Lay Saints

by Adam Connell

  She blew smoke past his ear. “Before you and I get started — ”

  “It’s not a problem for me.”

  “Will be, down the road,” she said.

  “I don’t mind it.”

  “Really?” she said with false ardor. “You’re the first person who ever — ”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Okay,” she said, grinned around the cigar and damn if she didn’t look like a banker. “They all say it’s fine and then it’s not.”

  “I don’t love it, but how you earn a living’s not my decision.”

  “I’ll take the honesty.”

  “It’s true, I never been with someone — ”

  “Who got naked for a living?”

  “It needs guts, doesn’t it, what you do.”

  “My mouth tastes like an ashtray but I want you to kiss me.”

  Some of the other smokers watched. Tamm was used to being watched but the attention made Calder uneasy. He closed his eyes, something he rarely did when kissing, even had the wherewithal to put his free hand on her hip. It was a dry kiss, but active and long.

  “I don’t live far from here,” she said. “Not making any promises, but why don’t you come up for a few minutes. It’s what” — she looked at her watch — “quarter to eleven.”

  Her one-bedroom was a few blocks east, on the third floor of a six-floor walk-up with a part-time doorman at night.

  First was the kitchen, clean but old. A white-enameled stove you’d need a match to light the pilot. The enamel was chipped. A cloth sofa in the living room, also old but well kept. No rips, no sneaky stuffing peeking out. Books on shelves that were bolted to the wall opposite.

  The walls were high and white. There were enlarged photos, glassed and lovingly framed, of dancers Calder wouldn’t have known if told their names. Also a vintage poster ad for an Arthur Murray Dance Studio franchise. The pipes invading from the ceiling were also painted white, to camouflage their industrial presence.

  The place had no odor, which Calder found odd. Everyone’s home has an odor you first walk in.

  They sat on the sofa, not too close together. She reached forwards and plucked the larger of two joints off the coffee table. She lit the fat end, took a hard inhale and didn’t release it for half a minute. It came out in the smooth, controlled stream of an expert.

  She passed the joint to Calder and said, “It’s okay if you don’t want.”

  “You seem to think I’m an impressionable toddler,” he said and took a deep drag. As he exhaled he said, “Don’t ever snort heroin, though.”

  Tamm’s head flew back and she laughed at the ceiling, crossing her legs up on the cushions. “No. Really?”

  “The worst night. Of my life. Not only did my nose burn, but my sinuses, even the back of my fucking head.”

  She slapped his knee, moved closer, stole the joint back. “Did you go to college? I went until I ran out of money.”

  “Not me.”

  “You didn’t run out of money?”

  “No college, not one class,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you, I was the Goth chick.” She was looking at the books on her wall, some of them had been with her since her stalled degree. “Dressed in black. Silver rings, bracelets, necklaces, black nail polish. Pale makeup, even the boys — macabre. I hung with the most reticent of outcasts. Some days, we wouldn’t even speak.”

  “And you cast spells.”

  She punched him again, this time a little stronger. “I still have the clothes. They still fit. It’s where I picked up smoking. Picked up,” she said, paused, “like it was litter. What a fucking stupid expression, picked up. Why didn’t you go? To college?”

  “At the time, I couldn’t be around so many people. I didn’t graduate high school.”

  “You’re too smart for me to believe that. You can tell me the truth our next date if you want.”

  She came to him, turned comfortably, put her mouth to his. They stayed in that position for close to ten minutes, pushing, retreating, building pressure against their lips and letting it subside. Her gown was looser, the belt gone he hadn’t noticed when. He drew circles on her bare upper leg with the edge of his palm.

  Calder was the one who pulled away.

  “This joint’s not gonna smoke itself,” she said, took a quick hit, passed it over.

  Calder held the joint in front of him. “You rolled this in Bible paper?”

  “Best kind, pages are so thin. Plus it’s a kick.”

  “So you know you’re going to Hell.”

  “I don’t believe in Hell,” she said.

  “But in Heaven.”

  “Yeah, Heaven, that’s real to me.”

  “Some very selective beliefs,” Calder said.

