THE PRIVATE PARTY

34

Vania brings the Owner in. You all sit in her living room. The Owner and the Professor are introduced. They shake hands solemnly. The Owner too has a package to bring out. "This is for you," he says to the Professor, handing him a velvet bag with something heavy in it. It clunks against her glass table.

"Oh no," says the Professor, shaking his head. "I wouldn't know how to use it."

"You don't have to use it. It's just to carry. To look real."

"I'm not even going inside."

"Look at it, at least."

The Professor opens the bag with the tips of his long fingers. He doesn't want to get close to it. He pulls out a black handgun. It is a dull black metal with a scored handgrip and a short barrel. He does not examine it, just leaves it on the table. "I'm sure it's very fine," he says.

The Owner shrugs. "Just have it with you in the car. Think of it as part of your outfit."

The Professor looks away. The gun stays on the table.

"The Professor drives us, in my car, to the pier at the end of Hoxley Street. That's where the rendezvous with their shuttle is. We will be searched there. Then we leave him and get in their car and he follows us at a discreet distance. Very discreet," says the Owner to the Professor, narrowing his eyes. "All understood?"

You all stand. You put on your coats. Vania holds the door open first for the Owner, then you. You wait for the Professor, standing at the coffee table.

"Something wrong?" calls the Owner.

The Professor picks up the gun on the table. He puts it in his waistband and closes his suit jacket. Quickly, he follows you all out.

The Owner's car is large and black and smells of leather. You are all silent as the Professor drives. Through the blackened windows you see nothing but soft flares of light as you wind up the overpasses to the elevated highway. Then you are racing high among the condo towers. The lights around you are the red winks of other cars.

Then a thicker darkness as you cruise through the industrial lands. Even through the closed windows you can smell the dank lake.

The road underneath gets bumpy. There are the dark hulks of factories around you. You are on a concrete pier, the lake on either side. The car stops.

You don't need to open your doors. There are already men on either side of the car, who open them for you. You and Vania wriggle out on one side, the Owner on the other. There are two large men in suits and overcoats, with shaved heads. It is clear that you are not to move beyond them. You glance over at the other side of the car: another two there. Two black SUVs sit idling. There is a cold breeze from the lake. The faint smell of sewage. "Good evening ladies," says one of the skinheads. He calls over to the cars, "Ladies over here!"

From behind one of the SUVs come two heavy-set women in men's clothes. They are dressed like security guards or paramedics, but with no badges or words on their clothing. "Step this way ladies, please," says one.

You and Vania step between them.

"Empty your pockets please. Raise your hands please."

The two skinheads turn their backs as the search begins. The women are very thorough. They cup your breasts, run their big hands up inside your thighs, even grab at your groins. There is no way anything could be hidden on your body. You give up your phones. You have brought no purses or wallets. It occurs to you that you are carrying no identification at all. If you were to vanish tonight, your body would be unnamed. Just a girl. Another girl.

You glance over to see the Owner being searched in a similar way, by men.

The Professor has not got out of the car. Another guard in a suit looms at the driver door.

Your heart is racing. You think you will throw up.

Vania has her lips set hard together. You try to smile at her. She catches it, nods. She is okay. You hope you can be as tough as she is.

The bouncer beside the Professor taps on the roof of the car, and the Professor drives away. You watch the red tail lights mount the hill towards the city.

"This way, ladies."

You move towards the SUVs. The Professor is being escorted behind you. Your heels stumble on some loose concrete rubble on the pier. One of the bouncers rights you expertly, his hand on your arm and your back. He says nothing.

You climb into the coconut-and-pineapple-smelling SUV. You want to say to Vania, "It smells like a strip club," but you don't know if you are allowed to make jokes in here.

The Owner joins you in the back seat, smiling. He pats your knee.

The doors slam shut and you are on the move again, this time through the darkness of the industrial lands. There seem to be nothing but black fields on either side. Two giants sit in the front seats, silent.

When they turn off a bumpy road onto an unpaved road, they slow, then stop. There is a line of other SUVs in front of them, maybe four. You all trundle forward towards another check point, a barrier with more men in suits searching cars.

Through this, you pull into a parking lot beside a giant factory. There are no light son inside. Two torches burn real flame at a gaping garage entrance. There are the clip-boards and the velvet ropes. More searches by masculine women dressed as soldiers.

And then you are walking down a red carpet through a dark tunnel, and then up some stairs and along a catwalk through a maze of pipes and ladders. There is dripping water. The thumping of electronic beats approaches like a wave.