Nick Bones Underground

by Phil M. Cohen

  “Until one became forever comatose, like my daughter, for example,” I said.

  “Yes. There is that,” Shmulie said, without emotion. “I’m here and not on some island in the South Pacific enjoying the fruits of my labors under the sun with Esther at my side because of that.”

  I looked around the large room. “You live alone?”

  “Who’d live with me?” he asked. “Shelley visits, but not often. Not safe for either of us. Besides, I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  “No surprise. Who does?” said Maggie.

  I finished my drink, picked up the decanter, refilled the teacup, and took another hefty sip. A drink could smooth over a wealth of sins. I was beginning to feel sin-free.

  “You never called Abe, your father,” I said.

  Shmulie winced as if stabbed. “I couldn’t,” he said.

  “You couldn’t? In the end of his life, he wanted only to hear from you. That’s what got me involved looking for you.”

  “And man alive is he involved,” said Maggie.

  “I couldn’t call or anything. I’d’ve been found out . . . and the old man might have been in jeopardy too.”

  “It was that much of a risk?”

  “Yes, Nicky. Like I said, I have lots of enemies.”

  “You can add me to the top of that list,” Maggie piped. “Now spill it, you bag of bones.”

  “Who the hell is she? Your portable enforcer?” Shmulie huffed.

  “She’s my computer and a lot more. She’s making a good point. Tell us the real reason you never spoke to Abe.”

  Maggie and I waited while Shmulie, brow furrowed, constructed his response. He stretched his suspenders.

  “Well, it’s like this, Nicky. True, I once told my father I’d contact him. But I couldn’t. You’re not going to believe this, but whenever I thought about my father I’d become so overwhelmed with a devastating sense of shame I’d break down. No. I couldn’t face him. I tried. Next week, I said to myself. But next week came and went, and the week after that.” Shmulie wiped his eyes. “Now it’s beside the point. He’s dead.” He sniffed. “I tried. Every time, I froze.”

  He walked over to the desk and sat. “I’m back to studying Talmud, Nicky. I sit here for hours poring over this material.”

  “He called me right before he died, your father,” I said. “Told me he’d heard from you. You told him you were okay.”

  “Not me,” Shmulie said. “No idea who.”

  “Didn’t think so,” I said. I sipped the Scotch at a more civilized pace. I leaned over, picked up the decanter and topped off the cup.

  Shmulie paced about the room, hands locked behind his back, head down, like a Brooklyn Hasid. After some moments he stopped in front of me.

  “I live here in near solitary confinement with the persistent memory of what Esther and I created.” He closed his eyes and shook his head in a powerful motion. “No. What I created. People in hospital beds all over the world are never going to open their eyes again because of me. Your daughter—”

  Shmulie once again took to walking about the perimeter of the room, eying a painting or two, pausing at his desk. He hunched over the open Talmud, put his finger on the text, finished the last few lines it seemed, turned the page, and walked to the small island that divided the living room from the kitchen. He turned around.

  Opening a door I hadn’t noticed, he said, “Come with me.”

  ***

  Maggie under my arm, I walked through the door into another room to behold another large space, this one filled with laboratory equipment that made Shmulie’s windowless childhood basement hideaway look like an eight-year-old’s chemistry set.

  “My lab,” Shmulie said. “When I’m not studying Torah, I work in here. I’m looking for the cure.”

  No explanation needed.

  “Don’t you think there are others out there trying to do the same thing with better equipment? With partners?”

  “Fact is,” he said, “we live in a terrible time for research money. Most of the money for Lerbs research comes from me.” He picked up a beaker filled with green liquid and gave it a careful look. “I know just about every lab working on the problem. We share the results of our research, though none of them knows they’re feeding me or that I’m feeding them data and money.”

  “How do you communicate?” I asked.

  “Contact with anyone out there can be hazardous. I have my safeguards.” Shmulie gestured to the interior of the room. “Come in. I’ll make tea. Unless you’d prefer something stronger.”

