Devils in Exile

by Chuck Hogan

  The VIP room included a catwalk overlooking the downstairs dance floor. Red velvet curtains draped doorways leading to interconnected rooms, some so dark you couldn’t guess their dimensions upon entering. As many times as he’d been here, Maven still, at least once each night, lost his way.

  The club was located on the edge of the Theater District, before it gave over into Chinatown. The outrageous $60 cover charge weeded out students and barhoppers, who could find what they were looking for on Lansdowne or Boylston Street at one-sixth the price and one-tenth the hassle. Unaccompanied women were admitted free if they looked the part, and judging by the traffic-stopping scrum outside, looking the part was apparently the goal of half the twenty-one-year-olds in town.

  Maven circumvented the balcony and ducked off into one of the velvet curtains, searching for a smaller bar. Indigo neon light signaled it, and he made his way to the corner rail, yelling out an order for a Seven and Seven and laying a fifty on the bar.

  The music was less pounding in here. To his immediate left stood a Middle Eastern guy in his early twenties. Charcoal suit jacket, red silk shirt. Army age, for sure. Possibly Iranian or even Iraqi, impossible to tell in the cool blue light. Precipice hosted its share of layabout Euro trash and Middle Eastern money. Maven eyed him via the mirror backing the bar. Fate put a cocktail in one man’s hands and a rifle in another’s. In another room halfway across the world, Maven and this guy might have been enemy combatants. Here they were just two more guys on the make.

  Their drinks arrived together, and Maven paid for both. He pulled out his lime wedge and stirrer and left them on the bar napkin, toasting the guy with a quick nod before pushing off from the bar and heading away.

  “Mave!”

  Just past the curtain at the next doorway, Jimmy Glade stood bookended by two ladies in thigh-length dresses, all bare shoulders and full legs, each with a bit of glitter mixed with the color on their cheeks. One blonde standout and her more eager brunette friend.

  Milkshake shouted introductions, Maven shaking each woman’s warm little hand.

  Realtors, were they, Maven and Glade. Housemates in a condo on Marlborough Street. Glade had already hit all the selling points. “Their first time here!” shouted Glade, showing Maven his Jackpot! face.

  Milkshake should have been a military recruiter. There wasn’t much to Jimmy Glade—he was big and square-headed and more goofy than funny—but he had confidence, and he had a strategy. A few months back, Glade had generously offered to take Maven under his wing. Maven’s experience chatting up hot girls in clubs was zilch. For a time he picked up Glade’s routine, his patter. Most guys were hesitant to approach girls in pairs, in threes, but that was Glade’s comfort zone, that was where he worked best, playing girlfriends off each other. Flattering questions (“What would you say is her most attractive feature?”). Soliciting opinions (“Which do you prefer, somebody who plays the game, or a guy who calls you right away?”). Sparking competition (“So which one of you is the smartest?”). Everything he did worked. That was the insane thing. Granted, sharp clothes and flash money helped too. As did copious amounts of alcohol. Bizarrely, so did borderline insults (“Your hair is getting a little crazy there.”) and heavy-handed divisive ploys (“I’m trying to figure out which one of you has the prettier smile.”). If you establish a competitive situation, women will compete. That was his secret. Glade was never the object of their desire, merely the facilitator. By challenging them, by provoking jealousies and conflicts—exposing the rivalry inherent in most female friendships—he established a contest wherein he was both referee and grand prize.

  Genius. To a point.

  Because Glade’s play went way beyond game. His thing was steering two or more buzzed girlfriends back to the Marlborough Street pad and, in the wee small hours of the morning, Howard Stern–ing them into consummating their hot-girl friendship. He was into “making” lesbians. But that wasn’t the weird part. In fact, for a while, that was the best-roommate-in-the-history-of-the-world part. No, the skeevy thing was that Glade never slept with them himself. He was totally content to play mind games and memorialize the seduction on his handheld Sony, screening his masterwork the next day on the flat screen in the living room for all to enjoy. No saint was Maven—he had spent those heady first few months in a pleasant and near constant state of debauchery—but Glade’s Machiavellian zeal, and that he got off on the manipulative aspect of it rather than the girls themselves, cast a shadow of sadism over the entire affair that had ruined it for Maven. Glade’s creepy coaching and coercion, and the girls’ sloppy tongue kisses, all viewed through the unblinking eye of his camera, got repetitive for everyone but him.

