“Your gesture is much appreciated,” I said. “However, with all due respect, at the moment I shall choose not to partake.”
Distinct as a scar, a vertical crease of displeasure appeared on my client’s forehead, and the ridged case and its five inhabitants advanced an inch toward my nose. “Deacon, you want me to smoke alone?” asked Mr “This Building is Condemned” C—. “This stuff, if you were ever lucky enough to find it at your local cigar store, which that lucky believe me you wouldn’t be, is the best of the best, straight from me to you as what you could term a symbol of the cooperation and respect between us, and at the commencement of our business today it would please me greatly if you would do me the honour of joining me in a smoke.”
As they say or, more accurately, as they used to say, needs must when the devil drives, or words to that effect. “Forgive me,” I said, and drew one of the fecal things from the case. “I assure you, the honour is all mine.”
Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— snipped the rounded end from his cigar, plugged the remainder in the centre of his mouth, then subjected mine to the same operation. His henchman proffered a lighter, and Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— bent forward and surrounded himself with clouds of smoke, in the manner of Bela Lugosi materializing before the brides of Dracula. The henchmen moved the flame toward me, and for the first time in my life I inserted into my mouth an object that seemed as large around as the handle of a baseball bat, brought it to the dancing flame, and drew in that burning smoke from which so many other men before me had derived pleasure.
Legend and common sense alike dictated that I should sputter and cough in an attempt to rid myself of the noxious substance. Nausea was in the cards, also dizziness. It is true that I suffered a degree of initial discomfort, as if my tongue had been lightly singed or seared, and the sheer unfamiliarity of the experience – the thickness of the tobacco tube, the texture of the smoke, as dense as chocolate – led me to fear for my well-being. Yet, despite the not altogether unpleasant tingling on the upper surface of my tongue, I expelled my first mouthful of cigar smoke with the sense of having sampled a taste every bit as delightful as the first sip of a properly made martini. The thug whisked away the flame, and I drew in another mouthful, leaned back, and released a wondrous quantity of smoke. Of a surprising smoothness, in some sense almost cool rather than hot, the delightful taste defined itself as heather, loam, morel mushrooms, venison, and some distinctive spice akin to coriander. I repeated the process, with results even more pleasurable – this time I tasted a hint of black butter sauce. “I can truthfully say,” I told my client, “that never have I met a cigar as fine as this one.”
“You bet you haven’t,” said Mr “This Building is Condemned” C—, and on the spot presented me with three more of the precious objects. With that, we turned to the tidal waves of cash and the interlocking corporate shells, each protecting another series of interconnected shells that concealed yet another, like Chinese boxes.
The cryptic gentlemen one and all appreciated certain ceremonies, such as the appearance of espresso coffee in thimble-sized porcelain cups and an accompanying assortment of biscotti at the halfway point of our meditations. Matters of business being forbidden while coffee and cookies were dispatched, the conversation generally turned to the conundrums posed by family life. Since I had no family to speak of, and, like most of his kind, Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— was richly endowed with grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren, these remarks on the genealogical tapestry tended to be monologic in nature, my role in them limited to nods and grunts. Required as they were more often by the business of the cryptic gentlemen than was the case in other trades or professions, funerals were also an ongoing topic. Taking tiny sips of his espresso and equally maidenish nibbles from his favourite sweetmeats (Hydrox and Milano), my client favoured me with the expected praises of his son, Arthur Jr (Harvard graduate school, English lit.), lamentations over his daughter, Fidelia (thrice-married, never wisely), hymns to his grandchildren (Cyrus, Thor, and Hermione, respectively the genius, the dreamer, and the despot), and then proceeded to link his two unfailing themes by recalling the unhappy behaviour of Arthur Jr at the funeral of my client’s uncle and a principal figure in his family’s rise to an imperial eminence, Mr Vincente “Waffles” C—.
The anecdote called for the beheading and ignition of another magnificent stogie, and I greedily followed suit.
“Arthur Jr’s got his head screwed on right, and he’s got the right kinda family values,” said my client. “Straight A’s all through school, married a stand-up dame with money of her own, three great kids, makes a man proud. Hard worker. Got his head in a book morning to night, human-encyclopedia-type guy, up there at Harvard, those professors, they love him. Kid knows how you’re supposed to act, right?”
I nodded and filled my mouth with another fragrant draft.
“So he comes to my uncle Vincente’s funeral all by himself, which troubles me. On top of it doesn’t show the proper respect to old Waffles, who was one hell of a man, there’s guys still pissing blood on account of they looked at him wrong forty years ago, on top of that, I don’t have the good feeling I get from taking his family around to my friends and associates and saying, So look here, this here is Arthur Jr, my Harvard guy, plus his wife, Hunter, whose ancestors I think got here even before that rabble on the Mayflower, plus his three kids – Cyrus, little bastard’s even smarter than his dad, Thor, the one’s got his head in the clouds, which is okay because we need people like that, too, and Hermione, who you can tell just by looking at her she’s mean as a snake and is gonna wind up running the world someday. So I say, Arthur Jr, what the hell happened, everybody else get killed in a train wreck or something? He says, No, Dad, they just didn’t wanna come, these big family funerals, they make ’em feel funny, they don’t like having their pictures taken so they show up on the six o’clock news. Didn’t wanna come, I say back, what kinda shit is that, you shoulda made ’em come, and if anyone took their pictures when they didn’t want, we can take care of that, no trouble at all. I go on like this, I even say, What good is Harvard and all those books if they don’t make you any smarter than this, and finally Arthur Jr’s mother tells me, Put a cork in it, you’re not exactly helping the situation here.
“So what happens then? Insteada being smart like I should, I go nuts on account of I’m the guy who pays the bills, that Harvard up there pulls in the money better than any casino I ever saw, and you wanna find a real good criminal, get some Boston WASP in a bow tie, and all of a sudden nobody listens to me! I’m seeing red in a big way here, Deacon, this is my uncle Vincente’s funeral, and insteada backing me up his mother is telling me I’m not helping. I yell, You wanna help? Go up there and bring back his wife and kids, or I’ll send Carlo and Tommy to do it. All of a sudden I’m so mad I’m thinking these people are insulting me, how can they think they can get away with that, people who insult me don’t do it twice – and then I hear what I’m thinking, and I do what she said and put a cork in it, but it’s too late, I went way over the top and we all know it.
“Arthur Jr takes off, and his mother won’t talk to me for the whole rest of the day. Only thing I’m happy about is I didn’t blow up where anyone else could see it. Deacon, I know you’re the type guy wouldn’t dream of threatening his family, but if the time ever comes, do yourself a favour and light up a Havana instead.”
“I’m sure that is excellent advice,” I said.
“Anyhow, you know what they say, it only hurts for a little while, which is true as far as it goes, and I calmed down. Uncle Vincente’s funeral was beautiful. You woulda thought the Pope died. When the people are going out to the limousines, Arthur Jr is sitting in a chair at the back of the church reading a book. Put that in your pocket, I say, wanna do homework, do it in the car. He tells me it isn’t homework, but he puts it in his pocket and we go out to the cemetery. His mother looks out the window the
whole time we’re driving to the cemetery, and the kid starts reading again. So I ask what the hell is it, this book he can’t put down? He tells me but it’s like he’s speaking some foreign language, only word I understand is ‘the’, which happens a lot when your kid reads a lot of fancy books, half the titles make no sense to an ordinary person. Okay, we’re out there in Queens, goddamn graveyard the size of Newark, FBI and reporters all over the place, and I’m thinking maybe Arthur Jr wasn’t so wrong after all, Hunter probably hates having the FBI take her picture, and besides that little Hermione probably woulda mugged one of ’em and stole his wallet. So I tell Arthur Jr I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t really think you were going to put me in the same grave as Uncle Waffles, he says, the Harvard smart-ass. When it’s all over, we get back in the car, and out comes the book again. We get home, and he disappears. We have a lot of people over, food, wine, politicians, old-timers from Brooklyn, Chicago people, Detroit people, L.A. people, movie directors, cops, actors I never heard of, priests, bishops, the guy from the Cardinal. Everybody’s asking me, Where’s Arthur Jr? I go upstairs to find out. He’s in his old room, and he’s still reading that book. I say, Arthur Jr, people are asking about you, I think it would be nice if you mingled with our guests. I’ll be right down, he says, I just finished what I was reading. Here, take a look, you might enjoy it. He gives me the book and goes out of the room. So I’m wondering – what the hell is this, anyhow? I take it into the bedroom, toss it on the table. About ten-thirty, eleven, everybody’s gone, kid’s on the shuttle back to Boston, house is cleaned up, enough food in the refrigerator to feed the whole bunch all over again, I go up to bed. Arthur Jr’s mother still isn’t talking to me, so I get in and pick up the book. Herman Melville is the name of the guy who wrote it. The story the kid was reading is called ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’. I decide I’ll try it. What the hell, right? You’re an educated guy, you ever read that story?”
