The War Against the Assholes (16 page)

The elevator was also larger than it could possibly have been. It had that unmistakable elevator smell. Smell of the mundane. High-test brass polish and lemon oil. Alabama and Sasha went in first, scuttling backward. Sasha seemed to be taking her captivity with detachment. Then again, I hadn't broken her wrist. Quinn was sucking air in through his mouth. Expelling it. Vincent had Quinn's wounded arm twisted up behind his back. Smart play. You get hold of a broken limb and you can make sure its owner stays docile. The elevator moved slowly. Alabama kept her gun at Sasha's temple. Sasha pressing her lips together and staring dead ahead. A look of total shutdown. True, taking hostages is a surefire cockblock. You have to make sacrifices in the name of the greater good. “Frankly,” said Alabama, “I didn't think you had it in you.” I managed not to puke on my shoes. “What floor,” I said. “It's not like that,” said Sasha, “it just goes to Verner's office.” “Hey, let me ask you,” I said, since I figured I really had no shot with her now, “why do you get to call him Verner. He's in charge. In my school it's nuns and I don't even know their actual names.” Sasha ignored me. Quinn sobbed. I got a weird vibe: this is your life, Mike Wood, fistfights and walking around at night and never getting a straight answer.

I started to chuckle. So did Alabama. “Not funny, you guys,” said Vincent. He was already laughing. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” I said, or tried to say, to Quinn, who was looking at me with fear and glittering hate, “it's just funny, you have to admit.” I was whooping now, propped against one wall, my whole body aflame. Vincent guffawed and wiped his eyes with his free hand. “Sociopaths,” Sasha whispered. “Hold on, Dr. Freud,” said Vincent, through his dying chuckles, “we're not sociopaths.” I was—as I would have put it then—fucking dying, gasping for air. Alabama bit her lower lip again and again to stop herself. Her gun never left Sasha's temple. Quinn kept sobbing. We stopped moving. “Okay, okay,” said Vincent, “everybody get serious.” This set me off again. Alabama too. My jaw ached now. The doors slid back. We all shut up.

Stars. Night sky. A painted dome. A glass dome. No dome, rather. The night sky itself. The blue night and its unrecognizable stars, and the strange, aching scent of its trees. Before us, a long, wide room appointed in leather and blond wood: two huge sofas, an end table supporting a massive, brown-and-beige globe. Bookcases, loaded. The skeleton of a gazelle, I thought, set up on wires. White-painted walls with dark wooden beams and doors set in them. I counted four. The vast night for a ceiling. The air cool and fresh. The air of the out of doors. A comet streaked, hair-thin and bright. Vincent jerked his head to watch and Quinn slipped away. I didn't care. I didn't care if they killed me. To have seen this would have made death worthwhile. This vast alien sky and this lonely, warm platform beneath, across which we were marching. Quinn was yelling, “Uncle Verner, Uncle Verner.” Tears throbbing in his voice. I didn't see Potash, at first. Then I noticed him, sitting on the edge of a vast desk, shooting a deck of cards from one hand to the other. “How does it go about the mountain and Muhammad,” he called. “Verner, they tried to kill us,” said Quinn. Emphasis on
kill
. That whiner. “Quiet,” said Potash. His thin nephew, the boy with the animal teeth, stopped speaking. “Come in, come in,
mi casa
and all that,” said Potash. He was speaking to Vincent and staring at the canvas sack he carried. No wall behind Potash's desk. Just more night and the branches of an enormous tree, thick as human waists and thighs, knotted and covered in waving, sword-shaped leaves.

