Icepick Read online

  I smiled, backing away. ‘Yeah, kid. Probably better just to try to forget it all.’

  He nodded, knocked the burning ash off the tip of his Kool, set the rest of it on the bedside table and fell back on the bed.

  He was asleep before we were out the door.

  And when I opened my apartment door I understood why Sharp had been so anxious to get me there.

  ‘Hello, John Horse,’ I said.

  He was standing in the kitchen chopping up celery.

  John Horse was more imaginary than real. He accomplished such a condition by never completely giving over to ordinary reality at all. Some people in his family told me he was over a hundred years old. Two told me that his body was dead but his spirit was unwilling to go along with it. What you’d call a Trickster, with a capital T.

  None of that kept him from making a mess in my kitchen.

  ‘Come on in, Foggy,’ he told me. ‘I’m making soup. I got a wild turkey this morning, and I thought the kids could use a nice home-cooked meal.’

  ‘Capoca-lakko!’ Duck called out.

  It meant big grandfather.

  ‘You sent these kids into town to find their missing mother all on their own,’ I said to John Horse, headed toward the kitchen.

  He looked up, surprised. ‘They’re not all on their own. They’re with you.’

  ‘We told you he sent us,’ Sharp reminded me. ‘And we said he told us about you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I protested, ‘but that’s not … Look, we have a complicated type of situation on our hands.’

  ‘Oh,’ John Horse said, resuming his kitchen work. ‘You mean the dead body in the bay.’

  How he knew that bit of the story, I couldn’t have said. Although there was probably gossip about it already.

  ‘And you realize that the kids’ mother isn’t the only woman missing,’ I went on, trying to stay a few steps ahead of him.

  ‘Twenty-seven in all,’ he told me. His voice had gone quiet.

  I blinked. Twenty-seven women. That had to be a third of the entire female population of John Horse’s village. But I wanted to stay calm for the sake of the kids. So.

  I turned to Sharp. ‘You knew he was here, of course.’

  ‘I was pretty sure.’ She nodded.

  ‘And now you’ve got me all in the middle of things,’ I accused John Horse.

  He shrugged. ‘A missing woman isn’t really your business – even a lot of missing women. And a dead body in the bay, I mean, that doesn’t happen every day in Fry’s Bay, but it still isn’t something you’d ordinarily involve yourself in, right?’

  ‘Very right.’

  ‘So, I used the kids to tie the two things together,’ he concluded, ‘and get you involved.’

  Like it was simple. Obvious.

  ‘I have things to say to you,’ I began, steaming a little, ‘but a whole lot of them involve language I’d rather not use in front of the minors. So, let’s start with the big one.’

  ‘Why did I get you involved?’ He glared at me like I’d insulted him. ‘Jesus, Foggy, you’re usually quicker than that. I got you into this mess because I don’t like the police in this town but I do like you. Because I don’t trust the police in this town but I trust you. You and I, we can accomplish things together that it would take a hundred ordinary people to do.’

  ‘We needed your help,’ Sharp interrupted.

  I shook my head. ‘No. If John Horse needs my help, he knows he could just ask me.’

  ‘Yes, but I needed you to see the kids,’ he told me. ‘To be committed to them, at least a little, and to see Brady and Watkins for what they are. Before you found out who was the dead body in the bay.’

  ‘What do you mean, “who was the dead body in the bay”?’ I stared at him.

  ‘I mean that once you find out, you’ll be tempted to concentrate on that.’ John Horse locked eyes with me. ‘And I needed to have, you know, the bigger picture.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, more irritated by the second. ‘I’ll bite. Who’s dead in the bay?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Foggy,’ he told me. ‘It’s your Brooklyn friend, Pan Pan Washington.’

  EIGHT

  In the early days, in Brooklyn, Pan Pan and I were inseparable. He could turn a Volkswagen into a Studebaker if he wanted to; he was that talented in his chosen art form, which was altering cars I boosted in the borough. It was a match made in heaven. We liked the same clothes, the same music, even the same girl a couple of times. The fact that I was a Jew and he was black didn’t even enter the picture. We were related in a larger family.

