Robert Bennett - The Company Man

“Imagine that,” said Hayes. “Try again?”

The boy began laying cards down again. But Hayes knew the game now. On the second try he won his money back handily. On the third he placed his money down and made a triple bet and watched the jack spin by, the boy desperately maneuvering it through the other cards. Hayes almost missed it. When they came to a stop he took out a finger, waved it along the line of cards, listening carefully. The boys watched and as his finger passed by the third card he felt a whine of fear ring out in all of them like a chorus.

Hayes tapped the card. “That one.”

The boy stared at him, then flipped it over. The jack looked up at them both. The boy leaned close and said, “What the fuck you doing here?”

“Taking my winnings.”

“What’d you do? What’d you do to the game?”

“Nothing,” said Hayes. “I just won it.”

Spectators around them started to applaud. The boy looked up and suddenly remembered himself.

“Here,” he said. “Here. Take your goddamn money and go.”

Hayes counted it carefully, then tipped an imaginary hat and walked away, the crowd still applauding. As he turned the corner a faint headache started to pound. He silently cursed himself. There had been too many people there and he had stayed far too long.

No, this was not magic, he thought to himself as he walked. He didn’t know what it was. It was just his. Brightly called it his “talent” or his “knack.” Evans preferred not to speak about it at all. And Hayes needed no word for it. It was just something that happened.

Sometimes when the wind was right and everything was still, Hayes could feel ripples running through him. Echoes from the minds of those around him. Most of the time they were deathly faint, but they were there. And sometimes he could learn things from them, or even mimic them.

It had taken him a long while to realize he could do it at all. To him it felt natural, like breathing. Like seeing patterns in mathematics and solving them, or sitting down with a pencil and knowing how to sketch a tree. It was just something his mind did without asking.

The boys at McNaughton had quizzed him about it at great length when Brightly had first hauled him in. Physicists and biologists and psychologists. Only a few, as Brightly wanted to keep any information about Hayes as restricted as possible. Hayes always told them it was like listening to music you had never heard before being played over and over again in the next room: you could hear something in the background but you weren’t really sure what it was, but if you stayed there long enough eventually you could pick out the trumpets and the bass line, and if you stayed even longer you’d be able to complete the melody in your head without trying. Pretty soon you’d be humming along.

Much of it seemed to be based on time and proximity. After five minutes Hayes could sense when people were around him, within ten or twenty feet or so. After eight he would have a pretty good idea of where they were in relation to him. After thirty minutes he would get “the pangs,” occasional flashes of how they were feeling, but unless they were having extreme emotions those were always difficult to determine. After two hours he would have a reasonably decent idea of their level of anxiety, depression, stress, or whatever else. After four he would begin to form a concept of how they felt about various things, some of them minutiae, others possibly important. And then, after spending six hours of close contact with a person with no other individuals around to interfere, Hayes could have a good sense of personality and some strong ideas about the problems that loomed particularly large in their mind, along with some habits unique to that person alone.

Yet even then, after slogging it out with that person for a quarter of a day in a tiny room, he still might not come up with anything too helpful. Just a handful of useless moments, skating across the edges of his thoughts.

It also meant he couldn’t be in a crowd for more than an hour, as the noise would be unbearable. How it worked was a mystery to him and everyone else. It was just there. Always muttering and eating into him and burning him up. Drink or the pipe were the only things that killed it. Those, and work. The thrill of hunting through the city helped him forget it, or perhaps it drowned out whatever part of his mind could listen. But he’d take whatever was available. Whether it was a drug or a chase, he needed to keep a little flame burning in his head to beat back the murmurings that always followed him.

Cho Lun’s was just ahead. Hayes spotted the three lookouts casually dawdling down the street by the door. He walked up and entered, the darkness and the aroma of the den closing in on him like a curtain. Half-finished legs of stools and chairs made a tangled forest around him in the dark, and a single candle burned on the front desk. Above it Hayes could make out the eyes of Chinese Charlie watching him calmly. Two other men moved somewhere in the room to stand somewhere behind Hayes, but it was Charlie who ran the place. Hayes could only assume his name was meant to be humorous, as Charlie was well over six and a half feet tall and about as red-haired and blue-eyed as they came.

“Hello, Princeling,” said Charlie quietly. He threaded his fingers together on the table.

“Evening, Charles. How are you today?”

“The Princeling’s back quite early today, isn’t he,” said Charlie. “Usually the Princeling doesn’t show his face until midnight. It’s only ten. Isn’t it?”

“It is. I missed the ambience. Didn’t realize we needed a reservation.”

“We don’t. Not usually. It’s just that when little Princelings start coming back more and more their money starts getting smaller and smaller. Ain’t that right?”

Hayes reached into his pocket and took out his winnings. He held them out and one of Charlie’s boys snatched the money away and showed it to Charlie, who looked without touching. He nodded.

“All right, then,” said Charlie, and he stood and crooked a finger and led Hayes to the back, candlestick in hand.

They went down a small wooden hallway. The ceiling got low and the air grew humid and smoky. There was laughter somewhere and moaning and someone kicked at a wall and wept. They emerged into a low, thin room with curtains and veils hanging from every corner, some silk, some no more than rags. Small girls in robes wove and dodged through the silken jungle, trays in their hands and long, curving pipes resting on their shoulders. They walked to nearby booths and swiveled the pipes around like brightly-colored insects maneuvering their antennae, sensing profit.

Charlie called to one in Mandarin, belittling and cursing her. She scurried over and he continued his tirade as she set up Hayes’s booth. Hayes could catch only a few words of it. Chastising her for her laziness. Reprimanding her for her impish whorishness. Not this time, he told her. Not with this one.

Hayes lay down in the booth and the girl set up the pipe. Charlie stood over him, frowning grimly with his arms crossed.

“You don’t like me much, do you, Charlie?” asked Hayes.

“I like your money just fine,” said Charlie.

“Then you must like me very much, as I bring so much here.”

“I like you just as much as you can afford.”

The little girl held his pipe still and Hayes suckled at it as she held the flame to its end. He drew in once, twice, fumes enveloping his head, then filling his lungs. It was just a taste, but its soft, stinging breeze was already wiping the day away. He leaned back, smiling.

“Tell me, Charlie,” he said softly.

“Tell you what, Princeling?”

“What do you know about unions?”

“Unions?” Charlie’s brow wrinkled. His sweat shone and in the dim light he looked like a man made of fatty wax.