Concrete Underground (2010) (14 page)

"Good morning, sunshine," she greeted me.

I sat up groggily in bed and rubbed my eyes. "Shit, I must still be stoned," I muttered.

The woman wore a very form-fitting black chauffeur's outfit complete with a matching cap. She sat on top of my dresser, legs crossed, thumbing through my copy of
Dhalgren
.

I dragged myself out of bed and pulled a pair of jeans on. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you spent the night here after a round of crazy, filthy monkey sex."

"Nah, I just got here like twenty minutes ago," she said, looking up from the book. "But I did bring your paper in for you."

"I don't subscribe," I replied, but then noticed that there was, in fact, a copy of today's
Morning-Star
sitting on the foot of my bed. I picked it up and scanned the headline:
Peterman Indicted - Inspiratech VP Charged with Fraud, Embezzlement.

I recognized the man in the accompanying photo as the impatient man Max had words with at the warehouse party.

"Wanna go for a ride?" the woman asked with a suggestive hint in her voice that I prayed wasn't just in my head.

"Do I ever. Where to?"

She handed me a business card. It was printed in dark red ink on lighter red card stock with the Abrasax Inc. logo and the words:
Dylan Maxwell, CEO/President.

I followed her out to the front of my building where we found a white limousine waiting for us. The engine fired up as we approached, and the woman opened the back door for me. I climbed in, and she followed after me, closing the door behind us.

"You're not driving?" I asked, puzzled, as the car pulled away from the curb.

She took off her cap and shook out her long raven hair. "No, he just thought you'd like the uniform," she said and slid closer to me on the seat.

I shrugged. "Yeah, he was right."

---

I had never been up to the twenty-third floor of the Abrasax building before, despite my best efforts. The obsequious little intern who met me in the building's front lobby had to swipe a special keycard in the elevator just to get there.

Once the elevator doors opened, I walked out into a vast reception area with a large rectangular reflecting pool, sky lights, and marble desk where Max's assistant sat. She was a young freckle-faced woman with short-cropped red hair and a slim, boyish figure, wearing gray slacks and suspenders over a white blouse. Towering over her on the wall behind the desk was a giant LCD screen running a continuous loop of Abrasax commercials with no sound. The contrast of the bright, garish ad images against the serenity of the room gave it an unsettlingly hypnotic
Clockwork Organge
-esque feel.

Max's assistant smiled when she saw me and intoned in a chipper voice, "Mr. Maxwell will be with you in just a minute. Please go in and wait inside."

She pointed to the far end of the room where there were three doors - one white, one red, and one black. The white door slid open. I crossed the room and walked through it.

The door automatically closed behind me as I entered Max's office. It felt like stepping inside a giant iPod. The entire room was painted white - the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor was white. It was sparsely furnished with only a few pieces of furniture - a white plastic desk and chair, a long white wet bar with a row of matching stools, a couple white pleather couches, and a glass coffee table. All the furniture had a shiny, plastic look with rounded edges and polished stainless steel accents. The walls were completely empty, and the entire room was devoid of any personal flourishes like art work, baubles, or photographs.

I plopped myself down on one of the couches and waited. After sitting there a few minutes, I realized that the sound system was piping in Throbbing Gristle's
20 Jazz Funk Greats
at a low, barely audible volume, which I took to be some esoteric form of psychological warfare on Max's part, a way to put his visitors off-balance.

I pulled the newspaper out of my messenger bag and decided to read the article about Peterman while I waited. It said that an anonymous tip had led authorities to information that revealed he'd been running an elaborate kickback scheme. He would guarantee certain suppliers sweetheart purchasing deals with Inspiratech in exchange for payments to an outside company he had set up, which somehow managed to pay him a hefty salary as a consultant despite being a completely imaginary business.

I opened the paper to see the rest of the article after the jump, but as I unfolded it, something fell out and landed on my lap. It was another blue envelope, stamped with the crown and globe emblem just like the others. Inside was another small white card with a typed message:
Win Some, Lose Some.

I heard the quiet buzz of an electric door opening behind me and quickly stuffed the envelope into my inside jacket pocket.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Max said as he entered the room and extended his hand.

I stood up and shook his hand. He smiled at me congenially, then pointed down below my belt. "XYZ, D."

I looked down and saw that my fly was open, so I zipped up. Meanwhile, Max made a beeline for the wet bar. "How about something to drink?"

"Sounds good," I replied, sitting back down on the couch.

Max poured us two glasses of scotch. "So I gather the ride over here was okay," he smirked while walking back to the couch with the two glasses in one hand and the rest of the bottle in the other.

I took one of the glasses from him and drained its contents in a single gulp.

"You really should sip a whiskey this expensive," Max chided while refilling my glass. I snapped my head back and drained the second glass just as quickly. Max grinned.

He happened to glance down and saw the copy of the
Morning-Star
laying beside me.

"Checking up on the competition?" he asked.

"More like admiring your handiwork." I showed him the front page headline.

"Ah that," Max said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Is this who lost your game Saturday night?"

He didn't respond, but instead poured us another round of drinks.

"So I understand you ran into a little excitement last night at Lily's condo," Max said.

"Oh, did she tell you about it?" I asked.

"Of course not," he scoffed. "I had her under surveillance."

"Of course," I conceded, remembering the van parked in front of Lily's building.

"So who was he?" Max asked.

"The corpse? His name was Patrick Cobb, he used to be a reporter," I replied, keeping an eye on Max to see how he reacted. His face remained stoic and unreadable.

I continued, "He was also the man who killed Jacinda Ngo. Not the first time with the fake boating accident, obviously, since that was all you. But I mean the second time, the real one that ended up with her corpse sitting in the back of your private jet."

Max grinned in amusement. "So I take it you've been working on the challenge I gave you. What've you got?"

