No, he thought as he walked. One didn’t prostrate oneself before Sookie Jansen without a heart full of confidence and some secrets to share. Of all his contacts throughout Evesden, Sookie was the best and also the worst, because Sookie’s company was like his many games: gaining something was possible, but losing something was certain, no matter what talents you had. Hayes considered him something between a friend and a rival, which was saying something, because Hayes felt he had few of either.
“Well, well,” said Sookie. He leaned his head back and squinted at him. “Come here so I can take a look at you.”
“Hello, Sooks,” said Hayes. “How’s business?”
Sookie did not answer. He just looked him up and down, and Hayes had the uncomfortable feeling of being x- rayed. Like Hayes, Sookie was from overseas, being the unwanted son of a supposedly chaste Catholic missionary in China. His upbringing had been brutal beyond words, and he’d soon shed the grasp of God for the more lucrative one of the streets, where he’d made a minor king of himself, Hayes had heard. He’d been one of the first immigrants to Evesden, as Sookie’d always had a nose for profit, and he’d served as a pillar of the underworld ever since. Not that anyone knew. Sookie was decidedly a businessman and never a gangster, and his reputation only existed where he felt it was necessary.
You’d never think it to look at him, though. He was a short old man so wrinkled and aged he was almost beyond race. His blue eyes were alien in his faintly Asiatic face, and a brambly scrap of hair was forever riding below his lip. He’d learned his English from some far-flung dockworkers, and so he spoke in a queer Southern patois. He wore the same overalls and the same shirt and the same porkpie hat every day, and he’d come down to his club at the start of every morning and load his lip up with tobacco and sit and watch and idly play checkers. Hayes had never once seen him spit. He felt sure the old man simply swallowed it.
“Well, now,” said Sookie finally. “Something’s got ahold of the Princeling. Something’s got a burn on him. That’s for sure.” He turned to his opponent across the checkerboard. “Hecker, I hear there’s a nice breeze coming in. May bring some clean air. How about you check that out for me?”
Hecker rose and left and Hayes took his seat. “You didn’t answer my question,” said Hayes.
“No,” said Sookie pointedly. “I didn’t. What the hell you doing here, Princeling? You’re bad news. People paint their doors with lamb’s blood to make you walk by.”
“I’m here to trade,” said Hayes. “To tug on your earlobe, dear Sooks.”
Sookie grunted. “Heard you was at Moira’s spinning a few wheels. That so?”
Hayes tilted his head but said nothing.
“Yeah. Yeah. So why didn’t you come to see old Sooks first, Princeling? That’s real rude, as far as I can see.”
“I needed something to trade with, of course.”
“Of course,” said Sookie, and sighed. “This’d be about the unions, eh?”
“Yes, Sooks. It would.”
“Hm. Unions, unions,” he mused. “You know, you ain’t the same anymore, Princeling.”
“No?”
“No. You used to be dirty. Dirty all over. Dirty and mean. And dirty and mean is dependable, and Sookie likes dependable, see?” He poked Hayes in the arm. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Sooks.”
He grunted and peered at Hayes again. The he grinned. “Oh, no. No, no. Don’t you go telling me old Hayes got bit by a woman? Is that the case? I think so.” He cawed laughter. “You know, I heard a rumor about you running around with a girl, but I didn’t believe it was true. Now, though, I got to say they was right. I can tell it just by looking at you.”
Hayes smiled and shrugged. Sookie always toyed with you before giving anything of worth.
“It is,” said Sookie. “You got that look about you. You got the shine. I guess what they say is so. Old Hayes nudged up against some pussy and it burned him but good.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, sure it ain’t. I’d never think I’d see the day. Especially ’cause lately I hear you ain’t exactly a fan of pussy. Is that so?”
Hayes grinned wider and shrugged again.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” he said. “A man wants what a man wants.” Sookie shook his head. “I can’t believe it, though. You always seemed like a hard little thing. Like you’d cut through the world like a knife. And now you twisting in the wind for a woman.”
“I’m not a romantic, Sooks. You know that.”
“But there is a girl.”
“A young thing with fresher eyes than mine, yes. But she has nothing to do with this.”
Sookie flexed his lower lip and sucked on his wad of tobacco. “Mm. Maybe not. But something’s different in you. I never seen you run out in the open like you are right now, especially not over something like the unions. Just unwise.”
“Say what you like,” said Hayes. “I’m going to do it anyway.”
Sookie sucked on the chaw again. “Let me tell you a story, boy. I had this cousin, see? Call him Archibald. Archibald, he wasn’t a smart man, not by a long shot, but he inherited this old ’lectric printing press. Only one in town. So he does a fair bit of trade, gets his dollar, follow?”
“I follow.”
“So day after day he runs his little print. Don’t need no repairs. Don’t need nothing extra. Just runs that machine. And then one day he got the idea, hey, why not make the press faster? Stronger? Sort of beat-up thing, beat-up and old, why not spruce it up, make it better? So he think on it and think on it. Never realize he don’t know shit about a printing press. And then one day he shuts it down, gets under there, start fooling about with its insides, and then, snap.” Sookie held up one hand and drew a finger across the knuckles. “The damn thing cuts off all his fucking fingers. Like butter. Like they was butter. See?”
Hayes nodded.
“What I’m saying is… don’t fuck with what works. Don’t do nothing extra, nothing special. Don’t try and fix shit. Even if it seems broke. Just do what you do. Just do what you do every day. And forget about everything else. Hear?”
“I do,” said Hayes. “But I still want to hear about the unions.”
Sookie shook his head. “There’s no angle for the unions for you. Nothing to play.”
“I’m not here to play. Come on now. What’s the word you have on them and the Tazz-man, Sooks?”
Sookie frowned and sighed, as though ruing the foolishness of the young. He regarded Hayes for a moment longer, then said, “Rumor has it that Tazz went underground.”
“I know that.”
“No, when I say underground, I mean really underground,” he said. He pointed down. “Down there. In the catacombs, or whatever the hell they are. You know they’re there. I hear that’s where he run.”
Hayes sat up. “Why the hell would he go there? That’s where the killer is.”
“Can’t say. But I hear he’s looking for something. Trying to figure something out. What, again, can’t say.”
“But what have you heard, old Sooks?”
Sookie turned away and sat back. His chest and shoulders sank in and his belly rose up and suddenly he was just another old man, trying to think of what was upsetting him so. He pawed at his newspaper and said, “Hm. You hear this thing in the paper about fields?”
“What? Fields?”
“Yeah. These fields them scientists are discovering.”
“No. No I have not,” said Hayes, growing irritated.
“They say they’re finding these fields, like magnetic fields, but different. They’re holding everything together. All together, even at the smallest level,” he said, and held up his thumb and forefinger to show how small. “They make everything whole. Ain’t that something? And now they’re saying they can break those fields. That they can break stuff up. And do a lot of crazy shit with what come out. Think that’s true?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it is. And you and I know that McNaughton ain’t going to let no one talk about stuff unless they’ve
