Year Zero (35 page)

As Manda took off on foot for the eight-block journey to the Waldorf, I entered the Peninsula’s sumptuous lobby, and found my way to the elevators. Up on the nineteenth floor, the hallway outside of The Munk’s suite was practically blockaded by the torso of a guy who could single-handedly manage security in Detroit’s roughest nightclub. Essentially a building with feet, he stared at me for about fifteen seconds after I gave him my name, and then wordlessly opened the door. Inside, the bouncer’s twin took over as my minder. The place made the setup at the Four Seasons look slummy. It featured a grand piano in the living room, a dining room table set for ten, and a library that made the antechamber in Fido’s suite look like a small magazine rack. I also spotted a full-sized Jacuzzi through an open bathroom door.

The inside bodyguard showed me to a seat at one end of the living room. On the far end, The Munk was talking to someone on a landline. He’d throw in a threat or a creative expletive every so often, but his end of the conversation was mainly gruff monosyllables.
¹

“Ey. C’meee-y’h,” he said. His inside guard lumbered
over to him. I was about thirty feet away, but clearly saw The Munk stuff a thick wad of cash into a Peninsula Hotel envelope. He spat out a slurry of vowels that indicated that the envelope was meant for a certain notorious rapper, and handed it off. The bodyguard pocketed it and lumbered out of the suite. A minute later, The Munk hung up and joined me on my end of the living room.

“So who’re you, and where’s Judy?”

I gathered up my nerve. “I’m an associate at her firm. As for Judy herself, I’m not sure where she is. She disappeared before my eyes about fifteen minutes ago—probably snatched by members of an advanced alien society who don’t want her meddling in a music rights issue that’s unfolding between Earth and the rest of the universe.”

The Munk stared at me silently. Taking this for encouragement, I dove into the rest of the story. Over the next several minutes he nodded or grunted after every few sentences, and muttered something like “the
fuck
as!” whenever I talked about Paulie or the Guild doing something egregious.

“Look, kid,” he said when I got to the end. “I know all about this stuff.”

“Seriously?”
My heart raced. If the labels had their own histories with the aliens, it opened up all kinds of possibilities.

“Yeah, sure. You think there’s a market for our music anywheres that I’m not on to?”
(dat ine nadawwwn ta?)

“I’m not sure I … understand.”

“Ah, Christ. I been talkin’ to these jokers fuh years. And yer space parrots aren’t the only ones pushin’ for this deal. I mean, take Mars.”
(Mahhhz.)
“Those guys want in on this thing in the worst way. And then there’s those guys up in—whassit
called? Orion. Yeah, Orion. They been all over me, tryin’ ta get a piece a this. But I’m tellin’ ’em all—no deal. No deal, not even a meetin’.” He paused for effect, then pointed at me. “Until I get wit Judy’s people.”

So, the good news was that he was either accepting my story, or tacitly agreeing to play along with it. He’d done very well over the years believing practically everything that anyone from my firm ever told him in private (or at least pretending to).
²
The bad news was that having bought into my pitch, he was doing what he always does when presented with a deal: he had invented two imaginary bidders, and was now trying to start an auction.

“Anyways,” he said, as if breaking some bad news, “the fact that these guys’re workin’ wit you. Hey, it helps. But I got shareholders to think of. So the deal’s gotta go to the top bidder. Just like always.”

So he was assuming that the aliens were our clients. And the whole thing about them annihilating Earth was of no concern to him, because, in his world, even the chummiest negotiations open with blood-chilling threats. For instance, I represent his people in talks with a Web start-up that operates entirely within the law. This is a company that the labels respect, and are dying to do business with. Despite
that, the first meeting between the two sides consisted solely of the label folks railing at the start-up team about copyright laws, threatening them with lawsuits and prison, and
discussing the high incidence of homosexual rape
in the prison in question.

