The early evening crowd was just arriving. Myrian stood beside Martin’s table, startled and angry and wondering if she shouldn’t simply turn and walk back across the restaurant, but afraid this would only validate Martin’s suspicions, she held her ground and insisted instead, “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s only fortunate I found the printout before anyone else,” he ignored her reply. “The powers that be at Great Mercantile will shit if they find the same information I did,” he waited once more for Myrian’s response, to confirm the information he now had was something she already knew, and convinced by her silence, he lied again and explained how he’d altered the numbers on Janus’s file. “This should confuse the computer briefly. That’s the best I can do for now,” he touched Myrian’s wrist in order to emphasize the depth of his generosity, and maintaining his calm even as she pulled away, smiled as she asked, “What is it you want?”
“Are you thankful?”
“For what?”
“My helping you.”
“Are you helping me, Martin?”
“That depends.”
“I’m thankful.”
“Pose for me then.”
“And if I say no?”
“Do you really want to find out?”
She had only gotten to work at five, having visited with Walter and Rea that afternoon, but left work at seven under the excuse of being sick. Janus was keeping the clinic open late and would not be home for some time, and insisting to herself that she was doing the right thing—“To indulge him is to neutralize him. To react otherwise is to create risk.”—she drank two shots of whiskey before Martin arrived, trancelike in her movements along the wall, pretending to paint and perform as he told her. At some point her clothes were lost, the click of the camera filling the apartment as she slipped between shadow and light, helpless in the same way Janus must have felt the first time his flesh and bones were crushed, unable to explain the way such an extreme and beautiful and terrible thing could happen as it did.
I drove the few blocks back to my apartment and parked across the street. The lights in front of the building were off though the sky was already dark. I sat a few minutes, then came slowly up the stairs, anxious to sit in my apartment and compose myself against the events of the day. Under the circumstances however, I didn’t completely wish to be alone and decided to stop and knock on Myrian’s door.
“It’s me,” I said, hoping she was in, knowing she was scheduled to work at some point but not sure when. Typically, upon hearing my voice, Myrian would shout, “It’s open,” or let me in with a quick release of the latch, but when she came tonight to the door, she parted it only a few inches and in such a way that I could barely see inside. With her face pushed up to the crack, her otherwise clear eyes appeared clouded, her expression pinched as if she’d just risen from a bad dream. “Walter,” her look turned over on itself and for a brief moment her bottom lip drew in against her teeth. I started to ask if she was all right, but she stepped back suddenly then and decided to let me in.
The furniture was pushed away from the right side of the room, with several paints and brushes set out atop a half unfolded drop cloth, a fresh orange shade laid in between two pale blue stars so that it seemed at first Myrian was in the process of reworking one of her old murals. No sooner did I step inside however, than Martin Kulpepper greeted me from the opposite wall. “Walter Brimm!” he set his camera against his chest and tossed back his head.
I turned again and stared at Myrian who was wearing one of Janus’s old shirts. This alone was not unusual, but as she unfolded her arms, I noticed the shirt was unbuttoned and that she’d nothing on beneath. Myrian pulled the front of her shirt together, the brief glimpse meant to provide me with a better sense of the situation, though I remained confused and watched her walk across the room and sink into the chair by the window where she lit a cigarette and stared outside.
“Why don’t you sit here, Walter,” Martin maneuvered the remaining chair from the collected knot of furniture and positioned it accordingly. The light in the room was bright, the tall lamp, unshaded, cast odd shadows across the floor. “Myrian’s been posing for me,” Martin boasted, his fallow face pinched with dark, excitable eyes. He raised his camera and spoke shamelessly about how extraordinary she looked. (“Delicious” was the word he used.) I stared at Myrian, then went to where Martin had placed the chair and dragged it back to the right side of the room. I slid the couch around, positioned it in the space where it normally stood, covered the paints and moved the brushes in order to refold the drop cloth, which I then pushed out of the way. I put the shade back on the lamp, and turning toward Martin who was carping at me the whole time, said, “I think you should go.”
Martin’s laugh was indecent and hung in the air several seconds too long. “What’s that, Walt?”
“I’m asking you,” I lowered my voice and said again, “I’d like you to leave.” I hoped Martin would not make a scene, but Myrian’s presence complicated matters, and all at once he was placing his free hand against my chest, and said, “Listen, I don’t know why you’re getting all bent out of shape. Myrian invited me. If she wants me to go she’ll say so.”
“I’m asking for her.”
“Sorry, Walt.”
“You need to get your hand off me.”
“Walter, Walter, Walter.”
“Shoot’s over. Get out.” In hindsight, I suppose I could have kept my cool another few seconds and Martin would have agreed to go, but the situation had gone on long enough, and with my mood already ruined from the day’s earlier disaster, I slapped at Martin’s hand and said, “I’m not going to ask you again.”
