Concrete Underground (2010) (9 page)

"Changing the rules of the game is the only way to survive, to prevent being overtaken by a hungrier, more inventive competitor. We need to rediscover the exhilaration of painting ourselves into a corner that we don't know we'll get out of, of having our mettle tested with everything on the line. We need to remember how to feel the joy of the truly uncertain outcome. We need to gaze into the abyss."

"I still don't understand what that has to do with what we were talking about."

"D, you wanted to know why I asked Lily to admit those e-mails were true, and I am telling you. You also asked me why a bunch of spoiled rich kids would waste their Saturday night on some dumbass scavenger hunt, and I'm telling you that, too. Everyone needs a good scare put into them now and then. Including the Highwater Society. Including me."

I thought back to his reaction to my article - how he acted like it was some kind of joke, something to amuse him. Like a game.

"Why don't you tell Anthony and Lily about that funny thing you read in the paper?" Max asked, shaking me out of my own thoughts.

"Alright, well it was--" I started.

But Max interrupted me, his eyes growing big and wild, "No, tell them about it from up here."

He extended his hand to help me up onto the parapet. It was just shy of a foot wide. I looked over the side and saw how high up were were, which was about the equivalent of a three-story building. I was suddenly
very fucking aware
of my own mortality.

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe up here," Max said. "And we're not even that high up, anyways. There's a chance you might not even die if you fell. So anyways, you were saying."

I turned to address Anthony and Lily, "You know that article you two were looking at last night? The one about the woman found in a ditch? I know that he--" I pointed at Max "--moved her there after he found her in his private jet at Hastings Airfield."

Saint Anthony stepped toward me with an open look of astonishment on his face. "How the fuck could you possibly know that?"

"Good question. D seems to know a lot of things he shouldn't, these days," Max shot back. Though he seemed to be addressing Anthony, his gaze was fixed on Lily. "Between that and certain e-mails he published in his paper, it seems someone is providing with quite a bit of privileged information."

"He was also there on Thursday night, when I went to find Cobb," Anthony added. I perked up, taking note of the name:
Cobb
.

"Really?" Max looked at me, his face exaggerating his astonishment like a true showman. "You are full of surprises, my new friend."

Max then began inexplicably to sway side-to-side, gently at first, but gradually more pronounced. He then raised his hands up as if holding an invisible partner and started dancing. "I don't know what's come over me. Something about the starlight. I feel like dancing."

He started humming a tune as he danced a simple waltz along the parapet. After a going a few measures solo, he looked over to Lily. "Care to join me, Lilian?"

She shook her head, but Anthony nudged her forward.

"You used to love to dance," Max beckoned.

"She said she doesn't want to," I interjected.

"This doesn't involve you," Max replied as he helped Lily up. "If you want to dance with someone, dance with Anthony."

Max and Lily danced simple steps, as much as the limited space on the parapet would allow. I felt my heart thumping inside my chest.

"Good, now spin," Max said as he extended his arm over Lily's head, keeping their hands locked together.

She obeyed, carefully rotating herself around with precarious foot maneuvers. Max reeled her back in and held her close to himself. I held my breath while watching it, wanting to jump out and grab hold of her, but fearing any sudden movement would throw off her balance.

"Good," Max said gleefully. "Now dip."

He suddenly dipped her backwards, off the side of the building, before whipping her back the other way and throwing her off the parapet into Anthony's waiting arms.

I let loose a dizzying flurry of profanities at Max as he stepped down onto the roof.

"That was fun," Max said, ignoring my outburst. "But we're still no closer to learning who D's source is."

"Look," I said, stepping off the parapet myself. "Lily had nothing to do with me finding out about those e-mails or anything else. If it makes you feel better, know that she has been nothing but a massive pain in my ass from the moment I met her."

My eyes met Lily's, who suddenly looked vulnerable and human - probably for the first time in the years I've dealt with her. There was something else, though, something more to her expression that felt unnatural to see in her. Then I realized what it was - she looked grateful to me.

"Besides," I added, turning back to Max, "you wouldn't believe how I found out about the woman in your airplane even if I did tell you."

"Try me," he replied with a shrug. "You'd be surprised how much I'll believe."

I inhaled deeply. "I saw it all in a dream."

I paused to see how they would react, but no one said anything. I explained about the dreams I'd been having, about watching Max go into the airplane and find the woman holding the necklace. Lily looked confused. Anthony looked incredulous. Max looked intrigued.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Anthony said.

"Yes," Max replied. "Too stupid to be a lie. If he was going to make something up, even a man of his limited vision could come up with a more believable story. At the very least I believe that that's what
he believes
."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Max answered me with another question, "How is it that you are having dreams about something that happened to me?"

"I honestly have no idea. I didn't even think anything of them until I saw the story in the paper. Somehow I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the same woman, and I knew instinctively that my dream was true."

Max stood silently pondering this information for a good minute or two, looking me over skeptically.

"I'll make you a deal," he finally said to me. "If you can give me a credible explanation as to why you are having that dream, then I will make all your legal troubles with your job go away. I will back your story to the letter."

"What's a 'credible explanation?'" I asked.

"Something that makes sense instinctively, something that clicks the way your dream did when you read that article."

"And if I do, you'll just make everything better like
that
?" I snapped my fingers. "Like it's just another game to you?"

"When you've had the life I've had, you realize the whole world is a game."

"What happens when you lose?" I challenged.

Max placed a hand on my back and started back towards the door to the stairwell leading downstairs. "That's right. You wanted to know about the game's loser, and I never properly answered. Why don't you ask Jurgen?"

I looked at him blankly.

"Your hobo friend with the orange hair," he explained. "Yes, he did in fact work for me."

