The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  After he escorted me over to the cashier queue, it wasn’t long before my grasp slipped and knees buckled, but Evan’s finely tuned reflexes caught me and returned me upright. He threw a smile at the disapproving faces, his forearm supporting my back like I was his puppet, his ventriloquist’s dummy.

  ‘She’s tired is all. I told her she spends too much time at that hospital doing brain surgery, but would she listen to me?’

  Evan faked a laugh while my eyes darted the hall, looking for an exit, though before I could hatch an escape plan I was yanked forward, a desk now free at the end of the hall.

  When we arrived at cashier eleven he stared first at Evan, beaten and bruised, before moving to me, struggling to keep open my eyes.

  ‘Welcome to Eagle First, how can I be of assistance?’

  Evan pushed his sunglasses up into his hair. ‘Yeah, she’d like to withdraw a million dollars.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ the clerk replied.

  ‘A million dollars, from her account,’ Evan ordered, with his elbow on the counter.

  The clerk examined at me from over his glasses, clearly concerned. ‘Sir, is she all right?’

  ‘I need . . .’

  ‘You need what, ma’am? It sounds like she needs something, sir.’

  ‘Yeah, the money withdrawing, she needs the money withdrawing. That’s what she’s trying to say.’ He stared at the clerk, a slight man who sported a Groucho Marx moustache. Then Evan scribbled on the back of a payment slip and pushed it over the desk. ‘The account is in this name. Her name.’

  The clerk took the paper. ‘It’s in your name, ma’am? This is your account?’ He spoke slower now, like I was a child.

  ‘Of course it’s hers. Get typing on that little computer of yours and there won’t be a problem, pal.’

  My pulse began to race. I could hear it, like a river rushing though my ear canal. Everything about Evan, and the bank, felt wrong. I had to get out of there. I had to leave. ‘Evan, there’s something you have to know about this account, this money.’

  ‘Will you shut up about the money?’ he warned through gritted teeth, while smiling at the clerk.

  While typing in the details, Groucho’s shaking head voiced his disapproval, though upon pushing the enter key, his eyebrows rose sharply. Evan hadn’t listened. I’d tried to tell him the money was tainted but he’d been too obsessed with it ‒ not three hundred grand, but a million. He’d asked the clerk for a million, the full price of Mickey’s silence. How did he know there was one million in there to withdraw? I knew Mickey had upped the price, but what happened to three hundred?

  ‘The account hasn’t been accessed in a while?’ Groucho asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘Yeah, sure. She’s been saving up her birthday cash. What do you think she should spend it on?’ Evan joked.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll be spending it on anything, not without some ID and the cosignatory.’

  Evan’s grasp on my waist tightened. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sir, the cosignatory needs to attend in person due to the inactivity on the account, and for the quantity of cash you’re talking about. Nothing can be withdrawn until then.’

  Evan looked like he was turning purple. ‘A cosignatory? Shit, who?’

  ‘A Mr Bill Heller? Though maybe you should see to her health before you see to her finances,’ Groucho suggested, a hand jabbing at something under his desk.

  ‘No, maybe I shouldn’t. It’s real simple, are you paying attention? It goes, money from her account into my bag right here. It’s her cash and she’s here to collect it, so what’s the goddamn problem?’

  ‘I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Buddy, I am the police.’ Evan lifted his jacket to display his shield and holstered gun.

  Groucho’s moustache twitched. ‘Maybe I should phone your superior then, let him know what you’re doing.’

  ‘And maybe I should speak to your supervisor before you go and get your super-head busted open.’

  It was then two burly security guards appeared behind us, each equipped with a gun of their own. Evan glanced over his shoulder before dropping his head with a sarcastic smirk. I closed my eyes and hoped I was dreaming.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go, but I’ll be back for the cash.’

  As he hit the counter with the butt of his fist, the clerk jumped in his little swivel chair. Reluctantly, I was dragged past the guards (now murmuring into their radios), out of the bank and back on to South Derber.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me there was a cosignatory?’ Evan barked while pushing me through the passenger door of the Lincoln and leaning in through the window.

  ‘This money, it’s . . .’

  ‘He’s going to kill me. Mickey Delacro will take my head off. This was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to have that money by now. And do you mind telling me who Bill Heller is?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I lied.

