The Girl From Nowhere (17 page)

Seemed to make sense so far, but I knew there had to be a lot more to come.

I was so lost in shock and confusion I didn’t pick up on the approaching footsteps, but, as the ice rattled from the machine, I heard a scuffing sound—the wedge being kicked from under the door. I turned to get a glimpse of two familiar faces, one belonging to the Yul Brynner stand-in who had been working the entrance when I visited the Alibi, the other to Darla, the Alibi waitress and presumed undercover agent. Then, as the door slammed shut, the back of my skull was hammered for the second time in a few hours, and a red neon sign in the form of a peace symbol flashed on behind my eyes. And off. And on. And off again.

NINETEEN

I came to
on a bare mattress in a room the size of a large broom closet, but soundproofed and furnished with a microphone, headphones, speakers, and other bits of electronic gadgetry. My ankles were shackled together, but the chain was long enough to permit me to stand and allow some freedom of movement. Standing proved to be about as much fun as taking a gig as Muhammad Ali’s punching bag, but I managed to struggle to my feet and look out through a large sheet of heavy plate glass set into one wall. I saw that I was in the isolation booth of a recording studio—the closed-off room where a vocalist or a soloist, or the drummer maybe, can be acoustically secluded from the other musicians during a recording session. Outside was the “live room,” littered with music stands, mikes, sound baffles, and folding chairs. A few instrument cases were scattered around, and a double bass stood in one corner. For some reason there were Union Jacks pinned to one wall, and on the back of one chair was a leather jacket hand-painted with a sampler of psychedelic clichés. Beyond all that was the panoramic window of the control room, overlooking the whole thing like the control tower of an airport.

There was no one to be seen, but I spotted a red switch on a console by the microphone, held it down, and said, “Okay—where are you fuckers hiding?”

The response to that was that someone pumped a Led Zeppelin track over the speakers at a volume that nearly shook my teeth out. I screamed for the unseen sadist to turn it off, which eventually he did, though not until I had been reduced to doing an impersonation of lemon-flavored Jell-O.

A voice over the speakers warned, “There’s more of that shit where that comes from. Just give me an excuse.”

I lay down on the mattress and attempted to think while simultaneously trying to ignore the bar fight that was going on in my head. Not an easy trick, but I managed the big questions. Which side was Darla on? Was she really with some law enforcement agency, or was she just one of Garofolo’s peons? The known facts fit both hypotheses—that’s a big word to wrestle with when you’ve been serially abused with blunt instruments. She was employed at the Alibi, but was she working undercover or just under the gun? Had she been deliberately assigned as my waitress when I visited the Alibi, or was it just chance that I was seated at one of her tables? In retrospect, chance didn’t seem a likely explanation, which tipped the scales in favor of the whole thing being stage-managed by Garofolo’s people, but then that didn’t cancel out the possibility of Darla being undercover. The whole point of her being undercover would be to win Joey’s trust. It was the same story with Yul the bouncer. He could be undercover or a made man. There was no way of knowing. For that matter, there was no reason that Yul and Darla had to be on the same team. If Darla was undercover, she wasn’t going to spread the news. The bottom line was that I had better hope she was working for the good guys, otherwise I was likely to end up as a cheap substitute for ground round in some poor schmuck’s pasta Bolognese in a tourist trap on Sullivan Street.

Then there was the question of how Darla and company had known we were at the motel. Had there been some other vehicle and more hoods involved? Had they followed us? In which case, why had no one intervened when Sandy and I gave Vin and Frankie a blow-dry? And if there was another car around, and it had trailed us to the motel, why did it take so long for Darla and Co. to step in? Had they driven out from the city? That seemed a more likely bet.

And what had they done with Sandy? Was she somewhere nearby? I desperately wanted to see her, and even more desperately wanted to talk to her. She had a lot of explaining to do, but so did I. How did I feel about gender reassignment? Was it the reason why Sandy seemed almost too perfect to be true—because she was somebody’s masterpiece, crafted with scalpels and estrogen? These were heavy subjects to wrestle with in the circumstances in which I found myself. Better just to remember Sandy stretched out on the motel bed, her face, her breasts, her genitals so inviting. Who cared how they got that way?

I was finally roused from these quandaries by the sound of Darla’s voice over the speakers.

“You still breathing, Novalis?”

I pulled myself up to the level of the plate-glass window and looked out. Darla was seated in the control booth, speaking into the producer’s microphone.

“Where’s Sandy?” I demanded.

“Can’t tell you—but she’s okay. Nobody touched her.”

“Because if someone hurt her . . .”

“You can take my word. She’s being handled with kid gloves. We even had a doctor look her over to make sure she’s okay.”

“You mean she was checked out to see if anything had been damaged in transit.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Novalis.”

From the way she said that, I concluded it was probably true. I didn’t have any idea what to make of Darla. She could have been putting on a big show for the sake of Garofolo’s boys.

“Are you the good guys or the bad guys?” I asked, knowing it was a dumb question to ask under the circumstances.

“I take a somewhat existential position on that,” she said. “In the absence of God, it’s up to the individual to decide for himself what’s good and what’s evil, so I have to toss that back into your court, Novalis.”

Bitch!

“How did you find us?” I asked.

“Oh, everything’s up to date in River City. All it takes is a little transmitter in the glove compartment that switches on when someone turns the key in the ignition.”

I wanted to believe that that was the reply of a government agent with access to some technical geek—like that Q dude in the Bond movies. Then again, there was nothing to stop Garofolo’s boys from popping down to one of the electronics surplus stores on Reade Street and laying out a couple hundred bucks for a useful gadget of that sort.

Darla wanted to know how my head was doing. I thanked her for asking and informed her it had enjoyed better days.

