Fred eyed Carl and wolf-whistled. “Who’s the babe?”
“No idea. One of the copyeditors who almost wrecked a story of mine.”
“You mean that last paragraph?”
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t wreck it. She fixed it.”
“Fixed it? Et tu, Fred?”
“It was a shitty sentence, and she was right to listen to me.”
“To you?”
Fred leaned back in his chair with amusement, his hands behind his neck. “I told her to change it. She was going to leave it be.”
“She didn’t tell me that when I asked.”
“That’s because I told her not to. Good to know she’s trustworthy. I might pay her call sometime soon.”
Carl threw his cigar at Fred’s face. “I know you like to rob the cradle, but shit - that’s like trying to rob the womb!”
“I don’t care. I doubt she will, either.”
“Whatever.”
Fred laughed heartily as he took in a long draw of the cigar, blowing it out in short puffs. He sighed reminiscently.
“That’s one thing I do miss from the Corps,” he said. “The laydees love a man in uniform - and out of it, too, I might add.”
***
It was another packed night at the Fighting Sailor. Another round of rum, another round of whiskey. His head swirling with the smell of intoxicating liquors and the sweet blend of tobacco, Carl took a large mug of beer and headed to a booth and sat down, guzzling it as he brushed off one of the women vying for his attention.
He wasn’t fully settled on which one he would take one home that night. Sometimes, it was best to keep a clear mind and head. A pretty face and endearing smile tended to distract from that.
A while later, someone tapped Carl’s shoulder. He looked up and saw Tom with a shot of round in his hand. He got up and shook hands with his friend before they both sat down.
“Glad to have you here,” Carl said.
“Glad to be back.”
They toasted, consuming their respective drinks. Tom went to the bar for a beer. When he came back, he looked pained.
“Wound still giving you trouble?” Carl asked.
“Not really. Just soreness. Nothing to worry about.”
“Good.”
Prodded by Tom, Carl recounted what had happened while he had recovered. He discussed his new reporting beat, the people he had met, and some of the better stories he had written. Tom listened intently as he drank his beer.
“Seems like you’ve been having fun,” he said.
The tone was vague, neither serious nor sarcastic. Seizing the moment as the best opportunity, Carl placed a handful of money on the table and pushed it over to Tom’s side.
“What’s this?” Tom asked.
“For the Mustang repairs.”
Tom looked at the money, then scooped it into his hand. “Thanks.”
“Care for a cigarette?”
“What?”
Carl flicked open a case and offered one to Tom. The gesture confused Tom at first, then he shook his head. Undeterred, Carl smoked and chuckled as the men at the counter burst into song, clapping along with them. Despite the rum and beer, Tom was reserved. His hands remained at his sides.
“Seems like I missed a lot,” he said.
“No, not too much,” Carl said. “Though it must have been boring for you to be cooped up there all by yourself.”
“I wasn’t alone too much. You came by often enough.”
“What did you do during the day?”
“Besides read the newspaper? Thought about things.”
“What things?”
Tom shrugged. “I talked to anyone I could. Tried to get an idea of what the city is like.”
“I’ll say. It’s incredible how different these people are. They’re poor, they’re in a hellhole, but they’re also sane. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I get it.”
Carl crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. “I mean, you can actually talk to them. They’re not open at first, but if you show them you’re like them, they trust you. Back home, you could know someone for years and they’d still distrust you. Or they might backstab you. You never knew.”
“Clearly you like this place already.”
“I love it,” he declared. “I love everything about it. It’s not nirvana, it’s not Valhalla, but it’s real. The people speak their minds. You get to know them. You know where you stand. It’s not so artificial. And the ladies…you’ll find out for yourself.”
Tom eyed a girl moving past them. She gave an extra thrust to her hips and winked.
“I’m sure,” he mumbled.
“The only thing bad about here is we don’t get to use the Internet. But, is that such a bad thing?”
“I guess it depends.”
“Think about it this way. We used the Internet to talk to people we had things in common with. Well, we don’t need it to do that anymore. We’re surrounded by them. We don’t have to search for them online. We don’t need to go to blogs. There’re all around us. People needed the Internet to find a girl. We don’t need that. They’re all around us. You have to beat them off with a stick. You use the Internet to find out what is going on in the world. We don’t need it because we know better than anyone what happens in this world of ours. Yeah, sure, it had advantages and such, but there was a price to pay, wasn’t there? A big price. I don’t know if anyone ever considered what it would cost them when they started using it.”
“Probably not. Why would they?”
“Yeah. Everyone must have thought it would be great to use. But then what happened? Everything became impersonal. Life didn’t go on like it did. It’s like everyone had to prove they did something, to prove who they were. That nothing they did was real unless it was recorded. We all had to become our own historians. I don’t like that. I don’t like having to record everything I do. I want to live life, I want to experience it, not record it for the sake of someone else.”
“It wasn’t legally required, either,” Tom pointed out.
