by Adam Connell
“The night you left,” Faraday said. “It’s pulsing in you. It’s always been the most vivid.”
Kinkaid tried suppressing the memory but Faraday had his arms around it.
“That’s part of my identity,” Kinkaid said. “Walk out of here, Faraday.”
“Middle of summer,” Faraday said, holding the memory hostage, caressing it, “you picked three daffodils from the backyard when you — Escaped? Is that how you see it? Daffodils, how fucking bucolic.”
“Don’t antagonize this dog, Faraday.”
“And you cried. The bag was so heavy you cried and sprinted for the train.”
“I will get brutal,” Kinkaid said.
It, too, was gone. For its void, Kinkaid somehow felt heavier.
“I’ll take your Mom,” Kinkaid said.
“I can barely picture her.”
“Liar. Giving you baths in the sink, cutting your hair,” Kinkaid said. “A Christmas, she’s in her natty robe, you get Buster Browns. Freezing asleep in snow? Snow, that’s no way to die. That’s a quip, not a death.”
“You leave that one be,” Faraday said.
Forgotten.
“Do you remember mama?” Kinkaid said, rising fully. “No? You remember I stole her?”
“The pond,” Faraday said.
“No.”
“You get on a plane or a bus or a car, I don’t care. Or the pond.”
“No, Faraday.”
“Your friend drowning, swimming out for his necklace that you threw.”
“Faraday, this one’s sacred. I’d beg if I knew how.”
“And you, wow, you could’ve saved him, Kink. This one’s buried deep.”
“Choke on it.”
“You could’ve dived in. Your best friend.”
“Do not.”
Faraday did.
“You recall a girl Tisley?” Faraday said.
“I had a friend Tisley,” Kinkaid said.
“And I just snatched her away,” Faraday said.
“The Winged Lady, first time you made love. She give you her ass? I had her ass. How old was she then? If I never see you again, starting now, you can keep her.”
Faraday’s bloody face was sweating. His eyes were closed.
“In her apartment with her roommates next door,” Kinkaid said. “The bed sliding into the wall, into the wall, off its chocks. And next morning, ha, seeing one roommate at the fridge. She surprised you and Faraday you went fucking beet.”
“Spare that one, please,” Faraday said. “If only one.”
“Go,” Kinkaid said. “Vanish, or it does.”
Faraday didn’t move.
The fond memory evaporated.
“We’ve got a witness,” Kinkaid said, putting his shoulders back, hands at his chest.
Calder approached the limit of the tables but came no closer.
“He’s no witness,” Faraday said. He looked at Calder. “You’re a part of this. You’re a scale-tipper. I can’t kill Kinkaid alone. Thought I could, alone, but the drugs I’m on, I don’t have the focus. I slept all day and I’m still tired, Cal.”
“He can’t, Cal,” Kinkaid said, smiling wickedly, looking all the more an imp.
Faraday said, “I’ll protect you once we’ve hauled Kinkaid out of my club.”
Calder said, “Sotto promised me protection, too.”
“And Sotto and me want Kinkaid dead,” Faraday said. “The twins dead. Can Sotto shield you from Lundin and Hoone? I can do that, you’ll need me for that.”
“He’s lying,” Kinkaid said. “Faraday’s a profound liar.”
“Calder,” Faraday said.
“And fuck the bar, too,” Kinkaid said. “Do you have a relationship with any of them? If I asked, could they even tell me what color your eyes are? I’ll take care of you better than Lundin said,” he said to Calder. “You help me finesse The Nine back, you get anything you want. Without Faraday and without Sotto the old rulebook’s tabula rasa. And I’m a writer, I’m a talented fucking writer, Cal. I’m fun. Kill Faraday with me. I’d welcome your help.” He really believed he could take Faraday, but not Calder and Faraday.
“I’ll help one of you kill the other,” Calder said. And unhappy that it needed saying, needed doing. Scared.
“Pick the right other,” Kinkaid said.
“You’ve both had your rants, now I want to hear what you’re really saying. For one minute, lose your defenses. One minute. I want a naked glimpse.”
