The Dewey Decimal System (14 page)

I pick up the box carefully. It’s about three inches wide and five inches tall. Smells like rosewood. I give it a gentle shake, something shifts. Turn it over a couple times. It’s featureless, save an engraved symbol that even I recognize as a Byzantine-looking cross, with that small extra crossbar running diagonally near the base. Could be Greek Orthodox. Could be Serbian Orthodox too. I can’t help it, all this arcane crap rattling around in my head. I like to read.

It’s not immediately obvious how you open it, but after futzing with it for ten seconds it becomes clear that one side is actually a slat. It slides open down the length of the box, and I’m looking at something behind a thick plastic window. Again I’m slow on the uptake.

A couple seconds later I realize I’m looking at a mummified hand, on a patch of red velvet. A very, very old mummified hand, the color and texture of a dried apricot.

I want to assume it’s simian, but examining the fingernails … a gibbon? Nope. I’m no archeologist, but I’m gonna say it’s a human hand.

An Orthodox cross, a human hand …

At this very moment, I hear muffled voices. Sounds like two or more individuals, coming from the hall entrance. One of the two gives a “shh” and they go silent.

Shit. I open my briefcase and place the wood box inside. No idea why exactly, but anytime you find a human body part anywhere, it’s worth paying special attention to. Just speaking from experience.

Actually, I think this particular body part is a unique item that might come in … handy?

Ouch, sorry.

Carefully now, I walk over and ease the door to the office shut, turn the lock. I take up a position to the left and cock the Beretta. Put my good ear to the piece of plywood that serves as the office’s wall.

I’m there about three minutes when the doorknob is quietly turned, found to be locked, and jiggled quietly. On the other side of the wall I hear mumbling. Nothing happens for a few moments.

Then I see the plastic of an ID laminate slide through the crack between door and wall, just above the knob. I realize what they’re doing and tense up for it. The plastic comes down slowly and pops the lock.

As soon as I see male hands pushing the door open, I bring my gun butt down hard on the forearm. There’s a yelp of anguish, he tries to bring a Glock up with the other hand, I crack him on the knuckles, the gun falls to the carpet. I then get a hold of his arm, pull him toward me, twisting his hand up and behind his back. I turn him around, jerk him close, and stick my gun in his ear. All this and I’ve still got a two-fingered grip on the briefcase.

I’m now facing the barrel of a pistol too, behind that a woman, maybe early thirties, brunette, dressed in a no-nonsense blue business suit. She’s got some subcontinental Asia in there somewhere, her skin has a nice tawny sheen.

The man in my arms is wearing a cheap blue two-piece suit. Their attire screams “government” to me, but we’ll see.

“Drop your weapon,” she says, sounding a little shaky. “Drop your weapon or I’ll be forced to shoot. We’re federal agents.”

I smile—yes sir, it’s amateur hour.

“I’m happy to drop my weapon, if you’d care to drop yours first. As you can see, I’ve got your man here and I’m not yet emotionally attached to him.”

She’s blinking and her hands begin to shake a bit.

The dude wants to be hero, says: “Anne, don’t you dare stand down. Take the shot. You can do it.” Too many Bruckheimer movies. He’s a small guy, he should take it easy.

Anne is trying to rally. “I said drop your weapon.”

“Anne,” I reply, “you know that if you attempt to shoot me, you’ll hit us both. Okay? So why don’t we all just relax, just walk it back, swap stories, and see if we can’t work this out.”

“Take the shot,” repeats the hero.

“Look now.” I stay focused on Anne. “We’re all a little worked up. These are crazy times. How about we both put down our guns and just have a talk. I bet you we can all be friends. I bet we’re all in the same gang. We can look back on this and laugh. Let’s put down the guns.”

Anne is wavering.

“Don’t do it, Anne, take the shot.”

“Man, do you have some kind of death wish? What is your problem?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I sigh. “Honestly, Anne, the chances of this ending badly are very, very high, unless we put down our guns. I even volunteer to go first. Okay? Here I go.”

