Bad Behavior(62)

The tree was her favorite. On one page, it would be done in black ink, stark and barren. On another, in red, as if made of blood. Then in blue, then the black again. It was never green. The branches never sprouted leaves, never grew into the sun. I copied several of her drawings, cutting them out and lining them up along the wall of my tiny office. I glanced at them from time to time as I continued digging deeper and deeper into the gloom of her past dealings.

The same darkness drove me to this fighting pit, made me spend my blood on the unforgiving floor. It linked me back to her, somehow. Or maybe it was my long-hidden violence that ruled me. I looked to my knuckles, bloodied and bruised. The double life was taking a toll. Three months of it, the fights, the bruises, the blood.

Some men came up behind me, knocking me from my thoughts. They wanted to congratulate me on making them richer, wanting to know when my next fight was.

"Back the fuck up."

"Whoa, Rebel Rager, don't get mad. We just wanted to say we've got your back." The guy was dressed in typical Wall Street clothes. Not an ounce of dirt on the outside. But I was certain if I had a look at his books, he'd be filthy. I spat a wad of blood on the floor at his feet. 

He backed up. I stalked off past him, past the fight that had just begun, past the cheering crowd.

I was done. I showered in the grungy locker room. I picked up my winnings on the way out.

"See you here tomorrow night?" The fight boss opened his cash box.

"No."

"Couple days?" He licked his thumb before counting through the money bill by bill.

"No."

He handed me the cash. "Worked it all out, did you? Had enough pain?"

Not yet.

I left. It was only a few blocks to an even sketchier part of the city. This town was like no other. One street would be brimming with young families and hipster restaurants. Two streets over, prostitutes and secret fighting rings.

I was looking for a row of ink slingers. I found them. I walked into the first one I came to. The woman behind the counter gave me an appraising look, lingering on my swollen-shut eye. She was older, covered in tattoos, and smoking a blunt. The buzz of two, maybe three, tattoo machines carried from the rear of the shop.

"What's doin', sugar?"

I pulled out my wallet and tried to grasp a slip of paper I'd slid between some bills. My hands, swollen from the fight, were not cooperating.

"Let me get that for you, hon." She removed the scrap of paper I'd been pawing at and slid my wallet back across to me. "You want this?"

"Yes."

"How big?" She snubbed out her blunt and dropped into a drawer under the counter.

She drew out a sheet of drafting paper and grabbed a pencil from a drawer. A purple lotus blossom, still bright, covered the back of her weathered hand.

I pulled my shirt over my head and turned. "Center of my back, between my shoulder blades. Big."

Her fingers, surprisingly nimble, were already drawing the tree out to fit the space I'd shown her. She copied Evan's strokes so precisely that I doubted a printer could have done it better. "You want color?"

"No. Black. Just like the drawing."

"How much time you got?" She managed to create the wizened branches perfectly, giving them the same twists and turns as Evan had.

"However much time it takes."

"How much money you got?"

I pulled the roll of bills from my pocket. "However much it takes."

She smiled, the first change in demeanor she'd had the whole time I'd been in her shop. "Welcome. Let's get started."





Chapter Fourteen


EVAN

"You're fired." The words still felt good. Some things never changed.

"You can't fire me. Only Mrs. Sawyer can fire me!" The angry financial adviser on the other end of the line, Richard Blackmon, wasn't impressed. He would be as soon as the process server dropped Mrs. Sawyer's complaint in his lap.

"Funny you should mention that. Mrs. Sawyer and her lovely son Greg are sitting in my office right now. You're on speakerphone, by the way. Say hi, Mrs. Sawyer."

"Hi," the white-haired octogenarian crooned.

"Anyway, Mr. Blackmon, as I was saying, we have been in here all morning going over her account statements from your investment, 4680 Greenmont. You know, the real estate investment you set up to rebuild housing along Lake Pontchartrain after Katrina?"

Sputtering on his end of the line.

I continued. "It looks like you've been falsifying all of these. I called the fund manager you have listed here at the top of her paperwork. And, wouldn't you know, there is no such fund at all. So, by my count-and don't hold me to this-I've found about $132,000 or so that you've stolen from Mrs. Sawyer. Sound right to you?"