Hipster Death Rattle Read online

  Petrosino lit up and inhaled deeply. And the night had started so well.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Not for the first time that night, Tony wondered what the hell he was doing. The jagged Manhattan skyline bounced and bobbled in the distance, or that could just have been his soggy head bouncing and bobbling. He was looking out the back window of the back car of the number 7 train, and he ached to sit down, lie down, knock out. He had been standing for hours. He had been drinking for hours. (The cocktails had been surprisingly cheap and surprisingly strong.) But he couldn’t rest because he was crushed against the conductor door in a very crowded car with a very drunk Gabby leaning what seemed to be her entire weight on him.

  The train inched its way along an elevated line over Queens.

  Gabby had suckered him into going to a poetry reading in a lounge on Hooper Street. She had texted him at the office, from four feet away. He texted back that he hated poetry.

  “U h8 evryting :(,” she wrote, but then added: “plz dis naybrhood not safe w/ dat machete guy slashing ppl. I don’t wn 2 gt slashed. UR a big guy +U cn B my bodyguard.”

  “Sure,” he had texted back, kicking himself as he did.

  He met her at the lounge, which was dimly lit, low-ceilinged, and lined on one side with sagging velvet curtains and on the other with inspirational posters (“Failure is temporary. Giving up is permanent”), like some high school version of a literary salon. But the air conditioning was spot on.

  While Gabby sat on one of the few stools, Tony did his best not to roll his eyes at the poets. The first poet recited—or was that singing? Or was that rapping?—a piece about how much he loved and respected his grandmother. The next poet rhymed about how much she loved and respected her mother and grandmother. Grandmothers turned out to be a popular subject. This went on for a while.

  Between each reading there was a break, and an irritating sound that stabbed at Tony’s ears blared from the speakers.

  “What is that?” he asked Gabby. “Is that bachata?”

  “Duh. Reggaeton,” she said.

  “It’s musical waterboarding.”

  “Not a surprise,” she said, touching his chest. She had been touching him a lot. It was probably because of all the rum and cokes she had been downing. “By the way, Tony, thanks again so so so much for this. I get all paranoid, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, and can you walk me home later, okay?”

  “I guess,” he said. “Wait a second. Don’t you live in Queens?”

  “Let’s dance!”

  “I do not want to dance.”

  Undiscouraged, she turned around and found a dance partner immediately, so Tony turned and struggled to get the bartender’s attention. The reggaeton pecked at Tony’s brain, and he felt only alcohol could protect him.

  “Chino? I thought that was you.”

  He turned, spilling beer on his face and neck. Few people still called him “Chino” anymore. It was an old nickname that had withered away when most of his childhood friends had died or moved out. But he knew that voice.

  “Magaly.”

  Magaly Fernandez had grown up a block away from Tony in the Southside of Williamsburg. Her curly hair bounced and swayed, like a separate entity atop her head, and she wore an oversized man’s shirt over black leggings. Over her shoulder was an enormous purse that seemed to hold a litter of bulldogs. Her large brown eyes flared with life, and her lips looked as sensual and inviting as they always had.

  “You look good. What’s it been? Ten years?” she said.

  “About.”

  “Was that your niece I saw you with?” She waved to the bartender and he came right over to her. She ordered two white wines.

  “Co-worker.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Yeah,” Tony said. “So, you like poetry?”

  “I love poetry. I love all art. My boss wanted to come here, so…long story. But what about you, Chino?” she said.

  The bartender came back with two white wines incredibly fast. Tony tried to catch the bartender but he floated away without charging Magaly.

  “Don’t tell me you developed a love for the arts since I last saw you?” she said. “Or does your co-worker have something to do with it?”

  Tony smirked. “I can appreciate art.”

  The emcee was announcing the last reader of the night. Standing just behind him was a man in his forties with a shaved head, goatee, and a gray suit sharp and shiny enough to qualify as good cutlery. The man looked familiar. Some community guy. The emcee introduced him as Luis De Moscoso, director of El Flamboyan Community Center, and that clicked it for Tony. There was a lot of applause. De Moscoso was in the Sentinel very often, but not in Tony’s beat.

