The Liminal People (2 page)

Nordeen is like me. I read bodies but I'm not exactly sure what he can do. I know for sure that he can always tell when someone is lying to him. It's a great talent for an international drug dealer, and a fucking annoying trait in a boss. But even that's not Mr. Maximus's real power.

In comics there's this bit character called the Question. He's got no face, and no powers. He's kind of like a brokeass Batman without the Robin. I like him because of the concept of a man with no face being called the Question. It's good in comics. It's bad in your boss. No one knows where he's from. Not me, not Suleiman or any of the other fifteen people he's got working for him. Maybe Fou-Fou knows, but he's not talking. One night we all got drunk in Segovia and tried to piece together the bits of our mystery leader. All we got was a colossal-sized riddle. He won't leave Morocco anymore, but has bank accounts, which have to be set up in person, in his name in the U.A.E, the Cayman Islands, Scotland, and South Africa. All the royalty of Malaysia sends him birthday cards, all at different times of the year. At least five women claim to be his first daughter, he has no sons, and his grandchildren range in age from six months to thirty-five years old. We've never seen any of his wives. His English, French, and Berber tongues are incredible, but he massacres Arabic as though it were a heathen in the noose of the Lord. Yet he's a devout Muslim. By the end of the night of speculation, I was more fearful of the man than I had ever been before.

“Suleiman.” I find him with his family, his wife, and his two children ages three and seven. His tastes lean toward the moderate: not a lot of foreign products in the house aside from the expansive television. Minus the drug running, and Suleiman would be the perfect model for the modern Morocco. I take my shoes off before entering his house and wave my hand at his wife, letting her know it's OK to keep the veil down.

“Taggert, say hello to my children,” Suleiman commands. He thinks I'm from London so he speaks with a fake Cockney accent. He wants his children to speak English, so I'm put through this cross-generational farce every time I come by. I hate children. Luckily, I don't have to tolerate them for much longer than it takes Suleiman's wife to make the customary tea. We are left in the kitchen alone.

“Was Omar so bad?” he says, examining the scowl on my face.

“He tried to swindle. The boss will have to talk to his people; don't be surprised if the guy comes up missing,” I say in rapid-fire Arabic only to be interrupted by Suleiman's brief but fervent prayer for the idiot's soul. The rumor goes that Suleiman used to be in training a mullah before the boss got a hold of him. “This isn't about that.”

I pull out the recorder and slide it back to him. Already erased. Sully looks at it suspiciously, then brings his long-scanning, desert eyes up to meet mine. “You asked me to check it once a month when you first came to us. But we haven't used that safe house for a few months now.”

“I'm not mad,” I lie. “I just want to know if you played it for anyone else.” Has he told Nordeen?

“I've only been home twenty minutes. I haven't even had time to see the Old Man yet,” he says slowly.

“If it's OK with you, I'd like to tell him about it myself.”

“Can I help?” I forgot that Suleiman likes me. His wife has a hard time bringing babies to term. She's lost more than she has. I lied and told her of a tea that would help. In truth I just worked with her body. That's the only reason they have the three-year-old. Suleiman thinks he owes me for the tea. But I don't delude myself about his loyalties. He
will
check to see if I've told Nordeen.

“If it comes to it, yes. But for now let me see what the boss says.”

An Al Hoceima whore plays housewife and offers me tea before scampering into the back room. He's always got a parade of them. As he reclines on his floor pillows with shirt proudly open I can almost see why. I don't know how old he is, but he looks to be able to give the nineteen-year-old a challenge. The tea I use like a prop, downing it quickly and healing my scalded throat before the shock has time to set in. It's the type of subtle move only he'll notice.

“You almost broke Omar's jaw for mentioning your brother,” he says in the Rif tongue, and I'm mad. Of course he wants to talk business first. I'm gonna sidestep it, then remember he knows when I'm lying.

“He had three men on a ridge for an ambush.” True. I've never told him about my brother.

“You handled them?” A question. Luckily I can answer without lying.

