Devils in Exile

Cipher

Samara wanted to buy him a sweater. “I don’t know why, I just think it’s going to be a cold fall.”

They were walking through the Center Court of the Prudential Center in shorts and T-shirts. “No girl has ever bought me anything before.”

“Something nice. So you have to promise me you like it. No politeness.” She was going through her bag for something, but instead came upon a crumpled envelope and pulled it out. “Oh — and having mail sent to my place?”

It was from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. His motorcycle registration. He didn’t want the Marlborough Street addy linked to him on paper, and needed a street address for the bike.

“I meant to mention this,” he told her. “The insurance is much higher if I garage this in the Back Bay than in Allston.”

“Really? I would think it’s the other way around.”

“Insurance fraud is a year upstate, tops. I know you’ll take the fall rather than rat me out.”

A passing voice said, “Is that fucking Cipher?”

Maven didn’t stop right away. His first impulse was to keep on walking.

The suit threw him off. As did the haircut, parted on the side, a few inches longer than regulation.

“You fucking pussy,” said the guy. Big smile on his face. “Ho-lee shit. Cipher in the flesh.”

“Clearwater,” said Maven. “Jesus Christ.”

They hugged in the middle of the shopping arcade, the older man in the pin-striped suit, Maven in cargo shorts. The backslaps came hard and loud until Clearwater shoved him off. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Fucking minding my own business. What about you? You were supposed to be a lifer.”

“My twenty was up. I work in the Pru tower. Forty-fourth floor. Investments.”

Maven said, “What, you have a career or something?”

“Or something. Jesus, you got fat.”

Maven smiled. Clearwater was in good shape for a twice-divorced vet in his forties. Maven remembered Samara and introduced her.

“Apologies for the profanities,” said Clearwater. “Army buddies.”

“I figured,” she said.

“It’s just that I can’t believe I’m back in civilization standing here with fucking Cipher.”

“Cipher?” said Samara.

Clearwater said, “This kid. So fucking quiet when he came in. Borderline challenged, you know what I’m saying? We took bets on him, either this kid would be a total washout, crying into his pillow at night, or else the ultimate killing machine. I lost money on his ass, but he did us proud. Did us goddamned proud.”

Maven shook his head, wanting Clearwater to shut up.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Clearwater. He turned to Samara. “Gimme fifteen minutes with him, to catch up. You come too. I got stories that’ll straighten your hair.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m going to go cruise Saks. You guys catch up without me.”

“Twenty minutes,” said Clearwater.

“Fifteen,” she said, blowing Maven a kiss and walking off.

Legal Sea Foods was nearest, the S-shaped bar empty at three o’clock, overlooking Boylston Street at the end of the arcade. Three quick shots of Hangar One led to a lot of shoulder squeezing and many more fucks.

“I looked up to you, man,” said Maven. “We all did. You had it fucking figured out. You knew your shit. Mr. Been There, Fucked That.”

“It was the uniform, boy. I put it on, I became that guy. Look at this fucking uniform now.”

“Still getting it done though. Forty-fourth floor?”

“I’m just starting out. My brother-in-law, he brought me in.”

“Whoa, hold up. Fucking married again?”

“Why the fuck you think I’m here clinging to you now?” Clearwater pushed away their glasses, loosened his necktie, ordered two more. “So what about you? No work on a weekday afternoon?”

“Flexible hours.” The vodkas came, Maven’s swimming pleasantly in his view. “Working for another vet now. Reminds me a little of you.”

“Handsome feller, hm? What’s his name, maybe I know him.”

“Royce.”

“Royce. Like a Rolls? That’s his first name?”

“Brad.”

“Brad Royce. Brad Royce.” Clearwater brought his drink to his lips, then pulled it away before drinking. “I knew a Brad Royce in Germany.”

Maven nodded. “Germany, yeah. Early nineties?”

“He looks like?”

Maven dithered. “Dark hair. I don’t know.”

“Royce. Roycey. Yeah. There fucking was a guy.”

“A medic?”

“Nonononono. The Roycey I knew was an MP. Fucking ran that base. Shifty motherfuckers, the military police. Like fucking Newkirk, remember him, that RAF chap on Hogan’s Heroes? You know, the Family Feud guy...”

“Richard Dawson.”

“The same. Richard Dawson. Cool bloke. He’s missed. Here’s to Richard Dawson.” Clearwater downed his drink.

Maven sipped his. “I think he’s still alive.”

“Hope so, we need more like him.” Clearwater exhaled and set his shot glass down on the bar. “Where was I? Right — MPs. Fucking black marketeer, this little snake. Never trusted him. Supply battalion, he had it all sewed up. Porn. Electronics. Contraband.”

Maven had a clogged feeling in his chest. “No. Not the same guy. Different Brad Royce.”

“You fucking hope so. Fucking Roycey. I think about him sometimes, wonder where he’s at. Guy like that. I wonder about a lot of guys. But not Cipher. Not no more.”

Maven stared at his drink, then swallowed it, grimacing through the hurt.

“One more,” said Clearwater.

“No,” said Maven, putting out his hand.

Samara arrived with a Barneys New York shopping bag. “I’ve been calling you.”

