Icepick Read online

  When I cranked up the car, he stopped singing.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asked me.

  ‘Great. We’re going to Oklahoma City.’

  He shifted in his seat. ‘No. We just got to New York. I haven’t seen anything yet. I want to see the Empire State building. And the Statue of Liberty. I want to see that show, “Oh! Calcutta!” It’s got naked people in it.’

  I took a very deep breath. ‘I have told you on no fewer than seven occasions that I am still on the wanted list in New York. It’s been a few years, but escaping police custody isn’t really something that these guys like to forget. Every second I stay in this burg is a second closer to a jail cell. All it’s going to take is one guy saying, “Hey, Foggy’s back in town!” And I’m a goner. Do you understand that?’

  He looked at me for a long time. ‘I can see that you’re all wound up. I think that looking at naked people on a theatrical stage would make you feel better.’

  I nosed my T-bird out on to the street. ‘I think that a trip on Route 66 would make me feel better. We’ll pick it up in St Louis.’

  ‘I love that song.’ He settled back in his seat and began singing, ‘If you ever plan to motor west …’

  Now, Route 66 was certainly a famous highway, and Nat King Cole’s song about it was, likewise, a snappy tune. Much better than ‘Play that Funky Music, White Boy’. But I did not even begin to feel like singing until we were out of Manhattan and past Newark.

  After John Horse sang ‘Route 66’ three times, he went to sleep, which was a blessing.

  When he woke up we were somewhere just before Columbus, not quite eight hours later.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked me, stretching.

  ‘Ohio.’

  ‘You been driving a long time.’

  ‘We’ll stop in Indianapolis,’ I told him. ‘Give me a stretch and a bite to eat. At a diner, by the way. No more stone-cooked eggs. I got forty bucks from the doorman at LaBracca’s.’

  His eyes widened. ‘You did? What for?’

  ‘I told you,’ I assured him. ‘I got a rep.’

  But, in truth, I was just as baffled as John Horse was.

  FOURTEEN

  The outskirts of Indianapolis were a little like the garbage dump outside of John Horse’s Seminole village, but on Yudda’s recommendation, I took a little detour to the east side of town and parked at the Steer-In, fine food since 1960. It was a low, square building with a kind of turquoise strip along the top and at the entrance, and a lot of glass in front.

  They served breakfast all day.

  But I ordered two Twin Steer burgers, the coleslaw and a whole cream pie. John Horse got steak and eggs, a Belgian waffle and corned beef hash. And by the time I paid the tab, I was pretty sure we’d destroyed at least two pots of coffee.

  Out in the parking lot, I was, unfortunately, attacked by a moment of reflection. Turned out that my first time back to the City since I’d absconded gave me a sting of melancholy like you wouldn’t believe. I realized how much I missed New York. Thank God, I thought, I didn’t visit Brooklyn, and my mother, like I’d wanted to. I’d have been crying out loud.

  New York wasn’t just a place to be born, see, or Brooklyn a borough to grow up in. To me, it was an invisible tattoo that you lived with, no matter where else you went. You missed the city even when you didn’t know it, and it was on your mind no matter what else you were thinking. Hidden under every light-hearted moment in Fry’s Bay there was a heavy dose of wanting something or other in Brooklyn. Every beautiful sunset over the ocean out my back door in Florida was only a mask of the lights on Broadway.

  And suddenly, at that moment, in a parking lot in Indianapolis, you couldn’t have made me feel any worse if you’d taken a gun and shot me. That’s the amount of lonesome I was.

  John Horse figured that out, of course. Just by looking at my face, I guess. He leaned against the T-Bird, arms folded, staring out at the parked cars.

  ‘Human beings are, by nature, nomads,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘So, it’s a curious thing that we miss any place we call home.’

  ‘But we do,’ I said.

  ‘Would you believe it?’ he asked me. ‘I miss my crappy little cinderblock house out there in the swamp. Worst place anybody could ever live, and I wish I could go there right now and lie down and rest. Even though, I have to say, I’m enjoying this road trip more than anything I’ve done in years.’

  ‘It’s a curious thing,’ I repeated. ‘Home.’

