The Global War on Morris

by Steve Israel

He began a soft wheeze.

  You know what? On the way to the emergency room Victoria can grab a little nosh in the hospital cafeteria. While they’re trying to revive me. That’ll be some date. She’ll have a nice hamburger, and I’ll be on my deathbed.

  Stop. I’m not dying. I ain’t dead yet. Who said that? I know. Glen Campbell. In True Grit. On Turner Classic Movies last weekend. I’ll miss that channel when I’m dead. Oh-oh. I think I forgot to TiVo Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo last night. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Nineteen forty-four. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. With Van Johnson, Spencer Tracy, and Robert Walker. Guess it doesn’t matter now. Now that I’m dying. Gottenyu!

  “Morris, are you okay?” he heard Victoria ask.

  “Fine—I, just—”

  “Oh my God, I came on too strong! I always do that! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—I mean—I was just asking about lunch. That’s all. Oh God, I’m so sorry. I’m such a schmuck sometimes!”

  “No. You’re not,” Morris mumbled.

  “I am!” she insisted.

  “Shikse.”

  “What did you say, Morris?”

  “You’re a shikse. A gentile woman. Shikse.”

  She laughed, which made him chuckle. And Morris began feeling better.

  RUSH HOUR

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2004

  That evening, Ricardo Montoyez drove over the Whitestone Bridge. Following the signs to THE BRONX & NEW ENGLAND, going nowhere in particular. But away from Long Island.

  He was annoyed. Not because he had to terminate his Long Island operation. He would be back. But because of the lost opportunity with the blonde. Sitting across from her at Murphy’s Steakhouse, he could tell how much she wanted him. He only needed another two hours.

  Now, instead of getting laid he had to lay low. He’d spend the day letting law enforcement chase their tails, and now he knew he could leave Long Island. Find a new pharmaceutical front away from Uncle Sam’s prying eyes. Where he could continue the free flow of medicines to his processing facilities.

  Near the end of the bridge he saw a National Guardsman clutching an M-16 and eyeing every driver. Looking for the next terrorist who might harm Americans.

  Not knowing they should look in their medicine cabinets.

  Montoyez rolled down his window. A wave of heavy warm air flowed into the car. The soldier looked at him.

  “Thanks for keeping us safe!” Montoyez said as his car rolled past.

  The soldier nodded.

  WELCOME TO THE BRONX, said a huge green sign.

  THE SUNRISE DINER

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2004

  They ate lunch together the next day, sitting in a red vinyl booth at the Sunrise Diner. The wait staff scurried around them like a circus act, weaving between tables while balancing tire-sized trays of deluxe hamburger platters, turkey club sandwiches, and diet plates heaped with wobbly scoops of cottage cheese and chunks of canned fruit. At every table patrons had to shout above the din. The entire diner sounded like a practice session of Toastmasters.

  Victoria glanced at the news on an overhead television and rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, another politician in a sex scandal. What do you think of it all, Morris Feldstein?”

  The Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index—the one that had hit DEFCON 1 in Dr. Kirleski’s office the day before—suddenly nudged. Morris could comfortably carry three types of conversations: Celfex products, baseball, and movie trivia. Any discussion involving words such as scandal, sex, sexual, sexuality, gay, politics, governor, government, Democrats, Republicans, or “What’s your opinion, Morris?” set off a variety of warning signals exhibited by a nervous tapping of his foot, an anxious biting of his lower lip, a twirling of his pocket change, or in this case, an exaggerated stirring of his coffee. His spoon clanked loudly against the inside of the cup, forming a whirlpool that crested over the lip and flowed down the sides, leaving a messy brown puddle on the saucer.

  “Ohhh, I’m not really an expert on these things. I leave that to Rona. And my daughter, Caryn. She’s studying documentary film.” And then he thought, Nice, invite your wife and daughter to the table.

  Victoria shrugged. “Guess I’m the same way. So I met this guy the other night.”

