Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

  Boonce fiddles with his silverware. Rearranges it. Tells me.

  Well, I work for Bellarmine.

  If you’re a cop, Boonce, why aren’t we having this conversation at a police station?

  Boonce adjusts his fork just-so. Looks up at me.

  I’m off the books.

  Then he pulls out a handheld and lays it on the table, screen-side down.

  Spademan, I’m about to show you three photos. I think they’re photos you’re going to want to see.

  Okay.

  But before I do, I need to know something. I need to know that we can work together.

  Okay. Work together on what?

  He smiles. Taps a finger on the backside of the handheld.

  Let me put it this way. If I show you these photos, and share this information with you, and we don’t work together, that’s going to be a problem.

  Okay. Why don’t you start by showing me the photos?

  He turns over the handheld. Shows me photo number one. A crisp surveillance photo of Lesser, taken at Stuyvesant Town.

  I assume you know who this is. Jonathan Lesser.

  Sure. I know him. Bed-hopper. Fond of peeping.

  Boonce grins.

  Good answer. But he’s not just any hopper, mind you. He’s king of the hoppers, basically.

  Boonce swipes his finger to bring up photo number two. This one I don’t recognize. It’s another surveillance photo, taken on the street, of a young man in a tweed suit with round glasses. Looks Middle Eastern. Egyptian, maybe. Frail kid, fragile as a bulrush. Bad burns stretched across one side of his face like a handprint from a lingering slap.

  Boonce asks me.

  Does this person look familiar to you?

  No.

  Well, let me introduce you. His name’s Salem Shaban, aka Salem Khat, aka Sam Khat, as his friends like to call him.

  Why Khat?

  It’s a drug. You chew it. Looks like twigs and leaves.

  Sorry, but his name doesn’t ring a bell.

  How about the name Hussein el-Shaban?

  No.

  You sure? It was in all the papers.

  I don’t read the papers.

  Well, Hussein el-Shaban was a minor terrorist. Right-hand man to a right-hand man. Killed in Egypt a few years back. Drone strike. Wife too. Whole building full of people, actually. But his wife was an American citizen, which got some bleeding hearts ruffled stateside. More important, el-Shaban also had a son.

  Let me guess.

  Boonce gestures to the photo.

  Shaban Junior here survived the drone strike, barely, got pulled out of the rubble, and now he’s living here, in Brooklyn, running a perfume shop on Atlantic Avenue.

  I thought no one lives on Atlantic Avenue anymore. Not after the sweep.

  Shaban’s trying to change that. Encouraging Muslims to move back to the neighborhood. He’s become something of a celebrity, actually.

  How is he even living in the States?

  Boonce fidgets with his wristwatch.

  Like I said, his mother’s American. Trust me, he’s on every watch list, including mine. But he used to be some sort of computer whiz kid and he got shipped over here on a special visa. There were … back-channel accommodations. The punch line is, he gave up all that tech-whiz stuff when he suddenly found religion. Became a devout Muslim. Then became an activist.

  I examine the photo again. Kid looks harmless. Bookish even. Smooth cheeks, save for the burns, which curl across one cheek and wrap around his throat. Tweed suit’s baggy, maybe two sizes too big.

  I say to Boonce.

  He looks fifteen.

  Boonce chuckles.

  Don’t let the babyface fool you. His father also had a daughter, but guess what? The daughter’s dead. Rumor is, Salem Shaban murdered her, his own sister, back in Egypt. Honor killing. That’s what they call it. She got gang-raped, so naturally, he killed her. And he didn’t stop there. Found the rapists too. Killed them. Found their wives. Killed them too. And their kids, in a couple of cases. Little kids, I mean. Cut quite a swath.

  Okay. So why not just arrest him?

  Hey, I’m NYPD, not Interpol. Plus, it’s all rumor. Records from Egypt right now are, shall we say, spotty. You probably saw the reports on TV. Things are a little chaotic over there.

  Like I said, I don’t follow the news.

  Boonce smirks.

