Necropolis

by Michael Dempsey

  I’d expected some subsidized government shit hole. But the building had turned out to be a trim brick six-pack within walking distance of Grand Army Plaza and the park. Not totally shabby, either. The staircases were free of graffiti, the floors were clean, and the locks were solid. The building had a name edged in stone over the front door, from a time when they named buildings. The Hoover. “I’m at the Hoover,” you’d tell someone, and they’d know exactly where you meant, the hell with an address. Because they were natives and knew every inch of the terrain. They’d probably never ventured more than twenty miles from where they’d been born. Manhattan? That was just something to dress up the horizon.

  The past didn’t die all at once. Maybe it never died. Even after a couple centuries you could still find a few slate squares amid the neocrete sidewalks of the city.

  My furnishings consisted of overstuffed couches and chairs, hardwood bureaus, and heavy gilded mirrors. The walls contained cheap art prints, early Deco period. All in all, I suppose an average Necropolitan would have rated it as satisfactory.

  I hated it. Everything was something it wasn’t. The chrome appliances in the kitchen looked like leftovers from Donna Reed’s garage sale but responded to voice commands. The iron bed had eight settings, including heat, massage, and something terrifying called “virtual pleasure partner.” Worst, the bookcase wasn’t a bookcase at all, but a hologram that turned into an enormous screen.

  So I destroyed it.

  Slowly, methodically. I ripped the stuffing from the couch, pulled the paintings from the walls, tore down cabinets. It took most of a drunken day. When the heavy furniture proved too much for me, I went out, bought a hack saw, came home, and continued. The pieces were stacked against the wall like cordwood. Somewhere in the back of my mind it occurred to me that what I was doing was deranged, but I didn’t care. If I was living in hell, it should look like it.

  Now I was at a table that I’d allowed to survive, working my way through a bottle of JD. I brought the whiskey to my lips, welcoming the burn. Leaned over to pour another and went white.

  Floating in the air, a few feet away, was Elise.

  It was a photo of her from her 35th birthday party. I’d hired a Mariachi band to surprise her… actually hid them in the walk-in pantry, five chubby Mexicans with their sombreros and instruments. She’d screamed, then howled in delight as they tore into “Jarabe Tapatio” amidst the boxes of instant mashed potatoes and Tuna Helper. When she’d turned back to me, aglow with delight, I’d snapped that picture.

  Now it floated in front of me like an angel’s reproach.

  I flung the drink aside and brought my fists down hard enough to splinter the table. The picture of Elise dissolved into another face. Maggie.

  “You asked for that photo last night. Or don’t you remember?”

  I didn’t. I lit a cigarette. Maggie looked impressed. “How’d you get those? Smoking’s illegal.”

  I ignored her.

  “It’s bad for your health,” she added.

  “So’s dying,” I replied. “I got through that okay.”

  “Negative health behaviors accelerate the youthing process. Or haven’t you scanned your dickenjane?”

  I grappled with the remote, trying to turn her off. Instead, the bookshelf reformed into a websquirt. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all you ships at sea—let’s go to press!” The announcer’s voice had the archaic, nasal style popular in old movies. In the age of Bogart and Mitchum, it had embodied toughness and cynicism. Now it just sounded like the guy needed to have his adenoids removed. “This is Walter Winchell, to dish the dirt and gab the gossip for all you reborn skirts and shirts. In entertainment, the Beatles’ long-anticipated reunion concert got underway last night.” I perked up. They’d rebuilt Shea Stadium and it was overflowing with thousands of screaming fans. There they were, reborn octogenarians Paul, Ringo, George, and… Pete Best? Lennon hadn’t come back. What a cosmic fucking insult.

  “Unfortunately,” Winchell continued, “the second set came to a tragic halt when Ringo suffered a mild stroke during ‘Get Back.’” On the screen, Ringo stopped drumming, gurgled, and pitched off his stool.

  “Christ,” I said, shutting it off.

