The waiter came over, and I asked Linda, “You wanna get wild?”
“Hog-wild, baby. Been a long week.”
“Just to warn you ladies, we are short on a few items.” He rattled off a dozen things that were not available.
“Jesus, what do you have?” said Linda.
“My apologies. The riots at Hunts Point Market have shipments squeezed all over the city. Could I perhaps make a few suggestions?”
For only a moment, I felt the unease again, that a distant disturbance could reach a place where wealth was a prerequisite to even walk through the door. Then Linda ordered a $200 bottle of Château Rieussec and several appetizers, and the waiter told her those were excellent choices. Within twenty minutes the wine had hit, and we were clutching our guts laughing at gossip from the shop. To my absolute horror and delight she told me that Beth McClann and our former CEO Patrick Yeats were now an item.
“Hell, I didn’t even know McClann had a functioning vagina before that,” said Linda.
I spilled wine on my hand I was laughing so hard.
“And you know Gruber got married?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Nice Jewish girl. Now they’re both in Israel like putting their bodies in front of IDF tanks in the Occupied Territories.”
“No kidding?”
“Be honest.” She leaned forward, wry smile on her lips, bracelets rattling again as she pointed her glass at me. “Did you hit that, Jackie?”
I held the sip of wine between my lips as best I could, laughing and nodding at the same time. “I know I know I know, so wrong.”
“Are you kidding? I’m so jealous. I always had a thing for those cute little apple butt cheeks.”
Around we went, over another bottle of wine and Kyoto beef, truffles, and roast duck à l’orange.
“It’s gotten cut-fucking-throat at the firm. Like we are doing work for anyone with the cash. This mining firm committing human rights abuses left and right in Equatorial Guinea? Sure, why not! Let’s rehab your brand!”
“Better than the code of thieves that is finance. At least there’s—I don’t know what to call it? A weird mercenary honor to the ad or the PR world. You have adversaries, right? And you’re this hired gun meant to fight the wars that need to be fought. Being around funds, it’s bloodless. Every trader has to be close to an aneurysm at all times. To lure talent and keep people off the ledge everyone at my firm gets a shrink, a masseuse, and an art budget. It’s totally nutty.”
“You want to come back?” Linda grimaced.
“Hell no.”
“You were too good at it, Jackie. The dirt we got up to in ’29? The way you put an axe blade through PRIRA. People still bow down to that.”
I forced a chuckle, and then abruptly the conversation stalled. Linda dragged a brussels sprout through cream sauce and popped it into her mouth.
“By the way, you know who’s in town?” she said, to say something.
“Who?”
“Jefferey. These ARs, every time you’re in proximity to an old friend…” She waggled her glasses at me.
“Really? What’s he here for?”
“Teachers’ union training, I think? I guess he’s gotten into labor stuff based on his profile. When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“Ha. Jefferey? Jesus, more than twenty years now. I know he got married.”
Years ago, a mutual Facebook friend had posted a picture from Jefferey’s wedding. Kim Fox was the friend’s name. She’d been a bartender at a place called Matilda that we used to hang out at a lot. I deleted that account not long after.
“Don’t worry, he got fat,” said Linda.
To change the subject, I nodded to an absurd car pulling up to the valet. “Look at this stud.”
The man was white and, if I had to guess, Russian. He handed over his fob.
“Gallardo Spyder. Self-driving. Limited edition looks like.” Linda explained: “We do Lamborghini’s art.”
This beautiful car put me at ease. It looked like honey on wheels. Any display like that, and you knew you’d be safe from riots, looters, and whatever else. The man walked inside, and we both watched the car ooze around the block, every surface glowing as it glided down dry asphalt.
On the ride home, I pulled up Jefferey’s Slapdish, slid my thumb past his profile, and logged on to the VR interaction. I had glasses in my bag, and within moments I was inside his worlde, an imaginary man-cave, drowning in Bears, Cubs, Bulls, and Blackhawks accoutrements. There were shiny holograms of his three children. Cruising up the West Side Highway, past the bright skyscrapers of Hell’s Kitchen, I dictated a message.
“Hey, Jeff, you dork. I had dinner with Linda Holiday. Remember her? She told me you were in New York for work. I thought it might be fun to get a drink and catch up. If not, no biggie, but I’m around.”
I stared at the screen. I hated every last over-casual word of this message. But I sent it, and that was that.
At home, Fred was watching the news. To show that our tiff was not still on my mind, I curled up beside him with my tablet to peck at some work before bed, but my eyes kept sliding back to cable news. There were more riots in Los Angeles. False stories had spread that the city was holding food back at the ports, and people had descended on every grocery in the city, smashing windows, storming past barricades to carry off whatever they could. Then the story flipped to even more frightening coverage of Norway’s election, where Anders Breivik, a mass murderer of children, was leading in the polls. Because Norway had long been weening itself off its oil, Breivik had found support from business interests that believed they had the technology to utilize hydraulic fracturing in the Alum Shale. “We will easily win. The current PM—she’s target practice,” Breivik joked, a horrifying comment that sent his supporters into a frenzy of joy. Finally, there she was, looking exhausted but determined: That evening Kate Morris had held her first press conference since being released. A reporter asked her if she regretted anything about her actions from the previous year.
“Do I regret anything?” She gripped her chest in bewilderment. “What a backwards-ass question, man. No one in our movement massacred anyone.” Tears welled in her eyes, her voice hot and strong. She pounded a fist against her chest over and over. “Brave people took a stand for an idea greater than themselves, and they were murdered for it. And let me tell you and everyone else—this is not over. Vic Love and the interests he serves didn’t put our movement down, they only made it stronger. We’ll walk into fucking bullets if we have to, but we’re not going anywhere. We will keep coming.”
“Sure, go get more people killed,” Fred muttered. “Unbelievable.”
I’d had enough. The news had been giving me anxiety for twenty years now, and I couldn’t bear another second of it. I laid in the dark, unable to sleep, staring at the backs of my eyelids until Fred came in, brushed his teeth, and got in bed beside me. As he began snoring, I was still wide awake.
I slipped out from under the covers and walked to my office. When we’d moved into the new penthouse, Fred had offered me the room with the south-facing window and its majestic view, now glittering with New York’s disparate dreams. Fred had sent me the report, and I opened it on my tablet. Despite the title, it was dry reading and described much of what I expected. Strong positions in Arctic oil, gas, uranium, minerals, and the companies best positioned to access those riches. Huge bets on Norman Nate’s Solar Solutions with high confidence that the next COP would produce an agreement to begin albedo management of the planet. I searched the document for ANøNosiki. The only mention of it read: