Darker Than Any Shadow

by Tina Whittle

He turned to Adam. “What’s up?”

  Adam kept packing. “I’m staying with a friend tonight.”

  “What about tomorrow night?”

  Adam said nothing and returned to his packing. It was a sloppy job, hasty and violent.

  Rico moved right beside him. “Listen—”

  “No! I’m done listening to you! First it’s the blood, then it’s the money.” He threw up his hands, eyes wide and wild. “Look at this place! They went through my things, mine! Like I was some filthy criminal!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever. I can’t stay here anymore.”

  “I didn’t kill Lex.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that?” Adam pushed past me and went to the closet, snatching shirts off the rod.

  “Yeah, you are. That’s how it works.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve changed, Rico, ever since you made the team. It’s all about them now.”

  “Adam—”

  “I wish you’d never met those people!”

  Adam threw the shirts in the suitcase where they tangled with the rest of his clothes. He was breathing hard, red-eyed and shaky. In other circumstances, I might have felt sorry for him.

  Rico shrugged. “You wanna leave, fine. Leave. But that’s a one-way door.”

  Adam stared at him, glared at me. I glared back. Then he zipped up the suitcase with a vicious yank and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. I was so angry I could have wrung his neck. Loyalty only counted in the crunch, and in this current crunch, Adam had failed.

  Rico didn’t say anything. I patted his back. He let me, and that was as big a relief as anything.

  “Go on and get changed. I’ll help you clean the place up later.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.” He took a deep breath, let it out. “What’s that old saying? You made your bed, now lie in it?” He jabbed his chin forward, where the mussed crumpled comforter lay at the foot of the unmade king-size mattress, which had been shoved askew to pull the incriminating bills from underneath it. Without the sheets, the bed looked desolate and empty.

  “There’s my bed,” he said.

  I hugged him. Solid as a rock, big as a bear. When he wrapped his massive arms around me, I had a flashback to prom, to him in a tux and me in an asymmetrical purple dress, standing under an arched garland like the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby. I remembered his arm cinching me closer, and my own sudden knowledge that he loved me.

  I had been wrong about the particulars. But right about what mattered.

  “Adam’s a weenie,” I mumbled against his chest.

  “A number one weenie, for sure.” Then he pulled back, looked me in the face. “Come on. I came here to get spiffy.”

  I smiled up at him. “Then let’s get you fly, big guy.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Sun Dial Restaurant is not a destination for the acrophobic. It sits atop the Westin Peachtree Plaza, a dizzyingly tall cylinder of reflective glass and sleek steel that is the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere. It makes one complete three-sixty rotation every hour, with every seat a window seat. The show begins when you enter the exterior glass-walled elevator, which takes almost a minute and a half to climb from the lobby to the seventy-third floor, eighty-five seconds of sheer exhilaration. Or eighty-five seconds of nightmarish torture, depending on your perspective.

  For me, it was the former. For Rico, the latter.

  “I cannot believe you,” he said through gritted teeth. “If you’re not dragging me to some redneck graveyard, you’re hoisting me six million feet above God’s own solid ground.”

  “It’s only seven hundred and fifty-three feet. Don’t exaggerate.”

  He shut his eyes as the elevator door closed, and we climbed upward. The view was claustrophobic for a few seconds, boxed in by the buildings that had once been skyscrapers back in the fifties. But then we cleared the two-hundred foot mark, and the metro area spread itself at our feet like a red carpet.

  Vigil AKA Maurice Cunningham had gotten us a table with a view of the IBM Tower, at that moment anyway. In thirty minutes we’d be over the flowing channel of the Downtown Connector, the artery through the heart of the city, as the restaurant slowly turned.

  Maurice eyed Rico, who eyed him right back. And then he eyed me, surprise in his expression. I liked that surprise. If he’d underestimated my clean-up potential, then he’d probably underestimated my brains too.

  I started with the fried grits and a bottle of Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay. And then we got down to business.

  “Lots of poets have aliases that don’t include their real lives,” Maurice said.

  “But your alias has a résumé! And photographic documentation!”

  “Have you seen Frankie’s biography? Drama and theatre tech double major from Carnegie-Mellon with her own art gallery. Cricket’s got an MFA from Florida International and spends her summers teaching creative writing to underprivileged kids. And don’t forget Padre, who created spoken word forty years ago. Serious poet credentials.” He glared out the window as the city crept by at a snail’s pace. “How seriously do you think the audience would take me if they knew I was a human resources manager?”

  Rico shrugged. “I got an IT degree from Tech. Your point?”

  “But you’re a gay black man from the hood! You got the persecuted minorities department covered. Let me guess—you grew up hard on the mean streets of Bankhead. Watched people shot to death for the dime bag and lottery ticket in their pocket.”

  Rico didn’t react, and I knew why. He’d grown up with me, in a safe upper-middle class bubble on the outskirts of Savannah. We knew gated entrances, garden committees, sailing. I rebelled by becoming a redneck. He rebelled by becoming himself.

  I folded my hands. “So let me get this straight, Maurice. You’re not protecting your upwardly mobile identity from your anti-establishment identity, but the other way around?”

  He poured himself a second glass of wine. “Spoken word is as much about image as it is about poetry. Some backgrounds are assets, some are deficits. Everything is currency. It’s naïve to think otherwise.”

  The waiter brought our appetizers, pan-fried grits cakes accented with caramelized Vidalia onion bits. I topped off my wine.

  “Is that how you got out of jail so fast for that weapons charge? You cash in some currency?”

  “The case got thrown out on a technicality. For want of prosecution.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Something didn’t get filed in a timely manner. Total ball drop by the state. My lawyer kicked it between the poles.”

  “And what about your arrest Sunday night?”

  “That?” He snapped his fingers at the waiter. “I paid a fine. And then when they started talking about someone establishing my whereabouts Friday night, I pointed them toward the bar where I’d been drinking with twenty other people from the office. Until three a.m. I was out of that interrogation room in no time.”

  I couldn’t believe that. But then, Rico had been hauled downtown twice and not arrested at all. The Atlanta police had some plan up their collective sleeve, that was for sure, but damn if I could figure out what it was.

  “So you created this whole life that didn’t exist as a backdrop for Vigil the poet?”

  “Sure. On the circuit, all anybody ever wants is your story. If you’ve got a good one, everybody’s happy. But you get introduced as a middle manager?” He made a face. “Shit. Might as well tell everybody I’m Donald Trump’s long lost kid.”

  “So your visit to the homeless shelter was some made-up story?”

  His expression grew indignant. “It was not! I went. Twice.”

  Rico finally spoke. “All right, you gamed the system, I got no beef with that. But what was this crap at the memorial?”

  Maurice scratched the back of his neck. “Just trying to get some drama going for the documentary. You know, a little Ea
st Coast-West Coast gangsta thing. Revenge and redemption, all that.” He shot me a look. “Your boyfriend was not a part of the plan.”

  “He never is.”

  “I got a bruise on my knee. I could sue his ass.”

  Rico drained his glass. “Be grateful Trey only wanted to stop you, not break you. Because you would be well and truly broken if he had. Sumbitch don’t play.”

  Maurice glared. I stifled a grin. The waiter brought our steaks. Maurice didn’t thank him, didn’t even look his way.

  “I don’t care about your alias,” I said. “Lex Anderson isn’t real either. He’s a collection of pixels and leather and attitude.”

  “Was.”

  I acknowledged the tense. “Was. You’ve explained your reasons for creating a persona to hide behind, and they make sense. So what was Lex hiding?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know he set us all up. He told me Rico dropped that knife in my jacket to get me off the team.”

  “And you believed that?”

  “That knife was in the inside pocket of my jacket. Nobody could have put it in there without me knowing. But Rico rode with me over there. He could have done it no problem.”

  Rico’s voice was sharp. “So could Lex. He was at the middle school too, don’t forget. Plus he slipped two thousand dollars under my mattress, which he managed to jack while Padre watched. A knife in your jacket? Piece of cake.”

  “I didn’t know all that then. All I knew was that Lex told me he’d heard that you’d been trying to get me off the team. It made sense.”

  “What did, that I’d throw you under the bus?”

  Maurice shrugged. He’d cut his steak into bite-size pieces, his potatoes too. His plate looked like a toddler’s. To his left, the late afternoon sun hit him like a tawny spotlight.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. People get cutthroat. But I’m on the team now. It’s a done deal, so let’s move on. For the sake of the word.”

  And that was all we’d ever get out of him, I suspected. A bland general regret, some passive acknowledgment, but no actual contrition.

  I decided to pursue a different topic. “You said that scene at the memorial was staged?”

  “Yeah, a little something to dramatize the conflict, play up the reunion. For the papers, you know what I’m saying? I was gonna put a V up on the wall—you know, for Vigil.” He forked up a hunk of steak. “I should’ve explained that better to Frankie. She’s pissed as hell now.”

  “You were gonna fake a graffiti attack?”

  “Frankie said to come up with something dramatic for the film people. I thought they’d eat that up. Very visual.”

  Rico stared at him. Outside our window, I glimpsed Stone Mountain, gray and sturdy and intractable, right at the edge of our view. I drank the last of my wine quickly. I had the feeling we’d be leaving soon.

  Sure enough, Rico stood. “You’d best watch yourself, Maurice. It may seem all play-play to you, but Frankie will eat you alive, brother, whole and in one swallow. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “It’s all for the team, man, don’t be a hater.”

  He tossed his napkin on the table “Then don’t be an idiot.”

  Rico walked out. I stood and wiped my mouth. “You get any more bright ideas, check them out with somebody besides Frankie. For your own good. And yes, please stop being an idiot. For everyone’s sake.”

  ***

  Later, at the Y, I punched fast and hard, with all the fury I could channel. Trey held the training pad firmly, his forearm bracing it, as I slammed my knuckles into it, again and again.

  “And then the son of a bitch said he might sue.”

  “He probably could. If I’d hurt him.”

  I stopped punching. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I wasn’t acting with any legal authority.” Trey lowered the pad, a rectangle of vinyl and heavy stuffing. “But he needed restraining before the situation deteriorated further.”

  “Yeah well, I’m glad you did it, even if he is a litigious idiot.”

  Trey raised the pad again. “Stop leaning into it. Punch through. And no bouncing.”

  “I’ll punch through all right.” I smacked the pad again, this time too hard. Pain shot up my arm. “Damn it!”

  “Are you okay?”

  I shook my hand out. “I’m fine. Put it back up.”

  He did. I tapped it with my knuckles, then stepped back and moved to neutral stance, hands at my side. Trey’s approach to self defense could be summed up thusly—hands down until you need them, hands up until it’s over.

  I put my hands up. “Okay, hypothetical situation.”

  “Yes?”

  I punched again, this time with my left. I felt it snake through me, a kinetic chain, sparking at my hips, riding up my middle, exploding out from my shoulders like a lighting bolt.

  “Say I was accused of something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like murder. And say you discovered some evidence making me look guilty. Would you turn that evidence in to the authorities?”

  “There’s not—”

  “Pretend that’s all you know, only that much.”

  Trey considered. “Yes. I would. I wouldn’t want to, but I would.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  I punched again, but I’d lost the magic. When everything connected, I could feel the power of physics moving through me. But it required precision, and timing. The muscle memory of a thousand repetitions. Trey’s every punch, every kick, was clockwork art. He channeled power like an electric wire—fuse and flow and then incandescence

  Me? I got lucky every now and then. Those rare moments were the only thing that kept me at the mat.

