The Company Man

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, sure it ain’t. I’d never think I’d see the day. Especially ’cause lately I hear you ain’t exactly a fan of pussy. Is that so?”

  Hayes grinned wider and shrugged again.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” he said. “A man wants what a man wants.” Sookie shook his head. “I can’t believe it, though. You always seemed like a hard little thing. Like you’d cut through the world like a knife. And now you twisting in the wind for a woman.”

  “I’m not a romantic, Sooks. You know that.”

  “But there is a girl.”

  “A young thing with fresher eyes than mine, yes. But she has nothing to do with this.”

  Sookie flexed his lower lip and sucked on his wad of tobacco. “Mm. Maybe not. But something’s different in you. I never seen you run out in the open like you are right now, especially not over something like the unions. Just unwise.”

  “Say what you like,” said Hayes. “I’m going to do it anyway.”

  Sookie sucked on the chaw again. “Let me tell you a story, boy. I had this cousin, see? Call him Archibald. Archibald, he wasn’t a smart man, not by a long shot, but he inherited this old ’lectric printing press. Only one in town. So he does a fair bit of trade, gets his dollar, follow?”

  “I follow.”

  “So day after day he runs his little print. Don’t need no repairs. Don’t need nothing extra. Just runs that machine. And then one day he got the idea, hey, why not make the press faster? Stronger? Sort of beat-up thing, beat-up and old, why not spruce it up, make it better? So he think on it and think on it. Never realize he don’t know shit about a printing press. And then one day he shuts it down, gets under there, start fooling about with its insides, and then, snap.” Sookie held up one hand and drew a finger across the knuckles. “The damn thing cuts off all his fucking fingers. Like butter. Like they was butter. See?”

  Hayes nodded.

  “What I’m saying is… don’t fuck with what works. Don’t do nothing extra, nothing special. Don’t try and fix shit. Even if it seems broke. Just do what you do. Just do what you do every day. And forget about everything else. Hear?”

  “I do,” said Hayes. “But I still want to hear about the unions.”

  Sookie shook his head. “There’s no angle for the unions for you. Nothing to play.”

  “I’m not here to play. Come on now. What’s the word you have on them and the Tazz-man, Sooks?”

  Sookie frowned and sighed, as though ruing the foolishness of the young. He regarded Hayes for a moment longer, then said, “Rumor has it that Tazz went underground.”

  “I know that.”

  “No, when I say underground, I mean really underground,” he said. He pointed down. “Down there. In the catacombs, or whatever the hell they are. You know they’re there. I hear that’s where he run.”

  Hayes sat up. “Why the hell would he go there? That’s where the killer is.”

  “Can’t say. But I hear he’s looking for something. Trying to figure something out. What, again, can’t say.”

  “But what have you heard, old Sooks?”

  Sookie turned away and sat back. His chest and shoulders sank in and his belly rose up and suddenly he was just another old man, trying to think of what was upsetting him so. He pawed at his newspaper and said, “Hm. You hear this thing in the paper about fields?”

  “What? Fields?”

  “Yeah. These fields them scientists are discovering.”

  “No. No I have not,” said Hayes, growing irritated.

  “They say they’re finding these fields, like magnetic fields, but different. They’re holding everything together. All together, even at the smallest level,” he said, and held up his thumb and forefinger to show how small. “They make everything whole. Ain’t that something? And now they’re saying they can break those fields. That they can break stuff up. And do a lot of crazy shit with what come out. Think that’s true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think it is. And you and I know that McNaughton ain’t going to let no one talk about stuff unless they’ve already figured out how to do it. And done it themselves a couple times over.” He set the paper down and gazed out over the crowd. “I think this city’s like that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. People come here, looking for something. Money. Future. Whatever. And instead it just breaks them up. Makes them forget what makes them them. I know. I’ve seen it rise and I’ll probably be around to see it fall, if it ever does. They lose that little field inside of them. And they give up what they got to the city. To bad men like me.” He grinned and sat up straight. Then he poked Hayes in the arm again. “You lost your field, little boy. You’re falling apart. You’re forgetting what makes you so mean and dirty, see?”

