The Swing Voter of Staten Island (20 page)

Shoeless, he hobbled up the boulevard for roughly twenty minutes, dripping a trail of water behind him, until he spotted the familiar dome of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank.

After another fifteen minutes of trekking, which somewhat dried his suit out, he reached Jackie Wilson Way, then turned left toward the grand bazaar of downtown Brooklyn. He moved amid the slow schools of bargain hunters who, like aquatic bottom-feeders, scavenged back and forth amid endless purchases. In stockinged feet and feeling clammy all over, Uli shoved his way through the market crowd. He angled along sidewalks covered with food vendors toward the Fulton Street bus stop. Nervously locked in the crush-and-pull of urban shoppers, he momentarily forgot that he was trapped on a small isolated colony in the middle of a desert and simply thought,
I got to move out of here.

Irregular shoes and shoe parts, most of them with laces knotted together into asymmetrical pairs, were heaped in large orange bins. Sorting through the tumble of footwear while being elbowed by other consumers, he located a pair of shoes that was approximately his size. The fact that they were blue suede and loose in the toes didn’t matter. He paid a wet half-stamp and laced them on.

As Uli continued through the packed downtown streets, he realized they were actually narrower than even the sidewalks in other parts of Rescue City. The lanes squeezed people into tight spaces, where odors, chants, and a million little conversations were exchanged amid cacophonous music and blasting business bulletins.

We’re safe
, the entire environment seemed to hum.
How can anyone hurt so many of us?

Shoving through the crowd, Uli thoughtlessly counted the maimed and blind people he passed, both men and women. Perhaps they had been injured during the endless turf wars. Even if they had only suffered slight wounds, however, he figured their conditions must have been exacerbated by the poor medical care.

“Your fly’s down!” some youth barked at him. Uli checked his zipper, only to find that it was secure.

“He’s just snagging you,” a female called through the crowd. Looking up, he saw it was Deer Flare, the sanctimonious campaigner. She was surrounded by others from Pure-ile Plurality, but instead of their official charcoal suits they were wearing
PRO-LIFE!
T-shirts. He listened as they shouted angry political slogans through bullhorns while handing out
Reelect Shub
brochures.

Noticing his bruises and scuffs, Deer asked, “What the fuck happened to you?”

“I did something stupid and was chased. So I jumped into the river and they threw things at me.”

“That was smart,” she retorted. “These animals don’t know how to swim or even want to know. Where did you go?”

“Near that Staten Island isthmus where the Wall Street skyscrapers are. Then some Spanish-speaking gang grabbed me, but they didn’t hurt me, they just tossed me back in.”

“You’re a regular Huck Finn. You didn’t swallow the water, did you?”

“A little, why?”

“Did you go in the Brooklyn or Manhattan side?”

“Brooklyn.”

“That’s still not great, but if you had gone in by Manhattan, you’d probably be dead by now,” she said. “When the water loops around Manhattan, it’s so backed up and polluted that people immediately come down with dysentery and cholera.”

“I heard,” Uli said, nervous about the strange taste in his mouth.

“I’m sorry about the other day. It was wrong of me to make an insane accusation like that.”

“It’s all right.” Nodding toward the campaign brochures, he said, “I thought P.P. wasn’t allowed to perform religious or political acts.”

“We’re not P.P., we’re D.T.”

“What’s that?”

“Domination Theocracy. You’d like us, we’re actually against the Piggers and feel that the party should be taken over by Pure-ile Plurality.” She paused, then added, “The only reason I’m telling you this is cause someone said you share our values.”

“Sure,” he said in a daze.

“If you want to join us, we’re having a strategy luncheon at the Queens Pigger headquarters in about half an hour. In fact, I’ve got to get going right now.”

“Fine, where’s the bus?”

“Bus?” she laughed, letting out an unintentional snort. “Buses are for Crappers.”

W
hile speeding north in a sporty new solarcar driven by Deer Flare, Uli knew something was off. For starters, she had interrogated him the night before about what he’d seen at the warehouse on the pier. Now she was being utterly charming.

