He chuckles, proud as a peacock. “Man, I had it in my backpack the whole night. Ever hear of the art of misdirection?”
“I’ve been to prison, haven’t I? Like when the Mexican Mafia starts a whole big ruckus in the chow hall just so they can slice up a guy in the library. Now that’s misdirection.”
“Exactly. Dissection by misdirection.” And creepy as he sounds, I almost laugh.
“So what’d your PO say?” I ask while he twitters to himself.
“Not much. Just the usual threats—one more mess-up and you’re back on a bus to Quentin. But they kept my book. Yours?”
“Same.” I think of the picture he’d had, the face marked through with the kind of rage that poisons from the inside out. The kind that’ll eat you through and through if you let it. Didn’t I know. And there I am again, feeling bad for the guy. “Evie got her license back. The cops found it.”
“No shit. Well, all’s well that ends well. Isn’t that what they say?”
As he walks away, I feel unsettled. Because in my experience, when things end well, it’s not really the end.
****
Since she spilled her guts this morning, Evie’s been avoiding me. At least that’s how it feels. She must regret telling me, and why wouldn’t she? I don’t deserve her secrets. You’re not good enough, Butch. You never will be. Always that thought, always Gwen’s voice in my head. Always. But Evie will say it too. Surely, she will. It’s just a matter of time.
After lunch, Mr. Vinetti had sent me to repaint the fire lanes in the parking lot, and I’d waved at her when she’d appeared in the window. Like an angel of reckoning, she’d stood there for a heartbeat, judging me with a frown, and then disappeared.
By the time five o’clock rolls around, I can barely keep my head on straight. As in, I reach for the flathead when I need the Phillips. It’s that feeling clogging up my brain, my whole goddamn body. The one where I’ve done something wrong—so many things—and I’m about to be found out for the fuck-up that I am.
“See ya tomorrow, Butch.” Mr. Vinetti pats my shoulder on his way out. “Keep your chin up. It could always be worse.” He pauses for effect. “Two words, my friend. Projectile vomit.”
“Amen to that.” I’m quick to fake a smile, a belly laugh. I don’t want him thinking there’s something wrong with me. That I’m hiding things.
“And Butch?” He pauses at the door, and I wait for him to level me. To tell me I’m acting shady. Like an ex-con. “Don’t forget to empty the trash cans before you head out.”
I sit there for a minute and gather myself. Picking up my pieces, the ones I’d scattered all day—in the line at Chicken and Waffles, going toe-to-toe with Trey, in Evie’s office watching her fall apart—fitting them back together the best I can. Until I resemble a man. A man on trash duty.
I tell myself not to do it, to go in order, the way I’ve been taught. First floor, then the second. But my feet don’t listen. They carry me straight to Evie’s door.
It’s locked. My hand knocks anyway, fingers clenched as tight as my chest. And the sound throbs down the hallway, heavy as my heartbeat.
No answer.
I insert the master key and step inside, already feeling guilty. Feeling like a criminal. And that’s how I move too—twitchy and wired—like I don’t want to get caught. You’re taking out the trash, Butchy. Not stealing trade secrets.
I dump the waiting room can into the heavy-duty bag I’d brought with me and head for Evie’s office. The shades are pulled shut, her computer dark. Her chair positioned to face the window. I breathe in, because it smells like her. Alive and light and faintly floral.
And it occurs to me then how alike we are. That she’s here, in this office, because of that tree, not in spite of it. The same way I begged the parole board to let me come back to Oakland. She wants to be reminded. She wants to remember for Christ’s sakes.
And me? I’d been relieved that she couldn’t, didn’t, hopefully never would. You were selfish, Mr. Calder—the parole board’s perpetual refrain—and apparently, I still am.
Her trash can sits next to the shred bin, but it’s already empty except for a gum wrapper. I reach in, grab it. Toss it in the bag.
And that’s when I see it, with Gwen in my head, smacking watermelon bubblegum and shoving her tongue in my mouth. With the parole commissioners shaking their heads at me, their distaste apparent.
