David Jackson - Pariah

Rocca maneuvers the Lexus into a small space in an alley alongside a converted warehouse. He parks tight against the wall, leaving no room to climb out on the passenger side. Rocca gets out and opens the rear door for Doyle. At once, Doyle hears the rhythmic booming from within the building, and realizes that the place is now a nightclub.

‘The Bartoks like to strut their stuff on a Saturday night?’ he asks.

‘Something like that,’ Rocca answers.

‘Yeah, I bet that old Lucas has got some really fancy moves.’

They walk around to the street. To the consternation of the line of people waiting to get into the club, they go straight up to the entrance. Rocca nods to the doormen, who part to allow them entry.

Inside, the noise is deafening. A steady bass pounds Doyle from all sides. The floor vibrates and he can literally feel the sonic waves rippling through his body. It’s not the most invigorating of sensations to a man whose brain is crying out for sleep. Doyle’s discomfort isn’t alleviated by the colored spotlights playing over the crowds and occasionally dazzling him with an intensity that makes him feel like his retinas are being fried.

The dance floor, which seems to take up most of the cavernous area, is packed. Sweaty, half-dressed bodies gyrate and undulate in their alcohol- and drug-fueled private heavens. Doyle isn’t sure where he’s meant to go, until Rocca taps him on the shoulder and points the direction.

As they thread through the crowd, Doyle tries to make sense of the geography of the building. The ceiling seems to be as high as the floor is wide, and like the walls, its red bricks have been left unplastered. On one wall, iron staircases lead up to two metal walkways, one above the other. Doyle presumes that the doors he can see on each of the two levels lead to offices. Some of the lights that have been blinding him are fixed to the underside of the walkways. Guarding the entrance to the staircase nearest him is a burly looking security guard. On each of the stories above him, Doyle can make out similar-shaped figures watching the pulsing mass below for signs of trouble. Also dotted on the walkways are a number of dancers. Presumably employed by the club, they wear even less clothing than the customers, and their movements are just that little bit more synchronized and professional.

Doyle is ahead of Rocca, moving toward the staircase. He’s finding it difficult to swim a straight path through the human tide. Just as a space clears ahead of him, a girl blocks his route. She wears a white shirt tied high under her breasts and exposing a muscular, perspiration-beaded midriff. As Doyle’s gaze drops to her tartan micro-skirt, he thinks to himself that he’s worn wider ties than that. Her hair is tied into pigtails and she’s licking a huge lollipop as she contorts her body before him with the agility of a belly dancer. The whole naughty schoolgirl effect is helped along by the fact that she looks barely sixteen to Doyle. She doesn’t say anything, but her intentions are unmistakable as she looks Doyle in the eye, plays her tongue around the lollipop and beckons him toward her with her index finger.

Given his lack of human contact lately, and with his defenses lowered by the alcohol still in his system, Doyle finds the invitation difficult to refuse. Somehow he manages to override his baser instincts.

‘Sorry,’ he says, yelling to be heard. ‘I have to go see the school principal. I think I may get detention. If not, I’ll see you behind the bicycle sheds later.’

He’s not sure if she’s heard him, but she seems to get the message. Shrugging, she turns on her heel and skips away. Just before she melts back into the crowd, the hem of her skirt flicks up and Doyle gets a glimpse of black thong. He turns to Rocca behind him, sees that he’s grinning again.

When Doyle finally breaks through to the stairs, it’s the security guard’s turn to step in front of him, only he’s not as easy on the eye as the schoolgirl was. In fact, he has a face like a constipated pug.

‘Hey, you wanna dance?’ Doyle asks. ‘I can do a pretty mean salsa if you’re willing to take the woman’s part.’

The behemoth shuffles closer to Doyle, the scowl on his face suggesting that tripping the light fantastic isn’t the physical activity he has in mind right now.

Doyle feels a hand on his shoulder, and Rocca steps in front of him and issues the secret nod. With apparent reluctance, the guard moves to his left by a few inches. The man feels like an immovable monolith of lead as Doyle squeezes past him.

Clanging up the metal stairs and onto the first walkway, Doyle gets a closer look at the dancers shaking their booties there. The sight of all that jiggling firm young flesh starts to get his pulse moving to the beat of the music, until Rocca taps him on the shoulder and points the way up the next set of stairs.

The upper level is like the lower. More dancers, more heavies, more doors. Rocca indicates one of the doors halfway down, and as they head toward it, Doyle can’t resist leaning over the railing for a top-level view of the crowd. He realizes how vast the interior of this place is, but also how difficult it could be to make a quick exit from up here if the need arose.

Rocca knocks and waits. The door opens a crack, and another muscleman peers out at them. If it’s one thing the Bartoks aren’t short of, Doyle thinks, it’s somebody to take the lids off their peanut butter jars. Another Masonic exchange of nods, and they’re in. As he passes the bodyguard, Doyle tips his own head to the man, who looks at him like he’s just fallen off his shoe. Doyle figures that he hasn’t quite got the hang of the gesture.

As Doyle walks across the polished wood floor, the bodyguard closes the door behind him, dampening almost all of the sound from the nightclub. Doyle takes a quick look around the plush office before his eyes settle on the man seated behind the huge oak desk in front of the window. Lucas Bartok.

Bartok the elder is not a pleasant man. Anyone who knows of his reputation for violence and sheer cruelty could tell you that. But with Bartok it goes further. It’s somehow ingrained on his face. You only have to glance at that mug to see how deeply it’s etched with his sourness and malevolence, like notches on the butt of a gun. And don’t, whatever you do, look into those eyes. You will flinch at what you see. And if you can bear to maintain your gaze, those eyes will drive you insane, make you unable to stop yourself from trying to imagine the warped picture of the world that this man must have.

Lucas Bartok is cross-eyed.

So cross-eyed it makes you want to laugh. But if you do laugh, if you even give a hint of a smile, the merest quiver of your lip, then you’d better be prepared to meet your maker, because Lucas Bartok, sensitive soul that he is, will gut you like a fish.

Still, Doyle thinks, I’m here at his invitation. He’s got to be a little welcoming, no?

No.

It’s only when Bartok looks up from his paperwork (at least he seems to be looking up) that Doyle senses he’s made a mistake coming here. Bartok’s expression turns from quizzical to surprised; and then, when recognition sets in, he is clearly enraged. He alternates his gaze between Doyle and Rocca, sometimes appearing to look at both of them simultaneously.

‘What the fuck?’ he says. ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’

He gets up from his chair, comes around the desk, walks right up to Doyle.

‘I remember you. You fucking piece of shit. What the fuck do you think you’re doing walking into my office like you own the fucking place?’

Doyle waits for the spittle to stop landing on his face, then looks over to Rocca.

‘I think he’s talking to you.’

Rocca bows his head to stifle a smile that’s threatening to break out and call for his execution.