Sammy Two Shoes, page 13
‘OK,’ I allowed, ‘but given what you just said, your goat wasn’t really gotten, was it?’
Tanner paused. Maybe he was thinking, but it didn’t look like it.
‘I don’t like you,’ Sammy said to Tanner. ‘And you don’t like me. You made me do some rotten stuff. I messed you up a little. I’d call it even.’
‘Even?’ Tanner laughed. ‘You took out my coke supplier, and then you shot my southern porn guy!’
Sammy shrugged. ‘You still got numbers, protection, and hookers.’
‘Yeah, but all the real fun is in coke and porn,’ Tanner complained.
Sammy smiled. ‘Not for you anymore.’
With that Sammy lunged for his pistol. Tanner pulled out his gun again and shot Sammy in the shoulder. Sammy shot back, and Tanner bent over.
I dropped to the floor, scooped up the gun, and rolled.
Tanner was trying to steady himself on the wall. I shot twice; hit his gun arm once. His gunshot went wild, into the mantlepiece.
Shayna appeared in the hallway again and fired until her gun was empty, shrieking while she did it. The sound of her voice was terrifying.
Tanner had at least three bullets in him at that point. He was probably beginning to think better of being in a room with Sammy, me, and a crazy woman.
He felt for the door handle, fussed with it, fired in Shayna’s direction, and managed to open the door. Sammy had slumped to the floor in between the sofa and the coffee table and was taking aim right for Tanner’s head.
Tanner laughed. ‘Round one!’
And he was out the door.
I was up and at the door in a flat second.
‘Let him go!’ Shayna shouted. ‘Let him go, Foggy!’
It was a moot point. By the time I got to the doorway, Tanner was halfway down the hall and almost to the staircase.
I was a little puzzled that, with all the gunshots, there was no one in the hallway looking, no other residents peering out their doors.
‘Close the door, Foggy!’ Shayna commanded, coming into the living room, ‘and give me a hand with Sammy.’
Sammy was lying on the floor and his breathing was weird.
‘I’m sorry, Shayna,’ he was mumbling. ‘I messed up your sofa.’
‘Not your fault,’ she told him, lowering her gun. ‘It’s that Tanner. He didn’t turn out so well.’
‘He did not,’ Sammy agreed.
I got over to Sammy and helped him back on to the sofa. Shayna disappeared into the kitchen.
Sammy shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Foggy. I’m sorry for all of it.’
He was on the verge of crying.
‘Are you sorry enough to tell me the whole story?’ I asked him.
He looked up at me. ‘The whole story?’
‘The story of why you didn’t tell me about Tanner, why my aunt hates him, and why I’m involved in all this so much that you have to apologize to me.’
‘Oh.’ He nodded. ‘That story.’
He slumped back and sighed. Shayna went to get stuff to fix Sammy up, and then he told me that story.
Sammy Two Shoes fell in love. It had never happened to him before. He would have done anything for Phoebe. He told her a little about his nefarious life. She didn’t care. He said he’d quit the life and get a legit job. She didn’t care about that either. Maybe she got a thrill out of dating a criminal, but also maybe she loved Sammy back just a little.
They kept their relationship a secret. He didn’t want her exposed to the relative brutality of his life. She didn’t want him to know just how vicious the theatre world really was. So they lived in a third world, something they made out of afternoon movies and late suppers and nights in Chelsea in a room that Sammy kept as a hideout.
They lived in that blissful other world until Phoebe made the mistake of agreeing to stage manage the all-female Hamlet. She did it because the director was famous and just about to direct some big show Off Broadway. Phoebe had to work on Hamlet if she wanted to work on Oh! Calcutta! Yes, two exclamation points. And a lot of naked people.
It was all going well enough until Emory started losing it. An excess of coke, too many late hours, and way too much Tanner Brookmeyer. The director would have fired her in the first week, except that Tanner paid a visit to the theatre. Nobody knew what was said, but Emory stayed in the show. The show opened. Emory got worse. Phoebe was about to replace her when Sammy heard through a lightning-fast grapevine that his old pal Foggy Moscowitz was in town.
