Lay Saints

by Adam Connell

  “So it wouldn’t be unusual,” Calder said.

  “Should’ve come to him first,” Rook said.

  “I’ve got a social conscience,” the son said. “If we all get involved just a little — ”

  There was banging on the bathroom door that they ignored.

  “Don’t give me a sermon,” Calder said. “Give it to your Dad but don’t oversell it.”

  “So you’re a professional protester?” Rook said, slightly interested.

  “Since I was disabled it gave me ti — ”

  “Enough with the disability. You’ve got none we could see from outside the hallway there,” Rook said. “I’d ask the bed but it can’t talk but if it could it’d tell me the same.”

  “Mental disability.”

  “Mental,” Rook said.

  “Why am I for 3001? The Green side?” Rutland said.

  Calder told him, made him believe it, said, “Dial now.”

  Rutland produced a cell from his jeans’ pocket and began dialing. “I’m sitting in a child’s chair, no underwear, no socks, my girlfriend’s been locked — ”

  “You are married,” Calder said. “Show some respect for your wife by calling this woman something more accurate than girlfriend.”

  The phone was to the son’s ear. Calder could hear it ringing.

  “Call her what? You’re the inde — Hi Majella, it’s me. Good. You? The wife? Yeah?”

  Rook heard the woman’s hushed voice from behind the bathroom door. He yanked it open in one smooth pull. She was on her own cell. He grabbed it from her and stomped it into sharp useless plastic.

  “All my contacts! My leads!”

  “Shut up. I should be lenient, your morning’s antics with a married man? What it says about you?” Her open purse was on the sink. Rook lifted the toilet tank lid, drowned her purse and its contents, holding them under for a few seconds so they wouldn’t float to the top.

  “Sit. On the floor.”

  She did.

  “Tell me something dirty.”

  She didn’t. He pushed.

  She did.

  Rook smiled again. “Who taught you to speak that way?”

  She didn’t answer, and he didn’t push.

  “You stay in here, like that, on the floor, hands out of the toilet until the other dirty talker comes and gets you.”

  “I have a headache,” she said.

  “That’s my doing.”

  “There was aspirin in my purse.”

  “Aspirin wouldn’t help.” Rook stepped out, closed the door.

  “He’s not at the office,” Calder told Rook.

  “There’s other numbers. No one like him has just one number.”

  “He’s dialing them now,” Calder said. “She trouble in there?”

  Rutland tried five numbers, one of them his Mom’s. He kept talking into the phone and shaking his head at Calder.

  Calder didn’t think the son was lying. Calder knew the son wasn’t lying.

  “I can go?” he said, sitting up with his palms on the little chair’s armrests.

  “Haven’t done what I asked yet,” Calder said.

  “You said call my Dad. I called my Dad, all over I called him.”

  “To tell him something important to me,” Calder said. “Yet you haven’t.”

  “There is no one else I can call. Why don’t I leave him a message. At all the numbers. He’ll get back to me.”

  “This has to come from you live,” Calder said.

  “Look, let me get dressed, we’ll go somewhere. You watching me, it’s fine, I’m not gonna run. Have coffee together, some breakfast together. Let him get where he’s going and I’ll reach him there.”

  “No fucking way,” Rook said, to both Rutland and to Calder.

  “Open the bathroom at least,” Rutland said. “You don’t have to keep her locked in there. It’s a kid’s bathroom. Didn’t you see the size of it?”

  “Bigger than the one I got,” Calder said. “Call him again.”

  “He wasn’t there.”

  Rook said, “If you sass me, my friend, you cocksucker, I swear.”

  “You keep calling till he is. Give me back the pants,” Calder said.

  “They’re already on.”

  “Take them off, give ’em to me.”

  “Now I think this is a sexual episode we’re in,” the son said. He wriggled out of the pants. It was even funnier this time.

  “You don’t get out of that chair till you’ve done what we asked,” Calder said.

  “What he asked,” said Rook with a hint of pride.

  “I’m naked. There’s an open house in half an hour.”