  Glade, arms around both young ladies, said to the brunette about the blonde, “Wow, her waist is small.”

  The blonde leaned winningly into Maven, speaking into his lowered ear, something he couldn’t quite catch, Maven getting every third word of it. Something about loving dancing ever since doing gymnastics when she was a kid. She squeezed his forearm as she spoke, sending all the signals, but foreseeing her future manipulation at Milkshake’s hands killed it for Maven. He made nice and hung around only as long as he needed to, not to step on Glade’s game, then excused himself.

  “You heading back to the pad?” said Glade.

  “Yeah, in a while.”

  He rubbed both girls’ backs. “Maybe we’ll see you there.”

  The blonde reached for Maven, but he pretended not to see it and left her to the night.

  He spotted Termino leaning against a bar in one of the back rooms. Termino was probably the least dressed-up guy in the place, wearing a long suede jacket over a white shirt, black pants, black shit-kickers. He usually had something good going, but kept his playmaking skills to himself.

  Maven caught his eye, asking, with a shrug, Where is he?

  Termino gave a little head dip toward the back booths. As he did so, a lady standing next to him turned to see who had claimed his attention, and a hot sigh emptied Maven’s lungs. She was a Pam Grier–in-her-prime type with a neckline that plunged like the hopes and dreams of every guy in that room whose name wasn’t Lew Termino. Maven saluted her, as the military had trained him to do to any person who clearly outranked him—and that salute was his first indication that maybe the drinks were starting to hit home.

  Royce was seated alone at an oval table in back, before a half dozen picked-over platters of food, his face lit by his BlackBerry. Laser lights scribed geometric patterns on every table except Royce’s, who’d nixed it as he always did with a quiet word to the floor manager. As Maven slid in over the plush red banquette toward him, Royce clicked his PDA dark. “What say you, Mercutio?”

  Maven sat back and stretched out his neck. “Headache.”

  Royce nodded to Maven’s cocktail. “That’s not going to help you any. Get some distilled water in you, try some caffeine.”

  Maven, angling his head around to crack his neck, saw a small silver clutch on the other side of Royce. “Think Danny has anything for it?”

  Royce passed him the clutch, going back to his PDA. “All kinds of shit, good luck.”

  Maven unsnapped the clasp and picked through the contents. A folding brush, mini-hairspray, some hair wax. Lip and eye stuff. Altoids. Her little red phone, an open pack of Camels. A dozen or more twenties and fifties crumpled like tissues. A flat, ornamental pillbox. A small amber vial.

  Maven almost pulled out the vial, so struck was he by its appearance. A tiny brown test tube with a silver screw top. He tried to get a better look, but given the darkness of the table, it was impossible. He turned it over and felt some substance shifting inside—then became self-conscious next to Royce and shoved the little vial back down underneath the bills and snap-closed the purse.

  “No?” said Royce, clicking off again.

  Maven shook his head and slid the bag back to him. Royce plucked a shrimp from one of the platters and swiped it through some sauce on its way to his mouth. “Try this. Fro
m Changsho. Salt and Pepper Crispy Shrimp.”

  Maven passed. Whenever they went to Precipice, which was two or three times each week, Royce ordered several dishes from his favorite high-end eateries, cabbing them in from all across Boston and Cambridge. Maven recognized yellowtail sushi from Oishii, raw Kumamoto oysters from B&G, a hanger steak from Craigie Street Bistrot. He liked the Texas beef ribs with hot sauce from Redbones, and the buffalo wings from Green Street, but didn’t see either of those here. Despite all the other traits Maven had cribbed from Royce, the fine-food obsession had yet to take hold.

  “Good gig last night.”

  “Yeah,” said Maven. “You should have been there.”

