The Winter Family (23 page)

“Very well,” the barber said grandly, and spun Winter away from the mirror and tilted his head back into the sink. The warm water rose up around his ears and the barber sank his fingers into his scalp.

“You have the most beautiful hair,” the barber said. “It’s fine, but strong, like silk.”

Winter said nothing. He looked at the ceiling and relaxed. I’m in the city, he thought. Sinful old Chicago. Getting my hair done at a two-dollar barbershop. What would he think of that, I wonder.

The barber raised Winter out of the sink, spun the chair around, and began to dry his hair vigorously with a towel. Again he deeply massaged Winter’s scalp and the back of his neck with his strong fingers. Then he ran the comb through Winter’s hair and snipped away, taking a little bit at a time. Eventually the barber was satisfied. He then applied a hot towel to Winter’s cheeks, rubbing gently back and forth, and laid on the lather from a brush.

The razor glided across his flesh again and again. It was strange that an act so close to being deadly could be so soothing.

“No mustache,” the barber said. It was not a question and Winter did not demur.

He applied scented aftershave to Winter’s face and the back of his neck, and then he used hair cream to shape Winter’s shortened hair into ringlets against the side of his face.

“Voilà!” the barber exclaimed.

Lukas, whose haircut was done, brayed with laughter.

Winter came very close to telling the barber to cut it all off. Yet something stopped him, as if he caught a glimpse of something he remembered faintly but could not identify. He ought not to like the haircut—it was pretentious and affected. It made him look ridiculous. And yet. It was not precisely weak looking, so much as wholly different. Alien. He liked that it was tightly controlled, carefully designed, that it was urban, that it was modern, that it was fashionable. He liked that his father would have despised it. He liked that by wearing it he was showing he did not care what men thought of him.

“All right,” Winter said.

“All right!” the barber said.

In the hotel’s restaurant, Lukas ordered a series of desserts: fruit pies, cakes, and ice cream. Winter had a coffee and bacon and eggs. They drew many stares but no one approached them. At three they returned to the tailor.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Jones said. “You’re looking mighty fine.”

“Auggie’s a dandy now!” Lukas giggled.

The boy put his suit on first. It was a little long in the legs, so Jones pinned it up and drew on it with chalk and muttered numbers to himself under his breath, and then took it all off. Lukas stood stark naked in the shop with his hands on his hips while Winter tried his suit on.

“It don’t fit right,” Winter said.

“It fits you like a glove, son,” Jones replied.

“The shoulders are tight,” Winter said. “The sleeves are short.”

“Excuse me,” Jones said, “but I’ve been a tailor in this city for thirty years and I’ve put a lot of uncivilized men in their first suits. I’m telling you it’s supposed to fit like that and I think I’d know.”

Winter seemed momentarily at a loss.

“Put your tie on,” Jones said, “and pull your pants up.”

“I don’t like ’em that high.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Jones said. “Use the suspenders.”

Winter did as he was instructed, slowly and reluctantly. His movements were stiff with anger. Jones seemed oblivious, focused
entirely on Winter’s clothes. For his part, Lukas wasn’t laughing anymore. Instead he stood with his mouth gaping open, his eyes wide, like he had fallen into a trance on his feet.

“Go on,” Jones said. “Take a look. You look like … well. I’m not exactly sure.”

Winter walked up to the mirror and stopped in his tracks.

“There it is,” he whispered. “There.”

The suit, indeed, fit him well. It clung to him tightly but it was still composed of crisp, straight lines. As if it had hardened him, made him into something geometric. Unnaturally clean. An entirely new thing. His appearance now was to his old like what a cut gem is to a rough stone: the ordinary refined through artisanship to a higher form of nature. Extraneous parts removed to catch the light and to set a fire inside.

Winter took a few steps forward and reached out and touched the mirror.

This was it. This was what he had been looking for all his life without realizing it. This look, this studied, practiced, contrived look, was the truest outward expression of his inner being.

“Well?” Jones said.

“Okay,” Winter said. “Okay.”

When Reggie Keller arrived at the Michigan Avenue Hotel, a large crowd of newspaper reporters were standing around the front step in cheap suits, smoking and spitting and laughing. The shutters were fastened and the door was locked.

“Well son of a bitch,” Reggie said.