  Maggie said, “You’ve had sufficient alcohol, Nicholas. Remember your heart and all of the biking you lately have not been doing.” Not to mention that after three drinks I was sufficiently buzzed.

  “Tea’s fine. Nothing mint.”

  Shmulie boiled a beaker of water over a Bunsen burner and brewed jasmine green tea in a Japanese teapot. He motioned toward a group of chairs in a corner of the room. I went over and set Maggie on the coffee table.

  Shmulie brought the tea with two cups. As he poured, I eyeballed my new surroundings. Photographs of past Kobliner rebbes filled the walls. Alone on one wall hung an enormous photograph of the late Dovid Schmeltzer.

  “Pretty large picture of Schmeltzer,” I said. “The eyes alone could contain half of Lake Superior.”

  Shmulie looked up at the photograph. “I admire the man,” he said—a bit too loudly, I thought.

  “The man he was or the thing he became?”

  Shmulie’s brows drew together. At that moment I realized something.

  “You overheard my encounter with him the other day,” I said.

  He nodded toward a television screen on one of the walls. “Every word. Saw it, too.” said Shmulie. “Good shooting,” he added, though in a whisper.

  Maggie emitted a loud guttural noise. An unusual image of Marlene dressed as an American soldier from WWII, a rifle slung across her shoulder, filled the screen, her eyes moving left and right.

  “Something’s not right here,” Maggie said. “Something’s not making sense.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I have the sense we’re being watched,” she said.

  Shmulie wore the kind of smile one put on when pushed into the corner with nowhere else to go. “That would be correct,” he said.

  I looked about the room for any device. “Who’s doing the spying?” I asked.

  From Reb Schmeltzer’s eyes, a bright orange light shot out. An ugly noise much like fingernails scraping across a blackboard rained over our little coffee klatch. In the midst of the light and noise, the Rebbe floated down from the ceiling still attired in his West Coast gear, surfboard beneath one arm, his shirt and swim trunks filled with air. He landed with grace, hobbled over to one of the empty chairs, and sort of sat down.

  “Oy,” he groaned. “My back could use a little lubrication.”

  He pulled a pack of Camels from one pocket, an ashtray from another, and lit up. His space filled with enough smoke to bury him in a cloud. As the smoke cleared, he placed the cigarette in the ashtray, which he balanced on one knee. “The first one of the day, always a joy,” he said, coughing a bit.

  “So we meet again, sweetie,” said Maggie.

  “Yes, madam, so we do,” he responded. From the air he produced a cup of steaming coffee. After a sip, he placed it on the other knee. He smiled crookedly at Shmulie.

  “Shimmer,” he said. “See that you have a chat with Ratsy to do what he can about adjusting an algorithm or two to make this latte taste more like a latte and less like warm foaming piss.”

  Shmulie sat frozen.

  “How in the bloody hell do you get out of your box?” asked Maggie.

  Schmeltzer looked at Maggie. “My dear,” he said in his accented English, “I am a mystery, even to myself someti
mes. Like you, I am in a box, yes, yet here I am out of it. The duality of my existence.”

  “What are you doing here?” Maggie asked.

  Another deep exhalation of virtual smoke covered him completely. As his bearded face emerged slowly from the smoke, he aimed his attention at me.

  “This one I need to chat with, especially after our last most unsatisfactory encounters.”

  “Because he blew you up in the afternoon and smashed you on the street at night?” Maggie asked.

  “He did not exactly blow me up or smash me, now did he? I am here, am I not?” he said, the coffee cup teetering, threatening to fall, but righting itself of its own accord. “I must presume you are here and not on some electronic scrapheap because of the wonders of modern science.”

  “I’m here to take your surfboard and smack you upside your head,” she said.

  “What do you want?” I asked, not wanting this intra-computer exchange to descend into a virtual fistfight.

  “You know what I want,” he said.

  I didn’t, and said so.

