The Last Manly Man (11 page)

In the moment it took the thugs to turn and look, I went for the pepper spray in my purse and sprayed the thug closest to me in the eyes and up his nose.

“Arrrgh,” he said, or a reasonable facsimile, grabbing his face.

Using the edge of the Dumpster for support, I raised myself to my knees, and then to my feet, and began to spray another guy.

“Stop, or I'll shoot!” the woman shouted.

“Let's go,” the whistling man said. They took off in a thunder of boot beats, without my purse, two of them holding their faces. A moment later I heard a car squealing away.

“Hey, stop!” the woman called.

A dog yapped. When I looked up, I saw Mrs. Ramirez, with her dog Señor's leash in one hand and a pearl-handled pistol in the other.

“Oh, it's you!” she said, as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

“Thanks for chasing those men away, Mrs. R.,” I said, dusting myself off.

“Don't you thank me, you whore!” she said.

In the past, whenever she went off like this, the next step would be to bean me with her cane. Now that she had a firearm, I missed the cane, which she no longer seemed to need. That would be typical of my life, if I escaped fistfighting thugs, only to get shot by my elderly neighbor lady.

“Don't shoot me, Mrs. R.,” I said, and then took off running, lamely, with a limp from my fall. Mrs. R's eyes were bad. If she was indeed feeling homicidal, chances were she wouldn't be able to get off a good shot at a moving target. Mrs. R. hasn't had a man since around World War Two, doesn't smoke or drink or have any fun at all beyond judging, misjudging, and slandering her neighbors. Clean living made her mean, but it made her sturdy too. She could really hurt you.

While running away from Mrs. Ramirez toward my building, I saw the black car carrying the whistling white man and his thugs swing around the far corner and come right at me. Though my lungs hurt, I turned around and ran limping in the opposite direction, back toward Mrs. Ramirez, when a large blue sedan pulled up, cutting off the car with the thugs in it.

The car screeched to a stop. The passenger side door swung open.

“Get in,” said the black man in the car. “Jason sent me.”

Behind me were the thugs. At the other end of the block was my pistol-wielding neighbor. I had to make a snap judgment. I got in the car.

“I'm Blue Baker,” the man said as he squealed away from the curb.

The car had bad shocks and was bouncing so much I couldn't keep the seat belt stable enough to put on.

“Robin … Hudson,” I said.

“I know. I was waiting for you on Tenth Street, almost missed you, then I saw you head up Avenue C.”

“Maybe-we-should-call-the-cops-now,” I said jerkily, between bumps.

“Can't do that,” Blue Baker said, pulling another U-ie just before the approach to the FDR, then tearing down a side street.

“Why-not?”

“Let's lose these assholes, and then I'll fill you in,” he said.

Though I couldn't yet wrestle my seat belt together, he was able to manage a car chase while dialing his cell phone with one hand.

“Number seven. Is this secure? Good. I'm bringing her in. She took a couple of blows to the head, should be checked out,” he shouted into the phone.

After he hung up, he plugged in an acid jazz CD.

Blue Baker was a large black man, so tall and broad across the shoulders that he had to hunch down over the steering wheel and turn into himself to fit into the car. Aside from the cell phone, a notepad, a bottle of water, a stack of CDs, and a box on the floor (which bore a decal that said “You get through life your way, I'll get through my way”), the car was bare, as if Blue Baker had just acquired the vehicle. It was probably stolen, I thought.

When the car passed under a streetlight, I noticed he had a gun in his lap.

Suddenly, I remembered that I had condoms, lubricant, a toothbrush, and a small vibrator in my purse, because I'd been expecting to see Gus. How is this going to look if I die here? I thought. Like I died in my drug-dealing lover's stolen car while escaping from fistfighting thugs. That's how I think in times of danger, you see. It's a variation of the old “wear clean underwear in case you're in a car accident.” Thank God I
was
wearing clean underwear at least.

We'd lost our pursuers and Blue slowed down.

“Hate car chases,” he said.

