The Tolerance Wars - 20
competences
upper and lowercase
begin at the beginning—Chapter 1
The Tolerance Wars
20.
competences
“There is no job too difficult, no task too challenging that won’t be made better with a good cup of coffee.”
I pointed out he sold coffee to pay the rent here. Nice place too. I guess the water must’ve held up.
“It’s because I believe in it. You won’t hear me saying the same thing about eggs. And the eggs here are very good. Nor ‘no job too difficult that won’t be made better with a pad thai.’ Actually, wait. You might be on to something. I also believe in a good pad thai.”
Wasn’t wrong, I took the mug he offered and made my way to the eight by the stage, nodded hey to sparechange standing halfway down, and took a seat across and a couple spots over from Tony, who I noticed was not sitting at the head of the table, so I found myself wondering who was in charge. Sure not me. Josie was sat the next table over at a deuce closer to the back of the room, Waits was same on the side towards the entrance, McShane made himself comfortable perched on a monitor at the corner of the stage. I heard the front door and saw our friend the scientist come in, accept a coffee for herself when it was offered, smile when she saw Tony, and again at me, then head straight for head of the table. Might be a clue. Our host went and locked the front door then joined us, lowering himself into the place at the other end of the table. Well, alright then.
“Not a meeting,” he said, “but I suppose we are called to order.” He looked to Archer along the length of the table, “We’re here for a conversation.” She nodded. “What would you like to talk about?”
Tony took it. “I think we have some questions.”
“Tell me what they are. Hopefully I can offer answers.”
“I think we’d all like someone to help us understand what we saw Saturday night.”
Marcus beamed, “There are many ways of understanding. And many things that might be understood. Tell me what you saw.” He looked around to include everybody, “We’ll see if I can help.”
“There was a fight.” That was Archer. I got the sense she’d been doing physics for a while now. And was game for more.
“There was a party. There was alcohol. There was a fight.” Our host agreed easily. “It is in the nature of the beast.”
“You knew there was going to be a fight?” Which was Josie. As present in the room as anyone. Come to think of it, sister looked like she’d maybe been figuring some things out herself. I wondered if I might be the only one who hadn’t. Not for lack of trying.
“Abso-lutely not,” he shook his head on each of the three beats. “Had there been any indication violence was possible I never would’ve asked you to join us. I don’t like putting friends in harm’s way.”
Archer leaned forward slightly. “And the way the fight was dealt with?”
“Ah. Yes.” Marcus smiled. “How do you mean?”
“It was… efficient.”
“I have been curating parties for a long time,” a slight shrug. “You develop certain…”
“Competences.” McShane finished for him. “Yeah we saw that.”
“The person seeking to cause mayhem was quickly disarmed, thankfully causing minimal disruption for the guests. Our friend has a little experience.” He nodded towards sparechange, who was still stood between the cash and our table, I figured so he could get another hit of coffee without interrupting anyone. “Certainly nothing out of the ordinary. To know a little about self defence.”
“We’ll set that thought aside for a moment,” Which was meant for sparechange. Then she brought her attention back to Marcus. “The cleanup was also fairly… efficient.”
“Breathtaking,” said Josie.
“Well now, it’s important that—”
I heard a distinct growling noise. Deep. Like maybe something bear-sized. Or bigger. Though I wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from, for some reason I looked over at Waits. Who I noticed was staring at sparechange. Who himself now only had eyes for Marcus.
Archer paused, leaned back again to take all that in, inhaled slightly, appeared to make a decision, and then said, “Uncle Alex was killed. Why?” The question seemed to come so much out of nowhere that I noticed everyone was now staring at her. Except for sparechange. Who was still staring at our host. Waiting.
I could see Marcus do some kind of internal calculus. Then he said, “The hospital hasn’t been able to—”
“Don’t lie.” It was quiet, but firm. Deliberate. And had more than a little sense of that deep growl to it. And definitely came from sparechange. Who hadn’t moved. Still staring.
“Pardon me? I don’t know what—”
“Bend the truth all you want. But don’t lie to these people. They’re my friends.”
“Your… ah.” The big man seemed to look inside himself for a beat or two. Then with the slightest of nods, reset the table and started again. “Friends…”
“We think he got in over his head.” Sparechange. Still looking at Marcus.
“We?” Which was Archer, who was paying very close attention to all of this.
Marcus tried to look at her. Tried to speak. Finally he gave up, sighed and closed his eyes. Then he opened them and looked over at buddy again. “You may well be the death of me.”
