Sleight (19 page)

Byrne and Lark got drunk. The notebook lay open on the card table. They’d gone through it page by page. Her explaining. Him asking questions she had no explanations for. He brought out his computer. The glowing fields of precursor at first startled her. Then, truly frightened. They drank more. Byrne’s words began to waver, the screen trembled—a colorless, countryless flag. They scrolled down through the names. It was all names, just names. Names, and their terrible surrogates.

NOVEMBER.

I
t took the media two weeks to forget the Vogelsong children. Mr. Vogelsong had worked for twelve years in the Commonwealth’s Department of Youth and Family Services. He was missed. At work, his supervisors scrambled first to discover how he’d managed the evil, then how he’d managed the office. The man had known his way around their bureaucracy. With great attention to detail, he and his wife had gathered and reordered children hard to place: some with medical issues, some abused, some the children of addiction, some a less-popular mix of races. He’d forged and lost documents in all the right ways. So. No follow-up stories with grieving suburban parents and numb, ground-scanning siblings. No new laws introduced by the bereaved and their congressional representatives. No names. Revealing the victims’ names, it was agreed, would have been wrong. The press instead had decided to call them the Vogelsong children—in a final consummation of the adoptive process—before calling them nothing at all.

SCHOOLED.

A
bove him she was sky. Wide face, wider eyes, broad shoulders—but thin. Hers was the atmosphere of sky, of horizon. His hands were on her narrow hips, thumbs in front on the flats of the bone, fingers digging into the hard muscle of her backside. With iron wrists, he could wave her above him like prairie grass. Did. She had a thing about being moved—the tendons of her neck eased when she wasn’t in control, although she liked, they both liked, her to start on top. When she came, she would lean forward, place her hands on his chest, exhale. She wouldn’t groan, offer a prayer, say West’s name. Sound, she’d told him, was energy, and she would put that energy where it belonged—into intensification, not dispersal. When she did orgasm, her inner walls held their convulsion, gripping him as the current ran up her torso, and her extended arms, instinctively preserving the small distance between them, locked. As if in preparation for collision. It was only then, after T’s first orgasm of an evening or an afternoon, that West truly woke to her. There was a vein that pulsed at her temple, and a flush, and a violence.

West loved physiognomy. He’d even call himself a practitioner. He could read faces and the bodies that held them aloft, and not only by carriage or countenance. The character of a person was evident in musculature, coloring, bone structure. Believing this didn’t make him a racist, because of the individualized nature of his readings. High cheekbones didn’t indicate passion or haughtiness in a people as a whole, but the highest Romany cheekbone did evidence something about the particular gypsy woman who wore it. His own dark features said nothing about him unless the genetic background from which they emerged could be read as template. America—the movement of populations in general—made the reading of faces problematic. West preferred more homogeneous environs, where furrows, wrinkles, hues, and angles told stories that could be trusted. It was one of the reasons he loved tour.

Until he’d known T for over a year, West hadn’t known that her Mongolian features had Mongolian precedent, that her great-great-great-grandfather had been a Chinese railroad man who’d married a Scotch prostitute in Arizona, then moved to the Big Easy to start up a specialty house—her as madame to Asiatics he recruited. When T told this story she giggled, listing her attributes. “Strawberry-brown hair, high breasts, a welterweight’s shoulders, boy hips and boy legs, freckled moon face, ice tea eyes, creaseless lids. I make very little sense.” But to West, T embodied the most intriguing part of her history: the crossbreeding. Her calm face, its sweet placidity, was easy to read once he knew it was a mask. When they made love, it was the mask lifting he waited for, the finding of seeds bitter as those of any other orange.

This was the first time since Halloween that West and T had been together. She climaxed three times. In the terms of their friendly competition, he’d won. They felt the cold air, after, on their wet skin. T ventured to the bathroom, then to the hallway closet for an extra quilt. With her body gone, in the raft-time of the bed, West allowed himself to drift.

