by Paul Neilan
“It’s not going anywhere,” Wayne said. “It’s rustic.”
“What the fuck is rustic?” Ollie said.
“I don’t know,” Wayne said. “It’s when you hang up cowboy shit so it looks old-timey. Like a ranch.”
“You mean like that bathroom we were in the other day with the toilets on the wall?” Ollie said. “I couldn’t even take a shit in them. Like sitting on an empty saddle. Every time you grab the reins it flushes on you.”
“Those were urinals,” Wayne said.
“What the fuck is a urinal?” Ollie said.
“How the fuck do you not know what a urinal is?” Wayne said. “You piss in it.”
“That’s what I said,” Ollie said. “It’s a toilet.”
“A urinal’s just for piss,” Wayne said. “You can’t shit in it.”
“A toilet you can’t shit in?” Ollie said. “Who’s the idiom came up with that? I just ate all this lint, now what am I supposed to do? This rustic bullshit’s gone too far.”
I stood from the seat as the city passed by out the window, waited for my stop.
* * *
I got off the bus at Venice Boulevard, walked down to the beach. The bodybuilders were out in the rain, spray tanned to leather, muscles like tumors metastasizing all over their misshapen bodies, pumping iron under their retractable roof. Across the street was a mural of a sandy-haired angel in slanted rain, wings peeking from beneath his trench coat, a silver ankh in his outstretched hand, driving a pack of vampires back into the shadows. Leda Dresden stood beneath it, under an umbrella with a fluorescent handle.
“Harrigan,” she said. “You’re all wet.”
“We should meet in a bar like civilized people,” I said. “In Hollywood.”
“Too many ears,” she said. “Too many eyes.”
She looked up at the mural.
“What do you think?” she said. “He’s the patron saint of Venice Beach.”
“Those muscle heads could handle a couple of vampires,” I said, nodding at the gym across the street.
“Those muscle heads are vampires,” she said. “Let’s walk.”
She gave me half her umbrella as we went down the sidewalk, the rain dripping onto my shoulder.
“I found out who killed Eddie Lompoc,” I said. “She knew about the Dunwich Academy.”
“She?” Leda Dresden said. “Did she do Basil Fenton too?”
“Said it was business,” I said. “I walked in on her working over a detective with a cucumber in her hand.”
“There could be more of them,” she said. “Dunwich graduates. You took her out?”
“It’s taken care of,” I said.
We walked down the sidewalk, rain bouncing off the concrete in front of us.
“Parallax is making a move,” she said. “Soon.”
“How big?” I said.
“All in,” she said. “They’re playing off the comet. Brahe’s Reckoning.”
“That’s two days,” I said. “Not much time.”
“It’s coming together,” she said. “You have any interest?”
“I’m working my own side of the street,” I said. “I’ve got some people I’m trying to get out, before it hits.”
“Saving civilians?” she said. “That’s cleanup, Harrigan. I’m offering you a piece of the action.”
Rain slapped the umbrella above us.
“This kind of job could make a reputation,” she said.
“I don’t want a reputation,” I said.
“You’ve already got one,” she said. “Whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t work for Parallax,” I said. “Or anybody else.”
“That means you don’t work at all,” she said. “There’s a reason independent operators aren’t around anymore. Zodiac made sure of that. Don’t you want a little payback?”
“They’ll come for you,” I said. “They always do.”
“I’ve got a way out,” she said. “Off Grid.”
“It have anything to do with losing your eyebrows to fvrst chvrch mvlTverse?” I said.
She looked at me, smiled.
“You’ve got all the pieces right in front of you, Harrigan,” Leda Dresden said. “Don’t you want to see how they fit together?”
* * *
I stood under an awning outside The Harlequin. The car with the runners and shark fins was parked in the lot. I went up the steps to the first door on the second floor. Knocked.
Brand opened it, his mohawk like a landing strip on fire.
“You?” he said, running his hand up his studded leather armband. “You dare show this face of yours?”
