Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
Billy Goat Hill is too pretty a place to lose a career.
I take the opposite side of the hill back to my truck, avoiding Alistair’s path, and check my phone.
Evelyn:
Despite my best efforts, I’m not only my mother’s son. Some of my father’s lessons sank in too. Rip the Band-Aid off. Don’t stretch out the agony.
I tap her name.
“Oh my God,” she answers. “I’m dying. How’d it go?”
“Sorry, Evie.”
“You’re kidding. Did he not show?”
“He showed. I got sixty seconds, and I did everything we practiced. Then he asked if we’d met before, and I—”
“Tell me he took the card.”
“He wouldn’t. It’s like you said,” I try, thinking the details might help this time. “His eyes changed when I called him sir, but when I said king—” I swallow. “That nickname from the old threads that got wiped. It landed.”
“You called him king,” she says, “in public?”
“Not exactly.”
“No wonder he didn’t take the bait. You blew it.”
“I improvised.”
“You panicked.” The line goes quiet, and when she speaks again, the boss has replaced all traces of girlfriend. “He knows who you are, Marcus. You’re done.”
Since nothing else is working, I let my desperation crash through. “I’ll be your best reporter. Give me a few weeks. I’ve got other ideas. There’s something shady going on with Recology, I—”
“You want to replace Alistair Blackwood’s inner circle with… garbage?”
“Evie—”
She hangs up.
I climb into my old F-150 and crank the heat until the windshield fogs.
I’m no artist. I’m no undercover journalist. I’m a liar, and so is Alistair.
He just might be better at it. I blast System of a Down until it rattles the cab and crush the business card in my fist to keep from shaking.
By the time I get back to Evie’s to grab my stuff, Marcus Wilder is dead.
Somehow, I fall asleep. Evie was still at the office when I got back, so I barricaded myself in the room across from hers and waited for her to come home, fire me, and kick me out.
Morning finds me there, still unfired, my life unpacked inside Evie’s apartment.
Yesterday’s failure is today’s top story, and the fastest way to survive it is to be gone before she can decide how to deliver the news. Avoiding your girlfriend might be weird. Avoiding your angry editor? That checks out.
I make the bed, pulling the corners crisp before I can stop myself. The neatness satisfies me until my father’s voice turns order into morality, so I untuck one corner just to spite him.
In the shared bathroom, I set the shower dial to the little notch I’ve memorized. While it warms, I brush my teeth and let my electric toothbrush’s timer tell me when it’s time to get in. As water washes over me, I try pretending I’m calm. I pretend I’m not getting fired. I pretend I don’t care.
With the assignment blown, there’s no use for Marcus Wilder, and nothing to keep reality from rushing back in. I still need a paycheck.
Back in my room, my outfit is already waiting at the top of my drawer, folded into a clean stack with socks, boxer briefs, an undershirt, a thick blue sweater, and caramel-colored skinny jeans.
My drawers are organized into outfit layers, and this one has made the decision for me.
Go to work. Face whatever version of Evie is waiting.
The habit tracker hanging in the living room catches my eye on the way out.
Three hundred and sixty-five little flip-switches, one for every morning I’ve started with a hundred pushups.
I wonder if the YouTuber who sold me this ridiculous conversation-piece-meets-art-installation also struggled with the difference between habits and obsessions.
I could do them later.
But I don’t do them later. I do them in the morning. I always do them in the morning.
The longer I stare at the switches, the sicker that voice in my head makes me. Knock them out. Keep the streak alive. You have to.
My father would flip that switch. He’d make me flip that switch, and even from the grave, I almost let him.
I unclench my fists and go at the tracker, flipping toggles at random, scrambling the pattern, wrecking the order until the whole thing becomes meaningless noise.
Good.
I head out.
Downstairs, Cole Valley is already awake, its sidewalks filled with strollers, dog walkers, and kids on scooters.
An enormous package is wedged inside the gate as a cardboard blockade.
“What in the…?” I mutter.
On the side, two words in thick Sharpie stop me: MARCUS WILDER. Only two people know that name. Hope arrives first, making the dread that follows even worse.
I text Evie a photo and wrestle the box upstairs.
She calls before I can open it. “Marcus Wilder,” she says, her voice too bright to trust, “what is it?”
I was prepared to be fired and kicked out of her apartment. Instead, she’s barely containing herself over a box I haven’t even opened.
Relief, maybe. Forgiveness, less likely. Recalculation, almost certainly.
Our relationship’s been complicated since day one.
“I don’t know,” I say, putting the phone on speaker. “Haven’t opened it yet.”
“Well, it’s not a Rolex,” she says. “If it’s what we’re hoping, it’ll be some lavish bait for the next step. He gave one of his guys a Lamborghini. Open it on speaker. Now.”
“Doesn’t feel like a car. Maybe if the tires were deflated.” I slice through the tape. Inside is… a brightly colored wall? Not a wall. “It’s art,” I say, peeling back the last of the cardboard.
“Because you’re an artist,” Evie says. “Don’t forget it.”
“Think I can trade it for a Lamborghini?”
“Send me a pic.”
“It creeps me out,” I say. “It’s a portrait. Kind of.”
“Ew, what?” Evie laughs at the picture I send. “Who the hell is this?”
From across the room, it’s a military man in a uniform adorned with medals and decorations. Up close, it’s all thick brushstrokes and currents that guide my eye back to his stern face.
“Alistair clearly sent this,” I say, and my mouth goes dry. It isn’t my father in the painting, but it hits the same nerve. “But why? Not exactly lavish.”
It’s cruel. But he couldn’t know that.
Evie goes quiet for a second. “Holy shit. Yes, it is. Image search says it’s a Francesco Gomiz. Some painter who lives in Rome, and his originals go for fifty grand.”
“Jesus.” My fingers catch on something taped to the back of the canvas, a garment sleeve. “There’s something else,” I say. “A suit.”
I shrug into the jacket and find it tailored perfectly, hugging me with the unforgiving precision of a uniform. My father would have approved, and that alone makes me want to tear it off.
“Good.” Evie’s delight crackles through the speaker. “Good. Good.”
“It fits,” I say, but leave out how good it looks. Crimson lining flashes when I move. “How’d he get this made so fast?”
I run my hands down the front and feel something stiff in the pocket. A note.
“It’s like he’s training a pet,” Evie says, giddy. “This is how it goes, Marcus. You’re in.”
My body reacts as if the way in is being locked behind me.
“‘Dress for the part you were born to play,’” I read. “‘Party at my place tonight. Ask for a Pbr. Bring a piece.’” Turning the note over reveals yet another surprise. “Evie, it’s a check. For two thousand dollars.”
“Get over here. We need to prepare.”
“On my way.”
“Don’t be nice,” she adds. “We’re in a hurry too.”
Don’t be nice means don’t wait for space.
On the platform, I take a near-running start into the first gap that opens on the N Judah, wedging myself between coats and backpacks, swallowing my apology along with everyone else’s breath.
The train dives into the tunnel and compresses the air into coffee, pot, and menthol while I pretend my skin isn’t screaming.
Duboce finally arrives on the other side, and the sun takes over the rest of my commute.
We did it.
Evie and I actually fucking did it.