Boy Nobody bn-1

by Allen Zadoff

  As I ride up in the elevator, I’m thinking about last night.

  How I hesitated with the mayor.

  I decide it was a fluke, a “nonrecurring phenomenon.” That’s what Mother calls once-in-a-lifetime scenarios. I am trained for such things, trained to react to circumstances, adjust, and reapply myself.

  That’s what I’m going to do tonight. Reapply myself.

  Day two of five. I don’t intend to need the other three days.

  One sticking point: the Presence.

  My research turned up very little. I still don’t know who the Presence and his team are working for, or what their intention is. If I complete my assignment tonight, will I have to contend with them?

  I decide I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

  The elevator doors open, and I’m in the penthouse vestibule.

  The Pro is there, waiting.

  First obstacle.

  “Hello again,” I say.

  No reaction.

  Not quite true. No reaction for a second, and then he says, “Turn around and put your hands above your head.”

  “Why do I have to turn around?” I say.

  “Because I’m going to search you,” the Pro says.

  I wonder what this is about. Is it standard operating procedure, or am I getting special attention because he’s suspicious?

  No matter. I have to react like a normal teen might. In this case, belligerently.

  “You didn’t search me last night,” I say.

  “Tonight’s different.”

  “What about my civil rights?”

  “This is not a discussion. Turn around, or walk back out the door.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  I turn around and lift my arms.

  I was anticipating this, or at least the possibility of it. I’m carrying a wallet with thirty bucks and a school ID. I’m wearing a watch. I’ve got a phone and a ballpoint pen.

  That’s it.

  The Pro finds them all. Finds and dismisses.

  “You’re okay,” he says.

  But he still searched me. I’m going to need to leave quickly later, so I have to do some damage control.

  “You here all the time?” I say.

  “What do you care?”

  I make my voice friendly. “I’m just wondering if you have a family.”

  He ignores me, knocks at the apartment door on my behalf.

  We stand there waiting. He glances at me.

  “I’ve got a family, but I don’t see them much.”

  A moment of humanity. I can use this.

  “No kids?” I say.

  “I’ve got a son. He’s in the military.”

  “Just like his father.”

  “Why are you asking so many questions? You want to be a soldier when you grow up?”

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  “Don’t do it. It’s a tough life. You got a second choice?”

  “Lawyer. They make bank.”

  He chuckles. That’s a good sign. Let his last memory of me be of a funny kid he likes. It’s going to make things easier.

  Sam opens the door.

  “Welcome back,” she says.

  She’s wearing a simple print dress covered by a kitchen apron. No makeup, but it doesn’t matter. She looks fabulous.

  “Hey there,” I say.

  “Come in.”

  I glance back at the Pro. “Take care,” I say, but he doesn’t respond.

  Sam shuts the door behind me. Her hair is freshly washed. I can smell the sweet scent of her shampoo as I pass by.

  “I didn’t know tonight was dressy,” I say.

  Her hand goes to the apron.

  “Oh, this. I’m cooking.”

  “Do you know how?”

  “I just learned this morning. I hope you have a strong stomach.”

  I smile, and she takes my coat. I slip my pen out before she does.

  “Are you angling for another autograph?” she says.

  “It’s my lucky pen. I always carry it with me.”

  “Do you need luck tonight?”

  “From what you say about your cooking? Maybe.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay. The truth is I like to cook. Family night, there’s no staff around. Just Dad and me.”

  “And the Easter Island statue outside the door.”

  “He’s new,” she says. “They increased Dad’s security a few weeks ago.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “I can’t really talk about it.”

  The mayor calls from down the hall, “Is that Benjamin?”

  He comes puttering out, relaxed and slightly rumpled in a button-up sweater and khakis. You wouldn’t know this was one of the richest men in the country.

  “Welcome back,” he says.

  “I already said that, Dad.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  “I’m going to check my sauce,” Sam says. “Can you keep each other company for a few minutes?”

  A few minutes. That might be enough time for me.

  “I refuse to let you back in that kitchen,” the mayor says. He heads toward the kitchen himself.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Sam says.

  “I want you to spend time with your friend.”

  “But my sauce,” Sam says.

  “I manage the city,” he says. “I can probably keep your sauce from burning for ten minutes.”

  I say, “Don’t you have deputy mayors for sauces?”

  The mayor laughs. “I like your style,” he says.

  “Just make sure you keep stirring, Dad.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He salutes and heads into the kitchen.

  “Looks like we’re stuck together,” I say.

  “As painful as that is,” Sam says, and she grins at me. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  “Didn’t I get that last night?”

  “If you’re nice, I’ll take you someplace you haven’t been yet,” she says.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Don’t ask so many questions,” Sam says.

  And then she leads me to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  A HALF-DOZEN PICTURES OF HER MOTHER ARE FRAMED ON THE DRESSER.

