Nocturne (15 page)

“You want Public Affairs,” she said. “That’s 307–4738.”

“Is that still the Taxi and Limousine Commission?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Thank you,” he said, and dialed the number.

“Public Affairs,” a man’s actual voice said.

He was on a roll.

“Sir,” he said, “is it against the law for taxicabs to blow their horns?”

“Except in an emergency, yes, sir,” the man said. “It’s part of the Vehicle and Traffic Law.”

“Are taxi drivers
told
it’s against the law?”

“They’re supposed to know it, yes, sir.”

“But who informs them? Is the information in a booklet or something?”

“They’re supposed to familiarize themselves with the law, yes, sir.”

“How?”

“They’re supposed to know it, sir.”

“Well, they don’t seem to be too familiar with it.”

“Do you have a complaint about a taxi driver blowing his horn, sir?”

“I have a complaint about ten
thousand
of them blowing their horns!”

“11,787, sir,” the man corrected. “But if you have a
specific
taxi in mind, you can call 307-TAXI with your complaint.”

“I don’t have a specific taxi in mind.”

“Then you should call DEP-HELP. They’ll be able to take a nonspecific complaint.”

He hung up, and immediately dialed DEP-HELP, realizing an instant too late that this was in reality 337–4357 …

“This is the Department of Environmental Protection. If you are calling about a water or sewer problem, air or noise pollution,
asbestos or hazardous materials, please …”

He waited through two more announcements telling him that everyone was busy, and finally he got a live customer service agent.
He explained that he wanted to make a nonspecific complaint about the honking of horns in the vicinity of the Hamilton Bridge
between the hours of …

“The honking of
what
?”

“Horns. Car horns, taxi horns, truck horns.”

“And you say you wish to make
what
kind of a complaint?”

“Nonspecific. I’ve just been informed it’s against the law, and that you would take my complaint.”

“I don’t know if it’s against the law or not. If you want a copy of the Noise Pollution Rules, you can send four dollars and
seventy-five cents to this address, have you got a pencil?”

“I don’t want a copy of the rules. The Taxi and Limousine Commission just told me the honking of horns is against the Vehicle
and Traffic Law.”

“Then you want Traffic,” the agent said. “Let me give you a number.”

She gave him a number and he dialed it. The line was busy for four minutes. Then a voice said, “Customer Service.”

“Hello,” he said, “I’m calling to complain about the honking of horns …”

“You want Traffic,” the woman said.

“Isn’t
this
Traffic?”

“No, this is Transit.”

“Well, have you got a number for Traffic?”

She gave him a number for Traffic. He dialed it.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m calling to complain about the honking of horns in the vi—”

“We only take complaints for traffic lights and streetlights.”

“Well, to whom do I talk about …?”

“Let me give you Traffic.”

“I thought this
was
Traffic.”

“No, I’ll switch you.”

He waited.

“Department of Transportation.”

“I’m calling to complain about the honking of horns in the vicinity of …”

“What you want is the DEP.”

“I want the what?”

“Department of Environmental Protection. Hold on, I’ll give you the number.”

“I have the number, thanks.”

He called Environmental Protection again. All agents were busy again. After a wait of some six minutes, he got someone on
the phone and told her about his problem all over again. She listened very patiently.

Then she said, “We don’t take auto horns.”

“Are you telling me that the Department of Environmental Protection can’t do anything about
noise
pollution?”

“I’m not saying there’s
no
one here can do anything about it,” she said. “All I’m saying is
we
don’t take auto horns.”

“Well, isn’t the honking of auto horns considered noise pollution?”

“Not in this department. Day construction, night construction, all that kind of stuff is what we call noise pollution.”

“But not horn honking?”

“Not horn honking.”

“Even though it’s against the law?”

“I don’t know if it’s against the law or not. You can check that with your local precinct.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He looked up the number for the precinct closest to the Hamilton Bridge. The 87th Precinct. 41 Grover Avenue. 387–8024. He
dialed it.

