The City Series (Book 3): Instauration

by Lyons Fleming, Sarah

  “Hi, Louis,” I say, and sink to a couch. “Sorry, those stairs about did me in.”

  Louis shakes my hand warmly. “Last time I saw you, you looked worse.”

  “I felt worse, too.”

  I drink water while he and Guillermo are introduced, and the others lead Guillermo to the windows to view the park. He’s bouncing back faster than I am.

  “How are you?” I ask Louis.

  He’s always struck me as a calm guy, but there’s a feverish new energy beneath the quiet exterior. He sits beside me. “I’ve been better.”

  “I heard,” I say. “And I’m sorry.”

  “All the times I stood right beside Teddy. Tried to keep the peace. He knew my family was up there, and he never once looked ashamed. Never once. I would have killed him right there if I had known.”

  “We’ll get him,” I say, though I know it won’t make up for the loss of his family.

  “I will get him,” he says. “Teddy’s mine.”

  I don’t argue. Every now and again, I grapple with the fury that drove my knife into Emilio. It ebbs and flows, but Louis is at flood stage. Sylvie’s presence stopped me from taking unwise revenge on Walt, but if she were gone, I wouldn’t care what happened to me if her murderer walked free. Add in a child, and it must increase exponentially.

  “All this time, I asked myself why I was alive,” he says softly. “First in Congo, and then again. Why did I live when they died? I thought God was telling me to go on. And then you saved my life, and again I asked why.” His fingers flex on his thigh. “Now I know it was to stop Teddy. Carmen told us it’s already started. Two people were put outside because they spoke out against him and Walt.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Carmen gave them somewhere safe to go and messaged us to pick them up. She uses Morse code when she can, sometimes a light at night, but what if next time we get there too late? He thinks it’s okay to do whatever he pleases. This is a sickness. It moved from Walt to Teddy, and it will infect more.”

  I would talk him down, say he’s overdramatizing, but he’s seen it before. He would know better than I how readily people get caught up in hatred and violence.

  I get to my feet. The pain is gone, replaced by a prickly impatience. Louis follows me to the windows. From high above, Central Park is more impressive. He points out the four gates, the transverses, the shipping-containers-turned-houses.

  “Most of Teddy’s people live there.” Farina points out the cluster closest to the castle, theater, and pond. I imagine the running water and toilets make that prime real estate. “But some aren’t involved in his bullshit. Carmen will hold them off for as long as she can, but they’ll come looking for us at some point.”

  “Do they have any idea where we are?” Guillermo asks.

  “No. For now, it looks like the west side by the High Line is trapped in a mob. Once the Lexers are frozen and Teddy’s exhausted every other possibility, they might.”

  Here I’ve been wishing for winter, and now I wish it were summer.

  98

  Sylvie

  I haven’t seen Coby in a while, and I smile when he comes to my checkstand holding a bottle of Essentials body wash. “Can’t resist? But I’m Q through Z today. You need to go to Benny over there.”

  Coby scans the room, then leans on my counter. He’s grown a bit of a beard and looks less Corporate America. In fact, he’s cute enough that I’d take him home after a few drinks. I shake that disturbing thought from my head as he whispers, “Is it Brother David who wants to get people out of here?”

  My heart bangs in my chest, though the store is empty. Thankfully, video cameras are limited to outside for now. I call Indy over, and she leaves restocking tampons to join us. “Coby wants to know if Brother David is planning to get people out.”

  “If he is, we want to go.” Coby motions to himself. “Me, a couple of the guys. Noli. Lydia and the others.”

  Coby hangs out with a few dudes his age, along with Lydia and her gang. While she’s never done anything to me, she did sleep with Landon. Indy doesn’t bat an eye, however. “You could get in a lot of trouble for saying that. Does anyone else know about this?”

  Coby chews his lip. “I don’t think so. It’s just that he’s your friend. I thought you’d know. Bridget told us.”

  “Bridget?” I ask. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” he says, smiling now. “I think I know who Bridget is.”

