Wild Goose
Fiction Friday
A story inspired by the style, setting and atmosphere of New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, a book gifted to me by Matt Inwood who kindly encourages my words.
“Get that, it’ll be for you.”
In a life that doesn’t add up much these days, her saying that was just one more piece of weird math. I thought she’d long since given up on me being around the apartment at any part of a day when we might bump into one another, let alone pick up our own calls.
Maybe I should have thought more about it at the time. But I didn’t and that’s that. You can be a private investigator and not pick up on stuff, you know.
She must have forgotten the note pinned to the fridge, typed, old school, probably a 1960s Royal. I know typewriters and if it was good enough for Hemingway it sure as hell is good enough for me even if my own writing is a moveable feast.
Anyway, that’s not the point. She’d pinned the note on the fridge and I’d written the date in the crimson-colored spiral bound notebook I keep in the breast pocket of my old sports jacket. That’s another thing she’s not keen on. Apparently leather patches on elbows and pockets bulging with the tools of the trade make me look like ‘a past-it, boring professor’.
But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. I’ll just say, the note matters because it’s why I’m here, in our ‘not big enough to swing a cat’ apartment in an unfashionable neighborhood at the same time as the wife I never usually bump into on account of … look, we’ll come back to that.
“Will you just pick up the damn phone, dick, or do you need more clues?”
Another brutal take down of my profession. Maybe, now I think of it, it’s more personal than that. It’s just this private investigator she’s not so keen on. I wanted to tell her that at least it gets me out the house but I didn’t want to hear another ‘thank god’ muttered in return.
So even if I’m still wondering why the hell she knows it’s for me, or if she’ll turn down Dave Herman on WNEW-FM so I can hear myself think over the Allman Brothers, I pick up the damn phone.
“Zillman, is that you?”
My cautious ‘yeah, who wants to know’ hung there, not long enough to get embarrassing or nothing, but noticeable. Not uncomfortable, but inching towards awkward.
“I gotta job for you, Zillman. Pays good. Might take a while. I need you to drop everything else.”
My brain works pretty fast … ‘pays good’ always sticks in the mind. My “how long is ‘take a while’”, teetered on the edge of over-keen. The gravel-voiced stranger on the other end of the line didn’t know that ‘everything else’ was basically a missing cat and two families in the same neighborhood who’d not heard from their kids. The cat had last been seen sauntering into Chinatown and I was trying to find ways not to tell a lovely old lady that her feline was most likely a takeaway option. The families must have missed some clues about their pretty 18-year old daughter and her quarterback boyfriend. I didn’t know what State or exactly which motel, but I was stringing it out.
“Yeah, I could drop everything but why not call me at the office.”
“Look, we’re talking now, Zillman, you want the job or not?”
There’s a leather chair in the corner of the apartment. Secondhand, maybe handed on more times than that. Cracked, frayed, smells of cats, or whiskey … who knows, do cats drink whiskey? Whatever, my wife hates it with more passion than she’s ever mustered during what she calls our ‘sorry excuse for a marriage’. Maybe we measure things differently, but I reckon we’re doing fine. She’s got a steady job. Worked her way from the typing pool to the main office and now she’s assistant to some hotshot corporate type. It must pay better than hunting for runaways with all the fancy frocks she’s been able to buy. “You’ve got to make an impression, dumbass. Mr Collins says …”. Yeah, whatever, Mr Collins knows best. As for work, I earn enough to hang my share of bucks in her wardrobe and to add to the Vegas trip savings pot.
Anyways, I wake up in the creaky leather chair with a crick in my neck, drool crusted on three days of bristles, and the lingering physical effects of a dirty dream about my wife. See, I still like her. The boilers in the building are playing up again but an ice cold shower quickly solves all three conditions. It sharpens my thoughts too, almost as quick as the two fingers of Jim Beam I use as mouthwash, just not the kind you spit out.
I get to thinking about the call and the way he left me hanging.
There wasn’t much to go on. No name, just a voice, and not one I recognised though there was something about it. Difficult to age. Maybe trying to sound older, a bit put on. But it had been a savage winter and sore throats made most clients gruffer. Hell, I’d called Lost Cat Woman ‘Sir’ when she first telephoned.
“I’ll send a package to your office, Zillman, terms laid out. You’ll be well rewarded if you follow them to the letter.”
