Hunting in Harlem (11 page)
Snowden looked at her in awe. She was Bobby's soul mate, he was suddenly sure of it. She was just as crazy, in just the same
way as he was. Snowden couldn't even look at Piper, the guilt of his betrayal so palpable. Maybe there really was someone
out there for everyone. Maybe Bobby had found his one, that one person in the world who would put up with his combustible
insanity. Maybe the woman Snowden had screwed on her hallway floor without a moment's consideration really was Bobby's one
chance at happiness.
"I'm sorry," Piper said. She'd hopped closer and laid her hands over his own. Snowden looked at her and couldn't figure out
what transgression she was referring too. "I should have called you, told you I was working on it. I just got so excited,
and I didn't even think it was going to be published this week, it wasn't supposed to be. But I don't know if I would have
told you before next week's issue, either. I might have, but who knows? But I wasn't trying to use you. I certainly wasn't
trying to single-handedly destroy the real estate market in Harlem."
Snowden shrugged before responding. "Look, lady, I'm going to ask you something, but y'know, it's not based on anything but
my own paranoia." Snowden paused, tried to think of a good way to ask his question, but couldn't find one. "It's just. . .
everything is kosher, right? It's not like there's some psycho killer walking the streets they don't want us to know about."
"Oh my God, wouldn't that make a great story?" Piper mused wistfully. "Sorry. People like that, they kill in patterns, similar
ways, similar people. I looked, trust me."
"So there's not like a Chupacabra monster running around?" Snowden asked. He tried to laugh at the question but it just came
off like a nervous tic.
"Wow. That would be cool. Can you imagine how many
Herald
copies we could sell? But there's nothing. Totally different people, obvious circumstances. I mean, there's dumb things. Like,
I got all excited because I noticed in the coroner's reports that a bunch of them all had five-dollar bills in their pockets,
at least twenty bucks' worth. But then, some didn't, and there's always some stupid stuff like that, some little coincidence
that if you look hard enough you can connect. That doesn't mean it's not meaningless."
Don't carry any more five-dollar bills, Snowden told himself. He could do that. The key to irrational fear and superstition
is getting them to work for you. It wouldn't be hard to get rid of all his five-dollar bills; Snowden always considered himself
more of a one-dollar-bill man.
Snowden leaned forward, started kissing on her neck, wanting to make sure that if another night like this one didn't happen
he had covered every inch of her.
Snowden tired. Snowden drunk. Snowden left Piper's and was back at his building as the sun's first rays streaked across the
sky. Not caring about previous arrangements or responsibilities, just that he had to pee, and then he had to go to bed, and
hopefully in that order. Snowden ran into Jifar sleeping across a step on the flight that separated their apartments and thought,
Come on, man, not now, give me
a break,
but didn't register much more until he unwrapped the boy's blanket and saw the child's unconscious face, its new symmetry
with a swollen eye on one end and a busted lip on the other. Snowden said his name, crammed in a progressive number of grim
conclusions before Jifar blinked back at him. "What's wrong with you?" the boy managed. Snowden lifted the boy up, kept walking.
First it was just the weight of Jifar in his arms that kept him from going back down and banging on the door so the father
would come out and Snowden could pound even harder. Then, after he'd laid Jifar on his couch and was forced to pause in contemplation
for those two minutes standing before the porcelain bowl, it was a combination of exhaustion and rational thought. Snowden
allowed himself to walk out of the bathroom and continue straight to the bedroom by pledging,
I will take care of this. I will do whatever I have to to change this
situation, tomorrow.
SNOWDEN WOKE UP late because he didn't want to do it. Then he heard the bastard singing "Super Freak" from his bath as the
water pipes whined, and he'd had enough. Two sets of knocks and then Baron Anderson answered the door.