He was now a tall, broad man with good teeth and wavy golden hair. He smiled—handsome and healthy and unconcerned, and of slightly less than average intelligence, and wanted for murder—and strolled up to the reporters.

“What’s all the fuss about?” he asked.

“Don’t ya read the papers?” one of the reporters said.

“Hell no,” Reggie said.

“The Republican Party brought in a pack of criminals from down south for the election.”

“Those fuckers,” Reggie said.

“No one’s allowed in or out,” the reporter said. “They say the place is under renovations. The police are going to kick in the door any minute now.”

“Well,” Reggie said, “we’ll just see about that.”

He hammered on the front door with both of his muscular arms.

“Hey!” he cried. “Hey! Open up in there!”

There was no answer, and so he drummed harder.

“Let me in, you fucking mercenary sons of bitches!”

When his arms got tired he stopped. Some tittering came from the reporters. But then a bolt shifted on the other side of the door and it cracked open a bit and Reginald slipped inside.

“Why, Dusty Kingsley,” he said. “As I live and fucking breathe.”

Dusty held a finger to his mouth and bolted the door as the reporters rushed forward, shouting in surprise and amusement. Dusty beckoned and Reggie followed him through the darkened lobby into the dining room.

Most of the crew were lounging around drinking and playing cards. The waitstaff had vanished.

“It is you!” Quentin cried.

Reggie smiled, innocent, open. They crowded around him. Quentin, in the center, banging his spoon against his goblet. Dusty Kingsley with his ironic smile. Charlie Empire, swaying on his feet, holding a bottle of bourbon by its neck, Johnny grinning madly. The only ones who were not smiling were Fred Johnson and Jan Müller. Johnson was leaning up against the bar, drinking soda water and shaking his head in disgust. Jan sat stiffly at a table. He nodded once at Reggie but said nothing.

“Do you have a drink?” Quentin called. “Someone get him a drink. All right. Gentlemen, gentlemen. A toast! I give you Reggie ‘Babe’ Keller. To the Baby!”

“To the Baby!” everyone called, and they drained their glasses.

When they were done Charlie pivoted and whipped his bottle up at the chandelier, missing it by a good three feet but causing general hilarity. Dusty smashed his glass on the ground and the other men
followed suit. Then Charlie ran across the room and flipped over a table, knocking chairs left and right and sending a crash of silverware onto the floor.

Everyone laughed, but when Charlie turned back toward them, his face was twisted with a rage so black it was almost insane.

“You laughing at me?” he shouted, pulling a knife from his belt. He loped toward them but fell down a couple of times on the way and was easily restrained by Johnny.

Reggie chuckled, then said, “So’d you hear the news?”

“About the mercenaries in the Michigan Hotel?” Dusty said. “Yeah, we heard it.”

“Naw,” Reginald said. “Winter’s joined the Klan!”

“Reggie, come now,” Quentin said. “You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

“Papers, hell!” Reggie said. “I went to the City of Kansas looking for you all and I showed up at Molly Shakespeare’s place right after Winter and Lukas had left. The whole town was talking about it. He’d been buying bathtub gin with twenty-dollar gold coins. He hit that train with the Klan, no doubt.”

At the bar, Johnson’s eyes went wide. Everyone else fell silent. Reggie’s smile faded slowly.

“No, I cannot believe it,” Jan said from his table, the first words he’d said. “I do not put anything past young Winter, but I cannot see how they would have him.”

“How they’d have him?” Reggie said. “Shit, Sarge. The Klan ain’t what it used to be. They’re mostly bandits and moonshiners now. They wear the white robes so no one’ll prosecute. Winter was with ’em when they hit the post office, banks, trains. That kind of job. He ain’t torching schools or shooting senators or nothing. It’s just funny, is all.”

“It’s not fucking funny,” Johnson said. His voice was a low rumble.

“Now, Fred,” Reggie said. “You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Johnson said. “You better know what I mean. Riding with the Klan? The Klan?” Johnson’s voice rose dangerously.

“It was just for the money!” Reggie said. “They weren’t picking on colored folks.”

“In any case, he’s not our problem any longer,” Quentin said. “Let’s all have another drink.”

Johnson looked as if he would say more. But then shook his head, glowered at everyone, and turned to the mirror.

