Indie, p.2
Indie, page 2
Oh shit, she thought. I should probably go. Zora regularly said things to people too quickly, at least that was how she felt, and it unnerved her to no end, particularly as someone who’d recently delved into the world of writing on Rinth. Political satire and all that, exposing her rash words. A bigger, longer mistake, probably.
“You’re such an artist,” Midas said, trying to calm down. “I’m a businessman. We don’t believe in magic. We believe in money.”
He caught himself. He didn’t quite mean that.
“But you believe in good things, right? That’s what you’re trying to do with this whole café. Do good business.”
“So what?” he asked.
“It’s a matter of faith,” she said, feeling somewhat encouraged. She made a renewed effort to sound cheerful.
“You can believe in good things, or you can believe that the terrible state of the world is just the way it has to be. Come on,” she said, and her tone gave off a kind of carefree shrug.
“Hallelujah. You gotta have faith.” She laughed with a twinkle in her eye.
“Zora,” he said, shaking his head, “there’s still no such thing as make-believe.” He paused and felt a bit more relief as he turned his attention to her. “The artist in you is taking over again. It’s good to see. I prefer you as an artist.”
Her neck straightened and she looked cross. “Who asked you?”
He felt bad. “Sorry, none of my business. I just worry, that’s all. Augustine and that group he’s in — they’re dangerous.”
She smiled a little.
Meeting Augustine online, somewhere in the realm of Rinth, was a risk, but everyone did this. And he seemed handsome in an image, but in real life he was only sort of handsome. At first it was enthralling, learning so much alluring stuff about the decaying state of the world from a research group in the underground movements — those outliers and independent thinkers and doers who wanted to turn it all around for the better — but it turned out to be enlightening. She wanted to learn and write something down for others to know. About the power vacuum, for one. The ever-widening chasm left by the dissipating rule of law and filled by huge companies intent on insatiable growth. They’d do anything to grow, and more and more people were getting hurt in more insidious ways, as though the customers, numb to the wrongness of it all, would never stop coming. So this revolutionary cell, as they called themselves, hunted information for the higher-ups, as they called them. The higher-ups in the revolutionary hierarchy.
For several months, her fascination had kept her intrigued — but lately, she just felt unnerved. And besides, Augustine had lied.
“I wasn’t in that deep. I just spent some time with them. I regret it. I probably shouldn’t have been poking around so much. That’s what it started to feel like, anyway.” She leaned in to the espresso counter where they’d been talking and said, “Besides, they were good people. At least, some of them.”
She was not thinking of Augustine.
“I’ve seen it makes you angry,” he said, thinking of her writing. He resisted with all his might and judgment the temptation to say, Your ex-boyfriend is an asshole.
“Just be careful,” he continued. “Talking about positive change is one thing, and a good thing. That’s what people do here all the time, talk ideas. For good. That’s why I’m doing this. It’s a coffee house. But it’s a bit much when people talk of revolution. You’re still writing on Rinth. It’s not a safe place. Everyone’s watching, and it’s pretty clear to me now that Toronto ain’t so good anymore.”
Zora nodded. The writing made less sense after she’d started into it. No one was listening anyway, and the truth was too hard to find through all the lies.
Ira tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m going, boss. We’ll have a burn painting party with Zora. In the alley, behind. Happy Hallowe’en.”
Midas could finally relax.
“Happy Hallowe’en, Ira.”
Ira disappeared after the tinkling bells, and Zora crossed her arms.
“He’s an ex now, Midas,” Zora reiterated. The room felt calmer. This felt good, and she needed the feeling just for a moment before her shift at Night started. She’d been working at Night since just before meeting Augustine and, like the cell, it wasn’t what she wanted to be involved with, but she needed the money. And working lots of shifts made it easier to distance herself from the cell. Midas was right, things would be fine for now. She’d keep to herself and write about something else, in a way that wouldn’t attract attention, especially from those who didn’t feel beholden to laws.
