A.
What place in London begins with
A?
I scan the table, try to think of any word, any place Maria ever mentioned that started with
A.
I pick up the red business card, anxiously tap it against the edge of the keyboard, think, think. The address. I flip the card over, type the Old Street address into Google.
Aquarium. The place she’d mentioned, where she met a client before having drinks with Henry. I look at my watch. It’s five to nine.
There is a
ting.
Some text has appeared in the window, from username csok23:
M, you almost here? Hope this is you on your blackberry, not from home.
I grab the mouse, search for a logout button, find one under the Báthory picture. The website clicks, goes black, then returns to the home page. I go back into the browser history and clear everything.
I gulp back the rest of my drink, go into the kitchen and put my hand on the blue cap of the vodka bottle, think of pouring another. Everything swims. Budapest, the tableau vivant. Dogs barking, a ruined castle strewn with poppies. Maria, plucking me out of receptions. Foster. Maria with her blonde-blonde hair on Henry’s throne.
I take the red card and walk out the door.
I come out the wrong exit of the Old Street tube station and have to cross the street above ground, damp asphalt and air thick with exhaust. A hundred yards ahead, I see a massive brick building painted aqua. It’s half a block long. I stop at the first entrance, a silver garage door, pulled closed and locked. A piece of paper, framed in glass, hangs on the turquoise brick. It’s a list of days of the week and Aquarium’s opening hours.
Sunday: 10 p.m.—4 a.m. Music prescription: Dirty, minimal electronica.
My watch reads nine twenty-five.
I continue down the length of the building. It runs until the end of the block, three more silver garage doors bolted shut. Finally, some windows, with
Aquarium Pub
stencilled across the top in white, frosted letters. I lean into the window, cup my hands around my eyes to block out the glare of the street lights. Black, nothing. Charcoal soundproofing foam and the backs of speakers line the windows. I put an ear to the glass; no sound, no rattle of booming bass.
I must have misunderstood the message or got the place wrong. The yellow-orange street lamps shed enough light for me to see my reflection in the dead-end windows. I’d tossed on my coat and shoes from the night before and hadn’t washed my face or touched a comb or a toothbrush the whole day. My hair is a hairspray-tangled mess of frizzed-out curls. The hem of my blue and gold brocade coat doesn’t match up in the front; I’ve fastened the buttons wrong. Immediately, I undo the belt at my waist and rebutton.
Again, I step closer to the glass. My face looks sallow, sagged out. I wonder if the reflection is accurate, or if it’s distorted by the poor light. I notice a clump of black makeup under my right eye. I scrape it off with my fingernail; it’s flakey and sticky, a remnant of my false eyelash glue. The skin under my eyes looks shadowy and crinkled. When I took off from Maria’s, I grabbed my green rhinestone purse from last night. I dig around inside and find a compact and some concealer. I just finish covering up the bags under my eyes and have started to put on a bit of pink lip gloss when I see a flash of black reflected in the compact. Footsteps clicking down the footpath. A man’s face in the mirror. Just a quick smear as he turns down the side street behind me, but I feel a jolt of recognition. I’m sure I know him.
I shove gloss and compact into my purse and clip-clop to the edge of the Aquarium building, trying to be light on the pavement in my lavender heels. I watch as the man knocks on another garage-style door, around the side. The door rolls up. A muscled arm attached to a large sculpted shoulder leans on the door’s interior handle, ushers the man inside.
I run towards the entrance. The silver door is rolling down, is halfway to the ground. I bang on the metal.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Wait a minute.” The door starts to slide up. My heart flutters like a hummingbird and I have no idea what I’m going to say to whoever is on the other side. Excuse me, I’m looking for a beautiful blonde woman, probably insane, who is obsessed with a Hungarian countess and ritual killings? Happen to know if she’s meeting with some friends here tonight?
The door rises to reveal the man I saw in the street, tall, a gloved hand holding the bottom edge of the door. He stares at me.
