Knife Fight and Other Struggles

by Knife Fight

  As he had been since the fights began, Stan was quiet. Fortunately, drawing information from a quiet man is a hallmark of our profession. So we speculated—making note of the fact that the mayor’s fortunes seem to have turned over the course of the long, stalemated battle between himself and Stan. We supposed that the stalemate may simply have sapped the mayor’s confidence, although that, as we thought about it, didn’t explain the rainstorm, or the drunken limericks, or the perversity of the men and women of Smelt on matters of public transit.

  Stan smiled at that, and shook his head, and concentrated on the shape the foam took atop his ale.

  And so we wondered: how was it that there wasn’t any blood in the fights? How was it that Stan Bollixer and the mayor, both experts with the blade, could not land so much as a nick as they battled so energetically? The blades had cut cars, light fixtures, even a senior bureaucrat; what unknown agent so thickened the hides of the mayor and of Stan Bollixer?

  Would this battle of titans ever end? To the victor went the spoils, said the rules. What if there was no victor?

  And Stan shrugged, and smiled, and downed his beer in a single, long swallow. “Good question,” he said.

  We persisted. What if there was no victor?

  “What if it stopped, you mean?” said Stan. He slid his glass across the bar and signalled for the cheque. “What if the long fight that has shaped the mayor—shaped the city—just came to an end?”

  Yes, we said—what if no one took the spoils?

  “Well,” he said, grinning a little, “I guess this city wouldn’t go to anyone. I guess it would be on its own. I guess it might be free.”

  The budget committee began deliberations three weeks later. This time it did not go smoothly. The city’s treasurer had underestimated revenues, putting the city tens of millions of dollars in the red for the coming year. Flooding from the rainstorms had created an emergency liability that the city would have to cover through tax revenues, and the collapse of the greeting card sector meant a precipitous drop in assessments. While no one spoke the words aloud, several of us found well-placed sources who hinted that the city could be on the verge of bankruptcy by Christmas.

  Meanwhile, council members and senior bureaucrats quietly found other places to park their vehicles than the VIP parking lot—at least on Thursdays. For who, really, wants to leave their cars unattended on a battlefield?

  Guided by the same principle, the audience grew smaller each Thursday—some nursing wounds from errant slashings; others sensibly retreating to their offices, or their homes, while the mayor fought his nemesis to a standstill, week after week after week.

  Some of us stopped attending as well. Partly it was self-preservation, but also something more fundamental: work.

  Termites rose up from the earth in the fashionable Palm District, devouring the stout oak-trimmed homes of our leading citizens. The garbage workers went on strike just before Halloween, and the bus drivers joined them in solidarity a week later. Three more atrocities followed the Abattoir Atrocity in quick succession, each incident delivering more mayhem and making less sense than the last, causing our editors to deem this The Year of the Atrocity.

  On the Thursday before Christmas, none of us attended. How could we? The city was bankrupt, its homes crumbling to sawdust, the busways silent but for swirling snow, and garbage piled up in mountains outside the shooting range by the river. . . .

  We had our hands full.

  And then it was Christmas.

  City Hall was not entirely empty, but near to it. Only a few of us came in to check on the place. Janitors and security guards patrolled the halls, and a handful of councillors wandered the political wing. But there were not many of those; most huddled in their homes, dreading the new year when, almost assuredly, the city would not be able to make its payroll.

  Calls to the Mayor’s Office went unanswered. Stan Bollixer’s office was dark, the door locked. In the quiet of the Yule, we began to wonder: had there been a final battle? Had the mayor prevailed? Had Stan?

  Had one or the other died? Had they slain one another?

  “We ought to go see.”

  “What—you mean . . . ?”

  “The garage. We ought to see.”

  “It’s locked up.”

  “We ought to go see.”

  The conversation went in circles like that, and might have gone on forever had not the budget chief happened by. Unlike the mayor, she was a great friend of the media and sought us out as often as she could. After handing out her annual stash of candy canes, she asked us if we would join her on a tour of the VIP parking garage. Her pass card, so far as she knew, still worked.

