The Company Man

CHAPTER TWENTY

Hayes lay in bed in the hospital, perfectly still. The nurses who looked in on him sometimes thought he was sleeping with his eyes open, but he was very much awake. He’d retreated deep inside himself and gone deaf to the outside world so that he could work in peace, slowly assembling his next move. He rifled his long and twisted memory for contacts and friends and reliable sources, for favors owed and debts unpaid and veins of information he could mine. Most of them were worthless, and these he laid aside. More troubling were the ones he started considering before remembering that they were not in Evesden at all, but belonged to some other city, to some sandy outpost or distant fringe country. He’d left them all behind long ago. And others that he’d summon up would turn out to be no longer in the world in any sense, having gone on dangerous voyages and never returned, or been laid low by a stray bullet, or met the noose and danced on the scaffold, or simply expired.

Most troubling of all were the people he remembered vividly, but could not recall meeting or having a conversation with. These, he figured, were not his memories at all, but were ones stolen over the years, mnemonic castoffs that’d somehow been caught within his mind. Sometimes he forgot he lived and worked mostly within a world of abstracts and dreams.

His work went slowly, and soon he realized he was distracted. What Garvey had said had nettled him, somehow. Garvey’s disappointment stung deeper for him than others’. As he’d come to know Garvey over the years of bleary cases and casual atrocities, Hayes had begun to feel the same admiration for him that a young boy does for his older sibling, even though Hayes was several years older than him. The way Garvey saw the world felt at once true and impossible, full of a sort of wisdom that had always been beyond Hayes. It was as if Garvey’s life was the way Hayes’s should have been, yet he had failed utterly at it, and now could only watch.

Most of it was that Garvey knew what Hayes could do, knew that Hayes listened to his thoughts, and simply did not care. The idea that someone could live so unashamedly and without self-disgust baffled Hayes.

Samantha cared, that was for sure. Ever since she’d learned of his abilities her nerves had sung like razor wire, every minute. But it was not the loathing and paranoia he’d expected. Instead Samantha almost welcomed his examination, and both perversely hoped for and dreaded his judgment. He had never met someone so desperate to prove themselves to someone, to anyone.

He’d forgotten how young she was, he realized, or perhaps what it was like to be young at all. It pained him a little, like the ghostly ache of a lost limb, but Hayes could not recall when he had lost that part of himself.

He shook his head, disgusted at his own self-pity. For the rest of his stay he continued to work, and did not spare a thought for either of them.

When he got out of the hospital the nurses gave him a list of medicines to purchase at the drugstore. He crumpled it up as soon as he was out the door and tossed it away. Then he went to work.

He guessed that Dockland would be the place to start so he took a trolley east to the Conver Bridge and then walked to Dover and 177th. He stood and looked at the buildings and tried to refresh his memory, then headed north along the Conver Canal and counted the sluice gates set into the side. When he got to the sixth he sat on the edge of the wall, waited until the street was clear, and lifted himself up and over.

He slid down the cement to the edge of the sluice gate, took out a pocket knife and undid the grate. Then he crawled into the small tunnel, cold water running over his shoes and his ankles, and stopped when he came to a drainage pipe leading up to the street. He reached up into the pipe and felt around until his hand found the little shelf inside and the wax paper bundle waiting on it. He tugged the package out and carefully opened it. Inside were four hundred dollars in cash, three birth certificates and identification cards for various purposes, a handful of light keys, mostly fitting locks throughout the Nail, and a. 22 pistol with twelve rounds, separately wrapped in more wax paper. He took the money out, counted off two hundred dollars, split the bills up into three parts, placed two of them in his pockets and the third in his sock, and put the rest of the money back in the pack. After that he picked up the pistol. He handled it, spinning the chamber and sighting it up along the drainage pipe, but shook his head and put it back. Then he rewrapped the bundle and replaced it in the drainage pipe.

He crawled out of the sluice gate, soaked up to mid-shin, and climbed back up the cement bank and crouched by the wall, waiting. When it was clear he vaulted back over and walked briskly into the heart of Dockland, shaking off the drops as he stepped.

