Shovel Ready: A Novel

by Adam Sternbergh

  Nothing lethal. Just something quick. And distracting.

  While he’s on his knees trying to keep what’s left of his eyes from dribbling out onto the floor, I pull the vault door closed.

  It’s a heavy fucker. Tug-of-war, and I’m the anchor.

  Beat the other farmboys by a half-step.

  They pound with their pistols. Gunshots muffled on the other side.

  I give the kneeling farmboy a last meaningful slice across the throat, and he slumps like a split bag of garbage, spilling its wet load onto the floor.

  Now it’s just me and Milgram.

  Mina’s white bandage throbs in the light of the laptop like a neon cross at night.

  She searches.

  She searches.

  She searches.

  She smiles.

  Fucking finally.

  Oaken doors creak and Mark rushes in and up the path like he’s late for a party.

  A centurion head in each hand. Like luggage.

  Chucks the heads in the underbrush.

  Okay, first of all? Piggybacking is bullshit. Pardon my language.

  Brushes his hands off. Stands shirtless. Golden curls. White raiment swaddling his loins. Gladiator sandals with straps wrapped to the knees.

  Simon smiles.

  Harrow’s face ashen.

  Mark looks himself up and down.

  What? Too gay?

  Rolls his shoulders like he’s prepping for a prize fight. Bounces. Flexes his back.

  Spreads the I RULE tattoo.

  Letters reassemble.

  URIEL.

  That’s better.

  Boxes the air. A one-two jab.

  Now, if you’ll excuse me one moment.

  He bends double. Grunts.

  Stands erect.

  Grunts again.

  Fists clenched.

  Then roars.

  Wings unfurl.

  I know what you did.

  Milgram stands steady. Still smiling that unconvincing smile.

  I am blameless in God’s sight. None but He can judge me.

  That may well be so.

  I step toward him.

  He smiles. Sweats.

  So what are you going to do?

  I think you know.

  What? Kill me, and then—live in this vault forever? There are three armed men out there, waiting for you, and what do you have? A razor blade?

  It’s a box-cutter.

  You know you can’t get out of here alive, not without me.

  I pause.

  He eyes me. Spots weakness. Crack of daylight. Heads straight for it.

  I’m telling you, you do this, and we both die.

  I stroke my chin, then take my chin-stroking hand and grab the back of his head. Yank him toward me.

  For the first time, he squeals.

  I whisper.

  Fair enough. You first.

  I work on his throat, nothing fancy. But with gusto.

  Like ripping at a Christmas gift you can’t wait to get open.

  We’re alone in the vault so there’s no rush.

  When I let him go he falls to his knees.

  Penitent.

  Having seen the light. And the dying of the light.

  His windpipe whistling.

  Exit music.

  He plays himself offstage.

  Harrow calls for someone to tap him out.

  No one’s listening.

  Simon stands by, arms crossed, like a guy at a bus stop waiting for the crosstown express. Waiting for the inevitable to play out.

  Mark hovers.

  Persephone holds out a knife in a stained leather sheath. Asks her father.

  Do you remember this?

  Yes. I gave it to you.

  That’s right. For what purpose?

  To protect yourself.

  Right again. But from what?

  The evils of this world.

  Yes.

  And they are many, Grace Chastity. They are many. And I did my best to prepare you.

  Yes. They are many.

  And to protect you. I tried to. And to teach you to protect yourself.

  Yes. But I didn’t do a very good job of that, did I? Not when it counted.

  I only wanted the best for you. When you cried, I comforted you. When you faltered, I picked you up. When you strayed, I corrected your path. That’s all.

  Yes. And you taught me to protect myself.

  I hope so.

  And my baby. I have a baby to protect now too.

  I can harbor you both.

  She slides the knife from the sheath.

  No, I think I can do this.

  Checks her watch.

  I think I’ve learned all I need to learn.

  I stand alone in the vault. Me, and two bodies. Three, counting Harrow.

  His sandpaper breath.

  Still oblivious.

  The box-cutter blade is too slow for my purposes.

  And, by now, too dull.

  I check under the bed. Find a gym bag, tucked out of sight.

  As I was told to expect.

  To be honest, I’m kind of surprised.

  Unzip.

  Check the contents.

  A handgun. A hammer.

  A spike.

  A second spike, for the heart, as a failsafe.

  All accounted for.

  Six-inch railroad spikes. Further sharpened.

  One thing left to do.

  Check my watch.

  Grace Chastity, I raised you from a little girl.

  I know. I remember. I was there.

  Look around you. I can offer you everything.

  All I see here is a frightened old man.

  I’m not frightened, Grace Chastity. I am saddened. To see what you have become.

  Yes. I’m a little saddened myself.

  These cheap theatrics don’t suit you, Grace Chastity. And despite what you might think, all of this? It’s just for show. You can’t hurt me in here, don’t you understand that? You cannot hurt me. You foolish, stupid little girl. Anything you do in here has no meaning in the actual world. And when I find you there, I will reap this pain on you a thousandfold.

