Half the Day Is Night

by Maureen F. Mchugh

  Santos’ agent was wearing a dirty bowler hat and a blue-black diver’s vest. Under that he wore what looked like thermal underwear, with the sleeves pushed up to leave his forearms bare. There were four drinks in front of him, all amber-colored like whiskey or scotch.

  “You buy him a drink,” Santos said. “You buy him a Cutty Sark, I know that he likes it. You say you a friend a Santos, that you are Lezard, and you just want to buy him a drink, that’s all. Okay?”

  “Why?” David said. “He has too many drinks now.”

  “Is an introduction,” Santos said. “Is the way things are done.”

  David pushed to the bar. It was strange to be in such a crowd of people and still be cold. It took awhile for the bartender to get to him. “For the man in the hat,” David said, “a Cutty Sark. Tell him it is from a friend of Santos, from Lezard.”

  The Cutty Sark was expensive. The bartender poured it and put it in front of the agent, leaning across the bar to make himself heard. The agent looked down the bar at David, nodded, and then looked away.

  A friend of Santos, David thought, pushing back to Santos and Ronald. Was he a friend of Santos? He had never even seen Santos until just now.

  “He nodded,” David said.

  “Keep watching him,” Santos said. “You know which one is your glass?”

  David shrugged. He hadn’t really paid any attention.

  “Shit,” Santos said. “Okay, I was watching, I’ll tell you.”

  This bar was on the first level, David thought. He was still surprised that the fish jocks would come to a bar on the first level. “Do you come here a lot?” David asked.

  “Yeah,” Santos said. “When I need a job. This is the place where you get a job. People always come here. My Dad used to come here.”

  One of the agents at the bar—not Santos’ agent, another one—picked up one of the glasses in front of him. He tipped a little of it on the floor and then sipped it. Without looking around he slid off the stool and headed out the door.

  Nobody took the stool. A couple of people went out the door after him but David didn’t know if they were leaving or following the agent.

  “Hey,” Santos said.

  Santos’ agent splashed a bit of Cutty Sark on the floor and sipped some out of the glass.

  David looked at Santos, not sure it was his drink.

  “Go outside,” Santos said.

  Outside the door the silence was like fresh air. Santos’ agent was leaning against the wall, the other agent was squatting a ways away, talking in a low rumble to a fish jock.

  “Lezard what?” Santos agent asked.

  “My name is Kim Park, Lezard is the name I use for games,” David said.

  The agent frowned. He was not very tall, a little taller than David, about David’s age. His cheeks were pitted with acne scars. “Are you Cuban?” he asked.

  “No,” David said.

  “Santos said you were Haitian but you’re not,” the agent said. “When I see you I thought maybe you were Cuban. I know there are Chinese people living in Cuba.”

  “I am Korean,” David said.

  “Oh,” the agent said. David thought Korean was good, the agent had probably never seen someone Korean, wouldn’t know a Korean from a Xhosi. Besides, Park was a Korean name.

  “You have dive experience?” the agent asked.

  “I know how to dive. And I have worked on a construction crew, but never as a diver.”

  The agent frowned.

  “There is a problem,” David said. “I do not have a work card.”

  “Santos said that,” the agent did not look at him. “Santos said it is not political.”

  “It is not.”

  “Santos is all right,” the agent said. “He is young. But I knew his father. He’ll settle down.”

  “He is a nice kid,” David said, not sure what else to say.

  “Maybe, until you get this work card straightened out—”

  David started to say that he didn’t think he would get his work card straightened out but the agent didn’t stop.

  “—you can work on probation. No contract, just to try you out, you know? It is a favor, to Santos. I cannot offer you as much money as I pay the other divers. 82 a week. No rent for your bunk, it is an honest farm. And they take back twenty for your food. You take it or leave it.”

  “Okay,” David said. He could try it. If he didn’t like it he could quit.

