"I call it the Cave."

25.

The Cave was everything a rogue could want: a long, fully stocked bar, a billiard and a poker table (both with brand new felt), a rounded stage, a DJ booth and plenty of dark corners. The colour scheme was cla.s.sic dingy brothel-walls painted black and burgundy, the shadows of burgundy drapes. There were hovering spots of yellow light-over the poker table, the pool table, the bar.

They walked together, boot heels clicking, across the floor.

"What can I poison you with?" said Chaz.

Mason, still in awe, reached for a stool and sat down.

The bar was fairly high, like in a saloon. Chaz ducked down and came up with a bottle. He rolled out two tumblers, three ice cubes, three fingers of whisky in each. Then, next to Mason's gla.s.s, he placed a disc like a coaster, but stainless steel-a straight line of c.o.ke, and a straw.

"I like this place," said Mason.

"I thought you would."

"Is it just for me? Or you thinking of inviting other people?"

Chaz took a drink. "Wouldn't be fair to keep it to ourselves." He looked around, grinning. "This place is too good-don't you think?"

"How you going to do it?"

"Nice and simple: cards, c.o.ke and booze. Two a.m. till noon, seven days a week. No daylight, no bulls.h.i.t-just safe, dark fun. We open on Friday."

"Who's we?"

"Could be you and me-if you weren't such a s...o...b..rd."

Mason inhaled through his nose, put down the straw.

Chaz laughed. "So really just me. But you know how it is."

Mason didn't, in fact, know how it was. He would have said so, if he thought Chaz would clarify things. But every time he tried to learn about the urban drug trade it proved too complicated and too simple at the same time. Mason had been in enough dens of iniquity to know how much he didn't know. You either grew up understanding how it all worked, like Chaz or Tenner, or you got popped early, then learned it in jail.

"Your place, though?" said Mason.

"My place, all the way."

There'd be other people connected to this and that-taking a cut, making things smoother-not friends, necessarily, or even partners, still a part of it nonetheless. But if it was Chaz's place, then he was the boss. That much Mason knew.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Chaz shrugged. "Surprise!" he said.

"What about the cops?"

"The cops'll love this place. You know how it is: people gotta go somewhere when the bars close-keep 'em off the streets. Maybe a visit or two, but I doubt they'd shut us down. Not unless somebody dies. Here-check this out."

Mason followed him into the dark recesses. A light switched on, illuminating a large garage door. "The scatterhouse exit for when the raids come. There's a ramp up to the loading dock."

"Cool."

"That's nothing."

They walked back to the bar, and Chaz went round behind. "You want to see cool?" he said, pouring two more drinks. He raised his gla.s.s. "To the Cave."

"To the Cave," said Mason. He raised his tumbler and took a gulp. Then, lowering his drink, he stopped, c.o.c.ked his head ..., "Chaz?"

Standing up on the midrail of the stool, he leaned over the bar. Nothing but floor. He got off the stool and walked around to the other side, bent down. There were bottles, some blow, a baseball bat ... but Chaz had disappeared.

26.

"Chaz?" Mason was crouched down, looking for what, he didn't know. Suddenly there was a noise behind him and he swivelled and fell on his a.s.s against the bar, bottles clanking.

"Holy s.h.i.t!"

Where a moment before the wall had been, there was Chaz. He was leaning back in a chair like he was waiting for the cows to come home-one of his feet sticking out through the opening in the wall.

"Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.t!"

"Yeah, you said that already."

"What the h.e.l.l?"

"Come on in."

The easiest way to get through was just to roll, like in that scene when Indiana Jones almost loses his hat. So that's what Mason did. As soon as he was clear of the entrance the wall slid back into place-quiet but with a heavy click at the end. It sounded final. "Reinforced steel," said Chaz. They stood up and he flipped a switch. "Holy s.h.i.t!" said Mason, yet again. "What the h.e.l.l is this?"

"The cave within the Cave," said Chaz.

The room was the size of an average jail cell, with many of the same attributes: a bunk bed against one wall, a small table and chair, a latrine and a small sink in the corner. On one wall, a few books and an old tape deck. The shelving on the opposite wall, however, contained things not found in your average pokey: twenty gallons of water, a hundred cans of food, three handguns and eight large bricks of Peruvian cocaine.

"I call it the QT room," said Chaz. He sat back down in one of the chairs.

"Why's that?"

"Because it's on the QT."

Mason nodded. On the fourth wall, the one they'd come through, was a window. It was large-about the same dimension and shape as the horizontal door-at eye level. He stepped towards it as Chaz dimmed the light again. Through the gla.s.s they could see everything: the bar, poker table, dance floor-the Cave outside the cave.

