Lay Saints

by Adam Connell

  He approached the stoop once more.

  “You will get the hell out of the way,” he said, a mere octave from a scream.

  “Go away. Fade away,” one of them said.

  Faraday pointed at the window. “He arranged it. He set up the alley, right?”

  “We didn’t see any arrangement but we were witnesses to the alley. It hurt us just as much, Faraday.”

  “Did it! Would you like to trade broken bones and lost teeth?”

  “We saw it,” another said. “And wished we hadn’t.”

  “Kink’s got something to do with my Dad’s death?” Faraday said.

  “A leader doesn’t show this much grief.”

  Faraday palmed the urn in his right hand. His left hand brushed his cheek; it was still wet from the talk with his brother. “For his own Dad? Honor thy fucking father,” he shouted.

  “Or allow his wife to be stolen,” said the tallest one.

  “Anyone can tarnish their boss, anyone,” Faraday said.

  “You allowed it to happen. You weren’t aware of it and you didn’t stop it.” Doesn’t matter which one of the five was speaking. They were of a mind, just like their mien of eye.

  “The man’s a goddam traitor,” Faraday said, “Kinkaid. Sotto will testify. Traitors, they lie. This is what you’re barring me from? This is who you choose? A thief? A deserter?”

  “Who could he betray now? Or desert? He’s head now of all you had.”

  Faraday let loose a global attack, a killing attack, hoping to expunge all life outside his home and within it. Even Emmie, he was that maniacal. Start over with a new guard. Use Lundin more rigorously, and Hoone. Briggs, too. Me, his Big Sir. Bury everyone on the rim of Old Calvary. Go after Kinkaid’s family, if the man had one.

  He was repelled by the overwhelming combination of the five.

  They didn’t retaliate, they merely clove his bombardment and stood unmoved as it passed by them like a boulder splicing a brook.

  “You get one free,” the tallest said. “Try another, see what we do.”

  Faraday hurled the urn at the window where it exploded in a grey cloud but didn’t break the glass.

  He realized too late the horror of his action.

  Kinkaid and Emmie went upstairs.

  The window was stained in human soot.

  “Now it’s really time for you to go,” said one.

  Faraday stared at them, willing them to change sides or walk away from the home he’d bought thirteen years ago — in cash, no mortgage, for Emmie. He’d only intended to stare for a few seconds, as his last defiance, but once locked with their uniform eyes Faraday found it a gaze impossible to sever. And every second these six waited, more shame for the person who turned away.

  It would be Faraday’s shame. Unable to win, he walked back the way he’d come, then headed uptown.

  There was no one on the streets this early, fortunate for the ignorant New York hordes because he might have hobbled the first pedestrian he saw. Man or woman, toddler or child. It hurt below his ear now, where he’d been swatted by the two-by-four. His pains seemed to revolve as if his injuries slept in turns.

  He arrived at Tattletail, and four of The Nine stepped through the doors and stood in front.

  “Apparently you know fighting us won’t get you inside,” one of them said.

  “This is my club,” Faraday said. “That was my house.”

  “You have another urn to throw?”

  “Get out of my way or I will come back,” Faraday said.

  “Who with?”

  “With Death.”

  The fattest of them laughed.

  “Strong words, they are not gonna get you in here,” said the first. “There is no in here. Not for you, today, tomorrow.”

  “How are your cars?” Faraday said. “The apartments I created for you across the river? Your clothes? I gave you this lifestyle.”

  “We’re grateful.”

  “You’re ungrateful. A stupid audience lulled by one cheap performance. Wind vanes is what you are.”

  “Every minute you lag here, the less we respect you.”

  Faraday said, “You respect me?”

  “Less and less. Leave a legacy, ’Day. Don’t go out on your knees. Privilege us remember you standing.”

  “Kink, he can do more for you than I have?”

  “Kinkaid protects himself and his possessions, and he’ll keep these vanes in good breeze.”

