_________________

  Former HSBC bank lobby on 40th Street, windows intact. Chinese dropped me off a block south and I slid on up there with panache. Got a fair view of the library looking north.

  Thanks be to Jah: despite the loss of my overcoat I am still in possession of two pistols, the diver’s knife strapped to my knee, two bottles of PurellTM (bit worrisome there—cause that’s low), my pills, one of which I pop now.

  As well I possess the three Slim Jims, and it occurs I haven’t eaten anything save the fourth Slimmy in two days. This is not unusual. I pull back the plastic and gnaw at the thing, but between the sand and the item’s extreme staleness, once I’m able to get a fragment down I immediately vomit it back up. Expecting to see the sand though none appears present.

  Mop at my mouth with a glossy brochure for 0% mortgages. Gumming it. My mouth straight fucked. So much for that, the whole eating thing. Upside being: elimination of possible food-borne bacteria. Salmonella and the like.

  Down East Broadway in a decrepit dental clinic, I got fit for a set of front teeth. Thug fashion dot-com. Doctor explained he could make a cast but I’d have to see a Jew goldsmith up 47th to get the shit done proper.

  Oh yeah, they’re still there. Somebody’s gotta service the Russians, who still can’t shake their thing for bling. Swung by and got something cast on the spot.

  Press the set of teeth into place now. There’s a lot of blood but I manage to get ’em in there good, take a couple experimental air-bites. Slick.

  Now far more urgently: what motherfuckers want Dewey Decimal dead? Who wanna violate my block?

  Cyna-corp bitches top this list, that’s for positive. But are they that clumsy? Tempted to say yes . . . boys coming with the frequent beat-down, such as the unfortunate run-in yesterday in Chinatown . . . but a straight-up assassination? I’m Howard’s boy, for better or worse, and that’s no small thing. Big man is quite aware of the tensions between myself and my former classmates, and a gangland-style rub-out wouldn’t sit nice. Despite their autonomy, he’s still top dog on the island, and in order to operate you need his good love.

  The Chinese? Unless I gravely misread those people, we have a pretty comfortable understanding. They’d be tossing aside a valuable relationship, and those cool cats are pragmatic to a fault.

  Koreans? Those people don’t stick their nizzles out unless really provoked. And I reckon we’re straight, regarding the static of last year. I did all I could, and I figure they know that.

  Russians? Ukrainians? Despite our past issues, I bet I’m pretty square with that mob as well. Plus, their effectiveness is on the wane, and they’ve been getting steadily shouldered out by our Asiatic brothers. Just sheer numbers doing the work.

  Dewey Decimal. Like usual. Keep banging—down by law, and yet still tethered to the man. It’s a fuck of a spot.

  Scoping the entryway, can’t see much directly since my view is blocked by columns, but I spot no vehicles on the street, save the hollowed-out FreshDirect truck that’s been there since the Valentine’s Occurrence.

  Peep deeper . . . say what now? Somebody’s landed a chopper on the roof, or more correctly the entryway overhang, which is flat enough to accommodate this.

  Still, it seems a pretty fucking unlikely spot, and I’ve certainly never seen anything perched up there before.

  Can’t make out much of shit except for the bird is matte-black, probably not military . . . could be Cyna-corp, sure, but then again, it could be almost anybody.

  Toss a brick in this town and you’ll hit a chopper, no doubt . . . but to park one on top of my crib? Be a tough bit of pilotry. And it just vibes weird.

  Only reason for it I can figure is the obvious: in order to gain access through the roof. Which, once up there, could be very easily done.

  Shoulda sealed that shit from the jump. Shoulda woulda coulda. But then again, the roof is a handy spot from which to throw a body off should the need arise, so I never gave securing the doors much consideration.

  Sigh. We live and learn, y’all.

  What if they’re fucking with the books? That’s my main thing. They’d best not be fucking with the books. So much yet to be done . . .

  Que sera. I’ll get in there and clean things up. In the meantime, best to keep my head down and get on with immediate business.

  Now this Saudi bit of cray-cray on my docket. My inbox sits heavy with that illness. What’s cracking: I have been tasked with providing security for two surviving members of the House of Saud, who are apparently being brought in by sea.