  “I’m a selective gal. But you’ll be going to Hell.”

  “Now I am,” he said, taking a hit off the heretical joint, giving it back to Tamm. “Forgot, two of your friends, they tried to threaten me today,” he said. “Black guy and a priest.”

  “Briggs and Lundin. They work at the club,” she said. “Some of the time they do.”

  “Some of the time they’re flying out to California, wherever, punish your boyfriends.”

  “California?”

  “He wasn’t specific on states, Lundin. He said your last boyfriend, the cheater with the plane.”

  “Baby,” she said and moved away from him a little. She gave him the joint, as if it was a tonic and he was going to need it. “My last boyfriend was a girlfriend. That was our next conversation. I’m bi, Calder.”

  “I fucking knew that story sounded too improvised.”

  “And I never dated no one had a plane.”

  “There was something about it.”

  “How do you feel, then, knowing my tastes?”

  “You like women and I like women. We have that in common. I’m here alone in your apartment, that means you have very good taste in men.”

  They kissed again, Tamm biting his lip as she drew away. “Most times I want a woman,” she said.

  He combed her hair back, held her by the waist, high enough to show he had no intention of groping her. She climbed on top of him, held his face in her hands. The gown rode up to the summit of her hips. “I’m not gonna give you a dance. I do that all day.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “You already got the one freebie.” She kissed his neck, hiding her face from him. “I’m not easy. I’ve had less partners than you think.”

  “It’s way too early for those confessions,” he said.

  “Something tells me, I’m not gonna want to hear your side.”

  “Way way too early.”

  She left his neck a slick mess, reached behind her for the ashtray, took another hit, gave it to Calder.

  “I want you to stay,” she said.

  “Stay,” he said, his throat heavy, then he exhaled.

  “Will you stay?”

  “I’d like to.”

  They finished the joint, burning their fingers on the roach because her old clip, a bobby pin, had snapped weeks ago.

  “Your toes,” Calder said, pointing, “they’re just a little bit ugly, all of them the wrong length.”

  It was a cruel observation but it made them laugh.

  Both were relaxed; their bodies, the room, had achieved the expected placidity.

  “Even if there’s no sex?” she said belatedly.

  “I’ve already seen you naked. For me that’s the best part.”

  “I don’t think so. Seeing someone naked, that is not the best part.”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” he said.

  back to top

  EIGHTEEN

  SATURDAY, late Lauds

  “What we should do, we should go in there,” Kinkaid said.

  “Oh you’re up,” Briggs said.

  Kinkaid tried to yawn but couldn’t. He stretched his arms across the backseat from window to window. “Who wouldn’t sleep, all this room. Plus we been here,” he c
hecked his watch, “six hours in the dark.”

  “Sun’s coming up,” Lundin said. They were parked in his Coronet close to Sotto’s bar, other side of the street and a block north. Lundin at the wheel, Briggs beside him.

  Kinkaid put his hands on the front passengers’ headrests. Leaned in. His sleep breath was terrible. Lundin shifted to the side, cracked the window.

  “Why’nt you go back to bed,” Lundin said.

  Kinkaid said, “You didn’t want me coming at all.”

  “We work together usually. Alone together,” Briggs said.

  “Until this thing is settled,” Kinkaid said, hanging over the two men, “I might emphatically just be around more. And Faraday. You heard him. The F word was mentioned, remember?”

  “He doesn’t want that, you with us,” Lundin said.

  “What he wants is completion so he can move on with his agenda.”

  “Another job’s lined up?” Briggs said.

  “Ask Faraday,” Kinkaid said. “No, wait, you don’t even ask him for raises, Lundin does that for you.” He sat back, spread his legs. “Let’s go in, the three of us for a morning cocktail. Something with juice. Bloody Mary, screwdriver.”

  “They’re not open,” Briggs said.

  “And they hate you,” Lundin said.

  “It’s only Sotto hates me. I’m still on good terms with the rest. I had friends there.”

  Lundin rolled his eyes. He played with the radio’s knobs but didn’t turn it on. Hungover, he didn’t need more noise than what was already in the car.

