Ian Hahn: The Olfactory Empath by Johnny Ostentatious
I was sitting behind my desk, picturing Brigitte Lin in The Bride with White Hair. I envisioned the movie’s climax—in the temple. She stands there with her waist-length white hair shooting up in the air horizontally, her eyes bulging like a rabid bill collector.
I freeze-framed that image in my mind, then grinned, leaned back, swung my feet up on my desk and crossed my ankles. However, the image of Brigitte Lin quickly faded.
I smelled rotten eggs.
I uncrossed my ankles and dropped my feet to the floor. The stench of eggs grew stronger. I glanced to my right, at my open desk drawer. In it sat only one item: my Glock. Any time I sat behind my desk, that drawer was open. It’s a must since my office was in the heart of Philadelphia’s Chinatown. And Chinatown, as any Center City slicker will tell you, is shady even on a sunny day.
My office door slammed open. In the doorway stood my knocking-without-entering visitor. It wasn’t Brigitte Lin.
An overweight Caucasian filled the width of the doorway. He blocked the lone light bulb hanging from the hallway ceiling. He swayed, hand on doorknob. The lettering on the glass pane of the door shadowed his face with my name and occupation: Ian Hahn, Private Eye.
“How’s it going?” I said, flashing my million-yuan smile. My visitor limped towards my desk.
“You wanna close that?” I said.
Mr. Limp stopped. Without turning around, he stretched his leg to close my office door. The door clicked shut. Mr. Limp winced. He must have rested on his bad foot and used his good foot to close the door.
Mr. Limp wheezed into one of the two chairs in front of my desk. Pockmarks covered his cheeks while blackheads littered his nose. He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his sweaty face; the corners of the handkerchief were stained yellow. Mr. Limp still reeked of rotten eggs.
“Well?” Mr. Limp said.
“Well what?”
“What do I smell like?”
“Like you haven’t bathed since the Reagan administration,” I said.
“Don’t crack wise with me, boy. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“I do?” I said, smirking.
“Jesus Christ. Your gift. What does your gift say I smell like?”
“Is that why you came all the way down here from city hall?”
Mr. Limp jumped out of his chair. “Jesus Christ! How did you know that? Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.” He limped over to the window, peeked through the blinds, then relaxed and returned to his chair.
I said, “I know you’re from city hall because you carry yourself with the self-important demeanor that most public officials have. Plus, you dress like the mayor: brown suit, vanilla shirt, black tie. You obviously figure imitation is the quickest way to a promotion.”
Mr. Limp blushed. “Did your gift tell you that?”
“A little. I sensed you when you stood out in the hallway. The rest I guessed.”
“What did you sense when I was out in the hallway?”
“Rotten eggs.”
Mr. Limp frowned. “Interesting gift.”
My gift, as Mr. Limp called it, aided me frequently in my career as a private eye.
I was an empath. Most empaths can sense what a person is feeling. My empath ability, however, was unique. I could only sense a person’s main character trait or their current overwhelming emotion. I sensed these with the aid of smell. For instance, if my empath ability picked up the smell of dusty old books, that meant that a person close by had a character trait of shyness. And if my empath ability smelled car exhaust, that meant that a person close by was currently stressed to the max.
The interesting thing about my empath ability was that sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t. It seemed that if I concentrated really hard, it would click on. But even that wasn’t a guarantee.
One day I would probably have to seek out a guru to help me master my empath ability. Until then…
“So, I smell like rotten eggs?” Mr. Limp asked.
“You asked.”
“Have you ever smelled that on anybody else?”
“Politicians mostly,” I said. “And on CEOs and salesmen. Generally, anybody who’s greedy.”
“Did you ever come across anybody who didn’t have a smell?”
“Serial killers.”
“Really?”
“Really. They tend to experience no emotion and have no personality, so you can’t smell what isn’t there.”
“Interesting.” He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. “Question: How do you know if what you’re smelling is part of your gift and not a real smell?”
“Answer: When my empath ability picks up a smell, it’s kind of faint, so I know it’s not a real smell. It’s kind of hard to explain. The closest thing I can compare it to is déjà vu.”
“So you just know.”
“You got it!”
Mr. Limp ignored the lightheartedness in my voice. He ran a hand through his greasy hair. “I gotta be frank with you, Hahn. I got some serious reservations about hiring you.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, tough guy.”
“You may have been in business a few years, but you’re only twenty-two. In my dealings, I’ve found that inexperience equals ineptitude.”
I gave Mr. Limp an intentional blank stare. He grew uncomfortable—wringing his hands.
“I assume you heard of the city’s little cell phone problem,” he said.
I indeed had. How could I not? Every time you turned on the radio or opened the newspaper, you heard or read a story about the city’s little cell phone problem. They were even talking about it on WKDU, Drexel University’s student-run radio station. You knew a story was big news if it penetrated the undergrad bubble of college DJs.
What was happening was that cell phones were exploding in people’s faces. The cops and the phone companies couldn’t figure out why. Phones exploded in no recognizable pattern. One victim’s phone exploded in her face after talking on it for over a hour; another victim’s phone exploded after only five minutes; and another victim’s phone exploded while she was dialing. So far, six people had their cell phones explode in their faces. One suffered first-degree burns, one suffered second-degree burns, one suffered third-degree burns, and the other three died.
Out of all the local media, the newspaper The Philadelphia Bulletin had the best coverage of the cell phone story. Last week they published a picture of the most recent victim. The blast had disintegrated a quarter of his face. His left ear gone. His jawbone nevermore. His skin singed. He looked like an extra from a Rob Zombie video.
The Bulletin noted that the cell phones only exploded when in use. Nothing happened when the phones were turned off.
Still sitting in my chair, I said, “What makes you think I can do anything for you?”
“You’re our last hope,” Mr. Limp said, pausing. “To be perfectly honest with you, we’re completely desperate. We’ve run through every other option without an iota of success.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“The Bulletin has been doing a good job of covering city hall activity.”
“Newspapers.” Mr. Limp snarled. “Nothing but a royal pain in the ass. As usual.”
“That’s why they’re there,” I said, “to be watchdogs. You already have the TV news in your pocket, so the public needs newspapers to balance the scales and publish the truth.”
Mr. Limp shook his head. His cheeks flushed crimson.
“I’ll take the case,” I said.
I told Mr. Limp my fee. He didn’t blink. He pulled out a fat envelope from his coat. He threw a wad of bills on my desk. The retainer sat next to my laptop computer.
“Officially,” Mr. Limp said, “the city hasn’t hired you to solve this situation.”
“The cell phone explosions.”
“Correct. The mayor wants nothing to do with you. I had to talk him into letting me come down here. He’s quite skeptical about your gift.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
Mr. Limp’s bulbous nose pointed at the retainer. “You going to report that money?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s too much to take under-the-table.”
“All right, when you file your tax return, say the radio station WXYZ gave it to you.”
“The sports station?”
“Yes. I’m part owner.”
Mr. Limp huffed out of the chair. When he reached the door, I said, “Oh, just one thing. Is there anything about the case you can tell me?”
Mr. Limp shook his head. “It’s all been reported in that damned Bulletin.”
“Good. I read it every day. I’m up to speed then.”
“Remember, officially you’re not endorsed by the city. So when you’re talking to people about the situation, you are not to say you’re working for the mayor’s office.”
“Okay, let’s get something straight. Hiring me doesn’t entitle you to tell me what to do and what not to do. I may be at your service, but I’m not your servant.” I moved the retainer from my laptop to the front edge of my desk. “I’ll be discreet when talking to people, but if I run into any problems, I’ll tell the truth: I’m looking into the cell phone explosions, on the city’s behalf.”
Mr. Limp sighed and shrugged. He left, closing the door behind him. I heard the elevator doors open and close. The stench of rotten eggs dissipated.
I picked up the retainer off my desk. I flipped through the bills. There was enough there for two months rent. I inserted the money into my wallet then looked out my window at the Friendship Gate at Tenth and Arch Streets.
The Friendship Gate looked more like an arch than a gate. It started on the one side of the sidewalk and stretched across the street to the opposing sidewalk. It was forty feet high, so that cars and trucks could drive under it.
Construction on the Friendship Gate began in 1982, completing in 1984. Architects, artisans and materials from Tianjin, China contributed to the lavish structure. Multi-colored, the Gate is decorated with tiles and paintings of birds and dragons. Large Chinese characters indicate that you’re standing in the hub of Philadelphia Chinatown.
I turned away from the window and exited my office. Enough dawdling. Time to investigate the cell phone case.
I’d start with Mr. Limp’s arch nemesis. The Philadelphia Bulletin.
In the past, the Bulletin kissed city hall’s ass more than a wannabe novelist on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Recently, however, the paper reamed out the mayor’s administration on a daily basis. Reason for the about-face? The city no longer gave the Bulletin a huge tax break. Plus, the Bulletin, like most newspapers, was barely turning a profit. By the end of the decade, the Bulletin would probably either go bankrupt or be gobbled up by a media conglomerate. For these reasons, the paper criticized the mayor with the fervor of a muckraker. Not that the mayor didn’t deserve it. He was a banker before turning to public life, which meant that his M.O. consisted of championing for corporate welfare and playing passive for school funding.
I stepped into the Bulletin’s lobby. The security guard behind the desk sneered at me. He wore a khaki uniform. His nametag weighed down the flap of his left breast pocket; the tag read Frank. The cuffs of Frank’s uniform were rolled up to his elbows. A Navy Seal tattoo branded Frank’s right forearm; black, curly arm hair practically veiled the tattoo.
My empath ability caught a whiff of burning flesh. That meant Frank was a racist.
“What can I do for ya, pally?” Frank said.
“I’m here to see Joan Chen.”
Frank picked up a tattered gray binder. The cover said EMPLOYEE DIRECTORY in black magic marker. A chain linked the binder to the desk.
Frank leafed through the directory with about as much interest as a neo-Nazi reading a Martin Luther King biography.
“What’s her name again?” Frank said.
“Chen. First name, Joan.”
Frank studied a page of employee’s surnames that began with the letter X. He flapped his lips and threw the binder on the desk. The binder bounced off a Tom Clancy paperback and fell off the desk. The binder’s chain prevented it from hitting the floor. The binder twirled like a victim of a KKK lynching.
“Ain’t no Chens here,” Frank said.
“Oh really?”
“Yup.”
“Don’t matter. She ain’t in the directory.”
“Ah-hah,” I said.
Frank inserted his thumbs between his belt and pants. Bulletin employees passed by the security desk. Frank ignored those exiting and examined the IDs of those entering.
“Well,” I said to Frank, “I’ll see you around. We’ll have to do this again some time.”
Frank gave me the evil eye.
I headed out to Broad Street and stood to the left of the Bulletin’s revolving door. The afternoon had turned overcast. Today was the last day of winter. It had been a nasty winter, even by Philly standards. When Mother Nature wasn’t hitting us with snow or ice, she made sure the temperature rose no higher than twenty degrees. I had a theory on why she was so virulent: Her marriage to Father Time was on the rocks, so she took her frustrations out on us mortals. It’s just a theory.
I breathed in the air. Carbon monoxide from the four lanes of Broad Street traffic filled my lungs. I exhaled and looked right. Five blocks away stood city hall. The William Penn statue capped the 100-year-old building. Penn wore a 76ers jersey. The city’s rabid basketball fans hoped the jersey would bring luck to the Sixers. The playoffs started next week.
To my left, four women hustled out of the Bulletin’s revolving door. They stood on the right side of the door and lit up cigarettes. Each woman represented a different decade of aging—a twenty-something, a thirty-something, a forty-something and a fifty-something. The youngest one kept glancing at me. She looked to be on the younger side of her twenties. She took a deep drag of her anorexic cigarette, held in the smoke for half a minute, then exhaled through her hooknose. She glanced at me again. I winked. She tucked a curl of her permed blond hair behind her ear. Her red fingernails contrasted her ashen cheeks.
The moment was interrupted by Frank. He lumbered out with cigar and lighter in hand.
“What are you still doing here?”
“Taking in the sights,” I said.
“Well, take a hike. No loitering.”
I didn’t move—continued to lean against the building.
“You heard me,” Frank said, chest protruding. “Scram, you fuckin gook.”
I rushed him. He stood there frozen, as if a convict trapped in a searchlight. I pinned him against the wall. He dropped his cigar and lighter, the latter clinking on the sidewalk.
“Care to rephrase your slur, sir?” I said.
I had Frank pinned against the wall with only one hand. I stood away from him at arm’s length. My left hand was around his throat. My first three fingers lined the right side of his neck; my pinkie dug above his collarbone. I wiggled my index finger under his jawbone and applied the proper pressure to induce semi-paralysis.
Frank gargled. “Get off me, you slanty-eyed shit.”
I let go, only because Frank’s eyelids began to flutter. If I held the grip any longer, I would have killed brain cells. And Frank couldn’t afford that. He was obviously running on empty.
Frank inhaled and bent over, his head level with my groin. I studied him. He was still trying to catch his breath. That’s when I saw it.
Frank’s hand rested on the handle of his billy club. He had it halfway out of the holster. I didn’t waste a second. I karate-chopped Frank where his neck and shoulder met. He had so much flab that my hand bounced back, like a tennis ball. I assumed a defensive pose, which turned out to be unnecessary. Frank collapsed into unconsciousness. He sprawled across the sidewalk.
A second security guard rushed outside. He held his billy club like a machine gun. “What’s goin on here!”
The twenty-something smoker stepped between the guard and me.
“It’s Frank, Cliff,” she said. “He just ran out here and started yelling like a lunatic. Then he passed out and fell down there.”
Cliff knelt beside Frank and felt for a pulse. “Lousy drunk,” Cliff said.
The twenty-something took my hand and mouthed the words, “Come on.”
We stepped inside the Bulletin. No one sat behind the security desk.
The twenty-something let go of my hand. I followed her up a wide flight of stairs. The steps were made of black marble with flecks of limestone thrown in for artistic measure. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked with each step. We came to a landing the size of several boxing rings.
The twenty-something touched my elbow. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What, climb a flight of stairs?”
“No, silly, knock Frank out like that.” She smiled. “I’m speechless.”
“Ain’t nothing but a little thing.”
“I’m Nikki, by the way.”
“Ian Hahn.”
We shook hands. Her handshake was firm but feminine. We continued our trek up the steps.
“I still can’t believe you took Frank down,” Nikki said.
“So you keep saying.”
“I’ve seen him take on guys bigger than you and not even break a sweat. I mean, you’re pretty big and all, but I’ve never seen anybody move as fast as you. You were up on him like a bolt of lightning. Did you wrestle or something in high school?”
“No,” I said, “but I did get into a lot of street fights. I think that’s where I learned how to handle myself.”
“Wow.”
We reached another landing. How many landings did this place have?
Nikki pointed and led the way down a hallway that looked like a cattle chute. Fluorescent lights flickered. The chute opened into endless office space. We stopped and stood next to a white, square pillar. Stenciled on each side was 3rd Floor.
“So,” Nikki asked, “who you here to see?”
“Joan Chen. Do you know her?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Where’s she at?”
Nikki told me.
“So,” I said, mocking bashfulness, “may I walk you to your cube?”
Nikki fought a smile. “Sure. No cubicle, though. Just a desk.”
She led the way. I examined the office space.
It was something out of an Orwellian nightmare. From the thirty-foot-high ceiling hung pipes and ventilation ducts; the ceiling and pipes were covered in a fluffy fireproofing material. On the perimeter of the floor were offices. In front of the offices was six feet of walking space, then the floor dropped. That’s where most of the Bulletin employees worked. It looked like an in-ground pool. But instead of water, this Pool consisted of a sea of desks. There were no aisles, per se. The desks were divided into sets of four—four desks formed a square.
Nikki stepped down the six steps into the Pool. We headed up the main aisle. No employees said hi or made eye contact. They hunched over their desks, absorbed in their work. I prayed my luck never ran out where I had to sell my soul to corporate America.
We came to Nikki’s desk. She unlocked the top drawer and tossed in her cigarettes and lighter.
“So,” Nikki said.
“So,” I said. My empath ability smelled coconut suntan lotion on Nikki. That meant she was a nymphomaniac.
“So,” Nikki said, “what do you think of my office space?”
“Very quaint. I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place. Where’s your quad mates?” The three desks butting against hers were empty.
“Oh, they don’t start till five.”
“All by your lonesome?”
“Not anymore.”
I smiled, trying not to burst out laughing at the cheesiness of her reply.
I waited a few beats before saying, “So, I guess this is the part where I ask if you would like to go out some time, and you say…”
“Sure.”
She grabbed a notepad advertising the radio station WXYZ. She wrote her name and number in cursive. I took the paper, folded it and placed it in the top pocket of my black leather jacket.
We grinned at each other for several moments. The flirting ended with me turning on my heel to leave.
I approached Joan Chen’s office door. The blinds were drawn. I knocked on the glass frame.
The door swung open. Joan Chen’s expression went from a scowl to a smile.
“Ian!”
“Joanie, how are you?”
“Come in. I can’t talk long. I’m in the middle of a story. Don’t want to disrupt the flow too much, you know?”
“Hey, I hear you.”
Joanie sat behind her desk. Her computer’s twenty-inch, flat monitor cast a cyber glow on her protruding chin. She scratched her large forehead. Her shoulder-length hair was parted in the middle; the ends of her hair curled naturally. It was a hairstyle she sported most of her life. However, now the style highlighted the extra weight she had gained over the past few months. It wasn’t a lot of weight, but enough. A little over ten pounds. Most of it showed in her cheeks.
I sat on a wall-length table, next to the door. I rested my head against the wall and noticed a miniature Buddha statue to the left of Joanie’s computer monitor. To the right of her desk was a poster of the Dali Lama drinking a 7-Up.
Joanie took a swig from her coffee mug. My empath ability smelled jasmine on Joanie. Ever since we were ten, I smelled that on her. It meant she was a good person—practically flawless.
I said, “I’m still amazed at how well you’re doing for yourself.”
“How’s that?”
“You drop out of college, and what happens? Boom, the first job you land is as a reporter for the Bulletin. That’s great!”
“Thanks.” She blushed.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“So how did you get by the security desk? The guards are usually pretty strict about letting people in.”
“I had a little help from my new friend Nikki.”
“I didn’t catch her last name,” I said.
“Blond, smokes a lot?”
“That be her.”
“Did she give you a hummer on the way up?”
“No,” I said. “Should I have asked for one?”
“Please.”
“Is she the company slut?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Hmm.”
“Let me put it this way,” Joanie said, “when we order take-out, she’ll pull the delivery boy into the janitor’s closet if we don’t have enough money for a tip.”
“Hey, that’s a skill you can use to climb the corporate ladder three rungs at a time.”
“Now you know why we call her Nikki the Nympho.”
“So,” I said, “what you’re saying is that I should take the phone number she gave me and…”
“Tear it up, not unless you’re looking to contract a couple cases of VD.” Joanie glanced at her computer clock. “How come you didn’t call before coming down here?”
“Because I know you. If I called, you would’ve said you were too busy and would’ve penciled me in for next Thursday. Right?”
Joanie lowered her chin. “Maybe.”
“What can you tell me about those cell phone explosions?”
Joanie smiled.
“What?” I said.
Joanie turned her monitor. On the screen was the story she was working on, tentatively titled “Cell Victim #6”.
“This story is about Juanita Rodriguez,” Joanie said. “She recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday when her cell blew up in her face while she was waiting on the corner for a bus. I’m writing her story as a human-interest piece. It doesn’t deal too much with the facts of the case—just gives the reader an idea of how the family is coping.”
“You have an address for the family?”
Joanie printed out the contact info for me and said, “The paper’s making a big deal out of this story. They’re putting it on the front page.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty proud of it so far. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
“Good for you.” I moved for the door. “Thanks for the info.”
“Anytime, stranger.”
I strutted past the security desk. Frank held an ice bag to his neck where I karate-chopped him. The other security guard, Cliff, checked employees’s IDs. I gave Frank a thumbs up. He glowered.
I walked up Callowhill Street. I stared at the sloped sidewalk. The aroma of Cantonese cooking sauce emanated from the restaurant Hom House at Sixteenth Street.
Soon I was standing at the corner of Sixteenth and Callowhill, waiting for the red traffic light to turn green. Any other time I would’ve jaywalked, but I was in no rush.
My mind wandered. I thought about Joanie and her slight gain in weight. Most likely, it was an effect of her fiancé breaking off their engagement a week before the wedding. The breakoff happened several months ago, but obviously Joanie was still reeling emotionally from its impact. Another effect of the breakoff could have been the change in Joanie’s sense of humor. It seem forced. Although, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of that. My imagination could have been getting the better of me.
The traffic light turned green. I crossed the street and continued to think about Joanie.
When I was growing up, my family was friendly with the Chens. On Saturday afternoons our parents dragged us to go food shopping with them. My parents also brought along my two sisters; Mr. and Mrs. Chen never forced Joanie’s older brother to join in on the family fun. Joanie and I didn’t mind the weekly outings, not until we turned twelve. Suddenly it was “uncool” to hang out with our parents on Saturday afternoon. So we created a game. We counted each time our own mother would brag about us. At the end of the afternoon, the mother who bragged the most made their child the loser. Nine times out of ten, I lost. So I owed Joanie the winning prize. A bag of Jawbreaker candy, which she usually shared with me.
My childhood memory faded like breath on a windowpane. I arrived at my destination: the Free Library of Philadelphia at Ninteenth and Vine. The library’s second-floor Corinthian columns stared down at me. I walked through the entrance portal on the ground floor. The automatic door yawned open for me.
Even though Philadelphia was founded in 1681 by William Penn, the city’s free-public-library system wasn’t established until 1894. Before then, Philly had a bunch of private, subscription libraries, but nothing free like other cities (Boston started the socialistic trend when they opened the first free public library, circa 1850—decades before the City of Brotherly Sloth).
The library I occupied was Philly’s central library, which, from initial funding to final construction, took over thirty years to complete. Reason for the long timeline? Numerous delays caused by legal squabbles, political battles, and a little skirmish called World War I. Opening day for the library was June 2, 1927.
But that was then, this was the new millennium. Currently, I was up on the second floor. I planted myself at one of the computers that lined the wide hallway between the Social Science and Education/Philosophy departments.
The computer I sat in front of had seen better days. It was in such bad shape that I had to tap the spacebar ten times before the screensaver went off.
Once the computer woke up, I dived into my research. I started at the mother of all search engines, Google. From there, I jumped from site to site, in an online trail that fed me enough information on cell phones to fill several CD-ROMs.
Time passed, but I was oblivious. I didn’t even hear the announcement at 4:45 P.M., telling us patrons that the library was closing in fifteen minutes. At 4:59, a male librarian with long fingernails tapped me on the shoulder. That snapped me out of my research zone.
I left the library in a fog. I was amazed at what I had learned in the past three hours. For instance, the United States ranked third in the world when it came to cell phone users. Number two was Western Europe and number one was Asia. I didn’t know whether to be exalted or ashamed.
By the time I reached Chinatown, I put the research zone behind me. It wasn’t that hard, thanks to the hustle and bustle of Chinatown: Asian-American nuclear families window-shopping; black Muslims standing on street corners, praying for the souls of passers-by; and tourists from Idaho buying tacky T-shirts that declared We Came, We Saw, We Conquered Chinatown.
At Ninth and Race Streets, I entered an apartment building. The creaking elevator greeted me in the lobby. I snubbed it, opting for the stairs. I got off at the ninth floor and knocked on an apartment door at the end of the hall. The door opened.
“Ian!”
“Hey!” I said.
We hugged. I peered down at my mother. Her latest dye job missed several strands near the roots. She looked up at me, oval face beaming. Her thick eyebrows had recently been plucked.
“How are you?” I said.
“Good, good. Come in, number two.”
