Where Night Stops

by Douglas Light

  So it was a family affair. I wonder if I’d ever crossed paths with Mason One, if we’d made an exchange.

  My lungs seize. I’d not only crossed paths with Mason, I’d worked with him. For him.

  Mason is Higgles. My Higgles.

  Like a bolt of cloth unrolling, the whole history of my Kam Manning flags out before me.

  From the moment I got the fanny pack and cell phone to when I traveled to Brighton, I’d been aligned with Ray-Ray, working for the real Higgles.

  Then, somehow, Mason One hacked the relationship. I went to Brighton, thinking I was meeting Higgles. Stupidly, I didn’t question the set-up for a second. I just handed Mason that momentum, signed-on as his lackey, and began busting my ass across the world for him. Realizing you’ve been duped by someone sucks. Realizing you’ve duped yourself is crippling.

  “Mason.” The woman’s throat knocks out a noise of sadness. “So many false starts,” she says. “So many failed endings. How can you tell what’s important? How do you tell what’s worth fighting for?”

  I say to the woman, “Mason got my name from Ray-Ray. You got it from Mason.” It’s the only thing that makes sense. But the why is more muddled than the how. “You’re Mason’s partner.”

  Sweat gathers in the hollow of her throat, runs down her sternum, following the valley of her cleavage. “No,” she says. “Not any more. He needs to understand that there are repercussions.”

  “Repercussions for what?” I’ve dressed and now hold a clutch of ice cubes in a dishrag to my neck while I pace the room.

  She lays the gun in her lap, rubs her temples. I could make a play, grab the gun. I’d have a good chance of turning the tables.

  I don’t move.

  The menu is set; turning the tables won’t change what’s about to be served.

  I sit in the chair across from her.

  She frowns, closes her eyes. “For forgetting my birthday.”

  I want to laugh but bite it back. “You’re doing all of this—whatever this is—because he forgot your birthday?”

  “That sparked it,” she says. “But there were a lot of other things, too.” She wipes her forehead, looks at her damp hand.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  The question catches her off guard. She lifts a shoulder, shrugging. “Resolution. Revenge. Redemption.” She smiles, shakes her head. “Last night, it was all clear in my mind. But now—” She breaks off, rolls the sweating plastic tumbler of gin across her forehead. “Tell me about the confab.”

  “The confab?”

  “This afternoon’s meeting with Ray-Ray, Mason, and you.”

  “You seem to already know everything about it,” I say.

  “Not the details.”

  Strangely, I trust her. She’s the closest thing to a friend I have right now, so I talk.

  She listens attentively, then wipes her face again. “You’re saying Ray-Ray hasn’t figured out it was Mason you’ve been working with?”

  I only just figured it out myself. “Seems not.”

  She laughs. “And they’re both after it?”

  I nod. What the hell it is, I still don’t know.

  She makes a face, either amused or irritated, I can’t tell. “Ray-Ray will show up first. If he said he’ll be here by noon, he’ll show up by quarter to. He likes to arrive early, catch people off guard. Mason is the opposite. He’ll get here late.” She lifts her chin, motioning me over.

  I move to her.

  “Do me a favor,” she says. “Bend down.”

  I bend, my head level with hers. The scent of lemons and warm cinnamon is soured with the smell of sweat and sex.

  “Hold still.” She pours a bit of her gin on my head then musses my hair. “Good. Now move the chair there,” she says, pointing to the space at the edge of the day’s shifting light.

  I drag the chair over.

  Placing the pistol back in her purse, she snaps it shut and holds it out for me. “Put it on the floor where the chair just was.”

  I take her purse; I have the gun. I can settle the immediate, but there is the rest.

  She reads my mind. “That’s not the way out,” she says, her voice lazy.

  There is no way out, I realize. And when there is no way out, push on. Find a way further in.

  I push on, put the purse where she says.

  Tipping the tumbler back, she downs the rest of her gin, then studies the apartment’s stage. She smiles. “God,” she says, “he’s going to be pissed.”

