“You’re not here to pick out a date!” Tim shouted from the truck.
By now there must have been at least fifty people gathered around him. Dobbs showed them the mattresses, laid out in a grid on the floor. In the moonlight coming through the high windows, their faces didn’t change expression.
Over in the corner, a woman was laying a bundle out on a blanket. A baby, tiny, no more than a few weeks old, wrapped up in what looked like a windbreaker.
Dobbs bent down to get a better look. “What’s her name?” He was extending his finger toward the baby’s fist when someone stepped in front of him, batting his arm away.
A man hovered over him, looking down, yelling in a language Dobbs didn’t understand. Then there were hands on his shoulders, and others were closing in.
“It’s okay.” Dobbs raised his hands, took a step back. “I just wanted to look.”
“What the fuck’s going on?” Tim and Mike stood in the doorway, side by side, watching over the scene. And then they parted, turning sideways, making room for Sergio.
Dobbs hadn’t heard him arrive. But now he saw the sedan, parked alongside the truck. Sergio must have been driving with the headlights off.
Tim and Mike went back to the truck, resumed lowering people down.
Sergio nodded for Dobbs to follow him outside. “Let’s take a walk.”
Sergio wore a different suit from the one in Vegas. A lighter fabric, with a shine to it like silk.
“What took so long?” Dobbs said.
Sergio signaled to Mike, and the overhead door came down with a rattle and shudder. Now he and Dobbs were alone in the gravel lot. It was quiet out here, as if someone had switched off the sound.
Sergio hooked his arm in Dobbs’s, and together they walked toward the weeds at the edge of the lot.
“I thought something went wrong,” Dobbs said.
“Everything’s fine.”
“But why did it take so long?”
“You of all people,” Sergio said. “You shouldn’t be complaining.”
“I was worried.”
“It’s a messy business.”
Dobbs tried to loosen his arm from the awkward angle Sergio held him in. “It doesn’t have to be.” He nodded back toward the garage. “They don’t have to be so rough.”
At least five inches shorter, and Sergio still somehow seemed to be looking down on him. “You know,” he said, “we don’t run into a lot of idealists out here.”
“I’m a realist,” Dobbs said. “But you can still have a conscience.” He stopped himself. “I don’t mean you specifically.”
Sergio came to a stop under a leafless tree, all bark and hollow branches. “All this conscience of yours,” he said, “and you didn’t think you should tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
From the inside pocket of his jacket, Sergio removed his phone. He pressed a button, and an image materialized on the screen. The demolished grocery store, reproduced in miniature.
“The second one, I’m told.” The screen went black again.
“It’s just old buildings,” Dobbs said. “Ruins.”
Wrinkles appeared at the corners of Sergio’s eyes. “Nothing to be concerned about?”
Dobbs shrugged. “The new Old West—isn’t that what you told me?”
“There were no explosions at the O.K. Corral,” Sergio said.
“But it’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Distractions, a little chaos?”
“When things start blowing up for no good reason,” Sergio said, “people start paying attention. They start looking at what’s going on inside empty buildings. You understand what I’m saying?”
“It’s going to be fine,” Dobbs said.
“I gave you this chance as a kindness.”
Something had changed in Sergio. The friendly wingman from Mexico was gone. Even the avuncular boss from Vegas, the one who’d given Dobbs this second chance—he, too, had vanished.
“I’ve done everything you asked,” Dobbs said.
Sergio jerked his thumb toward the street. “Go get some sleep. You look like shit. And don’t come back unless you hear from me. In fact,” he added, “go home, shut the door, and don’t go anywhere until things calm down.”
Dobbs glanced back toward the building. He’d have to be a bird to see down through the high windows, to know what was going on in there.
“This was supposed to be mine,” Dobbs said. “I set it up.”
“You’ve earned a vacation.”
“I don’t trust them.”
Sergio took Dobbs by the elbow and turned him around, back toward the street. “Show me I can still trust you.”
“You can.”
“I want to believe you,” Sergio said, “but what I see is someone cracking. I think the strain is getting to you. I see a man that’s breaking down.”
“I’m a survivor,” Dobbs said. “Just like you.”
“I’m a businessman,” Sergio said. “And right now I see a man putting my business in danger.”
§
That night, huddled in the stuffy house, Dobbs studied his palms in a sliver of moonlight, wondering if there really was something the lines could tell him, something about the future or even about the present.
The boom came without warning, out of nowhere, a low distant rumble. It didn’t sound like much, and in a moment the sound was gone, dissolving into the roar of the cicadas.
From the upper floor, Dobbs could see smoke. A small plume to the west. On a second glance, he spotted a low, gathering cloud to the north, too. From somewhere came the blistering wail of sirens, but they could’ve been headed for still more smoke Dobbs couldn’t see.
He was at the front door, turning the knob, when he remembered. “Okay, Sergio,” he said. “You win.” He slid the bolts back into place.
Dobbs broke a twig from his most recent broom, this one cut from the maple in the yard. The branch had turned brittle. Instead of sweeping, it left trails of chipped leaves across the floor.
