And this is chapter 2. I have to say that, with this story, I had to cross some personal lines that I'd never crossed before, because, I am using the word "nigger". I have to, I am writing in Devil's POV, and Devil was at one point in his life an active member of the Aryan Brotherhood. The "black bastard" insults that were used in the show to weasel around the n-word don't cut it for me if I want to keep it realistic, which I do. So in this chapter it still feels kinda staged and difficult for me, but it got a little easier as the story progressed. Hence I changed very little about this chap once I had it done. I kinda like the development you can see.
WARNING: Use of the dreaded n-word.
Now, enjoy!
The Penny in the Parking Lot: Part 1
The Understudy
Chapter 2
Devil was on his last legs when he reached the CAG flat again. There was an entire parking space cleared out just for the inhabitants of the apartment complex and hence Devil was able to park his truck right in front of the door, so that was pretty cool, but he had trouble appreciating it right now. What was it from that zombie film, the quote that kinda fit this moment? Enjoy the little things or something. Well, Devil was certainly trying his best.
Dragging himself up the stairs (why did the flat have to be on the top floor again?), he pulled the little bottle of antibiotics from the pocket of his pants and looked at it closely. Tanner had said the motherfucker Quarles was unpredictable. Maybe he'd seen through Devil's act after all and had advised for his secretary to give him pills with Lord knew what in them to kill him. Everything was possible right now, Devil felt like it had been way too easy, and how could he know whether Quarles was actually falling for the whole thing? There was just no way to tell. This was the time for some of the good faith that Boyd always asked him for.
"Now's good a time as any" Devil murmured to himself, not even consciously aware he'd just said that out loud, and dry-swallowed three pills from the bottle. When he arrived at the top floor the world was swimming a little. This time Keegan answered the door so quickly he could have been standing directly behind it just waiting for someone to ring the bell.
"Devil! There you are again!" His smiling face turned serious. "You don't look like you feel good."
"I don't" Devil answered shortly and walked past him on wobbly legs. "Might have a fever, or somethin', I dunno. Jus' wanna go to bed 'n sleep, for, like, a week or somethin'."
"Okay then, buddy, uhm… You need anythin', dude, just holler, alright? I'll be right there."
Funny you don't have anywhere else to be, Devil thought. A lot of strange stuff was going through his head, snippets of thoughts he would have liked to think from beginning to end but just didn't have the means to at this moment, like, who paid the rent for this giant flat? Who kept it clean? Did Keegan only get money to house this flat, and lived on that? Why did the Dixie Mafia give such an important job to someone who was clearly smoking weed like it was oxygen…?
Devil stuffed two more pills from the bottle down his parched throat and washed them down with the rest of the water that was still on his nightstand. How many of these had he already taken? He'd lost count, but if the pills were poison, Devil considered, it didn't matter either way. Carefully he sat down on the bed and removed his shoes, then his pants, then his shirt and vest, before he slowly peeled the bandage off the wound. It stuck to his skin where the blood had dried, and he bit the insides of his lips bloody to keep from making a sound.
Whether the wound looked infected he couldn't say. He figured he just had to put on a clean dressing, and if the pills were actually antibiotics, it was gonna be fine. It just had to be. Devil was alone in a city hours away from home with no-one to help him but some pothead with Jesus-hair, in a flat with mildew in the corner and at least five other people who could be fucking contract killers for all he knew.
Devil rummaged through the bathroom to find something he could use as a bandage, something clean, and actually came across a first-aid-kit that he immediately raided for all it was worth: Bandages, medical tape, disinfectant. He looked at the disinfectant and knew it was gonna hurt, but also that it had to be done. Well, hell. He'd already gotten shot, it couldn't be worse than that, right?
It turned out to be not worse, but about equally as bad. This time he couldn't suppress a shout and immediately had Keegan at the door asking if he was okay, and Devil thought that was a dumb question if ever there was one, but he just said it was fine. Spraying disinfectant on an open wound was dumb, too, so maybe Devil shouldn't be casting stones just yet. When the burning subsided enough for him to breathe through the pain again, he sprayed some on the dressing as well before putting it over the wound and fixing it with medical tape. It looked pretty good from his perspective, too, like he'd actually gotten treatment somewhere.
Stumbling back to the bed, he laid down on top of the covers, since he was still so goddamn hot, and stared at the mildew in the corner next to the window without properly seeing it. If he survived this, if this was his life now, Devil thought, he had to learn how to deal with it… he had to learn his lines. Something about puppets popped up in his mind, from the strange dream he'd had this morning. Something about puppets and understudies and he was tired and the trees were all plastic, but how could that be?
