Royce Mullins and The Case of Virtue's Burn, A Novel: Chapter 9

by Jeff Hart

Even gently cradled in the contoured backseat of Wayne Maker’s town car, my back howled in protest. Boxed in by tinted windows, an architect of self improvement beside me, I felt vulnerable. Paul Fennel, my former client, had opened up too many cracks, and now I rubbed shoulders with a man who had built an empire out of probing fissures of the spirit with benevolent tentacles.

Maker was silent and, his patient smile fixed upon me, I felt like a Chinese squid broken on the city sidewalk, like a rat with the ceiling pulled out from under it. Maker’s features had seemed synthetic when frozen on glossy book jackets, but in person they came together in beautiful, calculated purpose. Maker let the silence hang, expectant. He smelled wonderful, like freshly cut grass from a lawn of newly minted money. He seemed like a good listener.

I wanted a hug.

I wasn’t used to being the mark. I needed to recover myself. Maker was an unfamiliar opponent, but luckily, I recognized his driver. Here was someone I could manipulate.

I’d never noticed the scar on the back of Bo Harkins’ head before. It ran from his crown to the base of his skull, like a zipper stitched into his buzz-cut. I imagined peeling it open to find the pulsing battery of rage that fueled the former cop turned enforcer of self help, plucking free Harkins’ power source, and watching him slump uselessly across the wheel of the Lincoln. Yesterday, the brute had punched me in the stomach when he caught me nosing around the headquarters of The Unfettered Souls. Today, he steered a luxury car on an aimless route through the LES, his eyes straight ahead, maintaining the practiced aloofness of a lackey experienced in chauffeuring the powerful.

I leaned forward and poked the scar. Harkins flinched, his hands tightening on the wheel, but he maintained his professional silence.

“What’s that from, Bo?” I asked. “A lobotomy one of the job requirements?”

Harkins didn’t reply. I decided to push it. I leaned forward further, putting myself inches from Harkins’ ear.

“Maybe I’ll put in a good word for you with your boss,” I whispered. “Bo Harkins, loyal as a dog, hits like a bitch.”

With a sigh, Maker pressed a button that raised a privacy screen between front and backseat. I could still make out the muffled thud of Harkins punching the steering wheel.

I felt restored.

“Seeing Red,” said Maker.

I turned my head to lock eyes with the guru. His indulgent smile lingered, his face a tranquil ocean of botulin.

“What’s that, Wayne?”

“One of my books,” he clarified. “On managing anger.”

“I’m not angry. Just confused.”

“That’s chapter one, friend.”

I glanced out the window.

“Where are we going?”

“Ah, the question all men must ask themselves before the first step of every great journey.”

“Some advice? It’s a bad time in this city to sound like a fortune cookie.”

Maker laughed, an easy, honest laugh made all the more patronizing by its practiced ring of sincerity.

“I may borrow that joke,” he said, patting me on the knee. “I want you to know that this is a safe place. We don’t mean you any harm. I know Bo had to get physical with you yesterday. I wanted to apologize for that.”

“You deliver in-person apologies to everybody your goon roughs up?”

“Hardly,” replied Maker. “Bo mentioned you were asking after one of my girls and I was intrigued.”

“Mr. Maker,” I gasped. “You sound like a pimp. How much does a soul-job go for, anyway?”

I shouldn’t have expected to needle any human reaction out of Maker. He wouldn’t give away anything, and yet, he’d come looking for me. I hadn’t needed to sneak into his den of hand-holding and sob circles. He welcomed the interrogation. The plastic man with the inscrutable smile wanted to spill his guts.

“I assure you, all of our rituals are perfectly legal, including The Joining.”

“What an enlightened perspective you have on the law.”

“You should understand, I am running a business,” replied Maker. “My fiercest competitor promises super powers to their top clientele. I don’t try to compete with that. Wouldn’t be rational.”

“Of course not.”

“Instead, my Virtues provide unique spiritual experiences of somewhat heightened intensity.”

“Like a girl that could burn a hole in a man’s chest.”

“For instance,” agreed Maker. “Or perhaps a boy capable of predicting the future.”

“Perhaps.”

Maker slapped me on the shoulder, delighted.

“I love this!” He scrunched up his brow at me, putting on a face of phony consternation. “It’s like poker. Nobody wants to give away too much. Such a blast.”

To piggyback on his metaphor, I decided to lay my cards on the table.

“You holding your Virtues prisoner?” I asked.

Maker scoffed.

“You’re kidding. They’re incredible assets to my business. I suppose you could say they’re prisoners to their handsome compensation and luxurious living arrangements, but then you’d be the one sounding Chinese.”

“Is that what the girl I’m looking for would say?”

“You can ask her yourself, if you like. Come by tonight. I’ll arrange a session with Darlene, on the house.”

“Darlene? That’s what you call her?”

“It’s her name.”

“I expected something more exotic from a guy named Wayne Maker. You should work on your branding.”

“Darlene handles that on her own.”

Maker laughed at his joke. Our entire conversation was a welcome diversion to him. He was exhausting. If I reached across the backseat to strangle him, Maker would probably chortle and quote a chapter from one of his books on what specific assault techniques said about a man’s subconscious.

“All I ask in return,” said Maker, clearing his throat, “is that you tell Paul Fennel I’d like to see him. There’s a generous finder’s fee in it for you.”

“See him? I thought you banished him from your little cult.”

“Is that what he told you?”

Maker shook his head, dismayed at my ignorance.

“Paul is one of my most valuable attractions. Whatever spooked him, tell him we can work it out.”

Maker knocked on the divider. Immediately, Harkins swung the car to the curb.

“You can go now.”

Normally, I bristled at being dismissed by men in expensive suits, but I welcomed the chance to escape from Maker’s suffocating aura of pleasantry. I lurched toward the door.

“Wait,” said Maker, and pressed a book into my hands. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you seem like an aimless man, Royce. A man without purpose is no man at all. I hope this will help you.”

“Yeah? How much does that shitty advice usually go for?”

“More than you can afford,” said Maker, winking. “I hope to see a return on my investment.”

I thumbed through Maker’s book on a corner only a few blocks from where he first scooped me up. My hardcover copy of Hope For The Best, Plan For The Better, 3rd edition, ran a list price of $29.95 and contained five crisp hundred dollar bills. I pocketed the money and tossed his book on the curb with the rest of the garbage. Paul had been right when he said I wouldn’t be able to quit the case. And Maker was right about one thing too.

I needed a plan.

Jeff Hart lives in Brooklyn. His other writing can be found over at Culture Blues.