The Nightworkers

by Brian Selfon

  The places where there aren’t cameras: innumerable.

  “There’s a joke among the transit cops,” the station agent says. “You want to hide in this station, all you have to do is stand still or move.”

  Sometime later she is on the platform, arms crossed over her chest, struggling to collect herself. Several days past real sleep, her senses are unreliable. But down on the tracks, just a few yards into the tunnel, there’s a blind spot she hasn’t shined her light on yet. It’s just a little enclave, a place where track workers store tools and loose parts. A place where homeless people, the station agent informed her, were once known to camp out. This is a place where someone or something could disappear for a long time. Zera has her flashlight in hand. She could shine it from the platform, or she could hop down and walk a few paces. The station agent has his eye on her. He’ll hold the train if he has to, and it’s still six minutes away. She walks to the very edge of the platform, where it meets the wall of the tunnel. Her thumb on the button, she raises her flashlight.

  And hesitates. This nook is her last unturned stone. After she looks inside, she has nothing. And it’s already over: there’s no reason to think this nook has anything to do with anything, no reason for Emil Scott to have even set foot on this platform. But to have one last not-known thing—it’s her hope. And when her light goes on, her hope goes away.

  Her heart is heavy when her phone, which has been buzzing indifferently for hours, bleats as if to announce a hurricane.

  “Officer Montenegro, repeat, Officer Montenegro.”

  She recognizes the voice of her supervisor, recognizes the tone. Knows how his calm can be a kind of sheath.

  She raises the phone to her mouth. “I’m here.”

  “And where is here?”

  “Sir, my initiative—”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’ve been canvassing for witnesses. I’ve been looking at video evidence, testing whether the presumed mugging of my informant may be—”

  “Listen to my words, officer. I’m coming to you. Now. Where are you. Right now.”

  Zera feels herself afloat. Feels the hours she’s worked in solitude, off the books, without a supervisor, without food. A vague memory returns, the sensation of manacles on her wrists. This decides it for her—I’m done. Zera does not tell her supervisor where she is. She names, instead, her preference for where she’ll be fired—and goes there.

  Her soon-to-be-former supervisor is an apple-shaped man, his thick arms now crossed over his huge chest. “You were absent without leave for four days,” he says. “I’ve already filed my disciplinary report.”

  “My informant—”

  “Not your concern.”

  “His murder—”

  “Not your concern. Listen to me carefully, Officer Montenegro. The hooker project, the money-laundering bullshit—that was your case, if you can call it that. If there was even a crime there.” She begins to say something about murder, but he raises his hand like a stop signal. He makes her feel his silence and then he says, “You’re done.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Renaissance Java. She was the first one here—she waited outside for it to open. And now she sits with a coffee facing an empty chair. Shecky Keenan isn’t here, of course. Why would he be, why today at five o’clock in the morning. And soon he’s not even the one she’s thinking of, not the person she’s picturing seated across from her.

  Katja, a dead-eyed nineteen-year-old, sniffs at Zera through the smoke of her burning cigarette. I told you, lights off, she says, pointing at her head. The first law of survival at the Paradise House.

  I wanted to, Zera thinks back at her. I couldn’t.

  Okay, so your lights are still on. Katja crosses her arms. Did you really think that would make a difference?

  part nine

  behind god’s back

  chapter 41

  Shecky walks to DeKalb Avenue, where he catches the B38 bus. He exits at Fulton Street, kills a quarter hour at the Court Street Barnes & Noble, then buys two coffees—one espresso, one small black—on his way to the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway stop. His waiter days again come back to him: holding both coffees, he swipes his MetroCard and descends to the platform. On the scarred bench he settles and watches trains come and go. Vasya arrives on the minute, dressed, as ever, in a beautiful suit and shining shoes. The Hello Kitty pin on his lapel.

  “It’s perfect,” Vasya says, after a sip from the espresso. “You remembered. Excellent customer service.” The phrase is strange, coming from him. His mood strange, too, it seems to Shecky. They’re here on unpleasant business.

