Black Violet

by Alex Hyland

  ‘Why don’t you stop by this weekend,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you something to eat. Home-cooked meal.’

  I glanced back at her. She smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But...I’m kind of busy this weekend.’

  ‘Are you sure? Dominic won’t be back until Sunday night.’

  I stared carefully at her. There was definitely something attractive about her, but that’s not what this was about. Polly was one of three single mothers that I was regularly helping financially these days. They were just local people who I’d go talking to – moms who were struggling, who had kids that I understood. I might have been helping them, but the truth was I needed them more than they needed me. I wasn’t about to mess with that.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘But thanks.’

  I paid for the champagne and headed home.

  Saturday morning hit me with bright sunshine and a burning hangover. I ached like I’d been hit by a brick, but that was par for the course these days. I hauled myself up in bed and glanced at the phone. Jon hadn’t called yet, but he was always busy, always everywhere. I can’t remember the last time he’d spent more than two weeks in the city.

  I grabbed a near-empty champagne bottle off the floor, took a mouthful, and glanced at Linda lying naked beside me. I smiled. She was all woman – soft hips, full breasts and thick brown hair. She looked like she belonged in a Renaissance painting. I kept my eyes on her, and for a moment felt bad that she was engaged. She was my oldest friend and one of the few people who knew anything about me. We’d always slept together, on and off, but she wanted kids now. In April she was marrying some dermatologist in LA named Kirk. I was just a last fling before she settled down to family life.

  She stretched out in the bed and smiled coyly at me.

  ‘Tell me how much you love me,’ she said.

  I laughed.

  ‘Good morning,’ I replied.

  She rolled over and threw her arms around me. ‘Come on, tell me,’ she said. ‘Would you climb the highest mountain for me?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about swim the deepest ocean?’

  ‘I don’t know, is it near the mountain?’

  She kissed me on the neck. ‘And would you steal the most beautiful little Mercedes for me?’

  ‘Why don’t I just steal that first and you can drive up the mountain yourself.’

  She smiled, then took the champagne bottle from me and raised it to her lips. She looked me up and down like I was the sexiest fucking thing on the planet. And, for her, maybe I was.

  She lay back on the pillow.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Just once. Tell me.’

  ‘Fine. I love you.’

  She stared blankly at me. ‘That’s the best you’ve got?’

  I laughed. I leaned in to kiss her, but she stopped me.

  ‘Don’t you even come near me, dragon breath,’ she said.

  She pushed me away, grabbed the newspapers from the bedside table and started browsing the headlines.

  ‘So what do you want to do today?’ I asked.

  She glanced distastefully at the red marble walls of the bedroom. ‘Whatever, just so long as we’re out of this place.’

  She continued browsing the headlines. A story in the Times then caught her eye. Its headline read, ‘Berghoff Family Executed.’

  She shook her head to herself.

  ‘They found the bodies,’ she said. ‘That’s fucked.’

  ‘Yeah, well...I think everyone knew they were dead.’

  I glanced at the story – it made for some hard reading. David Berghoff was the chairman of the Charter Berghoff Bank in Chicago. Two months ago his family were kidnapped by an armed gang. Holding the family hostage, the gang forced Berghoff to disable the security at the bank and open the vault. The gang got inside, but the safe deposit boxes were all triple-keyed – Berghoff couldn’t open them. They shot him dead and got out. However, Berghoff had managed to set off an alarm, and the gang ran into a firefight outside the bank. Four police officers died. Three of the gang burned to death in a car, but another two got away. Now Berghoff’s wife and kids had been found shot in the back of the head. I swear, whenever I had any guilt about stealing for a living, all I had to do was read a story like that, and I felt like a fucking saint.

  I took a mouthful of champagne and stared back at the phone. Linda smiled at me.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll call,’ she said.

  I nodded. My door intercom then buzzed.

  Linda glanced at me. ‘Expecting someone?’

  I shrugged. It had just gone nine – probably the neighbors wanting something. I pulled on some clothes and headed for the door. I hit the intercom button.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  ‘Can I speak to Mr Violet, please?’ came a man’s voice. I didn’t recognize it.

  ‘Speaking,’ I said. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘I’m Officer Philip Reed, San Francisco PD. I’m with Officer Ray Meron. We’d like speak to you.’

  I froze.

  Fuck.

  I glanced at the living room window. It opened onto a tiny balcony that overlooked the street four floors below. About ten feet from the balcony were the upper branches of an oak. I’d jumped into the oak once before, but that was for a drunken bet – nearly broke my fucking leg.

  I gathered myself. They may not be here for me. If they weren’t, then not letting them in was going to raise some eyebrows. If they were, I’d jump.

  I hit the intercom button again. ‘Fourth floor,’ I said, and buzzed them in.

  The elevator was broken – eight flights of stairs would take them a minute or so.

  ‘It’s the police,’ I said to Linda.

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘I might have to get out of here.’

  Linda scrambled into her clothes.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Kirk can’t know I’m here!’ she said.

  I opened the apartment door. I could hear them coming up the stairs, about five flights below. Linda hopped toward the door, pulling on her shoes and zipping up her dress. I glanced up the stairs.

  ‘Wait at the top,’ I said. ‘The moment they’re in the apartment, get out of here.’

  Linda scurried up the stairs. I quietly closed the door behind her, darted into the living room and pulled the sofa away from the wall. The sofa’s rear upholstery was Velcroed in one corner. I ripped it open. Inside were neatly stacked blocks of cash in zip-lock bags. About a hundred and fifty grand. I threw the cash into a black shoulder bag and headed over to the balcony window. I opened the window slightly – left the bag beside it.

  I couldn’t believe this. Jon wouldn’t have tipped-off the police. He might have hated that I was a thief – hated it enough not speak to me. But he wouldn’t have told the police.

  But maybe that’s why he’d called. Fuck.

  There was a knock at the door. I pushed the sofa back against the wall, then checked the window one more time. Everything was set.

  I headed to the door and opened it. Two uniformed cops in their thirties stood in the hallway.

  ‘Mr Violet?’ said one of them.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m Officer Reed. This is Officer Meron.’

  Meron nodded politely.

  ‘Can we come in, please?’ said Reed.

  I showed them into the living room and invited them to sit on the sofa. I kept myself as close to the window as I could without making it look obvious.

  ‘Would you like to sit down, Mr. Violet?’ said Reed.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Reed and Meron glanced at each other for a moment.

  ‘You’re the brother of Jonathan Violet, the journalist?’ said Reed.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  He took a deep breath. ‘It’s my unfortunate duty to have to tell you that your brother was killed two days ago in a burglary at his home.’

  I stared blankly at him.

  ‘We’re sorry,
Mr Violet,’ said Meron.

  Time slowed to a halt. I couldn’t believe it. This had to be a mistake.

  ‘But…but there was nothing in the paper,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Reed. ‘We spoke to his editor at the World Review. They didn’t want to run the story until we’d spoken to you. I understand there’s no other immediate family?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘No,’ I said.

  I felt myself fading away. Like it was me who was gone – like I’d just disappeared.

  I gazed at the shoulder bag resting beside the living room window. I wouldn’t have jumped. I’d have told them everything. They could have locked me up and thrown away the key. Just not this.

  2.

  Gold’s Hour is an old colonial house about forty miles south of Monterey. It sits on its own down a sandy road overlooking the Pacific. The beach there is mainly rocks, but the house is beautiful. White pillars and wood. Cypress trees hiding it from the road.

  It belongs to a woman named Miriam Reece – it was a gift from a grateful client that she used to look after. Miriam had lived there for about eight years, but she was moving to Seattle in the spring, and the house would soon be closed. The windows on the ocean side all had mattresses hanging from them as they aired, like the rooms were sticking their tongues out.

  I lay on a bare bed in an upstairs room, and gazed at the tiny pink flowers in the wallpaper. I’d been lying there for maybe two days now. Petunias, I think. Yeah, they were definitely petunias.

