“Said with all due respect.”
“Of course.”
He dug into his pocket for a dog treat and gave it to Ghost, who took it with great delicacy while giving me a vile and challenging look. Because Ghost was a combat dog he was trained not to accept treats from anyone but me. This is a rule Ghost breaks with a mixture of guile, outright defiance, and a sense of humor. He knows it bugs the shit out of me. Rudy is a frequent accomplice in this unsanctioned activity. As he munched the treat, Ghost gave me a look that said, “Hey, rules are human constructs, and as a lowly four-legged animal I’m clearly not capable of understanding the subtleties.” The smile on his doggy face didn’t sell his innocence. Not for a moment.
Rudy, pretending not to notice, stood by while I checked Ghost with the animal handlers. As they took him away, Ghost whined and shifted his expression so that he looked put-upon and oppressed. I know he’s messing with me, but it always works. I always felt guilty when we flew like this. I caught Rudy watching me.
“What the hell are you smiling at?” I growled.
“It’s not unreasonable to suggest that you like animals more than you like people.”
“Most people,” I corrected.
“Most people,” he agreed. He cut me a look. “How is Junie?”
“Away.”
He studied me, nodded, and didn’t pursue it.
“Say, Rude, did you just text me?”
“Me? Text? Surely you jest.” Rudy absolutely hates texting, believing it to be a sure and certain step toward an inevitable disconnect between people. He’s not all that much of a fan of phones, for that matter. He likes actual human contact. Weird.
Aboard the plane, Rudy took the aisle seat and I had the window. We watched the passengers file past us, many of them giving us looks of longing or contempt, because first class is comfy and no other seat on the airplane ever is. I know; I’ve squeezed my long legs into coach many, many times. The flight attendant brought us drinks, with which I tried to drown my guilt as old folks, women with children, and ordinary people crowded down the narrow aisle.
“You know that most flights don’t even offer free nuts and pretzels anymore,” I murmured to Rudy. “As if the marginal cost of twenty-four peanuts or eighteen pretzels will crash the stock for the airline. And yet up here in first class we pretty much get blow jobs and foot massages.”
He sipped his wine and, unlike me, met the eyes of the people filing into the plane. “Status is an entirely subjective thing. We both know that there are people in poverty who are both noble and of great value to humanity, and superrich whose intrinsic worth to society is too small to be measured, as well as every iteration in between. So having money, even having earned money, conveys a status that is entirely subjective. But because it has become a habit within civilized cultures, we share in the perpetuation of the shame. This moment is a wonderful case study of that. If our roles were reversed—and it has been for both of us—we would harbor the same resentment toward the people in these seats as the folks passing us do. And we’d be equally justified and equally wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Of course,” Rudy said. “There are so many assumptions attached to this. The configuration of the airplane necessitates that people are paraded past seats they know are more luxurious than the ones to which they are headed. The assumption is that we’re special and they’re not, which is untrue. It’s part of an enforced perception of social classes based on disposable income. Nothing about this speaks to the quality of our character.”
“No argument,” I said, and sipped my Jack-and-ginger.
A man in a rumpled business suit gave me a look of unfiltered contempt. The woman behind him was juggling a baby and two pieces of carry-on luggage. She glanced at us and quickly looked away.
Rudy leaned close to me. “You see that woman? She was actually so embarrassed that she couldn’t maintain eye contact.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“It’s not a logical thing, Joe. As I said, this is purely subjective. She has a child and clearly could not afford, or was unwilling to pay for, these seats, and she believes that to make eye contact is to share a conversation in which that financial disparity is a key topic. So instead she hurried past us. I would bet that she feels somewhat defeated as a person and as a mother, because this is an example of the things she can’t afford for her child.”
“That’s not fair, though,” I protested. “The only reason I can afford these seats is that I don’t spend a lot of the money I make, and Junie has her inheritance and—”
“You don’t have to justify it, Joe. Not to me and not to her. This isn’t a matter reinforced by logic. And don’t pretend that I don’t know you chose first class primarily for my comfort, because of my bad leg.”
I felt my face get hot. I mumbled something so low and indistinct that even I didn’t know what it was. Rudy patted my arm.
“Most people can’t justify the extra money for this kind of comfort. For most of our lives we couldn’t, either, and even now I tend to choose Economy Plus over first class because I’m appalled at the markup. The drinks, snacks, and food they give us, even coupled with the wider seats and extra legroom, doesn’t truly excuse doubling the fare. However, the airline knows that the status associated with first class is why people pay that money. There’s some snobbery in it for some of our fellow passengers in this class, and there’s affectation in it for everyone. Tell me you don’t feel more important when they announce that first-class passengers may board using the special-access lane, even though it means walking on a different-color carpet and passing on a different side of a metal pole?”
I said nothing. The Jack Daniel’s in my glass now tasted like toilet water. I drank it down and ordered another and glowered out the window. At one point, I heard Rudy chuckling softly to himself.
“You’re not a very nice man,” I told him.
That made him laugh out loud.
