The Zero Read Free Page A

it goin’?”
    “Goddamn tough duty, you know?”
    “Fuckin’ raghead motherfuckers.”
    “Yeah. That’s right. That’s right.”
    Paul put his hand out. Remy removed the tags from his neck and put them in Paul’s hand. Paul showed Remy’s tags to the street cop, who wrote something down and then gave the tags back to Paul, who handed them back to Remy.
    The street cop patted the Excursion’s hood. “Nice truck, though.”
    “Freddies gave it.”
    The foot cop jerked his head toward the two guardsmen. “All theygib’ me was these two stupid fuckers. And I know one of these Gomers is gonna shoot me in my leg before this is over.”
    “Maybe they got rubber bullets.”
    “In a perfect world, huh? Hey, you gib’m hell in there, boss,” the cop said. He patted the hood of the Excursion again and stepped back, waving them through.
    Remy watched the street cop, watched with a certain wonder the way that word, boss, was tossed between the two men, connoting everything of value, the firm scaffolding of reverent loyalty that promised each guy below the chance to rise to heights: his own crew, driver, office, parties, and budgetary discretion and security details, a shot at being boss someday himself. Wasn’t this the ladder Remy had patiently climbed before ? But now…what? Remy vaguely remembered thinking it was a corrupting and cruel system, but he had to admit…it lived for days like these.
    Guterak drove through the checkpoint, to a cascade of applause and waving flags. He chirped the siren, then touched two fingers to his forehead and pointed. “Wish I could do something for these people,” he muttered. “Anything. Mow their lawns.” Remy leaned back in his seat and tried to breathe through his mouth. The smell never left him now. It lived in the lining of his nose and the fibers of his lungs—his whole body seemed to smell, as if the odor were working through his pores, the fine gray dust: pungent, flour of the dead. Remy was surprised at the air’s ferocity down here, acrid with concrete dust and the loosed molecules of burned…burned everything. It was amazing what could burn. We forgot that, Remy thought, in our fear of fission and fusion, radiation, infection, concussion and fragmentation. We forgot fire.
    “You see Durgan’s kid on TV?”
    Please be quiet .
    “Big. I hadn’t seen his kid since we all played softball. That’s whatI’m talkin’ about…seeing Durgan’s kid. I mean…honestly? Better him than me. Right? Come on. Admit it. Better his kid crying on TV than mine. Or yours. Right?”
    Remy stared out the window.
    “But here’s Durgan…dead as an eight-track, never get to see his kid again. And that could have been me, right? Except that, instead a bein’ dead, I ain’t even injured…or bankrupt. Or outta work. I got overtime comin’ out my ass. I got backstage passes to Springsteen, right? Durgan’s in pieces out there somewhere and I can’t even get anyone to let me pay for a fuggin’ cuppa coffee no more. All because I was standin’ here and he was standin’ there. See? I’m just sayin’—”
    “I know,” Remy interrupted. “Please. Paul.” Remy took off his cap and rubbed the stitches on the side of his head.
    Guterak looked over. “Hey, you got your hair cut.”
    “Yeah.” Remy put the cap back on.
    “What made you do that?”
    “I shot myself in the head last night.”
    “Well.” Paul drove quietly for a moment, staring straight ahead. “It looks good.”
     
    THE ZERO was humming. A raccoon-eyed firefighter had heard something, most likely the shriek of shifting steel, and was convinced that someone was calling his name. Rescue workers in respirators and surgical masks scuttled around the southwest corner of the pile, putting their heads in crevices, rappelling down cracks, furrowing between beams. Remy had watched as the ground began to shift beneath them, but even as they managed to pull away one husk of steel they just found more, turtles all