Twisting the guy’s arm even further—he grunts but isn’t going to give me the satisfaction of a more amplified display of pain—I force him to crouch down with me. I place the gun on the carpet. We come back to a standing position together; I feel like we’re in some kind of modern dance class.

“See? Your turn.”

Anne directs her gun at my head with renewed vigor and I see her trigger finger spasm. So I push her companion at her with all the strength I can generate. They collide, and are knocked to the ground. Her gun goes off,
boom!
Somebody hits their head on the flimsy partition that separates the cubicles, and that comes down as well, kicking up lots of paper.

I pull out the Sig Sauer and train it on them. They’re unhurt as far I can tell, and the guy, who has Japanese features, is looking both embarrassed and furious. He’s checking himself.

“Jesus, did I get hit? Am I hit?”

Anne seems stunned.

“Everybody okay?” I say.

“We’re federal agents,” says the Japanese-looking guy, flushed, in total disbelief, I imagine, at how wrong this scene has gone for them. “You’re in enough trouble already.”

“Uh-huh. Let me see your IDs.”

“We’re not giving you anything. Drop the gun,” snaps the guy.

I’m getting annoyed. “Friend,” I say, “you aren’t in a particularly good position to tell me what or what not to do. Plus I don’t like your tone. So just do like I say and let’s see some IDs.”

Anne, who is still holding her gun but seems to have forgotten about it, tosses me her laminate. Her nose is bleeding.

“Goddamnit, Anne. What are you doing?”

“I’m taking initiative, so just shut it, Mike,” she says. He shuts it.

The laminate reads:
Annette Jaspreet, FBI
.

“FBI? Really?”

“Yeah. Federal agents, like we said,” Anne responds. She’s pulling herself together. “We’re going to stand up now, okay?”

“By all means, just do it slowly.”

They get up off the floor, carefully. Mike is nursing his arm. I toss them my ID. The guy scrambles for it, scrutinizes it.

“Dewey Decimal? Is that a joke?”

I shake my head.

“And you work for the city. Which means we outrank you here.”

“Sure,” I say, smiling, “that’s fine. I don’t have an ego about it. Are you going to bust me for B&E, Mike and Anne of the FBI?”

“Explain your presence in this office,” says Mike.

“Okay. I was assaulted last night by three men, all of whom seem to have been employed by this company. I came down here to determine its relevance to my current assignment.”

“Which is?” Anne takes my ID, studies it.

“Classified. A city matter.” I smile at the two of them.

“Classified? The fuck? Can he do that?” Mike looks to Anne. “I don’t think he can do that.”

“Just a minute,” Anne says irritably. She’s keying my info into a palm-type device.

We wait. Touch the key. Tap the briefcase, the rosewood box within. A human hand, an Orthodox cross. I can feel my synapses firing, making connections I can’t yet articulate.

Mike fumes. “You can’t do that. We’re FBI, we’re not freakin townies. Local stuff can’t possibly be kept classified from the Bureau …”

I shrug. Anne shows the handheld to Mike.

“It just says
transmitting
.”

“That means it’s uploading the information, it’s slow, Jesus, give it a minute.” She dabs the sleeve of her white blouse against her nose, peers at the blood. “Oh, okay, here it is.” She’s reading something. Then she tosses back my ID.

“All right, Mr. Decimal. Friends in high places. You have the get-out-of-jail-free card. Congratulations.”

I hand Anne her ID.

“Thanks.”

Mike is dumbfounded. “This man accosted me.”

“I apologize for that, my mellow. I really do. I assumed you were from the same crew I dealt with last night.”

Anne is considering something. “Look, do you mind if ask you a few questions? Just informally?”

“Why are you deferring to this guy?” says Mike, and Anne silences him with a look.

I clear my throat. “I’m not compelled to answer your questions. But perhaps we can help each other out on a couple fronts. Are you open to that?”

The two exchange glances.

