Lay Saints

by Adam Connell

  “Up to the second floor?” Attila said.

  “Why, to find more toilets?”

  “It’s a nice house so far. I’m interested to see the rest of it. You mix up his books?”

  “Yes I did and he deserved it.”

  “Nicholas Sparks?”

  “No, worse.”

  They walked upstairs with habitual stealth. They were about to examine the rooms on the left — to see what they could slightly abuse — when they heard a noise from the bedroom. A man’s groaning.

  Kinkaid was atop Emmie in Faraday’s bed. Emmie was on her back, her fingers on Kinkaid’s shoulders like she was trying to push him away. Her breasts, which the twins had admired before, were in plain view. Her ankles were locked over Kinkaid’s buttocks like she was trying to pull him closer.

  She saw Attila and Piker watching but didn’t alert Kinkaid with her body. She was watching them now, and the twins could sense a vacancy in her mind. They could have been Faraday and she wouldn’t have reacted.

  Kinkaid took hold of her legs like plastic pipes and was going about rearranging her body.

  Piker and Attila left the house, talking to each other without saying anything aloud.

  There’s something the father didn’t tell us.

  That’s something we could have some fun with.

  FORTY-NINE

  SATURDAY, Matins: 3rd Nocturne

  Tamm was coming up the hallway to her apartment when she saw Calder by the door. He was sitting with his legs bent, knees high, arms across them. Head hanging in sleep.

  “You bastard,” she yelled. “A barber? A fucking barber and I believed you?”

  He looked up at her putting the key in the door; he hadn’t heard a word, he was just coming out of sleep.

  “You cut hair,” she said and shook her head. “Well get in before a neighbor calls the police.”

  Calder got to his feet, creaking and cracking. Went inside after her.

  “I been waiting there since afternoon,” he said.

  “Coulda come met me at Tattletail to see your chums, Faraday and Lundin.”

  “Tonight’s your day off, I remembered that. I don’t have your cell number. Your hair?”

  She launched her purse at the coffee table, flipping the ashtrays and their stale joints. “Shit, Calder, it was my day off, not night. And I woulda told you if you been around, but you been a wraith since you left yesterday morning. Cutting people’s hair? Busy at the hospitals?”

  She was changing in the doorway, not caring about her nudity, ripping at her outfit and putting on old denim cutoff shorts and a pajama top.

  Calder sat on the floor and tidied up the ashtrays.

  “My hair?” she said, in front of him now. She wound great hunks of it in her shaking hands. “I got the job at that new club, I dyed it.”

  He smiled at her. “That’s fant — ”

  “Then your pal Lundin — who offered you a job? — he and Briggs and Kinkaid, they come to the preview tonight about eight. They shut the place down. I’m back at Tattletail. Faraday made me work, after all that. Again, after a goddam test of my nerves, he puts me onstage! Fuck you! You work for the Sotto I been hearing about for years? Here’s my hair.” She flipped it past him. “Can you cut it?”

  He knew it was necessary to get to his feet. “Tamm — ”

  “Work for Lundin?”

  “I’m not working for Lundin.”

  “Sotto?”

  “You know what Sotto and Lundin are?”

  “Yes I fucking know,” she screamed. One of her neighbors banged on the adjoining wall. “Fuck off,” she yelled at them.

  “I meet you my first night here,” Calder said. “We have a nice date. I’m supposed to be honest about the things I can do?”

  She struck him with a slap swung from her waist. She beat him as her tears spoiled her makeup but Calder didn’t back away. Her body was stiff and her fists tight and he didn’t back away.

  When she began to flag he grabbed her wrists and said, “It’s not something I usually share.”

  “I understand that,” she said. The snot in her nose was clouding her words and forming bubbles outside her nostrils. “But you lied. I never suspected you for a liar.”

  “I am a liar,” he said. “To most people. With you, that was the only lie.”

  “You swear? Can I even trust your swear?”

