The Swing Voter of Staten Island (3 page)

A
fter ten more blocks, the cute japonica architecture ended, and with it, all signs of civilization. Streets were again barren, and the buildings took on a harsher, colder style. Soon they came upon a complex of larger buildings that looked like skeletons of the Soviet housing made popular under Khrushchev. The structures appeared empty and most were burned out altogether.

Six passengers who had boarded the bus along Church Avenue had already gotten off, leaving only the five original riders.

“Welcome to Borough Park,” Mallory said. “Once a thriving Hasidic community.”

“What happened?”

“It was a dignified Pigger neighborhood eight years ago—before the Crappers took over Brooklyn. The local residents kept supporting their own Pigger leader, Moss Leere, and the Crappers persecuted them until they couldn’t take it anymore and moved to Queens.”

The bus passed a partially collapsed cupola with a big Star of David on the front. It looked like something out of Czarist Russia. According to Mallory, the destroyed synagogue had once been the spiritual center of the area.

“Shit!” the driver suddenly shouted. “He’s back.”

Turning around, they all saw it. Smoke from the burned paint on the roof was streaming off. The car from Flatlands was gaining on them. In a desperate effort to lose it, the bus driver veered off his route and sped deeper into the desolation of Borough Park. Soon, though, the Flatlander once again slammed into their rear bumper.

“I can’t outrun him,” the driver conceded, trying to block the car from getting around.

“Maybe we should stop and give him our money, or just slow down and see what he wants,” Uli suggested.

Carnival noticed a cinder block propped under a broken seat in front of him. He pulled open a hole in the mesh covering his window and hurled the large concrete weight onto the front of the pursuing car. The block shattered the solar panel affixed to the vehicle’s hood, bringing it to a slow halt.

“Good job!” the bus driver yelled back to Carnival, then turned at the next corner to try and get back to his route. Amid the maze of sandy streets blocked by debris, they had difficulty finding their way. The driver came upon a narrow yet clear street that ran loosely parallel to his route. Following it as far as he could, the driver turned again, only to find a shiny new car blocking the street. A group of burly young men were standing around it. The bus driver stomped on the brakes and tried turning his vehicle around. “We’re trapped!” he said. “These guys are probably in cahoots with the Flatlander!”

“I don’t think so,” Uli replied. He noticed Mallory desperately hoisting her thick document and official identification badge up under the solar panel above the bus. Still in her wig disguise, she slipped contact lenses over her pupils. The driver had only completed the second part of a three-point turn when some kid raced over from the shiny car, dragging a long spike strip before the front wheels. The bus driver jammed on the brakes, causing the solar panel to shoot forward and crash to the pavement.

“Fuck!” Mallory yelled, as her huge election document tumbled to the ground as well.

The driver groaned and threw the bus into reverse, crashing into a dead fire hydrant.

The rest of the burly boys dashed over to them. Four unsynchronized bursts erupted and the bus sank down several inches—they had popped the tires.

“I’m Officer Chain! Open the goddamn door, we’re Pigger gangcops!” the oldest and fattest of them shouted, flashing a gold badge. He was stocky and bald, with wire-frame glasses and a square-linked chain wrapped around his thick neck like a glittering, unknotted tie. Some strange mechanical object that Uli didn’t recognize was affixed to his forehead. As the man came closer, Uli saw that the forehead appendage resembled a bent scope from a sharpshooter’s rifle.

The driver stepped out of the bus, leading Mallory, Uli, and the Carnival family behind him. Five large men with machetes surrounded them. A sixth gangcop raced on board and brought out some of the items they had left behind.

“May I ask why, if you’re a Pigger officer and this is a Crapper neighborhood—” Uli started.

“May you ask?” Officer Chain cut him off. “Who are you, the fucking King of Siam?”

“He just arrived here,” Mary explained.

As two gigantic men silently pushed everyone face-forward against the side of the bus, Oric nervously whispered, “Rockaway 6, Greenpoint 22, Howard Beach 9.”

One of the gangcops searching for weapons lecherously patted down Mallory’s breasts and groin.

“Where’d you get the kangaroo?” Chain asked her. Both Carnival and Uli leaned toward her protectively.

“Found him along the side of the road.”

“You look familiar as shit,” Chain replied, as his sharp chain swung up against her arm.