In the weak yellow light of the paper-covered windows, he peeled off the bark. Sitting down at the table with his dull pocketknife, he set to work.
He thought about his grandfather, those long summer nights at the cabin on the lake, especially after his grandmother had died. Without electricity, there’d been few distractions. Dobbs’s parents had never really been able to take a vacation from their research, opting to squint at books by flashlight. His sister had relied on a backpack full of batteries to keep her music playing.
His grandfather hadn’t been much of an outdoorsman. He was always breaking ax handles, trying to split firewood. The fish he caught and cooked were all scales and bones. He’d been in real estate all his life. Maybe he’d thought he had something to prove. Every night when the sun went down, he set to work with a block of wood. His goal was a duck. A mallard, specifically, but why he’d picked that particular bird, Dobbs never knew. Throughout his childhood, there’d been flocks of all kinds of things around the lake, but he couldn’t remember a single mallard. Maybe his grandfather couldn’t either. Maybe that was why, by the time he died, his collection of carvings resembled a lot of things—from mastless Viking ships to gravy boats—but there was nothing that looked at all like a duck.
Dobbs’s aims now were more modest. By the time the next day passed once again into night, he’d carved himself a pencil. Not far off from the stick he’d started with, but eight squared sides and a fine, sharp point. His eraser was credible, round on the sides and flat on top.
When he was done, he set the pencil down on the table and spent a moment admiring it.
Then he got up and walked out the front door.
“I was beginning to wonder,” Constance said, standing beside the greeting station as he passed inside.
Since he’d been here last, she’d transformed the place even more. There were pictures on the walls and a plastic fern beside a folding screen. A real restaurant, unmistakable. He’d never asked how she managed to g
et electricity here.
Constance went into the kitchen and reappeared a moment later balancing a mug and a thin, twisted log on a chipped china plate. “Bread?”
The coffee was instant, as always, but it would do.
Taking a sip, Dobbs glanced again around the restaurant, at all the random pieces she’d somehow assembled. “How did you know?” he said. “How did you know this was what you had to do?”
“I did what I felt like doing.”
“You had a vision,” he said.
She shrugged. “I was bored.”
“It’s more than that,” he said. “Most people just hunker down. But you—how do you go outside, in all that emptiness—how does it not get to you?”
“I’m old,” she said. “How’s it going to hurt me?”
“You don’t feel dread?”
She took something from her pocket and slid it to him across the table. A newspaper clipping, crisscrossed with fuzzed edges from being repeatedly creased. She pointed to a picture of rubble.
“Last night,” he said. “I heard it.”
This time it was an old jazz club. The article he read, as Constance watched, was long and elegiac, brimming with nostalgia. Below the fold was a photo spread of the club’s once glorious past, a marquee aglow with the names of bands and stage shows he had never heard of but would have looked impressive anywhere up in lights.
“Did you know it?” he said. “Had you been there?”
Constance gazed at the photo. “Maybe once,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dobbs picked up a piece of bread, crammed it in his mouth. He stuffed two more in his pocket. “I’ve got to go.”
It had started to rain while he was at Constance’s, but the day—the entire week, really—had been oddly hot and humid, unlike any Midwestern fall he’d ever known. He would’ve liked to lie down among the weeds, spread out like an angel, letting the rain wash over him.
He found the place easily. From a block away, he could see the limp yellow police tape bouncing as it caught the falling drops. Drawing closer, he could make out the scorched grass and muddy rivulets studded with boot prints, where the fire hoses had run off. The club was nothing more now than a cordoned-off heap. The remaining boarded-up buildings on either side of the street looked like a Potemkin town turned around—the braces that kept everything standing rotting in the rain.
The city was silent as a fallow field.
“I know you.”
Dobbs spun around on the wet concrete. McGee stood on the opposite sidewalk, directly behind him. She’d dyed her hair blond, but there was no mistaking her eyes.
“It was raining last time I saw you, too,” she said. “You had a newspaper over your head.”
How could he tell her that lately he’d been seeing her constantly, that he was with her almost every time he couldn’t keep himself from falling asleep?
In the rain, her oversize clothing hung off of her like a wet tarp. “Sightseeing?” she said.
He turned back toward the rubble. “I keep trying to figure out what it all means.” The street lay between them, and Dobbs wondered if he should cross, or if she would.
“I think they’re trying to help,” she said. Her hands were in her pockets, her eyes fixed on the ruins. “They’re trying to do the right thing.”
Dobbs put his hand in his own pocket, felt around for the bread. Aside from the crust, it had turned to mush. “Is this the right thing?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it feels like the only thing left.”
And then she was walking away from him.
“See you later,” Dobbs shouted. But the words came out sounding hollow, as if he already knew they might not be true.
* * *
The rain had slowed to little more than a drizzle by the time he reached the house. He left a trail of shoe prints across the cracked, weathered porch.
The first things he saw, when he opened the door, were Mike and Tim standing side by side, perfectly still at the far end of the living room. Their jumpsuits were dry. They’d been waiting a long time.
The two men broke toward him in the same instant. The door was still open behind him, but Dobbs didn’t bother trying to run.
