The Raven

by Mike Nappa

  “Your PR machine hailed that as a victory in the war on crime that you’ve been leading from City Hall,” Darrent said.

  “And your PR says you’re just a mild-mannered retail manager, right, Mr. Hayes?” Max lasered a look at Darrent before returning his attention to Bliss. “Regardless, we’re not asking anything of you tonight, Ms. Bliss. We’re taking. Ten percent. I have need right now, and you have surplus. We’ll even things out at the end of the month. You have my word on that.”

  Bliss felt like spitting. She’d heard that promise before. “That was your boy today, wasn’t it, Max? Watching me from across the street at Planet Bombay. That how you found out about tonight’s shipment? Spying on an old crippled woman?”

  Max shrugged.

  “How many guns coming in tonight, Darrent?” Bliss asked, not taking her eyes off Max Roman.

  “Seven hundred seventy-eight.”

  “Where they from?”

  “Brazil.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She looked up. “These guns don’t feel right for you, Max. These are Taurus MT-9 G2 submachine guns. War weapons, headed to Donbass.”

  Max leaned down close to Bliss. His voice was hard. “My people in the old country thank you for your support, but I also know they are paying you quite well to launder these guns for them, so don’t try to play the immigrant sympathy card on me. I was born here in Georgia, same as you, same as my father before me.”

  Bliss tried a different approach. “Look, we got a shipment of Glock handguns coming in ten days straight from Austria. They’re going to Boston on a collateral deal, then on to what’s left of the IRA in Europe, so they don’t need a full shipment. They’ll never miss them. Besides, your ‘private groups,’ they love the Glock. Why not wait for those? I’ll pick out seventy-eight guns special just for you. Shoot, I’ll give you a hundred at no extra cost. How’s that sound?”

  “It sounds like you’ve forgotten the deal we made, the deal my father and I made with your late husband.”

  Bliss felt herself losing this fight, and she didn’t like losing anything to Maksym Romanenko. He’d already cost her more than she could suffer anyway.

  “Mama,” Darrent said urgently, “our deal was that none of our guns ever stays in Atlanta. Not Taurus, not Glock, not any of them. Not one, not ever. That’s the deal William made, and Mr. Roman here knows that.”

  “How about this?” Max said suddenly, stretching up to his full height and markedly ignoring Darrent in the process. “You do me this little favor tonight, Ms. Bliss, and I’ll do you a big favor in return. In fact, maybe I’ve already done you a favor today. What do you think of that?”

  Bliss didn’t like the sound of it, but she could see this wasn’t going to end well no matter what she did. She decided it was time to fold her cards.

  “Darrent,” she said without taking her gaze off Max, “have your crew pack up seventy-eight submachine guns for Mr. Roman. Viktor here can handle loading them into his truck.”

  Max flashed his bright white veneers again and clapped Darrent heartily on the back. “Yes, Darrent,” he crowed, “do as your Mama says.” To Viktor and the football player, he simply nodded. A moment later, he and Bliss were standing alone.

  “Now, Ms. Mama Bliss,” Max said generously, “would you like to see the favor I did for you today?”

  9

  Raven

  Atlanta, GA

  Old Fourth Ward

  Friday, March 17, 11:55 p.m.

  28 days to Nevermore

  I wonder what it’s like to be a Disney cartoon.

  I think that’s how I’m feeling right now, like one of those animated heroes bouncing through a sugary forest. Light. Bright. Rested. Optimistic. Like I want to grin for no real reason, except that it hurts my lips to do that.

  Sure, I’m sore all over, and my face still feels tender and bruised, but I’m not bleeding anymore. And I can see out of my right eye again, so I’ve got that going for me. My bed feels soft and comfortable, almost like a warm puppy has curled up beside me. I’m pretty sure that, despite my earlier worries, all my ribs have remained intact. Plus, I went to the bathroom a few minutes ago and didn’t pass any blood. I think that means there’s no significant internal injury to speak of, which is a relief.

  All in all, considering how this day started, I’m calling today a win for The Amazing Raven.

