Devils in Exile

Painted Rock

Termino must have tipped Royce, because Royce was in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of FIJI water when they got back from the surveillance.

Glade started speaking as soon as the door was closed. “So now there’s a fucking price on our heads.”

They had overheard their name during a ghost-phone snoop. Bad guys talking about a bounty on the Sugar Bandits, making plans accordingly.

Royce said, “That scares you.”

Glade rocked back as though Royce had swung a pillow at him. “It doesn’t make me feel good.”

“It’s a mark of honor. A sign of respect.”

Glade smiled sideways, looking at Royce as if he were being put on. “Okay, I gotta call bullshit on that one.”

Termino, laying his keys on the counter, said, “What’d you expect? We’d steal from these kingpins, and they’d like it?”

Royce said, “We stay tight, stay alert — we’re solid. Nothing has changed.”

Suarez said, “Nobody expected us before. We swooped in like ghosts. Now they’re looking for us. Waiting for us — expecting us.”

Maven said, “These guys are hiring cops now. That’s right — real cops. Dirty cops.”

Royce keyed in on that. “More.”

Maven said, “They got on to a BPD cop out of Hyde Park, and his partner.”

“You get names?”

Maven nodded.

“They’re paying protection?”

“For an escort. Sellers and buyers going in fifty-fifty.”

“How much?”

“Five hundy a key.”

Royce nodded, wheels turning. “That’s a good piece. What’s the load?”

“Between eighty and a hundred twenty keys.”

Royce smiled after a moment. “The tougher it gets to move the goods, the more they have to try to shove through at once. The more we take down, the bigger the scores that come to us.”

Glade said, “Did you miss the part about the cops?”

“So what?” said Royce. “As long as it’s not a surprise. We still have all the advantages. Anything we see coming we can neutralize.”

Suarez sat down on one of the padded stools, taking weight off his healing leg. “People coming at us now, instead of the other way around — that changes the game.”

“So we change with it. Come on. You’ve all dealt with insurgents before. This is the fun part. Unless you guys want to tail off, feel you have enough money...”

Maven grinned. Royce challenging them and enticing them at the same time. Playing Glade and Suarez like puppies.

Royce said, “How much you all worth anyway? Maybe I’ll turn you in myself.”

Begrudging smiles. Termino went to get himself a beer.

Royce said, “Step back and see this for what it is. This says we are making a significant impact. It says we are now the Man in town. Not the fuzz. Not the kingpins. Us, right here. And nobody knows anything about us, and nobody’s gonna know anything about us. So long as we stay razor sharp, as always.”

After silent nods, Glade said, “So, what, do we drop these guys? Wait for the next gig?”

“Are you high? Eighty to one hundred twenty keys?”

Termino returned with his beer. “Hell, fifty keys would be a major score.”

“But,” said Glade, “how’re we gonna work around cops?”

Royce looked at Termino. A thinking look, not a knowing look. Maven was still trying to read Royce. This turn of events had the side effect of revealing Royce and Termino’s partnership within the crew. Termino was Royce’s eyes and ears with the rest of them — which meant what? Was Royce being careful? Or concerned about something else?

Roycey.

Maven had all but ruled out Clearwater’s characterization. There had to be many Brad Royces out there. Plus, Clearwater’s memory had been a little squishy about other things.

Royce said, “All we’ve been through, and sometimes I think you haven’t learned a goddamn thing. Who’s got the most to lose in this whole thing? Not us, no. Hiding behind a badge — that makes a dirty cop supervulnerable. If we play it right.”

Suarez sat forward. “And how is that?”

Royce started to speak as the door opened. Danielle stepped inside, the five of them clustered around the granite countertop like players over a Stratego board. She wore tight jeans and a long, hippie-type blouse of thin, white linen, cinched up and bow-tied halfway down her waist, making a shelf for her chest.

She said, “You forgot to put up the NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign.”

Royce said, “What is it, darling?”

