The Company Man

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

When Garvey woke up he was still drunk and the whisky in his belly was septic and rumbling. He rolled over and lifted his head and saw the cold light of morning drifting in. Then he buried his face in the pillow and shut his eyes and tried to ignore the thick cotton-dryness in his eyelids and mouth.

Eventually he rolled out of bed. He drank rust-tainted water from the sink, whisky bottles scattered on the counter beside like fallen soldiers. He stood. Took a breath. Then he doubled up and clutched the sink edge and vomited something orange-tan and frothy around the drain. When he was done he lay there with one cheek on the cool porcelain. He washed his mouth out but did not drink. Then he pulled on a pair of pants and smoked as he looked out the kitchen window at the little cement courtyard.

It was Tuesday, he remembered. He nodded to himself curtly, put on a nice suit, then went and got his old phonograph and loaded it into the back of his car. He stood looking at it on the seat, thinking, then checked up and down the street. It was empty. He shook his head and returned to his apartment and got his spare revolver out of his desk.

He sat on the bed, holding it, feeling its deadly heaviness. It had never been fired, unlike its brother, which had been confiscated by the Department. He snapped it open and looked at the six little brass eyes watching him from its cylinder. Then he sighed and closed it and replaced it in his desk. He did not want to bear that awful weight, not today.

When he returned to his car he saw that now there was a little figure leaning casually up against its side, scarf loosely tied, hands lost within the pockets of his coat.

“Hullo, Garv,” said Hayes.

Garvey stopped where he was on the sidewalk, looking at Hayes. Then he resolutely stared across the street and said, “No.”

“No? No to what?”

“No to whatever you’re here for,” said Garvey. He began walking to the car, still not looking at Hayes. “You shouldn’t even be here. We shouldn’t even be seen together.”

“I’ve been careful.”

“But not careful enough.” Garvey walked around to the driver’s side of the car. “If you were really careful you wouldn’t be here at all.” Before he got in he stopped to check the street again.

“No one’s watching,” said Hayes. “Can’t say why not. But I checked. And you know I check better than most.”

“I didn’t know. And I don’t care,” said Garvey. He got into the car.

Hayes looked through the passenger window at him. “I need your help, Garv.”

“No. I said no and I meant no.”

“It’s just one little thing. One little thing I need. An address, Garv.”

“Get off my car unless you want to lose a foot.”

“Here, I’m sorry about what happened.”

“I’m serious.”

Hayes stepped back. He anxiously flicked the cigarette away and leaned out to continue speaking through the window. “I’m sorry, Don. I am. But we’ve made headway, me and Sam.”

“You and Sam?”

Hayes gave him a pained smile. “Yes.”

“That’s not safe at all.”

“I know, I know, but we’ve gotten somewhere good. We just need to get a little further.”

“A little further,” said Garvey.

“Yes. I need an address.”

“Get it yourself.”

“I can’t, Garv. I’ve pulled all the favors I had on this, so I had to come to you.”

“Goodbye, Hayes,” said Garvey, and he eased up on the drive handle and sped off.

He got halfway down the block before looking in the rearview mirror and seeing the little figure huddled next to the other cars, watching him leave. He was tiny in the shadow of the enormous buildings around him. Garvey slowed the car to a stop and shut his eyes, wondering exactly why he’d picked this day of all days to get himself back into trouble he knew he could do perfectly well without.

It took Hayes several minutes to make it all the way down the block. By the time he dragged himself up to the window he was red-cheeked and puffing. He still managed a grin. “Where are we going?”

“Just shut up and get in the car, why don’t you,” said Garvey, and he reached over and opened the door.

Garvey drove west, past Westbank and Lynn, out past the city limits where the buildings shrank and small homes still survived. Hayes jabbered on as they talked, rushing through his discoveries and unable to hide his delight. Garvey noticed he seemed much more fluent than he had previously; whereas before he would leap from topic to topic and forget what he was talking about in a matter of minutes, now he managed to stay on one thread at a time without losing himself. It took Garvey a while to realize Hayes was something close to sober. He wondered how long it would last. Probably until this little adventure came to an end, if it ever did.

“So… Tazz works for McNaughton?” said Garvey slowly at the end.

“Worked, Garv. Worked. He’s done a runner, probably down to Mexico. Christ, I wish I was there. I’d be rid of this chill, that’s for sure.”

“And you’re sure about all this?”

“Nearly positive. I can give it to you, Garvey. I can give you the files linking them both. And then maybe you can go to Collins, and he’ll take you back.”

Garvey did not look at him. A deep stillness rolled over him like a cloak and his heart beat faster. “Maybe.”