For her part, Myrian showed no sign of noticing the struggle. She sat with her bare legs crossed at the ankle, her knees drawn tight, her shoulders turned at an angle which allowed her to glance out the window while the ash from her cigarette fell to the floor. I felt Martin push his arm harder against my chest, and in tum, I grabbed hold of his shirt, watching his grey mouse eyes shift back and forth before he surprised me and dropped his shoulder altogether and pushed me against the wall. (Though I was taller, I was also much older and still not completely fit, while Martin was wiry and had little trouble knocking me back.) “Listen, Brimm,” he rose up on his toes, the sour smell of his breath—a mix of broccoli and beer and smoke—pouring into my face, his forearm pressing hard into my sternum. “I already told you, this is none of your business. This is between Myrian and me.”
And then he was falling, suddenly, Martin’s head snapped sideways in such a way that his body was sent in two directions at once. Myrian’s blow—her arms outstretched as she rushed from the chair, all her earlier stillness transformed—landed square on Martin’s cheek, knocking him away from me while causing him to drop his camera. “No!” his wail was loud and alarmed as he stretched and tried to keep his instrument from crashing. “Myrian!” he yelled from his knees, howling again as she took hold of his ear and dragged him into the hall where he cursed and cried and rubbed at the side of his face. “Myrian, goddamn! For Christ’s sake!” he cradled his splintered camera in against his chest, his voice cracked, dissolving into a more pleading and pathetic tone, as from his knees he said, “Myrian” and “Myrian,” again.
I went and closed the door, turning back into the center of the room where Myrian had gone to stand. It took several seconds before she looked at me, and when she did, it was to discourage me from asking her anything. I watched her go and sit again facing the window, and following her, I dropped onto the edge of the couch. (What a night it was!) Shaken, I felt sure if I went to the window I’d see the constellations imploding, the order of the moon and heavens knocked on their arterial behind. My struggle with Martin distracted me briefly from my own despair, though sitting alone with Myrian, my dispiritedness came back in swift, excruciating waves until the whole of my dark mood returned.
“You should get dressed,” I said at last, trying not to think of Gee
, determined to focus on the crisis at hand. I retrieved Myrian’s jeans and socks from a corner of the room, which she slipped on, then buttoned Janus’s shirt to the top, the sleeves rolled up and the tail untucked, her movements restrained as she reached for another cigarette and striking a blue-tipped kitchen match, said, “He’s a son of a bitch.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She swore again, “Mother fucker,” and getting up, walked to the kitchen, returning with whiskey and two glasses. I allowed her to pour a short shot into my glass, and as she sat back down, I asked, “Are you all right?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“I don’t think anything,” I wished to reassure her that my support was unconditional.
“You see how he is,” she said. “He’s been after me for months. Pose for me, pose for me, pose for me. I’d had enough.”
“And so you thought by giving in he’d go away?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not it,” I responded softly.
“It is.”
“If it was only Martin badgering you, you’d have ignored him forever.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that,” I watched as she pulled on the ends of her shirt, the coloring in her face still off, the fullness of her lower lip drawn in as I asked her then, “So, what is it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Does it involve Janus?”
“You think I was posing for Martin because of Janus?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me.”
“Walter. There’s nothing to tell.”
“I’d like to help.”
“You can’t.”
“Not unless I know what’s going on.”
“Please.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“Then tell me.”
And so she did.
CHAPTER 22
I left Myrian’s just after nine o’clock and went straight back to my apartment where I walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Surprised? (Christ!) In a million years I would not have guessed. I sat on the side of my bed, struggling to take in the whole of what Myrian told me. (“He did what?”) Given my own arrant history, I should have been able to understand what led Janus to make the leap from theory to deed, and still I couldn’t get past the shock. (Janus!) How was I supposed to respond to such news? Exactly how? What a world it was! What an incredibly unpredictable walk in the woods. In but a single night everything was again turned on its head. First Gee and Tod, then Martin and Myrian, and now Janus. I was stunned, my thoughts muddled. All of this was simply too much. What point was there in anything? (What logic?) How could I explain the madness which kept coming at me in wave after insuppressible wave no matter which way I turned?
I stared at the far wall, which was pale with yellow cracks and fissures where both shadow and light came together and disappeared. The window was covered with a sheet of cardboard and two white towels to keep out the draft. (Moisture settled into the towels and had to be replaced and defrosted each night.) I glanced at my own muted shadow, wishing I could disappear as well, wanting to somehow put distance between myself and the events of my day. I pictured Gee on the porch of my old house and how she managed to crush me with just her eyes, equating my desire to reconcile to the hopelessness of restoring a fallen fruit to the bough of its tree. I cursed, and thought of Martin whose harassment of Myrian and threats against Janus had crossed over into something dangerous and obscene, and trembling then, I wondered what to do.
I considered the three separate times Janus improvised against fate, and tried to decide if there was a numbing resignation which allowed him to stand and endure the blows that splintered his flesh and bone or did he actually feel the horror of his deed? Although my initial reaction was one of astonishment, I knew intuitively Janus’s intention was selfless and prodigal—however extreme—his perfect grace and the way he conducted himself at his clinic impossible for me to ignore.
