The Nervous System

by Nathan Larson

  “That’s all right. That’s all right, Rose. Almost over.”

  But Rose, icy cool, doesn’t seem to need reassurance.

  “Drop that gun, son,” Clarence says to me. “Kick it over the side there.”

  What can I fucking do, but do like I’m told. Bye-bye, 99.

  “Emotional,” mumbles Howard. “I get emotional, Lord knows. It’s my nature …” His back to us. The man has not turned during this entire exchange.

  Nobody saying shit as the chopper comes to life, lifts off, and banks away, taking with it the body of a man I once knew, and the spotlight that had allowed us to see properly.

  Now the prick of red is even brighter, wavering over Rose’s breast. In the half dark, she begins to speak.

  _______________

  I was fifteen,” says Rose to nobody in particular. “Song was, oh I don’t know, maybe three or four years older, probably eighteen or nineteen, but of course at that age it’s a big deal, you know. The gap is huge.”

  Shifts in my direction, the dot shifting with her.

  “Mister Decimal, listen. Song was like my big sister and I loved her. I want you to know that. I am telling you this. I am not talking to him.”

  By which I assume she means the senator. Who is still showing us his back, seemingly fascinated by the view, and seemingly uninterested.

  “I loved her,” Rose continues. “I would sit up at night and do my makeup like her and get in bed and sing to myself like she did. But I was so goddamn jealous too, in that way you are at fifteen, it all seemed so easy for her, despite her problems with the language, having just come over and all. And this extremely dangerous job, you know. But she kept it pretty clean. I mean, there was some coke and shit but this was just kid’s stuff. She was intensely Catholic too, in this twisted way, but on Song it made sense.”

  The wind flares up for a moment, causing the flags overhead to whip angrily.

  “Always had men around, of course.” Rose makes no attempt to free her hands and scarcely adjusts her position. “I mean, you should have seen her, real grown-up men, some of them pretty scary, the kind of men you’re drawn to, though, at a certain point in your life, you know? Always taking her to restaurants, white places with fancy white-people names like Pravda or Le Cirque. Flashy cars and all. My dad did everything he could to keep me away from her, said she was a bad influence, and she probably was. But what I couldn’t explain then is that none of it seemed dark to her. She was so totally alive, open, always laughing. Singing. Otherworldly. She was like a fairy, or an angel. I know how that sounds. And she really listened. You could feel her listening, and just that she would listen to me and my stupid shitty fifteen-year-old problems made me feel very special. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful either. It was … the Kanji word is myokon. Life-force, prana, you get me?”

  I nod. All this I saw on the videotape, plus.

  “And her voice. Her presence. I don’t know what she thought she was doing but she could have easily been … a pop star, oh that sounds so fucking cheap, or run her own business, any kind of business. Be important. Whatever she wanted.”

  “And enter Nic Deluccia,” I say, gently now, because Rose is crying in that honest way grown-ups cry. The laser doing a happy little dance on her breast. I’m thinking if I rush and tackle her, we just go off the side like a pair of doves …

  She rallies, takes a couple deep breaths. Says, “Well, no Nic yet. Song told me about one man in particular. He was a black man.” She sniffs, casts a glance at Howard. “She’d been with other black men before, which, well, we’re all adults here, was considered not acceptable, but she was dating one of the Knicks, so I assumed it was another athlete. But at one point she said no, he was some kind of very powerful person, a politician, and she told me they had this chemistry and this almost … religious kind of connection. She never used the word love. They would have this intense sex and then intense prayer session. I didn’t get it, but it was clear he was different than her usual guys. Said his name was Howard. Said he was famous.”

  The senator leans on his cane, still focused in the opposite direction. Me thinking we just run for it, get clear of the tower … but no, we wouldn’t make it five feet without getting straight ventilated. Best to hold steady, wrack my deeply compromised brain for angles.

