Death & the City Book Two (51 page)

More and more though, I'm liking the idea of my rent going to a good cause, instead of just to some grey agency, in some grey office, on behalf of some greying landlord, playing small-time private tenant Monopoly. If I can support a dead hit-man's family abroad by renting his old place, then why not? At least it's now got more security on it than a Rowling sequel. Probably has its own full-time satellite eavesdropper. Be like working here at The Plaza, I think to myself, knowing that at any one time I can see four mirrored camera-shields in my peripheral vision. Funny how you get accustomed to it. Possibly, in my schizophrenic personality disorder, is a psychosis that expects to be watched all of the time anyway, in what would have been termed 'paranoid tendencies' in the old days. Can't prove paranoia anymore. Too much of it is justified in the real world.

I go to replace Doorman Ryan by one of the Fire Exits, between the dance floor and cocktails bar, and find him with his own most recent accessory. Mgr Mel, who is looking a bit shiny-eyed as she shares her latest anecdote with him, her lips a bit more glossed than usual, her eye-shadow more sparkly, and a bit more fake tan and cleavage on show. She's risking an accident in the enormous heels she's wearing to work tonight as well, meaning she's now just at ear-whispering height to anyone else. Ryan is smiling and nodding patiently, his expression a familiar one of not exactly encouragement, not exactly boredom, but somewhere in between. The doorman's social equivalent of a poker-face.

They both smile at me as I take over the post, and Ryan heads to his next designated spot, Mel bobbing along behind like a balloon caught in a slipstream. She's risking a lot more than a stumble in those heels, I think. If she's so obviously following Ryan around the club like a marker on a netball court, it won't be long before she finds herself deleted from her doorman boyfriend Steve Jackman's Facebuddy 'Buddy' list, and Ryan's fiancée Olivia sees it as her duty to pop by for a drink with her legal secretary colleagues. To start taking down notes about breaches of licensing laws for future reference. Ryan knows he's batting well out of his league getting Olivia to agree to marry him, so Mgr Mel is evidently one of those chicks who knows a challenge when she sees one, and it's probably equally about getting one up on the woman in his life as getting him. Raising her own social and professional status from mop-and-vomit-bucket bar manager to
'Better than a legal secretary'
. Better at what, I try not to picture.

Also, Ryan is one of the Doormen With A Day Job. Meaning to a certain breed of women, that they have disposable income as well, and are a better catch. He reckons he'd never have got Olivia if he wasn't also a qualified chef at the Niwa day spa. They'd never have met, for a start. I've overheard Hurst telling Ryan he's got to stop Mel from barking up the wrong tree, but Ryan doesn't like confrontations, or the thought that she'll start being nasty and spreading more rumours deliberately, instead of just encouraging the ones she wants to hear. Meaning eventually Mel is just going to make a fool of herself and learn the hard way. I hope for her sake it doesn't come in the form of a legal notice from Olivia's office. Aside from her doorman fetish and self-promoting gossip habit, Mel's actually quite nice - she's helped me wrangle drunk off-duty bar staff into taxis lots of times. She's one of those girls who always makes the right noises and faces, whether you're sharing good or bad news.

Not like me. Whatever I hear, there's always one of my personalities will see the funny side, for all the wrong reasons. I had to teach myself a deadpan face, and to analyse everything I hear for validation, before reacting. Probably why I always appear to be emotionally detached in a drama, and on autopilot in a crisis. It's not because I'm completely cold. It's because I'm trying to stop any number of voices from intervening, with their take on reality. They like a challenge as well, faced with a histrionic episode. I wouldn't last long in this job, unable to control the urge to answer back all the time.

So I just take it out on head office in the day job, when it suits me to be cheeky. I'd worry if they thought I had total control over all of my personalities. I'd have to face more risk assessments, for a start. Like how much would be enough to persuade me to moonlight on the side.

