Sting

I ain’t an empath. I know what makes people tick, sometimes, but I am not an empath. Not like Molly. Now she’s an empath. I tell you, she’s good. She looks at you with those misty grey eyes and she knows everything worth knowing. If I’d been Beauchamp, I’da made her my counsellor in a blink, instead of just another girl working the tables. She can run circles around Bugsy, I tell you.

I remember the times we sat in the back in court, watching Bugsy watch the jury and witnesses, watching where they’d go and then seeing where he’d go wrong. So many times that Molly coulda saved Beauchamp a bundle and major embarrassment when he shoulda gone for a settlement rather than waiting for a verdict that would never pan out. Beauchamp looking at Bugsy, and Bugsy nervously picking his teeth, unsure, and then talking himself to certainty. “We’re safe. We can wait. They’ll go our way.” And I remember watching Molly and knowing they wouldn’t, long before anyone else. Molly just feels what others feel. And I put it in words. Being her reader is maybe better than being an empath, I guess.

It’s been five months now, since she was raped. Five months and it might have been last week. I can’t give her any comfort. Even the slightest touch makes her shiver. But that’s ok. She can have all the time she needs. And I’ve got something better. I can see her grow like nobody else can. Like she doesn’t know herself. I can see her growing like a plant, or a dollhouse made out of cardboard like my dad used to make for my sisters. Every day there’s something new. I can see it while nobody else can. With her, I’m an empath: I’m her reader.

It hurts me to see how she winces when anyone’s nearby. Not only the Captain, but also Beauchamp, and even me. Not hurtful to me because I can see the tiny seed of healing in there. And I can also see her pain. It annoys them, I can tell, but she feels how far she can go. She isn’t aware of it, but she feels it, and she knows when to tone it down.

It isn’t right, though. Like my dad used to say, enough is enough.

The thought struck me as I was watching the girls play charades in their down time. Not Molly, she’s too shy and still too hurt to play games, but the others. It’s weird how they don’t mind me. Sometimes I’m so in the middle of girl-talk it’s embarrassing. It’s not something I do, it just happens. Anyway, I was watching them, and it came to me. This could make Beauchamp a fortune, and if we waited for the right time we could put McGregor out of business and Beauchamp would run the town.

I didn’t tell Molly all of it, of course. She’s…absent anyway. But I told her the bottom line and asked if she thought we might be able to work it. When she understood that Beauchamp would come out way ahead, I could see the cardboard crumble. That one had hurt. But it couldn’t be helped. Still. She’s ok. She said it probably might work, the silly girl. Might’s good enough for me.

Beauchamp wouldn’t see me of course, and Bugsy would grab the plan and all praise for himself. There’s no way he could ever pull something like this off himself, but Bugsy’d only do something if it would benefit Bugsy. If not, he’d make sure it would fail, so that no one could benefit, I knew. Tells you all you need to know about Bugsy. Hobbs, the only other lieutenant who coulda helped, was in court in the limelight, so he was best avoided for the moment.

And then Bugsy left for a week on jury selection. I had to act, and there was no one but the Captain, rapist of the woman I loved more dearly than my mother, rest her soul.

I can’t say that I hate the Captain: it’s too complicated for that. Given the opportunity, I would kill him without hesitation, but that means nothin’. Four out of five in our happy family feel like that. I’m told, and have seen, that he can be likable and charming, but it has no depth, no truth. He is utter filth. He is a dentist, smiling in anticipation while laying out his drills and instruments. He is a hangman who secretly enjoys his occupation.

Our tables are clean. The girls are there mostly to rake gossip and sniff out scams. And to make sure the marks don’t dry out, of course. Always keep ʼem liquored up and happy. Molly and I sniff out those who can afford more, or who happen to be from out of town. The girls give these marks the top-shelf stuff, and then they don’t notice their odds going down at the tables. Hobbs handles the money, and the Captain does security. And the liquor. Several trucks a week, and once a month he visits the suppliers. As his kick-back he takes a crate to sell and an extra bottle. Nothing Beauchamp would mind, but I’m told the bottles in that crate go for $80 each. That’s more each month than Beauchamp pays me, or anyone, I imagine. The extra bottle is for the Captain himself, and usually lasts a month. But not that night.

That night the bottle was all but empty when he got back, and before he told me to put the crate in the cellar, he took out another bottle. Then he yelled for Molly to bring water and cigarettes to his room. I will blame myself to the end of my days for not checking up on her sooner, but I didn’t, and then it was too late. The gossips say he asked if she knew what he was thinking, but I doubt that. She would have, and would have had time to run. Fact is, he knocked her half senseless and then raped her. She did scream, and at least seven people heard her, that I know of. But he’s the Captain, so no one did anything. When I found her, she’d crawled to her room without help. She lay curled up, looking at the wall. Looking at nothing really.

