‘That’s really great Twink, it is. But what about this meeting we’ve got coming up and commitments that are gonna follow on from it?’
‘I know it was me got you involved but I just can’t go through with any more. I’m sorry Scott but that’s the way it is.’
‘I understand that, but it’s not me you need to convince.’
‘Yeah, well I’ll just try and explain it the way I have to you, and if the worst comes to the worst and I have to walk away without any pay then I’ll do that,’ Twinkle said, and looked up from his pint meeting Scott’s eye. At that moment Scott realised why he hadn’t recognised Twinkle when he first spoke at the bar, what it was in his voice that had made him sound so different. It was hope.
Scott arrived at the club before Neil. He did a quick walkthrough then settled down with a Budweiser and cigarette to wait.
After a while, vibration from a pocket pulled Scott back from thoughts about his conversation with Twinkle. He’d said he was going home after drinks at John Henry’s. No clubbing, maybe he would manage to turn his life around.
Scott pulled out his phone and checked the screen before answering. Withheld Number. That didn’t mean anything. People would withhold their identity when phoning a drug dealer even if the call was innocent. Scott answered and said hello. The music around the club was loud and Scott could hear nothing from the phone. Again he said hello, and told whoever was on the other end to speak up but the connection was terminated.
Sliding the phone back into his pocket he caught sight of Neil sauntering into the club, tonight with a brunette on his arm making their way towards the upstairs bar. Her hips oscillated as she walked, as if the worn out carpet in the club were a Milan catwalk.
Scott pushed in beside Neil at the bar, changed his order for one bottle of Becks to two and introduced himself to the brunette.
‘Hello, I’m Elizabeth Flight,’ she said, extending a limp hand towards Scott. The way she said her name made it sound like it should be followed by an exclamation mark. Like you’d just heard something important, something you should store away in a deep recess of your brain. Scott wasn’t used to surnames. Most people he came across gave either only a first name or a nickname. When he met someone else with the same first name as someone else he knew, he would mentally assign them a number. Micky Two or Tony Three. Scott took a moment to appraise the latest addition to Neil’s long list of concubines. She had a haughty smile that was accentuated by the elevated lift of her chin, giving her the appearance of looking down on everyone despite her average height. Black leather boots and a tight fitting short black dress were undoubtedly what first made her pop up on Neil’s radar. She was OK looking without ever being in danger of real beauty, but the way she carried herself made you wonder if perhaps there was something there you had missed at first glance.
The barman placed both bottles of Becks and a cocktail for Elizabeth on the bar and took the note Neil held out to him.
‘Custom good then?’ Scott leaned in and asked Neil.
‘Yeah pretty decent. Should get everything else moved in here before long, and no, I haven’t invited anyone back for a party,’ he said, grinning.
* * *
Saturday morning Scott was woken again by the sound of his phone. He cursed himself for having again forgotten to switch it to silent as he reached down to pick it up. Hoping to hear Angela answer him, he pressed green and said hello without checking caller ID. He waited a few seconds as his brain emerged reluctantly from the fog of sleep, and then said hello again. Nothing. Could he hear faint breathing this time on the other end of the line? He wasn’t sure, but it was too early for games so he looked at the screen then hung up. Another withheld number.
Daylight violated the bedroom through the un-curtained window. Scott vowed to fix the pole later in the day, picked up his cigarettes and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
Steam from the kettle fogged the cold kitchen window. Like a child, Scott leaned across and wrote his name on the glass, and then unconsciously wrote Angela underneath.
She had promised to call yesterday but maybe she’d just been busy at the hospital or Christmas shopping. Besides, he had a load of work to finish up at home and email through to the office, which he really should have completed yesterday, so even if she called he wouldn’t be able to take time out to see her anyway.
He rubbed out the names and poured boiling water into his cup.
About six hours later Scott was putting the finishing touches to his design work when the phone rang again. He checked the caller ID before answering, and saw Jack flash up on the screen.
‘Almost finished, I’ll have them emailed within a half hour,’ Scott said as he answered the phone.
‘What? Oh, right. Listen, I want you to come and see me today.’
‘It’s after three now and I have at least an hour more work to finish up here, so I don’t think so, Jack.’
‘I thought you said you’d email them to the office in a half hour.’
‘Yeah well, creative timekeeping. Can’t it wait ‘till tomorrow?’
‘Just come to the club tonight instead. I have a meeting before my shift this evening but I’d like to see you,’ Jack said, sounding a little anxious, Scott thought, which was unlike him. He usually carried the demeanour of someone who had ice water instead of blood running through his veins.
‘OK I’ll try.’
‘And Scott.’
‘Yeah’
‘By yourself and don’t bring anything, understand?’
‘For fuck’s sake, OK,’ Scott said, angrily, and hung up the phone. Jack had a knack of making him feel like a child again, of being able to get what he wanted without any obvious signs of coercion.
It was past five when he finally finished up and emailed his work to the Zebra office. He took a shower to freshen up and heard Boris’s excited barking and galloping up and down the hallway, usually a sign someone was at the front door. Judging by the time it would probably be Neil to sort out that night’s supply; let him wait, Scott thought, and finished his shower.
