Lay Saints

by Adam Connell

  “I hope you haven’t waited long, I hope I’ll make it worth the wait.”

  They shook hands in a circle. Rook gave Adelard false names.

  Adelard led Mr. Osprey and son to a cubicle with corner windows.

  They sat, Adelard behind his desk. “What kind of car you interested in?”

  “A Honda,” Calder said. Junior Adelard laughed; he’d heard that line a thousand times, but he laughed.

  “Well you’re lucky, we’ve got those.” He smiled. Big and white.

  “Your Mom, she’s a Pisces,” Rook said. “February twenty-first?”

  “Twentieth,” Adelard said.

  Rook had been incorrect on purpose, to make it more real.

  “That’s weird you should know that.”

  “Salesman of the month, last three running,” Calder said.

  Adelard looked around for the plaques, but they’d been taken down to make way for colorful company bunting. Sales, sales, sales.

  “Yes, three months. I was surprised. My wife, her too. How di — ”

  “You’ve always been jealous of your brother,” Rook said.

  “Who, Rutland, that turd? He’s jealous of me. Why ar — ”

  “No, jealous of Chatham in D.C., where your Dad’s proud he is,” Rook said.

  Adelard’s face was rigid. “That was funny till the last part. You should both look into a Chrysler, across the street. What are you, scammers?”

  “Devils,” Rook said, “we’re devils.”

  Calder soothed Adelard while Rook spoke. “A car, for my son here. He doesn’t listen to me but when I said I was buying he sure enough decided to come along.”

  “Man should listen to his Dad,” Adelard said. Some of his uneasiness was gone.

  “Do you listen to your Dad?” Rook said.

  “He listen to you?” Calder said.

  “My Dad? He listens, sure he, I mean, I listen to him. Why are we talking about my father? You’ll tell me what your needs are, I’ve got detailed folders — ”

  “Listen, listen to us,” Calder said. Imperiously.

  Junior Adelard’s face went slack.

  “Not so hard, son,” Rook said to Calder.

  “When’s the last time you both spoke?” Calder said.

  “This morning, I wanted to know how Mom was faring after that attack.”

  “The Pisces,” Rook said.

  “The Pisces. How the hell did you know that?”

  “There an office with a door we could go to?” Rook said.

  “Only managers have offices.”

  “Your Dad, we want you to call him,” Calder said.

  “Again? Now?”

  “When we’ve left,” Rook said. He leaned forwards. “And what you’ll say, you’ll tell him with conviction.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to say? What kind of conviction? Conviction for what?”

  His eyes were floating and his hands were dancing St. Vitus. Calder went in again.

  “The Int,” Rook said. “Can you remember this?”

  “I have an enviable memory,” Junior Adelard said.

  “Not under these circumstances,” Calder said. “Write it down, what he tells you.”

  “No, it’s all right, he’ll remember this. You’ll remember,” Rook said. “Call him up, tell him passionately, work it into the conversation, you’re asking about Mom again, that you’re real concerned with Int 3001.”

  “You understand what an Int is?” Calder said.

  “Sure, my Dad’s Council Speaker. What do I care for city politics? I live in Westchester. Why am I so concerned?”

  Calder gave him the reason, the same reason why Sotto’s client was so concerned.

  “Repeat it back,” Rook said.

  Adelard repeated it.

  “No,” Rook said, “say it how you would put it, naturally, your own way of talking, that’s how you say it. Coming from you.”

  “You’re a salesman,” Calder said.

  “I’m a good salesman. And I’ll do no such thing.”

  He was getting out of his chair when Rook leaned in and planted Adelard back down.

  “You saw it in there?” Rook said to Calder. “You lay it out.”

  “We maybe pushed him too hard,” Calder said.

  “Lay it out.”

  “These dealerships have territories,” Calder said.

  Adelard was suddenly motionless.

  “Somebody could come in, take this one over, there was evidence of mismanagement. Embezzlement? They close it down a Monday, open it that Tuesday, it’s got a new owner. Trades and practices, clauses. You know them by heart. You been photocopying. When that happens, when this owner’s out, you partner with this Stilton.”