  Hayes did not smile this time.

  Sookie looked at him sidelong. “I’ve heard that McNaughton’s got all kinds of machines down there, underground. In the catacombs. Maybe Tazz wants to see for himself. And maybe get one of his own. Think that’s possible?”

  Hayes sat back. “I think maybe,” he said softly.

  “Yeah,” said Sookie. “If a man could learn how to control those things down there, whatever they are, maybe he’d be able to control the city. Maybe. Neat idea, eh?”

  “Yes,” said Hayes, troubled. “Very fascinating.”

  Sookie sniffed. “So. What you got for me, Princeling? What’s there that you can trade?”

  Hayes shook himself and returned to the game at hand. “Merton’s buying up wharf property,” he said smoothly. “Thinking about importing, maybe.”

  Sookie waved a hand. “Don’t give me garbage. Give me something good. You know I want something good.”

  “John Flax died the other night,” said Hayes. “In Savron. The guards were in on it and they buried him in the basement.”

  “Chicken feed. Complete chicken feed. If you want to show your face here again I suggest you pony up, son.”

  “All right,” said Hayes. “You know that senator’s kid? The illegitimate one?”

  “Ronald, I think his name is,” said Sookie. “Fathered on a Chinese whore not much older than a mayfly.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Well, rumor has it… rumor has it he’s no longer… whole.”

  “Whole?”

  “Yeah,” said Hayes, and glanced down at his crotch and back up at Sookie. “Whole.”

  Sookie’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. Mishandled one of Moira’s girls. Things got ugly. Leastways, that’s the rumor.”

  “You get that from Moira?”

  He shook his head. “She’d never tell.”

  “No. I guess she wouldn’t.” Sookie nodded. “Huh. I’ve been looking to get ahold of that senator for some time now.”

  “Well, there’s your foot in. Hope it does you well, Sooks.” Hayes stood to leave.

  “That’s all?” said Sookie, surprised. “You don’t want me to tell someone about how you want to see Tazz?”

  “Oh, no. I know Sookie’s mouth isn’t big enough to help,” said Hayes.

  Sookie smiled crookedly. “That’s so.”

  Hayes turned to leave when the old man’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “You be careful, Princeling,” he said. “You got a disease in you. A new one, for you. I seen it before in others. I see it in your face. You’re pulling out all the stops because you don’t plan on coming back from where you’re going. If it’s the girl that’s doing this, then fuck her and forget her, I say.”

  “And if it’s more than her?”

  Sookie frowned. “Then you better be damn sure about where you’re going. You hear?”

  “I hear,” said Hayes. Then he bade Sookie goodbye and walked through the tables to the stairs and the rest of his chores.

  Six hours and 191 dollars later Hayes washed up on the sidewalk before a grimy little all-night diner in Lynn. He had crossed the city in one night, touching those in the know and giv
ing them the message. He was exhausted and reeling from drink and drugs, but he felt he had accomplished something. He had at last made headway.

  The smile faded from his face. He had torn free of the madness and the high now drained from his body. Loneliness welled up in him, diamond-sharp and silent. He felt lost among the small, winding night streets, populated only by strangers and stragglers who were dark and silent as they passed on the other side of the road.

  Hayes staggered through the front doors of the diner and dragged himself up to the bar. The place was empty save for a few. A cop on his beat and a cabbie who was nursing a watery glass of orange juice. A thickset woman who sat in the corner before an empty plate and sometimes cried noiselessly to the notice of no one. A bent woman with dishwater-blond hair pushing a broom between the tables though there seemed to be no dust. Lonely survivors, left behind by the day before.

  Hayes sat with his head in his hands and tried to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that wished he would die, this terrible thing, this wretched empty vessel that was unable to enjoy even the dalliance of sin. He felt ill. In that moment he did not really know what he had done that night or why he had done it. If his life followed any direction right now, he guessed, it was due to nothing more than sheer momentum.

  The waitress came and took his order. Minutes passed and she came back with a plate of steak and eggs. To his weary mouth they tasted only of cigarettes and retch. The policeman left and a woman came in and sat next to Hayes and ordered eggs. She opened up a newspaper and read in silence. After a while Hayes dozed over his plate.

  He dreamed of deserts and the lone moon seen through a roof made of iron bars, of the smell of horseflesh and the lightning flash of carbine fire on barren slopes. Then he dreamed of the city as seen from above, a handful of blinking lights grown along the edge of the Sound like cobwebs caught in a corner. He listened to the lights below and realized they had a voice, one voice speaking together. After listening for a while longer he realized the lights were weeping.

  “Meal subpar this time?” said a voice.

  He awoke. The woman with the newspaper was smiling at him over the top of a sheet.

  “What?” he said.

  “The meal,” she said. “I noticed you haven’t eaten much of it.”

  “So?”

  “Well then, it can’t be very good.”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  She faltered, then said, “I’ve just seen you in here.”

  “Seen me? Where?”

  “In here. You come here pretty often and eat the same thing, steak and eggs.”

  “Here? I come here?”

  “Yes.”

  Hayes thought, then squinted at her and asked, “Why are you watching me eat?”

  “I’m… I’m not.”

  “You know what I eat here.”

  “No, I just come in here sometimes and I… I see you, so I was just curious.”

  “Curious.”

  “Y-yes. I thought I’d make chat.” She looked down, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Then she stood and put down some money and walked away.

  “No,” said Hayes as she walked out. “No, I didn’t mean to…”

  She did not hear him. She went through the front doors and did not look back. Hayes hung his head. “Shit,” he said softly to himself. “Goddamn it.”

  He cursed himself a while longer and then paid and hobbled out. He wasn’t sure what he would say to her if he caught up to her or even why he cared. In the end it did not matter. By the time he reached the street she was gone.

  He walked past the Nail to the web of side streets that made his neighborhood. He did not go to the warehouse but instead went to a small shop across from it with a FOR RENT sign hanging in the glass. He took out his keys and opened the door and went past the empty front room to the stairs in the back and then up to the second floor. It was unadorned except for a mattress in the middle of the bare floors, lying perfectly in line with the window, which looked down upon the front door of his warehouse and all the small alleys that went to the back. He had purchased the shop for that very feature. He was almost sure that neither Brightly nor Evans knew of its existence, as he had bought it using one of his less prominent identities.

  “All the old tradecraft,” he muttered. He leaned his head up against the glass and began watching. Not a soul stirred in the street. The bleak light of dawn began to seep through the sheet of clouds in the east. He kept watching and waiting. After the first two hours he wanted to sleep but found he could not.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When she returned to work the next day Samantha prepared the agenda and waited for Hayes to arrive. The world seemed to float by her as she entered her office, and she was unable to focus on any one thing. She was still living in the night before, she knew, how she had had to coax him as though he were no more than a teenager, and how after they had sat in comfortable silence, allowing the morning hours to slip by without a word. As she waited for Hayes she realized her every second was geared toward seeing Garvey again, and the murders and the many conspiracies seemed to fade to a murmur around her.

  After an hour of waiting she figured Hayes would just show up late, claiming some injury or feebleness from his hospital stay. After three she called Evans, explained what had happened, and went by Hayes’s warehouse. She pounded on the front door for a good half-hour before she heard a cough. She turned and found a telegram boy standing behind her, looking awkward.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Are you, um”-he checked his telegram-“Sam?”

  “What? I mean, yes?”

  “Message for you,” he said, and handed it to her.

