Enemy Within

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” said the man without looking at her. He was working with a long knife and a pair of pliers on a device he held in his lap.

  “What are you doing?” she asked to break the silence.

  “What does it look like?”

  “You’re fixing your can crusher.”

  “Yeah, and if you knew that, why did you ask?”

  “I was making conversation. I was being social.”

  The man snipped off a piece of wire and glared at her. He mugged looking around the room. “Uh, man’s living in a place like this, what makes you think he wants to bullshit with people? Go home!”

  “I’m concerned about you.”

  “Not my problem. Go away!”

  “You’re feeling better, I guess.”

  The man picked up his knife and pointed it at her. “Hey, look. I was flat on my back last month, you brought me juice and aspirin, you walked Maggie. I didn’t ask you to, and it doesn’t mean you own a piece of me either. I don’t need your soup. You want for the aspirin and the juice? Take some cans. You want money. Here!” He pulled a few greasy bills out of a pocket and flung them at her. The dog growled.

  She did not touch them. “Real Ali says you’re running scared.”

  “He does, huh? Real Ali should mind his own fucking business. This is why I got to fucking get out of this slum. I came here, built my place, it was nice and peaceful, everybody was living down at the station, fucking beggars. Now it’s wall-to-wall crazy people. It’s like Times fucking Square here.”

  “It seems a shame to leave here now you’ve got it fixed up so nice.”

  “See, that’s what you don’t understand. I don’t need this. I got a knife, a pliers, a snips. I got a hand-baler and a can crusher and my wagon. I could put a place like this together in two days, if I got the paper and the plastic. The stove takes down, but I got a better idea for one, make it out of a muffler and exhaust pipes. A smaller place, someplace quiet, just big enough for one. Build it like an igloo. Get away from these crazies.”

  “Then why don’t you hang out with sane people, have a real life? You’re smart. You read.” She gestured to a double row of paperbacks sitting in a milk crate. “You can make things, fix things. You’re a terrific artist. You could get those can sculptures in a gallery . . .”

  “Sane people? Where? Wall Street? The government? Corporations? You think those people are sane? They’re nuttier than Fake Ali out there. There’s no fucking difference between what you hear on the news and what Lila Sue spits out. You think that’s an improvement, being a slave to crazy people, wrecking the planet, turning everything into cash to buy shit they throw away? Don’t even know they’re crazy. Which is as crazy as you can get. You want me to hang with sane people? Find me three. Two.”

  “I’m sane.”

  “Ho! You believe angels talk to you. Jesus rose from the dead.”

  “What do you believe in, John?” she asked mildly.

  “Me? This!” He held up his knife. It was a military knife of some kind, shiny and pointed. “I believe this is a knife.” He scratched the mutt behind her ear. “I believe this is a dog. I believe life is a pile of shit and the world would be a better place if more people were dead. Especially those pathetic loonies and hypes you hang out with.”

  He put the can crusher down on the floor and began fumbling through his pockets, his face twitching, cursing under his breath. A baggie of pale tan pills appeared. He grinned and held it out to the girl. “Join me?”

  “Maybe later.”

  A snort, and he ate two of the Percodans, swallowing them dry. “Maybe later,” he said derisively. “You know if Jesus was hanging around nowadays, he’d be into everything, hanging around with the lowlife. I thought you were trying to be like him.”

  “I doubt Jesus would be a doper, John. He was always casting out unclean spirits.”

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t have any of them.” He lay back down on his bed and flung an arm across his eyes.

  “Actually, you do,” she said, but in a low voice. She stood up and retrieved a felt pen from her bag. She wrote her name and phone number on the newspaper wall. “If you’re going to leave here, I wish you’d tell Real Ali where you’re going. And I left you my number. Call me if you need anything.”

  “I need you to get lost.”

