Unburdened by takings or tools, I felt exceptionally light scaling the fence. It had been a long day-and-a-half for me, an even longer one for Harnett, and yet we did not return to the motel. Instead he led me through a sleepy downtown to a pub called Andy’s. I imagined my mother’s reaction to my hanging out in a bar and grinned. What else were fathers for?
We slipped inside and moved past a bar held down by lumpy men in flannel shirts, a glowing jukebox, a scuffed pool table, and various sticky-looking surfaces, finally wedging ourselves into a booth in the farthest, darkest corner of the room. A woman with a scar running down the center of her nose slung a bored hip at our table and Harnett turned down her offer of three-fifty pitchers. Instead he ordered two burgers and Cokes. We wrapped our cold hands around warm meat, feeling the drizzle of grease and blood drip through our knuckles as we bit.
My elbow bumped a bald, skinny gentleman with wireframe glasses resting upon sharp cheekbones. He was sitting next to me; how long he’d been there I had no clue. His lips twitched at my father in a kind of greeting.
Harnett paused in his chewing and nodded at the man.
“This is Under-the-Mud,” he said. “He’s got the Northeast.”
“Oh,” I said. The man had to be nearly seventy. “Hi.”
Slowly the man laced his fingers and angled his plated skull. I felt the race of his beady, bright eyes.
“Son of the Resurrectionist,” he said. “That is a legacy.”
I wiped my lips and pointed a greasy finger at my father. “Who, him? The Resurrectionist? He’s got a name, too?”
Under-the-Mud hiked a slender eyebrow. “It’s not just a name, child. It’s an homage.” He paused for an apology or justification. When it didn’t come, the eyebrow rose higher. “To the resurrection men. Of old England, dear boy.”
I didn’t like his tone—it reminded me too much of Gottschalk. The urge to tell him how ridiculous these cryptic code names sounded was nearly irresistible. But then I felt an unexpected rush: if I were given one of these names, I would be part of a club. I would no longer be alone.
A new voice responded. “No sense getting your claws out already, Mud. It probably seems asinine to someone who wasn’t born in the Crustaceous period. You can take that to the bank and smoke it.”
I looked up and saw standing alongside the table a nondescript gray-haired man in his sixties wearing a gray cap, gray sweater, gray scarf, and gray pants, each item springing coils of gray thread. He reached out, thumped Under-the-Mud on the back, and stretched out a hand to my father. Harnett threw a look around the room to ensure we still went unobserved, then submitted to a brief shake.
The man addressed me next. Even when I stared straight at him, he threatened to blend into the smoke. “Hello there,” he said. “I’m Fisher.”
“I’m Joey,” I said.
Fisher laughed. “That won’t do at all.”
Under-the-Mud thumped the table with a scrawny fist. “He withholds from the child the facts of the resurrection men, he withholds his own name. I bet he withholds his old slogan, too. ‘I can get anyone.’ That’s what he used to say when he was young like the child here, and proud.”
“Mud,” Harnett sighed. He picked up a napkin and wiped his fingers with meticulous strokes. “I never said that.”
“It was your slogan. You can’t tell us it wasn’t.”
“It was given to me, maybe.” He displayed his clean palms. “I never claimed it.”
Under-the-Mud addressed me in a patronizing tone. “The quote was borrowed from Sir Astley Cooper. Sir Astley was one of the preeminent London anatomists of the eighteen hundreds and friend to the resurrection men.”
“The resurrection men,” Fisher interrupted. He smiled at me patiently. “Body snatchers who provided bodies for classroom dissections before there was any other legal means to get them.”
Under-the-Mud turned his skepticism upon my father. “We look forward to hearing your reasons for hiding this history.”
Beneath snapping red neon, the two men sized up each other. The sound track switched from a caterwauling weeper to a boot-stomping ass-kicker. Barely audible from the drinkers around us, laconic chatter about sports and kids and jobs—nothing that remotely hinted at this underworld insanity. Yet I edged closer to the Diggers; there was self-confidence within this delirium, and I found myself hoping that Harnett had in fact used the brash slogan. In its own way, I can get