by Aidan Truhen
Oh hi Sarah. (Not out loud.)
Sarah the lawyer that I’m a little bit in love with. Sarah that is not a little bit in love with me. Crazy-cheekboned, long-limbed Sarah, all mystery and yoga and wheatgrass. Sarah Sarah. That Sarah in the chair opposite. Handcuffs like me. Sorry Sarah. And there’s the doctor wearing a lab face. Clinical interest. They’re the same height same build but so different. Sarah is all possibility. The doctor is all buttoned down like she’s wearing a moonsuit all the time looking at you through a Lexan visor. Like you’re a germ.
You going to experiment on us now?
It’s good that you know who we are Mr. Simons.
Well fuck me. (Not out loud but only just.) Fuck. She is calling me Mr. Simons. She does not know who I am. That’s great.
Sarah does know who I am. That is less great.
Will Sarah tell her who I am on purpose? Unknown but it’s definitely not impossible. More important right now is that she might do so by accident. If she calls me Jack we’re both dead. Certainly I’m dead. Probably her. I’d kill her if I was the doctor. It’s just neater.
I wonder what her name is this doctor. What her life is and what it was before. She wears a charm bracelet with just a dog on it. Who does that?
Hey doc you like dogs? I’m definitely a dog man. Used to have Vizslas. You know what a Vizsla is? Great companion dog, proper animal.
She raises one eyebrow like: I’m not talking dogs with you maggot now fuck off you got five seconds then I’m going to knock you out again just for the quiet. All that from just one eyebrow.
Okay, doc, I’m gonna run with this a little you see where I go wrong and you let me know okay?
The doctor doesn’t say anything so okay. Now, Sarah. How long have I got before the penny drops? Before Karenina comes by? Are the Demons in close touch? No choice. Talk to Sarah.
Hi, little lady, you must be Sarah Kessler am I right? You would be the legal representative of one Jack Price and the word is that he’s a little bit in love with you. That’s just what I hear. Is that who you are sweetheart? That’s fine. I’m Bob Simons I’m a missing persons investigator that’s to say I find people who want to be missing for people who want them found. I’d call myself a bounty hunter but there’s that TV show now and people get all funny about it plus in my mind MPI has a ring to it. I’m thinking franchise in the fullness of time. Might could use a little legal representation if that individual had a discreet and appropriate response to ticklish situations. You ever think about the future darling? Probably behoves you to think about it now. Say yes Bob.
Yes Bob.
Eyes somewhere between shit scared and angrier than you’ve ever seen, cheekbones got tears on them but her voice is clear as a bell. My Sarah. Wonderful Sarah. Not my Sarah.
That’s great. Now here’s the situation in which you find yourself. That scary lady over there, I’m guessing she seemed kind to animals and good with children is that about right? You can say yes again.
Yes Bob.
That’s great. So then she put a Mickey Finn in your cold milk or your Chardonnay. That’s a polite and gentlemanly term for a roofie which is what frat boys and other ne’er-do-wells call Flunitrazepam. You might be a little bit young for Mickey Finn so I’m supplying those other names for your convenience okay? Anyway this lady works for a certain enterprise that has business with your client Mr. Price. I’m also looking for Mr. Price on an unrelated matter and I took it in my head we might combine forces. The good doctor (kind to animals good with children remember) she represents that enterprise in this room and she evidently has emphatic opinions about dispatch. That’s to say she wants to meet with your client in a discursive setting sooner rather than later, isn’t that right doc?
Tolerably.
Sarah you can say yes Bob again just so I know you’re following.
Yes Bob.
Okay now I won’t disguise from you that you and I—I think both of us I’m not entirely sure my being somewhat disinvolved but I’m here in the room and I arrived in much the same way as you did somewhat to my surprise but I’m inclined to overlook that owing to the size of my fee as agreed, but most definitely you Sarah on account of your close connection with Mr. Price—we’re in a somewhat ticklish position right now owing to that sense of urgency to which I alluded earlier. There’s not a great deal of goodwill towards us here okay? It would be most unwise to do anything that upset the applecart. Let’s keep all our apples exactly where they are right now. Yes Bob.
Yes Bob.
That being the case let me ask you and do please consider your answer real carefully, take your time and get it right first time out of the box because I’m quite sure our friend the doctor has alternative options regarding this conversation ready to hand: do you know where Jack Price is right now?
No Bob.
Then let me ask a different kind of question and you should feel free to improvise a little on your answer okay this isn’t a courtroom you can spread your wings. Do you think you might be able to guess where your friend Mr. Price might be? Where he might go and to whom he might speak in a time of great personal stress? If not to you?
He’s not my friend.
He’s just your client, I understand.
It’s an important distinction for a lawyer.
Okay.
I don’t know where he is. I don’t really know him at all. He’s this…he’s an asshole. I have my own firm. He’s my client. He doesn’t launder money through me or anything like that. I do his legitimate legal. He’s got someone else for that stuff. I’m straight Mr. Simons I’m a good lawyer.