Makes you think. A client who knows what they want and the way they want it done. Makes a change from weepy widows, guys who want a problem to disappear, or parents worried that their daughter’s disappearance will open up a rift in the tenuous grip they have on togetherness. They all just want solutions. No interest in the how, just the what.
This guy seemed to have a plan. But I wouldn’t find out what it was by sitting in a creaky leather chair waiting for a glimmer of winter sunshine to grace our shithole of an apartment with a hint of unfamiliar warmth.
Lenny the Landlord.
I know, sounds like a joke, but it is never funny when his hangdog expression is the first thing you see as you swing open the office door. You don’t have to be much of an investigator to deduce things ain’t looking up when he waves a repossession order in your face.
“I boxed your stuff, Zillman. Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance. I’ve had a better offer on the place, money up front which just about covers what you owe. So, clear out and we’ll forget the dough.”
He tries too hard sometimes, affecting that tough guy persona. I know he’s a loser, he knows he’s a loser, but he owns a building and I don’t so who’s the loser round here?
I don’t hang around. I’ve got no corner to fight and no money for the purse. There’d have been a bonus if I’d found the sweet and sour cat but I don’t need a Chinese fortune cookie to know how that was going to turn out.
I bump into the courier as I’m on the way out with my box of office crap and take the padded envelope he hands me round to Gino’s on Lexington for a plate of leftovers from the lunchtime crowd. I’m deep into a second glass of Chianti as I re-read the single typed sheet that sets out the order of things. This guy is certainly specific. What was it he’d said, ‘terms laid out’.
Words jumped out at me.
handpicked for the job … apartment rented for you overlooking the subject’s home … full commitment … secrecy is paramount … no contact with your old life
‘Old life’? Current life, I think you’ll find, buddy. Why do you think I’d agree to …
$1000 a month, 3 months guaranteed. $200 cash advance.
Okay, yeah, I’m starting to see what you mean.
There’s some small print but the hooks are in so I give it a miss. Tipping the envelope up on the white passata-spattered tablecloth throws a bunch of keys onto the floor. They can wait. I’m too busy counting a wad of ten-spots into 50-buck piles. Looks a lot like $200 to me and when you’ve been thrown out your office and your wife likes to dress fancy, money has a persuasive manner.
I grabbed the keys, noting an address on a brown tag, and finished mopping up the best tomato sauce in town. Peeling off two 10s which I stuck under the bread basket for Gino, I’m on the move with a full wallet and a belly full of pasta and Tuscan red. The address was a few blocks away but a walk would clear my head.
The apartment was what you might call basic. A realtor would find some fancy words, but it was still just a tiny bedroom, single bed, bathroom and a living space that the front door opens into. What it had though was a view perfectly suited to the task in hand.
Keep the subject under constant observation, including but not limited to time spent in his apartment.
Two big windows looked down from my third floor perch into two on the second floor of the block opposite. As I fiddled about with the blinds, I caught sight of him for the first time. Maybe I expected more, a telltale reason in his manner to explain why he was the subject. But first impressions can only take a guy so far. I guessed ‘constant observation’ would take care of the rest.
You get a lot of time in your own head if all you have to do is sit and watch.
Thoughts occur, and you get time to chew them over. There’s no-one to talk to. Pretty much like being at home but this apartment is even smaller and my wife isn’t around to ignore the thoughts I try and chew over with her.
It’s a weird stipulation, ‘no contact with your old life’ but he’s paying well so it’s worth sticking to his rules. I sent a short note to her to explain, adding that this anonymous client planned to pay most of the fee straight into our joint account. I told her we’d save it up for a nice holiday in Vegas when I was done, a chance to start over, maybe talk a bit. She didn’t write back but I guess she’s better at respecting the boundaries of my job than I thought.
Every day unfolded pretty much the same as the last. I’d set an alarm for 5am so I didn’t miss him getting up. It was usually after midnight when his bedroom light went out. The night shift guy at the 24/7 has moved on from nodding to a kind of familiar grunt. Maybe we would get on if we talked but mostly I need to just grab some supplies and get to bed. I usually added a handful of red spiral bound notebooks to the pile of cans and dried goods. Every second Friday, as specified, the padded envelopes of completed ‘observation logs’ were picked up from the Welcome mat outside the apartment door. As instructed, I put them out for collection by 4pm and thought no more about how dull they were.