He had seventeen such packages hidden throughout the city. Some were in hotel crawl spaces, others were in banks, others were under the floorboards of basements that were easily accessible from the street level. One was in the park, buried in the children’s playground and guarded by a tin dragon boys and girls could ride. Each package held the same things in the same amounts, though the IDs and keys varied depending on where the drop was. It had taken him about a year to place them all. Until now he had not breached one.

Hayes checked his money again, then straightened his tie and tried to wipe off his shoes. Then he set off.

The Princeling came to The Grinning Evening in Dockland that night with money in his pocket and a spirit for party. He dropped bills left and right, bought cigars and drinks and romanced the ancient waitresses, to their delight. He got Stanley the bandmaster to play a drunken version of Mahler, the trombone sleazing its way along the symphony, and they all laughed and sang. He persuaded one man to down half a pint of vermouth and they all cackled as he sprinted to the sink, and the Princeling stood on his chair and started up the band to cover up the sound of the man’s sick. Then he pulled a few members of the crowd to a dim corner and whispered into their ears that he was looking for company, company with the great Mr. Tazz, and no other would do. He tucked some green in their pockets and they listened and nodded and returned to the party, their smiles dampened by the call of business. And without a word of goodbye the Princeling was gone.

He made an appearance at Moira’s Black Kettle, passing by the pimps and the johns outside to go straight to the back room. There he lounged with the girls, drunken beauties draped over the stained and ragged pillows, their breasts and thighs hanging loose and their eyes bored and distracted. Idly scratching the coarse down between their legs, so casually and carelessly exposed. The Princeling brought them cigarettes and held the girls close and murmured things into their ears that made grins bloom on all their faces, and then he spoke to Moira and danced with her and they sat on the pillows like old traders and spoke of business. Of pimps and joes, of girls cut and men cut in turn, of the lure of the pipe and how strong the calling beat in their veins on the hot afternoons of late summer. They spoke of tradecraft and drops and the wandering patrols of the bluecoats, so weak-boned here, not city police at all, not in Dockland. Different breed. And then he asked her if she had heard tell of a man named Tazz, and said that the Princeling wished to speak to him. He needed palaver with the union man, he told her, and quick. She listened and nodded and gave him her word. Then the Princeling left, his baser desires unfed, his billfold only slightly dented.

He went to the vagrant’s hutch by the wharf and found Macklevie sitting among his ragged wares, sharpening a knife of bone. The Princeling laughed and danced down to the old beggar and tossed a bottle of Glenmorangie to him and Mackie crowed with delight. They both had a dose and then the Princeling perused the commodities, handling a knife for balance, weighing the heft of a pistol, biting the odd bullet. He sniffed Mac’s secondhand tar and smiled indulgently as Mac gave his pitch, whispering that this was the stuff, this right here, this’d light your fancy and burn you deep. The Princeling bought a set of charms made from crow bones and silver, and the old beggar counted his take with glee. Then as the fog mingled with the wharf fumes they stood in the septic light and spoke of rumor and gossip and who had buried whom, and of the union man, the Dockland specter, Mr. Tazz himself. His boys and his aims and his dreams and wishes. Mackie had some pamphlets from back in Tazz’s early days, The Ladder Up, sure to be a valuable commodity once this all turned doomsday, but the Princeling said he wanted not printed word from the man but verbal discourse, sir, and try and let it be known, if you would be so kind, try and let it be known.

Then the Princeling passed by Cho Lun’s Carpentry, the sound of hammer and saw absent as always. The corner boys watched him go by but he did not enter. Just laughed and saluted and skipped on.

