Word Made Flesh E-Book

Jack O'Connell

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 494

Beschreibung

Why would two Eastern European meatboys want to whack an innocent cab driver? That's the question that occurs to Gilrein as Raban and Blumfeld press the gun barrel into his mouth. Does it have something to do with the ritual death-by-flencing of Leo Tani? Or does the answer involve Gilrein's ex-lover, now working as a librarian for a bibliomaniac gangster. Or maybe the whole thing has something to do with the Inspector, inventor of the notorious Methodology? And how does Bobby Oster figure in the mix, with his crew of murder-for-hire rogue cops who call themselves The Magicians? To find the answers, Gilrein will drive the night streets of his hometown and face down more than one demon from his past. From the Vacuum, where child-artists are held captive in veal pens and forced to forge graphic novels, to the Houdini Lounge, where the second annual immigrant death-match is being marketed, Gilrein will wander the underworld, collecting stories and looking for absolution. In the end, he'll brush up against "Alicia's Tale" and learn new truths about the terrifying negotiations always taking place between the storyteller and the audience in the city of Quinsigamond.

Leseprobe

WORD MADE FLESH

Why would two Eastern European meatboys want to whack an innocent cab driver? That’s the question that occurs to Gilrein as Raban and Blumfeld press the gun barrel into his mouth. Does it have something to do with the ritual death-by-flencing of Leo Tani? Or does the answer involve Gilrein’s ex-lover, now working as a librarian for a bibliomaniac gangster. Or maybe the whole thing has something to do with the Inspector, inventor of the notorious Methodology? And how does Bobby Oster figure in the mix, with his crew of murder-for-hire rogue cops who call themselves The Magicians?

To find the answers, Gilrein will drive the night streets of his hometown and face down more than one demon from his past. From the Vacuum, where child-artists are held captive in veal pens and forced to forge graphic novels, to the Houdini Lounge, where the second annual immigrant death-match is being marketed, Gilrein will wander the underworld, collecting stories and looking for absolution. In the end, he’ll brush up against “Alicia’s Tale” and learn new truths about the terrifying negotiations always taking place between the storyteller and the audience in the city of Quinsigamond.

About the Author

Jack O’Connell is the author of five critically acclaimed novels, which have earned him something of a cult status. He won the Mysterious Press Discovery Contest for the Best First Crime Novel for Box Nine, which launched his career.Box Nineand his other novels Wireless, The Skin Palace, Word Made Flesh and The Resurrectionist are all published by No Exit Press. His work has been praised by James Ellroy, Nail Gaiman, Katherine Dunn, George Pelecanos and Jonathan Carroll, among others. He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.

Praise for Jack O’Connell

‘Hyper-real noir. A grotesque romance about genocide, language, bibliomania, doubt, obsession, worms, epidermis and sanctuary!’ –James Ellroy

‘The most electrifying debut crime novel you are likely to read all year’ –GQ

‘A feast of unsettling pleasures’ –Independent

‘A surrealistic noir epic that’s part David Lynch and part Bret Easton Ellis’ –Booklist

‘has a kind of hallucinatory fascination. . .amazing in its density, power, richness of detail, humour and irony. . .a dazzling piece of work. One of the year’s 10 best!’ –LATimes

‘Mesmerizing. . . light-years away from your garden-variety thriller.The Skin Palacemay remind you of Blade Runner or the novels of William Gibson, but O’Connell has his own dazzling tale to tell. . . Wickedly clever’ –Seattle Times

‘It’s a measure of O’Connell’s immense talent that, while creating his absolutely original and hyperbolic world, he also paints a striking vision of the haunting ways in which life and art mirror each other’ –Publishers Weekly

‘It’s a helter-skelter, a roller-coaster, a ride on a ghost train—if the fairground had been designed by Philip K Dick, Stan Lee and Edgar Allan Poe’ –Independent on Sunday

‘No one does the improbable like O’Connell’ –Guardian

‘Jack O’Connell has riffed on language, fire-cleansed genre conventions, and stripped the artifice from the modern noir novel, creating a body of work both exciting and entirely original’ –George Pelecanos

‘A masterpiece, O’Connell’s tour de force has a dose of the uncertainty of Kafka, the fantasy of Bradbury, the crisp prose of Greene, and the noir of Chandler’ –Strand Magazine

‘brilliant writing, original concepts, emotional resonance’ –Washington Post

‘A brilliantly tuned, mesmerizing labyrinth of a quasi-real world as only a master artist could draw it’ –James Ellroy

To Claire Teresita

Adam’s one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw, they had revealed their essence, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached things; words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed from God. The story of the Garden, therefore, records not only the fall of man, but the fall of language.

Paul Auster, City of Glass

You are hearing the screams of a small, fat man. This will be your last opportunity to turn away. The noise should end presently. At the very least the sound will be diminished, transformed into something you might find somewhat more acceptable. The ghost of the scream. There may even be a moment or two of silence—the time between the man’s realization of what is about to happen to him. And his realization that there is absolutely nothing he can do to prevent it from happening.

I refuse to accept blame for what you are witnessing. This is not my fault. To some degree, we all have to admit, Leo Tani put himself in this situation. He knew full well the hazards of his particular occupation and he did not behave prudently. Had he never heard the advice act reverently when sojourning in a foreign land?

You will argue, at some future date, that the ’shank has long resided in the city. That he has made the city his home since his arrival, from Turin, in the midst of his extended and overheated puberty. I would only answer that this is one more rumor we will never see confirmed, a statement without evidence to prove its truth, repeated for so long that we accept it at face value. But you should know, better than most, that no one can make this city his home. We remain transients here even if we never leave. And strangers to each other forever.

If you move to the left, you should be able to see them preparing. Don’t be ashamed. It is nothing but human to be fascinated by ritual. Please try to relax. In days to come you may wish to castigate yourself over your passivity. But this is a futile and regressive response to a new form of knowledge. You were simply curious and since when has this been a crime? Isn’t wisdom born of curiosity, the inherent need to watch and to listen and thus, to know? Isn’t this the nature of the witness?

