American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

South District Federal Detention Center, New York. 9:47 AM.

Noah Brennan stood in front of the security scanner, dumping his belt, wallet, and phone into a plastic bin.

The metal detector let out a BEEP.

"Sir, if you could please—"

"It’s the prosthetic," Noah said before the security officer could finish. ’It’s always like this. Hey, I’m Noah Brennan. I’m missing a leg. Thanks for your attention, everyone, come and get a look at me.’

The officer’s expression shifted from wary to awkward, finally settling on an oddly over-enthusiastic tone. "Go on through, sir. Have a pleasant day." ’Pleasant my ass.’

Noah limped through the security checkpoint and threaded his belt back through his pants loops. ’Yeah, you have a pleasant day too. Hope you work in this detention center until you retire, kid.’

The visitation corridor of the federal detention center was cleaner, more oppressive, and longer than he’d imagined. ’I used to be able to run a hallway like this in under ten seconds. Maybe even less.’

The white light from the fluorescent tubes on either side of the hallway reminded him of surgical lamps, and the air was thick with the smell of disinfectant. ’This light... it’s just like the day they amputated my leg.’

Enduring the pain where his knee joined the prosthetic, Noah walked slowly to a door where a young U.S. Marshal verified his documents.

The marshal gave Noah a strange look before handing the papers back. ’What are you looking at, you little punk? Do you have any idea how many big favors I had to call in for this meeting?’

Surviving long enough in this system means you know enough people.

Old prosecutor Hayes from the South District federal court owed him one. Last time, Noah had helped him plug a critical hole in a chain of evidence, getting a suspect who was about to walk sentenced to 432 years without parole.

The head of the Major Case Assessment Team owed him a favor, too. The old bastard had been demoted to warm the bench there after losing an office power struggle. As far as Noah was concerned, not making the guy’s life hell was already a massive favor in itself.

A prosecutor plus a police team leader, and so, here Noah was.

The marshal led him briskly into a standard attorney-client meeting room. ’Fuck, are you walking this fast on purpose? You better hope you never end up in my hands.’

Noah shot the marshal a disgruntled look before taking in the room—concrete walls, a steel table, two steel chairs bolted to the floor, and a one-way mirror.

Noah sat down with difficulty, adjusting the angle of his prosthesis. ’Why is all the furniture in the world designed for people with two legs? I mean, are there no tables and chairs designed for people with one leg?’

Five minutes later, the door was pushed open.

Two men in orange jumpsuits were brought in, one after the other.

The one in front was named Blake. He was still on the heavy side, but he had visibly lost some weight, like a fat pig halfway through a liposuction treatment, Noah thought.

The man behind him was Vincent, Blake’s partner. He walked cautiously and sized Noah up as soon as he entered.

The two sat down on the steel chairs, their handcuffs clanking sharply against the steel tabletop.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Noah said. ’Good my ass. The AC in this interrogation room is cranked so high my joints are starting to ache from the cold.’

Blake stared at him with a vacant expression, while Vincent narrowed his eyes.

"Who are you?" Vincent spoke first. "Our lawyer didn’t inform us of any visitors today."

"My name is Noah Brennan, a senior detective with the NYPD’s Major Case Assessment Team," Noah said. "But I’m here today in the capacity of an expert appraiser."

An off-the-books meeting like this couldn’t be done under official cover, or it would be a huge pain if someone checked the records. Noah was well aware of this.

"Expert appraiser?" Blake reacted slightly. "Appraise what?"

"The safe in your office," Noah said. "To be precise, the handprints on the safe’s door." ’Come on, let’s see if you guys really did this just for a prank.’

Blake and Vincent exchanged a look.

"Isn’t this an FBI case?" Vincent began. "We’ve already confessed. All the evidence has been handed over to the federal prosecutor. What can a city cop like you do?"

"Because I think it’s far-fetched. It makes no sense," Noah said, holding up a finger. "If you wanted to fabricate evidence to clear your names, there were plenty of ways to do it. No need to resort to such a cartoonish method."

"So you also think there’s someone in the world who could do something like that?"

Blake blurted out.

"Not necessarily. That’s why I’m investigating," Noah said. ’Of course no one can do that, you big idiot. You’ve been watching too many Marvel movies.’

"So what can you do? Overturn our case? You still haven’t answered my question," Vincent said, striking his cuffs on the table in frustration. "We’ve already confessed. We’ve told them everything we’re supposed to."

"The NYPD isn’t under the FBI’s jurisdiction," Noah said slowly. "I can’t overturn your case or prove your innocence. But if the chain of evidence becomes unclear, your lawyers will handle the rest. At the very least, I can help you prove you weren’t the ones responsible for this specific part." ’I sound so convincing, I’m starting to believe it myself.’

Noah Brennan had no intention of overturning the case for these two men, or proving anything for them. It would take too much of his energy and stamina, and it was too dangerous.

But as a lame old dog, Noah didn’t mind telling a few little lies to achieve his goal, as long as he got what he wanted.

In his judgment, these two unscrupulous businessmen must have suffered a bit during their arrest. If he told them now that he could get their case overturned if they gave him a blowjob right here, they’d drop to their knees without hesitation.

Sure enough.

"What do you want to know?" Vincent’s expression and tone of voice shifted.

"First, cui bono—who benefits, is who did it," Noah said, leaning forward and tapping the table. "Before you found the safe in that god-awful state, how many enemies did you have?"