  De Moscoso said his poem was called “Adios, Bodega de Mi Corazon.” Goodbye, Bodega of My Heart. Half of the lines were in Spanish. The other half were the same lines in English. He read from his smartphone.

  Where is Jose? He is gone! Where is Josefina? She is gone!

  They got gone, moved over, paved over, left

  By the colonizers, the gentrifiers, the sanitizers, the backstabbers

  They come creeping onto our shores

  Like Cristóbal Colón and his merry merchant ships

  They invaded Los Sures. They took our stores.

  They took our homes. They took our streets.

  And they just want us to disappear, they just want us to evaporate

  But we can’t let them pave over us like a steamroller

  We have to be more than WOKE! We have to be ready for WAR!

  On and on it went like that for ten minutes. Tony had no appreciation for poetry, but this one got a standing ovation. But that wasn’t hard since there were so few seats.

  Magaly had been watching De Moscoso intently. Tony was about to ask her a question when suddenly that bald head—and a cloud of cologne—stepped between him and Magaly.

  “I’m done here,” De Moscoso said. He slid his arm possessively around her waist. “Let’s go.”

  “Calmate, hombre. Carajo,” she said, pushing the arm away. She pointed out Tony. “I want you to meet an old friend. Anthony Moran. We used to call him ‘Chino.’ Chino, this is Luis De Moscoso, my boss.”

  De Moscoso stuck his hand out but didn’t look at him. Then Magaly said, “He’s a journalist. You’re still a journalist, right? I see your name in the Sentinel.”

  De Moscoso rotated toward Tony and looked him up and down and did not seem impressed. Then he broke into a brilliant white grin. “Luis De Moscoso,” he said, tightening his grip. “Director of El Flamboyan Community Center. Un placer. I’m always available to meet with journalists about issues that are important to the community.”

  Behind and unseen by De Moscoso, Magaly’s eyes signaled one word: “Behave.” Tony’s face broke in a smile as wide and pure as the East River. He said, “Hey, great poem! Really terrific. Shakespearesque.”

  “You like it? Thank you. It’s not usually my thing but I like to dabble. Perhaps you could publish it in the Sentinel.”

  Magaly. Eyes.

  Smiling, Tony said, “Terrific idea. But I have to ask my editor about it.”

  “Of course,” De Moscoso said. “Let me give you my card.”

  Tony took the card and held it like a piece of used tissue.

  Then De Moscoso turned to Magaly and said, “We need to run. Nice to meet you, Mr. Chino.”

  De Moscoso had his hand on Magaly’s rear end as they headed for the door. She grabbed it and held it, and when they left the lounge, Tony saw they were holding hands.

  Gabby was suddenly at Tony’s side with two rum and cokes in her hands. She drank from both of them.

  “Can I have one of those?” Tony said.

  “But I already drank from them.”

  “Just give me.”

  “All right, Cranky Man.”

  Tony finished the drink in a gulp.

  “Wow, somebody’s thirsty,” Gabby said. “So, who was that
? That lady you were talking to. I love love love her hair.”

  “That was my ex.”

  “Ex-wife?”

  “Funny. Ex-girlfriend. Five years. Right out of college. But we were friends long before that. We grew up in the Southside together.”

  “I love her hair.”

  “You said that. Is it time to go yet?”

  Gabby chugged the last of her drinks. She said, “Now we can.”

  They walked out into the night heat to the G train. They waited a long time for it to arrive, standing since all the platform seats were taken by homeless men. After the G, they transferred for the 7 and waited a while for that to show, no seats open again. Now, rumbling along on the 7 train, Tony looked down to see Gabby drooling as she leaned her body against him. He sighed.

  When his phone rang, he had just enough room between him and Gabby to dig into the pocket of his shorts. He noted the time. It was two in the morning, and a phone call at 2 a.m. could be very good news (unlikely), very bad news (more likely), or a drunk friend (highest probability).

