Shovel Ready: A Novel

by Adam Sternbergh

  All the wiring’s waterlogged, corroded and useless, so there’s not a streetlamp lit in any direction. Streets are dark and the warehouses derelict, windows all broken by bored kids with good aim. In the road, oily water waits in puddles, camped out by the overstuffed sewers. There’s a dead-dog smell and, sure enough, a dead dog, chained to a fence to guard an empty lot, then left on its leash to starve and fester.

  Flies feasting.

  Red Hook’s version of a welcome mat.

  Red Hook sits low on the water, and from some parts you can see the Statue of Liberty, and supposedly the whole place used to feel like a frontier town, a refuge to escape to when the rest of Brooklyn got flooded with money. But then Red Hook got flooded with water. A few times. Waist-deep sewage and six-foot-high watermarks staining the walls. Storm of the century came three times in a decade, so this neighborhood was in trouble even before Times Square. After Times Square, forget it. Anyone with a car and a suitcase headed for higher ground.

  Some people still live here. The poor with no options, packed into public housing. Hardy stubborn squatter types who don’t mind living in an abandoned row house that’s made up mostly of mold. Business interests that rely on an element of privacy. Since the floods, the whole neighborhood stinks like the underside of a wharf. And, like the underside of a wharf, this allows a certain kind of life to thrive.

  My plan is to drop in at the Bait & Switch, knock back a few drinks, and ask some questions. Maybe I’ll even get lucky. Unearth my Persephone.

  Instead I’m only halfway down Van Brunt Street when I stumble on the same pair of police cars I saw back in Brooklyn Heights, with an ambulance besides, all pulled over at the end of Coffey Street, parked by the Valentino Pier.

  Roof-lights swirling. Turning the dead-end block into a disco.

  On the stoops, wallflowers watch.

  Guess the cops weren’t headed to Harrow’s after all. Though I’m not too eager to wander over, in case they’re out on some Lyman Harrow—related APB. Then I hear a crackled command on one cop’s walkie-talkie and realize that’s not what they’re here for.

  Two cops shine their Maglites into the back of an abandoned van.

  Black van. Or blue. Black or blue. Too dark to tell.

  Even so, my chest clenches.

  Which is weird.

  Because what exactly am I worried about?

  That someone got to her first?

  Still, no one should go this way. Not like this.

  I shoulder closer through the sparse crowd of mostly bored onlookers. One cop halfheartedly tries to shoo us all back while also checking texts on his phone.

  Phone chirps. Incoming message. Cop smirks. Funny text.

  I edge to the front of the crowd.

  Van’s back doors are flung wide open. Blankets piled up inside.

  Body under the blankets, if my eyes see right. Or bodies.

  My eyes see right.

  EMS guys yank the first stiff from the back.

  Not a girl, though.

  A man.

  Dump him on to a gurney.

  Arm flops over the side.

  Back of his hand. A tattoo.

  &.

  So much for leads.

  First body lays splayed out on the stretcher, bloody and neglected, and it’s not like TV. No one solemnly says a prayer or pulls a sheet up over his head. These EMS guys have other things to worry about, like rolling up another gurney and pulling the second body from the van.

  Also a man. Also mangled.

  Signs of serious knife-work.

  I ask the texting cop what happened. He doesn’t even look up from his phone.

  Who knows? Lovers’ spat? Some random psycho? Ask me, smells like some homo 69 gone very wrong.

  I wince. Play squeamish.

  Looks like those guys got slashed to ribbons.

  Cop shrugs.

  Sometimes passions run high.

  Any leads?

  Cop looks up finally.

  Human garbage lives around here? Take your pick. I’m just surprised whoever did this didn’t torch the van. Would have saved us a trip. Let fire worry about it.

  How long’s that van been here?

  No more than a few hours, maybe. Only got called in because some thugs pried the back open, looking to loot it, and got spooked. Found more than they expected and phoned 911. Not until they’d stolen both stiffs’ wallets, of course. And stripped out the stereo.

  Phone chirps again. New text. Cop smirks again.

  I say thanks as I retreat back into the crowd.

  Don’t really worry about him remembering my face.

  I’m not that memorable.

  Just a garbageman.

  I should have remembered.

  Bitch cut my face.

  First rule of the runaway. Always carry a blade.

  And don’t be bashful about using it.

  She definitely wasn’t bashful.

  Which is when I wonder if maybe I’ve been underestimating this Persephone.

  My Persephone.

  Interesting girl.

  And still has some claw in her yet.

  6.

  The Bait & Switch is hard to miss, since it’s the last place in Red Hook, housed in a small brick building at the end of Van Brunt Street, on the last block before you walk straight into the river. And turns out the butler was more right than he knew. The bar’s sign has a bright neon fishhook, twisted to look like an ampersand, between the words BAIT and SWITCH.

  Spot it six blocks away. Bar must be running a private generator to get that much wattage out here.

  Ampersand blazing like a flare sent up over an otherwise pitch-black street.

  So if Persephone came this way looking for help, this is the place she would have ended up.

  Assuming she didn’t know that this is where those men were planning to take her in the first place.

  Or that she came this way.

  Or that she needed help.

  I figure Sherlock and the other cops back there will probably just call it a night. Didn’t seem too concerned with cracking the Case of the Man with the Ampersand Tattoo.

  Couple of lowlifes in a van. Not exactly top priority. And no one wants to hang out in Red Hook after dark.

  Then again, one of the cops might remember that tattoo, spot this neon sign, and decide to earn a paycheck for once and maybe poke around.

  If so, I’d like a head start.

  Door of the Bait & Switch jingles as I head inside.

  Sparse weeknight crowd. A few dedicated lonelies parked at the bar. One couple fighting at a round-top in the corner, hissing at each other in inside voices. Her: cat’s-eye glasses. Him: at least six whiskeys down. Looks like they made their missed connection after all.

  I claim a stool.

  Bartender wanders over. No ampersand tattoos. Just anchors on his forearms. Like Popeye.

  What can I get you?

  I’m looking for a girl.

  He smiles.

  Aren’t we all?

  She would have come in a few hours ago. Might have looked scared. Or maybe not.

  He unsmiles. Puts a shot glass down in front of me.

  Sorry, but I’m not paid to notice anything here except empty glasses.

  Fills the shot glass up with whatever’s on hand. Something amber and alcoholic. Screws the cap back on. Anchors flexing.

  But if you’re looking for company, we do have a back room. Plenty of girls back there. Some of them scared-looking. If that’s what you’re into.

  I toast him with the shot glass.

  No thanks. I’m good.

  Well, why don’t I leave you to your drink then? This one’s on the house. Next one you can get somewhere else.

  Then he trundles off to tend to the other drunks, like a gardener pruning a row of wilted plants.

  As for me, I’m more or less back at the beginning. New York is big and my Persephone could be anywhere.

  Needle in a haystack and that’s not
even her real name.

  So I vow to look in all the usual places, starting with the bottom of this here glass.

  I raise the glass. Solemnly promise. I will get to the bottom of this.

  Down it.

  I know it’s a cliché to be a hard drinker in my profession. But it’s the one part I do really well.

  Well, this, and that other part.

  It’s just all the stuff in between.

  Camps have dried up. Uncle’s dead, thanks to me. And she just left two bodies in a van. Quick and fearless with a blade, I’ll give her that. Technique’s rough, but certainly no shortage of guts. Then again, it’s not too hard to take down two men if you’ve got a decent-sized knife and they don’t.

  Just start stabbing.

  I motion for another round, then remember I’m on the bartender’s blacklist.

  So if I’m a girl, maybe covered in blood, definitely alone in the big city, where do I head next?

  Tiffany’s?

  If there was still a Tiffany’s.

  I guess I could always peek into the bar’s back room. Interview a few of the dominatrices.

