The Kneecap Banker Read online

way. He downed another shot, grimaced, and poured another from a bottle parked near his elbow.

  I turned to go back home because I knew no amount of talking could get my father to do anything he didn’t want to do. But I heard his last comment. “I shoulda never had kids.”

  “Hey, Chauncey,” the bartender said raising his hand and pulling me back to this bar, this moment. I raised my own in response but I kept the hand with the handkerchief firmly in place. I usually take my beer and sit out back but I had to stay inside today. I had a job to do.

  I found a booth and sat down. I knew I had to open myself to all of the sights, smells and sounds of this tight space but I wanted to do it slowly. I raised my free hand to the barkeep and signaled ‘one’ with my forefinger. Pretty soon a beer came my way and right behind it came a shady-looking character who slid in beside me.

  “Hey, man I got some good shit,” he said.

  I lowered the handkerchief and leaned in close. I smelled pale skin that had spent too much time under fluorescent lights, gun-cleaning solvents…and doughnuts.

  “Officer, I’m surprised at you,” I said in low tones, “I’m a fine upstanding citizen.”

  His eyes narrowed and I saw a flash of anger. He covered it up quickly but not quick enough. I let the hand with the handkerchief fall away and I took a pull from the beer, letting a half-smile play out around the bottle’s opening. I concentrated on the beer, letting the taste, the texture, its identifiable ingredients play across my palate—it’s the only way I can stay in this enclosed space with its cacophonic mixture of different smells.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—“

  “Please, you guys know you can’t fool me. Why try?” The police had been trying to get a bead on me for years, but I was always careful when talking on the phone. I always spotted the tail.

  If I had to meet someone and I felt that I was being watched or recorded, I moved outside. If I still felt eyes on me I moved down into the subway station. If the paranoid feeling still persisted, I’d step onto the train. And if, after all of that, I still felt uncomfortable, I’d hold the meeting riding between cars letting the sound and movement of the train, the steel and concrete of the system above, the roar of other trains around us, frustrate intrusive ears and obscure any recordings. In this business an old joke applies—it’s not paranoia, if someone is really out to get you.

  He sat back and studied me. I leaned in and said, “Look, I know, to you, I’m a douchebag and my boss is an asshole. But all I’m doing is my job and I’ve haven’t broken the law. I’m just looking for someone—Big Sweet. And I know that you guys keep track of people coming in here. Have you seen him?”

  “Why should I tell you? So you can kill him?”

  I put a shocked look on my face worthy of DeNiro. Well…maybe not DeNiro.

  “If I kill him, my boss won’t get his money. Murder is bad for business, capisce? Besides, you don’t want me to quietly spread the word that you’re an undercover cop, do you?”

  Another flash of anger. Cops, to a certain extent are predictable. Robbers are also. Prod them both in certain ways and you get a response—hopefully, the one you want.

  Someone once said that cops and robbers are the same side of the same coin. While I agree, I think that the relationship is a little more complex. I believe that each one is kind of jealous and envious of the other. The robber is envious of the societal acceptance of the cop. The cop is envious of the way the robber flaunts the societal rules. Each one jealously guards what he feels towards the other.

  The cop stared at me and I stared back. Finally, he acquiesced and the contest was over. He dropped his eyes.

  “Try the Reckless, over on the West Side,” he said.

  “The Reckless Lover?”

  “Yeah.”

  Another dive, another ramshackle hotel that was just a half notch above fleabag status. What did he do with all of the money he borrowed? When a person like Sweet ran they usually left town or spent like there was no tomorrow or both. He was doing neither.

  “He better not turn up dead, or I’ll come looking for you.”

  “Obviously,” I said with a smile. I left the smoke-filled bar and stepped outside into the dying heat, into slightly cleaner air. The sun was just dipping behind the skyline, making the shadows lengthen, providing shade and respite. I had to go report to my boss.

  I hate my boss. There is always something floating in the hate like a dead, bloated body bobbing up and down with the tide. The dead body becomes recognizable when it breaks the surface and the reason for the hate focuses in those quiet times that we all have. I didn’t like to admit it to myself but I hated my boss because I was scared of him—and I didn’t know why.

  I decided to go to the Reckless Lover to make sure that they were both there before going to see the Boss. Instead of going into the hotel I went to the eyes and ears of the neighborhood—a Remy lying on the cooling but still hot sidewalk. I always call them Remy. There are so many of them that keeping track of names was just impossible. He was local vino aficionado who always parked himself on the corner.

  Sweet was a flashy kind of guy that people noticed even when he was trying to move around without being seen. And since anyone that walked out of the hotel parking lot and past this corner was hit up for loose change, I knew the Remy would’ve seen them.

  My nose rebelled when I approached him. “Hey, Remy, you seen Big Sweet?” I asked, digging into my pocket and bringing out a ten for him to see. He turned his head in my direction once he understood I was talking to him. I bent over to see his face better and that’s when a memory struck me. It struck me hard as a bat. I hesitated for several seconds trying to dredge up the memory and restore it to a state that I understood. My face hovered above the Remy’s but in the memory the roles were reversed—I was staring up at someone. The smell of alcohol and the angle of the faces was the link between the memory and now.

  I remembered waking up as a nine-year-old and seeing my father staring down at me. I smelled alcohol coming off him in foul waves. He was unsteady on his feet.

  I said “Daddy?” That’s when he hit me and knocked me senseless. Afterwards, I saw a warehouse filled with crying kids. And then the memory was gone, crumbled under the weight of the here and now. When my eyes focused I was left with the vacant stare of the Remy, the money, and the moment. I went ahead pretending that nothing happened, that I hadn’t remembered something important, something painful. I almost remembered…

  The Remy’s eyes were focused on the ten-dollar bill. The money helped the moment pierce his alcoholic stupor. He nodded and smiled and reached out to grasp the sawbuck. But I had to be sure that he wasn’t just nodding his head to get the money. I drew the bill back and let it hover and tantalize his alcoholic lust but remain just out of reach. “Did he have someone with him?”

  His smile widened and a look came to his face—carnal desire. I could see that she had stirred feelings and memories in him that had probably been dormant for years, buried and supplanted by drugs and alcohol. That look said: “I’d stop drinking if it meant I could get my hands on her …and maybe drugging too.” I smiled.

  I handed him the sawbuck, went to my car and drove off but instead of heading to my boss’ house I went home. It had been a long day and my head started to throb. I needed sleep and some time to think and sort things out.

  When I awakened with the sun streaming through my bedroom windows, the alarm clock blaring, I wanted to turn over and put the pillow over my head. But I knew I had to see my boss…and I needed answers...and I had to get Big Sweet. I got up and into the shower.

  I had dreamed last night of that damned warehouse. I didn’t remember it all but I did recall myself, as a child, crying, wailing like a banshee, shivering from fear. I also dreamed of teeth...and biting...and being bitten over and over again.

  I shook the dream out of my head as I stepped out of the shower.