The War Against the Assholes Read online

  The paper was no longer empty. From its outer edges, lines sped toward the center, making precise ninety-degree turns, dividing, ending. It was hypnotic. When the lines had finished moving, I saw a square room. One of its outer walls had a section of dots and dashes. Directly opposite was a solid black line. A window. A door. At the middle point between them a large, ornate letter M. “Vincent Callahan,” said Vincent. A V appeared. “Eileen Chao,” said Vincent. The view shifted, zoomed out: the paper showed two clean-lined rectangles now, sharing an edge. In the upper right corner of the second, an E. “She’s your neighbor, right,” I said. “Your deductive skills have improved,” said Vincent, “I didn’t even know any of these things still existed. Charthouse is going to shit himself.” It was a floor plan. The type you see in real estate ads. “Hob said he got this case from a guy he knew,” said Vincent, “no way. Not possible. Do you know what this is? This is like a museum piece. Dr. Henry Alfred motherfucking Kissinger.”

  The paper changed. The lines faded, then raced, straight and steady, across the ivory surface once more. They formed a large, irregular rectangle, subdivided into smaller boxes: an apartment or an office. A black H, in elegant, spiky handwriting, appeared in one of the smaller boxes. “He must be taking a shit or jerking off,” said Vincent, “he’s been in the bathroom forever. At least I assume it’s a bathroom.” “Who’s Henry Kissinger,” I said. “I remember the instruction at Cyprian’s being poor, but that’s ridiculous,” said Vincent. The black H floated from the small room into a larger room, one that shared a border with the empty space around the diagram, and paused before a dashed-and-dotted section of the line representing the wall. You could tell right away what we were seeing: a human being looking out a window. Around us lay the torn strips of paper and cloth that had once been Hob’s possessions. “He loved that scarf,” said Vincent.

  Mappa mundi. That’s what the folded parchment was called. They had first been used during the early Renaissance, when the technique for creating them was mastered by the monk Udo of Brescia, a calli­grapher and theurge in the employ of the library at the Abbazia di San Colombo in Bobbio, Italy. So Vincent told me. Mappae mundi required, he said, the labor of a hundred days to make, during which the carto­grapher had to remain awake. Otherwise the map would stay merely an empty sheet of paper. This prolonged insomnia carried with it the risk of insanity or death, so the cartographer also had to be a past master in the use of medical herbs and the spells and formulae governing the body in order to survive it. Cartographers could make a sufficient fortune from creating one mappa to live on for the rest of their lives. The initiator of the art, the loyal Udo, had made not one but six, according to Vincent, and made them only for the greater glory of the church and his public god. Not for money. You could observe the location and precise surroundings of anyone or any place whose name you knew. You could ask it even more than that. The true powers of the mappa, Vincent said, had never yet been exhausted. Ask and be answered. It required nothing of you. No effort. Just a word, that’s all. It struck me as unfair. “This is how they live, all the time,” said Vincent as we walked down Amsterdam, grimacing into the wind, “do you understand me?”

  The gritty wind drew tears. They careened down my cheeks. “No one’s ever been able to explain, to my satisfaction at least,” Vincent said, “why they keep trying to stamp out any opposing tradition. Look at what they have. Why do they care if a few jackasses are stubborn enough to work their wills without the aid of stuff like this?” He had a point. I had one too. “Why take him? Couldn’t they just have read his mind or used an incantation or something? I mean about the map.” “Hob is very good at hiding things,” said Vincent, “in case you hadn’t noticed.” “People who are good at hiding things don’t use lockers,” I said. “Hidden in plain sight. Obscurity through transparency. And the only reason you were able to find this at all, I’d guess, is that it was his like contingency plan for you or me or someone to do so,” said Vincent. “Why did he lie, though,” I said, “in the first place.” “I assume, and I’m just speculating here,” said Vincent, “that he didn’t want to tell Alabama because she would have straight-up murdered him.” “And that case wasn’t his or a gift or whatever,” I said. “Exactly, Holmes,” said Vincent. “So how did he know that Quinn had it,” I said. You never get over catechism. “Hob has light fingers. He has tremendous instincts. People talk to him when they should shut up,” said Vincent, “simple as that. It’s the weak-little-boy act he does. Put yourself in his place. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have given in to temptation? If you came into possession of that info? Especially given things are the way they are? That’s a big no. That’s a big fuck no.” A crow was tracking us, high overhead. Cawing and circling. “You see,” said Vincent, “that’s what I’m talking about.” “Tyranny of the majority,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be that way.” Vincent’s mouth crimped and wryed. Disgust formed his primary visible emotion. That’s how it goes with idealists. This I’ve since learned. I nodded, trying to look wise. “Why are you making that face,” said Vincent.

