The Swing Voter of Staten Island

by Arthur Nersesian

“Because we’re going to Rikers Island—the political action center,” she said reasonably enough.

  Uli hoped that seeing him bloodied and vulnerable, perhaps she had found a tender spot in her heart and changed her mind about him.

  She drove along what seemed to be the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway through Williamsburg and Greenpoint. As they approached Long Island City, Uli noticed men on ladders with binoculars sitting along the side of the road, inspecting cars as they slowly entered Queens. He imagined it was some kind of Pigger border patrol. When they exited the freeway and passed through the northeastern end of Astoria, Uli saw a distinct change. Unlike the slums and abandoned stretches of Brooklyn or the overcrowded streets of Manhattan, this place was cleaner and well-zoned. People looked better-dressed. Instead of retro-supported structures originally built for target practice, the houses here appeared to be new single-family dwellings. Likewise, there were fewer projects and tenement buildings. Each home had either a red Pigger flag on the porch or the statue of a saint on the front lawn, or both.

  “You see it immediately, don’t you?” Flare said. “The streets here are safer, cleaner.”

  “What about it?”

  “This is the difference between pro-life and pro-choice. Piggers aren’t trying to cut and run like Crappers. They’ve accepted that this is their life and they’re going to make the best of it.”

  “All politics just comes down to housing assignments,” Uli joked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Somebody should do a study and see if everyone who got a nice place became a Pigger and everyone who wound up in one of the dumps in Brooklyn became a Crapper.”

  “A healthy percentage of folks originally assigned to places up here moved down there, and vice versa,” Deer countered, shooting down his theory.

  They turned left on Steinway Street and sped north onto a narrow causeway over a swamp and entered a small fortified island. Remembering suddenly that this site was a jail in the old city, Uli felt a strange chill. He recalled lying on a table in a small room in JFK Airport here in Nevada, the sounds of cargo planes whirring in the background. A man with a shaggy head of white hair who looked like a schoolyard bully (Underwood?) was holding a small dog while staring down at him as two men wearing doctor masks did some kind of work on his cranium.

  Walk to Sutphin, catch the Q28 to Fulton Street, change to the B17 and take it to the East Village in Manhattan, wait outside Cooper Union until Dropt arrives, shoot him once in the head, then grab a cab back to the airport … He remembered the strange phrase being played over and over.

  “Wait a fucking second!” Uli exclaimed as they sped past a sentry before the only entranceway.

  “We’re here,” Deer announced, as a large goon dashed to Uli’s side of the car, blocking his possible escape. Two familiar faces approached. One was the shaggy-haired bastard, still holding the small brown dog in his dainty little hands. The other was Chain, the murderous thug with the telescopic eye. The goon who helped Uli out of the car was one of the gangcops he had encountered with Chain the other day in Borough Park.

  “What’s going on?” Uli asked calmly.

  “This is the D.T. welcome committee,” Deer said, getting out of the car, “and we’re initiating you as a new member.”

  “Remember me?” the white-haired man asked in a high-pitched voice.

  “You were the one who programmed me.”

  “But we were friends long before that.”

  “You’re Underwood, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, and for the record, sorry about the whole brain-programming thing. Apparently we were supposed to take you as close to the target as possible before releasing you. Live and learn.” He pet his little dog and added, “Now, Cirrus and I just want to talk to you about a certain missing person.”

  “Did you put something in my head?” Uli asked uncertainly.

  “Just a plan to get you out of here.”

  “Come on inside,” said the gangcop he recognized. “Let’s talk about the missing girl.”

  Uli figured they were referring to the disappearance of Patricia Itt. Since they didn’t even bother handcuffing him, Uli wasn’t too worried. They walked him into the large gothic building that looked like a small medieval castle, past a guard and down a flight of steps to the basement.

  “How many teams do we have on Fulton Street?” Underwood asked.

