The Nowhere Man

15 Back-Alley Philosophers

René’s sleek steak knife sliced through the cut of venison, juice oozing from the pink center. He skewered the cube of meat on a designer fork and held it out to his side. Dex took it gingerly and deposited it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, nodded.

A poison taster to the king.

Of course, the majority of toxins would take much longer to manifest, but Evan was learning more and more how much René indulged his affectations.

With its dark woods, brass sconces, knockoff Monet, and silk rugs overlaying a parquet floor, the formal dining room had a somber ambience, taking itself too seriously. Evan sat at the opposite end of an elegantly set table the size of a small sailboat. He and René were the only two dining. Aside from Dex cast in the role of guinea pig, the sole deviation from the Citizen Kane setup was Manny standing ten yards behind Evan with a shotgun aimed at the base of his skull.

René’s eyes flicked down the length of the table at Evan. At last, he spoke. “This is proving to be a protracted conversation.”

He mopped a pink square through the juice pooled on his plate and took the meat off the tines. He closed his eyes as he chewed, then dabbed the corners of his plush lips with a linen napkin.

Evan looked down at his setting. His venison had been cut into bite-size pieces. No utensils. His napkin had no bamboo ring. But the bone-china plate would shatter readily, and he could wrap the napkin around the base of one of the shards.

René interrupted his thoughts. “You have to stop trying to kill my men.”

Evan said, “Trying?”

René’s laugh seemed to catch him by surprise. When the smile faded, it was as though it had never existed. “Eat,” he said.

Evan ate with his fingers, the meat delicious and salty, tinged with rosemary. He couldn’t remember being this hungry since he was a kid. He’d spent a lot of years half starved, fighting for every mouthful.

René looked genuinely pleased that Evan was enjoying his meal. “Would you like seconds?” he asked.

“Yes.”

René moved a bejeweled finger to a slender white remote on the table beside him, and a moment later one of the broad kitchen doors swung open. The narco from the barn, now wearing a chef’s smock in place of a grease-stained shirt, emerged with another plate of meat, also cut as if for a child.

“Careful, Samuel,” René said. “Right there is fine.” He gestured to a spot several feet up from where Evan sat.

Keeping a wary eye on Evan, Samuel placed the plate down with a thunk and retreated to the kitchen. As the doors fanned wide, Evan peered through, taking in the huge kitchen with its center island, wood-fired oven, and cavernous pantry. He plugged it into the blueprint of the house he was constructing in his head.

He rose, claimed his plate, and returned to his seat. The bore of Manny’s shotgun tracked him the entire way.

“Look up,” René said.

Evan did.

“Smile.”

Evan stared at him. René’s eyes peered out through the unnaturally smooth skin of his face. He was serious.

“What, René? You want to be friends?”

René pointed the knife at him. “Given your circumstances, is it wise to make me an enemy?”

“We’re well past that already,” Evan said.

He resumed eating, letting his eyes pick across the room. European outlet plugs spotted the wainscoting. The knockoff Monet upon closer examination was a Monet. On the east side, the dining area blew open into a cathedral-style living room. Beyond oversize couches and ottomans arrayed like sleeping elephants, floor-to-ceiling windows showed off snow-spotted panes backdropped by the black of night. Evan could see his own ghostly reflection floating in the glass.

Even across the length of the table, René’s gaze felt cold on the side of Evan’s face.

“You’re not a complainer,” René said. “I appreciate that. It’s amazing what people can convince themselves constitutes stress. Most Americans seem to believe that safety assurances are awarded at birth like factory-issued warrantees. So far as I can tell, the only American growth industry is entitlement.” He settled back, folded his hands across his belly. His suit, made of a thick velvetlike fabric, didn’t wrinkle. It rippled gracefully, flowing like water. “For the sheep, moral outrage is the coin of the realm. They smother themselves in it.”

Evan ate his meat, one precut bite at a time.

René bristled, his first show of impatience. “Well?”

“This doesn’t interest me,” Evan said.

“Why not?”

“I’ve dealt with enough tin-pot tyrants and back-alley philosophers for one lifetime.”

Rene drew his head back, just slightly, but Evan could see that he was stung. His complexion was bloodless, save for tinges of pink rimming his nostrils and eyes. Despite all his efforts, he looked unwell.

His fingers drummed on a BlackBerry that sat next to the clicker. He peeked at the screen, let it darken again. Since BlackBerry was a Canadian company, many believed that it gave better protection from the NSA. Evan guessed that René used a mirror system for his comms, transmitting every text or call through several intermediaries. Only his inner circle would know where he was, keeping him as safe and hidden as a cartel kingpin gone to ground.

René broke in on Evan’s thoughts. “I assumed you would understand,” he said. “After all, we function outside the rules.”

“No.” Evan thumbed another nugget of venison into his mouth. “I’m the sum of my rules.”

“Your rules, perhaps. Not the rules.” René waited for Evan’s counter until it was clear that none was forthcoming. “There aren’t many things I do well. But what I do do well? I do that better than just about anyone. Discerning financial patterns. The ebbs and flows of accounts. Reading the digital droppings people leave behind. It wasn’t the $235,887 you spent on that sword that sank you. It was the forty-one cents.” He leaned forward, searching for a reaction. “That’s my superpower. I see things in numbers others can’t. And I know how to … rearrange matters to get those numbers in my column rather than in someone else’s. My father, he didn’t view that as work. No ‘value add.’ To him it wasn’t a gift. It was just manipulation. He never saw my talent. In another life I could’ve been a director at Goldman Sachs.” His smile was a memory, cold as a ghost. “Imagine that. Imagine if there was one thing, one thing you were meant to do. And it wasn’t acceptable in the eyes of anyone. And yet it was who you are.”

