Nightlife (6 page)

Justin regarded her in close to dropjaw amazement. He had heard so many theories seeking to explain everything from discos to chemical dependencies that he was sick of them. Sick of the theorists who concocted them. And not a one of them had ever made this much sense or been this succinct.

“You sound like a sociologist,” he told her.

“Nah. I took a few courses in anthropology when I was in college. Art major, anthropology minor, if you can believe that combination.”

He told her that based on his first five minutes with her, he could believe anything. She took it as a roundabout compliment, and he supposed he’d meant it that way.

They made a game of zeroing in on different clubgoers and finding appropriate designations for them. Primitive terms, of course, as they were all natives in the global village. Here a fertility goddess expecting worship. There a predatory hunter. Elsewhere an electric shaman in passionate sync with the music.

And a bit later came the arrival of the obligatory medicine man.

Justin caught periodic glimpses of him over the next fifteen minutes. A brown-skinned guy with jet-black hair that shone under the lights. In long, gentle curls, it was pulled straight back and tied at the back of his head, with the loose ends trailing to his shoulders. He wore a black mesh shirt, and beneath it sleek muscle tone and a simple gold chain with a mounted shark’s tooth. Pants of many pockets.

The guy seemed to know everyone as he gradually weaved through the club. Stopping now and then to talk, to kiss a girl on either mouth or cheek, dance a little. King of the nighttime world, handsomely Hispanic. Good-time Carlos. Justin wasn’t surprised when he eased over to Erik’s friends. It seemed inevitable.

“Tony!” cried Trent, spirits buoyant. “Been waiting for you, man.” He raised the empty little vial.

Tony flashed an easy smile, caught Trent’s hand in a soul shake. Then he laughed and ran his finger along Trent’s neckline, plucking at half a dozen gold chains. Erik had explained that Trent was a darkroom tech at North Light Photography. His presence had been unavoidable, though not urgently desired.

“What’s with all this shit, man?” Tony rattled the chains. “You got enough gold there to give Mr. T a wet dream.”

Justin turned a questioning glance to April. She seemed a little tighter all of a sudden, a little chillier. A whiff of bad karma hovered in the air.

“Tony Mendoza,” she said. Flat, neutral.

That he was a dealer was without doubt. Justin had thought April might find all manner of anthropological observations to make about him. Maybe she didn’t find the game quite as much fun when it fell too close to home. Which made him fear all the more her reaction to the moment she would inevitably learn about his own past.

He had to wonder in another direction, though, when Tony smiled down at her and pursed his lips for a quick airborne kiss. She shifted uncomfortably and pretended not to notice.

“Friend of yours, I take it,” Justin said lightly. Anything to undercut the moment.

April faced him then, offering an unflinching look into her almond eyes. Lovely, dark, and deep. Clear and wide. And somewhere within, pained.

“Acquaintance,” she said softly. Though he had the idea she didn’t care if Tony heard or not. “Guys like that never really have friends.”

How well he knew that. Even from his own tentative steps into the same waters. No friendship, no love in the world of white powder. Only alliances and loyalties subject to change. Profit takes precedence over all other matters, from the heart outward. One look into Tony’s all-seeing eyes, and Justin knew why he’d never have survived even one foot deeper into the waters of the St. Louis trade. No heart for it. Or maybe that was backward: too much heart, and not enough stone.

He watched April rediscover her margarita, then saw that Tony was leading an expedition toward the bathroom. As he stepped down the little risers toward the main floor, another guy fell in step behind him. Come to think of it, the guy had usually been in the background wherever Tony had been. Big guy, also Hispanic. Close-cropped hair and beard, like one continual coat of dark wiry fuzz. Tiny eyes that looked as if they’d never been touched by a smile.

Trent was about to follow when he turned and grabbed Justin by the sleeve.

“Why don’t you tag along, Jus?” he said. “Time to reload.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

Trent would have none of that. “Oh, come on. Deviate that septum a little. New in town, you might even get a freebie.”

Justin felt the will of resolve crumbling brick by brick. Had April not been beside him, he probably would already have been halfway there. He wanted to go.
Wanted
it. Hungered for the quick sniff, the icy hot surge of adrenals. Senses in perfect clarity. Nightlife hadn’t been the only thing he’d not tasted in too long.