“Take longer,” Kinkaid said.
“Don’t take too long,” Faraday said.
I counted less than sixty seconds.
“Did we confirm?” Kinkaid said.
“I had my assumptions,” Calder said.
“Since one of us is gonna die, mind telling me what they were?” Faraday said.
“You’re a mesmerist, and a taskmaster.”
“Mesmerist is positively correct for him,” Kinkaid said.
“And you’re a mesmerist,” Calder said to Kinkaid.
“I’m nothing like him,” Kinkaid said.
“And a flatterer.”
“I would never you,” Kinkaid said. “Unless you earned it, then it’s deserved, isn’t it?”
“We’re all of us mesmerists,” Faraday said.
“It’s the degree of it I mean,” Calder said. Then, to Kinkaid: “Faraday has a lot less blood on his future, doesn’t he?”
“Because the real blood’s on the people he surrounds himself with,” Kinkaid said.
“And I could be one of them,” Calder said.
“Which is why I’m your choice,” Kinkaid said, on his haunches again. “I myself don’t mind a little blood. It’s okay I need to do laundry now and again.”
“I killed someone tonight,” Calder said.
“Then you understand,” Kinkaid said.
“I do. I didn’t like it, it wasn’t necessary. It was an accident. But I do, yeah.”
“I do, like in matrimony?” Kinkaid said.
“This is too much talk,” Faraday said. “Calder, you jump in on whatever side you’ve chosen.”
Faraday and Kinkaid stared at each other again and there was greater intensity this second time. Bloodshot and bloodthirsty. As if their gaze was shooting across livid savage wires. While they glared they stole commodities that could not be sold or traded. Tearing at each other’s psyche.
What Calder did couldn’t have been more unexpected. I was amazed. He didn’t join either man’s invisible attack but ran towards and dived onstage and knocked Kinkaid over. Physically.
Held Kinkaid down by the shoulders, from behind, as Faraday took the steps right of the stages to join them.
“Well don’t linger,” Calder told Faraday.
Faraday sat on Kinkaid’s stomach, his feet by the man’s hips, knees bent inwards across Kinkaid’s chest. He shifted all his weight to his knees and settled as if being lowered from his wife’s Euripidean mechane.
There were popping sounds. Kinkaid’s left eye bulged. For some reason I’ll never know, Kinkaid didn’t speak. He struggled with Calder, but Kinkaid’s strength hadn’t ever been in his muscles. Kind of like Lundin.
Faraday’s substantial weight, focused on his knees, was flattening Kinkaid’s lungs. Kinkaid’s exhales were long and no inhales replaced them.
“You’re taking too long,” Calder said.
“This is a moment,” Faraday said.
Their faces were so close, they were breathing each other’s air.
The popping was eclipsed by one loud crack. The sternum. Kinkaid’s hands quit scrabbling at Calder’s wrists. Calder took the third Council Member’s address.
Faraday took a few things himself. Some of them concerned the twins, which was news to him.
Kinkaid’s chest collapsed, his mind collapsed, he lost his secrets, and he lost his bladder. That was his death, a more exciting holiday than Lundin’s.
Calder got a good glimpse of Faraday’s contract, it was prominent among Kinkaid’s dy
ing thoughts. Kinkaid had memorized the short contract; he’d seen it when snooping through Faraday’s study after one of his sessions with Emmie. Wanted to know how much Faraday was being paid. Read it over and over. Money Kinkaid wanted for himself.
Calder saw the caveat, easily spotted as it was the only one. Specifically mentioning, emphasizing, that Council Speaker Adelard was not to be approached. Adelard was to be left alone. The caveat that Lundin had misread weeks ago.
Calder, knowing Sotto’s side of the contract, understood. The same person was behind both sides. If Calder had been able to throw the contract for the twins or Lundin, it would have upset the plan. The plan that had used Calder as much as it would Adelard.
