Every Man a King

19

Mel drove us to a sushi place in the Bronx. I didn’t ask why the restaurant or the borough. A schemer, a planner extraordinaire, he knew my troubles. I assumed he’d brought us out there to offer me assistance, and also, maybe a place I could stay.

I worked on a spicy tuna roll, an eel roll, and a few pieces of uni while Mel munched on a seaweed salad.

“Eatin’ light, huh?” I said. “You’re the one that’s worried.”

He smiled, quoting, “Never eat heavy before a battle. You can feast on the enemy’s liver when he is dead at your feet.”

“Who said that?”

“Masashige. A great samurai.”

“What are we doing here, Shogun?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

“There’s something I want to show you in the park.”

“Pot of gold?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Come on man. What are we doin’ here?”

“It’s better to see after dark.”

Van Cortlandt Park. Big enough to be a wildlife preserve. It has its own zoo.

Mel brought us to a pretty desolate parking lot with fewer than a dozen cars. There he drove through a pretty much camouflaged space bracketed by two trees. This led to a dirt road. Ten minutes later we came to an empty dirt clearing.

We climbed out and Mel led me into a stand of pine. We walked no more than seven minutes through the trees, finally coming to a large hill made mostly of stone. That knoll was likely older, and definitely larger, than any dinosaur.

It was night by then, but Mel had an electric torch to light the way. He led me to a crevice the size of a doorway. We passed maybe fifteen feet and then came to a blank wall of stone. Mel produced a flat panel that fit easily in his hand, pressed a button, and the stone wall rose, revealing a room of some size.

“What the fuck?”

A light came on, defining the room as an entrance area for an even larger space.

“Jacobus Van Cortlandt bought the park, along with this stone hill, from John Barret at the end of the seventeenth century,” Mel explained as we walked into the most secret place in New York City. “Barret wanted to keep the use of his gunpowder and alcohol storage area. He was a paranoid motherfucker and planned to hole up here if his enemies ever decided to do him injury.

“They hid weaponry here during the Revolution. It was such a highly guarded secret that after a while there was no one around that knew it.”

I was what they call gobsmacked. For the first time in days I wasn’t thinking about Quiller or Ingram, the Russians or even prison. The entry hall opened into a neat little two-story apartment.

“If nobody knew, how’d you find it?” I asked Madman Frost.

Mel winced. That’s an unusual response for a man who’s shouldered evil for every minute of his life.

“It’s a long story, Joe. Maybe some other time.”

“Okay. Then tell me where you get the electricity.”

My friend smiled brightly at this reprieve.

“Off the city grid,” he said. “Connection is way underground so nobody’s likely to find it, but there’s a gasoline generator in the storage room just in case. Even if they cut the cord I could keep this place running for months.”

It was the First Wonder of New York. Mel showed me how to work the stone barrier entrance and all the little tools he had put in place over the years. There was even a well that provided water.

“I looked into that bodyguard thing,” Mel told me when he was about to leave.

“I don’t want a bodyguard.”

“You need somebody anonymous to watch your back. The guys you’re going up against know my face.”

It was a standoff. I shook his hand and he left me to figure out next steps.

The Bronx hiding place was a marvel of architecture and technology. There were six monitors that looked out on the park from every possible vantage. Nine rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom with a walk-in vestibule like they sell on TV for elderly individuals who have trouble climbing in and out of a tub. The cupboards were filled with canned meats, soups, vegetables, and fruits. There was even canned brown bread on the shelf with butter and half-and-half in the refrigerator. The television was connected to some satellite that offered shows in a dozen languages.

After I felt comfortable with the ins and outs of the hole in the ground, I called Aja.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“How’s it going at Silver House?”

“Mr. Ferris has this great library. And, and, and he has a full-size theater with digital and film projectors.”

“A real Joe Stalin.”

“Stop it, Dad. He’s been very nice to me and Mom.”

“Yeah. You better let me talk to her.”

“Joe?” Monica asked a minute or so later.

“How you doin’, Mon?”

“I talked to Coleman. He says he’s out and that you’re going to help him.”

“All he has to do is be truthful and do what I say.”

“He hates the place you put him in. Can’t you do anything about that?”

“He’s lucky to be out of stir.”

“Can’t you let him come here?”

“No.”

“But—”

“Monica, I’m doin’ what I can. He’s safe and we’re working to get him out of trouble. Leave it at that, okay?”

“I guess. I’ll talk to you later.”

After that I said a few more words to Aja before returning to my solitude.

I was asleep in the blue bedroom on the second floor when the phone rang. I answered immediately because only the most important people had that number.

“Hello?”

“I’m at the stone door,” a woman’s voice said.

My consciousness poked through the veil of sleep only enough to hear the words but not really to comprehend, at least not immediately. At first I thought that it must be a wrong number. But who could this wrong number be calling who also had a stone door? A stone door.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Oliya Ruez,” she said, “and you are Joe. I’ve been sent here by the Int-Op Agency to assist you.”

“You’re gonna have to give me a little more than that. I never even heard of the word Int-Op.”

“Redbird.”

She was Ali Baba and I the forty thieves.

I pressed a button on the universal remote that ran the joint. This lifted the stone door, revealing my late-night caller.

Oliya Ruez was five-five and 150 pounds without an extra ounce of fat. It was hard to be certain about her age because of the severity of her expression, but I placed her at about thirty. Short-haired, she had fingers like pilings and forearms with writhing muscles reminiscent of the steel bands that formed the inner workings of some nineteenth-century perpetual-motion machine. Scarred upper lip, discolored left forearm; she wore black knee-length tights under a short black skirt and a loose-fitting black T-shirt. She could have been white or brown, a Pacific Islander or Spaniard from the south of that nation. Her haircut was too short to reveal texture.

There was a pretty big rucksack on her back and a duffel bag at her side. Both black, of course.

“Ms. Ruez?” I said, blocking her entrée with my body.

She looked up into my eyes in a stance that could allow her to take a step across the threshold or throw a roundhouse kick at my head.

When she didn’t reply I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I already told you, Joe.”

“I didn’t send for no assistant.”

“I’m here to assist you, but not as an ordinary girl Friday. My duties are more... specialized.”

“Melquarth sent you?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name. Who is he?”

A chill breeze was coming through the doorway, but I wasn’t satisfied yet.

“Where’d you get the word redbird?”

“It’s what I was supposed to say if you questioned my being here.” Her expression added, Of course.

“Okay,” I said after a gusty pause. “Come on in.”

As she strode past I lowered the drawbridge door.

“Have a seat,” I said when we entered the living room.

Oliya put her bags down and sat in a plush blue sofa seat set at a perpendicular angle to the emerald-green sofa. I watched her a moment and then lowered onto the couch.

“You want a drink?” I asked.

“Not right now, thank you.”

“So let me get this right — you’re here to provide specialized assistance.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know Melquarth.”

“He may have contracted for the services of Int-Op but I take my orders directly from Luxembourg.”

“What is this Int-Op you’re talking about?”

“The term stands for International Operatives Agency. My designation is Int-Op 17.”

“And your special services?”

“Bodyguarding, hostage retrieval, some specialized mercenary work, and intelligence reclamation are all in my job description.”

“And which of those services are you here for?”

“As I understand it’s bodyguarding mainly, but I am to provide help in any way I can.”

I was wearing a white T and gray exercise pants that I’d found in a drawer upstairs. I didn’t feel embarrassed and doubted that my guest would have turned red in the Saharan sun.

“You wanna drink?” I asked again.

“Not right now, thank you,” she said once more.

I popped up and opened a cabinet door set in the shelves of little sculptures and books in every language from Latin to Esperanto. The liquor cabinet had a twenty-eight-year-old Delord Armagnac. I poured myself a double shot.

“Sure I can’t tempt you?” I said to the woman who was reminding me more and more of the king’s black rook.

“Not yet.”

Sitting down again, I asked Oliya, “Do you know the players in the game I’m playing?”

“No. When I asked I was told that you would have most of that information.”

“Do you know Zyron International?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever worked for them?”

“I can’t give information about Int-Op or anyone that we have or have not provided with our services.”

“Okay. That’s good. But what if I’m having a problem with a company like that and part of your job would be putting you at odds with them?”

“If that were the case, Joe, I wouldn’t be here.”

Our eyes met.

“You look pretty tough,” I noted.

“Sometimes you have to fight.” Her manner was nonchalant. “But no matter how tough anyone is, there’s always somebody stronger, luckier, or smarter. I try to avoid confrontation. That makes it better for me and my clients.”

I sipped my brandy.

“So,” I said, my talking tongue more than satisfied by the alcohol. “What if I were to tell you that I didn’t want or need your services?”

Suddenly the stony-eyed young woman’s face was vulnerable. Even the suggestion that I might dismiss her was completely unexpected.

“I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me, Joe.”

“Why you keep usin’ my first name like we’re friends? Don’t you usually refer to your clients as mister and miss?”

She had a smile that was something to behold. It felt as if I had been walking on a paved road that gave way to pounded earth that then became a less-trodden path through a wood. There I come upon a peasant woman tilling the soil with a huge hoe made from the horn of some beast of burden. That path could have been anywhere in the world. And that woman was the reason there’s life anywhere. She was both a fortress wall and the only home anyone would ever need.

All of that in a smile.

“Part of my instruction was to call you by your first name, Mr. Oliver.”

I took in a deep breath right then. Melquarth was a good friend in spite of his close relationship with evil. His understanding of the world led him to hire this woman of violence and defense. As much as I wanted to deny it, there was something about her that was right.

“To answer your question,” she said, her tone now lighter, “I’ve been assigned to protect you. If you ask me to leave, then of course I will, but I’d have to call Int-Op. If they tell me to break off I’d move on. But if they say to stay and protect you I’d try my best.”

I looked at her, thinking about that universal woman wielding her great horn.

“Okay, then,” I said. “You stayin’ here?”

“That would be best.”

“The blue bedroom upstairs is mine. You can have either of the other two.”

She stood, grabbed her bags, and headed up.

“We can talk about my troubles and your services in the morning,” I told her back.

I waited a quarter hour, savoring the drink. While there I looked at my phone and saw there was a text from Mel.

Her name is Oliya and she’s the best Int-Op has to offer.

After that I went upstairs and tumbled into a sleep that was better than I’d had in days, maybe even years.