  Now, Pan Pan wasn’t a member of my organization, see, because you had to be a Jew for that. So not everybody saw our friendship the way we did. There was a Brooklyn gang who called themselves Zulu Nation, even though none of the guys had ever even been to Harlem, let alone Africa. Still, they were very uncomfortable with the amount of time I spent hanging out with Pan Pan on their turf. And some of my guys – a sort of Hebrew mafia, which I don’t like to discuss – did not care for the color of Pan Pan’s skin. Which was a very nice caramel color, but that was really beside the point.

  I used to say to Pan Pan, ‘Look, it’s 1970, for God’s sake. This kind of racism and anti-Semitism, it’s a thing of the past. Ignore it.’

  So I ignored it when the Zulus poured gasoline on a Coupe de Ville I’d moved; lit it up like an Italian bonfire. And Pan Pan ignored it when two apprentice mugs from Murder, Inc. walked into his mother’s kitchen and asked her which of Pan Pan’s body parts she wanted to use to flavor her collard greens.

  When I told my mentor, Red Levine, about that, he stood by me. The day after I told him, one of the mugs had to learn how to shoot a pistol with his thumb because his trigger finger was missing. The other guy just split altogether, went to Montana, of all places.

  But Red couldn’t do a thing about the Zulus. That situation was kind of coming to a head when I absconded from Brooklyn under difficult circumstances. I may have mentioned that I popped a car that had a baby in the back, and when the mother saw the car driving away, she chased it and had a heart attack.

  Which is why I split. There’s more to the story, but I don’t like to go on about it. I send money to the kid’s adoptive parents every month, anonymously. And I work for Child Protective Services – a kind of never-ending Yom Kippur. I’m atoning.

  So, not only was I in shock to hear that Pan Pan was dead, and upset about it; I also began to wonder if I’d had anything to do with his getting iced. I know it’s a cliché, but for me guilt is bone marrow.

  I stood in my kitchen, staring at John Horse for quite a while before he spoke again.

  ‘You think you had something to do with his death,’ he said softly, like he’d read my mind.

  I nodded.

  ‘I was afraid of that.’ He sighed. ‘I can see it on your face.’

  I sat down at the kitchen table. ‘You understand that if Icepick did the job, I have to go after Icepick.’

  ‘Icepick is the name of the man whose car the kids identified?’ he asked. ‘That’s a difficult name to live with.’

  I turned to the kids. ‘Tell me everything you saw that night. Come here.’

  The kids glanced at John Horse and he nodded. They came and sat at the table with me.

  ‘I heard the car,’ Duck began. ‘It was, like, prowling.’

  ‘Explain,’ I said.

  ‘Like the driver was looking for something.’

  ‘Seemed suspicious,’ Sharp said. ‘We followed it.’

  ‘Just so I have it right,’ I interrupted, ‘you were in the abandoned building on Blake, heard a suspicious car, and followed it down to the docks.’

  ‘I thought it might have something to do with our mother,’ Duck said. ‘It was a very odd car.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m familiar with the car. Go on.’

  ‘The driver got out,’ Sharp continued, ‘and when a stray dog started to bark, he shot it.’

  ‘That made me mad,�
�� Duck said, ‘but she wouldn’t let me yell at the guy.’

  ‘Because the next thing he did was open up his trunk and haul out a dead body,’ Sharp went on.

  ‘Was it wrapped up in anything?’ I asked. ‘Or was it loose?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was wrapped in something – maybe a tarp, like painters use. And that was held together with tape.’

  ‘So, you didn’t actually see the body.’ I looked over to John Horse. ‘Now I have to ask you: what makes you think the stiff was Pan Pan?’

  John Horse stopped his kitchen work again. ‘Why is he called that? Why is that his name? I want to know.’

  ‘He was fixing a car once,’ I answered impatiently, ‘and it started to leak oil on to his face, because I’d hit something when I boosted it, and he was yelling at me about the oil pan. “Pan! Pan!” I laughed. The moniker stuck. What makes you think he’s the stiff?’