  “Make sure you get him before.” Calder leaned in, his hands over the son’s wrists on the plastic armrests. He would have knelt down but the man’s apparatus was exposed. And erect, that happens to men most times when they’re under our influence like so. You don’t remember that, Fish.

  Calder said, “After you get him, and are out of this silly fucking chair, you exorcise that whore in the bathroom from your life. You have a family on Staten Island. You’ve got kids and a wife.”

  “My wife, if you had any notion what she — ”

  “You’ve got kids.” Calder’s eyes were hard. Rook could sense the tension flowing into Rutland. “You don’t have to love your wife for your kids to need you. Straighten it out.”

  “Yes,” Rutland said. Blandly, like he’d received an order he didn’t understand but knew he’d follow.

  Calder and Rook left the naked couple in the apartment, certain they’d remain imprisoned until the conditions of their release were met.

  back to top

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Wednesday, Sext

  I lost Calder and Rook in the subway but, staking out The Gossamer’s Veil in my own way, I found Calder walking down Second Avenue two hours later. Say noon.

  Lundin’s maroon Coronet rolled alongside him, windows down. Lundin had a few fingers on the wheel and his right hand on the passenger’s headrest. He was running out of street before the light; he was hoping Calder would be the first to stop and talk.

  Lundin lowered his head, so Calder could see his face past the roof. “You remember me from the club.”

  “Where’s the wife?”

  “I have to apologize for that. We get protective. They’re more sensitive than they act.”

  “You gonna drive all the way up to my room in that?”

  “Let’s why don’t we stipulate all the foreplay and you get in. I am asking nice. And I’m only asking once.”

  They were at a red light and both had stopped. Lundin stretched and opened the passenger-side door. “There’s stuff we should talk about, you’ll want to hear. Get in so’s I can make a right before your bar.”

  Calder felt no danger and there was something about Lundin that he did like. He got in and slammed the door and Lundin ran the light onto 11th in a wide right turn and avoided some skateboarders flying across the street.

  “Ever see them try their tricks around Union Square?” Lundin said. “Not a one ever lands but on his elbows and knees. Splits sometimes. Landing on a split hurts a man. A skateboard is absolutely the most useless and dangerous contraption on the face of the Earth.”

  Calder had no opinion on the matter. “This seat it’s like I’m sitting in a hole, but comfortable. Smells nice in here, too.”

  “Cause I keep it clean,” said Lundin with half a grin. He tapped the flower-shaped air freshener that read Get Fresh! hanging off the rearview. “Cars pick up smells like flypaper. Does smell like a hookah sometimes I’m not careful. Why I try and smoke with the windows open. But it is hospitable, you saying so.”

  Lundin stroked the black dashboard. “I had her customized, the whole interior, the car. Outside I left, of course, she’s a desirable vehicle. Inside, though, forty years old and more. They scooped her out like ice cream. I even got those seats warm your tushie in the cold.”

  Their minds were barricaded.
Each was aware of the other’s potential for intrusion but not the extent of the other’s canniness.

  Lundin continued up 11th, made a left onto Third Avenue, a right onto Cooper, then left on Astor Place.

  Summer slackers were skateboarding around Astor’s giant black cube, performing incomplete and painful tricks. “See?” Lundin said, pointing his middle finger at them.

  He was a middle-finger pointer. I despise that. You point with your index finger. But not Lundin.

  “Be safer,” Lundin said, “they played with pit dogs. Every summer they’re at it, getting their skin scraped off. What kind of parents?”

  A left onto Broadway and they rode the traffic downtown. It was a very warm day; Calder had never seen so many people on the sidewalks, block after block. Enough to populate the small towns he used to frequent.

  “They know winter’s coming eventually,” Lundin said. “What happens in the city, on nice days everyone’s outside. Makes you realize how many people these office buildings hold.”