  ‘How can you not know? It’s your goddamn account!’

  ‘Like I’ve been trying to tell you, it’s complicated.’ Even with Mickey’s supposed threats, I felt glad Evan hadn’t reached the money. And as for Mr Heller? He was some obscure folk singer from the Seventies, my father’s favourite. Of course my dad had used an alias, knowing the police might one day come looking for him and his Ponzi scheme cash. Sneaky guy.

  Back at the apartment, Evan had first given me more juice, told me I’d feel better if I drank, but I’d left it on the kitchen side and retreated to the bedroom after he began venting his anger on plates, glasses, vases ‒ I guessed anything within reach.

  Bang, crash, shatter.

  Still listening to the ruckus, I dragged the sheets over my head to hibernate in my cocoon.

  How long until that was me? My arm? My leg? My head? He’d never raised his hand to me, but he didn’t have to. I was beginning to see it. Not so long ago, Evan had been Victor, I’d been sure of it, but somewhere along the line I’d been distracted by a smokescreen. Now, I was beginning to realise the money wasn’t for Mickey at all, that Evan’s anger wasn’t misplaced fear, it was frustration. Though the more I thought, the more I didn’t want to. The more my headache invaded, crushing my cranium.

  I lay for a while, watching the black mirror of the TV screen, like it had been somebody else; like all this time it had been somebody else. And then, it stopped.

  I must’ve drifted off because the noise and cursing was gone, now awakening into a deathly silence. Clambering out of bed with a less throbbing head and my vision restored, I crept down the hallway to investigate. Lounge, study, bedroom, terrace, bathroom . . . Evan was gone.

  I could leave. Evan would return to find his meal ticket gone. Yes. I could do it. Five minutes to pack my stuff and change? Though there was only one problem – I was no closer to proving Evan was Victor, no closer to discovering if this was about the money. It seemed unlikely, especially after everything that’d happened, that Evan had made my acquaintance just take money he didn’t know I had. Nobody knew about the money, not even Joe. No. There had to be something else going on.

  After everything he’d told me, all his talk of Mickey, The Principe, Mr F and the money, of Nina and Joe . . . Today I’d seen the real Evan ‒ a man angry and frustrated, who’d stopped biting his tongue. There had to be one scrap of evidence somewhere in the apartment, to prove Evan’s true identity for sure, to prove what I’d believed deep down since Nina first uttered his name. That Evan was Victor.

  I didn’t know how long he’d been gone for, for how long I’d been asleep, but I had to try. I had to try and find it.

  Checking the front door, I found it locked. Of course it was locked. My key was gone from my handbag too. I need to know where you are at all times. Evan had begun taking precautions.

  Breathe. Think. My key had to be somewhere. Where would he hide it? And where would he hide incriminating evidence? The apartment was still as minimal as when I’d first stumbled around Evan’s rooms, when my face had cushioned the force of Jo
e’s kick. Evan didn’t do mess, apart from at work. Maybe it was part of his alter ego, but in the apartment things weren’t conveniently left lying around. I was going to have to climb inside his head while figuring out my own.

  If I were a burglar, where would I look? Where would Evan think I’d look? Drawers, boxes, behind the bath panel, under the . . . bed. Under the bed in my room. Seeing as things were never left lying around, the money had been more than easy to find. Had he wanted me to find the briefcase? Mr F and The Principe. Had it been a set-up? Telling me what they wanted me to hear?

  Where would I not look? Where would Evan hide something he’d never want found? A loose floorboard? Too clumsy. A wall safe behind a painting? Too obvious (though that didn’t mean I didn’t look behind his Jackson Pollock print). In London, Will used a hollowed-out encyclopaedia to store my jewellery and our passports. He’d seen it on one of his true crime shows and thought it was the best idea ever.

  I had nothing to lose. I headed back to the lounge, running my fingers down the book spines like I had over six weeks before. Atonement, Shutter Island, Fight Club, Cliff’s Police Sergeant Examination Guide and . . . a Webster’s English dictionary, a dictionary at the end of the row that looked remarkably page-less. Pulling it off the shelf, in the bottom I found a sliding plastic opening. Jackpot. Will and Evan weren’t so different after all.

