A Savage Generation

by David Tallerman

  Plan John takes what he wants. Carlita will not be an exception to that rule. She will be the furthest thing imaginable to an exception. And if this is his way of asking politely, then it isn’t something that will be repeated. Aaronovich can’t stop Silensky, only delay him, and as much as she hates to admit it, he’s right about what that will achieve.

  Aaronovich goes to her filing cabinet, unlocks the top drawer with the key in her pocket, and takes out the second, sturdier key secreted behind the final separator. She presses it into Silensky’s palm. “Damn you,” she says.

  Silensky closes his fingers round the key. “Yeah, damn me,” he agrees.

  * * *

  Carlita comes without much argument; less, at any rate, than the doctor made on her behalf. But once they reach the room above, she holds back for the first time. Maybe it’s Aaronovich’s presence. The doctor is standing against one wall, still and pale as an alabaster statue, her mouth pursed into a brittle line.

  “We could run,” Carlita says. “We could just run.”

  And go where? Ben thinks. And do what? But under those questions is another: who is he trying to protect? Ben shrugs that misgiving aside. Protecting himself is protecting Carlita. “We’re not running,” he says. “I’m going to figure this out. You’ve got to trust me.”

  She doesn’t trust him. He can see her utter lack of faith. She doesn’t trust him, and she’s afraid of him. “Okay,” Carlita allows.

  “There’s one other thing. You have to say it was Johnson.” He scowls toward Aaronovich, wishing she wasn’t here as audience to yet more of his shame. “Do you hear me? Johnson was the one who brought you. Who hid you.”

  He assumes Carlita will debate it, but the argument never gets past her eyes. “All right.”

  “You don’t have to go,” Aaronovich says softly.

  “Shut up,” Ben orders. He doesn’t look at either woman. “Come on,” he tells Carlita. He’s relieved when she follows with no resistance.

  Close to the double doors that lead onto the yard, Ben stops again. “Wait here.” He hasn’t planned this far, except to think that he can’t leave her in the doctor’s offices. The slender risk of someone coming in and discovering Carlita seems less than the danger of letting Aaronovich work doubts into her mind. “Carlita, promise me you’ll wait.”

  “I promise,” she says.

  “Because if you run off….”

  “I promise.”

  She’s taking this well, better than he is. Then again, maybe she’s simply in shock. There in the dim moonlight that trickles through frosted inset windows, her copper skin is as pale as his own. The only detail he can discern clearly is the brighter white of her eyes. If she gets scared, if she runs….

  “I won’t be long,” Ben says, and pushes out the doors into the yard.

  By then, another apprehension is already dragging at him. What if Foster doesn’t show? But as Ben rounds the corner of the administrative wing, he sees the figure in the darkness immediately, its subtle threat diminished by the listless way that Foster lounges against the concrete.

  “‘Matter of life and death,’ huh? This better be good. That old spic Contreras was in a hell of a state.”

  “Plan John knows everything,” Ben announces, caught between keeping the panic from his voice and letting it flood in completely.

  If he’d expected to shock Foster, he’s disappointed. “Everything? What’s everything?”

  “Listen, I’m just warning you. He’s on to you. I don’t give a fuck what you’re up to; whatever you’re going to do, this is the time to do it.”

  “I’m not going to do anything,” Foster says. “If Plan John thinks I am, he can come talk to me.”

  “You know it won’t go down like that.”

  Foster leans in, and there is sudden menace in his tone. “Don’t tell me what I know or don’t know, Silensky.” Then he relaxes once more. “If you’re really so worried about Plan John, I’ll do you a favor. Hold your hand out.”

  Ben does as he’s commanded. A moment later, Foster is placing some object in his palm, and closing Ben’s fingers around cold, hard plastic.

  He comprehends, even before he looks. A shiv, a con weapon, strangely anachronistic now that White Cliff is no longer White Cliff. Nice craftsmanship, too, Ben observes distantly. What was originally a screwdriver has been filed into something more like a needle.

