Free The Dead Are More Visible by Steven Heighton Page A

trick, your own brain the trickster. Still, you can’t restrain a terrified, credulous excitement.
    I’ve even pre-powdered them, the Fisher says. They keep making that harder to do. I don’t let that stop me, though. I don’t want anything to stand between me and a customer, Ben—even one who no longer has a triple-A debit rating.
    Credit rating , you think. I don’t owe you anything, you say in your dried-up voice. You took everything! Three years, maybe a hundred thousand bucks, my fucking freedom, my peace of mind. I owe all sorts of people money, but you I owe nothing.
    Ah, Ben. You’re like everyone else. You believe that due to my not assuming an official business, I don’t retain scrupulous accounts.
    No, I’m sure you do.
    And your attitude, Ben—frankly it’s a disappointment, not to mention a forcible kick in the balls. You think I usually jet across the country to resupply clients like this?
    The thermals rising off the rocks and sand of the gully floor behind the Fisher now seem to rise out ofhim, like steam above an angry cartoon figure. Figure, figment, phantom. You scrunch your eyes closed and feel the dryness in the corners and between the eyeball and lid, an itching, gritty distress like a corneal abrasion. The body is a machine that, like any other, breaks down if the lubricants run out. You open your eyes: he’s still there, looking down at the sunglasses he now holds in his hand. The reason his glasses sit a bit crookedly on his face is that a chunk is missing from the top of his right ear—deducted by a switchblade or a bullet, according to rumour.
    His black eyes swivel upward and meet yours. Your breathing stalls. The whites of his eyes are very white, healthy-looking, though the skin below is puffy and discoloured. It’s a rare view. Seeing at intimate range those contused pouches, it hits you that he constantly wears the sunglasses not so much for purposes of intimidation as out of vanity.
    What do you want from me? I’ve got nothing here. We carry nothing out here—no money, nothing. I don’t even have a watch. And it’s not like I have hundreds of bucks back at the camp, either.
    Hundreds wouldn’t begin to cover it, Ben. Aren’t you a little old for a juvie boot camp?
    There are a bunch of guys in their twenties. It was a condition of my sentence.
    I told you, I’m fully cognizant of all that.
    Of course you are. You’re in my mind.
    Ben, I’m losing patience—though I have to say thisis an original gambit. No client has ever tried to infer I was a vision, or a demon. Brilliant, Ben. Of course I know you have no money on you. But your debt, honestly, your debt is only one aspect of the issue. You see, in a way I’m sentimental about my customers, Ben. They’re like … extended family. I don’t have a family to speak of, you see. Besides Vlad.
    You? Sentimental?
    A weakness, I know.
    He glances down and slips the red sunglasses back on.
    I liked having you as a customer, Ben. I valued that special relationship we had and to tell you the truth I still do, even though you’ve abused my credibility. I can forgive that. I committed mistakes when I was your age. I can even forgive that you referenced me to the authorities, Ben—the fucking authorities . Men with no class . But I expect our special relationship to continue after you come home.
    I’m clean now. Just leave me alone.
    Honestly, Ben, it’s more about … about principle than money.
    Why aren’t you locked up? you croak. Why am I the one who ends up hallucinating in the desert and on fucking probation?
    It’s not like I haven’t done time, Ben. But it was the making of me. I grew very focused in there. I read expansively and learned to meditate. I quit smoking and I had to quit drinking and I started to keep fit—maybea bit like this boot camp of yours. I now eat a Neolithic diet: no refined flour or sugar, minimal meat, lots of nuts, seeds and beans. And lentils, Ben—lentils are an excellent food.
    If