“I need to borrow Maven.” She turned to Maven. “I need a ride.”

Maven felt the others stir. He had become her unofficial chauffeur, and that had been all right with him in the beginning, when he was getting to know her. Now she expected him to come when she snapped. Now it made him look different in their eyes.

Maven said, “We’re right in the middle of something here.”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want? Me to say ‘please’?”

Maven nodded. “Yeah.”

“Fine. Please.”

Something in her eyes showed him that her “please” was real. She needed him, not just as a driver. He checked with Royce, who gave his permission with a hand wave.

Maven stood and caught the car keys she tossed him.

Maven pulled out of the alley at the wheel of Royce’s latest ride, a Mercedes-Benz Black Series two-seater. “Why couldn’t your boyfriend drive you?”

“I wanted you.”

“Why is that?”

Her head was turned toward the window, the radio playing so low that only the bass notes were audible. “I have to go back to Gridley, that’s why.”

“Gridley? What in God’s name for?”

“Just drive. Please.”

Another please. He waited for her to say something more, but she just sat there. “Fine,” said Maven, plucking Royce’s sunglasses from the visor, pushing the car into gear, and rolling out toward Storrow Drive.

She was quiet most of the way. Little pieces of the town had changed since his youth, but not so that it mattered. She directed him to a street he had never been down before, a 1980s-era development. It had an Indian name then, one he couldn’t recall now. The sign that had announced it was gone.

“Pull over on the street.”

He set the parking brake outside a house of dark brown wood, set back behind trees, its roof coated with green needles. A curtain flickered in a downstairs window.

“Christ, there they go,” said Danielle, picking up her clutch off the floor. “Freaking out about who’s parked outside their house. So fucking frightened in their small world, God.”

Maven made out silhouettes behind the sheer curtain. People looking out without realizing they themselves could be seen. “Is this your parents’ house?”

Danielle pulled out a small vial and poured a bump of cocaine onto the webbing of her left hand.

Maven said, “Hey — what the fuck do you think you’re—”

“Oh, fucking relax please.”

She upped it, trying to improve her mood. Maven’s dropped halfway between sickened and pissed off. “Where are you getting this shit?”

“What do you care? You don’t want any.”

“I care because I’m in the car with you, driving you around...”

“Oh, grow up. Jesus.”

“You have a problem.”

“No, what I have here is a solution.” She did another bump, delicately, in a practiced way.

“Jesus, Danny.”

She stuffed the vial inside the front left pocket of her jeans. “Just — shut up and come inside with me and be my friend, okay? For fifteen minutes. Okay?”

Maven got out of the Mercedes and followed her down the long driveway to the door. The shadows behind the window didn’t answer the bell until the second ring.

Danielle Vetti’s father was tall but without much bearing, a thin, gray mustache topping his mouth, a long, brown cardigan sloping off his shoulders over corduroy pants and slipper shoes. Danielle’s mother appeared behind him, wearing a heavier sweater, looking stern and concerned. They both had napkins tucked into their collars. The smell of broiled poultry and stewed vegetables passed through the screen.

“You remembered,” said Mr. Vetti.

Danielle nodded. “So can I come in?” Challenging him, as though the answer might be no.

She pulled open the screen door, and Maven followed her inside. She made no introductions, so he mumbled, “Hello,” and the Vettis nodded back with suspicion.

Danielle rounded the corner to a formal dining room. The long table was set for three, a chair at either end, and a special high-backed wheelchair in the middle. Maven remembered the Vetti family at that restaurant so long ago, the day he discovered — as though it were a scandal — that the hottest senior girl in high school had a handicapped sister.

Danielle leaned around the chair, whispering to its occupant, rubbing her sister’s forearm. Maven could not see around the chair back. He was acutely aware of the parents standing near him, ready to leap to intervene.

“I’ve already served the meal,” announced Mrs. Vetti.

Danielle stiffened, then finished what she was saying to her sister, and turned. “Call us down when it’s time for cake.”

