A Novel
mi]WEE
ADAM STERNBERGH
©
CROWN PUBLISHERS
NewYork
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This is a work of ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product ofthe author s imagination or are used ctitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014. byAdam Sternbergh
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers. an imprint ofthe
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. a Penguin
Random House Company, NewYork.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random
House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data
Sternbergh, Adam.
Shovel ready / Adam Sternbergh. First edition.
1. Assassins Fiction. 2. Suspense ction. 3. Dystopias. I. Title.
PS3619.T4.7874S4.9 2014
813'.6 dc23
2013012901
ISBN 978-0'385-34399-7
eBook ISBN 978 0 385-34900-0
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Jacket design by Will Staehle
Authorphotograph: Marvin Orellana, v
10937654321
First Edition
T0
Julia May Jonas
Every human being who has ever lived has died,
except the living.
-FREDERIGK SEIDEL, "The BushAdministration"
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4 ADAM STERNBERGH
best friends. At least that s what I thought. Then it turns Out
she s fucking him.
Please, ma am. I will disconnect. And this number doesn t
work twice.
Wait. Is this safe?
Which part?
Aren't they listening?
Of course.
So?
Doesn t matter.
Why not?
Picture America.
Okay.
Now picture all the phone calls in all the cities inAmerica.
Okay. ,4
Now picture all the people in all the world who are calling
each other right now trying to plot ways to blowAmerica up. .
Okay.
So who the fuck do you think is going to care aboutyou and
your former best friend?
I see. Will you tell her
No.
Will you tell her when you see her that it was me who sent
you. It was me.-
I m not FedEx. I don t deliver messages. Understand?
Yes.
Good. Now the name. Just the name.
, I I kill men. I kill women because I don t discriminate. I don't
I kill children because that s a different kind of psycho.
.M_A4"iiw m_ _7,
f
SHovELREADY 5
d 't for money. Sometimes for other forms of payment
I 0 1
l ays for the same reason. Because someone asked
But a W
me to-
And that s it.
A reporter buddy once told me that in newspapers, when
important piece of information at the be
ginning of a story, they call it burying the lede_
So I just want to make sure I don t bury the lede.
Though it wouldn t be the rst thing I ve buried.
you leave out some
It might sound hard but it s all too easy now."ihis _i§1i _tthe
same city anymore. Half asleep and half emptied out, espe-
cially this time of morning. Light up over the Hutlson. The
cobblestones. At least I have it mostly to myself. v"
These buildings used to be warehouses. Now they re cas
tles. Tribeca, a made up name for a made up kingdom. Full
of sleeping princes and princesses, holed up on the high
est oors. Arms full of tubes. Heads full of Who knows. And
they re not about to come down here, not at this hour, on the
streets, with the carcasses, with the last of the hoi polloi.
Yes, I know the word hoi polloi. Read it on a cereal bOX. '
I never liked Manhattan, even back when everyone still
liked it, when people still ocked from all over the world
to visit and smile and snap hhotos. But I do like the look of
Tribeca. Old industrial neighborhood, a remnant from when
this city used to actually make things. So I come across the
river in the early morning to walk around here before dawn.»
Last quiet moment before people wake up. Those who still
bother waking up.
Used to be you d see men with dogs." This was the hour
for that. But there are nordogs anymore, of course, not in
this city, and even if you had one, you'd never walk it, not in
twé
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6 ADAM STERNBERGH
public, because it would be worth a million dollars and you d
be gutted once you got around the corner and out of sight of
your trusty doorman and your own front door.
I did see a man once walking a million-dollar dongn a
treadmill, in a lobby, behind bullet proof glass. L-
I Feed bag delivery boy on a scooter zips past me, up Frank
lin, tires bouncing over the cobblestones: Egginehwhines
like he s driving a rider mower, killing the morningrqujet,
cooler on the scooter carries someone s liquid breakfast.
Lunch and dinner too, in IVbags.
Now it s just nurses and doormen and feed-bag deliv~
ery boys out at this hour. Tireless members of the service
economy.
Likeme. '
Phone rings.
and how old is she?
Eighteen.
You sure about that?
Does it matter?
Yes. Quite a bit.
Well, she s eighteen.
Got a name?
Grace Chastity Harrow. But she goes by a new name now.
Persephone. That s what her friends call her, so I hear. If she
has any friends.
Where is she?
NewYork by now. I assume.
That s not much to go on.
She s a dirty slut junkie
Calm down or I hang up. »
' So you re just a hunting dog? Is that it?
sHOVEl READY 7
Something like that.
just a bloodhound in a world of foxes?
L0ok you need a therapist, that s a different number;
She s Somewhere in New York, so far as I know . She ran
away.
.
I have to ask. Any relatlon? :
I thought this was no questions. n
This matters.
To whom?
To me.
No I meant any relation to whom?
T. K. Harrow. The evangelist.
Now why should that matter? _
Famous people draw attention. It s a different business.
Different rates. .
As I said, I'll pay double. Half now, half later
A11 now, and asI said, I need to know. -
Yes. She betrayed his
Idon't care. ' '
But you'll do it? .
Afake name in a big city. Not exactly a treasure map. More
like a mile of beach and a plastic shovel.
She said she was headed to New York. To the camps: They
call her Persephone. That s a start, right?
I guess we'll nd out.
May I askyou another question?
Go ahead.
You can kill a girl, just like that?
Yes I can.
Fascinating.
Before you transfer that money, you better make sure you
askyourselfthe same thing. «
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8 ADAM STERNBERGH
I hang up and write a single word on a scrap of paper. '
Persephone.
Pocket it.
Then take the SIM card out ofthe phone, snap it, and drop
the phone down a sewer grate, hidden beneath the cobble-
stone curb.
No motives, no details, no backstory. I don t know and I don t
want to know. I have a number and if you ve found it, I know
you re seriouse'Ifyou match my price, even more so. Once the
money arrives, it starts. Then it ends. '
Waste disposal. Like I said.
It s an old joke, but I like it. I
Truth is, I never spend the money.
rt at the camps. The biggest one s Central Park At first I
I Sta 3
the rich at the rim of the park hired private guards to chase
them out, tear down their tents, send them scurrying, by
any means necessary. Then there was a couple of incidents,
a few headlines, then a skinning. Private guards got creative.
Peeled a kid and hung him upside down from a tree. That
didn t play well, even in the Post.
All that s over now. The rich never come out to the park
anymore, could give a shit about Strawberry Fields, the camps
have been here three, fouryears, long past anyone caring.
Dozens of pup tents, like rows of oyerturned egg caijtons:
Dirty faces. Drum circles and dreadIocks. ~
I ask around.
The first person who knows her has a forehead full of
fresh stitches.
Bitch cut my face.
Band of white peeks up over his waistband. Not boxers.
Bandages. '
Looks like she didn t stoE there.
He picks at a stitch:
Hardy-har har.
Kid nearby pipes up.
I knew her. Cute girlI Quiet. Pink knapsack: Wouldn't let
anyone near it.
You know what was in it?
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10 ADAM STERNBERGH
Drugs, be my guess} That s what most people hold On to
tightly around here;
He s a skinny kid with a shaved head, sprawled out 0n a
ratty towel. Sleeveless t-shirt and sweatpants and thousand-
dollar sneakers, barely smudged. The kind of kid who s Used
to having other people run his errands for him.
I ask him the last time he left the park.
Me? Why? Truce with the cops seems cherry enough.
You have everythingyou need right here?
More like I don't have anything I don't need, you feel me? .
Pretty girl peeks her head out of his tent before he shoes
her back inside. Then he shoots me a look like, What can you
do? Duty calls. I ignore it:
How well did you know her? .
Persephone? Not as well as I would have liked. Common
theme among the dudes living here, by the way.
You make a move?
Ask my friend with the stitches how that would have
worked out. A
So where did she go?
Just left in the night, far as I know. I woke up and all her
stuffwas gone. Most of my stufftoo.
Any clue where she was headed?
No. But if you nd her, tell her I want my blanket and my
stash of beef jerky back.
You mind if I talk to your friend in the tent?
Smiles. Shrugs.
She s all yours. -
Pretty girl. Young. Far from home. Overalls and a red ban-
dana tied over hair she cut herself. Seems sisterly. Figure
she's more the type Persephone might have opened up to.
I tap on the tent, then we walk out of earshot;
7,, «a d
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«ovu READY H
weren t close. Talked a fewtimes. Then I heard she left.
[we
\X/hy?
00 many enemies. Or rather, unmade too many
Made t
Headed to Brooklyn, was what I heard. Maybe to
| riend5>
\w 3 I d5 family
That helPS'
B the way you re not the only one come asking around
y ,
for her.
Do tell.
Southern guy. Bu
you call them
Aviators.
That s it.
How long ago?
Maybe a day. Maybe yesterday.
I say thanks. Then ask her a few things I shouldn't. 'r '
zz cut. Those mirrored glasses, what do
How longyou been here?
Me? Ayear, give or take;
Where s home?
Here.
Before that?
Don t matter.
And how old are you? -
Look, you can t fuck me, if that s what you re asking.
That's not what I m asking.
Well, maybe you can. Don t give up too easy.
Thanks foryour time;
Vwa la revolucién.
So it turns out my Persephone has a reputation. Everyone
knows someone who knows someone who knows:- The people
who got too close to her usually have some memento} Some
thing permanent, in the process of healing.
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Like I said, I don't like Manhattan.
Like Brooklyn even less.
Personal reasons.
But I don t like Brooklyn.
Never been to Staten Island. The Bronx only on business,
Queens I could take or leave. '
But then, I m from Jersey. Wrong side of the river. So
maybe my aversion is hereditary.
Though to tell the truth, aversion and hereditary are both
words my father never would have used. Might have cuffed
me if he heard them coming out of my mouth.
He was a garbageman. A real one. The kind with garbage.
Didn t like pretension.
Didn't like the word pretension.
But he loved Jersey; That much he gave me.
I even tried to live in Brooklyn once, believe it or not.
Didn t take. But I tried it. Thanks to my wife.
I had a wife.
Believe it or not.
And I was a garbageman too, if you re interested, a real
oner The kind with garbage, like my dad. Left that too. Left
most everything eventually. ' '
Whatever hadn t already been taken away.
Now I kill people.
The end.
sHovH READY 3
People get upset whenyou say you k111 people.
Fair enouEh'
But wait.
What if I told you I only kill serial killers?
It s not true, but what if I told you that? "
Now what if I told you I only kill child molesters? Or rap-
ist5? Or people who really deserve it?
Waveringth?
Okay now what if I told you I only kill people who talk
loudly in movie theaters?» Or block the escalator? Or cut you
off in traf c? »
Don t answer. Think it over.
Not so self righteous now.
I'm just kidding.
There s no such thing as movie theaters anymore,
Subway, wheezing, barely makes it over the bridge, though I
swear I feel that way every time;-
The problem in this city used to be too many people; Now
it's not enough. And when only poor people use something,
no one takes care of it; Roads, schools, neighborhoods. Sub
ways too.
Rusted out, empty, watch the track~slats pass as we travel.
Moaning drunk curled in a corner, already done for the day.
Pissed his pants, and not recently either. "
Now to Brooklyn, that victim of tides.
My father took me to the beach once, pointed toward the
water, eightyyards out.vI thought, No waythat ocean ever gets
back to here. Two hours later, it was lapping at our ankles.
And I thought, stupidly, No way it ever goes back out to there; -
Ii
14 ADAM SIERNBERGH
Money comes, the people come. Money goes, the People
recede. Afterthe blackouts theyleft, then afterthe boom they
came back, then after the attacks they left again. Not every
one, of course. Just the people who d tried to turn Brooklyn
into the suburbs, got a whiff of a dirty bomb, gured fuck it
and moved to the regular suburbs.
Anyway, tide s out now.
Brownstones are back to being barren. Concrete b10cks
where windowpanes went. Concrete blocks are the blind
man's stained glass, someone once told me;
After the attacks, the second ones, the whole borough
emptied out. Aboom, bust, and bang economy. The squatters
and lesser vagrants just moved right back in. Like they Were
returning from a long vacation.
The Brooklyn camps in Prospect Park are more scattered,
less crowded, less refugee pile up, more Cub Scout jambo
ree. Tambourines and Hacky Sacks. Come nuclear winter,
Hacky Sacks will prevail. A lone sack, being hackyed, on
some burnt-out horizoan/ e'll know civilization, and jam
bands, survived."
I ask around.- Same stories; A She moved through here,
quickly. -I could have guessed. Not long for camps. She seems
to attract the unwanted element in the open air.
Luckily the next step isn t too hard to gure. Supposedly
she s headed toward family. And it turns out that her father,
T. K. Harrow, the most famous evangelist in America, has a
famous nancier brother living in Brooklyn.
Yes, I know the word nancier. Just don t ask me to say it
out loud.
In my business, the disadvantage of the famous is that
they draw more attention. The advantage is that you can nd
7, , _ ,,,__ __.. 7
,
,,/
;0VH READY l5
st anything you need to know in about fteen min
:ll nlmO
, 4 ' either online,
"I m 115. Because you know who has a good idea of
from public records, or through a few
1 H placed ca
.\ ho lives where?
Garbagemen
Fh y notice Know addresses. Not everyone. But the no-
r e .
m ble ones.
So I make a few well-placed calls.
1" d out a certain Lyman Harrow lives in a mansion in
11 1
B oklyn Heights. Likes to throw things out. Expensive
['0
things.
Keepsakes.
People remember.
Which is why I keep a few well-paid contacts who are still
m the garbage business. They re not nosy.
I just tell them I work on missing persons.
Don t tell them how the persons end up missing. '
I don t care at all, and even I nd this house beautiful. I
Brownstone, limestone, some kind of moneystone. Real
stained glass, the kind for people with eyes? And four armed
guards, making their hardware visible. -
I wait and watch from across the street. *
I used to ride this route, back when I lived in Brooklyn,
back before Times Square, so I can remember when neigh-
borhoods like these were basically sponges to soak up all the
excess cash sloshing over from across the river. All these
grand old brownstones, bought up and gutted. Scaffolding
like skeletons. Blue tarps like funeral shrouds. Crews of Mex-
icans tearing out the drywall. Armed With hammers. Wear
ing dust masks. Eating lunch on the stoops, dusted white.
Haunting these houses like ghosts.
16 ADAM STERNBERGH
No one ever wanted to keep the insides 0fthese old hOUSes.
Just the facades. That s what they always said about brOwn
stones. 5
Good bones.
So it was out With the old, in with the expensive-and~new\
designed-to-look like it s old. Gut renovationsJThe inSides
torn out and tossed in a dumpster out front.
I know, because I used to pick up all the trash.
But then disaster struck and Brooklyn got seedy. Now
gaIigs of men with masks and hammers might still visit you;
brownstone, but they re not comingto renovate your kitchen
Still, a few stubborn holdouts hang on. Wall Street type;
like Lyman Harrow, who can t stomach the thought of eVer
running from anything. Everyone leaves, Lyman Harrow
hires security. Everyone scurries, Lyman Harrow hunkers
down. Lyman Harrow, his butler, and his four armed guards_
And he assumes his money should function like a moat.
Which, i n his defeiise, most of the time, it does.
Wall Street types. Funny to call them that.
Given there s no such thing as Wall Street anymore either}
A nurse comes. She s an unusually pretty nurse.
Rings the bell. Butler answers. Honest to-God butler in
white tails and everything.
Disappears behind a heavy door.
This seems straightforward enough.
I ring. Same butler.
I'm here to see Mr Harrow.
Regarding?
It s about his niece.
Follow me.
s/
1ng READY 17
1 leads me inside and up a curved staircase. Ihe
but er
ce is wood.
nk of one giant dead tree.
1 highly polished, like it s all been carved
{1 >16 p 3
u t rornthe tru
At the top Of 13
that same pretty nurse
down the hall. Her hands held high. E1b0ws
e she s prepping for something sterile.
he stairs, the butler motions for me to stop. I
disappearing through a dif
mnpSC
wx't llt doorway
1! an angle. Lik
B tler s short but solid. Brazilian maybe. Built for more
> Polishing Silver. Not a linebacker but definitely the
: 13111
d of guy who, if you ever find yourself in a cage with him,
n I 11
I 5 the one who winds up walking out.
7 Holds up a white gloved hand. Asks politely.
Arms out please:
He gives me a quick once-overwith a metal detectorwand?
Traces my outstretched arms. Brushes my coat pockets:
Wand squeals.
He reaches a white gloved hand gingerly into my coat
pocket and pulls out a metal Zippo lighter. Flicks it open,
['1 res it, then snaps it shut and places it on a silver tray on a
table by the door.
Swipes again. Down each inseam. Over my boots.
Wand squeals.
I shrug.
Steel toe.
He seems satisfied. In any case, he s mostlyjust putting on
a show. He wants to let me know that, in this house, he's the
last line of defense, and he s got more skills on his résumé
than just answering the door.
Stows the wand back in its stand.
Turns a gold knob the size of a softball.
And in we go.
4
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-.
18 ADAM STERNBERGH
Lyman Harrow turns from his windows, which look out over
Manhattan.
You have aview like this, you don t give it up. Am I right?
The furniture is mahogany. The smell is old library. The
carpets are the expensive kind. With patterns.
He opens his arms. He offers drinks. I decline.
Well, what can I offer you then?
Your niece. Grace Chastity.
You're too late. She's already gone. My brother sent you, I
assume.
That s a fair assumption.
It s the only reason I let you in. Apologies for the security.
But you know. The rabble. City is thick with them.
Not a problem.
Harrow s half hidden behind a huge desk, which is bare,
save for a bottle, half emptied. He pours himself another co-
gnac, his glass as big as a sh bowl. Overall he has the un
kempt air of the weird rich. Gray hair past his collar, slicked
back with something greasy. Sweatpants and a crisp tuxedo
shirt, untucked and open at the throat. Can t tell if he s half
way to getting dressed or just all the way to no longer caring.
Then again, it s a classic tapper uniform. Perfect attire for
the beds. And sure enough, he s got a luxury model tucked
away in the corner. Which also explains the nurse I saw.
He sips.
Do you know why my brother sent you?
I hoped you'd tell me.
Well, he s plenty mad at his daughter, I know that. Mad
enough to send her running to me. And to send you after her.
And so on. I assume you ve met Mr Pilot.
Not yet.
Okay. You will. In any case, Grace rang my bell. Came from
those dirty encampments. But I haven't even spoken to T. K.
V
5H0VEL READY 19
in ten, eleven years. And I haven t seen Grace since she was
a toddler.
Swirls his cognac, which looks expensive evenfrom across
the room. Sniffs it.
Glances up at me.
She's not a toddler now, I can tell you that.
I take it you and T. K. aren t close.
No. Especially once I made it clear to him I had no interest
in the family business.
Which is?
.Heaven, of course. At least ten generations of holy men.
Harrows were converting seasick sailors on the May ower.
Then savages in the new world. Then anyone who'd listen.
It was a bull market. We Harrows sell heaven, that s our
business.
Another sip.
Or, at least, we sell tickets.
But not you.
My brother and I both grew up to be carnival barkers in
the end.-We just wound up working in different carnivals. If
I m going to wail and pray and fall to my knees, I prefer to do
it at the stock exchange.
And what about your niece?
What about her?
Did you help her?
Oh. No. I m afraid not.
Why not?
I am among the, I don't know, ve hundred richest men in
America. And T. K. is at least twice as rich as I am, and com-
mands an obedient army besides. If he'll do this to get to her,
send you and whoever else might follow, what do you think
he d do to me if I tried to keep her from his clutches?
More cognac.
20 ADAM STERNBERGH
I don t need that trouble. Not for a little girl. My only goal
was to get her off my hands as quickly as possible. My hands
and my conscience.
So then what.
She spent the night. I owed her that much. She s family
after all. Then this morning I introduced her to a couple of
men. I found them on the Internet.
What kind of men?
Not the nice kind, I'm afraid. Man with a van, that sort of
thing. There were two men, actually. And they did come with
a van, as advertised. I think they make it their business to
nd jobs for little girls.
You know where they went?
I didn t ask.
What about the van?
Hard to say. It was black. Or blue. Black or blue.
Drains his drink.
No offense, but I don t generally take to interrogations
by my brother s hired helpers. Not Mr Pilot. Surely to God
not that maniac Simon. And while you seem perfectly pleas
ant, Mr
Spademan.
Mr Spademan, I can honestly say I don t think I d like to
see you again.
Understood. Thanks for your time.
And thank you for stopping by. Say hi to Mr Pilot for me,
when you do meet him. He can t be too far behind you: As for
me, ifyou ll excuse me, I m going to return to my bed.
Hisun1_t sits in the corner of the study, tucked away, like a
treadmill, thoughIon/et_hatobv iouslygets alot of use. Itftoo,
looks out over Manhattan. It stitanium, part cof n, hart luge
sled.
l .
SHOVEL READY 2]
Yes, I watch luge. The only winter sport worth watching.
That and skeleton, which is like head rst luge for nihilists.
I put on my coat.
With this view, I wouldn t think you d need that. The bed
I mean.
Well, then you don t really understand the bed.
He undoes his cuff links, lays them on the desktop. Rolls
up his sleeves, gets ready to slip in. Steps out from behind the
mahogany desk. Wearing shower slippers. Crazy tycoon toe-
nails, untended. Grown out like talons. Head of a financier.
Feet of a gargoyle.
Notices me noticing.
Thomas will show you out. Thanks for coming by, Mr
Spademan. Like I said.
Of course.
The butler walks me out of the study discreetly, leaves me
in the hall, then returns to help Lyman Harrow tap in.
That sure is a top-of-the line bed.
Yes sir. Thankyou for coming by. Good day.
We stand on the moneystone stoop.
Look, if there s anything you remember about those men
who came
I really should be getting back inside;
- any marks or details.
The butler considers. Looks like he could use a nudge.
Think about this. Mr Harrow s brother sent me to do the
same thing those men are going to do, except I'll be a lot
quicker. With nothing extracurricular.
The butler looks away. Considers. Then holds up one white
glove.
Points to the back of his hand. "
22 ADAM STERNBERGH
One of the men. He had a tattoo. Right here.
Do you remember what it looked like?
Likea fishhook. Except twisted. Into the shape of an eight.
I pull a marker and a scrap of paper from my pocket.
Can you draw it?
The butler waves off the paper, uncaps the marker, and
sketches it onthe back ofhis ownwhite glove. Holds the glove
up again.
Sure enough, like he said. A fishhook, twisted into the
shape of an eight.
8r.
An ampersand.
He caps the marker and hands it back to me. Then peels
off the white glove and hands me that too. Pulls a fresh White
replacement from his pocket.
Don t worry. Mr Harrow gives me plenty of gloves. Likes
me to keep my hands as clean as possible.
I would imagine.
I pocket the drawing.
Thankyou.
He nods and digs a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket. I"
I wait while he lights one for himself; Then I point to the
pack.
You mind? >
He frowns: Then knocks one loose for me. I stick it in my
mouth. Smile thanks.
Then curse.
Goddamn it.
Patting pockets.
I forgot my lighter. A <
Turn my best hangdog to the butler.
Family heirloom. Gift from my grandfather. You mind?
$HOVEI. READY 23
Mr Harrow will net want to be disturbed. ,
Finger to my pursed lips.
Quiet as a church mouse. Scout s honor.
The butler s already started on his cigarette. Considers
chucking it. Takes a long drag instead; Nods toward the door.
Athanks-buddy backslap as I head back inside.
Crush the unlit cigarette in my jacket pocket.
Never smoked and I'm not about to start.
Must be the choirboy in me.
Don t get me wrong. I went to Sunday school for about
ten minutes as a kid. Didn t take. Not the important stuff,
anyway.
The core beliefs. Right, wrong, etcetera.
As you might have guessed.
The Zippo's still sitting onthe dainty silver tray. I snatch it up
though it s not like I need it. I have a dozen more just like it in
a box back home.
Buy them in bulk.
Turn the gold knob quietly.
In Lyman Harrow s defense, it s true that money often
functions like a moat.
But not today.
Harrow is already swaddled and gone in the bed. Sedatives,
feed-bag, sensors connected. IV tubes in all the IV holes.
That nurse really knows what she's doing.»
The bed truly is top-of the-linet Polished touch screens,
Metallic surface I can see my face in ;
Harrow dozing lightly;
I lean in. ,
24 ADAM STERNBERGH
He s lost in the dream, eyes uttering under closed lids.
I check to make sure he s under, which is more than he de-
serves.«
I keep a box cutter stashed in my steel toe boot, by the
way. lt s enough to set off a metal detector, but then, so is the
boot. N0t my fault ifyou don't double check/
Pull the box cutter out, extend it, place it against Harrow s
throat, and pull across, pressing deeply."/Hold his forehead
down. It works well enough?"
Watch him bleed out on the leather? Blood puddles on the
touch screens!"
Stained glass.
They ll nd him but they won t know who did it. Someone
named Spademan.»
Spademan s not my real name, by the way.
Got it from a garbage can.
I head straight up to Montague Street with the white glove in
my pocket and look for the first Internet kiosk I can find.
Sineethe beds got up and running, sucking up all the
bahhlwidth, the boring old Internet survives mostly as an
afterthought, kept alive like a public utility for people who
can't afford to tap inJSozrlike a deeeying neighborhOod, all
the money in the Internet moved out And, like a decaying
neighborhood, the Internet 15 now mostly a refuge for poor
folks and perverts, people in the shadows, by choice or not.
Just a place where you can log on to advertise your junk, then
swap it for someone else s junk, then revel for a day in new
junk.
Or a place where you can find a man with a van to take away
your problem little girl. /
Yes, there are pockets Niches. Chat rooms where like
minded rebellious citizens can scrawl graf tifPlot upheaval.
Organize something like the camps. '/
But for the most part, it's just a digital cesspoolf Free mar-
ket, at its freest.
I take the first kiosk I nd on Montague, though it's not
,i___
26 ADAM STERNBERGH
really right to call it a kiosk. It s just a screen on a pole, With
a metal keyboard sticking out, and a stool on an angle like a
cactus arm.
I take a seat, tap a key, and swipe a paycard to get started.
Not my paycard, of course. Belongs to a car salesman, name
of Sidney, who lives out in Canarsie. Or, rather, lived. Appar-
ently, Sidney rubbed someone the wrong way. Who knows.
Maybe sold them a lemon.
In any case, paycard works ne.
I log on and run a search for AMPERSAND+TATTOO. Get
back a bunch of photos, but nothing promising. College lit
majors, mostly, showing off frosh week mistakes;
So I run a search instead for AMPERSAND+BROOKLYN.
Same deal. One listing for a local bar for bookish types, long
since closed. "
Behind me, coming down Henry Street, I hear sirens,
which is unwelcomefTwin cop cars doppler past in a hutry,
lightsrwhirling, whoop-whooping like a war party, heading
south.
I guess the butler nally found Mr Harrow.
I pull out the glove the butler gave me.
Examine his shaky sketch.
81.
Think again about what he told me.
A shhook. Twisted into the shape of an eight.
I run a search for AMPERSAND+EIGHT+TATTOOIStill
nothing. '
Then just AMPERSAND+EIGHT.V Find a jazz combo in
Queens
Then AMPERSAND+FISHHOOK.
Actually, ISHHOOK.
F key doesn t work.
5HOVEI. READY 27
Fucking kiosks.
So I type inAMPERSAND+HOOK instead.
Bingo.
It s a missed connection, of the type that litter the Internet.
Cute~girl-I-saw you-reading on the-subway kind of thing.
This one says: You, burly type with a fondness for whis-
key. Me: cat s eye glasses, matchingyou drink for drink. Not
sure, but I swear we had a moment at night s end out in the
street waiting for a car service, in the light of the neon am
persand. If I was right, meet me tonight back at the Bait &
Switch in Red Hook. You bring the bait. I'll bring the switch?
Run a search on the Bait 81 Switch, which turns out to be a
titty bar down in Red Hook, with a knock three-times,
private-members S&M room in backawitches, riding crops,
cat o -nine tails, bullwhiplehateveryour pleasure, they've
got a cabinet, and it s verywell stocked?
And also, possibly, an outreach program. Job placements
for wayward teenage girls.
Service jobs. "
Maybe my tattooed henchman is an extremely loyal em-
ployeeIWho recruits reluctant women. Ungently.
Long shot, I know, but I write the address down anyway,
then log off
Ball up the butler s stained white glove.
Drop it down the sewer.
Same place I m headed, more or less.
It's well past dark by the time I start walking down the water
front. Not the safest walk at this hour, and the shortest route
on foot would be straight down Columbia Street. But I still
can t bring myselfto walk down Columbia Street.
Personal reasons.
So I take the scenic route, winding through Cobble Hill
and Carroll Gardens, past the blocks of boarded up and
blacked out brownstones. Occasional bon re burns in a bay
window. Nearly all the trees on these picturesque streets
long since chopped down for salvage or rewood.
Stump lined streets.
If only my Stella could see this. What s come of our old
stomping grounds.
My Stella.
She was my wife.
That s not her real name either. Just a nickname that
stuck. At least between us.
I skip our old block. Give it a wide berth.
Like I said, I like Brooklyn least of all.
And then I nally reach the raised Brooklyn Queens Ex-
pressway, cross under, and head into what s left of Red Hook.
All the wiring s waterlogged, corroded and useless, so there s
not a streetlamp lit in any direction. Streets are dark and the
warehouses derelict, windows all broken by bored kids with
/
sHOVEl READY 29
good aim. In the road, oily water waits in puddles, camped
out by the overstuffed sewers. There s a dead dog smell and,
sure enough, a dead dog, chained to a fence to guard an empty
lot, then left on its leash to starve and fester.
Flies feasting.
Red Hook s version of a welcome mat.
Red Hook sits low on the water, and from some parts you
can see the Statue of Liberty, and supposedly the whole place
used to feel like a frontier town, a refuge to escape to when
the rest of Brooklyn got ooded with money. But then Red
Hook got ooded with water. A few times. Waist-deep sewage
and six-foot-high watermarks staining the walls. Storm of
the century came three times in a decade, so this neighbor
hood was in trouble even before Times Square. After Times
Square, forget it. Anyone with a car and a suitcase headed for
higher ground.
Some people still live here. The poor with no options,
packed into public housing. Hardy stubborn squatter types
who don t mind living in an abandoned row house that s
made up mostly of mold. Business interests that rely on an
element of privacy. Since the oods, the whole neighborhood
stinks like the underside of a wharf. And, like the underside
of a wharf, this allows a certain kind of life to thrive.
My plan is to drop in at the Bait & Switch, knock back a few
drinks, and ask some questions. Maybe I ll even get lucky.
Unearth my Persephone.
Instead I m only halfway down Van Brunt Street when I
stumble on the same pair of police cars I saw back in Brook-,
lyn Heights, with an ambulance besides, all pulled over at
the end of Coffey Street, parked by the Valentino Pier.
Roof lights swirling. Turning the dead-end block into a
disco.
_ _ _V_,_é
30 ADAM STERNBERGH
On the stoops, wall owers watch.
Guess the cops weren't headed to Harrow's after all.
Though I'm not too eager to wander over, in case they re out
on some Lyman Harrow relatedAPB. Then I hear a crackled
command on one cop s walkie-talkie and realize that s not
what they re here for.
Two cops shine their Maglites into the back of an aban
doned van.
Black van. Or blue. Black or blue. Too dark to tell.
Even so, my chest clenches.
Which is weird.
Because what exactly am I worried about?
That someone got to her rst?
Still, no one should go this way. N0t like this.
I shoulder closer through the sparse crowd of mostly
bored onlookers. One cop halfheartedly tries to shoo us all
back while also checking texts on his phone.
Phone chirps. Incoming message. Cop smirks. Funnytext.
I edge to the front of the crowd.
Van's back doors are ung wide open. Blankets piled up
inside.
Body under the blankets, if my eyes see right. Or bodies.
My eyes see right.
EMS guys yank the first stiff from the back.
Not a girl, though.
A man.
Dump him on to a gurney.
Arm ops over the side.
Back of his hand. Atattoo.
81.
So much for leads.
5HOVEL READY 31
First body lays splayed out on the stretcher, bloody and ne
glected, and it's not like TV. No one solemnly says a prayer
or pulls a sheet up over his head. These EMS guys have other
things to worry about, like rolling up another gurney and
pulling the second body from the van.
Also a man. Also mangled.
Signs of serious knife work.
I ask the texting cop what happened. He doesn t even look
up from his phone.
Who knows? Lovers spat? Some random psycho? Ask me,
smells like some homo 69 gone very wrong.
I wince. Play squeamish.
Looks like those guys got slashed to ribbons.
Cop shrugs.
Sometimes passions run high.
Any leads?
Cop looks up nally.
Human garbage lives around here? Take 'your pick. I m
just surprised whoever did this didn t torch the van. Would
have saved us a trip. Let re worry about it.
How long's that van been here?
No more than a few hours, maybe. Only got called in be-
cause some thugs pried the back open, looking to loot it, and
got spooked. Found more thanthey expected and phoned 911.
Not until they d stolen both stiffs wallets, of course. And
stripped out the stereo.
Phone chirps again. New text. Cop smirks again.
I say thanks as I retreat back into the crowd.
Don t really worry about him remembering my face.
I m not that memorable.
Just a garbageman.
V..~
wi
n-
r
-
-
am
»
32 ADAM STERNBERGH
I should have remembered.
Bitch cut myface.
First rule of the runaway. Always carry a blade.
And don t be bashful about using it.
She definitely wasn t bashful.
Which is when I wonder if maybe I ve been underestimat
ing this Persephone.
My Persephone.
Interesting girl.
And still has some claw in her yet.
V,
The Bait & Switch is hard to miss, since it's the last place in
Red Hook, housed in a small brick building at the end ofVan
Brunt Street, on the last block before you walk straight into
the river. And turns out the butler was more right than he
knew. The bar s sign has a bright neon shhook, twisted to
look like an ampersand, between the words BAIT and SWITCH.
Spot it six blocks away. Bar must be running a private gen
erator to get that much wattage out here.
Ampersand blazing like a are sent up over an otherwise
pitch black street.
So if Persephone came this way looking for help, this is the
place she would have ended up.
Assuming she didn t know that this is where those men
were planning to take her in the rst place.
Or that she came this way.
Or that she needed help.
I figure Sherlock and the other cops back there will probably
just call it a night. Didn't seem too concerned With cracking
the Case of the Man with the Ampersand Tattoo.
Couple oflowlifes in avan. Not exactly top priority. And no
one wants to hang out in Red Hook after dark.
Then again, one of the cops might remember that tattoo,
spot this neon sign, and decide to earn a paycheck for once
and maybe poke around.
34 ADAM STERNBERGH
If so, I d like a head start.
Door of the Bait 81 Switch jingles as I head inside.
Sparse weeknight crowd. A few dedicated lonelies parked
at the bar. One couple ghting at a round-top in the corner,
hissing at each other in inside voices. Her: cat s eye glasses.
Him: at least six whiskeys down. Looks like they made their
missed connection after all. I
I claim a stool.
Bartender wanders over. No ampersand tattoos. Just an-
chors on his forearms. Like Popeye.
What can I get you?
I m looking for a girl.
He smiles.
Aren t we all?
She would have come in a few hours ago. Might have looked
scared. Or maybe not.
He unsmiles. Puts a shot glass down in front of me.
Sorry, but I m not paid to notice anything here except
empty glasses.
Fills the shot glass up with whatever s on hand. Some-
thing amber and alcoholic. Screws the cap back on. Anchors
exing.
But ifyou re looking for company, we do have a back room.
Plenty of girls back there. Some of them scared looking. If
that s what you're into.
I toast him with the shot glass.
No thanks. I m good.
Well, why don t I leave you to your drink then? This one s
on the house. Next one you can get somewhere else.
Then he trundles off to tend to the other drunks, like a
gardener pruning a row ofwilted plants.
5HOVEL READY 35
As for me, I'm more or less back at the beginning. NewYork is
big and my Persephone could be anywhere.
Needle in a haystack and that s not even her real name.
So I vow to look in all the usual places, starting with the
bottom ofthis here glass.
I raise the glass. Solemnly promise. I will get to the bot
tom of this.
Down it.
I know it s a cliché to be a hard drinker in my profession.
But it's the one part I do really well.
Well, this, and that other part.
It's just all the stuff in between.
Camps have dried up. Uncle s dead, thanks to me. And she
just left two bodies in a van. Quick and fearless with a blade,
I ll give her that. Technique s rough, but certainly no short-
age of guts. Then again, it's not too hard to take down two
men ifyou ve got a decent sized knife and they don t.
Just start stabbing.
I motion for another round, then remember I m on the
bartender s blacklist.
So if I m a girl, maybe covered in blood, de nitely alone in
the big city, where do I head next?
Tiffany s?
Ifthere was still at Tiffany's.
I guess I could always peek into the bar's back room. In
terview a few of the dominatrices.
Plural of dominatrix. That word I had to look up.
But I m not really in the mood to interrogate regular peo-
ple right now, let alone ones wearing full-leather masks.
With zippers for mouths.
36 ADAM STERNBERGH
I need to get out of Brooklyn.
But I sit a minute more and try to formulate a theory.
011 the run from her father, presumably. Did something bad
enough that he wants her found but he doesn t want her back.
If I can gure out what, that might give me a hint where
she s headed.
Not that I m interested in motives. Just whereabouts.
But my brain s an empty blackboard. There must be a
school for this somewhere. I ll enroll in the morning.
I nish the dregs of my drink.
Pull my coat from the stool-back.
Needle in a haystack. Never did understand that expres-
sion. Fuck searching, just buy another needle
Bells on the door jingle. Like it s Christmas.
Bartender calls out to a squat Hispanic, freshly entered.
Hey Luis. You fuck that girl or What?
There s some amount of dumb luck involved in this under
taking, especially if, like me, you are not a gifted, trail of
bread-crumbs kind of guy.
Dumb luck.
You just have to accept it and hope it comes when you
need it.
Sometimes in the form of a squat Hispanic.
Luis is a livery cabdriver. Livery cab being a fancy way of
saying Crown Victoria in need of new shocks. Apparently
they still run livery cabs across the bridges, what few souls
still make that journey.
Bartender leers while he wipes out a beer stein.
That piece of chicken. Tell me you banged her, Luis.
Luis is quiet.
snovn READY 37
She had blood on her. On her clothes.
I perk up.
We retire to the corner.
Take the two _top vacated by cat s-eyes and the whiskey
connoisseur. They left earlier. Not together. Another missed
connection, I guess.
Two rounds later, Luis tells me he drove this girl all the way
to Central Park. Young, maybe eighteen, maybe younger. Ap
proached him while he was outside the bar, nishing a ciga
rette. He says it was dark and he swears he didn't notice all
the blood on her until they were halfway up the FDR. Caught
the shine of it in the rearview in the sweep of a streetlamp.
At that point, gured it was safer to just keep driving. Left
her at the park s edge. Told her the trip's on him.
Did she saywhere she was going? Back to the camps?
That theory doesn t sit right with me, but why not cross it
off rst.
Luis shakes his head.
No. Somewhere else. To Bethlehem.
To Bethlehem?
That s right. That's what she said. To Bethlehem.
Buy Luis another round. Settle up with old anchor arms.
That's not what she said. She said Bethesda. But close
enough.
Luis is in no mood to take a second trip back into the city but
he drops me off at the F and I settle in for a long slow journey
on the rattling train.
The park is long since dark.
The angel of Bethesda watches over a barren fountain, the
38 ADAM STERNBERGH
water nally turned offyears ago. One wing stolen, the other
half broken. Her face spray painted red, as in shame.
A girl in a bundle at the base of the fountain.
I step in.
Hello Persephone.
She looks up. Hooded sweatshirt, frayed denim, Doc Mar
tens. Blond curls matted. Hands balled in pockets. Face tear-
damp. Voice steady.
I ve had a long day, I have a knife, and I m not looking for
trouble.
Pocket moving. Like she s tightening a grip.
I step closer.
Mind on that blade.
I m not here to hurt you.
Which is exactly the opposite of true.
I
a 7/
Whatever s going to happen, it's not happening here.
I coax her up.
She stands. Jeans cut to mid calf. Docs look like hand-
me downs. Technicolor laces. Like a dreamcoat.
Hands balled in hoodie pockets. Still got that knife some
where.
Not sure how to make the introduction. Friend of your
father doesn't seem like a promising opener. Friend of your
uncle, even less so.
I work with an outreach program for kids.
God, I hardly half believe this even as I say it.
You look like you could use a hot meal.
There is no part of her that trusts me. But every part of
her wants that meal. Every part of her wins. She hoists up a
knapsack that maybe used to be pink. Half a rainbow decal
with a little pony, peeling.
Motions with her chin, hands still balled.
You lead.
I walk out the west side, her ve paces behind me. The park
is dark and dead and, on the streets, it s no different. Not a
soul on the sidewalk and it s not even eleven. Doormen sit
behind glass, watch us pass, shotguns propped on their laps
like homesteaders. Cop cars sail by, sirens wailing, but we
could shoot up a are and they won t stop.
40 ADAM STERNBERGH
Most of the restaurants on Amsterdam shut down in the
past few years, once the moneyed types stopped eating out.
Now there s two shuttered businesses for every one still
open, big gaps in a rotting smile. But there s still a coffee
counter here and there, in among the army surplus stores.
Posters hawking half price gas masks and Geiger counters,
with a voucher for a free donut next door.
I know a place, the American Century, popular with
nurses. The lively clatter of steerage. The servant class, be-
tween shifts.
We take a booth.
Where you from?
South.
How longyou been here?
Afew weeks. I came for the camps.
How d that work out?
Not so good.
So what s next?
I don t know. I m not coming With you though.
Not an option. In any case. Though I do have a room.
Dirty ngers disembowel a white dinner roll. Stuff it in
like it's medicine.
Looks like you could use a manicure at least.
Fuckyou. You sleep three weeks in a park, see what it does
to your cuticles.
Just an observation.
You re a beautician too?
I dabble.
Quick smile. Despite herself.
Then I ll take a mani pedi both, ifyou re offering.
Well, that I can't promise. But I do have a clean bed. An
extra bed, I mean.
V
SHOVEl READY 41
Wait, don't you work for some kind of shelter? For way
ward teens?
I thought you might be tired of sleeping in open spaces
with a bunch of people you don t know. I have a guest room at
my place. Door locks too.
And where are you?
Hoboken. I m a Jersey boy. Like Sinatra.
On her second roll, eating quickly.
Who s Sinatra?
I don t usually do it this way, just so you know. I don t track
people down and then take them out to dinner. I prefer if it
works the same way on both ends ofthe job. The less interac-
tion, the better.
But Whatever you think of me, Which by now may not be
much, I m not going to cut a woman open in Bethesda Foun
tain. Or a diner bathroom. I prefer when I find them dream-
ing in their beds.
And yes, I m sorry to bring that up, but that is what I m
here to do. It's a real conversation stopper, I know. You may
say, how can you do it? That s not a question I usually enter-
tain. But remember what I said.
I don t know these people.
I m just a bullet.
Rolls, soup, cheeseburger, cake. Tears through it like she s
eating for two.
Two bills to the waitress.
We're about ready to head out.
I want to ask her how old she is. Though I haven t had
much luck with that question today. Truth is, I realize there s
a small chance she s too young. Too hard to tell anymore.
42 ADAM STERNBERGH
Every fourteen-year-old a supermodel, every forty-year old
still trying to pass for a teen. My Little Pony backpacks used
to be a reliable indicator. Same with heels and belly pierc-
ings. No more.
Maybe the voice on the phone lied. And if she s not eigh
teen, that means I take her home, set her up with a hot
shower, maybe bus fare, let her sleep eight hours for the rst
time in weeks.
If she is eighteen, same thing, except no shower or bus
fare, and she ll sleep a lot longer than that.
Waitress brings my change.
It s silly, I know. This xation on birthdays. But tell that
to a kid with a learner s permit. Or a kid signing up for the
draft.
And as much as I m starting to maybe hope it s not the
case, if she is eighteen, she s an adult. And deserves to be
treated as such.
So I spill it.
How old are you anyway?
Why? Are we going to vote?
Hostel regulations. Overnight guests. Children adults.
You can stay either way. It s just for bookkeeping purposes.
Head counts. That kind ofthing.
She shifts in the booth. Like she s wondering which way
to play this.
Swipes back a dirty curl.
Proudly age of majority. Just had my eighteenth a few
weeks back. That s partly why I headed to NewYork.
Happy birthday.
Figured it was time to blow out my candles, New York
style.
Greatest city on Earth. Once upon a time.
hr IV'w*rfm **~7
7 , , I
, ,
W/
SHOVEI. READY 43
She squirms a little in the booth.
I think I might take you up on that extra room after all. If
the offers still open.
Of course.
I watch her dirty face. I ll let her have the hot shower, at
least.
And the door locks, you said?
Of course.
Well, then so should we get going?
You're not lying to me are you?
She smiles. A glimmer of trust.
No, I m not. I m eighteen. Freshly minted grown-up.
I leave a fat tip on the tabletop. Some kind of penance, I
guess.
She shifts again, restless.
Damn, I just can't get comfortable. And it s so hot 1n here.
Are you hot?
She slides out of the booth. I sit still.
She stands. Empties out her hoodie pockets. Lays an un-
derfed coin purse on the table, looking skinny. Next to that, a
ve inch bowie knife in a stained leather sheath.
Parting gift from my father. Don t worry. I know how to
use it. But I won t.
I sit still.
Girl alone in the big city. You understand. .
She slips the knife in her boot. Unzips her hoodie. Flaps 1t
back like a cape.
God, that s better. Sorry, I get these ashes.
Hands on hips. Leans back.
Baby bump.
The way it happened was, it started as business software.
Some kind of fancy teleconferencing gimmick. Clunky hel-
mets, silly goggles, but once you plug in, it was pretty amaz
ing. 3D around a table. Avatars that look surprisinglylikeyou,
Pick a tie, any color. Your choice. Dreams really do come true.
That was maybe ten years back.
And if we ve learned anything in this onee proud world,
it s that once someone gures out how to do something as
miraculous as that, it s only a matter of time before someone
else soups it up so you can use it to suck a horse s cock. In
pretend land.
Or run a brothel. Or be a holy Roman emperor.
In pretend land.
Soon people were running around, half centaur, or
space alien furry, 0r Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or what have
you. Fucking Chewbacca.
Literally fucking Chewbacca.
Then they got rid ofthe helmets and goggles and made the
whole thing about a thousand times more convincing and all
you had to do was get in a bed. But beds are expensive. From
basic model to deluxe silver bullet. The basic ones are just
tricked-out cots, but the top end are like shiny half cofhns,
personal escape pods, with a bunch oftouch screens to guide
you into the dream, sensors to putyou under. Full immersive
experience.
As real as real.
5HOVEL READY 45
That's the pitch.
As for the specs, I can t tell you. I m not an IT type. And
I've only been in a bed a few times.
Not the deluxe kind either.
Anyway, they gure out that this is clearly where the
money is. But the bandwidth required is huge. So they build
another network, call it the limnosphere, everything shifts,
and they leave the boring old Internet for the rest of us. In
ternet goes to seed, of course, but the rich don t care, because
the rich are now lost in the limnosphere. It s like the Inter
net but better, much better, because it s an Internet you can
live inside. Or the rich can. The costs are astronomical, of
course, but then again, that s why they call them the rich.
After that, the math is pretty easy. Thirteen hours in rst
class from NewYork to Tokyo, or slip into a bed and holdyour
meeting in minutes, with you at the head of the board table,
glowing like a gladiator pumped up on steroids and Cialis.
Drop twenty thousand on diminishing returns at the plas
tic surgeon, mending the same old curtains, or spend it on a
month-pass t0 the limnosphere, sashayingdown ParkAvenue
like Marilyn Monroe s prettier sister. With a leopard s tail.
ln pretend land.
Still, it was just part of life for the first while. An addictive,
maddening, seductive, destructive part of life, but part of
life. They called it limning, or tapping in, or going off-body,
or whatever, and most people dipped in and out. For the rst
while.
But after the second attacks and the dirty bomb? Then .
the rich just up and disappeared. White ight, except they
didn t go anywhere. They just drew the curtains and retired
to their beds full-time. Hire a nurse to checkyourVitals, sign
up for the weekly feed bags, station armed guards to watch
46 ADAM STERNBERGH
the gates, and goodnight moon. Goodnight stars. Goodnight
world.
That was maybe ve years ago.
Mypoint being, usuallyhowthis works is I get a name, nd
an address, let myself in quietly, and introduce myself po
litely to an old man s atrophied body in a coffin that's already
haIf assembled. Even ifthe old man is onlythirty. Feed bags
will keep you alive, but they won't help you keep your youth-
ful glow. Or your hair. When you start Iimning full time and
go on permanent bed rest, you pretty much leave your body
behind. .
So you lie there, half mummified and lightly drooling.
And unfortunately for you, someone back here in the nuts
and bolts world has decided they can t let that grudge slide
after all. And they found my number. And I found you.
Quick slit with the box cutter and it s all over.
Except maybe not. N0t in the dream.
There is a theory, unprovable I guess, that when you die,
there s a last little burst of neural activity. The brain s last
helpless, hopeless little sigh. Normally, this would be your
blown kiss to a cruel world as you exit, stage left.
Yes, I did a play in high school. Mitch in Streetcar, if you
must know. Would have made a better Stanley.
But ifyou're in the limnosphere, in the dream, at that last
moment, this little burst of brain activity loops. Your final
seconds skip forever like a record. Even after they unplug
the mummy and cart it to the furnaces. You remain as a data
burp, hiccupping, some tiny line of code still in the dream.
And you don't know this. That s the theory. You're just
stuck in that last moment, an eternal rightfucking now, end
lessly repeating for however long the batteries of this planet
hold their juice.
\/
5HOVEL READY 47
NO one knows if it s true, of course, because howwould you
test it? They say they have programmers combing the code
for these little hiccups, but most of their resources are on
other things. Like developing newer, better, more tactilely
realistic horse cocks.
But it s true enough that some people try to game it. After
awhile they re not happy enough with just the dream. They
pick a program, their ultimate fantasy. Movie star. Fuck your
neighbor. Crowd roar when you take the podium on Inaugu-
ration Day. Or sight the podium in your ri e-scope. I don t
know. That one fantasy you can never say out loud to anyone.
The one moment you would happily live in forever.
They time it out to the second. Hire someone to stand by.
Lean in. Make sure the lids are uttering. Clock hits zero.
Put you down.
Sounds weird, I know. But then again, people used to hang
themselves while jerking off.
Funny thing is, most people choose real-life memories.
Your husband turns around in the airport, back from the
war, and it's really him. Your miracle mother comes out of
her coma. You cut class and the bedroom door swings open
and your high-school crush nally drops her dress. What
people want is to live in that heart swell ofI can't believe this is
happening, over and over again.
Black market agencies sell this sérvice. Split second tim-
ing. Our watchers are the industry s best. Results guaran-
teed.
Iftheyfail, who's goingto tattle? You re lost in a lo0p some
where, your needle bobbing on the inner edge of the record,
at the far shore of a vast ocean of black.
So you better hope they loop the right moment.
Because if they miss, that person standing over you,
1/
48 ADAM STERNBERGH
watchingyou fall into the dream, if they miss, even by a mo
ment, half a moment, or just a breath, then you re stuck, and
your husband never turns around and you never know if he
made it, or your mother stays sunk in her coma with you an
chored bedside worrying, or you stare at that bedroom door
forever, knob trembling, wondering what s about to come in.
I choose not to believe it. Seems too convenient, and besides,
if I buy that, then I might believe I m not ending someone.
I m just pausingthem, maybe inthe happiest moment they've
ever had.
That seems cheap. It's a cop-out. So I think of it the
other way.
Most of them have already given up on this world, the
nuts and bolts world. This party s over and they've moved on
to the after party. They've left their bodies behind.
I'm just sweeping up.
In any case, that is what I am used to. All jobs don t go like
that, obviously. But you d be surprised how much overlap
there is between people with the money and desire to disap
pear into pretend extravagance forever, and people who want
those people dead.
What I am not used to is eighteen-year old runaways car-
rying bowie knives and babies.
But that s fine.
Because she s pregnant.
So our business here is done.
I kill men. I kill women because I don t discriminate. I don't
kill children because that s a different kind of psycho.
And while I ll admit I ve never tested this particular sce-
SHovu READY 49
nario in practice, I think it s safe to say that pregnantteenag-
ers fall under the category of a different kind of psycho.
Harrow I can handle. Sometimes circumstances change.
My policy in this regard is actually pretty simple. I give back
the money. What you do then is your business. As for me and
the girl?
Our paths uncross.
In the meantime, though, what I can do is offer her that hot
Shower after all. And a bed. And bus fare. And maybe waf es
for breakfast.
Back here in the nuts-and boIts world, we can't all be holy
Roman emperors. But we do enjoy a waf e now and then.
Like I said, I live in Hoboken. Jersey boy. Like Sinatra. I
wasn t making that up.
And I did play Mitch. Would have made a better Stanley.
Hated learning lines though. Hated crowds. Hated acting,
basically. Enjoyed kissing the girl who played Stella though.
One day as a stand-in.
And my dad was a garbageman. An actual garbageman, I
mean. So after high school I followed him into that line of
work.
And I married the girl who played Stella.
My Stella.
Better than any encore.
PATH trains to Jersey shut down years ago, half the under
ground tunnels collapsed. No one commutes from Jersey to
Manhattan anymore.
So I own a boat.
Just a rowboat with an outboard. Look it up with a heavy
50 ADAM STERNBERGH
chain at a west-side pier. I give Persephone a handkerchief
to tie over her mouth like an outlaw. I do likewise. This time
of year, you don t want to be drinking the Hudson. Not even
spray.
Any time ofyear, for that matter.
Then Iyank the cord and we cross state lines.
Behind us:
American Century, with a CLOSED sign. Which is weird,
because it s 24. hours.
Counterman sighs, expecting a hold-up, knows the proto-
cols, starts scooping out bills from the tray.
Southern gentleman asks in a Southern accent about a
young pregnant girl, possibly with a man.
Counterman shrugs.
Waitress is more helpful.
I seen them.
That s what a big tip gets you these days.
Heard something about Hoboken. Sinatra. Girl didn t
even know who he was.
Says it in a tone ofwhat's this world coming to, am I right?
Southern gentleman nods.
Much obliged.
She smiles back.
Smile distended in the convex of the aviators. Clownish.
Also distended: Her blood, her brains, on the back wall,
like a thrown pie.
Turns the long revolver on the counterman. Like a divin-
er's rod, seeking water.
Finds blood.
/
The apartment is palatial, just because everyone cleared out.
,After Times Square, nance types were the rst to evacuate.
Packed up their pinstripes and skedaddled. For them, Times
Square was like a roach bomb, sent them scurrying, either to
full time bed-rest or safer cities or both. Most even left the
furniture behind.
Their hasty exit, my real-estate opportunity. For a few
months there, after Times Square, when no one thought any
one would stay, you change the locks on a place, it s basically
yours. Mayor declared a tenant amnesty, a homesteader s
free for all. Disputes got settled with st ghts, not leases,
and the cops were otherwise occupied. It settled down even
tually. Turned out there was plenty to go around.
Come reelection time, the mayor clamped down. Ban on a
platform of rebuilding and rebirth. Stood on a dais and de
clared the city shovel ready. I think he was right, but not in
the way he meant.
I probably could have moved to Park Avenue if I'd wanted
to, but it felt like the right time to retreat across the river.
Always preferred this side, in any case. Even if it means you
need to own a boat.
And there s no more Wall Street, not in NewYork.'There s
stillthe actual street, inthe city, thatyou canwalkon, but that
financial part? Moved elsewhere. London, Beijing, Seoul. For
awhile, they tried swapping stocks in the limnosphere, set
/
52 ADAM STERNBERGH
up a virtual exchange, but there were too many distractions,
too much money to be made indulging other vices. So they
set up a separate network and do all that money-swapping
somewhere overseas. All the bankers and brokers relocated.
Good riddance. And thanks for the divan.
Okay, divan is a word I had to look up. A visiting lady
friend said it to me once. Said she admired it.
My hand-me-down divan.
Persephone is admiring my divan. Stretched out, leaning
back on it, more obviously pregnant. White wifebeater under
the unzipped hoodie, revealing a sliver of belly. I d guess
maybe ve months. Like I m a doctor now.
I give the tour.
Room back there. Lock on the door, as promised. Bath
room s there. Clean towels etcetera. I sleep out here.
Thanks.
Hugs the guest pillow to her chest. Asks an obvious ques-
tion.
Why are you being so nice to me?
It was a sad day when people started to ask that routinely,
don t you think?
She laughs.
I don t really remember when they didn t.
You have a change of clothes?
She shakes her head. Unzips the rainbow knapsack with
the decal of My Little Pony. I half expect a tinier pony to
come out.
Instead, a bottle and diaper inside.
You won t need those for awhile.
I know. I just like having them with me. Remind me why
I m doing this, you know?
5HOVEL READY 53
Makes sense.
The knapsack was mine when I was a little girl. Always
made me feel safe. I hope to pass it on, if she s a girl.
Looks a little worse for wear.
Yeah, well. I couldn t nd the part of Central Park with the
Laundromat.
She smiles.
You re not from some youth hostel, are you?
Me? No. I am from Hoboken though.
Are you going to hurt me?
No.
Were you going to hurt me?
This one s tougher. I say no. Because I would have tried to
make it painless. Still a lie, I know.
Well, thank you. For your help. I haven t met too many
people here who would help me.
Not a problem.
You listen to music?
No.
What do you listen to?
I hold up a hand. Moment of silence.
The city quiet.
I listen to that.
Lot of people tapped in here, huh?
Yeah. Not most. But a lot.
I guess I should be getting to bed.
Yell ifyou need something. I m a light sleeper.
She looks me over. Then asks.
How old are you anyway? I told you. It's only fair.
Me? I m you, plus fteenyears.
She winces. Laughs again.
God, I hope not.
1/7
54 ADAM STERNBERGH
Morning. Makingwaf' es.
I mix batter, then head down to the street corner. Pick up
takeout coffees, bagels, and the Post. Three comforts that
outlived the apocalypse. DailyNews went under and the Times
long since disappeared into the limnosphere. Now it s just a
ticker running through rich people s dreams.
But God bless the Post. They still publish. On paper.
I get back, she s up and dressed. Left her a sweatshirt,
which on her grew into a dress.
Sorry about the t. All my clothes are garbageman clothes.
It's clean. It s great.
You sleep okay?
Yeah. About three weeks worth.
She giggles.
What?
You have a waf e iron.
Yes I do.
You don t really strike me as a waffle iron kind of guy.
Best way I ve found yet for making waf es.
Can't argue with that.
It was a gift. From my wife.
Eyebrow arches like a cornered cat.
Really; And where s she?
Deceased.
I m sorry.
Cat relaxes. But slowly.
I slide a waf e on her plate.
So what s next?
I m not sure. I've thought about Canada.
Last I heard, border s closed.
Yeah. I heard that too.
suovu READY 55
Plates cleared, coffee drained, waf es eaten.
Me doing dishes.
What can I say? I don t mind. I have a dishwasher too.
Never used.
I like to clean up my own mess, as a rule.
She wanders over to the fridge while I'm not paying atten-
tion.
Stainless steel. Sub-Zero. A remnant from the Wall Street
types.
You got any ice cream?
She glances over.
So sue me. I m pregnant.
Opens the freezer.
Inside, a single Ziploc baggie. Inside the Ziploc, a butcher
paper-wrapped package, about the size of a brick.
Cat arches again, but playful.
What s this? Your secret stash?
I step over right quick.
That? N0.
She pulls the baggie out. Holds it up. Laughing now.
Teasing.
What, you deal coke? Is that how you afford this place?
I snatch the bag back.
No. I do a bit of butchering.
Really?
It s a hobby.
Cool. So what's that? Please tell me it s bacon.
No. Not bacon. Just bones. For stock.
Well, look at you, Mr Julia Child. Let me know ifyou rustle
up some bacon. I m not a big meat eater but I ve had weird
cravings of late.
56 ADAM STERNBERGH
Rubs her belly. ,
I stash the bag. Close the freezer. Step between her and it,
Try to smile.
Can t let the cold out.
I don t have manyvisitors. So I get sloppy. Forget.
A freezer is a very bad place to keep your souvenirs.
lO-
Lazy Sunday. Me in an armchair. Her on the sofa With Sports.
Regular Cleavers.
I ip through the Post.
A22. Tiny item.
DEATH DINER DOUBLE SLAY.
The American Century.
I fold the paper back. Read it. Fill in the parts between the
lines.
Surveillance tape caught him: Buzz cut. Aviators. Left the
cash in the cash drawer.
Odd detail. Before he left, everyone dead, he bolstered the
pistol.
Stopped at the sink.
Washed his hands.
Buzz cut. Aviators.
Fondness for rearms.
This must be Mr Pilot.
Retracing our steps.
Bus-fare option doesn t seem like an option anymore.
I fold the paper up, slide it under the chair.
You know, you could stay here again tonight. A few more
nights. I ve got plenty of sweatshirts.
She yawns. Stretches out on the leather. Leather squeaks.
1/
53 ADAM STERNBERGH
I just might.
Turns her head. Freshly showered hair.
Might even learn how to sleep With the door unlocked. If
you re lucky.
Well, you re welcome to. Stay, I mean.
I gotta askyou again. Why are you being so nice to me?
Everyone s got to be nice to someone, right?
I getup. Pretend I'm tidyingthe kitchen. Tryto plot plan B.
She turns back to Sports. Then stops. Sits up.
Stares me down.
My father sent you. Didn t he?
I stand like a dummy. With a dishcloth.
Who?
You know who. T. K. Harrow. Man of God.
I'm not religious.
Don t fuck with me. He sent you. It s the only way this
makes sense. .
I m no good at lying. Same as acting.
Yes. He sent me. To nd you.
(Technically true.)
And do what with me?
Keep you safe.
(Less true. Much less true.)
Bring me back?
Something like that.
She sits up straight. Picks up the bowie knife in its sheath
from the coffee table.
Turns it in her ngers.
Well, let me tell you about how things work in my fam-
ily, just so you know what kind of people you re working for.
I stopped in on my uncle. In Brooklyn. For help? You know
what he did for me?
(More acting. I hate this.)
_d
SHovELREAuv 59
No.
Set me up on a blind date. A double date. With two rapists.
Or white slaversi Sex trade assholes. Who the fuck knows?
Sounds like a charmer.
Lucky for me, the only place they didn t want to stick their
grubby hands was in my boot.
She pulls the blade from the stained sheath.
Last I saw them, they were bleeding in a van in Red Hook.
I affect a shrug. Hapless Mitch all over again.
Sounds like they got better than they deserve.
She inspects the blade.
Does come in handy.
Sheaths it.
As for my father. The great T. K. Harrow? Leader of men?
Pastor of sheep? Instrument of God?
Pulls the blade out again.
You ve probably seen him on TV, right?
Don t watch TV.
That s okay. He s got bigger plans than that. Do you know
what you ve gotten yourself into? Do you have any idea what
kind of man my father is?
I m starting to get some idea.
No. I don t thinkyou do.
Sheaths the blade.
But ifyou re on his payroll, you should know.
Puts the sheath down.
