Sol’s been dreaming about the fire again. There’s a faint, lingering whiff of smoke in his nostrils and his throat hurts, dry and scratchy. Whether from dream-smoke or from shouting himself awake, he isn’t sure. More than one of the girls has complained about Sol’s tortured, thrashing sleep, the mutters and shouts and grinding teeth, that keeps them awake. Sometimes when he wakes up his fingers are clenched so tight into fists he has to pull them free in aching stages, until he can straighten them all the way, leaving dead white half-moons in his palms from the press of the nails. When the girls complain Sol merely growls then don’t stay over, as if it was their choice, when, in fact, Sol is the one who’s brought them there, bought their time. Sometimes, the touch of a warm woman, even a stranger or a working girl, in the middle of the night, is what he needs. Just to be able to press his nose into the back of a woman’s neck, smell the perfume and sweat and clean or dirty hair and all the rest of the things that makes up the scent of a female.
That spell is always broken the next day; he’ll wake up, hungover more often than not, and look at the blousy, puffy eyed tart in the bed next to him, stinking of under-clean linen and a dirty crotch and other men’s semen. Don’t stay over, he’d say. If they bitched about his thrashing around he’d tell them to just drink more or use more dope – that’ll make you sleep – or just shut the fuck up, now get dressed and out of his room.
Sol’s alone today, bleary and dry, his head aching in time with the pounding on his door. Maybe it’s the hangover or the nightmare or a combination of the two, but he feels uneasy, for no reason he can put his finger to. He doesn’t want to open that door, face whatever might be coming. He just gets these sorts of feelings sometimes. Woman’s intuition.
Looking out the window, he can tell it’s late afternoon, the sun hanging large and low in the sky; the room, nice as it is, is still hot and close and Sol can feel the sweat running down his ribs. He lifts an arm, sniffs experimentally, pulling away from the stink of himself, dirty pits and stale booze. Again, he tells himself that he’s going to stop drinking so much but, any more, he needs it just to sleep, most nights, lousy as that sleep is when he gets it. It’s medicine, really, vital for his health and all that. Man needs to sleep to live and maybe he needs to drink to sleep so there it was. Sol just wished he didn’t usually feel like day-old shit in the morning.
The hammering at his door continues as he levers himself upright, wiping a handful of sheet across his chest to dry the sweat some. Bang bang bang on the door or maybe it’s just inside his head. He takes a long drink from the mason jar full of water, now tepid and flat, that he’d put next to his bed whenever he’d finally gone to sleep. The sun had been up, that much he remembered.
Bang bang bang.
“Hold the fuck on, all right?” he mutters.
Bang bang. Hollering from the other side of the door.
“Sol? Sol, you up? Wake up now.”
It’s that fat fucker Mickey Doyle. There’s no love lost between the two of them, what with Mickey believing that Sol has usurped his rightful place as Sean’s number two, but fuck him: it’s not Sol’s fault that Mickey is stupid – although a shade smarter than that halfwit Faraday, to be sure – and that he lacks initiative and forethought. He’s big, Mickey, and that there is the sum total of his accomplishments in life, the entirety of what he adds to the Sean Harrity enterprise. Big and dumb and bang bang bang bang. “OK FOR FUCK’S SAKE, MICKEY, I’M UP!”
Entirely pissed off now, forgetting the unease, Sol stumbles over to the door, sheet over his shoulder like a Roman, dragging in a train behind him. His dick is hanging out but who cares, let Mickey see it. It’s a fine piece of work, after all, unlike whatever sorry little bean the fat fucker is hiding under that gut of his. Haven’t seen your own pitiful little cock for twenty years, most likely, so take a look at this one, you flabby Irish bastard. He yanks the door open.
“WHAT?”
Mickey stands there for a moment, blinking stupidly at the sight of sweaty, disheveled, half-nude Sol Parker, prick hanging out for all the world to see. “Sol,” he says, finally. “You’re up.”