  ‘That’s why you didn’t want to stay in the city,’ he said. ‘Not because you were afraid of getting caught, but because it hurt too much to be there.’

  I rolled my head and got into the car. ‘OK, Doctor Freud. Next I’d like to know why I let some looney ancient Seminole come along with me on this trip.’

  ‘That’s not psychological,’ he said, getting into the driver’s seat. ‘That’s practical. You need me when you go to deal with those Oklahoma Seminoles. They’re crazy.’

  The outskirts of Oklahoma City were, in my opinion, very dusty. I had determined that if my friend at LaBracca’s wanted me to check in with Pody Poe before I did anything in the state, I had probably better listen to that advice.

  There were plenty of places he might have been, but since it was the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, I decided to start with a mini golf place called Hook ’N’ Slice. Poe owned it and hung out there sometimes. I had no idea where it was, so I stopped at a Shell station to ask.

  Before the man could speak, John Horse made a strange pronouncement.

  ‘Did you know that Oklahoma City has a female mayor?’ John Horse asked me. ‘Her name is Patience Latting. She’s in favor of tearing down historic old buildings to put up skyscrapers. It isn’t working out so well. They got vacant lots everywhere.’

  The man at the gas pump at the Shell station volunteered his own opinion.

  ‘We’re about to build a huge botanical garden right in the middle of town,’ he told us pointedly.

  ‘Yeah, I just want to play a little miniature golf,’ I said. ‘So – Hook ’N’ Slice?’

  He gave me the eye. I was wearing the shiny gray sharkskin suit with the thin black tie, completely out of step with his disco jump suit. He put two and two together right away.

  ‘Poe’s place. Yeah.’

  And he offered a terse set of directions without looking me in the eye.

  As we pulled out of the station, I asked John Horse, ‘Did you deliberately egg that guy on with your urban ruination statement?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Wanted to see where he stood.’

  ‘And where, exactly, did he stand?’ I asked.

  ‘Beside your car,’ he told me, like I was a dope, ‘in a gas station.’

  I knew he was getting at something. He usually was. I just didn’t want to play with him; I wanted to get ready to talk to a guy who was hooked up with a guy who would kill me if I asked the wrong questions. I’d been in that same situation plenty when I lived in Brooklyn, but I knew I was rusty from a couple of years in Florida. Wise-guy speak was a very subtle language, the nuances of which could get a person iced if he wasn’t careful.

  This was, of course, assuming Mr Poe was in situ at the Hook ’N’ Slice.

  So, I followed the directions and ended up at the course in no time. There were people playing, and it was a sunny day.

  John Horse got out and wandered. I went to the admission kiosk.

  ‘Hello,’ I said to the teenaged girl at the counter. ‘My name is Moscowitz and I was hoping to speak with Mr Poe. Is he in, by any chance?’

  She stared into my eyes like she was about to read my future, the most intense gaze I’d endured in a very long time.

  ‘Mr Poe is indisposed,’ she said.

  The name tag said Rita. Her voice was husky. She had black eyeliner, a shag haircut and big hoops in her ears. And she was wearing a mood ring. It was dark blue. It took me a second longer to notice
the Adam’s apple. She was a he.

  I smiled. ‘I’m from Brooklyn. Where Lou Reed was born.’

  ‘So?’ Rita asked.

  ‘I’m just wondering how difficult it is to take a walk on the wild side here in Oklahoma City.’

  That handed Rita a laugh.

  ‘I love that song.’

  ‘I’m more a Charlie Parker fan,’ I admitted.

  ‘“Walk on the Wild Side” has a nice sax part in it,’ Rita said.

  ‘Does indeed. So, Mr Poe is indisposed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rita assured me, ‘but he knew you were coming. I was getting to that. He said to give this to you if you showed up. And here you are. Visiting fireman.’

  Rita slid me a thick envelope.

  When I picked it up, Rita leaned forward. ‘Don’t open it here.’

  I put it in my suit coat pocket.

  ‘Planning to stick around for long?’ Rita asked me, eyebrows arched.

  ‘Depends on what’s in this envelope.’

  ‘Well, see,’ Rita said, one shoulder up, ‘I thought you might like to find out what the wild side of the city looks like. You know. At night.’