A bathrobe nearly as worn and frayed as he was, both of them dripping. Jifar walked between his father and the door, the plastic
shopping bag of ice cubes Snowden had given him discreetly removed from his face. Anderson didn't ask where his son had been,
gave no more than a casual glance noting Jifar's presence and appearance. If there was guilt, if there was concern there,
it was not being offered for public consumption. Just annoyance. Just a motion to close the door that was aborted with the
look at Snowden still standing there, shoulders squared.
"What?"
"Could I talk to you?"
"I got work to do. I got things I got to accomplish." The door seemed leaden, its weight pulling it shut with little resistance.
"Jifar's a good kid."
"That's right, Jifar's a good kid. I don't need you telling me that, I'm his father. I got to go to work."
The door had almost closed when Snowden's foot shot forward to halt its progression.
"Look, I wanted to tell you, I know about this special boarding school. I think it'd be good for him. It's right in the neighborhood.
I think I can - "
"Don't think, man. Don't think. That's your problem, you're spending your time thinking about shit that don't got a goddamn
thing to do with you." Grunting out the last words, Baron Anderson turned his energies away from polite conversation and toward
trying to shove his front door closed despite the sneaker blocking it.
"That boy's face - " Snowden gave up and started pushing awkwardly to keep it open, hoping Jifar was in his own room behind
a closed door so at least he didn't hear the grunts of the struggle. Anderson kept muttering "nothing to do with you," like
if he said it enough times Snowden would believe him.
"You know what, I got to see that boy in these halls all messed the hell up, so it's got something to do with me. I got to
hear you abusing the kid through my floor all the time, then it's got something to do with me. Don't think I won't call the
police on your ass." It was the last, hollow threat that got the door to stop shaking.
"What the fuck? Man, I don't need this. I don't need this from the likes of you. Call the police, then. You know what? Call
them. I want to know what my boy's doing up in your apartment all the time. I know he's there, I can hear him watching his
cartoons through the ceiling. Get them coppers in here looking at you."
Like most smelly, feral animals, when cornered Mr. Anderson could display impressive pugnacious ingenuity. Particularly the
ability to locate weakness and exploit it immediately. "That's right fool, and I want to know what the hell he was doing sleeping
up there last night. I woke this morning, didn't see him, I was worried sick. That's right, punk. You don't mind your business,
I'm a give those cops a call, figure they'll want to know too. You like prison? They sure like your kind in prison, I can
tell you."
Snowden had a property to clean later that morning. A tenement, much like his own but farther along in its process of being
converted to a decent building. Of its nuisance tenants, three overcrowded apartments' worth had belonged to the superintendent,
a grumbling grub of a man who for over a decade had made a habit of demanding bribes to provide the most basic of his duties.
He'd had a verbal agreement with the previous owner to house his entire extended family in exchange for keeping the repair
prices down, an arrangement that immediately dissolved when Horizon purchased the building. (Apparently, the entire gene pool
was now creating havoc out of a one-bedroom apartment in Paterson, New Jersey.)
The other problem tenant was the guy on the third floor who liked to club and who liked to come back from the club and continue
the party back home even louder, speakers in every room as well as aimed straight out the window, and dance or screw at an
even louder volume. His greatest skill was his ability to turn off his music and lights as soon as the summoned squad car
pulled onto the block. Then one night he went out and a couple of days later the other residents realized they'd had a suspiciously
quiet string of restful nights. The only reason anyone finally noticed he'd gone missing was he'd left his shower dripping.
After a week it'd managed to swamp the whole apartment and leak through to the one downstairs. It was the middle of the night;
firemen had to break in the door with a battering ram. He never came back home. Everyone chalked it up to another victim of
the gay life. It was horrible what happened here, Snowden thought. It would take three layers of varnish just to bring the
floor's shine back.
Inside the Horizon office, Snowden could tell it was Halloween because Lester wore a black suit, orange shoes, plastic ghost
cuff links, and a large pumpkin on his tie with a smirk much like Snowden's own.
"The importance of style is not to impress, nor to conform to the expectations of the masses, Snowman. It is to manifest an
aspect of your soul externally."
Lester walked around his office whistling. It made him seem relaxed. Too relaxed, it suddenly seemed, and Snowden was hit
with the guilty thought that Lester had seen Piper's article, that he knew where she got the idea and, when he least expected
it, Lester would fire him. It was an attractively paranoid thought, but it made Snowden smile to himself at its absurdity
almost immediately. Everybody knew no one read the
New Holland Herald.
It was absolutely dreadful. That was the existential beauty of the paper: It was reading material for illiterates.
"Can any child, or at least one that a Horizon employee recommends, be admitted to the little Leaders League?" Snowden asked
to get his mind off of it. This question had actually been planned in bed that morning, made moot by Baron Anderson soon after,
and was only offered to inspire further questions, as it did. Snowden, in the mood for the catharsis of confession, told Lester
all of it. What the boy's beatings sounded like through the floor, the shade of Jifar's bruising the night before, how gentle
the kid was, Baron Anderson's implicit threat of blackmail, and even a description of what the bastard's voice sounded like
singing "Brick House."
Into his folded hands Lester nodded. Snowden was down to the detail that the hairy freak had the nerve to reek of Johnson
& Johnson's Baby Shampoo when Lester stood up to close his office door, went to the file drawers behind his desk, and opened
one.
"That's the apartment directly below yours. Is that B. Anderson?"
"That's him. That's the guy, Baron Anderson."
"Arrested 1989, Disposal of Stolen Property. Again in '93 and '97, same thing. The guy's a fence. He works at a pawn shop
at 117th and 2nd."
"How do you have all that? Did it come up on his credit report when he applied for the apartment?"
"We have information on all our residents with criminal backgrounds. You wouldn't believe how helpful having strong connections
with the parole board can be, with a mission like ours. Look here, Mr. Anderson has been investigated twice in the past four
years by Child Welfare for endangerment. Two different social workers," Lester read. Snowden kept waiting for something that
pointed to some great Explanation, something that would solve the situation and absolve him of further action. "Apparently
the man is very neat." Lester looked up, impressed. "Both visited in response to complaints by neighbors. No female relatives
to take the boy in, no easy answers. Neither case worker saw fit to recommend difficult ones, either. Very clean, though.
They both mentioned that."
"That's great. The geniuses at Child Welfare. See, that's why I would never bother calling those people in the first place,
they just make things worse. Cleanliness. Oh, the place is really clean, so . . . whatever. Cleanliness is what matters."
In response to Snowden's remarks Lester checked his fingernails, shrugged like it might be possible to argue that point successfully.
"Look, you really want to address this situation?" Lester asked. "You really want to take care of it, like a man, and put
this guy in his place? Then it's not a problem. I know how to handle so-called men like this: You put the fear of God in his
black ass, if you'll pardon me. If it means that much to you, we'll just go in there and make him understand in his own language
that if he doesn't stop taking out his aggressions on the boy, we'll take ours out against him."
Snowden was laughing at it, the image in his mind, the insanity of it. "OK, I like it. No really, it is very good. The only
thing is, we're not exactly the type to inspire 'the fear of God,' are we? The fear of gosh, maybe."
"Snowball. Don't underestimate the cowardice of bullies, or the element of surprise. I have keys to all the Horizon properties,
correct? Next time he has one of his bathroom concerts, we'll arrive. Tonight, for instance, would be perfect. We're having
a Halloween party for the students, just tell this boy to come, get him away from this. It's dirty work, there's no shame
in flinching from it. Trust me though, a threat to their own mortal coil is the only thing bad people understand. This will
work; it always does. Think of it as property management in its purest form."
Snowden, whose only alternative idea was to get Jifar to shove a couple of five-dollar bills in his dad's pocket to attract
the Chupacabra, said, "Sounds like a plan."
It was a bad idea. At the time Snowden agreed to it, it was a bad-yet-tempting idea, but the tempting part didn't last long.