“You’re going to need it later,” she said. “Check out the drawer under the mike. There should be some codeine in there, maybe some happy pills, or some of that cool stuff you stick up your ass. I’d like to stay around and watch, but . . .”

“What’s your hurry?”

“You’re the one with time on your hands. All I can suggest is to take it easy—we’ll be back, but it won’t be for a while. If you want pizza or something, press the red button and ask for Anthony, but don’t try anything smart with him. He’s got a PhD in nasty from Sing Sing. If you need to take a crap, ask for a bucket.”

I took a couple of grayish-colored morphine tablets, which hit me harder than I anticipated. The pain subsided somewhat, but I was immobilized on the mattress, semiconscious, slipping in and out of half-buzzed dreams in which I was being held captive by crazed hillbillies, or surprised in the shower by my ex-mother-in-law. There was a wall clock in the isolation booth, but it had been disabled and my watch had been taken away, so I had no idea of the time. I wasn’t really hungry, but I thought about calling for that pizza just for the sake of having something happen. Before I found the strength to do that, however, a male voice came over the speaker.

“Okay, shitface. Dis is Anthony. You got a visitor. I’m gonna open that door in a coupla seconds an’ you’re gonna behave real nice, otherwise I’m gonna take you to the fuckin’ chop shop an’ give you a haircut.”

The door was duly opened to reveal a heavy-duty greaser in a white T-shirt and black jeans—the kind of guy you would trust with your transmission but not your sister. He was about as wide as a flatbed truck, with hair slicked back in a dodo’s ass hairdo, impenetrable dark glasses, and fists the size of cantaloupes. One of them was bunched around another of those big Magnums, which in that hunk of ham looked like the toy cap pistol I toted in my Roy Rogers Junior phase. Behind him was a little Chinese guy in shirtsleeves with a tape measure slung around his neck and carrying some kind of a tool kit in a leather case.

“Dis here’s Charlie Wong,” said Anthony. “Charlie’s gonna measure you.”

“For what?” I asked.

A coffin, maybe? Or a heavy metal overcoat?

“I train in Hong Kong,” Charlie said, “under best British bespoke tailors. I make suits better than Savile Row. Whatever you want, sir—lounge suit, tropical wear, tweed jacket for shooting party.”

The last thing I was planning on was a shooting party.

“If you would be good enough to rise,” Charlie suggested.

He had a nice smile.

“I’m not sure I can,” I told him.

Anthony released me from the shackles, then obligingly yanked me to my feet. I tried to stay upright while Charlie sized me up, then went to work with his tape measure, measuring my chest, my shoulders, and the rest. When he got to the inner thigh he asked, “On which side do you dress, please?”

“He’s talkin’ about your balls,” said Anthony, smirking. “I could slice ’em off for you, Charlie—make for a better fuckin’ fit.”

Charlie liked that joke better than I did. I asked several times what this was all about, but Charlie wasn’t talking and the best I could get out of Anthony was, “It’s gonna be a fuckin’ surprise. Don’tcha like surprises?”

Then I was alone in the isolation booth again. After a while, a kid in a Joe Namath sweatshirt and an older hoodlum with his nose split down the middle by a purple scar brought pizza and a giant bottle of Tab. I asked if they couldn’t at least have managed some beer, and to my surprise the kid left and returned with a six-pack of Schlitz. It tasted better than Schlitz. After I’d downed a couple of cans, I laid down on the mattress, thought about Sandy, and eventually fell asleep. I was jolted awake by Anthony, who was back with Charlie the tailor. I had no idea how long I had slept—could have been hours, could have been days—but Charlie had had time to make up something resembling a tuxedo. It was not the finished item, but a black jacket with shawl lapels, hand-stitched, and marked up with chalk lines and with one sleeve missing. I put it on, as instructed, and he marked it up some more.

“A few adjustments,” he said, “it will fit like a glove.”

“Ever try going to a dinner party in a glove?” I asked.

He didn’t get it, and I wished I hadn’t bothered.

Charlie carefully took the jacket off my back and bowed slightly. Then he and Anthony left, though not before the latter looked me over once more as if he was still toying with the idea of relieving me of my testicles. I asked him if I could get a newspaper to read, figuring at least I’d find out what day it was.

“No fuckin’ chance.”

I ate some cold pizza and drank another beer, and was about to take another nap when the kid in the Joe Namath sweatshirt and the bruiser with the split nose returned. They were carrying handcuffs, rope, and what looked like the kind of black hood you put over someone’s head when you’re planning to string him up or stand him against a wall to give the local firing squad some target practice. I tried to tell myself that no one was going to have me measured for a tux if they were planning to whack me. Then again, maybe someone wanted me to look good when they left me outside the Frank Campbell Funeral Home in the back of a dumpster.

“Sorry about this,” said the bruiser, whose name was Dante, and who had a muted, almost inaudible voice, perhaps as a consequence of another scar I hadn’t noticed at first—one that ran diagonally across his throat.

“Some fucking British band booked the studio,” he continued. “Bunch of clowns who pour lighter fluid on their guitars and set ’em on fire. I had to save for six months to buy my first guitar. Took me another three months to learn the chords for ‘The Dodger Song.’ Remember the Almanac Singers? You’re probably too young. Anyway, I got too much respect for guitars to burn ’em. Takes a long time to make a good guitar.”

Dante and the kid tied me up, gagged me with a rag and duct tape, and placed the hood over my head, holding it in place with what felt like a noose.

“Comfy?” asked a familiar voice over the speakers.

Darla. I tried to tell her something you’re not supposed to say to a lady but, thanks to the gag and the hood, it came out like an endorsement for Juicy Fruit gum.