Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

  Head toward Lesser, seated at the far end, in a suit with a white hood over his head.

  Lights go out.

  Lights come up again.

  And now, between them and Lesser, sitting in a seat, or not sitting exactly, but coiled, hunched, is a huge mound of knotted muscle. They can only assume it’s a man. It’s bald-headed and hairless. The rest of it just looks like a gnarl of scarred flesh. Skin the color of something that’s been left out to spoil. Faint foul odor in the car now too. The beast before them wears no clothes, save for some rags wrapped clumsily around its midsection. Some needless nod to modesty.

  Turns its bald head, which looks like a thumb bent on top of a clenched fist.

  Beast squints.

  Spots them.

  Grunts.

  Begins to stand.

  Fold upon fold of muscled flesh unfolding.

  Beast rises.

  Regards them both.

  This hairless creature with pinprick black eyes and a mouthful of splintered teeth.

  Looses a kind of strangulated cry.

  A wheezing roar.

  And around the splintered teeth, something like a foul smile forms.

  Then it stretches out its two corded arms and wraps its thick fists around the poles on the opposite sides of the subway car. Sets its feet.

  Gets its grip.

  Snarls.

  Tugs.

  There’s the shrill sound of metal buckling.

  As the subway car starts to fold in on itself.

  The foul smile widens.

  Do-Best.

  37.

  I finger the box-cutter in my pocket again. Grip it. Get ready.

  Boonce checks his watch again. You can barely see it now, that big chunky watch, lost against the backdrop of all his fancy tattoos. Now that I look closer, I realize how elaborate the tattoos are. Not just snakes and flames twining up each arm, but a whole panorama of apocalypse etched across his chest, and back, and neck. An ink-black swirl of snakes and flames and horses rearing and pale cloaked riders with skeletal faces shrieking and sinners wailing and lost souls writhing in final agony as the Earth is rent open and damnation is loosed upon the world.

  Boonce looks up from his watch.

  Admiring my ink?

  Nods to his chest, his neck, his arms.

  Took years. Painful as fuck, I will say that. To the kids watching at home? Do not get tattoos.

  Looks back to his watch.

  Okay, so your friends in the limn should be arriving in the last car right about now, assuming they got through Do-Good and Do-Better, which I think is a pretty good bet. To be honest, Do-Good’s a bit of a hayseed and Do-Better—well, my money might be on her, she’s good, but then, all due respect to Simon and that angel friend of yours. In a different world, I’d like to think that Simon and I could have worked together. Accomplished great things.

  Looks up at me.

  Ah, well. Regrets.

  As Boonce talks, he walks the perimeter of the office, which is floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. Behind him stretches the backdrop of dead Times Square. Towering neon billboards that haven’t been lit for years, sitting blind and dead-screen gray. On other buildings, the signs that no one bothered to turn off still cycle through old ads no one will ever see. Ads for canceled sitcoms, forgotten blockbusters, Broadway spectacles long since closed. There’s one ad on repeat in the background, for some kind of newfangled circus. The ad must have played fifteen times while we’ve been standing here. Some kind of circus starring clowns with long chins and white faces. Acrobats in leopard prints. Panthers leaping through burning hoops. Just playing to a dead square now. To emptiness. To nothing.

  Boonce watches it too. Then turns back and says to me.

  So let’s just assume your friends made it through. As for your lady-friend with the baby back in Hoboken, well, the odds are a little worse for her. I’ve got my best men on that case. Well, best man and best woman.

  Stage whispers.

  That Luckner is a beast.

  My chest clenches again when he says this, twice as hard as before. Feel Boonce’s fist wrapped around my heart. Tightening.

  Say to Boonce.

  Don’t. They’re just—leave them out of it.

  He smiles. Says nothing.

  Boonce, please. Please. Leave them alone.

  His smile dissipates.

  No, Spademan, you leave them alone. Again and again and again. You left them alone in the woods and you left them alone in Hoboken. That’s what you do, apparently.

