The last words he’d spoken were, “Tell me everything you remember.”
That had been forty-five minutes ago.
The story took longer than Evan had expected, longer than any story he’d ever been told. Trevon recounted every last detail. That Mama used Kentucky bluegrass for her back lawn because it reminded her of home. That Muscley One’s truck was a Chevrolet Silverado kept very clean with a dangly tree air freshener that was blue which didn’t make sense because trees aren’t blue and they don’t smell like new-car scent. That Trevon had taken 978 breaths between when they’d put the garbage bag back over his head and when they’d dumped him in an alley downtown.
Evan thought of the Seventh Commandment—One mission at a time—and felt frustration thrum to life in his gut. He had already embarked on the biggest mission of his life—perhaps the biggest solo mission in history—and was eager to get back to it. To proceed he had to get into the Secret Service databases through Naomi’s phone. He’d booked his flight to Milan, to the one person with the hacking skills to possibly make it happen, and he was impatient to get airborne.
Mere hours ago he’d slipped out of the warmth of Mia’s bed. He’d wanted to leave a note on one of her trademark Post-its but had struggled mightily with what to write. This was where his upbringing failed him; the small gestures of intimacy escaped him every time.
He’d settled on, “Sorry. Work.”
He’d made it quietly across the room before pausing for a three count, his hand on the doorknob. Then he’d reversed course, moving silently, and added, “p.s.!”
He noted his own rising restlessness now and created distance from it, observing it from afar. Before him was a young man in desperate need of help. Evan was getting useful information. And some not-so-useful information. But then again he couldn’t yet know what would prove useful and what would not, so he cleared his mind and opened it wide. The First Commandment: Assume nothing.
As Trevon continued to describe what had been done to him, Evan forced himself to discard his anger. Anger was useless.
There were two tales unspooling, the one that Trevon was telling and the one that Evan was reconstructing in his head. When Trevon described the shipping container filled with $18 million of frozen fish from Suriname, Evan translated it to six hundred kilograms of cocaine smuggled inside large game fish that helped mask the scent from drug-sniffing dogs. The port of Paramaribo was a narcotics-transshipment point for cocaine of Peruvian origin, which meant Big Face was in deep to the cartel.
After another half hour, Trevon finally ran out of words. “I was just following the rules.” He shook his head. “I was just following the rules like you’re supposed to.”
He was trembling, skinny arms crossed at his stomach.
Evan felt a surge of admiration for the young man, but that reaction, too, was emotional. It wouldn’t get Evan from A to B, and right now that was all that mattered.
He leaned on the dustless bureau, his elbow touching the side of an old-fashioned TV with the bulk of an ice chest. “Here’s what’s going to happen next.”
Trevon looked over at him, his already big eyes magnified through the thick lenses. On the neatly made bed behind him, there was a stuffed-animal frog, tucked in up to its chin.
“The cops will come,” Evan said. “They’ll tell you that your family has been killed.”
“What do I tell them?”
“That you’re shocked and devastated. That you’re scared you’ll be targeted next. Act terrified. That shouldn’t be hard.”
Trevon’s teeth were chattering. “No, sir.”
“They’ll bring you to identify the bodies.”
Trevon covered his mouth and nodded.
“Your fingerprints are all over the house, but that’s fine. You said you visit your mom a lot, right?”
He nodded again and murmured, “Mama.”
“Don’t tell the cops you went to the house last night.”
“But you’re not supposed to lie to the cops. It’s against the rules.”
“If you follow the rules,” Evan said, “then Big Face will hurt you. And I don’t want you to be hurt. So I need you to listen to me, okay? I need you to follow my rules.”
“Okay.”
“Your cheek’s scuffed up a bit. If the cops ask where you got that, what are you gonna say?”
“I got it when Muscley One and Raw One threw me out of their truck.”
Evan gritted his teeth, searched again for patience, which was proving elusive. “You can’t mention them either, okay? Any of them. If you say anything about them, they’ll find out, remember?”
“Okay.”
Evan looked away to hide his exasperation. On the bureau beside him was a notepad with neat handwriting that read:
Goals for the Day
1. Make more eye contact with folks.
2. Smile more when you see folks.
3. Ask a personal question when someone asks you one.
4. Don’t overshare about stuff that bugs you.
5. Be yourself, ’cuz who else can you be!
Evan found that he’d been staring at the pad too long, and he looked away, reminded himself of the Fourth Commandment: Never make it personal.
He cleared his throat, a rare nonverbal tell. “If the cops ask about the scrape on your cheek, tell them you got it moving a crate at the office.”
“Moving a crate at the office.”
“That’s right. And you’re gonna get up in the morning and go to work as if nothing’s happened.”
Trevon’s upper teeth pinched his lower lip, and Evan could see he was biting down very, very hard. Yet he nodded.
“Do not mention me,” Evan said. “That’s a rule. A very important rule. Understand? No matter what.”
“Mention who?”
“Me.”
“I was making a joke,” Trevon said.
“Oh.”
Evan did his best not to look at the list on the bureau, at the frog stuffed animal lovingly tucked in. He had to treat this mission like any other. Which meant treating Trevon like any other client.
