Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

“You’re so observant.”

“I wondered why you weren’t showing them off.”

“Because they’re fucking ugly.”

“Then I wonder why you were showing them at all.”

“Yeah, I’m a mass of contradictions.”

Billy wasn’t prepared to let it go quite that easily.

“Looked like it might be a tattoo of a map,” he said.

“Did it?”

“Well, is it or not?”

“You ask a lot of questions for a driver.” And then, “Wait a minute, this isn’t the fucking way to the Oracle.”

“Sure it is,” Billy said. “I’m taking you by the scenic route.”

“If you’re lost, just say so. Don’t be a guy about it.”

“You think I need a map?”

She’d heard enough. “Stop the fucking car.”

“I don’t think so,” said Billy.

She slapped him across the right cheek, as viciously as she could, though the confines of the car stopped her getting her best swing. Billy stomped on the brakes, the car slewed to a halt, and he grabbed the stripper by the throat with his right hand. He rose in his seat to slam her head back against the side window.

“You should know I have no problem hitting women,” he said, “and if you do that again, I’ll smash your head through the glass.”

She seemed to believe him. For a while she sat in a silence even icier than before, but that didn’t suit her for long.

“So where are you taking me, you cunt?” she asked at last.

“I’m taking you to see a man named Wrobleski.”

“I don’t know anybody called Wrobleski.”

“I never said you did.”

“What does he want, a private show?”

“Maybe.”

“And who are you, his pimp?”

“I’m just a guy who’s doing what he’s being paid to do.”

“So you’re his whore.”

“You really do have a dirty little mind, don’t you? Isn’t getting paid reason enough for what you do?”

“Don’t get me started,” she said. “And don’t think you know anything about what I do or why.”

“Fair enough,” said Billy.

There were plenty of things he’d done in his own past that he could neither justify nor explain, and why would you even bother? Shit happens, and then more shit happens. He drove fast and carelessly. He wanted this to be over. He didn’t even notice the brown station wagon that was following them.

“Is this a car chase?” Zak asked. “I can’t believe I’m in a car chase.”

“No,” said Marilyn. “I think this is a pursuit rather than a chase.”

In truth neither of them knew exactly what it was. As Zak drove, he leaned on the steering wheel for support, and his head jutted forward as if he were peering through a mailbox rather than a broad glass windshield. Beside him, Marilyn sat low in her seat, trying to remain grave and determined, yet unable to keep a smirk of pleasure from her face. This was turning out better than she could possibly have imagined. She had hoped, at best, that Billy Moore might lead them to wherever he’d taken the tattooed homeless woman. But it was already bigger than that. First he had taken them to a strip club (damned shame they couldn’t go inside, but Billy Moore would have recognized them), and then he’d picked up another woman, and now they were heading to a place where, Marilyn was confident, something would become clearer, where something, perhaps many things, would be revealed.

They were heading north; they passed the old, disused sports arena and a decaying varnish works that Zak had promised himself he’d break into and explore one of these days, but for much of the time they were in terra incognita. For now there was something strangely comfortable about following somebody else’s tracks, being devoid of direct responsibility. As he drove, Zak realized that this business of following somebody in a car didn’t require nearly as much skill as you might think.

Finally they were somewhere in sight of rail yards and landfills. The traffic was thin; the Cadillac and the station wagon were among the few cars on the road. And then up ahead Zak saw a cluster of linked buildings: raised up, set back, brooding, with some fancy architectural additions on the roof. The Cadillac began to slow down: this looked like journey’s end. There was a skinny old man at the gate, which opened up as the Cadillac approached, and Billy Moore drove inside. Zak continued to drive on at a stately pace, quick enough, he hoped, to seem unremarkable, but slow enough so they could get a look inside: a couple of ill-matched men waiting in the courtyard.

Zak drove on farther, skirted the compound, eyeing the height of its walls, the bars on the windows, the degree of impenetrability, the NO TRESPASSING and ARMED RESPONSE signs. He tried not to feel daunted. When they were far enough away, he did a U-turn so that the station wagon was now facing the compound again, and pulled off the road, down onto a gravel shoulder. He stopped in the deep shadow of a railway arch, between a couple of wrecked dump trucks, a place from which they could neither see the compound nor be seen from it. He killed the car’s lights and engine, and he and Marilyn sat and waited, neither of them with much sense of what they were waiting for.

“You don’t think that’s Billy Moore’s place?” Zak said, for the sake of having something to say.

“I’m guessing not,” said Marilyn. “A guy who lives in a trailer in a parking lot generally doesn’t have a second home.”

“Still, nice Fortress of Solitude, whoever owns it. That’s a Superman reference.”

“Thank you, Zak.”

“So what do you think is going on in there?” he asked — a dumb question for sure.

“Who knows? Sex, drugs, cartography?”

Time passed, but reluctantly. Zak thought of turning on the radio, but no, that would have been crass.

“You know,” he said, “I’m pretty certain I could climb up those walls and get into that compound.”

“You think?” said Marilyn dubiously.

“It’s what I do — well, a part of what I do. I’m not one of those serious ‘infiltrators’ or parkour guys, but when you do a bit of urban exploration there’s almost always some wall or fence that needs scaling.”

“That would be quite a climb,” Marilyn said.

“You think I couldn’t do it?”

“I’m sure you could,” she said, but it didn’t sound as if she was sure at all.

“You want me to do it?”

“Let’s wait awhile,” said Marilyn.

They waited awhile: nothing continued to happen. Zak was getting very twitchy. He was also starting to feel reckless. He reached out and took Marilyn’s hand. Her eyes arched above her tortoiseshell frames in quiet disbelief.

“What are you doing?” Marilyn demanded.

“Being affectionate,” he said.

“You don’t think sitting in the car holding hands is a little bit … juvenile?”

She shook her hand free.

“Well, we could do more than hold hands,” said Zak.

“What, you think we should start necking? You think we should do some heavy petting?”

“No, no,” said Zak. “I was just being … nervous.”

“You know, timing is really all-important in these things.”

He was silent for a long time, weighing the extent of his rejection and humiliation.

“Okay, then,” he said at last, “I’m going in.”

At another time and place Marilyn might have thought this was a fresh declaration of sexual intent, but in the circumstances she knew he meant that he was intending to climb the face of the compound and get inside.

“You sure that’s wise?” said Marilyn.

“What’s the worst they could do to me?” said Zak.

“Shoot you in the head?” Marilyn suggested.