“So anyways—let me tell you about me,” The Munk continued. “It might help you understand my position.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“We didn’t have no astronomy teacher at my school. And I don’t know much about aliens, physiatry, or space travel.” He started wagging a finger. “But what I can tell you is this.”
A long pause
. “I’m—a street fighter.”
A shorter pause
. “So is every guy in my organization. And most of the guys at the other labels, too. We’re all just a bunch of street fighters.”
A feckless shrug
. “That’s all we know.” This was maybe the thousandth time I’d heard the street fighter confession since becoming a lawyer to the music labels. You’d think that every executive in the industry had come up from some remote section of the Bronx that was filled with crumbling tenements, angry teens, and switchblade emporia. Every year, the neighborhood would stage a street-fighting Olympiad. And only the victors were granted internships at Arista Records.

Things continued in this vein for a few more minutes. Having established his credentials as a street tough, The Munk informed me that he did business by gut, always by the gut, not by no spreadsheet or Jap management technique, and looking me in the eye, he knew he could trust me, and that this was worth more than a stack of contracts in the world of tattooed, heat-packing reprobates that spat him forth. All of that said, in the starch-collared world that he’d joined, he had to do business by the numbas, and so while he’d sign right now and worry about the numbas later if it
was up to him, he’d have to take this back to his numbas guys, and he’d be in touch soon, and by the way, he’d always wondered, is that Judy a dyke or what?

It took about twenty minutes, but I did manage to get a meaningless, but highly impressive document to bring back to Paulie. It was a memo expressing The Munk’s earnest desire to reach an agreement granting the Refined League unlimited retroactive rights to his entire catalog for all points one hundred forty-four light-years beyond the Earth’s stratosphere. It also said that he intended to use his considerable influence to rally the entire music industry into striking similar deals. His outside bodyguard turned out to be an outstanding typist, and once the document was done, he printed it up on stationery that must have cost five bucks a sheet.

As The Munk walked me to the door, he asked me if there was anything—and he really meant anything at all—that he could do for me personally, or for the industry at large, because while it was a vicious, crooked, two-faced business, at the end of the day he loved it, because he
loved the music
, and he’d do anything he could to help the bigger cause, particularly—and he said this last bit while fixing me with a meaningful gaze—in Washington.

I gave a knowing nod. D.C. is Judy’s beat, and she expects everyone to help with the care & feeding of the politicians. “Actually, I have a small request for you from Senator Orrin Hatch.
³
I just met with him.”

The Munk sighed. “From Fido?
⁴
What’s he want this time?”

“He wants to play cowbell for U2 on their next tour.”

“That’s a big ask. What’ll he cave to?”

“How about a chummy voice mail from Steven Tyler?”

“Done. But he
can’t fuckin’ tweet about it
this time.”

The moment I reached the street, I heard someone calling my name. I turned and saw a familiar mullah waving a series of crazed hand signals at a passerby.

“Nick—it’s us,” the voice repeated. I turned a bit farther and saw Carly standing about eight feet off. She was hiding behind a pair of cheap sunglasses, pretending she didn’t know her strangely clad brother (she, after all, was respectably dressed as a young actress off to shoot a fetish scene with some monks).

I ran up to her. “Carly—how’d it go with the Guardians?”

“Nick, it’s us!” This was very loud.

“I can hear you. And I thought you were going to ditch those ridiculous outfits.”

“It’s me,
Carly
.”

“Yes, it is. Look, I’m glad you’re here. We need to go to the Waldorf immediately.”

“Carly,”
she practically screamed. “And
Frampton
.” She pointed at her brother, who was wrapping up a small transaction with a businessman.

Ah yes. They were wearing their deafening apparatus—a good thing, as a Camaro packed with chubby Jersey girls had just started blaring “La Vida Loca.” I pointed at my eyes, then pointed at Carly, and gave her a big grin and a thumbs-up sign.

She flashed a relieved smile. “You
recognize me
.”

By now, Frampton was miming something spasmodically
to a new pedestrian. I caught Carly’s eye, pointed at her brother, and gave an exaggerated shrug.

“He’s selling
pencils
,” she bellowed. “That way, everyone will think he’s
really deaf
.”

