Bad Things (7 page)

It was a fucking pain in the ass, trying to get his hands on even one fucking coaster. And he was annoyed at himself for not realizing their significance sooner. Any normal bar, the coasters are lying around everywhere, on the bar, on the tables. But here they were hoarded by the servers like priceless jewels, fanned out for display just once each time a new client or group of clients was seated. Connie and her colleagues hovered vigilantly until each customer had made his selection, setting the chosen coasters on her tray and tucking the rejects back in the small sparkly purse hanging at her side. When Carson had the drinks ready, she’d whisk everything back to the table, and the coasters would linger, obscured under tumblers, pilsners and martini glasses until the customers had had their fun, and Connie collected the coasters as carefully as she’d brought them forth for circumspect perusal.

Xavier couldn’t get close enough to get a good look at the coasters. Even when they were on the tables, most of the time they were shielded by the customers’ drinks, and he was supposed to hang back discreetly in the shadows, seeing but unseen, not getting in the clients’ faces.

By pure luck, during his next shift, he got a chance near the end of the night. Natalie came up to the bar with a tray full of empties and gave Carson the table’s drink order when Xavier happened to be there on his break. Not noticing one of the coasters had sealed itself against the wet bottom of one of the glasses, Natalie abandoned her tray while Carson made the drinks and she attended to another table. When Carson picked up the glass, he tossed the coaster back onto the tray.

Except that it was made of plastic or lucite, it reminded Xavier of those cheesy round novelty playing cards. A yellow circle with a full-body shot of a naked woman—or more accurately, a naked girl—posing provocatively, but not lewdly. Affecting boredom, Xavier picked up the coaster and flipped it over to see the back. Same girl. Different pose.

“
Shit,” Natalie said, yanking the coaster out of Xavier’s hand. “Brian’s going to fire me if he sees you playing with that.”

Xavier laughed. “Fire you? Over a coaster?”

“Hey. My guy at seven’s paying a grand for this coaster. If you want to drop a grand on a plastic disk with a naked chick on it, you can have one of your very own.”

She loaded up her tray and hustled off.

If a typical client had shown up more than half an hour late for their appointment, Xavier would have told them to go fuck themselves. But since there was a chance he could milk a drop or two of useful information from her, he greeted Connie with a flirtatious smile, and brought her into his alcove.

“
Fuck if I know what the big deal is with those stupid coasters,” Connie said, voice tight with pain as a cherry blossom flowered across her hip under the tip of his needle. “You’d think they were minted from pure gold, with how anal Brian is about them.”

“
Do the customers seriously pay a thousand dollars for them?”

Connie laughed, then sucked her breath between her teeth as he started working over her hip bone.

“They’re not really paying for the coaster. I mean, they don’t even get to keep it. They’re really paying for the art.”

“
I’m in the wrong fucking business,” Xavier joked.

“
Hey, just stick to tattooing super-hot chicks and letting a pack of drooling guys watch while you do it, and you’ll have a going enterprise. I mean, that’s it. They’re not even paying for the art. They’re paying to pick a fuckable girl out of a lineup, and to get to sit there for two hours, telling her exactly how to sit or lie or bend over, and leave her there spread out in front of them while they recite a bunch of pathetic fantasies and I paint them on her skin.”

“
But the pictures on the coasters aren’t of Brian’s canvases.”

“
How do you know?”

“
I’ve seen a couple of the coasters when I’ve had to settle things down at the tables,” he lied. No point outing Natalie for her oversight earlier that week.

“
Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that, either. Each coaster corresponds to one of the canvases. Someone who looks a lot like the girl in the picture. But you’re right, it’s not them. I guess they just got models for the coasters, and they’re not going to redo them every time there’s a personnel change, you know?”

Shading the spread of blossoms, darkening their centers a deeper pink almost as thick and vital as her blood staining the square of gauze between his fingers, Xavier asked, “So what’s up with the paintings?”

“What do you mean?”

“
You have your unique style. Softer, more delicate and nuanced than Natalie’s. But there’s an interesting similarity.”

Connie let out a pained laugh. “I’m just taking dictation. Seriously. When Brian hired me, he paired me up with this girl Violet. She doesn’t work there anymore. But I shadowed her for a week, and learned the alphabet, or whatever. It’s like learning Chinese—there’s a set picture for every body part, every act.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“
I don’t know. Give me a pen and paper.”

Xavier set down his gear, dug through a couple drawers, and came up with a pencil and a notepad. Connie propped herself up on her elbows. Trying not to seem overly eager, he went back to tattooing her.

“So, a customer will say,” Connie switched into a satirical, low voice, ‘I’m gonna put that little cunt on her knees and give it to her good and hard in her wet little pussy.’ So, I do this symbol.” Connie made four neat, efficient strokes of the pencil. “That’s doggie style. Vaginal. But if he’s talking about anal sex, the symbol’s like this.”

She drew a similar, but discernibly different pictogram. Just a gentle nudge, and she did five more, narrating what each figure meant, until there was a small, simplified index of the collages that appeared across the bellies, breasts, asses and thighs of the canvases of Gomorrah every night.

“Crazy, the things people will spend their money on,” he said.

He took the pencil and notepad from her, tossed them back into the drawer and kicked it shut. As soon as she left, he dug the pad back out, and on a separate page, copied down what she had said each figure represented.

“
Hey, Carson. Come here.” Brian signaled him from the stairs.

He wouldn’t mind a couple more two hour messenger missions if he got to pocket another grand. Charlotte, his trainee, was good. Efficient. Never left the girls waiting to get drinks to their tables. Maybe Brian was testing him. Maybe if he did well on a few more of those secret missions, Charlotte would take over and he’d be cut loose from lowly bartender duty.

It startled him, for some reason, seeing that Max was in the office with Brian. He must have come in through the back, because he hadn’t seen him pass through the club.

“
Hello Carson.”

“
Hi Max.”

Max grinned, and a second later, Brian’s mouth bent in a creepy fun house reflection of Max’s expression.

“Brian and I have been talking,” Max said.

Shit. That sounded ominous. “Yeah?”

Max’s grin turned into a smile. Carson deliberately didn’t look at Brian. “No need to be so nervous, Carson. We have another proposition for you.”

“
Okay. Great.”

He’d assumed it would be another quick run. Taking something somewhere to someone. A drive, a handshake, a hand-off. But when Max started talking, Carson couldn’t believe what he was saying. What he was asking of him.

“Well?” Max asked when he’d laid his crazy idea out. “Can you handle it?”

Was he actually serious? It had to be a joke. Because people only did things that stupid in bad movies with huge explosions that distracted you from the fact that there wasn’t really much of a story.

“Um. Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not really—aren’t people trained to do that kind of thing?” He laughed. “I mean, I’m a bartender.”

Max’s smile disappeared as if it had never been there, and his chatty tone went cold and sharp. “You haven’t been a bartender for two weeks. Do bartenders make the kind of money you’ve been making?”

He’d known. Shit. Shit. Shit. Why the fuck had he ignored that icky feeling in his stomach when Brian had him run that first errand?

“
Answer my fucking question.” Without raising his voice, just sitting there looking at him, suddenly Max was the scariest man Carson had ever known. Even scarier than his father had been.

“
No. I guess they don’t.”

“
You know damn well they don’t,” Max said, his voice almost creepy soft. “You know damn well, the only way a wannabe photographer with a fine arts degree from a third rate state college makes that kind of money is by doing something illegal. So don’t start acting all innocent, now, like we’re the bad guys and you’re just the guy mixing the martinis. Because when you start doing that, acting like you’re on one side of the law, and we’re on the other, you make us nervous. You make us feel like we can’t trust you.”

Carson shot a glance at Brian, expecting his shitty grin. But Brian wasn’t smiling. Brian looked scared.

Shit. He was fucked.

“
So tell me, Carson. Can we trust you?”

How had running a couple stupid errands gotten so fucking out of hand?

“Yeah. Of course.”

“
Of course what?”

“
You can trust me.”

“
Good. Because when we can’t trust people anymore, we have to take precautions. Which means if we don’t feel safe with you, you’re not safe with us.”

“
I didn’t mean you can’t trust me.” Carson knew he sounded weird, but he couldn’t help it. He was thinking too hard about which words to choose. What to say to get out of that shit storm. “I just…I’ve never done anything like what you’re asking me to do. I don’t feel qualified.”

Max’s warm, friendly grin came back, but it didn’t calm Carson. It just made him more nauseous.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll talk you through the little technical things.”

“
Okay.”

“
You still sound worried, Carson.” That paternal tone made Carson shudder, but he tried to hide it.

“
I’m not good at lying to people.”

“
Sure you are. Even people who think they’re honest are liars. You lie to people every day. You just don’t think about it.” Max laughed. A low, warm belly laugh. “Hell, most of us lie to ourselves a dozen times before breakfast.”

Carson looked squirrelly as fuck, coming down the stairs from Brian’s office. Like a rabbit trapped in a clearing, a wolf on one side and a redneck with a rifle on the other. Maybe Brian had caught him making a play for one of the girls, and now either Brian or the girl was going to chew him up and spit him out.

Nope. Carson had just sent Natalie off with a tray-load of drinks when Xavier saw what it was that had the bartender so spastic. Max Ulianenko, descending the stairs like the fucking Godfather. Like he was going to sit on his throne and everybody in the place was going to line up to kneel and kiss his ring.