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  Save it for guests. Ray-Ray had given me the gin knowing the woman would find me, would end up at my place. It was as though he’d been following the script of a play. He’d seen the third act long before I’d even taken my seat.

  Chapter 63

  When I was younger, occasionally, after dinner, my father would call me out onto the back patio and offer me a seat beside him on one of the rickety lawn chairs. I was to play the audience for the life lessons he rambled out as he tucked in a couple more after-dinner cocktails. “Never eat fish at a restaurant on a Monday,” was one. And, “Stay clear of women who giggle too much. They’re a dangerous lot.” Other pearls he offered: if there are two lines at, say, a cash register, always take the left; have your dress shirts washed and pressed, never dry cleaned; when out with others, never buy the first round; and always have an excuse ready for use, no matter the situation.

  But the one I remember now was, “Know a man’s full name before doing any business with him.”

  I should have known the moment I met Mason in Brighton that he wasn’t Higgles.

  Higgles are always Higgles.

  Masons are Masons.

  Chapter 64

  When I’d Kam Manned in Côte d’Ivoire, I’d seen Clement again. I’d been ill for three days straight, every ounce of liquid exuded from my body via my pores, anus, or mouth. I couldn’t stop shitting, sweating, and vomiting. Supernova flashes of light panned my vision with each visit to the toilet. I trembled, barely able to walk the ten-foot span from the bed to the bathroom.

  Finally, an awkward reprieve arrived. Slowly, gradually, my stomach stopped lurching, my bowels stopped their spasms, and sweat no longer burned my skin. Lying on the bed, I finally fell into a rough sleep, a hard comfort.

  But ten minutes in, the weight of something settling at the end of the mattress woke me.

  Lifting my head, I saw him there, sitting naked by my feet, his back to me. I recognized him immediately. “Clement?” My friend, dead and naked in my hotel room in Africa, shaking and sobbing silently, his head in his hands. His skin, dappled with bruises the color of an oil-stained street, hung loose on his frame. His vertebrae made an uneven stack along the length of his back. Everything about him was misaligned, like the cartilage and ligaments that bolted his bones together had abandoned their task.

  I worked myself into a sitting position. “Clement, what’s wrong?” I reached for him.

  He rose from the bed, trembling fiercely. I called to him again—“Tell me what’s wrong”—but he wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t even acknowledge me. It was as though he was too ashamed or angry to show his face. He lurched painfully forward, moving to the bathroom.

  I forced myself to my feet. My stomach pitched, flooding my mouth with bile that I choked back down. Supporting my weight against the wall, I worked my way to the bathroom. “Come on, man,” I groaned. Why was he making me chase after him? Couldn’t he see how sick I was? “Talk to me,” I said, but there was no one there.

  The bathroom was empty. No Clement. Just a dank shower stall, a foul toilet, a dripping sink, and a fluorescent bulb overhead that stained everything a sickly blue-green.

  “What the fuck?” I was incensed. I wanted Clement back more than anything else in the world. He’d finally come, and carried no message, no demands, no apology
or closure, no dire warning, or even a shard of advice. Not even a ghostly moan.

  All he’d done with his one chance was sit on my bed, cry a bit, flash his bruised ass at me, then leave.

  What kind of haunting was that? He hadn’t even tried to scare me.

  Chapter 65

  At 11:44 a.m., Ray-Ray arrives. He enters the apartment like he’s slipping into a theater midperformance, steady and quiet.

  The place is stifling. The windows are closed. The woman sits in the far corner of the room, well over halfway through the bottle of gin. I stand by the windows, staring out into the street.

  The gun is in her purse on the floor beside me.

  Ray-Ray, the woman, me. I’ve thrown my lot in with the woman for the moment. Even so, none of the scenarios I’ve played out in my mind end well.

  Ray-Ray pauses in between the two of us, turns a hundred and eighty degrees to study us each. He waves his stub at me, at the room, at nothing in particular, then his gaze settles on the woman. “Hello, Sweetheart.”

  “Hello, Mr. Raymond Higgles.”

  Naked, she seems comfortable, content, in control. She uncrosses her legs, scratches the inside of her thigh. “You look awful, Mr. Raymond Higgles,” she says.

  He does. Bloated face, dark-circled eyes, his pink button down is wrinkled, his white slacks stained. He looks like he’s just untangled himself from a cramped airplane seat after a fourteen-hour flight. His knobbed stump, poking out of from the cuff of his shirtsleeve, looks like he’s been trying to sharpen it on a whetstone. But his hair looks great. Parted evenly and coiffed to perfection.

  He turns his attention to the sweaty plastic tumbler on the table. “If I didn’t know better,” he says, “I’d say you put that there just to piss me off.” He sets the tumbler on the floor, wipes the ring of moisture off the table with his shirtsleeve. “The condensation will ruin the table’s finish.”

  He paces the room, avoiding the swath of sunlight cutting the room. Ray-Ray hates direct sunlight. In the shelter, he told me he didn’t tan but turned an odd, leathery orange. Like an Oompa-Loompa, he said.

  He stops in front of the woman. “I honestly wanted to believe that it wasn’t you, that someone else had corrupted my boy,” he says.

  She tilts her head, looks up at him. “Maybe someone else did, Mr. Raymond Higgles. Maybe I’m just visiting. Maybe you have more to worry about than you think.”

  “What worries me,” he says, “is your nakedness. Throw on some clothing, please.”

  She doesn’t move. “Have a seat, Mr. Raymond Higgles.”

  His voice spikes with irritation. “This isn’t a goddamn coffee klatch.” He turns to me. “Your hair looks like a dead opossum. Where’d you get it styled, at a homeless shelter? So,” he says, “do you have it or not?”

  I dig my hands into my pockets. Nervousness edges into terror. “Yes,” I lie.

  Ray-Ray crosses the room, still avoiding the sun. “Hand it up.”

  “First,” I say, a brick of fear jamming in my throat, “I need something.”

  “You’re not really in a position to make demands. Hand—”

  “Sit for a spell, Mr. Raymond Higgles,” the woman interrupts. She nods at the chair. “Let’s do some catching up.”

  Distracted, Ray-Ray looks to the chair that is now held full in the harsh noon light. “Nice touch.” He drags the chair back to where it originally had been, back to where her purse now sits. “You know how sensitive my skin is,” he says, then adds, “And enough with the ‘Mr. Raymond Higgles’ shit.”

  “You know, I never liked your name,” she says. “It makes you sound—what?—a bit gay.”

  “I am a bit gay,” Ray-Ray says. “So I guess it’s fitting.” He hikes one leg of his pants, then the other, and sits. “I see you found the gin. You’re a damn divining rod for alcohol.”

  She lifts her tumbler, a salute.

  “I should have poisoned it,” he says.

  She runs her finger along the rim. “Once again, you missed your chance to assassinate me.”

  Ray-Ray laughs. “Assassinate? That only happens to important people. You? You’ll just be put down.” He turns to me. “Open a window, would you? It reeks of sex in here.”

  I open a window. A tepid breeze pushes in, mingling with the hot, rank air.

  “Stay there,” he says. “Where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “He’s not the one you should be worried about.” The woman smiles sadly. “How’d you lose the hand?”

  Ray-Ray holds up his stub, glares at the woman. “Some alcoholic bitch got her teeth into me. Got a nasty infection from a bite,” he says. “They had to cut it off.” He points his stub at my neck. “She got her teeth into you, too, I see.”

  I say nothing, my hands still in my pockets.

  Outside, a few birds sound, noting their positions, their territory. A truck lumbers past outside, grinding its way toward the Atlantic. A dog barks twice then sets into whimpering. The sounds of noon.

  “He’s coming, you know,” the woman says.

  “And who would this be?”

  “Mason,” she says. “He should be here soon.”

  Ray-Ray’s face mottles. He struggles to play it off. “Yes, I know,” he says, his voice betraying worry. He didn’t know.

