Motherless Brooklyn: Bad Cookies Summary & Analysis

Many mornings, Lionel says, he wakes up feeling disoriented and strange, unable to recognize even basic objects like his toothbrush. He explains that because of his Tourette’s, he is never certain whether a feeling is the product of his disorder or whether it is genuine. This morning, Lionel wakes early with a strange yet refreshing sense of disorientation and possibility. He dresses, makes breakfast, and puts on Frank’s watch and beeper. Lionel always imagined that if Minna died, the world would shift and become unrecognizable. Instead, this morning, Lionel realizes that it’s up to him to take up Minna’s mantle. He goes downstairs, past a sleeping Danny, and takes a car to head for the Zendo.

At the townhouse across the street from the Zendo, Lionel finds a young doorman different from the one working last night stationed at the front door. He asks for the doorman’s name, and the doorman introduces himself as Walter—but then he explains that Walter is his last name. Lionel asks what the name of the doorman working the previous night is, and Walter says that he’s called Dirk. Lionel, beginning to perform a tic, asks Walter if he’s seen anything or anyone strange coming or going from the Zendo lately—specifically a giant. Walter doesn’t seem to know anything. Lionel gives Walter his business card and, through his tics, tells Walter to call if he sees anything odd. Walter replies that Lionel is odd.

Lionel paces the block a while before ringing the doorbell of the Zendo five times—he is focused on fives now rather than sixes. Within a few minutes, the girl with the short dark hair and glasses from the night before comes to the door holding a broom. Lionel asks the girl if he can ask her some questions, or if it’s too early. She tells him that she’s been up for hours sweeping: cleaning, according to Zen practice, is a privilege. The Roshi of the Zendo, she explains, usually does the sweeping himself. The girl invites Lionel inside and instructs him to take off his shoes. He does so and then follows her upstairs into a small kitchen, where she introduces herself as Kimmery and begins making some tea.

Kimmery begins telling Lionel about the Zendo—a Buddhist study center where anyone can come to learn about the heart of Zen practice and take classes in things like zazen, or sitting meditation. The goal of Zen is to achieve a state of One Mind, or an absence of thought. Lionel is intrigued. Kimmery invites him to come to a class later today—some very important monks from Japan, she says, are in town to visit the Zendo, and one is even giving a talk. Lionel asks if the monks run the Zendo, but Kimmery clarifies that the Roshi—an American man—runs it. As Lionel asks more questions, he begins to perform tics. Kimmery has an “oddly blasé” reaction to his outbursts—Lionel wonders if it’s related to her Zen practice.

When Lionel asks if Kimmery has seen anyone strange around the Zendo in the last 24 hours, she says that only the Roshi is in the building right now—he is on the top floor, in isolation (or sesshin), having taken a vow of silence earlier in the year. The other students are out doing work service. An “old hippie” named Wallace, she says, is probably in the basement, sitting. Lionel asks if Wallace is big, but Kimmery says that he isn’t. He asks if she’s seen anyone “really big” lately, and she says that she hasn’t. As the caffeine from the tea hits Lionel, he begins to perform tics. Lionel wants to leave—but he wishes that he could take Kimmery with him.

Kimmery offers Lionel some Oreos. She tells a story about how she used to know a man who worked for Nabisco, the manufacturer of Oreos—he’d said that different cookies were made in different parts of the country and that he could tell where a cookie came from by tasting it. Some cookies, he said, were made half in one place and half in another. Lionel asks if the Oreo man was Kimmery’s boyfriend, and she says that he was. Lionel asks Kimmery to take him downstairs to Wallace. She does so, and Lionel realizes that Wallace is not the man he’s looking for.

Lionel tells Kimmery that he’s “con-worried.” He quickly becomes embarrassed by the ways in which Tourette’s mangles his speech. Kimmery, though, understands what Lionel is saying: he is confused and worried. She urges Lionel not to be “con-worried,” then kisses him on the cheek and goes to sweep the rest of the Zendo. She reminds Lionel that zazen is at five. As Lionel exits the Zendo, he is so focused on thoughts of Kimmery that he hardly notices when two men seize him by the elbows and push him into a car.

Inside the car are two more men. Lionel sizes the four of them up. He names them according to their appearances: Chunky, Pimples, Indistinct, and Pinched. The four men immediately begin arguing about where to drive. They tell Lionel that they are trying to scare him. Lionel is unimpressed by the thugs’ disorganized, scattered tactics. Lionel asks what the men’s “game” is. Chunky replies that they have been told to scare him away from the Zendo.

