Charlie Huston - No Dominion

– Hmm.

– ’M I gonna hit the lotto?

She sets the cup on the tea tray.

– No, just as you said, nothing. But I can tell you your future nonetheless.

– That would be a relief about now.

She arches an eyebrow.

– A relief? Well then, allow me to relieve you. I will soon call Dexter Predo and inform him that we have you in our custody. He will immediately make arrangements for your rendition, which will most likely take place as soon as the sun has gone down. You will be transferred to Coalition territory proper, and Predo will begin a lengthy interrogation. When he has extracted every last scrap of useful information you possess, you will be executed. In the traditional fashion. Having not seen the sun in…many years, I could almost envy you the view you will have.

I cross my legs.

– But not really.

She shakes her head.

– No, not really.

I play with the frayed hem of my jeans.

– So what’s holding up you making this call?

She slips her glasses on and studies me again.

– Dexter Predo will do what is best for the Coalition at large. Or rather, what is best for the Secretariat and for his chances of advancing to that body. I, on the other hand, will do what is best for our settlement here. This final scrap of our great northern territory, which is all Predo retained for us when he negotiated that abominable treaty with the animals on those streets.

She gives it a rest for a second.

I have nothing to say. So I don’t.

She picks it back up.

– Seeing as you have just come from our occupied territories, I am very curious to hear about what you have seen there.

Another rest.

Me, I still got nothing to interject.

– Predo will offer as little of this information to me as possible, keeping the most useful details for himself.

I look at the mixing bowl at the edge of the table, the one still filled with the remains of those cigarettes.

– And I intend to extract as many of those details as possible before I must call him and report your capture. Using the same tactics he will use.

I cough.

– Lady, if you’re offering me a chance to avoid being tortured twice, just say so. Tell me what you want to know and I’ll spill it. Just maybe one of these guys could get me some rolling papers so I can put my cigarettes back together and have a smoke while I’m talking.

She looks at one of the boys. He comes over and puts a box of Marlboro Lights and a yellow Bic on the table.

I light up.

She takes my empty cup off its saucer.

– You may call me Mrs. Vandewater. I prefer it to lady.

I blow smoke.

She slides the saucer in front of me.

– I’m afraid I don’t have a proper ashtray.

More smoke.

– And now that you have your cigarette, I would like to know what you saw while you were below. How many soldiers, what arms, defenses along the border, these are the details I am most interested in.

I heave out another lungful of smoke and knock ash onto the very-expensive-looking Persian rug that her tea table rests on.

– Fuck off. Mrs. Vandewater.

I expect to be given a few good raps on the back of the skull and hauled away to a basement or some other place where the floors aren’t as nice and the bloodstains won’t matter so much. But all that happens is the Vandewater lady gives a little sniff, lets her glasses drop to the end of their neck chain, gets up and walks out, two of her boys trailing her. The others don’t even slap me around. They just stand there and keep me covered, both of them staying on the same side of the room so there’s no chance they might shoot each other if they have to open fire.

I make the most of it, smoking the rest of the Marlboros and grinding the butts into the rug. It passes the time.

An hour goes by. I run out of cigarettes. I stand up and the boys don’t shoot me. I stretch. Still no bullets. I take a step in their direction. They both take their fingers from the safe position alongside the trigger guard and wrap them around their triggers. I take a step back. They unwrap. So I guess this is my side of the room. I take a look.

I had the bag over my head when they brought me in, but I’m pretty sure we stayed on that same block they were driving around. There or very nearby. They drove us down a ramp into an underground garage. The elevator went up express, opening right into the apartment. The way Vandewater talked about the view, figure we’re anywhere from the sixth to the tenth floor. I can’t hear anything from the other rooms of the apartment or the apartment above. Probably prewar, brick walls. The wainscoting and the molding around the ceiling have never been painted over white like in most old Manhattan buildings. Yeah, this is one of those places on Morningside Drive, one of those castles right at the top of the park.

I take a look at the walls: a couple nice prints, some of van Gogh’s sunflowers, a Remington. Nice stuff, but not my style. There are a few plaques, dark wood with brass, the Vandewater name engraved prominently. Awards. Acknowledgments for efforts. Thanks for donations. That kind of thing. Some sheepskins, too. A yellowed diploma from Columbia when it was still King’s College. Several more, also from Columbia. Men and women, all Vandewaters. Most very old, some that are new.

I look at the new ones. All the degrees taken in the sciences. Biology mostly. I think about that. I think about that school right around the block. I think about the kind of people who go there. And I file those thoughts away. I get lucky, I can maybe follow up on them someday. Think I have an idea who one of those thoughts might lead me to.

I look some more.

There are some photos. Silver-framed, sitting on a table at the end of the couch, a shaded lamp illuminating them.

I look. Blink Look again. I pick one up.

Vandewater. Predo. Terry Bird.

The door opens. Vandewater comes in. Her boys come after, a sagging, head-bagged body between them.

She takes the photo from my hand.

– I have no idea why I keep this.

She lifts her glasses to her eyes and peers at the photo.

– To remind me of happier times, I suppose. Although I hate to think of myself as being nostalgic. Nostalgia rivets you in the past. It keeps you from looking forward. It is good, I think, to be proud of your history, to honor it, but one should never wallow in it.

She taps a very short nail against the glass covering the picture.

– That is what I tried to teach those boys.

She has smudged the glass with her finger. She pulls the cuff of her sleeve down and uses it to wipe the smudge away.

– I’m not certain Bird ever quite got it.

She sets the photo back in its place.

– While Predo, I fear, has taken it much too far.

– Have you ever wondered about the name Coalition ?

– Not really.

– It never occurred to you that it was an odd name for an organization that shows such unanimity?

– Like I said, never thought about it.

– Yes. You strike me as one who does that frequently. Someone who fails to think about things. Some history then, while they prepare.

Two of the boys are moving furniture from the middle of the room. The guy with the bagged head is slumped in a corner.

– The Coalition was once just that: a Coalition of smaller groups. Over the years those groups coalesced; they became a single, unified entity. For the most part.

The furniture out of harm’s way, the boys begin spreading a sheet of plastic over the floor.

– This is what I mean when I accuse Terry Bird of nostalgia.

She points at the photo.

– He was apt at recruiting. And so there he is, Downtown, trying to repeat the lessons of the past. Assembling a coalition of disparate groups, with the goal of creating a single, unified whole. He will fail. The historical moment is different, time has marched, while he remains in the past. What worked once, will not work again.