“Uh-oh,” said Clearwater.

Maven fumbled out his phone. “I had it set to vibrate.”

“You didn’t feel it?”

“Not really feeling much of anything right now.”

“Blame me,” said Clearwater, trying to pay.

Maven refused, laying out the cash himself.

“Look at you,” said Clearwater.

Outside, at the escalator leading down, Clearwater had a big hug for both Maven and Samara. His jacket was crumpled over his arm and his shirt was puffed out of the waist of his pants. “You’re a sweetheart,” he said to Samara, then punched Maven in the chest. “You too.”

Clearwater stepped onto the escalator, riding it down to street level.

Samara turned to Maven, more scandalized than angry. “Are you drunk?”

Maven shook his head. “Just out of practice.”

“Still up for the movie?”

“Absolutely.”

He didn’t stop thinking about Clearwater’s Royce until ten minutes after the opening credits, when he fell asleep.

Maven rode out to Quincy following the same route he used to jog on his runs home from the parking lot. Now he was on a Harley Softail, the late-night air rippling his leather jacket.

He cut the engine at the pumps outside City Oasis, rolling silently to the front window. Through the phone-plan ads and milk prices stuck to the glass, he saw Ricky slumped on a stool behind the counter, patrol cap atop his head. Maven watched him for a long minute, Ricky kind of staring off, mumbling to himself.

Ricky saw him then, and his smile went ear-wide before he could contain it. He came around the counter, out through the bell-rigged doors.

Ricky was skinnier and shorter than Maven recalled, or maybe it was Maven’s bootheels.

“I told you I’d be by.”

Ricky wiped his dry mouth with the back of his hand, trying to squash his giddy grin. He was taking a good look at the bike. “Holy shit.”

“Take her for a spin.”

Ricky shook his head. “I don’t want to ride it. I want to make out with it.”

Maven got him to sit on the seat. Ricky tried out the handlebars, then shook his head, giggling a little. “Fuck you.”

“I know it.”

“You fuckin’ dick.”

They were both all smiles.

Ricky said, “Check out my ride.”

Parked near the 75-cent air dispenser was a twenty-year-old, pea green Pontiac Parisienne. “Seriously?” said Maven.

Ricky stood by it with pride. It was a sweet sled in its own retro way: gas tank cap behind the pull-down rear license plate; original velour upholstery; original radio. The kind of lean four-door sedan an undercover 1980s TV detective would drive.

“This is the tits,” said Maven, relieved not to have to bullshit him.

“Needs some transmission work. Suspension. Brakes. But I like it.”

Inside, Ricky treated Maven to a blue raspberry Slush, poured with a shaky hand. “Store’s the same, huh? I tried to pick up some day shifts, but the sun fucks with me. Needling headaches.”

They caught up a bit, interrupted by two paramedics coming in for cigarettes and junk food, who failed to see the irony. Ricky was brisk with them, borderline rude, throwing their change so he could get back to Maven, as though he were afraid Maven would disappear again.

“How’s your thing?” Ricky asked. “Going good?”

“It’s going. You know.”

“If it doesn’t work out, you can always...”

“Yeah. Good to know.” They smiled.

“I’m checking in the newspapers now. He’s got me doing the candy order once a week, though I always screw it up.” Ricky pulled off his cap, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his hand, swiping sweat off his brow. Giving Maven a good look at the ding in his head, where his hair would never grow back.

The door chimed, a transvestite walking in with his head held high. Maven remembered the guy. He went straight to the customer bathroom, as always.

“Nothing really changes in my world,” said Ricky.

They talked more about his car until the tranny came out of the bathroom and brought some Schick Quattro blades to the counter.

“Fuck,” sighed Ricky.

“It’s cool,” said Maven, settling him down. He pointed to the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. “I’m gonna...”

“Sure.”

Maven saw his blue tongue and lips in the lopsided mirror over the employee toilet. He was a different guy from the one who used to stand here taking a leak. He flushed, splashed some water on his hands, looked around for a roll of paper towels. He didn’t find any, instead seeing a leather pouch tucked up on the sill of the high, frosted window.

He dried his hands on the thighs of his jeans, staring at this thing. He reached up and pulled it down. He unzipped it.

Inside was a glass-barreled needle and a length of rubber tubing, and a glass ampoule of clear fluid. The white manufacturer’s label read, “2 ml Fentanyl Citrate — WARNING: May Be Habit Forming.”

Maven knew fentanyl. A prescription drug for cancer patients or long-term pain management. Like OxyContin but more powerful. Something like eighty times more potent than heroin.

Maven went cool and shaky, as though he’d hit up on the stuff just by holding the kit in his hands. He zipped it shut and set it back on the sill. He stood there a long time, immobilized, until he realized that the longer he waited, the better the chance Ricky would know he’d been found out.

Ricky was tearing open a pack of Sour Patch Kids when Maven returned. Ricky was smiling, but everything had slowed down for Maven. He fixed on Ricky’s froth-white skin and raccoon-mask eyes. The sweat stain around his collar.

“Tyra’s coming on soon,” said Ricky. “You gonna hang out, watch with me?”

Maven couldn’t remember what he said, or how he did it, but he got away soon after that and took the long way home.