Motherless Brooklyn: Interrogation Eyes Summary & Analysis

Lionel presents a list of characteristics and behaviors that “Minna Men” embody: they wear suits, drive cars, and stand behind Frank Minna while affecting menace. They don’t ask questions. They do what they are told. They stay clean-shaven and follow instructions. Above all, Minna Men try to be like Frank Minna—but now, Minna is dead.

When Gilbert and Lionel arrive back at the L&L storefront, Tony is there—he announces he’s already heard the news about Minna from a Black homicide detective who came to the storefront minutes ago looking for the two of them. Danny is with Tony—he looks pasty and ill. As Lionel looks around the L&L garage, everything—from the cigarette butts in the ashtray to a half-eaten sandwich on top of the fridge that Minna didn’t finish eating—reminds him of his mentor. Tony and Danny break Lionel’s concentration, reprimanding Lionel and Gilbert for leaving a trail back to L&L by giving the nurses at the hospital their names.

Danny, worried, says that someone needs to tell Frank’s wife, Julia, what has happened. Gilbert announces that he is not going to tell her or sit around waiting for the detective to return—he is going to go out and find Frank’s killer on his own. Tony asks what happened at the stakeout, and Lionel and Gilbert tell him about the Zendo. Lionel reports through a string of tics that a “big Polish guy” killed Frank. The L&L phone rings—someone wants to order a car. Lionel reports that there are no cars. L&L, he explains to the reader, hardly ever has any cars—since they are a cover, they only have five vehicles in their fleet. They have been instructed to answer “no cars” whenever the phone rings.

As Gilbert fills Tony and Danny in on the events of the evening, Lionel steps out onto the bustling Smith Street for some air. He opens up the door of the car he and Gilbert have been driving retrieves Minna’s beeper and watch from the floor and his own notebook from the glove box before going back into the office. Inside, Lionel looks at the notes he took during the stakeout and considers what questions he has about Frank’s murder: the woman with the glasses entering the Zendo, the name Ullman, the building Frank spoke of, the unnamed woman whom he “lost control of,” and the phrase Rama-lama-ding-dong. Lionel wonders if the name Irving has anything to do with the mystery. He tells Danny, Tony, and Gilbert about the clues he has.

Tony orders Gilbert to go out and start looking for Ullman, whoever he is, and determine whether Ullman is the “giant” who killed Frank. Tony says that he’s going to the Upper East Side to poke around the Zendo. Tony orders Danny to stay at the storefront and tells Lionel to go tell Julia. The Minna Men, Lionel says, have always been terrified of Julia, who has always been chilly with Frank in a way the Men never could dream of being. At the same time, Lionel admits that the Minna Men have all lusted for Julia, feeling a combination of intimidation and desire for her.

Lionel arrives at Frank and Julia’s apartment and knocks on the door. Julia opens it—she is wearing only a slip. Lionel follows her into the bedroom, where she is packing clothes and a pistol into a suitcase. Lionel asks her how she heard about Frank, and Julia says that the hospital called. She lights a cigarette. As Lionel stares at Julia, he feels that if she leaves, Frank Minna will truly be gone. Julia says that the Minna Men are responsible for Frank’s death. Lionel, trying not to perform a tic, tells Julia that he did all he could for Frank—but Julia says that Lionel sounds exactly like the other Men. Lionel begs Julia to stay—L&L is in her name, and the Minna Men work for her now. Julia refuses. Lionel insists that he and the other Minna Men will find and catch whoever killed Frank.

As Julia goes to her closet and begins pulling dresses off hangers, she tells Lionel that she’s always hated the way Frank dressed her up—she hardly even remembers who she used to be or how she used to dress. Now, she says, she refuses to be the widow in black—she feels it’s all Frank kept her around for. She entreats Lionel to “tell Tony no thanks.” Lionel asks her what she means. Julia calls Tony “Frank Minna Junior,” then tells Lionel that she’s sorry for hurting his feelings—she knows that Lionel really wanted to “be Frank.”

Julia pulls on a dress and asks Lionel to zip her up. As Lionel does so, he admires her body and begins to tic: “Doublebreasts,” he says. Julia takes Lionel’s hands and places them on her breasts. Lionel, sexually aroused, feels his “Tourette’s brain” grow still. Lionel doesn’t have sex very often—but every time he does, he wants to live inside the moment so that he can slow time to a crawl and think straight at last. Snapping back to the moment, Lionel removes his hands from Julia’s breasts and asks her not to make fun of him. He asks if something is going on between her and Tony; Julia doesn’t deny it, but says she likes Lionel better. Lionel says that nothing could ever happen between them, and Julia agrees—she says that Lionel is too strange for her.

Lionel asks Julia where she’s going. She tells him she’s headed to “a place of peace.” A car horn sounds outside, and Julia asks Lionel to go down and hold the car for her. He does so—but as Lionel waits on the stoop, a man Lionel recognizes as the homicide detective that the other Minna Men described approaches him and asks who the car is for. Lionel tells him it’s for a lady inside and then taps his shoulder. Julia comes downstairs. The detective asks her if she’s Julia Minna, and she replies that she was until a couple of hours ago. As she heads for the car, the detective asks where she’s going. Julia says that she has a plane to catch—but she hasn’t decided where she’s flying yet.

