Authors: Keith Domingue
“Are you serious?”
“Look, it doesn’t make him a bad guy.”
“What?”
“I said it doesn’t make him a bad guy.”
“It’s really loud in here.”
“Look, just have some fun. Please?”
Scott turned from the bar, drinks in hand. He offered one to Nikki, and she forced a smile as she took it.
“Thank you.” She yelled at nearly the top of her lungs.
“I knew Ben’s big sister was hot, but I had no idea how hot. Wow. You’re so amazing. We really have to hit the dance floor.”
Nikki didn’t answer, not believing she had heard what she just heard. She realized how much she missed the nice quiet dinners at Daniel’s. She smiled at Scott, and sipped hard on the straw of her drink, swearing to herself that although she loved her brother, she would never let him bring her to a place like this again.
• • •
Marcus Stern stood in the corner of the Club, drink in hand, gyrating slightly to the music, enjoying the view.
Club Sutra was the fourth place he had “canvassed” this evening, and the girls here were by far the hottest. This place was incredible he thought to himself, and the five drinks he’d already had this evening certainly didn’t stand in the way of that perception.
“Hey baby, wanna dance?” He asked some random California supermodel-looking blonde as she walked by. Her eyes briefly looked him up and down, the operative word being down, and she kept moving, no break in stride.
“That’s okay, baby, maybe later.” Stern yelled out as he watched her walk off and become absorbed into the crowd.
He felt the cell phone in his pocket buzz, and he pulled it free to check it. A text from Wolfe:
Wrap it up playboy. I want to go home.
“Fuckin’ granny…” Stern whispered to himself.
He texted back:
Go home.
He flipped his phone shut, stuffed it back in his pocket. He eyed the bar in the center of the room, and the human sea he would have to swim through to get to it. He took a deep breath, smiled, and, like a shark, began making his way in its direction.
• • •
Joey Nguyen drove his 442 past the countless hopefuls waiting outside the entrance of Club Sutra, and then turned left into the side alley. He saw Yaw standing at a service exit, and pulled up next to him.
He turned to a visibly anxious Alex.
“Have fun, man. Looks like it’s rockin’. And good luck tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Alex replied softly, and the men shook hands before Alex climbed out of the car.
“My man.” Yaw said to Alex as he approached and gave him a hug.
Alex had never seen Yaw dressed up before, with razor sharp style, his long dreadlocks pulled back neatly in a pony-tail, a small diamond stud in his ear.
“C- Ram and Aldrich are already inside.” Yaw told him.
He gave Alex the once over.
“You look good, Doctor Alex. You clean up all right. Let’s go.”
Yaw led Alex through the back entrance and into the kitchen area, past the grills, the hanging pots and pans and walls of alcohol bottles before blasting through a set of double doors and into the hedonistic abyss of Club Sutra.
“Alex!” Camila screamed as they approached the table where she and Chris Aldrich sat.
She stood up from her chair, revealing a shredded yet feminine muscularity, a mixture of angles and curves visible through tight jeans and a dress tank top that highlighted her well-toned and muscular arms.
Alex approached and she wrapped those arms around him, nearly crushing the wind from his frame with a big hug.
“Sit down, have a beer.” She added, as Alex leaned over the table and shook Chris Aldrich’s hand as well.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out before.” Camila said.
“That’s because I’ve never been out before.”
“We have to dance, my man!”
“That won’t end well for me.” Alex said, his serious tone making it appear that much more a joke to Camila.
“Hahah, Aww, you just gotta loosin’ up.”
“We should probably discuss tomorrow’s travel plans.”
“No shop talk.” Yaw interrupted.
“Amen. Plenty of time for that tomorrow. Tonight, we chill.” Chris added, taking a long pull from his clear bottled Corona Lite.
Alex took a long look over the room. It dawned on him that never in his life had he been surrounded by this many people all at once, in such close quarters. The unexpected stillness it created in his head took him completely by surprise. There were so many patterns, of so many lives, all of them in one place, all in the moment, and the fact that all of them moved to the same rhythm and were thinking similar things made it impossible for him to see any one individual clearly. Simply put, they were too interlaced with one another to read individually. In a way, they cancelled each other out. For Alex it was almost peaceful, something he had never experienced before, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“I’m going to take a look around.” He announced to his friends, as he got up from the table.
“Good luck out there.” Yaw said to him with a smile.
“Bring back a cute girl.” Camila added, but Alex was already fast disappearing into the crowd.
• • •
“C’mon! Let’s dance!” Nikki yelled out, half-hoarse, as she waved her hands in the air above her head, cocktail not so carefully held aloft in her left. Three Grey Goose and sodas into the evening, and she had joined the multi-bodied single rhythm organism swaying to the music on the dance floor.
“All right…” Scott replied in approval, bumping and grinding his way to the rhythm, using his dance moves as a tactic to get closer to her. But Nikki easily read it, and only let him get so close before pin-balling between other bodies and using them as interference, one man seeing her and trying to get closer than the next, an informal competition for her attention, a game that she knew how to play, and play well.
Ben grabbed a water bottle from the bartender, thanked him, and turned back towards the dance floor. He searched the crowds for his sister, and spotted her hands waving above her head, not too far into the multitudes.
Nikki’s relationship with alcohol was very different than his, and after a couple she was prone to become the life of the party. He knew that she had boundaries, ones that even alcohol could not break, so it was unlikely she would end up doing something out of character like going home with a stranger. If anything, it was good for her to let her hair down a bit, have some fun, and if it took a couple drinks to help her get there, so be it. It was a rare occurrence, and as long as someone looked out for her, she would be fine, and looking after her was exactly what he intended to do.
