by Mike Nappa
She looks at the note.
Twenty-four years old. Weight at 117. Relationship status, single but dating a few guys casually.
“Few pounds heavier than that,” she says with a smile. “But thanks for the compliment.”
“Oh, well. I was close.”
“Actually pretty impressive given that you’ve only been in here about two and a half minutes and you got everything else correct. How did you figure out the relationship status? That one seems kind of arbitrary.”
“Sorry, a magician never reveals his secrets.”
She stands and nods. “This way,” she says. “I’ll walk you back.” Then, “I bet you’re a force to be reckoned with at nightclubs. Pretty good wingman for your friends on a Friday night at the bar?”
“Haven’t gone out drinking with my buddies in years,” I say, and I feel a stab of pride about that. “Not in years.”
She stops and looks at me. “My turn, then,” she says. “You’re a recovering alcoholic? Probably started drinking in high school, just for the thrill of it, and then one day you realized the thrill was gone but you still needed the drink. Am I right?”
Not bad, I think. Am I that transparent? “Well, I—”
“No, you don’t have to answer,” she says. “I know the answer anyway. And don’t ask how I know, because a detective’s assistant never reveals her secrets, either.” She dimples and leads me down the short hallway from the reception area to Trudi’s office.
Trudi is standing near a medium-sized wooden desk. Behind her is an impressive collection of books on shelves built into the wall. In front of her desk are a couple of metal chairs and a fairly large dude in black jeans and a blue sports coat. He stands when I come into the room.
“Ms. Coffey,” Eulalie says by way of introduction, “this is Marvin L. Deasy. Excuse me, sorry, he goes by Marv.”
The Big Dude covers a laugh and makes eye contact with the receptionist. Her eyes are smiling back in his direction, apparently sharing an inside joke.
Are they sharing my joke?
“Raven,” Trudi says, “please have a seat.”
“Am I interrupting?” I say, trying hard not to stare at the big guy.
“No, no,” he says to me. I notice the edge of a shoulder holster peeking out from inside his sports coat, and I hear the buzz of a cell phone from somewhere on him too. He pulls a fairly new iPhone out of his coat pocket and continues. “I was just leaving. Plus, I apparently missed a call from my boss, so I’d better check that or heads will roll, right? Sorry for the intrusion, Marv.” He starts for the door.
“I’ll walk out with you, Mr. Hill,” the receptionist says. A moment later, it’s just me and Trudi. Crazy thing is, she somehow looks even more perfect than I remember her from a week ago. I hope she thinks I look a little better too.
“Please,” she repeats, “have a seat.”
Right. Forgot I was still standing. Kind of hard to concentrate when I’m staring at a woman like this.
“Marv L. Deasy,” she says, taking her seat after I’ve taken mine. There’s a slight wrinkle in her nose, like she’s just gotten a whiff of bad fish or something. “I get it now.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you didn’t want to tell me your real name, why didn’t you just use The Raven? Then at least I would’ve known to expect you.”
“No, my name’s Marv. I just figured that—”
She puts a hand up, and I close my flapping lips.
“Here’s the deal, Raven. I don’t care what your real name is, or whether you like comic books, or candy, or both.”
Ah, so it was obvious. Have to do better next time.
“All I care about is the truth, so if you’re going to come into my office, if you want to talk to me, or hire my agency, or whatever, you’re going to have to tell me the truth. Fair enough?”
She leans back in her chair, fingers steepled in front of her chin.
“Sorry,” I say. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
I think I see her face softening, so I try to look sheepish.
“Your right eye is looking a lot better,” she says at last. “How’s the rest of you holding up?”
“Still a little sore around the rib cage,” I say, relieved, “but pretty much back to normal.” I hope she likes the way my “normal” looks. I’m all cleaned up and wearing my best T-shirt, after all.
“You look good,” she says. “I mean, you look like you’re in better shape than you were a week ago. Any trouble with those bad guys returning?”
I shake my head.
“They’re probably going to come back. Are you ready for that?”
“Ah, I think they’re done with me at this point.”
“Why do you believe that?”
I can see she thinks I’m naïve, but really, why would they come back? They got what they were after, plus they got to have a little sadistic fun before they left. I haven’t seen any trace of them at all for a week now. I’m pretty sure my troubles with Max Roman’s thugs are over.
“Well, I gave them what they wanted.” I shrug. “I’m not worth anything to them anymore, so why would they bother?”
She nods slowly. “Those kinds of guys don’t usually need a reason.” She can tell I’m ready to change the subject now. Thankfully, she decides to help me out on this. She says, “I see you got out of the handcuffs. Did you have to break the chair?”
“Yeah. Made a little mess, but such is the price of freedom.”
She offers a wan smile in acknowledgment of my lame joke. It seems like we’ve made all the chitchat we can make at this point. Junior-High Me is starting to panic, looking for a way to hang up the phone. Finally she sighs and drops her hands into her lap.
“So,” she says, “what can I do for you today, Raven?”
“I called your ex-husband, Detective Samuel Hill,” I say suddenly. I want her to know I took her advice, but I’m confused by the hard look that suddenly crosses her eyes.