So. Carson wasn’t in a snit because Brian had caught him getting blown in the alley by one of the canvases. He was wetting his pants because he was in it. He’d let Max Ulianenko feed him a few treats and put a collar on him. And now he was cowering in anticipation of the inevitable kick. Or euthanasia. Probably by drowning in a burlap sack.

Carson was more than another tap in the information keg, like Connie and Kayleigh. He was a person of interest, as they said in TV crime shows. Xavier started giving the bartender more of the attention he hadn’t realized he deserved. Mostly just pretending he was taking a load off at every break, parking his ass on a bar stool and being friendly. Because if Carson was in Max’s pocket, asking too many probing questions was probably going to raise a red flag.

“
Sparkling water with ice and lemon?” Carson asked a few nights later when Xavier perched on a stool ten minutes before his shift started. The bartender was doing an even worse job than usual of meeting Xavier’s eyes.

“
Make it a double shot of tequila.”

Now Carson had to look, to see if he was kidding. Xavier gave him a teasing grin, and Carson almost smiled, just as Brian stomped over to say hello.

“What the fuck is that shit?” Brian whisper-yelled, pointing to a big travel backpack and camera bag.

“
Sorry, Brian. I tried to put it where the customers won’t see it.”

“
Well congratulations on a shitty job. What’s it doing back there at all? Going backpacking through Europe when you finish your shift?”

“
No.”

“
Like I give a fuck. Put it in the break room.”

“
Okay.”

“
Got a slumber party planned?” Xavier asked after Brian left.

Carson set his ice water on the bar. “I got kicked out of my apartment.”

Well, well. What a pretty opportunity. “What? Today? All of a sudden? What happened?”

Carson gave him a sheepish, joyless grin. “I guess a neighbor complained to the manager that I was smoking pot in my apartment.”

Xavier sure as fuck hadn’t seen this coming. And he sure as fuck couldn’t at least take a crack at exploiting the potential. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

“
Storage. It was fucking hell getting movers to come on five hours’ notice and pack everything up. Luckily it was a small place and I don’t have much stuff.”

Xavier was barely listening. Trying to look like he was paying attention, he quickly inventoried the cluster of contradictions that might fuck him, if Carson mentioned them to Brian. His address was the most obvious inconsistency between reality, and the information he’d put in his application. But that he could blame on a typo. Just a missing number. And his last name? The mail went into a locked box.

“So do you need a place to crash for a few days?”

Poor guy. It looked like it almost killed him just looking Xavier in the eye. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

“I don’t have a guest room, but you can sleep on my couch.”

“
Seriously?”

“
Yeah, of course.”

He looked genuinely grateful. Almost moved. “God, that’s so nice of you. You hardly know me.”

“Well, now we’ll get to know each other better.”

Carson flashed a fleeting, awkward smile, eyes darting away from Xavier’s.

After closing, when Carson had reconciled his register, he got his backpack and camera bag from the break room and followed Xavier out to the parking lot. “You want to map my address, or just follow me?”

“Uh…actually, can I ride with you? My car’s in the shop.”

“
Wow. Shitty week.”

“
Seriously shitty week. Yep.”

Xavier popped the trunk of his Impala, and Carson dropped his backpack inside, but hung on to his camera bag. Funny. Xavier’d thought he was going to degrees of deranged paranoia when he’d bought the fake plates from the same guy who’d sold him the identity. Now he grinned at his prescience.

“I’ve been wondering if this was your ride. I don’t know shit about cars, but it’s gorgeous.” Carson seemed even more impressed when he got in and had a look at the interior. “Seriously, I’ve never been in such a beautiful car. What year is it?”

“
Sixty-four. I don’t think of myself as materialistic in most things, but I do love design.”

“
Makes sense. You’re an artist.”

“
Why? Because I do tattoos?”

“
Yeah.” There was maybe a thirty second gap of silence, and then Carson asked, “So, is the upholstery all original? The two-tone red and black is hot.”

Maybe he was nervous, being alone with Xavier for the first time, on the way to spend the night in his house. Or maybe Carson was one of those people who were always afraid of silence. Normally Xavier would already be fearing for his sanity, but Carson being chatty would work out great if he actually knew anything about what was going on backstage at the club.

When Carson got inside the house, he just about lost his shit, blue eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He gaped at all the mid-century mod décor in silent awe for a minute before setting his bags down and drifting along the perimeter of the living room, now and then running his fingertips reverently along the smooth plane of a teak sideboard or book shelf.

“
I feel like I just went through a time machine. I love retro mod. But it’s too expensive. I’d have to sell my camera. And my internal organs.”

“
Nah. You just have to be patient. Stuff comes up on Craigslist now and then. You want a drink?”

“
I shouldn’t. It’s already late, and I should get up at a decent hour so I can start looking for a place. And hey, just tell me where I should set my stuff so it won’t be in the way.”

Xavier laughed. “If the place looks tidy, it’s not because I’m anal. It’s only because I’m never here.”