Get Katja (12 page)

The crowd milling around outside looks like the result of an explosion in a leather and metal factory. They flash and sparkle as they move beneath the lights of the Wheatsheaf’s shaky-looking entrance, the smoke from their cigarettes curling around proud mohawks and gleaming liberty spikes.

Bridget stops in her tracks, looks up at the scaffold-clad building suspiciously, subconsciously adjusting the fresh pair of gloves she has pulled on.

“Is this place safe?” she asks Stasko, standing beside her.

Steel struts and joists are bolted to the cracked exterior, fresh cement smeared around them. Ribbons of safety tape flap in the breeze.

Stasko ignores her concerns and hands the doorman enough money to cover their entrance then places a hand on the small of Bridget’s back and guides her inside. She feels a sudden claustrophobic panic as she is led into the darkened corridor beyond, a wall of noise tumbling up the passageway like a marauding beast, and she has to fight to keep the fear of Stasko knowing about what she has done that night in check.

They emerge into the performance area, noticing the empty stage at the rear of the room. Stasko continues to push her forward as if he’s a prison guard leading her back to her cell, navigating around the back of the crowds, past the bar and towards a pillar near the stage. A large piece of fabric hand-painted with the words
Damage Sticks
written across it is pulled down by a roadie. He bundles it up, throws it behind one of the immense speakers beside him, then sets to work rearranging the drum kit.

“What now?” Bridget asks but gets no response. She realizes that Stasko hasn’t heard her, her voice drowned out by the static-laden rock music being blasted over the loudspeakers. For a brief instant she considers slipping into the crowd, of losing him long enough to make her escape, but the thought falls apart when she thinks about what she’d do next. No, for now at least, she’ll need to play along.

She leans into him, cups her hand around his ear and repeats the question.

He returns the gesture to reply but his words are lost as the crowd suddenly roars and he abandons the response. Hands are raised and people start jumping up and down.

Bridget struggles to see past them but can just make out figures emerging onto the stage. There’s a crackling fizz of static as instruments are plugged in, a short burst of drumming and a couple of notes struck. The music being played over the loudspeakers fades out. The crowd shuffles as some push nearer and others prepare for a mosh pit, stripping off their shirts.

From somewhere off-stage the name of The Broken
is announced with resounding disinterest and finally Bridget spots Katja as she steps up to the mike. The punk unzips the over-sized hoodie she wears and drops it to the ground, revealing a tight black top beneath from under which her neck tattoo emerges. Self-consciously, Bridget touches a hand to the side of her head where she had been struck and where it is still tender. But she’s not here for revenge, she doesn’t care about Katja one way or another.

Unlike Stasko.

As the first chords ring out Bridget can see how entranced he is, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. She recognises that look from the clinic, from him pouring over designs and photographs for one of those who has come to him for a secret treatment.

She’s pushed to one side by someone near to her, catches herself against the column and feels it shiver. She looks up, following the line of the concrete up towards the ceiling and notices more scaffold up there in the darkness.

Stasko nudges her and nods towards the stage then leans in towards her. “The drummer,” he shouts at her.

She follows his gaze between the bouncing, spike-haired heads in front of her, until she spots the man sitting at the drum kit.

The guinea pig. Nikolai.

She looks back at Stasko but he isn’t particularly bothered by the recognition, merely interested. His attention is already back to Katja.

She cups her hand around his ear once more and repeats her earlier question. “What do we do now?”

“We wait,” he shouts and this time she hears him.

He moves in front of her to get a better view whilst still remaining behind a large skinhead just in case Katja were to spot him and again Bridget has to suppress her desire to run. She looks around, at least wanting to know where the exits are in case she should need them.

And that’s when she spots the transvestite.

In the crowd, Lady D can see the bobbing beehives of her girls, precisely positioned at each corner of the club. Despite her grudging respect for the fact that Katja has actually made it to the venue and is going through with the gig she isn’t about to assume that the girl has no more tricks up her sleeves and so isn’t taking any chances.

