Concrete Underground (2010) (4 page)

---

I walked out onto the terrace that led to the ballroom's private garden and made my way to the terrace bar. After quickly downing two more shots of whiskey and taking a third to go, I meandered through the garden a bit and thought to myself that all things considered, I was having about as good a time as I could have at this thing.

As I turned a corner around a bush, I caught sight of a familiar face - Lilian Lynch, press secretary for Abrasax and conniving, backstabbing harpy. She was sitting on a bench, talking to someone who was hidden from my view by a topiary bull. She didn't see me at first because her eyes were fixed on her companion.

"Look, just tell Max that I am handling it, and as for the Ariadne Key, I don't know--"

She cut herself off as soon as she saw me approaching.

"Why Miss Lily, you look stunning. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" I said loudly.

As I took my final steps closer, her companion came into view, and I recognized him as the shit-kicker from the flophouse, Mr. Bad Seed, albeit cleaned up and wearing a very expensive tuxedo that must have been custom made to fit someone of his size so well.

"I've got to get going," he said to Lily as he stood up. "We'll talk more later."

That last line was meant for Lily, but he was looking at me when he delivered it. I was a tall guy myself, but he towered more than a half-foot over me, easily, and he was no less intimidating in the monkey suit than he had been covered in the flophouse manager's blood.

I stepped aside to let him pass and then took his seat on the bench next to Lily. She was a thin redhead in her mid-thirties. Her skin looked like it was stretched too tightly over her body, like she was nothing but skin and bones, and she always had very serious, almost worried look to her face. Her thin lips seemed frozen into a permanent half-frown, and I don't think I had ever seen her smile or laugh. Her humorlessness made her seem older than she really was, and the way you could see her skull so well-defined under her face always made her look somehow macabre to me, like she was dying a prolonged and agonizing death from some disease.

I noticed a scrap of paper in her left hand. I tried to inconspicuously glance at it and saw that it was a newspaper clipping of the "Woman found dead off Highway 77" article. She caught me looking and quickly stuffed the paper into her purse.

I returned my eyes to her. She was draped in a tight red dress with a plunging neckline. Although she did not appear entirely comfortable in it, it did show off her trim figure nicely. Between the dress, wearing her hair down, and the smoky eyeshadow she had on, I wasn't lying when I called her stunning.

"I can't believe you actually had the balls to show up here tonight," she said with disgust, staring me down with a pair of steely gray eyes.

"What do you mean? It's my sister's wedding."

"Yes, and a mere two days after you publicly accused your new brother-in-law, his family, and most of their closest business associates of conspiring to misappropriate city funds."

"Yeah," I conceded, "But how could I pass this up? Especially since I heard single women get crazy horny and desperate at weddings. And I just want you to know, if your hormones are telling you to do something you're gonna regret in the morning, then baby, I am definitely willing to be your mistake."

Lily screwed up her face and mimed choking. "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Quetzal, but the thought of our skin touching just made me throw up in my mouth."

I grinned and looked at her reproachfully. "It's okay, you're not at work anymore. You can drop the hard-nosed flack routine and admit your true feelings."

"Okay, then speaking truthfully, when I first met you I thought you were gay. It made you seem a lot more interesting. Sometimes I like to imagine that you fake these pathetic attempts at fucking me just to stay in the closet, like being a chauvinistic asshole is your beard. It helps me keep from jamming a letter opener into my eye every time your number shows up on my caller ID."

I nodded and threw her a wink. "I get it, let's keep it professional. I'd only end up breaking your heart anyways."

She rubbed her temples in exasperation. "Listen, D, it's been a long night. Just tell me what it's going to take for you to leave me alone."

"An interview with your boss."

She guffawed loudly. "You can't be serious. Mr. Maxwell is very selective about the press he does. He won't even give a personal interview to the
Morning-Star
."

"I'm way better than the
Morning-Star.
"

"You write senseless drivel to fill space between the movie listings and the hooker ads in a cheap rag that most people end up using to line their hamster cages."

