James Baldwin - Stained Glass

I found Zane banging around in the kitchen, angrily washing up while eggs and steak sizzled on the stove. When he turned and saw me, a ripple of something I didn’t recognize passed behind his eyes. Fear? Embarrassment? It was as brief as it was elusive.

“Mason says he’s made a time for you with Aaron first thing tomorrow morning,” he muttered. “He’ll come and pick you up, take you to the Voicer building in Manhattan for a meeting with some bigshot Pastor.”

“Wonderful.” I shuffled onto a chair at the table, rubbing my eyes. “Coffee. Please.”

“Coffee’s cold,” Zane said. “How do you like your steak?”

“Blue. Sear it until it stops bleeding, and serve it up.” I said. “Runny eggs.”

“Good man,” he replied.

The promise of caffeine was enough to spur me to new heights. I dragged myself to the coffee maker, added some water to the cold coffee, and poured it back through the machine.

“What… are you doing?”

I looked back to find him with food dished up on a plate, staring at me in consternation.

“What?” I dumped half a cup of ground coffee into the filter and set it to brew.

“You just…” Zane sighed, and slammed the plate down on the table before turning to get his own food. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s like those master stocks they keep in Chinese restaurants,” I said. “You know how they keep the same soup boiling for ten years or so? It’s the same thing.”

“No, Alexi. It’s not the same at all.”

“Life is just too short for weak coffee.” I hadn’t had steak in a long time, and I intended to try and enjoy this one. Under normal circumstances, I didn’t eat a lot of red meat. It reminded me too much of work.

“When you put a spoon in it and the spoon melts, it’s not coffee anymore.” Zane slumped into the chair across from me and set into his food like a hungry dog. Or lion… or leopard. Whatever he was. We ate for a while, him in sullen silence, me with what I hoped was a polite level of enthusiasm.

“So…” I said. “Someone giving you trouble?”

“Mm?” Zane swallowed, brow furrowed, and cut himself a piece of steak.

“You were arguing with someone on the phone before,” I replied. “You need me to help sort something out for you?”

He barked a harsh, derisive, bitter laugh. “Sort him out? What, Russian Mafia-style?”

I stared at him until he stopped trying to shrug me off. The light in his eyes and his smile faded over seconds.

“Wait. You’re serious?”

“I am always serious,” I replied. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s, uh…” Zane licked his lips, for once at a loss for words. “It’s just my ex, you know. Girlfriend. She has some of my stuff at her place, and her new guy isn’t letting me go over and pick it up.”

Vassily had a word to describe people when they were like this: ‘cagey’. I wasn’t sure why ‘cagey’ was the term used to describe that weird mixture of hesitation, anger and fear of being caught out, but I could accept it descriptively.

“So we go over and beat the shit out of him, get your stuff, and leave.” I shrugged.

“I can’t.” He shook his head, stuffing steak into his mouth. “It’s… complicated. Nothing I can solve with getting physical.”

“So shoot the lock out of the door as a warning and then go call them again on a payphone. Ne vopros .”

“Look, Alexi… you can’t fucking shoot all of your problems away, okay?” He threw his knife and fork at the plate and stood, too agitated to stay at the table. “That’s not how the real world works.”

“You don’t shoot anyone during an intimidation. It’s supposed to be bloodless,” I replied, sawing off some meat. I was confused, but not so put out that it turned me off my food. “But if you don’t want to stand up for yourself, I won’t push.”

“That’s generous of you.”

Coming from someone who’d apparently forgotten what his 1% patch meant. “I’m going to handle some chores today, and after we visit the church tomorrow, I’ll go and see my contact.”

“Whatever. I’ve got a fight to train for.” Zane was too large of a man to properly sulk, but he was unmistakably petulant as he gathered his dishes and scraped the leftovers into a foil and paper takeout container, washed his hands, and stormed off into the house.

I was no cop, but I knew that every day that went by without recovering the children was a bad day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be much good if we couldn’t get the dirt on where to find them, and that required money.

The first thing I did was to go and check my accounts. To my surprise, my savings accounts were untapped. My credit cards had been maxed out – no shock there – but the banks could send angry letters to the bombed out shell of Kostya’s home for as long as they pleased.

Second stop was a pet store. I returned with a litter box, litter, and black nylon harness and leash for Binah. My familiar was asleep on our bed. I pulled her into my lap, drowsy and pliable, and sized it for her. She yawned, and rolled onto her back as I fed her legs through the holes.

“Here you go, Binah.” I attached the leash and put her on the ground, standing up behind her. “Now we can go for walks together.”

Binah wobbled forwards in consternation, picking up her feet as if she’d forgotten how to walk. When she reached the end of the leash and jerked back, she flopped onto her side on the ground, glaring up at me. As if to drive home the point, she lashed her tail, thumping it against the floor.

I toed her with a shoe, trying to get her to her feet. She slid across the floorboards, as limp as the head of a mop. “You are quite literally the most ungrateful creature I have ever met.”

The tail thumping increased in frequency and velocity.

“Honestly.” I unclipped the leash and rolled it up, but left the harness on. “Get used to it.”

Aaron was early, as promised. It was still dark when I heard the wheels of a car crackle on the gravel outside. The sound stirred a vague concern about the FBI and SWAT vans, so I set down my notebook and picked myself up, the Wardbreaker in hand. I heard a door slam, and then feet on the ground outside. One pair of feet.

“Good morning, Rex.” Aaron peered in around the edge of the unlocked door, his polite smile wilting around the edges when he saw me holstering my weapon. I had much the same impression of him that I’d had on first meeting: the priest was gym-fit, with a pleasantly attractive round face and an annoyingly thin mustache set beneath two button eyes. “Sorry to disturb you. All ready to go?”

“Almost.” I packed the books away into a suitcase, slung my overcoat on, and wrapped Binah’s unattached leash around my hand. She had come out to sit and study with me for a time, but had now made herself scarce. Following my intuition, I went to the bathroom and found her scrabbling in the new litter box. Just as well: I doubted the senior pastor would be amused if she were to borrow a corner of his office.

“You… uhh…” Aaron reached up to adjust his collar when I returned with Binah clinging to her favorite place over my shoulder. “Is that…?”

“She’s a necessary tool of the job.” I walked past him without pausing. Someone who didn’t stop to permit criticism was often allowed to continue doing what they were doing. “Today will be interesting. I don’t know much about the Church, but I had a colorful encounter with a member of your congregation once.”

I’d expected an NYPD police chaplain to arrive in a squad car or a mid-range sedan of some kind, like a Volvo or a Camry. Instead, I passed through the garage door and found myself before a very large, very new top-of-the-line Cadillac. It crouched like a panther, gleaming under the lights over the entries to the clubhouse and Strange Kitty.