The Dewey Decimal System Read online

  “Yup, that’s what we’re doing.”

  “And I indulge you in the sense that whoever you are and whoever you are making work for, I don’t particularly mind. Because you have independent nature, would this be fair to say?”

  “Fair to say. What’s your point?”

  “I’m willing to overlook this … unwillingness to give identity of your employers. That’s fine. So all that is past, and all is forgiven. Let’s begin again with … what, a clean slate is what you say.”

  “Sure. What is your point, Mr. Shapsko?”

  Again he shifts his gaze out the window. A helicopter is moving low across the water, spotlights on. There’s always a helicopter.

  “Are you a married man?”

  This gives me a jolt. Unbidden, I see a woman’s mouth, teeth exposed, as she laughs at something, then turns away.

  “No … I was.”

  “So you know how it is, with marriage. Life. Things go wrong, things happen, little shifts, little slides, and suddenly, everything is being fucked. Just the way it works. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Sometimes things can be fixed, sometimes not so simple.”

  I nod. Disturbed by the image of the teeth, imperfect teeth, human teeth, deeply familiar teeth. Laughing, turning away.

  “In my case I am at an impasse with my wife Iveta.”

  As a bonus, I see another set of teeth, much smaller and less evenly spaced. One molar is loose; I’ve tied some dental floss around it and I give it jerk, out comes the tooth, out of a child’s mouth.

  If these are implants, what cruelty.

  “Kids …” I don’t know if I’ve said it aloud.

  Yakiv is still looking out the window. He gives a little shrug. “Kids, they came with the whole package. Not mine, um, biologically. Legally, yes. I’m not concerned with these boys. The eldest, he is living with Iveta’s sister now, in London. Who, incidentally, is literally prostitute. The sister, I mean.”

  “Huh. How shocking. And I’m sure you know nothing about that kind of business.”

  Yakiv belches silently into his fist. I smell chicken grease, and that’s nasty. “Don’t know what you mean. I run a construction firm. Anyway. Haven’t heard from this boy in a very long time. As for youngest kid, well …” He looks at me again. Lifts and drops a shoulder. “So, in simple terms, conflict with my wife has been reaching point where there is no acceptable solution.”

  “There’s always divorce, man.” Listen to Dewey Decimal, the marriage counselor.

  He shakes his head. “Regrettably, Iveta won’t allow this. Besides, it wouldn’t solve this big problem.”

  “Shame when it gets ugly.”

  Yakiv laughs at that. “Ugly puts it mildly. Which leads me to this: whatever these mysterious people pay you, I pay you twice over.”

  Huh. I say, “For … ?”

  “Feel free to lie to me, increase price. I don’t care.”

  I’m not happy with the direction this is heading. “And … although I’m getting the general drift … what exactly are you proposing to pay me for?”

  Leaning back and placing both hands palms down on the table, Yakiv Shapsko adopts a regretful look. Says: “I am asking you to eliminate my wife, Iveta Shapsko.”

  Outside of the projects, properly named the Gun Hill Houses. They can give them whatever names they want, they can number them, call them “Houses,” or use the word “Residence” or “Estate,” it doesn’t matter; it’s the projects. Everybody knows what that means.

  There is a set of conditions that comes with the projects, a set of circumstances. Cheerless and same-y tales of the have-nots or the lost-it-alls. A singular architecture that communicates a code every citizen is hardwired to decipher: those who live within possess less human value than those who live without.

  Outside the projects, even the garbage strewn around the playground is straight-up cliché. Empty bottles of Olde English malt liquor, Cheetos bags, chicken bones, a stray toddler-size Reebok.

  Note all of this. Disregard it.

  Enter the building. All surfaces are subway-car metallic magic, impervious to Sharpies, spray paint.

  Enter the elevator to a cloud of piss and beer. Enter without fear. Push the correct button. None of this is unfamiliar.

  Exit the elevator, follow the hallway to the correct door. Take out the key.

  Savor this moment. Everything begins now. Enter when ready.

  In the pink bathroom I take a blue pentagon-shaped pill. It lodges in my throat for a second, I have that momentary panic. I swallow again and my throat muscles behave properly.