“Sure. Why not.”

Justin checked April for reactions and got nothing discernible. Just another dive for her margarita. Screw it, he was worrying too much. A second later he was on his feet and making it a foursome.

Halfway down the steps, he recognized the touch on his shoulder even before he turned to face Erik. Erik leaned down closer.

“Just between you and me,” he said, “it probably won’t do you any good if the wrong people start connecting you with Mendoza. Might make a fresh start a little harder, if you know what I mean.”

“Just gonna go take a leak is all.”

Erik nodded, eyes slightly narrowing. “Whatever. Just . . . don’t get lost.” He returned to the tables.

Seconds later, the guilt hit, free-floating shame. Lying to Erik? Who was he trying to kid? Erik knew the score.

Justin fell in behind Trent again, bringing up the rear. The drinks hadn’t seemed to be hitting him at the table, but now, on the move, was a different story. Colored lights whirled, reeled. Music pulsed with jackhammer intensity. As if it were all part of a master plan to thwart dignity in walking. He was already flying.

The noise level dropped considerably in the bathroom, but the overall environment wasn’t much better. The place was a black-and-white checkerboard nightmare, a glossy assault on sensitized equilibriums with fluorescent firepower.

“Tony, here’s a friend of mine I want you to meet,” Trent said. Happy as a lapdog greeting its master at day’s end. “This is Justin Gray. He just came down from St. Louis.”

Tony nodded, then grinned at Trent. “Trent probably told you I’d show you a taste of Tampa hospitality. Didn’t he?” 

“He gave me that idea.”

“Yeah? Well, I think I can handle that.” Tony eased across the tiles, pushed open a stall door. “Step into my office.” The old gang-toidy routine, he knew it well. Always looked funny from the outside, three or four pairs of shoes facing each other under the door. Replete with sniffing sounds. In this case, four was definitely a crowd. Given the size of Mendoza’s companion, it was a tight fit.

“Where are my fucking manners?” Tony said. He proffered a hand toward the incredible hulk. “This is my friend, Lupo.” So he’d been wrong; Mendoza had a friend after all. They swapped good-to-meet-yous.

“Show him just how good a friend you are, Lupo.”

The guy grinned, baring large white teeth through the beard, and tugged up his tight pastel muscle shirt. Across the cobblestone muscles of his abdomen was a veritable landing strip of paler scar tissue.

“Lupo took a can opener across the gut for me a couple years ago.” Tony looked like a proud trainer inside a cage of obedient lions.

Justin tried to act nonplussed, knew it was an obvious sham. These guys were
serious
players. “It’s hard to find good friends like that anymore,” he managed to say.

Lupo pulled his shirt down into place. “ ‘To desire the same things and to reject the same things, constitutes true friendship.’ Sallust, in
Catalina.
”

So. Not only did the giant have a softer voice than expected, he could also spout ancient Latin proverbs. Curiouser and curiouser.

“Got a new treat for you two, fresh in stock.” Tony was already setting it up, cutting lines on the flat side of a cigarette case held in one hand. “Six keys, just in.”

Both Justin and Trent did double takes. The powder was a first-time sight for them both. The stuff was a pale green. “What the hell is
this
?” Trent asked.

“They’re calling this shit skullflush. New strain of powder, just up from South America, my friends tell me.” The lines were ready. “Maestro!”

Lupo pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, rolled it into a tube, tighter than a New York joint. He handed it to Trent.

“You like this,” Tony said, “I can let it go for a grand an ounce, forty bucks a gram. That’s a fucking steal, man. Bargain-basement opportunity.”

Trent did a line through the rolled bill. Drew back sharply, eyes bulging. “Now I know why.” He leaned back against the stall, shaking his head gently. “Whooooaa . . .”

Justin eyed him for a moment, wondering if this was quite as good an idea as it had seemed a moment ago. Thoughts were muddled, though, sobriety sacrificed in the name of fun and new beginnings. He looked at the waiting green lines. What the hell. Free was free.

He took the tube. Bent at the waist. Powered up a line into his right nostril.

Drew back even more sharply than Trent.

“What the hell do you have that cut with?” he snapped. “Ajax?”

