A Charm of Finches

by Suanne Laqueur

  But what if he didn’t have that luck? What if, after being thrown out of his home at seventeen, he bounced off the dirty sidewalks of Queens, straight into the hands of a modern Mengele?

  Such retroactive, hypothetically dire scenarios weighed heavy on his mind these days. He had a nephew in his care. The only son of Jav’s late sister, Naroba. If Jav hadn’t been around to take guardianship of Ari when Naroba died, who the hell knew what might’ve become of him? Jav’s overactive imagination had zero trouble what-if-ing worst possible scenarios. Especially since he adored his nephew. He freaking loved that kid, his one and only blood relative. His sister-son. A magnificent eighteen-year-old boy on the cusp of manhood. Ari was no sheltered innocent, but he looked to Jav for direction. And now he knew what Jav did for a primary living.

  “Don’t tell me what I know and want, Jav. I don’t take life advice from a whore.”

  Whore. Another word that took effort to eject from your mouth. One Jav never heard applied to him personally. Certainly not one he expected coming from his nephew. Ari went pale and apologized, genuinely contrite. Jav brushed the outburst off as impulsive passion in the heat of the moment.

  It was actually kind of funny now.

  Yet the word hung around. It went along on Jav’s next date, tucked in his heart like a suit’s pocket square. Glaring at him when he slid the envelope with the evening’s earnings beside it.

  You whore.

  The word never bothered him before. Now it made him flinch. Not with shame, but with dread. He was forty-five years old. Late to the party already.

  You’re nearly halfway through your life. What are you doing?

  You’re worth more.

  His friend Alex had thrown the remark out in passing. You’re worth more. Like a spot of spilled Crazy Glue, it stuck in Jav’s mind and he couldn’t pick or peel it off.

  Worth.

  You have worth.

  You have more value than this.

  He tossed the newspaper onto an empty table, unable to read what a modern Mengele had done.

  It’s not only about you now.

  The counter man’s call interrupted his thoughts. “Forty-five, roast beef sandwich.”

  That’s me all right, Jav thought.

  He took a step and deftly caught his lunch.

  Mos hovered in a corner of the hospital room, quiet and invisible and observant. Much had happened and much needed to be done. Observations to make. Notes to take. Experiences to keep separated. Feelings not to feel.

  Nathan Caan was dead. Every time Geno went to sleep, he forgot. He awoke and learned the news all over again. Sleep to forget. Wake to remember. It took a long time for his father’s death to put down roots in the rocky soil of Geno’s short-term memory. It made so little sense. A man receiving shocking news and keeling over worked fine in the movies and on TV. The reality was much harder to accept.

  The reality was Nathan’s heart broke. First tested by a fourteen-hour flight with radio silence, while the fate of his missing boys wound like a snake around his aorta. He landed to find the twins were found, but found was a deceitful classification. Found was tragedy cloaked in optimism and relief.

  The police found Carlos dead, hung from the shower head in the basement bathroom. They found Geno still cuffed in the bedroom, a two hundred and sixty-pound man fucking him. That guy was dead now. Dispatched from the world by Captain Hook.

  Found kept racking up points. Cops searched the Caan house. They found clues in Carlos’ dresser that expanded the story. Pictures. More love notes from Fox. Letters documenting love’s turn to psychological abuse and blackmail. They found out Fox was one nest in an underground hive. He had dozens of baby boys, trapped in honey-slick cells, buzzing for nobody to hear.

  They put the pieces together and found out what Carlos was willing to do for love. He posed for the pictures. He let his image be sold, then his body. He kept the secrets. He waited until Nathan was away and then offered up Geno as a gift. All for love.

  Then found had the last laugh. Because Fox was on the run. And they couldn’t find him.

  Nathan’s heart broke at Geno’s bedside. His wellspring sprang, uncoiled and fell to the floor limp and defeated. He was raced into surgery, where he flatlined. Doctors brought him back, but only for a minute. Literally fifty-eight seconds, then the line went flat again.

  And he died.

