Rivers of Gold Page 9

  (That came out better than I thought.)

  N exhales smoke through her smile.

  —Well, now, that’s the most I think you’ve said at one time all evening. Is that supposed to be my cue to get dressed and leave?

  —No, no, a thousand times no. I have had a truly exceptional time with you this evening, and I want it to continue. It’s true. I’ve made my Fast Forty, set up my twenty-thousand-dollar Roundup gig, got some extra drink and cab money from Ma, and had this extraordinary encounter with this extraordinary woman. Only two things mar this day, Eyad’s death and that strange occurrence between N and LA. Whatever it is, I feel neither bodes well for me somehow.

  —Since we’re taking non sequitur shots at each other, mind telling me just what was going on between you and LA? There is something going on, isn’t there?

  She gets that serious look again, and starts to withdraw. But I’m not letting her off the hook so easily this time. And where’s she going to go? Her answer, after a long pause, surprises me.

  —She was sizing me up. She was appraising me, N says with a touch of weariness, of resignation.

  —I see, I say, without meaning it.

  —Do you ever get the feeling that your direction in life is preordained? That you’re not really free, you’re just playing a role in a script that’s already been written?

  —Absolutely, I say softly. It’s funny how she managed to express the vague uneasiness that I think resides in every young person so concisely—another echo of X.

  —Is that why you do what you were doing tonight? For the one she called your boss?

  I surprise myself and say:

  —Yes. And tomorrow I’m going to have to get up and do it all over again.

  And I’m surprised by how much that prospect, ordinarily exciting, suddenly seems frightening and unwelcome.

  —Well then, N says, stubbing out her cigarette and moving the ashtray off the bed, we’d better do more of what we came here to do, while we still can.

  And she softly aligns her fingernails in perfect formation along my scrotal seam, and arcs the tip of her tongue unerringly into my urethra.

  My god, this girl.

  F I S H F A C E

  Santiago had a plan.

  Or at least he did up until he met More. Before then, the plan looked something like this:

  Into the Academy at twenty (after doing his obligatory two years at CUNY for the deflating department requirements and in order to get his parents off his back), out with full pension at forty (assuming a pension fund would still exist by then). In between, gather as many of the relevant certifications, degrees, and initials after his name as necessary to take it to the next level. Teacher, lawyer, Fed, judge? Santiago hadn’t made up his mind yet as to what the next level would be, but he’d long since decided on the tool that would help him get there: the combination Baccalaureate/Master’s program in Police Studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. He was pretty sure that the combination of undergrad and graduate degrees would make him stand out from those cops who finally clawed their way to the hallowed gates of OCID.

  Naturally, this didn’t come easily for an Anticrime cop with a second job. Anticrime officers were considered the NYPD equivalent of trashmen: knuckle-dragging thugs who hauled the most noxious human garbage off the streets. Investigations were unheard of, initiative seemed unwarranted, and the whole credit scheme brought sneers and jeers from the rank-and-file veterans.

  However, John Jay being what it was, Santiago was able to use some of his patrol time as field credits for the Criminology Research Internship, his Patrol Function class, his Investigative Function class, his Psychology of Criminal Behavior class, and, of course, his big Computer Applications in Criminal Justice seminar, which enabled him to gain access to COMSTAT reports before they entered general circulation, something which few officers below command rank ever achieved.

  All of which was greatly facilitated by McKeutchen, who had from the start been impressed by Santiago’s zeal, and who actively supported his quest for his degrees. McKeutchen had long and loudly bemoaned what he saw as a lowering of standards for each successive class of recruits (the force had been straining to make its minimum intake for the past seven classes, and seasoned veterans were retiring in ever-increasing numbers each year). Academic requirements had been eased in favor of military service done, something that was hardly lacking among the thousands of veterans of the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns. The resulting influx of young, gung-ho servicemen with itchy trigger fingers did occasionally make for rather incendiary newsfeeds and even some headlines in the few remaining newspapers around town, but hey, you couldn’t have everything.

