Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

it straight back to a U-shaped booth crammed with eight other people. They all looked warm and inviting. Probably close friends. Echoes of the conversation floated across the room, and it was jovial.

The guy seemed hardly perturbed by Slater shutting him down.

Slater sat there, slightly more curious. This was New York, after all. The city of posturing. Everyone was in a collective dick-swinging contest, trying to out-spend their rivals. You had to have the better car, the better apartment, the better salary, the more impressive social circle. Which paved the way for the loudest, brashest types to strut around the bars and clubs like they owned them. That’s what Slater had expected of the curly-headed man, but the guy had stayed true to his word and left him alone without the slightest provocation.

So when the man came back for another beer twenty minutes later, Slater said, ‘Sorry about before. What’s your name?’

‘Pat,’ the man said.

‘I’m Will.’

Pat extended a hand. ‘Seriously, man, if I’m bothering you…’

Slater half-smiled again. ‘Trust me, you’d know.’

Still waiting for the bartender to deliver him a fresh bottle, Pat lowered himself into the same stool.

Slater said, ‘Why did you quit your job?’

‘Because it’s all a bullshit performance to get to the top of the hierarchy.’

Slater paused. ‘That’s not something I thought I’d ever hear from a type like you.’

Pat raised an eyebrow. ‘What type am I?’

Slater nodded to the suit.

Pat smiled. ‘Appearances can be deceiving.’

‘Can they?’

‘For example, you look like a professional athlete. But you’re not.’

‘Aren’t I?’

‘I’ve been keeping an eye on how much you’re drinking. You’re not a professional athlete.’

‘Maybe it’s the off-season.’

‘Maybe. But it’s not.’

Slater shrugged, conceding the point. ‘Okay, Pat. You got me. I’m not an athlete.’

‘Then why are you in such insane shape?’

‘I need to be for my job.’

‘What’s your job?’

‘What’s yours?’

‘I’m officially unemployed,’ Pat said. ‘Remember?’

‘What was your job yesterday?’

‘Digital marketing. I started a firm. Landed some big clients. Made a lot of money. Sold for a lot of money.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What are you doing with yourself now?’

‘That’s why I came over,’ Pat said. ‘You have that aura about you — you know what it’s like to suffer. I’m training to qualify for Kona.’

Slater raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you?’

‘You know what that means?’

Slater said, ‘Of course.’

Kona was the nickname in triathlon circles for the annual Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. It meant you didn’t just have to finish an Ironman — a 2.4 mile swim, then a 115 mile bike ride, then a 26.2 mile run — you had to be the best in the world at it. It took a near incomprehensible level of willpower, and an astonishing capacity to suffer.

Slater said, ‘You done an Ironman before?’

‘Plenty.’

‘Are you close to a qualifying time?’

‘I will be. If I put in the work.’

‘You realise what that will cost?’

‘I have money.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

Pat nodded. ‘Roughly eight hours of intense physical training per day. Trust me — I know what I’m getting myself into.’

‘Why would you do that to yourself? You’re sorted. You could put your feet up and sip cocktails on a beach for the rest of your life.’

‘And then die fat and miserable and unsatisfied.’

Slater didn’t respond.

Pat said, ‘There’s something beautiful on the other side of suffering. That’s what I think I’ve finally realised.’

Slater didn’t respond.

Pat said, ‘And I got the feeling you’re the only person in this place who would understand something like that. That’s why I tried to start a conversation.’

‘And what gave you that impression?’

‘There’s just something about you. You seem … dangerous. But I think you can enjoy yourself at the same time. So why don’t you come out with us tonight? I’m in a good mood.’

‘You shouldn’t be. You’ve got a long painful road ahead.’

‘That’s why I’m in a good mood.’

Slater paused.

Then smiled.

And slapped the man on the shoulder.

‘I like you, Pat,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’

Pat ushered him to their booth. On the way over, he explained, ‘These are a few colleagues and friends. You’ll like them.’

Slater nodded, and flipped a switch in his head.

Social butterfly mode: On.

But before he made it to the table, Pat clasped a hand on his shoulder and spun him round.

‘You never told me what you do,’ the man said.

Slater said, ‘That was deliberate.’

Then he turned to the table and set to work greeting every single person in Pat’s entourage.

A couple of hours later they were all at Palantir, reasonably drunk and sipping exorbitantly expensive alcohol in a VIP booth. Pat was leaving the socialite lifestyle behind with a bang.

But, as was the story of most of Will Slater’s life, it didn’t take long for him to find trouble.

4

Rico Guzmán couldn’t pinpoint what exactly had fucked him up.

Either too much Dom Pérignon he’d lifted from the ice buckets in the centre of the booth, or too many blunts before they got to Palantir, or too much cocaine snorted off the marble countertops in the club bathrooms.

Oh, he thought. There was the ecstasy, too.

It didn’t really matter what had done it. Fact of the matter was, he’d never felt this good before. Maybe the whole cocktail of drink and drugs had combined together in perfect quantities, which would be perfect for future reference if only he could remember the amounts he’d consumed. It had all become a blur over an hour ago, and his mood had swelled to a crescendo as soon as he’d returned from his third visit to the bathroom.

His booth was packed. He briefly thought about emptying out some of the newcomers, but he quickly realised he wasn’t in any sort of state to utilise critical thinking.

He couldn’t tell one of his guests from the other.

They all blurred together into a kaleidoscope of beauty and smiles and tanned skin and gyrating hips and jovial conversation. The lights in the club were dimmed low and the strobes were pulsating and the champagne was flowing. There were his buddies in their expensive black suits and open-necked shirts, all roughly his age — early to late twenties. Then there was