The Wizards of Central Park West_Ultimate Urban Fantasy Read online

  Hank’s face wrinkled up in puzzlement. “What would a homeless guy be doing with this?”

  “One of many questions,” Eddie pointed out. “Can you put it where no one will play with it?”

  “Under lock and key.” Hank handed Eddie an evidence form to fill out.

  “Good.” Eddie began to scribble the necessary information. “I really need you to keep your eye on it. I don’t want that turning up any place it shouldn’t be.”

  “You suggestin’ I misplace evidence, lieutenant?”

  Eddie could tell he’d rubbed the older man the wrong way. “No way, Hank. I trust you better than my bank.” Eddie ripped the yellow copy off the evidence form for himself. “It’s this cane…I don’t know, strange things have been goin’ down since I found it. I figure if you hold onto it, it’ll be secure.”

  Hank nodded grimly. “You can bet on it, Lew.”

  “Thanks, Hank.”

  Eddie returned downstairs, the odd stick no longer his concern.

  Five

  Captain Jacobs was a big man in a small job. He’d worked his way up the ranks and earned his own precinct. His one failure was how he played the game of politics. He wasn’t a kiss-ass, and more than once he told a city commissioner his true opinion of their poor decisions. But he possessed a spotless record and needed to be put somewhere. So they gave him the “22.” He made it his own little piece of the NYPD and took the misfits he was assigned and treated them as if he was the mayor of New York or a dictator. It all depended on the day and his mood.

  When Eddie knocked on his door, Jacobs opened it and broke into a warm smile.

  “Hey, lieutenant, you all right? Heard you had a little incident this morning.” Jacobs shook Eddie’s hand firmly.

  “It was nothing, sir.” Eddie hoped he didn’t look as uncomfortable as he felt. “I’m here to ask that my partner and I be assigned to the homeless guy homicide.”

  “Straight to the point!” Jacobs grinned. “That’s what I like about you, LT.”

  “Can you swing it, sir?”

  Jacobs blew air out hard. “Homicides always go through Manhattan North—”

  “This took place in the park,” Eddie said. “With the record I have with Luis—”

  Jacobs held up his hand to stop Eddie. “You don’t have to sell me, lieutenant. I know you two are good. But you do realize you were assigned here for disciplinary action because of the Viper case, right?”

  Eddie sighed. “We think this is a case we could solve.”

  “Look, Eddie, you and your partner followed a lead without backup, and your partner got shot. You’re lucky you didn’t lose rank or seniority. Now, I am sure these last three months have been as dull as dishwater—”

  “Yes sir. I mean, no sir.” Eddie sulked.

  Jacobs went on. “I think you are also looking for a chance to get back in good with Manhattan North Homicide.”

  “Well, sir—” Eddie said, but Jacobs held up his hand again.

  “How’s your caseload?”

  “Light. Just got to catch up on paperwork.”

  “Clean it up today, and I’ll talk to Captain Seville at Manhattan North.” Jacobs considered it for a moment. “What the hell, I’ve got a homicide and two homicide detectives. We should work it.”

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “Just make me look good. That means no screw-ups!” Jacobs jabbed the air with his finger as Eddie left the office.

  Eddie returned to his desk and gave Luis a thumbs-up as he sat.

  Luis spun in his chair, raised his hands over his head, and quietly cheered, “Yessss!”

  “Paperwork.” Eddie turned his attention to his desktop computer. Luis gave a nod and followed suit.

  Hours went by as Luis and Eddie worked to cross every "t" and dot every "i" on report after report. It wasn’t exciting stuff: a petty burglary; a purse snatching; people attempting sexual liaisons in the Rambles, the wooded section of the park. They filled out enough information to keep a bevy of bureaucrats happy.

  In this way, five o’clock came and went. Finally at about seven, Eddie reached overload.

  “Let’s call it a night, Luis. My head is spinning.”

  Luis nodded. He looked tired, and his cheap suit was now a mass of wrinkles. “Yeah. We’re pretty much done. We only need to write up our notes on the new case.”