A fax on top of the shred pile, awaiting destruction.
I mouth the words to myself, horrified. “Sebastian Delacourt…arrested…curfew violation…victim-related photograph…” And then the worst part—because I know now why Evie’s been acting funny—call me to discuss.
She knows. She knows I snuck out of the house. She knows I got arrested. She knows I never said a word about any of it. Just pretended to be normal, the kind of guy she could trust. When clearly I’m anything but.
I can’t get out of there fast enough. I shut the door. Lock it. And shudder. Like there’s something demonic on the other side.
“Hey, Butch.” 23A—otherwise known as Maneater Melanie—calls up to me from the sidewalk below before I can duck and hide. “Are you looking for someone?”
“Uh…” Say something. You look suspicious. “Uh, yeah. Dr. Maddox. Have you seen her?”
“Oh.” She sticks out her lip in a pout. “For a second I thought you might be looking for me.”
I swallow a lump, and there it goes. My heart, skittering, chattering like a junkie on speed. “No. I need to find Evie.”
“You look a little tense in the shoulders, like you could use my services. I give a twenty-percent discount for building tenants…and employees. Deep tissue. If you’re interested.”
I spin around, sure there’s someone watching. And I’ll be blamed for whatever this is. I shake my head at her. “Not interested. I just need to—”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it. You need to find Evie. She already left for the day. I drove her back to her car at the garage downtown about thirty minutes ago.”
“Did she say where she was headed?”
Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know. Pinole, I guess.”
“Pinole? Did she say that?”
“No. But she asked me the fastest way to get there. So…”
She probably kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her over the roar in my head. A fierce wind of panic. A hurricane, really. Because they give those things names. And this one, I’d call it Trey.
Evie
May 10, 1994
Three days until my birthday
The sky was still pitch-black when I nudged Cassie’s shoulder. Her body like a small animal curled next to mine, soft and warm. “Wake up, Cass. You’ve gotta go.”
She turned over on her back, mumbling, dreaming. The dark room hid the cut on her lip and the bruise on her cheek, but I knew they were there. As surely as if I’d drawn them on myself in wild strawberry and royal purple. I’d seen Trey’s handiwork yesterday in the unforgiving fluorescence of the mini mart. Cassie had been there waiting for me after school, barefoot. And I’d kept my poker face when she’d told me Trey had been arrested. That he’d tried to get her to work for him. That he’d smacked her when she’d refused.
“Cassie. I’m serious. Wake up.” Her eyes fluttered open.
“Huh? What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Early. But Cherice gets here before the sun comes up. You have to be gone by then.”
She covered her face with my pillow and flipped onto her side, nearly shoving me off the bed.
“Unless you want to live here permanently? With all of us other misfits. Because that’s what’s going to happen if somebody catches you.”
She drew the pillow down from her face and groaned. “Alright, alright.” Her feet slapped the floor as she gathered yesterday’s clothes and the shoes I’d loaned her. She walked toward
the window, sliding it open as quietly as a cat burglar. The early morning air smelled fresh. It gave me hope.
“You don’t think they let him out yet, do you?” When I caught the tremble in her voice, I wanted to say I told you so.
“No. But don’t go over there without me.” Like I had power over Trey. Like I could hold back the devil. “I’ll meet you after school. We’ll get your stuff back.”
She swung her legs over the sill and disappeared, and my stomach ached with unease. I imagined her shimmying down the drainpipe the way she’d come up, the way I’d showed her, with Trey waiting for her at the bottom, claws unsheathed, fangs sharpened. I laid back down in the still-warm spot she’d left, shivering.
****
Sometimes, you know you’re dreaming. It’s not real. Like when you’re flying through the sky above it all or when your teeth start to loosen and drop from your gums like Chiclets. Other times, it’s not a dream so much as a memory.
“Get in the closet, Evelyn.” I hadn’t wanted to. The closet at the Blue Bird was tiny, and it smelled like Trey’s cigarettes and my mom’s Calgon body spray. But I’d listened, because there was a man at the door. And because my mother was sick and angry. She’d needed a fix. I’d pretended to be a cat with black hair like mine. Eyes like mine. And I’d crawled inside, sliding the door shut behind me—not considering how dark it would be, how suffocating.
“Hey, Matty. C’mon in.” It hadn’t been the voice she’d used with me, all hard and cold. This voice slithered, soft as the belly of a snake.
“I told you not to call me that.”
“How ’bout baby? Is that okay? C’mon in, baby.”
“Trey’s not around?”
“Don’t worry about it. You want to have some fun or not?”
“Yeah. You know I do. I just—”
“You got the stuff? Put it on the dresser. The cash too.”
My mother’s bracelets jangled.
Bedsprings squeaked.
A zipper, undone. A moan.
I’d cupped my hands over my ears and tried not to listen, but the sounds were so loud. Like they were in my head.
Then, my mother’d laughed. She hadn’t laughed in so long, not with me, I’d barely recognized it. And I’d hated that man. Matt. Matty. Whoever he was, I needed to see him. In all his ugliness. So I’d scooted against the wall, tucked my feet under me, and cracked the door until there was a sliver of light.
My heart quickened. I’d sucked in a breath. Held it.
“Evelyn. Goddamn it. Shut the door.”
And I’d had. I’d seen nothing and everything.
“Jesus. Who’s Evelyn?”
“My daughter.”
“Shit. Trey’s gonna kill me.”
“It ain’t his daughter.”
“Still. You know how he is. He’s gonna kill me anyway.”
“Only if he finds out.”
They’d gone on like that for a while. Until the noises had started up again. But worse this time. And then it’d got really quiet. Too quiet. So quiet, I couldn’t stop myself from looking again.
My eyes had gone straight to his hands, squeezing her neck like a tube of empty toothpaste. I’d just sat there, wishing to die. Or turn into a cat. Either one.
Finally, Matty left. I’d stayed in the closet, relieved when she yelled at me.
“What the fuck were you thinking? You nosy little perv. I told you to stay in there.”
I would’ve rather she’d slapped me. At least I’d have a good reason to cry. “Who was that guy? How does he know Trey?” I’d whimpered through the closed door. “Why was he choking you?”
She’d shut herself in the bathroom to get high. That had been my answer. And I’d sat there sniveling like a baby. But in my dream, there’d been more. Another pair of eyes pricking the dark, burning red, and I knew Trey had been there with me all along.
****
That half dream, half memory stayed with me the whole day like nightmares often do, clinging to me, charging the air like static. I kept looking over my shoulder for those eyes. Trey’s eyes. The kind of eyes that could be one thing—playful and winking and full of promises—and then another thing entirely. My mom had stashed Matty’s money before Trey got back. She’d been floating on a heroin cloud by then—“It’s like love,” she’d told me once, “so good until it’s bad”—and she’d slipped the money deep inside the bowels of the torn cushion on the happy yellow sofa, holding a finger to her lips. “Our little secret,” she’d said.
But the dream didn’t stop me from hitching. Again. This time, a lady in a snow-white Cadillac stopped for me. She had a wrinkled face and hands with skin as thin as crepe paper. When I told her to let me off at the Blue Bird, she tsked tsked. “Does your mother know you’re taking rides from strangers?”
If it wasn’t so sad, it would’ve been funny. “She’s dead, so…”
“Oh, you poor dear. How did she die?”
My mother’s face, pale and slack, came to me. “Cancer.”
“My goodness. I’m so sorry. I’ll bet you miss her terribly.”
“Terribly,” I repeated. The word drove a sharp stake of guilt through my heart. I missed her. That much was true. But I didn’t want her back.
After the woman drove away, pausing at the stop sign to wave at me, I scoured the parking lot for Cassie. And Calder, of course. No sign of either, and already I felt uneasy. I sat down on the sidewalk in front of 145 and picked at the weeds growing up through the cracks in the concrete. The butt of a Marlboro cigarette—Calder’s brand—stuck up through the grass like a daisy, and I rolled it between my fingers, knowing it must be his. I studied the end of it. Put it to my lips, and an awful, wonderful yearning feeling gripped me. So good till it’s bad.