  Faraday felt a tirade bubbling, a useless babbling for an alliance that had died with his alley beating.

  “Oh just go,” one of them said.

  “Those will be the last words you ever tell me,” Faraday said.

  “We hope so. Just go.”

  They went into the club without a look over their shoulders, as if Faraday was no longer a threat and there was no fear he was capable of blitzing them.

  He was rounding the club’s corner on 68th Street when Calder took him by the collar and shoved him into the wall. Against a wooden divider hiding a construction site.

  “She’s in the hospital,” Calder said. Seethed, really.

  “What?” Faraday said.

  “Not what, who. The hospital.”

  “Who is, my wife?”

  “Your wife? Tamm. Your Nicotine Queen. Tamm. The fucking hospital.”

  “What hospital? What are you talking about?”

  Calder pressed Faraday into the wood so hard it snapped in a few places. Faraday did nothing to physically protect himself.

  Calder said, “Adelard. I want you to put a call in to your men, Lundin and whoever, and have them reverse whatever it is they’re up to.”

  “I can’t have them anything.”

  “They need to undo,” Calder said, “and they need to desist.” He tried smashing through Faraday’s constant barriers but, even demoralized, the man was too strong.

  Calder let go Faraday’s collar. “You owe me this much.”

  “I do, I owe you this much?”

  “For Tamm,” Calder said. “Where’s Lundin live?”

  “Up here somewhere, I don’t know exactly, he never invited me for drinks. Briggs would know.”

  “Briggs is in the hospital.”

  “I thought you said Tamm was in the hospital.”

  Calder was craving a fight, but Faraday had none left.

  “Why wouldn’t they let you in the house, or your club?” Calder said.

  Faraday was silent.

  “You’ll give them orders,” Calder said. “You will do what I want. I’ve more than one way of coercing you.”

  “I couldn’t order them dinner, you upstart. Pretty soon I might be working with Sotto. Under Sotto. That’s who it is you’re speaking to.”

  Calder sensed it was true. He spat at Faraday’s feet. “That was from Tamm, for Briggs.”

  Calder walked south. Faraday went north, circumventing the club, in search of his brother’s place. Or, if unwelcome, a hotel where he could sleep through the coming day.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Sunday, early Sext

  The twins were on their California King with Nan in the middle. They were rocking left and right as one, like a fleshy pendulum. As one, joined at the lower orifices.

  Attila liked her from behind. Her hair was in his mouth and he was tasting it, curling it round his tongue. His arms cradled her upper body, his hands crossed over her breasts and squeezed them like grapefruits.

  Piker only ever engaged in vaginal sex, which Attila thought itself a fetish. And limiting, as well. Piker didn’t consider it taboo being in the same bed as his brother (they were raised this way, in all their foster homes, in the same bed) but Piker thought it would be more bearable if they took turns with Nan singly. Piker didn’t perceive it as sex with her, rather she was having sex with them. She the subject, they the objects. Scepters, hers to wield. The other women they’d been with never made Piker feel this way. Another reason he wanted to end the relationship.

  Nan climaxed before the
twins and slowly ceased her oscillations.

  “Why do I have to be on my side, on my left side always?” Piker said.

  Attila, who was still in motion, said, “Logistically there’s no other way.”

  “There’s other ways,” Piker said.

  “You are not touching your brother, Piker,” Nan said.

  “He is not.” Attila breathed into her hair, relished the smell that wafted back.

  “Just the one time,” Piker said. “That’d please me. I’d like to lie on my back or be on top the one time with you, Nan.”

  “She could have us separate,” Attila said.

  “While you whine?” Nan said. “I prefer the middle to hearing you whine.”

  “I’m gonna cum,” Attila said.

  Nan heaved them aside like heavy bookends, flipped the comforter from her body and shuffled off the bed naked.

  “No,” she said. “No, no.”

  “Why’d you wait till I was about to land?” Attila whined. “Back to bed. A few more minutes, then let’s argue.”