She’s standing on the small set of steps which lead up to the stage, away from the main crowds but closer to one of the stacked speakers than she is comfortable with. She pins a finger in each ear as the song’s intensity grows, watching the drummer, the
real
Nikolai, as it turns out, slamming away at the kit. The drowsy nervousness that had been there earlier is now gone, replaced by determination and focus. The bass guitarist has his head tipped back, his jaw jutting out proudly, head nodding into time to Nikolai’s beat.

Meanwhile Katja barks and screams into the microphone before breaking away and thrashing at her guitar with a series of chuggy chords, slamming it against her thigh and pulling it around as if she were wrestling it rather than playing it. Even from this distance and in the low light of the club Lady D can see how the girl’s eyes glisten with pleasure, how they sparkle with a life that hadn’t been there previously. It’s the same look Lady D sees in her own eyes once she has doused herself in her makeup and put on her heels, her fake breasts, and her gaff.

The girl’s energy floods out across the crowds, feeding them, and despite the awful noise, even Lady D can’t help but smile.

The first song ends and there is a smattering of applause amongst those who are sober enough to notice. The debt collector ducks as a couple of plastic beer cups are thrown at the stage, what remains of their contents sprayed around.

It’s when she stands back upright that she spots the woman in the crowd, lurking by one of the concrete pillars near the stage, her stiff, unmoving posture in stark contrast to the jittering movements around her. The one who had dumped her with the fake. The CCTV freak.

Soelberg.

“Well, well,” Lady D says to herself, though the words are muffled beneath the ringing in her ears.

She catches the attention of Patty, eyeing up a beefy biker who has stripped to the waist as he orders more beers, then motions towards the woman. Patty pushes herself up onto her tip-toes, locating what Lady D is indicating. She mouths the word:
Pinky?

Lady D nods, mouths in return:
I want her.

Patty gives her a thumbs-up then vanishes into the crowd.

Nikolai’s drums tap out the intro to the next song. Lady D finds Lucille at the other end of the club and motions for her to cover the exit. The bass guitar kicks in.

Lady D steps down into the crowd, giving up her vantage point and having to push her weight through the sweaty, beery bodies. One man refuses to move when he sees her, leering then reaching out for her breasts. On another night she might have broken his arm but right now she doesn’t have time for it, instead snatching his wrist and pulling him towards her then slamming her forehead into his nose. He drops as Katja’s guitar joins in, matching the notes of the bass, and he crashes to the ground before being swallowed up by the crowd.

Lady D continues to push her way through, circling around so that she might get closer to the woman without being seen when she is suddenly shoved from behind. She tumbles forwards, splitting a group of teenagers huddled together around a shared beer, and before she knows it she is only a few feet away from her target.

Soelberg spots Lady D and panic fills her eyes. She starts to turn then finds Patty, resplendent in a gold lamé dress and matching heels, standing right beside her. Soelberg looks back at Lady D. Lady D raises one finger and waggles it from side to side.

Naughty naughty.

Patty grabs her.

Stasko is only vaguely aware of being pushed from one side to the other, of being shoved in the back and elbowed and shouted at by the crowd around him. Even the raucous music fades to a background drone. All he sees is Katja.

The stage lights flash from green to red to blue and back again, flaring and exploding, variously illuminating the beads of perspiration that glisten on the girl. She screams into the microphone, the guitar hanging loose around her neck, both hands clutching it. He studies her exquisite architecture, watching the way her jawbone flexes and her forehead creases. Sweat pools in the pit of her neck, describing the outline of the tracheostomy tube which he had fitted there only a short while earlier, surrounded by her tattoo as if it were all part of some fine art installation. He watches the muscles in her upper arms
flex
as she goes back to thrashing the guitar, the curve of her spine when she turns around.

The circle pit in front of him widens and he has to take a step back to avoid being dragged into it. He collides with someone, spinning him sideways, crashing him into another group of teens. The bottle that one of them is holding shatters on the ground and he angrily shoves Stasko back in the direction he came, the word
asshole
forming inaudibly on the lips of the girl beside him. Stasko reaches out a hand and steadies himself against a supporting column then looks up and the stage is gone, replaced by the bar. He struggles for his bearing for several moments, but just before he is about to turn to face the front again he sees Bridget—just as a pair of thick, hairy arms reach out for her.

