Against Nature

by Casey Barrett

  “Naughty boy.” She finished closing the distance between us, her body an inch from mine. Our pheromones collided. She peered up at me, placed a hand against my chest. “Always causing trouble, you.”

  “Juls, the last time I was here, you told me you never wanted to see me again.”

  Her hand dropped. “Please, my son had just been threatened. I wasn’t in a clear frame of mind.”

  “But now you are?”

  “Now I am taking the proper precautions,” she said. “We’ll be well-looked-after until we figure out whoever sent that note.” She put both hands on her hips and inhaled through her nose, held it, and exhaled. “And if you must know, I haven’t been laid since the last time you were in my bed. Before you left to see your slut.”

  I looked down at her. The skin around her face was tight and moisturized. Despite the soft makeup around her eyes, her sleeplessness was visible. Her pupils were shrunken to pinpricks, constricted in response to whatever pills she’d been prescribed. She squirmed beneath my gaze.

  “Me neither,” I said.

  Her eyes fell shut, her chin tilted up, her lips parted. I kissed her hard and deep. One hand wrapped around the back of her neck, the other grabbed the small of her back. I pressed her to me. She panted into my mouth, moaned against my teeth. Her hands were under my shirt and she was pulling me toward the bed, when we heard a knock at her bedroom door.

  “Mom?” asked Stevie. “Duck?”

  We leapt away from each other, wiped at our mouths. I tried to turn my hips to shield the bulge. “Hey, buddy,” I said.

  “Sweetie, I’m sorry, Mommy was just very happy to see Duck,” she said. “Aren’t you happy to see him? He came over just like you asked.”

  Stevie looked from his mother to me and I saw his eyes well up. Then he turned and raced back down the hall. We heard the door to his room slam shut.

  “Shit,” said Juliette.

  “I’ll go talk to him.”

  * * *

  He was sitting on his bed, playing a game on his phone, when I peeked in. I knocked once and took a step across the threshold. He didn’t look up.

  “Hey, mind if I come in?”

  He shrugged, tapped harder at the screen. He let out a huff, tossed the phone aside, and crossed his arms. “What?” he asked.

  “Sorry about that, back there,” I said. “I was glad to see your mom.”

  “She said she hated you, you know.”

  “I made her upset.”

  “She’s psycho,” he said. “How can you say you hate someone one minute and then want to make out with them the next?”

  “Grown-ups are complicated that way,” I said.

  A smile escaped from his face, before he caught it and turned away. I walked farther into the room and turned his desk chair and sat down to face him. The room was uncluttered, decorated with prints by Picasso, alongside framed school art by Stevie. His queen-sized mattress was nestled in a heavy sleigh bed of dark mahogany, covered by a plush comforter and no stuffed animals. Stevie was tall for his age, but he looked small and helpless on the edge of the wide bed. He wiped a brown curl from his forehead.

  “Your mom said you wanted to see me,” I said.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, why do we have two soldiers out there protecting us? My mom said it was because of something you did—that could put us in danger.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That’s it. When I kept asking her, she told me I should talk to you myself.”

  “And here I am.”

  “So, what did you do, Duck? Does someone want to hurt us because of you?”

  “Of course not, buddy,” I lied. “I’m just helping out a friend, that’s all.”

  He gave me a look that demanded I stop insulting his youthful intelligence.

  “Remember what I told you I used to do?” I asked.

  “You were like a private investigator, right? You said you used to help find missing people, for their families. Stuff like that.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You told my mom you weren’t gonna do that stuff anymore.”

  “And I don’t, but do you remember my partner I told you about? My friend Cassandra? Well, something bad has happened to her. She asked me to help her.”

  “What happened, did somebody hurt her?”

  “No, something happened to a man she was seeing, a man she loved. He died.”

  “How?”

  He straightened up now, engaged, blue eyes unblinking. There’s nothing kids disdain more than a demeaning adult who doesn’t tell it straight.

  “He fell off a waterfall,” I said. “We think someone pushed him. But the police think he jumped. Either way we want to find out what happened.”

  “Why would someone push him?” he asked, inching forward with interest.

  “He was working on something that might have upset some people. They wanted him to stop.”

  “What was he working on?”

  “A book.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t really know, buddy. You know how pro athletes sometimes get in trouble for cheating, for taking drugs?”

  “Yeah, like Lance Armstrong and those guys?”

  “Yeah, like Lance, and lots of others. I think it has something to do with that.”

  “Cool.”

  “No, it’s not cool, my man, it’s really not cool.”

  “No, I didn’t mean like that, I just mean, like, it’s interesting. Your partner’s boyfriend was writing about that stuff? But, Duck?” he asked.

  “Yeah, buddy, what is it?”

  “Why would that have anything to do with us, with my mom and me? Is it because you’re looking into it and you know us?”

  The smart little fucker, there was no sense lying. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “There are some really bad guys out there, and usually they just do their thing and we do ours, and we pretend like they’re not there. But sometimes our lives overlap, and the bad guys, they don’t like that. They want everyone to be quiet and not ask questions, act like we don’t know anything.”

  “So, why don’t you? I mean, just, like, be quiet and not get in their way?”

  “Most people do,” I said. “Most do. But sometimes we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let me tell you a quote that you’ll learn in school at some point,” I said. “A guy named Edmund Burke said it. He said, ‘The only thing necessary for evil to spread in the world is for good men to do nothing.’ Maybe that’s not his exact quote, but you understand what he meant?”

  I watched the wisdom get absorbed in that bright head of his. After a moment he nodded and said, “I get it. If everybody did nothing and let the bad guys do whatever they wanted, eventually they’d take over. The Dark Side would win.”

  “Yes, the Dark Side would win,” I said. “And when those Sith Lord fuckers mess with people we love, we can’t back down and keep quiet, can we?”

  “Fuck no,” he said, then blushed at our shared profanity.

  “So you’ll take care of your mom for me? I don’t want her to be worried.”

  “I think she’s got it covered, Duck. You see those guys out there? Who’s gonna mess with them?”

  “I know, buddy, you’ll be safe as can be. But you still gotta take care of your mom, okay? When she gets scared or upset or anything, you’re the man who’s gotta cheer her up, deal?”

  “Deal,” he said.

  I offered a fist bump, which he returned. I told him I’d see him soon. Left him there on the edge of his bed and went back to see Juliette. Her room was empty. I heard laughter down the hall and found her with her hired warriors. They were lapping up the charm—and the legs—of their new boss. She turned when she heard my footsteps, placed a hand on Terrance’s biceps as she made eye contact with me.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “He’s all set,” I said. “Want to w
alk me out?”

  “Hold up,” said Terrance. “We need to talk.”

  He stepped away from Juliette, walked toward the kitchen, motioned for me to follow.

  “Sorry, boys,” I said. “Gotta run.”

  Terrance’s younger partner moved in front of the elevator. He crossed his arms over that bull’s chest, tried not to smirk. I thought about putting my aikido to another test, but decided I’d already subjected Stevie to enough drama for the day.

  “All right,” I said. “I suppose I can spare a few minutes.”

  Chapter 20

  The spring pollen was blowing in gusts through Union Square. Skaters rattled and stumbled through their tricks on the pavement. The usual scattering of the homeless and the mad were slumped on park benches beneath the trees. A huge, heavily ’roided man in a torn pink tank top walked mumbling next to a small disheveled woman. She held him by the forearm like her son. The man was known in the neighborhood as Hercules, a city creature of morbid renown. The Post once did a piece on him. He lived somewhere around the Square in a space inherited from an OD’d junkie lover. Hercules was a needle freak. He shot whatever he could into his body, anything from smack to speed to the steroids that ballooned him to those grotesque proportions. He could be seen most days wandering either Union or Madison Square like a walking-dead Schwarzenegger, always with an aged addict attached to his arm. I nodded to him like a good neighbor. He looked back with vacant, unrecognizing eyes.

  I’d talked until Terrance was convinced I wasn’t holding anything else back. His interrogation technique was more persuasive than any cop’s. I sensed he had practice, given free rein to go as far as necessary to get the answers he needed in plenty of far-off hellholes. There was no need for further measures with me. There was a time I would have talked back, taken the beating just to feel it, but not with Stevie down the hall.

  I felt a kinship with the kid, even before that note. It was the easiest way to rattle me. The kid might be rich, but what did he have, really? A father worth a fortune who had no interest in seeing him, a mother whose erratic moods and revolving door of lovers would not set a healthy example for future relationships with the opposite sex. He had few friends, no siblings, not even a pet. Yeah, I could relate. A little damaged Duck, Jr.

  Jesus, whatever you do, Stevie, don’t follow this path. An ex-con alcoholic with a death wish—ready to mentor your fortunate sons!

  When I returned home, there was no sign of NYPD waiting. I reminded myself to call Miller and apologize. I found Cass seated with her legs crossed, surrounded by a stale cloud of smoke. She hadn’t bothered to open a window. The ashtray runneth over. She didn’t look up as I entered, fixated on her laptop. I walked past and went to the fridge and took out a Beck’s. I cracked it, took a swallow, said, “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  She ignored me. The artificial glow from the screen and the hanging smoke gave her face a ghostly pallor. I finished my beer in silence, waited for her to speak, then took out another. She glanced up at the sound of it opening, snorted, and shut the computer. On her way past to the bedroom, she said, “Our flight to Miami leaves at ten tomorrow morning. Don’t get too wasted tonight, the car’s picking us up at eight.”

  The door slammed behind her. I resisted the urge to charge after her, point out that she was a guest here, sleeping in my goddamn bed, and who did she think she was? Certainly not my spouse, she’d made that clear. She was here like a haughty mother superior expecting me to drop everything, put myself—and a kid I cared about—in danger, just so I could help her find who killed the man she loved? The man I could never be. Fuck that. I reached for the bourbon, unsealed it, and took the bottle and a glass with me to the living room. No ice needed, thanks very much.

  I poured a tall one. Savored the amber cure. Kept drinking until the world stopped mattering and I fell sideways on the couch.

  * * *

  She kicked me awake, disgusted, in the morning.

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “You don’t have to go. I’ll call the airline on the way there and cancel your ticket.”

  “I’m coming,” I said, sitting up with a thundering head and a desert-dry mouth. “Just give me a minute. What time is it?”

  “It’s seven forty-five, Duck,” she said. “I’m not asking, I’m telling you—I really don’t want you to come with me. I’m sorry I ever called you about any of this.”

  “Yeah, well, too late for that. You did call, and I answered, and now I’m involved. Which means I’m coming, no matter what you’re telling me to do.”

  Cass stood over me with hands on her hips, looking down at the almost-empty bottle of bourbon.

  “Why do you do this to yourself?” she asked.

  “Because I like the taste,” I said.

  “I’m serious. Why, Duck?”

  I looked up into her eyes and locked them there until she knew I was serious too. “Because,” I said, “sometimes it’s either a drink or a rope around my neck.”

  “I feel sorry for you,” she said.

  “Your pity has been duly noted,” I said. “Now give me five minutes to get ready, okay?”

  She didn’t step aside as I raised myself from the couch, steadied the spins, and staggered to my room to pack a bag. I swallowed down four Advil, gulped for hydration beneath the faucet, brushed, deodorized, splashed water across my face and through the hair, and straightened up, already feeling almost human again. I threw a few t-shirts into a bag, remembered my suit and goggles for the possible hotel pool, and didn’t bother with much else.

  When I emerged, Cass was waiting outside on the stoop, sucking down her Parliaments. We didn’t speak as the car pulled up and we slid in the back. Falling blossoms flashed in the morning light. The day smelled fresh and unspoiled as the city can be. Down the avenue an ambulance wailed.