  “So.” Shows me a cheerless smile. “Nic Deluccia. I mean, come on, I’m fifteen and this is a fucking NYPD police chief. He was famous too, I’d see him on TV and my dad would turn it off. I’d ask why he turned it off and my dad wouldn’t answer. So Nic is smart as hell, as you well know, Mister X, just picks me up off the street, very officialseeming and scary. You know, a squad car on the way home from school kind of thing. Like I’d done something wrong. But he was extremely kind as well. I mean, that was how he got to me.”

  Maybe it’s just a passing breeze, but I get a wave of chills. I know all about Nic Deluccia’s brand of kindness. Dig. His manner with kids.

  “Kind but clear about what he wanted to happen; I was to feed him information on this Howard as it came in from Song. Simple. I was to do this or …” Rose falters, looks over at the senator. Returns her eyes to me as they well up. She lifts her cuffed hands and presses her thumbs there. And I am reminded that I just met her the other day, which now seems deep in the distant past.

  “Rose, you don’t have to—” I begin, but am cut off as she says, “Or he’d take away my father. Destroy him. Had everything he needed to do it. I didn’t want to know about some of the stuff he claims my father did, I still don’t, but remember I’m fucking fifteen, he says my dad will get life, just gone forever. He even talked about the death penalty, which hadn’t been tossed in New York yet … told me about lethal injection, described death row, told me what it would be like for my dad. I … it was just so unreal.”

  “So you did what you had to do.” What she needs to hear. “Protect your family, shit, you did your best, sweetheart. How you did that, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The lady nods. “What else was there? I didn’t see an option. Chief Del … Nic, he told me he’d kill my mother if I told anybody. Said he’d know immediately, he had people watching. At school, everywhere. Oh sure, he didn’t want to do it. And he knew he wouldn’t have to, cause I was such a good, smart girl.”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly, “I know how the motherfucker did.”

  Rose takes me in. “So you know I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

  Think about a fifteen-year-old child, wrestling to wrap her brain around these terrifying uniforms, this sense of complete helplessness, these softly expressed threats. I’ve seen that movie.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Let it go. You had no choice, Rose.” It’s what she needs to believe.

  Gratitude is creeping into her grim smile now. Fresh tears, but she appears at least partially released. Cleansed.

  “No, Rose. No indeed, dear,” says Clarence.

  Senator Howard speaks at the river, then pivots and saunters our way, slowly, head lowered. I cannot see his eyes. Start moving too, wanna get between them.

  “He was not a perfect man,” says the senator, his voice liquid sugar. Fat finger my direction. “Stay where you are, son, that’ll do.”

  Crimson dots doing a jig, one on me and one on my girl. Fuck.

  Rose snorts and pulls her shoulders up. “Nic Deluccia was an ruthless, evil fuck. Stepped on everybody in his life, acted like he was doing them a favor. He was a user, a parasite.”

  Tell myself if the senator comes closer, I’ll go for my other gun, shoot him dead, sniper or no.

  “He ordered a human being be killed and cut to pieces,” says Rose. She looks swiftly at the senator. “A woman you claim to have loved.”

  “And an infant. Your own goddamn child, sir,” I add through my teeth, everybody always forgetting about the baby, which to me is perhaps the most demonic aspect of this whole crime.

  The senator is wagging his head slowly. “The kind of decision-making Nic Deluccia engag
ed in,” says the man, soothing, “is part and parcel of being a success. No other way to go about it, dear.”

  He lifts his mug. The edges of his lips arch slightly heavenward.

  “And of course he had your help. Even if you only provided him information. Did he not?”

  Rose is now studying her feet, looking childlike and entirely vulnerable. “But he … lied to me,” she says, simply.

  The senator, the complexity of his face, he wears an approximation of compassion but snakes churn beneath that veneer. Don’t like it one fucking bit. Think about my ankle holster.

  Fuck. Still aware of the snipers.

  “That’s far enough sir,” I say, my voice not resonating authority in the way I might have hoped. “You stay put, hear?”

  Howard neither looks at me nor modulates his tone, saying, “Bradley, just a warning for the gentleman.”

  Red blip near my foot, small pop and there’s a quartersize hole in the walkway. Watch the blip zip up my leg and land in the middle of my chest.

  Sure it gives me pause, but motherfucker. Senator still approaching my girl, saying, “Rose. Child of God. You must forgive yourself. That’s the first step. Here.”

