Concrete Underground, Moxie Mezcal [best books to read for teens .TXT] 📗

>He happened to glance down and saw the copy of the Morning-Star laying beside me.

"Checking up on the competition?" he asked.

"More like admiring your handiwork." I showed him the front page headline.

"Ah that," Max said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Is this who lost your game Saturday night?"

He didn't respond, but instead poured us another round of drinks.

"So I understand you ran into a little excitement last night at Lily's condo," Max said.

"Oh, did she tell you about it?" I asked.

"Of course not," he scoffed. "I had her under surveillance."

"Of course," I conceded, remembering the van parked in front of Lily's building.

"So who was he?" Max asked.

"The corpse? His name was Patrick Cobb, he used to be a reporter," I replied, keeping an eye on Max to see how he reacted. His face remained stoic and unreadable.

I continued, "He was also the man who killed Jacinda Ngo. Not the first time with the fake boating accident, obviously, since that was all you. But I mean the second time, the real one that ended up with her corpse sitting in the back of your private jet."

Max grinned in amusement. "So I take it you've been working on the challenge I gave you. What've you got?"

I took out my notebook and flipped through the pages. "Well, I know the dead woman was Jacinda Ngo, former head of Apex Computers who went missing ten years ago, presumed dead. I know that in fact she was not dead, but instead has been living on the streets under an assumed name, barely eking out an existence as a prostitute. I know that once a year you arranged a meeting with her, and I would venture to guess that you were the reason she managed to stay hidden so long. And finally, I know that Cobb was hired to kill her and leave her in your airplane as some sort of message or attack against you. Again, if I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with these games you've been playing with the Highwater Society. I think that maybe the reason she disappeared was that she was like Peterman - maybe she lost, too."

Max poured himself a fresh drink, filling the glass to the brim, and then downed it all in one extended chug. He didn't break eye contact with me for a second while doing this, and I imagined that - if only for a second - I detected a hint of surprise in those pretty baby blues.

"That's a good theory. Inventive. Not entirely accurate, but surprisingly close," he said as he stood up and began to pace the room.

"Jacinda Ngo never lost any game, but she was my first major project - the one who helped me realize the full potential of my work with the Highwater Society.

"When I met her, she was the most fundamentally unhappy person I had ever known. She felt trapped - by her job, her success, her money, her beauty, her ego. She begged me to help her feel alive again. She begged me to turn her into someone else.

"At first I started with the basic tricks; I showed her how to pick pockets, run small cons, the kinds of things that sheltered yuppies go apeshit over.

"But none of it worked - for Jacinda, it was just a tease, a temporary distraction. It was like drug addiction; she always needed more just to recapture that same rush. Eventually, I had to confront the simple, undeniable fact that Jacinda was fundamentally unhappy, and all she really wanted was to be somebody else, anybody else. And so I made it happen.

"Can you imagine what it must have been like? For the first time in years, she was truly alive. This was her vision quest - living or dying on her own wits, every day a challenge for survival. The uncertainty of where and when here next meal will come, of whether or not she'll even sleep with a roof over her head on any given night. She knew a kind of freedom that a couple narcissists like you and I could never begin to fathom. Total loss of ego, total immersion in a new personality.

"Once a year, every year, I visited her. I showed her the life she left behind, reminded her of who she had been, and offered her the chance to come back. And every single time, she just laughed at me - indulgently, like you would laugh at a child's flights of fancy. She would tell me that I just didn't understand, that I couldn't understand."

Max circled around his desk and lowered himself into the chair. Meanwhile, I helped myself to another glass of his scotch.

"Wow, I could see how that type of thing would haunt you," I said after gulping down the drink. "I mean, she obviously meant a lot to you. And to have been the one to find her body, to know that she had been murdered and that it was because of someone's grudge against you. I can see why you're having nightmares about that, reliving it over and over, even in your sleep. What I don't understand, though, is why in the hell I'm also having your dreams."

Max didn't say anything, didn't react at all, just sat perfectly still, keeping his eyes locked on me. Then slowly, his hand crept over and pushed a button on his desk, and I heard the low hum of an intercom coming to life.

