The Nervous System (3 page)

The founding slaveholders couldn't have foreseen how our culture, our diseased urban centers, would devolve.

My proposal? Gun ownership should only be awarded to citizens like me, who will generally keep the peace, and will only ever bust a cap in a motherfucker if said motherfucker really deserves it. It's about wisdom and character. Knowing when to stay thy hand.

Sure, there are no more licenses—for anything. But there's just as many guns, if not more so. And all this mental jawing on my part is for naught now, being as we are all so much closer to the end of history. Assuming we haven't staggered over that line already.

But let's accentuate the positive.

Strip off the shrink-wrap and pull on a brand-new hospital gown. Consider my larger task.

Naw, fuck it. It's been a busy Sunday. I'll bunk down early so I might get the jump on the morning.

Unfurl my bedroll. As I do this, my eyes are drawn to the box I pulled out of Rosenblatt's office. A couple outstanding issues nibble at my chest.

One: Did I miss anything? Could Rosenblatt have been holding a document stash somewhere in his apartment, aside from the material I know I destroyed weeks ago when I offed the man? What could I have passed over, unawares? Did the DA keep duplicates—perhaps at yet a third location, unknown to me?

Two: Was this the wise move, grabbing these files? Realize having this stuff around makes me twitchy. Blame my pack-rat instinct. Perhaps I don't need the headache this kind of stanky material could generate.

These concerns bounce around my brain like pissy wasps, and I'm at a loss as to how to silence them for good. I take a temporary measure.

Making a promise to deep-six this gear at the first opportunity, I fetch the box, carry it over to the dumbwaiter, stick it in, and send it downstairs. Press the button to open the bottom of the lift, dump the box, recall the dumbwaiter, and jam the thing by removing the control faceplate, and the buttons with it. This I stash with the rest of my gear. Close the door to the cubby, a wood contraption with fake book spines. I've gotten a lot more careful of late, used to just leave my things out in the open.

Kill the power to the building and grab my flashlight next to the fuse box. Purell
^TM
up, pull on a fresh pair of gloves, and raise my mask. Settle in with a copy of
Experiencing Totalitarianism
, in the original Latvian. Happy with how my Latvian is coming together. I must have absorbed some along the way during this recent period of action.

See, I can read and speak an unknown number of languages. Not cause I'm some kind of linguistic genius. It's cause the government stuck something in my head that allows me to do this. Sound batshit crazy? Indeed it might be.

But dig it, as this is a solid fact: I am constantly surprising myself with a total command of new and unexpected languages. Languages I've never heard of. I don't know the extent of it, this “gift,” this unearned ability.

But apparently Latvian wasn't written into the master code, cause I'm struggling with it a tad.

Get hung up on the sentence, “As the Fourth Panzer division crossed the border …” Not sure of the Latvian word for “division,” perhaps they mean “battalion” or “regiment,” trying to recall the difference in terminology, this thought-stutter like a skip in an old LP record, and gradually sleep takes me.

_______________

A loud crack jerks me out of the only goddamn dream I ever have. The one where somebody who looks and feels a lot like me murders my wife and child.

I roll sideways, pop open my camouflaged cubbyhole, and root around in there for a couple seconds. Withdraw my guns and come to a squatting position. Wide awake now. Listening to my blood. Listening to the dark.

Another snap, down the hall. And a third.

My pistachio shells. Laid out on the stairwell. Somebody tramping on 'em. Means visiting hours start now, like it or not.

I raise the Beretta and the Sig.

Can't see shit. I hear my flashlight, which fell off my chest as I popped up, rolling toward the back of the room. Somewhere amongst my gear I have those night-vision goggles, but I can't go foraging for them now.

I have that CZ-99 as well, it occurs to me, but I've never fired it, so best to stick to the known.

There, in the hallway, thin shafts of light. Getting steadily brighter, less diffuse.

The lights round the corner into my room, four slivers dancing vertically, making jerky sweeps. Just under these, moving in tandem with the light, red lasers cast pinpricks on bookshelves, tabletops.