  Gunmen with laser sights notwithstanding, don’t like this one bit, say fuck it and lurch quick and sloppy to block his progression … Howard ducks me with speed befitting a much younger man, Rose steps backward … and within a rat’s heartbeat he is standing before the girl, hand on her cheek, tender.

  Rose, her eyes are on me. Color them confused, but unsurprised.

  “Mister X, I think …” whispers Rose.

  Half kneel and jerk the Sig off my ankle, the gun is up and pressed into the back of the senator’s head, getting in tight so the folks overhead might not want to risk a shot … I’m shouting something, Howard knocks me back with a simple sweep of his heavy forearm, and it’s as if I’m watching a slo-mo replay of an action that’s already occurred.

  In which:

  Senator Howard steps to one side and withdraws the tip of his cane, a long thin stiletto blade, slowly from Rose’s solar plexus. Twisting as he does so.

  Me grabbing at the motherfucker, as close as I can get, dragging the much larger man backward and down …

  The front of Rose’s orange torso is already saturated with dark. She watches me, not the senator, not the knife that killed her. Her mouth opens, and she says one last thing that I do not hear over the wind. Rose lifts her shoulder, and dies, folding like a dropped marionette, her head smacking the wooden walkway with a hollow thunk.

  I want to step to her but I know she’s gone.

  So I prepare to do the senator, thick ball in my throat, get him in an unsteady choke hold, gun shoved so hard against his head it’s like I wanna push the fucking thing though him and out the other side. If the gunmen above get any ideas both of us will eat a bullet, either theirs or mine, and this is clear to all present.

  The big man maintains, Zen-master serene. His voice is slightly constricted by my elbow, but he speaks slowly and clearly.

  “Consider your next set of actions with much care, son. I have only been the agent of divine retribution.”

  “Is that what you call it?” I say in his ear. “Cause I just saw you stab an unarmed woman in front of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and everybody else.”

  “No. No, indeed. Stand down now, stand down.”

  I realize he’s speaking into a microphone. Snap my head up and one of the snipers has me on lock. Looking up at the barrel, the scope, two perfect little circles, red all in my eye like I’m getting my vision checked.

  “I suggest you take your hands off me, and we can talk properly. I want to speak to you, I need to express a few things.”

  Again I have little choice but to step back. Show the snipers my hands, trying to make eye contact but the one is completely cloaked in dark and the other hangs partially in shadows.

  Fuck me. I want this man dead in a huge way. For the moment, however, I back off. Until I can come up with an angle to work, and I’m calculating fast and sloppy, my processing a big jumble, machinery looping on Rose is dead, Rose is dead …

  I did not … I failed her. I have failed.

  Senator Howard dusts off his coat. Clears his throat. As he’s adjusting his tie, he begins to speak: “When I was robbed of the one woman in Creation who I truly have loved, robbed in such a … coarse, abrupt manner, my sorrow knew no end. I will mourn her into the grave.”

  “Grave I’m about to drop you in, pops,” I rasp, but the senator is talking over me, and I’m gouged-out inside anyway, can only spew harmless venom.

  “Oh, my union with Kathleen is a sham. Any fool can see that. It’s a political expedience. Nothing more.”

  Howard pauses. Fingers the flag pin on his tie.

  “And how about your child, Clarence?” I say, my mouth trembling. Everybody leaving out the child. Innocent blood. I am no better, bringer of death, magnet of mayhem. My chest tightens, need a pill, I manage, “Or is a child, is that immaterial to a big motherfucking man like you?”

  The senator angles his chin at the ground, says, “Abraham faced the very same dilemma. It was not my choice to make, you see. Son, in the Book of Luke, Jesus tells us of a prostitute who came to Him. She stood behind Him at his feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.”

  He moves his eyes to me, heavy lidded.

  “You are perhaps a man who understands love, and in this way you must understand loss. Deep loss. So in this act,” shifts his gaze for a second to Rose, “I become unburdened. A great weight has been lifted from this heart of mine, son.” Takes a breath, then: “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”

  Wicked like my black heart. Death is my escort, my bride.