  You don’t need to hurt them to hurt me.

  He cuts me off again.

  Sorry, but it’s done. My people tend to be pretty quick, if that’s any consolation.

  Checks his watch. Waiting. Still. For something. So I ask him.

  Why, Boonce?

  He looks up at me. Impatient now.

  Do you know what I’ve learned in my time in law enforcement?

  What?

  There are fingers on triggers in this country, Spademan, and all they need is an excuse to pull. That’s what they’re born to do, that’s what they’re trained to do, and it’s what they live to do. That’s all they are—fingers. And without triggers, these fingers have no meaning. Triggers, and a reason to pull.

  Boonce checks his watch again.

  So these fingers, Spademan, they lie in wait. For a reason. A story, really. A story to tell you, to tell me, to tell themselves.

  Boonce gestures to the city.

  To tell them.

  Checks the watch again. Not yet time. So he continues.

  That’s what I do, Spademan. I’m a storyteller. I write stories.

  Looks back out over the skyline.

  More specifically, I write endings.

  Boonce slips his hands in his suit-pant pockets.

  Here’s my latest story, Spademan. Tell me what you think. It’s the tale of an Arab exile who comes to a fallen city and works to recruit others to join him. Let’s say he’s a brilliant prodigy with a tragic past, with a reason to hate America, and now he’s found a way to tear into the one last refuge that’s left to any of us. The magical limnosphere. Our beloved last hiding place. Those of us who matter, anyway. Good so far, right?

  I don’t answer. Just let Boonce prattle. He waits a second, gets no answer. Prattles on.

  Now let’s say our dangerous terrorist hatches a plot to murder the very millionaire who brought him here. I have to admit, that was a twist even I didn’t see coming, but sure, I can work with it. And then let’s say our terrorist goes even further and murders a mayoral candidate—the one man he fears might be strong enough to stop him. What then would we all be willing to do to bring down a man like that? If we heard that story? What would be justified then?

  There’s a faint hum rising in the room now and the windows seem to start to thrum. We’re high enough up that at first I think it’s maybe just a high wind. Boonce notices it too. Smiles. Continues.

  Do you know what I’d be willing to do if I heard a story like that, Spademan?

  What’s that?

  Pull all the triggers. Every last one.

  But that story’s not true, Boonce. Not any of it.

  True or not, it doesn’t matter, once the first shots have been fired. Wars aren’t fought over ideas, Spademan, or beliefs—you must know that. They’re fought over stories. You tell your story, I tell my story, then we fight. The winner gets to write the ending. That’s how history works.

  So what, Boonce? You’re going to—kill Bellarmine? Kill Shaban? Burn this whole city down?

  He smiles.

  For starters.

  His smile lingers, like the afterimage on a TV that’s just been turned off. It’s not the smile of someone who knows he’ll win. It’s the smile of someone who’s already won and feels sad that the game is over, and was won so easily.

  The smile fades. Then he shrugs. Lost in some private thought. Checks his watch again.

  What are you so anxious fo
r, Boonce?

  He looks out the window. Over the stilled city.

  I’m just waiting for my triggers to arrive.

  As he stares at the skyline, I put my thumb on the slide of the blade in the box-cutter in my pocket. Slide the blade forward. Find a good length. Ready it. Run my thumb along its edge. Figure I pull it out, then it’s four good steps to Boonce, if I take him at a dead run. He’s close enough to the window now that I can tackle him and maybe send us both straight out through the glass and into the sky. I wonder how strong these windows are. What kind of impact they can take. What it would take to shatter them and send us both out over the square in a shimmering cloud of shards, sprinkling down around us as we fall.

  From this height, it’s three, four seconds before we hit the pavement of Times Square.

  Long enough to get some cutting in. Work on his throat on the way down.

  While we drop.

  Just like the New Year’s ball.

  Three.

  Two—

  Tempting thought. And I’m almost ready. First, though, I have to ask.

