O Holy Night

Harry sat listening as the host of a podcast he’d recently found detailed the ways in which climate change was destroying the savannahs of Africa. He’d listened to another earlier that week about how fossil fuel emissions were killing birds in the Everglades. His car, an old Passat, grumbled softly beneath his seat, and he chided himself for not having made the switch to a plug-in, or at least a hybrid. He opened the window a crack and inhaled the smell of snow on the air. The forecast had warned about this on his drive from Chicago to here, Louisville, Kentucky, a place he’d never been before and where he sure as hell hadn’t anticipated spending his Christmas Eve, but a job was a job. He took what he could get.

The house across the street was lit within. It was a big old brick beast of a place, a hundred years old at least, with a round window tucked under its third-floor gable roof. A Subaru sat in the driveway. The wife’s car. The guy drove a Hyundai, one of their little plug-in models. Harry had test-driven one a few weeks before, but work had been slow lately, and he worried about the payments. He kept watch on the house. The wife started her overnight shift at 7:00. Oncology ward. God, that must be a brutal gig. Not that Harry’s line of work didn’t put death front and center, but there was control in it. He was in charge, not death itself. But being a nurse on a cancer ward? Awful.

Harry checked the time on his phone. 6:31. The wife passed the front window—bulky, bundled for the weather. Time for work. A moment later, the door opened and out she came, going to the Subaru, getting in and sitting there for a while, the car warming up. Harry slumped down and watched the white exhaust bloom in the streetlight. This can’t go on, he thought. All these cars spewing poison into the air. How had we gone so long thinking this was okay?

The wife drove away, and Harry sat a few more minutes. The job was a two-parter. Take out the guy and then copy files from his computer onto a thumb drive. Harry was no computer whiz, but the employer, or the employer’s envoy anyway—he never knew who the actual employer was—had given detailed instructions, including passwords. Harry had practiced on his own Mac at home. Easy enough.

When he was sure the wife wouldn’t be returning—forgot her phone, forgot her glasses, whatever—he put on his gloves and grabbed the empty Amazon box from the backseat. A last-minute delivery for the holiday. Just in time. Outside, the cold momentarily yanked the air from his lungs. No cars passed. All the houses were big and old, as were the trees. The neighborhood carried the good weight of age. Above it all, the stars shone in pinpricks, but a bank of clouds was making its way over it all. He crossed the street and bounded up the steps to the porch, rang the doorbell. Steve Lavitsky?he would say, then reveal the gun from behind the box.

Lavitsky would step back, and Harry would step forward, into the house, and close the door. Okay,Lavitsky would say, take what you want.And then Harry would shoot. One in the chest and one in the head once the poor bastard was on the ground. Then to the computer in the second-floor office. Then back to the car, to the highway, to Chicago. Get the money and hand over the drive, and then ten days in Puerto Rico to warm up in the sun and let things cool down.

The wife would never celebrate Christmas again, that was for sure, but this was how the employer wanted it done, and sentimentality wasn’t any argument against reasonable instructions.

After a few seconds, the door opened, and Harry immediately recognized Lavitsky from the picture the envoy sent. But before Harry could say a word, he saw a blur and felt a momentary impact on his skull, and then nothing.

Harry knew his eyes were opening, but they couldn’t find purchase on anything around him. Just shadows. Then dancing, yellowish lights. Slowly, he became aware of a spot on the side of his head, just above his temple, where he’d been struck. A throbbing epicenter of pain growing more intense by the moment. He moved his arm to reach for the pain but found his wrists tied behind him. His brain jumped awake.

Lavitsky stood in front of him, tall and silhouetted by the lit Christmas tree behind—the source of those dancing lights.

“What is this? What’s happening?” Harry tugged at the ropes binding his wrists, kicked at the ones holding his feet in place. Made his voice high and scared. It wasn’t all an act. He was upright in a chair, tied up good and tight.

“Who are you?”

“I was dropping off a package,” Harry blubbered.

“That package?” Lavitsky nodded to the box on the hardwood floor.

Harry nodded. “Yes.”

“That empty box with no postage and no return address?”

“I—” Harry pretended to stumble for words. The man was talking about the package, which made Harry suspect that he didn’t have the gun—hope he didn’t have the gun. Where was the gun? His mind tried to recall the moment the door had opened. The weight of the gun in his hand behind his back. And then wham! The gun was gone. He pictured the porch outside, the bramble of bushes just off to the side.