  “Did he call you?” Adelard said. “How on Earth — Only he and I — Is — ”

  “This is a choice franchise. You could lose both ways,” Rook said.

  “We won’t say anything,” Calder said, “you call your father around four.”

  “That way it’s not so close to the earlier call,” Rook said. “You tell him what we said and make him believe it. You’re a salesman, and he has to buy what you’re selling. Or I come back here and light firecrackers in your mouth.”

  “What? Firecrackers? What?”

  “Where’s your brother?” Rook said.

  “Washington, you said that.”

  “No, the jealous one, the youngest, Rutland.”

  “He’s had so many jobs, I don’t know where he works.”

  “Lives, then,” Rook said.

  “Two seventy-seven Holdridge Avenue, New Dorp.”

  “Fucking Staten Island?” Rook said. “Change your shirt, it’s more sweat than dry.”

  Going out the doors Calder said, “Firecrackers, wouldn’t the fuse get wet?”

  “They go off before they go out. Ruin a mouth is what they do.”

  Up 50th. This time Calder had the curb.

  “How long were we in there? Twenty minutes? He had more give than I was expecting.”

  “Some of them are like that.”

  “Your last threat, the fireworks — ”

  “Insurance, not a threat. I’ve only had to go back and do that once. In all my years. She didn’t have a lot of give. Some of them don’t.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sunday, Sext

  Lundin was in his Coronet, parked in front of Faraday’s brownstone. He’d been waiting half an hour. People, couples walked by him, coming from various supermarkets, plastic bags stretching from their fingers, end-of-the-weekend Sunday stockpiles.

  He was smoking a du Maurier. Canadian. Window rolled down, his arm folded on the sill. In addition to the provisioners, there were mothers who came up and down the perfect Upper West Side sidewalk. Pushing their baby strollers, wondering what a black man was doing here, smoking — gasp! — in that garish car.

  Lundin pretended they didn’t exist, could have had a little fun with them but that had lost its sheen years ago. Underneath his disdain was envy. Here were mothers who loved their kids, who put soft plastic shields over the strollers when it got cold or windy. His mother wouldn’t have done that.

  Lundin hadn’t seen his sisters in years, maybe a decade. Sometimes when he couldn’t fall asleep he wondered if one of them had died, had died and he’d never found out. Or his Mom or his Dad.

  He ashed the cigarette on the street, looked at himself in the rearview, took another drag. Life wasn’t worth living without cigarettes. It’s a slow sure way to the grave but for the duration of each stick he didn’t think about that. Only when he wasn’t smoking did it occur to him how bad it was. Then he’d light another. Nicotine Amnesia.

  There were five packs of du Mauriers in the glove compartment.

  Faraday walked down the steps. Lundin put the cigarette out and slid over to the passenger’s side. Faraday liked to drive.

  He got in and said, “I would’ve been down sooner, I got a phone call.”

  “That’s fine, boss. I had me a
long night, I’m currently in the process of waking up, anyhow.” He wasn’t sure what that meant. If he was apologizing for Faraday or for himself. He was tired, that was true, and his legs ached. (Sometimes, also at night when he couldn’t sleep, Lundin worried that he had chronic fatigue syndrome.) His arm was still hurting from where Briggs had punched him, that was no chronic fatigue, at least the lump was gone. But he wasn’t so tired and sore he couldn’t put up his defenses — his automatic reaction to Faraday’s presence. Lundin had no way of telling they’d be enough but he wanted to do all he could to keep Faraday out.

  Faraday started the car, pulled away from the curb. “Where we going?”

  “Like 31st between Third and Lex.”

  “Like?” Faraday said.

  “Thirty-first, closer to Third than Lex.” Lundin adjusted the seat. He could never get comfortable on the passenger’s side.

  “And he’ll be in Manhattan? Working on a Sunday?”

  “Not working, it’s his mistress, her place.”

  “How’d you find out about a mistress?”