  Well, let’s just say I hope you had a chance to visit Egypt back when the pyramids were still intact.

  Points to the photo of Shaban again.

  This kid’s taken it upon himself to lead a crusade to repopulate Atlantic Avenue. Pretty small-time right now, but it’s growing. Plus—and here’s the kicker—he knows Lesser.

  How?

  Best buds from the whiz-kid days.

  Okay. Now what does any of this have to do with me?

  Boonce picks up the handheld. Swipes again. Then says.

  Don’t forget. I’ve got one more photo to show you.

  Turns the screen back toward me.

  I assume you recognize this asshole.

  I examine the photo. It’s blurry, but, yes, I know him. Because this one’s me.

  It’s a photo shot in the Stuyvesant Town lobby. Security camera, judging from the overhead angle. I’m toting my duffel bag on my way to see Lesser on Saturday night.

  Waiter in a white coat arrives with two steaming bowls of bisque that I don’t remember either of us ordering. Boonce thanks the waiter, then gestures toward the curved wooden walls of the saloon, with their useless blind portholes.

  You know what I like about this place, Spademan?

  What’s that?

  No windows. So no one can see in.

  Takes his spoon and skims his bisque.

  Because that’s my job. That’s what I do. See into every room in the city.

  Blows on the spoonful.

  And I do see everything.

  So are you here to arrest me?

  Boonce smiles.

  Not arrest you. Recruit you.

  Then he takes another sip from his bisque.

  Look, Spademan, to tell you the truth, I don’t much care what you do. You find people, I find people. It’s a living.

  Swallows the spoonful. Frowns. Puts the spoon down. Pushes his bowl aside, barely touched.

  Leans in.

  I love this saloon. Last bastion of a whole different city. Only trouble is—

  Cups a hand to his mouth. Stage whisper.

  —the bisque sucks.

  Leans back.

  I just need to know what Lesser saw, Spademan. Or what he thought he saw. Because I know he told you. And I figure you’re just about the last one he talked to about it.

  So why not just ask him yourself?

  Haven’t you heard, Spademan? Lesser’s disappeared. Poof. No trace.

  So where’d he go?

  Boonce rattles his watch as he crosses his arms.

  That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.

  Waiter whisks away both bowls of bisque.

  I shrug.

  I wish I could help you. But I don’t do missing persons. I talked to Lesser last night but then I left him at his apartment.

  Boonce checks his watch again, jostling its jeweled face free from under his starched French cuffs. Boonce is exactly the kind of fancypants who still wears cuff links. NYPD shields, no less.

  Looks up. Seems pressed for time. So he delivers his pitch.

  Unlike some people, Spademan, even people I work with, I’m not ready to give up on this city. I’m not ready to leave it to be ransacked by savages, or crushed under the wrecking ball. I grew up in New York, in Hell’s Kitchen. Used to skip school to go watch movie matinees in Times Square. After Times Square happened, I signed up to become a cop, work antiterror, because how could you not? And I’m not going to let what happened happen again. Not on the streets. And not in the limn.

  He leans in.

  Lesser’s a special kid. You know that, right?<
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  So people keep telling me.

  He is. And he was working on something special, Spademan. Something special and very dangerous. That’s why we were watching him. Rumor was, he’d worked out a new hack for the limn. One that goes way beyond bed-hopping.

  Which was?

  I think you know, Spademan. Or at least you have an inkling.

  You think Lesser found a way to kill a person while they’re in the limn.

  Boonce leans back. Grins.

  Now, as we both know, that’s not possible.

  But you think that’s what it is.

  Well, if anyone could have done it, it’s Lesser. Like I said, he’s a special kid.

  But he’s just a hopper, Boonce. Why would Lesser want to kill anyone in the limn?

  I don’t know that he did it. I just think he figured it out. Then I think maybe he let his secret fall into the wrong hands.

  Shaban?

  Maybe. But think about it, Spademan. If Shaban found a way to use what Lesser knows? To pick people off through the limn? That’s huge. Especially given what the city’s facing right now.