  My mouth feels dusty, arid.

  Go to wash my hands, using bottled water and hotel soap. The soap only makes things worse. One of those shell-shaped jobs that’s more perfumed cocoa butter than anything else.

  I dry them, hard. I scrape at them, looking at the bowl of potpourri on top of the toilet.

  I avoid the mirror.

  Exiting the bathroom, I reenter the conference room.

  “Can I sleep on it?” I ask Yakiv, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

  “No. I’m afraid not. Now that I’ve put this to you, you either accept job or you don’t leave. Makes it simple.”

  “It strikes me …” I say, walking to the window, looking for a balcony not too far down. It’s a desperate thought. Nothing but flat wall with a slight slope. “It strikes me that you have a seemingly endless pool of thugs who qualify for a job like this. Why not just use them?”

  Yakiv is shaking his head. “No. This cannot be internal. I need this buffer. You’re perfect positioned. You assaulted my wife once already. No connection with me.”

  “Uh-huh. So how about the monkeys who hauled me in? They know exactly where they took me and can certainly spill on you should they choose to.”

  “These men have already been, what, dispatched. I select them in the first place because they are breaking our code. Both foremen, extorting lower-level workers. Sex with employees’ wives and girlfriends. Stepan is homosexual, so in this case sex with male employees. Beneath our contempt. Best they be forgotten.”

  I nod. “Sure.”

  Yakiv dips his head, gives a rueful look. “You think I’m callous? You should know my wife. She’d cut her son’s throat if she could gain from it. Her ability to lie, this, this is unparalleled. Her training … this is a vicious, evil person. If I’ve ever encountered truly evil human being, this is her.”

  And yet … she went for my knee. An armed stranger in her home and she goes for my knee.

  I consider the unicorn. Such a beautiful picture. How can something be that old?

  So why not a head-shot, Iveta? Doesn’t it simply make it more difficult for her, the fact that I remain alive? Rather: that I was allowed to live.

  Shapsko sighs. “I don’t hold ill will toward Iveta. It is not personal in this sense, I want you to understand. I don’t believe in, how do you express it, bad seed idea. You should have seen conditions from which she came. Raped by her father and stepbrother. Her mother, a heroin addict and prostitute, blames Iveta for every hardship … even blames her for these rapes. For stealing her husband. Then she seeks new life in military. Witnesses incredible, incredible brutality in Kosovo. Is taken by Serbian warlord. Branko Jokanovic. Heard of him?”

  I shake my head. Sounds like the dude with the paint shop. What was his name?

  Yakiv waves it away, not important.

  “Well, the Americans did have two million–dollar reward out on his head. Branko Jokanovic. Some horrible stuff, this guy was responsible for. Anyway, Iveta was of course brutalized, knocked around, yeah? Yet again. And in time sold, essentially, to me.”

  I wonder how much one pays for a white woman like that. I wonder what old Yakiv was up to in that part of the world.

  “And I suppose you were down there, a Ukrainian ‘businessman’ in Kosovo, giving out Gatorade and free hugs.”

  Yakiv gives a horsey snort. “Free hugs! You’re a sm
art guy. Yeah. You know, I make sure everybody has what they need. Same as now. NATO too you know, I don’t take sides in these conflicts. Who can fucking figure this out? It’s all local stuff, settling of these old scores. Like high school kind of thing. Or like: your grandfather killed the goat of my grandfather. I was much younger of course … Do you mind if I ask, where do you see combat? Perhaps you were down there?”

  Where was I? I don’t remember where I was. It was really hot and shitty. Smelled like burning tires, gas, cardamom, goats …

  “Nope, that Kosovo business was just slightly before my time,” I say, adding, “As for my deployment, that’s classified.” I wink at him. “Need-to-know type stuff.”

  Yakiv tosses his head back. “Ha! Need to know! You’re funny, seriously. Okay, Mr. Need to Know. I’m sure you’re this real American hero.”

  “Oh hell yeah,” I say.

  “I have no doubt. Well, as they say: I thank you for your service!” He slaps his thigh. “What a great country, really. All this ridiculous worship of military, stupid Hollywood talk, the ultimate sacrifice … It’s all big movie or video game to you Americans.” Laughing. He’s cracking himself up over here.