He strolled over to The Underground, the dance hall set up in the abandoned trolley tube, where girls and boys sweated in their suits and skirts as they whirled one another about. Stevie had a rouser going that night and no mistake. The orchestra was fired up and the dancers on the stage were succumbing to the madness. Sometimes the people on the floor took one another into the bathroom stalls, and there a passing visitor could spy the surge of flesh or hear a gasp of passion. But the Princeling passed through them without remark and came and crouched with the orchestra under the stage and spoke to Stevie, their bandleader. He asked if union boys had come Stevie’s way, and had they danced to his tunes or maybe suckled at his tar, which he understood was sold in the backstage passageways, or maybe they got serviced in the rooms upstairs, if the rumors the Princeling had been hearing were true. Terrible rumors they were indeed, especially if Moira or any of the other neighborhood high muck-a-mucks heard about them. Stevie listened and grew white as the Princeling listed his misdeeds and whispered no, no, I haven’t seen him, but if I ever hear one word I will let you know, sir, I certainly will. The Princeling nodded and told him that was good, and then he walked back through the stench of sweat and sex and out to the chilly city and the wind’s embrace.

He stopped then briefly, mopped his brow, and steeled himself for his next stop. It had been the first name to come to his mind, but he’d known he’d want to be riding full and fast by the time he came to it. He licked his lips and turned down a side alley and wound his way through to a small string of little shops. At the end was a place called The Far Lightning, which to the casual eye was no more than your average gin joint. But still Hayes walked up and knocked at the door and was admitted by a huge man with stooped shoulders who glumly asked if he’d like a beverage.

“Oh yes, a Negroni, if you know how to make one,” said Hayes.

The doorman nodded, motioned with one hand, and led him around the meager bar to a small door, which he opened and then stood beside, waiting obediently. Hayes entered and walked down the short staircase until he came to a low, wide room that was lit by oil lamps, and among the many shadows were tables of roulette, of craps, of poker and of blackjack. At each table men sat hunched and anxious, so lost in their games they did not even notice Hayes entering. All except one.

Hayes saw him at the back immediately. He barely had to look, for he knew his man would be in the same place as always. Seated beside his shabby little wooden table and his checkers game and his newspaper, dressed in his old jean overalls and a red striped shirt, one hand fixed on the ebony cane between his legs. Hayes watched as Sookie Jansen’s eyes zeroed in on him immediately. The old man raised one twisted claw and waved him forward, and Hayes obeyed.

No, he thought as he walked. One didn’t prostrate oneself before Sookie Jansen without a heart full of confidence and some secrets to share. Of all his contacts throughout Evesden, Sookie was the best and also the worst, because Sookie’s company was like his many games: gaining something was possible, but losing something was certain, no matter what talents you had. Hayes considered him something between a friend and a rival, which was saying something, because Hayes felt he had few of either.

“Well, well,” said Sookie. He leaned his head back and squinted at him. “Come here so I can take a look at you.”

“Hello, Sooks,” said Hayes. “How’s business?”

Sookie did not answer. He just looked him up and down, and Hayes had the uncomfortable feeling of being x-rayed. Like Hayes, Sookie was from overseas, being the unwanted son of a supposedly chaste Catholic missionary in China. His upbringing had been brutal beyond words, and he’d soon shed the grasp of God for the more lucrative one of the streets, where he’d made a minor king of himself, Hayes had heard. He’d been one of the first immigrants to Evesden, as Sookie’d always had a nose for profit, and he’d served as a pillar of the underworld ever since. Not that anyone knew. Sookie was decidedly a businessman and never a gangster, and his reputation only existed where he felt it was necessary.

You’d never think it to look at him, though. He was a short old man so wrinkled and aged he was almost beyond race. His blue eyes were alien in his faintly Asiatic face, and a brambly scrap of hair was forever riding below his lip. He’d learned his English from some far-flung dockworkers, and so he spoke in a queer Southern patois. He wore the same overalls and the same shirt and the same porkpie hat every day, and he’d come down to his club at the start of every morning and load his lip up with tobacco and sit and watch and idly play checkers. Hayes had never once seen him spit. He felt sure the old man simply swallowed it.

“Well, now,” said Sookie finally. “Something’s got ahold of the Princeling. Something’s got a burn on him. That’s for sure.” He turned to his opponent across the checkerboard. “Hecker, I hear there’s a nice breeze coming in. May bring some clean air. How about you check that out for me?”

