Wicked Game (2 page)

He nods in sympathy. “It’s expensive. I gave the army four years of my life in exchange for a degree.”

“The army, wow. Did you kill anyone?”

His gaze sharpens, and I wince at my nerve-induced idiocy. Usually when I botch an interview, it’s on purpose. The fact that I actually want this job makes my stomach ache.

David’s mouth relaxes into a smirk. “Shouldn’t I be asking
you
questions?”

“Sorry. Ask anything.” As long as it’s not about me.

“Why do you want to work at WMMP?”

I knew that one was coming, and I’ve been working on a convincing answer ever since David found me through my college’s job-match program.

“I love rock ’n’ roll.” Damn, that was cheesy. I rub my nose and look away. “I wasn’t allowed to listen to it growing up, but I did anyway. I’d lie under the covers at night with my Walkman, listening to tapes I’d stolen—I mean, borrowed—uh, stolen.” This truth thing is harder than I expected. “Anyway, I figured a radio station might suck my soul less than a corporation would. Plus it’s already June tomorrow, and I’m desperate. I can’t graduate without a summer internship, and if I don’t get out of this town soon, I’ll—” My mouth shuts, about three sentences too late.

David blinks, and blinks, until I wonder if the air-
conditioning has dried out his contact lenses. He sighs through his nose, making a sound that says,
Why am I wasting my time with this girl?
I scramble for something else to discuss.

On the desk between us, a photo of a beribboned Chihuahua sits next to a calendar of 365 Oscar Wilde quotes. I squint to read,
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world
.

I glance up at David, then back to the photo and calendar. “Cute dog.”

“Oh. This isn’t my desk.” He pushes his chair back a few inches. “This is Frank’s desk, the sales and marketing director.” He shifts the Chihuahua photo’s heart-shaped frame. “I’m not, you know . . .”

I think the word he’s looking for is “gay.”

“Are you the owner?”

“I’m the general manager. The owner is—” David glances past my shoulder at a closed office door. “—absent.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he just tugs the cuffs of his sport coat and changes the subject.

“I’m also the program director. As I’m sure you’re aware, WMMP broadcasts syndicated talk shows and paid programming during the day. But at night—” He gazes at the wall speaker like it’s a holy relic. “That’s when WMMP comes alive.”

Huh. “Will Frank interview me, too?”

“I make all the personnel decisions. Frank would have joined us, but he hates the—” David’s glance flicks to the stairway behind me. “He hates to work at night.”

I check the wooden mantel clock above the bricked-up fireplace. 9:30. “Why interview me so late?”

“I wanted any potential intern to meet the DJs. This is the only time they’re all... here.”

Hmmm. My first act as marketing intern would be to suggest playing music when people are actually awake to hear it.

He shuffles my resume and portfolio, rapping their edges against the desk. The motion has a finality about it, as if he’s about to thank me for stopping by.

Panic jump-starts my mouth. “I know my resume is a little thin, but I can explain.”

“No need.” He folds his hands, steepling his fingers and tapping his thumbs together. “Do you know why I called you for this job?”

I’ve been afraid to ask, and I hesitate to guess.

David continues. “Your history indicates that you’re sympathetic to—how shall I put this—the outsider’s point of view.”

My gut plummets. He did a background check.

“What kind of outsider?” I ask innocently.

“The kind with a lack of regard for—” He spreads his thumbs. “—conventional morality.”

I sit back in my chair, moving slowly, as if from a poisonous snake. “I’ve never been charged with anything.”

“I know you haven’t.” David extends his hands palm down, as if to hold me in my seat. “My point is—”

“Thanks for your time.” I stand and grab my purse from the back of the chair. “I’ve really enjoyed our chat, but I think another opportunity would fit me better.” I head for the exit.

“Wait.” He intercepts me, placing his hand on the door before I can open it. “What I’m saying is, I don’t care about your past. Neither would anyone else here.”

My mind calculates how much he could know. A legal background check wouldn’t reveal anything too incriminating. My juvey record cleared when I turned eighteen, and in the six years since I’ve never been caught. Sort of.

“We couldn’t pay you a lot, I’m afraid.” He gestures toward my resume. “But judging by your address, you don’t need much.”