Devil fell asleep before he could finish that snippet of a thought, and he would only wake up again when it was already dark outside and Keegan stood in his doorway with a plate of dinner asking him if he was doing any better now.
"So he swallowed the whole story?"
"Yeah, Boyd, everythin', he bought it."
"That's great news, Devil. Well done."
"So what now?"
"You do as he says. Rest, and contact him. Let him give you work, and try and meet people, make contacts, friends, you know how that works."
"Yeah, I do. Just…"
"Yeah, son?"
"I just hate it, takin' orders from that dickhead. He treats me like I'm stupid."
"You ain't stupid, I know it, you know it, that's gon' have to be enough for you. See it for what it is, Devil: You takin' orders from ME, and I say, do what he says. Call me once a week and talk to me."
"…alright, Boyd."
"Devil, what's that sound in the background?"
"Oh, that's the shower, I'm in the bathroom. I don't want anyone listenin' in, can't take the risk, right?"
"That's right. You think anyone would listen in, though?"
"Boyd, I ain't got no idea. I only met one of the, like, eight or somethin' people that are stayin' here right now. Most of 'em'll probably be gone by the week, but they'll just be replaced by other guys that I know jack shit bout. I just can't take the risk."
"That is very true, my friend. And how are you doin', anyway? You didn't say when I asked you earlier."
"I'm… I'mma be fine, Boyd. I slept through the whole day, that's why I'm only callin' you now. I, uh, took some meds that kinda knocked me out."
"I'm sorry I had to shoot you, Devil, but you know. You brought this on you yourself."
"I know, Boyd, I… I know. It was a good thing, too, I guess. Quarles felt real sorry for me, I musta been lookin' pretty pathetic this mornin', barely got any sleep, and I had… I just felt like shit."
"And how you feelin' now?"
"Better, I guess. Gonna take a shower, Keegan's made me dinner, and then I think I'mma be ready to fall right back asleep."
"Alright then, Devil. I don' wanna keep you from it. You just watch yourself now, son. It's all gonna be fine, you hear me?"
"Boyd… how long am I gonna be here?"
"As long as it's gon' take."
Devil pretty much spent the next forty-eight hours asleep, except for a bathroom break here and there where he changed the wound dressings, and Keegan bringing him lunch and dinner, and tea (that Devil didn't drink, because for one he didn't like tea, and for another because he suspected Keegan spiced his tea with illegal substances that Devil didn't want any part of right now).
On Monday night, after he'd had the talk with Quarles on Saturday morning, Devil decided it was time to give Robert Quarles the call he'd wanted. He felt better now. His side still pulled, naturally, but the fever, and Devil was sure now it had been a fever, had gone down. The pills most likely were antibiotics, after all. He had a hitch in his step, but he wanted to hide it the best he could, because it really was nobody's business if he was hurt. Keegan had stopped questioning him about it quite quickly, and Devil wondered if the other occupants were starting to wonder about the guy that had the good guest room with a private bath and that had Keegan bring him his food to the nightstand like he was some kind of invalid.
Devil still was nervous when he called, but Quarles was short with him on the phone, like he was busy with something, and Devil could hear a child laughing in the background. He tried not to dwell on that. Quarles just told him to be at the office at 7 am, sharp, and although Devil was not amused about the early hour, he figured it was time he got out of this goddamn stuffy flat and entered the real world, Frankfort, Kentucky. He had to learn his lines now. Time to step up.
So he dragged himself out of bed at six o'clock the next morning, took a fast shower and woke Keegan to have him make coffee (there was something to be said about having a pothead servant who did everything for you because you had a bullet wound in the side) while Devil fastened a new dressing over his wound and assessed his laundry situation, which said that he was in dire need of asking Keegan for directions to a Laundromat. Asking Keegan to do his dirty laundry was out of the question though; Devil would only push it so far. And there was the fact that most of the tees he'd packed were blood-stained, and he thought that was disgusting to clean if it was someone else's blood.
Downing the coffee and swallowing some Advil alongside a slice of toast that Keegan practically force-fed him, Devil was late and had to jog out the door before anyone else out of the current occupants had even woken up enough to understand he was the mysterious guestroom guy. Running was still out of the question.
Devil knew he would have been faster if he'd taken the stairs up to Quarles's office instead of the old elevator that moved from story to story at a snail's pace, but he also knew if he'd tried to take the stairs he would not have made it up at all. Hence he arrived on the right floor being an entire two minutes too late.
"You're late" Quarles greeted him accordingly. He waved his hand at the chair in front of his desk, an unspoken command to sit, not an invitation.