“Really,” she says. She drags out the syllables like a prosecuting attorney getting ready to pounce. Reeaallly.
“Yep. And I turned over those, uh, items we talked about before.”
“I see.” She leans forward and locks her eyes on to mine. “Just out of curiosity, what does my ex-husband look like?”
I freeze.
Didn’t anticipate that.
“Mm-hmm.” She leans back in her chair again.
This isn’t going quite the way I envisioned it.
“That’s what I thought,” she says. I can see she thinks the case is closed.
Come on, kid, I tell myself, pull this one out of the flames.
And then a thought flashes in my head. I hear that receptionist talking again. “I’ll walk out with you, Mr. Hill,” she said. Could that be . . . ? No, surely she would have called him “Detective Hill,” not “Mr. Hill.” Unless she was trying to be discreet about his occupation in front of a client? I take a chance.
“He’s, uh, about six foot two, I’d guess. Big dude. You can tell he works out. I think women would say he’s handsome. Dark hair, short.” I hesitate, just checking my progress. I’m winning her back, I can tell. “Carries a gun inside his blazer.”
“All right,” she says, palms out. “I can see you’re trying at least. But maybe you can explain why you and my ex-husband just saw each other here in my office and neither one of you recognized the other?”
“Oh!” I say, and I stand up without thinking. I guess I’m excited, like in grade school when I actually knew the answer to the math problem on the board. “That’s because we never met in person. But I did call him. I left a message and made arrangements to drop off the stolen stuff for him at the Zone 6 police station. Which I did, just like you asked me to do. It’s all good.” I suddenly realize I’m standing, and I sit back down, maybe too quickly. “It’s all good. I’m a new man.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can see she’s tempted to believe me.
“Cross my hear
t.”
I want to give her my stage grin, the one that puts people at ease and makes them believe I’m telling the truth even when they know I’m lying to them. But I’m actually telling the truth to Trudi, and I want her to believe I’m telling the truth even though she thinks I’m lying. So I just look deeply into her eyes and wait for her to choose.
I find myself mildly distracted by her eyes. At first glance I see brown, but then they seem to change to greenish, with a brown center, and then they change again. Hazel eyes are so cool, I think.
She stares at me, and I think maybe she’s looking at my eyes the same way I was just looking at hers. Then she’s all business. “Okay, I believe you. For now. But you can bet I’ll ask Samuel about this later, so you’d better cover your bases if you haven’t already.”
I can tell I’m smiling again. And nervous. And loving every minute of it.
“So, Raven”—she emphasizes my stage name—“why are you here? What do you want?”
“Well, Trudi, see, I realize that the last time we met I wasn’t in the best mental state. I feel like I may have made a poor impression, especially with that whole spontaneous marriage proposal thing and all.”
“Not to mention the three goons who were trying to perform plastic surgery on you. Without anesthesia.”
“Right. Not to mention those guys. But that’s why I’m here. I’d like to ask for a second chance to make a first impression.”
“What?”
I take a deep breath and exhale quickly. I’ve been working hard the past few days, honest work, twelve hours a day out at both Piedmont Park and Freedom Park. Performing magic tricks, making tips, and saving every penny just to be able to do this, what I’m doing, right here, right now. I think of the thin collection of bills hidden in my wallet, and that bolsters my confidence. I may spend it all, but at least I can afford what I’m about to suggest—and for once I earned it all honestly. I inhale again, taking in the thrill of the uncertainty before me.
Mom always said I was an adrenaline junkie. I guess she was right.
“Trudi,” I say, “I was wondering if you might like to have dinner with me tonight. Someplace nice?”
12
Bliss
Atlanta, GA
Little Five Points
Friday, March 24, 9:49 a.m.
21 days to Nevermore
It’d been a week since Max Roman’s surprise visit, and Mama Bliss could tell that Darrent was still mad at her.
He’ll get over it, she told herself. He always does.
Trouble was, Darrent had been more than just a worker for William. He was, in the most practical sense, a true believer in Bliss’s now-deceased husband. The work they’d done had been about more than the money. Darrent had made plenty of that over the years. If he’d wanted out, he could’ve gotten out and lived comfortably at any time. But he stayed because William asked him to stay, because William convinced him they weren’t just smuggling guns. They were changing the world, they were making the planet a better place—making Little Five Points a better place. And Darrent believed it. He’d spent most of his adult life believing it, and working for it, and making it happen with his own blood, sweat, toil, and tears.
I got to do what I got to do, Darrent, in the time I got to do it, she told herself. Mama Bliss won’t last forever, you know.
She sat on the sidewalk in front of Sister Bliss’s Secret Stash and wished it would rain. The day was uncomfortably warm—not summer “Hotlanta” style, but spring-heat style. Muggy, air full of moisture but without any actual precipitation to relieve the discomfort. Bliss could see dark clouds to the north and west of her and was fairly certain they were getting rain over there, but that little storm had stalled. Maybe it would die out without ever reaching the Stash, or maybe it would suddenly shift and dump buckets of water.
“Make it rain,” she whispered to the sky. There was no answer.
