Page 97 of The Square

I hang my head. “Lars told me.” Deductive logic. Not at all my forte. Fokken kak, man. Well... Jimmy Sotoro’s the lucky one in all this, I reckon...

“But…” Danny says. “But Christine killed David. Brasil’s guy. And then… fuck. And then your guys… or, I guess, Lars’ guys… came in and took the shipment.” Then a look that I don’t know comes over Danny and he says, “Goddamn it,” slamming his fist into the wall.

“What?” I ask. “Fokken what, man?”

“Brasil told me, just after all this went down, that for the past couple of years he’d been trafficking in people.”

A silence falls on the space that Christine finally breaks with, “Say that again.”

“Yeah. Women. I found out that he’d been trafficking women. Which Lars clearly knew about. So, when Lars was talking about trying to take over Brasil’s business too, that’s the business he was trying to take over.”

I close my eyes. Because what I’m hearing right now is difficult to process. I am a violent, unrepentant, horrible cunt of a human being, as was my father, and probably his father before him. But never, in my most unrepentant cunty-ness, would I ever have imagined doing something as morally bankrupt as trading human life. I know that things I’ve done have cost people their lives. I’m under no illusions about that. But it was always flesh as the cost for something else. Never flesh as the something else itself.

Jesus. Lars.

What the fok happened to you, my bru?

For the first time since I can remember—maybe the first time ever—I don’t have money to tip a delivery boy. The laaitie who brings us our breakfast regards me in my suit, Danny in his sweats, and Christine back in her sneak assassin regalia with a completely understandable amount of curiosity as he wheels the cart into the suite. And as he’s placing the food on the dining room table and taking the cart away, I reach into my pocket only to realize… I have no money. Not a single note. Nothing.

Danny is the one who says, “Hold up,” runs to retrieve his backpack, and pulls out a crumpled wad of twenties. He hands them to the laaitie, who actually says, “Oh! Much obliged, guv’nor.” There’s something about the insulting way that I think the kid must be taking the piss with what he perceives to be stupid Americans that makes me decide I like the lad. Regardless, now that the food is here, perhaps we can get down to discussing what happens next. Danny has refused to talk plans of action until he has his coffee.

I’ve said it before. He is the only one like himself in the world.

“Okay,” he says, pouring a cup of black, steaming brew and biting into a piece of toast. “So here’s what’s going to happen…”

I don’t know how my plan has somehow turned into Danny’s, but I don’t argue. Just pour some juice from a carafe and listen to him talk.

“If we’re actually going to get back to that place to find out if he’s still there, we need a better fucking plan of action than the one we had before.”

Christine butters a scone and says, “Well, I mean, first things first, we should probably just get close enough to see if all those guards are still there.”

“Yep, yep,” Danny says, biting down on a slice of well-cooked bacon.

I find this entire enterprise irrepressibly quaint. Alec, Christine, and Danny waking up and chatting about the day’s affairs over a hearty breakfast. It’s so remarkably conventional as to be almost domestic.

“Maybe we should try to get hands on a sniper rifle and position you at a safe distance, just in case.”

Almost.

“Safe distance?” Christine asks. “Why?”

“Well,” Danny says, downing his coffee and pouring another cup, “you and Lars… you did also try to kill him. I don’t know if he’s going to be happy to see you.”

She shrugs as she bites her scone. “Yeah. I guess.”

“I have a thought,” I volunteer. They both look at me, mouths full. “Why don’t I just walk up to the front gate and ask to speak with him?”

They chew more slowly. Danny says, “Fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m suggesting that for whatever reason I was being held, I was being held. Not tortured or killed. Just not allowed to leave. And when they spotted us—or, I presume, me—they stopped firing. Clearly, whatever the intention is in keeping me alive, it’s to… you know… keep me alive. Perhaps he’s not finished with this Brasil Lynch business yet. Perhaps he still needs me alive to pin it on. I don’t know. I’m not particularly good at knowing why people do things, just that there’s always a reason.”

They both consider this. Then Danny turns to Christine and says, “I hate to say it, but I think we may need the Watsons again.”

Not only was I ignored, but the casual suggestion, by Danny, that we employ the Watson clan again suggests that I have entered some parallel dimension where the laws that govern the known universe no longer exist.

What follows is a spirited debate between the two of them about the merits and demerits of this idea and whether or not we should just try to get out of the country altogether and forget about everything. At some point, Danny emphasizes Andra, my daughter, and wonders if we don’t at least owe it to the child to ensure that she’s safe.

Christine just bites into her scone and stares at me.

I decide to offer my expert assessment. “Forget the Watsons. They’ll be fine. I might think we will never hear from them again.”

And because in parallel universes things like this happen… the room phone suddenly rings.

We all stare at each other before I finally wrench myself from where I stand and answer it, cautiously, as if it was dipped in poison

“Hello?”

“Mr. Night?” comes a cheery voice from the other end.

“Uh, no. No, this is Mr. Berger.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Berger. I have a Ms. Stetson for you, sir.”

And now, as is also the case in parallel universes, time stops. I turn and look to Danny and Christine, who wait, expectantly, for me to speak. Finally, Danny whispers (for some reason), “Who is it?”

“It’s Eliza,” I say.