  “Hopefully, tomorrow forensics will have a list of what was in the shopping cart and the uniforms might have some leads.” Eddie pulled his tie back into place. He rolled his head, which made his neck crack. “See you in the morning.”

  Eddie walked to his locker and pulled out his duffle bag, taking an extra look to make sure the cane had not return.

  He walked up the stairs and out the front door into the cool spring air, as he headed for his car.

  New York in the late spring was beautiful. Memorial Day was only a few weeks past, and Eddie was already wearing short sleeves and light suits. Soon, the nights would be hot and humid as the year moved fully into summer.

  He left the square, steel building that was the temporary location for the “22,” past a fanciful group of small buildings and former stables. Those quaint edifices had been the precinct headquarters in the past, but the city didn’t possess the funds to restore the dilapidated structures.

  As he walked across the 86th Street transverse road and up a wooden set of stairs to the parking lot for the police and maintenance vehicles, he noticed a sign which read:

  AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY

  ALL OTHERS TOWED

  Once in the car, he gunned the engine, pulled onto the transverse road, headed west, and drove to the West Side Highway using 96th Street as he headed north toward the George Washington Bridge.

  It was a short drive from Manhattan to his home in Teaneck, New Jersey. When he couldn’t make it home in time to join the rest of the family, Cerise always made up a plate of dinner and kept it warm in the oven for him.

  The ride gave Eddie a chance to unwind and reflect. He was now convinced that he’d imagined the talking head. After all, a body ripped apart could make even the most seasoned cop start seeing things.

  And the bizarre cane was locked safely away. It was time to get out of the Twilight Zone and just be a plain old father and husband. Eddie thought about his job. Nineteen years from a young rookie of twenty-one to a detective lieutenant. It was a long road, but one he was proud of.

  Despite Wilcox’s comments, Eddie knew he didn’t get there by favoritism or government programs.

  He’d earned it.

  Eddie was driven by the memory of his father, a beat cop in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Lawrence Berman started in Harlem, raised his son there, and told him again and again to get an education. Eddie learned that becoming a cop was a hard career for any man, especially a black man.

  But the day Eddie graduated from the police academy, and he saw the pride in his father’s eyes as the big man fought to stem the flow of tears, he knew he’d made the right decision.

  His dad didn’t last many years past that day. His big heart that cared so much for the world, coupled with excess pounds and a two-pack-a-day smoking habit, killed him when Eddie was twenty-four.

  But his father was still his guiding light, an incorruptible man who cared about justice. Eddie drew inspiration from his memory and sought to make sure that if his father was looking down, he’d still be proud.

  As Eddie pulled into the driveway, he wondered why Cerise didn’t phone him after the doctor’s appointment. His hand went to his jacket pocket for his cellular phone…but it was empty.

  Eddie shut off the car and cursed. Where had he left the phone? Cerise must have been trying to get him for hours!

  He remembered the duffle with his other clothes. Eddie reached into the back seat and felt around for the bag.

  His hand touched wood.

  His mouth fell open in shock and disbelief. He grabbed the wooden rod and lifted the walking stick, its silver handle spar
kling in the dim light.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, even as he fought to understand what happened. This cane was locked away in the evidence room. It could not be here!

  He looked at his lit house for reassurance that he was still in Teaneck and not Wonderland, quickly got out, walked to the rear of the car, opened the trunk, threw in the cane, and slammed the lid.

  He found he was breathing hard as he picked up the duffle and opened the zipper. The scent of stale urine struck him as he felt around in the bag and gingerly recovered his phone.

  He zipped the bag closed, plodded to his front door, and activated the device to look at the screen. It happily lit up to let him know he’d missed five incoming calls.

  He opened the door and Douglas, his youngest son, sat on the stairs with a book open in his lap. Small and dark like his mother, but with more of his father’s features, he was about to turn eleven.

  “Hey, Dad,” Douglas said nonchalantly.

  “Hey, kid.” Eddie rubbed his son’s short hair affectionately.

  “I ain’t no kid.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Eddie corrected.

