Near Enemy (21 page)

What’s he doing in the bathtub?

Draining.

Mark looks up from the dining table. Looks haggard. Scribbles something with his finger on his handheld. Holds it up.

I WASN’T MUCH HELP.

Persephone enters from the bedroom. Smells like smoke. Mouths the words.

Where have you been? You’ve been out all night.

I whisper.

Running errands.

She wipes a thumb over my cheek. Thumb comes back crimson.

You’re covered in lipstick, Spademan.

Okay, I need everyone out right now.

When I say that last part, I forget to whisper.

Sort of forget.

Either way, Hannah wakes up. Looks around. Starts bawling.

Persephone scowls. Same scowl as Simon.

Great. Now look what you’ve done.

Persephone retreats to the bedroom to soothe the baby and I sit at the dining table and lay out the plan for Mark and Simon. Mark’s game, because he’s loyal. But Simon balks. Not a shock.

He points to Mark.

So me and this angel cake are going to break into a black room? You ever been in a black room, Spademan?

No. Have you?

Yes.

Working? Or as a guest?

Both. Different occasions.

Simon looks at Mark. Back at me.

Full raid on a black room? Two people aren’t going to cut it. Even if one of them is me.

I have someone on the inside who’s going to help us get in. And who’s that?

Can’t say.

Simon scowls.

Of course not. And what will you be doing out here while we’re in there risking our necks for some fat-shit hopper loser I’ve never even met?

I’ll be rescuing that fat-shit hopper loser out here.

Simon scoffs. Leans back. Crosses his arms.

Great. Or here’s an alternate plan, Spademan. We leave the fat-shit hopper loser to his fate. He made his bed. Then he peeped on someone else’s bed. Either way, I’m not inclined to risk my neck for him. Because if you end up in a black room, there’s usually a reason. So what’s the reason here?

It’s a mistake. A misunderstanding.

Sure. It always is.

Simon, I need your help.

And I don’t want to say the next word. Don’t want to say it. Don’t want to—

I say it.

Please.

Simon guffaws.

Actually guffaws.

Spademan, last time we spoke, I think you said you would kill me if you ever saw me again.

I misspoke.

No, you definitely said you would kill me if you ever saw me again.

This is Simon, twisting the knife. Enjoying it. I ask again.

Simon, please. Just this once.

He looks at Mark again. Looks back at me again.

I appreciate the please, Spademan. I do. But honestly, patching things up with you is not why I came back here.

So why are you here, Simon?

He gestures to the bedroom.

I came to get her. Get them both. My family. Take them home.

And how do they feel about that?

They’re warming to the idea.

I doubt that.

Simon smiles.

Ask them.

He lets that last answer linger in the air, because he knows he’s right, and I know he’s right, and I don’t want him to be right, and I don’t want them to leave. But they’re not prisoners. They’re family. Someone’s family, anyway.

So I say to Simon.

You do what you want. You can leave right now. And if they follow, that’s up to them. But before you go, do this one thing.
Help me. Save this kid. He doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him.

No one deserves what happens to them, Spademan. That’s what makes the world so interesting.

Simon leans back in his chair. Holding all the cards and knows it.

Leans in again.

So where’s the physical black room? The one out here?

Times Square.

Finally Mark chimes in. Or scribbles. Holds the handheld up.

SHIT.

I say to both of them.

It’s okay. I’ll go.

Even Simon’s surprised.

You’d do that for Lesser? Go into Times Square?

If it’s in Times Square, the security will be light. They won’t be expecting visitors. I’ll be in and out in an hour. What is it the mayor likes to say? No worse than a visit to the dentist, right?

Simon smirks.

Depends which dentist.

And with that, I can tell that Simon is going to do it. He won’t say it. Won’t give me the satisfaction. But he’ll do it. He asks.

What about Persephone? And the baby?

They stay here.

Under whose watch?

Those cops are still outside.

Those cops are useless. We’ve already established that.

This will only take a couple of hours, tops. They’ll be fine.

You’ve said that before, and you were wrong before.

I know that, Simon. But we don’t have time to find someone to stay here, and I need both of you in there. They’ll be fine.

Mark scribbles.

WHO’S TAPPING US IN?

Mark, you remember Mina, right? She’s running Rick’s old place now in Chinatown. Renamed it the Kakumu Lounge. She’ll set you up. Watch the sensors. Make sure you’re okay. Like I said, I have an inside man. He’s going to feed her the coordinates and access codes. Everything she needs.

Mark scribbles again.

WE NEED A NURSE.

I know.

Mark scribbles.

MARGO?

No. I’ve got someone else in mind.

Now that everyone’s on board, we sit at the table and plot it, ironing out the last few details. As we do this, I think back over my week’s to-do list.

Kill Lesser. Find Lesser. Save Lesser.

Like I said. Strange week.

But we’re almost home.

I call the meeting to a close. Adjourn Simon, Mark, and me. Tap the table with my knuckle. Knuckle stands in for a gavel.

Tell the two of them, as they rise, to get some rest. Big day tomorrow. With just one last thing to do.

Simple.

Let’s get Lesser.

Next day.

Daybreak.

Skyline bakes under the sunrise.

Mercury tickles triple digits.

Sidewalks shimmer. Asphalt bubbles.

Heat wave’s here.

Start the day with the same simple thought I went to bed with.

Save Lesser.

Make like a champion.

Then be done with it. All of it.

Boonce, Bellarmine, Shaban, the whole lot of them.

Get back to being who I really am.

Just a bullet.

I collect Simon and Mark, then we all head to the pier and board my boat, and I point the bow toward Manhattan. Boat’s nose bobs as we skirt the wake of passing barges. On the other side, I deliver Simon and Mark to Canal Street. Direct them toward Chinatown.

