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RBB [voiceover]: Bubbie's was once a simple, unpretentious place with good food in generous helpings -- a place that made you feel at home, whether you sat inside or outside. Now success had spoiled it. The waiters all had the kind of snarky attitude that revealed itself in sneers if you asked for anything of which they disapproved, or had trouble reading the artsy menu, or objected to sitting next to someone who could set off a metal detector stark-naked. Lots of so-called beautiful people had taken the place over -- talking animatedly about Giancarlo this and Bertholdt that, praising obscure independent films that would make Andrew Sarris want to gouge his eyes out and never see a movie again, looking offended if anyone actually came in reading a book.
A gunshot can shake up even the beautiful people, however, and the gunshot that threw Bubbie's into confusion left all those pretentious bozos acting just like any other scared human beings anywhere around the world -- all hiding under tables, crying, screaming, and trying desperately not to add brown or yellow stains to their all-black costumes.
I didn't have time to do social criticism, however; I was looking around for the location of the shooter and bracing myself should he or she try another shot, and I also was clinging to Namagomi-chan and keeping her by sheer brute force from jumping up and running away screaming ... right into the shooter's sights. It wasn't helping that I was getting much too much sensory overload -- that her lithe, firm body was sending signals to nerve centers that I had thought were too scarred by heartbreak ever to react again, or that the scent of jasmine mingled with her perspiration was causing my mouth to go dry and my palms to go clammy.
NAMAGOMI: You're hurting me -- !
RBB: Sorry, kid, but you were about to get up and do a good "shoot, me, PLEASE!" shtik, and that would have been a damned bad idea.
NAMAGOMI: You're right. I panicked. I'm sorry.
RBB: Don't be. It's only natural. Look at the fashion plates and trendsetters around us.
RBB [voiceover]: Once it became clear that there was and would be only one shot, everyone pulled out cellular phones and started warbling fear and anger into them; it was like being in a bad Fellini movie. Soon enough, a blue-and-white NYPD car came cruising up to the corner, followed soon after by an unmarked detectives' car. The uniformed officers introduced themselves, but I looked at them warily; something seemed wrong, familiar and wrong.
OFFICER BLUESTOCKING: Now, you say that the shot came out of nowhere and hit the table?
NAMAGOMI: That's right.
OFFICER TICK: And you have no idea why someone would be taking shots at you?
NAMAGOMI: Er -- no. No. Not at all. Maybe they were shooting at the Professor.
OFFICER TICK: Professor? Bernstein? You're a prof again? Who the fuck let that happen?
OFFICER BLUESTOCKING: Professor Bernstein? I've read everything you've written! Don't be so hard on the man -- he's brilliant.
RBB [voiceover]: I cursed under my breath. These two had crossed my path more than once in the bad old days before I was tossed out of New York never, I thought, to return. They had a shtick worked out from way back, and they needed only a small prompt to go back to it. I also was annoyed with Namagomi; I had been ready to do whatever was needed to keep her confidence, and she was offering me up to the cops on a silver platter. Then again -- maybe the shot *was* meant for me.
Then the plainclothes guys came over, and I *knew* that this would not be a good day.
DET. ZEPPO: Bernstein, eh? I remember you. You were a pain in the ass when you were here before the commissioner told us to have you run out of town. You'd better not be back to your old tricks.
DET. ZORRO: What old tricks? He was just sitting there, or so the forensics suggest to me.
DET. ZEPPO: Know-it-all. And I hate how you manage to spit out what you have to say in two-sentence bursts.
DET. ZORRO: I don't need a lot of words.
RBB [voiceover]: While they did their comedy act, and while the uniforms bickered over who was being appropriately mean or nice to me, and while Namagomi-chan wiped her eyes with a jasmine-scented cambric handkerchief, I looked around the area with a narrow gaze. The bullet had come from across the street; it was meant not to hit but to warn. Who was getting the warning?
I hated having to think that way again.
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