The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

by Jonathan Lethem

  If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you have the proper clearance. So it doesn’t matter if I reveal classified secrets, does it? That, or you are one extremely bewildered barkeep and about to enjoy the story of your life.

  Which is to say, the story of my life.

  Some years ago I was a student at Stanford University who needed book money. Textbooks for my classes, but also novels for my own entertainment. At that time in my life I didn’t have much of anything else. No women, no booze, no life of intrigue, no expense account. I was a bookworm. A classified advertisement in the campus newspaper brought me to a basement office a few blocks away from campus, and within a few days I was beginning my slow transformation into an unstoppable living weapon.

  They didn’t advertise that, of course. They billed the program as “answering psychological quizzes.” Research for graduate studies. Military war games, strategy scenarios, codebreaking, that sort of thing. Once you answer the first multiple-choice question, however, you’re already in way too deep. Months blurred by before I realized that I was being transformed into . . . well, something other than a mild-mannered college student.

  Along with the quizzes and strategy games they enrolled me in martial arts classes and weapons training. They told me it went along with the experiment; one fueled the other. I have to admit, it was fun. I was never particularly athletic, nor had I ever held a gun in my life. But within a few months I knew how to break a man’s wrist and could field-strip a rifle blindfolded. They clapped me on the back, told me I showed great aptitude for this sort of thing. They brought me on as a full-time trainee.

  Not long after that they began hypnosis sessions, just to clear my head they told me. It was around this time that I began to suffer from memory loss and the sensation of missing time.

  The deeper I tumbled into the experiments, the more lost I felt. I also had the unshakable feeling that the experiment was not turning out the way they were expecting, and sadly, my project was only one of 129 under the same secretive umbrella. I wasn’t abandoned so much as ignored as they followed other more promising ventures—poisons, telekinesis, astral projection, and the like. I was tumbling out of control and there were few people to notice.

  Until the rampage.

  Now this I truly shouldn’t discuss, even here. God knows I don’t want to discuss it. Suffice to say that my project handlers realized their efforts to turn me into a living weapon had worked all too well. Only the weapon inside me was not activated with a code phrase, as intended. It had bubbled up out of my mind spontaneously, and at an extremely inopportune moment.

  Instead of prosecution they gave me a new identity, and someone else went to the electric chair. From what I understand, the poor bastard deserved it anyway. After months of experimentation there were no easy solutions. I was more or less a violent psychopath twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No solutions, that is, until I broke the collarbone of a PhD then sneaked off for a cocktail. Which was the only thing, it turned out, that would keep the weapon inside me in check.

  Tight

  Sometime later I regained my senses. I was still naked, but now with a busted left wing and blood all over me, much of it not my own, and with a crippling hangover. Heart racing. Internal organs like jelly. Skull five sizes too large for the skin and scalp that tried to contain it. Extremities cold and trembling. Iron crab firmly locked in place inside my chest.

  I was still in the torture dungeon but I couldn’t remember what I had done; the memories were like movie clips minus a coherent narrative. The snapping of an arm bone (my own). The gouging of eyes, the crushing of throats (not my own). The Grizzlies truly had no chance, no matter their number. If only they’d taken my drink order.

  I found my clothes neatly folded in a cardboard box, along with my wallet, fake passport, watch, even my flask. Which was empty. Bastards either drank it or dumped it and that was a filthy crime either way. I could feel my adrenaline reserves building back up and that was bad. I twisted open the flask and breathed in some faint Canadian Club fumes but that only made it worse. I was Tantalus, alternately stopping down and reaching up.

  I had no choice but to quickly shower the blood off my body in a stall most likely reserved for interrogation sessions. The tiles were chipped and scummed over with what seemed like decades of mildew and splattered blood. The cold water was like razors against my flesh and I somehow felt dirtier after the shower than before it. But at least I had the appearance of a regular citizen again. It hurt to button my shirt and I found myself incoherently angry at the buttons themselves, who I decided in that moment had no right to exist. It took a superhuman effort not to pluck them from my shirt and snap them in half.