  I carried the plastic dictionary to the coffee table, my fingers trembling as I upended it and shook out the contents. Inside was a rattling medicine pot ‒ no label ‒ a USB memory stick and a well-handled piece of note paper. As I unfolded it, I realised it was a handwritten list.

  ANGEL DUST DOSES / PRESCRIPTION TABS TAKEN

  TUES JULY 26TH – 1 DOSE, ORANGE JUICE / MISSING TABLETS / 1

  THURS JULY 28TH – 1 DOSE, CHINESE, WAN’S GARDEN / 1

  FRI JULY 29TH – 2 DOSES, TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP, LUNCH / 2 PLANNED

  SUN JULY 31ST – 2 DOSES, SLUSHIE, CINEMA; 1 DOSE, SOUP (DIDN’T EAT?) / 2

  TUES AUGUST 2ND – 2 DOSES, FRUIT SMOOTHIE (DIDN’T EAT) / 1 / 3 DOSES – TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP/ PLANNED/ JUICE

  WED AUGUST 3RD – 3 DOSES, PORRIDGE PLANNED / DORALIA MEAL? / 3

  I read it five times. Then I read it again. The numbers jumped over the page, the letters turning to teeth that bit and bled me dry.

  When my hands stopped shaking, I checked the medicine bottle. It was full of unremarkable-looking beige pills, similar to aspirin. Folding up the paper, I replaced it and the other contents meticulously, but there was something else inside, something stuck at the bottom. Peering inside, I realised it was my key.

  After replacing the dictionary, I ran to the door, about to shove the key in the lock when I heard a voice on the other side. It was Evan.

  ‘Yeah, something must be working on the CLRB.’ He spoke quietly. I could barely make him out. ‘Call me tomorrow on this number, but don’t leave the room. They have five hundred channels. I’m sure you can find some porn in there somewhere. Later, man.’

  There was no time. As the door opened, I wedged myself in the gap between the door and hall wall, flattening my back against it and sucking in my breath. I bit my fist, squirming in pain after Evan swung the door open and whacked me on the knee.

  I could hear him breathing. Those rhythmic calm breaths. Evan’s profile in the hall lamp was centimetres from me as he began humming, flicking through a pile of mail he’d carried in. His aftershave bit at my nostrils, he was that close. Still holding in my breath and screams, all he had to do was turn thirty degrees to greet my panic-stricken face, but he didn’t. Instead he turned his back to me while closing the door and headed down the hall, disappearing into the kitchen.

  ‘Honey, you awake?’ he called blindly.

  I fell forward like I’d been released from the starting gate, my lungs snatching at the air as I caressed my grazed knee. I had the key. This was my chance. I could make a run for it, leaving Evan knowing I’d figured it out; but that story had one ending, and it didn’t end with me seeing tomorrow. He’d traced me to the Star Lounge Café easily enough.

  I was so close, within touching distance of taking him down. I could show the police the list, get them to drug test me, but it wasn’t enough. I had to stay. He had to believe I was still in the dark until I could expose him as Victor too.

  I tiptoed back to the bedroom, but dared myself to stop at the kitchen door. It was ajar. I could see him inside, busy with something. There was more out of tune humming as he poured something into a bowl. Soup? Was he making soup? Then, taking a medicine bottle from his pocket, he selected three unremarkable-looking beige tablets and placed them on the chopping board. With the blade of a fish knife, he ground them into a fine powder, collected the dust, and stirred it into the soup.

  I crept my way back down the hall, the tears flowing as I crawled beneath the covers, shaking in fear. It was there that I waited for him.

  ‘Honey, are you awake?’ he soothed. ‘I made some soup to ease your head. Are you hungry?’ The knock was quiet, polite.

  I rolled over and pulled myself up out of the covers. Evan’s eyes were warm and sincere, a gaze full of affection. It was a look I’d seen so many times before, with every bowl of soup, every excuse, every goddamn manipulation.

  ‘What kind is it?’ I asked, closing my eyes in weary disbelief.

  ‘Tomato and basil. Your favourite.’

  3 DOSES – TOMATO AND BASIL SOUP / PLANNED.

  ‘Put it on the dresser, I’ll have it in a minute,’ I managed to croak before trying on a smile, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  He sat beside me, this time finding my cold hand, bolts of electricity shooting up my arm like that first day at Faith.