“I just need an address from you,” Hayes said. “For an old friend of mine.” He tucked a piece of paper underneath the car’s driveshaft and patted it.

Garvey glanced at it as he drove. “And he’s complicit in all this?”

“I think so. I can turn him, though, I think. We didn’t leave on the fondest terms.”

Garvey gave a sardonic laugh. “Imagine that.”

“So will you do it, Garv? Will you get me that?”

“You forget I’m not police these days. They’ve still got me suspended. I can’t just walk in and start pulling residential records for you.”

“But you’ve got friends. People you can go to. They can get it for you. Right?”

Garvey sighed as he turned off the road. “Damn it, Hayes.”

“I know it’s a lot. And I know we don’t want to be attracting attention right now. But I need this, Garv. Sam and I do.”

Garvey drove on in silence as the car rattled through the pine countryside. In some places there was even livestock, something both of them occasionally forgot even existed.

“How is she?” asked Garvey.

“Sam?” Hayes said.

Garvey nodded.

“She’s doing. I think she’s fraying a bit at the edges, though. Hasn’t had anyone to talk to but me, and, well. I know that can be a bit much.” Hayes looked out the window at the damp trees. “She misses you, Don.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I can tell. I know.”

“You know, huh?”

“Yes.”

Garvey took a breath and nodded. “Well. Thank you, I guess.”

They drove for more than an hour before Garvey pulled up in front of a small white house, quaint and humble and perfect. It had a white picket fence and thriving roses that threaded through a trellis in the front yard. Small tin toys lay scattered on the lawn, still pearled from the kiss of dew. Hayes curiously looked the house and yard over. He had never been here before. “What is this place?” he asked.

Garvey got out and walked around to the back of the car and pulled out his phonograph. Then he came to Hayes’s side and said, “You stay here. You stay in the goddamn car, you hear me? Just stay here until I come back.”

“Christ, all right. Fine.”

Garvey walked up to the front door and knocked, phonograph under one arm. The front door opened and a small, pretty blond woman answered, her mouth tight and grim and her eyes cold. They shared a few words, Garvey with his head bowed. Then the woman leaned out and looked beyond him at Hayes. She seemed to shake with anger and fought to swallow it. Eventually she allowed him in and shut the door.

Hayes sat in the front seat and smoked a cigarette and waited. After several minutes he heard something. He rolled down the window more and listened. Then he got out and shrank down low and walked to the side of the house to peek in the window.

Inside was a small, cozy room with a worn sofa and old bookshelves. A homey place, with lace doilies on the end tables. In the middle of the floor was the phonograph, playing a symphony Hayes could barely remember, some mournful Beethoven piece. In the center of the sofa sat Garvey, rocking back and forth, a little blond girl in his lap with her arms thrown around his neck, head perfectly still as though asleep. To his left sat another little girl, this one older and her blond hair streaked with brown. She stared at the phonograph intently, swaying slightly with the music, as if attempting to find some hidden truth within the machine that would unlock all the secrets of the world. Garvey stood then with the little one in his arms and he began pacing around the room, the two of them dancing, and Hayes heard him humming along with the music, softly and atonally. One big, rough hand rose up her back to cradle her head, her flaxen hair slipping through his fingers.

Hayes stared in shock and then withdrew, ashamed to have witnessed such a private moment. He walked back to the car, his face burning red, and sat without moving.

There was always more, he thought. Always more to everyone. For all the moments and feelings he could pluck out of the air there were thousands more hidden closer to the heart that would never be known to any other creature except their owner, and when they passed on from this world those secrets would fade as though they had never been here at all.

Which they may never have been, he thought. Which they may never have been.

Time passed. Maybe an hour. Then Garvey came out, phonograph under his arm again, tie fixed and hat straight. He stored the machine in the back and came and sat in the driver’s seat again. “You ready?” he asked.

Hayes cleared his throat. “You don’t have to.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have to do this. Today, at least.”

“Why not?” asked Garvey.

“You just don’t. Drop me off somewhere in the city.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

Garvey shrugged and drove back into town. The green-gray countryside melted by until it became smooth cement walls once more. Garvey steered the car to a rattling stop outside an old theater, where he pulled in under the marquee. Then Hayes got out and turned around and said, “You should go see Samantha.”

“Why?”

“It’d clean you up, I think. I’m just saying. And she needs to see someone besides me, too. She’s probably going mad.”

Garvey cocked an eyebrow at him. “All right. Come by later and I’ll have that address for you.”

“I said you didn’t have to do it today.”

“Well, I’m doing it anyway. You don’t have a choice.”

“If you’re sure. Thanks, Garv,” said Hayes. He gave him the address and saluted and walked away, weaving through the crowd with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets.