* * *
—
“So what happens after these Albanians give you Sean?”
Melody was starting on his third drink. “It’s sort of an old-school proposition. These Albanians, let me tell you: they take the whole ‘blood debt’ thing very seriously.”
“So do we,” said Theo.
“The Albanians want two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Cash. The money, it gets us…” Melody trailed off, choosing his words.
“Proof,” said Theo. “It gets us proof.”
“Of what?”
“Of the motherfucker who killed Katherine being dead.”
From somewhere came the sound of ice being crushed by little teeth. Coop drummed with his fingers on the wooden armrest of his seat. He put his hands together.
“You know for sure it was this Sean guy?”
Melody dug a cellphone from the pocket of his jacket, fiddled with it a few seconds, then handed the phone to Coop.
“Take a look at these.”
Coop scrolled through grainy digital photographs of a demolished car.
“Albanians told me where to find the vehicle. It was abandoned in the Port Morris tunnels. Old Volvo, registered to our man, Mr. Sean Hudson.”
Coop kept scrolling through the close-ups. One shot showed where the Volvo’s hood had been violently dented. The camera flash revealed a faint spattering of red grime.
“What happens if you don’t pay?” said Coop. His eyes stayed locked on the photograph.
“Probably they let the guy walk,” said Melody.
Coop handed back the phone. “How does the exchange work?”
Theo gave a strained and abundantly condescending smile. “Any advice you want to pass on?”
Coop leaned forward, folding his arms across his knees. “Watch yourself,” he said.
“They kicked your ass pretty good, huh?” said Melody.
Coop nodded. “Broke a few ribs. Knocked out some teeth. I almost lost this eye,” said Coop, readjusting his patch. It was an exaggeration, but Coop was running on the instinct that he needed to scare them if they were going to fully bring him in on this.
“Well, we appreciate—” Theo began.
“Plus they injected me with something,” said Coop. “Some kind of drug. I woke up in the hospital. Apparently I’d been running all night in the cold, getting frostbite, pneumonia…I don’t even remember it. Doctors said I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Those Albanians,” said Melody, speaking quietly, as if to himself. “Let me tell you.”
Coop stared at his boots. When he looked up, Melody and Theo were once again exchanging glances.
Melody cocked his head toward the far wall, where plastic tarps sectioned off another area within the huge loft. “Coop, maybe you can give us a minute?”
Left alone, Coop wandered along the bank of windows, surveying the darkened streets. He had the sudden dizzy feeling he used to get on jumps; that helpless momentum when the light above the door flashed amber to green and you shuffled forward, the wire above you singing from the drag of static lines. All of you advancing toward the breach in the dark wall of the plane, that gap of roaring light.
After a few minutes he heard the crinkle of plastic. Melody came out alone.
“The man’s making some calls,” said the detective.
They both looked for a while at the city below.
“This deal,” said Melody.
“Yeah?” said Coop.
“I’m wondering, how would you like to be a little more involved?”
Coop turned to the detective. As if in answer came the low, throaty snarl of the hiding dog.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sean shuffled through the orange gloom of the van. It was dark out, and the only light came from a radiant heat fan, which Kosta had wired to a generator, the generator going chug-chug-chug outside in the snow. Sean tried to move with deliberation in the cramped quarters, but his body was numb and he was further hobbled by the cuff around his left ankle, which chained him to a U-bolt in the floor. Leaning against the wall, Sean examined the stencil he’d made from a flattened shopping bag perforated with a paperclip. Satisfied, he gently opened his hand, where he held a black palmful of dirt. He’d spent the afternoon exploring every recess of the cargo hold, using his fingers to scrape grime from the panel cavities, then spread this paste of collected filth across the crumb-licked wrapper of an energy bar. After several hours drying under the space heater, the muck had dried into a fine powder. Now, moving with great care, Sean formed his hand into a boat, fingers aimed toward the stencil. He put his lips together and gently puffed out, dusting the perforated bag in soot.
After long days of silence there had suddenly come pandemonium. Knocking, thumping, screams, the crashing of glass, and then a long, low moan that had thrust Sean from his stupor and left him cowering in the corner of his cave. Finally it had gone silent again, Sean had heard footsteps in the hall. A clicking at the lock to his cave. When the door had opened Sean thought: This is it.
Kosta had smelled strongly of soap. He was shirtless, his torso scrubbed pink and raw, and as he came closer, Sean saw a pistol tucked into his belt.
“No, wait,” Sean had begged, scooting himself against the opposite wall. “Please.”
Kosta had crouched, staring at Sean with a black-eyed intensity. Then he thrust out a fistful of pills.
When Sean woke again he’d found the van in motion. He was still chained, still lying on the same thin mattress, but now through darkened windows he could see the passing shadows of tree branches, and underneath him the hum of an engine and the rumble of gravel in his spine. Even the air tasted different: sharper, cold, mingled with gasoline.
After several hours they had come to a stop. Behind him the wall opened with a metal creak and Sean blinked against the early morning light. Kosta was standing in the van’s doorway, dressed in an enormous, fur-lined black coat that gave him the look of a Mongol warrior. Behind him was a barren, snow-covered parking lot, and farther back, a dense treeline.