I hope you have the generosity to admit that there is a kind of beauty in the ritual. A perverse grace, I will grant you, but still. My advice would be to look for the significance of each small gesture. These signals tend to coalesce, to bind together in the end and reveal a larger and deeper pattern. Notice, for instance, that they use Leo’s own silk, monogrammed show handkerchief as the blindfold. Try to remember, if you can make it out in this light, the color of the masking tape they use to secure the cotton wadding in his mouth.

I have no way of knowing if you are a religious individual. I cannot say that I care either way. But as you watch them now, stripping the ’shank of his fine clothing, do you think of some historical precedent? Or can you not move past what you imagine to be going through Leo’s mind? Let me assure you he is mistaken. The violation you are about to behold is something so much greater than a common rape. It is an outrage against the entire corporal world. Do you think I am being flamboyant?

That is Gallzo you are smelling. A liquor produced in a particularly arid region of the Middle East. Derived from the roots of the hyssop reed. It is an acquired taste. I will tell you a small secret—each barrel is flavored with a drop of urine from the honey buzzard. Have you ever had the pleasure? It is known to be one of Tani’s greatest indulgences. You might take heed of the fact that none of them guzzle. One reverent sip. And then the remains of the bottle are poured over the victim’s naked expanse. A bit closer you would hear the small splash, the liquid bouncing off his girth, running down the skin, off the body and finally into the cinder bed beneath their feet. Through this century of ash and into the dry earth itself.

Like a trip to the River Jordan. The action has that kind of power. You might expect a black dove to appear up here in the balcony with us, the flutter of the wings somehow worse than Leo’s muted cries. Do you believe the alcohol will cause the burn to be even more intense? Or will the ’shank be unconscious by then, the body fallen to shock, the victim unable to observe what you will remember forever?

I suppose there is a lesson here for every businessman—be careful what you bring to market. And isn’t that what we all arein the end? Businessmen. Merchants. Entrepreneurs of one sort or another.

The bread crusts on the floor? Most likely they were left by the tinker children. By all accounts, this train station is their home. I see by your face that you distrust this myth as well, but I can attest to its veracity. They are not nearly as feral as the common wisdom would have you believe. They are extremely crafty in their own way, but, of course, they lack your years of experience and the formal training of a rational mind. This is why you are the witness and the tinkers have abandoned their refuge for the night.

Excuse me, look closely now. They are readying their tools. I only wish you could hold the blades yourself. It would make the event so much more palpable for you.

They still produce their cutlery by hand, in the manner of the ancients, particularly the Greeks. Though it is said they have acquiesced to the use of stainless steel rather than bronze. They employ the techniques perfected in Solingen. They are not dilettantes—none may use the blade who do not craft the blade. Beginning to end. They refine their own steel in individual clay crucibles, forge the blade with hammer and anvil and grinding wheel, endlessly polish until the motion of the soft rub becomes a kind of trance-making prayer. I once heard they used a roue of their own blood and bile as the cutting fluid. But you know how these types of legends can take on a life of their own. The same source swore to me that they must single-handedly, and in an elaborately orchestrated fashion, kill the beast chosen to provide the handle of horn or bone or tusk. Elsewhere I heard that every hilt is made of mother-of-pearl. Who are we to believe?

It takes years to complete a single scalpel in this manner, but the instrument will last a lifetime. Or, perhaps, several lifetimes, if you follow my meaning. After the winter of glazing comes the spring of buffing. And after the summer of mirror satining, we are to understand, a name that will never be spoken is finally etched into the blade.

Now, please, pay attention—here is the first incision. There may be a spurt of—yes, there it is, did you catch it? You see, they start at the base of the neck, very careful to avoid the arterial network. They want Leo alive throughout the entire procedure, if possible. They believe it keeps the tissue more vibrant and supple in its afterlife.

I have no way of knowing how much background you have in human anatomy. And certainly I don’t wish to interfere with your observing. It is just that I personally find the integumentary system so fascinating. Both in the area of its organic nature, the beautiful complexity of its layering, and in the fact of its existence as an ecosystem itself, the housing it provides to that microscopic, parasitic world we ignore every day.

I see you flinch. And we are only at the beginning. But you did not close your eyes and that will make all the difference. It bothers you, I suppose, that Leo is still conscious. The way his head attempts to jerk back and forth within the confines of their hands. You imagine him choking as the wadding works its way deeper down his trachea. Try to think of Mr. Tani as more object than person. This has worked for others in the past.

Now this is the ventral incision. They will make a clean cut from the center of the chest downward to the anus. You are terrified of viewing a castration, I understand. But this is not their purpose. You have to trust them at some point, my friend. It is true they have no use for the genitalia. But their intention is not one of sadism.

You see here the natural genius of the body, how the ribs prevent them from cutting too deeply. And I want you to take special notice, this is surely of some importance, that they refuse to use anything resembling forceps. They peel back and hold the tissue with their own fingers. They have developed a highly refined strength and precision in this area.

Is the skin more blue than you would have imagined? Can you see clearly enough? Perhaps it is the contrast with the intense redness of the muscles below. Such great care they take as they move down through the abdominal wall. The concentration at this point is enormous. If they pierce through into the intestinal cavity everything could be ruined. They are very concerned with hygiene, have strict mores regarding purification.

You would never know how wildly the body should naturally be flailing at this point. The holders secure their grip so rigidly. If not for the bulging eyes and the well-muffled, but still audiblescream you would have no indication of Leo’s discomfort. Surely he is working his way toward shock as we watch. The brain may begin shutting down consciousness at any time now. I would not be surprised if they decide to wait before rolling the body—

No, I am mistaken. They will take a moment to resecure their hold once he is in place on his stomach. There, now you are seeing the beginning of the dorsal incision, there along the center of the back, from the shoulders down to the rectum. Watch as they lift the tissue back, so careful to control the rate of force, the pressure constant, pulling the layers away from the meat beneath, see the cartilage resist then finally give way, fall back to the body. You might expect some tearing and I am told it does happen on occasion. When the subject suffers from some epidermal disease. Apparently the ’shank is in fine condition.

