The Merchants of Zion (35 page)

She was the daughter of Mr. Felkins sister, once Patty Felkins, now Patty Shan. Her father was a Chinese-American venture capitalist in California whose relationship with Mr. Felkin's she described as a giant pissing contest between East and West. Her father had taken it as a slight against him when she decided to move to New York, the city of her favorite uncle. The information helped explain his enthusiasm—if we dated Mr. Felkins could jab it in the eye of his brother-in-law.

I tried talking about politics, about Robespierre's death, but she didn't have strong opinions and I didn't have James's enthusiastic lack of self-awareness about when I was being boring, so I brought up literature. No interest. Ditto for film and music: the meds had killed any and all interest in those. She didn't have much to say about anything, really, so the discussion inevitably returned to my two favorite topics: Ruth and James. I monologued about the insanity of my life these past few months, telling her first about Ruth, then backtracking to explain who James was and why he was sleeping in my living room. I forgot Mary at first, and added her into the story retroactively, although I did get Dimitri's small part in the drama exactly right the first time around. Then about Elly and Chicago, and the drama in Rockford. I finished with the night I learned about James and Ruth, editing out my extreme drunkenness and the immature note I left in the morning. At the end I was biting back tears, amazed at how raw the emotions still were.

“And now I'm here, with no real friends or future.” I said.

“That's quite the story,” she said, waving down the waiter for another cranberry juice.

I had laid it all bare, and awaited judgment, comment, something.

“The salmon is good. Very flaky.”

I paid for the meal over her mild objection. I'd been emphasizing all evening how poor I was, and she didn't want me to suffer for some vainglorious display of masculinity.

“Don't worry, I'm not destitute. I was exaggerating to heighten the drama.”

Outside the restaurant I offered her a cigarette, which she accepted.

“I don't usually smoke, but this goddamned medicine is mind killing. I think—” An ambulance blared past us, followed by two police cars. Mild annoyance spread across her face.

“Part of living in New York.”

Bars were obviously out of the question, and I didn't feel up for a bout of one-side chatting at a late-night diner. She suggested we go to my place—her internet didn't work in her new apartment and could she use my computer? I laughed, thinking of James's tablet annexation.

“What's so funny?”

“It's nothing. Yeah, let's get going.”

Normally if I bring a girl back to my house, and especially if she offers up the idea first, and with absolute certainty if said events occur after a date at “33,” I assume I'm getting laid. It's not always true, but the rule is if those conditions are met, I will make a move. And it usually works.

The meds changed things. They probably made her less aware of how her actions fit in with perceived social norms, and had quite possibly destroyed her sex drive. Unless they somehow made her hornier, in which case, would it be unethical to take advantage of that fact? I judged it as the equivalent of two cocktails; if the opportunity presented itself I was game.

We walked in silence, me concocting an implausible fantasy and her staring at the buildings as if her head were stuffed with cotton balls.

As we turned to corner to my street we were greeted with a cavalcade of emergency vehicles. The ambulance we'd seen earlier was parked halfway down the block, lights flashing. It was flanked by police cars and unmarked, black SUVs. When we were closer I realized they were in front of my house.

“What the—” I ran down the street and was stopped by a middle-aged, black police officer, who blocked me with his body and then grabbed both my shoulders when I tried to rush past him.

“I live there. What the hell's going on?” Another officer was cordoning off my stoop with yellow police tape: DO NOT CROSS.

A brief struggle to get past him ended with my face pressed against the sidewalk and with his knee pressed against the small of my back. My luck with the law was the worst.

“Young man, listen to me,” he said. “If I release you, will you calm down?”

“Scout's honor.”

He did so, and I stood up and dusted myself off. Stacy was reclining against my chestnut, watching with detached interest.

“Officer,” I said, refraining from bum-rushing him only because I knew it would be futile. “I live there. Will you tell me what's going on or allow me to speak with someone who can? Please.”

