by Brian Selfon
Exiting the subway, then continuing on her long walk back to her studio apartment in Greenpoint, she works out a budget in her head. She has lived simply, and for years she’s banked most of her police officer’s salary. For a full year, longer even, she can get by on her savings. She can even go to the actually charitable charity as a volunteer.
Waiting at an intersection for traffic to pass, she considers a cover letter for her application, and falters. The words and phrases come quickly, and as quickly she rejects them. Who is this me I’m putting forward? Onetime beneficiary, no. Victim, no. Zera Montenegro—also no.
Who will I be—she asks herself the whole question for the first time—who will I be when I am more than what was done to me?
Zera stops short. Before her is Sweet n’ Bitty, the pie shop she’s walked past for years. An invitation: scents of cinnamon, of honey and toasted nuts, of fruits baked in brown sugar. She watches her reflection move and grow large on the glass door, and then she is inside.
The shop sells more than just pies, she discovers. On a stool overlooking the kitchen, she watches one of the line cooks use his thumb to scrape avocado out of its shell. “Rhubarb-apple pie,” she says when her server appears, the word rhubarb new to her tongue. “Coffee.”
A wall-mounted television screen. A video, almost silent: a man with a mole. A grocery store. A credit card. She watches the video absently at first, then confusion draws her in, and finally, without warning, she’s utterly lost from herself.
It’s an episode of Mr. Bean, she’ll later learn.
Zera is sitting on a stool in Sweet n’ Bitty, watching Mr. Bean with her whole being, when she’s startled by a close sound, a clackety-snuffle so loud and strange, she rocks back in her stool. What was that sound? So close she almost felt it. And she looks around, and the server is smiling at her, and so is a woman on a nearby stool. And Zera realizes that this sound has come from herself.
That was me. I laughed.
She is still warm from her laugh when her coffee and pie are set before her. Her hand shakes a little as she picks up her fork. That was me, she tells herself again. More firmly now: that was me. This is me.
My lights are still on, she thinks, feeling warm inside. Feeling strong.
My lights are still on, and this is what I sound like.
chapter 50
Not long after he walks out of the little house on Hart Street for the last time, Henry settles into a convenient and often unclothed cohabitation with Starr. Her preferred positions—and she teaches him more than one—all have her facing the mirror. “I like to see myself happy,” she tells him once in an afterglow.
Through an old client, Henry finds a job at a T-Mobile store. He takes to the work and quickly establishes himself as a kind of wizard with burner phones. New clients for the store include dealers, gangsters, adulterers, attorneys, and political operatives. The store’s owners note the revenue spike, welcome the cash payments, and promote Henry to night manager.
“These are really good,” Starr says to Henry one morning. She’s paused with her coffee at the kitchen table, where Henry’s been working with charcoal pencils and Crayola crayons. Sketching hands, eyes, and faces on a big sheet of butcher paper.
Henry pauses. Comes down from his cloud and considers his own work with some skepticism. To him everything before him looks bloodless and mathematical, but what-fucking-ever. He’s given up on making something good, and is enjoying the freedom—as Emil always told him he would—of creating without giving a fuck. Now Henry looks up. Starr’s expression is peculiar, and Henry at first isn’t sure what to make of it. Then she shifts her feet, and Henry understands there’s something she’s excited to tell him.
“So I was walking by Pauper’s Palette,” she begins, and explains that the art-supply store is at last opening its top floor as an exhibit space. The first installation will be called “New Hands,” and it’ll showcase art by day-jobbing nobodies who’ve never sold anywhere. Who try, nonetheless, to express something, and put it out there, and find a name for themselves. “You should submit something.”
That night Henry again snakes the toilet. “Fuck you, Louis,” he says, referring to their largest and most disgusting housemate. “Fuck you, Louis,” he says again as they pass in the hall. Once more in the kitchen, Henry mixes a drink, chews an edible, and sits down with his laptop to complete the online submission form.
The rejection arrives the following morning.
