Chances Are Slim: But Not None - A Novella by David Charles Kramer
Chances Are Slim: But Not None
A Novella by David Charles Kramer
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, businesses, locations, and events depicted here are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is coincidental.
Chapter One
Four Hours Famous
In Saint Vesper, a person could become famous for four hours if enough strangers were afraid to admit they had never heard of him.
David Karma watched it happen every weekend.
The Meridian stood halfway down Cobalt Street, between a twenty-four-hour pharmacy and a hotel that changed names whenever its creditors changed lawyers. At four in the morning, fog rolled downhill and mixed with cigarette smoke outside the club. By five, garbage trucks came through, indifferent to glamour.
David liked that hour.
It was difficult to feel important while a man in orange coveralls hydraulically compressed six hundred empty champagne bottles behind you.
The Meridian’s DJ booth hung above the main floor behind a waist-high rail, two monitors, a mixer, three turntables, and a red warning bulb that had been burned out for so many years everyone assumed it was decorative.
From there David could see almost everything.
The bartender pretending not to see the dealer.
The dealer pretending not to know the cop.
The cop pretending he had come socially.
The promoter pretending the room was full.
The club owner pretending he hadn’t borrowed the money.
The rich men pretending they were happy.
The beautiful people pretending they weren’t tired.
Everybody knew somebody.
Or knew somebody who knew somebody.
Or had once stood close enough to somebody for a photograph.
At eleven-thirty, nobody was important.
At midnight, a promoter hugged somebody near the door.
At twelve-oh-five, people whispered.
At twelve-ten, somebody took a photograph.
By twelve-fifteen, the stranger had become a person everyone was embarrassed not to recognize.
David admired the efficiency.
At 12:41 on a Friday night, a black limousine rolled to the curb.
The line shifted toward it.
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“DJ Boy.”
The name moved backward through the queue.
DJ Boy.
DJ Boy.
DJ Boy.
A college kid finally committed the social error.
“Who’s DJ Boy?”
Everyone nearby turned.
Not because they knew.
Because he had admitted he didn’t.
A promoter frowned at him.
“He’s huge.”
“At what?”
“Music.”
“What music?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“International.”
David leaned over the side of the booth.
“What country?”
The promoter looked up.
“What?”
“You said international.”
“Europe.”
David nodded.
“Ah. Europe.”
Sam, the sound engineer, looked over.
David continued.
“Great country.”
Sam turned away, laughing.
The limousine door opened.
DJ Boy stepped out wearing sunglasses and a pair of expensive studio headphones around his neck.
He remained beside the car.
Nobody reacted.
He waited.
Still nothing.
Then a promoter began clapping.
Six people joined.
By the time DJ Boy reached the entrance, twenty people were applauding a man they could not confidently identify.
He waved.
The applause increased.
David watched.
“Does he actually DJ?” Sam asked.
“I thought you knew.”
“I thought you knew.”
“He has headphones.”
“That’s evidence.”
“Of ownership.”
Five minutes later a promoter climbed into the booth.
“Boy wants twenty minutes.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“I thought about it while he was waiting for applause.”
“He’s internationally known.”
“Then he has other gigs.”
“He brought his own headphones.”
David looked down.
DJ Boy was holding champagne. His headphones remained around his neck.
“He’s fully equipped to listen.”
“David.”
“No.”
“He knows important people.”
“So do bartenders.”
The promoter left.
Sam shook his head.
“You enjoy this too much.”
“What?”
“Watching people be ridiculous.”
David looked down at the crowd.
“Somebody should.”
At the time, David considered that an answer.
Years later, he would remember it as a warning.
The important man at the Meridian wasn’t DJ Boy.
He sat in the rear booth drinking mineral water.
His name was Victor Vale.
Everybody called him Velvet.
Velvet dressed well enough that people forgot to ask what he did.
That was intentional.
No jewelry.
No obvious weapon.
No logos.
Nothing illegal in his hands.
Velvet remembered birthdays, debts, addictions, grudges.
He knew which inspector hated which club owner.
Which city employee gambled.
Which bartender’s mother needed surgery.
Which cop owned a house his salary could not explain.
If somebody needed cocaine, Velvet knew somebody.
If somebody needed a permit, Velvet knew somebody else.
If somebody needed a legal problem softened, Velvet knew who liked steak dinners, cash, or both.
If somebody owed money, Velvet knew where the mother lived.
Eventually David understood that Velvet’s real business wasn’t drugs.
It was access.
The drugs were merely one department.
Beside him sat Mud.
Nobody knew whether Mud had another name.
Mud was handsome in a maintained way.
His body seemed less like a body than a reputation he serviced every morning.
Six-thirty workouts.
Perfect teeth.
Good jackets.
No visible panic.
Mud remembered everyone’s girlfriend.
Everyone’s mother.
Everyone’s birthday.
Tell him once your sister had cancer and six months later he’d ask how chemotherapy had gone.
He listened.
Really listened.
That was why people trusted him.
His favorite word was brother.
His favorite concept was family.
“We take care of our own.”
The dangerous thing was that Mud believed it.
Mickey Glass handled money.
Mickey had spent fifteen years within arm’s reach of narcotics without ever seeing narcotics.
“What bag?”
“The bag on your shoe.”
“What shoe?”
“The shoe you’re wearing.”
“I don’t know anything about shoes.”
And then there was DJ Boy.
