by Adam Connell
“Sotto didn’t but I sure as fuck did,” Rook said.
“How could you prove it?”
“I’m the one went to your boss’ apartment,” Rook said.
“Prove it.”
“I got him out of bed and made him choose you over whoever it was, that woman.”
“I’d like you to prove that now,” Jay said.
Calder was leaning on the edge of the last stall, at ease but on deck.
“I got you that promotion, Jay,” Rook said. “I could, you realize, with, you realize, have it revoked. She could get it, she deserved it is why you needed me.”
“I didn’t see you do a thing. I got that promotion on merit and don’t owe you a red cent. You ruined my shirt. This shirt cos — ”
“Ten dollars at Century 21.” Rook slid forwards and punched Jay in the gut. The man doubled over. Some breakfast came out over his lips. Rook helped him up, pushed him against the wall.
“I’m not here to make you pay this way,” Rook said.
Jay hurled a wild punch which Rook avoided — saw before it was thrown — and countered with a second blow to the stomach. Jay dropped to his knees, but not both knees simultaneously. First he fell on the left one, then the right; both landings sounded painful.
“Next I can break fingers,” Rook said, “give you some new knuckles. Or I can aim for your face. I’m trying to keep this social, between us, there’s no one has to know.”
Jay lunged at Rook who sidestepped and kicked him in the back of the head. A crack echoed briefly.
“I think maybe you knocked him out,” Calder said.
“He’ll come to. Lock the door, would you? I forgot.”
“Already did, while you were crushing his windpipe,” Calder said.
“You enjoying this? I’m not. Looks like it but I’m not. Might want to take up boxing, it helps.”
“I’m no boxer,” Calder said.
“You did Mr. Newspaper fairly well. I was a bit impressed.”
Jay got to his feet using one of the urinals for a cane. His pants were ripped at the knees, there was blood in his hair. “How much was it?”
“Before all that you’re gonna admit I got you that promotion,” Rook said.
“Said I’ll pay you, how much, what was it?”
“I don’t want to do this anymore, it’s getting hard on my hands, but I will go for the face. For the eyes, I have to.”
Jay looked as if he’d lost a very good tan as well as fifty pounds. “I came to you and now I’m a vice president. One of about twenty in the company, but a promotion. It was you.”
“It was me … ”
“Got me that promotion. You got me the promotion.”
Rook punched him in the face. “You’re an asshole. Somebody does something for you it’s only fair you pay them. I know you got a raise, you’ve got the money for what’s owed. You don’t pay them what was agreed, and that’s me, you don’t give them no alternative but to drag you into your own bathroom. That’s me, too.” He punched Jay again, then walked over to Calder. “Please don’t tell me you’re disgusted by all this.”
“I would have done it different.”
“Not when you been doing it long as I have.”
“How much?” Jay said.
“You remember,” Rook said and balled and chucked the piece of paper from his sleeve at him. “And double it. Make the call, transfer the money to that account.”
“Double it? That’s half my bonus.”
“We make an office visit, it gets pricey,” Calder said.
They weren’t impeded on their way to the elevator.
“I want you to eat with me tonight at the bar,” Rook said as they got out. “Don’t make any plans with the Queen.”
“You could’ve persuaded him the other way, saved all that blood,” Calder said.
“I could have.”
“You won’t need your firecrackers on this one, he’s not gonna need them.”
“He’s not,” Rook said.
THIRTY-ONE
Monday, early Sext
“You think I went too far,” Rook said.
“Because you went too far,” Calder said.
They were on the third deck of the Staten Island Ferry on the New York Harbor going to S.I. Calder was leaning on the rail with his elbows, Rook had his arms crossed with his back to the rail. Manhattan was receding but still looked splendid.
Reverse commuters were on the rows of seats, or stood in groups waiting on the lowest deck, down by the exits. On their cells, skimming the Daily News (always a morning paper, the Post was for the evening), trying not to nap cause they’d be having dinner and be going to bed soon. No one drank coffee. Night shifts, all of them. Tired, all of them.
There was the Statue of Liberty. A cute little lighthouse. Random ships parked in the harbor, like they were lost and decided to just stop. A bird — seagull? — followed the ferry as if reverse commuting itself.
There was a breeze, but not much; the ferry had some roll and rumble to it, but not much.
“You would’ve stopped short,” Rook said.
“Of that, yeah,” Calder said. “I’ve never laid hands on.”
“But you’re comfortable with what happened at Herzug Heine.”
“I could’ve done it like you had,” Calder said. “I would have done it different is all.”
Rook was ogling a group of nurses in blue scrubs; he would have taken any of them home.
“Yes I’m used to big white buildings,” Calder said. “Yes I’m a passive reader. I’m strong for my age, I get people to do what I want when I need it done.”
“I’m not saying you ain’t strong,” Rook said. He scratched his ear with his pinky; there was some swelling rosacea there. “There’s strong and there’s hard. Stomach. I want to be sure you’ve got stomach or I tell Sotto and you’re gone.”
“When I asked for your help I didn’t realize I was getting a parole officer.”
I didn’t find that funny, Fish.
“I’m trying to be a friend,” Rook said.
