Violets & Violence (10 page)

“Why here?” I asked. I knew my voice came out as casual, probably a little too casual for Violet’s liking, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have the strength for anything beyond casual just yet.

She leaned his limp body against the wall directly beside me, then reached into her belt for a serrated hunter’s knife. Twirling the knife in her hand as if inspecting it, she leaned closer to me, bringing her red lips to my ear. I expected a kiss, a hug, some kind of show that demonstrated just how much she had missed me and how happy she was to see me alive, but she offered none of that.

Instead, she told me, “You smell like shit. Literally.”

I started to respond, but she pressed her finger to my mouth and silenced me. Grabbing my free hand, she placed the knife in my palm.

“I don’t care if you kill him,” she said, keeping her voice low. “But if you do, I won’t be coming to rescue you.”

I had no intention of hurting Rinker. Not because I lacked the energy or murderous intent. For me, the reason I couldn’t hurt him had everything to do with the fact that I didn’t exactly blame him for doing what he had done.

After all, I had taken a hell of a lot more from him than the three weeks and personal dignity he had taken from me.

The door opened, and Lindsey entered. She took three steps into this room below the Imperial’s stage before freezing on the spot. Her eyes shifted from me sitting at the table with the hunter’s knife in my hand and a little more color in my face than she had been used to, to Violet in the back corner of the room.

“Surprised to see me?” I asked her.

She relaxed then. Like I was still that wimpy, weak man on the cross.

“Where is he?” she asked. “Where’s Henry?”

“Here,” came Rinker’s voice from the corner where the mops were.

Lindsey had to rise onto her tippy toes to see him curled up on the floor, his face still bloody and his limbs still tied up. She let out a worried yelp and then started toward him, but I jumped out of the same folding chair that had caused all of the damage to his face, and my awkward, clumsy movement stopped her.

“It’s okay,” Rinker growled behind me. “I’m fine.”

But Lindsey didn’t seem to believe him. She raised a hand to her face, her fingers trembling. “I want to see him,” she begged.

I shrugged. “And all I wanted was a Gatorade and a bit of protein these past three weeks.”

Her eyes widened as she witnessed what passed across my face: rage, hatred, violence.

Stepping toward her, my legs seemed to be returning to normal. I fumbled with my feet, my quad muscles sore and tired after a few breaths, but I finally reached Lindsey. With the hunter’s knife in one hand, I used the other to grab the collar of her shirt and pull her down. Hard.

Dropping to her knees, Lindsey yelped. I dragged her to the table, lifted her up, and then slammed her face against the wooden surface. Then I held her there, pressing my forearm against her jaw so as to lock her to the table.

“Don’t hurt her,” Rinker begged, but the rage-colored ringing in my ears effectively obscured his voice.

I glanced at the opposite corner, the one where Violet had been standing. Instead of finding my girl, I found the cardboard cutout.

She had disappeared.

Or had she?

“This ends here,” Rinker sobbed from the corner. “It’s over. Okay? Over.”

I refocused on Lindsey, her frightened eyes turned up toward me, tears pouring down her cheeks and pooling on the table. Pretty. Beautiful even. Few women could get away with a ponytail on a day like today, the day they could die, but Lindsey managed it.

I added a bit of weight to my arm, watching her squeeze her eyes shut at the heavy discomfort.

That’s not pain, you fucking bitch. Three weeks pretending you’re Jesus in His final hours is pain. The kind of pain that stains your vision red. I want you to see red, just like I did. Red like Violet’s lips.

“Stop this madness!” Rinker shouted, and I heard the panic in his own voice as he scuttled across the concrete floor toward me.

He would never reach us in time.

With Lindsey pressed hard against the wooden table, I raised the hunter’s knife to the back of her jaw and traced a line of blood that ran gently down and across her face.

“No!” Rinker screamed.

Wednesday morning, I sat at my desk and watched my two Bloomberg monitors with this morning’s Starbucks venti cappuccino keeping the blood flowing into my hands. I didn’t exactly need the caffeine so much as the warmth. The market had gone cold and didn’t seem keen on keeping our clients very wealthy, and the big screens showed exactly that—the three dozen or so securities we held and recommended on the left blipping red with each trade, and the most attractive stock options I traded on the right.

When my phone chirped – an external caller, not someone down the hall who could slip out of an office or cubicle and walk over – I actually jumped. Ten minutes ago when the cup in my hands had held more liquid, I might’ve spilled and made a mess, but not now. Client calls on days like today rarely began with love.

I answered to Bill Thomason’s concerned voice. “Tell me you’ve got me covered, Borden.”

I knew Bill’s portfolio quite well because it was one of the few I checked throughout the day. So I sighed. I liked to drag these moments out a little longer than necessary.

