(2006) The Zero

by Jess Walter

  The guys slapped the table and held their chests, doubled over, Carey’s high, squeaky laugh rising above the din.

  “And I’m like, ‘How the fuck are we supposed to know which ones have dicks, Brian?’ And this brilliant son-of-a-bitch—”

  Another delighted squeal from Carey stopped McIntyre’s story for a second, and the room dissolved into drunken laughter: deep, dissonant howls and hoots like a brass band warming up. Remy looked around at his friends and past them, through the filmy strands in his eyes to the banquet room of an Italian restaurant and then down at the checked table, covered with oval plates, gnawed scattered T-bones, surrendered piles of noodles and glimpses of garlic potatoes and green beans, spent shells of empty beer pitchers, wine bottles and highball glasses. For a moment he worried about their appetites, and wondered if they could ever be made full, these men, until this thought was replaced by a more important thought. Which glass was his?

  “This! Cool! Mother! Fucker! Over he-yah!” McIntyre pointed to Remy again. “He says, ‘Well, from what I hear, you can tell by the hands.’ And I’m like, ‘You can tell what by the fuckin’ hands?’ And you gotta remember, while I’m talkin’ to Remy here I’m fuckin’ doin’ a pushup on this waitress, and that’s when she and I stop what we’re doin’ for a minute and we both look at her hands. And Remy says, ‘You can tell it’s a woman by her hands.’ And I’m lookin’ at this waitress’s big mannish hands and I say, ‘Jesus Christ, Brian, if we’re gonna get close enough to look at their hands we might as well reach up and see if we get a handful.’”

  “Aaaagh!” Guterak made a noise that sounded as much scream as laugh, and clapped Remy on the back.

  “So all night, fuckin’ Remy and me are driving around lookin’ at hookers’ hands and I swear to God, they all look like dudes to us, right? And I got mixed feelings. First, I’m startin’ to panic…if the fuckin’ boss wants tranny whores, then goddamn we better fuckin’ find some chicks with dicks, you know? But the other thing is this: I’m gettin’ so fuckin’ horny drivin’ around lookin’ at hookers that I’m half tempted to try one out just to see. And that’s when Brian remembers this fuckin’ Dominican scumbag up the Heights he’s arrested, what, five, six times, Bri? This motherfucker used to run a bunch of tranny whores…what the fuck was his name…Kiko something?”

  Someone called out: “Ramirez!”

  McIntyre pointed. “Right! Right! This fuckin’ mutt Kiko Ramirez, little fuckin’ Dominican pimp lived up off a hunnert and fifty-third by Broadway, we go drag this motherfucker out of his cousin’s bed and take him downstairs and I’m like, ‘Listen up, fuckball, you’re privy to some information we want, you know…very important investigation, top priority…you play along and you’ll get a two-month pass, right?’ Guy’s like: ‘Whatchu wan’, mang,’ and I say, ‘I need you to find us five whores with optional equipment,’ and this little shit looks at me like I’m fuckin’ king-a-the perverts, you know? And Brian says, ‘It’s not for us, Kiko, it’s for our boss.’” The laughter rose again. “And this little shitbag Kiko, he must know which boss we’re talkin’ about, because he just nods like we’ve just ordered five pizzas. Kiko, he got this thin little mustache, and he just shrugs, like, ‘Hey mang, eet don’ matter to me. Diff’rent strokes, mang.’ Yeah? Like this fuckin’ Scarface motherfucker he’s seen it all, right? All the shit in the world.” The laughter rises again.

