Concrete Underground (2010) (33 page)

The stairwell continued on for several flights, enough that I lost count. When I finally reached the bottom, I found a blue door with the Highwater globe and crown sigil drawn in metallic silver paint. It was modified, however, so that the crown was positioned below with its apex overlapping the globe, as if penetrating it suggestively. A small number
1
was painted below it. As I opened the door, I felt a blast of cold air.

We entered into a long hallway whose walls were lined with computer racks filled with servers, switches, cables, and various other tech equipment. Both the ceiling and floors were solid concrete, reminding me uncomfortably of a fallout shelter. The hallway extended like this both directions as far as I could see.

Max pushed us aside to take the lead once again. He started down the hallway to the left. "Stay close. You don't want to get lost down here."

"What is all this stuff?" Violet asked.

"This is Abrasax's server farm," Max explained.

"So this is where you keep all the data you steal from your customers when you spy on them?" I said.

"Yes, D, this is where we keep it," Max replied patronizingly, then turned right abruptly where there was a break in the server racks. He snaked a twisted path through the labyrinthine rack setup.

"This place is like a maze," Violet remarked.

Max turned around and flashed her an
are-you-kidding-me
look. "That's the idea."

"How do you know you're going the right way?" I asked.

Max sighed. "Because I have the way memorized. I know exactly the number of steps to take, which direction to turn, which path to follow. If we don't go precisely the right way, we could end up lost down here for hours, maybe even days. Of course, if I have to break my concentration and answer your questions every five seconds, that's exactly what's going to happen."

We followed him silently through a couple more turns.

"So," I repeated, "how do you know you're going the right way?"

He groaned and moved quickly to the end of the particular corridor we were following. He swept aside a thick strand of banded data cables to reveal a small square plate stamped with the inverted crown and globe sigil and the number
2.
"As long as we keep seeing the markers, we know we're going the right way."

---

After two hours of following Max through this high-tech maze, we reached a large triangular clearing about twenty feet by twenty feet. An oval-shaped bench sat in the middle, upholstered in black crushed velvet. On the far wall was another marker with the Highwater sigil and the number
13
.

Max took a seat and motioned for us to do the same. "We need a rest," he said.

The three of us squeezed onto the bench together all tight and cozy - me in the middle, Violet and Max on either side of me, both of them doubtless running through a similar calculus, trying to determine what will be their best opportunity to off the other, and probably also me in the process.

After several minutes of tense silence, Max finally said, "So McPherson probably didn't have anything to do with it, then?"

"No," I answered. "I think Columbine fabricated his involvement so she could pit her two enemies against each other."

Max's lips twisted into a grin of begrudging admiration. "I suppose I should feel bad about offing poor James then, but frankly I'm more impressed with Columbine. I didn't think the kid had it in her."

He then leaned forward and looked past me at Violet. "And so how do you fit into all this?"

Violet narrowed her eyes and glared disdainfully at him. "You really don't remember me?"

Max shook his head, but perhaps a little unconvincingly.

Violet turned her gaze to me with an amused smirk. "You know, don't you?"

I nodded. "I think I've figured it out."

Max looked at me questioningly. "Please, enlighten me."

I took a deep breath, savoring my Hercule Poirot moment.

---

The woman who called herself Violet was born in what was then Czechoslovakia five years before the Velvet Revolution. Unfortunately, the fall of the Iron Curtain didn't do much to improve the financial fortunes of her family. The oldest of seven sisters, it fell on her to provide for the others - her father was disabled, her mother had died during the birth of her youngest sister. She struggled to balance work, college, and home life, but soon became overwhelmed and wanted nothing more than to escape.

When she was 19, she was approached in a club by a glamorous older woman who offered to set her up with a modeling job in the United States. She would be able to send back extra money for her family while saving up enough to pay for the rest of her schooling.

Upon reaching America, she was taken to a derelict hotel where she essentially became a prisoner. There were about a dozen girls all together staying there from different parts of the world. Mostly they were kept under the watch of a handful of violent thugs who didn't speak their languages or care to try. Occasionally, the man who owned the brothel would come by to check on things. He was a young man, handsome and always very well dressed, except for his funny red shoes.

Several times a night they would be forced to dress up in ridiculous underwear and paraded out to a room where strange men would look at them like they were cattle, sizing them up as objects, often without even being able to look them in the eyes.

When she was picked, she would follow one of the men back into a private room to be used however he wanted. If she was lucky, all he'd demand was a straight fuck and it'd be over quick. But for some men, that wasn't enough - they wanted to hit her, to call her degrading names, to smear her in filth and bind her like a slave. They wanted to make her cry, to make her suffer, to feel like they had power over her.

Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep, she would lie alone in the darkness and tell herself that she was being punished for wanting to escape her family.

Eventually, a man came along for whom simple pain wasn't enough; he had to give her something to remember him by. When the brothel's owner saw her scars, he kicked her out onto the streets. She was left alone and afraid in a country she didn't know filled with people she couldn't trust. But she was free.

She dyed her hair and started calling herself Violet, transforming herself into a new person. In time her English improved, and she began working at the women's shelter that had taken her in. Through her work, she met other girls who had been lured away from their homes by false promises and forced into slavery. And eventually, she learned the name of the man who was responsible for bringing them to this country.

She started moving in social circles that would put her in contact with people who knew Dylan Maxwell. Early on, she befriended a young girl whose father was one of Maxwell's most important investors. They had a lot in common; not least of which, both women used fake names to help them forget where they came from. Through this friendship, she was introduced to the man who worked as Maxwell's chief enforcer. They began a romantic relationship and were soon married.