  Indy laughs, hand on his arm. “Well, I’m not sure what she was talking about, but I can ask around for you.”

  “Thanks.” He takes his body wash to Benny’s checkstand.

  Sharla watches Coby leave after his transaction, then hangs over her counter. “Ladies, word’s traveling.”

  “Word about what?” Indy asks.

  “That someone’s trying to get people to leave. It’s quiet for now, but it’s going to get to the big man at some point.” She shakes her head, giving us a very deliberate stare. “I would not want to be that person. If I knew that person, I would tell them to simmer down.”

  “I’ll see if I can figure out who it is,” I say.

  Sharla winks. “You do that. And you tell him me and my kids are in.”

  Brother David welcomes me into his apartment and says, “You happened to catch me before I went to the roof.”

  “Why are you going up there?” I ask.

  “I like it, and sometimes I go to pray. Do you want to come?”

  “Do I have to pray?”

  He chuckles. “No. It’s my quiet time. When Elena gets home with the kids, if Elena gets home with the kids these days, I’m ready for some noise.”

  “Sure, I’ll come.”

  It has the added benefit of no listening ears. I run for my heavier coat, hat, and mittens, then climb the stairs with him. I left work before the usual time, so the sun isn’t yet down, though it sets early in December.

  On the roof, Brother David unfolds two outdoor chairs. He sits in his seat facing the west, where the lowering sun peeps out from behind clouds, and I do the same. “What did you want to talk to me about?” he asks.

  The clouds drift, sending shafts of pink and yellow light in alternating directions. I get why he does this, especially with three noisy kids. “Coby asked me about you helping people leave StuyTown. Which means a lot of people know, and Walt may find out.”

  “Ah,” he says, fingers steepled under his chin. “I see.”

  “Do you see? Because either you have to stop, or we have to go. And we can’t go yet, not unless we want to die.”

  “But do you see this means people are beginning to desire their freedom more than they fear Walt? Fear is like a virus, but so is courage. It’s spreading.”

  I should be happy that’s the case, but all I feel is dread. “I don’t care about that right now. I care about you not dying.”

  He faces me, his features lit by sunlight and blanketed by peace. “I’m not afraid to die, Sylvia. Not if it means all of you make it out of here.”

  “That’s not the plan.”

  “Man makes plans, and God laughs.”

  “Stop being calm and philosophical,” I say. “I’m serious.”

  “I am, too. I won’t do anything more, though it may be too late.” He turns to the sunset. “It’s beautiful.”

  Obviously, he’s done with this discussion, though I won’t drop the subject forever. “Do you want me to leave you to pray?”

  “I am praying.”

  “Watching the sunset is praying?”

  “There’s a time for a Hail Mary, and there’s a time to reflect on the beauty around us.” I see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. “Of course, if you don’t know the Hail Mary…”

  “I remember a word here and there,” I say. “The sky is beautiful today.”

  “All of it is,” he says. “Beautiful, I mean. Even the ugliness. I know you must have seen it, even once?”

  Although it’s freezing, my body is relaxed.
The worry I carry in my middle has eased, leaving only that persistent weight I do my best to ignore throughout the day. “Maybe once,” I say. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  He leans forward. “Will you tell me?”

  “The summer when I was ten, we lived in your average Section 8 apartments. Most of the time I couldn’t sleep from the noise or the heat or just because. One night, I left the apartment and sat out front at dawn. The dealers would come out then and set up in this courtyard with broken swings and dead grass and cracked concrete. Say what you will, but you’ve never seen a harder-working person than a small-time drug slinger.”

  Brother David laughs. “True.”

  “I watched them stash their stuff and all that. A cop car rolled past, but for once it didn’t harass anyone. People left the buildings dressed for work in inexpensive suits or job uniforms. It seemed like everyone was so tired and careworn. It made me want to cry.”

  Brother David nods into space as though he sees it, too. I think of how I watched the neighborhood come to life, my mother passed out upstairs. I’m unsure now if it was the people or me who felt so besieged. I was hungry and thirsty and missed Bubbe with an ache that made me weak. I was the loneliest I’ve ever been. And then I wasn’t.

