(2006) The Zero

by Jess Walter

  “Listen,” he finally said. “This is what it’s about. This. These bastards hate our freedoms. Our way of life. They hate our tapas bars and our sashimi restaurants, our all-night pita joints…. They hate our very…economic well-being. This is a war we fight with wallets and purses, by making dinner reservations and going to MOMA, by having drinks at the Plaza. And we will fight back. We will fight back even if it means that every American sits through Tony and Tina’s goddamn Wedding!”

  Applause and nods and then The Boss sat back in his chair. Out came the briefing books with that day’s message, schedules, and a chart that showed everyone where to stand during the next presser. Someone dumped a box of hats in the middle of the table, and they all reached in. When they were done, there were still four Port Authority hats on the table, and while The Boss read a briefing sheet his chief of staff threw up his arms at the lowered eyes around the room: “Come on, people. Someone needs to trade a police hat for a PA hat.”

  Hats were swapped and then someone mentioned that the Jets wanted to come down and The Boss snapped to attention. “All of them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What, twenty-two guys?”

  “Actually, that’s just the starters. There are, like, fifty on the team.”

  They debated why a football team needed fifty players and whether it was fair for teams to put healthy players on Injured Reserve and then the discussion turned to whether they could get Jets jerseys for their kids, and whether they couldn’t just get the stars’ jerseys or if they had to get the whole team and who the Jets’ stars might be. Then a deputy assistant on the wall murmured that it might be logistically impossible to bring fifty players down to The Zero without disrupting the work.

  “Impossible? Hell, if I decide I want to do it, I’ll get the Jets and the Sharks down there!” The Boss slammed his fist on the table again and the camera crew became agitated. “I don’t ever want to hear that word again. Do you understand me? What kind of message does that send? That it’s impossible to get a little football team where we need them to go? That it’s impossible to get a decent curry at two A.M.? The world is watching us and if someone tells me I can’t get the Jets to the scene of a national tragedy…then goddamn it, that’s all the justification I need.”

  Plans were made to get the Jets downtown, the meeting ended, the film crew’s lights went out, looks of defiance faded, and the bosses and sub-bosses began drifting out of the room, complimenting one another for their courage and compassion. The Boss glanced over at Remy, raising a hand for him to stay behind. He turned away for a moment and talked under his breath to his advisers and to a couple of commissioners. And then The Boss sat back down, lowered his head, and waited for the room to clear.

  When everyone was gone he looked up at Remy with a forced smile. They shook hands and sat down at one corner of the long conference table. The Boss stared. He crossed and uncrossed his legs, waiting for something. One of his aides—a waifish young man in round glasses—brought him a beige file folder, which had the word SECURE stamped on it. The Boss held the folder in his lap and waited for the aide to clear the room. Then he smiled like a guard dog showing his teeth. “How are you, Brian?”

  Remy thought of Guterak’s warnings. “I’m good, sir. Fine. Okay. Good. Fine.”

  “Excellent.” More staring. And then The Boss opened the file folder he’d been given. Remy could clearly see there was only one page in the folder, and that it didn’t appear to have anything on it, but The Boss pretended to flip through pages. He even licked his fingers at one point, to pry apart the one blank page.

  Remy shifted in his chair, wondering what was on the page The Boss was pretending to read. The Boss ruffled the page and made popping noises with his lips. “Just a moment,” he said, running his finger down it. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Right. Et cetera.”

  “Sir?”

  The Boss looked up. “First of all, I want to thank you for agreeing to this. When I heard what they were looking for, in my mind, there was only one choice. Your combination of expertise and willingness to sacrifice, to do what needs to be done…. But before we finalized things I wanted us to meet face to face, to make sure you haven’t had any second thoughts.”

  Since he couldn’t recall having first thoughts, Remy laughed. “Well…”

  The Boss cocked his head.

  “Honestly…I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t…really know what we’re doing here.”

  The Boss’s face flushed red. He leaned forward. “I hope you’re not questioning the direction of the country?”