  “Trust this liar,” he said. He held his sleeve out to her face and she wiped her nose on it. “Does that make it any better?”

  She glanced at his ruined sleeve and chuckled. “A bit.”

  He hugged her though she didn’t want to be hugged. “Keep that sleeve away from my top,” she said.

  “I swear,” he said.

  “I had a new job, I was free from Faraday, I didn’t even quit.”

  They sat on the sofa together and she cried into his chest. She cried for an hour and lapsed into sleep.

  At about two she got up and went to the bathroom and washed the Rorschach of cosmetics from her face.

  She came back to the sofa, laid a pack of cigarettes on the table and pinched Calder hard on his side, really twisting it.

  “Shit,” he said with a grimace.

  “Don’t you dare complain.” She opened the pack of cigarettes, passed it to him.

  “Davidoff?” he said. “Lundin’s?”

  She pinched him again, this time harder.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “Don’t you mention his name. Just let’s sit here and let me finish one goddam cigarette.”

  While she smoked she stared around the living room, at the photographs of the dancers she admired. When she tasted the filter she stubbed it out and said, “I’d like to go to your place.”

  “It’s two-thirty.”

  “I don’t care how late it is, I don’t wanna be here.”

  “You’re sure you wanna be with me.”

  “Don’t make this harder.”

  “Need to change my sleeve anyway,” Calder said.

  Tamm pinched him again and said, “Last one. Promise.”

  “Are you a liar?”

  “Sometimes I am,” she said.

  They took a cab down to the bar and didn’t say much. They were evaluating each other, any idiot without my skills could tell that much, Fish. Evaluating, and deciding it was still worth it.

  The bar was open. Calder said, “Meet you upstairs, I gotta pick up water and maybe a snack.”

  “Something crunchy,” she said, went inside, waved to Pal, and walked upstairs. On the top floor she saw Rook; he was coming home from somewhere. When he saw her, he turned and blocked the path to Calder’s door.

  “You, the Queen,” he said. “Go back downstairs, uptown to your club and find another New York virgin to deflower.”

  “He likes my company. There anyone likes yours?”

  “Calder doesn’t need you,” Rook said. “He’s no idea how big the city is, he settles on a girl from the first club he’s been to.”

  “Settles on? Tonight is not a good night to bully me.”

  “You’ve seen and talked to more men than most women in a lifetime.”

  Tamm said nothing because she couldn’t argue that.

  “The both of us know there’s only one way this can end.”

  “I been in plenty of relationships that ended fine.”

  “So fine then why’d they end? How many relationships?” Rook said. “One way. You, Calder, Faraday, Sotto, me. This sound like the recipe for cake?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Tamm said.

  He took her by the arm. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Tamm shoved him against the wall. “You don’t look enough like him to be his father,” she said. “Or brother or uncle.”

  “A cousin, then,” Rook said. He was positioned again in front of Calder’s door. “You wearing a black wig?”

  “Get out of my way,” she said.

  “You’re a little bitch of a thing,” Rook said. “I’ve an eye out
for both of you, I’m like medicine. Go, stay close to Faraday, marry one of his peons. It worked for the Winged Lady.”

  “Did it?” Tamm said.

  “Would all be for the better.”

  “You don’t fucking move towards me,” she said, louder. “I will castrate you with the tip of my shoe.”

  Calder came up to the landing. “Shut the hell up, both of you, they can hear you down in the bar.”

  “Calder,” Tamm said.

  “Rook,” Calder said.

  “Was just coming home,” he said and went into his room.

  “C’mon,” Calder said and held open the flimsy wooden door. Tamm took the bag from him: a large bottled water and a box of pretzels. She ate on the unmade bed. His red Bible was on the floor, open but with the covers facedown.

  He sat on the other side of the bed, and she started to cry. Started, but never made it there. Her eyes were bulging wet like before, but there were no tears or elusive breaths.

  He took off his shirt so she could blot her eyes. “I ruined your shirt again,” she said.