  He called people as we walked. A true pro. An apartment broker, I thought. He had an impressive phone voice: he dropped his regular reedy voice about half an octave and injected loud, confident joviality into it. He spoke to a coworker whom he got to cover his shift. He spoke to a woman named Kavitha, crowing her name, out of an appointment with whom he had to wriggle. “Sorry, I know I’ve been a flake,” he said, gnawing a thumbnail, “I know. I know it’s ridiculous. I know. But then again that’s why you like me so much, is that I’m unpredictable.” More gnawing. He pumped a fist in silent celebration when she bought (I assumed) his excuse, which was that he had to go to the dentist. I was impressed. His life possessed a complexity mine innately lacked. When you’re not yet twenty you venerate those older than you but under thirty as paragons of autonomy. “The master at work,” said Vincent. He made a third call. I realized it was Charthouse as soon as Vincent started speaking: all that fake timbre and depth was gone from his voice and he sounded as he had when he spoke to me the first night we met. He said he’d found it. Found what it was. He explained. Waited. Then he told Charthouse I had helped, for a change. “Yeah, we’ll meet you there,” said Vincent, “I think bringing some’s a good idea, you never know. Okay. Okay. In a bit.” He hung up. He exhaled. He said, voice steady and cold, “Hats off to the great masters.” We kept walking. Vincent kept smoking. “There’s a chance that idiot might survive, assuming they didn’t kill him already,” said Vincent. “Why would they kill him,” I said. “It’s true that what he took is a value proposition for them,” said Vincent, “but you never can tell when you’re dealing with Nazis.” “You mean metaphorically, right,” I said. I remembered Mr. Stone’s tales of Hitler and Sebottendorf. “Metaphorically’s a big word,” said Vincent.

  There. Turned out to be a concrete staircase leading upward and inward from Cathedral Parkway onto a dead hill in the park. Stained steps, no balustrades. Charthouse waited at the bottom. Face stony. He wore a heel-reaching leather coat and a glazed bush hat, and he carried his cane and a white plastic bag. The sky had gone leaden. Snow speckled the steps, their rectilinear, scarred path. “How did Hob end up with it,” he said. No preface. No preamble. “He used to rob my mother’s purse. He used to rob my father’s wallet,” said Vincent, “and he wouldn’t even spend the money. He would show me. So draw your own conclusions.” Dry thunder. “Let’s get to it,” said Charthouse. We climbed the stairs. His cane clattering. The silver badger’s yellow eyes seemed alight. I knew the stairs. I knew the hill. At the top lay the plateau where I had smoked weed for the first time. With Simon Canary. He called it the Magic Mountain. Stone benches. An empty malt liquor bottle, into the neck of which an optimist had inserted a black, dead twig. A view out over the Meer, which is the name of the lake in the park’s northeast corner. Islands of gray-white ice drifting. Dead high grass. Dead-glinting foil shards. Charthouse tossed me the groc
ery bag. It contained, I saw, three shrink-wrapped packages: ground beef, tripe, and deep-hued, gleaming liver. “Only the finest,” said Vincent. “Looks tasty,” I said. “Dump them out,” he said. I did. The maxi-pad-like oblongs of paper and Styrofoam they package meat with clung to my freezing fingers. Watery blood dripped. “Is this a sacrifice,” I said. “Only of eleven American dollars,” said Charthouse.