“You’ll be the death of you, brother. From too much love. Or maybe one too many fine meals. Or maybe one last explanation. That someone jus’ needed t’hear.”
He smiled in response, clearly wishing this conversation had gone other ways, but said, “I bow to your superior wisdom.” He looked around the room at each of us. Then said to Archer, “We don’t know why Alex died. We do know that he found himself in difficult circumstances. We suspect he disappointed the people he was dealing with. And they are people who do not take disappointment lightly.”
“Murder?”
He pursed his lips and nodded, “Significant disappointment.”
“What was he doing?”
“We don’t know—”
“Keepin’ an eye.” Sparechange again.
“—exactly, but yes. Keeping. An eye.”
“He threatened to blow me up.”
Marcus smiled slightly and shook his head, “No. He wouldn’t have blown anyone up. He was far too strong for that.”
Too strong to blow things up? Yeah, I was starting to have a little trouble following again. It was Josie helped me out, “He was watching them. Working for you?”
“For me?” A small but apparently genuine laugh. “No. Alex was…” He seemed to struggle to find a word.
“Family.” I’d expected sparechange to help him out. But it was Archer. And I saw that her eyes were now riveted on Marcus.
“Ah…” I read his flick to sparechange as ‘happy now?’ “Not actually related.” Again I heard the growl. “Although I suppose that’s possibly beside the point.”
“Not really.” She seemed to get some kind of confirmation from that. Then she changed tack again, “So what did happen after the fight at the party?”
The big man just looked at sparechange. Who said, mostly to Marcus, “It was my fault.” He seemed to collect his thoughts. Then, to no one in particular, “I told people you guys were playin’. You got fans. I told ‘em where you were playin’. And our man here said a few extra guests wouldn’t hurt.”
Now Archer was talking to sparechange. “While you disarmed the fellow holding the knife, the other brawler was immediately rendered helpless and led away out of sight. Mostly by a small-ish, dark-haired woman using a very uncomfortable-looking twisting grip on one of his arms. And once you’d incapacitated your man, and pocketed his knife like it was a simple magic trick, he was then quickly gathered up by several guests and hauled out of the room. At exactly the same time a double handful of people seemed to gather and each concentrate on sorting out one small aspect of the mess that had been made. Broken glass, spilled food, stained tablecloths and more just disappeared. Everything replaced by fresh. Within maybe ten seconds. All without disturbing the attention of most of the party-goers. I don’t think anyone but me witnessed the whole thing. And I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
Then there was silence. Marcus breathed in slowly. Then out. I heard the slow rumble of the upright double coolers kick in. Someone tried the front door, but moved on when they saw the place was closed. Still no one said a word.
Finally sparechange, “I have friends.”
“Very. Efficient. Friends.” Said Archer, “Who are used to picking up after you?”
Which made Marcus laugh, so hard, and so suddenly that even Waits twitched.
“It’s not like that. Man, it’s not like that at all!” I could swear buddy was blushing.
Marcus was still laughing, a little quieter, slightly less helpless, you could tell he was trying to speak, but then whatever he found so scathingly funny would touch him again and he would be incapable of forming words. All while sparechange stood, silent, slowly turning a deeper and deeper red.
I had a quick look around. Lots of bemused. Obviously I wasn’t the only one in the room who had no idea what was going on.
Somehow Marcus was able to straighten himself up enough to pull a large white handkerchief out of a pocket, wipe his eyes, and eventually manage to say, “Ohh, Jominho. You’re right.” He chuckled deeply at the thought of whatever it was that had just happened, “I haven’t laughed like that in a very long time,” and wiped his eyes again, then put away the handkerchief and shook his head while still smiling, apparently almost disbelieving what had in fact just happened. “The memory will keep me warm when the cold winter nights come again. And I am so very grateful. Clearly, these must be friends.”
Sparechange was still looking put out. Though I thought he’d maybe progressed from ‘I’m being done an epic injustice’ down to ‘you are laughing at my expense although there is some truth there. And yes, maybe some funny’. “So…”
“So, you have friends.” Archer was still doing science, with a slight smile acknowledging that something had just happened. “We know that much.”
“Very efficient friends,” added Tony, with a twinkle of her own.
“They have to be,” said Marcus. Which threatened to set him off again. But he gathered himself and tried again. “So, Jomi. Where shall we begin with these our new friends?”
“Is there a beginning?” Waits was quietly taking everything in. As usual.
“Now that is a question,” said Marcus.
“And who were all those people?” Josie set her own question. “Friends? Really??”
“Or a family?” I noticed the scientist was now holding herself very still. And watching Marcus carefully in a way I thought I recognized from my own life. Looking for clues. The big man’s reaction was gone in an instant. But I’d definitely seen it.