“Why is it everybody I talk to thinks you’re slow?” Calder said.
“Do they?” Rook said.
The ship’s horn blew, nobody moved around, they weren’t near the shore.
“Tell me about the twins,” Calder said.
“They bother you yet?”
“Nah,” Calder said, “I’ve barely seen them.” He was talented enough Rook didn’t sniff the lie.
“Love to meet their parents but I heard they were in foster care, the twins. Heard, cause everything with them pre-Sotto is hearsay, mind you. You know, foster care, kids that swim through like thirty homes before they hit eighteen. Does something to your personality, all that rejection and motion.”
“So they’re evil, and that’s why, too many moms and dads?”
“I’ll tell you a story about the twins, you decide,” Rook said. “It’s not one of those stories stays between us. Tell whoever you want, they all know it. The twins, they heard about Sotto, they come to the bar, bold as brass balls looking to join in.”
He scratched his ear again. “Well, this is not how it usually works. Sotto finds you, sees for himself if you have brass balls. They were so fucking eager, and they seemed so fucking nice. Me being an optimist I even thought they were sweet, young, vim and vigor, piss and vinegar, all that. They might have bad yellow teeth, but they had big identical smiles.”
Calder remembered their yellow teeth. But everyone has yellow teeth, don’t they? Most of us.
“Sotto knows they’ve got talents, he can always use talents, but he’s got to test it. Nothing elaborate like what he’s got you doing. Something simple. There’s a local school, P.S. Some Number. A mom has this son she thinks his teacher’s touching him. Not rape, nothing orifice, just some touching. Now I’m not saying that’s okay, but it’s not as bad as other clips on the news. You agree?”
“No, not as bad,” Calder said.
“Sotto wants the
twins find out is this true, and if it is get this bastard to confess to the principal.”
“So far so fair,” Calder said.
“So far,” Rook said. His round muscles under his ear, corner of the jaw, were standing out. “They get there after school. Those days, you could walk in no questions. Who are you? Step through the metal detector, please. Whose student is yours? The twins they find the teacher alone putting crayons away. The mom’s kid was that young. You remember, Elmer’s Glue, construction paper. They get an authentic confession without too much grief.”
“This boy, he the only one?” Calder said.
“Are they ever? I doubt he was, these chicken hawks are rarely monogamous.”
“Was it in the papers?”
“All of them. Let me get to the end. They convince him to go to the principal’s. Follow up the next day, and he did go, they’re certain. It’s a fact now. They wait. No reporters, no coverage, no investigation. Sotto says the mom is furious. This teacher’s still teaching. What now? I recall him clearly screaming that at the twins, ‘What now?’ ”
Calder had a funny taste in his mouth so he spat into the water. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest of this. Had a feeling it would involve the principal.
“They went to the principal’s,” Rook said. “He was keeping all this to himself cause who wants a scandal at their school? One they’re head of? Next morning a guidance counselor finds the principal and the teacher naked together on a desk, principal’s office.”
“Not necessarily because they wanted to be there,” Calder said.
“The mom, she’s happy. Sotto’s happy. It makes the news, it makes the papers. New teacher, new principal, new fucking superintendent. The kid can try and lead a normal life but likely won’t. And the twins proved all kinds of things, not just they had talents but how they liked to use it.”
“Sotto was fine with this,” Calder said.
“Not really, he never let them go that far again.”
“I ask around,” Calder said, “I’m gonna get a story like this about you?”
“Everyone’s got a story like this, you ask around.”
Calder turned and leaned back against the rail like Rook. It was cliched but he did wonder what it would be like to go home as one of the clock watchers. Trade places: joint checking accounts, a mortgage, credit-card debt, car payments. Offspring. He realized he wouldn’t last a year. He couldn’t picture a home as anything but a black hole.
They watched the shore approach, though it was still minutes away. People started getting up, going down the stairs. Rook closed his eyes. The wind had mussed his short hair so it was sticking up on one side.
Bored, Calder said, “The stripper you dated.”
“I’m not gonna give you her name, that’s mine to keep.”
“How’d it start? You see her perform?”
“Funny, we met on the checkout line at the supermarket. Gristede’s. She introduced me to heroin. I became a slave to it like she was, and she died. That’s the beginning and the middle and the end. You don’t get to hear her name.”
“How long you think you can keep this up? As a lifestyle,” Calder said. “With Sotto, going to Herzug, doing your petty work, the bread and the butter, pennies not pounds.”
“I’m the oldest, I’m fifty-five.”
“Sotto’s gotta be older than you.”
“He’s a year younger, the bastard,” Rook said. “I can’t do it much longer. I can, I don’t want to. It got old twenny years ago. People are so goddam cheap and immature, I deal with that constantly. Not just the pettiness.”
“Quit.”
“I don’t know how to save money,” Rook said. “It dissolves in my hands. What the fuck do you care.”
“I don’t care, I’m just talking. Hopefully I’m not talking to what’s me in thirty years.”
“I didn’t go to college. I’m gonna learn a trade, apprentice to a kid half my age? I’m too proud for that. I should’ve joined the military is what I should’ve done. I could have made a great go of that.”