“Never had the pleasure,” she replied icily.

“What’s your name?”

“Frances,” Carnival spoke up before she could say anything. “She’s my child.”

“What are your affiliations?” one of the men asked her.

“None of us are wearing any colors,” Mallory replied, as though citing a key rule of engagement.

“That’s right. You don’t have the right to ask nothing!” the bus driver declared.

“How about you, New Yorker?” the bully said to Uli, scanning his eyes with his scopic horn. A red ray shooting out from its tip led Uli to believe it was a lie detector. “You pro-life or pro-choice?”

“He doesn’t know the issues,” Mallory answered for him.

When one of the assistants edged up toward Mallory again, Uli stepped forward, compelling the man to lift his blade. Mallory raised her hand, urging restraint.

The lead cop swung his cyber horn into Mallory’s eyes, but before he could ask any questions, Carnival punched the device.

“Motherfucker!” Chain groaned, grabbing his forehead.

One of the other gangcops immediately brought his machete up against Carnival’s long lean neck. Chain tapped his horn until the red light flickered back on, then leaned forward so that the scanner pointed directly in Carnival’s face.

“What’s your name, asshole?”

“Chad.”

“Are those yours, Chad?” Chain pointed toward the old bucket and clunky mine detector.

“I found them.”

“What gang are you all with?”

“We’re from different parties,” Carnival’s wife replied.

“Not anymore you’re not,” Chain said. He gestured to one of his assistants, who pinned Carnival’s arms behind his back.

“Don’t you dare touch my husband!” Mary screamed.

“Or whatchu gonna do?”

“I used to be a Pigger Councilwoman, asshole,” she shot back.

Chain scanned one of her eyes with his instrument. “How do you like that? She’s not lying. Well, you’re lucky, honey, cause as you know, our party would never permit us to make a woman a widow or turn a child into an orphan.”

“The family must be kept together at all costs,” added one of the other gangcops, as though he were reciting an axiom.

Chain began laughing and two of his lackeys grabbed Carnival’s wife and Mallory, who they seemed to actually believe was his daughter.

“Hold on!” Mallory yelled. Her little kangaroo was struggling to get out of her arm bag. She grabbed its furry legs and asserted, “We’re not related!” With her free hand, she fumbled through her purse and brought out an identity card.

Pushing his cyber-eye up against her right pupil, Chain concluded, “You don’t look Jewish.”

When the gangcop handed back Mallory’s ID card, Uli peered over and read the name on it:
Alison Lowenstein—INDEPENDENT.

“Chad and his Pigger wife are under arrest,” Chain announced. “The rest of you—scram!”

“Wait!” Mary screamed.

“They’re
my
passengers,” the bus driver objected. “I demand to know what you’re arresting them for.”

“His metal detector is a rifle.” Chain kicked off the pancake base of the instrument, revealing that it was in fact disguising the barrel of a gun. Lifting the plastic bucket, he added, “And here are the rounds.”

“What the hell?” Mary shouted at her spouse.

“Pa!” their idiot son cried fearfully. “Howard Beach! Correction!”

“I’m so sorry, babe,” Carnival mumbled to his wife.

“This guy called that guy
Pa
,” said one of the gangcops, grabbing Oric’s chubby right arm. “He’s in the family.”

Uli clutched Oric’s other arm. “Come on, he’s mentally incompetent and obviously older than that guy. How the hell can this be his son?”

One of the men pressed his machete to Uli’s throat as the other shoved Oric up against the bus. Another gangcop fingerprinted the fat man and ran the print through a scanning machine in the shiny car’s glove compartment. A moment later, he reported back, “The guy’s clean,” and shoved Carnival’s son toward Uli.

The driver started back toward his bus, but was stopped by Chain. “We’re confiscating your vehicle.”

“Officer, where can we post bail for them?” Mallory asked, before the driver could protest. As a response, one of the gangcops grabbed the joey from Mallory’s bag and tossed him to the sandy sidewalk, then shoved her back up against the bus.

“You’re interrupting a vital Pigger mission,” Uli said as they pinned his arm back. “I work for Council President Underwood.”

“Oh sure,” Chain replied with a sneer, shining his scope in Uli’s eyes. “I really believe this New Yorker is one of us.”