Hecker rose and left and Hayes took his seat. “You didn’t answer my question,” said Hayes.

“No,” said Sookie pointedly. “I didn’t. What the hell you doing here, Princeling? You’re bad news. People paint their doors with lamb’s blood to make you walk by.”

“I’m here to trade,” said Hayes. “To tug on your earlobe, dear Sooks.”

Sookie grunted. “Heard you was at Moira’s spinning a few wheels. That so?”

Hayes tilted his head but said nothing.

“Yeah. Yeah. So why didn’t you come to see old Sooks first, Princeling? That’s real rude, as far as I can see.”

“I needed something to trade with, of course.”

“Of course,” said Sookie, and sighed. “This’d be about the unions, eh?”

“Yes, Sooks. It would.”

“Hm. Unions, unions,” he mused. “You know, you ain’t the same anymore, Princeling.”

“No?”

“No. You used to be dirty. Dirty all over. Dirty and mean. And dirty and mean is dependable, and Sookie likes dependable, see?” He poked Hayes in the arm. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Sooks.”

He grunted and peered at Hayes again. The he grinned. “Oh, no. No, no. Don’t you go telling me old Hayes got bit by a woman? Is that the case? I think so.” He cawed laughter. “You know, I heard a rumor about you running around with a girl, but I didn’t believe it was true. Now, though, I got to say they was right. I can tell it just by looking at you.”

Hayes smiled and shrugged. Sookie always toyed with you before giving anything of worth.

“It is,” said Sookie. “You got that look about you. You got the shine. I guess what they say is so. Old Hayes nudged up against some pussy and it burned him but good.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, sure it ain’t. I’d never think I’d see the day. Especially ’cause lately I hear you ain’t exactly a fan of pussy. Is that so?”

Hayes grinned wider and shrugged again.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” he said. “A man wants what a man wants.” Sookie shook his head. “I can’t believe it, though. You always seemed like a hard little thing. Like you’d cut through the world like a knife. And now you twisting in the wind for a woman.”

“I’m not a romantic, Sooks. You know that.”

“But there is a girl.”

“A young thing with fresher eyes than mine, yes. But she has nothing to do with this.”

Sookie flexed his lower lip and sucked on his wad of tobacco. “Mm. Maybe not. But something’s different in you. I never seen you run out in the open like you are right now, especially not over something like the unions. Just unwise.”

“Say what you like,” said Hayes. “I’m going to do it anyway.”

Sookie sucked on the chaw again. “Let me tell you a story, boy. I had this cousin, see? Call him Archibald. Archibald, he wasn’t a smart man, not by a long shot, but he inherited this old ’lectric printing press. Only one in town. So he does a fair bit of trade, gets his dollar, follow?”

“I follow.”

“So day after day he runs his little print. Don’t need no repairs. Don’t need nothing extra. Just runs that machine. And then one day he got the idea, hey, why not make the press faster? Stronger? Sort of beat-up thing, beat-up and old, why not spruce it up, make it better? So he think on it and think on it. Never realize he don’t know shit about a printing press. And then one day he shuts it down, gets under there, start fooling about with its insides, and then, snap.” Sookie held up one hand and drew a finger across the knuckles. “The damn thing cuts off all his fucking fingers. Like butter. Like they was butter. See?”

Hayes nodded.

“What I’m saying is… don’t fuck with what works. Don’t do nothing extra, nothing special. Don’t try and fix shit. Even if it seems broke. Just do what you do. Just do what you do every day. And forget about everything else. Hear?”

“I do,” said Hayes. “But I still want to hear about the unions.”

Sookie shook his head. “There’s no angle for the unions for you. Nothing to play.”

“I’m not here to play. Come on now. What’s the word you have on them and the Tazz-man, Sooks?”

Sookie frowned and sighed, as though ruing the foolishness of the young. He regarded Hayes for a moment longer, then said, “Rumor has it that Tazz went underground.”

“I know that.”

“No, when I say underground, I mean really underground,” he said. He pointed down. “Down there. In the catacombs, or whatever the hell they are. You know they’re there. I hear that’s where he run.”