I'm not joining in the enthusiasm everyone else has for a trip to Vegas. To me, I see it as the Capital City of Moonlighters, meaning head office's breezy suggestion that it'd be useful to have me on Standby while I'm there, probably means they've got a To Do List as long as Route 66 for me to run after.
Busman's holiday
, in other words. Not to mention looking after D.J. Crank and his lucky marbles, or whatever gambling thing he's into while he's there.

Barmaid Desdemona limps past lugging a plastic basket of empties, both bottles and plastic cups. Very bad hair day. She looks at me with a petulant half-scowl, so I smile, attempting to show sympathy for whatever it is.

"Look," she says, passing me again a second later, rolling up her sleeve. "I'm scabbing."

I look dutifully, my First-Aider role kicking in, as I immediately identify what looks like a patch of psoriasis or very bad eczema on her arm.

"Are you allergic to something?" I ask her. "That's not good."

"Went out in the sun yesterday," she tells me. "Woke up like this today. It's all over my legs too. It's disgusting, isn't it?"

Our eyes meet, and I'm shocked at how clearly repulsed she is by herself.

"Might just need Calamine on it," I say, hopefully. "Or aloe vera. Go to the doctor tomorrow. Have you eaten anything strange, changed your washing powder, been on any medication or anything?"

"I'm eating like a pig one minute and can't face it the next," she says, gloomily. "Cooper says I drink too much and I'm acting like a crazy slut. Said I was awake all night chatting non-stop while he wanted to sleep, but I don't even remember doing that. He said he's not touching me while I look like the Elephant Man. That's not nice, is it?"

"No, but he's probably right, it might be infectious," I point out reasonably. No wonder he was looking queasy tonight. "Get it seen to first, and he'll forget all about it."

"I mean, to be honest, we haven't even done anything yet, because I was hoping to impress him by being more ladylike than I usually am, but now I just look like a scarecrow," she sighs. "He's getting a worse opinion of me, not a better one. And now I'm craving weird things when I am hungry, like black pudding and stuff. I ate a whole one yesterday, I just nuked it in the microwave. He thought it was gross. And if it does turn out I'm pregnant, I won't even have a hope in Hell of it being his, because we've got nowhere near - I've been good since I decided I liked him. I can't even say whose. I've been out on the lash every two or three days solid since Christmas."

"Des, you did a pregnancy test last week, I was there," I remind her. "It was negative. AND you're on the Pill."

"I know, it's just, I've got all these symptoms," she pleads, as if asking me to wave a magic wand and make her be pregnant, just to excuse everything.

"Go to the doctor," I tell her, again. "They'll put your mind at rest and sort out whatever it is."

If not, I think to myself privately, you could try a vet, and they'll put everything else to rest. She just nods mutely and hobbles onwards, sticking her tongue out at Mgr Diane in passing. Diane ignores her, the only member of staff who seems to have a permanent light-bulb of cheerfulness on in her head tonight.

"I'm so glad to be out of that dive Sin," she greets me. "Have you heard what it's going to be called now?"

"Bordello's," I nod, smirking.

"It'll go completely downhill without Niall and me," she says with great conviction, and I try not to choke on my gum to hear her refer to herself and Niall in the same sentence, let alone in the same context. Talk about proprietary inference. Niall would be more than halfway across the car-park to his Volvo if he heard that. You wouldn't see him for proverbial dust particles. "I give it two months, tops. So you're going to Vegas next week? Lucky thing. I haven't had a holiday for at least five weeks now. I should join you."

"It's just work," I shrug, hoping she's not a big enough psycho to actually carry out that threat.

"When you're there, look up a bar my friend Beverly Randall owns called Blue Boa," she says. "There's a big ex-pat community there. Huge. She'll hook you up with all the best places to go. Ones where they don't rip us Brits off."

"It's not a strip club, is it?" I ask, humorously. She laughs.