  She stood there naked, her skin reddish from their touch. “I’m not choosing between you,” she said. “I love you both.”

  “If you can’t choose one, you should pack off,” Piker said.

  “I love both of you,” she said.

  “And that’s why you’re staying,” Attila said.

  “This may not be a typical relationship,” she said. Her hands were on her hips. “I haven’t had any of those and I don’t want one. But either you, or you, are gonna marry me.”

  “What?” Piker said.

  “We were talking about that the other day,” Attila said. He sat up on some pillows.

  “Truly?” she said.

  “You were,” Piker said to Attila. “I was disagreeing.”

  “It was an unfinished discussion,” Attila said to Nan.

  “Your morning breath is ferocious,” Piker said.

  “That’s your complaint? I’ll wake up and gargle middle of the night. Someone’s marrying me. I don’t care which, but I’m not gonna go through life in the middle. In bed is fine, but not out of it.”

  Attila found her anger funny, and he upped the wattage inside of her.

  “And the bachelor brother?” Piker said.

  “I have to be Mrs. Something. At the bank I’m never getting promoted. You have to be a Mrs. Someone. They’re old-fashioned. Everyone thinks I have one boyfriend dyes his hair a lot.”

  “You said never to come in together,” Piker said.

  Attila was giggling. “I can’t fight, you standing there with no clothes on.”

  “I need a name, and I need a ring,” Nan said, shaking her left hand like it was on fire and she was trying to put it out. “We may not the three of us be in love the same way, but it’s time I had the traditional tokens. If only so I can get me a raise, goddam it. You’re holding me back.”

  “Then choose between us,” Piker said. “Who gets to be hubby?”

  “You choose,” she said. “How could I decide? The arguments after that would be all my fault. None of this is my fault, Piker.”

  “Pack off and it’s nobody’s fault,” Piker said.

  “We’re committed to you,” Attila said, louder than his brother. “The two of us to the one of you.”

  Her minor belly had begun drooping lately, a development glaring in the morning light from the window. Piker said nothing; Attila heard his observation and agreed.

  “And how about flowers?” Nan said. “Everyone in the office — ”

  “It’s a bank, not an office,” Piker said.

  “I’m a loan officer,” Nan said.

  Attila giggled anew.

  Nan said, “The theater? A goddam gift or day of shopping?”

  “You never go out!” Piker said.

  “Take me out!” she said. “There’s two of you, Chrissakes. I should be going out to Broadway and Zagat restaurants all week. I should be getting double the attention.”

  “You do,” Attila said. “On your pillow. Twice as much as anyone else in the city.”

  “You’re not listening,” she said.

  “Yes we are,” Piker shouted back.

  “You want romance,” Attila said.

  “I want legitimacy, validation,” Nan said. “And recogfuckingnition. I’ll come back when you prove yourselves to me. I don’t need flowers, I don’t need Broadway, I don’t need dinners.”

  “How’re we supposed to prove ourselves then?” Piker said.

  “You don’t need much,” Attila said. “We get it.”

  “I’m not the demure bride but you boys have got to show me something.”

  “Tell us what,” Attila said.

  “I already did,” Nan said like a frustrated teacher.

  “And you took it all back,” Piker said like a confused student.

  “Bed’s still warm, come on,” Attila said. “We can argue during just as easy.”

  “Not until you figure this out.” She slipped into her panties, then went to the closet for her jogging clothes.

  Attila turned to Piker. “You making her do this?”

  Piker grinned.

  “You might be leaving,” Attila said to Nan, “but you’re not leaving for good.”

  “You won’t permit me?”

  “No,” Attila said.

  “Yes,” Piker said.

  “Piker and I, we’ll figure it out like you asked,” Attila said.

  “Look, I know you can make me stay, your hard wills. I seen you do it. Not to me, but I’ve seen. If I wanna go, let me go. Please.”

  Sotto knocked on the bedroom door three times and then came in as if invited.

  “Cover up,” he said to the twins.

  They pulled the comforter up to their navels, no higher.

