted.

  I was relieved when I saw Zadie Stewart walk off. If she had gotten in a taxi, I would have lost her in traffic, not even taking into account the fact that I didn’t have enough money on me to give chase. Where was she headed? Brighton Beach? And if she wasn’t going there, how would I ever find Nadia? Wouldn’t it be better just to ask her directly? I thought about it, but decided to see how things went first.

  On the corner of 60th Street, she took off her high heels and put on a pair of sneakers. When she got to Lexington, she went down into the subway. There were a lot of people in the station so I hardly stood out. I followed her, hidden in the crowd. She changed trains twice, once on 51st Street and then again at Rockefeller Center. Yes, she was going to Brooklyn. I settled down at the other end of the car, a newspaper in front of me. I read the story of the murder committed by the Westies that Marc had told me about. One more change of trains. Finally, around seven thirty, we arrived at Brighton Beach. Before going to her place, she stopped at a supermarket and then picked up a suit from the cleaners. Her final destination was an enormous hulk of an apartment building without a doorman on Neptune Avenue. She opened the front door with a key and disappeared into a hallway. I memorized the number of the building and looked at the time. Almost seven thirty. I felt as if I were losing the spirit of the thing. Was this the way the chase ended? I crossed to the opposite sidewalk and looked at the huge building, not knowing which one of the cells in that beehive was hers. Night had fallen. Nadia would be in the apartment with her. And if that was the case, perhaps they would go out for dinner. After some five or ten minutes, a pair of old folk appeared at the end of the hallway and I went up to the door, timing my arrival to coincide exactly with the moment that they opened the door. The woman rebuked me in Russian; I thanked her and smiled. Ignoring the protests of the couple, I shrugged and went into the building. I headed toward the hallway to the right as I had seen Zadie Stewart do and at the end saw a wall covered from floor to ceiling with metal mailboxes. Not all of them were labeled with a name, but I read every one of those that were. I began to lose hope when finally I found what I was looking for: on a yellowing card I read Zadie Stewart, in typescript, and written below by hand, Nadia Orlov. The apartment number was 30-N.

  I left the mailboxes behind and came upon an open rectangular space. There were three elevator doors but only one call button. The center door opened, and I got into the box and hit the button for floor 30. After an interminable wait that probably was only about a minute long, I exited on a landing that led to a narrow hall flanked by doors of an indefinite color somewhere between gray and blue, eight on each side. At the very beginning of the hallway, to the right, there was a large window that offered an expansive view. I stopped and looked out, following the line of the beach with my eyes ending in the burst of lights from Coney Island. I walked slowly down the hallway until I found myself in front of apartment N. At my feet, a strip of light. I listened closely. After a few moments, I could make out the muffled sound of a television; that was all.

  I lingered for a moment in the hallway and decided that the best thing to do was to go back out on the street. I stationed myself in the front of the building again, unsure of how to continue my investigation. I tried 411. Information, how can I help you? said a woman’s voice. I gave her Zadie Stewart’s name and address and crossed my fingers. I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one by that name listed at that address, the operator said. I thanked her and hung up. It would have been too easy. Or worse: I could have wound up having to risk ending my quest with a single phone call. I headed for Brighton Avenue, which is lined with Russian restaurants and bars. I picked one at random and went in. On a stage was a fat singer with a sequined suit and a tie, being accompanied by an electric organ; a few middle-aged couples were dancing out in front. There was no bar, only a handful of communal tables that gave the place the air of a Soviet mess hall. A waiter appeared. His name was Metodi, wasn’t Russian but Polish, and didn’t speak a word of English. I asked for an order of blini and a measure of vodka. That’s how you order it, by volume, Metodi made me understand, and I liked the concept. The alcohol helped me put things in perspective. After I finished eating, I went out for a stroll on the boardwalk. I got a bit emotional, remembering the walks on Coney Island with my grandfather David when I was a kid. There were a lot of people out, groups of old folk and children. Lights from the ships out at sea, far away. And, all in all, as Nadia had said in her note, almost no one was speaking English. I passed by the amusement park and arrived at a subway station. Out of the back window of the last subway
car I looked out upon Coney Island, taking it all in, the giant Ferris wheel, the Cyclone—the roller coaster of my youth—the Parachute Jump, opening like an atomic mushroom into the sky. I arrived in Manhattan at eleven. There were two messages on the answering machine, one from Louise and another from Claudia.