  “I don’t know what you think I’m going to do with this,” he says. But he doesn’t try to give it back.

  Foster’s grin shows white teeth to the darkness. “Before you get any ideas, Silensky, I can guess what’s going on in that head of yours. Look at this asshole Foster, putting his life in my hands. All you have to do is blab to Plan John, right? Hey, boss man, see this blade Foster gave me. Problem solved.”

  Ben tucks the shiv into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls his shirt out over the handle. “Never crossed my thoughts.”

  Foster ignores him. “But that’s not what’s happening here. You don’t own me. That’s the opposite of what this is. Want to hear why? Because you don’t know shit. You work for Plan John, but he doesn’t confide in you. Me? I know plenty. I know you work for Plan John, and who else works for him. But he doesn’t know who works for me, and even if he did, he wouldn’t let you in on it. So you can tell him about this, and sure, that might be me in some trouble. But however things fall out, Silensky, I promise you, however bad this goes for me, it’ll go twice as bad for you. Ten times. A hundred. For you, your boy….”

  “Keep Kyle out of this,” Ben says. But his mind is partly elsewhere, and he came awfully close to saying something different. He’d almost said Carlita, almost cut his own throat with five words.

  This is so badly out of control. One mistake could get him killed. Or maybe the mistake has already been made, and all that’s left is watching how events transpire.

  “I will absolutely keep your son out of this,” Foster agrees. “Hey, he’s a nice kid. Good little worker. No one wants to see him hurt. Let’s face it, there’s only one person who needs hurting.”

  “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “You know I do.”

  “I mean…fuck, Foster, Plan John’s paranoid as hell. Do you think I get near him? Because I work with the guy? If that’s what you think then—”

  “Silensky,” Foster cuts him off, “I do not give a shit how you get it done. But we’re not standing here debating.”

  And with that, Foster is gone, moving off into the darkness, swallowed by it as though he’s never been, leaving Ben with just his thoughts and the cold presence of the shiv goose-bumping the flesh around his spine.

  * * *

  At first he decides the generator must have failed. The yard is so suddenly pitch-black that looking in that direction is like going blind. It takes Austin a few moments to notice how a glow still spills from isolated windows of the Big House, and from parts of the cellblock and administrative wing. Not all of the lights have been extinguished, merely the external ones: the great spots in front of the Big House and cellblock.

  His racing heartbeat gradually steadies. In that initial instant, when the world had grown darker, he’d assumed the worst, without knowing what the worst might mean. Now, satisfied that no answers will be forthcoming, that the questions don’t affect him, Austin ducks from the low parapet and crawls toward the larger of the two vents. He finds his way easily by touch; this space he’s claimed is growing familiar, its details ground like grit into the surface of his memory.

  Austin has gathered everything he needs. He’s already removed the vent, defeating through sheer, violent effort the resistance of long-rusted screw heads. He’d sat staring into the depths until fireworks popped and fizzed on the edges of his vision. Before the lights went out, he’d been pacing the rooftop, dragged by conflicting emotions.

 
Some part of him is resisting. Maybe, it says, there are other solutions. Maybe, if he hides too deeply, there’ll be no path back.

  Back to where? To what? Prior to Funland, his life had been nothing worth fighting for, and even that is gone. His mother is likely dead. His father might as well be. His stepfather is alive and out there, and perhaps that’s the worst of it. Austin needs somewhere to think, to plan. He needs a place that’s safe.

  There’s no way back, he argues.

  I don’t want to go back, he insists.

  Now Austin is ready for a sign. And he’s ready to take anything as a sign. Something is happening: lights don’t just go out by themselves. His blood is rushing. There’s a charge in the air, akin to the static before lightning. And he appreciates somehow that, if he lets it, this sensation will control him, will free him from the responsibility of choice.

  Austin moves closer to the exposed opening. He lays his hands on its edges. He’d expected the metal to be cold, but it holds the faintest recollection of the day’s warmth. The gap is narrow. If he was any bigger, if he was any older, he could barely fit at all. Really, that’s everything he needs to know.