My mother had the peculiar habit of calling my sisters and me by the order of our birth. Since I was the second born, she called me number two; my older sister was number one and my younger sister was number three. Now, that was eccentric in itself, but even weirder was that our mother alternated between calling us by our birth name and our birth number. She kept a mental tally that never ceased to amaze me. If she called me number two twenty times in a row, she would call me Ian the next twenty times, even if after the tenth Ian I hadn’t spoken with her for a week. My mother had the memory of a Simon Says champion.
I stepped inside my mother’s apartment. It smelled of wet cardboard, as it always did—I could never figure out why.
“So?” my mother said, motioning to the rearranged living room. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice.”
“You like?”
I shrugged. “Sure. What’s not to like.”
“I’m so glad you like it.” She patted my hand. “Stay. Sit. I make us tea.”
I sat on the couch. My mother scurried into the kitchen. I shook my head and chuckled, taking in the rearranged living room. The couch sat against the wall perpendicular to the apartment door; previously, the couch sat against the same wall as the door. Another piece of furniture that my mother had moved was the grandfather clock. Instead of standing next to the pseudo-Victorian fireplace, it now loomed next to the dining room archway. The clock gonged. 5:30 P.M.
My mother waddled in from the kitchen. She carried a tray with a teapot and two teacups. I helped her.
We sipped our green tea. Steam billowed from my cup to my brow. I blew on the tea. My mother sipped hers with the grace of a geisha. After each sip she rested her cup on the saucer and closed her eyes, as if savoring the flavor.
“So,” I said, “you say you rearranged the living room, but I notice you neglected to move a few vital items.”
My mother raised a professionally plucked eyebrow.
“The collection,” I said.
“Oh, Ian, no need to move it. It is the center of the living room.”
The collection in question consisted of framed pictures located on and around the mantelshelf. The pictures weren’t of relatives, rather, they were of movie stars—American male movie stars. For as long as I could remember, my mother had been obsessed with Caucasian movie stars who typically played the hero. Her collection included portraits of Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis.
Since my mother owned no pictures of Asian actors, you’d think Asian men bored her. Wrong. My mother dated Asian men exclusively. I once asked her why that was. “Ian,” she said, “my movie stars are nice to look at, but nothing more. They are like most American men. You take their soul and hold it in your hand, and it falls apart. Poof! Just like that. You know why? Because the souls of American men are filled with nothing but greed, envy, pride and vanity. But Asian gentlemen… Ai, you hold their soul in your hand, and it will not fall apart. Because it have substance. Humility, wisdom, sincerity and love. That is what you find in Asian man’s souls. You hold it in your hands and it fills you with happiness.”
I finished my tea with a burp, so I excused myself. My mother moved to pour me a second cup. I told her no and turned the cup over.
“How is your hobby?” my mother asked.
“My job is going well. I got a case today, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, that no job. Now your sister. She has a job. She helping people. She making a difference. You just wasting time.”
“Wasting time, huh?” The tea began to boil in my stomach.
“You spend all your time in that office. Tell me this. How come you get office in worst building of Chinatown?”
“The building’s fine.” I belched, this time not excusing myself.
“Ai, it should be condemned. One day you go there and find it gone. You know why? Because demolition ball come at night and knock it down.”
That would never happen. The building was in the middle of the block. Other properties on the block were businesses that would protest if the city wanted to demolish the building. Besides, the building was in permissible shape. It wasn’t top-of-the-line, but it wasn’t bottom-rung either. It was adequate—no frills.
“You should be more like your sister.”
“Alex?” I joked.
“No. Anne.”
“So,” I asked, “it doesn’t matter that the case I got today is high profile? It involves those cell phone explosions going on all over the city.”
“Leave the cops-and-robbers to the police. You should be living your life.”
I resisted the urge to tell my mother—for the umpteenth time—that I solved every case that pranced into my office in the two years I had been detecting full-time.
My mother said, “You should be in school, finding a nice Asian girl to marry and make me grandmother…”
I stood up. “I have to go.”
“Where you going?”
“Home.”
“Why? Stay.”
“Got a lot of stuff to do.” I kissed her on the forehead. “Love you. See you later.”
The next day I sat at my desk in my office. The midmorning sun reached over my shoulder and glared off the desktop. I sat back, eating a cinnamon-raisin bagel and drinking a Dr. Pepper. The bagel was good, the Dr. Pepper better.
My Dr. Pepper was in a twelve-ounce can. I preferred soda in an aluminum can over a plastic bottle. Soda in a can seemed to contain much more carbonation.
I polished off the Dr. Pepper with a gentlemanly burp.
With a caffeine high, I opened the morning paper. As promised, Joanie’s article on Juanita Rodriguez began on the front page, albeit in the bottom corner, above the weather forecast. Her article was a wonderfully written human-interest piece, but, as she told me yesterday, it didn’t say much about the case.
After reading Joanie’s article, I flipped to the comics. I had always loved the comics. They were such a great source of entertainment. The artists had no more than four panels to get their point across, whether it was a joke or that day’s serial installment, so there was no room for fluff. And the Bulletin made the comics enjoyable every day because they placed them on the final three pages. Save the funniest for last.
I had been a lover of the Bulletin comics for so long that I knew which strips to skip. I only read the ones that were satirical and cutting-edge, like Foxtrot, Doonesbury and Boondocks. I especially like Boondocks, not only because it was confrontational, but because of the way it was drawn. The inking was so fine and meticulous. You could tell creator Aaron McGruder took pains to make each panel perfect. Today’s strip was great. Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z was the object of scorn. Boodocks’s protagonist, Huey Freeman, said that Jay-Z was so greedy that he’d package and sell his own navel lint if there was a market for it.
Smiling, I put the paper aside. Now I was ready to detect the day away. I stuck my hand inside my jacket. Out came my car keys and the piece of paper with Nikki’s contact info. She had written the info in pink ink, the two i’s of her name dotted with hearts.
I played with the piece of paper, as if a drummer twirling a drumstick. Should I call Nikki? I was leaning towards not calling her. It was glaringly obvious that all she was looking for was an Asian-American conquest. It’s something I had experienced before, but hadn’t realized I was a conquest until after the fact. In Nikki’s case, her intentions were made clear by her body language. She had sucked on her lip every time she glanced at my crotch.
I wheeled my chair over to the shredder and deposited Nikki’s contact info. I shredded it because I didn’t want some psycho crank-calling her. Even though I had no desire to date her, there was no need to be careless.
That done, I exited my office. At the elevator, I tossed my newspaper in the recycling bin. The elevator doors chimed open. Next stop, the Rodriguez residence.
I hopped into my 1965 Corvette Stingray. I revved the motor and pulled out my wallet. I fished around for the Rodriguez address. Where was it? There we go. It was sandwiched between my driver’s license and one of my many fake IDs. The Rodriguez address was in the badlands—North Philly.
Fifteen minutes later I was in the badlands, on Hunting Park Avenue. I drove defensively. Hunting Park Ave. was one of the main arteries of North Philly. It was a four-lane avenue that attracted the city’s worst drivers. When cars weren’t speeding, they ran red lights and turned corners without regard to traffic patterns. Not surprisingly, ninety percent of the cars in North Philly were unregistered or uninsured.
I turned off Hunting Park at Hearse Street. I parked near the end of the block and cut my engine.
Through my passenger window I saw a corner deli. Graffiti defaced its sign, making the name of the store unreadable; the sign hung from a rusty rod. The deli had no doors or windows. A customer walked up. He opened a drawer that resembled a bank-deposit box. He threw in money and a sheet of paper, then closed the drawer. A couple minutes later the drawer opened. The customer withdrew a hoagie, a Snapple and his change. He walked away. The drawer closed.
Across the street was a porn shop, which, unlike the deli, had doors and windows. I didn’t see a mark of graffiti anywhere on the storefront. Men of all races crept through the doors. Each man, whether entering or exiting, kept his head down, eyes on toes.
I hopped out of my Stingray, closing the door behind me. My car alarm activated, chirping twice. I jaywalked across the street.
Most of the row homes on this side of the street were boarded up. In the middle of the block, one home had collapsed. The two neighboring homes remained standing. Both homes only had intermittent walls where the center home used to stand. The row home on the left compensated for the missing sections of the wall by taping together trash bags. The row home on the right was a little more practical. They had thrown up Sheetrock. Juanita Rodriguez had lived in the row home on the left.
I knocked on the Rodriguez’s storm door. It was a white aluminum one, the type popularized by 1970s suburbia. On the middle of the door was a big, black plastic ornament: A family in a buggy.
I knocked again. No response. I waited. Nearby, gangsta rap blared, bass loud, thumping. I listened. Couldn’t tell if it was Tupak or DMX. Didn’t matter. Both were the millenium version of a minstrel show.
I opened the screen door. I was about to knock on the inside door when a frail female voice spoke from the other side of the plywood.
“Who’s there?”
“Ian Hahn,” I said. “I’m investigating the cell phone explosions. Joan Chen gave me your address.”
“Which station are you with?”
“I’m not a TV reporter.”
The door opened a crack.
“You sure you’re not a reporter?”
“Positive,” I said. “They told me I’m too good-looking for TV. You don’t think they were letting me down easy, do you?”
The door opened. I stepped inside.
I closed the plywood door behind me. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The woman who let me in shuffled towards the living room couch. Between the couch and the front door sat a combination end table/magazine rack. The end table part was littered with soda bottles and overflowing ashtrays; the magazine rack contained countless copies of Entertainment Weekly and The National Enquirer.
“Mrs. Rodriguez?” I said. She didn’t answer. My empath ability smelled curdled milk. That meant she was suffering from depression. Of course, you didn’t have to be an empath to figure that out.
Mrs. Rodriguez stared at her hands cupped in her lap. She wore a muumuu that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in months, armpit stains reaching her waist. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. Wrinkles ran from the corners of her mouth to her chin, indicating frequent frowning.
I sat on a white, plastic bucket across from Mrs. Rodriguez. The room was humid. Plants hung from the ceiling in front of every window.
Yelping emanated from the kitchen. In scooted a Chihuahua. It yelped at my feet, its tail wagging. I showed it my palm. It cocked its head then licked my palm. I patted it on the head and crossed my ankles while stretching out my legs. The Chihuahua scurried up my legs and sat on my lap. I pulled my feet in so the Chihuahua wouldn’t fall off. It panted. I petted it.
“His name’s Bitey,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.
“Bitey?”
“My daughter named him that cause he’s so friendly.”
“Ah, irony.”
Mrs. Rodriguez returned to staring at her lap.
I said, “You’re Mrs. Rodriguez, right?”
Her eyes bulged. “Who are you? How did you get in here?” She covered her collarbone with a meaty hand.
“I’m Ian Hahn. You let me in.”
“Oh.”
“Was Juanita Rodriguez your daughter?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Rodriguez said.
“Did Juanita use her cell phone a lot?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. She just got it.”
“Do—”
I didn’t finish my question. Mrs. Rodriguez began sobbing. She pulled out a used tissue from the sleeve of her muumuu. She dabbed her chubby cheeks. Her mouth opened. A film of snot and saliva stretched from lip to lip. It popped when she exhaled.
“She was a good girl,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “A good girl. Why would anybody want to do this?”
“Did she have any enemies?”
“Aren’t you listening? She was a good girl. Everybody loved her. Everybody. She didn’t have no enemies.”
“I understand, but—”
“What am I gonna do? I’m all alone. I have no one. No one.”
The Chihuahua hopped off my lap and jumped on the couch, snuggling against Mrs. Rodriguez’s side.
“Looks like you’re not alone,” I said, standing up and removing a business card from my wallet. “Here’s a phone number I think you should call. It’s a hotline that a nonprofit runs. They connect people with the right support groups. Give them a call.”
I placed the card on the arm of the couch. Bitey yelped at me.
“Right back at you, pal,” I said, then let myself out.
I returned to my office and settled behind my desk. It was still sunny. The radiometer on my windowsill whirled around as if possessed.
I pulled out my laptop computer from my bottom desk drawer. I booted up and clicked on the Word document titled CELL. It contained my notes from yesterday’s research at the library. I paged down to the end of it and typed in a summary of my visit with Mrs. Rodriguez. I left the file open and went online to put my hacking skills to use. A half-hour later, I tracked down contact info for families of the other cell phone victims. I spent the rest of the afternoon calling the families, requesting appointments. All were receptive to my intruding during their grieving period. I didn’t even have to mention that I was working for the city. The families probably wanted closure more than anything else.
After the last phone call, I saved the CELL file and shut down my computer.
I stood up and stretched. Another day, another part of the retainer spent.
I stared out the window. Down below, P.M. rush hour was in full effect. Pedestrians gabbed and jaywalked as cab drivers honked for the traffic light to turn green. A blind woman jaywalked with ease. She weaved through the standstill traffic as if sensing the location of each automobile.
I yawned. Time to go home.
I lived in South Philly, five blocks from the Italian Market. I loved living down here. It was a bit of a melting pot. Ninety percent of my neighbors were Italian, the rest black and Asian. Surprisingly, racial tensions weren’t too frequent. Occasionally, a fistfight might break out on a Friday night, but for the most part, everybody was polite and cordial to one another.
Whenever I told my family about a Friday-night fistfight, they would become completely melodramatic. My mother would say, “Ian, you such a good boy. Why you live in slums in South Philly. I don’t understand. Aiee!” And one of my sisters would say, “You’re fucked up.”
My family didn’t nag me too much about living down here because I planned to move back to Chinatown in a year or two. I moved out four years ago, in 1998, after graduating high school. I had moved to South Philly because while I loved Chinatown’s commerce and sense of community, it’s ultra ethnicity began to get on my nerves. That’s what I enjoyed the most about South Philly. I could cruise through the neighborhood and feel like I lived in America. Whereas Chinatown felt like a virtual Hong Kong. Imitation doesn’t always equal authenticity.
I entered my apartment and used my foot to close the door behind me. I tossed my keys and wallet on the bookcase to the left of the door. I walked through my large living room to the back of the apartment, where I had three rooms. The room on the left served as an office/den, the middle room acted as the guest bedroom, and my bedroom was on the right. I went into my office/den and placed my jacket over the desk chair. The walls of my office/den were lined with ceiling-high bookcases, packed with my DVD collection.
The phone rang. I picked up the cordless lying on top of my computer tower.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Hahn!” It was Mr. Limp.
“How did you get this number?” I said.
“Never mind that. You solve the case yet?”
I pulled the phone away and gave it a quizzical look, as if it was emitting alien transmissions. I must have held it away from my ear for a while because I heard Limp shouting: “Hahn, Hahn!”
I shook my head. Phone back against my ear, I said, “Did you just ask me if the case is solved?”
“What is there an echo in here? Yeah, did you solve it yet?”
I smiled into the phone. I knew what Limp was doing. Like countless authority figures before him, he was trying to exert control over me, the freelancer, by blindsiding me with the element of surprise. And, I had to admit, he had me by calling me at home. But the element of surprise had faded.
“Well?” Limp said.
“Well what?”
“Is the case solved?”
“What case?”
Limp sighed nasally. He must have been on a rotary phone. His sigh came through as if from a tin can.
“‘What case?’ he says,” Limp said. “That case I hired you for.”
“Oh, that case. I’m just getting started.”
“Just getting started? Just getting started! You’ve had two days already.”
“These things take time,” I said, smirking.
“The city doesn’t have time. Jesus drunk at the Last Supper, the mayor’s gonna have my balls nailed to a cross.”
“Listen.” I dropped all lightheartedness from my voice. “These things really do take time. You can’t just walk in and expect it to be solved at the drop of a dollar bill.”
“I thought your gift would’ve speeded things up,” Limp said.
“I’m an empath, not a telepath. There’s a difference.”
Limp groaned. “The mayor’s gonna kill me. I could lose my job over this.”
I said nothing.
“All right,” Mr. Limp said, “do the best you can do.”
“Nothing less,” I said and hung up.
Currently I sat at our mother’s dining room table. Across from me sat my sister Anne. The chair next to her was empty. My younger sister, Alex, was once again a no-show. Our mother was in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
Anne sipped her Bordeaux wine. Anne was older than I by ten months. We looked nothing alike. While I was built like a heavyweight boxer, Anne was petite, as if her last growth spurt was in junior high. The longstanding family joke was that she had been adopted.
Tonight, Anne’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a baggy, long-sleeve T-shirt that advertised the nonprofit she worked for. Tranquility.
“So, Ian,” Anne said, dimples in cheeks forming, “I hear you’re working on a new case.”
“Who told you that? Mother?”
Anne nodded.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m working for the city. Looking into those cell phone explosions.”
“Really?”
Now it was my turn to nod. “I spent the last two days interviewing families of the victims.”
“How’d that go?”
I shrugged. “About as well as you’d expect. Half of them were calm and rationale, while the other half were emotional and disoriented.”
“That goes without saying,” Anne said.
“It’s frustrating. I can’t find any real pattern in the explosions. They all took place within city limits, but not all of the victims were city residents. Three of the six victims were from the suburbs, and all six of them were from different class backgrounds. One was a blueblood from the Main Line, another a rich kid from Manayunk, three were middle class—two from the city, one from Southampton—and one was relatively poor.”
“Who do you think killed them?” Anne asked.
“I’m not sure any one person is behind it.”
“Do you think it’s a militia or something?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“Well,” I said, “I think it’s something paranormal.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there are no real leads.”
“Why did you even take this case, then?” Anne asked. “I thought you hated cell phones.”
“I do, but my opinion is inconsequential. People are dying needlessly. That’s not right. I can’t sit by and pretend to be a spectator, sitting on the sidelines, not caring. That’s just as wrong as committing a felony.”
Our mother exited the kitchen with arms full of bowls and platters. Anne and I jumped up.
“Jeez,” Anne said, “I wish you would’ve said something. We would’ve helped you.”
“No, no, no,” our mother said. “I manage. I manage fine.”
But our mother wasn’t managing, she was struggling. Anne wiggled the condiments from our mother’s fingers and I caught a bowl of carrots that slipped from underneath her arm.
We laid out the dinner. Besides the carrots, we were having applesauce, mashed potatoes, Pillsbury dinner rolls and meat loaf. Our mother wasn’t only infatuated with American movie stars, but with American food, too.
“Whew,” our mother said, “I’m bushed. That kitchen so unbelievably hot. Here, feel my forehead.” She grabbed Anne’s hand just as Anne was reaching to refill her wineglass. “Feel that, Annie? I’m burning up, huh?”
“Why didn’t you turn on the ceiling fan?” Anne said. “That’s why I had Jeff put it up there in the first place.”
Jeff was Anne’s husband.
“Oh,” our mother said, “I can’t cook with that fan. It so loud. Whoosh-whoosh. That the sound it make. Whoosh-whoosh. And every time I walk under the whoosh-whoosh, it mess up my hair. Bangs go in my eyes. I can’t see. And you know what else? It scares me. I’m afraid it going to fall from ceiling and like a…like a…like—Ian, what that movie with Christian Slater?”
“Pump Up the Volume?”
“No.”
“Heathers?”
“No.”
“Julian Po.”
“No. You know the one. The one where he flying around.”
“Broken Arrow?”
“That’s the one!” our mother said, jumping out of her chair for a second. “I’m afraid that fan going to fall on my head like a Broken Arrow.”
“Don’t you mean a helicopter propeller?” Anne said.
Our mother ignored the question and embarked on a monologue about how tired she was from cooking for us. This was a ritual at our mother’s. She wouldn’t let you help her cook dinner or set the table, but she’d spend at least five minutes complaining how hard she worked. My sisters and I were immune to the complaining. We learned long ago that it was best to let our mother vent. Interrupting her would only prolong the agony of the monologue. Alex, our younger sister, used to interrupt our mother’s monologues. That was back in her über rebellious years, circa high school.
We finished dinner. Anne and I congratulated our mother on her excellent cooking.
“Thank you,” our mother said, “thank you. It was nothing, really.”
After cleaning off the table and washing the dishes, Anne and I adjourned to the living room; our mother stepped into the bathroom.
Anne said, “A Mrs. Rodriguez called me on Friday.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I gave her Tranquility’s phone number. How’s she doing?”
“Okay. I transferred her over to one of the counselors. Is this Mrs. Rodriguez related to any of the cell phone victims?”
I nodded. “The Hispanic girl. Juanita.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I know.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute. This was a common occurrence for us. Our conversation would come to a halt, and we wouldn’t say anything for a while, but the silence wouldn’t bother us. It was a comfortable silence.
“I did some research on cell phones the other day at the library,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Anne said.
“I went to How Stuff Works-dot-com. They had a section on cell phones that said a cell phone is nothing but a sophisticated radio.”
“Makes sense. Like a CB radio, right?”
“Something like that. They said the cellular system in a typical city has about eight hundred frequencies—or cells.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s pretty complicated.”
“I can imagine,” Anne said.
Our mother stepped out of the bathroom. “Enough talking about that.” She stood in front of the TV and rummaged through a white, plastic bag. She pulled out a video rental.
After dinner every Sunday night, we watched a movie. We took turns making a movie selection. This week was my mother’s turn. Which meant that she rented a Hollywood movie dubbed in Chinese. She always did this. She claimed that watching a dubbed movie was an entertaining way to brush up on our Chinese. I think the real reason was so she could listen to her native tongue. Despite her love for all things American, she missed her homeland.
Tonight’s movie was The Sixth Sense. My mother inserted the video into the VCR. It swallowed the tape greedily, even though the labels on the tape were peeling off.
The movie started. I sat in the middle of the couch, sandwiched between my sister and mother. Anne fell asleep fifteen minutes into the movie. Couldn’t really blame her. For a blockbuster, it was lethargically paced.
Halfway into the movie, the phone rang. My mother picked up the remote, put the movie on pause and groaned for the phone.
The phone was on an end table, to the right of the couch. Next to the phone was a colorful lamp featuring a priest, a tiger and a dragon. Both the lamp and the phone sat on a doily.
My mother brought the phone to her ear. It slipped from her hand. She fumbled with it and brought it back to her ear.
“Hello.” Pause. “Hello. Oh, how are you?”
My mother listened to the caller. I tried eavesdropping, but all I heard was a tiny voice muffled in plastic. The voice stopped speaking.
My mother dropped the remote. It landed on the floor on one of its corners and held that position for what seemed an eternity. Eventually it fell forward. It bounced off the floor and flipped over, battery lid popping off.
I turned to my mother. “What is it?”
My mother mumbled into the phone before hanging up. She clutched her chest and bent over.
Anne stirred awake. “What’s going on?”
My mother squeezed her eyes tight, muttering a prayer in Chinese. Tears dripped off her cheeks. She grabbed my hand and said:
“It’s Joanie. She dead.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Her phone. It…”
What happened was that a cell phone exploded in Joanie’s face. The cell wasn’t hers, as reported by my mother; rather, it was a coworker’s. Apparently he was fooling around and forced the cell upon Joanie, when it blew up, damaging the right side of her face, leaving the coworker unscathed.
I stared down at Joanie in the hospital bed. She wasn’t dead, but in a coma. Most of the hair on the right side of her head was singed. Joanie’s ear was bandaged because the blast had chewed away at ninety percent of the skin. The blast had also given the entire right side of her face second-degree burns.
“I don’t believe this,” Anne said. She stood on the other side of the bed. My mother sat on the windowsill, weeping.
Mr. and Mrs. Chen entered the room. They were here when we arrived a half-hour ago, but quickly left.
Mrs. Chen was a diminutive fifty-year-old with a mini-beehive hairdo. A deep wrinkle marked her forehead, which wasn’t there a half-hour ago. She carried a small handbag, similar to the one Jackie Onassis sported when Kennedy was assassinated. Mrs. Chen clutched the bag’s handles, hugging it to her chest. She kept her eyes down.
