Quotients

by Tracy O'Neill

  There was the image of all those fans coming to their feet, arms overhead, the embraces. There were numbers painted on faces. There was Wilmington saying his man was there too, at the Laundromat, when Gunner died. Wilmington’s man was Brendan, and he could not understand how the UFF, who’d taken credit for the hits, had known Brendan, Feeney, and Gunner would be in The Spin that night without an intel leak. It begged certain questions. Why, for example, had Brendan received at their message-drop a note Wilmington had not sent telling him to appear at the hair salon two months before? In slow motion, a player’s hips twisted, quick wrench of torque, deceptive. The goalie couldn’t read the intention until it was too late to guard the corner.

  “Which salon?” Jeremy said.

  “Lost an orange tabby, did you?” Wilmington said.

  “Jesus.”

  “Was betrayed by his own with a kiss.”

  All fall, after everyone else slept, Jeremy and Wilmington stayed awake. What lodged them to their seats, to each other, to endless strings of Guinness, was the war played out in information. Sentence could be a subject and a verb; it could be punitive, death even. They knew there were names not uttered in the chambers to which they had access, and now, it was not simple to know who killed; it was not simple to know where a sentence traveled or how it amended in the mouths of men who thought they knew how to fix the world.

  “Any person is a possible leak,” Jeremy said.

  “No,” Wilmington said. “Everything we suspected was a leak was a channel. You’re a good boy, Allsworth. Don’t believe that means anyone else is.”

  According to Wilmington’s new informer, someone in the Intelligence Corps had given a UDA charge called Mikey Spring intel that only could have been accessed through One Rock. The killer of Feeney, Brendan, and Gunner wasn’t Spring, but it was he who furnished a time and place to murder. Wilmington’s new informer had been chummy with Spring. Spring had told him his man on the inside of British intel had wanted to protect him, give him something to keep the UDA questions off. Problem was, Spring was a guy who thought you had to open your mouth to breathe. Spring ended up a dead man with an open mouth, shot taking out the waste one day by his friend since nappies, Wilmington’s new informer. Wilmington’s new informer, who the loyalists did not know had been turned.

  In retrospect, it was obvious to Wilmington and Jeremy. The top Corps officers had wanted Feeney. He was a symbol. His hit was. Lives were weighed. One Rock approved the Laundromat attack. He handed the loyalists Gunner and Brendan for Feeney, for the death of a man who made headlines.

  Now in New York, a trajectory became clear to Jeremy. His mother had betrayed him. His father. And the Intelligence Corps betrayal was supposed to be the last. Jeremy had not expected to meet Alexandra, marry. To have a son named Han who drew smiling monsters in the beach sand, trust in four walls called home. He had not expected to trust happiness. The spy was supposed to have learned better.

  PART SEVEN: (TRANSITIVE PROPERTY)

  The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your

  message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material.

  —United States Senator Ted Stevens, June 28, 2006

  Chapter 1

  Things he was good at pretending: sleep, hungry. Things he was not good at pretending: not sleeping, relaxed. But he was laid out on the couch while his mother and aunt Rhonda watched television, and he could still hear the actors. Gunshots. Remember not to gasp.

  It was a good show even not seeing the blood.

  The killer had a time bomb, a hostage, and a hidden location. Tyrell was keeping track, holding the clues in his mind side by side. He had his guesses. He was counting in his head to see when the police caught up to him. His guess: ten minutes, six hundred seconds.

  “So we were getting nice,” Aunt Rho said.

  “No surprises there,” his mother said.

  There’s music now like horror. He didn’t know the instrument, but those sounds—you know the reveal is coming. Shoes on linoleum tapping on the way to knowledge. Slow walk, but going away from mystery.

  “When he did it to me, I felt it down in my feet,” his aunt Rhonda was saying.

  His mother cleared her throat. “Girl,” she said. “He missed the point then.”

