rip out all the apartments except for a few support pillars here and there without bringing the entire tower down around her suggested she’d had high-level help doing it.
Angel was most likely the richest person in all of Debasement, and with her money she could no doubt have decorated her club as elegantly as any legitimate Executive club in the city. However, she was also one of the savviest people Nate had ever met, and she knew exactly what her customers wanted. They didn’t come to Debasement in search of an elegant club they could find in their own neighborhoods; they came to see how the “other half” lived—without actually having to see anything more than a prettied-up fantasy.
The club was decorated in what Nate liked to think of as jailhouse chic. The pillars and floor were naked concrete, complete with chips and pockmarks to make them look like they came from a war zone. The ceiling was exposed beams and wiring, and lighting was provided by bare bulbs on wires. The walls were concrete, too, only you could barely see any of the concrete gray behind all the spray-painted graffiti that decorated them. Most of it was gang tags—for “artistic” effect, not because Angel’s was part of any gang’s territory—and suggestions to do things that were anatomically unlikely. There were also some pornographic cartoons, and one whole wall displayed a spray-painted portrait of Angel herself, holding a wicked, serrated blade to her chest and testing the edge with her finger as she looked out over her club with all-seeing eyes.
Nate fought his way through the crowd toward the bar. If you were looking for someone in a bar, the best place to start was generally with the bartender, and Kurt had always seemed to be at least mildly friendly with one of the ones who worked here. Nate darted through an opening to grab one of the rickety barstools. To his disappointment, the bar was being tended by Viper, a foul-tempered asshole Nate would have just as soon avoided. There was an off chance that Kurt’s friend, Random, was also on duty today, but Nate would just have to wait and see, because he didn’t want to ask questions of Viper if he didn’t have to.
A petite blonde in heels so high they should have given her a nosebleed climbed onto the other end of the bar. The girl was an obvious Basement-dweller, her hair dyed jet black with neon blue and green streaks, tattoos peeking out from the edges of her clothes, her face dotted with holes where she was pierced but not wearing her jewelry. But she was dressed in Executive finery, wearing a clingy red skirt suit that fit her like it was made for her, a white button-down blouse, and a conservative string of pearls. The stilt-like red pumps that looked like they were made out of plastic definitely did not go with the outfit.
As the patrons hooted and hollered out encouragement, the girl began to dance on the bar, stepping around bottles, jars, and glasses. Dollar bills and scrip appeared like magic in people’s hands, and as the girl slithered out of her clothes, she revealed convenient places for patrons to tuck the money. Viper worked around her, taking money and giving out drinks as if she weren’t even there.
Nate would have preferred to just buy a drink and sip quietly as he kept his eyes out for Random. But he knew from experience that if he ignored the stripper, she might make it her personal goal to gain his attention, and he was not in the mood for a lap dance. He held out bills like the men around him and tried to enjoy the show.
Technically, strippers weren’t supposed to remove their G-strings, and patrons weren’t allowed to touch, but those rules were ignored in Debasement with the same negligence as most laws. The strippers at Angel’s never seemed to mind, always encouraging the patrons to sample their wares—as long as there was money involved, naturally. Maybe it was because Nate was in a somewhat altered state of mind, or maybe this particular girl was new and not as practiced as the pros he’d seen before, but he couldn’t help noticing how frozen her eyes and smile were as she pranced across the bar, naked except for her shoes and her money-stuffed garters, letting the patrons, men and women both, touch her whenever and wherever they wanted.
Nate stuck a bill in her garter when she invited him to, but he did it almost gingerly, trying not to touch her any more than necessary. There were some girls he found attractive, but this chick wasn’t one of them. Her movements were almost mechanical, her expression behind the fake smile one of bored indifference. Based on the number of bills in her garters, Nate was the only one who gave a crap.
When Nate came to Debasement with Kurt, he always had a blast, and time had a way of getting away from him. It was always Kurt who had to gently break it to him that it was time to go. Together, they had sampled the various exotic drinks offered at the bar, danced openly as a couple because in Debasement, no one cared—and none of the tourists could see through Nate’s disguise—and rented the rooms upstairs when they wanted … privacy. They had enjoyed Angel’s male strippers, had bargained for contraband with the club’s favored black marketeers, and had even dabbled in some of the tamer drugs, though Kurt had advised Nate to caution on that front. When Kurt championed caution, Nate listened.
Angel’s without Kurt was nowhere near as much fun as he remembered. Drinking alone held little appeal, especially when he was drinking the watered-down crap that was served to customers paying in scrip. And without Kurt to distract him, he found himself really
It was all uncommonly depressing, and within fifteen minutes of arriving, Nate was more than anxious to get the hell out. But he’d come here for a reason, and it wasn’t to have fun. He risked asking Viper if Random was on duty tonight, but Viper ignored him as if he hadn’t spoken. The guy on the next stool said he hadn’t seen Random in weeks, so maybe he’d gotten another job. Or maybe he’d just disappeared, the way Basement-dwellers sometimes did.
Nate decided his next best option was to talk to Angel herself. She rarely failed to make an appearance, so Nate settled in to wait.
An hour passed, and then another, and Nate still hadn’t caught a glimpse of Angel. It was possible this was one of those rare nights when she didn’t show up at the club. By the end of the third hour, he’d wandered from one end of the club to the other at least three times, and he still hadn’t found her. To keep from being kicked out, he’d had to keep the money flowing, buying more drinks than he dared to swallow—being alone and drunk in Debasement was a recipe for disaster—and stuffing G-strings of strippers he had no interest in. He was running low on scrip, and he was aware that soon the staff would notice and ask him to leave.
At just after 4:00 A.M., Nate made his way to the bar once more and gestured at Viper. The vertically slitted yellow contacts he wore certainly enhanced his reptilian look, as did the curved, fanglike implants that replaced his upper canines. Even when Nate had been here with Kurt, throwing dollars around with aplomb and thereby buying the devotion of the rest of the club’s employees, he’d always felt like Viper disliked him. Of course, like everyone else who worked at Angel’s, Viper was a part of the “atmosphere,” filling the role of the scary-ass bartender to give the tourists a thrill. Maybe acting like he disliked everyone was just part of his job.
Viper waited impatiently for Nate to order a drink, and Nate knew even before he opened his mouth that he was making a mistake. But he was almost out of scrip—if he ended up having to do this again, he’d make sure to bring a lot more money with him—and it was his last shot. He leaned over the bar, forced to shout over the music even though he’d have rather kept his voice down.
“I was hoping to talk to Angel tonight,” he said, then folded his hand around the remaining scrip in his pocket and slid that hand in Viper’s direction, making sure a corner of paper showed.
Viper looked at Nate’s hand and made a face. Nate thought the feeble bribe was about to be refused, but Viper tapped a sharpened, clawlike fingernail on the corner of paper and drew it out of Nate’s hand. He looked at the hundred-dollar note with obvious distaste, picking it up gingerly and dropping it into the tip jar he kept behind the bar. (Keeping a tip jar where just anyone could get to it would have been begging for the Basement-dwellers to help themselves.)
“Outta luck,” Viper said, managing to make his words hiss despite the lack of sibilant letters.
It was more than he’d gotten when he’d asked about Random, but it was a little thin at fifty dollars a word. Nate waited a second to see if Viper planned to elaborate, but the man turned and started to walk away. Unwisely, Nate leaned over the bar and grabbed Viper’s arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the bouncers take notice and start moving his way. The smart thing to do would be to let go, but Nate was too frustrated to be smart.
“What do you mean I’m out of luck?” he demanded. “Is she not here tonight?”
