Violets & Violence (6 page)

“Are you still working at Quotient?” I asked while he tightened the fasteners at my ankles. I watched him step around the small pool of urine at the base of my cross. I had pissed sometime in the last two hours. The fact that the puddle hadn’t been cleaned suggested it was still early in the morning. I knew this because Lindsey—and that was her real name. I knew that now because it was as familiar as her face from a long time ago—came with food three times each day. And to relieve Rinker. I didn’t know where he had been going these last four days when Lindsey relieved him—
today is the
fourth
day, the weekend, Saturday, and I’m sure Violet is planning my rescue by now
—but I was always happy to see Lindsey because trying to remember where I knew her was the only mental activity I had.

Rinker glanced up at me after finishing with the ankle restraints. “Quotient went out of business in ‘08,” he explained while working on my wrists. “You know that.”

“Is it almost breakfast?” I asked. I hadn’t cared for Quotient at the time, why would I have noticed its disappearance once I left?
He’s desperate, crazy.

He tightened the fastener to the point where I felt its sharp edges cutting into my flesh.

“Jeez,” I grunted.

“Tell me about the money,” he insisted, finishing up. Before returning to his table, he punched me in the face. Unlike the first time he struck me, it hurt now in my weakened state. Rinker was a lightweight, yes. But pain had become my ally. Kept me focused, alert, just like trying to place Lindsey somewhere in my past would keep my mind sharp.

“The money,” I said, ready to talk. “Okay.”

That surprised him. Almost to the point where I could envision him saying,
Oh, really? Let’s remove those restraints and order a pizza!

“We invested it.”

He groaned, rolling his head on his shoulders and returning to his laptop’s screen.

“We invested it in the show,” I added. “First it was Buffalo. There was a small, abandoned warehouse that someone had left behind from the consolidation in the automotive industry.” I felt like I gave too many details, and he didn’t seem to care about them as much as his Facebook account or Twitter feed or whatever held his attention. So I shut up.

He tapped away like I hadn’t said a word.

Lowering my head, I waited for sleep to come. But it didn’t. Or maybe it did. I had been wasting away for four long days, eating bread and drinking water. I could barely keep my name straight now.

But then the door opened, and Lindsey appeared.

Hope.

Rinker looked up from the table – his computer had been closed, and he had been reading a book on his eReader, which told me that I
had
caught some sleep – and he smiled at her. He liked looking at her almost as much as I did, but for different reasons of course. Where his eyes softened at her beauty, mine undoubtedly tried to dig deeper beyond the cobwebs of my memory.

Slowly, it returned to me, a piece here and there.
Where do I know you, Lindsey? The way Rinker looks at you, I know there’s a familiarity in that, but where do I fit in?

“You’re early,” he said, but I didn’t believe his words. I suspected he was saying that as a way to distract or confuse me about just how much time I was spending here. I knew she wasn’t early; her attendance was incredibly methodical. Rinker grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair – a thicker jacket than the last few days, which told me the weather had cooled – and left with a final glance back at me, followed by, “We’ll talk when I return, hmm?”

An empty threat.

They were all empty. Rinker wasn’t a killer, he was a banker looking for money. That was my best guess.

And then he left.

Just Lindsey and me now, and she barely glanced my way. She knew she had betrayed me four days ago when she led me here to this hell. We had chemistry, a connection, and she had thrown it away, not that I would betray Violet for someone like Lindsey. Or for anyone.

Or had Lindsey’s attraction to me been nothing more than an act? Could I use it to my advantage?

I’m remembering the way you looked at me, then avoided looking at me.

I didn’t know. It didn’t matter, either.

I watched her head to the far corner, fill the mop bucket with water and some kind of industrial disinfectant, and then roll the bucket over to my cross.

“Big plans this weekend?” I asked. As much as I hated that she cleaned my biological waste, it burned me a lot more that she refused to engage in a conversation with me.
Help me remember
. “Probably have dinner plans,” I sighed. My stomach rumbled, starving. “Boyfriend would be smart to take you to a nice, fancy restaurant on Fifth. Bottle of wine—no, I’m pegging you as a mojito girl. Yes, a couple of mojitos and a salad. Yes, a salad with salmon tossed on top while the boyfriend eats exotic steak and tries not to stain his custom initialed shirt cuffs.”