I am not an impulsive man, and that night, it saved the Captain’s life, and probably my own as well. Beauchamp complimented me on my restraint after “the mishap,” as he called it. He explained how the burden of responsibility sometimes led to errors of judgment and how mere mortals should not judge their master, i.e. the Captain. In the end Beauchamp suggested that $250 was an appropriate token of retribution for “the inconvenience,” as he put it.

When the ringing in my ears subsided I grunted, which Beauchamp took for what it meant. He took me by my lapels and said, “Let’s not.” The look he gave me will haunt me forever. Cold, heartless, flinty. The Captain could rape anyone and would suffer no more than three bottles of high-priced whiskey—a week of kick-backs. That day I wandered the town unseeing until it was dark, but in the end there was only one truth: Molly needed me more than I did myself. Since then I’d devoted myself to healing her.

Predictably, ironically, the Captain likes my idea as if it were his own. And equally predictably, he angles toward his dear friend Bugsy for its deployment. Having thought over the matter, I express every confidence in Bugsy, taking special care to stress his many accomplishments and how Beauchamp seems to like him more and more and how a good sting might further his career no end. They are so easy to manipulate.

The Captain takes me into Beauchamp’s office to talk through the idea. I dislike Beauchamp as much as I do the Captain. For different reasons, but just as much. He is as much to blame as the Captain himself. Perhaps more so. As he sits in his red leather chair and ogles me, I briefly worry. This could go anywhere. But what the hell.

The plan is simple. I’d rented an apartment a block down from McGregor’s hotel. It isn’t ideal, but if you stand on a ladder you just have a line of sight into McGregor’s bay windows. Then all we need is a conversation with McGregor. A conversation without him knowing it’s us, of course.

An empath isn’t a mind reader. I remember kids in school thinking that, like you can just sit in your house and know what your dad is thinking on a trip somewhere. One after another I watched the wannabees drop out of mentalism class, showing no skill or aptitude. I had something, but it wasn’t enough. I took the classes and I didn’t mind the real empaths laughing. I know what I am. I can’t read minds, and I’m not an empath like Molly. She just looks at people, and as long as she isn’t emotionally involved in what’s going on, she picks up bits and pieces all the time. That’s where I come in. She can’t focus. She just looks and feels and mumbles odd thoughts, and I make sense out of it. That’s what readers do.

Beauchamp goes technical on me, so I bluff. I don’t know all this stuff, so I just blurt out what I think might happen. Who knows. “His show. He listens to this show on the radio. We can use that.”

Beauchamp says ok and gives us a week. A week to prep Molly and the room, to learn McGregor’s little ways, and to steal a radio show. If he listens to the radio. If he has a radio.

Molly can’t stand on a ladder that long, so I built scaffolding that will hold two chairs. I put a second-hand telescope in front of her chair so that she can sit and watch for hours. The Captain likes to come every now and then, making sure we know it’s all his idea. But it disturbs Molly, so I put a huge pot with cabbage and onions on a stove in the back room. The smell is eye watering, but it keeps them away. Watching is tedious, and I go out to find another telescope. No luck, but I find a small radio. Fuck, the news. He’ll listen to the news on the Donatini trial. The one Hobbs is at. It can’t be that simple.

For some reason the Captain didn’t think about how we’d show up on McGregor’s radio. He’s pissed off for ten minutes and then starts making calls. Getting Hobbs on standby is easy, and he has a reporter friend who can use a hundred bucks. The only thing is a transmitter, and it takes three weeks in all to set everything up. Good thing the Captain has adopted the plan as his own.

The day sort of selects itself. McGregor’s star witness will be examined at 9 AM, and McGregor is bound to want to listen. To make sure McGregor doesn’t actually go to the trial, Beauchamp has two of his warehouses set on fire. Bad enough to get his attention, but not so bad as to keep it. We use the midday news.

At ten till, the Captain enters, followed by Beauchamp, as I knew they would. They start talking but I shush them. With Molly in front of me and Hobbs on the phone at my ear I can’t use the noise. Two minutes to go.

“Fuck.” Molly. You get used to it. She says what she sees people thinking. “He goes to where his radio is. I can’t see him. Wait. There he is. Ok. He sits down, listening.”

The transmitter is halfway between McGregor’s hotel and where we are. We are using the local news radio station because it’s the only one that does the trial all day long. I have the little radio tuned in so that Molly knows what Hobbs and his reporter friend are saying.

The beginning I’ve discussed with Molly beforehand. I tell Hobbs to use the words “safe” and “locked” in the next sentence. Donatini is a bookkeeper, but the kind of books he keeps would be locked in a safe. Molly mumbles something but I don’t catch it. I inch my chair forward, taking care not to fall off the scaffolding. I’m very close to Molly, to the side of the telescope. Over her shoulder, behind her, I look at Beauchamp and the Captain, catch their glance to show all is fine. They’re awkward because they can’t sit. They can only stand where they are now. They want to watch Molly, and they’re right in my face.

