Near Enemy Page 9

  Seems sketchy.

  Oh, I’m not done.

  Scrolls through more gibberish.

  Here’s a full security work-up on Lesser, pre-something. Requested by—

  NYPD.

  Bingo redux. They were vetting him.

  For what?

  Some kind of work. But wait—what’s this, behind door number two?

  Taps her screen again.

  Personal emails from Langland to Lesser. Congratulating him on being selected. So I went digging through the old NYPD internal memos, found a trove of dumped info outlining some new initiative, some antiterror squad, focusing on the limn.

  They left their secret plans online?

  Not their plans. This is peripheral shit. Memos and requisitions. You know, like orders put in for new letterhead.

  Hy looks at me.

  Like I said, no one ever thinks to shred this shit.

  So what’s the connection to Lesser?

  Looks like there was a big push by Bellarmine after he came in, to assemble some kind of limnosphere task force. Involving outside contractors. Unnamed. My guess? Bellarmine went to Langland looking for his best and brightest geeks. Lesser was definitely one of them. So the cops took him on.

  She looks around. Then looks at me.

  You know, this shit isn’t even part of the official Legend of Jonathan Lesser. This shit is dug up fresh, especially for you.

  I appreciate it, Hy.

  Do you, though?

  Then Hy gets serious.

  Lesser’s well loved around here. Kind of revered. You know that, right?

  And why’s that?

  Because he’s one of us, Spademan.

  Hy nods to the room.

  You know. Weirdo. Misfit. Special kid. Made good.

  Just because he figured out how to peep on people’s fantasies?

  Because he cracked it, Spademan. He found a glitch. And rode it. Around here, that makes you a hero.

  She gestures to all the couches. Sofas stuffed with kids, side by side, silent and stooped over and lost in their screens. Only sound the tip-tap of typing. Most aren’t older than teens. Some aren’t old enough to be teens.

  Hy says in a whisper.

  That’s all anyone’s trying to do here, Spademan. Find a glitch. Then ride it.

  Why?

  ’Cause it’s like winning the lottery. Or outsmarting the lottery, which is even better.

  She turns back to her screen.

  So Langland forks over Lesser, who works a year or so on this secret project.

  And what’s the project?

  That I don’t know. Because it’s secret. Then after a year or so, Lesser bolts.

  Why?

  Who knows? Ask him. If you can find him.

  Maybe he figured something out.

  Now Hy’s curious.

  Like what?

  Like maybe how to kill someone through the limn.

  Hy looks puzzled.

  I doubt that, Spademan. Can’t kill someone through the limn. First rule. You know that.

  Sure. Unless you outsmart the lottery.

  I point to the screen. Still filled with number music. Prod Hy.

  You find any sign of Lesser? You know, in there?

  She laughs.

  In my computer?

  No, you know. Out there. In the limn or wherever.

  Hey, what I do is find info on the Internet. Personally, I hate the fucking la-la land limn. I’m straight-up straight-edge. Never tap in. Man, I’m practically a Waker, yo.

  Then she turns to her screen and taps a few more times on her handheld.

  You ready for the grand finale?

  Hy taps her handheld once. Leans back.

  So this project, the one they recruited Lesser for? Internally, they called it Near Enemy. Got closed down pretty quick too, and apparently never officially existed, as these things usually don’t. But because I am a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy, guess what?

  What?

  She leans back in. Screen lights her face. She smiles.

  I found a trail.

  And what’s at the end of your trail?

  More trail, mostly. But I did find a name. Some Bellarmine flunky who ran the day-to-day operations at Near Enemy. You track down this guy, Spademan, and he just might know something about Lesser.

  Which is when I get a sick feeling, because I know what she’s going to say. Don’t know how I know but I know. And I’m about to say the name, but I stop, then she just goes ahead and says it for me. Because to her it means nothing. It’s just a name.

  Hy presents it with a flourish. Like a punch line. Which it kind of is.

  Joseph Boonce. That name mean anything to you?

  Luckily in the screen-lit dark of the old brewery, Hy can’t see the sick look on my face.

  I thank her for the tutorial and pull out my money roll. She waves it off.

  Come on, Spademan. You know this shit’s pro bono.

  Hy, you gotta eat.

  You don’t know much about the Internet and bank accounts, do you? Don’t worry. I do okay.

  She gnaws her nail. Scans the screen again. While she scans, she pulls out a pouch of tobacco and rolls a cigarette. Lost in thought. Then she says.

  It’s funny.

  What’s that?

  Your boy Bellarmine—any chance that he’s a Buddhist?

  Why?

  Near Enemy—it’s a Buddhist concept.

  Enlighten me, Hy.

  See, in Buddhism, they have four virtues, and each virtue has an opposite. For example, one is compassion, and its opposite is cruelty. But each virtue has a near enemy too.

  Meaning?

  The near enemy of a virtue is an emotion that resembles the virtue, but it’s, like, the corrupted version. The near enemy of compassion, for example, is pity. Pity is like compassion, but tainted. Like a bad copy.

  Once Hy’s done rolling the cigarette, she unrolls it. Dumps the tobacco back into the pouch. Sees me looking. Says to me.

