The Zero

“I swear, I don’t know anything about this,” Remy said. “I saw his name on a piece of burned paper that looked like Australia. That’s all.”

Buff spit laughter. “Australia. You’re a fuckin’ piece of work, Remy. You know that?” He stomped on the gas again and the car took off.

Remy stared at the photograph and covered his mouth. “I swear-”

“Look,” Buff said. “I’m go

“I don’t know what I can give you.”

“Gimme your source.”

“My source for…”

“You’ve been one step ahead of us on this cell, Remy, and I need to know how. Give me the goddamn name of your source.”

“What name?”

“Yeah, and who’s on first, you smug son-of-a-bitch,” the man said. He put his sunglasses back on. “Okay, tough guy. Fine.”

The car’s tires chirped again as they skidded around another corner, and then the brakes jammed and the car came to a shuddering stop against the same curb where they’d started. “Get out,” Buff said.

Remy opened the car door.

The man turned and faced Remy for the first time, his face wide and uneven. He spun his cap around so that it faced forward, so that Remy could see the word BUFF again. The man held up his right index finger, which bent sideways at a thirty-degree angle. “You go ahead, play your little games. But if I was you, you calm, cool motherfucker, I would keep this one thing in mind-”

“HALLUCINATORY IMAGES,” Remy’s psychiatrist, Dr. Rieux was saying. “What you’re describing is textbook PTSD. Visions. Stress-induced delusions. Dissociative episodes. Maybe even Briquet’s syndrome. Look-” He laughed. “I’m pretty sure you’re not working for some top-secret department, investigating whether or not your girlfriend’s sister faked her death.”

“I’m not?”

“I don’t think so, Bri. Secret agents interrupting you on the toilet? Yelling at you in gypsy cabs, buying you lattes? Mysterious Arab men in wool coats?”

“That’s all… hallucinations?”

“Sure. Why not. It’s very common, Brian. I see it all the time.”

“You do?”

“Well… no, I haven’t personally seen it. But it’s all right there in the literature. Survivors can expect to experience delusions, persecution, paranoia. Delirium. Hell, after what some of you guys went through that day… I’m surprised you don’t have flying monkeys drive you to work.”

“So… the paper? The blood on my shoes?”

“You got a better idea?”

“I don’t know. It just… doesn’t feel like that. Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?” He spun in his chair and pointed at the diploma hung on the wall. “Do you think they give these out for masturbating? Well…” He laughed again and then assumed a serious face. “Listen. I don’t mean to be condescending, but some of the real issues you’re describing – not this fantasy stuff, but your son growing away from you, your inability to commit to a monogamous relationship, concerns about the ethics of your profession, alcohol abuse… this is pretty standard stuff for a man your age.”

“Are you saying,” Remy asked, “this is some kind of midlife crisis?”

“I don’t mean to minimize it. But you are a certain age. You’ve been through this severe trauma. Lost friends. Coworkers. And then, when you should be coming out of it, you had to suddenly abandon a successful career with the city because of back problems-”

“No, it’s not my back,” Remy protested weakly. “It’s my eyes.”

“No. I don’t think so.” The psychiatrist spun in his chair, opened a drawer, flipped through his files, and came up with a short report. “See, it’s right here.” He handed over the report, which read clearly Disability due to chronic back pain.

“No, this is a cover story,” Remy said. “For the work I’m doing.”

But Dr. Rieux pulled a prescription pad from his desk and scribbled something on it. He tore the sheet out and held it up for Remy. “Here.”

Remy read the prescription. “What’s this?”

“This will help,” he said.

Remy held up the medical report on him. “How come there’s nothing in here about the gaps?” he said.

“Gaps?” Dr. Rieux held out the prescription. “What gaps?”

“The gaps,” Remy said, as he reached for the prescription sheet and-

A MIST hung in the air, fine droplets suspended as if on strings from the sky, distorting distance so that the grand house seemed miles away, across rollers of wet mounds and wild grasses. The house sat between two massive oaks; at three stories it was half their full height, with shutters and a wraparound front porch – a beautiful colonial country house with a fenced horse corral and barn beyond it. Remy stared at the house through the mist, which flattened everything and made the world appear sluggish and slow. Two hundred yards beyond the house Remy could see cars crawling along a narrow highway, slowing to make the switchback like mourners pausing over a coffin. It was dawn and he was sitting alone in this field two hundred yards from the house. He looked down. There were binoculars in his hands. He held them up and zeroed in on the top floor of the house. An attractive woman in her thirties was eating a cup of yogurt. Remy had a headset on – a small earpiece and mike – but he couldn’t hear anything. He watched the woman walk around the top floor, from window to window. She was wearing workout clothes, bicycle tights maybe, with a collared shirt.

At one corner of the house he could see her turn from side to side, as if checking herself in a mirror, the cup of yogurt in her hand.

Remy dropped the binoculars and looked down at himself. He was wearing camouflage pants and a black jacket. He pulled a black stocking cap off his head and stared at it. Did he own a black stocking cap? A green camo backpack was spread out in the grass. Remy opened the backpack and began flipping through it. He found a notebook and pen, gloves, a semiautomatic handgun, and a box of Dolly Madison Zingers, like Twinkies with yellow frosting. Remy opened the box, took one out, and had a bite. It was good: spongy yellow cake with filling and frosting. Then he cracked the notebook. There were two listings written in the notebook, in his handwriting: 0645 – light on. Subject Herote awake. Alone. 0724 – Subject out of shower, dressing in workout clothes. He glanced over at the backpack and saw, at the bottom… a full prescription bottle. Remy set the Zinger down, looked around the field, and then pulled out the bottle. He opened it and swallowed two of the capsules. He closed his eyes and curled up on the ground, hoping his psychiatrist knew what he was talking about and that this hallucination would dissolve. But with his eyes closed Remy could only see streaks and floaters, and when he opened his eyes he was still in the field. He fell back in the grass, discouraged.

“Fresca Two. This is Fanta One. Do you copy?”

Remy wedged himself into the deep grass, hoping the medication would kick in and this would all go away.

“I’m go

Remy raised his head and looked all around the field. It was all still there, the house, the oak trees, the barn and corral, the highway behind, a creek bed to the right, lined with bushes, and on his left, a ridge, its base ringed by shade trees whose branches moved in the soft wind like fingers on a piano.

A few seconds later, Remy could hear a telephone ringing in his earpiece. He held the binoculars to his eyes and saw the woman in the big house skip across a room and pick up the phone on the second ring.

“Helloo,” her voice chirped in his ear.

“I’m looking for Lisa Herote,” he heard Markham say.