They seem to be after as large and continuous a sheet of tissue as they can extract. They do not like patchwork. At this stage, a scissors would make their job much easier, but again who can argue with ceremony? They will cut the flesh at the hip area and they may find it necessary to pop the leg out of the hip socket. For your sake I hope this is not the—

Again, I apologize. You would think Leo was beyond the capability of a scream of this magnitude. We never know how much strength and tenacity an individual possesses, do we? They will work their fingers under the skin here. The region of the tailbone proves very stubborn for some reason. At times they find it necessary to remove the legs entirely. This is a long and tedious exercise without the luxury of technology. Do our doctors fully appreciate the benefits of the highspeed bone saw? I wonder at times.

Those hooks and chains? This means we are entering the final stages. They will truss the body, yes, you see, lancing the main hook through the jaw and then hauling upward on the chains until fully suspended above the rock. An old and decrepit building like this, the approach gives you pause. But those beams survived the’53 quake and I doubt even Tani can pull them down.

The way the body hangs, certainly life is now gone. Does it make the watching easier?

Gravity offers some assistance at this point. They movedownward, faster now, the sheets of skin resembling, at times, small sails. Any one of them can manage this stage of the paring, but for the close work along the skull, only the most dexterous among them will be allowed to cut. The muscles at the base of the ears are small but particularly strong. And an apprentice will often make his first mistake at this exact point. Right there, around the eyelids. The lips are cut free and, though nevercollected with the rest of the tissue, neither are they discarded. I have no idea what use they could be.

That cloud? They are dusting the tissue with powdered borax. It makes the going somewhat easier and it begins the preservation process immediately. I am told you can also use corn meal in a pinch.

This is distressing, I agree. Something about that final series of yanks to pull the entire jacket free.

I thought for sure you would look away. I suppose you’ve surprised us both.

They will do the curing elsewhere. A tedious procedure involving non-iodized salt and formaldehyde as well as a moth-proofing solvent and grain alcohol. But, believe me, with a gourmand like Leo Tani, it is the de-greasing that will take the most time. All the cheesy fat of his robust appetites. That he was not a moderate man is self-evident. Look at him hanging there. Look at that world beneath the skin, the subterranean detail. Think of it as pure structure. Such intricacy.

You may despise them and fear them, but you must allow some degree of esteem for their talent. They are more force than creature, wouldn’t you agree? My God, look at the skill, the undiluted confidence with which they work, the instinctual grace. They are the surgeons of history. The pathologists of our shared memory. The skivers of our race dream. Some part of you can’t help but respect the genius of their craft, that level of intensity and shapeliness that elevates their practice into art. Admit that much to me. Be honest, at least with yourself. And understand that this respect cannot help but grow. Into admiration. And imitation. And ultimately, as the past has shown us so well and so thoroughly, into love.

Do not speak—I know what the question is. You are curiousas to what happens to the epidermis itself, yes? You see them collecting it in the burlap sacks and you wonder what use it could possibly have. But everything has a use. I was hoping I could expect more from you. I must confess a small disappointment. Wouldn’t you agree that we invent the usage? Isn’t this what we have always done?

Even the tidying-up work is a solemn responsibility.

You are disgusted with the way they clean their tools? But I assure you, in their tradition the saliva itself is thought to hold many purging and strengthening properties.

As to Tani, the corpse will be left hanging. As a sign, I suppose. Eventually, inevitably, it will become one more dark myth from the belly of Gompers Station. Though the blood loss was spectacular, I believe the death certificate will make mention of absolute trauma. By the time the remains are found, by the train bulls or by the scavengers, a multitude of parasites will have swarmed to the open meat, drawn by the immediate initiation of decay, a veritable legion of vampiric organisms will have massed upon the bare altar of the ’shank’s subcutaneous corpus. They will give nothing. They will only take. Because they can do nothing else. Because that is the nature they were born with. There was a saying back in Shinar—

I’m sorry, but they appear to have spotted you.

No, there is nothing you can do.

You may know other ways out of the station, but sooner or later they will find you.

You have been the witness.

That was your choice.

You were warned at the very beginning.

1

Someone must have been telling lies about me is all Gilrein can think as they squeeze open his mouth and lay the barrel of the Glock on his tongue. Softly, as if it were a communion wafer.

The tall one with the ludicrous overbite asks again, “Where is the package?” the voice accented and a little phlegmy.

The one with the face made of burn scars and the eye that won’t close drives a fist into Gilrein’s stomach and they all lurch away from the wall for a second, then they push Gilrein back against the bricks, drive the gun farther back toward the tonsils until the choking starts.

“Where is the package?”

Gilrein tries to shake his head, to indicate a lack of understanding, but they won’t let him. He forces his eyes to stay open and sees the two men look at each other. The tall one tightens his grip on Gilrein’s throat and the other nods and steps away.

A blast comes from the mouth of the alley, and all three look and in the lights from the Checker they see a silhouetted figure extending a shotgun in their direction.

A voice yells, “Blumfeld, Raban, let him go now.”

Blumfeld and Raban glance at each other as Gilrein tries to suppress a gagging sound. Then the Glock is pulled out of the mouth and the tall one backhands him across the cheek and says, “This is not over.”

The two of them walk out of the alley as Gilrein lets himself slide down the wall onto his ass and begin to vomit. His eyes are pressed shut and he’s seeing bright flashes of light and there’s an awful pain flowing through his temples, a building pressure that feels like it may never stop increasing. He makes himself hunch onto all fours and when his stomach empties, he tries to calm his breathing.

Finally, he’s aware of the hand on his shoulder and he lets it guide him back to the wall. He wipes at his mouth with his forearm, takes some deep breaths. The intensity of the pain begins to diminish slightly. He lets his head come up and opens his eyes.