Henry sulks and tells Starr nothing of what’s happened. A week passes, and then, nearly the exact moment he’s forgotten about Pauper’s Palette, Henry receives a second email. “Dear Henry,” he reads, “Although we were not able to find a place for your work in our inaugural ‘New Hands’ installation, our judges were impressed by your ‘Content and Intent’ description.” Reading on, Henry is amazed to learn that the bullshit he dashed off for the online submission form has secured him an invitation to “contribute content” to the installation. This almost sounds like they want his art after all, but through further emails he learns that they want him to create the installation’s handouts. These are to include “Content and Intent” paragraphs on the chosen works and thumbnail biographies for the chosen artists. Henry himself, of course, is not among the chosen.
“They’ve got balls,” Henry says, oven mitts on, lifting a sausage and mushroom pizza out of the oven.
“But you submitted! That’s amazing!” Starr rushes over to kiss him.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“But what they’re asking me to do.” He puts down the pizza and takes off his mitts. “It’s bullshit, right?”
“It’s a way in.” She returns to her seat, still glowing. “Can I read what you wrote?”
* * *
The “New Hands” installation opening begins at nine o’clock, which means no one arrives before ten. Henry drags Starr by the hand and shoves a way for them through the line. Inside she releases his hand. “You’re squeezing too hard.”
“Sorry. Antsy.”
“Antsy is okay. Hand-crushing? Not so much.”
He moves from exhibit to exhibit, examining each of the paintings and sculptures inch by inch, looking for answers. Why this, why that—and not his own? Of course he performed this same exercise when writing the installation’s handouts. Now, however, he’s seeing many of the works in person for the first time. The broken Rubik’s cube, the splash of paste on dirty cardboard. His feelings swing, every ten feet, between outrage at having been ranked below the garbage, and a sense of humbling. Here and there is genuine talent.
“Where are your handouts?” Starr asks.
Henry detaches himself from a legitimately amazing abstract oil painting. His handouts? He forgot to look.
Sometime later, Starr gives Henry a kiss before heading off for the bathroom. He watches her back and feels something warm come up in him as he wanders the exhibition. He stops before an easel he didn’t notice before. The fuck? There’s no way this painting was here a minute ago, no way he could’ve walked past it without noticing. This painting shouldn’t be here. This fucking painting—is his.
It’s Starlight Friend, the portrait of Lipz he began in high school. The one Kerasha always liked.
“Hey.” A familiar voice, low for a woman. He turns and there she is.
“You stole my painting into the installation?”
Her little smile is back, and Henry is moved almost to tears. Kerasha nods toward a fire door. “You got a minute?”
* * *
Stairwell, Henry and Kerasha alone.
“So I got your message about the show,” she says. “Obviously.”
“And are you…”
“Clean, eight weeks.” A big smile. “Thank you for the books. And thank you, thank you for the calls.”
“And your church place,” he says. “Are you out out?”
“Just for a few hours.” She looks him over. “How about you? Surviving?�
��
“Better than that, but…” He goes to the corner, puts his back to one side of it, and crosses his arms over his chest. “So there’s the girl, who’s amazing, and the job, and it’s fine. But I’ve still got this feeling like—I’m nobody. And it’d be different if I could say it right. Or paint it. Or at least do some fucking thing about it.”
“Really.” She walks to Henry’s corner. Puts her back to the other side of it, so she and Henry are close but not looking right at each other. “So you think if you’re not painting, or saying something with words, you don’t matter?” He looks up at her, and she lowers her voice, and her eyes are on him steady. “I’ve watched a lot of people,” she says. “And I’ve watched you, and here’s something you maybe don’t know about yourself. You’re always doing things for the people you care about. Like always. So listen to me. Your feelings? They’re coming out loud and clear. And for the people in your life? For me?” She nudges him with an elbow. “You matter like a motherfucker.”
Henry breaks eye contact. This is too much. And while he wants to take it in, he pushes away from it. Then he tries again. I matter. Is this possible? And it’s a lot, and it’s tempting, and it’s impossible—
And it’s family.
Henry makes himself look up. “We’re family,” he says. “For the rest. Wherever you been, whatever you do—” He puts up an open hand. “You’re not alone.”
A long quiet. Her eyes are on his hand, on him, on his hand again. She’s scared. And for a moment Henry can almost feel something of a past he knows so little of. And then he watches her release it.
Kerasha straightens up and takes his hand. “I’m not alone.” And though her smile is uncertain, her grip is strong.