“Call Underwood. Tell him you’re holding the guy who was supposed to walk to Sutphin, catch the Q28 to Fulton Street, change to the B17 to the East Village, and shoot Dropt.”

Registering no lie, Chain walked back to his shiny car. He snatched the radio phone from his dashboard and made a call. After a minute, he beckoned Uli over and handed him the black phone.

Uli heard the strangely familiar high-pitched voice: “S’that you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me your mission again.”

“Walk to Sutphin, catch the Q28 to Fulton Street, change to the B17 and take it to the East Village in Manhattan, wait outside Cooper Union for Dropt to arrive, shoot him once in the head, then grab a cab back to the airport and catch the next flight—”

“And why isn’t this being carried out, soldier?”

“These guys hijacked my bus and falsely arrested two people.”

“I don’t give a shit about that, just tell me you still have the gun I gave you.”

“Yes sir, I was heading to Manhattan when these guys hijacked the bus—”

“All right, listen, I just got a call from the blond lobbyist.” Uli had no idea who Underwood was talking about. “She’s impatient, so she’s going to help you. Proceed to Jay Street in downtown Brooklyn and meet her at the bus stop.”

“Fine, but there’s this fat bald guy who illegally arrested some friends of mine—”

Chain snatched the radio phone out of Uli’s hand and slammed it down. “Get walking before I change my fat bald mind.”

Uli, the bus driver, Mallory, and Oric began heading down the road. Seeing her bulky election document amid the shards of shattered solar paneling, Mallory bent down and scooped it up, never breaking her stride.

“If they’re Piggers,” Uli asked softly, “why do they have jurisdiction in a Crapper borough?”

“Since they work as Council cops, they have citywide jurisdiction,” Mallory explained.

After several blocks down the long sandy street, the driver stopped, looked back at his hijacked bus, and groaned. Two corpses swung by their necks from a broken light post. Oric dashed about thirty feet back toward his murdered parents before Uli tackled him. The challenged man collapsed in the sand and wept.

As Uli stared at the murdered couple in the distance, he blurted out, “Wait a sec, I don’t think it’s them.”

The driver put his finger over his lips, indicating silence.

“But whoever is hanging up there looks black,” Uli protested. “The Carnivals were white.”

“The light’s just playing tricks with your eyes,” Mallory assured him, and making the sign of the cross she added, “They’re back in old New York now.” She handed Uli her election document, then removed the billowy shirt and wig she had used as a disguise. Pausing, she quickly popped the contact lenses out of her eyes and slipped them into a tiny plastic case. She took Oric gently in her arms and helped him to his feet.

The four of them walked further down the succession of barren streets, away from the swinging bodies. Soon they sat down near a small empty square under the long shadow of a statue that appeared to be Lenin.

Oric began mumbling, “I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t see it—”

“It’s not your fault!”

“They were my brothers!” Oric retorted inexplicably.

Mallory held the man-child’s hand as he whimpered softly.

“If all of Queens votes for the Piggers,” Uli asked, tiredly toting Mallory’s giant book, “who exactly are you protecting with this document?”

“After eight years in office, Shub has disappointed even most of the hard-core Piggers. Hell, he was so damn powerful that he wouldn’t allow any other Piggers in the primary.”

“So what exactly do you hope to do?”

“I was appointed to a bipartisan commission that sends officials to monitor the elections at different polling sites. They’re the ones responsible for making sure the right equipment is available and accessible. If I can just make sure that the hardware is there, we should get a reasonably fair mayoral election, and we might actually have a shot at beating the son of a bitch.”

“Do you know anything about that Chain prick?” the bus driver asked her.

“Yeah, I know him. He would’ve recognized me with that scope if I didn’t have the contact lenses. Nine years ago, when my husband was mayor and Horace Shub was head of the City Council, that bastard was his chief of security,” Mallory explained. “Hor eventually fired Chain to appease the Crapper moderates—the man was a known sadist. About five years ago, the Slope had a mini uprising because they resented Shub’s Pigger policies. Chain was appointed to oversee Council security for central Brooklyn.”

Several minutes later, Uli asked the driver, “What color did Jim Carnival and his wife appear to you?”

“There’s an expression round here,” he replied. “You don’t really know a person till he’s dead …”