“Carter, stop fucking around.”

“Remember those Put options I showed you last week, Bill?” I asked.

Now it was his turn to sigh. A put option served as something of an insurance policy; it ensured the put holder would benefit financially in a downturn to the underlying stock. In other words, while Bill was benefiting from the bad market conditions on the put option, that gain offset the loss in the actual stock price.

“I know you have a question for me, Bill,” I said, leaning back in my chair. Despite the
insurance
on his portfolio, the fact remained that the market seemed to have softened to the point that analysts were calling it a correction instead of a pullback. Which meant if this correction lasted for more than a couple of months, we could see some real losses.

“What’s that, Carter?” he asked. He sounded relieved about the management of assets, but curious about the question I suggested he had.

“Everyone else always asks why didn’t we buy more,” I told him.

He laughed at my little joke and then made some small talk and the usual promises that he would transfer a substantial chunk of the investments he had elsewhere. For Bill, that amount tipped the scales at just over thirty-five million (he already had eight million with my firm).

“We always have your back, Bill,” I assured him.

“Actually, I do have a final question for you,” he said before hanging up. “When can you come out to see me tomorrow?” He had a weird way of asking his questions. “I have a check for you—” He hadn’t been kidding about investing more money with me, which meant a big bonus. “—and I’d like you to meet someone.”

The meet-and-greet with Bill’s “someone” happened the very next day, just like he had not-so-subliminally suggested. Because he wanted me to join him at the yacht club, I left the office right after lunch, filled the Camry with gas and cruised along Lake Shore, which had become something of a routine rather than a route chosen for its expedience.

I had already passed my ex-wife’s estate before I realized I had spaced out, too caught up in the memory of the last night I had spent with Violet. I kept wondering if it was at all normal that we hadn’t had sex yet. We weren’t in high school, but even if we were, these things should never take this long. Or did they? I was so new at this, I just assumed the younger generation was more about pulling the trigger first, asking questions later. And then again, maybe I had taken more than I deserved anyway; if our last evening was any indication, Violet and I had more of a friendship than anything else.

At the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, I parked in my normal spot among the domestic makes, and then checked in at the front desk where I was told Bill would come to get me.
No personal escort anymore?
The protocol had changed in the past couple of weeks or whatever it had been since my previous visit.

“Hey, hey,” Bill said like the happiest man alive, appearing behind me.

Quite the change in tone since yesterday’s panicked call.

We shook hands and exchanged smiles, and then strolled along the docks to his big Azimut yacht, which was one of the last half-dozen or so still in the water.

“You’re going to love this,” he promised.

As we stepped onto the
Ill Eagle IV
, I noticed the hum of activity from inside the cabin, even though I couldn’t see through the tinted sliding glass doors. I turned to Bill and stopped him before he could reach for the door handle.

“Bill, I’m expected back at the office.”
I can’t party with the big boys, some of us have legitimate jobs around here.

He gave a sly grin. “Just a few people,” he said. “But I want you to meet James. Just this one,” he assured me. “And then you’ll get your check.”

Before Bill could open the sliding door, someone on the other side opened it for him. The tall, slim brunette in a black skirt and white shirt wore a smile that eclipsed even the most exquisite sunsets.

“Welcome back, Mr. Thomason,” she greeted like a robot, and then nodded at me while simultaneously waving to a nearby table where there were half a dozen or more champagne flutes filled with something that looked like sparking punch. “A light beverage?” What she possessed in looks, she lacked in charm.

Bill thanked her and ignored her at the same time, placed a hand between my shoulder blades and pushed me deeper into the group. There were a dozen people in total, all of them milling around, chatting and laughing and telling stories. Most were men—khakis and cardigans—and the handful of women wore outfits that seemed like a cross between church and business attire. All of them had the look and smell of sophisticated old money, the skin tone and teeth that said the closest thing to a struggle they had ever known was finding someone who could provide change for a one hundred dollar bill. It always amazed me how the wealthy were just so different to the rest of us.

Taking my host’s lead, I wandered to the far corner for this social event—
what else is it, this was not the kind of party a new money guy like Bill Thomason would throw
. We stopped at the same area where I had met with Bill the last time. Where had the poker table gone?

When Bill pulled his hand from my back, I stood still and watched him infiltrate the crowd of sweater-cloaked businessmen talking about the merits of breeding and training racehorses in Florida versus Arizona. Apparently, there was a considerable difference based on the humidity levels and how it impacted equine digestion. When Bill infiltrated their group, the seriousness evaporated, and the crowd released a collective sigh before throwing jokes and compliments at him.