He s my father.
Pulls her knees up. Hugs them hard.
Yes. I know. I know he s your father.
No. You heard me wrong.
Hugs them harder. Arms round her knees. Arms round
her baby,
I said, he s the father. He's the father. That s what I said.
11.
I worked as a garbageman for tenyears, more or less. Lost my
father, myunion card, and my marbles, in roughly that order.
Father went first. Died of a heart attack he worked a life
time to earn. Strict regimen of smoking, bacon, and televi
sion. Man loved his Jets. Claimed they were Jersey s team.
Forty five millionaires in green helmets somewhere, carry-
ing his heart into battle every week.
He didn't die on the job, thank God, stink of other people s
garbage inhis nose, notthathewould have cared. Whenpeople
asked his line of work, he never faltered. It was a good union
wage and he wanted the same for me. My rst day, he took me
out to the truckyard, pulled the gloves on, drew a deep breath.
Smell that? That s security, son.
He was felled too young, in his own backyard. The plot of
ground he d bought by hauling other people's trash,
Barely room enough to fall down.
My mother sat on his chest, pumping, wailing, waiting for
an ambulance that came ten minutes too late. Two streets
with the same name. One avenue, one lane.
They picked wrong.
My mother tried. She was a nurse. Not the kind that fix
feed tubes to rich people either.
By then I d married my Stella. A Jersey girl, she swore never
to live inJerseyby choice. I said Queens. She said Manhattan.
,____ _ ,e/___Fh
snovu READY 61
We split the difference and ended up in Brooklyn. Carroll
Gardens. South, down by the expressway. The part that s not
so gardeny.
My parents wanted to see a family. We were trying, but we
weren t in a rush. We tried long enough to worry something
might be wrong, but then we decided to stop worrying. We
were young. My Stella wanted to be an actress. She rode the
train to Times Square every day. Acting class in a shabby
studio. Half my union wage.
I rode a route up through brownstone Brooklyn. Nicer
neighborhood than we could afford. Nicer garbage too.
Boys on my truck gave us a nickname for a joke. Not gar-
bagemen.
Trash valets.
It s hokey but it s true. You learn things hauling trash.
Lesson one. Don t buy cheap bags. They always tear. If not
in your hands, then in mine; N0 discount bag ever went to its
grave without being loudly cursed along the way.
Lessontwo. There is nothing, and no one, thatyouwill be
come attached to in this life thatyou will not one day discard.
Or they discard you.
Or you die.
Those are the only three outcomes.
A bartender I know once quoted me a poem, by a guy
named Idol or something similar.
Every human being who's ever lived has died, except the living.
Lesson three.
You ll leave a trail of trash on this Earth that will far ex
ceed anything of worth you leave behind. For every ounce of
heirloom, you leave a ton of landfill.
That s not a poet. That's me.
62 ADAM STERNBERGH
What can I say? Sometimes you re on the toilet and you've
already read all the magazines. Inspiration hits.
But that s the lesson. Your real legacy will be buried in a
dump somewhere.
And the richer you are, the more trash you leave behind.
After the first attacks, the ones on 9/11, so they tell me,
they took the rubble of the towers to a land ll.
Fresh Kills.
Sifted through it, searching for bodies. Bits ofbodies. Bits
of bits. Did their best and found what they could and left the
rest of it there, buried.
True story.
Land ll became a graveyard.
The land ll doesn t care.
Never more than a whisper of difference between them to
begin with.
Every garbageman has funny stories of stuff he s found on
the job, of course. False teeth, brand new atscreen still in
the box, a fake leg, a stuffed ferret. A double ended dildo
switches on, leaps out of the bag, twistinglike an electric eel.
Stuff like that.
People don t know what to do with something, they toss it
in the trash. Brush off their hands. Expect it to disappear.
Like magic.
Every garbageman has a funny story like that.
Here s mine.
We ran a route that looped past the crane yards by Columbia
Street. Not six blocks from Long Island Hospital. We were
done for the day and doubling back.
I was on the rear, riding shotgun. Like I m security on a
Wells Fargo stagecoach.
i,
SHOVEl READY 63
We roll past three bags, dropped in a vacant lot. Look like
dim-Sum dumplings sitting there. Illegally dumped. People
miss their day so they hump their trash down the block. Can't
stand the stink in the kitchen. Commonplace. These jokers
couldn t even be bothered to drag the bags to the dumpster,
maybe twenty yards away. Property of a private disposal
company.
Company name stenciled on the dumpster.
SPADEMAN.
Bags in the dumpster are not our problem.
These three bags. Our problem.
Technically our shift's done. Plus no one s watching.
Still, I slap the side of the truck twice.
Driver stops.
Figure, our job is to keep the city looking nice. I'm a new
neighbor here.
Let s make it look nice.
Pick one bag up, swing it overhead like a hammer toss. For a
laugh.
Fling it in.
Second bag, swing it sidearm like David's slingshot,
sighting Goliath.
Bullseye.
Third bag.
Lift the bag.
Funny heft.
Lower it. Slowly.
, Though the God's honest truth is that I never would have
opened it if I hadn t heard the gurgle.
\t f,
64 ADAM STERNBERGH
They must have chickened out. Thought the plastic bagwould
nish it.
Cheap bags.
Always tear.
I carried a box-cutter to slash problem trash. Unbroken
boxes, tangled twine. Shit like that.
Popped the blade up. Sliced the bag as carefully as I could.
Like surgery.
Peeled the bag back.
Baby still breathing, barely.
That s my funny story.
First and last time I ever held a baby in my arms.
Not six blocks from Long Island Hospital.
They could have left the baby on the front door, rung the
bell, run.
Instead, vacant lot became a land ll. Became a graveyard.
So they hoped. I
Six blocks.
So I took the trip they couldn t be bothered to take.
In some otherversion ofthe story, I adopted the baby. Named
it. Raised it with mywife as our own. Told it the story, when it
was old enough, of Baby Moses, left in the bulrushes, the one
I learned in church as a kid.
This isn t that story.
I left the baby at the hospital. With a nurse. Answered a
few questions. Signed a few forms. Went home to my wife.
Didn't check back. Didn t want to know.
And didn t tell my Stella until she read about it the next
day in the Post.
5HOVEL READY 65
Saw another item in the Post a few days later.
BAG BABY BUBIAL.
Buried deep inside the paper.
Not even front-page news.
They needed a scandal. Baby left in a garbage bag? Story like
that demands a villain. Someone to wear the black hat.
NO one knew who left it. So that left me.
Post said I found it. Dumped it at the ER.
Didn't do enough.
Didn t even stick around to see if it would be okay.
I took a six month leave. Union mandated. Half pay.
Weekly psychiatric consultations.
Daily visits to the bar.
Nightly nightmares.
Then the mayor nally busted the union. I tore up my card
and cancelled my next visit to the shrink.
And I went back to work.
Someone s got to pay for all those acting lessons.
Even my Stella didn t understand. Not really.
She let it be. But I could tell.
Guys on the job too. Even the guys on my truck. Guys who
were there.
Figured at the very least you stay. Cheer that baby back to
life.
Maybe they re right.
Truth is, I wasn t going to sit in a waiting room so a
nurse could tell me that the baby I just found in a garbage
bag died.
66 ADAM STERNBERGH
I peeled that bag open so carefully it was like I was deliv
ering my own baby.
So scared ofwhat I would nd inside.
I couldn t do that twice. Wait for news. Wait to know. 12.
Sit there. Hunched over. Waiting.
Clutching my garbageman gloves. '
In the waiting room. :
With all the other expectant dads. Pass me not 0 gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry.
Whilst on others thou art calling,
D0 not_pass me by.
Street-corner church service. Soap box preacher. Big crowd.
More popular in these end times.
Persephone s news put me back on my heels.
I don t like to be back on my heels.
First response, usually, is extend my box cutter, find
someone to apply it to.
But that will not help in this situation. Much.
What I need is information. So I call my newspaper buddy.
Rockwell.
The one who says I m always burying the lede.
I leave Persephone at the apartment, tell her don t open the
door for anyone, no matter what.
Then I meet Rockwell at a bar on Washington. Main ar- i
tery in the proud heart of Hob oken. This bar opens early on
Sunday. Most do. It s not crowded inside, but it s not empty
either. A different kind of communion.
Bartender's the owner. My poet-quoting friend, Sebas-
tian, from the Dominican. Named for the saint. So he says.
68 ADAM SIERNBERGH
Sets us up with two shots.
Rockwell used to work for the Times, then he got fired.
Turns out he has a lying problem, at work and in life. He onCe
told me he s a descendant of the great American painter
Luckily I don t care much either way.
Now he publishes his own paper. The Rockwell Report. Con-
spiracies and coyer ups. He s the sole reporter. You can pick
it up on any street corner. Literally. From a big pile. He leaves
them there. For free.
Also runs a website, of course, on the old-fashioned Inter
net. But he likes the feel of paper, the stink of ink, so he says.
Salvaged two copy machines from a bombed-out Staples
near Times Square. Ran the Geiger counter over them. Only
clicked a little bit, he claims.
Plus he wears horn rims. So at least he looks like a re
porter.
Tell me about T. K. Harrow.
What do you want to know that you don t already know?
Just empty the file.
Okay. Well, he runs that bigchurch down Souththat sounds
like a country singer. Hope Baptist. Hallelujah Hall. Some
thing like that. Wait. Crystal Corral. That s it. So there s that.
What else?
The TV. That s where it all started. And it s lucrative.
That many people still watch TV?
Sure. You should get out of the city more often, you'd be
surprised how many rabbit ears you still see. Not everyone s
ready to jam an IV tube in their arm every time they want
to escape, you know? Plus TV's basically free at least, be-
sides the moneyyou send to your favorite evangelist in a little
white envelope every week. Which adds up.
$H0V READY 69
I guess so.
As for political clout, Harrow runs a weekly Washington
Prayer breakfast that s attended by, like, twelve senators and
forty members of the House. So there s that. He more or less
got our current president elected, first genuine fire and
brimstone Bible-thumper in the White House. So there's
that. And then he s got this new thing. Paved With Gold.
This is good. This is useful. This is enough to buy Rock-
well another round.
Sebastian sets them down.
Paved With Gold. What s that?
It's this limnosphere thing. Signs up converts. Promises
them heaven right now, here on Earth. Why wait, that's the
pitch. Gold mansions. Endless happiness. Harp-playing
fucking angels. All that stuff. Paved With Gold. You know,
like the streets of Glory.
I thought the road to hell was paved with gold.
No. That s good intentions.
But how do people afford it? Abed alone is a fortune. Not to
mention monthly tap in fees, feed bags
Harrow subsidizes. He s got a camp somewhere down
South. Bows and rows of beds. So they say. Limited space,
so he can only accept the elect. How he chooses, God only
knows. It s his earthly mission, he claims. Reason God put
him here. Deliver his people from the torments ofthis bodily
world.
Rockwell empties shot two. For him, two shots is just the
stretching before the marathon.
So how big is his ministry?
How big? The biggest. When you can convince half the US
government to get up at dawn to listen to you tell them what
fucked up sinners they are, that s pretty big. I don t know
J
N 1
W/
70 ADAM STERNBERGH
much about this fake heaven of his, but he s already amassed
enough gold here on Earth to pave plenty of streets. Plus the
political pull. He s got the president s ear. All that stuff. The
only ripples on his pond I ever heard about are his kids. He has
trouble with his daughters. So I hear. The oldest one suppos
edlywentAWOL. Can t rememberher name. Grace something.
Chastity.
Rockwell gives me a look.
Now why in the world would you know that?
Lucky guess. Figure it s got to be one of those virtues. You
know. Constance. Charity.
Funny. Those are his other daughters.
So Why'd she run?
Who knows with kids these days? Broke her curfew?
Daddy wouldn't let her go to prom? Probably got knocked up
by her boyfriend and decided to find some sugar daddy, try
out the trailer life for a little while. No doubt she ll be back
knocking at heaven s gates soon enough.
So where do I find him?
The South?
Seriously.
I think the main Paved With Gold camp is in a Carolina.
North or South can t remember which. Same with the Crys-
tal Corral, the church you see on TV. But he's got satellite
churches everywhere. There s even one in Times Square, or
used to be. Ifyou re looking to convert.
I just want to talk to him. About a job.
Well, if you d like to meet the man in the esh, you don t
have to wait too long. He's headed here, to the city. I figured
that's why you were asking.
What for?
Big crusade. Madison Square Garden. He s even paying to
SHOVEL READY 71
get it cleaned up. Initiative with the mayor. You know, I hear
the place is more lovely since the roof caved in. Supposedly
you look up, you see stars.
And if it rains?
Fuck if I know. Tarps?
When is it? This crusade?
Dude, you ve really got to get yourself a computer.
Downs his third.
I follow suit.
So this Harrow. Does he employ muscle?
Everyone employs muscle, Spademan.
You don t.
No. But I have you.
Rockwell pulls out a notepad. Starts rif ing pages.
I do know of this one guy who works for Harrow. Suppos-
edly a very scary dude. V
I know the one you mean. Southern guy. Call him Pilot.
Wears aviators. Big on hand washing.
No, that s not him. This guy s black. Bearded. Name of
Simon, I think.
Keeps rif ing. Then stashes it.
Must be in my other notebook.
We re both on empty, so I signal Sebastian. Set us up again.
The dread pre noon nightcap.
Bar s cleared out a bit. Brief lull between the first thing
in the a.m. crowd and the afternoon ennui rush.
Ennui. That's Rockwell s word.
Claims its French.
Just two good buddies 0n the Lord's day, enjoying a Sab-
bath drink.
Bellied up to the bar.
Backs to the door.
72 ADAM STERNBERGH
Pilot walks in.
Picks wrong.
Broken hornr-rims skid in the spatter.
Rockwell s forehead hits the bar. Exit wound swallows the
shot glass.
I drop.
Sebastian grabs the sawed off he stores by the Bushmills. I
The shotgun speaks. Barroom.
I roll.
Sebastian martyred by bullets, not arrows, this time.
I scamper t0 the men's room to solemnly reconsider my
predilection for box-cutters.
Predilection. Another Rockwell word.
Lock the door.
Men s room looks out over an alleyway.
Lucky.
By the time Pilot puts two new peepholes in the locked
door with his revolver, I m down the alley, cut right, right
again, circle back to the bar s entrance.
Score one for the local boy.
sun. '
Box cutter.
I peek in the open door. Carefully.
Bar s dark.
Pilot comes back from the men s room.
Aviators look left. Right.
Re ect emptiness.
Walks back behind the bar.
Steps over broken bottles. Over Sebastian.
Stows his revolver in a shoulder holster.
Stops at the sink.
Washes his hands.
I
S ovELREADY 73
Half a block away, two patrolmen watch the action Iike Heckle
and Jeckle on a wire.
Jersey s Finest.
Like most cops, like the whole of the NYPD, they're cash-
strapped and half privatized now, their salaries buoyed by
moneyed interests with the city crying poor. So their main
job is to stand watch and make sure the dreamers on the
upper oors aren t disturbed. As for us carcasses down here,
down in the grimy urban mosh pit, they don t much care what
we do to each other.
I approach.
You ve got shots fired at that bar on the corner.
We heard. Called it in. Waiting on backup.
I eye the pistol on one cop s belt. His hand instinctively
hovers.
I reach in my pocket. Pull out my slush fund. Peel off a
thousand cash. Then another.
Hoping I ve guessed his caliber.
Mind if I rent your rearm? I d like to make a citizen s
arrest.
Cop looks at me. Looks at his partner.
I feed them their story.
There were ten of them. They overtookyou.
Partner shrugs.
Seems fair to me. So long as you plan to split that.
I stride back through the bar s front door, unloading halfthe
magazine as a herald.
Do serious damage to what s left of the liquor bottles be- >
hind the bar.
Seven shots echo. No one s shooting in here but me.
./
74 ADAM STERNBERGH
And Pilot s gone.
Fuck.
I fire off three more shots. Bottles fall like fainting ladies.
Run back to the apartment, cop s Glock in my waistband.
We ll have to extend this to an all day rental.
Yes, I have my own gun at home. Somewhere.
Thing about guns, in this line of work, they re not all that
useful. Everyone has guns.
So they kind of cancel each other out.
Home. Secret knock. No answer.
Unlock the door. Shoulder it open. Slow.
Gun drawn.
Persephone on the sofa. Her back to me.
Huge headphones on her head like she s communicating
with another planet.
Head bobbing. Eating ice cream.
She turns around.
Heyyou.
Spoons another mound of Rocky Road in her mouth.
I went down to the corner. Hope you don t mind.
Licks the spoon.
What s with the pistolero, Sheriff?
I lock the door behind me. Scan the apartment.
We're alone, right?
Of course. What'd you think? I was goingto throw a party?
I put the cop's gun in the drawer of a side table. Figure I
can return it next time the department holds a toys-for-guns
amnesty campaign.
In other words, I just bought myself a two-thousand-
dollar teddy bear.
5H0VEl READY 75
Packyour stuff.
What stuff?
Your bag. We have to go.
Oh my God, why? This is heaven. This is the most comfy
place I have stayed in weeks. You have a shower! A glorious,
hot water
We have to go. Now.
She holds up her hands, palms out.
Okay. Simmer down, Sarge.
She stuffs the headphones and balled-up laundry into her
backpack. Zips up My Little Pony. Stands.
Still wearing my sweatshirt dress. And Docs.
I frown.
We need to get you some pants.
She slides the knife into her boot.
Don t worry about me. Let's go.
Doesn t ask why. Doesn t ask where.
So she trusts me.
Well that's good.
Not sure if it s smart. But it s good.
I need to stash her with someone I trust, which is a short
list. Someone who can protect her, who has no love for the
Church, and who I know beyond a shadow won t be tempted
to creep up on her in the dark. That list is even shorter.
I do know one guy who quali es. On all counts.
Mark Ray.
The only trouble with Mark is that he s tapped-out daily, 3
bed-rest junkie. So rst you have to nd him. Then you have
to wake him up.
76 ADAM STERNBERGH
I m paranoid about Pilot, so we skip my boat.
Hire a gypsy sloop to run us across the river.
Driver shouts over the outboard.
Destination?
Canal Street.
Canal Street? What for? Haven t you heard? Canal Street s
dead.
I drop the conversation and we chop across the waves.
Persephone hugs my arm, pressing tight against me. Then
again, it s a small boat, I tell myself.
\\l
l/
Canal Street. East side.
What used to be called Chinatown.
Once upon a time, you walked these blocks, you were
wading waist deep in a river of people. The streets stank
0f spoiled seafood and the sidewalks were sticky with sh
oil and ice-melt, dumped at day s end. And from sun-up t0
lights-out, these blocks would sing. Shouting, shuf ing,
haggling, hustling, vendors hawking knock offs, shopkeep
ers harassing you in Cantonese as you pass like you stole
something from them and they wanted it back. Fresh carp
sunbathing on wood crates of packed ice. Hot dumpling soup
for a dollar. Ducks, plucked and bashful, hung on hooks in a
windowpane, like a warning to other outlaw ducks.
N0 more.
Chinatown met the same fate as the city, only more so.
Last generation died off. Next generation moved to Jersey. Or
upstate New York. Or the Carolinas. Or anywhere but here,
downwind from a dirty bomb. Turns out no matter how deep
your root system, you can always pull it up.
Have ducks, will travel.
So Chinatown withered. Went from egg drop to pin-drop.
And the one last viable business in these parts moved in
doors, out of sight, behind peepholes and passwords. And it
caters to a clientele that is very, very quiet.
78 ADAM STERNBERGH
They call them dorms. Quasilegal tap in ops, a hundred
beds to a oor. Not the shiny kind either. Not like Lyman s.
These are jury rigged beds, not much more than cots and
wires. It s strictly BYOFeedbag. Most people here don t care
too much about food.
Mark s dorm of choice is a spot called Rick s Place. Run by
a guy named Rick. The name s a Casablanca nod, mistrans
Iated.
We head inside.
Rick is fortysomething, but he s smoked himself older.
He s half Chinese and skinny as a horsewhip. Wears sil
ver skull rings on every nger and both thumbs. His black
pompadour is coaxed to an impressively rigid sheen and he s
got four facial tattoos. Chinese characters. Forehead, cheek,
cheek, chin.
In answer to your next question, I ve never asked.
He pulls on his cigarette. Cherry ares.
Mr Garbageman. I haven t seen you in a good long while.
You decide to get back on the tap?
Hello Rick.
I tell you what. I ll give you two for-one for you and your
girlfriend? Daughter? Sponsor? You know what? Forget I
asked.
He gives Persephone a double-take.
I see congratulations are in order. Little litter of Spade-
men. Tell you what? Special today. Kids ride for free.
Persephone s perplexed.
How did you
Hey, I m Chinese. I can tell from the soles ofyour feet.
Rick s Asian lady-friend, Mina, comes stumbling out
from a back room. She's a tooI head, like Rick, a technician,
a gizmo, and likes to call herself Mina Machina. Long black
\
f
) ______,
sroEl READY 79
hair and a thousand-yard stare because, unlike Rick, she s
also a serious tapper.
We ve never really gotten along.
She looks at me like she's about to say something, points
at me, forgets, then half dozes offwhile she's busy forgetting.
Spun around, she exits mumblingthrough a curtained door
way. stumbling off to look for something else she forgot to
remember she forgot.
Rick shrugs.
What can I say? Soul mates.
Rick, I m looking for Mark Ray.
He takes another drag. Looses a lanky ghost of smoke.
Sure, sure. Of course. Who isn t looking for Mark Ray?
Our little angel. And I m going to guess this is the very first
place you looked.
The dorm is dark and drop dead quiet. Aformer sweatshop,
now a op-shop, laid out like a battle eld hospital. Bows and
rows of cots and a couple of tired Iooking Chinese nurses,
checking pulses.
A few muf ed yelps escape from sleepers here and there.
Hard to tell if they're cries of pleasure or fear. Or both. Two-
part harmony.
Rick leans over.
You better let me do this. Mark is a heavy sleeper.
He winds through the cots. Spots Mark s crown of golden
curls.
Persephone watches the room, wide-eyed.
I whisper.
I bet you ve never seen anything like this back in Kansas.
I m not from Kansas.
I know. But still.
80 ADAM STERNBERGH
I have. I have seen this before.
Still watching the room. Doesn t look at me.
This is what my father s camp looks like.
What?
Paved With Gold.
Then she says something else, in a croak. Half to herself_
Like a joke.
In myfather's house are many mansions.
I whisper.
What's that? Bible verse?
Nope. Sales pitch.
i K
i
Mark Bay used to be a youth pastor at a church in Minnesota.
1 met him a few years ago, after someone called me to offer
me ajOb.
So how does this work?
Ijust need a name.
My name?
No. I don t need to know your name. So long as you wire
me the money. I just need the other person s name. The one
on the receiving end.
And that s it?
That's it.
Okay.
So. The name?
Mark Ray.
The caller s Minnesota accent hard to forget.
I tracked Mark Ray down to the Reading Room at the Public
Library, the big one, in Bryant Park, with the stone lions out
front.
Not much reading in the Reading Room anymore. They
tore out the shelves and put in server racks. Swapped the
tables out, brought in beds. A high end pit stop, a per-hour
place, mostly targeting tourists, back when there were still
tourists in NewYork.
82 ADAM STERNBERGH
Mark was walking among the beds, watching people
dreaming. Angelic mess of curls on his head.
I walked up behind him. Figure I d convince him that we
should retire to someplace more private.
He turned.
So you ve found me. That was fast.
Same Minnesota accent. Impossible to miss.
We sat on the front steps, watching the lions.
I don t do suicides.
Why not?
You want to kill yourself, kill your own damn self. That s
between you and your god.
Yes, I guess it is.
He was sitting forward, elbows propped on his knees.
Broad back. Young guy. Handsome as hell, if I can say so.
Hard to see why he wouldn t want to live.
He held his hands at together, like he was about to break
out in prayer.
I understand why you have that rule. But my problem is, I
can't do it myself.
Why not?
Mortal sin.
You Catholic?
No. Evangelical.
Then I don t thinkyou have to worry.
He turned to me.
Are you a religious man?
No.
Never?
My parents dumped me at Sunday school a few times when
I was young, keep me out oftheir hair. As for them, they tried
SHOVEl READY 83
to ght less on Sundays. Or at least keep their voices down.
That was about the extent of it.
I see.
My father worshipped at the church of the New York Jets.
saint Namath and all that.
And you ve never been tempted?
By religion?
Yes.
That's not the kind of temptation I have to worry about.
I was a pastor back in Minnesota. I used to teach a les
son on temptation. Or at least that s what I thought it was
about.
So what s the lesson?
Do you know the story of Bathsheba?
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed
and walked on the roof of the king's house. Andfrom the roof he
saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to be-
hold.
Mark filled me in. Back in Israel, in Bible times, Bathsheba
was a woman who King David spied from his rooftop while
she was bathing nude. He saW'her and he was gripped with
lust.
Gripped with lust. Not my words. Marks. 01' the Bible s.
Or God's.
In any case.
Gripped with lust.
So David sent for her. He slept with her. And he impreg
nated her. Trouble is, Bathsheba was already married. To
Uriah the Hittite. Who was not only one of David s trusted
friends, but also a soldier in King David's army. But this
h
84 ADAM STERNBERGH
didn t give David pause. It gave him an idea. Which he re
layed to the army's commander.
Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from
him, that he may, be struck down and die.
Mark paused the story.
So I ve been teaching this passage a lot lately to my kids,
my students. At rst, I taught it the way that I learned it in
Bible school. Not as a story of lust, or of corruption, but of
temptation. You know, how God puts temptation in front of
you. He allows you to feel your own weakness. To confront
it. Just as Christ did here on Earth. Satan laid out the whole
world to Christ, promised it to him, if only he d bend a knee
to Satan. And he felt it. Christ. He was tempted. But he didn t
succumb. And we feel it too. Whether it s the appIe in Eden.
Or the desire to look back over your shoulder and watch
Sodom crumble. Or spotting the most beautiful woman in
Israel, bathing naked on a rooftop. I'm sure you have some
secret temptation. Some secret shame.
I thought of a Ziploc baggie in a Sub-Zero freezer, while
Mark waited for an answer that wasn t coming.
Okay. Well, your temptations are your own. I understand.
My point is, I always thought that story was a lesson about
temptation. This idea that the sin is not in the beingtempted,
but in giving in to the temptation. That is what God cannot
abide. But I was wrong.
That s not the lesson?
N0.
So what is it?
It s a story about wrath. It s not a parable at all.
No?
No. It s a warning.
5HOVEL READY 85
Mark unpaused the story.
So on the battlefront, Uriah was slain by archers ring a
rain of arrows down from a city's high walls. And the army's
commander sends word back to the king, who he assumes
will be crushed at this news. Right? But King David sends
this message back to the commander.
Do not let this thing displeaseyou,for the sword devours one as
well as another.
I interject.
What were David and Bathsheba doing all this time?
They were busy fucking. Pardon my language.
Okay.
So King David s managed to pull off the perfect crime.
No one suspects him, and even if they did, they'd say noth
ing. Because he s the king. He is blameless in the eyes of the
world. If not in his own heart. Or in the eyes of God. And do
you know what the last verse of that passage is?
No.
But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
Well, yeah. You would imagine.
Mark pounded his palm like a pulpit.
But the thing. David had done. Displeased. The Lord. That is
the lesson of the story. It s not about temptation. It's about
vehgeance. It s about wrath. It is about God looking down,
and seeingwhat you ve done, and being displeased.
Sure.
And do you know what happens when the Lord is dis
pleased with you?
No.
You end up in New York, outside a library, begging some
stranger to put you in the ground.
Mark. Persephone. Persephone. Mark.
The three ofus back on the Chinatown street corner. Mark
shies from the sun, still half in the dream. Dreamy.
He holds out a hand to Persephone.
Pleased to meet you.
Four letters tattooed across his knuckles.
DAMN.
When I first met Mark, farm-fresh from Minnesota, he
was not the type to show up with new tattoos. Then again, he
also wasn t the type to tap in for a week at a time. Had never
been in a bed before he came to NewYork.
Still, I have to ask.
You didn't have these last time I sawyou.
He ips his ngers, knuckles up.
What? These? Yeah. You like them?
He makes a fist. Aletter on each nger.
DAMN.
Holds up his left hand. Makes a fist.
ABLE. '
Holds the two sts together.
DAMNABLE.
I smile.
Very nice.
He turns his sts back toward his face, admiring them.
Right? I rented Night ofthe Hunter, got inspired. I ve got a
third one, too. Want to see?
sHOVEl. READY 87
That depends where it is.
He peels off his polo shirt. Still ripped despite the bed
rest.
Persephone perks up.
Mark turns his back to us. The third tattoo in block
letters.
IRULE.
I tell him I don t get it.
He exes his back. Shoulder blades spread like wings. The
letters separate.
I RULE.
Nice. Very subtle.
He turns around.
It's more of a limn thing. If you ever tapped in, you d un-
derstand.
Persephone chimes in.
Well, I like it.
Mark slides his shirt back on.
So should we head back to my place?
Persephone says she wants to grab a few supplies while
we re here. Points to her legs. Still pants less.
I peel offtwo bills. Feel like I m her dad.
She smiles and disappears into a store.
Mark pulls his phone out and 'calls for a car, Which seems
to glide up before he s even pocketed the phone.
Mark calls shotgun. I hold the rear door for the lady and her
shopping bags.
She arches an eyebrow.
So is this a blind date you ve set up for me?
Not likely. You two look like brother and sister.
I know, right? Kinky. You could watch.
This stings. More than it should.
\/
B8 ADAM STERNBERGH
I tell her to watch her arm while I close the door, then
lean in.
No offense, but you re not his type.
'Why not?
He's celibate. By choice.
She smiles.
That's it? That s nothing. I knowplenty oflapsed celibates.
That so?
You bet. Even lapsed a few myself.
We take the livery cab north toward Mark s apartment at the
former Trump Tower off Columbus Circle. Not a Brooklyn
livery cab either. This is no rusted out Crown Victoria. It s a
bulletproof limo, sleek as a sea lion.
Dashboard Geiger counter starts clicking and the driver
steers a wide arc east to avoid Times Square. On these far
east avenues in Manhattan, heading uptown, you could al
most believe the city is just like it was, only less so, cleared
out, like how'a sleepy summer Sunday used to feel. A few
stray pedestrians. The random rogue yellow cab. Bright win
dow signs promising blow-out sales.
But then we cut across midtown, which is a ghost town.
Just trash and empty storefronts, long since looted. No more
blow-out sales. Just blown out.
Dashboard Geiger chatters again and the driver cuts
north.
The lack of tourists alone leaves it spooky. No one snap-
ping photos, wrestling maps, gawking at skyscrapers, wad-
dling along in a cluster, clogging the sidewalk, kids trailing
behind licking soft serve ice cream and wearing seven
pointed Statue of Liberty crowns made of sea green foam.
Nowthere s plenty of room on the sidewalk for everyone, if
anyone was out on the sidewalk.
snovu READY 39
No traffic.
Streets are clear.
The brighter side of car bombs, I guess.
They still go off from time to time. The car bombs. Planted
by copycats with lesser ambitions. Easy to pull off now that
no one s paying much attention to the streets.
Just another ongoing inconvenience of life in the big city.
As long as you re not standing too close, I find you inch a
little less every time.
In the end, half stayed, half left.
Simple math.
Not all who stayed hid in penthouses either. Some still
run delis, wash dishes, fold laundry, mop lobbies, ride buses,
drive cabs. They either moved back in to Manhattanwhenthe
last wave left or they still trundle in on broken trains from
the outer boroughs. Too dumb or too poor or too hopeful to
pull the plug and pack up and leave like the rest. All those
diehards who refuse to let the city die.
In any case.