  You mean the election. The one your boss Bellarmine is running in.

  Boonce stills his hands. Smiles.

  So you do read the papers.

  I skim.

  Boonce kneads his knuckles. Seems on the edge of genuine concern.

  Then you should understand, Spademan, that the limn’s just about the only thing that makes this city viable. People have already got plenty of reasons to leave. Limn’s the only reason they’ve got to stay.

  Not everyone.

  No. But most. The ones with money, anyway.

  So what do you want from me?

  I’d suggest you start with finding out who exactly Lesser was peeping on. And what that person’s current condition is. Because God help us all if that poor person is now dead.

  Which is interesting. Because it means Boonce doesn’t yet know about Langland. Which means there’s at least one thing in the world that I know that Boonce doesn’t already know. I don’t tell him that, of course. Instead, I ask the obvious question.

  Why me?

  Why you what?

  Why me for this job, Boonce? You seem to have plenty of resources at your disposal.

  They see us coming, Spademan, they scatter. And I need to know what Lesser knows, but he has no real reason to tell me. You, on the other hand—you’ve proved yourself persuasive. And I believe that you can find him. You found him once already.

  Fair enough. Now why do I want to help you, exactly?

  Boonce grins at me like a patient hunter sitting in a blind, waiting on his well-built trap to spring.

  Because there’s a few more things that I know about you, Spademan. I know you have a woman stashed in a cabin upstate and that there are a bunch of religious nuts currently combing the woods trying to find her. I know you think you can protect her, and I know you’re secretly worried you can’t. Which you should be. Because you can’t. But you know who can?

  You.

  Look, you can walk out of here right now, back to your life in Hoboken. But know this: I have the keys to the rooms in the city that no one can see into. That’s who I am. You work with me, I give your lady-friend safe passage back South or wherever she chooses. Hell, you can all live here, together, in the city, stressfree, if that’s what you really want. I can make that happen. If you find me Lesser. That’s what I’m offering.

  Trap sprung, he takes a pause. Jangles that watch again. Then adds the kicker. What salesmen call the sweetener.

  That’s my offer to you. To her. And to her little baby girl.

  I can’t promise anything, Boonce.

  I don’t want promises, Spademan. Just Lesser.

  And what will you do with him if I find him?

  Don’t worry about that. Though I’m assuming you weren’t headed to his apartment last night to deliver him flowers.

  He holds out a business card. Nothing on it but a number.

  When you find him, call me here. Direct line. Day or night. Consider this my Batphone.

  I pocket the card.

  I’ll keep in touch.

  Boonce rises, makes a big show of peeling off a fat tip for a meal we didn’t have to pay for, then escorts me back out to the grand concourse, where Puchs and Luckner are still standing guard. Then Boonce smiles the smile of a slippery salesman who just closed a difficult deal without a moment of doubt that he’d do it.

  Offers a handshake to seal the agreement.

  Then says, with a wink.

  An actual wink.

  Spademan, welcome aboard.

  11.

  Officer Puchs asks where I want to be dropped off, so I tell him Union Square, which is close enough to where I’m actually headed, but not so close that they can follow me there. I don’t buy most, or any, of what Boonce is selling, and I know he’s only telling me half the story at best. But the truth is, if he can help Persephone, that’s worth something to me. Get her and Hannah set up somewhere secret. Somewhere safe. With a yard. Maybe swings.

  Could do worse.

  Plus, I admit, now I’m definitely curious. If you can actually kill someone through the limn.

  Boonce certainly seems to believe it. Boonce and Lesser both.

  And if it’s true, what Boonce said, that there are terrorists who’ve found a new way to blow this city apart, from the inside out, after what they did before, then maybe there’s a part of me that wants to know that too.

  Maybe even have a hand in stopping it.

  Never had that chance last time around.

  Patrol car squeals to a stop out front of the plaza in Union Square. A few forlorn panhandlers, stranded around the base of the stoic statue of George Washington on horseback, take notice and rouse themselves, drifting plaintively toward us, palms upturned.