  The street outside is quiet, with just the dullest of moonlight sneaking through the open curtains of my bedroom. It’s a shadowy paradise, and I’m the king of it all. Feels good. Peaceful. A welcome respite after the storm that passed through here earlier.

  This is the kind of moment when I’d normally drift off to sleep and dream of flying carpets or hidden rooms filled with rare comic books, but I’ve already slept the entire day away. Now that it’s just about midnight, I’m lying awake, feeling lazy, and wishing I had a pizza in the fridge. Of course, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to answer the door for pizza delivery again. But that doesn’t stop me wishing.

  After Trudi Coffey left my place this morning, the world dwindled down to just me, my apartment—and an angry little pair of handcuffs.

  I made my marriage proposal, and even though she kind of rejected it by walking out the door, Trudi Coffey didn’t actually say no, so I’m taking that as an opening. As an invitation to ask again someday. But next time, I think it’ll probably be better if I pop the question in a more, um, suitable situation. Like when I’m all healed up and not being terrorized by a group of Ukrainian hit men. Like maybe when we’re having a nice dinner in a place where she doesn’t have to pull her gun just to keep us both from getting killed.

  That’d probably be a good idea.

  “I don’t have the right tool with me for those,” she’d said about the handcuffs holding me in my chair. She thought I might be stuck in them, but I knew better. Handcuffs are no match for a guy who knows the great scam artist/magician Brian Brushwood . . . well, for a guy who bought Brian Brushwood’s Rogue’s Ring off www.shwood.com and hopes to meet him someday. Even as Trudi was clipping away the zip ties on my ankles, I couldn’t help twisting in circles the helpful little piece of jewelry they’d left on the middle finger of my right hand.

  Still, when the apartment was finally empty, I didn’t have the energy to get right to my escape. I was exhausted from getting beat up all night long and then falling in love the next morning. So I sat back in my rickety kitchen chair and just waited for my heart to settle back into a normal resting rate. Can’t say it was terribly comfortable, but I can say it was tempting just to take a little nap in the chair. Of course, the chair didn’t feel like cooperating with that idea. Just the act of sitting felt like someone was jabbing a crowbar in my back. And there was the problem of having my handcuffs threaded through the slats in a way that made it impossible for me to wrest my hands out from behind me.

  It almost felt good to smash that wooden chair onto the floor to get my hands free. It made a little mess, and I only had two kitchen chairs left after that, but so what? At least then I could get to the ring on my finger.

  Here’s the beauty of the Rogue’s Ring: It’s titanium, decorated with rock-and-roll hieroglyphs that make it look like pretty much any guy’s lame attempt at cool, urban jewelry. Forgettable, but not out of place if someone notices it, either. What most people don’t know is that it’s hollow, and coiled inside it is a narrow, serrated shim—just the tool I need to break out of handcuffs or even cut through zip ties.

  I’d like to say I’ve never had to use the Rogue’s Ring before but, well, once or twice it’s come in handy. Thanks, Brian.

  After breaking my chair, it was a simple chore to unspool my shim out of the ring and slip it into the locking mechanism on the handcuffs. A few seconds later, the metal bracelets slid right off my wrists and onto the table. That was when I remembered Trudi had left me Viktor’s one-hundred-dollar bill, and I felt grateful for that girl all over again.

  Now free of the handcuffs and rubbing my wrist
s to get circulation going full-steam again, I thought about taking a shower. It’d be nice just to wash away the day’s troubles with the grime and blood, but in the end, I decided against it. Too exhausting. Next I thought about eating something, but given the shape I was in, that made me feel a little sick to my stomach.

  “Sleep,” I finally told myself. “Everything’s better after a few hours of sleep.” I left the money on the table next to the handcuffs, left the shattered chair on my kitchen floor, and headed to my bedroom.

  I only stopped long enough to lock the front door.

  I slept until my dreams became an endless search for a working toilet, until I realized that I kept finding bathroom stalls that were always empty closets because I needed to wake up and let my bladder lose itself in sweet release.

