Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

“Well, Zak,” Ray said now, “gotta get going. Can’t spend too much time on this irrelevant little outpost of the McKinley empire.”

He took a last, admiring look at Zak’s black eye and said, “There are supposed to be techniques where you can beat people up and it doesn’t leave any marks. Nice trick if you can do it. But of course a lot of people don’t want to. You should find someone to kiss it better.”

“I think maybe I’ve already got someone,” Zak said, sounding a good deal more confident than he felt.

Billy Moore was on the morning run, driving his daughter to school, when the second phone call came from Akim. “Call me back in fifteen minutes,” he said into the phone, and put it away.

“Who was that?” Carla asked.

“One of my parking associates,” said Billy. “I didn’t want you to have to listen to all that boring business stuff.”

“Are you keeping a secret?”

“Yeah right,” said Billy. “The parking business is full of classified information. Hey, when are we going to go buy me that suit?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“You noticed. So when?”

“This weekend — if you don’t chicken out.”

“Are you calling me chicken?”

“Of course not — so long as you buy that suit.”

“You know, for a twelve-year-old, you’re pretty much manipulating at an adult level.”

“Oh, Dad, you say the sweetest things.”

He delivered her to school. He was pleased that he and his Cadillac looked so completely out of place amid the clean, safe, caring parents and their clean, safe, caring cars: not that Billy wasn’t caring. In fact, he reckoned he cared a hell of a lot more than most of these smug civilians. And as he drove away, with just the slightest hint of tire squeal, his phone rang again.

Akim said, “I don’t like being told to call back.”

“You know, I didn’t think you would,” said Billy.

“Your second job,” said Akim. “I’ve made you an appointment.”

“What kind of appointment?”

“To see a property. One o’clock. Banham Towers. There’ll be a realtor there to show you a waterfront loft. She’ll be expecting you. Her name’s Isabel Sibrian. She’s the one, even if she doesn’t look like it. She’s been told your name’s Smith.”

“Very inventive,” said Billy.

Akim ignored that. “She may be a more difficult customer than the last one. But you’ll deal with it. You’ll bring her here.”

“That’s what I’ll do, is it?”

“I believe so.”

“And what if I say, ‘I’m going to have to turn down Mr. Wrobleski’s kind offer’?”

“It’s already too late for that. Clear?”

Billy Moore knew better than to challenge Wrobleski, but he had no such inhibitions with Akim.

“Some of it’s clear, some of it isn’t clear at all.”

An impatient grunt indicated that Akim didn’t have much interest in clarifying things for Billy’s benefit, but Billy wasn’t deterred.

“You see,” Billy said, “I get it that Wrobleski is way too grand to run around picking up these tattooed women.”

“Very perceptive,” said Akim.

“But what I don’t get is why he needs me to do it. Why doesn’t he have you pick them up for him, since you seem to know where they are?”

An insulted silence rippled through the phone and Billy thought Akim might hang up on him, but he didn’t. Perhaps he was the one who needed to get things clear.

“Dragging women into cars,” said Akim, “isn’t really my style.”

It sounded like the only answer Billy was going to get.

“Let’s hope your style doesn’t go out of fashion, Akim,” he said.

Billy got the address of Banham Towers, one he vaguely recognized as part of an ongoing dockland development, a cluster of former bonded warehouses that were being converted into luxury apartments that people with real money and a taste for real luxury wouldn’t have used to kennel their dogs.

He drove out there a little before one. It was evidently some way from complete or habitable, yet there was no construction work going on, no activity whatsoever. There was just one car in the parking lot: the realtor’s, he assumed. He made his way inside the building and followed some freshly printed signs up to the show apartment on the second floor.

The woman waiting for him was tall, fleshy, with an artful tangle of dense, ink-black hair. She looked businesslike, though glamorous in a way, and overdressed for the occasion, as though she might be going to a gala afterward. There was a scent of lilacs about her, and her heels clacked on the loft’s hardwood floor. Hollow light flooded the room, picked out some long, low, cut-rate furniture, and the angular, anonymous art on the walls. Yes, there was a cheapness to it, and a brittle fakery, but there was certainly a lot more room to stretch yourself here than in a trailer.

“Miss Sibrian,” said Billy.

“Mr. Smith,” she said.

“I thought a loft would be on the top floor,” said Billy.

She smiled unconvincingly. Maybe she’d heard that one before. She was some way from being friendly, and Billy reckoned she must have made up her mind about him the moment she saw him, realized he wasn’t a serious buyer, which of course was perfectly accurate. Even so, she went through the motions, showed him a thick, intensely colored, embossed brochure demonstrating the virtues of the place, which she then spelled out, talking about the apartment’s many advantages, the “flow” from kitchen to living room to balcony, the quality of the soundproofing, the neighborhood, a little frayed at the edges right now but changing; a mall was planned, wine bars were opening, there was a fitness center, and, of course, the new Platinum Line subway would run close by. But her heart wasn’t in it.

“I can see you’re not impressed,” she said, without any particular disappointment. “That’s okay. If the place isn’t right, it isn’t right. We can work together. What are you really looking for?”

Billy could see it might help to play along.

“I guess I’m looking for something more … genuinely industrial.”

“Yes? There’s a new development in the old steel mill a couple of miles up the road. Can’t get much more industrial than that. I can take you there now if you like.”

“Okay, but we go in my car. I don’t like riding bitch.”

She laughed, not sure if he was joking.

“It’s a little phobia of mine,” he said. “Call me crazy. I don’t like being driven by other people. Indulge me. I’ll bring you right back.”

It seemed she was prepared to indulge him. Maybe it had something to do with his smile, and after all, a potential sale was a potential sale.

As she was locking up the show loft, Billy said, “Do you always work alone?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “Realtors don’t usually hunt in packs.”

“Don’t you ever worry about what might happen?”

She gave him a frank, questioning look.

“What do you think might happen?” she asked.

Billy gifted her his smile again.

“ Anything might happen,” he said.

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Smith?”

“Sure. It’s what I do.”

They took the elevator down to ground level, went out to the parking lot. Isabel Sibrian eyed the Cadillac and was not impressed. She hesitated, took half a step toward her own car.

“What?” said Billy. “My car’s not good enough for you?”

“It’s not that.”

“So, we’ll do it now, right?” he said. “You can trust me. I’m a good guy. I have my own business. I have a daughter.”

“Well, I…”