  “With the smoking and drinking, you’ve probably youthed two weeks for the one week you’ve been back. Switch from Jack to smack and you could be fifteen in a couple months. Then again, a gun against the soft palate would do the job instantly.”

  “Beat it.”

  “I’m serious. What are you hanging around for, taking up space? C’mon, let’s get this over right now. Free up this place for some Joe who’ll actually use his second chance.”

  My lips curled. “You’re not so clever. Reverse psychology got me a lot of confessions in my day.”

  “But it ain’t your day, Donner. That’s the whole point.”

  I picked up the overturned whiskey bottle. There was still a finger of forgetfulness in it, which I quickly drained. I checked my watch and wobbled to my feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  To find something familiar, I thought.

  But what I said was, “None of your fucking business.”

  8

  DONNER

  Brooklyn’s 78th Precinct was a limestone neo-Renaissance police palazzo on the northeast corner of 6th and Bergen. It might’ve looked elegant if there weren’t so many AC units jutting from its windows like tumors. Fifty-some years into the 21st century, the city still hadn’t sprung for central air.

  The cops standing out front wore uniforms that John Dillinger would have recognized. Their thigh-length blue tunics sported square flaps that brass-buttoned across the chest. Their caps were crisp, their white gloves spotless, their shields large and proud and shining.

  I couldn’t help smiling, even after my encounter with their Manhattan brethren. They looked elegant, regal. Cops were the chosen people.

  I crossed the street into the light from the floods mounted under the cornice of the building, my hands relaxed and open at my sides. They watched me. I went slowly up the cement steps past them. Nobody moved to intercept. As I cleared the outer door and stepped into the security vestibule, a light behind a mesh grill flashed and a siren bleeped.

  “Attention. Reborn DNA detected.”

  The room went silent. All eyes slowly swung over to me. I crossed to the desk officer’s station, my footfalls the only sound in the room.

  The duty desk was a massive, high oak thing, bookended by antique globe lights. The sergeant cast down a quick shot of unconcealed loathing and went back to his paperwork.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Shove off,” he said, without looking up. “Nobody’s gonna take your statement.”

  “My name is Donner,” I said. “Forty years ago, I was on the job here.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “So?”

  “I’m looking for a friend.”

  A smirk. “An old friend, I’ll bet.”

  “Bart Hennessey.”

  That got a reaction. “He retired.”

  “I was told he still consults here part-time.”

  The sergeant gave me another ice water bath. I held his gaze, not aggressive but not going away either. His breath finally hissed out of him.

  “Wait outside.”

  ***

  I ground a third cigarette butt under my heel as Bart finally exited the building.

  The sight of him rendered me speechless.

  I’d known Bartholomew Hennessey as a third-generation Irish detective in his early forties, with red hound dog cheeks and redder hair that threatened to overrun his forehead.

  But the man in front of me was a senior citizen. By my frame of reference, in less than a week he’d grown old. It was like he’d fallen into the gravity well of some neutron star, his flesh pulled like taffy toward its center, his bones thinned and compressed.

  Bart’s face, too, was a mix of revulsion and wonder.

  He’s having the same reaction th
at I am, I thought, except in reverse.

  We slowly stepped toward each other. Then he ran his hand through his sparse gray hair, and the gesture was so familiar to me, such a “Bart-ism”, that joy and memory surged through me. Without thinking I bolted forward for a hug.

  Bart let out an almost girlish squeal and backpedaled away. There was a tense moment as we regarded each other from opposite sides of the mortal divide.

  “Christ,” I said, finally. “You got old and fat.”

  He nodded, registering the professionally administered bruises on my face. He shook his head, not needing to be told from whence they’d come.

  “They’ll be gone in a day or so, I’m told,” I said. “Courtesy of the Shift.”

  Bart visibly willed away a shiver. He looked back, suddenly conscious of the patrol cops that were openly laughing our way. They were cracking wise to each other in that taunting manner only truly mastered by urban natives. Yeah, we’re talking about you, fuck face. Wanna do something about it?