  Yes, I’m cognizant of the snipers; and yes, I’m gradually bringing my gun back up. There’s a corner of Hell reserved for specialized worms like myself, so I might as well get some shit accomplished before they drop me there.

  Say, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and other saggy-ass motherfucking clichés.”

  “The Word is the eternal Word. Impervious to the insults of men.” Howard shows me his profile, aloof.

  Jesus, the fucking nerve … that’s it. Fuck a sniper. I’ve taken a bullet or two, I can take a couple more if need be.

  I lean into the big man hard with my Sig, dig into his substantial gut. Dude has to savvy which nigger is in charge over here.

  That’s me. I’m running this motherfucker.

  So why do I not feel like I’m in the pilot’s seat?

  Howard falls back casually, leans away from my pistol, appears generally unconcerned.

  Cause I’m the one who’s trembling. Manage: “Motherfuck your Good Book. This ain’t church now. You’re out here with me. Out here? This is the street, and you’re just another citizen. About a minute you’re just another floater headed down the river.”

  Howard’s earpiece is almost vibrating off his head. “No, that’s quite all right.” Talking to the gunman overhead. “Stand down now, stand down.”

  I cannot believe … I reach up and jerk out the earpiece, get real close, and whisper: “Think I won’t I’ll kill you where you stand and walk away with a satisfied mind, you’re thinking wrong.”

  The senator actually laughs. An easy laugh, as if we’re discussing something amusing but ultimately unimportant. Says, “Yes, well, there’s a lot of thinking going on, so you think on this, son. You’ve hit a wall. It’s all slipping away, young brother. But along comes Clarence Howard, quite suddenly a man, a generous man, in need of assistance.”

  I kick him in the leg. “Goddamn right you’re in need of assistance, about to get a bullet right through your crazy motherfucking head.”

  He stumbles, looks up, shaking his head rapidly at the unseen gunmen, signaling no, no, he pushes his rap forward: “A new sec
urity chief, perhaps, son. Something along those lines. The timing of this bodes well, as I am aware of an opening. Mr. Deluccia’s men, they are a flock in need of a shepherd. You know this organization well, from within. Think on that and tell me it doesn’t make good sense.”

  “I’d fucking shoot my own self before I’d work for a fat snake like you.”

  “Is that a fact? No, son, you’re far smarter than that. And when it comes to snakes, you’ve kissed the ring of far more poisonous breeds than me. You’d be very much your own man anyhow. Very lucrative position, believe me. This is why I find this extortion business so surprising, why Nicholas would … he was certainly not wanting. Ah well, I suppose it’s just as Proverbs would have it: He who hath love for money shall never have money enough.”

  I couldn’t be pressing the barrel any harder to the side of his face. See that I’ve actually broken skin. Though you wouldn’t know it by the man’s expression.

  “Preacher, keep preaching fast. You’re getting closer and closer to God by the fuckin moment.” My tongue is basically in his ear.

  Howard isn’t bothered. The big man sighs. “One of the saddest things about you, son, is your illusion that you have any control whatsoever over the course of your relatively worthless life. Sadder still because you could be a man of accomplishment.”

  Try to speak but I am at a momentary loss.

  “Son, I read this whole situation wrong, I afraid, and I am truly sorry if I spoke harshly to you at any point along the way. Apologies are due to you and our mutual friend, the late district attorney. No, it was my own house that was not in order. Well. Let me make amends with the modest means at my disposal.”

  The senator simply lifts his hand, and gently nudges my pistol out of his face. I’m so fucking shocked I let him do it. I stand back reflexively, and realize that I’ve relinquished control to him. That he was always steering this ship.

  He lifts his cane, indicates the lights of the Empire State Building. Even at this hour, helicopters orbit the top, casting lights here and there. That there is ongoing activity is clear.

  “We’re doing great work here, son. Rebuilding the Kingdom of God. You understand so very little of what has been set in motion. And yet you were part of it once.” He gestures in the direction of Midtown. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re a foot soldier. But it’s just as Christ had it in John 2:19: Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”