She walked to the stairs, leaving Maven to step past her parents and follow her. He passed two school portraits of Danielle’s sister — heavily filtered, her face the center of a cloud, her eyes focused on something way beyond the camera — but none of Danielle.

Upstairs, Danielle entered a room with a stripped-down bed and a bare bureau and sealed boxes. She looked around, then stepped to the window and looked out onto the back slope of a lower section of roof, and the yard below.

“This is the window I used to sneak out of.”

She slid open the closet door, revealing plastic storage tubs, garbage bags full of old clothes, and more boxes. From the top shelf she pulled down an oversize book with a hard, black cardboard cover. She set it on the bed, opened it, and returned to the closet.

A modeling portfolio. Maven was struck by the way she set it out for him, with no explanation, no indication that it might be important to her that he see it.

Full-color headshots and swimsuit shots. Various advertisements, some torn right out of magazines, others bordered with product and model info. A few studio shots featuring different, outdated hairdos, of the kind you might have seen hanging on a wall at Supercuts in the late 1990s. Danielle smiling; Danielle pouting; Danielle tossing back her head in laughter. A jeans ad featuring her twirling a lasso and wearing dusty chaps. A Ralph Lauren — style shot of her playing croquet with a shirtless, unmuscled boy. And an underwear ad, a moody, soft-core Calvin Klein knockoff of Danielle sitting on a closed toilet seat in a scooped bra and lace panties, staring out at him from a decade ago, calling to him to come back in time.

He looked up. She had the vial out of her pocket again. She didn’t want to answer any questions from him, didn’t want to explain herself. Intimacy on her terms alone.

“You know the first time I did coke? Out in the woods during sixth-period study hall, junior year. One of the funnest days in my life. You know who gave it to me? Alex. Your sister.”

“What makes you think I want to know this?”

She dumped another lump onto her fist and hit up again. “One of the funnest days ever.”

Her mother’s voice called up from downstairs. “Danielle?”

Downstairs Danielle refused a chair, crouching instead at her sister’s side. Her name was Doreen. Her mouth sagged under red-rimmed eyes, her tremulous arms pale and swollen. Her fingernails were long, responsible for the scratches on her neck and face. Her hair was the same shade as Danielle’s, but short, home-cut.

A cake sat before her. One layer, frosted purple. Two candles in the center.

Mrs. Vetti sang “Happy Birthday,” and Mr. Vetti quietly joined in. Danielle just stared at the cake, not opening her mouth, not even faking it.

When they finished the song, Danielle blew out the twin candles for her sister.

Mrs. Vetti lifted two wrapped boxes to the table, and Doreen’s eyes found them immediately. Her downturned lips straightened into something like excitement, her tongue moving within her mouth.

“Here, Dory,” said Danielle, digging into her jeans pocket. For an insane moment, Maven thought she was going to pull out the vial of coke. She drew out a soft blue velvet jewelry pouch. “Open mine first.”

Danielle opened it for her, lifting out a stunning bracelet of platinum hearts spaced with purple amethyst gemstones. She held it out for her to see, then fixed the clasp around her younger sister’s trembling wrist.

“It looks pretty,” said Danielle.

“Pre-tty,” repeated Doreen. Though she seemed more taken with the velvet pouch it had come in.

Mrs. Vetti said, “That is much too fine for her.”

Danielle responded with a long, uncomfortable stare.

Mrs. Vetti pretended not to notice, picking up one of the wrapped presents. “Look, Doreen.” She ripped it open. “A pillow. A new pillow. Hypoallergenic.”

Maven stared at Danielle, wondering what she might do. Danielle was touching the bracelet on her sister’s wrist, petting it with one finger.

Mr. Vetti, oblivious to the gift giving, asked her, “Where are you living now?”

Danielle did not answer. She never even turned to acknowledge the question. She looked at her sister’s face, then hugged her in her seat, pressing her cheek against Doreen’s cheek, whispering, “I love you,” then standing and walking out to the foyer.