  Morris wasn’t sure whether Victoria was telling a joke or not, so he assumed his customary joke-receiving position. He leaned forward, folded his hands on the gray Formica table, widened his eyes in exaggerated anticipation, pasted a smile on his face, and nodded his head eagerly. He had practiced this posture through countless Celfex sales retreats and Men’s Club breakfasts. It had two benefits. First, it offered courteous encouragement to the joke teller. And second, it ensured that should the punch line befuddle Morris (a frequent occurrence) he would still be smiling so as not to offend. Morris Feldstein couldn’t tell a joke to save his life. But he sure could take one.

  “His name was Ricardo,” Victoria continued. And the way she pronounced it—a sigh that bordered between forlorn and embittered—demonstrated to Morris that this wasn’t turning into a joke at all.

  “Ricardo Xavier Montoyez. My post-divorce inaugural one-night stand! We didn’t even make it to the cheesecake!” She giggled.

  Another nudge of the Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index. Morris grasped for something to say. Anything to prove to Victoria that he still had a voice. “Was he a nice guy?” he asked. Which nudged the Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index up a notch further. Because, when you mentioned his name, the look on your face, as if you just chugged the curdling milk in the creamer that’s been sitting out all day, could lead me to the conclusion that he was a nice guy.

  Victoria shrugged. “Almost too nice. You know what I mean?”

  Morris nodded, although he had no idea what Victoria meant.

  “You know what my problem is, Morris? I figured it out. After eighteen years with that son of a bitch Jerry—that’s my ex, as if you couldn’t tell—I thought I was owed perfection. I really thought I would meet my knight in shining armor. But that’s just too good to be true. Don’t you think?”

  For some reason, Morris thought of Cornel Wilde in Sword of Lancelot, and how he directed and starred in the film, which was produced in 1963, and mumbled, “Sure.”

  “That’s my problem,” Victoria repeated. “I have to lower my expectations. Find someone normal. Average. The happy medium.”

  That’s me! Morris thought. Morris Feldstein.

  The bill for lunch was twenty-two dollars and change. Morris paid in cash. He and Victoria didn’t exchange a single word about Celfex products, therefore, Morris didn’t feel it was proper to ask Celfex to pay the tab. And besides, he thought, twenty-two dollars—plus tip—was a small price for watching Victoria D’Amico eat a hamburger while listening to her share the intimate details of her love life.

  Others were watching Victoria as well, including Agent Fairbanks of the Department of Homeland Security’s Subagency of Intelligence and Analysis (Melville Branch), and Special Agent Anthony Leone of the Food and Drug Administration armed with a new cache of equipment, on loan from the Department of the Interior, that could detect a buck moth or tiger salamander from miles away). Also crowded into the parking lot of the Sunrise Diner were the unmarked vehicles of the Nassau County Police Department, the Nassau District Attorney’s Office, the New York State Office of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several others who had the good fortune of receiving a tap on the shoulder from NICK about Victoria D’Amico. The parking lot at the Sunrise Diner was busier than the Sunrise Diner itself.

  Leone watched her from his car, which smelled of discarded Styrofoam cups laced with the coagulated remains of ancient coffee. He monitored Victoria’s arrival at Dr. Kirleksi’s office that morning; he watched her leave for the Sunrise Diner that afternoon when it grew even warmer. He tailed her through lunch-hour traffic. And even when he lost her, he didn’t
worry. He’d pick up her trail. She lacked the skills of that master of evasion, deception, and disappearance, the Great Montoyez. And even if Leone took his eyes off her, countless other eyes wouldn’t. The New York State Police cameras watched her route to the diner. The News 12 Long Island traffic cams stared from poles towering above the highways. The county’s cameras dangled from traffic signals, taking automatic mug shots of drivers’ guilt-laced faces at the moment of one infraction or other. The various cameras of towns, villages, and other government bodies keeping their eyes on their parks, their water towers, and their maintenance depots. The security cameras at the drive-throughs at banks, convenience stores, and filling stations and, yes, at the Sunrise Diner as well. All wove together like a spider web waiting to ensnare its victims.

  All of these eyes, public and private, peering and leering, gazing and gawking.

  The old private eye had been replaced by infinite public eyes. That day, Victoria D’Amico was the most watched reality TV show in the noon slot in the New York media market.