  I say aloud, “But then, it was like it began to glow. It didn’t suddenly turn beautiful, but I could see the beauty under the brokenness and struggle. I felt a connection with them all, even the crazy homeless lady who yelled at everyone. Even my mother. I was positive we fit together somehow, that we were all the same, and it was like…” I stare into the sunset, searching for the word, “it was serenity. And then it left as quickly as it came.”

  “But you never forgot it.” His voice is reverent. “That’s God, Sylvia. God is other people.”

  “I thought they were Hell, Bucky.” I look over to find him grinning. “Is that how you feel all the time?”

  “I wish,” he says. “The only thing I do perfectly is imperfection. But I do my best to remember that feeling, most of all when I least want to. That beauty is in everyone, even Walt. The Bible tells us there will be more joy in Heaven over one repented sinner than over ninety-nine of the righteous. I want to give him his chance to repent and find that beauty. His Sacred Heart. If doing that means I die, then so be it.”

  “But I don’t think he will,” I say. “It would be in vain.”

  “If you die for what you truly believe, it’s never in vain.”

  Maybe that flame of humanity lives in everyone and everything. Even Walt. But I stand by my belief that he doesn’t deserve to find his at Brother David’s expense. “And what if he never stops?”

  “Then we stop him. Mercy, human mercy, only extends so far. Everyone deserves a chance to find it in themselves. If he continues to steal the right from others, he loses his own.”

  I nod at this eminently more reasonable idea. “Just promise me you’ll stop for now. Wait until we have a plan.”

  “I promise.” He squints, his eyes glowing with orange light and mischief. “For someone who doesn’t like the church, you spend an awful lot of time trying to save a priest.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say. “Sheesh.”

  His laugh rises above us, as light and airy as the clouds we watch until the sun drops from view.

  Not only did I have a disturbing thought about taking Coby home the other day, but I had a disturbing dream about him last night. And now I sit at our dining table, desperately trying to wash my mind of the image.

  “Coby,” Indy says, still laughing. “Does this mean you secretly have the hots for him?”

  “No, it does not. I also had a dream that I gave birth to twins made of vanilla ice cream, who I kept in the freezer and took out to nurse, so I think my brain has officially called it quits.”

  I still need naps, but I don’t feel like I drag my ass from one nap to the next. And I still cry at everything, which the pregnancy book says can last forever. Starting out too skinny and just now reaching a normal weight means you can’t tell there’s a human—or ice cream babies—growing inside me, but my bras are having a challenging time keeping things in line.

  “Are you talking about pregnancy dreams?” Paul enters the living room dressed and with wet hair from his shower. “They can get pretty crazy.”

  “Did Hannah have them, too?” Indy asks. It might have been strange for her at first, but she never balks at the mention of Paul’s wife. Even when he avoids saying her name, Indy throws it out there.

  “She once gave birth to a water bottle. Another time she dreamt I was cheating on her with our washing machine. She was genuinely pissed off at me the entire morning. She kept saying, I’m sorry, I know it’s crazy, but I’m just really mad.”

  Indy and I crack up. We know nothing of this process other than what the one book says, and we can’t ask, for obvious reasons. It may be odd that Paul has become our guide through the ignominies of pregnancy, but I’m incredibly thankful he’s here.

  “Sylvie had a sex dream about Coby,” Indy says.

  Paul claps his hands. “How was he?”

  “Stop!” I drop my head to the table. “We didn’t get that far. We didn’t need to.”

  They both groan. When I’m not exhausted, I’m hungry. For food, especially vegetables, and for physical contact. A lot of physical contact. Between tears and this new symptom, the only word for my current state is moist.

  “The night before, it was Micah,” Indy says.

  I smack her arm. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone that! It was like Micah, but not.” I lower my face to the table again. “There’s something seriously wrong with me.”

  Paul kisses Indy before he pats my head. “I have to get to watch. I’m a little offended you haven’t had one about me, though.”