Mr. Chen, a stocky man, stood next to his wife. Arms at his side, he wore his standard outfit: steel-tip black boots, Levi jeans and red-flannel, long-sleeve shirt. His face revealed no emotion. It was eerie. He usually was gregarious, walking around slapping people on the back as he told stories from his job at the shipyard. His current stoicism was a side of him I had never seen. Hopefully it was only temporary.
Joanie’s cardiac monitor beeped like an archaic video game; her heart rate read eighty. The monitor sat on a shelf above the bed. Next to the bed was a cart that held the ventilator, whose black accordion pumps rose and fell loudly, reminding me of Darth Vader.
When Joanie and I were ten, we saw the Star Wars trilogy for the first time. We watched it on a video bootleg that Joanie’s older brother had given us with a conspiratorial wink.
The bootleg was dubbed in Chinese—badly. But Joanie and I didn’t care. We were absolutely ecstatic to be finally catching up on a pop-culture phenomenon. We hadn’t seen the trilogy during its original theatrical run because we were only three years old when the third installment came out.
To this day, I still can’t believe how many Sunday afternoons Joanie and I spent watching that trilogy. Showtime would start at noon, usually at Joanie’s house; we watched it without any intermissions. After the umpteenth viewing, we grew bored of Luke Skywalker’s familial adventures in a galaxy far, far away. So Joanie and I started acting out our favorite scenes from the trilogy. We were both in the drama group at school, so reenacting scenes from Star Wars was no big deal. It was practice. At least that’s what we told each other.
Around my thirteenth birthday, we were acting out the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo and Princess Leia are fixing the Millennium Falcon. In character as Han Solo, I kissed Princess Leia (a.k.a. Joanie). It was supposed to be a quick kiss because Chewbacca interrupts them. However, as soon as our lips touched, we were no longer acting. We were Ian Hahn and Joan Chen, two friends in the midst of puberty.
The kiss was everything you’d expect from two kids with nascent interest in the opposite sex: Muted breathing, bumping noses and tongues wagging apprehensively. At one point, I moved to rest my hand on Joanie’s lower back. I only did this because I had seen it on a TV show the day before. Joanie didn’t seem to mind my hand resting there, so I let my hand drop a little lower. That’s when my parents walked in from food shopping. Joanie and I had been so engrossed in our kiss—the first kiss for both of us—that we didn’t hear my parents until they were well in the apartment. As soon as we heard my father clear his throat, Joanie and I jumped away from each other as if zapped. My parents tried not to grin. They suggested Joanie go home. She did. I helped my parents put away the groceries. Neither of them said anything about my hormones running amuck.
I picked a pillow feather off Joanie’s hospital gown. She remained still. Her cardiac monitor beeped a steady beat.
Anne whispered, “What are you grinning about?”
“George Lucas,” I said.
I stood outside the Bulletin in the same spot as five days ago where I had the confrontation with Frank the racist security guard.
Today it was drizzling. The drizzle descended from nimbostratus clouds at a slant, like a clip from Blade Runner. That analogy was especially apropos due to the afternoon’s dark clouds and the city’s gothic skyscrapers.
The drizzle collected on my eyelashes. I blinked away the precipitation and turned up the collar of my jacket.
A minute later, at one P.M., the person I was waiting for exited the Bulletin building. He was a couple inches shy of six feet and had a face full of freckles. His hair was fire engine red, combed down the middle. He wore a brown leather jacket. His name was Dennis Measly. My empath ability smelled skunk on him. Measly suffered from selfishness.
“Dennis,” I said.
“What’s up,” he said, walking away.
I caught up with him. We strode down the sidewalk like two coworkers on our way to a power lunch. We jaywalked across Broad Street to Noble Street.
“Ian Hahn.” I held out my business card to Measly. My card was the one with my name and contact info in English. I had two other kinds of business cards. One in Chinese, the other in Chinese and English. All three versions of my business cards had an emblem of a rifle crossed with a samurai sword. My sister Anne urged me not to put that emblem on my next batch of cards. She thought I was giving into a stereotype. I disagreed. There was nothing stereotypical about saluting your ancestors. If my business card had a picture of Charlie Chan, now that would be stereotypical.
Measly wasn’t taking my card, just kept on walking. I grabbed his arm.
“Hey, what the f—”
I inserted my card into his jacket’s breast pocket, then patted the pocket.
Measly, no longer walking, took my card out of his pocket without looking at it and tossed it into a nearby shopping cart overflowing with trash.
I took Measly by his lapels and threw him into a ten-foot-high chainlink fence. He bounced back. I elbowed him in the solar plexus. He doubled over, huffing under a sign from TJ’s Towing that stated it was illegal to park here.
I played with a hangnail as Measly attempted to catch his breath. He reached over to the left, to the side of a breakfast-and-lunch place called the Steak and Bagel Train, which was housed in an old train car, and painted green and vanilla. The Steak and Bagel Train went out of business years ago. Trifid-size weeds blocked the entrance and exit.
At that moment, I noticed a pigeon passing over Measly and me. I stepped away from Measly. The pigeon bombarded him with a mother load of white excrement. It splattered Measly’s shoulder, face and hair.
“Aw, fuck. Aw, shit, man. What the fuck!”
Measly tore off his jacket and pulled out a handful of packets from his pants pocket. Inside each packet was a wet towelette, the kind restaurants give you with a prime rib dinner.
“This type of thing happen to you often?” I asked.
“Fuckin A, man.” Measley wiped his cheek. The white excrement meshed in with his five o’clock shadow. The excrement had a purple tinge to it.
“Man,” Measly said, “I don’t believe this fuckin shit.” He ran a towlette through his hair. “Thank God I fuckin carry these around. Only reason I carry em is cause they’re a miracle worker after you fuck a chick. Sometimes a chick’s pussy is wider than the Grand Canyon. Know what I’m sayin? I’ll be fuckin her, but her pussy’s so big that I slip out and accidentally slip into her backdoor. That shit dirties you up, man, so I gotta clean up afterwards. These little doo-hickeys usually do the trick. Know what I’m sayin?”
“I hear you, Howard Stern.”
“Huh?”
“I hear you’re the one who shoved the cell phone in Joanie Chen’s face before it exploded.”
“Yo, man, like I told the cops, it was a accident. It wasn’t my fault. Bad timing. That’s all it was.” He finished cleaning up. “What are you, her brother?”
“A friend.”
“Look, I’m sorry she’s all in the hospital and shit, but—”
“Have you visited her?” I asked with force.
“Huh?”
“Have you hiked on down to the hospital and visited her?”
“Nah, man, that shit ain’t my scene.”
“Have you sent her flowers?”
“Uh…no.”
“Did you sign the card her coworkers gave her parents?”
“Um… I was out the day it went around.”
“Seems to me,” I said, “that you could care less what happens to her.”
“That’s not true.” Eyes down.
“What happened?”
“Shit, you’re the one who fuckin knows everything. What you askin me for?”
“I want to hear your side of the story. I read the police report, but cops are known to be chronically inconclusive.”
“All right.” Measly sighed. “There were about eight of us one day, hanging out in the caf. Chen—Joan Chen—said how she was never really fond of cell phones, and after writing all these articles lately, she’d probably never buy one. So I started joking around. I pulled out my Motorola and showed her how convenient it was. Then I put it against her ear and teased her.”
“Teased her how?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. I wasn’t there. Teased her how?”
“I said something like, ‘C’mon, Chen, it’ll make you feel good.’”
“What did she say?”
“You know,” Measly said, “something like, ‘No, I don’t want to.’ But she wasn’t moving away or anything, so I put it in her hand, then against her ear.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Well,” Measly said, “she started making fun of me.” His cheeks reddened.
I smiled. “What did she say?”
“It’s not important. Look, the phone exploded. She got hurt. End of story.”
“Want me to call my pigeon friends again?”
Measly flinched and looked up. He couldn’t see anything. It was still drizzling.
“I can do it,” I said, bluffing. “All I have to do is blink three times, real quick, like this.”
“Okay, okay, okay! Jesus Christ.”
“How did Joan make fun of you?” I asked.
He hesitated. I blinked twice.
“She pretended I was on the phone with a girl. She was saying stuff like, ‘Hey, baby, how’s it going? We still on for tonight? Of course I’m lookin forward to it. I’ve been thinkin bout you all day. Yeah, I’m gonna rock your world tonight. That’s right, baby. It’s gonna be me, you, and my small penis.’ Then she pretended the girl hung up on me, and that I was like, ‘Hello? Hello?’ That’s when the phone blew up.”
“So it wasn’t on?” I asked.
“Um…I’m not sure. Oh, wait. You know what. I think it was on. Yeah, it was. I remember the number pad glowing off her cheek. It only glows when you turn it on, you know.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Just that out of all of us at the table, she was the only one who got hurt. Her head absorbed most of the blast. It wasn’t a big explosion. It was small, like a firecracker.”
“Okay.”
“Can I go now?”
I nodded. It stopped drizzling.
I headed back to Chinatown. At Eleventh and Arch Streets I stopped at the kiosk newsstand for the afternoon edition of the Bulletin, since I missed the morning edition.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I said to Soong Ling, the newsstand proprietor.
“Not too bad,” Soong said. She sat in the back of the newsstand. The shadows obscured her wrinkly, weathered face. Soong had owned this newsstand for as long as I could remember.
Soong’s hours were a bit unusual. Almost every day she opened her stand at 5 A.M.; she closed at 7 P.M. on weekdays, 5 P.M. on weekends and holidays. Most newsstands in Center City closed at 5 P.M. on weekdays, noon on Saturdays, and no Sunday hours. Soong’s long hours helped her build a loyal customer base. They were the kind of relationships that routinely turned into friendships. Often, when a customer moved out of the area, they would keep in touch via letter.
I gave Soong Ling fifty cents for the paper and asked how her twin sister was doing. Soong said fine and asked about my mother. I told her she was doing well.
We exchanged a few more cordial questions. Afterwards, I headed for my office.
I checked the answering machine. No messages. Next, I opened the newspaper.
“Sonofabitch,” I said.
I read the article slowly, shaking my head in disgust.
“What a moron.”
I stuffed the paper under my arm and ran out the door.
Fifteen minutes later I stood in the city hall courtyard.
City hall had an interesting history. Like the library at Nineteenth and Vine, city hall took over thirty years to build. Construction began in 1878 and wasn’t completed until 1909. Halfway though construction, the technology changed, so they had to replace the gas lamps with electric ones. Today, city hall takes up four and a half acres at Fifteenth and Market.
I stood on the huge compass painted in the middle of city hall’s courtyard. In the center of the compass was a map of Philadelphia in its nascent days.
I looked up to a row of office windows on the second floor. A light was on. Mr. Limp’s office. He limped back and forth.
I headed for the nearest entrance. I climbed the first spiral staircase I came across. It seemed to float in the air because its granite steps were cantilevered from the wall.
Making a left out of the stairwell, I spotted Limp’s office. It was halfway down the hall.
Without knocking, I walked through the double doors of Limp’s office. I paused. Limp was higher up on the political food chain than I had realized. He had an office within an office. To the right was another set of double doors. To the right of those doors were a desk and a receptionist, the latter built like RoboCop.
RoboReceptionist was a frumpy forty-something with broad shoulders, meaty arms and thick legs. She wore a brown dress that was two sizes too small. The dress pressed against her skin in all the wrong places. Her stomach advertised three rolls of fat.
RoboReceptionist stood in front of Limp’s double doors.
“Out of the way,” I said.
She shook her head. She probably would have shaken it some more, except it looked like her glasses slowed her down. They had thick, tinted lenses in large black plastic frames. The frames reminded me of the kind Stephen King wears.
“Come on,” I said, “out of the way. I don’t want to have to pull out a jar of whup-ass.”
RoboReceptionist went on the defense by spreading apart her feet as far as her tight skirt would allow.
I shrugged and stepped away from her. She watched me, her head following me mechanically, like R2D2. I walked over to the double doors I had entered a few minutes ago. The left door was still open. I closed it. A few passersby in the hallway sneaked a peek.
I sat behind RoboReceptionist’s desk. It was a small desk, similar to the inexpensive ones the city forced upon schoolteachers. The desk had hollow metal legs, three drawers on the right side and a desktop covered in imitation-wood plastic.
RoboReceptionist still stood in front of Limp’s double doors, however, she was now at an angle, so that she could stand guard and keep an eye on me. Her arms hung at her sides like a gunslinger in a Clint Eastwood western.
I put my feet up on RoboReceptionist’s desk. Her teeming in-bin was in the way. I slid it over with the tip of my shoe. RoboReceptionist didn’t say anything, but her cheeks colored pink.
I stared at RoboReceptionist and put my empath ability to work. It picked up the smell of mildew. But I couldn’t tell if that was her current emotion or her personality type. I concentrated on deciphering if she was scared of me or of life. I couldn’t tell, so I decided to find out through the art of conversation.
“Why haven’t you called security?” I asked.
RoboReceptionist’s wide eyes zeroed in on the phone.
“Maybe you haven’t called them because you’re scared of what they might say,” I said. “Maybe they won’t come up. Maybe they came up before when there was a situation that you could have handled without them.”
She didn’t reply.
I said, “Have you always been afraid of what people think?”
Her shoulders sagged. I stood up.
“You’re what, forty?”
“Forty-four,” she said in a groggy voice.
“You’re too good for this place. You deserve better. It’s time to break out of your shell and book your own life. It’s time to quit relying on that putz, Limp.”
RoboReceptionist twiddled her thumbs. “I’m afraid.”
“This is what I want you to do. Go across the street to First Mutual Insurance. Do you know where that is?”
She shook her head.
“It’s the skyscraper on Sixteenth Street, between Market and JFK Boulevard. It has a big flagpole out front.”
“Oh.”
“Go down there and watch the employees leave for the day. You’ll see most of them leaving with expressionless faces. That’s because First Mutual is sucking all the joy and personality out of them. You don’t want to wind up like that.” I guided her to the door. “Just do it. I guarantee, after you see what drones they are, you’ll have the motivation to quit this job and go out on your own. Okay?”
“O—Okay.”
She waddled down the hallway. I closed the door behind her, knowing that she would return to this dead-end job tomorrow. She had been a wage slave for too long to become autonomous overnight. I pitied her. She was a victim of America’s classicist system.
I walked into Limp’s office. It was the size of a whale’s intestines. It had amber-colored carpeting, which was so plush that you felt like you were walking on marshmallows. The walls were decorated with framed posters of local sports heroes. From the ceiling hung a small but ornate chandelier.
Limp’s desk sat at the end of the office. I made a beeline for it. Felt as if I was working my way down a wide corridor. Halfway there, I glanced to the left at the row of windows I had seen from the courtyard. Each window had an inside ledge made of marble that was four feet wide and two feet deep. Only one of the windows was open. A pigeon flew by, followed by a bat.
I sat in one of the three black club chairs in front of Limp’s desk. He was on the phone. He glanced up and glared at me. I smiled. He returned to his call. I made myself comfortable in the chair. Both of my forearms rested on the arms. I placed my right ankle on my left leg, just above my bent knee. Limp finished his call.
“What’s up, boss?” I said.
“Whad’dya want, Hahn?”
“You should know why I’m down here.”
“No, I don’t. Why?”
“A little item in today’s paper.”
“Item? What item?”
“About the city forbidding Co-Ax to provide cell phone service.”
“Shit,” Limp said, almost to himself. “That damn publisher promised me that that story wasn’t going to run till tomorrow. Fuck, I got some serious damage control to contend with.”
“Do you really think not allowing Co-Ax to provide cell phone service is really going to solve the problem?”
“We wouldn’t have indefinitely suspended their license if we didn’t think the act was justified.”
“Cell phones are going to continue to explode. People are going to keep on dying or get hurt.”
“Is your gift telling you that?” Limp asked.
“No. Common sense.”
“Whatever. It don’t matter. It’s a done deal. Besides, our records show that Co-Ax was the carrier in ninety percent of the cases where a cell phone exploded. We’re confident we made the right decision. Oh, and incidentally, the city won’t be needing your services no more.”
“That’s irrelevant,” I said.
“How do you mean?”
“I’m going to continue working on the case.”
“Wha—Who’s paying you?”
“No one.”
“You’re going to do it for free?”
I nodded.
“But—but that’s lunacy. Who the hell works for free?”
“I do when innocent lives are at stake. Because obviously you and the mayor are more concerned with easy solutions than human lives.”
“Whatever,” Limp said. “Do what you want. It’s your dime. Have a ball.”
I smirked and moved for the door.
Limp mumbled, “Stupid punk,” then raised his voice: “I was wrong about you, Hahn. You’re not competent at all. You’re nothing but a idealistic kid who don’t know how the world works. I hope you enjoy putting yourself on the street!”
I left open both sets of double doors. From the hallway I heard Limp shout for his receptionist.
I strutted out of city hall and crossed the street to JFK Plaza, home of LOVE Park.
In LOVE Park was—appropriately enough—the vivid-red LOVE sculpture, which Philadelphia Art Commission chairman F. Eugene Dixon gave to the city in 1978. The LOVE sculpture was simple enough; the letters LO sitting on top of the letters VE, except the letter O was at a slant to show that love is never perfect.
I sat on a bench, Benjamin Franklin Parkway in view. Colorful flags of nations hung on the utility poles that lined the parkway. A mile down the Parkway, the Art Museum looked like a thumbnail.
I dwelled on Limp’s flawed logic. His solution to the cell phone problem was ludicrous. I couldn’t believe he thought shutting down Co-Ax was the answer to preventing more deaths. According to research I had gathered online, ninety percent of the cell phone explosions had Co-Ax as the carrier (just like Limp said in his office), however, if you looked closer at the data, you saw that only seventy percent of cell phone users in the city had Co-Ax as a carrier. Which meant that the remaining thirty percent of the city’s cell phone users had other carriers. You didn’t need to be a John Nash to see that cell phones would continue to explode. It may not be as frequent as before, but it would definitely happen. The nightmare wasn’t over. It was only on standby.
I hopped off the bench. It was dark. A few lampposts illuminated the night with a beige glow, but for the most part the crescent moon lit the way. Purple clouds tried blocking my view of the moon. However, the clouds were no match for the moon’s iridescence.
At 7:30 P.M., I walked into Graduate Hospital at Nineteenth and South Streets. The security guard behind the sign-in desk lumbered out of his squeaky chair.
“May I help you?” he said.
“I’m here to see Joan Chen. Room three thirteen.”
The security guard studied me. I returned the favor.
The security guard was close to seven feet tall. He had a fat, lower lip. His huge head had a buzzcut hairstyle. And his nametag read Daryl.
“Visiting hours are almost over,” Daryl said.
“Won’t take long,” I said.
Daryl’s bugged-out green eyes scrutinized me. He stroked his chin with one of his extra-large hands.
This happened to me a lot. Authority figures singled me out and gave me a hard time. I think my body language had something to do with it. Being a P.I. let me live life on my terms. I answered to no one, which most authority figures had trouble comprehending due to the hierarchy in their jobs.
Daryl said again that visiting hours were almost over. He then initiated a staring contest. I stared back. A TV in the corner aired Wheel of Fortune. Daryl and I continued our staring contest. Pat Sajak explained the rules of the game. Daryl cleared his throat and broke the stare.
“Visiting hours are over at eight,” Daryl said, glancing at his feet.
I took the stairs to the third floor, two steps at a time.
Joanie’s room was dark. It didn’t look like she had any other visitors. I turned on the lamp next to her bed. She showed no response to the lamplight. Nonetheless, I adjusted the lampshade. While doing so, I noticed a table next to the room’s window, which wasn’t here during my previous visit. Bouquets and get-well cards crowded the table. I tiptoed and saw that more bouquets and cards sat on the floor surrounding the table. Some of the bouquets had tall flowers, making that area of the room look like a shrine.
I stepped up to the bed. Even though the lamplight no longer shined on Joanie’s face, it did reflect off her white pillowcase. It almost looked as if she had a halo.
I placed my hand on Joanie’s scalp. The nurses had pulled Joanie’s hair back into a ponytail. Joanie never grew her hair long, so the ponytail was a short one.
With my hand on Joanie’s scalp, my thumb touched her forehead. Back in high school, when we were dating, she wore her bangs so that they touched her eyebrows. During our junior year, she followed the class-of-1998 trend of stiffening her bangs with hairspray. Consequently, her forehead broke out in acne. Tonight, however, her forehead felt smooth. Nice.
I quit caressing her forehead and placed my hands on the guardrail. I froze. My empath ability smelled a mixture of jasmine and rotten eggs. Only one person smelled like that.
“What’s up, Jeff?” I said.
Out from the corner stepped Jeff Chen, Joanie’s older brother. He wore a black turtleneck, his hair greased back. Jeff was short and stocky. He had his father’s oval face and his mother’s gray eyes.
“They treat her well here,” Jeff said.
“That’s good.”
“How are you, Ian?”
“All right. Yourself?”
“Been better.”
“How long you been standing there?” I asked.
“Time’s inconsequential. Out of all the things I taught you, I thought you would’ve at least remembered that.”
I didn’t reply. It was quiet, except for the pumping of Joanie’s ventilator.
“I’m surprised you didn’t smell me as soon as you came in,” Jeff said.
“You know my empath ability doesn’t always work when I want it to.”
“You should talk to someone about that. You should be controlling it, not the other way around.”
“Yes, Master,” I said sarcastically.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see how she was doing,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s a bit out of character,” Jeff said.
“How’s that?”
“Well, you did hurt her.”
“That’s your perspective,” I said. “Joanie doesn’t see it that way.”
“Too bad we can’t ask her.”
“Besides, that happened a while ago. It was what—five years ago?”
“When time’s inconsequential, four years feels like a few hours.” Jeff smiled. It was his trademark smile. The smile of a predator.
“So what brings you back to the city of brotherly love?” I asked.
“The gang in blue,” Jeff joked. He then answered seriously. “Dennis Measly.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“No. And you don’t either.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, brother Chen,” I said in my Reverend Al Sharpton voice.
Jeff ignored my stab at humor. “Something you don’t know, huh? How about that I know for a fact that these cell phone explosions aren’t the work of a madman.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Jeff shrugged. I knew not to inquire further. He wouldn’t tell me any more because he traveled in questionable social circles. He didn’t want anything getting back to him.
I motioned towards Joanie. “Has she moved at all?”
Jeff shook his head. “Still as a corpse.”
“What kind of phrase is that?”
“It’s just an expression,” Jeff said calmly.
“That’s not too fucking cool, comparing your sister to a goddamned cadaver.”
“Take it easy, Ian.”
“Fuck you, Jeffrey! She’s still alive.”
“All right.”
“Quit acting like she’s dead, cause she’s not. She’s only in a coma. She’ll snap out of it. Got it?”
“All right, all right. Simmer down.”
“I’m out of here,” I said and spun on my heel to stride out of the room. Jeff caught up with me in the hallway. He grabbed my arm.
“You know,” he said, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re still in love with her.”
“Oh please,” I said.
We stood in the middle of the bright hallway. Peripherally I saw nurses and patients edge around us. Down by the nurse’s station, a wheelchair squeaked.
“Do you?” Jeff asked.
“Do I what?”
“Still love her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.
Jeff let go of my arm. “Then why are you here?”
“Because she’s a friend,” I said.
“Just a friend?”
“Just a friend.”
“Then why are you getting so worked up?”
“Because you’re pissing me the fuck off.”
“Know what I think?” Jeff said.
I didn’t reply.
“I think—”
“Who cares what you think?” I snapped. “I’m here as a friend. I’ve known Joanie since we were kids. We’ve been friends for a long time. You know, friends: people who enjoy each other’s company. I know the idea of friends is an alien concept to you.”
Jeff looked at his feet.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was a low blow.”
Jeff sniffed. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Come on,” I said, “I’ll walk you down to your car.”
