THE PRIVATE PARTY

20

When you leave the hospital you go directly to the Club without changing. You are not in the mood to work tonight.

            You are cautious now, approaching the place: you walk up and down on the other side of the street twice to check for lurkers. You note at least that your phone hasn’t been ringing: James seems to be leaving you alone for now. Even this silence is worrying. It is not like James to be anything but aggressive.

            The door swings open and there is Emerson waiting for you. “We have something we’d like you to see,” he says. He turns in his brisk way and you must almost run to follow him down the echoing halls.

            He leads you into a tiny room with a table and one chair. There is one window with a curtain across it, but that window couldn’t look outside, as you are deep inside the building. “The Owner will be right with you,” says Emerson.

            You sit in the chair that looks at the curtain. You know then that you are going to open that curtain, and that it will reveal a window onto something you don’t want to see. You feel sick.

            You wait a minute and then five. Then you get up and pull back the curtain.          

            There is a window on another room. The room is a bedroom, with a large bed, and some sex equipment, a cross, a leather bench. Sitting on the floor, his back against the bed, slumped, is your ex, James. He is just looking up slack-jawed at the ceiling, as if immensely bored. He has a red mark on his left cheeckbone and his eye is swollen. It looks as if someone has hit him.

            He does not look towards you; your window must be a disguised as a mirror in his room. Of course it would not occur to James that the mirror was two-way. He has never been in a luxurious sex performance room like this.

            You see that there is a tray left on a side table, with the remains of a meal on it: someone had given him a sandwich and a carton of juice. He seems to have eaten half of it. Of course it makes you think of  the hospital, your sister’s uneaten tray.

            You watch him for a while, see how he kills time. You feel sad, as you always do, at his ratty running shoes, his worn leather jacket, the spikes he so painstakingly attached when he was in his early twenties and hasn’t felt a need to remove, hasn’t found embarrassing ever since. He keeps flexing his fingers, making fists and claw-like hands, making the skeleton tattoos on his forearms twist and jump like weapons.

            He needs a shave, and to wash his hair. He is talking to himself a little, working his mouth at least. You can’t hear anything.

            The door of your cubicle opens: The Owner.

            He stands against the wall.

            You say, “How did you get  him?”

            “He made it easy,” says the Owner. “He kept trying to get in. Looking for you. We just let him inside and told him you’d be waiting for him in this room. It took him a while to realize you weren’t coming.”

            “I see he took some damage.”

            The Owner shrugs. “He started to get angry a couple of hours ago. Our security are very well-trained, very controlled. But they can be firm if things get out of hand. He is learning to be patient.”

            “What are you going to do with him?”

            “We have just been asking him some questions. Very patiently. Very friendly. He doesn’t know what we’re after. So far we’ve just found out where he works, which as it turns out is a place we know about.”

            “But what... what about me, now, and my sister? Now that he knows we’re looking for, now that we’re investigating? Or whatever it is we’re doing. I mean you are going to let him go, eventually, right? And he’s going to go right back to where he works and talk to people he knows and...”

            The Owner smiles. “Of course we’re going to let him go. We have very limited facilities for the disposal of bodies here.”

            “Oh, I am so glad to hear that.”

            “But yes. It’s a problem. You are right. Word will get around. It’s something like a declaration of war.”

            “So ... what? We’re in even more danger now?”

            “We haven’t let him know what we’re really after. We’ve been making him think it’s about something else. He’s going to go back spouting red herrings. It will catch us a little time, but not much. We’re going to have to find some way into the place where he works.”

            You sigh. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.” You turn to the window. James is up and pacing now. He turns and stands in front of the window, squares his shoulders. He is posing in front if the mirror, sizing himself up. His eyes are on a level with yours; it is as if he is staring at you.

            You stand too, head to head with him.

            There is, it must be admitted, a dark pleasure in observing him here, like a monkey in a lab. You even feel a mild satisfaction at his bruised eye. He is a guy who has given a few bruised eyes in his life. It has been a while since he has had one himself.

            James spins around. The door of his hotel room has opened. The two tallest of the Owner’s security guards come in, one after another, in their navy suits. They are not smiling. James backs away from them.

            You pull the curtain closed.