  In recent weeks, Royce had pulled back from the actual takedowns. He was busier than ever locating targets and initiating surveillance, doing all the advance work, the covert stuff he never let anyone else touch or even ask about. He presented them with a dossier—usually addresses and license plates and some photos—and took them out in a rented van to cruise the players, the locations, the vehicles, then let them take it from there. They were always busy, doing two jobs a month. “That was a good save, you kept your head.”

  “We fucked up.”

  Royce shrugged. “Keeps you on your toes. It’s a dangerous game, and it’s only going to get more difficult. They’re aware of us now.”

  “We’ve lost the element of surprise.”

  “But gained the element of intimidation. You’re building up quite a nice little treasure chest now. Moved up to a bigger safe-deposit box yet?”

  “Soon,” Maven said.

  “Now I really gotta stay on top of you dicks. Keep you motivated. Money makes you lazy. Makes you conservative, makes you scared. What is the one thing worse than having nothing?”

  Maven nodded. “Losing something.”

  Royce shot him with a finger gun. “Why we have to keep pushing ahead. Keep up our energy here. Give no quarter.”

  “You know what’s good about this?” said Maven, getting comfortable in the booth. “What’s best about it—besides the money? It’s that we’re like cops and thieves at the same time. Doing good by doing bad. Taking down dealers and fragging the product … it feels like a big ‘Fuck you’ to someone, I don’t even know who.”

  “To these jackasses,” said Royce, dismissing the room. “To everyone in this club, in this city. Anybody you pass in the street who stayed here and played Xbox while you were over there baking in the Arabian sun. Now you’re back and you’re beating the system—and it’s fucking perfect.”

  “It is.”

  Royce popped an oyster and chased it with sushi. “Let’s just make sure no one else ever finds out how fucking smart we are, huh?”

  Maven grinned wide as a six-year-old on his birthday.

  “My point, though,” continued Royce, “is that this game is all in. You push all your earnings forward every time you head out there—don’t ever forget that.”

  As Royce said this, the crowd before them parted in such a way as to reveal Danielle, dancing alone out on the floor, a high, swirling spotlight writing over her body as though fashioning a female form out of music and darkness. She wore a salsa dress in black and sheer, the asymmetrical hem giving it a shipwrecked flair. She was lost in herself, in the moment, the music and the light.

  Maven remembered the vial then, dousing his good mood. The music changed, one beat overlapping into another, and the dance floor closed up again and she was gone.

  Maven threw back most of the rest of his drink.

  Royce said, “Where’s Suarez, you seen him?”

  Maven shrugged. “Wherever the Asian ladies are at.”

  “He does love that wasabi. Know why?”

  “Why he only digs Asians?”

  “He says that being with a Latina, or even a white girl, would be like being with his own sister.”

  Maven nearly choked on that, coughing into his fist. “Nice.”

  “I didn’t ask him any more goddamn questions after that.”

  “I’m not gonna follow it up either,” said Maven, shaking off that one. “Termino’s doing all right.”

  They couldn’t see the bar from here. “He usually does. What about you? Your action seems to have tailed off a bit.”

  “Only a bit.”

  “What’s that mean? You were a kid in a candy store for a while there. Too much, too fast?”

  Maven grinned. “It’s a headache, no big deal.”

  “Or are you looking for something more regular?”

  “I’m just looking, period.”

  “Tomorrow Man, right?” said Royce. “It’s not about who you take to bed, but who you wake up with.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Go ahead, Maven—smile a little. Don’t forget about that punk back in Iraq, trying to jerk off in the shitter in the middle of a fifty-mile-an-hour shamal. You owe that kid too.”

  “That’s kid’s been paid. In full.”

  “Good to hear it.” Royce raised his soda water. “Here’s to him.”

  “To him.”

  “The stupid fuck.”

  Maven laughed hard and killed his drink.

  COME UNDONE

  MAVEN KEPT AN EYE OUT FOR DANIELLE AS HE NAVIGATED THE dance floor, heading out through the parted curtain. If nothing else, it gave his wandering around the club a purpose.

