“No offense, but I don’t think you have a clue as to who or what I am.”
“I know you need looking after.”
“I do okay for myself.”
“You shouldn’t be so dismissive. I happen to be very good at looking after people. And I’m offering you something that’s very difficult for me to offer.”
“What’s that?” Carl asked.
“My friendship,” Harry said.
Carl hesitated. The man standing before him had threatened him. Bullied him. Hurt him. The man before him scared him on a deep and visceral level. But for some unknown and probably foolish reason, Carl realized that he trusted this man. “I don’t know if this is exactly how Damon and Pythias started,” he said, putting his hand out, “but I accept.”
They shook firmly. And as they released their grips, as if the physical contact had created a more powerful bond, Harry said quietly, “Do you have any idea what you’re mixed up in?”
The big man’s tone made Car pay attention. It frightened him. “Some kind of best-seller,” he responded. “It has to be done as fiction or there’ll be a major lawsuit. It’s controversial. It’s big. Apex is printing a ton of copies.”
Wagner spoke quietly again. “You have no idea at all, do you?”
Carl frowned at him. “So why don’t you tell me, Harry? What am I mixed up in?”
Wagner didn’t answer him, just gathered up the diary and Carl’s latest output. He went to the window and studied the street. “You know what I wish, Carl? I wish you appreciated the wonders of a good cigar.” He took one from his jacket pocket, unwrapped it, and carefully sliced off the tip with his sterling silver cigar cutter. He stuck the cigar in his mouth, unlit. “Tell you what.” He removed another one from his pocket and laid it on the desk in front of Carl. “A victory cigar. For when we finish.”
Carl shook his head. “I’ll never smoke it. I hate cigars.”
“Keep it. I insist.” He tossed Carl a book of matches. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“You never know about these things, Carl.” Wagner went to the door and opened it. “You just never know.”
“It’s not that I’m not appreciative,” Carl said before Harry could escape, “but why this sudden desire to be my friend?”
Harry looked thoughtful, giving the question serious consideration. Then he nodded, satisfied that he had the proper answer. “Because I want someone to understand why I’m doing this. And because everything in life is reciprocal. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“That you might need a friend yourself sometime.”
Harry smiled, pleased. And then he was gone, leaving Carl to wonder just exactly what it was he had been trying to tell him.
The Closer sat there in the darkened room staring at a talk show on the television set. Something to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. The Closer couldn’t tell what, or care less. The sound was no on. Noises of any kind interfered with the Closer’s ability to stay focused. So did lights.
The Closer sat there in the dark, focusing.
Until the phone rang.
“Now,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “would be an excellent time.”
The accent was veddy, veddy British. Upper-class on the surface, but salted with a street coarseness—if you know how to listen. The Closer knew how to listen.
“So soon?”
“We’ve accomplished what we needed to accomplish. If we wait …”
“Yes, I know,” the Closer said. This was not the first time the voice had expounded on the subject. “Procrastination too often means failure.”
“There are many complications this time. It is best to remove them as quickly as possible.”
“It usually is.”
“Will that be possible?” the voice finished.
“Anything is possible.”
The Closer hung up the phone and promptly got dressed. The navy blue linen suit. White silk shirt. Red bow tie. Black ankle boots polished to a high gloss. The Closer turned off the television set, locked the door, and left.
The street outside was still active at this late hour. People coming home from their evening out. Cabs were plentiful. The Closer hailed one and took it way downtown to where Greenwich ran into Duane Street. Here there was only darkness and quiet, the warehouses and offices and small factories deserted now.
“You sure this be where you want to get out?” asked the cabdriver, who had a thick Russian accent.
The Closer handed him a ten-dollar bill, got out, and walked down the block, stopping at an unmarked steel door. There was a buzzer. The Closer pushed it and was buzzed in.
Inside was a dingy stairway littered with broken pint bottles of peppermint schnapps, disposable syringes, used condoms. A steady, rhythmic thudding shook the building. At the top of the stairway was another unmarked steel door and another buzzer. The Closer climbed the stairs and pushed the buzzer.