“Milo?” I say, half to myself.
For a moment he looks confused. Looks at my shoes, my hair. Stares at my face a few seconds. Then his brows relax. “Oh, yes. You are Danica, right? Maria introduced us, in Toronto.”
“Right.” I say this in an
of course
tone, pray he believes I should be here.
“I didn’t know you had officially joined us.” He leans towards me, a kiss on each cheek.
I hope the peppermint scent of my lip gloss masks the smell of my unbrushed teeth. Even with the concealer and gloss, I must still look a wreck. “Oh, yes. Just running a bit late. Had to stop off for some cough drops. Fighting a cold, you know.” I smile, look him straight in the eyes.
“Well, it’s worth coming out for. A big night. My work is on display.” He stands squarely in the door, doesn’t make a motion to invite me in.
“So Maria has been promising me. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” I tuck a frizzy tendril behind my ears, put the other hand on my hip. My heart thrums. I shift my weight to my heels, try to stop my calves from shaking. Keep my eyes on his. Maintain eye contact with the subject. Smile, but not too much.
Milo steps to the side, puts his hand on the small of my back. “Well, we’re late. Better get in there.”
I step inside. A large, muscled man in a black T-shirt, the owner of the arm I saw earlier, sits on a stool by the door. He’s wearing earbuds and is flipping through an iPod, but he stands up when he sees me. Milo gives him a nod and he sits back down.
We walk down a dark, narrow hallway. I smell chlorine. My heels click loudly on the concrete floor as I try to keep up with Milo. The hallway turns left, right, has only the occasional light to keep me from veering into the wall.
The hallway brings us to a large room. Silver stools line a deep red bar with a backlit array of liquor bottles: blues, reds, greens. Down a few steps, in the middle of the room, white chaise longues are clustered around a deep blue rectangular pool. Lights shine from the bottom of the pool; the pearly chaises are dappled with a sapphire glow that emanates from the water. I slow down, look for Maria. The place is empty except for a waiter wiping the long red bar.
“Pretty room, but we’re down this way.” Milo puts his arm around my shoulder and turns me towards a door to our left. “Wait a sec, Dani.” He stops me, looks at my face. Reaches out and cups my chin.
“You’ve got a bit of...” He wipes his thumb across the edge of my lip, pulls his hand away.
Gloss, smeared outside my lip line. His thumb is shiny pink. I’m waiting for him to realize I’m a mess, I’m a fake. He just smiles.
“You girls have a lot to keep straight,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulders and leading me through the next door. I follow him down another narrow, concrete-floored hallway. There’s a second bouncer guarding a heavy metal door.
“Good evening,” he says, getting up from a little stool and standing directly in front of the door. He’s about six foot four.
“Evening,” says Milo. Then a little more formally, “We’re here for Báthory.”
“Password?”
Milo looks at me, gives me a half smile and a nod. “Go on, first time.”
My heart no longer thrums, it thuds, a racehorse pounding down a short-haul track. “Oh,” I say, “I’m probably pronouncing this wrong, but...” I claw through my mind for every Hungarian pronunciation rule I learned back in Budapest, hope that indeed, the word is Hungarian. Or the password at all. “
Gyilkosság
?”
The tall man smiles and cracks open the door.
There are candles everywhere. Soft light on thick moss carpet. My heel catches on a loop as I walk into the room. I grab Milo’s arm to keep from falling. A crowd is gathered, hushed, their backs to us. Everyone is staring at a large projector screen at the far end of the room.
A naked white thigh, two sets of bite marks. A piece of skin ripped out, blood streaked down the calf. The screen flips to another image: an asphalt path, yellow dividing line interrupted by a pool of dark liquid. Next photo: a girl, crumpled and supine on a tiled floor, bloody leg poking out of a navy school uniform skirt. Dark, matted hair covers her face. Her shirt collar is stained red, her head and shoulders cushioned in a puddle of blood. Her palms are branded with the letter
B.
