Sewer, Gas and Electric

by Matt Ruff

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, what you said before: most people would think this mission to save the lemurs is crazy. Most people wouldn’t try it. And maybe most people who would try it wouldn’t survive, let alone succeed . . .”

  “. . . but you’re not most people,” Lexa said, picking up on the logic. “In fact you’re less most people than almost anyone left on earth. Therefore, the odds of succeeding are actually stacked in your favor.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m not sure it works that way,” said Lexa. “I’d still be very, very careful.”

  “No fear,” said Philo.

  “Here,” said Lexa. She dug in her purse and offered him an old silver dollar, its faces worn nearly smooth by five generations of fingers.

  “For luck?” Philo asked.

  “Call it an extra incentive to be careful,” Lexa replied. “It’s very precious to me. If it ends up at the bottom of the Hudson Canyon where I can’t get it back, I’m going to be very angry.” She craned her head around to look him in the eye. “Understood?”

  Philo nodded. He took the silver dollar and pocketed it, ducked his own head beneath Lexa’s chin, pressed a smile against the hollow of her throat, and whispered: “Understood.”

  A Kurdish Love Charm

  Seraphina found Marshall Ali in his cabin aboard the sub. He had an open strongbox on the floor between his feet and a collection of stone artifacts laid out beside him on his bunk.

  “What are those?” Seraphina asked, as Marshall Ali waved her inside.

  “This is Kurdish archaeology,” he told her. “All of it.” He indicated another five strongboxes stacked against a bulkhead and secured with canvas straps. “It was necessary to leave behind many more containers when I fled Turkey; this is all that I could carry with me. But it is the largest collection of Kurdish artifacts in the world. It is the only one.”

  “You had to leave Turkey?”

  “With my good Turkish friend Osman Hamid. He drove the grand taxi from Istanbul to Diyarbekir, which was my home. We would watch VCR together at the house of my grandmother: American martial arts movies, also bootleg tapes of Sonny Bono and Cher Sarkisian. Every year during the holy month of Ramadan we searched the ruins of Turkish Kurdistan. We fasted, as is the custom for Ramadan, and our hunger brought on visions, which unveiled the secrets of the past. Regrettably, Ramadan’s fasting also shortens tempers. On our last expedition we were discovered by a fat Turkish soldier, a very hateful man. He crept up on our camp in his jeep and overheard me singing a song by Sonny and Cher, whose lyrics I had translated into Kurdish. That is a serious crime in Turkey.”

  “Singing a Sonny and Cher song?”

  “Uttering Kurdish. Ten years in prison, at a minimum. It is part of the government’s cultural outreach program. Osman attempted to plead on my behalf with the soldier, but this only provoked him—the sight of a fellow Turk defending a Kurd—and he returned to his vehicle and accelerated it in my direction. I was forced to defend myself in the style of the American ninja Chuck Norris: I leapt over the hood of the jeep and drove my foot through the windscreen. This proved effective. If only all bad Turks shared a single neck . . . but the world is not so easy. Shortly after our return to Diyarbekir we learned that other soldiers were searching for us, more soldiers than even the estimable Bruce Lee could have held at bay. Not wishing to end as Butch Cassidy and Sundance, it became urgent for us to leave the country. We were assisted in our flight by the Mossad branch of the family Kazenstein, for whom my Iraqi cousins had once done a particular favor.” Marshall Ali spread his hands. “And here we are today. I will never again see Kurdistan.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Seraphina, wishing she were truly able to feel terrible for him.

  “It is past,” Marshall Ali told her. “Not forgotten, but done with. But you did not seek me out to hear sad stories. Your forehead is sheened with the perspiration of the woman in love.”

  Seraphina raised a hand to her forehead, which was sort of oily. “Is it that obvious?”

  Marshall Ali smiled. “Do you wish to know where he is?”

  “Actually, I was hoping for . . .”

  “Advice?”

  “Yes,” Seraphina said. “Advice on how to . . . how to go about. . . well . . .”

  “The woman pursues the man with lust in her heart,” said Marshall Ali. “We did not rent those movies. I think they are illegal in Turkey.”

  “So you don’t have any hints for me?”

  “The palm.”

  “The palm?”

