The Nervous System (4 page)

He's got one of those voices. Velvet, and a couple decades of cigarettes. A voice that sells Jesus and legislation.

“Yeah … well, fuck it, apology accepted, Grandpa.” Rub my wrists, the red marks there. “Seen you on C-SPAN back when. I dig your strong position on immigration, sir. And on those goddamn uppity unions.” I tsk, wag my head in faux disbelief.

If he reads my snark, the good senator makes no indication. In fact, if anything, he brightens.

“Ha. C-SPAN! Now that's television that'd put near any man to sleep. Whole lot of people talking to themselves just to hear themselves talk. Son, let me get right down to the nitty-gritty.”

“Please do, boss,” I say, trying to radiate togetherness but reckoning: this cannot be good on any level.

“I have … excuse me.” The senator produces a silky handkerchief and sneezes explosively.

Can't help it, I flinch, thinking: New strain of the superflu? Something I'm not inoculated against? My noggin just goes straight there and lingers.

Man, for some Purell
^TM
. And me in my jammies. Surgical mask hanging around my neck, useless, how slack am I. Deserve whatever I get.

“Pardon me once more.” The senator dabs at his nostrils. There's a monogram,
CDH
, middle name Douglass.

Fuck me sideways. The DA's files. I know exactly why I'm here.

Senator saying, “The air in these buildings tends to just plain dry me out. Well, sir. As it happens I am looking for a mutual friend of ours. I've fallen out of touch with the man of late, and I must say I'm just a bit concerned. District Attorney Daniel Rosenblatt?”

Squint a bit, as if trying to make a connection. Nod. This heading where I figured it would head.

“Yeah,” I say. “Me, I've been trying to track him down myself.”

“Is that a fact?” says the senator, smile locked in place.

“That's right. As you probably know, I do occasional work for Mr. Rosenblatt. Haven't seen him for, what, six weeks, thereabouts. Talked to him, though, maybe last week.”

Making up smack. Spot where they hit me with that taser hurting like a bastard.

The senator purses his lips and leans back against a table. Taps his cane on the floor. Shit, this guy doesn't need a cane.
I
could use a motherfucking cane, and not just as an affectation.

“Well, that is a shame. Goodness, I would have thought you'd be the man to talk to here. As it happens, son, you were seen only just last night, leaving Mr. Rosenblatt's office. Took us awhile to make the connection and track you down again … but when we did, I figured, well, we should have a little chat.”

Trying to fuck me up. Damn. The possibility of a piece of the DA's implant in my arm still giving off a signal occurs to me only now. Though I thought it got dug out. I don't falter, having anticipated something like this.

Say, “That's right, and I was surprised to find Daniel wasn't there. We had an appointment. What's more, I think the joint was looted. The door was broken, whole spot looked kind of torn up, vandalized.”

I'm just freestyling. Wandered into a big fucking mess here. Keep it poker-faced.

“Ah yes,” says the senator, all molasses, “and this was before half the floor was burned up, destroyed by fire? You missed that part, young man, if I hear you correctly. Because that's what got us thinking. The fire. And that's what brings you uptown tonight.”

Goddamnit. Project confusion.

“How do you mean? A fire down at 100 Centre?”

“Indeed. And it's just the strangest thing, as this must have been around the time you were on the premises yourself. Me, I got the call about a quarter to nine. I will admit, working on a Sunday … the work of this Union is much like the Lord's work … it ain't nine-to-five, mister, it's a twenty-four-hour thing.”

He
winks
at me. Fuck's sake.

“Off topic, Grandpa,” I say, “but aren't congressional sessions suspended … like, indefinitely, sir? On account of complete—”

Howard sniffs, fusses with his tie, the flag pin. “Well, there are those of us who continue America's righteous work, young man. That's about all I'm prepared to say about that, thank you very much. Now, we were discussing this fire, down at our mutual friend Mr. Rosenblatt's office …”

“A fire, one that I would surely remember. Let me think on it,” I say. “Eight-thirty, yeah, that was around the time I was there, for sure. A fire? Still, these old buildings falling apart, loose wiring and whatnot, we see it all the time now. That's tough stuff, though … goodness me. Hope nobody got hurt.”

