The Liminal People

by Ayize Jama-everett

  I guide the pipe into an arching swing, like I’m trying to reach deep left field. The blow tags the third rat in mid flight, and a German shepherd who just reached pipe’s distance. Never seen a dog stagger before, but it couldn’t come at a better time—he falls onto the mini army of rats that just reached the ankle-biting area. I take advantage of the reprieve and climb. The scaffolding behind me is all metal. There’s a pit bull below me I don’t want to figure out how to deal with. But the rats could get up here, if the girl didn’t stop them. She’s got them all huddled below me. And now I’m hearing her voice.

  “You killed them!” she’s bawling from the other end of the construction site. “What kind of man are you?”

  “The kind that refuses to be eaten by animals!”

  “They were just doing what I told them to do!”

  “Then you’re just as responsible for deaths as I am. Unless you want me to kill the rest of them, I suggest you call them off now.” Pure bravado. Let’s hope she can’t read my mind.

  “You’re just as bad as her,” the girl says, raising her hand. The animals disperse.

  “Where’s Tamara?”

  “Whoever you are, whatever you really look like, you stay away from her. If you go near her, we’ll kill you.”

  Now I’ve met twenty-one people like me.

  Chapter Nine

  I’ve had two days to recover from almost being eaten, and I still feel like five pounds of shit in a ten-pound bag. I’ve only woken up twice in those two days. Both times I ordered one of everything from room service, and devoured it all in under twenty minutes. Then hibernation again.

  Sleeping for sixteen hours at a time should relax the mind. Not mine. All I could do was go over the entire fiasco and worry if I’d screwed things permanently. Maybe I’d failed, maybe I wasn’t good enough. Maybe Yasmine was right. What the hell was I doing anyway? I’m no detective. I should just bail. Go back to . . .

  Nordeen. He knows everything about people like us. Does he know about this? Is he laughing on his rooftop about his weak healer-slave, almost taken down by a little girl who talks to animals? I pray he’s laughing. If he’s upset, no place on earth is safe for me. I should call him, at least gain his counsel so he doesn’t think I’m totally off the reservation.

  But if he doesn’t know anything, then I’m calling attention to myself. I’m giving him Yasmine and her daughter . . . if he doesn’t have them already. Maybe this is part of his plan. He’s got me. He knows he does. So he can send me out to attract more of us to his side, to whatever power game he’s playing. That’s his style. So if I call Nordeen, I truly fail.

  So I lay in a near coma thinking on what went down. I start with the girl. Fifteen years old, at the most. Frail frame, racing blood pressure, well fed. Not homeless. Lots of silver rings on her hands, black leggings, dark green cinched blouse, black overcoat that makes her look like the lunatic-chic poster child. Not soldiered, not savvy. Had she gone in for the kill from jump, I’d be dead. But she also wasn’t a student. The Catholic girls knew who she was, but she wasn’t wearing a uniform, and it was school hours. So why was she there?

  She knew her powers, but she used them like a club. There was no subtlety in her manipulation of the animals. They ran me up the scaffolding like a trapped fox, waiting at the base for fatigue to set in. If she’d called in other rats, they could’ve gotten me down. I’d have fallen. Game over. But she didn’t. Instead she cried over the animals I’d already taken down. Not a soldier. She’s weak in that way.

  So a weak, non-soldier kid almost took me out. No. Wrong way to think about it. A weak, power-playing soldier scoped me investigating Tamara. This isn’t about me. This is about Yasmine’s girl. The girl who’s missing but who still has someone peeping the school, with powers. Powered, non-soldier club kid scoping weeks after Tamara’s disappeared. That’s not covering tracks. That’s looking. As far as I saw no MI5 or other government agents were posted. I could’ve missed them at first, but going after the girl in broad daylight would’ve attracted them to me. The government’s given up on her, but this powered girl hasn’t. Why?

  That takes me through my first sixteen hours of sleep. While waiting for room service I shower, releasing every toxin my body’s built up while I’ve been out. I want to call Yasmine, but what do I have to report?