I took out my notebook and flipped through the pages. "Well, I know the dead woman was Jacinda Ngo, former head of Apex Computers who went missing ten years ago, presumed dead. I know that in fact she was not dead, but instead has been living on the streets under an assumed name, barely eking out an existence as a prostitute. I know that once a year you arranged a meeting with her, and I would venture to guess that you were the reason she managed to stay hidden so long. And finally, I know that Cobb was hired to kill her and leave her in your airplane as some sort of message or attack against you. Again, if I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with these games you've been playing with the Highwater Society. I think that maybe the reason she disappeared was that she was like Peterman - maybe she lost, too."

Max poured himself a fresh drink, filling the glass to the brim, and then downed it all in one extended chug. He didn't break eye contact with me for a second while doing this, and I imagined that - if only for a second - I detected a hint of surprise in those pretty baby blues.

"That's a good theory. Inventive. Not entirely accurate, but surprisingly close," he said as he stood up and began to pace the room.

"Jacinda Ngo never lost any game, but she was my first major project - the one who helped me realize the full potential of my work with the Highwater Society.

"When I met her, she was the most fundamentally unhappy person I had ever known. She felt trapped - by her job, her success, her money, her beauty, her ego. She begged me to help her feel alive again. She begged me to turn her into someone else.

"At first I started with the basic tricks; I showed her how to pick pockets, run small cons, the kinds of things that sheltered yuppies go apeshit over.

"But none of it worked - for Jacinda, it was just a tease, a temporary distraction. It was like drug addiction; she always needed more just to recapture that same rush. Eventually, I had to confront the simple, undeniable fact that Jacinda was fundamentally unhappy, and all she really wanted was to be somebody else, anybody else. And so I made it happen.

"Can you imagine what it must have been like? For the first time in years, she was truly alive. This was her vision quest - living or dying on her own wits, every day a challenge for survival. The uncertainty of where and when here next meal will come, of whether or not she'll even sleep with a roof over her head on any given night. She knew a kind of freedom that a couple narcissists like you and I could never begin to fathom. Total loss of ego, total immersion in a new personality.

"Once a year, every year, I visited her. I showed her the life she left behind, reminded her of who she had been, and offered her the chance to come back. And every single time, she just laughed at me - indulgently, like you would laugh at a child's flights of fancy. She would tell me that I just didn't understand, that I couldn't understand."

Max circled around his desk and lowered himself into the chair. Meanwhile, I helped myself to another glass of his scotch.

"Wow, I could see how that type of thing would haunt you," I said after gulping down the drink. "I mean, she obviously meant a lot to you. And to have been the one to find her body, to know that she had been murdered and that it was because of someone's grudge against you. I can see why you're having nightmares about that, reliving it over and over, even in your sleep. What I don't understand, though, is why in the hell I'm also having your dreams."

Max didn't say anything, didn't react at all, just sat perfectly still, keeping his eyes locked on me. Then slowly, his hand crept over and pushed a button on his desk, and I heard the low hum of an intercom coming to life.

"Diane, I want you to take down a statement. 'A recent article in the weekly publication
Concrete Underground
by Mr. Dedalus Quetzal included information about the business dealings between Abrasax Incorporated and city officials. While Abrasax Incorporated acknowledges that the information is factually accurate, Abrasax stands behind its business practices and will continue to do everything in its power to provide the citizens of this great city with affordable internet access and a quality computing experience. At the same time, Abrasax disavows any attempts to bring legal action against the publication in retaliation for the article and stands committed to the principals of an open and free exchange of information.' Make sure that goes to all the major media, including the
Concrete Underground
. Might as well send it to counsel, too, so we can get a jump on things at that end."

He let go of the intercom and looked up at me, then twisted his mouth into that toothy Cheshire Cat grin of his.

"So, D, how would you like to come work for me?"

BOOK THREE

The Crowned Globe

PLAYLIST

Tear It Up
| The Cramps

Dirty Business
| The Dresden Dolls

Fuck the Pain Away
| Peaches

Civilians
| Joe Henry

The Real Ding
| Cerberus Shoal

867-5309/Jenny
| Tommy Tutone

15. Blind Spots

"Sorry, I already have a job," I said to Max.

He scoffed and tilted back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the desk. "I'd hardly call that real work. How much do you actually get paid by that subversive little rag?"

I told him. He laughed. "I can more than triple that. And you won't even have to give up your day job."

"What do you want me to do, exactly?" I asked.

"Information, D, I want information. By hook or by crook. I fiend for it, like a junkie, and my hunger is insatiable. Therefore, I am willing to pay top dollar to anyone who can get it for me. Some get it by mining electronic data, as you've surmised, but that only goes so far. Surveillance is also a useful tool, and I have experts in that field as well - like Mr. Garza, whom you saw at the party on Saturday night. And then of course I have Saint Anthony, who uses his own uniquely inventive methods of extracting it."

"How do I fit into all this?"

"What I want is for you to keep doing exactly what you have been. Talk to people, ask questions, piece puzzles together. Give me the human element, show me what's in the blind spots where a surveillance camera can't see. Just like you do for your paper, but now you'll be reporting to me, and in the process you'll enjoy all the access and resources that you need."

"How do you know I won't turn around and publish what I find out for you?" I asked.

"Go ahead," Max shrugged. "Like anyone cares what you and your socialist friends print."

I took a deep breath. "What the hell, I'm game. What's my first assignment?"

"Lilian Lynch. She's disappeared."

"What do you mean?"

"Surveillance has her leaving home this morning at her normal time for coming to work, but she never showed up here. We tracked down her car using its GPS and found it abandoned on the side of the road with a handwritten note that said, 'Fuck you, cocksucker.' I'm assuming that was meant for me.