The Nervous System

by Nathan Larson

  _______________

  Emerging from the basement into yet another multistoried building, Kim keeps me hustling up the stairs … the gunplay outside seems to be tapering but is still very much in effect. Again I resist the urge to make a break for the ground-level exit, jog headlong into a hail of bullets, remind myself that at this point such a move would be for naught but self-murder. Even at a canter, I get my pills out and make sure one slides down my gullet, nearly spilling them before I can get the cap back on.

  I think I might vomit, but my vision is better. All of this on me. Have to remind myself that a soldier is not a civilian, a soldier forfeits his human value. Doesn’t make me feel better but there has to be that distinction.

  A sign in Korean, DO NOT USE THESE STAIRS … Hang on.

  Third floor, and in almost all respects this building, this stairwell, is indistinguishable from the last one, and the one before. I am assuming I am still on 32nd Street. Things are looking more familiar than they should, I must be losing it a touch. Kim is silent, wheezing slightly, smoker’s lungs, surprising for such a young kid.

  We pass though another stretch of darkness, stepping gingerly now, and it hits me as I’m pushed though a door marked 9, déjà vu again, hang on: we are on the ninth floor of 38 West 32nd Street, just as I was only hours ago.

  “Kim, man.” I try to turn but Kim gives me a shove.

  “Shut up, yo. Come on.”

  The big machine gun outside goes bada bada bada. Window open or broken at the end of the corridor. Couple guys crouched under the frame, trying to get a look. Dude in a lab coat. Fucking doctors, blood tests, needles … oh yeah, the dentist. He’s a dentist. The dental practice. Chill, Decimal. Crazy noise from the street boomerangs up and down the hallway here on the ninth floor.

  Practically shouting over the din.

  “Kim, listen to me now. I gotta do something about this, youngin, you gotta let me get down there …”

  Kim is taking a pull off an asthma inhaler, which makes me like him more for some reason, and does a decent job of fronting hardcore AND keeping the gun on me, no easy trick. When he can speak, “Bitch, don’t fuckin tempt me. Just keep stepping. 907, you know where we’re going.”

  I guessed as much but am at a total loss as to why. Try again.

  “Kim, I’m telling you, man, if I don’t try to help fucking sort out that madness down there, I’ll never be able to forgive—”

  Gun is inserted into my eye socket, which does have the effect of silencing me.

  “Keep. Stepping,” says the young man.

  _______________

  The very fucking moment the door to Club Enjoy swings wide, I’m sucked in and group-tackled, for what seems like the umpteenth time today, by a knot of burly bodies shouting in a collision of Korean and English, “Get his hands! His fuckin hands!”

  If you must get my hands, please do so gently, I amend. Wishful thinking. Worse perhaps than the gangbang physical assault is the tsunami of body odor coming off this crew. Coughing, once again I suffer the indignity of finding myself pressed to the ground. My hat is gone. This time the wood floor tastes like Pine-Sol, which takes me back some. I go slack, try to just relax into it.

  Note a gaggle of maybe six slinkily clad teenage girls, made up like Japanese courtesans, clinging to each other in the corner, shrieking theatrically.

  “I got his gun!” I hear Kim shout over the babbling flunkies and squeaking ladies. “Yo! Listen up. Nigga is helpless like a baby, y’all can get up off his ass, gonna give the old motherfucker a heart attack. Get him up, up on his fuckin feet.”

  Somebody’s got ahold on my nappy head but they’re having trouble getting a solid grip as I wear it short. They settle for the back of my neck. I open my eyes and take it all in, my first thought being the flowers which I had initially thought to be fake are real. Live flowers? Impossible.

  Rose Hee, perched on a barstool, legs crossed. That gold dress. Smoking what looks like a Capri. She’s applied geisha-style white base since I last saw her, and black lipstick in a painted pout. Another live flower.

  I’m crowded by maybe four or five dudes, overbuilt, clones all, who have gone Zen-temple quiet. The gals in geisha garb huddle, whispering amongst themselves. Behind me is Kim.

  “Whaddya say, boss? Call it,” says Kim. Deferential. Me thinking: who’s the fucking boss? Why does this gotta be so confusing?

