Lips, pale, a touch too thick, his chin recessed, cheekbones softly demure, what’s left of his hair swept wetly back, his eyes, his eye, leaned close, hand up, fingertips pressed to tug down the lower lid, iris palely gingerly brown but shining flecked with gold, he sighs. His fingertips falling away arrested a moment by the stubble darkly roughening his cheek. He swipes his face away with a clang to reveal shallow shelves unobtrusively lit, jars and tubes of creams and oils, unguents and colognes, a tidy skein of dental floss by a rack of toothbrushes and picks of copper and silicone, an empty space he reaches past for a small blue plastic pillbox. Laid on the marble counter there’s a safety razor by a squat black-bristled brush and a small wooden bowl of soap already whipped to a froth. “Not, ah, not today,” he says. Pops open the pillbox, and those sparks in his eyes flare just for an instant as he looks within, a couple-three clear capsules each with its minuscule pinch of glimmering gold. He plucks up a pill, snaps the cover shut on the two that remain, and sets the pillbox back on the shelf, there by razor and brush and bowl wiped clean. He’s pressed the capsule to his lips, taken it between his teeth, a moment, over the bowl of the sink, seamlessly scooped from the marble. He closes his mouth. He swallows.
Nude, he pads around the jog of the hall out into the spotless kitchen, the room beyond, empty but for a low white leather couch, the great wide wall of window beyond, overflowing with clouded daylight, white shag yet brilliant beneath it all. A murmur of leave-taking, a footstep, the sound of a door, closing. The big man there, returning, on the other side of the kitchen-space, straining the shoulders of his white dress shirt, his jeans of dark stiff denim, hair the color of iron closely cropped, mustaches a-dangle to either side of lips contemplatively pursed. He holds up in one hand a spidery pair of half-moon spectacles, peering through them at the small glass bottle held up in his other hand, a splash within of something milkily viscous, those lips thinning, pressing skeptically flat, and he sets the bottle on the kitchen island beside four others, all of a size, none even close to a quarter full. “You’re awake,” he says.
Becker steps up to the other side of the island, hands on the countertop of it. “We’re,” he says, “down, to two. Capsules. Left. That’s, that’s all.”
“And you’ve taken today’s?” says Pyrocles. Becker nods. Pyrocles shrugs. “Soon enough,” he says, “there will be more.”
“This one’s gonna work?” and then, as Pyrocles looks up, frowning, “it’s only just, the last time? and the week before?”
“You mustn’t concern yourself.”
“I know, I know, the reserves,” Becker’s saying, “but I don’t want to, to take anything, from someone else who might,” blinking rapidly, “might need it,” as Pyrocles’ frown softens to something more considering, looking over Becker’s face. Becker lifts a hand from countertop to cheek, “I thought,” he says, “I’d try growing it out? The beard? Just to see,” lowering his hand, “what it, ah,” back to the top of the island.
“There’s court tonight,” says Pyrocles. “You might look a little rough. Shave today, perhaps, before we go, shave then, and start tomorrow,” Becker’s already turning away with half of a sort of a nod, “my love,” says Pyrocles, and Becker looks back, over his shoulder.
“I think I will like the look, when it grows in,” says Pyrocles.
Not especially tall, nor broad, but his prepossession’s enough to take up a great deal of the space about him, this empty stretch of lobby, the reception counter to one side, all polished, red-stained wood, parallel to the long low cushioned couch, bright brown, burnt orange, set beneath windows cranked open for daylight softly filtered through grey clouds, green leaves. He checks the watch on his wrist, a band of thick brown leather, face of it gold and cream, set with starkly simple numerals and two plain hands, pointed there between the one and two, and just shy of the six. He turns about, rumpled linen suit, shirt a brightly almost lurid green, opened a couple of buttons at his throat, face of him roughened by wind and ruddily tanned by a bit too much of the sun that bleached his rather full head of sandy hair. The lone receptionist behind that counter looks up, murmuring into the handset she holds to her ear, and he favors her with a lightly easy smile, already looking away, don’t mind me, nothing required here. Letters of ashy iron bolted to the red wood wall above her, the largest of them by far spell out FIDES, but other, smaller words discretely crowd about, HUMANITAS, PROVIDENTIA, INDUSTRIA, PIETAS, COMITAS.
Someone’s approaching, there through the green-glassed haze of the portico, shifting into focus as each door’s stepped through, not too tall, somewhat stout, all in shades of grey, a darker shirt, a self-striped tie that almost but doesn’t quite match the three-button jacket. He brightens to see the man in linen, and lifts one hand in greeting, a small leather satchel depended from the other, “Henry!” he says. “I’m not late, am I?”
“Reg,” says the man in linen, taking that hand for a single crisp shake, “what’s in the bag? Did you bring homework?”
“Some figures, spreadsheets,” says Reg, that brightness puzzled, “just in case?”
“You aren’t the one to bring paper to a meeting like this,” says Henry, quickly, quietly. “Any specifics you don’t know off the top of your head might be airily dismissed, to be penciled in later, and if you look anything up on your phone I will slap it out of your hand. Let me hold it,” he’s reaching for the satchel, “it goes better with my suit.”