  “We try to keep the client happy,” Shecky says. He wants to match Vasya’s tone but hears his own falseness: “But I guess I’m the client today.”

  “Nonsense, we’re past that. You’ve been saying this for years.” He elbows Shecky gently. “We’re partners.”

  Shecky’s stomach has been cooking acid all day, but now it boils up. He tries to settle himself, but there’s no getting away from it: Vasya has become physically repulsive to him. The strange lighting on the platform is at once over-bright and inadequate. Vasya’s forehead seems to glow, while his face beneath the eyes is all shadows. An odd and specific fear comes at Shecky, that Vasya will bite him, will snap off the tip of his nose. Shecky’s organs are misfiring, most of all his heart: he can feel his pulse moving through him, can hear his own slow, angry heartbeat—as he catches Vasya watching a girl walk by. Tapping his lapel pin.

  The Paradise Club, Dannie whispers to him—don’t play dumb, you know what they do.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Shecky says. He called this meeting, but he wants it over and forgotten—and Shecky can be good at forgetting—even before it’s begun. Vasya, meanwhile, seems extravagantly unhurried. He brushes off the pants of his beautiful suit and finishes his espresso. He stretches and smiles, watching the girl till she’s gone. Then his eyes sweep the platform, looking for who’s next.

  “What a summer,” Vasya says at last. “That artist who died—so tragic. I saw that notice in the Post. Who knows, maybe he’ll be the next Van Gogh. The starving genius laboring in obscurity, the early death, his value discovered when it’s all too late. Every generation needs this story, yes?”

  Shecky also saw the notice in the Post. It was just a thumbnail, the kind families pay for, and there were identical notices in the Daily News and the Times. There was also a one-paragraph obit in some sloppy art magazine Shecky had never heard of—Henry had left a copy on the dining room table. No cause of death was printed, only that the artist had “died suddenly.” It was the same on Twitter and Facebook, except there, someone had added a link to Nar-Anon. Nowhere was there mention of Shecky’s family, thank Jesus, nor of any money lost or found. Best of all, there was no reference to an active police investigation. Henry’s friend may have been a disaster as a runner, but he sure did know how to die.

  More acid in the stomach. Shecky hates that he’s down here on the ugly subway platform, hates that he bought an espresso for this man. Hates how Vasya’s acting, like they’re old friends with a lifetime of understanding between them. Like they’re the same kind of man. Of course Shecky thought this himself, but that was before the summer turned red. Before he had that miserable dinner and saw the waitress run off. I’m not like him, he wants to tell Dannie, we’re different men. But Shecky has a sudden, crazy fear that when the next train arrives, Dannie will step off it, and she’ll see Shecky with Vasya, and he’ll have to answer to her.

  I’m not like him, I’m not his partner.

  Then why do you take his money?

  The gas station takes his money. The grocery store takes his money. Are they complicit?

  “Let’s get to business,” Shecky says. His tone is more commanding than he intended, but he wants this conversation to move. He needs to be out of this space where the trains never stop. Where Dannie will see the man he’s with—

  And the man you are, she whispers.
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  Shecky clears his throat. “We have another problem.”

  “How unlucky for you,” Vasya says, turning to him with a smile. “What’s his name?”

  Shecky shakes his head no, afraid to open his mouth. One spoken word and he’ll be clutching his stomach, crying out from the acid. Vasya’s presence is beyond repulsive to him now, and worst of all is the childlike, unaffected happy manner of Vasya’s speech. There’s no mistaking his pleasure in just sitting here beside him, the two of them talking together, stretching out the time.

  As if they were family.

  Another girl, another tap of the pin. And Shecky looks—really looks, for the first time—and sees that the little cat has a pink ribbon, and in the center of the ribbon is a tiny glass dot. A hidden camera—Shecky would bet his life on it.