  “About ten,” Deer replied. “Where we really need more campaigners is Greenpoint. Polls show we’re only about twenty points behind there. If we assemble some ground forces for a door-to-door, we should be able to close the gap.”

  “I’m not worried about Greenpoint,” Chain said to her calmly. “J.J. Weltblack is the head of the polling center there.”

  “It don’t matter,” Underwood said.

  “To hell with their big announcement!” Flare declared. “Shub will win this one just like all the others!”

  “No, he won’t,” Underwood said to both of them, “and we don’t want him to. We got a brand new plan and it’s a beaut.”

  “What’s their big announcement?” Uli asked as they reached the bottom landing. Chain and Deer glanced at each other, as though surprised that Uli understood English.

  “Just that your old bus buddy is running,” Chain said. “She fooled me in Borough Park, but she won’t fool me again.”

  “Running from who?”

  “Running for mayor.”

  “Who’s my bus buddy?” Uli pressed.

  “Former Councilwoman Mallory is running in Dropt’s place,” Deer spelled out. “She’s got exactly one day to campaign. The election is tomorrow.”

  “Good news is she’s way ahead in the polls,” Underwood added, handing his little dog off to an assistant.

  They all packed into a small, stuffy windowless room in the basement. Uli felt strangely at ease in this tight space and focused on Underwood’s Brussels griffon, specifically on a small wire running from the back of its neck to a tiny bulb on its collar. He recalled seeing it before.

  “They say dogs can pick up on earthquakes and stuff before they happen,” Underwood said in a friendly voice. “Some pointy-head figured that if they can tap into that part of the brain, they might be able to sense other dangers before they occur. So far, knock on wood, Cirrus’s lightbulb hasn’t gone off.”

  At that point, Chain switched on his prosthetic polygraphic eye. “Does it surprise you that Mallory’s ahead in the polls?”

  “No, I’m just amused.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause it’s a lie. She was crushed to death.”

  “Which means that you know that we know that you were trying to locate her body,” Chain said.

  “I was trying to find anyone,” Uli replied.

  “Are you glad Mallory is running?” Deer asked with a smile.

  “If she really is alive and running, sure, why not?”

  “Cause that’s only half the news,” Deer answered, and chuckled. “The half they broadcast.” She looked at Chain and Underwood with a glorious grin.

  “What’s the other half?” Uli asked.

  “Telling him won’t make a difference,” Chain said smugly.

  “She mysteriously vanished from St. Vinny’s Hospital this morning,” Deer relished in telling.

  “So I guess the Crappers will run someone else,” Uli speculated.

  “They got no one else with the same numbers in the polls,” Underwood said. “Mallory was their only real shot.”

  “They’re still running her even though she’s missing?” Uli asked.

  “That’s right, only they haven’t reported her as missing,” Newt Underwood explained. “Which brings us to who you abducted.”

  “I turned my back for five minutes in the amusement park and she was gone. I looked all over for her.”

  “In the amusement park?” Underwood said.

  “Oh, he’s talking about our little Patsy Nitwit,” Deer chimed in.

  “What did you do to
Dianne Colder?” Chain asked.

  “The blond lobbyist?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “We found her head hanging in East New York. Her hair was knotted around a street post.”

  “Oh god!” Uli gasped, trying to sound sincere.

  “Tell us everything from the meeting I set up—when you first met her in downtown Brooklyn—until you last saw her,” Underwood said, taking a seat directly in front of Uli. Before he could respond, Chain muttered something and everyone abruptly exited, leaving Uli alone in the interrogation room.

  He vaguely remembered going through difficult interrogations in the past—when he was the interrogator. There were all kinds of prisoners: whites, blacks, Latinos. He remembered hot lights and sweat. He remembered interrogating Asians—those grillings were tougher. Cruel, not always effective. It must’ve been when he served in Vietnam. From the point of view of the prisoner, interrogations involved giving a single story that checked out, and then sticking to it under constant pressure and terror and finally torture. But eventually everyone cracked, and everything spilled out—lies, truth, piss, shit, everything.