No mystery to it. Just basic subtraction.
Cut a city in half and you re left with half a city.
But you definitely notice the ones who are gone just as
much as the ones who stayed.
The driver pulls up to the building, idles out front as we head
inside.
Trump Tower. Former hotel and soaring glass eyesore.
Named for the Donald of course. Long since dead. First thing
the kids did when they pitched their camps in Central Park
was lasso his statue, pull it down, put a dress on it. Last I saw
it, it was still riding on the roof deck of a double-decker tour
ist bus, forever looping the park.
90 ADAM STERNBERGH
Mark s apartment s not the penthouse, but it's close
enough. Not sure how Mark affords it. He's got some secret
deal with some closet benefactor. He s coy about it and I don't
press.
From his living room, we can see the camps in Central
Park. Bon res dotting the dusk.
On the avenues, police cars park, lightbars swirling. A
show of force.
Mark s got two drinks in his hands, one liquor, one selt-
zer. Liquor s for me.
Mark sips the seltzer.
Looks like the mayor s decided to nally crack down.
Now? Why?
I think it s the Crusade; You must have heard about it.
Harrow at the Garden.
You ever met him?
T. K. Harrow? Oh no. But I never really felt like we were in
the same business, to be honest.
We watch as the cops lay down bright orange barricades.
What are they doing? Chasing them out?
N0.
Another sip.
Sealing them in.
Persephone comes out of the bathroom, poured into
snakeskin pants.
What do you think? Nice, right? Chinatown special.
They're Prada. So cheap! I had to roll the waistband a little
to get them on.
I unroll the waistband a little.
I hate to tell you this.
What?
They re not Prada. They re Prodo.
'
suovu READY 91
Mark agrees to let Persephone bunk for the time being. One
thing you can say about Trump Tower, like most high rises,
the security is not lax. Two round the-clock doormen, well
armed, and private plainclothes patrolling the halls. If Pilot
wants in here, he ll have to scale the outside of the building
with a plunger in each hand.
I decide to head back to Hoboken. Mark hands me a card.
Give this to the driver. He ll take you. The Holland Tun
nel s still functional, right?
I give Persephone a peck on the forehead.
Mark s good people. He ll take care ofyou.
Thanks. So who s going to take care ofyou?
That s what I m heading back to Jersey to gure out.
Truth is, I have no idea what the next step should be. I ve had
jobs get out of hand, but not like this. I was hired to kill her,
not adopt her.
And to be honest, I would have been happy to put her on a
bus, point her north, deal with the fallout with Harrow my-
self. But that s not an option anymore. Not if I knowthat Har
row has also sent someone like Pilot. 1
Pilot de nitely strikes me as a different kind of psycho.
So Persephone s problem is now my problem.
Which means Persephone is now my problem.
Though, I confess, it s more than that.
Sometimes when people call me, I can tell pretty soon that
they don t want to hire me, they just want to chat. Blow off
steam, fantasize, walk up to the edge but not over it. Before I
hang up on them, they always throw out that same question.
-
92 ADAM STERNBERGH
Just tell me: How canyou do what you do?
I don t answer, of course, but if I did, here s what I d tell
them.
It s not the doing it part that's hard. It s the justifying it
part. And I don t do that.
I m not the decision. I m just the action.
I m just the bullet.
So I don t need to justify it. Or live with it.
That s your job.
And there's one more thing I d tell them.
The world is full of bullets. Sometimes in the form of
speeding buses. Or aneurysms that go pop in the night. Or
rotted branches that fall in a snowstorm at the exact moment
.you happen to pass.
Or exploding subways. Or bombs left in gym bags.
All bullets.
We dodge them every day, until one day we don't.
So if I didn't hang up, that s what I d tell them.
That s how I do it.
I'm just another bullet.
But not this time.
N0t for her.
When I get to the ground floor outside Mark s building I
hand his limo driver the card and tell him to take me home.
First, though, we're making a detour.
Direct him straight down Broadway and he groans.
Drives as far as Fifty Third, then pulls over and says he ll
keep the engine running.
I can't begrudge a man his fears. So I get out and walk
south.
Skirting the edge of Times Square.
t/
SHOVEL READY 93
I pass a few bored cops and a few hopeful clickers, decked
out in their goggles and Geiger counters, sweeping the side
walks for junk that s not too poisonous to pocket. Truth is,
everything worth scavenging got snatched up years ago. All
those toxic souvenirs.
I head east at Fiftieth.
Follow the faint hum of gospel.
It is still Sunday after all.
Half-wonder if I ll bump into Pilot. I figure I m headed to
either the last place he ll look for me, or the rst.
Street s dark. Like a cellblock after lights out.
Not Radio City, though.
Radio City is lit up like it s opening night.
On the marquee: The Crystal Corral Revival Hour.
Rockwell was right. Crystal Corral does sound like a
country singer.
I head into the lobby and an usher intercepts me. Smiles and
says I haven t missed much.
In the seats, maybe a thousand people, all huddled near
the stage and singing softly.
Onstage, a giant screen.
On the screen, a giant preacher.
T. K. Harrow.
Head as high as a drive-in movie screen.
Sunday sermons broadcast on a loop. Free admission.
All welcome.
When Rockwell gave me his rundown, I didn t mention I d
been to this place before. Made a few visits right after Times
Square, back when prayer suddenly seemed like a viable op
tion. Churches or beds. Most people sampled.
Congregation sings the chorus.
94 ADAM STERNBERGH
80 I ll cherish the old rugged cross. Till my trophies at last I lay
down.
Harrow, in close~up, expounds the Word in urgent stac
cato. Sounds a re and brimstone drumbeat under the mel
ody 0f the hymn.
Usher taps me on the shoulder. Can't be older than twenty.
Clean cut. Cheap suit. But well kept.
Hello, brother. Care to join me down front?
N0 thanks. I'm just browsing.
Well, whatever you re looking for, you won t nd it out
there. In here, though, that s a different story.
I glance around. Shrug.
Awfully close to Times Square.
He smiles.
It's true. This city has a sick heart. But that poison can t
touchyou in here.
You sure about that?
Brother, it doesn t matter, because we re headed to a better
place.
Sure. Of course, there's just one catch.
What's that?
You have to die rst.
He hands me a pamphlet.
Not necessarily.
Claps my shoulder.
Our door s always open.
He leaves me, drifts toward the front, rejoins the chorus.
I will cling to the old mgged cross. And exchange it one dayfor
a crown.
0n the pamphlet s glossy cover, a photo of a rustic barn.
Placid countryside. Golden sunshine.
Heavenly.
/ _
5HOVEI. READY 95
Arrayed over the barn, in bold letters:
PAVED WITH GOLD.
Under that. Bolder letters.
WHY WAIT?
I tap the bulletproof glass, startle the driver.
He seems happy when I point him toward Hoboken.
The limo glides down the west side, and for the rst time in a
long while, I feel a hard ache for the beds. Here in the back
seat, it s almost like being on bed rest: silent, safe, the low
hum of movement with the city sliding by, untouchable, un
touched, just lights.
When I get back to my apartment I nd a padded envelope
taped to my apartment door. I pry it loose, rip it open. Shake
it out.
Aviators.
Lenses cracked. Blood-dotted.
Interesting.
I shake the envelope again.
Out comes a note.
Consider these an apology. Or a good faith gift. Mr Harrow re
grets our misunderstanding and he would very much like to meet
with you. We hope to resolve this matter in a timely and amicable
fashion. Please contact me directly at the number below. ,
The signature s from someone named Milgram.
I palm the note, pocket the shades.
Unlock my door.
I like that phrase.
Good faith.
\
Y1
, \ r T
100 ADAM STERNBERGH
I m sorry we couldn t meet in person. But this is much
preferable, don t you agree?
He could have self presented in any way he chose. A ser
pent, the angel Gabriel, or simply T. K. Harrow forty years
ago, still robust and full of hellfire. But he's here more or
less as you d find him in life, as he looked on that Radio City
screen. Tall, weathered, bristly gray hair, scarecrow thin,
a kindly face when it wants to be kind, but one that easily
snaps back to rectitude. The only costuming ourish he al
lows himself is that on TV he's always in a suit. Here he s in
annels and wool. Work clothes.
As for me, I look like me. A garbageman.
Harrow claps me on the shoulder with a hand gnarled by
age, his ngers folded up like a wounded bird. Still, his grip
is strong.
When I was a lad, sitting on a pew not much more com
fortable than this one, in a church pretty much just like this,
the most terrifying thing to me in the whole Wide world was
not death, or the wages ofwickedness, or the wrath of the Al
mighty Lord. It was the stares of Miss Savonarola.
Harrow chuckles at the memory.
She was our church organist. Tiny woman. Would sit at the
electronic organ, right up there.
He points a crooked finger toward the altar.
She sat facing the congregation. Her eyes could just barely
peer over the top ofthe organ. Yet I remember those eyes like
twin glowing moons, hanging low on the horizon. And the
funny thing about Miss Savonarola was that, before the ser-
vice, she was your favorite person in the world. She'd greet
you at the door and slip you sweets from her dress pocket,
make you promise not to tell your folks. But during the ser
vice, let me tell you. She changed. You could hide in the back
SHOVEL READY 101
row, crouched out of sight, bury your toy in your lap, didn t
matter. You got up to mischief while the pastor was preach
ing, she saw. She d nd you after the service and whap! Rap
your wrists with a switch right in front of your parents.
Wouldn t even say why, to you or to them. But she knew. And
she knew you knew. And I will tell you, Mr Spademan. I am
respectful and awed by my Lord in His heaven, but I don't
think anyone s ever kept me in line better than she did. She
taught me a few things, I ll tell you that.
I can imagine.
I understand you're not much one for this spectral world,
am I correct?
That s right.
Have you ever been off body before?
Long ago. Gave it up.
I understand. As with any dream, a lot depends upon the
dreamer. Well, you ve seen a little of what my dream looks
like. But let me lay it out for you. I want to lead my followers
here, to this world, a refuge of simplicity and peace. A sanc
tuary of my own devising.
He sweeps his hand over the church. Through the win
dows, sunlight sneaks in, pools in the corners, keeps to it
self.
You know what s become of the world back there, Mr
Spademan. You better than anyone. It is not a place to waste
your days. How you live in that poisoned swamp of New York
City, I will never understand. Not when you could live here.
Like this.
Mr Harrow, I get that. I do. But why do people need to sign
on to your dream? People should dream how they like.
Because I offer them something better. More than the
dream. I offer them a new life, Mr Spademan. A life after
102 ADAM STERNBERGH
life. With no wait list. Something remarkable. That is what I
wanted to showyou. Do you have time for a short demonstra
tion?
Sure.
Harrow gestures to someone unseen. Two girls walk in
through a side door. Identical twins, short hair, bright eyeS.
Persephone s age or a few years younger. Dressed in match
ing pinafore smocks. Prairie style.
They stand before us, shoulder to shoulder, like soldiers
awaiting inspection.
This is Mary and Magdalene. Go ahead, Mr Spademan. I
want you to stroke Mary s cheek. She s the one on the right.
Don t worry. She won t bite.
I reach my hand out and pass my knuckles lightly over her
downy cheek. Soft. She giggles.
Very good. And now Magdalene.
Same thing. Knuckles grazing. On this pass, though, I get
a little charge.
The rst cheek was like experiencing the memory of
something. Like a reminder of a feelingyou once had. I
The second one is like feeling it for the rst time.
I settle back into the pew.
What do you think, Mr Spademan? As real as real. And
that is my proprietary technology. You can t get that in any
other dream.
He dismisses the twins. They curtsy and exit, like it s the
end of a school pageant.
I m still rubbing my hand.
That s very convincing.
That it is.
So what s the secret?
Just that. A secret.
sHoVEl READY 103
Well I m sure it will prove very lucrative.
Wait. There's one more perso I want you to meet.
He stands.
You might want to stand up for this.
I stand.
And in she walks.
My Stella.
V
17.
My Wife.
In the same dress I last saw her in. She smiles.
That smile.
Brown hair in a bob. That bob I begged her not to get.
Looks good on her though.
I grasp Harrow s arm. For balance.
He gives me the satis ed look of a salesman who's just un
veiled the luxury model.
I assure you, it s perfectly safe. It's not tho real, no. But it s
as real as real.
I look at her.
Her.
Here.
Brown eyes a little too close together. Front teeth a little
too far apart. That smile that s spring-loaded to burst into a
laugh.
In other words, perfect.
Don t be shy, Mr Spademan. Please give your wife a kiss.
This is a place of sanctuary. And I promise to avert my eyes.
I turn to Harrow.
Shut it off.
Don't be afraid.
No. This isn t real.
I think you'll nd, Mr Spademan, that those kinds of dis-
tinctions quickly become immaterial.
5HOVEI. READY 105
I turn back to her. Trembling.
Tell myself it s not real.
It s not real. It s not real. It s not real.
As I say this I take her face in my hands,
Feel her face.
Hesitate.
Kiss her.
Like a man drawing breath after years underwater.
I pull away.
I whisper.
I m sorry.
Harrow lays a gentle hand on my back.
You understand now? What I am offering?
My Stella smiles. Her hand trails my face.
Don t worry, Mr Spademan. She will always be here. And
I can arrange for you to see her whenever you like. In total
privacy. Frankly, ifyou choose, you can leave that toxic world
behind and relocate here, ifthat s what pleases you. You won t
be the rst. I know you re familiar with my farm. I can re
unite you and your wife and I guarantee, after a time, you
won t remember that you ever weren't together.
So this is what you re offering?
Yes.
And I m guessingyou ll want something in return.
Only something that is already mine.
Sounds fair. Just one question.
Anything.
Not for you. For her.
I turnbackto face my Stella. Her looksays she longs for me.
I choke back something. Then say it.
What s my name?
She smiles.
106 ADAM STERNBERGH 5HOVEI. READY 107
Spademan. Of all places, in the Lord's house. We certainly don t want to
I smile back. start down that road.
No, it's not. What road?
She looks confused. Says it again. Breaking things.
Spademan. i I can t do it.
I turn back to Harrow.
I want out.
He waves her away. The sales pitch gone sour.
She retreats out thevside door. I can t help but watch her.
The door closing behind her.
Just like that last morning.
Then she's gone.
I lean on the pew. Struggle to get my balance. Fail.
Look at Harrow.
She is of no consequence to you.
Doesn t matter.
Mr Spademan, do you understand what I m offeringyou?
Yes.
And why exactly are you protecting my daughter?
I don t knew.
Do you even know why my daughter ran away?
I have some idea.
Do you? Well, let me ll in the blanks.
Tap me out. Harrow retreats t0 the pulpit and pulls down the massive
Ml" Spademan Ieather-bound Bible. He opens it and ips onionskin pages.
Now. I wipe my mouth, still unsteady. Sit.
I know it can be very overwhelming. It reminds me a bit I'm not in the mood for a parable, Mr Harrow.
of that rst moment after baptism. When people come up He looks up.
again out of the water. Gasping for air, ghting for balance. That s not what this is.
But new. Brand new. Like newborns. Come into a new life. He turns the book around. Upends it, cradling it in his
But it's not real. arms, held toward me. Like its story time.
No. But after awhile, I assure you, that hardly matters. On one page, the usual march of verses under a single il-
I want out. luminated letter, painstakingly painted.
He grasps my shoulders to stand me up. Steadies me. On the other page, a large photo of Persephone naked.
All right. But rst, let me tell you what Iwant. This is my daughter, Grace Chastity. Whom I raised from
His smile exiled. an infant, as you know. Whose diapers I changed. Whose
I want my daughter back. , blankets I tucked in. Whose cries in the night I comforted.
I don t know where she is. He ips the page. More Grace Chastity. More naked.
He laughs. 1 Girls grow up. I understand that. And mine did too. All of
Lying is not an effective tactic in this world. Not with me. them. Especially Grace.
And you should be wary of breaking commandments. Here, He ips the page. In each photo, Grace is smiling, posing,
108 ADAM STERNBERGH
puckering her lips. In most photos there's a starburst of a
cameraphone ash. In each one she is exposed. In some
more exposed than others.
My Grace found a boyfriend, as little girls do. They break
their fathers hearts eventually. But I caught my Grace send
ing these pictures to her boyfriend. Shaming herself. Before
him. Before me. Before God.
Flips the page again. A homemade porn mag, starring his
daughter. In the next shot, she s on a bed, legs spread. Fin
gers nding their way inside her.
So you can imagine, Mr Spademan, that when I found
these I was very cross. Very cross indeed.
Flip. Next photo. Shot from behind. Displaying a gym
nast s agility. Among other things.
You don t have a daughter, do you?
No.
But you can understand how this might make you feel.
Sure. But she s eighteen. She's free to live her own life.
Should be, anyway.
Well, she wasn't eighteen when she took these, Mr Spade-
man. She was sixteen. And she promised me she d stop. More
recently, she broke that promise to me. Again.
Flip. Young Grace Chastity explores sex toys. Makes them
disappear.
Do you know how I found these? A parishioner. A mem-
ber of my own congregation. He came to me and told me his
son had brought them to him. They d been circulating. At his
school.
He closes the book. Mercifully.
So I forbid her from seeing her boyfriend. Forbid her from
having a phone. I forbid her from doing just about anything
I could think of. And naturally, as young girls do, when the
devil has their ear, she ran away.
\V/f
5HOVEI READY 109
He replaces the book on the altar.
You'll forgive the dramatics of my presentation. I just want
to make sure you understand why I want her home. Whatever
she s done to break my heart, break my rules, to humiliate
me in public, to taint my congregation and out God's com
mandments, I know she will be safer with me, in my care,
than rambling around out there, living hand to mouth, in
the gutters of New York. So I want my daughter hack. You ve
already seen what I can offer in return.
You know she s pregnant.
Yes. Another souvenir of the boyfriend. Aworthless sort.
That s not what she told me.
What are you suggesting, Mr Spademan?
That the father is right here in this church.
Really? An immaculate conception, then?
Not exactly.
Harrow clutches the sides of the pulpit. Enters fuII on
preacher mode. His cadence sounds something like Mark
Ray, but soulless. The stern father, not the kind shepherd,
sowing brimstone, not comfort.
He starts in.
For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow
upon the string, that theymayprivilyshoot at the upright in heart.
But ask yourself this, Mr Spademan. How pregnant is my
daughter? And when exactly did she run away? Not long ago,
correct? A few weeks, maybe? Why, we only just contacted
you last week.
He s right.
He goes on.
So in your version of the story, this foul act was commit
ted, and she what? Lived under my roof for another few
months? And then suddenly one day woke up and decided to
flee? .Does that make much sense to you?
a_ /
HO ADAM SIERNBERGH
He s right again. It doesn t.
He goes on.
Well, let me provide you with an alternate version. In an
act of brash but not uncharacteristic youthful rebellion,
prompted by my admittedly severe punishments for her ex
tremely humiliating acts of licentiousness, she had a foolish
encounter with her no good boyfriend. Which she managed
to hide from me. For a time. When she could no longer hide
it, she ran.
Which is whenyou contacted me.
That s correct.
And nowyou want her back.
Yes, I do.
Hmmm. Well, that does make more sense, I guess.
I m glad you're starting to see the whole picture, Mr
Spademan.
Sure. There s only one thing I don t quite get. And you ll
have to forgive me. I can be a little dim sometimes.
And what is that?
You hired me to kill her, Mr Harrow. Not bring her home.
He smiles.
Somedayyou may know how it feels to be a father.|You want
to protect them, even from themselves. In anywayyou can.
Yeah. Well. I m not buying it. But thanks.
The plain fact, Mr Spademan, is that someone in my secu-
rity department overstepped his authority. That individual
has been reprimanded severely, as you know. I believe you
received a souvenir of that disciplinary action just recently.
So now you want her back. Like the Prodigal Daughter.
Just like that. '
Something changed my mind, Mr Spademan. I saw the
light, as it were.
suovn READY m
Really? What was that? .
I learned I had a grandchild. That altered my way of seeing
thingS- But I wouldn t expect'you would understand some-
thing like that.
No.
I would never harm that child. No matter his provenance.
Or the circumstances of his conception. I want that child
back. I want both my children back.
And you won t hurt Persephone?
You mean Grace? Of course not. I just want her back in my
arms. 4
Well, that's a very good sermon, Mr Harrow. And I do
thankyou foryour time and the tour. And I m sorry. I am. But
I don t think I can do that. She s a grown woman and I m not
a truant of cer. I only provide one service, and if you re no
longer interested in that service, we should probably just go
our separate ways.
Harrow steps down from the pulpit.
All right. I understand. You clearly see yourselfas a man of
principle. I respect that. However misguided.
I stand up.
I want out. Now. I m tapping out. Unplug me.
I know you are new to the off body experience, so let me
explain how this works. This is my church. My construct.
My world. You are my guest. And you ll wake up When I wake
you up.
The light pooling in the church s dusty corners dries up.
The stained-glass sunbeams snuff out.
The church door creaks behind us. All the way open. Then
all the way closed.
I toldyou I learned a lesson from my dear old Miss Savona-
rola, yes? Do you want to know what that lesson was?
I, N / J '
t
112 ADAM STERNBERGH 2
I glance back over the pews. Three gentlemen approach~
mg up the aisle. Two are huge, wear overalls, and look like
farmhands who bulk up by eating other farmhands.
The third is a black man. Trim build. Trim beard. Shoul~
ders as wide as a roadblock.
I look back at Harrow.
What was the lesson?
He smiles.
18.
I m not much of a brawler and this one s over in a blink. Har-
First the sweets. Then the SWitCh- rOW S world, Harrow's rules, so I m like a twelve year old
ghting high school bullies in a wading pool.
After a few good kidney shots, one of the farmboys gets
behind me, loops his arms in under mine, kicks my knees
out, and bends my arms back like butter y wings.
Pinned.
I dangle. _
The black guy steps to center stage.
Mr Spademan, hello. Pleased to meet you. They call me
Simon the Magician. I am Mr Harrow s head of security.
Sure. I ve heard ofyou.
Good.
I'm going to guess you re not a real magician.
I don t do card tricks, if that s what you mean.
He holds up a fist. Shows it to me. No tattoos. Just fist.
Pow.
Recocks.
But I do have this one nifty trick that I like.
Shows me the fist again. Tightens it like he's crushing
coal.
The skin starts to grow over the gaps between his ngers.
Thumb absorbed into knuckles to make bigger knuckles.
His st reborn as a wrecking ball of bone.
His world. His rules.
H4 ADAM STERNBERGH
The Magician pulls the st back. Lets it y. Like the
plunger in a pinball machine. My head s the pinball.
The left comes right after. Right left right, like a ball be
tween bumpers.
I hear ringing.
Harrow s delivering a sermon from the pulpit.
Simon the Magician was. a contemporary of Jesus. Also
called Simonthe Sorcerer, Simon Magus, occasionally Simon
the Holy God.
While Harrow goes on with the history lesson, Simon s
namesake lets another loose across my chin. He might be
named for some magician, but like Samson, he s got a thing
for jawbones.
Harrow preaches.
Simon the Magicianwas a miracle worker. He was consid
ered the most powerful holy man in Samaria. Some thought
him a deity. That is, until Jesus came along.
Simon stands over me, legs spread in a ghting stance.
Fists hover like bees outside a hive, looking for the way in.
He s not much for words but he puts his two cents in. Simon
says:
When I heard about him, I took to him immediately.
Right cross.
Simon says:
I like to think of him as the alternative Jesus.
Left cross.
Simon says:
You know. B1ack]esus.
Right cross. Ah, the old rugged cross.
Harrow bangs on the pulpit with the at of his hand.
And do you know what Simon the Magician did, Mr Spade-
man, once he was upstaged by the one true Lord?
S ovu READY 115
Iwonder if I m expected to answer. I was always taught riot
to talk with my mouth full of teeth.
Harrow plows on.
He converted. Followed Jesus. A convert, Mr Spademan.
A smart man.
Farmboy lets me drop like a feed sack.
I cough. Dribble blood.
You made your point. Wake me up.
I can t do that, Mr Spademan. As real as real, am I right?
Harrow steps down from the pulpit. Toes me with a work
boot.
I spit on the boot. Blood colored polish. Spit shine.
You may as well put your suit back on, Harrow. I'm guess
ing the country charmer portion ofthe program is over.
The pity is, Mr Spademan, that we can t kill you in here.
You can't die. It s not possible. Most times that seems like an
inconvenient impediment. But sometimes it proves surpris
ingly useful. ,
Simon stomps my head. I m really starting to hate this
magic act.
Mr Spademan, when I saywe can do this all day, I really do
mean it. All day. All night. Awhole lifetime.
Simon stomps my head.
I spit up.
Harrow, I came here in good faith.
Harrow laughs.
Now what would you presume to tell me about faith, good
or otherwise?
Simon stomps my head.
Skulls weren t made for this.
Harrow stands over me, supervising like a pit boss watch
ing a card sharp get his comeuppance.
I want my daughter back.
\
116 ADAM STERNBERGH
Knock at the church (10or.
Some minutes later. Not sure how many. Several stomps
worth, at least.
Harrow looks at Simon. Simon looks at Farmboy Number
One. Who looks at Farmboy Number Two. Who walks over
and answers the door.
Enter Mark Ray.
I look up from the wide-plank floor. Taste of plank in my
mouth.
Mark's in some kind of getup. It all matches his blond
curls nicely. White robe. Sandals. Gold braid belt.
Hurlbat.
Sorry to interrupt. Did I miss the sermon?
A hurlbat looks like an ax but with two blades, set in op-
posite directions, one east, one west. Mark grips it and twirls
it loosely in a batting stance, like a slugger waiting on-deck.
Farmboy Number One watches mutely.
So he gives Farmboy Number One a closer look.
Farmboy falls.
Mark pries the hurlbat free from the farmboy s face. It
takes a couple of good jimmies to pry loose.
Ax free, Mark walks up the aisle.
Since we re telling religious stories, I ve got a good one.
Saint Fidelis. Heard of him? German saint. Philosopher.
Friar. Wore a hair shirt. You everworn a hair shirt? Anyone?
Farmboy Number Two shrugs. Harrow and Simon stand
silent, sizing Markup. Simon s sts turn back into hands. He
spi eads his ngers, cracks newfound knuckles.
Mark continues.
It s no fun, I ll you that. A hair-shirt I mean. Not recom-
/
sHOV READY H7
mended- Do you knowthe hair s on the inside? Anyway. Saint
Fidelis. Scourge of heretics. Known to carry
And here he bows and presents his weapon to each man
like a jester proudly showing off his scepter.
ha hurlbat.
Then Mark stands. Shakes his shoulders out. Regrips.
Grouches once, a quick low bounce in the knees, then sticks
the ax into the middle of Farmboy Number Two.
Timber.
I d give him a standing ovation if I could stand.
Harrow steps forward.
And who are you?
I m just here to pick up my friend.
We re having a word with him.
So I see. Don t worry. I m not here to stop the hurting. I m
just here to spread it around a little bit.
He takes a quick step left and hacks toward Simon, who
feints, snatches the handle, twists, and wrests it free.
Mark empty-handed.
Harrow smiles.
All right. Now we can talk like civilized folk. May I ask,
and I apologize ifthis sounds somewhat silly given the situa-
tion, but how the devil did you manage to get in here?
Funny you should mention that. I know a devil. From
Chinatown. Name s Rick.
Well. That s all very interesting, Mr
Uriel.
Apparently Mark s got a nickname.
Mr Uriel. But this is still my construct. Yes? My church.
My rules.
That s true. More or less.
So I m afraid I m going to have to askyou to leave.
118 ADAM STERNBERGH
Harrow gestures to Simon, who steps up, ax held high
Ready to swing low.
Mark's robe ripples in the back.
Rips.
Mark s esh ripples in the back.
Rips.
Mark lurches forward.
Mark's a hunchback.
Then an angel.
Wings unfurl.
Ax meets air.
Mark's foot meets Simon s forehead. Hard. From on high.
Mark s airborne. He laughs.
Turns his sandal into a steel-toe boot.
Kicks Simon again. Harder.
For unto you is given this day a boot to the head.
Simon staggers.
Harrow waves his hand.
All right. Enough.
He toes me.
Simon, tap out Mr Spademan.
Harrow looks up at Mark, who hovers, feathered wings
trembling.
I imagine you can find your own way out.
I m awake. In a bed. In a cathedral.
Not a cathedral. Abank.
An angel hovers over me.
Not an angel. A nurse.
Behind her, Mr Milgram. He ofthe note.
The nurse cradles my face.
Be still. Let the painkillers work.
My jaw and skull throb. Nothing broken but a very con
vincing facsimile.
Pain. Killers.
Two things I ve been spendingway too much time with re
cently.
We re in the nancial district, the old Wall Street, where I
came to meet Milgram, a neighborhood where abandoned
banks abound. This one s got vaulted ceilings, like a burial
vault, built for kings. Paintings on the ceiling. Angels touch
ing men.
Milgram hands me a card.
Mr Harrow would like you to know his offer still stands.
Milgram s a fussy type. Buttoned down. Looks like he d
enjoythe back room at the Bait 8: Switch. Though I m not sure
which end of the whip he d prefer.
I take the card.
One question.
\
120 ADAM STERNBERGH
Yes?
Why hire me ifyou d already sent Pilot?
Mr Pilot s job wasn t to kill her. That was your job. Mr Pi~
lot's job was to killyou. So, as you can see, this has been a real
cavalcade of incompetence. But rest assured, we plan to Set
it right.
I stash the card.
Don't expect a call.
He tries to grin, can t quite make it past a wince.
Well, I suspect you ll be hearing from us either way.
I stop outside on the stone steps of the bank. Sit on the steps.
Catch my breath.
Run a palm over the cold pebbled stone, squinting at the
street, which is all edges and angles and light.
It s early morning. New day still has that new-day smell,
Sunlight scrubs away what s left of last night. Tries to, any
way.
I don't go off-body often and haven't in a long while.
It s been long enough that I forgot about this part.
Bed-resters call it the wake-up call. A painful sensitivity
when the simulation s over and you first corhe out of it and
your senses all come back online. When you're back to using
your actual organs, your eyes and ears and nose and nerves
all open for business again.
Light searing your optic nerves. Odors numbing your
nose. Sound galloping across your eardrums.
The wake up call.
It's painful. Everything seems too real for a time.
The too sharp edges of the actual world.
I collect myself and take the 2 train north toward Trump
Tower- There are so few passengers at this hour they only
run four cars to a train. And there s no such thing as express
anymore. Everything s local. Making all stops. Except Times
Square.
We rattle through without braking.
Times Square sealed off like a crypt.
The first explosion was small, on the subway, a diversion.
Gym bag in the rst car of a Manhattan bound train. In-
tended to draw rst responders down into the tunnel. Am
bulance, EMS, fire crews, which it did.
Then came the second explosion.
The dirty bomb in Times Square went off about an hour
after that.
Chaos opened the door to chaos.
Like a burglar sneaking in a side window, then unlocking
the front door for his friends.
It was midmorning, Monday, holiday season. Just starting
to get cold.
I remember they d lit the big tree the week before. Local
weatherman flipped the switch. '
My Stella always liked to go into Manhattan to see the
Christmas windows. She didn t mind braving the holiday
122 ADAM STERNBERGH
crush, standing twenty deep in a spillover crowd. She had
a taste for magic. Silver snow akes and mechanical elveS,
shilling name brand gifts. Santa s helpers, doing the robot,
that was always my joke.
She used to talk about us renting a little at in the Village.
Nothing fancy, but on a pretty street. With trees. The city had
a pull on her that I didn t share. But she d read all the roman
tic memoirs. The ones about a city rich with artists and poets
and dreamers, the old fashioned kind.
In my more sour moods, I d remind her we were about a
hundred years and a million dollars too late.
Irony is, pretty soon we could have had our pick.