  Leone sat in the diner parking lot, trying to ignore the discomfort of his thighs sticking to his pants legs and his pants legs sticking to the seat. “Sure, they sit inside an air-conditioned diner, eating the Deluxe Chicken Souvlaki Melt plus a nice bread basket. Me? I’m sitting in a 1984 Ford Furnace with a broken air conditioner!”

  When the sweat became unbearable, he left the car and walked across the parking lot. Inside, he reasoned, he would steal a glance of Victoria and whatever criminal mastermind she was meeting for lunch. Plus, he might as well grab a cup of coffee to go while gulping down as much cool air as he could. He pushed against the glass doors. A gust of cool air dried his sweat-saturated shirt. He took a seat at the counter, scanned a glass shelf of pastries, and ordered his coffee. Then he swiveled on his stool until Victoria came into view.

  Right there. With a middle-aged, schlubby-looking guy who seemed nervous if not petrified. With wide eyes and thinning hair. Looking more like an oppressed accountant than a possible link in a global pharmaceutical counterfeiting conspiracy.

  Now who is that? thought Leone as he walked away from the diner. He returned to his car, sipped for a few minutes, and then wondered why the hell he didn’t order ice-coffee on a day like today, a hot, sweltering day in a federal government vehicle with a broken air conditioner. Sure, you’re a crook, a terrorist, a perp, you get your air conditioner fixed one-two-three. You work for the Feds, you gotta fill out a Federal Fleet Repair Request—OMB Form GSA-FFRR-NY/36F/AC and wait till winter for it to get fixed.

  Finally, the two emerged. First Victoria, chic round sunglasses covering her eyes, her blond hair bouncing as she walked. Behind her, Morris, squinting in the sun, shuffling his feet to keep up with her, looking left and right as if afraid to be noticed. On his FDA-­issued camera, Leone recorded what he thought was the most fumbled and awkward handshake ever. Victoria leaning into a tentative hug, Morris jutting arms out to shake her hand, Victoria backing off the hug and offering her palm instead, their hands colliding like kids playing patty-cake. Then Morris nodding, Victoria cocking her head and skipping off as her shoulders shook through a giggle. And Morris fumbling for his keys.

  Leone prepared to follow Victoria. But first he pointed his handheld ScanTag-3000 through his windshield, toward the license plate of Morris’s car. He squeezed a trigger and heard a soft beep.

  “Scanning complete,” advised a woman’s robotic voice.

  “Stand by” she directed.

  Then, from the small ridges in the unit, just under Leone’s thumb, she confirmed: “New York License Plate K-two-J-two-seven-four.”

  And the winner is . . . Leone thought to himself.

  “License registered to . . . Morris . . . Feldstein.”

  “Morris Feldstein,” repeated Leone.

  “File transmitted,” the voice announced.

  “Mooor . . . iiis . . . feellld . . . steeen.” Bill Sully stretched the name as if thinning out each syllable would make Morris more transparent, revealing a hidden danger about the man. “Mister Mooor . . . iiis . . . feellld . . . steeen.”

  He had just been handed a thin blue manila folder with Morris’s name scrawled in black Sharpie across the tab. Sully loved the smell of fresh Sharpie on a coated manila folder. Crisp, pungent, enough to sting his eyes.

  He opened the folder.

  “Mooor . . . iiis . . . feellld . . . steeen. Let’s see what you’re all about.”

  There wasn’t much about him. Sully dug through twelve pages of prompt credit card and mortgage payments, driver’s license photos, a manageable and modest household budget, a pristine credit report, and a fastidious observance of every law on the books, including parking, speeding, and jay-walking. Taxes paid, refunds made. Not a single bounced check. A model citizen. A loyal American. If not a paragon of virtue then the epitome of boredom.

  On paper, at least.

  “Can’t be,” Sully mumbled, pitching his head forward and rubbing his temples. Once your file made it into his hands, you had to have broken some law, committed some indiscretion. Maybe you said something you shouldn’t have said; spoken out against the government; acted against the interests of the state. Violated a rule, regulation, ordinance, statute, act of Congress. Or else Sully wouldn’t be peering into your file, smelling your name in Sharpie.