"Diane, I want you to take down a statement. 'A recent article in the weekly publication Concrete Underground by Mr. Dedalus Quetzal included information about the business dealings between Abrasax Incorporated and city officials. While Abrasax Incorporated acknowledges that the information is factually accurate, Abrasax stands behind its business practices and will continue to do everything in its power to provide the citizens of this great city with affordable internet access and a quality computing experience. At the same time, Abrasax disavows any attempts to bring legal action against the publication in retaliation for the article and stands committed to the principals of an open and free exchange of information.' Make sure that goes to all the major media, including the Concrete Underground. Might as well send it to counsel, too, so we can get a jump on things at that end."

He let go of the intercom and looked up at me, then twisted his mouth into that toothy Cheshire Cat grin of his.

"So, D, how would you like to come work for me?"

BOOK THREE

The Crowned Globe

PLAYLIST

Tear It Up | The Cramps

Dirty Business | The Dresden Dolls

Fuck the Pain Away | Peaches

Civilians | Joe Henry

The Real Ding | Cerberus Shoal

867-5309/Jenny | Tommy Tutone

15. Blind Spots

"Sorry, I already have a job," I said to Max.

He scoffed and tilted back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the desk. "I'd hardly call that real work. How much do you actually get paid by that subversive little rag?"

I told him. He laughed. "I can more than triple that. And you won't even have to give up your day job."

"What do you want me to do, exactly?" I asked.

"Information, D, I want information. By hook or by crook. I fiend for it, like a junkie, and my hunger is insatiable. Therefore, I am willing to pay top dollar to anyone who can get it for me. Some get it by mining electronic data, as you've surmised, but that only goes so far. Surveillance is also a useful tool, and I have experts in that field as well - like Mr. Garza, whom you saw at the party on Saturday night. And then of course I have Saint Anthony, who uses his own uniquely inventive methods of extracting it."

"How do I fit into all this?"

"What I want is for you to keep doing exactly what you have been. Talk to people, ask questions, piece puzzles together. Give me the human element, show me what's in the blind spots where a surveillance camera can't see. Just like you do for your paper, but now you'll be reporting to me, and in the process you'll enjoy all the access and resources that you need."

"How do you know I won't turn around and publish what I find out for you?" I asked.

"Go ahead," Max shrugged. "Like anyone cares what you and your socialist friends print."

I took a deep breath. "What the hell, I'm game. What's my first assignment?"

"Lilian Lynch. She's disappeared."

"What do you mean?"

"Surveillance has her leaving home this morning at her normal time for coming to work, but she never showed up here. We tracked down her car using its GPS and found it abandoned on the side of the road with a handwritten note that said, 'Fuck you, cocksucker.' I'm assuming that was meant for me.

"She hasn't been answering her phone, she hasn't gone back to her condo, and she hasn't made contact with any of her friends. For all intents and purposes, she has vanished into thin air."

I made a couple notes in my notebook. "Why do you want me to find her for you? Don't you have anyone in your organization who'd be better suited for this kind of thing?"

"I do," he nodded. "The thing is, I can't necessarily trust this to someone within my organization. You see, I've had well--" he paused, "--I guess you could call it a security breach. Let me start at the beginning.

"A few weeks ago, I received an anonymous letter attempting to blackmail me. The details aren't important, suffice it to say that some person or persons claimed to have information that would be damaging to me and requested to be paid an exorbitant amount of money to keep it private. But - to be perfectly frank - this was not the first time this kind of threat has been made against me, so I didn't think much of it.

"Once I found Jacinda's dead body in my airplane, I started taking things a little more seriously. After some checking, my security analysts reported that there had in fact been a breach involving unauthorized access of sensitive information. Further investigation suggested Lily as the most likely culprit, and of course recent developments have borne this out. However, speaking frankly, she has neither the intellect, the vision, nor the constitution to conceive and execute a plot like this. She must have conspirators who are familiar enough with my operations to know the vulnerabilities."

I smiled. "In other words, you can't even trust your own people now."

He nodded. "Which is why I need you. So find Lily, find her conspirators, and if you can manage it, recover the information they stole from me. Although I realize that you'd be reluctant to hand that over if you do."

He led me back out to his assistant's desk where he set me up with the keys to an Abrasax company car and programmed his personal cell number into my phone.

Then he produced a red keycard badge bearing both the Abrasax corporate logo as well as the Highwater Society globe and crown symbol.

"This will get you anywhere you need to go," Max