  He ran every yellow light they came to. “It’s a hibernation technique, Calder. Can I call you Cal? Cal. I’ve figured this out, Cal, living here so long. They gorge on the good weather so when it’s frostbite outside they can stay in and not feel bad. In three months you’ll barely see half out here lunchtime, and at night, it’s like the city’s died.”

  “You’re another scholar has the city analyzed,” Calder said. “Cause of your living here so long.”

  “How’s she treating you?” Lundin said. He honked at two handsome men crossing Fourth Street.

  “I’ve seen plenty,” Calder said.

  “Of the city? Already?”

  “The country itself.”

  “And I seen plenty. As far west as San Diego. There’s no weather out there. Here we’ve got weather.”

  “In the city.”

  “The city, absolutely, Cal. She been mean to you?”

  “We’re getting used to each other,” Calder said. “I wouldn’t say mean.”

  Lundin laughed. “About the best you can do. Takes years to get this city to do what you want it. Christ, it takes weeks to figure out which way is east and which is south. We’re going south, by the way.”

  He made a right onto Houston. “Now west. This here we’re on Houston. Howston. Not Hyuston like you’re from Texas, people they’ll know you’re new and you don’t know nothing. It’s like nuclear newculur. People hear you say newculur they think you didn’t graduate third grade.”

  A left onto Thompson Street. “South again. Houston’s the demarcation between the Village and SoHo. That makes us SoHo now.”

  “I could’ve gotten on a tour bus for this,” Calder said. “If all we’re doing is seeing sights and imaginary lines. I’ll get out at the next light, you don’t run it.” He couldn’t remember what he’d liked about Lundin.

  Lundin opened a pack of 555 Filter Kings and lit himself one from his lighter. It was his precious S. T. Dupont Diamond Rain lighter from Paris. Which he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen.

  “You?” he said, holding the pack to Calder, who took one and started it from Lundin’s lighter.

  “That,” Lundin said, “that’s an authentic S. T. Dupont Diamond Rain from France. And not just France. Paris.”

  “Never had this brand of cigs before. Box is small.”

  “Singapore,” Lundin said. “How’d you know you were different?”

  “I’m no different from you,” Calder said.

  “You’re no different from me but we’re different from all them. I’ll go first, maybe you’ll feel like talking afterward. I realized it about the time I realized I was gay. Did you know that about me?” He took his eyes off the traffic to watch Calder’s reaction.

  Which was mild surprise. “No I didn’t,” he said with a pinched, uncharacteristic smile. “I wouldn’t have expected that from anyone worked at Tattletail.”

  Lundin wasn’t running any lights down there, he had too much respect for SoHo. “Wouldn’t have expected me?”

  Calder shrugged.

  “Because I’m gay but I’m no queer,” Lundin said. There was a tightening around his nose and cheeks. “They give men like me a bad stereotype.” After a deep pull on the 555, Lundin said, “The city? People hate smokers more’n they hate blacks.”

  “Where’s that leave you?” Calder said.

  “Not well-liked. And gay, don’t forget gay. Black gay smoker. Ha.”

  “I don’t care about the black or gay part. Or the smoking,” Calder said. “Why don’t you tell me — ”

  “Changed my mind, let’s share shame stories. Something you’re reluctant to tell.”

  “Then I’ll be reluctant to tell,” Calder said.

  Lundin laughed. “I forgot you had a sense of humor.” He was taking Calder through SoHo, part of his plan to disarm Calder by pointing out famous boutiques with their battle standards flapping from the second floor, or the unusual street vendors, a celebrity walking the cobble streets.

  “I came to the city from college,” Lundin said. He was steering with one hand again. “The only job I could get was busboy at a Chinese restaurant.”

  “Not so authentic, hiring you.”

  “Or the other busboys and waiters, who were Mexican and Columbian and such. Two Cambodians. One Vietnamese. Our regulars used to joke I served them Soul Chinese Food. That was rude, but I smiled.”

  They both laughed, but Calder killed his prematurely. Something felt wrong about laughing with Lundin.

  “I’m new to the city then, I’ve an apartment but no lea — Is that Marlon Brando? Over there?”

