Eyes on the Street

THAA-WHACK! That was the sound of Mort's body hitting the mat.

Mort remembers seeing the ceiling of the dojo dimly give way to a fluttering blackness at the corners of his vision, like someone was tightening a garrote around his neck, then it was total black.

That was the first time Mort met Professor Sign.

Looking across the mat; Mort didn't think much of the man at the time. Yes, he noticed the tattered

black belt, the thick wrists revealed by the sleeves of the man's gi, but the guy was blind.

Mort was cocky in the way a lot of young, strong, beginners are. Mort pulled his blue belt tight, went to shake the hand left dangling for him. When Mort came to he was shaken; he stayed away from the black belt for months.

Eventual Sign came up to him "Why you dodging me Mort? You have to tap next time buddy." So Mort grabbed hold of Sign's gi when Mort pushed Sign pulled when Mort pulled Sign pushed. Mort felt like chew toy in the mouth of a Rottweiler. It was like grappling a whirlwind inside an empty jacket.

 "Don't use Strength Mort. Feel where I'm giving you energy than use that energy to throw me."

Sign took Mort under his wing teaching him all the techniques, and counters he knew. Pretty soon Mort was tossing guys on their heads as well. Professor Sign felt akin to this somewhat socially awkward kid that had certain brashness, an outsider’s attitude.

 

After years of training with Professor Sign; Mort knew almost nothing about him, he wore a ring but never mentioned a wife, he lost his vision somehow while working for the NYPD, that he taught Criminal Psychology and Profiling at John Jay College, and of course the ability to toss you on your head in the blink of an eye. Sign on the other had known almost everything about Mort. For instance that Mort was a nickname. That his family ran a funeral parlor which Mort worked at and that he was expelled from the Forensic Pathology Program at John Hopkins University because of extra circular experiments involving cadavers from the pathology lab. Sign knew Mort was something of a prodigy when it came to study lividity, desiccation, putrification, taphonomy, proximate and immediate causes of mortality. Mort though rough around the edges was a good kid and he knew his stuff.

It was on the Desi Freedman case, that Professor Sign enlisted Mort’s help. She was missing for two days when Steve Freedman, a Wall Street big-shot with enough dough in the bank to by a deserted island in the Caribbean and enough girlfriends to repopulate it with hired Sign to find her. Steve met Detective Sign at the couple’s posh west side townhouse. Through an open window Sign felt a breeze; the blowing breeze brought a smell of new churned dirt, and the faint bitter ammonia scent of decay. Sign knew Desi was buried not too deeply under the ivy in courtyard. He finished his talk with Steve Freedman in the courtyard “Ever since I lost my sight,” Sign said “that is one of my favorite sensations, the wind blowing through ivy.” He couldn’t risk letting him know he had found Desi already Sign had a feeling Mr. Steve had some blood on his hands and dirt under his fingernails.

 Mort was trapped. Professor Sign was holding him down using his signature side control pressure crushing Mort’s head down against the mat. Mort futilely maneuvered his legs to get a knee against Sign’s body to create some much needed space, just to breathe. Sign said to him. "Mort I hear your pretty good with dead bodies."

"Yeah they don't complain much."

"I bet. I have a job for you if you’re interested."

Sign needed Mort’s expertise to place a time of death, cause of death, everything a forensic Pathologist does and more. Sign always like working just outside the rules so he chose Mort.

 The Desi Freedman case was wrapped up. Two of Steve Freedman’s girlfriends murdered her in her sleep while Steve watched lying next to her in bed the whole time. Steve and the two girlfriends were both convicted and awaiting sentencing. Mort was able to tell the time and immediate cause of death through asphyxiation. Mort couldn’t testify in the trial because he wasn’t licensed but Sign brought Mort’s report to the coroner who gave it her seal of approval.

 The duo continued to train jiu-jitsu together and Mort would help out whenever Sign needed him. They would banter about cases as they tried to choke or lock up a submission on each other. While Sign had Mort squirming locked in an arm bar, he said.

"How about working for me full-time more-or-less."

"Owww...Owww!  Tap! Tap, tap."

"Oh, sorry. Mort I've learned a lot, how to use my senses to compensate, but I'm not superhuman I could use a pair of eyes on the street."

 

Mort became Sign's eyes on the street doing surveillance operations, trailing people, providing forensic backup at crime sciences, and supplemental pathology reports. With Mort’s help Sign was being hired for more and more high profile cases working with the FBI, NYPD, even the Joint Task Force on Terrorism, but he liked staying on small cases private cases that paid a whole lot more.

  It was Mort’s idea to place a camera and listening device in Sign’s sunglasses. Mort really could be Sign’s eyes at a crime scene or when meeting with clients or suspects, communicating information via a hidden earpiece. Sign quickly garnered a reputation of semi-superhuman powers of deduction, a blind Sherlock Holmes.

Fortunes Told/ Hairs Cut

Before I left for Mexico I figured I would get a hair-cut.

Someone had recommended I see this lady about it. Turns out she wasn't much of a barber but a hell of a fortune teller. I got the address from a contact in the city who mainly deals with polish immigrates and intelligence from their network of resistant fighters. This particular contact thought I needed a little insight in to my future and subsequently a trim.

After a little wandering around the village I found the Barber pole hanging from a second story apartment above a sign that said Fortunes Read/ Hairs Cut. I walked up the stairs and was passed by some ladies leaving almost bald but for some rough tufts of hair sticking out of their heads. Is that what I'm in for I thought?