Nobody knew precisely what he contributed.
He was simply present when photographs were taken.
This proved surprisingly useful.
Velvet had power.
Mud had people.
Mickey had numbers.
DJ Boy had evidence that a room had mattered.
Together they were becoming something larger than a group of men selling drugs.
They were becoming an ecosystem.
Luis worked coat check.
He was twenty-two and permanently short of money.
He wore a baseball cap despite finding baseball boring and wanted to become a producer despite rarely finishing a track.
His great talent was locating David at the least convenient possible moment.
“One minute,” Luis would say.
“No.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“No.”
“Fifteen.”
“You’re negotiating against yourself.”
Luis would grin.
“One day I’m gonna be better than you.”
“I hope so.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I literally said I hope so.”
“That means you don’t believe me.”
One night Luis appeared in the booth carrying two coffees.
“One’s yours.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You look tired.”
David accepted it.
“Thanks.”
Luis remained there.
David looked at him.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”
“It’s the track.”
Luis laughed.
“You’re an asshole.”
“You brought me coffee. Mixed messaging.”
Luis headed downstairs.
At the stairs he turned.
“You’ll hear it eventually.”
“Finish it eventually.”
Luis flipped him off.
David watched him disappear into the crowd.
Three weeks later Luis stopped coming to work.
People said he had gone home.
Nobody knew where home was.
For months afterward David occasionally found the coffee receipt folded inside his flight case.
He never remembered putting it there.
He never threw it away.
Velvet tried to buy David on a slow Thursday.
He climbed into the booth and placed an envelope beside the mixer.
“For you.”
David glanced down.
“What is it?”
“Money.”
“I recognized the genre.”
“Take it.”
“For what?”
“Goodwill.”
“My goodwill is cheaper.”
“Keep the difference.”
David pushed the envelope back.
Velvet studied him.
“Everybody wants something.”
“Sure.”
“What do you want?”
“Better monitors.”
Velvet smiled.
“Seriously.”
“I am serious.”
“You don’t want money?”
“Of course I want money.”
“Then?”
“I don’t want yours.”
“Why?”
David looked at the envelope.
“Because then it stops being mine.”
Velvet’s smile narrowed.
“Everything belongs to somebody.”
“No.”
“That’s what people say until they need something.”
David put one headphone over his ear.
“People keep promising to educate me.”
Velvet picked up the envelope.
“One day somebody will.”
Leah Moss sang sometimes.
Not professionally enough to call it a career, but well enough that conversation changed when she opened her mouth.
David liked her because she didn’t pretend to like him every minute.
“You know what’s exhausting about you?” she once asked.
“This could take a while.”
“You think noticing everybody else’s bullshit means you don’t have any.”
“That’s outrageous.”
“There. That.”
Three months later, Leah collapsed at an after-hours party.
She woke in a hospital unable to account for nearly three hours.
Mud arrived the next afternoon with flowers.
David learned about it and felt something cold settle beneath his ribs.
He had seen Mud talking with Leah shortly before she disappeared.
Three nights later he found Mud outside the Meridian.
The rain had stopped, but water still ran along the curb, dragging cigarette filters toward the drains.
“You were with Leah.”
Mud looked at him.
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“She doesn’t remember.”
“I heard.”
“You went to the hospital.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Mud’s expression changed.
“Because she’s my friend.”
David laughed once.
Mud stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
“You people use ‘friend’ like a receipt.”
Mud’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know the vocabulary.”
“And that’s your problem.”
“What is?”
“You think because you stand up there looking down, you understand everybody.”
David smiled.
Mud didn’t.
“I found kids sleeping on floors and got them jobs. Helped people with rent. Put food in refrigerators.”
“And sold them cocaine.”
“I didn’t invent cocaine.”
“That’s your defense?”
“No.”
Mud stepped closer.
“My defense is you don’t know everything.”
He pointed toward the booth upstairs.
“You’re safe up there. Everybody’s a character from twelve feet away.”
David’s smile disappeared.
Mud walked into the fog.
For once, David thought of the comeback too late.
Chapter Two
Respectability
Sergeant Dale Mercer liked free champagne.
That was the first thing David noticed.
Police officers sometimes came into clubs.
They did not usually sit in private booths at two in the morning drinking twelve-hundred-dollar bottles beside men they were theoretically supposed to investigate.
Mercer did.
One night David watched Mickey place an envelope on a table.
Mercer covered it with one hand.
Neither looked down.
The envelope disappeared.
Twenty minutes later Mercer entered the booth.
“You watch people too much.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Seeing something doesn’t mean you understand it.”
“Sometimes an envelope is just an envelope?”
Mercer smiled.
“There’s what you know.”
He tapped David’s chest.
“And there’s what you can prove.”
Then he walked away.
Velvet’s organization expanded.
One club became three.
Three became a restaurant.
The restaurant became a private after-hours room.
Competitors developed administrative trouble.
A liquor license disappeared.
A building abruptly failed inspection.
One dealer got raided.
Another was arrested carrying enough inventory to end his career.
Velvet remained untouched.
Saint Vesper became sharper after three in the morning.
The expensive neighborhoods went dark.
The sidewalks downtown filled with kitchen workers, club kids, delivery vans, and people arguing with taxis.
Fog collected on windshields.
The city looked less like itself under fluorescent streetlights.
David sometimes walked home after his set rather than take a car.