“No,” he said, “not a family. At least not in the way I think you mean it. And the word is often understood to refer to a criminal organization. So, no. Definitely not a family.”
He looked like he was going to continue. But sparechange beat him to it. “A house.”
As well as a whole lot of puzzlement around the room, I saw the slightest look of surprise in response from Marcus. Which came and then immediately went. And I only saw because now I was watching him. Like I have to do with some singers. Don’t stare, but be aware, of patterns of small responses, helping me know what’s really going on. At least it does once I’ve worked with them often enough to start to understand the language. For some reason I remembered that the man here possessed one of the most open and honest approaches to life I’d ever experienced—and that I’d also seen him bluff his way to victory with the worst of hands. And do it not by speaking, or misdirection, but by simply not twitching. I reminded myself he could probably do that right now, if he chose. If we were playing cards. Although if he was playing with a partner, that would be different, wouldn’t it? I looked over at sparechange, who was clearly not staring at the big man. But just as clearly taking in small movements. Like partners in a card game. One they’d played many times. Good at it, too.
“Like the house of Guelph?” Which was McShane. “Like in Shakespeare?” And the shortest distance between two notes.
“Well, that would still be a family.” Answered Marcus. “So, no.”
“A loose association.” Supplied Archer. And I got the sense she hadn’t just thought of it. Actually, come to think of it, none of this seemed like a surprise to her.
“Ah. Now we are closer.” He thought for a moment. Then, “All those people,” he said, nodding thanks to Josie for asking the question, “wanted to help. Were fully present in the precise moment when help would be appreciated. And had specific abilities which could contribute to a positive outcome.” He spread his arms apart as if to indicate something inevitable. “And so…”
“They helped.”
He nodded in agreement, “And so they did.”
“But how did they know? What to do, where to be?”
Marcus smiled. “You are a scientist. You’re looking for clear answers. But here,” he waved around the room to include us all, “you are surrounded by musicians.” Then he fixed her with a look. “Ask them how they know.” And leaned in slightly. “When they’re playing music, how do they know what to do?” He paused for a beat to let the thought drift.
Then suddenly he turned and looked straight at me and said “How do you know what to do?”
Without thinking I gave him the most honest answer I could, “I don’t. I just do it.”
“And is that because you have memorized exactly what happens, in exactly which order, and do exactly the same thing in every performance?”
“No. I just do it because I know what to do.” Which made clear sense to me, but I thought maybe a fuller answer might be more polite. Since we were all friends. “Which I know is true because I’ve run tunes like that over and over again to see what’s possible. What works. And because I’ve probably been in that musical situation before. So I have some memory for what’s gone well. And what hasn’t. And of course because I’m playing with people I trust, so I know we’re all working for the same purpose—the best music we can make.”
“Ah.” He nodded. Then returned his attention to Archer. “And so,” and a small nod, apparently to acknowledge each of the musicians in the room, “practice. Experience. Heart.” Then he leaned back in his chair. “Now, ask me again, miss Archer. How did those people know what to do, where to be? And I think that would be my answer. Practice. Experience. Heart.” Then he nodded again a few times, slowly. Clearly satisfied.
Sparechange was silent during all of that. Taking it all in. And looking exactly like he does when he’s heard us play the song before. But never quite like how it just went.
Josie was getting it, but needed a little more time with the middle eight. “So, you’re saying all those people at the party. With the fight. And the glass. And the mess. They just knew what to do?”
“I am indeed,” said Marcus, well satisfied. “I am telling you exactly that.”
I remember how in that moment every musician in the room looked at every other musician in the room. And every one of us wondered if anybody else honestly couldn’t decide whether what they’d just heard was perfectly sensible or absolute nonsense.
Except Tony. Who simply nodded. Like somebody had basically pointed out that the sky is actually blue. Why, yes. Yes it is.
“So, who’s ‘we’?” Was McShane. “With the competences.”
Marcus flicked another card-playing look at sparechange, then said, “The house.” As if that was an answer.
And Waits said, “Yeah, I have no idea what that means.”
Archer helped him out. “An association of people. With the same beliefs. Acting towards the same goals.”
Marcus shook his head. “But now you have come up against the limits of language. And so, in fact, you’re mistaken. In very significant ways. I can guarantee that none of those people you noticed on Saturday night share an identical set of beliefs. And I can also tell you that, based on my own direct experience, the goals of every one of those people are as different as each of the stars in the sky, or flakes of snow as they fall.”