  4

  THE FROG PERSON WAS EXPLAINING RULE 174 OF THE SECURITIES ACT, AND Marlene was drawing tiny linked roses on her yellow pad, as she had done when bored, starting with her days at Holy Family parochial school in Ozone Park, Queens, and continuing through Sacred Heart, Smith, Yale Law, and the district attorney’s office. Had she kept all of them, she could have run a garland from New York to San Diego, for she was often bored, in the way good soldiers are bored between battles. Rule 174 governed the quiet-period phase of the complex train of events that places a private company’s stock before the public, the so-called initial public offering, the IPO, which, Marlene believed, is what the nineties had instead of really good rock and roll.

  Marlene was not interested in the quiet period, or any other period within the purview of the Frog Person, who was the man from the underwriters, Kohlmann Mohl Hastings. His name was Foster Amory, and Marlene had uncharitably focused her resentment at the whole process upon him, for he was the man responsible for Sherpa-ing the Osborne International IPO up the stormy rock face of infinite wealth. His eye fell upon her and she shot him a glare that made him look away. Marlene felt a pang of guilt. It was not his fault that her colleagues had turned into appalling greed-heads overnight. Or that he really did look like a frog.

  The general purpose of Rule 174, Marlene gathered through the roses, was to prevent firms about to unleash stock from hyping the stock. Were it not for this rule, some unscrupulous businesspeople might tell lies about their firm’s prospects or tell things to some people they did not tell to everyone. The Frog Person now paused, and his song was taken up by William Bell, Osborne’s general counsel, more of a bird than a frog: a crane or a stork. He had sandy hair, watering blue eyes, and glasses that he had constantly to push back on his long, pointed, redtipped nose. Marlene called him Ding-dong Bell, although he had never been anything but nice to her and was not notably nuts, except about this IPO, a pathology he shared with everyone else around the table except, apparently, Marlene.

  He was going on about Rule 135, which comprises a long list of forbidden sorts of press statements. Marlene let her mind drift, for she herself would not willingly talk to any journalist, nor did she own any financial secrets. She completed a rose border and idly looked around the table. At its head, Lou Osborne, the CEO, seemed his usual rockhewn self as he listened very carefully, indeed, to the people who were going to make him a multimillionaire. Osborne was a former Secret Service agent who had taken early retirement a decade or so ago and built this firm into the fastest-growing general-service security and investigations operation in America’s fastest-growing business. He had done this largely by picking up smaller firms and integrating their operations into Osborne’s own, making limited partners of the owners rather than spending any hard cash. Marlene’s firm, an outfit specializing in services to women, had been the first of these. Her former partner, Harry Bellow, was now Osborne’s VP for investigations. Harry was there next to Osborne, his baggy cop face interested but blank. She caught his eye and received a tiny wink. Harry was not entirely corporate yet; as a former NYPD detective, he did not take suits all that seriously, but he was a lot more corporate than Marlene was. Moving along the table, there was Marty Fox, VP security, shaven-headed, with the hard face of one of the better Roman emperors. He was a former FBI agent, an old buddy of the boss’s, and he thought Marlene should be working for him, since she also handled security. Marlene did not agree, and since she was a partner, too, and had Harry’s vote, he could not force the issue. Then came Deanna Unger, the chief financial officer, about ten years Marlene’s junior and the only other woman in Osborne’s top man
agement. A cat-faced blonde in an Armani suit, smart, ambitious, she was always reasonably cordial to Marlene, but clearly preferred to play with the boys. Sisterhood had stopped being powerful. Marlene suspected that Unger thought the VIP operation was fluff. Finally, on Marlene’s right there was a wiry, small man in his mid-fifties with pale blue eyes and pencil-lead pupils that never seemed to expand. Oleg Sirmenkov was VP for international operations. He had spent most of his professional life running security at Soviet consulates in the United States, and at the embassy in D.C., which was how Osborne had met him. It tickled Osborne to have a former KGB colonel working for him, and it apparently tickled Sirmenkov, too. A man who laughed a lot, and loudly, so that you hardly noticed that the laugh never got all the way to those funny eyes. Next to Harry, Oleg was Marlene’s favorite VP.

  “Are you as bored as I am?” she asked out of the side of her mouth.