  What was it, Boonce? What had Lesser figured out? What was worth all this?

  Boonce looks back at me, and he’s about to speak—then his eyes flutter. He looks left, right, left again, winces, as though he’s recalling something painful.

  Then he looks at me.

  Says nothing now.

  Just flexes his hands.

  Breathes deeply.

  Exhales.

  Now he speaks.

  Something so much better, Spademan. So much better. You can be my witness.

  Witness to what?

  To this.

  Boonce closes his eyes slowly. Exhales again. Deeply. Coughs up a guttural growl.

  Then opens his eyes wide.

  His eyes completely white now.

  If you’ll excuse me for just a moment, your friends have finally arrived.

  38.

  Simon and Mark are so distracted by this heaving mound of seething muscle and the subway car collapsing that they don’t notice the white-hooded figure in the chair at the end of the subway car suddenly tremor, spasm, settle calmly, then rise slowly to his feet.

  Then reach a hand up to pull off the white hood.

  A red hand.

  Pulls the hood off.

  Revealing his face.

  A red face.

  Boonce.

  But Boonce stained red.

  From head to hands and every inch of exposed skin in between, Boonce’s flesh is colored crimson. White-blond hair cropped close to the skull.

  Hair white.

  Eyes white.

  Smile white.

  Flesh red.

  Bright red.

  Blood-red.

  He’s got Mark and Simon’s attention by now.

  Boonce stands in his suit, straightens his tie, and in one swift movement strips off the jacket and shirt, tears them away and discards them, leaving him bare-chested.

  No elaborate tattoos on his torso in the limn.

  Just one tattoo. Inked across his chest.

  In Gothic script.

  NOCEBO.

  Boonce looks down at his chest. Then up at Mark and Simon. Asks them both.

  How’s your Latin?

  Mark and Simon say nothing.

  Boonce smiles.

  Rough translation? I will harm.

  Then Boonce walks calmly toward Do-Best, who’s still snarling like a beast on a chain, and Boonce pets him gently, then places his palm on Do-Best’s forehead like a faith healer.

  Do-Best seizes. Then drops.

  Just slumps without a sound to the subway floor. Shivers. Then stills.

  Boonce looks down at him almost sadly, like Do-Best’s a dog he had to put down.

  Then he looks back up at Mark and Simon.

  Be thankful. You guys would never have got past him.

  One Times Square.

  Boonce is still standing there, in front of me, eyes closed, motionless, calm, his arms loose at his sides, breathing steadily, like he’s meditating.

  And me with my box-cutter. Thinking.

  This is it.

  This is the moment.

  The box-cutter’s ready.

  More than ready.

  I’m ready.

  Do it now.

  Do it now.

  Do it now.

  But I don’t.

  Because there’s one more thing I need to know.

  Hoboken.

  Puchs knocks three times on the apartment door with a knuckle, his other hand gripped around the gun.

  Doesn’t even flinch at the sight of the dead Pushbroom guy nailed to the front door with the note.

  Just knocks.

  No answer.

  Tries the knob.

  Door’s unlocked.

  So he half turns the knob quietly, then signals to Luckner.

  Signal tells her, Cover me. I’m going in.

  She nods, though she’s not happy. Leave something for me, she thinks, as Puchs turns the knob slowly the rest of the way.

  Door opens with a click.

  Puchs cracks open the door and peeks into the apartment.

  Thinks of calling out Persephone’s name but doesn’t want to spook her and besides, what does it matter? This won’t take long.

  Just a woman and a baby.

  Won’t take but a moment.

  Puchs slips inside.

  One Times Square.

  Boonce’s eyes slide open again.

  He looks at me. Seems almost surprised I’m still here.

  This is harder than I thought, but it’s a trip, Spademan. Such a trip. Too bad you’ll never experience it. I’ll have to leave you in a moment. Leave you here, in Times Square, where it all began. It’s fitting, though, isn’t it? To leave you here. Where you were born.