“They cleared that space in a heartbeat,” pointed out Josie. “Sure looked like a shared goal to me.”
Marcus turned to address her directly. “Many different goals, many different beliefs, and many different life paths. And when they found themselves standing there, each one of those individuals responded to that moment in their own unique way. Part of me is sorry I wasn’t in the room at the time. I think it would have been quite beautiful to see.”
“It was,” agreed the scientist. “Like data finally coming together to form a picture.”
Which made at least some kind of sense. If a little weird. But I said, “If it was all so beautiful, why were you upset with buddy here at the end of the night? Looks to me like he did you a serious favour.”
“It’s inappropriate to draw attention.”
“People get killed.” Was sparechange. Agreeing. “Good people.”
Marcus nodded in shared sympathy. “There are very few rules among us. But that is perhaps the most important. Do not draw attention.”
“So, you’re a secret society,” said Tony. “Kinda like the masons?”
The big man actually snorted. “Exactly not like that. We have no mysterious handshake or secret signs. We have no hidden membership lists. We have no undisclosed people placed in important positions. We have no concealed agenda. We choose to remain unknown. But we are not a secret.”
I remembered that the scientist’s blond shadow seemed to know sparechange in ways I didn’t. So I tried to set down a piece of the puzzle. Like the adults. “So Limner knows about you?”
“Of course.” He seemed genuinely pleased that someone was connecting the dots themselves. “He knows me. And Jomi.” A nod to sparechange. “And several of the people there on Saturday night.” Then he looked at Archer, “We are not at all unknown to your associate. Though I’d wager we’re not always among his favourite people.”
“And why would that be?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He pursed his lips slightly and shrugged. “Maybe jealousy?” Now sparechange snorted. And Marcus ignored him. “Because we do not share his limitations.”
“So you have no limits. You can do what you like.”
“We have limits. They are very real. But they are different. We are constrained by consensus. And we can only do what we are able, within the limits of human endeavour. And we are absolutely limited by our reason for being.” Finally he leaned back in his chair again. “To do good.” I noticed sparechange make a small nod in an amen kind of way.
Archer wasn’t so sure. “History is full of organizations engaged in deeply reprehensible activities all in the name of doing good.”
“Ah,” said Marcus. And nothing more.
I tried to wrap my brain around what we’d just been told. Most of us looked like we were not having an easy time of believing it.
Except Tony. Who let the moment run for a while. Then asked, “Why are we here?”
“How do you mean?”
But Tony said nothing more. Just kept looking her question at him. Making him decide what she meant on his own. Went on for a while. It was sparechange who finally answered.
“We trust you.”
Marcus let that sink in for a second. Then, “And now I will ask you the same question.” And he looked across the full length of the eight at Archer. “Why are you here?”
I saw my friend look first at Tony, who smiled in a way I didn’t quite understand, then at the rest of the gang, and finally at sparechange. Then she said to Marcus, “I made something.” Which surprised me a little to hear. “And now it’s missing.”
“Ah,” said Marcus. He was clearly thinking for a moment, without trying to hide the fact. Then, “Presumably to do with your work?”
“Sort of,” she replied. Then she paused, considering, looked at Tony again, who nodded. She took a breath. “I made a thing,” she began. Then sketched out what she’d told me. And Tony. About what she’d made. And why. Ending with, “I opened the drawer. And it was gone.”
Sparechange had come over to join us and sat down at the table while Archer told them all what had happened, but our host hadn’t moved a muscle. When she’d finished there was silence. For a while. I guess it was a lot to take in.
“A hat,” was the first thing Marcus said.
“Of sorts,” said the scientist.
“Which…” said Marcus. And then “ Hmm…” Then he was silent again.
It was sparechange who spoke first. “Stolen?” Archer nodded. “And you don’t know who might’ve done it?” She shook her head. He checked in with Marcus. Who only tilted his head and shrugged slightly.
She caught the look. Thought about it for a second. Then, “Do you?”
“No,” he said. Another exchange, then, “I could look around.”
“Discreetly,” said the big man. “While our friend feels there’s little worth in her work, there might be others who would disagree.”
“I’m always discreet.”
“I’ve come to understand that you and I have two different and distinct definitions of the word.”
I was thinking about Marcus laughing earlier. All buddy said was, “I’ll be careful.” Then, to Archer, “Give me a few days?”
“I don’t know what else to do. So, yes. I’d be grateful.”
“We’ll let you know if we find out anything useful.”
A beat. Then Archer asked the question again, more directly. “Do you know who might have it?”
“No,” said Marcus. “But we have an idea.”
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