  “Not bored in the least, I assure you,” replied Sirmenkov sotto voce. “I am fascinated. But I have been to some very boring meetings. This is the Kirov by comparison.”

  Bell was now droning into Section 11, which laid out the liabilities for making false statements or phony claims in the prospectus. The only document that could be given to prospective investors was the prospectus itself. Any documents that Osborne used in the road show had to be taken back, lest they violate Section 5.

  Oh, the road show. Marlene was to be one of the stars of the road show. Marlene knew famous people; despite what Deanna might think, Osborne felt Marlene’s operation gave the firm some unusual shine. It might not have brought in as much as Harry’s corporate investigations, or the security and training stuff that Fox did, but glamour sold, which was why insurance companies hired actors who had played doctors to appear on TV for them.

  Bell finished, and the Frog from Kohlmann started on the schedule for the road shows, during which the principals of Osborne would visit big institutional investors and tell them why they should buy stock in a firm of private dicks. There was an actual script for this, and a director the Frog had brought along, a kid who looked about seventeen and the only person in the room besides Marlene and the CFO who had hair more than three-eighths of an inch long, who was now talking about setting up rehearsals. The task was to fake enough sincerity to carry the investors along with the illusion that it was a sure thing that big was better in security, and the whole dangerous-world line of malarkey. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about this but her, like kids talking about putting on a high school play. She wondered why. The lure of show biz? The prospect of immense wealth? Briefly she longed to be part of it, to submerge herself in a group mind for once. But the inner watcher, ever alert, tugged her away, and she looked at them, as from a distance, and felt the exhaustion rise up, although she kept her face pleasantly neutral throughout.

  The meeting ended. Marlene grabbed up her doodles and left the conference room without indulging in any of the postconference chitchat normal on such occasions.

  Sirmenkov fell into step with her. “What is it, Marlene. Why everyone happy but you? You look like dog died.” He paused. “Did dog die?”

  “No, dog live,” said Marlene, a little miffed at having revealed this much. “Dog in office.”

  “So why is this frowning? You don’t want to get rich as God in heaven?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Ollie. I’m just generally pissed off these days. I’m not made for sitting in meetings and telling lies and ordering people around. I need action. Don’t you? Don’t you want to go and torture a dissident once in a while?”

  Sirmenkov looked pained and mimed delicacy. “Please, Marlene, that was another directorate entirely from us. We are being guards only, like yourself.”

  “So you love all this, right?”

  “I confess, I do. I am a late convert to capitalism, you know. I have of convert . . . hm, what is this word . . . rvrenyeh . . .” He made an expressive gesture with his hands to his heart, thrusting outward.

  “Zeal?”

  “Just so, zeal. I love this stuff. I wish very much to be extremely rich.”

  “And you think that will solve all your problems?”

  “Those to do with money, surely.” He laughed, showing gold teeth.

  “I wonder. You ever see a movie called The Treasure of the Sierra Madre ?”

  “Of course I see, many times. Also I read in school. Is book by B. Traven, socialist hero. Very popular with former regime. Ah, you mean how lust for gold destroys men. Yes, but only stupid men, as in film.”

  “Right, but I was also thinking about wasted effort. I guess I can’t believe that this market is going to get all excited about an IPO from a security company. It’s not exactly high-tech.”

  “But is, Marlene! But is—we are extremely high-tech. And we expand into Internet security very fast. Marty will tell you—he has all those boys down there with the long hair and the T-shorts.”

  “Shirts. Still, I think everyone is going nuts over a long shot. Also, suppose it works. I don’t know. I spend a lot of my time with very rich people, mostly people who’ve made their pile off dumb luck and flash. I don’t find them a particularly happy bunch. You won’t believe this, but a lot of rich people take drugs and drink too much, and screw up their marriages, and are mean to their kids.”

  He chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Marlene, you break my little heart. Now, believe me, honestly, you only say this because you have American guilt. Is from being rich all your life: you say, ‘Oh, money is nothing.’ But if you see only poor, poverty, your whole life, the way people, I mean intelligent people, how they live in other countries, filthy flats, cold, rotten clothings, bad food, then you don’t think is something wrong with rich. You will see. Somehow, you will learn to like.”

