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

On a bad day, though, it could be a nerve-wracking, paranoid experience. Those were the days when I realized that I was just on display just as much as everyone else.

This was a bad day.

I scanned the strange, uncaring faces of the other passengers, wondering if any of them were on Max's payroll. Then I looked up at the opaque black half-domes mounted at either end of the car and realized they didn't need to be.

I curled up into a ball on my seat in the back row, wishing I could disappear into the speckled blue pattern of the seat upholstery, like a chameleon.

When I walked through my front door, I noticed a blue flash coming from behind the air conditioning vent. I climbed on top of the couch and used my pocketknife to work the screws out. Removing the grate, I saw the blinking LED of a Bluetooth video camera.

I threw it onto the ground and stomped on it repeatedly with as much force as I could muster, so much force that I could feel the burning from my strained muscles shooting up my leg. As I stood doubled-over, rubbing my sore thigh and staring at the shattered bits on floor, my first thought was: there must be a server hidden around here somewhere to pick up its feed. The second thought was: there are probably more cameras, too.

I spent the next three hours dismantling my tiny apartment with an exacting and meticulous attention to detail. I pulled up floorboards and ripped out vents. I took every piece of furniture or cabinet or drawer that had been picked to pieces by the blackmailers and tore them into even smaller pieces. I punched holes in the dry wall. I never found any server or other cameras or hidden microphones.

Maybe it wasn't feeding to anything, was my first thought. Maybe they just put the one in a visible place to fuck with me, knowing I would find it and go crazy with paranoia.

My second thought was: or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

I shook my head; I was tired and not thinking clearly. I laid down on the decimated mess that could no longer rightly be called my bed, hoping that the solution would become obvious after a little rest.

I laid there for an hour, unable to fall asleep, just staring up at the ceiling and imagining Max watching me and laughing.

This is stupid, I thought to myself. I need to get out of this disaster and get some perspective. Maybe some fresh air will help me clear my head.

I went outside and got as far as the front of the building, where I found both the Asterion van and the cops still parked and waiting for me. As soon as I appeared, the Crown Vic fired up its engine, and the driver of the van started talking into a walkie-talkie.

I turned around and went back to my apartment.

On the way in, I noticed a blue envelope sitting on the floor under the front door. I wondered if it just appeared in the brief time I was gone, or if I had somehow missed it before.

Careful not to look at it too long, I quickly stepped all the way inside and shut the door before picking it up. Even then I kept it closed. Finding my light-pen among the rabble around what used to be my desk, I took the envelope into the now-empty coat closet. Keeping the closet light off, I opened the envelope in the dark and used the light from my pen to read the note inside: Payback is a bitch.

Clearly Max's blackmailers weren't happy that I had stolen their thunder by going public with the dirt they had on him.

Stuffing the paper into my pocket, I realized I had to find a blacklight bulb to see if this one had a hidden message like the others. I couldn't risk the tails following me, though.

I walked back into my bedroom, opened my window, and worked the mesh screen out of its frame. Then I jumped, letting the hedges below do what little they could to cushion my two-story fall. I quickly hopped the back fence behind my building and into the apartment complex on the next street over. I ran out into the middle of the street and looked around. Seeing no sign of the van or the cops, I decided it was safe to proceed.

When I walked into the head shop on Delany Avenue, there were two customers and one clerk inside. Luckily, all three were preoccupied as the clerk was helping the other two pick out a glass pipe. As surreptitiously as possible, I moved over to the blacklight display and held the new note underneath.

Like the others, this one had a hidden message, a single hand-written name: Natalie McPherson.

I took out my cell and tried calling her again. She still wasn't answering.

31. Good

As soon as Violet opened the front door, my blood began to boil.

"What the hell happened to you?"

She shied away from the doorway, trying to hide the swollen purple bruises on her face. "Don't be dense. What do you think happened?"

"Anthony hit you?" I asked incredulously.

"He heard that the police found me half-naked in your apartment, and then reacted exactly the way you'd expect him to," she explained as she led me into the living room.

The room showed visible signs of a fight. The coffee table was tilted over with one missing leg, the couch was pushed out of place, and one of the bookcases had its shelves smashed, spilling out all the books onto the floor in front of it, as if someone had been thrown into it.

I felt my cheeks grow flush as the anger swelled up inside me like a pressurized canister, ready to explode.