The man who opened the door was as wide as the doorway and hugely muscled. He wore a tank top and sported numerous tattoos on his pumped-up biceps, which were nearly the same size as his shaved head. He grinned at the Closer and stepped to one side.
The Closer entered.
Now the thudding took on a melody. It was house party music. And ahead lay a winding maze of shadowy rooms where people danced and got high and talked to each other. An after-hours club, the kind with no name, no address, no license, and no limits. Models and dancers hung out here. Performance artists. Fashion photographers. Musicians. Athletes. Hangers-on. Black and white. Latino and Asian. Straight and gay. All of them young, their sinewy flesh shiny with sweat. For it was very warm, the air heavy with musk and marijuana smoke.
The Closer moved though them, searching for a particular someone. Finding a back room where there were sofas, chairs, makeshift bar. Finding that someone—a blond sitting alone at the bar, drinking a martini. She was a big creamy blonde with a great body and even better legs. She wore a flimsy black silk minidress, and spike heels, and nothing else. No more than twenty-five years old. She was perfect. Ideal. The Closer eased over next to her and ordered a martini from the bartender, who wore a ring though her lower lip.
When the drink came, the Closer took a long sip, then turned to the blonde and said, “Mind if I join you? I always get hit on here if I sit alone.”
The blonde raised an eyebrow, a smile forming on her lush, pillowy lips. “Does that line actually work?”
“Hasn’t failed me yet. What have I seen you in, anyway?”
“Seen me in?”
“You’re an actress, aren’t you? You must be. God, you have to be.”
She colored slightly. “Well, kind of, I mean, I’m trying. I just got may SAG card, and I
was
in a Smashing Pumpkin video.”
“That must be it. How about another one?” Meaning a martini.
The blonde shrugged and said sure.
One more round after that and they were leaving together, the blonde giggling and falling all over the Closer. “I can’t believe how drunk I am,” she jabbered. “I didn’t have anything to eat today. That must be it. I mean yesterday. Because today is tomorrow. Shit, I can’t
belieeeve
this …” Giggling again. Just enough to let the Closer know she
did
believe it.
She was still giggling when they fell into the cab.
And each other’s arms.
They kissed, wildly, passionately, teeth clanking as the cab pulled away with a screech. One strap fell away from a milky white shoulder, half revealing a naked, perfect breast. The Closer yanked it the rest of the way off, tonguing her nipple, sucking. The blonde let out a soft moan, twisting sideways on the seat, her gorgeous, satiny, naked legs thrown wildly over the Closer’s shoulders. The Closer’s mouth burrowed deeper, deeper …
there
… where it was slick and wet and pulsing. The blonde let out a gasp, shuddering. She held on tight.
She was a very strong girl, and she hadn’t had a thing to eat.
When they arrived at the apartment, they tumbled out of the car, panting, laughing, flying. There was no elevator. And very little furniture. There was a bed, and they fell onto it immediately. Her dress was off now, her flawless skin glowing like a pearl in the city lights that came through the window. Her nipples were erect and hard and long.
“I’ve kind of got a boyfriend,” the blonde confessed.
“Me too.”
She let out a giggle. “You’re funny. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Not recently, no.”
“One of us,” the blond said coyly, “is still dressed.”
“You’re right, ” agreed the Closer. “You’re so very, very right.”
Off came the jacket, which the Closer hung in the closet, because linen wrinkled so easily. And off came the boots, because hidden in the right one was where the present was.
“I have a little surprise for you,” the Closer said. “Something I’ve been saving.”
“For me?”
“Yes,” the Closer said. “Just for you.”
The blonde squealed with delight. “What is it?”
“A special present. But you have to close your eyes.” The girl feigned a pout, and the Closer wagged a finger. The Closer knew how to be strict. “Promise me you’ll close your eyes, okay?”
She promised. She was an obedient girl, a good girl.
The Closer carried the present over to her, clutching it tightly in one hand, and positioned it directly between here eyebrows, which, in the taxi, had felt like two strips of velvet to touch.
