Dolphin was inside the Big House. He was bent over the Redeemer’s door trying to work the lock with a credit card. By his side, the Unruly looked on anxiously.
What’s wrong, Chief? the Redeemer asked.
Dolphin turned, looked the Redeemer over from head to bare feet, and said You didn’t tell me you were bringing her over here already. Didn’t even give me a chance to leave her a little token of appreciation. You go on back to whatever you’re up to, don’t mind me.
Fraid you can’t do that, Chief.
Dolphin straightened up with difficulty and gazed into the Redeemer’s eyes.
Trust me, kid, I got your back.
And lightly palmed his cheek several times, pat pat pat.
The Redeemer sensed his black dog there behind the door, silent, hulking, like the very first time he appeared, when Dolphin had said exactly the same thing, years back.
He wasn’t the Redeemer back then; back then he was nothing but a brickshitting ambulance-chaser carving out a career in fifth-rate courts.
Some buzzmen had stopped by the pen to beat the everloving life out of a man who was already all bloodied up, a mess of a man kicked more times than he could take. Don’t let him get away, they’d said on their way out, as if the man could do anything but cower in a corner and swell up.
The man was fading in and out and on one of the ins stared back with his single working and seriously crapkicked eye. It was an empty stare, pure light in a pure state, until he managed to force all his strength into it and said something, his pupil dilating. Help me, or Don’t leave me alone, or Touch me, or Release me. He approached the man, who made slow mysterious gesticulations in the air. What, what, what do you want me to do? The man kept his good eye glued on him, and it slowly shrank smaller and smaller then opened wide one last time along with his one last breath and he couldn’t even take the man’s hand, so he crouched down before his face, not voicing a word but with his eyes saying Hold on, hold on, we’ll work it out.
A few minutes later the buzzmen were back, and wordlessly one grabbed the man by the armpits and the other by the ankles and they began to lift. That was when the Redeemer came to life and, in an authoritative stance he was only just learning, stood blocking the cell door and said Hold on now, hold on, we still have to issue the paperwork. The buzzmen glanced at him and took no notice, as tho he were a frail little boy talking to his stuffed animals. They went back to what they were doing and he said No! I said no! We haven’t contacted his next of kin! He’d raised his voice but beneath the words could be heard the start of a sob. This time, for the first time, the buzzmen stared at him with faces that said The fuck does this little shit think he’s doing? and put the body down — a body they knew was not the kind of body you take to the family — and stood clenching and unclenching fists, reconciled to a whole other asskicking, but suddenly it was not their fists but someone else’s hand he felt on his shoulder, and he turned and saw the biggest bastard in the barrio, the one who’d gotten him this gig, who said: Thanks for everything, counselor, we’ll take it from here. And the big bastard smiled at him like a brother.
He thought of the man’s look, which he’d never gotten out of his head; of what he himself looked like in the other man’s eyes; of the fact that some sort of agreement had been reached in that final moment, when he shook his head mechanically side to side, more an entreaty than an order.
The barrio bastard, who at the time had a whole nose and both lungs, gestured affably to the buzzmen to take the body out as tho waving them into his house, then faced him and said it: Trust me, kid, I got your back.
And he decided not to keep shaking his head, not to keep blocking their way with his own body to prevent them from removing the other, not to say a word. And that was the precise instant when he first felt the presence of the black dog, who would never again leave him, who might sometimes slip out of sight, but would always be there.
He learned to live with the cur, at times even to conjure him. Yes, something inside him broke, but that’s what made it possible to go places and make decisions he could never have stomached on his own. His black dog was a dark mass that allowed him to do certain things, to not feel certain things, he was physical, as real as a bone you don’t know you have until it’s almost jutting through your skin.
The Redeemer recalled all of this and brought his face up close to Dolphin’s and said again, nearly touching his nose, Fraid you can’t do that.
Dolphin pulled back a bit and eyed him with scorn.
Why’s that? Because you got your little door locked?
So the Redeemer pulled out his key, slipped it in the lock, turned it, opened the door and stood aside.
Still can’t do that.
Dolphin, face still full of scorn, said You’d drown in a glass of water, and placed a hand on the doorjamb, but at that moment the Unruly grabbed him by one wrist.
The man said no.
Dolphin turned to her in utter astonishment. There had to be some mistake.
We can talk later, now stop fucking around and behave.
But jerking his arm, the Unruly spun him around.
No. It’s time for you to grit your teeth and swallow.
Dolphin was about to say something but she squeezed his wrist a little tighter.
Enough. Don’t be stupid.
Dolphin glanced down at the arm cuffed by his own daughter’s hand for a few seconds, perhaps listening to himself wheeze, then nodded as tho he’d been the one who decided to go. He cast the Redeemer a casual sidelong glance by way of farewell and ambled slowly toward the entrance.
At the door he turned for a moment and said One of these days something terrible is going to happen.
And left.
That it might, the Redeemer thought, But no way am I letting you in to despoil a dead body.
Before going back inside Three Times Blonde’s he went to the Big House door to make sure it was actually locked but first stepped out on the street. Still an overcast morning, he thought. Afternoon, he corrected himself. We’re still alone, not even anyone to offer wrong directions. And then he thought he heard a muffled sound to his left, but didn’t bother to turn and look to see what it was, since nothing but the lingering trace of silent complaint seemed possible in that bleak and stricken city. Or because his black dog wasn’t there to remind him that anything was possible. And he felt a cold wooden crack! on his cranium and saw the sidewalk rush up at his face and then took the tip of a shoe to his ribs and then to his cheekbone and a heel rammed repeatedly into his ear. It hurt like a bitch, he had to start hitting back, beat the motherloving life out of someone, he said to himself, and still hoped he might as he clamped onto a fist that he used to raise himself, but then came another blow and something in him disconnected, like he’d been detached from a rock and was falling through an open pit, dark and icy, a pit with no walls and no end.
5
He awoke and saw the overcast sky falling onto his eyes. It felt as tho the darkness had gone on for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, since there was the Neeyanderthal, who’d said on the phone he was on his way over.
He’d dreamed. Or more than dreams he’d seen snapshots of a devious Egyptian bug clamping gleefully onto his neck.
It looked like a block party, with all the people there outside the Big House: a white-shirted, blue-trousered buzz-cut heap of a man lay sprawled a few inches away; the Neeyanderthal stood effortlessly restraining Three Times Blonde’s slicked-back jack on the ground; and Three Times Blonde herself was peering from the half-open door of the Big House, her face fearful but also sort of fascinated.
No, really, it’s all over, here, let me help you up, Neeyan was saying to the guy. Let me give you a hand.