Sammy grabbed Phoebe by the arm and got a cab to Reno Sweeney’s. And sure enough, there, at the bar, was the aforementioned pal.
‘You know the rest,’ Sammy said.
‘I know the rest?’ I railed. ‘I don’t know anything. Why did you come get me at Reno Sweeney’s? What did you think I was going to do?’
Sammy looked surprised by my ire. ‘Well, you save little kids, Foggy. And what is an actor but a little kid in an unwieldy adult body? I figured you do your voodoo and set her straight, and everything would be fine. Now everything’s a mess.’
I folded my arms. ‘Right. This is all my fault.’
He looked down. ‘I should have just let you alone. I know that. I just … your rep is really righteous, and when I heard you were in town, it seemed like some kind of sign, you know? Like God wanted me to see you.’
‘Don’t bring God into this mess,’ I snapped.
Shayna came back from the kitchen with a tray. But it wasn’t tea and sandwiches. It was alcohol, gauze, tweezers, and a sewing kit. Shayna was going to take the bullets out of Sammy. And none too soon. His breathing was weird, and his eyes were beginning to glaze.
‘I’m not talking to you,’ I told Shayna. ‘You’re the one who made this mess.’
Shayna shot me a look. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll take care of that. You go talk to your mother. I’m sure she’s worried about the gunshots.’
I nodded once, and then I went to see my mother.
TWENTY-ONE
The sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance of Tanner Brookmeyer seemed surreal to me. I was trying to think what to say about it to my mother as I went into her darkened room.
She was sitting up, squinting.
‘How’s the migraine?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ she told me, ‘all the shooting didn’t help.’
‘I guess not.’
‘We haven’t had guns going off in this apartment in almost seven years,’ she lamented. ‘I thought all that was behind us. But then your aunt started associating with that Sammy Cohen. She won’t tell me what that’s all about. She thinks I’m too sick to handle it. But I guess Sammy would be the one that started the shooting.’
‘It was Tanner Brookmeyer, actually,’ I told her.
‘Him? He’s still around?’ She shook her head. ‘I figured somebody would have taken him out by now.’
I looked at my mother’s face then. Her hair, long-since white, was frizzed around her head so that it looked like a kind of light was around her face. Her skin was smooth, and her eyes were bright. You could still see the beautiful teenaged girl in the middle-aged widow. I’d forgotten how pretty she was. Or how calmly she could accept gunplay in the living room.
‘How’re you doing, Ma?’ It was all I could think of to say.
She closed her eyes. ‘You figure it out.’
‘It’s not just a migraine,’ I surmised. ‘I never even heard of your staying in bed so much.’
‘I got a bigger problem,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘OK. How bad?’
‘Bad enough that I have a last request,’ she said softly.
‘A last request? Seriously?’ I shook my head. ‘That’s not really your style either.’
‘My style?’ She sat up a little. ‘How would you know anything about my style?’
‘What’s the last request, then?’ I asked.
‘Figure out how we can get rid of Tanner Brookmeyer,’ she said, her voice stronger. ‘If you do that, then Sammy gets back to his old self. Once that happens, you can figure out how to get his girlfriend out of jail. Then he lives happily ever after. And then I’ll have an easier time talking you into moving back to Brooklyn. There. That’s my agenda. In a nutshell.’
I had to smile. ‘You’ve given this as much thought as Sammy gave to getting me involved in his personal problems in the first place.’
‘That sounds a little like an insult,’ she said, but she didn’t sound insulted. She was laughing.
‘Well, as it happens, I was planning on getting Sammy’s girlfriend out of jail anyway,’ I told her. ‘After that, all bets are off. Sammy’s not the happily-ever-after type, and in Florida I’ve got an apartment with an ocean view and a donut shop waitress who likes me.’
‘A girl?’ She sat up even more. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Bibi,’ I told her, ‘but let’s not get distracted. Why are you so interested in getting rid of Tanner Brookmeyer?’
