by J. B. Turner
Berenger picked up the remote control and switched off the TV. His senses were switched on. “You must have the wrong number.”
“I’ve been informed by our facility—you know the one I’m talking about—that the Plastic Man has dropped off our radar.”
“What?”
“I just contacted the facility fifteen minutes ago, and they said there was chatter on their Toronto police radio scanner about some fire at a business in downtown yesterday. It was evacuated apparently.”
“So what connection is that to our operation?”
“The address corresponded to the office suite an acquaintance had been renting. The man who was handling the Plastic Man.”
Berenger wondered what was going on. “That is strange.”
“Damn right it is. Haven’t heard from the handler. It’s like he’s dropped off the grid.”
Berenger said, “And no one’s made contact with the Plastic Man?”
“Not a word. I’ve sent people from the facility over to his apartment, but he’s not there. It’s under surveillance, but so far nothing.”
Berenger began to pace the apartment. “The handler called me.”
“What?”
“The man who oversees the Plastic Man.”
“When?”
“Thirty-six hours ago, maybe more.”
“About what?”
“He was trying to determine if the Plastic Man was ready for the operation after I’d carried out the preassessment.”
“Is it usual for him to contact you about such matters?”
“Not really. In fact I can’t remember the last time he called me looking for clarification or verification.”
“You think there was something bugging him?”
Berenger nodded. “Yes, there was.”
“What exactly?”
“He had doubts about the Plastic Man.”
“What sort of doubts?”
“He was against the Plastic Man carrying out the operation as planned.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“He had grave concerns about his suitability for the job, especially in light of what happened in Scotland. He said he had voiced these concerns to Mr. Wilson.”
There was a pause as Stanton digested this information. “I wasn’t informed of any concerns. At all. At any time.”
“I can’t comment on that, sir.”
“I’ve been trying to contact Clayton, but I haven’t been able to get through. Not to voice mail or anything. It’s just ringing and ringing. But we did all get a message from him with an update.”
“I can’t imagine that’s typical of Clayton.”
“Quite the opposite. He was always available on the phone. Night and day. No matter what.”
“The handler called it. He said he didn’t like the Plastic Man working on this assignment.”
“If we’d heard any dissenting voices like that of the handler, we would have gotten someone else.”
“So why do you think Clayton was so adamant about using Nathan?”
“He figured the Plastic Man owed us, and this was us making him pay. Turning the screw.”
“And how’s that working out?”
“What a mess. What a fucking mess. And it might not end like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think this could get worse. We thought we were playing it cute with the Plastic Man. But he’s like a wrecking ball. There’ll be nothing left at this rate. But the fallout and blowback could be even worse. And that’s before we can even contemplate the main event in a few days’ time. This might even put that in jeopardy.”
Berenger’s mind flashed back to sitting face-to-face with Nathan, his facial features expertly crafted and sculpted to show a different man from before. Cutting-edge technology and the best surgeons money could buy had created a monster. He remembered the coldness in the eyes. But also the way Nathan had commanded the room. Not overtly, but sometimes with a cutting remark, a comment that illuminated some of the rage within him, or perhaps it was the way Nathan had stared so long and hard at him, as if trying to determine if he should also be killed. It unnerved him, despite his being a highly experienced psychologist who was an expert in Special Forces psychology.
He had half expected Nathan to strangle him for any imagined slights or for an offhand comment.
“Are you still there, Doc?”
“Yes, I am. Sorry, I was just thinking about my last meeting with him.”
“That’s history. We need to think about the here and now.”
“I agree.”
“What are your thoughts on what I’ve told you?” the man asked.
Berenger sighed. “I think when you finally speak with Clayton—”
“I’m meeting with him tomorrow night.”
“Good. So you need to all speak openly and get everyone’s views. What you’ve told me indicates there’s some dysfunction in the decision-making.”
“What else do I need to know about the Plastic Man? What advice would you give?”
“He’s the most dangerous man I’ve worked with. You probably know this already, but if I were in your shoes, I’d make sure the Plastic Man was neutralized first and foremost.”
“Then what?”
“Then, and only then, should you get a replacement to complete the job once and for all.”
Forty
It was nearly night and Nathan was sitting in a dark, shitty room in a hostel in Chinatown in the Bowery, just a few blocks from the one-room hovel he had grown up in. The memories flooded back. The terrifying face of his father staring down at him. Beatings. Unimaginable cruelty.
Nathan had considered getting a room in a hotel uptown. But he knew it was far easier to escape detection and blend in among the working-class people who still inhabited this relatively sketchy part of downtown Manhattan. No one asked questions. You just paid in cash and you got a hotel room. Uptown? More questions, raised eyebrows. It would have been easier for him psychologically. But his main focus was staying out of sight for as long as possible.