He liked seeing the night lose its costume.
One evening Velvet joined him in the booth.
“You hate me.”
“No.”
Velvet looked surprised.
“No?”
“Hate takes energy.”
“You think you’re better than me.”
“That one’s closer.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t sell poison.”
Velvet looked around.
“You sell alcohol.”
“I play music.”
“In a building that sells alcohol.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No?”
Velvet leaned against the rail.
“This building is designed to keep people awake past good judgment. Alcohol lowers inhibition. Music raises arousal. Promoters sell lonely men the possibility that beautiful women might care about them. Credit cards finance the bottles. Banks finance the room. Pharmaceutical companies sell addictive chemicals in nicer packaging.”
He nodded toward the dance floor.
“But I’m uniquely evil because mine come in bags.”
David looked at him.
“Consent.”
Velvet raised an eyebrow.
“You corrupt it.”
“So does advertising.”
“You exploit addiction.”
“So does gambling.”
“You hurt people.”
“So does debt.”
“You threaten people.”
“So do governments.”
David opened his mouth.
Nothing elegant arrived.
Velvet smiled.
“There.”
“There what?”
“The honest part.”
“What honest part?”
“You don’t have an answer.”
David looked downstairs.
Mercer sat beside Mickey.
Mud had one arm around a young promoter’s shoulders.
DJ Boy was directing a photographer toward what he apparently considered his better side.
Velvet’s voice softened.
“I’m not saying I’m good, Karma.”
David looked at him.
“I’m saying everybody else is lying.”
For several seconds David had no answer.
Then:
“They lie about what they are.”
Velvet turned.
“You know what you are?”
David considered.
“No.”
Velvet smiled.
“Better answer.”
He started to leave.
David stopped him.
“One difference.”
Velvet looked back.
“When those systems fuck people over, they’re at least supposed to be allowed to say it happened.”
Velvet glanced toward Mercer.
“And with me?”
“Apparently their liquor license disappears.”
Velvet laughed.
“Fair.”
He left.
David stood behind the mixer.
He disliked that Velvet had made one good argument.
He disliked more that Velvet knew he had.
Mud and Velvet disagreed about the future.
Mud started financing legitimate businesses.
A barbershop.
A restaurant.
A small security company.
Real jobs.
Real paychecks.
Velvet mocked him.
“You want absolution.”
“I want stability.”
“You want everybody to forget where the money came from.”
“I want the money to stop coming from there.”
Velvet laughed.
“You think a clean shirt changes the body wearing it?”
Mud stood.
“Fuck you.”
Velvet smiled.
“You see?”
“What?”
“You need to be the nice one.”
Mud looked at him.
“I am not you.”
“No.”
Velvet said it softly.
Mud hated him for that answer.
David made his own mistake that winter.
A promoter named Evan had started appearing around Mercer.
David saw them talking twice.
Then three times.
One night Leah mentioned that Evan wanted to speak with her.
“Don’t.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“He’s working with Mercer.”
“You know that?”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“David.”
“Don’t.”
Leah listened.
Evan stopped getting calls from people who trusted David.
Two months later David learned the truth.
Evan had been speaking to Mercer because his younger brother had been arrested.
He had been trying to keep the kid out of prison.
Nothing more.
By then Evan had lost his residency at a small club after rumors spread that he was an informant.
He moved away.
David called.
Evan answered once.
“I was wrong,” David said.
There was silence.
“Yeah.”
“I fucked you over.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
That somehow made it worse.
Evan hung up.
David never heard from him again.
The story did not circle back.
There was no reconciliation.
No later proof that David had secretly been right.
Just one man he’d misjudged and damage that stayed damaged.
After that, David became slower about certainty.
Not slow.
Slower.
Chapter Three
Krell
The first useful evidence came from an old recording.
David recorded nearly every set he played.
Some were good.
Some were bad.
Most showed that his younger self had held unreasonable beliefs about the ideal length of a drum intro.
One night, searching for an old transition, he heard voices beneath the music.
He stopped.
Rewound.
Mercer.
Mickey.
Bass.
Crowd noise.
Then:
“…Krell can handle it.”
“Not another one.”
“Velvet said—”
The kick swallowed the sentence.
David worked on the recording for hours.
A date.
A number.
A location.
A name.
Simon Krell.
Krell officially operated a reconstructive dental practice in an industrial district near the eastern freight yards.
The office barely advertised.
Its hours made no sense.
Several people associated with Velvet had been photographed entering after midnight.
David did something stupid.
He went there.
The clinic had a frosted-glass door and no sign.
A freight train moved somewhere beyond the warehouses.
David rang.
A man in scrubs opened the door.
“We’re closed.”
“My jaw hurts.”
“Emergency room.”
“I don’t like hospitals.”
The man’s expression changed.
“Who sent you?”
David chose the name most likely to open a door.
“Mud.”
It worked.
Inside were dental chairs.
Surgical lights.
Locked cabinets.
Imaging equipment.
For three seconds David saw through an open doorway.
A man lay beneath a blanket.
One bruised hand hung over the edge.
Somebody shut the door.
“Who’s that?”
The man in scrubs moved between David and the hallway.
“You said your jaw hurts.”
“It improved.”
David left.
Six blocks later he called a federal tip line.
Agent Lena Ward met him the next morning at seven.
David considered the hour an abuse of authority.