  So what was it about Morris Feldstein?

  Connect the dots, he coached himself. Connect the dots. Like one of those tests for color blindness. Just stare long enough at a jumble of blotches and soon, the real picture emerges.

  “Of course!” Sully blurted. “There it is!”

  The other agents leaned forward, now hovering over his shoulders.

  “Occupation: sales representative. Employer: Celfex Pharmaceutical Laboratories. Of course!”

  Dots connecting.

  He slapped his palm on the table. The soda cans rattled.

  “Morris Feldstein! Employed by a drug company. A drug company that supplies him with shitloads of . . . well, drugs!”

  Of course, the agents nodded.

  “Observed lunching today with Victoria D’Amico. Victoria D’Amico, the middleman . . . middle woman . . . middleperson in a chain that leads directly to Ricardo Xavier Montoyez!”

  Go on, the agents coaxed him silently.

  “Ricardo Xavier Montoyez. Prime suspect in a drug counterfeiting conspiracy. A conspiracy that relies on a regular supply of drugs. From Morris Feldstein!”

  Dots connected.

  An hour later, pieces of Morris Feldstein’s life had been copied and pasted onto NICK’s vast hard drive, everything up to and including his subscriptions to New York Mets Inside Pitch and Sports Illustrated (and Rona’s subscription to Home Therapists Journal).

  Until that moment, NICK wasn’t particularly aware of Morris Feldstein. But now that they had been properly introduced, NICK wasn’t one to forget a file. Morris had found a home on NICK’s hard drive, where information about him could be updated, cross-referenced, double-checked, plucked, and parsed. And if there was anything about the file that created the slightest discomfort, NICK would burp, and the computers of law enforcement offices around the world would blip.

  Morris Feldstein, whose worst crime to that point was succumbing to a lunch invitation at the Sunrise Diner.

  POLL

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 2004

  “And so my truth is that I am a gay American.” From behind his desk in the White House, Karl Rove watched the Governor of New Jersey make the proclamation. He watched it on his VCR. Over and over. Forward and rewind, forward and rewind. “And so my truth is that I am a gay American.”

  It was music to his ears.

  Rove turned to a thick stack of polling data from Ohio, peering at toplines and crosstabs. Digging his index finger into data as if taking its pulse. Concentrating that famous encyclopedic mind of the Americ
an political landscape. And not just the landscape as a whole, but specific zip codes. Especially zip codes in swing districts of Ohio.

  Ohio was the battleground in this presidential election. Ohio, with its shallow pools of undecided and persuadable voters. Their values were a complicated grafting of incompatible principles. The self-described “evangelical moderate women” in the suburbs of Cleveland; the “national security Democrats” near Youngstown; the “family-values Blacks who support social spending” in Toledo; and the “right-to-life Catholics who oppose the war” near Dayton.

  These were the individual swing voters whose decisions could swing a precinct, and that precinct could swing a whole county, and that county could swing all of Ohio, and Ohio would swing the entire election.

  Rove rubbed his eyes, as the small print of the poll grew fuzzy. The news hadn’t yet seeped into the data. But it would. Over the next few days and weeks, the images of the Governor’s announcement—not to mention the relentless footage of thousands of gay people demanding same-sex marriages in San Francisco—would help the undecideds decide. By putting a giant God-fearing, gay-bashing, gun-loving wedge between them and John Kerry.

  And that would seal the deal, he thought.

  Fear. Fear was the ultimate wedge issue. And who was tapping on their shoulders in the dark, reminding them of the dangers that gathered and lurked around them? The terrorists, who threatened their survival and the gays, who threatened their marriages. Boo!

  Rove was satisfied that Kerry’s post-convention bounce was easing. It was coming back to earth. An earth infiltrated by gays and terrorists and illegal immigrants. Which made Rove smile.

  Down the corridor, in the Vice President’s office, Dick Cheney suppressed a frown.

  “Secretary Ridge is reluctant to raise the Homeland Security alert at this time,” Jon Pruitt had just reported.

  “Reluctant?” Cheney repeated, lifting his eyebrow. He glanced at Scooter Libby, who sat stiffly in a Queen Anne chair.