The Swing Voter of Staten Island (5 page)

“Well, since you openly stated you were programmed to kill Dropt, I can’t accuse you of guile. In fact, after risking your life to cover for me with Chain, and having monitored your actions over the past twenty-four hours, I think I can trust you.”

“Trust me with what?”

“I have to get
back
to Queens to turn in this Affidavit of Electoral Inventories by the 3 o’clock deadline, so that Dropt will have a shot at getting a fair election next week.” She held up her fat book. “This theory about Oric kind of changes things. I need you to bring him to the Manhattan Crapper headquarters in the Lower East Side pronto.”

“You want me to bring him to the guy who I was programmed to kill?” Uli said, amazed.

“You won’t be going anywhere near Dropt. You’ll just bring Oric to the heavily guarded building and then leave. And only because I have no one else to turn to. This bus fiasco has been a major setback. I’ve been trying not to show it, but I’m starting to really freak out about the election. I can give you some stamps to cover your expenses and put a little cash in your pocket.”

“Sorry, but I can’t abide by the notion of murder to win an election.”

“If that Carnival character was actually killing people, I guarantee it wasn’t sanctioned by us. We’re the party that wants people to make up their own minds. If we know we might lose by a slim margin, we can reallocate our funds, campaign harder in specific districts, and try to convince the wobbly margins to vote.”

“This is all way too—”

“There’s something else,” she added, lowering her voice to a whisper. “What I’m going to tell you is highly classified: We have reason to suspect that the Piggers have had their own election psychic for years. He’s just a kid, supposedly the only person actually born in this hellhole.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“A high-ranking Pigger who defected told us about him. They call him Karove. He’s one of the reasons they’ve been able to hold power for years. Study the election results over the past decade and you’ll see that the Piggers pulled off nearly eighty-five percent of the the paper-thin victories. We can’t locate Karove, but we’re pretty sure he exists. Maybe with Oric we can balance the scales.”

Uli let out a long sigh. “So how exactly do I get to the Manhattan Crapper headquarters?”

“I’ll go with you to Fulton Street and put you on a bus to the Lower East Side.”

“What do you think of that?” Uli called over to Oric. “Would Mallory lie to us?”

“Mallor—Mallor—Mallor—” The challenged man seemed to be having difficulty pronouncing her name. Finally he just blurted out, “Mayory!”

“I seem to be fated to go there,” Uli conceded. First Underwood had tried to program him to assassinate the rival candidate there, then Jim Carnival had told him it was where he could get the tracking device extracted from his head.

W
hen the group finally reached the Sunset Park bus stop, the dispatcher there immediately reassigned their one-armed driver to a southbound route. The others waited at the end of a long line for the northbound vehicle. Nearly an hour later, when the bus finally pulled up, it was already packed. Mallory let the baby marsupial stretch its legs and relieve itself one last time before slipping it back into her shoulder bag. Then she squeezed on board and they started north.

The new bus chugged up Fort Hamilton Parkway toward Flatbush Avenue, and here the street became pure asphalt—apparently the local assemblage of sand refunders had swept the street down earlier. When the bus made a stop on 39th Street, a cluster of seats opened up in the rear.

Uli hastily grabbed a seat next to a window, pulling Oric with him. Mallory sat across from them. The bus moved through bumper-to-bumper traffic until they came to a standstill alongside the western edge of the Greenwood Cemetery. All got an up-close view of some closed-coffin funeral in progress.

“What can I say about the passing of my own brother?” a bearded minister asked a crowd of gray ponytailed men and women. “From a divine point of view, we live in a devil’s playground where each person’s greatest and darkest temptation is truly tested. And while we live, only God can see through our meager disguises.” The minister looked up and over the crowd. His gaze suddenly locked onto Uli through the bus window. “But lo! From where I presently stand, I too can see the shame and pain that a single man can inflict upon an entire nation! And that man is … you lee!”

“What’s that, padre?” someone yelled out from the crowd.

“He’s the reason we’re all here!” The minister began pointing at Uli, and called out some name that Uli didn’t catch.

“Which one?” he heard someone in the crowd shriek.

“That one sitting in the back of the bus!”

The mourners turned, almost as one, and stared up at him, then started racing over to the bus. Uli slid his window shut, but their collective hands, arms, and torsos began rocking the vehicle as though it were hit by a wave.

The bus was frozen in traffic, so the many wrinkled and arthritic fingers working together were able to pop out the emergency back window. Uli tried to rise to his feet but Oric was squeezed up next to him, making a quick retreat difficult. All at once, a dozen hands and arms thrust in and grabbed him. He punched at them, furiously trying to defend himself, but it was too much. In another moment, overpowered, he was being yanked out headfirst, through the aluminum window frame. Before being fully extracted from the vehicle, however, something caught his ankles. Horizontally, still in the air, he exchanged punches with the elderly mob below. Oric was holding onto him, anchoring himself between Uli’s legs, braced up against the bus seat. Crackling voices screamed at him:

“You monstrous son of a bitch!”

“Die in hell, you scumbag!”

Uli felt his shirt and jacket pulled from his chest, and his body flopped down against the outside of the bus just above the wheel.

“Get that cocksucker!”

While one man was whacking his cane furiously at Uli’s head, pruned hands scratched at his face and tore his clothes. Just as an elderly lady was about to thrust the pointy end of a parasol into his face, someone grabbed its handle and knocked the woman down. A vaguely familiar blond man was fighting to defend Uli. The guy kicked the knee out from under another old woman clawing at Uli’s exposed chest. Her fingernails felt like ten little fishing hooks tearing down his flesh. Once released, Uli tried to wiggle backwards.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the blond man screamed at him.