"They're ALL strip clubs over there," she grins, and launches herself away again. Doorman Harry, about to stroll into Cyberia on his half-hourly patrol, virtually revolves in the club room doorway when he sees her heading in his direction, and runs away again through the upstairs cloakroom. She promptly gives chase in her pewter-coloured trouser suit and black patent dominatrix boots. I chuckle. Harry's not subtle. Diane's definitely met her match, working with him.

"I am SO in the mood for a fight tonight," Hurst says, arriving to switch positions after twenty minutes have passed. "I've been texting Steve Jackman trying to get him to let all the skanks in so we can have some fun, but he won't have it. Manager Damien's on the front doors with them, watching everyone like a hawk."

"Spoilsport," I agree, and head for the toilets again to do another check.

A commotion greets me once I get inside, in the form of Chelsea and Yolanda and their Gucci Cheerleader squad, who seem just about to kick off an argument with another group of women I vaguely recognise, as monthly pay-weekend regulars to the venue.

"Look," says one of the second group, in the highly-strung determined voice of someone who wants to be heard by as many innocent bystanders as possible, in the event of their being called upon as witness. "I'm a staff manager at
Café
de Paris
, and this is blatantly sexual harassment."

"What's sexual harassment?" I query, poking my head between Chelsea & Co, and the opposition.

"This stupid cow, sorry - this lady," Chelsea begins, "has got a photo of one of your guys she says is proof of unprofessional doorman behaviour, and says she's reporting it to the police."

"Really?" I say. "Brilliant. Let's have a look."

"These girls wouldn't know sexual harassment because they're blatantly all little slappers who chase doormen," the supposed London club manager snaps back, getting out her iBerry phone. "Look. A doorman grabbing a female customer's breasts, biting her neck and copping a good feel. He should be struck off."

I look at the rather lurid sequence of pictures she shows me of one of my colleagues, Coop's older brother Doorman Manny, like a peep-show flip-book.

"I don't think his wife would be pleased if he lost his job over that," I nod. Although we don't use the term
struck off
, exactly. Suspended, maybe. She sounds more like a nurse, or a secretary, than a nightclub hospitality expert.

"See, and he's married as well," says the woman, triumphantly. "That's disgusting behaviour."

"Well, don't let her hear you say that," I remark. "Because that's her, in the photo. That's his wife Cindy. How about we go find her and confirm it for you?"

The woman and her friends look at me, mortified.

"No…" one of them says, sounding crestfallen. "You're just covering for him."

"Her name's Cindy Knightwood, and they've got a little boy called Harrison," I say, cheerfully. "Go and ask her yourselves. I'm sure she'll see the funny side of you photographing them having a bit of a cuddle, and wanting to report her husband for acknowledging her while he's at work."

The complainant, significantly paler, snaps shut her phone again.

"We've seen other things," she says. "Lots of things. You haven't heard the last of this."

The group hustle out like fussed hens, leaving behind phrases including
'A likely story'
and
'They're all liars'
. The Gucci Cheerleaders congratulate one another, and go back to the mirrors to re-touch make-up, and retrieve drinks.

"Thanks," Chelsea says to me. "What bitches, eh? Was that really Manny's wife?"

"Yup," I nod, checking my own make-up in the mirror alongside.

"Really?" Chelsea echoes, and her circular puppy-dog eyes belie yet another shattered illusion. I just nod again. The everlasting myth that all doormen are single still reigns, I muse. Never mind. Sometimes it suits both parties, but usually it's just a trail of broken hearts and beer goggles.

I go to my next position on the D.J. podium, and D.J. Danshaku Doyobi gives me a nod and hands back my MP-3 stick. Every so often I ask him to share a new mix he's trying out if I like it. The club and flyers promote him as 'Resident D.J. Dan Shackles' after deliberately mishearing him, because the management think it sounds better than his Japanese Voodoo D.J. name, and worry that if he sounds too minority, customer numbers might suffer.