"Yeah, but I look fucking suave doing it."

She rolled her eyes. "I can't tell if you put on this act intentionally to wear your adversaries down, or if you are just legitimately retarded."

I gave her my best roguish grin. "Well if I can't talk to Maxwell myself, maybe you can tell me why you all of a sudden won't take any calls about my story."

"Look, it's simple. I asked Mr. Maxwell for a statement regarding the accusations you were making, and for some reason he told me to admit they were true. I have no idea why he did this, probably for the same reason he does most things - because he was bored and thought it would be good for a laugh. At any rate, he lost interest in your little story as soon as he hung up the phone with me, and he isn't likely to expend any more time or energy on you."

She paused, chuckling to herself and shaking her head before continuing. "As for me, I am avoiding any association with you for the same reason as everyone else in that ballroom. You're toxic, a pariah. No one's going to stick their necks out for you. Even if what you wrote is true, you've made powerful enemies who are going to tear you apart one way or another. And some of us are going to enjoy watching it."

I slumped down in the bench. "You know, Lily, you really are an epic fucking cunt."

"I may be a cunt, but at least I'm not a pussy," she sneered back and patted the top of my head condescendingly as she stood to leave.

I turned to my right to see a shrub trimmed into the shape of an elephant standing on its hind legs, its front legs raised up like arms. Setting my drink down on top of one of its front hooves, I took out my notebook and jotted a few notes on what I had overheard of her conversation. I drew a big fat circle around the phrase
Ariadne Key
.

When I finished, I took my drink back from the topiary elephant and tipped the glass to him in salutation.

"Here's to you."

---

I staggered back through the ballroom, my head swimming from the booze, which had crept up stealthily and then hit me all at once. My ears started ringing with a strange noise like the static crackle of radio interference mixed with a faint but incessant whine of a feedbacking speaker.

Bits of conversation faded in and out as I weaved between the wedding guests.

"--in way over his head. The man has no business being in an executive-level position--"

"--shooting at Club Vox? It's the third one this month downtown. A bunch of savages, no matter how many cops--"

"--fucking liberal crybabies with no idea what it takes to run a--"

"--only a matter of time before I make partner--"

"--did you see the nose dive their stock took--"

"--not to worry about re-election, no one's dumb enough to try to run--"

My stomach churned, and the feedback in my head suddenly spiked with a loud squeal. I put my head down and barreled my way into the restroom.

Mercifully, it was empty. I stepped up to one of the sinks, braced myself against the counter with my arms, and stared into the mirror. My nose was bleeding. I looked down and saw a few perfectly-round dots of deep crimson had dripped onto the pristine white basin.

I leaned in and splashed a little water on my face, feeling my senses start to normalize and regain some focus and clarity. I switched off the faucet and looked back at my reflection in the mirror. Then I heard giggling coming from one of the stalls. It sounded like a woman's.

"Hey, keep it down in there," I called out. "Don't want any of these uptight country club types catching you two getting nasty in there."

"No, it's not nasty - I'm alone in here," a woman's voice called back.

I perked up. "Um, that's actually a little nastier. And extremely hot."

The giggle returned, and the door to one of the stalls opened up. It was the girl I'd seen earlier in the motley dress and black veil. "Eww, I wasn't doing anything in there. I was just hiding out."

"Hiding out in the men's room?" I asked.

She nodded emphatically. "Bathrooms are good places to hide out. They're quiet, and they're private. I started hiding out in bathrooms back when I was, like, 13, and my dad would drag me to boring dinners in stuffy restaurants with his boring friends."

"Yeah, but hiding out in the
men's
room?" I repeated.

"Women linger longer and they're too chatty," she explained. "Men's rooms are quieter and more likely to be empty."

"Fair enough."

The girl took a step closer, and I could see her more clearly through the veil. She was young, at most nineteen, with short brown hair and a pixie-like face. Her skin was pale, but there was something exotic about her features, implying she may have been of mixed ethnicity. She moved past me to the bathroom door and turned the deadbolt.