  She scooted all the way over against the door, rolled down her window, and stared out. I spent a few lights looking at the back of her head, willing her to turn, and if not forgive, at least berate me further. But she insisted on her silent treatment, so I turned and looked out my window at the tired masses trudging off to work. So was I, in a matter of speaking. I might be forever unfit for an office, but that didn’t mean I lacked their work ethic. I’d shaken off hangovers harsher than those lemmings could ever handle. Burned the candle down at both ends, and did what needed to be done to find whatever it was I’d been hired to find. Except this time no one had hired me. There was no money, no job, only the presumption of my former partner. She asked for my help and never considered that I might turn her down.

  Now this bird dog was feeling beaten and weary. The snakes and the midnight demons were taking over my mind. I pictured them up there in my brainpan, swimming through rivers of whiskey and filth, clouding any hope of clarity, ready to lunge and strike at the slightest disturbance. I was afraid to shake my head for fear of rattling their nests.

  We were emerging from the Midtown Tunnel, slowing for the toll, when I noticed them out the back window. They weren’t trying to hide. Behind the wheel of a white Ford Explorer sat Oliver, grinning back at me. I don’t know what made me look back. Maybe I sensed his smug gaze. By his side was the older man, unsmiling with eyes covered by aviators. Oliver nudged his companion, nodded toward me, and laughed. The man did not react. His face was so still he could have been sleeping behind those sunglasses. He had the air of a scaly predator, laying in wait before rising up with fast, brutal violence.

  We passed through the toll, accelerated onto the Long Island Expressway. Oliver caught up and began to tailgate too close. Our driver noticed, cursed him in Arabic.

  “Bastard,” he said in his rearview. “What do you want, you bastard? Get off my ass.”

  “He’s following us,” I told him. Then, to Cass, I said, “We’ve got company.”

  She turned and looked. Oliver waved. His boss didn’t move.

  “Fuck,” she said.

  “You recognize them?” I asked. “Because I do.”

&
nbsp; She turned back to our driver, leaned between the seats. “Could you pick it up, please?”

  “I want no trouble,” he said. “Why are you trouble?”

  “Just keep going,” I said. “Let us off at LaGuardia. Everything is cool.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t want your trouble, I let you off.”

  I read the name on the back of his headrest and leaned in. “Sardar, listen,” I said. “We don’t want trouble either, but if you let us off anywhere but the airport, that’s what we’re going to have. Just drive. A New York airport is the last place anyone’s going to make trouble, you know that, right? There’s security everywhere.”

  He shook his head at the rearview, gave the mirror his middle finger. Oliver waved again. But our tail would be short-lived. As Sardar exited on I-278 toward LaGuardia, they did not join us. Oliver drove past and continued east on the LIE. He bid us farewell with a raised salute of his left arm out the driver’s-side window. I saw Cass jotting down their plates on her hand.

  “Same guys from the bar, weren’t they?” she asked.

  “The very ones. Looked like you recognized them too.”

  “What? No. How would I . . .”

  I shrugged. “You tell me.”

  She shook her head, crossed her arms, and stared, troubled, out the window. She’d seen them before. I knew it from the way she froze at first turn. Decided to wait and probe further on the plane.

  A few minutes later Sardar pulled to the curb in front of the American terminal. He muttered about hating trouble while he waited for payment. I handed over eighty bucks, told him to keep the change, apologized for the drama back there. He took the cash and did not offer to help with our bags. Cass lit a Parliament next to the curbside baggage checkers. She pretended not to notice their lingering looks while I called Juliette. It took two missed calls and a few texts to get her to pick up.

  “Listen, I just saw them,” I said.

  “Where?” she asked.

  I watched as Cass flicked away the filter and then stalked inside the terminal without a glance in my direction.

  “On the LIE. Could I talk to Terrance?”