“Evie? Is that you?” Peggy poked her head out and shuffled over, her feet in flip-flops, bathrobe tied at her waist. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How ya been, girlie?”
“Alright, I guess.” I tossed the butt to the ground, hoping she hadn’t seen me.
She rubbed my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “They treatin’ you alright at that Port in a Storm?”
“It’s great. Just great,” I said, making a face.
“I wish Wade and me could take care of ya, but we can hardly keep ourselves afloat. How ’bout that weasel, Trey? Has he been botherin’ you?” I shrugged. I didn’t want to worry her. “You let me know if he needs another knock on the head, okay?”
“I heard he got arrested.”
Peggy threw back her head and let loose a throaty laugh. “Sure did. They got him with a little bit of coke and a warrant for pandering. I heard somebody tipped off the cops on him.” She winked at me. “You know ol’ Peg’s got her sources.”
My stomach cramped like I’d been sucker punched. “Does Trey know?
“Know what, hon?”
“That I sent the cops here.”
Her mouth hung open. “You did? I thought it was Butch.”
“Have you seen him? Butch?”
“Come to think of it, I ain’t seen him since last night. He was pretty strung out about something.” Her eyes danced, mouth twisted to a quirky smile. “Got yourself a little crush, do you?”
I lowered my head and sighed. “Why do I like some stupid boy who’ll never like me back?”
She wrapped an arm around me and pulled me in close like she was about to tell me a secret. Her breath was hot and stale. “If you figure that one out, Evie, you let me know.”
****
I had to be lightning quick. Nanette was standing outside waiting, and she could get in trouble—big trouble, she’d warned—for letting me in to 157 to grab Cassie’s stuff.
Where is Cassie? My thoughts raced like rabbits, every trail leading to that one. Dark and thicketed with dread.
I did a quick search of
the room and found Cassie’s gray duffel in the closet, still stuffed full of the clothes Trey had bought her. Balled on the floor in the corner, the yellow dress. Here in the dank light of the Blue Bird, the color didn’t look the same. It was drab—more potato than lemon—like my mom’s sofa, and I wondered if I’d misjudged its color all along. Or if it was this place that washed the life out of things. One of the straps was torn clean off. And I shuddered looking at it.
“Almost done in there, Evie?”
“Almost.”
I draped the dress over my arm and carried it to the trash can, preparing it for burial. It hadn’t been emptied in a while. Knowing Trey, he’d declined the spotty maid service. He’d never wanted anybody going near his things. Just because I could, I rifled through the empty beer cans and a moldy slice of pizza. A condom wrapper and a clump of cigarette ash. These were the things Trey was made of. Near the bottom, an envelope, stained with coffee and God knows what else, a typed address on the front.
Arlene Allcott, care of Trey Waters
10 Eagle Pass
Pinole, CA
I pulled out the crumpled contents. A check stub from Alameda County General Assistance. Money that should have been mine. I tightened my fist, strangling the small slip of paper.
Unbelievable. Rage hissed through my veins, a steaming poison. It demanded release.
“Evie! C’mon.”
“Okay. One sec.” I slung the duffel over my shoulder and ducked into the bathroom. I grabbed Trey’s toothbrush from the edge of the sink. Dunked it once, twice, three times in the toilet and scrubbed once around for good measure, returning it to its resting place.
“Ready,” I said to Nanette, slamming the door shut behind me.
****
When Wade dropped me off, Cassie huddled on the front steps of the Port, her eyes blurry. I dropped the duffel at her feet. “What happened to you?” I asked, still trying to tamp down my anger. At Trey. At my mom. At Bobby Pierce. At Calder for never showing up when I wanted him to. “Where were you?”
“Trey’s here.” Together, those words were the worst two I could’ve imagined. They sobered me, turned the heat of my anger cold and suspended me somewhere between fury and fear.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 59