  They laughed and shushed. He could hear them wheezing like life is a comedy and we can’t stop watching. And he couldn’t hear the police. They were on the phone with the terrorist, and he couldn’t hear. This could be the best part. This could be the moment of a clue.

  Eight and a half minutes. Five hundred and ten seconds. You want to hear if the next sound is a creaking door. It can be the killer.

  “Point, game, series,” Aunt Rho said. “He did the whole season.”

  “My sister the winter freak.”

  Aunt Rho began to sing-laugh. “Let it snow,” she was going. “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

  The detective’s teeth cramp around his lips. This is whisper. This is the terms.

  “Shut up,” Tyrell shouted. “This is the good part.”

  His mother cocked her head, crossed her arms. “What are you doing awake?”

  Chapter 2

  Eleven p.m. He could see Wright ahead in the queue, so he waited. He memorized with a glance as though he were checking the time on the phone outstretched in his palm. Gray tennis shoes with a swipe on the side. Grass-green laces, black stitching. Later, he would find the shoes, not the man. Eyes caught on commodities. People did not say hello to strangers. They said, I like your shoes.

  The door swallowed the line in fits. Jeremy showed a card that said his name was otherwise at the door. Wright had sent this ID. Wright had sent a dire code. You’ll want to know this.

  Inside, the crowd moved him down into a grand basement. The intelligence of the throng was its magnet sense for consumption. He let himself be carried toward the bar through the floor litter of plastic cups. From his vantage by the bar, a form stepped through his periphery. “Nice shoes. Where would I get a pair like that?” Jeremy said.

  “Place on Broadway.”

  “When the thing is shoes, it’s always a place on Broadway.”

  “Name’s Ray.”

  “Bill.”

  “It’s on me,” Wright told the bartender.

  There was a logic to public rooms that they understood. They moved toward the edges, where the leaners and tables hung in the shadows. It seemed everyone was damp. A human mist rose up in beams of roving light. Wright collapsed a semicircle of lime, hands large and precise on the fruit.

  “Where are you staying?” he said.

  “Got a little place in Bushwick inconvenient to the train.”

  “That how the realtor put it to you?”

  “The inconvenience makes the foot traffic easier to monitor on my end.” Wright scratched his nose. “Warehouses. There are regular workers who eat at the food truck, and then there are those to fret after.”

  “And what is the fret now?”

  Wright laughed his way, strangely, stomach caving, receding farther in the corner. Jeremy let him finish. “Your adopted home base, Bill.”

  He found a shard of plastic in his drink, picked it out and laid it on a napkin. Wright gazed out onto the crowd, where strobes made moments of faces, bright ephemera. He began talking slowly, musingly, not looking at Jeremy.

  “Look, it’s like this, Bill,” Wright said. “Mid-seventies, British intel given to the US leads to the capture of a gunrunner, George DeMeo. The Feebs cut a deal with him. He wears a wire when he meets with the Irish stateside; he receives immunity and never has to testify against his old friends. Then they’ll send in undercover FBI to
sell the guns to the Americans involved with the IRA. Simple transaction.”

  An emcee was on a microphone collecting volume.

  If you got five dollars in your pocket, make some noise.

  If you got ten dollars in your pocket, make some noise.

  If you like sex, make some noise.

  Where my two-step at?

  “Except while the FBI are trying to pin down Michael Flannery from NORAID, show the money isn’t going just to widows and orphans, CIA have their fingers in the IRA gunrunning business too.”

  “All very plausible.”

  “So five Irish émigrés go to trial in 1982 after an arms roundup. Does the CIA lie to Congress? Does the CIA arm both sides of an insurgency? Does the CIA run guns too? Of course it’s yes and yes and yes, but DeMeo is pleading the Fifth like it’s the sole way to breathe any time CIA are mentioned.”

  “That’s a tactic, sure.”

