Hot Poppies by Reggie Nadelson Read Free Book Online

can’t imagine. So I sit on the floor. The light goes out. I sit on in the dark. Panic produces sweat, and although it’s winter in Moscow, I’m drenched with it. Time passes. Eventually, someone reports there are problems with the elevator and I hear noises. Workmen are banging on the cables. They lower the elevator to the ground floor. They pry open the doors and find me.
    A policeman, a gray cardigan under his greasy gray jacket, hauls me in, puts me in a cell for a whole afternoon. When my mother comes to get me, she isn’t laughing.
    Now, suddenly, in the freight elevator in Chinatown, the doors opened, shut, slammed. I waited. They were gone.
    Scrabbling in the gloom, my hands felt the elevator panel and I hoisted myself up on it and shoved on the metal lever. The doors split open. I found a light switch.
    My watch said ten-thirty. I had only been there five, six minutes. Legs shaking, I peered around the elevator, then felt along the wooden panel at the back until I hit something cold, something metallic. I yanked it out. When I got into the street I saw it was a five-sided spike. Four inches across its flat back, it had five vicious three-inch spikes on the other side, sharp as knives. It was what the goons threw past me in the dark.
    They never said a word. Nada. Christ! No notice given, nothing asked. Was this what they called, what was it, expressive terrorism? A taunt? A threat?
    Somehow, I got out into the street. I looked at the building and saw what had happened. The freight elevator was flush with the sidewalk. Produce could be wheeled in from the curb. The scumbags that hit me had dragged me in like a load of bok choy. When I looked down, I saw a red stain on the fresh snow. I had torn my hand on the spike. There was some Kleenex in my pocket and I wrapped the weapon as best I could.
    My wallet was gone, so was my gun. I was pissed off at losing the Seecamp pistol—they go for four, five hundred bucks these days—but I was almost relieved. It was a mugging. An ordinary everyday New York City mugging. A couple of kids. An empty street. Opportunity knocked. Everything was gone, cash, license, credit cards. All they left me was the spike.
    Think mugging. Think methamphetamines. China White. Forget terrorists. Forget the dead girl and her friend, Pansy Loh, who talked English like Princess Di. All they wanted was my wallet or a few laughs. Then I realized they had my keys.
    I had to get home; they had the keys, they had my address.
    I could barely walk. There weren’t any cabs, only a guy on skis who asked if I wanted a ride. A real comedian.
    It seemed to take hours to walk a dozen blocks, but I made it. I buzzed Lois to bring my extra keys down. Miraculously, she was back in her place instead of on the roof.
    â€œGet Kathe, too,” I yelled into the intercom, and the two women came down and got me off the street into the building. From my apartment, I called a locksmith.
    â€œTake off your pants,” Kathe said. I lay face down on the floor. She prodded me gently, but I yelled with the pain.
    â€œWho hit you?”
    I rolled over and sat up. “Put something against the door,” I said to Lois.
    â€œIt’s locked.”
    â€œJust do it. Just do it. Do it. There’s a gun in the top drawer of the desk. Just please do it, Lois, OK?”
    Lois got the gun, put a chair in front of the door and sat on it.
    â€œFor Christ’s sake, tell me, Artie,” Kathe said.
    â€œMuggers. Chinese goons, maybe.”
    â€œThey do anything else to you?” she said.
    â€œThey choked me. I went out for a few seconds, I think.”
    â€œI don’t know much about it, but it looks like some kind of martial arts thing. Amateurs. This stuff shouldn’t leave any marks but there’s already bruises on the backs of your legs. Even amateurs, you don’t learn this shit at Harvard. You want me to make you an appointment with someone, a specialist?”
    I