  There are more on the wall by her bed. Some show her mother alone; others show her posed with different family members.

  “Your mom’s everywhere,” I say.

  Is this why she brought me here? To show me this?

  “It’s good for me to have her pictures around,” she says.

  People keep photos of those they love. It comforts them. I know this, but I don’t understand it. Not really.

  “Why is it good?” I say.

  “I feel like a part of her is here with me.”

  “A part of her. Is that enough?”

  “Sometimes it is. And other times—”

  She picks up one of the pictures. She’s four or five years old in the photo, holding hands with her mother.

  “You don’t have pictures from your childhood?” Sam says.

  “Not like you do.”

  One of the photos on the dresser catches my attention. Sam stands in a desert next to a young man in combat fatigues with an Uzi on his shoulder.

  Not just any young man.

  The same one I saw in the picture of Sam at her mother’s funeral on the computer in the school library. The soldier who seemed to be staring at her.

  “Who’s this?” I say.

  “Just some soldier. It was a photo op when we visited the Negev.”

  “A tourist thing, huh?”

  “Exactly. What’s a trip to Israel without a cool picture of a soldier with a gun?”

  He’s not just some soldier. He’s in two separate photos with Sam taken at different times.

  Which means she’s lying to me.

  The question is why.

  I pick up the photo and tension immediately forms around her lips.

/>   It’s subtle, but I see it.

  Sam is maybe thirteen or fourteen in the photo, the hint of a young girl still in her face. The soldier next to her is fierce-looking. He is around nineteen. Dark complexion, curly hair.

  I recognize something about him.

  Maybe it’s his eyes. They’re hard, like a soldier’s.

  “You’re really into that picture,” Sam says. She’s nervous. I hear it in her voice.

  “You look so young,” I say.

  “I was a babe in the woods. Actually, a babe in the desert.”

  “I noticed that. Looks like the soldier did, too.”

  Suddenly the nervousness is gone. She comes forward and takes the photo out of my hands.

  “Are you jealous, Ben?”

  “Of course I am. I wish I knew you back then.”

  “I wish you did, too,” she says.

  She puts the photo away and sits down on her bed. I sit next to her.

  “All these pictures of your mother,” I say. “Can I ask how she—”

  “You didn’t read about it?” she says.

  “The paper and reality are two different things.”

  She hesitates, like there’s something she wants to talk about, but she stops herself.

  She says, “It was an accident. She was driving, and she got hit. It happened when we were in Israel.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. Life is like that.”

  “Filled with accidents?”

  “Unfair,” she says.

  I think of the last time I was in my father’s office at the university. He’d gone to a meeting and left me there for safekeeping. I sat on the sofa reading, content to be alone in his space, surrounded by my father’s books and papers, believing that he would be back soon.

  But he didn’t come back.

  The memory plays on a loop in my head.

  The call that there had been an accident.

  Running home to find Mike sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me.

  A sensation passes through my body. A strange sensation. It causes a constriction in my chest and throat.

  Sam is watching me.

  “Have you ever lost someone?” she says.

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s hard for you to talk about, isn’t it?”

  I don’t answer her.

  She says, “If you ever want to talk to me about it—I’ve been there. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I say.

  Sam looks at a picture of her mother holding up a baby with a pink barrette in its hair.

  “It changes you, doesn’t it?” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “Kids!” Sam’s father calls from the kitchen.

  “He still thinks I’m a kid,” Sam says. “How could I be a kid with everything that’s happened?”

  I breathe in and out. It is more difficult than it should be.

  “Are you hungry?” Sam says.

  “Very,” I say.

  It is a lie.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  HER FATHER’S FOREARM IS EIGHTEEN INCHES AWAY ACROSS THE TABLE.

  It’s covered in light brown hair. Freckles dot the arm. The skin is pale from too much time spent indoors.

  The arm reaches toward me to get the salt. It shifts from eighteen inches away to less than a foot.

  “What are you thinking about, young man?” the mayor says.

  I want to finish and get away from this place. That’s what I’m thinking. I don’t like what happens to me when I’m with Sam.

  “I’m thinking how good this tastes,” I say. “And how surprised I am, given the chef’s inexperience.”

  Sam kicks me under the table.

  The mayor’s arm picks up the salt and retracts. It shakes the salt. It returns it to the center of the table.

  “Despite what she tells you, Samara is a very good cook,” the mayor says.

  “Zabar’s is a very good cook,” Sam says.

  “It might have started as Zabar’s,” the mayor says, “but you transformed it into Samara’s.”

  “In that case I’ll take partial credit,” Sam says.

  The mayor pulls a camera out of his pocket.

  “I almost forgot,” he says.

  He points the camera, and I subtly lean back. I do not want pictures of me in this place, especially not tonight.

  The mayor moves his plate a few inches closer, leans down, and takes a picture of dinner. The flash lights up the room.

  “Dad,” Sam says with a groan.