“Can-we-talk-please?” I said. My heart was beating so fast it affected my speech almost as much as the bumpy chase had.

“Sure,” he said. “I'm going to be completely straight with you, Robin. Will you be completely straight with me?”

“Yes. Can-you-explain-why-you-just-put-me-through—”

“Take a breath. Calm down. I probably saved your life. You okay?”

“Yes.” I coughed, and Blue gave me the bottle of water. I drank until the taste of blood was gone from my mouth.

“How's your vision?”

“It's okay.”

“Reflexes? Memory?”

“I'm fine, I think.”

“Well, we'll get you to a doctor. But if you're sure you're okay, I'd like to make a couple of quick stops first. Business stuff.”

“You said Jason sent you. Where is Jason?”

“I'm taking you to see him.”

“Can't you just take me home, please?”

“You gotta trust me, darlin',” he said.

The intermittent streetlights had a strobe effect on his face as we moved west. His smile was so broad and genuine, his eyes so warm and twinkling, and most of his wrinkles pointed upward. Against my better judgment, I did trust him.

“How do you know Jason?” I asked.

“I'm part of his cell. You might say I help out when I can,” he said.

“Cell? A cell of what?”

“It's known just as the Organization. All the cells have different names, don't always communicate with each other, but are dedicated to the same purpose, preserving the planet. Jason can give you more details.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Jason said you'd be home at a certain time, and I went and waited for you.”

Dewey, he told me, had used him for transportation, contacts, and reefer.

“Dewey was apparently looking into some missing chimps,” I said. “You know anything about that?”

“A little. He was on the trail of some bonobos, horniest chimps in the world,” Blue said, laughing.

“Excuse me? Bonobos are the horniest chimps in the world?”

“That's what they say. And it's a female-run ape society. Gotta love 'em. Know what I'm sayin', Robin?”

“Yeah,” I said, and smiled back at this crazy guy who had saved my life and then risked it in a wild car chase. Not the first time I'd been in a car chase, so I couldn't really hold it against him. “Who coordinates it, this Organization?”

“Central. Only cell leaders talk to Central. Dewey was this cell's leader. Jason is trying some back alleys to get to Central.”

“Where is Central?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Does this Organization have a leader?”

“It's funded mainly by some eccentric rich guy. I don't even know who it is. We call him Hank. The idea is, we protect the Organization and ourselves by having a pretty loose structure, working independently as cells.”

“Oh Jesus. What time is it?” I asked. “Can I make a call on your phone?”

“Who you gonna call?”

“I had a date tonight. I have now officially stood him up.”

“Oh. I guess that's okay then. Just be careful what you say.”

I called Mia Cara.

“Lola, where are you?” Gus asked.

“Something came up,” I said, trying to think of a suitable lie that would get me off the hook for standing him up. I couldn't think of one. “I can't make it tonight.”

“Oh. I see,” he said, and sounded sincerely deflated. “Want to try again tomorrow night? Say, nine
P.M.
, the Plaza?”

“Yeah, I would. Sorry about this. See you tomorrow,” I said, and hung up.

Blue turned right on Eighth Avenue, heading uptown.

“You're about to meet a guy named Fast Tony,” Blue said. “Don't say anything about the bonobos. He's not one of us. Young Italian guy, very good-looking, dances in the gay clubs, but he's straight apparently. That's what he says every chance he gets, that he's straight. Likes Times Square, likes the action, or what's left of it since Disney took over.”

We stopped on Forty-seventh Street. Fast Tony got in the back of the car. “Hey, Blue. How ya doin'? Still dating your ex-wife?”

“Yeah. Am I a jerk or what?”

“Glad you showed, man, I'm being cruised by all the fags,” Fast Tony said, handing Blue something. Blue reached into the box on the floor and pulled out a Baggie, handing it to Fast Tony.

The deal was made in a minute and Fast Tony was out of the car. He was fast.

“I don't like doing deals up here. Tony, he's in, he's out. There are a lot of cops here and they see that and they know it's a deal.”

“What is that? Marijuana?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You're an animal rights activist?” I asked, just to be clear about this. He didn't fit my stereotype.