And that was when the whole of midtown ground to a sudden halt. Taxis, stoplights, buses, iPads, ATMs, LEDs, neon signs, the IRT—anything using a microprocessor, electricity, or even any sort of mechanical engine simply ceased. It was a Y2K nightmare times ten. Like practically everyone, my immediate reaction was to look from side to side, then up and down in wonder. The arrest of all mechanical motion wasn’t the most jarring part, because things didn’t
look
much different from your basic gridlocked rush hour. No—it was the near-total silence that was beyond surreal. There were no idling engines, cellphone ditties, car radios, jackhammers, honking, sirens—absolutely no sound except for a few scattered human voices, which all promptly fell silent.
⁵

Carly saw everyone go all slack-jawed and gave me a confused shrug. I mimed the removal of a headpiece, then pointed at her ears. She looked at me suspiciously, but did as I asked.

“You don’t have to worry about hearing any music,” I said, as her hair fell down. “Everything’s just … 
stopped
. But what’s happening?”

“Metallicam,” she said immediately. “It must have just arrived. In its raw, inorganic state it has so much stored energy that it temporarily disrupts every electromechanical
process within a couple-mile radius after it Wrinkles into an area.”

“So we’re out of time.”

“Almost.” She waved a hand in front of Frampton’s nose to distract him from counting the cash from his latest sale. He saw me and gave me a joyous hug, then removed his headpiece when he saw that Carly had done the same.

“So what happened with the Guardian Council?” I asked.

“We were shut out,” Carly said. “The Guild was on to us, and they booted us right off the planet.”

I gave Carly and Frampton my own update while we headed toward the Waldorf. As we covered the short distance to the hotel, the area started to throng with people. Drivers were cautiously stepping out of their cars. Workers and residents—mindful of the lessons of September 11—were pouring from their buildings. And everyone was tense. There was no way to access outside information, so people were left to their imaginations in interpreting the situation.

At first we hustled down the middle of Fifth Avenue, jigging around stalled cars. But soon even the streets were getting tight, as every building in midtown flushed its occupants onto sidewalks that just couldn’t contain them all. By the time we got to the Waldorf, hotel security was aggressively turning away nonguests. Rumors of terrorist involvement were by then rampant. So if there’s ever been a good time to try talking your way past New York security with a carrot-topped mullah in tow, this wasn’t it.

“I’m sorry,” a huge guy with a very small head repeated
to me. “There’s entirely no way you’re getting into the hotel without a key proving that you’re a guest.”

I tried to argue, but this only brought his thug of a boss over. “We got a problem here?” the boss asked Pinhead. I cringed inwardly, because I knew the boss’s type all too well. Pushing three hundred pounds and sweating in the February chill, he’d no doubt failed the psych exam to work for the city cops three times.

“Yeah,” Pinhead said. “These people are insisting on accessorizing our lobby without a key.”

The boss made a gesture and two more guards came over. “Look,” the boss said to me. “It’s within our discretion to incarcerate, if necessary, in times of emergency. And I don’t want to have to do that to you and your little friends.”

Things were starting to get heated when a forty-something guy in a suit strode out of the lobby, eyeing Frampton carefully. The guards quieted down as the suit walked up. Clearly he was management. He came closer, looking at Frampton more and more intently. He was practically nose to nose with him when he broke into a huge, deferential grin. “Mick?” he asked.

Frampton straightened his back and beamed.

“Mick
Huck
nall?”

You could power a city with that grin.

“But you haven’t aged a
day
,” the manager gushed. “I mean—throw on that beret, and pinch me, but I’m watching the ‘Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)’ video!”

I guess everyone has a little superpower—and Frampton’s had just saved the day, as this guy was apparently America’s solitary Simply Red fan. “Crikey!” was all he
could manage (in the fakest accent since
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
).

The manager swept us past security and into the lobby. As he raced off to get some paper for an autograph, we spotted Manda. “Where the hell’s your cousin?” she demanded. “He was supposed to meet me here.” She turned to Carly and Frampton. “And hi, I’m Manda.”

I was stumped about Pugwash, and shrugged.

“Then Paulie must have Dislocated him,” Manda said grimly. She turned to Carly. “Can you get us to the Decapus facility?”

Carly nodded. “I’ve got it mapped, and our devices still work. They don’t use electricity or silicon-based microprocessors.”