Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

“Now, those girls,” he announced. “ Those girls know how to dress up.”

His dates tittered vacantly.

A few bouncers were interspersed with the Santa’s naughty helpers, who cooed from beneath bright red caps and adjusted their fishnets. A photo area was set up outside, a guy pouring Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac into the mouths of a trio of women on their knees, the tableau strobing at intervals under the mounted flash heads. The yard reeked of weed and expensive perfume, the party spilling out across the driveway. Electronic dance music pulsed from the interior, the bass thrumming deep enough to vibrate the petals of the massive poinsettia displays rimming the porch. A couple was having sex behind a hedge.

Evan shuffled forward toward the check-in table, passing a champagne metallic Maserati Quattroporte, a vintage Aston Martin, a bright orange McLaren 570S Spider.

Two bros in line behind him were arguing. “A Nissan GT-R will eat a Ferrari for breakfast and a Porsche for lunch.”

“Yeah,” the other said. “But then you have to drive a Nissan .”

The publicists handed iPads across the desk for guests to sign, their calming murmurs reaching Evan across the crowd. “—basic nondisclosure, just initial here—”

“—of course you’re on the list and your female friends are welcome, but we’re not admitting any male plus-ones who aren’t preapproved—”

There were about ten people in front of Evan, but nearly as many publicists at the long table, the line moving quickly.

Someone stumbled past them, dropped a Baggie filled with capsules. A few broke open, puffing white powder out across the toe of Evan’s boot, mixing with the fake snow.

“Shit.” The guy looked up at Evan, red-eyed, then gathered the intact capsules. “Chief, your foot just did five snorts of Molly. Your shoe’s gonna be seriously rolling in a half hour.” He cracked up, sagging weakly into his friend, who shouldered his weight and hauled him back inside.

The EDM kicked up another gear, and the guy with the cognac fell over, taking one of the light stands with him.

As everyone turned to the commotion, Evan thumbed up the key to his truck, dug it into the side panel of the McLaren, and scraped a two-foot line through the bright orange paint.

He stepped wide of the line, waving his hands and shouting over the music. “Hey. Hey! You see this shit? That fucking bitch just keyed my car.” He pointed toward the side yard, where partiers gathered in clusters beyond the throw of lights, snorting and laughing.

The bouncers stepped forward, on alert.

“That’s a fucking McLaren 570s Spider,” Evan said, releasing his inner asshole. “You’d better find her. Red sequined dress, big nose, no shoes.”

A pair of bouncers headed off, another touching Evan’s elbow. “I’m sorry, sir. We’ll track her down.”

“You’d better.” Evan pulled his arm away. “I’ll be back inside,” he said. “At the bar.”

He shouldered through the line and stormed past the publicists. The bouncers on the front porch parted deferentially.

The foyer was packed, champagne flowing, dancers jumping to the music. Evan pushed through into an immense sitting room. People were paired off, making out on couches. Slicing through the bar, he wistfully noted the Stoli Andean Elit on offer. He scanned the room for any sign of Mimeticom’s mysterious founder, but Brendan Molleken was nowhere in sight.

Evan headed down one of a half dozen halls. A long line for the bathroom, women rubbing their bare shoulder blades against the wall. A clot of men with honest-to-God pocket protectors blocked the far end, jittering in their Converse sneakers, noses in their phones.

Evan squirmed through the hall, passing a home theater remade as a tiki lounge. One guy sat in a potted plant, licking his Breitling watch.

Someone bumped Evan hard, spilling him into a conversation pit. The cushions caught his fall, plopping him between two women with blown-open pupils and massive press-on eyelashes. They took no note of him whatsoever.

“You’re pregnant?” one continued, talking right across Evan’s face. “With Sergei’s kid?”

“I had a miscarriage,” the other woman said. Evan pushed himself up, noting a glint of emotion in her eyes before they went flat again. She wiped a single tear off her cheek. Her face hadn’t so much as quivered. She laughed, a drunken bray. “Did you steal my lighter, you bitch?”

“Hey,” Evan said, interrupting. “Have you seen Brendan?”

The women turned blank gazes to him. “Who?”

He hauled himself out and into the press of bodies by the bar. He asked a few people if they’d seen Molleken and got shrugs. A sweaty guy with a hairpiece said, “No. Hell, man. You know Molleken. Guy’s a fucking hermit.”

An older man wheeled around. “Don’t run him down, asshole. You’re here, aren’t you? Drinking his booze, enjoying his house? Don’t take advantage of Brendan’s good nature.”

Evan left them to their dispute, finding a drunk woman at the fringe leaning over a vase, preparing to vomit. “Do you know where Molleken is?”

She pointed to the ceiling, which Evan took to mean upstairs.

The elevator was off-limits from the look of the no-neck bodyguard blocking it. It took a solid five minutes for Evan to make it through the crowd to the sweeping staircase, and he fought his way up.

The second floor was quiet by comparison, the sounds of sex emanating through a few closed doors. A woman with glossy lipstick looked at Evan from a phone alcove, her mouth parted with pleasure. It took a beat for him to see the man on his knees in the shadows before her, her dress bunched up around her hips, his face buried between her legs. She looked at Evan, panting.

He moved on.

At the end of the thickly carpeted hall, a door, presumably to the master suite, rested ajar. Evan headed to it silently, pressed his glove to the wood panel, and slipped inside.

Dim space, candlelight livening the walls with an aquarium glow. In the center a massive four-poster bed, the canopy drapes pulled wide. On the mattress there were two naked men and five women—no, six. A dozen guests waited half undressed on the dark-upholstered chaise longues rimming the room’s periphery like bleachers. The air smelled of sex, but the couples on the bed appeared to be resting for now, flesh sparkly with sweat.

The women were all substantially younger and more attractive than the men. The vibe had all the subtlety of a Playboy Mansion party. Or a cattle auction.

Three of the men at the periphery had naked women sprawled across their laps. They rested highball or martini glasses on the curved flanks before them, conversing as if the women weren’t there. A few additional girls, no older than teenagers, huddled together on the adjacent chaise longues, grinning nervously. One had long dark hair in a throwback center part. She wore a red off-the-shoulder blouse and aggressively ripped designer jeans, her hands clasped tightly on her bare knee.

The man closest to Evan had an overdone gym body. He ran a hand up his thick beard, holding forth to his comrades. “—got to know your lines. The baseline runs from the jaw corners around the Adam’s apple. Gotta keep that shit clean so you don’t have a neck beard, right?”

The others listened intently. One slugged back the rest of his drink. “We hitting the cocktail festival again this July, Rishi?”

The densely bearded guy dismissively waved his martini glass, filled with an iridescent green liquid. “Fuck that. You know New Orleans has the most cases of STDs per capita of any city in the world? That’s like putting your dick in a roulette wheel. You know one of the best cities? Salt Lake. We’re gonna go there and bang Mormon chicks.”