I thought next of Myrian and what she did for Janus tonight—and for me all these many weeks—and clearing my head with a purgative “Aaaarrggh!” I focused back on Martin, my indignation and contempt, outrage and fear of him, his abuse of Myrian and the threats he made against Janus swarming over me like a hive of bees all hostile and noxious. But what could I do? I got up and went to my closet, searching for my suitcase, thinking what I really needed was to get away for awhile, to separate myself from everything and escape. All of this insanity was simply too much and who could blame me if I decided it was time to leave?
I tossed my suitcase onto the bed and began stuffing my socks and T-shirts, underwear and slacks inside. The gun Jack gave me several weeks ago was also hidden in the closet and I stuck it in the pocket of my jacket as I continued to pack, carrying on this way until my effort to flee revealed itself as farce, and throwing up my hands, I cursed again and hurried toward the door.
Halfway into the hall however, intent on seeing Martin and making sure his threats against Janus went no further, I stopped and realized my decision here, too, was flawed, for other than to bark and bleat and plead with Martin to leave Janus be I had no plan at all. Why would he listen to me? Why should he care what I asked when we just nearly came to blows? No, what I required was a more specific strategy, a faultless bit of leverage to keep Janus from harm, and finding the keys to Janus’s car still in my pocket, I went downstairs and drove across town, along the Avenues and West Belmarke Boulevard on my way to see Jack.
Jack Gorne stood near his high wall of windows and stared out over the city, toward Pendelton Field and the Mitlankee River. “Baaaah!” (He was in a bad frame of mind.) His latest investment—into which he sank substantially more than a large sum of cash—had crashed and burned. (Moods such as this, when he felt the firmament of his being unravel and taunt his faith, turned him coarse and vengeful.) His plan to import and sell genetically modified soybean seeds developed in Argentina and Brazil had suffered a serious blow, victimized by circumstances beyond his control. Just last week, Garst Seed Company, manufacturer of genetically altered StarLink corn—FDA approved as livestock feed only—was accused of allowing its corn to wind up in taco shells distributed nationwide by Kraft. With testing for human consumption incomplete, the press had a field day running articles suggesting the food chain was now dangerously compromised. Immediate recalls and buybacks of every last kernel of StarLink corn was ordered, while politicians threatened a moratorium on all forms of genetic farming in the United States.
“Fuck!” and “Fuck!” again. A public relations nightmare to be sure—and worse!—for the press was now reporting that a protein spawned by StarLink, Cry9c, was toxic to corn bores and other beneficial insects. Although Jack’s soybean seeds were completely safe, his deal fell victim to hysteria, the lobbyists he hired and officials he bribed all for naught, while everything—“Goddamn it to hell!”—blew up overnight. “Fuck, shit, and hell!” he was in the middle of chanting when Walter arrived and buzzed up from the street.
“If it isn’t too late,” I waited several seconds for Jack to buzz me up, and once inside, told him everything that happened tonight. The stars and moon outside the windows on the twenty-first floor of Fordum Towers shined in the distance, the sky otherwise ebony and aphotic. I noticed at once Jack’s mood was off—instead of his usual irreverence and drollery he was brusque—and still he listened to what I had to say, and only afterward did he reply, “So let me get this straight, your friend smashed himself up in order to defraud the insurance companies, and now this Martin person’s threatening to turn him in and you want my help?”
“That’s right.”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“I don’t know. The last time, I mean with Gee, you said I should have come to you first.”
“That was then.”
“But Janus,” I felt a need to explain, only Jack interrupted and mocked me with, “Are yo
u telling me the ever-righteous Walter Brimm condones what the good doctor did?”
“Janus had his reasons. He was trying to keep the clinic open. He did what he had to.”
“As you tried when you first went after Marcum.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Because I was wrong.”
“Ha!” Jack raised his right hand alternately with his left as if taking measure. “Let me get this straight, the good doctor fucks the insurance companies in the name of his clinic and that’s OK, and you fuck Marcum because the man’s stealing your wife and that isn’t?”
Frustrated—what a day it had been!—I answered, “You can’t compare the two.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because Janus wasn’t thinking about himself.”
“Brimm, Brimm, Brimm,” Jack waved me off. “Don’t be such an innocent. There isn’t a man alive who doesn’t act with self interest. Your friend did precisely what he wanted. No one was holding a gun to his head. The only difference between you and him is that he had the balls to get what he wanted without moralizing over whether or not the means justified the end,” Jack got up and walked to the southernmost side of the room and the gold spiral staircase. I watched him ascend, winding and stopping just shy of the ceiling—a good thirty feet above the floor—and turning, he sat on the top step with both legs dangling over the edge. From so far away I didn’t expect his voice to reach me, but the absence of walls and further furnishings inside the apartment created a cavernous expanse, allowing his words to ring down, resonant and clear. “So what exactly do you want from me?” he asked again.
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