Devils in Exile

Going Back

He was outside the Bank of America at Boylston and Exeter when it opened Monday morning. He had no key or identification and so asked for the manager who had assisted him on his previous visits.

“Oh,” said the woman, stout with a pincushion face, lowering her voice. “Are you a friend of his?”

Maven caught the word no before it left his lips. “I am.”

“He... he won’t be coming back. For health reasons.”

She widened her eyes to stress the word health, and Maven knew she meant drugs. He answered questions based on his original safe-deposit-box application — the one Royce had taken him to — and passed a handwriting comparison. He was then led to the vault and his box door was unlocked and brought to the examining table. They left him alone and he opened the long lid, and it was exactly as he had feared.

Wiped out. As empty as his eye socket. He sat holding his throbbing head in his hands.

The Marlborough Street building was locked up, Roof Deck Properties and Management abandoned. Even the carriage-house garage was padlocked.

Maven was hungry and cold. He tried the Veterans Administration building on Causeway Street, but could not get past the front desk — again, lacking any form of identification. An administrator took pity on him however, offering him a flannel jacket with a ripped quilted lining out of the donation bin. She gave him a clinic pass, and the doctor cleaned out his orbit, redressed the wound, and gave him something for the pain.

Outside the clinic, Maven was throwing the sample pills in the trash when he saw a vet working cars at a traffic light. The guy’s cardboard sign said that he was disabled and hungry. Maven reacted more to the patrol cap on his head.

Maven started walking. He did 8.2 miles on his broken bootheel — the same route he used to run after his parking-lot shift — arriving in Quincy just before dark.

The pea green Parisienne left little space for the other tenants’ beaters in the cracked driveway. Maven climbed the rear steps to the top-floor entrance of the triple-decker. He thumped on the curtain-covered glass with a cold hand and waited while a light came on inside.

The door pulled open. “Hey, you’re early—”

The words died in Ricky’s open mouth as he recognized Maven.

“Neal?” he said, unable to hide his shock at Maven’s appearance.

Inside the kitchen, boxes of sugary cereal stood in the center of a Formica table. The house apartment hadn’t been updated since the late 1970s. Evidently the utilities were included in the rent because it was like a sauna inside and the radiator kept hissing.

Ricky looked drawn, purple under the eyes. A shaving cut under his chin had scabbed. He wore baggy, pajama-type shorts and a V-necked T-shirt with yellow underarm stains.

“You okay?” said Ricky. “You want something?”

Maven pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat, his feet burning.

Ricky seemed agitated, not knowing how to act or even how to stand still. “What happened to your... your face?”

“I fell down a flight of stairs.”

“Must have been one hell of a flight of stairs.” Ricky moved to the counter, opening cabinets fast. “Something to eat, maybe?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Uh... how about Campbell’s Chunky soup? Date’s okay.”

Maven rested an arm on the table. “Anything.”

Ricky plugged in an electric can opener, which made a whirring sound Maven hadn’t heard since he was a boy. Then a grinding noise, the can jumping off the blade halfway around. Ricky swore and fumbled for something in a drawer. He jimmied the can top with a long screwdriver in his good hand. “So. What brings you by?”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go. No money. No home. No clothes. Literally nothing.”

Ricky glanced back, still struggling with the can. “How can that be? What about your buddies?”

“They’re dead.”

Ricky’s screwdriver jimmying stopped. Then someone rapped at the door.

“Shit. Hey, that’s just a friend of mine... hang on, I’ll have him come back.” Ricky wiped his hands on his shorts and went out, closing the first door behind him before opening the second.

Maven got to his feet. He stood by the wall, listening, unable to make out anything. Hearing voices but not words.

Something came over him, and he rushed through the doors to the exterior landing.

The guy Ricky stood close to wore a parka and a knit cap. “Oh, hi,” said the guy, before Maven grabbed him by the front of his coat, spinning and throwing him inside through the two open doors, propelling him backward through the kitchen and into a living-room easy chair.

Ricky came rushing in behind them. “Neal — what in the hell?”

Maven held the guy by his collar, his other fist cocked. “Who are you! Who sent you!”

The guy in the chair couldn’t get out any words.

Ricky said, “Neal, that’s Greg, my buddy Greg...”

Greg looked freaked-out as Maven patted him down, going through his coat pockets, searching him hard. “Who sent you here?”

Ricky put a hand on Neal’s arm. “Neal, hey, come on—”

Maven shoved Ricky backward, and Ricky hit the TV table, knocking over one of his cheap speakers.

Maven found a couple of bucks in the guy’s jeans pocket and threw it into his lap. Then he found a medical vial inside the phone pocket of his coat. Maven yelled, “What the fuck is this?” Greg said nothing, looking to Ricky for help, not receiving any. Maven tossed the vial onto the sofa. “Who’s your supplier? Talk!”

Greg realized he was about to get hit. “I... a guy I work with.”

“Who?”

“Just a guy. I work at a managed-care facility.” Greg was teary. “A goddamn nursing home. He gives it to me, I bring it to Ricky. Ricky’s my friend. He’s sick.”

Maven caught his breath. He straightened, releasing Greg.

Greg was hyperventilating. “What are you? Some kind of cop?”

Maven reached down for him again, and Greg flinched as if he were going to get beat up, but Maven only pulled him to his feet. Maven fixed his coat somewhat, then stepped back. “Get out of here. Don’t ever come back.”

Greg looked at Ricky a moment, waiting for a contradictory word. Then he stuffed his money back inside his coat pockets and walked out the doors.

Maven stared at the floor, knowing he had lost it, knowing he wasn’t fully in control of himself yet.

When he looked up, the vial was gone from the sofa. Ricky stood with his head down.

Maven walked to the kitchen. He bent back the cover of the hacked-open can and gobbled down the cold soup. Lumpy, gelatinous paste, but he barely tasted it, the food landing in his stomach like a fist.

He slid the long-shaft screwdriver into his belt. He found Ricky’s car keys hanging on a peg near the door, next to Ricky’s patrol cap. Maven took both.

Maven said, “I need to borrow your car.”