  “Now the three of us are drivin’ around in the fuckin’ Town Car, Brian and me in the front and Kiko in the back like we’re his chauffeurs, and at one point old Kiko goes to light up a fuckin’ cigarette and I turn and say, ‘You can’t be serious, Kiko? You smoke in my boss’s car and you know I’m gonna have to clean you like a fuckin’ fish, right?’ And we’re runnin’ down Broadway, cruisin’ the Deuce, and this shitbag Kiko is starin’ out the window like a fuckin’ four-year-old at a parade, checkin’ out all these whores, sayin’: ‘No. Ees a woman. No. Ees a woman. Ees a woo-man too.’ And finally, I turn around and I’m like, ‘Kiko, I’m gonna shoot you in your fuckin’ face you don’t find me a whore with a goddamned cock.’”

  Laughter cascaded and crashed and Remy became slightly worried that someone would have a heart attack.

  “And Kiko…this fuckin’ mutt Kiko, he’s just starin’ out the window, every few minutes, ‘No, ees a woo-man. No, ees a woo-man.’ And Remy and me are checkin’ our fuckin’ watches, thinkin’ the boss is gonna fuckin’ have us for breakfast, right? And then, finally, Kiko comes to the window, says, ‘Maybe her. Yeah, I think she’s a mang.’ So we park and walk closer and he says, ‘No. Ees a woo-man too.’ And by this time I’ve had about enough of this shit, I’m like, ‘Motherfuck Kiko! How the fuck do you know that one ain’t a guy?’ And this greasy fucker points to this whore and says, ‘You can tell by the hands, mang.’”

  The room broke in screams and groans, guttural and full, the aging men given over to a grinding death rattle and release, and even Remy found that he was smiling, not exactly remembering, but wanting to, and thinking there’s not such a difference, that the best memories might be those you don’t remember, and the gales smoothed and calmed and guys hummed and wiped their eyes, and someone yelled, “Speech! Speech!” and then the others joined in and Remy was yelling, “Speech,” before he realized that it was him they wanted the speech from.

  “Wait. Wait.” Ass Chief Carey held up his left hand. “Before we let Remy say something the rest of us will regret, I got something for you cocksuckers.” Carey bent over. “To mark the occasion. A taste.” He came up with a backpack that he set on the table. “Compliments of the bosses.” He unzipped the backpack and began removing watches, still in the bottom halves of their boxes, as if they’d been on display, like tiny open caskets. He handed around the table, to whistles and hoots. One by one, the guys slid watches (“Aw, boss.” “No fuckin’ way.”) onto thick, hairy wrists.

  “Goddamn, boss. This is too fuckin’ much.”

  Carey waved them off. “Ain’t half what you guys deserve. You’re the best fuckin’ crew in the city. I mean that. The other bosses mean it, too.”

  Remy looked down at the half-box in his hand. It was dark wood, and in the center was a pointed crown, the word Rolex engraved in gold.

  “Come on. Put it on,” Carey said. Remy stared down at the dark face of a gold watch, and caught the bursts of light in the face’s jewels. He wiped a thin coat of fine dust off the glass.

  “They’re limited edition Gent Omegas,” Carey said. “Fuckin’ James Bond watches. Remy’s is gold-plated.” The guys were all sloughing their sleeves and holding their wrists in the air. Guterak held his arm out to Remy. “Look at this shit, Bri. How’s it look on me? Jesus, you ever think I’d wear a fuggin’ Rolex?”

  There was a folded envelope under Remy’s watch. He removed it and opened it. Inside was a small note signed by The Boss: “To New Opportunities. And Old Loyalties.” The word Loyalties was underlined.

  “Speech!” the guys began yelling again, and Guterak pushed Remy up.

  He was still holding the watch loosely in his hand. He looked down at it, and then rubbed his mouth again. “I…I don’t really know what to say. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what’s happening to me. Or why.”

  Some of the guys laughed. Others nodded as if he’d struck a chord, the infinite emptiness of the last weeks.

  He rubbed his short hair. “I mean…I can see that I’m leaving. Am I retiring? I’m supposed to be taking disability, right?”

  The laughter built.

  “I mean…I’m not dying or anything, am I? Is it my eyes?”

  Ass Chief Carey made that high-pitched squeal again. Guys were hugging and laughing and holding each other up.