  “Uh, Donner. What say we go down the street?”

  ***

  Lefty’s was a grimy boxcar that had been ready for the scrap heap a century ago. Its interior had been enlivened with mirrors and police memorabilia, but it didn’t help much.

  Lefty had been an ex-cop who’d washed out on the detective exam, drifted to foot patrol for a couple years, then gratefully bailed when, during a budget crunch, the city had offered an early retirement package. His nickname came from legends about how once, on a solitary stakeout, he’d jerked off in his undercover car—but with his non-dominant hand, so his right paw was free in case he needed his Glock. Hence, Lefty.

  Bart led me to the darkest corner, next to a window sill decorated with mummified flies. We settled into a booth of cracked red leatherette.

  I’d spent many nights in this very place, winding down from a tour of duty. Coming to Lefty’s to depressurize with my crew was as much a part of the job as putting on my gun and shield.

  There were only three items of discussion at Lefty’s—sports, women, and the job. The pussy talk was endless and inventive. The more disgusting the better. Topics for discussion were what secretary from the three-seven was a copsucker; what assistant DA was a dyke. I’d mostly kept quiet and drank my beer as the night wore on and the garrulous voices grew louder. When lured into an evaluation of a set of tits, I’d just wiggle my wedding ring at them, and they’d punch my arm and call me whipped.

  Don’t know why I didn’t like that kind of talk. Maybe I pictured my Dad as a gentleman. Who knew? I sure as hell didn’t. He might’ve been a foul-mouthed bastard.

  So here again I sat, smelling disinfectant and stale beer, feeling the crunch of peanut shells and the tacky pull of the floor. A waitress with battle hips and steel wool hair approached. Her aura of weary friendliness evaporated the instant she saw me.

  “Hey, Maureen,” said Bart.

  Maureen looked nervously over her shoulder at the man behind the bar, an old jock gone to seed. Clearly the new owner.

  “Listen, um, Bart,” said Maureen. “It ain’t me, but Frank don’t allow—”

  “It’s okay, Maureen. Tell Frank that Bart says it’s okay, this one time.”

  She gave me another look, some indecipherable mix of compassion and fear, and took our orders.

  A couple minutes later the beer was cold and good in my mouth. I fiddled with the edge of the bottle’s label. How many labels had I peeled in this joint?

  “Bart—”

  “Look, Paul. It’s not legal for reebs—I mean reborns—to serve as peace officers. You can’t return to the—”

  A wave of my hand stopped his floundering. “I know all that.” A silent beat. “You know what, Bart? You look great. For your age, you really look great.”

  Bart nodded with a strange smile. “Yeah, modern medicine. The juvie centers—”

  “You mean Juvie Hall?”

  Bart smiled. “No, juvie as in rejuvenation. You think I kept my good looks by doing yoga and drinking wheat grass?”

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  “I’m ninety-one, but I have the bio markers of a sixty-year old. Which is why I can still proudly call myself semi-retired instead of one of those decrepit shuffleboard addicts at Coney Island.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Lots of people work into the triple digits now. Lots of them have to.”

  “Never figured to find someone still around that I knew.”

  “Yeah. Well, there was Baker. He revived ten years ago.”

  “No kidding. I remember him! Where is he now?”

  “Ate his gun.”

  We finished the first round in silence.

  “Who’d you partner with?” I asked. “After I was… gone?”

  Bart dug his nail into carved graffito on the tabletop. “Lazlo, the garlic-eating asshole. Stunk up the whole car.”

  “Shoulda worn your hazmat suit.”

  Bart nodded and laughed, almost drawn into the old camaraderie. Almost. But he caught himself, reddening.

  My face showed nothing. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other.

  “Look, I need a favor, Bart. One favor, then I’m gone.”

  All I got was a wary look.

  “I want a look at a case file. My case file.”

  Bart didn’t even blink. I suppose he wasn’t surprised. I waited while he examined his sausage fingers. “Donner, odds are, the guy’s dead. Even if he’s back, the Fresh Start Act protects criminals from being prosecuted for their pre-Shift crimes.”