  The garage was empty but for an old convertible covered in a canvas cloth, rumoured to belong to the Works Committee chair. The floor had been swept; there was not so much as a smudge of goose fat on the ground, or along the walls. It was as though the knife fight had never happened here.

  We asked the budget chief if she had seen the mayor recently. She said that she had not, but that wasn’t unusual. “He seems preoccupied,” said the budget chief, “and who can blame him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The budget chief shrugged as we walked the wide circle of the garage. “It’s tough times. You guys were all calling him on it; he couldn’t miss it. And that’s got to weigh heavy on him. I mean, a mayor’s supposed to keep a handle on things. He let go.”

  And to no one, we realized, went the spoils. We stood near to one another in the cold, empty parking garage, considering the implications of that. How had Stan Bollixer put it?

  We would be on our own.

  We would be free.

  One of us wondered aloud if the budget chief thought the mayor’s time might have come; if she might have thought that she, the budget chief, could do a better job of it.

  But the budget chief didn’t answer. She stopped, looking down at the base of one of the pillars—where a glint of steel emerged, below a hilt bound in old leather. The blade had been driven into the concrete, tiny cracks like capillaries branching off from it.

  “Look at that,” she said, and wrapped her fingers around the hilt.

  BASEMENTS

  Mr. Nu was in the basement of his small workman’s house on Larchmount when our firm’s team came for him, and at first they thought he was barricaded down there—possibly sitting on a cache of weapons, or explosives, or biological agents. Possibly, on something worse.

  They had swept the two above-ground floors and found nothing there, almost literally.

  This by itself put the team on guard—even without the incriminating weight of our firm’s considerable file on him, the paucity of personal effects in Mr. Nu’s dwelling was suggestive of a life led to a particular end, of a particularly quiet march . . . to a particular end.

  The basement was only accessible by one staircase, off the kitchen. Marisse, the team leader, was confident that he would not flee. But that was not a comfort, either. If Mr. Nu were of a desperate frame of mind—if he were under instructions to avoid capture at all cost, let us say—being cornered in the basement with no exit but one might lead to acts similarly desperate.

  These were thoughts upon which Marisse did not wish to dwell.

  Later, before an ad-hoc panel of her superiors in the Peel Room at the Marriott, she would face the question: why did you not send a team to the basement immediately? Why did you search the remainder of the house when the infrared imaging indicated with some certainty that Mr. Nu was not in the kitchen or the bedroom or the upstairs bath?

  Marisse had no satisfactory answer to these questions. She grew quiet, almost sullen. On the hotel notepad, she doodled images of cubes, stacked upon one another in such a way as to make it impossible to tell whether the boxes were stacked as the stepped wall of a giant pyramid, or a precarious overhang of packing crates. Benoit demanded that she respond as a professional, and she mumbled s
omething softly, then leaned toward the microphone in the middle of the table, reached across and turned it away from her, and to Benoit. “You respond,” she said, and Benoit became angry enough that I had to intervene.

  “Marisse completed the mission,” I said, sliding the note pad from Marisse and underneath my laptop. “Don’t forget that, Bennie.”

  I caught her eye a moment, attempting to draw out some connection and put her at ease; we had known each other for many years at that point, and sometimes confided in one another on matters personal and professional. But not tonight.

  Tonight, nothing.

  The apprehension, when it came, occurred without serious incident. This much, we confirmed during the meetings at the Marriott. Marisse, her team, did complete the mission. No one was injured, not agent, nor civilian, nor the target: Mr. Nu.

  Mr. Nu arrived at Sandhurst Circle with just the clothing he wore: a dark brown T-shirt, a pair of greenish cotton briefs and low white socks made from a material designed to transmit perspiration during exercise.

  He had been there only a month when I attended the Marriott; a month and a day, when I made my way up the highway to Sandhurst itself. To see Mr. Nu’s new home.

