18th January, 11:05 AM
The man standing in front of J is of average height and build, with a dark sweep of brown hair and a day's worth of stubble covering the lower half of his angular face. He is dressed in an expensive-looking leather jacket and an unremarkable pair of jeans, and his boots are scuffed and salt-stained. He is not smiling, but there is a slight upturn at his lips, as if he wants to smile, but can't or won't allow himself; he's got the mask, thinks J, but his clothes are all wrong for Northside, and so is his voice, an uneasy blend of accents with no business coming from the same throat.
"Alright I," J says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe. "What can I do for you? Wastin your time if you're here for powder. Supply's dried up."
The man considers his feet. When he looks up again his face has hardened.
"C's dead," he says.
The words are an almost physical assault; J's hands collapse into fists and a small muscle just below his left eye begins to twitch.
"What's that?"
"I was with him last night. Can I come in?"
J hesitates, eyeing the man before him, but he is too exhausted to go on standing. He moves from the door and leads the way to the living room. The walk back to the couch is like something out of a long, pointless dream.
"You look like shit," the man tells him.
"Yeah well, thanks for the medical opinion. You say you were there last night?"
"I was working with Auld, and the rest of them."
"Workin on what?"
"Trying to stop the Institute from building their gate."
"Why?" J asks.
"Seems like ripping a hole in the universe might not be a good idea."
"I wouldn't know," J answers. He begins to feel himself slipping away; the couch rises up to take him, and his feet and his hands are full with a prickling numbness. He blinks heavily, trying to focus. Just before him is a solid wall of air.
"There was an explosion," the man continues. "The agents from the Institute arrived too soon, and everything went wrong. C jumped, to escape the blast."
J tilts his head back. He closes his eyes, absently drumming on his thigh with the fingers of his right hand. His breathing is shallow and the muscles in his jaw are tight as knotted cords. At last he stands up, hauling himself from the couch. He clears his throat, and motions to the other man.
"Coffee?" he says.
"That'd be fine," the man replies, unable to meet J's eyes. They move one after the other into the kitchen.
"Sit down," J tells him. He goes to the shelf for coffee and a pair of mugs, wincing through the pain of lifting his arm.
"You alright?" the man asks.
"A bit stiff," J says flatly. "Was it Auld who told you where to find me?"
"Yes," the man responds, after the briefest hesitation.
"Might have been nice of him to deliver the news himself. But then, he's invisible isn't he? So that leaves him off the hook."
The man says nothing. J busies himself with the coffee maker.
"Guess I should thank you for comin out here," J says.
"Don't worry about it."
J sets a mug down in front of the other man and eases himself into a chair. The two of them stare at their coffee, neither of them drinking. A dry silence fills the room.
"Can't wrap my head around it," J says, after a time. "None of it makes any sense. You say C's dead, but I can't picture it."
"You knew him a long time."
"That's one way a'puttin it."
"What will you do now?"
J shrugs.
"Doesn't seem ta be much left for me here. Maybe I'll leave."
"And go where?" asks the man, but J doesn't answer. He sips his coffee, feeling his own weight pressing down on the chair. He draws a hand over his face, aware of his bruises, and the inflamed patch of skin where the smaller agent put a taser to his neck.
"Who knows?" he mutters. "But I wouldn't mind another crack at those boys from the Institute before I go."
"Are you serious?"
"Don't I sound serious?"
"Because I wouldn't mind a word with them myself."
"They've got some things ta answer for."
"They do."
"But I'd have ta find them first. And even if I did, I wouldn't stand much of a chance. Learned that the hard way."
"Might be different this time."
"And I might wind up dead."
"Maybe."
J regards the other man. At last he pushes his mug away with a short, nearly unconscious movement of his hand.
"You've got somethin in mind?"
"Have an idea about how to find them anyway," the man says.
"You goin ta ask that psychic friend a'yours?"
The man shakes his head.
"Not Auld," he says. "R."
J rubs his aching jaw. After a moment he nods.
Outside it has begun to snow, a light, gray flurry that mixes with the steam of broken pipes to leech the street of colour. J moves as quickly as his battered body will allow him, stopping once to exchange greetings with the boy working a coffee stand, and then again to slap hands with two men smoking in front of a bar. None of them spare more than a glance at his bruises or the burn mark on his neck; J's mask of casualness fits so well that he is not even conscious of wearing it, and no one that he's likely to meet on these streets would ever think to embarrass him by asking what happened. They are all Northsiders up here, the ones who matter anyway, and like J they understand that life is not an ideal: things happen, and when they do you either move on or you fold. In either case, you certainly don't ask for sympathy. J knows that may be too stark a world view to label compassion, but he is grateful for it nonetheless; whatever happened in the past is finished, and today is all that matters. He has never taken powder, never bothered to ask C or anyone else what the outsiders saw coming for him. He wasn't interested. As far as he's concerned, the only reasonable thing to expect from tomorrow is more of what he got today.
