Goulden was right, Joe thought. Work was good for him, relaxing. It was five years ago that he had first come undone. He found the thirty dead Chinese girls—poisoned by carbon monoxide—in the back of a refrigerated meat truck. If he had gotten there fifteen minutes sooner, just fifteen, they would have lived. What he saw was a holocaust pile of lifeless young women, frozen in their terror, huddled as they were in the back of the truck, trying to hide from the hose that had been lodged at the front. Their captors, knowing the FBI was closing in, had made sure there would be no survivors, no evidence that could talk.
It was then that the gears in his mind had turned on themselves—his limit for trauma, a very high limit, had finally been reached—and he went AWOL. He followed his usual pattern for hiding, and on the outskirts of Milwaukee, he holed up in a motel for two weeks in a state of deep paranoia, until he came up with a plan, a solution, a way to live, which was to get very small and very quiet and leave no wake. So he had to be pure. He had to be holy. He had to be contained.
He had come to believe that he was the recurring element—the deciding element—in all the tragedies experienced by the people he encountered. So if he could minimize his impact and his responsibility, then there was the chance, the slight chance, that there would be no more suffering for others. It was a negative grandiose delusion—narcissism inverted into self-hatred, a kind of autoimmune disorder of his psyche—but there was an undeniable element of truth to Joe’s paranoiac state: where he went, pain and punishment followed.
To accomplish his goal of containment and purity, he couldn’t let anyone near him. He had to abandon all friendships and give up on women. Women had always broken against him anyway, hidden as he was, especially from himself. They thought they could get near him, but it had never been possible. Still, he had tried for years, hoping each time that he might be capable of love. Then, after finding the girls in the truck, it was clear to him that everything had to stop. No more women, no more sex, no more companionship of any kind. He would speak as little as possible to the outside world, and so he went to his mother, the only person he could be trusted not to hurt. He returned to the house where he had grown up in Queens. His father could still be felt in every room, and Joe got worse, not better.
The FBI jettisoned him for going AWOL, and for three years he and his mother lived in near silence and isolation. She didn’t ask him why he had come home in his forties or what had happened; she knew it must not be good, but mostly she was just happy to have her Joseph back in the house.
Then, two years ago, Goulden came and found him and sent him to McCleary, hoping it would rehabilitate Joe. Goulden had always outranked him—first in the Marines and then in the FBI—so Joe did what his friend said. He went back to work. He found that he could still function exceedingly well as a weapon, and he had never stopped living as if he was still undercover. It had become a permanent state.
So it was a seamless return, and he didn’t question things anymore if it was related to the job. He now thought of it as a level playing field. Everyone shared responsibility—on both sides of the moral axis—and he was of use. A hammer doesn’t ask why it strikes.
A little after 1:00 a.m., Joe got what he needed from the brothel—the towel boy emerged, sent out on an errand. Joe moved fast. The towel boy, in jeans and a thick, hooded sweatshirt, was on the south side of the street, in the middle of the block, heading for Second Avenue. Joe didn’t think he was security. They usually wore dark blazers and even ties to give the well-heeled johns a sense of comfort and class, as well to keep them in their place, to let them know that authority was present.
So Joe loped down the north side of the street and then crossed, five yards ahead of his target. He looked about. No immediate witnesses. It was a cold October night. Not too many people were out. He stepped from between two cars and right into the path of the towel boy—a thirty-two-year-old white man, a failed blackjack dealer from Atlantic City named Paul, who didn’t have much talent for anything. He was startled by Joe’s sudden appearance, and Joe shot out his right hand unerringly and grabbed Paul by the throat, the way a man might grab a woman’s wrist. Paul didn’t even have time to be scared. He was already half-dead. Everything Joe did was to establish immediate and complete dominance.
He then whispered, “Everything is going to be all right. I won’t hurt you for long, I promise.” With that, he let go of Paul’s throat and threw a short, vicious punch into his diaphragm, doubling him over, and Joe put his arm around him. If anyone looked out a window, they’d see Joe helping his sick, gasping friend who had too much to drink. They’d see him guiding the poor drunk across the street and into the backseat of his car.