  “Yeah, well, we’re all just a bunch of monkeys. Cartoons. Cattle. That what I hear you saying?”

  The man wipes away a tear, has another brief fit.

  I say, “Listen, man. No arguments about your general reasoning. Just remember, though, I get sensitive when I feel like I’m getting laughed at.”

  Fucking guy doesn’t even register that. Fishes around in his pants, pulls out a handkerchief, blows his nose, from which I instinctively flinch.

  “Pardon me. No offense intended. Back to Iveta. So this Serbian man, this warlord Branko, he was her first husband. He was in with all these guys—Ratko Mladi, Radovan Karadi. We are thinking maybe he is working, here in New York—under assumed identity, of course … Actually, I am pretty positive I know exactly where he is, but I’m not interested in either revenge or this reward. It’s known fact that international and domestic American law enforcement will be moving on him, and soon. Well.”

  Yakiv wipes his mouth with a Popeyes napkin. Lord, give me PurellTM.

  “But I won’t bother you with further details. Better not knowing them, actually.” Rubs his face, all trace of humor gone now. The energy in the room shifts. He says, “So you see. She is what she needs to be. Iveta. Her nature …”

  Yakiv vibes tired, and older. I look back out the window. Thinking I gotta scare up some smarts, this is a crazy stupid situation. A serious pickle, really. How did this all get rolling? Oh yeah, the DA.

  “I take no pleasure in this business,” he says. “It saddens me greatly. I tried, I cannot begin telling you …”

  Another helicopter, low over the water. I watch the Ukrainian’s reflection. I might as well talk straight up, and gamble on where that lands me.

  “See,” I say, “here’s my problem. My problem is that I’m looking at this story from several different angles. Conflicting.”

  I see him smile in the window. “So, my wife says some things, concerning me, and you find them … compelling. I see.”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I’m hearing a lot of definite bullshit, and a lot of stuff about which I don’t know what to think, from several corners. I’m having difficulty sorting out the good information from the bad. And I have no reason to believe that anybody is giving me the straight deal.”

  “Mr. Decimal, pardon this directness, but what does it matter who says what about who? We’re all, what. We’re all sinners here. If the price is right, isn’t this deciding factor?”

  I sigh. People never fail to disappoint me. Sell me short. I sit back down. “I gotta say, for a smart guy, seemingly, you badly misjudge my character.”

  Yakiv shakes his head, still smiling. “Well, I didn’t mean to, uh—”

  “No, listen, you’re by no means alone. Happens a lot. The assumption that I don’t have my own internal moral code over here.”

  Yakiv is nodding sagely, like he’s right there with me. “Of course.”

  “I mean, I don’t just go running around town switching teams at the drop of a hat, wasting people willynilly, you dig me?”

  He winces. “Wasting people? This is very crude. I don’t use this kind of term. People waste themselves when they don’t do like they were born to do. And you talk about teams, as if this were football match? No, no. Life is not like this. Life is gray. Like you.”

  “Like me? Don’t follow you.”

  “Well, are you 100 percent black man? Or are you 100 percent white?”

  Please. “That is a stupid-ass metaphor, my friend. You’re trying too hard. Know the limits of your command of the English language.”

  He laughs at that. “Okay, but you see my point.”

  “Not really. Yeah, yeah, gray areas, so what?”

  Yakiv lifts his shoulders and exhales. “All right, let me simplify things for you then.”

  “By all means.”

  He holds up his right thumb. “One the one hand: you do this job for me, you get to walk with your life, plus good deal of money. Within reason.” Then the left thumb: “On the other hand: you don’t do this job, and you get nothing. And you are certainly not walking away. Understand?”

  He sits there, eyebrows raised, giving me the double thumbs-up sign. Like the Fonz, I think inappropriately, given the gravity of things here.

  Me: “No gray areas when you put it like that.”

  “Do you understand?” he repeats.

  “I understand,” I tell the Ukrainian.

  Cause what else do you say?