But you got this itsy bitsy practice.
I can’t work for the bigs I got kicked out.
Boss get handsy and you broke his arm?
I found a key piece of evidence which sank my client. I was required to disclose it and I did. But as a practical matter I didn’t have to. No one would have known.
You did everything right and you got fired?
I’m toxic waste now reputationally speaking.
Life sucks Sarah.
Yes Bob it does and now here I am.
Who’s the guy?
What guy?
You said Price has a money guy do you know who? You can tell your uncle Bob.
Tucker.
First name or last?
Just Tucker and I only heard of him once. We don’t talk about that stuff because I don’t want to know. It makes me ashamed that I get near it. Price makes me ashamed and I’m ashamed now because I’m afraid and I shouldn’t want to give him to you but I do. If I could I would. If he contacts me ever again I will.
I understand you sugar I really do. Don’t worry, I think I can safely say you won’t ever have to deal with Mr. Price no more. You know how he reaches this Tucker? Is Tucker maybe local?
No Bob. I mean it when I say I don’t know.
You think Mr. Price really likes you Sarah?
I think he thinks he does. I don’t think he likes anyone except Price. So if you’re looking for a hostage I think I’m going to die and he’s going to laugh at you.
Tucker.
Tucker.
That’s it?
That’s all I have for you Mr. Simons. Is it enough?
SHE ASKS A GOOD QUESTION, MY LAWYER. It better be enough because I’m definitely out of time here. When it occurs to the good doctor to run my name in any way shape or form it’s going to turn out that there’s no such man as Bob Simons. I can bullshit that, of course. I can say it’s an alias and I’ve had some troubles of my own. If she sits still for that I can give her one of my dormant identities and hope like hell she doesn’t have it already. But if she so much as thinks for five seconds about how I’m about the same age as Jack Price and the same height and weight and—
Well then I am dead.
Hey doc
.
Mr. Simons.
Hey doc I was wondering. I got questions.
Mr. Simons I’m not really in the mood.
Naw, come on doc I got just two.
Go ahead.
Okay you want the easy one or the hard one.
I don’t—Oh, for god’s sake give me the hard one.
Is that enough or are you going to turn us both into lab rats for some freaky ass experiment you got going on?
Mr. Simons I have already told you I’m not going to experiment on you. What could I possibly learn from a sample of two unscreened adults with no controls? It’s like tossing a coin. I brought you here unconscious because I did not wish to argue but I am a scientist not a carnival villain. If I need to kill you I will kill you but there is simply no prospect of—
I like that if doc, I call that word if entirely heartening because it seems to me you’re saying that at this time you don’t need to and that means we’re still partners.
Partners?
I told Fred I would find your guy in exchange for ten million and I will. I’m prepared to waive the issue of working with a female on the basis you’re clearly a professional. I would consider it an honour on this occasion and I might even learn something.
How graceful of you.
Hell I ain’t never been called that in my life.
Imagine my surprise.
So here’s what I propose to do doc if it’s all the same to you. I’m gonna take this lady Sarah home and maybe she’ll show me round her place just in case there’s any correspondence or other filings she might’ve forgot to mention in the course of our amiable discussion just now. Because you notice she is a woman of high principles and while she really don’t like her client she feels some kind of priestly obligation to his worthless ass that maybe needs a little nudging to overcome. And then I’m going to find this fella Tucker and he’s going to walk me through the subject’s financial operations because a man like Price, well, the clue is in the name. He really loves his money. Ain’t gonna sit with him if I begin intercepting his cash flows and such and then he will come out of the woodwork. In my experience his kind always do. Is that a schedule of events to which you’d find your good self amenable, doc?
Provisionally.
Wink’s as good as a nudge doc.
Are you always like this?
Like how?
I suppose you would call it…down-home irrepressible?
Yes I am. I am from the South originally as you no doubt know. I notice you and yours tend a little to the conservative in terms of formality in discussion and no doubt that’s the better way at your level of enterprise but I am a small businessman and I have established a certain mode of being in the world that’s memorable. No problem if someone don’t like me so long as they remember me. That way when a thing needs doing that’s in my wheelhouse I’m the one they call. No one objects to working with a fella they don’t personally admire so long as that fella is competent and I am. Discovery doc is the key in the digital age.
I was concerned you might believe you were charming.
That brings us to my second question which was whether you would care to join me at a nearby watering hole and drink a refined cocktail sporting some sort of combination of fruit and umbrellas in celebration of this new friendship? I’m a coarse man, doc, but I have my virtues and among them is I know how to have fun and how to show a lady a good time. Hell I even can scrub up and wear a tie and under certain limited circumstances you might mistake me for a sophisticate.
I’m afraid I will have to pass on this occasion.
I can discuss the ballet quite persuasively doc. It surprises many people to learn that I am a positively Russian judge of the arabesque.
No. Thank you.
Well I can’t say I am entirely surprised doc and surely I am not offended but you’re a fine figure of a woman and you cannot blame a man for asking politely when he encounters a woman of substance and beauty.
