Maelstrom

Chapter 24: The Black Swan

Friday

I peered out at the silver Toyota Camry parked on the street opposite my apartment, careful not to twitch the curtains. From this angle, I couldn't see if anyone was in it, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being followed. Or "watched" – that was probably more accurate,. I couldn't exactly be followed since I hadn't gone anywhere since coming home from Asylum in the wee hours of the morning.

I scanned the rest of the street, marking the other cars parked there and wondering which one of them might hold someone on Alkaev's payroll. Maybe none of them did. I could just be paranoid. Then again, what was that line from Catch-22? "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you." Close enough.

I looked at the clock on the wall. Normally at this time, I'd be headed to the gym, then the grocery store on the way back home.

I checked the street again. Same cars parked outside, new cars driving by. I sighed. Act normally, I reminded myself, and went to dig some bike shorts and an athletic bra out of the pile of clean laundry I was supposed to have folded. After all, my cover life was generally pretty boring outside of Asylum; if someone actually was watching me, they'd probably lose interest pretty quickly.

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I tossed my keys into the open vintage cigar box by the door and set the groceries on the counter in my tiny kitchen, then froze as a new thought hit me.

I walked slowly into the living room, running my fingertips inside and underneath lamps for bugs that might have been planted while I was out, sliding my hands underneath the coffee table and the edge of the sofa, lifting pictures from the wall to look behind the frames. Of course I found nothing.

I let out a quavering breath and pushed a smile onto my face. I'm making myself crazy, I thought, heading back to the kitchen to unpack the groceries. I refused to continue my ridiculous search in the bedroom and bathroom and kitchen; if my place were bugged, they wouldn't wire the other rooms and skip the living room.

I ran through my plan for the rest of my afternoon: shower, fold laundry, eat dinner and pack whatever-a-meal-eaten-at-1:00am-was-called, get dressed, start the commute, be at Asylum between 7:30 and 8:00pm.

I dared anyone to find anything interesting in that.

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Tonight I was a punk ballerina. Glory's tiara-and-tutu comment from the night before had stuck with me, but after the dramatic and unwanted male reaction to my Barbie look (unwanted except for some rather intense and mutual interest from a certain Russian gangster, the carnal part of me appended), I needed my armor back.

So my fake tribal tattoos were back on full display, bookending a black pleather bustier, and my ebony crop leggings were topped by a transparent black tulle miniskirt. Combat boots were a much sturdier, more practical choice than the dazzling heels of 24 hours earlier. A raven-feather necklace circled my throat and hung low enough to barely brush the tops of my breasts. My hair I had wrapped tightly around a ballerina's foam donut at the crown of my head, but I'd left all the ends untucked and gelled them into black-tipped spikes radiating out like a demonic halo. And my makeup tonight made Natalie Portman's Black Swan seem positively demure.

Bruno laughed when he almost slammed into me on his way into the break room. "Fuck, yeah," he chuckled, "Tonight I'm not the weird-looking one."

"Oh, you're still weird-looking," I assured him. "But I'll be pretty again in the morning." Bruno hooted in a surprisingly high pitch, and I went out to open my station with a grin on my face. I was sure that Churchill would have been fine with me tweaking his line a bit.

Another Friday night, and the pace behind the bar was faster than the music reverberating throughout the club. I was so in the zone that I invented a new drink on the spot: the Black Swan (a shot of Blavod black vodka with a float of crème de cassis). Glory snuck a proffered sample when she was sure no one was looking.

"Nice," she pronounced. "Fresh and fruity, but guaranteed to get you fucked up."

I laughed and unthinkingly shot yet another glance up at Alkaev's empty balcony, then cursed myself for doing so. I took my next customers' orders. Since leaving the club last night, I'd felt like someone was watching me, but now, in the one place I could normally count on someone watching me, he was nowhere to be seen. I hadn't even seen Mateo or Marsh. I was disappointed in myself about how disappointed I felt.

Though my Lex persona was having another booming Friday night, real-life Lärke's evening was looking to be a bust. No sightings of Alkaev or any of the known or potential associates I'd committed to memory, though it was only ... I checked my watch ...12:03am, so I might still get lucky.

I still hadn't decided exactly how much of last night's events I was going to write in my weekly report. I only knew that I could not include anything gleaned from my rather direct participation in the evening's final events, nothing that indicated that Alkaev knew anything about me other than that I worked in his club, and certainly nothing about how I had gone rogue and broken into his office.

I swung back toward my till and froze mid-turn. He was here. I could see nothing but his silhouette in the hallway, backlit by a dim ceiling light in front of the stock room, but it was irrefutably him, standing alone in that corridor, hands casually in his pockets, watching me again.

I finished my turn to ring up my last order. He had surely seen my hesitation, knew I had spotted him, but I had no idea what to do – smile? wave? give him a two-thumbs-up or okay sign to assure him that I was not freaking out about either the intimate groping or the double homicide I had been party to last night?

I shot a glance down the hall again as I turned to give my customer his change, but Alkaev was already gone.

I checked my watch reflexively – 12:17am – before turning to the next person at the bar.

"What can I get you?"