  Trey dropped the bag and moved behind me. “This is where it has to start.” He put his hands on my hipbones and pressed firmly, moving me into neutral stance. Then he ran his palms up my ribcage. “Through the torso, then the torque.”

  I extended my fist, and he moved his hand with the motion, down my arm, rotating my fist as it met the empty air in front of me. His entire body pressed against me from behind, and suddenly, I wanted to lean back against him, let him take the weight for a while.

  “Ethics suck.”

  Trey nudged the inside of my foot with his toe. I widened my stance. Then he moved to stand in front of me, checking my posture with a critical eye.

  “Ethics don’t suck,” he said. “But ethical decisions sometimes do. Still—”

  “I know, I know. You gotta make the ethical choice.”

  “You don’t have to. But I do.”

  He reached forward and took my hand. The sudden intimacy startled me, but then I saw the problem—my wrap had come undone. He held my hand as he untangled the sagging black elastic. And then he rewrapped it, slowly, keeping it tight enough to protect, loose enough to give. He kept his eyes on my hand the whole time.

  “Would you do it?” he said, not looking up.

  “What, turn in evidence that could convict you? Not on your life.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.” Then he dropped my hand and picked up the pad again. “Kicks now. Left leg first. Go.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “So he’s still on the team? Even after that stunt?”

  Rico’s voice sounded resigned even through the speaker phone. “Yeah.”

  “Aren’t there other alternates?”

  “None as experienced as Vigil.”

  Mornings at the shop were usually slow, and this one was no exception. For some reason, most people preferred to buy firearms during the late afternoon, which typically left me the a.m. hours free for tracking down customer requests or paying bills.

  And there were bills, all right, some of them second notice. I made a mental note to pay them first thing in the morning, then shoved them out of sight. I needed all the space I could get to sift through my research on Maurice Cunningham. So far, he was turning out to be a shameless, grasping egoist.

/>   “So choosing Vigil has nothing to do with the documentary?”

  Rico sighed. “The movie people are all over his revenge and redemption bullshit.”

  “They don’t know that it was staged?”

  “They don’t care.”

  I printed out Maurice’s corporate head shot and stuck it in a file folder. “I thought Padre wanted this to be an intelligent documentary about the history of spoken word and its contemporary expression.”

  “He does.”

  “So why not yank the whole project out of Frankie’s hand before she turns it into a soap opera?”

  “It’s not that simple. The film crew wants drama. Padre’s too mellow to deliver. And principled.”

  I didn’t tell him my suspicions that Padre’s hands weren’t nearly as clean as they seemed to be. He was hiding something too. But then, everybody on the team had secrets, which is why Lex had had such an easy time as a blackmailer. Until someone stabbed him through the heart anyway.

  I shoved the folders away. “So now what?”

  “Now I practice. I’ve got a competition to get ready for.”

  A sudden crash jerked me to attention. I stood. “Hang on, I heard something.”

  “What?”

  “It sounded like the garbage can falling over.”

  But there was no trash pickup that day, and Kennesaw’s raccoons and opossums didn’t go foraging under the noonday sun. I reached under the counter and pulled out my revolver.

  “Tai?”

  “I’m gonna check out back. Stay on the line.”

  “You’re not carrying that—”

  “Of course I am.”

  I went to the back door and peeked through the mini-blinds. And there I saw Cricket, hastily climbing back into her car. I stowed the gun in the file cabinet and opened the door.

  “Cricket!” I hollered. “Wait!”

  She whipped her head from side to side, then spotted me. She was dressed like she’d come from the pre-school, in black leggings and white tunic top, her hair knotted at the nape of her neck.

  “I accidentally hit your garbage can,” she said.

  “No problem, I do that all the time.”

  She stood there, looking worn-out, which made sense, and on the verge of tears, which didn’t. And she carried a white trash bag, which also didn’t make sense.