She glanced at me finally—
it’s a start, the first sign of acknowledging me, of confirming my assessment, but it did nothing to stir the past
—and allowed a very faint smirk. So faint that I realized I could’ve imagined it.

“God, I hope he’s not a banker,” I sighed. “They can turn into sadistic fucks in their old age.”

No smile, no smirk, not even an acknowledgement that time.
That’s it, isn’t it? She sees what he’s become.

“When I first met Violet,” I allowed, “she wasn’t sadistic.”

I thought back to the silhouette in the bedroom doorframe four or so days ago, showing up a few minutes before my alarm woke me. A sign of greed, of want, of hunger and absolute dedication. A Jekyll and Hyde. Sort of.

Rinker was excessive, though, for sure his sadistic behavior was excessive and Lindsey knew it.

“No,” I went on, frowning at the memory. “I made Violet that way.”

“She wasn’t a banker,” Lindsey said, pushing the mop bucket back to the corner.

She doesn’t know. So it wasn’t excessive at all. It worked, it wasn’t a waste, these split nights and personalities and dramas and all the fights that cost so much we had wondered whether we would come out the other end in love or in hate
.

“No,” I answered. “But I was.” I nodded at the door, the one that led to the stairs, to the stage, to freedom. “I worked with Rinker, in fact. At Quotient.”

Lindsey kept working, dumping the smelly water into the drain in the corner then running the water to wash the stench out of the mop bucket.

“I worked on the floor. In the branch,” I went on, speaking a little louder so she could hear me. Or not. I waited for her to turn off the faucet. “In the branch, I met with retail customers. Arranged loans, term deposits, everything and anything for the walk-in, low-end customer.” Big sigh. “And life was pretty good, I had a lot of opportunity. And then Violet walked into my life.”

I watched Lindsey approach the table. She didn’t look at me, not once. She opened a lunch box and produced a slice of whole wheat bread and a miniature bottle of water, the stubby bottle of a Dasani.

“I’ll take the bread first,” I said.

She nodded without looking up, then walked over to me. Her eyes focused on my mouth while she fed me. Like I might want to bite her, which I did. But not her fingers. I wanted to bite –
nibble, that’s more appropriate
– her ear lobes, her nipples, her lower lip, the eighth of an inch of body fat where her upper, inner thigh intersected with her crotch.

I know you, but not like that. So where, then? Show me, tell me, give me a sign, you crazy little bitch.

“She had an agenda, right from the start,” I continued, talking while I chewed. I didn’t care about the rudeness because my abbreviated time with Lindsey would end soon enough. And I needed to win her. Or risk spending more time underneath this stage than necessary.

Still un-won, she walked away after feeding me the bread, returning with the miniature bottle of water. Perfect. I sipped small gulps, and it was gone quickly, way too quickly. It tasted like life, and now it was all gone, leaving me feeling sad.

“We did what you do when you start dating someone. I didn’t realize it at the time, and neither did she, if you believe her. But she had a talent…a gift. She had a natural gift for the art of illusion.” I chuckled, blinking hard and slow because I could tell from Lindsey’s attentive stare that I had captured her.

We didn’t date, did we, Lindsey?

Staring down at the floor, where the mop water had begun dissipating, I continued talking with a weak smirk on my face. “She could kill me with a smile in one breath, and then bring me back to life with the most innocent of kisses in the next.” I remembered those days; they had come and gone like my recent taste of water. Days where the sky and trees and everything else radiated, where the air was crisp and it seemed no evil existed in the world. Eight years ago already, 2007. “Wow.”

Lindsey smiled at last, agreeing with a nod of her own. “That’s poetic.” She turned back toward the table.

I got you now, Lindsey. I know you. I see you.

You’re mine.

Calm. Deep breath.