She looked away. ‘I don’t like what he’s doing to Sammy.’
It only took me a second before I got it. She liked Sammy. She had more motherly feelings toward him than she did for me. I could see that very clearly at that moment. Lots of reasons for it, probably. He was around; I wasn’t. He was still in the life; I’d gone straight. He needed her; I didn’t. The only thing odder than that realization was the way I felt about it. I didn’t care. My feelings weren’t hurt or some Freudian crap like that. I genuinely understood their bond, and I thought it was righteous.
Then I had the strangest sensation that the only real reason I’d come to the city at all was to save Sammy Cohen. Blossom and Dorough, that was just a bonus. God or the Universe or some psychic motivation from my mother had delivered me to Manhattan.
‘OK,’ I told my mother. ‘I’ll figure this out. Sammy’s going to be fine.’
She looked at me then. ‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ I said. ‘But what’s the real reason for all this?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’ I folded my arms. ‘All of a sudden Sammy Cohen is somebody I’m supposed to watch over?’
‘Two things,’ she said. ‘Two things I probably should have told you a long time ago, but first one thing then another, and then you’re gone. To Florida, for God’s sake. So here it is with both barrels. See, your father had a roving eye. I didn’t care because he was a good provider and a kind person. I didn’t love him, so that helped. And he was always honest about it. The point is: Sammy’s his kid. Your father’s son. He’s your half-brother. There, I said it. Now you know.’
She looked down at her hands.
I stood there like I was made out of stone. Two sensations at once. On the one hand, I was knocked over and down the block and into the water under the Brooklyn Bridge. But on the other hand, it made a very sudden kind of sense. Me and Sammy. Brothers.
‘Does he know?’ I asked after about five hours.
‘Yup.’ She wouldn’t look up at me.
‘Sammy knows?’
‘Always has.’ She still wouldn’t look up. ‘Always thought of you as a big brother.’
‘And why, exactly, has this always been a secret?’ I could hear the ire in my voice.
‘Exactly?’ She sighed. ‘I was embarrassed? I couldn’t find the right moment to tell you? I thought it would change your opinion of your father? Or of me? I mean, take your pick, kiddo. Plus, you and me? We never really did have that kind of sit-down-and-talk relationship.’
‘We didn’t what?’ My ire was all the way to the surface now.
‘Are you going to help him or not?’ she demanded, finally snapping into eye contact.
‘You said two things,’ I snapped. ‘So Sammy’s supposed to be my brother. What’s the other thing?’
‘Oh. Well, the other thing.’ She closed her eyes. ‘You’re right, this isn’t a migraine I’m having right now. I got Lymphoma. Blood cancer. So. That’s the other thing.’
I had around five hundred things I should have said to her. I didn’t say any of them.
Instead, the phone in the living room rang.
Shayna answered it, and she called out, ‘Foggy, it’s for you. Says she’s a lawyer.’
My mother had closed her eyes and slumped down in the bed.
I went into the other room and picked up the phone.
‘Moscowitz!’ Ms Baker said before I even had the phone to my ear. ‘Where is Sammy Cohen?’
‘How did you get this number?’ I asked, a little dazed.
‘You said you were going to Brooklyn to get Sammy and, subsequently, Tanner Brookmeyer,’ she snapped.
‘Well,’ I began slowly.
‘Just thought you’d want to know that the police have issued an APB for Sammy,’ she interrupted. ‘He’s wanted for the murder of Emory Brewster.’
‘Um,’ I ventured.
‘As a co-conspirator with Phoebe Peabody. Both their prints were on the water bottle with the fatal poison. They both did it.’
‘Both … both of them?’ I stammered.
‘Right. So if you can lay your hand to Sammy, don’t let go. You have to bring him in.’
I looked over at Sammy. He was barely conscious, and Shayna was stitching him up.
‘I don’t have my hands on him at this exact moment,’ I said unsteadily.
‘You find him, or the police will,’ she said, cold. ‘And they’re probably coming to your mother’s place.’
