The City Under the Skin (29 page)

It was not a question any of them had expected Ray to ask. They had expected denials, threats, perhaps pleading, but not this.

“I'm not unreasonable,” Ray said. “You know that, Zak. You want me to set you up in your own little shop, ‘Zak Webster: Map Seller to the Gentry'? Tell me what the price is. Tell me what these other two clowns want.” He turned to Billy: “Property, cars, drugs?”; and then to Marilyn: “Tattoo removal?”

“We want you to take a little trip,” said Marilyn. “Downstairs into the basement. We've got some women who are dying to meet you face-to-face.”

Ray McKinley started to say something, but Billy Moore grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, pulled him to his feet, and dragged him across to the other side of the room, tearing open the pale lime-green linen of his jacket in the process. Zak had opened the door that led to the basement, to another, different kind of underworld. Ray looked down the flight of steps, but could see only darkness at the bottom. Then he heard women's voices, though he couldn't make out any words. He could also hear a mechanical noise, an intermittent drone, a buzzing, the sound of a tattoo machine being brought to life.

“So much can go wrong when amateurs start tattooing,” said Marilyn. “They get carried away, scrawl obscenities all over your body, or your face, or your dick. And you know, a lot of beginners don't care much about hygiene. There's a lot of risk: blood poisoning, tetanus, hepatitis, toxic shock. You can imagine. But you won't have to imagine.”

Billy Moore picked Ray up for the last time, one hand on his collar, one on his waistband, the weight evenly distributed, then tossed him forward, hard and fast, through the doorway, so he would have no chance of gaining a foothold as gravity pulled him down the steep decline of stairs. His legs and arms flailed, he grunted some indecipherable words, and then there was the sound of him hitting the bottom like a sack of root vegetables. A low, pale light flicked on, revealing female silhouettes, circling, homing in.

Zak closed the door to the basement. Then he closed and locked the store. He and Marilyn and Billy walked away. He felt no guilt. It was already well past closing time.

 

 

ALSO BY GEOFF NICHOLSON

FICTION

Gravity's Volkswagen

The Hollywood Dodo

Bedlam Burning

Female Ruins

Flesh Guitar

Bleeding London

Footsucker

Everything and More

Still Life with Volkswagens

The Errol Flynn Novel

The Food Chain

Hunters and Gatherers

What We Did on Our Holidays

A Knot Garden

Street Sleeper

NONFICTION

Big Noises

Walking in Ruins

The Lost Art of Walking

Sex Collectors

Day Trips to the Desert

 

 

 

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geoff Nicholson's debut novel,
Street Sleeper,
was short-listed for the Yorkshire Post First Work Award;
Bleeding London
was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award;
Bedlam Burning
was a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year; and
What We Did on Our Holidays
was made into the movie
Permanent Vacation.
He is a regular contributor to
The New York Times Book Review,
the
Los Angeles Times,
and the
San Francisco Chronicle,
and he is a contributing editor to the
Los Angeles Review of Books.
He lives in Los Angeles.

 

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2014 by Geoff Nicholson

All rights reserved

First edition, 2014

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nicholson, Geoff, 1953–

    The city under the skin: a novel / Geoff Nicholson.

        pages    cm

    ISBN 978-0-374-16904-6 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4299-5485-3 (ebook)

    1.  Kidnapping—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PR6064.I225 C58 2014

823'.914—dc23

2013038778

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