  “Fuck the Fresh Start Act,” I hissed.

  “Anyway, it’s a moot point, ’cause I don’t have that kind of access anymore.”

  I gave him a look.

  “Goddamn it, I know, okay?” he said, blanching. “I remember every goddamned thing you did for me.”

  We’d been recruits out of the same class. A year and a half on foot post at the 73rd in Brownsville. Then a sector car at the 94th in Greenpoint—back when they called it RMP for Radio Motor Patrol. Then to a plainclothes anticrime unit. It’d been hard for him. I’d grown up on the street, but Bart’d had a middle-class Long Island childhood. Learning the shelters, bodegas and pool halls, learning to blend in, cultivate snitches, work info from the skells—it’d taken him time.

  “I almost washed out,” he said. “But someone told me to hang tough. That eventually I’d adapt.”

  After the Robbery Investigation Program, it had been a short leap to Homicide and the top of the pile for both of us.

  “Donner, look. You were good. This guy—find his records online. You can probably go right to his grave and spit on it.”

  “I don’t have a name, Bart,” I said.

  “A stranger shot you?”

  I held his gaze. He still didn’t get it. Then, like that, the gears turned over. His face registered genuine surprise. “But— I mean, you were there.”

  “The last day’s gone. Something about brain death.”

  “The case file won’t help you, then. It went cold.”

  “It’s got evidence, details. Something to get me started.”

  I knew I was in dangerous territory now. The police didn’t like private citizens launching criminal investigations, meddling into official business. Especially former cops. Especially former cops investigating their own murders.

  “It’s not like it was, Paul. We can’t take a piss without Surazal holding our dicks.”

  “A corporation running the cops? Who the hell let this happen?”

  Bart’s eyes narrowed. “The fucking rules of the Universe changed, Donner. Understand? One morning we woke up, and up was down. Left was right, dead was alive. The priests couldn’t explain it, the scientists couldn’t explain it. Do you know what it’s like to lose all your landmarks in one day?”

  I said nothing.

  “I used to think I had life figured out,” he continued. “There were good guys, bad guys—you and them.” He pointed to
his own chest. “You were a good guy. You had twenty-three to retirement and then you could take your boat off Long Island Sound full time. You visited your mother every Sunday whether you felt like it or not. You had sex with your wife twice a week and maybe it wasn’t always great, but it was always good. On weekends, you worked on the junker Plymouth in the driveway and fell asleep watching the eleven o’clock news.” His eyes looked funny. “You know what reality is, Donner? A house of cards. A row of fucking dominos. One goes down, and the whole thing collapses.”

  I nodded. “If you can’t trust life and death…”

  “What the hell difference does it make what pant leg you put on first thing in the morning, huh? Why obey the laws of man when the laws of God are up for grabs? Shit, those first few months, it was all out the window. We were that close from turning into some Mad Max movie.” He leaned forward intensely. “The government, oh, they were a big help. Most military and guard reserves were in hotspots around the globe trying to shove democracy up the world’s ass. Washington said we got hit by a bio weapon, but nobody really knew what the fuck was going on. Nobody knew shit.

  “Surazal saved us. Their private security forces took the lead, here in New York. It wasn’t pretty. It took muscle. But they got the job done. They stopped the looting, the killing. Now, we gotta live with it.” Bart pursed his lips bitterly. “In my book, it was an okay trade-off.”

  I hadn’t been there. I couldn’t judge. But it seemed to me that the only thing more disgusting than the speed at which we’d handed over our freedom for the promise of security was the speed in which others had stepped in to take that control.

  “I’m sorry about you and Elise, Donner,” my old partner ventured. “It shook us all up. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Not to me,” I said.

  “Yeah. You okay for things?”

  I shrugged.

  Bart seemed to mull something over. He pulled out a small leather-bound notebook and pen and scrawled something onto a clean page. “This ain’t much…”