Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"Pete, how do you know who I am?"

"How do I…?"

"Yeah, you're standing here talking to a woman in a jumpsuit and a hard hat who says she's with a big security agency. I haven't shown you any ID. I just walked in here, unannounced. That kid in the living room let me in."

"Yeah, Billy the drummer."

"So I could be anyone."

Filson frowned now. "They're supposed to check everyone downstairs and call up."

"Right, Pete, but they didn't, because I came in through the service entrance. I just pounded on the door there and a janitor let me in." Marlene was starting to sweat a little because the apartment was overheated, and she always found the labor of conversing with extremely stupid people more exhausting than violent exercise. She took off her hard hat and slicker and placed them on a counter along with her clipboard.

After a moment's puzzled frowning, the man said, "Well, yeah, because you got that stuff on. He thought you were from Con Ed or whatever."

Marlene stared at him. "That's great, Pete. Look, is Kelsie up?"

"Yeah, I heard her yelling at the dog. You want to see her?"

"I do." Marlene left the kitchen, and he called after her, "Hey, I ordered you some coffee, too, and like Danish and stuff?"

The bedroom was large and dim and smelled strongly of stale perfume, marijuana, and tobacco. A king-size four-poster bed was on one wall, and in it sat the star, stroking a Lhasa apso dog, smoking, and watching a large-screen television with the sound off. The dog started yapping when Marlene entered.

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Jeepers!" Kelsie Solette cried. The dog, undeterred, wriggled from her arms, dropped off the bed, and prepared to defend her territory. "Who the hell are you?"

Kelsie Solette had a pinched hillbilly face, saved from indistinction by enormous cornflower eyes. The thick mascara of last night smudged her pasty cheeks, and her thin blond hair was arranged in gelled spikes, her trademark look. She sported a dozen or so earrings, a nose ring with a three-carat canary diamond in it, and a row of pearls stuck through her left eyebrow. She was wearing a black T-shirt with iridescent sequins sewn on it in a swirling pattern.

"I'm Marlene Ciampi."

This took a few seconds to register. "Oh, yeah. The security lady. Cool. That's a whacked look. Where'd you get the outfit?"

"From my father. He's a plumber. Look, Ms. Solette-"

"Kelsie."

"-Kelsie, I've just been talking to your bodyguard-"

"Yeah, Pete's great, isn't he?"

"Well, actually, no, not as a bodyguard he isn't. I just walked in here on the strength of dressing like a utility worker. You basically have no security at all. Jimmy Coleman could walk in here anytime and slit your throat."

"He's in jail," said the singer nervously. "Isn't he?"

"Is he? I heard he went to Rikers on a 240.30, agg harassment two. That's an A misdemeanor. When was that? Four months ago? He could be walking any day. He'll be out and he'll be pissed off, unless you think he's forgotten you. And at least we know about him. I'm more worried about the ones we don't know about. The letters."

Marlene sat down on the edge of the bed. The dog, which had been yapping continuously, a steady, idiotic, nerve-scraping noise, now decided to bite Marlene on the ankle. She trod delicately on its little paw. It yelped and ran under the bed, and then the two of them had to get under the bed and chivy the creature out and calm it, or actually Kelsie did the calming while Marlene sat and tried to control her irritation.

When quiet had been restored, Marlene said, "Look, Kelsie, your manager called us for a threat assessment. We did the assessment and sent it in. No response. Have you read it?"

"No, man. Petey handles that end."

"Kelsie, I'm sorry, but Petey can just about handle ordering coffee. And maybe he can pick you up and get you through a crowd at a club, and scare off a drunk trying to hit on you. But you're under at least one serious stalking threat, and you need serious protection."

"Oh, shit, man! Pete's been with me since the day."

"Fine, keep him around. My point is you need a pro in here. I could have someone assigned today, write up a plan, staff you up…" Marlene stopped. Solette was shaking her head.

"I don't know. You mean like a stranger? Being here all the time?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Uh-huh. No, that sucks. This is my home, you know? I don't want people I don't know hanging."

She's worried about the drugs and the sex, thought Marlene. People leaking stuff to the tabloids. "Our people are very well trained and completely confidential," Marlene said primly.

"I mean, if it was you, that would be different." Solette turned on her for the first time the famous smile, which, helped by a growly voice and a good deal of body language, had generated a sheaf of platinum records and a megahit movie.

Marlene's smile in return was unenthusiastic. "Sorry, I don't do that kind of work anymore. You're a couple of years late."

Solette leaned forward on the bed. "You used to, I heard. You shot a bunch of creeps."

"I did. I gave it up."

"Why? I'd love to shoot Coleman."

"You might think that," said Marlene, "but, believe me, girl, it's not like in the movies. At least it wasn't for me. And eventually I screwed up, and a woman got killed. So I hung up the gun." She waited for this to be absorbed and then added, "Meanwhile, what are we going to do about your problem?"

A buzzer sounded in the apartment. Marlene said, "That's your coffee. Or some nut, one."

Solette was chewing her finger. Now she looked about twelve. "Now you got me all freaked. I have to think about this, talk to people…"

Marlene made the usual arguments at this point, but she could see that they were not biting into the stubbornness that was often associated with the sort of determination that made stars. At last she rose, pulled a card case from her packet, and left it on the dresser. "No problem. There's my private number. You call me anytime." Marlene extended her hand, and the singer took it in one that was bed-warm and unpleasantly moist at the fingertips. Marlene left then, declining the coffee and Danish offered by the feckless bodyguard, feeling vaguely stupid and wrong-footed. The moronic disguise! What was she doing running security checks? She had a dozen people to do things like that. She suppressed a familiar irritation, familiar to people who do work that they are good at and find profitable, but do not truly love.

After Lucy Karp left the settlement at the rail yards, she walked to Holy Redeemer and helped prepare and serve the evening meal. She did this once or twice a week. Formerly, she did the same service at Old St. Patrick's on Mulberry, but she thought they needed her more at HR. The clients were lower on the food chain than the ones at St. Pat's, many of whom had actual homes. Redeemer picked up most of the people who used to live in Penn Station and who now clung precariously to life in the shrinking zone of nongentrified Chelsea and the grates and doorways of the Midtown West Side.

Or so she told herself. As she prepped, stirred, served, she kept looking around, as if for something forgotten. This meal had netted forty or so people, mostly men, but a few women, now eating at half a dozen trestle tables. Paper tablecloths were on the tables and real dishes and cutlery and napkins and slightly wilted overage flowers. The nuns who ran the place believed that the main function of a soup kitchen was not soup per se, but civilization, something a lot harder for the homeless to obtain on the island of Manhattan than mere food. Lucy believed this, too, and acted the part of hostess, making conversation with the insulted and injured, exhibiting good table manners, and feeling, generally, like a complete fool. No one seemed to notice that she felt utterly unsuited to the work, a fraud. She was, she knew, not nearly as good as people believed her to be, was a wretched thing, in fact, selfish, a hypocrite.