David Markson - Epitaph For A Tramp

He moved away from the window. There was already a fly or two at the man I supposed had been Arthur Leeds. I doubted that he was the boy who had killed Cathy, since he would not have been just waiting around for us that way, so I shooed the flies off.

Brannigan came back. He had a balled-up tan bedspread in his hands and he tossed it down to me. He was right enough about that. There were only eight or ten windows looking out that way, but sooner or later someone’s favorite aunt was going to open one of them to sprinkle the geraniums. Some of them should have shot up when he’d screamed. Probably there was a quiz show on.

I billowed out the spread and threw it over him, then ripped it across some of the spikes so that it would not slip off. I left him like that.

The other man was slumped in a straight chair when I came up. He was wearing a red and gray plaid jacket that some peddler’s stout horse was happier for the lack of, and a black string tie which disappeared into the top of his pants. That left all of four inches of the tie showing, since the pants ended under his armpits somewhere. He had taken off his glasses and was holding them, and it seemed to have finally gotten through to him. His face was the color of soggy oatmeal.

Brannigan was standing over him with his hands on his hips. “Leeds, man, oh, yes,” the man was muttering. “Arthur indeed. Like wow, what a fadeout!”

“Damn it,” Brannigan said, “what was it all about? What made him run?”

“Sugar, man, you’re the flatfoot. I just spin tunes, you know? Like I mean, you ought to know what he bugged out for.”

Brannigan hit him. He brought the back of his hand across the man’s jaw from right to left and the man sucked in his breath with a sound like a punctured accordion. He scrambled backward, losing the chair. It started to go over and he caught it with one hand, dancing behind it and waving his glasses hysterically. “Don’t, man!” he screeched. “Like don’t! Sugar, it ain’t none of mine! Like I couldn’t whistle note-one of that tune, that’s for real, except that he just now told me. I just ambled over to spin some lyrics, you know? Like right there — there’s my notebook on the piano, see? Oh, yes, oh, yes, Henry Hen-shaw, like it’s got my name on the cover. Like I wouldn’t even blow my mother-in-law’s coin for that stuff, you dig me? I ain’t been hooked for lo, these ten years. I—”

His voice trailed off as Brannigan stood up. Brannigan’s jaw was set and his lips were tight. He grunted disgustedly. “What did he have? Had Narcotics been on to him?”

“The real goods, oh, yes. Far out. The mighty H, like. He announced they had been bugging him bad. They picked him up two weeks ago but he was clean. But like he was terrified, man. He just got in this new horn full. That cat on the fence, you know? I mean not me. All this is just what he mentioned in passing. True, dad, that’s straight. I don’t lay a hand on hide nor hair, you know? Like I don’t even want to hear any of that chatter, not Henry Hiram Henshaw!”

“He push it?”

“I’m weak on details, man. Like he’s in the middle someplace, kind of a transfer point, you take my meaning? Like some cat dumps it into his pocket and another cat lifts it out again. He gets maybe two bills a week for this inconvenience, like it’s better than they leave it in a locker in Grand Central. He—”

“Where is it? Where’s he keep it?”

“In yon head. Like that’s what he informed me. You dig how calm and cool I’m telling you, don’t you, man? Like I mean, sugar, why ought I not? I’m just here to spin a tune, oh, yes, oh, yes. If I just happen to be coincidentally cognizant of the feet that the cat stashes his nasty old heroin under the sink, like, that saves labor all around, does it not? Doesn’t it?”

Brannigan did not answer him. He nodded to me and I went into the latrine and felt around on the underside of the sink. It was taped into place but it pulled away easily. It was a carton about the size of two packs of Pall Malls end to end, maybe a little more thick. I brought it out.

Brannigan’s mouth was still set. The carton was sealed with transparent tape and he tore it open. He glanced inside.

Henshaw giggled, clutching the back of his chair. “Like you want to be sure of the contents,” he said, “you sniff it. Ha! Like you could be the coolest cat in coptown, man. Hahahaha!

Brannigan walked across the room and set the carton on top of the piano. It was a fairly new upright, probably the only item in the apartment which did not come with the rent. Everything else had that same twenty-seven-tenants-and-still-holding-its-own look of the stuff in Sally’s place.

When Brannigan turned back he was taking out a set of cuffs. Henshaw had just gotten seated again. He jerked himself upright with his knees drawn up and his heels clutching the front edge of the seat. “Hey, man, like ain’t I been coming on real cooperative like? True now? Am I to be a victim of circumstance? I, Henshaw, innocent bystander? Like I’ve got my rights—”

Brannigan ignored him. He yanked Henshaw’s left wrist toward him and clicked the bracelet into place, then locked the other ring around a narrow steam-heat pipe which ran up to the ceiling next to the chair.

“Like help, now,” Henshaw kept protesting. “For crying out loud, dad, I want a lawyer. I want ten lawyers. I want my agent. You can’t bug me like this, I’m—”

Brannigan took him by the lapels. “Shut up,” he said. He did not raise his voice. “Just shut up and don’t say another word. If you’re clear you’ll get offand that will be the end of it. But in the meantime you’re going to sit here until I straighten this thing out and you’re not going to be any bother. You’re not going to talk unless you’re spoken to. You’re going to be seen and not heard. You’re not even going to breathe too heavily. You got that?”

Henshaw gulped helplessly. He glanced toward me but I did not have anything for him. He opened his mouth, had a second thought, said nothing. He stared at the cuffs as glumly as a stripteaser confronting a low thermometer.

Brannigan had picked up a phone across the room. He dialed a number. When he got it he said, “This is Nate Brannigan, Central. Give me somebody big in Narcotics, will you? Somebody who knows what’s current. Charley Peakes, maybe…Sullivan’ll do. Thanks.”

He looked back to Henshaw while he was waiting. “Where was Leeds last night?”

“We were blowing, your majesty, sir,” Henshaw said bitterly. “This joint over on Second Street. We’re there four nights a week, you know?”

“How late?”

“We retired early, your highness. One A.M., your kingship. We had another session scheduled for après that, but Leedsie wasn’t coming on too cool. Sir. Like he was all shook up on this police bit, comprenez vous? He kept flatting. What occurs if I got to go to the head here? I am like sometimes prone to have complications with my kidneys. They—”

Brannigan had gotten his connection. “Brannigan, Sully. Fine. Listen, an Arthur Leeds, Jones Street — there be a reason why he’d take a dive out a window rather than talk to two cops at the front door?”

The Narcotics man had a gravel voice and I caught a few random words as he talked. He went on for a minute or two and Brannigan frowned once or twice. “Yeah,” he said finally, “working on something else entirely. Just walked in on it. Yeah, dead. No, that’s all right, Sully, I’ll call. But I’ve got what reads like eight or ten thousand dollars’ worth of the stuff sitting on a piano here, so you can send a pick-up on that. I’ve got a pal of his cuffed to a pipe also, name of Henshaw. Might be a delivery, I’m not sure, but I’ll leave him for your boys at the same time. No, never mind, I’ll get a precinct wagon for the body. Right. You want to give me a switch? Thanks. See you in church, Sully.”