* * *
That night in the kitchen, Henry sits awake through the dark hours. His conversation with Kerasha has loosened something in him, and he thinks about Starr, asleep in the bed they’ve been sharing. He thinks about Kerasha, probably awake with one of her books. Then he thinks about the little house on Hart Street, the man inside. And how scared he must have been, when Henry first came into his life. A little kid—how can you protect him, when you know the devil and keep his books? Henry can’t imagine what his uncle felt, not really, but he’s trying.
Questions and questions, as Henry sits at the kitchen table, holding his phone.
Acknowledgments
With thanks to—
my mother, who taught me to read
my father, who told me stories
my brother, who got me to write mine down
and Jen, Max, and Faye, who woke up the heart I write from.
This story became a book because of many people. The writers Abigail Beshkin and Victoria Fullard were true creative partners. Anne Stameshkin championed the story even before she read it. Jenni Ferrari-Adler is the ultimate swashbuckling adventure-agent: she rescued the book from a lunatic (me), guided it safely on a perilous journey (revisions), and delivered it into good hands (Daphne’s). Jenni also gave the book its name. Daphne Durham is an editor whose awesomeness is so unbelievable I actually thought at first she wasn’t real. I still sometimes have my doubts, but Daphne’s edits and insights have been beyond. Thanks, also, to Jenni’s Union Literary team, including Taylor Curtin, Shaun Dolan, and Sally Wofford-Girand, and to Daphne’s MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux team, including the mighty Lydia Zoells, Sara Birmingham, Janine Barlow, Tyler Comrie, Rodrigo Corral, Abby Kagan, Maureen Klier, Sean McDonald, Alex Merto, Lauren Roberts, and Jeff Seroy. I am also grateful to Jiah Shin at Creative Artists Agency for championing this story in television.
Other early readers, supporters, and advisors have included Mike Attebery, Mikael Awake, Mike Brecher, Katrina Carrasco, Harlan Coben, Jay Dyer, Rob Hart, Liz Keenan, Josh Kendall, Karyn Marcus, Kimberly McCreight, Jenny Milchman, Madeline Miller, Gigi Pandian, Katie Petrachonis, Alex Rehm, John Scopelleti, Jeff Soloway, Clare Toohey, Patricia Voda, Greg Wands, and Ruiyan Xu.
Additional life support while writing this book came from the following people and, in many cases, their whole families: Mike Strausz and the JC: Seth Kessler, Aaron Kobernick, David Parzen, Matt Rochkind, and Dan Zimmerman. The LaSpinas and Chiofalos. Meredith, Z, O, and E Selfon, the Hirshenson family, Leon Sompolinsky & Lauren Leimbach, Barbara Michalak Reilly, John Paul Reilly, John Michael Reilly, Jill, J, and C Reilly, and the Sloane family. Chad Benson & Sarah Robb, Emily Bradford, Angel LaPorte, Osaretin Omoigui, Karla Nappi, Ben Ross, Willie Schaeffer, Felice Sontupe, Paul Strocko, Laura Utrata and Bill Vasilopoulos, John Weber, and Meredith Weil.
These lists are incomplete. Forgive me.
A Note About the Author
Brian Selfon has worked in criminal justice for nearly twenty years, more than fifteen of them with law enforcement agencies in New York. As the chief investigative analyst for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, he handled cases ranging from money laundering to first-degree murder. Selfon now lives with his family in Seattle, where he works as a public defense investigator. The Nightworkers is his debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One: The Almost Family
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Two: The Woman with Twisted Hands
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three: The Marked Wallet
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part Four: The Well-Placed Friend
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Five: The Widow and Her Ex
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part Six
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part Seven: The Snitch In Effigy
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Part Eight: The Trusted Partner
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Part Nine: Behind God’s Back
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Part Ten: The Living
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Copyright
MCD
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
120 Broadway, New York 10271
Copyright © 2020 by Brian Selfon
All rights reserved
First edition, 2020
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from We’re On: A June Jordan Reader, edited by Christoph Keller and Jan Heller Levi, Alice James Books, 2017, © 2020 June M. Jordan Literary Estate Trust. Used by permission. www.junejordan.com.
Interior hand-lettering and brushstrokes by Tyler Comrie
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374
-71811-4
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