“A long time ago,” I said. “A bit . . . odd, isn’t it?”
“Odd? That’s the most terrible story I ever read in my whole life! This dud gets a job in a law office and decides he doesn’t want to work. Does he get fired? He does not. This is a story? You hire a guy who won’t do the job, what do you do, pamper the asshole? At the end, the dud ups and disappears and you find out he used to work in the dead-letter office. Is there a point here? The next day I call up Arthur Jr, say could he explain to me please what the hell that story is supposed to mean? Dad, he says, it means what it says. Deacon, I just about pulled the plug on Harvard right then and there. I never went to any college, but I do know that nothing means what it says, not on this planet.”
This reflection was accurate when applied to the documents on my desk, for each had been encoded in a systematic fashion that lendered their literal contents deliberately misleading. Another code had informed both of my recent conversations with Marguerite. “Fiction is best left to real life,” I said.
“Someone shoulda told that to Herman Melville,” said Mr Arthur “This Building is Condemned” C—.
Mrs Rampage buzzed me to advise that I was running behind schedule and inquire about removing the coffee things. I invited her to gather up the debris. A door behind me opened, and I assumed that my secretary had responded to my request with an alacrity remarkable even in her. The first sign of my error was the behaviour of the three other men in the room, until this moment no more animated than marble statues. The thug at my client’s side stepped forward to stand behind me, and his fellows moved to the front of my desk. “What the hell is this shit?” said the client, unable, because of the man in front of him, to see Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff. Holding a pad bearing one of his many lists, Mr Clubb gazed in mild surprise at the giants flanking my desk and said, “I apologise for the intrusion, sir, but our understanding was that your appointment would be over in an hour, and by my simple way of reckoning you should be free to answer a query as to steam irons.”
“What the hell is this shit?” said my client repeating his original question with a slight tonal variation expressive of gathering dismay.
I attempted to salvage matters. “Please allow me to explain the interruption. I have employed these men as consultants, and as they prefer to work in my office, a condition I of course could not permit during our business meeting, I temporarily relocated them in my washroom, outfitted with a library adequate to thier needs.”
“Fit for a king, in my opinion,” said Mr Clubb.
At that moment the other door into my office, to the left of my desk, opened to admit Mrs Rampage, and my client’s guardians inserted their hands into their suit jackets and separated with the speed and precision of a dance team.
“Oh, my,” said Mrs Rampage. “Excuse me. Should I come back later?”
“Not on your life, my darling,” said Mr Clubb. “Temporary misunderstanding of the false-alarm sort. Please allow us to enjoy the delightful spectacle of your feminine charms.”
Before my wondering eyes, Mrs Rampage curtsied and hastened to my desk to gather up the wreckage.
I looked toward my client and observed a detail of striking peculiarity, that although his half-consumed cigar remained between his lips, four inches of cylindrical ash had deposited a grey smear on his necktie before coming to rest on the shelf of his belly. He was staring straight ahead with eyes grown to the size of quarters. His face had become the colour of raw piecrust.