  He sighed. ‘When I tell you that I know things before they happen, you never believe me.’

  ‘Because you’re usually making it up!’ I shot back.

  ‘Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. This time I’m not. The coroner is eventually going to identify the body as Pan Pan Washington. I heard the name in my sleep. How would I hear that name, other than a message from the future?’

  ‘God!’ I smacked a hand on the table. ‘You’ve heard me talk about the guy for two years!’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But you never talked to me in my sleep.’

  ‘You know you make me crazy.’ I stared.

  ‘I don’t think anyone can make you crazy, Foggy. I think you’re either crazy or you aren’t. And you aren’t. So, ask me the next question.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have more questions.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘I do. A lot of them, actually.’

  ‘Why would Icepick kill your friend in Brooklyn and then drive a million miles to Fry’s Bay to dump the body?’

  ‘Except to send me a message.’

  ‘You take it personally,’ he said. ‘Good. I want you to. Because let me tell you that his actions are somehow connected with our problem, our tribal problem.’

  I didn’t know where to begin. ‘Tribal problem?’ I said finally.

  ‘It isn’t just the women who went missing with the mother of these children,’ he said. ‘So far there are twenty-seven women stolen from our tribe. Our little tribe out there in the swamp. Still at war with the United States Government. Still illegal in our own land. Still waiting for the larger justice. And now, without women, you understand, we’ll vanish. We’ll be gone from history.’

  It hadn’t been a passionate speech. He was just stating the facts. But it evoked in me such a profound feeling, I could barely speak.

  ‘I understand, John Horse. But how is it – how is that connected to the murder of my friend from Brooklyn?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I got you involved. You see that.’

  I looked at the kids. They were expressionless, like the faces of a lot of the people in John Horse’s little village. They weren’t stoic, exactly. They just processed emotion in a different way.

  And what I realized was that I had to help the kids. A) It was my job. B) I liked them. C) The aforementioned atonement. So.

  ‘There are only a few things in life I trust,’ I said to John Horse. ‘Among them I count my aunt’s cooking, my friendship with Pan Pan, and you. If you say these two things are connected, I believe you.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, returning to his kitchen duty.

  We spent the rest of the day discussing.

  NINE

  I had a full house that night. John Horse slept on the floor, Sharp and Duck managed the sofa together. I had a restless night in my bed, waking up five or six times thinking about Pan Pan.

  Six in the morning came earlier than usual, but while I was putting on my suit, I could smell coffee. John Horse was already up. He made great coffee: ground whole beans by hand and put them right into the boiling water. I don’t know what else he added, but it was the best coffee I ever had. I finished tying my tie as quick as I could just so I could get a cup.

  Duck and Sharp were sitting at the kitchen table eating scrambled eggs.

  When I appeared, John Horse held out a mug in my direction.

  ‘Already poured,’ he said. ‘It’s strong.’

  ‘Stronger the better,’ I mumbled. ‘Had a bad night.’

  ‘You were thinking about your friend,’ he said. ‘That’s why we’re going to find out about that today.’

  ‘I have a plan,’ Duck said.

  Made me smile. Kid the size of a radiator had a plan.

  ‘I’m going over to the Benton,’ he went on. ‘Talk to the new maids they got over there. They might say things to a little kid that they wouldn’t tell a white man with a badge.’

  I nodded. ‘I guess there would be new maids, since the old ones are gone.’

  ‘Cuban girls,’ John Horse said. ‘Imported from the Benton’s sister hotel in Tampa.’

  I sat down at the kitchen table with the kids. ‘How you know that is something I’ll leave alone. But Duck’s plan is a good one.’

  ‘That’s not all of it,’ he said. ‘While I’m there, my sister is going to poke around at the bakery.’

  ‘That, I’m not so crazy about,’ I said, gulping the coffee. ‘Dangerous.’

  She smiled. ‘I have a big knife.’

  ‘I should go with you,’ I began.

  ‘You’re going to be with John Horse,’ Duck said sharply. ‘The two of you are dealing with the adults.’