  Wright turned abruptly. Jeremy felt the pace change, time quicken. “So the defense argues the five Irish didn’t sell the guns to the IRA; the FBI sold the guns to the CIA. Flannery and his crew are acquitted. All that British intel flushed out over interagency sibling rivalry. Every one of them wants to bring home the trophy to Dad. But do you think the Americans learn? Of course not. They now think you pay more than any research institution, buy the most elaborate toys, get the best computers in the world doing your dirty work, the result is zero splashback. But the physics are still there.”

  “And what physics are we talking about?”

  If you believe in God, you love God, you get down and give thanks every morning to the Lord our Savior, make some noise.

  If you graduated from junior high school and high school raise your hand.

  If you sexy for no reason, raise your hand.

  Take your shoes off ’cause we don’t give a fuck.

  “I am hearing that the GRU have a hacker stable on payroll,” Wright continued. “So this gets me thinking, Bill. I’m really thinking about this possibility.”

  “The Kremlin will spin any fairy tale just to keep us afraid of our own grandmother.”

  “But it isn’t just the Kremlin. It’s everywhere: digital criminals in intel.”

  “And we bugged phones,” Jeremy said.

  “And I’m thinking you can’t trust these guys, Bill. Hackers like nothing better than putting a spanner in the works. There was a breach in our own databases, Bill, a handful of years back. Someone grabbed us between the legs for ransom. Ransom we paid because the Ministry of Defense is incompetent to the new lunatics. We’ve already seen American-developed viruses stolen from intel agencies and used on our own hospitals, telecom companies.”

  “It’s delicate with allies.”

  “What happens when hired gun hackers begin planting misinformation? What will it cost us? Aggressing the wrong region, will it be? A republican seizure after everything we’ve worked for? And this is to say nothing of the crying over civil liberties once the BB fucking C gets a whiff.”

  “I left my son at home for this. What is it you have to say?”

  “About that.”

  “I’m listening,” Jeremy said.

  “There are Int. Corps with kids, families in other divisions,” Wright said. “I know that. But our little outfit.”

  “Not ours anymore.”

  “Northern Ireland is not over. The Real IRA are still exploding things like it’s American Independence Day, Bill.”

  “When might you realize we’re retired, Ray? When will you realize that remembering will not make time run anticlockwise?”

  “What if I told you Provos are training ISIS in car bombs? The old radical kinship. You did not think it was only symbolic, the Palestinian flags, did you? You’re mental if you think this is over.”

  “Or Ukip decide an enemy to unite over. And then the fatality is ‘not terror.’ It’s border reform.”

  “Contact is one hundred.”

  If you a real roly-poly, raise one shoe in the air.

  If you comfortable with your sexuality, bend over for your real friend. This one for the ladies only.

  If you know this ain’t no place for skinny bitches, make some noise.

  “Who is your contact?”

  “More like who’s yours.”

  Jeremy began and finished the glass. He leaned back, away from Wright. He squinted. “Meaning.”

  “Not so long after Seven-Seven your wife goes to Northern Ireland. She is meeting with some very important people, government, developers, big money and the like. Then suddenly she’s out of the business of nation branding. Suddenly, she’s in a new sector, here, and she’s meeting with tech people at Cathexis, Cathexis who has made their headquarters guess where. You see where this is going, Bill.”

  “I see, Ray.”

  “But do you?” Wright said.

  “I see I’m not the one stupid with theories.”

  “No, you’re stupid with gash, Bill. Our friends in MI5 ordered agents to marry persons of interest. It was tactical relational fabrication,” Wright said.

  “She is not a person of interest.”

  Wright pressed his fingertips onto the table, his wrist bent so that his hand resembled a five-legged pod. “Perhaps, you’re the person of interest.”

  “You’ve lost it, Ray. You’ve really lost it.”

  “Was there a time,” Wright said, finally, “you were going to tell me your wife’s brother had some nasty business with the NSA?”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “Because it isn’t true.”

  “What if I told you I’ve intercepted communications indicating such?”

  “You’re spying again now.”