  The meat sat on the cold stone. It looked human. Vulnerable. The way eyes glisten. You can see their fragility. Charthouse took up a position at the head of the stairs, cane readied. Vincent megaphoned his hands around his mouth and started screaming at the top of his lungs: “Verner Potash is a bearded bitch who blows goats.” Other imprecations. Charthouse watched the lead-gray skies. A couple of kids started up the stairs and noticed us. Made for us. I lifted my fists. They looked weak, thin, necky, their ball caps cocked at an angle. Charthouse stared at them. Swinging his cane. The ferrule struck each of his white sneakers: ticktock. “What you looking at,” said one. His colleague spat. Vincent kept shouting. “Damn, man,” said the spitter, “why he yelling like that.” Charthouse yanked on the badger head. The cane’s body divided. A shrill, single note. Metal glinted in the heavy light. “That nigga got a sword cane,” said the spitter, who wasn’t black, to his colleague, who was. The kids got this glazed look in their eyes. They adjusted their ball caps: both Yankees fans. They headed back down the stairs, their hissing laughter echoing. “Faggots,” the observant one called. Charthouse kept the point of his blade aloft till they reached the street. I was impressed. I hadn’t figured Charthouse for a swordcane user. That requires a lot of inner fortitude. The wind rose. More snow fell. Vincent kept on with his stream of obscenities. “Alabama’s going to meet us later,” said Charthouse. “I didn’t say anything about Alabama,” I said. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Wood,” said Charthouse. “You fat cunt, we are going to murder you and eat your heart, do you hear me,” said Vincent. “Is he just blowing off steam now,” I said. “They’re like cabs,” said Charthouse, “they’re everywhere until you need one.”

  That’s when I heard it. Beneath Vincent’s uproar. The whicker of wings. “Come and get it, you beady-eyed motherfuckers,” said Vincent. Three crows clattered down from the harbor-gray sky and hopped toward the piled meat and offal. Then another two birds, one a hulking raven with a crumpled foot. He (you assume ravens are male) hopped gingerly while earthbound. The five darted their beaks into the meat and came up carrying glossy shreds. Clicking and cooing. Scrape of their beaks against concrete. Smack of the meat as it vanished down gullets. The combined sounds resembled human eating noise. This repulsed me. Then again, we’re animals. The crows and the crippled raven ate and ate. They slowed. They stopped. They didn’t fly off. “I know one of you has a direct line,” said Vincent. The crows chattered to one another. Blood flecks flew. “I know you can hear me, you child-molesting necrophile,” said Vincent. Maybe the phrase child-molesting necrophile did the job. I don’t know. The crippled raven hopped forward. Toward Vincent. Froze in place at his feet, staring up. As if a circuit inside of it had snapped closed. Its eyes locked on him and its beak open. It balanced on its good foot. It cocked its head.

  And listened. Obviously listened. Vincent saw. He took out the mappa. “Hobart Callahan,” he said. I couldn’t see what the lines showed. The crow seemed interested. “You want this back, you can have it,” said Vincent, “but you’re going to have to convince me my brother’s alive. Otherwise you get nothing. Do you understand me, you fat prick.” His phone began to ring as he said the words fat prick. Spoiled the effect. The raven, out of its daze, stumbled toward the stairs, picking up speed, and hurled itself into the air. The other crows remained and went back to jabbing their beaks at the remaining meat. The snowy, chambered tripe now dark with dust. Vincent’s phone kept ringing. He lifted it. He looked. Eyes wide and frightened. He answered. “Hello,” he said. I heard the insectile whine of a human voice, speaking through a distant phone. Wind. Or nothing, maybe. Vincent didn’t speak. His face went white. Then flushed. His nostrils quivered. He grabbed his left ear. A good sign, I assumed. You only really care about the living. “Hob,” he said, “I need to ask you a question.” Charthouse sheathed his sword. “No, I need to ask you a question. What was the name of your horse, the one you rode when we played outlaw,” he said. Hob answered. I could only hear the faint buzz of his voice in the still, cold air. I wanted to know what he’d called the horse. More human rapacity.

  Vincent hung up. His hands shook. “Well,” said Charthouse. Vincent straddled a stone bench. He picked up the bottle with the twig in it. “What’s the news,” said Charthouse. Vincent’s eyelids fell and a vein bulged into relief on his forehead. Green shoots curled outward from the twig, opening into full leaves. Threadlike roots spread and shattered the glass. Twined around Vincent’s bare, reddened hands. The noise of the breaking bottle echoed above the moist, masticatory sound of the plant growing. “He’s alive,” said Charthouse. “They’re willing to make an exchange,” said Vincent. His voice dry and hoarse. The twig burst and burst insanely into leaf.

  21

  Your appetite never ceases to amaze me,” said my father. I’d eaten two slabs of steak and three baked potatoes. He fried steaks and baked potatoes when my mother was traveling on business. She had to go to a pharmaceuticals convention in Tempe. So my father had made what he called his swinging bachelor grub. He even gave me a beer, which he never did when my mother was around. “Tough practice,” I said. “Got to keep my strength up,” I said. I told him I had a date. “With that girl I saw sneaking out of your room the other day,” he said. I said yes. Not even a lie. I realized he must have seen Alabama, the morning after she gave me my tattoo. Our parents observe more than we as adolescents credit them with. “Don’t get anyone pregnant,” he said. I promised I wouldn’t. He had nothing to worry about on that front. My phone vibrated. “I gotta go,” I said. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” he said. “Now that’s Shakespeare.”

  Hostage exchanges: new to me. I was not afraid. When you are young you do not fear the unknown. You welcome it, in fact. If it so happens that you need to go rescue a fallen fellow soldier, all the better. Your desire for novelty: satisfied. Your desire to be in the right: satisfied. Except such desire is never satisfied. You need to abandon it. That’s all. Vincent and Alabama were waiting in a taxi at my building door. “Fancy address,” said Vincent. He was holding a canvas sack, which he opened to show me a rosewood cigar box. PERFECTO, it said on a small brass plate. Inside, I assumed, the mappa. Alabama shifted in her seat. Her rubber-banded gun butt caught a flash of yellow street light. A Colt Commander. That was the make and model. Vincent was flicking open and flicking closed his horticultural knife with his free hand. That’s all we brought with us. Other than our clothes. Vincent in the middle. He had the box in a canvas sack. Alabama leaned out the window, watching the street. I kept cracking my knuckles. The driver didn’t speak. A Bible lay open on the housing of the transmission knob. The Old Testament. I prefer it. Did then too. Odd for a Catholic. A pillar of fire by day is much better than Jesus. Who resembles nothing so much as your overpraised, exemplary cousin.

  The wind kicked up. Wood smoke. Tea-scent of leaves. Water and stone. The red maples in front of Mountjoy House rustled. The crows sat on the roofline and fence. They rotated, one unitary battalion, to face us. A few clacked their beaks. A few readied their wings. “Do we wait,” said Alabama, “it’s freezing.” “Someone’ll come out,” said Vincent. The crows hopped and muttered. A dog barked. No moon. No stars. No lights in Mountjoy House. “How long do we wait,” said Alabama. “It’s not the cable guy,” said Vincent, “they didn’t give me a window.” Alabama sighed. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, “that was a retarded question.” We foot-danced in the cold. Vincent smoked. He threw away cigarette after cigarette. Taking one drag. Or two. “Come on,” muttered Alabama. “They’re just trying to p
sych us out,” I said. The wind kicked. The crows took flight. Alabama got ready to draw. Vincent ground out his smoke. The crows circled above us: a ring, their wing beats overlapping. “There’s always main force,” said Alabama. Sighting down the barrel. A light came on behind the glass-and-wood front door of Mountjoy House. Two indistinct human figures silhouetted against the pane. Soft edged. The glass smoked. The door opened.

  “Is this a joke,” said Alabama. It was just two kids. About our age. They stood half in, half out of the vestibule. A girl and a guy. The girl short and round, long brownish hair dancing in the breeze. She was wearing a white oxford shirt. Her absolutely huge tits strained against the cloth. Alabama caught me glancing and clucked. “Look who it is, though,” she muttered. Then I saw. The guy standing next to Big Tits was Quinn Klayman. His glasses flashing in the indoor light. His brown hair shaggy. He grinned. Showing those pointed, yellow teeth. He waved at me. At Alabama. A brown bruise under his left eye. Otherwise healed up. He looked even more van-rapey sober, I have to admit.

  “Are you guys here for us,” Big Tits called. “Yes,” said Vincent. This was so far way more of an amateur hour than I’d expected. On the other hand, we were going up against a clique of full-time careerist students. “So what happens now,” Big Tits said, “my name’s Sasha, by the way.” “I was told to come in,” said Vincent. “All right then,” said Sasha. “All right then,” said Vincent. We all stood there. Nobody stepped forward. The wind rushed. Compound smell of winter. “This is ridicu­lous,” said Alabama. She walked up to the iron gate and pushed it open. I followed. Vincent followed me. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said to Quinn as she passed him, “or I’ll shoot you.” Quinn tried to laugh it off. Sounded fake. Horsey. Whiny. “You’re not going to shoot me,” he said. “Wait and see,” said Vincent. I grinned at Sasha. She grinned back. No reason to be unfriendly. And the ancient voice that all adolescent males hear, no matter the circumstances, no matter the time or the place or the alleged seriousness-slash-impossibility of the occasion, that voice of sexual hope, said: Hey, you never know.