  “You know where to catch the sub? Santos can tell you. Be at work on Monday morning, no late, or I have you cut before you even get there, understand?”

  David understood.

  “This work card nonsense,” the agent said. “If I find out it is political, if I find out you bringing politics to my farm? I feed you to the sharks, you understand? So if you decide to change your mind, if you think maybe it is all more complicated than you say, then you do yourself a favor, you don’t show up on Monday morning.”

  “Yes sir,” David said.

  With an air of finality, the agent poured the Cutty Sark onto the rough concrete. It ran towards the center of the street, the scent of the scotch whiskey rising strong and clear like an offering.

  And David was hired.

  10

  The Sorcerer’s Birthday

  Marincite went in circles, everything spiraling down into old mining holes.

  Paul was the admin assistant assigned to Mayla at Marincite Corp. He was a dark, small, neat young man. When she stepped off the sub from Julia on Monday morning, he was there, waiting in his dark red suit, holding a white wax paper bag with his breakfast of beignets. When he found out that she liked them, he started buying two for her on Monday mornings. Instead of “good morning,” Paul always said, “And the night?”

  “Not bad,” she always said, feeling a little silly. Tourists thought everyone in Caribe talked that way, because that was the way they talked in vids like Horsemen. Tourists thought everybody in Caribe followed voudoun.

  Paul fell into step beside her and La Merci dropped back a discreet two meters. “You remind me of my sister,” Paul said.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Because you are tall and you walk like a man.”

  She laughed and he shrugged, smiling a little. She didn’t know what to say, not so much because of Paul as because of the listening ears. La Merci never gave any sign she was eavesdropping, neither did Joe or Hermione. And yet, Mayla could imagine any one of them reacting, reacting like a snake strike, all the feigned indifference gone in an instant. Not like Tim who would be caught open-mouthed when the gunman struck. Guns out, instantly dangerous, La Merci catlike—

  Maybe she would move here. Maybe it would be safer than Julia.

  Real life was not the vid. The truth was she didn’t know what would happen. And other than the vid images, her mind refused to imagine.

  They walked into an ad. It was The Sorcerer’s Birthday, there were signs all over proclaiming it, broad painted words on what looked like sheets. A man in a dusty top hat and maroon tails stood on the sidewalk with his back to them and a goat stood beside him on the street rolling its golden eyes. He half turned, neat and quick, as if she had interrupted him. His look was unknowable. And then she stepped out of the ad.

  She decided she liked the ad, even though she didn’t know what The Sorcerer’s Birthday was.

  Paul stopped at the newstand and she dug into her bag and handed him money for a Wall Street Journal and two coffees. He looked at the front page for a moment, then folded the paper under his arm.

  “My sister is a powerful woman,” he said.

  “What does she do?” Mayla asked.

  He thought a moment. “She gives advice,” he said, with a note of finality.

  Mayla wondered if he couldn’t think of a way to describe what she did or if the words were for Marin Security. Although it was difficult to imagine Paul’s sister doing something illegal. “Is your sister married or does she work?”

  “She is married,” Paul
said. “Maybe you can come and have dinner and meet my sister.”

  She said that sounded nice. Nothing would come of it, but it was sweet of him to ask. She wondered about how it sounded to La Merci. What would they do if she said she wanted to go visit Paul’s sister? Would she be away from their ears? Would they tell her not to go? Could they listen to her anywhere in the city? Surely not.

  They walked through Marincite maroon-and-cream corridors up to the checkpoint where the guards just glanced up as she and Paul went through. La Merci turned around at the checkpoint without a backward glance. Mayla had been delivered. She was behind the wall. Now the gunman could not follow, could not come out of a side door or down the corridor towards her. She was safe. She yawned, passing the half-open doors, the offices with bright windows and sunlight on gleaming wood surfaces. She always started yawning when she got into the complex. She felt sleepy. She wouldn’t dream if she could sleep here, wouldn’t wake up in the night listening and seeing shapes in the dark. If she could she would stay here at night, sleep behind the checkpoints.