“You went inside?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Poor judgment.”
“That part is clear.”
“Do you insult everybody who brings you evidence?”
“Only promising witnesses.”
She opened a folder.
“Tell me about Vale.”
David did.
Velvet.
Mud.
Mickey.
Mercer.
Then:
“DJ Boy.”
Ward looked up.
“DJ Boy?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Actual name?”
“No idea.”
“What does he do?”
“Appears.”
Ward stared.
“You’ll understand.”
She wrote something.
“We’ve been investigating Vale for almost two years.”
David sat back.
“Finally.”
“Every investigation leaks.”
His relief disappeared.
“Mercer?”
“Not only Mercer.”
“How high?”
Ward closed the folder.
“High enough.”
David thought of Velvet.
“Nobody’s coming.”
“What?”
“Something he says.”
Ward stood.
“Someone’s coming.”
David didn’t like her tone.
Chapter Four
The Corrective Unit
Dr. Mara Voss appeared to run the unit.
Later David learned that appearances were doing most of the work.
Mara was a physician.
Elias Finch was a reconstructive specialist.
Ward handled intelligence.
Cal pushed carts.
Cal opened doors.
Cal made coffee.
Cal rarely spoke.
David assumed Cal killed people.
It seemed reasonable.
Their headquarters occupied Krell’s former clinic.
David saw one room.
Medical chair.
Locked cabinets.
Dental instruments.
Drain.
He stopped.
“Oh, fuck no.”
Mara looked at him.
“What?”
“I’ve seen Scandal.”
Finch blinked.
David pointed.
“Huck. Teeth. Basement. Absolutely not.”
“I’ve never watched it,” Finch said.
“That makes this worse.”
Mara stepped between him and the room.
“This was Krell’s treatment space.”
“You took the clinic.”
“Yes.”
“Krell?”
“Cooperating.”
“Does Velvet know?”
“No.”
“What exactly are you planning?”
“To dismantle his organization.”
“Through court?”
Ward and Mara exchanged a glance.
David caught it.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“That.”
Mara’s patience shortened.
“Conventional prosecution has repeatedly failed.”
“So fix it.”
“That takes time.”
“Take time.”
“People are being harmed now.”
David stared.
“What do you people actually do?”
Finch answered.
“Corrective intervention.”
David looked at him.
“That phrase should come with its own warrant.”
Ward found him later by a vending machine.
“You don’t trust Mara.”
“Do you?”
Ward didn’t answer.
“Excellent.”
“There are people who believe the unit is necessary.”
“And?”
“People who believe it’s criminal.”
“And?”
“People who believe it should finish before anyone decides.”
David laughed.
Ward didn’t.
Krell’s files contained photographs.
Invoices.
Names.
People treated without hospital records.
Injuries concealed.
Procedures undocumented elsewhere.
Complaints years afterward.
Pressure.
Stiffness.
Jaw pain.
Heaviness.
Scans later doctors struggled to reconcile.
David found Leah’s name.
Then Luis.
He stared at the photograph.
Luis in his Giants cap.
Grinning at whoever had taken it.
David remembered the coffee.
One’s yours.
“Arrest them.”
Mara stood across the table.
“We tried.”
“Try again.”
“Mercer compromised witnesses.”
“Arrest Mercer.”
“He’s protected.”
“Go above him.”
“We did.”
David looked around the clinic.
“And you’re what came back.”
Mara nodded.
A garbage truck groaned somewhere outside.
David had the sudden, ridiculous thought that he could smell the Meridian at closing time.
Stale champagne.
Wet pavement.
Cold fog.
He shut the file.
Chapter Five
Slim Odds
The federal case appeared to collapse.
A warrant failed.
A witness recanted.
A prosecutor changed assignments.
Surveillance stopped.
Velvet believed he had won.
He gathered Mud, Mickey, Mercer and DJ Boy inside the private dining room of his restaurant.
Champagne arrived.
DJ Boy raised his glass.
“To global relevance.”
Mickey looked at him.
“Can you not?”
Velvet stood.
“They came.”
Mud smiled.
“They left.”
Mercer drank.
Velvet lifted his glass.
“The chances anybody touches us now are slim.”
Mud leaned back.
“Slim isn’t none.”
Velvet looked at him.
“No.”
He smiled.
“But it’s close enough.”
They drank.
For eight months, Velvet appeared correct.
Two rival crews disappeared.
Three clubs began paying Mickey’s companies.
A promoter who refused lost his license.
Another received a tax audit.
Mercer was promoted.
Mud recruited.
Mickey incorporated.
The organization moved toward legitimacy.
Restaurants.
Security.
Events.
Property.
Mud pushed hardest.
“We don’t need it anymore.”
Velvet looked at him.
“Need what?”
“The street shit.”
“The street shit bought the restaurants.”
“We have the restaurants.”
“And?”
“We stop.”
Velvet laughed.
“People don’t stop when they’re winning.”
Mud stared at him.
“Maybe that’s why they lose.”
Velvet smiled.
“Listen to you.”
“What?”
“Trying to become respectable.”
Mud stood.
“I’m trying to build something.”
“You already did.”
Mud left.
David saw him outside the Meridian later.
Fog covered the top halves of the buildings.
Someone down the block was dragging metal chairs across concrete.
“You okay?” David asked.
Mud looked suspicious.
“That concern?”
“Experimental.”
Mud almost smiled.
