The Dewey Decimal System

by Nathan Larson

  “That’s me.”

  He calls back to his buddy: “Can you check the list for a Decimal, Dewey, ID … Ready?”

  “Just a sec … Yeah,” calls an unseen man in the vehicle.

  “ID number 4-7-9-alpha-golf-november-yankeecharlie.”

  “Stand by.”

  We do. It’s awkward. More for them than me. Freckles thumbs the edge of my laminate, whistles tunelessly for a couple seconds, stops. His bare hands … I’m gonna have to disinfect that ID card. Kid sneaks a glance at me a couple times.

  His pal with the big gun wears headphones; the engine on the Aggressor is silent and I can make out snippets of Jay-Z, a throwback to the world I once knew well. A beat to which the boy with the machine pistol bobs his head slightly.

  To break it up, I ask Freckles: “Do you serve, son?”

  Kid shakes his head. Yeah, I guess he’d be a bit young.

  Presently, the fellow in the truck comes back with: “ID is good, and, uh, we have a message? Unclassified, quote: It’s Rosenblatt, WT mother F? Contact me via shortwave a.s.a.p., this unit has frequency, etc. Unquote.”

  I sigh. I recall my pager, crushed to dust in the bushes somewhere on the Upper East Side.

  “Gents, can I be so bold as to ask for the use of your radio?” Freckles hands me my ID. I take it with two fingers. “And kindly chill the lights out, I’m as tan as I need to be.”

  It’s coming up on three in the morning as I gimp-limp up the marble steps past the twin lions, briefcase in tow. Home sweet home. I’m going to eat this yak jerky, maybe the string cheese, and collapse.

  Christ, what a long-ass goddamn day.

  The DA was pissed. His usual state. Nothing new there. Why wouldn’t I respond to his multiple pages? Dealt with that.

  Was I aware that I’d permanently screwed my chances of walking normally ever again? This secondhand from my doc. No I had not been aware of this, but thank you for the heads-up.

  The lean, it gives me character.

  Was I some kind of smart-ass? Yes, I was.

  I enter the library, gladly accepting its cold embrace. Pull the flashlight out of its nook near the door, fire it up.

  Agents from the DA’s office had tailed me as far as the Maritime, and Rosenblatt knew I’d been nabbed, and in contact with Shapsko. What the hell was going on?

  This was far more complex to dance to, but I made it work. My play, as related to the DA, had been thus: I had described myself as a small-time operator: veteran, thief, mercenary, and jack-of-all-trades. Throwing myself on Shapsko’s mercy, and offering my services in any capacity.

  Far from being angered by my aborted break-in at his former home in Queens, and subsequent collision with his wife, Shapsko was impressed I had the wherewithal to track him down and tail him undetected. He was further impressed that I survived the encounter with his wife Iveta, about whom he didn’t seem to be too concerned; and that I obviously had sufficient government contacts to somehow arrange for a medevac.

  Yakiv had a job for me, which was “sensitive.” I was to meet him tomorrow, privately, to discuss details at his office on West 26th Street. If I didn’t show, Shapsko had said, he would find me and kill me.

  So, in short, Shapsko had bought my flimsy line of bullshit. My relief knew no bounds, I told Rosenblatt, who then asked if I thought he gave a shit about that?

  I told the goodly DA that my plan, then, was to use this opportunity to whack Shapsko in an intimate setting, as this evening in the hotel had not been ideal; should I have attempted anything untoward, the Ukrainian’s men would have gotten to me within seconds.

  And unbelievably, incredibly, DA Rosenblatt bought my flimsy line of bullshit. Of course, he made me squirm a bit and crowed on and on about my inability to do anything in a straight line, but in the end he bought it.

  Because he wanted to buy it.

  And he reiterated his warning concerning Iveta: this woman is a no-go zone. I was not to seek her out, I was not to come within one hundred yards of her, ever ever never again, no, no way, no how.

  This seemed redundant, as for all the DA knew I had no need to involve Iveta, but I didn’t comment. Don’t think I’m missing the fact that it’s now twice he’s gone out of his way to make protective noises about the woman, despite his total lack of ethics and usual disregard for collateral damage.

