Lionel Essrog, a thirty-something aspiring detective living in Brooklyn, introduces himself to the reader first by explaining his affliction, Tourette’s syndrome: “[W]ords rush out of the cornucopia of my brain to course over the surface of the world, tickling reality like fingers on piano keys” (1). Lionel, along with Gilbert Coney, is on a stakeout for Frank Minna, a charismatic smalltime hood who, more than 20 years earlier, recruited Lionel, Gilbert, and two other boys from an orphanage to do odd jobs. In that time, Frank became a surrogate father to the four boys, known collectively as the “Minna Men.” He employs them through his company, L&L, ostensibly a moving service and later a car service, although the businesses are likely fronts for less savory enterprises.

The stakeout is not in the familiar environs of Brooklyn. Frank directed Lionel and Gilbert to watch a building in Yorkville in the swanky Upper East Side of Manhattan. The building serves as a Buddhist meditation center, or Zendo. Neither Gilbert nor Lionel has any clue why Frank wants the building cased. As the two munch through a bag of White Castle sliders, however, Frank himself taps the car window.