  On the way out I had a glimpse of what I had done.

  Boy did I need a drink.

  Bent

  As it turned out, I ended up at the same zakaska where they’d fingered me. If their colleagues were looking for me, this would be the last place they’d look. Plus, it was only a few blocks away from the site of my would-be torture. When in doubt, go with what you know.

  My plan was to have just one. One cold nourishing shot of that sweet amber fluid, just to keep the living weapon quiet. The bowtied bartender looked at me with faint surprise when I held up a trembling index finger. That finger, half a second later, was joined by a middle, ring, and pinkie.

  “Your sweetheart was badly injured,” he said in Polish as he tilted the bottle of Żoła̧dkowa Gorzka four times in rapid succession. “Her tailbone. She had to go to the hospital.”

  “She was not my sweetheart,” I said. “If she said so, then she was telling filthy whore lies.”

  The bartender’s reaction was one of astonishment. Had I not translated “filthy whore lies” correctly? Either way he left me to my shots, which I downed with Soviet efficiency.

  I thought that four shots would be enough. There were things to do, a border to cross, and a handler to reach. I could find more drinks along the way. Mom and Dad would be wondering about me. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone in that torture room. Not too long, apparently, if the bartender was talking about my sweetheart’s tailbone as though the memory was still fresh. Maybe a day, or two? I wondered how long ago I’d killed my captors. I should have checked their bodies. Sometimes in the aftermath, when my adrenaline was depleted, I would just sit there in a fugue state for hours. Again, another downside to the whole living weapon idea.

  I should be going, but something compelled me to order another four shots. And then four to join that. Pretty soon I was feeling like myself again and feeling optimistic about the future. I even ordered some herring.

  But as day turned to night, and I pushed the needle up past the redzone, my mood darkened considerably. I wanted out. Out of all of this filth and blood and pain and violence and tears and lies and headaches and rage. To think: at some point, this had just been about book money.

  Hatch

  I was sitting in the Vienna International Airport cocktail lounge having a Manhattan rocks, idly munching on peanuts, waiting for the phone call. The girl had promised she’d fetch me when it came. I tipped her well and ordered another Manhattan, as well as a beer chaser. I wanted to be all sorted out for the plane. Of course, I wasn’t going anywhere until the call came.

  You may be wondering why the Agency would employ a full-time lush who was just a few short hours away from a crazy murder jag at any given moment. I’ve wondered the same thing myself.

  From an operational standpoint it makes a certain amount of sense. Plenty of Agency men drink, but none of them go at it with quite the same can-do spirit. To the outside observer I drank way too much to be a professional anything, let alone an Agency professional. Nor did I look the part. Later I had learned that I’d been selected for the big top-secret 129 flavors project because of my physical appearance. Tweedy, featherweight, four-eyed. If you’re going to have anyone be a living weapon, might as well be someone who looks as if he’d have a hard time lifting the s
watter, let alone working up the courage to swing it. And looks as though he might even shed a few tears for the fly.

  There’s an expression I’ve heard. High-functioning alcoholics. Well I was a higher-functioning alcoholic.

  What else was I going to do with my life? Certainly couldn’t go home. The folks, friends, whoever . . . they wouldn’t recognize me. I’d burned away most of my former self in those lab trials. And good riddance. You wouldn’t have liked him much anyway.

  By the time I had four cherries lined up on the paper napkin at my elbow, the girl came for me. The receiver in the phone booth across the way was on top of the box. I picked up my drink and ordered another two. This time, I told her, forget the cherries. I stepped into the phone booth, nudged the door closed with my knee, and sat down. Some of my drink sloshed out over the edge of the glass, baptizing my knuckles.

  “Hello, Mom,” I said.

  “What in the blue blazes happened?”

  Oh. This was Dad, which was a surprise. I thought I’d be receiving instructions from Mom. Dad was more to the point, but Mom was more fun.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “I just barely escaped a torture room with my life and managed to scramble out from under the Iron Curtain. I’ve been sitting here waiting for your call. I’m very bored. The lounge here doesn’t have real maraschinos. Just those nuclear-neon things you find in a supermarket. What’s the point of that?”

  “You slaughtered your extraction team,” Dad said.

  I waited a beat before replying: “You know, I’m fairly sure I didn’t.”

  “Only the girl lived. She told us you went crazy.”

  “If that was the extraction team, why did they decide it was a good idea to give me an orchiectomy?”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “They were a torture squad, Dad. They took out my transport man, put the girl in his place. You need to find her. She’ll be able to tell you everything.”

  Dad was quiet for a few moments. “Dannemora says you assaulted her then fled the pickup.”

  “She has her version, I have mine.”

  That left Dad utterly exasperated. He had no idea how to respond, and I had no idea how to follow up. I drained the rest of my Manhattan then rattled the ice in the highball glass.

  “Did you make the drop?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell me where.”

  “I can only tell Mom. You know that.”

  “Mom is unavailable.”

  “Then it can wait.”

  Another long, awkward pause.

  “Go somewhere,” he finally said. “I want you to be out of sight for a while until I sort this out. Can you do that?”

  “I can do that. I’ll send word the usual way. Oh, and when you speak to the girl, send her my apologies, and I do hope her tailbone is feeling better.”

  Dad clicked off somewhere during that last sentence. I hung up and walked back to my table where two fresh Manhattans, no cherries, were waiting for me, along with a full glass of beer. Nat King Cole’s “Those Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer” was playing through the hall.

  Dad had ordered them for me. Like I said: to the point.

  So I’ve been sitting here, sipping my drinks and recording these memories on a series of napkins, which are really too small for this kind of undertaking. But, you make do with what you’ve got. Like these Manhattans, for instance. Something about the rye is off to my palate; leave it to Dad to ask for a rail brand. However, it is getting the job done all the sam

  [End of a manuscript discovered on a series of napkins at Vienna International Airport]

  ROBB T. WHITE

  Inside Man

  from Down & Out

  He told his cellie and other cons in his pod he believed in the redistribution of wealth and that was why he’d always stolen for a living. Though it was a medium-security institution, he had earned some respect because of his stories of the many scores in his past. His age gave him an air and a gravitas the younger men couldn’t touch. He’d taken his lawyer’s advice and accepted the Alford plea they offered for the jewelry store heist in Sheboygan, the legal thing that let him plead guilty without admitting he’d done the crime. Shit like that drove him crazy but it added to the stories he could tell, just like the one about how he should have gotten away, but his partner on the job traded him in for less time. His partner’s treachery didn’t bother him anymore. He would have done the same thing. Most criminals would shove their own grandmother off a dime if she was standing on it.

  He had always thought of himself as special, not an ordinary criminal, until a young black guy confronted him in the chow line. All the mean-mugging he’d seen in his jail life, he knew there were better actors in prisons than in Hollywood. But this guy wasn’t buying into his status and he chest-bumped and cursed him before turning back to the serving line. A small thing but he’d backed down and it was seen and word in any Graybar Hotel got around fast. A few weeks later, his own cellie took over some space on the table they used to share.

  At forty-one, he thought, I’ve become the toothless wolf in the pack. That night he woke with a nightmare: he had stolen a Ryder van full of gold and silver bars. A laughing circle of young gangbangers tore the metal door loose and stole every bar inside while he pleaded with them to leave him a few. Pathetic. His scars and stories meant nothing now.

  Tommy called from Minneapolis when he got out. A huge score lined up at MoA, he said, the Mall of America. He told Tommy he was out of his fucking mind. They had security up the ass what with all this crazy terrorist shit and brainless gangbangers gunpointing shoppers.

