Daniel Polansky - Low Town

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,
organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the
product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Daniel Polansky

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.

www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Jacket design by Ben Wiseman
Jacket illustration by JMN/Getty Images

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Polansky, Daniel.
Low Town : a novel / Daniel Polansky. 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Street lifeFiction. 2. Organized crimeFiction. I. Title.
PS3616.O557L69 2011
813.6dc22

2010049587

eISBN: 978-0-385-53447-5

v3.1

To Mom and Dad

A lot of people helped me finish the book, and a lot of people just generally help me. Some of these are:

Chris Kepner, who took a shot on me when (not exaggerated for effect) no one else was interested.

Robert Bloom, who was instrumental in turning the novel in your hands into something that actually makes sense, instead of something that just kind of makes sense.

Oliver Johnson, for advice and assistance, and obviously for publishing my book.

Sahtiya Logan, without whose aid and encouragement I might still be working that nine-to-five grind.

Peter Backof, for finding an appropriate balance between positivity and criticism early on in the process, and for a decade-plus of, broadly speaking, having my back.

David Polansky, who was kind enough to give his feedback on an overwritten, poorly edited manuscript with an extremely gratuitous sex scene. And for a lot of other things as well.

Michael Polansky, for editing, and for helping set the sound track to my last five years of life.

John Lingan, who was kind enough to sort of give feedback on an overwritten, poorly edited manuscript, and who also has a wife and child, so gets a free pass.

Dan Stack, whose excellence as a photogapher made up for my deficiencies as a subject, and to whom I, practically speaking, owe a couple of thousand dollars.

Marisa Polansky, my biggest fan and staunchest supporter, a princess with the heart of a lion.

The Boston Polansky, even Ben, despite his inability to return a phone call.

The Mottolas, broadly speaking, with apologies that Ive missed two Thanksgivingsin particular, my Uncle Frank and Aunt Marlene, who put me up for a week and whom I never properly thanked, and for my Aunt Connie, aka Mom number 2.

My grandmother, Elaine.

Robert Ricketts, whose advice on medical matters was less critical than he supposes, but whose years of friendship have been a gift. And who really ought to be thanking me for working him into the text.

Michael Rubina kinder, sweeter gentleman I have yet to meetwith apologies for not being able to write a black-tongued Jewish dwarf into the manuscript. Maybe the sequel.

Will Crain, for generally being the man.

Alex Cameron, who is staunchly not the above, but an all right individual just the same, I guess, maybe.

Lisa Stockdale, heir to Edward the Black, Hindoo Stuart, and T. E. Lawrenceand a true and dear friend.

Alissa Piasetski, for advice.

John Grega, a paragon of virtue and wisdom, for sharing some of that stock with myself.

Kristen Kopranos, R.I.P.

J Dilla, who changed my life.

David Rasta Mackenzie, with apologies that I might have misspelled your name. Hope things are well for you, wherever you are.

Julie, Tim, and the rest of the Snaprag crew.

Envictus, whose assistance was as unwitting as it was instrumental.

Everyone who put me up during my various travelshope to get you back someday.

Lots of other people, with apologies that I didnt get to you specifically.

Last, definitely not least, Martina.

In the opening days of the Great War, on the battlefields of Apres and Ives, I acquired the ability to abandon slumber with the flutter of an eyelid. It was a necessary adaptation, as heavy sleepers were likely to come to greeted by the sight of a Dren commando with a trench blade. Its a vestige of my past Id rather lose, all things considered. Rare is the situation that requires the full range of ones perceptions, and in general the world is improved by being only dimly visible.

Case in pointmy room was the sort of place best viewed half asleep or in a drunken stupor. Late autumn light filtered through my dusty window and made the interior, already only a few small steps from squalor, look still less prepossessing. Even by my standards the place was a dump, and my standards are low. A worn dresser and a chipped table set were the only furnishings that accompanied the bed, and a veneer of grime covered the floor and walls. I passed water in the bedpan and threw the waste into the alley below.

Low Town was in full stream, the streets echoing with the screech of fish hags advertising the days catch to porters carrying crates north into the Old City. At the market a few blocks east merchants sold underweight goods to middlemen for clipped copper, while down Light Street guttersnipes kept drawn-dagger eyes out for an unwary vendor or a blue blood too far from home. In the corners and the alleys the working boys kept up the same cries as the fish hags, though they spoke lower and charged more. Worn streetwalkers pulling the early shift waved tepid come-ons at passersby, hoping to pad their faded charms into one more days worth of liquor or choke. The dangerous men were mostly still asleep, their blades sheathed next to their beds. The really dangerous men had been up for hours, and their quills and ledgers were getting hard use.

I grabbed a hand mirror off the floor and held it at arms length. Under the best of circumstances, perfumed and manicured, I am an ugly man. A lumpen nose dripped below overlarge eyes, a mouth like a knife wound set off center. Enhancing my natural charms are an accumulation of scars that would shame a masochist, an off-color line running up my cheek from where an artillery shard had come a few inches from laying me out, the torn flesh of my left ear testifying to a street brawl where Id taken second place.

A vial of pixies breath winked good morning from the worn wood of my table. I uncorked it and took a whiff. Cloyingly sweet vapors filled my nostrils, followed closely by a familiar buzzing in my ears. I shook the bottlehalf empty, it had gone quick. Pulling on my shirt and boots, I grabbed my satchel from beneath the bed and walked downstairs to greet the late morn.

The Staggering Earl was quiet this time of day, and the main room was dominated by the mammoth figure behind the bar, Adolphus the grand, co-owner and publican. Despite his heighthe was a full head taller than my own six feethis casklike torso was so wide as to give the impression of corpulence, though a closer examination would reveal the balance of his bulk as muscle. Adolphus had been an ugly man before a Dren bolt claimed his left eye, but the black cloth he wore across the socket and the scar that tore down his pockmarked cheek hadnt improved things. Between that and his slow stare he seemed a thug and a dullard, and though he was neither of those things this impression tended to keep folk civil in his presence.