  “Hello, sir. Is this Tony Moran?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Officer Thomas of the NYPD—”

  Police. Very bad then.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Woodhull Hospital was wedged up against the elevated train at Flushing Avenue. The modernist hulk of steel, glass, and rust-colored brick looked less like a hospital and more like a place to serve consecutive life terms. Tony hated Woodhull. He hated hospitals. They smelled of piss and disinfectant.

  “How much?” he asked the car service driver.

  “Diez y nueve.”

  “Nineteen!” Rip-off. Tony handed over a twenty-dollar bill. It was the last of his money, and he’d had to borrow it from Gabby, who was suddenly wide awake at her stop. (“Reflex,” she’d said.) He found a car service base a block from the train, and the driver had played reggaeton the whole ride.

  Tony waited. Then he held his hand out. The driver looked at it, then handed over the dollar bill change.

  “Thanks,” Tony said.

  He rushed into the emergency entrance—piss, disinfectant—and asked for the officer who called. The security guard at the desk made a call, and a minute later, two men walked over. One was tall with a dirty yellow mustache. He wore a flashy tuxedo with the colors of the Italian flag. The short man next to him wore a knit tie and a plaid shirt. So one or the other had missed the memo. The tall one said he was Detective Petrosino and his partner, Detective Hadid.

  The tall one, Petrosino, said, “I’m sorry to inform you that your friend passed not two minutes ago.”

  “Oh fuck.” Tony stared at the cops. “Damn.”

  Patrick had not been a friend, but Tony had worked with him for years. He wasn’t sure what to feel, what to say.

  Detective Hadid said, “Listen, since you’re here already, sir, would you mind terribly identifying the body for us, sir?”

  “‘Terribly?’” Tony said.

  Petrosino said, “And if you can give us any contact information on a family member for Mr. Stoller, we would appreciate that as well. Yours was the only number we found in Mr. Stoller’s wallet.”

  “That’s what the officer who called me said. And Patrick’s phone was stolen?” Tony said.

  “No phone was found near the body, no.”

  They walked him down the hall under the nauseating lights of the ER. Miserable-looking people sat in the few seats that were available. One man, whose right foot twisted in an unnatural direction, looked bored scrolling through his phone. Next to him, a large woman wrestled with a large child, who was begging his lungs out for Cheez Doodles.

  Tony followed the cops through a swinging door. Beds were separated by curtains.

  The cop on the phone had been cagey. Patrick had been attacked. Was in very bad shape. “If I were you, I’d get here right away,” he’d said.

  Tony had seen dead bodies before, once in the street after a car accident—although from twenty feet away—in a couple of funeral homes, and of course online (for a clickbait piece on celebrity autopsies). So he hoped against logic that it would be the same thing, without the bad makeup and mouth sewing. He’d say, “Sure, sure, that’s him,” and he’d be home in an hour.

  They led him to near the back of the room, behind a curtain. On it was a sheet on top of what seemed to be the shape of a person. But in several places, the sheet was wet, red-black.

  Petrosino said, “Are you ready?”

  “No,” Tony said. “Do it anyway.”

  Petrosino pulled back the sheet. Tony’s stomach flipped, his balls tightened, and, to his surprise, tears welled in his eyes.

  All he saw at first was red—an unnatural-looking jelly-red. It didn’t seem like a human. Most of Patrick just didn’t seem to be there anymore.

  “Take your time,” Petrosino said. “I know he’s your friend.”

  Tony tried to compose himself the only way he knew how. “Actually, we were just co-workers,” although his throat was so dry and he said it so quietly, he didn’t know if anyone heard him, even when Petrosino said, “Right-o.”

  Tony looked more closely at the red mass, leering open like bloodied lips. Over to its left—part of a nose, a mouth. The left eye closed, the skin pale, almost green, curly ginger hair above.

  Tony took a breath and said, “Him.” He didn’t trust his voice to say more than that.

  “Thank you, sir,” the plaid-shirt detective, Hadid, said.

  Petrosino began to put the sheet back in place, but Tony stopped him, moved his arm. The detective gave him a look. Tony looked back and mumbled, “One second.”

