Jim Crace - All That Follows

Leonard’s concentration is splintered by, first, the faces of a few black kids pressed up against the window, their pink palms spread like suckers on the glass, and then by new arrivals in the bar, a woman and two older men in business casual. They have been drinking elsewhere, it would seem. They’re noisy, scraping chairs and talking loudly. The woman stares across the bar at Leonard, pulls a face, and says, “Jesus, what is that?” Maxie answers them. Whatever he has said causes hilarity and high-fives. “Jazz?” she says, as if the word is new. “Can’t dance to that.” Maxie mutters something else. The new arrivals shake their heads and grin. Maxie’s talking and they’re listening. He’s satisfied now, the charming main attraction once again. They’re buying him a drink and clacking bottles in a toast, oblivious to everything except themselves. One of them throws a dime. It catches Mr. Sinister on the bell, playing its own, uninvited note, followed by laughter and finally some applause from the bar.

Leonard stops midphrase, kicks the coin across the room, turns his back, then lifts his instrument to fart a final pair of notes. Eee-nuff! He plays them shoddily, out of key, a raucous road-rage protest, a pay-attention-to-me-now discharge, a squall of petulance. There’s more laughter from the bar, though it’s directionless. No one wants to catch his eye. He packs Mr. Sinister away as crossly as he can. He blows his nose and clears his throat. He has bitten his lower lip so fiercely that he can taste blood. But the cowboy metal album is being played again and Leonard is either forgotten or ignored, even when he bangs his way across the room and leaves the bar without a word. He goes back to the loft alone in what Maxie later describes to Nadia as an “artistic tantrum.” “Has to be the focus of attention,” he says. “Plays that thing like no one s’posed to talk. What’s the deal? Everyone in Austin plays an instrument. That dude is half a bubble outta plumb. Jeez, Nadia. On top of everythin’.”

The everything is not Nadia’s unintended pregnancy, as Leonard first presumes, but an event that Maxie claims is “unnervy.” “Got government spies on my tail,” he says. Boasting almost. That afternoon, abandoned by “my British pal, supposedly,” he was walking back to their apartment alone and more than a little drunk when an older man he recognizes but cannot place rolled down the window of his Jeep and called out “Maximum!” from the far lane of the street.

“Maximum’s his prison name, you know, his tag,” Nadia explains.

“What am I gonna do?” Maxie continues. “I go across. I think I’m gonna know the guy. Some yardbird from the block. But when I duck and look at him, he’s not the species. Perhaps an officer, I think. But then he says, ‘Word to the wise, Mr. Lermontov. Best not turn up for Mrs. Bush. I’m just sayin’, for your long-term benefit.’ He’s achingly polite, you know, trained up. That tells me FBI or Secret Service. A goon. ‘Tend to your own knittin’, pal,’ is what I say. ‘This is a democracy. Did no one tell you that at G-man academy, or were you too busy jerkin’ off to James Bond DVDs?’ But he’s not stoppin’ for the conversation. He’s away. Jeepin’ outta there.”

“What does that imply?” asks Leonard, meaning, What does that imply for AmBush and for me?

“It don’t mean shit, as far as I’m concerned. It’s just a fishin’ trip. They’re trawlin’ through their database, is all, and I’ve popped up. I’m known to them. I’m on the list. No sweat.”

“We going to call it off? They are expecting you. You’ll not get past the police checkpoints.”

“The heck I won’t. This is where the fun begins. They’re lookin’ out for Maximum, but Maximum is goin’ in disguise. That’s what that implies , comrade. That implies we’ve got the edge on them. They only know so much. Now we are advised: what we have here”—he spreads his arms, trying to embrace the pair of them at once—“is two mysterious British Snipers, not on anybody’s list, not yet, one emblematic American in camouflage, and a ticket to the circus each. The president is fucked. He’s gonna get his ears torn off.”

ON THE EVENING BEFORE Laura Bush’s Saturday appearance at the Book Festival, Leonard — hoping to mend fences after what Maxie describes as his tantrum at the Four T’s — offers by way of thanks for their hospitality and for “the fun” that he is having through the day in Maxie’s company to treat them both to a last supper. He wants their reassurances that all is well and will be well. AmBush frightens him.

“Take him to the barbecue,” Nadia suggests. “Leon, have you ever had a Texan barbecue?” He shakes his head. “Then let’s go there. We don’t have to drive out to Coopers or anything. There’s that funny little down-home place right along the street. We can’t let you go back to England a smoked-meat virgin.”

Gruber’s is not busy at this time in the evening. The street outside is still hectic with commuter traffic and with pedestrians. On the sidewalk, exhaust fumes blend with wood smoke. The smell of motor fuel overwhelms the subtler, deeper smells of oak, mesquite, and pecan from the smoldering hardwood coals of the pitmaster’s open fires out back. “These are not exactly boney-fidey,” Maxie explains. “This is just pretend. If you want a full-on Texas barbecue, you’ll have to drive an hour south. Coopers, same as Nadia says. But that”—he points at the racks of kitchen-cooked meat, the sides and carcasses, the slabs of brisket, the bubbling sausages, which have been laid out on the coals for show, Hill Country style—“now that’s authentic meat. There’s no pretendin’ otherwise.”

One of the Gruber boys, working the coals under woodcut signs that promise LOCAL SPOKEN HERE and SERVING AUSTIN’S ORIGINAL HOT SAUSAGE, wipes himself on his apron and shakes hands with all three of them, using only his fingertips. He recognizes Maxie, of course. “So what’ll it be, sir?” he asks, too shy to use Maxie’s name. He points at the ready meat with his serrated slicing knife.

“A bit of everything, man — beef, cabrito , pork.”

“Some Elgin sausage?” Nadia suggests with a passable Texan accent.

“Clearly a vegetable brochette is out of the question,” says Leonard, more primly than intended. He has not expected this display of unforgiving flesh.

“You do eat meat?” asks Maxie. “Get the man a pail of collard greens.”

The Gruber boy stares first at Leonard and then at Maxie, and then at both of them again, his mouth half open, though it’s not clear whether he is in awe of Maxie or is simply taken by a British accent.

“Just joshing you. I’m not a vegetarian as such,” Leonard says. He doesn’t say, I am a hearty carnivore, slaughter me a hog, bring on the raw and bloody steaks. These days, back home, the only meat he eats with any appetite is chicken, and not so much of that. He does not truly believe that Meat Is Murder, as some vegan diehards claim — though certainly it’s slaughter — but he can’t be certain, so he has trained himself to go for fish and vegetables instead, at least when he is eating in company.

It does smell good at Gruber’s, though, he must admit. He is reminded of his mother and her customary Sunday lunches, with the skewered joint of beef or the cracklinged side of pork and the heirloom carving knife at the center of their table. Those meals were wonderful. This might be too. Anyway, he reasons, Maxie and Nadia are his guests, it is his treat, and he will have to go along with it, wonderful or not. Eating beef in Texas is something unavoidable, he supposes. He won’t cause much of a fuss. “Let’s make no bones about it — bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia,” he says, attempting two jokes that no one even smiles at except himself and, finally, the Gruber’s boy, who says, “I seen that movie. It’s way cool.” But Leonard is feeling slightly nauseous already. This is far too real , and surely not hygienic. “Feelin’ peckish, herbivore?” asks Maxie.