Vincent gave a bitter laugh.

"Detective Brennan," he said, "that’s an excellent question. And what makes it so excellent is that in our line of work, the answer to ’Who have we pissed off?’ is pretty much the same as ’Who do we know?’"

Then they started counting.

"First, there was that Italian guy. We set him up two years ago and forced him out of the United States of America market."

"Did he say anything before he left?" Noah asked.

"Of course he did," Blake took over. "He stood in our office, pointed at my nose, and spouted a long string of Italian. I couldn’t understand a single word, but I guessed it wasn’t a Christmas blessing. A translator later told me he said something about how he’d make us kneel and cry at his grandmother’s grave. Something like that."

Noah nodded. ’So was the later post on Reddit made in this guy’s name? I’ll put that aside for now, though. Keep going.’

"Then there’s a concrete supplier from New Jersey, last name Pereira. We owed him 900,000 for a shipment. He sent people to collect, and we just called the cops and had them run off."

"What happened to him?"

"Heard his company’s cash flow dried up. Went into bankruptcy liquidation early last year. A small supplier like that can’t take a hit."

"There was also a property management company owner in Queens. Forgot his name," Blake said. "I renovated a building for them, and after the inspection, he refused to pay the final balance. Even threatened to sue us for cutting corners—though we did, in fact, cut corners. Later, we had someone sabotage all his plumbing. More than half his tenants left. He went bankrupt even faster than Pereira."

Noah watched them calmly. ’You sons of bitches really do deserve 400 years in prison.’

"There’s also a loan shark in Brooklyn who runs an underground casino. They call him ’Fatty Frankie,’ who knows his real name," Blake said, becoming more talkative. "We got a bridge loan from him before, three million. We agreed to give him a cut of the profits after the project paid out. We made money, but we never gave him his share as agreed."

"You stiffed him?" Noah asked.

"Not exactly. We genuinely forgot at first. We were just going to be a little late with the payment," Vincent argued evasively. "But we kept putting it off and... forgot."

"You dared to ’forget’ three million you owed an underground loan shark?" Noah said. ’Maybe you guys should have been narcotics cops. You’ve got bigger balls than they do.’

"We were riding high at the time; he wouldn’t dare do anything," Blake said. "But that Fatty Frankie really holds a grudge. We suspected him, but then we thought, he wants money. Taking our ledgers wouldn’t do him any good."

’Not necessarily,’ Noah thought. ’What if Fatty Frankie sent someone to break in for the money, but they just took everything while they were at it? But there’s a fatal flaw in that line of reasoning—the handprints on the safe. People from the underworld don’t leave traces, let alone fingerprints.’

Vincent and Blake sat across from him, reminiscing.

He was like a stone, not picking up a pen or taking out any recording device.

He never recorded anything in front of a subject—pen and paper make them realize their words are being documented and filtered, and they start to weigh what to say and what not to say.

Noah just sat there, giving an occasional "Mm-hmm," stuffing all the names, details, and timelines into his brain.

Thanks to his habit of talking to himself, his memory was quite good.

Finally, Blake and Vincent finished pouring everything out, slumping back in their chairs like two wrung-out towels.

"Is that about it?" Noah asked. ’To have pissed off this many people and still be alive... it must be an oversight on God’s part. Your enemies could form a line from New York to France.’

If he could charge a fee for shooting them, Noah figured he’d be a millionaire within a day.

"That’s about it," Vincent said with a long sigh. "Detective Brennan... do you really think one of those people could have done something like that?"

"I can only say that I’ll look into it," he said. ’I can only say that I’m a liar.’

He got up with difficulty, his prosthetic leg clicking softly as the joint locked into place.

"Detective Brennan."

Noah stopped but didn’t turn around. ’Dammit, the list you gave me is long enough. Don’t add any more names, or I’ll shoot you two sons of bitches right here and now.’

"The handprints on the safe," Vincent asked, "what do you think made them? Without using any special equipment, I mean."

"What did the guy you hired say?" he asked back.

"He said it was Spider-Man," Blake chimed in.

’Idiots really do like to hang out with people who humor them. Then they all get together and create an echo chamber.’

"When I have a better answer than ’Spider-Man’," he said, "I’ll let you know."

Once outside the room, he cursed the length of the hallway as his mind raced.

The list was too long. After filtering it two or three times based on motive and means, he was still left with 2 high-priority suspects, 6 medium-priority, 5 low-priority, and 7 who could be mostly ruled out.

The voice in his head started up again.

"Twenty suspects, Noah."

"I counted."

"You’re going to check them one by one?"

"I’ll check the two high-priority ones, then the six that need a serious look. The rest, we’ll see."

"Even if you only check the first eight, going through each person’s file, background, and clearing their alibi will take two to three weeks per person. For eight people, that’s nearly half a year. The silicone liner for your prosthesis needs replacing, your car’s transmission has been slipping since last month, and you know damn well what your bank account looks like."

"I know. We’ll find some money in the process, won’t we?"

"But what happens after you’re done investigating? Even if you rule out nineteen of them, the last one isn’t necessarily the culprit. Maybe he just wore a metal glove over a pair of hydraulic cutters?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe."

"You’re still going to investigate?"

"Aren’t you curious?"

The questioning voice fell silent.

’Half a year it is, then.’