  Now, freshly voided and twenty-four hours after being accosted by mobsters, I feel warm and relaxed at last. I watch the glowing light on my digital alarm clock announce “12:02” on my nightstand.

  Two minutes after midnight. It’s tomorrow. Finally. Yesterday can just be a bad memory. Yay.

  The night is still, quiet, and if I don’t move too much, my body feels almost normal. With my eyes closed, it feels like I’m a boy again, safe in my little, orange bedroom back in Oklahoma City. I listen to myself breathe, a comfortable, familiar sound.

  I’m in that in-between world between waking and dreaming.

  I can almost hear my dad speaking gently in my ear, almost feel his hand stroking my head before I drift off to sleep.

  “It’s in the quiet when you can best hear God’s voice, son.”

  That never happens for me, Daddy.

  “Maybe that’s because you’ve never been truly quiet. You have a restless little soul, son, like that raven in the Great Flood.”

  That was the bird that never landed anywhere. Right, Daddy? Noah sent him out, and he just kept flying around until the water went away.

  A smile in the darkness. “So you have been paying attention in Sunday school.”

  Sometimes.

  A hand patting softly on my chest. “Rest well, my little Raven. And listen for God. You’d be surprised at how often he speaks in the quiet.”

  G’night, Daddy.

  “G’night, Da—” I twitch fully awake at the sound of my own voice.

  The quiet around me now feels foreign, unwelcome. I stare at the ceiling above me, waiting for something and not knowing what it is. The shadows on the ceiling act like they’re going to merge into a recognizable thing, or into the face of someone familiar, but before that can happen, they all melt into one another and fade into indistinguishable gray and black smears.

  Sometimes I miss you, Daddy.

  I’m surprised that I admit that to myself, even though I know it’s true.

  But I know . . . I know what I did to you.

  I sit up in bed, suddenly angry at myself. At my father. At God.

  “So,” I say to the emptiness, “here I am in the quiet. How about it, Jesus? You got anything you want to say to me?”

  A siren in the distance interrupts the solitude. A fire truck this time, I think. Maybe two. I should’ve known Old Fourth Ward couldn’t stay peaceful for long.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I say to the absent presence in my room. “You and I haven’t been on speaking terms since high school graduation, right? Hey, don’t take it personally. I haven’t spoken to my own flesh-and-blood father for over four years, either. But you already knew that.”

  My mind drifts to Trudi Coffey and the business card she left on my kitchen table. I don’t actually have to do anything, I reason. She left the stolen swag right there on the table with her card. She’ll never know that I didn’t call her stupid cop ex-husband.

  But . . .

  If I don’t call her stupid ex-husband, does that mean I can’t see her again? Can’t move forward with my plan to make her fall crazy in love with me?

  I play out our next meeting in my head.

  “Trudi, you look beautiful,” I say.

  “Thanks, Raven. You look handsome too.”

  “Aw shucks.”

  No, change that. I’m never going to say aw shucks to any woman, let alone Trudi Coffey. Let’s see. Okay, just smile and acknowledge. That’s what I do. Sometimes words are unnecessary, right?

  “Listen, Trudi,” I say after an appreciative conversational break, “I was wondering if I might take you out to dinner. I know a sweet little fusion place that has live entertainment on Fridays.”

  “Oh, is this a place where you perform?”

  A sly shrug, like, well, yeah, I am that cool, but I don’t want to say it out loud. Nice.

  And then she’ll say, “I’d love to go out with you.”

  Or maybe she’ll say, “Did you call my ex-husband and return those things you stole? Or are you still a dirty, dishonest, thieving thug?”

  I don’t like this little game anymore.

  I get up and move to the kitchen. The gnawing in my stomach makes me wish that Scholarship hadn’t eaten all my food, but I try to focus on the table anyway. The three poly bags are still where she left them: a sapphire bracelet, an Apple Watch, and a thick, braided gold chain. Spread those out between pawn shops paying ten to twenty percent of the value and it should be enough to cover a month’s rent on this awful apartment and maybe two weeks of tasteless, prepackaged groceries to boot.

  Are you still a dirty, dishonest, thieving thug?