Did he just insult my neighborhood? Doesn’t he realize I live above the best pawnshop in town?

“You’d work over there.” He points to a smaller desk next to the fireplace, on the opposite wall from Frank’s. Beyond it sits a copier so old I expect it to have a hand crank.

“Come.” David moves past me so suddenly it makes me jump.

He descends a creaky wooden staircase between the two closed office doors. I follow him, trying not to get my hopes up. Maybe his hiring talk was hypothetical, as in,
you’d work at that desk if all the other intern candidates got eaten by a giant cockroach
. I force my mind away from the things I’ll have to do if I don’t get a summer job. Things I can’t put on a resume.

At the bottom of the stairs, David rests his hand on the knob of a closed door. He takes in a quick, deep breath as if to say something momentous. The words don’t make it out before he shakes his head.

“Probably best if you meet them without preconceptions. If they like you, the job’s yours.”

I nod. No pressure or anything.

David opens the door to let me pass into a small, dim lounge. A pervasive cloud of cigarette smoke gathers over the halogen lamp in the far left corner, muting the room’s lurid shadows.

My stinging eyes take a moment to adjust. I strain to see a group of—

Freaks.

Exquisite freaks, to be sure, so soul-shatteringly beautiful, it’s a tragedy that radio is for ears only. But they each look like they stepped out of a different time machine.

David squeezes past me through the doorway, where my feet have stopped. “Ciara Griffin, meet the pride of WMMP.”

Three men and a woman are playing poker around a table scattered with plastic chips and open bottles. They examine me with a palpable distrust. Maybe it’s the interview suit: navy blue makes me look like a fed.

“Spencer, Jim, Noah, Regina.” David points from left to right. “And back there is Shane.”

On the love seat at the foot of the lamp, a young man in faded ripped jeans appears to sleep, right arm draped over his face. One leg is bent, foot resting on the cushion, and the other stretches beyond the end of the sofa.

David touches my elbow to urge me forward a few steps. “I’m hoping Ciara will be our new intern.”

The hostility fades from the faces of the four awake DJs, replaced with a patronizing politeness. I attempt a smile, encouraged by the slight thaw.

“Spencer does our fifties show,” David says. “Birth of rock ’n’ roll and all that.”

A man in a white dress shirt and black pants stands to greet me, unfurling endless legs from under the table. His dark red hair is slicked back into a ducktail. He squeezes the hand I offer.

“Hey, baby, what’s shakin’?” Spencer’s southern drawl
and impeccable clothes give him a gentlemanly facade, which doesn’t quite gel with the feral look in his eyes.

“Not much, Daddy-o.” It just comes out. Rather than take offense, Spencer smiles and nods approvingly.

The next guy springs out of his chair, and I force myself not to retreat from his approach.

“This is Jim,” David says.

“Man, I really dug your portfolio.” Jim hugs me. His long brown curls and tie-dyed shirt reek of marijuana and patchouli. “I used to go to art school, too.”

“Thanks, but I’m not an artist.” Is he sniffing me?

Jim pulls back and regards me at arm’s length. “Then how’d you get all those layouts to look so groovy?”

“For my class projects? I used the computer, of course.”

His eyes crinkle with confusion. “The . . . ?”

David clears his throat loudly enough for my bullshit alert system to creep into Code Yellow. What the hell’s going on?

Comprehension crosses Jim’s face, and he snaps his fingers. “Right. Back in my day, we had to do it all by hand.”

I squint at him. He looks just a few years older than I am. They all do.

“Back in your day?”

The third man scrapes his chair against the floor as he rises. I turn to him, relieved to slide out of Jim’s personal space, which seems to lack boundaries.

“I am Noah.” The man’s voice rolls over me like a warm Jamaican breeze. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sweet lady.” He reaches across the table, takes my hand, and draws it to his full lips. My eyes go all moony and un-
professional under his gaze, which is softened by a pair of dark-rimmed glasses lying low on the bridge of his nose. Noah’s green, gold, and red knit cap perches atop a fetching set of chest-length dreadlocks. I’m relieved the seventies are represented by reggae instead of disco.