  Nadia Orlov, I said aloud. I sat at the kitchen table. There were two blank pieces of paper with a carbon sheet in between rolled into the typewriter; I had forgotten to take them out. I typed out the name and looked at the letters. I could write Nadia Orlov a letter, and make up some excuse to meet her . . . or I could hire a private detective. I let out a laugh remembering my brief foray into that profession. Can you afford all this, Gal Ackerman, or is this another of your fantasies? I asked myself. The answer was in my pocket. I reached in and felt the check for five hundred dollars. It was the first story I’d ever sold. And it hadn’t even been my idea to send it out. Marc was the one who sent it, pretending he was me, because he knew that I would never do it myself. The important thing was that, thanks to him I would be able to make the first payments.

  The best thing would be to look in the Yellow Pages. The only copy I had was three years old, but it would have to do. I leafed through various letters until I got to the one I wanted. It was a couple of pages long. I skipped through various professions and activities and began to narrow the field: Dentists, Design, Diamonds. But no Detectives. I flipped to the index in the back of the book. There I found Detectives . . . see . . . and then, amid various references, finally, Investigators.

  It was like consulting an encyclopedic dictionary. There was so much information just between Hotels and Jewelers. I stopped at a few names for no real reason. On coming across Meyerson and Associates, Inc., I thought about Leichliter, and it occurred to me to look it up in case it might itself be a detective agency. Which would be amusing, but of course there was no Leichliter listed. The closest name was Lincoln . . . Lincoln Controls, Inc. Not having any criteria for choosing one agency over another, I allowed my eyes to drift over the page at random, letting the entries present themselves to me as they will. Some of my finds were quite funny. For example, this one, in big bold letters:

  PINKERTON CONSULTING &

  INVESTIGATION SERVICES.

  An agency with historic pedigree and literary prestige. I dragged my index finger across the page for the address: 30 Wall Street. Possible . . . not a bad location. In another column, more discreetly announced, I read:

  HOLMES DETECTIVE BUREAU, INC

  ESTABLISHED IN 1928

  Speaking of literary prestige. But I decided to keep on looking. In a box in the right-hand corner at the top of the page, I read CLARK. The name didn’t bring up any immediate associations, but then I saw their ad, which made me decide to go with them after all. There was a magnifying glass, and under the glass, as if trapped in flagrante delicto, the letter C. But what made me laugh is what apparently had been caught by the magnifying glass. In the middle of the circle there was a dark spot that could suggest anything. I looked at it closely, trying to decide what it was supposed to be. It could be a fly, but what it most resembled was a clump of pubic hair. I read on: twenty years of proven experience. Specialists in surveillance. Armed and unarmed agents. Discrete and professional. Reasonable fees. A phone number, but no address. I went back to the alphabetic listing and got it from the appropriate column. I liked the cartoon so much that I ripped it out and put it in between the pages of my diary, after taking down all the information I needed:

  Clark Investigations and Security Services, Ltd. 31-10, 56 Woodride, Manhattan, (212) 514-8741 See our ad on the following page.

  October 26

  It was a ramshackle place that made me think of the office of a neighborhood dentist or a shady immigration lawyer. There were a few clients in the waiting room, two women who looked like a mother and daughter and a white man around forty-five years old, in a suit. He was wearing a polka-dotted bow tie and had a violin case with him. In the magazine rack were various old issues of National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. The receptionist made me fill out a four-page questionnaire. Some questions were so peculiar as to be funny, but I completed it in all humility and handed it to the girl at the desk.

  That will be fifty dollars for the consultation, she said. Will you be needing an armed operative?

  I laughed. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.

  Detective William H. Queensberry will be right with you. Have a seat, please.

  I looked around the waiting room. The guy with the violin had left; the mother and daughter (if that’s what they were) were about to go into an office at just that moment. Some ten minutes later, I saw a blonde woman come out of another room. The receptionist got up, led her to the door, and then, coming over, asked me to follow her to the same office from which the woman had left. She followed behind and handed the detective the questionnaire that I had filled out.

  Mr. Ackerman, Detective Queensberry will assist you, she said and left the office, closing the door without making a sound.

  Queensberry stood, shook my hand, and gestured for me to take a seat.

