Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

J-Zig slammed the toilet door loud enough to be heard over the sirens and then stepped back into the shop itself. Mick was there waiting for him.

“We were gonna send a search party in there after you, for fuck’s sake. What the fuck were you doing?” Mick asked.

“Stomach’s been bothering me.” J-Zig winked. “I wouldn’t go in there for a while unless you get battle pay.”

“I consider myself warned.”

“What the fuck’s going on out here anyway?” he asked, as innocent as a spring lamb, while a few more police cruisers flew by. “I heard all the commotion when I was in the can.”

“Fuck if I know. Come on in the office, there’s some friends I want you to meet.”

J-Zig looked at his watch again. “Maybe another time, I’ve got—”

“Look, man, for what I’ve been paying you, you owe me this small favor.”

It was tough to argue Mick’s point, so he didn’t bother. “Lead the way.”

He was in the office, the door shut at his back, before he could quite make sense of what was going on. Even after seeing the shields hanging on chains around the necks of Mick’s three friends and the 9mms strapped to their belts, it almost didn’t register. Then he heard Mick, who was still behind him, say: “Jeffrey Ziegfeld, you’re under arrest.” J-Zig felt Mick tug his wrists and slap on the cuffs. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights?”

J-Zig didn’t answer the question, but asked one of his own: “What are the charges?”

“ What are the charges , he asks,” said the fierce-looking detective standing directly in front of J-Zig. “Are you fucking kidding me or what? Hey, this guy missed his calling. He shoulda done standup.”

J-Zig repeated the question: “What are the charges?”

“This guy can’t be this dumb, can he?” the detective asked the cops behind him. Then he spoke directly to J-Zig. “Are you really that stupid?”

J-Zig repeated the question again: “What are the charges?”

“Okay, rocket scientist, let me give you a clue. My name is Detective Robert Ferraro and we’re from the Suffolk County PD Auto Crime Task Force. You think maybe now you can figure it out, or do I have to draw you a picture with crayons?”

J-Zig heard someone laughing. It took a second or two until he realized it was himself.

“Mick, can you believe this guy? He’s facing like a ten spot in prison and he’s laughing his head off. Hey, shithead, what’s so funny?” asked Ferraro.

“I am,” said J-Zig.

“You wanna let us in on the joke?” Ferraro asked.

“The punch line won’t be as funny to you if I just tell you, but you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Whatever. Mick, get this moron outta here.”

Later that afternoon, when J-Zig’s impounded car had been towed to the 6th Precinct, Mick and Ferraro searched it for more stolen parts. Nobody at the precinct paid the two auto crime task force detectives much mind. Who gave a fuck about some dumb-ass skell who was selling car parts to a police sting operation? They were too busy looking for the guy who jerked around half the first responders in Suffolk County, ripped off Island World Gold and Jewelry Exchange, and then disappeared into thin air. After a minute or two, Ferraro found the gym bag with the money, the jewelry, the gloves, and the Obama mask.

“Holy fuck, Mick!”

“What is it?”

“The punch line.”

When J-Zig was arraigned the next morning at the courthouse in Central Islip, he seemed utterly calm. He turned and smiled at the crush of media squeezed into the courtroom. After the long list of charges were read, the judge asked for J-Zig’s plea.

“Tell Avi Ben-Levi to go fuck himself!” is what he answered.

J-Zig knew it really didn’t matter what he said. He was going to spend a lot of his now somewhat less miserable life in prison.

Charlotte is sprawled on the bathroom floor of my apartment on Southeast Ankeny, the one I rented because I thought she’d like it. Rundown but arty, with forced-air heat and bad plumbing. High ceilings, creaking stairs, walls plastered in thick, sharp stucco. The lobby smells like mold and cantaloupe two days past its prime. The couple downstairs has a pirate flag tacked over their front window, and the landlord is twenty-three and walks around her apartment in a red thong and T-shirt. The building is shaped like a V, so I can easily see into her windows. She has a small wrought-iron balcony where she grows orange flowers in green plastic pots.

Since Charlotte deceived me with the film critic, I’ve done pretty much whatever I’ve wanted to do. Free rein is what I’ve got. She bombed the country and I’m just looting the shops. She would say I mixed my metaphors right there. That’s what being married to Charlotte got me. Now I know about mixed metaphors, and how it really is possible to feel someone pull your heart straight out of your chest like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , then stomp on it.

I drop the toilet lid— bang! —and sit down. It’s possible Charlotte’s not dead. This is just the sort of thing she would do to make me feel bad. Like all chicks, she’s a drama queen. I stare down at her head, angled like she’s trying to lay her ear on her shoulder. Blood trickles out of one perfectly round nostril. There’s no blood coming out of her ears that I can see. Most likely she’s just conked out.

Charlotte thought she had the right to have an affair with the film critic because I occasionally found myself associating with Lorna, my ex-wife, the mother of my son. Once in a blue moon, after I’d taken Ray Jr. to the zoo or the Malibu Grand Prix, I’d return him to Lorna’s apartment and we’d knock one out for old time’s sake. It was like looking through a photo album. Associating with someone after you’ve been married is not the same as meeting a film critic at the bar in Esparza’s, where you share a plastic wooden bowl of chips and hot sauce and listen to Patsy Cline and comment on the stuffed armadillos hanging on the ceiling and then share an order of ostrich tacos, all the while talking arty crap.

The film critic has more hair than I do.

Once, when Charlotte refused to show me respect by answering whether she was in love with the film critic, I was forced to shove her into a bookcase, so she knew we weren’t just having one of our usual arguments. I meant business.

I said, “This thing with the film critic is a dalliance, right? There’s nothing to it, right? Answer me. Yes or no.”

She said, “He’s actually more of a film reviewer .”

She bruised her back on the edge of the shelf. It wasn’t that bad. What’s a little bruise? She’s hardy. Skis and rides horses and takes kick-boxing classes. Most of the top row of books rained down upon her head and neck. They were only paperbacks. Still, she bitched to anyone who would listen, her herd of sympathetic friends, her therapist, her divorce lawyer, and of course the ostrich taco–loving film critic. Charlotte wouldn’t touch an ostrich taco when she was with me. Now it’s the new white meat.

Now Charlotte’s lying on my bathroom floor, wedged between the hot water pipe and the toilet. Is it laying or lying? Charlotte would know. She has a master’s degree and a daily subscription to the New York Times . The hot water pipe serves the whole building, and why it goes through my apartment I don’t know. At night it’s hot enough to leave a blister. Charlotte hit it on the way down, which caused her to twist her body, which caused her to lose her balance and hit her head on the edge of the tub. I stare at her head. Her curly hair is coming out of its scrunchie. She doesn’t look like she’s breathing. I stare at her tits. I wonder if she still wears an underwire.