Since Byrne and Lark had shown up at the studio, he’d been waiting for Byrne to return to T. It hadn’t happened. Otherwise, all was as predicted. Lark was doing her thing. He doubted that anyone other than Byrne noticed her flinching in class, or massaging the interstices of her ribs. T certainly hadn’t. Sleightists, obsessed with their own hurts, could catalogue another member’s weight, build, muscle density, flexibility, color and texture of skin, musk, hair length to the quarter inch, life story, and sexual history. But pain was personal. And Lark suffered an internal trigger, not the more normal aches and ills West saw in the others. Whether or not her Needs were psychosomatic was beside the point. He wanted her afflicted. He wanted her to write whatever she had down in the midst of its onslaught. His work was the work of the cloud chamber: agitation. Enough true artists, given the right conditions, would start going off: hailstorm, fission, machine gun, schizophrenia, applause, Jonestown, popcorn, rapture. Lark was all over the place—obliging. But the boy was more worrisome. He hadn’t shown West a word in the month he’d been back, and he was bent on Lark, ignoring T. T minded.

When she returned to bed with her black Amish quilt, West provoked her.

“So what do you think of Byrne and Lark?”

“I’d like to know what she’s done to him.” T curled into West, her ear on his shoulder.

“As far as I can tell, they aren’t
doing
anything.”

“Then why do you think he hasn’t been over?”

“Are you so starved?” West stroked her upper arm. “I’m so inadequate? Josh is?” West’s questions partly feigned hurt, partly purred.

“West, sex is why I let you in the house.” Her calloused palm scraped across the skin of his stomach. She pulled up the quilt and settled into him. “That, plus you’re my boss.”

“Funny. So what is it you need from Byrne?”

“I don’t need anything at all from you boys.” T spoke airily, absently. “I like giving, and he strikes me as particularly needy.”

“Really?” West dug a little. “Seems to me a bit of a loner.”

“You’re smarter than that.” T was smiling; West could feel the muscles of her face against his bicep. “Maybe he’d like to be, but he’s wedded to that stone, isn’t he? Say what you want, Josh and I have kept some independence.”

“Fair enough. When you and Byrne were still …” He noticed that she had turned on the ceiling fan despite the chill. “Did he ever say anything to you about the stone?” West needed to know how deep it went. If Byrne had ever released his story, West was hoping T was the one.

“Only that it’s changed hands.”

This was news. “What’s that?”

“He switches it from one hand to the other every new year.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“I asked him, before you two went down for that—Lark. He said that if he could only be half a man, he wanted to be both halves.”

“Sounds practiced.”

“Oh yes. He’s careful with himself.” T propped herself up on her elbow. “Why’d you send me after him anyway?”

“I did nothing of the kind.” Dust edged the fan in gray fur.

“Ah, West. You can’t maneuver me so easily anymore. Or at least, I’m not unaware. I took it as a challenge, thought I’d make you jealous as a bonus.” Her dry hand went to his cheek, and when he kept his eyes on the ceiling, left it. “We’re over?”

“Byrne seems to intrigue you more than I do.” West was disturbed at his own petulance. They’d never
been
anything. “But, I didn’t realize—you enjoy jealousy?”

“It’s like tarragon. There’s enough, and there’s way too much.”

West looked at her. She was undeniably, thoroughly, beautiful. Her eyes were thinning, aiming—yes, some anger there.

She went on. “With Byrne, there’s a possibility of repair. But that woman you brought up, she’s not interested.”

“Not like you are.” He wanted more from her. Rancor, spite.

T ignored the bait. “Why do you want him to go all puppy over her?”

“I don’t think he’s ever done it before. I think … well, that it might prove educational for him.”

“Ah. The precursors.” Her face opened, softened. She relaxed back into the bed, into him. T knew this part of West. The work. They both lay there, eyes open. They let themselves be quiet together. In the slanted late afternoon light, the blades of the fan were skimming their discarded skin from the top of the room, like cream.

“T, I just had a thought. Would you like to meet his brother?”

While Byrne had been in Georgia recovering Lark, West had called Rachel Dunne. She was listed on Byrne’s employment forms as next of kin. No sleuthing required, just a lack of the normal editing mechanisms, some cajoling. West had been worried that Byrne wouldn’t come back, and he needed him. T wasn’t enough of a lure. She was too kind for Byrne, and despite the husband, maybe a little too accessible. West needed Byrne to be attached to Kepler—sewn in—to have him risk what was needed.

It had to be in the rock.

Byrne’s mother had sounded older than she should. Was surprised to hear Byrne was involved in sleight, almost pleased. A little unbelieving. No, Byrne’s father wasn’t around. Yes, dead. It had all been settled at the time, there was no more to say. Yes, as a matter of fact, Byrne did. Marvel, younger, by just thirteen months—an artist. She had, a few weeks ago. Byrne had been to see him in Philadelphia, told him to call. Byrne was good at checking up, a good boy. Graduated in the top ten percent of his college class—a smart boy, hard worker. A number, yes. Marvel was staying with friends, not to call unless it was an emergency.
Is
it an emergency—not something wrong with Byrne? No? Fine, then. Fine. If you talk to Marvel, tell him his mother’s just fine, to keep on painting. He’s a special one, that boy—you get him on the line, you’ll see.