There’s a face half hidden in shadow and when the voice comes—C’mon now, Gilly, you’re okay—he realizes it’s Bobby Oster.

He tries to speak and Oster shakes him off. The savior is down on one knee with the Ithaca pump resting on his shoulder as if he’d just completed some kind of urban cattle drive.

Oster moves into a sitting position next to Gilrein, his back against the alley wall. Pockets of steam gust around them and in the distance a stew of sounds becomes audible—sirens, horns, the bleak purr of machinery.

“Blumfeld was the one with the Glock,” Oster says. “Raban’s his creature. They’re both meatboys for August Kroger.”

Gilrein tries to focus on his breathing, but he knows that as the shock dies out, the reality of the beating is going to arrive. In the kidneys and the stomach and in the groin.

“How bad did it get,” Oster asks, “before I got here?”

Gilrein attempts the first words and stops before the tongue can deliver.

Oster stands up and says, “Can you walk?”

Gilrein nods without looking at him.

“We’ll take your car,” Oster says, reaching down, softly grabbing a forearm and pulling Gilrein up to standing. “You’re going to be okay, Gilly.”

Oster wheels the Checker up onto the interstate. Gilrein lets his head lean against the passenger window and in the reflection cast by the passing halogen lamps, he can see both eyes already starting to swell up. The inside of his mouth is cut and his tongue pokes at the pulp and initiates a flow of blood and a burning like a bee sting.

“You still keep a bottle in the glove box?”

Gilrein shifts to face the driver and says, “What were you doing there?”

“Looks like I was saving your ass.”

Gilrein pops the glove box, pulls out a new pint of Buber Gold and cracks the seal.

Oster says, “Just rinse and spit.”

Gilrein cranks the window with one hand, takes a small draw from the bottle and braces for the pain. It’s a goddamn inferno and he holds it for a second then gets his head out the window and swallows and tears come to his eyes.

“You lose any teeth?”

Gilrein takes a breath and wipes a hand over his face.

The highway is deserted. It’s still four or five hours until dawn. The air feels winter-cold for mid-April. A few drops of rain pock the windshield and then stop.

Oster runs a hand around the steering wheel and says, “I’d forgotten how sweet these babies are to drive.”

They pass a chrome-strangled low rider pulled into the breakdown lane, a couple of kids sitting on its roof. There’s half a moon showing in the west. Gilrein puts the cap back on the pint and stows it.

“What were you doing there, Bobby?”

Oster gives a smile, shakes his head just a bit.

“You always were a grateful little mother, weren’t you, Gilly?”

“Where are we going?”

“Promise you one thing, Gilly,” as he takes an offramp. “My boys will find those bastards. And you’ll get first chance to stomp some Maisel ass. How’s that sound?”

Gilrein looks out the window and sits up in the seat, his heart punching.

“Where the hell are we going, Oster?” even though he knows.

The Checker slows, cruises toward the end of Bigelow Street, past the long-empty industrial park. They swing right onto Rome Avenue and the road narrows and after about a quarter mile the vacant lots on either side turn into a scraggly wood, nothing clean nor remotely majestic about it, just a lot of scrub and weed and gnarled, petrifying trees killed off by a century of toxic waste.

Gilrein turns and stares at Oster and says, “You should’ve just let them shoot me, you son of a bitch.”

Oster bears left when the road forks and turns to gravel.

“It’s just a place,” he says. “It’s just a goddamned building. It can’t hurt you, all right? We’re safe here.”

The Checker rolls to a stop in a makeshift parking lot filled with a selection of perfectly restored muscle cars. Beyond the lot is a miniature trailer park, a couple aisles of shabby, dented-up RVs and campers on cinder blocks. And beyond the trailers is the place Gilrein never thought he’d see again. Kapernaum Printing & Binding.

It’s an enormous three-story mill, a classic old-time factory out of the heart of the industrial age, all worn-down red brick and age-darkened mortar, smoke stacks and concrete loading aprons and double steel doors. The front face of the mill runs about a hundred yards and is fitted with boxy windows lined with black, wrought iron bars and sealed with gray wire mesh. The entry is an expansive granite archway with the name KAPERNAUM carved into the stonework in huge, fat, block lettering.

“I won’t make you go in,” Oster says.

“Like hell you won’t,” Gilrein answers.

Oster kills the engine and they sit and stare past the trailers at the factory. And though Gilrein knows there is no way to stop it from happening, he actually tries to think of something else for a minute, to focus on his wounds or the taste of the steel of the Glock in his mouth or the voice that phoned in tonight’s call. But within seconds, staring at the printworks, staring at the section to the left where the bricks degenerate into unrecognizable shards and continue, after all this time, to lie in a sloping pile of rubble, all he can see is Ceil’s prone body being pulled from the wreckage by the EMTs, the whole thing lit by the dozens of revolving lights from the cruisers and fire teams and ambulances, the way her bloodied arm dropped off the stretcher and Lacazze stepped forward and tucked it back under the blanket. The way the stink of the smoke and chemicals billowed out of the factory a full hour later and everyone—Petrashevski from bomb squad and Chief Bendix and Inspector Lacazze and even Oster—kept wiping at their eyes as they walked. And the lines that kept forming at the ambulances for hits off the oxygen tanks. But most of all, Gilrein remembers Ceil’s face when they finally let him look. Just Ceil’s beautiful face, somehow, impossibly, untouched by the concussion of a blast that lacerated her body, stroked red and blue by cruiser light.

“Would it make any difference,” Oster asks, his voice odd and soft now, “if I told you the boys would all like to see you again?”

They both know it’s a lie.

“Old time sake,” Oster says. “Brother officers.”

Gilrein pulls in a trembling breath and manages to say, “You miserable bastard.”

“This miserable bastard just saved your lousy ass, Gilly,” almost yelling, then getting hold of himself, bringing it back down to friendly and quiet. “It’s just a building, all right? It’s been empty for ten years and it’s been ruined for the past three. We just took it over, okay? Christ’s sake, it’s just a building.” A pause and then, voice even lower, “You ever think it might do you some good to—”

“Don’t even say it.”