Doreen touched her cheek with her long-nailed hand, finding it wet from Danielle’s tears. She wiped hard, nearly slapping herself, wanting the wetness off her.

The screen door slammed, and Maven realized that Danielle had left.

She had him pull over in front of Beano’s Packie, under an arrow sign made up of flashing red, white, and blue bulbs. “You wanna get us a sixer?” she said.

“Look, Danny, you don’t want to—”

“Fine,” she said, throwing open the door and getting out. “Jesus.”

They left the mercedes in an old office park and walked past large mounds of excavated earth left over from the office park’s construction decades before. Danielle led the way into the adjoining lot of undeveloped land, bordering the commuter rail tracks.

The Pits, as the area was known to Gridley teenagers, overlapped Gridley and neighboring Avon. Shared police jurisdiction — and being accessible only on foot — meant essentially no police jurisdiction, and so into this no-man’s-land came the party kids looking for a weekend place to drink and hang.

Danielle set down the bag of beer, pulling out a quart of Mount Gay rum. “Fuck, look at this wasteland.” The low areas were littered with cans, bottles, and rotting tires. “And this was it. This was the place. Our Club Precipice. This shithole.”

Maven pulled a Red Stripe out of the bag. She of course bought beer that required a bottle opener. Maven had been in a similar fix many times in Eden. He hooked one of his lower incisors under the serrated edge of the cap, biting down, using his teeth for an opener. He spit out the cap and drank half at a gulp.

“I have to see that again,” said Danielle.

He opened one for her.

“I’m gonna clip you on my key chain,” she said, turning and wandering, double-fisted, toward the unfenced tracks.

Maven drank again. Now he was her babysitter. He went to a big rock slathered with years of graffiti, that the kids used to call Painted Rock, and leaned against it, facing the tracks.

He had been here once in high school, taken by a friend who straddled the line between outcast and in-crowd. They took turns drinking one bottle of horribly sour white wine while nobody talked to them. After a while he and his friend went off exploring, thinking maybe they could spy into some bedroom windows from atop the high dunes. When they came back, some kid who was popular but not tough asked if they were gay, which got everyone laughing because it was so hilarious to pick on losers. So Maven went back along the paths to a dead raccoon they had seen, picking it up by its tail and coming back to drop it into the comedian’s lap while he sat talking to some girl. The kid totally lost his shit and went running off screaming across the train tracks, slapping at himself as though his clothes were on fire, and Maven and his friend split, having had not such a bad night after all.

Someone had erected a cairn of stones from the track bed, and Danielle was dismantling it, hurling the stones into the trees, one by one. Maven watched her, wondering why that DEA cop would be asking questions about her and not Royce.

“Hey!” he said. “Come off of there.”

She turned and flipped him off. “What, you think I’m going to jump in front of an oncoming train or something? Trains jump in front of me, fuck.” She yelled it loud, both ways down the tracks: “Fuck!” The echoes carried off like escaping footsteps.

Maven smashed his bottle and opened another with his teeth. Everything smelled the same as it had those interminable summers, growing up. Wildflowers and berries, everything baking in the sun.

Danielle tossed her beer bottle, which landed in the bushes and did not shatter. She turned to walk off the tracks and stumbled on the stones, falling onto her ass. She kicked at the offending stones, smiling at herself, but didn’t get up. She sat there staring at Maven.

“What?” he said.

“You. Either you hate me right now, or you love me.”

Maven felt a cool tingle. “What are you talking about?”

“Nobody else puts up with me. Nobody bothers. You waste soooo much time on your boss’s girlfriend.”

“It’s true.”

“Okay. That’s not hate.”

Maven was annoyed enough to be truthful. “Then I guess I’m just another idiot in a long line of idiots.”

“I wonder who has the lower opinion of themselves, you or me?”

“It’s me.”

“But you don’t act out.” She took another drink, squinting up and down the sunny tracks. “Birthdays suck, you know that?”