  Santiago had known the day he transferred to the CAB unit that he’d have a rabbi in McKeutchen. The captain was paternal and encouraging, and Santiago suspected he had an ulterior motive as big as his ass.

  This was confirmed within a week of Santiago’s transfer. McKeutchen had confided to Santiago one day in his office, as he sat in his reinforced chair demolishing a tuna melt sandwich in a way that made Santiago feel sick.

  “Economic extremes breed social ones,” McKeutchen yawned around a mouthful of melt. “Social extremes, in turn, breed political ones. Witness the steady Republican sweep of state and federal legislatures. Nothing to do with a newfound love for the GOP, just Dem fatigue, same as the previous cycle when we first went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, four years of inflation, layoffs, and plunging home prices have conspired to make the natives restless—even if said social ills can be traced back to the previous Republican-dominated cycle. They exercise their displeasure through the electoral franchise. Out with those greedy corrupt DNC fuckers, they cry. Up with the right, in with a new mandate, the red banner of change! The collective memory is a feeble, fallible thing.”

  McKeutchen emphasized his point with a massive bite. The ends of the sandwich gaped at Santiago and the suspect pink goo within swelled menacingly toward him. “Now with the big election, there’s nothing left to distract the public from the ugliness of reality. The new mandate for change looks a lot like the old one: disruptive tax code changes, austerity budgets, and forced housing subsidies. All for the greater good, we are told. But the pendulum whiplashing from left to right does not fix our national predicament overnight. In fact, given the campaign rhetoric, it’s clear the new boss is no better than the old one, and there will be no balm for our pain. Now, people who’ve lost their jobs and their homes slide down through the layer cake to the stained cardboard slab at The Bottom. Reclaiming their previous status becomes a myth. They have no incentive and no hope. They seek solace in self-medication. When this fails to offer relief, they become bitter. Inevitably, they blame their situation on others, as is human nature. Occasionally they punctuate their feelings with sharp objects, firearms, or the ever-popular IEDs. Which is where we come in.”

  The sandwich vanquished, McKeutchen licked his fingers and smacked his lips loudly; the sound reminded Santiago of the surgical documentaries he sometimes watched on cable during late-night insomniac channel surfing. “The recent rise in, shall we say, large-scale discontent among our citizenry begs the question: Where do these good people get the goods with which to cut up, light up, and blow up one another with the frequency that has sadly become the workaday norm?” McKeutchen wiped his fingers with one paper napkin, then blew his nose in another. Something solid hit the inside of the paper with an audible pock. “Explaining the current scenario of decay and depravity I leave to those with higher learning and pay grades to sort out. Myself, I am concerned with bad guys getting through the cracks while everyone’s distracted by the carnage in the foreground.” McKeutchen pensively inspected the contents of the napkin, an augur divining the future from entrails.

  “There’s something new happening here, a change in the shape of the street. It’s more, whaddya call it, amorphous than what I’m used to. The more brick-and-mortar businesses collapse, the bigger this shadow game gets
. The speaks are taking over from the bars and there’s an ocean of shit moving through them, but since the whole game floats, there’s no way to pin it down. There’s profiteers working this chaos, naturally, but not your garden-variety mopes, no sir. All this takes money, planning, logistics, and a lot of muscle.”

  McKeutchen paused for effect, which was undermined somewhat by a stifled belch.

  “The difference between organized and disorganized crime today is measured in billions, in nautical miles and international borders. Where were you when they sold the Chrysler Building? The same thing’s happening on the street. And I just can’t believe it’s the same bottom-feeding knuckleheads we roust night after night pulling it off. They don’t have the brains or the manpower. There’s too much dope out there, too many guns, too much black-market business.”

  McKeutchen folded his arms, braced himself on his elbows, and leaned over the desk intently, causing it to creak under his bulk.

  “OCID should have its arms buried up to the shoulders in the ass of this beast—” Santiago winced at McKeutchen’s unfortunate choice of imagery—“but it doesn’t. Something’s wrong. Something is rancid in OCID. The machine’s not doing its job, at least not for us. I want to fix it.”

