Soul Standard Read online

He turns. “That sound is close enough to God for me.” He wheels over to me, hand outstretched. “Strange that these pills keep me alive long enough to get me to this pew so I can keep praying proper for a painless death. Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s the way of the world, Ernie.” I allow him a few moments to chew back one of the pills, but he already has his eyes drifting before he’s swallowed.

  “Who’s that?” Ernie asks, nodding to Mallory still idling in the parking lot.

  “My driver.”

  “She good with a stick?” He’s unable to keep back a phlegmy laugh. I don’t reciprocate. Not because I’m offended or he’s pinned an emotional nerve, but because I’m more concerned about getting back to my pharmacist quick for a Vicodin refill. That’s the Favor game here: I help the pharmacy by delivering prescriptions to old people, and in return my pharmacist keeps me topped off with my own pills. “Why so uptight? She someone special, or something?”

  “She’s just my driver, Ernie.”

  He winks. “Understood.”

  “Is Genevieve around?”

  “Probably still in bed. She just finished doing some driving of her own about an hour ago.” Another wink.

  “You’re a dirty old man, Ernie,” I say, patting his shoulder before I head down the east wing toward Genevieve’s room.

  She’s a quiet woman, fairly self-sufficient; it could take days to happen upon her should she pass. Ernie likes to brag that his weekly visits are what keep her heart pumping. To me, she’s just another stop on my Favor tour, so I hope for Ernie’s sake that I’m never the one to find her dead. I knock, wait for her shallow, breathy “come in” before entering.

  Her room hasn’t changed at all in the months I’ve been visiting her. A ragged afghan covers the bed. An oscillating fan, never clean, throws a dusty breeze throughout the room. Her walls are lined with hand-painted porcelain figurines and shaped brass trinkets; some cherubic and soft and round, others jagged and unwieldy like weapons, all throwing specks of yellow light throughout the room. I greet her with a hug. She’s appreciative of my embrace, so told with a subtle “thank you,” and I hold for a few moments longer than I’d intended. Mallory can wait. “You look great today, Gen. Very perky.”

  “It’s a façade, Mr. Phlebalm. I wish I could tell you otherwise.” The oxygen tube from her nose spits air in short bursts.

  “Well, your years of stage work are still with you. You could have me believing anything.”

  “I saw Mr. Reiss’s people sniffing around again yesterday. They just won’t give up until we are all out of a home.”

  The Dawn Project, as Reiss is so fond of calling it, has been in development for years. All he wants is this building, and though I’d hate to assign him the traditional villain role of an uncaring troll, in this case the cliché fits him well. “Real estate,” he’s known to say, “is an investment in the future, not the present.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t forget about you. He’ll find somewhere great for you to live.”

  “I don’t know why you defend that bastard, Mr. Phlebalm. He’s not worth the skin he’s rotting in.”

  “It’s Max, Gen. And I assure you, I’m not defending him. I just hang onto the hope that everyone has some good in them.”

  “I’ve been on this Earth for quite some time, Mr. Phlebalm. Believe me, good escapes quite a few of us.”

  “Speaking of which, I want to make sure Rhonda keeps coming back for your massages. Do you have some new pieces for me to distribute?”

  Genevieve leans back in her chair to a chest at the foot of her bed. I offer my help to open the lid but she dismisses me. Embarrassment or insistent self-reliance, I’m not sure which. No matter, I let her choose to struggle. She comes back with a brass candleholder, no longer than my hand, shaped from heavy base to elegantly pointed tip. “Rhonda’s been providing these to the church in exchange for a few extra blessings. I’d go direct, but damn I love my massages.”

  “Rhonda’s skills are world famous.” She hands me the candlestick and dumps a few extra figurines in my pocket. I know of some shelves that would love to have these extra pieces. I thank her and tell her that I hope Ernie’s been treating her well.

  “You keep him alive, Mr. Phlebalm. You’re an angel around here.”

  I slip out the front door, my pockets heavy with contraband. The Dawn Facility is a beautiful pocket of motiveless rationale in the middle of an otherwise irrational and misguided plot of the city. I would love to hope that Reiss never acquires this place, but I know Reiss better than to waste that kind of hope. For now, I’ll get by with comfort in future melancholy.