“Grey and brown’s a perfectly respectable,” Reg is saying, as he lets Henry take the satchel, “combination,” but he falters, Henry’s looking down at Reg’s polished mahogany Oxfords, then back up to his deepening perplexion. “Whatever you do,” says Henry, “don’t unbutton your coat.”
“What?” says Reg. “What is it. What.”
“You wear a tie,” says Henry, deeply disappointed.
“You think I should not have a tie?” says Reg, reaching for the knot, but Henry gingerly takes his wrist, “I want you should not have been wearing a tie, but, that said: do not attempt to fix it.”
“Gentlemen!” booms a baritone, a man coming toward them down the length of the reception counter, grey trousers, blue jacket, thin brown hair, a smile that’s terribly pleased with itself. “Henry!” he says, hand up to be clasped. “You’re looking fantastic. Where was it this time, the Bahamas?”
Henry shakes his head, holding on for three vigorous pumps, “Vancouver Island,” he says, letting go.
“Victoria? Lovely city. And you managed to find some sun,” but Henry’s shaking his head, “A little town called Ucluelet, on the ocean side. Turns out, the coast thereabouts? The forests, the rocky islets, the, for want of a better word, fjords? Very reminiscent, in some respects, of ancient Japan – but that’s a story for another time. Bob, I’d like you to meet Reginald Davies; Reg, say hello to Robert Bethel, president of Fides.”
“Reg,” says Bob, with another vigorous handshake. “I hear good things about Maieutics,” and Reg, beaming, lets go, looks about, “It’s clear you have nothing to learn from the likes of us,” he says, “this is a beautiful space, clearly and resolutely fit to purpose.”
“Oh, any sort of room will do,” says Bob. The collar of his chambray shirt’s undone, a pink to match the opulently curled corners of the square tucked into his breast pocket. “It’s all just a space where ideas might flow, and that’s what’s key. Don’t sell yourself short, Reg! I’m sure you’d have insights we’d do well to consider.”
“But I’m not here to sell, Bob,” says Reg. “I’m here to be sold to,” which prompts a booming chuckle from Bob, “Shrewd!” he says, clapping a hand to Reg’s shoulder.
“Maieutics is Reg’s day job,” says Henry, sparing a glance for the fourth member of their party, the man stood silently behind Bob, dark suit, sleek black hair in an asymmetrical round, one hand incongruously behind his back. “He’s also making moves in real estate,” says Henry, “he’s pretty well positioned in the Hoyt Yards project.”
A look, then, just a moment, barely an instant, between Bob, and Henry, before Bob says, “I don’t believe you’ve met our new CCO, Artie Yuan,” turning to draw in the fourth, “Artie, this is Henry Cornelius, who, well, continues to be of invaluable assistance to us, and of course, his good friend, Reg.”
“We’ve spoken on the phone,” says Henry. Artie nods. His necktie’s a hand-painted tapestry of translucent petals, tied in a flatly oblong knot.
“Well!” says Bob, with a thunderous clap of his hands. “Let’s withdraw to a more purposefully suited room, and see what the good Lord has in store for us today!”
The woman she carries, all spindly limbs and angled joints about her shoulders in a firefighter’s carry, her one hand up to steady hips draped in a floppy yellow shirt, her other up to brace a wiry brown arm a-dangle with bracelets of resin and wood that clack and clatter as they climb, that head a-bob by hers, dark hair an afro loosely weft against her own a cloud of milky white, tangled tufts and curly peaks as one slow and careful step after another she mounts the stairs, up from the foyer below to the balconied hall above, where most of the only light slips from a door left open, tinted a beckoning blue. “We mean to put in a lift,” she says.
“Oh?” says the woman about her shoulders.
“Yes,” she says, “to make it all,” step, and creak, “more accessible,” step, and clatter, and it’s not so much the burden, which she scarcely seems to notice, as the infinite care she takes, brace and steady, step after slowly deliberate step, “for your chair,” she says, turning at the top, heading rather a bit more quickly along the balcony toward that open door, “I’ll get you settled, then head back down to fetch it up. Although,” as she nudges the half-open door with a knee, “I’m not at all sure,” she says, looking about, the shelves, the books, the piles and stacks of books, the loveseat in the middle of it all, and the boxes about it, “where it might, fit,” the woman about her shoulders wincing with the swoop and sway, “Just,” she says, “set me down, anywhere, Marfisa, anywhere’s fine, the sofa,” a long step to the loveseat, and Marfisa drops to one knee before it, tipping to tilt and settle the woman from about her shoulders onto its cushions, “there,” she says.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll just,” straightening, standing, pushing her white flop of hair back out of her face, “I’ll be right back,” heading back out the door, “Thank you,” says the woman on the loveseat, again, absently, looking up, around, about at all the books. Her hands lift and settle her knees, her legs in heavy black tights, she leans without looking down to smooth a wrinkle along her shin. Her feet in black slippers over white socks.
“You’re the professor?”