INTERLUDE FOUR
DAR EL TARBIAH SCHOOL
CAIRO, EGYPT
FOUR YEARS AGO
“The problem is ongoing,” said the school official, “and it’s escalating.”
“Then how can we help?” asked the doctor.
They sat together in the shade of an old fig tree in the small garden in front of the school. Children came and went, some nodding respectfully to the official, others lost in their own thoughts.
“This school is a rarity here in Cairo,” said the official, Aziz Negm, an energetic man of forty who oversaw the funding for the school as well as that of several community outreach programs. “We have donors and grants, and that allows us to provide a higher level of education for our students than, sadly, is common here. This is the fifteenth most populous city in the world, and it is an old city. When it was built, there was no way to foresee a population growth as intense as what we’ve experienced since the middle of the twentieth century. There is not enough agriculture and industry to adequately provide for all of these people. The poorest families spend half of their household income on food, and the food they can afford to buy is often less nutritious.”
“We have the same problem in the States,” said the doctor. “Poor people eating fast food and starving while becoming obese.”
“It’s obscene,” said Negm.
“Yes,” agreed the doctor. Howard Levithan, formerly of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and now with the World Health Organization, was a kind-faced man of sixty. Young-looking for his age, with laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, though he wasn’t laughing now.
“Malnutrition in Egypt is up,” said Negm, “with thirty-one percent of children under five years of age developmentally stunted as a result. Chronic malnutrition is irreversible and stops children from reaching their full physical and mental potential. It’s not just here, my friend, it’s everywhere. We are being forced to watch as a generation of children starve to death before our eyes. And it will only get worse.”
>
“Perhaps not irreversible, Mr. Negm,” said Levithan. “There are new food supplements being developed that can reverse some of the effects of even prolonged malnutrition.”
“Even cognitive deterioration?”
“It’s likely, though that is still being studied. The short-term effects of these supplements are improved overall health with a bias toward bone growth and a stronger immune system. We are aware that malnutrition brings with it acute vulnerability to certain diseases. The WHO and our partners are looking to push back against that trend.”
Negm leaned back. “That is quite a claim, Doctor. Is this also being tested on children in America?”
“Yes. Look, Mr. Negm,” said Levithan as he leaned in, “this isn’t a matter of the poor are offered a cure for a minor disease in exchange for agreeing to participation in clinical trials of a new drug. The WHO is not in the pocket of Big Pharma. We never have been, which is why we are often scrambling for funding. The food supplements I’m talking about are underwritten by grants from hundreds of different foundations, private donors, and legacy endowments. And, yes, they are being given to poor communities all over the globe, not just in Third World areas. The National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration have thoroughly vetted all of this, and we have independent laboratory analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and nine other organizations.” He paused. “It’s not a miracle solution. It doesn’t end hunger. This isn’t a magic trick. No, sir, what this does is provide essential nutrition at such a reduced cost that it can be manufactured and sold in mass quantities to areas like Cairo, Shanghai, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. And in the poorer sections of the United States as well.”
Negm frowned and looked down at the box that rested on the bench between them. Twenty food bars sealed in individual white wrappers. Each wrapper included ingredients and nutritional data. He picked one up and reread the information. The afternoon was hot, and there was a constant buzz and hiss from the trucks spraying for mosquitoes. As one truck rolled slowly past the school, the men turned to watch it.
“They’re spraying all the time now,” said Negm. “First for the mosquitoes carrying West Nile, now for Zika. What’s next?”
The doctor shook his head. “Mother Nature does not like to be thwarted.”
“Excuse me?”
“When we stop the spread of a disease by eliminating the vector—in this case, a certain subspecies of mosquito—it leaves a gap in the biosphere. Mother Nature abhors that vacuum and mutates something to fill it. You can track all of history by looking at how often small mutations have carved out large pieces of the human herd.”
The administrator winced. “I beg your pardon, Doctor, but that is a rather disturbing thing to say.”
Dr. Levithan nodded. “And, sadly, it’s true.”
* * *
Forty minutes later Dr. Levithan unlocked the door of his hotel room, entered, locked the door, and spent a few careful minutes using a small electronic device to make sure that no surveillance equipment had been installed while he was out. It was a ritual with him, no matter where he was in the world. Since beginning his work with nutritional supplements, he had visited seventeen of the world’s most populous cities. After a while, every hotel room looked the same. After a while, the masses of poor, starving, undereducated, dirty, and needy people of all ages began to blur. They gradually lost any trace of ethnic or cultural identity. They lost their attachment to age and gender. For Levithan they were simply “them,” and if they had any shared characteristic that he did take note of it was the constant outstretched hand. Give me, give me, give me. Said in a hundred languages, always meaning the same thing.
He took a hot shower and washed with the special soaps he had brought with him. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, opened a small zippered case, removed a small vial of amber-colored liquid, and used a disposable syringe to draw off one-third of the contents. He tapped the needle to remove air bubbles and then injected the drug into his thigh.
As he always did. Especially after the spray trucks had been through.