“In the next sentence use the words ‘code’ and ‘key’.” Warming up McGregor. Molly looks tense, so I tell Hobbs to make it a bit more low-key, boring. Stress doesn’t help. And I tell him to use the number seventeen in the next sentence.

Empathy doesn’t work well for this. Looking at a man and knowing if he cheats on his wife is easy, but coaxing his social security number out of him is plain impossible. In theory, getting at the combination of McGregor’s safe should work because he must think a lot about it and have an emotional attachment to it. In theory. But it takes a lot of time, just by seeing how he reacts to phrases in the news. Especially since he isn’t exactly cooperating and is a block away. It drags on and on.

“Use the word ‘right’ and the number 22 in the next sentence,” I tell Hobbs. Then, “Make a loud noise and use the number fourteen in the next sentence.”

Suddenly I’m sweating. This is taking way too long, and the Captain mentions for the third time that we have to be absolutely certain. Beauchamp just looks cross and grunts every now and then, like he’s been doing the whole time. I decide to put an end to it and I tell Hobbs to wrap up the highlights. I try to hear where they return to the real program, but I can’t. We’re probably five minutes late, but that should be ok. I look at my notes. “We have the first, third, and fourth numbers. The second is either 29, 35, or 39. The last is in the forties.” With this information, a good pair of hands can open McGregor’s safe in ten minutes or so. I hand over my scrap of paper to the Captain, but Beauchamp grabs it. We’ve done good. Now it’s out of our hands. I briefly look at Molly and my heart lurches as a hint of a smile touches her lips, for perhaps the first time this year. I imagine she knows what I’m doing, or maybe she just trusts me.

Two weeks later the Donatini case goes to the jury, and as expected McGregor wants a front-row seat. Jimmy the Man walks over to McGregor’s hotel on top of the roofs with a hand drill and a saw. It’s slow going but relatively silent. I wish we still had the apartment and the telescope. Four hours later he’s back with the contents of McGregor’s safe: we’ve struck gold—perhaps not the motherload, but still.

Molly and I both get a huge bonus. We’ve put a very serious dent in McGregor’s firm. Not only the money and the papers taken, but also the shakeup of his operation. Nobody knew that code except a handful—the traitor must be one of them. It’s a miracle they’re not all dead now.

And then, two months later, Beauchamp’s safe is found open and void of all contents. It wasn’t blown, so the first thought is a traitor. But then people remember McGregor, and the consensus is that he’s found a way to get back at Beauchamp. And real damage is done: it was the day Beauchamp was arraigned for spin-off charges after Donatini. He was going to be out on bail within an hour, of course, but in such circumstances it’s always smart to leave certain items of a personal nature in a safe place. Such as his little red book. The money and the bonds are replaceable, but the red book really hurts.

Three days later I’m told they found some of the bonds under the floorboards in the Captain’s room. He claims ignorance, of course, but Bugsy pronounces that he’s lying. They don’t hope to find the money, but they try to learn the whereabouts of the red book for a very long time—too long, as it turns out. I wouldn’t say his death gives me any joy, but perhaps some closure.

Likewise, the Captain’s demise doesn’t seem to gladden Molly or interest her at all, though her healing from that day on gains momentum. When she isn’t thinking, I get a kiss every now and then.

The red book is never found, and the atmosphere in the casino is never the same again. Beauchamp being scared has an impact on everyone. And on the money, of course. Fewer and fewer marks are considered easy pickings, and Beauchamp’s reaction to out-of-towners would be funny if it wasn’t nauseating.

When we finally ask permission to leave the operation later that year, on account of Molly being pregnant, Beauchamp agrees almost absentmindedly. Had Molly actually been pregnant, it woulda been a miracle, but I’m happy to say I’m being tolerated more and more and have every intention of making her pregnant when that opportunity’s offered, as I’m certain it will be.

–

It’s weird how things go. I don’t think of myself as an empath and yet I now teach empathy in school. Maybe doing it once is all it takes. Children in school continue to be the same: hoping for a quick way to omniscience but mostly lacking aptitude. I scout for natural empaths in the cafeteria because they are disinclined to enroll in the class. They are more than worth the effort.

Molly keeps the fact that she’s an empath to herself. Being a marriage counsellor though, it helps to understand what makes people tick.

As far as I can tell, the children take after Molly. The oldest seems to know me better than Molly does and knows all my strings and buttons. The last time I was successfully able to tell her anything was when she was four. I hope the third is a boy.

I read in the paper that Beauchamp’s tiny empire’s finally crumpled. I’m not worried that something will ever get back to us, though—there’s always the red book in that tiny alcove I bricked shut in the cellar.