The white woman: nowhere. I kept checking behind the sofas. For quick-moving shadows. I sniffed the air for her wet-stone scent. Nothing. Did not mean we were safe. I was glad I detected nothing all the same. If she was going to appear and slaughter us, I'd rather it come as a surprise. Potash was bobbing his head. If he went for his wand, I decided, I'd have another run at him. He had a punchable face. “Mr. Potash,” said Alabama, “we don't mean you any harm. We just came to make the exchange. All this is accidental.” Sasha gulped. Didn't speak. Alabama's version: not strictly true. True enough, however. “I trusted,” said Potash, “my own blood. No one believes as firmly in their right to screw you. And this one has always been more than a bit of a moron. So the blame, I think, lies with me.” He stroked his right palm with his left. Like a usurer. No offense to the Jews. Quinn stared at his uncle. Lips quivering. I didn't know how I'd feel if my uncle sold me down the river, morally speaking. Then again, I don't have any uncles. Just aunts. “Where's my brother,” said Vincent. “He's in the next room,” said Potash. “Get him,” said Vincent. “You're being hasty,” said Potash. The tree rustled. I stared. “Miraculous, no,” said Potash. He was right. No other word for it. “Iron Tom, he's called,” said Potash. The name filled me with a yearning ache. Or simply the fact that this great and unknown tree bore a human name at all. “Is it an oak,” I said. “No,” said Potash, “this is not really the neighborhood for oaks.”

“How is it spring,” I said. “Go get my brother,” Vincent said. Sasha tried to break free. She whined and gasped as Alabama choked her. “Your brother's asleep,” said Potash, “he wakes up when what he stole is in my hand.” I started praying. Ave Marias. For Vincent not to fuck this up. All he had to do was toss Potash the canvas sack. Vincent was staring at the fat man. Who smiled. A sunny uncle. Alabama's shoes squeaked against the floor. “
Gratia plena
,” I muttered. Without meaning to. “A religious man as well as an educated one,” said Potash. Vincent tossed him the sack. “Through that door,” said Potash, gestur­ing with his ringed hand: a two-fingered pass. A benediction. The one nearest us. Vincent ran and leaned against the jamb. Said his brother's name. No answer. “Still groggy,” said Potash, examining the
mappa
, “Verner Potash.” I could see the inverses of the lines forming: the warm lamplight poured through the paper. “Hob,” said Vincent. Louder. Again, no answer. He tried the handle. Locked in place.

“You motherfucker,” said Vincent. Alabama let go of Sasha and aimed at Potash. “Don't move and don't speak,” said Alabama, “and get your hands up, palms facing me.” Potash had gone gray. Now I was worried. Vincent started throwing himself into the door. Grunting each time. He got nowhere. Sasha's hand crept toward her green pendant. “I'll fuck you up,” I said to her, “if you try anything. Even worse than him. And you're really cute, so it would doubly suck.” I don't know if I actually would have gone through with it. The threat worked. I felt like a shitbag but what can you do. Sasha dropped her hand. I kept watch. Vincent placed his palms against the door. Veins stood out in his neck. The living wood cracked, groaned, cried out—a crease, a furrow appeared in the middle and deepened. Sap leaked. Sprayed. The door split. The hinge side swung limply. The handle side fell. Vincent sprinted in, his gasps for breath ragged and high. Calling his brother's name in between them. Dead silence. “Hob,” I heard. Not a shout. A whisper. Then: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, motherfucker, fuck.” Screams. Each rawer than the last.

“Let's get to it,” said Alabama. Before I could do anything, before I could speak, she started firing. Just like she was pointing out a vista with her index finger. Not aiming at her target. Who was already chanting (I caught the French word
feu
) and moving his lifted hands. His ring starting to glow: umber, black, crimson, aquamarine. He'd decided to take his chances. Not quick enough. Alabama shot him in his right palm, then his left. He stopped chanting. The ring stopped glowing. Alabama shot his left knee, then his right. No recoil, no repositioning. Point with the barrel and fire. That's all. Before Potash fell, squealing, Alabama shot Sasha and Quinn. She kept her eyes on Potash the whole time, firing to her left, her arm out and stiff. This huge gun. Quieter than I'd guessed. Then I remembered. No ceiling. The shots half-echoed. Noise lost in the huge night. I could not move. Sasha and Quinn each took a bullet. In the same spot on both their bodies: about three inches from the right clavicle edge. I saw the blood bloom. I saw them stumble and hit the wall. Slide down. Leaving red traces. They were both whining and yowling with pain. Animal pain. Potash hissed: “This isn't.” The
mappa
fluttered on his desk edge. “If he starts talking again, finish him off,” said Alabama. To me. “Okay,” I said. My lips cold with panic. I'd never been given an order to kill before. The fat man curled in front of his desk, gritting his teeth and grinning. I had to give him credit. He took the pain better than his students. “Necessary,” he said. His neck and jowls oyster colored. “It's not in my hands,” I said, “any longer.”

