(Gabriele’s journal – December 31, 1990)
(Nick’s narrative – May 1, 2026)
I understood Red’s question, but not his reason for asking it, or the danger he thought we were in. “What are you are talking about?”
Red’s demeanor became even more desperate. “Just tell me the truth. Who are you and Gabriele working for? I can’t help you unless you let me know.”
“Okay, you’re scaring me now. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You have an apartment in Brooklyn, right?”
I didn’t have a clue as to what Red was trying to get at. Or why he was so distressed. But with him mentioning our Brooklyn apartment, I became unnerved — as desperate for an answer as he was.
“Now I’ve got a question for you. Why are you asking about our apartment? How do you even know about it?”
“You’re the police, right?”
I shook my head in disbelief. Before we moved in, everyone was suspicious, thinking we could be the police — mostly just because we didn’t use drugs. But that was almost a year ago, and by now everyone knew us for who we were.
“You know Gabriele and I aren’t police. Look at where you’re sitting. Inside a tipi. What kind of cops are going to go to this kind of trouble. And to do what? Bust a few homeless petty thieves doing drugs?”
Red sat silently staring into the dirt floor.
“What’s going on, Red? Tell me.”
“You got another cigarette?”
I lit an Eagle cigarette for each of us. The last time we shared Eagle cigarettes here, Red had confessed his true name to me. He now seemed poised to confess one more truth. He took a drag, blowing out the smoke slowly before speaking.
“Frick and Frack picked me up yesterday. They didn’t do what they usually do, just rob the camera from me. This time they had me get into the car. I thought they were going to arrest me, but they didn’t drive to the precinct house. They drove in the opposite direction. Neither of them said anything. I was freaking out. They drove down underneath the FDR by the East River and parked. Frick says they had a job for me. He tells me all this stuff about you and Gabriele. Where your apartment is and where the warehouse headquarters are. How you aren’t who you pretend to be. How you’re working undercover in a Federal investigation of the gangs in Chinatown.”
Listening to Red tell this, I remembered back to when and why Frick and Frack had me arrested and put through the system. It was to find out who I was — to make sure I wasn’t a cop and that Gabriele and I were just the two artists we claimed to be. A few times since then they had rolled up to me in their Fury. Frick would always do his same joke. He’d raise his right open palm in the pop-cultural Indian “How” gesture, then close his hand into a fist and mimic pulling a hangman’s noose around his neck while contorting his face. “How’s it hanging, Chief?” It was meant to intimidate, but why? And now this. Red could have only half-believed it was true, otherwise he wouldn’t have even brought it up to me.
“Do you really believe all this?”
“I don’t know what to believe. Why would they say it if it wasn’t true?”
I didn’t have an answer. Both of us sat silent with the Eagle smoke, deliberating on that question.
“What were you supposed to do after they told you all this?”
“One thing I absolutely wasn’t supposed to do, was tell you. I’m fucked now next time they roust me. Unless I do the job they gave me.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m supposed to tell it all to Jimmy.”
“Jimmy? Why Jimmy?”
“I’m thinking it’s because Jimmy’s a member of the Chinese gang whose turf we’re in. You knew that, right? That’s why you never see anyone really fucking with him up here. One of the gang’s gambling places is right down the hill on East Broadway. He goes in there around midnight most nights for a few hours.”
Jimmy was about five-foot-five and of slight build. He looked to be twenty years old at most. Not at all intimating in look or manner, and with me he was always deferential. Gabriele said he felt honored when she asked if she could paint his portrait. His English was halting, so we didn’t talk at length much, but he enjoyed translating Mister Lee for me. He seemed to appreciate the high esteem in which I held all of Mister Lee’s utterances and the signage he placed on his hut.
But yes, I had heard he was member of a local gang. More than that, I had once seen that gangster predator side of him in action, extorting someone who was probably an illegal immigrant. I saw Jimmy walking down the sidewalk with a middle-aged Chinese man. He walked just slightly behind, whispering in the man’s ear, until they both stopped suddenly. The man reached into his front pants pocket, pulled out a folded envelope, handed it to Jimmy, and then quickly walked away.
Red stands up quickly from the stump, reaches into his back pocket, and hands me a folded sheet of paper. “I am supposed to give Jimmy these addresses when I tell him about you.”
I unfold the paper. Nothing on the white page but two typewritten addresses. Our Brooklyn apartment address and the Queen’s address of my warehouse job at Pacific Studios. I think of Gabriele. She’s alone in the warehouse now. My hands are trembling as I fold the paper up again and hand it back to Red.
The episodes here in Tipi on the Hill are written contemporaneously with essays in the Meta-memoir section, where the memoir author examines his relationship to the autofiction narrator. The essay related to this episode is The Marat Sades are Coming.
Cliff hanger!