Jack O'Connell - Wireless

It might have been better if the station had been leveled and remanded to memory and museum photos, eternally new and forever whole. Instead, the place was left to rot into a bizarre modern ruin on the northeast corner of downtown. It looks like a chillingly realistic vision of a postnuclear landscape. The original flooring is gone, leaving uneven bedrock and gravelly dirt. Massive chunks of granite and marble are missing from the walls. The master stairway that led to the upper-level dining pavilion is more a gritty, crater-filled incline than anything else. The Ionic columns are crumbled and broken, and in some cases, lying on their sides. Indistinguishable rubble is strewn everywhere and the air is thick with grime and soot.

During the coldest months of the year, Gompers is an atom-smashed boardinghouse for dozens of homeless vagrants and drunks. From time to time it becomes popular with the growing pack of mental health cases deinstitutionalized from the Toth Care Facility. There are rumors that a group of wandering satanists celebrate Black Mass here on the Solstice.

And occasionally, like tonight, Gompers Station is a neutral meeting ground for gang rites and summits and unconventional transactions.

Eddie reaches for his door handle and Hazel shakes her head without looking at him. She’s got a brown paper super-market bag in her lap and her hands are inside it counting the money.

“No one tell you the days of big debt are over?” Eddie says, pleased with himself.

Hazel keeps counting and mouths the words Shut up, ass-hole .

Eddie ignores her. “What if they don’t show?”

There’s a second of quiet while Hazel finishes the tally, then she looks across at him and says, “They don’t show up, we blow it all on smack and tattoos.”

Eddie loves it when she talks like this. If he thought there was even a small chance of his meaning more to Hazel than muscle and handiwork, he’d drop Diane and steal a ring tomorrow.

“Who are we into for the wad?” he asks.

“This isn’t we ,” Hazel says, emphasizing the last word. Then she continues, “I went to Elmore. And this dyke painter I know who’s getting lucky at the Baldwin Gallery.”

Eddie waits a beat, then can’t help himself. “You go to Flynn?”

“No, I didn’t go to Flynn,” Hazel says, getting angry. “How the fuck could I go to Flynn? Use your goddamn brain for once.”

“How do I know?” Eddie says, defensive. “You could tell him anything. You could say—”

“I don’t lie to Flynn,” Hazel says, almost yelling. Then she remembers where they are and forces some control.

“Look,” she says, “we’ve got to do this clean. Okay? This is partly a small test, allright? We put up the coin, we take the merchandise, we glance, we just glance, okay, at the merchandise. And then we’re out of here. We clear on that? No talk. No extra words. No ‘goodbye, see you soon’ crap. Okay?”

Eddie squints at her like he’s insulted. He’s about to tell her to save the instructions for the lightweights she’s drafted, but then a knock sounds on Hazel’s door and they both start in their seats.

“Shit,” Eddie whispers. “I didn’t even see the bastards come in.”

Hazel mouths Shut the fuck up and pulls up on her door handle. They climb out of the van and Eddie comes around the back to stand behind her. There are three Hyenas, one out front and two others about two yards behind him. The front man is Loke and he’s holding a small nylon duffel bag down by his side.

Hazel steps forward and hands him the grocery sack. He doesn’t say a word. He simply nods and tosses the sack at the feet of one of his backup men, who picks it up and holds it under his arm.

“Not going to count it?” Hazel asks.

Loke shakes his head and tosses her the duffel. She follows his example by turning and handing it over to Eddie, who hefts it in his hand and seems to debate its weight.

No one says a word and Eddie moves to leave, but Hazel clears her throat suddenly and reaches into the pocket of her jeans. She hears a quick crush of gravel and looks up to see one of Loke’s men has gone into a semicrouch and has a bead on her with a snub-barrel.38.

She hears Eddie whisper “Shit” and she stops moving, then slowly, with exaggerated care, she draws out a brass money clip with some bills pinched in it. Everyone stays rigid. There’s a tension in the moment that’s manifested in the lack of motion and the sound of Eddie’s breath.

“I had asked you,” Hazel says, “about another item.” She extends the money clip out in the air toward Loke.

He stares at it for a while, then makes a quick hand gesture and his backup comes upright and stows his piece back wherever he drew it from. Loke reaches around to the rear waistband of his pants and brings forward his own handgun, a.44 automatic.

He shifts the gun in his hand and holds it out to Hazel grip-first. She takes the gun without looking at it and extends the money clip.

Loke shakes his head.

“I want you to have that,” he says in a whispery voice. “It’s a gift. Instead of roses.”

Hazel opens her mouth, hesitates, then closes it again. She stares at Loke and pushes the clip back into her pocket, then she nods and starts to move for the van. Eddie follows her, climbs in behind the wheel, cranks the engine, and rolls the van back a few yards.

Hazel passes the gun from hand to hand, getting a feel for it, enjoying the coolness of the plating against her skin. When she turns to look out the window, Loke and his men are gone.

It’s not until they’re three blocks from Gompers Station that Eddie finally breaks the silence and says, “What the fuck is that for?”

Hazel’s face stays expressionless, but she gives a small shake of her head like she’s disappointed.

“We’re in the Park now, Eddie,” she says. “We’re in Bangkok now.”

They’re quiet for another block and then Eddie says, “You gonna start popping liquor stores or something?”

They swing up an entrance ramp of the interstate. Hazel sighs and stares out at the lights of the oncoming cars. After a while she says, “No. No liquor stores, Eddie. You know, you’re a sweetheart, but you got no feel for symbolism.”

Flynn watches Wayne standing before the glass elevator, staring up at the floor numbers, probably unaware of the fifty-dollar bill still crumpled in his fist.

Ronnie slides an ad cart into its slot and lowers the volume on a voice excited by a Volvo sale. She slides the headphones to her neck, swivels to face Flynn, and asks, “What the hell happened to Wayne?”

Flynn shrugs and says, “Sudden yearning for Tandoori. But don’t worry, he said he’d bring back enough for all of us.”

She squints at him and holds back a smile, and he says, “How long’s the ad?”

“Not long enough.”

He walks to her, swivels her back until she’s facing the board, and begins to run his hands through her hair, then drops them down and starts in on her shoulders again. After a moment, he comes over the slopes of the shoulders and starts to unfasten the top button of her blouse.

“No way,” she says. “I’m on in thirty seconds.”

“Might take longer than that,” he whispers, sliding a hand inside the blouse and fingering a nipple over the camisole. He can feel her lungs bring in air. She reaches up and back, touches the side of his face with her hand. The ad voice says, “… prices do not reflect dealer prep or tax,” and without removing Flynn’s hand, Ronnie leans forward, pulls the headphones back on, adjusts a volume knob, hits a button, and says, “Hello, caller from southern New Hampshire, you’re on Libido Liveline , confide in Ronnie.”