Vincent charged through the side doorway. The still-attached door half banged against his shoulder: a swift blow. He ignored it. He was sobbing. He leaned against the wall, his face wet and his fists clenched. Alabama crossed the carpet. I remember the precise, padding sounds her feet made, left-right-left-right, amid the cries and labored breathing of the three people she'd shot. She looked through the door, one hand on Vincent's chest. She looked a long time. The side room lamp-lit. I could see a bed. Two shoes. A wooden table. The brown edge of a blanket. It looked military. That's all. I was looming over the hard-breathing fat man. His bone-chip necklace clicked as he shook. Shock, I guessed. “Who did this,” said Alabama. Still staring into the room. Potash's chin thudded on carpet. Blood from his knee and hand wounds spread. The carpet drank it. He started to move his mouth. Alabama interrupted: “No, no. I'm asking you once. If anything other than a person's name comes out when you answer, that's it.” Potash gulped air. He set his teeth. “Go ahead,” said Alabama. “You don't,” said Potash. As far as he got. Alabama half-turned toward us. Stiffened her arm. Bit her lower lip and fired. She might as well have had her eyes shut. Potash's bulky body leaped. His forehead caved in above his left eye. Blood sprayed my shoes and pant cuffs. The noise still not the thunderous sound I'd been expecting. Flakes of smoldering yellow wood dust fountained into the air. The bullet had struck his desk after passing through his head. Potash kicked. His glossy shoes drummed. Their laces scuttered against the floor. He groaned. Then he was still. “Jesus,” I said. “Come here,” Alabama said. Vincent was weeping.

What it was, I knew already. A sweet stink in the side room. A leaden, long-brewed silence. I shut my eyes, I admit it, as I stepped across the threshold. I didn't want to look. In the end, you have to look. A simple bed. I'd seen its foot already. Above it the same impossible and starry sky. A wooden table, on which sat a half-drunk glass of water, now bubbling and stale. On the bed lay Hob. Or what had once been Hob. His throat sliced open. I saw: white gristle, blackish inner flesh. Gray tubes. The pinkish root of his tongue. The bedclothes brown with dried blood. His eyes open. His mouth open. I touched his palm. Without meaning to. His small hands locked and flexed as though in terror.

22

H
e was alive when I talked to him,” said Vincent, “he was alive when I talked to him.” “You don't know that,” said Alabama. She was chivvying Quinn and Sasha upright, their backs against a wall. They left curved smears of fresh blood, charting their movement. “Please don't kill us,” said Quinn. Pleading. His face ashen. His animal teeth agleam in the lamplight. Sasha wasn't talking. Her eyelids fluttered. I respected her silence. “Fix them,” Alabama said to Vincent. “Not going to happen,” he said through his tears. “There's already one person dead here,” she said. “Fuck you,” Vincent said again, “there's two.” “You know what I meant,” said Alabama. Vincent took Quinn by the throat and spat into his face as he pressed his palm against the wound. Cords stretched in Vincent's neck. His eyes bulged. Quinn's color returned: ashes and chalk no more. Vincent palmed Sasha's shoulder. “Don't look at me,” he said. Chin shaking. Sweat dripping. She kept her face turned. When he removed his hand the red patch on her white shirt stopped growing. He showed Alabama his open palm. Two bullets. Still gory. “Satisfied,” he said. He pocketed the rounds. His knees buckled. He steadied himself.

Are you an asshole.
So said Mr. Stone.
One true art exists: the art of choice.
So said Erzmund. No comfort to be derived from those words. Even though Potash had killed Hob. Worse: tried to deny it. You only redouble your guilt through equivocation and lying. Still, when you're young, your stupidity, commonly called innocence, enfolds and insulates you. All the same I was cold. Stunned and light-headed. Potash lay at my feet. One arm upraised as though in victory. Even dead, he looked like a fucking magician. Far more so than his protégés. Who seemed to have fallen asleep under Vincent's ministrations. Sasha snored. Mouth open. Her tongue large and pink. Quinn cradled his broken wrist. Even in sleep. “This is bullshit,” Vincent said. His voice crumpled and low. “He was alive. It was him. This is not how it's supposed to go,” he said. “I know that,” said Alabama. “What am I going to do about my parents? They think he's on a trip to Spain,” he said. His voice broke.