“That's my hobby,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Used to be a sanitation worker, then a sanitation cop. Now I work for myself.”

“Are you stoned now?” I asked, because the Henri Paul light just went on in the back of my head.

“No, darlin'. Don't worry. I drive sober. Let me explain a few things along the way. I don't know the whole story, so you'll have to forgive the gaps.”

“Okay.”

“You have to promise me you won't repeat this to the cops or anyone. The lives of these chimps, if they're still alive, are at stake. Any media or police attention could put them in jeopardy.”

“Okay.”

“This is what I know. These chimps were missing from Africa somewhere. Dewey had tracked them to this area with the help of a friendly party who knew where the chimps were,” he continued.

“What was being done with the chimps?”

“Who the hell knows, darlin'? Medical experiments? But why these chimps? I mean, there are rhesus monkeys running around that island near Florida. Know the one I mean, Robin?”

He was talking about a little island where rhesus monkeys, bred for medical experiments, had overbred and basically taken over the island.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why do they need these bonobo chimps, specifically? They got rhesus monkeys for the picking down there in Florida, a lot closer than Africa. Can't figure it out.”

“And Dewey?”

“He doesn't know either, or he didn't the last time I spoke to him. I was supposed to see him after his meeting with the friendly party.”

“Same friendly party who helped Dewey track the chimps?”

“I think so.”

“And you don't know who that is.”

“No, darlin',” he said.

“Do you know how I got involved in this bonobo business, Blue?” I asked.

“I know something, a little. I know Dewey was worried about some reporter named Hudson who was asking questions, and worried you'd get too close to the story and jeopardize the chimps.”

“What questions? Who was I asking?”

“I don't know. I wasn't around the day Dewey took a beating. I was upstate doing a … business deal,” he said.

“Does the word ‘atom' mean anything to you?”

“No, why?”

“I think that's what those thugs said to me. They wanted to know if I had the atom.”

“Maybe Jason will know.”

“How did you get into the animal rights thing?” I asked Blue.

“It isn't just about animals, darlin'. It's the whole planet, the environment, the little helpless animals and the big ones, like us. We're all at stake. But I do love the little animals, must admit. Except cockroaches,” he said, and laughed. “Dewey and I used to argue about that, if it was okay to kill cockroaches. You know, the female gets impregnated once, and she's pregnant her whole life. So I figure it's an act of mercy to kill her, and an act of justice to kill the male cockroach who done it to her. Know what I'm sayin'? You love me now, doncha?”

I laughed in spite of myself. “I love you, Blue. Why are all the good men married, gay, or dating their ex-wives?” I asked.

We drove to a dark side street off Riverside Drive in the West Nineties, and pulled into a parking garage driveway next to a brownstone. Blue rolled down his window and punched in some numbers on a code pad. The garage door opened and we drove through. Behind us, the articulated door rolled back down. Blue slid the car into a parking spot and stopped. A tall, thin man hopped into the back of the car.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“It's safe. Don't worry,” Blue said.

“Is this her?” the man asked.

“Yeah, she took a thumping from some jerks. She seems okay but better check her out, just to be on the safe side.”

“I'm okay. Really,” I said. “It wasn't that bad a thumping.”

“You gotta trust us,” Blue Baker said. “He's a nurse. He'll take you to meet Jason and the doctor there will check you out. You can't go to a regular hospital. They'd call the cops. We can't have the cops involved. Trust me. I gotta go make some more deliveries. But you have our number. If you need me, just call, ask for number seven, and I'll get back to you, all right?”

It took me a moment to answer. I had a slight headache, but was wary of this strange nurse. Sure, go off with some male nurse, wake up the next day with a big scar across my belly and no kidneys. But I did trust Blue, call me crazy, and I had an overpowering need to find out what I had become caught up in.

“Okay,” I said.

“You're in good hands with him,” he said, winking at the nurse.

He handed the nurse a bag of weed. “For the patients,” he said to me. “Look after your karma now, Robin darlin'.”