  “Have fun with Granny and Pops?” Mallory says as I slide into the backseat.

  “Honestly, I’m surprised you waited for me.”

  “I wasn’t going to be waiting much longer. But this entire facility probably won’t be around much longer either, so I thought I’d enjoy the view while it’s here.”

  “I’ve heard.” I ask Mallory to swing by the Schroeder’s pharmacy on Eleventh before heading back to Reiss. She says time is too short for that and speeds out of the Dawn parking lot on a direct course back to Reiss. The candleholder wedges against my thigh. I can feel a bruise already brewing.

  She rolls into the Belvedere garage a full three floors below ground. I take the bus to work, sometimes the subway, but have never had an occasion to drop this far under the Belvedere, so the experience maintains the day’s mystery despite being so close to familiar territory. She occupies an executive spot and turns, my visible confusion coaxing from her, “We won’t be here long enough to matter.”

  “This garage here? Or this existence here?”

  “With just one kidney, it probably doesn’t matter much for you.” She smiles. I’m starting to hate those teeth.

  Her shoes send echoes against the concrete surrounding us. Between the clips and clacks I ask her, “Why bring me all the way to the bakery just to bring me back?”

  “Nostalgia.”

  “I needed a reminder?”

  “Your family and mine, we have a lot to gain in the new economy. You know it.” She presses an elevator button. “And I had some files to check on.”

  “I’ve got a good life, Mallory. Reiss is good to me. He pays me well. Cash is still worth something, at least here in the district it is. I don’t have the heart to trade donuts for plumbing work right now.”

  “Did you really come to the district to be a lackey? I thought you did it for a family.”

  “That didn’t work out so well.”

  “We’re like family. Family through morbid glasses, perhaps, but last I heard that’s as close to family as you have right now.”

  “Ouch.” I reach in and attack the elevator button again. “I’m just a ledger man. I can’t adapt this late in my life.”

  The doors open. We step in to silence.

  Her eyes drop to my pockets. “Says the man running Favors for Ma and Pa.”

  “Vicodin isn’t cheap.”

  “It’s not a matter of being unable to adapt. It’s a matter of being unwilling. Ledgers can be made to accommodate the Favor economy, barter transactions and organ donations. Believe me. But how to skim a bit off the top for people like Reiss, that’s the problem. That’s why, when all the City’s bills are eventually just fuel for the fire pit and Reiss has managed to shift his assets to the Soul Standard, he won’t have a use for you. You’ll be back at your family’s plant—no shame in that—but why not have people like Reiss working for you instead?”

  The doors open. I follow her into the bustle of the lobby.

  “Then just tell me who the lead is. I’ll go after him myself.”

  “Can’t do, Max.” We part the crowded lobby for the east hall. Despite the evening chaos still ruling the lobby and the darkness outside, I can still glimpse the forgotten remains of Arnold, now baked to the pavement outside. Pedestrians sidestep the body, just another suicide. It’s assumed someone will take the body
away, and that assumption is enough to keep these people moving, ignoring. I cut the crowd, turning away from Mallory’s hallway direction. She yells for me to stay with her, but I can’t.

  I can’t bring myself to approach the body, so I stay safe behind the lobby window glass. From this vantage, he looks on display. The remaining tape still bags the leftovers, but most of the skin has been peeled and stolen away.

  Mallory yells again from across the lobby. I turn to leave but at that moment a man with a rope approaches Arnold’s body. The man lacks any official representation—not a badge, not even a logoed T-shirt. He’s a simple man in simple clothes. He loops the rope around Arnold’s remaining ankle and begins to drag. I bang the window, yell for the man to stop, but part of me is glad to see the body given some attention. I don’t know what the man intends for the body, but the economist in me hopes he turns a profit.

  “Let’s go,” Mallory says, her hand suddenly at my shoulder.

  “To answer your question, I knew him pretty well. He and I shot pool on the weekends.”

  “Knew who?”

  I gesture to the man still dragging the remains. The body is so empty it leaves no trail at all. Mallory grabs my arm and pulls me into the executive elevator.