That morning she watched me empty a pint bottle into the
toilet bowl and made me promise it was the last time, for
the last time.
She thought the drinking had something to do with the
baby, or more to the point, the not baby. Our inconceivable
child. We re looking to trade one bottle for another, is how
she put it. That was always her joke, when she was in the
mood for joking.
So I poured out the last bottle and swore never again on
various graves. Truth was, I just wanted her to leave. I had an
appointment to keep that morning.
Besides, it was easy enough to kick the bottle.
By that time I d discovered the beds.
They drove it straight down from upstate, down the Henry
Hudson, left at Forty-Second, right into Times Square, no
stops. Made the whole trip on one tank of gas.
Officials later said ifthey hadn t blown themselves up they
would have died in a few months anyway, just from handling
/
5HOVEI. READY 123
the radioactive waste. Maybe if they d had second thoughts.
Dithered while they withered away in a quiet farmhouse
Somewhere.
The world's rst long term suicide bombers.
But they didn't. They drove it straight into the heart of
Manhattan. Like a stake.
A van stuffed with a bomb stuffed with fertilizer salted
with waste lifted from a radiotherapy clinic in foreclosure.
Enough to poison twenty city blocks.
Crude stuff. But somehow tting.
Abomb made of shit and someone else s trash.
Pulled to a stop outside a TGI Fridays.
Whispering a nal fevered prayer.
Back doors blew open and gave birth to a toxic cloud.
Shattered windows. Splattered tourists.
Glass. Blood. Sirens. Smoke. Screams.
Hair. Bones. Ashes. Skin. Flesh.
Charnel carnage.
Almost biblical.
A loosed plague.
We fought that morning, like many mornings, like most. I
was back from my leave, back at work but not really, and not
often. And she was just starting to realize that Broadway was
a lot more crowded than a high school stage in Jersey.
Still, she went to her classes, and to her auditions, and
failed, then came home and we went to bed, and failed at-
that too.
So the rest of the time we fought.
At least that we were good at.
\
124 ADAM STERNBERGH
Times Square closed for cleaning and never reopened. They
kept telling us the radiation wasn t that bad. You can eas
ily endure small exposures, they said. No worse than a few
X rays at the dentist.
The city issued handheld Geiger counters for free. Be-
came a bit of a hip accessory for a time. Cool young kids
clickety clicking their way through the city, counters slung
around their necks like tourists cameras. Even turned into a
popular pickup line. Approach a youngwoman. Hold up your
Geiger counter.
Whoa, I think I ve found a hot spot.
Crafty vendors pitched card tables on sidewalks around
the city, swapped out I Love New York t shirts for I Survived
Times Square. Set out rows of little plastic glow-in-the-dark
Empire State Buildings and Statues of Liberty, a tiny toxic
skyline. Funny idea, sick but funny, but there were no tour
ists around to buy them. And no native wanted an I Survived
Times Square shirt when you couldn t really be sure yet that
you had.
The mayor preached calm. As a stunt, he sat down for din-
ner in the middle of empty Times Square, ate a ve-course
meal with his wife. Silverware, candlesticks, white-coated
waiters, white linen tablecloth, violinist, the whole thing.
Dabbed his mouth with a napkin, turned to the TV cameras,
proudly declared: Tell the world.
NewYork is open for business.
Didn t matter. The tourists never returned. That s a hard
sell, even with three for one specials on hotel suites. All
the businesses failed. They were built on selling M&M s and
I Love New York shirts to visitors. Problem was, no one was
hungry for candy and no one loved NewYork anymore.
The violinist came down with a rare sarcoma and died the
following Easter. The mayor sent an aide to the funeral.
./
S gvn READY 125
Dirty bomb killed all the dogs in the city too. All of them.
No one s ever gured that one out.
The president came. Made a speech from a safe distance.
Reminded us that America always rebuilds. Recovers. Rises
again.
Then he rose again. In a helicopter.
A couple of weeks later, the rst car bomb went off. Near
the United Nations.
People watched live on the news and hoped it was just a
faulty taxi, burst into ames. That kind of thing used to
happen.
People watched and hoped. Until the second one went off.
Took out the news crews.
Then a few days later, another. Then another.
Over the next few weeks.
Not often. But often enough.
The president made another speech, this time from the Oval
Office. Preempted football during half time, sent his con
dolences and ordered in the National Guard. Promised the
country was behind us, we d spare no effort in seeking jus
tice, then signed off with a God BlessAmerica and God Bless
NewYork, just in time for the second-half kickoff.
Every day, right before she d leave to face another parade of
smiling rejections, she d stand and steel herself at the front
door, hand poised on the first of the locks.
Beyond that door was the fiery furnace. We had to trust to
gether that each day we wouldn t be consumed. Burned up.
Venture out on faith.
126 ADAM STERNBERGH
Like that old Sunday school story.
Me Shadrach. Her Meshach.
Still hoping for an Abednego.
And every day my Stella said the same strange thing,
paused there at the door.
Said it mostly to herself.
Seeyou on the other side.
Every day she said that.
Even the last one.
vWithin a month Times Square was dead and rotting, be»
yond resuscitation, and the rot spread out in circles from
there.
But by that point no one cared. It s not that we didn t care
about the attacks. We were New Yorkers, after all. Battle
scarred. We rattled our swords. We gathered in the streets,
held candles, demanded justice. Demanded vengeance. We
knew how this worked, we d done it before. We hounded the
brown faced. Jumped a few Sikhs in our ignorance. A few
Brazilians. Gave gay-bashers license once again to work out
their issues on swarthy civilians. We were indiscriminate in
our discrimination.
It wasn t that we didn t care about the bombings. We
just didn t care about the city. Not really. Not that part. Not
those streets. Most native New Yorkers, to be honest, had
abandoned Times Square long ago. Thought of it mostly as
a tourist preserve. Cursed the bright neon signs, the Naked
Cowboy, and whatever errands might bring you there on a
crowded Saturday to ght through the sluggish global herd.
It wasn't long before native New Yorkers were all making
the same grim jokes. Times Square? Roach bomb. Ha-ha-ha.
Or, Times Square? I ve heard it really glows at night. Or,
S OVEl READY 127
Times Square? They nally gured out a way to get a tour-
ist to step aside on the sidewalk. Or, Times Square? They
bombed it? Well, who among us hasn t thought of doing that
at least once?
But the reality was that the walls had been breached and
the tourists stopped coming and the streets emptied out and
soon the rest of the people started packing up too. Some sky
ward, to glass penthouses and the lure of the limnosphere.
Most just outward, to some other city without a toxic tumor
in its midsection.
The car bombs didn t help.
America s big, and the long recession had hollowed out
most of the rest of the East Coast, so it wasn t that hard to
up and move, to nd another house, on another block, in
another neighborhood, another job, another chance, in an
other city that wasn t suddenly halfway poisonous. Where
you didn t have to stand and sniff the wind each morning
from your doorway and try to gauge just how much death
you could smell in the air, and whether today it was blowing
toward you.
IncrementalApocalypse" became the term ofchoice. Coined
by some newspaper columnist, in an angry rant about the
city quietly dying.
No zombie overrun. No alien armada. No swallowing tsu
nami. N0 catastrophic quake.
Just the gradual erosion of the will to stick it out.
A trickle became a stream became a torrent became an
exodus.
So, sure, Times Square?
Times Square didn t kill too many NewYorkers.
But it killed NewYork.
\xf
128 ADAM STERNBERGH
The day it happened, I was in Chinatown sleeping.
Deep in a custom made dream.
Stooped over, wringing my hands in a waiting room.
Then slapping backs and unwrapping cigars.
Bright blue balloons kissing the ceiling.
Congratulations all around.
My Wife died in that rst one, the one on the subway. The
small one.
The diversion.
On her way to acting class.
In the months after I could only hope she was riding in the
rst car. I hope she was standing right next to the bomb. I
hope she picked up that damned gym bag, unzipped it, poked
her head in, right before it detonated.
I hope it blew her to dust.
I hope that she didn t lay wounded, twisted, in the dark
ness of that tunnel, waiting for sirens, waiting for help,
hearing them carefully make their way down, advancing
step-by step through the wreckage, then die in the second
explosion.
Everyone who was left died in the second explosion.
I hope she died in the rst one. The diversion.
That s what passes for hope these days.
i
5
g
On my way back to Mark's I make a detour to Hell s Kitchen.
Radio City s too expensive to rent out on anything but Sun-
days, so Harrow has a Paved With Gold outreach center here,
set up in a tidy storefront which is yawning awake just as I
arrive, Strapping gents set out the pamphlet rack, while a
wholesome blonde in a knee-length skirt sparks up the cof-
feemaker. Everyone has the whiff of missionary. Look too
healthy to have been in NewYork for long.
I spot the clean cut usher from the other night. Not in his
suit now. Sharp slacks and a owered Hawaiian. Looks like a
Beach Boy.
I sit down in a folding chair opposite his desk.
Uncrease my brochure.
Tell me more.
I get the full pitch:
Fully subsidized dreaming on a pastoral country cam
pus, a hundred acres, wholly owned and maintained by
Crystal Corral Ministries. In essence, you sign on to serve
the church, maybe do a tour of service in an urban outreach
center like this one, maybe work some time doing labor on
the Paved With Gold farm. For example, he says, he's from
out west, California, and after this month long stint in our
fair city he s heading straight to PavedWith Gold to tap in for
the first time. Moreover, he assures me, the tours of duty are
u»
.
130 ADAM STERNBERGH
short and the requirements minimal. In fact, the church has
had such a good response, he says, leaning in, beckoning me
forward, like we re buddies and he s letting me in on a secret
deal, they can't nd enough work for all the applicants.
So some people get to go straight to heaven.
Do Not Pass Go, etcetera.
As for heaven: He hasn t been yet so .he can t presume to
describe it. But it s Wholly scriptural, a hundred percent ac~
curate, designed according to biblical teaching. You can viSit
for a day, a week, a month, he says, it s the ultimate time
share. I can tell he s used that line before.
Like a good salesman, he hasn t mentioned cost. So I men
tion it. Plead poor.
I m just a garbageman.
He laughs. .
Look at me. Think I m a billionaire? Economy the way it
is? And trust me, California is even worse.
Leans in again.
There is no cost.
How can that be?
He tents his ngers. I can tell this is his favorite part of
the pitch.
Pastor Harrow pays the freight. With the money he raises
through the church. Heaven should not require a golden
ticket, as he likes to say. Just a golden heart.
This same quote runs across the bottom of the brochure.
The Beach Boy continues.
Think of it like the Army. They sign up thousands and it
costs nothing to join. In fact, they pay you. Well, this is like
that. It s God s army. There's no point in building a heaven if
you haven t got anyone to walk its golden streets. That s Pas-
tor Harrow also.
S ovu READY 131
I gured.
I ll tell you this. You sign up today, I can have you at our
farm by this time tomorrow. Morning after that, you ll wake
up in Glory Land.
And where is all this exactly?
The Crystal Corral compound. South Carolina. Beautiful
site.
Seems far.
From this? Are you kidding? I can't wait to get out of th1$
hellhole. No offense.
I stand up. Tap the brochure on the desk.
I ll think about it.
When you make up your mind, we ll be here. Maybe not
me, but de nitely someone who can help you. But I ll be gone.
I ve got an appointment to keep.
Appreciate your time.
No worries. God bless you.
I gure the Beach Boy for a greenhorn. Another round of
soothing hallelujahs and he might have closed this sale. You
let me wriggle off the hook too easy, rookie.
Then I turn around and notice the line behind me that s
waiting for my spot in the chair.
By the time I get back to Trump Tower, Rick the tech-head
is long gone and Mark's up and around, out of his bed, un
plugged, wearing a robe, drinking a coffee. He pours me one
i and offers me a bagel.
Good morning, Spademan. I believe the last time I saw
you, it was in a country church where you were moonlighting
as a doormat.
Very funny. Thanks for that, though. I mean it.
Well, Rick and I gured you might need a cavalry.
You two do that often? Crash other people s private
meetings?
Not as a rule. But ifyou ever need to do it, Rick is de nitely
the best. Knows how to nd the seams and how to slip you
through them. I did enjoy the look of surprise on their faces.
You mean the faces you didn t buryyour little toy ax in?
Mark shrugs.
Hey, I may not be much help in this world, but when you
spend enough time on bed rest, you tend to pick up a few
party tricks.
So that's what you do in there all day? Fly around and hack
people to pieces?
No. That was special foryou. Though I do like to spread my
wings once in awhile.
I nod toward Mark's bed.
Luxury liner like that, why the hell do you ever go all the
way down to Chinatown?
sHOV READY 133
You know me. I like congregations. The comforts of a like
minded crowd.
Persephone pads out of the bedroom. Wearing sweat
pantS- Scratches at bedhead curls.
Good morning. What I miss?
Eyes my bagel.
God, I m starving. Is there one of those for me?
I hand it over.
Nice sweatpants. What happened to snakeskin?
She frowns.
They split.
Given that I can now be fairly sure there are no profes-
Sional killers actively stalking us, at least not in the nuts
and bolts world, I decide to be nice and treat everyone to a
proper lunch. Mark suggests we head to the shopping mall
next door. It was built as a sparkling lure, baited with luxury
goods, but it s not so luxurious anymore and no one's biting.
A few fancy restaurants still survive, catering to the dream-
ers upstairs, sending up ve star takeout, but the stores have
all shuttered, most ofthe mall s abandoned, and all that s left
of the jewelry boutiques and clothing stores are faded poster
ads, peeling behind glass, selling shiny stuffyou can no lon
ger buy at shops that are no longer there.
In their place, now there s squatters' stalls mostly, set up
illegally, liningthe mall in long rows in front ofthe emptied-
out stores. Mall owners turn a blind eye, collect payments in
cash, gure at least the street market keeps foot traf c up,
wards off squatters who come in from the park. Figure all
. the old businesses packed up anyway; heading for higher
ground. Let the nomads move in, pitch a tent. Plant a ag.
Many different ags, actually.
Vendors shout for attention as we pass, hawking wares,
__
134 ADAM STERNBERGH
stalls stacked with everything from dried spices to saris t0
sjamboks, those leather African half whips, made as snake~
killers and crafted from rhino hides, sold here for self~
defense. That's the pitch anyway. Salesman demonstrates,
slicing the air with a whistle as we walk. Cuts close to Per
sephone. She jumps, then curses. Salesman looses a goofy
grin. She ips him double birds.
Then we head to the food court, which is just a cluster
of food carts, run by guys who broke in the back way. Carts
serve up dishes for a dollar, curries and dosas and kebabs.
Flaming grills and sizzling griddles. The tempting scents of
spiced steam. Everything looks delicious, though a few carts
offer meats you wouldn't want to know the family tree of.
Luckily all the vendors have the same strict food policy: No
Questions Answered.
We retire to a bench in the mall with hot meals on our lap3,
not a utensil between us, a war council with paper plates. I go
to dig in when Mark bows his head to say grace. Persephone
follows. I succumb to peer pressure.
Mark with his eyes closed.
Lord we thankyou for this bounty we are about to receive.
At first I think he's making a joke.
Apparently not.
Lord and thank you for watching over us and keeping us
safe so far. Let our actions on this day as on every day glorify
your name in every way. Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
I take a bite and ask the obvious.
Okay, Harrow's shown his hand. So what's our brilliant
plan?
Mark eyes Persephone.
/
S ovu READY 135
She shouldn't be here for this.
It's okay. She can hear this.
Mark shoots me a look. This is the look that says he s prob
ably a little more quali ed than me in the arena of emotional
Counseling. He s right. But I don t budge.
She can hear this.
He frowns. Then proceeds.
All right. Well. There s three potential outcomes, as I see
it. You give him what he wants. You kill him. He kills you.
Those are the only options.
Persephone pipes up.
Or I can run. I've been running. You don t even need to
know which direction I went.
Markwipes his mouth.
That s not an outcome. That's a delaying tactic. Eventually
this ends. In one of those three ways.
He looks to me.
You a baseball fan?
No. Jets fan. Not by choice. By blood.
Well, in baseball there s this thing the statisticians call
the three true outcomes. It's the three possible outcomes of
an at bat that only involve the actions of the pitcher and the
hitter, and none of the other players on the field. So they re
considered the purest possibilities.
Okay. And they are?
Mark counts them out on his ngers.
Awalk. A strikeout. Ahome run. That's it. The three true
outcomes.
1 think of lesson two of hauling garbage. You discard it. It
discards you. Or you die.
Three true outcomes.
Okay. I got it. So?
\V/f
I36 ADAM STERNBERGH
Mark pauses, then gives me a look. This is the 100k that
says he s aboutto tell me somethinghe doesn'twantto tell me,
Go on, tell me.
There s another factor.
What s that?
This Simon. The Magician.
What about him?
He s a factor.
Because?
For starters, he s between you and Harrow.
I can take care of him.
Like you did in that church?
That s not fair. That was in there. That s the dream. We re
out here now.
Even so.
I'm on better footing out here.
Still. I'm just saying. He s a factor.
You don t even know what he can do out here. Or who he
really is. He could be eightyyears old, for fuck s sake.
My guess? He s not.
So I turn to Persephone.
What do you know about him?
Simon? You saw him.
And?
He is what you think he is.
Meaning?
He s that bad. He s worse. Out here? He s worse.
Mark chimes in.
What about money? Can he be bought?
She laughs.
Ifyou re planningto outbid my father, that s not an auction
we re going to win.
5H0VEL READY 137
I press her.
Okay. So what is he not good at?
I don't know. Whatever it is, I haven t seen it. He s ruth
less. He s smart. And he s not someone you can reason with.
And don't expect any sympathy. Or mercy.
All right. No reason. No sympathy. No mercy. That nar
rows our options, at least.
Persephone runs both hands through her unkempt curls.
Tugs at tangles that refuse to untangle. Looks down at her
feet.
Then tells us something more.
He was my bodyguard.
For how long?
Until I ran.
So he s not a great bodyguard. At least there s that.
It wasn't his fault. He was supposed to protect me. He
wasn t my babysitter. And I wasn t his prisoner.
And he did a good job? .Of protectingyou?
Sure. From everyone but my father.
Mark reaches out, takes her hands in his. Markthe former
pastor. Knows ways to balm wounds.
I say to Mark:
I still want to hear your three true outcomes.
Sure. Yes. Three true outcomes, like I said. You give him
the girl, he kills you, you kill him. Walk, strikeout, home
'run. Only the pitcher and the batter have a say in it.
Okay.
In this case, Harrow s the pitcher. You re the batter.
He motions to Persephone.
We re just the elders.
Okay.
Meaning ultimately you have to decide.
\/
I38 ADAM STERNBERGH
Okay. In that case, I choose the home run.
All right.
Wait. So which one is that again?
Very funny.
I put my hand on Persephone's, lightly.
But that means you and I need to have a conversation.
Mark s apartment, an hour later. Two chairs pulled up by the
picture window. Mark s run off to Chinatown, day trip to the
land of Nod.
She and I watch the campers in the park.
Weird to think I was down there with them a few days ago.
Didn t sound like it was too much fun.
It had its ups and downs.
You know them. You lived with them. You think they ll last
long in there? Police have it locked down. Nothing in, noth
ing out.
They ll last.
The thing I don't understand is, what exactly are they pro-
testing?
They re not protesting anything. They just want to live in
a different kind of world. Figured you have to start building
it somewhere.
Sure, butWhy Central Park? Why notWoodstock? Or Utah?
Take a look at the park. At this city. At this moment. It s all
kind of up for grabs, don t you think?
So you know what this means.
Yes.
You okay with it?
Time was, I thought I might do it myself. Dreamt about it.
Nothing happens unless you say it can happen.
I know. Thankyou.
I sHOV READY 139
She folds her hands over her belly. _
I didn't think it would end like this. I just wanted to get
away. , .
Well, What he did, that s going to follow you. He 3 gomg to
follow you.
I know.
And it s not like he ll give you up.
I know.
Before this goes any further, I need to get something
straight.
Okay.
When I sawyour father, he showed me pictures.
Okay.
Ofyou.
Okay.
Said you took them.
I did.
Said you sent them to your boyfriend.
I did. They weren t meant for public consumption, ob
viously. But you know teenagers. We re stupid sometimes.
Trust the wrong people.
We all do that.
Did he tell you where he found them?
He said someone from the congregation brought them
forward.
Hmmm. Well, that s bullshit. My father trolls for that
trash all the time on the Internet. Just so happened, one day,
he clicked a link, saw his own daughter. In among all the
usual naked jailbait he prefers. Just had luck, really. For me,
anyway.
He also told me something else. That your boyfriend is the
father. .
A dry laugh.
r i;
140 ADAM STERNBERGH
No. That asshole fucked me over plenty, but not inthatWay,
Your father says it isn t his.
Well, what do you expect him to shy?
I just mean that, ifyou re running for some other reaSOn,
whatever it might be, I need to know.
She straightens. If any ofthis is acting, her look right now
would win the Oscar.
Wait, what are you saying? You want to send me back to
him?
I need to knowwhat made you run. Because you didn t run
at rst. Whenyou found out about the baby. You waited. For a
few months at least.
I was scared. My father has a long reach. As you know.
But then something made you leave.
Yes. That s true.
Gnaws her lip. Says to me, her voice'catching:
Just tell me you 11 protect me.
I ll protect you.
Say it again.
I ll protect you.
Say it again.
I ll protect you.
She turns. Tears poised on her lower lids, peering over the
edge, like jumpers on a ledge.
Yep. Just what I thought. Sounds just the same coming out
ofyour mouth as it does out of everyone else s.
Grace
Don t.
I will. I swear. I ll protect you.
Jumpers teeter. _
Don t make me go back to him. Don t make us.
Ifwhat you told me is true
S ovEl READY 141
It's true.
,well, then, I don t think your father can be forgiven. At
least not by anyone he s bound to meet on this Earth. Cer
tainly not by me. And not byyou.
She looks back out overthe park.
You re right. When I found out, I stayed. I thought maybe
he would forgive me. He would still love me, love us, if I
stayed. So that wasn t why I ran away.
No?
Jumpers jump. Free fall. Straight plummet down her
cheek. Followed quick by more jumpers. They re all jumping
now.
She looks at me.
No. And it s not the most unforgivable thing he s ever
done.
23.
So at first the rough plan was, we hold tight until Harrow
arrives in Manhattan, when we know he ll be here, he ll be
tapped out, and he ll be walking among the living. Grace told
me that on his New York trips, he likes to meet with his t0p
donors, the ones he calls the Deacons Circle, show them a
little Christian love. Then, of course, there s the Crusade it
self, with Harrow preaching in public to an over ow crowd.
Yes, there will be a hundred bodyguards and twenty thou
sand witnesses.
I said it was a plan. I didn t say it was a good plan.
But we thought, maybe a sniper shot. Sideswipe the mo
torcade. Finagle a face to face, rush the podium, take him
down in a kamikaze tumble.
That was the plan, such as it was. Until Persephone told
me her story.
The rest of it.
The part she hadn t told to anyone.
So Persephone had a best friend. Rachel.
She was a fewyears younger than Persephone. More beau-
tiful than Persephone too, at least to hear Persephone tell it.
Troubled girl. Lost her parents young.
Came to church with an aunt and uncle.
Caught Harrow s eye. A long while back.
He took an interest.
SnoVEL READY 143
When Rachel was young, maybe ten, Harrow became a kind
of surrogate father. He wasn t around much, given his sched
ule, but he provided for her. Showed her favor. She was over
at the house enough that she and Grace became like Sisters,
more or less. They always joked that Grace was like Heidi,
living carefree in the Alps, and Rachel was like Clara, the
sickly cousin come to take the mountain air.
They grew up together. They got older.
- She even warned Grace against dating that boy who asked
for the photographs.
One night Harrow called Rachel into his study. She thought
maybe he was going to talk to her about offering to help her
with college. He d always been so generous. Even so, that was
still a few years away. ' '
Instead he told her about this marvelous new ministry.
Paved With Gold. .
I wantyou to be one of myvery first angels, is how he put it.
He personally escorted her to the camp. She could barely be-
lieve it. The famous T. K. Harrow, with her on his arm. She
never went to prom so this felt to her like prom night.
He delivered her to the doorstep and said he couldn t wait
for herto come backand tell himjust how realthe new heaven
he was building felt.
She entered the camp s main building, which was built to
look like a barn. Sodium lamps floated in the dark rafters.
Beneaththemthere lay a checkerboard ofhundreds ofwhite
sheeted cots. But only a dozen dreamers so far, tapped inhere
and there. My pilgrims, Harrow had called them. When she
en_ /
144 ADAM STERNBERGH
walked in, the nurses stood to applaud her. She d worn the
best dress she had.
Ironed it twice.
The empty beds laid out so lovingly. Kindly nurses to tuck
you in under sheets that smelled like spring. A scent that was
hard to place, maybe gardenias.
The tube slides in painlessly.
The nurse leans over and you say a prayer together. She
. wears a white folded cap, pinned to her hair, like an old-time
nurse. She kisses your forehead. You assure heryou ll see her
again soon and tell her all about it. She says she sure hopes
so, but she also tells you that, for a lot ofpeople, when they get
to heaven, they don't ever want to tap out again.
You smile, and get drowsy, your eyelids drop like a heavy
curtain at the end of a play. And you swear to yourself in that
last waking moment, even as you still feel the loosening grip
ofthe nurse s hand slip away, thatyou hear the distant lullaby
0f harps, you re absolutely sure that you can.
At Harrow s personal orders they tapped her out temporar-
ily and put her under quarantine in an adjacent in rmary,_
where Rachel lay for a few hours in locked restraints in a sick
bed, wondering exactly which of these two worlds she was
torn between was the horrible dream.
Normally no one would have been allowed to see her, but she
got word out to Grace Chastity through a junior pastor who d
long harbored a crush on her. Grace Chastity still had some
special privileges also, daughter of the minister and all.
At this point, Grace wasn t showingyet.
So when she got word she came to Rachel s room at night
5HOVEL READY 145
and visited Rachel and Rachel said nothing. She just smiled
and strained against her cuffs as Grace stroked her cheek and
she cried.
Then Rachel asked Grace if she still carried that knife.
What are you talking about?
Please don't ask me anything. Just help me get out of here.
Don t ask me why just please help me get out of here.
So Grace tugged at the locked restraining strap and then,
thwarted, pulled from her boot the hve-inch knife which
she'd been carrying every day since that night when her fa-
ther thundered drunkenly into her room, waving a tablet,
bright with pictures of her, like he was Moses catching the
fallen praying to the golden calf. The night that she d re ex
ively clutched the covers to her chin, as though they offered
some protection, rather than simply something else for him
to strip away.
Grace sawed through the rst restraint.
Rachel s right hand sprang free.
Then Grace circled the bed to out free her other arm but
she couldn t get the angle right on the restraint and Rachel
said here let me have it I can reach it better than you can so
Grace in a thoughtless moment gave her the blade.
And Rachel without hesitation slashed it brightly across
her bound left wrist then plunged it into her chest, plunging
and plunging, smiling at Grace Chastity and saying good-bye
good bye I love you I love you I hope I will see you again one
day.
What Grace would clearly remember forever is how she
plunged with such anger, as though to drive something out.
Saying let this blood wash me clean oh Lord please Lord
as she bled red widely on the stiff white sheets, until her
\/
146 ADAM STERNBERGH
strength drained away and she was lost in the swallowing
stain.
And Persephone stood over her, and she took back the blade,
and she kissed her friend on the forehead, and wiped the
blade clean, and then she ran.
l
I take the brochure from my pocket, unfold it, lay it out at
on the coffee table.
PAVED WITH GOLD.
WHY WAIT?
Change of plan.
No sniper shot. No side-on suicide motorcade collision.
N0 kamikaze attacks, no stealthy slit from the shadows.
No surprises. No sudden oblivion.
Because Harrow needs to know.
He needs to knowwho. And he needs to know why.
I fold the brochure and hide it in my pocket and don t tell
anyone this as we sit in Rick s Chinatown flat, his sofa as
shapeless as a de ating dinghy, and the three ofus, me, Rick,
and Mark Ray, all trapped on it together like survivors on the
rst day of month number two, adrift at sea.
Persephone s pregnant. Persephone gets a chair.
Mina Machina, Rick s live-in, comes slouching out of the
kitchen, slurping at something steaming in a bowl. She s got
long hair and she's alarmingly skinny, so she looks like a
longwooden stand built to hold up a black wig. The wig could
use a brushing too.
She giggles at something only she hears or understands,
then lets the hot bowl slip and spill with a clatter.
7 "W i r W 77m 7 k".
I48 ADAM STERNBERGH
Classic tapper. Still dreaming.
She retrieves, then wrestles with, a mop, which in her
hands looks like an identical twin held upside-down, hair
shocked white.
I ignore her and lay out the plan to the room.
We need to nd a way to get to Harrow while he's here in
NewYork for his crusade. As Mark said, there s only two ways
this ends. We either hand over Persephone or we convince
Harrow to stop asking. We re goingto go with the second one.
I'll handle that part.
Mark shoots me a look. This is the look that says I m lying,
because he actually said there were three ways this could
end. But I gured I d leave out the outcome where Harrow
kills me. In any case, that s for me to worry about.
I continue. Lay out phase two. The post-Rachel part of the
plan.
Rick, we also need to find a way to gate crash Paved With
Gold. We need to get into Harrow s heaven and get everyone
out. Everyone.
Rick looks perplexed. Sparks a cigarette.
You want to crash heaven and then send everyone home?
Why do you want to shit on the picnic?
I wave the smoke away. Nod to Persephone.
We ve got a pregnant lady here.
Rick looks at her. Looks at me. Really was hoping to nish
that cigarette.
Stubs it out. Doesn t matter where. The Whole apartment s
an ashtray.
Sorry. My bad.
Just tell me if it s possible. Like What you did with Mark
when I was tapped in with Harrow before. Slide someone in,
uninvited.
SHOVEI. READY I49
Sure, crashing in one person is easy enough. Tapping out
everyone else who's also in that construct? All at once? That s
trickier.
I don't care if it s tricky. I want to know if it s possible.
Rick rubs his palms on his thighs. Looks lost without his
cigarette. Then shrugs.
Sure. Anything s possible. Sort of.
And what do you need from us?
I need someone inside. I can tap people out one by one
from out here. It s slow going. You have to find them and then
sever the link. And it s a lot easier if the people inside know
what s happening.
Meaning what?
Meaning I need someone in there to give them a nudge.
You know, pinch me, I m dreaming, that kind of thing. Also,
it helps a lot if they actuallywant to leave.
I don t think we ll have to worry about that.
I turn to Mark Ray.
Okay. So that s you and me, MrAngel.
Mark extends a consoling pastor's hand to squeeze my
shoulder, like I ve come to him for advice.
I hate to say this, friend, but last time we tried this, you
ailed around in there like a fat kid inwater wings drowning
in the shallow end.
Then Mark pivots to Rick, like it's time for the grown ups
to talk.
I ll go in. I can handle that part. But are you sure you can
crash me into Paved With Gold? That thing s got to be a vault.
Rick winces, wrinkling Chinese tattoos.
Hard to say. When I crashed that country church, I learned
a iot about their protocols, and those tend to be consistent
across the board. That s the good news. The bad news is, last
, f
150 ADAM STERNBERGH
time theyweren t expecting us. I m guessingthat won t be the
case this time around. Also, that country church construct?
That was a quickie one off, whipped up foryour meeting. De~
signed for guests, so it was easy to crash. This heaven place is
guaranteed to be a much more complicated construct. More
secure. Walls are much higher, so to speak.
Mina, still waltzing with the mop.
You gotta piggyback.
Ricks waves her off. Like a bad smell.
She repeats.
An octave higher.
You gotta piggyback.
I m interested. So I ask Rick.
What's that?