Hayes sat up. “Why the hell would he go there? That’s where the killer is.”

“Can’t say. But I hear he’s looking for something. Trying to figure something out. What, again, can’t say.”

“But what have you heard, old Sooks?”

Sookie turned away and sat back. His chest and shoulders sank in and his belly rose up and suddenly he was just another old man, trying to think of what was upsetting him so. He pawed at his newspaper and said, “Hm. You hear this thing in the paper about fields?”

“What? Fields?”

“Yeah. These fields them scientists are discovering.”

“No. No I have not,” said Hayes, growing irritated.

“They say they’re finding these fields, like magnetic fields, but different. They’re holding everything together. All together, even at the smallest level,” he said, and held up his thumb and forefinger to show how small. “They make everything whole. Ain’t that something? And now they’re saying they can break those fields. That they can break stuff up. And do a lot of crazy shit with what come out. Think that’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think it is. And you and I know that McNaughton ain’t going to let no one talk about stuff unless they’ve already figured out how to do it. And done it themselves a couple times over.” He set the paper down and gazed out over the crowd. “I think this city’s like that.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. People come here, looking for something. Money. Future. Whatever. And instead it just breaks them up. Makes them forget what makes them them. I know. I’ve seen it rise and I’ll probably be around to see it fall, if it ever does. They lose that little field inside of them. And they give up what they got to the city. To bad men like me.” He grinned and sat up straight. Then he poked Hayes in the arm again. “You lost your field, little boy. You’re falling apart. You’re forgetting what makes you so mean and dirty, see?”

Hayes did not smile this time.

Sookie looked at him sidelong. “I’ve heard that McNaughton’s got all kinds of machines down there, underground. In the catacombs. Maybe Tazz wants to see for himself. And maybe get one of his own. Think that’s possible?”

Hayes sat back. “I think maybe,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” said Sookie. “If a man could learn how to control those things down there, whatever they are, maybe he’d be able to control the city. Maybe. Neat idea, eh?”

“Yes,” said Hayes, troubled. “Very fascinating.”

Sookie sniffed. “So. What you got for me, Princeling? What’s there that you can trade?”

Hayes shook himself and returned to the game at hand. “Merton’s buying up wharf property,” he said smoothly. “Thinking about importing, maybe.”

Sookie waved a hand. “Don’t give me garbage. Give me something good. You know I want something good.”

“John Flax died the other night,” said Hayes. “In Savron. The guards were in on it and they buried him in the basement.”

“Chicken feed. Complete chicken feed. If you want to show your face here again I suggest you pony up, son.”

“All right,” said Hayes. “You know that senator’s kid? The illegitimate one?”

“Ronald, I think his name is,” said Sookie. “Fathered on a Chinese whore not much older than a mayfly.”

“Yeah, maybe. Well, rumor has it… rumor has it he’s no longer… whole.”

“Whole?”

“Yeah,” said Hayes, and glanced down at his crotch and back up at Sookie. “Whole.”

Sookie’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, really?”

“Yes. Mishandled one of Moira’s girls. Things got ugly. Leastways, that’s the rumor.”

“You get that from Moira?”

He shook his head. “She’d never tell.”

“No. I guess she wouldn’t.” Sookie nodded. “Huh. I’ve been looking to get ahold of that senator for some time now.”

“Well, there’s your foot in. Hope it does you well, Sooks.” Hayes stood to leave.

“That’s all?” said Sookie, surprised. “You don’t want me to tell someone about how you want to see Tazz?”

“Oh, no. I know Sookie’s mouth isn’t big enough to help,” said Hayes.

Sookie smiled crookedly. “That’s so.”

Hayes turned to leave when the old man’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “You be careful, Princeling,” he said. “You got a disease in you. A new one, for you. I seen it before in others. I see it in your face. You’re pulling out all the stops because you don’t plan on coming back from where you’re going. If it’s the girl that’s doing this, then fuck her and forget her, I say.”

“And if it’s more than her?”

Sookie frowned. “Then you better be damn sure about where you’re going. You hear?”