  A breeze blew in through the open sea-view window, and Solange padded barefoot into the room. A glossy redhead in a deep blue silk robe, she held a carved wooden pipe in her hand. Four thousand dollars a day for her.

  She knelt by the bed and smiled. I nodded. She held a tiny blue flame to the pipe, and the heroin began to bubble. A rancid vinegary smell, but that was OK. Everything was OK now. I put my lips to the pipe, then laid back on the bed and just drifted – a lone pleasure boat heading out to sea.

  Solange took off her robe. She eyed me for a moment, then slowly began to dance. Naked curves and sways. The sound of her feet brushing against the floorboards.

  I watched as she rolled and arced – as she painted shapes in front of me. The beauty of it all. The setting sun burning gold behind her. The sea glittering to the horizon. And I began to laugh at how meaningless it all was – and those poor bastards who believe anything else. The priest who’d visited me, his eyes warm with sympathy as he’d talked about Jon and finding meaning in God’s great universe. There was none.

  The universe. It’s like Solange. You can read whatever you want into her smile, but the truth is she doesn’t give a solitary shit about you.

  I closed my eyes and drifted. The pain sinking beneath the waves once again.

  Olivet Memorial Park shimmered a warm green in the Tuesday morning light. I stood at the outer edge of the mourners around Jon’s grave – maybe a hundred of them. A halo of crisp black suits and dresses. They were mostly colleagues of Jon’s – media people – I didn’t know any of them. Aside from my Uncle Harry and a couple of faces from the old neighborhood, I kept myself distant.

  As we waited for Jon’s editor to address us, I gazed at my parents’ graves lying just beyond Jon’s. They’d died in a hotel fire in Santa Cruz when I was thirteen. Jon was fifteen. I rarely visited their graves. The fire hadn’t left much, and the coffins were empty aside from a few personal belongings. Whenever I wanted to feel close to them, I usually drove to Bodega Bay. It had been their favorite place.

  Jon’s editor, Simon Faro, emerged through the crowd. In his sixties. Manicured hands. Patek Philippe chronograph. Probably spent his life in old school ties and wood-paneled rooms.

  He took his place at the graveside.

  ‘Jon was a crusader,’ he said. ‘Fearless. A man who fought corruption and criminality at every turn. Who wrote with power and insight. That he should have been taken so early is not merely a tragedy for those of us who knew him, and who have lost a dear friend…but to the entire nation, which has lost a valuable voice. In an often questionable world, Jon was a haven of strength. He was the best of us. He will be missed.’

  It felt like he was talking to me. Like the world would be a better place if I’d been lying there instead of Jon. And I think I’d have been alright with that trade.

  Not that Simon Faro knew the first thing about me. As far as he and everyone else here were concerned, I was simply a brother that Jon had grown apart from. There was only one mourner who looked like they might have known the reason why.

  She stood alone, way back from everyone. In her early thirties. Raven black hair, deathly white skin – she looked like the ghost of a woman who’d been beautiful once. I didn’t know her name, but from the way she was looking at me – a harsh unwavering stare – it was a good bet that Jon had told her something. I guessed that she must have been his girlfriend.

  I felt uneasy and turned away – caught sight of Uncle Harry weaving toward me. He looked every inch like the high school math teacher he was. Ill-fitting suit. Straggly gray hair. He was my dad’s brother and about the only family I had left now. Jon and I went to live with him in Oakland after Mom and Dad died. A stickler for rules and regulations, he’d tried his best, I’ll give him that.

  He ushered me away from the mourners, then took a folded note from his coat pocket and offered it to me.

  ‘Simon’s address,’ he said.

  The wake was going to be held at Simon Faro’s house in Hillsborough.

  ‘I can’t go,’ I replied.

  ‘You need to be there, Michael.’

  ‘Come on, I don’t know these people.’

  ‘Linda’s going to be there.’

  Linda couldn’t get into town until the afternoon. But seeing her was just going to make me feel worse – she reminded me of better days, and I couldn’t think about them now.

  I gazed at the memorial garden just beyond us – at the tiny white envelopes resting against the rose stems. Messages from the lonely to the lost. I remembered seeing similar envelopes after my parents died – how I’d just wanted to gather them all up and throw them into the wind.

  I took a deep breath and rubbed some life into my face.

  ‘I’m thinking of getting away for a while,’ I said.

  Harry eyed me for a moment, then nodded. ‘That might be a good idea.’

  ‘Europe maybe, I don’t know.’

  I reached into my jacket pocket and took out my wallet.

  ‘You need anything?’ I said. ‘Any money?’

  He shook his head. I grabbed a thick wad of bills from the wallet.

  ‘Michael, don’t,’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s not,’ he said. A harsh tinge to his voice.

  I stared curiously at him. I’d helped him out plenty of times in the past. After all he’d been through looking after me and Jon, I figured it was the least I could do.

  As he headed back to rejoin the mourners, I took hold of his arm.

  ‘Harry?’

  He stopped and gazed into the distance.

  ‘I had lunch with Jon a couple of months ago,’ he said. ‘He told me why you and he weren’t speaking. I don’t want your help any more, Michael, do you understand.’

  I closed my eyes. Shit.

  ‘No, wait, Harry, listen…’

  ‘I can’t have this conversation with you now.’

  He released himself from my grip and headed away.

  There was nothing I could say anyhow. Any way I cut it, I was a thief – part of the same business that had killed Jon. As Harry rejoined the mourners, I stared back at Jon’s grave. The raven-haired girl was still there – still had her eyes on me like some vengeful spirit.

  I wasn’t wanted here.

  I trudged back toward the cemetery gates and my Aston parked just beyond them. I cleared the gates and found Freddy leaning against the car – his lumbering frame crammed into a black suit and tie. I was surprised to s
ee him. I hadn’t told him about Jon – they’d never met. But it felt good to see a friendly face.

  ‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ he said.

  I raised a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Linda told me. No one heard from you in days, I ended up calling her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you.’

  ‘Look, if you’d rather be on your own…’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, let’s get out of here.’

  Freddy and I climbed the stairs of my apartment building. I tugged my tie undone – I just wanted to get out of this suit and pack a bag.

  ‘You know where you should go?’ said Freddy. ‘Switzerland. I visited Mary’s folks there a few years back. Just mountains and trees, it’s beautiful.’

  But I wasn’t looking for any kind of spiritual experience. I needed bustling crowds, strange women and limitless alcohol. Losing myself in the abyss – it had always worked for me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about heading down to the south of France. Monte Carlo, maybe.’

  ‘Yeah? Why not? All the cars you could want, cash, jewelry. It’s like the place was built for you.’

  I climbed the final flight of stairs, then glanced at my apartment door on the upper landing – I went still. The door was open. The lock, drilled.

  ‘What?’ said Freddy.

  I hushed him and nodded toward the door. I listened. A knocking sound was coming from inside the apartment. I couldn’t hear any voices, couldn’t tell how many guys were in there. My blood started pumping. I glanced at Freddy – he nodded. A small single-handed fire extinguisher was attached to the landing wall beside me. I grabbed it and felt its weight – about ten pounds of pressurized steel – it would fucking hurt. I pressed my back against the wall and edged up the stairs, Freddy behind me. The noise inside the apartment continued. I reached the top of the stairs and gripped the extinguisher firmly in my hand. I quietly pushed open the apartment door. The black carpets had been completely pulled away, every floorboard taken up. Broken furniture piled against the cracked red marble walls. It must have made a huge noise. Not that anyone would have heard – my neighbors were at work. Midweek the building was deserted.

  I took a step into my hallway and peered into the kitchen. It was trashed – cupboards ripped from the walls, broken glass like frost on the floor. The knocking sound was coming from the living room. The door was only half open, I couldn’t see the entire room. Freddy and I stepped forward on the loose floorboards – they creaked. The knocking stopped. I froze and held tight to the extinguisher. But no footsteps approached the door.