Because, God knows, he didn’t want to catch what those trucks were spraying. There were twelve full cases of the nutrition bars stacked against the wall of his bedroom. He would be visiting five schools tomorrow, four the day after that, and the last three on his final day in Cairo. So far he had obtained signed agreements from eighty-three schools in seven countries. His goal by the end of the year was to have an additional two hundred agreements signed. There were sixteen shipping containers sitting in the port, crammed to the ceiling with the bars. Another forty containers of the chemical spray had already been off-loaded and hoisted onto the backs of trucks for delivery throughout this part of the Middle East. The paperwork had been expedited by officials who wanted to expedite the delivery of those precious anti-mosquito chemicals. It amused Levithan to think that most of the officials, even some of those who took bribes as a matter of course, thought they were doing something good for their people.
Idiots.
Levithan sometimes found it hard not to laugh in their faces.
As for the others, those select few officials here and there who were on the inside track—to one degree or another—they were more practical. Not that Levithan liked them any more than he liked the rest of the unwashed herd. They were going to die, too. He did have a grudging respect for them. At least those few were realistic about the way things work. Even if they didn’t know that their worldview was only a partial one, clouded by their own genetic and cultural deficiencies. Mud people. Sand niggers. Levithan had a lot of different names for them that he used when talking with other members of the Havoc inner circle. Not terms he would ever use to the people here. No. Levithan disliked and even detested these people, but he fully appreciated their capacity for violence.
The other nineteen doctors in his group were doing the same kind of work he was. There was a delicious bonus for whoever moved the most tonnage, and Levithan believed that he would earn that bonus for the second year in a row.
He threw the syringe into the trash, ordered room service, and, while he waited, placed a scrambled call to Zephyr Bain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
INLET CRAB HOUSE
3572 HIGHWAY 17
MURRELLS INLET, SOUTH CAROLINA
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 9:03 PM EASTERN TIME
Bunny walked toward the woman, hands up and palms out in a “no problem” gesture. She stood her ground, eyes narrowed and suspicious, hands low at her sides, but her weight shifted slightly onto the balls of her feet. Ready to run, ready to fight.
“Officer Tracy Cole?” asked Bunny, stopping ten feet out.
Cole’s eyes were instantly filled with suspicion and hostility. “Who’s asking?”
Bunny smiled and nodded to the weeping muscle freak. “Right now, call me a fan.”
“That’s not funny,” said Cole.
“It’s a little funny,” said Bunny.
She measured out a meager slice of a smile. It was there and gone, leaving her mouth downturned and hard. “Who are you?”
“One of the guys you’re here to meet. My partner’s inside,” said Bunny. “But before we go in let’s clear the decks, okay?”
Without waiting for her reply, Bunny walked past her, hooked a hand under the injured man’s arm, and jerked him to his feet. The man was big and dense, but Bunny was bigger and stronger. And he was showing off a little. The muscle freak came up off the ground with such force that he actually hopped through the air and landed flat on his feet. Bunny pressed him back against the truck. The man tried to sniff back his tears and his hurt, but his face was flushed red and puffed. Despite his size, he looked like a petulant and mean child. He tried to slap Bunny’s hand away, but he lacked the power for that or for anything. The moment owned him, and the muscle freak knew it.
“Hey, now,” said Bunny quietly. “I’m not sure who you are, chief, and I don’t give much of a shit why you made this nice lady hand you yo
ur ass, but it’s time to boogie on down the road. Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing you can say that will make this end any other way except worse. So, unless you want to shit in a bag the rest of your life, you’re going to get into your truck and haul ass out of here. You don’t bother the lady again, and I don’t see you again.”
The whole time he spoke Bunny never raised his voice, and he kept his palm flat against the man’s chest, fingers splayed. He was not as advanced a martial artist as Top or Captain Ledger, but he knew enough judo to angle his mass and weight in order to use all his muscular bulk and size to give the impression that he was both an irresistible force and an unmovable object.
“Nod if we’re all on the same page here,” suggested Bunny.
The man flicked a glance past him at the woman, then back to Bunny, and then let his gaze fall. He nodded.
Bunny stepped back. Without the pressure of Bunny’s hand, the bodybuilder almost dropped to his knees, but he caught himself, straightened with a fractured attempt at dignity, turned, and stumped slowly around to the driver’s side. He pawed at the blood on his face and tentatively probed his nose. Then he climbed inside, started the engine, and drove away, rolling slowly past the line of big semis parked at the far end of the lot. When he reached the road, he gunned the engine and laid down a twenty-foot patch of smoking rubber.
Bunny snorted and turned to the woman. “Boyfriend?”
“Past tense.” she said.
Bunny grinned.
“And you can wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, asshole,” she said. “I didn’t need or want your help.”
“If I thought you needed my help, sister, I’d have gotten out here a little faster. All I did was pick up the trash. Call it a public service. Besides, we’re on the clock. I just wanted to wrap this episode of Dancing with the Assholes so we can get down to business. Fair enough?”
She thought about it, standing with fists on hips, head angled as she squinted through sunlight to look up at him. The tension of the fight was still rippling through her, and he could see embarrassment and hurt in her dark eyes. Whatever had sparked the ugly encounter was doing her harm. Her control was impressive, though.
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