“I have to figure out where to find the men who did this to you,” Evan said. “You didn’t overhear any names?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you tell me anything distinctive about the men?”
“Well, one had hair that was brown like chocolate brown and it was cut about two and a half inches—”
“I mean really distinctive. Piercings, tattoos, scars.”
“Muscley One had these tattoos on his inner forearms that were, like, each a half skull so when you put them together like this”—a quick demonstration—“they’d make a whole skull. But I didn’t get to see him do it.”
“That’s good,” Evan said. “That’s helpful.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t know the location of the compound where they brought you?”
“No, sir. My head was covered and I lost count after we turned left, left, right—”
“Did you see the license plate of the truck?”
“It was a new truck with plates like from the dealer but they were dark so I couldn’t read them. If it was new, I don’t know why he added new-car smell ’cuz wouldn’t it have that already and also he was worried I’d get puke on the new seats and so he made me wipe my mouth with a towel.”
“The towel you held on to,” Evan said. “Like Blankie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you still have the towel?”
Trevon stood up, but then his knees seemed to go weak, because he sat back down and leaned forward with his hands on his thighs, the mattress squeaking. Then he stood up again, and Evan followed him into the cramped front room of the apartment. Trevon went over to the yellow tile counter that passed for a kitchen, knelt, and pulled from the trash can what looked like a hand towel.
He handed it to Evan, the microfiber crusted with dried vomit, a ripe odor wafting off it.
&nb
sp; Evan turned the white towel over, spotted the stitched decal on the other side: 24 HOUR FITNESS. He tore off the white tag, pocketed it, and handed the towel back to Trevon.
Trevon clutched it to his chest, his eyes starting to water. He squeezed them shut and muttered something to himself under his breath, repeating it in a loop, adjusting his eyeglasses again and again until the earpieces turned the skin above his ears raw.
“Trevon. Trevon.”
Trevon opened his eyes, sniffed hard. Then he leaned on the table as if he were dizzy.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
Trevon thought for a moment. “Yesterday at 12:05.”
“You’re no good to us if you can’t focus.”
“I’m sorry.”
Evan opened the refrigerator. It was filled with pineapple, cantaloupe, lemon chicken, apricot jam, squash soup, sweet potato, carrots, and oranges. On the counter were Cap’n Crunch’s Orange Creampop Crunch, Cheerios, bananas, and a dozen boxes of mac and cheese.
Evan looked at him.
Trevon gave a faint cough, a nervous tic, then did it again. “I only … I only eat food that’s yellow or orange.”
“I understand,” Evan said. “I only drink vodka.”
“Really?”
“And water.” Evan tossed him a banana. “You need calories.”
Trevon peeled it, took a bite, then set it on the table. They were both still standing. “I didn’t ask not to be normal,” he said, with sudden anger.
“No,” Evan said.
“Even if I don’t fit in, I’m still special. I still matter.”
Evan said, “That’s true.”
“I always mattered as much as anyone else to my family. Uncle Joe-Joe said blood’s thicker than water. Now I don’t have anyone to see me like that.”
Evan studied the angry twist of skin between Trevon’s brows. “It’ll be hard.”
“You don’t know!” Trevon shouted. “You don’t know how it feels to have someone try’n wipe you off the face of the whole entire planet like you were never even there!”
Evan thought of taping the surveillance photos to the wall of Apartment 705 in D.C., all those other Orphans, their faces crossed out by Magic Marker, their lives redacted by the sitting president of the United States.
He didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say that would be useful.
Trevon raised a stiff hand and pressed his palm to the side of his head. This seemed to calm him. Finally he said, “I wish Kiara was here.”
“Your sister. Can we reach her?”
“No,” Trevon said. “Look.”
He went around the table to a tiny computer desk and came back with a glossy pamphlet. Evan scanned it. It detailed a three-month church mission designed to help provide potable water to Mayan Indians living in two hundred remote villages scattered through the jungles and mountains above the Río Dulce in Guatemala.
“There’s no phones,” Trevon said. “And she doesn’t barely ever check e-mail. She doesn’t even know what happened to Uncle Joe-Joe and Aisha and Mama.…” He paused, drew a few breaths. “Mama,” he repeated, and the grief in his voice was palpable enough to put a hitch in Evan’s next breath.
“Your sister,” Evan said, getting them both back on track.
“There’s no way to reach her.”
“That’s good news, too,” Evan said. “Because it means no one else can reach her either.”
Trevon chewed his lip and thought about that, and then his eyes changed. “Right,” he said. “Right.”
He took another bite of the banana and then set it down again. “I have to feed Cat-Cat,” he said, rushing to fill a plastic bowl with kibble. At the noise a slender tabby materialized from its hiding place behind the curtain. “Mama bought me Cat-Cat. I’m responsible to him and he’s responsible to me.”
“She sounds like she was a good mom.”
Trevon closed his eyes again, fiddled with his eyeglasses, and made the noises he’d made before below his breath. Some kind of mantra? At his feet Cat-Cat dined obliviously, crunching away.
“Trevon. What are you saying?”
He opened his eyes. “We don’t cry and we don’t feel sorry for ourself.”
