The Hammer of God

had just uttered by clasping his free hand over their clenched grip.

“I’d be honored; helping our clients grow is how we grow.”

As the impeccably dressed producer of Iran’s biggest production company left the bank, Wasserman called his wife.

“Honey, I just signed a 25-million-dollar account with the largest independent producers of film in Iran. Yes, just now! That’s going to bring my three-month total to 185 million. They have to give me that V.P. slot now!”

Rashani’s next stop after establishing a production bank account was the insurance company. Along the way, he reflected on the brilliance involved with paying a Hollywood agent $50,000 cash just for a favorable introduction to the bank. That agent, nor Mr. Wasserman, could pick the real Rashani out of a line up of him and a Girl Scout troop, let alone care about the color of his money. Yes, greed is good, Rashani thought, remembering a line from an American movie that was actually made here in New York.

So far, the creation of American Partners Iranian, L.L.C. had cost about $85,000, a mere grain of sand next to his 25-million-dollar “production budget.” With his new API, L.L.C. bank checks, he was able to write the $10,500 dollars necessary to obtain the Producer’s Liability package. It was a mixture of many diverse insurance policies that protected the producer from all kinds of calamities that can befall a cinematic production, from rain to bad film stock ruining a shot. He did not purchase E and O insurance however, even though it was discounted with the package. Errors and Omission insurance protected the final movie from all claims. There would be no final movie. In fact, there were only two reasons to have the Producer’s Package at all: it had workman’s comp, which any good crew person or trade union insisted on before walking onto a working set, and, more importantly, you could get a permit to film on the streets of New York. Even with police escort and protection — all free of charge! You could close a bridge, clear an avenue, wreck cars, and burn down buildings, theatrically of course. As long as you held the insurance naming New York City as loss payee for one million dollars per event, you were instantly a reputable production company. A New York City film permit was truly the key to the city.

“Wanna see what got my brother killed?” John said motioning upstairs in the two family house that the Remos lived in since their sons were three and thirteen. On the way up the stairs was a framed photo of John and other hard hats down at “the pile.” It made Bill stop.

“John, you were there?”

“No, not just me — the whole union. We all turned out. There was thousands of metric tons of steel there, had to cut it where it lay. Every time we came across remains, we had to stop. Then there was a ceremony; then we’d start working again. There was 250 tons of human remains compressed into the 10-story pile.”

As they went up the stairs, the effort made John cough. 9-11 sickness Hiccock thought. At the top, under a table, were work boots that looked like they were sitting in pancakes. John bent down and got them. “No, look see, these were brand fucking new, first day look, look here, the souls are melted. That fucking pile was like walking on an oven for 10 days. Brand new fucking pair of steel toes — instant garbage. That was some hell of a place. But we cleaned it up in record time.”

“You guys were amazing.”

“No, sometimes I think we should-a let it sit there forever, to remind everybody what those fuckers did to us. People, they are forgetting, getting soft, letting down their guard. It’s not good, I tell ya.”

“The President and me, we’ll never forget, John.”

“No, you’ll keep all those Washington jerks on the trigger, no, I know that.”

Bill suddenly remembered why John’s nickname growing up was “Johnny ‘No’.”

“C’mere, let me show you what I brung you up here for.”

Bill remembered the hallway, from when they were kids and the bathroom at the end of the hall. How embarrassed he was one night, when, on a sleepover, he walked in on Anna washing her nylons in the sink. She was in a slip, but in those days, even seeing your friend’s mom in a slip was a weird and creepy thing. They went into what used to be Peter’s room. There, amid the guest bed and older furniture, was a box of stuff. John reached in and pulled out a gray envelope with the old, interlocking blue NBC logo on it. Inside was a brown binder with yellowed pages. John flipped open the binder; it was a photocopy of a book. It looked as if someone had laid it flat on a copy machine.

Bill was frozen. Just as Peter described. Holy shit he wasn’t hallucinating…at least about this part.

“This is what I figured got Petey killed.”

Bill felt as though someone had just showed him the original draft to a Shakespeare play. This was the book Peter told him about on the steps of the Memorial.

“How do you know he was killed over anything more than a bar fight?”

“No, what the fuck was he doing in France? No, he never cared about places like that. I’m telling you, that old man got whacked, then Peter went on his crusade shit and bam now he’s dead.”

“Old man? You mean Professor Ensiling?”

“Bingo! Dat guy!

“I hear you, John, but Joey Palumbo — you remember Joey — he works with me now.”

“No, Palumbo? No shit. Last I heard he was working with the feds.”

“Yeah, I kinda screwed that up for him, so now we…anyway, he checked the Ensiling thing out, and he says the fat lady sang natural on this professor guy.”

“No, Billy, I don’t mean to argue here, but that’s bullshit. Peter told me about the threats, the attempts, the time they missed him and the old guy and killed that broad.”

“John, I never heard about any woman being shot.”

“No, all I’m saying here is that this book, with all this gobbledygook and fucking formulas, got everybody killed. You want it?”

“After a sales job like that? Yeah, sure I want it, John. I’m dying to have somebody come after me, too.”

“Then at least you’ll know Peter was right? No?”

Bill just looked at his childhood friend’s smirking face. “Thanks a lump.”

Between what was in Peter’s files and Mrs. Remo cajoling him to stay for cake and coffee, Bill just made the 8 o’clock back to D.C. from La Guardia and decided to skip going to the office and had his driver take him directly home. It was 9:30 and the funeral had taken more of a toll on him than he realized. The thought of going home to Janice and splicing into some iota of a normal routine was a comfortable idea.

He rolled out the garbage cans to the front of the driveway and went into the house from the garage entrance into the kitchen. As if he were eight years old, there on the fridge, being held up by magnets shaped like bananas, oranges, watermelon slices, and lemons, was the Time magazine cover. Under it was a Post-it note that read, “I always wanted to tramp around with a ‘cover boy.’ I await you upstairs Mr. Bond.”

Bill smiled, opened the fridge, grabbed the orange juice, and was about to take a slug from it, when the door closed and he was looking right at the cover picture of him with the President of the United States. Self-consciously, he got a glass from the cabinet and poured.

Janice was under the covers and her body was radiating heat. He snuggled close and she spoke softly into the pillow. “You look like you should be the President in that picture, Billy boy.” She reached around and pulled him into her.

Bill kissed her neck. “You’re just saying that to have your way with me…”

“I’m going to have my way no matter what I say, Mr. Commander n’ Geek.” Then she rolled over and made good on her promise.

Forty-five minutes later, she was curling Bill’s hair around her finger while he dozed off with his arm over her stomach, his head on her chest. “Did you read it?”

“What?”

“The article; did you get a chance to read it?”

“Yeah, good writing. Like a serialization of a novel.”

“Bill, I am concerned.”