The doorway in the corner, beneath the makeshift shelf, the woman leaned there, beefy white T-shirt and lacey underpants, olive arms and legs, black hair in sleep-tousled tangles, slowly blinking her green green eyes.
“Yadira,” says the woman on the loveseat, crinkling her nose. “Dini. I teach at PSU. Black studies.”
“Ysabel Perry.” She lifts a hand, a cigarette a-smolder between her fingers. “I once was Queen of this city. Black studies?” She takes a drag.
“Culture. History, in Oregon. Are you, Marfisa’s housemate? Roommate?”
“You’re here for the space books, though.”
“The,” looking about the shelves, “library, yes. Abby Tinker was, well, she was no Octavia Butler. But it’s about time SF made room in its history for more than one Black female author at a time.”
Another crackling inhalation. “Ess eff?”
“Science fiction. You didn’t know Abby, did you.”
“Never met her,” says Ysabel. “Marfisa’s the one into outer space. Thinks the stars should be a place we go to, not a light to shine.” Through the open door the clumping thumps of labored footsteps, climbing. Yadira’s shaking her head, “That’s not quite the point of science fiction,” she says. Marfisa’s working a low-slung chair half-folded through the doorway, setting it on its wheels on a bookless patch of carpet, “There,” she says. “We will get that lift put in, I swear. Now. Professor. Where should we,” but then, frowning, “majesty,” she says.
“Marfisa,” says Ysabel, that cigarette up by her cheek.
“Majesty, I’ve asked – ”
“Marfisa.”
“Ysabel,” and she closes her eyes, she takes in a breath. “I’ve asked you not to smoke in here.”
Ysabel looks to Yadira, there on the loveseat. “Is it really bad for books?”
Yadira, half shrugging, half nodding, says “Yes.”
“Well.” That cigarette angles toward her lips, but then she pulls it away, “I suppose I’ll take this outside,” turning away, “there’s more books out here,” she saying, “in the kitchen, and the bathroom, the bedroom,” as she heads away down the hall.
“The hell was that?”
“Artie, there’s no call for – ”
“Bob. Tell me that was not a complete waste of time.”
“Artie, Henry has a good eye for prospects, and he always has his reasons – good reasons! — for bringing the people he brings. Granted, that was an underwhelming performance on Mr. Davies’ part – ”
“Underwhelming!” A bitterly scoffing guffaw. “The man can’t make the buy on the basic product. I doubt he could raise the minimum ask for Caritas. What the hell could make anyone think he rates a sit-down with top brass?”
“Well, Henry?” says Bob, there at the head of that long, glossy table. “Artie’s concerns, and his question, though profane, are pertinent.”
Stood there halfway down the length of that table, he’s looking out the windows louvered open on a greyly green-soaked forestscape, and the faintest susurrus of rain, not quite falling. “Oregon Junes,” he says, with a shake of his head. “You’d never know summer kicked off last week. Oh, in a couple more weeks you certainly will, but for now?” A deep breath in, let out, Henry turns, “I’m afraid Mr. Yuan’s quite correct,” he says. “If you were considering Mr. Davies as a prospect for any of the multifarious branches of Fides, this meeting was a, complete? colossal? Complete. A complete, waste, of your time.” He’s pulled out the chair before him to sit there, halfway down the table. “Seeing as how he’s leveraged up to his eyeteeth, just to secure his position,” another gust of disdain from Artie, “in the Hoyt Yards project.”
“So why on earth,” says Artie, but Bob doesn’t so much raise a hand as lift his fingers and palm from the arm of his chair, and Artie, with a sour twist of his lips, falls silent. “Hoyt Yards,” says Bob.
“Indeed,” says Henry.
“The Perrys,” says Bob.
“Oh, indeed,” says Henry.
Artie looks from the one, to the other, and says nothing.
“I’d thought he was on sabbatical,” says Bob.
“He’s, out of town,” says Henry.
“The sister?”
“Intimately. Well.” Henry leans his chair back. “They were, the two of them, Mr. Davies, Ms. Perry, each dating half of a burlesque duo. Duet? Duo, at the same time. For a time. They’re in LA now, I think. The girls. Doesn’t matter. There’s a connection there. There’s leverage, there.”
Bob’s pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes, his head’s started, slowly, to shake. “Tenuous,” he says.
“More than you had when you woke up this morning,” says Henry. “It’s the sister they’re interested in.”
Bob sits up at that, leans forward, elbows on the table, “I’d thought it was the mother.”
Henry shakes his head. “The sister. Mr. Davies’ somewhat business partner, and erstwhile rival in matters of the, ah, heart.”
Bob nods, his gaze slipped off to some thoughtful middle distance. Artie leans toward him and says, “They, who? Who’s interested?”
“San Jose,” says Bob. “Handled properly, this leads, Lord willing, to an seven-figure infusion.”
“Eight,” says Henry, and, startled, they both look to him, his rumpled linen, his hands, his face ruddied by some distant sun, his sandy hair like gold despite the rain-dimmed light. “You have more than one,” he says, smiling.
