by Patrick Ness
—Where did they go?
And again she had no answer.
14. Peter on the Move.
Peter Wickham unplugged the charger from his motorcycle and maneuvered out of the garage. His waiter’s uniform was neatly folded into a back compartment. Underneath his protective jacket and helmet, he was dressed in an expensive pair of black pants and a white, frilled shirt that was ridiculous. Big Boss Thomas Banyon had selected it though and thus discussion of its merits stopped there.
Peter had been brought from over the border the year before by Thomas Banyon, ostensibly as a waiter, but really because one of Thomas’ regular young bucks had the gall to go and get himself murdered, under circumstances Thomas preferred not to spell out, leaving him short one Rumour boy to lease for general entertainment. Thomas’ experience was such, though, that the word ‘general’ rarely applied for long, and Peter ended up being not quite so ‘general’ after all. It turned out that Peter had a member just subtly shaped, curved, and pliant enough to be a perfect fit for those male and female clients whose tastes tended towards the mysterious pleasures of the anus. Thomas being Thomas, Peter had to work as a waiter anyway, so tonight he had pulled a full shift at Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort’s Savannah Restaurant before heading out to what had turned into a regularly scheduled Wednesday-night clip. He pushed the cycle onto the freeway out of town heading for the immaculate but somehow sad home of one Luther Pickett, businessman.
Peter was remarkably unresentful of his clips. He wasn’t foolish enough to ever believe that Thomas Banyon would for one second make good on his promises of releasing Peter after the three-year work permit was up when Peter would be able, theoretically anyway, to look for work away from his sponsor. Peter brought in too much money and too many intangibles to the Golf Course and Resort, and he was well aware he would be used until his looks, talents, and penis were no longer so often requested. But that was the future; it would take care of itself. He shared in none of the griping the other employees of Hennington made about old men with bad smells or fat women with pudgy, inept fingers.
There was no doubt Peter had gone through his share of awful clips: the woman who, after sex, had walked into her bathroom and calmly died of a cerebral hemorrhage; the teenage boy who, halfway through the act, had begun to insist that Peter start punching him; the man who had held him at gunpoint demanding that Peter fuck his large, blonde dog, not believing Peter when he told the man that he had requested the wrong employee. Thomas, in an act that could have been mistaken for kindness, had released this last man from the clip list. You never threatened the entertainment. Never. Unless, of course, that was your particular brand of entertainment.
Despite all this, as Peter drove towards Luther’s home, he was heartened, even a little excited. Though never having been with a man during his whole life across the border, Peter had unexpectedly made the rookie mistake of falling dangerously and recklessly in love with Luther Pickett, the boss’ stepbrother. Somehow, through his three or four clips during the week, through all the fakery and fucking he performed, through all the varying degrees of hygiene and taste that he put up with, this regular Wednesday appointment made up for it all.
He rounded a long curve in the freeway and slid down the offramp. He turned up into the hills, humming to himself as he went. Luther’s house was at the end of a private road, removed from most neighbors and traffic. A lovely house, Peter thought for the nth time as he parked his bike to the side of the garage. When he walked around to the front door, Luther was already there, waiting for him.
—Peter.
—Hey, Luther.
They kissed.
—Come in. I made chook. Hope you’re hungry.
Here was another thing: Luther Pickett seemed to be the only clip in the history of Hennington Hills to make dinner for the entertainment.
—Smells good.
—I hope so. I’m a little worried about the spices.
They stopped at the entrance to the kitchen for a longer embrace and kiss.
—It’s good to see you.
—I’m very glad to be here.
And there was the sad look again, the look that had caused Peter to fall.
—What’s wrong?
A laugh.
—Oh, you know, the usual.
—Yes, but you never tell me ‘the usual'.
—Just a little personal failure today. Nothing to worry about. Here, take off your jacket. Get comfortable.
—Do you like this shirt?
—Sure.
—You don’t have to lie.
—Then, no.