  She opened it up and scanned it. OFF A-QUESTING STOP ENJOY YOUR FREE DAY STOP

  She read it again, then looked up and scanned the streets and windows around her.

  “You cheeky little shit,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “What?” said the telegram boy.

  “Nothing. Oh, here,” she said, and tipped him. “Now go on.”

  She called Evans, and he groaned when she told him the situation. “I’ll try and keep it under my hat, my dear,” he said. “But I’m getting a little tired of making excuses, especially under these circumstances.”

  Samantha agreed and said she would send him all the information he needed to make their inquiry look productive, provided he spread it a little thin. She returned to the Nail and sent her work up to the forty-seventh floor, then checked the time. She had four hours left. She cleaned her office for another twenty minutes, then told Evans she was leaving for the day and caught the trolley back to Newton, not sure what she was going to do.

  She went shopping at Earl Street and bought some nice bread, then sat on the benches in front of the museum, eating and watching people walk by. She wondered if she should be out trying to find Hayes. Then she wondered if that was even possible. If Evans was right, Hayes wasn’t the sort of person you found unless he felt you should.

  She went back to her apartment with a bottle of wine and a good piece of chicken, deciding that a nice meal and a long soak in the tub was in order. She passed through the mezzanine and then found Garvey there again, seated in the same chair and wearing the exact same suit he had worn before. He grinned at her, but his face was strained and she knew he was carrying something awful with him this time. She walked to him and put one hand on his face, feeling his stubble. “You look terrible,” she said.

  “I look terrible,” he agreed.

  They went back to her apartment and he asked if there was a chair he could destroy. She guided him toward some overstuffed red affair and he dropped himself down gracelessly. She wanted to ask how he was doing, to search him and see how he felt about what had happened between them, but his mind was obviously elsewhere, and so instead she made coffee and poured two cups.

  “How is it?” she called from the kitchen.

  “How is what?” he said.

  “O
h, please.”

  There was a pause. “Fucked,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Fucked. Fucked sideways. Fucked in the ear. Pick a fuck, this case is fucked.”

  “I see,” she said, carrying the coffee back over. Garvey took the little cup and tossed it down, dribbling some onto his shirt.

  “Mayor went and gave a speech at Bridgedale today,” he said.

  “Did he?” She sat down on the floor beside his feet.

  “Yeah. Something about solidarity. How this is all one city and we’ve all got to stick together. Then he turned around and vaguely accused the Department and McNaughton of a few things. So I guess it is one city, excluding your guys and my guys. And they’ve added a shitload more people to the detail,” he said with a sigh. “Simons and Meyer. From High Crimes Division. Corralled in on the commissioner’s say-so.”

  “How are they?”

  “They’re bastards. Think they walk on water. High Crimes is used to details, sure, long investigations with plenty of manpower and resources. They’re the dashing heroes of our goddamn shit department. Today they came into Murder and they managed to piss Morris and Collins off in minutes.”

  “And you?”

  “I was already pissed off.”

  “Well. At least you’re proactive.”

  “Morris has sold everyone some serious horseshit,” said Garvey with another sigh. “Some serious, serious horseshit. Looking to impress. This is a career case, you know.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  She paused, pursing her lips over her cup of coffee. “Well, at the start of this I thought if Mr. Hayes handled this union business particularly well then I might secure a better position.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it for some time. Tell me what Morris did.”

  “Hm. Well, he waded into the Shanties and before you know it he’s got these two little tennies swearing they heard some denner putting a price on Denton and Huffy’s head. Serious bounty. Morris has worked it and managed to whip up some amazing conspiracy for everyone, referenced some gang wars he worked way back when. His most touted of all touted theories right now is that the union surge has started a new den war. Morris says the unions have links to the den-runners, and now everyone in Dockland is hitting the mattresses again, just like back in ’92. We just don’t have enough street-level information to figure out which gang is warring with which, he says. Everyone loves it, of course.”