  For some reason, an old movie pops into my head, one of mom’s favorites, As Good As It Gets. It was that movie that made me add celebrity impressions to my act, I think because my mom was so delighted to hear Jack Nicholson’s voice come out of my mouth. Right now, I see grizzled, cranky old Jack sitting across a table from the lovely Helen Hunt. It’s a moment of truth for him, the moment that’s going to decide whether she stays or leaves forever. “You make me want to be a better man,” he growls finally, and that’s exactly what Helen wants to hear. It was a choice he made, one that changed everything for them both.

  You make me want to be a better man.

  Is that what Trudi Coffey wants from me?

  Maybe this is all a test. Maybe she left these valuable trinkets on my table to see if I’m more than the guy she met. Maybe she wants to see if I’m someone she can trust, if I’m more than just a petty thief using a magician’s act to scam and shoplift from tourists at Piedmont Park.

  But maybe that’s all I am, Trudi.

  I pick up my hard-earned, expertly stolen, poly-bagged prizes and take them into the bathroom. It’d be easy just to tape them back under the sink. I’ve done that kind of thing a hundred times. It’s super simple.

  The guy staring at me in the mirror is not happy about that idea, though. I get the feeling he’d like to punch me in the jaw like old Scholarship did.

  It’s past midnight now, I try to reason with Mirror-Man. No time to be making phone calls to law enforcement officials. Especially ones that can put you in jail. But that’s just an excuse. I know I’m in a moment of truth right now, like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets.

  So what if I call Samuel Hill’s cell phone after midnight? I think. He’s a police detective; he probably gets calls at all hours of the day and night anyway. And probably my call will just dump into voicemail, which, when I think about it, is better than having to talk to the guy in person anyway. I can leave a message, tell him I’m dropping off the stolen goods at the Zone 6 police station. Done and done.

  And then I get to call Trudi Coffey tomorrow, clean slate, clear conscience. Maybe even visit her in a few days, after I’m healed up a bit.

  The guy in the mirror is staring hard at me. His face is dirty, bruised, and still a little swollen, with his right eye half shut. But he won’t look away. He wants an answer. He wants to know what I’m going to do. Who I really am.

  He blinks first. Or was it me?

  “Trudi,” I growl in my best Jack Nicholson impersonation, “you make me want to be a better man.”
r />   Three Weeks Ago . . .

  10

  Trudi

  Atlanta, GA

  West Midtown

  Friday, March 24, 9:08 a.m.

  21 days to Nevermore

  He looked good. The pig.

  And he smelled good—not like cologne or strange aftershave, but like a guy who showered regularly and used plenty of green-apple shampoo. She missed that early-morning smell of her ex-husband, even kind of missed hearing him knock around in the bathroom getting ready for work, making her late for work by taking so long in there. It reminded her of home, or at least the home she’d once taken for granted.

  The ordinary things—that’s what you miss when it’s all gone. Not all the big moments or the wild romantic gestures. Just having someone there, someone who makes doing nothing something worth doing.

  “So,” he was saying, “what do you think?”

  Trudi tried not to let her face flush. She hadn’t been paying attention. Did he know that? Was he baiting her? She tried a bluff.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Tell it all to me again, and I’m going to close my eyes and watch it in my head while you tell it.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  It was a good bluff, she decided. That was a habit she had when she was trying to puzzle through a problem, and he knew it. Close her eyes, go through it detail by detail, find the answer inside her head. She risked peeking through slitted eyes at her ex-husband and thought he bought the bluff, or if he didn’t, at least he was gentlemanly enough to let her get away with it this time.

  “Well, they’re calling it ‘Nevermore,’ and—”

  “No, no,” Trudi said, leaning back in her office chair and putting her feet up on the desk. “Start back at the stakeout. And tell it slow, so I can see it while I hear it.”

  “All right.”

  She could hear him settling back in his chair, as well. Before he could start, though, she opened her eyes and put up a hand. It took a little effort since she kept her feet propped on the desktop, but she leaned forward to her phone and tapped the intercom button.