The detective tells Julia that she can’t leave. Julia tells the detective that if he wants to question her, he’ll have to arrest her. Lionel puts Julia’s bag into the car. As Julia slips into the backseat, the detective tries to keep her from leaving, but she can tell that he has no real grounds. She tells the detective to ask Lionel about her whereabouts for the last few hours—he, she lies, is her alibi. Julia rolls up her window and the car pulls away.

The detective turns to Lionel and asks him his full name. Lionel begins performing tics, offering up unlikely configurations of his own name such as “Lullaby Gueststar” and “Alibyebye Essmob.” Lionel offers to take the detective on a walk—he says he wants to get a sandwich. The detective agrees to follow him to a nearby deli. As Lionel taps the detective again, the detective asks what’s wrong with Lionel. Lionel explains that he has Tourette’s. The detective, not understanding, asks who Tourette is. Lionel doesn’t bother to clarify.

At Zeod’s, a deli on Smith Street where the Minna Men often eat, Zeod, the owner, greets Lionel warmly and asks Lionel to say hi to Frank for him—Zeod clearly hasn’t heard the news. Lionel orders a sandwich, and the detective asks for a pack of cigarettes. Zeod gathers the items and tells Lionel that he’ll charge it all to Frank’s tab. As Lionel and the detective leave the deli, the detective asks if Lionel is sleeping with the boss’s wife and eating on his tab. As Lionel heads for “home,” the detective points out that they’re walking toward L&L. Lionel doesn’t want to tell the detective that there is little difference between home and work for him.

Lionel invites the detective into a newspaper shop and picks out a magazine with Prince on the cover. The owner lets Lionel take the magazine, promising to add the debt to Frank’s tab. Outside, the detective pushes Lionel up against the wall and asks why Lionel is walking around town pretending that Frank is alive. Lionel begs the detective not to treat him like a suspect—he explains that he wants to catch Frank’s killer, too. The detective says it’s time to compare notes. He asks if the names Alphonso Matricardi and Leonardo Rockaforte mean anything to Lionel. Lionel is stunned by the mention of “The Clients”—he says he’s never heard of them. The detective can tell that Lionel is lying, but he knows he can’t do anything. The detective tells Lionel that Lionel makes him sad and urges him to head home if he won’t share what he knows.

Lionel goes into the L&L storefront—and then upstairs into the apartment where he lives. He feels ashamed of living above L&L, and he has constructed rules for separating home from work: he only drinks certain things upstairs, he never plays cards anywhere but downstairs, and he never invites the other Minna Men up. Lionel’s apartment is spare: he has only five books, and the only CDs he owns are by Prince. He pours himself a drink, though he wants the ritual more than he wants the alcohol. Downstairs, the L&L phone rings, but there is no machine to pick up the call. Unable to focus on his thoughts with the incessant ringing, Lionel goes down to pick up the phone. Loomis, one of Gilbert’s pals and a sanitation inspector, is on the other end—he tells Lionel that Gilbert is locked up after killing someone named Ullman. 

As Lionel processes the news, he feels relieved at not having to figure out who Ullman is—yet mournful that the clue Ullman represented is now a dead end. He feels annoyed at having to return to the mystery before him tonight, and he feels frightened because he fears that someone is “hunting” Minna Men. Lionel takes an L&L car and drives into Manhattan to the precinct where Gilbert is being held, but he is not allowed to see him. Loomis is there, though, and Lionel winds up driving him back to Brooklyn. Lionel doesn’t particularly like Loomis, who has been in the Minna Men’s social orbit since high school and who frequently makes fun of Lionel’s tics by calling them “routines.” 

Lionel pulls up to L&L. Loomis asks Lionel to drive him home, but Lionel insists that Loomis can walk. Loomis asks to use the bathroom. Lionel says he can—if he’ll first give up Ullman’s address. Loomis says he’ll get it tomorrow at the office. Lionel tells Loomis to call Frank’s beeper with it. Inside L&L, Lionel finds that Danny is back. While Loomis uses the bathroom, Lionel asks where Tony is, but Danny says he doesn’t know. Lionel tells Danny that Gilbert is in jail, pinned for Ullman’s murder. Lionel asks Danny where he’s been—and when Danny answers, Lionel can tell Danny is lying. Lionel knows that the two of them are both holding back from each other. Loomis returns from the bathroom and calls for a moment of silence for Frank. When it’s up, he asks for a ride home. Lionel refuses him once again.

Danny stays by the phone while Lionel heads upstairs. After lighting a candle and cutting his sandwich into six equal pieces, Lionel puts Prince on his boom box and admires the “Tourettic energies” of the music. Frank always hated Prince’s music—but for Lionel, the times he spends listening to the songs of Prince are some of the only times he feels relief from his Tourette’s symptoms. As Lionel listens to Prince now and eats his sandwich ritualistically, he finally allows himself to cry for Minna.