Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

Now, Luis Quevedo is a marble-eyed refugee in a city abandoned by God. And his lunch hour is spent, not bribing a customs minister with naked photos of Victoria Regina, but begging for information from trust-fund artists with brass rings dangling from one or more nostrils. Lucifer never fell so far, Quevedo thinks as he unlocks and opens the door to Brody’s Adult Books.

And is yanked inside by Huck Hrabal and thrown to the ground at the feet of Felix Kinsky.

Felix slaps closed an atlas-sized volume titled The Succubus Through History and heaves it over his shoulder.

“What in the name of God?” Quevedo says and tries to stand up, but Vera Gottwald steps forward and puts a boot on the old man’s back.

“The only God worth praying to today,” Felix says, coming down on one knee to pat Quevedo’s head like that of an indulged beagle, “is named Hermann Kinsky.”

“I’ve paid this month’s service fees—”

“My visit,” Felix says, “has nothing to do with our service fees.”

Quevedo tilts his head up and squints, as if contracting the skin around his eyes will do what a half dozen marathon surgeries at Havana Eye and Ear could not. He sees the usual ghost-world, the cloud-draped, shadowy symbols that have instinctively come to represent physical reality. There are a dozen people in his store. Their posture alone is disrespectful. They are lounging on his sofa, reclining on his Persian rugs, poring over his wares like dimadolescents surveying the cheapest skin magazines on the planet.

“My uncle,” Felix says in a whisper, “is extremely disappointed in your abilities, Luis.”

Luis, from the mouth of this teenager.

“Then your uncle,” Quevedo says, unbowed, spitting out the relation, “should have come to see me.”

Felix stands up, walks to a nearby shelf, pulls down Don Juan: The Suppressed Versions and starts to open to the illustrations.

“If you knew Hermann,” he says, “you’d know that he hates to waste time. And you, Luis, have become an enormous waste of his time. And, I will add, of his money.”

Quevedo makes another attempt to rise and this time Vera Gottwald climbs on his back, straddles him like a miniature pony at a petting zoo. All the Roaches laugh and Felix says, “Be careful, Luis, she’s wearing her spurs today.”

Then he snaps his fingers and Hrabal and Krofta and Bidlo get up and wander down different aisles, begin to grab books and toss them in the air, knock them in piles to the ground.

“Please,” Quevedo cries, “some of these texts are very old, very fragile.”

Felix steps to the first-editions case, runs a finger down a row of spines and pulls out a slim, leather-bound volume.

“Magdalene Revealed,” he says to the room. “Tell me, Luis, how much would this item be worth today?”

“Please,” Quevedo repeats, only to be answered with the cringe-inducing sound of brittle paper being torn from its binding.

“Five thousand,” he yells.

Felix clucks his tongue in the hollow well of his mouth and says, “Jesus, old man, we’ve been underchanging you.”

Quevedo shakes his head. “You must tell Hermann, I am making progress in the transaction. I am very close to finding Jack Deny. I will have the photographs—”

Another page is torn free and Felix says, “Hey, idiot, I’m not an errand boy here. I’m not some goddamn answering service. I don’t know what you were supposed to get my uncle and honestly don’t give a rat’s ass.”

He walks back to the center of the store and slaps Quevedo across the forehead with the wounded book.

“You fucked up, you moron.”

“Please, Felix,” Luis stammers. “I am asking for time, I am asking for another day. Hermann is making a terrible mistake.”

“Hermann,” Felix yells, then pauses, lowers his voice, “doesn’t make mistakes. Now I don’t know what business you two were doing, but something has gone terribly wrong. My uncle thinks you’ve taken his money. He thinks you’ve failed to honor your end of an agreement. That’s like spitting in his face, Mr. Q. And you just do not spit in Hermann Kinsky’s face.”

Felix motions Vera Gottwald off her geriatric trotter and she jogs to an aisle to join Huck Hrabal. Quevedo starts to stand and Felix gives a short kick to his side, collapsing him to the ground, then grabs the old man by the suitcoat and yanks him up into a wing chair.

Kinsky walks behind the chair, reaches over and puts his thumb and forefinger on either side of Quevedo’s Adam’s apple.

“I don’t like you, Luis,” he says, pinching in on the neck. “In fact, of all my customers, I think I dislike you the most. And I’m not completely sure why that is.”

He begins to apply more pressure to either side of the throat.

“It could be that smugness, you know what I’m talking about? That nose-in-the-air bullshit coming from a guy who sells smut.”

More tension from the fingers.

A gurgle from Quevedo.

“Or maybe it’s those fucking eyes. I can never tell when you’re looking at me. How much can you really see—”

“Just do it,” Quevedo rasps. “Just take out your wire and finish it.”

Felix lets go of the throat and pats the bookseller on the head. He walks back around the chair and takes a seat on the couch, opposite Luis. Felix crosses his legs, smiles and shakes his head.

“The Schonborn,” he says, then bites his bottom lip and nods. “My uncle’s signature. He always uses the Schonborn. It never breaks.”

He starts to leaf through a book lying next to him on the couch— A Manual for Extended Ecstasy —and he mumbles, “Such a waste of energy.”

Felix closes the book and sits back. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hrabal and Gottwald at the far end of an aisle, both staring into some thick art volume, transfixed by the image they’ve found, Huck’s arm hooking around Vera’s back to massage a breast.

Quevedo leans down, rests his elbows on his knees.

“Please, Felix,” he says, “You must speak with Hermann. If he genuinely wants the photographs, I am the only conduit.”

Felix sniffs, nods again. He leans back on the couch, seemingly exhausted.

“Luis,” he says, speaking to the ceiling, “I don’t know from any photographs. And I never use a Schonborn. It’s so,” he closes his eyes, brings a hand to his mouth, then to his chest, “primitive. Old world. You know what I’m saying? All that blood and spittle on the hands. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine for Uncle Hermann. He’ll die with the old ways.”

He reaches inside his green suede jacket, withdraws a pistol.

“This,” he says, holding up the gun, “is the American way of business.”

And he squeezes the trigger twice, pumps two bullets into Luis Quevedo, one entering through the forehead, the other finding its target and tearing through the left eyeball. Quevedo bucks upward a bit, then the body just slumps to the right and slides down slightly, the head coming to rest at a ridiculous angle. The old man’s mouth opens but no sound emerges. Then the mouth closes, but the right eye remains open, its creamy marble interior rigid in its socket.

Felix stands, reholsters his gun, moves to the body and rifles inside Quevedo’s jacket, pocketing a wallet.

“Hrabal,” he yells down an aisle, interrupting Huck and Vera who are lost in an endless French kiss. Huck pulls away, wipes at his mouth and jogs to the front of the store.

“I want the body lost,” Felix says. “You think you can handle that? Or should I assign it to the little lady?”

Huck Hrabal meets his boss’s stare but doesn’t say a word.

Felix gives a soft snort through his nose, then turns and exits the store.