by Chris Knopf
“Then you know what happens,” he said.
“I do,” I said, even though I didn’t.
Living conditions could have been worse, though I’m not sure how. Cement sidewalks are the coldest and hardest surfaces ever conceived. The sleeping bag, purchased like most of my other homeless gear at the Salvation Army, had most of the stuffing long since beat out of it, so it wasn’t much of a mattress.
The best moment was when another homeless person, a woman with a livid face and dirty hands, sat down next to me and offered up a midsized 7UP bottle half filled with straight vodka. I demurred, which gave her no offense.
“That’s fine. More for me.”
“Though it was a generous offer,” I said.
“You bet it was. I got kicked out of this very same place, what, a year ago? So what the fuck?”
“I have three days left.”
“Oh. Then they do the thing.”
“The thing?” I asked.
She looked at me in semi-bewilderment.
“You new here?”
“I am. Down from Connecticut,” I said.
She sniffed and shrugged, as if to say, you don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.
“What, Greenwich?” she asked.
“Yeah, Greenwich. I got a hedge fund run by Jesuit monks. Those guys aren’t a lot of fun, but crazy honest, you know what I mean?”
“You’re full of shit,” she said.
“I am,” I said, “and so are you.”
She liked that and tried to get me to take a slurp from the 7UP bottle, but I held my ground.
“So you’re like a saint,” she said. “Like them Jesuits.”
“Yes, I am. What’s the thing?”
“You don’t want to know,” she said, standing up. “But you’ll find out.”
Even in the daylight, I could see the lights were off on the fifth floor of United Aquitania’s building. Through a process of elimination while examining the bank of buzzers, I determined this was the organization’s space.
Lying there, staring at the façade across the street, I developed a sympathy for real street people based not on their sad economic or psychiatric situations, but on the sheer boredom of being inert within a world of such compulsive energy. I felt I couldn’t look at my smartphone when I was on the sidewalk, for fear I’d either wreck my persona or attract a mugger. Knowing that it was in my pocket, right there eager to be perused, was intensely exquisite torture. All I could do was call Natsumi using an earpiece covered by my scraggly wig and sneak a look at the touch screen. A homeless guy seemingly talking to himself was beneath notice.
“Anything?” she asked.
“No. Any word from Rodrigo?”
I had her monitoring my various email accounts.
“Yup, just about an hour ago,” she said, then read,
Sr. Gorrotxategi:
“Estaré en Nueva York pronto y le avisaré en cuanto llegue.”
Mariñelarena
“I think I know what that means,” she said.
“He’s coming to New York soon and will contact Joselito when he gets here,” I said. “Write back to acknowledge receipt of the message. You look forward to meeting him. ”
“Okay. How are you feeling?”
“I’d be fine if it weren’t for the iPhone withdrawal. I only check email when I’m in the john, which is a hard thing to come by in and of itself. Not a lot of shopkeepers want you around, and what do you do with the cart? Can’t lose the cart.”
“The logistics of homelessness.”
“Much more complicated than you’d think. I won’t last till next week.”
I was just back from one such trip, soon after nightfall, and saw lights on the fifth floor. Timing is everything, I thought, with a curse. I settled back into my spot with a promise that I’d be back in bed with Natsumi before the night was through.
In a mood most foul, I glowered at the building across the street and cursed some more, out loud. Another privilege of the homeless. It felt good, though I noted that for me, a homeless man of a different sort, it was a choice, not often for them.
I was thus engaged when a cab pulled up to the curb in front of me and Rodrigo Mariñelarena stepped out.
CHAPTER 20
Behind Rodrigo were two other men, one of whom I recognized from Madrid. They were all somewhat oversized and seemingly unaffected by the ten-hour transatlantic plane ride. They took stuffed duffel bags out of the trunk, paid the cabbie, crossed the street and were buzzed into the building; and judging by the way the fifth floor lit up, welcomed into United Aquitania headquarters.
I packed up my mobile homestead and pushed it over to an empty lot full of rubble one block from Broadway where I’d located a small tribe of homeless people. I gave them my cart with its full load of redeemable bottles and all the money I’d collected during my stint on Spring Street.
“Where you going, brother?” one of them asked me.
“Got a girl on the Upper West Side. She wants to take me in,” I said.
They all nodded and looked at each other, as if similar stories frequently circulated.
“Take a shower first,” another said. “Use exfoliate soap. Burn the clothes.”
“Don’t get fucked up on her stuff the first night,” said a woman. “It’s a temptation, but you can stretch things out with just a little bit of discipline.” She looked at the others staring at her. “Really, no shit.”
“Yeah, but bring your kit and plenty of supply. Those girls up there can’t source for shit.”
“When boosting, think cash and jewelry. Don’t get bogged down with shiny knives and forks. Too heavy, no return.”
“Husbands. They can show up any time. Fly in from Düsseldorf or some shit.”
“They can shoot you, legal.”
“Fuck, yeah. What’re you? Street trash. Supremely shootable.”
“This is really good advice,” I said, “thank you.”
They liked this.
“Fuckin’ right it is.”
For the hell of it, I walked by the United Aquitania building before returning to the hotel. The woman Natsumi christened as Nose Stud was coming out the door. I went to stop her, but she dropped her shoulder and swiveled around, executing as neat an escape as any professional running back.
“Wait, you know me,” I said.
She stopped and pointed her finger at me.
“I thought that was you with the cart,” she said. “You’re not smellin’ too good.”
“United Aquitania has some visitors,” I said.
“You still owe me a thousand bucks. I called your lady friend right before I left my apartment.”
“Fair enough. Three of them got out of a cab. But there was a light on already.”
“Don’t know about any three. I’m talking about the woman across the hall from me. I don’t know her personally, but tonight, I saw her come out of their offices and then lock the door behind her.”
“Anybody else there?”
“I don’t know. I kept my head down as I walked by. Way too creepy. ”
“What does the woman look like?”
“Probably early fifties, tall, broad in the butt, long straight hair, too black to be real, narrow face with a long nose, imperfect skin, likes high-heel boots. Affiliates with the creative class, still hip, but slipping behind. And she knows it.”
“Thought you didn’t know her,” I said.
She handed me a business card: Ella Eveningstar, PhD, Anthropology.
“I teach at Columbia. You can send the check to my office. I hate the cops, by the way. I’m an anarchist. But if they ask about this, are you good or evil?”
“We’re good. Not sure yet about the other guys.”
She gave me a noncommittal look, and left me at the curb. I walked up to Houston and caught the subway back to the hotel.
THAT NIGHT, I dove into my clandestine version of Joselito’s email and wrote to Rodrigo.
Sr. Mariñelarena:
I have given this much thought and believe I have a safe way for us to meet.
Assuming you are here next Saturday, you and only one of your men go to Rockefeller Center and take the elevator to the Top of the Rock, planning to be on the observation deck at twelve noon. I will do the same. We will need to pass through metal detectors, so no guns allowed. If either one of us tries to harm the other, the police stationed on the ground will immediately quarantine the building. There will be no way to escape.
I know you come with honorable intentions, but we both understand the need for precautions.
Gorrotxategi
That evening, I had my reply.
Sr. Gorrotxategi:
I will be there, wearing a red beret. My associate will wear one in white.
Mariñelarena
I wrote back.
Sr. Mariñelarena:
We will be wearing Boston Red Sox baseball caps, a dangerous thing to do in New York, but so rare you will not miss us.
Gorrotxategi
All set, I went to bed, nervous and excited by the escalation of risk. I was awake most of the night running through next steps, but it did little to slack my energy, as my obsessive brain hurtled toward the inevitable.
THE NEXT morning I wrote a note and printed it out. I took it to a FedEx office and sent it with a disposable phone to Shelly’s home in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.
The note said, “Find a place where they can’t listen in.”
The morning after that, I got the call.
“So you found a place,” I said.
“I did, and no, I won’t tell you how.”
“How bad is it?”
“It’s bad,” he said. “They’ve assigned a dedicated team. Five agents. That’s a big commitment given budget pressures.”
“How well do you know them?”
“Not very. One or two.”
“One of them’s a mole. He’s in steady contact with Joselito Gorrotxategi, with whom he trades, or maybe only sells, intelligence about United Aquitania. Given the quality of the intel, he’s got to be part of that team.”
“How do you know this?” he asked.
“I told you. I’m living inside Joselito’s computer. Do you know people further up the food chain?”
“I know people who know people. At least I did. They’re retired, like me.”
“You might want to open up those channels. For all I know, the mole doesn’t know he’s a mole. Joselito is former Interpol and Guardia Civil. Could easily be seen as a trustworthy source. Though I know for a fact he’s dirtier than stink.”
“I’ll do what I can. You don’t know how Byzantine these bureaucracies can be.”
“Can I call you?” I asked.
“No. I’ll call you.”
“Okay, make sure it’s good news.”
NATSUMI AND I went out that night. We dressed up and ate at a tiny, expensive and quietly refined restaurant with food that could challenge Provence. After dinner, we strolled the streets of the Upper West Side and Natsumi instructed me on living in the moment.
“Your past is gone and your future has yet to come,” she said. “So all you have is the present. I don’t think this is very hard to understand.”
“It is for people like me. We do the opposite. We obsess over what we’ve done and grind our guts over what we need to do next.”
“So knock it off,” she said.
“Okay, as soon as I figure out what Florencia got herself—and us—into, and then what to do about it.”
“You’d make a terrible Buddhist.”
“I know. My mind is never quiet and I never live here, now. I live here, there and everywhere,” I said. “However, I never kill other creatures, even the tiniest annoying bug, unless I absolutely have to, and I believe in the eternal continuum of being.”
“You do?”
“Before I was shot in the head, I could run the equations for Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. I remember how it felt when all those numbers fell into place. A breathless sort of dizzying joy, making sense of the universe by embracing that which to our common experience makes no sense at all. If that isn’t Buddhist, I don’t know what is.”
“Now I know why I like you.”
BACK AT the hotel room, I woke up the computer and checked all my email accounts. One from Shelly stood out.
“They know about the computer tap.”
“Gotta go,” I said to myself.
I tried to visualize the connection between Joselito’s computer and mine—the links, routers, IP addresses. Instead, all I saw was a huge dark room filled with computer screens and projected images of New York City, with an overlay of multicolored circuits and communications pathways. All narrowing in on me.
I shut down the wireless broadband access, unplugged the laptop and stuck the external hard drive in my backpack. I searched around the room. Fingerprints, DNA, miscellaneous data everywhere. Printouts and travel documents. Not enough time to wipe clean. I stuffed the backpack with identity documents.
“Natsumi!” I hissed her name.
“What?” she hissed back from the adjoining room.
“Put on your hoody and grab all your passports and drivers’ licenses. Get the makeup kit. Leave your smartphone.”
I looked around the room one more time. I saw a lot of things hard to leave behind, but it was too late. I went in the other room where Natsumi was putting on her own backpack. Her face was tight, but calm and alert. She hid all that under the hoody.
We were halfway to the elevator when the doors slid open and people in black helmets and baggy equipment-laden vests poured out into the hall. We pressed ourselves against the wall and stared, which was likely the smart thing to do, since any normal person would. One of the men looked at us, put a gloved finger to his lips and shooed us down the hall. We watched as they used small battering rams to smash their way into both our hotel rooms. In the midst of all the urgent commands and crashing around, we slipped through a pair of swinging doors into the utility room that served the maid staff, fed by a service elevator which took us to the laundry room in the basement.
From there, we found the parking garage, and then our rental car. I drove up toward the exit and immediately fell into a long line. I got out of the car and saw the reflections of flashing blue lights. I pulled the car into a parking space and we went on foot to a stairwell that took us up to the street.
The world was filled with police cars, blue and white SWAT-team trucks and ambulances. people were standing around the sidewalk wondering, I’m sure, if it was a theatrical moment or the real thing. One of them was a limousine driver leaning against his black Crown Vic.
“Hey, man,” I said to the driver, “this is freaking my wife out. Can you give us a ride out of here?”
The man was short and dark, with unruly black hair and a uniform a size or two too small. I held up a fifty dollar bill.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Just head downtown and I’ll figure it out as we go,” I said.
We were well past Columbus Circle before I had the address of a tiny hotel in Tribeca that had vacancies for two connected rooms, room service and broadband access. All within walking distance of Soho.
“So we’re not fleeing to Madagascar?” Natsumi whispered in my ear.
“Not yet.”
“Good,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder.
After getting settled into the new room, I lay down on the bed and Natsumi lay next to me.
“I’ve never been fingerprinted or labeled by DNA,” I said.
“I have.”
“I know.”
“We’re gonna get caught,” she said.
I lay there quietly and thought about that.
“No, we’re not.”
“Oh, good. Nice to hear you say that.”
“Though we might get killed.”
“That’s okay. As long as we go together,” she said.
“I was kidding.”
&nbs
p; “I wasn’t.”
NATSUMI SLEPT while I stared up at the ceiling and took stock.
Our smartphones were back in the other room and the laptop we brought was disconnected from wireless access. As far as I knew, there was no other way to track us electronically.
I’d used a clean ID to secure the room in Tribeca. There was no paper trail to follow. More so the electronic trail, though I’d been scrupulously careful with IP addresses and searchable keywords.
Shelly Gross was another component. Either he’d been reeling us in all along, or truly was operating as a quasi-free agent. In which case, he could go to management with the mole story. Though even that didn’t guarantee anything. For all I knew, the mole was an official operative.
Then there was Joselito. An experienced security guy like him was capable of finding the tap and subsequently uncovering my secret communications with Rodrigo Mariñelarena.
He’d know a meeting had been set up between Rodrigo and a fictitious version of himself. Rodrigo, meanwhile, had to be prepared for the possibility of a trap. He couldn’t know that the possibility had turned into a sure thing.
My objective had been to squeeze more information out of Rodrigo, not assassinate him. He might well deserve it, but since I really didn’t know, I couldn’t let that happen.
I waited until Natsumi was awake and ordering coffee to make the call to the Nose Stud anthropologist.
“Ella here.”
“Hi, Ella. Did you get the thousand dollars?”
“I did. Cash stuffed in a FedEx envelope. Very interesting.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“How much for the right answer?”
“Is there such a thing as a mercenary anarchist?” I asked.
“You betcha.”
“Two fifty. I don’t want to be a schmuck. You won’t respect me.”
“Okay. Ask away.”
“Do you know the name of the woman across the hall and where she works?” I asked.
“I think she works out of her apartment, but I see her a lot at the deli down the block. She was really loading up on stuff this morning.”