Two EMTs emerged from the house wheeling a gurney. On it lay a human-sized lump covered with a black canvas tarp. As they navigated down the stairs a metallic taste flooded my mouth and my head spun. I began to sway. The officer grabbed my forearm to steady me, then guided me as I plunked to the ground. I rolled my head off the sidewalk and vomited my expensive, three course meal. I stared at the chunks of salmon and chewed-up noodles as if hoping they'd offer answers to the questions I was too frightened to ask.

“Is that... is that...” I stammered.

The officer said to Stacy, not unkindly, “Can you take care of your boyfriend here for a second?” He stepped away from us and—just out of earshot—murmured into his walkie-talkie. Stacy knelt beside me and placed one cold, clammy hand in mine.

“You think it's James?” she asked.

“I don't know who else it could be.”

“You hated him anyway, didn't you?” I gaped at her. “Sorry. The pills.”

There had to be a mistake. I took out my phone to call Ruth—with whom I suddenly, quite badly, wanted to speak—then put it away. Better to wait until I was certain. Various possibilities cycled through my mind; robber, deranged drug addict, girl he'd had over. Best case scenario: he'd managed to buy a gun and had shot and killed someone, but was still alive.

Moments later a man wearing a black suit and an ear piece approached me. “You own this house,” he phrased the words in a question but spoke them as a statement. His voice had the flat cadence of poor computer speech.

“Who died? Why are there cops here? Who are you?” I asked.

“I'll repeat myself. Do you own this house.” I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but doubted doing so would help me learn what had happened. “No. It's my cousin's and I'm house-sitting while he's out of the country.”

“What's your name.”

“Clifford Mukavetz.”

“I see.” He repeated my name.

“Did you know James Newsom.”

“Yeah. We went to college together. Is he okay?”

He mumbled into his earpiece. Why had all these robots flooded into my world? Even if James and Ruth were assholes, at least they had emotions untempered by apathy inducing drugs or stultifying professionalism. Besides me, only the officer seemed like an actual human being.

I got to my feet—I could take the news like a man, if nothing else.

“We see no reason to question you. You are free to go. The house, however, is currently under our jurisdiction, so you will have to find somewhere else to stay tonight.”

“And James? The body? What happened? You can't kick me out of and not tell me why,” I was becoming hysterical, but I didn't care; I was owed the opportunity to make a scene.

“To be clear: I can.”

“Is he alive?” No response—maybe some sympathy in his eyes. Or pity. “Fuck. You guys shot him? Did he have a gun or something?”

“James Newsom resisted arrest. You can access the police report once it's been submitted and reviewed.”

“Fuck. Really? Fuck. Oh man.”

“As I said, you'd better make sleeping arrangements. You can't stay here.” He walked away, talking into his earpiece.

“Sorry Stacy. My internet is off limits.”

“That's what you're worried—” she started, then puzzled through what I'd said. “You're joking. Haha. You can stay with me if you'd like. I have a couch.”

“No, it's fine.” I called Ruth, who answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” She sounded suspicious.

“Hi Ruth.” I paused. How do you go about saying something like that? I wondered if the military had sent someone to tell Helen in person. Or did they call? Maybe these days it was handled online, could they be so callous?

“Cliff? Look—”

“James is dead.” Direct was best. My inability to be direct always caused me grief, and now was as good a time as any to remedy that particular flaw.

“Shut up. I regret the way things turned out, but you don't need to be a douche about it. I called you like thirty times and you can't—”

“I'm serious. There's all these cops here. And, and they won't let me into my house.” Why had I called her? Not because I thought she cared about James. “It's terrible.” I wasn't sure how I wanted to sound, but not like I'd scarfed a bottle of Stacy's medication.

She didn't answer for a while, and I thought she might've hung up on me, believing it was all a cruel practical joke. Finally, “I'll be there in thirty minutes. Bye.”

I called a car for Stacy. She tried to pay for it, but I waved her off.

We met it at the end of the block—no one wants to pick up passengers from a crime scene. She gave me her number while we were waiting.

“We should hang out again. When you're feeling better,” she said.

“Sure, I'll call you.”

