Apex Hides the Hurt Read Free Page A

come together it’s a beautiful thing, but when we disagree—”
    “A vote wouldn’t work in this situation,” Regina broke in, “considering the community these days and their concerns.”
    Yes, he was definitely picking up on a little tension. Which one had the better hand, and who was on the verge of folding their cards? The bartender brought the drinks over without making eye contact. The man could hear everything and he wondered what the bartender thought. This citizen.
    “We want to be fair,” Lucky said, “is what I think Regina is getting at. We have a lot of longtime residents here, obviously, and they think one way, and then we have a lot of people who have moved here for the business opportunities, they want to raise their families in a nurturing environment.” Lucky took a sip of his Brio, the energy drink that had become the late-night lubrication of choice in Silicon Valley. The beverage was Lucky’s way of saying that he was not so far in the boondocks that he was out of touch.
    “The town is changing quickly,” Regina said.
    “Right,” he said. Behind her head, the caption of a cartoon went, PIP I DARESAY ! PIP !
    “Rapidly growing,” Lucky said. “What we have is a kind of stalemate, and we want to be fair. So we called in a consultant.”
    And there he sat. He nodded. He wondered, are they seeing the man I want them to see? That devil-may-care consultant of yore? His hand was a fist on the table. He imagined a wooden stick in his fist, and attached to the end of the stick was a mask of his face. He held the mask an inch in front of his face, and the expressions did not match. He said, “I sent an e-mail to someone’s office, I can’t remember who, about the conditions of my employment.”
    “Yes, your conditions.”
    “That’s what we wanted to talk about.”
    “There’s some disagreement about the strict terms, but we’ll work it out.”
    “They’re a bit binding.”
    “That’s the point,” he said.
    They looked at each other. Lucky said, “You see, Albert Winthrop’s unreachable until Wednesday. He has a boat race. But I’m sure we’ll work it out, once the three of us sit down. I think what you’re saying makes perfect sense, if you look at it through the right lens. Perfect sense.”
    “Will you be okay until then?” Regina asked. “Your room is nice?” She smiled, by accident it seemed to him.
    He raised his eyebrows and nodded eagerly. It wasn’t that bad a smile, as far as smiles go, a rickety ark sailing above her chin.
    “I know Winthrop sent up a few books for you to familiarize yourself,” she added.
    “And when you meet Winthrop,” Lucky added, “I’m sure he’ll lay a bunch of family history stuff on you.” He chuckled. “He has all this stuff in leather binders.”
    “I use Apex all the time,” Regina said, sitting back in her chair. She wiggled a finger for proof. “Burned it on the stove.”
    “Oh,” he said.
    “Quite an impressive client list you have,” Lucky said. “Had a question about one thing, though, if you don’t mind. It said there you did Luno, but Luno is pretty old, right, it’s been around for a long time.”
    “New Luno. I did New Luno. I added the
New
. They were a bit adrift, demographics-wise.”
    “Ah,” Lucky said, considering this. “New Luno. My nephew drinks that by the crate.”
    There you have it.
    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
    He had a limp from an injury. What happened was he had lost a toe recently. Didn’t lose it really. It was cut off with his consent and put in one of those red hospital biohazard bags. He’d seen such things on television, and what do they do, he wondered in the hospital, burn the waste in incinerators? His toe consumed by flame and wafting like a ghost through the atmosphere. Of course sometimes medical waste washed up on the shores of public beaches and there was a big news thing about it. The derelict waste-removal company. Now and again he pictured unlucky bathers.