  “Stalked him yesterday,” Lundin said. “It was all he could think about, coming here, seeing her. At dinner with his wife and he’s looking forward to this. His district’s in Queens, but here he is in Manhattan.”

  They rode in silence to the Park. Lundin, feeling the need to fill the air, said, “How’s your father?”

  “Dying,” Faraday said without taking his eyes from the road. Or showing any overt concern. “The last healer was nothing special. I’m beginning to think Hoone doesn’t know what he’s looking for. We’re running out of time for bad picks.”

  “Hoone knows that,” Lundin said.

  “Does he?”

  “No one wants to disappoint you, Faraday. I have to say, once more, I’m major sorry about that business with the Speaker. Briggs and I were only doing — ”

  “It’s forgotten,” Faraday said. “We all make mistakes, right? Forget it, and don’t remind me of it again.” Mentioned nothing about meeting Council Speaker Adelard himself, proving Lundin was correct about his being a Stone. Nothing at all about that.

  “What were you smoking before I got in?” Faraday said. “Those things’re fucking fetid.”

  “By way of Canada. du Mauriers.”

  “As in Daphne?”

  “Daphne?” Lundin said.

  “du Maurier. Rebecca.”

  “Who’s Rebecca?”

  “Just gimme one,” Faraday said.

  Lundin flipped open the pack on the dash, took one out and was about to light it for Faraday when the man said, “I can light it myself. You think I want your lips all over it? You had a long night and all?”

  “I figured, your hands on the wheel — ”

  Faraday snatched the cigarette from Lundin, put it in his mouth, angled his head towards the lighter Lundin had ready.

  He took a deep inhale, blew it out the window. “Emmie hates it when I smoke. I hate it when I smoke. Even at the club, where everybody’s smoking, it’s a fucking cloud in there some of the time, she hates it.”

  “I missed her act the past two, three days,” Lundin said.

  “What act? She’s no dancer, she’s a statue with limbs on pulleys.”

  “A beautiful one.”

  “Like you could appreciate her.”

  “I know perfection when I see it,” Lundin said.

  “You do, you’re my best scout. You recognize it, yeah, I just don’t see how you could admire it.”

  They were driving crosstown through Central Park. It was a nice warm day and there were runners everywhere. In spandex, in shorts. Shirtless men, women in trendy sports halters. Lundin watched them go by like he was an alien in an open safari: “This offshoot of Homo sapiens we’ve dubbed Fitnicus fanaticus. They burn more calories than they consume and are differentiated from others by high perspiration, disregard for the weather, reticence, and amusing facial determination. They live longer but in agony, compared to their cousin species, Fitnicus allergicus, who live shorter but happier lives.”

  Among the joggers were the cyclists. Lundin didn’t watch them; they weren’t as sweaty or as sexy.

  “I’d ask how your love life is, but it disgusts me,” Faraday said. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “I wouldn’t have volunteered it,” Lundin said.

  “It disturb you, being around so much pussy all night?” Faraday said.

  “Why should it? No one’s asking me to try some.”

  “How about Kitten?”

  “Not enough man left in her, excepting her hands and feet which nobody seems to notice.”

  “She hides them well, and they’re too busy staring at the rest of her,” Faraday said. “A body that looks completely natural. Her doctor, whoever he was, he was the Anne Sullivan of surgeons.”

  “Nadezhda’s doing more business.” Lundin lit himself the last cigarette in the pack. “Selling more drinks than the Nicotine Queen lately.”

  “I seen her work them over. Like a boxer,” Faraday said. Driving with one hand on the wheel, his other pinching the cigarette between two fingertips. “She’s got the ability, Dez, make her clientele believe she’s gonna go home with them. It’s no simple feat.”

  “No,” Lundin said.

  “And that Eurotrash aura, they find it erotic. Forbidden, foreign.”

  “Obviously foreign.”

  “If only she’d shave those fucking legs. I keep telling her, we all keep telling her. The armpits aren’t the problem, it’s her legs, they’re so fucking long.”