  “Why do you think this character’s gonna show?” Kinkaid said.

  “Because we saw him at Adelard’s,” Lundin said. “I know we did. Because he was at the club last night. I know he was, we chatted.”

  “Because Rook was there a few nights earlier picking fights,” Briggs said.

  “Iffy,” Kinkaid said. “Arguable.”

  “We been doing this sort of thing since before you ditched Sotto,” Briggs said. He loosened his white clerical collar (a new one) because his neck was damp. He would have liked a dry rag for it. He used deodorant; sometimes only that instead of showering.

  Lundin lit a cigarette, a Belgian Dreams. He was always smoking foreign cigarettes he got by the carton from an importer. It made him feel worldly, hah, a filthy habit exported from — mostly — friendly nations.

  “Please don’t smoke,” Kinkaid said.

  “Fucking Christ, in my own car,” Lundin said, rolled the window down and dropped the cigarette outside. “Know how much they cost?”

  “He’s around too much, this new kid, Tamm’s boyfriend,” Briggs said.

  Lundin rested his elbow on the door’s sill, rubbed his shaven head. He didn’t feel like explaining anything to Kink, but realized he had to. “Something about this kid, there’s a whiff of wrong to him.”

  “Tamm doesn’t think so,” Briggs said.

  Lundin projected an unspoken order for Briggs to quiet down.

  “What about Tamm?” Kinkaid said, sitting up. Gossip.

  Lundin stared out the window. He could smell his dying cigarette from the pavement. “She sat at his table last night.” For some reason he didn’t understand, Lundin decided to leave out their kiss.

  Kinkaid made a small, dismissive noise. “So he’s another mark. Thinks she’ll go home with him. And if she won’t go home with me, she’s an all-out lesbian. He’s working for Sotto, what good does our being here do?”

  “Well first we have to confirm it,” Lundin said. He was itching to pick that cigarette off the street and smoke what was left.

  “We don’t have a plan yet,” Briggs said. “The thing’s a garble.”

  “Then it’s good I’m here,” Kinkaid said.

  No one contradicted him. They sat in silence for a while, ignoring each other.

  Lundin rubbed his left arm, the bruise from where Briggs had punched him yesterday. There was a lump on the bone, his humerus.

  “For getting me in trouble with Faraday,” Briggs had said. “That’s all I’m gonna comment on the matter.”

  Lundin, holding his numb arm, had replied, “Well I’m glad you didn’t comment any louder, I’d be in a cast. Shit, Briggs, that hurt.”

  “I’m not gonna say any more, neither are you.”

  “Ow,” Lundin had said. “Jesus, ow.”

  In the car with Kinkaid and Briggs, Lundin realized he hadn’t seen the punch coming, which surprised him as much as the punch had earlier.

  He left the lump alone, turned to Briggs and said, “I met a guy at The Hangar.”

  “I don’t wanna hear this,” Kinkaid said.

  “Nice guy, tall. Seemed nice but I’m hoping he’s not. I’m so sick of nice.”

  Briggs turned to him. “Name?”

  “Cian, Irish like you. A nice white boy. Maybe nice.”

  Kinkaid said, “Please stop there.”

  “Blond, which surprised me,” Lundin said, his voice rising. “Built. He came up to me.”

  “Save your fairy tales for when I’m not around,” Kinkaid said.

  “This is my car.”

  “In which I’m currently inside.”

  “Why are you here again?” Lundin said.

  Kink shook his head. “Ten minutes awake and I’m sick of you both. Briggs, hear some good confession lately? What church are you at, I should come visiting.”

  “I am currently in between churches at the moment.”

  “Defrocked?” Kink said.

  “No, I’m frocked,” Briggs said. “Right now, with Lundin and all of you, I’m with,” he brought his hands together, “with The Church of Life and Miracles.”

  “Such utter bullshit,” Kinkaid said. “I’d have more respect for you, you were a priest in the Church of Scientology. Anyway, I haven’t a thing to confess. I’m pure as swans.”

  “Exxon Valdez swans,” Lundin said.

