Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

This discussion was making Lash’s palms sweaty. “Out of my league.”

“But you could ask.”

“I could ask. You gonna give me something to chew on, or what?”

More silence, the moment weighing heavily on Tricky. “This could change a lot of things for me. Change everything. I’ll hit you back when I can.”

Maven held a sheaf of listings and a ring of keys grabbed off one of the Realtor’s desks. “I think you should take this one.”

He was trying to sell Samara on a tiny sublet near St. Mary’s Street, technically in Brookline but just three blocks outside Kenmore Square. She stood with her arms crossed, tapping a Puma sneaker on the refinished maple floor, looking out the window as a trolley passed. “Are the property fees included?”

“Property fees?” he said, flipping back through the listing sheet.

“You are the all-time worst Realtor.” She stood at the kitchen sink, trying it out. “I kind of want to be more in the city though.”

“At your price range?”

“Well, I plan on having a job.”

“It’s a sublet. It’s small, it’s clean. Very safe area. Available immediately.”

She wide-eyed him. “Now you’re a pressure salesman.”

He wanted her out of her old place and away from Lash as soon as possible. The rest of it — what to do about her forwarding her mail, for instance — he would worry about later. Including breaking up with her. It was rotten, but he had dug himself into a ditch here, and the only way to protect both himself and Samara was to dump her.

When the time was right. First things first.

He said, “I just don’t want you to miss out. Places like this, they go fast.”

“What about my current lease?”

“You can get out early.”

“Maybe if I had a roommate. Help with the rent...”

He was still searching the listing page for the property fees, so it was a while before he looked up to see her smiling.

She said, “Don’t you think it’s weird you still live with a bunch of guys?”

Maven stuttered out, “I don’t know.”

“My friends say it’s too good to be true. Four successful single guys living together on Marlborough Street who aren’t gay. They think you have to be drug dealers or something.”

Maven smiled sickly and went back to the listing sheet.

Lash’s intercession had Maven looking over his shoulder everywhere he went. He worked obsessively not to be traced or followed, feeling too conspicuous on his bike, taking alleys instead of streets if they were available. He stayed away from Marlborough Street whenever possible. He expected to see the DEA around every corner, and Maven’s not having crossed paths with Lash again only made him more anxious.

Maven followed him one day, in a rented car, away from DEA headquarters in Government Center out into Somerville, to, of all things, a college lacrosse match. Maven never got out of his car, waiting in the parking lot, almost driving away a dozen times, knowing he was taking a great risk — until Lash reappeared, Maven trailing him to the driveway of a triple-decker on Rogers Avenue before pulling off. After, he couldn’t fathom what he had thought he would gain by following the man who was trying to follow him, except maybe an ulcer.

He said nothing to Royce about the DEA. At first the choice tore at him, but soon he realized he needed to keep his distance from the man with whose girlfriend he was having an affair. Royce could sniff out the one lie at the bottom of a barrel full of truths. Maven felt twisted every which way, double- and triple-thinking his way through simple exchanges. No way could he tiptoe through this and come out okay at the end. Some sort of calamity was on its way — just as he had always known.

With a backpack on his shoulder, he walked into the Bank of America at the corner of Boylston and Exeter streets and was led down into the safe-deposit vault by the same assistant branch manager Royce had first taken him to. The man’s fingernails glistened under a coat of clear polish as he and Maven inserted their keys in Maven’s double-locked box door. Maven removed the three-by-ten-by-twenty-two-inch box, setting it down on the table next to a new, empty six-by-ten-by-twenty-two-inch box, whereupon the assistant manager left him alone in the examining room.

Maven opened the smaller box and transferred the stacks of cash into the larger one. He unzipped his backpack and added new bundles from the auto shop job.

Don’t count it.

A lot of paper in there. A three-inch stack of hundreds equaled roughly $70,000, and he had just grown out of a ten-by-twenty-two-inch box.

Don’t give it a number.

In his mind, it was his treasure, a glowing pile of wealth stowed deep inside a bank vault. In reality, it was a few pounds of paper tucked inside a metal box. He liked knowing he had it, but he didn’t like handling it, getting the smell of decomposing paper on his hands.

Losing something.

Maven’s answer to Royce’s question “What is the one thing worse than having nothing?”

He’d been having dreams of getting called back to Iraq. Of having to leave in the middle of the night, no time to prepare. Of getting ambushed on his way back into the Green Zone from the airport, taking a sniper round in the neck, bleeding out on the sandy side of the road.

It wasn’t dying that woke him up in a hot sweat. It was money unspent. It was the good life unlived.

He waited a good distance down Marlborough Street wearing a distressed trucker’s cap and a medium-length, tan jacket bought off the rack at the military surplus store on Boylston.

Danielle stepped out of the building in a short jacket and heeled boots, and Maven went on full alert, watching other pedestrians and cars as he trailed her across Newbury to the Copley MBTA station. He was following Danielle to see if she was being followed. He had to know if Lash was onto her.

Underground, he hung way back until the subway arrived. Guys checked her out, but Maven didn’t see anyone paying her anything more than passing attention.

He boarded the same inbound Green Line train she did, one car away. He could see her through two sets of windows when the jointed cars pivoted on the turns. She stood holding a strap near the door. At Boylston Station, she stepped out and switched cars, boarding his. A simple tail flip, maybe taught her by Royce. No one followed her from one car to the next. She was alone, or so she thought.

Maven sat head-down on a single seat near the center, looking like your typical subway psycho. He didn’t dare look up, as she was standing right next to him. He stared at her brown leather boots and waited.

It was just one stop. She moved to the door at Park Street, and he waited to rise and follow her.

A guy boarded the car, and she received his arm around her waist, greeting him with a kiss. Maven watched from between his coat sleeve and his threadbare cap brim as the doors closed and they huddled close, whispering, smiling.

The guy was lanky, big-nosed, not much to look at. He wore a Dr. Who — length scarf with stripes of black, gray, and white, brown loafers, and a corduroy jacket.

Maven lowered his arm such that his face was fully revealed. If Danielle had eyes for anybody but this stiff, she would have seen Maven sitting not three seats away from her, glaring.

But she didn’t. While the rest of the riders settled into their public-transit funk, she huddled close with Dr. Who, sliding her hand down the seam of his pleated pants, rubbing his cock. She said something more into his ear, and he grinned like a frog being kissed into a prince.

At North Station, they exited, and Maven stood and followed, completely exposed and not caring. He stopped after the turnstile, watching them go off, Danielle clutching the guy’s arm as they disappeared into the swarm. Maven had seen enough. He didn’t care to know any more.