“Of course I’m fucking up, you dipshit. You been banging on my goddamn fucking door for twenty minutes. What? What do you want?”
Fuck you. Sol can see the line of Mickey’s thoughts in the play of his fat, stupid face. Like reading a book. Fuck you. If you got the fuck out of bed I wouldn’t need to keep pounding at your door. It’s humiliating for him, Sol knows, being sent like an errand boy, and he knows that, one day, Mickey will try to test Sol, try to take his place. He’s so transparent that he may as well be shouting it.
“Sean wants to see you,” Mickey says instead.
“And he sent you to fetch me, huh? Ain’t that cute, Mickey. Finally, a use for your limitless talents.” Here I am, fucker. Whenever you like. Sol can’t help needling the big dummy, although it’s probably not the smartest thing to do just now, stood here with his dick out, by himself, hungover and, more to the point, unarmed and about a hundred pounds smaller than the man. He can see the muscles in Mickey’s jaw bulge outward as his teeth clench, but Sol knows that, if there’s one thing that Mickey is afraid of, it’s Sean Harrity. So maybe Mickey’s not so stupid after all, really, because it’s nothing but smart to be afraid of that evil fucker.
“Hang on, just hang on a minute. Whiskey on the table if you want it,” he says, placatingly, pointing his chin to the bottle, which has barely an inch or two left in it.
“I’m fine.” The jaw muscles relaxing a bit.
“Well, I’m not, Mickey, so pour me one, hey? Got a thirst, first thing in the morning. Afternoon, whatever. Got a thirst.”
“Boy’s a faggot.”
“Well now, Sean, who are we to judge? Ain’t like we don’t have our own vices.” Sol is ensconced in one of the huge easy chairs in Sean’s office, the city office, not the little hole behind the Piper where threats were made and the more gutter sorts of activities planned. This is the office of a respectable businessman, where a civil, and vastly more lucrative, sort of illegality is attended to. It’s a place of buttery soft leather chairs, thick Persian carpets, shining brass spittoons. The smell of pricey cigars, a sideboard full of the finest liquors. The walls are paneled in some sort of dark wood – mahogany? teak? – and the gleaming desk, of a matching color, is the size of a rhinoceros.
This room’s a place where Sean can meet with his betters, the Company men and their assorted clingers-on, the lawyers, politicians, the like, in an environment better suited to hide what he, Sean Harrity, is: an Irish piece of shit, a thug from the alleys of Dublin who has no reservations about much of anything, if it benefits him in any way. A prick with delusions of grandeur, come to bustling Butte to seize that gleaming brass ring. The American fucking dream and all. Here in this office Sean can pretend that he’s merely a businessman, one who had particular resources offered by few others; he was a well-connected gentleman of society, Sean Harrity, and never mind his grammar or the broken knuckles. A self-made man like our own Marcus Daly, pulled up by his bootstraps using the sweat of his brow and that natural cleverness that comes with being a son of Erin.
“Still, Sol, a shameless queer. Unnatural, is what it is.”
Strange, then, to be in this room of gentlemanly business aimed at the cream of Butte society, staring at huge, gangling young Eamonn Mallon, standing there, all shoulders and elbows, head down in shame. It’s perhaps inevitable, being here in Butte again, that Sol would cross paths with some of his boys, but it still feels odd. First Sean and Butte itself, then Michael, and now here’s Nancy: it’s as if Sol’s life is always going to settle out around certain features. Like a shaken gold-pan, swirled and jostled, leaving the flecks at the bottom of the dish when the water pours free. Maybe, if Sol’s life is shaken out, Sean and Nancy and the rest of it are left there gleaming in the wet, that it doesn’t matter whatever sand and gravel or what else makes up the remainder: the color is always there hiding somewhere, ready to show.
Or maybe the universe just isn’t very creative, with only so many ideas to hand. Best not to think about that shit anyway; any of the before never happened. He’s never known Eamonn Mallon, who everyone called Nancy, no matter what he remembers.