“Sure.”
We exited the hospital, neither of us saying a word.
Jeff dropped me off in Chinatown so I could pick up my car. I drove to my apartment. For dinner I nuked a Healthy Choice dinner, chicken teriyaki. While waiting for it to cook, I sipped from a can of Dr. Pepper and thought about my run-in with Jeff. I couldn’t believe I blew my cool. Then again, our exchanges had always been heated, especially that time after Joanie and I broke up.
The timer on the microwave went off. It beeped impatiently. I took out the Healthy Choice and tossed it on the counter. Steam seeped through the slits I had cut in the film cover. I took a gulp of my Dr. Pepper.
Did I still have feelings for Joanie? No, impossible. She was only a friend. That’s why I was still working on the case. Besides, the harder I worked on solving the case, the sooner the cell phone explosions would end. Then people could call family and friends without fear that their cell might blow up in their face.
Satisfied with my motivation, I ate my Healthy Choice. Afterwards, I went to my office/den and watched Tokyo Raiders on DVD. This was my fifth viewing of the cartoonish pic. The plot was so convoluted, I still couldn’t figure out what was going on. Nonetheless, it entertained me. I’m a sucker for original action sequences and Cecilia Cheung in leather.
The next day, my sister Anne had the day off from work. So we went shopping in Chinatown.
Presently, we stood next to the Friendship Gate at Tenth and Arch Streets. While Anne put on her face, I watched an interesting wind current at work around the Gate.
The front page from last night’s Bulletin was stuck in a vacuum. It flew over and under the roof of the Gate. After the fifth cycle, the paper folded in half and broke free from the vacuum. The paper unfolded itself as it zipped down Tenth Street. Then the strangest thing happened. The paper disintegrated. I shook my head.
Anne snapped shut her makeup mirror. The sound withdrew me from my reverie.
“Ready, Tammy Faye?” I said.
Anne stuck her tongue out at me and deposited her Revlon lipstick and mirror into her purple, velvet purse. She glanced at her reflection in the windshield of a curbside truck.
“Now I’m ready,” Anne said.
I mimicked a bow.
We turned the corner and headed up Tenth Street. Anne window-shopped. I studied pedestrians. Most were teenagers who moved in packs. Each pack jabbered and giggled in what sounded like code. Almost every pack jaywalked, oblivious to traffic patterns.
Anne stopped outside an antiques store. She gazed at the window display. I stared across the street at a van double-parked in front of an electronics store. Three workers formed a chain from the side of the van to the storefront. The workers, passing along portable Sony CD players, chanted an old Vietnamese tune, “Song of the Banyan Tree”:
“Let’s go up the hill
And take a seat under the banyan tree
Oh! This opportunity is wonderful
For us to watch the moon together.”
I stopped listening to the working crew. Anne was tugging me by the arm, urging me to accompany her into the antiques store.
Once inside, Anne navigated through the narrow aisles with the ease of a mouse on a cheese hunt. I stayed behind, finding a nook near the cash register. A sign on the glass counter said: YOU BREAK, YOU BUY.
“Ian,” Anne called from the back of the store.
I negotiated down one of the narrow aisles by walking sideways. Sometimes I wish I were skinny like pre-Spider-Man Peter Parker.
Anne called my name again. I reached the back of the store, but had trouble locating her because the ceiling lights glared off every glass item in the aisle.
“Look at this,” Anne said, “isn’t it beautiful?” She ran a hand across a lamp that was in the shape of an icicle. Instead of a lampshade, glass icicles dangled from the top, giving off enough wattage to illuminate several metropolises.
“What do you think?” Anne asked.
“Oh,” I said, “it’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
Drop-dead gorgeous was one of our mother’s favorite phrases. She’d been using it for years, ever since hearing it on Entertainment Tonight.
Anne quit ogling at the icicle lamp. She picked up a wooden China doll. Her thumb grazed the nose of the doll. I squatted next to an oversized ceramic dog. It was painted every color of the rainbow.
Anne put down the China doll. She stared into a glass case of Samurai chess pieces and said, “How’s your case going?”
“Not too well.”
“Why’s that?”
“Nothing’s really progressing,” I said.
“Thinking about giving up?”
I smiled. “Never give up, never surrender.”
“That sounds familiar. What’s it from?”
“Galaxy Quest.”
“Said the movie buff.”
We cruised the aisles some more. Anne stopped every ten seconds to inspect an item. She looked on the verge of buying a few things, but she put them back on the shelf after glancing at the price tags.
I asked, “Have you visited Joanie since last weekend?”
“No. Why should I? You’re the one still carrying a torch for her.”
“What!”
“C’mon,” Anne said, “we all know you still have a thing for her.”
“What kind of Edgar Allen opium have you been smoking?”
“Everybody seems to know it but you.”
“Jeez,” I said, “you sound like Jeff.”
“Jeff Chen?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s back in town?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” Anne said. “Never thought I’d see that happen. Is he still on the FBI’s most-wanted list?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He probably is, but I doubt if they’re actively looking for him. With the war on terrorism, I’m sure he’s a low priority.”
“That’s true. So what did he have to say?”
“Nothing much,” I said.
“So how’s it feel to have your mentor back in town?”
I shrugged.
“That much of an effect, huh?” Anne said.
“It’s no big deal. I mean, he taught me a lot that I use in my career choice, but I’ve learned some stuff on my own, too.”
“Like what?”
“Like he taught me everything you need to know about tae kwon do. But recently I’ve discovered that when I go into a fight, I shouldn’t go in with the intention of using my favorite moves. Instead, I should go in and be open to improvisation, depending on what kind of tricks my opponent comes up with.”
“Hmm,” Anne said.
With that, we moved on to other conversation topics, ranging from the mundane (self-help books on the bestsellers lists) to the worthwhile (blockbuster movies slated for DVD release). The topics broke Anne’s focus on shopping. She left the antiques store empty-handed. The owner/cashier scowled at us.
Outside, on Tenth Street, we stood on the sidewalk and discussed where to eat lunch. I was in the mood for Vietnamese and suggested the Vietnam Palace. Anne wanted Thai and voted for A Taste of Thai. We compromised and settled on the Viet-Thai restaurant Pho Xe Lua.
We stopped at the corner of Tenth and Race. We couldn’t cross Race Street. We had the red light and couldn’t jaywalk—traffic was too hectic and chaotic.
I looked to my left. A Buick Skylark sat at the red light on Race Street. The Skylark looked at least ten years old. It was the color of dinosaur dung, its hubcaps AWOL, and its rear bumper dented. Behind the wheel was Nikki from the Bulletin. Her windows were rolled up. Dance music pumped from her stereo. She sang along with the lyrics. Something about love, a man and Friday night.
Suddenly, the Skylark started bouncing around. It rocked from tire to tire, starting with the left-front tire, then to the left-rear, right-rear and right-front. That counterclockwise pattern continued. Nikki bounced around inside like a handball. The Skylark’s shocks and struts couldn’t take much more of this abuse.
I stepped forward. Anne grabbed my arm.
“Ian, no!”
I slipped out of her clutch. She retreated to a store’s entranceway, hiding under the yawning.
But my services weren’t needed. The Skylark quit bouncing around with one final, showstopping bounce. The front end rose off the ground and hovered for several seconds before crashing down, popping the hood.
Nikki lumbered out and stared at her Skylark. The windshield was cracked.
By this point, pandemonium had broken out on the street. Mothers clutched their babies to their chests. Drivers hopped out of their moving vehicles and ran into stores. And an old man clutched his hair and shouted, “It’s judgment day!”
Anne touched my elbow. “What just happened?”
“Looks like—”
I was interrupted by a voice behind us.
“You need to come with me,” Jeff Chen said.
“Oh, hi Jeff,” Anne said.
“Hello, Anne,” Jeff said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We don’t have much time,” Jeff said.
“All right.” I turned to Anne. “You going to be okay getting back?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” I said to Jeff, “let’s go.”
I hopped into Jeff’s Firebird; the white vinyl felt warm. Jeff’s hand fell on the stick shift. He took the car out of park. Soon, Chinatown was nothing but a window-shopping memory. The Firebird raced down Broad Street, as if in a drag race. Jeff ran red lights at every opportunity.
“You’re not worried about being pulled over by the cops?” I asked.
“Should I?”
“If I was wanted by the Feds, I wouldn’t be breaking traffic laws. You might as well hang out in front of the post office.”
“You’re right.” Jeff slowed down at the next yellow light. “We don’t have a lot of time to kill, but I can’t afford to get pulled over. Not now, at least.” He smiled. “So I guess the student is schooling the teacher.”
“You got it, grasshopper.”
We drove a few blocks, neither of us saying anything. Jeff drove without the radio on, just like in high school. He had always claimed he did his best thinking while driving, and the radio acted only as a distraction.
“How’s Joanie?” I asked. “Any improvement?”
Jeff shook his head. “The same.”
I recognized the neighborhood we were in. “We going to my apartment?”
“No. Somebody wants to see you.”
“Friend or foe?”
“Somewhere in between.”
We pulled up in front of the Subway sandwich shop on the 2800 block of West Girard Avenue.
Jeff and I walked into the Subway. A ten-year-old was behind the counter. Upon seeing us, he stood erect and stepped back until he bumped into the wall. His eyes darted around like a panicky bunny.
“Time for your lunch break,” Jeff said, holding the door open.
“But I just got off my break a half-hour ago,” the kid said, voice cracking.
“Take your lunch.”
The kid looked at me, Jeff, then the door. Before you could say minimum wage, the kid ran through the doorway. Jeff locked the door behind the kid and flipped over the OPEN FOR BUSINESS sign. CLOSED.
With the kid gone, I noticed someone sitting in a booth in the back of the dining room, by the bathroom. Sunlight glared off the tables, obscuring the man’s face. Not that it mattered. I knew who it was without even needing a clue from my empath ability.
“What’s going on, Ange?” I said.
“Sit,” Angelo Sintanelli said.
I hopped into the booth, planting my butt on top of the seat and placing my feet on the cushion. Jeff didn’t join us. He folded his arms and leaned against the bathroom door.
Sintanelli stared at me, his chin down. Perspiration dotted his creased forehead. His Pillsbury Doughboy cheeks were pink.
“What’s up, freak?”
Sintanelli never used traditional ethnic slurs. Instead, he had his own personal euphemisms. He called blacks fuckheads, Hispanics dipshits and Asians freaks.
“What’s up, Ange?” I said, scooting down to sit in the booth. I stretched out, my shoulders resting against the windowsill. The paper-thin curtains were closed.
“So how’s business?” I asked.
Sintanelli answered by dropping his head into a bag of cocaine on the table. He sniffed the Bolivian Marching Powder through the beheaded portion of a flexible straw, which was candy-striped and no more than three inches long.
“I wanna talk to you,” Sintanelli said.
“What about?”
“Those fuckin cell phones.”
“Ah, well, when you put it so eloquently, how can I resist.”
Sintanelli ignored my wisenheimer remark. He dabbed the coke and brushed his teeth. I turned on my empath ability. Sintanelli’s personality smelled as it always had. Like horse manure. Like every other mobster I had ever met.
Angelo Sintanelli was a principal player in the Philly mob. He oversaw the drug-trafficking portion of the business. If you purchased illegal drugs within city limits, chances were Sintanelli pocketed at least a quarter of your money.
Sintanelli played with his flexible straw. He flexed it, unflexed it.
“So,” Sintanelli said, “my little brother’s walkin home from school the other day, right?”
“Antonio?”
“Yeah, Antonio. I only got one brother, freak.”
“Hey,” I said, “how do I know? I haven’t seen you in a while. Maybe your life has gone all Days of Our Lives. Maybe a new sibling has come into your life, a stepbrother or something, the lovechild between your mom and a rogue FBI agent.”
“Anyway,” Sintanelli said, “Antonio’s coming home from school one day. He pulls out his cell phone when—WHAM!—his phone goes fuckin flying out of his hand.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It happened right outside our house. He says just as he was about to put the phone against his ear, his whole entire arm started shaking and the phone flew out of his hand as if being pulled by a magnet or something.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Nah. He’s fine. He’s a good kid. Tough. Like his older brother.”
“Who? Oh, you mean you.”
“Stop,” Sintanelli said with a straight face. “You’re killing me.”
“I take it you didn’t tell the cops about this little incident?”
“The cops? Fuck no! What do I look like, a moron? That’s all I need. They’ll come barging into my house, saying they’re ‘investigating’ and shit, and tear the fuckin place apart. Fuck that.”
“How do you know I won’t tell them?”
“You, freak? Never’ll happen. You hate em almost as much as I do. Or did you forget what they did to your Dad?”
“I remember. What else can you tell me about your brother?”
“Nothing much. Just that he said he heard a weird sound while his arm was shaking, just before the phone flew out of his hand.”
“What kind of sound?”
“He said it sounded like how lightsabers sound in Star Wars when they’re waving em around before a big battle.”
“So almost like a humming sound?”
“I guess.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Go to WXYZ in Bensalem.”
“The sports radio station?”
“Uh-huh,” Sintanelli said.
“Why? What’s there?”
“The answers to all your questions. They’re all there.”
I glanced at Jeff. He nodded.
Once again, I sat in the passenger seat of Jeff’s Firebird. We sped up an I-95 entrance ramp.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“To WXYZ.”
“You don’t have to go, you know. I can handle this myself.”
“I know,” Jeff said, “but I’m not doing anything today.”
I smirked. “No crimes to perpetrate?”
Jeff slammed on the brakes. The Firebird screeched over to the shoulder. Luckily, no vehicles were behind us.
“Look,” Jeff said, “why do you keep thinking I’m some sort of criminal degenerate?”
“Because you’re wanted by the FBI.”
Jeff took his foot off the brake, merged with the traffic and said, “Did it ever occur to you that I might never have killed that narc. That it’s a case of mistaken identity.”
“It’s possible. But you have an inclination for violence. You may not have killed him, but you have murdered in the past. And that’s not right.”
“So, what, you’re passing judgments now?”
“No, but I know right from wrong, and you continually choose wrong over right.”
“That’s pretty hypocritical, Ian.”
“How’s that?”
“You break laws and moral codes left and right when it fits your purposes.”
“I have broken the law,” I said, “but only when I have to—for my client’s sake. I’ve never done anything immoral for profit or personal gain. And I’ve never killed anyone.”
“No, not yet. But you’re still young. There’s plenty of time to fuck up.
“See, when I was about fourteen, I thought like how you do. Even though I wasn’t a detective or anything, I would still rationalize my behavior. Me and my buddies would break into a school and steal shit, and I’d say to myself, ‘Okay, so I just stole some rare books from the library. I’ll sell em and give the money to the church or something.’ But you know what. That never happens. Before you know it, you’ve spent all the money on girls or a night clubbing down on Delaware Ave. Then you’re broke again. You don’t want to get a real job cause the only kind you can get is a menial retail gig where you’re paid less than minimum wage. So you go on another spree with your buddies, then another one and another and another. Eventually you get a reputation. Next thing you know, you’re doing some work for the Mafia and the Triad. You’re not a soldier or anything…”
“You’re a freelancer,” I said.
“Right. You’re freelancing for loan sharks, where all you have to do is rough up some late payers. You do that for a while. Then, one day, you get the word. One of the customers owes an astronomical amount of money. He isn’t making any attempt to pay it back, and he’s got no collateral the mob can swipe outta him, so your boss—the loan shark—he comes around and says that this customer needs to be made an example of. It’s my job to kill him.” Jeff winced at the word kill. “So you go around and off the deadbeat. You do it quick so your conscience doesn’t get the better of you. Afterwards, you go over to one of the girls you been seeing. You fuck her so hard that there’s not one iota of love in it. You’re so primal that if she weren’t such a nympho, it might be called rape.”
“And that’s why you left Philly.”
Jeff nodded. “I’m not telling you all of this to show you what a badass I’ve been. I simply want you to see how immoral behavior tends to snowball until you’re living an amoral existence.”
“I know,” I said.
“Do you? Let me tell you something. No matter how honorable or chivalrous you think you are, you’re not immune to being a flat-out criminal.”
“So what have you been doing the past five years?”
“A little bit of everything. I started saving money when I was still doing stuff for the Mafia and Triad. I had a nice little nest egg, so I didn’t have to hustle or anything for a few years.”
“That’s cool.”
“Of course, I did eventually have to lower myself and get a real job.”
“Shut up,” I said, smiling.
Jeff smiled back. “I forced myself to. I saw it as a step in putting my thug past behind me in order to become a human being again.”
“What did you do?”
“At first I worked in a record store, but that got to be a little too tedious.”
“Where was that?”
“Somewhere out west. After I quit that, I moved to Florida and got a job at a marina, doing odd jobs. I actually enjoyed that. You’d bust your ass for three weeks, then chill for a week or two—a little paid downtime. I liked that.”
“Remind you of the old days?”
“Perhaps,” Jeff said.
“So if you’re clean and sober, ethically speaking, how come you’re still palling around with the likes of Sintanelli?”
Jeff shrugged. “Old habits die hard.” He cleared his throat. “I hang out with them, but I don’t join up on any of their jobs. Besides, if I didn’t socialize with Angel, you’d never gotten this lead.”
“I don’t know about that. I probably would’ve stumbled across it eventually. Sintanelli has just speeded things up.”
“Hey, Ian.”
“Yeah.”
“Denial isn’t only a river in Egypt.”
I laughed.
The Firebird got off I-95 at the Woodhaven exit. Jeff drove towards Bensalem. At 2:45 P.M. he parked on a side street, tires kissing the curb.
Across the street loomed WXYZ.
It started drizzling. Raindrops dotted the windows. I rolled down the passenger window for a better look at WXYZ. It didn’t look like your typical radio station. Instead of an office building, it had set up shop in a house. The house was painted dark pink. That was odd in itself. (Except for Blake Edwards, who paints their house pink?) Even odder was that there were no other houses on the block. It looked as if other houses, at some point, stood on the block; you could see the outlines of foundations.
Jeff leaned over. “Whad’dya think?”
I expanded my cheeks and sighed. “It’s unique. I’ll give you that.”
“True.”
“Come on,” I said, “let’s go over and do some door-to-door sales.”
We stepped out of the Firebird. The drizzle shifted into a fog.
“Need a box?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah.”
Jeff unlocked the trunk and pulled out an unmarked cardboard box. It was bigger than a shoebox, but small enough to tuck under your arm. Because as every P.I. knows, the easiest way to gain entry into a business is to carry a box and say you’re making a delivery.
We walked across the street towards the pink house. On the lawn was a sign for WXYZ. Made of wood, it was dark green with the call letters in yellow. From the bottom of the sign protruded two posts, which were planted in the weed-like grass.
On either side of the house were two dish antennas. They looked like the kind NASA owns, the ones used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, except these two antennas weren’t NASA. Unusual lettering was penciled on them. A foreign language. Arabic, perhaps.
Both satellites whirled around frantically. I couldn’t believe how fast they moved. Each one was a story tall and had to weigh at least a ton.
We reached WXYZ’s front porch. The steps and the porch were painted light blue. The porch railing wasn’t painted. It had recently been sanded.
“This house remind you of anything?” I said.
“Like what?” Jeff said.
“Movie.”
“Um…”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s so easy.”
“House on Haunted Hill?”
“Nope.”
“House of Yes?”
“No.”
“House Party 3?”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“Welcome to the Dollhouse?”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s so simple.”
“Well?”
“House.”
“House?” Jeff said.
“House.”
“Don’t think I ever saw it.”
“It’s some eighties movie.”
“Don’t remember it,” Jeff said.
“It’s not too bad. I caught it on cable one night. It’s a wacky little horror-comedy with a bunch of TV actors. It must’ve done pretty well at the box office because they did a sequel, which wasn’t that bad—as far as sequels go.”
“What was it called?”
“House 2.”
“Ooo,” Jeff said, “original.”
“I rented it after I saw the first one. The night I rented it was when you jumped me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I rang the WXYZ doorbell. The front door opened. The screen door stayed closed.
“May I help you?” said the man behind the screen door. He had piebald hair and a protruding chin. He looked like a cross between Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Clintonegger had Clinton’s face and Schwarzenegger’s build—if Arnold quit exercising and let the bulk turn to flab. Clintonegger looked to be about forty years old.
“Hello, my name’s Ian, and this is Jeff.”
I decided not to use the deliveryman ruse. My empath ability smelled cinnamon on the man on the other side of the screen door. That meant one of his major personality traits was honesty.
Clintonegger cleared his throat, as if he spent most of his days not speaking. “What can I do for y’all?” A slight Southern accent.
“We’re looking into the recent cell phone events,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, “and we’d like to ask you some questions.”
Clintonegger stood there for a moment, obviously mulling it over. Finally, he shrugged. “Sure. Come on in.”
Clintonegger deadbolted the door behind us. We stood in the foyer. To the right was an oak staircase; to the left, a hallway that looked like it led to a living room. We followed Clintonegger down the hallway. He stopped midway.
“Where are my manners? I’m Steve Stern, by the way.”
We shook hands, Jeff and I introducing ourselves.
“Nice to meet you,” Stern said.
“Likewise,” Jeff and I said simultaneously.
We entered the living room, which also served as an office area. On the left was a leather sofa and a coffee table, the latter supporting mounds of sports magazines. On the right were two desks, one cluttered, the other clean. Behind the desks was a room with the light out—probably what used to be the dining room, now more office space.
Jeff and I sat on the couch. Between the couch and the two desks was a wall-length window with a Baroque border. Outside, the fog had lifted to make room for a rainstorm. Raindrops bounced off the window with a ferocity that Mother Nature hadn’t shown in a while.
Stern stood in front of the window. “This is the WXYZ office. What do y’all think?”
“It’s nice,” I said. “Quaint.”
“Can I get you two anything?”
We requested soda. Stern ran in the back.
I whispered to Jeff, “Notice anything?”
“Yeah. The longer we’re here, the more friendly he becomes.”
I nodded.
Stern returned with our drinks. Dr. Pepper for me, 7-Up for Jeff. Both in cans.
Stern sat on the desk cluttered with paperwork and compact discs. He pointed at the other desk, the immaculate one.
“That’s the temp desk, in case y’all was wondering,” Stern said. “Once a week we have a temp worker come in and tie up loose ends for us. She does a little of this, a little of that. You know, what temps are supposed to do.”
“How big is your staff?” I asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Oh, no, I don’t mind. It’s just me. The temp’s my only help.”
Stern’s Southern accent was out in full force now. It was a bit strange. You didn’t hear Southern accents everyday in Philly, not unless you watched Brett Butler or Jeff Foxworthy reruns.
“Mr. Stern,” I said, “are—”
“Steve, Steve! Please, call me Steve. All my friends do.”
“Okay. Steve.” I suppressed a smirk. Jeff did, too.
“Do you own WYXZ?” I asked.
“I have a silent partner,” Stern said. “Say, would y’all want to take a tour of the place.”
“Sure,” we said.
“Good, good. I’ll give you the two-dollar tour. I’d give you the three-dollar tour, except the place ain’t that big. Besides, ain’t no such thing as a three-dollar bill.”
We followed Stern upstairs. He was right. The place wasn’t that big. The second floor—a.k.a. the top floor—had a narrow hallway with a small bedroom at one end and a modest bathroom at the other end. The stretch of the hallway had a railing on the left side and two doors on the right. Both doors were open. Stern walked through the door on the left. Jeff and I walked through the door on the right. We entered a DJ’s booth. We saw Stern in the other room, a recording room. Soundproof glass separated the rooms. Stern waved and grabbed a microphone attached to a wall-mounted arm. His voice reverbed through the speakers in the DJ’s booth.
“What do y’all think?”
I gave Stern a thumbs up, then examined the speakers. Chained to the ceiling, they were gigantic. Two hung from the corners in the DJ’s booth and two hung from the corners in the other room.
