Adam Sternbergh - Shovel Ready

Yes, I watch luge. The only winter sport worth watching. That and skeleton, which is like headfirst luge for nihilists.

I put on my coat.

With this view, I wouldn’t think you’d need that. The bed I mean.

Well, then you don’t really understand the bed.

He undoes his cuff links, lays them on the desktop. Rolls up his sleeves, gets ready to slip in. Steps out from behind the mahogany desk. Wearing shower slippers. Crazy tycoon toenails, untended. Grown out like talons. Head of a financier. Feet of a gargoyle.

Notices me noticing.

Thomas will show you out. Thanks for coming by, Mr—

Spademan. Like I said.

Of course.

The butler walks me out of the study discreetly, leaves me in the hall, then returns to help Lyman Harrow tap in.

That sure is a top-of-the-line bed.

Yes sir. Thank you for coming by. Good day.

We stand on the moneystone stoop.

Look, if there’s anything you remember about those men who came—

I really should be getting back inside.

—any marks or details.

The butler considers. Looks like he could use a nudge.

Think about this. Mr Harrow’s brother sent me to do the same thing those men are going to do, except I’ll be a lot quicker. With nothing extracurricular.

The butler looks away. Considers. Then holds up one white glove.

Points to the back of his hand.

One of the men. He had a tattoo. Right here.

Do you remember what it looked like?

Like a fishhook. Except twisted. Into the shape of an eight.

I pull a marker and a scrap of paper from my pocket.

Can you draw it?

The butler waves off the paper, uncaps the marker, and sketches it on the back of his own white glove. Holds the glove up again.

Sure enough, like he said. A fishhook, twisted into the shape of an eight.

&.

An ampersand.

He caps the marker and hands it back to me. Then peels off the white glove and hands me that too. Pulls a fresh white replacement from his pocket.

Don’t worry. Mr Harrow gives me plenty of gloves. Likes me to keep my hands as clean as possible.

I would imagine.

I pocket the drawing.

Thank you.

He nods and digs a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket. I wait while he lights one for himself. Then I point to the pack.

You mind?

He frowns. Then knocks one loose for me. I stick it in my mouth. Smile thanks.

Then curse.

Goddamn it.

Patting pockets.

I forgot my lighter.

Turn my best hangdog to the butler.

Family heirloom. Gift from my grandfather. You mind?

Mr Harrow will not want to be disturbed.

Finger to my pursed lips.

Quiet as a church mouse. Scout’s honor.

The butler’s already started on his cigarette. Considers chucking it. Takes a long drag instead. Nods toward the door.

A thanks-buddy backslap as I head back inside.

Crush the unlit cigarette in my jacket pocket.

Never smoked and I’m not about to start.

Must be the choirboy in me.

Don’t get me wrong. I went to Sunday school for about ten minutes as a kid. Didn’t take. Not the important stuff, anyway.

The core beliefs. Right, wrong, etcetera.

As you might have guessed.

The Zippo’s still sitting on the dainty silver tray. I snatch it up though it’s not like I need it. I have a dozen more just like it in a box back home.

Buy them in bulk.

Turn the gold knob quietly.

In Lyman Harrow’s defense, it’s true that money often functions like a moat.

But not today.

Harrow is already swaddled and gone in the bed. Sedatives, feed-bag, sensors connected. IV tubes in all the IV holes. That nurse really knows what she’s doing.

The bed truly is top-of-the-line. Polished touch screens. Metallic surface I can see my face in.

Harrow dozing lightly.

I lean in.

He’s lost in the dream, eyes fluttering under closed lids. I check to make sure he’s under, which is more than he deserves.

I keep a box-cutter stashed in my steel-toe boot, by the way. It’s enough to set off a metal detector, but then, so is the boot. Not my fault if you don’t double-check.

Pull the box-cutter out, extend it, place it against Harrow’s throat, and pull across, pressing deeply. Hold his forehead down. It works well enough.

Watch him bleed out on the leather. Blood puddles on the touch screens.

Stained glass.

They’ll find him but they won’t know who did it. Someone named Spademan.

Spademan’s not my real name, by the way.

Got it from a garbage can.

I head straight up to Montague Street with the white glove in my pocket and look for the first Internet kiosk I can find.

Since the beds got up and running, sucking up all the bandwidth, the boring old Internet survives mostly as an afterthought, kept alive like a public utility for people who can’t afford to tap in. So, like a decaying neighborhood, all the money in the Internet moved out. And, like a decaying neighborhood, the Internet is now mostly a refuge for poor folks and perverts, people in the shadows, by choice or not. Just a place where you can log on to advertise your junk, then swap it for someone else’s junk, then revel for a day in new junk.

Or a place where you can find a man with a van to take away your problem little girl.

Yes, there are pockets. Niches. Chat rooms where like-minded rebellious citizens can scrawl graffiti. Plot upheaval. Organize something like the camps.

But for the most part, it’s just a digital cesspool. Free market, at its freest.

I take the first kiosk I find on Montague, though it’s not really right to call it a kiosk. It’s just a screen on a pole, with a metal keyboard sticking out, and a stool on an angle like a cactus arm.

I take a seat, tap a key, and swipe a paycard to get started. Not my paycard, of course. Belongs to a car salesman, name of Sidney, who lives out in Canarsie. Or, rather, lived. Apparently, Sidney rubbed someone the wrong way. Who knows. Maybe sold them a lemon.

In any case, paycard works fine.

I log on and run a search for AMPERSAND+TATTOO. Get back a bunch of photos, but nothing promising. College lit majors, mostly, showing off frosh-week mistakes.

So I run a search instead for AMPERSAND+BROOKLYN. Same deal. One listing for a local bar for bookish types, long since closed.

Behind me, coming down Henry Street, I hear sirens, which is unwelcome. Twin cop cars doppler past in a hurry, lights whirling, whoop-whooping like a war party, heading south.

I guess the butler finally found Mr Harrow.

I pull out the glove the butler gave me.

Examine his shaky sketch.

&.

Think again about what he told me.

A fishhook. Twisted into the shape of an eight.

I run a search for AMPERSAND+EIGHT+TATTOO. Still nothing.

Then just AMPERSAND+EIGHT. Find a jazz combo in Queens.

Then AMPERSAND+FISHHOOK.

Actually, ISHHOOK.

F key doesn’t work.

Fucking kiosks.

So I type in AMPERSAND+HOOK instead.

Bingo.

It’s a missed connection, of the type that litter the Internet. Cute-girl-I-saw-you-reading-on-the-subway kind of thing.

This one says: You, burly type with a fondness for whiskey. Me: cat’s eye-glasses, matching you drink for drink. Not sure, but I swear we had a moment at night’s end out in the street waiting for a car service, in the light of the neon ampersand. If I was right, meet me tonight back at the Bait & Switch in Red Hook. You bring the bait. I’ll bring the switch.

Run a search on the Bait & Switch, which turns out to be a titty bar down in Red Hook, with a knock-three-times, private-members S&M room in back. Switches, riding crops, cat-o’-nine-tails, bullwhips. Whatever your pleasure, they’ve got a cabinet, and it’s very well stocked.