The Company Man

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Well, there’s this Colonel character who’s all over it. Apparently Tazz-or Crimley, or whatever-he contacted him to run this operation on the recommendation of whoever was running things at McNaughton. But I don’t know who this Colonel is besides that he was brought in by some Easterner figure, who seems to be everywhere throughout the files.”

  “What do we have on Easterner?”

  “Oh, he gets paid pretty frequently,” said Samantha. “And he gets paid well. It says in certain places that the amount routes through a Dutch merchant bank, then a Rabb Real Estate company in Chicago, then through a shipping company in California, and then finally an industrial canning complex here. It’s ludicrously complicated and I…” She trailed off. Hayes had gone very still, his face slack.

  “Oh, God,” he said softly. He blinked once, confounded.

  “What? What is it?”

  “That’s me,” he said. “That’s how my money gets to me. I’m… I’m Easterner.”

  “ You are?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I check… I check every couple of months.”

  “Oh!” she said. She thought about it and gave a brief whoop of laughter. “Well, that would make sense. But who’s Colonel, then? It says you brought him here and they made the contact through you, so…”

  A queer look came into Hayes’s face. He bowed his head and one hand sought the wall for support. “No,” he murmured. “No, they couldn’t have found him.”

  “Found who? You know who it is?”

  “Yes,” said Hayes faintly. “Yes, I know who it is. An old friend. One I got out of a spot of trouble, and one I hoped I’d never see again.”

  “Who is he?”

  Hayes just shook his head. He seemed so shocked by the revelation that he was beyond answering.

  “But can you find him?” said Samantha. “Can you find him and see what Tazz was bringing in?”

  “Maybe.” He shook his head again and sat down on the bed. “God. If I had known what that file would give me I’d have never gone through the trouble to get it.”

  “What did you go through, out of curiosity?” Samantha asked idly, picking up the files.

  “What? Oh. I just dug up an old contact. Or a target, really.”

  “Yes, but who?”

  “Mmm,” said Hayes, still lost in thought. “You remember the man I told you about a while back? The man Brightly had me follow, even though there wasn’t anything on him?”

  Samantha slowed to a stop among the files. Her back was turned to him. “The man who… The one who was going to that place with the children?”

  “Yes. Montrose. Teddy Montrose. Turns out he was still around. I put the burn on him and he hopped to it. Rather convenient, really.”

  “You used him?”

  “Yes. It was all short and sweet. Thankfully.”

  Samantha turned around to look at him, mouth half-open in outrage and horror. Hayes was calmly picking at something in his teeth. It took him a moment to notice her.

  “What?” he said.

  “And what did you do?” she whispered.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “What did you do once you got the files? Once you got what you wanted?”

  “Do? To him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, nothing. I turned around and walked away.”

  Samantha swallowed. Her hands bunched into fists at her sides, knuckles going white and wrists trembling. She looked away as a snarl wove through her face, and she moved as though she wished to leave. Then she suddenly stooped down and picked up a file and threw it at him with both arms. He raised his hands to protect himself and the folder burst open, pages flying out to twist and turn and rain on him like snow.

  “Hey!” he cried. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Samantha moaned in fury. She reached down and snatched another file and hurled it at him as well. It missed and thudded into the wall, bleeding papers over the bed.

  “Stop, stop!” Hayes shouted. “Stop it, for God’s sake!”

  “What am I doing!” she said through clenched teeth. “What am I doing! You little… you little oily shit!” She grabbed another file off the tabletop and was about to throw it when it fell apart in her hands. She gave up and rushed over and began slapping him about the neck and head. He covered himself with his hands.

  “Sam, what the hell! Calm down!”

  “You let him go!” she shouted at him. “You let him go! You let that man go after what he did, after what he did to those children! You dealt with him and then let him go!”

  “I had to!” said Hayes, still covering himself from her barrage of slaps. “I had to use him!”

  “But you let him go! You should have… you should have…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

  “Should have what?” Hayes said, standing up. His face was a bright, angry pink. “Should have taken him to the police?”

  “Yes!”

  “And said what? That I followed him and found him buggering children off in Dockland? And that no, I don’t have any evidence? And that no, I’d be unable to testify? And that why yes, I’d done the work on the part of one of the most powerful men in the city? Is that what I should have done?”

  “Something! You should have done something!”

  “Like what, shoot him? Should I have burned down that place in Dockland? Freed all those boys? Given them all a dollar and said here you go, now you’re all good? Sam, have you ever even wondered how such a place is still open, and who they’re paying?”

  “He was a monster!” Samantha cried. “A monster! And you used him and let him go!”

  “I had to!” Hayes said savagely. “I had no choice. I needed those goddamn files and they’ve turned up gold, now haven’t they? Haven’t they? If we work this to the bone, won’t we get something good for you and Garvey? Something to set things right?”

  “But those children were victims!” said Samantha. “Innocent victims!”

  “We’re all victims!” Hayes shouted. “All of us! You, me! Garvey! Victims of McNaughton, of the Department, of Dockland, of this whole fucking city! You can’t save every single one of them, not when we can’t even save ourselves!”

