The Dewey Decimal System Read online

  Traffic, at any rate, was light.

  Shapsko exits the Ukrainian Hall shortly after 4 p.m., accompanied by five men this time, including the two with whom he had initially come downtown. The group stands near the entrance, engaged in conversation.

  At a certain point the whole crew bursts out laughing, and four of the men begin moving in the opposite direction of the Prius. Shapsko waves them off and heads toward his vehicle with another man.

  I have a decision or two to make at this point: brace him here with his friend being an unknown quantity, or continue my tail job.

  Fuck it; I extinguish cigarette number eleven, wring my hands with the good stuff, and, checking for cars (yeah right, but habits die hard), cross Second Avenue at an angle.

  They’re both at the Toyota. Shapsko has his keys out.

  “Yakiv Shapsko.” I pull out my bogus Homeland Security badge. The name on it is Donny Smith.

  I’m doing my white people voice, the voice of authority.

  Shapsko half turns. He looks amused. His companion moves toward me but Shapsko places his hand on the man’s chest.

  Hold the badge near the man’s face but I already feel like I don’t have any control over this situation. Shapsko radiates smart, competent. I would’ve pegged him as a yahoo.

  “Mr. Shapsko, I represent the department of Homeland Security …” His friend starts jabbering in Ukrainian but I continue. “And request that you accompany me for questioning.”

  “Regarding?” Shapsko has this expression like something’s funny, which I find annoying. He still rests his bare hand on his companion’s chest. The man’s denim shirt is dark and can’t possibly be clean.

  “Regarding matters of national security. That’s all I’m authorized to tell you.”

  The Ukrainian then gives a disarmingly genuine smile. The hair is different, and his nose looks reconstructed, but I feel like I might have met the guy before.

  “Am I under arrest?” His English is solid, colored by that proto-Slavic accent.

  “Sir, I’m merely asking you to answer some questions, if you’ll just accompany me …” I like to keep it as professional as possible, but use broad strokes.

  “Am I under arrest?” he repeats, as if to a child.

  It’s a reasonable question, to which I say: “No, but that can be arranged if you’d prefer to go that route.”

  Jingles his keys. “I do. Have no arrest warrant, I won’t go anywhere with you.” Almost apologetic like.

  His pal is inching toward me. A couple other guys have come out of the hall and are watching the exchange.

  This isn’t working out. What am I doing? I’m pretty shitty at this direct approach.

  “Sir, I need you to understand that I’m characterizing your behavior as uncooperative …”

  But he’s in the car and keying the ignition, his friend scuttling away. Yakiv looks at me from the driver’s seat and shrugs. The Toyota pulls off and is up the street before I can organize my thoughts.

  I clean the hands. Shit. Now he knows I’m coming. Should have played it NYPD/old-school style, run up on him and hit him. Or hid out in his backseat. Well, had it not been a Prius.

  I’m telling you, I’m not particularly smooth. Out of habit I touch the key in my front pocket.

  Ah well. Let’s do it the easy way.

  Ditch the Nissan right there on Second Avenue.

  Then it’s the 6 train uptown to the R at 51st Street, as per the System. Fortunately, the closure of the 23rd, 28th, and 33rd Street stations allow me to do this and remain faithful to System dogma.

  Let me explain. Late afternoons, the rules flip: necessary to take number trains and, if need be, transfer then to the lettered ones. It’s always good to take the subway versus drive, if you have a choice. It’s an eco thing, a hangover tenet from the fossil fuel days.

  R train service terminates at Forest Hills, so I figure I’ll hoof it to Kew Gardens. Not too familiar with that part of Queens but I will tell you it’s nicer than you might think. Or was.

  High-rise apartment complexes, a single light on the seventh floor of one building, absolute dead silence.

  Ghost-town stuff.

  I pop a pill; starting to get a headache … realize I’m absolutely starving. Check and make sure my key hasn’t slipped out of my pocket … nope, still there.

  Even in the best of times I imagine one would’ve had difficulty finding a shop open, but I luck out and come across a BP station that, despite the NO GAS, ATTENDANT IS ARMED sign, looks friendly enough.