  All right.

  You know I can do it, Grace Chastity.

  Yes. I do.

  Checks her watch.

  It’s true I can’t hurt you in here. Not really.

  Watch beeps.

  But I can give you something to remember me by.

  My watch beeps and I hammer the spike in. It takes fewer blows than I would have thought.

  I’d etched a cross in his forehead with the box-cutter beforehand.

  As a target.

  Then held the spike steady.

  Waiting for my cue.

  Just two blows. Straight through.

  Fragile. Like I said.

  In the dream, Harrow gasps, shocked, a sharp intake, less in pain than in simple surprise.

  Then he smiles. Even looks a little embarrassed.

  The emperor dethroned.

  Glances down at his chest, where she’s still twisting.

  Blood spreading in a swallowing stain.

  This is the moment he will live in forever. Looped. Like a record skipping.

  His knife.

  Her hand.

  His heart.

  It’s an old bank, but the vault was retrofitted more recently, the security precautions updated after an employee got locked in overnight.

  I search for the emergency release.

  Luckily I knew about all this beforehand.

  A little bird told me.

  After all, there’s really no reason to try and stop people from breaking out of your vault.

  I find the lever and pull it, and shove the door open slowly, and since they’re expecting a guy frisked clean with nothing but a razor blade, I get off five clean shots before they even return fire.

  Guns. They do have their uses sometimes.

  Three shots hit, two with authority.

  An
d the last farmboy standing has lousy aim.

  Lucky.

  When he falls I distribute the last half of the magazine more or less equally between them. For closure.

  The nurse has, for some reason, stuck around.

  She’s paralyzed in a corner until I wave her toward the exit.

  Crepe soles soundless on the marble floor. Until she hits the puddle.

  Keeps running.

  Tracks blood right out onto Wall Street.

  I start searching the extra rooms for Simon’s bed.

  Mark lands lightly, looking slightly disappointed.

  You hardly needed me. Of course, there’s still him.

  Simon, prepping his exit.

  I’m sorry, but I really have to run.

  Mark steps up.

  You and I started a conversation earlier, back at that country church. We should finish it.

  Simon straightens.

  Happy to.

  Persephone grabs Mark’s arm.

  Don’t.

  Simon smiles. Looks her over.

  Good to see you. You look well.

  She wipes her blade on her dress. Bloodies the flowers.

  Just tell us which way.

  Simon looks to Mark. Back to her. Then points.

  She says to Simon:

  Okay. Now go. Fast. I mean it.

  Then she gestures to Mark.

  Follow me.

  I find Simon’s bed in the old bank manager’s office, but no Simon.

  Now you see him, now you don’t.

  Too bad, because I have that second spike.

  I do find another room though.

  Six beds.

  Six old men.

  All tapped in. All dreaming.

  Arranged in the round.

  Deacons’ Circle.

  She leads Mark to a different doorway, hidden behind creeping ivy.

  When they first walk through, they actually do hear harps.

  Harps, then the screaming.

  The far-off hopeless cries of the long-since damned.

  The room is pitch-black, with only flickering flames to light it.

  They wait in the doorway, their eyes straining against the dark.

  Their pupils dilate, hungry to let the light in.

  Then regret it.

  For Mark, the only reference is paintings. Blake. Bosch. But alive.

  Persephone recalls something different.

  A young woman stabbing herself in a hospital bed.

  Persephone speaks first.

  I’ll need something.

  Mark hands her the hurlbat.

  She hefts it, one-handed.

  What about you?

  I keep something handy for special occasions.

  In his hands, suddenly, a sword aflame.

  Uriel.

  In the Bible, the flaming sword is mentioned only once. Held in the hands of the angel Uriel who banished Adam and Eve from Eden. Some scholars read the flaming sword as a metaphor for lightning. Mark is somewhat more literal-minded.

  Persephone lit white by the heatless fire.

  Wait, how come you get the flaming sword?

  Don’t forget, I taught Sunday school. And I have a good imagination.

  She heads right. He heads left.

  Cut their way back toward each other, like explorers clearing brush.

  I watch the deacons sleeping. Leave them undisturbed.

  Head outside to the bank steps.

  Greet Wall Street.

  Fresh air. Bright sun.

  Wolf whistle.

  Eight mangy stragglers assemble. Still way too many dreadlocks.

  Remind myself to institute a shaved-heads-only policy.

  For now, though, let them work off some of the anger that built up back in the park, over a week of siege and beatings.

  Resentment toward society and so on.

  Pass out six box-cutters.

  One per deacon.

  Point the way inside.

  Outside the barn, crickets chatter.

  Inside, a nurse flips through a magazine.

  Someone in a bed murmurs. Awakes. Bolts upright.

  A scream.

  Then another.

  The nurse puts down her magazine.

  At Paved With Gold, in every bed, someone’s gasping.

  Awakened.

  Eyes blinking like a newborn.

  Born again.

  35.

  The city’s quiet.

