Kockroach (21 page)

Whoa, where did that come from?

It was the scent, the dream, the sight of Istvan, the way Champ and Mite abused the woman and her guard on the floor below, it was in the very possibilities that had been raised by Mite’s visit. Whatever civilizing had happened to her in the last eight years as a faculty wife and mother in the suburbs had been stripped from her as quick as a snap of the finger. Whose finger? His, of course.

It was time to leave, this was too much for her. Go, she told herself, run away. You have a son, a husband, a family, a life. Run while you can, she told herself, but it was as if the paralysis rose from her leg to overtake the whole of her body as she watched the woman step softly to the large double doors, knock lightly, and push one of them open.

In the moment the door swung wide, Celia caught a glimpse of the room inside. It was large, huge, with a great granite table in the middle and a huddle of men around the table, a strange huddle, like a swarm of insects crowding around something, a huddle of drones dancing and circling and serving the master. And then one of the drones in the huddle lifted his face and stared at the woman in heels and then stared through the doorway at the three of them, stared at her. And in the instant before the door was closed she recognized the face.

Pale skin, pointy nose, lidded green eyes. McGreevy. The lawyer. Her dead uncle’s lawyer.

She almost fainted at the sight. The scent, the height of the building, the emotions, everything weakened her. She put a hand on the desk to steady herself and then backed up to one of the chairs and collapsed into it. It was too much, everything was too much. She should never have come, never.

“I should never have come,” she said out loud.

“We’s just saying hello,” said Mite. “Just a hello.”

A few moments later the door opened again, that same glimpse of the huddle before it closed behind the woman with the breasts and the high blond hair. She walked over to the three of them. Celia rose unsteadily from the chair.

“Mr. Mite,” said the woman in her screetch. “Mr. Champ. I can bring you in now.”

“What about me?” said Celia in someone else’s voice, a little girl’s voice, some strange orphan girl afraid of being left behind.

“Not now,” said the woman, “but we may be in touch,” as if Celia had just failed her job interview and was being told that, no, they would never be in touch.

Mite gave her a chuck on the arm. “I’ll put in the good word for you, Celia,” he said, “don’t you worry,” and then he and Champ and Istvan followed the woman into the room. The door closed solidly behind them all, leaving Celia alone.

Kockroach can feel it
in his bones. Mite is close, closer, Mite will soon be within his grasp.

He sits at the granite table as his employees move in a flurry about him. Before him on the table are papers, files, photographs. He listens to what they tell him, he signs his name where they tell him to sign, he sits quietly while they plot and plan around him. It isn’t lost on him that what used to be done by Mite alone now takes dozens. Of course the operation is far bigger, the possibilities of growth in business are endless and Brownside has been growing like a weed from the moment Kockroach sprayed his first building and murdered his first colony. But still he remembers how it was, just him and Mite running the Square together. There were no papers then, no teams of lawyers and bankers and agents. Just money.

Until Mite betrayed him and blew it all into the sky.

But now Kockroach is in the world of business, and business, Kockroach has learned, is all about information. His lines of informants spread throughout the country like great antennae, keeping data flowing from the farthest reaches into his headquarters. And his informants have kept him apprised of Mite’s progress.

The lawyer Tate, in Chicago, informed McGreevy of the
problems which forced Mite and his associate, a man named Champ, to flee the city. The girls on the Square informed Istvan of a little man in a green suit asking about a former cop named Fallon and a man named Blatta. The desk clerk at the hotel where Fallon now lives, a hotel bought by Brownside Enterprises as soon as Fallon moved in, informed Albert Gladden of the visit to Fallon’s room by the little man in green and his huge friend. The title clerk in Yonkers earned his envelope by informing Gladden the moment anyone asked about the small white house which is owned by one Mickey Pimelia in a life estate.

And now Mite is getting closer, so close Kockroach’s ears begin to twitch.

He hears something, just a rustle of a disturbance, but it grabs his attention. As his men continue their work all about him, he leans forward. Footsteps rising up the stairs, stopping at Cassandra’s desk, a conversation. The words are muffled but the cadence of one of the voices is shockingly familiar. He is startled at the excitement he feels, like the buzz before mating. Or before squeezing the life out of a human throat.

The door opens, Cassandra enters, closes the door behind her, walks quietly to the table, leans over to whisper in his ear.

“There is a man called Mr. Mite here to see you,” she says. “Istvan says you know him.”

“Yes,” says Kockroach.

“And someone called Mr. Champ.”

“Send them in,” says Kockroach.

“And a woman called Celia.”

Kockroach lets out a gasp that quiets the room.

He had been expecting Mite and his associate, but he had not been expecting Celia. Leave it to Mite to always arrive with a surprise. His head turns left, right, as if he is trapped in a maze and searching for a way out. He spies the wall of windows staring out over the rooftops of the city and imagines himself spreading his wings and flying to safety.