  It will be addressed later, Mos thought, carelessly throwing Nathan on the scrapheap of his life. What was one more tragic scene in this story? You piled pain on top of pain and eventually it plateaued. The only thing to do was not care. When it became clear Geno wasn’t going to die anytime soon, it became clearer never living again was the only way to survive.

  Geno slept and woke briefly, then slept again. On one side of the bed stood Vern Kastelhoff, Nathan’s best friend and lawyer. Now he was Geno’s lawyer.

  Zoe Caan-Douglas, Nathan’s daughter from his first marriage, sat on the other side. She was nineteen years older than Geno. Her relationship with Nathan’s second family was somewhat strained, Geno assumed because Analisa was the other woman. But he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know Zoe that well.

  Did anybody really know anyone well?

  While Geno was in emergency surgery at Overlook Medical Center, Vern made a dozen calls, looking for the best colorectal specialist in the tri-state area. Everyone pointed to Miranda Bloom at Mount Sinai. Once Geno was stabilized, he was air-lifted to Manhattan. He slept through the helicopter ride. He slept through much of the first week after his rescue.

  He woke from drugged slumber, broken and battered and confused. Nurses touched him gently and labeled his pain. His wrists chafed raw, partially flayed from where he yanked against the handcuffs. A sprained jaw and a torn rotator cuff. Multiple muscles in his back pulled and wrenched and strained. His voice reduced to less than a whisper because he screamed enough to make his vocal cords give up. The doctors said he just needed to rest them. It was temporary, as was the transverse colostomy, which stopped all fecal matter before it could reach his descending colon and rerouted it to a bag outside his body. It would only be necessary a few weeks, the doctors assured him. Enough time to give the injured anal tissue time to heal.

  They really did a number on him, Mos thought, rather unprofessionally.

  Anal tissue might recover from that kind of thing, but could a man?

  Geno didn’t know.

  Carlos might have known.

  But Carlos was dead.

  It’s of no importance, Mos wrote. He was dead to us long ago.

  Then Geno remembered Nathan was dead, too. Mos watched as Geno wept into his hands, falling into smaller and smaller pieces. Vern put his arms around Geno and it was terrible. Vern was a big, strong man. He smelled of aftershave and pipe smoke. Masculine scents that only made Geno remember things. He shied from Vern’s arms, twisted out of the embrace. Then he felt terrible and cried harder.

  Feeling is illegal in Nos for a reason, Mos thought.

  A nurse put morphine in Geno’s IV. The lights in the room dimmed.

  “I’ll be right here,” Vern said. He sank wearily in a chair next to the bed, loosening his tie. “You rest now. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Geno put his hand against one of the flat bars of the bed rail. Vern put his palm against it, the cool, smooth metal keeping their skin separated.

  “I won’t let anyone near,” Vern said. “No one will touch you while you sleep.”

  Geno closed his eyes and let Vern’s voice carry him away. Vern was the kvater at Geno’s bris. It was the kvater’s job to take the baby from his mother’s arms and carry him to the mohel. Then carry him back to his mother.

  We don’t want him to carry us, Mos thought. We don’t want his arms now. They feel like the things we’re not supposed to feel.

  Geno opened his eyes.


  “Right here,” Vern said. “You’re safe.” He sniffed once and his jaw trembled.

  Poor Vern.

  Geno could count on one hand the number of times he saw Vern in casual clothes, and each time, Vern looked weird. He belonged in business attire. He wore expensive, classy suits and pocket squares. In the hospital room, he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, but still looked sharp and shrewd with his suspenders and Rolex watch. His iron-grey hair all combed back from his face.

  Good old Vern.

  “If you’re ever in jail,” Nathan said to his boys. “Call Vern first. Then call me.”

  Now Geno only had Vern to call.

  We are the only ones left.

  The stars of Nos became one star. Its boundaries loosened, threatening to set Mos adrift toward the border of Geno. Go back inside him, where things felt.

  Mos stayed far back from the edge, regarding the regrettable situation and feeling nothing.

  It’s unfortunate, but this is how it is.