  ‘It’s a lovely offer,’ I said. ‘But I’m not your guy.’

  I hesitated because I saw the hurt look in Rita’s eyes.

  ‘I’m too old for you,’ I said. ‘I’d be, like, your grandpa at some disco.’

  A little assuaged, Rita sighed. ‘Dommage.’

  And that was that.

  I sidled up to John Horse. He was watching, with great amusement, as Caucasians played miniature golf. The field was laid out with maybe eighteen holes at various angles. There were paths in between, and lights overhead, on even in the bright Oklahoma sunshine. It was, to me, a bizarre imitation of an imitation of nature, the waste of a perfectly good vacant lot.

  ‘It’s a very funny game,’ he said to me.

  ‘Incomprehensible to me,’ I admitted.

  There was a man in pressed slacks and a crisp white shirt trying to hit the ball down a stretch of green carpet toward a hole the size of a softball. He wasn’t having much luck, and it seemed to be making him very upset.

  ‘What’s in the envelope?’ he asked me. ‘I saw the girl give it to you.’

  I looked down at it. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  I tore open the envelope and there were ten Grants wrapped in a rubber band along with a slip of paper that said, ‘Tecumseh.’ That was all.

  ‘Everybody’s giving me money,’ I whispered. ‘Five hundred bucks here.’

  John Horse glanced at the name on the paper and sniffed, then made a beeline for the car.

  ‘Eddie Harjo,’ he said.

  I stared. ‘Who?’

  ‘We’re going to Seminole County. Come on.’

  Seminole County was a little more than an hour southeast of Oklahoma City. Before Oklahoma was a state, the area was chosen as the repository of all the Seminoles who were taken from Florida in the 1820s.

  But in 1923, oil was discovered there. Thirty-nine different oil pools. By 1929 the area produced nearly two hundred million barrels of oil a year. Drove the price of oil all the way up to seventeen cents a barrel. Doesn’t take much to figure what the Seminoles got out of all that.

  We were out of Oklahoma City and into a lot of low scrub before John Horse spoke again.

  ‘Do you remember my telling you about the Treaty of Moultrie Creek?’

  ‘Where you guys got screwed out of a bunch of land.’ I nodded.

  ‘In 1961, we filed a claim to be compensated for that land. It took them until this year, until 1976, but they gave us sixteen million dollars.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘It took them fifteen years?’

  ‘That’s a short time, as these things go.’ He stared out at the landscape. ‘So many people were taken from our home in Florida to this place. This strange place. But my point is: sixteen million dollars.’

  I saw what he was getting at. ‘You think that sudden influx of money is somehow connected to this Talmascy character and his loose affiliation with certain business interests in New York.’

  ‘You call it a loose affiliation?’

  ‘If it had been tight,’ I assured him, ‘I would have gotten information at LaBracca, or at the mini golf place. My guys don’t have any allegiance to Talmascy. In fact, I get the impression they wouldn’t mind if I got a hold of the guy permanently.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sat back a little. ‘Good.’

  ‘So, when are you going to tell me about Eddie Harjo?’

  John Horse smiled. ‘He’s a good guy. Do you know about the code talkers in the American World Wars?’

  I gave him a nod. ‘Navajo guys. All they did was speak Navajo to each other, but it was a code the Nazis couldn’t break. Great trick.’

  He laughed a little ruefully.

  ‘This so-called “code talking” was invented by the Cherokee and the Choctaw during your World War One.’

  ‘It wasn’t my World War One.’

  ‘But the Seminole languages were the best,’ he went on. ‘And Edmond Andrew Harjo was the best of them all. He was at the Normandy landing. He was at Iwo Jima.’

  ‘And he lives here. On the Seminole land in Oklahoma.’

  ‘He’d be about sixty now,’ John Horse said. ‘Why do you think you were given his name?’

  ‘He’s obviously got something to do with the missing women,’ I said, ‘or knows about it. Or knows Talmascy.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I could tell by the way he said it that he knew more.

  ‘Listen,’ I told him, ‘I’ve been working overtime trying not to think about why these women have been stolen. What’s happening to the mother of those two kids? And speaking of that: I been losing sleep over those two kids.’