“I looked up her personal information on Quotient’s computers,” I went on, my words spilling out a little too eagerly. “Found out where she lived, off-campus, a couple blocks from Columbia.” I paused.
Stay calm or you’ll lose her. Calm.
“I walked past her apartment four or five times over that first weekend, just hoping for a chance to cross her path.”

Lindsey stopped moving, her back to me. She stood close enough to the table that she could place the empty Dasani bottle down and free her hands so they could get clammy as she pieced together what I had just said.

“Then what?” she prompted, her voice quiet but it echoed off the walls and reached me just fine.

“Then I saw her.”

“That first weekend?”

“Sunday, yes. I was walking up Manhattan Avenue, looked down another street – I think it was one-fourteenth – and I saw her from behind.” I chuckled at the memory, the days when she wore those skirts that would have any man shifting on his feet and thinking about his favorite sport. Or if she were standing close enough, that you could feel her sexual energy or smell her citrus shampoo, or what it must feel like to pass a kidney stone. A big one. “I didn’t want to scare her, it was the wrong side of the park, but I hurried to catch up to her anyway.” Silence.

“Did you?” Her voice came out as a quiet gasp.

“Damn right I did. I waited for her to reach that pond in Morningside Park and then I started jogging. Jogged right past her—”

“And then you looked back, stopped, and chatted her up,” Lindsey finished for me. I didn’t have to see her face to know it had turned white.

Still smirking, I reveled in the silence. I enjoyed it.

I own you now, Lindsey.

When she started moving again—still with her back to me—I noticed a trembling in her hands. She closed the lunch box she had brought, and then I opened up again. “How long ago did you graduate from that fancy Business School, Lindsey?”

She didn’t answer.

I stayed quiet.

Now you know. And I know. It’s our secret.

When she left – not waiting for Rinker to return, which seemed to have been the protocol these past four days – I lifted my head and studied,
memorized
everything around me.

Everything.

Every little detail.

Life and death.

I hit the doorbell to Violet’s house on Lynden Park Court and waited. She had texted me earlier in the day, during her rehearsal for a new illusion (she never called them tricks, said hookers performed “tricks” and magicians performed “illusions”) and then invited me over to her place for dinner after work.

She didn’t have a performance tonight, always took Monday off, and said she wanted to spend time at home instead of out on the city. I figured she was being mindful of the reality of my budgetary constraints – while I earned a decent salary, I didn’t earn nearly as much as she did.

I waited and listened. Hearing no movement on the other side of the door, I hit the doorbell again; either she hadn’t heard it the first time, or she would think I was incredibly impatient.

At last, the door swung open and Violet appeared, flashing a big smile. She was wearing jeans and a shirt that hung loosely over her ass, something straight out of the eighties. And her hair, always different each time, had been pulled back into a ponytail, her eyes free of the kind of heavy makeup I remembered from the night at my place almost a week ago now, the night we had shared late Chinese food. This, I imagined, was the
real
Violet, the one that ate Ben & Jerry’s and watched movies in her pajamas.

Almost immediately, I spotted that faded freckle high on her nose, the one I had yet to kiss, because I still hadn’t made love to her, and my mouth watered.

“You didn’t come straight from work,” she said, glancing at me sideways and then placing her hands on her hips. I wanted to eat her up, right now.

I swallowed, glancing down at my jeans. “Guilty. I needed a shower. And suit porn is highly overrated, not to mention uncomfortable.”

She smirked, reached out and grabbed my shirt, pulling me against her and smashing her lips to mine. Opening her mouth, she kissed me. Deep.

Her arms worked their way around to my back, her fingers crawling up my spine to the base of my head and settled there for some unknown reason. She held me against her body, and it felt like I had never come this physically close to another human being before. I hadn’t, not
this
close, and then I couldn’t help but wonder what this truly meant, this connection between us, whether we had a future or if it would disappear just like she did on that stage every night. Once our kiss broke, she looked up at me with the same dreamy eyes from last week, the hazel having transformed to green.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Just like I remember.”

I chuckled, wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth and stepped past her so she couldn’t see how hard her kiss had made me. “It’s only been a week.”

She grabbed my elbow and pulled me around. Her face had hardened with a touch of impatience as she studied me, her eyes wandering and her head tilting a little to the side.

