Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

thick, twisted coils of them are making it difficult for him to remember things properly. He’s not sure what the tangle of thorns is – but he does know that it hurts to remember certain things. In fact, the deeper into the thorns he tries to remember, the sharper they get. There is something terrible at the heart of the tangle, he thinks – the root cause of all the dreadful needling growth – and he’s not sure he wants to find out what it is.

* * *

Adam is put into a cold white room with a single table, a single chair, and four lawyers.

Three of the four lawyers are speaking to him simultaneously, and Adam only has the vaguest idea of what they are saying. They have interchangeable faces, as if they have been cast from the same mould, and he is only able to tell them apart by the colour of their ties. The lawyer with the yellow tie is telling him that he should plead guilty; the lawyer with the blue tie is telling him that he should try for a plea bargain; and the lawyer with the red tie is telling him to plead insanity. Adam sits in his chair, idly runs his fingers across the metal surface of the table, and repeatedly glances at the quiet fourth lawyer, feeling like a man who can see an oasis in a desert, but mistrusting what his eyes are telling him.

The fourth lawyer leans against the far wall, and is absorbed in the screen of his phone. He is wearing a suit that looks as if it cost more than the suits of all three of the other lawyers combined. It is a black suit, with a black shirt and a black tie, and his hair is black and tastefully tousled, and the rims of his rounded designer spectacles are black as well. He is pale, and small, but his shadow is cast long before him.

All at once, he lowers his phone and raises a hand towards the door. “Out,” he says. Then, “Bring me a chair.”

The three other lawyers are immediately silenced. They leave with their heads bowed. Only the lawyer with the blue tie briefly returns, to deposit a chair opposite Adam. The lawyer in black unfastens his jacket and sits, and the temperature in the room seems to drop. There is a long silence as he observes Adam, punctuated by the sound of his fingers drumming rhythmically on the metal table.

“Rook, I’m not—”

“Shut up,” says Rook.

Silence reigns anew. Eventually, Rook removes his spectacles, and places them on the table between them. “Fake,” he says. “They create a narrative for me. They tell my clients that I have spent a great deal of time reading and straining my eyes in order to learn the many nuances of law. They give me an air of superiority and, because of that, I remain unquestioned. Just one of the many significant little details I have laboured at in order to create the perfect disguise.”

He leans forward. “Do you know how much effort it takes me to have all the certificates and passports made? This government has a lot of new systems in place – all manner of gates through which a man must pass to prove that he is, indeed, the person that he claims to be. Every year, my role in our grand masquerade grows more complex and, as such, more precarious. Every year, we take one step closer to discovery and extinction. Tell me, Adam. What drove you to murder a celebrity?”

“I don’t—”

“Shut up. It was a rhetorical question.” Rook leans back, returns to drumming his fingers. “I’m sure you’re well aware of the ire I harbour at being dragged down here to fix this. I have a life, Adam, which I am quite proud of. I have a life which you have threatened by your actions. Yes, I know that the police have found a whole selection of your old certificates, and yes, I am angry that you’ve failed to follow my very clear instructions on how to dispose of them. Fire, Adam. The great cleanser. As simple as striking a match and setting them alight. Poetic, even: that, much like the phoenix, you should be reborn into a new life as the old one smoulders. Their discovery threatens my life, and the lives of all those whom I protect. Do you understand the damage which you might have caused, had I not been so swift in rushing down here?”

“They’re not—”

“Shut up.” Cleaning his spectacles, Rook perches them back upon his face. “The question remains: what should I do with you? The obvious answer is that I should leave you in prison for at least a couple of decades, that you might learn some kind of lesson from the mess you’ve created. Indeed, I have an ongoing arrangement with Barracuda which should keep him behind bars for at least thirty years yet. Perhaps it would be best if you joined him, and were given time to reflect. That being said…”

Adam considers the idea of a lifetime spent behind bars. It would be quiet, he thinks; an opportunity to do a lot of reading. And maybe, given time and patience, he could find the cracks in the walls of his confinement and grow things there, like lichen, or moss, or tiny mushrooms. It would be a long, patient, soothing time, free of the pressure of having to remember things.

“Perhaps,” says Rook, weighing the word. “Perhaps it would be better were you to be free, and abroad, away from prying eyes. Out of my hair, as it were. I do have a matter that requires the attention of someone other than myself, and you may very well be able to help with it.” Rook makes a pyramid of his hands. “It would be a simple enough operation. An escalation of your crimes to the federal level, which would necessitate moving you to a far more secure location, remote