  Ultimately it all depended on how they wanted to handle him. If they were simply trying to force out a confession, it was just a matter of torture. If they were looking for the truth, though, they would have to be more crafty, meaning he had half a chance.

  The three soon reentered. Underwood took a seat facing Uli and once again asked him to start talking about the Colder woman upon first meeting her.

  “She offered to help me assassinate Dropt in the Lower East Side, but she got sidetracked,” he recounted.

  “By what?” Deer asked.

  “She saw a retarded man named Oric who she felt was some kind of agent.”

  “The half-wit in the bus?” Chain said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And I saw you with him at the Shub rally,” Deer interjected.

  “I got to know him on the ride from JFK and we were heading in the same direction, but we weren’t together.”

  “Go on.”

  “Colder thought the guy could be a possible asset,” Uli said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why do you think?” Chain asked, thrusting his polygraph scope in Uli’s face.

  “She heard him say something that made her think he knew something about something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Think you might remember if I remind you?” Chain said, almost tenderly.

  “I might.”

  “Did she say anything about the mission being in jeopardy?”

  “You mean my mission to kill Dropt?” Uli asked.

  “Any mission.”

  “As you probably remember, since you caused it, I have a memory problem.”

  “What exactly do you remember?”

  Uli was convinced that if Underwood knew he and Oric had eluded Colder by jumping out the bus window upon reaching Manhattan, they would be torturing him right now. So he proceeded with the assumption that they didn’t know.

  “I told her that I thought we should stay on track with the assassination,” Uli said. “But Colder insisted that we had to abduct the retarded man.”

  “How?”

  “We said we were going to take him to get some cake.”

  “Where?”

  “Some pastry shop in the East Village. He had the mind of a child.”

  “Then what?”

  “I sat with him while she called someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was the name of the pastry shop?” Chain asked.

  “I don’t remember, some Italian name. He had a slice of chocolate cake.”

  “Then what?”

  “Roughly an hour later, some guy showed up. We put the retarded man in a car and drove him down to some pig farm in Staten Island.”

  “What happened there?”

  “I didn’t think what was going to happen would happen.”

  “What happened?”

  “She tortured that poor retard for hours.”

  “If you didn’t want to help her, why did you?”

  “Cause of you,” Uli said, talking directly to Underwood.

  “What about me?”

  “She said you worked for her and were a liar, that you had no way out of this hellhole or you would’ve taken it long ago. But she said if I did as she told me, she’d help me eliminate Dropt and then get me out of here herself.”

  “That sounds like Dianne,” Chain grinned. “If she needed someone, she’d snap him right up.”

  “What exactly did she get out of the retard?” Underwood asked.

  “No clue,” Uli replied stiffly. To his surprise, Underwood whipped him across the face with some kind of hard plastic cord. When Uli jumped forward, Chain grabbed his hands.

  “What did the retard say?”

  “Conversation’s over.”

  “Hell it is,” said Underwood.

  “You people are government officials and I have rights.”

  “All rights were suspended long ago. Now what’d the retard say?”

  “I don’t fucking know!” Uli shouted.

  “Cuff his hands,” Underwood said. Chain and the other gangcop each pulled an arm behind the chair and slipped his wrists through a hard plastic loop connected by a narrow band. He heard the clicking of notches as it closed into the catch lock. When Uli struggled to get to his feet, they fastened white bands of plastic around each of his ankles, connecting them to the front legs of his chair.

  “Get the fuck off of me!”

  Deer took a rag and wrapped it over his mouth. She pulled his head back, jerking his neck against the top of the chair. The weapon in Underwood’s hand turned out to be an extension cord with a plug on one side and the two copper wires on the other.

  “You’re smart,” Underwood said, as he plugged the cord into a socket and held the two wires apart. “There was a reason she was torturing the retard and I want to know what it was!”

