by Adam Connell
Kinkaid thought he’d kill Faraday before he quit smoking. And it might come to that anyway, the track his mind was on.
Faraday stared at him through the smoke in such a way that Kinkaid knew not to bring up Emmie in the context of the drive again.
Faraday signaled towards Iommi and the next audition went onstage. The music started again, this time a slower song to match a slower routine. Mazzy Star’s “Give You My Lovin”.
Briggs and Lundin walked up behind them.
Faraday turned around. “I been waiting for you both, two days now.”
Briggs said, “We were being diminut — ”
“Showing initiative,” Lundin said.
“The contract, me and Kinkaid decided we’ll take it,” Faraday said. “I’m giving it to you.”
“Thanks, thank you,” Lundin said. “We actually, we, Briggs and me already started. You left it at the club, other night. I read it.”
“Initiative,” Faraday said. “Good. Where’d you start?”
“I wish I could say it went smooth.”
“You wish you could,” Faraday said, standing up. His voice was drowning the music. “What happened, Lundin.”
“Might have seen it on the news this morning,” Briggs said.
“On the fucking news? Lundin?”
“Adelard, I couldn’t get through,” Lundin said.
Kinkaid was watching as if from a peephole in another room.
“Adelard!” Faraday picked up a table and threw it behind him, nearly striking the woman onstage. Iommi and the second bouncer carried her off, telling her she could get her clothes lying on the floor in awhile. Hope Sandoval was still singing.
“Tell me, please, you did not approach this Adelard,” Faraday said.
Lundin said, “He’s the only person directly named on the — ”
“Not to approach,” Faraday yelled. “Directly named as the one person not to — ”
“His name was on the — ”
“It was a fucking caveat, Lundin. A rider,” Faraday said. “Did you read the contract or didn’t you?”
“I read it, I — ”
“You better go see a fucking optician this afternoon. It said leave the guy alone. Lundin!”
“Doesn’t matter then,” Lundin said. “No harm done.”
“How is that?”
“So tell us,” Kinkaid said.
Lundin did his best, describing sensations more than events, cautiously, not glossing or glossing over. Faraday would be able to tell.
Lundin ended with, “Our Adelard’s a Stone. So it doesn’t matter we saw him.”
“Oh don’t be an amateur,” Faraday said.
“He’s like Iommi,” Lundin said, arms crossed. “There was no getting through, and I’m good at getting through.”
“A Stone, Jesus, listen to you,” Faraday said. “Know how obscenely uncommon they are? Iommi’s most likely the only one in this country.”
“Well now there’s at least two. Luckily.”
Faraday was leaning on the nearest table, palms down. He arched towards Briggs. “You, what were you doing in all this?”
“I subdued the wife,” Briggs said. “Then the Council Speaker, so Lundin could work.”
Kinkaid pointed at Lundin. “Cause he’s not strong enough. Physically.”
“Fuck off, Kink,” Lundin said. “You’re so stocky?”
“The news, you say. The wife,” Faraday said. “It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning. You’re sure it was Adelard, the Council Speaker?”
“An honest mistake,” Lundin said.
“You don’t make mistakes,” Faraday yelled. “I don’t allow you mistakes, honest or dishonest. The most important Council Member?”
“It was his name — ”
“Stop. Stop saying that,” Faraday said.
“At least we’re lucky that — ”
“Don’t say that again, either.” Faraday threw another table onstage. “What you can do me is a favor. Don’t do me any more favors. Don’t take any more fucking initiative. I got the contract back from Iommi this morning cause like an idiot, I accidentally left it here for you and your bad eyes to read.”
Faraday used his own talents to calm himself down. “I thought I could leave it to you and Briggs. Now I might have to get involved. Fuck you for that.”
THIRTEEN
Friday, Sext
In the afternoon, Calder met Sotto at a local Chinese restaurant. It had menus but also a long, clean buffet, blinding metal and glass like a new car. Asian waitresses in red faux-silk gowns were grouped near the kitchen doors, showing little interest in the customers.
Sotto had gotten them a table for four. The twins arrived a few minutes later.
“You’re eager to tell me what happened,” Sotto said.
“Actually I’m not,” Calder said.
The twins looked at him together.
“Let’s order first,” Sotto said and reeled in one of the waitresses. He chose the dishes.
“He’s always doing that,” said Attila, the darker twin. The one with the tan, dyes his hair.
“Because I know how to eat,” Sotto said.
Calder gave the waitress his menu, they all did, and she went into the kitchen.
Two stout Chinese men came into the room through a door in the backbar. The twins got up and went over.
“A job,” Sotto told Calder. “Why we’re here.”
Calder had brought his satchel with the heraldic shears. He lifted it off the floor, onto one of the empty seats. “And the food?” Calder said.
“It’s a good restaurant. An old one. Been here since before the subways but it won’t be here long. This’ll be my last time.”
Calder put his napkin on his knee. “How do your clients find you?”
“Do we advertise, that what you’re asking?”
“Just seems like word of mouth wouldn’t be enough.”
Sotto didn’t put the napkin on his knee; he liked it handy to wipe the corners of his mouth. “What happened in Queens?”