At that moment, Noah entered the room.

“Noah!” Quentin cried. “Everyone, it’s my brother! Someone get him a drink.”

“Well,” Reginald said. “I’ll be double damned if he ain’t your spitting image, Quentin.”

“Fuck him,” Charlie said, but Johnny clapped a hand over his mouth.

Noah walked over to the men slowly, looking around at the shattered glass and overturned tables. By the time he reached them they had fallen quiet.

“Gentlemen,” Noah said. “The police will be here at any minute. You have to get out, and you obviously can’t go through the front door. Fortunately, there’s a passage under the street that leads to a restaurant I own. Please gather up your things.”

“Of course, Brother,” Quentin said. “Johnson, go upstairs and get Bread.”

Charlie’s eyes glittered at Noah from over Johnny’s thick fingers.

Unlike the hotel, the restaurant was actually being renovated. The walls were unpainted and unpapered, the floor was rough and uneven, and there was no furniture save for a few tables and chairs.

When the men woke the next day they were stiff from sleeping on the floor. There was no food in the pantry and the men did not have much to entertain them other than a deck of cards. They spent the morning sitting around at the tables and staring at the boarded-up windows and making desultory attempts at conversation.

Charlie was badly hungover and his mood was as black as tar. He was the one to finally say it. “Fuck this. I’m going out for some real food.”

Jan was sitting at a table by the door. He’d known this moment would come.

“No, Charlie,” he said. “You have to stay in.”

“Who’s going to make me?” Charlie snapped. His eyes were red rimmed and his thin hair was standing up. “You?”

“Yes, Charlie,” Jan said. “Me. I will make you stay.”

Charlie tramped toward the door, with Johnny hard on his heels. Jan stood up to block their way.

Quentin was sulking in the corner. Every now and then he would press his eyes up against the cracks between the boards on the windows where the thin lines of light were sliding in.

“Charlie, Johnny,” Quentin said. “Do what Sergeant Müller says.”

Charlie stopped, then Johnny bumped into him from behind. Charlie shoved his brother back and glared at Quentin.

“The fuck are you talking about?” Charlie said.

“You have gone outside enough,” Jan said. “I will not let you ruin my pardon like you have ruined everything else.”

“Shut the fuck up, kraut,” Charlie said, without taking his eyes off Quentin. “Quentin, this is ridiculous. I’m not going to do nothing, but I want my fucking breakfast. Your brother wanted us to stay here, he should have given us our fucking breakfast. It’s not our fault his business is in the newspapers.”

Quentin’s face was lined with shadow from the boarded-up windows. He looked thoroughly demoralized. “Charlie, I understand your frustration,” he said. “The election is very soon. We are almost there.”

“Quentin,” Charlie said. “You can’t tell me you’re going to let that little popinjay coop us up in here. I don’t care if he is your brother. I know you. You won’t let him do it.”

Quentin made a frustrated motion with his hands and leaned farther back into the shadow.

“Hey, come on, Charlie,” Dusty said. “Ease up.”

“Don’t you tell me what to do!” Charlie said. “Quentin, come on now!”

“Go sit down, Charlie,” Jan said.

“Don’t push me, kraut,” Charlie said.

“Sit down now, you fat bully,” Jan said. “It’s your last chance.”

Charlie’s eyes widened and he seemed, with his anger, to grow calmer. He glanced from side to side. Charlie was not a smart man
but he had a fair amount of low cunning. He knew that he and his brother were not well liked and without Quentin’s support no one would stand up for him. In particular, he saw Fred Johnson looking at him, just looking, his intelligent and expressive countenance as flat and hard as a penny.

And so he did not lunge. He said, “You don’t tell me what to do, Müller. This ain’t the army. You get that?”

“Fine,” Jan said. “Anything you like.”

But by lunchtime, still with no food, it became clear that something had to be done. The men decided that Jan would go out for provisions. He was back so quickly that the men feared he had not given himself enough time to shop properly, but to their relief he had come back with enough bacon, bread, and coffee for days. He even had a cheap cigar for Charlie, who accepted it with superficial good grace.

Dusty was in the kitchen frying the bacon while the other men drank coffee and ate bread, friends again, when there came a knock at the front door. The sound of it was sharp and distinct, like it was made with a small and heavy metal object.