The Zero

“Thanks for driving Nicole home,” April said without opening her eyes.

“Sure,” Remy said.

“I’m sorry you had to sit through my evaluation.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I’m sorry you had to deal with Nicole.”

Remy turned. Her head was nestled deep into the pillow. He opened his mouth to say that it was okay, that he’d enjoyed himself, but thought he might be able to find a better choice of words.

“Did I tell you who was on the phone?” she asked.

“The phone?”

“At di

Remy tried to remember her phone ringing at di

“Gus.”

“Oh.”

“He’s coming through town and he wants to see me.”

“Really? Huh,” Remy said, as he finished undressing. He was relieved when April’s breathing became heavy again, so they wouldn’t have to talk about Nicole anymore, although he wouldn’t have minded asking who Gus was.

THERE WAS a mark, a stain of some kind, on one of his shoes. Remy stood in the entryway of his apartment, looking down at the stain. His shoes were next to the door, right where he always slid out of them when he came home.

Remy picked up one shoe. The stain was reddish brown, kind of glossy. He touched it and it flaked off in his hand. There was more of the reddish brown stain on the sole and on the heel. He turned the other shoe over and found more of the dried red stuff on the sole. Remy put the shoes back on the floor and backed away from them, rubbing his jaw. Okay. He looked outside. It was still dark. Must be three or four in the morning. Okay.

There were any number of explanations, he thought; it would do no good to go crazy imagining things again, trying to find some meaning. He went to get a dish towel from the kitchen. No, he thought, there were no good explanations. Remy looked over, to where his jacket was hanging on a kitchen chair. He pulled it off the chair and fumbled through the breast pocket until he found his wallet. He slid out the card, on which he’d written: “Don’t Hurt Anyone.” Below that, in his own handwriting, was written: “Grow Up.”

Brian Remy stood in the entryway, holding the card in one hand, the dish towel in the other, thinking that this couldn’t go on, but the moment and the thought slipped before he had a chance to wipe the blood off his shoes.

THE CAR was familiar, a silver Lincoln, pocked and key-scratched, a shit bucket of a gypsy cab (a bit too ragged, Remy thought on seeing it again) driven by one of the men Remy had seen following him and Guterak, the man who had barged in on him in the restroom of the restaurant, a fat white guy in mirrored sunglasses, thick-necked, with a bushy mustache longer on one side than on the other, as if the thing had been trimmed by a blind man. Remy stared at the car again and understood why it hadn’t seemed quite right: It was a shitty old car, but the tires were brand new. The back door of the car was thrown open. “Get in,” the man said.

Remy looked around. He was standing in front of an old six-story brownstone, not his building or April’s. The façade was covered with scaffolding, which was topped with razor wire and sided with plywood, which in turn had been tagged with graffiti. A tu

“Get in,” grumbled the buff man again.

“What?”

“Get your ass in the goddamn car, Remy,” said Buff. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Fair question, Remy thought. He looked around and finally sank in. He had just settled into the worn vinyl backseat when the car bolted like a spooked horse. The back door swung closed and Remy lost his balance, falling sideways, and then righting himself as they swerved through traffic.

“So,” Buff said. “So… you wa

“What… I’m doing?”

“You’re making side deals with the agency, aren’t you?”

“What agency?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Remy.”

“I’m not.”

The man stopped at a traffic light. He had a manila envelope and he reached in and removed a photo. He tossed it into the backseat. Remy picked up the picture; in it, he was in a parked car with a thin, aristocratic man that he recognized at once: Braces. Caramel macchiato. Khakis.

“Dave,” Remy said.

“Yeah. I know his name, asshole,” said Buff. “What I want to know is what you’re doing meeting with him.”

Remy had no idea. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Buff glanced up at Remy in the rearview mirror, and with his mirrored sunglasses, Remy saw the man reflected in his own eyes. “You arrogant fuck.” Buff suddenly cranked the wheel without slowing and Remy slid all the way across the seat as the car squealed onto a side street without slowing. The car cut around a double-parked truck and seized to a stop, Remy’s hand curled white on the door handle.

The driver removed his sunglasses and slapped at the rearview mirror so that he was staring Remy in the eye; the man’s left eye was slightly crossed, on the same side his mustache was crooked. “Come on. What do I look like, a fuckin’ moron?”

“Well…” Remy said, and looked away from the man’s reflection.

“We had a deal, Remy. The bureau provides you with information… and you keep us apprised of what your gay little secretarial outfit is up to. I went to bat for you, Remy. How does it look when my director comes to me with these pictures of you meeting with this agency queer? How do you think that makes me look?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“What did you possibly think this would accomplish?”

“I don’t know… maybe help me find this girl, March-”

“Come on,” Buff said. “We both know that’s not what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to get a fuckin’ foothold. You’re playing the bureau against the agency, figuring that Dave would never find out you’re working with me and that I’d never find out you’re working with him. Well, that, my friend, is a dangerous fuckin’ game. Do I need to show you the other picture I got in here?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Come on. You can’t guess what’s in here?”

“No.”

The man tossed Remy the manila envelope.

Remy stared at him in the rearview mirror before opening the envelope. The photo showed a man crumpled up on a sidewalk, a Middle Eastern man with a thick beard and short hair, wearing tan slacks and a white shirt. The man was facing sideways, his legs cocked as if he’d just fallen off a bike. A slick of blood spilled out from his neck and head.

“Remember him?”

“No,” Remy said. But he did remember the blood on his shoes and he swallowed.

“Oh, so you’ve never seen this guy before, is that it?”

“No,” Remy said again. “Never.”

“And I suppose the name Bobby al-Zamil doesn’t ring a bell?”

Remy covered his mouth. The lunch reimbursement report, the man who’d had lunch with March before she died, the man Markham was going to work. Remy looked back at the photo again. “Is that him?”

“Fuck you, Remy.” Buff sped off again and Remy fell back in his seat. “I told you we were working al-Zamil. So what? Then you happen to meet with an agency field supervisor, and the next thing we know al-Zamil gets depressed and takes a walk out his apartment window?” He caught Remy’s eyes in the rearview. “You tell your little friend at the agency that if he thinks this gets us off the case, he’s fucked in the head.”