The Best of Evil

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Sammie, it’s always good to hear your voice.” And I meant it.

  With her considerable wealth and corresponding business sense, Samantha Rosewood had agreed last year to join me in this financial endeavor. We had picked the location after extensive research and a couple of conversations with the Elliston Place Merchants Association. They felt that, yes, another espresso shop could fly. Or maybe they just wanted our membership dues. Either way, Black’s would still be on the drawing board if it weren’t for Miss Rosewood’s money.

  Simple facts: I needed more than my savings could provide, and she had more inheritance than she could spend. Poor Sammie.

  No complaints, though. She’s a savvy woman, with old money and Southern manners. Sure, I’ve imagined the romantic possibilities, but we’re different people from different worlds, and it’d never work between us. Not that she’d even consider it.

  “Checking in on the hired help?” I asked.

  “Actually—”

  “Caught you spying, didn’t I?”

  “May I finish my sentence, Mr. Black?” Sammie’s playful tone didn’t ease the sting of her reprimand.

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Actually, I am calling about the hired help. Not to stick my nose into operating affairs, but I have a friend—the daughter of a friend, really—who’s looking for employment. I told her she could see you for an application. She strikes me as intelligent and determined. When she heard me talking with her father about the espresso shop, she was quick to ask if there were any job openings.”

  “Have her come by.”

  “She’s planning on it.”

  “Today?”

  “If it’s no inconvenience.” Sammie’s demure tone implied I had a choice in the matter. Which I knew I didn’t. Not really.

  Tucking the phone against my shoulder, I shook dark Sumatran into a filter. “Hope she’s better than the last two.” A pair of students from Belmont School of Music—heads in the clouds, chips on their shoulders. I’d done the hiring.

  Sammie, with typical Rosewood restraint, left that point unmentioned.

  “I think this girl could do well,” she said. “This is just an FYI. I didn’t want you thinking I’d maneuvered behind your back.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Her name’s Brianne. She’s a doll and—”

  “Oooh. Sounds promising, for a single man such as myself.”

  “Aramis, honestly, this is business we’re discussing. The customers will love her—that’s all I meant to imply.”

  “Ahh. Too bad.”

  Sammie sighed, and I smiled at the thought of her touching a finger to her temple in practiced patience. She and I have regular dinner meetings—usually on the company tab, at places of her choosing—and I always enjoy them. Sammie Rosewood knows how to engage in conversation and how to make me feel like … well, like a gentleman. Like I’m capable of something more.

  I can’t help it, though; I still enjoy ribbing her, driving a wedge into the cracks of that well-mannered veneer. Once or twice I’ve caught glimpses of something underneath, a little girl wanting to break loose, to run free.

  “Brianne should be by early,” Samantha said to me. “Let me know your impression of her, because of course you’ll have the final say. As you well know.”

  “I do.”

  “Have a nice day, Aramis.”

  Her practiced courtesy brought a smile to my face. A nice day? I certainly planned on it.

  THREE

  All of us want to believe we would recognize a killer if he or she were on the other side of the counter sipping a double mocha with whip.

  But I didn’t.

  My morning started with the usual rush of the caffeine-deprived, and the customer in front of me looked mundane enough in an Old Navy shirt and painter jeans. A coat hung from his left arm. Over a slightly crooked nose, he studied his drink, then scooped a finger of cinnamon and whipped cream into his mouth.

  As he turned to find a table, his gaze landed on a bright-eyed girl in a Vanderbilt sweatshirt near the window. She dipped her head and looked away.

  He took another sip and pointed at the change I’d set on the counter. “Put it in your jar,” he said.

  My tips go in an orange ceramic mug that reads: “Tip your barista … and he won’t poison your drink.” It’s a joke, and it works.

  Male customers read the mug and respect it as a flexing of muscle, a testosterone indicator, while the ladies see it as the playful side of a man who could be mysterious and naughty if given the chance—a perception I’m willing to allow. Growing up without a mother’s nurture, Johnny Ray and I learned early on to find female attention by any means necessary.

  “Thanks.” I gave the man a thumbs-up, but he was already settling into a seat with his coat folded over his lap.