Tactical weaponry. Customized, expensive. I experience something like envy, but just for a sec. Mostly cause for all my lone-wolf posturing, I do miss being part of a posse. Pack animals, after all.

I grin, nasty. No problem. Aim just north of the beams, take two of them out, one of the remaining two will panic and do something stupid. Positively no sweat.

Cock both guns.

And a metal object is pressed into the back of my head.

“Drop 'em, shitbird.” Scratchy-voiced male behind my right ear.

Hell, I do it. If these people were skilled enough to get in here, get
behind
me, me sleeping like a baby lamb? Strictly pro shit, and I do not want to play cute.

“On your stomach, go.”

A boot in my back and the floor meets my face. Thinking: goddamn. Mental flab. Going soft. Events should not be rolling out in this manner.

“Subject is disarmed. Repeat, subject is disarmed and secured, over.” Calm and cool, like, all biz.

Heavy boot on my neck now. I'll be goddamned.

There's a crackling of radios, somebody talking about “fuse box, breaker,” and with a clunk the lights come on. With my ear to the ground I hear an ascending hum as the building wakes up. Maybe I imagine it cause these floors must be four feet thick.

Guys running in my direction, light on their feet for the amount of gear they must be carrying. Radios, numbered codes being called out, call letters and verbal shorthand I don't recognize.

That's troublesome. I'm a military creature. Got a good recall when it comes to codes and such. Should be on my radar.

“Let's get those hands, top of your head. Lock fingers, let's go.”

I do it, feel plastic being threaded around my wrists and pulled tight.

“Let's get some ID on this mook, now, now.”

Attempt to shift my head but the boot is still pinning my neck to the floor, say: “Suit jacket pocket, right side. My laminate.” Comes out constricted.

Trying to get a look at somebody. I hope they don't fuck up my suit. Every time I score a new suit …

Note the footwear, a couple pairs of hi-tech plastic and nylon in black, looking for a brand, something to indicate—

“Sending scan, over.”

Déjà vu. I'm having mad déjà vu.

“That's a roger. Let's move, move …”

My hands are pulled back and a hood comes down over my head. It's cinched at the neck.

Think Abu Ghraib, that photo, crucifixion pose, it comes to me, and I gotta say I am ever so slightly fucking terrified. There's not even a pretense of civility, which would come with most law enforcement agencies. Wouldn't it?

I know better than to say anything further unless addressed directly.

These guys are vibing contractors, private army stuff, beholden to nobody. Better equipped than our own military, I saw that myself over there. In the later days, there were more of these motherfuckers than there were straight military. Always swanning around. Better guns, better body armor, better food, better whores, better digs … Got me to thinking I was on the wrong team. Hell, that's why I—

Up and away. I'm lifted like a sack of rice, dudes have their hustle on, jogging me forth, swing right, down the stairs, slam through the door and out in the sickly night air.

As we're bumping down the exterior stairs, I'm hearing, “Subject in custody, awaiting go-to points,” the guy sounding winded, makes me think this operation is an improv, a last-minute clambake. Not that this observation matters.

I'm unceremoniously deposited on carpeting, reckoning the interior of a vehicle, two metallic bangs, must be in the rear, most likely a van, “Go, go, go,” they're calling, and the van lurches forward, I tumble with gravity, hit the rear doors with my forehead. Hoping they're locked.

Feel fucking naked. I got boxers and a hospital gown. And a goddamn Gitmo Klan Kap.

Messing with my head. Driver going in circles, right on 39th Street, left on Sixth Avenue, right on maybe 42nd, and repeat. Trying to get a man disoriented … and worse, violating the edicts of the System (details when I get a chance), not that I expect these thug-o's to be aware of such an elegant paradigm.

Radio squawk. Driver or somebody saying something, and next time we hit Sixth Avenue we accelerate, northbound.

_______________

Trying to count blocks based on our approximate speed. Reference my mental map, dig the interlocking grid. It's all there, laid out in my head, in 3-D, in full color.

North on Sixth, sharp right on what I figure is Central Park South. Fucking hell. Zoom zoom, I'm counting, hard left, I'm guesstimating onto Madison or Park Avenue.