Oster nods, holds up both hands, lets some time pass.

“We’ve got to talk, Gilrein. There’s some things I’ve got to ask you and there’s some things you’ve got to ask me. So let’s just do it.”

“And if I refuse?”

Oster smiles, pats his shoulder.

“Then I put you out of your misery.”

Gilrein stares at him, pushes open the door and says, “Could’ve been anyplace else.”

Oster shrugs and says, “No, Gilly. It just couldn’t.”

2

Oster presses a bell and in a minute there’s the sound of deadbolts sliding out of the loading apron and into the hollow of the door. Then the panel rolls up on its tracks and they step into a dim concrete foyer filled with stale beer smell, cigar smoke, dim lights, and a faint trace of country and western music.

Just inside the foyer, set up like a reception desk, is a short section of industrial conveyor belt. Behind the desk, perched on a fold-out aluminum step stool is a young cop named Danny Walden. He’s dressed in jeans and a red corduroy shirt and he sports a sparser version of Oster’s mustache.

Walden nods to Oster, smiles at Gilrein and says, “Been a hell of a long time.”

Oster hands over the Ithaca, which Danny mounts on a wall rack. Then Oster takes his department .38 from a hip holster and puts it on the desk, followed by a Heritage .25 that he pulls from an ankle rig. He straightens up, puts a hand on Gilrein’s shoulder and says, “A brother officer just got the shit kicked out of him by a couple of Kroger’s assholes. What do you think about that, Danno?”

Walden puts the handguns into a file cabinet behind him, shakes his head and says, “I think that’s something we’re going to have to look into.”

Oster extends his hand to Gilrein’s far shoulder and starts to pull him down a short, fat corridor and deeper into the factory. Walden calls from behind, “It’s good to see you, Gilrein.”

Oster is wearing steel-toe engineer’s boots and there’s an echo as the heels slap the floor. They take a left down a longer but narrower corridor and the sound of the music gets louder.

“Wait till you see what we’ve done to this place,” Oster says. “I mean the damage was unbelievable. The rear of the building is still demolished. Looks like a quarry back there. But, you know, who needs it? There’s still plenty of room.”

They come to a set of swinging double doors painted pumpkin orange. From his coat pocket, Oster pulls a thumb breaker that he’s modified into a key chain. He unlocks the doors and opens them, steps through into the main work loft of the printing mill.

He says, “Welcome to the Houdini Lounge.”

The place is lit by a few dozen fluorescent fixtures hidden behind an enormous American flag suspended from the ceiling. The oil-scarred concrete floor is squared by high brick walls. One wall houses a bank of small windows, but the majority of them have been boarded over, giving the whole room a sickly, claustrophobic air. The loft is part frat house, part pool hall, and part oldtime garage all rolled into one gritty, sweaty package. There’s a makeshift plywood stage at the close end of the room and a chunky stripper is trying to perform to a Waylon Jennings tune off a flashing Wurlitzer juke. There are folding, felt-topped card tables clustered beyond the stage, and a half-dozen poker sessions are in progress inside blue clouds of smoke. One full wall is blocked off by an endless bar made of cherry-stained plywood. The front face of the bar is bedecked with aluminum beer cans. There are no stools, everyone stands or leans. Spray painted across the length of the wall behind the bar, in a loopy kind of child’s attempt at a cursive scrawl, are the words People Disappear.

There’s a clutter of rec room games—ping pong, air hockey, pinball—seemingly plunked down with little thought given to traffic patterns or the necessity of unrestricted arm movement. An extensive Universal weight lifting system is parked beside two large-screen televisions that sit side-by-side. One screen is showing dim images of a boxing match to a group of men crammed onto a green naugahyde couch. The other is beaming a grainy, black and white skin flick to a group of men crammed onto a matching red couch. Both couches are spilling a coarse, gray-colored stuffing from split seams.

Gilrein can put a name to half the faces in the room. The other half are familiar, like younger siblings of people he might have known at one time. The stripper is the only woman in the place. Everyone else is a cop.

Oster stands with his hands on his hips surveying the scene. He turns to Gilrein and says, “Bet it makes you miss it.”

“Miss it?”

“The camaraderie. You know, being on the job.”

Gilrein says, “I’m really starting to stiffen up here.”

Oster nods, concerned and brotherly. “C’mon upstairs. We’ll get you fixed up. You’re going to be okay, Gilly.”

They make their way through the room, Gilrein’s name being called out over and over, long-neck beer bottles lifted toward him, hands clapping down on his bruised back. At the far end of the hall he follows Oster up a set of stairs to a large office lit by candles and smelling of harsh incense. The room is outfitted with a wooden desk, a leather couch and what looks like a padded hospital gurney. Hanging in a corner is a heavy bag for boxing workouts. And reclining on the couch is a small, elderly woman dressed in what, at first, looks like an old nun’s habit.

Oster snaps on a wall light and says in a loud voice, “Wake up, Mrs. Bloch.”

He closes the office door and adds, “Couple of Light White Sparks for my friend and me, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Mrs. Bloch goes to the desk, opens a drawer and removes an unlabeled bottle and two clear plastic tumblers.

“Da ist nein eis,” she says in a thick, dry accent, maybe Eastern European. “Der ma’jine brook e’gein.”

And that’s when Gilrein notices her face. Mrs. Bloch has no eyes. Or rather, where her eyes should be are two flaps of skin bulging from below the forehead to above the cheekbones. It’s as if two smooth tumors have grown over the eyes like fat pancakes. It’s possible the skin was grafted onto the face for some unknown but horrible medical reason. The skin is just slightly darker than the rest of the face, but there’s no evidence of any stitching or scarring where it melds into the original tissue.

Gilrein stares down at the floor and Mrs. Bloch comes to him and hands him his drink, then goes back to the desk, opens a new drawer and takes out a small case, about the size and shape of a cigar box, but covered in deep blue felt. She opens the top of the box back on its hinges, puts her hands inside and fiddles with something.