  Old habit. I don’t miss smoking them. I just miss rolling them.

  Dusts her hands off and puts the pouch away.

  Okay, Spademan—so what’s my next assignment?

  I pull a card from my pocket. The one I found in Lesser’s door. Hand it to Hy.

  You know anything about this?

  She reads the card.

  Pushbroom? Just that they’re nasty. Especially the Partners.

  What do they do?

  They’re sweepers. Very expensive. Top-shelf, for those with a taste for overkill. Pushbroom will find your problem and make your problem hurt in a memorable way. The Partners are the three dudes who run it.

  She lowers her voice. Looks around. Too many heads in headphones to worry about eavesdroppers. Still, she’s cautious.

  The three Partners are very secretive. In the limn, they call themselves Do-Good, Do-Better, and Do-Best. Keep their identities out here a real mystery. Mostly use henchmen for their work in the nuts and bolts. Burly dudes in coveralls who run around and settle accounts. In the limn, though, it’s the Partners who bring the pain.

  Weird names.

  Hey, it’s the limn.

  And who do these Partners work for?

  Whoever pays. They’re not committed to any particular ideological struggle. Been known to sell their services to both sides on occasion.

  Both sides of what?

  Whatever.

  I take the card back.

  Thanks for the help, Hy.

  No sweat. So what’s next?

  Find out whatever you can on Near Enemy. And Joseph Boonce.

  You mean the top-secret antiterrorism initiative that never officially existed? And the cop who’s off the books? Sure. Gimme a day.

  Just whatever you can find, Hy. And thanks—

  But she’s already lost in her screen.

  I head back into the night air of Williamsburg.

  Street’s empty. Night’s silent. Over the black water, the bridge is lit up nice.
Draped in dazzling lights from end to end. No cars. But lots of lights. Another example of the mayor’s newfound interest in window dressing. Looking to fend off Bellarmine’s charge.

  I find my phone and dig another card out of my pocket. The one with Boonce’s number on it. The one he gave me. Called it his Batphone. Day or night.

  Figure it’s time for me and Boonce to have another conversation.

  Punch the numbers.

  Think about Lesser while I listen to it ring.

  18.

  Lesser.

  Special kid.

  So everyone keeps telling me.

  When I was a kid, I went to normal school. Normal teachers. Normal classes. Normal rules.

  Nothing special.

  As for me, I didn’t have any particular interests. Girls. Fights. Was in a school play once.

  Otherwise, I was just a student. Sat in the back of the class with the bad kids. Tried to stay out of trouble. Mostly failed. Nothing serious. A few scraps, but only fists. In my school, that practically made you a pacifist.

  As for schoolwork, I did enough to pass. Then graduated barely and followed my father into his line of work, which was the life plan all along.

  Garbageman.

  The real kind. With garbage.

  My father loved being a garbageman.

  Never minded the jokes. Even told a few himself.

  Knock-knock.

  Who’s there?

  The garbageman.

  Yeah, I know. I could smell you coming from down the block.

  Ha-ha-ha.

  But there was one day I remember, freshman year, I was maybe fourteen, when I got called out of homeroom. By name.

  Vice principal beckoned me from the classroom’s doorway.

  Just me.

  I figured it was because I’d slammed Terry Terrio’s fingers in his locker.

  Don’t worry. Not hard. Nothing broken. And he deserved it.

  Anyway, VP called me out with a bunch of other kids from other homerooms and corralled us all into the cafeteria. Real crowd of misfits. And each misfit no doubt thinking he was the one misfit who didn’t belong. Because the kids assembled there were the bottom of the pecking order. The snifflers, the stutterers, the creepy silent kids, the kids who played games with dragons and dice in the corner of the cafeteria every lunch hour, that one hyperactive doofus who could never keep his mouth shut or sit still.

  Special kids, in other words.

  And then me.

  Just a garbageman’s son.

  And they lined us all up and told us, from now on, we’d have special teachers. Special classes. Special rules.

  The crowd moaned. Snifflers sagged. Stutterers stuttered. But-but-but. The silent creeps clutched their books even closer. Stayed silent.

  And everyone looked around. Bug-eyed. Distressed.

  Must be some mistake.

  I don’t belong here. Not me.

  That’s what everyone thought.

  Especially me.

  In any case, I’m not really sure what exactly they had in mind for us.

  The special kids.

  Since I cut class every day for the rest of the week.

  Monday, first thing, my father barged into the principal’s office. No appointment. Trailing curses.

  Knock-knock.

  Who’s there?

  My father cornered the principal.

  Told him, you better put my son back in the normal class.

  Told him a few other things too. I’m not sure what exactly. But my father was known to change a mind or two. Spent a long time as a union man and a fair amount of time in bars. So he was not the type to back down from a difference in opinions. And people usually came around to his way of thinking. Eventually.

  Whatever he said to the principal, next day, I was back at my old desk. Old homeroom. Old teacher. Back row. Terry Terrio’s bruised fingers still wrapped up in bandages. Terry eyeing me. Plotting a cycle of revenge he’d eventually come to regret.