Then rev the outboard again and steer myself north toward Times Square.

Meanwhile in Battery Park City.

On a piazza by the waterfront. A crew sets up a dais. Erects barriers. Hangs bunting. Fits steel bars into steel joints.

Builds a stage.

Big debate today.

Bellarmine versus the mayor.

Race now running neck-and-neck.

Dead heat.

Fresh
Post
screams from nearby newspaper boxes.

TOP COP PROMISE: EXPECT A SURPRISE
.

Meanwhile in Chinatown.

Simon and Mark arrive at the Kakumu Lounge.

Mina’s been prepped. She opens early. Welcomes Simon and Mark at the door in a black kimono. Hair still shaved to the skull. Looks like a monk. In heavy eyeliner.

Smiles for Mark. No smile for Simon.

And no mention of the cross-shaped scar on her forehead that he left her with.

I’d asked her nicely for this one favor. Promised her she’d never have to see Simon again after today.

So she doesn’t ask them many questions, or say much of anything really. Just leads them in and readies their two beds.

Mark settles in. Relieved. It’s been nearly a week, which for him is too long. Mina coddles him. Makes sure he’s comfortable.

Simon handles his own gear, tubes, needles, settings, gauges. He’s done plenty of solo tap-ins. Prefers it, actually. Just hopes this gizmo Mina has all the right codes and coordinates.

And hopes she remembers that one maneuver he asked her beforehand to learn.

Just one.

Just in case.

As for Pushbroom, Simon’s not too worried about Pushbroom. He expects they’ll run in to the Partners, but he’s grappled with Pushbroom plenty in the past, and he’s never come out hobbling. He has a particular history with one of the Partners,
the one who calls himself Do-Good. The other Partners he’s keen to meet. Only knows them by reputation.

Well, Simon thinks, I’ve got a reputation too.

Slaps two fingers on his forearm.

The nurse steps up to help him find the vein.

Simon looks up.

The nurse smiles.

Let me help you with that.

By this point, she’s introduced herself to everyone already. Got it out of the way when they first arrived.

Simon, Mark, Mina—nice to meet you.

When they asked her name, she told them simply.

Nurse. Just Nurse is fine.

Meanwhile in Hoboken.

Persephone and Hannah, holed up again. Awake since five. The single mother. On her own. What else is new?

Persephone’s bone weary. Hannah’s fussy. Wailed all night. Persephone soothes her now but it still doesn’t help, of course.

Bounces her on her hip. Shushes her.

Come on, baby. Come on, now.

That doesn’t work either.

So she whispers to Hannah.

Don’t worry. We’ll go home soon. We’ll be home soon. We’re going home.

And wonders to herself if she really means it.

Meanwhile on the waterfront.

Me.

Making like a tourist.

And like so many tourists before me.

I’m heading for Times Square.

No subways stop in Times Square anymore, so I dock my boat near Chelsea Piers and walk north.

Chelsea Piers is a series of huge empty soccer fields on a reconverted pier on the river, laid out side by side under hangars and abandoned, so the green rectangles now look like farmers’ fields left to fallow, patches of plastic grass that will never fade, dusted in white chalk markings. There’s a big golf-ball-driving range up here too, under light towers that don’t light up anymore. People used to come here to thwack balls at all hours, with towering nets that rose on each side to catch the errant shots. Supposedly, once upon a time, you could take a trapeze lesson too.

Hit a ball into a net. Run around on plastic grass. Swing on a rope over a sandpit.

That’s what people in this city used to do for fun.

Imagine what they did for work back then.

Swap electronic money. Trade electronic gossip. Wrestle over ever-smaller scraps of real estate.

New York City, in its heyday.

Piers are empty now, of course. Long since left to ruin.

You’ll have to learn how to trapeze somewhere else.

Used to be art galleries around here once too.

Used to be art.

Among the fancy condo towers.

And an elevated park. Built on an old railway track gone to seed. Then revived.

Big ribbon cutting drew all the politicians.

Wore hard hats. And big smiles.

Anyway, the railway track’s gone back to seed again.

Nature’s version of its own reclamation project.

Re-reclaimed.

I walk under it.

Head north.

Walk up Ninth Avenue.

Once you hit the Thirties, civilization starts to peel away in earnest. The Dirty Thirties, they call them. Former Hell’s Kitchen. Boonce’s childhood playground, so he told me. This is where, if I carried a Geiger counter, I’d start to hear the first faint click-click-click.

But I don’t need one. Everyone knows the boundaries by now. The risky blocks. Which intersections you don’t go beyond.

In the Dirty Thirties, ten blocks south of Times Square, it’s only half-toxic, so there’s still a few stubborn storefronts open. Still a few dollar stores and Army Navy outlets. One or two last tenacious Irish pubs. Still advertising happy hour, like there are any happy hours left.

But these Hell’s Kitchen pubs survived the bad old days. Then the good old days. Then the really bad days.

One bad day in particular.

Heard a bartender once talk about working that day.

Bomb sounded over the din of the place like it had happened far away, like in a whole other city. But the blast was also close enough that it trembled the foam on the freshly poured beers on the bar.

Someone had just bought a round for the house. Pint glasses laid out in a line, like soldiers awaiting inspection.

Bar went quiet. After the explosion.

Someone killed the jukebox.

Dead silence.

A long moment of collective breath-holding.

No one knew what it was. But everyone knew it was bad.

Then everyone in unison, all those seated at the bar, this band of merry regulars, so used to drinking all together, without a word, they each reached out and grabbed a beer, one by one, and drank it down, single gulp.

Bartender too.

Then he poured another round, this one on the house.