  “I have more.”

  She hiccupped. “I auditioned yesterday,” she said. “Your encouragement helped.”

  “Last we talked about it was Wednesday night,” Calder said.

  “I’m one of those people, they keep plans to themselves until it happens because they’re afraid it won’t come true. Hired me before my act was done. Devils’ Revels Cabaret.”

  “Name of the place?” Calder said.

  “I stayed there all afternoon — ”

  “While I was waiting for you at your building.”

  “Getting ready for the night’s big preview. A better stage, nicer place.” She was playing with his shirt, bunching it together, twisting it. “And you know how they closed it down, how Kink and Lundin could.”

  He risked touching her, stroked her hair. Her scalp was damp from a day of long routines and molten lighting.

  “You do that sort of thing, too?” she said. “Your guardian in the hall? This bar? The pig we met on the stairs other day?”

  He continued stroking her hair.

  She touched his side, the three pinched welts. “I did that?”

  “You are one nasty pincher,” he said.

  “I hated you, back at my apartment.”

  “Would you pinch me now?”

  She tried to smooth them out but the bruises were too hard.

  Tamm shifted into him. Calder didn’t move; he wanted to see if she was willing to cross the bed’s distance between them. She looked at him quizzically, but came all the way across.

  “I don’t want this for myself anymore,” she said. “I’d like a job burns less calories.”

  He laughed, so did she.

  She was smart and she was beautiful, but had no college diploma and her transferable skills would only transfer to industries ancillary to stripping. And therefore, to Tamm, objectionable.

  “Waitress,” Calder said, knowing it was the most unoriginal answer.

  “Can’t you do better? Want another cruel little pinch?”

  “That was my warm-up,” he said. “Shopgirl. Stewardess? How about a cruise ship? They can always use people.”

  “Seasick. You’d never go in my head, would you?”

  “I promise you.”

  “Said the liar.”

  “Said the liar truthfully. Some sort of driver?”

  “I live in the city,” she said, “I don’t have a license.”

  “Tour guide. Doorman. Cook? Can you cook?”

  “I can reheat,” she said.

  “A hostess, that’s better than waitress.”

  “What can we do together?” She tied her fingers together around his bare waist. “Somewhere else? I’m enamored, with you, more than I love the city.”

  Calder hadn’t yet decided about New York, whether it was worth staying. He didn’t want to commit to a woman who needed someone to love more than he loved her. There was a slight love, just as there was commitment, but not enough to be shared in words yet.

  He kissed her. It was no answer, but it was a response. She accepted the kiss greedily, returned it lavishly, and guided him down to the bed with her lips. They undressed each other, knowing this was leading to sex but in no hurry to get there.

  But, once naked, a great deal of hurrying. There was no foreplay, no fondling or long touches, no kissing the body’s arches and folds. They were in a rush to join as if the world would stop spinning without immediate penetration.

  Once conjoined, they were able to relax. They began on their sides, facing each other, legs scissored. They were calm; she held his hands above their heads. That’s how she liked to make love, holding hands.

  Over the next few hours and orgasms they changed positions just a few times. Always a configuration where she could reach for his hands to hold. Her body retained some of the anger she’d brought here. Calder, liar that he is, soothed her mind with his own.

  “You do know how they could close that bar,” she said during a break for water and pretzels.

  “Yes.”

  “And how they get people to do what they want.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re no barber.”

  “I learned how. I actually can cut hair.”

  She threw a pretzel at him.

  “I’m not great but I needed to learn. And, as a professional of the field, I prefer you a redhead.”

  More pretzels were thrown, then the bed was cleared and used.

  They fell asleep naked, bodies together.

  Not ninety minutes later the twins burst into the room. Piker turned on the lamp. Attila put his hand in Tamm’s hair and made a fist and slung her outside and slammed the door.

  Calder jumped from the bed to get her but Sleep had his legs and Attila easily shoved him into the corner between the bed and nightstand.