  “That part of the Eurotrash charm?” Lundin said.

  “They think,” Faraday said, “her men and women, there’s nothing she won’t try in bed.”

  “I can picture her doing just about everything,” Lundin said. “In fact, it’s true, nothing I can’t picture her doing. Except she likes girls exclusively.”

  “That’s how talented an artist she is,” Faraday said. “She’s got an odor, I noticed it recently. Gonna have to talk to her about that, too. How is Tamm?”

  “She’s professional. She brings in money on her average, she has a stable of adorers. Always on time, stays in shape. Fantastic shape. When it’s slow for her, she has their business cards, calls them up, come in for a free lap dance. Pretty industrious.”

  “She’s got, what, two years left in her?” Faraday said. He flicked his cigarette at a passing jogger. “There’s an expiration date.”

  “I know.”

  “She looks good now. Ask me in a year.”

  “Briggs won’t want to hear that.”

  “He got a crush?”

  “What he hasn’t got is a chance,” Lundin said. “Not with her, past her prime or no. There’s more to it than that, but it’s not your bother.”

  “There’s another club, opening on Columbus and 61st. Couple weeks.”

  “Devils’ Revels Cabaret,” Lundin said. “Must’ve taken a lot of grease for a lot of palms, get an address that near civilization.”

  “The Cabaret part helps. Some respectability in that, was probably a concession,” Faraday said. “It’s practically sitting on that church, St. Paul the Apostle over there. That’s sacrilege. I can’t allow sacrilege, I don’t care their club’s on the second floor up. More important, I don’t want any of our staff defecting.”

  “They’re all happy, the kitchen’s happy, busboys. The waitresses.”

  “I mean the girls specifically.”

  “They’re happy, Faraday.”

  “All the same, who needs competition? We’re going over there, maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay, fine, tomorrow.”

  “Watch them practice,” Faraday said.

  “If you want,” Lundin said.

  “See if there’s any worth taking, too.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather Kinkaid? Briggs, even?”

  “They spend too much time around skin, I don’t trust their judgment. Desensitized is the word. I said, you’re my best scout.” />
  “Don’t really enjoy the chore, though.”

  “Who brought in Nadezhda?”

  Lundin took a long drag on his du Maurier. “I did, didn’t I.”

  “And I trust you to tell me the truth, to be honest about them. Plus Briggs, he’s not one of us.”

  “This new club, it’s Mafia is what I hear.”

  Faraday honked at a pedestrian crossing the street against the light. Got the finger in return. Faraday accelerated and the pedestrian hopped out of the way.

  “You and I, we’ll pick one or two dancers from their coop and on the way out, we convince the owners to shut it down.”

  “That’ll take some convincing,” Lundin said.

  “Why I’m not going alone. What about Amazing Grace?”

  “Briggs?”

  “Yeah, play-priest,” Faraday said.

  “You want him to come?”

  “I’m asking in general.”

  This is why you didn’t want me to bring him today, Lundin thought, then worried Faraday had caught the stray thought. “I never had a partner as long as him cause you usually ditched the ones were no good.”

  “You trust him.”

  “With a secret. In a fight. I know Briggs from chimney to gutter.”

  “Doesn’t matter to you he isn’t like us.”

  “I’m strong enough in that way for both.”

  “You are,” Faraday said.

  Lundin blushed.

  “That makes me wonder,” Faraday said, “is he flotsam. He’s just muscle. We shouldn’t need muscle in what we do. Muscle’s superfluous, like maybe Briggs is.”

  “I wouldn’t call him muscle, though he’s big enough for that,” Lundin said with a chuckle. “He will do anything he’s told. I also seen him do some horrid shit without me asking. For you, he does this. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “But is he smart? Does he contribute?”

  “He’s smart enough,” Lundin lied. He was taking a lot of chances with Faraday’s acuity that day.

  Faraday said, “I’m thinking I want to preserve the group with like people. You and me and Kinkaid. Hoone.”

  “Briggs is close, he’s been with you a while. He knows, he’s almost our peer.”