  “I’m Detective Mackin,” a woman at his bedside said. “I understand it’s difficult for you to speak, but it’s important I ask you some questions.”

  The nurse elevated the head of the bed a little.

  “Do you think you can write answers?” Captain Hook said. He stood at the other side of the bed, holding a pad and pen.

  Geno had a few questions of his own. “Who find me?” he wrote in a sloppy curve. “How find me?”

  Hook pulled up a chair and sat so he was at eye level. “Chris Mudry knew where you were headed, so we went to Fox’s house to question him. He said your brother came by to buy some photography equipment. He showed us the check Carlos wrote and said the whole exchange happened in the garage. Said Carlos never came into the house and when he went to leave, his car wouldn’t start. You came and got him and that was the last he saw of either of you. Said he spent the rest of the night with a friend, gave us a name and address to confirm.”

  “Carlos’s car was parked at the curb,” Mackin said. “Police couldn’t start it. Your car wasn’t there. It all checked out. We had no probable cause for a search warrant. No reason to think anything was off.”

  “We found your car parked at the Short Hills Mall,” Hook said. “Stripped down to floor mats. Not a clue left. We thought the trail was dead, but then Chris Mudry called me. His bank’s fraud department contacted him about suspicious charges on his credit card. He remembered you’d taken his backpack and his wallet was in it.”

  “A lot of cases are cracked because a criminal was dumb or greedy,” Mackin said. “Or both. Whoever ditched your car took the wallet. Charged five hundred dollars worth of booze at a liquor store a block from Fox’s house. Surveillance cameras in the strip mall got him on film. Then we had a plate number. The rest was legwork.”

  “I’m just sorry it took two days,” Hook said, curling a hand around Geno’s fingers. “Geno, I’m so sorry.”

  Geno turned his head and threw up between the bars of the bed rail. He spiked a fever and the questions had to wait. An infection right now could kill him.

  He wished it would.

  The days fell into a pattern. Geno ate a little, slept a lot and answered questions. Three or four times a day he rolled over for whichever doctor or nurse wanted to take a look up his ass. Everybody was respectful and compassionate. Still, every exam made him wish he were dead.

  His half-sister Zoe came occasionally. Vern was there constantly.

  And of course, Mos watched. It was his job.

  Dr. Bloom, the surgeon who operated on Geno, came every day. So did a gastroenterologist. And a cadre of nurses whose faces and names started to fall into predictable shifts.

  “You’re one lucky kid,” a male nurse said, taking vitals one morning.

  Geno hit him.

  It was a feeble swipe, the back of Geno’s hand making a weak thud on the nurse’s chest. Apologies were made, but after that day, Geno only had female nurses and nobody called him lucky again.

  One day Captain Hook brought Chris Mudry with him. The chief beamed as Chris approached the bed. As if Chris were a present.

  Geno didn’t make eye contact with his friend. He bit his lip hard as he and Chris clasped right hands. He leaned forward a bit to accept the fist tap on his shoulder blade, then disengaged quickly.

  “I’m so sorry,” Chris said softly.

  Captain Hook slipped away to give them privacy. Silence squeezed the room in an awkward fist as Mos watched Chris take in the healing raw circles at Geno’s wrists. The IV with antibiotics fighting a persistent Chlamydia strain from one of his attackers. The feeding tube because he was struggling with cyclical vomiting and couldn’t keep anything down. The colostomy bag to handle all the unpleasant output.

  “Dude, I don’t know what to say,” Chris said.

  “Don’t say anything.” Geno’s broken voice was gaining strength. It still slid into a rasp when he was tired, or broke down, but it was a voice.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t. Say. Anything.” Geno measured out the words like medicine. “You came, you saw the freak show, you know what happened to me. You can go now.”

  Chris stayed still, breathing slow through his nose. “Kelly really wants to see you.”

  “No,” Geno said.

  “She’s crazy worried about you and she—”

  “I don’t want anyone to see me like this. Least of all her.” Geno’s hand reached and closed around the front of Chris’ shirt. “Don’t you fucking tell anyone what you saw here today.”

  “Jesus, G, I wouldn’t—”

  “I swear to God, I’ll rip your tongue out if you say anything.”

  Chris reached up, ostensibly to work Geno’s fist off his shirt. Geno yanked his hand away first. “Go,” he said. “Just fucking go and leave me alone.”

  Chris’ mouth opened and shut a few times. “G,” he said, his voice filled with broken glass. “I’m so fucking sorry. It’s killing me. I should’ve gone with you.”

  “Why? So you could’ve gotten the shit fucked out of you too? At least you would’ve enjoyed it.”

  The color drained out of Chris’ face and his mouth pressed into a tight line. His eyes misted and something within Geno unfolded in delight, pleased someone else was hurting.

  “I suppose you want the details,” he said, relishing the feel of a knife handle as he twisted it. “I’d tell you, but you might be jealous. Hope you didn’t come here with any ideas about me coming over to the dark side. I’m not your type, remember?”

  “Dude, stop,” Chris said. His hands were shaking.

  “Why don’t you get the fuck out of here? Seeing your faggot face isn’t making me feel any better. In fact, it’s making me sick. Should’ve been you in that house.”

  “G, what are you—?”

  “Just leave me alone. Go blow your boyfriend or whatever it is you do to each other. Bunch of sick fucks.”

  Chris stood still. His lips parted but nothing came out.

  “What part of ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand?” Geno yelled over his frayed vocal chords. “Leave? That’s easy. You get the fuck out of here.” The last words were barely a whisper.

  Chris was crying as he left.

  Voiceless now, Geno threw an emesis basin at his back to drive the point home.

  Mos stayed. It was his job.

  Mos listened carefully as doctors and police came and went. He was incredibly busy sorting information into bins. Things Geno didn’t want to know. Things he wanted to know. Things he might want to know later, but couldn’t handle right now.

  So much to process. Dr. Bloom talked and talked, dropping words like anal fissure, perineal tear, stoma, collection apparatus and rehabilitation protocol. Mos heard HIV mentioned, followed by, thank God, negative. The chlamydia was stubborn, requir
ing a host of antibiotic names. Then the really magic words: morphine, Vicodin, Percocet, fentanyl. Mos wanted them all for Geno. As much as Geno wanted. Anything and everything to make it go away.

  Mackin and other police dropped words like perp and alleged and leads. They talked about swabs, evidence, DNA, blood, semen, saliva, fingerprints. And pictures.

  Amazing how many pictures could be taken in forty-four hours. No way of knowing how many were right-clicked and saved before the FBI shut the websites down. No way to determine how many of those shots were posted elsewhere. Or emailed. Or texted.

  Somewhere, someone was hunched over a screen or device, jerking off to Geno’s pain.

  He wished he were dead.

  The Fox was still at large. The manhunt extended to five states. The FBI had his prints and his DNA. They had a ton of DNA. They scraped it off Geno’s skin and combed it out of his pubic hair and swabbed it out of his mouth and ass. Grand total came to seven separate profiles. Seven different men raped him over the course of forty-four hours. One dead. Two headed to jail. Fox and three others were out there. Laying low until they could strike again.

  The bust of the porn ring and the FBI investigation was front page news. Because Anthony’s cell targeted and fetishized twins, people called him a modern-day Josef Mengele.

  “Sons of bitches,” Vern said to the TV, where one of the morning talk shows was discussing the Mengele Ring. “Like that demon’s name needs to be resurrected for any reason? My grandparents were gassed at Auschwitz. You don’t know shit about Mengele.”

  Vern. What a mensch.

  The cause of death in Nathan’s obituary was kept vague. Geno’s name was kept out of all the papers. Pretending to be asleep, he listened to Vern pace and berate a journalist on the phone.

  “He is seventeen fucking years old,” he said through the wall of his teeth. “I don’t know how you got this number, sonny, but I give you my word: If I see his name in conjunction with this story, if I see a goddamn capital C in one of your stories, I will bury you.”