—I don’t like it either. Banyon insisted I wear it. Said it was all the fashion, as if he would know. Do you have a T-shirt I could borrow?
—Absolutely.
Luther disappeared for a moment and returned with a shirt. He watched while Peter changed. He sighed.
—Are you sure nothing’s up?
—I’m sure. Don’t worry about it. We’re here to have a good time.
‘We', thought Peter.
—Why don’t we eat then? And after that, I can help you relax.
—I’m all for that plan.
Luther smiled, and there was genuine warmth in it, Peter was sure.
15. An Offer.
—Good veal. Your room service has performed well, Eugene. —First I’ve ever had.
—First room service?
—First veal. I’m Rumour. We don’t normally go for veal.
—Oh, that’s right. It’s seafood or nothing, isn’t it?
—The Official Entrée of the Rumour Nation.
—And what nation would that be?
—A hypothetical one, so far.
—So far? There are ambitions afoot to make it not hypothetical?
—If you believe my father.
—Do you?
—Do I what?
—Believe your father.
—Before or after he died?
—Either.
—Then no and no.
—Ah, the bitterness of youth. We’re ignoring the, what is this?, crumb cake would be my best guess. —Blueberry-cinnamon bundt.
—How very exact.
—I work here. I’ve seen the menu.
Jon cut his way into the bundt with a knife. A quivering blueberry goo slumped out of the middle of the slice.
—I think that’s as far as I’m willing to go.
—You’re not going to eat it?
—Look at it.
—It looks good.
Eugene cut himself an enormous piece. He seemed so pleased while eating it that Jon could have sworn he heard him humming. He was humming. A tune, even.
—What are you humming?
—What?
—That song. What are you humming?
—I’m not humming.
—Yes, you were. Just now.
—No, I wasn’t.
Said with an unusual sternness that Jon took as a dismissal of the subject. So be it.
—All right then. You weren’t.
—It’s almost eight. I should be going.
—There’s no need for that just yet.
—I thought you had somewhere to go, too.
—Not tonight.
—Why would you spend the first night of your vacation in a hotel room?
—It’s not a vacation. I told you, I’m visiting an old friend.
—Well, still. Why stay here? Why not visit your friend?
—I have found out she’s occupied this evening.
—She?
—She. Old passion from my past, I’m afraid.
—And she doesn’t know you’re coming so that’s why she’s occupied.
—How very observant from one who has seemed heretofore so opaque. I mean that as a friend.
—No, I know fuck all about most things. My girlfriend just dumped me.
—?-ha. So you’re currently attuned to the caprice that is occasionally named ‘woman'.
—What?
—Women can sometimes ruin you.
—Goddamn right.
He angrily speared another quivering bite of bundt.
—What do you want to be, Eugene?
Eugene smiled sourly, blueberries in his teeth.
—You mean when I grow up?
—How old are you?
—Twenty.
—Then, yes, definitely, when you grow up.
—I don’t know.
—Surely there must be something.
—Nope.
—At all?
—At all. I wanted to be a musician. I’m a bass player.
—If you are a bass player, then why the past tense? Sounds like you’re already a musician.
—Fuck it, I don’t want to talk about it.
—Surely you don’t want to work here the rest of your life?
Eugene said nothing, shoving more bundt into his mouth.
—How would you like to come and work for me?
—You just met me.
—I’m an excellent judge of people.
—Not if you’re offering me a job.
—Self-deprecation is more destructive than you can possibly imagine, Eugene.
—A job doing what?
—Being my assistant.
—I’m flattered, but like I said—
—Look, I don’t want to bed you or your single-tracked mind.
He turned his full gaze on Eugene. Apple-green eyes resting in a lined, deeply tanned face. Cropped salt-and-pepper hair pulling back from strong temples. A small nose resting above a generously lipped mouth. A chin that only seemed on the weaker side until you heard the voice pouring from above it. Eugene began to sweat. He felt his skin pulling into goosebumps. He was entranced, trapped.