Evan took a moment to find words again. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can cry.”
“No,” Trevon said. And then, more forcefully, “No.”
“All right.”
Trevon sank into the chair. That’s all there was at the little breakfast table. One chair.
He looked up at Evan. “Do you cry?”
“I didn’t go through what you went through.”
“I’m not gonna cry.”
“Okay.” Evan took a step closer. “I need to leave now, Trevon. I’m going to find the men who killed your family. And then I’m going to report back.”
“What if they come after me?”
“They’re not going to hurt you. They need you alive and well to maximize your suffering.”
“Oh,” Trevon said. “Oh, no.”
“The good news?” Evan said. “From an operational perspective—” He caught himself. “Right now there’s no rush. For them nothing is pressing. Or urgent.”
“Pressing,” Trevon said. “Or urgent.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay.” His lips were wobbling. The half-eaten banana sat by his knuckles.
It seemed impossible that a banana could code for abject loneliness, but there it was.
Evan had to get out of here before he started anthropomorphizing the furniture. He started for the door.
“It’s all my fault,” Trevon said to his back.
Evan stopped. Didn’t turn around. “No,” he said.
“But they told me—”
Evan swung around. “Everything that happened, every last thing, is on them. You did nothing wrong.”
Trevon’s hands rested on the table, palms down. “How do you know?”
“Because I wouldn’t be here working for you if you had.”
“You work for me?”
“I do.”
Trevon swallowed, which seemed to take considerable effort. “Can you stay for a little while?”
“No,” Evan said.
“Just till I fall asleep?”
“I don’t do that. That’s not what I’m for.”
“Okay.” Trevon shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can … I can do it. I can put the TV on. It keeps me company.” He lowered his hands, and by dint of will his eyes were dry and his head held high. “Mama said it’s good to have a house full of voices and that’s what she wishes for me someday.”
The chair legs screeched as Trevon pushed back from the table, and then he headed to the bedroom. A moment later Evan heard the TV click on, an exuberant weatherman discussing cold fronts fetishistically.
Evan bowed his head.
Cat-Cat sat at his feet and looked up at him.
Evan said, “Be quiet.”
Cat-Cat looked at him some more.
“What do you know?” Evan said.
Cat-Cat flicked his tail and flounced back to his spot beneath the curtain, where he stared at Evan with recriminating eyes.
“Goddamn it,” Evan said.
He walked down the brief hall to the bedroom and found Trevon in bed wearing blue pajamas, having tucked himself in next to the stuffed frog. The lights were out, but his eyes were open, catching an ambient streetlamp glow through the window.
Evan sat across the room with his back to the wall, elbows resting on his knees. He thought about the painstakingly neat handwriting on the notepad: “Be yourself ’cuz who else can you be!” About the man across from him waking up every morning trying to do the best he could. And about the people who had obliterated everything he’d known.
The Fourth Commandment was out the window.
The Seventh Commandment was out the window.
Evan’s hands had curled into fists. They were still loose, yes, but they were read
y not to be.
Over on the bed, Trevon’s blinks grew longer and longer. “I followed the rules,” he mumbled, his voice slurred with exhaustion. “You’re supposed to be okay if you follow the rules.”
His head nodded to the side, and his breathing took on a rasping sound.
“Yeah, well,” Evan said to the dark room. “Sometimes you have to break them.”
23
Backtracing an Outbreak
There were seventeen 24 Hour Fitnesses in the Greater Los Angeles Area. But here Evan was at the Magic Johnson Signature Club on the second floor of the Sherman Oaks Galleria. The gym was sandwiched between an upscale day spa and a wide staircase leading to a high-end movie theater.
Evan had arrived here by calling the gym towel manufacturer, which prided itself on producing hygienically clean textiles, a catchphrase with which he had been previously unfamiliar. Posing as an occupational-health safety inspector, Evan claimed he was backtracing an outbreak of Staphylococcus aureus, which seemed to be tied to laundry infection at a gym. If he provided a serial number from a specific towel, might the company be able to tell him to which location that particular batch of towels had shipped?
They might.
So now here he was in the open-air second level outside the gym entrance, wearing generic worker coveralls, replacing a wall outlet beside a shaggy ficus by the elevator. The impostor outlet he was installing, which was conveniently wired into the existing power source, contained a covert stationary video recorder. The tiny lens sat between the two plug receivers, flush with the plastic plate. Motion-activated, it recorded time-stamped footage to a microSD card hidden inside the unit.
Evan tweaked the button-size lens, angling it on the glass-doored entrance to the gym so it captured the people streaming in, seeking to break a pre-workday sweat.
The clientele, from what Evan could glean, consisted mostly of aspiring actors, dedicated muscleheads, and disciplined young moms in Lululemon eager to park their offspring at the on-site kids’ club. The front desk featured an efficient check-in procedure—no card or key fob required. You just pressed your finger to a scanner on the counter and in you went.
Evan tightened the screws on the impostor outlet, pocketed his screwdriver, and moved the ficus another few inches to the right, its broad, glossy leaves whispering conspiratorially.
Out of the Dark Page 13