Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

  Not yet.

  Roll the van past slow.

  Driveway’s empty. Lights extinguished. No one’s home.

  And no time for me to wait around, since I need to get back to the city and check on Lesser’s banker.

  Motorman will have to wait. Lesser’s case is still nagging at me, and I want to put that whole thing to rest.

  Was supposed to be simple. Might still be.

  Because if I track down Lesser’s banker and find out he’s still alive, still tapped in and dreaming blissfully, that means Lesser was wrong, and the attack he witnessed was just a hoax or some kind of prank, and I can drop the whole thing and simply finish the job on Lesser.

  Finish Lesser.

  Then again, there’s a chance I go back and find out that the banker’s dead, and Lesser was right, and what he saw was real, and someone’s found a way to kill you while you’re in the limn.

  And if that’s true?

  Forget Lesser.

  Because I’ll have bigger problems. We all will.

  City’s crippled, but this would kill it.

  Watch it spiral into panic.

  Into chaos.

  Into worse.

  8.

  Unlike Mark, I don’t bother with the scenic route.

  Drive the ugly Major Deegan Expressway instead, right down the gullet of the Bronx.

  City’s quiet.

  Skyline’s stoic.

  You’d barely know it’s slowly dying.

  Upside is, I make very good time to Chinatown.

  Park the minivan in an alleyway. Lock it up tight. Lots of sticky fingers in Chinatown.

  Autolock beeps as I click the fob. Then I pull out my phone to call Mark about the A/C unit. Terrible reception, so I have to tell him twice. Then he reminds me that he doesn’t have a car.

  You took it, remember?

  Of course. Fuck. I forgot. So I tell Mark.

  Okay, listen, maybe I’ll call Margo, have her pick it up next time she’s headed out there. Could be a few days, though.

  I heard we’re expecting a heat wave, Spademan.

  Tell Persephone I’ll do my best.

  Hang up with Mark. Add another errand to my to-do list.

  Then think back to the good old days.

  Spademan, alone in Tribeca, early morning, walking the cobblestones.

  Taking phone calls.

  Killing people.

  Carefree.

  Before I suddenly found myself with a family.

  In Chinatown, I drop in on Mina Machina.

  She’s the former life partner of Rick the tech-head, an old friend of mine who’s no longer with us, thanks to Simon, which is another thing on the long list of things that Simon has to answer for. As for Mina, she’s also a crack limn technician, a so-called gizmo, just like Rick was, maybe even better, definitely more unreliable. She used to be a serious tapper, but she swears she gave it all up after Rick was killed. Now she’s head-clear, she claims, and running Rick’s Place, his old flop-shop, one of the many discount tap-in joints you’ll find in emptied-out Chinatown. Huge open floor full of beds, just tricked-out cots really, laid out in rows like a battlefield hospital. She changed the name of the place, though. Too many memories, she said.

  Rechristened it the Kakumu Lounge. For a classier clientele.

  Told me Kakumu’s Japanese slang for tourist dream. The dream you have when you’re away from home.

  Only the Japanese would have a word for that.

  Mina used to have a witch’s nest of waist-length staticky black hair, long bangs, kind of her trademark, but now it’s all shorn to the skull.

  Sign of mourning, she says.

  I admit, it brings her eyes out nicely.

  Like I’m a hairdresser now.

  We sit in the cramped reception room on a couple of beanbag chairs. I sink slowly and ask Mina about my banker, the one that Lesser peeped on. From Lesser’s description, the banker definitely doesn’t sound like the type who’d frequent a Chinatown flop-shop. No doubt he’s got his own luxury setup in a penthouse somewhere, a nurse, a top-notch bed, the whole works. But hoppers gossip, notoriously, and gizmos and hoppers talk. And if someone has a particularly weird or notable fetish like, say, orgies with amputee centerfolds, that tends to get around. Tends to trickle down, even to Mina.

  She scratches her shorn head. Thinks a minute.

  Still exhibits a bit of that tapper’s cognitive delay.