  “Are you immortalizing our meal?” I say.

  “It’s for the Web,” he says. “I’m posting about my real life—the things I do, the things I eat. Transparency comes to City Hall.”

  Sam says, “My dad’s blogging. Can you believe it?”

  The mayor passes me the camera.

  I look at the picture of the dinner; the broccoli glows green in the light of the flash.

  “When Sam suggested it, I thought it was a terrible idea,” the mayor says. “But now that I’m doing it, it’s kind of fun.”

  “It makes you seem like a human being,” Sam says.

  “Instead of what? The monster I really am?”

  The Pro from the front door steps into the room. He doesn’t signal his presence. He just appears.

  The mayor notices him two seconds after I do.

  “Do you need me?” the mayor says.

  “I saw a flash,” the Pro says.

  “I’m taking pictures of my dinner,” the mayor tells him.

  I hand the mayor back his camera.

  The Pro nods. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Carry on,” the mayor says.

  The Pro goes on with his rounds.

  I’ve been here about forty-five minutes and he’s doing rounds. I’m guessing he’s on a once-per-hour schedule. Maybe less frequently given that there’s nothing going on and triple-redundant security between the apartment and the street.

  But to be cautious, I set a clock running for an hour in my head. Five minutes to finish his rounds, then an hour before I see him again.

  “I hate all the security,” the mayor says.

  “You’re not used to it by now?” I say.

  “NYPD, yes. Our boys in blue when I go to an event. But people in my home? That’s hard to get used to.”

  “Why do you need extra security?” I say.

  Sam looks at her father but doesn’t say anything.

  “State secrets,” the mayor says with a smile. Then he changes the subject. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

  I let it go for now.

  We dig in to dinner and Sam talks to her father about what’s happening in school. Stories of grades and tests and the various personalities she deals with day to day. It occurs to me that this is a conversation thousands of kids probably have with their parents every day. Talking during a meal, sharing stories, questions asked and answered, other questions avoided.

  It is the most natural thing in the world, but it is not something I do. My conversations are encoded communications, mission tasking, status updates. They are work-related only.

  This is real. This is how these people live their lives.

  You’re not missing anything.

  That’s what I tell myself. Even a mayor talking to his daughter is boring compared with my life. I live in a video game, and these people live in the world.

  “I’m afraid we’re boring you,” Sam says.

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “Maybe you thought dinner at the mayor’s would be special?” she says.

  “To be honest, I was expecting a twenty-one-gun salute between courses.”

  “Twenty-one guns?” the mayor says. “Is this a chicken dinner or a funeral?”

  I laugh.

  “Hey, guys, make sure you save room,” Sam says.

  “Why would we need room?” the mayor says.

  “For your surprise,”
she says.

  “You promised me—” the mayor says.

  “You know me,” she says. “I’m a liar.”

  “What’s going on?” I say.

  “It’s a special occasion,” Sam says.

  The mayor shakes his head no, but Sam ignores him.

  “It’s my father’s birthday today,” she says.

  The mayor covers his face with his hands.

  My mind races back to the profile. A birthday in itself might not be critical information, but a birthday that falls directly within the time frame of my assignment? How could I miss that?

  “It’s true,” the mayor says. “I’m a hundred years old today.”

  “Oh, please,” Samara says, nudging her father’s arm.

  “Okay, I’m fifty-two. But that’s closer to a hundred than it is to zero.”

  “Happy birthday,” I say.

  “You two stay here and finish,” Sam says. “I’ll just be a couple minutes.”

  She kisses the top of her father’s head and leaves.

  I look at the mayor sitting across from me.

  A couple of minutes. That probably means five.

  I picture the layout of the apartment, the four players and their locations.

  The Pro just finished a walk-through, so he’s most likely back in the front vestibule. Sam is in the kitchen twenty feet away from us through a swinging door that creaks on its hinges.

  That leaves the mayor. And me.

  The mayor stands up.

  “Seventh-inning stretch,” he says.

  “Good idea,” I say. I stand and stretch, too, emulating him. I use the motion to complete a full scan of the room.

  We’re alone.

  “I’m glad we have a minute together,” he says. “I want to continue our conversation from last night.”

  The mayor steps toward me, close enough that I can smell his aftershave. It is a pleasant smell. Clean and warm. Like a father should smell.

  My father.

  A wave of vertigo hits me and the room starts to spin. I jam my thumbs into my eyes.

  “Ben?” the mayor says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I said I need your help with something.”

  “My help?”

  I take my thumbs from my eyes.

  “Let’s talk in here,” the mayor says, and gestures toward the living room with a conspiratorial flourish.

  I let him walk away, and I take a big slug of water.

  I breathe. I focus my thoughts.

  I see myself as if from above, my position in the room, the apartment, the city block. Then I trace a pathway from me to the mayor, to the place on his skin where I will strike, and back out again.