There are two large plate glass windows cut into the long walls of the office and facing each other. The inner window looks down over the club below. Oster moves in front of it, sheds his leather jacket and drops it on the couch, then starts to unbutton his shirt.

He turns to Gilrein suddenly and says, “I’m sorry, have a seat.”

Gilrein walks to the opposite end of the couch and sits down slowly. He takes a sip from the tumbler and tastes something like rum but with an additional medicine flavor.

Oster puts a foot up on the couch cushion and begins to unlace his boot.

“You were driving for Leonardo Tani tonight, weren’t you, Gilly?”

Gilrein’s stomach churns. He lets out some air, wonders if there’s a bathroom anywhere nearby. He says, “You’re the only one who ever called me Gilly.”

Oster kicks free the boot and goes to work on its mate.

“Not the first time you were Tani’s hack-boy. Breaks my goddamn heart, Gilly.”

Gilrein sits up, hunches over his knees even though it seems to hurt more.

“I’m a cab driver,” he says. “I got a livery medallion. I pay the city a fortune for the privilege of driving its citizens around town. That’s what I do for a living.”

“You are a goddamn cop,” Oster yells, then quiets. “And goddamn cops don’t haul goddamn piglets like Tani around the goddamn city.”

Gilrein takes a long pull of his drink, wonders if Oster would stop him if he just tried to walk out. He goes for a low voice but it just comes out weak.

“First of all, I haven’t been a cop for a long time now. Unless Bendix has been misplacing my check every week for the past three years—”

“It doesn’t work that way, Gilly,” Oster says and moves to the desk to pick up his drink. “It’s like being a priest. You can’t just walk away. It marks your soul forever.”

“And second,” Gilrein says as if he hasn’t been interrupted, “Leo Tani is a passenger like any other. He pays me my fare and tells me where to take him. It’s none of my business what he does once he gets there.”

“Is that right?” Oster says softly, then turns and moves to the far side of the desk. He slides open the middle drawer, pulls out a manila folder, walks back to Gilrein and tosses it into his lap.

Against his better judgment, Gilrein opens the file and stares down at an 8 × 10 black and white photograph in sharp focus that shows a human body bound, gagged, hanging by chains from a steel beam. And skinned of any trace of epidermal tissue. The photo is slick to the touch and has a waxy chemical smell that says it’s not long out of the bath.

“Leonardo ‘vealshank’ Tani,” Oster says, “a.k.a. Italo Sciasci, a.k.a. Oreste Calvino, a.k.a. Rollo Griswold—”

“Oh, Jesus,” Gilrein says.

“How many times did you take him down when you were working fraud?”

Gilrein doesn’t answer, just closes the folder.

“How many of your passengers end up like this, Gilly?”

“You whack him, Oster?” in an even voice.

Oster picks up his drink and raises it toward the couch.

“I whacked him, Gilly, there wouldn’t be any photos, would there?”

“The ’shank was just a goddamn fence. All he tried to do was keep everybody happy.”

“Yeah, well, looks like he dropped the ball sometime last night, doesn’t it?”

“He moved merchandise for people. What the Christ did he do?”

“You’re asking me?” Oster says. “You’re the one who spent the night driving his fat carcass around town.”

“Did Kroger do this? Is that why you were in the alley?”

Oster gives an exaggerated shrug, picks up his drink, moves to the gurney and strips off his clothes, dropping them on the floor. Gilrein sees a multicolored field of lines, different lengths and widths, that stretch from Oster’s shoulders down to his ass.

Mrs. Bloch moves around the desk, picks up the clothes, folds them against her body and places them in a neat pile on the desktop. Then she goes back to her felt-covered box and withdraws a cinched bag made of black fabric, maybe satin. She tugs open the drawstring and extracts a set of silver needles. She reaches back into the box and takes out a small glass jar.

Oster hops up onto the table and stretches out on his stomach, turns his head so he faces Gilrein.

“I hope you don’t mind if Mrs. B works while we talk,” he says. “If we miss a night, she loses a little continuity.”

Gilrein knows Oster wants to hear the question and so he stays silent, forces his host to say, “You got any tattoos, Gilly?”

Mrs. Bloch gathers her instruments and moves over to Oster. She puts her back to Gilrein so he can’t see exactly what she’s doing, but she starts to work on the area of the unmarked buttocks.

“Mrs. B is the best. No shit. Blind or no, you cannot find a better skin artist on this coast. She says you feel the design with the fingers, isn’t that right, Mrs. B? Spent some time in Tokyo. Worked on some Yakuza meat, honest to God. Big dragons and flowers. All that symbol shit. Goddamn samurai, you know?”

A new wave of nausea coasts through Gilrein. He turns sideways on the couch, looks out the window down on the main hall below, watches as the stripper puts on a terry cloth robe and joins one of the couch gangs to study how Filipino bantamweights beat the life out of each other.

“I’m getting the whole body done,” Oster says, folding his arms on the table and resting his head on top. “You ready for this, Gilly? It’s going to be a map of Quinsigamond. The whole town. I’ll be a walking goddamn roadmap. Can’t wait for the first time somebody asks me directions.”

He tries to look back behind him and Mrs. Bloch barks, “Stei steel.”

Oster stifles a laugh and says, “She’s working on Bangkok Park as we speak. Bangkok on my ass. I love this.”

Gilrein finishes his Spark, gets up off the couch, moves to the desk and takes the bottle. He stares out the rear window onto the demolished half of the factory, heaps of broken brick and twisted metal and charred wood everywhere. It looks like someone has brought in a bulldozer and tried to organize the destruction into grids, pushed mountains of debris to the sides and created an open central crater before giving up any hope of restoring anything resembling order.

“Why’d you bring me here?” he asks.

There’s a couple seconds of quiet. Voices downstairs explode into whoops and cheering.

“I know it’s horrible, Gilly,” Oster says. “I’ve never been married, but I know it’s got to be killing you. You know, we all loved Ceil. Ceil was the best.”

