The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

by Jonathan Lethem

“It’s one of those gum-pops,” he said. “There’s a little goo left, but it’ll wash right out.”

  He laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head, looking dismayed by her lack of reaction, and by the fact that she was still standing there, blocking the aisle, one hand gripping the handle of her cart.

  “I’m Nora Stevens,” she said in a thin voice. “I live off County Road 219.”

  LeDivic looked at her. “So?”

  “So I know what you did to those little country children.”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d called them this; she’d never used the phrase before, and it sounded strange as soon as it left her lips. But LeDivic heard it loud and clear. He lifted the little girl out of the cart and told her sister to help her pick out a cookie from the bakery case. Then he moved closer to Nora. She noticed again the width of his shoulders and the muscles in his arms, which were tanned and scratched from outdoor work.

  “Listen, lady. You need to mind your own business.”

  “This is my business. I’m the one who rescued that little girl you tried to hurt!”

  “Keep your voice down.” He stepped so close she could smell his deodorant or shaving cream or the soap he used in the shower. “Now you listen to me,” he said in a fierce, panicked-sounding whisper. “I’m an American citizen. I’m a Marine, a decorated serviceman. That thing you’re talking about was a long time ago. I was fifteen years old, and I got treatment for it. Every kind of treatment they could dream up. They drugged me and scanned me and electrocuted me and shoved shit up my nose into my brain, you understand? So don’t come meddling in my life, following me through stores, insulting me. And don’t you so much as look at my kids. They aren’t any part of this.”

  LeDivic’s eyes held hers; they were flat and brown and unwavering. At either end of the aisle, people were coming and going. The music burbled overhead.

  “That little boy still has fits because of you!” Nora hissed.

  “No shit,” LeDivic said. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know my own cousin? And for your information, he’s not so little anymore. He’s six-foot-three and he plays on the football team. We go down to the field and watch his home games.”

  Nora stared, unable to hide her shock. She couldn’t recall having heard anything about the families being related, not in her news clippings, or in all the talk she’d heard.

  “And the girl? I suppose she’s your cousin too?”

  LeDivic flashed a brief, incredulous smile. “Yeah. That’s how it works. Now is there anything else I can help you with?”

  Nora gripped the cart, which was cold and sturdy before her. She looked down the aisle, at the people floating past the doughnut case, and at LeDivic’s girls, who were coming toward them now, eating cookies as they walked.

  “Is she all right? Can you at least tell me that?”

  “Who? Anita?” LeDivic’s shoulders loosened a bit, and he spoke in a measured voice. “Sure. She’s fine. In college back East somewhere. Fancy place, I forget the name. She got a scholarship. Made her mother proud. She’s just about the pride of the family, I think.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at his daughters, who’d stopped to take some unauthorized item off the shelf.

  “Unlike me,” he said. “I’m pretty much at the other end of the spectrum. Now, are we done here?”

  When Nora didn’t speak, LeDivic clapped his hands, a sound like gunfire.

  “Girls! Let’s go. Hurry up. Sam, put that back. Let’s get going.”

  Nora hurried in the other direction. She abandoned her cart and didn’t get any groceries and had to come back in the middle of the week when she ran out of coffee. It was a month before she’d find the sticky napkin with a strand of her own dark hair in the pocket of her jacket.

  At home that night, she watched television. First the news and then The Cosby Show. During a commercial, she got up and went to the kitchen drawer where she kept the old news clippings. Without looking at them, she threw them into the trash.

  The next morning there was a chill in the air. Fall was coming, and she watched the deer make their daily pilgrimage to the apple orchard behind the house, pausing as they did to graze on the fescue that overgrew her father’s fields. She hadn’t replaced the last Rascal, so the deer strode fearlessly into the yard. They got so close to the windows that Nora could see the wetness of their eyes and the tufts of black hair around their ears. She watched as they stood on their hind legs to get the last stubborn apples from the trees, and she spoke to them from behind the glass, teasing them, giving them names.

