Devils in Exile

Loose Ends

The movers were gone. Maven reassembled Samara’s bed and hooked up her wireless router and screwed in her curtain rods. At her insistence he checked the bathroom for landlord cameras and helped her test the intercom. While she unloaded her kitchen glassware, he walked to Chef Chang’s for takeout, rehearsing what he was going to say when he got back. He returned and, over orange-flavored chicken eaten off paper plates on a cardboard box, he broke up with her.

He said all the things you say, about how great she was and how sorry he felt, and he meant every word.

She sat there stunned, staring at the open boxes and empty walls. “This isn’t happening. How can I live here now? This place you got me. Everywhere I look... every time I walk in that door...” She looked at him as though he had morphed into someone else. “There’s something wrong. I’ve felt it.”

“No. Well — one thing. This client. Long story, but... see, I’m being sued. It’s a bullshit case, but they’re trying to serve me, you know, and they don’t have my address, so...”

“They don’t have the address of your office?”

“No, they have that. They don’t know that I live upstairs from there. So — remember my motorcycle registration? I’m just saying, if a guy comes around, a tall guy, black, older, pretty smooth — he might even try to show you a badge or claim he’s law enforcement or something — just know that you don’t have to tell him anything, okay? You don’t know me. I don’t want to see you dragged into this.”

She stared at him in such a way that he wasn’t sure she’d heard a word he’d said.

“Okay?” he said.

“Did you take money from someone?”

“What? No.”

“My dad, I didn’t tell you this, I don’t tell anyone, but he took some money from some clients, there was a scandal. He went to jail, I mean prison, for almost a year... and we had to move. But he paid it all back, and so I know how it is to fall behind sometimes and maybe get desperate...”

“Jesus — no, it’s nothing like that. I just... I just want to tie up all our loose ends.”

She stared, openmouthed. “God, that’s an ugly phrase.”

“I’m sorry.”

He had unpacked the contents of her desk with an eye out for anything linking him to her. His number was still in her phone, but he was going to dump that mobile. And with the bandits disbanding, there soon would be nothing to trace.

She stared at him, darkening, actively trying to read his mind. “Is it your boss’s girlfriend?”

Maven was stunned. He thought about lying, then blurted out, “Yes.”

“What?” She was more stunned than he had been. “What do you mean, yes? What the hell does that mean?”

“You just said—”

“I wasn’t serious. Oh my God...”

And on it went for another hour, Samara vacillating between sadness and anger, between self-examination and self-righteousness, the argument running its course until it ended as only it could, with her ordering him to get out.

He lingered at the stoop outside, letting the night air get at him. Knowing he had acted in her own best interest didn’t stop him from feeling like a shit. But if this was the worst of it, then he would be lucky.

They watched the Dr. Who guy, Curt Bellson, his comings and goings. They listened to calls he made and received. The usual drill, but executed with more care this time. A bit more respect for the process.

They staked out his South End condo. They double-tailed his Saab 9–3 convertible all around town, keeping an eye out for other tails: bounty hunters, or DEA. They even played “flat tire” outside a rambling old farmhouse in the rural suburb of Easton, surrounded by acres of cranberry bog, where the deal was set to go down.

Things fell into place quickly as Bellson moved up the timetable. This busy Boston dermatologist was on the verge of financial ruin, needing the proceeds from this deal to pay off partners in a real estate venture that had gone bust in the recession.

Maven focused on the work, pouring all his extra energy into hating this guy. Taking him down was going to be a pleasure.