Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

You get earthquakes up here?

Haven’t had one yet. But one is all it would take. We’re about two hundred yards from the Sunrise Fault. That’s an active fault. You saw the river rocks on the pillars at the entrance, where the nursing-home shuttles drop off? The big round ones? We’ve already had to mortar five of those bastards back into place. If the ground ever really starts to move, and Doctor Richter weighs us in anywhere north of five and some change, it’s gonna be Bowling for Biddies out there.

Damn.

Yeah, Kagami says, I figure one way or another, I’ll be long dead before this place ever turns a profit.

He wipes a hand on his jacket, reaches out to touch the spotless glass. The Mormon temple is below them, edging into view as they rise. All around it Curtis can see roofs of new houses going up: blond wood of exposed sheathing, patterned rows of underlayment.

This is the first straight job I’ve had since I was nineteen years old, Kagami says. I used to be a gambler, just like Stanley. But the grind finally wore me down. Trying to make a living off a two-percent edge — it’s too much for a senior citizen like me. Unless you’re working with a good team. And teams always come apart.

Curtis shifts his weight a little. I don’t know how Stanley does it, he says.

Well, Stanley’s got Veronica. And besides, Stanley doesn’t know anything else. Kagami smiles to himself. Stanley also has a supernatural gift, he says. You did not hear that from me.

The doors slide open on a little glassed-in chamber, which opens in turn onto a rubber-flagstone path bordered by rosemary and budding desertwillow. A tiny restaurant at the terrace’s edge: RAVENCREST branded on a wooden sign. White tablecloths flutter in the light breeze.

Kagami walks slowly, hands in his pockets. So, he says, how’s old Donald doing these days? I haven’t talked to him in years.

He’s doing real good. He’s not Donald anymore, though.

That’s right, I forgot. What is it now?

Badrudin Hassan. He remarried a couple years back, too. He’s playing gigs again. Being Muslim and being married both seem to suit him real well.

His wife’s a young little thing, isn’t she?

I don’t know about little, but she’s younger, yeah.

Kagami chuckles, kicks a stone chip from the rubber path. What about you, kid? he says. What’s a young fellow like you do after retirement? Work on your golf game?

Curtis smiles. A friend of mine is setting me up with a job, he says. Security supervisor. He’s a shift boss at a joint in Atlantic City, a new place. I know him from the Corps.

He anybody I’d know?

Damon Blackburn. He works at the Spectacular.

That’s in the Marina District, right? Kagami pulls the restaurant door open, holds it for Curtis. I don’t suppose, he says, that he’d be the friend of yours who’s looking for Stanley?

Yeah, Curtis says. He is.

The maître d’ greets Kagami deferentially and seats them at the terrace’s edge. Curtis chooses the strip steak from the succinct leatherbound menu and looks down into the valley, shading his face with a cupped hand. Somewhere on the ridge above them a pair of ravens calls back and forth; Curtis can’t see them at first. Then one flutters down and lands atop the restaurant. The Mormon temple is in full view, below and a little to the north, like a dead bug at this angle, with its six spires and its battened brown roof. The spires’ golden tips blaze orange in the late-afternoon light.

Kagami’s talking to the waiter, ordering appetizers and wine. The waiter nods, walks away, and Kagami looks across the table, leans forward in his chair. So, Curtis, he says. I gotta ask. Are you sorry to be missing out on all the action? In Iraq, I mean?

Did the war start?

Not that I’ve heard. Sounds like pretty soon, though. I guess you probably know a lot of people who are over there.

Curtis takes a sip of water, then another one. It’s ice-cold, but the glass is barely sweating. The second raven joins its mate on the gambrel roof.

It’s complicated, Curtis says. In a lot of ways, sure, I wish I was over there. I trained for it. I trained other guys to do it. I’d like to be there taking care of my people. But in most ways — most ways that matter — I’m glad to be sitting this one out. I’m not a kid anymore. I got a wife to think about. And when I got hurt in Kosovo, that rearranged my thinking on a few things, I guess.

If you hadn’t retired, you think you’d be over there now?

Hard to say. Probably I would.

You were a military policeman, weren’t you?

I was an MP, yeah.

Stationed in the Philippines?

That was a long time ago. When my dad got out of prison in ’89, I put in for a transfer to the Second Marines. I wanted to be closer to him.

You’ve been at Camp Lejeune, then?

That’s right.

You ever spend any time at Guantánamo Bay, Curtis?

Curtis feels his stomach tighten — up high, under his ribs — and he takes a quick involuntary breath. Kagami sees it, was waiting for it. Yeah, Curtis says. A little bit.

The waiter reappears, sets down a plate of frybread, some jalapeños stuffed with goatcheese, a tiny baked pumpkin. Opens and pours the wine. Across the table, the sun is doubled in the lenses of Kagami’s spectacles; Curtis can’t see his eyes at all.

Kagami waits for the waiter to go before he speaks again. How long ago were you there? he asks.

I got TDY’d to Gitmo about a year ago. I was there for six months.

Because of the prisoners?

The detainees, yeah. They were moving them to the new facility.

Camp Delta.

That’s right.

Kagami cuts himself a slice of pumpkin, takes a piece of frybread. So what’s it like? he asks. The facility? He says facility like he’s handling something dead.

Curtis lifts his glass, takes a sip of wine, then another sip of water. Steel mesh enclosures, he says. Eight by eight by six-and-a-half. They have flush toilets, bedframes, sinks. An exercise area.

Pretty luxurious.

At Camp X-Ray they were using Port-A-Cans and sleeping on the deck, so it’s a step up. These are bad dudes, Walter. Really evil guys.

I hear they got kids locked up there. Twelve, thirteen years old.

Juveniles are in a separate facility, Curtis says.

One of the ravens arcs past them, lands with a thump in the middle of a table a few yards away. The waiter calmly shoos it off with a dishrag, and it hops onto the rock wall at the terrace’s edge. Up close, it’s much bigger than Curtis had realized. He and Kagami watch it awhile.

Look, Curtis says. I don’t think anybody’s happy with the way things are. I don’t like it myself. It’s one reason I decided to retire.

Curtis has never told anyone this before; he’s surprised now to hear himself say it. He pops a stuffed pepper in his mouth, feels the sting on his palate and in his sinuses.

I’m not trying to cross-examine you, kid, Kagami says.

I don’t know all that much about it, Curtis says. To tell you the truth. Gitmo’s a Navy base, but the Army’s responsible for security inside the camp. I was just there to handle the logistics of the transfer. I never had a lot of contact with the detainees.

Well. It’s somebody else’s problem now, right? You’re joining us in the gaming industry.

Yeah. Honest work at last.

Kagami laughs. I see a lot of you ex-military guys in security, he says. Lots of former MPs. Your buddy at the Spectacular — Damon, right? Was he an MP, too?

An MP, then later an MSG. An embassy marine, in Bolivia and Pakistan.

Sounds like serious business.

Damon’s a sharp guy. I’m looking forward to working with him.

That’s good to hear. You know, Kagami says, I don’t think you told me why your friend is trying to get in touch with Stanley Glass.