by A. R. Moxon
In the empty chair a man suddenly appears, then disappears. Boyd almost screams.
He almost screams a minute later, when it happens again.
Boyd’s mastered himself by the third appearance. The flickering man is popping in and out, but he’s more there than not, now. He’s just what Julius had told them. And now he’s talking. Boyd keeps still and quiet and hidden, and very watchful. Suddenly, he discovers, he’s hearing many useful things.
TRUST
Nobody knew how Julius funded the Neon Chapel, though everyone wondered. The only clue most ever saw was a small brass plaque affixed to the wall by the door, dedicating the building to an anonymous donor. The more waggish speculation was Julius had found a benefactor, some rich old biddy, whom he’d convinced to open up the old checkbook, wink-wink. Others suspected Julius was actually on the grease with Ralph; that the Mayor of Loony Island had put the priest on the payroll to act as a psy-op, a kind of spiritual peacekeeper, free to act but agreeing never to speak out directly against immoral gangland activity—and it’s true that Julius never discriminated against gangster or goon. A few wise souls shaved with Occam’s razor and guessed Julius was just another rich dilettante playing at savior. Those last were closest to the truth—and I suspect Julius might’ve agreed with their unkind assessment of his motives—but honestly, when it came to “rich,” they had no idea. And nearly nobody knew Julius had a connection to the Slantworthy Trust. Donk may have been the only other in Loony Island who knew about it, and that only because of his dealings with Julius over the children’s room. I imagine Nettles knew, too, but if so she never spoke word in my presence. But it was true: Julius secretly held a majority stake in Slanty’s Amalgamated Foodstuffs, which owned the cannery, the only factory in the Island that hadn’t closed—a connection that explained its unaccountable continuance.
The Slantworthy wealth was as indestructible as a continent, spread over the generations across a robust and diverse crust of hedge funds, tax shelters, and other promiscuous financial devices, increasing a principal derived from, and continually added to by way of, the family’s majority ownership of SAF, Inc. This enormously successful concern was founded by Julius’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Søren Slantworthy, a seaman and whaler who worked his way from crew to captain, from captain to ship’s owner, and from there to owner of a fleet. Slanty’s Sardines had its first success providing the world with canned pickled fishies (by the early nineteenth century, the name “Slanty” had become synonymous with sardines throughout the world), but quickly diversified into tuna, salmon, and whitefish, and from there moved into ambergris, into gold and diamond and coffee and cacao plantations, into slaves and bananas and pineapple and citrus, into beef, into pork, into rice, barley, wheat, into who knows what all else.
By his adulthood, Julius wanted nothing more to do with all this mess. He tried his best to walk away, apprenticing for years with unaffiliated contractors, learning a trade in construction. But divesting yourself of a generational boodle isn’t as easy as it seems. The Slantworthy board of directors had sway, the shareholders had concerns, the corporate leadership had its targets, and all of it involved only growth. Growth of what, Julius wanted to know, and why, and in service of what ends? But they had ways of talking about all these things in the Slantworthy boardroom that never quite managed to touch the eventual decision for growth and growth and growth and growth. Julius soon learned the hard way that if you cast monstrous wealth off, it’ll still crawl around on its own, and off the chain it cares not who it eats.
Then again, Julius well knew, if you don’t cast off monstrous wealth, it will for sure eventually eat you. So, Julius sought distance. An arm’s length. Chains for the beast and a cage, all drawn out in meticulous words on a sheaf of pages thick as a T-bone, signed in triplicate. This would require someone he could trust, someone he knew well, someone unmoved by money, someone who knew the byzantine monkey bars of corporate politics well enough to swing from handhold to handhold, but with so little interest in succeeding at them he’d never care if he fell.
Luckily, Julius had just the fellow for the job.
* * *
—
It’s bothersome, Father Julius decides, jogging up the Wales steps for the third time that day, how it’s impossible to decide whether Boyd’s supposed mystery stranger’s message is real or just another layer in some game Donk’s playing. And…if it’s not from Donk…who, then? Boyd, freelancing? That doesn’t track. Maybe he’s telling the truth. That means another player in this game, someone who already knows about a man who’s sometimes there and sometimes not.
Hours not days. So says Boyd. Or so says someone who talked to Boyd. Or maybe so says Donk through Boyd. Whichever way, it’s likely a message you’ll want to pay attention to. Also, there’s Nettles in his head—Jules, this is obviously what you’re meant to do. What are you waiting for?
There’s no guard at the Wales, no lock on the door keeping intruders out or inmates in. “Out” and “in” are concepts bearing little meaning anymore, after the Fritz Act. He traverses the long green-tiled corridor to the beige day room, razor alert the way you only get when you’re nearly a day without sleep and coasting on adrenaline fumes. The room’s ghostly in night shadow, empty, scantly lit, and Julius makes his slow way across the room, no sudden movements, arriving at last in the alcove where he’d made first contact. Turning his head this way and that; trying to catch a glimpse of a flicker in his peripheral vision—nothing. He’s not here. But he might be, that’s the problem. Isn’t that why you came? If seeing him is indeed a matter of trust, you’ll need as much of his trust as you can get.