  He cleared the top-floor rooms without coming across her, then made his way downstairs, patting the VIP bouncer on the back as he passed, emerging onto the main floor. He moved to the main bar and ordered a Budweiser, and while he waited, felt a brushing sensation against his shoulder, a cascade of brunette ringlets.

  “Is this all there is?” said a young voice, the owner of the springy hair, jammed up against the bar with her back to him.

  “What do you mean?” yelled her friend over the music. She was trying to get served, but the raised finger wasn’t drawing any attention. “We made it! We’re in!”

  “I guess I was expecting gift bags. Or live unicorns or something.”

  Maven smiled. He saw ankle boots and plenty of leg.

  The bartender came back with Maven’s beer in an aluminum can, and Maven directed the barman’s attention to the women next to him.

  The friend shouted their order, then leaned onto the bar to see Maven and thank him. Her look when she saw Maven—a recognition of something special—got the attention of the woman next to him, who turned. She had a darkly featured face, clever eyes, plum-painted lips, and a beaded choker that crossed her throat like a second smile.

  “This is all there is,” Maven told her, fighting his eyes’ inclination downward. “No unicorns.”

  “No?” she said with a lingering smile. “Too bad …”

  Her friend shouted, “What’s upstairs?”

  “More of the same,” said Maven, his eyes going back to the girl with the ringlets. “Only darker and less crowded.”

  She was smiling at him and he was smiling at her. They were having a moment until two more friends came rushing up, pulling at her arm to go dancing. “Samara, come on!”

  She saw the change in his expression, the clouding of his face. Her name was the same as that of the city in northern Iraq—but she had no way of knowing what that meant to him, or why the surprise of hearing it here made him freeze. He watched her—in a denim bustier with a lace-up back and a short, black suede skirt over ankle boots—get absorbed into the undulating mass out on the dance floor.

  “Hey. Gridley. Wake up.”

  It was Danielle, suddenly, next to him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “What?” said Maven.

  She already had her sunglasses on, her silver clutch under her arm. “I am so done, and not up for driving. He said you had a headache, you could take me.”

  Maven checked one more time for the girl named Samara, but she was gone.

  Danielle looked at him. “Are you drunk, Gridley?”

  She still referred to him by the
name of their hometown.

  “Well, I am,” she said, squeezing a numbered plastic tag into his hand. “Now be a fucking gentleman and go fetch my coat.”

  SHE WAITED AT THE DOOR, AND HE FOLLOWED HER OUTSIDE WITH her coat on his arm—long and black, a light crepe fabric—moving past the queue of hopefuls waiting to get inside. She passed female stares and male sighs and even outright wolf whistles, immune, her arms crossed against the cool night air, or maybe folded in anger against an evening and a city she felt was beneath her.

  She moved fast, Maven a step or two behind, watching her calf muscles work, her hemline riding up along her left thigh. That their relationship had formed into a brother-sister thing frustrated him. Calling him Gridley was equal parts affection and put-down.

  Maven was still occasionally amazed to be in the orbit of the once unreachable Danielle Vetti. Beyond that, his fealty to Royce superseded all. It was enough just to exist in this alternative reality where he had connected with the girl of his high school dreams. She hadn’t demonstrated any true interest in him, and anyway he would never cross that line.

  Except in his mind. She once alluded to some questionable photo shoots she had done in pursuit of her New York modeling career, and Maven had spent way too many night hours on the Internet searching for the pictures.

  She rounded the corner, not slowing down. Maven said, “Something wrong?”

  “Yes, something’s wrong. I’m fucking cold.”

  “How about your coat here?”

  She didn’t answer. That solution made too much sense.

  “Every week, the same goddamn thing,” she said. “Week after week after week. How does he not get sick of that place?”

  “He likes what he likes.”

  “Admit it, you’re sick of it too. I mean, it wears on you. It’s like partying inside a bug zapper in there, those swirling blue lights. No—they should actually do that. That would be so worthwhile. Every fifteen minutes or so, just randomly zap somebody on the dance floor. Put them out of their misery.”