The Dewey Decimal System (10 page)

Huh. I say, “For … ?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note all of this. Disregard it.

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

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

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

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

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

My mouth feels dusty, arid.

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

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

I avoid the mirror.

Exiting the bathroom, I reenter the conference room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I nod. “Sure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yakiv waves it away, not important.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh hell yeah,” I say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yakiv wipes his mouth with a Popeyes napkin. Lord, give me Purell
^TM
.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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