"Yep. Sorry." Devil sat, not the ungraceful slump of the first day, but he couldn't hide a wince.
"How are you doing today? How's the side?"
"Better, on both accounts."
"Well, I'm certainly glad to hear, because I have work for you today." Quarles smiled that strange smile of his, like he was Wednesday Addams and smiling was something painful and unfamiliar to him. Devil still saw it as the distorted mirror image of reality, and it was creeping him out to no end.
"That's… good?"
"Yes, indeed it is. But first we have to clarify your areas of expertise. Now. I have looked into your criminal records, and I was able to learn from that that you did two stints in prison, one when you were 23 years old, for physical assault, and one only two years ago, for dealing with marijuana. Is that correct?"
"Uh, yeah. How in the hell were you able to see into my records, though?"
"You let that be my concern. So I am guessing that means that you have experience in dealing drugs, as well as no inhibitions about hurting people. Would you attest to that?"
"Yeah, sure." Devil shrugged.
"Anything else you're good at, Mr. Devil?"
"Well, I'm a pretty good shot."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
"How good?"
Devil frowned in thought. "Good as… the longest shot I ever took was… maybe a hundred yards."
"And it was a kill shot?"
"Most definitely was."
"Well." Quarles folded his hands and studied them. "That sounds fairly impressive. We'll see how we can put that skill of yours to use some time. Generally, though, I am going to need you as what you would call a 'leg breaker'."
"Mh."
"You know, going places, looking mean, intimidating, twisting an arm or two. You think you can do that?"
"So I'm just gonna be some run-of-the-mill gun thug."
"Devil, you lost your privilege to be anything else when you let Crowder shoot you and run you out of Harlan County." Quarles's eyes flashed dangerously. "So if I were you, and I thank the heavens I am not, I would shut up and listen."
Devil pressed his lips together, remembering what Tanner had said. The fucker's unpredictable. The only reason Devil wasn't dead was because Quarles had felt sorry for him. What Devil had to understand right now was that, when it came to Quarles, his lines consisted of silence, and his cues of when Quarles asked him a question. Devil cleared his throat and nodded.
"Alright." Quarles smiled again like the little dispute had never happened. "Having the background that you do, I would have been able to use you as a drug dealer, as well, but as it is there's no need for that currently, which means you'll be my run-of-the-mill gun thug, like you said, and I would like for you to start doing that right now."
"What do you mean, right now?" Devil sat up a little.
"There's someone waiting outside that you will be partnered with for today, and I would like for the two of you to run an errand for me where it will be essential you two look mean and intimidating. No worries, though, you'll be in a car most of the time, there won't be any running involved" he added, his gaze going to Devil's side for a second.
Quarles pressed a button on the intercom. "Suzan, would you send Russel in, please."
"You'll like him" he said, and now there was a hint of malice in his smile. Devil turned to the door when it opened and understood why.
Through the door came a very tall man, slim, but muscular, about Devil's age, dressed in jeans and a simple gray t-shirt, and also he was as black as Barry White. Russel's eyes skipped over Devil where he'd turned to him in his chair, over the Southern Justice tattoo on his arm, and his clothes, and settled on Quarles without any sign of even recognizing that Devil was actually in the room. Devil hated Quarles a tad bit more, if that was even possible.
"Russel, meet Devil. Devil, that's Russel. I'm sure you'll get along just fine." Smile, malice. Asshole. "What I would like for the two of you to do today is actually quite simple: I want the two of you to pick up a suitcase."
Russel's face struggled to remain impassive, but Devil's eyebrow rose almost to his hairline. Really, a black dude and a white dude were sent to pick up a suitcase? That sounded awfully familiar to him, for some reason.
"Then when you have obtained said suitcase, I want you to deliver it to an address in Louisville and the receiver of the suitcase will pay you with 10,000 $, cash. I want you to count the money before you end the transaction, because the man is a con and might try to screw you over. If he does, you shoot him" he looked at Devil. "If he does not, you take the money and come back here, and both of you will get a thousand each. Now how does that sound?"
"Uhm" Devil said. "Why do I have to shoot him if he tries to screw us over?"
"Because you have more experience in that department. Any more questions? No? Very good! The CAG flat where you'll be picking up the suitcase is on Washington Street, not far away. My secretary will give you the address in Louisville. Thank you, that's all."
That was their cue to leave, so Russel and Devil exited the office and received a slip of paper from Suzan the Secretary that had an address in Louisville on it. They made the trip down the stairs in silence. Devil would have preferred the elevator for obvious reasons, but he wanted to hide any weakness in front of this nigger, even if it damn near killed him. The silence dragged on and neither one of them felt the need to break it, and when they reached the outside and Russel automatically walked over to his car, Devil shrugged and followed him. At least the nigger wouldn't be sitting in his car, then.