No Mr. Simons I do not but I find the conversation fatiguing and we both have matters to attend to. You may proceed about your business. I would advise against cocktails under any circumstances however for the next twenty-four hours as the anaesthetic I am about to give you does not react well with alcohol and it would be unfortunate if you were to die of white rum and pineapple before our business was concluded.
Wait what anaesthetic?
She’s so fast. Cold needle in my neck. No time to count backwards. So fast and I’m gone.
ON THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE A DINER. Car just dropped us off, rolled us right out onto the sidewalk like sticky Chinese food off a plastic platter.
Fuck you Jack get the fuck away from me I will fucking kill you I SWEAR TO GOD BASTARD! Get the FUCK AWAY!
Sarah would you mind lowering your voice I don’t think this is entirely necessary.
Fuck you Jack.
I get that a lot.
Who are those people Jack?
Well that would be the doctor of the Seven Demons who is a very intelligent person but maybe not much of an investigator. Don’t go home by the way, when she figures out what happened she will also realise that you chose not to tell her who I was and she will have you killed.
You said she’d have me killed if I did.
I sort of implied that but to be honest I have no idea. I am grateful that you interpreted what I was saying to mean that our interests were together.
So where do we go now?
I am going away. I don’t know where you are going. I would strongly suggest out of town. Under another name. Or you could seek the protection of the authorities. I’m sure you have watched enough TV to understand how competent they are in that regard.
I thought you were in love with me?
Yes well I thought so too but as it transpires I just find you really attractive and it’s entirely possible that in the context of a committed relationship I would actually fall in love with you but at this time and knowing as I do that I make you ashamed and dirty and you only did not turn me in because your principles are so deeply engraved on your identity that they completely override your common sense I’m going to say I think that outcome is unlikely.
So that’s it?
Yeah I guess. We’re done. No client no lawyer. Not friends not allies not lovers. Two people in the street. Used to be we had a professional relationship but now you’re terminated or you’re no longer willing to be my representative. It really doesn’t matter which way around we do it. I don’t know what will happen to you and while I do care it’s about the level of whether I catch next week’s installment. That’s just what it is.
Well that’s fucking monstrous and so are you.
Sarah you pretty much killed Tucker and his entire family just now to save your own life and I’m just doing what I gotta do to save myself. Difference is I’m not pretending anything else and you’re still telling yourself you’re a good person in a bad place. You took my business and now here we are and now we’re saying goodbye and that’s all.
Sarah walks away from me down the street. She has very little money in her bag and she should probably go straight to an ATM and get as much as she can. If she does that in about half an hour, I reckon she’ll die. I guess if she hides for a few days then all this will be over, one way or another. Maybe she’ll have a life again. I think I have to acknowledge that it won’t include me, but I guess it’s pretty clear it never really did.
I am a walking business plan, is what it is. That’s all.
MOUNT CAROLINE EMOTIONAL HEALTH and Recovery Center for some reason they don’t want to call it a hospital but that’s what it is. Mint green hallway again and why would you ever use that colour? It crops up everywhere that expects hard wear and not a lot of cash inflow. Military surplus undercoat or some such. Maybe just a big fucking mixture of whatever they had, grey and yellow an
d white and blue. There is no way that colour is good for you. Fucking paint feels like lead too. Bet it’s fucking full of lead. Maybe makes the people in this place more crazy than they were already. Or maybe it makes no difference and they’re just people of unsound mind from way back. Almost all of them are nice. Almost none of them are dangerous. Crazy people get a bad rep because movies. Actual crazy people are just a little sad and they don’t work unless you treat them or they fix themselves. Had a mad aunt awhile. She was frightened all the time always, frightened of the most unlikely things. Said they spoke to her. Best you stayed with her, then she was sort of okay, you could tell her what was real and she mostly believed you.
Sure some crazy people do dangerous things because they think the world is doing dangerous things to them. That’s pretty much what we all do when you think about it. It’s rare you find someone who’s just flat out murderous. That takes an especially poor combination of fucking bad luck. Even then you can mostly manage it with drugs.
Put on my best frost face like the doc’s like hello agar jelly I regard you from on high. Whisper a few words to the mirror, find the voice. Saul Hart is a dickey ID: Brit pastor with myopia and a dusty medical degree, likes mandolin music, pale tea and cats. Footnote: when you go to a new physician people check the damn certificates. Anyone can use a printer.
I say: Hi I’m Saul Hart would you be Professor Langley?
Yes I would and I can’t tell you Mr. Hart how proud I am to know someone with this kind of dedication.
Well the Church of Saint Joseph is small but there are things we can do that make a real impact and these lost souls are His children after all.
When we put out our appeal every month we always hope someone will be brave enough to accept one of these cases because that’s really the only way they have a hope of being stabilised in a family-type community environment but of course it mostly doesn’t happen because it requires money and people with money just don’t end up here.
Yes precisely and that is why Saint Joseph’s exists because where there’s love of course money is less of an issue. I say love I mean Caritas you appreciate or Agape not Eros.