  “You’re as bad as Brightly. Using that man, that thing as you wish.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are,” she said. “It’s all just an excuse to you. To just do as you please. To enjoy yourself.”

  “It isn’t,” said Hayes. “It’s not.”

  “You don’t even care, do you? This isn’t about any crime. None of this ever was, for you. It’s about paring people down, digging under their skin, and proving that deep down everyone is as weak and filthy as you. How odd it is that the one man who should by all rights know more about people than anyone else is so utterly incapable of being one.”

  “Fuck you,” snarled Hayes. “What are you doing it for, then? For Garvey? Just for that?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then what?”

  She hesitated, then said, “For the boy.”

  “Boy? What boy?”

  “God,” she said. “You don’t even remember, do you? Skiller’s son. The little boy.”

  “Him? Why?”

  She faltered then, and some of the color drained from her face. “I just… I know it’s stupid to hope. A little boy on the streets of this city? How long could he last? But somehow I always hope that in following up all this union business I’ll find him somewhere in it. Maybe there’s a chance. After all, I’m probably the only one looking for him.”

  Hayes stared at her. Then he looked away as though bitterly disappointed and shook his head. “Sometimes you make me feel so… so empty,” he said. Then he looked at the mess on the floor and said, “Here. Help me clean this up.”

  They both stooped and began gathering the files, sorting them out as best they could and stuffing them back into their boxes. When they were done Hayes sat on the bed and Samantha on the floor.

  “They’ll be l
ooking for us more than ever now,” Samantha said.

  “Yes.”

  “This place is safe?”

  “I hope so,” Hayes said.

  She nodded, then asked, “How did you plan to use this to help Donald?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe if I gave him a case good enough he could buy his way back into the Department.” He looked at her. “We still could, you know. Just give him this about Tazz and stop right there. Leave the rest alone and just walk away.”

  “We could,” she said. “But we won’t.” She smiled grimly. “So goes the life of a career-minded young lady. I don’t miss it, though. I don’t know why.” The smile left. “Do you know where your old friend lives now?”

  Hayes shook his head. “And there’s not many willing to help me right now.”

  “We could probably get it from Donald,” she said. “He’d help.”

  Hayes lit a cigarette, then drew deeply on it and leaned his head back and let smoke leak out of his mouth. “Yes. You’re right. He probably would.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  When Garvey woke up he was still drunk and the whisky in his belly was septic and rumbling. He rolled over and lifted his head and saw the cold light of morning drifting in. Then he buried his face in the pillow and shut his eyes and tried to ignore the thick cotton-dryness in his eyelids and mouth.

  Eventually he rolled out of bed. He drank rust-tainted water from the sink, whisky bottles scattered on the counter beside like fallen soldiers. He stood. Took a breath. Then he doubled up and clutched the sink edge and vomited something orange-tan and frothy around the drain. When he was done he lay there with one cheek on the cool porcelain. He washed his mouth out but did not drink. Then he pulled on a pair of pants and smoked as he looked out the kitchen window at the little cement courtyard.

  It was Tuesday, he remembered. He nodded to himself curtly, put on a nice suit, then went and got his old phonograph and loaded it into the back of his car. He stood looking at it on the seat, thinking, then checked up and down the street. It was empty. He shook his head and returned to his apartment and got his spare revolver out of his desk.

  He sat on the bed, holding it, feeling its deadly heaviness. It had never been fired, unlike its brother, which had been confiscated by the Department. He snapped it open and looked at the six little brass eyes watching him from its cylinder. Then he sighed and closed it and replaced it in his desk. He did not want to bear that awful weight, not today.

  When he returned to his car he saw that now there was a little figure leaning casually up against its side, scarf loosely tied, hands lost within the pockets of his coat.

  “Hullo, Garv,” said Hayes.

  Garvey stopped where he was on the sidewalk, looking at Hayes. Then he resolutely stared across the street and said, “No.”

  “No? No to what?”

  “No to whatever you’re here for,” said Garvey. He began walking to the car, still not looking at Hayes. “You shouldn’t even be here. We shouldn’t even be seen together.”

  “I’ve been careful.”

  “But not careful enough.” Garvey walked around to the driver’s side of the car. “If you were really careful you wouldn’t be here at all.” Before he got in he stopped to check the street again.

  “No one’s watching,” said Hayes. “Can’t say why not. But I checked. And you know I check better than most.”

  “I didn’t know. And I don’t care,” said Garvey. He got into the car.

  Hayes looked through the passenger window at him. “I need your help, Garv.”

  “No. I said no and I meant no.”

  “It’s just one little thing. One little thing I need. An address, Garv.”

  “Get off my car unless you want to lose a foot.”

  “Here, I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Hayes stepped back. He anxiously flicked the cigarette away and leaned out to continue speaking through the window. “I’m sorry, Don. I am. But we’ve made headway, me and Sam.”

  “You and Sam?”

  Hayes gave him a pained smile. “Yes.”

  “That’s not safe at all.”

  “I know, I know, but we’ve gotten somewhere good. We just need to get a little further.”

  “A little further,” said Garvey.

  “Yes. I need an address.”

