Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

Murder is illegal, but is it always awful? Do most people even earn their right to exist? I think the worst things in life are actually quite legal.

That’s true in theory. In a world of six billion people in which most contribute nothing, I’d rather live among fewer people of a high quality. However, I am not a murderer.

What does that mean? To be a murderer, you simply commit murder.

Actually there are common traits that go into the composition of many homicidal minds. For starters, psychologists found that babies who aren’t held and shown affection during a crucial period of their infancy lose a basic human empathy that flowers into compassion and understanding.

How do they test for compassion among infants?

They found that babies who were held and hugged and kissed and loved will cry when other babies are crying, demonstrating empathy (not to be confused with sympathy), while infants that were not loved remain silent while other babies wept.

I didn’t remember other babies crying when I was growing up, but if they did, I probably just found it annoying. I wrote back, asking about other ingredients that go into the murderous cookie dough.

They found an inordinate amount of killers suffered from some kind of head trauma.

I did remember hitting my head as a kid, but I also remembered other kids of my age group suffering from head injuries. In my old neighborhood, kids fell out of trees, off bicycles, down stairs all the time.

What else? I persisted.

Many violent personalities were victims of violence themselves during their childhood.

You sound like you’ve read your stuff, I fired back, pissed at her simplistic, Martha Stewart recipe for how to shake and bake a murderer.

Only because I live in constant fear of crime. Is that so wrong? Don’t you have any fears?

Sure.

What are they?

It was the perfect opportunity, so I wrote back: I’ll tell you mine, but only if you tell me yours.

Fine, you first.

Attempting to be truly macabre, I wrote: Having my penis slowly dissected with my own scalpel. What about you?

Being cut off. Just floating in a bottomless pit of blackness, still alive, with only your own worthless existence to contemplate. That’s the most harrowing thing I can think of. Apparently she had given the question some thought.

That engendered my newest fantasy. When I finally found her that’s what I’d do. After blinding and paralyzing her, I’d submerge her in a sensory-deprivation tank with water matching her skin temperature so that she’d feel nothing. Then I’d slip a tube down her throat for oxygen, and an IV drip in her arm for nutrients. I’d just leave her alive for a month or two until she slowly starved to death.

Some weeks later, two events occurred within days of each other. The first was a simple warning from my e-mail server, stating that I was running out of space for my account. Always a pack rat, reluctant to delete anything, I was forced to download all the e-mails she had sent to me. Upon doing this, I reread all her little messages — they had all the tedium of a drawing-room romance. Aside from that, though, I became aware for the first time exactly how many little geographic references she had made over the weeks and months.

While walking home the next day, I noticed that the decennial census had just commenced. Young folks with shoulder bags that read U.S. Census were tramping around my neighborhood. Immediately, it struck me that this would be an ideal cover for someone who wanted to inconspicuously canvas an area. I let out an accidental squeal as I realized that an excellent opportunity existed for me to find her.

I had planned to simply join up and work for the census, but the very next afternoon I stopped at a local Burger King. That’s when I saw a group of them. Four census enumerators were going over their forms with what looked to be a supervisor. I bought a burger and coffee, and taking off my jacket, I headed to a small table at one end where they were sitting. Slowly sipping my coffee and eating my burger, I waited.

When one census enumerator was up getting food and another was in the bathroom, only two remained at the table. I approached discreetly and draped my jacket over the nearst U.S. Census bag, which was sitting on the floor. Then, pulling it under my arm, I dashed out.

Now it was a question of which neighborhood. All the clues were there. It was simply a matter of triangulating the various details she had mentioned in her e-mails. I extracted and isolated every single geographical reference into a list. The three most significant details were that she lived a few blocks from the river, and that there was a view of both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. In Dumbo you couldn’t make out the statue. From Cobble Hill you couldn’t see the Bridge. Only Brooklyn Heights allowed views of both — it was just that easy. In fact, those two simple variables only allowed about a three-block stretch of real estate. She had to either be on Montague Terrace, Pierrepont Place, or Columbia Terrace. Montague Terrace had a play-ground across the street that she had mentioned. Behind the Breukelen, a door-manned apartment building, was a row of three small brownstones. She had to be in one of them. Two of the brownstones were single-family occupancies. The last one had apartments.

I came early the next day, ready to wait her out. Try to see if I could spot a curly-red-haired middle-aged woman with a dark green sea horse tattoo on her ankle. Red is a minority hair color, so the fact that I had insisted she show it was further proof of my superior intellect.

Her sea horse would be the confirming mark, yet she would have to be wearing a dress or shorts in order to spot the tattoo. As this was unlikely, I realized I might have to subtly interrogate any possible suspects. After four hours, a half-dozen women had come and gone from the buildings, but no big red.

Finally, around 4, before everyone came home from work — and the risk of her sharp screams could get me caught — I pulled on the census bag, put on a hat, a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, and decided to knock on a few doors.

In the first brownstone was an old lady that loved to talk. In the second building was a shy kid whose parents weren’t home. Each of them was a perfectly useful victim, and though I couldn’t help but think that the police would eventually interview these two, I was hopeful that the disguise might work. After all, most people aren’t very observant.

When I finally came to the old outdoor intercom of the last building, I felt my heart beat in my ears, and I knew she was here. Ringing the first-floor and then the second-floor apartments, I got no response. Upon pressing the loose top-floor button, I wondered if the buzzer was even connected to anything.

“Who is it?” a woman’s timid voice peeped out.

“Census.”

A buzz sounded and the downstairs door popped open, allowing access to a musty, dark stairwell. There were no bikes, shopping carts, or baby carriages in the hallway. If there were other tenants in the building, I saw no immediate signs of them. By the time I got up the stairs to her door, it was slightly ajar. I opened it and called out, “Hello, U.S. Government, anyone home?”

“Hi there,” a middle-aged woman muttered.

“Hi, we didn’t get your census form,” I began, looking her up and down. Her hair was a brownish red bundle, so she could’ve been the one, but it wasn’t decisive. She was wearing loose shapeless pants, so it wasn’t evident if she had the tattoo on her calf. As I took a form out of my bag and started slowly going through the questions, she spotted the fact that the sides of my shirt were wet with perspiration — the result of hours in the sun waiting for her. I kept wiping off my forehead to keep the sweat from dripping on the form.