Start Reading #4
I draw in a breath and try to reconcile what I’m seeing. The locked glass case of guns. The safe. The filing cabinet.
On the desk in the far corner of the windowless room, a black phone starts to ring again.
When I first started work as a private investigator, I was only distantly aware of the feeling that drove me. Looking for something that couldn’t be found. I stumbled into the work when I graduated from NYU with a degree in English and American literature and the fantasy of becoming a writer.
What talent I might have had, I think I knew even then, was middling at best. But I was determined to finish the novel I’d started and give it a go.
In the meantime, I needed a job. So I scanned the Village Voice want ads.
Private investigator seeking dedicated assistant, lodging available.
I couldn’t—wouldn’t—move back to my father’s house.
My mother was happy in California. And even though she never said I couldn’t live with her, it was pretty clear to me that she’d moved on from motherhood.
She’d done a decent enough job, and now she just wanted to have fun in her child-free life with her (did I mention much younger?) husband, rich Richie, who was always nice to me but never made any effort to be anything like a father.
So I made the call, and the next morning I found myself in the East Village, hauling myself up the five flights to the apartment-slash-office of Leonard Kohler, retired NYPD cop turned PI.
Lenny. He was an uncouth, sarcastic functioning alcoholic who taught me everything I know about being a private investigator.
“Oh,” he said, swinging open the overpainted black door and regarding me. “You’re a girl?”
“Last time I checked.”
“You sounded like a guy on the phone.” Did I? “You said your name was Ray.”
“Rae. R-a-e.”
“Huh. Well, okay. Come on in.”
I followed him down a short narrow hallway lined with stacks of newspapers into a room dominated by a large desk, a creaky chair, a surprisingly new computer (Lenny-ism No.
1: When it comes to tools of the trade, never cut corners).
Milky light struggled through sheets nailed over the windows, while the twin odors of booze and smoke duked it out for dominance.
There was a Smith open take-out containers; piles of books, files, papers on every surface; glasses with varying levels of mystery liquid.
All of it covered in a fine layer of grime.
He lit a cigarette and started tapping on his computer keyboard with surprising dexterity.
“Your résumé. Just graduated. English and American literature. Job experience: waitress, bookstore clerk, editor of your school paper. Mind if I ask? What brings you here? You’re a little young for plan B.”
“Plan B?”
“Yeah, you know, the job you take when you realize none of your big dreams are coming true and you just have to pay the fucking rent.”
He had a longish mane of salt-and-pepper hair and a big paunch, and he wore a too-tight Yankees team jersey, buttons straining; he was thick through the chest, muscles bulging, tall.
With acne-scarred skin and a crooked nose, he was not a good-looking man, but there was something attractively virile about him, something smart.
At the time he seemed ancient to me, but he was only in his fifties.
When his eyes were on me, I felt like he saw right into my soul.
I had an answer prepared about being curious about human nature, wanting to do research, et cetera.
But it was bullshit, and I somehow knew he’d know it.
“The ad said there was lodging available. I’m smart. I can do anything, learn whatever. What I really need is a place to live.”
He leaned back in his leather chair; it creaked under his considerable girth. He regarded me with a half smile. “Ah,” he said, nodding. “A pragmatist. I can work with that.”
We’d passed a dark bedroom on the way to his “office.” And all I’d seen inside the windowless place was a nightstand, an electric clock, and an unmade bed.
“Assuming that room we passed isn’t what you meant by lodging available.”
He laughed then—a big belly laugh that was all joy.
In on the joke of this life, endlessly fascinated by and full of compassion for human nature.
Even though he’d seen it all—twenty-five years on the job, ten more chasing after cheating husbands and people trying to defraud employers and insurance companies—Lenny never lost his joy.
“Come with me,” he said, getting up and exiting the room, then the apartment.
I followed him down a flight of stairs. He unlocked the door to a brightly lit furnished studio apartment with a galley kitchen.
Freshly painted, wood floors, postage-stamp bathroom.
That day I figured if I got the job, I’d be there for about six months, if that, before I landed my first book contract.
I’m embarrassed to say how long I lived there. Plan B.
“Does this meet with your approval, milady?” he said with a little bow. Milady. He still calls me that. Says things like You class up the joint, milady, and I don’t want you to get your hands dirty, milady.
“It does.”
He nodded. I followed him back out and upstairs again. Back in his office, he said, “First rule: If you get the urge to clean up, organize, or file in here like my last assistant did, don’t. That is a fireable offense. I have my methods. Chaos is my friend.”
“Okay.” I didn’t mention that I’d literally never had the urge to clean up, organize, or file anything.
“Second rule: Just do what I say, even if it sounds wrong. Just do it.”
“Wait,” I said. “I have the job?”
“Wow,” he said. “You might make a good PI one of these days.” He slid a set of keys across the desk.
“I can pay twenty an hour to start, plus the apartment. Just so we’re clear—this is a twenty-four-seven proposition.
I might call you at one a.m. I need you to answer and be ready in fifteen minutes.
If we don’t have a client, we might not have anything for a couple of weeks, maybe months, which means you don’t get paid. But you still have this place.”
It would take me a while to realize that Lenny didn’t do this work for the money.
He had money, a lot of it. He owned the building we were in, collected a mint in monthly rent from the other tenants.
But then I was just happy to have this weird job and a reason not to move home with one of my parents.
Later I asked him why he hired me—a new college grad with no experience, no real interest in being a private investigator, admittedly just after the apartment. “I operate by instinct only,” he said. “I saw it in you, milady. That fire to know. I can teach everything else, but not that.”
I never did finish that novel.
The phone starts ringing again, but I don’t answer it.
Lenny-ism No. 2: Think twice before you stick your neck out.
Answering that phone leads down a path. One I might not necessarily want to travel.
I used to be more reckless—that fire to know burned hotter than either Lenny or I imagined.
My lack of caution used to annoy Lenny, but I think he also admired it.
In my twenties I’d have answered that phone, no question.
But since I had Amelia, I’ve been more careful. What I do to myself, I do to her.
Motherhood has made you a pussy, Lenny liked to say, in utter disregard of all the ways it was inappropriate. But it was definitely true.
Now, I stand in front of the gun case, see my reflection there looking disheveled, circles under my eyes made darker by the room’s shadows.
The weapons are gleaming and well cared for.
I know a thing or two about guns; Lenny was my careful instructor.
This case contains tens of thousands of dollars in weapons, some rare, some illegal.
Assault and sniper rifles, handguns, revolvers and semiautomatics, all gleaming and deadly.
Remington. Luger. Beretta. Desert Eagle.
My father was a photographer for the FBI; that wasn’t some bullshit that I fabricated for Lenny.
But that’s all I know. That was as much as I was allowed to know.
It wasn’t a secret, but it was a thing I wasn’t meant to broadcast. My questions, of which there were many, went largely unanswered.
Where did he go when he was gone for weeks?
What kind of pictures did he take? Of whom? What were the pictures then used for?
There’s not much to tell. I just go where they tell me. Shoot what they want. Don’t ask any questions. Then I come home.
Too many questions led to my dismissal. Go play outside. Or: Find a friend, Rae.
As far as I knew, he retired years ago without fanfare or commendation. There was no retirement party. Just that he was done, would collect his pension.
What are you going to do now? I wanted to know when he told me.
Bird-watching, I think, he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. And I didn’t care enough to ask.
I’m starting to think that maybe he didn’t exactly retire.