  I get the local papers delivered. Turn on the idiot box and watch for idiocy regarding Yasmine, Fish’n’Chips, or Tamara. Not sure if I’m relieved or saddened by the fact that there’s nothing. It means I still get to be the hero. It also means I still have to do the work.

  A knock at the door signals room service. Half the food is gone before the bellhop gets to the elevator. By the time he can brag about his fifty-quid tip, I’m near comatose again, wrestling with demons I’m only barely beginning to understand. I’m healed enough to function in the world but not enough to go up against the animal girl again. She’s no soldier, but she’s powerful. I have to go toe-to-toe with her again, there’s going to be a body at the end of it. And I refuse to be taken out by a child. I don’t care who she’s working for.

  And there’s the insight. She said “We.” She said, “If you go near her, we’ll kill you.” Not “I’ll kill you.” If she was talking about the dogs and rats she would’ve said “They’ll kill you.” It’d be more effective. But she said “We.” I knew it all along, subconsciously. It’s why I keep thinking of her as a soldier. Soldiers take orders, they don’t think on their own. That’s how animal girl was acting. Like she was doing what someone else told her. It’s an organization. She’s not alone.

  Animal girl’s comfortable enough with her powers to use them in broad daylight. So she’s stupid, but she’s also practiced. Practiced people like me don’t take orders from norms. That means there’s at least one other power. Probably more. If there are only two powers, why waste one on lookout for weeks? No, she’s the weak link, the runt of the pack, assigned to the shit duty. That’s how she carried herself. Wait. Why shit duty? Why was she waiting there? She wasn’t waiting for me. She was looking for Tamara. Animal girl doesn’t know where Tamara is. The “We” doesn’t know where Tamara is. But they’re looking.

  Animal girl wanted me to think they knew where Tamara was. But if they did, why would they be scoping out the school? Why get into a confrontation? Why not just bring me to a secure spot and either show her to me or take me down?

  Two reasons. They don’t have her. And they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not sure of the second reason. I can’t get too cocky. This could be some subtle power play by a major player. Someone on Nordeen’s scale, or higher. Tamara could be coveted by the grander powers and animal girl could just be another one in the power’s grasp. I can’t assume too much. All I know is that there is a “They” and they don’t know where she is, either.

  Not true. Animal girl said I was as bad as “her.” Her biorhythm changed when she said it. She radiated fear, so much that it even blunted mine. At first I thought she was talking about Yasmine’s girl. But I’m realizing the girl didn’t have the same reaction when she said Tamara’s name. There’s another female. One that scares the animal girl. The boss. The boss is a girl, and she wants Tamara.

  I wake up, and I’m famished yet again. I need to get out, change clothes, breathe non-air-conditioned air, walk more than twenty-five square feet. I pull a pack of Silk Cuts from a local candy vendor, and buy some of the dark brown paste that passes for chocolate. As a younger man, I took to smoking first to impress Yasmine, then stayed with it to test my self-healing. Since Morocco, it seems an effete use of my power; I’ve broken bones with the power of my mind and healed gaping cancerous holes with a touch. Clearing the nicotine out of my own lungs is too simple. But playing the Sam Spade role, even as ineffectively as I have been, makes me long for a cancer stick. Or maybe it’s just the memories of London.

  I was a younger man here. Someone who loved his woman, and who did the work of the righteous in secret. I felt like a sup
erhero when I put on my EMT uniform and covertly laid hands on. I bragged only to Yasmine, with a pride that would be the key of our undoing. But in my youthful ignorance, I felt complete here. I was quiet and special. Is there a way I can return to this peace? I’ve lost Yasmine, but if I find her daughter maybe . . . Or maybe even with another woman.

  The moon reflects off the slick cobblestone streets on Lambeth Court, and I spy a red-haired woman in a bright green pencil dress and an old school Kangol. For a full minute I’m wanting her. I’m picturing us arm-in-arm, strolling the street together, about to meet up with a group of work friends at the local pub. Her bones tell me she’s just thirty. Only five years younger than me. We could make it work. I’ve got to talk to her. But when I step toward her, the razor around my neck bumps its edge against my chest. Nordeen.