  Remy looked down at the table. “Can anyone tell me which glass is mine?”

  This seemed to be the perfect end to his speech. Waves of laughter rolled through the room and Guterak stood and hugged Remy. “That was great. Classic Remy. I love you, man.” The guys came by one at a tim
e, paying their respects, hugging him and telling him to relax or to have good luck or not to worry, and after a while Remy couldn’t imagine what difference it made, what was happening to him. This was the important thing, these guys who had risked their lives, these guys who loved him so much, and whatever it had taken to accommodate this occasion…well, it was going to happen whether he knew about it or not. “I hope you realize what a lucky motherfucker you are,” McIntyre said.

  “We’re goin’ down to Copley’s girlfriend’s strip club, you wanna come,” Carey added.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Remy said.

  McIntyre hugged him again. “I’m gonna miss you, asshole.”

  Finally, Remy was alone, watching as the guys moved in packs of two or three to the door. Guterak gave a quick wave as he went with the guys. When they were all gone, Remy carefully put the watch back in its case.

  Sometimes the gaps came like cuts in a movie, one on top of the other, with Remy struggling for breath; at other times he seemed to drift, or even to linger in moments that had ended for everyone else. Was there something he was supposed to take from such moments? Remy pulled the watch from its box bottom again and looked at its face, half expecting to see the second hand standing still, jittery and frozen, waiting for Remy to be jolted into the next moment. But the needle slid gracefully around the numbered face, scratching away moment after moment after…Remy put the watch back in the box bottom and walked out of the banquet room, down a paneled hallway past the kitchen. He peered in the round window on the swinging doors and saw an old Puerto Rican guy in a paper apron working on a tall stack of dishes, pots, and pans. Remy opened the door and slid the watch box along the floor, then let the door close. He looked through the window again. The old dishwasher was bending over to pick up the watch.

  Remy walked down the hallway, through an empty restaurant and outside. He recognized the skyline across the river. Behind him, the huge four-faced clock tower loomed like a dragon. He thought of the watch face. No zero on a clock. Around and around. No rest. No balance. No starting place. Just on to the next number. The sky was clearing, cold, the clouds opening between the brownstones. He stood on the sidewalk and looked back at the city, the burnt tip of the island and the bright hole in the sky.

  THE AIR was cool and dry and huge fans whirred above his head. Remy was standing in a vast airplane hangar, holding a memo, apparently from the information technologies consultant Lara Kane to Travis Fanning in the personnel department of Anderson Dugan Rippet, March Selios’s firm:

  Re: status report: Firewall, Acrobat, Monitoring.

  CC: Duncan, Wallace, Selios.

  UTMI up and running as per meeting of 8-4 and inventory under way for separate worksheets regarding hardware, software, tools, Mac and PC, upgrades, printers. For access rights for MGT group, see confirmation e-mails and logs…

  Remy looked up from the page. The airplane hangar was full of people, filing cabinets, and tables of burned and dirty paper. Temporary fluorescent lights were strung about ten feet off the ground, along the length of the hangar, which was otherwise completely filled with these long tables and filing cabinets in long rows that seemed to stretch forever. As far as Remy could see, these tables were covered with paper—notes, forms, resignations, and retributions, as if the whole world could be conjured up out of the paper it had produced. Next to each table was a filing cabinet. There were big posters hanging from the ceiling with letters written on them. Remy looked up. The sign above him read: AM–AZ. There appeared to be a sign every hundred feet or so, perhaps ten tables and ten filing cabinets per sign. At the far end of the hangar he strained to make out another set of letters: CO–CY. So how many other hangars did that mean, he wondered. Five? Eight? At each of these stations several attendants were working away, some of them combing over the paper mountains on each table, others filing. Each of them wore a white paper suit, a mask, and white gloves.

  “Obviously, you’re interested in the partials, too,” said a young woman at the table in front of Remy. Her mask was pulled down around her neck.