  Now I rub my forearm and examine the rising red bump. It looks innocuous enough, mosquito-bite minor. But I don’t dig it, not for a nanosecond.

  This was the big negative that came of my conversation with the district attorney. I’d lost the pager? No problem. He had insisted, rather, that I be electronically tagged. This way he could provide backup if I was abducted, etc. It was for his peace of mind, and for my own safety. His exact words.

  And best of all, my new friends, the strapping young soldiers in my company back on Eighth Avenue, had the necessary equipment to do it, right there on the spot. The machine looked like one of those old label-makers. I used to label everything in my room when I was a kid. Even my little fish tank: goldfish. Lest I forget.

  Little scraps of a life I assume is mine, patchy as hell.

  Anyhow. Freckles had administered it. Pop: a little pinch, and I had a state-of-the-art circa 2011 microchip buried in my arm.

  Fantastic.

  As I move into the belly of the library now, I consider the two GPS units affixed to my person. Who monitors them? How much information do they impart? What kind of equipment does one use to do so? Between Shapsko’s outfit and the DA’s office/military, who has the more impressive gear?

  I picture Shapsko’s moodily lit outpost as staffed by sexy Eastern European females of dark hair and complexion, clad in black catsuits, matte black earpieces, with a holographic wall of 3-D renderings of my precise position, posture, heart rate, and ever-shifting moods.

  Likewise, I envision the DA/military spread as a shoddy, fluorescent, plasterboard affair, some temporary office setup, hastily assembled, with shitty metal chairs and disgruntled, unattractive demotees peering at a blinking white blip on a black field like the earliest generation of video games, about whose location they can only make vague approximations.

  I bet you that over at Shapsko’s joint they have some sort of complex rotating computer model of—

  Hold it. I freeze midstep and am brought smack back to my surroundings. I direct the light left to right, and up and down the stairwell.

  Where are my pistachio shells?

  See: whenever word spreads (and it spreads fast) that I’m on a job, all squatters know to avoid this place, as if whatever nefarious shit I’m up to creates a field of bad energy that repels them. It’s weird but it’s true. I don’t mind; I’d much rather be alone at any given time, though I tolerate them when they’re around. It’s a public building. It’s my public building. So whenever I start a job, I know I need to be extra careful.

  And in case you haven’t caught on to this yet, I have a System. The System is made up of Maps, Rituals, and Patterns that I like to repeat in certain circumstances. Also Tokens, which I guess you might say in my case is the physical pill bottle, the key of course, and the bottle of PurrelTM. Plus my hat.

  Rituals are classified as Safety, Hygienic, and Other (or Miscellaneous, if you prefer, but Other is a less ungainly word, I reckon).

  One of the Safety Rituals is the Scattering of the Shells. I collect them in my shell bowl and cast them about as I leave the library without fail, always and only on the third set of steps. And I clean them up nightly with my trusty Dustbuster. Should I notice some crushed shells upon my return home, I might expect to find visitors upstairs, and be prepared accordingly.

  In this case I’m not seeing any shells yet, anywhere. Broken or otherwise. I play the flashlight up and down. Correction: since the lights are off in the whole building I’m going more by sound than sight, and I have not heard the familiar homecoming sound of crunching underfoot. Now I’m visually confirming it. No shells at all are present here, halfw
ay up the third set of steps.

  I kill the flashlight and darkness, complete and total, hustles in to surround me.

  Okay. I kneel, wincing, and feel for the latches on the briefcase. The lock is already spun into its correct open position. Six-six-six. Locating the latches, I ease the case open.

  I’m not 100 percent familiar with this particular handgun, but I’ve seen it assembled and so I go through it slow, massaging each component and sliding it into place as quietly as possible.

  Sig Sauers are pretty intuitive and user-friendly.

  A couple things occur to me now. One: whoever is here is probably already aware that I’m here as well. And two: the suitcase came with some nifty night-vision goggles.

  I slide my hand around until I hit them, feel for the front of the gadget, remove my hat, and pull them over my head and into place. That’s better. I replace my hat.