  She ate peanut butter cookies for dinner sometimes, because there were no more men around requiring meat, and in the evenings she read her father’s collection of Louis L’Amour novels, wherein rugged men fell in love with tender women, and the villains died quickly and without complaint.

  On those rare occasions when the phone rang, she made her way into the kitchen, shuffling in warm socks. Sometimes the line was dead when she got there. Other times she thought she heard someone hang up. Once or twice it rang in the middle of the night, and she held it to her ear, listening to the tone. Alone in a big house, it was hard to keep her mind from blooming with dark thoughts. She saw movements in the shadows, slinking forms. She heard boots on the stairs and what might’ve been a knock at the front door, the soft rapping of knuckles. Imagined, no doubt, but paralyzing.

  When morning came, as it always did, she pulled the curtains aside and looked out at the yard. Leaves were drifting down from the apple trees. Deer had slept there in the night and left impressions of their bodies in the grass. The sky was blanching. Another winter was coming. There was everything and nothing to be afraid of.

  DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI

  Lush

  from Blood Work

  Shots

  I was doing shots of cold Żoła̧dkowa Gorzka and snacking on herring in a small zakaskas when the torture squad came for me.

  The scout was a familiar face, which tipped me off straightaway. Petite, dark-haired, top-heavy. Same lipstick, same dark hair brushed over the ears, same straining buttons on her eggshell-blue blouse. Had a first name that sounded like it should have been a last, but damned if I could remember it at that moment. We’d used her on various missions over the past sixteen months. Her appearance was no doubt meant to lull me into a false sense of security, or lull me directly into her bosom. But I knew better. There were four vodka shots lined up in front of me, and if I was going to be killed, I wanted to go out completely blotto.

  I had been ordering the shots in fours just to be safe. The place was by no means crowded, as it was just after ten A.M., a good hour before most Poles ventured in for their first fix of the day. But the bartender could get to talking, or decide he had to visit the facilities for an extended period of time and forget to refill my glasses as often as I’d like. It was important to have reinforcements at hand.

  Polish zakaskas are perfect if you didn’t want to bother with the rigors of a cocktail menu. That’s because there is only one cocktail on the menu: a cold shot of Żoła̧dkowa Gorzka. Perfect Grizzly efficiency: You will drink this, and you will get drunk. After endless months of tiki joints and dark oak saloons and steak houses and cocktail lounges and dives and airport bars, it was strangely nice to be deprived of choice. Żoła̧dkowa Gorzka, which means “bitter vodka for the stomach,” was a rather new brand that followed traditional Polish methods of blending herbs and dried fruit. Despite the name, it was more sweet than bitter. There was some wormwood, gentian root, and galangal tossed in as well. Not that I cared about the taste. The spirit did the fifty-meter-dash across my tongue on its way to my bloodstream. It was amber in color, which could fool people into thinking you were shooting some good old-fashioned Kentucky bourbon in the middle of Warsaw. I liked it more with every shot.

  The menu in a zakaska is just as simple. Aside from the ubiquitous herring (which provided all the protein I required), you had your choice of six inches of smoked
kielbasa, some pierogi, or maybe even some steak tartare, if the zakaska was fancy enough. This wasn’t one of those zakaskas. I went with the herring, which was difficult to ruin. I needed the protein.

  As I raised the next shot glass to my lips the scout raised her own glass and said, “Na zdrowie.”

  I held the glass in place, muttered a quick “Na zdrowie” in return, then downed the shot. Some part of my brain knew that I was reaching my limit, the redline, but other parts of my brain told that annoying part to shut up. We’d paid good zlotys for those three remaining shots, and goddamnit we were going to do them, death squad or not.

  Oh, if only the pretty little scout hadn’t offered the Polish cheer. That meant the gunmen and butchers were nearby, closing in fast. I needed to down these shots now. They might be my last for a while. I just wanted to linger here and watch the street scene, let my brain go pleasantly fuzzy for a while.