“Bit harsh, Sean. Just a kid, really.”
“Heaney caught him sucking off one of the fellas in the back room of his place, Sol. It’s disgusting, is what that is. Aberrative.” Sol can tell Sean’s pleased with that five-dollar word, as he repeats it. “Aberrative. Good Book has something to say about that kind of behavior, you bet your asshole it does.”
The boy’s head hangs lower. He’s breathing so hard Sol can hear it, a thin wheeze of fear or humiliation or both. It didn’t matter what had happened before – didn’t fucking matter – but Sol can’t help but feel a hitch in his chest, seeing him like this. That big kid was – would be, whatever – one of the best of Sol’s crew, back before, and this isn’t right. Who gives a shit what he put in his mouth, who he fucked? World is hard enough, already, and Nancy is who he is and besides, who are you to fucking judge anyone, Sean. He can’t stop his mouth from opening.
“Yeah, but come on, cut the kid a break,” Sol says. “You Irish are a nation of sheep fuckers, hey? Lonesome shepherds, all that? What’s that word you used? Aberrative? Seems like the Good Book probably has something to say about that kind of behavior too, Sean.”
As soon as the words leave his lips he knows he’s made a mistake. Sean will tolerate some joshing around in private – just a bit, mind – but making him look a fool in front of the boys, in front of an outsider, worse, isn’t to be countenanced. Sean Harrity isn’t a big man, or a particularly hard-looking one. He’s average height, average build, average everything, really. Maybe that’s part of his success: he seems less than he is, so people underestimate him. Sol knows from experience that whatever is inside of Sean, though, is as cold and mean as a riled snake, when it comes out. There is nothing that Sean Harrity will shrink from, nothing, no matter how distasteful, if he feels it is in his own interests. Sean doesn’t move now, doesn’t even blink, but Sol still feels a wash of fear in his guts, his pucker knotting up.
He forces out a half-witted laugh. “Kidding, is all, Sean. Lies spread by the English, right? That sheep thing. Dumb joke. Shouldn’t have said it. So there’s my apology, then.”
Sean just stares at him, for a long, long moment, holding him with his eyes until Sol’s ass begins to sweat in sympathy with the sick in his belly.
“Shouldn’t have said it,” Sol repeats.
“This boy here, this poof, he’s Irish, too.” Sean finally says.
“That right?”
“Shame that a son of Saint Pat would stoop to such behavior. You hear me, lad,” he says, raising his voice, pointing at Nancy. “Fuckin shameful.”
“Ah, Sean.” Sol trails off, not having anything more to say. His guts are just beginning to unwind and he needs to quit while he’s ahead. Why the hell is he even here? Just to hear Sean up on his pulpit, castigating the poor kid? Sol knows for a fact, from one of the working girls, that Sean himself is partial to having a dick-toy stuck up his ass, so it seems more than a little hypocritical to berate Nancy for maybe enjoying the real thing.
“Yeah, but look at him, though, Sol, hey? What do you see?”
Ah. Now he gets it. Again, the irony of it all is a bit much. “I see a big kid, Sean. Real big.”
“Yeah, Sol. Big fuckin nancy-boy, though, ain’t he. But maybe we can come to an accommodation, Mr Big Nancy. I don’t know, though, sullying my establishment with your shameful fuckin behavior. Word from me, you’ll never find work in this town and I don’t care how big you are. I know people, hey Sol?”
Sol grits his teeth. “That’s right.”
“So, a big faggot – literally – like you, what’s to be done?” There’s a long pause, as if he’s mulling it over, but obviously Sean has seen the opportunity from a long ways off. Funny, again, how it all keeps coming back to these same old things. Eventually, Sean nods, winking over at Sol and then looking back Nancy’s way.
“Tell me, lad,” he says, “big fella like you: you ever done any fighting?”