  ‘We’re going to the police,’ John Horse said. ‘They’ll confirm that the dead body is your friend, and then they’ll ask you all sorts of questions, and I’ll listen, and I’ll be able to tell what’s what.’

  I glared at the old guy. ‘No idea what you’re saying. You’re trying to get me to go along with your Seminole mystic shtick, but I don’t buy it.’

  ‘Oh, you buy it,’ he said, grinning. ‘You just have buyer’s remorse after you do.’

  ‘Ha,’ I said humorlessly.

  ‘Eggs?’ he asked me.

  Twenty minutes later we all left my apartment. Duck was off to the Benton, Sharp to the abandoned buildings on Blake Road, and John Horse and I ambled toward the police station.

  You don’t really walk to someplace with John Horse. He doesn’t ever seem to have a destination in mind. He’s just walking. He stopped to pet a stray dog and talk to it in Muskogee, one of the Seminole languages. He pushed the button on the corner to make the light change, even though we weren’t crossing the street.

  ‘Think how many hundreds or maybe thousands of people have touched that button,’ he said as we walked on. ‘And now I have. Now I have a part of all those people on my skin. Now I understand the world just a little bit better. Not enough to make a difference by itself, but these things add up.’

  I shook my head. ‘Stop it. I know you’re doing this just to make me, like, take you seriously.’

  ‘Do you know where the name “Doubting Thomas” comes from?’ he asked me.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘It’s from the Christian religion. The apostle Thomas refused to believe that Jesus had been resurrected until he could put his hands directly on the body of his Messiah, touch the death wounds, feel the blood.’

  ‘Look, I go this Thomas guy one better,’ I told him. ‘That guy’s not my Messiah, no matter how many times I poke a finger in his side.’

  He nodded. ‘I always find that confusing, the difference between the Jews who do believe in Jesus and the ones who don’t.’

  ‘No, see, it’s the Roman Empire that believed – the Jews didn’t ever. Why are you talking about this? It’s very irritating.’

  He stopped walking. ‘To distract you. We’re at the police station. And you have to be a little irritated when you’re talking with them this morning.’

  I looked around and, sure enough, we w
ere at the front door of the station. I decided to go with his theory of irritation, even though I didn’t exactly know why.

  I shoved through the door and started talking before I was barely into the room.

  ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ I announced. ‘You’ve made me get up this early in the morning and come here with John Horse. I hope you’re happy!’

  Watkins was the only one in. He looked up at me like I’d thrown a dead puppy on his desk.

  ‘Foggy?’ He glared.

  ‘The missing Seminole women did not go to Miami, as you well know,’ I barreled on. ‘And the dead body in the bay turns out to be a friend of mine. Did you know that when I was in here yesterday with the kids?’

  He blinked three times really fast and then started sputtering. John Horse’s strategy was working.

  ‘The women did … Foggy, why would you … Listen.’ He swallowed, gathering his thoughts. ‘Brady’s out to get you, you know that. He doesn’t like you, and he hates those little Indian children. Once he knows that the dead body was a friend of yours, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep him under control.’

  ‘So, you do think that the deceased is someone I know,’ I shot back.

  He glanced down at his desk. ‘Got the report here.’

  ‘That was fast,’ I said.

  ‘How many dead bodies do you think the County Coroner has to look at in any given week?’

  ‘Just a guess,’ I said, ‘but this one made it a busy week for him.’

  ‘Right.’ He opened the file folder. ‘Albertus T. Washington, aka Pan Pan. For some reason. Cause of death was a pointed object inserted into the base of the skull. Pointed object like an icepick, maybe. And you knew the guy, this Pan Pan?’

  All I could think about in that moment was the way Pan Pan laughed. You couldn’t feel bad when you heard that sound. It made you biologically incapable of gloom.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking down at the floor. ‘I knew the guy.’

  ‘Well.’ Watkins closed the file. ‘That’s suspicious, don’t you think?’

  ‘Very,’ I agreed.

  ‘I’m very impressed by the efficiency of the Fry’s Bay Police Department,’ John Horse said. ‘Cause of death, victim identification, and association with Mr Moscowitz, all in a little more than twenty-four hours. That’s something.’