Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

“I guess so,” said Zak.

“And really, you don’t even have to get all that far away. Sanjay tells me that a single stick, put in the right place, is enough to move one cubic yard of rock, which weighs about a ton, depending on what kind of rock it is. When you’re blasting a tunnel, like in the Platinum Line, you drill a hole and you put the stick in the hole, because that gives you maximum destruction: something to do with compression.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Zak; then he wondered if he’d gone even further out of his mind than he realized. There was nothing even vaguely reasonable in what Billy was saying. Billy hadn’t explained the details of his plan yet, but Zak suspected there would be little that was sensible or logical or even recognizable in what he was about to propose. Zak got the feeling that he was living somebody else’s life.

“But we won’t be in a tunnel,” said Billy. “And in the wide-open spaces it’s a whole different story, apparently. There’s a lot of math involved, and I didn’t really follow that part. But anyway, in the not quite so wide-open spaces, Sanjay tells me that one stick isn’t that big a deal. It wouldn’t be enough to completely destroy, say, a house, and definitely not Wrobleski’s compound, but it would make one hell of a mess of a car, say, a big black SUV.”

“You’re going to blow up Wrobleski’s SUV?”

“That’s part of what I’m going to do, yes. There’s more. That’s where you come in, Zak.”

Marilyn Driscoll wouldn’t have believed that she’d ever be able to fall asleep in that darkness, in that place, in that condition, but suddenly she was awake, the night was over, and she was rising, coming back from some gloomy, troubled, cloacal place in her dreams. She could feel somebody beside her, somebody touching her lightly, untying her.

“I’m Laurel,” a woman’s distant voice said: Laurel, a tattooed whore in Billy Moore’s accounting. “It’s okay, I’m on your side, more or less. It’s been quite a night. I seem to be doing child care now.”

Marilyn had no idea what she was talking about. Laurel busied herself undoing the ropes and pulling streamers of duct tape from Marilyn’s body and face. Once her eyes were unpeeled, Marilyn saw she was in a long, low basement room, not quite a cell or dungeon, but claustrophobic, airless, and full of shadows, with one narrow, distant, barred window and a row of a dozen or so single beds. A cloud of tired female sweat hung low in the room, a TV played in the far corner, and on the wall she noticed a framed three-dimensional cartoon map of Hollywood, with a cartoon dinosaur rampaging over the sign.

She became aware of other people in the room, women, four more besides Laurel, and two of them she more or less recognized, though she didn’t know their names: the homeless woman from outside Utopiates, the stripper from the club. There was also a blowsy, voluptuous woman, overdressed but shoeless, and a severe, professional-looking type with a gray bob that must once have looked pretty stylish. Quite a collection, mismatched you might think, but Marilyn knew precisely what they had in common: the maps that they weren’t showing, and the violence that had created them. Besides that, they also shared a dejected, opiate-induced blankness. They stared vacantly in Marilyn’s direction but hardly acknowledged her presence.

“I saw your little act last night,” said Laurel.

“It wasn’t an act,” Marilyn insisted.

“Whatever,” said Laurel. “What exactly did you think was going to happen when you got here? You thought you’d arrive and have some face time with Wrobleski and he’d say, ‘This must all have been very puzzling for you, young lady. Now, allow me to explain.’ Is that what you thought?”

Marilyn said, “No, I didn’t expect that,” but of course a part of her had imagined something precisely along those lines.

“It’s okay, we’re all allowed to have our fantasies,” Laurel said, and she stripped away the last of the rope and tape, and then helped Marilyn straighten herself up. Marilyn stood, stretched, as if she were starting a warm-up session.

“Looking good,” Laurel said. “We have food if you need it. It’s not bad. The secret ingredient is drugs.”

Marilyn shook her head. She stood up, walked a few paces, trying to get some sensation back in her legs. Her body felt all wrong inside her clothes, her bones and flesh pulled out of shape just as much as the fabric of her pants. In fact, there was something especially wrong with one of the pants pockets. There was something in there, something metallic and loose that didn’t belong. It took her a moment to realize what: a set of keys. She pulled them out, a dozen or more keys held together with wire. She viewed them suspiciously, showed them to Laurel.

“I don’t know how these got here,” she said.

Laurel gazed at the keys with some puzzlement but considerable pleasure.

“I think I do,” Laurel said. “I think Akim put them there.”

“Who’s Akim?”

“The specimen who tied you up.”

“Planting the keys is kind of a weird thing to do, isn’t it?”

“You want weird, stick around this place for a while,” Laurel said.

She took the set of keys from Marilyn, then tossed them from hand to hand, so that they made a thin, insistent, metallic rattle that trickled through the room. It took a while before any of the others noticed. Finally a couple of them looked up, paid just the slightest attention, and slowly moved closer, like frightened animals drawn to the watering hole.

“What are those?” Chanterelle asked.

“A gift from Akim. Some of Mr. Wrobleski’s keys,” Laurel said. “Not his main bunch. Maybe Akim made copies.”

“What do they open?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“What’s Akim up to?” said Carol Fermor.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Laurel. “Maybe he lost his passion for the job. Or maybe he thought child abduction wasn’t in his job description. In any case, I don’t think we should turn down the opportunity.”

“What opportunity?”

“To start opening doors.”

“Why do we want to start opening doors?” Genevieve asked.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of a reason,” said Laurel.

Wrobleski, Akim, and Carla Moore had been sitting together in the rooftop conservatory, in silence, for a good long time. The morning was becoming clear and pale, the sky slowly brightening through streaked glass. Carla was managing to keep it all together. Another kid might have cried or sulked or pleaded, but Carla looked beautifully, if studiedly, indifferent, and Wrobleski was impressed by that. Akim meanwhile looked like a man being quietly tortured, though he also managed to send barbed, peevish looks of disapproval in Wrobleski’s direction.

“All right, Akim, your stink eye has been duly noted. Why don’t you go away and prepare yourself for the impending arrival?”

Akim got up and slouched out of the conservatory door, his eyes now looking firmly ahead of him.

“There,” said Wrobleski to Carla, “alone at last. I hate people who talk too much, don’t you?”

Carla kept her silence.

“It’s okay, I understand if you’re shy.”

She looked for a moment as if she might attack him. “I’m not shy,” she said. “I’m pissed off.”

“Well, of course you are,” said Wrobleski smoothly. “You’re just a kid. You expect your dad to protect you. But sometimes he can’t.”

Carla already suspected this might be true, but hearing it stated by this weird stranger, a man to whom she’d been delivered in the middle of the night, having been dragged from her trailer, a man from whom she needed protection, made it all the harder to bear. She looked as though she might, after all, start crying.