  He nodded. “Grip the wrist like so”—he encircled his left wrist with his right thumb and forefinger—“and apply the tip of the tongue to the palm.”

  “You mean his palm? My tongue on his palm?”

  “Only if you want it to work. Trace the creases of the palm, then up each finger in turn, slowly, but with authority. Look him in the eye as you do this. Also”—tapping the spot—“lick behind the ear. He will bark like a jackal.”

  “You never rented those kinds of movies, huh?”

  “On my honor.”

  Seraphina’s gaze shifted back to the stone artifacts. “You wouldn’t happen to have an ancient Kurdish love charm, would you? Just for a little extra edge?”

  “Ah! One moment!” Marshall Ali got up from the bunk and went to open another strongbox. “Essentials first,” he said, and tossed Seraphina a perforated strip of foil packets. “The wise warrior always wears his armor. If he resists, or begins to speak of rubber raincoats, you must beat him about the face and neck until his good sense returns. Now, let us . . . yes. Here it is.”

  Seraphina would have expected a necklace or a bracelet, but the love charm Marshall Ali gave her was just a colored sketch on a piece of paper: a sketch of a bouquet of posies.

  “This is Kurdish?” Seraphina asked. “It doesn’t look very old.”

  “It is a tattoo,” Marshall Ali explained. “It is the tattoo from the buttock of Cher Sarkisian Bono. A reproduction,” he added hastily.

  “Am I supposed to draw it on myself?”

  “Fold the paper. Put it in your back pocket—I have bell-bottom jeans I will give you. Then, when you apply the tongue to the palm, when you lick behind his ear—envision the tattoo. There can be only one outcome.”

  Seraphina weighed the foil packets in her hand. It didn’t take long for her to make up her mind what to do; not long at all.

  “Well,” she said, “where is he?”

  Harry on the Water

  The cargo hover lit out across the surface of the Bay in early twilight, orange sun highlighting the detritus in the water. The hover was roughly the same shape as one of the Department of Sewers’ flat-bottomed patrol barges, but much bigger, riding on a cushion of air that kicked up silver-green fantails of effluent spray. Harry Gant, Vanna Domingo, and Whitey Caspian conferenced in the prow as it swung around towards Liberty Island.

  “It’s just that a little more warning would have been useful,” Vanna was complaining. “A little more time to prepare.”

  “Well, but Vanna, you weren’t around yesterday when Whitey came to see me,” Gant said. “We tried, but we couldn’t get hold of you. Besides which, I think the mayor’s office did a fine job of handling the preparations for us. There’s nothing to be so tense about.”

  “The military should be in on this,” Vanna insisted. “The harbor should be crowded with destroyers and PT boats. And this barge should be loaded with Marines, not—”

  “We discussed that with the mayor,” Whitey told her. “He decided to leave the Pentagon out of the loop for a number of reasons, one being that we still aren’t a hundred percent sure the U-boat base is even there. If it is there, and if the pirates are in it, they probably have a lookout posted, and it’s doubtful they’d fail to notice a navy flotilla assembling in the Bay. We don’t want to tip our hand too soon or they might sneak out, with or without the sub. And if it does come down to a show of force, the mayor would rather
let the harbor police handle it; a full-scale naval engagement needlessly multiplies the amount of firepower in use, and there’s just too much risk of collateral damage to—”

  “You still have the brains of a radish,” Vanna Domingo said. “Antisubmarine weapons aren’t going to damage any real estate. There are no condominiums under the water.”

  “Well the mayor thinks—”

  “The mayor has political ambition,” Vanna said. “That’s why he’s sitting back in the stern, with them. The mayor wants the NYPD to bust Dufresne so he can claim full credit and use the prestige to jump-start a Senate run.”

  “It’s not bad political strategy,” Harry Gant observed.

  Vanna shook her head. “I just wish I’d had another twenty-four hours advance notice, that’s all. . . .” She slipped a hand inside her coat pocket and felt the slender weight of a palm-sized metallic disc, flat on one side, slightly convex on the other: an improvised gadget, rush-ordered from Gant R&D as soon as Vanna had learned what was going on. She’d have preferred to have the Mitterrand Sierra waiting in ambush off Sandy Hook, but there hadn’t been enough time to arrange that.