  ‘I’m sorry about the bank. I was a dick. God, I’ve been a dick all day. I’m on edge with this Mickey crap is all. I’m meeting one of his guys tonight. I’ll explain he’ll get the money soon, all right, baby? Eat your soup and you’ll feel better, I promise.’

  Everything Nina had told me was true. Victor was real, and I was looking right at him.

  After I failed to respond, Evan left me alone, ordering me to sleep. Once he was safely down the hall and I heard the terrace door slide open, I scrambled across the covers, ripping the drawer off its runners and snatching out my tub of round pink pills. With trembling hands I stumbled to the bathroom, forced open the tub lid and tipped them into the toilet, every last one.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I’d puked until I was empty, until there was nothing more to give, before tipping the laced soup into the bathroom sink and washing the traces away. Panting in the mirror, grabbing the sink bowl, I realised all the guilt tripping and desperation over Mickey, all the talk of blackmail and Nina and denying he was Victor . . . everything had been one fat Evan-shaped lie. If it wasn’t for my father’s forethought, Evan would’ve walked out of that bank and pocketed a cool one million, and once he discovered the balance of the account, the sky was the limit.

  According to the list, he’d been flavouring my food with Angel Dust, and as a bonus, had relied on me getting high on my own supply. The path of least resistance to the money looked like me drugged up to the eyeballs. He’d wanted me here. He’d wanted me at his house, so he could play doctor-slash-god. At least now my pills were gone. At least there was one thing in my life I had control over.

  And how did he get me here? How did he persuade me to move in? By sending a stalker to engineer a threat, one that made his offer of a safe house so appealing. He’d had it all planned out. How convenient Brandi disappeared just when I was vulnerable enough to trust him.

  As my fog dissolved over the next twenty-four hours, the world became iridescent. Going cold turkey from Evan’s drugs gave me diarrhoea and chills, but at least I’d only taken them since moving in with him, a week at most. At least, I assumed that’s how long he’d been drugging me. Now I’d seen the spoilers, escape was not only a sensible option but a viable one, though after making it this far I couldn’t give up on taking
Evan down, on bringing him to justice. It was the least Nina deserved, the least I did, too, so I faked it. I faked my addiction.

  I no longer ate anything Evan prepared. I picked at my lunch and dinner the following day and ensured I replaced the key in the dictionary, retrieving it only when needed. We didn’t go to the Doralia (my quite-real headaches ensuring we took a rain check) and after Evan left for his evening shift (or other Victor-based criminal activities), in the CVS Pharmacy beside the Radisson Blu Hotel I searched for pink pills to match the ones I’d (stupidly) tipped away, shrewdly anticipating Evan’s inspection of my supply seeing as his list kept track of that too. Sleepeeze’s pink sleeping tablets were the perfect doppelgänger. I bought as many packs as was permitted, while the pharmacist gave me enough second glances.

  ‘It’s for my insomnia.’

  ‘No kidding. Take all these, and you’ll be lucky if you wake up again,’ she warned.

  As if to raise her suspicions further, I asked her about Angel Dust. Phencyclidine she’d said, otherwise known as PCP; a dangerous street drug, potentially lethal taken in large enough quantities. It came in tablet or liquid form, usually white, brown or beige aspirin-sized tablets or capsules. And where would Evan get his hands on hard street drugs? Nina had mentioned it, months ago, something on the news about drug hauls. Hadn’t Evan said Mickey was being investigated for missing narcotics? Nina said Mickey had taken his cut. Now Evan was Victor, it was likely he’d done the same, or it was Evan who’d ordered Mickey to take it in the first place?

  Though to Evan, nothing had changed. I remained reliant on him to survive. I appeared in a daze, hanging on his every word, except I wasn’t. I watched him while he was distracted and listened to his phone calls when I was supposed to be unconscious. I was building a case. I knew about the list, I’d checked the USB stick (which contained details for houses and random plots of land in Vegas) and Evan was surely on the security cameras trying to withdraw money at the bank ‒ with me at the bank, granted, but the clerk could testify, if Evan didn’t get to him first. Then there was Joe’s body, which I remembered the rough location of, even though the thought chilled me, of leading Zupansky through the overgrowth to what remained of my husband.