  In the room, I’ve disappeared from the moment. Ray-Ray and the woman consume the immediate.

  The woman tips her glass at him. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Me?” Ray-Ray smiles. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about how you operate,” she says, anger flaring. “You want things just right but you’re just too lazy to follow through. You’re a half-assed perfectionist.” She pauses to regain her composure. “But none of that matters now.” Does he have a cigarette? she asks.

  He says, “I thought you quit smoking.”

  “I have. I only smoke when I’m anxious.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s a lot wrong with me, I admit, but self-control isn’t one of them. You, though…” He looks at his stub like a woman would glance at her fingernails. “Whether it’s a drink or a husband, you start with one and pretty quickly you’ve had three or more.”

  He’s hit a nerve. The woman rises from the chair, her voice barbed. “I’ve only had two real husbands—”

  “Three,” Ray-Ray says calmly. “The Haven town hall will verify that.”

  The energy pours from her. She takes on the gray of a dying fish and settles back hard into the chair. She looks away, her eyes sparkling with tears. The fight is a fruitless one. A sob exits her lungs then turns into a full-on cry, a life’s worth of tears spilling from her. “Mrs. Raymond Higgles,” she gasps. “I never liked the name.”

  A tsunami of realization hits me.

  To love and to cherish, to have and to hold.

  Ray-Ray was her first. This was the woman Ray-Ray told me about, his wife. This was the woman he married for a green card.

  Until death do you part.

  Or at least until citizenship is official.

  The woman’s sobs stop. Her voice cracks the quiet. “You tricked me into marriage.”

  “I never tricked you,” he says. “You knew what you were getting into. You knew the landscape.”

  “I was the landscape.” Her voice is choked with grief. Tears gloss her cheeks, drip from her chin. “And you trod all over me.”

  My skin shrinks tight to my bones. Embarrassment, shame, disgust. Her pain chokes me. I fight not to cry myself.

  The woman coughs out a string of snot from her nose. “Hand me my purse. I need a Kleenex,” she says to Ray-Ray.

  Ray-Ray grabs the purse off the floor and walks it to her.

  He pulls up short of handing it to her. “What do you have in here, a knife?”

  “A gun,�
�� she says, her face shiny with tears. “I plan on killing you.”

  He blanches a moment, then lights up with laughter. But his laughter stops cold.

  Clamping the purse under his handless arm, he struggles to unlatch the butterfly clasp.

  My stomach fills with concrete and glass. Was that the woman’s entire plan? That Ray-Ray would hand her the purse, hand her the gun? Why didn’t she just keep the gun when she had it?

  Why didn’t I?

  Ray-Ray wrestles to unlatch the purse, unable to get a firm purchase.

  I answer the question Now what? before I can even think it.

  When there is no way out, push on. Find a way further in.

  I charge Ray-Ray, let loose a wide swing.

  He senses it coming, artfully steps to the left, stealing the force of the blow.

  Instead of connecting with his head, my punch glances off his arm. But it’s enough to knock him back, enough to make him drop the purse.

  We both stand taut, a few feet apart. The purse is closer to him, but I’m now in the running. I can get it. I can get the gun.

  A thought flashes through my mind, pushing out a bark of laughter: the gun has no bullets.

  Ray-Ray glowers at me. “I have an expansive sense of humor, but there’s nothing funny here.”

  “Let’s not make a mess,” I say, not quite sure what I mean.

  “There’s still time for you to redeem yourself. Still time to make your way back into my good graces.”

  It’s a lie. Whatever redemption he has to offer is a redemption I can’t afford. Still I say, “I’m listening.”

  He holds up his hands—or hand and stub—like he’s surrendering. “Let’s get one thing clear: I’m not the enemy here.”

  But you aren’t my ally either, I think.

  I lunge for the purse like Pete Rose hitting home plate.

  Ray-Ray’s foot is there to greet me. He stomps me to the floor and sets into some sort of Riverdance rendition. My face, my shoulder, my neck and back. He kicks and kicks, grunting the whole time.