  I was in Warsaw for a simple snatch, dupe, replace, and grab of a potentially incriminating and embarrassing set of cables. This was my job: cleaning up mistakes or documents or communiqués. Sometimes I was tasked with producing a pseudo doc, for misinformation purposes. Sometimes not. Almost always they had me destroy the real doc, but this time they wanted it back for some reason. So I hid it in a place only I knew about, then came here to the Pijalnia Wodki for extraction.

  The presence of the ample-chested scout, however, meant there would be no extraction. My transport man had no doubt been captured or killed, this petite girl sent in his place, and the Grizzlies would soon force their way into this dingy place, and they wouldn’t care how many shots of vodka I had lined up in front of me. They would simply take me. And then—

  I didn’t want to think about then.

  I’d spent all night working on the dupe and switch and had been sipping steadily at an oversized steel flask of Canadian Club, as well as some bottles of port wine I’d found in a wooden cabinet. Sitting here, our pre-arranged meeting point, I decided to go with the local tipple. Someone had named this joint Pijalnia Wodki—“Drinking Room for Vodka.” You had to admire the straightforwardness. The walls were badly chipped, and the fixtures and furniture were scavenged from at least four different ruined hotels. Why bother repainting the walls if they’re chipped? The people weren’t here for the walls. They’re here for the vodka and ennui. Maybe a plate of herring on the side.

  “We have a car outside,” the scout said in Polish, though it took a few moments to translate the words in my mind. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “That’s nice,” I replied, in English. “But, uh, who are you?”

  She slid off her chair and moved close to me, pushing her breasts into my upper arm, smiling at me a little.

  “You know me.” Again in Polish. Translation approximate.

  “You’re pretty. Let’s have some vodka together.”

  Eyes narrowed. Suspicious, but willing to play along. In English she said, “Sure.”

  I signaled the bartender. As he retrieved the bottle from under the bar I downed my second, barely feeling the cold-warm burn, and then the third shot, turning the glasses upside down and slamming them on the bar top after each. By the time bowtie was pouring four more shots into fresh glasses, I knocked back the final vodka. The scout watched me with vague disbelief in her eyes. Which is exactly what I wanted her to do, because she didn’t notice me dose one of the new shots as I slid it toward her across the scratched wooden bar top.

  So much of this came down to simple sleight-of-hand. The human mind can only focus on one thing at a time. While the scout was watching my hand raise the fourth shot of vodka to my lips, she was physically incapable of seeing my thumb and middle finger pinch open a hush puppy directly above the shot glass I was sliding in her direction.

  She drank the vodka. I downed another and smiled. Goodnight, honey. In under a minute you’re going to be facedown on the bar top. Which at home might get us ejected from the premises, but not here. Passing out is part of the whole experience.

  Double

  Sixty seconds later she was not asleep. She was bright-eyed, amused. Showing me her perfect teeth, which were on the lupine side. Maybe she was an Eastern European werewolf and totally immune to the Agency’s finest knockout drops. She certainly looked feral.

  I thought to myself, damnit, what if she’d switched shot glasses on me, and I was the one digesting the knockout serum?

  I’m not proud of it, but I had no choice. In the desperation of a given moment, you do things you may regret later. And what I did was this: I took a leisurely mouthful and hooked my shoes under the rungs of her stool. Then I spat the vodka into her eyes, point-blank range, and simultaneously jerked my feet back, sending her tumbling from her seat at the same time. Then I ran.

  Poor kid. The sting would be in her eyes most of the morning, and her tush might be sore. But it was nothing compared to what they would do to her later when her new employees decided to punish her. The alcohol in her eyes would be a memory of heaven. Hell, she might not even have realized she was working for the Grizzlies. She might have thought it was us all along.

