David Rosenfelt - One Dog Night

“You’ll find him, but you’ll need Marcus to talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Just take my word for it. If you deal with this guy, make sure Marcus is there. No matter what. You send him a letter, have Marcus mail it. Am I making myself clear?”

Pete is insulting my manhood, fragile as that may be. “You don’t think I can handle myself?”

“Andy, you so much as ask this guy what time it is without Marcus around, and Laurie will be going to singles bars.”

Neither Laurie nor Marcus has ever heard of the guy Pete called “Double J.”

So Laurie instructs Marcus to ask around, a process which works slightly more than ninety-nine percent of the time. When Marcus wants anything, especially answers, people have a tendency to want to accommodate him. It’s called a “self-preservation instinct.”

So I’m not surprised when Laurie reports six hours later that Marcus has not only found Double J, he’s already learned quite a bit about him. He’s a drug dealer whose base of operations six years ago was the ill-fated house which was burned to the ground.

Apparently Double J has stepped up in the world, because he now lives and works in the big city, New York. He’s located in the Bronx on Andrews Avenue, an area that will never be confused with Park Avenue.

I need to talk to him, even though I don’t quite know why. Pete implied that he had information that was helpful, or at least relevant, to Noah’s case, and I’m sure that must be true. Pete also described him as extremely dangerous, and Pete’s a pretty good authority on that kind of stuff.

“I need to ask him some questions,” I tell Laurie. “I don’t suppose Marcus got his e-mail address?”

“No, I don’t suppose he did,” she says. “You’re going to have to go see him, and I’m going with you.”

“Pete said I needed to bring Marcus.”

“Of course we’ll bring Marcus.”

Laurie asks Marcus when the best time would be to go, and he says Double J is apparently always there at around eight P.M., before he goes off to do whatever it is that comprises his nightly ritual.

The idea of barging in on a dangerous drug dealer at night in that neighborhood runs counter to every instinct I have. “It’s dark at night,” I say.

“Wow,” Laurie says. “You don’t miss a thing.”

We head off at seven o’clock in my car, with Laurie in the passenger seat and Marcus in the back. It’s about an hour’s drive, and Marcus doesn’t say a word. If we drove to New Zealand, Marcus wouldn’t say a word.

This is a very rundown, very tough area of the city. Vacant lots abound, strewn with rubble, and some of the houses are boarded up and unoccupied. If there are streetlights, they’re not working, and the moonlight is not doing the trick.

If Marcus were not with us, I wouldn’t get out of the car if it was on fire.

I park in front of the house that Marcus identifies as Double J’s. If there are any lights on inside, they’re not visible from the street. Just as I’m getting out of the car, I realize too late that I should have written out questions for Marcus to have given Double J, sort of like an essay test. Then he could have brought it home to me, and I could have graded it.

Marcus leads the way along the concrete path to the house. Laurie and I stay a few steps behind, and I notice that her right hand is at her side, slightly behind her leg. I think, but I’m not sure, that she’s holding a weapon there.

I hope she is. I hope it’s a bazooka.

We reach the front door, and Marcus opts not to knock or ring a bell. Instead he opens it and goes in. He doesn’t hesitate; it’s as if he’s just come from the office and has headed home to the little woman for a home-cooked meal.

Marcus is amazingly quiet for a man his size. Laurie and I follow his lead and are quiet as well, though I’m afraid that whoever is in the house can hear my heart pounding. When I set out to become a lawyer, I never imagined myself in a situation like this, and suffice it to say I’m not going to run into any of my law school buddies in this house.

“Should we wait out here?” I whisper to Laurie.

“No,” she says, in a tone that indicates the issue is not really debatable.

So we follow Marcus through the now open door. I don’t close it behind me; there is not enough money in the world to make me do anything that would impede my escape route out of here.

There is a staircase directly in front of us, and a source of very dim light coming from near the top of it. On the entry floor seems to be a hallway with a few closed apartment doors, though there is no light coming from underneath them.

Marcus still seems to know where he is going, and that is up the stairs. Laurie and I start to follow him, though it’s too narrow for us to walk side by side. I graciously allow her to go first.

Suddenly there is a noise from above, and the sound of an angry, unfamiliar voice. I can’t make out the words, but from the tone, I don’t think it’s “Make my home your home.”

I’m straining unsuccessfully to see what’s happening, but I can’t do it. I sense some quick motion above us, and I hear the word “Hey!” Then there is a thumping sound, a shriek of pain, and something seems to come out of the darkness, heading down toward us.

Actually, it is flying above us, so high that we don’t even have to duck to get out of the way. It’s very large and it’s making a disgusting noise, so I think it’s a body. I also feel a slight spray of liquid, and I don’t even want to guess what that might be.

It lands with a sickening thud on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, and doesn’t move.

“What the hell-”

My question is cut off by what seems like another human missile fired from the top of the stairs. It’s pretty much the same as the first, but mercifully without the spray. It doesn’t go quite as far, and seems to land on the first step. Marcus must be getting tired. Maybe he threw some bodies a few days ago, and he’s pitching on only three days’ rest.

“Marcus, are you all right?” It’s Laurie’s voice, probably confirming that Marcus was not one of the flying bodies.

“Yuh,” Marcus says, always at his most eloquent in a crisis.

“I’ll stay down here and watch them. You want Andy to come with you?”

“Yuh.”

Just because Marcus said “Yuh,” it doesn’t mean I have to obey. I take orders from no one; I dance to my own drummer. I have never been accused of being a “Yuh-man.”

On the other hand, if I stay down here and send Laurie up, I’ll be in the dark, watching over two enormous goons who are going to be rather pissed if and when they wake up. If I go up the stairs, at least I’m under Marcus’s rather large protective umbrella.

While I’m deciding, Laurie says, “Andy, are you going up?”

“Yuh,” I say, always at my most eloquent in a crisis.

I trudge up the steps, feeling my way along the railing in the dark.

When I’m about three quarters of the way there, I hear a click and turn around. Laurie has snapped on a small flashlight, the kind that might go on a key ring. She is shining it on the two motionless masses at the bottom of the stairs, and holding a gun on them in case they move.

I have no idea whether they are alive or dead, and I’m not going to spend much time worrying about it.

As I near the top of the steps, I hear a crashing noise, and I think that Marcus must have broken down a door. Sure enough, down the hall there is an apartment with no door, and light emanating from inside. I hear scuffling noises and grunts coming from that direction, and then silence.

“Marcus?” Before I walk through that door, I want to know that Marcus prevailed. If he didn’t, there’s no way I could.