  Paul sat down at the desk in the front cube, but she had a temporary office—no window, but a desk that looked as if it might really be wood. If not, it was an excellent fake. She put some figures on the screen and drank her coffee, and ate her pastry. The beignet left a dusting of powdered sugar on the maroon carpet. She hummed to herself. What did it sound like to the listeners? It would be pleasant, wouldn’t it? To hear someone humming to themselves, at peace with themselves and the world. Did the Uncle listening nod?

  * * *

  She sat with International Regulatory and Legal half the morning to go over what papers had to be filed when they started the bid. It was a teleconference, the Regulatory and Legal people from First Hawaiian attended by screen. She didn’t like teleconferences, she found she spent all her time looking at the screen rather than the Marincite Legal and Regulatory people. Everybody did, conditioned by all those years of vid watching. By the time she was finished it was time to think about lunch so she took the elevator up to the commissary and got a surinami salad to take back to her desk. Small pleasures, she thought, eating. She tried to think of what other pleasures she had these days. The elevator stopped at the main floor—it usually did—and Saad Shamsi got on.

  “Mayla Ling,” he said.

  “Saad,” she said.

  He stood beside her in the elevator, eyes on the display.

  “Did you get your money?” she asked.

  He nodded. “From another Julian bank. Caribbean Securities.”

  Caribbean Securities was her competitor. “Who did you work with?” she asked.

  “Aristide Mendoza.” Saad glanced sideways at her. “We’re meeting Mr. Navarro and Owen Cleary of MaTE now, I arranged the introduction.”

  Bringing Caribbean Securities in to take a crack at her deal. “I’m glad everything worked out for you,” she said, mechanically. “How long before you go to the States?”

  He glanced up reflexively, and she realized too late that he probably was afraid that security was listening. He certainly didn’t want Polly Navarro to know that he wanted to skip out on this.

  She didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t been thinking. Saad would probably think she had meant to say that, paybacks being hell and all that. If she’d been thinking fast enough she would have.

  The elevator halted and they both got out. Owen Cleary and Aristide Mendoza of Caribbean Securities were standing at the far end of the hall in front of Polly Navarro’s door.

  “Take care,” Saad said.

  “You, too,” she said. “How goes, Aristide?”

  Aristide smiled back at her, a crocodile smile.

  She took her salad to her desk. For once she wished her little temporary office had a bright window so she could look out on a waterhole in the Serengeti and watch the lions come down to drink. Just because Saad and Aristide had a meeting didn’t mean anything. Polly was just covering all the bases. Caribbean Securities would be starting from scratch, she had four weeks work behind her.

  Things were so far along that Polly had to realize he’d lose money if he changed in midstream.

  What if Marin Security had been monitoring their conversation? It couldn’t hurt that she had mentioned Saad’s plans.

  Don’t second guess, she thought. Just keep working and do the best you can. What could she do? Maybe the targets for takeover weren’t attractive enough? Don’t get flustered, she thought. Don’t just start doing things. She called up the deal, went over the rows of numbers. Maybe First Hawaiian had been too conservative about their own exposure—they were in over their head anyway.

  Don’t start doing things, she thought. If Polly likes what Caribbean Securities offers, he’ll let you know. It was in his best interest to let the jackals fight it out at the water-hole.

  But she should be ready. Tonight, after work, she would start repackaging the deal, have something ready to take to the credit committee at First Hawaiian.

  * * *

  She dreamed but in the morning she could only remember bits and pieces about blue and whites and her grandfather’s house. Something about not being able to go into her grandfather’s house because something would happen, there was a disease or radiation or something in the air mix.

  She woke up with a pounding headache so blinding that she thought she’d been dreaming because there was something wrong with the air mix. Tim didn’t have a headache. He called Security anyway and they came out and checked but the mix was fine. They told her that it was good she had called. Right, they had nothing better to do than humor women with migraines. Well, one nice thing about having a blinding headache was that she was too stupid to feel embarrassed.