A recorded voice said, “If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911. If this is not an emergency, hang on and someone will
be with your shortly.”

He hung on.

“Eighty-seventh Precinct, Sergeant Murchison.”

He went straight for the jugular.

“The honking of automobile horns is against the law,” he said. “Isn’t that true?”

“Except in an emergency situation, yes, sir, that very definitely is true.”

Good, he thought.

“But it’s a law that’s extremely difficult to enforce,” Sergeant Murchison said. “Because, sir, we can’t pinpoint who’s
doing
the actual honking, do you see, sir? Where the honk is
coming
from, do you see? If we could find out who was actually
leaning
on his horn, why, we’d give him a summons, do you see?”

He did not mention that standing on the corner of Silvermine and Sixteenth, listening to the infernal, incessant cacophony
of horns, he could without fail and with tremendous ease pinpoint
exactly
which cabdriver, truck driver or motorist was doing the honking, sometimes for minutes on end.

“What if he gets a summons?” he asked.

“He goes to court. And gets a fine if he’s found guilty.”

“How much is the fine?”

“Well, I would have to look that up, sir.”

“Could you do that, please?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yes.”

“No, I can’t do that right now, sir. We’re very busy here right now.”

“Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

He sat with his hand on the telephone receiver for a very long time, his head bent. Outside, the noise was merciless. He rose
at last, and went to the window, and threw it wide open to the wintry blast and the assault of the horns.

“Shut up,” he whispered to the traffic below. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut
up
!” he shouted.

Ten minutes later, he shot and killed a cabdriver who was blowing his horn on the approach ramp to the Hamilton Bridge.

T
he car looked as if it had just come out of the showroom. Black Richard had never seen it looking so good. He told the three
rich white fucks they should go into the car wash business together. They all laughed.

In an open bodega not far from the car wash, they bought a can of starter fluid and then found a soot-stained oil drum that
had already been used for fires a hundred times before. This neighborhood, when it got cold the homeless gathered around these
big old cans, started these roaring fires, sometimes roasted potatoes on a grate over them, but mostly used them just to keep
warm. It was warmer in the shelters, maybe, but in a shelter the chances were better of getting mugged or raped. Out here,
standing around an oil drum fire, toasting your hands and your ass, you felt like a fuckin cowboy on the Great Plains.

They started the fire with scraps of wood they picked up in the lot, old newspapers, picture frames without glass, wooden
chairs with broken legs, a dresser missing all of its drawers, curled and yellowing telephone directories, broomstick handles,
whatever they could find that was flammable. On many of the streets and roadways in this city, in most of the empty lots,
the discarded debris resembled a trail left by war refugees. When the fire was roaring and crackling, they threw in the bloody
sheets and rags, and then stirred them into the flames with a broomstick, Richard the First intoning, “Double, double toil
and trouble,” Richard the Second chiming in with “Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” which black Richard thought was some kind
of fraternity chant.

They stayed around the oil drum till everything in it had burned down to ashes. Well, not everything. Still some wood in there,
turning to charcoal, beginning to smolder. But anything they were worried about was now history. No more bloody sheets, no
more bloody rags. Poof. Gone.

“Time to celebrate,” Richard the First said.

The man sitting at Meyer Meyer’s desk was named Randolph Hurd. He was a short slender man, almost as bald as Meyer himself,
wearing a brown three-piece suit and a muted matching tie, brown shoes, brown socks. An altogether drab man who had killed
a cabdriver in cold blood and been apprehended by a traffic cop before he’d taken six steps from the taxi. The tagged and
bagged murder weapon was on Meyer’s desk. Hurd had just told Meyer about all the phone calls he’d made this morning. Brown
eyes wet, he now asked, “Isn’t horn-blowing against the law?”