She’s too busy looking in the other direction, transfixed by something, her eyes wide with terror and she’s grabbed before she knows what’s going on. Her attacker leans forward and the arms belong not to a biker but to a transvestite wearing a sparkling gold lamé dress and cherry red lipstick. Bridget cries out, the sound lost beneath the chaotic thrash blaring through the amps, but her eyes meet Stasko’s. She reaches out for him over the shoulder of her cross-dressing abductor.

Stasko pushes through the crowd towards her and collides once more with the group of teenagers. This time instead of shoving him back one of them grabs him by the collar and swings a fierce punch at his head. Stasko pulls away and the punch sails wide, connecting with a Hispanic man with a purple mohawk and a neck like a tree root. The man pounces onto the teenager as Stasko pushes past, keeping Bridget in sight as she is dragged into the crowd, but then another punch is thrown and an elbow connects with his temple.

There is angry jeering and a bottle smashes, then another. Stasko tries to break through, Bridget and the Tgirl nowhere to be seen. He shouts her name then as he ducks another punch, the entire crowd around him now engaged in an exchange of blows. Someone picks up a dropped bottle and throws it at the stage and Stasko watches it sail through the air and smash into the bass player’s head.

As she sings the final verse Katja becomes aware of a sudden explosion of movement in the crowd to her right, something which goes beyond the usual mosh pit antics. An instant later something flies through the air towards them and then there’s an audible
thunk
as it hits Max. The bassline drops out and he sways from side to side, grabs a stack amp next to him to stop himself from falling over.

Katja looks into the crowd and spots the one who threw it, fists raised in celebration as fights continue to break out around him.

Without missing a beat Katja takes two steps and throws herself from the stage, diving over the crowd and at the man. Those at the front reach up and grab her, unaware of the chaos going on behind them, pushing her backwards to let her crowd surf. Her amp lead snaps out of its socket so only Nikolai’s drums remain.

The one who threw the bottle’s expression changes when he sees her coming, just a moment before she lashes out with the guitar and connects fully with his forehead. The crowd drops her and she crashes to the ground next to the man she just attacked, his eyes rolled back into their sockets and his fists still clenched in the ghost of celebration. She quickly gets to her feet, hands grabbing at her as she pushes her way back towards the front.

A couple of bouncers part the crowd for her and haul her back up onto the stage, more to remove another potential source of trouble than through any concern for her safety, and not before one of them delivers a quick knee to her face. She crawls the rest of the way, blood dribbling from a split lip and Nikolai looks up in confusion, as if only just noticing that the rest of his band has stopped playing. Beside her, Max is slowly getting to his feet, blood trickling from a nasty gash in the side of his head.

Katja reaches down to plug her guitar back in and something sails overhead, something which makes a
whooshing
noise as it goes. It smashes into the wall behind Nikolai and bursts into flames, leaving a trail of fire rolling down the brickwork. Katja turns back to the crowd, half of it charging towards the exit, the other half busy punching and kicking the living shit out of each other. She snaps the guitar lead back into place and the amps start to buzz with her feedback once more.

She strikes a power cord, motioning for Nikolai to pick up the beat again. She looks at Max, now on his feet but pulling the bass from around his neck. She walks to him, shouts, “
What the fuck are you doing?
”

“
Getting the hell out of here!
” he shouts back, then holds up his hand to show her the blood from his head wound.

Katja bares her teeth, stained red from her split lip. “
What for?!
”

“
What for? Look the fuck around, Katja!
”

Another bottle smashes into the amps beside them, this one thankfully lacking an ignition source.

“
It’s a little bit lively, that’s all!
” she shouts back, thrashing another chord and letting it ring out.

He shakes his head then throws the bass to the ground and stalks past her across the stage—stops suddenly and looks up.

Beneath the hum of Katja’s power chord and the chaotic shouts of the crowd there is another sound—a low, ominous creak. Katja follows his gaze towards the temporary steel beams which criss-cross the Wheatsheaf’s ceiling.

It looks as if they’re moving.

“Oh shit . . .”