  I was born in New Jersey, Boonce.

  He smiles.

  Someone was born in New Jersey, maybe. Spademan was born in Times Square.

  And that’s when I ask him. The obvious question. The same question I asked him the first time that I met him, back at Grand Central Terminal.

  Why me?

  He shrugs.

  The motorman.

  Not the answer I expected. So I say to Boonce.

  What about the motorman?

  He’s the last piece, Spademan. The last loose end. And I thought, stupidly, because I have a sentimental streak, that it would be okay to let him live out his life in peace up in Beacon, what few years he has left. Just let him live out his days in exile. And I figured no one knew. No one left alive, anyway. But then Harrow and his little henchman, what was his name?

  Milgram.

  Yes, that’s right. Milgram. They had to go and dig it up and then spill it to you. And you had to go and track him down. You drove right past his house, Spademan. The day after you turned up at Lesser’s apartment. The day I first brought you in. No way I could let you follow that trail all the way to the end. So I sent you on an errand. Find Lesser. After that, you just became a kind of useful idiot. Plus, I will admit, I do feel some responsibility.

  For Lesser?

  No. For you.

  What do you mean?

  If you were born here, Spademan, then I created you. Right here. In Times Square.

  But Boonce, I don’t—

  But then I do.

  And I don’t need to say it. I don’t want to say it. Not to Boonce. Not to myself.

  Don’t even want to know it.

  But I do.

  And I say it.

  You knew—

  I do say it.

  —you knew—

  Because now I know.

  —you knew about the plot against Times Square.

  Boonce looks almost regretful. Then he shrugs.

  Could we have stopped it? Would it have mattered?

  And just like that, the regret, whatever I saw there in his eyes for a moment, whatever flared up and flickered briefly, is gone. Snuffed out. Exting
uished. Like this city.

  He knew about Times Square.

  He knew beforehand and he let it happen.

  Boonce gazes out the window. Says to me.

  We didn’t plan it, of course. Well, maybe we gave it a nudge. Mostly I just saw what was coming and simply stepped out of the way.

  Why?

  Because when you see chaos approaching, Spademan, you either prepare to perish or you prepare to prosper. I mean—

  —and here he gestures again to the dead square below us—

  —look what happened after Times Square. A new world flourished. The off-body world. A world I must now leave you in order to join.

  The windows of the building are really thrumming now, singing like plucked strings.

  Boonce grins.

  More than join, actually, if all goes well.

  He reaches out his hand.

  Your box-cutter, Spademan.

  Stands still with his hand out. Palm open. Says again.

  Your box-cutter. I know it’s in your pocket. Come on. You can see I’m unarmed.

  You want me to give you my box-cutter?

  No, Spademan. I want you to use it on me.

  And now he drops his hand back to his side so that both arms are dangling, relaxed and loose, his head back, his throat exposed, and he closes his eyes calmly.

  And he says.

  I want you to use it on me, Spademan. Do the one thing you’re good at. One last time.

  I feel the box-cutter in my pocket and I grip it. My thumb traces the sharp edge of the extended blade. I slice my own skin. Draw blood. I can feel the blood pool, warm in my pocket. Then I take my sliced thumb and slide the blade shut. Pull my hand from my pocket. Tell Boonce.

  No.

  He doesn’t even open his eyes. The windows are trembling now, shaking, as though they’re about to implode. Shower us both in a cascade of shearing glass.

  He says again.

  Use it, Spademan. End this.

  You want me to.

  Yes, I do.

  But it won’t end this.

  He opens his eyes.

  No, it won’t.

  Then he reaches his own hand into his suit-pant pocket.

  Well, if you won’t do that, there is one last thing you can do for me, Spademan.

  What’s that, Boonce?

  He smiles.

  Watch this.

  Then he pulls a short curved blade from his pocket.

  What’s that phrase? The one your wife was so fond of saying?