Thank God Louisville ain't far away, Devil thought and got into the passenger's seat in Russel's Ford Taurus. If the guy was half as boring as his car, Devil didn't even want to break the silence.
Washington Street was only five car minutes away, and neither one of them felt the need to say anything during those few long minutes. Then Russel, who already seemed to know exactly which house it was, put the car in park and said, "Wait here, I'll be back in two minutes."
It was the first thing Devil had ever heard him say. He didn't sound particularly hostile. Maybe he just didn't see the point. Sitting in the driver's seat, Russel had a perfect view on the AB heart tattooed on Devil's arm, as well as the Odin Rune on his neck, and Devil felt uncomfortable knowing it. He didn't usually feel self-conscious about things, least of all his looks. He'd never had reason to. Now, though, he would be locked in this car with some nigger he had never even talked to and had to work together with him, and it made him uneasy. But if Russel could be not hostile about it, then Devil could, too.
Russel came back then, with a black suitcase in hand that looked just like the suitcase from Pulp Fiction. Coupled with the fact that it was early in the morning, it let another wave of surrealism crash over Devil's head. He sure as hell wouldn't stop to have breakfast in any diner, just to be sure his life didn't turn into some kind of screwed up movie homage.
The drive to Louisville would take about an hour. Russel didn't turn on the radio, either. Slowly but surely the silence began to weigh on Devil, and he couldn't stop his leg from twitching again. If Russel noticed, he didn't comment.
They had to halt at a traffic light, and Russel turned to look at Devil demonstratively. Devil looked at him, too, then, not about to be intimidated by a nigger. He raised an eyebrow as if to say, "What is it?"
"So, you're Devil, huh. Heard about you."
Devil frowned. "Heard about me? From who?"
Russel shrugged and looked back at the street. The light turned green.
"I got kin in Noble's Holler, you know. They told me you's a traitor."
"Oh." Devil did look away, then.
"That all you got to say bout that? 'Oh'?"
"Nobody likes folk who talk bout stuff they don't know shit about, so why don't you just shut up and drive."
"Course, I don't know shit. I'm just an ugly as fuck, stupid nigger, right?"
"I ain't never said you're stupid."
"No, in fact you ain't said nothin' to me. Why's that? You too good to talk to me? What with you bein' the superior race and shit?"
Strangely enough, while Russel said this, he still did not sound the least bit pissed off or hostile. He sounded… curious.
"I didn't say anythin' to you cause I ain't got nothin' to say. And if I say you don't know shit about what happened, it don't mean you're stupid, it just means you don't know shit about what happened, and I don't wanna talk about it. In fact, I don't wanna talk at all. Liked the silence better."
Devil had looked out of the window the entire time he'd been talking, and he didn't turn to see what Russel's reaction was now, either. Hearing Russel call him a traitor showed him quite plainly something he hadn't even stopped to think about yet: The world saw him as a traitor now. Harlan saw him as a traitor now. Obviously, Noble's Holler did, too. Not even Limehouse could know the truth. The only people that knew what exactly had happened that night were Boyd, Johnny and Devil himself. Devil was sure Boyd had told Ava and Arlo a condensed version. As far as everyone else knew, Tanner's try to turn Devil against Boyd had worked, and Devil had left over night to live in Frankfort.
Devil himself knew he wasn't a traitor. In Frankfort, though, and most of Kentucky, too, he was alone with that knowledge. And he couldn't tell anyone either, because word could spread to Quarles and he would be dead in the blink of an eye. He had to endure people knowing something about him that wasn't true, and he couldn't even tell them how it really was.
The load of that secret was huge, fucking gigantic, and only now did Devil see it for what it really was. He was alone in carrying that weight. He was just fucking alone.
I was so really goddamn fucking upset about the finale, I couldn't even talk after I'd watched it. I know it's kinda pathetic, but it took me an hour and cursing TellatrixForever's inbox full to calm down, and even then I was still so fucking sad about what happened with Ava. But fuck it if Walton Goggins doesn't deserve an Emmy for his performance. It just hit me right in the heart. And Timothy Olyphant was fantastic, too.
Now, as you might have noticed, I've cranked up my posting speed a little. I am currently putting the finishing touches on chapter 9, meaning I have quite the buffer so I think I can afford posting two chapters a week for now. Should that buffer get too small for my comfort, or should I not have the time to post twice a week, I'll reduce it to one post a week until I can step up again. Sound fair?
Anyone feel like they might wanna review, not my place to stop you.