“I’m not here for you,” I said.
“And yet it is I, what you have received,” he said.
He puffed himself up in the doorway, arms out.
“Brand,” a voice came from inside. “Let him in.”
He stood there another second, stepped aside. Shut the door behind me.
There were too many people in too small of a room. Sig sat on one of the double beds. He stood when I came in, stared at me hard. Tor leaned against the bathroom door, his eyes soft. Anna was in a chair beside him, still wearing her gray robe. The walls were painted checkerboard, black and white, the farthest one dominated by a glowing screen, floor to ceiling.
“Harrigan,” Mirror Mirror’s theater mask said, filling the screen. “So nice to see you again.”
“I do not agree,” Brand said. “He is not welcome here.”
“Did you find my bag?” Anna said.
I nodded.
“Do you have it?” she said.
“No,” I said. “Zodiac was sitting on the bus station. They’ve got it now. Along with all your Polaroids.”
“It will tell them nothing,” she said. “Still, a shame.”
“I told you, he cannot be trusted,” Brand said. “First Charlie Horse, now Zodiac? Look at him, he is useless to me.”
“Like I said, I’m not here for you,” I said.
“You will know your place,” he said, taking a step towards me. Sig did the same, from around the bed.
I was in no shape to fight. Didn’t mean I wasn’t about to.
“Boys, boys,” Mirror Mirror’s theater mask said. “Let’s all settle down now, shall we. Remember what’s at stake.”
“Brahe’s Reckoning is all that matters,” Brand said, glaring at me. “Nothing more.”
“We both know that’s not true,” the mask said, its voice undulating. “How’s Anton, Harrigan?”
“He’s on the run,” I said. “From everybody.”
“Aren’t we all,” the mask said. “It’s better this way. The Accelerator wasn’t safe for him anymore. Or for me.”
“You have revealed yourself to him?” Brand said, turning to the screen. “You have divulged our methods?”
“He knows what he needs to, nothing more,” the mask said. “As do you.”
“I am the engine of our liberation!” Brand said. “The fire is mine! Must I question your commitment to the cause?”
“Only if I need question yours,” the mask said, swirling and reforming in a woman’s image. “Think back to Copenhagen, Brand. Remember your vow. Remember her face.”
Brand swayed on his feet. Anna leaned forward in her chair.
“Do you remember what you promised me?” the mask said in a soft voice, frail and failing. “How you’d protect her, always? Watch over our Anna, Brand. No matter what comes.”
“Mother,” Anna said, looking to the screen.
“Enough of this sorcery!” Brand said, holding his head with both hands. “What do you ask of me?”
“That’s better,” the mask said. “Have a seat. Please.”
Brand sat on one of the double beds. Sig took the other. I found a spot on the checkerboard wall.
“The comet is coming,” the mask said, swirling to a shower of sparks. “It cannot be stopped. You will have your reckoning, Brand. But Anna has risked herself in my service, and I
will not see her suffer for it again. She has paid too steep a price already. She will pay no more.”
Tor was nodding. Brand dropped his head. Anna smiled upon the Queen of Swords.
“Zodiac can be handled,” the mask said, reweaving itself. “They pose Anna no threat. But Charlie Horse must be dealt with.”
“I will deal with him,” Brand said, clenching his leather armband in his hand. “My way.”
“It won’t be enough, satisfying though it may be,” the mask said. “Charlie Horse needs to be convinced. I’ll talk to him.”
“It won’t work,” I said. “Not with Charlie Horse.”
“What’s the matter, Harrigan?” the mask said, spinning to a vortex. “Don’t you trust me?”
* * *
I didn’t like the play. I sat at my table with the bottle, thought about it some more.
I’d set up a meeting with Charlie Horse the next day, before Fatales opened. Me, Brand, Sig, and Tor. None of us were doing any talking. That was up to Mirror Mirror. It hung on a silver key drive, clipped to a slender chain around my neck.
