Grey

“Was Nora attacked?” I asked her, as I stepped from the car.

Before she could answer, a man in a striped vest, checked pants, with blood-red eyes bellowed, “Should be! Hate that whore!” He began choking and then threw up black coagulated carrot juice onto his pink neon platforms.

Shoving him backward, toppling him and several others like bowling pins, Pudding snarled, “Back up, fuckers! Make room.”

“Excuse me,” I said to her, with instant respect, “could you please keep an eye on my friend.” I thumbed toward Walter, who still stood in the car, his eyes wide and apprehensive. She said she would and then cleared a narrow path up the stairs.

Halfway up, I heard a familiar voice.

“Were you assaulted by MKG’s satins?” The question came from the heavy woman from Intellectuals and Soup—the one I’d dubbed Pink Hat. She wore a simple, tasteful, long orange and red gown that looked like a TUNE-21, and her trademark feathered chapeau.

I stopped. I was surprised to see her here and asked, “MKG’s satins?”

Her brown eyes grew wide as if she hadn’t expected me to recognize her or respond. “Michael,” she said, the same way she might have savored lobster bisque, “I saw a report.” In person, her face reminded me of a young girl because she only wore cherry eye shadow, but otherwise her skin looked clean. “The report was about a dead satin in Asia-12… an MGK satin.”

Of course! The satins had been gold—one of the MKG colors, and Nora told me her father had sent them. The news was crushing because it meant that I had brought those satins to my brothers and sisters. I asked her, “Is Nora okay?”

Pink Hat’s mouth tightened and her eyes—which looked larger, and a deeper shade of milk chocolate in person—watered. “It hasn’t been confirmed,” she said, in a voice that didn’t seem to want to believe, “but I think she was injured.”

“Who did it?” I asked, as if I couldn’t fathom the answer.

“Crush my ass in my head!” screamed some Ultra goon behind her.

After she grimaced at the shouter, all she seemed able to say was, “I’m sorry.”

“She’s not dead, is she?”

“No!” She shook her head, and a tear skittered down her cheek and disappeared into the folds of her chin. “I just love you two,” she added, as she pulled pink tissues from her tiny beaded handbag.

“RiverGroup,” said Goatee in that slow, reflective way he had, “is barely viable.” He stood beside Pink Hat, like her escort, but I hadn’t even noticed him in his plain if handsome brown suit and a matching beret. His eyes focused on me with both intensity and feeling. “Despite tonight’s histrionics,” he continued, “my investigations suggest that RiverGroup is bankrupt. Monetarily and morally. There is one possibility now.”

“Rip it!” screamed a woman with a green face. “Break it blue!”

After I nodded to the intellectuals, I continued up the stairs. Goatee was right; there was only one possibility, and I needed to find my nitrocellulose suit. At the top, the Ultra was loud and each drumbeat knocked a half-breath from my lungs.

“VIP area,” shouted Pudding, “is level fifteen.” She motioned at an elevator bank.

“I had a suit delivered. Know where it is?”

She shook her head and shrugged. I thanked her, and then headed through the doors. The foyer had been turned into a lounge. Bars lined the walls. Behind it stood hulky men in see-through tuxedos. Partiers lined up in front of blinking carrot, beet, and radish lights. “Sir,” said one of the bartenders, who was coming toward me with a long orange tube, “tap root enema?”

I continued right past him. Inside, every inch of the PartyHaus was clogged with Ultra addicts. Two men in white were bound like the three-legged race but with barbed wire. Their white clothes were soaked with blood. A brunette dressed in red rags that stunk of gasoline had several squirming, wet amphibians in her mouth.

Most recognized me. Danced at me. Shouted and sang at me.

– You’re our only chance, Michael!

– Crush my hope!

“Excuse me,” I said. “Pardon me.” They wouldn’t get out of my way, so I adopted the hospitality girl’s strategy and pushed them back as best I could.

I touched the back of a man’s lime suit, but found it coated with some sticky goo. Going around him, a woman covered in what looked like broken shards of glass tried to bite my face. I ducked and slipped by.

– Golden boy must die!

– Murder Elle! Murder her love!

“Get out of the way!” I told them again and again, as I continued across the floor.

When I finally got to the stairwell, I felt exhausted and sickened, but began down. Below, in the glare of the orange lights, I saw a couple in matching lavender outfits thrust needles into each other’s throats. I assumed the black stuff in their hypodermics was carrot liquor, but the woman’s face quickly turned so red, she looked like a hemorrhaging tomato. I turned afraid she would split open.

Another group in untanned hides and broken feathers were smashing each other in their faces with tremendous kicks and elbow punches. A man on his back was knocked in his face several times by a larger man’s knee. As the victim smeared his blood over his face, like a child might finger-paint, he giggled as though pain had become pleasure.

Many sang to the blasting Ultra, which ricocheted against the hard walls. Others, dressed in tight sequined outfits, did flips and tumbles in all directions. Farther along, I saw a man sitting on the floor gagging on a huge carrot that was stuffed halfway down his throat. A vaguely amused group stood watching.

The second stairwell led into the same inky darkness as before, but now among the giant sex sculptures were dozens of mostly naked people rolling, groping, and taking each other. A woman mounted a man and then slammed her fists into his face like a crazed jockey beating a horse. Soon he was unconscious, but still she rode him hard.

When I found my advisor, three people were dripping vegetable alcohols on her and laughing. “Get away!” I told them, as I shoved a man in a pink frock.

“Fuck shit idiot!” he bellowed. He could barely stand. “I’ll kill you,” he said, his eyes fierce but unfocused. “Eat your fuck brain!” he blathered, as he swung a wild fist. He missed by five feet, stumbled backward, and fell onto the hard floor. His laughing friends began to drip alcohol on him.

“Joelene!” I said, as I got down beside her. With my handkerchief, I wiped the black gunk from her chapped lips and swollen face. “You all right?” She didn’t respond. “I have the ARU.” Her forehead felt broiling hot. “It’s me, Michael.”

Barely opening her eyes, she murmured, “MKG.”

That she mentioned Nora’s company surprised me. “They sent satins to try to kill me,” I told her. Her eyelids hovered halfway, like indicators of her consciousness. I gave up explaining and got out the roach-looking pill my mother gave me. “I have it.”

I think she said, “Yes,” so I touched the pill to her dry lips. She opened them and took it between her teeth. A second later, I heard a crunch.

As I took off my jacket to drape over her, I inspected her left hand in the heavy metal cuff. I wasn’t sure, but thought it might be infected. After I tucked my jacket around her for warmth, I said, “I’ll be back. I promise.”

When I stood, I saw Father’s silver-haired director before me. “I thought it was you!” he said. He wore a blue suit with an orange shirt and shoes. “We had rehearsals earlier. Except you weren’t there. We used a stand-in, but you were supposed to rehearse! Then I see you running down here. So, I chase after you. And here you are!”

“Can you unlock this?” I asked of the cuff on Joelene’s wrist.

“No,” he said with a frown. “The show’s beginning! We have to go.”

“I have to help her!”

Shrugging, he said, “The show! You must get ready.”

“I had a suit made,” I told him. “Is it here?”

“There’s no time! You’ll have to wear what you have on.” As he spoke, he looked me up and down, then at