Through these connections, she learned more about her enemy and discovered the weaknesses in his armor. Slowly, methodically, she formed her plan, waiting for her perfect opportunity.

The final missing piece came when another woman with a fake name walked into Violet's shelter - a woman who Violet discovered used to be named Jacinda.

She found one of Maxwell's discontented lieutenants - a social misfit with delusions of grandeur named Ben Garza - who could be easily manipulated by a beautiful woman. She planted the idea of blackmail in his head and convinced him it was his own.

Then she confronted her friend Columbine with the truth about her mother. After that, it didn't take much to convince her to seek revenge against both Jacinda and Max. It was Violet's idea to enlist the journalist Patrick Cobb to find Jacinda and kill her. Columbine suggested reaching out to Lilian Lynch, who would be an easily controlled pawn. Columbine also came up with the more dramatic flairs in the plan - partly because a little smoke and mirrors would help hide their identities, but mostly because she thought it was fun.

Of course, Garza believed all their ideas to be his own, but then he never realized what Violet was really up to. The blackmail plot was supposed to fail - she knew that Max would never pay. Cobb was
supposed
to go public with the information; unfortunately, Cobb turned out to be unreliable. So Violet found someone new to step in and fill his role.

Someone suave, witty, and devastatingly handsome.

Soon things began unraveling according to plan, and Violet and Columbine set up Saint Anthony and McPherson as their scapegoats, hoping to force Max into direct conflict with the only people who would have a legitimate shot at bringing him down. Either McPherson would crush Max, or Max would wipe out McPherson and face retribution from the Highwater Society.

Things hadn't necessarily gone down that smoothly, but Violet had improvised like a jazz master and was now so close to her revenge that she could taste it. She had beaten him at his own game, developed a trap as elaborate as any he could devise and made him walk right into it.

But was it really that simple?

No sooner than I had put the pieces together did I start to see gaping holes in it.

I mean, really - a beautiful and mysterious woman needs me (
and only me
) to help her exact revenge on the monster who ruined her life? But why me of all people?

Clearly, there are more dangerous assassins in the world than a suburbanite journalist who can barely change a flat. Hell, there are even better journalists - certainly far more credible ones.

Was I a prime mover in this chain of events or just Violet's pawn? Am I special, an integral piece of the puzzle, or a rube who happened to be in the right place at the right time? Too much is left unanswered by the latter, while the former feels hollow and self-aggrandizing.

Jesus, the way I tell it, she only ever married Anthony as a calculated move to help her get to Max. Is it really that impossible for her to have genuinely loved him, or is that just more convenient for me to believe?

And what about the dreams?

---

"You're over-thinking this all too much, you know," Max said as we passed the 32
^nd
marker.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You wanted to know who the dead woman in my airplane was, who killed her, and why she died. Check. You wanted to uncover the identities of my blackmailers, and you've done that, too. You wanted to uncover a damning secret that exposes me for the vile black-hearted villain I am while simultaneously making a name for yourself as a journalist, and I'd say that's a big fat check on that one, too. Hell, you've even got the girl," he said and pointed at Violet.

"Look," he continued, "I get it. You feel like you've been used, you're upset and confused, and you're hoping that whatever you find here will somehow give you answers. I don't know what you expect - a pile of dead hookers, a computer hacked into the White House, the Loch Ness Monster, or the new Number Two. But there's no man behind the curtain waiting to make your dreams come true or explain the mysteries of the universe. That's not how life works. Life is messy and confusing and you just have to be happy with whatever joy and meaning you can scrape out of it.

"So quit while you're ahead. Run off together, have lots of passionate crazy-person sex and make little foul-mouthed, purple-haired babies. If you turn around right now and ride off into the sunset, then you've won."

We rounded another corner to find ourselves in another large clearing, this one coming to a dead end with a pair of giant metal doors tinted blue on the far wall. In the middle of the cleavage between the two doors, there was a big metal wheel the size of a big rig's hubcap with the Highwater sigil and the number
33
.

I answered, "Fuck it, we've come this far, might as well see this thing through."

I crossed over to the doors and placed both my hands on either side of the wheel. I felt surge of energy coming from behind the metal, and every hair on my body stood on end.

I rotated the wheel a quarter-turn counter-clockwise until I felt it click into place. I heard a sudden burst of air, like a hermetic seal being broken, and watched as the doors slowly parted.

My ears rang with a piercing shriek of feedback, followed by the crackle of static and a tinny, mechanical laugh.

As I stepped through the open door, I heard a voice call out:

"Stop!"

BOOK FIVE

The Concrete Underground

PLAYLIST

By This River
| Brian Eno

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
| Pearl Jam

Oompa Radar
| Goldfrapp

Elephant Woman
| Blonde Redhead

Art Is Hard
| Cursive

The Good and the Bad Guy
| My Brightest Diamond

39. "Cured" Isn't an Accurate Term

I sit in the dark theater, laughing as the old projector clanks loudly behind me.

On screen, I am lying in bed at the Motley Fool. The sound of someone knocking on our door wakes me up. I roll over and see a naked woman laying next to me. She has purple hair and a gunmetal half-mask. I stand up and slip on my boxers as I slowly stagger towards the door.

As soon as I crack it open, Detective Axelrod and a team of uniformed officers storm the room. Two of them slam me against the wall and handcuff me. As they spin me around, I see that they have rolled the woman over. She is dead - her neck has been clearly broken. Her hair falls off her head, and I realize it was just a wig.

She's not who I thought she was.

Then they remove the mask, and I see her face.

"Columbine," I whisper.