“Ooh, it’s
cold
,” she whispered. “What is it? Wait, don’t tell me—a bottle of champagne, am I right?”
“Not exactly.”
It was a Smith Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, equipped with a silencer.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Honey, you can do anything you want,” said the Closer, who smiled and pulled the trigger.
When Rayette’s son was born, she made a vow that she would never hit him. Determined to spare him the pain of her own childhood, she bent over backward to smother him with love and affection. Although she had very little money, whatever she had was pent on Daniel Taylor. After Billy’s death, Rayette also had very little love to dispense, and whatever she had in reserve was lavished on the boy.
Little Danny Taylor was a precocious young fellow. By the time he was two he was speaking in complete sentences. At the age of four he was reading the sports pages in the Arkansas newspapers. And at five years old he was bright enough to realize that his mother was very different from other mothers.
Danny didn’t seem to make many friends at school. The other mothers weren’t anxious for their children to play with him. They were especially reluctant to let them come to Danny’s house, and Danny just didn’t understand this. The house was nice enough. Not as big as some of the other ones nearby, maybe, but it was warm and friendly and he had plenty of games and toys. And his mom was always around. She worked at night a lot, sometimes in bars and restaurants, but during the day she was home. And she had a lot of friends come over. Men friends. Sometimes his mom told him they were his uncles, but he didn’t see any of them more than a few times. None of them stayed around long enough to play catch or take him fishing. His mom’s friends would only come over for an hour or two. They would drink and laugh and then they would go into the bedroom to talk and laugh some more. They almost always came out happy. Once in a while his mom came out crying and Danny would get very upset. But Rayette would hold him and kiss him on the back of his neck and tickle him on the stomach and soon he wouldn’t be upset anymore.
When Danny was five and a half, Rayette got married again. Danny had met his new dad only a few times and didn’t really like him much. His name was Marcus and he hardly ever smiled, except for when he was coming out of the bedroom after talking to Rayette. He didn’t talk to Danny very often; usually he just nodded at him nervously. His new dad was very nervous, Danny thought. His leg was always jiggling up and down a million miles a minute. Rayette said it was because his new dad was always waiting for something to happen. Rayette said that something big was right around the corner. Something that would make them all very happy. So Danny didn’t mind when Rayette and Marcus got married and they left Chesterville to move to Huntington, Mississippi. He was looking forward to something big happening so they could all be very happy.
Marcus was very nice to Danny after he married Rayette. When Rayette was off working—she’d gotten a waitress job at a cocktail lounge a few miles from Huntington—Marcus would always tell his new stepson to climb up on his knee. Then Marcus would tell him stories and tickle him and sometimes even kiss him. Sometimes he kissed Danny on the mouth. Danny would pull away when that happened, but Marcus would talk to him very softly and seriously, telling him that it was all right, that’s what daddies did when they loved their little boys. Marcus smelled nice—Danny love the odor of the greasy stuff that Marcus put on his hair—but Danny still didn’t like him very much. He didn’t like the way he tickled him, didn’t like the way he kissed him. Didn’t like the way he sometimes touched him.
One day about six months after she’d married Marcus, Rayette came home early from work. She had a headache, she said. But Marcus yelled at her, said she wasn’t really sick, that she was checking up on him. “You’re goddamn right, I’m checking up on you,” Danny heard Rayette yell. “Sittin’ naked with my boy on your knee. What the hell you been doin’ with him?” Marcus said he hadn’t been doin’ nothin’ with Danny. He came out and told Danny to tell his mother that he had never hurt him. But Danny just ran into his mother’s arms, and soon they weren’t living with Marcus anymore. They were back in Alabama. Not in Julienne, but in another town, in another county. And in this town, when Rayette was asked her name, she said it was Louisa. Danny asked his mother why she was calling herself by a different name and she said, “Because here I’m a different person, honey chile. I ain’t no whore and I ain’t married to no sick bastard.
They lasted nine months in this town and then they moved again. Rayette had been all excited because she thought she was getting married again, this time to a really nice guy, she told Danny. Only the really nice guy turned out to be married already. So they went to another town. And soon after that another, and then another.