“Later, right, yes,” Bobby said. Too relieved to be wondering what I was doing with these two new strangers.
Hootan said his car was down the block. He walked ahead of us, and Luke touched my elbow. His lips were pursed, a dam holding back turbulent emotion. “Thank you,” he said. “I knew when you walked into the room that we were supposed to meet today.”
I doubted that. “So how far away is this church, Luke?”
“It’s close,” he said. “And you’re going to love Pastor Rudy.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The call came for the Vincent while Vinnie was branding the spring calves. He was halfway through the shipment of freshly weaned three-month-olds—five bison cows and a bull from the Rakunas, Inc., facility in Santa Monica, California. The cow in his hands bucked and kicked, a real lively one. He ran a thumb along its side to soothe it, took a breath to soothe himself, then pressed the red-hot iron into the animal’s fuzzy brown flank. The calf squealed. A thin coil of acrid smoke rose up to the ceiling.
“Sorry, little girl,” Vinnie said. Ranching was no business for the sentimental, but the cries of the young ones really got to him. He flipped down the magnifying glass and inspected his mark, a Flying V about two millimeters long. The lines were crisp, and he was satisfied.
He set the cow down on the other side of the foot-high fence that separated the kitchen from the wide-open range of the living room. The calf scampered across the carpet of #10 Giro Home Prairie. The herd (thirty-eight head, counting the six he’d just purchased) had congregated in the shadow of the coffee table. It was midday, and the ceiling’s grow lights were turned up strong.
The pen pinged a second time: another message. He would have ignored the device, but this was the Vincent’s pen, the one that hardly ever beeped. Vinnie removed the magnifying specs and put the branding iron into its tiny holder. He picked up the pen. The messages were the same, sent only thirty seconds apart: “Please call.”
Vinnie would have preferred to do all their business through text, but the employer was an old-fashioned man who wanted to hear a voice. Vinnie thumbed the connection. After a moment, the call went through, and the employer picked up.
“Is the Vincent available?” the employer said. He knew that the Vincent did not like to be ordered around. He liked to be asked.
Vinnie looked down at the crate of calves. He’d planned on finishing the branding. Then he was going to move the herd to the back bedroom where the carpet was high, so he could use the living room to set up a new breeding area for the two-year-olds. He’d never gotten his herd to breed, despite spending thousands on the highest-rated bulls. It frustrated him to be dependent on lab-grown stock, and upon the money that the Vincent’s jobs provided. Someday he’d live off his herd, like a true rancher.
“How long is the engagement?” Vinnie asked.
His employer said, “A few days at most. I want him to talk to someone in Toronto.” Talk. One of those kinds of jobs, then. Most of the time the Vincent met people. Sometimes he saw them. Talking was a rarity, but it paid the best.
“Okay,” Vinnie said. “Send the details. The Vincent can leave tomorrow.”
The employer said nothing for an uncomfortable moment. Then he said, “If it’s at all possible, I’d like him to be on the ground tonight.”
Now it was Vinnie’s turn to insert an uncomfortable pause. Buying an international plane ticket at the last minute would raise the Vincent’s air travel threat score. Also, would there be enough time for the Vincent’s pills to kick in? And what about the calves?
The employer said, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t of the utmost importance. I’ll of course include a bonus for express service.”
Vinnie breathed out. “Okay. I’ll tell him.” By tradition, Vinnie pretended to be the secretary for the Vincent. The name Vinnie was never mentioned by either of them. The conceit was that the Vincent was too badass to ever talk on the phone.
The employer hung up, and Vinnie rested his forehead on the edge of the table and stared at the floor.
One of the miniature calves in the crate bleated. Vinnie wouldn’t have time to brand them now, and he wouldn’t be around to watch over their integration with the herd. He’d have to release them to the prairie and hope for the best. In a few hours he wouldn’t care about such things, but he did now, and he would again when he returned.
He told his pen to search for available flights, then sent an email to his neighbor down the hall. He made sure that the branding iron was turned off and unplugged. What next? The Poomba. He detached the robot from its charger and set it down in the high grass. The little flying-saucer-shaped device did nothing for a moment, but then its sensors caught a whiff of methane, and it swiveled left and rolled slowly forward, the grasses bending before its rubber bumpers. The herd sometimes got spooked by the machine, but what could he do? Without it the whole apartment would fill up with tiny buffalo chips.
He left the apartment, always a nerve-racking experience, and walked two doors down. Al answered wearing only a pair of UNLV basketball shorts, his hairless rounded gut like the dome of a mosque. He was a Hispanic man a foot taller than Vinnie and a hundred pounds heavier, even with the lightweight titanium leg. Like so many men of his age and income bracket, Al had participated in Operation Enduring Freedom, which he’d described as an international limb-exchange program sponsored by the American government.
“I’m going to be gone for a few days,” Vinnie said. “I was wondering if … well…”
“You want me to watch the critters?” Al had served as emergency ranch hand on two occasions. He wasn’t Vinnie’s first choice for the position, but he had two important qualifications: He was always home, and he always needed money.
“I’d really appreciate it,” Vinnie said. “I just emailed you updated instructions. Did you get it?”
“Sure,” Al said. “Just came in.”
“Great. You can delete the earlier one.” It had been several months since Al had watched the herd, so Vinnie unfurled his own pen to go over the major sections of the document: “Water and Lights”; “Veterinarian”; “Pasture Schedule”; “Food Supplements.” He apologized for not having time to write up notes on the new stock. “Sometimes the herd rejects the new calves,” Vinnie said. “If you see some of them wandering off by themselves, put them in the back forty.”
“That’s…”
“The bedroom with no furniture,” Vinnie said.
“Got it,” Al said. He shifted his weight to his biological leg. Raised his eyebrows significantly.
“Oh!” Vinnie said. He handed over the envelope that contained the cash. “I wrote the apartment guest code on the envelope. It’s a new number. Also, I won’t be reachable while I’m traveling, but if you call my home number and leave a message, I should be able to check voicemail at some point.”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Al said.
Vinnie went back to his apartment. He didn’t feel great about leaving Al in charge, but he did know a cure for that feeling. He opened the freezer, pulled out the box of Commander Calhoun Fishstix, and retrieved the bottle of Evanimex that was hidden inside. The pills were provided by the employer as part of his compensation, and arrived at regular intervals by FedEx.
Vinnie preferred to ramp up slowly, taking one pill every two hours, but time was short. He swallowed four. They slid down his throat like lumps of ice, each one (he imagined) ushering his tender heart one step closer into cryogenic storage. For safekeeping.
He stepped over the kitchen fence and walked back to his bedroom via the narrow boardwalk. The wooden structure stood a foot off the ground, and its struts were spaced far enough apart that the bison could migrate without impediment. It also allowed Vinnie to cross the rooms without trampling grass, squashing livestock, or smearing cow patties on his flip-flops.
There was a trick to becoming the Vincent that went beyond chemicals, a ritual that helped realign his headspace. He stripped off his clothes and turned the shower to hot. Afterward he shaved, even though he had shaved just that morning. He unwrapped one of the charcoal suits, as well as a blue shirt and matching tie, and dressed. Then he took down the black Caran d’Ache briefcase and placed in it a second blue shirt, a pair of underwear, and a pair of socks.