Calder sighed, and instantly regretted it. He knew a sigh meant weakness. “I tapped him lightly, to see what was there, but he had no echo. I’ve never seen that before, and I’ve tapped hundreds.”
“Describe it,” Sotto said.
“How do you describe a void?”
“Avoid?”
“Nothingness,” Calder said. “It was the absence of thought. There was no grip to be had.”
The soup came. Sotto slurped it — too damn loud — while Calder continued talking. This is why you don’t eat soup on a first date. Or pasta. The two most obnoxious dishes because they’re so hard to eat quietly.
“So I tried to circumvent, go for his memories. Reach back to bring something forward, something to use.”
“And didn’t find anything.” Sotto wiped his wet chin with the napkin.
See?
Calder watched the twins speaking with the two owners, also twins, at the bar.
“Sporting goods place next door, family-owned,” Sotto said, “they want to expand into here. Next they’ll work the building’s owner, Attila and Piker. Adelard had no memories?”
“Like reading an infant,” Calder said. “I’ve read babies, and it was the same kind of null.”
“So then you went drastic and surfaced empty.”
“I put a shriek into him. He didn’t even hear it.” Calder started on his soup. “What does it mean?”
Sotto lifted the bowl to his lips and finished his soup that way. Set the bowl down, wiped his chin again. “Adelard’s a Stone.”
“Fucking yes he was. Like a mountain.”
“A Stone. He’s one of us. Kind of the opposite, technically.”
Calder shoved his soup away. “The opposite. There’s no way to read him? Influence him at all?”
“Jesus Christ, a fucking Stone,” Sotto said. “We’ll have to give the client the money back.”
“I never heard this before.”
“You never been around your own before. Faraday has one. Doesn’t do much with him, but he’s got one.”
A different waitress came to clear the table. Sotto was musing, so Calder said nothing. He looked again at the bar. One of the owners was gone.
“There’s no way around this then,” Sotto said. “We have to figure out what to do with you. I have to — ” His eyes came to life. “Tell me something about yourself you’d be embarrassed for me to know.”
“This another interview?”
“I hardly know you, Calder.”
Calder put his hands on the table, moved his silverware about. “I’ve worked in many morgues, and for a lot of medical examiners. All across this great country.”
“Doing what?”
“Admissions, releases. The pay is good, very good for a nomad.”
“The bodies didn’t bother you? Don’t they smell?”
“The smell you get used to. It’s not the decomposition that bothers but the chemicals. People don’t realize that. You know, like standing in a hot shower for a while, you don’t even feel it’s too hot. Funeral directors, too.”
“Undertakers,” Sotto said.
“Funeral directors,” Calder said. “They prefer that, less gruesome. It’s where I learned to cut hair.” He nodded at the satchel. “Plus it’s good cover, getting into hospitals.”
The main dishes were brought to the table.
“What about the morgues? The bodies? Besides the odor,” Sotto said.
“Morgues are peaceful. You’ve never been. Most people, they’re only ever there once, passing through. Peaceful, like cemeteries, and I’ve worked them, too.”
“You can’t seem to get away from the dead.”
“I tried. I’m not morbid. It took me a long time to find quiet inside, I couldn’t handle big cities but I needed to work someth — ”
“You found yourself a solution.”
“What was yours?” Calder said.
Sotto tipped half an oily brown shrimp dish onto his plate. “I was in psychiatric hospitals till I was about thirty. All everyone’s voices in my head, they were sure I was schizophrenic.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All the drugs they try, they don’t know where you’re broken. Hoping one’ll stick. I learned how to pretend. Spent a year coming down off the drugs outside.”
“How’s that a solution?”
“In comparison to the drugs, being off them I was able to differentiate better. A lot better. It was age, I guess.”
“Not one doctor — ”
“A few of them, but they wouldn’t say so. Something about Horatio, philosophies. Medicine has no room for you and me.”
“We’ve each of us had it hard,” Calder said.
Sotto didn’t respond.
They ate in multiplying silence.
Eventually Sotto said something: “We have to decide what to do about Calder.”
“Is that right?” Calder said with an uncertain smile.
“It’s no joke,” Sotto said. “I whispered sweet nothings, I threatened you into this.”
“I could have left.”
“I needed you for a reason, Faraday’s men don’t know who you are.”
“And still don’t.”
“There’s no way around the Council Speaker’s being a Stone,” Sotto said. “There’s just no way around it. But you find a way. The contract is, what you need to do is turn Adelard. Don’t even mind the vote. Plus you saw the news — it’s definite Faraday’s involved now.”
“I haven’t watched TV since I been here.”
“Break-in at Adelard’s home, two men, one black. That would be Briggs and that would be Lundin. Do you want to stay?”
“I’d like to, I’ve taken this on. The city — ”
“Is a beast if you let it.”
“I don’t know if I can stay,” Calder said.
“You’d prefer morgues.”
“I been out of morgues for awhile, like you been away from those doctors.”
“The topic of doctors,” Sotto said. “I been to some hospitals, some of the clinics for days now. How I found you. Passed over one woman wasn’t sturdy enough.”
“I’ve never been called sturdy,” Calder said.