  I trade the terrified Pakistani/Indian/subcontinental Asian man an unopened pack of Lucky Strikes for a log of beef-and-cheese jerky, all he has in the way of foodstuffs. He has at least fifteen large boxes of the jerky. That’s good gear to have on hand.

  I keep on my way, wondering who buys anything anymore.

  I have Shapsko’s address down as 12 Mowbray Drive, a very nice mid–twentieth century house, a proper house technically in New York City, which always blows my mind … It’s modest but charming, the lawn and foliage have grown wild in a not unattractive kind of way. There’s a noisy generator in the yard, as well as a dirt bike and a tricycle.

  The house’s position makes surveillance a bit difficult: I’m forced to loiter across the street in front of an apartment complex, feeling conspicuous. No sign of the Prius, but lights are on in the upper floor.

  Before I have time to establish an appropriate spot from which to observe quietly, the porch lights come on. I step backward, quick, into the entryway of the apartment house, stumbling on a loose tile. The entryway, Allah be praised, is unlit.

  Iveta Shapsko (née Balodis), aged thirty-nine, Latvian national, height five foot six inches, weight 127 pounds, brown hair, green eyes. I make her easily from across the street, hair pulled back with a stray lock falling across her face, taking the mail out of the box next to the entryway. A small dark-haired boy appears in the doorway, probably Dmitry, the five-year-old, Iveta saying something, pushes him back inside with her, turns and slams the door. The brass knocker bangs twice and the 2 in the 12 is swinging free.

  And I am hit in the chest by shock waves from across the road—communicated in whole to me is Iveta Shapsko’s long-standing anger and frustration.

  Not knowing how I know this or the source of these feelings but realizing I care, all of this playing out like a set piece, a scene I’ve seen before, from which nothing good can come … My presence here is malevolent, my intentions murky, and the fear of that yawning void from which I access this knowledge propels me out of the vestibule, walking fast and then running, a marblesize obstruction in my throat, sprinting down this treelined street in Queens, again into warm rain, but as I bring the back of my hand to my cheek, I think no, not rain, not rain at all.

  Because there’s a dark thing implanted in the frontal lobe of my brain, ever-present, a cruel sequence of images, profoundly monstrous. It’s this: a figure materializes, fades in from black, in a concrete playground attached to a low-income housing project, moving into a metal elevator, moving into a hallway, moving through a door into a silent apartment, into a bedroom, a form beneath a worn sheet. And then the shots, two of them, impossibly loud, and I wake, the reverberation of the shots, and the lunge for the receding shapes. And cut.

  Always the same dream.

  Iveta triggers something buried in my chest. Do I know her? I can’t be sure. Perhaps she’s standing in for someone, or something iconic.

  Now, it’s important to understand that I believe I have had certain aspects of my memory erased while laid up in D.C. What’s more, I believe I had false memories implanted. I have no way to prove this, it just feels true. It’s a gut thing. As a result, I look at my recollections or dreams with suspicion.

  Regarding this dream. My therapist at Walter Reed, Dr. Rosita Lopez, framed it in this way: as I am unable to accept the loss of my wife and daughter while I was deployed, and as a manifestation of my then trendy Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I rep
eatedly visualize an imagined reenactment of the crime committed against my family.

  In the view of Dr. Lopez, with her frumpy nylons, her clipboard, and her surreptitious glances at her wristwatch, my acceptance of the realities I face will bring these visions to a close, and banish the imagined assailant from my apprehension, forever.

  What I failed to mention to Dr. Lopez is the fact that, should I force my gaze downward in the midst of this recurring brain-film, the imagined assailant is wearing my hands. And shoes.

  Due to the 2/14 Occurrence(s), all available written information on any given subject is frozen in midsentence, a portal into the era known simply as “Before.”

  It’s fascinating: all the signs of what was to come are right there in the details, this is a truth, despite the mind’s desire to revise history through the prism of what is currently known.

  Take this bit of trivia from 2011’s CIA World Factbook:

  Latvia’s economy experienced GDP growth of more than 10 percent per year during 2006–07 but entered a severe recession in 2008 as a result of an unsustainable current account deficit and large debt exposure amid the softening world economy.