—I am not an average man, Eugene, and I don’t mean that in a boastful way. In fact, it has often worked to my detriment, but I do know a few things. My destiny is here in Hennington. I’m not prepared to share that destiny just yet but know this, I am not mistaken, misled, or delusional. I’m not just offering you a job, Eugene, I’m offering you a chance. A chance to be there.
And then it was gone, vanishing like steam off an athlete. Jon leaned back and smiled with a casualness that seemed to emerge from nowhere. Eugene could only cough for a moment before he spoke.
—Why me?
—Why not you?
—Why would you want me to work for you?
—I’m not sure. Doesn’t it seem right, though?
—You just met me.
—So you’ve said. I told you. I’m a good judge of people.
—I just met you.
Jon shrugged.
—You’ve got blueberry dribbling down your chin, Eugene.
It was a full moment before Eugene took his napkin and wiped the blue conflagration from his face, but by then he was already a former employee of the Solari Hotel.
16. Why Archie Banyon Feels the Way He Does About Women.
—Maybe I can talk her out of it. It’s not too late. Ballot’s not for another four months. She could get a waiver on registration. Tell the people she’s reconsidered because of their support. She’d be re-elected by fucking acclamation if it came to that. She’s fifty-eight years old. She’s got at least two more terms in her. Three, even.
Archie Banyon’s limo was caught in traffic, which meant that Jules was going to have to listen to even more of this blather than usual.
—I’ve known her for ages now. Ages. Since before she was Mayor. She was my lawyer, don’t you know, and a right pain in the ass she was then. Right pain in the ass she is now, but a damn fine Mayor. Damn fine. She shouldn’t be retiring. Don’t trust that Max. Seems like a nice enough kid, but ‘kid’ is the problem word there. Cora’s got more sense than Max does. Hell, Max’s little whipper’s got more sense than Max does, and she’s what, ten?
—Maybe the Mayor wants some time with her family.
—What fucking family? She’s got Albert and whatever stud they’re currently fucking. That’s not family. That’s not even a card game.
—Would it be out of place for me to ask you to cut down on the cursing?
—Yes.
—I thought so.
—I don’t understand people who get power and then just give it up. Just say, ‘Oh, what the fuck, I just don’t want it anymore. I’m retiring.
He literally spat the last word, contemptuous saliva hitting the limo’s floor.
—Not everyone’s like you, Mr Banyon.
—And thank God for that. What a pain in the ass the world would be then.
—Would it be out of place for me to agree with you?
—Out loud, yes.
—I thought so.
—And what for the love of God does she see in Max?
—If you don’t mind me saying so, your opposition to Max Latham seems out of proportion to anything he’s done.
—I’m not against Max Latham. I’m for Cora Larsson.
—And why would that be exactly? Again? Sir?
Archie’s history was populated by the ghosts of dead women. He should have known something when his first wife was named Belladonna. Archie and Belladonna married young and desperately in love. Belladonna, whose formidable bearing and pomegranate lipstick eschewed any attempt at a nickname, gave birth to four daughters in rapid succession: Dolores, Soledad, Ariadne, and Proserpina, Belladonna’s sense of humor showing an appealingly dark shade. When Thomas was born, Archie intervened. Belladonna had wanted to call him Actaeon.
Archie’s mother, who had died when Archie was a teenager but who at the time of his wedding could be dealt with as a sad memory rather than the ominous beginning to a macabre chain, had been strict and loving with Archie until her death, instilling him with confidence, kindness, and a respect for self, a parenting trick that Archie was constantly sad not to have learned. Archie’s mother was the reason he loved women so much and also the reason for the manner in which he loved them. Not in the big-rack-hot-ass sort of way that his friends so perplexingly did. Archie just found them easier to talk to, easier to share a meal with, easier to take advice from. It was clear to everyone that Archie had found a wondrous and powerful match in Belladonna, a brilliant, passionate, dark-eyed lawyer who was the only daughter in a family of eight sons.
