Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

The music was less pounding in here. To his immediate left stood a Middle Eastern guy in his early twenties. Charcoal suit jacket, red silk shirt. Army age, for sure. Possibly Iranian or even Iraqi, impossible to tell in the cool blue light. Precipice hosted its share of layabout Euro trash and Middle Eastern money. Maven eyed him via the mirror backing the bar. Fate put a cocktail in one man’s hands and a rifle in another’s. In another room halfway across the world, Maven and this guy might have been enemy combatants. Here they were just two more guys on the make.

Their drinks arrived together, and Maven paid for both. He pulled out his lime wedge and stirrer and left them on the bar napkin, toasting the guy with a quick nod before pushing off from the bar and heading away.

“Mave!”

Just past the curtain at the next doorway, Jimmy Glade stood bookended by two ladies in thigh-length dresses, all bare shoulders and full legs, each with a bit of glitter mixed with the color on their cheeks. One blonde standout and her more eager brunette friend.

Milkshake shouted introductions, Maven shaking each woman’s warm little hand.

Realtors, were they, Maven and Glade. Housemates in a condo on Marlborough Street. Glade had already hit all the selling points. “Their first time here!” shouted Glade, showing Maven his Jackpot! face.

Milkshake should have been a military recruiter. There wasn’t much to Jimmy Glade — he was big and square-headed and more goofy than funny — but he had confidence, and he had a strategy. A few months back, Glade had generously offered to take Maven under his wing. Maven’s experience chatting up hot girls in clubs was zilch. For a time he picked up Glade’s routine, his patter. Most guys were hesitant to approach girls in pairs, in threes, but that was Glade’s comfort zone, that was where he worked best, playing girlfriends off each other. Flattering questions (“What would you say is her most attractive feature?”). Soliciting opinions (“Which do you prefer, somebody who plays the game, or a guy who calls you right away?”). Sparking competition (“So which one of you is the smartest?”). Everything he did worked. That was the insane thing. Granted, sharp clothes and flash money helped too. As did copious amounts of alcohol. Bizarrely, so did borderline insults (“Your hair is getting a little crazy there.”) and heavy-handed divisive ploys (“I’m trying to figure out which one of you has the prettier smile.”). If you establish a competitive situation, women will compete. That was his secret. Glade was never the object of their desire, merely the facilitator. By challenging them, by provoking jealousies and conflicts — exposing the rivalry inherent in most female friendships — he established a contest wherein he was both referee and grand prize.

Genius. To a point.

Because Glade’s play went way beyond game. His thing was steering two or more buzzed girlfriends back to the Marlborough Street pad and, in the wee small hours of the morning, Howard Sterning them into consummating their hot-girl friendship. He was into “making” lesbians. But that wasn’t the weird part. In fact, for a while, that was the best-roommate-in-the-history-of-the-world part. No, the skeevy thing was that Glade never slept with them himself. He was totally content to play mind games and memorialize the seduction on his handheld Sony, screening his masterwork the next day on the flat screen in the living room for all to enjoy. No saint was Maven — he had spent those heady first few months in a pleasant and near constant state of debauchery — but Glade’s Machiavellian zeal, and that he got off on the manipulative aspect of it rather than the girls themselves, cast a shadow of sadism over the entire affair that had ruined it for Maven. Glade’s creepy coaching and coercion, and the girls’ sloppy tongue kisses, all viewed through the unblinking eye of his camera, got repetitive for everyone but him.

Glade, arms around both young ladies, said to the brunette about the blonde, “Wow, her waist is small .”

The blonde leaned winningly into Maven, speaking into his lowered ear, something he couldn’t quite catch, Maven getting every third word of it. Something about loving dancing ever since doing gymnastics when she was a kid. She squeezed his forearm as she spoke, sending all the signals, but foreseeing her future manipulation at Milkshake’s hands killed it for Maven. He made nice and hung around only as long as he needed to, not to step on Glade’s game, then excused himself.

“You heading back to the pad?” said Glade.

“Yeah, in a while.”

He rubbed both girls’ backs. “Maybe we’ll see you there.”

The blonde reached for Maven, but he pretended not to see it and left her to the night.

He spotted Termino leaning against a bar in one of the back rooms. Termino was probably the least dressed-up guy in the place, wearing a long suede jacket over a white shirt, black pants, black shit-kickers. He usually had something good going, but kept his playmaking skills to himself.

Maven caught his eye, asking, with a shrug, Where is he?

Termino gave a little head dip toward the back booths. As he did so, a lady standing next to him turned to see who had claimed his attention, and a hot sigh emptied Maven’s lungs. She was a Pam Grier — in-her-prime type with a neckline that plunged like the hopes and dreams of every guy in that room whose name wasn’t Lew Termino. Maven saluted her, as the military had trained him to do to any person who clearly outranked him — and that salute was his first indication that maybe the drinks were starting to hit home.

Royce was seated alone at an oval table in back, before a half dozen picked-over platters of food, his face lit by his BlackBerry. Laser lights scribed geometric patterns on every table except Royce’s, who’d nixed it as he always did with a quiet word to the floor manager. As Maven slid in over the plush red banquette toward him, Royce clicked his PDA dark. “What say you, Mercutio?”

Maven sat back and stretched out his neck. “Headache.”

Royce nodded to Maven’s cocktail. “That’s not going to help you any. Get some distilled water in you, try some caffeine.”

Maven, angling his head around to crack his neck, saw a small silver clutch on the other side of Royce. “Think Danny has anything for it?”

Royce passed him the clutch, going back to his PDA. “All kinds of shit, good luck.”

Maven unsnapped the clasp and picked through the contents. A folding brush, mini-hairspray, some hair wax. Lip and eye stuff. Altoids. Her little red phone, an open pack of Camels. A dozen or more twenties and fifties crumpled like tissues. A flat, ornamental pillbox. A small amber vial.

Maven almost pulled out the vial, so struck was he by its appearance. A tiny brown test tube with a silver screw top. He tried to get a better look, but given the darkness of the table, it was impossible. He turned it over and felt some substance shifting inside — then became self-conscious next to Royce and shoved the little vial back down underneath the bills and snap-closed the purse.

“No?” said Royce, clicking off again.

Maven shook his head and slid the bag back to him. Royce plucked a shrimp from one of the platters and swiped it through some sauce on its way to his mouth. “Try this. From Changsho. Salt and Pepper Crispy Shrimp.”

Maven passed. Whenever they went to Precipice, which was two or three times each week, Royce ordered several dishes from his favorite high-end eateries, cabbing them in from all across Boston and Cambridge. Maven recognized yellowtail sushi from Oishii, raw Kumamoto oysters from B&G, a hanger steak from Craigie Street Bistrot. He liked the Texas beef ribs with hot sauce from Redbones, and the buffalo wings from Green Street, but didn’t see either of those here. Despite all the other traits Maven had cribbed from Royce, the fine-food obsession had yet to take hold.