He looked out through a tear in the nicotine-stained lace curtains at the still-bustling street. Bangladeshis, Chinese, African Americans, crowds of white kids, every facet of New York, all contained in one of the city’s oldest and grittiest neighborhoods. But the gentrification signs were there. Swanky new hotels opening up farther down the block where there had once been abandoned lots. Crumbling tenements being turned into offices or new apartment blocks. It was just a matter of time before the rents and prices headed skyward. And what of the working class then? They would inevitably have to move out. Brooklyn. That was gone. Prices skyrocketing. If you were lucky, you could get a shithole apartment in Crown Heights. What a mess.
Nathan had grown up in a nonworking-poor household. His father was a bum. He didn’t know if he’d ever worked. Maybe the odd shift at the Hudson River docks. He couldn’t ever remember his father getting up at the crack of dawn for work. That was when he usually stumbled in, if he came home at all.
He looked around the sparse, cramped, six-by-four room. It stank of piss, maybe from the mattress. Who knew? He remembered his father saying—in one of his rare sober moments—that he’d stayed in the same hostel for a few nights. It was called something else then, the Lodging House or something like that.
He wondered if his father had stayed in this same shitty room, maybe with a prostitute.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt the anger start to well up inside him. The crazy, leering eyes, the filthy hands raining punches down, the smell of sour rotgut whiskey on his breath, the screaming in his face as he cowered. At times it felt as if it would never end. And it never would have if his sister hadn’t put an end to it all. She hadn’t told Nathan what she was going to do. She just lay on the dirty mattress, similar to the one he was lying on now, with scissors sharpened—she would tell him later—on the stone stoop outside the apartment.
A flash of metal as she stabbed the blade straig
ht into his heart. Down and down, the blood spurting out of their father’s shirt, incredulity on his face as he fell to the floor. Then she stabbed him maniacally in the head and neck and back and neck and head, again and again and again until he no longer moved.
Nathan remembered trying to scream but being too afraid. His sister was drenched in their father’s blood, and so was he. He tasted it on his tongue and began to wet himself. Then he cried and cried before the screams eventually came from deep within him, deep down in his guts.
Little had his father known, as he spent what would be his last drunken hours carousing or sleeping or fighting in a flophouse like this one, that his daughter was waiting for him, feigning sleep.
They knew he was going to come home that night. His money would have run out. And he would take shelter in his shitty one-room apartment on the Bowery, no more than half-a-dozen blocks away from where Nathan now sat.
Nathan and his sister had cowered in fear for so long, been absent from school for so long, that everyone had forgotten about them. They had only each other. Not a soul came to their rescue. Existing like feral cats amid the filth, the cold, the suffocating heat in summer, going out of their minds, retreating into the comfort of insanity as they lost their will to live.
But something within his sister had fought back. Thank God. She had to do it. If not for her, they would both be dead.
She had refused to lie down and die. From that moment on, Nathan learned to fight back. Not be afraid of anyone. Take the beatings. The hate on the street. And turn that rage into fuel for his resentment. He became tougher. Harder. More resilient.
He lay down on the bed and stared at the shadows on the ceiling. He listened to the honking cars outside, the shouts and screams from the same streets he’d once run around in, barking dogs. He had been part of a pack. And now here he was, all these years later, alone in the same lousy streets his father had called home, the same streets that made him.
There was the sound of raised voices and a commotion outside.
Nathan got up from the bed and peered through the tear in the curtains. He saw a man with four fierce-looking dogs on a leash. The guy’s face was bathed in a ghostly glow from a streetlight. Nathan stared at the guy’s face. He looked familiar. And then he remembered. Jesus Christ, he knew the guy. Zico, a neighborhood kid. A violent fuck. Out of control. Nathan used to run around with him way back in the day. And here he was, still hanging around.
He wondered if he should talk to him. But as he was working, that was a no-no.
That said, the guy was always respectful when talking about his sister. Wasn’t pure mean like the other fuckers. He was mean in a good way. Taking the fight to people who wanted to fight. But shit, here he was, still doing what he was doing all these years later.
Nathan headed outside and walked up to the man. “Hey.”
Zico just stared at him.
“Nice dogs, man.”
Zico stared at him long and hard, the dogs straining at the thick leather leash. “Easy, guys.” He stared at Nathan for what seemed an eternity. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’d hug you, man, but not with those fucking dogs.” Nathan shrugged. “It’s Nathan. Nathan Stone.”
Zico grinned. “What the hell? You look completely different.”
“Accident. Plastic surgery.”
“Fuck. I haven’t seen you in a long time. A lifetime, I think. Way back when.”
Nathan nodded. “Yeah, way, way back when. Long time.”
“Are you kidding me? What’s going on?”
“With me? Just doing a little work in town. Thought I’d spend a few hours in the old neighborhood, you know, before I have to leave again.”
“So where the fuck you been? The last I heard, you joined the army.”
“Yeah, for a while. Moved on since then.”
“Man, you look real weird. Yeah, you look different. Your face, I mean. Are you OK?”
“I’m good.”
Nathan said, “Look I’d love to have a drink, but I have to head off real quick. You got a number I can reach you at if I get back into town?”
Zico handed him a business card. “Twenty-four hours a day. Whatever you need, Zico can get. And by the way, if anybody’s fucking with you or wanting to fuck with you, you let me know.” He cocked his head in the direction of the dogs. “You should see them in action.”