What? She did? She’s a bird, isn’t she? Crazy bitch, gotta love her. Yeah, I can talk. Let me light up, man, hold on. Okay. What are you about again? Right, Byrne. He’s a beaut, my brother. You’ll want to hear about his rock. If I could count the times some cunt wanted to know before she’d fuck him. But you’re his boss? Okay. So this was, what, eight years back. He’d just gone to State. Left me alone with Gil and Rachel. It was only gonna be a year, no big fuck. Gil didn’t get to me the way he did Byrne anyway. I was applying to art school. New York, Seattle. The hell away, yeah? I was working on an installation. Something conceptual. Hold on—I’ll get to the rock, but you need the background. I decided to do specimens. Deformities, fetuses, brains in jars, you know. I built this long light box—black display, fiberglass top, bulbs inside. This was at school, materials from some art teacher who had the hots for me, but the rest I was getting together in my room. Attic really, Byrne’s and mine until he left. I raided the cafeteria trash for econo-sized mason jars. Really skewed scale, yeah? I had close to fifty and was filling them. For each one I got a rock. And not normal rocks—huge motherfucking wampum stones. Rough and sharp, some worn. Granite, quartz, and sandstone. White, gray, speckled, striped, every possible kind. Took me the whole September Byrne was leaving, skipping school, shooting up to Waukesha—the quarry—on my bike. Good place to smoke up. Nah, no, not Byrne. Never did that shit. I could only carry back maybe five at a time, if I could find five, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the liquid. I was gonna call the piece “Blood Farm”—about extraction, yeah? I was pulling color from these fuckers with chemicals. First I raided the kitchen to get enough—vinegar, Palmolive, Windex, bleach. Nail polish remover from the linen closet. Turpentine from the basement. I took Gil’s key to the VA to get some ammonia, ended up taking some IV solutions and blood and a couple bagfuls of urine. Then his weekend job at Mott’s Garage. I hit them for motor oil and gasoline, mineral spirits, antifreeze. I want to stress how this was months. Months. Gil wasn’t the brightest, and if the window weren’t painted shut Mom would never have smelled it to say something. Stupid crow. Byrne was home for winter break. Gil was riled. I’d seen him like that maybe once or twice, with Mom. The hospital times. Really fucking, you know, livid. I stole from his work. He said it was like—get this—like it was him stealing. That’s a fucking stretch, no? Started throwing the jars down off the bookshelf and dresser onto the floor. Those jars were so fucking thick the first two didn’t break. He had to pick them back up to throw them, like, overhead them, hard at the floor. They broke then, and the fumes were insane—mustard gas or some shit. The room was the size of a toilet. I nearly passed out, and Gil … he either did or slipped, because after six or so jars, he was on the floor. Skull wrecked, him bleeding everywhere. And twitching. I went over and picked up the rock closest to his head. I don’t know, maybe I was gonna finish him—who the fuck knows? Then Byrne ran up. Just stood there. Gil jerked a couple more times and then he didn’t. And then Byrne stepped over it, the body, took the rock out of my hand. Told me not to say a word. The police, they stayed in the house awhile, they’d been before. Byrne said he was there in the room, and Rachel, not the mess you’d think, she backed him up. So. An accident. Byrne thinks I spilled the old man’s brains. And, twisted as he is, it’s his fault I’m a killer. He’s such an old woman—if you’re his boss, you know what I’m saying. Me? Nah, no school. Took my split of the insurance and rented a loft a couple towns over, on the water. I eventually did the installation but changed the name. “Fossil,” I called it. It was written up somewhere. They especially liked the jar I’d glued back together. Filled it with tar and left it leak, put a hot bulb under it, set the table on a slant. By the end of the night the display box was covered in black sludge, except where the jars were. The light shot up through some four dozen jars, spotlighting the specie like a flashlight under your chin. The light moved different through the different media—slow green, watery blue, fog red. And the jar, the one with the tar, that was Byrne’s rock jar, but he still had it, still does, so that jar was empty and veined black where the cracks were. It tripped everyone out—cause at the end, tar gone, it was like the rock went molten. I tell you, it was fucking primordial.