  “Yeah, you an old man.” Douglas smiled at his own joke.

  “How you doing, Douglas?” Eddie said.

  “Doug, Dad. You hate when grandma calls you Edward. I don’ like Douglas.”

  “Excuse me if I call you by the name I picked.”

  “I learned a new trick.”

  “Show me.”

  Doug put down the book and rose from the stairs. He reached into his pocket to extract a half-dollar.

  “Okay now, you gotta watch,” Doug said.

  A bit clumsily, Doug held the shiny coin in his left hand between the thumb and fingers. He appeared to grab it with his right hand, and with a showy gesture, opened it to show that the coin was gone.

  “Hey, pretty good!” Eddie marveled. “Where did it go?”

  Doug touched his father’s ear with his left hand, and pulled it back into view to reveal the coin at his fingertips.

  “How do you do that?” Eddie said with a huge grin.

  “First rule of magic, Dad,” Doug returned the coin to his pocket.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Eddie recalled. “Never reveal the secret.”

  He sat back on the carpeted steps and picked up his book. “Mom’s been callin’ you.”

  “I just found out. Where is she?”

  “Kitchen.” Doug was already engrossed in his reading.

  “Eddie?” Cerise’s musical voice called out as she came through a door into the living room. “I’ve been calling and calling, then I spoke to Luis—”

  “When did you call Luis?” Eddie led his wife back to the kitchen.

  “A half-an-hour ago,” Cerise said. Her eyes were large, and Eddie could see that a storm brewed within. “He told me you fainted at a crime scene—”

  “I did not faint,” Eddie growled too loudly, then lowered his voice. “I slipped in a puddle, that’s all.”

  “I’ve been calling—”

  Eddie moved close, putting his arms around his wife. “I’m sorry, baby. When I changed clothes, I didn’t move my cell phone. It’s been in my locker all day.” He gently kissed her short, curly hair, which tickled his nose.

  She looked up at him, her face a mask of concern. “You know I worry when I can’t reach you.”

  Their lips met.

  “I’m fine,” Eddie hummed as he pulled back.

  For a moment, they gazed into each other’s eyes, until Cerise broke into a grin.

  “Okay, I’ll forgive you—this time.”

  “Be still my heart.” Eddie smirked.

  “I won’t say that, ‘cause you make my heart beat fast.” Cerise went to the nearby oven, and pulled out a dinner plate covered with foil. She placed it on the kitchen table where a napkin and utensils waited.

  Eddie became serious as he sat. “So, what happened with Momma?”

  Cerise leaned against the kitchen counter and sighed. The kitchen wasn’t large, and the cabinets and countertops were not new, but the entire room was immaculate and comfortable. “Lived-in” is how Eddie liked to describe it.

  Cerise’s face was very still. ”It’s not good, Eddie.”

  Eddie stopped pulling the foil from his meal. He rose and went to her.

  “How bad?”

  A small, thin voice spoke up from the doorway. “I’m dying, Edward.”

  Eddie looked over to where his mother stood. As he grew up, she was always larger than life. His ample, tough momma, who made the rules and smacked his butt if he broke one. She’d shrunk with time and age, but now she seemed tiny to him. The force of her personality once made her appear larger, and now even that was shrunken.

  Cerise spoke to her mother-in-law. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, Momma?”

  “It don’ make no difference now, dearie.” The older woman shambled into the room.

  Eddie approached her, got down on one knee, and took her hand. “What is it, Momma?”

  “The cancer, it’s spread,” she said casually, as if they spoke of the weather.

  “Isn’t there something they can do?” Eddie rose and turned to his wife. “What did Doctor Ramsen say?”

  Eddie’s mother piped up. “He said, ‘more chemo and radiation’, but I said no.”

  “Momma!” Eddie pleaded.

  “I mean it. The chemo almost killed me the last time.” Her hand went to her white hair. “My hair all fell out, and I wanted to die, bad as I felt.” She adjusted the ample glasses that made her eyes look huge. “Besides, it’s spread, and there is too much to cut out.”

  “But, Momma, you can’t just give up—”

  “Yes, I can, Edward,” she said. “Besides, I’m not giving up. I just want to die in one piece.”

  Eddie looked helplessly from his mother to his wife. His stomach felt as if it had been removed and replaced with a knot of wiggling creatures, each one with sharp teeth.

  “H-how much time?” he stammered out.

  “Three months,” his mother said.

  “Momma, what can I do?”

  Eleanor Berman reached out and tenderly touched her son’s cheek. “You always feel so responsible for everybody.”

  “I want to take care of you,” Eddie mumbled, as tears stung his eyes. “I love you.”

  Eleanor shook her head sadly. “Edward, I love you, too. But sometimes there just ain’t nothin’ you can do.”

  Six

  Eddie couldn’t bring himself to eat, and when he went to bed, found he was too wound up to sleep.

  “Sugar?” Cerise said groggily as he got out of bed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t sleep,” Eddie stated flatly.

  She reached out to him and touched his arm. “Can I help?”

  “No.” Eddie drew her into a clumsy embrace. “I just need to clear my head.”

  Her hand went up to caress the back of his head. “Do you want to make love? It always relaxes you.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I just need to think.”

  “Oh-kay.” She fell back into bed.

  Eddie walked downstairs and into the hall. The room was silhouetted as light poured in from the small windows on either side of the front door. It colored the room with a bluish tint, and in the dim light, Eddie spotted his cellular phone.

  He picked it up and touched it so the screen lit up. It still read “5 MISSED CALLS.” He retrieved the incoming calls, each numbered in progressive order.

  As he moved to the back of the house, he began to delete them. The fifth was his home number, as was the fourth, the third, the second, and—

  There was a number he didn’t know.

  It began with a “212” area code, which meant it was from New York. The only numbers to follow were “18.” This made Eddie frown. It should have been ten numerals. There was no such thing as a five-digit phone number.

  He closed down his phone as he entered the kitchen and slipped it in the breast poc
ket of his pajamas. Walking over to the stove, he lit a fire under the teapot.

  He glanced over at the microwave. Its illuminated clock glowed “11:58” in bright green.

  He rubbed his eyes, which stung with fatigue. Maybe what he should do is throw on some clothes and go for a jog. It would clear his mind and tire his body.

  Glancing over at the back door, he caught the glitter of metal. Instantly awake, a film of cold sweat covered his body.

  Next to the back door stood the walking stick.

  It was almost hidden in shadows, but there. The graceful silver ball, the thirty-six inches of ebony wood.

  Eddie’s mouth fell open. He tried to think of any way the cane could have escaped the car trunk to be in his kitchen in the middle of the night.

  He couldn’t conceive a single one.

  It was like an out-of-body experience. His limbs still operated under his guidance, but he was outside of it and watched himself. He crept to the door and gingerly picked up the stick.

  He heard a noise and turned, raising the cane like a weapon, the silver handle poised to strike.

  Eddie realized the noise was his phone ringing.

  He looked at his breast pocket, and his cellular phone was vibrating while making its pathetic electronic ring.

  He lowered the cane and pulled the phone out, took another peek at the clock on the microwave. It read “12:00.”

  Midnight.

  An involuntary shudder crept down Eddie’s back. He looked at the phone still chiming in his hand. The screen read “212-18.”

  He hit the button. “Hello?”

  He spoke with a strained voice.

  “Lieutenant Berman?” a man’s voice asked. It was a deep voice, and for some reason reminded Eddie of Santa Claus. An odd impression in June.

  Eddie cleared his throat and stared at the stick in his hand. It didn’t matter what curious events were happening. He was a police lieutenant and needed to act like one.

  “This is Lieutenant Berman,” Eddie said, his voice businesslike. “Who is this?”

  There was a sigh of relief at the other end of the phone, and the man went on. “My name is Marlowe, and you don’t know me.”

  “Then why are you calling me? Hey! How did you get my number? And where are you calling from? Two-one-two-eighteen?”