A gust of wind sends a low column of steam billowing around him. He views the tenements through the haze, and trudges across the frozen lawn to R's building, the other man trailing a step behind him. Pulling open the glass doors, they step into a cavernous lobby. Half of the ceiling lamps have had their bulbs broken or removed, and the room's corners stand like shadowed recesses into a dimmer, hollow world. Both elevators are out of order, and there is no choice except to take the stairs. J sets his teeth against the pain, hauling himself up with his hand on the banister as much as with his legs. By the time he exits the stairwell on 4th floor he is struggling for breath and his thighs are shaking. The air is thick with the smell of boiled vegetables and mildew, the concrete walls that line the hallway a palimpsest for generations of graffiti. J clears his throat and spits heavily onto the worn carpet, doing his best to ignore the faint stain of blood in his saliva.
The other man is leaning against the nearest wall, waiting with a strained expression on his face. With an effort, J straightens and starts down the hall. Stopping in front of R's apartment, he balls his hand into a fist and bangs against the door.
"Who is it?" comes a muffled voice.
"Let me in you dumb fuck."
A latch is turned, and the door pulled back by inches; J slams his shoulder into the wood, throwing open the door and sending R sprawling back inside the apartment. J pushes into the narrow entryway and grabs the smaller man by the neck, forcing him to the floor. Casually, he lays a knee on R's chest, squeezing the air from his lungs.
"R," he says. "Where are they?"
"Who?" wheezes R. His eyes flash from J to the other man, who has quietly entered behind him. J stabs a finger in R's face.
"R," he says. "Look at me. You've been workin for the Institute. I want you ta tell me where I can find your bosses."
"What is he doin here?" R asks unsteadily, his eyes back on the other man. J slaps him across the face with the flat of his hand.
&nb
sp; "Don't worry about him. Worry about me. Where are they?"
"Let me up."
A moment passes, and then J sighs and gets to his feet, dragging R along with him.
"Could have just asked to come in," R mutters.
"Thought you'd respond better this way," J tells him.
"You and everyone else." He continues to eye the other man, and then, wearily, he moves from the hall and into a cramped living room. He slumps into the only chair, leaving J and the other man to stand, and fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans. His hand is unsteady, and he fumbles trying to get the smoke to light.
"Here," J says, snatching the lighter to do it for him. R bobs his head.
"Many thanks."
He settles into a nervous silence, bending forward to tap the ash from the end of his cigarette. J folds his arms across his chest, shivering; the apartment is cold enough for him to see his breath.
"Trouble with the heat?"
"Pipe's busted again," R mutters, glancing at the burn on J's neck.
"They do that to you?"
"This? This is nothin."
"Would've warned you if you'd bothered ta ask."
"Very kind."
"Just tell us where they are," says the other man. R considers the smoke rising from his cigarette.
"Those boys move around a lot, you know. Lookin for outsiders."
"So what good are you?" J asks him.
"All I know is that they were talkin about a raid."
"What raid?"
"Like at the bar, when they grabbed all those fish tanks or whatever," R says, jerking his scarred chin in the other man's direction. "He knows what I mean."
"So where's this raid goin ta be?"
"I don't know. Down at the docks somewhere, some big shipment a'powder they got wind of."
"When?"
"How should I know?"
J takes a step toward him, causing R to flinch.
"You wouldn't be lyin ta us would you?" J asks, his voice quiet.
"I'm not lyin," R tells him. He looks at the collection of cigarette butts in his ashtray. Dull circles shade the underside of his eyes, his face a study of nervous exhaustion.
"Let's go," says J. The other man looks at him, but finally he nods. R stubs what's left of his smoke out in the ashtray.
"J?" he says thinly.
"What?"
"You see C you tell him I'm sorry alright? I never meant for things ta get so fucked up."
"C's dead," J says. R closes his eyes. From across the room, the man calling himself I looks at R strangely, as if he wants to say something, but before he has the chance J takes him by the arm and leads him from the apartment.
The going is easier on the way down, but all the same, by the time they reach the first floor J is ready to collapse. The snow is falling thickly now, swirling over the tenement roofs and masking the sky in a uniform wash of gray. Without a word or glance at the other man, J heads to the nearest coffee stand. The place is nothing more than a few wooden stools grouped around a portable heater, with an old tarp strung up to provide some scant shelter from the snow. At this hour they are the only customers, and the owner, a heavyset woman in her 50s, greets them with a sour look on her face. J sits next to the heater and orders a pair of whiskeys. Reaching for the bottle, the woman mutters something unintelligible under her breath, but the shots she pours for them are generous. J lifts his glass to the man next to him before swallowing it whole. His joints are aching, and his grip feels limp and powerless. He isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that R couldn't help them track down the agents. Relieved, he thinks, and taps the edge of his glass with his finger, signaling the woman for a refill. There is a bitterness in the back of his throat, but he tells himself that it's just the after-taste from the whiskey.
From somewhere inside the man's jacket, a cell phone begins to ring.
"Yeah?" he says, answering it. There is a long pause, in which he looks at J as if appraising him for a job.
"Alright," he says finally. "I'll be there in an hour."
He ends the call and returns the phone to his coat.
"You feel like meeting some people?" he asks J.
"Feel like I want ta die."
"That's the spirit."