  “Marlon Brando’s dead. While ago.”

  “No, yeah?” Lundin said. “Good actor. Great actor. Stella! He became a fat fuck, didn’t he? So I got no lease and the landlord raises the rent right away.”

  “You didn’t make him lower it?”

  “I didn’t, and today I ask myself why. But the past Lundin, he left the landlord alone. The landlord was too sweet and too old to fuck with, really.”

  “The past Lundin, he must’ve done something cause I’m sitting with his future self.”

  “I liked the Upper West Side. It felt safe, and — Well, I guess a story like this isn’t worth much unless it’s honest. Can I be frank? I was scared of the rest of the city. It can be huge.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Instead of moving, or coercing the landlord, I looked to the restaurant.”

  “This past Lundin is shameful,” Calder said.

  “I used what I had to get everyone at the restaurant to give me their tips,” Lundin said. “Even on my nights off, there was this Mexican — he was simple, you understand simple — he gave me the previous night’s tally.”

  “That’s a vicious thing to do,” Calder said.

  “People I worked with, they were good men. Loyal family men. Had wives and children and family waiting on these tips back home. Mexico City, Guatemala City.”

  “I wouldn’t tell that to anyone,” Calder said.

  “My rent went up four times a year. I needed that money.”

  “More than ten hardworking immigrants?”

  “Eight,” Lundin said. “There were nine of us total. I got what was mine.”

  “You got what you took,” Calder said.

  “The difference is? That’s the whole fucking point of what we’re doing here, in this car today. Part of it. I never told anyone about what I done. Past Lundin wasn’t proud of what he did, current Lundin isn’t ashamed of it. I’m a survivor. You a survivor?”

  “I never done anything half so unconscionable. I’ve got nothing to match that.”

  “Reluctant,” Lundin said. “We can go back to the first topic, how’d you know you were apart from the hacks. Digame.”

  Calder had to give him a morsel at least, and Lundin would know if it was a lie.

  “My parents could tell before I did. That’s why I had to leave home. I wasn’t ready to run away but they were insistent I do. I’d be
en getting my way too often and they played some tricks on me to find out how.”

  “Prejudice out of fear,” Lundin said. “You don’t wanna say more?”

  “It’s more than you had a right to hear,” Calder said.

  “Not since we’re trading, and not since I got less than was offered. It’s all right.” He patted Calder’s knee. “I appreciate what you gave. We’re closer now, aren’t we? A little brotherhood, am I wrong? You get what I’m saying.”

  He was twisting and turning down the streets, crisscrossing all of SoHo via a seemingly haphazard route.

  “I appreciate your reticence,” Lundin said. “Running away, I’m guessing that’s how you been around so much. Where are you from?”

  “A bunch of places I’d call home,” Calder said.

  “No one’s from all over. Give me one spot so I can get a compass on you.”

  “My parents’ house is in South Dakota, outside Spearfish. I can’t remember better than that to get more specific. Well, that is pretty specific.”

  “I don’t know the Dakotas, and I definitely don’t know Spearfish,” Lundin said. “You haven’t been here long. In fact, I don’t think you been here long enough to tell good from bad.”

  Calder couldn’t see what street they were on but did realize they had turned a while back and were headed uptown.

  “You think Sotto and his boys and girl, that they’re good,” Lundin said.

  “Not all of them,” Calder said.

  “Is right. Montford, she went all the way to Germany to get away from him. He can manipulate the manipulators is what Faraday says. Can’t trust him, he’s so natural about it, Sotto is.”

  “Sotto’s been good to me,” Calder said.

  “There’s no way to put any currency in that,” Lundin said loudly, as if he was denying a crime he’d committed. “You’ve got the twins. Without each other they’re no gestalt, but together haven’t failed a single job. They’d like to leave broken minds around them, like used tissues, if Sotto’d let them. No way to go about our business, is it? Sotto keeps them because he’s thin on manpower. Folks like the twins work in animal shelters with delight, you know what I’m saying, doing that one last nasty chore at month’s end.”