  She stuck a painkiller behind her ear and then nearly yanked the transdermal off with a comb, and the damn thing didn’t do anything, anyway.

  She waited for Tim to tell her not to go in, although she had to go in, but he seemed to assume that the patch was working. Or maybe he didn’t assume anything, maybe he assumed she was an adult and she could decide for herself whether or not she should go to the office.

  Fooled him.

  So she sat in her cubicle and tried to pull together information for Polly. She tried to figure out what Caribbean Securities might do, but she couldn’t think of them doing anything she hadn’t already done, which would put them behind her in terms of presentation. Unless Polly was pissed at her about the Saad Shamsi business, in which case it wouldn’t matter how good her presentation was.

  So she might lose the biggest deal of her career. There was no reason to worry about it now, she’d done what she’d done. But she worried anyway, her thoughts running and running and getting nowhere, until she told Paul she was going home. (Well, not really home, home was gone. Home was blown up and squashed flat.)

  “I think you should meet my sister,” Paul said.

  She didn’t know what he was talking about. “Pardon me?” she said.

  “I think she can help.”

  “Your sister can help my headache?” Mayla said.

  “My sister can help,” Paul said.

  “Thank you,” Mayla said, “but it’ll go away on its own. But it’s nice of you to worry.” It was nice of him to worry.

  Paul pursed his lips.

  “Really,” she said.

  He was a sweet young man, she thought. With his beignets and his concern. He liked her and she didn’t know why, but his concern was reassuring.

  “Can I tell my sister about you?” he asked.

  “Well, sure. Why not?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t think she’d find me very interesting or anything.”

  “She will ask about you,” he said.

  “Oh,” Mayla said. Paul was serious, it was important in some way that his sister would ask about her. Mayla had gotten the idea that his sister was a spiritual reader/advisor, he said she “gave people advice.”

  “She will ask about you, you don’t mind?” he said again.

  “No,�
�� she said, “I don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” Paul said, relieved. “I’ll tell her about you.” He nodded pleased. “I’ll tell her about you and she’ll ask.”

  It would be interesting to hear what Paul’s sister the spiritualist would say about her.

  She turned down the corridor towards the elevator and ran into a group coming out of a conference room. The man at the front of the group was wearing a dark red coat, Marincite red, cut long and conservative and for a moment she tried to think what he reminded her of. He turned and looked back at her, and it was Polly. Polly wasn’t usually down on this floor. He didn’t smile, he just glanced at her. More than glanced, looked at her, but didn’t acknowledge her.

  She didn’t get on the elevator, just kept walking as if she were heading somewhere else. It didn’t seem like a good idea to let Polly know she was leaving early, although he probably didn’t care, she wasn’t on his payroll.

  What did his look mean? Not that he looked so much, but that he had looked angry. Cold angry. Maybe it was just the meeting.

  She went back and waited for the elevator. It wasn’t until she got to the street that she connected what it had all reminded her of: the ad for The Sorcerer’s Birthday, the young man in red tails and a top hat that she had seen in the street. The one with the goat.

  Just a flukey thing. Polly was a blanc, his broad back has just connected to the figure, they hadn’t even been really dressed alike because the magician in the ad was wearing tights, not a suit. Funny how the mind worked, particularly when hers was functioning so badly this day.

  * * *

  On the third day of the headache from hell, Mayla left work at two and spent an hour waiting for a doctor to look at her. In the waiting room she sat obsessively thinking about brain tumors, but the doctor found nothing wrong but the kind of imbalances associated with stress. “Have you been under stress?” the doctor asked.

  Oddly embarrassed she said, “Uh … yes. I’ve been under stress in my job.”

  The doctor gave her a prescription and sent her home. The medication didn’t seem to do anything to the headache but it sent her to sleep, a thick sleep full of dull ache.