Stern appeared behind us. He stroked one of the speakers. “These babies are Marshall JCM900s—the best of the best. I bought em from Steve Earle himself.”
“Who?” I said.
“Steve Earle. He’s a singer-songwriter from Nashville. Plays alternative country. He sold me these little doohickeys back in ninety, back when he was still having trouble with the dope.” Stern imitated a junkie shooting up heroin.
“Never heard of him,” I said.
“He’s one of those singer-songwriters who’s a darling of music critics. He’s got this one great song called ‘Devil’s Right Hand’. I’ll have to play it for you when we go back downstairs.”
In the corner, Jeff tilted back in an office chair. “We on the air now?”
“We are, but nobody can hear us. We only play rebroadcasts of memorable games and matches. Do you listen to the station?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“I’m not much of a sports fan,” Jeff replied.
Abruptly, Stern picked up a ticket stub from the console. “Let’s go back downstairs.”
Stern ushered us down to the foyer and blocked the path to the living room. I turned towards the closed front door and peeked through the rectangular window to the right of it. Through the mosaic glass I saw that it had stopped raining. Still cloudy, though.
“So,” I said to Stern, “what can you tell us about the recent events concerning the cell phones?”
“Nothing much. Just what I seen on the news.”
I called on my empath ability. It no longer smelled cinnamon on Stern. My empath ability smelled something, but it was too faint to label.
“We were told you might know something about the cell phone explosions,” I said.
“Who told you that?” Stern shot back.
“A mutual friend.”
“Well,” Stern said, playing with the ticket stub, “I don’t know who would say such a thing, but golly, I don’t know nothing about no cell phones.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Positively positive?”
“Look,” Stern said, crumbling the ticket stub, “I have a lot of work to do. If y’all don’t mind…” He moved for the front door.
I glanced at Jeff. He grinned.
“Thanks for your time,” I said. “I enjoyed the tour. It was absolutely riveting.”
“My pleasure.”
Jeff and I stood on the porch, door slammed behind us.
“What’cha do that for?” Jeff asked.
“Do what?”
“Say the tour was ‘absolutely riveting.’”
“Doesn’t matter. He was going throw us out no matter what. Might as well have a little wise-guy fun. Besides, he didn’t get the joke anyway.”
We walked towards the Firebird. The rain had reverted to a drizzle.
“That about-face of his makes you wonder,” Jeff said.
“Yeah,” I said, stopping. Jeff continued to the Firebird. I stood on the cement path, next to the WXYZ sign. My thumb tapped my chin.
“You coming?” Jeff asked from the driver’s seat.
I stopped tapping my chin and hopped into the Firebird. “What do you think, stakeout?”
“But of course,” Jeff said.
The engine turned over. We drove away. I adjusted the mirror on the passenger-side door and watched WXYZ. One of the dish antennas was visible. It twirled around in frenzy.
Jeff and I decided to alternate staking out WXYZ. Jeff took the first shift.
I stood in my office, contemplating what to do. Should I go home and take a nap until I relieved Jeff at midnight, or should I hit the streets of Chinatown and socialize? I chose the latter. But first I needed lunch. I walked down to the Reading Terminal Market.
The Reading Terminal opened in 1892 as a market and a railroad station. In the 1970s, the railroad went bankrupt, resulting in an expansion of the market. Today, the Terminal housed about fifty merchants who sold books, crafts, clothing, flowers, meats, fish, groceries, fresh produce, baked goods and ethnic foods. Each week, 80,000 Philadelphians and tourists passed through the Terminal, making it the third most popular city attraction behind the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
The Reading Terminal had always been hectic during lunch—more crowded than a rush-hour subway car. You couldn’t move an inch without brushing or bumping into fellow patrons. But now that it was midafternoon, the lunch crowd had dispersed. The Market still hustled and bustled, but at least you had room to move. I approached the booth that called itself Centennial Seafood.
“What can I do for you, my friend?” said the merchant behind the counter. He had olive skin, drooping eyelids and a handlebar mustache. He looked like a ringmaster from a nineteenth-century circus.
Since I didn’t immediately answer P.T. Barnum, he asked, “What do want, what can I do for you?”
“I’m still deciding,” I said. “Why don’t you help that woman over there.”
His eyelids drooped in acknowledgment. He moved down the counter to a businesswoman biting her unpolished nails. He asked her the same question, this time slapping his hand on top of the glass display case.
P.T. Barnum returned to me a couple minutes later. I ordered a pound of jumbo shrimp, cut and peeled. He shoveled the shrimp into a clear plastic bowl, then tossed it on the counter. When I paid him, he yelled, “Next!”
I walked away, nibbling on my meal. I dropped a shrimp tail into the bowl’s lid when a pudgy woman ran into me. The fountain soda she was carrying flew out of her hand as if yanked by a string. The soda splashed onto P.T. Barnum’s display case. Soda ran down the glass in a waterfall effect.
“You stupid woman!” P.T. Barnum yelled. “Look what you done! You Americans are all alike.”
“Easy there, P.T. Barnum,” I said. “It was an accident. She didn’t do it on purpose. No reason for you to get all hateful.”
“Look at my case,” he whined. “It’ll be so sticky now. Customers will walk right by and think I’m a slob. And no matter how much I Windex, it won’t go away.”
“Relax,” I said. “Give me a cup of water.” He did so but muttered in protest. I took the cup, grabbed a handful of napkins and wiped the soda off the case.
“There,” I said. “See? Like new.”
P.T. Barnum grumbled towards a new customer. I threw the napkins and cup into the trashcan behind the counter.
“I’m really sorry about that,” said the pudgy woman.
“Not a problem. That kind of stuff happens in cramped quarters like this.” I stopped. “Kim?”
“Ian? Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“OhmyGod!” Kim Hom scratched her forehead. “This is too weird. I don’t believe it.”
I didn’t reply for a simple reason. Kim’s weight hypnotized me.
Kim had always been big. Back in high school she controlled her weight by dieting and exercising religiously. Obviously she had lost that discipline in the four years since we graduated. Now she was borderline obese. Most of the weight was in her face. The weight had transformed the shape of her face from oval to round. The weight was also working on giving her an extra chin. It hadn’t fully formed yet. Now it was nothing but an extra crease above the larynx. Give it a few years and she’d be looking like Margaret Cho.
“Let’s get you another drink,” I said.
“Oh no, that’s okay.”
“What were you drinking?”
“Sprite, but you really don’t hav—”
“I’ll be right back.”
I returned with two Sprites. They were in green, plastic bottles.
Kim thanked me for the soda. She took baby sips.
We sat at a four-foot-high round table and launched into small talk. I noticed Kim still had the same mannerisms from high school. Animated speech, emphatic gestures and pretending to chomp on bubble gum when at a loss of what to say.
At a pause in our conversation, I dipped into a habit of mine: scanning my surroundings. A few potential patrons waltzed up and down the aisles. Nothing suspicious.
I asked Kim, “Do you have to get back to work or anything?”
“Oh no. I mean, I do but it’s no rush.”
“Still working at your parents’s restaurant?”
“When I can. It’s tough. They’re so busy, they want me there every day, but I can’t. I’m going to Community now.”
Community College of Philadelphia.
“I know a couple people who go there,” I said. “We’ve been trying to get my little sister to go.”
“Anne?”
“Alex.”
“Oh.”
“She’s pretty stubborn about it. Thinks an education is a liability, not an asset. Her big line is: ‘School doesn’t do anything to make you rich. If you want money, you gotta get out there and hustle.’”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yeah. I’d be happy if she only took one class a semester.”
Kim nodded sympathetically.
“What are you taking up there?” I said.
“Space mostly. A lot of space, actually.”
I smiled politely.
“As you can see,” Kim said, “I’ve gained a lot of weight.”
I didn’t reply. Kim fiddled with her soda bottle. She pulled off the ring from the bottle’s mouth.
“Back in school,” she said, “I used to work so hard on my figure, but I can’t seem to do it anymore, you know? Remember what your mom used to call me? Pleasantly plump. I used to take real pride in that. Now… Now I can’t seem to stop eating. And you know why? Because of Joanie.”
“You heard she’s in the hospital, right?”
Kim nodded.
“Have you visited her?” I asked.
“I can’t. I tried. I just can’t.”
“You should.”
“I know,” Kim said. “It’s tough. That stupid Hom sense of pride keeps me from going down there. Me and Joanie haven’t spoken in over five years. I’d feel weird going down there.”
“Go down and see her. You never know, maybe you talking to her might snap her out of that coma.”
“I don’t know. It would feel too weird, you know, after what happened.”
What happened was that Kim and Joanie had a major falling out. In our junior year, a tension formed between them, straining their ten-year friendship. I think the tension was an effect of the stress both were experiencing from preparing for their PSATs. Whatever the cause, the tension hit the breaking point at a Saturday-night party, right before Christmas break, in a mini-mansion in the affluent suburb of Manayunk. In the middle of the party, Kim and Joanie began arguing over the most trivial of topics. Makeup. Joanie wanted to borrow Kim’s lipstick. Kim said she had left it at home. However, five minutes later Kim was going through her own pocketbook when her tube of lipstick fell to the floor. I still remember watching the lipstick drop. It hit the floor with a thud. The cap popped off and rolled across the hardwood floor. The head of a nail, sticking up an eighth of an inch, stopped the cap. After the cap came to a complete stop, Joanie called Kim an “obese cunt,” while Kim shouted sentences that began and ended with the word “fuck.” Pretty soon their verbal assaults got personal. Joanie broadcast that Kim was still a virgin and would probably die that way; Kim shot back that Joanie couldn’t hold onto a man, even if she knocked one unconscious. Then it got real ugly. Kim and Joanie leapt at each other like two female bikers in a Roger Corman flick. Their catfight was pretty intense. It took me several attempts to pull the clawing Joanie off Kim.
Kim took a swig of her Sprite. “Joanie was the best friend I ever had. I miss her so much. All I ever do is eat anymore. Look at me, I’m a cow!” She sniffed. “I feel like a part of me is dead. And all because me and Joanie let the little things build up into a fight over a stupid tube of lipstick.”
“Go see her,” I said.
“I can’t,” Kim whined. “I’m—”
“Go. See. Her.”
“I have to go.”
“Listen,” I said, “you need to make the first move. You got no other choice. Joanie can’t. She’s in a coma.”
“I have to go.”
I grabbed Kim’s elbow. “Kim.”
“Let me go,” she said. “I—They need me back at the restaurant.”
I let go of her elbow. She hopped out of her chair. It caught hold of her pants pocket. She tried shaking off the chair. It hung on like a needy child. Kim danced with the chair. It would have been comical, except for the look of panic on her face.
I stood up and placed my hands on Kim’s shoulders. The chair let go of her pocket. She started shaking. She cried.
“I’m so lonely,” she said.
“Come on,” I said, “I’ll walk you to the restaurant.”
After walking Kim to her parents’s restaurant, I went back to my apartment. I took a nap until 10:30 P.M. At 11 I turned on the idiot box and watched a rerun of Mad TV. The closing skit featured Miss Swan, the Asian-American who speaks in broken English. I found no humor in the skit. Using a stereotype as a vehicle for comedy wasn’t my idea of funny. I couldn’t believe the Organization of Chinese Americans or the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium hadn’t launched a campaign against the character.
Halfway through the racist skit, I turned off the TV and stormed out of my apartment. By the time I reached the stakeout, I had cooled off. I parked behind Jeff’s Firebird. I slid into the Firebird’s passenger seat.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Jeff said.
I nodded.
Jeff was a pro at stakeouts. In his cup holder were ice chips and trail mix. They kept you nourished without causing frequent bathroom breaks.
“Ran into Kim Hom this afternoon,” I said.
“Really? How’s she doin?”
“She’s gained a lot of weight.”
“How much is a lot?” Jeff asked.
“Enough to make you do a double take.”
Jeff whistled.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What’d she have to say?”
“She’s a bit bummed out over the falling out she had with Joanie.”
“I could see that,” Jeff said.
“I tried talking her into visiting Joanie.”
“How’d that go?”
I shrugged. “I may have to drag her down there kicking and screaming.”
“How incredibly persuasive of you.”
“Hey,” I said, “never said I was a smooth operator.”
Jeff stretched and yawned. I patted him on the arm and said, “Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I returned to my Stingray. Jeff drove away.
For the next few hours, no activity occurred at WXYZ. Sure, the two dish antennas whirred around, but that was nothing new. All lights inside the house were off. Most likely, my good friend Steve Stern was sleeping. I debated with my conscience whether to prowl the property and see if anything was going on. My conscience convinced me to sit and wait. Good things come to those who are patient.
Around 3 A.M. my eyelids started to droop. I hated this part of the stakeout. I called it the pit—the point when your body has been sedentary for so many hours that it thinks it’s time to go to sleep. The pit shows no mercy. It pulls your body and mind into a state of exhaustion until you surrender to some shuteye.
But the pit wasn’t going to drag me down into its vapidity of unconsciousness. I was going to fight it with a method that worked better than caffeine.
From the back seat, I pulled out my portable TV/DVD player. I placed it in the passenger seat. I didn’t bother to check the rechargeable batteries. They were good. I put them in this afternoon.
I put in one of my favorite movies, John Woo’s The Killer with Chow Yun Fat. I covered the screen with my jacket, so its glow wouldn’t light up the inside of my Stingray like downtown Tokyo.
While listening to The Killer, I watched WXYZ. To fight sleep, I spoke along with The Killer’s dialogue.
The Killer ended at sunrise. The sun hid behind WXYZ, creeping heavenward. The sun burned red, its perimeter glowing orange. Nimbostratus clouds coasted under the rising sun.
No movement inside WXYZ, although the dish antennas still tilted and twirled.
I stifled a yawn and thought about my breakup with Joanie, which happened on a Saturday night.
After spending the day with our friends, Joanie and I are now alone in South Philly. We sit on her stoop, outside her parents’s house. The traffic on Seventh Street zips by.
It’s the beginning of October 1996, our junior year in high school. A cold breeze owns the air tonight. Joanie wears a white windbreaker. I don’t wear a windbreaker or a jacket. My black, cotton long-sleeve casual dress shirt warms me fine.
I sit on the left side of the stoop; Joanie sits on the right. I lean against the railing and say:
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes?”
“I think we should break up.”
Joanie is silent, her face unreadable. She sits like that for almost a minute. She’s so still, I wonder if she’s turning into a statue. A breeze pushes her hair into her eyes. She blinks and tucks the hair behind her ear.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she says.
“Really?”
She nods. We both break into a smirk but wipe it off immediately. I rub my sweaty palms together.
“You’re one of my best friends, Joanie, but I don’t love you as a girlfriend.”
“Same here,” she says, “except as a boyfriend.”
“Every time I told you I loved you, I meant it. But the more I think about it, that wasn’t love. That was infatuation clouding my judgment.”
“Me too.”
“I was also quick to say it because I’m in love with the idea of being in love.”
“I know,” Joanie says. “Being in love is such a wild concept. The idea that there’s somebody out there who’s so in love with you… It sounds like paradise.”
“We don’t have it, though.”
“I know.”
“You’d think we would,” I say. “We’ve been friends forever, and we’re obviously attracted to each other. You’d think those two things would be a nice little launching pad for a long-term relationship.”
“It’s not.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Neither of us says anything for a couple minutes. We still sit on opposite ends of the stoop, except now we’re both hugging our respective railings. Joanie breaks the silence.
“I knew there was something wrong between us over the summer.”
“How’s that?” I ask.
“Since then neither of us has said we loved one another.”
“I know.”
“You said it on August third. That was the last time.”
“Wow,” I say, “what a memory.”
Joanie shakes her head. “I write it down in my diary after every time we said it.”
“What else did you record in your diary?”
Joanie whispers, “I put down every time we did it.”
“Jeez, talk about a paper trail.”
“It’s a girl thing.”
“So,” I say, “how many times did we do it?”
“Shh, not so loud! My mom’s still up.”
“Well?”
“Thirty-three.”
“And how many times did we say we loved each other?” I ask.
“You said it two hundred and twenty. I said it one hundred and ninety-nine.”
“I remember saying it back in August. We were in your dining room. It was late. Your parents were in bed. After I said it, your brother came in.”
“Mm-hmm,” Joanie said.
“And that was the last time?”
“Mm-hmm.”
We become quiet again. I hunch over, resting my elbows on my knees and cupping my hands together. I listen to the sounds of the street. Down on the corner a guitarist plucks out-of-tune strings on his Gibson acoustic. A group of twenty-somethings jaywalk while giggling drunkenly. Those sounds are drowned out temporarily when the 47 bus roars by.
I say, “So is this the most amicable breakup of all time? Aren’t we supposed to be screaming and yelling at each other, calling each other male and female parts?”
“We’re a special case. What’s the word that was on our vocabulary test last week? Atypical. We’re atypical.”
“Very nice. You’re making Sister Agnes very proud.”
Joanie’s face turns serious. “I’m glad you brought this up.”
“Breaking up?”
“Mm-hmm. I don’t think I could’ve ever brought it up.”
“I wanted to bring it up as soon as possible. There’s no sense in us staying together just for the sake of someone to be with.”
Joanie’s lips part but no words exit.
“What is it?” I ask.
“D—. Nothing. Never mind.”
“No. What were you going to say?”
“Do you ever worry…about dying alone?”
“I’ve thought about it,” I say. “It certainly isn’t a desirable situation. Hopefully it won’t happen. But I think I’d rather die alone than be married to someone who I don’t love and respect. You know?”
“Sometimes I lie awake at nights, staring at the ceiling, just thinking about it.”
“That’s not good.”
“I know,” Joanie says, “but you know how it is. You’re lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, but you just had an extremely productive day. Your body may be tired, but your mind’s not. It’s still going a million miles a minute. And eventually the thought of dying alone pops in there.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll find someone.”
Joanie drops her head.
I stand up. “I should go.”
“Okay.” Head up.
“Bye,” I say.
“Bye.”
I walk down the street, hands in pockets, head down, not bothering to glance back. At intersections I don’t pay attention to traffic signals, and I don’t raise my head until I’m home.
In my bedroom, I turn on the TV. It’s late. I channel-surf. The only worthwhile program is a standup comedian showcase. All of the comedians are funny performers with polished material. None of their jokes make me laugh.
I withdrew from my high-school flashback in time to see Jeff’s Firebird pull up in front of me. He hopped out and slid into my passenger seat.
“I miss anything?” he asked.
“No. About as exciting as watching moss grow.”
I started my Stingray and said, “I’ll be back around noon.”
“Roger.”
Jeff headed to his Firebird with a skip in his step.
When I got back to my apartment, I tried taking a short nap, but I was no longer tired. Go figure. So I went into the kitchen to make myself a bowl of oatmeal. While waiting for the water to boil, I turned on the radio. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. At the University of Pennsylvania’s radio station, a DJ broke into the prerecorded World Café:
“This is David Dye, host of the World Café. My apologies for interrupting today’s show, but there’s some unbelievable events occurring throughout the city, which we thought you, our listening audience, might be interested in.”
The DJ went though some more preamble before patching through a reporter.
“Hello. This is Mark O’Rourke for National Public Radio, reporting live from Fifth and Market Streets.”
The reporter had the raspy voice of a forty-seven-year-old who had been smoking cigars or pipes for twenty-five years. He also sounded like a disciple of yellow journalism. He stressed at least one out of every five words, usually a verb, for tabloid effect.
“As I said, David, I’m down here at Fifth and Market, where pandemonium has broken out.
“It all started a half-hour ago—at seven-thirty—when a pedestrian, right here at Fifth and Market, was struck dead under the most unusual of circumstances. Eyewitnesses state that the man, Arnold Jackson of Jenkintown, was standing at the top of the subway steps, when all of the sudden he began twitching, then levitated some ten feet into the air. Mr. Jackson seemed to be trapped in some sort of ‘bubble,’ as one eyewitness described it. According to the eyewitness, the bubble wasn’t really a bubble, but that’s the best description the eyewitness can give. The eyewitness went on to add that whatever had encased Mr. Jackson ‘distorted the image of Mr. Jackson.’ I’m sorry, David, I don’t have any more than that. After the eyewitness made that comment, police officials escorted her away.”
The DJ cut in. “Mark, how did the man die?”
“Mr. Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“It seems,” the reporter said, “it seems that the alleged bubble all of the sudden disappeared. When that happened, Mr. Jackson fell to the ground. Authorities haven’t commented on whether the victim died on impact or not.
“Incidentally, David, authorities are refusing to comment on any aspect of the case.
“Interestingly, this isn’t an isolated incident. All over the city—”
I turned off the radio and removed the boiling water from the stove.
I stepped outside with my oatmeal. Across the street, on the Esposito family’s front lawn, a bush was on fire. Mrs. Esposito ran out of her house. She wore a pink, terry-cloth bathrobe and had hair-setting jumbo rollers molding her do. With two hands she carried a crock pot. She threw water on the bush fire. The water was useless. The fire devoured the water like the blob swallowing up Phoenixville. Mrs. Esposito retreated to her house, except she didn’t make it. At the foot of her porch, her robe caused her to trip and fall without injury.
I bounded down my apartment-complex steps, three at a time. I came to my Stingray. Damn. Left my keys in the living room. Oh, wait—I didn’t need them. A few years ago I had rigged my trunk so that keys wouldn’t be necessary. (You never knew when you were about to be ambushed and didn’t have time to flip through your key chain looking for the trunk key.)
I touched a button on the underside of my rear, chrome bumper. The trunk popped open. Between the spare tire and my Remington rifle lay a fire extinguisher.
I sprinted across the street, not bothering to look both ways. I held my miniature extinguisher by the neck.
Reaching the Esposito property line, I slowed to a jog and glanced at the extinguisher’s gauge. Only half full. Hopefully that would do.
I removed the pull pin and pressed the black, plastic lever. White foam jetted out. I felt it propel through the hose. The foam ejected with such force that a white chemical mist clouded my view. Was I even aiming at the fire? To find out, I was about to release the trigger when the foam began sputtering out of the extinguisher. Empty.
I dropped the extinguisher. It landed on the Esposito’s crab grass with a muted thud.
The foamy mist dissipated. I coughed and blinked. No more fire. White foam now covered the bush. You couldn’t see one bit of foliage. The bush looked like it belonged in wintry Alaska, not springtime Philadelphia.
Mrs. Esposito approached me, her pink bedroom slippers flapping. “Oh, thank you, Ian, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I don’t know what happened. One minute I’m watching Good Morning America, the next my bush is burning on fire.”
I examined the bush. It had snapped off at the base. Sap dripped from the cut. The bush’s roots sat on the other side of the yard. How did the bush snap itself off at the root, travel fifteen feet and catch on fire? Was it the same force that killed the man at Fifth and Market?
“Did you see anything unusual?” I asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Mrs. Esposito said.
“Well, your bush is on the other side of the yard. Did the fire do that?”
“I don’t know. Oh… I don’t think so.”
Mr. Ackroyd joined us. He lived around the corner. Recently retired, he sported his typical outfit: V-neck, white T-shirt; plaid, polyester golf pants; and white wingtip shoes. Today he had a couple nicks on his scalp. Mr. Ackroyd shaved his head daily, even though he’d been bald most of his life.
“Edith. Ian,” Mr. Ackyroyd said. “What happened here?”
Mrs. Esposito explained. Afterwards, Mr. Ackroyd said:
“You won’t believe what I just heard.”
“What?” Mrs. Esposito asked.
“My brother from Northeast Philly just called.”
“The plumber?”
“The very one,” Mr. Ackyroyd said. “He says his skylight was just smashed.”
“Oh my word! Is he all right?”
“Him and the wife are fine,” Mr. Ackroyd said.
Mrs. Esposito blessed herself.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They don’t know,” Mr. Ackroyd said.
“Maybe some kids did it,” Mrs. Esposito said.
“They didn’t find anything thrown through it.”
“Maybe it was lightning, then.”
I looked up. Not a cloud in the sky.
“I have to go,” I said. “I’ll see you two later.”
They told me to be careful. I jumped into my Stingray and screeched out of the parking lot the nanosecond my engine turned over.
At 9:30 A.M., I parked behind Jeff’s Firebird across the street from WXYZ. I knocked on his driver-side window. He rolled it down.
“You’re early,” he said.
“Yo, we need to go over there right now and tell him to shut that radio station down.”
“Why, what’d you find out?”
“There’s a bunch of unusual incidents going on all over the city. One person has died.”
Jeff jumped out of his Firebird. “You think WXYZ is behind it?”
“Yeah. No more cell phones are exploding, but the unusual incidents have to be related. Think about it. WXYZ is a radio station. Cell phones use radio waves. And I think the unusual incidents going on around the city are some sort of warped version of radio waves.”
“And WXYZ is the common factor?” Jeff asked.
I nodded. “Look at the size of those dish antennas. I mean, they’re monstrous.”
“Yeah. O—”
A shotgun blast interrupted Jeff’s sentence. We hopped behind the Firebird. I peeked around the rear bumper.
On the WXYZ porch stood Steve Stern. He held his shotgun in the air as if a caveman showing off a club. “Y’all stay away from my radio station!”
I said to Jeff, “What’s he got?”
“Sounded like a Browning ten-gauge.”
“What’s that, a five-shot magazine?”
Jeff nodded.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “You packing?”
Jeff lifted his shirt. Tucked in his pants was a .357 magnum. Looked new.
“Sit tight,” I said. “Don’t shoot at him unless he comes storming over.”
I slid into my Stingray. Stern shot at me as I drove away. But my car was at an angle, so the bullet only nicked the corner of my rear window—where the window met the roof on the driver’s side.
I turned the corner and drove a few blocks down to the local convenience store, Butts & Stuff.
Above Butts & Stuff’s glass doorway was a three-dimensional sign that showed a smiling yokel with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a hoagie in the other. Behind the sign was a triangular, orange rooftop that blended in with the horizon.
I dug into my pocket for a couple quarters. There they were, hiding in the part of my wallet where I kept my license and registration.
I deposited the two quarters into the pay phone in front of Butts & Stuff. I called WXYZ. Stern had the answering machine on. I stayed on the line until he picked up.
“What do you want, Hahn?”
“Let us come in,” I said.
“No. You had your tour yesterday.”
“Look, I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure your radio station is inadvertently causing the deaths around the city.”
“Bull wash!”
“The cell phones exploding was only the beginning,” I said. “Now some other things are happening. If we don’t take WXYZ off-line soon, who knows what’ll happen.”
“I don’t care. This station is my life.”
“Steve, I know you don’t want more innocent people to die.”
“I’m hanging up.”
He stayed on the line.
“Maybe,” I said, “maybe you don’t even have to go off the air for that long. Maybe if we just switched those dish antennas with some other ones—”
“No way! Those satellites are mine. The Russians…”
“The Russians what?” I asked.
Stern hung up.
“Damn.” I slammed the phone onto the cradle and drove back to WXYZ.
“He’s being stubborn,” I told Jeff.
“Acting like a baby?”
“Pretty much.”
“Think he’ll call the cops?”
I shook my head. “He knows something is up with those dish antennas. Right now he’s in denial.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ambush?”
“Perhaps.” I nibbled on my lower lip. “You got anything in your trunk?”
“Nothing for an ambush. All I have is little Annabelle here.” He stroked his .357.
I sighed. “I hate to do an ambush, but he’s not leaving us much choice. If we wait for him, more people are going to die.”
“Yep,” Jeff said, smirking.
“You don’t have to enjoy this so much.”
“Can’t help it. It’s in my nature. I love a good confrontation.”
“I thought you were reformed.”
“I am, but this is for a good cause. Besides, does anybody really change?”
Jeff and I agreed to meet at my office after sundown.
Currently I drove towards the heart of South Philly, Broad Street and Passyunk Avenue. Traffic was light. Sun still shined without a cloud in the sky.
I turned on the radio and tuned to the news station. The anchor said three more people had died in the same way as the man this morning at Fifth and Market. The anchor turned the story over to a roving reporter. The reporter quoted an anonymous source who said that the first two corpses had already been autopsied. When the medical examiner cut open the corpses, they both emitted a deafening sound, as if ten radio stations were playing at once. The sound only lasted for a few seconds.
I turned off my radio and drove down the 400 block of Shunk Street. Halfway down the block, I parked my Stingray between a Camaro and a Civic.
I knocked on the front door of a house with new aluminum siding. A woman, pushing forty, answered the door. She was half Irish, half Italian: freckles spotted her nose and temples while her black hair slanted upward like the Bride of Frankenstein. She wore tight leopard-skin pants and an even tighter tube top, which hung so low that it barely covered her nipples.
“Well, look who it is. The infamous Ian Hahn.” She mispronounced infamous.
“Hello, Evelyn,” I said.
“It’s Eve. Why you insist on keep calling me that?”
“Because it’s your birth name. Plus, Evelyn sounds better. Besides, Eve has too much of a biblical connotation to it, and that’s not good.”
Evelyn stared at me as if confronting a paranormal entity. She pulled out a thin cigarette and lit it. Smoke floated between us like a translucent wall. Evelyn continued to stare at me. I said nothing, just stood there with the screen door open.
About a year ago, Evelyn offered herself to me. I politely refused her invitation to—in her words—fuck her brains out. She didn’t take the rejection well; she had spent a lifetime fornicating with whomever she chose. She called me about every name you could think of. The name-calling didn’t bother me. It would’ve been like getting mad at a child because you wouldn’t buy her the newest Barbie. You took the abuse, knowing the insults weren’t genuine.
“Your husband home?” I asked.
Evelyn nodded and walked inside. She left the door open. I stepped into the living room, closing the door behind me.
The living room was your typical South Philly setup. On the right wall was a sofa. On the left, stairs led to the second floor. The stairs had a wooden handrail that was glossy with a recent coat of varnish. The handrail was supported by posts, two on each step. The posts were painted white.
To the side of the stairs was a big-screen TV. It aired Oprah Winfrey, or Orca, as Joanie used to call her. Orca promoted a book called Earth Stones. It was about an Amazonian woman who abandons her tribe to follow her dream of becoming a TV talk-show host.
Evelyn stood in the dining room. “This way,” she said.
We walked through the dining room and kitchen to the backyard. In one of the rear corners stood a round, white picnic table with a pole erected through the center. On top of the pole was a green-and-white umbrella. It shaded the table.
“Thanks,” I said to Evelyn. She harrumphed and shuffled back to the house.
I strode across the yard, watching my step. Dog droppings were everywhere. They were hard to spot due to the yard’s divots and crabgrass. Fortunately, I didn’t step on any.
I reached the picnic table. There sat the man I was looking for.
“What’s up?” I said.
Angelo Sintanelli gazed up at me with droopy eyelids. “Whad’dya want, freak?”
“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop by.”
“Quit bullshitting me.”
I smiled down at him then sat in one of the plastic white chairs. It was flimsy. If I leaned back on its hind legs, it would collapse.
Sintanelli held a Swiss army knife. He used it on a bar of soap. He carved a pornographic figure.
Over Sintanelli’s shoulder sat a sandbox. Sintanelli and Evelyn didn’t have any children. I wondered if Sintanelli used the sandbox to hide his stash.
“I’ve been staking out WXYZ,” I said.
“Is that so?”
“I noticed the station’s two dish antennas are moving and twirling around a lot. Then I turn on the radio and hear about people dying all over the city under unusual circumstances. Meanwhile, no more cell phones are exploding. Interesting set of developments, don’t you think?”
Sintanelli said nothing. He concentrated on his soapy art.
I asked, “How did you know WXYZ was the key?”
Sintanelli shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
“The guy that runs WXYZ said something about Russians. Don’t you do a lot of business with the Russians in Northeast Philly?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sintanelli said. He finished his carving. It wasn’t pornographic, but it was still shocking. Sintanelli had carved two men. One stood holding a gun. The other knelt, pleading for his life.
“I do business with the Russians,” Sintanelli said. “So what. Everyone knows that.”
“What about WXYZ?”
Sintanelli didn’t reply.
“Here’s what I think,” I said. “I think you acquired the dish antennas from the Russians somehow. You weren’t sure what to do with them, or maybe you couldn’t find a buyer. At the same time, Steve Stern comes into the picture. He had a lot of football betting slips lying around. He obviously gambles a lot. And last I heard, you still ran a bookie business.”
“So?”
“So, Stern could’ve won big time. Maybe you didn’t have the money to pay him that week. So you offered him the two dish antennas you had lying around.”
Sintanelli picked up his Swiss army knife. He extracted the corkscrew and picked his manicured fingernails.
“A bunch of Russians gave me the antennas,” he began. “I didn’t acquire em, as you put it. They stole em from some place out by Chernobyl. They wanted me to use my connections to sell em. They weren’t expecting much, but they wanted to make a little money off their endeavor. I was having trouble selling em. Then the Russians dropped out of the picture.”
“Drive-by?” I said.
Sintanelli shook his head. “Friendly fire.”
“So you paid Stern with the dish antennas.”
Nod. “It’s the least I could do.”
I left the Sintanelli residence and headed back to Chinatown to meet Jeff at my office. I drove up Broad Street. The sun was setting. I lowered my visor, which didn’t help much. I still had trouble deciphering the color of the traffic lights.
At the intersection of Callowhill and Broad I stopped at a red light. I knew it was red because the traffic on Callowhill raced across Broad. I waited for the Callowhill traffic to get the red light. To pass the time I listened to a Cure song on the radio, “There Is No If …”.
The Callowhill traffic stopped. I took my foot off the brake. Suddenly, the sun seemed to glow brighter. Reflexively I shielded my face and tapped the brake. But my Stingray spurted forward. My hands not on the steering wheel, the Stingray pulled to the right. I fumbled for the wheel.
“Shit!”
The sun blinded me. The Stingray hit something. What was it? No time to guess. I was thrashing around inside the car. My left shoulder hit the door window. My forehead butted the visor. My right hand slapped the emergency brake.
When I stopped bouncing around like a manic in a rubber room, I realized my Stingray and I were upside-down. My eyesight was coming back, although red spots danced around my peripheral vision. The Stingray was spinning on its roof. The outside world flashed by. It made me nauseous. I closed my eyes.
My Stingray continued to spin on the roof, shooting off an occasional spark. With each revolution, the Stingray spun slower and slower. The roof scraped asphalt. Screech. Sounded like fingernails across a blackboard.
The Stingray stopped spinning. Through my cracked windshield I saw the Bulletin building, albeit upside-down.
My seat belt fought gravity by keeping me rooted to the seat—the horizontal strap digging into my waist. A crowd encircled the Stingray. No one offered assistance.
I pulled on the driver-side door handle. It wouldn’t budge. I tried body-checking the window with my shoulder, but that wasn’t working since I was strapped in. I punched the door, right above the handle. Strangely, that did the trick. The door opened, although I had to give it quite a push. I stretched my left arm out until it touched the street. I then worked on unfastening the seat belt. It wouldn’t unbuckle. I leaned over and popped open the glove box. Its contents fell out. Caught on the passenger-side visor was what I needed. A utility knife. I sawed through the part of the seat belt below my shoulder. Success. One of the ends of the cut belt whipped my neck. I dropped the knife and crawled out of the Stingray, wiggling my legs from underneath the steering wheel.
A man with a bushy mustache and a construction worker’s hat helped me up. At his feet was a metal lunch box.
I blinked. Blood rushed to my head. Once I stopped staggering I realized that the construction worker was talking to me.
“Sorry I didn’t help ya out sooner, bro. I’m still in shock over what just happened.”
“What happened?”
“Dude, your car totally jumped ten feet up into the air—all on its own! But it was like it was on a ramp. Like the front end was ten feet off the ground, and the rear was like only five feet off the ground. Next thing—I still can’t believe this, dude. Next thing, your car does a somersault, spinning around like fucking crazy, and comes crashing down on the street. Un-fuckin-believable.”
“Yeah,” I said, checking my head for blood. Nope.
“Out of hand,” said the construction worker. “Wait’ll my buddies hear about this!”
At nine P.M., I entered my office. Jeff was sitting in my chair.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I was unexpectedly delayed.”
“How’s that?”
I gave him the Cliff Notes version of the incident. Afterwards I moved for my chair. Jeff got up without my urging.
“Funny,” Jeff said, “you don’t look too bad for somebody whose car just underwent a Samoan Drop.”
“Samoan Drop? What’s that?”
“It’s a pro-wrestling move.”
I stretched. “My chest is a little sore and my back is a bit tight, but I’ll be all right.”
“That’s what we like to hear. Where’s your stash?”
“You’re standing on it.”
Jeff stepped aside, kicked the throw rug he had been standing on and saw the trap door. Inside were enough firearms to defend Chinatown from a tristate attack.
We suited up. Jeff carried enough to supply several platoons.
Jeff parked two blocks away from WXYZ. He cut the engine and opened his door, one foot on the curb.
“Ready?” he asked.
I glanced at my watch. 10:30 P.M.
“Let’s wait a little while,” I said.
“Why?”
“No harm in waiting.”
Jeff lugged his foot back into the Firebird and slammed the door.
Obviously he wasn’t thrilled with waiting, but I didn’t want to rush into WXYZ, adrenaline pumping. We’d shoot at shadows and worry about repercussions later. Better to go in with our heads clear.
I rolled down the window and hung my arm out. Peripherally I saw Jeff’s leg twitching. My plan was to break into WXYZ in about an hour. Hopefully Jeff would calm down by then.
I said, “I was thinking about the breakup with Joanie last night.”
“Oh yeah?” Leg stopped twitching.
“I’m still amazed at how amicable it was.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” Jeff said.
“You remember things with a skeptical eye.”
“I remember my sister hardly talking after you broke up with her. She’d come home from school, go up to her room, do some homework, then flip through fashion magazines. On weekends, all she’d do was sleep and watch TV.”
“Would you rather we stay together and go through pretenses?” I asked.
Jeff shrugged. “All I know is youse are made for each other. I can’t believe youse haven’t gotten back together.”
I didn’t respond.
Jeff said, “You can’t tell me you still don’t have feelings for her.”
“Only as friends.”
“Give me a break.”
“So is that why you picked a fight with me that one night after we broke up? Because you’re under the false impression that we’re soul mates.”
“I jumped you to knock some goddamned sense into you. Only I didn’t know you were that good of a fighter. If I’d known, I would’ve gotten some of my crew together to teach you a lesson.”
“You know what I think?” I said.
“What? What do you think, Carnac the Psychic?”
“I think you’ve never really been in love, and you’re living vicariously through Joanie.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’ve been with lots of girls—women.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but has there ever been anything beyond lust? I don’t think so. I think you’re afraid you’re never going to find true love, and by ‘looking after’ your little sister, you equate that with the next best thing.”
“Get the hell outta here.”
“This is all on a subconscious level. You’ve probably never thought about it. If you did, you’d probably freak out.”
“You’re outta your fuckin tree. You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.”
“We’re a lot alike, Jeff. You know that. We’re the same sort of person, except that we’ve chosen different paths.”
“You’ve been spending too much time holed up in that office of yours.”
“Maybe, but I do know one thing. I’ve been trying to find out what is going on with the cell phones, WXYZ and everything else because I value Joanie as a friend. Nothing more.”
Jeff’s leg started to twitch again.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“Where you going?”
“That convenience store. Butts and Stuff.”
On my way to the store, I thought about the time Jeff jumped me:
I leave Kitano Video with House 2. The bell of the door chimes behind me. Out of habit, I look up and down the street before heading home. Nope. Nothing suspicious.
Ten seconds later I’m tackled. My rented video goes flying out of my hand. The case pops open, sending the video down the sewer.
I’m lying on the sidewalk. My attacker has me pinned down, his leg across my back. He’s whapping the back of my head with his fist. With each whap, my face digs deeper into the sidewalk. A gum wrapper is glued to my eyebrow. My lip is cut. Blood gushes from it.
My attacker is no longer hitting the back of head. He’s squashing my face into the sidewalk. My lower lip slips into a sidewalk crack. I taste week-old burrito meat.
“How ya like that, fucker?” my attacker says. “Huh? Huh!”
The voice sounds familiar, but I don’t have time to expend any brain cells to match the voice to a face.
I place both of my hands, palms down, as close to the sides of my chest as possible and perform the hardest push-up of my life. The task is made easier by the fact that I growl loudly.
I stand up. My attacker, caught off-guard by my Herculean push-up, climbs to his feet. He staggers into the lamplight. It’s Jeff Chen. Why am I not surprised.
I take a breather and notice the street is practically deserted. That makes sense. It’s a late Tuesday night.
Parked in front of Kitano Video is a Toyota 4Runner. So that’s where Jeff sprang from. He’s notorious for hiding under trucks and SUVs when either hiding from cops or waiting to jump somebody.
“You been working out,” Jeff says.
“So nice of you to notice.” I spit a mixture of phlegm and blood. “What’s your problem?”
“No problem. I just want to kick your ass for breaking my sister’s heart.”
He jumps and kicks me in the chest. I fall into a row of trashcans. We are several storefronts away from Kitano Video. The trashcans are on the side of a restaurant, next to a parking lot.
Jeff bounds towards me. I pick up two trashcan lids, one metal, one plastic. As expected, Jeff launches himself and kicks the air, aiming for my throat. I sandwich his feet between the trashcan lids, diminishing the kicking. Jeff improvises. He slams his shoulders on the ground, so that his body is at a forty-five-degree angle, and turns his entire body over. He does this in less than a second. The movement has the intended effect. Since I still have his feet sandwiched between the trashcan lids, I go flying. I land over by the restaurant’s kitchen door, except when I hit the ground, I slide. A stack of crates stops my slide. I stand up and see that grease coats the ground. Each night, after the kitchen help empties the fryers, they must spill some of the grease on their way to the tank that is currently behind me.
Jeff jogs towards me, picking up a green Dumpster along the way. The Dumpster has wheels. Jeff rams it into me. Since I’m still standing on the grease, I skate back. My back slams into a brick wall. The wind is knocked out of me. I try to push the Dumpster away, but Jeff leans against it with his chest. He doesn’t seem to notice that the Dumpster’s two-piece rubber lid is crawling with maggots.
“How’s it feel?” Jeff asks.
“Like a walk through the park,” I manage to say.
“Oh yeah?”
He pulls the Dumpster towards him to slam it hard into my chest. But I’m ready for him. The moment he pulls the Dumpster toward himself, I turn and plant my right hand on the brick wall. The Dumpster rushes towards me. Instead of hitting my chest—as Jeff intended—it hits my left bicep. Jeff shoves against the Dumpster. My right hand pushes against the wall until my right arm extends; for balance, I keep my right foot at the base of the wall. Jeff gnarls in concentration. I pull my left shoulder in. Jeff loses leverage. The Dumpster rolls away.
“You fuckin dick!” Jeff says.
He clocks me on the side of the head. I retaliate by punching him in the stomach. He bends over. I’m grateful. I’m so exhausted that my head is ringing.
That’s when the cops show up.
The owners of the restaurant were the ones who called the cops, but once they found out one of us was Jeff, they dropped the charges. Notoriety has its advantages.
Jeff and I did, however, spend the night in jail. The cops threw us in different cells. I didn’t see Jeff that night. He never jumped me again. It was years before I saw him again.
I pushed that memory back into the recesses of my mind as I walked up to the convenience store, Butts & Stuff. I was about to deposit a couple quarters into the pay phone, but stopped. A prostitute sauntered from around back.
She had a hooknose and puffed-up hair like an extra from Sixteen Candles. She wore a leopard-skin dress, a shiny red leather jacket and fishnet stockings. She stood six-six, thanks to her menstruation-colored fuck-me pumps.
“Hey, baby,” she said in a husky voice.
“How are you?”
“Fine, now that you’re here.”
I tried not to roll my eyes.
She played with the lapels of my jacket and bit her glossy lower lip. “What’s your name?”
“Ian. Yours?”
“Anything you want it to be, baby.”
I laughed.
“What?” she said.
“That is so funny. ‘Anything you want it to be.’ Hysterical.”
She stopped playing with my lapels. My empath ability smelled burning oil on her. That meant she hated men.
“What’s your real name?” I asked seriously.
She hesitated for a moment. “Leilani.”
“That’s a unique name,” I said.
Leilani scowled. “Freaky’s more like it. It was my dad’s idea to call me that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He used to be a roadie for the Hoodoo Gurus. Ever hear of em?”
“No,” I said.
“They were a rock band from Australia. ‘Leilani’ was one of their songs.”
“You were born down under, then? I don’t hear an accent.”
“Me and mom came to the States when I was three. She was from America originally—a groupie.”
The door to the convenience store chimed open. A man with thick, black eyebrows sneered at me. He wore an unwashed turban and chomped on a cigar.
“Hey, you,” he said, “no talking for free. You want to talk with her, you take her in the back. Nice room back there. Cot and chair and everything.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“Then leave her alone. You,” he said to Leilani, “no freebies. It’s the last time!” He ducked back inside.
“Your pimp?” I asked Leilani.
In a TV announcer’s voice, she said, “He’s not only the owner of Butts and Stuff, but he’s my pimp, too.” She laughed then sighed. “Well, back to work.” She moved for the rear of the building. Before turning the corner, she stopped. “You know, it’s weird. I never talk about myself with men. I don’t why I did it with you.”
I said nothing.
“I guess you got a kind face or something,” Leilani said.
“Take care,” I said.
“Toodles.”
With Leilani gone, I picked up the pay phone and dialed.
“Steve,” I said into the receiver, “it’s Ian. How’s it going?”
“What do you want?” Whining.
“Wanted to see if you changed your mind.”
“About what?”
“About the dish antennas.”
Stern sighed. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Lives are at stake. Your Russian dish antennas were causing people’s cell phones to explode, and now they’re behind the unusual incidents that are going on all over the city.”
“I don’t care. I just want to be left alone. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “And you know it.”
Stern sighed into the phone again.
“Steve, listen. Invite me in. All I need is five minutes of your time.”
“Anything you need to say, you can do it over the phone.”
I tapped a fist against the brick wall and tried to keep my voice light and loose. “Steve, people are only going to keep on dying if you continue to use those two satellites. Maybe we can find some other ones you can use. That way you won’t be off the air for that long.”
“I—”
“Yes?”
“Leave me alone.”
He hung up.
“Bastard,” I said to the dial tone.
I started walking back towards WXYZ, but halted when I reached the end of Butts & Stuff’s parking lot.
My empath ability smelled melting iron. It was overwhelming, to the point of nausea. I bent over and concentrated on blocking off my empath ability. It took some effort, but I succeeded.
I stood up, wondering where the melting iron came from. I couldn’t leave until I found out. Melting iron meant malevolence.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out where the malevolence came from. Its source was a van that pulled into the Butts & Stuff parking lot.
The van was a black E-350. It had been recently waxed. It looked brand new except for a dent near the gas cap.
To avoid bringing attention to myself, I stood on the lawn of Butts & Stuff’s neighboring property. The lawn belonged to a palm reader who ran her business out of her living room. Between Butts & Stuff and the palm reader’s property was a row of ornamental bushes, each one six feet high. I peeked through two of the bushes, the right side of my face feeling the flicker of the neon sign in the palm reader’s window.
The van’s side door opened. Out lumbered a man with white-blond hair and a thick neck. He wore a turtleneck, colored black like the rest of his outfit. He was so tall that he had to duck to enter the convenience store. Five minutes later, he exited with six cartons of cigarettes.