  With an exaggerated concentration, moving his lips in a way that made it all seem rather grotesque, Queensberry began to read my answers in a low voice. As he did so, he followed the lines with his chubby index finger, emitting perfectly unintelligible sounds, as though he were singing under his breath, although maybe it was a way of commenting to himself. Eventually I understood that it was a technique to help him think. Every once in a while he stopped reading, seemed distracted for a few moments, then looked me over. I too looked at him closely as he read. Given the profession he had chosen, Detective Queensberry’s physical appearance was hardly the most discrete. He had the face of a bullfrog, and his body reminded me of a comic book character I couldn’t quite call to mind. He was fat and some five foot nine in height, with pink skin splattered with freckles. He had an enormous double chin and swollen cheeks, his hair buzzed almost down to the skull. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, with a flower-print tie, the knot to one side. It was clearly too tight around his neck. He was around thirty-eight and two hundred and twenty pounds. Behind his reading glasses glimmered a pair of tiny porcine bluish eyes. As if all that weren’t enough, Queensberry was a squinter. He stood up to get a paper cone of water from a cooler in a corner near the window. He moved gracefully in spite of his corpulence.

  It took him ten full minutes to finish reading the questionnaire. When he did, he leaned forward, planted his elbows on the desk, and said:

  What do you say we get down to business, Mr. Ackerman?

  His voice was deep and each word ran together with the next. I took out a pack of cigarettes and offered him one, but he declined, taking a visibly tooth-marked plastic cigarette out of his shirt pocket, which he immediately brought to his mouth.

  Thanks. I’m trying to quit.

  I laid out my case. Queensberry’s plump fingers stuck like suction cups to a small notebook in which he took notes at great speed. I asked him if he wanted me to speak slower.

  Actually faster, Mr. Ackerman, he responded. That way we both win. Time and money.

  When I finished, he put down the notebook and asked:

  So you’re a writer? What do you write, Ackerman?

  A bit of everything.

  I figured out his game by the way he looked at me. He was just more comfortable passing himself off as a fool. A moment later he was back to his old self.

  Nadia Orlov, he said, savoring the syllables. He bit down hard on the plastic menthol cigarette. It’s a ludicrously easy case. I don’t want to talk you out of it, per se—after all, this is how I make my living—but are you sure you want to spend your money on such a trifle? I guess you do, if you’re here. I’m just saying, maybe you want to reconsider—from what I hear, writers are always starving. No offense intended, after all, appearances can be deceiving. Let’s see. I can give you a definitive report this coming Monday morning. I want to watch her over
the weekend as well, that way you’ll get more for your money.

  And how much will I owe you?

  Five hundred dollars. Including the consultation fee. You can pay the rest when I give you the report.

  I put my hand into the pocket, to make sure that the Atlantic Monthly check was still there.

  Six

  BEN’S ARCHIVE

  Character is fate, Ben said. He thought for a moment and added: You’re old enough to enter the Archive. That’s what he called his office. It was a secret room that was always locked, a sacred place, a sanctuary to which I had been denied access while I was too young to understand what it meant. For a moment, I thought I must’ve misheard. That’s where my father kept papers and books he treasured. Inside were the filing cabinets full of letters and pictures and all sorts of other documents and materials. And there too is where he held secret meetings with his old comrades. Over the years, I had caught a glimpse of the Archive on many occasions; I’d even been allowed to go inside once or twice, but always only for a brief moment, and never by myself. This time was something different; the Archive was being opened expressly for me. I remember the excitement I felt when my father pushed open the door and stepped to one side so I could go in. The room was dark and it smelled musty. Ben turned on a lightbulb that hung from a beam. The walls were covered with bookcases from the baseboard to the ceiling, and the shelves were all packed. There was a single window that looked out on the garden. Ben drew the curtains, raised the blinds, and lifted the window wide open. Air and sunlight rushed into the cloistered space; I was blinded for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, hundreds of specks glimmered on the clouds of dust. Ben sat on the windowsill, surrounded by the gradually diminishing day, and said, repeating what he had told me a few minutes before in my room, while I was changing my shoes:

  It means he considers you an adult. When I was allowed to go in, there was a lot of violence in the air. It was the time of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. One day, your grandfather got home very agitated and announced: We’re going to Manhattan, son, get ready. Manhattan? For what? To a demonstration. Hurry up, we don’t have much time. I’ll explain it to you on the way. Put on some light clothes, we’re going to have to run.