  “Reiss told us to go after a guy named Victor Sampson. He’s a lawyer, offices out at the Parke block of Nineteenth Street. One of the few lawyers not working for Reiss. If Reiss asks, we found him, chatted a bit, but found out nothing, okay. We’re hunting for more. Got it, Max?”

  The lights on the button panel crawl upward. I can’t dump the image of Arnold’s body from my head. He’s been the most fragile of the entire bunch, so his suicide doesn’t surprise me much. But the nonchalance of its end, the assumed litter. This never happened when cash ruled.

  “Will bodies always be picked over and left for scrap?”

  “Now’s not the time, Max.”

  “Part of Arnold’s motivation was his family’s Outskirts roots. I’m not from this area of the City either, Mallory. Will I be the next corpse on the sidewalk outside this building?” The elevator climbs.

  “Perk up, Max. Seriously, we’re about to meet with Reiss.”

  “How do you know the lawyer didn’t tell the press about my kidney?”

  “No time, Max.”

  I press the emergency stop button. “I’m about to mislead the only man who’s ever trusted me. I know that sounds sad, but it’s true. Mr. Reiss plucked me from nothing, gave me a job, and has entrusted me to help keep his empire strong. I just spent an afternoon tooling around the Red Light with what I now know as his enemy—you—and I’m supposed to lie to his face just because your family and mine have some business relationship together?”

  Mallory reaches for a button behind me. I let her, knowing that neither of us wants to turn this elevator into an improvised therapist couch for the remaining trip up. Once the elevator starts again, Mallory grabs my shoulder. “If we had time, I’d explain more.”

  “Just tell me one thing, then. How do you know the lawyer didn’t rat out Reiss?”

  “Because I know who did.” And at that moment the elevator doors open to reveal Mr. Reiss waiting, eager to corral us down the fluorescent hallway to his office.

  The fire pit still burns. Reiss stokes the flames with a poker he keeps hidden under his desk. The tip glows red-hot, glistens like it’s been dipped in fat. Arnold’s exit window has already been replaced, cleaned out and fixed before the body below received any treatment at all. If one of Reiss’s cops come for an official statement on the repair, Reiss would rattle off something about the grieving process. That statement alone would be enough to satisfy the books. I’d bet good organs that Reiss doesn’t even remember Arnold’s name. He pulls the poker from the fire and turns back to his desk. He tells us to sit. “Give me some good news, you two.”

  Mallory pulls a chair from against the wall. I’m left with Arnold’s crooked chair. “The lawyer wasn’t around. We’ll go back tomorrow.”

  “Not what I wanted to hear, Mallory.”

  “Not what I wanted to say, sir.” She shifts in her chair, legs crossed and knees jutting toward a photo of Reiss’s wife. If her kneecap came outfitted with a rifle scope, the photo would have an obituary future. “You said so yourself, I’m the only one as invested in this whole thing as you are.”

  Those words, the same said me to me just earlier today. Reiss catches my confusion, meets me with a coy smile. “Finding the lead is very important to all of us,” he says to me, panning to Mallory, and back.

  “Yes, sir, we understand—”

  “Your livelihoods depend on it.” His implication silences us. Reiss, for all his power, has never threatened violence against me. The potential fall of one’s empire changes a man, I suppose. He stands from his desk and paces in the new silence he’s created. A typical Reiss power move. I’ve sat in this very office during intimidation sessions for everyone from street cart vendors to politicians. The life of a spectator has not prepared me. “You were sent to check out the lawyer. You didn’t. Why?”

  “He wasn’t at his office, Mr. Reiss.” Mallory knows Reiss well enough to be scared.

  “That wasn’t my question, Mallory.”

  Trying to cut the tension, I offer, “You know who the lead is, Mallory. Tell him.”

  Reiss stops, quick. He turns from anger to intrigue instantly. “Really?” He sits again behind his desk.