Bedroom light turned on at 5.30am. Subject up at 6.12am.
Subject paced around for most of the morning. He appears to be talking to himself. Today, he seemed angry.
Subject made a sandwich which was ignored for precisely one hour while he wrote with great vigour. After one hour, he attacked the sandwich with the same urgency, devouring it in a handful of voracious bites.
After a few weeks, I’d tried to flower up the language, maybe make it interesting. But when the courier picked up the latest envelope filled with notebook scribbles, they were exchanged for a terse typewritten note.
Keep to the basics. You are no writer, and never will be. Just report the facts. That is all you are being paid to do.
There was a postscript about the regularity of my trips to the 24/7, insisting that I should reduce them to fortnightly to lessen the chance of missing something important. Important? Yeah, whatever. Maybe it was another one of those things I should have thought more about at the time. I guess when observing is just a case of writing down exactly what you see, the thinking goes out of it. Maybe I should have wondered how anyone knew I was going to the store most days. But I didn’t and that’s the truth of it.
I never thought I’d suit a beard. Seven weeks in, it’s Grizzly Adams staring out from the mirror as I throw cold water on my face and try to get the sleep out my eyes. She’d never liked the idea of one. ‘Bristles give me a rash so shave or keep your distance’. She mostly kept her distance anyway, but I shaved every day on the off-chance.
Seven weeks, five notebooks, three reports, two typewritten letters from the client.
This week I want to send an extra report. But that’s not covered in the contract. I have no contact details for the man who hired me, just a fading memory of a familiar-sounding gravelly voice and my fortnightly report. The subject has taken to standing in the middle of the three rooms that I can see from my vantage point. The blind is permanently closed but I can see his outline clearly enough. He stands there for hours, unmoving, statuesque. I write it in the report in clear, simple language, precisely what I am being paid for. I don’t speculate though I am curious. Who is he? What does he do all day? Why is he being watched? The questions come easily, but there are no answers. It has been ten days since I spoke to anyone aloud so even if I had someone to ask, I’m not sure the words would come out. So I write the report.
Subject spends increasing amounts of time each day in one room. He is still. I do not know what he is doing. In the evening he returns to his living room where he reads, writes and prepares meals. I continue to observe him.
This week marks the end of Month Two, or the start of Month Three, depending how you look at life. The client left a note outside my apartment but it didn’t feel as welcome as the mat suggested it should be.
In accordance with the terms of our contract, you are required to extend the period of observation for a further month. In addition, cash payments for the remaining duration of the contract are reduced to $100 a month with the remainder to be paid directly to your bank account.
Damn, that screws up my idea to buy fresh clothes. Food is the priority, though the night shift guy at the 24/7 barely gave me the time of day last time I was in. Like he didn’t recognise me, maybe didn’t want me there. Sure I look a bit scruffy but I shower most weeks and I always pay in cash. Maybe I’m the only customer who just buys tins and eats ground beef out the can. Still, business is business, buddy. A few manners wouldn’t go amiss.
I was thinking. When did I pass on my bank details? And where did he get our home telephone number? What was it about his voice that rang a bell?
Maybe I should have thought a bit more about that.
But I had a report to write in a spiral-bound notebook with a red cover.
Week 12 - subject has spent all his time out of sight, though visible through the blind. He wakes early when the light goes on in the bedroom and quickly appears in the middle room where he stays all day.
Nothing further to report.
Apparently I ‘can’t come in here smelling like that’. I told her straight. Who put you in charge of City-wide hygiene? All I want is to draw money out of my own damn bank account. Apparently ‘there’s no need to use that sort of bad language, Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave’.
“Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this”, I croaked, my barely-used voice struggling to escape the matted hair overhanging my top lip. Maybe I should lose the beard. Or wash it. But there’s only enough money for food, not luxuries like shampoo or soap or washing powder. Hell, there’s no way I’m choosing the laundrette over tins of corned beef.
“Shit …”. That bit came out loud and made a few folk turn round. They sort of shrank back, or maybe I imagined it. Anyhow, I saw the big clock on the Williamsburgh Tower and remembered I had to get back before I missed something. Ironic that the time shows up on a building that’s a savings bank. First, I can’t access my own damn savings and, second, I still haven’t worked out how the hell the client knows where to put my money?