  Plural of dominatrix. That word I had to look up.

  But I’m not really in the mood to interrogate regular people right now, let alone ones wearing full-leather masks.

  With zippers for mouths.

  I need to get out of Brooklyn.

  But I sit a minute more and try to formulate a theory.

  On the run from her father, presumably. Did something bad enough that he wants her found but he doesn’t want her back.

  If I can figure out what, that might give me a hint where she’s headed.

  Not that I’m interested in motives. Just whereabouts.

  But my brain’s an empty blackboard. There must be a school for this somewhere. I’ll enroll in the morning.

  I finish the dregs of my drink.

  Pull my coat from the stool-back.

  Needle in a haystack. Never did understand that expression. Fuck searching, just buy another needle—

  Bells on the door jingle. Like it’s Christmas.

  Bartender calls out to a squat Hispanic, freshly entered.

  Hey Luis. You fuck that girl or what?

  There’s some amount of dumb luck involved in this undertaking, especially if, like me, you are not a gifted, trail-of-bread-crumbs kind of guy.

  Dumb luck.

  You just have to accept it and hope it comes when you need it.

  Sometimes in the form of a squat Hispanic.

  Luis is a livery cabdriver. Livery cab being a fancy way of saying Crown Victoria in need of new shocks. Apparently they still run livery cabs across the bridges, what few souls still make that journey.

  Bartender leers while he wipes out a beer stein.

  That piece of chicken. Tell me you banged her, Luis.

  Luis is quiet.

  She had blood on her. On her clothes.

  I perk up.

  We retire to the corner.

  Take the two-top vacated by cat’s-eyes and the whiskey connoisseur. They left earlier. Not together. Another missed connection, I guess.

  Two rounds later, Luis tells me he drove this girl all the way to Central Park. Young, maybe eighteen, maybe younger. Approached him while he was outside the bar, finishing a cigarette. He says it was dark and he swears he didn’t notice all the blood on her until they were halfway up the FDR. Caught the shine of it in the rearview in the sweep of a streetlamp. At that point, figured it was safer to just keep driving. Left her at the park’s edge. Told her the trip’s on him.

  Did she say where she was going? Back to the camps?

  That theory doesn’t sit right with me, but why not cross it off first.

  Luis shakes his head.

  No. Somewhere else. To Bethlehem.

  To Bethlehem?

  That’s right. That’s what she said. To Bethlehem.

  Buy Luis another round. Settle up with old anchor arms.

  That’s not what she said. She said Bethesda. But close enough.

  Luis is in no mood to take a second trip back into the city but he drops me off at the F and I settle in for a long slow journey on the rattling train.

  The park is long since dark.

  The angel of Bethesda watches over a barren fountain, the water finally turned off years ago. One wing stolen, the other half-broken. Her face spray-painted red, as in shame.

  A girl in a bundle at the base of the fountain.

  I step in.

  Hello Persephone.

  She looks up. Hooded sweatshirt, frayed denim, Doc Martens. Blond curls matted. Hands balled in pockets. Face tear-damp. Voice steady.

  I’ve had a long day, I have a knife, and I’m not looking for trouble.

  Pocket moving. Like she’s tightening a grip.

  I step closer.

  Mind on that blade.

  I’m not here to hurt you.

  Which is exactly the opposite of true.

  7.

  Whatever’s going to happen, it’s not happening here.

  I coax her up.

  She stands. Jeans cut to mid-calf. Docs look like hand-me-downs. Technicolor laces. Like a dreamcoat.

  Hands balled in hoodie pockets. Still got that knife somewhere.

  Not sure how to make the introduction. Friend of your father doesn’t seem like a promising opener. Friend of your uncle, even less so.

  I work with an outreach program for kids.

  God, I hardly half-believe this even as I say it.

  You look like you could use a hot meal.

  There is no part of her that trusts me. But every part of her wants that meal. Every part of her wins. She hoists up a knapsack that maybe used to be pink. Half a rainbow decal with a little pony, peeling.