  Unsustainable. Softening. What mild, bureaucratically vanilla terms. Words a citizen can acknowledge, shake her head at, what a shame, a tragedy; and continue shopping, working, bench-pressing, consuming, wasting, using, poisoning.

  I shut the hardbound volume and return it carefully to my “active” stack, being sure to apply PurellTM afterward.

  This stack here? This is material that I keep on hand, relevant to my current situation. I find it informative, comforting, an aspect of my larger project: reorganizing the library’s stock in accordance with the antiquated but deeply logical Decimal system.

  Somebody’s got to do it, man. The internal computer network here having fritzed out, it’s nearly impossible to find what you’re looking for.

  But as I’ve said, dig: I have my own comprehensive System, the Decimal thing being a piece of the larger puzzle; and therefore I have structure. Otherwise: chaos.

  Since I’m doing this on my own, it’s slow going. A righteous chore. After four months I’m partway through 000, which is “computer science, information, and general works.”

  The founding fathers of the Decimal system couldn’t have know what a gargantuan amount of material would come to fall under this heading. Especially the subheading “computer science.” Jesus. And “general works”? Don’t get me friggin started.

  Reams of books, numbering in the thousands, stack Dr. Seuss style along the entire stretch of the left-hand wall of the Reading Room. This is my work to date. I reckon I have a year to go on 000, maybe more like two.

  It’s a safe bet: if the architects of this place knew that a colored man would remain its sole keeper, they would’ve had coronaries.

  This hobby, if it can be called that, has given me an identity as well.

  DA Rosenblatt dubbed yours truly “Dewey Decimal” based on my interests, and due to the fact that I can’t remember my given name.

  The DA says he has my birth records, Social Security card, etc. on file, but I don’t want to see these documents, as I don’t think I will recognize that person.

  Prior to DD I was simply known as “The Librarian,” and older acquaintances tend to still call me this. I don’t care; I answer to anything. But Dewey Decimal, it’s starting to stick.

  Tonight the library is dead, which is how I like it.

  I crack open a pistachio, make sure it’s clean, toss it in my mouth. Add to the bowl I have dedicated for pistachio shells. Every couple of days I disinfect them, and transfer the shells to a sealed baggie for future use. The Scattering of the Shells. I have my rituals, I have my habits.

  Since upkeep of these landmarked buildings was transferred to the Parks Department, I don’t think I’ve seen a single ranger, or whatever they call their agents. I’m not so sure there still is a Parks Department, come to think of it, not that it matters.

  I assume they’ve got headquarters in the park, but nobody goes in there. I wonder about the Central Park Zoo, the clock with the animals. Idly I touch my key.

  Apparently it’s up to me to hold these halls down, which is my distinct honor. Sure, there are countless apartments and lofts, sitting empty and unused, up and down the canyons of Fifth Avenue, Madison, Broadway. Down in Tribeca, northwest to the Meatpacking District, uptown to Central Park West, spaces unclaimed and unprotected.

  Some of these once housed the very wealthy, and are extremely opulent. I’ve seen them. You wouldn’t have to be that ambitious to set yourself up in such a place, as many have; but I feel an obligation here.

  When I returned to New York after my (illegal, mind you) detention at the Walter Reed Medical Center, then the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C., this place is where I came to rebuild my head, like so many others before me, and I was welcomed.

  Not by the staff; that’s not what I mean. The very stairwells, the walls, the forests of literature enfolded me, said good to see you back, soldier. Here you’ll find rest, and poetry.

  In the bosom of the Reading Room I retrieve my kit, lay out my bedroll. Wonder where the mother and child got to, the ones with the hotplate. Wonder if I imagined them. Projected holograms.

  Plug my razor into that outlet I noted earlier, find myself cracking a big grin as the blinking yellow charge light appears. Fantastic.

  Before sleep, I take a pill and remove my Beretta M9 from its cloth, clean it, load it, etc. The gun feels like an old pair of jeans, conformed to my hands alone. Hands that I now clean as well.

  Starting to feel like I’d better be wearing the weapon. Better to have and not need than to be caught out naked.

  Always the same dream.

