Jess Walter - The Zero

April seemed unaware that tears were streaking her cheeks. “She and Derek had always had this… flirtation. I always thought it was aimed at me… you know, the way sisters try to make each other feel off balance? Jealous? But as soon as I heard her voice on his phone I knew. I knew. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. I wanted to hang up. But I couldn’t. I just listened.”

Remy asked what the message had said.

“She was rambling, freaking out. She wanted to know if it was true that Derek was thinking of getting back together with me… she said that he’d lied to her. And she felt awful. She never would have slept with him if she’d known he still had feelings for me. She said she’d been vulnerable because of her breakup with the married guy and Derek had taken advantage of that, and I don’t know-” April laughed again. “She said that if Derek hurt me, she would kill him. If he hurt me… do you believe that? Goddamn her.”

“What did you do?”

“I called her at work. I yelled at her.”

“That morning?” It was as if the ground gave way beneath Remy’s feet. “ You called her? That morning?”

– March taking the phone call, crying at her desk-

“I told her she was a whore and that she wasn’t my sister and I never wanted to talk to her again. I told her that I was going to tell Dad she was a whore.” April shook her head. “March said I had it wrong, that it only happened once, that they were drunk, whatever… She kept trying to whisper, I guess because she was at work.” April slumped back into her chair. “And that pissed me off, that she could still be thinking about what people thought of her. I hung up the phone… listened to the message again and then I called her desk. But she was gone. So I called Derek’s office and…” April twitched. “…March was there . In his office. That was the worst part: that she was there with him. I was all alone in my apartment and they were twenty blocks away, in another room. Together. Forever, as it turned out.”

“Was Derek’s office on the same floor?” Remy asked quietly.

“No. Four floors above.”

– March, agitated, hanging up the phone, running to the elevator -

“I knew she was there. He was talking, telling me to settle down, but there was… nothing. I just felt totally empty. Like I’d been hollowed out.”

She stared past him for a long time and then laughed bitterly. “So… I hung up. I wanted to say something clever. Or mean. But I just took the phone off the hook and went back to bed. I didn’t go to work. And it was an hour later… I heard people screaming in my building and… I turned on the TV and saw-” April began to buckle but caught herself. “I think of them… up there at the end… together… and I hate them most of all for that… that at the end, they had each other.”

She was right, Remy thought.

They could’ve just lived in this hotel room forever.

Everything a person needed was in a hotel room.

It was the peak of civilization, a culmination of fire and the wheel and digital cable radio. It was all here.

If he’d just never mentioned Derek they could’ve just kept at this for years, making love and buying new clothes, eating in restaurants and kayaking around the bay, changing their names every few days.

“I’m sorry,” Remy whispered.

She covered her face with her hands and the towel fell away and she shook with sobs again. Remy stood up, brought her back to bed and curled up around her tiny back until the shuddering stopped and she was breathing easily.

“Do you know…” She caught her breath. “What I kept thinking?” She looked back over her shoulder and met his eyes. She smiled. “For months afterward, I kept thinking: Wouldn’t this make a fucking great portrait in grief?”

“HOUSEKEEPING.”

Remy started. He looked back at the door of the hotel room and then at the clock on the nightstand. It was seven-thirty and April was sleeping more heavily than he’d ever seen. He kissed her lightly on the crown of her head, rose and got dressed, and walked to the door.

Markham’s smooth smiling face filled the doorway. “Hi, Brian.”

Remy edged out and closed the door behind him.

“You ready to go?” Markham was wearing a sportcoat and blue oxford shirt and carrying his thin brown briefcase. He did an exaggerated double take on Remy’s new shoes.

“Wow! Look at the kicks!” Markham said. “Are those new? They have to be new. Look at you, Mr. Hipster. You know, I can’t wear sweet kicks like that, those big square-toe clunkers. And I’m a shoe guy. But my feet are so long I’d look like Frankenstein in those.” Markham took on his standup comic voice. “In fact, I’d look like a gay Frankenstein, like Frankenstein on his way to get a pedicure and meet his boyfriend the Wolfman for a caramel half-caff at Starbucks. Metrostein or something. Right, right?”

Remy felt beaten. “How’d you find me?”

“Housekeeping,” Markham said again. “‘Chure, I comb back.’ Hey, I’m sorry about the cell phone. You were right to pitch it and lose me for a few days. I could’ve blown your cover. I get impatient. It was stupid of me. Especially with us being so close.”

Remy looked back at the door to the hotel room.

“So… did the change of scenery work? You get anything new?”

“Look, I don’t want to do this anymore,” Remy said. “Whatever… this is – I’m done. I’m just going to go back into this hotel room and…”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I’ve been jet-lagging since we got here.” He leaned in closer. “Have you taken a dump? Because I haven’t. Goddamn airplane food. Like eating paste.”

“Look,” Remy said. “For what it’s worth, I don’t even think March is alive.”

Markham nodded. “Yeah… the whole March thing looks like a dead end. Excuse the pun. But no, you were right all along. March probably is dead. Unless old Bishir is a tougher cut of steak than he looks.”

Remy couldn’t help his curiosity. “You found Bishir?”

“Well… yeah. What do you think we’ve been doing here? Sightseeing?”

“And you talked to him?”

“Yeah, while you worked the girl, I thought we’d pick Bishir up and spend a couple of days softening him up before-”

“No… please.” Remy put a hand out. He thought of the blood on his shoes, and of Assan, and of the photo of March’s dead lunch date, al-Zamir. “Don’t… soften anyone else up.”

Markham smiled like a kid who has gotten into his parents’ booze. “Oops,” he smiled. “My bad.”

“Jesus, what did you do?” Remy asked.

“Actually,” Markham began, “that’s kind of a funny story.”

A HEALTHY chunk of pecan encrusted sole rested on the tines of a fork inches from Bishir Madain’s open mouth. “Unbelievable,” he said, and slid the fork into his mouth. “Mmmph,” he said, and when he could talk again, “You were absolutely right. This is great. You wouldn’t think it would be so flaky and moist. And the pecans!”

“What’d I say? Huh? What did I tell you?” asked Markham, who wore a blue cloth apron with salt-and-pepper shakers stitched on the pocket. “Nutty but light. So often you incorporate walnuts or pecans and you have to use something to bind it that makes it sweet or syrupy and it ruins the fish. But this is perfectly balanced. That’s what I like about it. You can see why we went this direction.” Markham held his spatula like a wand. “It’s really a nice recipe.”

They were in a huge hotel suite, with motorized curtains and colonial furniture, Bishir sitting in a fluffy white robe in a high-backed chair, over a plate of pecan encrusted sole, buttery green beans, and what looked to Remy liked mashed sweet potatoes. In the small kitchen Markham had two stainless frying pans sizzling and the oven door hanging open, wafting sweet fish.