She tossed the open quart of rum over to him. He caught it without spilling any and took a drink.

She got to her feet, still looking down the line at the train tracks heading into the city. “I was going to get magazine covers. I was going to make a million dollars and Doreen was going to come to New York with me, and I was going to take care of her.” She looked back at Maven with a smile that was pure pain. “And look how that turned out. Look how I turned out.”

Maven didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. She came over and took the rum back from him and drank.

“What else can you do with your teeth?” she asked, looking at him. “I had a friend who could do that thing where you knot a cherry stem with your tongue. She tried to teach me, but I sucked at it.” She was squinting, her face angled up toward the sun. “I want to see your tattoo.”

“I don’t have any tattoos.”

“The one that says BORN TO LOSE, where is it?” She raised his shirt, revealing his torso, halfheartedly trying to turn him around. “On your shoulders?”

“Hey,” he said, not persuasively.

Her hands stayed on his hard chest, flat but tender, a cross between a tickle and a caress. “This thing you have for me, Gridley. It’s not just a freshman hard-on, is it?”

“What thing?”

She grinned and pressed up against him, hands sliding down to his hips, just above the waistband of his cargo shorts. “You still think I’m something, don’t you?”

“I... Jesus... I know you are.”

His shirt was still up around his armpits, and she was brushing her clothed chest against his bare torso. He was getting hard against her hip. “What about your girlfriend? What would she say if she saw—”

“Don’t talk about her.”

Danielle’s mouth came up to his neck. She nuzzled his throat, whispering, “You ever think about me when you’re with her?”

He hadn’t done anything yet. His hands were still down at his sides. He was trying to think about Royce. Trying to remind himself of all the things the man had done for him. But it wasn’t going well.

He said into her ear, “You know I do.”

She kissed him on the mouth. Firm, yet yielding. Tasting, wanting to be tasted.

He was right up at that line. That line he would not cross. Because once across it, he was all in.

She tugged on the front of his shorts. She was undoing his belt. Unbuttoning the top button.

He touched her arms. Didn’t grab or hold them. A halfhearted protest at best.

“What?” She had his shorts open. She wasn’t stopping.

“Just... not here... not this way.”

She said, “Don’t you know by now that nothing ever happens the way you think it will?”

She untied her blouse and pulled it off her shoulders, hooking her thumbs into the straps of her bra and bringing them down so that her breasts fell over the band.

He was on overload. He was so hard, he could barely feel her hand gripping him.

“Jesus,” she said.

If only he had known, he would have jerked off that morning. He told her, “We might have to go twice.”

At some point, a midafternoon train raced past, Maven vaguely aware of the warning horn, the boulder vibrating beneath them. The rest was all a collision of past and present, of desire and attainment.

Then the drive home.

Maven started twenty different conversations in his head, none of which made it out of his mouth. Danielle sat with her eyes closed, probably not sleeping. Dreaming, maybe, but not sleeping.

Her smell was all over him. He didn’t regret this yet, if he would at all. He only wanted to know, what next? What do we do now? Will this ever happen again?

He backed into the alley garage, killed the engine, pressed the steering-wheel button to lower the garage door.

She turned to him and kissed him before he could speak, long but not deep. A shut-up kiss. She got out of the car, and he did the same.

Royce was coming downstairs with Termino as they went up. Maven was a few steps behind Danielle.

“Everything okay?” Royce asked, stopping.

Danielle shrugged and said, “Ask Gridley,” walking past him to the third floor.

Royce watched her go a moment, then turned to Maven. Maven gripped the handrail tightly, transferring all his panic there, so that the rest of him looked relaxed.

Royce said, “That bad, huh? You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

Maven felt Termino eyeing him more than Royce. “She, uh... we split a six-pack.”

Royce nodded and continued down the stairs, patting Maven lightly on the shoulder. “You could have said no, you know.”

Maven didn’t like the grin Termino gave him as he went past.