  “Get it yourself.”

  “I can’t, Garv. I’ve pulled all the favors I had on this, so I had to come to you.”

  “Goodbye, Hayes,” said Garvey, and he eased up on the drive handle and sped off.

  He got halfway down the block before looking in the rearview mirror and seeing the little figure huddled next to the other cars, watching him leave. He was tiny in the shadow of the enormous buildings around him. Garvey slowed the car to a stop and shut his eyes, wondering exactly why he’d picked this day of all days to get himself back into trouble he knew he could do perfectly well without.

  It took Hayes several minutes to make it all the way down the block. By the time he dragged himself up to the window he was red-cheeked and puffing. He still managed a grin. “Where are we going?”

  “Just shut up and get in the car, why don’t you,” said Garvey, and he reached over and opened the door.

  Garvey drove west, past Westbank and Lynn, out past the city limits where the buildings shrank and small homes still survived. Hayes jabbered on as they talked, rushing through his discoveries and unable to hide his delight. Garvey noticed he seemed much more fluent than he had previously; whereas before he would leap from topic to topic and forget what he was talking about in a matter of minutes, now he managed to stay on one thread at a time without losing himself. It took Garvey a while to realize Hayes was something close to sober. He wondered how long it would last. Probably until this little adventure came to an end, if it ever did.

  “So… Tazz works for McNaughton?” said Garvey slowly at the end.

  “Worked, Garv. Worked. He’s done a runner, probably down to Mexico. Christ, I wish I was there. I’d be rid of this chill, that’s for sure.”

  “And you’re sure about all this?”

  “Nearly positive. I can give it to you, Garvey. I can give you the files linking them both. And then maybe you can go to Collins, and he’ll take you back.”

  Garvey did not look at him. A deep stillness rolled over him like a cloak and his heart beat faster. “Maybe.”

  “I just need an address from you,” Hayes said. “For an old friend of mine.” He tucked a piece of paper underneath the car’s driveshaft and patted it.

  Garvey glanced at it as he drove. “And he’s complicit in all this?”

  “I think so. I can turn him, though, I think. We didn’t leave on the fondest terms.”

  Garvey gave a sardonic laugh. “Imagine that.”

  “So will you do it, Garv? Will you get me that?”

  “You forget I’m not police these days. They’ve still got me suspended. I can’t just walk in and start pulling residential records for you.”

  “But you’ve got friends. People you can go to. They can get it for you. Right?”

  Garvey sighed as he turned off the road. “Damn it, Hayes.”

  “I know it’s a lot. And I know we don’t want to be attracting attention right now. But I need this, Garv. Sam and I do.”

  Garvey drove on in silence as the car rattled through the pine countryside. In some places there was even livestock, something both of them occasionally forgot even existed.

  “How is she?” asked Garvey.

  “Sam?” Hayes said.

  Garvey nodded.

  “She’s doing. I think she’s fraying a bit at the edges, though. Hasn’t had anyone to talk to but me, and, well. I know that can be a bit much.” Hayes looked out the window at the damp trees. “She misses you, Don.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I can tell. I know.”

  “You know, huh?”

  “Yes.”

&
nbsp; Garvey took a breath and nodded. “Well. Thank you, I guess.”

  They drove for more than an hour before Garvey pulled up in front of a small white house, quaint and humble and perfect. It had a white picket fence and thriving roses that threaded through a trellis in the front yard. Small tin toys lay scattered on the lawn, still pearled from the kiss of dew. Hayes curiously looked the house and yard over. He had never been here before. “What is this place?” he asked.

  Garvey got out and walked around to the back of the car and pulled out his phonograph. Then he came to Hayes’s side and said, “You stay here. You stay in the goddamn car, you hear me? Just stay here until I come back.”

  “Christ, all right. Fine.”

  Garvey walked up to the front door and knocked, phonograph under one arm. The front door opened and a small, pretty blond woman answered, her mouth tight and grim and her eyes cold. They shared a few words, Garvey with his head bowed. Then the woman leaned out and looked beyond him at Hayes. She seemed to shake with anger and fought to swallow it. Eventually she allowed him in and shut the door.

  Hayes sat in the front seat and smoked a cigarette and waited. After several minutes he heard something. He rolled down the window more and listened. Then he got out and shrank down low and walked to the side of the house to peek in the window.

  Inside was a small, cozy room with a worn sofa and old bookshelves. A homey place, with lace doilies on the end tables. In the middle of the floor was the phonograph, playing a symphony Hayes could barely remember, some mournful Beethoven piece. In the center of the sofa sat Garvey, rocking back and forth, a little blond girl in his lap with her arms thrown around his neck, head perfectly still as though asleep. To his left sat another little girl, this one older and her blond hair streaked with brown. She stared at the phonograph intently, swaying slightly with the music, as if attempting to find some hidden truth within the machine that would unlock all the secrets of the world. Garvey stood then with the little one in his arms and he began pacing around the room, the two of them dancing, and Hayes heard him humming along with the music, softly and atonally. One big, rough hand rose up her back to cradle her head, her flaxen hair slipping through his fingers.