"Why'd you lock it?" I asked.

"I saw you out there; you looked like you could stand to hide out a little yourself," she explained and started back to the far end of the bathroom. She sat on the floor, her back propped up against the wall under a small window. "Have a seat."

"On the floor?"

"They keep things pretty clean in places like this," she said and patted the cold white tiles next to her.

I reached up to slide the window open before joining her. Then I fished a pack of smokes out of my pocket and offered one to her.

"If we're gonna break the rules, we might as well do it right. Do you smoke?"

"Yeah, all the time," she said as she took it and lifted her veil. I lit our cigarettes and then watched her take a drag without inhaling. She held the smoke in her mouth for a second before spitting it back out in a messy cloud. It was obvious she had never had one before in her life.

"So it looked pretty brutal for you out there," she said, trying to pose with the cigarette like a film star from the thirties. "Everyone you walked past was staring daggers at you. I mean, it's obvious why they've got a problem with me," she paused to indicate her dress, "but what'd you do to piss them off?"

I shrugged, then took a deep drag and held it in my lungs. "It's complicated."

"Ooh, mysterious," she replied. "I like that."

I smirked. "Besides, I never really fit in at things like this. I'm just here for my sister - to support her or whatever, even if I do think her new husband is a raging douchebag."

She chuckled and took another phony drag. "So you're Jennifer's brother?"

I nodded. Then something clicked in my head; she definitely wasn't from our side of the family, and she was too young to be Jenny's friend or a professional acquaintance, so...

"You must be related to Brad then, right?" I asked, wincing.

"Yeah. Well actually it's complicated, and a little awkward for me to be telling you," she replied as she leaned forward conspiratorially. "The thing is, I'm actually married to Brad, too."

I laughed and half-choked on a mouthful of smoke. "You're kidding, right?"

She shook her head. "Brad and I met in the islands three years ago. We fell madly in love and were married in less than a month. Of course, his family disapproved and has never acknowledged it as valid. Still, they flew me out here and are letting me live on the family estate just to keep me quiet."

She was clearly lying. I laughed again, not knowing how else to respond.

"So if you're Jennifer's brother, and I'm your sister's husband's secret other wife, are we related?" she pondered. "What does that make us?"

"Strangers sitting on a bathroom floor," I said and flicked my cigarette butt into a urinal.

She laughed and slid closer to me. "Are you married?"

"Nope," I shook my head. "No wife for me, secret or otherwise."

"How about a girlfriend?" she pressed. "I saw you talking to Lilian Lynch, are you two together?"

I smirked. "No, Lily and I only know each other professionally. I'm trying to get an interview with her boss."

"Oh, you need to talk to Max?" she responded casually. "I can introduce you to him."

I did a double-take. "You know Dylan Maxwell?"

She nodded and reached into her purse to pull out a glossy rave card. One side was completely black. The other side was dark red with white printing, showing an address, date, and time. "He'll be at this party tomorrow night. You can be my date. Meet me there, and I'll introduce you."

I slipped the card into my jacket pocket, not really sure what to make of her. I watched her look down at the barely-touched cigarette in her hand as if she had forgotten about it. She tossed it away, having lost interest, then got up off the floor.

"Well, I gotta get going," she said, smoothing out her gown with her hands. "I'll see you tomorrow, right? You better not stand me up."

I nodded my head. She crossed the bathroom and unlocked the door, then turned around to look back at me. "I don't even know your name."

"D."

"Dee, like John Dee?" she asked.

"No, like
A, B, C, D
."

"Cool beans. I'm Columbine," she said with a wink and then opened the door.

"Of course." I grinned. She was gone.

5. Kind of a Douche, but Good for a Laugh

The next morning I called up my friend, Nick Unger, who worked for the police department. He agreed to meet me at the Casbah, a glorious little dive bar a few blocks from my apartment. It opened first thing in the morning, realizing the best drunks start early.