Casey Barrett - The Tower of Songs

Table of Contents

By Casey Barrett

The Tower of Songs
Against Nature
Under Water

Epilogue

N ews reports in the business sections failed to note Danny Sotos abduction. It didnt exist, not in any official sense. His sudden death was a tragic case of a successful man cut down in his prime. It was the stress, some speculated. A hedge fund founder faced untold daily pressures. His heart gave out. He was survived by two children, a wife, and a mother in Shanghai. Peter Lennox promised the investment community that Soto Capital would continue to thrive. His closest friend and partner hired only the brilliant. They were well positioned for another quarter of double-digit returns.

Not that we believed any of that. Someone, somehow, had gotten to Soto in the days after I saved him, after his surgeries, after he was released from the hospital. It could have been anyone, in any number of ways. A slow-acting poison, slipped into a lunch, a brushed-up bit of contact at a crosswalk. I knew who I suspected: that faceless federal agent duo, John-Jack. The same ones who, I was convinced, poisoned me on that sidewalk.

Id never have proof, just conviction.

I considered the buildings head of security, the former NSA agent, Bill Willis. There was always the man on the inside, who helped facilitate these things. Mother and daughter had vowed to ruin him if he was involved. I wondered how long he had to live.

Would the rich ever realize how easy it was to reach them?

Cloistered atop their towers in the sky, surrounded by their art and their beautiful music, traveling to and fro between their collection of homes, it was a rarified existence that would never be touched by earthly concerns, until it was.

Cass and I could be touched too. If someone decided we needed to be taken off the board, it wouldnt take much. They would get away with it.

Until then, Saint & Sinner was open for business.

Dont miss how it all began...

in

UNDER WATER

and

AGAINST NATURE,

available now from

Casey Barrett

and

Kensington Books,

wherever books are sold.

Chapter 1

I t was the worst of July heat and I was taking a beating. I was getting tossed around the mat by a beefy young cop named Kingsley. He was a bright, ambitious kid from Lagos, Nigeria. Kings was bound for big things in the department, an NYPD poster boy for enlightened, diverse policing. There were more and more cops around the dojo these days, encouraged by superiors to learn a martial art in lieu of potential lethal force, when scared, overwhelmed officers reach for their pieces at crucial moments. My black-belted abilities were still eroded, and Kings had about fifty pounds of muscle on me. Every throw I attempted was swatted away. Aikido is supposed to equalize any opponent, but whatever the color my belt, I was still a joke to a guy like Kings. The beating felt good, just what I needed.

Afterwards, I hit my vape, exhaling as I stepped out into a blazing afternoon. My face burst with sweat, my t-shirt was sticky against my back, but it wasnt like the booze seeps. There was nothing to release but endorphins. My dojo, New York Aikikai, was over in Chelsea on West 18th Street, a short walk east to my apartment. On a day like this any outdoor movement was offensive. Manhattan in summer is for suckers, for those without the means or the control over careers to escape for more reasonable climates. Count me among them; Id done a poor job saving what little I had after my latest breakup.

Newly single, another predictable bender had followed. Six weeks devoted to coke and whiskey and regrettable four a.m. decisions. Now, I was off the booze and riding the weed-only wagon. It seemed to be a trend among reluctant alkies these days. There are those out there, a great many, who will always have the need to feel something ; a buzz-free life of total clarity is not an option. Light drinkers whod never consider another substance, folks who can take it or leave it... who are these people? But whether it was whiskey or wine or just the maintenance beers, I could no longer deny the effect the alcohol was having. My liver needed a break.

I wasnt kidding myself that the change was permanent. I knew I would drink again, someday, but I was fit and energized in a way I hadnt been in years. In addition to my morning workouts at the pool, I had also returned to the dojo.

Id received the proverbial call to wake up in a literal way, accompanied by a kick to the ribs. In the darkness after closing time, Id passed out on my front stoop. Coherent enough to find my way home, but, somehow, Id been unable to unlock my door and fall through it. Id spent the early morning hours sprawled on my steps like a bum, unconscious in the February cold. Then it was half past eight and the sidewalks were full of the stroller brigades, moms pushing little sons and daughters off to preschool.

My new landlord-in-waiting was standing over me, disgusted and ready to deliver another swing of his loafer. His name was Kent, a real cunt, and evidently Mr. Petits only heir. The owner of my brownstone was in his eighties and running out of whatever borrowed time he had left. For almost fifteen years, Gerald Petit had rented me his garden apartment for a song. I couldnt remember when he last renewed my lease. At this point I suppose I had squatters rights. But ever since his hospitalization in the fall, his nephew Kent had been making regular trips from Jersey into the city. Sniffing around the property he lusted to inherit, like hed ever cared about his bachelor uncle. He wanted me out. The moment the will was read I knew he intended to sell it for a few million. Hed turn off my heat, if necessary, and maybe try to buy me out for a few bucks. After I vacated like a rodent in the basement, a buyer would gut the place, strip it of every touch of period charm. Yeah, Id seen that movie, been disgusted every time it aired.

The irony was that I was responsible for Mr. Petit still being alive. If I hadnt been coked up one morning at six a.m. last October, I wouldnt have heard him fall. He took a tumble down the stairs and broke his hip. I responded, called 911, the paramedics were there in minutes. After he returned home, now with a live-in nurse, I made a habit of visiting him in his parlor a few days a week. Wed never been close, but faced with imminent expulsion from my longtime home I started to ask him about my father. Theyd been colleagues, before my dads disgrace and imprisonment, and I suppose I wanted to learn what I could before he spoke no more. Of course, Kent the cunt took my visits as a cynical too-late ploy to ingratiate myself into the will.

It wasnt Kents kick on the stoop that morning that put me on the wagon. It was the witnesses that accompanied it. My first sight as I regained consciousness was a young mother pushing a double-seated stroller. Her kids were maybe three, twins, a girl and a boy. The mother looked weary, like shed slept about as well as I had. She was dressed in sweatpants, UGGs, and a puffer coat. The twins were bound up like a pair of bloated Easter eggs.

Whats the matter with that man? asked the girl.

Not everyone has a home, said the mom. Not everyone is as lucky as you two.

She patted their heads and wheeled around us. Mistaken for the homeless, in front of my own home. If I believed in rock bottom, that might have qualified. Kent leered at me. You will be soon enough, his look seemed to say. I averted my eyes, offered no apologies, and unlocked my door. Then I emptied my apartment of all alcohol.