Rick rubs his temples like he just got hit by the nastiest
migraine ever, and that headache is now dancing with a mop
in his kitchen.
Then he spreads out his thin ngers, covered in silver
skull rings. One skull per nger, thumbs too. Sterling grave
yard. Then he lays it out. In laymen s terms.
Despite what my beautiful life partner says, piggybacking
is just a fucking stunt. Look, I m a cocky asshole gizmo dare-
devil and even I don t do it anymore.
Sure. But what is it?
You slide someone in on someone else s dream, someone
who s been invited into the construct. Basically slip them in
before the door closes. But it's a very dumb thing to do.
Why s that?
You ever see kids on skateboards hitch rides on the back of
buses? It s kind of like that, except with your consciousness.
You fuck it up, you will skin your knee. Badly.
How badly?
5HOVEl READY 15]
Come by my place, I ll show you the room where I keep
those people. They don t mix too well with the general popu
lace anymore.
Tugs at a skull ring. Twists it. Continues.
Besides, de nitely no one s going to invite either of you
two into their heavenly clubhouse, so it's a nonstarter, since
there s no one to piggyback in on
Persephone speaks up.
I can do that.
What?
They ll invite me in. If I ask to meet my father
I interject.
Absolutely not.
Mark looks at me.
It's not a terrible idea.
Let s set the bar for ideas a little higher than not terrible.
Mark persists.
Look, she can t get hurt in there. Not really
There are a lot of things they can do to her. Even in there.
but I ll go in with her, to protect her. I ll be the one to
piggyback in. Rick I mean, you can do that, right?
Rick thinks. Twists a silver skull. Then nods.
Mark turns back to me.
You've seen me in there. You know I can handle myself.
Better than you can, in there. And she s the only one of us
who can possibly convince Harrow to tap in for a meeting.
And if the goal is to tap everyone out, people in there will
trust her a lot more readily than they ll trust me. Harrow s
daughter? They ll follow her out. Familiar face and all
Sure. Familiar face of a disgraced runaway
Spademan, think about it. She lures Harrow in for a meet-
ing. I follow her in and we take care of everyone in there. You
[\f/
152 ADAM STERNBERGH
find Harrow in his bed and take care of him out here. It s the
only way this works
No, Mark. I said absolutely
Persephone cuts me off. Fiercely.
Look, I am very grateful for all that you ve done for me, but
I m not your fucking daughter. I ll do what I want. And I m
doing this. I need to.
There is a long silence. During which we all listen to the
stillness of Chinatown.
Broken nally by Mina s best Axl Rose falsetto.
Mop becomes a mike stand.
Knock knock knocking on heaven s door.
I gure it s time to call the meeting to a close.
So. New plan.
We break into heaven, set everyone free, lure in Harrow him
self by dangling his runaway daughter, secretly slip Mark in
behind her somehow, using some technique that Rick, the
cockiest gizmo in Chinatown, isn t even sure is possible,
they give Harrow 21 good talking to, make him see the error
ofhis wicked ways, perhaps offer up an apology to the daugh
ter he fucked and maybe probably knocked up, all while I m
out here tracking down his esh-and bone body in the nuts
and bolts, somehow sidestepping Simon and the rest of his
security so I can get close enough to dispatch the holy man to
actual heaven, where he ll be free to compare his ginned up
version to the real thing.
Seems simple enough.
I have no doubt he ll end up there either. His heavenly re-
ward, I mean. I long ago stopped believing that we're sorted
into groups for our eternal retribution, or that there s any
sHOV READY 153
door, or pearly gate, that you can t pry open, given enough
gold.
1 may have once had some thin faith in something like
cosmic justice, but now I believe in box cutters.
Everything else I left buried in a tunnel along with the
number 2 train.
We ll also need a nurse so I contact Margo.
Margo was my mother s roommate in nursing school, best
friend for life after that. When I was a kid she used to sit at our
kitchen table, blowing smoke out her nostrils like an angry
bull. Nicest woman in the world though. A laugh that could
swallow a room. I haven t seen her since my mother passed.
My mother didn't last much longer after that incident with
the tardy ambulance.
I catch a bus out to the Jersey suburbs, an hour ride to
Hackensack. As the city peels away, it feels much saner. Sub
urban. Almost like life as it was. From the bus you can see
into people s lit up living rooms. The houses out here aren t
full of tappers in their silver torpedoes, just people on ow
ered sofas, planted in front of TVs.
Yes, they still make TV shows somewhere. The rest of the
country is still pretty shiny, from what I hear. Apparently the
West Coast is more or less the same. Sunshine. Palm trees.
Beautiful women in drop top convertibles. Singing surfers.
Moral rot. The whole enchilada, in the shape of California.
I wouldn t know. I ve never been. At one time I thought of
relocating, right after Times Square. Figured they ve got to
have garbage out there too.
Very same thought made me stay in the end. A country
buried in trash from coast to coast.
As for the rest of it, the in between part, I hear it s rela
tively clean and still open for business, like a plucky dollar
1
SHOVEL .READY 155
store. No longer the land of milk and honey, maybe, but at
least you can still get high grade pharmaceuticals on every
street corner onthe cheap. Most places, they call it the Tooth
less Tap In. A dream you huff out of a paper bag.
Really, it s just NewYorkthat got nuked, cordoned off, shut
down, shunned. Capital of the world, cut loose to drift into
the sea.
The country's soul, on a funeral pyre.
Margo s in a low rise. Lots of buildings out here are basically
just dorms for support staff, the servant class, who ride in
daily to the city to fidget with breathing tubes, feed tubes,
shit tubes, piss tubes. Tubes that run in and out like high
ways for all the rush-hour traffic ofthe human body. Then all
the Margos of the world ride the bus back home to catch the
day s events on the TV. Or escape the day s events. a
Thing about Margo, she s the unhealthiest nurse ever.
Chain smokes, obese, has to stop to catch her breath while
she s catching her breath.
Then again, as she likes to say, what does health have to do
with being a nurse anymore?
She opens a beer for her, then one for me, puts them on
the coffee table between us like we re playing chess with only
two pieces. I notice there s already several empties stand
ing at attention in the sink. Don t imagine she s had a dinner
party lately either.
She follows my eyes to the empties.
So my recycling box is full. What brings you out to Hack
ensack?
Just wanted to check in on you.
That's a funny sentiment to suddenly swell up after eight
years.
I m sorry. I got busy. You know the city.
:9
:l.11
156 ADAM STERNBERGH
Really? What are you busy with?
Just the city. It keeps me busy enough.
Well, it s good to see you.
Margo, you ever think of moving closer? Plenty of room in
Hoboken. Or ParkAvenue, for that matter.
She looks at me like I just asked her if she s ever thought of
giving up plumbing and moving right into the sewer.
So I skip to the next question.
How are you keeping? I m sorry I haven t been out sooner
to see you.
Well, ifyou had come out, I could have told you, I was Very
sorry to hear about your wife. '
Thankyou.
We clink longnecks.
She was a beautiful girl. Such a shame. What they did.
I appreciate it. '
Shame what happened to this country.
With Margo, you re never far from a tirade. She s not quite
the happy snorting bull I remember from my kitchen-table
days. She s bigger than ever, but seems de ated. I always g~
ured that one day she d work her way through every last per
son in the world to be angry at, and that would leave only her,
and then that would be it.
I listen to her for a bit, let her wind down. Then I explain I
need to hire a nurse for a job, and she cuts me off.
Does it involve changing a rich man's diapers while he
dreams?
No.
She swigs.
Okay then. I m in.
/
S oVEL READY I57
Margo offers me the couch but I tell her I ve got business to
get back to in the city. I say goodnight, catch the late-night
bus, bound for Port Authority.
Then, a few stops later, hop off.
Plot a detour.
Hoping to clear my head.
So the Crueade is coming in less than a week. It s set to kick
off on Sunday night. The mayor has sworn they'll have the
camps swept clean by then. Proudly points to news footage of
skinny stragglers stumbling out of Central Park, begging for
scraps, getting pelted by onlookers, then cuffed and carted
away. No one s sure what they re charged with or where they
end up. Some rumors say upstate. Some rumors say Fresh
Kills. Some rumors say it's best not to listen to rumors, un~
less you want to nd out rsthand.
Second bus unloads me in Hoboken.
Certain times, times like these, I have a few rituals.
Reminders, really.
Of things I need to be reminded of. From time to time.
Not meant for anyone else. Just for me.
Unlock my apartment. Leave the lights out.
Head to the kitchen. Open the icebox.
Stand and stare into the freezer. Where I keep my parceled
souvenir.
Actually, reminder s not the right word.
Relic s better.
Freezer's cold curls out, licks my face.
" " -~. u f , -- *
He was a lawyer.
He wasn t the rst one.
He was the third.
The rst one was an accident. Maybe.
That s what I told myself at the time, anyway.
The first one:
An old trash dutybuddy heard I was in a bad place, bouncing
from bed to bar to bed.
This was in the rst few months after Times Square.
City still reeling. My apartment still empty. My Stella s
clothes still hanging undisturbed in the closet. Waiting in
vain to be worn again.
So this old trash duty buddy tracked me down to this bar I
liked on the boardwalk of Coney Island, where the front side
opened out to the ocean and the seagulls loitered and chat-
tered like bar ies. I'd make the long trip out because I liked
to smell the sea.
Smelled sour. Like garbage.
I found that comforting.
He tracked me down and instead of offering condolences,
he offered me cash. A dispute had turned ugly and he wanted
me to talk to the guy. Just talk. I guess he asked me because
I d recently developed a local reputation as someone who was
long past issues of personal concern.
5H0VEl READY 159
He d had some argument over money or property or some-
thing-
To be honest, I don t remember the details.
I don t even think I knew them back then.
But I was alone and out of work and bed-hopping and
burning through what little cash I had left. Rick had cut me a
deal and set me up on a discount trip, where I didn t tap into
any dream, I just tapped into nothing.
Just a void.
Until my hour was up.
So my old trash buddy sidled up on a barstool and asked me
to do him a solid.
Which I did.
Caught the guy outside his apartment one night. Startled
him while he searched for his keys.
Big guy. Cocky.
Conversation moved to an alleyway.
He threw the first punch. I'm sure of that.
Or pretty sure.
In any case, it got ugly.
And I still carried my box cutter.
The one I d used to slice open that garbage bag.
My reluctant surgeon s tool.
I wasn't nearly so careful on him.
Hands were steadier, though.
So, Problem disappeared. So did the guy.
Whenyouwork in garbage, you have access to incineration.
And instead of calling the cops, my friend paid me a
bonus. Then lost my phone number for good.
But not before passing it on.
160 ADAM STERNBERGH
That was number one.
The lawyer was number three.
His jilted wife had hired me.
She came to me in a dream.
I was tapped in at Rick's to the darkness, to nothing, and then
there she was, like an angel, before me.
Beautiful woman, oddly outlined in light. Face aged by
abuse.
Not the kind that comes from belt straps and backhands.
That s too downmarket. T00 hands on.
This was just the abuse of pills, neglect, and pain, all
etched in her face over time.
She d bribed Rick to let her slip into my dream.
Then she led me out.
This angel.
We went for bubble tea. Her choice.
Chinatown still bustling back then.
She said she thought her husband was cheating. But not
out here.
In there.
That's why she bribed Rick.
She d never been off body and she wanted to see what the
limnosphere offered him that their life together couldn t
match.
To her surprise, in my dream, it offered nothing.
But I assured her that my setup was not typical. Most peo-
ple prefer some frills and thrills to spice up their oblivion.
Not many people order the abyss, straight up.
r
SHOVEL READY 161
She'd lost him, she said. He d gone in for a business trip but
now he was limningten, fteen hours a day. He d left his job,
cashed out his securities. She knew he d met someone in
there, some hussy, and now he wouldn't come out.
Hussy.
Her word.
They d fought. He d frozen her assets. Forced her to move
out. He was tapped in while the moving company carted away
her things. The last remnants of their life together. Boxed
and bagged like crime-scene evidence.
She said good-bye to him while he lay silently dreaming.
Their marriage long dead, now her at his side, mourning it,
like an open casket funeral.
He d already changed all the passcodes to the bank ac-
counts.
But not to the apartment.
You might recognize him, she said, as we finished our tea,
almost as an afterthought.
Why?
He was all over the news for awhile.
Really? For what?
He survived Times Square. Big story. Local news ran wild
with it. Front-page of the Post, three days running.
I didn't look at the papers after Times Square.
So you den t remember the Lucky Passenger?
When I was a kid, my father was never religious. He saved his
Sundays for football and quiet communion at the altar of the
couch. N0 wine, no wafers, just beer and Pringles. He worked
h x
162 ADAM STERNBERGH
hard all week, he said, and if the Lord set Sunday aside as a
day of rest, well, who was he to argue with the Lord?
So on Sundays, he rested. And prayed. For the Jets.
My mother s family was more observant. Roman Catho
lics, many generations back. Her own grandmother was a
black-cowled, hunched-over husk of a woman, whispering
over her rosary, haunted by the unseen, sputtering curses
and prayers. When my mother broke with her family and
went to school'to be a nurse, not a nun, it broke her grand-
mother's heart. When I was a kid, my mother never made
church a weekly habit. But she did keep her grandmother's
rosary hanging from the vanity.
My father she could drag to Mass maybe twice a year. Eas
ter and Christmas. Home in time for kickoff.
'But me she was worried about.
Maybe she was right to be.
Either way, for awhile, every week, she d drop me off for
Sunday school. Car pulled to the curb. Hair up in curlers.
Lean across the front seat to kiss me on the cheek and prom
ise to pick me up at this exact same spot When Sunday school
let out. I could tell her all about what I d learned.
Figured I d memorize a few verses. Say a few Hail Marys.
Take First Communion. What could it hurt?
None of it stuck, though. And once I got old enough to out
grow my First Communion suit, I found other ways to occupy
my Sundays, and my parents didn t complain too loudly.
So I don t remember much of church. A few stories. The
odd parable.
The 0in smell of incense, swung from the end of a chain.
But there was one thing that left an impression.
Ornate box they kept at the front. By the altar.
Reliquary.
l sHOVEL READY 163
It was the easiest thing in the world, like delivering takeout.
The apartment was empty, as advertised, save for him
sleeping.
Sensors purring. Monitors cooing.
Fresh feed bag on an IV.
Not too old, maybe late thirties, well built guy and as ,
handsome as his wife was pretty. Impeccably suited, down to
the silk pocket square that he paid someone to uff for him
each day.
Palatial apartment, tastefully furnished, top oor, pan
oramic river views.
Realtor s fantasy. Only a wish for most anyone else.
Yet here he was. Lost in the dream.
Framed photos ofthe happy couple still propped up every
where as mementoes.
And on the walls, front pages. Framed.
Mounted like trophies.
Post. DailyNews. Times. USA Today.
The lawyer, smiling broadly, holding up his right hand.
Fingers wide.
Headlines trumpeting.
FORTUNE SPARES THE LUCKY PASSENGER.
The lawyer's name, I learned from the articles, was Charles
Pierce.
Come to think of it, I did remember him.
Not from headlines, though. From billboards.
The Lucky Passenger and his famous lucky ngers.
164 ADAM STERNBERGH
The reliquary was treated with a special reverence. Carefully
maintained. Never opened, no matter what. Even if you in-
quired politely for a peek.
So one day I asked my Sunday school teacher what the big
deal was.
He looked at me. Got serious.
That box contains the dust of the bones of saints.
What? Like a cof n?
Not exactly. It s a holy place to keep that which has been
touched by God. So we may all be inspired. And benefit from
its power.
So like souvenirs, I said.
Not souvenirs, he said. Relics.
Charles Pierce had scrambled down the stairs at Wall Street
station to catch the uptown 2 train express.
Got snared in the entranceway.
Turnstile jammed.
Swiped his subway card once. Twice. Again.
PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.
Subway waiting. Doors gaping.
PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.
PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.
PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN AT THIS TURNSTILE.
Stupid card keeps can t get the doesn t anything work
right in this fucking
Two-tone signal as the subway doors slide shut.
Charles Pierce swiping.
Cursing.
Top of his lungs.
GODDAMN THIS FUCKING CITY
Turnstile never budged.
Charles Pierce stands chewing out the bored looking
t
i
I
5H0VEI. READY 165
booth attendant, nger jabbing the Plexiglas as the uptown
express slips from the station.
Red taillights recede into the darkness.
He's still steaming, silently fuming, 0n the platform when
the ground lurches and the tunnel emits a dull bored faraway
I'Oar.
THE LUCKY PASSENGER.
All the headlines proclaimed it.
ONE SWIPE FROM DEATH.
Who knows why God chose to spare me, of all people?
Said again and again with a newly sainted shrug.
Repeated in story after story. Quote after quote.
On the couch of the Today show.
I honestly can't say why God chose me, Lorelei.
The host nods sympathetically. Recrosses long legs.
He holds up his right hand.
This hand I was holding the swipe card in this hand
Chokes up. A well rehearsed act. Voice hitching 0n the
same word special every time.
I don't knowwhy God spared me, Lorelei. But I have to be-
lieve it s because He has something special in store for me.
Lorelei nods. Her hand on his knee.
Cut to commercial.
He wasn t the only one that day with a story like that, of
course.
Lots of people died. Lots didn t.
He s just the one who was smart enough to tell his story to
anyone who d listen. Tell it, then sell it.
First to sell newspapers. Then lotto tickets. Then tooth-
paste. Then anything he could point at with his famous lucky
fucking ngers.
166 ADAM STERNBERGH
Charles Pierce on a billboard, arms outstretched.
LET S SEE WHAT BARGAIN MY LUCKY FINGERS HAVE PICKED OUT
FOR YOU TODAY!
After that, her husband was never quite the same, his wife
told me oVer bubble tea. It became clear, with all that atten
tion, her meager devotion was no longer going to be enough.
He d been spared for some higher purpose, he truly believed
that. And apparently that higher purpose was selling six
inch submarine sandwiches, among other things.
Half a hoagie grasped in those famous ngers.
Smile to the camera.
Lucky me!
So why should he go back to the normal life? he told her.
The one he'd left behind?
But the fame began to drag on him. The constant nagging
for handshakes and autographs.
And then he d started tapping in.
And that s when she d lost him, she said.
There are three types of relics.
I know. I Googled it.
First order of relic. The physical body of a saint.
Second order of relic. An object the saint once had in his
or her possession.
Third order of relic. An object that s come in contact with
the first order of relic.
Three orders. Like three outcomes.
And that s it.
The rst order, of course, is the holiest. Physical rem
nants. Which come in many varieties. All with Latin names.
Ea: capillus.
SHOVEl READY 167
Ex ossibus.
Ex cineribus.
Expelle.
Ex came.
From the hair.
From the bones.
From the ashes.
From the skin.
From the flesh.
He lay asleep in an apartment littered with pictures from a
life he no longer wanted. Of a wife he had no use for.
A roomful of souvenirs.
Seemed senseless, this esh-and-blood body just lying
there, like a discarded husk.
Body slowly shriveling under a ten thousand dollar suit.
He still had everything I d lost. Everything I'd die to get
back. I
Yet he still checked out.
Hard not to see it that way, anyway, as I stood there, hold-
ing my box cutter, watching him drift in a dream.
Surrounded by all those photos.
One swipe from death.
And me thinking.
I don t know why God chose you either.
But here we are.
Should have left him there. Left it at that.
Dead lawyer in a bed. Hard to imagine a surplus of ques-
tions. Or mourners.
But I didn t.
168 ADAM STERNBERGH
Instead I carted his body out in a mover s box on a dolly.
Wore an old pair of coveralls and a painter s cap tugged low.
Took his body to the usual place. To burn it.
No doubt security cams at his building caught me coming
and going. The whole operation sloppy enough that I gured
eventually someone would come looking for us both. To be
honest, I didn t much worry.
Maybe welcomed it.
Felt the whole world was already spinning the wrong way
on its axis.
So let them come for me.
But no one did.
I guess law enforcement had its hands full, what with the
city still exploding.
And it turned out there was no one else left in his life to
raise a nger in complaint.
Not even a lucky one.
The most holy relic, by the way, is the Eucharist. The com-
munion wafer that s the literal esh of Christ, transmuted
the moment you receive it on your tongue.
Like I told you, I took First Communion.
Ifyou believe in that sort ofthing.
Edible esh.
The holiest ritual.
But don t worry.
I didn t eat the lawyer.
But I did take some souvenirs.
Just four.
Left the thumb.
Box cutter wouldn t cut it.
SHOVEL READY 169
So I used a linoleum knife instead.
Curved blade. Have to be careful.
Those things are extra sharp.
Packed a Ziploc with ice.
Wrapped them up in butcher's paper.
Stashed the whole thing in a duffel bag.
Incinerated the rest of him.
Souvenirs are always a bad idea.
But these aren t souvenirs.
They re relics.
Ex came.
From the esh.
Duffel bag dripping on the subway ride home.
When I met hiswife again, she paidthe backhalfand thanked
me then sat and cried in that same bubble-tea café.
At rst I thought she was regrettingwhat she d done.
Then she told me.
She hadn't been entirely straight with me. She d known
what he was doing in there.
She d hired someone to tail him into his dream. It s hard
to do, but not impossible, if you re technically pro cient and
ethically exible. It's one of many services offered by Rick,
for example.
So the tail trailed him into his personal construct. The
dream he d built for himself. Abandoned his life for. Aban-
doned her for.
Game back with a full report.
She'd expected a lavish hotel with some hooker or high
school sweetheart. Or perhaps some more unspeakable de-
pravity. Some secret shameful desire he could never share.
if
170 ADAM STERNBERGH
But that wasn t it at all.
It was just their life, exactly re-created. T0 the last detail.
Same apartment. Same suits. Same view of the city.
Same celebrity endorsements.
All of it identical.
Except without her.
She d been erased.
So she returned the favor.
I stand in Hoboken. Stare into the icebox.
My reliquary.
Take a moment.
Feel the cold.
When I don t feel it anymore, I close the door.
That s the lesson.
The gospel tfuth taught to me by my personal patron saint.
No matter what you have, or how lucky you think you are,
there s nothing in this worldyou can hold on to so tightlythat
it can't be taken fromyou.
His wife sobbed.
Why would he
I stopped her.
Took the money.
Stood up.
Explained to her.
I don t care.
And realized only then that it was true.
And that was the last time I listened to a backstory.
Or let anyone pay in installments. 0r met with a client
face to face.
i sHOVEI. READY 171
Or laid down in a bed.
Until my meetingwith Harrow in the wheat eld. 1
As I left the café that day I stuffed her money into a deep 1
pocket. 4
Apparently I d taken to calling them clients now. I
7 a
27.
Rick makes a good living running Rick s Place in China-
town, catering to a reliable stream of tappers, but to make
extra cash he takes the occasional off-hours private tap in
job, which he scrounges up on the seedy old Internet. Ser-
vicing nervous dreamers who want to crash some porny con
struct they re too embarrassed to ask for by name in the light
of day. So Rick's like the kid who opens the back exit to the
movie theater, lets you sneak in and sit in the front row for
free. Minus his fee, of course. He taps you in, takes his fat
envelope, and quietly lets himself out.
Mina is convinced Rick s cheating on her, which he is, so
she tries to follow him to these jobs and spy on him, which
she can t.
Take tonight.
Rick's on his third house call when he decides to shake
her, which isn't too hard, given that if you stood across the
room from her and asked her to walk toward you in a straight
line, about half the time she'd get lost on the way.
Compared to that, the back 'alleys of the Lower East Side
are a labyrinth. Rick doubles back a few times, then pops
loose, free of his tail, a block from his destination address.
He s way south of Rivington, in the crummiest part of a
crummy neighborhood. Tired tenements slump by the side-
walk, black iron fire escapes stitched down their bellies like
ugly sutures.
/
SHOVEL READY 173
He heads into a walk up with an apartment number on
a scrap. Finds the door open so he lets himself in. He has
enough time to register that the apartment is dark and en
tirely bare, save for a wooden rocking chair. But not enough
time to turn around before Simon the Magician steps out of
the darkness and slashes a sjambok across the back of his
knees, which feels to Rick roughly like gettinghorsewhipped
with a live high voltage wire.
Another nifty trick. Most magicians disappear.
Simon appears.
Rick half turns and manages to get his hands up this time
but that only makes it worse. The sjambok is like a bullwhip
that s all handle, no whip, and on the second pass it slices :1
whistling gash across both of Rick s upheld palms, the skin
splitting raggedly, as though gasping in surprise.
Simonthen calmlybull-rushes him, sjambokheldlength
wise up against his neck and arms, Rick stutteringbackward
until he slams into drywall.
The cheap wall shudders.
Simon gets to the gun in Rick s belt before Rick does.
Steps backward.
Bounces the pistol lightly in his palm.
It's a snub-nose, for self protection. Ironic.
Looks like a padlock with a tumor on it.
He waves Rick over to the rocking chair.
Once Rick s hands are bound behind him with plastic cuffs,
Simon commences the speech making.
See, for me? I don t trust guns. Too messy. All forensics
and fingerprints. It s much too easy to connect a body to a
bullet, and a bullet to a gun, and a gun to a man.
He turns the gun over, studying it, like it s an heirloom.
I74 ADAM STERNBERGH
Not that anyone bothers about that sort of thing anymore,
am I right? These days you pop someone in cold blood in
broad daylight, FedEx the murder weapon to the cops, it will
end up in a folder on a pile somewhere, shrugged off as some
one else s problem. But still.
He pockets the pistol.
Old habits. You understand.
He hefts the sjambok.
Now this
Sends its tip whistling across Rick s face. Tip bites. Halves
a tattoo.
this is more mykind of repower. Theywere made to kill
snakes. Most are exible, like a whip. Made of rhino hide,
just leather wrapped on leather. This one s custom though
Bends it. Bounces back to attention. Sounds a metallic
twang.
got a little something extra inside.
Whip whistles back the way it came. Matching slice.
Rick sputters.
Wait l can don t you know just talk to Milgram
One last slash to shut Rick up.
Sorry. We re long past the let s make-a-deal phase.
Shakes the sjambok slightly, held upright. Watches it
wobble.
Then puts it down.
Retrieves a duffel bag. Pulls out a roll of duct tape. Tears
off a piece. Mouth-sized.
As I said, I don t trust guns.
Lays the tape over Rick s mouth. Tape edges grip his
cheeks where the cuts are. Tugs them wider.
I m more of a non-lethal man myself.
Pulls out a penknife. Opens it. Cuts a slit in the tape. Sec-
ond mouth.
1
SHOVEl READY 175
Then he pulls a can of pepper spray from the gym bag.
Jumbo-size. For crowd control.
See, this? This you can buy on the Internet. Get it sent to
a PO box. No names, ID, nothing. Legal. Untraceable. And
non lethal.
He shakes the can.
For the most part.
Rests the toe of his boot on the Chair s rocker. Tilts it for
ward.
Tips Rick s chin up with the nozzle.
Of course, this is the kind of thing that s used to disperse
riots. Entirely safe and more or less harmless when used on
large gatherings in the open air. Isn t that what they say?
Simon stoops and pulls a pair of plastic goggles from the
duffel bag. Straps them over his eyes.
Then slowlyworks the nozzle ofthe pepper spray can into
the slit in the tape over Rick s mouth.
Rick s legs kick, tryingto topple the chair backward, but it
doesn t topple. Just rocks.
Simon s boot stills the rocker.
But you know what I ve discovered?
Works the nozzle further into Rick s mouth.
Best way to make a non lethal weapon lethal?
One last jam. Rick gags.
Just treat the man like a crowd.
The hissing of the spray goes on long enough that the neigh
bors assume it s the roach guy making his regular visit. At
least until their own eyes start to water.
When Mina catches up to him, Rick is bent double on the
oor, toppled, still bound to the chair, coughing up foamy
blood.
176 ADAM STERNBERGH
Not coughing. Coughed.
She falls and cradles his head until her palms burn. Eyes
raw. She coughs, cries.
Simon stands over her.
Gives the empty can one last rattle.
Death rattle.
Then dumps it in the duffel bag.
Stows the goggles too.
Then retrieves a knife that s nasty enough to have no other
use than cutting people.
She looks up at him, eyes swollen, welling, and spits.
The fuck are you. Fuck you. I ll fucking kill you.
He stands her up.
His own eyes puffy and raw at the rims, in some parody of
mourning.
He smiles.
Don t worry.
She spits again. Not words this time.
He puts his meaty hand behind her head and clutches her
skull. Then with his right hand he presses the long blade
vertically against the thin skin of her forehead.
She barely squirms.
Rotates the blade counter clockwise.
Presses again.
Sign ofthe cross.
Leans in. Whispers.
Go tell them what I ve done.
On his way out, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Simon
stops brie y on the street to herate himself, like a man on his
way home who forgot to buy milk.-
Damn.
I should have asked him what the tattoos meant.
Meanwhile at Trump Tower.
Persephones alone, reading. A book Middlemarch. Al-
most done.
Mark s off trawling Chinatown, again, looking for a cheap
bed for an hour. Maybe two.
I m in Hoboken staring into an icebox.
Persephone curls up in the leather chair.
Knock at the door. Avoice calls.
Hey. It s Dave the doorman. From downstairs. Got a deliv
ery for Mark Ray.
She puts the book down, perturbed. Calls back.
Sorry. Can t open up for anyone. Doctor's orders.
Come on. It s me, Dave. From downstairs.
No can do, Dave from downstairs.
Seriously, it s me. Take a look in the peephole.
She tips up on tiptoes.
Dave s face all funny. Dave the bug.
Flat footed again.
Sorry, Dave from downstairs. Can t do it.
He knocks three times on the door with a gun.
Shots echo. Door dimples Three fresh pimples like a teen
before prom.
She calls out.
Dave the dumbass. It's steel-reinforced. Don tyouknowthat?
Knob turns.
I78 ADAM SIERNBERGH
Door opens.
'Dave invites himself in.
ThenI guess I should use the master key, huh?
But she s gone.
He closes the door quietly and locks it behind him. Not a
huge apartment, and there s only one way out, unless you
plan to rappel.
Pistol pokes its nose into the kitchen. Dave follows.
Still in his Sergeant Pepper s uniform. Brocade at the
shoulders.
Epaulets. Captain s hat.
God, he s always hated this thing.
Snaps the kitchen lights on. Empty, and from what he can
tell, all knives accounted for in the wooden block.
Silly girl.
Hot, though. Very hot.
She should trywearing something other than sweatpants.
Out to the living room. Picture window hung like a mas
terpiece.
The sparkling city.
Now, a view like that, he would kill for.
Actually, that's kind of what he s doing right now.
Taps the bathroom door open with the gun snout. Yanks
the shower curtain back, Psycho style.
Rings rattle.
Not in there. Not that dumb.
And so into the bedroom.
Appropriate, he thinks.
Convenient too.
$HOVEI. READY 179
She knows Dave the doorman. She knows all the doormen
by now, of course, but she remembers him in particular,
because of the way he looks at her. It s the same look she re-
members from certain older men in her congregation. Men
in the subway. Boys in the tents. Two men in a van.
From her father, that one night.
She s seen plenty of looks in her life, learned them all,
catalogued them, kept mental index cards on all their alarm
ing variety. I want you. I want to love you. I want to fuck you.
I want to hurt you.
I want you to know I want to hurt you.
Some people undress you with their eyes. Some people go
a lot further than that.
Dave does, often.
So maybe, just maybe, this will work.
Dave the doorman leaves the lights out in the bedroom.
Stands framed in the doorway. A square splash of city light
falls on the bed, so he spots them.
Bra. Panties. Discarded.
And, from what he 'can tell, recently worn.
Don t tell me I caught her in the middle of a shower.
Better yet. Bubble bath.
He steps in gingerly, makes the here kitty kitty noise,
like in a movie. Not too many more places left where she
could be. Maybe the closet.
