The Zero

“Excellent.” The chef bowed. “I will let them know.”

His steak arrived one whiskey later, steaming on a plate of potatoes, with a quiver of asparagus. The meat was lightly marbled and his steak knife glided through it. He jabbed it with his fork and it bled profusely, and he put it in his mouth. It was incredible, the best thing he’d ever eaten. The meat had a blue cheese glaze and the blood and cheese gave his plate a purplish tint. There were garlic mashed potatoes, too, and they turned purple from the blood, and the asparagus spears, too, the whole plate swimming in dark blood. Remy couldn’t believe how much this steak bled and how good it was, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he ate. Another whiskey came, and it, too, was better than he could ever recall a whiskey being.

And when he was done, Remy put on his overcoat and began walking, across glaring traffic, down blocks with empty stoops, bags of garbage out for collection, across another street and into the park. It was a pleasant surprise, finding himself in the park, cutting across its northwest corner, and he was well into the park when he suddenly stopped and wondered why he didn’t have his car, or why he didn’t take a cab. What was he going to do, walk home forty blocks? Still, it was nice: a great steak, some whiskey and a walk through the park, especially this corner, his favorite part of the park – less traffic here, buildings that lurked over the tree line. He turned and began walking again, and had the warm feeling of being at the end of something, of being cradled by these warm buildings, by civilization. As the sidewalk curled past a dark stand of trees, Remy noticed that two streetlights here were burned out. He slowed. There was someone waiting in the shadows.

“Do you want to know what I find interesting?” asked a familiar voice.

Remy came closer and saw that it was the old Middle Eastern man in the long wool coat. He was leaning against a shadowed tree. Remy couldn’t quite make out his face, but it was him, he was sure. “The way people here mock a religion that promises virgins waiting for martyrs in the world after this one. Your own culture would seem to indicate that there is nothing more profound than sex, nothing more humbling or graceful or suggestive of the mystery of creation. And yet the idea of virgins in paradise somehow seems to draw your greatest scorn. Do you honestly imagine yours is a sexless heaven? What kind of paradise is it that has harps and angels but no orgasms?”

Remy took a step back.

“What’s the matter? You seem disappointed to see me.”

“I was kind of hoping you were a hallucination.” Remy reached in his pocket and emerged with the bottle of pills again. He popped the cap and two capsules spilled into his hand. He swallowed them. “My psychiatrist told me you didn’t exist.”

“That’s not surprising.” The man smiled warmly and spoke in a soft, mellifluous voice, like a professor giving a lecture. “You’re always convincing yourselves that the world isn’t what it is, that no one’s reality matters except your own. That’s why you make such poor victims. You can’t truly know suffering if you know nothing about rage. And you can’t feel genuine rage if you won’t acknowledge loss.

“That’s what happens when a nation becomes a public relations firm. You forget the truth. Everything is the Alamo. You claim victory in every loss, life in every death. Declare war when there is no war, and when you are at war, pretend you aren’t. The rest of the world wails and vows revenge and buries its dead and you turn on the television. Go to the cinema.”

The man moved away from the tree, so that his legs – and the bottom of that heavy wool coat – were bathed in light from the nearest street lamp. “Entertainment is the singular thing you produce now. And it is just another propaganda, the most insidious, greatest propaganda ever devised, and this is your only export now – your coffee and tobacco, your gunpowder and your wheat. And while people elsewhere die questioning the propaganda of tyrants and royals, you crave yours. You demand the propaganda of distraction and triviality, and it has become your religion, your national faith. In this faith you are grave and backward fundamentalists, not so different from the grave and backward fundamentalists you presume to battle. If they are barbarians knocking at the gates with stories of beautiful virgins in the afterlife, then aren’t you barbarians too, wrapping the world in cables full of happy-ever-after stories of fleshy blondes and animated fish and talking cars?”

Remy closed his eyes. Streaks and floaters swam against the current behind his lids, tiny birds rising endlessly against the stream. “You’re going to give me something again, aren’t you?” Remy asked. “A manila envelope or something?” He opened his eyes.

“No. I’m not,” the man said.

And then he took a manila envelope from his coat and handed it to Remy. “And I think you have something for me?”

“I do?” Remy shifted the manila envelope to his other hand and felt in his pocket. Behind the bottle of pills he felt a thick envelope, half as big as a brick. How had he not noticed it before? Did someone in the restaurant give it to him? He pulled them both out. He handed the thick envelope to the man, who opened it and began counting bills.

“Can I see those?” The man nodded to the pills, without looking up from the money he was counting.

Remy looked down at the bottle of pills in his hand. He held it out.

The man stopped counting. He stepped out of the shadows, took the bottle, and read the label through the bifocals of his glasses. “For back pain.” He looked up. “So do these help?”

Remy took the pills back and read them for the first time. He felt deflated. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “My back doesn’t hurt.”

“Then they must work,” the man said, and he resumed counting.

Remy opened the manila envelope he’d been given. There was nothing in it but a phone number. Remy didn’t recognize the area code. He felt exhausted. “What is this?”

“It’s the number you asked for.”

“But whose is it?”

The man didn’t look up from his counting. “Don’t be so suspicious.”

“I’m not suspicious. I don’t know whose number this is.” Remy had always felt a strange urge to confide in this man. “Look… I’m not kidding here. I’m a mess. I’m drunk half the time. I cheat on my girlfriend when I don’t even want to. In fact, I’m not even aware that I’m doing it until it’s over. I apparently have this job where I file paper and chase down dead people, but I don’t have the first idea what it means. I do these things that make no sense, and people get hurt. I come home with blood on my shoes and…” Remy laughed bitterly. “…my son won’t even acknowledge that I’m alive.”

“Morning in America,” the man muttered, without looking up.

Remy felt himself slipping. “Look. Can you please tell me what I’m doing?”

The man was almost done counting.

“Please,” Remy said. “Can’t you tell me anything?”

The man held up one finger and stuffed the bills back in the envelope. “Did I tell you that Jesus is mentioned ninety-three times in the Koran?”

“Yeah.” Remy slumped against a tree. “I think you said that.”

“Oh,” the man said. He slid the envelope into his coat pocket. “Well… it bears repeating now.”

MAHOUD SHOOK. He licked his lips, holding the cell phone weakly in one hand while, in the other, he held a piece of paper. Remy looked around. He and Markham and Mahoud were sitting in a shiny red booth in Mahoud’s restaurant, which was empty, lights out except in the kitchen, chairs stacked on the center tables.

“Calm down,” Markham said. “Nice and easy. You’re almost done.”

Mahoud nodded as he pressed the buttons on the phone, looking back and forth from the sheet to the phone. He cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said. “Do you know who this is? Yes. I am ready. I want in.” He listened. “I know what I said, but I’ve changed my mind.” He looked up at Markham. “Because someone has to do something.”