“You think I’m a monster.”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
David shrugged.
“I helped people.”
“I know.”
Mud turned.
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
David continued.
“That’s what makes you difficult.”
“I found kids sleeping on couches. Gave them jobs. Got people apartments.”
“And eventually they owed you.”
Mud’s face tightened.
“Everybody owes somebody.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The little door.”
Mud stared.
“What little door?”
“The one everybody builds so they can leave the room without admitting what they did.”
Mud laughed without humor.
“You really think you’re different?”
David remembered Evan.
“No.”
Mud waited.
David looked toward the club.
“I think I want to be.”
For once neither man had another line.
Then Mud developed a toothache.
Chapter Six
Gravity
Mud exercised every morning.
Not because exercise made him happy.
Because control did.
Six-thirty.
Hotel gym.
Empty.
Weights.
Pull-ups.
Push-ups.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Forty.
Forty-six.
Forty-seven.
Halfway down, Mud stopped.
His arms were fine.
Chest fine.
Shoulders fine.
His face wasn’t.
No pain.
Pressure.
A downward pull through his cheeks and jaw.
As if gravity had increased for one small part of him.
Mud locked his elbows.
Held.
Pushed upward.
Gone.
He lowered again.
There.
He sat back on his knees.
Touched his face.
Nothing.
He stood at the mirror.
Front.
Normal.
Left.
Normal.
Right.
Normal.
He tried again.
Down.
Pressure.
Up.
Gone.
Down.
Pressure.
Up.
Gone.
Mud stood.
He did not finish the workout.
At breakfast Mickey noticed him touching his jaw.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’re touching your face.”
Mud lowered his hand.
DJ Boy arrived wearing sunglasses indoors.
He sat.
“Anybody else feel weird when they bend over?”
Mud looked up.
Mickey stopped stirring his coffee.
DJ Boy removed the glasses.
“What?”
Nobody answered.
His expression changed.
“Oh, fuck you.”
Mud leaned forward.
“Keep your voice down.”
“You feel it.”
“Boy.”
“You fucking feel it.”
Mickey touched his cheek.
Mud slapped his hand away.
“Stop doing that.”
“You were doing it.”
“No.”
“You were.”
DJ Boy lowered his voice.
“Something’s in there.”
Mud’s eyes hardened.
“Don’t.”
“Then why does gravity change it?”
Mud froze.
Gravity.
The word fit.
Mud’s route into the clinic had been simple.
The toothache hurt.
He trusted Krell.
Same frosted glass.
Same waiting room.
Same ugly painting of a sailboat.
He did not know Krell had been turned.
Mud remembered sedation.
He remembered waking.
“What did you do?”
A woman answered:
“Corrective work.”
“What work?”
“You’ll receive documentation.”
He never did.
The pressure began the next morning.
Mickey was too cautious to return directly to Krell.
A private specialist he’d used for years referred him elsewhere.
Afterward, Mickey developed pressure of his own.
He went to doctors.
Then more doctors.
One scan became four.
Four became a briefcase.
He highlighted phrases.
Unusual density.
Prior reconstructive material.
Clinical significance uncertain.
A specialist enlarged an image.
Then enlarged it again.
Mickey watched his expression.
“What?”
The doctor didn’t answer.
“What?”
“I’d like your older imaging.”
“Why?”
“To compare.”
“Compare what?”
The doctor leaned back.
“I’m not sure.”
Mickey went still.
“Not sure what it is?”
“Not sure what I’m looking at.”
Mickey packed the scans.
He did not schedule another appointment.
DJ Boy entered through vanity.
A cosmetic consultation.
Nothing medically necessary.
A private clinic promised discretion.
Afterward he began photographing himself constantly.
Morning.
Night.
Left.
Right.
Window light.
Bathroom light.
A bartender finally said:
“You look exactly the same.”
DJ Boy leaned closer.
“Exactly exactly?”
“You look like you.”
“That is not specific enough.”
Velvet had avoided Krell for years.
Then an old undocumented repair began causing pain.
He could not bring the problem to an ordinary hospital without explaining where it came from.
He re-entered the medical network his own organization had relied upon.
Weeks later he woke with his hand already pressed against his cheek.
He had not consciously placed it there.
That frightened him.
Mirror.
Nothing.
Different light.
Nothing.
Photograph.
Nothing.
Older photograph.
Maybe.
He enlarged it.
Maybe.
Nothing had ever frightened Velvet like maybe.
The four men met at Mickey’s apartment.
Nobody officially called the meeting.
They simply arrived.
Scans covered the table.
Mud paced.
DJ Boy checked his camera.
Velvet stood by the window.
Mickey pointed at an image.
“This wasn’t there before.”
Mud leaned closer.
“What?”
“This.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
DJ Boy pointed.
“The gray part?”
“Maybe.”
“Plastic?”
“Stop.”
“Glue?”
“Boy.”
“What if—”
“SHUT UP.”
DJ Boy sat.
Mud rubbed his jaw.
Velvet noticed.
“You okay?”
Mud laughed once.
“No.”
Nobody moved.
Mud had never said that.
He sat down.
“I can’t do push-ups.”
Mickey looked at him.
“What?”
“The pressure changes.”
DJ Boy whispered:
“That’s what I said.”
Mud looked at Mickey.
“You too?”
Mickey nodded.
Velvet’s hand rose toward his own cheek.