Maybe she's in the closet watching him right now.
He prods the panties with the gun muzzle.
Scoops them up.
Retrieves them from the end of the pistol, like a fresh
caught fish on a hook.
Balls them up.
Inhales them.
180 ADAM STERNBERGH
A perfumer s inhale.
Eyes slip closed for a second.
Her hand joins his from behind, her body up against his,
breasts pooled against his back, and he almost thinks, for a
second, that he conjured her. Her hand is clutching his hand
that s clutching the panties and now she s pushing them into
his mouth. Panty taste.
Her other hand takes its best educated guess at where his
kidney is and slides the knife in, searching.
Twists it twice, a full rotation. Like working on a stubborn
screw.
To leave a more raggedy wound.
He struggles to shrug her off but she s already disarming
him. Funny what you can pick up after a few weeks living in
tents.
Gun falls softly to the plush carpet.
He follows. Less softly.
She straddles him. Improvises on his neck with the blade.
She s not a medical student, after all. But more or less any
thing that s there to be cut, she cuts.
The plush soaks up most ofwhat pumps out.
She has discovered a streak inside herself of late that she
does not recognize. She tries to credit it to carrying the baby.
If credit is the word.
Something instinctual, born ofbeing a mother. Some new
primal drive to protect.
Though that doesn't quite explain it.
Those two guys in Red Hook, for example. She lingered
long after she should have left them.
Working. Slowly.
And now here.
t
SHOVEl READY 181
Dave the doorman. In his sad little epaulets.
She wonders where it comes from. Or if it was always there.
Latent.
Maybe her father saw it in her all along.
He kept a claw foot tub in the basement for one purpose.
Called it the Baptismal.
Bare lightbulb jumped when he yanked the chain. Black
shadows danced like a campfire.
Started back before she could remember, really. Became
a weekly ritual. Saturday nights. Her mother standing silent
as he marched her down the stairs.
Faucet roared, openmouthed, until the tub lled to
the top.
Then the timid mouse squeak as he twisted the spigot
shut.
Last drop trembling on the mouth of the faucet.
Drip.
He made her strip down. Kneel naked on a stepstool. Curl
over. So he could dunk her head underwater.
One. Two. Three.
Pull her up.
One. Two. Three.
Pull her up.
All the while reciting scripture.
Her long hair, her mother s pride, never cut, left a wet
slash on the wide wooden boards of the wall as he yanked her
up quickly.
Then dunked her.
One. Two. Three. I
Four. Five.
If she d been especially bad.
182 ADAM STERNBERGH
Then he handed back her annel nightie, folded neatly.
Freshly laundered.
Told her, Now you are clean.
Her mother never once mentioned it.
Not once, and then she died.
The weekly ritual. She almost came to what? N0t en
joy it exactly. But rely on it? Maybe that s it. This weekly
cleansing.
The comforting consistency of rules.
It let her know that, whatever she did, she could be exon
erated.
Washed clean.
Through this weekly reminder of her father s unwavering
love.
Though as a teenager, she started to feel rightly more
ashamed to remove her nightgown.
And her father had to nd a sturdier stepstool.
Still. Nothing happened. Not of that sort.
Maybe to Rachel.
But not to her.
N0t to her.
Until he saw those pictures.
He exploded into her bedroom wielding the glowing tablet.
The light from the tablet lit his furious face.
Slapped her with a bony backhand.
First time he d ever hit her.
Drew blood. Just a trickle though.
Then he marched her downstairs.
She accepted it meekly.
i
f
1
\. f7
snovn READY 183
Stripped. Knelt. Prayed.
As he held her under.
One. Two. Three.
Four. Five.
Six. Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Long enough for her to worry this was more than punish-
11161112.
Still under.
Every muscle tensed.
Tendrils ofblood curled and sniffed around her face like a
school of curious sh.
She gasped and breathed water.
She had to breathe something.
He pulled her up.
She spat and sputtered and tasted something salty and
metallic and then he pushed her under again.
One. Two. Five. Eleven. Nineteen.
She lost count.
The frigid water set hei ears to ringing.
She was curled over, on her knees, naked.
With one hand he held her head under.
His other hand went wandering.
Sounds of the room muted.
He was saying something. Not scripture.
Her eyes open underwater.
Sick.
,/ \ .f
'E
184 ADAM STERNBERGH SHOVEL READY 185
Feeling a fullness. That s better.
Edges of her sight blacking out Something about becoming a mother, she tells herself.
like a curtain falling. That's what she likes to think.
He pulled her up. Mother s pride. .
Fingers still in her. Then she likes to stop thinking, and that helps, for awhlle.
The next time under she just let go.
Stopped struggling. Started to oat.
Loosed her breath in a school of lazy bubbles.
Perhaps she d always deserved this.
One last bubble, like a hiccup.
The room so faraway and quiet.
Calming.
She only felt a joyful sinking.
Fringed in black.
Black bubbles. Arriving to carry her upwards.
To whatever reward awaited her.
Then a last rude yanking and a gasp and one last watery
slash painted on the wide plank wall, crude calligraphy left
by the wet brush of her long hair, never cut, her mother s
pride.
And now here.
Dave the doorman. In his sad little epaulets.
Painting his own wet slashes.
He long ago stopped spasming.
Yet these dirty fucking panties still won t t all the way in
his mouth.
So she cuts him a wider smile.
\/
188 ADAM STERNBERGH
ght out here, in the nuts and bolts, realistically, you re on
your own.
Seems so.
And I don't know what you may have in mind, but I Can t
see a way for you to pull this off cleanly byyourself.
Me neither.
So there you go. There aren t three outcomes anymore,
Spademan. Only two. Maybe not even two. Just one.
Which is?
He kills you. He kills her. He kills us all.
That s a terrible outcome.
No kidding.
Mark slumps back on the leather sofa. Knees bobbing.
Can t sit still. I can tell he wants badly to puzzle this out. I can
also tell he can barely wait to tap back in and be rid of this
puzzlingworld. But he won't abandon me. I like him for that.
He also doesn t have his answeryet.
But I do. So I tell him.
You're wrong, Mark. There are still three outcomes.
Really? Are you planning on sharing them with me?
Yes. Three outcomes. He kills me. I kill him. Or both.
Mark stares me down. Silent for a moment. Then scoffs.
Sure. Back to the kamikaze plan. Brilliant.
You said yourself, no way we get close enough to Harrow
out here and still get out alive.
Yes, but you re missing the most important part of that
statement, which is the getting-out-alive part.
You and I both know she s out there right now, running.
Alone. Thanks to us. Thanks to me. And Harrow won t stop
until he finds her, Mark. You know that. Which he will.
Spademan, stop it. It s suicide.
I shrug.
SHOVEL READY 189
You have a better idea?
Come on. It s not an option.
It was for you.
Here s the part I can't explain to Mark.
It's been a long time since I needed to do something.
I ve done a lot of things, but not out of need.
And I ve learned there are a lot of ways, and ugly places,
where things can end.
Backyards. Garbage bags. Subway trains.
Most people don t get to choose.
We don t discuss it further. Watch football instead.
While Markworks on acquiring a taste for beer.
Overtime. Fumble.
Miami scores.
I ip the channel.
Fucking Jets.
Another note.
This one hand delivered.
Slides under the door like a base ruhner stealing home.
By the time I get the door open, hallway's empty.
They just want us to know that they know.
Note s from Milgram.
I believe I mentioned we'd be getting back in touch.
3o.
Milgram meets me the next day at dawn at the Hoboken wa-
terfront in a stretch limo. Morning air is just cold enough
that you can barely see your breath. The sun's rising across
the river, over the city, peekingthrough the curtain oftowers
like a shy actress on opening night.
Lights come up.
A farmboy, this one in khakis and a button down, frisks
me with impressive inventiveness. Makes certain not a
square inch goes unfondled. Finds a few hollows I'd forgot
ten existed.
This Harrowfellow. Real hands-on operation. At all levels.
Farmboy pockets the hox cutter he finds hidden in my
boot. Left there more as a test than anything else.
Milgram dismisses the muscle.
Just the two of us in the backseat.
He knocks twice on the dark glass.
We drive.
Milgram gestures at Manhattan.
It s a bit of a cliché, I know, this meeting in the limo. But
it s quiet, it s private, and it s a great way to see the city.
The skyline passes. Actually, it doesn t pass. We pass.
Amazing, isn t it? After all that's happened? The city still
has a grandeur, don't you think?
I tend to favor this side ofthe river.
Well, why not? Over there, they have to look at sunset over
.r"
5HOVEL READY 19]
New Jersey. You get to watch the sun rise over NewYork. Pas-
tor Harrow doesn't understand the allure ofthis city, frankly.
Sees it as a cesspool, a kind of new Sodom. But I get it, though.
1 (10 New York. The greatest concentration of human poten-
tial in the history of the world. So much so that they had to
start piling the people one on top of the other. An island so
crowded it had nowhere to go but up.
Yeah, well, it s not so crowded anymore.
I m amazed you stayed, all these years. After what hap
pened. So many people vacated.
Not all.
No. But most. And many of those who stayed simply
dropped out oflife, holed up in their metallic cocoons. Well-
look at this woman. That s curious.
A jogger huffs up the waterfront, trailing steam clouds,
like a locomotive. I ll admit, it's a strange sight. I haven't seen
a jogger inyears.
Now that s hopeful, isn t it? People out again. Out in their
bodies again. That s what our crusade is all about, Mr Spade
man. NewYork. Reborn.
I understand you have some other business in the city
while you re here.
He forges on. A salesman. Knows When to engage. When
to ignore.
It s an enticing idea, isn t it? Rebirth. Especially for a man
like yourself. What you went through. I would think well,
you know. Memories. Regrets. They can form a toxic cloud of
their own. A different kind of fallout, I imagine.
Milgram s dressed in a navy suit. Red tie. Perfect knot.
A politician s uniform. He icks at his lapel, brushing away
some blemish only he can see. Wears a lapel pin. Atiny silver
cross. Readjusts it. Turns back to me.
You must wonder from time to time. What if someone s
\/ ' 7*
I92 ADAM STERNBERGH
wife had missed her train? Or what if her teacher had called
in sick and the acting class was cancelled? Or and these
are just hypotheticals, mind you what if her husband calls
her back for one more good-bye kiss in the doorway of their
apartment? So she sets off five minutes later. These trou
bling questions of timing
Milgram, I m going to cut you off right there
I just mean it can all feel so random, so meaningless,
That s all we try to do, Mr Spademan. Bring meaning to peo-
ple s lives. Order.
Persephone told me what you like to do. For example, to
her friend. 1
Rachel? Yes. Atroubled girl.
Milgram looks away, out the window, like a shy little boy
caught in a lie.
I like to believe she s in a better place now.
I m sure you like to believe that. Let me interrupt the sales
pitch, Milgram. You, me, Harrow, we re all of us a little bit
sick. Some ofus sicker than others. And I don t see a way that
any of us are getting out of this alive.
Well, that s a very darkview ofthe world.
Not dark. Just a view.
Well, let me offer you an alternate view. We have asked
something ofyou. To give us someone. We've made an offer in
return, and it's a good offer, and that offer stands. But let me
add one more thing.
I don t need a sweetener.
Hear me out. We have something else we can offer to you.
Someone, actually.
Like I said
Do you recall how many people were involved in the at-
tacks that day?
SHOVEI. READY I93
I never read the papers.
There were six. That theyknow of. That they caught orwere
killed. The two in the van. The two they caught in Brooklyn
who helped build the bombs. The one who supposedly left the
rst bag on the train. And the money man. The elderly one.
So that's six. The Dirty Half Dozen, as they dubbed them.
Sure.
And then of course whoever coordinated those car bombs
that came after.
They never proved those were related.
All chaos is related, don't you think? In any case. Our
Dirty Half Dozen. The Times Square bombers. Do you know
what always fascinated me about their plan?
What?
The precision of it. I mean, you really have to marvel. A
subway bomb, then a second one, precisely timed, and then
a van that drives down to Times Square all the way from up
state.
Sure. Very impressive. Gold star.
But do you truly believe that, in an operation that well-
executed, that precise, you'd leave a bagto ride unattended on
a train for what? Half an hour? From borough to borough?
Hoping no one spots it? No one gets suspicious? No one sees
something, says something, as they used to say?
I don t really care about logistics. Especially in hindsight.
They say the bag with the bomb on the train rode in alone
all the way from Brooklyn. Just like yourwife, Mr Spademan.
Your point?
There was a seventh man.
That s bullshit.
A motorman.
That s not true.
\,
I94 ADAM STERNBERGH
He worked for the MTA. Begged off his shift at the station
right before the explosion. A half hour earlier than sched-
uled. Called ahead. Claimed to be nauseous.
So? :
So there is one placeyou could leave a bagand no one would
notice. Right at the front ofthe train. The motorman s car.
Sure. But who would
You leave the bag, radio ahead, complain that you re ill.
Replacement driver meets you, takes over, spots the bag, g
uresyou left it, gures he'll drop it offforyou at the next stop_
But there was no next stop.
If that's true, if it s even haIf true, how come no one knows
about it? How come the police never tracked this guy down?
They put every fucking speck of every person from that day
under a magnifying glass. Trust me.
I don't know. What I do know, Mr Spademan, is that this
motorman is out there. And no one s asked him these ques
tions yet.
He puts a hand on my arm. Pale as soap. Perfect manicure.
We thought you might be interested in asking him your
self.
Okay, Milgram. But why tell me now? Why not before?
For most men, the promise of the dream is enough. More
than enough. They ll happily make that bargain.
Milgram works past his habitual wince to an actual smile.
We understand thatyou re different. Persistent. And ruth-
less. I must say, I thought we had you cornered. But what you
did to the Chinaman? I almost admire it. I m not even sure
howyou knew he'd turned.
You mean Rick? You fuckers killed him. Sent your errand
boy Simon.
Milgram squints, as though I ve just told him a joke he
doesn't understand. Then continues.
/
5H0VEI. READY 195
In any case, Mr Spademan, here is our proposal. You give
her to us, we give him to you. I will drop you on his doorstep
Personally. Hand delivered. Give you two a little privacy.
Maybe you get to put that box cutter to use after all.
Milgram s presentation is over. He's clearly pleased with
himself. Folds his pearly hands in his lap. Leaves me to pon
der; We ride in silence while I consider what he's told me. No
real reason to trust him, but then, this is too big a lie to be
a lie. He d never dangle this if he couldn t deliver. Conse
quences would be far too grave.
A seventh man. Out there. Unpunished.
There s no way I ll ever give Milgram anything he wants.
But I ll admit it. I feel it. Temptation, I mean. Years ago, Mark
Ray asked me if I d ever been tempted by religion, and I told
him that s not the kind of temptation I have to worry about.
The Iimo s circled back to my block. Milgram drops me at
my door. A considerate date.
I get out.
Let me think about it.
He leans across the expanse of black leather.
Please do. Pastor Harrow s in the city this weekend, as you
know. He d be happy to meet with you. In person this time.
Assuming we can work something out. You have my card.
Until then.
The limo drives off. Iturn to head home.
On my doorstep, my box cutter. The one they con scated.
Red ribbon tied around it, like a gift.
31.
I m sitting with Mark Bay on the front steps of the library.
Watching the lions watch the city.
This is the rst day we met.
He s nishing his story. The one about temptation.
Mark had two friends. Beth and David.
Beth he d known since middle school. David since dia
pers.
They grewup in the church together. Sunday school. Youth
choir. Easter pageant. Wednesday-night volleyball, followed
by prayer.
In their teens, Beth and David started dating. It seemed
natural enough. Beth had blossomed into the belle of the
congregation. Brunette. Hourglass. David plenty handsome
too. Sandy-haired and smiling. They swapped chastity vows
and promise rings.
Perfect couple. A billboard for God s good bounty, be
stowed on those He loves. On those who obey. They looked
like Adam and Eve strolling Eden, pre serpent.
Everyone said so.
Save Mark.
He couldn t help himself.
He was gripped with lust.
r
5HOVEL READY 197
He hoped Bible school would quell it. He got accepted to all of
them, and chose the one farthest away.
At Bible school he walked the ring road on campus with
other women, in among the chastely courting couples.
Onyour third walk around the ring road, you were allowed
to hold hands.
Still, at night, alone, the lust found him.
Gripped him.
He lay in bed after lights-out. Gripped himself.
Then stopped himself.
Prayed instead.
For some kind of release.
He heard on Facebook that David and Beth had split up. Saw
Beth s status changed to single.
Started waking up joyful for the rst time in months.
Put in for a job at his old church. Youth pastor.
The Prodigal returns. A sher of men.
His rst day back, unpacking books in his new office, Beth
and David stopped in to surprise him with a welcome-home
basket. Warm socks and hot cocoa. His favorite treat, or so
she remembered. He used to clutch hot cups of cocoa on the
sidelines when the youth group went ice-skating at the pond.
Watching the two of them skate in lazy circles, oblivious to
anyone else.
She didn t know it had just been something to hold on to.
An excuse to sit it out. Hot cocoa, slowly going cold. He al
ways poured it out into a snowhank when it was time to head
home.
They handed him the basket.
Standing hand in hand.
198 ADAM STERNBERGH
Welcome back.
He smiled.
We patched things up.
He smiled wider.
Great news.
A smile he'd practiced foryears and would eventually per~
feet.
He worked With the teens, the youth. Went from Wednesday
night volleyball star to referee. Whistle at his lips. Later led
the prayers.
All the girls formed crushes, naturally. Ray of Sunshine,
they called him. Ray of Light. Told him he looked like that
guy from the old TV show. The GreatestAmerican Hero.
I m no hero, he told them, American or otherwise.
The older girls liked to sneak up behind him, nger his
curls playfully and in mock wonder, until he brushed them
off like horse ies, told them to cut it out. They also liked
to linger a little too long in the passenger seat of the car
when he gave them rides home. Engine idling. Pregnant mo
ment.
Nothing happened.
He was pure. An excellent pastor.
He d drop them off and drive home alone. Stay up late
reading in the lamplight. But it always found him.
Home, at school, back home, it didn t matter.
Gripped with lust.
He turned out the lamp.
One day Beth and David stopped back at his of ce.
Hand in hand.
Good news. We got engaged.
SHOVEL READY 199
Later, alone, David asked Mark to be the best man.
He said he d be honored, of course.
I wouldn t think of asking anyone else.
You re a lucky man. She s a catch.
Ayear later they stopped by his of ce again.
He looked up from his lesson plan. The story of Bath
Sheba.
What now? Pregnant?
N0 smiles. Beth s eyes red.
We need to askyour advice.
By all means. Have a seat.
David was considering a missions trip to Mexico.
Mark grimaced. The only news from that region was of
drug tensions and body counts. Both rising.
Not the safest spot on the globe.
David nods.
You go where you re called to go.
Beth speaks up.
We re also talking about starting a family.
I see.
David shrugs.
But that means if I'm ever going to go on a missions trip,
the time is now. And it s only a year.
She swats him.
Only?
Smiling. But nervous. Sick over this.
She's grown into such a beautiful woman.
Mark clicks his pen.
Recalls school. The nights, mostly.
Clicks the pen again. Clickety-click.
200 ADAM STERNBERGH SHOVEL READY 20]
Embossed 0n the side of the pen: the cross. Beth? She was crushed, of course. Broken, really. Incon
The old rugged cross. solable.
Puts the pen down. No. I couldn t even look at her. Not after that. So I ran.
Looks David square in the eye. But you loved her.
Best friends since childhood. He looked at me.
Go. Not her. Him.
Clickety-click. I You didn't try? To comfort her?
Mark leaned forward. Elbows on knees. Hands gripped to
whiteness.
Watching the lions. Watching NewYork. Where he wound
up.
Confessing to a stranger on cold stone steps.
David never even made it to the guesthouse. The ight
hit bad weather, got delayed, arrived past dark. They de
cided to risk it, which was stupid, of course. The stubborn
gumption of the faithful, as my grandfather liked to say.
Hit a road block. No doubt he tried to convert them, even
to the end.
I m sorry.
It s not a story about temptation at all. Don't you see? Not
about lust, or love, but punishment. God s wrath. How it fol-
lows you. When the Lord is displeased.
He rubbed his hands like he was trying, and failing, to get
warm.
Said it like something he d only just remembered.
But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
Sounds to me like you're mostly punishingyourself.
Look at me». Playing shrink.
Well, if that s true, I m doing a terrible job. That s why I
called you. Failed even at that.
So what happened with her?
32-
I pull offthe red ribbon, pocket the box-cutter, but don t head
inside. Not yet.
There's a place in Hobokenwhere I like to go to when I need
a moment to think. The door says SOCIAL CLUB, but really it's
just a bunch of old guys playing cards Who know how to make
you feel unwelcome. My rst visit, they shunned me like they
were Amish farmers and I was selling electric razors door
to door. Byvisit three, I was getting good at shooting my own
withering looks at any hapless strays who happened to stum
ble in. It s the kind ofplace where an espresso appears atyour
elbow without asking and st ghts break out over checkers.
Just try opening up a chess board, you ll get cuffed upside
your brainiac noodle.
So after Milgram drops me off, I decide to make a detour.
Sit a bit and think about that motorman.
Espresso appears. Without asking.
I nod a thank you to the waiter.
He nods back.
Puts down a second cup.
I ve never told anyone about this place, not Mark, not Rick,
not anyone, so imagine my surprise when Simon the Magi-
cian pulls out the chair opposite mine.
Chair legs scrape the tile oor with a squeal.
Canasta players frown.
i "x \f
SHOVEl READY 203
Simon the Magician.
Ta-da.
He sits down, folds his hands in front of him, and sighs,
like he's come to break up with me. Then he opens his hands.
You want to go somewhere, get something to eat? Maybe
pancakes?
I m more of awaffle man.
Of course. Well then, let me out right to it. I know you just
met with Milgram. I knowwhat he offered you.
Okay.
Let me offer something better.
I m all ears.
You keep the girl. I give you Harrow.
I lean in, so as to not be overheard.
To be truthful, given what you did to my friend, I m in
clined to just come across this table right now and cut your
face and keep cutting until I hit something hard.
He scratches at his beard.
Ah yes. Your friend. Ugly but necessary.
Really? Why s that?
He gestures between us, like now we re connected.
You have him, you don t need me. Now you need me.
Maybe we should continue this discussion outside.
We can do that, sure. But we tried that once and I don't re
member it ending too well for you.
That was a dream. This is the nuts-and-bolts world. I do
better out here.
Simon watches me. His fingertips drumroll the tabletop.
Spademan, let me invite you to take the longview for once.
Your gizmo buddy is dead. Respiratory issues.
Don t be cute.
In any case. He s gone on to his earthly reward. Without
204 ADAM STERNBERGH
him, your whole plan falls apart. You still want Harrow, but
you know you won t get within fty yards of him with any-
thing like a weapon in your hand. And he still wants the girl,
and he still has me, and I'm still very good at my job.
He pauses, rubs his palms together, like he s consider
ing whether or not to betray a con dence. Then he leans in_
Voice low.
But this is where I can help you. Or I can get up right now
and disappear from your life. At least temporarily. Your call.
Leans back. Having nished his pitch.
I shrug.
Truth is, Simon, you re too late. She already bolted. Right
afteryou sent one ofyour cronies to kill her.
My crony? .
Sure. Turncoat doorman. He s uptown right now, doing
the backstroke in his own blood. Her work, not mine.
Simon grins.
Backstroke, huh?
Maybe more of a dead man's float.
Simon pats his pockets. While he does this he says:
But I thoughtyouwere supposed to protect her, Spademan.
Yeah, well, so did she.
He pulls a cellphone from his pocket.
Lucky for you, I can help you with that too.
Tosses the phone on the table. Phone spins like spin-the-
bottle. Stops at me.
I watch him. He seems like that rare, enviable man com-
pletely content in the world. I feel an angry urge welling up
to toss the table aside, I could be on him in a second, I d have
a moment or two to leave a permanent mark before he re
covered. After that, it would just be animal time, two dumb
beasts clawing. No one here would say a word, let alone inter-
SHOVEI. READY 205
vene. These old men have seen worse and kept silent. That s
how they all lived to be so old.
But then I think of Mark and temptation. The sword devours
one as well as another.
Then I think of Persephone.
And I ask what I shouldn t ask.
So what will it cost?
Simon s grin upgraded to a smile.
What does anything cost?
He names his price and just like that, we re just two mer
chants haggling, over spices, over fabrics, over slaves, a
scene as old as the world.
I have a nest egg. His price isn t the whole thing, but close
enough.
I have to ask him one more thing, though.
What about the motorman?
He pauses. Considers.
What about him?
For starters, does he exist?
Sure. Best as I know.
Where do I nd him?
Simon looks me over. Wonders if this is a deal-breaker. I
wonder the same thing.
Settle down, chief. One deal at a time.
I want a name, Simon.
Forget that. This isn t about that. This is about this.
And if there is a time to leave, draw a line, take a stand,
this is it. I don t. Instead I say:
How do I know I can trust you?
He holds his hands out.
Nothing up my sleeve.
What you did. I don't forgive you.
206 ADAM STERNBERGH
I don t expect that you would.
Last question. Why?
You familiar with the term simony?
No. I do know Judas, though.
He sips his coffee.
Well, then, you get the drift.
Black Judas.
Says to me:
Do you remember that old game show where they put
someone in a plastic booth, turn the fans on, and dollar bills
start swirling? You had to grab all the moneyyou could?
Sure.
I always thought that would be a much more interesting
game ifthey put two people inthe booth. Let them ght it out.
He backs his chair up.
, More like life,
He stands.
Also, Harrow is old. And his empire is vast. And, like na~
ture, I also abhor a vacuum.
He reaches out his hand. No more wrecking ball of bone.
Just a hand.
I want to say deal with the devil, and it is, but that s not all
it is.
Dumb luck.
Sometimes you have to hope it comes when you need it.
We shake.
Okay, Simon. Now how do I find her?
Simon points to the phone.
First number on speed dial.
And why on earth do you think Persephone would answer
a phone call from you?
Trust me. She ll pick up.
1
l
33-
This time, she nds me.
I get back to my apartment and she s already there wait
ing, dressed in her hoodie, Docs laced over sweatpants, like
a soldier.
Chattingwith Mark.
Seems happy to see me.
Hey.
Hey. You came back.
Yep. And I brought friends.
Eight mangy stragglers, refugees from the camps. Hard to
tell the boys from the girls. Too much grime and everyone's
got dreadlocks.
I hate dreadlocks.
I spot the one guy with the sliced-up forehead. I guess he
and Persephone patched things up.
They're all hungry, too, siege starved, haven t eaten in a
week. Spent the last of their energy dodging nightsticks and
paddywagons. Tossed every trash can theypassed for food on
their way here, found nothing.
There aren t a lot of pedestrians in the city anymore. So
no trash.
No real use for garbagemen.
I order a tower of pizzas from the one place in Hoboken that
still delivers. Hurricanes, blackouts, bombs spewing toxic
\f/
208 ADAM STERNBERGH
waste, you call their number, they never don't answer. I like
that.
Fresh and hot in twenty minutes.
Plus, the name of the joint is the Last Slice.
I like that too.
My kind of place.
While we re waiting, one hungry kid wanders off and starts
rooting through my barren fridge. Finds nothing but bottled
water and waf e batter.
So he opens the freezer.
Just a Ziploc.
Takes it out. Shakes it. Thinks maybe he's found my secret
stash.
Which he has, sort of.
Gropes the baggie. Squeezes the paper wrapped package.
Feels four stiff cylinders.
Smiles.
Dude. This is some serious spliffage.
I take the Ziploc from him. Politely. Place it back inside
' the freezer.
Trust me. It s too much for you.
Bummer. 4
Close the freezer door sharply while his hand still lingers
on the opening.
He snatches his hand away.
I give him a smile of my own.
Tell him;
Watchyour ngers.
Eighteen minutes later. Doorbell.
Pizza s here.
i
SHOVEL READY 209
They have a kind of party, nish offthe last of Mark s beer.
I sit with Persephone.
I was worried.
I m okay.
Don t run away.
Don t leave me alone.
Fair enough. .
We sit a minute more, wait for the city to make the next
sound.
Then she says:
So you met Simon.
In the esh.
And he ll help us?
We ll see.
She reaches out, rubs my arm.
I heard about Rick. I m sorry.
Thankyou.
If he's out, does that mean we re screwed?
Maybe. Maybe not. I may have found us a replacement.
Okay. So what s next?
Honestly, that's between me and your father.
She pulls her hand back.
Not exactly. I had a day to think about it. Which I did.
And?
And I have an idea.
Good. Me too.
She looks at me. All business.
I'm pretty sure you ll like my idea better.
\/
210 ADAM STERNBERGH
Mark and Persephone escort the gang of carcasses out for a
eld trip to the riverfront. Fresh air. Sunshine. I tell Markto
maybe throw a few in, for a bath.
Truth be told, I'd asked for privacy. Miracle of miracles, 1
got it.
I nger the business card.
Then call Milgram.
She wants to talk to him rst. Alone.
Naturally.
Not here. In there.
Why?
She s scared. Understandably. This way is more comfort
able for her. She needs to clear the air.
We can arrange that. Not a problem.
And I want to meet with him. In person. To hand her
over.
Of course.
And Iwant the motorman.
He will be delivered to you. Afteryou deliver her to us. Un
derstood?
Yes. I ll deliver her.
I hang up. Turn to Mina.
White cross of bandage on her forehead.
Red cross, etched in blood, seeping through.
Black cross, underneath, stitched in sutures.
You sure you can do this?
Look. I was his girl, not his fucking apprentice. But I do
know my way around a bed. And I am plenty fucking moti-
vated, I will tell you that.
I hope so.
SHOVEL READY 211
If I wasn t, would I have tracked your ass all the way here?
To fucking New Jersey?
Skinny Mina. Mina saves the day. Maybe.
Mina Machina.
V,
.._..
FE-.
-.._
-I
A4
A
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4.
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34..
Sunday.
New York Reborn.
Madison Square Garden jammed to the rafters, if it still had
rafters anymore.
A gospel choir kicks it off. A thunderstorm of tam
bourines. Across the stadium, fty thousand hands clap in
unlson.
Then a warm-up sermon. Opening slot. Light the re,
stoke the brimstone. Local preacher, made good.
Then T. K. Harrow appears.
Angelic. FaintIy glowing.
Waves left. Waves right;
Hosannas rain down.
His image wobbles a little, then corrects.
He smiles.
Hologram.
Most know. Few care.
All cheer.
I'm down in the nancial district, back at that same aban-
doned bank. Hike the stone steps and enter. My footfalls
echo in the lobby. Farmboy heads me off at the pass.
Farmboy is just as good at frisking as I remember. Finds
the box-cutter in my boot and a pistol besides.
SHOVEL READY 213
My gun. I nally dug it up.
He con scates both.
Ushers me in.
In Chinatown, Mina in darkness hovers over two beds. Mark
in one, Persephone in the other, side by side, like a blood
transfusion about to begin,
Tubes and wires strung in between. Mina lit by the blue
glow of her laptop. Whole thing rigged like she's trying to
jumpstart a car that s been dead for a century.
Margo the nurse sits behind her, smoking.
You sure you can do this?
Mina, cranky.
You worry about the vital signs. This part I got.
Mark and Persephone already gone into the limnosphere.
Eyeballs shiver under closed lids. Off to see the wizard.
Mina, crankier.
This chick is pregnant, you know.
I know.
So you shouldn t smoke.
Margo blows fumes out her nose like abull aboutto charge.
Don t worry. It s okay. I m a nurse.
In the dream.
Persephone, alone.
Barefoot.
She s dressed in her baptismal dress. Father s favorite.
Floral pattern. Matches the pastures that stretch out on ei-
ther side of the path before her.
