Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

“And?”

“And then Trina tells him about you.”

I was suddenly so pleased with her, with her cunning and forethought, her tenacity. I lowered my head to kiss her, all the while feeling that I was losing myself to her, about to give her something she hadn’t even asked for. I snatched the perfume and took her to the basement, where I pulled boxes away from the wall. When I removed a section of the fake wood paneling with a screwdriver, she laughed and said, “So, you’re going to brick me up back there. I should have figured.”

Then she saw the vault. She stood wide-eyed, the sheets in which she’d wrapped herself slinking down her shoulders. The dial spun swiftly under my fingers, right-left, left-right, and then there was the clean, cold click of the lock giving way. The massive door opened noiselessly. I reached into the darkness and drew out what was inside.

“I knew it!” she screamed. “You sneaky bastard!” She hurled a string of delightful profanity at me, then reached out to touch the painting. She held it while I flicked on a series of mounted spotlights that came together on the opposite wall. I hung the portrait in that pool of radiance—it was alive now, the woman who raised Edgar Allan Poe. She was depicted young, and had a small nose and mouth, large dark eyes and roseate cheeks; her black hair was pulled up, and long strands of it curled past the edges of her eyes down to her jaw. There was a ghostly light about her long neck and her gauzy white dress.

I lost track of how long we stared into it.

Eventually, Rebecca asked, “What’s the point? I mean, it just sits in there. In the dark.”

“What should I do,” I said, “put it up in the living room? Rebecca, having this painting in the vault is dangerous enough. But it’s worth it. It does something to me. Every morning I wake up and remember what’s here, in my house. I’m sitting upon a great secret, and it makes everything… vibrate. But it’s a crime .” I brought my fingers to her neck. “And you don’t wear your crime.”

I put the painting back and the perfume in with it—now she couldn’t rat me out without exposing herself as an accomplice who knew where the secret vault was. I swung the door shut and met Rebecca’s contemptuous gaze. She apparently got the point.

“I want to trust you, Rebecca. And you to trust me. This assures that trust.”

“That’s not trust,” she said. “That’s mutually assured destruction.”

The longer the perfume stayed missing, the more my hours diminished. The museum’s auxiliary technicians were increasingly around, assigned to projects that ordinarily would have gone to me. I was not outright expelled, but more like a child faced into the corner. The cloud of suspicion that had loomed over me eight years before was above me again, and it was dark.

When I confronted John, he said, “Emery, there’s just a lot of talk.”

“Since when do you believe talk?”

“Let’s give it some time,” he said, “let it blow over.”

“Is it Hamlin? Are you listening to Lou Hamlin now?”

“Emery,” he said sharply, “you were the last one with the… People are suspicious.”

Christ, I thought, he defends me when I’m guilty, and condemns me when I’m not—not completely, anyway.

The only bright thing in my life was the source of my troubles. I found it strange that Rebecca’s uncle didn’t try leashing her. Was he duped so easily, believing she spent all her nights at Trina’s? In the basement I’d retrieve the perfume from the safe and trace the oil along her curves. We’d sleep upon the daybed with rose and sweat in the air. Rebecca was surprisingly agreeable to the situation, washing off the perfume dutifully before she left my house each morning, not arguing when I put it back in the safe. If we didn’t make love, or study the painting, Rebecca would pose and I’d manipulate the lights so that I’d swear she floated in them, my treasure.

Rebecca’s internship was nearly complete; she’d be leaving for Cincinnati in a matter of days. It struck me hard, and maybe her too, but neither of us spoke about it. Following my first day of work in four days, Rebecca, walking home beside me in the alleys, presented me with an idea.

“Would things be better for you if they found the perfume?”

I supposed they would, but the small red vial had been so long in our possession, and become so important to us, that I couldn’t imagine being without it.

“I want you to give me the perfume,” she said evenly. “I’ll plant it in a box in one of the storage rooms.”

Her face was confident and serene, and I wanted to kiss the little notch upon her lip for her offer. But it was too dangerous—besides, neither of us had access to the rooms. Then she handed me an envelope. Inside was a key she’d stolen, copied, and returned the day before.

I held onto the key. “It’s too dangerous, Rebecca. If they catch you…”

“Then what? They send me home?”

“Or prison.”

There was the Summer Celebration gala the next night, a fund-raising party for members, staff, and interns. I could do it then, slip in and out amidst the crowd.

“Why do you suddenly want to get rid of it?”

“For you.”

I looked all around at the alley we were in, one of a thousand veins through which coursed the blood of our city to its heart, where a great and mysterious history seemed preserved for us.

“Poe should have died here,” I said, “in these alleys. Not on some bench in Baltimore.”

That night was our last with the perfume.

We took my car. At the museum, Memorial Hall was bustling with ritzy summer gowns and tuxedoed bartenders, colorful spreads of hors d’oeuvres, live jazz. Rebecca and I spent only a few minutes together—the Hamlins were expected shortly—and gulped down our wine in a corner. She was especially striking, having spent so long with her compact mirror as we dressed in the basement, painting on her dark eyes, making her face radiant.

“Rebecca…”

“You have to,” she said. “You can’t lose everything because of me.”

“No, I mean, will you still…”

I was conflicted, afraid that returning the perfume was tossing away the only card I had, tossing away Rebecca herself. I couldn’t finish, but she seemed to know what I meant, because she pulled me to her by my waist and gave me a slow, full-hearted kiss.

“Do it soon,” she said. “I’ll meet you later. Goodbye.” And she disappeared into the crowd.

I waited, put crackers into my dry mouth, said quick hellos, then made my move. I was fueled with wine, sliding through back hallways, full of love for Rebecca. It wasn’t fair that we couldn’t keep it—I hadn’t been fair, keeping it from her. Wouldn’t it all blow over sooner or later? The old case of the missing perfume, just like the painting, which was by now a tired page on an FBI website. In the storage room I stood still, feeling the weight of the vial in my jacket pocket, and Rebecca’s hands still around my waist. I had my treasure—not the painting anymore, but Rebecca. And she , such the devoted student of Poe, deserved to have the perfume. If it was time to return anything, it was the painting. With a wild surge of clarity and elation I rejoined the throngs of people, who had begun dancing as if to emulate my joy. I couldn’t wait to tell Rebecca, to see her face; I’d have liked to see her uncle’s too, just to show him my pleasure and confidence. But I found neither. Someone tugged at my elbow. It was Trina.

“You looking for Rebecca, Mr. Vance? She left a little while ago.”

I stared at her, baffled, then said, “No, Trina. I’m not looking for Rebecca.”