I do not trust him with it, Brand said.
I do, Anna said.
It didn’t matter. It was going to Charlie Horse. I tried to tell them. Tried to explain. It’s not what you say. Not always. Not sometimes. Not here. It’s what you’re talking to.
There was a knock on my door.
“Harrigan,” Moira Volga said when I opened it.
I didn’t say anything. I walked back to my table, sat down. She let herself in, closed the door behind her. Hung her coat on the rack.
“I came by before,” she said. “You weren’t home. Guess I missed you.”
I took a drink.
She looked at me, cocked her head. My bad side was facing the wall. She went to the kitchenette, got herself a glass, sat down.
I poured.
“My God,” she said, looking at my face in the light. “What happened to you?”
“I found Stan Volga,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Hooray?”
“You’re the surveillance in The Accelerator,” I said. “That was your lens over Anton’s desk.”
“Ta da,” she said, spreading out her hands.
She lit a single cigarette, held it out to me. I looked it back into her mouth.
“Do you have it?” she said. “Mirror Mirror?”
I took a drink.
“I knew you’d find it,” she said, smoke drifting from her lips. “That first day, when I came here, I knew you would. I didn’t want to lie to you, Harrigan. Moira Volga just came out, and then I didn’t know what else to do. I usually don’t, if I’m being honest.”
“Little late to start now,” I said.
“Is it?” she said. “Are you sure?”
I took a drink.
“What are you going to do with it?” she said.
“I’m taking it to Charlie Horse tomorrow,” I said.
“The gangster with the slicked-back hair?” she said. “That’s a mistake.”
“I know,” I said.
“So don’t make it,” she said. “She doesn’t belong to him.”
“‘She’?” I said.
“The Queen of Hearts,” she said. “I spent enough time watching her to know. They say everything changes when it’s observed. This one changes you back.”
She took a drink.
“Open up the key drive and ask her,” she said. “She knows who I am. She saw me too. With the two of us here, if we—”
“There’s no we,” I said. “There never was.”
“No?” she said. “You don’t sound too sure.”
Smoke peeled from her cigarette, curling up to the ceiling.
“So tell me to leave,” she said.
“Leave,” I said.
“You don’t mean it,” she said.
Nobody ever does.
I poured myself another glass. “Who are you working for?” I said.
“I’m like you, Harrigan,” she said. “I’m in it for my own reasons, no matter who’s paying.”
I took a drink. “What’s your name?” I said.
“Do you really want to know?” she said, the smoke rising. “What would you do if I told you?” She set the cigarette in the tray, uncrushed, still smoldering. “Would you track me down? What then?”
She stood from the table. Came around slow. “Would you find me, when all of this is over?” she said. “What would you do?”
Rain rang on the window. Drummed on the door, begging to be let in. The water stain on the wall lay bare, the world in tatters beneath it.
“What would you do, Harrigan?” she said.
She sank herself on top of me on the chair. Ran her finger lightly down the bruise around my eye. Pressed herself against my busted ribs and kissed me.
I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. Not once.
What would you do, Harrigan? What would you do?
I didn’t know. I still don’t. It’s not weakness when you’ve got nothing left.
I reached up into her dark hair with my good hand, felt the rain still in it as she kissed me again. And then I was in the crow’s nest of an old ship, tossed by the waves, lashed to the mast, hanging on for dear life as the water sang all around me.
saturday
She was gone when I woke up. I reached for the silver key drive around my neck, found it hanging on its chain. I watched the ceiling fan spin above me. Heard water sloshing on the floor. I went out into the front room. The stain on the wall had burst. The flood had finally broken through.