The elevator entrance we'd stepped through: gone. Replaced by blank white plaster. A reproduction of a painting hung smugly on the wall. Farmhouse, hillside, golden crops, and in the foreground a white-blossomed chestnut tree. “How long are they going to sleep for,” said Alabama. “I don't know,” said Vincent, “but can we kill them too.” “Let's not argue in circles here,” I said. Alabama slid her pistol back into the waistband of her jeans. “He's correct,” she said. She looked pale. Even for her. Sweat gemmed her hairline and her cheeks looked hollow. We checked the other side rooms: they all had beds. Beds and end tables and starry ceilings. Another comet streaked. Vincent kicked Potash's corpse. His bone chip rattled. Vincent knelt and snapped the chain. Worked the ring off his finger. “Vincent,” said Alabama. “Don't try,” said Vincent, “to lay any solemnity bullshit on me. He's my brother. Plus Stone will want these.”

Cold pressure against the underside of my neck. The flesh on my arms knotted into goose bumps. Horripilation. That's what that's called. Another word I learned from Hob. “We need to leave,” I said. No certain knowledge. I had a strong guess. She was on her way. Messaline. My cock got rock-hard. This bothered me more than anything else that had happened so far. Another sign of youth, which is to say stupidity. Mike Wood: standing in a room with two corpses, sporting a hard-on for a nine-hundred-year-old witch. “We have to take him with us,” said Vincent. Not a question, or even a proposal. Just a simple statement of fact. “You know that's not possible,” said Alabama. Vincent examined the bone chip. Held it up in the air, to catch the sourceless light. The chip glowed, translucent. “It is possible, Alabama, so we're going to take him with us.” He pocketed the necklace. Slipped the ring on his own finger. “That fat cocksucker,” he said: the fit was too loose. “We can't do it,” said Alabama, “I'm sorry.” Vincent bent over Sasha, his hands at her throat. He was removing her green pendant. Not hurting her, as I'd first imagined. He did not look at Alabama. His voice: quiet. The voice a teacher uses when talking to a stupid and recalcitrant child. “We can do it, and we are going to do it,” he said, “we are going to take him back with us.”

“You know how to get back,” said Alabama. Vincent didn't answer. The cold draft started to stir the papers on Potash's desk and finger the pages of the phone-book-sized volume that lay open upon it. Angular characters, tiny, covered them. “You even know how to get out of here,” she said. Vincent said nothing. Sasha whimpered in her sleep. “We need to leave,” I said. The air carried the scent of stone or snow. Her scent. My blood pounded. Rose to my neck, cheeks, hairline. “Vincent, I am so sorry to say this but we can't, we just can't,” said Alabama. She barked the last word. I'd never heard her raise her voice before. “We can, we can,” Vincent said, “we can and we're going to.” His voice broke on the final syllable. Sasha's pendant dangled from his upraised fist. The chain tinkling in the rising cold wind. I think Vincent knew we couldn't. He still had to object. That point comes for everyone. Keep silent and you won't able to face yourself every morning in the mirror. Hard enough to do that anyway. The air: cooling down. “Do you feel that,” I said. Alabama nodded. “No exit,” said Vincent, “like that stupid play.” “That's not true, though,” I said. Alabama followed my glance. The branches. The night. A long, singing sigh ran through the cooling air. As though Mountjoy House itself were sighing with weariness. “Just climb down, you mean,” said Vincent. “Why not? I'd rather die on the run,” said Alabama. “They're not going to kill us,” said Vincent, “they're a bunch of cowards.”