As if rehearsed, Leilani appeared from around the back of the building. She strutted towards Cigarette Man. Her strut was similar to the one strippers and fashion models use on runways: hips swinging, shoulders swaying, and a stare that alternated between disenchantment and flirtation.
When Leilani was within arm’s length of Cigarette Man, he head-butted her as if a homicidal hockey player on crank. The head-butt had the obvious effect. Leilani collapsed like a puppet. Cigarette Man hopped into the E-350. The van coasted away.
I squeezed through the ornamental bushes and knelt next to Leilani. A red mark formed in the middle of her forehead. It turned purple.
“You going to be all right?” I asked.
Leilani leaned away from me. She vomited.
“Come on,” I said, helping her up, “let’s get you inside.”
I slid into the driver seat of the Firebird. Jeff sat in the passenger seat so that he was facing WXYZ.
“Bout time you got back,” Jeff said.
“I was unexpectedly detained.”
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
I told him. He said, “Leilani. What kind of name is that?”
“Let’s get suited up,” I said.
Jeff jumped out of the Firebird. We popped the trunk. Jeff grabbed two machine guns, an M16 and an M60; both had shoulder straps. He crisscrossed two 100-round belts of ammunition over his shoulders.
“Didn’t you bring the plastic box?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“I have a plastic box that hangs on the side of the machine gun to hold the ammo. Most machine guns aren’t able to feed the ammo through because they have low link-pulling power. That’s why you need a plastic box hooked on to the side, or somebody to feed it through as you aim and fire.”
“I don’t need no box or assistant gunner,” Jeff said. “Who needs them anyway? All they do is prevent me from doing my Rambo imitation.” He struck a pose. “Adrian!”
I withdrew my Glock from my shoulder holster and checked it. Had a full magazine. I placed additional magazines in my pockets.
“Let’s go, Sly,” I said.
Jeff and I strode across the street. Our sneakers didn’t squeak. We came to the lawn. It felt cushiony. We tiptoed around to the side of the house. I looked up. A window was open on the second floor, its light off. Jeff went up first. He scaled the wall with the skill of Spider-Man. I went up next. I wasn’t as arachnid-like as Jeff, but I managed, thanks to the house’s sturdy aluminum siding.
We were inside the bathroom. Jeff stood by the doorway. I stepped in front of him and inched down the hallway. Every time the floor creaked, we stopped.
We passed the recording room on our left. Its door was open with the light on. No Stern. We kept moving up the hall. The DJ’s booth came up. Door open, light off. Still no Stern.
I tried calling on my empath ability to smell Stern’s aura, but it was no use. Too much adrenaline pumped through me.
We reached the end of the hall. To our right was the top of the stairs. In front of us stood Stern’s bedroom. The door was closed. Light stretched from underneath the door. I placed my hand on the doorknob. The bedroom light touched the tip of my black sneaks. I put my ear against the door. Its wood felt cold. Even though my ear hairs stood on end, I pressed my ear harder against the door. I didn’t hear anything. I listened some more. Still nothing. I noticed the door wasn’t closed all the way. With my index finger, I leaned on the door. Its hinges whined in protest. I stopped leaning on it. No one stirred inside the bedroom. The door was only open an inch. All I saw was the bed, which was unmade and empty. I leaned on the door some more. Its hinges whined again, but this time I didn’t stop. The door was now open all the way. Stern wasn’t in there.
Jeff and I moved for the stairs. I led. I placed my foot on the top step. It creaked.
“Who’s there?” Stern said from downstairs, his voice echoing. Jeff and I couldn’t see Stern because three-quarters of the way down, the steps turned at a ninety-degree angle, obscuring the foot of the steps.
A moment of silence passed, feeling like an eon. Behind me, Jeff readjusted his grip on his M60.
“Hello?” Stern said, still out of sight.
More silence. Then I heard an unmistakable sound. One that couldn’t be confused with anything else. The sound of a loading shotgun.
I slid across from the left to the right of the step I was standing on. Simultaneously, Jeff threw himself to the left, against the wall. He brought his M60 to eye level. I crouched into a shooting position, left arm stretched out, right hand supporting my left wrist. I dug my right shoulder into the upstairs railing.
Downstairs, Stern’s footsteps thundered for the stairs. I rested my finger on the Glock trigger. Jeff breathed loudly through his nose.
Stern came into view. Or rather his left foot did. The rest of his body remained out of view.
Why was he stalling?
A window smashed. From the living room? Stern’s foot disappeared. He must have gone to inspect the source of the smashing.
I glanced at Jeff. He shrugged with his eyes.
I froze. Despite adrenaline pumping in overdrive, I smelled melting iron.
I slapped Jeff on the chest then pointed at the bedroom. It took a second for the message to register. Once realization filled Jeff’s face, he aimed his M60 at the bedroom.
The bedroom door was halfway closed. It must had closed on its own while we were waiting for Jeff to come charging up.
The door opened with a whoosh. There stood a man with a medium build and brownish blond hair. He wore black turtleneck, pants and rubber-soled shoes. He wasn’t the sadist from Butts & Stuff who head-butted Leilani.
We surprised him. His eyes widened. He went for his pistol, but Jeff was too quick. Jeff tapped his M60 trigger. A short round of bullets filled the intruder’s chest. He stumbled backwards, arms flaying, and dropped the gun. In the process, he knocked the door close. However, he slammed it so hard that the door reopened. Jeff and I stepped forward. The intruder fell on the bed, but immediately tried to sit up with a little help from his elbows. Jeff fired in his face. Blood sprayed into the air in a murderous mist. A piece of nasal cartilage somersaulted ceilingward. It bounced off the light fixture and thudded to the floor.
The intruder lied on the bed. Dead. The bedroom window was open. A warm breeze cut through the carnage.
I still smelled melting iron. That shouldn’t be. Once a person is dead, my empath ability can no longer smell their aura or current emotion. Where there’s no soul, there’s no smell. Unless…
“Quick,” I said to Jeff, “in the booth!”
I shut the door behind us.
“What,” Jeff said, “what is it?”
“We left the bathroom window open.”
“Yeah? So? Oh.”
I scanned the DJ’s booth we were in. I then scanned the recording room. Just as I had remembered, both had no outside windows.
Jeff whispered, “You think another one came through the bathroom?”
I nodded.
The second intruder popped his head into the recording room. Dressed in black, he had brown curly hair, a pencil mustache and a six o’clock shadow. He didn’t see us because the light in the DJ’s booth was off.
I tapped Jeff on the elbow and pointed. We tiptoed out of the DJ’s booth and into the hall. We entered the recording room. The intruder’s back was to us. Suddenly, as if sensing our presence, he whipped around, a pistol in each hand. He fired at us. Jeff and I jumped back into the hall. I hid on the left side of the doorway, Jeff on the right. We stayed like that for at least a minute, backs planted against the wall. I caught Jeff’s attention and mouthed the word wait. He nodded but obviously didn’t like my idea. His leg was twitching.
A second later, the waiting was over.
The intruder fired into the hall. One bullet. It landed in the doorway next to my head. A whiff of smoke rose from the bullet hole.
Jeff and I stepped into the room. We fired immediately. The intruder dove behind a soundboard. Out of view. We stopped firing.
“Amp,” I said.
“I got the right side,” Jeff replied.
An amp hung from the ceiling. I shot at the chain on the left, Jeff shot at the right. The amp fell behind the soundboard with a whomp.
Jeff and I approached cautiously. The intruder was dead. The heavy amp came down with such force that it broke his back, snapping the base of his spine. It wasn’t pleasant to see. Looked like a circus performer in a warped version of Wizard The Oz.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Jeff and I walked downstairs. In the living room we found another intruder. It was Cigarette Man, the one from Butts & Stuff who head-butted Leilani.
Cigarette Man was choking a kneeling Steve Stern. Cigarette Man yelled in a Slavic language, most likely Russian. Behind him was the living room’s wall-length window. One of the satellites was visible. It whirled around as if in search of a specific signal.
“That’s enough,” I said.
Cigarette Man quit choking Stern and pushed him aside. Stern crashed into a pile of CD cases.
Cigarette Man reached for his 9mm. Jeff leaped forward and clocked him. Cigarette Man swayed slightly. A drop of blood peeked out from the corner of his mouth. He smiled and swung a fist. Jeff ducked. The fist sliced the air like a sickle. Jeff took the butt of his M60 and hit Cigarette Man in the chest. Cigarette Man stumbled backwards, tripping over the coffee table.
“Here,” Jeff said to me. He tossed me his ammo and two rifles. I gave him a querying look. He said, “I want it to be a fair fight.”
With that, Cigarette Man tackled Jeff. They went crashing into Stern’s desk. One of the drawers popped out. Jeff picked the drawer up, emptied it out and hit Cigarette Man’s head with the inside of it. The action slowed Cigarette Man down for maybe a second. I was beginning to wonder if he had a steel plate in his skull.
The two began to wrestle. I shook my head. It had always amazed me how much Jeff loved violence. He could have easily shot Cigarette Man in the knee, but Jeff felt the need to show off his skills as a streetfighter. It made me wonder if Jeff was as changed as he claimed in the car yesterday.
Cigarette Man now had Jeff in a headlock. Jeff broke free by punching his opponent in the kidneys. Jeff and Cigarette Man took a breather then began to box. They danced around the room, throwing an occasional jab.
“Enough of this,” I mumbled.
I stood behind Cigarette Man and kicked his ankles. He fell as if an unstable Erector Set. I pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Before Cigarette Man knew what was happening, I dragged him across the room and cuffed him to a cast-iron ring protruding from the side of the fireplace. Cigarette Man tried to break free. It was no use. The cast-iron ring was screwed into the fireplace—looked like the ring was there to hold the fireplace poker.
“What’cha do that for?” Jeff said.
“I didn’t feel like sitting here, watching you two reenact scenes from Rocky IV.”
“Pansy. Think there’s any more?”
“Of the Russians? I doubt it.” I tuned into my empath ability. It was working. I didn’t smell any melting iron, except what emanated from Cigarette Man.
“Hey,” Jeff said, “where’s Steve?”
I did a 360. Good question.
Jeff and I searched the downstairs. No Stern. Plenty of football betting slips, but no Stern.
We stood in the foyer. Footsteps thumped from upstairs. Jeff and I ran up the steps. It was obvious where Stern went. The chain to the bathroom skylight swung back and forth.
I climbed through the skylight. Jeff followed.
In the middle of the roof squatted Stern. He hugged his feet and knees to his chest, his butt not touching the roof by an inch. He rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around his legs.
“Come on,” I said, “it’s over. Time to shut down those dish antennas.”
“No.”
“Steve, be reasonable. It’s pretty apparent that those antennas had something to do with the cell phones exploding and all those people dying. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Maybe it has something to do with the dish antennas being from Chernobyl. Maybe the radioactivity out there worked its way into the antennas and bastardized the radio waves in the city to first blow up cell phones, then start killing people and making bushes go on fire. I don’t know how it happened; I’m not a scientist. I do know that we have to take those antennas off-line before something worse happens, like the city blowing up or something.”
“This station is my life,” Stern said into his knees. “I don’t have nothing else. No family, no friends. When I moved up here from Tennessee, in the back of mind I knew it was unhealthy to work one hundred-hour weeks and ignore my social life, but I couldn’t help it. I don’t have much social skills, and quite honestly, I never really enjoyed the company of other people. Now the only thing that keeps me from being lonely is my work. It’s all I have.”
Stern lifted his head. Tears ran down his cheeks at an alarming rate. He cried almost as hard as my father, after he had been framed by the cops for a felony.
Stern’s tears wouldn’t stop. I wondered if this was his first real cry in years. That would explain the never-ending supply.
“Come on,” I said.
Jeff and I each took Stern by an arm. Stern rose without a fight. We dropped through the skylight and headed around to the side of the house.
We stood on the left side of the house. The dish antennas whirled around. A full moon shined down.
Stern approached the antenna. He no longer cried, however, the light from the living room showed that his cheeks were moist from tears. A gentle breeze enveloped us.
Stern stepped closer towards the antenna. It seemed to slow down. The closer Stern got to it, the less it whirled around.
“What the…” Jeff said.
Stern stood in front of the antenna. It no longer moved. It pointed at the sky. I jogged around to the other side of the house. The other antenna was still, pointing at the sky as well. I jogged back to Jeff and Stern.
Stern stroked the underside of the antenna. “I’m gonna miss you, girl.”
Jeff and I exchanged glances. When did our adventure enter Outer Limits territory?
Stern stopped stroking the antenna. He took a step back. The antenna quit pointing at the sky. It moved downward, droning. It droned so loud, you could practically hear its nuts and bolts groaning. Eventually it stopped. It pointed at the house.
“Yo,” Jeff said, “we gotta cut this thing’s power. Now.”
“Steve?” I said.
Stern didn’t respond. His back was to us. He hung his head so low that it looked as if he was headless.
The antenna started to hum. It remained still, but hummed nonetheless. It was deafening. Jeff and I covered our ears. I dropped my Glock.
Stern leapt towards the center of the antenna. He hugged the actual antenna, which wasn’t a problem since it was shaped like a flower’s pistil.
The dish antenna began vibrating, so much that hairline cracks appeared in its concrete base.
“Steve!” I said, hands still over ears.
The dish antenna stopped humming and vibrating. Jeff and I uncovered our ears. I picked up my Glock. Jeff held his M60. Stern continued to cling to the antenna.
“Okay,” I said, “time to go, Steve.”
He didn’t say anything. There was no time to. He flew off the antenna as if pushed. He crashed through the living room window.
I started to march towards the window, but stopped after only three steps. A crackle of static filled the air, taking me by surprise. I slipped and landed on my back.
The tip of the pistil-antenna began to glow green. Soon the entire dish antenna glowed. The humming returned. Common sense told me to move back. I did.
A force erupted from the dish antenna. It originated from the pistil-antenna but quickly grew wider, to the circumference of the dish. It looked like a laser blast, except it was clear. I knew it was there because when I looked through it, the other side—the antenna—was distorted, like looking through a waterfall. Plus, the periphery of the laser blast had a blue tinge. It gave off heat, too.
The blast shot for WXYZ. It tore a hole through the living room.
Jeff and I retreated to the front of WXYZ. From there, we saw that the same thing was happening on the either side of the house. That other antenna tore a hole through the kitchen and dining room.
The front door creaked open. Jeff and I saw that the two blasts had connected into a tubular energy field; they hummed, but not so loud that Jeff and I had to cover our ears.
Stern lay on the living room floor. The tubular energy field hung in the air, three feet off the floor. Stern regained consciousness. He sat up on his elbows. His scalp skimmed the bottom of the energy field. I yelled for him to duck, but he didn’t hear. He sat all the way up. His head entered the energy field. Immediately, he was yanked off the floor. The antenna energy field held him in its pull. Jeff and I watched from the sidewalk, our weapons limp in our hands.
Stern levitated in the air. Because he was caught in the pull of the energy field, my view of him was distorted. However, I did see his head whip back and forth, and I wasn’t sure, but it looked like his arms were twisting around in their sockets—360 degrees.
Then, the humming stopped. The energy field disappeared. No dramatic end. No fireworks or implosion. One second it was there, the next, nothing.
Jeff and I inched towards and through the house. We came to the living room. Glass crunched under our feet. A huge hole lied in the living room and kitchen walls. Through each hole I saw a dish antenna. Their pistil antennas pointed down at the ground, as if in defeat or in exhaustion.
I studied the living room and dining room. Every inanimate object was gone. No more refrigerator, temp desk or coffee table. In the living room, the back cushion of the couch was gone, while the arms and the seat cushion remained because the energy field had been three feet off the ground.
In the middle of the living room laid Stern, facedown. Jeff squatted next to him.
“Steve. Steve!”
Stern didn’t move. His right arm was pinned under his chest; left arm next to his head, looking like the letter L.
“Wow,” I said, “look at that.”
“What?” Jeff said.
“There’s no more gray in his hair. It’s all black.”
“Hmm. How bout that. Is he even alive?”
My empath ability kicked in. It smelled molded cheese. That meant newfound hate.
Jeff’s hand gripped Stern’s shoulder in an effort to turn him over.
“Jeff, no!” I said a second too late.
Stern let Jeff turn him over. Once on his back, Stern smiled like a madman. “Surprise.”
Stern flicked his wrist. Jeff flew towards the ceiling. He slammed into the corner near the living room archway. I watched it from where I stood, by the hole in the living room. I gripped my Glock.
“What do you think, Detective?” Stern said. “Do you think your partner here would make a good pinball?”
“What?”
Stern’s open palm moved to the right, as did Jeff, from one corner of the ceiling to the other. I noticed an energy field traveled from Stern’s palm to Jeff’s chest. The energy field was similar to the dish antenna connection. It had a bluish tinge and when you looked through it, the other side was distorted.
I pocketed my Glock and picked up one of the couch’s seat cushions. I tossed the cushion into Stern’s energy field. The cushion reached the energy field, halfway between Stern and Jeff. The cushion spun around on one of its corners. The energy field from the cushion to Jeff disappeared. Jeff fell to the floor.
“Bastard!” Stern said.
Using the energy field, Stern threw the cushion my way. I stepped aside. The cushion twirled through the hole in the living room wall and bounced off the dish antenna.
Jeff was unconscious. He lay on the floor. Ten feet away knelt Cigarette Man. Forgot all about him. He was still handcuffed to the fireplace. Eyes bulging, he desperately tried to bolt free.
At that moment, I noticed something about Stern. He looked ten years younger. A result of his newfound power?
Stern focused on Cigarette Man. A burst of energy field shot out from his palm. Cigarette Man ducked. The energy field tore a hole in the mantelshelf. Cigarette Man glanced at the damage and worked even harder to break himself free.
“Here,” Stern said, “let me help you.”
He pointed and out from his index finger shot a stream of energy, which cut through the links of the handcuffs.
Cigarette Man touched the handcuff around his wrist, as if touch was the only way to verify that he was no longer chained to the fireplace.
“Uh-oh,” Stern said, “looks like we got ourselves a nonbeliever in the audience.”
The energy field, once again, shot out from Stern’s palm. The field stopped within an inch of Cigarette Man. The Slavic stared down at the energy field and wet his pants.
Stern said, “Should’ve run when you had the chance.”
Stern then stiffened his arm. The energy field tore a hole in Cigarette Man’s chest. For a moment, Cigarette Man stood frozen. What little color he had, it all drained from his face. His hand moved for the hole in his chest. It was a clean cut; no blood. Cigarette Man touched the hole. The edge of it—inside his chest—was pink and bumpy. Cigarette Man’s eyelids fluttered. His eyes traveled up into the back of his head, and he collapsed backwards.
I shook my head, snapping myself out of the trance Stern’s performance had put me in.
Jeff woke up. He picked up his M60. Stern didn’t see it aimed at him until a second before Jeff was about to fire. The M60 spit out a string of ammo. Stern darted for the kitchen, bullets chasing him. None of the bullets hit him.
Stern hopped through the hole in the kitchen wall. He turned right. We ran after him.
“Where’d he go?” Jeff asked.
“Perimeter,” I said.
We split up. I marched clockwise around the house; Jeff, counterclockwise. We met up outside the hole in the living room.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Jeff said.
Whistle.
We looked up. On the roof stood Stern, grinning.
“Hello, ladies,” Stern said. “Miss me?”
“Immensely,” Jeff quipped back. “We been looking all over for ya. You don’t call, you don’t write…”
“Well, here I am.”
Stern dropped the grin. With an intense look of concentration, he formed fists, hugged them into his chest, then extended his arms—palms open, fingers pointing at us. From each palm shot an energy field. They joined forces to double their power. The closer the combined energy field got to us, the more unclear the image of Stern and the sky became.
Jeff and I leapt out of the way. The energy field hit the base of the dish antenna. Grass, concrete and bolts zinged in every direction. The dish antenna somersaulted into the air. You could hear it slicing through the atmosphere. Vroosh, vroosh. It ascended three stories. Then gravity kicked in. The antenna began descending. Jeff and I jumped into the house, through the hole in the living room. From the dining room archway we watched the dish antenna crash 100 feet away. The ground shook. We lost balance. I grabbed the archway. Jeff fell down and vomited onto a fallen file cabinet.
“You all right?” I asked.
Bags were under Jeff’s eyes. “It was that thing he did to me in the living room. I’m dead tired.” More vomit. “Go get him. Chop his fuckin hands off.”
I nodded, cutting through the living room for the staircase.
At the bathroom doorway, I hesitated. Nervously, my hand covered my nose and mouth. Was Stern waiting for me up on the roof? Only one way to find out.
I bounded across the bathroom and used the closed toilet lid as a launching pad to hurl myself through the open skylight.
I popped up on the roof. Gravel shifted under my feet, announcing my presence.
Stern whipped around, feet spread apart like a gunslinger. Between his legs I saw the uprooted dish antenna in the distance.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Oh, nothing much.” Stern clapped his hands together. “Just enjoying my new sense of worth.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Permit me to demonstrate.”
Stern opened his palm. His hands moved clockwise. He jerked. The energy field yanked a pigeon perched atop a wooden utility pole. The pigeon flapped its wings in panic.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Stern said. “No matter what I do, this pigeon can’t escape my radio waves.”
“Radio waves?”
“Yes. Radio waves. What did you think was coming out of my hands?” Stern’s tongue peeked between his lips. “Watch this. I alter the frequency, and presto!”
The pigeon’s wing went on fire. Stern turned off the radio waves by forming a fist. The pigeon flapped its wings as fast as it could. The flames spread to its body and head. It tried flying away, but instead torpedoed down to the street in a ball of fire. Once hitting the street, it tumbled to the corner and slipped down a gutter.
I was about to lecture Stern on animal cruelty, but decided against it. I couldn’t afford to irritate him. Not yet. Had to find out about his power.
“Why did the dish antennas transfer their power to you?”
“I don’t know. Fate, maybe.” He held his hands out playfully and pointed his palms upward. I assumed radio waves were shooting out from them. I couldn’t tell. It was too dark.
“I can do all kinds of things with this power. I can make things levitate, like I did with your partner. I can make things catch fire, like I did with that flying germ farm. And I can make things disintegrate, like this!”
He swung a hand down. A deafening hum sliced the air. I dropped backward. My feet remained in place while my hands landed on the roof. The radio waves missed my torso. Their heat warmed my sweaty chest.
I dropped and rolled. On the seventh roll, I jumped to my feet.
Stern held his hands over his head. “You’re dust.” He dropped his arms to three and nine o’clock. I knew what he was going to try to do. He planned to sandwich me between the two radio waves. I had to prevent it. But how do you stop radio waves? You don’t.
I pulled out my Glock.
“You idiot,” Stern said. “My radio waves’ll eat up your puny bullets.”
I fired at his kneecap. The first bullet missed. It skimmed the side of his leg. The second bullet, however, was a bull’s eye. I heard the unmistakable sound of bullet boring through bone.
Stern fell. His hands pounded the roof, kicking up gravel dust. I stood over him. Blood pooled around his shot knee.
“Sonofabitch! I’ll kill you.”
“Enough of your idle threats,” I said.
Stern opened a palm at me. I froze. No radio waves shot out of his palm. However, it did emit static.
“Damn,” Stern said.
I stared down at him, my index finger tapping my lower lip. Should I cut Stern’s hands off as Jeff suggested?
Stern growled. He brought his hands to his chest then extended his arms and opened his palms. Radio waves shot from them. Caught off-guard, the waves mesmerized me, even though they weren’t Stern’s most powerful offering. Nonetheless, like Stern’s other waves, the closer the waves came, the more distorted the image of Stern became.
The radio waves hummed towards me. Before I knew it, the waves enveloped me. The heat was overwhelming. And I couldn’t see. It felt as if I was staring into a white floodlight.