He stopped in the middle of all the bodies, stood on his toes and looked again for his sister. She had moved further onto the dance floor, and he saw her strobed between all the moving bodies, dancing, flirting, a big smile on her face. Good, he thought. She was finally having fun. He shoehorned his way between a small cluster of young ladies, and forged ahead in her direction.
• • •
Marcus Stern felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him, the teeth rattling base blasting from the speakers suddenly disorienting. Dancing in the middle of the floor with no one in particular, he stopped for a moment, the inevitable realization that he was quite drunk abruptly overwhelming him. For a second, he thought he might throw up. Wolfe had been texting him, telling him to call it a night and get out of the damn club, and maybe he was right. He knew that tomorrow, he would have one hell of a hangover. Still, it had been a blast. He shook it off and started to push his way towards the exit, when an insanely hot looking girl in a black dress caught his eye.
• • •
Alex stood with fascination as he watched the crowds, all the bodies moving together like a single organism. He was completely captivated by it. As long as he kept his focus away from anyone in particular and just listened to the music, he saw nothing. His mind was at peace, and he actually felt part of it all. He was instinctively giddy, and a wide grin broke out on his face. This is what normal must feel like, he thought to himself.
He stayed on the perimeter of the dance floor, casually glancing over the multi-limbed creature that circumscribed the bar, seeing an arm, a leg, a breast, a face, none of them connected, but all part of the same entity. Excited that none of it lead to any individual in particular, he intended to make a full circle around the bar, and end up back at the table with his friends, happy with his discovery. When their mission was over, he would have to do this again. And although he didn’t drink, maybe, for the first time, he would have one.
Something caught the corner of his eye, and he turned back. Before he knew it, his eyes had locked on a woman, absolutely stunning, wrapped in a tight black dress. She was dancing, laughing, and having a good time, but stood out from the intermingled mass of bodies. And despite her presence here, to Alex, she did not appear to be part of the larger nightclub organism.
He knew right away that it was her first time at this club. And although she clearly showed signs of alcohol intoxication, she was keenly aware of her surroundings and keeping all of the predators at bay. His eyes instinctively and with rapid movement scanned over her. He couldn’t stop himself. And then the smile on his face quickly disappeared, his heart sinking with dread.
He hadn’t seen something like this, something so certain and immediate, since that fateful day in Los Angeles, three years ago, the one that collapsed the momentum on him, and had set him on the run. He swore then that he would never make the same mistake again. He told himself to walk away. Right now. He shook off what he had just seen, and started back towards the table area.
• • •
Stern was almost at her. Damn she was hot, by far the hottest girl here, and he would kick himself if at least he didn’t try and get her phone number. If he could score that, then this little “canvassing” expedition would be a complete success in his mind. So he had to take a shot. He looked over and knew he would have to hurry, as he watched some guy hand her a bottle of water, and it looked as if she were preparing to leave.
• • •
Alex stopped.
“Damn, damn, damn.” He swore out loud, hitting himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand on each syllable, before he turned back. He watched as the woman in the black dress accepted a bottle of water from a man, her brother, easily distinguished as her silbing by her reaction to him, the similar hairline, similar body mechanics, the recognition and safety in movement and manner on both their parts, the same hook on the left corner of their mouth when they smiled, and on and on and on. They were close. She was older. They were getting ready to leave. The patterns were distinct and clear.
What was also clear to him was that in less than an hour, she would be dead, a passenger in a car that would wrap itself around a tree approximately five miles from here, the car driven by the tall blonde male that stood beside her, unless he stepped in.
He should just let it happen, he tried to convince himself. It was extremely rare that he would see someone’s fate so close to the end of it, like the bomber, like the interrogator, like the woman who stood less than twenty feet away from him right now. People die everyday, he thought to himself, and he had no business stepping into the momentum to change that. He knew that when he did, he would set off a chain reaction, one of which he knew he would be the center of. And it was that chain reaction that the black hats wanted to control more than anything else. They watched everything, and if he stepped in, this would get their attention once again. His life was good now, strong with purpose, and he bothered no one, he thought to himself. He should just let it go. He should just let her die.
“Fuck it.” He said out loud, and he began to walk towards the woman in the black dress.
• • •
Nikki eagerly drank from the water bottle her brother had just handed to her. She was hot and sweaty from dancing, and she was starting to come down from her buzz. She had to admit, although Scott had been a bit annoying, he had turned out to be nice, and she was having a lot of fun. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone dancing, and had forgotten how liberating it could be.
She turned to Ben and gave him a big hug.
“Thanks, Ben. I really needed this.”
“Anytime, big Sis. And we’re going to be having a lot more fun, now that you’re out here. I promise.”
“Hey, we should roll out to my place.” Scott interrupted. “In Manhattan Beach, right on the beach. We could chill out for a bit to the sound of the surf, all three of us. And my crib’s got three bedrooms, so it’s all cool with plenty of space.”
He turned to Nikki.
“You guys can be the first passengers in my new BMW M5. What do you say?”
“Don’t do it.” A stranger’s voice interrupted.
They all turned to look at the source of the voice. In front of them stood a short, rumple-clothed man with disheveled hair.
“Don’t do it.” He repeated. “Do not get in his car. You will not survive it.”
He was staring straight at Nikki.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Ben said, as he gently moved Nikki aside and stepped between Alex and his sister.
• • •
Stern froze where he stood. His eyes went wide. He could not believe what he saw. But there he was. The man whose face was splashed across countless flyers stapled to telephone poles. The fugitive who had evaded one of the most powerful men in the country for over three years.
Standing less than ten feet away from him was Alex Luthecker.
“Holy shit.” He whispered to himself.
For a second, he had no idea what to do. Then he reacted. He flipped open his phone, and texted Wolfe:
It’s him. He’s here. I’m not kidding. Cover the entrance.
• • •
Alex looked at Ben and held up his hands with open palms, to show he meant no harm.