  Blood tint my world.

  And I almost puke from the force of what is unmistakably a “memory”: moonscape-like vista, made unreal by the red tinge that brought on this vision, I see a tank, a Humvee, two or three civilian vehicles, a cart and some livestock, visible heat waves shifting near the ground, and a couple low houses. In the middle distance, a hitherto unseen man casually stands up, starts making hand signals to unseen persons or person behind him. I squeeze off a shot, his chest explodes, and I understand that a short-term goal has been accomplished.

  Wham. I’m back in the present but Jesus that shakes me up. My perspective had been through some sort of infrared scope.

  What did I do that would cause my brain to be so completely fragmented regarding certain things, and so photographically specific in its recall of others?

  What did I do?

  Can’t go there now. Won’t go there. I hear my mother’s voice: If not now, when? To which I say, If I had my way, never.

  I close the briefcase, remove my shoes and socks, and leave them on the staircase. Proceeding then down the hallway leading to the Reading Room, holding my gun and flashlight crisscrossed in the manner of all law enforcement, at least as depicted by Hollywood. Why? Habit. Plus it looks cool.

  I note: the generator has been turned off. Godamnit, how did they find the fucker? Further, there has been extensive tampering, as the battery-powered camping lanterns I had hung down the length of the hallway are not illuminated. Pain in my ass. If this turns out to be some kids fucking around …

  Pausing near the entrance to the Reading Room (because it would naturally be here that anyone would come; the Reading Room is the heart of this place and it has a special magnetism), I listen closely to determine if anyone is just inside the doors. Ninety seconds and I’m satisfied that if I have guests they’re further within the huge space.

  I crouch and slowly rotate my body into the hall. I’m very pleased to notice that the goggles are heat sensitive, so hot dog! Right away I spy two individuals, one wedged between wall cases on the west side of the room, one on the east—I can see him only partially as the benches block my view.

  Note another man stand up and move slowly west across the room to join his companion.

  Three men total. I think. Touch my key for luck.

  Sizing this up, it appears to me that the fellow on the easternmost side was in the middle of going through my belongings when my presence was detected. I can see that my gear is not properly placed in my preferred nook, which is just to his right.

  Based on this, I’m assuming that this man will be the most dangerous, and the most useful of the three in terms of answering questions I might have; and that the other two are most likely along for added weight.

  I wish I could see more of the man to the east; I want to disable him, but all I’ve got is a partial view of his head and chest. That won’t do.

  Decisions are made for me, which is just as well, as one of the two fellows to the west begins to move quickly in my direction, feeling his way along the wall so as not to trip on the long tables. I doubt if I’ve been spotted, I reckon he’s been told to go cover the door.

  The trouble with the night-vision goggles is that anything warm-blooded appears to be nothing but a glowing shape, like that smudgy picture of the hoax Yeti. I don’t get a lot of detail, especially when they’re in motion.

  At any rate, I go ahead and draw a careful bead on the moving figure, and shoot him in what I hope to be the head. I seem to have hit him as his lungs evacuate and he disappears behind the tables.

  The other two are in motion now, and of course they saw the muzzle flash so I’m moving too, in an easy sideways roll. Foremost I want to disable the man who was digging through my shit, and he’s up and running toward my previous position.

  I take a calculated gamble, keeping half an eye on the other guy, and I wait till my first target has emerged from behind the row of tables. As he does so, I fire from about fifteen feet out at what I hope to be his leg, trusting I don’t hit an artery, this in tribute to Iveta Shapsko, as that was such a simple gesture and one almost forgets to opt for nonfatal options in emotionally charged situations like this.

  But me, I’m at a remove from the emotional world. I feel disembodied, analytical, and it’s a very pleasant sensation. Feels like a safe place.

  Man number one, as I think of him, goes crashing face forward, bouncing off the edge of a table, and begins shrieking like a banshee. Which jars me out of the zone, it seems so totally inappropriate, this being a library and all. I wanna shush him just on principle, start thinking sloppy. Therefore, I momentarily lose connection with man number three, who I can no longer see.