  I glanced at the change, almost two dollars’ worth.

  Not bad for a three-dollar drink. Not bad for a man about to draw a gun and point it in my direction.

  On the side streets of Portland, my old stomping grounds, anything could serve as a weapon. Knives and elbows, two-by-fours, and crescent wrenches. I’ve seen them all employed to gruesome effect.

  The last time a gun was pointed at me, the fault was my own, really. I should’ve known to keep on my own side of Burnside Avenue. In that urban environment, you leave a circle of friends, and they become mortal enemies. There’s no in-between.

  But I was desperate.

  I’d discovered my girlfriend was cheating on me—a rumor I’d tried to shrug off, yet one she’d confirmed in the heat of our yelling match the evening before. Felicia was the first woman I’d ever entrusted with my heart, and we’d been together three years.

  After a rough night, I went out early, looking for something to take the edge off. A little pick-me-up.

  I found myself on the sidewalk at the dividing line, eying the other side of the street where a previous supplier of mine still plied his trade. Fog hovered over the pavement, stirred and torn into shreds by a passing vehicle.

  Then, just as easy as that, I crossed Burnside.

  I was low on cash, but in my state I didn’t care if someone put a bullet through my head so long as I could shove a straw up my nose.

  A familiar face watched my approach while others floated nearby. Maybe they would find it in their hearts to step up. A short-term loan from my old ICV pals.

  ICV is a group of anarchists that claim to be on the side of the environment—at least that’s how they hooked me originally. I left when I realized their anarchism was more an excuse to indulge nasty habits than a stand against government corruption. The initials come from the Latin phrase in cauda venenum. Translated, it refers to a scorpion: “in the tail is the poison.”

  “Well, if it ain’t Aramis Black.”

  “Hey, Striker.” I reached out a hand, but he ignored it.

  “You got some nerve, wandering into our zip code.” Striker pushed away from a telephone pole. A short man, a compact slab of muscle. Shaved head. Tattoos coiling around his neck and down into his puffy Blazers jacket. He’s never been the brightest bulb in the pack, but he’s more than capable of delivering pain in high wattage.

  “One favor,” I said. “That’s all I need. For old times’ sake.”

  “A favor, you say. A fa-vor.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ free around here,” said his companion.

  “Felicia left me last night. Just a little help, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  Striker shook his head. “You cut yourself loose, left us high and dry. And a funny thing happened right after that. The cops came down on us, hard and fast.”

  I started backing up. It’d been a mistake to come here.

  “Now, now,” Striker chided. “Not so quick.”

  The blow to my back caused an explosion of pain in my head, but it was the tire iron across my shins that brought me down. I hit the concrete and felt blood fill my mouth.

&n
bsp; Within seconds, a door slammed and darkness followed.

  I groaned. Tried to open my eyes. To focus.

  “You thought you were a free man, huh, Aramis? Thought you could escape your history?” Striker crouched near my head, tapping my nose with the cold barrel of a Glock. To someone behind me, he said, “Get his hands.”

  I was on my knees, bent forward. The sound of a zip tie accompanied the cinching of my wrists. I winced. With my eyes adjusting, I could see we were in an empty warehouse.

  Striker said, “I’ll take it from here, boys. Watch those doors while I teach our narc a lesson.”

  “No. You got it wrong. I never—”

  He backhanded me, his knuckles cracking the bridge of my nose. I watched my blood spray the concrete floor.

  “Move!” he yelled at his companions. “This isn’t free entertainment.”

  Their footsteps echoed between support beams, old crates, and around a torn sofa in the corner. Once they’d taken up outside positions and the warehouse had fallen silent, Striker shoved his arm forward so that the Glock’s mouth gnawed at my forehead.

  Wild guess: a leisurely stroll home wasn’t in the cards for me.

  “Aramis, Aramis. Look at you, all trussed up.”

  I didn’t respond. I’d been an idiot, my common sense bulled over by a moment of need. Of weakness. Now I was a scapegoat for the trouble ICV had experienced with the authorities. Striker was nothing but a favored minion of the group’s upper echelon. He did as he was told, which meant the group must’ve already fixed me in their sights.