Belladonna’s misfortune was to thumb her nose at fate one too many times. One day, when Poison and her daughters Pain, Solitude, Corrupted Innocence and Bad Marriage were sunbathing on the fourth-story roof of Archie’s northeast Hennington estate, an earthquake opened up the ground and reduced the building and the five women to rubble. Archie had been inspecting a vineyard on a horse which hadn’t even thrown him during the tumult. Thomas turned up later full of unsatisfactory explanations.
Archie’s grief, a deep and powerful thing even if he hadn’t been by then the richest man in Hennington, was finally only mollified by an endocrinologist called Maureen Whipple, a name Archie thought inoffensive enough not to anger the gods. Copper haired with copper-rimmed eyeglasses, Maureen was an amateur lepidopterist and singularly devoid of risky imagination. But she liked Archie quite a bit, and he liked her quite a bit right back. Eleven days after their fourth wedding anniversary, she was killed when a derailing train hurtled through her windshield.
Archie’s third wife, Anna Grabowski, about whom the less said the better, barely made it down the aisle before perishing in a trapeze mishap.
His fourth wife was a devil-may-care whirlwind named May Ramshead. Eight years older than Archie, she was a zoologist with a wild streak. She rappelled off of cliffs, swam with sharks, and had spent time as a rodeo clown. Two and a half years of blissful marriage later, May died peacefully in her sleep when her heart failed.
Archie finally took the hint and settled, at age sixty, for a single life with female friends. That was when he met and hired Cora Larsson. Contrary to the whisperings of those few existing enemies of Cora, Archie wasn’t responsible for Cora’s success. True, Archie had sent Cora poking into s
ome fishy business dealings of then-Mayor Jacob Johnson, but it was Cora who had followed the now-infamous trail to the mysterious death of Johnson’s father and the millions stashed away in accounts under the name of Johnson’s mistress, a story so familiar it needs no rehashing here.
It was, however, Archie’s suggestion, with a helping hand from Albert, that Cora run for Mayor some twenty years ago. Archie was thirty years Cora’s senior, but he was, if the truth be known, in love with her and always had been. Thank goodness she was already married to Albert and also that Archie realized marriage to him meant certain death. He merely had to be her friend. He gave her money and advice when she ran for Mayor and threw the inaugural ball when she won. She was also the reason Banyon Enterprises hadn’t cheated the city in over two decades. Archie respected her too much to ever want to face the disappointment of her certain litigation. He loved her, and that was that, more than enough reason to support her.
—What’s with this traffic?
—It seems to be clearing up, sir.
—Thank God for that.
—Yes, sir. Thank God, indeed.
17. ‘The Tale of Rufus and Rhonda'.
—How’s your head, baby?
—I want to cut it off.
—But then you wouldn’t have one at all.
—I don’t care.
—Medicine’s not helping?
—I guess. It makes me tired.
—Try to sleep, then.
—I can’t keep my mind clear. It races and races and it’s all just thing after thing after thing.
—That’s the fever, darling. It can’t be helped.
—I’m so tired.
—Do you want me to tell you a story?
—Don’t you think I’m a little old for that?
—Do you think you’re a little old for that?
—Depends on the story.
—I’ll make it age-appropriate, how about that?
—Maybe.
—Okay, let’s see. ‘There was once a girl named Talon …’
—Stop. I don’t want to be the heroine.
—Why not?
—I just don’t. Please?
Max thought for a minute.
—All right. How about this?
There once was a great king called Rufus the Swarthy. (—What was he king of?) He was king of all the land. (—Which land?) He was king of all the Southern Lands. (—What were they called? —Just flow with me here, Talon.) He had arisen to the throne after his father was killed in a great war with the people to the North that had raged on and on for generations. King Rufus didn’t believe in war. (—That’s a pacifist, right? —Very good.) He had seen war take the lives of all of his friends and classmates and all the rest of the young men in his land. Now it had taken the life of his father, and King Rufus decided enough was enough. He was going to end the war, once and for all.