Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

“You’re liar,” she said. “You think I live in the fucking Soviet Union for fifteen years and not learn how to tell?”

“Hey, that’s a bit steep,” I protested, holding up my hands.

“I met too many men like you.” She grabbed her handbag and stood up, spilling the last of her wine. “Fucking Americans. They think every Russian girl is slut. Tell her big story to sleep with her, then gone.”

I followed her out of the restaurant.

“Hey,” I said, plucking at her sleeve. “I like you. I’m not spinning you a line, honest. I really am a journalist. Don’t you want to come back and talk about this?”

She shook my hand off.

“Come on. Don’t be like that. Let’s grab a coffee and start over. We won’t—”

She cut me off, saying something in Russian.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“She’s telling you to get lost. Even you don’t need any Russian to understand that.”

I recognized the voice. I turned. Istvan Laszlo was standing about ten feet away. Lana glanced at him and then took off. I didn’t blame her.

“Mr. McIlvaney.”

“Mike McIlvaney is dead,” I said evenly.

The gangster smiled. “I’m sure you’ve told people that, but the truth is, Richard Churcher is dead, Mr. McIlvaney. And you took his name because you thought if you did that, I would never find you.”

“I didn’t know you were looking.”

“Maybe not me specifically, but you knew someone would, sometime.” He passed me the article I had written to make my apartment down payment. “A small miracle. Richard Churcher wrote a magazine article about Budapest years after he died in a freak car smash. It’s enough to make you believe in God.”

I said nothing.

“So I read the story and I have an idea. I have been looking for Mike McIlvaney for many years and I can’t find him. He’s vanished off the earth. But Richard Churcher has risen from the grave. Then I call a guy in America and he explains all about the Social Security number. I found out that Churcher was an American citizen. He was born here. Not too difficult to put it all in place. You get a Social Security number with his name and you live as him. You looked a little alike. And you grow your hair and a beard and think maybe nobody will notice. Maybe nobody would have…” He moved closer and lowered his voice. “Except for this.” He folded the article up and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Too bad for you I like to travel.”

“It’s not a crime to change your name. What do you want?” My voice shook. I could see the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, under a blue jacket, and my life that I’d previously thought of as sub-standard suddenly seemed shining and rare, a precious, precious thing.

“I want to walk,” the gangster said. “Let’s go to the beach.”

Rain threatened and the beach was empty. Seagulls dove and screeched, fighting over a ragged piece of food. The gangster looked out to sea.

“The Duna flooded this year. They found Ana’s body buried in a field.”

Ana. My chest tightened.

“She had been beaten to death. Cops were able to tell that, even after all this time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“What’s this got to do with me?”

“The day she went missing, I felt it in my gut that she was dead.” The gangster put his fist to his stomach. “And that you had killed her. You’d beaten her before and threatened her. That’s why she no longer wanted you as a client. She was frightened of you.”

“Isn’t this a little far-fetched?”

“You were hanging around at nights waiting for her to finish work, so I had Peter walk her home. But the night she disappeared Peter got held up and he didn’t meet her. And the next day she doesn’t turn up for work. I think immediately of you and your threats. I came to your apartment and you had also gone, rather suddenly, the landlord said.”

“I got called away on a job. This is stupid, Istvan. I can understand that you’re upset at losing one of your working girls, but I didn’t kill her. I loved her. I love her still. Look at me, my life’s a wreck because of her.”

“You were obsessed with her,” the gangster said. “Not quite love, something else. Maybe you didn’t mean to kill her, but you did it. And your life’s wrecked because you can’t live with yourself.” He pulled the gun casually out of his jeans.

“Please,” I said. “Even if what you say is true, this isn’t going to bring her back.”

“No. But what I’m doing is for the living, not the dead.” He raised the Glock and pointed it at my forehead. “You see, I loved her too. I guess you didn’t know that.”

He gently squeezed the trigger.

I could have run, I suppose. Or tried to fight him. Could have at least made an attempt to do something. But a strange thing happened: When that bullet began its deadly journey, I had a flash of clarity, the first of my whole life. Time slowed, and then slowed some more, and I could see the bullet speeding toward me, right toward my brain. Life is love. That’s it, there’s no other point, I thought, as I watched the bullet smash into my head. Saw myself fall onto the wet, hard sand. Heard myself think, Perhaps I’ll see her now, and perhaps she’ll forgive me.

A gust of wind carried the sound of the gunshot out into the Atlantic. The seagulls scattered, wings beating. The gangster walked away. He didn’t look back. He didn’t see the body being claimed by the rising tide.

Pearl Abrahamis the author of the novels The Romance Reader and Giving Up America. Recent essays have appeared in the Michigan Quarterly , the Forward , an Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines. Abraham teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College. The Seventh Beggar , her third novel, will be published in September 2004.

Nicole Blackman(www.nicoleblackman.com) lives in an undisclosed Brooklyn neighborhood where she prefers eavesdropping on unsuspecting people. She is the creator of the innovative “The Courtesan Tales” performance, and author of the poetry collection Blood Sugar (Akashic, 2002). She is currently wanted for questioning in the disappearance of three men in Brooklyn.

Ken Bruen,author of The Guard and The Killing of the Tinkers , is published around the world. He has been an English teacher in Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South America. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Maggie Estephas published four books, including HEX , the first in a series of “horse noir” crime novels. She has written for the Village Voice, New York Press , and Nerve.com, and gives readings of her work throughout the U.S. and Europe on a regular basis. She lives in Brooklyn and likes to hang out at racetracks cheering on longshots. For more information, visit www.maggieestep.com.

Nelson Georgeis a noted author and filmmaker who has resided in Brooklyn all his forty-six years. His most recent nonfiction work is Post-Soul Nation (Viking), and he is the executive producer of two recent TV projects: The “N” Word and Everyday People , a fictional film made for HBO. For more information visit Nelsongeorge.com.