  “The country? No,” Remy said quickly. “I don’t…I don’t think so.”

  “Good.” His lips were pursed. “Nothing pisses me off more than that. That’s exactly what the other side wants, Brian. For us to start doubting our actions before we’ve even had a chance to take them. Every question we ask is a love letter to our enemies.”

  “No,” Remy protested. “I’m not sending any love letters—”

  The Boss snapped out of it, as if he’d just realized he was no longer delivering a speech to the cameras. “Of course you’re not. You’re with us. You, of all people.” The Boss held up the one-page file and rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just get so…emotional…when I think of people questioning our resolve, our commitment to reclaiming our place in the world, our heritage, to gathering everything that was lost, recapturing the record of our people, and our commerce…well, I don’t have to tell you, Brian.”

  Remy sort of wished he would, but he shook his head. “No.”

  “I chose you for that very reason: your commitment to your country, and your unbending personal loyalty. You are in a unique position, Brian, a pioneer, a bridge between two worlds. Running interference between the police and the city attorney was difficult, but I’m sure it taught you how to live in two worlds—the suits and the shields. In a way, you’ll be doing that again now—living in two worlds.”

  “Okay,” Remy said.

  The Boss smiled. “That’s all I wanted to say, Brian, to make sure you knew my genuine…and complete…” His voice cracked and he stared at the folder in his lap. Then he assumed his campaign voice again and fell back into his usual patter. “By God, we will gather every receipt, every purchase order, every goddamned piece of paper…otherwise…well, I think you know.”

  “Sir?”

  “They win,” The Boss whispered.

  “Win, sir?”

  “They win, Brian. They…” The Boss opened the empty file again. “They win.” He put on a pair of glasses and looked down at the blank page. “As a side note, your reports on Sergeant Guterak have been very informative.”

  “My reports?” Remy rubbed his temple, trying to recall if he’d said something about Guterak. He wondered how you undo what you don’t remember doing. “Paul’s a good man.”

  “Yes, we can’t have that.”

  “No. Paul’s just fine, sir.”

  “It’s taken care of.” The Boss rubbed his mouth. “I know this is also a personal favor to me, Brian. Your commitment and sacrifice—” He rubbed his mouth and launched into a version of his inspiring speech again, but after a while it seemed to devolve into random words. “…courage…liberty…reconstruction…resilience…faith…spending…” He shook his head. “And this thing you’re doing…well…obviously.” The Boss closed the file folder and focused again. “But we’ll need a story. We’ll work it through disability. What do you want? Back? Disability loves backs. Or would you rather do the thing with your eyes?”

  “My eyes?” Reflexively, Remy squeezed his eyes shut to check on the strings and floaters and when he opened them he saw—

  THE FACE, young and lineless, the face from the ghost bar, stared at him from atop the same thin neck, perched above the same body of a man in the same deep black suit. Remy looked again at this perfect little face, like a blank sheet beneath short brown hair. He’d never se
en such a smooth surface. Just as he had in the ghost bar, the man wore a generic federal ID tag over his suit’s breast pocket: “Markham.”

  He was speaking: “…your background, of course, on the street and in the office. This is a unique assignment, removed as it might first appear from the initial…mandate of Liberty and Recovery. There’s an argument that this assignment encroaches somewhat on the activities of the bureau, or the agencies, which is one reason we wanted to go out of shop.” Markham waved this off. “But we’ll figure out jurisdiction issues after we blow up that bridge. This is neither the time nor the time to debate such things. Am I right? Huh?”

  They were in a small conference room, nothing on the walls, in black executive chairs. The room had a high ceiling; Remy could hear mechanized sounds coming from beyond the door.

  Markham was still talking. “Of course, your work must be treated with the utmost discretion. I will be your primary contact. I trust you haven’t told anyone about your negotiations with us to this point.”

  “With—”

  “With us,” Markham said.

  “Yeah.” Remy laughed nervously. “Well, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Half of Markham’s young face smiled. “That’s good.”

