Geoff Nicholson - The City Under the Skin

Some of them were conventional enough, though sufficiently antique that the shapes of countries and continents didn’t quite resemble those on contemporary maps. Others were more modern, but there was something off-kilter about them. There was a symbolic map of a railway line passing through cities named Sacrifice, Enlightenment, Hubris, and False Friendship. There was a map of an imaginary country in the shape of a woman’s head, another was a tapestry with a map of the Hindu Kush woven into it. There were maps of desert islands, diagrams of caves and cavern systems. Few looked like maps of places anyone could ever set foot.

Wrobleski turned to see what was interesting Billy. “This stuff’s okay,” he said. “But one day I’ll show you some really good stuff,” and he waved a vague hand, to indicate that those closed doors outside gave access to a storehouse of real cartographic treasures, not that Billy Moore had any idea what a real cartographic treasure would look like.

Billy saw now that at one end of the room was a small elevator, and he and Wrobleski stepped inside and went up to the top of the building. The doors opened onto the roof terrace. Billy could see Wrobleski’s penthouse with its glass walls and metal girders, and he got a brief impression of high ceilings, ancient polished hardwood, violently colored rugs, and many, many more framed maps. But he and Wrobleski weren’t going there. Wrobleski wasn’t inviting him into the place where he lived. They were heading for the domed conservatory at the other corner of the roof.

They entered, through angular glass doors, to be enveloped by bone-dry heat. Billy saw that there were very few plants. Stands and low tables arranged around the edges of the space supported just a small number of cacti and succulents, some small, a few very large, a ghost euphorbia, agaves, barrel cacti, opuntias: the overall effect was of a sparse skyline of spikes, columns, spheres, paddles, flailing arms. The arrangement seemed appropriate enough: Billy wouldn’t have expected Wrobleski to be growing petunias.

Something more surprising was in the center of the conservatory: a horizontal, glass-topped display case that took up a good amount of the space. At first Billy thought it was a model village, something a kid might have played with, but a second look showed it was something more serious than that. It looked as if it belonged in a museum: detailed and carefully constructed. And he saw now that it wasn’t a village but a whole island, shaped like a leg of lamb, surrounded by a blue resin sea.

Wrobleski’s explanation—“It’s a raised relief map of Iwo Jima”—didn’t help, but Billy said nothing, and things got no clearer when he saw there was a woman in the conservatory, draped diagonally across a rattan sofa, reading a thick, unwieldy fashion magazine. She looked young, and her heavy makeup and overelaborate hair didn’t make her appear any older. A tiger-print dress and some discarded stripper shoes only emphasized the sense that she was playing dress-up. There was a bright pink cocktail on a low table beside her.

“This is Laurel,” said Wrobleski. “Some people might say she’s a filthy, gold-digging slut. But I’d never say a thing like that.”

The young woman didn’t look up, but she giggled quietly to herself, and Billy Moore still did and said nothing, since he couldn’t imagine what was the right thing to do or say.

“So how’s the parking business?” Wrobleski asked.

“It’s okay,” said Billy.

“Made your first million yet?”

“No.”

“Made anything?”

“Sure, but expenses run high. You wouldn’t believe what you have to pay to get a competent parking lot attendant, and—”

“I don’t need details,” said Wrobleski. “I’m just establishing that you might be interested in a little freelance work to help your cash flow. Consider this your job interview.”

“I’m trying to stay out of trouble,” said Billy.

“Aren’t we all?”

“Yes,” said Billy, “but I think your idea of trouble is a bit grander than mine.”

“Really?” said Wrobleski. “Look, I know you must have heard a lot about me. But only half of it’s true.”

“Which half?” Billy asked, and Wrobleski looked pleased with the question.

“Even I don’t know that,” Wrobleski said. “But the fact is, having people say terrible things about you is never bad for business.”

Billy nodded; he didn’t intend to argue, but surely it all depended on what business you were in.

“And obviously, since our encounter at the auction, I’ve asked around about you,” said Wrobleski. “And I’ve heard good things.”

“And you believed it?”

“Well, half of it.”

Wrobleski stared out through the glass wall of the conservatory. There was something out there, invisible but palpable, that didn’t make him happy.

“The word is, you’ve got a brain,” said Wrobleski. “And I can use some extra brainpower right now.”

Billy grunted. He was not foolish enough to imagine that Wrobleski wanted him for his brain.

“And they say you’re a tough guy,” Wrobleski added.

“I don’t go around thinking what a tough guy I am,” said Billy, and they both knew that was the right answer.

“How old are you?” Wrobleski asked.

“Thirty.”

“You’re divorced, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’ve got a twelve-year-old daughter.”

“Yes,” said Billy.

It was true, of course, and hardly a secret, and Billy Moore wasn’t surprised that Wrobleski had done his homework, but it still made him uneasy to be discussing his daughter here and now, in these circumstances, with this man.

“She lives with you?” Wrobleski asked.

“For now,” Billy said. “That’s why I have to stay out of trouble.”

“Kids: they’re a liability, aren’t they?” said Wrobleski.

“I’ll say.”

Billy suspected that Wrobleski didn’t know or care much about children, but he was quite right about the liability.

“Hey, Laurel,” Wrobleski said, all thoughts of children now gone, “get up, take your top off.”

She did as she was told, stood, eased her shoulders out of the straps of her dress, let it fall forward and pool around her waist. Her eyes met Billy’s for only a moment, then she turned away. It seemed unexpectedly modest, but it had nothing to do with modesty. She was turning so that she could show Billy her back. It was tattooed roughly, crudely, with intersecting lines in red, black, and blue, some rough cross-hatchings, squares, circles, symbols, a line of arrows. It was an ugly mess, done hastily and ham-fistedly.

“What do you make of that?” Wrobleski asked.

“What am I supposed to make of it?” said Billy.

“What if I told you it was a map?”

“Then I guess I’d have to believe you.”

Billy looked again. If these markings really constituted a map, it was more inscrutable than any of the others he’d seen elsewhere in the building.

“Confusing, yeah?” said Wrobleski.

Billy nodded in agreement.

“It confuses me too,” said Wrobleski. “And I don’t like to be confused.”

There was a fat golden barrel cactus, the size of a basketball, in a black enameled planter positioned next to the sofa. Wrobleski absentmindedly pressed his index finger against one of the hooked spikes, as if he were trying to draw his own blood.

“Knowledge is power, right?” Wrobleski said. “But there are two kinds of power, as I see it. There’s one kind where you can make other people do what you want. That’s what most civilians think of as power. But there’s another kind, where nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to do. That’s better, if you ask me. But right now I haven’t got either.”