by Adam Connell
Tamm said nothing.
“My wife, she get hurt?”
“Physically? She didn’t wanna go out, I was there for that.”
“She get hurt?”
“No.”
“She go onstage after?”
“She wou — ”
“Was she up there last night?”
Tamm didn’t respond.
Faraday said, “The friction this club is going through, and the trouble with what we do besides the dancing, it’ll pass.”
“Tell Briggs never to come to my apartment. It was scary, and he was so blase about it, that made it worse.”
Faraday turned as far as his splints would allow. “You went to her house?”
Briggs, offended, said, “Apartment. I was in the — ”
“Neighborhood?” Faraday said. “You live in Battery Park.”
“On my way here,” Briggs said.
“Lying,” Faraday said. “Why is everyone lying today? Do not, ever, appear on her doorstep. Or any of our dancers’ doorsteps.”
“It was harmless company,” Briggs said, looking to Lundin to interfere, but Lundin gave him a slanted headshake. “Tamm, wasn’t it?” Briggs said.
“Used to be, he’d corner me in the club, every three, four weeks.”
“About what?” Faraday said.
“He’s gonna save me.”
“From what?” Faraday said, still turned in Briggs’ direction.
“Myself, sin. What he sees as sin,” Tamm said. “My soul.”
“Do not ever,” Faraday said to Briggs.
Briggs said, “I can’t sit by and watch and, she could — ”
“For the rest of your living days,” Faraday said. “That’s what I mean by ever. Now on, you only talk to her she talks to you first.” Faraday swiveled back to Tamm. “That better? You could have told me sooner.”
“About how he corners me at the club, three years now? Or the coming to my apartment? You were having other problems with Emmie.”
“So should I be infuriated?”
“No.”
“Again, dishonesty. You with such intimate knowledge of what it is we do.”
“Yes, you can be infuriated,” she said. Her arms relaxed. Her body relaxed. “Infuriated is passing. You shouldn’t be mad.”
“What would you have done,” he said, voice rising again, the hillbilly sitting up, “hadn’t I taken you in?”
“I could have gone homeless.”
“Or that sleazy boyfriend later?” Faraday said. His voice continued to rise. “We all of us knew what he was doing to you, and what did I have Lundin do to him?”
Tamm shrugged. “I never found out.”
“And would you like to? Find out?”
Tamm shook her head.
“You haven’t seen him since,” Faraday said. “Maybe his family, maybe no one’s seen him since. But you don’t wanna hear about it.”
“I don’t.”
“Everyone likes a barbecue,” Faraday said, “doesn’t anyone want to see how sausage is made. I protect the people work for me.” His voice was normal. “They forget, sometimes I gotta remind them, but I keep them safe. No one wants a peek inside the slaughterhouse. Are you reminded?”
“Yes, Faraday.”
“You’re grateful?”
“Yes.”
“These other men, this other club,” he said, “you think they’d look after you like I have?”
“Probably not, Faraday.”
“Probably not?”
“No, Faraday.”
I never heard Tamm speak with such obsequiousness.
“Since you were twenty-one,” he said. “And you were just going to leave me quietly?”
“Twelve years,” she said. “Sometimes someone wants to go see what other people are like somewhere else.”
“They’re worse, always worse,” Faraday said. “Lundin could tell you, so could Kinkaid. These other people at those other clubs, they’re very much like the kind we deal with in the other half of Tattletail’s operation you think you know about but don’t.”
“I have an idea about that other half. You could be picking through my head right now but I don’t think you are.”
“What’s she mean, picking?” the hillbilly said.
“I’m grateful,” Tamm said. “Maybe yes I forget why, and you could remind me, but I can leave if I want. I’m no prisoner, ’Day, there’s no contract.”
“The club we took you from,” Kink said. “It’s closed.”
Tamm said, “I was practicing there only just this aftern — ”
“No longer opening,” Lundin said. “Gone dodo.”