Midas rubbed his brow and worried again. This poor girl, he thought, is still at risk. People like Augustine don’t just go away.
“Ignore Ira,” he said, shifting the topic. “It’s just a damned painting. Got it from nowhere, like the rest of this stuff all around here, hanging on the walls.”
“Okay, I get it,” she said. He was diverting things again, so often avoiding the obvious, too unhappy when he should know it takes strength to be happy. “We can talk about it later.”
Zora stood, waved her hand to him and he watched her leave through the door to the dark street.
Midas sighed his stress out again and went to the back room, lay down on a beanbag chair and waited for the salesman to arrive. He closed his eyes and his thoughts meandered into a dream about clowns and acrobats in a market twirling to furious music and giddy laughter, the incessant barks of dogs amid the clamorous bartering beside tall stone walls, and winding passages made from the stalls of a market full of wares and produce…
TWO
Knuckles rapped against glass, again and again. Midas opened his eyes and turned his aching neck. Moulded into the beanbag chair in which he’d fallen asleep, he rubbed his forehead. He surveyed the floor of the back room from behind the right pillar. Shadow gave way to stuff he’d neglected: Sandino’s typewriter, a globe suspended in its silver stand, a lute leaning on a chest, a bookshelf full of old hardcover texts, and a small wooden throne, he thought from the Incan empire, on a raised dais at the back wall. His gaze carried into the café along the espresso bar to the front door and, beside it, the reading area with its low coffee table and sagging sofa. Through the bay window he saw a tall pear-shaped man with a red bowler hat and a beige trench coat. The man’s round face pressed against the glass, and his eyes blinked in the rain.
Midas stood, tried to smooth out his collared dress shirt, sleeves still rolled up and regretted the scattered mud remaining on his ankles and shoes. He walked to the door and opened it.
The man surged inside, grinned and held his red bowler hat with both hands against his belly. He put out a pudgy hand. “Hippias. So pleased.”
Midas forced a smile, still disoriented from his deep nap. “Yes, at last we meet. Have a seat,” he said turning from the outstretched hand. “Can I get you an espresso?”
“It’s too late for that. It may be Hallowe’en, but I shan’t be partaking in this city’s festivities. Black tea, please.” The man squeezed his large frame into a delicate metal armchair at a tea table near the espresso bar. It was an antique, apparently from the garden of a noble in nineteenth-century France.
“You’re nimble.”
“Pardon?” asked Hippias.
“Nothing.”
Midas made a cup of tea, placed a biscotti on the saucer and sat down opposite Hippias, who folded his arms and kept smiling. The movement shifted things, and the tea shook on the table. Midas rushed to steady it. He couldn’t afford another spill. This water was precious, and a café like this serving gourmet water, as he’d call it in his private thoughts, got the attention of the inspectors. For them it was all about the water licence.
Midas steadied the cup until things settled down.
“Indeed, thank you so much for meeting. My, oh my, we’re busy, aren’t we? So tough to get meetings these days.” Hippias laughed as he flung his head back and squeezed his eyes with mirth. “But busy is good. Yes, yes, now: right to it. I’m a man of select words. Believe me, it’s true. And I know you’re busy — busy bee — being the small, independent businessman that you are. And what a concept you’ve developed. So fine, and absolutely unique. Now: I have a proposition for you,” Hippias said. “We’ve been speaking for some time, and—”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Midas. He tried to smile. The salesman was annoying.
Hippias’s eyes went wide, then he smiled broadly. “Good point, Midas. I have been calling you incessantly for months now. The purpose for my calls was—”
“To get a meeting.” Midas had done this kind of thing too in his own way, which was more subtle. This guy was old school.
“Yes, well, true, and the purpose of the meeting is to demonstrate the fit between our companies. You sell coffee in an independent establishment.” He swept his thick arm in an arc around the café.
Midas watched the rain drops trickle down the man’s brow.