  “We gave you instructions, didn’t we?” Piker said. “Motherfucker, instructions?” He was standing at the door which Tamm was beating on from the other side.

  “She’s pounding,” Attila said.

  “She can pound,” Piker said, “let her pound. What did we tell you? How many days did you have?”

  Calder spat blood on the carpet.

  “Saturday was the deadline,” Piker said.

  “It is Saturday,” Calder said. “Motherfucker.”

  “It’s Saturday morning,” Attila said.

  “Sun’s not even up,” Calder said. He was naked. The only weapon in his radius was the lamp and it wouldn’t go far plugged in, and with Attila in front of it. The Bible on the floor; even though he wasn’t religious he was reluctant to use it as a missile.

  “We came to you with orders,” Piker said.

  Tamm was pounding harder, denting the door.

  “Sotto’s not been around,” Attila said. “That equals he’s still looking for more Calders.”

  Piker made a face like he had sour bowels. “You were to throw the job before he found any.”

  Attila went up to Calder, face-to-face. “What if he’s found one?” Attila screamed.

  “Who’s Majella?” Piker said.

  Calder tried spitting blood in Attila’s eyes but his mouth was dry.

  “Impotent all around?” Attila said. “And uncircumcised. He’s unclean, Piker.”

  Attila backed away towards his brother.

  “Split up with her,” Calder told Attila. “Nan.”

  “With — You will ge — ”

  “Your friend,” Calder said. “Nan. Your brother wants to get rid of her, Attila. Give in. You always let him get his way.”

  They stiffened like soldiers, then stared at Calder. He realized he wouldn’t get through them again, that it was an empty taunt. But he was feeling impotent and needed to attack, no matter how glancing the blow.

  “I have to get dressed,” Calder said, “I can’t talk to you naked.”

  Tamm was slamming herself into the door. But the only people to hear were Beryl and Rook
, and Attila had already put them to bed for the night.

  “Let her in,” Calder said. “Don’t treat her like this.”

  Calder could feel them bashing through his defenses like hammers through cardboard.

  “You’re still working the contract,” Piker said.

  Calder’s fingers were trembling. There was finally enough blood in his mouth to spit again, but they were out of range. “Please let her back inside.”

  “You wanted help,” Attila said, “you should’ve looked elsewhere besides a shriveled boxer. He’s been no assistance to you.”

  “Dry drunks are the worst kind of company,” Piker said. “Number one, they’re no fun. Second, they’re struggling with it all day, they can’t fully concentrate on anything, they want a drink. They’re a distracted people, Cal. You can do better.”

  He spat at them anyway, knowing it’d be short.

  “Take one step,” Attila said, shaking his head.

  Tamm’s barrage lost its imperative.

  “We changed our minds about one thing,” Piker said. “You can stay in the city.”

  “At our leisure,” Attila said. “You’ll do what we want.”

  “And you leave when we want,” Piker said. “Whenever we decide it’s time. With your life and nothing else, not even her.”

  They both spat at Calder, and they didn’t miss.

  They opened the door, and Tamm fell inside.

  The twins left the door open and walked out.

  Tamm sat in the middle of the room, crying in great, heaping sobs. Calder covered her with the blanket, with his arms. Each time he had her calm it flared-up again on its own. She was like a fucking rash.

  back to top

  FIFTY

  Saturday, Terce

  Calder and Rook were eating an unhealthy breakfast. Runny eggs, buttery toast, wavy bacon wearing blisters of grease, fried hash browns. Coffee with heavy cream. No juice, no fruit. It’s the one meal The Gossamer’s Veil does well and it should come with a side of nitroglycerine pills.

  It was early Saturday; they and Pal had the bar alone.

  “There’s nothing to be done about it,” Rook said. A conversation capper.

  “The two broke into my room,” Calder said. “Threw her into the hallway naked. You didn’t hear any of it? She was yelling and tryna bust the door down.”