  But I had my own problems to sort out. I knew my chances of escape were nil. If the Grizzlies were smart enough to switch out my transport man for one of our own scouts then they would have all possible exits covered. Didn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

  My legs were wobblier than I thought, which made for an interesting and somewhat amusing exit from the zakaska. My internal compass was a little off. I had been here in Warsaw less than fifteen hours and still had the afterimages of the last city I’d visited (Krakow) burned into my brain.

  There was an amusing chase interlude on the relatively quiet streets. The Grizzlies had sent multiple agents to intercept me. There were dodges, fakeouts, some backwards walking. All the usual. It might have worked on one of them, but not the baseball team they’d sent after me. At this desperate juncture I made a heroic attempt at a subterranean escape, diving into an open sewer, but thick hands grabbed me by my HST suit and yanked me back into the daylight. I suggested we all get a drink together, discuss this like men. While my Polish was good, I don’t think my words carried the amount of bonhomie I’d been attempting. A rank-smelling hood was slipped over my head and something sharp pinched the crook of my arm.

  Belt

  Chained naked to a metal bed frame in a stark white room, I couldn’t help but think about the various Soviet torture techniques I’d heard about over the years.

  There would certainly be sleep deprivation. Pained cries from fellow prisoners. Real or otherwise. Beatings with leather gloves. Noise assault—there are even stories about the Grizzlies using a subcontrabass tuba at point-blank range to blow out an eardrum.

  But it appeared that I was in for something special. My clothes had been completely removed, which indicated they were going to maul sensitive parts of my body. Maybe even remove some parts of my body that I was never meant to see. Hold it up to the light, insult it, as if I were made of defective parts, then place it inside a steel tray and go in for more exploration. Sorry gentlemen, you’re not going to find it hidden up there.

  For now, though, they were content to let me freeze in quiet contemplation. I’d heard the Soviets were fond of using the cold room as a kind of torture icebreaker, as it were. For all I knew, we did the same thing. The removal of clothing was an especially nice touch. You never feel quite as vulnerable and weak and inadequate as you do when your legs are spread and your testicles have retreated to a hiding spot somewhere below your liver.

  I didn’t want to wait. Better they torture me with the vodka still running through my veins. It wouldn’t make it hurt less, but perhaps I wouldn’t mind as much.

  “I’d like a vodka martini, please,” I said. “One toothpick skewering the following garnishes: one anchovy-stuffed olive, one cherry tomato, one pickled pearl onion. Served as cold as this room.”

  Predictably, there was no reply.

  Some men in my situation would revert to na
me, rank, and serial number. I preferred to order a cocktail. In the case of a torture room, I believe a martini is entirely appropriate. Mencken said the martini was “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet” and I’m inclined to agree. The shape of the glass. The crisp bite and warm afterglow. There is nothing more pure. The very thought of a martini comforted me, even though I knew it would most likely be a long time before my next. If there was to be a next.

  I had been tempted to request a vodka Gibson. Typically Gibsons require gin, but I had so much vodka running through my system I thought it ill-advised to change horses now. There are many origin stories of the Gibson, but my favorite is of the alleged American diplomat (no such man has ever been identified) who frequently traveled to Europe during the dark days of Prohibition. While his colleagues indulged, this diplomat named “Gibson” (in this version) felt it was important to stick to the spirit of homeland law. So he would order a martini glass filled with cold water and garnished with a single pickled pearl onion, so that he would be able to distinguish it from the sea of other cocktail glasses at various dinners and receptions. Admirable. Going without, while those around you sipped and gulped and grew increasingly blotto.

  I was feeling Gibson’s exquisite pain now. The blood in my alcohol system was waging civil war, attempting to reclaim its native territories. Dreadful clarity began to return. The colors around me seemed suddenly faded and dull. There had been a song playing in my head for the past few years, a song I had barely noticed, but now the record was over and the needle scratched into blank vinyl. As the hours passed, and even more hours passed, I began to understand my captors’ strategy. They knew they had apprehended a souse. Torture would hurt me, but nowhere near as badly as if I were stone sober. They were drying me out.

  This was a very, very bad idea.

  Fix