  Nan was still changing by the closet.

  “I have someone to show you two boys,” Sotto said.

  “Right now we’re busy,” Attila said.

  “I haven’t assigned you work since the Chinese restaurant.”

  “Busy now, with her,” Attila said, nodding at Nan, who was finally dressed in Spanx and a sports top.

  “I’ll be back at six,” she announced. “Make a gesture by then. Before the Park I’m going home now to squirrel away notes about the three of us, to remind me in case you make me forget. So do something I told you not to — tinker with me — you’ll have to mi — ”

  “This is important, this girl I found,” Sotto said.

  “Can’t you see we’re having a fucking spat?” Attila said.

  “I said six o’clock,” Nan said. She moved past Sotto and was going to slam the bedroom door, but checked her swing at the end.

  “Did she even realize I was here?” Sotto said.

  “Did you her?” Attila said. “You put her up to that,” he told Piker.

  To Sotto, with business in his tone, Piker said, “What’s so important, this new woman of yours.”

  Sotto said, “This girl, not a woman. Don’t make me repeat myself. A job for you two, not a paying one, but with me and her — ”

  “There’s other jobs in this city,” Attila said.

  “Not lately there’s not,” Sotto said.

  “Cause you been making presents of them to unproven Calder,” Piker said.

  “One man, and one contract it was,” Sotto said. “He needs testing.”

  “And we need to work,” Piker said. “When there’s jobs like manna everywhere I look.”

  “We don’t want that kind of work,” Sotto said.

  “You don’t, we could,” Piker said.

  Attila motioned with his hand for Sotto to come nearer, which Sotto did not.

  “Help me train her, this newbie,” Sotto said.

  The twins could feel her mind outside the door, in the den.

  Sotto called her inside.

  “She’s special among the gifted,” he said. “She doesn’t need proving.”

  She was small. Her hair had been unwashed a long time,
was turning into dreadlocks.

  “I’d like to spend time with her, the four of us.”

  She didn’t only read thoughts, she could see them in the air. Floating around the heads of the thinker like supertitles. The sentences, the fragments, could be large or small: they varied in color depending on attitude and emotion. Sometimes they were curved, snaking halos, sometimes straight, in bold.

  Although young, she’d visited Scandinavia to avoid her understanding them. Wandered around. Yet her fantastic mind translated foreign thoughts into English. Incredibly. There were times, many times, she felt as if she were living in a comic strip. No word bubbles, but the words that would normally be captured there were clear to her.

  This instigated and instilled a madness in the pitiable waif Sotto had discovered during a tour of the Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at New York-Presbyterian, where Sotto had rescued her.

  A reader he could wholly manipulate. He promised to teach her how to differentiate or ignore this unusual vision that she’d had since puberty.

  “I’ve been searching very hard,” Sotto said. “I was lucky finding her, like I was lucky with Calder.”

  Hands on her shoulders, he gently pushed her away from the door. She found a corner, sat facing the corner.

  “Your reaction to her,” Sotto said, pointing at the corner, “exemplifies it.”

  Attila felt contempt for her, and fear of her.

  “Exemplifies what?” Piker said.

  “I’m positive now,” Sotto said, “what you’ve been doing with, for Kinkaid. And it stops.”

  “The hell you talking about?” Attila said as he sat up straighter.

  “You’re going to pretend? With me?”

  “We were doing it, are doing it, for you,” Piker said.

  “Don’t feed me shit, I don’t like the way it tastes,” Sotto said. “You think I can’t spot an untruth before it’s even said?”

  “You’re gonna benefit,” Piker said.

  An untruth, spotted.

  “How long?” Attila said. “Have you known, for how long?”

  “These walls flex and they speak to me.”

  “Then you let it go on,” Attila said.

  “While it lasted to my favor,” Sotto said. “Kinkaid is weaker than Faraday, that’s good. They’ve got clients we could use, that’s very good. You’d have gone Uptown without me, I cannot have that.”