  “God forbid!” I yell after him, then say, “Sorry, Indy.”

  “Your loss,” she says. “The man knows what he’s doing.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. He was nervous, you know, experience-wise.”

  “I know, but he didn’t need to be. I have Hannah to thank for that.”

  I raise my head to find her looking reflective. “Is that weird? The Hannah thing.”

  “It could be, but I won’t let it. The more I know, the more I can help Leo remember.” She twists her lips. “A few times I started to feel like I was in competition with her, and then I realized it was me making me feel that way, not Paul. Paul is…” She shrugs into the distance and her hand strokes her neck, nails unbitten for the first time since we arrived at StuyTown.

  “You like him,” I say, though I’m certain it’s more than that. “Just admit it already.”

  Indy rolls her eyes, but she can’t hide the way they shine. “Fine. I do.”

  99

  “Listen up!” Walt shouts.

  The raucous voices in Public Safety quiet down. A few hours ago, Walt and some others returned from Central Park with liquor, which inspired an impromptu party. I stand by the monitors with Paul and Indy and sip at my coffee. I’ve given up many things for The Parasite, but I am not giving up my coffee, especially not when everyone else tosses back alcohol like the end is nigh.

  “We’ve promised Teddy we’ll help find Mo,” Walt continues. Objections sound, and he raises his hands. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Taking care of Mo helps us, too. Do you want madmen wandering around our fair city? Besides us, of course.”

  There are laughs before someone says, “I don’t want to get killed for that asshole Teddy.”

  “I agree,” Walt says. “Asshole Teddy isn’t fit to run such a superb Safe Zone when he can’t track down the one man who has it in for him.”

  Paul and Indy exchange a glance before they cast vexed looks my way. It’s not surprising Central Park is Walt’s ultimate goal, since it’s ours, too. It is aggravating, however. If he takes it before we do, our lives will be that much harder.

  “Next freezing days,” Walt says, “we’ll be out there scouring the city for o
ur friend Mo. But don’t start shooting if you find him. We’ll decide how to use the information, or we’ll leave Teddy to figure it out alone and hope they take care of each other for us.” Walt grins at the cheers that follow. “You may now go drink.”

  The talking starts up again, although the three of us don’t say a word. We don’t know what’s happening at The Standard. We don’t know if Leo’s there or in Brooklyn. We have to get out to warn them, and we have no way to do it. Paul rubs at his mouth, brow creased. He doesn’t speak of his worry about Leo often, but it’s more than evident now.

  Lori wanders past, beer in hand, and stops. “You guys look happy. Have you seen Micah?” She still hasn’t gotten the hint that he’s not interested, or she’s ignoring it.

  “Have you seen him recently, Sylvie?” Paul asks. “Or was that just a dream?”

  I give him the finger while Indy’s laugh bellows. “He had other plans,” I tell Lori.

  “Too bad.” Lori winks and saunters off.

  I finish my coffee and feign tossing my empty mug at Paul’s head. Roger arrives, his mouth tight. “I know this is bad. We’ll think of something.”

  “Will you warn them?” I whisper. “You can get there.”

  It’s not the best solution. Eric might be at the High Line, and there’s no guarantee they’ll see Roger in time to hide him, especially since Roger knows the sneaky ways in.

  Roger nods. “I can—”

  “Sylvie,” Walt’s voice interrupts, “are you not drinking in solidarity with Roger?”

  “Coffee for me,” I say. “It’s a two-person AA meeting.”

  I didn’t know Roger wasn’t drinking, but, sure enough, he holds a bottle of soda. Walt raises his eyebrows. “What did you think of my announcement?” His lie-detector gaze glides over me, Indy, and Paul.

  Paul finishes his beer, then pops open a new one that waits on the table. “Sounds all right, but you’re gonna need more than guns if you want to take Central Park.”

  “Who said I wanted to do that?” Walt’s smile is cool. “But, if we did, we’ll already be in there. It wouldn’t be hard.”