  Rose takes a long drag, bouncing her leg. Black lipstick residue on the filter. Blows a couple smoke rings. Tapping her long nails on the bar. Shots through the door and down the street, distant and increasingly sporadic. She speaks: “Clear out, gentlemen. I want to talk to him. Alone.”

  And only now, slow dumb-ass that I am, do I get it.

  _______________

  So you’re the boss. Miss Runnin’ Thangs.”

  We’re alone in a wood-paneled cabin. Rose ignores me, says instead: “Never dated a black guy.”

  She plops two long-stemmed champagne glasses on the low table between us.

  Rolling with this. I grin and try to relax into it despite the anxiety in my gut regarding the doings outside. I gotta get a plan together quick, but I play casual: “Well, I’m only 75 percent black. Grandma was from Manila. Still makes me black as far as the rest of the world is concerned. And you know what they say. Once you go black—”

  “Shut the fuck up, mister. You’re slick but you talk miles of shit, you know that? Gets boring. Just hush.”

  Pop goes the cork on a bottle of Cristal (Cristal!!), a sight and a sound I have not beheld since … well, since Shaq was still hooping. In a heartbeat I am almost positive that I’ve been reborn within a Hype Williams–directed hip-hop video from the early 1990s.

  Add to this an overhead projector casting a sharp digital film of various exotic fish, the suggestion of a hazy coral reef, candy-colored bubbles, in 360 degrees, creating the pleasant but disconcerting impression that we’ve landed in a sexy cartoon aquarium.

  I can’t sit. Agitated. Trying to focus, I slide my gloved hand across the tan leather of the wraparound couch, here in this smallish room … Yes: real leather, worn but intact. Inwardly I shiver, leather being so … absorbent. Porous. I check my fingertips.

  Rose holds the bottle away from her, making a frowny face, and when no froth appears she bobs her head in satisfaction, leans over to pour me a couple drops.

  I should refuse it. Mixes poorly with my medication. But I don’t. Thinking: want to give the impression that I’m loosening up, slowing down. Getting slippy-sloppy.

  She attends to her own glass. Saying, “I want to remind you. There’s any number of armed men outside who would love to see you dead. For bringing those foreign soldiers here. I’m not pleased about it myself.”

  Sets down the bottle, straightens up, hands on hips.

  “Just in case you were looking to get fresh. Fair warning. Okay?”

  Pick up my glass with my broken paw, hold it at eye level. “I’ll behave. Cheers now.”

  Rose gives me a hard once-over. “What the fuck kind of person are you?” Flat, more statement than question.

  “Compulsive do-gooder,” I say. “I right the wrongs as I see ’em. Otherwise, I’m a scarecrow, I’m nothing. I haunt and get haunted and I ride the highway to Hell. Cheers, Rose.”

  Regards my mask, which hangs slack around my neck. My gloves. My fucked-up hand. One pretty shoulder lifts, and she picks up her own glass.

  “Poetic. Salut. Chin-chin,” she says. Offers a smile.

  We touch champagne stems. Must say, it’s been a long time since I found myself in such a civilized situation. But dig, for all the conviviality my stomach tells me it’s a good fucking thing the muscle never did think to frisk this guy, leaving my ankle holster in place.

  Take a small mouthful and allow it to flow back into the glass. Still get that sweet, woody aroma that reminds me of nothing so much as an eve of high-rolling and gangstaleaning back in the ghetto. Waking up broke.

  Head drifts o
ver to the melee outside. It’s my problem to solve, and I’m all jagged edges. Say, “I get the vibe. Take it then, your daddy was Danny Ya. Y’all are like … K-town Cosa Nostra and all that. Mobbed-up, right? That’s your steez.”

  The lady doesn’t respond to this directly. “Will you sit?” she says.

  “Rather stand. I’m a bit …” I’m a bit what? I’m a bit responsible for the bloodshed outside.

  “Do what you want,” says Rose. “I just had a conversation with the chief of Cyna-corp …”

  Snap to. Hold up.

  “Sorry, what’s that?”

  Rose throws me a look. “Come on. Cyna-corp? Nic Deluccia, that’s the boss over there …”

  Nic Deluccia. So there it is. I get a very fucked-up feeling.

  “… upshot is that we give you over to his team. Or else,” Rose is saying.