  ‘I sent them to you for just that reason,’ John Horse said softly, ‘but I can see it was a little too much. I forget that you can get attached to your work. It means more to you than – well, than just work.’

  ‘Like I said,’ I told him, ‘I’m trying not to think about it. I’m trying to follow this certain weird trail that will get me the kids’ mother back, see? Focus on the road.’

  ‘Always a good choice,’ he said. ‘Up there, at that intersection, take a left.’

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but Eddie Harjo lived in a well-kept doublewide trailer on a nice piece of farmland. Horses, goats, lots of chickens – what, to me, was a huge garden to one side. There was a rusty old Ford pickup in front, and when we pulled up past the white fence, the sun slanted just right to make it look like God was pointing right at the front door. Nice special effect.

  Before we were out of the car, an older man appeared on the redwood deck front porch, shotgun in hand, down to one side.

  John Horse told me, ‘Just sit tight for a moment.’

  And then he got out of the car.

  He held up both hands, but it looked more like a greeting, not a surrender.

  Harjo’s face changed instantly: all smiles, and much younger looking.

  ‘Is that the grandfather of John Horse I see?’ he called out. ‘Or what old man is it?’

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ John Horse said, hands still up. ‘You got a turkey neck!’

  Harjo leaned his gun against the side of his trailer. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Hands down, John Horse took a few steps closer to the man. ‘I’m very happy that you’re still alive.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be alive?’ Harjo asked. ‘Nothing can kill me. I lived inside the White Man’s war for five years, and even they couldn’t kill me!’

  John Horse motioned for me, and I eased out of the car.

  ‘This is my friend, Foggy Moscowitz,’ he told Harjo. ‘He’s helping me. You’ve heard of Topalargee, from where I live in Florida.’

  Harjo nodded, but his eyes were on me, all suspicion.

  ‘Her mother is missing,’ John Horse went on. ‘Along with other Seminole women from Florida. He’s helping me to find them, and
he’s taking good care of Topalargee and her brother.’

  ‘All right,’ Harjo said slowly.

  ‘You know something,’ John Horse said and waited.

  There was a nice breeze, and it stirred up the corn in the garden patch beside the trailer. It was a tough moment for me, because farming and crops and chickens – it was all a mystery. I think I was a little overwhelmed by … I don’t know. Nature.

  ‘What is it that you think I know?’ Harjo said after a while.

  ‘You know Bear Talmascy,’ I said.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said it right out like that. Maybe I ought to have waited for John Horse. But, as I mentioned, I was not exactly in my element. Outdoors, the bright sunshine, the smell of hay: it was confusing.

  Harjo stood frozen for a moment, and then he spat over the side of his porch.

  ‘Is that a response to Talmascy?’ I asked. ‘Or me?’

  ‘He’s an owl creature,’ Harjo whispered. ‘Night demon.’

  ‘So, you know him,’ I said casually. ‘He’s been stealing women from my current home town, Fry’s Bay. And one of them is the mother of some children I’m supposed to help. So, if you could just tell me how to find this guy, Talmascy, I’ll go beat him up or kill him or something. Then I can take the women back to Florida where they belong. Cool?’

  ‘He’s very direct,’ Harjo said to John Horse.

  ‘He’s a Jew.’

  To John Horse that seemed like an explanation.

  Harjo raised his eyebrows and smiled at me. ‘Brother! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  I glanced at John Horse before I said, ‘Well, you know, sometimes it’s not to my advantage just to blurt it out like that.’

  ‘I know,’ Harjo commiserated. ‘I was in the big war all about that sort of thing. A lot of Jews in prison.’

  ‘A lot of Jews dead,’ I said. ‘Difficult to talk about.’

  ‘I understand. Sorry.’

  ‘About Talmascy,’ John Horse interceded.

  ‘Sure.’ Harjo nodded and picked up his gun. ‘You can come in.’

  ‘Isn’t this Belinda’s place?’ John Horse asked.

  ‘She won’t mind.’ And Harjo disappeared inside.

  John Horse headed toward the door without looking at me. I followed.