“Oh, please. Get the fuck off her, you wanker.” Despite the Briticism, the punk/Goth woman—Regina, I presume—has a flat midwestern accent. Beneath a shower of spiky black hair, her face is a study in monochrome, with black eyeliner and lipstick setting off her skin’s porcelain perfection.

Regina gives me a chin tilt and a “yo,” before turning to Shane. “You can pretend to wake up now.”

He slides his flannel-shirted arm from his face, then turns his head. I take my first full breath of the evening. His warm eyes and crooked smile make me feel like I’m really here and not just a stain someone left on the rug.

“Hey.” Shane drags his battered Doc Martens off the couch and stands up slowly. Even with the grunge-cool slouch, he’s taller than the others. As he approaches, he flicks his head to sweep a tangle of nape-length, pale brown hair out of his eyes.

When our hands touch, he starts as if I’ve shocked him. He pronounces my name perfectly, and so softly I wonder if someone else in the room is still sleeping. Then his gaze cools, and he half-turns away, hands in his pockets.

Aw, he’s shy. How lovable, huggable, stuff-in-a-bag-and-take-home-able.

Or not, as I look at Regina, whose eyes are slicing me in half. Shane must be her boy. She could probably weap-onize any of those six facial piercings in seconds.

An enormous stack of chips sits in front of her next to an open bottle of tequila. “Who’s winning?” I ask, in an effort to get on her good side.

“I have two hundred ninety-two dollars,” Regina says. “Jim has forty-six, Noah one hundred sixty-seven, and Spencer, ninety-eight. No, wait—ninety-nine.”

“Shane bombed early,” Jim says, “not that he had much to start with.”

The flannel-clad man in question turns to David. “She’ll be fine. Can I go now?”

“Sure. Thanks for coming in.”

Jim fishes a set of keys from his pocket and tosses them to Shane. “Happy hunting. And remember, none of that low-octane shit this time.”

Shane heads for the door, sparing me a cool glance of acknowledgment. My eyes shift to follow him, but not my head. I congratulate myself on my restraint.

“What do the rest of you guys think?” David says. “Should we hire her?”

They examine me like I’m a cow at a 4-H auction. I try not to moo.

The four DJs exchange looks, then nod, more or less in unison. David rubs his hands together and starts to make a declaration.

“Wait,” Spencer says. “What about Monroe?”

David shifts his weight from foot to foot, then shakes his head. “I don’t want to interrupt his program.”

“Who’s Monroe?” I ask David.

He points to a closed door in the corner with a glowing
ON THE AIR
sign above it. “He plays the
Midnight Blues
show.”

“But it’s only 9:30.”

“It starts at nine, ends at midnight. That’s when Spencer takes over, then Jim from three to six, on alternating nights. The other nights feature Noah, Regina, and Shane, same schedule.”

The DJs make a point of picking up their cards again, dismissing us. David beckons me to the bottom of the stairs.

He shuts the door behind us and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you know what they are?” he whispers.

It seems like a trick question, so I shake my head.

“A revolution.” David’s eyes are googly with fanaticism. “They each dwell in a time when a new sound embodied the zeitgeist of a generation and knocked the world on its ass.”

Code Yellow again. “When you say they
dwell
in that time—”

“Musically.”

“So what’s with the costumes? Was that for my benefit, or are they on their way to a cliche convention?”

David sends me a sly smile that says he thinks
his
name should mean “dark and mysterious.”

“All will become clear.” He trots up the stairs. “What’s important is that you understand the music they live for and the history behind it.”

I hurry up after him, my hand flaking white paint off the banister as I go. “I’m not exactly a rockologist, but—”

“Don’t worry. Ignorance is the world’s most curable affliction.” He turns right at the top of the stairs and opens the door of a tiny corner office. A light flickers on.

When I join him, David is running his hands over a wall-size bookshelf. He yanks out one tome after
another and stacks them on a small round table until the pile stands as high as my head.

“Oh.” He puts his hand on the stack. “You never said yes. To the job.”

I can’t afford to suspect why they want to hire me after such a perfunctory interview. But the weirdness begs one question.

“What about the future?” I point to the framed handbill of a ’69 Dead concert at the Fillmore West. “This place is like a museum. What about now? What about tomorrow?”

David sighs. “Have you listened to the radio lately? Honestly.”

“No.”

“Why not?”