The senator is humming a little tune, not buying my spiel for a sweet second. He's far too smart. A dead man could see that. Letting me slide down the slope on my own. Sussing what I know.

Likewise, I gotta keep poking at him, determine what he's hip to.

Senator Howard says, “No, nobody hurt in the fire, praise be to God, being a Sunday and all. But it's a funny thing. And, well, it's hardly my business now, so just pardon me for prying, but I don't want to be making assumptions. I'm told you were seen to be carrying a stack of papers—oh, files, or some such thing—as you exited the building. Is that correct, sir?”

I nod.

“See now,” he continues, “my men would have … spoken with you right there on the spot had we made all the connections, as I mentioned. But, again, to err is human, it took us a moment, and so we were obliged to … inconvenience you in this way.”

Wanna tell the dude I could give two flaccid fucks about a dead hooker. Ancient history. Hand to God, no problem, lemme go home.

Though I'd be a liar. Talk about fatal flaws, y'all: I am compelled to nurse the weak, and it's this tendency that keeps landing my knob in shit gumbo. Thinking this. But say, “Yeah, well, about those papers, I had brought that material in with me for our meeting. Paperwork we had discussed—”

“What kind of paperwork, son?” The senator's eyes tighten a fraction.

“A questionnaire, it was something I had circulated among the larger work sites, mostly to do with ethnic distribution of the employees.”

“Who issued this questionnaire?” Mustache twitching. Flashes of the scorpion that hangs just beneath the public face of all politicians/preachers.

“As far as I know, the DA's office, the DA himself, he was—”

“So let me understand. If I call the governor, or the Department of Labor, what do you think they're going to tell me about this questionnaire?”

Massage the area where I got zapped. “I don't know, honestly. They still open for business, the Department of Labor?”

“That's beside the point, son.”

“Uh-huh,” I reply. “Well, as far as I could tell, it came from Rosenblatt's office, like I said. His letterhead. It wasn't unusual that he would conduct his own unofficial polling, just to have a general—”

“Unofficial polling.” The senator gives me a generous look at his front teeth, uniformly capped, exclusive stuff. “Son, I am the chair of the Congressional Commission on Appropriations. Now, do you have any sense of what that is, educated brother like yourself, watching your C-SPAN? What we do on this commission?”

I scan my head, seeing where I fucked up. Problem with any lengthy conversations these days is I forget what I just said.

Figure I'll play along with the man's delusion that Washington operates in the way it used to. Well, he should know better than me, I suppose, for I might as well still be asleep in that army hospital in Frankfurt. Or at the safe house in Islamabad. Wherever.

Say, “Civics, yeah. Been a good while. Didn't school us on civics in the corp.”

“Indeed. Well, then. We deal with defense, homeland security, commerce in general. Most relevant, son, we handle labor—military and civic construction. See where I'm going with this, young man? Are you ‘digging' me here?” he says, making air quotes with his stubby fingers.

“No sir, I'm afraid I don't—”

“Well, let's consider what you just said. If in fact our mutual friend the good district attorney is engaged in collecting such information on his own steam, why, sir, I'd have to say let's hold on a moment. That's illegal.”

“I have to say I was not aware of that, senator …”

Howard shakes his hand in the air.

“That's you talking, and I have to accept your word at face value. Being as you are a working man, doing what you can do in these very troubled and troubling times.”

“Yeah, I appreciate that.”

The senator closes his eyes, holds up his palm. “
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Isn't that just the way, son?”

Aw, Lord. Of course the big man is church-crazy. Well, that's Harlem for you in a nut. Say, “Beg pardon, senator, I don't follow.”

“Galatians 6:2. It's the One True Word, young man.” Senator points his eyes at me. Teeth on display, that alligator smile.