The men surrounding him all stare. McGreevy steps forward.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Blatta?”

“Celia is outside.”

“Yes, I saw her. She is with Mr. P-P-Pimelia.”

“I don’t want her here.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Blatta,” says McGreevy. “Cassandra, send the woman home, please. Tell her that m-m-maybe we’ll be in touch in the future.”

Cassandra nods and then makes her way out of the room. As she opens the door, Kockroach strains his neck to see outside. Framed in the doorway is a black dress, a heavy shoe. Fear spurts in the back of his throat and he can’t help but duck before the door closes.

And then the door opens again.

Mite enters the room with his familiar lively stride, but Kockroach notices immediately that he is not the same Mite. He is older now, there are cracks around the edges of his face now. And he doesn’t shift back and forth with an uncontained energy as he did before.

Alongside Mite is a human who is huge and dark and scarred
like an arthropod who has been through the wars. Behind both of them limps Istvan, his hands loose and ready at his sides, his one eye alert. Istvan shuts the door to the conference room and stands in front of it like a sentry. Mite glances back nervously. The huge dark man takes a step forward.

“How you doing there, Boss?” says Mite.

Kockroach, fighting the buzzing in his head, stays seated and stares.

“Long time no see,” says Mite. “Looks like you done all right for yourself. What line you in, anyway?”

“Exterminations,” says Kockroach.

“So you found your place in the world at last.”

“Who’s your palsy, Mite?” says Kockroach.

“Oh, I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Boss, this is Champ. He’s with me now. Champ, meet my Uncle Rufus.”

“It’s a pleasure, Pops,” says Champ.

“Do you think he can protect you?” says Kockroach.

“Do I need protection, Boss?”

“Everyone leave,” says Kockroach. “Everyone but Mite.”

The men surrounding Kockroach quickly gather their folders and papers before streaming out a door behind them. McGreevy stands still for a moment, raising his chin and staring down his long pointy nose at Mite before following the crowd and closing the door. On the far side of the room, Istvan opens the door to the reception area, but the big dark man doesn’t move.

“It’s okay, Champ,” says Mite, patting one of the giant man’s arms with his hand. “Go on out. Me and the Boss, we got things to talk about.”

“Maybe I’ll stay,” says Champ. “Keep them waters calm.”

“I bets they got some premium java in this joint,” says Mite. “Go on out with Istvan. Have yourself a jolt. Don’t worry yourself about me. The Boss and me are old friends. We just got some unfinished business, is all. Ain’t that right, Boss?”

Kockroach, still seated, says nothing.

Istvan holds the door open for Champ, who bobs his head a couple of times as he takes a long look at Kockroach before turning and stepping through the door. Istvan closes the door behind them, leaving Kockroach and Mite alone in the huge conference room.

“What’s on your mind, Boss?” says Mite.

Kockroach places his hands on the great granite table, presses himself to standing.

“Can’t say you don’t got the right to be sore,” says Mite.

Slowly Kockroach walks around the table. His hands are still, his head is tilted.

“Here we are again, ain’t we, Boss?” says Mite. “Just like on that trip up to Yonkers.”

Kockroach closes in on Mite until he is looming over him, staring down through his dark glasses, his smile viciously in place. He can smell the fear, like the urine of a cat.

“How about a game?” says Kockroach.

Kockroach and Mite sit on either side of the granite table. The board is set between them, the pieces are arrayed in their lines of battle.

“You been playing much, Boss?”

“Some,” says Kockroach, staring not at the board but at Mite.

“Who with?”

“McGreevy.”

“I bet that bastard’s got some tricks, he does.”

“Your move, Mite.”

Mite stares at the board for a long moment and then pushes a pawn. He plays the same as he ever played, with traps and feints, relying on his little pieces to control the board. Mite has a natural affinity for the pawn. His pawn positions used to bedevil Kockroach, but not anymore. With each combination of moves, Mite’s lines of defense are swiftly being mauled.

“You’ve gotten better, Boss.”

“I learned the trick.”

“What trick?”

“The trick to everything. When you first taught me the ritual of chess, I thought it was all about the pieces on the board. Then I learned the pieces didn’t matter.”

“What does matter?”

“The human who’s moving them. Find what he wants and give it to him, on your terms. That’s beeswax. Check.”

Mite stares at the board and then pulls his king out of trouble.

“How’d an exterminator end up in the penthouse, Boss, you don’t mind me asking?”

“There were just two of us at the start,” says Kockroach, “me and Irv, the human who gave me my opportunity in the world of beeswax. A company called us in about a bug problem in their factory. The company made shoes, wingtips. I always
liked wingtips. The owners were squeamish about bugs. Imagine that. We murdered their cockroaches, but somehow a nest of rats found their way into the basement.”

“Convenient.”