The room was like your typical Barber shop, mirrors, two barber chairs, a waiting area with magazines, chairs, a coat rack, and pictures of men's and women's hairstyles but here you couldn't pick your hairstyle. There was also a back room separated by a beaded curtain over which hung a sign in the shape of a hand with an eye in it reading Aggi the Psychic.

I sat in the chair supremely skeptical and afraid for my head. Aggi came out, she was a dressed in a peasant tunic and looked like she hadn't had a haircut for years herself. Steel gray and black pulled back into a wild ponytail that reached the back of her thick legs. She looked at me with indifference and said "You want haircut?"

"Yes- please."

She motioned with her strong arm that looked accustomed to hard manual labor whipping out a white smock she tightly fastened it around my throat. Trying to loosen it with my finger I said "Just a little off the sides." and she smacked my hand away and said "Sit still."

Hair collected on the floor and she clipped away taking random bites off my head. I blew the hair off my face and blinked to keep it out of my eyes. Out from behind a beaded curtain a little woman with a broom twice as big as herself and dressed similar to Aggi started to sweep the hair into piles at Aggi's feet .Then a high-pitched voice came from below me.

"You will be traveling." The voice was coming from the little lady sweeping the hair into piles around the chair.

"Yes, I plan too." I glanced down and saw here staring down into the small piles of hair.

"Don't move." the lady with the ham hock arms said and forced my head straight ahead.

"The trip you are taking will end abruptly. Be careful of a green woman and be on the lookout for an enemy who is really your ally. Your trip will be ultimately unsatisfying. Don't go into bad places alone."

By this point it was all pretty general stuff and my head was getting cut to shreds.

"Stay off of motorcycles. You have knowledge, you feel you can't divulge. Disappear, someone is looking for you... you should disappear."

Although I was almost completely bald by this point I wanted to hear what she said and let the rest of my hair get chopped off.

"You will have children. But soon you will have to..."

At that point she stopped.

"Have to what?" I said looking down at the lady as she swept up the remaining piles of hair and waddled back behind the beaded curtain.

"Hey, where's she going?"

"No more hair no more fortune." the thickset lady with the scissors grunted.

It was true my head was completely shore.

Mexico Night

  

     It turned gory that night in Mexico. Blood mixed with rain water pouring from the palm fronds and running along the concrete patio of the cantina. I wouldn’t have ordinarily minded a scene like this but it was my blood pouring so freely into the night. Just a minute ago I was drinking a cerveza with lime and smoking in my new guayabera shirt; now my head felt the rain but the blackness faded.  I was watching my life pour out, and I didn’t really mind, I actually felt quite comfortable head busted open face digging into the concrete patio.

            I rolled onto my side and looked into the placid saucer sized brown eyes of the little Mexican kid. He was frowning and looked scared. I pushed myself on to my knees. Someone had done a good job putting me down. There was a gash on the side of my head, unsteady as I stood I placed a hand to stauch the bleeding.

 “Hola Kid.”

     He just looked at me with what I guessed was concern, shock or just plain curiosity then ran inside crying.  I let myself drop back into the chair I had been sitting in when someone clocked me good with what must have been something hard and heavy. I looked at my shirt and it was rusty pink with blood, water and dirt. My beer didn’t spill so I took a long draught, lit a smoke and took a long drag.

 “Fuck…”

“Senor Gringo you OK”? The ladies in the kitchen were apparently too busy to see what happen while they were preparing an octopus in a large cast iron pot. I had watched them squeeze the ink from the things head. The giant pot of pulpo was simmering now, it smelt both garlicy and like the ocean. Now I had ink coming out of my head- red ink I was back in school the old mistake machine back in action.

     Why wouldn’t someone just finish me off?  The Kestrel wasn’t so crude as to caveman bash me on the side of the cranium, no I would be dead if it was him who wanted me dead.

      I had figured out why the Kestrel wanted me in Mexico though; I stuck out like a sore thumb down here, yeah I could get lost in Mexico,but  it was easy for anybody to find me. The local news spread quickly and information was cheap and easy to get. I quickly found it hard to assimilate; they looked at my blond hair and blue eyes and soon I was gringo, or Americano or whatever they called me. I didn’t have a grip on the language so relied on who ever I stayed with. I also knew who hit me lying beneath a palm tree like another jungle plant was a green hat shimmering like the surrounding jungle.

News Report

   

     The latest in a series of attacks on people using Kindles and other e-reader devices took place today in a midtown Starbucks.  The attacker grabbed one woman's Kindle smashing it on the ground and used a shortened field hockey stick to smash six other devices before fleeing the scene. Like in previous attacks leaflets bearing the phrase “It was a pleasure to burn.” the opening line of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 were found at the scene. The novel describes a dystopian future where books are banned, and burned. Police have no leads about the nature of the attacks. Are these attacks the work of protesters? Occupy Wall Street has disavowed the attacks saying they do not believe in the destruction of personal property. Are these attacks a contemporary version Bradbury's book or are they something else? Do these attackers want anything? It’s hard to tell, they seem senseless and random, occurring often in coffee shops or on subway trains and platforms through-out the city. The mayor has promised to find the perpetrators and has stepped up security on subways and subway platforms. The only description of the attacker or attackers that has been made so far is someone wearing workers coveralls, sunglasses, ski mask and hat. If you have any information call crime stoppers at 1800-tip-crime.

      In other news we are sad to report the passing of a legend; the songstress Ava de Fleur. The reclusive singer was famous for her days in New York after fleeing the Nazi’s occupation of Paris in 1940. Most people will remember her for her hit “All Year Through” which she mysteriously refused to sing after 1944.  Miss de Fleur died late yesterday evening of natural causes.