  I was a goner. Today, tomorrow, or the next day. But a done deal.

  Striker was twisting at my forearms, studying my tattoos. “Those’re the words you live by, ain’t that right? Isn’t that the reputation of Aramis Black?” He read from the banners, which wrap around dark green, double-edged blades: “ ‘Live by the Sword. Die by the Sword.’ So now it’s come full circle, eh?”

  My shins were still pounding in pain, my thighs cramped, my hands bound. With little chance of escape, I had images run through my head of a funeral procession, a sparse gathering of friends and family gazing into my freshly dug grave.

  It hit me then. Harder than expected.

  My mother, if she were alive, would be disappointed in me. Could she see me now? Was she looking down, heart torn by this scene? This wasn’t what she’d hoped for me, what she’d tried to instill in her sons.

  Tears of shame clouded my eyes.

  “Mighty Aramis. Not so tough now, are you?”

  I didn’t care what Striker thought of me, the lowlife.

  “Thought you could wedge your way back in? Get our trust so you could betray us again? Well, listen up: you tromped into the wrong backyard.”

  A tear burned a salty trail along my chin.

  “Ah, you’re breakin’ my heart. How ’bout you say you’re sorry for what you’ve done?”

  I refused to waste words on him. I wasn’t worried about myself; I was begging God’s mercy for my mother: One favor, that’s all I ask. If you could convince my mom I made it through the pearly gates, for her own peace of mind, I’d sure appreciate it.

  “Can’t do it?” Striker said. “You don’t got it in you to apologize?”

  Another backhand. The edge of a ring carved across my cheek.

  I gave a bitter chuckle, sending up years of regret in a split-second prayer: End of story, on my way down. And how often did I tell myself I was having ‘one helluva time’? How ironic.

  Another blood-burbling chuckle.

  God, I’ve blamed you for what happened to Mom, been ticked off for years. I still don’t know why she was taken from me, but this … this one’s my fault. Straight up. Tell her I’m sorry, would you? What can I say? I’m a sinner, Jesus—and a good one, at that! Thought I could turn things around. Well, look at me now …

  “Ticktock, Mr. Black.” He gave a shrill laugh and nudged my neck with a steel-toed boot. The Glock bit into my temple. “Time to meet your Maker.”

  Bye, Mom.

  Through narrowed eyes, I saw a pool of red on the floor. I waited. I wondered if there’d be any awareness between the sound of the shot and the bullet’s brain-scrambling arrival.

  Instead of an explosion, I heard a whoosh of air, a shattering of glass, a burst of breath. Metal clanged. The Glock and the boot eased off in the same movement, and my ears filled with a dull ringing. Ten yards away, at eye level with my prostrate body, concrete exploded in a fan-shaped field of shrapnel.

  A wild gunshot. It deafened me momentarily.

  I maneuvered into a sitting position and saw Striker laid out on the ground, the weapon loose in his palm. His black jeans were baggy, cinched with a belt low on his hips, and a necklace glistened against the red T-shirt beneath his jacket. Rammed down onto his head, looking like a spaceman’s dome-shaped helmet from a fifties comic book, was a beveled industrial lighting fixture.

  I glanced up at the corrugated roof and spotted a frayed cord thick as a fire hose.

  Sounds cheesy, but there it is. In that exact moment, in that precise spot, I’d been saved by a light from above. Coincidence? Well, that’s easier, isn’t it? Easier than accepting that good and evil exist in personal form. Easier than believing that, on occasion, the physical and spiritual realms collide.

  Believe what you will, but a second later or a few inches in either direction and that fixture would’ve done me no good. With my own eyes I saw the results, and I wasn’t about to stick around waiting for Striker’s antiestablishment friends to verify my story.

  Already a door behind me was screeching open.

  I brought my knees to my chin and pulled my bound hands under my feet so I could grab the Glock. I rolled behind Striker, let the piece settle into my grip, and fired at the first man in the opening.

  A corner of the doorway burst into splinters. The man spun away. Cursed. A shaft of wood had wedged in his thigh.