This was the worst end to a date in my entire life. Its only rival was a weekend I spent homeless in Madrid. I'd studied in London for a semester, and had taken a continental tour with this Japanese girl in the program. We arrived in Spain during a major holiday, and the hostel I booked was way out in the boonies. No train or bus ran there, we didn't have a car, and didn't know enough Spanish to explain to a driver that yes, our destination was in fact out past the suburbs. There wasn't a single vacant room in the entire city and we slept in a subway station for the next two nights.

I saw her again a year later. She was in New York for an interview and she hit me up. I took her out with my friends. When I went to the bathroom James made his move, and I'd come back to find her cornered and him trying to force a kiss. There'd been shouting and he'd gotten kicked out of the bar. The girl and I had gone on to have a thoroughly satisfying night. She didn't get the job, and ended up moving back to Tokyo.

James always did shit like that—it was part of who he was and you either accepted it or you didn't. A lot of people—maybe most—did not, but I always shrugged it off. I laughed at the memory, a spark of a snicker that exploded into unstoppable hysterics. After all his rantings and ravings he'd actually managed to get the government to kill him. If there were an afterlife, I hoped he was gloating to some spirit about how he'd known it all along.

The EMTs took their time loading his body. When they were finished, the driver accidentally shifted into reverse and drove back onto the curb. There was a loud crack as the vehicle rammed into the chestnut tree outside my window. He corrected his error and the ambulance made a clean turn onto the street. It kept its lights off until an intersection a few blocks down, where they flashed on as it sped through a red light. The tree was left leaning at a precipitous angle.

The suit who'd told me to fuck off in so much bureaucratese was talking to a familiar looking man, unshaven, skinny, and with the nose of a witch. It was Vincent, James's errant business partner. The two of them were dressed identically. Same jacket. Same pants. Same tie. Same earpiece. I grasped at understanding, maybe not all of it, but enough.

“Yo,” I shouted, jogging towards them. “Vincent.” The nameless suit glanced up and his expression fell in exasperated boredom. Vincent squinted at me, his face scrunched as he tried to remember who I was.

“You set him up. You fucking set him up. I can't believe this shit. Are you fucking serious? I'll go to the press. I'll call my congressman. You fucking lowlife.”

“Mr. Kurchecki and I have no idea what you're talking about,” said the first suit. “I suggest you give us some privacy,” he said in a tone that sound like anything but. “Immediately.”

“You can both rot in hell. You Storebrand-fucks. This'll show up in the news as you guys infiltrating some whacko Jacobin ring. What bullshit. Can you arrest me for saying that?”

“If you don't—” the suit said. He and Mr. Vincent Kurchecki fanned out on either side of me. Nothing but government thugs.

“I'm leaving. Don't worry.” I flipped them the finger and stormed off. I found a nice curb to sit on and chain-smoke cigarettes until Ruth's car pulled up.

“Cliff, I'm so sorry,” she said, running over to me. “Where is he?”

“I dunno. They threw him in an ambulance and drove off.”

“Are you sure he's dead?”

“Yes.”

She sat down beside me and rested her head against my arm. “He was so fucking stupid,” she said.

We sat there a while, shocked, each grieving in our own way. I continued smoking, flicking the half-finished cigarettes into the gutter and watching them flame out. Ruth remained huddled against me, rocking back and forth like a swing in an empty playground.

Perverse as it sounds, I enjoyed those brief moments with her more than any others since the rekindling of our friendship, more than any others with her ever. I felt guilty about it, and would have gladly traded them to see James come bouncing around the corner and ask “What the fuck's wrong with you two,” but it was no small thing, sharing an awful experience in quiet contemplation, all past wrongs forgotten for the moment. It was nice.

I would've stayed there with her forever, happily starving to death and rotting away, my hand clasped in hers. But Ruth's frame of reference was always in motion, and soon she was off to find a cop. She stood up, brushed the sidewalk grime from her jeans, and disappeared behind a black SUV.

Several minutes later she came back with a pink slip.

“What the... How...” I stammered.

“Here. So you can claim the body.” She handed me the paper. I stuffed it into my front pocket. “Let's get out of here.”

“I don't have anywhere to stay.”

“Don't play dumb. It pisses me off.”

“Right. Your place?”