Reggie Nadelson - Blood Count

On a dark side street in Harlem, a silver van suddenly appears out of nowhere. Its wheels spinning, it seems to move with a life of its own, down the empty street, past the quiet brownstones and the old trees shedding their leaves.

Ive been driving around for a while, looking for a place to park. Election night. A balmy Indian summer night in November. The sounds of the city getting ready to explode with joy, especially here in Harlem. Overhead, long beams from the arc lights on 125th Street play on the sky, the night lit up like day.

From somewhere close by comes the noise of celebration: shouting and laughter, fireworks, sparklers, music. From someplace, music-R amp;B, rap, Dixieland, all-enveloping-drifts through the open window of my car as I turn into 152nd Street, see an empty spot, cut across the street to grab it.

Its tight. I back in sharp as I can, trying to fit my ancient Caddy, big boat of a car, into the space, and its only then I notice the van.

It comes from around the corner, comes up behind me after Ive parked, I think. Gathering speed, it passes me, rolling down the hilly street toward Harlem River Drive.

Up here in Sugar Hill, on good days, if youre high up in a tall building, you can see down the broad boulevards to the midtown skyline, almost down to Ground Zero, the hole in the city thats still empty after seven years.

If I hadnt found a spot to park that night, if Id just given up, gone home, watched the election returns on TV, maybe none of it would have happened-not what happened then, not what followed six weeks later.

Parked now, I watch the van roll, seemingly out of control, as in a dream.

Its new, a slick new Ford just out of a showroom, probably bought cheap now everythings hitting the skids, car dealers selling off what they can, waiting for letters from Ford or Chrysler, or GM, telling them its all over, the good days gone, youre done for, forget the ten, twenty, thirty-seven years weve been in business together.

Stop!

Why doesnt the driver stop?

I cant see a driver. Its as if the vans driving by itself, nobody in it, just a silvery box on wheels hurtling down to the river.

Maybe its the booze. Ive been out drinking all evening, getting up enough nerve to come here, find a place to park, go over to the club on St. Nicholas Avenue. Is it the booze, a hallucination, this driverless ghost van that rolls by me faster and faster, in and out of the white pools cast by streetlights on a dark Harlem street?

But I know its real. I watch until it disappears around a corner as fireworks explode overhead.

Who died?

The night when I finished a case, closed it up, got the creep who killed pigeons in the park for pleasure-and the homeless guys who liked to feed them, I went to bed early, spent a luxurious hour in the sack drinking beer and watching a rerun of the Yanks 2000 World Series win on TV.

As I tipped over into sleep, I realized Id forgotten to turn off my phone. When it rang a few hours later, still mostly asleep, I ignored it, until the voice on the answering machine crashed into my semiconscious brain.

We got a dead Russian. Get yourself over here, said the voice, and I wasnt sure at first if it was real or I was trapped in that nightmare where youre buried alive, pushing up on the coffin lid, hearing a phone ring, unable to get to it.

At the foot of the bed, the TV was still on-pictures of Obama in Chicago-and I realized I was safe at home in downtown Manhattan, and then the phone rang again. It was only Sonny Lippert.

Who died, Sonny? I was pissed off.

Didnt you get my message? I told you, a Russian, he said. Get your ass over here, man.

Not now.

Now, he said. Right now. My place.

Its the middle of the night.

Listen. Friend of mine uptown in Harlem, he needs some help, right? One of his detectives found a dead guy up in his precinct with some kind of Russian document stuck to him, skewered with a knife, like a shish kabob. Hes asking can I get it translated. Asked if I could call you.

Where is it?

What?

This document?

I have it.

So fax it over.

I want to do this in person, said Sonny, and suddenly I knew he was lonely and wanted company.

Hes white?

Who?

The dead guy.

Why?

You mentioned Harlem.

I told you, man, hes Russian. Probably Russian.

Still naked, I went and looked out the window and saw the light on in Mike Rizzis coffee shop. Ill buy you coffee, OK? Rizzis place, I said.

I was surprised when Sonny said OK, hed come over, couldnt sleep anyhow. Sonny Lippert had been my boss on and off for a long time, right back to the day when he picked me out at the academy because I could speak languages, or at least thats what he always says.

These days I humor him because of the past. He still drives me crazy some of the time, but were close now. He helped me with some really bad stuff last summer. When Rhonda, his wife, is away, he sits up alone until dawn reading Dostoyevsky and Dickens, listening to Coltrane, drinking the whiskey the doctor says will kill him.

Shivering, I went back to my bedroom. I yanked on some jeans and a sweatshirt, shoved my feet into a pair of ratty sneakers, grabbed a jacket and my keys, and headed downstairs, where it was snowing lightly, like confetti drifting onto the deserted sidewalk.

Who was dead? Some Russian? All I wanted was to go back to sleep.

Morning, a voice said, as I walked out onto the street, and I looked up and saw Sam, the doorman from the building next to mine. It was also an old loft building that dated back to the 1870s. But the owners had transformed it into a fancy condo-marble floors, doorman.

A black guy in a good suit, Sam was a presence on the street now. He was a quiet man. Didnt say much, though once in a while we compared the stats of our favorite ballplayers. I said hi and went across the street to Mikes coffee shop.

When I tapped on the window, Mike looked up from behind the counter. He grinned, unlocked the front door, waved me to a stool. There was fresh coffee brewing. Some pie was in the oven. It smelled good that time of morning. From the ceiling hung a string of green Christmas lights.

Mike Rizzi pretty much runs the block: he takes packages, watches kids, serves free pie and coffee to local cops on patrol.

In New York, everybody has a coffee shop, a bar, a restaurant where they hang out. Its the way our tribes set themselves up, claim their piece of territory. To eat, I go over to Beatrice at Il Posto on East Second Street; to drink to my friend Tolyas club in the West Village, or maybe Fanellis on Prince Street.

Whats the pie? I said.

Apple, said Mike. Youre up early, man.

Can I have a piece?

He was pleased. Mikes obsessed with his pies.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, came a voice over the sound system Mike rigged up years ago.

Who the fuck is that?

Excuse me? That, he said, that is Nana Mouskouri, the great Greek singer. Mike, whos Italian, is crazy about the Greeks. Over the ziggurat of miniature boxes of Special K, on a shelf against the back wall, he keeps signed pictures of Telly Savalas, Jackie Onassis-he counts her as an honorary Greek-and Jennifer Aniston. You know her real name is Anastasakis, Mike says to me about once a week.