Skillful Death (26 page)

Knowing this guy’s secret, this kind of trick would be terribly easy for him.

“They brought you in to explain a dealer’s trick?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “Three guys on that block could do that trick, but they hauled me to a tiny, windowless room somewhere to explain how I do it.”

“But you do the trick differently than everyone else,” I say.

“Yeah, but they wouldn’t have known that,” he says. “As far as they knew, it was just sleight of hand.”

“Until you explained it,” I say.

“I never got the chance to. They had me demonstrate, and asked me to explain. Before I could, they turned me loose.”

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“Neither did I,” he replies.
 

“You just walked out the door,” I prompt.

“No, not quite,” he says. “They told me to explain the trick, and I started to tell them that it wasn’t a trick at all, that I just arranged the cards with shuffles until I got them in the order I wanted. But I never got any of that out. All I said was, ‘Actually,’ and an old bald guy came in from the other room and whispered something to the guy who was questioning me. He left, and the lead guy gave me some money, apologized, put a bag over my head, and walked me out. After a short ride in a van, they pushed me out onto the street.”

I put my hand in my pocket and feel the wad of bills there.

“How much money?” I ask.

“I don’t remember,” he says.

I don’t have to manufacture the anger that crosses my face. I’m getting very annoyed, very quickly. “How much?” I ask, rising to my feet.

“Five grand,” he says. “In hundreds and fifties.”

That’s exactly the sum I have in my pocket. I’m going to give it to this guy when we turn him loose so he doesn’t hold a grudge for being picked up and dragged out to the suburbs. It’s as much as he would earn in a week, so it seems about fair.

“And how long ago was this?” I ask.
 

“Six months,” he says.

“And the bald guy—give me more of a description,” I say.

He’s beginning to panic now. He senses that he shouldn’t be telling me any of this; that one way or another, he’s putting himself at great risk by conveying this information. He also seems to know that
not
telling me could be equally as harmful.

“Uh, I don’t remember much about him. He was fairly non-descript. He was completely bald, or his head was shaven. He wasn’t very tall, maybe five foot seven. He was skinny, but had broad shoulders. He looked old.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. He was wrinkled, but he had one of those timeless faces. Could have been sixty? Seventy? He moved very fluidly though. No limp or anything, so maybe younger.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I don’t remember. Really, I don’t.”

I take a step forward so I’m nearly hovering over him now. I’m going to give him the money, but I think he sees my hand moving towards my pocket as a threat.

“Blue shirt!” he yells. “He had on a blue shirt with fancy cuffs. I remember thinking that he looked like one of those old ‘nothing up my sleeve’ guys, you know?”

I know exactly what kind of shirt he means.

T
HE
BENCH
SWAYED
AS
the wagon bounced down the road. The swinging lantern sometimes illuminated the trees above or the passing ground below, but it rarely gave the horses or men a better sense of the road ahead. Constantine waited for his moment, but the grip of the men on either side of him remained strong.

They rode south, down the Yarrow road, to where the road petered out at the edge of a bamboo grove. The moon was high overhead. It lit the roiling river.
 

The men dragged the flailing boy to the edge of the road and then down the sharp bank to the edge of the fast-flowing water. Up on the road, the horses stamped and champed, made nervous by the sounds from the bamboo.

The man on the right switched his grip and pressed a short knife into Constantine’s back. The boy’s feet nearly touched the water. The river was fast, wide, and deep. It cut a steep trench through the land and the men stood on a thin ledge, holding Constantine over the water. The man on the right pulled his blade up Constantine’s back, slicing away his fancy new suit.

The knife disappeared and the men pulled at the suit, peeling it away from the boy. Constantine flailed and screamed. With his suit removed, the men gripped his arms and then counted. When they reached three, Constantine found himself flying through the air towards the glittery black surface of the river.
 

Men told stories about this river, about the things that lived in these rushing waters. Linger too long on the shore, and hungry hands would slither out of the water on elastic arms and pull you back into the depths. Fish caught in this river would reassemble themselves in your belly and eat their way out of your stomach. The water itself was so poisonous that simply breathing in the fumes would drive a man into a deep coma. The moon danced on the oily black turbulence.

Constantine knew his life was over as he flew through the air.
 

The men watched the boy thrash as he was pulled into the main current. He struggled back to the surface once, and then twice, before his submerged form was swept so far downstream that they lost him to the darkness. With only steep banks topped with thick bamboo, the boy could be counted amongst the victims of the river.

E
VERYTHING
CHANGED
FOR
D
OM
that night, but he didn’t realize it until the next day. He went back to the mine. At the little house where the foreman sat in the morning, Dom knocked on the window. Instead of greeting him, head down, refusing to look him in the eye, the foreman rushed out to Dom.

“Sir, I was wondering if I might have my job back?” Dom asked.

“No!” the foreman said, smiling into Dom’s eyes. “You have other things to do.”

The foreman took Dom’s hand and led him by the elbow back to the street.”