“What?” I asked, chuckling because by now I felt just a little vulnerable. When I tried to step away—no longer hard, thankfully—she held me back. “Speak to me,” I urged her, “this is starting to get a little creepy, Violet.”

At last, she blinked and released her grip. But her eyes remained glued to mine, like she wanted to stare into them and find sincerity there. Or something.

“Listen to me, Carter,” she said with a stable, soft voice. “I don’t pick up fans. Or people in my audience. Or anyone at all.” That was when she broke our stare and stepped past me, moving through the foyer and steering left down a short hall, past a formal dining room and into a vast kitchen that widened my eyes.

“Wow,” I said, the word slipping out involuntarily as I followed her.

Violet swung around and planted her hands against the granite countertop. “What’re you suggesting?”

I shook my head, realizing we hadn’t finished our last conversation, the one where she admitted to not dating or engaging with audience members and fans. “The kitchen,” I explained. “It’s straight out of a magazine. And it smells delicious in here,” I added. I couldn’t place the smell, except for the garlic and basil.

Still staring at me.

I shrugged. “Okay, fine. A beautiful woman like you lives alone her entire life, I suppose. Never picks up the old men in her audience.” I shrugged again, unable to believe the words myself because it was that kind of man – an old one – that had stolen my ex-wife from me. I raised an eyebrow, giving up and opting for the truth instead. “I don’t know what else to say, Violet. But the thing is, I don’t care if you meet a new man every week. I don’t care because I’m the one here with you now, and that’s where I live. In the moment. Right now.” And if she decided to disappear tomorrow, through life’s trap door or however else she might vanish, then at least I had this moment right now.

Her hands dropped away from her hips, and her face softened at my confession. “There’s no other man,” she whispered, stumbling a little over her words. And then, in a stronger, clearer voice, “Then why don’t you ever call me, Carter? Why can’t you be the one to ask me out, to man up, do the things that guys do?” She rolled her eyes and stepped up to the stove where two pots had steam rising out of them.

Good question. “I don’t call because I figure you’re too busy with one of the other men you don’t pick up, an exciting one with a fancy house like yours and ice-level tickets to the Red Wings.”

She chuckled and stirred one of the pots before facing me again. “I hate hockey. But if he had seats behind home plate for the Tigers…”

We both laughed before she returned to stirring whatever was inside that steaming pot.

“Seriously, Carter. If you like me, don’t be shy. Because girls don’t chase boys. Ever. Especially not the magical girls, because those girls can have boys dropping out of the sky.” She allowed a playful wink.

I stepped up to counter island behind her. She couldn’t possibly see me as I plucked a leaf of romaine lettuce and began tearing it into small bits, but she said, “Thank you. I normally buy the pre-mixed stuff because I hate touching lettuce.”

Grinning, I told myself I had better make the best salad ever.

A few easy miles South of the estate-sized home that my ex-wife shared with her stupid-rich and blue pill old husband, I steered off of Lakeshore and onto the driveway leading to the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club. With the sun beating into my Camry through the open sunroof and the memory of last night’s dinner at Violet’s house still fresh in my memory, very little could ruin my day.

And this view out my windows, the Yacht Club’s grounds as pristine as anything I had ever seen, seemed to enhance that nothing-can-upset-my-day feeling.

I slowed to a crawl, rolling along this driveway dotted with pier-like concrete stubs and chains dangling from one to the next. I passed the super nice tennis courts on the left and a vast parking lot to the right. There were plenty of vehicles, forcing me to question why so many people didn’t have to work on a Tuesday like I did. Turning left into that same vast parking lot, I settled for a space closer to the middle where other non-exotic cars were parked, mostly domestic brands, which meant my Toyota still stood out.

Taking my attaché from the passenger seat, I left the car, tightened the tie around my neck and headed to the big white building where I would have to check in and ask someone to take me to my client’s motorboat. Or yacht, depending on who you asked.

Despite the yacht club’s impressive grounds, the interior of the building wasn’t as impressive as I had expected. Still nice, but there weren’t men in tuxedoes and white gloves offering caviar and champagne once you entered.