  “There are no coincidences, Bill. I’m telling you an operative. Has a name for every day of the week.”

  “And what if he is?” Jeremy said. “What would it matter to you?”

  “If you don’t see it, it’s because you’re closing your eyes to the skeleton in your own cupboard. It’s been so long since Lisburn, has it, Bill?”

  If you got real hair, put your hand up.

  If ain’t no one can mess with your real friend, take that real friend hand and put it up in the air.

  Can I hear it for Brooklyn?

  “They’re American.”

  “So is Martin Goddamn Galvin, and he’s been wailing for bloodshed decades now.”

  “You’re mad, Ray. I need to relieve the babysitter.”

  “Of everyone in the world.”

  Where my Boricuas at? Where my Morenas at? Where my Dominicanas at?

  “What we’re talking about,” Jeremy said, “is thousands of Americans in these jobs.”

  “And he left a fat breach for your thousands.”

  “I feel sorry for you. You need help.”

  “Don’t give me your psychobabble sympathy, Bill. I want the truth. I hear your psychobabble, and I think this man has been compromised.”

  “I see, Ray. Very nice.”

  “I want you to tell me how is it Barry Cain, ex-NSC, ex-DARPA, met with Lawrence last week. Tell me how it is that Cain happens to have been the one to identify a young recruit named Shel Chen, who happens to be your brother-in-law.”

  A woman in a dress like a tight trash bag tripped on the corner of their low lounge table, laughing and apologizing, her purse swinging with its own inertia. She patted the table, corrected glasses. Her skirt was bunched up, and she was laughing. She fell onto Wright’s lap.

  “Who’s your friend?” she asked Jeremy.

  Jeremy stood. “He’s not my friend.” And then he walked off, reabsorbed in the crowd.

  Chapter 3

  Mr. Jordan was explaining that he was not a friend; he was a clinical social worker. He had his palms out, waving little circles, then he made a butcher chop move. If Tyrell didn’t list
en for a second, he’d have no idea what was up at all, just weird little signs in the air.

  “What, you don’t like me?” he said because he was tired of trying to listen.

  “I like you very much, Tyrell.”

  He leaned back. “So that’s it then. That’s gravy.”

  The idea was simple. The idea was come to the science fair. Soda bottle tornadoes and egg drops and all that. Vinegar-clean pennies and pizza-party afters. There would be other parents, and Mr. Jordan.

  Because his mother was not-happy. His mother was not-playing. Came home and he had a safety pin earring he’d poked himself, shouty music thick above the alcohol-rubbed cotton balls—and he knew what words like desecrate, violate, you let me sounded like—and she was getting loud like not-happy, not-playing, and don’t think an earring won’t be used against us.

  And he knew she was talking about the lady in the STARK office. And he knew when the STARK lady said predictive models show a lot of boys like Tyrell, his mother said not my son. He’d heard them. He’d heard the STARK lady saying before it’s a bigger problem. He’d heard the STARK lady say meds, and he’d heard his mother: that’s enough. But also, to him later, there was no TV or ice cream and you’ve got to get correct.

  Fine. He did not want her at his fair. He had his people too.

  He picked up a pink and blue Slinky toy Mr. Jordan had on the table. Juggle it and it’s purple. Clean, good sound. He can get lost in there.

  Mr. Jordan looked at his notes. “I’d like to return to something you mentioned last week.”

  “But that’s just it, Mr. Jordan.”

  “What is?”

  “The circles. Don’t you get tired of it?”

  And Mr. Jordan’s face was crooked as he said, “Yes. I’m so tired.”

  Chapter 4

  Past the chicken spot and the bodega with EBT, he found the big grocery and tested the tomatoes in his hands. His instructions were choose one flavor of juice box. Juice box. Not fruit punch box. Not high-fructose corn syrup. Not fruit-flavored beverage. His instructions were spaghetti and tomatoes and onions, cilantro, beef. Check the date on the milk. Canned pineapple, chicken thighs, cereal.