Joe then shoved Paul across the seat and pulled the door closed behind him. He made quick work with the duct tape and cutting razor. He bound Paul’s wrists behind his back and taped his ankles together. He had left the driver-side window open a crack so that they wouldn’t steam things up.
Paul’s eyes were starting to focus, and he was gasping a little less audibly. Joe had him sit up straight, and he rubbed Paul’s shoulders. He wanted Paul to be of use as quickly as possible.
“How many security are inside?” Joe asked.
Paul was too frightened to answer. Joe raised his hand as if to strike Paul.
“Two,” Paul whispered.
“Where are they?”
Paul looked confused. Joe refined his question. “Where in the house are they?”
“You promise you won’t kill me?”
“Yes.”
Paul hesitated. Not out of cunning, just fear. Joe raised his hand again. Paul spoke quickly, half-gasping: “There’s one guy on the first floor, in the kitchen, with the cameras, and one guy on the second floor. He sits in the hallway.”
Joe figured that there were plenty of cameras for security reasons, as well as cameras in the fucking rooms. Blackmail was another good source of revenue. He took out the picture of Lisa. He hit the overhead light and held the snapshot in front of Paul’s face. “Do they have a playground? Is this girl inside?”
A new fear crossed Paul’s face. He looked to his left and right. He wanted out. Joe turned off the light and crushed Paul’s windpipe, then let go. “Is the girl in the picture inside?”
Paul nodded and whispered, “Yes.” He was scared and ashamed. He wasn’t a hard case, and he gave Joe everything he needed. Joe removed the key to the brownstone from Paul’s sweatshirt pocket, and he got the basic layout of the house and the operation from him—the booker-madam worked off-premises, there was no landline, only cell phones, and the greeting lounge was on the first floor; there were six bedrooms altogether, on the second and third floors; the playground was on the third floor, last bedroom at the end of the hall, and in the bedroom next to Lisa’s was her “big sister.”
The “big sister” was usually a prostitute in her early thirties, who, trying to hang on near the end of her career, makes herself useful by chaperoning and befriending the young ones—training them, shopping for them, and feeding them a steady diet of Vicodin, Klonopin, Xanax, and Oxycontin, all of which kept the girls on the playground pliant and docile. Paul, who was addicted to painkillers, often bought his own pills from Lisa’s chaperone, which was one more way for the big sister to turn a profit for herself before she was sent to the street, no longer of value, but at least, unlike the children, there was no need to kill her when she was used up.
Joe, having gotten all the information he wanted, closed his hand once more around Paul’s throat and the carotid artery that led to his brain. Paul’s eyes widened at the betrayal, and Joe counted to ten. Those ten seconds seemed rubbery and strange to Joe. Looking at Paul’s face, he had a vision of sorts. He saw Paul entering a bar, catching his reflection in the glass of the door, and quickly running his fingers through his hair, since he never liked how he looked, and how Paul felt in that moment, without being able to put words to it, that everything in his life seemed to fall short.
Then Pau
l was asleep, not dead, and Joe lowered him down gently across the backseat, checking his pulse and his breathing. He smoothed Paul’s hair, as Paul had in the vision, and, like a god, he looked at Paul with tenderness. He imagined Paul’s little apartment somewhere, his mean, unmade bed, his private place where he worried over himself, where he went to hide like an animal. Joe knew that all human beings are the star of their own very important film, a film in which they are both camera and actor; a film in which they are always playing the fearful and lonely hero who gets up each day hoping to finally strike upon the life they are meant to lead, though they never do.
He then taped Paul’s head and neck to the seat and put tape over his mouth, cutting a little slit for breathing. He bent Paul’s knees and taped his legs—his heels to the backs of his thighs—like he was roping a piece of cattle. He didn’t want Paul to wake up and make a fuss, kicking at the window. Then Joe got out of the car. It was time to get the girl.