Ten minutes later, with a towel around his waist, Scott trudged to the front door and opened it. Neil was sitting of the bonnet of his Hyundai smoking a cigarette, with one foot on the bumper and one on the floor.
Scott turned and went back inside as Neil hopped up off the car and followed.
‘Last club night before the holidays’, Neil said brightly. ‘You think we should take more stuff?’
‘I dunno, maybe.’
‘You have everything ready or should I bag up while you get dressed?’
‘I haven’t started yet, so help yourself. Listen, I have to go and see Jack at Aura later tonight. I’ll come round the bars with you first but will you be OK to do Blitz on your own?’
‘Don’t worry about it I’ll handle the bars as well. You just take the night off. Elizabeth will get a kick out of seeing me fly solo anyway,’ he said, grinning.
‘So you’re keeping her for a while then?’ Scott asked. His initial impression of Elizabeth hadn’t left a pleasant taste in his mouth, but he had enough going on without poking his nose into Neil’s business as well.
‘Yeah. Great body, she has her own place, and she’s filthy,’ he said with the broad smile of someone who knows. ‘All boxes ticked.’
Later as Scott made his way to Aura, large snowflakes began to fall and settle on the city streets. Any evidence of yesterday’s rainfall was gone and the cold dry ground provided the perfect canvas for the snow’s seasonal decoration.
Two streets later and passing cars had turned the thin covering of snow to slush on the roads, taxis whispered past over the wet tarmac, reflecting the garish neon glare of Christmas lights hanging down from above.
He turned the corner and saw the queue for admittance was already lined up down the block. Scott zipped up his jacket and headed towards the entrance. The club’s name was inset into blocks of stone over the doorway. Down either side, intricate pillars desig
ned in similar fashion gave the entranceway the appearance of having been carved into a cliff face.
As Scott stepped over the red rope and approached the door, a square shaped man in a tuxedo held out a palm towards him the size of a side of ham, and simply said ‘no’. Scott looked up at the doorman and didn’t recognise him from previous visits to the club. Scott knew he didn’t meet the dress code for a place like this, and he certainly wasn’t waiting over an hour for admittance in the burgeoning queue that had already formed anyway. Another doorman made his way down the steps as Scott was thinking up the quickest way to explain himself inside.
‘Hello Scott.’
Scott didn’t recognise the voice and looked in the direction of its owner. A sharp glint reflecting from his earlobe immediately caught Scott’s eye and identified its owner. The same face he’d seen after the job with Twinkle.
‘I’m just here to see Jack,’ Scott said, wanting to offer up nothing more.
‘OK, in you come.’
The doorman who’d first obstructed Scott moved to begin a pat down, but was told by the other man to let him past.
Scott walked past avoiding any eye contact. He felt a little shaken and his legs were numb from cold and the sudden shock of seeing the man again.
Inside he followed the wide carpeted corridor towards the heart of the club; the deep bass that travelled down here from the three rooms of dance music sounded muffled and disjointed, like the sound on a plane at high altitude right before your ears pop.
The doors opened out onto a huge room the shape of a goldfish bowl. The centrepiece was a large circular dance floor that was packed with clubbers and slowly revolved; flooded with atmospheric smoke and illuminated by an impressive array of spotlights and lasers constantly changing in both direction and colour in time with the music. Surrounding it were two outer levels, each elevated slightly higher than the last that were almost as busy as the dance floor. People gathered, talking and drinking in standing areas interspersed with large reflective columns, or sat at tabled areas in large upholstered armchairs and couches. Three bars evenly spaced around the outside were warmly lit and staffed by people Scott would have expected to see draped over food processors or golf clubs on cheesy TV game shows, with their bronzed skin and fixed air hostess smiles. Four podiums were situated between the tabled areas and dance floor, three containing gyrating dancers, both male and female and the last, just a bit higher again, for posterity Scott assumed, contained the deejay booth.
Scott made his way to the bar and ordered two Southern Comfort and cokes with no ice. The barman tried unsuccessfully to disguise his disdainful look at Scott’s wardrobe selection; perhaps assuming him to be a VIP he repositioned his serving smile and fetched the drinks without comment.
Scott took a sip from his glass while walking up to the deejay booth. Four columns of smoke simultaneously billowed down onto the dance floor and expanded out like inverted mushroom clouds, as the throbbing bass and pulsing lights slowed down. Looking up at the deejay booth Scott could see the fixed look of concentration on his brother’s face. His hands moved over buttons on the various CD players and computerised mixing equipment in front of him as the music tempo began to increase. The thunderous bassline slowly returned and the congregation of clubbers on the dance floor again began to move in time. The beat picked up speed and the bass volume crescendoed to an almost deafening level before it broke back down again and the vocals flooded out, causing cheers from all around the club for Jack’s atmospheric manipulation.
Jack was accompanied by two girls Scott guessed at being barely of legal age for admittance. Seeing Scott approach, Jack leaned in to whisper to them both and patted each on the ass as they vacated the booth.
‘Very smooth,’ Scott said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. He didn’t want to start with any pointless bickering.