After a few minutes, Darrent came out to sit beside her on the sidewalk, carrying his own folding chair and setting it up next to her blank canvas. No one said anything at first, and then he peered at the chalky white and said, “Not painting today, after all?”
“Nothing asking to be painted,” she said.
He nodded. “Sold your last painting today,” he said. “Some tourist from New York City. Said she was going to use it as part of an exhibit at a gang rehabilitation facility in Brooklyn.”
“Huh.”
“It made her weep when she saw it.”
Mama Bliss didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway,” Darrent continued, “I get it now. After seeing that woman weeping in front of your painting, I get it.”
“What you talking about, Darrent?”
“I understand why you let Max Roman take those guns. I get it now. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, that’s all. I thought I should say so.”
“I got to do what I got to do, Darrent.”
“I know.”
“The time is coming, Darrent.” I won’t be ’round forever.
“I know.”
“You gonna be all right after Mama’s gone?”
“I’ll figure out something.”
“I know you will, honey.” She patted his knee. “Now go inside and change the world. I’m just going to sit here and wait for rain.”
“Okay, Mama.” Darrent stood, collected his folding chair, and went back into the Secret Stash. Bliss nodded to no one in particular and let her mind go back over the complicated relationship that William had begun with the Romanenko family.
“Ms. Mama Bliss,” Max had said last Friday night, just after Mama had agreed to let him take seventy-eight war weapons and plant them in Riverdale, only nineteen miles south of her home in Little Five Points, “would you like to see the favor I did for you today?”
She’d engaged the little motor on her wheelchair and followed him out to the alley that ran alongside the loading dock. To her left, she saw he’d brought a white box-truck to carry his guns. This one, she noticed, was painted with insignias of a large commercial carrier based in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
At least he had sense enough to disguise his truck as one that regularly brings shipments in and out of the Stash, she thought. But she’d never considered Max Roman anything less than shrewd anyway. He and his family had been around too long and been entrenched in power for too many decades to make stupid mistakes.
“So,” she’d said as they turned the corner into the alley. “They tell me you’re going to be the next mayor of Atlanta.”
“That’s the plan,” Max said cheerily. “Come November 7, you may have a friend in very high places, at least as far as Atlanta is concerned.”
She’d seen his car then—well, one of his cars—parked in the alley. Max kept a fleet of about half a dozen cars, trotting out his favorite one to suit whatever campaign setting he was in. For working-class neighborhoods, his driver chauffeured him around in a Ford Expedition EL. Among Atlanta’s “old money” elite, he arrived in style in a Cadillac CTS-V sedan. Tonight, though, his vehicle of choice was a black Escalade ESV.
The street lamps had felt dim back there, shaded by night and concrete and the odd assortment of refuse that tended to collect in places like that. The tinted windows on the Escalade gave no hint of what might be inside.
Max had stopped a few feet from the car, and Bliss mirrored his movement. “Your William was a good man, Mama,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if he admired her dead husband or if he was just feeling nostalgic. “He was smart to reach out to my father back in 1995, after the ETA terror group in Spain got ahold of some of your guns. After they used your guns in that attempt to assassinate José María Aznar. That really shook things up with your CIA, didn’t it?”
“We’ve been over this before, Max. Nothing conclusive ever connected us to those guns. And besides, that was a temporary setback. The CIA is still my biggest customer.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Just remembering your husband. And just reminding you
that, without me, even your CIA would have trouble laundering guns through the Secret Stash.”
“Seems as though you’ve always benefited from the arrangement.”
“I’ve always kept the terms of my father’s deal with your husband,” he said.
Until tonight, she thought, but aloud she only said, “Just as I have.”
“But times, they are changing. It takes money to do what I do. And there is a long-term plan in place, which also takes money. Lots of money.”
“You have lots of money.”
In the darkness, Bliss thought she could hear Max smiling more than she could see it happening.
“Regardless,” he’d said, “I need more. And that means buy low, sell high.”
Bliss was feeling impatient. “Well, in your case, that means sending your Kipo boys to create havoc until real estate prices plummet so you can buy devalued properties, renovate entire districts with shopping malls and overpriced office buildings, and then sell at inflated prices.”
“And clean up the gang problem in that area. You forgot that part.”
“Right.”
It was a pretty good scam, Bliss had to admit. Siphon money from your family’s deep-pocketed, multifaceted real estate development company. Use it to fuel the gangs with drugs and cash and women from your shell-company strip clubs until the Kipo boys were dependent on you. Then make the gangs your weapon of choice to chase away unwanted property owners, retail establishments, business entities, and whatever else stood in the way of your lucrative development projects. And after you’d pretty much confiscated other people’s homes and businesses and retail empires for pennies on the dollar, use your position on the Atlanta City Council to “crack down on crime” in your freshly acquired areas. Then “revitalize” the area like you did for the 1996 Summer Olympics in downtown Atlanta.
Of course, what that really meant was just ordering your gangbangers to wreak havoc in a different part of the Atlanta metro area, then building new, high-visibility architecture and infrastructure. After that, watch real estate prices and asset investments soar in your formerly devalued neighborhoods. Make a killing re-selling your holdings at absurd prices and start all over again in some other corner of the ATL.