H
oofing it across town, making all the necessary pre– eleven a.m. lefts.

The two feds admitted they were both kind of new. This I could have told them. The FBI being extremely shorthanded and operating, this year, without a budget, there are a lot of fresh faces.

They made me “promise” I wasn’t an assassin or anything like that. Gosh golly wow! I assured the kids I was certainly nothing of the kind. They seemed satisfied with that. Mouseketeer time. Amazing.

Regardless: they didn’t seem overly pleased with their current assignment, for many reasons.

I finally dragged it all out of them. “You don’t have to actually say it. Just say nothing if I’ve got it right.” That kind of psychology.

The job had been handed down from Interpol. In essence, seeking two war criminals. Thus far, the Bureau has succeeded only in getting a line on one of the two, that they are aware of. Through “local sources” suspicion was thrown here. So the scouts set out to observe the contracting firm Do Rite, and in particular determine if its owner, one Brian Petrovic, is in fact Serbian war criminal Branko Jokanovic. If so, they are to take him into custody and prepare him for extradition to the international court in The Hague, Netherlands. Ditto number two, should they ever get a line on said person.

All this, they were just jawing, telling me this stuff right there on the street. Flushed and excited about all the cloak-and-dagger, secret-agent shit.

Fuck’s sake, I could be anybody. Really, is this our best and brightest? If so, my friends, we might as well just stick a fork in it, cause we’re pretty well done. I should be working for the Chinese. Something to chew on.

Wondering if there isn’t another reason they’d be so quick to feed me this information.

I’m moving. If my memory serves, I’m headed to West 26th Street, just off of Sixth Avenue. The sky is bruise colored, clouds herding together, making the heat no less oppressive. I hobble forth, fingering the key in my pocket.

Brian Petrovic, a Serbian national (according to his papers, which had been determined by FBI experts to be of “dubious origin”), aged fifty-eight, who immigrated in 1995 (though all these facts are in dispute), lived with a relative in the Philadelphia area until 2002, at which point he moved to New York and incorporated Do Rite. The firm’s projects had at first been restricted to the Williamsburg/Greenpoint areas of Brooklyn, as the housing boom out there went into overdrive. Later, Do Rite was involved with the construction of the New Museum for Contemporary Art in Manhattan, as well as numerous residential high-rises. Currently, their biggest job is the Freedom Tower, at which they deal primarily with issues of insulation and construction of the necessary metal studs.

My FBI friends had numerous issues with their job, as mentioned, the first of which being that the subject is so goddamn boring. They have a running wiretap in his office, yielding nothing so far. They tossed his home and workplace twice, finding little of interest. A Bureau linguist is in the process of translating all of the man’s work-related and personal documents, and after two months has come up with nothing to indicate he isn’t exactly who he claims to be.

His movements are maddeningly predictable. They would not give me a specific address, but said he only ever moves between his home in Greenpoint to the office, then back again. Exceptions to this being his unflagging attendance of church services. Again, they would not tell me where. Clever clever.

But that’s everything I needed to hear.

Gave the two all of my information, such as it was, and the DA’s number. They seemed a spouting fount of intel, would have been a shame to not mine them for all they were worth.

I then split quick. But not too quick. Didn’t want to look like I had a destination in mind.

Got no idea as to the schedule at the Cathedral of Saint Sava, or if it’s still in operation at all, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s the only Serbian Orthodox facility in New York City. This being a Sunday, I reckon they’ll be open for business.

I check the clock on the old Con Edison building, which is still going strong, good old American engineering: coming up on ten a.m.

Saint Sava is very impressive, a proper cathedral in the English Gothic style, out of context in a rather industrial/commercial neighborhood. I know little of its history, except that it was initially an Episcopalian church and designed by the guy who built the Trinity Church downtown.

I guess that’s more than most New Yorkers would know. Like I said, I read a lot.

Up the stairs, the heavy doors are braced open slightly. I nudge them back, register that a service is in progress, and slip inside.