After Snowden had walked an excited four-foot Chupacabra (or four-foot mutant frog —Jifar wasn't married to any one interpretation
of his costume) over to the Horizon little Leaders League Halloween Party, after it had gotten dark outside, Lester's plan
no longer seemed tempting at all. It was just bad. Snowden left his boss voice mails hinting at his new opinion, but there
was no return call. Snowden was on the phone to give it one more try when he walked from his kitchen to his living room and
saw Lester right there. Sitting on Snowden's couch. Legs folded, dime-size embroidered black cats hissing a line up his gray
socks. The only changes to his earlier attire were black gloves and a matching hair net that made it look like a giant spiderweb
had formed over his head.
"See? I know how to enter quietly. Mr. Anderson does sing a bit loud, doesn't he? I just heard him in your bathroom. You were
right, a weak baritone under the delusion he's a tenor. Dreadful. Let's go get him."
Lester's hand on Baron Anderson's doorknob moved slower than the minute hand on his watch. When the door finally cracked open,
the whining first bars of "Let's Get It On" jumped out. They walked inside. Lester started taking off his shoes so Snowden
imitated him. The stench of sesame oil was so strong it conjured images of sesame seeds as big as almonds. The apartment was
dark, nothing but the light from the windows and the illumination coming from the bathroom down the hall. From it, Baron Anderson
yelled, "We are all sensitive people / With so much to give!" Lester lined up both sets of shoes along the door perfectly
before rising, walking toward the light, the sound, the man.
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Baron Anderson declared into his microphone, and then Lester kicked open the door.
Lester walked into that bathroom like it was a hotel lobby. His first action a deft swat to the power button on the stereo
machine by the tub. "We are the ghosts of Halloween past!" he declared into its silence. Baron Anderson covered his genitals.
Considering the situation, Snowden thought this was a rather odd first response. That Lester was smiling as much as he was,
that was odd as well.
Anderson noticed Snowden behind the odd man, cursed directly at him as he moved a hand from his groin to grab the side of
the tub to lift himself up to attack. He managed to make it to the bent-kneed position of an upright Neanderthal before Lester
could remove his snub-nose pistol from his coat and push it to the side of Baron Anderson's head.
It was a bad idea. I don't put myself in the middle of these situations,
Snowden assured himself,
these situations hunt me down and swallow me.
"Now you relax. That's your job right now, relaxing. Lay back down. You ask nice, we can even turn on the hot water if you
start to get cold. It is kind of cold in here, isn't it? You cold, ghost?" Lester turned back to Snowden to ask him, pushing
his gun farther into Baron Anderson's temple as he did so.
"I'm fine, sir," Snowden told him. Snowden was near the toilet. It called and teased him as every liquid inside Snowden all
of a sudden wanted out.
"Good. Now everyone's comfortable so we can talk. See, we got a problem. You know what that problem is? Do you know?"
"I don't know what the fuck your problem is but I'm — "
Lester had large hands for a man his size. Laid perfectly flat and slapped quickly across Baron Anderson's face, his head
shooting back as if it had been hit with equal force by a large timber product, oak or elm. Lester's hand, however, was just
soft enough that it left no mark beside a moment's blemish.
"No vulgarities, thank you. So, as you might have guessed, our problem is you. Let me explain. You see us here." Grinning,
clearly enjoying his own performance, Lester motioned back and forth between himself and Snowden several times before continuing.
"We are good people. We are among the people trying to make something for the folks in this community. We are the people who
make, you see? You, on the other hand, are of the people who take."
"I didn't take nothing - " Another hit. If Anderson paid better attention, he could tell when the blows were coming because
the gun lifted off of his head slightly right before the impact.
"Metaphorically. You are a drain on our community. Better example: You know the word
nigger?
Do you know why it's so offensive? Because it refers to people like you. People hear the word
nigger
and they get that disgusting image of you in their minds."