Charlie Huston - Sleepless

The remaining walls were glass, two vast angles of it, honing her workplace to a point, aimed decisively west, at the ocean, and beyond to her native island home.

I stood with my back to that place whence she had been spawned, considered typewriters. And her request.

“Finding things is not generally a task for which I am best employed.”

She picked up a small square of gauze.

“But one you are capable of executing.”

“Capable, yes. But.”

She ran the square of gauze along the underside of the V key, removing excess oil that had run there.

“But you would rather not?”

I twiddled my fingers, an invisible gesture of relative indifference.

“I’ll admit that as I get older I am not particularly interested in work that is less than challenging. Recovering lost or stolen property does not tend to offer many opportunities for new experiences.”

She dropped the soiled gauze in a steel tray that would more traditionally have been used for bloody surgical instruments.

“You will be paid at your accustomed rate.”

I reserved comment, never having conceived the prospect of working for less than my accustomed rate. I had long passed the point where working for scale, no matter how much I loved the project, was a serious consideration.

I returned my gaze to the typewriters.

“There is something I’ve been wanting myself.”

She looked up from her work.

“Yes?”

I nodded eastward.

“An artwork. Or, more accurately, a fragment of an artwork.”

She set her swab aside, and white-gloved fingers indicated I should elaborate.

I closed my eyes.

“In September of 2007, at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City, a dozen professional motorcycle riders, led by Wink 1100, skidded about on a 72-by-128-foot plane of black-painted plywood. As they rode, bright orange paint layered under the black was revealed in fishtails and streaks.”

I drew my toe across the glossy floor in a long arc.

“The work, in toto, was the creation of Aaron Young, who later supervised Mr. 1100 as he rode solo and embellished the piece with various flourishes, including a somewhat legible ‘A.Y. ’07’ as signature.”

I made a squiggle with my toe.

“Upon completion, the massive work was to have been cut into pieces of sizes varying from quite small bits suitable for wall hanging to billboard panels. There was, however, a fire that destroyed the vast majority of the piece’s surface area, leaving just a few corners and edges to be recovered. Instantly recognized as being eminently collectible, these were snapped up by an assortment of real estate barons, investment bankers, rock stars, and third-generation old-money heirs. The most coveted sections being, no shock, those singed by the fire.”

I opened my eyes.

“One of these sections has become available.”

She pulled the customized four-finger glove from her left hand. The fifth finger on all her left gloves had been rendered superfluous at a time in the distant past when she had chosen to make a point of some kind by cutting off the pinkie on that hand.

She set the glove aside.

“It sounds hideous.”

I nodded.

“Most definitely. In every possible way.”

She pulled off her other glove, this one traditionally fingered.

“And the price is beyond you?”

I shook my head.

“Not at all. Which is not to suggest that it is in any way inexpensive. But no, it is not the work itself I need from you.”

I turned and looked south, where we once could have expected to see, on an especially clear night, smoothly circling dots of light, tranquilized gnats, dense air traffic over LAX.

“I operate quite well on a local level, but secure cross-country shipping has become a chancy operation at best, and toxically expensive.”

I faced her again.

“I am more than capable of bearing all the expenses, but having done so, I don’t care to trust anything but the most reliable of transportation services.”

Her left thumb folded across her palm and rubbed the nubbin of scar where her finger once was. A gesture that gave every appearance of unconsciousness, yet one I was certain originally had been adopted to unnerve. But in the realms of power and influence where she now moved, I doubted that very many were disconcerted by the prospect of self- mutilation. I imagined that the calculated detachment that informed the movement had been employed so long that it had evolved now to possess the spontaneity to which it had once only aspired.

An observation that might have gotten me killed had I given it voice. Chizu did not care to have her psychology plumbed. It implied the plumber’s interest in the whys and wherefores of her dealings. An interest that could never be considered healthy. For the interested party.

She stopped rubbing the scar.

“You would like access to my infrastructure.”

If I had been free to, I would have raised a hand in denial.

“I wish to place a shipping order. And to ask that you personally see that the order is carried out.”

She rose, a grace that suggested a thread running from the ceiling to the very top of her head, pulling her gently to her bare feet.

“To have shipped a hideous painting?”

I faced the windows again, looking north this time, the inexhaustible glow of the wildfires above the rim of the Santa Monicas as evening fell.

“It’s meant to be part of my apocalypse collection.”

She came around the worktable, her hedgehog haircut no higher than my shoulder.

“In the face of this view, I see no need for such a collection.”

I shrugged, helpless in the grip of one of my obsessions.

“I can’t help but think that the creation of this piece was an undeniable sign that the end was looming. Even if it wasn’t regarded.”

She stood at the window, confronting her reflection.

“Does it have a name, this harbinger?”

I smiled at her reflection.

“‘Greeting Card.’”

Her lips twitched and drew into a smile that she allowed.

“Yes. I see the appeal.”

I joined her at the window.

“I thought you might.”

I looked down at her profile, admiring the smoothness of her complexion, how it showed in youthful contrast to her gray hair, telling the story of a long impassive life, the dearth of wrinkles speaking of displeasures concealed, laughter abated, furrowed brows smoothed, pursed lips straightened.

To eke a smile from that visage was a great pleasure.

So I bowed my head in thanks.

“And for you, Lady Chizu, what do you need found?”

The smile left, and she looked up at me.

“What is your opinion of these anachronisms?”

She glanced back at the wall of obsolete machines.

“My collection.”

A thick wad of purple scar tissue behind my ear throbbed. There was shrapnel still under there, decades old, that sometimes reminded me of its presence when odd atmospheric changes were nigh.

I pursed my lips.

“Some are quite beautiful. Others not. I admire its completeness. The fact that no machine seems weighted with more value than any other. The fact that they are clearly organized with purpose. Whatever the guiding principle may be, it is not readily visible. Not age, country of manufacture, color, design specifications, size, condition. All these qualities are distributed randomly, but not necessarily evenly. There is undeniable balance. And order. I am not drawn to these things, but I understand the need for such a collection. And I admire it.”

She looked out at the night.

“The typewriters around which the others are arranged, the singularities that define the collection, are those upon which suicide notes were written. And not another word, after.”