The Company Man
Robert Jackson Bennett
CHAPTER ONE
The canal was a gray, rotting thing, so polluted and turgid that what it contained could hardly be called water at all. It wound below the stone arches and the spiderweb trusses of its many bridges, and at each bend it gained yet more refuse. At one turning enough sediment and muck had happened to gather and dry to become something like soil. There small, mousy reeds grew and clutched at the passing garbage, forming a staggered little delta that curved out across the canal.
Hayes looked at the little nest and saw something shining on the edge. He examined the sludge around the channel and frowned at his shoes, then sighed and found the best purchase and leaned forward. He scooped up the prize and took out his handkerchief and cleaned off the mud. It was a coin, underneath it all. A politician’s stern face glared back, on the other side a state bird or some creed. He smiled and laughed and held it up to the sky, trying to find a rare stream of sunlight falling through the towering buildings of the surrounding neighborhood. Finding none, he gave up.
“Hey!” called a voice.
He turned and saw Garvey looking down at him from the top of the hill.
“Yes?” said Hayes.
“We hooked him,” Garvey said.
“Good for you,” said Hayes.
“Come on over.”
“Why?”
“Come on over,” said Garvey again.
“I don’t particularly want to. I’m enjoying myself here,” Hayes said, gesturing to the river. “Look, I found a quarter.”
“You don’t want to see him?” Garvey asked.
“I don’t need to see him. You’re not going to file it just by seeing him.”
“That’s not the point. Come on, get over here.”
Hayes walked to Garvey at the top of the hill, Garvey glaring at him all the while, and then they both descended into the other side of the canal. It was an immense construction, a blank gray canyon with shanties and tumbling lean-tos grouped down closer to the water. All of them had been abandoned as the police first invaded. Garvey and Hayes picked their way down around soiled vagrant beddings and miles of graffiti. On one spot there were the faded bones of a hopscotch game. Hayes tried to imagine children playing next to this reeking Styx and abandoned it.
The morning mist was lifting and Hayes could just make out the other officers milling away down on the bank. Something white and smooth floated out on the waters ahead. The air was so cold and wet it stung and Hayes pulled his scarf tight. On cold mornings like this he ached for the sour honey warmth of bourbon in his belly, but he steeled himself and tried to push those thoughts from his mind.
“Say, who is this on this quarter?” he said. He held it out. “I can never keep track of your politicians.”
“He was spotted a ways down the canal,” said Garvey, ignoring him. “Head down, drifting our way. Looks like someone sent him on a swim.”
“Doesn’t seem to be a very good swimmer,” said Hayes.
“No. No, he doesn’t.”
They both approached the bank slowly. Garvey moved with the practiced plod of a harassed policeman, already resigned to face the terrible day. A uniform scurried up to match his pace and Garvey nodded absently as he rattled off a few facts and details about the sight ahead, none of which amounted to anything. The uniform waited expectantly, hoping for some commendation or at least acknowledgment from the big detective, but Garvey’s face betrayed nothing. He just sniffed and put his hands in his pockets as though enjoying any pleasant stroll. Crestfallen, the uniform departed, and Hayes resumed his place at Garvey’s side. The other officers watched him curiously. He was short and wispy and overdressed, and seemed queerly aristocratic with his long blond hair and expensive coat, which was several sizes too large for him. And whereas Garvey made a straight, slow trudge to the river, Hayes wound and wove aimlessly, distracted by odd things found on the ground, or perhaps lost in his own thoughts. To anyone’s eyes the two of them seemed no more right for each other than they were for the neighborhood, yet when Hayes asked for a cigarette Garvey fished a tin from his pocket with his thick boxer’s hands and lifted one out without a word. Hayes took it, murmuring a thanks through a small smile, and then passed his free hand over the cigarette in a quick flourish. It vanished, his fingers left holding nothing at all. With another flourish it had returned again, and Hayes planted it in his mouth, smiling cleverly. Garvey barely seemed to notice. His eyes stayed fixed on the river in the mist. Hayes sighed and stuffed himself farther into his coat and continued on.
Finally they came to the water’s edge and looked. Had it not been for the hands you could never have told what it was. Facedown in the water it looked like some floating pile of rags, wet white towels twisted up and drifting alone. But the hands were visible down in the waters below, ghostly white and perfect, gesturing this way and that as they were buffeted by the currents. It looked like he was conducting some underwater orchestra, a soiled water nymph toiling through the runoff.
Hayes watched the officers struggle with the thing in the water, tugging it ever closer. “And he’s a company man, I assume,” he said.
“Don’t know,” said Garvey.
“What? You don’t?”
“No. That’s why I called you.”
“You called me down here at seven in the morning on a body that might not even be one of mine?” said Hayes. “Good God, Garvey. I won’t forgive you for that. I won’t. I simply can’t.”
One of the uniforms reached out with a hooked cane and caught him on his side and pulled him close. They gathered around the bank with sticks and nets and Garvey helped them ease the dripping wreck ashore.
Hayes watched as they hauled him out and half-sang to himself, “Here comes another stray from my accursed flock, perhaps. My wandering lambs, my lost little babes. Where did you run to, little lamb? What trouble did you get yourself mixed up in? And to where can I lead you next?”
“Jesus Christ,” said Garvey. He shook his head at Hayes, disgusted.
Once they had the body steady they laid him out on the ground. His face was waterlogged and almost formless, his eyes little swollen slits and his lips dumbly twisted. A ragged gash ran zigzag from one corner of his jaw to the top of the opposite collarbone. The injury was colorless, the flesh like custard or curd. No fish had been at him for no fish would live in the Construct canals.
“One of yours?” asked Garvey.
Hayes peered at him. “I can’t say.”
Garvey sighed and leaned on one of the nets. “Not familiar? Nothing?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Garv. McNaughton pays me for a great deal of things, but they don’t pay me to keep a mental registry of every factory groundling they have.” He coughed. “Anything in his pockets?”
Garvey reached in, fumbled around, then pulled his hands out and dried them off. “No.”
“So just a man in his skivvies and an undershirt working part time as a buoy.”
“Seems like it.”
“Well. That’s all I know, too.”
They stood up and looked at the dead man. Thunderclouds of bruises lined his ribs and legs. The other officers clambered ashore and the gray river water from their waders left strata of silt across the dead man’s heels.
“Four hundred and eighty-six,” said Hayes.