The cobblestones cool underfoot.
Radiant.
Catch the sun and amplify it back at her.
214 ADAM STERNBERGH
She squints.
Wow, he wasn t kidding.
Paved with gold.
Milgram greets me with a handshake like I m here to apply
for a loan.
His smile tells me I m not going to get it.
Mr Harrow will be with us shortly. He s just nishing up
his meeting. With her. Hopefully all will go well.
No worries. I can wait. Between here, heaven, and Madi
son Square Garden, Mr Harrow is a busy man today.
The frisking farmboy is joined by three more farmboys.
Muscles bulge under shirts. Guns bulge under jackets. They
form a loose semicircle around me and Milgram, like he s the
cowboy and I m a skittish calf that might bolt. The frisking
farmboy hovers directly behind me like he s daydreaming of
all the different parts of me he could break, once he's given
the go-ahead.
Milgram folds his arms.
And they sayyou can't be everywhere at once.
I shrug.
Miracles of the modern world.
Milgram nods.
Indeed.
Margo, still smoking. Having cracked pack number two.
That cut on your forehead looks nasty. You get that
looked at?
It's ne.
Mina stroking, then coaxing, then cursing her keyboard.
Mutters.
Now where didyou get to?
SHOVEL READY 215
What happened?
Seriously, I need quiet right now.
Long suck on a cigarette. Paper sizzles.
You didn t lose her, did you? Somewhere in there?
N0.
No?
No. I didn t.
Okay, good.
Mina scours the screen.
Not her. Him.
She follows the path through the pasture. Butter ies utter
and land on her softly.
The path ends at a temple.
End of the yellow brick road.
The temple is columned, like in Roman times. Or some-
one s idea of Roman times.
She climbs the stairs to the towering oaken doors.
Each one as tall as a building in its own right. Round iron
knockers, big as hula hoops, for giants, she guesses.
The rest ofthe' temple made of gold.
Two farmboys, strapping lads, stand sentry. Dressed as
centurions. They stay silent.
The doors swing open.
Inside, a courtyard.
Statues.
Fountains.
At the far end, a throne.
Her father stands.
Milgram kills time by giving me a tour, like we re in a mu
$611111.
\f
216 ADAM STERNBERGH
At one time, banks were thought of almost like churches_
I mean, look at this structure. It s magni cent. The painting
on the ceiling alone would have taken months to complete_
And the vault. Breathtaking, no? A kind of holy of holies in
its own right. It's sad to think it s all moved online now. Data
zipping hither and yon. All so ephemeral. Nothing left to
stain your ngers with.
While he prattles I think of what Persephone told me.
About the dream. About Paved With Gold.
About Rachel.
Milgram was the mastermind.
You look beautiful, Grace.
Her father, in a rippling white robe. Majestic. Imperial.
Laurel wreath on his brow. His obsession with emperors. He
can name the succession by heart. Augustus. Tiberius. Ca
ligula. Claudius.
So much for the footsteps of the humble carpenter, huh,
Dad?
I know it s all a bit over the-top, Grace. But you know, ren
der unto Caesar and so on. And don t forget, this is heaven.
Or as close as most people will ever get. And when we all get
to heaven, we do want it to look a little bit like heaven.
He descends the few stairs that lead down fromthe throne.
I was so worried about you.
Really?
Don t ever run away from me again.
I didn t think I was safe with you.
Well, we have a mutual interest in your safety now,
don't we?
He reaches out to touch her belly.
She bats his hand away. Maternal instinct.
SHOVEI. READY 217
He smiles.
Why do I have to learn about these things from other peo
Ple, Grace? It leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. But you
should have known I d never let a grandchild of mine come
to harm. Whatever his provenance.
He reaches out. Grazes her cheek with a knuckle.
She inches. Can't help it.
But she hates that she inches.
His hand flush on her cheek now.
Welcome home.
Brushes a curl back from her forehead.
His knuckle on her skin.
Her skin against his knuckle.
She knows that touch.
As real as real.
Milgram developed the technology. He was convinced there
was a way to make off-body even better.
When you tap in, you re in a computer construct. Could be
open to anyone, could be limited access, or could be some-
thing private by request. You might go in alone, you might
bring a few friends who tap in by your invitation. Medieval
feast, a sultan s harem, Old West cathouse, whatever. But ev-
erything else besidesyou inthat world, the horses, the harem
girls, the frontier whores, the beds, the feast, the clothes, the
props, they re all part ofthe construct. Just the computer fill-
ing in the blanks.
Take the farmboys back at the country church. Me, Har-
row, Simon, Mark, we're all people, comatose in our beds
somewhere. The farmboys were computer code. Just part of
the program, like the pews.
So if a farmboy hits me, I feel pain, because I'm a real
,.____
218 ADAM STERNBERGH
person. And if I hit a farmboy, the punch feels plenty real to
me, but the farmboy only simulates a pain reaction. It s the
computer s best guess at pain.
The best guess, for most people, is convincing enough.
But not for everyone.
Mina spits on her laptop.
Cheap Chinese piece of shit.
Mark s eyes jitterbugunder his lids, like they re searching
for the exit.
Margo can't tell if he's dreaming or drowning.
I thought you said you piggyback people all the time.
Not all the time. Sometimes.
So what s the problem?
There s no problem.
Margo stubs out her butt.
I m bringing him up.
Give me a second.
Both bony hands now free of the keyboard, Mina clutches
instead at her wild witch's nest of black hair.
Goddammit. Where are you?
I thought he was riding in with her? You know, like a
skateboarder grabbing a bus? That's what you said, right?
Yes.
So where is he?
I think he let go of the bus.
There is a certain kind of off-body customer who wants to,
say, humiliate someone sexually. Harbors a dark rape fan-
tasy. Fuck you with a knife to your throat, get off on your
screams, that kind of shit. Fear and pain as aphrodisiacs.
Brands, whips, blades, etcetera. If you can think it, some
SHOVEL READY 219
one's already thought it and done it. And someone else
watched it. And someone else heard about it and wanted to
go and do likewise.
In fact, one of the whispered selling points of the limno
sphere, at rst, was that it would let people like that burn off
that sick energy. At first.
Problem is, to that kind of person, the computer s best
guess was never-quite good enough.
So that was the rst thing Milgram gured out.
The other thing he gured out was something no one else
had thought of. Or if they'd thought it, they didn't put it into
practice. They didn't dare.
He gured out that it makes a difference to have a real
person on the other end. A real person reacting to you. Giv-
ingyou feedback.
Take Mary and Magdalene, the church twins. The heart
of Harrow s big demonstration. The rst one, Mary, was just
the computer s idea of a girl. The computer's idea of a downy
cheek. The computer s idea of a blush.
The second one, Magdalene, was a real girl, tapped into a
bed somewhere, feeling everything on the other end. React-
ing to my touch.
So, too, was my wife. My Stella.
Someone was playing her part.
Feeling my hands on her face somewhere.
Feeling my kiss.
It s the only way to make it feel that real.
So what Milgram gured out was that you can tap people
in, doesn t matter who they are, what they look like out here,
once they re off body you can basically pour them into an
emptyvessel in the construct, use them as you will. And once
they re tapped in, they re prisoners. They can t tap out and
220 ADAM SIERNBERGH
they can t control or even interact with the construct. They
just provide the feedback. The emotional underpinnings to
the simulation. Give it that extra juice that only comes from
real pleasure. 0r real pain.
Bigger market for that second one, it turns out.
That was Milgram s innovation. New wine, old bottles,
that sort of thing, except in this case, it s the other way
around. Old wine. New bottles.
Bottles made to be broken.
So what you do is, you conjure up a made-to order night
mare. Then cast these people as unwitting extras.
Or, in some cases, as the star.
Rachel was a star.
Milgram s tour is done. Now we re just waiting.
Milgram tries to grin, winces, bobs onthe balls ofhis feet.
Like we re two businessmen at a convention, waiting for an
elevator.
I pipe up.
I want to see him.
He should be with us momentarily.
No. I want to see him now. See that he s actually here.
But he s in his bed. He won't want to be disturbed.
Don t worry. I won t wake him up. Scout's honor.
Milgram glances at his farmboys.
All right. Follow me.
Nods his head at Farmboy Number One. The frisky one.
You too.
And he leads us both to the back of the bank.
To the vault.
What do you want from me?
I want you to come home.
SHOVEl READY 221
Why would I do that?
Because it's where you belong.
They stroll a golden path together through the garden in
the courtyard, enfolded in birdsong and blossoms. An im
possible breeze, originating nowhere, ripples the emerald
grass. Blades sway.
But you hurt me.
I punished you. I m your father. That's what fathers do.
They punish. Because they love you. No matter what you ve
done.
I thought that was God s job.
Which part?
The punishment. And the love.
Father. God. At some point, Grace, we re really saying the
same thing.
They only tapped Rachel out because someone had heard
about her.
Requested her.
Her reactions were said to be.extraordinarily what's the
word.
Nuanced.
She was suddenly in high demand.
An out of state donor wanted a test-drive. Called and
talked to Harrow personally. Harrow explained he would ar
range to tap in the donor and put Rachel at his disposal.
But the donor wanted to meet her. Just for a moment. Out
here.
In the esh.
Call me old-fashioned, he d said.
Harrow outlined the risks of bringing someone back. Of
bringing her back. If she spoke a word of what she d seen to
anyone.
WW)WW\1/
222 ADAM STERNBERGH
The donor reminded Harrow that he had been habitually
generous to Crystal Corral. Then he offered to up the d0na~
tion. Treble it. He was one of Harrow s closest associates.
The Deacons' Circle, Harrow called them.
They had a special room, special black paycards, special
beds.
Special requests.
So, against his betterjudgment, Harrow agreed. Arranged
the meeting. Set a time. Had Rachel tapped out and sent to
the in rmary. Under medication. Under restraints. Under
watch.
But the donor s private jet was delayed an hour on the tar
mac. Stranded by a sudden thunderstorm.
Just long enough for Rachel to get word out to Grace.
Plane grounded. Donor fuming. Storm pounding.
The bright sky furious.
Aviolent squall thatjust seemed to blowup out ofnowhere.
Act of God, all the weathermen said.
The vault stands open. The door is three feet thick.
Inside, a high end bed.
In the bed, a body.
Wears a suit, like he s been dressed for the occasion by an
undertaker.
Silky white hair in a halo around his pale skull.
Gauges gauge. Monitors beep. Respirator hisses.
Milgram dismisses the nurse with a nod. She leaves to
linger just outside the vault doorway.
We stand around the bed, me, Milgram, and the farmboy.
Three wise men at the manger.
Harrow s body seems de ated. Each breath an awful
rasp.
SHOVEL READY 223
So delicate-loOking I feel like he might crumble if you
touched him.
He is an old man, after all.
Made older by all his dreaming.
In Chinatown, needles wobble. A steady beep becomes a
frantic SOS.
Margo frowns.
I don t like this. We should wake him up.
Mina waves her off.
Ifyou do, she ll be left in there alone.
She s in there alone now. And from what I ve heard about
her, I get the feeling she can take care of herself.
No. Not in there.
Mark jerks.
We have to wake him.
We can t.
Do it.
I said I can t.
Why not?
I have to nd him rst.
The three other farmboys slowly drift within spitting dis-
tance of the open vault. Just to remind me they re there.
The frisky farmboy stands guard inside the doorway.
Looks impatient for the breaking things to start.
He shoots a glance at Milgram.
Milgram sends back a tight little smile, like a telegram
that reads, You ll get your turn. Stop.
I make small talk.
So where's your friend? The Magician?
Simon? He s in there too.
224 ADAM STERNBERGH
, Where s his bed?
He's in a separate location. Security protocol. Pastor Har
row never goes off body unescorted.
That's not what we talked about. She wanted to meet with
her father alone.
This is just a formality. Don t worry. They ll all be back
soon. How close is she? Bodily, I mean?
She s close.
And you have people with her? To bring her here?
Yes. And- don t forget the motorman.
No, of course not. You see, Mr Spademan? There are other
ways to resolve things that don't involve spilling blood.
Sure. Or, at least not ours. Right?
He squints. Nods. Tries to laugh like he s in on the joke. A
reaction he must have seen somewhere and sporadically tries
to re-create.
Grace, you remember Simon.
Simon joins them on the golden path.
Hadn t been there a moment before.
Nowyou don t see him, nowyou do.
Harrow turns to her and grips her shoulders, like he's
sending her off on a dangerous but necessary journey.
I m so glad to have you back, Grace. But actions have con
sequences, my love.
Simon slips behind her. Grabs her arms from behind.
Her father consoles her.
Just remember, nothingthat happens inhere canhurtyou.
Not really. Not in heaven. No matter how real it may seem.
Harrow seems to pause for a second, as though search-
ing for a thought, the addled mind of an old man, not what
it used to be, but that s not it at all, in fact he s only shifting
'K:
SHOVEL READY 225
his weight slightly, and curling his gnarled wounded bird of a
hand into an even more gnarled st, which he sends with all
his heaven-assisted fury into the soft center of Grace s baby
swollen belly.
She cries out.
A cry that carries across pastures, statues, fountains.
A cry seeded, like a storm cloud, with sobs.
Harrow leans in to whisper. Sweet intimacy in her ear.
Don t worry. He's fine.
Then straightens himself. Laurel wreath askew.
I have a strong feeling it s a he.
Uncurls his hand.
Grace, why didyou thinkyou could hide him from me? For
whatsoever you have, I gave unto you. And whatsoever I gave,
I can take away. So sayeth the Lord.
No Bible verse she ever learned.
He nods to Simon.
Now, I m going to leave you two alone for awhile.
Her short sobs betray her. She struggles to swallow them.
Dad, wait. Don t. Wait. Dad, don t you remember the story
of the Prodigal Daughter? The story you taught me when I
was a girl? How she returns home and all is forgiven?
Oh Grace. Of course I do. But you know me. I ve always
been more of an Old Testament man at heart.
I ask Milgram, because I'm genuinely curious.
You ever go off-body? Visit heaven? That you created?
Me? No. Unlike many people, I still feel that there s value
in the physical world. That it is a blessing to have a body. I
believe that s as God intended it.
Me too.
To retreat to some dream, it s wickedness. A temptation.
r
226 ADAM STERNBERGH
To embrace the spectral world. And the people who ock to
it well, they seek easy escapes. It s a weakness. Pastor Har~
row doesn t see it that way, of course. But to me, bodies are
glorious. To be alive is glorious. That is the gift from God. To
turnyour back on that
Yes, it's true. Bodies are glorious.
I check my watch.
Milgram frowns.
Do you have somewhere to be?
No. Just something to do.
He glances at the farmboy, who takes a half-step to
ward me.
I'ignore him. Stare down Milgram.
I ve always had one question about bodies though. A ques
tion for God, I guess.
Really? What is that? Perhaps I can help you.
Why exactly did He make them so fragile?
Go easy on her, Simon. She is my daughter, after all.
Simon steps around her, then turns sharply to Harrow,
like a soldier about to salute.
Reaches up with both hands and grabs Harrow s face.
Kisses him on the cheek.
Then steps back and snaps his ngers.
Presto.
A silver coin.
A trick.
Simon shows it to Harrow. Then palms it.
Snaps again.
Another coin.
He holds them both out, one in each palm.
Then brings his hands together.
I
SHOVEL READY 227
Shakes them. Coins rattle.
Reproduce.
He opens his hands to show Harrow the bounty.
Thirty silver pieces in all.
So here s the thing about a box cutter blade.
You can take it out of the box cutter.
The blade itself is very thin, like a razor blade, only longer.
And it's at enough to, say, tape to the inside ofyour forearm.
Or on your chest, under your shirt, over your heart.
Frisk proof.
I work on the farmboy first. The frisky one.
Nothing lethal. Just something quick. And distracting.
While he s on his knees trying to keep what s left of his
eyes from dribbling out onto the oor, I pull the vault door
closed.
It s a heavy fucker. Tug of war, and I m the anchor.
Beat the other farmboys by a half step.
They pound With their pistols. Gunshots muf ed on the
other side.
I give the kneeling farmboy a last meaningful slice across
the throat, and he slumps like a split bag of garbage, spilling
its wet load onto the oor.
Now it's just me and Milgram.
Mina s white bandage throbs in the light of the laptop like a
neon cross at night.
She searches.
She searches.
She searches.
She smiles.
Fucking finally.
x i *
228 ADAM STERNBERGH
' Oaken doors creak and Mark rushes in and up the path like
he s late for a party.
A centurion head in each hand. Like luggage.
Chucks the heads in the underbrush.
Okay, rst of all? Piggybacking is bullshit. Pardon my
language.
Brushes his hands off. Stands shirtless. Golden curls.
White raiment swaddling his loins. Gladiator sandals with
straps wrapped to the knees.
Simon smiles.
Harrow s face ashen.
Mark looks himself up and down.
What? Too gay?
Rolls his shoulders like he's prepping for a prize fight.
Bounces. Flexes his back.
Spreads the I RULE tattoo.
Letters reassemble.
URIEL.
That's better.
Boxes the air. A one two jab.
Now, ifyou ll excuse me one moment.
He bends double. Grunts.
Stands erect.
Grunts again.
Fists clenched.
Then roars.
Wings unfurl.
I know what you did.
Milgram stands steady. Still smiling that unconvincing
smile.
SHOVEL READY 229
I am blameless in God s sight. None but He can judge me.
That may well be so.
I step toward him.
He smiles. Sweats.
So what are you going to do?
I thinkyou know. _
What? Kill me, and then live in this vault forever? There
are three armed men out there, waiting for you, and what do
you have? A razor blade?
It's a box cutter.
You know you can t get out of here alive, not without me.
I pause.
He eyes me. Spots weakness. Crack of daylight. Heads
straight for it.
I m tellingyou, you do this, and we both die.
I stroke my chin, then take my chin stroking hand and
grab the back of his head. Yank him toward me.
For the first time, he squeals.
I whisper.
Fair enough. You first.
I work on his throat, nothing fancy. But with gusto.
Like ripping at a Christmas gift you can t wait to get open.
We're alone in the vault so there s no rush.
When I let him go he falls to his knees.
Penitent.
Having seen the light. And the dying of the light.
His windpipe whistling.
Exit music.
He plays himself offstage.
Harrow calls for someone to tap him out.
No one s listening.
Simon stands by, arms crossed, like a guy at a bus stop
E 230 ADAM STERNBERGH _ snovu READY 231
waiting for the crosstown express. Waiting for the inevitable I stand alone in the vault. Me, and two bodies. Three, count-
1 to play out. ing Harrow.
Mark hovers. His sandpaper breath.
I Persephone holds out a knife in a stained leather sheath Still oblivious.
'1 Asks her father. The box cutter blade is too slow for my purposes.
Do you remember this? And, by now, too dull.
Yes. I gave it to you. I check under the bed. Find a gym bag, tucked out of sight.
That s right. For what purpose? ~ As I was told to expect.
To protect yourself. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised.
Right again. But from What? Unzip. '
The evils of this world. Check the contents.
1 Yes. A handgun. A hammer.
1 And they are many, Grace Chastity. They are many. And I A spike.
? did my best to prepare you. A second spike, for the heart, as a failsafe.
Yes. They are many. A11 accounted for.
And to protect you. I tried to. And to teach you to protect Six inch railroad spikeS. Further sharpened.
yourself. One thing left to do.
Yes. But I didn t do a very good job of that, did I? Not when Check my watch.
3 it counted.
5 I onlywanted the best foryou. Whenyou cried, 'I comforted Grace Chastity, I raised you from a little girl.
i you. When you faltered, I picked you up. When you strayed, I 4 I know. I remember. I was there.
1 corrected your path. That's all. Look around you. I can offer you everything.
I Yes. And you taught me to protect myself. All I see here is a frightened old man.
I Ihope 80- I m not frightened, Grace Chastity. I am saddened. To see
! And my baby. I have a baby to protect now too. what you have become.
I can harbor you both. Yes. I m a little saddened myself.
She slides the knife from the sheath. I These cheap theatrics don't suit you, Grace Chastity. And
No: Ithink I can do thiS- . despite what you might think, all of this? It's just for show.
ChBCkS her watch. You can t hurt me in here, don't you understand that? You
I think I ve learned all I need to learn. cannot hurt me. You foolish, stupid little girl. Anything you
do in here has no meaning in the actual world. And when I
I
I
i nd you there, I will reap this pain on you a thousandfold.
|
I
232 ADAM STERNBERGH
All right.
You knowI can do it, Grace Chastity.
Yes. I do.
Checks her watch.
It s true I can t hurt you in here. Not really.
Watch beeps.
But I can give you something to remember me by.
My watch beeps and I hammer the spike in. It takes fewer
blows than I would have thought.
I d etched a cross in his forehead with the box- cutter be»
forehand.
As a target.
Then held the spike steady.
Waiting for my cue.
Just two blows. Straight through.
Fragile. Like I said.
In the dream, Harrow gasps, shocked, a sharp intake, less in
pain than in simple surprise.
Then he smiles. Even looks a little embarrassed.
The emperor dethroned.
Glances down at his chest, where she s still twisting.
Blood spreading in a swallowing stain.
This is the moment he will live in forever. Looped. Like a
record skipping.
His knife.
Her hand.
His heart.
It s an old bank, but the vault was retrofitted more recently,
the securityprecautions updated after an employee got locked
in overnight.
SHOVEI. READY 233
I search for the emergency release.
Luckily I knew about all this beforehand.
A little bird told me.
After all, there s really no reason to try and stop people
from breaking out ofyour vault.
I nd the lever and pull it, and shove the door open slowly,
and since they re expecting a guy frisked clean with nothing
but a razor blade, I get off five clean shots before they even
return fire.
Guns. They do have their uses sometimes.
Three shots hit, two with authority.
And the last farmboy standing has lousy aim.
Lucky.
When he falls I distribute the last half of the magazine
more or less equally between them. For closure.
The nurse has, for some reason, stuck around.
She s paralyzed in a corneruntil Iwave her toward the exit.
Crepe soles soundless on the marble oor. Until she hits
the puddle.
Keeps running.
Tracks blood right out onto Wall Street.
I start searching the extra rooms for Simon s bed.
Mark lands lightly, looking slightly disappointed.
You hardly needed me. Of course, there s still him.
Simon, prepping his exit.
I'm sorry, but I really have to run.
Mark steps up.
You and I started a conversation earlier, back at that coun
try church. We should finish it.
Simon straightens.
Happy to.
Persephone grabs Mark's arm.
234 ADAM STERNBERGH
Don t.
Simon smiles. Looks her over.
Good to see you. You look well.
She wipes her blade on her dress. Bloodies the owers.
Just tell us which way.
Simon looks to Mark. Back to her. Then points.
She says to Simon:
Okay. Now go. Fast. I mean it.
Then she gestures to Mark.
Follow me.
I nd Simon s bed in the old bank manager s of ce, but no
Simon.
Nowyou see him, nowyou don't.
Too bad, because I have that second spike.
I do find another room though.
Six beds.
Six old men.
All tapped in. All dreaming.
Arranged in the round.
Deacons Circle.
She leads Mark to a different doorway, hidden behind creep-
ing ivy.
When theyfirstwalk through, they actually do hearharps.
Harps, then the screaming.
The far off hopeless cries of the long since damned.
The room is pitch-black, with only ickering ames to
light it.
They wait in the doorway, their eyes straining against the
dark.
Their pupils dilate, hungry to let the light in.
Then regret it.
I
SHOVEL READY 235
For Mark, the only reference is paintings. Blake. Bosch.
But alive.
Persephone recalls something different.
Ayoung woman stabbing herself in a hospital bed.
Persephone speaks rst.
I ll need something.
Mark hands her the hurlbat.
She hefts it, one handed.
What about you?
I keep something handy for special occasions.
In his hands, suddenly, a sword a ame.
Uriel.
In the Bible, the aming sword is mentioned only once.
Held in the hands of the angel Uriel Who banished Adam
and Eve from Eden. Some scholars read the aming sword
as a metaphor for lightning. Mark is somewhat more literal-
minded.
Persephone lit white by the heatless re.
Wait, how come you get the flaming sword?
Don t forget, I taught Sunday school. And I have a good
imagination.
She heads right. He heads left.
Cut their way back toward each other, like explorers clear
ing brush.
I watch the deacons sleeping. Leave them undisturbed.
Head outside to the bank steps.
Greet Wall Street.
Fresh air. Bright sun.
Wolfwhistle.
Eight mangy stragglers assemble. Still way too many
dreadlocks.
Remind myself to institute a shaved heads only policy.
236 ADAM STERNB ERGH
For now, though, let them work off some of the anger that
built up back in the park, over a week of siege and beatings.
Resentment toward society and so on.
Pass out six box-cutters.
One per deacon.
Point the way inside.
Outside the barn, crickets chatter.
Inside, a nurse ips through a magazine.
Someone in a bed murmurs. Awakes. Bolts upright.
A scream.
Then another.
The nurse puts down her magazine.
At Paved With Gold, in every bed, someone's gasping.
Awakened.
Eyes blinking like a newborn.
Born again.
35
The city's quiet.
I leave Persephone, Mark, and the Mangy Eight at my place
and take my boat across the river. It's the rst truly cold day
_ of the season and there's a ake or two in the air, with winter
creeping up the river to tap the city on the shoulder. I dock
in Tribeca, walk east among the castles, rough cobblestones
underfoot. These ones aren t made of gold, just cobble.
Brought over in the bellies of empty cargo ships as ballast,
then unpacked here and used to pave a new world.
In Chinatown the rst of the last remaining shops roll up
their iron shutters and open.
I d helped the Mangy Eight ditch their bloody clothes
and took care of the Deacons and the farmboys and Dave the
doorman too. Remember, I used to work as a garbageman.
I have access to incineration. I'd say ashes to ashes but that
never made sense to me. None of us start out as ash.
In any case, those gents are all now traveling the city as
weightless tourists, oating bird s-eye over the streets,
burnt to soot- ecks and swirling on the fresh gusts herald
ingwinter.
May well land by accident on somebody s outstretched
tongue.
Reverse snow ake.
This city does leave a taste in your mouth.
V
238 ADAM- STERNBERGH
I head into a knock off emporium on Canal Street and pull
out what's left of my nest egg. Thanks to recent develop
ments, my slush fund is all slush, no fund. Still, I have just
enough for a Chinatown shopping spree, to out t my new
naked brood back home.
I hand over the last few bills.
Prodo for everyone.
As I m walking out, my phone rings.
Unknown number.
Though I know.
Hello Simon.
I d never told anyone about that place, the Social Club in
Hob oken, not Mark, not Rick, not anyone, so imagine my
surprise that morning when Simon the Magician pulled out
the chair opposite mine.
Made me an offer.
Laid his cellphone on the table.
Trust me. She ll pick up.
Hello Simon.
Well, I'd say that went off without a hitch.
Almost. I d really hoped to nd you in that bank. Give you
a proper good-bye.
I thoughtyou might. But I had to jet. Some other time, per-
haps.
Spit crackle of a bad connection. I blink rst.
You got your money. So what s next?
I wait. Manage the crisis. Then ll the void.
SHOVEI. READY 239
No, I mean what s next for her.
I ll make sure she s taken care of.
And how are you planning to do that?
Well, for starters, I have you.
Whatever arrangement you have with her is between the
two ofyou. But let s be clear. If I ever see you
Don t worry. I don t intend to be involved. At least not right
away.
And I almost hung up then and there. I should have. But
it gnawed.
So I said it.
One last thing, Simon.
Yes?
Congratulations.
He laughs. That laugh.
So she told you.
Not until this morning.
Secrets are so hard to keep. It s a wonder they even call
them secrets. Though I guess this one would have come out
eventually. So to speak. Listen, Spademan
Good bye Simon.
He starts to say something else but before I hear it I pull
out the SIM card and drop the handset in the sewer.
Hear his laughing voice echoing all the way down as he
tumbles to the underworld.
It wasn t Harrow.
It wasn t her boyfriend.
It was Simon.
Simon the Magician.
Head of Security.
Harrow never knew.
W
240 ADAM SIERNBERGH
Harrow would have killed them both if he had, of course.
Killed all three of them man, woman, and child. Probably
killed some other people besides, just for being 1h the same
vicinity.
Harrow had appointed Simon to be personally responsi
ble for his eldest daughter s security.
His job was to watch her.
So he watched her.
One day, she watched him back.
It was a short affair with only one lasting consequence.
A secret With an expiry date.
Or, rather, a due date.
She d caught me on my way out this morning. Everyone else
in the house still asleep. Led me bythe hand to a bench by the
waterfront.
The baby wasn t the reason she ran. I was right about that,
she said. She actually thought that maybe she could stay. In
her home. With her family. With her father. That somehow
he'd understand.
, Before she d thought that.
Before Rachel.
But not after.
She cried as she told me this.
She'd gone to Simon rst. Spilled everything. About her
father, about the farm, about Rachel. About what they d done
to her. Hoped Simon would help her. Hoped together they
could halt it.
Turned out he knew all along.
SHOVEl READY 241
Winter wind in a rush up the Hudson.
Hugged her knees to her belly on the bench.
Watching the water.
Aposture of protection.
Belly getting bigger every day.
I'm sorry I lied. I was scared
It s okay
f1rst ofyou. Then ofmy father. And I knew I (I need help
It s okay. He had plenty of sins to atone for.
to stop him. Once I knew. I had to stop him. I didn t
know how.
It s okay.
And then Simon
Tugged her close.
It s okay.
And when I said it that last time, I think she nally started
~ to believe me.
It all made sense now, of course. Simon s intercession. The
Judas betrayal. But when I shook his hand in the Social Club,
I didn t know any of this, and I can t change that, or deny it.
It was a deal with the devil and I took it.
Figured that s what passes for hope these days.
But maybe I m wrong.
I hope I am.
She and I sat for a bit by the river. On the Jersey side.
Witnessed the sun resurrect itself over the Hudson. Bis-
ing up from its nightly tomb.
That daily miracle.
The once mighty skyline cast in shadow as a consequence.
1.;
I
<7
VIK
-l
36.
All the cemeteries have long since lled up.
No one gets to be buried anymore.
Government mandate. Last thing we all have in common.
Rich, poor, sleeper, servant, preacher, heretic. Everyone
goes in the re.
Except Harrow.
I'd wanted to take Harrow s body along with the others to the
incinerator but Persephone wouldn t allow it.
Turns out Harrowhas a family plot in a churchyard inVer-
mont.
Bought a generation ago, next to nine dead generations be
fore that, long before the Harrow clan pulled up the stakes of
their revival tents and headed southto build a crystal church.
Burial plot. The last luxury item on Earth.
The plot of ground he d bought by plundering people s
souls.
Persephone insisted.
Can t say I understood but it wasn t mine to understand.
So we rented a U Haul van, backed it up to the bank steps,
and packed Harrow s long body in a cardboard box. The kind
that cheap beds come in. Body-length. Rick had a million of
' those lying around.
Still, Harrow was tall. His shoes stuck out the end.
SHOVEL READY 243
We slid him in, closed the van doors, and drove all night
to Vermont.
Me, her, Mark.
. Her in the back with the box.
Moonlit night. Vermont churchyard.
Once you get out of the city, you can see so many stars.
Nine generations of Harrows lay side by side, under stone
markers.
Number Ten in a cardboard box.
~ Number Eleven stood by the graveside, weeping.
Number Twelve asleep in her womb.
We didn t bother with paperwork. Just showed up with a
shovel and a body.
Work in the light of the highbeams.
I dig the hole.
Spadework.
Mark says a prayer.
I wish I could recount it, but I don t remember it exactly.
Something about our souls, in this world and the next.
Then we lift the box together.
Aim for the fresh scar we d just cut in the earth.
Harrow always said that he hoped to build a heaven.
We send him six feet in the opposite direction.