Gun Machine

Scarly watched him go and then, mouth set in a little line, went to the top drawer, pulled out a holstered gun, and clipped it to her belt. She shrugged her thin coat on, arched an eyebrow at Tallow as if daring him to say something, and walked past him toward the elevators.

Tallow lifted and reseated his own gun.

“You didn’t tell me to bring a fucking shovel,” Bat said.

“Just get in the back of the fucking car,” Scarly said.

“I would, but I didn’t bring any fucking ropes. Seriously, John, how does your rear fender not just scrape along the fucking street?”

“Bat, just…I don’t know, just give it all a shove.”

“What if there’s a landslide? I might never be seen again. Jesus, what is all this stuff?”

Tallow ran a hand through his hair. “You people work in the Collyer brothers’ toilet, and you give me trouble about this? Push it all to one side. Get in.”

“The Collyer who?”

“Ride in the back or ride in the trunk, Bat.”

“Okay, okay. But I’m telling you, I think I see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the bottom of this, and I’m only getting in here because I’m afraid of what’s in the trunk.”

Scarly got in the front passenger seat, which was almost as strange to Tallow as the persistent weirdness of being in the driver’s seat. “Who were the Collyer brothers?” she asked.

“Langley and Homer Collyer. First half of the twentieth century. Two hermits in Harlem, lived on the far-ass end of Fifth Avenue.”

Tallow began navigating the car out of One PP.

“Weirdness ran in the family. Their father used to paddle a canoe to work, down the East River to Roosevelt Island. Somewhere around 1925, pop disappeared, mom died, and the two brothers were left this house. The locals thought they were eccentric and wealthy and started sniffing around the house, snooping, maybe trying to pop a window or two. But the Collyers didn’t actually have a pot to piss in and were kind of crazy to boot. So they boarded up the windows, set up mantraps, and only went out at night. They’d sneak out, find stuff that looked useful or interesting or capable of being turned into a trap or weapon, and drag it home. Which is, you know, not a hell of a lot different from your office, except you get that stuff delivered.”

“So this is what fills your car?” said a hunched Bat from the back, looking like the world’s ugliest bit of origami. “Obscure New York history? Anyway. That doesn’t sound so bad. I’d love to do nothing but collect shit all day.”

Tallow gave a small dry laugh. “So in 1947, the whole block is suffused by this awful stench. The only people who aren’t out complaining about it are the Collyers. So eventually people go in. And discover that every piece of trash that dropped on that block in the last twenty years was picked up and stored by the Collyers. A hundred and thirty tons of it. Twenty-five thousand books, fourteen pianos, most of a car, bits of people, uncountable newspapers and boxes. You could get around in there only through tunnels and crawl spaces. Homer Collyer was found dead of a heart attack brought on by starvation. His eyes had hemorrhaged out fifteen years earlier, and he had been completely paralyzed by untreated rheumatism. Langley Collyer was found in one of the tunnels. It looked like he’d been transporting food to Homer when he’d tripped one of his own traps and been crushed to death by a weighted suitcase and three massive bales of newspaper. He was actually the source of the stench. Blind old Homer had taken another week to die.”

“Presumably wondering where his brother had gotten to with lunch,” said Scarly. “This is why you need to call people when you’re carrying sandwiches and taking a detour, John.”

“Bits of people?” said Bat.

“Human organs in jars, stuff like that. Their father was a doctor, but he was ob-gyn. So I’m guessing it wasn’t all heirlooms. Oh, and, of course, they also found a large cache of guns and ammunition. Had to knock the whole house down in the end.”

“That’ll be what our guy’s second apartment looks like,” said Bat, trying to get his knees out from under his chin.

“What?”

“Well, he wasn’t sleeping in three A, was he? And he’s not going to be sleeping on the streets. He’s got a second apartment, and when we find it, it’ll be full of gun magazines and clippings and shit. This guy knows his weapons and is at the very least capable of research. Otherwise he wouldn’t have found out about the Rochester thing. Hell, he wouldn’t have known anything about Son of Sam.”

“The Native American thing,” Scarly commented.