Business

by J. P. Meyboom

  “I have serious reservations about this enterprise,” he said.

  He bit a knuckle as if to stifle a scream. Concerned, I ventured out of the chair.

  “Akinwole,” I said, “come sit down.”

  I led him over to the La-Z-Boy. “Kick your feet up. Feel how great this chair is. I’ll go see her right now. Stop talking like that. I’m going to fix it.”

  He grimaced as he sat down.

  “You are a good man, Paul. What you are doing in a place like this?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, “I’m the Angel of Mercy come to live amongst you.”

  He grabbed my wrist. It hurt.

  “Do not mock me. Please. Take this seriously. Where I come from, we know about these things. You are so caught up in the material world, you do not know real danger when it comes for you.”

  I peeled his fingers off and said, “Don’t move. Don’t shoot anyone. Don’t do anything. I’ll be back.”

  Not a chance. At least, not without fortifications. There was dope back in my apartment to get myself back on balance. That was where I was headed.

  At the door, he crept up behind me and pressed something small and hard into my palm. He said, “If you get a chance, leave this in her place.”

  “What is it?”

  “Juju. Protective juju. Don’t let her see it.”

  I studied the thing. An ugly, primitive bit of bent nails wrapped in copper and string. “I see. You’re going on the offensive. Where’s it come from?”

  “I bought it from a man.”

  “How do you know it’s real, then?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Because I believe it.”

  He waited by the threshold for me to mount the stairs to the third floor. My feet led the way. It seemed like the only way to end this, and with luck, it could be done before another dizzy spell brought me to my knees.

  On the next floor directly above Akinwole’s apartment, I rested against the wall. Something thump thumped inside. I coughed. Sweat broke across my forehead. I knocked on the door, which soon creaked open, the safety chain still in place. A nest of red hair, blue eyes, and a mud-spattered, freckled face peered up through the crack. This building was full of freaks. She would’ve been twentysomething, I guess.

  “Who’s that?” she said.

  “Paul Wint, from downstairs in 210. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “My friend and neighbour Akinwole Mulumba, who lives directly below you, keeps hearing thumping noises coming from your apartment. He thinks there might be trouble.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s crazy, but he’s concerned.”

  “So, why are you here?”

  “He’s too shy to come up. But he won’t let me sleep until he’s reassured.”

  “I’m fine,” she said as she closed the door, “thanks.”

  I steadied myself against the wall. Blood drained from my head. A cold wind rushed through my body. My knees gave out. My head bounced off the side of the door. My mouth caught the chain on the way down. The amulet rolled from my hand into the darkness of her apartment. Before the shadows overtook me, I tasted rusty blood.

  Hands under my armpits dragged me into a tunnel.

  Everything smelled of wet earth. A circle of light spun in my eyes. A painful high-pitched electrical whine drilled through my head. She hunched on the floor beside me.

  “Hello?”

  A firm hand on my face.

  “Hello?” My tongue rolled around searching for broken teeth. Speech couldn’t come.

  She pressed something icy on my mouth. It felt good.

  “We’ll put your head in the fridge if you stay this way,” she said. Or did she?

  My head screwed off like an burnt-out old bulb, stuck in the fridge. On a shelf next to an onion. That would have been something new. A lemon-scented wind wafted by. Then darkness. When the world came back, I was stretched out on a carpet with a baggie of ice on my mouth. She soared overhead.

  “You’re alive.”

  Checkered curtains fluttered by the window. A large foot-powered potter’s wheel stood in the middle of the room. Fresh clay on the wheel, half formed into a bowl. Pails of water and bags of dry powered clay by the door. A rough wooden table cluttered with jars of paint and other liquids. Brushes in old coffee cans. I made out a kiln in the shadow of her work lamp. The nausea was gone. It felt almost good, except for the tenderness across my mouth.

  “You’re a potter,” I said.

  “A ceramic artist.”

  I stayed on the rug with the ice on my mouth. The pain distant but urgent.

  “My friend thinks you’re a witch.”

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” she said as she lit up a Camel. The smoke tickled my nose. American blended tobacco always has such pungent character.

  “He probably hears your thumping wheel and thinks you’re getting ready to eat his soul.”

  She blew another cloud over me.

  “I’m not sure if I should take you seriously or write this off on account of your fall.”

  “I couldn’t make this business up,” I said. “You have any dope or something to drink?”

  “No,” she said, “but you can have a Camel, if you like.”

  I declined. It was time to get back into a more familiar environment. At the door, I asked her name.

  “Rachel,” she said. “Take care of that lip, and tell your friend sorry if I’ve upset him.”

  FIVE

  Hornsmith Was Holding Out

  THE MORNING AFTER Akinwole’s freak-out about Rachel being a witch and all, I let myself into the office with the key Hornsmith had entrusted to me and tossed the place. Details about the Business made no sense. For instance, the framed awards and diplomas on the wall. Up close: fakes. All of them. Some didn’t even have words, only random letters combined to look like words. Hornsmith grinned when he showed them off. “Aren’t they good?” he said. That was it. “Aren’t they good?” Like they were collectible lithographs he’d discovered at a flea market. He never explained anything else about them.

  It didn’t bother me that the Business was likely a front for Hornsmith’s darker deals. What those deals were was the question, if only because so much effort was going into an enterprise without clear purpose. What did the Business do? Who were its real clients? What was Hornsmith up to? He worked, for sure. Busy all the time. But it all pointed to naught. I had to crack the mystery.

  I slipped into the office without leaving a wake. In the darkness, my reflection glinted off the hallway mirror. A small brown stain of snot and blood had soaked through the fleshtoned bandage above my lip from the accident at Rachel’s the night before. Burglar behaviour had my nerves on high alert. I monitored the air for shifting molecules. Made sure nothing was out of joint. The place was dim and silent except for the low hum of the fridge. Deep in the earth beneath the building, a subway train rumbled. Outside, the traffic rolled like a steady river. Fried onions wafted up from the pizza joint downstairs. In my mind’s eye, the chef stepped into the alley for his morning smoke while a dog pissed against some garbage bags. All clear.

  The wall of filing cabinets came first. Jammed between the hundreds of magazine articles and old annual reports, he could’ve hidden something like bank statements, contracts, or incorporation papers. Anything that might reveal what the Business actually was or did. After twenty fruitless minutes, nothing surfaced. It seemed Hornsmith kept no business records. No invoices. No tax filings. No contracts. Nada. Hornsmith travelled light. Hornsmith glued and pasted his stories together. Hornsmith made it up as required.

  Next, I went for the drawer in his writing table. The lock easily popped under my knife. I placed the drawer on the desk. There was a black Moleskine notebook with some folded letters and a thick chequebook. I memorized the arrangement to put everything back together afterward.

  The first letter was handwritten on a lined yellow sheet from a legal pad: �
� haven’t heard from you in a while … Theo never asks for you, but I know he misses you, too … blah, blah, blah … I don’t mean to impose … yack, yack, yack … it’s been a tough few months, if you could send us some money to pull us through … yeah, yeah yeah … Love, Shirley Rose.

  And, out dropped a photo of an elegant black woman, tall, thin, and defiant, with a bring-it-on-motherfuckers-you-will-never-be-as-strong-as-me kind of smile. She had her arms around a scrawny boy who stared, dipshit blank, into the lens. A mixed kid. Looked to be about seven or eight with a little Afro halo. The envelope showed a Detroit return address.

  The second letter, also handwritten, read: Dear Mr. Hornsmith: The results of your colonoscopy remain inconclusive. In my medical opinion, I recommend we pursue additional testing as soon as you have recovered sufficiently from the previous round of surgery … blah, blah, blah … as promised, enclosed are copies of the blood tests, X-rays, and ultrasounds … please be discreet about how you got these, as it’s not hospital policy … blah, blah, blah … at the risk of sounding alarmist, I trust that you have your affairs in order. While these are still early days, we both know that this could prove to be quite serious … your friend, et cetera, et cetera.

  A woman asking for money. A kid. Maybe a double life. An indiscreet doctor. A terminal illness. Hornsmith was holding out. Finally, some progress.

  There wasn’t time to see what else could be gleaned from the drawer, because the sound of Hornsmith’s voice in the hall talking on the phone tripped alarms in my head. I scrambled to reorganize the papers and slid everything back into the table. By the entranceway, Hornsmith paused at the mirror. He took the phone from his ear to study himself.

  “Are you coming in?” he said to his reflection. He tilted his head, sparrow-like, to the mirror and then resumed the conversation: “I have nothing more to say to you at this time. I understand your position. Of course. I must consult with my lawyers before telling you what I plan to do, but rest assured, I will be taking some sort of action, and I will be seeking restitution. Compensation. Yes, if I have to. Goodbye.”

  He hung his olive safari jacket on the rack. He sighed. His body slumped, shit-kicked.

  “Latour, why can’t I trust anyone?” he said. When he looked at me, he touched his face as if to ensure it was intact. “What happened to you?”

  “Accident. I fell. Hit my neighbour’s door.” I grinned and tasted blood.

  “You’re leaking,” he said and offered a clean white handkerchief from his pocket. I nodded thanks and dabbed my lip. The handkerchief smelled of lavender. Between dabs, I asked him who he’d been speaking with.

  “That swine Courtney,” Hornsmith said. “He’s having second thoughts.”

  He dropped himself into the desk chair and rolled his fingertips over the shiny brass trim of the table. “What have you done about the manuscript?”

  “You said leave it be. Late doesn’t matter, you said.”

  “I said that? Well, that’s usually true. But in this case it would’ve been better to have something to show we’ve been working.”

  “We worked. Only on lists.”

  “Too bad. Courtney says he no longer wants the book, because if it’s traced back to him people may view it as a solicitation for business, which apparently isn’t appropriate for a medical professional. He’s worried how it looks. He’s concerned about his Hippocratic oath, as if he knows what that is. Suddenly, he has a conscience.”

  “And the spa? If the book goes, does it go, too?”

  “He’s got second thoughts about all of it. The venture’s too costly. His board says it’s going to tie up too much capital.”

  “If you have a contract, you could say he’s in breach,” I said in hopes that this crisis might tip Hornsmith to reveal where he kept his business records.

  He studied the desk drawer for a moment.

  “It’s not that kind of arrangement,” he said.

  “What if you showed him the publishing deal? Tell him to buy it out. Lost revenues and such. Make him understand it’s a little late to change his mind without having to pay.”

  “Yes,” said Hornsmith as he tested the locked drawer with a gentle pull. “I’ve been thinking along the same lines, but fear he’s not going to be swayed that way. We may need a more compelling argument.”

  He stretched his arms and studied his nails.

  “Let’s see what fortune brings us,” he said. “In the meantime, last night I met a potential investor at the New Albion. A Vietnamese businessman named Simon Trang. He wants to open a high-end Asian fusion restaurant in our Washington spa. If we let him in, he says he’ll also invest in the larger construction enterprise. Maybe he’s someone for us.”

  “The New Albion accepts Asians?”

  If our great country was indeed a nation of sheep led by wolves, the New Albion was the wolves’ den. It was a private club for rich old white geezers who sat around in leather club chairs, puffed cigars, and lamented the decline of the days when the English Protestants were in charge. Not that Hornsmith fit the profile. He only dressed the part.

  “It’s true, he’s not their usual type,” said Hornsmith, “but he seems to be loaded, and he must be connected to get in there. He’s also right of centre enough to get past their other requirements. He says he has family money. They made it in trucking on the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange. They want him to help them diversify.”

  “Aren’t they communists over there?”

  “Latour, I don’t have all the answers, but if a fellow says he wants to invest his family money, I’m pleased to take it.”

  A couple of office secretaries from a temp agency came in to help with the Trang meeting. Hornsmith sat in his armchair and stared out the window with a cold Heineken while I showed them how to phone each other to keep the lines lively. The prospective client needed to trust we were in demand.

  “Stay calm, everyone,” Hornsmith said, his voice thin and raspy, his blotchy forehead pulled taut over his skull. “Have some fun and let me do the talking.”

  The way he stirred suggested he was primed to start his pitch, impatient for the business to begin. The old hound’s heart still raged, always ready for the hunt.

  “Do you want another beer, Mr. Hornsmith?” one of the temps said. She was gangly with uneven teeth and a husky voice.

  I said, “We need him alert.”

  Hornsmith reeled. “Stop your fretting, Latour. I’ll take another beer, young lady. What’s your name?”

  “Anna.”

  “Well, Anna, don’t concern yourself with Latour. It’s his first time. We’re going to do fine. You do your part, and it’s going to be a sure thing.”

  “A sure thing?” said Anna. “There’s no such thing. How can you be so certain?”

  Hornsmith smiled, all teeth and hair. “Because that’s what I do. Sure things. You watch and learn. I’ll have that beer now.”

  “Sure thing,” she said.

  Simon Trang arrived at the appointed hour in time to see Anna on her knees wiping Hornsmith’s lap with a paper towel where he’d spilled beer. Trang watched without comment. He was tall for an Asian guy. Greasy grey temples, a bit of a Fu Manchu thing happening on his chin, and a bit of a gut happening over his belt. He removed his blue overcoat and hung it in the closet before shaking hands. When he presented his business card with two hands, Asian style, I thought I saw a flash of a holstered pistol under his suit.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said.

  Anna ushered him into our office. I hung back and checked his card. It sported an embossed red and gold coat of arms. Detective Sergeant Simon Trang, RCMP. A toll-free number. No further details. I was unsure what to make of it. He didn’t strike me as someone with a membership to the New Albion.

  It was too late to warn Hornsmith our guest might be a cop. Hornsmith was already into his act. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference. “Policemen have money and families and want new opportunities, too, Latour,” I imagined he’d say
, and I supposed that was true.

  The meeting went well at first. The girls were believable. Occasionally they’d come into the room with papers for Hornsmith to sign, or they’d interrupt with requests for conference calls from overseas that Hornsmith declined with convincing irritability. We spoke in circles for a while about Trang’s needs and our alleged credentials, and Hornsmith maintained a credible posture.

  “My family wants business in Washington, and I fear disappointing them,” Trang said. “I have been charged with helping them create new wealth abroad. This new spa will attract some of the wealthiest people in the world. Famous politicians. Business giants. Movie stars. We would like access to them. What I mean is, we would like to be able to offer them the finest hospitality Asia has to offer. This opportunity would serve as a great honour for us.”

  Hornsmith grunted an acknowledgement and went to the crux of the matter. “The capital costs of outfitting your restaurant will be entirely yours,” he said. “The minimum investment in the overall venture, including the spa and the hospital, is a million dollars, and offers a first recoupment position shared with the other investors, if you come in for more than ten.”

  Trang listened without apparent concern.

  “The operating costs, including security and insurance, run into the thousands every month,” Hornsmith continued. “We need assurances that your price point is high enough to absorb these fees while still offering a product that is value for money.”

  Trang nodded patiently, seeming confident. Hornsmith shone ghostly porcelain. His eyes drooped closed and then fluttered open.

  I leaned in to cover. “We can’t afford someone who suddenly wants out because his business model isn’t working. You’ll need to be able to sustain payments regardless of your inflow.”

  “Payments by my family will not be a problem,” said Trang. “We have many interests and assets that can be brought to bear on this situation if needed.”

  Hornsmith’s head rolled to one side. His eyes closed, as if he’d fallen asleep. I stayed calm, curious as to what Trang might do. Trang remained impassive. He was a professional. The family story was good. His real play remained obscure. It wasn’t until he noticed the blood leaking down Hornsmith’s leg onto the floor that Trang’s face twitched, his focus cracked.