  “Don’t worry about it, Vanna,” Gant said. His own coat pocket was torn, ripped open by an insane panhandler who’d accosted them an hour ago as they’d left the Phoenix. The panhandler—stringy-haired, bearded, his neck cinched in a studded leather collar—had run up to them on the sidewalk, rattling a tin cup full of pencils and gargling non-words around a disgustingly bloated tongue. It had taken four security guards with shock prods to drive the man away.

  “That’s right,” said Whitey, “don’t worry about it. Look over there.” He motioned to a big passenger liner in the Narrows south of the Upper Bay. “That’s the QE2 Mark 2. Cruise ship, officially, but it’s armed.”

  “Armed?” Gant said.

  “Not that it’s going to shoot at anything, Harry—the guns are just there to protect the royal family when they’re on board. But it’s a big ship, and its schedule happens to jibe with ours, so the mayor got the harbormaster to ring up the captain. QE2 Mark 2 is going to sit in the Narrows and hog the channel until we’re sure we’ve got Dufresne. And, Vanna, as a further precaution, the mayor has Special Agent Ernest G. Vogelsang of the F.B.I.’s Un-Un-American Activities Division standing by in a chopper downtown. Vogelsang hasn’t been informed of the exact nature of the operation—the police commissioner just asked him to stand by for a possible assist—but he’s there to be called in if need be.

  “So you see, nothing can possibly go wrong . . .”

  “Everything can always go wrong,” said Vanna. “It always does. A cruise ship . . . Harry, do you even want Dufresne to be caught?”

  Gant gave her a smile that told her everything she needed to know. “This is going to come off perfectly, Vanna. It’s a neat plan.”

  “Right,” said Vanna. Only by thinking of the cold depths of the Hudson Canyon was she able to force a smile in return. “A neat plan. That’s just what we need.”

  An Adaptable Beast

  “Of course you’re free to back out,” Morris said, as he sealed the last missile tube. “Serving on the Yabba-Dabba-Doo has always been a strictly voluntary affair. Personally I care too much about Philo to desert him when he needs me most, but don’t let my example embarrass you into making the wrong decision. Everyone has to set their own standard of loyalty . . . and courage.”

  “Well,” said Heathcliff, “well. . . it’s not that we aren’t loyal to Philo.”

  “It’s not that,” Little Nell agreed. “Not that at all.”

  “Sorry guys,” Morris said. He didn’t look up, fearful of betraying himself with the wrong expression. This might be the only chance he would ever get to act superior to his siblings, and he intended to milk the opportunity for all it was worth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that, I mean of course you’re loyal. Especially after everything Philo’s done for you—giving you the choicest jobs on the sub, funding your research—I’m sure you’re not only loyal, but grateful. But don’t let that tear at your consciences, this is still a volunteer organization, and if you feel the mission is too dangerous for you, then—”

  “I say!” said Mowgli. “It isn’t the danger, exactly, it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  “It’s the theme,” Galahad suggested. “The theme of the mission isn’t Palestinian enough.”

  “Yes, that’s it!” burst out Heathcliff. “We’re loyal, we’re courageous, and we laugh at death. Risk means nothing to us—we’d gladly take a rowboat to war against a battleship. But only for Palestine. Lemurs are a noble cause, but if we have to lay down our lives, we want it to be for the sake of Palestinian liberation.”

  “Hmm,” said Morris. “I guess you’ll be going back to the West Bank then, huh?”

  “What?” said Oliver.

  “I’ll talk to Philo, see if we can spring for airfare for you.”

  “What do you mean,” said Heathcliff, ‘“going back to the West Bank’?”

  “Well, if you’re not crewing the engine room anymore, I assume you won’t want to stay in New York. After all, there’s not much you can do to liberate Palestine sitting around here. Even back in London you’d be thousands of miles from the front line of the struggle. But if we put you on a plane to Bethlehem, you can be locking horns with the Shin Bet and the West Bank Settlers’ Defense League by the end of the week.”

  “Now Morris, let’s not be hasty . . .”

  A hatch opened in the deck. Jael Bolívar and Ellen Leeuwenhoek climbed out, each carrying a caged bobcat.