Kosta had thrown a black plastic bodega bag into Sean’s lap. Inside were three energy bars, a bottle of water, baby wipes, and several disposable heat packs.
“Eat, clean yourself,” said Kosta. Then he closed the doors again.
It soon grew cold inside the vehicle. Groping around, Sean had found an assortment of blankets and sleeping bags and nestled himself into the mound of bedding. He broke open the heat packs and held them to keep his fingers from freezing. Gradually, the passing of light revealed the details of his new enclosure, and Sean had realized he was in a passenger shuttle, one of those vans designed to ferry the elderly and handicapped. The seats had been ripped out, but there were still grab handles along the vinyl wall, and near the door, the exposed gears of a wheelchair lift.
Huddled in the back of the vehicle, Sean had found himself thinking of Kay and their time together in his tenement hideout. A wretched apartment, but with Kay he’d never been embarrassed. She always acted impressed by the squalor; all part of the staging, he thought, each of them knowing their roles in this ghetto drama. There were other times, though, that felt genuine, unstaged, like when he’d be holding her and she’d bite on his clavicle, and Sean would feel her teeth and imagine their skeletons were touching. Connection, that was Kay’s thing. She believed all people were linked in an interdependent knot, whereas when Sean thought of humanity, all he could imagine was moon bunkers. The image came from one of Gem’s oversized art books, a history of imagined utopias, and there was a diagram of these glass domes spread across a lunar surface, biohabitats, the whole setup floating in an unlivable abyss. That was the kind of connection Sean could appreciate. With art being like radio signals shot between the bases.
Sean watched as the plastic bag template crinkled and fell away. He’d gotten the rough outline
, a gestural impression of shadow. In a bottle cap he stirred up an emulsion of soot, water, and gasoline, and into this primitive ink Sean dipped a thumbnail and came toward the wall again, cocking his head, examining the transfer from multiple angles. Circling like a predator, choosing where to cut in. Finally he reached out with a black-stained thumb.
He started with her eye.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
12/7/2003
I’m thrilled to report Sean’s progress, which has been HUGE in the last few weeks. In group sessions, particularly, he’s gone from being a wallflower to a total star (especially with the female clients, I’ve noticed…). Where was this guy before? To be fair, Sean always had a quiet kind of charisma—the few times he spoke up in group, the others would listen. But in past sessions he’d mostly just sit there drawing in his notebook, never wanting to show the rest of us what he was working on. So it’s amazing to see him come into his own, these last few weeks. I’m proud of him.
Coop felt acid rise in his throat. He stared at the page but no longer saw the notes, his mind crowded instead with Melody’s photographs. The underground tunnels, Sean’s abandoned car with its dented hood. The rusty spatters of blood. Coop checked his watch. Melody had been gone an hour. The detective had dropped him here, at the Crotona, saying he’d be back soon with further instructions, and Coop had gone upstairs to find his room still in a state of wreckage from the Albanians. His equipment was scattered amid the Next Start paperwork in a chaos of desert gear and patient files. First he straightened the bed and plucked up his equipment—bundles of camouflage fabric, extra pairs of boots, Ziploc packs of tightly folded underwear and socks—and crammed it all down into his duffel bag. Then he began to sweep up the paperwork, trying to match the files to the way he’d found them. The way Kay had done it. He had found Sean’s file under the bed. Coop sat down with it, feeling an uncanny sense of dislocation, and had begun to read. Now he finished the entry:
I’m not sure how much credit I can take for the emergence of “New Sean,” but I think it has something to do with our last one-on-one. I tried explaining how much it could help the others to hear about his experiences, and this seemed to resonate. By framing his participation as a gift to the others—instead of a therapeutic necessity—Sean gets to skip the self-pity. It takes the focus off him and expands it out to the world, and this works because at his very core, Sean is a person of great compassion…
Coop slapped the file closed.
“Stupid,” he said. Speaking to the empty room.
Coop lifted himself up and paced to the window, his thoughts beating against the glass and the empty cold beyond. The moon lit a sheen of ice across the telephone wires, and in the distance he could just make out Manhattan: a half-formed darkness, silent and gnawing.
* * *
—
Melody came upstairs hauling a black utility bag in one meaty hand. He looked even more disheveled than usual, his paisley tie half yanked from the collar. The missing buttons showed a sweaty, blood-flushed neck.
“Where can I put this thing?” said the detective as soon as Coop let him into the room.
Coop nodded toward the bed.
“All right, some quick things we gotta go over.” Melody unzipped a side pocket and pulled out a device the size of a small cellphone, encased in survival orange rubber.
“You ever use one of these GPS devices before?”
Coop looked it over. He nodded. “In the Army we call them pluggers.”
“Good,” said Melody, “very good. Our Albanian friend wants to use it for arranging the meet-up.”
From his pocket Melody produced a yellow notebook, the front page covered in scrawled instructions, and squinting, he began to fiddle with the GPS, glancing between his notes and the screen. Coop observed these preparations distantly. Normally this was where his mission brain would take over, when his mind would flex itself outward to envelop the manifold details and checklists, chugging along to the rhythm of imminent action. Instead, he found himself going inward, pulled by the persistent tug of doubt.
“Let me ask you something,” said Coop, as Melody configured the device.
“Yeah?”
“This guy, Sean. How did you say he was connected to these Albanians?”
“Dealing for them,” said Melody, matter-of-factly. He hit a few more buttons and the GPS made a chirping noise. “Okay, there it goes. Should be all set to receive coordinates. The Albanian, he’ll have the other device. Got it? So the next thing…”
But Coop had drifted to the other side of the bed.
“Hey,” said Melody. “You following this? What you got there?”
Coop picked up the manila folder from his bedside table and tossed it toward Melody.
“Sean’s file,” said Coop. “Tell me, does this guy sound like a killer?”
He watched Melody go rapidly through the notes, giving each page a cursory flick.
“Who wrote this?”
“Kay.”
Melody glanced up. He dropped the folder flat on the bed. “Listen,” he said. “From what I gather, Next Start wasn’t too stringent when it came to employee qualifications. And no disrespect, but it’s not like your wife had much experience with this social element.”
Coop stared at Melody and flexed his jaw. He’d wanted the cop to have a better answer. But instead Coop was just getting a sly, buddy-buddy grin. Kay wasn’t stupid, Coop thought. The words arrived with a chill of sudden conviction. My wife wasn’t stupid.
“I don’t know,” said Coop.
“Hey, I get it,” said Melody. “After what those Albanians did to you? You’re thinking: Why trust them? But listen to me, Coop. I got thirty years on the force, seeing how things go down. You want the most plausible story of who did this thing? It’s right here.”
Melody stabbed his finger at the photograph of Sean.
“All you’re doing is meeting someone. You give him the money. The Albanian, he takes care of Sean. You don’t have to watch. Though if I was you, I’d sure as hell want to…”
Coop was silent. Melody leaned in a little closer, lowering his voice.
“You know how many people lose someone, never get a chance like this? You want this, Coop. We all want this.”
Coop nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”
He saw the conversation with Melody going nowhere—the detective had all the evidence he’d ever need. But Coop’s own thoughts raced down a new tunnel, gaining momentum.
“Okay,” said Melody, “last piece, and this one’s fucking crucial.”
Next from the bag came a heavy-duty aluminum case. Packed inside were a dozen bricks of rectangular black plastic. Melody lifted one of these packages and used his thumb to pry away the corner, revealing a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills.
“Quarter million in there,” he said, staring meaningfully at Coop. “I probably don’t need to elaborate on the consequences, right? I mean, if this doesn’t arrive where it’s supposed to.”
Coop shook his head. “Not going to be a problem.”
Melody stared at him for a long, long time.
“I need us to understand each other,” he said. “This is not the Army. You’re not protected, Coop. These people, if you fuck with them…”
Coop stared back.
“So what happens next?” he said.
“I call the Albanian, tell him it’s on for tonight. I mean, if you’re a hundred percent ready.”
Coop nodded. “Sure. But I have another question.”
“Shoot.”
“The Albanian,” said Coop, speaking tentatively at first. “When’s he going to kill Sean?”
A slight duck of Melody’s head at the word kill like it made him embarrassed.
“Why’s it matter?”
“Tell him I want Sean alive when I
get there.”
“Why?” said Melody. The detective crossed his arms. Paying attention, now, to Coop’s line of inquiry.
“Because you’re right,” said Coop, his voice coming faster than his thoughts. “I’m lucky to have this chance. So tell the Albanian I want to do it. I want to be the one.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“Military Legal Assistance. This is Jackie.”
“Hi,” said Coop. “Do I have to use that stupid code word?”
“Fancy Dancer, I presume?”
“It’s Coop. Specialist Cooper.”
There was a pause on the other end. He heard Jackie clicking.
“So, Specialist Cooper,” she said, as if trying out the name. “Last time we spoke, you were absent from service. Is that still the case?”
“Yeah.”
Coop stood up from the bed, unspooling the phone cord. He had to step carefully around the room. His duffel and rucksack were laid out inspection-style on the carpet, with the contents of each bag arranged neatly on top. Next to this gear was the money case and GPS given to him by Melody, along with several shopping bags from a local hardware store.
“But that’s not what I wanted to talk about,” said Coop.
“Okay,” said Jackie, “what can I do for you?”
“There’s something I want added to my file. On the record.”
“Great, shoot.”
Coop cleared his throat. He began to talk but heard a wobble in his voice. He sat down on the bed. Took a deep breath and started again.
“The date was October twelfth,” said Coop. “I was part of a convoy element traveling west from Forward Operating Base Snakebite.” Coop put his fingers to his sinuses. A heavy chemical odor drifted from the bathroom, and he was beginning to get a headache.
He heard Jackie’s fingers striking the keyboard. “October twelfth of this year?” she asked.
“Correct,” said Coop. “At approximately 0300 Zulu time, our convoy was ambushed…”
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