  Dressed in all black, also for mourning. Long black cloak. Black socks in bamboo sandals. Heavy eyeliner. Even heavier than normal.

  Still has that cross-shaped scar on her forehead too, though it’s faded a bit.

  Another souvenir from Simon.

  And yet another thing he has to answer for.

  Mina thinks.

  Then Mina speaks.

  And ever since she quit the tap, with her, when it comes, it comes in torrents.

  Yeah, I heard of a guy, banker dude, big money, you know the amputee thing is not that uncommon, but, as you know, some people get off on knowing they’re playing with the real thing out here, so this guy, he likes to hire amputee call girls, real ones, then tap them in, for that extra bit of verisimilitude.

  Amputee call girls?

  Mina shrugs.

  Hey, it’s a thing.

  Then she tells me the name of the banker she heard of who pays top dollar to recruit these call girls. Name’s Piers Langland. Lives at Astor Place, so she heard, in that fancy glass condo tower, the one that’s made out of wavy blue glass and kind of looks like it’s melting.

  Astor Place is not such a long walk from Chinatown, and it’s a nice day, so I thank Mina and head out, figuring I’ll stroll over and pay this Piers Langland a visit, ask a few questions, while the memory of him getting skinned and then blown up by a suicide bomber in the limn is still fresh in his mind.

  Stop on the street corner and pull out my phone. Dial directory assistance. Ask the automated operator to patch me through to the main desk at Langland’s building.

  Doorman answers. I ask for Mr Langland.

  Short silence.

  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, sir, but Mr Langland passed away peacefully in his bed just last night.

  Accept the doorman’s condolences.

  Then snap the phone shut.

  Could be just a coincidence, right?

  Which is right about the moment when a police cruiser makes a noisy U-turn on Canal Street, jumps the curb ten feet in front of me, and looses a pair of loud whoops from the siren just to make sure it’s got my attention.

  Driver waves me over.

  Driver looks Hispanic. The other cop, a black woman in dark sunglasses, her cap tugged low, sits silent in the passenger seat. The first cop, the driver, is hatless with a military haircut, crisp and precise, and the elbow of his waving-over arm is propped out the driver’s-side window. It’s so hot out that he’s wearing regulation short sleeves. Arm’s tattooed to the elbow. It still always surprises me to see cops with sleeve tattoos.

  His ink is fancier than most, though. No girlfriends’ names or hula girls or ribboned banners reading MOM.

  Just snakes and flames.

  I approach the patrol car.

  Can I help you, Officer?

  Spademan, just get in.

  I could run, but I’m not much for track and field.

  Besides, they’ve got a car. And they’re cops.

  So I get in.

  Slide into the backseat, which is sealed up, hot and airless as a kiln, with at least an inch of scratched Plexiglas separating me from my chauffeurs. Full of lingering odors from former occupants, who were either scared into soiling themselves in the backseat or just smelled that way before they got inside.

  Either way, backseat’s foul.

  Summer heat isn’t helping.

  Cop car makes another screeching U-turn on Canal that acquaints me abruptly with the other side of the backseat.

  I spend the rest of the drive to midto
wn wondering how the cop knew my name.

  9.

  Cop cruiser takes the empty FDR north at full lights and sirens. Not necessary, since there’s no traffic.

  But cops do love their lights.

  After Times Square, the NYPD took a lot of blame and a lot of abuse, and deserved at least a little of both. Times Square wasn’t like the first time, on 9/11, when everyone in uniform came off as selfless heroes. When Times Square happened, it had been nearly twenty years and countless foiled plots since 9/11, so people had forgotten how to be properly scared. Now they were just jaded and pissed. And unfortunately for the NYPD, safeguarding the city is the kind of job that, even if you fuck up just once, you’ve failed.

  They fucked up twice.

  First the subway bomb. The one that killed my wife.

  Random incident maybe. Hard to predict. Hard to stop. But still.

  Then came Times Square, an hour after that.

  Dirty bomb. Long plotted. Dots that should have been connected. Money transfers, online chatter, all leaving traceable trails in the ether.