He came through the front door of the brothel as the guard from the kitchen came into the hall, having seen Joe on the monitor. He didn’t reach for his gun, which was a mistake. He was big, six-five, a linebacker’s body. He was about twenty feet from Joe.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked. His meaty head was shaved. It was gleaming and ugly.
Joe sprinted at him, the hammer raised. The guard, scared by the hammer and scared by Joe, fumbled for his gun, and Joe was on him. The hammer struck him on the cheek, on the neck, and in the center of his back, where he felt it deep in his lungs as he went down. Joe then kicked him on the side of his pink, razor-nicked head. Joe was good at damaging people without killing them. He had been in the house less than ten seconds.
The stairway was to his right. He took it two steps at a time, and the second guard, a squat and powerfully built black man, appeared at the top of the stairs, mystified by the noises that had come from below. Joe came right at him with the hammer, backing him up, and hit him on his collarbone, snapping it. The guard stumbled back into the hallway, and Joe, swinging the hammer like a baseball bat, sent it into the man’s breastplate, and he went down. Joe kicked him in the head and he was out.
Then a john, in pants but no shirt, emerged from the bedroom closest to the fallen guard, and Joe hit him in the shoulder with the hammer, crumpling him. Then he kicked him hard in the stomach to keep him quiet for a while. The man, like a bug trying to swim, scratched at the floor in agony.
No one else emerged from the second-floor bedrooms, so Joe took the stairs to the third floor. He wasn’t worried about any of the johns or the prostitutes making cell-phone calls. At all times, even when not working, Joe carried a jammer in his pocket. They were cheap, only 150 dollars, and blocked cell-phone reception in a twenty-yard radius. He had started using them when he moved back in with his mother. He liked to ride the bus sometimes on Queens Boulevard and stare out the window, but he couldn’t stand listening to everyone on their phones.
He went to the playground, per Paul’s instructions, and opened the door. In the glow from the hallway, he saw a man’s back, like an enormous white tumor. It was grotesque—arched and pistoning. He could make out the girl’s ankles on either side of the man’s fatty white thighs, but that was all he could see of her.
The man turned, looked at Joe, his eyes full of rage—how dare he be disturbed, he was paying good money for this—and Joe struck him in the face with the hammer, knocking him off the girl and sending him sprawling. Joe then grabbed the man by the arm, tossed him to the floor, and sent his steel-toed boot into his testicles, exploding them. Then he kicked him in the head to stop his screams.
The girl was lying inert on the bed, her head to the side, her lips moving. Her legs were still open. She looked like a torn-apart doll. Joe leaned his face close to hers to make a positive ID, and to hear what she was whispering. It was barely audible, but she was counting. She was in the seven hundreds. Her eyes were open but glazed. Then her big sister, a skinny diet-pill blonde with artificial tits, wearing a silk robe, came into the room. She saw the bloody, unconscious man on the floor, his groin looking like an animal that’s been skinned.
“What’s going on?” she asked, inanely, hysterically. Joe, seeing that she carried no weapon, advanced on her, grabbed her elbow violently, and said, “Get her dressed. Fast.” He saw clothing on a chair—a Catholic schoolgirl’s outfit, a tawdry cliché.
The big sister was in shock, but she got the girl out of bed and into her skirt and blouse and panties, not bothering with the white stockings or little black shoes. Joe took a sheet from the bed, wrapped the girl in it, and carried her past the men he had left on the ground, down the two flights of stairs, and out of the brothel.
At the top of the stoop, he peered up and down the street. No cop cars. With the girl light in his arms, he moved quickly to his rental. About six minutes had passed since Joe had gone in. He put the girl in the front seat. She was out of it but not completely.
He dragged Paul out of the car and left him on the sidewalk. He dropped the bloody hammer in a sewer, started the car, and headed for the W Hotel. He glanced at the girl. Her face was against the window. Her lips were moving. She was still counting. It’s her way to get through it, Joe thought. She counts until it’s over.
