This time, up at the Trump Tower, I go through the service entrance, unobserved. Been neglecting the System. With the System, pathways become clear. Easiest thing in the world.
Walk though a dark kitchen to a stairwell. Climb it to the eleventh floor. Swap out my surgical gloves for a new pair.
I knock three times at number 1119. Wait. Knock louder.
Daniel opens the door, disheveled, in a brown bathrobe. “Decimal. Goddamnit. I can’t sleep.” Gin comes off him in syrupy waves.
I walk in, past him. He weeble-wobbles a bit.
“I, uh, have been waiting. Thinking. About us, all this nonsense.”
I’m looking at him in the dark. He turns a light on. Has to reach for it a couple times before he manages.
“Decimal. Look. Bygones and all that. Fuck it. We got a thing together. That’s bigger than. I just … You wanna drink?”
I follow him into a decent-size office/living area. Computer, papers, lots of files. A dumpy couch, fireplace. He’s got a miniature fridge and a fully stocked wet bar.
“What can I get you? Dewey. Let’s have a drink, fuck it.”
I take out the Sig Sauer. I just take it out, don’t point it anywhere.
“I’m unarmed,” he says.
I produce the silencer.
“Dewey. Wow. It’s amazing. What we can convince ourselves of. She’s got you thinking, what? That in getting me out of the way, what, gonna solve all your problems. Am I right? When I’m right, I’m right.”
“Daniel. You need to shut your fucking mouth. You’re making this worse.” I’m attaching the silencer.
“Decimal. Look at me.” He sways a bit. “Will you give me two minutes? Straighten this out? It’s actually very simple.” His hand is trembling. “Decimal.”
“I’m listening. Won’t make any difference.”
“The stuff I said. About physically, uh, harming you. You know, I gave this reconsideration. Want you to know. Nothing to be worried about there.”
No response from me.
He’s sweating it, tries another approach. “Listen. This fucking broad. You’ve been misled. That’s fine. Me too. Look. Need you to know.” He waves his hand at the stack of papers near his desk. “Top of that pile. There’s a file, behind you. Everything you need to know about the woman we have called Iveta. It’s really bad-news kind of shit. She’s … Decimal, I’m telling you the truth. Right now. She has us both fooled. Playing us against each other. From the jump. Decimal.”
I pull his desk chair around from behind his desk. “Have a seat,” I say. He plops down in the chair. I’m standing over him.
“You gotta know. I met her at one of these goddamn parties. Very persuasive. Plus I’m flattered, you know? Don’t draw ladies like I used to. Anyway. I was, you know, hook, line, and sinker. The whole nine. I mean hell. They were living separate lives. Like me and my ex. Figured, get the husband out of the picture. Safety’s sake. Bring my best man in. That’s you. The best. Then, fuck’s sake, somebody at the State Department drops a dime on the pair of them. Sends this paperwork through. You can imagine. That it turns into this. My shock. So I gotta, I gotta make it right. Decimal. Say something.”
I pull back the hammer and raise the gun to his forehead. A stain spreads across his lap, he’s pissed himself, drink or fear or both, but to his credit, maintains eye contact and keeps his voice steady.
“Decimal. Under her file. You’ll find your own file. I think you might want to have a long look at that too. I admit,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I admit I took advantage. So fucking sue me. Your situation. You’re confused. The pills. They’re sugar, they’re nothing. You’ve had a lot of bad breaks. But you’re not what you think you are. Decimal. You’re a lot. Of fucking things. But you’re not this, this person in your head.”
“Are you through, Rosenblatt?”
“No. Decimal. There was never a wife and child. Decimal. Just went with the story. The story you had going. Followed your narrative. You have a whole mythology. I just went with it. But it’s all been, what. Imposed on you.”
I won’t hear this. I don’t hear this.
“So I’m thinking, you and me. Bring the biggest motherfucker of a lawsuit. The military has ever laid eyes on. Decimal, your file. You gotta know. The stuff they did. They opened up your fuckin brain …”
No, I won’t hear this. “That’s enough. It’s not working,” I say.
“You’re not—”
“Rosenblatt, you’re about to die. Do you understand?”
“You’re not. A freaking monster.”
I shoot him then, his balding scalp, and he goes floppy. Blood and other viscous stuff hit the far wall. His bowels evacuate, I smell it. Cuts through the plastic.
Dan, I am the sick black monster under your bed. I’m a stone-cold badass freak motherfucker of a baby killer. Doing what I groove on, what I do best.
That’s who I am and that’s how I do it.
Set my gun down behind me, on top of the file folders. Get out the digi camera, lens cap off. Too much backlight. I wanna capture the moment.
I get a shot of him, side on. As always, it’s an anticlimax. If it weren’t for all the blood, you’d think he was sleeping.
I pick up my gun, revealing the words:
International War Crimes Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands—Classified Material
I’m thinking, just leave it be. Better to not know. But of course I flip open the folder.
Right there on page one, a candid shot of Iveta. No makeup, considerably younger. Military uniform and cap. Her hand is raised, she is indicating something to two uniformed men. The name underneath the photo reads, Jovana Rac, Pristina, Kosovo, 1998.
I’d like to believe this is cheap shit, an amateur forgery. I know it’s not. Flip the page.
The heading is Prepared for INTERPOL by the ICTY.
Read:
… Jovana Rac is remarkable in the sense that women were an extreme rarity in the Serbian military forces, otherwise noted for their misogyny. Her usefulness is perhaps illustrated by the charges raised against her.
Rac is accused of furnishing women and girls for convicted war criminal Radomir Kovac and for contractors at CYNACORP for the purposes of sexual enslavement and forced labor; and of involvement with so-called “rape camps” in the region of Foca. Additionally, Rac is accused of one count of genocide, and of human trafficking.
I’m starting to feel sick. I close the file, look at the cover, look at the photo again … go back to the second page.
… active and enthusiastic participant in Operation Horseshoe, a large-scale campaign of ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians. Rac was detained by NATO forces on August 17, 1999.
More photos, mug shots: face-on and face left/right. The hair is shorter still, but it’s her. The caption is: Jovana Rac, August 18, 1999.
God, she looks great though.
I flip a few pages more, my fingers tingling. I lose my peripheral vision and am overbreathing. Disembodied, I see myself, reading this, landing on:
Escaped September 3, 1999, as a military transport to International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The Hague, Netherlands, was diverted to Kishinev, Moldova, due to poor weather conditions. She has been traced as far as Odessa, Ukraine. Current whereabouts are unknown.
I stop turning the pages. My head knows this is no forgery. I understand I needed to see this. My heart asks the obvious question: is this the woman for whom you have marinated me in blood? Is this the creature you would seek to protect?
Hakim Stanley watches me from the corner. Smiling. I know what he’s thinking.
I close the file, pick it up.
I close my eyes. Stand there for a while, like that.
Place my gun in my mouth. It’s still hot, tastes like chemicals. I pull back the hammer.
But that doesn’t feel right. No, nothing is that simple. It’d be cheating.
I withdraw my pistol and open my eyes.
In picking up Jovana’s file, I have exposed another. It’s cover reads:
Walter Reed—National Institutes of Health
That would be me.
Hell no. I take both dossiers. I extract one sheet, the photocopied mug shot of Jovana. I pocket this.
At the wet bar I grab a bottle of vodka. Drop both files in the fireplace. Douse them in vodka.
Matches on the heath, strike them, poof. Flames consume paper.
Pull off the gloves. Get out the PurellTM, scrub up.
Based on this new information, I might need to rethink my current plans.
I pop a pill, and Hakim and I wait and watch the fire until it’s all gone.