“We all loved Ceil,” Gilrein repeats and brings the bottle to his lips.

“But it’s just a building, all right? And it’s the only place you’re going to be safe for a while.”

Gilrein swallows. “Safe from Kroger, maybe. But what about you and the rest of the boys?”

“Oh, that’s not nice at all, Gilly. That’s out of line. That’s just goddamn outrageous. A fellow officer—”

“People disappear,” Gilrein says, quoting the graffiti behind the bar, “right, Oster? Isn’t that still the motto of the Magicians?”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing here, from a brother officer—”

“I’m just an independent hack-boy who drives piglets like Leo Tani on their mob errands.”

Oster says, “You’re all turned around, Gilrein.”

And Mrs. Bloch says, “Du stei steel,” and swats his buttocks.

“What were you doing in the alley, Sergeant?”

“Saving your lousy ass,” Oster says. “For all the good it’s going to do you.”

Gilrein walks over to the gurney, stands so that Oster has to twist his neck to see him.

“I didn’t want anything to do with the Magicians when I was a cop. I sure as hell don’t want anything to do with you scumbags now.”

Mrs. Bloch breaks off from inking an alleyway in Little Asia, folds her arms and waits for her canvas to explode.

Oster just stares up, then smiles, rests his head back down onto his arms and closes his eyes as if to nap.

Gilrein moves for the office door, taking the bottle of Light White Spark with him.

“You know what, Gilly?” Oster says and Gilrein stops in the doorway. “I think the wrong cop died when this place blew to hell.”

3

Otto Langer, the eldest of Quinsigamond’s last independent cab drivers, steers his hack into the curbstone of Dunot Boulevard and waits for his fare to climb inside. He does not activate his meter, but reaches instead for the small vial of tranquilizers that rests precariously on the dashboard, Otto’s version of a St. Christopher statuette or lucky pair of fuzzy dice. He spills one of the tiny blue pills into his palm and lifts his hand into the air for the man settling into the back seat to observe.

“I wanted you to see,” Otto says, nervous and distracted. “I have been very conscientious since the last incident. I am doing much better, doctor. I am feeling like a new man.”

As always, there’s no reply from the rear of the cab, not a grunt of acknowledgement. Otto understands that this is not rudeness per se, but a simple fact of the new methodology. And so he pulls out into Dunot and drives toward downtown without any specific destination in mind. He would feel so much better, could speak with much more clarity, he’s sure, if he had Zwack beside him, buckled in and riding shotgun, as they say. But it is another of the Inspector’s rules that the dummy remain locked in the trunk.

“I had another Gilrein dream last night, doctor. Excuse, but doctor—I have been meaning to ask, this is acceptable to you? A man with so many titles. It is hard to know which to use. Herr doctor? Herr Inspector? Perhaps even Father Emil? Of course, I mean no disrespect . . .”

A pause, waiting for reassurance even though he knows it will not come. He turns onto Monaldi Way, notes that he’s low on gas and feels his stomach tighten. Langer’s cab is a restored Bogomil Supreme, the limited edition that came with the sunroof and the tail fins. He’d love to crack open the roof right now. It’s an unusually cool night and he could use the air, but his passenger would have a fit and Otto can’t risk alienating the man right now. Progress could be just around the corner, a time when the nightmares and the migraines will finally cease.

“In the dream,” plunging back in, “Gilrein was again dressed in the Censor’s uniform, but he was not holding the knife this time. In fact, I had the distinct impression that he had misplaced the knife. I thought you might find this significant. You understand, I am not attempting to tell you your work. After all, you are the doctor. And I must stress, once again, how much I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. I still wish you would accept some form of payment.”

The passenger shifts in the enormity of the taxi’s back seat.

“Yes, of course, I realize the conditions of your arrangement with the Facility. I researched the term—pro bono. But you must allow me to say, it’s only my opinion of course, the word of an ignorant droshky driver, but the people at the Toth, perhaps they do not realize the treasure they have in such an associate? Again, it is none of my business.”

The passenger gives out a dry cough. Otto flinches and the Bogomil jerks a bit and crosses the center line. He rights the hack as an oncoming motorcycle is forced to skid wide. The biker gives him the finger and a chorus of unintelligible obscenity.

“Forgive me, doctor. The pills sometimes affect my concentration. And without sleep, well, you can imagine. I have a love-hate relationship with the night shift, doctor. We avoid the traffic, but there is sometimes a loneliness in the empty streets, you understand? It is a different city at night. All cities are different in the night, yes? And yet, the night is an opportunity. I see things that I would never see in the day. I am witness to a parade of nocturnal oddities. Some of the spectacles are mundane, events that could happen in the glare of the noon hour. But seen at night, they are changed somehow. They take on a new significance. They leave a very different taste. Let me give you an example. Last week, over on French Hill, I saw a dog that had been hit by a car. Killed. A large dog. Enormous. A mastiff, I believe. This is the breed, yes? There was a small girl kneeling by the body of the animal. Just a child. All alone. No more than seven or eight years old, if I am any judge. Dressed in a nightgown. The girl was howling. Crying and shrieking and moaning in a way that I have heard referred to as keening. I am almost certain this was the term. I am sure this sound was what it meant. She was on her knees, bent over the carcass of the beast, her arms trying to lift the dead weight of the thing.

“Now you would ask, why did I not stop and help the girl, console the poor child? And that question, doctor, excuse, would show your ignorance of the taxi business and the night shift. You do not get out of your cab. You are only safe inside of your cab.

“Another time, last winter, I was circling the rotary at Bishop Square and I looked up to the roof of the old train station and at the very top was an enormous burning cross. It looked as if it had been constructed out of two gargantuan telephone poles. And it was blazing. A genuine inferno. I pulled up next to the front steps where a woman was holding a camera, taking pictures of the flaming cross. I rolled down my window and she yelled to me that she was from The Spy though I had not asked. I nodded to her and drove on. I checked the paper for the next week, but there were no pictures of this curiosity.