Evan thought of the scattering of freckles across Mia’s nose. The way she swayed when she listened to jazz. The fact that they had decided — for her safety and Peter’s — that he should stay away from her.

René said, “Whether you want to admit it or not, I can see that you understand me. People like us, we exist out of time, really. The day-to-day wear and tear that grinds ordinary folks down. Cubicles and carpool lanes. Earning a penny at a time. Why wade through it all when it’s so easy to … not?”

“I suppose,” Evan said, “that I have an overdeveloped sense of justice.”

“Where do you think it came from?”

“I’ve been on the other side.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” René said. “So have I. That’s what convinced me justice doesn’t exist.”

“What does exist?”

“Luxury.” René sipped his wine. “You could take silk sheets and caviar and inject them directly into my veins.”

“So that’s what you live for?”

“I want to have everything I want for as long as I want it.”

“At any cost?”

“At any cost to others, yes. Look at me. I’m fat. I’m ugly. What do I have? Money and fearlessness. Which equals power. Through power I get my needs met. I value luxury, yes. Youth. And beauty.”

A young man trudged in from the hall, rubbing one eye with a fist. His T-shirt pulled up, exposing the kind of stomach only achieved in one’s early twenties, a slight concavity runged with muscle. His dirty blond hair swirled up, bedhead chic. He was either stoned or really tired.

René’s son?

René stiffened. “It’s not safe for you here, David.”

David looked around through heavily lidded eyes, taking in Evan, Dex, Manny with his raised shotgun. “Looks plenty safe to me.” He plucked a piece of meat off René’s plate, chewed it languidly.

Then he leaned over and kissed René full on the mouth.

Oh.

David mussed René’s perfectly coiffed hair. “The steam room is broken.”

“Broken?”

“It takes too long to get, ya know, steamy.”

“I’ll have Samuel look at it.”

“Yer a doll.” David cast a bored gaze at Evan, then disappeared back into the hall.

René shared an exasperated look with Evan. “When you’re young, you’re never going to be old. Remember?” He forked some green beans into his mouth. More wine. “I’m not gay,” he said. “I just sometimes like to sleep with men.”

He pressed the clicker again, and Samuel appeared, scratching at his scar.

“Go look at the steam room,” René said. “There’s nothing wrong with it, but David’s fussing again. Pretend to make adjustments to the valve.”

Samuel nodded, exiting swiftly.

“If my interests are aligned with someone else’s, I can be quite generous,” René said. “As with you. I’ve done my best to acquaint you gently with your circumstances. I hope you’ve seen that you’re free to enjoy certain liberties, that you’ve been treated well.”

Evan shifted in his chair, bringing Manny and his shotgun into view over his right shoulder. “It’s been lovely.”

“It’s a lot of money to lose. I understand that. You have seventy-two hours to come to grips with it. But let me be clear. At the end of that time, if you don’t cooperate, you won’t like what will happen.”

“What will happen?”

Behind René, Dex stepped forward into the dim light cast by the chandelier. He’d been standing so still and silent in the shadows that until he’d moved, Evan had nearly forgotten he was present. Dex raised his left hand and pressed it across his lips. The tattoo on the back of this one was not a smile but a bared grimace. The incisors were pronounced, not quite vampiric, though they dripped with blood. The kind of mouth that would chew right through your gut. The sight of the inked scowl held up before Dex’s otherwise blank features sent a chill corkscrewing up Evan’s spine.

Dex had answered his question without having to speak.

“Dex is mute,” René said. “Dumb, they used to call it, but I promise you that’s not the case.” His teeth were tinted from the Bordeaux, the red distinct against his pasty face. He regarded Dex like a prize steer. “He manages to convey so much without saying a word.”

Evan stood up. Instantly, Manny shouted at him from behind. “¡Siéntate! Ahora, motherfucker.”

But Evan didn’t sit. Instead he kept his stare fixed on Dex. Holding his painted fangs in place over his mouth, Dex looked back him, his gaze containing no menace or fear. It held almost nothing at all, just the relentless focus of an owl watching a mouse about to scurry from cover.

“I can see you’ve won some fights,” René said. “I bet you think about them from time to time. Replay them in your head.”

“Not as much as the ones I’ve lost.”

René crossed his utensils neatly upon his plate and pushed it away. From inside his lapel, he removed a clear cylindrical spray bottle. He squirted down his place setting and then rose and sprayed the cushion of his chair. He did this as though it were normal postprandial etiquette.

The mysterious bottle vanished inside his jacket. He tugged the front panel, seating the coat properly on his shoulders, then flipped a button into place with an expert twist of his thumb. He nodded at Manny. “It’s okay. It seems we’re done.”

He turned to leave.

“So this wire,” Evan said. “You think it’s not traceable?”

“The computer is air-gapped, never been connected to the Internet before. The wire will be encrypted. The receiving account will relay the money out through a series of…” René stopped when he saw that Evan was smiling. “What about this amuses you?”

“That you think it’s enough.”

“Enough for what?”

Evan shook his head. “Trust me. You don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Evan said. “You never know who’s watching.”