  Motions with her chin, hands still balled.

  You lead.

  I walk out the west side, her five paces behind me. The park is dark and dead and, on the streets, it’s no different. Not a soul on the sidewalk and it’s not even eleven. Doormen sit behind glass, watch us pass, shotguns propped on their laps like homesteaders. Cop cars sail by, sirens wailing, but we could shoot up a flare and they won’t stop.

  Most of the restaurants on Amsterdam shut down in the past few years, once the moneyed types stopped eating out. Now there’s two shuttered businesses for every one still open, big gaps in a rotting smile. But there’s still a coffee counter here and there, in among the army surplus stores. Posters hawking half-price gas masks and Geiger counters, with a voucher for a free donut next door.

  I know a place, the American Century, popular with nurses. The lively clatter of steerage. The servant class, between shifts.

  We take a booth.

  Where you from?

  South.

  How long you been here?

  A few weeks. I came for the camps.

  How’d that work out?

  Not so good.

  So what’s next?

  I don’t know. I’m not coming with you though.

  Not an option. In any case. Though I do have a room.

  Dirty fingers disembowel a white dinner roll. Stuff it in like it’s medicine.

  Looks like you could use a manicure at least.

  Fuck you. You sleep three weeks in a park, see what it does to your cuticles.

  Just an observation.

  You’re a beautician too?

  I dabble.

  Quick smile. Despite herself.

  Then I’ll take a mani-pedi both, if you’re offering.

  Well, that I can’t promise. But I do have a clean bed. An extra bed, I mean.

  Wait, don’t you work for some kind of shelter? For wayward teens?

  I thought you might be tired of sleeping in open spaces with a bunch of people you don’t know. I have a guest room at my place. Door locks too.

  And where are you?

  Hoboken. I’m a Jersey boy. Like Sinatra.

  On her second roll, eating quickly.

  Who’s Sinatra
?

  I don’t usually do it this way, just so you know. I don’t track people down and then take them out to dinner. I prefer if it works the same way on both ends of the job. The less interaction, the better.

  But whatever you think of me, which by now may not be much, I’m not going to cut a woman open in Bethesda Fountain. Or a diner bathroom. I prefer when I find them dreaming in their beds.

  And yes, I’m sorry to bring that up, but that is what I’m here to do. It’s a real conversation stopper, I know. You may say, how can you do it? That’s not a question I usually entertain. But remember what I said.

  I don’t know these people.

  I’m just a bullet.

  Rolls, soup, cheeseburger, cake. Tears through it like she’s eating for two.

  Two bills to the waitress.

  We’re about ready to head out.

  I want to ask her how old she is. Though I haven’t had much luck with that question today. Truth is, I realize there’s a small chance she’s too young. Too hard to tell anymore. Every fourteen-year-old a supermodel, every forty-year-old still trying to pass for a teen. My Little Pony backpacks used to be a reliable indicator. Same with heels and belly piercings. No more.

  Maybe the voice on the phone lied. And if she’s not eighteen, that means I take her home, set her up with a hot shower, maybe bus fare, let her sleep eight hours for the first time in weeks.

  If she is eighteen, same thing, except no shower or bus fare, and she’ll sleep a lot longer than that.

  Waitress brings my change.

  It’s silly, I know. This fixation on birthdays. But tell that to a kid with a learner’s permit. Or a kid signing up for the draft.

  And as much as I’m starting to maybe hope it’s not the case, if she is eighteen, she’s an adult. And deserves to be treated as such.

  So I spill it.

  How old are you anyway?

  Why? Are we going to vote?

  Hostel regulations. Overnight guests. Children-adults. You can stay either way. It’s just for bookkeeping purposes. Head counts. That kind of thing.

  She shifts in the booth. Like she’s wondering which way to play this.

  Swipes back a dirty curl.

  Proudly age of majority. Just had my eighteenth a few weeks back. That’s partly why I headed to New York.