The Slippage A Novel

THREE




On the radio, a candidate for local office promoted a spiritual brand of environmentalism. “We all must share the earth,” he said, tone honeying. No one would have wanted the bit of it William was passing across: a small river of filthy metallic water and a bridge stretched over it. And yet there was something comforting about the scene, the way it communicated its decay honestly. The small lot beside Tom’s studio was constellated with broken glass, so William parked on the street. He smelled acrid air the second he opened the car door; this was where the warehouse fire had been, in the building that backed onto Tom’s studio. William got out and wandered down into the alley, past a Dumpster loaded with burned boards and bolts of cloth.

A man’s voice hailed William from the side of the alley. “Look,” he said. “It’s Paint Cup.” By William’s reckoning the other man was Paint Cup, but he wasn’t about to quibble. “How’s tricks?” the man said.

“Can’t complain,” William said.

“Me neither.” He coughed a laugh. He looked a little worse for wear, clothes grimier, hair knottier. A scratch on the back of his hand glowed hot-tempered red.

“I think I might take this after all,” William said. “Build a doghouse.”

“Suit yourself.” He gestured toward it the way a king might. “I have no need for it here.”

“Thanks.” William tipped it onto its side. “Hey,” he said. “I saw there was a fire here.”

“There was,” the man said. “Pretty exciting. I almost got myself an autograph from a firefighter. A hook-and-ladder was parked right over there.” He pointed. “You ask your friend about it?”

“Who?”

“Your friend. The one who was with you last time. I saw him go in there about a half hour before the place went up.”

“No,” William said. “I doubt it. He doesn’t have a place here anymore. Must have been someone who looked like him.”

“Must have been,” the man said, mouth curling into some kind of smile. He rooted in the pile next to him and withdrew a blanket. “I think I’m going to take a nap,” he said. “All this fascinating conversation has tired me out.” He disappeared beneath a stretch of blue.

“Okay,” William said. He got his fingers beneath the edge of the crate and lifted.

At the house, all he had wanted to see, he saw the moment he set down the crate behind Wallace’s command center. The doghouse mimicked the shed, which was itself a miniature of the larger house, which was now a frame standing between William and Harrow Street. The upmost third of the skeleton, done in cedar, was a graph that rose from left to right. Things, at last, were looking up.


Out in town, buying things he didn’t need, William pushed open a drugstore door into bright afternoon and ran smack into Fitch. “Oh, hi there,” Fitch said. He checked the face of his phone. “I’m late.” He angled his phone up again, squinted against the glare. “I’m late.”

“For a very important date?” William said.

“I meant to call you,” he said. A woman rolled her stroller up to him. Fitch smiled shyly, and the woman frowned, and then Fitch frowned, too, unsure why his smile hadn’t been matched.

“I need to get by,” she said. Fitch nodded but stayed put. William, in a show of leadership, moved off into a shadowed patch nearby. “I was going to call you,” Fitch said again.

“So you say,” William said. “About what?”

The afternoon sun had bleached out most colors. The car parked just beyond the overhang was slightly yellow, Fitch’s face slightly red. He shook his head, a displeased little tic, and tried to fit his hands together. “Things are bad at work,” he said. “Worse even than before. There’s a serious problem with TenPak. When O’Shea pulled out, and then Loomis, there was a run by smaller investors, and it turns out that Hollister doesn’t have the money to cover the customers. And all the while, the new guy’s been selling harder and harder, which means the process will only repeat. There are at least two lawsuits being threatened, and every day Baker makes it clearer that he’s not going to take the fall for this.”

“So who is?”

“I don’t know,” Fitch said. “All of us, I guess. When there’s a storm, it rains down.”

“Maybe I’ll turn out to be the luckiest one of all.” Fitch didn’t even smile; he just stared at his own hands, which were fidgeting faster now.

A horn honked. “That’ll be Gloria,” Fitch said, and rushed across the panhandle of the lot and vanished into a slightly green sedan, looking around as if spies were everywhere.