It felt like someone had clubbed him across the lower back of his head. From the inside. The pain flared, then ebbed to a dull molten core running from nasal cavities to brain. His eyes watered.

“It does have a punch,” Mendoza said. He held up the cigarette case another couple inches. Six more lines were waiting.

“No thanks,” Justin muttered. Free or not, this stuff was bad news. “I’ve got a Killian’s out there with my name on it. Thanks anyway.”

His eyes flicked about, Tony to Lupo and back and forth again. Faces wavered. They seemed a little too attentive, scrutinized a bit too much. Eyes, eyes . . . leering in. Into flesh,
past
flesh, into soul. Or was it just imagination? Paranoia blues.

“You get used to it,” Trent said, taking the tube back. “If it’s all the same, Tony, I’ll have his. No sense letting it go to waste, right?” He leaned over to hoover into his other nostril, then back again for the first, and back again.

I’ve gotta get out of here. . . .

Past Lupo, past the stall door. Black-and-white checkerboard, chess game come to horrifying life. There, by the door, a knight moving over two and up one. No.
No.
Just an ordinary guy, no chess piece come alive. Normal.

Glimpse into the mirror as Justin passed. A frightening caricature of his own face, while in the background Trent groaned ecstatic anguish. Frightened face, painted in fluorescent light. His nose starting to run. The mucus green, stained with the powder. Disgust at himself. Worried that April would see him like this, and disgust would be contagious. He furiously wiped it away, stumbled out into the club proper.

The ambience was at once screaming in his face and receding away. Lights had become kaleidoscopic patterns, the music a pair of cymbals clanging with his head in between.

“Tampa hospitality,” he mumbled.

Justin was in the flow of bodies now, passing faces looming into peripheral vision with the swell and fade of images seen through a wide-angle lens. Liar, Mendoza was a liar. Whatever this stuff was, it sure wasn’t cocaine. Justin made it to the chrome corral and hung on to the railing for dear life.

Motes of light flashed before his eyes. Strains of music soothed his ears, music that had nothing to do with what was blasting from the speakers. Stravinsky, possibly, the dark majesty of
The Firebird.
It had been years since Justin could recall hearing it, and now it was returning in perfect clarity . . . then gone again.

“Erik?” he muttered.

Thoughts were racing, mach speed, mental fiberoptics. He felt his nose gush anew, wiped it again. Breath was coming hotter, faster.

He glanced back at the bathroom door to see what had become of the others. A moment later, Mendoza and Lupo emerged, quick-stepping with precious little left of the cool they had entered with a half hour ago. Disappearing into the crowd, the night.

Trent. Where was Trent?

“Erik,” he said again, louder.

The floor was a chasm, the chasm eternal. He clung to the chrome railing with sweating hands. Limbs, joints—everything was fire, and jelly.

Someone back at the table must have pointed him out. He saw the back of Erik’s head suddenly become his face, and then Erik was moving down the steps, face pinched in sudden concern.

“What is it, man?” Erik said. “You look terrible.”

“I don’t feel so good. Get me out of here.” His voice barely seemed his own anymore.

“Yeah, sure. Gimme a minute.” Erik turned his back a moment.

“Now, Erik.”

The feeling was coming in out of nowhere and feeding on itself, and he was helpless before it. A claustrophobic paranoia that could either turn him into a god or crush him beneath its heel.

Trent stumbled into view, staggering from the bathroom door. Stringers of green mucus dangled from his nose. He absently wiped them away after noticing someone look at him aghast and give him a wide berth. Trent was reeling, face a shell-shocked blank—and then it was overtaken by a sickened smile.

Justin tugged at Erik’s sleeve. No good, still talking with Angel. April looked their way from the background, and he didn’t want her to see him like this. He turned away.

Trent was dancing, his body electric at the edge of the dance floor. Prancing, preening. Seemingly inventing his own dance on the spot. He looked ridiculous.

“Erik, get me
out
of here.”

Trent danced, faster and faster. With total abandon.
Faster.
For reasons beyond comprehension, Justin felt his own heart quicken, knew somehow that its rate synced with Trent’s. His breath was close to hyperventilation. The claustrophobia deepened, and all at once he had the sensation of plummeting down an elevator shaft.

The dancing, faster still . . .

Falling, falling . . .