  “Partials,” Remy repeated. Their voices seemed both distant and loud in the cavernous hangar, which hummed with the low throttle of so many other voices.

  She handed him another dusty sheet of paper, this one rounded and burned along the edges like a perfectly roasted marshmallow. It was a ledger sheet with several columns of numbers, although the top row had been burned off, so he couldn’t see what the numbers referred to.

  Compensation

  71

  26

  44

  6

  Employee benefits

  11

  11

  12

  11

  Travel & Entmnt.

  9

  92

  14

  71

  * * *

  Subtotal employees

  91

  129

  70

  88

  IT (see Selios attachment)

  463

  903

  138

  314

  Communication

  21

  34

  42

  12

  He held the paper to his face. It smelled like The Zero. That same fine dust coated everything, almost a liquid form of grit. Remy looked down at the woman sitting at the table. She was tall and thin and wore glasses. Her hair was tied back. She seemed tired. She leaned in and confided, “I try to explain the smell to people, and I can’t.”

  She smiled warmly and handed him another sheet of paper. It was an interoffice memo, its subject Portfolio Market capitalization statistics as of 7–01. There were about forty names in the cc: line, among them Selios. A note at the top said, All Market Cap Stats in millions. Then there were some mutual funds listed:

  # securities

  weighted median

  percentage

  * * *

  AF Small Cap

  107

  2,009

  49.4

  AM Mid Cap

  65

  6,795

  6.7

  Cap. Apprec.

  62

  67,698

  .9

  Remy looked up from the memo. He handed it back to the nice woman. Attractive—

  “This one is intriguing,” she said, and quickly handed him another sheet of paper, a cargo receipt from a Venezuelan ship called the Sea Cancer. Listed under the consignee were two companies, including Anderson Dugan Rippet. Remy couldn’t understand most of the document. At the bottom was the ship’s gross weight, 136.153,320 KG, and:

  Number and kind of Packages, said to contain 06 containers of 40’, said to contain rack with: RH side rail, 5087.117.334 LH side rail, 5087.117.235 (signatore: Selios, March for Anderson Dugan Rippet)

  Remy handed the memo back. “You know, that’s probably enough.”

  “Sure, we’ll send these over, and anything else we find,” she said. “Shawn said you just wanted to have a look at the process.”

  “Oh, okay.” Remy looked around and then bent over to speak quietly to the woman. “Am I supposed to do something with these?”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s a lot of information to process.”

  Remy looked around the hangar and cleared his throat at the low buzz of working conversations. He rubbed his mouth. “How many hangars are there like this?”

  One corner of the woman’s mouth went up in a kind of wry smile. “Is that some kind of test, Mr. Remy?”

  “No,” he said.

  The woman stood. “I understand you spent the morning in Résumés and Cover Letters?”

  “Did I?”

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “It does tend to run together down here. There’s one other place.” She pulled up her mask and began walking, and, after a pause, Remy followed her down one of the rows of tables. Each table was stacked with mounds of burned and dusty paper: business cards and charts and index cards and company stationery. The workers all wore
white paper jumpsuits and gloves. Most of them also wore surgical masks. A few met Remy’s eyes, but most concentrated on the paper. Remy and the woman approached the closest end of the hangar.

  Above the door was a billboard-sized sign that quoted The Boss: “Imagine the look on our enemies’ faces when they realize that we have gathered up every piece of paper and put it back!” There were such inspirational posters and signs all over the place, quoting The Boss and The President. Below this one was a smaller warning sign from the Office of Liberty and Recovery: “Removing unauthorized documents may result in prosecution for treason under the War Powers Act.”

  The woman paused at a camera above the doorway, in some kind of metal detector, or the kind of merchandise scanners used in clothing stores. She held her hands at her sides. The door buzzed and she passed through. Remy did the same thing, holding his hands out, and was buzzed through the door.