Hob. His thin throat open. Bleeding out in that guest bed. Vincent looked at me. I looked at him. Another musical groan filled the air. Growing colder. “Do you really want to wait around,” I said, “until whatever it is shows up to deal with us?” Alabama sat astride a branch. “It's stable,” she said. “No,” said Vincent. “You think he would have wanted you dead, too,” said Alabama. Vincent ground his fists into his eyes. I felt even sicker. I'd never seen anyone killed. When you've beaten a guy into unconsciousness, he still breathes. His eyes still quiver. Under his lids.
Never, never, never, never, never.
The words chased themselves, a mocking chant. Vincent was breathing through his teeth and saying, “Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay?” He finished by screaming. Alabama didn't respond. Iron Tom, Mr. Potash had called the tree. It. Him. “Smells like lavender,” said Alabama, “the leaves I mean.” Vincent said, “You useless.” Voice clogged with spittle. Didn't supply a noun. I breathed the lavender scent. Not lavender. Similar. It masked the cloying smell of Potash's blood. He put one hand on a wide, warm branch. He lifted his right foot.

And then he lowered it. He seemed to be listening. To a voice he could barely hear. “Don't be an idiot,” said Alabama. “Don't tell me what to do,” said Vincent. The air got colder. My blood pumped. Heart, lungs, brain, hands, cock. It increased the after-pains. I had to bite my lip. “Do you see what's going on here,” said Alabama. “I'm not leaving him,” said Vincent, “I don't care what happens. Do you understand me? Do you understand me? Do you understand me?” He'd started crying again. So, to my shock, had Alabama. Not weeping. Tears were sliding down her face. I was on an outside branch already. Alabama was still bathed in the warm light of the office. Which is how I saw her tears. “Vincent,” she said, “he's dead, all right?” Vincent shrugged and smiled. His brother's crooked, abashed smile. “I'm going,” he said, “to be fine.” He chewed his lip as he spoke. I thought from tears. Wrong. Laughter. I didn't blame him. Alabama didn't speak. She squirreled out and joined me on my branch and we started to climb down. The air strange. I inhaled. Balmy. Still. Leaf scented. Water scented. Calming and still. It reminded me of the smoke from Vincent's cigarettes.

Vincent: outlined in shadow, poised among the branches. Mountjoy House sighing and the cold wind rising and rising within it. The night-colored river I'd seen from the library windows divided the lawn below us. Not far down: thirty, forty feet. The geometry of the building I could not fathom. From our perch in the tree we could see that the roofs of Mountjoy, angled and canted and looking built up over time with no plan, spread and spread. The roofs of a small city. The roofless projection of the building that housed Potash's office—former office, I should say—was half supported by wood and masonry and half supported by the trunk and branches of Iron Tom. The elevator ride made no sense in this context. Then again, neither had the lobby or library. Or the fact that we were shimmying down a giant tree of no known species under a sky full of stars neither of us recognized. Not that we were nature scouts. Night sounds. Babble of the river.

You don't get a lot of tree-climbing practice in Manhattan. So we struggled. I admit. Though the tree seemed to have been designed for human climbing. Deep hand- and footholds in the bark, honey colored; branches sticking out every five or six feet. I say
we struggled
: I mean I struggled. Alabama never missed a grab or a foot-plant. The large, serrated leaves rustled as we passed through them. They brushed our faces and ears. With curiosity, almost. Nothing malign. “I can't believe we're actually doing this,” said Alabama. I did not know if she meant descending to the unfamiliar ground. Or leaving Hob's dead body and Vincent's living one in Potash's office. Or both. Or neither. Out over the lawn fireflies pulsed gently, white, amber, orange, pink. The same insects had been trapped in the jars in the library to give light. I couldn't believe we were doing this either. Descending. That Hob was dead. That we were alive. That Alabama Sturdivant had just murdered the de facto head of the theurgical community on the East Coast, as Mr. Stone would have put it. I could not believe how easy it had been. Mr. Stone had made him sound extremely dangerous. He had taken Hob, the first time, with such little effort. Then again, all I'd had was my fist. He had a bodyguard. Fat guys, I reasoned, get complacent. And if you have to jabber on for two to five seconds before you get down to business, a girl with a gun will defeat you. Especially if you are doing the jabbering on in a foreign language. A simple question of tactics.

The grass of the lawn lapping Mountjoy House reached my ankles. We stood there in the unseasonal warmth in our coats and hats. Alabama pressed her hand against the tree trunk. Then we started off. Walking along the river toward the forest edge. Across the meadow field. Under the alien stars. Cry of night birds. At least I assumed they were birds. “He's going to get killed,” I said. “Yes. I think so. The air kind of smells like Connecticut in April,” said Alabama.