  I leave Persephone, Mark, and the Mangy Eight at my place and take my boat across the river. It’s the first truly cold day of the season and there’s a flake or two in the air, with winter creeping up the river to tap the city on the shoulder. I dock in Tribeca, walk east among the castles, rough cobblestones underfoot. These ones aren’t made of gold, just cobble. Brought over in the bellies of empty cargo ships as ballast, then unpacked here and used to pave a new world.

  In Chinatown the first of the last remaining shops roll up their iron shutters and open.

  I’d helped the Mangy Eight ditch their bloody clothes and took care of the Deacons and the farmboys and Dave the doorman too. Remember, I used to work as a garbageman. I have access to incineration. I’d say ashes to ashes but that never made sense to me. None of us start out as ash.

  In any case, those gents are all now traveling the city as weightless tourists, floating bird’s-eye over the streets, burnt to soot-flecks and swirling on the fresh gusts heralding winter.

  May well land by accident on somebody’s outstretched tongue.

  Reverse snowflake.

  This city does leave a taste in your mouth.

  I head into a knock-off emporium on Canal Street and pull out what’s left of my nest egg. Thanks to recent developments, my slush fund is all slush, no fund. Still, I have just enough for a Chinatown shopping spree, to outfit my new naked brood back home.

  I hand over the last few bills.

  Prodo for everyone.

  As I’m walking out, my phone rings.

  Unknown number.

  Though I know.

  Hello Simon.

  I’d never told anyone about that place, the Social Club in Hoboken, not Mark, not Rick, not anyone, so imagine my surprise that morning when Simon the Magician pulled out the chair opposite mine.

  Made me an offer.

  Laid his cellphone on the table.

  Trust me. She’ll pick up.

  Hello Simon.

  Well, I’d say that went off without a hitch.

  Almost. I’d really hoped to find you in that bank. Give you a proper good-bye.

  I thought you might. But I had to jet. Some other time, perhaps.

  Spit-crackle of a bad connection. I blink first.

  You got your money. So what’s next?

  I wait. Manage the crisis. Then fill the void.

  No, I mean what’s next for her.

  I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.

  And how are you planning to do that?

  Well, for starters, I have you.

  Whatever arrangement you have with her is between the two of you. But let’s be clear. If I ever see you—

  Don’t worry. I don’t intend to be involved. At least not right away.

  And I almost hung up then and there. I should have. But it gnawed.

  So I said it.

  One last thing, Simon.

  Yes?

  Congratulations.

  He laughs. That laugh.

  So she told you.

  Not until this morning.

  Secrets are so hard to keep. It’s a wonder they even call them secrets. Though I guess this one would have come out eventually. So to speak. Listen, Spademan—

  Good-bye Simon.

  He starts to say something else but before I hear it I pull out the SIM card and drop the handset in the sewer.

  Hear his laughing voice echoing all the way down as he tumbles to the underworld.

  It wasn’t Harrow.

  It wasn’t her boyfriend.

>   It was Simon.

  Simon the Magician.

  Head of Security.

  Harrow never knew.

  Harrow would have killed them both if he had, of course. Killed all three of them—man, woman, and child. Probably killed some other people besides, just for being in the same vicinity.

  Harrow had appointed Simon to be personally responsible for his eldest daughter’s security.

  His job was to watch her.

  So he watched her.

  One day, she watched him back.

  It was a short affair with only one lasting consequence.

  A secret with an expiry date.

  Or, rather, a due date.

  She’d caught me on my way out this morning. Everyone else in the house still asleep. Led me by the hand to a bench by the waterfront.

  The baby wasn’t the reason she ran. I was right about that, she said. She actually thought that maybe she could stay. In her home. With her family. With her father. That somehow he’d understand.

  Before she’d thought that.

  Before Rachel.

  But not after.

  She cried as she told me this.

  She’d gone to Simon first. Spilled everything. About her father, about the farm, about Rachel. About what they’d done to her. Hoped Simon would help her. Hoped together they could halt it.

  Turned out he knew all along.

  Winter wind in a rush up the Hudson.

  Hugged her knees to her belly on the bench.

  Watching the water.

  A posture of protection.

  Belly getting bigger every day.

  I’m sorry I lied. I was scared—

  It’s okay—

  —first of you. Then of my father. And I knew I’d need help—It’s okay. He had plenty of sins to atone for.

  —to stop him. Once I knew. I had to stop him. I didn’t know how.

  It’s okay.

  And then Simon—

  Tugged her close.

  It’s okay.

  And when I said it that last time, I think she finally started to believe me.

  It all made sense now, of course. Simon’s intercession. The Judas betrayal. But when I shook his hand in the Social Club, I didn’t know any of this, and I can’t change that, or deny it.

  It was a deal with the devil and I took it.

  Figured that’s what passes for hope these days.

  But maybe I’m wrong.

  I hope I am.

  She and I sat for a bit by the river. On the Jersey side.

  Witnessed the sun resurrect itself over the Hudson. Rising up from its nightly tomb.