“No, but what difference does it make when everyone else thinks that way? You either go with the flow or you’re all alone.”
“You weren’t one to do that, as we clearly see.”
Carl brushed aside the smoke as he puffed on another cigarette, glancing over at a cute girl at the bar counter for a moment.
“I feel alive here,” he said. “Even though there’s risks and dangers and uncertainties and all that, it’s real. I don’t feel like I’m hooked up to a machine or living in a virtual reality. I’m surrounded by people I know and trust. I’ve shook their hands and wrestled with them and talked to them and looked them dead in the eye and given them my word that I’d do something, and they believe me. How many could we say that of back home? Nobody.”
“But that’s not why you left, is it?”
Carl was somber. “No. But it makes me glad I did.”
Coughing on the smoke, Tom fanned it out of his face, getting up to get another round. While he was gone, Carl flicked more cigarette ash into the tray. He closed his eyes as he took a long draw. He sensed the presence of a person sitting across from him.
“What did you order?” he asked.
“The usual.”
The voice was husky. But clearly feminine.
Carl opened his eyes. It was the copyeditor girl. She had a drink with her, taking conservative sips as she grinned.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Is this not a place for a lady like me?” she asked.
“That’s got nothing to do with you sitting here. There’s plenty of spots to sit at.”
“Well, this spot was empty, thanks to your friend.”
“He’s coming back.”
She smiled, her big eyes glowing. “We’ll see.”
Soon Tom arrived at the booth with a chaser beer in hand. He saw the girl. Eying Carl, he shrugged and took his drink to the bar. Fred was there, and he was
more than happy to pull Tom into one of his story-telling sessions.
Frowning, Carl puffed hard on his cigarette and wordlessly enjoyed his rum. The girl kept sipping at her drink. Half an hour passed before she broke the silence.
“Do you not like me?”
He rolled his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Simple questions don’t always get simple answers.”
“I’ll take what I can get from you.”
He laughed under his breath. “Get in line.”
She leaned forward, her hands clasped together. “It’s just you and me right now. I don’t see a line.”
“I do.”
“Then forgive me for cutting in line.”
“How many times do I have to ask you what you want before you’ll answer?”
“I asked you a question first, Mr. Farrington,” she said. “You could at least do me the courtesy of answering.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
Her mouth opened wide as she reclined further in her seat. “Ah, you’re that kind of man.”
“What do you want?”
“For starters, I’d like to talk to you.”
“We’re talking right now.”
“I’d like to keep it going.”
“Then find something worth keeping my interest.”
She held out her small hand. “We might as well be introduced. My name is Kaylyn.”
Staring at her hand, he gently accepted it. The smooth skin on her face didn’t match that on the inside of her palm, a scratchy dry sensation as he let go.
“You got the Tremor,” he said. “Hope your stomach can handle it.”
She looked at her glass worriedly, pushing it away as she felt her side. “Is it that bad?”
“Did they tell you to sip it?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a reason why.”
She took his warming to heart and left it alone, occasionally touching her abdomen. Carl emptied his glass and drummed his fingers, whistled to the tune the men were singing at the counter. He looked at Kaylyn with annoyance. She wasn’t doing anything to bother him, but her presence distracted him from other thoughts on his mind. The other girls might also think he had made his selection for the night.
He kept thinking about Norton’s reference to the library. The open invitation too much for him to resist.
He suddenly rose and did a mock salute to Kaylyn.
“Nice chatting,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere you don’t want to go.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. That’s enough.”
He went for his coat and was putting it on when she approached him, already dressed in her jacket. She tied a scarf around her neck. He smirked and told the bartender he’d be back to pay the bill.
He hoped to lose the girl in the darkened street, moving through the barren road where she couldn’t find him and give up and go back inside. However, she was still following him after a quarter mile.
Carl stopped and turned to face her. “Go home. I don’t know what your problem is, but you don’t seem to get it.”
“I’m just following. I’m not saying anything.”
“You don’t do what you’re told. That’s what.”
“You’re not my father. Don’t tell me what to do.”
He grinned. “Then keep up and don’t get in the way.”
“I won’t.”
She joined alongside him by the curb as they moved onward. He took out a cigarette and smoking it in the hopes the smoke would annoy her. The plan backfired when she asked for one herself instead.
“When did you first smoke?” he asked.
“Same as you. The first time I figured this was how it was going to be for life.”
They stopped in front of a two-story building tucked around several dormant skyscrapers. Carl gazed at the library like an archeologist might upon ancient ruins. The shattered glasses windows were covered with bars, as were so many other windows in countless other buildings the city had shuttered up before abandoning them completely.
Carl climbed down a fractured flight of stairs to an extended wall and probed it for any weaknesses. There were some, but none he could budge on his own. Moving to one of the windows, he examined the bars and tugged at them. None stirred. He moved on to the next one and performed the same test. The repeated outcome failed to deter him. He wouldn’t quit, especially with the girl there to witness it.