  “Hell, I don’t even know who you are.”

  Markham seemed momentarily startled, then smiled. “Wow. Yeah. That’s good. You could be in one of our training videos.” Markham sat smiling at Remy a moment longer, then set his thin briefcase on the table and opened it. “Okay, then, why don’t we talk about what we’re here to talk about?”

  Markham pulled an eight-by-ten photograph from the briefcase and slid it across the table. It showed a young woman with round cheeks, dark eyes, and long black hair, a beautiful girl. In the picture she was sitting in a restaurant patio wearing a spaghetti-strap evening dress and holding a martini up to the camera.

  “Gibson,” said Markham.

  “What?”

  “You said martini. It’s not a martini. It’s a Gibson. Onions instead of olives.” His perfectly manicured index finger pointed to the tiny glass in the picture.

  Had he said martini out loud?

  “Yes, you did. But see, it’s a Gibson.” Markham pointed to the glass again. “You can just make out the cocktail onions. Here, you can see them better in this one.” He thumbed through his briefcase until he came up with another photo, a blown-up detail of the drink showing fuzzily but unmistakably that there were, indeed, two tiny white onions in the glass. “I don’t like onions. I prefer olives myself,” Markham said. “Without pimientos. You have to request it that way or they’ll just assume you want pimientos. I mean, honestly…what is a pimiento? A fruit? A vegetable? A legume? I mean, come on—” He was taking on the tone of a standup comic. “Does it even occur in nature?”

  “I think it’s a pepper,” Remy said.

  “I know. It was a…” said Markham, clearly disappointed that his joke had fallen flat. “Oh. Well, then…” He put the onion picture away and pointed again at the picture of the girl. “This is March Selios.”

  Remy looked at the picture. Marge?

  “No, March. Like the month.”

  Remy bit his lip so no more words would sneak out. He looked at the picture again, taken from across the table of a restaurant, ferns everywhere.

  “She worked for a firm that managed legal issues for importers of various goods through foreign contracts, international consortiums, that sort of thing. She was trained as a paralegal. That’s two legals.” Markham spit laughter, but became serious so quickly that Remy wondered if there had been another gap. “She specialized in shipping, trade law, tariffs, oil. Spoke fluent Greek, but also passable Arabic and a bit of Farsi. Did a lot of work with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean companies: Greek, Italian, Saudi, Syrian, Lebanese. Intelligent girl, single, moderate drinker, liberal politics: for a time in the 1990s, she raised money for Palestinian relief charities, protested Israeli aggression, that sort of thing. A bit of a wild child, a drinker, no drug use that we can find. She wasn’t afraid of sex, but then, she was in her twenties. Worked for this firm, ADR, for approximately two years. The firm’s offices were sprinkled throughout the top floors, so as you might guess, the company was hit hard—a third of its employees, everyone who was at work that morning, twenty-three people, all MPD. Although—”

  Remy looked at the picture again.

  “—the number of Missing Presumed Dead from that firm would be twenty-two…if one were to take Ms. Selios off the official list.” Markham let this hang in the air.

  “You think…she shouldn’t be…on the official list?”

  “We have reason to believe…” Markham paused again. “There are indications…” He stopped again. “There is some evidence that…Ms. Selios may not have died that day. She may, in fact, be alive.”

  Remy waited for more, but this Markham seemed to revel in dripping details one at a time. “How?” Remy finally asked.

  Markham crossed his hands and put his index fingers across his lips. “Based on document re-creation and interviews, we are exploring the theory that she may have gotten advance warning and fled moments before…”

  Again Markham was quiet. Remy made an effort to speak out loud. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  Markham pulled on a rubber glove, reached back in his briefcase and pulled out a zipped plastic bag with a small piece of paper inside. He put the bag on the table, then pulled it back. “Obviously, this is classified.” Then he slid it forward again, as if it contained some magical secret.