“Do you begin to understand why I both love and, at the same time, hate my job, doctor?

“There was a night last month. I had just dropped a fare at Camp Litzmann, a warehouse in German Town that sometimes serves as an after-hours club. I was winding my way back to the Visitation when I made a foolish turn down one of the service alleys of the textile park. The price I pay for seeking a shortcut, I know. My way was immediately blocked by a small crowd and they swarmed around me before I could shift into reverse. They were waving money at me, their hands stuffed with bills of every denomination and many countries of origin. I almost panicked, was ready to mow them down before I realized they meant me no harm. They were all locked in a mass gambling frenzy. A man like yourself, doctor, a counselor, a healer of the mind, surely you know how frightening this kind of mob can initially seem. I shook my head at them as they pounded on my window and in the middle of my protests a space opened before me and I was able to see, for a moment or two, the nature of the sport upon which they wagered. There were two men facing one another within the confines of a chalk circle. They were stripped to the waist. They were connected, one to the other, by a long stretch of rope, the kind of taut, white rope used in the making of drying lines for clothing. The rope was tied at each ankle. It allowed them, at their farthest distance, to reach opposite curves of the chalk circle. They were chasing each other, perpetually maneuvering to intercept one another. And they were both bearing enormous machetes in one hand. A moment after I understood what was happening, one of the players charged his opponent. And in the instant they passed each other, the blade was thrust and found its mark, sliced into the unfortunate combatant and came close to severing his arm from his shoulder.

“I sometimes think that just seeing these things is like having a curse put on my head. Do you agree, doctor?”

They slow to a stop at a red light and the passenger ignites one of his cigars, a signal that he will not tolerate much more digression.

“Yes, of course, Inspector, I’m wasting your valuable time. I apologize for the foolish ramblings of an old man. I would ask that you remember that, even after all these years, the English is a second language to me. It never comes as easily as my native tongue. Gilrein and Miss Jocasta, they grow so impatient with me at times.

“But where were we last night? Where did we leave off? I know I had come to speak of the July Sweep. As I always do. Everything leads to the Sweep and the Orders of Erasure. This should not surprise though, should it, doctor? Surely I’m not the only Maisel Jew to obsess on this particular topic? If only I could explain it in the words of my people. It would all be so much more vivid. It would bring the event to life. I know, with as much force of certainty as I know my name, that I could not bear to live through the ordeal again. I no longer have this type of strength. There are times, when I wake from one of the nightmares and I am bathed in the sweat and the tears and the heart is doing things that it should not do, there are times when I wish I could give this burden to someone else. Hand it away. No matter what the consequences. No matter what this would mean regarding the kind of man I have become.

“I wish on those occasions, doctor, that I could restage every heinous instant of that night in July, replay it right here on the streets of my new home, for everyone to see and hear and smell, replay it until they could never forget what they had witnessed. No matter how hard they tried.

“For if you yourself, doctor, yes, even so fine a man as yourself, of great strength and character and learning, if you were to look out that window there, if you were to turn your head and witness what took place in Maisel, in the Schiller Ghetto on the night of the July Sweep, it would never leave you, doctor. It would change you permanently.

“The best I can do for you, however, is simply tell the story.”

Without any warning, Langer jerks the taxi into a U-turn and his passenger loses his balance and pitches into the door. Otto offers no explanation or apology.

“You must understand, herr doctor, what I need to tell you is that to this day, my homeland, the cursed city of my birth, is alive inside of me. This is how I feel day and night. This is what I live with. The waters of the Zevlika rushing through my veins. The portals of the hunger tower sitting behind my eyes. My brain is nothing but the street of my youth, the cul de sac of the Ezzenes.

“Maisel is the most superstitious city on the earth, doctor. You must know some of our legends—the water spirits of the River Zevlika. The headless Templar. The alchemist Mladtus who was pulled through the floorboards of his house straight into hell. Yes, you have heard the tales? In your own youth, perhaps? Ghost stories told in the dark by overexcited children? Allow me now to tell you a new story, doctor. One to put the old myths in perspective.”

I was not always a cab driver, Inspector. Does this surprise you? Back in Maisel, I was a biloquist. A common street performer. What you would call a ventriloquist. For the most part, I was self-taught. In my early youth I had studied the ghetto clowns who worked in Old Loew Square. My father had died before my birth. We lived with my mother’s family in the Schiller Ghetto. Before coming to Quinsigamond, I lived all of my life in the Schiller. So it is as something of an expert that I tell you that of all the Jews in all of Old Bohemia, the Schiller Jews were, perhaps, the poorest. And the most despised. You have heard something, no doubt, about the decade of pogroms in Maisel? Most of those attacks were on the Schiller Ghetto.

My people could neither be called orthodox nor reformed. We were more of a sect set apart, looked upon suspiciously, at times, even by the larger Jewish community. Or is this just an old man’s paranoia? If so, doctor, I feel I have earned it. We were called The Ezzenes. We were, by and large, all progeny of the Hasidim of Maccabean times. Perhaps the best way to explain, to define, our specific bond would be to say that we built our lives around a basic, unshakable cosmology which involved a complicated tradition of gnostic belief that one day God would speak to us directly. No more need for prophets nor dreams nor glossolalia. From God’s lips to our ears in a language we would both share. Over generations this dogma became mingled with an intense respect for the liberty and dignity and imagination of all peoples, a code of what you might call inalienable rights, as well as a strict, intractable, adherence to a unilateral pacifism.

The Schiller was the heart, and, I am forced to add, the soul, of the entire Jewish Quarter of Maisel. It was simply a complex of adjoining tenements on a small spit of an alley—a dead end, you would say—off Namesti Avenue. There were thirteen rickety buildings in all and they formed a kind of horseshoe at the end of the alley, six buildings on either side of the street and one long, narrow, bridging unit at the far end. I had a friend, a very funny young man and, I will admit, something of a troublemaker. He called this building the pelvis