“I hear,” said Hayes. Then he bade Sookie goodbye and walked through the tables to the stairs and the rest of his chores.

Six hours and 191 dollars later Hayes washed up on the sidewalk before a grimy little all-night diner in Lynn. He had crossed the city in one night, touching those in the know and giving them the message. He was exhausted and reeling from drink and drugs, but he felt he had accomplished something. He had at last made headway.

The smile faded from his face. He had torn free of the madness and the high now drained from his body. Loneliness welled up in him, diamond-sharp and silent. He felt lost among the small, winding night streets, populated only by strangers and stragglers who were dark and silent as they passed on the other side of the road.

Hayes staggered through the front doors of the diner and dragged himself up to the bar. The place was empty save for a few. A cop on his beat and a cabbie who was nursing a watery glass of orange juice. A thickset woman who sat in the corner before an empty plate and sometimes cried noiselessly to the notice of no one. A bent woman with dishwater-blond hair pushing a broom between the tables though there seemed to be no dust. Lonely survivors, left behind by the day before.

Hayes sat with his head in his hands and tried to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that wished he would die, this terrible thing, this wretched empty vessel that was unable to enjoy even the dalliance of sin. He felt ill. In that moment he did not really know what he had done that night or why he had done it. If his life followed any direction right now, he guessed, it was due to nothing more than sheer momentum.

The waitress came and took his order. Minutes passed and she came back with a plate of steak and eggs. To his weary mouth they tasted only of cigarettes and retch. The policeman left and a woman came in and sat next to Hayes and ordered eggs. She opened up a newspaper and read in silence. After a while Hayes dozed over his plate.

He dreamed of deserts and the lone moon seen through a roof made of iron bars, of the smell of horseflesh and the lightning flash of carbine fire on barren slopes. Then he dreamed of the city as seen from above, a handful of blinking lights grown along the edge of the Sound like cobwebs caught in a corner. He listened to the lights below and realized they had a voice, one voice speaking together. After listening for a while longer he realized the lights were weeping.

“Meal subpar this time?” said a voice.

He awoke. The woman with the newspaper was smiling at him over the top of a sheet.

“What?” he said.

“The meal,” she said. “I noticed you haven’t eaten much of it.”

“So?”

“Well then, it can’t be very good.”

“Why?” he demanded.

She faltered, then said, “I’ve just seen you in here.”

“Seen me? Where?”

“In here. You come here pretty often and eat the same thing, steak and eggs.”

“Here? I come here?”

“Yes.”

Hayes thought, then squinted at her and asked, “Why are you watching me eat?”

“I’m… I’m not.”

“You know what I eat here.”

“No, I just come in here sometimes and I… I see you, so I was just curious.”

“Curious.”

“Y-yes. I thought I’d make chat.” She looked down, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Then she stood and put down some money and walked away.

“No,” said Hayes as she walked out. “No, I didn’t mean to…”

She did not hear him. She went through the front doors and did not look back. Hayes hung his head. “Shit,” he said softly to himself. “Goddamn it.”

He cursed himself a while longer and then paid and hobbled out. He wasn’t sure what he would say to her if he caught up to her or even why he cared. In the end it did not matter. By the time he reached the street she was gone.

He walked past the Nail to the web of side streets that made his neighborhood. He did not go to the warehouse but instead went to a small shop across from it with a FOR RENT sign hanging in the glass. He took out his keys and opened the door and went past the empty front room to the stairs in the back and then up to the second floor. It was unadorned except for a mattress in the middle of the bare floors, lying perfectly in line with the window, which looked down upon the front door of his warehouse and all the small alleys that went to the back. He had purchased the shop for that very feature. He was almost sure that neither Brightly nor Evans knew of its existence, as he had bought it using one of his less prominent identities.

“All the old tradecraft,” he muttered. He leaned his head up against the glass and began watching. Not a soul stirred in the street. The bleak light of dawn began to seep through the sheet of clouds in the east. He kept watching and waiting. After the first two hours he wanted to sleep but found he could not.