Hippias kept his smile strong and his eyes wide, ever expectant. Midas imagined Hippias would next show off his research and try to share knowledge, not to get business — of course not, he thought sarcastically — but simply from generosity, to help him. The more he helped Midas, the more Midas would eventually believe he needed him. Midas knew how the game worked. And meanwhile, Midas still didn’t know what the salesman had to sell.
“My friend,” said Hippias, reflecting to the ceiling. “You’re surrounded by conglomerates whose business interests are wide-ranging and whose influence reaches everywhere. There is no such thing as a company that does one thing anymore. Certainly, there are themes. Your old firm, for example. What was it called, Superior? They do investments and properties, to be sure, but there was more, wasn’t there? And take my group, Advance, as we call it. We tend to the entertainment side of things.” Midas had heard of Advance. This guy hadn’t said he worked for them until now. He knew they dealt in restaurants, movies, live shows, pornography, intoxicants and gourmet foods. “Products and services that please people,” Hippias continued. “Coffee pleases immensely — and immediately — we can all agree. Your brand, especially. I have done some research into your sourcing.”
Midas had never seen such a terrible salesman. He should be asking more questions rather than launching headlong into a determined pitch.
Hippias lingered with a pause and a grin. “Peru, is it?”
Midas stared at the man, searching for something familiar. Everything about his face was thick and heavy yet light and fast at once. Midas walked to the far end of the espresso bar and picked up his Probe. He sat with the screen facing away from Hippias and typed the salesman’s name and Advance into Rinth. This Probe was the one he used the most because he hated walking with the smaller one in his pocket, but the n on the big one would stick all the time. He kept his hand-held by the left end of the stage beside the door to his roaster-room office.
Hippias smiled and leaned over the round table. His eyes glowed. “Let’s be clear. We want your beans.”
Hippias stood with emphatic energy, scraped the pointed feet of the metal chair on the floor and struggled out from between its thin arms. He walked, wet overcoat swishing, to the edge of the raised floor.
Midas glanced up from his screen. “That’s my back room. You see all that stuff? I got it in the South. I used to travel a lot with work.”
Hippias squinted into the dark oval space. He took in the sculpted stone pillars and the arch overhead. “Was this a small theatre once? It seems like a stage. Are those little devils up there?”
“Don’t know,” said Midas. He held back from saying anything further, preferring to watch and listen.
“I see the shadows of some curious items in there,” said Hippias as he turned to Midas. “Most interesting. You’re a man who listens to history? With an eclectic and nostalgic taste.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Midas. “But yeah, I like history. Things haven’t always been the way they are now. It gives me some peace.” He’d share this with the salesman. It was true, and there was no harm in sharing something personal. It didn’t mean he had to let Hippias in any further.
Hippias walked a little farther, planted his hands upon the old, ragged planks of the raised floor and hummed, reflecting, “Yes, yes, my friend, so true.”
For the worst salesman in the world, Midas thought, he had a way of connecting.
“Nothing too valuable, though,” said Midas.
This was not true. He’d purchased some items and others he’d found in abandoned places.
“You have certainly lived an adventurous life, my friend.”
“In a way, I guess.”
He had and he hadn’t. The artifacts he’d found abandoned tended to have been hidden and forgotten given the state of things down there. Over his ten years working for Superior across that territory, pursuing this hobby was easy, with all those curious artifacts (one simple word for so many diverse things and all of them essentially instruments for so many purposes) just sitting there, waiting to be taken. No one owned them anymore, so it dawned on him fairly quickly that they ought to be recovered. Ought: an obligation to salvage from destruction because they didn’t deserve to wither away into nothing. People deserved to know about them, so they could look to the past because the future was bleak.
The condition of the South — unstable with wild currencies and coups d’état — is what made it all possible, and the violence and chaos had become so extreme it left you wondering: How can a coup d’état happen when there’s not really a state anymore? Just lots of companies to fill the void. It was almost feudalistic.