When Bill emerged from the group, he had a tall yet slim man with him, the kind of guy that only got better looking with age, like George Clooney or Harrison Ford. He was roughly Violet’s height (when she wore heels), six-two or six-three. Violet without the heels might look tiny next to this man.

“This is James,” he told me.

“James Calver,” the handsome man with the flecks of grey in his hair elaborated. He wore fancy wristbands and a Rolex watch, and a tattoo with the word
proof
on the inside of his wrist that made him look like one of those rebellious rich kids that was trying a little too hard to be one of the rest of us. Still, you could tell from his eyes that, like Bill, he possessed enough mental energy in that perfectly coiffed head of his to power a small city.

“You’re ‘the guy’,” he said. “Bill says a lot of positive things about the magic you make happen.”

Bill laughed. “He’s not a magician.” Then he raised his voice the way so many of these people seem to do when marking their territory. “Mr. Borden is the real deal.”

James allowed a half-grin, but I could tell Bill annoyed him – between the condescending, loud voice and how Bill had earned his money rather than inherited it through generations, it was textbook snobbery.

“So,” James said to me, “tell me about your strategies and how you can help me preserve my capital when markets take a shit like they’ve done this week.”

Before I could open my mouth, Bill nudged us toward a set of stairs that led upstairs to something of a small television room. “More privacy up there,” he said. Before I could follow James up the few stairs, Bill held me back. “Don’t forget to see me before you leave. I have that money for you.”

I nodded and climbed the stairs behind James, closing the door once I stepped inside. There were two leather sofas that had a wavy contour about them, separated by a table that had probably seen its fair share of illicit drugs. Along the far wall was a flat-screen television, and near it was another set of stairs that led up to the captain’s area –
do they call it a “bridge” on a boat like this?
I couldn’t remember.

James and I sat on opposite sofas, opting to keep the table between us. After an extended, appraising stare between us, I outlined some of my recent derivatives strategies, the ones that helped Bill achieve better returns when the markets were a little more eager a few weeks ago, as well as the protective strategy that had saved him from losing his shirt during the recent week’s correction.

James had a few questions, the customary stuff, and just when I thought the conversation was over, he asked, “What do you
really
think of Violet’s show?”

It felt like my heart had stopped. I hadn’t heard from Violet since Saturday –
probably because our last date hadn’t gone so well, more like cold friends than potential lovers, all that time at 220
. I had read in the
Detroit Free Press
that she had cancelled Wednesday’s show due to “personal reasons”, but I didn’t text her to see why: I translated the article to mean she had fallen in love with some douchebag in New York where she was taking her show.

James raised an eyebrow once it took me too long to respond. “You’ve seen the show?”

“I have,” I admitted, a little suspicious about his interest in all of this. “A couple of times. She picked me out of the audience the first time I saw it, so I felt like I needed to see it a second time to appreciate it properly.”

“Twice.” James smiled, and it gave me an uneasy feeling. “I thought you’d seen her more than that,” he said, mostly to himself it seemed.

“Do you know Violet?” I asked, a little put off by all of this talk and why he seemed to care so much.

He shrugged. “You could say that. I know them all. I’ve spent a lot of time with Luke Kemble, the man she’s been living with since her college years.” At that, he raised his attention and dug his eyes into mine. “That’s how I met Violet.”

Living with?
I tried not to let the surprise show. I immediately hated this Luke Kemble character, but in all fairness to James, I didn’t know how much I
really
hated him just yet.

At last, the smirk melted off of James’ lips. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, as if bringing his body closer to mine so that he could confide in me. Or threaten me. “I know you didn’t know about Luke. He likes to think of himself as the mastermind behind the act. But he’s a ghost.” James made a
poof
motion with his hand.

I nodded, working hard at keeping cool. “You’re right, I didn’t know about him.”

“Yeah, but Violet knows him.
Really
well, if you know what I mean. They’re like rabbits,” he added with a wink and smirk.

I cleared my throat and tried not to let the sting show. “So, Luke, he’s the guy that designs the tricks and designs the, uh, props for the illusions?” Even to my own ears, I sounded weakened by this talk about Luke.
Where was he on Sunday night? Is that why Violet never asked me over except for that one time when she cooked for me, because of this Luke guy that lived with her? Where had he been that evening? Why hadn’t I seen him?

“Yes,” he said, his eyes glued to me, “all of that. He’s the manager, too. Raises the money for their shows and
invests
it so he can give a lot of it back. And I just know that what you’ve got going here with your derivatives strategies would be of great interest to Luke. I’d like to introduce you. Could be some extra assets for you to manage, take some heavy lifting off of Luke’s shoulders. Which, I’m sure, is something you’d love to do for him.”