“Your expertise about our other side, how confident does it feel now?” Faraday said. “That dago club was gonna be indecent and it was too close to Tattletail and much too close to that church.”
“If I want, there’s other places to try.”
“I been watching your breasts drop the last two years,” Faraday said. “Happens in a job you wear no bra. Your thighs too muscular. Not by much. Feet a little flat,” he said, putting up his hands to mitigate his offense. “You still look fantastic.”
“She does,” Briggs said.
“You cannot be that stupid as to be talking now,” Faraday said. To Tamm: “You have your fans downstairs but everyone in this room can see you’re too old for trying other places. The new girl even knows. Look at her bust.”
Tamm didn’t. “Devils’ Revels took me.”
Faraday lifted a shoulder. “You’re free to leave. We’re not antagonistic, you and I, are we? Going back so many years like we do? I considered, consider, you a friend.”
“Okay, thank you. I appreciate not being hassled about it.”
“If I hear anyone telling me you so much as stepped into another club we’ll find you that old boyfriend, because Lundin does know where the man is and he’s not happy being there.”
Tamm was a strong woman, but the weight of this conversation, she wanted to cry. “How can I be sure you’re not lying?”
“You’d have to be me,” Faraday said. “Or Lundin or Big Sir or Kinkaid. Or Calder. Keep those fans downstairs and you can stay with me.”
The doctor came in without knocking. He was holding the alligator-skin carryall he’d had with him that morning, that afternoon, and on house calls the last fifty years.
“Lift up your shirt,” the doctor said to Faraday with his eyes on the hefty new dancer. Everyone got up to leave. “Not you,” Faraday said to Tamm, “and not you,” he said to the hillbilly.
He said to Tamm, “You will dance tonight.”
“That’s not a terrible punishment,” she said. “Thanks.”
“That’s not your punishment. Go on now, get downstairs and make yourself beautiful and wow the crowd. It’s Friday night.”
She left.
To the hillbilly: “You’re fat.”
“I am not fat.”
“Plump, but no cellulite. Thick in a good way. And pretty. ‘Whole Lotta Rosie.’ ”
“My name’s not Ro — ”
“You’re Rosie now on, from the song,” Faraday said. “The late great Bon Scott.”
“He was a friend of yours?” she said.
“Wait outside the door a few minutes,” he said. “There’s ground rules and schedules we gotta go over. On tips — how much you make and how much I take. How we handle the IRS. If you want to stay.”
“I don’t want my old boyfriends dug up. And my condolences for Mr. Bon,” she said, closed the door and sat down on the other side of it.
The doctor opened his carryall. “Tonight I’ll tape you again, then leave you with some extra and show you how to do it yourself.”
“It went loose.”
“Cause you moved too much.”
“And my rickety teeth aren’t getting any better.”
“I’ll see to them.”
“You’ll see to pulling them,” Faraday said. “After I’m taped, pull these annoying three teeth b
efore they come out on their own, my tongue keeps batting at them.”
“I’ll up your hydrocodone.”
“You could remove my whole mouth, it hurts so much to talk with.”
“Pulling those teeth, the stitching’ll hurt tomorrow. Novocain I have, regarding the extractions. Reminds me,” the doctor said and took two bottles from his carryall.
“Let me see those,” Faraday said.
“I’ll leave them over here, we don’t wanna make a mess with my tools and needles coming out.”
“I want to see those bottles.”
The doctor relinquished them, prepared himself.
“Again with the fucking generics! I want, now listen to me, what you should be giving me — me your fucking retainee — is brand names. Percocet, Demerol.”
“Meperidine is Demerol. They work the same.”
“They are not the same.”
“Generics are all I can get ahold of.”