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SIXTY-EIGHT
The next day, Monday, Faraday and The Four spent twenty hours twisting the minds of forty Council Members. Fulfilling his contract with gusto.
Tuesday morning, the mayor gave his now-famous “We Will Not, We Will” speech at a press conference in front of City Hall.
The forty Council Members were on the podium with him. Man from the train, Metro-North, too. My ex, also.
I’ll repeat some of the speech, maybe you didn’t get a chance to hear it.
“We will not leave the cost of any city project to our grandchildren.
“We will not bankrupt their children.
“We will not spend a hundred billion dollars to refurbish machines that will be obsolete when completed.
“We will not have our choices dictated by environmentalist crusaders who know nothing of the value of money.
“We will not.
“We will lease the land to smart developers, to bring the city guaranteed yearly revenue. Fourteen square acres is a godsend.
“We will continue to import some of our energy from outside the city, as we’ve always done.
“We will let someone else foot the bill for that technology.
“We will live in the present, balance our budget, expand our budget.
“We will castigate, berate, and mistrust anyone who stands for what we will not do.”
Never mind that part of the City Council’s role is to keep the Office of the Mayor and the mayor’s office in check.
Council Speaker Adelard was in his town car on the way in for the vote, running late, heard the mayor’s speech on the radio, screamed his head off.
The mayor was estimated to have spent $50 to $75 for every vote that got him elected. Commercials, print ads, flyers, staff, etc., in a city of 8 million. Through two elections with no formidable competitors.
Going into a third election, Adelard would have been competition. Having already spent so much of his own money, the mayor couldn’t afford $100+ for each vote.
The man from the train knew this. Man from the train who was also Derwatt, the mayor’s Svengali Rasputin. He loved running the city — New York, the capital of the world — with his friend. The mayor couldn’t afford $100+ dollars a vote, Derwatt knew that. Paying Sotto and Faraday was much cheaper.
One night, a party, too drunk, my ex, talking to Derwatt, she tells him about me, what Faraday and me and Sotto can do.
Next morning, she’s forgotten the conversation. Derwatt — who is never drunk — he remembers. Derwatt is spiritual, a conspiracy theorist, a believer. There’s nothing outre that Derwatt doesn’t hold as possible. J. B. Rhine, Dread Nina, Crowley. Tunguska, Stonehenge. These aren’t just people and places to Derwatt, they’re also concepts. Just as Greys aren’t a variation of colors to him, they’re beings. Sotto and Faraday’s crews were but an easy step sideways.
The Int originated with the City Council, but it ended with Derwatt. The mayor had not an inkling.
At one-thirty the City Council convened, and by two-fifteen the Yeas and Nays were tallied. Adelard’s side lost by over forty votes.
Kinkaid and the twins bested Faraday, Rook got his lap dance from the Winged Lady, Calder had proven himself to Sotto. Hagiophobia.
SIXTY-NINE
WEDNESDAY, Vespers
Rook and Faraday were in a booth at The Gossamer’s Veil. Faraday, from his half of the booth, had a good view of Pal’s television. The sound was off. The Raiders were at the Saints playing preseason. There wasn’t much sunlight left and the overarching spotlights were lit.
Faraday looked much improved since Sunday except for temporary teeth that were too small and too white.
“I prefer baseball,” Faraday said. “Only there’s too many foreigners in baseball. Maya is a God, though.”
Rook, figuring it was a pronouncement and not a question, waited for the rest.
“But the Cubans, Japanese. Cubans,” Faraday said. “Here’s a country we’ve hated since before I was born. They breed players, and we embrace ’em while our own languish on farm teams and work during the day at the foundry.”
Rook had a Maya jersey upstairs in his closet. He wanted to disagree; not with Faraday — not entirely, because the man’s observations were correct, you ask me — but against Faraday’s territorialism. He had a pervasive sense, though, that Faraday didn’t want to be argued with.
The rest of the bar was watching the gridiron game that Rook couldn’t see.
“Maya is a great pitcher,” Rook said, deciding on a mild stance without disagreeing.