“Put them to sleep right before he came. I needed to give him something to know me by. If I used my . . . thing, in that scenario I'd have to . . .”

“The youngster.” He smiles, finally putting down the French fashion magazine he was reading. “How'd he fare?”

“Stupid and young. But followed directions well enough. We'd both appreciate any dental care he could get. Pretty sure the Geneva Conventions outlawed that breath.” My boss laughs, and I know I'm not in the doghouse for the arrangement I'd reached with Omar.

“I doubt we'll see Omar again. The deal's gone sour with his people. But the parting gift of the cash was appreciated. Now, what's this recording all about?”

“I'm asking for permission to take the razor off temporarily.” I don't dare meet his eyes when I ask. Membership in the razor-neck crew is for life. We all have small nicks and scratches on our breastbones from where the razor scrapes our chest. They're never to be taken off. Even when we're having sex. I'm scared shitless that somehow he knows whenever we even think about trying to take them off.

“Ya'llah.” If that's all the mangled Arabic I get in this consultation I might make it out of Morocco. But I know enough of my boss to know that if he ever decides I need to go, it won't be him that'll do it. He owes me too much.

“Tell me about it.” He says. Good. Not a question.

“I don't know what it is. Maybe something minor, but I doubt it. In any case, it predates my association with you and the crew. I don't want to track mud through your house.” I use French because it sounds prettier. He knows I'm not French and appreciates the sentiment.

“What will you do?”

“Find the sender. Do what I can. Get back to my life here as soon as possible.” All truth. I'm not gone yet and already I'm missing my house—my fried-fish dinners every night, tea on Suleiman's porch, fantasies about Fou-Fou's past. All of it. I don't want my world to change. I'm hating Yasmine right now. But she dialed a number I swore she'd never use.

“The one who called. She is like us?” The question I was hoping he wouldn't ask. There's no way out of it.

“Yes.” This time I'm looking him in his eyes. Any more questions about Yasmine and I'm out the door and dodging bullets. Nordeen has an unusual obsession with people like us. I've never met anyone else who knows more about people with our type of abilities. I don't want to know how he came to his knowledge. But he's not getting any more from me about Yasmine than the sound of her voice and that she's got power.

“Keep the razor on,” he says with no change in his face. “Fou-Fou will give you sixty thousand euros from the take. Call back if you need more.” He beckons me close, and I'm scared. I've healed him three times from lethal gunshot wounds. Those were the only times I was allowed to touch him. I keep low, making sure my head is never higher than his. I'm expecting a hand to kiss; his deceptively powerful arms embrace my body. Even so, I still can't see him or feel him like I do everyone else. It's like hugging a ghost.

“Remember, what we have is rare.” I realize he's speaking English in that no-accent way he does when he's trying to show me compassion. “People like us tend to stay away from each other.” I nod. I'm like a cat being held by a kid known to abuse animals. I can't give him any reason to be pissed at me or he'll kill me. I don't know how he'll do it, but it'll be bloody and sadistic. I know because I've been his instrument for such tortures in the past, waiting in shadows and silence for him to finish an embrace just like this before I struck.

“But before you go”—Nordeen breaks his lips apart in an attempt to smile and reclines back to his pillows—“tell me about your brother.”

Fifteen muscles in my back spasm, arguing the pros and cons of flight and fight until I consciously remind my body that neither is truly an option. This is Nordeen at his worst, picking at my scabs. And I've just asked for a favor and been given finance and permission for it. All he requires is a story. By the ancient rules of friendship and service, Nordeen is in his rights to hear the whole story. I'm too tired, physically and emotionally, to think of any way out of this. So I speak the truth.

“My brother was like us,” I say and wait for a response. Nordeen takes a drag from a nearby hookah. “Only, he could push things with his mind. Make things move. He was strong with his power but weak in morality. I . . . he was four years older than me. I idolized him. Despite what he did to my family. . . .”

“What did he do?” Nordeen asks with the voice of a sadistic psychotherapist.