“Wanted a head start, someone Faraday’s men wouldn’t know, but they’ll realize soon anyway. What I realized, we’re anemic. Faraday has so many more troops and I’m starting to wonder what I could do with more bodies. More contracts. But young bodies, people I can mold and control.”
“I’m not sure you’d get either with me.”
“Or from anyone I currently have, why I’m still looking.” Sotto waved his hands quickly. “Not for this contract, that’s yours. Faraday has the other side of this Council contract, and probably the better side. More lucrative side. Meaning more than just Adelard to sway, but the whole vote. He has the men for it.”
“Money is good,” Calder said.
“Money’s many things. Stay away from the twins, I’m not around. Wasn’t for me, overbearing, they’d take on any miscreant wanted something depraved. That money I don’t want, cretins for customers. I’m not running an atrocity exhibition.”
“No thanks, me either,” Calder said.
“Still haven’t proven yourself to me,” Sotto said. “I can’t bring you in till you’ve done something. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. Ask yourself if you want to stay, and how bad.”
“I’m not sure that I do. What kind of proving do you need?”
“Come up with some way to get at Adelard.”
“The Stone.”
“Who said anything was easy?”
“And if I don’t want this? The city, you?”
“Leave the five boroughs. Stay, and we’d hound you. Honestly, that you don’t want. Because with us you couldn’t know what’s real and what isn’t. It wouldn’t be personal, but I lost a man to Faraday. Two I couldn’t abide.” He stood up, straightened his shirt. “I’m gonna go. There’s food here, two soups going cold, finish it.”
back to top
FOURTEEN
Friday, early None
“You have to let me die.”
“There’s no way am I gonna let you die.”
“It’s what I want, so let it happen. All you have to do” — cough, a real throaty one — “is step back and let it.”
Faraday shook his head. “Dad, no fucking way.”
“I had the energy, I’d do it myself. We both do nothing, it’ll happen on its own. And soon, pray to God.”
They were inside the club, near the second and older bar. The one father preferred cause it was all wood and craftsmanship. Like the door to Faraday’s study, it had been taken from somewhere else, somewhere with history. Delmonico’s. Faraday was on a stool, his Dad in a wheelchair that seemed like part of his body. Looking like FDR in that chair, blanket on his lap it was the height of summer.
When he coughed up bloody phlegm his nurse was there with a handkerchief. She combed his hair absently, as if he were a dog resting from hard play with children much younger.
“You want me, I should go on hawking up bits of myself into rags? Rags I can’t even hold on my own? These hands.”
Faraday shifted on the stool so he could bend down and put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Hoone’s back out there, he’s looking for someone can fix you.”
“Like the others.”
Faraday didn’t get angry. He wouldn’t let himself. “They weren’t strong. Hoone’s on the hunt for someone stronger.”
“I should be with your mother.”
Why does self-pity come with old age? It’s why people who pity themselves in middle age seem so much older.
“Mom,” Faraday said, “she’d be here with you she went to a doctor a day in her life. Cirrhosis can’t be cured, but a doctor could spot it. And the way she went … ”
“Where’s Jace?” Another coughing fit that this time rocked his wheelchair. The nurse, bored but attentive, was th
ere with the handkerchief. She loathed the feel of his rough lips through the cloth.
“He works days, Dad, and he hates Tattletail.”
“Feeling sorry for myself. I’m sorry for that, you should see me like this. I’m sorry for you.”
“No you’re not.”
His father let out a painful laugh and Faraday felt guilty for the joke.
“Least now things are slower you said you’d have more time to spend with me, before or after that trip.”
Adelard walked into the club.
Faraday looked around, making sure Briggs and Lundin weren’t there. One of the bouncers — name of Dowd, not Iommi the Stone — showed Adelard to a table. Dowd had the body of Bibendum the Michelin Man.
Adelard was given a seat facing the empty stages.
Faraday nodded at the nurse, then at the door. He walked over to Adelard, shook the man’s hand, sat down.
He was well aware that it was a terrible idea inviting the Council Speaker to the club. A clear violation of the contract’s only caveat, broken by Lundin and Briggs’ eagerness. He wasn’t going to tamper with the man, he just had to know if Lundin was right, was Adelard really a Stone.
“I saw the news this afternoon,” Faraday said.
“Out of the blue,” Adelard said. His face was puffed where Briggs had repeatedly hit him. Purple and red on his cheeks, and under the right eye. “In a good neighborhood, too, I don’t live in a ghetto. Been fifteen years since a robbery in a ten-block radius. I looked it up.”
Faraday tried to appear concerned and did a crackerjack job of it. “Obviously you were assaulted.”
“The big one, in a Halloween priest’s getup, he hurled my wife — She fainted. Never a day in her life did she faint. Swoon. Women swoon, right? Men faint? A brother with leukemia, her parents dead in a car crash. Never once. Held me down on the carpet. The other one, the black one, he stared at me while I fought.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Faraday said.
“I’m not okay,” Adelard said. “Police are on top of this, believe it.”
“But no permanent damage.”
“Alarm company’s dragging my house into this century. As we speak. And the police, like I said.”
“What’d they take? It was a burglary?”