  Remy reached for the baggie. Inside was a single index card. On the card was a recipe, handwritten with a blue pen, for something called pecan encrusted sole. Remy read through the last ingredient (1 tsp sea salt) and the preparation (Drip with virgin olive oil), all the way through the directions (Let stand for five minutes, garnish with two twisted orange slices, and serve). He stared at the recipe, then looked back up at Markham. For several seconds, there was no noise in the room.

  “A recipe,” Remy said.

  “Ah! Somebody’s got some college,” Markham said. “And where do you think we found this recipe?”

  “I…I don’t have any idea.”

  “Do you know where Crystal Beach is?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Markham looked suspicious, but he continued. “Crystal Beach is in southern Ontario, on Abino Bay, across Lake Erie, near Buffalo. Lovely place. Cold in the winter, though…cold as a sober lesbian at a frat party. As you might guess.” He waited for a laugh again, and then became serious. “We found this recipe…in the possession of a forty-six-year-old homemaker, Mrs. Linda Vendron. Mrs. Vendron claims she was at Kennedy Airport that day, after a visit with her sister, and was waiting for a commuter flight to Buffalo when she heard about the attacks. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “No.”

  “When the airport closed, this Mrs. Vendron wasn’t able to get a flight to Buffalo, so she returned to her sister’s house. Finally, two days later, she took a bus to Buffalo. A very crowded bus, as she says now.” Markham leaned forward. “This Mrs. Vendron claims she found the recipe wedged in the seat of the bus. She says she picked it up because…she thought it would taste good. She thought her husband would like it. He likes pecans.”

  “But you…don’t believe her?”

  Markham looked stung. “Yes, we believe her. Of course, just to be sure, we polygraphed her.” He shook his head. “But why would anyone lie about liking pecans? Who doesn’t like pecans? Especially in a good fish recipe, a tender filet? No, the pecans give it some substance, some crunch. Some weight. They’re soaked in honey. I think you could substitute corn syrup. But it specifically calls for honey. A hint of cayenne. Sea salt. You bake it for twenty minutes on low heat. Some chives. No, it’s a good little fish for a summer meal. Tasty. Light. We had the lab make it, just to be sure it was, you know…good.” Markham leaned back. “We’ll probably make it again; I’ll let
you know.”

  He leaned forward again, his index finger at his mouth. “But the question is not what does this fish taste like, or even what wine should you serve with the fish—I suppose you could get away with a Gewurtzemeiner or even a buttery Chardonnay. The question, Brian, is this: Who left this recipe on that bus?”

  “Her?” Remy picked up the photo.

  “March Selios,” Markham said, gesturing with his palms as if he’d performed a magic trick. “It’s a Greek surname. Second-generation immigrant. Older sister lives here in the city, works in real estate. Younger brother lives back at home in Kansas City with the parents. Dad runs a Greek restaurant there.”

  Remy looked at the recipe again. “And what makes you think this recipe belonged to…” He looked at the girl again. “…to March?”

  “We don’t have the luxury of thinking, Brian.” He reached in his briefcase for another photo. This one showed the same girl, March, sitting at her cubicle, smiling, holding some red Mylar balloons with Happy 26th Birthday written on them in silver. Markham reached in the briefcase, returned with another detail blowup, and handed Remy a jeweler’s loupe. “Here,” Markham said, and pushed the picture over to Remy. “Look closely. Over her shoulder.”

  It was hard to make out at first, but then…yes, there was no doubt. On the wall of March Selios’s cubicle was the very same handwritten recipe for pecan encrusted sole that sat on the table between Remy and Markham.

  “Jesus, that’s amazing,” Remy said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean, how did you know to look for…” Remy was having trouble following all of this. “How did this…I mean…it’s just one piece of paper. All this for…”

  Markham got serious again. “What are you saying, Brian?”

  “Nothing…I’m not saying anything. I’m just amazed. I just don’t see how you knew to connect…and you did all this work for…a recipe?” Remy looked through the jeweler’s loupe again. “You don’t even know that it had anything to do with that day…I mean…maybe she took it off her wall months earlier.”