Joe left the car in front of the W, told the doorman he’d be right back and gave him a twenty. He carried Lisa, in the sheet, across the lobby and to the front desk. She rested her head on his shoulder, asleep now like a child who’s been on a long car ride and is being carried to her bed. She felt precious to Joe, fragile like a bird. He hoped that Votto, without his wife, could look after her.
The lone, sleek-looking clerk at the front desk hid his discomfort at the sight of the tall man carrying a child wrapped in a sheet. It was hard to know what to make of it, something was strange—the man was wearing latex gloves—but he knew to stay cool. That’s what they teach you at Cornell’s hotel school, especially if you’re going to work the after-midnight shift in a city hotel.
“Senator Votto,” Joe said. “He’s expecting me. Tell him it’s Joe.”
The clerk nodded, picked up the desk phone, dialed the room, and waited. Then: “There’s someone here named Joe, sir. Send him up?” He nodded silently to whatever was said on the other end, hung up the phone, and came around the desk, leading Joe to the elevators, his hips swaying like a woman’s. There was an elevator ready, and the clerk swiped his card inside, freeing the system. As Joe carried Lisa past him into the elevator, he smelled the man’s cloying perfume, and then hit the ninth-floor button.
He carried her down the hall to Votto’s room, and the door was slightly open. Joe pushed it in with his foot and stepped inside, and three uniformed cops with guns raised—one of which was equipped with a silencer—came at Joe from his right and his left. Two from the bedroom and one from the living room. Votto wasn’t there. The cops seemed out of breath, nervous and hurried, as if they had just arrived. They closed the door behind him.
“Move,” said the alpha of the three, a beefy Irish-looking cop in his mid-thirties, with red splotches on both his cheeks. His gun had the silencer, and he waved it, indicating that Joe should carry the girl into the living room, where he’d sat with Votto hours before. They were in the narrow entry space by the front door, and the cop wanted room. Joe couldn’t risk the girl getting shot, so he did what he was told. The other two cops then relieved him of the girl and carried her back out of the suite. She was still asleep, drugged, in shock. Joe heard the door close. Where were they taking her? Where was Votto? The alpha cop kept his gun on Joe. They hadn’t frisked him for weapons, but all he had was the cutting razor.
“Sit down, asshole,” the cop said, “keep your hands in front of you.” He took out his cell phone with his left hand, hit a button with his thumb. Joe sat down. He cursed himself. He had turned his jammer off when he drove to the W, wanting to conserve the battery. The television in the living room was on—NY1, the twenty-four-hour local news station, was playing. The cop
, still standing, kept his eyes and the gun on Joe. It was a .22, good for a close-range pop to the head. Assassins prefer to use a .22: its ballistics are nearly impossible to trace.
The cop held the phone to his ear, waiting. The coffee table was between them. It had a despoiled room-service tray on it: a meal had been eaten. Several empty mini-bottles of liquor were also on the table, as well as two empty bottles of red wine. Votto or someone had been doing a fair amount of sloppy drinking.
“I have him,” the cop said into the phone. “What do you want—”
That was when Joe propelled himself across the cluttered table and into the cop’s legs, but the table kept Joe from going as far as he would have liked. He hit the cop’s knees, backing him up, causing him to drop the cell phone, but he didn’t knock the cop down, as he had hoped.
Like trying to run in a dream, Joe felt himself to be moving in slow motion, pulling himself up the cop’s body, his left hand all the while on the cop’s wrist that controlled the gun, and the cop was trying to free the gun, to get the right angle, and he was chopping at the back of Joe’s head with the butt of it, landing sharp blows, and then the cop got the gun loose and, trying to shoot Joe in the back as Joe still clawed upward, shot him in the calf, and it felt like a welding torch had burned a hole through his right leg, but Joe kept climbing and climbing. He was blind, danger was like that sometimes, your eyes stopped working, some unseeing snake part of your brain took over, where everything was shadow and feeling, and Joe again had his left hand on the wrist that held the gun, and he was pushing it away, a shot was fired into the wall, and Joe was standing up now, his momentum driving them into the desk.
You Were Never Really Here Page 3