“Things happen, Mite. And no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t kill them off. After a few weeks of rats running across their desks, the owners couldn’t wait to sell, they even gave us the money to buy the factory. Suddenly we had two companies.”

“Clever.”

“It’s all about information. You’d be surprised how much you can learn in the middle of the night, searching through the nooks of an office building, spraying poison wherever you go. Once I learned to read, the world of information opened up to me.”

“You learned to read, Boss? Good for you. Who taught you?”

“Cassandra.”

“The one with the melons, what sits outside?”

“She’s smarter than she looks.”

“God, I hope so.”

“Wherever we sprayed, we learned just enough to know what they wanted and then we gave it to them.”

“That the other guy’s portrait hanging there in the reception room?”

“Irv.”

“What happened to him?”

“His wife shot him.”

“They tend to do that.”

“After the shoe company we bought a funeral parlor. I liked the cars. Then we bought a movie theater. We traded that for a medical company that made needles and probes. By that time I had McGreevy. He got me the government numbers so I could own the stock and put my name on the deeds to my buildings. Now we buy and sell and sell and buy and make more money in a week than we ever saw in a year in the Square. But one company never gets sold.”

“What’s that?”

“Brownside Extermination. Every now and then I still put on the goggles and the tank. You can never have too much information.”

Kockroach moves a bishop.

“I think I’m in trouble here, Boss.”

“More than you know,” says Kockroach. “The ritual has made me stronger. I can see farther into the future now. And I learned the trick.”

“So what is it that I wants?”

“To come home.”

“What’s the chance of that?”

“Check.”

Mite rubs his chin and stares at the board. He blocks Kockroach’s attack with his knight.

Kockroach pushes ahead his other bishop.

Mite squirms in his seat as his rook retreats.

Kockroach kills a pawn.

Mite pulls his king farther back.

Kockroach sweeps his queen across the board. “Checkmate.”

Mite examines the board for a moment, topples over his king, then sits back and stares at Kockroach.

“You going to kill me now, Boss?”

“No, Mite, I’m going to hire you.”

“I need information,” says Kockroach.

In the conference room, the chessboard has been removed and replaced with a huge urn of ice and shrimp. The table is littered with shells, Mite’s shells. Kockroach still eats his shrimp whole. Kockroach and Mite are leaning back in their chairs, smoking cigars. Kockroach sucks the smoke into his lungs in deep drafts. Mite coughs. The smoke billows about them like the steam in the schvitz.

“Information’s good,” says Mite.

“It is better than money.”

“I don’t knows about that.”

“Information isn’t something you put into a bank, it is what allows you to buy the bank.”

“Do you own a bank, Boss?”

“Just a small one,” says Kockroach, holding his cigar out in front of him, staring at the glowing tip. “I once looked for opportunity there. A woman sent me home because I couldn’t fill out the form.”

“What happened to the woman when you bought the place?”

“I promoted her.”

“That’s funny, Boss. You know, I got myself a new line.”

“I heard.”

“I can get you information, whatever you need.”

“I know you can.”

“But I’m with Champ now. You got a job for Champ?”

“What’s he to you, Mite?”

“We’re a team.”

“Mates?”

“You could say that.”

“The two of you can live in the house.”

“What house?”

“My house. Istvan lives there. Cassandra. Now you and Champ.”

“For a time, I suppose.”

“So it is settled.”

“What about Celia?”

“No,” Kockroach says quickly. The same spurt of fear as before. “Not her.”

“She’s a good girl,” says Mite. “She wants to see you. And she’s got a kid now.”

“I know.”

“It wasn’t she what betrayed you, Boss. It was all my doing.”

“I know that, Mite.”

“She just wants to see you.”

“I don’t work like that.”

“Think about it, Boss. All this time she thought you was dead. When she heard you was still breathing she looked like she swallowed a goat.”

“No.”

“It’s your call. But it don’t seem fair to me.”

“When was I ever fair?”

Mite frowns at his cigar. “Why ain’t you wringing my neck right now for what I done?”

“I never expected anything different from you.”

“And still you want me on?”

“Brother Mite.”

“I’ll be square from here in, Boss. I promise.”

“Don’t bother,” says Kockroach. “We are what we are.”

Kockroach, alone in the conference room after sending Mite to the house, stares out the wall of windows and thinks. He can’t stop himself from thinking. It is the curse of this body.

He stands now high over the city, far higher than even the great smoking face in Times Square. From this vantage the city stretches like a chessboard before him. He can pick out the blocks he owns. That one, and that one, and that one with the tall building there. And the rest he wants to own. The world of business, he has learned, is a marvelous machine for feeding his greed. There are still those who feed his fear. The regulators who paw through his deals. The prosecutors who ask their questions. Fallon, a ruined drunk now but with continuing dreams of rising again to destroy him. It is not a place without fear, the world of business, but those who feed his fear are still without the power to bring him down. The world of business is as close to a perfect spot as a cockroach could ever hope to find.