He’s surprised to find that he’s reluctant to speak the words he came to say, even though there’s likely nobody there to hear it. Julius sits there in silence, breathing shallow and steady, a cliff diver bringing himself to the point of foolish resolve. “I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Julius Slantworthy,” he announces to the empty space around him. “I don’t release the last name lightly, though I doubt it would mean much to you. They call me a priest, which…” he pauses. It’s something he’s said to himself so many times before, how strange to have such ambivalence about saying it out loud, even to a probably empty room. “…which I am not. It’s maybe a bit more complicated than that, but not all that much more complicated. I’m not a priest. It’s an accreditation I gave myself, and it’s an accreditation that only gets renewed by the repetition of others. There’s a miracle they claim I did, and, well…never mind about that one. It’s a miracle that I allow to be attributed to me. No, that’s bullshit—I encourage the attribution. Nod and wink and smile and wise silence, fooling myself I’m not lying. There’s no better gravy for the soul than delusion.”
He’s on the verge of saying more. For a moment he feels the danger of speaking aloud his most dangerous truths, but then, just as he breathes to begin, there’s a distraction—Julius, staring at his hands, allows himself to hope he’s been seeing something flicker in the edge of his perception.
“Here’s the thing, though: The fact that I call myself priest—whatever else it might mean about me—it means I want to help you. And that last name…well, that name means that I’m actually able to get you whatever help you might need. I have to think you…appeared to me, or whatever you did, for a reason. And I think that time’s getting short.” Coming to a finish and looking up, he sees the flickering man—entirely there, flickering no more. He’s not smiling, but he doesn’t look frightened. At least, thinks Julius, he doesn’t look frightened of me.
“My name’s Gordy,” the man says. “I need to find the lady.”
“The…lady?”
“Jane. I have to help her. It’s my fault.”
“I’m sorry?”
“She’s an acrobat. A bearded lady…I did it to her. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
“I’ll help you find her, then,” Julius says,
standing. He offers his hand, not yet daring to touch. “But not from here. Come with me. I’ll get you somewhere safe.”
“I can’t go with you. She’s in Färland.”
Julius’s brow furrows. Färland? The kid’s…European? His voice has a hint of the American South in it, not the Continent. He shakes his head clear—there are far bigger mysteries today than geography, Julius, stick to the mission. “Fine. I’ll take you to Färland. We can be there by tomorrow.”
Gordy shakes his head, emphatically. “If we go to Färland your way, it won’t be the right Färland. I have to go back the way I came.”
Even with his long experience reading manifestos of delusion, Julius isn’t sure how to respond to this.
“And they’re out there. They’ll get me if I go.”
“ ‘They,’ who?”
“They get so close sometimes with their swords,” Gordy says. “They used to be in here, but the doors were locked so I couldn’t leave. I hid. Now they go out there, so I have to stay.”
“Why do they want you?”
“He says I have it,” Gordy says. “But I don’t know what it is.”
“Who says?”
Gordy looks around him as if he expects to see his stalker lurking behind. “He’s still here. I see him in here sometimes. But mostly out there, now. He thinks I’m there. I stay here. I keep to the edges of the walls. But I see him. He creeps around. He’s still looking. I have to stay here.”
“Who is he?” Julius asks, fearing the answer, desiring it.
“Morris,” Gordy says. It’s a keen, almost a song. “Morris, Morris, Morris Love.”
“But what about God?” Julius blurts.
Gordy looks terrified, flickers once, then shakes his head mulishly. “He’s not God.”
“You said God talks to you. You said he wants you to do something bad.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Gordy says. “I don’t know anything about that. I have to go to Färland.”
“But you said,” Julius pleads, almost childishly.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Gordy says, and flickers once, twice, then out. Julius bites his inner cheek, keeps himself from leaping forward and grabbing at the empty air only by incredible force of will—knowing beyond doubt that a grab will lose him any trust he’s built. Hours not days.
“All right,” he tells the empty air. “You want Färland? I’ll get you to Färland. You sit tight here until I get back; I’m going to go put it all together for you.”
He’s not searching the dark corners of the day room as he turns and leaves it, running already. It’s doubtful, though, even had he been, he’d have seen the thin form of Donk’s best sneak, crouched far in the shadows, keeping very still and very attentive.
* * *
—
Julius jogs south, away from the Neon Chapel, down the switchback, out of the Island, leaving first the darkling factories and then the abandoned rail-yard behind. Guided by an instinct he can’t name, he’s decided not to bring this pressing need Donk’s way. No, Julius decides, there’s only one other person who can help you with this sort of pickle, and besides—glance at the watch—he’ll be expecting you soon anyway. The first appointment of your day, this run is the first normal thing that’s happened to you since you first saw loonies leaking from the Wales. Fighting the heaviness of his eyelids—God, you haven’t slept since that happened.