* * *
“When I was thirteen years old something changed. It was like Battleship every time I sat down on the toilet. But it wasn’t a game,” Clyde Faraday said, his voice monotone. “It came up aircraft carrier every time. Every shit was huge and hulking and completely unmaneuverable. It was way too big to flush, so I had to go to the cherry blossom tree in the backyard and snap off a stick to break it down into manageable chunks. It happened so regular I’d just get a bundle of sticks and stash them in the cabinet under the sink so I didn’t have to make as many trips. I heard my dad talking to his new girlfriend about it one night.”
“Why is he hiding sticks in my bathroom?”
“His body’s changing.”
“Changing into what? A fucking beaver? Is he damning up the bathtub? What the fuck? This is the shit I have to think about when I take a shower every morning?”
“After I flushed I’d open the window—our bathroom was on the second floor, right above the back porch—and I’d lean out and launch the shit stick over the fence into the neighbor’s yard and watch as their dog Baxter chewed on it. It was payback for what he’d done to me when I was a baby. It was the most satisfying part of every day. It still is.”
Clyde’s hands tumbled in his lap, one over the other.
“One afternoon I leaned out the window like always and I heard my dad say What are you doing?” Clyde said. “He’d come home from work early and was sitting on the back porch having a beer. I was startled and shirtless—I don’t want to get into why—and the dripping shit stick slipped from my hand and somersaulted towards my dad below in slow motion before landing right on his chest, his white V-neck shirt forever stained. He roared like a lion does when they find one of their cubs dead in the tall grass. I ran from the bathroom and out the door and down the street, still shirtless. I ran and ran and ran.”
Clyde slid his hands one over the other, fingers brushing his knuckles.
“My dad never said anything about it, but it was clear that I was no longer his son,” Clyde said. “Baxter died that same week. I didn’t know what to do with my shit sticks anymore. I still don’t.”
Clyde’s eyes focused on the screen, the old game show playing. Wheel of Fortune.
“I don’t know why I watch this shit!” Clyde said, suddenly animated. “None of them even know how to play the game.”
He turned away, disgusted, saw me sitting there.
&n
bsp; “Harrigan,” Clyde said. “When did you get here?”
“Just now,” I said.
“I say anything?” he said, uncertain.
“Not a word,” I said.
“This medicine,” he said, nodding up at the machines. “So tell me kid, what did I—Jesus. What happened to you?”
The bruise around my eye was tattooed purple. My one side was still bad.
“One of those nights,” I said.
“One of those lives,” Clyde said.
He shook his head slow. “It’s this town, kid,” he said. “The Hollywood spiral. It pulls us all down, the bad and the good. Floats us back up when it’s done like corpses in a shallow reservoir. And everybody wants a drink.”
“How do we get out?” I said.
“Only one way to beat a bum score,” he said, staring up at the machines above him.
“I’ve got a meeting with Charlie Horse in an hour,” I said.
“Charlie Horse?” he said. “You know what you’re walking into?”
“I’ve got some idea,” I said. “It’s not good.”
We listened to the machines sighing above him.
“I’m in a bad spot, Clyde,” I said.
“Me too, kid,” Clyde said. He turned his head to the screen, the old game show repeating, the wheel endlessly spinning. “Me too.”
* * *
I met Brand, Sig, and Tor in the park on Hollywood Boulevard by a crumbling concrete staircase halfway up the sloping drive to the abandoned Frank Lloyd Wright house. They were dressed in their characters’ club clothes, safety pins and leather, Brand with his studded armband. Neither of them said anything. We crossed the street to Fatales.
Santos laughed when he opened the door. “Boss is gonna love this,” he said, showing his gap-toothed grin.
He patted us down one by one, skipping the body scan. Coat check was empty. The lights were down. Charlie Horse was keeping it off Grid.
We went around the wall, through the curtain, down the hallway to the heavy wooden door of the office. Santos knocked twice, opened it. I went through.
“Harrigan,” Charlie Horse said, sitting behind his desk, the screen dark behind him.
He looked over the Danes.
“What the fuck is this supposed to be?” Charlie Horse said. “You starting a band or a boys town? Father Harrigan’s Home for Wayward Dickheads?”