  I exit the backseat, say thanks to Puchs for the ride, and Puchs doffs his cap from the front seat.

  Have fun with the punks.

  Then he flips on his siren and peels out just for fun.

  Panhandlers scatter.

  I figure I’ll start my search with Langland, the dead banker, the one part of the puzzle I’ve got tucked in my pocket that Boonce doesn’t know about yet.

  Once I’m clear of the square, I pull out my phone and make a call. Used to be, when I needed information, I called a journalist friend named Rockwell. Unfortunately he’s not around anymore. Took a bullet on a barstool, meant for me.

  Good man. I still miss him.

  And turns out Rockwell had an intern.

  Never knew that until she tracked me down after he was killed, claiming I owed her a job.

  Young kid, early twenties, smart as a pistol and an expert at combing the old abandoned Internet. Hails from Sri Lanka, she told me once, and when I asked her where that is, she said, Picture the farthest place in the world.

  Okay.

  It’s a mile past that.

  She favors zootsuits with shoulder pads. Wallet chain and wingtips. Shaved head, save for purple bangs that droop over her eyes. Says she takes inspiration, fashion and otherwise, from Malcolm Little, who was Malcolm X before he changed his name to X. Then she asked me if I knew who Malcolm X was.

  Told her I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Found it on a bus once. Good read. Missed my stop.

  She goes by the nickname Hymen Roth, by the way. That’s her street name. Like a rapper, she said.

  When she first told me that, I winced, and she said, What? You never saw The Godfather 2?

  Told her that’s not why I was wincing.

  Now I just call her Hy.

  She and her cohort call themselves Netniks. Hang out at a clubhouse in Williamsburg, a safe haven for self-proclaimed info-chaos activists, the types who rummage through the ruins of the Internet, seeing what trouble they can unearth.

  Turns out she’s the best of them.

  Unearths plenty, for a price.

  First ring. Hy picks up.

&nbs
p; Spademan, you know I don’t do phones.

  I don’t have time to come to Williamsburg. Just let me give you a name.

  You better be on a burner. What’s the name?

  Piers Langland. He’s a banker.

  Got it.

  I want to say thanks, but she’s already hung up.

  Kids today.

  No time for niceties.

  As for me, I head to Astor Place. Use the walk to compile a list of people who might be interested in making Lesser disappear.

  Turns out it’s a long list.

  First up: Langland, the banker with a secret, who’d be plenty pissed to find out some geek had been peeking through his curtains.

  Trouble is, Langland’s already dead.

  Peacefully, in his sleep. Supposedly.

  Which brings us to whoever Lesser saw in the limn that night. The woman in the burqa, the one who crashed that banker’s construct and blew him up. Maybe she found out Lesser witnessed the whole thing and decided to hunt him down and do the same to him out here. Except whoever’s behind this seems to want to make a statement. Probably relish a witness, someone to come back here and tell the world.

  Which is exactly what Lesser did. Maybe he served his purpose. Still, it seems doubtful they were done with him. If you’re going to create a canary in a coal mine, it seems strange to strangle it after just one chirp.

  So on to suspect number three: Whoever hired me to kill Lesser in the first place. Obviously, she has motive. But then, if her plan was to snatch him up, why hire me to kill him? Could be she got antsy, sent someone else to finish the job, except twenty-four hours isn’t much of a window to let me finish.

  Which leads me to the last person on my list, which is any and all of the people who’ve ever been crossed or violated or spied on or humiliated by Lesser or any of the hundreds of bed-hoppers he unleashed, once he invented his creepy little limnosphere parlor trick. Imagine you went into the limn to act out all the desires or appetites or twisted predilections you didn’t want anyone to ever know about.

  Then you find out someone was watching. Playing witness.

  Might ruffle feathers.

  Raise ire.

  Inspire revenge.

  No need to make a list of all those people. Just grab a phonebook and riffle through. Decent chance you’ll land on someone with a grudge against a hopper.