  Fraternal twins. Brother-and-sister team like. Presumably with the intention of taking up residence with the rest of their ilk here at the Ark.

  And then there’s the part about a fertility clinic.

  The senator could barely cough this bit out, as if too distasteful, even for such a bent motherfucker.

  Two by two, that’s how it worked, right? The Ark. Biblical shit.

  Breeding. That was it. Interbreeding. Spitting out sheiks with two heads and whatnot, under natural circumstances.

  Howard had further details, though again, it pained him greatly and required many scriptural tangents with which I would never bore a true friend.

  Apparently, a military/medical/industrial-complex-financed doctor has sussed a method of harvesting an embryo, and combing out any genetic imperfections brought on by an unholy thing like interbreeding. No earthly idea as to what purpose this rather foul science serves, but I reckon here’s a situation in which you might apply it, if you were twisted enough.

  The term comb, when applied to a discussion of human biology . . . somehow makes a man squirm, i.e., mother/son, father/daughter/brother/sister . . . healthy baby.

  Some shit ain’t right by any kinda measure.

  Howard had more to say. It was crucial to good relations that the US of A demonstrate its continued can-do solvency, its continued superior know-how, by offering this humble service to the sheiks. Apparently, nobody else has the formula for a clean interbreed . . . and what’s more, nobody will host the Saudis. So there’s that.

  Dig it: this Saudi dimension is a real conundrum, as far as I’m concerned, strictly on a personal tip. Cause damn if I didn’t spend half of my adult life getting shot at, blown up, cut, beat, and tortured by elements entirely or partially funded or otherwise encouraged by that particular royal family.

  So what’s the percentage in seeing them carry on into the New Era?

  The senator is crafty above all things and of course he knows this well. Speculation: there’s an angle here I’m not feeling beyond pleasing one’s creditors.

  But what do I know: I’m just the help.

  Fuck me, the mind gets going on that one. I’m figuring the story is too sick to not be real.

  Tonight. Saudis coming in under cover of darkness. I’m to be at the waterfront approx three a.m. to intercept the royals. Me running point . . . and Cyna-corp representing too, with their boys for cover. Oh joy.

  Why me?

  It’s not a solid call. Straight sloppy. The senator has gotta know I’m slipping quick. First impression: setup. Though I don’t know why—or who exactly is getting set up. I’m hardly worth the effort in the larger world of the Coalition.

  Much mess to sink a foot into. But I gotta be me.

  In order to intercept the Saudi twins, I had quickly formulated, and pitched, a simple plan. Seemed to pass muster and, as I understood it, is in the implementation process. Hackneyed and ad hoc as the shit is. Another case for the setup vibe.

  Strip. Hooker bath, PurellTM head to toe.

  Set my watch. Roll up my suit jacket, bunk down as best I can, taking care to move clear of the small patch of my own puke. Place the C-4 a safe distance away lest any of my parasomatic tendencies should manifest.

  Requested Chip bring me a blanket, freezing as fuck in here. Doesn’t look like he’ll be coming back though.

  Rain kicks up again, sudden and violent, then quieting, a lullaby drone against the glass.

  Gingerly lift out my mouthpiece. Wrap up a bit of gauze, slip it under my upper lip. Reckon that’ll absorb the slow bleed, and it’s comfortable to sleep with . . .

  Don’t even take off my shoes and I’m out like a child, under a bank of blank ATMs.

  _________________

  The follow-up story regarding myself, the Boogie Oogie Man, went unreported and was perhaps less feel-good. The beat-down I suffered at the hands of fellow Young Skulls, of which I was a junior member, the day the story hit the newsstands. Simply for having gone to the cops at all. Never mind the fact that I didn’t actually go to the cops: I was taken in for attempted assault on a couple of Glory Stompers, with possession of a switchblade and a couple of blunts.

  Nick Deluccia, then a police detective angling for captain, later the founder of the outfit that evolved into Cyna-corp . . . Nick pretty much squeezed the skinny out of me, regarding the Bronx Child Raper.

  Being a brilliant and ruthlessly ambitious cop with a near psychic understanding of an individual’s soft spots, he smelled that Dubois fuck on me and latched on like a tick till I spilled. Plied me with candy and snacks.