  Santiago gaped at his CO. “You want to ghost OCID?!”

  It was unprecedented, unthinkable. There had been enough departmental investigations in the NYPD’s checkered history, but the most successful ones had been spearheaded by the Feds and backed by the state. For a CAB unit—street-sweepers, drag-haulers, cabbie cops, call it what you will—to go undercover in a top-tier investigative unit like OCID was simply unheard of. And dangerous.

  McKeutchen flashed an imp’s smile, which quickly reverted to his customary golem’s glare. “Indeed I do. But I can’t just stick you in there. You’ve got to earn it. And you can’t do it alone. I want to send at least two teams to OCID, maybe more as time goes by. The officers recommended will have to be absolutely stellar, on paper as well as on the street. They’ve got to make and break real cases, not just rack up the credits in this bullshit program. We need to get a handle on the speaks. Who’s running them, how they’re being supplied, where they’re going to pop up next. If we can crack just a few of them, interrupt the supply lines, get some people to flip, we can find the money. Once we do that, we follow it right to the top.”

  There was a slight ringing in Santiago’s ears and a drumbeat in his wrists. In his mind’s eye he saw dawn breaking over snow-capped mountains and heard the sustained bleat of horns calling for war. At that moment, he would have followed McKeutchen into hell. Or East New York.

  But that was before he’d met More.

  “Stale” was the first word that came to Santiago’s mind that night before getting into his cab. It was nothing new. Stale odor of junk food, stagnant coffee, sun-baked vinyl and much-maligned radio and scanner. Stale feel of old aluminum and tired plastic, fake leather fraying off the steering wheel. Stale breath and perspiration, stale aftermath of countless exertions in the backseat by drags desperate to avoid jail. Stale subway smell on the clothing of the innocuous, somewhat disheveled-looking white guy in the black field jacket and plaid newsboy cap taking up the front passenger seat.

  The guy, who was to be Santiago’s new partner, assigned by McKeutchen himself, didn’t bother to look up from the stapled printout he was reading when Santiago (in full street gear, hoodie and vest, watch cap and drag-stompers) slammed his bulk behind the wheel. He didn’t look up when Santiago introduced himself. He didn’t even look up when Santiago laid down Rule One, that no matter where they were or what they were doing at the moment, if they got a call that Santiago’s parents were in immediate danger, they would drop whatever they were doing and go straight to them, lights and sirens and backup. And Santiago would do the same for the other guy’s family if he requested it. Which was, of course, completely illegal.

  No response.

  “Hey, cabrón, I’m talkin’ to you,” Santiago snapped, shifting in his seat so that his massive shoulders blocked the garage lights coming through the driver’s-side window.

  That got the stranger’s attention; his head came up and around, and for the first time Santiago was confronted by what he would forever think of as the Fish Face.

  Several branches, boughs, and twigs of Santiago’s family tree lay in southern Florida, and since childhood he had been making visits to various cousins and uncles, almost all of whom were blue-water fishermen. Some of Santiago’s happiest memories were of sitting in an angler’s chair on the stern of some relative’s rickety old boat, a cooler full of Presidente within arm’s reach, plying the waves for kingfish and tarpon and marlin. Santiago had always found himself looking into the eyes of what he managed to snare from the depths, always taken aback and a bit unsettled by the utterly distant and alien gazes of the fish. Looking into the eyes of the fish was looking across a chasm of evolution; he felt none of the empathy, the recognition he otherwise did when confronting people, livestock, or pets. The wild fish represented something other, something older, something else.

  Looking into the eyes of the man McKeutchen had called Everett More, Santiago felt that same distance, that same lack of mammalian warmth, the same disconnect between species. This fucker More did not read like a human. Santiago did not know what sort of opponent he was facing, and this made him, for the first time in quite a long while, feel something that bore a vestigial resemblance to fear. He would admit this to no man.

