Business

by J. P. Meyboom

  My first reaction: Too big to be human. Maybe a cow. Hornsmith unfolded the note. He frowned. He wiped at a blood smear with his pinky. He moved his lips with deliberate emphasis as he read. No sound came forth.

  Impatient for the news, I snatched it from his fingers and read out loud: “Dr. Courtney changes his mind. Now you have to deal with us.”

  No signature.

  Hornsmith laughed as if in disbelief. He wrapped the heart back in the bloody cloth and returned it to the box. He stayed calm. He washed his hands under the tap. I took my cue from him. I didn’t panic as the membrane tore asunder.

  “Courtney has lost his mind,” he said. “We’re dealing with a deranged individual. We must be vigilant. He can summon spirits to do his bidding.”

  He moved over to the window and pried apart the blinds with his forefinger. He scanned the darkened world. Evening had chased the day into the basement.

  “How did that messenger of Satan get into our office, Latour?”

  Unsure what he meant with his talk of spirits and messengers of Satan, I played along.

  “Someone must’ve let him up.”

  “Yes, but who? We have an electronic lock on the door to the street. Did you buzz him up?” His eyes snapped up into his head like a brief convulsion.

  “No, I nodded off.”

  “As did I.” Hornsmith frowned. He sniffed the air. “The scent of brimstone lingers.”

  I sniffed the air, too, to signal we were on the same side in case he turned on me.

  “I don’t smell anything,” I said.

  “I have keenly developed senses for this sort of mischief,” said Hornsmith as he paced the office. He rattled door handles and peered into cupboards. “The demon delivered its fiendish package, then disappeared on a cloud of smoke.”

  “I guess someone left the door open downstairs,” I said. “One of the other tenants.”

  Hornsmith stopped. He said, “Sometimes your powers of observation are remarkably dim. Look around, young friend. We are alone. The Business is the only tenant here.”

  “But there’re signs on every door in the hall.”

  “Yes, of course,” Hornsmith said. “The Business has multiple interests, which are all represented on this floor, and I am the sole proprietor of each. We are the only ones here.”

  “Even the law firm, Findlay & Sharpe?”

  “Especially Findlay & Sharpe. In this business you never know when you’ll need your own legal practice.”

  Indeed, there’d never been another person in the building. We were always alone. We’d hired temps for Trang’s visit; otherwise, there’d never been anyone else up here. Ever. It was odd, when I stopped to consider it. I’d ignored it. Shut it out. Played along. It was a side to the Business that needed reconsideration.

  “Which gets us back to how did he get in?” Hornsmith glared. Crazy. I thought he wanted to lay it on me.

  I said, “Broken lock? Master key?”

  “The forces of darkness are creeping in. Demons are coming through the walls,” he said to himself as he lay back down on the couch, the Navajo blanket pulled up over his chest.

  “I saw you with the pillow,” he said. “You were thinking about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Putting it over my face.”

  My throat constricted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “First Courtney. Then you. Then the demon with the box. I fear what lies ahead.”

  “The road ahead is clear,” I said, my voice neutral. I listed the known facts. Outlined the plan. “Courtney’s a runt. We’re going to sort him out once we sleep off the dope, when we regain our equilibrium. And rest assured: there’re no demons. The courier got in … somehow. It’s not a spirit.”

  “No spirit?”

  “No. There’s another explanation.”

  “And you weren’t thinking of putting the pillow over my face?”

  By now, he’d vanished under the blanket. His voice distant.

  Hornsmith was tuned for this sort of weirdness. It left me, on the other hand, lost. Weightless. Struggling not to float up into the ceiling. Hornsmith couldn’t be underestimated. Even in his weakened state, he could be dangerous. The only safe thing was to tell it like it was.

  “I thought about it, yes.”

  Hornsmith didn’t respond.

  “I wanted to smother you. I did. But I didn’t follow through.” I said, louder, “It’s not in my nature, mercy killing. Or any kind of killing, for that matter. You’re going to have to find some other way to die. I’ll have no hand in it.”

  Hornsmith still didn’t respond.

  “Hey,” I said, “you still alive?”

  I moved over to the couch. When he didn’t react to my tug at his foot, I pulled the blanket back. He lay curled up. I felt his forehead. His skin was cold. Mouth open. Teeth bared, like one of those scary leathery bog people they dug out of the peat in Drenthe. But breathing. Barely.

  “Hornsmith,” I said, shaking him, “come back.”

  “Ah,” he managed.

  “We need an ambulance,” I said.

  “Nah.” One clawed hand waved in random circles.

  “This is too much to take on. You’ll get through this if we get help. Stay with me.”

  It could’ve been a reaction to the heroin. Equally, he could’ve moved into another stage of his bowel cancer. Whatever the case, it felt beyond my ability. I called 911.

  “Wah,” he said.

  He pointed to the coffee table with the last of his energy: the smack was where we’d left it hours ago. I licked my finger, rolled it in the powder and stuck it in his mouth to rub his gums. He opened his eyes for a moment, grateful.

  I folded the package. We would need this again later. While we waited for the paramedics, I jimmied open his desk drawer once more with my knife to stash the dope in plain sight until a better plan presented itself.

  “Keep breathing,” I called out to Hornsmith as I worked. “They’re going to be here soon. Don’t leave me now.”

  He remained silent under the blanket.

  The contents of the drawer shifted. The photo of the woman and the Dipshit Kid shook loose. Her stare caught me off guard. I’d forgotten about them. Her.

  “Don’t let him die,” she said through the space between us. “Don’t let him off that easy.”

  Hornsmith on the couch channelled bog people. She was right. Change of plan. I grabbed her picture along with the letters and a handful of blank cheques. Rammed it all into my pocket with the heroin, ever watchful of the fading Hornsmith. He remained oblivious.

  I told the paramedics we’d smoked heroin. I told the paramedics he had bowel cancer. I told the paramedics someone had sent us a cow’s heart in a box. I reasoned that the more they knew, the more options might present themselves. I sure hadn’t a clue. They pushed me aside before I’d finished my rambling account. They lashed him to a gurney. They secured an oxygen mask to his face. They shot him up with adrenalin and put him on an IV drip. Outside, on the street, they loaded him into an ambulance with cold professional efficiency.

  As the doors swung closed, Hornsmith struggled to raise his head. He clawed the oxygen mask from his face. He looked at me. His eyes bright as ever. He didn’t seem sick at all.

  “Latour, why have you betrayed me?”

  With that, he fell back, unconscious.

  Furious, I stood on the curb as the ambulance squealed off into the night and vanished around a corner. Fuck you. This act of grace saved your miserable life. Bought you time to make peace with this world before you move to the next. This wasn’t betrayal. It was an act of compassion. I could still do that, though compassion was something Hornsmith had grown unaccustomed to.

  The siren faded into the general din of the city. I was alone, as if the whole event had never happened. In the new silence, a sharp waft of sweet cologne and raw onion seeped out of the darkness.

  “Did something happen to your friend?”

/>   The voice connected to unshaven jowls under opaque maggot eyes. A heavy guy in a leather car jacket like the kind detectives wear in French movies. Beside him, a thinner, shorter guy with an underbite. Oversized Gucci sunglasses.

  “Your Mr. Hornsmith.” The Heavy Guy had a Russian accent. “Something happen?”

  “How do you know his name?” I said. “Who are you?”

  Underbite stuck his face in. Peeled off the Guccis.

  “You deal with us now.” He sounded Russian, too.

  “Dr. Courtney asked us to review your file,” said the Heavy Guy.

  “Yes,” Underbite said, “and on personal note, our cousin Yuri has message for you.”

  With that, he punched me in the gut and drove his knee into my crotch. Light exploded behind my eyes. A train of vomit hurtled up my throat. I landed in a place of darkness. Heavy Guy threw a blow to the back of my neck with something blunt. Next, the world turned upside down. From the bottom of the curb, I chewed rocks and sodden paper garbage. One of them kicked me in the stomach. Another kick landed in my kidney. They laughed.

  Heavy Guy said, “You have one week to settle with Dr. Courtney. If you don’t, we come back and we extract your liver through your asshole.”

  A final kick to my temple fell to the thunderous sound of one of them unzipping his pants. A cascade of warm urine splattered me from a thousand miles above.

  ELEVEN

  Escape

  WET WITH BLOOD and sweat and another man’s piss, I wormed onto the steps of a nearby church. I curled up. My eyes ached. My ribs felt shattered. My kidneys were swollen. With every twitch, my spine crunched like broken glass. The plan was to regroup and find my way back into the refuge of the Ellington. Instead, I passed out. It could’ve been for eternity, and it might’ve been for a few moments. Hard to know.

  I swirled through darkness until something clammy nudged my cheek. Cold. Wet. With the sweet stench of seaweed, garbage, and rotten meat. An animal was sniffing around my head. The cracks between bits of gravel on the concrete steps where I’d passed out came into view. I sucked air and battled back to the surface to discover morning. A harsh white sun already dominated the sky. The city was on the move. A vagrant dog sat beside me. Immortal chestnut eyes. Head cocked. Puzzled. Why someone bed down here? he asked. What’s wrong? Get up. Go home.

  The mutt grinned and scratched his tattered ear. Sniffed my arm. Licked my hand. Hesitant. Unsure if it was something he might like to gnaw on. I tried to move away. A wave of rope-thick hurt shot down my back.

  Help me, I prayed to him. Make me whole again. Bind mustard poultices to my bruises. Set my broken fingers. Stitch the cuts in my head. Take the stone from my heart.

  The dog didn’t indulge my self-pity. He assured me I had the fortitude to endure. You’ll find your way through this. You’re not seriously harmed. You need a plan. That’s all. Make a plan. With that, the dog curled back his lips and stuck out his rosy tongue like he’d decided he found the scent of human urine off-putting. Disgusted, he lifted his leg over my worn-out body. Why not? Everyone else had.

  Despite my tenderness, I rolled to one side and kicked him away before another disaster befell me.

  I relived every blow on the painful journey home. One eye was swollen shut. Dried blood caked my hair. My bones and organs blazed. I stumbled over my feet. People turned away in disgust. Others gave me long sympathetic looks as if that would somehow make things better. Some crossed the street to get away from me. The thugs had done their worst. Still, I could move. I felt good about that.

  Later that morning, in the claw-footed bathtub of my apartment, I soaked my battered body in steamy water, numbed by a tumbler of Scotch and ice and a handful of Advil. Deep under the skin, purple and green stains over my torso marked where their boots had stomped me. The dog was right, a new plan was needed. Where once the Business was exciting because it operated outside ordinary life, this line of work now held an unacceptable degree of danger. The Business had become a liability.

  Hornsmith called from a pay phone in the hospital during my nap. He needed to take measures of his own. His situation required pragmatic and immediate action. He had to escape. Otherwise, he would die sooner than he expected, because the doctors wanted to operate.

  He said, “Get the car from the garage and come get me at St. Mike’s. I need to get out right away.”

  “I’m not sure how fast I can move,” I said. “I’ve been hurt by people Courtney sent after you left.”

  “Courtney did that?”

  “Two Russian mob rejects. They kicked the shit out of me.”

  I didn’t mention they were also related to Yuri the Acrobat. I didn’t want Hornsmith to suspect that my troubles had leaked out of my boxes into his. The overlap was, for now, a coincidence.

  “The swine,” Hornsmith said. “We must regroup. There’s a set of keys taped inside the rear left wheel well. Hurry, Latour. They loaded barium up my rectum and lowered cameras down my throat. Their radioactive needles and catheters are lined up. They’re sharpening knives. They’re going to slice me from stem to stern. If they have their way, I’ll never get out of here alive.”

  In the background, a woman’s voice chirped his name.

  “They’ve caught me, Latour. I’m the main event. Help me. Hurry. Every second counts.”

  “Mr. Hornsmith,” the woman’s voice said, “we’re not supposed to wander around.”

  “I’m taking care of business,” I heard him say.

  “We’re in no condition.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Yes, of course you will, dear. Say goodbye.”

  “I’m calling my attorney. You have no right.”

  “Yes, yes. We are tired now.”

  There were muffled sounds. Clothes rustled. Hands slapped against bare skin. The receiver fell and banged against the wall of the booth. I heard him grunt. I heard him gasp. Then the line went dead.

  St. Mike’s Hospital reeked of cooking grease and sharp pine-scented antiseptic. Stiff from the beating, I swayed through the lobby where a Rasta dude with a bucket and mop slopped soapy water across the tiled floor, his oversized earphones blocking out the world. A haggard woman in a pink housecoat rolled an IV stand out of the cafeteria. Her wilted slippers sloshed over the wet floor while a young Indian couple in street clothes waited by the elevators — him on a cane, her with a taped-up suitcase. Without warning, an unshaven old man in a wheelchair almost knocked everyone over in his dash from the elevator to get outside for a smoke.

  When the woman at the information counter typed Hornsmith into her screen and scanned the results, she shook her head. Her lipless mouth clenched firm. They had him on the tenth floor. Death row. No visitors.

  I said I was his nephew — the only living relative. “I must see him. He raised me like his own son.”

  No Lips softened. “Go up to the tenth floor and speak to someone at the nurse’s station. You might be able to see him before they take him into surgery. It’s not protocol, mind you.”

  The tenth floor hummed and beeped, a cacophony of concealed electrical equipment like a field of invisible crickets. There was no one at the nursing station. The phone lines all flashed. The corridor was empty. The middle of a shift change, I guessed.

  Somebody had left a clipboard on the counter. An alphabetical list. Hornsmith — 1014. I found the room easily enough and slipped in unseen. As the door clicked closed behind me, down the hall a bell announced the arrival of the elevator.

  Hornsmith turned his head in my direction when he heard the door. They’d trussed him to the bed so he couldn’t escape. They’d clamped an oxygen mask over his mouth. A plastic bag of saline hung above his head with a thin rubber hose plugged into his left forearm. He said something angry and incomprehensible from under the mask. I worked to lift it.

  “Latour,” he gasped when his mouth was free, “thank goodness you’re here. Untie me. We have to go.” He twisted and turned, impatient for his releas
e. The rubber straps binding him to the bed held firm. “The quacks are keen to get into my guts and disembowel me. The tumour is advanced, they say. They have only a short time left to operate.”

  He paused to look at me. “Your face,” he said. “You look like shit.”

  I untied his straps. “Courtney’s thugs.”

  Hornsmith grabbed my hand. “We’re going to extract vengeance on these bastards. You’ll see.”

  “Yes, sure.” In this debilitated state, he seemed an unlikely instrument of vengeance.

  “Help me get dressed, young friend. Let’s get out of this abattoir.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I’m dying, not crippled. Let’s go before they sedate me.”

  I released the final strap across his chest. He sat upright and yanked the IV drip out of his arm. A few droplets of blood sprayed across the white sheets. He gingerly swung his feet over the edge of the bed and lowered himself to the floor. He crossed the room, determined, if not spry.

  “It was a flare-up,” he said. In the closet mirror he caught a glimpse of himself in pale-yellow hospital pyjamas. A ghostly figure. He paused and caressed the fabric of his jacket on its hanger while he considered his reflection. Then he pulled on his trousers and, as if to reassure himself, said, “It happens once in a while. No cause for alarm until one of these times I don’t recover. I will simply die. That won’t be today.”

  Dressed, he inspected his reflection again with a single nod. Better. A nurse entered as he adjusted his tie. He frowned at her in the mirror, concerned. Hornsmith had a nose for blood. Hornsmith always attacked with precision. He turned and pointed at the empty bed.

  “What have you done with Mr. Hornsmith?” he said.

  The nurse’s gaze followed the length of his outstretched arm over to the empty bed. She glanced at her clipboard. She looked at the bed again.

  “He was admitted last night,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m his brother, Norbert Hornsmith,” said Hornsmith, his voice up an octave, “and this is my nephew, Paul Latour. Have you taken Albert to the toilet, or the shower?”