  Twenty-three square kilometres, and Sandhurst in the middle of it—specifically, at the municipal address of 12 Sandhurst Circle.

  There: Seven hundred and fifty square metres on main floor and second. Granite countertop in the kitchen, matching those in the three baths, except the master bedroom’s en suite, which was a deep pink marble. Dark hardwood floors throughout, matching the bevelled trim around doors and other openings. It was, as the brochure stated, ducal.

  The yard, now—that was incomplete. A swimming pool, defined by stakes and string in tamped-down topsoil, waiting for the builder to come and finish the job with landscaping and excavation.

  The basement, although large, was not considered in the real estate listing for this or any other home when the subdivision was, briefly, on the market. Before the developer went bankrupt, and his assets were spread among an ad-hoc group of companies and funds that together formed something more useful.

  Before we moved in.

  “That’s where we keep the cells,” said Stephan as he sipped the espresso he’d made in the identical granite-countered kitchen in 42 Cathedral Crescent. There we sat, waiting for the driver to take me to Sandhurst. Stephan took the time to bring me up to date. I ran my finger along the lip of the counter-top.

  “There are seven altogether.” Stephan set down the tiny cup with a click, then counted fingers as he continued: “Seven cells. An interrogation room. Laundry room. Three-piece bath.” Stephan allowed himself a smile. “Italian tile. Etruscan fixtures.”

  Mr. Nu’s basement on Larchmount, now: no comparison. That one is small, barely six feet of clearance, the floor made of uneven concrete sloping too steep to a drain in the middle. Light comes from bare bulbs, two of them, one at either end of the long space. Under one bulb, the canvas lawn chair, where the team found Mr. Nu, one pale thigh crossed over the other, hands folded over brown-shirted belly as Marisse and team finally—finally!— crept down the stairs, their laser sights tracing jittering nonsense script across his wide chest.

  “Some of us were thinking slate.” Stephan’s smile faltered and his eyes strayed to the French doors, beyond which subterranean sprinkler systems flicked water across the newly laid sod of #42. “But really. For a three-piece it was overkill. And the tile we chose—two kinds; big octagonal pieces, the colour of cream, and the palest blue in square . . . you know, to fill the spaces.”

  I didn’t interrupt him as he continued, outlining the pattern on the countertop with his fingertip. I had not known Stephan for as long as Marisse; he was relatively new to the firm. I had, indeed, only met Stephan once before, at a conference in Las Vegas wherein he and I shared a panel discussing covert logistics opportunities. I think we had impressed one another but that was as far as it went. I was even more at a loss here than I was with Marisse. So I waited for Stephan to exhaust his renovation stories, refill his espresso cup, and fall silent, staring into the foaming murk, before saying it, as gently as I could:

  “There is no driver, is there?”

  He looked at me, naked apology in his eye. “I’m sorry, sir. You’re on your own.”

  It should not have been a long walk, but it took more than an hour to cross the distance between Cathedral and Sandhurst. The subdivision was constructed at the crest of a gentle hill, foundations sunk in land that had until very recently anchored nothing more than rows of corn. It was the highest farm in the area, between a low marsh to the north of it, and the city and the river it sat on to the south. Standing amid those cornstalks, how intoxicating it must have been to turn and turn, and everywhere see the world beneath you.

  The walk was quiet. Most of the houses we kept in the compound were vacant, but not perpetually. When we acquired the real estate, we determined that maintaining a population equivalent to one-tenth of the subdivision’s population capacity was adequate both to cover, and to staffing needs. And so our sub-contracted staff moved about—from one structure to another, clearing driveways and cutting grass, paying taxes. Keeping up appearances.

  It was a hollow facade, and could not be anything else, given the limitations of our contractors . . . hard men . . . hard women. . . .