  Everything he sees revolts him. Vasya watching the girls, sneaking pictures of them. The litter on the tracks, the graffiti on the walls, an unwashed schizoid, two teens play-pushing each other near the platform’s edge. A phrase he used to hear from his uncle Samuel comes unexpectedly back to him: behind God’s back. In Uncle Samuel’s house, this meant only somewhere unimaginably far off—but for Shecky, in these words, there’s a weight and a darkness.

  And Vasya’s still smiling, and Shecky’s supposed to smile back, supposed to be in on the jokes. A dead runner, young girls on the subway—hilarious! But Shecky isn’t enjoying any of this. And his stomach, his head, they’re both pulsing, and the rhythm is that of a slowing heart. Something terrible is happening inside him. Neither kid showed for breakfast this morning, and here he is, behind God’s back, having coffee with the devil. And I’m accountable for his sins, Shecky reminds himself. This is my partner.

  Shecky turns to look Vasya in the eye and say he’s had enough, he’s calling it off, but instead he’s remembering the three texts he received early this morning.

  I KNOW.

  One minute later: I’ll tell him.

  Another minute: $$$

  The messages were from a number Shecky didn’t recognize, but he had no doubt who sent them.

  “Everything is up to you,” Vasya is saying. “It’s the same as last time. You can give me a name, or you just give me the details. But you have to tell me how to find him.”

  Shecky takes a deep breath. “Not a him.” Another breath. “And tell your guy to do it different this time. It can’t go down the same way.”

  Late afternoon, Shecky Keenan leaves the subway and finds a quiet bench where he can sit in the sun and let his stomach figure itself out. He checks his phones for messages from the kids—none, of course. He watches pigeons and counts breezes, and the hours pass, and though the shadows move under a reddening sky, the name he gave to Vasya is still foul in his mouth.

  chapter 42

  His first date in a lifetime—Andrew Xu does not do well.

  During appetizers he somehow brings up his divorce. Yes, it was just this past spring, and yes, Andrew was married, and yes, he was married to a woman. His date, Kevin, a tall white man, was selected for Andrew by an app called BlindLove. (“Sky-High Confidence—you’ll have a great time!”) Kevin makes no effort to hide his discomfort, and when the waitress talks about dessert, he interrupts, already taking out his wallet: “Just the check. Separate bills.”

  It’s before nine o’clock on a Saturday night, and Andrew is once again lying sideways on his couch, watching a movie on his laptop. Tonight it’s Fireworks Wednesday, another of his wife’s favorites. My ex-wife, he reminds himself. Years pass before ten o’clock, the hour he promised his psychiatrist he’d wait for. At last he takes his Silenor and gets into bed. My bed, he reminds himself, forcing himself not to save a place for her. To lie in the center.

  Darkness now, chemical and perfect.

  Sometime later: awareness that his sleep is breaking up. That he is not alone.

  “Wandering and confused,” she mumbles, “lost to myself.”

  He recognizes his patient by her lavender scent, and knows immediately she’s been here for some time. The nightstand lamp is on. A beautiful young woman sits under the yellow-orange light of his bedroom. She sits in his bedside armchair, her bare feet on his ottoman, her hair casting giant shadows. Her eyes, always so quick in his office, are now closed. Kerasha has never come to him like this.

  “So here’s me again,” she says, “ever unreeling. Ever unreeled.” A pause. He feels the Silenor pulling him back down and decides this is all just a chemical dream, but then she changes her voice and asks, “Where did you get smacked?”

  This new voice is whiny, nasal, and pedantic. And familiar. She’s asking my questions, he realizes. She’s doing our session.

  “Oh, you know, just here and there,” she says, answering in her own voice. Playful and coy, at ease as she never is in his office. “I take my hits at the library, in front of the TV, with a burger, in the cage. I don’t make a show of it—it’s just like popping gum. No drooling, not for me, no slant-standing. I’m my own girl.”

  His disorientation gives way to pity, which almost immediately is drowned in disgust. She’s nothing but sickness now. He wants her out of his bedroom. Hates that her bare feet have been on his honeymoon rug, the one he and his wife picked up in that dusty bazaar in Cappadocia.