“He’s good,” Faraday said. “Nishioka is excellent. Iwakuma is excellent. It’s America’s pastime. It’s our game, no? How many of us go overseas and play cricket? This is ours. Should be like running for president, you have to be born here.”
Rook wanted to get up and walk out, or at least watch the game while he was listening to this.
Faraday said, “I’m not saying hot dogs and beer we invented. But hot dogs and beer and peanuts and grand slams. Put them together and that’s ours.”
“You ever go to a stadium?” Rook said. “Time at a standstill. Baseball’s the slowest game there is. I like it better from home, there’s no wait for the john.”
“Everything’s better from home,” Faraday said.
“I like lacrosse also,” Rook said.
“Lacrosse is Canadian,” Faraday said.
“I thought hockey’s Canadian,” said the Canadian who knew next to nothing about his native country.
“They’re both the national sport,” Faraday said.
“How do you have two national sports?”
“Summer and winter,” Faraday said.
“Isn’t lacrosse Indian?”
Faraday said, “Indian. American Indian. Native Americans. First Nations. What do you call them now? Jim Thorpe, he was an athlete.”
“Thorpe was only part-Indian,” Rook said. “Like Billy Mills, the runner.”
Conversation deflated, they both watched the game. Rook over his shoulder, though it was a strain.
Two of The Four came through the stairway door in the rear. Each was carrying an open box. One had S written on the side in marker, the other TW.
They went out the front door, Rook’s eyes with them.
“Where’s the witch?” Faraday said.
“Beryl?” Rook said.
“You’ll take hers with yours.”
“I will?”
Rook wouldn’t see Beryl again unless he went to Marseilles or Hamburg. He thought about going, finding her, but underneath knew he’d never leave the city.
“Sotto was found,” Faraday said.
“I saw in the Post,” Rook said. “The landscapers at Mount Zion. The article didn’t have a lot of details.”
“Shallow grave,” Faraday said. “Other day’s rain floated him up. Most people, they, a lot of folks don’t realize there’s an art to digging a good grave. More than making a hole and filling it in. Machines, nowadays. That would be the twins.”
“What?” Rook said. “For what reason?”
“I’m selling the bar.”
Rook turned around. Expressionless. “Can you do that?”
“Can I do that?” Faraday said. “Does it matter if I can’t?”
“There’s loft space with vacancies available. It’s less central to the city but lots of room.”
“How much room?”
“You’ll like it. So will Beryl. And Hoone.”
“Haven’t seen Hoone a long time,” Rook said. “Where are Briggs and Lundin?”
“Briggs is dead,” Faraday said. “He won’t be buried for twenty, thirty years, but he’s not alive, not really. I found one twin at a hotel in Times Square.”
I always said Faraday was a good dowser.
Faraday said, “The other twin escaped.”
He’s not that good a dowser.
Rook said, “Escaped where?”
Faraday shrugged. “Won’t be coming back if he’s got any brains. Doesn’t come back, then he’s not a problem for us.”
“The one you caught?”
“Going to prison,” Faraday said.
“That’s why the police were in their apartment?”
“Collecting evidence. Sotto’s murder.”
“Would’ve been in the Post for sure,” Rook said.
“I kept it out of the papers,” Faraday said.
“You did, the papers, the TV.”
“Big Sir, he failed his parole,” Faraday said.
“I knew he was away, didn’t know he was in prison,” Rook said.
“He was. He is. I can’t imagine how he’d fail something as simple as a hearing.”
Had my reasons, Faraday.
Faraday shook his head. Disbelief. “Tell me about the safes were broken into.”
Rook looked down at the table. At his hands. Depressed. “Our safes were broken into.”
“Rook, I already had teeth pulled.”
“Sotto keeps minisafes under the bar, disguised as fridges, where Pal’s standing.”
Faraday glanced at Pal.
Rook said, “Monday morning the fridges were jimmied and their briefcases swiped.”
“And the last time you saw Calder was — ”
“Sunday noon,” Rook said. “He left me a message that night, but I was out, didn’t get it till too late.”