I thrashed around, but it was useless. I had no idea what was happening to me. I didn’t feel the roof underneath my feet anymore, so I assumed Stern was levitating me.
Then, suddenly, the radio waves no longer held me in their grasp. The heat and the white light disappeared. I could see!
“Uh-oh.”
I hung in the air several feet above and away from the roof. Stern lay on the center of the roof, panting.
I still hung in the air. I couldn’t tell if it was an aftereffect of the radio waves or if my mind was playing tricks on me. Didn’t matter. The inevitable was now happening. I was falling.
To get close to the house, I kicked my legs and swung my arms as if I was swimming through the air. I kept it up, even though there was no way I was going to land on the roof. That was OK. I had a plan B.
My body slammed into the side of the house, the side with the hole in the kitchen wall. Once my body absorbed the shock of the impact, I reached for the downspout. Got it. Unfortunately, though, the downspout began to unfasten from the house. I held on. I saw that above the first floor, a bracket secured the downspout to the house. The downspout bent at that point. I flew through the air as if I was a city-slicking Tarzan and the downspout was my aluminum vine. I swung through the kitchen hole. Debris on the black-and-white tiled floor made it difficult to get proper footing. I slid into the dining room, where Jeff sat against the wall near the archway.
“What happened?” he asked.
I jumped over him, cut through the living room—what was left of it—and ran outside to my Stingray. I stood on its roof to see what Stern was up to.
Stern stood on the edge of the roof, on the kitchen side. He stepped off the edge. However, he didn’t plummet to the ground. Instead, he floated through the air. His legs weren’t moving, but his arms were. I squinted. It was too dark to tell for sure, but it looked like he was using the radio waves from his hands as stilts.
I ran after Stern, but gave up after three blocks. He was moving too fast. I bent over and tried to catch my breath.
“What the…”
The yard I stood in was one that Stern had floated over. The yard had a circle of dead grass, about two feet in diameter. In the neighboring yard, the tool shed’s roof had a two-foot circle of missing tiles. Smoke rose from both the grass and the tool-shed roof.
I limped back to what was left of WXYZ. Jeff lay unconscious in the dining room. Dead? I slapped his cheek. He jerked.
“What?” His eyes focused on me. “Must’ve dozed off. Christ, I’m exhausted.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, helping him up. I wrapped my left arm around his waist. He was limper than a beanbag. I brought his right arm around my neck and held his wrist. I slid him into the passenger seat of my Stingray. He fell asleep and didn’t wake until we were back in Chinatown.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
“Like every part of my body’s been pulverized with a sledgehammer.”
“I believe it. I got a taste of those radio waves up on the roof.” I told Jeff what happened.
“And you let him get away?” Jeff joked.
“You know me. I like the thrill of the chase.” I then said seriously, “He has amazing recuperative power. I mean, I shot him in the knee, and he was well enough in five minutes to make an escape.”
Jeff’s eyelids fluttered. “I’m gonna sleep for a week when I get back.”
“Where do you want me to drop you off?”
“Mind if I crash in your office?”
“Not a problem,” I said. “There’s an inflatable mattress in the closet.”
“I still can’t get over the way he held me up in the air like that. I was totally paralyzed. Couldn’t move at all. Like I was hit with a zap gun or something.”
I double-parked outside my office and escorted Jeff upstairs. In my office, he leaned against the wall while I pulled out the air mattress from the closet and blew it up with the flick of a switch. Jeff nose-dived on the mattress before it was completely inflated. He passed out on contact.
I listened to Jeff snoring. I couldn’t wait to sleep, but I had one last errand to run.
I grabbed Jeff’s car keys from his pants pockets, left the building, parked my car legally and hailed a cab. I told the toothless driver to take me to Bensalem. He dropped me off at Butts & Stuff. I walked to WXYZ and hopped in Jeff’s Firebird. As I drove away, the cops arrived. I saw them in the rearview mirror, but they didn’t see me.
I drove down Broad Street. The sun was rising. It hung in the passenger-side window, a purple-orange ball signaling the start of another urban day. By the time I returned to Chinatown, the sun shined so much that you would have to be self-absorbed not to notice.
I sat on the couch in my living room. The evening’s events caught up with me. I needed rest. Stat. I curled into a ball and slept.
I woke up at noon. Through the open living room window I heard sparrows chirping and children playing stickball in the parking lot. The batter argued with the pitcher whether the last throw was a ball or a strike.
With those sounds as a backdrop, I took a short shower and a swift shave. Then I was out the door. Destination? Graduate Hospital.
Joanie lay in her bed. No change. No movement. No evidence of consciousness.
The room was fairly dark. The blinds were drawn. Some of the lunchtime sun slithered through the slats.
I sat in the chair next to Joanie’s bed.
The bed’s blanket had been pulled down to Joanie’s waist. Her right ear was still bandaged. The second-degree burns on the right side of her face seemed to be improving. It looked as if the nurses had recently applied a fresh batch of ointment. It gave that side of her face a shine, even in the dark.
Joanie wore a cotton nightgown. It was white with yellow roses. I played with a thread dangling from the sleeve.
“Hey, Joanie.” I rested my chin on the guardrail and placed my hand on her hairy arm. In high school I had occasionally teased Joanie about her arm hair. She pretended not to hear, but she did. I could tell. Her ears would burn red.
I began telling Joanie about the case. I started pacing when I came to the part about Stern’s newfound power. I soon realized that talking to Joanie helped me mentally organize the facts of the case.
Finishing my tale, I stopped pacing and returned to the chair next to Joanie’s bed. For a few moments I stared at the bouquet of flowers and get-well cards by the window. Then I started talking again.
“I’ve been thinking about my motivation for this case,” I said. “At first I thought I needed to solve it because I didn’t want to see more people die or get hurt from just using their cell phones. And while that’s part of my motivation, it’s not the main thrust. I’ve been risking life and limb for you, Joanie. I—I’m still in love with you. I know it sounds clichéd and corny, but it’s true. When I saw you in your office, it was so great to talk to you. You put me in such a great mood. And subconsciously I think I was hoping the case would dead-end, just so I could come back and see you again.
“The more I think about our breakup, the more I’m convinced that it was only a growing pain. Some teenagers do stupid things like take drugs, play in a rock band or go to church. We broke up. I think we did it because of ennui. We both came from homes that were pretty stable. There was no real conflict; our parents actually loved each other and were attentive to us. Plus we had a great group of friends to hang out with. And our classes didn’t challenge us because we went to catholic high school. We had it all. Out of sheer boredom we threw our relationship away. I think it’s an effect of our times. We’re part of the MTV generation. We feel neither highs nor lows. I guess that’s one of the disadvantages to living in the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth.”
I rose out of the chair. Half-sitting, half-standing, my waist rested on the guardrail. My face hung over Joanie’s. If I brought my face down, I could kiss her soft lips at a ninety-degree angle.
“When you come out of that coma, I think we should start dating again. We should take it slow and easy, not date each other exclusively.” I smirked. “You know what they say. Second time’s a charm.”
I studied Joanie’s face. No movement. She smelled of hospital soap.
I returned to the chair, keeping an eye on Joanie. In the hall I heard footsteps running.
Jeff ran in from the hall. He grabbed the door to slow himself down. His sneaks screeched to a stop.
“Yo,” he said.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Yo, why’s it so dark in here?”
Before I could answer, he strode across the room, climbed over the bouquets and pulled up the blinds. Sunlight glared off the white-tiled floor. It stretched to the foot of Joanie’s bed.
Jeff closed the door. “Thought I might find you here. You didn’t come back to the office, and you weren’t at your apartment. Hey, maybe I should be the detective.”
I smiled.
“How’s she doing?” Jeff asked.
“Fine,” I said. “I told her about the case.”
“Any reaction?”
“None.”
“Damn,” Jeff said.
“What’s that?”
“What? Oh, this? The morning paper.”
He threw it at me. I caught it with one hand. A rubber band was around it.
“Page six,” Jeff said.
I opened to pages four and five. I turned the page. Pages eight and nine. The pages were stuck together.
“Gotta be smarter than the paper,” Jeff said.
“Or smarter than the delivery boy,” I quipped back.
I finally flipped to pages six and seven. The headline read: “City Hall Official Found Dead. Mayor Refuses to Comment.” There were no pictures. The article took up the top half of pages six and seven. I skimmed the article. Mr. Limp was the city hall official in question.
Jeff said, “His receptionist found him this morning with a hole in his torso. No blood. No sign of forced entry.”
“Stern.”
“Looks that way. But why zero in on this pseudo politician?”
“Stern knew Limp,” I said. “That’s what I call—called—him. Mr. Limp. He walked with a limp.”
“Oooo, original.”
“Limp was a silent partner in WXYZ.”
“Ah, so there’s a connection. Buy why kill him?”
“From my conversation with Stern last night on the rooftop, I’m guessing the radio waves have affected his rational thought.”
“As in he’s got none?”
“Right,” I said. “He’s intoxicated with his power.”
“So, what? He’s gonna knock off everyone he knows?”
“Looks that way. But it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who. He admitted to not having any friends, so his next target will probably be another business associate.”
“But who?” Jeff said.
Realization hit us simultaneously. We darted for the door.
Jeff’s Firebird ripped out of the parking lot. He sped down Nineteenth Street.
“I can’t believe who we’re about to save,” Jeff said.
“Believe it. Do you know where he’ll be at?”
“Got a pretty good idea.”
To save time, Jeff took some interesting shortcuts, none of them legal. One consisted of the Firebird cutting through an abandoned factory yard.
Philadelphia was home to at least 100 abandoned factories. Back in the nineteenth century, Philly boasted 7,000 operational manufacturers. By the 1950s, most tanked or moved to the South. Today, Philly’s largest private employers are universities, hospitals and utilities.
Jeff knew where to enter this factory yard. The Firebird drove through the chainlink fence. We were able to do this because someone had created a flap in the fence by cutting it vertically on two sides. The flap was only big enough to let sport cars drive through. Not surprisingly, on weekends, fast-and-furious racecar drivers brought their hotrods here to drag race.
Jeff shifted the Firebird down to third gear. The yard had too much debris and too many obstacles for the Firebird to zoom through at eighty miles per hour.
This factory must have specialized in antennas. All kinds littered the ground. Car, TV, telephone, weather. A huge antenna sat in the middle of the yard. It looked like the kind you’d find on top of a battle ship. Jeff swerved around it.
We exited the yard the same way we entered—through a flap in the fence. We were now a half-mile from our destination.
Jeff shifted the Firebird up to fifth gear. It shot down the strip.
Our destination was West Philly. Traffic was light on Baltimore Avenue.
Jeff hit the brakes. The Firebird skidded across an intersection. The right-front tire drove up on the curb, knocking over a trashcan. The Firebird came to a full stop, its right-front end parked between a fire hydrant and utility pole.
Jeff and I jumped out of the Firebird, leaving the doors open.
Angelo Sintanelli stood on the street corner in front of the neighborhood watering hole, Jay’s Place. The flashing neon Miller sign gave the left side of Sintanelli’s face a yellow hue. The sky filled with dark clouds.
“Well, well, well,” Sintanelli said, “if it ain’t Twiddle Dumb and Twiddle Fuck. What’s up, freaks?”
Sintanelli’s two lackeys snickered. The one on the left was short with Dumbo ears: probably a Mafia soldier. The one on the right was black. Enough gold clung to his body to qualify him for a Puff Daddy video.
Sintanelli wore a navy blue nylon jumpsuit. He puffed on an oversized cigar. The lit end glowed orange. Sintanelli blew smoke out his nose. The smoke was so dense, it veiled his face for a moment. When the smoke began to clear, it appeared that Sintanelli had horns and the face of a demon. But once the smoke dissipated, Sintanelli had a human face. Must have been the mid-afternoon light pulling a Penn and Teller on me.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Is that so?”
“Remember Steve Stern?”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell.” To Jeff: “Why’d you bring him around? I thought I could trust you.”
“We’re only trying to save your life,” Jeff said.
Sintanelli’s lackeys tensed up, obviously misunderstanding Jeff. They thought he was speaking in code, when in fact his comment consisted of no subtext. The lackey on the left, Dumbo, reached into his Philadelphia Wings jacket.
“Easy, Dumbo,” I said.
The nickname must have been familiar. He scowled.
“Tell your lackey to chill out,” I told Sintanelli.
“Why?” Sintanelli asked.
“Because I don’t want to hurt him.”
Thunder boomed in the distance. It vibrated my ribs.
Sintanelli said, “Let’s go inside and talk.”
To show we were on a mission of good will, Jeff and I went into Jay’s Place first. I walked up the three-step stoop. Jeff followed, then Dumbo, Sintanelli and Puff Daddy.
Jay’s Place was dark. There was a bar on the right, booths on the left and tables in the center. I led to a booth in the back. Jeff and I sat on one side, Sintanelli and Dumbo sat on the other. Puff Daddy grabbed a chair from the nearest table. He swung the chair around, butted its back against the table and sat in it facing us. He pulled out a 9mm from the back of his waist and leaned forward, holding the pistol under the table.
None of the drunks at the bar noticed us. Each stared into his drink. Besides, their backs were to us. Even if one of them had looked up without turning around, they wouldn’t see anything. The bar mirror was dirty with grime.
The bartender also didn’t take note of us. He stood at the end of the bar near the entrance, flirting with a prostitute.
I placed my hands on the table, as did Jeff. Dumbo kept his hands under the table. He tried to pull out his pistol surreptitiously, but the front eyesight got caught on a loose thread inside his jacket. When he did finally manage to pull out the pistol, his eyes fell and remained on the table.
Sintanelli sat across from me. He lit another cigar. “So,” he said, “what about Stern?”
I gave Sintanelli a rundown of Stern’s paranormal powers.
“So?” Sintanelli said. “Those radio waves of his could be only temporary. Who’s to say he don’t got them no more?”
“I seriously doubt it,” I said.
“Who died and made you Mulder?”
“Listen—”
I was cut off by a rumbling sound.
Stern crashed through the wall and landed on the table of the booth behind us. He shook off sheetrock dust and kicked a brick.
“What’s this,” Stern said, “starting the party without me?”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Jeff said.
Stern shot radio waves from his palms. Because the bar was so dark, I couldn’t see the waves cutting through the air. Nonetheless, I told Sintanelli and his lackeys to duck. They did, as did Jeff and I.
The radio waves tore a hole in the wall behind Sintanelli and Dumbo. We could see inside the bathroom. An old man sat on the toilet, passed out, newspaper in his lap.
Puff Daddy had slid out of his chair and rolled across the floor. He stood at the end of the bar, by the back door. He picked up a barstool and threw it at Stern. The barstool sliced through the air like a Ninja’s throwing star. Radio waves from Stern’s right hand bunted the barstool, sending it behind the bar, shattering a section of the mirror. The barflies continued to nurse their drinks.
“Hey!” said the bartender. He pulled out an aluminum baseball bat from behind the jukebox.
Stern used his radio waves to snatch the bat from the bartender’s hands. The waves compressed the bat until it was the size of a crushed soda can. The bartender’s eyes watered.
Sintanelli, Dumbo, Jeff and I slid out of the booth. We headed for the back door, which spilled into a two-foot-wide alley. Puff Daddy met us there. I was the next to last one to go through the doorway. Dumbo was behind me. I stepped into the alley and turned my head. Where did Dumbo go? He was running back into the bar, pistol in hand.
“No!” I said.
Dumbo either ignored me or didn’t hear me. He fired at Stern. Stern deflected the shots with his radio waves. He performed the task with such ease that he reminded me of Darth Vader using his lightsaber to deflect Han Solo’s laser gun blasts.
Dumbo ran out of bullets. He chucked his pistol at Stern. Stern’s radio waves disintegrated the weapon.
I called for Dumbo. He raced towards Stern, his Yankee arms extended as if he planned to strangle the Southerner.
“Ian!” Jeff said from the end of the alley. “C’mon!”
I hesitated for a moment, then ran down the alley. The alley had a lot of puddles. I inadvertently splashed in most of them. By the time I reached the end of the alley, the lower half of my pants were soaked.
“What the fuck were you dawdling for?” Jeff asked.
“Dumbo went back inside,” I said.
Jeff paused for a nanosecond. “We don’t have time for him.”
“He’s still a human being, even if he is in the Mafia.”
“Fuck him,” Jeff said. “If he wants to play hero, that’s on him.”
From inside the bar, Dumbo screamed. His decapitated head rolled out the back door and into the alley. No blood spewed from the neck. A clean swipe.
The head banged into a metal trashcan, knocking it over. The trashcan didn’t slow the head down. It rolled halfway down the alley. That’s when the head stopped. Lying on his ear, Dumbo stared up at us. He still screamed. His tongue wagged at us in supplication.
Jeff tugged my arm. Dumbo stopped screaming. His eyes closed and his tongue lolled out of his mouth.
I was in such shock that Jeff practically had to drag me into the passenger seat of his Firebird.
“Bout fuckin time youse got here,” Sintanelli said from the backseat, Puff Daddy next to him.
Jeff put the Firebird in reverse and made a U-turn, much to the disgust of the afternoon rush-hour traffic.
I sat in the Firebird, rigid. I was having trouble getting the image of the decapitated head out of my mind. It was so raw, so crude, so disturbing. Although, it shouldn’t have been too surprising. I once read that a person can be aware up to thirteen seconds after decapitation.
From the backseat, Sintanelli said, “Jesus fuckin Christ. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it. Fuckin radio waves comin out of his hands. Jesus Christ. What a freak!”
Puff Daddy said nothing.
Jeff turned the Firebird north onto 42nd Street. The Firebird swerved around the 30 trolley.
“I thought you said you blew his knee out,” Jeff said.
“I did,” I said, coming out of my state-of-shock fog. “He should’ve been out of commission for at least a week. The radio waves must be giving him huge recovery powers.”
“Beautiful.”
“But I don’t think he’s at one hundred percent,” I said. “You notice he didn’t come chasing right after us.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t taking any chances.”
I nodded and looked in the passenger-side mirror. The Firebird drove on a section of the street littered with potholes. The mirror shook. The Firebird came to a stoplight. The mirror stopped shaking. Stern was behind us.
Stern was only a block behind us. He hung twenty feet up in the air. Like last night, he used radio waves shooting from his hands as stilts.
Keeping my eyes on the mirror, I slapped Jeff on the chest with the back of my hand.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, “I see him.”
The traffic light turned green for vehicles in the left-turn-only lane. Even though we were in the right lane, Jeff gunned the Firebird, turning left. Horns honked at us.
Stern followed. He was less than a half a block away.
Ten seconds later…THUMP!
“He’s on your car,” Sintanelli said, “he’s on your motherfucking car!”
“Hold on,” Jeff said.
He slammed the brakes. I slid forward. Arms straight, I planted my hands on the dashboard.
The Firebird came to a complete stop. Stern rolled off the roof, onto the hood and in front of the Firebird. Cars behind us swerved around, their drivers giving us the finger.
Jeff was taking his foot off the brake when Stern leapt to his feet.
Radio waves emitted from Stern’s right palm. The waves removed the Firebird’s front windshield. Stern played with the windshield, similar to how he toyed with the pigeon yesterday on WXYZ’s roof.
Abruptly, Stern tossed the windshield across the street at a passing cement truck. The glass shattered upon hitting the side of the truck’s cement mixer. The truck drove on, the driver apparently oblivious. However, other drivers weren’t so unaffected. The shattered glass alarmed them. Most probably didn’t know what to make of the hail-sized glass chunks hitting their cars. Many of the cars’s windows were rolled down, so the glass entered the cars, startling the drivers.
Cars in both directions collided into one another. Soon, twenty autos created six separate accidents.
Jeff had the foresight to floor the Firebird when Stern threw the windshield thirty seconds ago. The Firebird zipped in reverse. Jeff turned the steering wheel left. The Firebird rode up on the sidewalk. Jeff hit the brakes then floored it, driving down the lane we just rode up.
Behind us, Stern cupped his hands together to form a radio-wave ball. He threw it underhand. The ball hit the rear of the Firebird, lunging us forward for a moment. The Firebird’s trunk popped open and its rear bumper detached, twirling up in the air like a baton. The bumper landed behind Stern.
Jeff tapped the brakes. Our options didn’t look good. Since we were driving down the avenue the wrong way, approaching traffic prevented us from going too much farther. And on the other side of the avenue, everything was backing up due to the six accidents.
“Fuckin,” Sintanelli said. “He’s coming right for us!”
Stern ambled towards us. He moved his hands as if playing an accordion, except instead of a polka-playing instrument, radio waves hummed in his arms.
I slammed a hand on the dashboard. “There!” I pointed to the other side of the avenue. There was a hole in the car accidents we could cut through.
Jeff wasted no time. He guided the Firebird through the S-shaped hole. The Firebird darted through with the agility of a limber quarterback.
The hole dropped us in front of the Philadelphia Zoo.
The Firebird couldn’t fit through the entrance of the zoo.
Stern sauntered through the hole we just drove through. He smirked with his head bowed, which gave him a demonic aura because you couldn’t see his eyes. He also limped slightly. Obviously he hadn’t recuperated fully from the shot in the knee.
“Ian,” Jeff said, “c’mon!”
Jeff, Sintanelli and Puff Daddy were running into the zoo. I caught up with them. Pheasants and peacocks, which the zoo let wander around freely, hopped out of our way.
We dashed into the Reptile and Amphibian House. It was dark and cool in here. I didn’t see any visitors or zoo officials. We stood in the middle of the House, by the king cobra exhibit. The cobra rose to attention, flickering its tongue at us. In front of the cobra’s glass cage was a ten-foot-high cobra statue. It was probably supposed to give the exhibit the look of a temple, but it came across as tacky due to its fake moss.
Sintanelli paced back and forth. The cobra’s head followed him. “What the fuck are we gonna do?”
“Relax,” I said.
“Do you think he saw us duck in here?”
“Possibly.”
“Well,” Sintanelli said, “we gotta go then. Gotta keep moving.”
“Ange,” Jeff said, “chill.”
“Aw, no. I ain’t gonna have my fuckin head cut off, too. Fuck that! I’m too freakin young to die.”
Sintanelli continued to ramble. Puff Daddy didn’t seem to be paying attention. He stared at the entrance/exit we came through.
I said, “I think I know of a way to cripple Stern’s powers.”
“Really?” Jeff said. “How?”
I told them my idea. When I was finished, Puff Daddy said:
“I know a place we can do it. It’s at Greenback and Girard—practically around the corner.”
“Well, what the hell we waitin for?” Sintanelli said. “Let’s do it. Let’s go. Let’s off this clown. Let’s go!”
Puff Daddy gave his boss a look of contempt. It was the most emotion I’d seen Puff display all day.
But before Puff Daddy’s contemptuous look could develop into regrettable violence, the doors to the House tore off their hinges. Stern sneered in the sunlight.
“Ladies,” Stern said to us.
He brought up a palm. Out shot radio waves. We ducked. The waves hit the cobra statue, blowing it up as if by dynamite.
Statue dust began to clear. It tickled my throat.
Puff Daddy pulled out his 9mm and fired at Stern. With one hand, Stern created a shield with his radio waves and walked towards us. Puff continued shooting.
“Stop firing,” I yelled to Puff, but he didn’t hear.
Stern crouched behind his radio-wave shield. His activity behind the shield wasn’t mysterious because his reflection was visible on the glass cage of the Gaboon viper exhibit.
Radio waves shot out from Stern’s other hand, the one not maintaining the shield. The waves bounced off the glass of the viper exhibit and aimed for Puff.
Puff started screaming. Reptiles and amphibians pressed against the glass of their cages.
Stern’s radio waves were melting Puff’s pistol and hand. Metal and flesh dripped to the floor like wax. Some of the flesh landed on Puff’s white sneakers, making a sound similar to a boxer