“What do you mean, action? You mean against other dogs?”
“No, man, better than that. Sometimes I have to set them on the opposition.”
“What kind of opposition?”
“Drug dealers I don’t like. Gangs. Kids these days. They’re fucking crazy. I’m not affiliated anymore. So I have to look out for my interests. And these bad boys will deal with any threat I face.”
Nathan looked at the card, which listed a cell phone number. “You gotta gun?”
“Have I got a gun? Course I’ve got a fucking gun. But I’ve been training these crazy fucking dogs for years. Meanest, baddest fucks around. And you know what else? One time, about a year ago in Queens, deal went sour and I had to set my dogs on the guy. Filmed the whole thing.”
Nathan tried hard not to wince.
“Man, you need to get with the program. Pinhole camera on each of the collars. HD-quality film. Then uploaded it to YouTube. Made a fortune. Released a fucking DVD as well. I’m thinking about live streaming too.”
Nathan looked at the dogs warily. He wasn’t a fan of dogs. He wasn’t a fan of cats either. Actually, he didn’t really like pets at all. “Look, I’ve got to get some shut-eye.”
Zico tugged at his dogs. “You need any help in town, you just let me know, man, and I won’t let you down.”
Nathan grinned as his crazy old friend headed down the street and the dogs snarled and scratched each other. He headed back inside the hostel and back into his room, locking his door.
He lay down on the bed, his mind flashing back to his days on the streets. Foster homes he’d been thrown out of. And he was feral. The same as the rest of the guys who hung around with Zico, including a whole bunch of sociopathic lowlifes.
Over the next hour or so, his thoughts began to come together. Thinking of the old days. But he couldn’t escape the encounter with Zico.
Eventually, Nathan closed his eyes and felt himself drifting off to sleep, thinking only of the following evening and the remaining members of the Commission.
Forty-One
Nathan awoke in a cold sweat from a nightmare in the squalid hostel. He’d dreamed he was being chased through woods by headless figures. His heart was beating hard. Outside on the street, there was the sound of beeping from a garbage truck reversing and the clatter of trash cans being emptied.
He got up and pulled back the curtains. Down on the street, a couple of Latino guys were squaring up to the black driver of the garbage truck, who was telling them to fuck off.
Nathan walked across the room and splashed some lukewarm water on his face from the cracked ceramic sink. He put on his clothes, picked up his backpack, and headed out to a diner on East Houston Street. He loaded up on caffeine and pancakes. He popped a couple of strong steroid pills laced with amphetamines, washed them down with black coffee. He looked around at the faces and realized he was from another time. The people in the diner seemed relaxed. He guessed they were educated, some students. But certainly a different crowd than the one that used to hang around back in the day. Then it was crazies, homeless druggies shooting up in the street, cyclists being thrown off their bikes, their bikes being sold six blocks away to other lowlifes, people walking imaginary dogs, and the downright dangerous muggers, thugs, and all manner of street freaks.
He got his coffee refill and stared out at the street. He was a fucking relic, like Zico, from a forgotten past. A ghost who’d returned to the same streets he knew so well.
He looked across at a streetlight and remembered it was the very same one where he’d gotten his head smashed in by a gang from Alphabet City before
they’d stomped him unconscious.
It had taken him months to recover. But recover he did.
He got stronger. And smarter.
Until one day Nathan’s path inadvertently crossed with the leader of the gang’s, a sixteen-year-old who was already pimping. And the guy was infamous for cutting his “girls” if they ever looked at him the wrong way.
Nathan’s mind flashed back to the early hours of a freezing January night. The guy had emerged from the shadows farther down the street, grinning like a jackal, holding a knife.
He taunted Nathan. The kid was laughing as a few of his friends watched from the sidelines. It was then, in that moment, alone, staring into oblivion, Nathan decided he’d had enough. He crossed the street, picked up a scaffolding pole, ran up, and smashed it down hard. The guy went down, blood spilling out the back of his skull.
Nathan had shown no mercy. He smashed the metal pipe down onto the fucker’s skull and face until the guy was battered unconscious.
The attack was over before it began.
Nathan had stared down at the pool of blood congealing around his cheap sneakers.
It was at that moment he realized he’d crossed a line. No one ever fucked with Nathan after that. Word got around. Avoid that crazy white kid from the Bowery.
A good-natured waitress clearing her throat beside him snapped him out of his reverie.
“Would you like anything else, hon?” she asked.
“No, I’m good, thanks.” Nathan put down a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
The waitress looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Are you kidding me?”
“Take care.”
The hours dragged as Nathan considered the best way to deal with the remaining members of the Commission. They’d each responded to the message from, they believed, Clayton Wilson, confirming they’d be at the meeting place at 9:00 p.m. sharp.
He considered various options. Should he get a gun? A knife? Something else?
He really needed to see inside the townhouse to know what he was working with. He might be walking into a trap. He wondered if he should kill them outside the townhouse when they pulled up in their cars or cabs. But that solution had its own issues.