“You brought this on yourself,” Mike said as the flames on his forearms danced in Dobbs’s eyes.
And then Dobbs was on the ground, and there was a stampede on his ribs and spine.
Tim, standing by the door watching, said, “This won’t end well for you.”
But then again, Dobbs thought, maybe the end had already come.
Twenty-Five
Even in the poor light just before dawn, Darius could tell how clean the alley was, the crumbling pavement looking as though it had just been swept. From the steel door at the far end, someone had hung a holly wreath. But it was only September; the perfect little berries had to be plastic.
Michael Boni knocked, and a few moments passed before Darius heard feet shuffling somewhere within. As the door swung open, the alley was bathed in music, playful notes dancing across a piano keyboard, accompanied by the resonant thumps of an upright bass. And then the trumpet entered, the player unmistakable. As Darius and Michael Boni passed through, Satchmo broke out scatting. For a moment, Darius felt as though he were stepping back in time. On the other side of the door, he half-expected to see a room full of closely shaven men gnawing on cigars as they stacked poker chips into miniature battlements.
But the room was almost entirely empty. The air smelled warm and yeasty. An elderly black woman stood with her hand on the knob. “Welcome,” she said.
The place was a restaurant, but Darius couldn’t begin to guess what kind. An assortment of mismatched booths lined the dining room, the walls decorated with landscapes from several different continents. Just inside the door, a marble-topped table that at one time must have belonged to a sidewalk café propped up a sign reading PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED.
Michael Boni nodded casually to the old woman. “How’s business?”
“Suddenly picking up.”
Constance led Darius and Michael Boni across the room to the farthest booth from the door. Leaning over the table, she tipped a lighter in the mason jar candle.
“We’re not on a date,” Michael Boni said, and the old woman frowned as he blew out the flame. Darius might have apologized for his rudeness, but by now Constance must have understood who she was dealing with.
As usual, Michael Boni hadn’t bothered to explain their destination. It wasn’t so much that he enjoyed surprises. It was just that—as best Darius could figure—Michael Boni preferred to be the only one who ever knew what was going on. But Darius had heard so much about Constance that this, whatever this was, hardly felt like a secret. He was just pleased to see the woman in person. But now that he was here, he realized she was nothing like he’d imagined, older and frailer. The way Michael Boni had talked about her, Darius had expected some sort of sage, not an elderly waitress who looked more than a little like his own grandmother.
“Well?” Constance said.
Michael Boni shrugged. “What do you have?”
“What do you think?”
“Stew?” Michael Boni didn’t bother to hide his grimace. “Meat?”
“Not unless you brought one of your birds.”
Michael Boni’s eyes narrowed in on her, and she stared right straight back.
Darius wondered if Michael Boni had any relationships that weren’t entirely antagonistic.
When she was gone, Michael Boni thumped his elbows onto the table. “What do you think?”
Darius paused to take another look around. He’d never seen anything like it: the ill-assorted furniture, the plastic plants, the crooked fixtures, the randomly assembled parts and pieces. “Did she do all this herself?”
“I helped.” Michael Boni seemed so pleased with everything he saw, Darius couldn’t help wondering if the restaurant was supposed to be like the lettuce, another of Michael Boni’s symbols.
Constance ret
urned with a tarnished silver tray, which she set down before them on the table. On the tray was a wooden cutting board, and on the board a bent and knobby baguette that looked like the branch of some ancient tree. The bread was ugly, but it smelled incredible. And there was a small pot of coffee and several cups. Constance may not have been a sage, but she could read Darius’s mind.
“Would you do the honors?” She slid the board in front of him.
The teeth of the knife sawed in. Shards of crust, thick as bark, shot across the tabletop. And then, almost instantly, there was no more resistance. A puff of steam swirled out of the cut, and the flesh fell away from the knife as if it were no more than air.
“Try it,” she said.
Darius put down the knife and picked up a slice. Together that golden shell and the fragile web in the middle melted into a cloud of warmth and nothingness.
The bread was one of the most delicious things he’d ever put in his mouth. Maybe Constance was a sage after all. Maybe, Darius thought, a second bite would answer the question once and for all. But just as he was reaching out for another piece, the door to the alley swung open.
McGee had arrived.
“I was beginning to wonder,” Michael Boni shouted, as if over the clamor of a lunch-hour rush. And then something changed in his expression, a sour, unpleasant look of surprise.
McGee wasn’t alone. Behind her, emerging cautiously from the alley, was a tall, pretty blonde.
“Who the fuck is this?” Michael Boni said.
McGee gestured for the girl to follow. “A friend.”
McGee betrayed no reaction to the place, but the tall, pretty blonde was glancing around the dining room with her jaw set at an unpretty angle. Darius had seen her once before, through the glass of his guard booth. Just like on that night, she was following a step behind McGee, as if tethered by a string.
Michael Boni slid over to make room for McGee. Darius did the same for the pretty blonde. She gave him a faint, mechanical smile out of the side of her mouth.
“We haven’t been introduced,” Darius said, offering his hand.
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