  Bad guys’ fingerprints were all over it, in hindsight.

  Radioactive fingerprints. Practically glow-in-the-dark.

  Of course, second-guessing is easy. First-guessing is what counts. And with Times Square, they simply guessed wrong.

  Cops, feds, everyone.

  A national tragedy.

  All the car bombs that came after just felt like a bad hangover, like bad news on top of bad news.

  At first, there was a lot of sword rattling, of course. Press conferences with stoic cops in full dress uniform in front of a row of crisp flags. Strident vows of stepped-up vigilance. Fists hammering lecterns to drive home the point.

  We. Shall. Not. Let. This. Pass.

  Podiums took a real beating that year.

  From the mayor, and the governor, and the president, all the way up the food chain, endless promises about new funding, extra training, renewed resolve. Then the city hired Robert Bellarmine, the crack expert in black ops, to come in and revamp the local effort. Took the mike in his bad suit and bristly black mustache and introduced himself in a squeal of feedback and cleared his throat and promised different tactics and different results.

  Meanwhile Times Square withered. Tourists disappeared. Businesses pulled down the iron grates. And the first trickle of locals drained out of New York.

  Everyone having been given an excellent reminder of how to be properly scared.

  Cop cruiser takes the Thirty-Fourth Street exit at a careen, tires whistling on the asphalt. Driver spins the steering wheel one-handed.

  Pigeons scatter.

  Cruiser screams up Park Avenue, practically airborne. Light bar sows red. Every traffic light clicks to green. You’d think they had the dying president in the backseat, clipped by an assassin’s near-miss.

  Instead of just me.

  Just a garbageman.

  And more businesses shuttered. And more locals left.

  And it turns out that, despite all the president’s speeches and the prime-time telethons hosted by handsome movie stars, the rest of the country was going through some pretty hard economic times of its own, and wasn’t all that interested in saving New York. The rest of the country didn’t have much appetite for funding new barricades and hiring new cops and sinking even more federal taxpayer funds into guarding a broken city they never really liked in the first place and definitely no longer gave a shit about ever visiting again.

  And at some point in there, between the car bombs and the budget crisis and getting cursed out daily on the streets for fucking up on the job twice in twenty years, the cash-strapped, overstretched, outnumbered, and underappreciated NYPD officially stopped giving a shit.

  Which is why, only three years after all the handshakes and press conferences and sword rattling and presidential promises, the mayor called a smaller press conference. Just a roomful of local reporters. And he announced a different initiative, an innovative public-private partnership, as he called it, that would allow the few large businesses that were still standing strong beside the city to invest directly in New York’s defense, as he said. The Strong City Initiative was what he called it, as he pulled down a velvet cloth to reveal a logo printed on a poster board. Two hands shaking in front of a resurgent skyline. One hand in a cop’s uniform. One in a business suit.

  Basically, the mayor put the NYPD up for sale.

  Cops still work for the city, officially, but now they’re paid for by private interests.

  New York’s Finest. Going cheap.

  Don’t get me wrong. There are still a few good cops out there. So I’ve heard.

  Look forward to meeting one someday.

  In the meantime, whole sections of Brooklyn haven’t seen a cop in two years.

  Queens too. The Bronx. Whole chunks of northern Manhattan.

  You see a cop car up there, you figure they took a wrong turn and got lost.

  Either that, or they’re out on some other sort of errand.

  Moonlighting.

  It’s okay, though, because, as the second part of the mayor’s Strong City Initiative, he announced he was relaxing the city’s gun laws. Completely.

  Let the citizenry take a more DIY approach.

  Next day, shotgun sales soared.

  Ride’s over.

  Cruiser pulls up beside Grand Central Terminal.

  Driver gets out and opens the door for me. I take note of his badge: Officer Puchs.

  His lady partner, in the sunglasses, circles around the cruiser to flank me. Her badge: Officer Luckner.

  I unfold myself from the backseat, only slightly bruised by our journey.

  Still no word on why we’re here.

  They just escort me inside.