  And me, back to slouching. Keeping my eyes low. Stayed that way for the rest of my time, right through high school, just like a person in prison. Kept out of trouble just enough to keep out of trouble.

  And whenever I thought about that day in the cafeteria, I felt glad that my dad got me plucked out from the special kids.

  Figured I was extra-lucky.

  Dodged a bullet.

  I’d always thought that special class they’d pulled me out for was some sort of class for dummies.

  Only learned later it was a special class for smart kids.

  Special kids.

  So they said.

  My mother only told me the whole story after my dad died.

  I was long out of high school by then. Married to my Stella, who I’d met while doing that school play. I was living in Brooklyn. Riding a garbage route. Following the life plan. Wearing my dad’s hand-me-down gloves, the ones he gave me on my first day of work, presenting them proudly to me with a ribbon tied around them.

  Kept that ribbon balled up in my back pocket too.

  They’d fought a lot about it, my mother told me. I never knew, of course. To me, their fighting just sounded like fighting. Same muted white-noise soundtrack of household unhappiness that I’d long since learned to block out.

  My father was stubborn.

  No special class for my kid. Don’t want him singled out as different. You do that, and he’s marked for life, my father said.

  My mother felt the opposite.

  That this was my one chance to be singled out.

  Either way, didn’t much matter. Not in the end.

  After all, my father died. So did my mother, not long after.

  So did my Stella.

  So did New York.

  Now here we are.

  My mother told me, though, that I had this one teacher who’d championed me. English teacher. She was the one who’d put my name in the mix for the special class.

  My champion.

  Turns out this teacher thought I had an aptitude for language.

  Aptitude. Not a word my father ever would have used. Didn’t like ten-dollar words. Not crazy about two-dollar words, for that matter.

  That’s probably why the principal had been so easy to convince. I’d barely squeaked through in the first place.

  Only had one champion.

  Made me an easy veto.

  Either way, a couple weeks after my father yanked me out of that program, that teacher, my champion, asked me to stay for a minute after class.

  Class cleared out. Left her and me.

  She looked up from marking papers.

  I heard your father had you pulled from the special section.

  Nod.

  Do you know why?

  Shrug.

  Everything okay at home?

  Nod.

  You keeping up with your homework?

  Shrug.

  Then she pulled a thick paperback from her desk drawer. Had a whale and a boat on the front. She put the book aside and asked me if I wanted to meet her on Saturdays for special tutoring. We could meet at a coffee shop. I could tell my father whatever I liked. She had books and she thought I should read them. Thought I’d like them. We could read them and talk about them together.

  You mean like detention?

  No. Not detention. It’s not punishment.

  Sounds like detention.

  We can start with something fun.

  Like what?

  She held the thick paperback up.

  Moby-Dick.

  I scoffed.

  No, thanks.

  Why not?

  Don’t like animal books.

  She laughed.

  Have you read it?

  Sounds boring.

  How do you know it’s boring?

  Shrugged. Muttered something.

  I’m sorry, what did you say?

  I said, does anyone get killed in it?

  Yes. Lots of characters get killed in it.

  Real
ly? How?

  Lots of ways. Whales, for one.

  Scoffed again.

  Sounds stupid.

  Okay.

  She put the book away.

  Then let’s start with something a little more—exciting. Something pulpy. You read pulp?

  Shrug.

  How about The Maltese Falcon?

  Like I said. I don’t like animal books.

  She smiled.

  You’ll like this one.

  She pulled open the drawer again. Pulled out a different paperback. Battered cover. Weather-beaten. Held it out to me. Statue of a bird on the cover. Not promising. Author’s name sounded like a ballet dancer. Also not promising.

  I shrugged.

  She flipped open the front cover. Showed me some scribble. Showed me a year written under the scribble. From a long time back.

  See that? That’s my high school English teacher. He gave this book to me. Asked me to read it. Forced me, really. I was like you. Thought I didn’t like animal books.

  She held the paperback out to me. I took it. Stuffed it in my back pocket. She winced.

  Careful with that copy, please. That’s got a lot of sentimental value.

  Sure.

  You read that, then meet me on Saturday at noon at the coffee shop, and we’ll discuss it.

  This Saturday?

  Yes.

  This whole book?

  Yes.

  By Saturday?

  Yes.

  This Saturday?

  Trust me, you won’t want it to end.

  Then she turned back to marking papers. Big stack of essays, all marked in red pen. A, C+, A-, B, B+, D, B, and so on. A whole alphabet, on an endless loop. I noticed she’d pulled my essay out of the pile, though. Set it aside. Circled a few words in red pen.

  She kept marking. I didn’t budge. She looked up.

  Yes?

  And then I asked her the obvious question.

  Why me?

  Why you what?

  Why me—?

  Didn’t finish the question. Wasn’t even sure what I wanted to ask. She put down the red marker anyway.

  Potential. I just hate to see it wasted.

  Picked up the pen again.

  See you Saturday.

  Don’t know how that book turned out.

  Never finished it.

  Never started.

  Dropped it down a sewer grate on the street outside the school.

  Couldn’t be seen carrying around an animal book by a ballet dancer.