The Company Man

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  When she came home she found Garvey waiting in the mezzanine of her floor, seated in a chair and playing with his hat in his lap. He looked up and then stood when she came near, and ran a nervous hand through his hair. He looked pale and weary, as though he had been up for days.

  “Oh,” he said. “I wondered when you’d come home.”

  “How long have you been waiting here?” she asked. “I was just at the station to drop off what we had on Skiller.”

  “I haven’t been here too long. Sorry to make you go all the way to the station when you could have just held on to it.” He paused, then said, “Are you all right? Are you hurt? I missed you at the Hamilton. I wanted to check in on you.”

  “My ears keep ringing,” she said, and she began to walk toward her apartment door. “And I may have sprained my wrist. But otherwise I’m fine. Much better than Mr. Hayes.”

  “That’s good to hear,” he said, following her.

  “I’m sorry for delaying your case, which it seems is what I was doing. I should have made Mr. Hayes stop once we had Mr. Skiller’s address and then given it to you, shouldn’t I?”

  “That’s not what I’m here about,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

  “Well, you can see that I’m fine,” she said, trying to believe it. She opened her apartment door slowly. The memories of the previous days bloomed in her head, the filthy, abandoned children and Hayes reading the goodbye letter as he sat upon the empty bed, and she badly wanted to think of something else, anything else. She looked at Garvey and saw he felt the same, perhaps. Blood was pounding in her ears, and she was reminded of the warehouse Evans had showed her, and the echoes in the deeps.

  She entered and turned to him. “Why don’t you come in?” she asked. “You look like you’ve been awake for days.”

  “That’s because I have,” he admitted. “I don’t even know what time it is.”

  “Then why don’t you come in?”

  Garvey hesitated. “I was just… seeing if you…”

  He trailed off. She waited, but he did not say anything.

  “Donald,” she said slowly and gently, “why don’t you come in?”

  He looked at her, desperate and uncertain, and then nodded, still fumbling with his hat in his hands. He walked in and sat on her couch, and stared up at her earnestly. A cagey young thing, she thought, wearing years that lied about his true heart. Then, smiling slightly, she shut the door, and went to sit beside him.

  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.”