Robert Bennett - The Company Man

“It’s not a monster,” said Hayes dismissively. “If it is the killer.”

“Then what was it?”

“I don’t know. Something. But not a monster. What did Samantha say?”

“She says pretty much the same thing as you. It was like a person, a person who couldn’t stop moving. It was spotted again, you know. People said they saw a ghost, way out in Lynn. Shuddering under the moonlight and screaming, or something like screaming. From their testimonies that would have only been a few minutes before the murders.”

“That can’t be right,” said Hayes.

“It’s what they said. It crossed the city in a handful of minutes.”

“They’re wrong. It’s bullshit. You’ve chased bullshit witnesses before, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Of course. Things like that aren’t real.”

“You both saw it,” Garvey insisted. “You both heard it and were nearly deafened. It’s the same thing, whatever it is. We’re still tracking down the other thugs that tried to beat your head in but if we find them, which I doubt we will, we’ll probably hear the same thing.”

“Are you seriously considering the scenario of a boogeyman running around murdering unioners?”

“No. No boogeyman. Just something. Someone, maybe. How, I don’t know. What, I don’t know.”

“Oh, please, Garvey. Don’t be stupid.”

Garvey clenched a fist and bit the knuckle. Then he took a breath and said, “Listen, you bastard. Look around you for once. We live in a city powered by thunderstorms along with the usual coal and oil and what have you. The things your company makes here are things the entire world fucking wants. Things that can fly and never have to land. Cranes with arms and legs that can build a whole town in a week. And you. They have you, you crazy bastard. Whatever you are. I’ve lived here all my life and by now I’m willing to believe a lot.”

Hayes shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. It can still be explained. Somehow.”

“Then explain it. Explain to me what’s happening.”

“Someone’s mad. Maybe at the unions, maybe just at these men. I know you love the how and not being able to figure this one out is fucking you up but good, Garv-”

“Of course it is!” cried Garvey. “Eleven people, sorry, thirteen people drop dead within a very small space of time, no sign of resistance, no sign of alarm or of a struggle! How does that happen?”

“I don’t know yet, some sort of bomb or gas!” said Hayes.

“That makes this sound planned, and this wasn’t planned. All the evidence points to anger, to a stupid crime.”

“Not all the evidence, just everything you want to look at.”

Garvey fell silent at that. He sat down and buried his face in his hands and breathed deep.

“We have to find the link,” said Hayes. “These people were murdered for a reason, and we need to find out why.”

“The link is your company. That’s what the link is.”

“It isn’t. Or it isn’t just that.”

“You want to talk about stunning bombs and gases, who do we know who makes that?”

“I’m telling you, Brightly has no idea what’s happening. Evans, either. I’d know.”

Garvey looked at him coldly. “Would you?”

Hayes sat up in his linens. He leaned forward and glared at him. “What?” he asked. “What’s that?”

“Would you actually know?” Garvey said. “Are you still that under control, even?”

“Oh, here we are. Here, I know why I must have misheard you,” Hayes said, and he ripped the bandages from his ear. “There, now.” He cupped one hand to the bloodied side of his head and said, “All right, what was that, Donald? What was that you said to me? Because I know it wasn’t what I thought you said, I know it had to be-”

“Be reasonable!” shouted Garvey suddenly. He got to his feet, fists at his side. “You’re having fainting spells! Swilling opium at every chance you have! You forget to give me Skiller, you fucking forget, and now I’m stuck chasing more bodies and I missed something that may have helped keep my whole damn Department from looking like common thugs for your company! For your company, for your fucking company!”

“All right, you want something?” said Hayes, sitting further up in his bed. “You want to look at something? Look at Tazz! Look at the unions! If the papers are saying you’re thugs, why isn’t Tazz? Why hasn’t the figurehead for this whole damn movement weighed in on what’s happening? Or have I missed something? Has he piped up?”

A nurse rushed in, drawn by the commotion. She raised her hands and clasped the air as if she were trying to strangle out the noise itself. “Gentlemen, you have to-”

“Have I missed something in the past two days? Have I?” asked Hayes.

“-You really must-”

“Hayes…” said Garvey.

“Come on, Garv, tell me. Tell me that.”

The nurse pressed on Hayes’s chest, murmuring to sit back, to please sit back.

“Come on, Garv,” Hayes kept on. “Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

Garvey shook his head. “All right. No. He hasn’t. He hasn’t said a damn word.”

“Not a word!” shouted Hayes. “Not a fucking word! How’d I know? Huh? How did I know that one?”

“ Please be quiet,” pleaded the nurse. “You absolutely-”

“All right,” said Hayes to her. He put his hands in the air, surrendering. “All right. We’ll be quiet. We’ll be good little boys. Now run along. Run along and go cut on someone for me, would you?”

The nurse glared at him, then turned around and stormed out. Garvey and Hayes sat back down and they both stared into their laps.

“What did you find on Tazz?” asked Hayes finally. “Tell me that. You went to Savron, didn’t you? Went up to the Hill and tugged on your guard friend’s coat, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“And what’d you find there? What’d you dig up?”

“Almost nothing,” admitted Garvey. “Which wasn’t what I wanted.”

He had gone there the day Hayes and Samantha had seen Mr. Skiller’s lodgings, he said, just before the new murders. He’d surprised Weigel, who said he never thought he’d see Garvey again. They’d once worked Robbery together, way back when Garvey was just cutting his teeth and they both thought being a cop would be grand fun. But Weigel had found the realities and complexities of police work a little too daunting, and so had taken up a job as a guard for the state, as he found that work much more direct and satisfying. According to the records, Weigel had been stationed at Savron when Mickey Tazz first got thrown in.

Which is where the problem came in. Weigel had heard of Tazz, naturally. Everyone knew a little about him. But he’d been stunned to hear any news that Tazz had been at Savron at all, let alone when he was keeping watch. If anything, Weigel had said, Tazz was there before him, years before him, before anyone here, because that’d be something you’d hear about, wouldn’t it?

Garvey had agreed and then produced a bottle of whiskey, and the two men sipped and bullshitted each other. Eventually he’d persuaded Weigel to check and they both walked down to the records in the basement. Weigel, slightly drunk and dubious of Garvey’s suspicions, reluctantly began digging, and after a little less than twenty minutes they found what Garvey was looking for, to Weigel’s amazement. Michael Tazarian, a happy denizen of Savron Hill from 1912 to 1917, South Sector C, Cell 145, under Corporal Dobbs. Who, of course, Weigel barely knew of. The man had retired two years ago, he said. He had no idea where he’d be, they weren’t exactly buddies.

From there the file was nothing but framework. Nothing but scraps and locations. Behavior reports, none. A bare handful of appeal hearings and even those pretty skinny. Physical reports, nonexistent. Tazz’s stay in the Hill had been a quiet one.