  My ex-wife.

  It takes all his self-control not to scream Kerasha out of his apartment. To remember that she is his patient and he her doctor. She’s more than her sickness, he coaches himself. Sickness is what brought her here, sickness is what you signed up for.

  And with these and other mantras of his profession, he calms himself. The residual Silenor doesn’t hurt.

  “So how do you do it?” she asks herself, again in that nasal voice.

  My nasal voice, he reminds himself.

  “Just follow the rules,” she says, answering in her own voice. “They’re pretty basic. Just ask any twelve-year-old.”

  A longer silence this time. He hates himself for his disgust and impatience. Twelve years old, he thinks, that must be when she started. He tries to remember the mental health file he received from Corrections: they documented addiction, but did they have that detail? But really, what does it matter. Whatever the age was, she’s a patient. She needs help. He wants to sit up and take her hand, which he’s never done with a patient before, but has heard from colleagues isn’t always inappropriate. He wants to be closer to her, but this is his bedroom, and it’s 2:04 a.m., and he can’t rule out the possibility that she has come here to hurt him.

  “So tell me about these rules,” she says as him, bringing her hands together in a manner his wife—ex-wife—used to mock.

  “Rules are simple,” she answers. “Shoot the muscle, never a vein. Don’t chase it, don’t top it off. Just taste it and ride it out.”

  “That’s it?” she asks herself.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she answers, now using a third voice, low and brittle. “It’s no big whatever, Kerry. It’s just heroin.”

  The mother, he thinks.

  “Diamorphine,” she continues. “Developed as a medicine. A prescribed analgesic. Comes from a plant, you can get it organic.” The mother’s voice trails off.

  Kerasha is slouched in his chair looking down at her hands. Her whole body—the curve of her shoulders, the drop of her head—emanates an old and terrible misery. Slowly, quietly, he lifts his sheet and light blanket. Sits up, shifts his legs over the edge of the bed. Presses the soles of his feet down on the honeymoon mat, and stands before her.

  “Filament, filament, filament,” she says quietly. Herself again, only smaller.

  Into the silence he thinks, This is the moment. Another step on his honeymoon rug—the distance is nothing, he’s almost surprised by how easy this is—and, standing before her, he reaches for her hand. “I’m glad we’re finally talking about this,” he says.

  When she looks up, the hatred in her eyes is so fierce it drives him back. Her face is ancient and has ancient power. “An addict is someon
e who tries to quit,” she says, as he stumbles back against the bed. “I am the leavings of many deaths.”

  And with this her throat scrapes over itself, emitting a sound like an engine grinding over slipped gears. She crumples, and her knees are on his honeymoon rug when warm vomit splashes his ankles.

  chapter 43

  “And that’s how they found her,” Starr is saying. “Henry, I’m so, so sorry.”

  He lowers the phone. Looks up at the basement window Lipz used to climb in through.

  Starr’s voice, from a great distance: “Henry? Hen?”

  He lets the phone drop.

  Where you at? Who you with?

  Nunya.

  He backsteps until he feels the bed behind him, then turns and sees the mud on his sheets.

  * * *

  The funeral is held the following week. Red-bricked and newly painted, Saint Thomas Aquinas is Aunt Mercedes’s church, and though none in the congregation had a thought for Lipz when she was alive, her death has the place packed. As Henry enters, happy children dart before him. He sees Aunt Mercedes laughing near the votive candle rack, her eyes moving triumphantly down the line of condolers. Henry pushes his way to the basement-floor women’s room, where Starr is, as promised, waiting for him.

  “Hurry,” she says, pulling him into the bathroom—this is their second bathroom meeting this summer. “Everyone and their mom is trying to get in here. I keep saying the toilet’s broken.” After closing the door and turning the lock, she lets out a long breath. “I’m so sorry. I want to help. Let me help you. I’m trying.”

  “I know. Thank you.” Henry touches her arm. “So that cop with the hands.” Back to business. “Did you find out anything?”