  “So what?” Tom said. “I’ve got Bob.”

  Who the fuck was Bob?

  “Give me a disgruntled employee over the best cutting torch on the market.” Tom laughed.

  He used to steal in the summer, play in the winter—another of his prison mottos the young cons used to lap up. His last lawyer had taken the cash a sister in Coeur d’Alene was holding for him. Minneapolis in October might not be Duluth, but it’s cold enough to coat the lawns and cars with frost most mornings. Tommy’s score, if it panned out, meant Key West—maybe even retirement. It had to come sometime. Back before ATM machines, when banks kept real cash on the premises, he would have booked for the Maldives by now. It’s easier than ever to get the cash in the drawers from the tellers—they’re ordered to give it up—but banks in small towns don’t keep much around. He hadn’t seen a major haul in years. The FBI had a long memory too, and that was another reason to go for it now.

  He had developed ulcerated colitis three years ago, and he was told he had to be careful what he ate. He once spent three days holed up in a Motel 6 in Casper, Wyoming, instead of casing a bank because of his goddamned irritated bowels. On the road, he was forced to watch how much coffee and junk food he consumed. Sometimes he had no choice. All of it was adding up to one word in blinking, neon green: Retirement.

  He had met Tom in a bar.

  “Ain’t you drinking, bro?” Tom asked.

  “I got a fuckin’ beer in front of me, don’t I?”

  “Have a real drink, chickenshit.”

  “I’ll stick with the beer.”

  Hard liquor on his stomach was the same as gulping from a can of Drano. He turned to Tommy, who looked no different from the last time he’d seen him, maybe more bulked, leaner in the belly.

  “Tell me about your guy,” he said.

  It always seemed to start in a bar, the way a lot of good and bad things did in his life. His parents were alcoholics and he learned early on what booze could do. Still, they tried to instill the values of their faith in their kids even if they didn’t have much luck. His sister in Idaho was the only one of his siblings who escaped unscathed. One brother was a suicide, another doing life in Walla Walla. Two other sisters were alcohol and opioid addicts. Their parents had died young, the father of bleeding ulcers. He still remembered the grim trail of rust-brown feces that leaked from him down the carp
et stairs as the paramedics came for him the very last time.

  The Triangle was Tom’s kind of bar, a shitkicker dive, your basic country-western with way too much steel guitar; whiny notes poured from the speakers, the same raggedy-assed-looking crowd packed tight on the same stools. Some tattooed trailer-trash taking a break from popping out babies with violent boyfriends gyrated in an orange bikini onstage and gave hump-sex to a shiny pole slimed with sweat and even more bacteria. His eyes boxed the room. Tom sat at the bar a distance from two rednecks in greasy ball caps chattering about their trucks and some pussy they’d just made up.

  He shared a cell in Brushy Mountain with Tom years ago, and they kept in contact the way cons do. Tom said his inside contact worked for the Mall of America. The guy would get them inside where the money bags were loaded into the armored cars.

  Then “Big Tom” Youtsey got himself violated on a domestic abuse charge before he could introduce him to the inside man. Tommy was in county, but he had no way of contacting him what with all calls being recorded. The only thing he remembered was Tom telling him his man drank nights at this shitty rathole.

  For three straight nights from six in the evening until midnight, he nursed a beer, scanned the crowd, and kept the bartender happy with a couple drinks on him. But no one jumped out. He had no idea what the guy looked like. Plenty of truckers, some cheating spouses, he guessed, mostly guys; a bunch of working-class yahoos and a few singles, bikers drifting in from the road like windblown tumbleweeds. But nobody showed up wearing a security guard’s uniform or looked to him like a county clerk wanting to take a walk on the wild side. He tipped the bartender a ten on the third night for allowing him space all week on the bar stool.

  Heading for his car across the stone parking lot, his thoughts were grim, mainly about spending the coming winter pinching pennies in some squalid trailer park with a bunch of inbred white trash and their squalling brats.