They detached themselves from the rail and joined the crowd atop the stairs.
Calder said, “This next son — ”
“Rutland,” Rook said.
“He calls his Dad, too, won’t that make Adelard suspicious?”
“No doubt. But of what? He’ll have no idea. He’ll be suspicious of everything since Briggs and Lundin beat their way into his home. We’re past worrying about suspicious.”
Outside St. George Terminal they waited in line for a taxi.
“You said New Yorkers take the subway,” Calder said.
“This isn’t New York, it’s Staten Island,” Rook said.
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THIRTY-TWO
Monday, Sext
Tamm opened the door expecting it to be Calder. Mad about it, she told him she’d be sleeping afternoons.
It was Briggs.
“Hi, sweetheart, I thought I’d walk you to work.”
She put her bare foot behind the half-open door so he wouldn’t be able to push his way inside. “The club’s not for a couple hours. I could use more sleep. For me it’s early.” She was smiling up at him; it was a strained smile. He was satisfied with it anyway. “Thanks, but you don’t have to walk me.”
“Since you’re up, it’d be a pleasure to spend a little time you and me,” Briggs said.
“We spend enough time together at the club,” she said. “Since I’m up, may as well I should get ready for work, get in early.”
Lie.
“You don’t wanna be around for that,” she said, “it’s dull.”
“I should’ve come years sooner, you live so close, we work together. Why come I never thought of being so gallant before? Taking you to work.”
“Briggs, I have to get ready. It takes me some time.” Her foot was wedged so tightly against the door there was a dent in her sole.
“Don’t you get changed at the club?”
“This is female stuff I do at home.”
“I could wait inside,” he said, graciously, honestly. “Would not get in your way. At all.”
“How’d you get my address?” she said.
“In or out?” he said.
She’d had problems with her neighbors from past boyfriends and girlfriends getting venomous and loud, from inside her apartment or locked out in the hall. Briggs seemed sedate, not fervent with her like he sometimes was at Tattletail, so she let him in. There was Mace in her pocketbook.
She was wearing sweatpants and a mismatched tee snatched off the floor as she’d gotten dressed on her way to the door.
He was wearing his albe and the clerical collar. “This is a nice apartment, I like the posters. Those people, they erotic dancers, too?”
“I’d give you the Cook’s tour but it would set me back for time.”
“You come in late with me, they’ll forgive you,” he said.
“But I said I’d like to get in early, I wouldn’t be sco — ”
“It struck me a couple hours ago. I was waking up, I realized we haven’t had our chat for weeks.”
Tamm rolled her eyes; Briggs saw but it didn’t deter him.
She said, “I’ll be in the bathroom sprucing.” It was just off the living room.
Briggs dumped himself on the sofa, his head and trunk turned for a view of the bathroom. He did not put his feet up on the coffee table, he did not want to be rude.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
Tamm closed and locked the bathroom door. Briggs heard water running but not the shower. He tested the sofa’s bounce. Wondered what she was doing in there. Maybe putting makeup on, shaving her armpits or shaving something else. They had to shave it or wax it, he knew, it was part of the vocation.
Like their chats; he considered their chats part of his vocation, calling, duty.
“How’s things with Lundin?” she said over the roaring tap.
“Sorry? I can’t hear you.”
“Lu
ndin, how are you two?”
“Could you open the door? All I hear is water.”
She cracked the door. “Lundin,” she said, “and you. How are you both.”
“We’re like a married couple,” he said, trying a little jocularity, see if it floated. “I know what he’s gonna say before it comes outta his mouth, he knows what I’m thinking. So sometimes we wind up not speaking all that much, it’d be wasted breath. He’s a good man. He’s still gay, I don’t suppose that’ll ever change.”
“Treats me nice,” Tamm said. “He’s always respected us dancers.”
“So have I,” Briggs said quickly. “Can’t be an easy thing, up there with all them greedy eyes on you.”
“Not so bad,” she said. “It’s half the job, them staring.”
“Not so bad cause you’re beautiful.”
No response.
“And I mean that.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, as if it wasn’t a compliment and she should feel blame.
“But it is bad, it’s sinful,” Briggs said. He was seriously confounded as to what the hell she was doing in there.
“Briggs,” she said, “we’ve had this conversation so many times I’ve got it memorized.”
“But you haven’t done anything about it,” he said.
“And I’m not going to.”
“You should, it’s your immortal soul I’m talking about.”
The tap stopped running. Briggs wasn’t sure Tamm had heard him. “Your soul, I said.”
“My soul, my conscience, is clean.”
“That can’t be.” His body ached from his bent reclining, but he didn’t want to give her this sermon without talking in her direction.
“The pipes in your ceiling,” he said, “I could hide them for you, I’m good at that, carpentry.”
“I don’t notice them.”
“How old is this kitchen? You need, I’ve got a strong back, a new fridge, sto — ”
“You can go,” she said. The tap was running lightly now. “Don’t have to dawdle here, you’ve got things to do instead. I’m okay.”
“I don’t mind. They have smarter appliances, efficient, your kitchen, save you money every month. They’re like a loan only they pay you back.”