The pre-dawn hours are best for a run out of the Island; it’s when the toughs and gossips and cops and gangsters slumber; little chance of being seen by an inquisitive soul or set upon by gangs of muggers. Running now with the thinnest hint of sunrise starting in the east, he’s letting the miles pass by, the urban closeness slowly giving way to well-ordered streets lined with neatly spaced and similarly sized houses, like faces in a high school yearbook, like lines of sparrows on a telephone pole. Dawn is best for safe passage in this neighborhood, as well, though for different reason. A big bearded guy in a denim robe looks wild even in Loony Island; trying this jog during business hours would make the sort of spectacle that gets the cops called. He’s near now, running easy and free, mind open to ponder Gordy—What to make of him? He’ll agree to leave the immediate danger of the Wales, but only once you meet his demands. And…Färland? Who is he? Sprung from where? He says he doesn’t know. Nor apparently will he answer any questions about talking to God, or God talking to him. Obsessed with a bearded acrobat, whoever she is; it apparently matters to him more than self-preservation. Why is he here? Julius can hardly guess, but he knows this much: The flickering man is in trouble.
He’s on Dave Waverly’s street. Dave’s house is a small brick bungalow, tastefully but minimally appointed, nestled into a neighborhood notable for its near-total recession into nondescription; neither particularly old nor new, neither ostentatious nor decrepit, built on a neatly trimmed patch of turf slightly larger than a postage stamp. A place where a middle-aged widower of modest means might choose to exist and remain, where young childless couples just getting started might perch for a season before flitting off. But this sameness hides a seat of power: Dave Waverly, formerly Wavy Dave, former shambling heap, former corporate executive fallen to the very bottom of the bottle, former ward of their old shared mentor, now Julius’s trustee for all matters related to Slantworthy Inc., executive manager with power of attorney of the Slantworthy Trust, a juggernaut of a financial apparatus designed to insulate a sardine scion and would-be street priest from the more terrifying consequences of his own wealth.
Dave’s door is a cheerful yellow. Julius raps on it smartly. He’s early, but not overly so; he knows his trusted trustee will be up and about. There’s no need to knock twice; after a brief desultory internal shuffling the door swings in, there’s a smell of coffee already brewed, and there’s Dave Waverly, already put together and ready. A razor part in his thinning steel-gray hair. Whiff of aftershave. He’s wearing a brocaded sweater over his crisp white shirt to guard against the pre-sunrise morning chill, but otherwise he’s boardroom-ready.
“Good morning, kid,” Dave Waverly says with his radio announcer’s voice, peeking over his glasses. “You’re early.” Then, getting a better look at Julius’s face—“Everyone OK over on your side?”
Julius nearly starts and rejects a handful of explanations. “It’s pretty complicated.”
“It’s usually pretty complicated,” Dave says, and there’s almost the threat of a smile. But Dave Waverly doesn’t smile. You have to watch those hooded eyes for the twinkle.
“Well. It’s more complicated than usual.”
“You needed to bring a second notebook, did you?” Their meetings usually consist of two phases: Dave’s business for Julius, then Julius’s business for Dave. Dave will pull papers from his briefcase for Julius to sign, items to disclose, items to discuss; Julius will shake his head no, nod his head yes. Then, from one of the makeshift pockets sewn into his robes, Julius will pull a spiral notebook and read his list, a series of numbers and notes taken from his most recent trips through the blasted floors of Domino City and the pockmarked parcels of Checkertown: bldng six, rm 1778, broken oven; bldng three, 619, bedbugs; bldng five, 112, windowpanes smashed, need fortified…Dave listening, making efficient notations on his own, significantly less-battered pad, which he then places into his briefcase. Later, Dave will make the arrangements to fund the repairs.
It won’t be like that today. “I didn’t bring my notebook,” Julius confesses. “I’ve spent all day with a different project.” Feeling shame as he says it; his regulars waited in vain for him yesterday, and they’ll likely wait in vain today, their needs unmet. He’s a lifeline, and he’s cutting it—for how long? And, for what reason? Sure, Gordy’s in need, too…and his need is immediate, yes…but he’s only one person, and anyway altruism’s not what’s driving you…
“Better get some coffee while you tell me abo
ut it, then,” Dave says, turning inside. Julius follows, thinking—If only Dave had just one bottle of booze in the house, just one. You could use a stiffener in that coffee before explaining to your trustee that he has to figure out how to get a freed lunatic with no passport or even ID onto a private flight to Färland, preferably today, because there’s a bearded lady living there…he’s going to think you’re absolutely crazy.
But of course, once he’s explained Dave Waverly doesn’t call him crazy. He listens with unchanging expression, his big jowls unshaken by outrage, his hands clasped lightly around his coffee cup, which he raises to his slightly protruding lower lip exactly once during Julius’s long discourse, taking a single measured drink. When Julius has finished, Dave Waverly raises one hand to his chin and looks at the tabletop for about a minute, thinking deeply.