Mud saw it.
“Don’t.”
Velvet stopped.
“What?”
“Touch it.”
Velvet looked at Mud’s hand.
Mud realized his own fingers were pressed beneath his jaw.
He lowered them.
No doctor had given them a common diagnosis.
No record connected all four cases.
Some physicians saw nothing.
Others saw things they could not confidently name.
No one admitted wrongdoing.
The four men sat in silence.
For the first time in years, none of them knew which version of reality belonged to them.
Chapter Seven
Oversight
David confronted Mara.
“You did something.”
“Specificity helps.”
“Mud. Mickey. Velvet.”
“And?”
David hesitated.
“DJ Boy.”
Mara exhaled.
“His involvement generated internal disagreement.”
“He’s barely involved in reality.”
“Noted.”
“What did you do?”
“Corrective interventions.”
“Stop saying that.”
“These men participated—”
“I know what they participated in.”
Mara stared.
David stepped closer.
“Did you hurt them?”
Silence.
David looked toward Ward.
Ward looked away.
That was enough.
“You became them.”
Mara’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Secret treatment.”
“No.”
“Secret authority.”
“No.”
“People leaving without understanding what happened to their bodies.”
“We did not reproduce Krell’s injuries.”
“Then what did you do?”
Mara said nothing.
David looked at the old complaints.
Then at the newer records.
Then back at her.
His voice dropped.
“You made them wonder.”
Mara did not answer.
That was worse.
Ward stood.
“Mara.”
Mara looked at her.
Ward shook her head.
Then Cal entered pushing a cart.
David watched him.
“You know, I’ve assumed for months that you kill people.”
Cal stopped.
For the first time, he smiled.
“No.”
“What do you do?”
Cal reached inside his jacket.
Identification.
Office of Inspector General.
David stared.
“You’re oversight?”
“Yes.”
“You push carts.”
“People forget service staff are present.”
David looked toward Mara.
She looked furious.
Cal continued.
“My office has been documenting this unit since before Mr. Karma entered the matter.”
Ward sat down.
Finch closed his eyes.
David laughed once.
“So none of you trust each other.”
Cal considered.
“That is not an inaccurate summary.”
The unit had fractured long before David noticed.
Mara believed ordinary systems had failed so completely that extraordinary measures were justified.
Ward believed Velvet had to be stopped but increasingly suspected Mara had confused necessity with permission.
Finch thought they had been too restrained.
Cal believed everybody should continue talking until he had enough documentation.
David looked around the room.
“You aren’t a team.”
Mara said:
“We function.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Nobody argued.
Leah met David at a diner two days later.
The diner sat under an elevated roadway and smelled permanently of coffee, fryer oil, and rain drying from coats.
“You gave Ward my name.”
“I told her what I knew.”
“You gave them my name.”
“I was trying to help.”
“I know.”
That slowed him.
Leah looked tired.
“I’m grateful you believed me.”
“But?”
“But stop using me.”
David stared.
“I’m not using you.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To prove you’re right about everybody.”
“That isn’t—”
“It is.”
She looked at him.
“Mud is corrupt. Velvet is corrupt. The cops are corrupt. The government is corrupt. And there you are, standing in the booth, seeing everything correctly.”
He said nothing.
“You helped me.”
David looked down.
“You did.”
Her voice softened.
“But sometimes you care more about being right about bad people than being present for hurt people.”
David thought of Evan.
Leah stood.
“Don’t turn what happened to me into evidence.”
She left.
David remained at the table.
Coffee cooled in front of him.
The waitress refilled it anyway.
Nobody can reach you up there.
Mud had said it first.
David had dismissed him because Mud was Mud.
That, he realized, had been another kind of cowardice.
Chapter Eight
The Box
Mara brought David a cardboard archive box.
No Ward.
No Finch.
No Cal.
Inside were photographs.
Old imaging.
Krell’s private notes.
Names.
Luis.
Leah.
Others David did not know.
Mud, Mickey and Velvet appeared not as patients but as contacts.
Payments.
Referrals.
Authorizations.
The same complaints appeared more than once.
Pressure.
Jaw stiffness.
Heaviness.
Foreign-looking material.
Contradictory records.
Some pages suggested deliberate wrongdoing.
Others were vague.
A few were missing.
David stared at Luis’s photograph.
Giants cap.
Half-smile.
Alive in a way a case file could not reproduce.
“What did they know?”
Mara sat across from him.
“Velvet knew enough.”
“Mickey?”
“Financed some of it.”
“Mud?”
She hesitated.
“He brought people to Krell.”
“Knowing?”
“We can’t establish what he understood every time.”
“Convenient.”
“Accurate.”
“Boy?”
“We found no evidence that DJ Boy understood much of anything.”
David almost smiled.
Almost.
“What did you do to them?”
Mara did not answer.
David waited.
Nothing.
He looked again at the files.
Old uncertainty.
New uncertainty.
He looked at Mara.
“You wanted them to wonder.”
Silence.
“You wanted them waking up with questions.”
Nothing.
David closed the folder.
“They turned people into material.”
Mara looked at him.
“Yes.”
“So did you.”
Her expression changed.
Barely.
“We stopped them.”
“Good.”
“We prevented future victims.”
“Good.”
“We exposed Mercer.”
“Good.”
“We dismantled Krell’s clinic.”
“Good.”
“And still?”
“Yes.”
Mara laughed quietly.
“I expected you to understand.”
“I do.”
“That changes nothing?”
David thought of Leah.
“It changes how sure I am about myself.”
Mara waited.
“Not about this.”
She looked away.
“You don’t think consequence matters?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think they deserved punishment?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you defending?”
David looked at Luis’s photograph.
“The person.”
Mara frowned.
“What?”
“You don’t get to turn another person into material.”
“Even them?”
“Especially if you’re the government.”
Mara looked at him for a long time.
She did not agree.
She did not argue.
Years later David would remember that silence more clearly than anything else she ever said.
Chapter Nine
Mud
Mud called David.
That alone was unusual enough that David answered.
His apartment looked wrong without people.
No music.
No young promoters.
No half-finished drinks.
Medical folders covered the kitchen table.
Mud sat at the far end.
“You think I’m a monster.”
David sat.
“I think you hurt people.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
David waited.
Mud looked toward the window.
“I helped people.”
“Sometimes.”
Mud turned.
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
For the first time he looked genuinely surprised.
David continued.
“That’s what makes you harder.”
“I found kids sleeping on couches. Gave them jobs. Helped with rent. They came to my house for Thanksgiving.”
“And eventually they owed you.”
Mud stared at the table.
“That didn’t make the first part fake.”
“No.”
“You agree?”
“Yes.”
Mud looked almost angry at the answer.
“Velvet says it was always leverage.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Then a pause.
Mud looked down.
“Not at first.”
David said nothing.
Mud touched his jaw.
“Somebody needed five hundred dollars, I gave it to them.”
He swallowed.
“Later I remembered they owed me.”
“And that became useful.”
Mud nodded.
Very slightly.
“I told myself it was fair.”
Outside, a bus moved through rain.
Mud looked at him.
“So what am I?”
Years earlier David would have answered before the question finished.
Dealer.
Manipulator.
Asshole.
Now:
“I don’t know.”
Mud looked up.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“That is new.”
“I’m trying something.”
Mud smiled faintly.
“My face is still heavy.”
“I know.”
“You think I deserve it?”
David chose his words.
“I think you deserve to answer for what you did.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
Mud nodded.
“You’re learning.”
David almost asked what happened to Luis.
He didn’t.
He wasn’t sure whether that was wisdom or fear.
Some questions never came back.
Chapter Ten
Nobody Answers
Velvet’s empire did not collapse all at once.
It stopped answering the telephone.
Velvet called Mercer.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Mickey.
Nothing.
Mud.
Nothing.
A club owner who had once waited twenty minutes just to shake Velvet’s hand answered on the fourth ring.
“I can’t talk.”
“You can talk.”
“No.”
Velvet paused.
“What?”
“I said no.”
The line disconnected.
Velvet stared at the phone.
He called another owner.
No answer.
Another.
Nothing.
His lawyer answered and spoke for less than a minute.
“Do not call me from this phone again.”
Click.
Velvet walked through the restaurant.
Half the staff had failed to appear.
The private dining room stood empty.
Untouched glasses lined the bar.
He called Mercer again.
Nothing.
Mickey.
Nothing.
Mud.
Nothing.
Then the phone rang.
Velvet stared at it.
For one second, relief.
He answered.
“Yeah?”
DJ Boy.
“Hey.”
Velvet closed his eyes.
“What?”
“I heard weird stuff.”
Silence.
“You okay?”
Velvet said nothing.
“I can come over.”
Velvet looked around the empty restaurant.
“Where is everybody?”
“What?”
“Everybody.”
DJ Boy paused.
“I’m here.”
Velvet looked at the dark booths.
The silent bar.
The unused champagne glasses.
That was when he understood.
The organization ended with paper.
Mickey’s shell companies contradicted his tax filings.
Krell’s records established payments.
Mercer’s declared income failed to explain his properties.
Mud took a plea.
Mercer discovered Mud was cooperating and cooperated harder.
Mickey cooperated against Mercer.
Mercer cooperated against Mickey.
Krell cooperated against everyone.
DJ Boy volunteered despite nobody asking him.
An investigator sat across from him.
“Describe your role.”
DJ Boy leaned forward.
“Cultural liaison.”
“For whom?”
“The movement.”
“What movement?”
“International nightlife.”
“What did you actually do?”
DJ Boy thought.
“Appearances.”
The investigator waited.
DJ Boy nodded, satisfied.
“Where?”
“Globally.”
“Name three countries.”
DJ Boy frowned.
“I don’t appreciate the implication.”
The investigator closed the folder.
“Thank you.”
“I know more.”
“I’m sure.”
That was all.
Velvet ultimately went down for financial crimes.
It insulted him.
He had imagined himself an outlaw prince.
Accountants defeated him.
At sentencing he spotted David in the rear of the courtroom.
As marshals led him away, Velvet stopped.
“Told you everybody was lying.”
David looked at him.
“You were right.”
Velvet smiled.
“And?”
“You were wrong about what that permitted.”
Velvet considered.
“Maybe.”
Then he was gone.
David appreciated the maybe.
He didn’t know whether Velvet meant it.
Mercer lost his badge.
Mickey surrendered records.
Mud took his agreement.
Krell disappeared into protection.
The corrective unit dissolved.
Mara resigned before the investigation into her program became public.
Finch was transferred somewhere nobody named.
Ward left government service.
