Near Enemy

Shovel Ready

Voice on the phone said a single name.

Lesser.

Woman’s voice. Hung up quickly.

Money cleared an hour later.

I wrote the name on a scrap of paper. Put it in one pocket.

Box-cutter in the other.

Simple.

And no way to know, when she said that name, that it would go so wrong.

This used to be a city of locks.

Every home, at least five, down the door, like a vault.

Chain lock.

Rim lock.

Fox lock.

Knob lock.

Deadbolt.

Funny name, that last one.

Dead. Bolt.

Neither word exactly conjures security.

But no one bothers with that many locks in New York anymore. City’s safer. Or at least emptier. No end of vacancies. And no one bothers to burgle anymore. Nothing left to burgle. Everything’s picked clean, and anyone who still lives in Manhattan and has something of real value to protect—family, dignity, vintage baseball-card collection—does it with a shotgun, not a deadbolt. So the real problem, for the burglar, isn’t getting in. It’s getting back out.

After all, if you apply enough force, deadbolts give.

Shotguns take.

The richest folk still have lots of fancy stuff, of course. They just don’t keep most of that fancy stuff out here.

Out here, all they need is a bed and a connection.

Everything else they keep in the limn.

And if you’re that rich, rich enough to go off-body all day, to
tap in and slip away into the limnosphere, then you probably live in a glass tower somewhere, sealed up tight, behind code locks and round-the-clock doormen who watch the street with shotguns propped on their knees.

Where you don’t live, if you’re rich, is in a place like this: a squat, sprawling, crumbling tenement complex like Stuyvesant Town. A few dozen forlorn lowrise apartment buildings scattered over several city blocks on the east side of downtown Manhattan, just close enough to the waterfront to smell the river. Brick towers clustered around central courtyards, grass long ago scoured to brown. Communal playgrounds left to ruin, slides warped, swings hanging lopsided on one chain, iron rocking-horses splotched with raw-rust sores, stricken by some rocking-horse plague. The apartment buildings themselves are about as inviting as a low-security prison, except without the tennis courts or fences or guards to give a shit if anyone tries to escape.

Now everyone’s escaped.

Courtyard’s a ghost town.

Lobby left wide open.

Waltz right in.

Stuyvesant Town was built decades ago for the middle class, back when there was such a thing as a middle class. Eventually sold by the city to private interests. Left to rot after Times Square. Now basically a free-for-all, home to squatters, deadbeats, homesteaders, claim-jumpers, freeloaders, and bed-hoppers.

It’s that last kind I’m after, by the way.

Bed-hopper.

One hopper in particular.

I have to admit. I miss this.

I’ve been distracted lately. On a kind of hiatus. Family business. Since I seem to have a family now. Of sorts.

It’s complicated.

But this?

This is simple.

You ask. I act.

Cause and consequence. Old as Cain and Abel. Old as the universe.

And not many things feel that simple anymore. Not in my life. Not in New York. Not in the universe.

Save this.

You may think it’s cold and cruel, and you’re right. On both counts.

Cold and cruel.

But then again, so is the universe.

Just ask it.

Apartment number scrawled on the scrap next to Lesser’s name.

2B.

End of the hall, under a failing fluorescent.

Turns out our friend Lesser’s less trusting than most. Has double deadbolts and a rim lock besides. So I pull out the lock-picking tools I keep hidden in my hair—

Kidding.

Heft a twelve-pound sledge from my duffel bag.

Let the duffel drop.

Before I swing, I spot a business card wedged in the doorjamb.

Pluck the card out.

Read it.

PUSHBROOM
.

No number.

No nothing.

Just Pushbroom.

I pocket it.

Get back to work.

Heft the sledge.

Open Sesame.

Knock three times.

Jamb gives first.

Thank God for cheap doorframes and negligent landlords. And neighbors who know which noises to ignore.

I kick the door in, then wonder if Lesser’s got company.

Don’t have to worry about waking Lesser. He’s a notoriously heavy sleeper. Not the picture of health, either. He’s fat, and generally smells like there’s places he can’t reach to wash.

I met Lesser once through my friend Mark Ray, but mostly I know him because he has something of a reputation, at least with the hard-core tap-in crowd. Some kind of whiz kid, used to be a hotshot at something. But he pissed it all away to become a bed-hopper, waste his days peeping on other people’s dreams.

Inside the apartment, I hear snoring. I follow it down the hallway, like Pepé Le Pew trailing perfume.

I used to love Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid. Wascally wabbit.

Hated the Coyote though. Really hated the Road Runner.

That was some pointless desert bullshit.

Le Pew I could take or leave.

I find the bedroom. Nudge the door.

No furniture. One visitor. Skinny kid, junkie thin. Camped out bedside, watching Lesser, like a worried relative on vigil.

Lesser’s bed is no more than a cot. Coils of wires, homemade solder-job, like a grade-school science project gone awry.

Bought myself a word-a-day calendar, by the way.

Awry. Yesterday’s word.

Lesser’s under, snoozing in the dream. Occasional snorts let us know he’s still alive.

Light in the room is the color of rusty water. Newsprint for
curtains. All the windows papered over. Old headlines scream at the world unheeded, like crazy sidewalk prophets.

The End Is Nigh.

Lesser’s naked, by the way.

It’s a hopper thing. Some like to do it in the buff. Bigger kick, apparently.

The other kid, the skinny one, just sits there, staring, gape-mouthed, as a stranger walks in carrying a sledgehammer. Maybe this happens a lot.

So I put down the sledge. Gently. Hold a hand out.

Name’s Spademan.

Kid blinks once. Sign of life.

I’m Moore.

Funny. Lesser and Moore. Fat and skinny. Like a comedy duo. And no shake. Fair enough. I put the hand away.

Can you give me a moment? I need to talk to Lesser.

I don’t think he’d want to be disturbed.

Trust me, I’ll only take a minute.

But I’m supposed to watch him.

I don’t think you want to watch this.

Skinny gets the hint. Grabs his things. Army rucksack and a surplus khaki coat, still has the soldier’s name stitched on it.

Bows to me once as he leaves, like a geisha. Which is weird.

Once he’s gone, I reach into my pocket.

Find my box-cutter.

About the time I get the blade extended, Lesser bolts upright, awake, already screaming. Louder than a five-alarm fire.

Rips his tubes out.

So that’s messy.

Still screaming.

Tears off the sensor pads, yanks out the IV. Also messy.

Still screaming.

It’s called the wake-up call. Senses coming back online. The sudden shock of the real-time world.

Slaps at himself like he thinks he’s on fire.

Still screaming.

Skinny ducks back in. For some reason.

Maybe curiosity trumped the survival instinct. Or maybe he’s genuinely concerned for his friend. Though that wouldn’t explain his quiet exit a second ago.

Who knows. Hopper logic. It’s—what do they call it?

Oxymoronic.

Today’s word.

Bed-hoppers hop from dream to dream in the limnosphere, unseen. They’re like peeping Toms, except worse, because they’re basically inside your mind. They peep on your fantasy, the one so twisted that you’d only ever dare to act it out in the limn, in total secrecy that costs top dollar.