Faraday leaned his head back on the sofa. Defeated. “Just make it so I don’t feel any pain later.”
back to top
FORTY-EIGHT
Friday, Matins: 1st Nocturne
The twins were sitting on a concrete stoop on Faraday’s block. Close enough that they could see Faraday’s brownstone in the dark, but far enough away they couldn’t be seen themselves. They were also protected by the trees that rose up from the sidewalk every thirty feet or so, coming out of iron-ringed flowerbeds.
The twins were sharing a cigarette. Three crushed smokes lay dead on the step below them.
Most of what they said, it was silent, to each other, nonverbal, but I gotta make it like they were talking out loud. Otherwise it’s double stream of consciousness and hard for you to follow, Fish.
“Well I wanna break up with her,” Piker said. He had the cigarette.
“I don’t,” Attila said.
“We’re not the three of us gonna get marr — ”
“Only one of us has to,” Attila said.
“I’m not saying we couldn’t live together, that it’s impossible, that isn’t what I’m saying. I’m saying we won’t. I don’t want to.”
“I do,” Attila said. “She’s the best partner we’ve had, we’ve had her the longest and we should keep her.” Piker passed him the cigarette. The filter was wet; Attila hated the way his brother was so moist with the filter.
“Her morning breath,” Piker said. “She sleeps on her side facing me, you don’t get the full force of it. It’s deathly.”
“That’s why you wanna split up? Roll over then.”
Piker crossed his legs, one knee over the other. Attila hated that, too. It looked feminine; a man crosses his legs with an ankle on the other knee.
“She’s got no friends,” Piker said. “I’m tired of being a friend and a lover. I grew up with you all my life and now we’ve got her and all she’s got is us.”
“She takes care of me,” Attila said.
“Yeah.”
“She takes care of me and you,” Attila said. “Been a while since we had to go prowling for companionship.”
“Emotional?”
“And physical. I won’t deny the emotional,” Attila said, “but this second I’m talking about the physical. It’s at home ready when I am. She ever say No to you?”
“I’d like to have a woman to myself for once.”
“I’ll wait outside in the other room,” Attila said.
“That you haven’t touched,” Piker said.
“She’s quiet, she listens, she’s funny, she’s young. It’s never been necessary to coerce her for anything.”
Attila used the end of the old cigarette to start another, gave the new one to his brother.
“She asks too many fucking questions,” Piker said. “About mundane things she should know. ‘Is New York part of New England?’ ‘What’s the difference between flammable and inflammable?’ ”
“That last one was a laugh,” Attila said. Because Piker had laughed at it; Attila himself hadn’t been sure the difference between flammable and inflammable. There is no difference, Fish. Did you know that?
“She likes me better than you.” Piker passed the cigarette back.
“She likes me enough. Likes you more cause I’m the one treats her nicer. Ladies love assholes.”
“She could buy new clothes. Same outfits the same day of the week. You’ve got Monday’s blue suit, Tuesday’s brown coat and slacks.”
“So I’ll give her some money, mouthwash,” Attila said, “will that end this conversation? I don’t wanna be talking about this cause I’m not breaking up with her.”
“She doesn’t go out,” Piker said.
“Lot of people in the city don’t go out.”
“Galleries, movie festivals, book signings.”
“Then you go to those things,” Attila said.
“She does her own nails,” Piker said.
“She’s clean,” Attila said. “Not every woman’s clean, we’ve had our share of filthy. She’s like a cat, always preening herself.”
“Nan’s exactly like a cat,” Piker said, a trifle too animated for this quiet street. “And people who live with cats are strange. They usually have more than three. That makes us strange, she’s a cat.”
“We’re not? She might like you more,” Attila said, “but she doesn’t treat us different one over the other. Sexually.”
“Morning breath.”
“The little gifts she brings us,” Attila said.
“Taken from the bank, leftover checking-account incentives.”
“So fucking what?” Attila said, also too loud. “She’s forgiving. We’re away all night and she doesn’t ask why.”
“She is always around,” Piker said.
“Nan loves you,” Attila said.
