Edge of War

“Kerfer thinks it’s just for the oil.”

“Kerfer’s wrong. You said so yourself.”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

“I think we probably all need a little bit of a break,” said Jablonski. “I have more phone calls. I’m still trying to nail down the senator.”

“Why don’t we do some sightseeing?” suggested Mara. “How about the Statue of Liberty?”

“What about Central Park?” said Josh. “I just want to walk.”

“We can do that.”

* * *

The last time Mara had been to New York, there was no charge to go into Central Park. Now it was five dollars. The sign said that it was a “requested donation,” but everything about the entrance suggested it was mandatory, with elaborate pay booths and policemen watching the large chain-link gate topped with barbed wire.

Another sign explained that the charge was due to the city’s “ongoing fiscal crisis.” The mayor hoped to rescind it soon.

It was midmorning, but it was already sixty-two degrees. Mara took off her light sweater and tied it around her hips. The trees had started to bud. It seemed closer to April or May than February. Josh started talking about the trees, identifying different species and talking about how they were doing.

The main effect of the rapid climate change had been to increase the amount of rainfall. The wetter growing season had encouraged more disease, Josh said, and he pointed out different kinds of blight as they walked down a path from the entrance. In theory, the longer growing season would also strain the nutrients in the soil, though this wouldn’t be obvious for some time. Meanwhile, bushes and the grass were doing better than ever, thanks to the wet weather.

“And weeds. All sorts of weeds,” said Josh. “It’s a great time to be a dandelion.”

“Damn things are all over my lawn,” said Broome.

“What do you do with them?” asked Josh.

“Pull them the hell out.”

“You ought to think about eating them. They’re supposed to make a great salad.”

“Yeah, right.”

“The climate change isn’t all bad,” said Josh. “It has a lot of different effects. We just have to adapt to them.”

“Yeah, like buy a lot of umbrellas,” said Broome. “I can deal with the warmer weather. That’s good.”

“I wouldn’t get too used to it,” said Josh. “This hot right now might just be a temporary aberration. Using the averages — it’s very misleading. The actual programs that model climate change have a vast amount of variables, but even then they’re really just sophisticated guesses. Hell, if you put the right formulas in, you see that the world will cool down.”

“So what’s the point, doc?” said Broome. “We just tough it out?”

“Maybe. We can slow it down — ”

“It’s that old saying, Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

They stopped at a hot dog vendor for lunch, then walked in the direction of the Metropolitan Museum, passing behind the large white building and continuing toward the lake at the center of the park. At the north side, Mara saw a large area of what looked like old ruins, with boards and metal scattered in heaps, and small mounds of dirt and debris in low piles like pimples dotting the barren ground. She thought it was a temporary dumping area, a place appropriated by a city tight on space. But that wasn’t the case.

“Squatter’s field,” explained Broome. “People lived here last winter. A lot of people, when the prices started shooting up. They didn’t want that happening again. That was the real reason behind the fee. So they could kick people out.”

“Where’d they go?” asked Josh.

“There’s plenty of shelters and stuff. It was just temporary for most of them anyway,” said Broome. “We should start heading back. This isn’t the best area anyway. Even in daytime.”

They turned around and headed across the park in the direction of Columbus Circle. The skyline loomed in the distance. Sleek high-rises peered over the older buildings close to the park’s edge. The clouds had thickened, and the tops of the towers were festooned with gray and black wreaths.

They were nearly at the southeastern corner of the park when the first drops of rain started to fall. The rain felt different here than in Asia, Mara thought. A little sparser, more welcome in a way. It didn’t have the acidic smell or taste it had in Malaysia.

“We should get out of this, because it’s going to be a downpour,” said Josh.

“How can you tell?” asked Broome.

“Look at those clouds.” He pointed to a series of dark black clouds on the horizon.

“The subway’s over there,” said Mara, pointing.

Broome wasn’t sure about the subway, but as the rain began to pound heavier, he relented, ushering them toward the entrance. A flood of people had the same idea, and there was a long line for the fare cards. Only one machine was working.

“Twenty dollars for a single fare?” said Mara, reading the sign.

Someone nearby snickered. “Frickin’ mayor,” he said. “Like all the rich bastards, stick it to the little guy.”

Broome just shrugged. He bought two cards because rules prevented more than two swipes at a station.

“It’s kind of a rip-off,” said Broome. “And they expire pretty quick, too. But the city needs money.”

Broome suggested they go down to Little Italy and Chinatown. Mara thought of vetoing Chinatown, expecting trouble, but when they emerged there were no protests or any other outward signs of the trouble in Asia, just tourists walking along Canal and the side streets, gaping at the stylized storefronts. The stores had about as much connection with China as with the King of England, and a good portion of the employees looked to have come from Central and South America, not Asia.

They had an early dinner, finding an Italian restaurant — Mara insisted on Italian — in the small stretch on Mott Street that remained of Little Italy. By now, Josh had become extremely quiet, and Mara wondered if he was brooding over what he was supposed to say tomorrow at the UN, or worried about M?.

Jablonski had called twice to say that he was still working on finding a good time to hook up with the senator, but Mara was starting to doubt that the meeting was going to come off. Just as well, she thought. What Josh really needed was a long break, a vacation somewhere safe — somewhere cold, maybe, far away from anything that would remind him of Vietnam. What he’d been through must surely be taking a toll. He needed to decompress.

She wouldn’t mind a break herself. Though there was undoubtedly a lot more to do back in Asia.

Broome’s evening replacement, John Malaki, met them at the restaurant just in time to order. It was amusing watching the two marshals talk — they were nearly polar opposites, though clearly they liked each other.

“Great spaghetti, huh?” asked Broome as they ate. “Best place down here. If you really want Italian, though, ya gotta go up to Arthur Avenue in da Bronx. Or over in Brooklyn. There’s a million places there. Or Staten Island. Nobody knows about Staten Island. But there’s good Italian there. And Jersey.”

The two marshals began debating the likelihood that the Mets would make the playoffs thanks to the addition of Albert Pujols, and whether the adoption of the designated-hitter rule would improve or harm the National League.

Mara tried to get Josh talking about his scientific work, but he gave mostly one-word answers to her questions, and after a while she, too, fell silent.

He came to life, briefly, when they were leaving. A pair of men in suits came inside the dining room, looking around carefully before holding their sleeves to their mouths and whispering into microphones hidden there. A few seconds later, a pair of men in suits walked in swiftly, trailed by a waiter and two more members of a security team, wearing suits identical to the advance men.

“Look at that,” said Josh. “Gotta be mobsters, huh?”