“Why are we heading north?”

“Because we’re going to Rikers Island—the political action center,” she said reasonably enough.

Uli hoped that seeing him bloodied and vulnerable, perhaps she had found a tender spot in her heart and changed her mind about him.

She drove along what seemed to be the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway through Williamsburg and Greenpoint. As they approached Long Island City, Uli noticed men on ladders with binoculars sitting along the side of the road, inspecting cars as they slowly entered Queens. He imagined it was some kind of Pigger border patrol. When they exited the freeway and passed through the northeastern end of Astoria, Uli saw a distinct change. Unlike the slums and abandoned stretches of Brooklyn or the overcrowded streets of Manhattan, this place was cleaner and well-zoned. People looked better-dressed. Instead of retro-supported structures originally built for target practice, the houses here appeared to be new single-family dwellings. Likewise, there were fewer projects and tenement buildings. Each home had either a red Pigger flag on the porch or the statue of a saint on the front lawn, or both.

“You see it immediately, don’t you?” Flare said. “The streets here are safer, cleaner.”

“What about it?”

“This is the difference between pro-life and pro-choice. Piggers aren’t trying to cut and run like Crappers. They’ve accepted that this is their life and they’re going to make the best of it.”

“All politics just comes down to housing assignments,” Uli joked.

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody should do a study and see if everyone who got a nice place became a Pigger and everyone who wound up in one of the dumps in Brooklyn became a Crapper.”

“A healthy percentage of folks originally assigned to places up here moved down there, and vice versa,” Deer countered, shooting down his theory.

They turned left on Steinway Street and sped north onto a narrow causeway over a swamp and entered a small fortified island. Remembering suddenly that this site was a jail in the old city, Uli felt a strange chill. He recalled lying on a table in a small room in JFK Airport here in Nevada, the sounds of cargo planes whirring in the background. A man with a shaggy head of white hair who looked like a schoolyard bully (Underwood?) was holding a small dog while staring down at him as two men wearing doctor masks did some kind of work on his cranium.

Walk to Sutphin, catch the Q28 to Fulton Street, change to the B17 and take it to the East Village in Manhattan, wait outside Cooper Union until Dropt arrives, shoot him once in the head, then grab a cab back to the airport …
He remembered the strange phrase being played over and over.

“Wait a fucking second!” Uli exclaimed as they sped past a sentry before the only entranceway.

“We’re here,” Deer announced, as a large goon dashed to Uli’s side of the car, blocking his possible escape. Two familiar faces approached. One was the shaggy-haired bastard, still holding the small brown dog in his dainty little hands. The other was Chain, the murderous thug with the telescopic eye. The goon who helped Uli out of the car was one of the gangcops he had encountered with Chain the other day in Borough Park.

“What’s going on?” Uli asked calmly.

“This is the D.T. welcome committee,” Deer said, getting out of the car, “and we’re initiating you as a new member.”

“Remember me?” the white-haired man asked in a high-pitched voice.

“You were the one who programmed me.”

“But we were friends long before that.”

“You’re Underwood, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and for the record, sorry about the whole brain-programming thing. Apparently we were supposed to take you as close to the target as possible before releasing you. Live and learn.” He pet his little dog and added, “Now, Cirrus and I just want to talk to you about a certain missing person.”

“Did you put something in my head?” Uli asked uncertainly.

“Just a plan to get you out of here.”

“Come on inside,” said the gangcop he recognized. “Let’s talk about the missing girl.”

Uli figured they were referring to the disappearance of Patricia Itt. Since they didn’t even bother handcuffing him, Uli wasn’t too worried. They walked him into the large gothic building that looked like a small medieval castle, past a guard and down a flight of steps to the basement.

“How many teams do we have on Fulton Street?” Underwood asked.

“About ten,” Deer replied. “Where we really need more campaigners is Greenpoint. Polls show we’re only about twenty points behind there. If we assemble some ground forces for a door-to-door, we should be able to close the gap.”

“I’m not worried about Greenpoint,” Chain said to her calmly. “J.J. Weltblack is the head of the polling center there.”

“It don’t matter,” Underwood said.

“To hell with their big announcement!” Flare declared. “Shub will win this one just like all the others!”

“No, he won’t,” Underwood said to both of them, “and we don’t want him to. We got a brand new plan and it’s a beaut.”

“What’s their big announcement?” Uli asked as they reached the bottom landing. Chain and Deer glanced at each other, as though surprised that Uli understood English.

“Just that your old bus buddy is running,” Chain said. “She fooled me in Borough Park, but she won’t fool me again.”

“Running from who?”

“Running
for
mayor.”

“Who’s my bus buddy?” Uli pressed.

“Former Councilwoman Mallory is running in Dropt’s place,” Deer spelled out. “She’s got exactly one day to campaign. The election is tomorrow.”

“Good news is she’s way ahead in the polls,” Underwood added, handing his little dog off to an assistant.

They all packed into a small, stuffy windowless room in the basement. Uli felt strangely at ease in this tight space and focused on Underwood’s Brussels griffon, specifically on a small wire running from the back of its neck to a tiny bulb on its collar. He recalled seeing it before.

“They say dogs can pick up on earthquakes and stuff before they happen,” Underwood said in a friendly voice. “Some pointy-head figured that if they can tap into that part of the brain, they might be able to sense other dangers before they occur. So far, knock on wood, Cirrus’s lightbulb hasn’t gone off.”

At that point, Chain switched on his prosthetic polygraphic eye. “Does it surprise you that Mallory’s ahead in the polls?”

“No, I’m just amused.”

“Why?”

“Cause it’s a lie. She was crushed to death.”

“Which means that you know that
we
know that you were trying to locate her body,” Chain said.

“I was trying to find
anyone
,” Uli replied.

“Are you glad Mallory is running?” Deer asked with a smile.

“If she really is alive and running, sure, why not?”

“Cause that’s only half the news,” Deer answered, and chuckled. “The half they broadcast.” She looked at Chain and Underwood with a glorious grin.

“What’s the other half?” Uli asked.

“Telling him won’t make a difference,” Chain said smugly.

“She mysteriously vanished from St. Vinny’s Hospital this morning,” Deer relished in telling.

“So I guess the Crappers will run someone else,” Uli speculated.

“They got no one else with the same numbers in the polls,” Underwood said. “Mallory was their only real shot.”

“They’re still running her even though she’s missing?” Uli asked.

“That’s right, only they haven’t reported her as missing,” Newt Underwood explained. “Which brings us to who
you
abducted.”

“I turned my back for five minutes in the amusement park and she was gone. I looked all over for her.”

“In the amusement park?” Underwood said.

“Oh, he’s talking about our little Patsy Nitwit,” Deer chimed in.

“What did you do to Dianne Colder?” Chain asked.

“The blond lobbyist?”

“That’s the one.”

“Nothing, why?”

“We found her head hanging in East New York. Her hair was knotted around a street post.”

“Oh god!” Uli gasped, trying to sound sincere.

“Tell us everything from the meeting I set up—when you first met her in downtown Brooklyn—until you last saw her,” Underwood said, taking a seat directly in front of Uli. Before he could respond, Chain muttered something and everyone abruptly exited, leaving Uli alone in the interrogation room.

He vaguely remembered going through difficult interrogations in the past—when
he
was the interrogator. There were all kinds of prisoners: whites, blacks, Latinos. He remembered hot lights and sweat. He remembered interrogating Asians—those grillings were tougher. Cruel, not always effective. It must’ve been when he served in Vietnam. From the point of view of the prisoner, interrogations involved giving a single story that checked out, and then sticking to it under constant pressure and terror and finally torture. But eventually everyone cracked, and everything spilled out—lies, truth, piss, shit, everything.