“I don’t know!” Uli shouted back. “Who am I?”

Someone clipped Uli along the side of his skull with a small bat. The blond man grabbed the improvised weapon and yanked it away before the swinger could take a second shot. With all his might, the stranger shoved Uli upwards, back into the bus.

“Get that yellow-haired fucker!” someone yelled.

A large bald man carrying a machete came running up toward Uli’s protector just as the traffic jam finally opened up and the bus started moving. The blond man jumped up onto the side of the bus, folding his arm precariously inside the windowsill. Uli tried to pull him up, but he was barely inside the bus himself.

The bald man led the chase along the sidewalk, with a group of surprisingly agile seniors racing along the avenue.

“I can’t hold on, my arm is slipping!” the blond man gasped.

“Who am I?”

“Huey!” the guy screamed in pain. “Meet me at Rockefeller Center.”

“I’ll get off
now!
” Uli shouted.

“No, just meet me at Rockefeller Center at 3!”

The blond man pushed away from the bus to avoid falling under its wheels and rolled onto the ground. In another moment, the bus zoomed on and Oric and Mallory pulled Uli all the way back inside. Everyone sitting around him stared in shock.

“What the hell did you do?” Mallory asked, cradling her kangaroo in her bag.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he replied, trembling. He modestly folded his arms over his aching and exposed chest, which was red with scratches and welts.

Some guy pulled an old shirt from a laundry bag and said, “I was going to toss this anyways.”

“Thanks,” Uli said, taking the wrinkled garment and pulling it on over his clawed torso. It read,
Rescue Me from My Rescuers.

Upon finally calming down, Uli thanked Mallory for her concern and Oric for saving him. Slowly the other passengers stopped staring. His paranoia still engaged, however, he decided not to say anything about the strangely familiar blond man. Mallory took a seat behind him and resumed working on her never-ending form. Uli sensed that the best chance of getting to the bottom of his situation was by going to Rockefeller Center at 3 o’clock and meeting with the blond guy.

As the bus inched uphill, Uli noticed the green dome of a narrow tower peeking out in the distance. Though the building couldn’t have been much taller than ten floors, with its lime-covered cap and distinct red clock face it was the tallest building he had seen since arriving.

“What’s that?” he asked Mallory, pointing to it. He was beginning to vaguely recognize some of these landmarks.

“The Williamsburgh Savings Bank,” she muttered back.

“They have banks here?”

“No, it’s actually the municipal building that houses the criminal justice system,” Mallory replied. “It’s where Shub works.”

“Is Rockefeller Center the same place here that it is in old New York?”

“Yeah, midtown Manhattan. Why?”

He shrugged and stared off dismally, so she didn’t press. Soon the bus merged into a four-lane boulevard. Uli spotted a street sign that said,
Flatbush Avenue
, and under it,
Jackie Wilson Way.

“Wasn’t Jackie Wilson the first black baseball player?”

“That was Jackie Robinson,” Mallory explained without looking up. “He was a pop singer, but this is a different Jackie Wilson.”

Uli closed his eyes and tried to rest.

“Last stop!” the driver shouted after another half hour, flapping open the front door. As people tumbled out, Mallory grabbed Oric’s hand. She quickly led them to a line of people at a connecting stop a block away. A sign said,
B17 Bus to Lower Manhattan & Staten Island
.

“My bus is leaving in just a few minutes or I’d wait with you. Yours is leaving in twenty minutes,” Mallory said, gently stroking the short snout of the joey peeking out of her bag. Handing Uli five stamps, she added, “Buy Oric some food and take him to the bathroom before boarding. Traffic in Manhattan is unbelievably slow.”

“Do they know we’re coming?”

“I’ll call from Queens. Just ask for Dr. Adele and tell him I sent you. He’ll take care of Oric.” Glancing at her wristwatch, Mallory assured him she would be there as soon as she submitted the updated Affidavit of Electoral Inventories to the Election Commission in Astoria, Queens and paid a quick visit to her paralyzed husband up in a Harlem hospice. Uli wished her a safe trip. She nodded back tiredly. It was almost as if the prior night of intimacy had never occurred.

“
V
ery hungered,” said Oric soulfully, as they roamed through the chaotic Fulton Street Mall near Jackie Wilson Way.

Having survived the incident at Green-wood Cemetery, Uli now appreciated why Mallory carried a disguise. From among the racks of cheap garments and bins of sundry merchandise, Uli purchased a new shirt, a short brim hat, and sunglasses. Whoever he or Huey was, some people obviously knew and despised him.

Spotting a noisy crowd across the street mall, Uli and Oric headed over to see what all the hubbub was about. The gathering was pressed up against a rope held by two brawny security workers. Uli made out an oddly thin young woman with distinctive eyebrows, who was screaming, “Come shake hands with the protector of freedom and godliness—Horace Shub!”

Another security guard placed a microphone stand in the middle of the clearing. A moment later, a small simian-faced man with abnormally large hands walked up and tapped the mic to make sure it was on. It was indeed Shub, the Pigger mayor.

“My opponent, Dropt, remains immobile on dynamically fluid issues,” the man said in a tinny meter. “He doesn’t waver when you need the wavering.” Shub made a flapping motion. “He’s intractable in a business that requires a lot of tractoring!” The bugle-eared mayor issued a series of tight little gasps that Uli realized was self-satisfied laughter. Shub then started working the rope line, shaking the grimy bouquet of outstretched hands.