  There’s a break in the action, an intermission.

  Number one is now on the ground, he ceases screaming, jagged breathing for a moment … Suddenly he’s speaking, it’s Slavic … it’s Serbian, and my Serbian is a little rusty … He’s calling to God or his buddy, calling out my position perhaps.

  So I roll gently out into the middle of the aisle that separates the two table banks and bisects the room, reckoning, correctly, that man number three is moving cautiously down said aisle, approximately twenty feet away.

  I take about three seconds to make sure I get in a chest shot, which I follow up as fast as I can with a bullet to the skull. The guy drops to his knees, remains there for a moment, and falls sideways, most likely dead before he connects with the floor.

  Man number one has been speaking all the while; as I listen I can feel my brain adjust and the language becomes more and more comprehensible. He’s saying, “Shoot two meters to the left of my voice, shoot low.” As I’m processing this he gets off a bullet that grazes my ear, incredible if indeed the guy isn’t able to see in this darkness. All sound on that side is converted to a highpitched tone, and I feel warmth …

  I’m concerned about my suit so I fall sideways, quick, catching myself and sliding to the left, ensuring (hopefully) that I can keep blood off my collar and shoulder. I’ve got a great view of man number one now, who is frantically trying to determine if he hit me or not, waving his pistol this way and that.

  I can take my time to steady myself and have a long look at my target. Once I’m satisfied with this, I shoot him in the hand, which causes him to lose hold of his gun, which lands between us.

  From there it’s a simple matter of sliding over to him, laying down my pistol for a moment, and grabbing his weapon. I jam it down the back of my pants and pick up my gun again.

  He switches to English. “Hey,” he says. “Hey. Okay. Enough. Hey—”

  I direct the flashlight at his face and turn it on, still lying sideways. This is a white man, mid to late thirties, slightly overweight, a large scar creating a second mouth below the one he was born with, crew cut, polo shirt, and jeans. His eyes are rolling backward as if trying to get a look at the top of his head. I slide still further in his direction.

  The man seems to be going into shock, so I backhand him with the flashlight. He sputters and his eyes double back toward me, though he doesn’t look particularly frightened, just confused …
He’s got a hole in his thigh, thankfully the blood that continues to collect is just shy of my elbow.

  Anyway, I think I have his attention. “Give me your shirt,” I say in Serbian.

  “Hey,” he says in English to the ceiling. Then, in Serbian: “What?”

  “I said give me your goddamn shirt, and don’t bleed on it.”

  It appears painful, I get a look at his hand, destroyed as it is by my last shot, his pinky gone, ring finger missing above the second joint. Damn, I didn’t intend to do that much damage. He manages, heroically, to work his shirt off with getting too much blood on it.

  I snatch it, ball it up in my left hand, and press hard on my ear. Then I stand up. Stomp on his kidney once, twice for good measure. Bare feet, but still. If this suit is ruined, so help me …

  Pull the jacket off, awkwardly trying to hold his shirt to my ear as I do, and throw it over a bench. It looks okay but it’s impossible to tell through the goggles. Did I mention this was my last good suit?

  This guy isn’t doing much more than groaning, and won’t be going anywhere soon. It’d be best if he didn’t bleed to death, as he and I need to have a talk, so I hobble over to his buddy, another husky fellow plus a beard.

  It was a clean head shot with a perfectly round, smallish entry wound, messy in the back where the bullet left his skull. Plus that chest shot … I got to say it: I’m pretty tight when it comes to the gunplay. Just saying. I don’t examine him, rather I tear off his T-shirt, rip it into two pieces.

  I go check on the other guy across the room real quick. Yup, I hit him dead on, through the right eye socket. He’s still moving around, so I kneel and place my gun under his jaw, his left eye radiating panic, and fire, the bullet passing though the top of his head.

  This done, I return to man number one. Say, “Your people are dead. But for you, sir, I’m going to wrap up these wounds, show you I’m a …” I search for the correct Serbian idiom. “A reasonable kind of guy.”

  I pull on a pair of surgical gloves that I’d kept in my back pocket. Switch back to English.