‘What? Why?’
‘You have to know that your mother’s apartment is one of Sammy’s known addresses,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘I guess it probably is at that. OK. Give me an hour. I’ll get hold of him and bring him over to Manhattan.’
I hung up without saying anything else. I didn’t even have to think twice.
‘Sammy,’ I said softly. ‘Come on. We have to go.’
TWENTY-TWO
Shayna stood up. ‘He’s not going anywhere. I just took two bullets out of him.’
‘We have to go,’ I said to Sammy, ignoring my aunt.
It was clear that Sammy was in a bad way, but he managed to get to his feet anyway. He pulled his shirt together and buttoned it as best he could, mess that it was. He picked up his suit coat, struggled, and got it on. He looked down at the rip in his pants leg and shrugged. Then he patted Shayna’s shoulder.
‘Like it’s the first time I ever had a bullet dug out of me,’ he told her, smiling.
‘You’re not leaving,’ Shayna said firmly. ‘Either of you.’
‘That phone call I just got,’ I explained, ‘was from Phoebe’s lawyer. The cops are coming after Sammy and they know this is one of his addresses. If he stays here, they’ll get him.’
Simple enough.
‘OK,’ Shayna said, ‘but he could stay across the hall at Mrs Feldman’s. She owes me, like, a dozen favors.’
‘Right,’ I answered. ‘The cops would never think to look across the hall.’
Shayna looked down. ‘OK, let me think.’
‘Remember how you didn’t want me to know exactly where Sammy was when he went to Atlanta?’ I asked her. ‘So when I told the cops I didn’t know where he was, it would be the truth? How about if you let me return the favor?’
‘Foggy’s right,’ Sammy intervened. ‘It’s better if you don’t know. Come on, Foggy.’
And he headed for the door.
You had to give it to the guy. Two bullets, a truckload of trouble, his girl in jail, and his second-best suit all shot up, he was pretty much the same old Sammy. Only a little slower getting to the door.
‘He’s gonna bleed,’ Shayna warned.
‘Maybe a towel or something?’ Sammy suggested.
Shayna sighed and went into the hallway bathroom. She came back right away with a thin towel that had horses on it, like for a kid. I’d never seen it before. She handed it to Sammy, and he put it under his suit coat on his shoulder wound.
‘What are you going to do about Benny?’ I asked her.
‘Who?’
I inclined my head in the direction of the lump of clothes on the floor, the one with the bleeding foot.
‘Oh, him.’ She stared at the guy. ‘I guess I’ll patch him up too, before I send him on his way.’
She was made entirely out of iron.
I sighed. ‘I had a little talk with my mother.’
She stared back. ‘Really.’
‘Maybe you should look in on her,’ I suggested.
Our weird psychic connection, strained as it was, seemed to be mostly intact. She understood at least a little of what transpired between me and my mother. Or anyway I thought I could see that on her face.
Sammy had his hand on the front doorknob. ‘Let’s take it a little slow down the stairs, OK?’
And he was out the door.
Shayna shook her head. ‘You know what this means, kiddo. You gotta shift into high gear. This is getting messy.’
‘Have you ever driven a car?’ I asked her, cold.
‘No, but …’ she began.
‘Then what would you know about shifting gears?’
With that, I closed the door and followed Sammy down the hallway.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked without turning around.
‘The cops have it that you and Phoebe conspired to kill Emory,’ I began. ‘So they’re after you.’
‘Right,’ he said, making it to the top of the stairs. ‘I got a little place in Chelsea that I keep for just such emergencies.’
‘This is the place where you and Phoebe used to hole up?’ I asked. ‘You don’t worry that maybe the cops know about that at this point?’
He paused. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I’m of two minds,’ I said, catching up with him at the top of the stairs. ‘One: you come back with me to the Benjamin and rest up there while I go to Helen Baker’s office and lie to her. Two: you come with me to Helen Baker’s office and we figure how you can turn yourself in and get a little hospital attention. Do you have a preference?’