  Grand Central.

  Last remaining jewel in the city’s tarnished crown.

  And I have to admit, it hasn’t lost its allure. Looking out from the balcony over the main concourse can still stop you short.

  A majestic landmark.

  Even empty.

  10.

  Correction.

  Almost empty.

  Single man in a suit waits for me by the big clock in the middle of the concourse floor.

  Checks his watch.

  Doesn’t trust the big clock, apparently.

  Cops march me down the stairs to meet him. Sound of our boots on the marble floor ricochets.

  Train-schedule boards all cleared. Ticket booths shuttered.

  Which is weird.

  Should be a few commuters, at least, even on a Sunday afternoon. After all, Penn Station’s long since been shut down. And there’s just weeds and rubble where Port Authority once stood. So Amtrak, LIRR, Metro-North, all the trains have been rerouted to Grand Central.

  City only needs one train station now.

  Even if you have to cover your mouth when your train arrives, run through the lobby, and hope for the best.

  Man in the suit holds out his hand for a handshake.

  Mammoth wristwatch rattles. One of those chain-link kind. Face as big as a compass.

  Ostentatious.

  Sunday’s word.

  Spademan, pleased to meet you. My name is Joseph Boonce.

  Pinstriped suit that’s very well tailored. Has to be, since he’s about a half foot shorter than me, at least. Maybe five-six. Maybe. So either he gets his suits custom-made or he shops at whatever the opposite is of a Big & Tall store. White-blond hair is cut close and conservative. He looks young. Not yet thirty. What’s the word?

  Wunderkind.

  The kind of guy who’s probably respected or resented by everyone in the office. Or both. Either way, his whole getup’s meant to convey extraordinary competence. Dress for the job you want, etcetera.

  Though my guess is he already has the job he wants.

  He somehow hoists his wristwatch skyward and points toward the atrium’s famous ceiling, arcing a hundred feet overhead. Storied mural of the Zodiac, played out across a pain
ted green sky.

  Starts his speech.

  We fought hard to keep this place intact, you know, to preserve it, when the rest of the city was going down the shitter. They had to fight once to protect this place from the wrecking ball, believe it or not, way back in the 1970s. Bureaucrats wanted to level it, build something more modern. But they fought to save this place back then, and we’ve had to fight for it now. Save it from everyone, on both sides of the battlefield. Savages who won’t be happy till this city’s burned to cinders, and bureaucrats who want to tear everything down and start again.

  His eyes meet mine.

  And yet it’s still standing.

  His eyes smile. Face follows.

  Pleased to meet you, Spademan. I like to take my meetings here. I have them shut down the lobby for me. I find it makes for a memorable first impression.

  Motions to Puchs and Luckner. Tells them they can open up again, let the people through. Puchs gives a sign to someone unseen. Schedule boards flutter back to life. Footfalls of the occasional commuter echo, people now loosed to hurry through.

  Then Boonce waves away Puchs and Luckner, who retreat to stand sentry.

  Turns to me.

  So, Spademan—you like oysters?

  The Oyster Bar in the basement of Grand Central is still open for business. At the lunch counter, a few lonely weekend travelers poke at fifty-dollar bowls of oyster bisque, based on that classic recipe: half an oyster and half a quart of cream.

  Boonce and I head back to the backroom, the saloon, which is empty, of course. Ancient maître d’ bows to Boonce then shows us to our table, smack-dab in the center of the room. Only table in the place set up with a white tablecloth.

  Saloon is nautical-themed. Model sailing ships tacked up on the dark wooden walls. Angry swordfish glued to plaques, posed to look like they’re still putting up a fight. Fake ship portholes for windows, but they don’t look out onto anything.

  Boonce flaps his linen napkin, then smooths it on his lap.

  So I assume you know who Robert Bellarmine is.

  Sure. I know his name from the Atlantic Avenue sweep.

  Boonce smiles.

  The sweep. Yes, if that’s what you want to call it. More like a massacre, if you ask me. But it sent a message. Which I guess was the point, right?