“Boy,” the foreman said, addressing a boy who wheeled a cart full of carbide rocks. “Take Dom to the cafe and introduce him to Tashi.”

The boy dropped his cart and grabbed Dom’s pinky before taking off at a run. Dom shuffled behind the boy, at risk of losing his little finger. He typically went a week before touching the skin of another human, and then it was usually just Pemba, but today he had already been touched by three different people. Dom was both shocked and pleased at his good fortune.

When they reached the cafe, which Dom could have found on his own, the boy led the way between the tables to the back, where a fat man sat reading a newspaper and eating pastry.

The boy didn’t speak, but pushed Dom towards the man before running away.

The man, presumably Tashi, regarded Dom and then pointed him to a seat.

“You’re the bear?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir,” Dom said. “My name is Dom.”

“Who gave you this name?”

“Denpa,” Dom said.

“And this name is true?”

“I never thought about it,” Dom said. “He said that he gave me the name because when I was a child, I growled whenever I was unhappy, and growled in a different way whenever I was content.”

“My name is Tashi,” the man said. “And you can see that it’s true.” He swept a hand towards his expensive garb, and his surroundings. “You will need to dress more appropriately if you expect to work in expensive homes.”

“Pardon?”

“Jetsan, Tara’s uncle, came to me and told me that you needed help developing your business. Then I spoke with Chogyal. You put pipes into his home?”

“Yes.”

“He’s satisfied with your work. His family is thrilled with it. Do you know the difference? Do you know why Chogyal would be merely satisfied, while his family is thrilled?”

“No?”

“It is because his family did not do business with you. They merely experienced the product of your labor. People come to Chogyal and they say to him, ‘Who put these magic pipes into your house? How can I get them in my house?’ And do you know what Chogyal says to them?”

“No, sir.”

“He says, ‘I paid a street person to do the work.’”

“Oh,” Dom said. He looked down at his feet. In the village, a street person was not fit to take away garbage. People would rather do without a service than have a street person attend to it.

“Do you see the problem with your business?”

“I think so,” Dom said.

“Then tell me—what is the problem with your business?”

“People don’t respect me, so they don’t respect my work,” Dom said.

“That’s quite well said. How many referrals do you suppose you’ve received from your work at Chogyal’s house?”

“None,” Dom said.

“None. That’s exact. You are quite perceptive when you choose to be. So what would you do to fix the problem with your plumbing business?”

“I don’t know,” Dom said.

“It’s quite simple,” Tashi said. The man looked at Dom for a second and then took another bite of his pastry. He chewed slowly and returned his gaze to his newspaper. After a second, he turned the page and snapped the paper, so it nearly blocked his face from Dom.

Dom looked around the cafe. He had passed it many times, but had never set foot inside. It had tall ceilings and arched windows way up high which let in a nice breeze. Elegant tables and high-backed chairs took up most of the floor, but a more comfortable couch sat along one wall. At the back of the cafe, a counter divided the patrons from the staff, and a narrow passage allowed traffic. When Dom looked to the counter, a waiter appeared and hurried over.

“May I take your order, sir?” the waiter asked Dom.

“No, thank you,” Dom said. He thought about his meager savings, all the money he’d saved to run away, and wondered how much of it he would spend on a single meal. A quarter? Half? The question was academic. He had left his money back at his apartment when he’d decided to try to get his job back.

The waiter shuffled away and Tashi snapped his paper again.

Dom replayed the conversation in his head and tried to decide if he should leave. Tashi had asked if he knew what to do, and then said it was quite simple.
 

“What should I do?” Dom asked.

“Hmmm?” Tashi asked.

“What should I do to fix the problem with my plumbing business?”

“Ah,” Tashi said. He folded his paper and set it down on the table. “I’m glad you asked. Until a person asks for help, you cannot be sure that they have the necessary desire to fix their problem. What your plumbing business needs is perceived value.”

Dom nodded.

“Do you know how to create perceived value for your business?”

“No,” Dom said. “I thought the value of running water in the house would be self-evident.”

“That it is. You are correct. That is the perceived value of the result. But, what of your business? You are coming to install something that nobody has heard of. They’re likely to consider your work to be magic. Who would you want to practice magic in your house? A street person?”

“No.”

“No. That’s exact. If a street person comes in and performs magic in your house, it’s likely to bring evil. Over time, Chogyal has warmed a bit to your work, but he still would not recommend it. All we need to do is to present you as a master builder, successful and beneficial, and people will happily recommend your work. Do you understand?”

“I suppose.”

“Good. We will call you Torma, and of course we’ll need to fix all this,” he said as he waved at Dom’s body. “Then people will regard you with awe and respect. I will take forty percent of your gross.”

Dom found himself nodding as he thought about the prospect, but then the math occurred to him. “Wait. I can’t give you forty percent of gross. My profit is less than that. I will owe money for each job if I give you forty percent.”

Tashi smiled. “You’re brighter than I was told. So much the better. When we have finished recreating your reputation, you’ll find your margins much healthier. But, to your point, we will start at fifty percent of profit and renegotiate after one-hundred days.”