Herbert Burkholz - Brain Damage

The final source of my discontent was the way in which we were to be employed on the job. We were to be the eyes and the ears, spotted around both inside and outside of Carnegie Hall on the night of the concert performance. We would search, we would find, and we would point the finger. After that it would be up to the FBI and the NYPD, working together, which was fine with me. Lou Ritter was heading up the FBI team, and Captain Dennis Costello was the man in charge for the police. I had worked with Ritter before, and I could trust him as much as I could trust any normal. He and Costello would work from an unmarked command truck parked on Fifty-seventh Street opposite the hall, and Sammy would be there with them. So I had no complaints about procedure, and no complaints about command, but I had plenty to complain about when Sammy told me that I would be working with Chicken.

It was Sammy's decision that we would work the Hall in pairs, fifteen teams for a total of thirty sensitives. With Martha out of the game and Sammy needed in the truck, this meant pulling people off other assignments all over the country, and using some of the kids. I had no objection to working with the juniors, they were as good as any other sensitive for this kind of work, but I did object to working with a screwball like Chicken. I knew that he had gotten his touch back, and I knew that he had come up smelling like roses on the Sextant job, but that didn't mean much to me. The touch could go as quickly as it had returned, and the only reason he had wound up looking so good was because he had been so bad to start with. To me he was still a loudmouthed juvenille braggart without a shred of responsibility in his nature, and I wanted no part of him. I told that to Sammy, and I got the answer I should have expected.

"In the first place you're wrong, he's changed," Sammy said. "In the second place I don't care a fig about your personal preferences, I'm not changing the assignment sheet. And in the third place, if he really is so bad then he can only profit from working with a seasoned pro like the great Ben Slade."

So there I was, stuck with the kid who had broken Martha's leg, and who had come within a deuce of blowing the Sextant assignment. And to make matters worse, he was totally unrepentant, and all puffed up about what he had accomplished on that job. To hear him tell it, no one else had rescued a damsel in distress since the days of St. George and the dragon, and what he was proud of most was that he had done it all with his mouth. He had used no violence, fired no weapon, wrestled with no bad guys in the mud. He had talked his way out of a losing situation, and he wore the accomplishment like a rakish halo. This did not endear him to me. I, the seasoned pro, the great Ben Slade, had been forced to take a life.

I complained about the pairing to Martha, and she advised me to live with it. It was Saturday morning, the day of the Bonfiglia performance. "Ride it out," she said. "He's only a kid, what harm can he do?"

"I can't believe you said that. Look what he did to you."

"That was partly my fault, I should have kept an eye on him." She can be disgustingly fair-minded. "Besides, he's changed."

"So everybody tells me, but I don't see it. I'd rather be working with you."

"That's sweet, but I'll be in the truck with Sammy. What's really bothering you?" I shrugged. "Let Mama take a peek." I let her into my head, and she frowned. "The woman? June?"

"Do you ever get the feeling that you've played God once too often?"

She snorted. "About twice a week. Come on, sweetie, you feel guilty because you took out Madrigal? Keeping her husband alive was your job. What else were you going to do?"

"Nothing. That's half the problem."

"And the other half is Safeer. You want to nail him, don't you?"

"If he shows up."

"If? Can I come back in for another peek?"

"No."

"You don't want him to show, do you?"

"Please, spare me the profundities."

"Just trying to help."

"If you really want to help, do me a favor tonight and keep a tap on Chicken from the truck. Let me know if you think he's going to pull one of his crazy stunts."

She looked doubtful. "The range may be too much."

"Give it a try, please."

"He really bothers you."

"He makes me nervous," I admitted.

It rained that night, a light, steady shower that did nothing to cleanse the air or the streets. I welcomed the rain. I thought that it might cut down the crowd and make our job easier, but it didn't. The Hall was sold out, all two thousand two hundred forty-seven seats and sixty-three boxes, and no one was burning tickets that night. We were set up by late afternoon, and between the FBI and the plainclothes cops we had about seventy bodies in the area. Sammy gave our gang the final instructions in the truck. He had us broken down into three squads. The first would work the sidewalk outside the Hall, and the lobby area. The second would work the Parquet section, which is what Carnegie calls its orchestra. The third was assigned to the various balconies. Sammy had it set up like a radio net, one group reporting to the next, and the next, and then out to the truck.

"You tap individuals, not groups, as they approach the building," said Sammy, "and you tap everyone, including women. You report anything suspicious, but you do not, repeat not, approach the subject. You pass him along to the next squad until his seat is noted, and that's it. Once the performance has started, assuming that we haven't landed anything, you withdraw from the main hall. During the intermission you repeat the procedure on people passing in and out of the main hall and, again, if we don't have anything, you withdraw. We do the final screening when the audience leaves the hall after the concert. Now remember who you're dealing with here. This guy kills the way you blow your nose. Very casually. So let's not have any heroes here tonight. Your job is not to apprehend, only to report. No heroes, you understand?"

"You understand?" I asked Chicken as we crossed Fifty-seventh Street to the Hall. "Don't screw up tonight. You pull one of your stunts and I'll have you shoveling horse shit all summer."

"You don't have to worry about me," he said jauntily. "I'm on the team now. I'm a happy camper."

"You're a pain in the ass and an arrogant little prick, so don't blow me any smoke. Just do your job."

"I told you, Ben, I'll do it. I learned a lot on the Sextant job."

"You learned that you were lucky, that's what you learned. And who said that you could call me Ben?"

That got to him. First names were always used at the Center, regardless of age. His jauntiness crumbled at the edges. "What should I call you?"

Collect , I thought. Calvin's line. Call me collect .

"Collect?" he asked, puzzled.

Sloppy of me, he had picked up the thought. He had his touch back, all right. "Yeah, sure, call me Ben. Call me anything you damn well please."

There is nothing grand about the entrance to Carnegie Hall, just two steps up from the street and you're in the small lobby with the box office windows on the far left. It isn't until you walk into the main-stage auditorium that you begin to feel the grandeur of the place and, standing at the back of the Parquet, your eyes rise up to the four glittering horseshoe tiers that converge on the stage. Eighty feet above your head a double halo of chandeliers spreads a buttery light that suffuses the atmosphere and picks out the intricate wreaths and scrolls on the walls. Serried rows of seats slope down at a steep but pleasing angle. The Hall is just over one hundred years old, saved from the wrecker's ball and still going strong, singing songs of better days.

My squad covered the lobby and the Parquet, and I took up my position at the top of the center aisle as the first of the ticket holders began to trickle in. Chicken stood beside me. The setup made for easy tapping. As each person walked by I did a quick tap, in and out, and Chicken did the same, backing me up. It soon turned into a dull routine.