Nathaniel Rich - Odds Against Tomorrow

Charnoble glanced between Mitchell and one of the clocks on the wall. “Is there something wrong?” he said. “You don’t look good.”

Mitchell went back into his office, running across the carpet this time, and typed some words into his computer. When the phone number came up, he called it.

“ER. Augusta General.”

“Do you have a patient in your hospital named Elsa Bruner?”

There was a pause. In the background a man was screaming, the type of noise a dog would make while getting run over by a bus.

“Hold on.”

Charnoble paced into Mitchell’s office and pointed to one of his watches. Mitchell held up one finger.

The woman came back on the line after a few seconds. Or minutes. Time was beginning to get strange.

“Here’s the number.”

“The number?” said Mitchell.

“You got a pen?”

The woman gave him a telephone number with a Maine area code.

“What is that?”

“That’s the number they left.”

The screaming got worse. Mitchell had to raise his voice to make himself heard.

“The number that who left?”

“Hold on,” said the operator. The line was pulsing. “I have to take this.”

Mitchell hung up and dialed the number. After four rings a man picked up.

“Ticonderoga.”

Mitchell didn’t understand.

“Hello?” said the man. “Who’s that calling?”

“I didn’t think — I thought Ticonderoga didn’t have a phone number.”

“What? Why’d you call then?”

Mitchell shook his head. Nothing made sense.

“Hey,” said the man, in a sudden rage. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Listen,” said Mitchell. “Is Elsa there? Elsa Bruner?”

There was a delay. When the man spoke again his voice was quieter, defensive.

“Who is this?”

“Mitchell. Zukor. I’m a friend of Elsa’s.”

“Huh. Then I guess you haven’t heard.”

Mitchell closed his eyes.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t.”

1.

“Your coffin’s here.”

“Wrong number!” Mitchell hung up — or tried to. His hand was trembling just enough that the receiver jarred against the plastic teeth on the telephone’s base. He used both hands to steady it into the groove.

The phone rang again.

“Sucker?”

“… This is Mitchell Zukor.”

“Two twenty-three East Thirty-seventh Street calling. You got a coffin here.”

“I’m not expecting a coffin.”

“Who is, right?” The doorman chuckled to himself. “There’s some guys got a large wood box and they want me to sign.”

Now Mitchell understood.

* * *

The day of the purchase, when he awoke — from a dream of swaying, infinitely tall glass towers and a sky as bright as a nuclear flash — he felt that some gear in his brain had broken. The engine still revved, but the apparatus was beginning to grate and stutter, and despite the fact that there were not yet any outward signs of malfunction, he knew that after a few more revolutions the parts would grind themselves into dust.

Like an android Mitchell had gone through that morning, sorting his disaster folders into alphabetical order (anthrax, botulism, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever…), scheduling meetings, dialing voice mail. It was only after he deleted his messages that he realized he hadn’t been listening at all, didn’t even know who had called or what they wanted. All he could think about was how Ticonderoga did , after all, have a phone line. Which meant that Elsa, the fainting girl, had lied to him. Of course Ticonderoga had a telephone. Probably a satellite connection too. Laptops and portables, no doubt. So why, then, this mad determination to write letters? Did Elsa think that if they had spoken by phone, Mitchell would have been more insistent? That he might persuade her of the absurdity of her decision to live on a half-assed farm in the middle of nowhere with a flock of third-generation hippies who washed their bodies in the lake and brushed their teeth with a paste of crushed pine needles? It would seem that his original hunch had been confirmed: Elsa wanted to read his thoughts, but she didn’t want to hear his voice.

Still, it shouldn’t have mattered. The poor girl had been asking for help — begging — in the only way she knew how, but he had been too dumb, or weak, to do anything. Deep down, did some part of him want her to suffer? Would that have proved his point? Then again, what else could he have done? Rented a car one Saturday morning, driven to Maine, and kidnapped her, checking her in, against her will, to Mount Sinai or NewYork-Presbyterian? There were laws against that. A more puzzling question: How had he allowed himself to be lured into her fantasy? And why had the news of her attack, so predictable and logical, disturbed him? Terrible things did happen. Wishful thinking was negligent, dangerous, and, in the case of Elsa Bruner, might even prove homicidal. But if Elsa were guilty of denial, Mitchell at least was an accomplice. And that was the old, familiar problem. Analysis without action.

He had fled the FutureWorld office that day at noon, driven by an outrageous hunger. Cheeseburgers — he wanted cheeseburgers with a desperation that made his eyes water. At least he assumed it was his desire for cheeseburgers that was making his eyes water. But his hunger was extinguished almost immediately by the sight of a rat. It was not just any rat. As a New Yorker of nearly three months’ standing he was well acquainted with the local vermin. They were citizens too, after all: the pigeons queuing at the street corner, waiting for the light to change; the rats loitering on subway platforms; the bedbugs snuggling in the mattresses, preparing for dinner. But lately New York’s second-class citizens had been behaving strangely. This rat on Thirty-third Street, for instance, was attacking a garbage bag with an epileptic fervor. Having perforated the black plastic with its fangs, it tried to tear an opening by whiplashing its head with sudden jerks. It looked terrified, as if it weren’t trying to remove food from the bag, but seeking shelter inside it. New York rats had a reputation for haughtiness — they knew they were going to outlast you, it was just a matter of time, so could you please stop getting in their way? — but recently their confidence seemed shaken. Was it simply the heat? The unfair, merciless, dominant heat? Or did they know that something was coming? The animals were always the first to know. It was that way with the warming world — the polar bear experimenting with anorexia, the marmot cutting short its hibernation, the American grizzly emigrating to Canada. And now the native New Yorkers were behaving erratically as well. The rats were traumatized; the pigeons neurotic, their dirty beaks nodding incessantly, like meth addicts; the roaches were downright hysterical, running suicides across the sidewalk. And maybe Mitchell was imagining it, but he could swear that every single infant in every single stroller was shrieking. Could they sense it too, the newborns? Could they sense this tremendous thing, whatever it was, that was coming for them all?

Where had his thoughts taken him? Ahead was the navy ribbon of the Hudson River, evaporating in vaporish wisps into New Jersey. Behind him a sky bridge that supported trees and dangling vines. Beside him a wide glass window inscribed with vinyl block letters, each letter a different shade of neon: