Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

The black SUV pulled over outside the Omni Parker House across from One Beacon. The driver got out and opened the door for the woman, and Maven made Danielle’s profile as he rolled on past. He nearly swerved into the oncoming lane, correcting and then turning around as soon as he could, but by the time he did, the SUV was gone.

Maven hadn’t been right since. He hadn’t crossed paths with her again — she’d been scarce the past few days — but now he saw her coming toward him from the restrooms. Precipice again, late on a Sunday night, Maven’s least favorite crowd. Only the idle rich could afford to party into early Monday morning, but Maven was running out of excuses not to come.

Danielle looked phenomenal in a midriff-baring halter top, but he didn’t respond to it the way he used to. It was the betrayal — the assumed betrayal — of Royce, and of him. She and Maven had had their own little thing going for some time now — low voltage, never to be consummated, but always there. Or — had they? Maybe she was that way with everybody. Maybe nothing at all was special about her relationship with Maven, and she was completely off on her own.

“No girlie-friend tonight?” she said, stopping before him, looking up.

Her usual condescension-slash-playfulness only soured him. “Not here.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“She’s home for the weekend.”

“She’s young.”

“I guess.”

“I didn’t know you went for the exotic type.”

“You mean, girls from Jersey?”

“Come on.” Danielle squeezed his hand. “Dance with me.”

“No, I think I’m good.”

“Pouting now?” She squinted up at him, getting a new perspective on a faraway object. “New look for you.”

In his mind, he was punishing her. “I’m good.”

“Fine.” She dropped his hand. “Fuck you. Bunch of wallflowers.”

She went out to the dance floor alone, and Maven didn’t feel any better.

Before long, Danielle found a partner. The guy’s shirt matched his tie exactly, cut from the same shimmery fabric, and this pissed off Maven for some reason. Danielle shimmied with him, but locked eyes with Maven, letting him know she was dancing for and without him. He finished his beer and made a point of looking away.

Everything was going to piss. Danielle, the crew. This place. Maven missed Samara.

But did he really miss her, or was he just looking to fill this void that was Danielle?

It was more than that. Samara Bahaar was the one clean, uncomplicated thing he had going.

He brought out his phone, texting her, Thinking of you, what’s up?

When he looked back out on the dance floor, the guy had Danielle by the arm. She tried to walk away, but he wanted more. Maven watched Danielle smile, trying to charm her way out of his grip, but all the guy saw was the smile. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arm across her bare waist, lights running all over them. He spoke into Danielle’s ear, his nose and mouth up in her hair. Danielle smiled in response, reaching up to his neck, then pinching a hunk of skin and twisting. The guy reared back, Danielle almost getting free, but he caught her arm again and shook her.

Then he looked up. Maven was standing in front of him.

“Fuck you want?” the guy yelled over the music.

Dance-floor lights spun between them. Maven said, “Just waiting for you to let her go.”

The guy pushed Danielle away, but stood his ground.

Danielle came up next to Maven. “Kick his fucking ass, Gridley.”

The guy reached out to shove him, and Maven hooked his right arm, driving a punch into his ribs, his kidney, then holding back on the knockout blow, laying him out without breaking his face.

The guy had friends, who came jumping out of the flashing lights and dance-floor screams, descending on Maven.

Fights are never about what they are about. It’s always some guy who got his heart stomped on earlier in the day, or who got shit on at work last week, who decides he doesn’t care about his face anymore. The incident that ignites the fight is just an excuse to start swinging.

This fight was Maven whaling on Danielle, her wayward behavior, her sluttiness and her partying, her desirability.

They were all separated in a blur, voices and arms and whatever. Somebody led him away, and Maven looked around for Glade or Suarez, but saw nobody he knew. He checked his face and found no blood, felt no real soreness. He was practically untouched. Then he discovered a tear in the underarm seam of his $350 Varvatos shirt, and he wished he’d fucking murdered the lot of them.

He was taken into the manager’s office through the mirrored door behind the DJ booth. Maven knew the manager, but the manager wasn’t there. He recognized the bouncer, who nodded to him, and Maven smiled, all set.

The dancer guy Maven had beat up was led inside, but not his friends. He had blood all over his matching tie and shirt.

One more guy stood inside the office, coming off the manager’s desk, a black guy Maven had never seen before. He was older, long-armed and tall, wearing a linen blazer and a buttoned shirt with no tie. Chewing gum, his long jaw masticating. A thin brown scarf hung around his neck. He pulled two soft silicone plugs out of his ears and set them down on the corner of the desk.

“Loud as a motherfucker up in this joint,” he said. “You reach a certain age, you stop going out to clubs. It’s a lot easier and a hell of a lot cheaper to sit at home and stab yourself in the ears.”

The dancer guy said, with some kind of European accent, “Who the fuck are you?”

The black guy slowly crossed the small office. The dancer guy backed up to the wall. The gum-chewing black guy opened the dancer guy’s jacket carefully, avoiding the bloodstains, and reached inside his breast pocket, coming out with a wallet.

The black guy then looked at Maven, Maven trying to figure out what an undercover cop would be doing in Club Precipice on a Sunday night. Maven raised his arms in a gesture of compliance and fished out his wallet, handing it over.

The black guy looked at the dancer guy’s ID, then Maven’s, comparing photographs to faces.

“My name is Lash. Federal agent. Drug Enforcement Administration.”

He said this while watching both their faces. Maven rode out the reverb of the revelation, fighting hard not to show any expression. It was like stepping down barefoot on a nail and not flinching from the pain, but he did it.

“What was the fight about?”

“What fight?” the dancer guy said.

“‘What fight?’ is exactly right. You’d do well to forget what a shit sloppy brawler you are. Though I bet tomorrow this story has a different ending, no?”

The dancer guy said, “You are police? I press charges. This man.” He pointed at Maven. “I sue!”

“You what?” said Lash.

“I sue!”

Lash lobbed his wallet back at him. “Get the fuck out of here, Sue.”

The dancer guy didn’t move at first. The bouncer opened the door, scowling, and he went.

Lash backed off, looking around the office. “No security cameras inside, huh?” he said to the bouncer.

“Inside?” said the bouncer. “No. People don’t like to think they’re being filmed.”

“All right, you can let yourself out too. We won’t be a minute.”

The bouncer hesitated a moment, then went out. Leaving Maven alone in the office with a DEA agent.

Lash tipped his ear to one side, trying to get a fix on Maven. “Who was the girl you two were fighting over?”

Maven shook his head. “I just saw her tonight.”

“Really.”

“Didn’t like the way he was treating her.”

“I see. Sir Galahad.”

Maven shrugged. “Just common sense.”