  Shmulie said, “He wants us to partner, you and I. He thinks I need a playmate.”

  “Yes,” said the Rebbe. “Nick and Shmulie together again, their old high school days renewed.”

  “Martin and Lewis reunited? Never happen,” Maggie said. “They call them the old days for a reason, asshole.”

  The Rebbe started, and both the coffee and ashtray fell from his knees. But before hitting floor, they floated up and righted themselves, the ashes and liquid returning to their containers, and returning to the Rebbe’s knees.

  “That one’s got a mouth on her,” said Shmulie.

  I nodded. “I turned you down once,” I said. “For a being claiming sentience, one refusal ought to suffice.”

  “You did refuse. As my corporeal predecessor would have loved you to join us, I am compelled to persist.”

  “You’re following the desire of the real live Schmeltzer?” asked Maggie. “Why?”

  An exploration of the new Rebbe’s psychological baggage seemed inappropriate. Other concerns took priority.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What is the Next Big Thing?”

  “Not your concern at the moment,” said the hologram.

  “If you want me to join up, it is.”

  Looking toward Shmulie, the Rebbe said, “Then ask Doctor Shimmer. It’s his project.”

  Shmulie reddened.

  “Well?” I said.

  Shmulie hesitated. He removed the blue yarmulke and gave it a thorough examination. “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Everything’s complicated,” said Maggie.

  “I’ll handle this,” I said to Maggie.

  Shmulie returned the yarmulke to his head. He said, “We’re engaged in a project.”

  “The cure,” I said.

  “Besides the cure.”

  “Oh?” Maggie said. “You’re going to cure the Lerbs disease and you’re going to do something else? Take my breath away, honey.”

  “I’m working on a little something here to help out the Schmeltzerites,” said Shmulie, sounding sad.

  “What might that be? A better barbecue sauce for a Schmeltzerite pig roast?” asked Maggie.

  Out of thin air, the Rebbe produced a photograph, a bare arm sporting the Rebbe tattoo on its bicep. “Imagine a million of these all over the world. Half a million. Even just a quarter million.”

  Maggie said, “A great fundraiser for the cause of the unsullied stupid.”

  The Rebbe added, “What if every Rebbe tattoo contained a tiny bit more than black ink?”

  “Like what?” asked Maggie.

  “What if with a couple of nanobots in their bodies, the Rebbe’s followers could help the rest of this unhappy planet become a better place?” Shmulie said.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “We’re still in the beta phase,” said Shmulie.

  The Rebbe stood up, and coffee and ashtray crashed to the ground. “You need to finish this thing, man,” he said. “That cretin announced the frickin’ tattoo before we were ready with the juice.”

  Shmulie looked at me with an indiscernible expression. “We’re close,” he said.

  “You’ve been close since Tisha B’av,” said the Rebbe.

  Shmulie glowered at him. “We have the technology, but the process keeps getting hung up. We’re experimenting with tiny, nanosized radio frequency transmitters and RFID tags to receive the signal, just enough for information to pass from tattoo to tattoo—and the juice to power it.”

  “Juice? What are you shooting people up with, electric apple cider?” Maggie said.

  The hologram pointed a finger toward Shmulie’s chest. “Tell Nicky and this odious machine what’s about to happen to Ratsy’s international gang of nincompoops.”

  Shmulie showed no inclination to disclose the secret. He slithered over to the refrigerator and removed a beaker containing something yellow. He eyed it, swirled it around for several seconds, closed his eyes, and drank. I looked on aghast at what I imagined he’d just done. Shmulie smiled.

  “Lemonade,” he said. “I needed something cold.”

  The Rebbe was furious. “Tell him.”

  Shmulie looked at me, still grinning. “Remember the monkey, Nicky?”

  I remembered. “Yeah, poor bastard.”

  “Monkey? What monkey? Who’s a monkey?” said Maggie

  The monkey at Penn Station, I told her.

  ***

  On a warm Sunday morning senior year right before the incident with Arlene, Shmulie and I were standing at Penn Station to catch the train to Long Island to visit my cousin, who’d take us to the beach. A couple standing beside us on the platform had brought their pet monkey, locked in a cage sitting on the platform.

  The oddest thing happened. The monkey somehow managed to unlock the crate. The animal flung open the door of the cage, scampered out, and darted all over the station, making ooh-eee-aah monkey noises. The couple chased after it in vain. The monkey wouldn’t return to its cage.

  It scrambled up a pole and onto a small platform eight or ten feet up, surveying the world. Its head looked this way and that. The electrical wire that provided power to the trains caught its attention. The agile beast flexed its rear legs, leapt, and flew toward the wire, and seized it. The air filled with a dreadful crackling noise. For an instant the poor thing froze in midair, lit up like a firecracker, then fell dead onto the track with a miserable thud. The woman began weeping. The damned thing lay on the track until a railroad official clambered down, and, with thick gloves on, wrapped the dead monkey in a blanket, and removed it from the track bed.

  “You know what I learned from that poor monkey?” Shmulie asked.

  No idea, I told him.

  Shmulie sat down again. He said, “That monkey taught me a crucial life lesson. You unlock the cage door, you get blown up. ‘Don’t leave the cage’—that’s my mantra here in underground prison. Stay inside and live. I’m safer here than wherever the FBI would’ve placed me. Money does wonders.”

  “You’ve said,” I replied.

  “Turns out money’s not enough. A large checkbook only buys so much. A lot depends on good will, which, I admit, I don’t deserve a great deal of.”

  “You can say that again, sugar,” said Maggie.

  Shmulie looked at her with sad eyes. “I’m boxed in. Life was good enough at first. My work began showing some promise. Shelley would come by on occasion. I had enough to eat, music to listen to, and the Talmud. Studying Talmud brings me back to better times”

  The Rebbe said, “At least study with me. I have a lot to teach.”

  Shmulie grimaced. “My hosts, who have made quite a penny off my wealth, have become my masters. My well-being depends on dancing the Tarantella to their tune.” H
e nodded toward the Rebbe.

  “The Next Big Thing?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “What did you expect?” asked Maggie. “They’d house you down here and bring chocolates every day?” Her eyes shifted toward the Rebbe. “That this monstrosity would ignore his greatest asset?”

  “Now I work here for myself and for them. The monkey story’s a useful reminder.”

  The Rebbe settled into a chair and reconstituted his smoke and drink. “We’re delighted to have Dr. Shimmer as our permanent guest, but security comes at a cost.”

  “Isn’t there always?” said Maggie.

  “You work on preparing nanobots to do what?” I asked, trying to guide Shmulie to his point.

  “Mind control. A worldwide army of tattooed Schmeltzerites doing his bidding, commanded from this very room,” Shmulie said, nodding toward the old surfer dude again huffing on another cigarette.

  If I had just heard correctly, my erstwhile high school buddy was at labor on a project to inject microscopic things into Schmeltzerite biceps via official Schmeltzerite tattoo parlors, to control them. And then what? The world? Control the bicep, control humanity?

  Looking at the cigarette held between his thumb and forefinger, the Rebbe said, “We’ll start slowly, some job we ask them to do, nothing serious; maybe I ask all my followers to become Uber drivers committed to taking their passengers to the wrong address. That should discombobulate things. A fine beginning. A very fine beginning, indeed.”

  “Nick, we’ve entered into a zombie movie. Night of the Living Schmeltzer,” Maggie said.

  “You want me to join up for that?” I asked Shmulie. “What do I get?”

  “That we can negotiate at a future moment,” said the Rebbe. He stood. The old man with the white beard stared down at me, his knobby knees at the level of my nose, ashtray floating by one knee, coffee at the other. From this asymmetrical vantage point, the Rebbe said, “I must point to an important benefit of joining us. You will earn the opportunity to walk out of here, life and limb intact. Your departure otherwise is in doubt.”