  Deer ripped open his shirt and Chain splashed a small paper cup of water on him. Underwood pressed the wires to his bare chest. The shock of electricity running through his body felt like a mashing and burning around his lungs and heart. Underwood quickly withdrew the wires.

  “Okay!” Uli groaned. “I know! I know what it was!” He took a deep breath, but before he could say anything, Underwood pressed the two wire ends to his cheeks, causing him to writhe in anguish. “A seer!” he shrieked. Underwood removed the wires. “A Crapper seer, she called him.”

  All gasped.

  “What else!”

  “She intercepted him before he could get to the Crapper headquarters.”

  “If he was a seer, why was he traveling alone?” Deer asked.

  “He wasn’t alone!” Uli shouted to Chain. “He belonged to that couple you hung in Borough Park.”

  “What’s this?” Underwood asked Chain.

  “The two Crappers I caught on the bus. One of them who called himself Chad had a rifle lodged inside a metal detector and a bucket of old bullets. I left Chad and his wife hanging out there.”

  “How the fuck did two know-nothing Crappers acquire a goddamned seer?” Underwood asked Uli.

  “How the hell would I know?”

  Again Underwood jabbed the charged copper wires against Uli’s bare chest. The muscles in his body cramped all at once. The electricity seemed to reshape time itself, turning it into a vortex of excruciating pain. When the man pulled the wires back, Uli gasped for air. Every cell in his body hurt. Before the sadistic son of a bitch could reelectrocute him, Uli blurted, “He had a metal cross sticking out the back of his skull.”

  “A brain cuff,” Chain said.

  “That explains his retardation,” Deer added, “but it doesn’t explain his gifts.”

  As though Uli were a broken information machine, Chain grabbed the wires to fix him with another jolt.
<
br />   “He was a twin! His twin was chasing us!”

  “A twin?” Underwood said. “Sounds like our Crappers were able to secure an experiment. What happened to this twin?”

  “He got blown up at Rock & Filler Center,” Uli said, trying to catch his breath.

  “So much for grabbing any assets,” Deer muttered.

  “Okay, now listen up,” Underwood commanded, bringing his own sweaty face within inches of Uli’s. “You’re going to tell me exactly what that retard said. What predictions did he make?”

  “Gibberish,” Uli replied sternly. “He talked gibberish.”

  “I will fry your balls until smoke is coming out of your asshole.”

  “I really don’t know!” Staring terrified at the copper wires, Uli tried to maintain steady breaths. “He kept saying big bang boom or some shit. I think he knew that the Manhattan Crapper headquarters was going to get blown up.”

  “What else?”

  “That was it.”

  “We both know he said something else,” Underwood seethed. “And you’re going to fucking tell me what it is!”

  Deer reached down and started undoing the buckle of Uli’s belt. She tore his pants open, ripping the zipper down the middle. As the young sadist fumbled in his underpants, Uli yanked forward, trying to rise out of the chair. “Karove! They’re going to shoot someone named Karove!” he screamed.

  “I knew it!” Underwood shot back. Apparently, Uli’s fabrication was exactly what he had been hoping to hear. Turning to Chain, he ordered, “Call them! Tell them it’s high alert. Move him to the Bronx. Stick him under Yankee Stadium.”

  Chain dashed out of the little room.

  “What else?” Deer asked, visibly disappointed.

  “That’s all I remember, I swear it. He died after that.”

  “You done good, son,” Underwood said. “What happened to Dianne after she killed retardo?”

  “We drove to Manhattan to finish the primary mission.”

  “Okay, now a trick question. What was the name of the Pigger worker who picked you up at the pastry shop and drove you down to Staten Island?”

  “Don’t remember.” He started hyperventilating.

  “What kind of car did he drive?”

  “Some sporty car.”

  “What did he do then?”

  “He drove us down to the pig farm and left.”