  Comparing it to Larchmount, now: a straight street, and short, with tight-packed houses many of which do not have driveways—all of which have front porches. So cars jam the curb, even at eleven in the morning. From dawn, elderly men sit on porches, in their plaid shirts and baseball hats, having seen it all, still watching; pleased young mothers with baby carriages make their way down to the coffee shop at the bottom of the street. On such a street, in such a house as his, Mr. Nu might hide forever, ensconced in his basement beneath his lightbulb, wearing his brown T-shirt and greenish shorts, his socks. . . .

  . . . of a fabric, to carry perspiration, from flesh.

  The subdivision surrounding 12 Sandhurst was intended for wealthy families with good credit. So even the smallest home is over-large, more dramatic than practical, and the houses grow as they reach the centre. Number 12 Sandhurst, near that centre, is of course one of the very largest. Sheathed in limestone or something very like it, the building presses against the lot’s edge. It has a square tower at one end that resembles somewhat a steeple, a clock tower. Although no higher than its neighbours, the elevation of the ground on which it was built grants it a subtle dominance. It might be approached from two directions—but from either, doing so is an ascent.

  It must have been a warm day, because I was perspiring heavily. Itching, too; Sandhurst Circle was the last portion of the subdivision scheduled to be finished, and the collapsing banking industry—the sudden extinction of wealthy families with good credit—did not wait for the developer to complete the landscaping.

  So the hot breeze blew clay dust up in miniature sandstorms, eddies that swept across the front walk and driveway, frosted the tall, dark windows grey. The dust coated my throat and stung at my eyes. I approached the front door. It ought to have opened—12 Sandhurst is equipped with well-hidden cameras and security with access to face- and gait-recognition software, and I was in the database. But it was left to me to shift the door-knocker aside and enter the access key. The double oak doors swung inward, and I stepped inside, into the front hall.

  The room climbed two tall storeys, with the sweep of a staircase following a curved wall upstairs. The only light came from the tall windows behind me, zebra-ing the dark-trimmed doorways and gleaming dark floor. Somewhere within, the pulsating whine of a vacuum cleaner. It seemed to be moving from surface to surface; first the muffled draw of thick-pile carpet, then a click and the rattle of crossing hardwood.

  How near was it? I couldn’t tell at first. While I had some idea of the lay of 12 Sandhurst, I had not studied floor plans in great detail. Whatever the t
rouble with Stephan and the driver, I was expecting that I would arrive here and be greeted by the duty officer, then ushered through the appropriate hallways and staircases. Not standing alone, attempting to triangulate the location of a housekeeper, while work waited to be done.

  There were five exits from this space, counting the stairs and the door that I had come in: two on either side of me, and another in an archway beneath the stairs itself. Pale, dust-coloured light hinted from all of them. As the vacuum cleaner shifted from pile to board, some of that light flickered—as though the cleaner passed before a window—then seemed to pulse brighter—as if perhaps that cleaner, or another, drew back a curtain. The bannister from the staircase cast a sharp shadow at one point, the wall behind it glowing a dusky orange. The light of the setting sun? Perhaps. The shadow moved as I watched, growing and climbing to touch the ceiling before fading again. It was as though time were accelerating, and I was left behind, here in this dark vestibule, watching it Doppler ahead.

  I blinked, and my eyes stung ferociously, so I blinked again.

  In front of me stood a tall man, hair close-cropped in the Marine style. He wore an olive-green T-shirt that showcased a powerful physique—black trousers that tucked into high military boots. His fists were clenched at his side. Jaw clenched too, with tendons swelling and subsiding up and down his neck. His eyes were wide. Brimming with tears.

  And again, I blinked.

  Behind him, on the staircase, was an upright vacuum cleaner, a dozen steps up, unattended, abandoned—the power cord descending taut from the dark of the second floor, like a single, black marionette string. At the very end of its reach.

  Once more: the blink. With a grandiose leisure now, as though the passage of time had slowed . . . was readying itself to stop here, in the infinite silence of the instant between heartbeats.