  “I used to have a guy come in, a crier,” Briggs said. “He’s like the hypochondriac of confessors. Thinks everything he does it’s a sin. Saw him all the time.”

  “There,” Kink said, ducking and pointing at the bar.

  The twins came through the door and walked uptown together.

  “Never had much to do with them,” Briggs said. “Don’t know much about them, ’cept they look alike, sort of, ’cept for the skin and hair.”

  “Egotists,” Kinkaid said.

  “Did they see us just now?” Briggs said.

  “They always work together. And date the same woman,” Kinkaid said. “They’re deviants like you, Lundin.”

  “Definitely more my speed than you both,” Lundin said, smiling cavernous dimples in the rearview mirror.

  “But they never killed no one,” Kinkaid said.

  “Then I suppose I’m ahead,” Lundin said.

  “What about Sotto?” Briggs said. “He kill anyone to get where he is?”

  “I’ll tell you boys something about Sotto you didn’t know,” Kinkaid said. He sat up. That breath again. Lundin took his air from outside. “Sotto doesn’t know who his Daddy is.”

  “Who says Daddy, at your age?” Lundin said.

  “His Mom, she was raped when she’s thirteen, fifteen. Underage, like it matters. Sent him to live with relatives in Russia. They’ve got a great tradition for people like us. Like you and me, not Briggs, I mean. Dread Nina, for one.”

  “That’s a disgusting story,” Briggs said. “The one thing I don’t condone is rape.”

  “Killed herself, too. That’s what I call a well-rounded story.” He moved back, sat sidesaddle, legs up on the seats, head on the door. “Came to the States early, Sotto, wound up in a psych ward.”

  The hospital was real history, the rest a lie Kinkaid had told so many people so many times he’d come to fool himself into believing it as fact, the Russia part.

  “Any other Sotto secrets you keeping?” Lundin said.

  “See, you fellas do like having me here. I’m a fountain.”

  “You’r
e a traitor,” Briggs said and Kinkaid shot forwards, arms out, hands for Briggs’ neck.

  Lundin swiveled in time, blocked Kink and shoved him away.

  Kinkaid was scarlet. “Lundin, he takes that back or I wipe his cerebrum, cerebellum, whichever, entirely.”

  “Briggs, go get us some jamoke,” Lundin said.

  “Take it back, Briggs.”

  Briggs looked at both of them.

  “Three coffees,” Lundin said. “Black. Here’s a tenner.”

  “I’ll buy next time,” Kinkaid said.

  “The next time you buy will be the first time,” Lundin said.

  “I’ll take mine with Half & Half,” Kinkaid said to Briggs.

  Briggs got out and walked around to the curb, then poked his head in Lundin’s window before going into the bodega. “You know,” Briggs said, “in a fair fight I’d kick your ass, Kink.”

  “Don’t call me that, and I don’t fight fair,” Kinkaid said. “You’ve just made an enemy you don’t want.”

  “I like enemies,” Briggs said, then went into the store.

  “He will apologize,” Kinkaid said. “He’ll do it because he needs to, not because I’ll make him. He’ll — ”

  “What’s he got to apologize for? You are a traitor,” Lundin said. He readied himself for an attack that never came. He listened to Kink making small, quiet movements back there.

  “No one drinks coffee in my car excepting it’s black,” Lundin said.

  “You’ve got balls,” Kinkaid said softly. “He’s got bigger ones, but you’ve got ’em too.”

  “Everyone works for Faraday’s got balls. Different sizes, but balls.”

  “I’d go on and tell you why I left Sotto but it’s none of your matter.”

  “I don’t care why. I wasn’t asking.”

  “You could have defended me but you didn’t,” Kinkaid said. “Maybe that’s two new enemies I got me this morning.”

  “Be a grown-up and let it go.”

  “I’m not a traitor.”

  “You’re not a traitor.” Sarcastic, but said straight.

  “Thank you for that,” Kinkaid said and petted Lundin’s shoulder.

  Briggs returned with the coffees, got inside without spilling any, held the first one out for Kinkaid.