  Mallory handles my help with a stern sneer. “What Max is alluding to is a strong hunch. I have a very strong suspicion about—”

  “I sent you to the lawyer on more than a strong hunch,” Reiss yells. He’s brought the fire poker back to his lap. He strokes it like a kitten. “I gave up on strong suspicions many, many leads ago. What I had with the lawyer was a sure thing.” He stands, a grip on the poker whitening his knuckles. “Are you ready to try again, then?”

  Mallory and I exchange glances. Gone is the brash confidence that led me through the Red Light just hours ago. She’s scared, but I can tell she’s primed to pounce. Before I can stop her, she’s leapt from her chair for Reiss’s poker, has one hand around the rod and one hand shielding her face from Reiss’s fist. I’m too torn between the factions to commit to either.

  Reiss gathers himself among the scuffle to rouse one strong shove, knocking Mallory back to the ground. With her down, Reiss raises the poker, readies for a final blow, but I’m up, driving the brass candleholder into his back, right where my kidney may very well be. I hunt for phantom pains but find only the sharp sting of the candle-holder butted into my palm. We’re joined, Reiss and I, by a mutual weapon. The fire poker clangs to the ground as the man himself piles to the floor, struggling to pull the candleholder free. I grab Mallory by the arm and attempt to rush for the door.

  “Wait,” she says, grabbing my own arm and pulling me back to Reiss’s quivering body. His lips allow only angry mutterings. “You have to see something.” She solicits my help to turn the man on his stomach. She lifts his shirt, careful to ensure the candleholder stays wedged into his back. “No scar.” Heavy breaths abbreviate her words. “Even the best transplant surgeons can’t do that.” And before Reiss has a chance to reach the candleholder, Malloy grabs the photo of his wife and uses it to hammer the weapon deeper into his back.

  Reiss rarely has his goons tethered less than a quick call away, so it surprises me that we get to the car and escape the Belvedere Building at all. I’m panting considerably more than Mallory, but still I manage the first words: “Will that kill him?”

  “Anyone lesser? Yes. Reiss? No.” She’s hugging corners and threading around cross-walking pedestrians like she’s bribed civil engineers to pave this very route for her. When Mallory drives, the world obeys. “When you write about this later, Max, don’t give the candleholder a brand name like McGuffin’s Brass or Red Herring Accents, all right.” She swerves to avoid a parked bus.

  I manage to fasten my seatbelt, fighting inertia. “Can I at least put a fruit cart in t
his scene?”

  “No.”

  She’s far outside the casted glow of the Belvedere Building before even acknowledging the brake pedal. When she does, it’s just outside an office at Parke and Nineteenth. “The lawyer’s office?” I say.

  “Wait for me,” and she disappears into the building.

  Reiss’s blood, now brown from my fingernails to my elbows, stays moist by the sweaty undertow sheathing my forearms. As the adrenaline subsides, I finally sit still enough to let the world around me cease its spinning.

  Mallory left the car running. I could take off, leave the district, leave the entire city, find a hollow tree in the mountains somewhere and be fine to just exist. No hopes. Forget dreams. Just skin and muscle waiting patiently to assimilate into the grander cycle. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all that shit.

  Who am I kidding? I’m weak. Always have been. I’m closer to making this car, this side street my home, never letting outsider eyes on me again. My first act as homeowner would be to get privacy drapes installed.

  Would he have hurt us? Would he really have knocked me the way I’ve seen him do to so many others before? Would he really have taken my kidney without taking out his own?

  All I wanted was a job that let me wear a suit every day, where people assumed my importance. I’d befriend numbers, stay low, stash away a few bills every month and let interest compound until I grew old enough to afford beach-front property and be medically sedated enough to never leave even if I wanted to. There’s a glimpse of heaven in not being burdened to care about anything but sunscreen and the integrity of your shade umbrella. Though it’s that selfishness, I suppose, that ultimately lead to Genevieve’s candleholder aerating Reiss’s back. Shit, the church is going to be pissed about missing out on new brass.

  The door opens. Paranoia lifts me upright in a single heartbeat. A man in a suit slides in. “The lawyer?”

  “Who’s this?” the lawyer says to Mallory as she slides into the driver’s seat. He’s kempt, sideburns freshly straight-edged and cologne that nicely steals the air from my own sweat and filth.

  “I like your suit,” I tell him.