  I gesture vaguely in the direction of the door. “Seems like they’ve already come down on your people pretty hard.”

  She laughs, flops her hand, bracelets rattling.

  “Oh no, that’s really just a bit of street theater. More for the public benefit. Buncha shooting in the air. Rubber bullets and all. This is more common than you’d think. Keeps us Koreans in line, knowing Beijing has our back. It’s all bullshit.”

  Stockhom syndrome–type psych-ops. Right, I’m thinking. Makes sense.

  “You know, the thing with Cyna-corp, we’re always arm wrestling over construction contracts, there’s always some issue to be resolved, but it’s never too serious cause in the end we work together, and we all serve the same master. No, I’ve known Nic since I was a girl, and our conversation was actually quite matter-of-fact and polite. As usual, Nic’s a gentleman.”

  Don’t know what to believe, but sweet Jesus, if that’s the truth, this is a load off a brother’s mind. For the moment. But Cyna-corp …

  “Those Cyna-corp people are straight-up psychos,” I say. Lamely. “They don’t care who they hurt. I’ve dealt with them a lot, and trust me, Rose, they’re some bad cats who’ve done tons of bad shit.”

  Rose regards me. “Yeah? Well, I’ve worked with Cynacorp plenty in the past. Generally had a good experience with them. Plus, they’re extremely important allies to my people. Business associates. Us Koreans … well, I should say me, I have my own private relationship with Cynacorp. We need them for a little counterweight, so the Chinese don’t consume us completely. They need us cause we can at least communicate with the Chinese. And we have people, plenty of able people. And that’s all I’m really concerned about here. My people, and keeping them working, keeping them fed. You get it?”

  I get it, but I’m duty-bound to drill some sense into this woman.

  “Hey Rose. Due respect. You do not know what these guys are capable of. I’ve seen these crazies get up to some sick madness that would make you—” Thinking specifically of more than one gang rape in which …

  Rose cuts me off: “Don’t you fucking dare lecture me about crazy, mister.” She’s pissed but her voice modulates controlled and even. “You’re the one against the wall here, not me, but you’re putting my people and my organization in a tough position, and who the fuck are you anyway?”

  I don’t say jack. The woman clears her throat, regaining her composure.

  “Listen here. I have to make a decision about this thing, like right now. Help me out here cause I’m trying to do the correct thing, but you know I’m having trouble,” says Rose, sitting and adjusting her skirt, “understanding exactly why you’ve just … sailed in here, asking well-informed questions about a dead girl who could have meant nothing to you. And furthermore, we wonder why a fucking private army like Cyna-corp would be calling for your head on a platter. Cause Nic did not provide me with any information. Only the demand.”

  Now I speak calmly and quietly: “Rose. I’m a private investigator. Been telling you from the jump. Cyna-corp is under the mistaken impression that I have information I mean to use against one of their clients. Absolutely not the case. Unless I can verify that the intel I have is accurate. This is where Song comes into play, so I think you might know what I’m talking about.”

  Rose watches the far wall, struggling with her face. Clearly she’s hearing me. Clearly she knows what I’m talking about. I push forward.

  “I’m truly sorry that your people got in the middle here, but I am simply doing some follow-up, and this leads me straight down to your hood. No way around it. That’s my word, that’s the truth. Now, of course I never knew Song. But in my own fucked-up way, I wanna see some justice done up in here.”

  My little monologue is met with silence. I wait it out. After a full minute, she speaks.

  “Well, buddy, I’ll put it to you like this,” Rose says, setting her glass aside. “It’s my responsibility to make sure things run smoothly around here. As for justice, I don’t have a whole lot of faith left.” She clears her throat, shifts gears. “Look. My one purpose, I mean, all I’m good for, is to keep business flowing in this neighborhood. I’m talking about our construction contracts. My father … anyway. This is all we got. And at this point, you pose a threat to the business side of things here. You get me? I have a board to answer to, believe it or not. Shareholders. Rocking the boat, this is a tricky thing.”

  Swirl my glass, the amber liquid. Pace the tiny area I have available to pace.

  Rose is gauging my energy, my language. Am I for real? Sure I am.

  Eventually homegirl says, “It doesn’t add up, mister. Unless you’re completely crazy and just want to stir shit up. Now sit!”