  He pushes the flashlight in first, and watches its beam dance crazily around the silver-skinned walls. Then he hoists himself inside, and the very difficulty of doing so, the claustrophobia, is only further reassurance.

  This is the right choice. There’s no way to back out. And there’s no way for anyone to follow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He’s never been aware before of how Plan John’s office smells. Yet now it’s all Ben can concentrate on: the rankness of old sweat, old food, and pent-up air, and under that another scent he can’t identify, though it makes his stomach flop helplessly. Perhaps it’s fear – maybe his own.

  Or maybe Carlita’s. She’s staying close to him, but close as a prisoner would hang to a guard, not as a frightened woman might try to shelter behind her lover. It’s good acting on her part, or else it isn’t.

  Plan John has tidied himself up. That’s the second thing Ben notices. He’s wearing a crisp black suit that, if not fit to the impossible demand of disguising his size, at least gives definition to that bulk. He has shaved off the two days of stubble that formed a dirty crescent around his jaw, has even applied something to his thinning, dirt-brown hair, slicking it into a semblance of order.

  He makes Ben think of the middle-aged businessmen who thronged the city’s better class of bars. They knew they’d end the night with a rushed fuck or a blow job in the back room of a club, and they knew they’d have to pay for it in cash. They made an effort, not in spite of that fact but because. Whores were still women to impress, and if they weren’t impressed, they would fake it. That, indeed, was high upon the list of favors being bought.

  “Good evening.” Plan John has slicked his voice down, too. “They tell me your name is Carlita.”

  “Yes,” Carlita says. The word is not much more than a whisper.

  “Come. Take a seat.” Plan John motions toward the chair set ready in front of his desk and waits until she sits. “Don’t be shy. This is the beginning of a long acquaintance. The sooner you start making the best of the situation, the better for everyone.”

  Ben doesn’t know where to look. He can’t look at Plan John and doesn’t want to look at Carlita. Unlike with Contreras, he has no idea how to influence her, no idea what’s the right thing for her to say, if anything could be. I should have listened to her, Ben realizes, with abrupt horror. We should have just run. That was the one chance we had.

  “I’m not a man who finds the notion of rape palatable,” Plan John says. “I’m clarifying this to put your mind at rest, and because I want you to pay attention. You’ve probably heard unpleasant stories about me, and I dare say most of them are true. However, I’d prefer not to be reduced to the status of rapist.”

  “Then let me go.” Carlita’s voice is stronger. She’s trying hard to keep the fear from it.

  “Yes. Good. Let’s get that out of the way. If I found you out, sooner or later someone else will. This is simple fact. I’m likely the only person here, with the possible exception of Mr. Johnson, who will treat you with the barest scrap of respect. Many of the men here would make you long for a fate as straightforward as rape. Moreover, I am categorically the only person who can protect you. You see now that Doyle Johnson can’t.”

  This time, Carlita doesn’t answer. That unexpected silence makes Ben give in and look at her. It’s difficult even to recognize the small, disheveled woman perched on the chair as the Carlita he once knew, out there in the world, before all this. Her eyes are not quite on Plan John; she’s sitting perfectly still, except for her hands, which are constantly folding and unfolding in her lap.

  “Here’s what I have to offer,” Plan John continues, having let the silence draw to its uncomfortable limit and beyond. “You will come to live with me. You’ll give me what I want, when I want it, but besides that you’ll live as you like and no one, no one, will interfere with you. This will be my preferred solution.”

  Ben is positive Carlita will say something. Her body tenses, her shoulders bunch. Yet the tension drains from her, and she slides her face into her cupped hands.

  “Then there’s option two. In option two, I send Silensky and some of my boys to cut off Doyle Johnson’s feet, drive him out into the forest, and leave him for the Sickers. Perhaps poor Tito as well, why not? And you pleasure me and anyone else I feel deserves a reward until the day you’re utterly dried up.”

  Carlita, finally, looks straight at Plan John. “I’d rather be dead than let you touch me.”