Mr Clubb said, “Respectful greetings, sir.”
The client gargled and turned upon me a look of unvarnished horror.
Mr Clubb said, “Apologies to all.” Mrs Rampage had already bolted. From unseen regions came the sound of a closing door.
Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— blinked twice, bringing his eyes to something like their normal dimensions. With an uncertain hand but gently, as if it were a tiny but much-loved baby, he placed his cigar in the crystal shell. He cleared his throat; he looked at the ceiling. “Deacon,” he said, gazing upward. “Gotta run. My next appointment musta slipped my mind. What happens when you start to gab. I’ll be in touch.” He stood, dislodging the ashen cylinder to the carpet, and motioned his goons to the outer office.
IV
Of course at the earliest opportunity I interrogated my detectives about this turn of events, and while they moved their mountains of paper, bottles, buckets, glasses, hand-drawn maps, and other impedimenta back behind the screen, I continued the questioning. No, they averred, the gentleman at my desk was not a gentleman whom previously they had been privileged to look upon, acquaint themselves with, or encounter in any way whatsoever. They had never been employed in any capacity by the gentleman. Mr Clubb observed that the unknown gentleman had been wearing a conspicuously handsome and well-tailored suit.
“That is his custom,” I said.
“And I believe he smokes, sir, a noble high order of cigar,” said Mr Clubb with a glance at my breast pocket. “Which would be the sort of item customarily beyond the dreams of honest labourers such is ourselves.”
“I trust that you will permit me,” I said with a sigh, “to offer you the pleasure of two of the same.” No sooner had the offer been accepted, the barnies back behind their screen, than I buzzed Mrs Rampage with the request to summon by instant delivery from the most distinguished cigar merchant in the city a box of his finest. “Good for you, boss!” whooped the new Mrs Rampage.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon brooding upon the reaction of Mr Arthur “This Building is Condemned” C— to my “consultants”. I could not but imagine that his hasty departure boded ill for our relationship. I had seen terror on his face, and he knew that I knew what I had seen. An understanding of this sort is fatal to that nuance-play critical alike to high-level churchmen and their outlaw counterparts, and I had to confront the possibility that my client’s departure had been of a permanent nature. Where Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— went, his colleagues of lesser rank, Mr Tommy “I Believe in Rainbows” B—, Mr Anthony “Moonlight Becomes You
” M—, Mr Bobby “Total Eclipse” G—, and their fellow archbishops, cardinals, and papal nuncios would assuredly follow. Before the close of the day, I would send a comforting fax informing Mr “This Building is Condemned” C— that the consultants had been summarily released from employment. I would be telling only a “white” or provisional untruth, for Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff’s task would surely be completed long before my client’s return. All was in order, all was in train, and as if to put the seal upon the matter, Mrs Rampage buzzed to inquire if she might come through with the box of cigars. Speaking in a breathy timbre I had never before heard from anyone save Marguerite in the earliest, most blissful days of our marriage, Mrs Rampage added that she had some surprises for me, too. “By this point,” I said, “I expect no less.” Mrs Rampage giggled.
The surprises, in the event, were of a reassuring practicality. The good woman had wisely sought the advice of Mr Montfort de M—, who, after recommending a suitably aristocratic cigar emporium and a favourite cigar, had purchased for me a rosewood humidor, a double-bladed cigar cutter, and a lighter of antique design. As soon as Mrs Rampage had been instructed to compose a note of gratitude embellished in whatever fashion she saw fit, I arrayed all but one of the cigars in the humidor, decapitated that one, and set it alight. Beneath a faint touch of fruitiness like the aroma of a blossoming pear tree, I met in successive layers the tastes of black olives, aged Gouda cheese, pine needles, new leather, miso soup, either sorghum or brown sugar, burning peat, library paste, and myrtle leaves. The long finish intriguingly combined Bible paper and sunflower seeds. Mr Montfort de M— had chosen well, though I regretted the absence of black butter sauce.
The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror Page 36