  Still fucking antsy but I sit. Cross my legs casual-like, which sends a jolt of pain up my right side and causes me to blink. Between my leg and my busted-up hand there’s jockeying going down as to what can pain me the most.

  Rose shifts ass cheeks, tensed on the couch like a hummingbird, her aura buzzing and raw.

  “So, this is your big chance to charm me, Mister X, you get This. One. Chance.” A fingernail taps her glass thrice, accenting each word.

  Her tone is light and easy but I know better. Here in this video fish tank I swim with the barracuda. Straight, calm talk is in order. Clear my throat and take that one chance.

  “I got no interest whatsoever in your comings and goings and whatnot. I know how it is out here. Don’t give two fucks about construction contracts and all, entirely your scene.”

  I carefully place my glass on the table as well, lean forward, an earnest gesture. My hand that much closer to my gun. Leg shaking. Talking faster now.

  “All I wanna know is the skinny on Song’s murder. That’s it. You wanna share, you wanna help me out, for the sake of a girl who I know featured in your life somehow, darling—don’t deny it now.”

  Pause to read the air. She’s trying to vibe steely but I sense subcutaneous emotional activity.

  Say, “Those tears earlier? Doesn’t take a detective to savvy those tears, they come from a deep, real place.” I lightly tap my chest.

  Rose is watching me. Eyes a touch unfocused, part of her elsewhere, lips parted, she says, “More bullshit from an expert bullshitter.” Quiet-like.

  Spread my fingers and press them to my chest like I’m pledging allegiance.

  “I’m just as this cold world has made me, Rose. Yeah, I can bullshit, but when I get locked onto something I don’t let go, especially where I smell some injustice. That’s real, Rose, what more can I say? Got a compulsion.”

  Rose taps out a Capri, eying me.

  “Uh-uh,” she says, nodding at my gloves. “Looks like you got more than one compulsion. Okay, I get it. Senator Howard put you up to this. You’re working for him. Somehow you fucked up and now he let out the dogs on you.”

  “No, flip that around. Howard put the dogs on me first. I had no prior encounters with this motherfucker. Naturally, I got interested in the man when I discovered what he’s accused of.”

  She’s studying her Capri. “I take it you’re referring to … Song Ji-Won.”

  “Ye
ah,” I say, hoping this is headed in the right direction.

  She lights the cigarette, leans in a bit herself.

  “Let’s talk more about you, shall we, Mister X?”

  “Call me Dewey.”

  “I’m not calling you that. It’s not your real name. I’m calling you Mister X.”

  Lift a shoulder, say: “Whatever floats your junk.” Bounce my leg. Counting the bounces even as I speak. Can’t help it. Forty-two, forty-three …

  “Now Mister X,” she continues, “you’re up to your ears in four dimensions of shit. You got the senator, you got Cyna-corp, you got the Chinese AND the Koreans disappointed in you. You’re looking for the exit, and you got nowhere to go but down.” She grins at me, blinks those eyes. “Am I warm, Mister X?”

  I don’t say anything. She knows she’s right. Gives me a sad face.

  “Poor baby. Well. What can you do?”

  More than aware it’s a rhetorical question. I exhale, momentarily stumped. Exhaustion rushes in to meet me. Certainly must show cause she offers up the sad face again. Then knocks the ash off her cigarette and carries on.

  “You’re running out of gas. Less and less options. So I tell you what we can do here, Mister X. We can cut a deal.”

  I’m listening and I tell her so. My leg and hand are competing for most-painful-body-part status. I want to sleep. Wonder if I’ve been drugged, don’t care.

  “Here it is,” says Rose. “We want Senator Clarence Howard. Alive, please, you fucking psycho.”

  “Were I in your skirt I’d feel much the same,” I say, letting the psycho dig slide. “Why not get him yourself then? He’s a big bastard, difficult to hide a dude like that.”

  Shakes her head. “Can’t do it. Tried reaching out, he won’t come out and play with us. Song and everything. He thinks we’ll whack him. But his office hands out the contracts. We need their continued support, more of it. We need our own contracts, not just subcontracted Chinese shit. So if we look bad, negative ramifications on the business. Everything goes to the Ukrainians or your American Cyna–corp types. He favors them as it is. They’re his boys, as you pointed out yourself.”