  The shaking doesn’t start until I actually hit pavement on West 16th Street. When it does, I nearly fumble my new briefcase. Jesus, how anyone can bear the levitating coffin known as an elevator?

  I point my trembling gimp toward Eighth Avenue, hoping I can find a respectable place to collapse, unseen by the car service drivers who line the street, the battered Town Cars, uniformly black—man, I wonder what it must cost to convert a monster like a Town Car to battery cell or solar, must be a serious chunk of change. Like a Navigator. Pretty much the same engine, most people don’t know that.

  I wonder if the C train is operational. Thinking maybe I don’t want to run into military personnel with what I’m carrying, and my freaky fritzed-out aura. I zombieswerve eastward. Just want to be home.

  In the briefcase:

  —a polymer 9mm Sig Sauer SP2022, plus fifty extra rounds and a silencer. Traceable apparently to one Branko Jokanovic, don’t ask me how.

  —a thin folder containing information relevant to Iveta Shapsko and her possible location, which I have yet to look at.

  —night-vision goggles.

  —a Canon digital camera.

  —a ziplock of string cheese, and some kind of fucked-up yak jerky the crazy Ukrainian insisted I take, “in case you get hungry.”

  Am I really that goddamn emaciated? Why is everyone so concerned with my diet? Next they’ll be sifting through my poop.

  I make Eighth Avenue, and the C/E station looks dark. I’m shaking so hard I sit down on the curb. Wait for it to pass. Feel for the key, yes. Feel for cigarettes, nope. Sometimes I forget to keep smoking.

  The air is a blanket of toxins.

  I pop a pill.

  The briefcase, which is equipped with a three-digit combination lock, isn’t the only new accessory bestowed on me this evening.

  I inspect my new ankle monitor, affixed neat and snug to my bad leg. I’ve been tethered. Reckon these are tamper-proof so I don’t bother playing around with it.

  I seem to remember my dad had one at some point. Probably after the second time he beat down my mother. House arrest. I recall having to run to the corner to buy him beer. Before he legged it back to Trinidad, bracelet and all.

  If you could only see me now, Pop. I’m a big shot. Lady-killer. On the curb in a summer suit, shaking, shaking, gripping a tan faux-leather briefcase. The
night is young, and I’m king of this city. Yes, if I could just see you now, Pop. I got a Swiss buddy named Sig I’d simply love you to meet.

  I’m wallowing in this kind of pointless tough-think, or I’m too spaced out by my painful leg. Either way, I don’t notice the vehicle creeping up Eighth Avenue, an electric Army Aggressor, until I’m hit in the face by 120 watts of spotlight.

  “Hey, hey, totally not necessary, people!”

  I do my utmost to scramble to my feet, blinded and handicapped as I am. A megaphone crackles and an amplified voice addresses me and anybody else within a ten-block radius.

  “Hold it there. Interlock your fingers behind your head.”

  I do as I’m told, I’m not a complete idiot. “Be cool!” I shout. “I’m one of the good guys, all right? Just be fucking cool.”

  I can’t see much as the light is in my face, but I’m starting to adjust. A pair of doors slam almost in unison, I’m approached by two MPs, one hangs back, cradling an HK machine pistol. The other comes toward me, saying, “Keep those hands where they are. Where’s you ID?”

  He’s a kid, maybe twenty. Freckles, probably a redhead under that helmet. I tell him: “Front left-hand suit coat pocket. Sorry: your right, my left.”

  “Sir, are you carrying needles or any sharp objects I might need to be aware of?”

  Jesus, what is this … ? “No, son, it’s just a laminate. Careful with those plastic edges, though, they can be sharp.”

  He gives me a here’s-a-smart-guy look, but I’m serious, I’ve cut myself more than once on those laminates. Just trying to be helpful.

  “I’m going to put my hand in your pocket and get out your ID at this time, sir. Please do not move.”

  “No problem, you’ll see shortly that I do in fact work for the city. Just be cool.”

  The kid gingerly withdraws my ID from my suit jacket. Guy with the HK is chewing gum, looks bored.

  Freckles holds my ID up to the light, squints at it. Looks at me. Looks back at the ID. “Mr. Dewey Decimal?”