And this decay was here now too, in its early stages. So he supposed they were all living an adventurous life, not just him, and a dangerous one. But it wasn’t adventurous to have taken these things. Take was the wrong word. All he did was rescue them.
“I have never visited or done business in Peru,” said Hippias as he leaned over the stage’s edge, eyes questing. For a moment, his feet left the ground as he almost teetered like a seesaw. “I have heard things are much worse down there than here in Toronto or Europe.” He glanced over his shoulder and gave Midas a sad expression. It vanished as he swivelled back to gaze up into the dome that soared in darkness behind the arch.
“Yeah, they’re much worse,” said Midas. “Ghost towns. Lots of violence, gangs and the countryside is off-the-charts bad. Some big plots of agro-development, then dried up leftovers of jungles. Mountains are really rough. Crumbled up piles of rocks, when you look at them. Riddled with mines, mainly.”
Hippias laughed, suddenly and strangely full of mirth. “They most certainly are!”
Midas clenched inside. He’d sold some mines, helped some companies buy some mines. It wasn’t funny.
“And the only thing left to mine, really, is that ghastly magma,” Hippias said. “It may be a new source of power, and probably the last one, but my goodness, does it not reek?” He let out a long, deep laugh.
Midas looked down at his Probe’s screen and found Advance’s headquarters posted as London. He knew Europe had been slower to transition to this “ghastly magma” as this strange man described it. Vast deposits coming from the bowels of the earth that kept some industries doing well, but it was messy. Deep mining, lots of labour and more inputs necessary than the old options like solar, wind, water, nuclear, fusion, all of them crowded out by concentrated, monied interests in this one big resource. It wasn’t right. In his humble opinion, it was one thing to ignore the sun’s solar power, but it was totally messed up to eat your own planet’s heart. The earth’s molten core getting sucked out of itself by its own children.
Midas kept looking at his Probe about Advance and found nothing related to power. “First time here?” he asked.
Nothing on coffee either. “Oh, goodness, no. I come all the time. I’m the sales rep for this region, and to the south.”
Midas looked up at him. “Really? How far south?”
“All the way south,” said Hippias.
“But not Peru,” said Midas.
Hippias turned from the back room and walked along the opposite wall of the café, slowly perusing photographs, paintings, wall hangings, small shelves covered with instruments, ancient weaponry and toys. “I should be delighted if you showed me around back there someday.”
“Right.” Midas followed Hippias and his route along the far wall, past the black-and-white photographs. “What are you looking for?”
“We can sell you better beans, if you can believe it.” Hippias faced Midas from the picnic table and gleamed.
“You don’t sell coffee.” Midas met the gaze hard.
“And in addition,” said Hippias, “I should prefer to siphon some pellets through your establishment.”
He stared at Midas and Midas stared back at him.
“What?”
Hippias smiled broadly beneath the beads of sweat trickling down his cheek. He walked back into the café, navigating his large frame through the tables and chairs. “Siphon,” he said. “Move, you know. Drugs.” His face went a little pink. “We’re Advance, after all.” Then he shrugged, “What do you expect?”
Midas looked for signs of nervousness, but Hippias maintained his confident shine.
“I don’t need this.” He said this firmly and held his hand up as though an absolute stop sign. Yet despite his resistance, Midas imagined what Hippias was capable of, what might hide in his trench coat pockets, who was poised to walk through the door. Offers like this could not be turned down easily.
“Oh, you know you do.” Hippias stood beside Midas with his face close and nodded. “During your tenure at Superior, you would move corrupt pills, potions and powders, wouldn’t you?” The words sounded smooth and serene in spite of what they meant, and Midas’s field of vision clouded as his heart unexpectedly raced. For a suffocating moment all he could see was the man’s heavy lips open and close, hypnotizing him, and inside the mouth the thick pink tongue rolled up and down and around, sloshing like a slug.