  “Are those the last of them?” Morris asked.

  Jael nodded. “Hamsters are all unloaded, too. Iggy the Sloth and Borneo Bill were already at my sister’s place in Astoria, so I left them there. But listen, Morris: I want to take some of the plants out as well. If you could just open up the bow for me—”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Morris!”

  “Jael, there’s no time for that. We have to be out of here in a few hours.”

  “Now Morris,” Heathcliff interjected, “don’t let’s be faunocentric. Plants are just as much a part of the environment as animals, and if Jael feels we ought to delay the mission in order to safeguard—”

  “Shhh!” Jael hissed.

  “Don’t shush me!” said Heathcliff. “I’m demonstrating pan-Arab unity for your position!”

  “Screw pan-Arab unity! What’s that noise?”

  Ellen Leeuwenhoek heard it too. “Sounds like rocks caught in a garbage disposal,” she said.

  “. . . or a drill bit attacking granite,” said Morris. Dust sifted from the roof of the cavern as the noise intensified. “Galahad, Mowgli, go tell Irma to start the engines.”

  “But we haven’t decided—” Little Nell started to protest. A big hunk of stone jolted loose from the ceiling and smashed itself into gravel on the nose of the sub.

  “Right,” Heathcliff said, and led the charge below decks. Jael Bohívar passed her bobcat to Ellen and started casting off mooring lines.

  Philo ran up the gangplank. “Definite company coming,” he said. “Are we ready to go?”

  “The buoys are locked and loaded,” Morris told him. “The ship’s batteries aren’t finished recharging, but we should have more than enough juice to see us through tomorrow, and I can always bring the auxiliary power supply on line if we need it.”

  “What about food stores? We may be at sea a lot longer than we planned.”

  “Thirty-day supply, counting granola,” Morris said. “It’ll have to do.” More rocks were shaking loose from the walls and ceiling. “If we haven’t found a new berthing site in a month I guess we learn how to fish. Or have the engine-room crew draw straws.”

  “All lines clear!” Jael shouted.

  “All right,” said Philo, “let’s go!” He turned to retract the gangplank and saw Lexa still standing on the pier. “What are you doing? Get aboard!”

  Lexa shook her head. “That’s not the pla
n.”

  “Lexa, someone is coming down here in an earth mover, probably the Army Corps of Engineers. Do you want to get shot?”

  “If they shoot me,” Lexa said, “I won’t be able to back you up tomorrow. So they can’t shoot me.”

  “Lexa—”

  Betsy Ross and Ellen’s Citroen gunned their engines and scooted forward as the wall behind them collapsed. A massive tracked vehicle with a rock bore for a snout thrust its way through the breach.

  “Get aboard!” Philo screamed.

  “I love you,” Lexa said, more as a means of stiffening her resolve than for any demonstrative purpose. “And I promise to be there on schedule tomorrow, no matter what. Now get out of here before you get shot.”

  Troops were debarking from the rock borer. Not the Army Corps of Engineers after all, or any other branch of the military; rather than guns and grenades, the troops Harry Gant had assembled wielded microphones, portable klieg lights, and video cameras . . .

  “Shit,” Ellen Leeuwenhoek said. “CNN.”

  And not just CNN, either, but other cable and network news crews as well, plus print reporters from nine major dailies. They surged across the dock, more terrible than any Marine landing force, crying “Mr. Dufresne! Mr. Dufresne! One question!” while public opinion trainee Fouad Nassif pointed with outstretched arm at the stunned pirates and commanded: “Journalize them! Shine the light of Western truth upon them! Mediafy them!”

  Morris and Jael bolted for the missile deck hatchway. Ellen Leeuwenhoek took her life in her hands and ran the other way, back down onto the pier, into the path of the stampede; Philo hauled in the gangplank the instant she was clear, frustrating the lead camera crews, who tried to harpoon him with their boom mikes. “Mr. Dufresne, please, you have to talk to us! Just let us on board for one second!” First Amendment, Lexa mouthed apologetically to Philo, as he dodged a microphone jab to his solar plexus. Tomorrow, he mouthed back, and jumped down into the sub after Morris and Jael. The hatch sealed shut and the Yabba-Dabba-Doo began backing out of its slip.