Chapter 1 #7
Out of those flung-open doors now stepped many old acquaintances.
Of his. Good God: many indeed. Drifting toward him through the Belgian dark.
Having been made aware that he was here.
Each holding an ominous-looking satchel.
Hoo boy. Hot dog. Among the friends: Overton, Finley, Henry West, Bryce Philips (dragging along that familiar oxygen tank with the smiley-face decal on it).
(With friends like these, who needed enemies?
Lord God.) Here was Al Billingsgate, Jerry Kasin, Rory “Red” Randall.
Here were Hayes, Brindel, and Riggs from PR, here that gaggle of worthless lawyers from the late-1980s incarnation of Legal, cowering behind their erstwhile leader, Glenn McDougall.
Near the end of every briefing, the whole submissive gaggle would always start nonsensically cross-yammering, so as to not appear mere McDougall lackeys.
He’d often made it a point back then to say something disparaging to McDougall, just to take him down a notch.
Some suit, McD.
McD, sign up for a night class. You seem to be getting antiquated.
Why are you right on top of me, McD? You think being closer to me makes you smarter?
Well, it might.
Wouldn’t be hard.
Like that.
Good lawyer though, McD. He’d hammered Anson, hammered Manders the string quartet sawing away, the intoning of toasts, the clatter of silverware, the snorting horse-laughter, the yammering, flirting, misunderstanding; the stray fellow, just there, staring off into space as if remembering something wonderful that once happened to him.
It appeals to you too much, he said.
I just like it is all, I said.
A “jet plane” passed overhead.
More poison, he said, and spat.
Everything is poison to you, I said.
It was not always so, he said. In life, I was a happy fellow, often celebrating. A cheer would go up when I arrived at Le Chat de Gouttière. My preferred seat was at the crook of the L of the bar. Then, death.
Yes, I said.
Death, he said.
Yes, I said.
He paused, recalling.
He paused, recalling, for a long time.
Finally, he let out a wet cough that, in the living, would have indicated the beginning of his end. Downstairs my charge coughed identically.
It’s not easy, you know, the Frenchman said.
I fly around, observe (I must learn all the languages, in order to understand), appear to those of the weakened living who may see me, interview the recently dead, who tend to resist me.
I read over people’s shoulders in darkened studies, spend decades in musty file rooms.
Sounds very challenging, I said.
But I must do it, he said. It is a step along my path to peace. Or, rather, a step along my path to eventual peace. Just as, for you? This “comforting”? Is a step along your path. God willing, both of us will, in time, know that blessing.
I am entirely at peace, I said.
He smiled sadly, then blinked twice, as if to change the subject.
Weakened as I am, he said, I find myself in danger of passing into that realm from which no further positive action will ever be possible. Would you mind, madame? Terribly?
Mindful of his frailty, I lifted him up and, centralizing my considerable strength, exploded him upward, holding in my heart the intention of sending him back to that distant place to which those of our ilk must return when in need of a fresh beginning.
Up he went.
Merci, he called weakly from already a great distance away.
—
I dropped through the roof, through the attic, into the room of my charge, and gently reentered the orb of his thoughts.