  Quit the precinct shitting-in-my-Jordaches scared, had to beg the uniforms not to give me a ride home in a squad car, which would have spelled instant fucking death. If not from a local gang, my father would I’m sure have been happy to rock honors. Dad had been sporadically trying to kill me since I popped out the womb.

  Yo, I had no qualms about giving up the sicko who fucked and killed a couple of my buddies, it wasn’t that. It was, and is, inner-city law number one: Don’t be a rat. Don’t be a fucking snitch. No matter what.

  Snitch is a permanent designation, that’s a bad-news tattoo can’t no man remove. That’s for life. There are very few crimes more egregious. Child-raping being the only one that comes to mind. Sort of a catch-22, huh?

  So a young buck needed protection. I found that in the form of the Police Athletic League, started to spend more time in Harlem where those kids would hoop. And once Deluccia made captain, I was, via his sponsorship, brought into the Police Cadet Corps.

  From there it was a just a simple hop-skip over to the military, to which I was apparently well suited (and via Nick, well-connected for a ghetto boy). Spent so much time in the desert that I became known as a bit of an aficionado, and the filthier arm of the NSA reached out and touched me. Lost contact with Deluccia for a while, heard he had moved into private security after a famously disastrous drug bust left a bunch of bystanders dead more or less forced him out of public office. It was just prior to Gulf War 3.0 that he contacted me and offered me a position in his start-up company, Cyna-corp. Private military-contracting stuff. Seemed simple enough and paid vastly more than the conventional civilian military, why say no to that?

  From there I jumped from locale to locale, the view getting progressively dimmer, until the morning of February 15, when I woke up in the New York Public Library, with no name, a strict System, brand-new job. And a fresh canvas. Upon which I swore I would never splatter blood.

  Cop to it. This was a promise I broke within ten days.

  _________________

  Pier 54 juts unenthusiastically out of Manhattan into the sickly Hudson, steady rain slapping the nondescript brown runway, hardly able to draw the eye, once overgrown with greenery until the air killed nearly all but the hardiest of plant life.

  If you’ve noticed this place at all, you’ve observed a decommissioned strip at the juncture of Little West 12th Street and 11th Avenue, approximately.

  Perhaps you’ve wondered when the city intended to either incorporate it into the sprawl that the Highline had become, or simply tear it down—and then likely you went on about your business.

  But this spot has roots. Deep history. And at the moment it’s lit up like a movie set, with plenty nuff hustle and bustle.

  With the desolation that was once the moneyed Meatpacking District to my back, I flip up a collar and try to square my shoulders against the chill and the wet. I consider the sad stretch of land. Ask myself, rhetorically, Am I the last motherfucker standing who knows all this historical bullshit?

  The powerful lights of a medium-sized ocean liner are visible downriver, sparkling drowsily through the haze, swarmed by skittish choppers and what appear to be naval and UN frigates, as well as the overflowing garbage barges.

  Note, as the System would have it, I make left turns until eleven a.m. The System doesn’t give a shit if you’ve slept or not. The System is old-fashioned when it comes to the clock: after midnight it’s a new day, folks, and prior to eleven a.m.—left turns.

  Scope my watch: 3:52 in the a.m. Me thinking, Damn. Chewing my cud, knowing that gristle I’m gargling is a product of my misfiring brain machine, and wondering if that makes any difference, cause motherfucker if it doesn’t feel like I deep-throated a sandcastle.

  What was I saying, y’all? Oh yeah—mad history. Trivia is a fine distraction, and getting back to it—no less a celebrity sea vessel than the Titanic herself moored here in this very place once upon a time, Pier 54 serving as the dock of choice for the White Star and many other storied Atlantic lines. Later on, the Queen Mary. And prior, probably a slave ship or two.

  My DNA smells that tar, the human shit (so much, so many bugs spread through fecal/urine contamination), the saltwater. It’s encoded—if you can’t smell this, you’re not breathing air. Like I said: deep, dark history.

  But I was just . . .

  Even in this chilly drizzle, a droplet of what is unmistakably sweat slides across my eyeball. Fuck. I paw at it . . . talking about . . . oh yes, talking about historical shit, historical boats. Not so sure anymore what I was . . . maybe the Titanic survivors they brought to this joint, just the survivors. Somehow less sexy. Anyhow. Events of significance, now lost in the ether. Rally, Decimal. Brain flirting with a Semi-Freddo. Cannot afford a vulnerable facade. Gotta flex and floss.