One week to go.
“I can do this”. The words come out hoarsely, sandpaper rasping on the silence of this voluntary prison. I’ve stopped stamping on the cockroaches that scuttle across the cheap flooring. To be honest, they’re company and waving antennae look a lot like listening when you’ve been on your own for long enough to give the critters names.
Deep breath, Zillman, write the report, leave it on the mat, wait for any final instructions.
For the third week in a row there has been no movement in the subject’s apartment. Spring has brought brighter mornings so the bedroom light is no longer helpful for monitoring timings. Full disclosure: On Tuesday, observation was suspended when I visited my bank. I cannot live on $100 per month in cash. Also, this month’s cash payment has not been received.
It sounded desperate but I didn’t care.
I wanted to ask the client if he remembered the telephone number at my apartment. He’d rung it so he must have it written down. I’ve got 2-4-7 … maybe a 9 … or a 6 … 2-3 something, something. I want to call my wife, tell her I’ll be home soon, ask if she misses me. But I don’t know my own number. Damn, I should have thought about that. I should have thought about a whole bunch of stuff.
The note was a kicker. When you are down to fourteen bucks in dollar bills and quarters, you don’t want to be reading that sort of crap.
In light of the recent serious breach of contract during which the subject could have left the country for all you would have known, the agreed cash payment has been withheld until evidence is provided that the project was not compromised.
Evidence? Not compromised? What the hell am I supposed to live on? Who does this guy think he is anyway? What am I even doing this for?
Okay, okay, it’s Tuesday already. Four more days. I’ve got this.
The kitchen cabinet parsimoniously offers up two cans of Grabill Country ground cooked beef. There’s probably enough in quarters for more. Who knows, maybe even a cold beer on Friday on the way home. A hoarse voice that is probably mine tells no-one in particular that I’m nervous as hell. There’s no way she’ll go for the gold rush prospector look, especially when the gold nuggets are all tucked in an account I can’t mine for a warm shower and a visit to the barber.
What the … DAMMIT … hey … HEY
… do you get that thing in dreams where you try to shout and the words don’t come out? In the same dreams, the soles of your boots melt and you stick to the ground, unable to escape the thing. Or worse, you’re too slow to catch whatever it is you’re chasing after. That.
So while I’m thinking “who the hell knocks and runs?”, I hear heavy footfall echoing down the stairwell but my damn shoes are moving at less than half the speed needed to catch up. No sooner do I reach down to grab the envelope on the doormat than I tumble forward, a sprawling dizziness weakening legs that have half-forgotten how to respond to an unfocused mind. Chasing down the stairs starts to feel like the dumbest kind of idea but instinct took over. As the elevator stalled between floors, it taunted me with whines that sounded a helluva lot like hysterical laughter. Three sets of stairs and I’m done. The street door slams while I double over, dry retching the taste of ground beef into my nostrils, wheezing like a metro train on the highline.
You can expect a note. Anticipate a final payment. Maybe hope for some thanks for ‘a job well done’. But when you shake out a single folded sheet of paper, no dough, what you don’t think you’ll get is a kick in the balls. If you did, you might steel yourself for the blow, turn sideways, cup the family jewels.
Me? I’m the schmuck who just stood there and took it full force, as hard as a few typewritten lines could kick a man.
One month ago, the ‘subject’ moved out of the apartment I rented for him on a 3-month lease. Your reports have done nothing more than confirm to me that you are a dog with a bone. Maybe if you had learned over the years to let things go, we might not be where we are now. And where are we? Well, you are on the street locked out of an apartment for which you have no lease contract. Your ‘old life’ no longer exists. Maybe you will feel that as keenly as I felt it when you ripped my old life apart with the petty, intrusive investigation you conducted which ruined my marriage. Gambling was my vice but you were the one that gave my wife enough evidence to cut me out of her life. Maybe I should thank you. Truly. It turns out your wife loves the Las Vegas lifestyle and she is now my very well-dressed good luck charm. I make more in a week than I did in a month of corporate life.
Collins
Such a good read, Barrie. And Auster-ish vibes throughout. So glad you enjoyed the book. x
Wonderful! I really enjoyed this. Thanks, Barrie.