Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

She didn’t get in with any enthusiasm, but she got in. Billy slid into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, but left the windows open: the smell of lilacs was getting to him. He lurched the car into life, and Isabel Sibrian gave him some overdetailed directions to get to the steel mill development. He tried to look as though he were listening.

“You were right,” Billy said as they drove away. “I do think that apartment’s a piece of expensive crap.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, and I think you know it too.”

“We all have to make a living.”

“That’s so true.”

They drove for a while in silence. She looked out of the side window. They were passing a cemetery, a fire-damaged mall, some freshly built big-box stores. He was no longer following her directions. She hadn’t a clue where they were. She suddenly got very nervous.

“Why don’t you stop,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Let me out here and now if you’re not interested.”

“I am interested. But I’m not here because of any apartment. I’m here because of the tattoos.”

The woman’s fear arrived like a rolling wave.

“What tattoos would those be?” she said with forced, exaggerated calm.

“The ones on your back.”

He wondered if she’d deny it. He even wondered if he, or Akim, might have got the wrong woman. But no.

“How do you know about them?” she said.

“Why? Is it a secret?”

“From most people, yes. What do you know?” she demanded. The fear hadn’t completely blotted out her essential curiosity.

“Less than you do, that’s for sure.”

“Do you know who did it to me?”

“No,” said Billy. “I kind of want to know. But then again, I kind of don’t. In any case, I’m here to take you to somebody who knows a lot more than I do.”

“You’re really freaking me out here, you know.”

“I’m not trying to, but it’s all the same whether you’re freaked out or not.”

“Stop the car. Stop the car. Please.”

“Please is nice, but it won’t do it.”

He saw her hand snake into her purse and she took hold of her cell phone.

“You know that’s not going to work either,” said Billy.

He stopped the car for a second, grabbed her hand, peeled her fingers from the phone, and tossed it out the side window before driving on.

“Why don’t we try again?” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what you want? Is it money? Is it sex? Everything’s negotiable.”

“Don’t insult me,” Billy said. “I’m not some fucking … opportunist. I don’t want money or sex from you, right? I just want you to come quietly. And look, if I were really a bad guy, I’d have walked in there, knocked you unconscious, and then carried you out to the car.”

She gave him a look of finely regulated distaste and condescension, and then her hand was in her purse again, grabbing something small, black, and cylindrical: a pepper spray.

“Now that’s just annoying,” Billy said, and he slammed on the brakes again.

She lurched forward, her black hair falling around her face like a hood. He hit her once, good and hard so she understood the situation, then took the pepper spray and blasted a jet of the stuff into her face. She fell back in the seat, coughing, retching, and he popped her again, just to be sure. He almost felt justified.

“There’s more where that came from if you don’t behave yourself,” he said, hating the sound of his own voice.

She whimpered indignantly and behaved herself. Billy delivered her to Wrobleski’s compound, received the envelope of money; this time he didn’t even bother to see how much was in it. It would again be too much, maybe even more than before. He knew he hadn’t earned it. He looked at his watch. He was in good time to pick up Carla from school. He hoped she wouldn’t notice the scent of artificial lilacs or the sting of pepper.

* * *

He thought he was doing well. Carla smelled nothing, but then she pulled something out from under the front passenger seat, an embossed real estate brochure. Billy hadn’t noticed it; Isabel Sibrian must have put it there, and he knew that was bad, he was supposed to be aware of these things. Carla turned the few heavy pages, looked at them in deep fascination.

“Wow, we really are moving up in the world,” she said.

“We’re not moving there , that’s for sure,” said Billy.

“No? Why not?”

Billy could think of a lot of reasons, all of them plausible, but he wasn’t sure which one would satisfy Carla.

“I didn’t like the realtor,” he said at last.

“Why not?”

“Just a feeling.”

“What? She didn’t treat you right? She didn’t show enough respect?”

Billy wished he’d never started this. “Sure, something like that.”

“You see, Dad,” Carla said triumphantly, “if only you’d been wearing a suit…”

Early morning, Marilyn got on her bike and rode out of the city center, thinking about Cadillacs in general and one Cadillac in particular. Supposing, she asked herself, you drove a classic metallic-blue Cadillac, where would you take it to have it serviced and maintained? You’d want somebody who knew what he was doing. But given the distressed state of the car, it obviously hadn’t been looked after by a fancy dealership or restoration boutique. Chances were it had been taken to some cheap, halfway-honest, gritty establishment out in the boonies. It would be a place that knew the car inside out and also, obviously, they’d know the name, phone number, and maybe even address of the owner. If she could find that garage, and charm a mechanic into revealing some or all of the above information, well then … well, she wasn’t sure exactly what, maybe another punch in the eye somewhere along the line, although she would try very hard to resist hitting him with her backpack if she saw him again.

She had made herself a map of sorts, actually more of a loosely schematized list, names and addresses of garages that fit the bill to a greater or lesser extent, arranged by location and what she imagined to be relevance. She was surprised how many there were, less surprised that they were located in some exhaustingly out-of-the-way parts of the city, places she’d never been before and would never go again. It was a brave old world out there, one of industrial parks, service roads, freeway on- and off-ramps, chemical plants and landfills, waste lots littered with sagging huts made out of sheet metal. Were these the kinds of places Zak had said he liked to explore? She wished she’d asked him a few more questions. She also found herself wishing, to her considerable surprise, and not only because he had a car, that she’d brought him along. But that was not to be: he had a day job and a sense of responsibility. She imagined the latter could eventually be diluted, but for now this was something she had to do by herself.

She started optimistically enough, and met a lot of hardworking men, caked in oil, grease, and road gunk. They seemed like good guys, but once she started asking questions, they all became similarly surly and tight-lipped. Showing them a picture she’d printed out, of the Cadillac and a man in a battered leather jacket, didn’t melt their hearts any.

One or two wanted to know why she wanted to know. She tried a few fake answers: the guy in the picture was an old friend she needed to reconnect with (although this story capsized when it became evident she didn’t actually know his name), or she wanted to buy the Cadillac from him, or she’d accidentally scraped the car while it was parked and she wanted to do the right thing and pay for the damage. Her stories were greeted with sullen disbelief. The guys all said they knew nothing, and although they wouldn’t have any reason to tell her the truth, she suspected they weren’t actually lying. Her black eye surely was no help. She’d tried to cover it with concealer, but it was hard to keep makeup intact while riding a bike through various more or less threatening interzones.