“He was a bully. My father couldn't stand against him and wouldn't report to anyone what my brother could do. My mother was sick. Depressed. She spent her days washing down Thorazine and Seconal with gin and tonics. But it wasn't just my parents that suffered. The whole town quietly cowered in front of my brother.”

“But you didn't?”

“I did!” I say, realizing I'm way too excited by what I'm saying. “I cowered until he ignored me. Then I tried reintroducing myself into his vision, making myself useful. But I had nothing to offer until the day he ‘pushed' me out of the second-story window of our house. I broke my arm, then instinctively healed it. He felt it, felt me use my power, and became interested in me.” I pause, hoping it's enough. Another damn drag off his hookah, and he's still waiting for more.

“He let me follow him around for a few years. The understanding was simple: I healed him and only him from whatever hurts his bullying got him, and I would get his discards—money, girls, drugs, whatever. None of that mattered. I . . . he let me hang out with him. His company was the biggest prize. At fifteen, I thought I was on top of the world—”

“Until you healed your mother?” Nordeen interrupts me with a truth I've never told him. I know what it feels like when someone picks up a stray thought from my brain: this is not that. I can't get bogged down wondering how Nordeen knows. He does.

“Yes. It was a tumor resting in her brain, causing pain and confusion. I didn't mean to go against my brother. It was just an instinctual healing once I had cultivated my eyes to see illness. The tumor was the size of a quarter and took five minutes to dissipate. My mother's tongue-lashing afterward took longer.”

“She chastised you for being morally weak,” Nordeen says looking into the corner of nowhere, eyes now milky white, voice now the sound of a whale's cry. “She was disgusted that her womb could produce such bastards, such powerful creatures incapable of compassion.” His voice changes, as does the air in the room. My mother's voice comes from his mouth. “Shut up. You bully. You . . . my mind is finally clear. I don't understand any of this. But I know bad, wrong, when I see it. I could barely see for the pain I was in every half an hour for . . . years. But even in that state I knew evil when I saw it. Your brother is definitely evil. But you are not exempt, Taggert. Do you hear me?”

He waits until I wipe the tears from my face before silently demanding I go on. “She went out on her own for the first time in about ten years that day. My dad, a military man, was at the base. I waited in the dark until my brother got home, the whole time breaking and healing my bones, compacting them to be as dense as they could get. I grew extra layers of skin around my knees, knuckles, neck, anywhere my body thought calluses could grow. I hardened my body. And when my brother came home I set about beating him. I punched and kicked and battered him while he threw every part of the house at me. But as quick as he wounded me, I healed and was back on him. In his final fit of rage he brought the house down on both of us.”

“He survived.” Nordeen speaks. Knowing, not asking.

“Yes, but it takes a team of specialists to teach him how to tie his shoes each day. I caused permanent brain damage.” Nordeen nods, giving me tacit permission to leave. I hear his closing sentiment as I walk through his door.

“People like us tend to stay away from each other for good reason, Taggert.”

I'm out the house and I'm still alive. What does it mean? Nothing. Only that he doesn't care if Suleiman knows that he wants me dead. Most likely he'll have Suleiman do the deed. If not him then the stink mouthed kid. Doesn't matter. If they come, I'll feel them. And if they come I'll kill them. I'll have to.

My house feels less secure now. The walls are just as sturdy. There's food in the fridge. I could watch satellite TV if I wanted. The crew got it as a gift for me last year. I try to read comics. I try and smoke the product that keeps us all fed. Nothing. I even think about drinking. I could ride into Al Hoceima and hit one of the hotels. Or one of the local whores, even. It wouldn't be the first time, just something I haven't done in a few years. But alcohol just makes it harder for me to use my power. And whores, now they just make me sad. It's too late to get on the road now, even if I wanted to. And with sixty thousand euros in my pocket, I don't even need to pack. I need to just relax in my home, say good-bye to it. I'll need lots of sleep for whatever comes next, and this is the only place I know I can rest well. So I'll sleep because I won't be back here for a while.