Jack ignored the comment. Scott handed him the other glass which his brother accepted, placed in front of him and nodded.
‘Have you made plans for Christmas then?’ Scott asked, figuring he may as well start the conversation.
Jack pressed some more buttons on the equipment mixing in the next track, and didn’t acknowledge he’d heard the question.
‘I warned you to stay away from them Scott,’ Jack said finally, leaning towards his brother over the edge of the deejay booth. His voice had taken on the same parental tone he’d used on the phone earlier, and having him now looming down towards Scott was too much for him to take.
‘Back off Jack. You’re not dad,’ Scott snapped. ‘You can give me all the advice you want, but whether I choose to follow it or not is up to me.’
Jack turned back to the mixing equipment, preparing the next track to be woven into place. Scott figured he was using this as an excuse to carefully select his next words. Jack didn’t like being spoken to aggressively like Scott had just done, but he was clever enough not to retaliate in a like manner and further antagonise the situation. Scott could see Jack’s analytical mind processing the various outcomes of the conversation and discarding them one by one until he had settled on a course of action that would result in things best going his way. Scott thought it best to interrupt before Jack regained momentum.
‘You remember that time as kids, mum and dad took us to that fairground?’ Scott asked.
‘Remind me.’
‘We went on different rides and stuff, but I could only go on the little kid rides cause I wasn’t tall enough for the height restrictions on the good ones.’
A smile hinted at Jack’s lips, which Scott took as a sign he remembered.
‘Well there was that ghost house thing we went in. It was all dark corridors with stuff hanging down that would brush against your face, or guys working there putting their arms through holes in the walls and grabbing kids that walked past. A tape played with chains clanking and wailing and stuff.’
‘Yeah I remember, so what?’
‘Well just before the end there was the Frankenstein’s monster. A life size wax model or something, but it looked so real they had even put a cage around it. By the time we got round to it there were a bunch of kids gathered up peeking around the corner at the cage, nudging each other to go first but no-one would, they were terrified. You tried to calm them down, saying it wasn’t real but they still wouldn’t listen. We could see you were scared too but you walked out and stood still right up against the cage and called for everyone to run past behind you. They all ran as quick as they could and didn’t look back, but I was still stood frozen at the corner.’
‘I called out to you, I waited but you wouldn’t come.’
‘I know you did Jack, I’m not blaming you. Eventually you went through to the finish and I was still stood there on my own. I tried to go past but I just couldn’t do it. I walked all the way back around the place and came out at the entrance. I saw all the kids talking excitedly to their parents about what was inside, and you were stood talking with mum and dad.’
‘Jesus, Scott. You were a little kid, I’m four years older than you. You couldn’t have been more than what, five at the time?’
‘Yeah but that stayed with me for so long after. In my head it became like a pivotal moment in life that I’d failed at. You were the kid who went past, succeeded, but I turned back and failed.’
‘You do know how ridiculous this sounds, right?’
‘Maybe so, but now if I have a chance to do something, to walk past the Frankenstein cage even if I do feel scared, then I want to do it.’
‘That was a dummy in a cage and any fear we felt was imagined, we were never in any danger. I don’t know what you’re talking about doing, but if you’re scared then I would imagine there is a very real danger to go with it.’
‘Either way, I’m not gonna sit around forever doing hand me down jobs from your design company and there’s obviously no future in my other after hours activities.’
‘If you’re serious about wanting to step up to more responsibility then we can work that out,’ J
ack said, turning and really looking at Scott, for maybe the first time that night.
‘I don’t want to always be in your shadow, Jack. I appreciate the offer but I just want to make enough on my own to start over with a new life for myself.’
‘That again. You can’t run from yourself Scott. The one thing all your problems have in common is you.’
Scott laughed at this, it sounded like something Angela would have said. ‘If there’s nothing else then I’m gonna go,’ Scott said, and finished the rest of his drink. ‘I’ll try to come down and see you at some point over Christmas. Take it easy, Jack.’
He turned to leave and saw the doorman with the diamond earring watching them from the other side of the club. ‘Is the guy with the earring in here new?’ Scott asked, turning back to face his brother.
‘I’ve seen him on and off for a while,’ Jack said, looking curiously at Scott. ‘Why, do you know him?’
‘No, he’s maybe familiar but that’s about it. Probably just someone else with an earring like that I’m thinking of,’ Scott said, to stop any further questions.
Scott walked back across the club towards the exit. He glanced over in the direction the earring doorman had been standing at but he was already gone.
An attractive girl with long white-blonde hair, a low-cut black top and tight white shorts seemed to be fending off the advances of a young Asian man in a clean-cut suit and expensive looking jewellery. She pushed him gently out of her personal space and immediately he stepped in towards her, slid an arm around her back and leaned in for a kiss. This time she’d had enough, grabbed his arm from behind her and flung it off, put both hands against his chest and shoved as hard as she could. The man looked to have had a few drinks, which maybe impaired his balance, he stumbled back trying to stay upright and slammed hard into Scott just as he was trying to pass behind them; the man dropped his glass which shattered on the floor.
‘What the fuck you doing, man?’ he snarled at Scott, turning around to see what he’d collided against.