  I am his healer. His dog. I could have a family, but only if Mr. Maximus allowed it. I would live as Suleiman, at the beck and call of a shadow. I saw Nordeen holding Suleiman’s youngest one time. The girl seemed fine. But I could feel Sulli’s wife’s sobs when the child was returned to her arms. No worse for wear, but the meaning was clear enough. Everything Suleiman had belonged to Nordeen.

  I’m carrying my head low, turning away from the pencil dress, keeping an eye out for fashionably dressed club kids and rabid animals. I can’t get out from under Nordeen. I made my deal with him. He didn’t force me into it. He hasn’t even threatened me since the day we met. Not overtly. But there’s nothing I could gain for myself that he wouldn’t have a piece of. My fantasy wife, life—shit, even my past—is owned by the mysterious shadow. The longer I’m in London, the more risk to Yasmine and Tamara. Better to find the girl and leave before Nordeen catches wind of what’s happening. Shit, it may already be too late.

  I call Yasmine and try not to sound too disenchanted.

  “Hello?”

  “Mene?”

  “Tag. Have you . . .”

  “Not over the phone.”

  “Fine. Wait. Are you OK?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s two-twenty in the morning. Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t get hurt, remember? At least not . . .” I’m halfway through the sentence before I realize how much I’ll sound like a pansy if I complete it.

  “I’ve got an appointment from seven to nine. Can we say ten?”

  “Where?”

  “Do you know the Fox Club?”

  “I can find it.”

  “Good. And Tag?”

  “Yeah, Mene?”

  “Be . . . yourself. Please?” I hang up because I’m too happy.

  No one calls me Tag. And she didn’t protest when I called her by the old name. Plus, she wants to see my face. No food could fill me up the way she just did. I can’t sleep.

  It’s seven in the morning, and after two bad movies and one gigantic breakfast I’m calling down for a tailor. I’m liking these all-inclusive hotels. So long as you have the money you can have anything delivered to your room at any time of day. I ask the tailor to bring up five of his best suits. I change in the bathroom as he waits in the bedroom, astounded by the amount of empty room-service plates in the room. I try each suit on for size, then adjust my body modestly to fill it out the best way I can. Reverse tailoring. I only let the groggy-eyed Armenian suitsmith me in the suit I like the most, a cream-colored doubled-breasted number that narrows at the hips, almost like a zoot suit. He’s astounded to find it fits like a glove.

  I ask him for five more pairs of slacks and a few button-up shirts before sending him on his way. He’s way too happy about the one hundred euro tip. If I run into him again, I’ll fix his strained eyes. Another call secures a cab. The tube would just muddy this suit; a limo would be too much, and I don’t like the idea of being tied to a car in London. Shit. It’s only eight-thirty.

  The cabbie, a Jamaican by way of Cambridge if his fake accent is to be the indicator, knows the Fox Club. He peeps me in the rearview and nods in approval. It’s the black man nod, a currency only valued in situations where black people aren’t the majority. I haven’t seen it in so long it takes me a second to realize why his eyes shine so brightly. I guess not a lot of his Fox Club fares are black.

  I’m half an hour early. I ask the fake Jamaican to drive around the block a few times, after paying him double what’s on the meter. He smiles and asks if he should wait for me to return from the club. I’m tempted. Instead I get out when the once around the block eats up fifteen minutes. I tip him again, and he asks if I’m sure I don’t want him to stay. I smile politely, press down the suit, and enter the narrow doors.

  If the rich and elite of the international crowd ever organized youth hostels, it would look like this place. Shit. I picked the best suit the tailor had, and I still feel underdressed. The hostess is a leggy, black-haired woman with a round face and the abysmal teeth Brits are known for. She asks if I’m a member.

  “He’s with me, Barbara.” Yasmine is a business-suited angel, coming to save me from embarrassment. She strolls across the main floor, her hand dancing along the full-length zinc bar with such a casual air that by the time she’s by me, the hostess already feels calmer. “I should’ve told you I was expecting a guest, but I just wasn’t sure this was the man coming.”