"I am going to kill that son of a bitch," I raged.

"Yeah, right," she scoffed. "What are you doing here, anyways?"

I took a deep breath, trying to refocus my thoughts. "Is Columbine around?"

She shook her head. "I haven't seen her today. In fact, I haven't heard from her since she asked me to pick you up last night. Why?"

I cursed under my breath. "She's in danger. Can you think of anywhere else she might be?"

"She could be with Max."

I didn't want to admit it, but she was right; Max was logically the next person to check with. But that was assuming he'd answer my call.

I found his number in my cell, then held it out to her and instructed, "Call from your land line."

"Why don't you?"

"If he sees my number, he won't pick up."

Reluctantly, she took it and dialed the number on her living room phone. She put the call on speaker so I could hear.

He answered after a couple rings, "Is it done?"

"What?" Violet asked, confused.

There was a pause. "Who is this?"

"Violet. Is this Max?"

"Ah, yes. Sorry, I saw the number and assumed you were Anthony."

"Oh," she replied. "I was just calling to ask if you've seen Columbine recently."

"Not since yesterday morning."

"You don't happen to have any idea were she is, do you?"

"Nope," Max said, trailing off into a brief silence before adding, "How did you get this number, by the way?"

Violet looked at me with a questioning shrug. I tried to silently mouth hang up, but she didn't get it.

"Hang up," I whispered as I mimed hanging up the phone.

Max gave his best movie villain laugh, short staccato bursts of sadistic glee. "You better watch out, Violet - I think I just heard a ghost. Dear Anthony won't be too happy to find out his house is haunted."

I reached out to grab the handset and slam it back down, cutting off the call.

The blood had drained from Violet's face. "Well," she said softly, trying to maintain her composure. "I guess I should get out of here. Let me grab a few things, then we'll go look for Col."

"Okay," I replied, not sure what else to say. She disappeared down the hallway, and I paced around awkwardly, still fuming. I started tidying things up, mostly because I didn't know what else to do with myself. I knelt beside the broken bookcase and as I organized the fallen books into stacks, I noticed several were not in English. One was a German Kafka hardcover, another was a thick Bible-sized paperback with a picture of Fyodor Dostoyevsky on the cover along with Cyrillic characters. There were a few others in some other Easter European language I didn't recognize.

Violet returned shortly with a tattered old blue rolling luggage case that had the initials HGA stitched onto its face. She packed fast, I thought to myself. I wonder if she already had the case ready to go.

She glanced down and saw one of the tomes in my hand, Kritik der reinen Vernunft.

"Are all these yours? I mean, you speak Russian and German?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I speak several languages. I've preferred to read the classics in their original tongue ever since university."

"Where'd you go to school?"

"Charles University in Prague," she replied. "Briefly. But that doesn't really seem important right now, shouldn't we be looking for Columbine? And you can explain what the hell's happening on the way."

"Of course," I said. "I was just thinking, though, we should probably grab her things, too. I mean, we probably don't want to have to make a second trip here."

Violet nodded in agreement, and the two of us went to Columbine's room.

Her clothes were scattered haphazardly across the room along with a few other personal items, like toiletries, a make up case, a few magazines, and an MP3 player. After hunting around a little bit, I found a case in the closet, similar to Violet's but smaller.

"I'm going to leave a note in case she comes back before we find her," she said, walking over the vanity.

"It's a good thought," I said, "but if Anthony sees it he'll know where to find us."

"No he won't," she replied and picked up a stray tube of lipstick, which she used to write on the mirror.

I packed as much of Columbine's stuff as I could into the case and had just managed to force the zipper shut when Violet finished her note: Meet me where we buried the Queen - V.

---

We spent the next couple hours checking all of Columbine's regular haunts for any sign of her - a steady stream of coffeehouses, vintage clothing stores, art galleries, public parks, and music stores. Violet drove while I explained about Max's blackmailers and the notes I had been receiving with hidden messages that seemed to indicate who would be the next person to die.

"I'm assuming the notes are coming from the blackmailers. The first few seemed designed to draw me in deeper into the investigation of Patrick Cobb and Jacinda Ngo so that they could use me as a pawn to recover the information that Cobb stole from them. Of course, that plan backfired, and their last note was obviously intended to signal their displeasure.

"Which