"It's one-way," said Chaz, tapping on the window. "That's two inches of bulletproof gla.s.s, and the same again on the other side. Bash it with a baseball bat and you wouldn't hear a pat out there-not a pitter. These walls are a foot thick. Doesn't it feel like a s.p.a.ce pod or something-like out there is the universe? Ground control to Major Tom ..." He pulled out his cellphone. "Look, no reception."

Mason walked over to the shelves. "How about radio?"

"Nope."

He flipped open the tape deck. "Gowan? So if you got trapped in here you'd have to listen to Gowan for the rest of your life?"

"Only for a few months. Eventually you'd run out of food and water."

Mason shuddered. He sat down in one of the chairs and gazed out the bulletproof window. "How'd you do this?"

"That safecracker I went to find. Montana, remember? Old crony of my dad's-he owed us a favour. He's the only one knows about this, and he'll be dead any day now. Cancer of the eye."

"And why, exactly ...?"

"You kidding? It's perfect. One whiff of the bulls and I'm through the rabbit hole. We get busted, I only lose what's on the floor. Plus, it's just plain cool."

"No, I know that. But why are you showing me? If it's on the QT, I mean."

"That's the problem with a secret room: you got to let someone in on it-or else it's no fun. And let's say they bust me. I'd need you to come get the stuff out of here, right?"

"If you say so." He looked at Chaz. "So how do I get in?"

"That's the coolest part." He got up, walked over to the window and put his left hand against the wall. A tiny green light, and the door slid open. "Right hand gets you in, left hand gets you out. Think you can remember that?"

Mason nodded, his mouth agape.

"We'll have to scan your hands."

"Naturally."

"Oh, and here," he said, moving to the other side of the gla.s.s. "An intercom-in case you want to talk to someone. But remember ..."

"It's on the QT," said Mason.

Chaz just grinned.

Back on the other side of the wall, Chaz turned the scatterhouse lights on. Mason stood looking at the mirror. There was no hint, nothing to suggest that anything lay behind it. The gla.s.s appeared bolted to the wall. On this side, the intercom was in the ceiling, with the hand scanner-practically invisible-at knee level behind the bar.

"There's a sensor," said Chaz. "As soon as you're through the door, it closes. That's another reason I told you: something goes hinky and I get stuck in there, no one would ever know."

"So you're saying if that happens, the Cave is mine?"

"Very funny." Chaz brought the lights back down. "If it's been a while and you haven't seen me, you know where to look. I figure that place could turn into h.e.l.l pretty fast."

"Most places can," said Mason. "Let's drink to it."

"Right," said Chaz and reached for a bottle. "Demons with demons."

It was something Tenner used to say.

27.

To: [email protected] From: Subject: You're an idiot Even so, I'll give you one more chance. But it's back to Harvey's, Mr. f.u.c.king Hemingway.

Mason spent hours going over all the bad things Sissy had been through, most of them pertaining in one way or another to her body. He didn't doubt she was clinically depressed and hated her life every single day, and so she was suicidal. Fine. He was supposed to do his job and write her a letter. That was the deal.

But he couldn't see her doing it.

There were all sorts of people he could imagine killing themselves. He just had to look out the window to see madmen covered in scabs, limping hookers, junkies with half-shaved heads-all shouting out loud to die. It wasn't hard to imagine them diving into traffic, ripping themselves to ribbons with a steak knife, jumping off whatever they could, shouting the whole way down.

But Sissy?

He pictured her at home, at night, in an apartment her father paid for. Alone. In pain. Utterly alone. Sad beyond belief.

But then what ...?

It had been one of his stipulations: I don't want to know how I don't want to know how. But now he did. He wanted to see it. Thought maybe it would help him write. What a strange f.u.c.king thing to think.

15. There never was a time I liked to play with guns.

16. My parents were too loving.

Sissy's Letter-Take ThreeThere is no more hated creature in the world than a fat, ugly girl born to a beautiful woman and a beauty-obsessed poet.You want to know why I'm getting out of here? For one, we've failed; we human beings have failed the simple f.u.c.king test of kindness.Then for two, there's my personal failure. My whole life I've read about people overcoming adversity-rape, blindness, amputation, fetal alcohol syndrome, etc.-to do great things (dig wells in Africa, open homeless shelters, write operas, raise beautiful children, etc.). I am merely fat and ugly, yet it takes all I've got to get out of bed in the afternoon. I'm sick of the effort. I don't want to be me any more. In fact, I never did.

"How do you plan to do it?"

They were back under fluorescence, in clouds of fry oil and steam: Mason's penance.

"Do what?"

"Kill yourself."

"Oh my, Mr. Shakespeare! What if somebody hears?"

"What happened to Mr. Hemingway?"

"Slipped while cleaning his shotgun. And anyway, I thought you didn't want to know about that."