  “That’s a kneejerk reaction,” Plan John says, entirely unruffled, “so I’ll forgive it. The point I’m making is that these are your only two options. Neither includes your death, or any other form of escape, but one will certainly make you responsible for the demise of people you care about. Once you’ve had time to consider, you’ll see the virtues of the deal I’m offering – and not merely for yourself.”

  Plan John contemplates his watch.

  “Silensky will take you back now. You have nine hours to think this over…the rest of the night to return by your own volition. You can send a message via the good doctor. She and I need to have a conversation anyway, it would seem. If you don’t, if you try to leave, we default to option two.”

  He nods to Ben.

  “Go on. Get her out of here.”

  Ben isn’t sure that Carlita will stand on her own, but when he takes a step toward her, she does, and waits, staring back at him without expression. He begins in the direction of the door and she trails after.

  He’s halfway there when he hears the knocking.

  Ben freezes. Since there’s nobody who can save him, it follows that whoever is on the opposite side of the door can only make this terrible situation somehow worse.

  “We have another guest,” Plan John says, without apparent concern. “Can you handle this, Mr. Silensky?”

  The spittle has dried in Ben’s mouth, leaving it barren as a desert rock. Ben licks his lips, coughs – to test that his throat is still capable of making sounds – and calls, “Who’s there?”

  The voice from outside the door is muffled. Nevertheless, Ben recognizes it immediately, from the very first syllable.

  “It’s Doyle Johnson,” comes the reply. “I heard Plan John wants to see me.”

  * * *

  He’d gone to Aaronovich first, and the doctor had told him the essential details. Hell, the look on her face had told him virtually everything. Yet she was composed, and that had impressed Doyle and unsettled him in equal measure. This wasn’t a situation that seemed to warrant calm.

  Regardless, he needs calm now. He’s never needed it so badly. And as the door opens like a precipice yawning, it comes without any effort on his part. He has no plan, no clue what he’s doing here, and yet his mind
is serene. Words from his childhood drift up: his mother’s, Bible-borrowed. Something to do with having on the breastplate of righteousness. He’s never believed in that, but the thought feels fitting.

  Silensky isn’t calm. He’s about as far from being so as Doyle has seen anyone. He’s keeping his panic inside, though, barely. That means Plan John doesn’t know. Ben Silensky and Carlita’s relationship remains a secret, something Doyle is aware of that Plan John isn’t, and that’s as close to an advantage as he has.

  “Get inside,” Silensky says. The next thing Doyle notes, the thing that perhaps he should have observed first, is that Silensky has a gun. It isn’t his, therefore it’s Plan John’s. It gives Silensky a little more authority, but not much. Doyle pushes past him, making a point of not looking at the gun.

  “Howard,” he says. He doesn’t look at Carlita either, though he can feel her presence.

  “Mr. Johnson,” Plan John acknowledges. His tone gives nothing away.

  “I thought it would be better if I came to talk to you. Save you the hassle of sending someone to find me.”

  “We had a deal,” Plan John says.

  “I haven’t broken our deal.”

  Plan John chuckles, but there’s no humor in the sound, as if it’s more a tic than a legitimate response. “Balls of an elephant,” he declares, apparently to himself. Then, “I have a clear memory of you telling me you wouldn’t screw with me. And this? Hiding this lovely lady right under my nose? I think that, by any definition of the phrase, would have to be regarded as screwing with me.”

  “I guess it’s a matter of perspective,” Doyle says. If anything, his inner peace is growing, in proportion to how obviously discomposed Plan John is becoming.

  “Oh?”

  He’s not in control, Doyle comprehends. Before I walked through that door he was, and now he isn’t. “I just felt like it was none of your damn business.”

  Plan John’s face contorts. “You’ll watch your fucking manners, Johnson.”

  “No disrespect intended.” Doyle is almost smiling, and has to stop himself. He’s figured out why he has authority and Plan John doesn’t. It’s to do with information, who possesses it and who doesn’t. He knows, in essence, what Plan John is thinking, and Plan John has no idea what’s going through Doyle’s mind.