  Tony was shaken. Patrick had been alive just hours before, had asked him to work on some project, seemed nervous. But what project? And why nervous?

  Patrick’s upper body, clotted with blood, and his arms—they looked like they’d been savagely attacked, but from the looks of the wound where the blade hit, Tony began to visualize the scene.

  “He…he put up a fight, didn’t he?” Tony said.

  “You can say that again,” said Hadid. “Lots of defensive cuts, and a nice cut right in the chest. I’d say the killer was left-handed from the direction of all the cuts.” He pantomimed the killer’s slashing as he spoke. “See. Like that, probably.”

  “Actually, that’s a misconception,” Tony said. “There’s really no way to tell. The attacker, or assailant, as you guys say, could have struck from multiple angles, used a right hand, left hand, both hands.”

  “What’s that, now?” Hadid’s face scrunched.

  “And from some of these wounds,” Tony said, “I doubt you guys can tell for sure if the assailant or assailants stood in front of him, behind him, one side or the other…”

  “Well, fuck me,” Hadid said. “Is he right?”

  Hadid looked at his tall partner, who nodded.

  “Me and my big mouth.”

  Petrosino put back the sheet. “Mr. Moran, when was the last time you saw your Mr. Stoller?”

  “Um, just today—I mean, yesterday,” Tony said. “He was at the office. Can I ask—where did this happen?”

  “He was found on the corner of Kent Avenue and South 3rd,” Petrosino said. “By the way, did Mr. Stoller ride a skateboard?”

  “With a passion. It had a Deadhead sticker on, even though he hated the Grateful Dead.”

  The short cop was going to say something when Tony interrupted. “Yeah, so, then, he was attacked by someone on a bike or a moped or maybe even somebody else on a skateboard?”

  Petrosino tilted his head like a dog’s. “What makes you say that?”

  “Patrick was skateboarding, so he must have been in motion. Of course, he could have been just standing there on that corner, but why? If my memory is right, there’s nothing much over that far, some stores and a lot—unless they put up a hotel or a mall there by now. Which is certainly possible. But Patrick lives over by the BQE, way in the other direction. What was he doing, joyriding at nigh
t?”

  “These are all good questions for us, Mr.—”

  Tony interrupted Hadid again. “Wait, did you find his backpack? He has a backpack. Purple, I think. Lots of buttons.”

  “No backpack,” Hadid said, making a note. “He only had this little plastic wallet on him. The one with your number on a piece of paper in it. And a Metrocard and debit card.”

  “Any eyewitnesses?”

  “No.”

  “But it’s the slashers, right? Or slasher?” Tony said. “That makes the third killing in a month. But before that, two people got slashed and survived. What did they say about whoever slashed them?”

  Petrosino rubbed his mustache and spoke through his hands. “Unfortunately, I cannot go into details about this or any other cases.”

  “That sounds like public relations speak,” Tony said. “Listen, be honest with me, I’m a reporter, well, kind of sort of a reporter, and—”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Petrosino said, palming his face.

  “I mean, I work—worked—with Patrick at the Williamsburg Sentinel. Only part-time, but—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Moran. I think we’re done here. If you have any official case-related questions, you can contact our press department.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Tony said. “It’s only the Williamsburg Sentinel. It’s not the Times. It’s not even Greenline.”

  Hadid steered Tony away from the body. “You’ve identified the body, and we thank you for taking the time and coming down. We and the City of New York are sincerely sorry for the loss of your friend.”

  Tony stopped in place. He wasn’t in favor of being steered. “‘The City of New York?’ Do they make you say that?”

  They didn’t exactly throw him out. They just hovered closely and authoritatively until he was near the exit. Petrosino gave him his card and shook his hand, and Tony said he would try to find contact information for Patrick’s family. Hadid nodded and Tony nodded back.

  As Tony walked outside the hospital, the humidity of the night covered him like slime. A couple walked past him, the man gingerly cupping his own ass, the woman calling him a baby and carrying a half-melted bag of ice.