This is making me physically sick, this … gross affront to the System. What kind of animal …

Flat-out northbound, gaining speed. Wracking my brain over this fine how-do-you-do. Could this be FBI? Likely not. FBI don't have no sexy boots, they just throw shit together, especially these days. More fallout from the Branco/Iveta cock-up, the Balkan imposed upon me of late? The only loose end would be one Brian Petrovic, and somehow when that man gave me his word, despite his shadiness, I fully bought it as good. Plus, old Brian was on a military flight to Paris last time I checked, and I did confirm that.

Didn't I? Not remembering key shit. Slipping up.

The girl. Iveta, the very thought of her, it hurts my chest, so I kill that line, kill it good and hard and throw a padlock on it.

The woman in the middle. Pushing the buttons. Yeah, I get it, people. Lady played everybody. Doesn't change a damn thing. The human heart is a strange, lawless planet.

No. This is some spanking-new static.

We almost catch air as the road dips, my stomach drops … A block later we're climbing a hill, yeah, we're at 96th Street or thereabouts.

Screech left around about 116th, westbound, and I'm starting to lose my bearings. Something like five or six blocks and it's ANOTHER hard right, a further affront to my System; I know we're in the wasteland that is Harlem, but gotta face it, this brother is lost.

Trying to feel around, hands and feet, for some kind of blunt object, something I can use as a weapon, no luck.

Abrupt halt, again I roll as physics dictates and smack into a carpeted wall.

Doors slam, several guys I figure, back doors thrown open. “Let's go, let's go,” again they get me in a football hold and the men are moving briskly over pavement.

Bang through a door into a building, I have a sense of spaciousness but am losing faith in my powers of perception. We come to an abrupt stop.

“Sixteen.” I hear a series of dings, the sound of doors sliding open.

An elevator. Jah protect and guide me.

This space does not vibe public housing, so that aside there's only one remaining structure this tall above 116th Street in Harlem: that monstrosity, the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building.

Here's where I start struggling. The old familiar fear gives me a big bear hug.

“Look, listen,” I say, “I can't do elevators. Seriously. There's gotta be stairs. Please, you all, I'm not—”

Something hits me hard in the chest, my last thought before I black out is that I've been fucking tasered.

The indignity of it all.

_______________

I did not authorize, nor do I suggest, nor do I endorse …”

Basso profoundo.

“With respect, sir, he was armed and resisting—”

“Son, you let me finish. Nor do my office or I endorse the use of unnecessary force, coercion, and inhumane treatment of any individual when my wish is only to have a conversation with them, in person. Are we clear?”

“Sir-yes-sir.”

Awake, breathing hot against the fabric, thinking about those files …

“Get this mother-lovin hood off of him.”

The hood is pulled away and I'm blinking at a tall black man in a blue suit, maybe mid-sixties but built like a linebacker, and of course I recognize him straight off.

Say, “Senator Howard.”

Senator Clarence Howard regards me, mustache twitching. After about five seconds, he speaks.

“Leave us be.” This to the man who dragged me in.

Soldier hesitates, makes a sound in his throat. Clearly, however, his thoughts on this are not welcome. Exits, closing the door behind him noiselessly.

Blink, blink. It's almost sunrise, and the skyline is pretty much dark. An opaque layer of poison blankets most of the island, but I can identify the lights of the Chrysler Building, and the stillborn 15 Penn Plaza.

Somebody still manning the lights on the Chrysler. Something beautiful about that. Miniature helicopters buzz around the building like bugs around a flame. The helicopters are a constant.

It's an absolutely generic office in here, beige everything, mid-'90s décor, seemingly unused.

The senator stands for a moment, his back to me, sagging a touch but every bit as large as his rep, at least within the neighborhood. Old-school conk: no self-respecting black man of my generation would undergo such a procedure. Only the trannies. No. Natural is the way of the righteous. I speak of course for myself here.

Howard inflates, rotates his large frame, and presents me an expansive politician's smile. Big man's got his famous cane on him, rosewood with a copper horse head, its tongue extended.

“Son, apologies are in order. I'm not in the habit of pulling people out of bed in such a way.”