  Assess the mess. It’s quite an assembly hereabouts, the number of boots on the ground indicating serious static anticipated. I am tempted for a moment to simply turn around and break the fuck out of here, but I hold steady.

  Fucking Howard. Again my gut cries nasty stitch-up. I shouldn’t be running the Special Olympics fifty-yard dash, let alone an op of this apparent magnitude.

  Megawatt industrial lamps have been set up, giving the scene a weirdly overlit juju. At a glance it’s between thirty and forty men, multiple armored vehicles, JLTVs, open jeeps, even a Stryker . . . and more weaponry than an old-fashioned gun show . . . antiaircraft cannons, shoulder-mounted surface-to-air doodads, snipers up on the elevated track that used to be the Highline.

  Should make me jumpy, but I chalk this display up to appearances rather than anything else. Like a North Korean Sunday parade.

  Yeah. Ass-deep in Cyna-corp. That’s what puts me on edge, not the show of force as such. The insectile bodysuits, nearly everybody tricked out in those spooky masks. Everything about these folks says money, and preemptive aggression.

  A faceless sentry scans my State Department laminate.

  Cyna-corp and I. Me and Cyna-corp. Officially, we have no beef. Unofficially? I am considered a hostile, a traitor. Having, from their perspective, been one of their own who betrayed them two or three times minimum. If they knew the half of it.

  Judging from my dustup yesterday morning, they just might.

  My head is no less fucked up than it was five hours ago. Point of fact, my lips are even more swollen, engorged, like I’ve had some cheap work done. My cheekbone aches profoundly. Not exactly shining out over here.

  Returning my badge, the soldier throws a half-assed salute, and even this manages to radiate contempt. I squint at that familiar logo, the double C swoop above his breast.

  My gaze strafes the vicinity. I steady a tremulous hand with the other, focus on my breath. Another aspect of the scene bothers me. No other agency is represented, save the useless UN weekenders, themselves cowering in their ridiculous blue and white golf carts.

  A young MP, upon clocking me, is suddenly mesmerized by his fingernails.

  Three burgundy Escalades sit curbside, hanging back, waiting on my signal. Okay, there’s that at least. I finger the walkie-talkie in my jacket pocket.

  So here am I, Howard’s main boy, disgraced deserter, a touch shaky, balls high in a box of snakes. Fucking Clarence.

  Control what I can, that’s my word. Think System. PurellTM up, pop a blue one. Run my tongue over my new front teeth . . . Watch the back. Stay hard. Be a boss. Allegiances shifty. Picking at whatever paltry garbage remains, and it’s an ever-diminishing pile . . .

  I won’t lie, y’all. Color me intimidated. Color me pissed the fuck off to have had this sitch misrepresented to me. Again consider beating cheeks.

  I half turn (left) to confirm that my personal ride hasn’t slunk away—enjoy a split second of relief in spotting the vehicle again.

  This, as something hard and cold is jammed into my kidneys.

  “Morning, fuckwad.” It’s a voice I am not likely to forget, that degree of gravel, rock salt on sandpaper. “What’s up with the face? Problems at home?”

  A masked man looms, tall and bemuscled beyond your average grunt. Fuck me if this isn’t the third time this bitch has crept on me unawares. I’d fear I’m softening but I know Scratch to be supernaturally smooth.

  Play it mellow: “What’s good, Scratchy. Hot to see you again so soon. Mind getting your cock off the suit?” My eyes drop to the matte-black machine pistol shoved into my thorax.

  Scratch gives it another five seconds. Hear him breathing through that filter.

  “Got no idea how close you are. You smell the grave, fucknut?”

  I pause, make like I’m considering that, say, “Na, don’t smell nothing save your nasty crack. ’S’probably your upper lip. Take that gun away, now, play nice. Made your point, I won’t step to you, Scratch. You’re a for-rizzle top, you’re a big man.”

  He then jams the gun even deeper before withdrawing it. Inwardly I wince but don’t allow this to inform my expression, which I hope communicates boredom and superior strength, despite the obvious fact that dude could crush me in a jiffy should he be so inclined. Bitch is big.