Man, these fucking get-happy-Jesus sociopaths are the slipperiest. Him and his fucking wife, Senator what's-her-name. Koch. Bad crazy white woman.

Senator saying, “
Bear one another's burdens …
You tell me this: you tell me if the good Mr. District Attorney Rosenblatt is the kind of man who enjoys conducting ‘unofficial' polls, collecting, as it were, information—unofficially, mind you—for his own edification and education, information to be used to suit his very own purposes, and perhaps the furtherance and glorification of Mr. DA Rosenblatt's financial and professional position. Would you say he leans partial to this kind of practice, young man?”

My chest hurts. I need a pill. Need Purell
^TM
. But I dig an angle. “Well, if you're suggesting he's a cagey motherfucker, capable of, well, extortion and blackmail, I'd say positively hell yes.”

The senator's eyes light up. “Son, understand, the good Lord did not put me down here on this earth to cast aspersions on my fellow man, be he of any color or creed. But it has to be said, now, if this Rosenblatt is running blackmail schemes, extortion, etc., it pains me, but I believe this is the kind of person who might … take such activities one step further. Create fictions, falsehoods which might prove favorable to his person. Or, more correctly, his purse. Do you read me?”

Goddamn if this guy doesn't use fifty words when five would do the job. Makes for easier obfuscation.

Don't respond. I raise my eyebrows a bit, waiting.

The senator looks toward the door for a second, clears his throat. Leans in, gets all intimate.

“Son, it's no business of mine what you get up to with yourself, and it is not my place to dictate how a man may or may not be making a living wage. Understand this. But make no mistake. I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: whatever you may have heard, perhaps about myself, perhaps about some other individual, I want you to first consider the source.”

Leans back, nodding at himself in satisfaction.

“Consider the source,” says the senator.

I make solemn like I'm digging him deep. In pain over here, goddamn taser.

“The source,” continues the senator, closing his eyes. “Well, let's just say it like it is, the source is a Jew, of whom Christ himself did say:
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
”

He says this then falls silent, just smiling this inward kind of smile, creepy, rocking his head back and forth very slightly.

I'm thinking: this motherfucker is once, twice, three kinds of crazy minimum. That's the same biblical passage crackers of old used to justify stringing up our people in Mississippi and elsewhere. Everybody knows this. The Good Book is handy that way.

The trembling commences. Without my pills? About ninety minutes before my brain starts to hemorrhage. I'll start worrying in, say, ten.

“Senator.” I take a deep breath.

Howard opens his eyes, pulls at his tie again.

I say, “Why would you have a goddamn paramilitary team haul my simple ass out of bed, run me up here at gunpoint?”

Rubs his chin. “Son, I do apologize.”

“Yeah, you ran all that already, boss. Exactly what is your business with me?”

Mustache fluttering. “Well, young man, I simply wanted to commune, from my heart to yours. I wanted to express to you my feelings about truth. And those who distribute untruths. I wanted to tell you, son, should you see this Rosenblatt again, why not send him my way? Or …” Again he hunches over and moves in on me. “If you have taken my message to heart, you will yourself see the folly in placing stock in liars and thieves.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.
”

He directs a thick finger at my chest.

“You can be that lake. Or burn in it. Son, take the side of righteousness. Repent, turn it around, seek a noble life. That's just straight scripture, Revelation 21:8.”

Had enough of this preacher talk. I say, “No doubt. I still don't feature, senator, you feeling the motherfucking need to drag me up here, just to listen to you spitting jive Jesus shit.”

It's a much more complex smile that inhabits his face now. Talking to the real man now. Much preferable.

“Why I brought you on up, out your bed? First of all, to demonstrate I can drag your sad ass anywhere I care to, any old time, day or night. Next, to let you know that whatever you may have done or choose to do, you are now front and center on my radar. I see you, brother, day and night. God sees you too.”

He leans in yet further. I smell his mouth, coffee and old teeth.