At the end of the wall there was a side door. A crack ran parallel to it. He tried the door knob, finding it rigid. Shining a light on the crack, he ran his finger down it, stopping when he saw a strange carving near the bottom. He bent down and studied it, brushing aside the dirt and moss. He realized it resembled an arrow, pointing directly at a spot in the crack. Feeling it again with his finger, he gasped as he felt a cold, metal object wedged inside.
After some tricky maneuvering, he pulled out it out and held it underneath the flashlight.
The small, rusty key did not require instructions. It fit in the door perfectly. The knob turned noiselessly as Carl pulled the door open.
The inside was just as cold. A chilled breeze swept in from above as he closed the door behind them. A brief survey of the immediate area found it strewn with books, computers, overturned chairs, tables, and garbage left from when people had taken shelter there during the earthquake and subsequent riots. His nostrils were numbed to the stench of refuse by the cold and other competing odors.
He moved across the main room and found a rotting sleeping bag by one of the corners. It was surrounded by cardboard.
He started to wonder if Norton’s tacit directive had been a prank or some inside joke. He stopped and picked up a book at his feet. It was falling apart, the binding loosened from age. The pages were damp and stuck together. He put it down and moved to the back of the room, where a series of smaller private rooms were found around a hallway. As he walked past them, he observed the glass in the windows smashed, litter covering the floors, and graffiti-tagged walls.
Reaching the final room, he found it was surprisingly clean. An upright table was in the center, three stacks of books on top and a chair pushed underneath it. The neatness and the way the books were stacked in equal numbers, just as Norton did, revealed who had last been there.
Carl took a seat, switching the flashlight’s settings so it shone in a circular manner like a lamp. He set it down on the table and picked out the books one by one, scanning their titles. The authors varied, none of them he recalled from memory, but the topics carried a general theme; philosophy, politics, culture, history.
One of them caught his attention, the title he could scarcely make out For a New Liberty, the rest of it faded from age and neglect.
The pages smelt of musk as he lifted it to his eyes, reminding him of one of the many reasons why ebooks had replaced physical ones. Yet the strong odor in his nostrils was like tobacco smoke, an irritant that eventually won him over as he read page after page. It should have been no different than if he had been flicking a finger across a pad, but there was a satisfaction to it he normally didn’t feel. It was the experience of the real.
Kaylyn took a chair from another room and sat down beside him, her chin in her hand. He became so entrance with the material that he almost forgot she was sitting next to him, half startled when she inquired what the book was about.
“I don’t quite know yet,” he said. “But I like it so far.”
A howling wind outside the room caught his attention. Sensing possible danger, he closed the book and tucked it into his coat, feeling for his revolver as they went back to the door. He locked it up and left the key in the same section of the crack in the wall. He smoked again, this time offering her one as well. She repeatedly glanced at him, as if hoping he would speak.
They were sharing a mutual smile when Carl stopped. Ahead of him, there was a commotion outside
of the Fighting Sailor. Peering into the darkness, he saw cars parked outside of it and a crowd forming on the sidewalk by the entrance. The whole scene had an air of catastrophe.
Leaving the girl, he sprinted down the street his gun concealed in his fist. He couldn’t make out any of the people, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If they drew on him, he’d fire. No hesitation.
A hundred feet away the silhouetted figures turned their lights and blinded him in the brightness. A voice rose above their exchanges.
“Carl! Get over here!”
It was Fred.
“What happened?” Carl asked.
“We don’t know,” Fred replied. “But it ain’t good. I know shit when I smell it and boy, does this smell like shit.”
“What does that mean?” Tom asked.
Fred spat out chew into the gutter, rolling his mouth around. “It means my colorful friend that I hope we can get some coffee before we go to take care of business, because it’s going to be a long, long night.”
The others put their heads down and cursed, while Fred threw his head back and cackled. “Don’t worry. This ain’t nothing bad. If it was, we wouldn’t be sitting around to see where these boys are supposed to take us.”
“Ain’t isn’t a word,” Duong said.
“So? I ain’t got two shits to give about it. This here’s a free…. city, I guess. Ain’t it? Or is that what the whole fuss is about?”
The drivers leaned out their doors and ordered everyone to hop inside. The men managed to all fit inside the first van. As soon as the last door shut they tore down the road. Carl couldn’t tell if the desperate maneuvers by the driver meant they were fleeing an attack or heading toward one.
They would soon find out.
Chapter Seven
They all stood in a room together and watched Norton at a table in the corner, his hands resting on its edge.
On the table was a large blanket covering a hidden object. No one had the nerve to ask what it was underneath.
Childs entered and closed the door.
Norton looked up at them somberly. “An hour ago, Tribune men attacked one of our newspaper carriers on their delivery route. Most of them surrendered the papers they had without a fight.”
The Redeemers Page 11