I gave my name to a man in a polo shirt, and then waited for a younger man to come and introduce himself.

“Whom are you seeing?” he asked as we stepped past the restaurant where a few people were already lunching and drinking. The young man guided me outside.

“Bill Thomason,” I said, pointing toward his big boat.

“Oh, right. James mentioned that when he left.” He glanced back and nodded once. “Follow me.”

We passed the two covered, empty swimming pools. I knew from previous visits that one had lanes, so its members could swim laps while the rest of the world worked, while the other existed more for kids and leisure. I followed the younger man down a short dock with an open drawbridge, where we stopped and waited for a sporty Sea Ray to glide through to the other side.

“This time of year, we don’t normally see so many people still on the water,” the young man said. “Bill is always one of the last to put his girl into storage, but look.” He waved at the other boats in the marina. There were at least two dozen of them still in the water, and I noticed a generous amount of people hanging around. “Beautiful fall, huh?”

I allowed a nod, adjusted my tie again as if to reinforce that I didn’t have the same luxury as these fine people when it came to enjoying a beautiful fall.

We crossed the drawbridge and made a left, stepping up to Bill Thomason’s Azimut yacht. The name on the stern read:
Ill Eagle IV
, which was something of a joke because Bill had founded a company that not only encrypted messages sent via open communication lines, but that could also detect compromises to those “parcels of data,” as he called them. Ultimately, a larger security software company wanted his technology, but not him. Part of his eight-figure buyout had been invested with our firm and, in an effort to enhance returns and thereby attract more of his investible assets, I had been introduced to the relationship.

Once we were close enough to the
Ill Eagle IV
, Bill stepped outside through one of the sliding patio doors. He was wearing khakis, a collar-less T-shirt with a sweater tied around his waist.

“There he is,” Bill said with a booming voice best suited for Corporate America than early retirement. “You hungry yet, Carter?”

I turned to my escort and dismissed him with a grateful nod. Once he was gone, I stepped onto the big yacht and shook Bill’s hand. “Let’s take a look at how these derivatives helped enhance your returns, Bill.”

“Of course, yes,” he agreed, then led me inside to a large space with a scattering of tiny LED lights above, apparently to provide the illusion of stars fading in and out during his late night parties. There was a bar at the far end of the room, unmanned, but next to it was a table set for six. It had a green, felt tablecloth on it, suggesting Bill might have recently hosted one of his big poker nights.

“Had the boys over last night,” he said, sitting at one of the chairs. Like he had read my mind. “The last straggler left a few hours ago. It was nuts, Carter.” He laughed.

“How’d you do?” I asked, settling across from him.

Still smiling, the easygoing nature in his eyes seemed to melt away. He gave an interested nod at my attaché. “Let’s hope your strategies worked better than mine.”

I started laughing, but once I saw that he hadn’t been joking, I stopped. I cleared my throat and withdrew some of the paperwork Jonathan had pulled together at the office.

Placing the reports between us – upside-down for me, right-side up for Bill – I explained the different stock-options strategies we had employed – butterflies, condors, but mostly covered calls – over the past few months.

“You’re speaking Russian,” he said, brushing his hands through his hair and sitting back in his seat, defeated as if I had just dealt him a nine, a two, and then flipped over three face cards.  “Can you speak dollars?”

I flipped to a page with a bunch of numbers. “Of course. Without the strategies, you would’ve realized a gain of one and a quarter million, or two percent.” I pointed to another figure. “This is what I’ve helped you achieve, Bill.”

His eyes widened. “That’s more than double the standard return.”

Now it was my turn to sit back, pleased as if I had just revealed a pair of kings. “We prefer not to examine returns over such an isolated timeframe. But I can assure you, despite the ups and downs that will invariably occur over the next few years, using a conservative derivatives strategy to enhance and protect your returns will almost always outperform our standard performance records.” I leaned forward and added, “As well as outshine the returns of our competitors.”

Without giving it much thought, Bill’s grin broadened and he stood. “I’m starving, Carter. Let’s grab some lunch before you ask me to invest more money with you.”