  They stared at each other like that for too many seconds. Finally, Santiago decided to break the ice. “What’re you reading?”

  More blinked, once, and folded the top sheet of the printout over, holding the packet up four inches from Santiago’s face. The printout did not quiver or shake at all. Santiago read: ANTIGEN CARTOGRAPHY: FROM VECTOR TO VACCINE by A. N. Chakramurtii, Chuasiriporn Duang-prapha, and Lo Dingxiang—each of whom had various initials and suffixes after their names, as well as the name of some university Santiago had never heard of. It occurred to him that this was not the sort of reading material that uncles—undercover police officers—typically pored over between drag hauls.

  Maybe More had some extracurricular job activities too.

  Santiago realized one of the things that was creeping him out about More was that he didn’t seem to blink much. That, and there didn’t seem to be any heat coming off him. In Santiago’s experience, a face-off like this would cause some noticeable responses: elevated pulse, flared nostrils, perhaps the first tinge of sweat—the hallmarks of a body preparing for combat. More gave off no such spoor. If he was uncomfortable, sitting half-twisted in the front seat of a Crown Vic facing a cranky cop nearly twice his size, he showed absolutely no sign of it. Santiago wondered if More could hold that position indefinitely, and decided he could. He blinked his tingling eyes, mentally brooming away images of coffins and ghostly white men hanging upside down by their feet.

  He decided that the best way to proceed was to initiate some sort of dialogue. “Did the captain tell you who I am?”

  That at least took the Fish Face away. More went back to reading his printout. It’s like I’m not even here, Santiago thought.

  “You don’t talk much, I’m guessing.”

  Nothing.

  “If you can talk, say something,” Santiago attempted in a somewhat less grumpy tone. For him, this was reaching out.

  “This car sucks,” More gargled. Santiago could barely make out the words behind the phlegm. More’s voice—what there was of it—sounded like it came from beneath a storm drain caked with alluvial mud. More sounded like he hadn’t spoken a word in years, or maybe had an errant sliver of bone growing sideways through his larynx. But he had spoken, that was something at least.

  “You just noticed?” Santiago turned back to face front, grabbed the leaden steering wheel with his left hand, cranked the key with his right, and, miraculously, the tired old V-8 coughed to life.

  They had passed that first patrol together in si
lence. Seven hours and four drag hauls and not one word. The hauls were, in sequence: a UPS driver in the Flatiron District getting a blow job in his truck from a transvestite prostitute; a purse snatcher outside a church in Murray Hill too stoned to run a straight line; a pair of college football players outside a Third Avenue tavern, too sodden with beer to actually make their punches connect; and a derelict hopped up on paco who was terrorizing patrons of a sidewalk café on Madison Avenue with a broken bottle, stalking up and down beside the tables, screaming about how much he didn’t give a fuck.

  Santiago had let More take the lead on the last one, just to see how he’d handle it. It was quite a sight, though a short-lived one. Showing no ill effects from being cooped up in the front seat for hours at a time, More became pure liquid as he slid soundlessly from the cab. The junkie never saw him coming, never heard More identify himself as a police officer, never heard himself being told to drop his weapon and put his hands on his head, because More did none of these things, as he was required to by law. More simply appeared in a blind spot off the derelict’s right shoulder and, well, did something that was too fast for Santiago to see. The junkie made a loud, croaking noise, dropping the bottle harmlessly in the gutter and clawing for his throat, his legs collapsing beneath him. More cuffed him, dragged him by the scruff of the neck, and threw him in the back of the cab in less than ten seconds, oblivious to the café patrons, who were too terrified even to film the event with their phones. Santiago double-checked to make sure More had secured the drag’s manacles to one of the heavy-duty steel rings bolted to the armored partition between the taxicab’s front and back seats. By the time he had, More was back in the front seat reading his printout. Santiago noticed he’d swung the overhead visor to the side and diagonally across his window, effectively blocking out the amateur videographers who were now falling over one another trying to get footage with their phones. Cops, live, New York City!