There were, in fact,
two
statutes against the blowing of horns, and Meyer was familiar with both of them. The first was in Title 34 of the Rules of
the City, which rules were authorized by the City Charter. Title 34 governed the Department of Transportation. Chapter 4 of
Title 34 defined the traffic rules. Chapter 4, Subsection 12(i) read:

Horn for danger only. No person shall sound the horn of a vehicle except when necessary to warn a person or animal of danger
.

The penalty for violating this rule was a $45 fine.

The second statute was in the City’s Administrative Code. Title 24 was called Environmental Protection and Utilities. Section
221 fell within Chapter 2, which was called Noise Control, within Subchapter 4, which was called Prohibited Noise and Unnecessary
Noise Standards. It read:

Sound signal devices. No person shall operate or use or cause to be operated or used any sound signal device so as to create
an unnecessary noise except as a sound signal of imminent danger
.

The fines imposed for violating this statute ranged from a minimum of $265 to a maximum of $875.

“Yes, sir,” Meyer said. “Horn-blowing is against the law. But, Mr. Hurd, no one has the right to take …”

“It’s the cabbies and the truck drivers,” Hurd said. “They’re the worst offenders. All of them in such a desperate hurry to
drop off a fare or a precious cargo. Other motorists follow suit, it’s contagious, you know. Like a fever. Or a plague. Everyone
hitting his horn. You can’t imagine the din, Detective Meyer. It’s ear-splitting. And this flagrant breaking of the law is
carried on within feet of traffic officers waving their hands or policemen sitting in parked patrol cars. Something should
be done about it.”

“I agree,” Meyer said. “But Mr. Hurd …”

“
I
did something about it,” Hurd said.

Meyer figured it was justifiable homicide.

Priscilla Stetson thought she was keeping Georgie Agnello and Tony Frascati as sex toys. Georgie and Tony thought they were
taking advantage of a beautiful blonde who liked to tie them up and blindfold them while she blew them.

It was a good arrangement all around.

Anybody came near her, they would break his head. She was theirs. On the other hand, they were hers. She could call them whenever
she needed them, send them home whenever she tired of them. It was an arrangement none of them ever discussed for fear of
jinxing it. Like a baseball pitcher with a natural fast-breaking curve. Or a writer with a knack for good dialogue.

At eleven o’clock that Sunday morning, they were all having breakfast in bed together when Priscilla mentioned her grandmother.

Georgie and Tony hated eating breakfast in bed. You got crumbs all over everything, you spilled coffee all over yourself,
they hated it. Priscilla was between them, naked, enjoying herself, drinking coffee and eating a cheese Danish. The boys,
as she called them, had each and separately eaten her not twenty minutes ago, and they were waiting now for her to reciprocate
in some small way, which she showed no sign of doing just yet. She did this to show the boys who was boss here. On the other
hand, they occasionally beat the shit out of her, though they never hurt her hands or her face. Which she sometimes enjoyed,
depending on her mood. But not very often.

It was all part of their arrangement.

Like the suite the hotel provided on the nights she played. That was another arrangement. It wasn’t the presidential suite,
but it went for four-fifty a night, which wasn’t litchi nuts. They were in the suite now, which had been named the Richard
Moore Suite after the noted Alpine skier who had stayed here back in the days when he was winning gold medals hither and yon,
the Richard Moore Suite at the Hotel Powell, Priscilla naked between them, drinking coffee and munching on her cheese Danish,
Georgie and Tony wearing nothing but black silk pajama tops and erections, trying not to spill coffee or crumbs on themselves.
After breakfast, and after she had taken care of them,
if
she decided to take care of them, they might do a few lines of coke, who could say? Priscilla had connections. Georgie and
Tony liked being kept in this state of heightened anticipation, so to speak. Priscilla liked keeping them there. She might
decide to send them home as soon as she finished the second pot of coffee room service had brought up, who could say? Out,
boys. I have things to do, Sunday is my day off. Or maybe not. It depended on how she felt ten minutes from now.