Albertson takes a pull of his beer. It feels like liquid gold going down his throat. He thinks he should probably eat, except he’s not hungry. “Tell me what’s going on,” he says.
Mrs. Sen sighs. She lets out a lot of air and sits back on the love seat. “Mr. Albertson...” she says, like she’s apologizing.
“You invite me to your place, and before that, you say something about the horses. So you got my attention. And then your husband, the judge — he’s a judge! — has his goon attack me. So I wake up in a dark room. And then I wake up in a motel. His goon is there, and attacks me again. So I wake up in the back of a cab in a disco garage...” Albertson pauses to see if Mrs. Sen has anything to say, but she just stares at him with a kind of maternal blankness, as if she were expecting disappointment. “What the fuck, Mrs. Sen?”
“Louis is my second husband.”
Albertson knows this. He finds it odd that she would make this point now, after all he’s confronted her with. This is not a response. This is nothing. A non sequitur. Why is Mrs. Sen in my apartment? he asks himself, knowing an answer is impossible.
“My first husband was a cardiologist. Dr. Sen. A very accomplished man. But he died, as you know.” She lets the information sink in. Again. She knows he knows all of this. “I’ve been married to a cardiologist, and now a judge.”
Albertson thinks back to when he’s sold Mrs. Sen shoes. He thinks of the ungodly amount of shoes she has bought from him. The Imelda Marcos amount of shoes. Her lingerie shop is always empty; she’s married to a judge.
He thinks that a normal person would go to the cops, but he doesn’t trust the cops. Not in this city. Not if a judge has old guys ready to punch him and stuff him in cabs and take him to disco garages. For the first time, Albertson is thinking of a conspiracy. Something vast. An ocean. The kind of conspiracy that doesn’t seem like anything until the anvil of it falls in front of you. Those horses were real but he’s not supposed to know about them. Bertrand told him that this went far and wide.
“Why is your husband’s friend punching me in the mouth?” he asks Mrs. Sen.
“My husband wanted to stick to law. He was an excellent lawyer. He’s told me that so many times.”
“Mrs. Sen!”
“Once, I lost my nail clippers. I found them two weeks later in a bottle of Tums.”
She’s lost her mind. Albertson can see that now. What she’s doing here is another matter. He’s not even sure how she knows where he lives. The judge has placed her here. To scare him? What has he done to his wife? She’s a shell, empty, discarded. A void.
He reaches over and takes the bag with the shit-covered shoe. It’s been out awhile now, apparently, and it’s starting to smell. The horse shit never dried; he put it in the freezer still fresh, and now it’s thawing out. He stands and takes it to the fridge. Except his bag is still in there. He opens the bag in his hand and it’s one of Mrs. Sen’s shoes — a shoe he once sold to her — and it is also covered in horse shit.
“My husband hates those shoes,” she says.
He turns and she is standing at the door to the kitchen.
“He says the color doesn’t suit the shape, or something. He’s a very intellectual man. But he doesn’t really have good taste in shoes.”
Is she crazy or speaking in code? Albertson’s head feels like it’s being struck by boulders.
“Are you even old enough to remember cassette tapes?” she asks him.
The light in the apartment changes. Night is coming. Albertson realizes he doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t even know if he should be tired or not.
“I cannot patronize your store any longer,” she says. “I am forbidden.”
Albertson imagines the moment before a jumper gives in to the physics of their reality. The feeling of utter loss, and freedom.
“Keep my shoe,” she says. “You might need it. I’m almost sure you will.”
She turns to leave. Albertson can’t even bring himself to call out, to ask her to wait, to ask even a single question.
Albertson wants to call someone, but he doesn’t trust his landline or his cell phone. He is likely being monitored, likely at this very moment. He paces. And then he thinks of his neighbors. What if they report him? All this pacing. It must be driving them mad. He lies on his bed. He tries to sleep. But he can only think of Bertrand and his gray suit. He keeps imagining Bertrand punching him, in slow motion, over and over. With this image, he finally falls asleep.
The phone rings. Albertson is startled and sleepily reaches for the phone.
“Don’t speak,” he hears. He thinks it’s Mrs. Sen but he can’t be sure. “Just listen. Hold on.” Albertson pinches his arm to make sure he’s awake. “The granola is in the pantry behind the cornflakes! Sorry,” she says. “Louis can’t find anything in this house. He’s useless.”
“Mrs. Sen?”
“Yes.”
Albertson doesn’t trust the phone.
“There’s a horse festival happening, up in Little Italy. Have you heard of this?”
“What?”
“I said behind the cornflakes! On the third shelf! Sorry, what did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Le Festival des Chevaliers, or something. My god, there’s a festival for everything in this city.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You know why,” Mrs. Sen says.
“No, I don’t know.”
“It’s new. It’s a horse festival. It’s in Little Italy. It has some government money from the city, and a lot of business money. Mostly construction companies.”
Albertson wishes he’d never seen the horses. He wishes he’d never stepped in horse shit. “When?” he asks.
“It starts tonight.”
“I haven’t heard about it.”
“Me neither,” Mrs. Sen whispers. “Louis told me.”
She hangs up. Albertson puts his phone down and closes his eyes. The sleep never comes. He knows what he must do.
Albertson heads up Saint-Laurent toward Little Italy. Mile End’s not far, but Little Italy is on the other side of the tracks and the crumbling underpass. The city is always claiming to fix the underpass, but then pleads poverty, makes the next neighborhood over seem farther than it is — Little Italy, and Mile Ex, a made-up neighborhood next to Little Italy where you can find beer gardens and restaurants serving foraged food, where bands consist of Casio keyboards, laptops, and two people smoking e-cigs. A neighborhood not really made by hipsters, but one created for them — both of these places are psychologically far from Mile End, even though they are nothing more than a twenty-minute walk, at most.
Before Albertson can notice the new faux diners, kitchen design stores, and dépanneurs serving artisanal toast, he’s in Little Italy, past the marble gates and into the neighborhood. There’s a sign for the horse festival, and in the park he finds people milling about, looking handsome, sipping wine. In the grandstand, Albertson sees Louis, surrounded by important- looking people; some of them are wearing top hats and fedoras. They are the only ones in the grandstand, above everyone else, and they have access to a microphone. Everyone in the park is listening to Louis. He’s the one speaking. The important- looking people are standing behind him, looking important. Albertson doesn’t see any horses.
The crowd claps. Louis has finished speaking.
Banners snap in the breeze. There are hundreds of people in the park — families, well-dressed couples, small children wearing designer clothing. Italian music plays over loudspeakers. Albertson makes his way toward the grandstand. He shouldn’t be here, he realizes. Louis might kill him. But he wants to see the horses, wants to confront Louis when the horses come out. Nothing can happen to him here. He’s safe. There are cameras and microphones. The park is well lit. Albertson smells grilled meat, and at one end of the park he sees smoke. A balloon flies above his head, toward space, free from the pull of gravity.