  Let’s try this again. With a fresh shave and renewed energy, I pull on a surgical mask, walk west to the C train. Exit at 23rd Street. Wearing my gun, got my PurellTM, my pills, and of course the key in my front pocket.

  Through a tunnel of foul air I cover the few blocks northwest to Odessa Expedited, Inc., confirm Shapsko is on the premises.

  Locate his Prius, jack it.

  Head out to Kew Gardens.

  All this, before 9:30 a.m.

  You’ll understand that I’m feeling pretty positive as I hit the Queensboro, waved through by a team of army engineers as I press my laminate to the windshield. I’ve got surgical gloves on as well, so I’m okay with touching the glass in this shit-ass car.

  The 59th Street Bridge got lucky: on the occasion of the Occurrence(s), only a small fraction of the planted explosives detonated, leaving the bridge structurally sound.

  The associated tramway wasn’t so fortunate. A single tram car dangles like a forgotten toy, approximately 250 feet above the East River. Heard it took them three weeks to get the bodies out of that car. Or maybe I made that little tidbit up. Hard to know.

  I get on the 495, which I then take to 678, in perfect accordance with the System, which prescribes odd-even numbered roadway sequences, taking exit 13 SW. In order to keep with the System, I make only left turns (admittedly this takes me a bit out of my way) until I reach Mowbray Drive.

  So as to make it a left, I pass the street, pull a U-turn, and backtrack … finding myself parked in front of 8 Mowbray, two doors down from the Shapsko household.

  Clock says 9:55 a.m.

  Tempted to just sit tight and chill till after 11, so I don’t run into any unexpected right turns, but I’m concerned the wife will make the vehicle and assume her husband is home.

  I remove the surgical gloves and toss them on the floor. Lower the mask. Refresh with PurellTM, two times for good measure. Pop the second pill of the morning, and I’m ready.

  Today I have a fully System-compatible plan, brutally simple.

  Up out of the car (left), noting it’s going to be a deadly hot day, goddamn, that smell, nobody around, I proceed straight up the pavement, bypass the Shapsko’s, spin one hundred and eighty degrees (left),
back to the walkway for number 12 (left), turn up the path and onto the low wooden stoop, I bang the knocker twice, identifying the missing screw that allows for the 2 in 12 to hang akimbo.

  I wait. I hear movement inside. I have my Beretta pressed against my left ass cheek. My right hand is free.

  The curtain in the window on my left twitches. Keep my head low, hat obscuring my face. I can hear some-one on the other side, breathing. Then: “What do you want?” A woman’s voice, presumably Iveta. That accent.

  I adopt an anxious white person tone, and say in Ukrainian: “Mrs. Shapsko, I am very sorry, but your husband has been in an accident on a job site. They took him to the Armory, he sent me to get you.”

  Silence from behind the door.

  “I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this news but we must hurry. Your husband is injured.”

  What, is my Ukrainian not convincing? I’ve been told I sound like a native; even, specifically, a native resident of Kiev as opposed to the south.

  Then again, hookers will say anything.

  “You are a friend of my husband from where?”

  Relief fills my chest; her Ukrainian sucks worse than mine.

  “I am a lawyer for Odessa Expedited, and a cousin of his coworker. Please, it’s most urgent.”

  I wait. Is this a typical wifely reaction? Maybe it’s a Latvian thing. Hard-ass chicks hail from that ghetto corner of the world. I can practically hear her thinking.

  Then: “You can tell my dear husband,” she spits this word like it’s poison, uh-oh, “he can tend his own wounds. While I tend to the care of his child, about whom he seems unconcerned, considering he has not been around more than twice these last four months. You might tell him that, lawyer.”

  Recalculating. Okay, they’re estranged and I am a lawyer. So: “Mrs. Shapsko,” I move closer to the door and lower my voice a bit, “the secondary reason I am coming to you is that should his injuries prove severe, or God forbid fatal, you are legally entitled to be the partial beneficiary of any monies resulting from the suit we intend to bring against Odessa Expedited’s client. This we should discuss, the status of your relationship or any marital issues being of course not my business and irrelevant to any conversations we might have.”