Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“Why would a cop be looking for Holly?”

“You’re a cop, lemme see some ID.”

I smiled some more. “You didn’t answer my question: why would a cop be looking for Holly? Or maybe it’s you they’re looking for. Maybe you’re the one who should be showing ID.”

The wrinkle deepened and his big face got dark. “You’re no fucking cop,” he said. “And you’re pissing me off.”

“Get Holly out here and you won’t have to talk to me anymore.”

Babyface shook his head. “You don’t listen,” he growled. “Now, you say who you are and what the fuck you want or we’re gonna have trouble.”

He flexed his large hands. I looked at the ink on them and took a deep breath and took a chance. “Do you talk to your PO like this? I don’t expect it goes over too well.”

Surprise, anger, and fear flickered through his eyes at the mention of his parole officer; I figured I’d struck a nerve. I was sure when he hit me.

His forearm was a tree trunk in gray nylon, and it whipped around like it was driven by a storm and banged me on the side of the head. I bounced off the door to 3-F on my way to the floor, and I caught a glimpse of Babyface’s biker boots and the frayed hem of his jeans flashing by.

“Asshole,” he muttered. I heard his footsteps down the stairs, and then all I heard was a ringing in my ears and all I saw was dirty linoleum.

I took a few deep breaths and prodded at my temple and slowly hoisted myself up. My head stayed where it belonged and so did the rest of the world, and I was reasonably sure that nothing was broken. I looked up and saw the door close again on apartment 3-F. I stepped over and knocked.

The voice that answered came from somewhere near the peephole. It was a man’s voice, reedy and old and with a faint Spanish accent. “Get the hell away,” he said. “Get away or I’m calling the cops.”

“I’m trying to get in touch with Holly Cade,” I said. “You know how I might do that?”

“I don’t know nothing, except I’m tired of all the noise and shouts and comings and goings, and the next time this shit happens I’m calling the cops.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “Do you know who that guy was?”

“I know nine-one-one, and unless you leave now, I’m calling it.”

I took a card from my wallet. “I’m going,” I said, “but do me a favor, will you: give me a call the next time you see Holly around.” I slipped the card under the door and almost instantly it came sliding back.

“Get away from me with this- I don’t want anything to do with it or you.”

“You don’t have to be involved in anything,” I said. “Just give me a call. I can make it worth your while.”

“Nine-one-one, mister. I’m not telling you again.”

I held up my hands. “All right, all right, I’m going.”

“Then go.”

I took my time down the stairs and saw no sign of Babyface. I stopped in the vestibule and buzzed 3-G again, and again got no answer. The name next to the button for 3-F was Arrua; I copied it down and left. It was still cold outside but not as windy, and the burnt-garbage smell had subsided under a blanket of new snow.

The cold air tasted good after the reek of Holly Cade’s building, and the snow helped numb my aching face, and so I walked over to Broadway and kept on walking, north and west, deep into the hipster heart of Williamsburg. Block by block the neighborhood changed, from mostly Latino to Hasidic to well-heeled bohemian. By the time I got to Bedford Avenue my hair was white with snow and I might as well have been in TriBeCa.

I found a coffee bar with Citizen Cope playing at low volume and some fat chairs by a window and a pretty Asian girl with a gold ring through her nose behind the counter. I brushed myself off and ordered a double espresso and sipped at it slowly while I scratched down some notes about my visit to Holly’s place.

I got a good description of Babyface on paper and some questions about him too: Who was he? What was he doing in Holly’s apartment? What was his relationship to her? But I had no answers for any of them. All I knew for certain was that he was strong and fast, and that if I ran into him again I would watch out for his right and for his very short fuse. I finished writing and drank some more coffee and flipped back through the pages of my notepad.

Holly Cade was so far my only line on the mysterious Wren, but I still knew precious little about the woman, and I had yet to actually lay eyes on her. Knowing where she lived was progress, but until I had a photograph and a positive ID from David, she would remain just my best guess. I could, if I had to, hire some freelancers to set up outside her building and wait until she came home, but I hadn’t quite gotten to that point yet. That approach was neither cheap nor subtle, and I still had a bread crumb or two left to work with. I read through another few pages of notes and wondered if I might eke something more out of my trip to Brooklyn than a shot in the head and a pricey cup of coffee.

Null Space was south and west of the coffee bar, off Bedford Avenue, in a gray brick building that long ago had been a tea warehouse. It shared the ground floor with an art gallery and a Chinese fusion restaurant, and it was the venue, three years back, where the Gimlet Players had staged a production of Holly Cade’s play, Liars Club. It was a large, chilly space with black walls and a dense array of lights and speakers hanging from the high ceiling. Any lingering fragrance of tea was obscured by the odors of paint and cement, and by the smell of lemongrass from next door.

The manager was a sturdy, fortyish woman with dark, messy hair, a pleasant gap between her teeth, and a plaid flannel shirt. Her voice was flat and Midwestern and her name was Lisa. Besides a squad of underfed guys stacking chairs, she was the only one at home when I knocked on the big metal doors. She’d worked at Null Space for six years, remembered the Gimlets well enough, and didn’t ask what business it was of mine. It made for a near-perfect interview.

“They did three or four one-acts here, over the course of eighteen months or so,” she said. “Liars Club was the last of them.” We walked into what passed for the office, a gray, square room that almost had a view of an alley through a window black with dirt. The furniture was mismatched metal, too ugly for government work. Lisa took a seat behind the desk and placed her can of Diet Coke before her. I sat in a banged-up beige guest chair that was even less comfortable than it looked.

“Were they any good?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I remember the plays being very heavy, in a theater-class kind of way. A lot of disjointed dialogue and fucked-up families. And I remember the Gimlets being kind of a pain in the ass.”

“How so?” I asked.

Lisa drank some soda and ran a hand through her hair. “They were always complaining about something- the seating, the lights, publicity, the audience or lack thereof. And they were always in the midst of some crisis or another.”

“Such as?”

“Amateurish crap, like actors not showing up on time, or at all, or losing props, or just bickering.”

“Any idea about what?”

“Who knows; stars on the dressing room door, maybe. I tried not to pay attention. Whatever it was, it seemed like they could never get their shit together.”

“I’d guess you get a fair amount of that in this line of work.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Lisa said, smiling. “And the bands are usually the worst. But it gives you an idea of how whiny the Gimlets were that they stand out three years later.”

I smiled back. “How many of them were there?”

She thought for a moment. “Four or five, maybe.”