“That means very little to me.”
“People expect twins to share.”
“Their partners?”
“Wexla,” Attila said. “You complained, constantly as I remember, that she was never home.”
“I’m tempted to look her up.” Piker was about to light another cigarette when his brother said, “Don’t you fucking dare. I paid for that pack. We’ll be motoring soon anyhow. Get rid of Nan, we find someone else less willing and you’ll be carping, Nan, I’m tempted we should see if she’ll come back.”
They sat in the dark, not smoking. Twenty minutes later the light in Faraday’s cellar went out. The twins looked both ways, crossed the street, Attila picked the locks with his nightingale kit and they were inside.
After a few minutes of envious ogling they found the door to the cellar, took the stairs carefully. The new nurse was lying awake on her cot against the right wall, petrified, feigning sleep. Attila bent over the cot and put his arms on the nurse like a nurse himself. He could smell the woman’s dinner coming off her: garlic and oregano and pancetta. Attila spoke to her quickly but with emphasis. When he was satisfied that she wouldn’t scream or even breathe noisily he joined Piker by Faraday’s father. Each twin stood on converse sides of the bed, facing each other.
“Who.” Faraday’s father’s voice was chalky. “Who.”
Attila opened the man’s eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Benevolent Satans, who,” Attila said. “Give us a crumb from Faraday’s past. A private one.”
“If you’re both Satan,” his voice was becoming more liquid, more natural, “call for me two Briggses.”
Piker laughed. “He’s gonna make me feel bad about this.”
“Tell us something,” Attila said. Viciously.
“Once, sick, threw up on our Christmas turkey. Right before we ate.”
“Something we can use,” Piker said.
“His Mom, she was an alcoholic.”
“Christ,” Attila said. “This is odd, not useful.”
“She’s dead,” Faraday’s father said. “Are you here to kill me?”
“We are,” Attila said.
“Thank Heaven, thank God finally,” Faraday’s father said.
“I’ve asked Faraday to but he won’t.”
“That’s more interesting,” Piker said, looking over the bed at Attila. “Don’t think we can use it, though.”
“He loves his wife,” the father said.
“That’s fine, now,” Piker said.
“He’s too good a son to me.”
“Jesus fuck,” Attila said. “Somebody shut this guy up.”
“Faraday has,” the father said, coughed, resumed, “all thi — ”
The twins looked at each other across the bed, shared a mental agreement, then each lowered their lips to the old man’s ears.
“Die.”
“Die.”
The old man’s eyes closed, his heart stopped beating. There was no wheezing or thrashing, only cessation throughout.
The nurse had turned and was watching agog.
“You slept through this,” Attila said to her. Soberly.
“Now go to sleep,” Piker said.
They went upstairs and closed the cellar door.
“There’s the bathroom,” Attila whispered.
“You have to do this in every house we sneak into?” Piker whispered.
“It’s gotten to the point I don’t do it, I’m anxious something bad will happen.”
Piker went into Faraday’s study. The left wall was bare except for a giant television too big for the room. Piker could hear music coming from the neighbor’s brownstone. No matter where you live in the city, Piker thought, no matter how rich you are. A sofa was facing the TV, way too close. The desk, the two chairs. Bookcases on the right.
Piker studied the first case lined with alphabetical hardcovers. It was his own fetish to mix the books out of order, the kind of prank a homeowner wouldn’t notice right away. Or for weeks.
The books were mostly popular fiction. Some nonfiction recommended by talk shows, some book-club dreck. Stuff you see people reading on the subway.
Piker hated those books and he hated those readers. He even swapped a few dust jackets, a rarity unless he was particularly offended. Because Faraday’s collection was particularly unoriginal.
He hid some Fs among the Ps (Patterson and Follett in particular) and went over to the paperbacks in the next bookcase.
Attila came back from the bathroom. Ten minutes he was in there. He’d washed his hands but hadn’t flushed.