Concrete Underground by Moxie Mezcal

Author:Moxie Mezcal
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, General
ISBN: 9781451529081
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2010-03-12T13:57:12+00:00

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21. The Existential Hitman

Max and I staggered clumsily into the main lobby of the Asterion building like a pair of doped-up conjoined twins, my left arm slung over his shoulders, his right arm wrapped tightly around my midsection, and our four legs tripping and tangling over each other.

Columbine and Saint Anthony were waiting to meet us. Anthony rushed over to help with his boss's burden, gripping me roughly and letting me slump my weight against his sturdy frame.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" Anthony asked.

Max mimed popping pills into his mouth.

Columbine also came over to join us, unable to hide her shock at seeing my face.

"I know," I slurred. "I look totally hardcore."

Columbine offered a weak smirk that nearly avoided looking patronizing. "No, you look like you got your ass kicked. Hardcore would be if the other guy looked like that."

Max leaned in to Anthony and softly said, "I need to talk to you."

They propped me up against the reception desk and walked off to speak privately in hushed tones.

I craned my neck to look around the rest of the lobby, which was basically a cavernous, unadorned concrete bunker. The large open space off to one side suggested it had been intended as a waiting area, but there were no tables or chairs of any kind. In fact, the only furniture at all was the tall reception desk that I was currently leaning on.

Behind it sat an elderly woman, presumably the receptionist, passing the time by knitting with blue yarn. She never once bothered to look up from her work to acknowledge our presence, and I wasn't entirely convinced she was even aware that we were there.

The wall behind her was covered with a large bank of small closed circuit TV monitors. It reminded me somewhat of the setup at the Labyrinthine party, but much larger. The images on the screens appeared to be feeds from surveillance cameras throughout the storage facility, and each one had a five-digit number displayed at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

The images changed to a new feed every thirty seconds, and the sequence of the feeds was completely random and not related the the numeric identifiers.

"What do you think they're talking about?" asked Columbine.

"Huh?" I said, pulling myself away from the videos. I followed her gaze over to Max and Anthony. "Oh, well I let slip that your father was out there when Anthony was burying those bodies, so I imagine the 'Saint' has some explaining to do."

The two men suddenly broke into laughter and Max patted Anthony's shoulder affectionately before they started back to us.

"Oh yeah, you can tell how much trouble he's in," Columbine added sarcastically.

I was about to say something snappy back, but my attention was drawn away by a video appearing on one of the screens. It showed a man sitting on the edge of a bed in a small, empty room. The image was washed in blue, and the number on the bottom of the screen read: 00033.

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