"What happened to him?" I asked. "How did he end up on the streets?"

Max's smile suddenly took on a new menace - subtle, but undeniable. "He lost one of my games, of course."

I let a single chuckle slip past my lips, as if he might be joking.

He rebuked, "Victory is hollow without the possibility of defeat. If the stakes aren't high, if you're not playing for keeps, then it's all just masturbatory self-indulgence."

---

We found Columbine waiting for us downstairs.

"Miss Columbine," Max said. "Were you waiting for me or for tall, dark, and snarky?"

"Him," she said as she hooked her arm around mine.

"Of course," Max said with a nod. "And why not? See how he rocks that hipster-Philip-Marlowe look with his rumpled coat and slightly askew hat." He reached out to fuss with my hat a little. "I hope you don't mind if I walk you two out."

"Not at all," I said, knocking his hand back from my head.

Anthony and Lily also followed a few paces behind as Max led us through the art party towards the the back of the building. The party was winding down, most of the guests had left and a few of the installations were already coming down.

We came upon Violet and her sculpture, which was almost finished. It was a woman sitting on a rock, lounging casually and looking at herself in a hand mirror. There of course weren't fine details, given the media used, but the figure was very fluid in its lines and structure. It was beautiful.

"Hang on, I want to just see this before we go," I said as I moved to join the group of people still watching Violet work and admiring the finished product.

The others stepped in behind me. Anthony wedged himself between some people to get closer, stepping on a man's foot in the process.

The man and Anthony exchanged some words. The other man got in Anthony's face, apparently remembering some terrible advice from his childhood about standing up to bullies. Anthony pushed him back like a you would swat away a fly. The man came back and tried to shove Anthony, who promptly lifted him off the ground and tossed him away like a rag doll. Unfortunately, the man landed right on Violet.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion, although I was frozen in place and unable to react. The man flew into her with a tremendous force, knocking her off her stool and face-first into her sculpture. She ended up crumpled in a heap on the floor on top a pool of shattered glass and torn gold threads.

I leaped on stage to help her to her feet. Shards of glass had torn through her gown and implanted themselves in her skin. Small beads of red dotted her body.

Suddenly there was applause. I turned to see Max clapping. Others in the crowd looked at him, and then joined in.

Violet, standing at my side, took a bow.

"To create is sublime, as is to destroy. If we are not willing to destroy the beauty we have created, we become slaves to it," Max expounded.

"Fuck this," I rejoined.

BOOK TWO

The Woman in the Airplane

PLAYLIST

Good Woman
| Cat Power

Light Rail Coyote
| Sleater-Kinney

Stella
| Ida Maria

Great Gig in the Sky
| The Flaming Lips + Peaches

Still Walking
| Throbbing Gristle

In the Aeroplane over the Sea
| Neutral Milk Hotel

9. A Good Man

Through the diner window I could see the sun beginning to peek out from behind the mountains, and I groaned, "Fuck, is it really morning already? I need more coffee."

Columbine didn't respond and instead continued slurping the last vestiges of orange juice through the straw poking out of the oversized glass in front of her. The sound was extremely irritating, but she had such a blissed-out expression that I didn't have the heart to ask her to stop.

"Let me get this straight," she said when she was finally satisfied that the glass was dry. "If you can explain why you're having the dreams about the dead woman Max found in his plane, then Max will confirm your article was true so no one can sue you anymore. And so you're going to try to figure out who she is and solve her murder, and you think that will somehow explain your dream."

"That's about right," I confirmed, tapping my fingers restlessly on the formica table top. "It sounds kinda crazy, when you say it like that, huh?"

"It's absolutely bonkers," she replied with relish. "But I guess you can't help that.
We're all mad here. I'm not all there myself
."

"Cute," I smirked, and tried once more in vain to flag down our waiter so I could get a refill on my coffee.

We were having breakfast at an all-night diner called Sunny Side Up. Columbine recommended it; it was a popular hipster hang out that used only organic ingredients and had vegan menu items. The booths were tiny and cramped, the wait staff was snobby, and the decor hovered somewhere between hipster-ironic and just-plain-tacky. It was a little much to deal with on no sleep. My plan for coping was to chug down as much sustainably-grown, fairly-traded coffee as I could fit inside me.

Unfortunately, our waiter - a young college kid with a neck beard, giant flesh tunnels in his ears, and a practiced air of disaffection - seemed more interested in flirting with the redhead a few tables over from us who had clearly ingested enough ecstasy to kill an elephant. Her body lolled about dreamily like her bones had turned to limp noodles, causing her thin white-girl-dreads to flop about wildly. And she had so much metal pierced through her face that I kept worrying that the weight from it all was going to become too much for her in this debilitated state, and sooner or later she'd lean too far forward past the tipping point and get pulled down face-first into her organic oatmeal.

"So what's you plan?" Columbine asked, snapping me out of my daydream.

"Actually, I was hoping you could help me with it," I replied.

Her eyes lit up. "Really?"

---

I had decided to take Columbine into my confidence. She seemed sincere enough, despite the nagging question as to how much of a convenient coincidence our meeting had been. But more importantly, she was an insider in Max's world; she knew all the players, and her insight could be invaluable. Basically, she was a calculated risk worth taking.

I made this decision a couple hours earlier, after we left the warehouse party and decided to walk back into town together. Neither of us had a car and there was no late night bus service, as barbaric as that is for a city this size. Max offered to have his driver give us a lift, but the two of us were still so amped up from the party that the long walk seemed appealing. Although honestly, I was really angling for the chance to press her for more information and see if I could trust her. And for her part, I suspected that she would have agreed to just about anything if the end result was spending just a little more time with me.