Lionel’s beeper goes off. The thugs order Lionel to call the number—one of them offers him a cell phone. Using the phone, Lionel dials the number—it is Loomis, who tells Lionel he has Ullman’s address for him. Chunky, overhearing the call, asks whose address Lionel is getting. When Lionel says that he’s getting Ullman’s address, Chunky is shocked—it is clear that these men know Ullman. Pimples pulls the cell phone away from Lionel, and Chunky tells Lionel Ullman was a friend. Lionel points out that even though these guys are supposed to scare him, they’re the ones who seem scared. He asks if they’re scared of a “big Polish guy,” and they admit that they are and that they’re right to be. They wouldn’t be working for him, they say, if he didn’t scare them. Lionel admits that he’s scared of the giant, too.

Pimples tries to get Lionel to tell him who was on the other end of the phone, but Lionel refuses. He says he’s not scared of Pimples, Chunky, Pinched, or Indistinct. Pinched agrees that none of them are good at the work of scaring another person—they’re “men of peace” unaccustomed to intimidating others. Pinched gets out of the car and walks away from it. Pimples, Chunky, and Indistinct get out and follow him, leaving Lionel alone in the car—with Indistinct’s cell phone, which Lionel pockets. Lionel, recognizing the car he’s in as a rental, checks the glove compartment—he sees that the car is on a six-month lease to the Fujisaki Corporation, located at 1030 Park Avenue—an address very close to the Zendo.

On his walk to the Park Avenue address, Lionel calls L&L using the cell phone. Tony picks up and asks where Lionel is. Tony asks Lionel to come back to L&L, but Lionel insists that he’s on a case. Tony asks where Lionel is, but Lionel refuses to answer outright—he is realizing that he no longer trusts Tony. Tony again urges Lionel to hurry back to L&L—but Lionel believes that Tony is bluffing. After Lionel and Tony exchange some barbs about Julia, Tony asks one last time where Lionel is. Lionel lies and says that he’s in Greenpoint. Lionel asks if Tony slept with Julia, and Tony tells Lionel he’ll tell him when Lionel gets back to L&L. Lionel begins to perform tics. Tony calls him a “tugboat,” and Lionel hangs up.

At the giant, nondescript stone building that is 1030 Park Avenue, Lionel sizes up the edifice and sees that a plainclothes curb man is waiting out front of the building to steer away anyone who doesn’t belong. Lionel walks down the block as if he’s going past the building, but at the last minute he ducks into the lobby. Immediately, a crowd of doormen in uniforms and white gloves swarm Lionel and ask what he’s doing in the building. Lionel says that he’s come to see Fujisaki. The doormen reply that he’s come to the wrong building—there’s no man, woman, or business here by that name. Overwhelmed by the doormen’s attempts to deter him, Lionel taps one of their shoulders. Once he touches the nearest, he is compelled to touch them all. The doormen grab Lionel by the elbows and throw him out of the building.

At a nearby hot dog joint, Papaya Czar, Lionel sips juice and wolfs five hot dogs as he dials Loomis. He asks Loomis to pull up whatever information he has about 1030 Park—building records, management company files, anything—and to pay attention to the name Fujisaki. He urges Loomis to dial Frank’s beeper with anything he uncovers. As Lionel hangs up the phone, a man sitting next to him complains that while living in LA, he found that everyone nowadays talks on cell phones all the time, even in nice restaurants. He is depressed that even in New York, the same is true—people talk to themselves in public nonstop “like they got some kind of illness[.]”

As Lionel gets back into his car at long last, his beeper goes off. He uses the cell phone to call the number. On the other end, a gravelly voice announces that Matricardi and Rockaforte are calling. Lionel recognizes Rockaforte’s voice right away. Lionel performs a tic as he tries to get out the news: Frank is dead. Rockaforte says that he already knows and that he’s very sorry for Lionel’s loss. Lionel asks how they found out, and Rockaforte replies only that they found out. Lionel wonders if the two of them have had something to do with Frank’s murder.

Rockaforte says that he’s worried for Lionel, whom he’s heard is antsy. He asks Lionel to stop running around and come and visit with them at their house on Degraw Street. Lionel says that he’s trying to stop the killer—and that he believes Tony is trying to stop him. Matricardi gets on the phone. He asks if Lionel no longer trusts Tony, and Lionel admits he doesn’t. Matricardi, too, urges Lionel to come “honor” them with a visit—they can discuss Tony and right what’s wrong.

Lionel is unsure of what to do. He uses the phone to call information, get the number of the Daily News’s obituary section, and purchase an obit space for Minna. He puts the charge on Minna’s own card. When the woman on the other end asks what Lionel wants the obit to say, she urges him to refer to Minna as “beloved something.” Lionel wonders if he should list Minna as a “Beloved Father Figure,” but he ultimately instructs the woman to simply call Minna a detective.