“Who are you?” Lavitsky said.

“I got your delivery by mistake. Am I bleeding?”

“Yes,” Lavitsky said. “Who sent you?”

“Sent me? I live around the corner.”

“Where?”

Thankfully, the streets in Lavitsky’s neighborhood were numbered. They were on First. “Second Street. We have the same address. I got the box on my porch by accident. What did you hit me with?” Lavitsky pointed at a fireplace poker propped against the wall. “Oh my god,” Harry cried. “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

“So you drove this empty box—”

“I didn’t know it was empty.”

“From your house a block away.”

“It’s cold—”

“In a car with Illinois plates.”

“I just moved. I haven’t had time—”

“And sat there for nearly half an hour until just after my wife left.”

“I was listening to something,” Harry said, grateful for a bit of truth. “Jesus Christ.”

“What was it?”

“What?”

“What were you listening to?”

Harry breathed. “A podcast. It was about—it was about climate change.”

Lavitsky eyed him. A grin raised the corner of his mouth ever so slightly. “That’s pretty good,” he said.

Blood slipped down Harry’s face, rode the curve of his jaw to his neck. “Look, man,” Harry said. “I don’t know what the fuck you think is—”

“Stop,” Lavitsky said, holding up a hand. “Just stop. I’m getting annoyed.” He slowly sat in a big, burgundy armchair in the corner, the kind you’d sit in to read a book, something old—Dickens or something—on a cold night like this. Harry wasn’t a big reader, but the image was comforting. He might read more books if he got out of this little pickle, change things up, simplify. Take care of himself. Mind and body. Eat less meat. Work on his carbon footprint. Get a different line of work, at the very least. He didn’t go in for God and all that business, but for Christ’s sake, this was no way to spend Christmas.

Lavitsky breathed in and out. “You aren’t the first, you know. I did hope it was all over, I admit. I allowed myself that. Hope. Maybe that was a mistake. But this is the longest we’ve gone. Almost two years. Houston for a year and change. Sacramento was only, what, seven months?” Lavitsky paused, his gaze on a bright, abstract painting on the wall, but Harry could tell he wasn’t really looking at it. It was just a resting place for his eyes. “I’m from Massachusetts originally,” he said. “But I haven’t been there in I don’t know how long. Twenty years?” Just the day before, Harry had read about a Massachusetts legislator who had proposed a bill strengthening commercial fishing regulations to protect the leatherback sea turtle. It wouldn’t go anywhere, of course, but maybe the gesture was worth something.

Lavitsky broke his trance and looked again at Harry. “You know how hard it is for Mindy to keep getting work? Having to explain why she doesn’t stay in one place? Her line of work, they want trust. It’s not like working in a shop somewhere or making widgets. This is life and death, and if we’re honest, mostly death.” He paused, and he and Harry held each other’s gaze. “I guess you’d know about that,” Lavitsky said.

At least Lavitsky didn’t have the gun, Harry told himself again. He was more and more convinced that it must have ended up in the bushes out front, flung unnoticed from his hand at the moment of fire-poker-to-temple impact.

But then, just as Harry had these thoughts, there it was in Lavitsky’s hand—the ghost .45 Harry’d purchased off his regular supplier in Kenilworth two days prior.

The ruse was over. Harry tugged at the ropes around his wrists. Nothing doing.

Had Harry ever been this fucked on a job? Maybe in Tokyo, his one and only overseas gig, when bad intel had put the target alone, but in fact there’d been six well-armed gents in the next room, and Harry ended up hauling ass through unfamiliar streets and ultimately hunkering down for five hours in a dumpster behind a soul food joint, of all places. But he’d never been in a spot like this. Bound at the wrists and ankles with his goddamn pistol in the hand of his mark.

“Can I ask you something?” Lavitsky said. “How much are you supposed to get? For killing me.”

Harry said nothing but held the other man’s gaze. He knew his own face had transformed into itself again, no longer taking on the terrified bewilderment of the poor slob caught up in a case of mistaken identity. No longer Harry from over on Second Street.

“I’d really like to know. Just out of curiosity,” Lavitsky said. He took a phone from his pocket. “How about this? I’m going to call the police, and they’re going to come here, and you’re going to be in jail for the rest of your life. Or you can tell me how much you’re getting paid to kill me, and I won’t call them. Not right now, anyway.” He watched Harry a moment. “And I’ll even sweeten the pot. That head of yours has got to be hurting. How about I pour you a good, stiff drink. You like bourbon? I’m not going to untie you, but I’ll help you get it down. Take the edge off that thump. All you have to do is tell me how much. I know it’s not the most important thing, but when else does a person have the opportunity to know what his life is worth? Like a fucked-up version of It’s a Wonderful Life.” He stood and exclaimed in a spot-on Jimmy Stewart, “This is a very interesting situation!”

He walked to a cabinet in the dining room, on top of which were tumblers and bottles of brown and clear liquors. He poured two and came back, set one glass on the table next to the burgundy armchair. Then he held the phone and the other drink, one in each hand. Cocked his head. Your choice …

“Thirty thousand,” Harry said. It had actually been seventy-five, but Harry didn’t want to have to come up with that much if the man tried to pull some poetic justice, table-turn deal for his own life.

Lavitsky laughed. “Is that all? Not very flattering.” He shook his head, marveling. “Thirty thousand,” he said. “Ten times that much would be nothing. A hundred times. I mean, what do you think this is? Some corporate espionage? Some political nonsense—I got dirt on Senator Blah-Blah and now the party wants me gone?”

He stepped to Harry, put the edge of the tumbler to his lips, and tipped gently. Harry felt the fortifying burn of the bourbon over his tongue and inside his lips, held it in his mouth a moment, then swallowed.

“I guess they probably also wanted you to retrieve something,” Lavitsky said. “Some files? But you don’t know what those are, do you? If you did, you would have asked for a lot more than some piddly little thirty thousand dollars.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket and sat back in the chair, his face suddenly looking tired and sad.

Lavitsky was right, Harry didn’t know what was on the files. He didn’t care. Knowing wasn’t part of the job. But now he had to admit to himself that he was curious. A little. He still mostly didn’t give a damn, but there was something new, a little nagging at the back of his mind.

The two men remained silent for nearly a full minute—a long time given the circumstances. Harry heard rain start to tap against the windows of the house. Behind the chair, his hands struggled stupidly against the ropes. Then Lavitsky said, “You got a wife? Someone? Boyfriend, partner, anything?”

“No,” Harry said. He would have said this regardless, but it happened to be the truth. He hadn’t had anyone consistent in years. How long? Three? His mind stumbled to think of what year it was now and when Caroline had left him, then gave up on the sad math. Pointless anyway.

“If you did, you wouldn’t be able to tell them about your job, would you? You’d have some story, right? A cover? I think you and I have something in common. See, I can’t talk about my work either. You know what Mindy thinks I do? I work at the observatory at the university here. I mean, that’s not far off from where I started—telescopes and lenses and all that. You know one of my designs was this close to being used in the Spitzer telescope. But, man, that was a long time ago. What do you tell people you do?”

Harry watched the man across from him. This wasn’t a bad path they were on, finding common ground. Lavitsky was lonely, that was what it came down to. Moving around, doing some shady shit for the government—probably—with no one to talk to. Poor guy. Yeah, yeah, Harry understood that. Hey, they weren’t so different after all. A little unexpected bonding, twist in the plot, and, hey, maybe these ropes get loosened a bit; maybe he lets Harry go take a piss. And then. All things being equal, ropes off, Harry wasn’t going to get taken down by some goddamn telescope maker.

“I work for a car parts company,” Harry said.

“Car parts?” Lavitsky chuckled.

“Supplier to the big chains. O’Reilly, AutoZone. Regional work, Midwest mostly.”

“That’s good. Travel. Popping over to Cleveland for a couple days, hon. Heading down to KC, back in a few. Gotta move those timing belts. Little do they know …”

“Little do they know.”

Lavitsky sipped at his drink. “We always need to be near a university. I can’t move us to the middle of nowhere or else Mindy will catch on that maybe I’m not in a meeting with colleagues. God, I’ve got a whole cast of characters. Department heads, graduate assistants, provosts, the works. That’s one of the things that makes moving so hard. New people, new names to keep straight.”

“We’re a pretty small outfit. Seven, eight people, plus the warehouse.”

Lavitsky smiled. “Keep it simple.”

“Could I …?” Harry nodded at the tumbler of bourbon.

“Oh, sure,” Lavitsky said. He came over and helped Harry finish the drink. When he sat again, opposite Harry, he sighed. “I tell you, though, the worst part is just having to hold it in. Not being able to talk to anyone about what you do.”

“I don’t talk much anyway,” Harry said. “Introvert, I guess they call it.”

“Still, though. The most keep-it-to-yourself fella in the world is bound to pop eventually. There’s something inhumane about not being able to chat about your day every once in a while. Let alone talk about the big stuff.”

Harry thought of the jobs he’d had, the ones no one would ever know about, outside of himself and his various employers, but even they would never know the details. Tokyo. Boulder. Clackamas. Tampa. The planning. The surprises that couldn’t be planned for. The last-minute adjustments.

“What do you want to say?” Harry said.

Lavitsky looked at him a moment, then let out something like a sigh. A tragic exhalation. A breath that expelled all the irony that the only person he had to talk to was the man sent to kill him.

Finally, he swallowed and said, “Do you want to see what I do?”

They took the plug-in Hyundai, which ran smoothly over the wet cobblestone streets of the old neighborhood. The radio was on when Lavitsky started the car, and he didn’t make a move to shut it off. Holiday songs, the old ones. They caught the tail end of “White Christmas,” and the station went into “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the Sinatra version. They got halfway through when Lavitsky said, “I like the other one better. Garland. It’s got that ‘muddle through’ line, none of this ‘hang a shining star’ business.”

Outside, the rain turned to fat, wet flakes of snow. Harry watched them dancing spasmodically in the wide beam of the headlights.

“Tell you what we muddle through,” Lavitsky said. “These winters.”

“Might not need to for long,” Harry said. Lavitsky turned to him. “Climate change.” He looked back at the precipitation in the headlights, then laughed through his nose.

“Are you shitting me? So, what, you weren’t putting me on about the podcast?”

Harry shook his head.

Lavitsky said, “Figures I’d get me a hitman with an environmentalist streak.”

He laughed again, and Harry wondered if this man had it in him to kill someone. Was this where the road finally ended for Harry Shimoda? A few minutes before, he’d have said Lavitsky couldn’t go through with it. He’d been in this position before, once. Similar, anyway. Nashville. Another mix-up with intel. Guy got the drop on Harry, had a gun at the back of his head. But couldn’t do it. He knew Harry was there to take him out, and yet, when it came down to it, he still couldn’t kill a man. His loss.

So for a good long while, Harry figured this was much the same. At some point, it would be clear to both of them that this Lavitsky wasn’t going to pull the trigger, even in a him-or-me situation, and one way or another, Harry would flip the dynamic. But there was something in the man’s laugh, the way he leaned back into the driver’s seat, that told Harry he might not give up the ghost anytime soon.

“Dominick the Christmas Donkey” came on, and Harry worried that this would be the song ricocheting around his head when he died. And how long would the irritating tune echo? Forever? Maybe that would serve Harry right. An eternity of Dominick’s Hee-haw, hee-hawas punishment for his sins. Heavy chains, that would be.

Lavitsky finally pulled into the parking lot of a low, cinder block building. If he passed it any other time, Harry would guess it was abandoned. There were no lights, and as far as he could see, about half of the chicken wire windows were slapped with black paint, the other half boarded up completely. The lot was a minefield of potholes, but Lavitsky seemed to know just how to navigate through them. The car was silent, save for the crunching of the tires on the gravel and slush.

Lavitsky parked and opened his door, and a blast of damp cold swirled into the Hyundai. He came around to Harry’s side, pointed the gun at Harry, and gestured for him to get out. The moment Harry stood he caught a snowflake in his eye. It burned strangely, and he had to blink to get it melted. When his vision came back to him, the world around seemed even more bleak. In contrast to the warm, red-brick Victorians of Lavitsky’s neighborhood, this was all industrial wasteland—hulking, angular buildings half hiding in each other’s shadows. Harry tried to map out where to run if he got the chance, but the closest corner to turn was at least fifty yards away. He’d really have to lay Lavitsky out to get that far before he recovered and tossed a shot Harry’s way. And by the looks of the concrete wilds all around them, there wasn’t anyone to be bothered by the sound. The air smelled of snow and sewage and smelted steel.

“This way,” Lavitsky said. He motioned Harry forward and then opened a gray door in the gray building, revealing a gaping black nothingness. “Go on, there’s a light inside.”

Harry stepped through and, for a moment, found the void strangely comforting. But then a clickissued behind him. Dim fluorescents buzzed to life overhead, and Lavitsky locked the door behind them. It was a long, narrow room, gray concrete like the outside. Wire chairs were piled in a jumble. A table balanced precariously on three legs. The far end of the room was crammed with old pieces of machinery—what looked to be drill presses and table saws, mostly—in various states of rusted disuse. Dozens of them. Scores. Some of them overturned completely, some leaning into others like dominoes mid-topple. It was a grim scene. The fecal leavings of industrial capitalism, Harry thought. And this shit would outlast us all.

But there was one thing that stood out among the rusty dregs of commerce: in the middle of the room stood a tripod, three silver legs shining, even in the dim gloom of the room. And on top, a white box, ten or so inches high, maybe five wide and deep. White in color, and like the legs it sat atop, it easily reflected the ghastly light. Lavitsky stepped toward it, but Harry did not move. He looked back at the door, shut and padlocked. He eyed the shadowy corners of the cold space. Nothing.

“Come on,” Lavitsky said lightly.

“What is that thing?”

Lavitsky thought a second. “I guess you could say it’s a lens.”

“A lens for what?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

What the hell was this guy up to? He felt the bindings on his wrist more acutely, as if they suddenly tightened themselves somehow. Had this all been a setup to get Harry himself bumped off? Lord knew he had enemies. Despite his efforts to remain ignorant, there were secrets in his head, secrets his former employers didn’t want getting out and swirling around in the ether. But why the song and dance? Why this guy? Why Louisville, Kentucky?

“Look,” Harry said. He didn’t want to die in this place. “I’ll find the guys who hired me. I’ll take themout. How about that? Flip it back on ‘em, huh? You’ll never be bothered again.”

“I wish that was true. But there’ll be others. You—” Lavitsky cut himself off and pursed his lips. “Mindy was on her way to being head nurse on the ward when we were in Houston. You know how hard that was, asking her to leave that, even taking a demotion when we went to Sacramento? And even then, I couldn’t tell her the truth.” He scratched his head and then shook it, tossing off whatever had entered his mind. When he looked back at Harry, he smiled. “Come on, I’d really like to show you this. Honestly, I think it’s the least you could do.”

The movies and books always talk about the first kill, the trauma of it, or in the worst cases, the thrillof it. But Harry’s first was sanctioned. Iraq, 2006. War, sure, but as far as Harry was concerned these days, a hit was a hit, no matter what fucker in what building said it was okay. When he got back home, it only took a couple years of struggling through this job and that—including one at a regional supplier of auto parts—to realize where his true talent was. And it wasn’t until his first target stateside that he had to pop someone without the luxury of a Barrett and about fifty yards distance. Up close. That was Milwaukee. Guy by the name of Dean … something. Jesus, he couldn’t even remember now. But he remembered the man’s face.

Surprise, confusion. There was something innocent in that face. Harry would see it again, more times than he cared to confront. All pretenses fell away right then. All the cool, all the hardness. We’re like kids in the end—that’s what Harry figured. Babies. Just full of awe and scared as hell.

Is that what Steve Lavitsky would see in Harry’s face? Would he remember it?

Harry stepped forward. Lavitsky passed his fingers along the underside of the white box, and it hummed alive. A small circle of light appeared on one side. Lavitsky walked back toward the door they’d entered through, said, “It works better with the lights off.” He snapped the switch down and the room descended into darkness once more, the glowing dot, getting brighter by the moment, the only source of light. Harry heard Lavitsky come to his side. “Takes a minute,” he said.

And then Lavitsky took hold of the ropes binding Harry’s wrists, and he began cutting them with a knife. After a few slices, the rope fell to the ground. Harry’s hands were free. He could have swung at Lavitsky, knocked him on his ass, and grabbed the gun, done the job, but just then, the light from the box burst brighter, a blinding white flare that filled the room. Harry raised a hand to shield his eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” Lavitsky said, and he stepped to the box, touched it, and suddenly the light began to concentrate, to sharpen into a glowing square, maybe five feet across, hovering in midair. Within the white frame of light, it was black. A deep, absolute black, darker than any moonless, starless night.

Lavitsky continued to touch various spots on the box, though Harry could see no buttons or dials. “One sec,” he muttered. And then, from inside the void, small floating points of light began to appear. First a few, then more. Within seconds, there seemed to be thousands of these motes of light, all floating here and there.

Harry walked to it, and then around. The square no longer seemed to be emanating from the box like a projector, but rather, it hung like an open window in midair. The motes, all of varying size and brightness, moved around and past each other. More seemed to appear every moment, while others disappeared across the edges of the square.

“Reach in,” Lavitsky said, and Harry did as he was told, put a hand through the plane. At first, the motes spread out away from his hand, but then, seemingly tentatively at first, they came to settle on his skin, forming a kind of glove of light. Harry felt a tightening in his chest.

For some reason, he thought of his mother, gone nearly fifteen years. Harry’s earliest memory was of her coming home one winter night—Harry must have been four, maybe even three—and he had run to her, thrown himself around her legs, and felt the cold, damp air that clung to her camelhair coat seep into the skin of his cheek, as if they had been falling into each other, becoming one.

“What is this?” Harry said.

“What do you think it is?” Lavitsky said softly. Harry didn’t know. How could he? He continued to watch the motes of light attach themselves to his hand and wrist.

As if to help Harry along, Lavitsky said, “We all work with death, don’t we? Mindy, you, me. All in our different ways.”

Harry didn’t understand, but then a thought rose into his mind. A ridiculous thought. “Is this us?” Harry said.

“Not just us. Everything. Everything that ever was.”

Harry turned his hand over, then pushed it deeper into the window and watched as the motes attached themselves to his arm. He laughed and then realized he was crying.

Lavitsky said, “I can make it bigger. Do you want me to do that?” Harry looked at him and nodded. Lavitsky touched the box again and the square grew in all directions until it was taller than Harry and wider than his wingspan. “Go on,” Lavitsky said.

His heart rattling, Harry slowly stepped into the void. He could feel the floor beneath his feet, but there appeared to be nothing under him. He turned and saw that the square of light now appeared as a window back into the room where Lavitsky stood. As they had before, the lights first flitted away, but then, shyly, they came to settle on him until his entire body was covered and he was shining. All around him, above him, below him, the dancing lights went on and on. Forever. He thought without meaning to of the animals of the savannah, the birds in the Everglades. He thought of coral reefs and polar bears and critters caught in wildfires. He thought of roadkill. He thought of the man in Tokyo, the two in Iraq, the one in Milwaukee.

Brayton. That was it. Dean Brayton. He thought of the way Dean Brayton’s body had hit the floor of a rest stop men’s room.

I am the instrument of extinction, Harry thought.

A sorrow unlike anything he could have ever imagined descended upon him. But just as the weight of his new understanding threatened to crush him, more lights swarmed to him, warming him, lifting him, even, holding him aloft. More and more until Harry could hardly detect his own body beneath this new skin of light.

On the other side of the square, Lavitsky was grinning. Harry smiled in return and then stepped out, back into the concrete room.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Lavitsky said.

“I—” Harry began, but he didn’t know how to continue.

“It’s okay,” Lavitsky said with a smile. “I’m happy we met. Who would’ve thought I’d be saying that a couple hours ago, huh?”

They both emitted something like a laugh, then stood a moment in silence. Harry’s racing heart was beginning to settle. He felt tired and slightly drunk, as in a moment just before sleep.

“And I’m glad I could show you this,” Lavitsky said. “But I have more work to do. You understand, don’t you?”

Harry nodded and reached out his hand. Lavitsky took it and squeezed. Then Harry turned back to the square.

He was aware when the barrel of the gun settled on his temple, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the lights dancing and swirling before him. Glory, his mind intoned, the one word repeating again and again. Glory, glory, glory. And when the sound came, he heard it only a fraction of a moment before all became silent, and he felt suddenly lighter—as if, after a long time, he finally sloughed off a wet and very heavy coat.