  “No problem, Mrs. Bridgecombe. So sorry for all your troubles these days.”

  “Sweet of you to say.” Yasmine’s grip bites into my arm, punctuating the girl’s comment. I’m still savoring her touch. Squeeze all you want. “Can you send a breakfast plate to the club room?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. No one could tell she was pissed. No one but me.

  “Silly tart,” she says in a volume designed for two. “She doesn’t care one bit about Tamara. Or me, for that matter.”

  “Mrs. Bridgecombe?” is all I can muster.

  “I am married, Tag. It would be unseemly for me to retain my maiden name. . . .”

  “I know.” I didn’t. “It’s just weird to hear.” She sits me in a room too large for only two people. The remnants of her earlier meeting are still present. An organizational charity event, apparently. She makes a phone call and does some straightening up until the breakfast plate arrives. She directs the server to place it directly in front of me, still talking into the phone. I feel awkward. I want this damn suit off. This is where Yasmine went when I went across the globe. It’s natural for her to be in this environment. I’m still trying to figure out my nature.

  As soon as she’s off the phone, Yasmine is putting on music, classical, one notch too loud. No one will complain once she closes the door, but I fail to see the point of it. When she unbuttons her blouse to reveal those two perfect breasts, held back by a thin black bra, I get my first involuntary erection in years.

  “Feel free to eat it all. My meeting was a breakfast meeting. I remember that you get hungry whenever you do your thing. As you can see, I’m not wearing a wire. If you need me to totally disrobe, I will—so long as you promise to keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Why would you be wearing a wire?”

  “I wouldn’t. But you were so concerned about your anonymity before, I wanted to prove to you that I took your concerns seriously.”

  “I believe you.” I’m still having hard time looking at her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “If you want to thank me . . .” Shit. The tears. They’re falling down like all her defenses. “Tell me you found my daughter.” It was all an act. The poise, the confidence, the courtesy, the breakfast meeting. None of it means shit to her. All she wants is her daughter. My boner embarrasses me. Still, I don’t dare move closer to her. I can see her breasts, and she’s crying. It was how she won every argument we ever had in college. We’d end up in bed together whispering apologies until we fell asleep. But that was a lifetime ago.

  I give her what I have, and she goes stoic. Not angry or even upset. The tears end. But her top stays open—out of neglect, not enticement. As soon as I talk about visiting the school, the animal girl, nothing else m
atters. Even the parts of my story where I’m in danger don’t garner so much as a mock gasp of concern. Barbara the hostess would’ve given more feigned sympathy. Yasmine just listens, staring at the marrow in my skull, trying to decipher the meaning of my story—which admittedly sounds insane in the retelling.

  I give her my theories as just that, theories, leaving out the “what if a grander power is at play” parts. If it’s true, there’s nothing we can do about it, and we’ll know soon enough. I think I’m done three times before I finally stop talking. She offers a cigarette, and I take one with no intention of smoking it.

  I half expect her to light her smoke the old-fashioned way, with her power. The lighter in her hand triggers a sadness I don’t feel like demonstrating. She kills the smoke before speaking.

  “If these others are after her, why run?” I can barely hear the question over the music, but I nod as the words hit my ears. It’s a good question.

  “She loves you. She loves her father. Someone knows what you love, they can control you.”

  “You think this animal girl and her friends would threaten me, threaten Darren?”

  “From what you say about your daughter, that would be the only way to get her to disappear from you.”

  “But you say they don’t have her?” She flashes the first real smile I’ve seen from her in a while.

  “She’s smart. She buried herself so deep somewhere, no one can find her. Not government, not this animal girl and her friends—”

  “Not you?” Didn’t know a question could bite and be honest at the same time.

  “Not yet. I’ve done this before, things like this. Plus I know London.

  “Not like she does.” No pride this time, just a sinking into the depressive blanket that’s been covering her since her girl took off. “Darren never let her out too late, but she has friends that I’ve seen. Partiers. We used to call them ravers. I don’t think that’s in fashion anymore, Tag. Raving. But she knows this generation’s equivalent. The city is not the same as when we were younger.”