  “If not, you haf vays, right?”

  After the tiniest pause, a booming laugh. “Oh, Marlene, you are amusing woman, I tell you the truth. Seriously, though, you should not worry the IPO will fly. It is good time for it.”

  “You mean the market?”

  “I mean events. Events make market.”

  “What kind of events? By the way, do you want to get lunch?”

  “No, I can’t, I have big meeting with Lou and . . . some others. Another time? Tomorrow, maybe?”

  “Sure. What kind of events?”

  “Events in world. Is dangerous place, like the man said. And how is your charming daughter? We have not seen her so much as before.”

  “Still charming,” said Marlene shortly, somewhat thrown by the abrupt change of subject.

  “Good! You should bring her around more often. I enjoy to speak Russian with her. She has for some reason a Petersburg accent. I tell you, that is a remarkable girl. Please say I send regards.” Another golden smile and he slipped away down a side corridor.

  Marlene went back to her office. This was four times the size of the one she had occupied as a minor bureau chief in the DA and approximated the scale and luxury of those given to assistant DAs in television dramas. It was really the best office in the place next to Lou’s, which caused no little resentment among some of the other VPs. But Osborne had reasoned that the VIPs who made up Marlene’s clientele deserved nothing less. She had furnished the office in institutional teak, simple and uncluttered, the Architectural Digest effect of which was quite undone by the clutter that Marlene spread around her—papers, books, CDs, magazines, clippings, and in the corner, on a dog bed, an immense, black, wheezing Neapolitan mastiff. There were three windows along one wall, from which she could look down thirty-two floors to Third Avenue. On another wall she had hung a big Red Grooms lithograph of a street scene in lower Manhattan, Lafayette and Spring to be precise, and a framed length of tan silk, upon which her daughter had calligraphed a Chinese poem, “Quiet Night Thoughts,” by Li Po. Or so she said. It was supposed to be calming to contemplate. Marlene sat in her chair and contemplated it—and was not calmed. The other two walls exhibited material that Marlene would not have hung had she been in charge, but Lou had insisted,
more or less in return for the nice office and the suppression of any bitching about the dog. This material comprised her diplomas, framed photographs of Marlene with famous clients, and laminated newspaper articles about some of her more legal exploits—shootings, rescues, notable cases. Most clients thought it was impressive and a little scary. Marlene thought the wall a souvenir of a ridiculous and somewhat disgraceful life.

  She ordered a tuna sandwich and a Coke and began work. VIP operations had something over 150 clients, scattered around the world, nearly all people with famous faces and subject to the less attractive aspects of fame. Several hundred employees were occupied in advising these people about their security, and in some cases actually guarding them. Marlene had discovered that the skills she had learned in parochial school were just those needed in big business: neatness, punctuality, disciplined focus, Christian forbearance, a good memory for small facts, a pleasant mien, and a willingness to punish transgressions instantly and nearly without thought. She was good at the work. VIP ran like a clock. Marlene took no shit at all from the clientele, who seemed actually to enjoy being mildly abused; Marlene supposed that it was something of a relief from the interminable adulation that was their ordinary lot.

  The morning passed into afternoon. Marlene read reports and project estimates, took and made calls, held meetings. She told her staff about the IPO meeting, as it touched on blabbing, and resisted with some irritation their attempts to wheedle more details out of her. In fact, she didn’t have the details, having drawn roses instead of writing them down. There came a moment just before four when she was alone. She told her secretary to hold calls and to order a company car and driver, locked the office door, and opened a closet. She slipped out of her skirt and heels and into a baggy orange coverall that had CIAMPI & SONS PLUMBING printed on the back in square white letters. Over that she donned a yellow slicker with traffic glo-strips on the back. She put her feet into rubber knee boots, tied her hair into a red bandanna, and slapped a white hard hat on her head. From the closet shelf she took a clipboard heavy with greasy forms and a four-cell flashlight.