Cal wrote a report several agencies spent years arguing about.
Almost nothing became public.
Enough leaked to create stories.
Not enough to settle them.
Nobody ever produced a complete account of what happened inside the clinic after the government took it.
Some doctors maintained nothing unusual had been done to the four men.
Other doctors disagreed about what the scans showed.
Some symptoms could be explained.
Others couldn’t.
Records contradicted records.
People who claimed certainty usually knew the least.
Saint Vesper filled in the missing pieces.
Cities do that.
Chapter Eleven
Fifteen Years
The Meridian became a pharmacy.
Velvet’s restaurant became a bank.
The after-hours room became apartments.
The warehouse where people once waited outside hoping an important stranger might notice them became a fitness studio.
David considered that one particularly funny.
Time had no respect for prestige.
He kept DJing.
Smaller rooms.
Better rooms, in his opinion.
No velvet ropes.
No bottle service.
No one paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of sitting down.
Saint Vesper had changed too.
The old diner was gone.
The pharmacy remained.
Cobalt Street had brighter lights and fewer places to be stupid cheaply.
At four in the morning, though, fog still rolled downhill.
Garbage trucks still arrived.
That pleased David.
Leah still spoke to him.
He regarded that as evidence of personal improvement.
One evening after a set she sat beside him.
“You still narrate everybody in your head?”
“Yes.”
“Still always right?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“Progress.”
“Occasionally.”
They sat for a while.
David did not tell her what the silence meant.
He didn’t need to.
Mud stopped working out.
He told people it was his shoulder.
His shoulder was fine.
The downward sensation during push-ups never completely disappeared.
Doctors disagreed.
Some imaging looked ordinary.
Other imaging raised questions.
Nobody gave him an answer that remained answered.
Eventually he stopped asking.
Mostly.
Fifteen years after the Meridian closed, Mud stood alone in his apartment.
Gray at the temples.
Softer around the middle.
No entourage.
No people waiting for his phone call.
He looked at the floor.
Then at himself in the mirror.
He lowered himself.
Hands down.
Feet back.
Push-up position.
His arms trembled.
Not weakness.
Memory.
Mud lowered himself.
Halfway.
There.
Pressure.
The old downward pull through the jaw.
He froze.
For one second he was young again.
Perfect teeth.
Perfect body.
Perfect certainty.
He pushed upward too quickly.
One hand slipped.
Mud rolled onto his side.
Lay there breathing.
Then he laughed.
Quietly.
Nobody heard.
He sat against the wall.
Touched his jaw.
“Still fucking heavy.”
He noticed his hand.
The old habit.
Mud lowered it.
For once, he left his face alone.
Chapter Twelve
Chances
One Saturday night, a young DJ named Theo stood beside David in the booth.
The room was full.
Not famous.
Not important.
Full.
David preferred that.
Theo watched the crowd.
“You ever miss the old scene?”
“No.”
“That fast?”
“Immediately.”
“It sounds amazing.”
“Some of it was.”
Theo grinned.
“I knew it.”
“Exciting and good aren’t synonyms.”
“That is aggressively old-man DJ.”
“I’ve worked hard.”
Theo laughed.
Then:
“Was Velvet really as bad as people say?”
“Yes.”
“Mud?”
David hesitated.
Theo noticed.
“What?”
“Complicated.”
“That sounds diplomatic.”
“I’m experimenting.”
“What about those government people?”
“Also complicated.”
“Were they heroes?”
“No.”
“They stopped Velvet.”
“Yes.”
“So who was the good guy?”
David looked at him.
Years earlier he would have answered immediately.
Probably with himself.
Probably as a joke.
Now he thought of Leah.
Luis.
Evan.
Mud.
Mara.
Velvet.
Everyone with reasons.
Everyone with explanations.
Everyone moving the line until it happened to reach wherever they were already standing.
“Wrong question.”
Theo leaned closer.
“What’s the right one?”
David looked over the dance floor.
“Who managed not to become what they hated?”
“And?”
David placed one headphone over his ear.
“I tried.”
Theo nodded.
The next record waited.
“One more question.”
David groaned.
“What?”
“The Dentist story.”
“Of course.”
“Did that shit actually happen?”
“Some of it.”
“What part?”
“The part that happened.”
“That is useless.”
“Thank you.”
Theo laughed.
“No, seriously. Secret doctors? The clinic? The faces?”
David looked at him.
“Theo.”
“What?”
“Where are you hearing all this?”
“You know how stories are.”
David did.
Outside, Saint Vesper had become another city wearing the same name.
People who once believed they would matter forever became photographs nobody could identify.
Clubs disappeared.
Dealers became defendants.
Cops became former cops.
Government programs became rumors nobody could quite prove.
Fake celebrities became men explaining who they used to be.
Luis’s unfinished track never surfaced.
Evan never called.
Mara never sent an explanation.
Not everything came back.
Music did.
Not unchanged.
Nothing remained unchanged.
But it remained.
Theo tapped the booth.
“Come on.”
“What?”
“What are the odds the crazy version is actually true?”
David smiled.
“Slim.”
Theo nodded.
“Slim to none.”
David shook his head.
“No.”
“Then what?”
David cued the final record.
For one moment the room seemed to inhale.
“Chances are slim.”
Theo raised an eyebrow.
David dropped the track.
The floor erupted.
He smiled.
“But not none.”
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