  Beside me, Striker moaned. His eyes opened and found mine.

  I jabbed the gun barrel into his cheek, pushing upward, filled with a sudden desire to do away with this man. He’d intended to kill me. It was me or him. Rage and adrenaline coursed through my limbs, then subsided.

  Mom, I’m sorry.

  I withdrew the weapon. Ejected the clip and kicked the gun across the floor.

  Bound and bleeding, I stumbled toward a broken-out window. I sawed the zip tie against a shard of glass, then jabbed with my elbow to clear the remaining shards and rolled through the opening.

  I landed outside on a pile of crates. My kidneys still ached from the blow to the back. My wounded nose was dripping, and my lungs felt like deflated balloons. I couldn’t get air, could hardly breathe.

  I straightened, looked left and right, checking the length of the alley. Clear for the moment.

  Hugging the shadows and the side streets, I hobbled home, a bundle of nerves, spooked by every sound. I locked the deadbolt on my door before taking a shower.

  Later, alone on my couch, I weighed what had happened.

  I’d been spared.

  My mom looking out for me? God’s hand of protection?

  I saw it as a sign to leave the streets behind. Felicia was gone, and my life in that neighborhood was on borrowed time. It wasn’t a matter of running from trouble so much as running toward the things my mother had tried to deposit in me.

  Within hours I was on my way to Nashville—to my brother’s apartment. He took me in, stood by me. And the move had seemed to do the trick.

  Until this morning, when memories came flooding back—in my mother’s handkerchief and in the words of a dying man.

  When I slid a cup of Sumatran to the next patron at the bar, I had no idea he would be the victim. “A buck seventy-five,” I told him.

  “Quarters okay?”

  “All spends the same.”

  Pewter and beads ringed his neck, and a tattered sweater hung like a third-world garment on his narrow frame. His hair was dusty blond, scraggly. He g
lanced past me into the storage and roasting area. Then, like the customer a few minutes earlier—the one with the Old Navy shirt and the slightly crooked nose—he jerked his head toward the skinny girl in the Vandy sweatshirt.

  Could you be any more obvious? I wondered.

  A moment later I was sniffing at my own armpit, despite the fact I’d rolled the area with a liberal dose of deodorant. Come on. I must’ve looked like an idiot, preening and checking for body odor.

  Near the window, the girl scooted over in the booth to make room for her shoulder pack. The table lurched, forcing spume from the lid of her drink. Was she aware of our attention? Distracted? Earlier, while ordering a mocha, she’d looked at me as though working up the nerve to say something.

  Maybe I did smell.

  The guy at the counter was still staring at her. Then he looked back at me. He seemed to be on something—jumpy, hollow cheeked, his neck raw on one side from habitual scratching. I’d seen it all before.

  “Cream and sugar’s over there,” I said.

  Behind the guy, metal glinted. I tried to look around him, but he still wanted something.

  “Dude,” he said, “listen to me.” He had one hand shoved deep into his front pocket; the other twirled a thread on his sweater that was thick as a rolled joint. “Are you paying attention?”

  No use arguing with a meth user. “What do you need?”

  “Need the whip, that’s what. You know where the whip is?”

  “However you like it.” I held open the refrigerator door with my foot and found the can of whipped cream. Gave it a shake. Anything to please this tweaker.

  “You even listening? Look at me. Do you know where it is?”

  “Where what is?”

  “I need the whip.”

  I set the can on the counter. “All yours.”

  His fingers locked on my wrist, his eyes bursting with fear and determination. I would’ve written off this drug addict’s next statement except it was an echo of the words my mother had said to me the morning of her death.

  “Spare your soul,” he ranted, “and turn your eyes from greed.”

  My throat tightened. “What’d you say?”

  His bead necklace dangled as he leaned toward me and repeated himself. Despite the fair number of customers in the shop, I was transfixed. My pulse pounded in my ears. What were the odds of someone speaking these same words to me? And within hours of Mom’s memento reappearing on my doorstep? I reached up and pressed my free hand against the handkerchief folded in my pocket.