The crowd murmurs approvingly.
I’m still hanging on to Milo’s arm. He breathes in deeply, slides his arm around my waist, puts his hand on my hip. “This was just before my time, too, but it’s legendary. Beautiful, don’t you think?”
My skin crawls. I try not to shake. I’m sure he can feel the gooseflesh through my dress. It takes all my focus not to flinch away from him. How did they get photos of Foster’s victim? Are these his admirers, the fans he talks about?
A voice broadcasts from a microphone at the front of the room. “This is, of course, very good work.” Maria. “He is extremely dedicated.”
The screen goes dark for a moment. Then, a triptych of photos on the screen. Three girls, each around fourteen. One carrying a hockey bag, walking out of a rink. Another busing dishes in a diner. The last in a library, reading a book.
“Our finalists,” says Maria. “Photos courtesy of our dear Milo. Please cast your vote with our new solicitor by the end of the evening.”
Vote.
They are sending Foster the photos, suggesting another victim. I check my purse. No phone; Maria took it out, put it on the bedside table. No camera. I need evidence.
Milo leans toward me. I stiffen when I feel his breath on my ear. “Tough call. Took me three months to get those photos. I still haven’t made up my mind.”
I step away, pretend I’m trying to see the screen better. I grab my stomach, will myself to breathe.
I stand on my tiptoes, strain to see Maria. The crowd is clustered tight. Then her small white hand pops above the throng. She waves towards someone.
“A toast. To welcome our new friend. Come, you must come up here!” she says.
In front of me, to my right, someone begins to move towards the front. The crowd flutters, parts, weaves together again. But for a second, I see him. Heavy black glasses, a severe expression. I’ve seen him before, somewhere.
“Now,” Maria continues, “
egészségedre
!” She raises her hand again, slim ringed fingers holding a champagne flute. The crowd echoes her, then applauds. The crowd shifts and I see him again. Bryan Lewison. Foster’s lawyer.
“Would you like a drink, Dani?” Milo asks.
I’m straining to get another look at the man at the front. Maybe I’m wrong. I want to be wrong.
“Dani,” Milo says again, his hand on my shoulder. “A drink?” He points to the side of the room. There’s a full bar, granite top, stocked with a host of coloured bottles. On the wall, in the middle of the bottles, a picture of Báthory. Like the one at Čachtice.
“Champagne, wine?”
I’m still staring at the picture. Velvet bodice, turquoise cuffs at the wrists. “Is that the one?” I ask.
I hear him laugh. “You find it that mesmerizing? Some do, I guess.”
“It’s the original?”
“Smuggled out of the Čachtice museum in the nineties.” He moves between me and the picture, puts a hand on my forearm. “Even with a cold, you’re still very pretty,” he says. “Champagne, then?” He heads to the bar.
The crowd starts to break up. I turn around, survey the people. I don’t know what I expected to see: ragged clothing, knives, people stumbling around glassy-eyed, mumbling about blood, shouting insensibly about girls shackled, tortured, covered in ice? Everyone is dressed in heels, suits, sports coats. Drinks in hand, talking. Well-coiffed guests at a regular cocktail party.
I hear Maria’s laugh. She’s sitting on a cream divan across the room. Beside Nicola. The two are sipping on their flutes, laughing like old girlfriends. Part of me wants to confront them, smash their glasses, see Maria’s shock that I’ve found my way into her secret, sick world. But the pictures of the girls still loom on the screen: I’m in a room full of Foster’s accomplices.
Milo’s still waiting at the bar. I have to find a way out, before he comes back, before Maria looks over. I start to make my way to the door.
“Dani?” Maria calls out, her voice a dart gun. My heart races and I keep moving.
“Dani!” She rushes beside me and grabs my elbow. “Let’s step over here.”
I wrench my arm free, almost elbow her in the gut. But then I notice that people are starting to stare. I let her lead me to the edge of the room. “What is this, Maria,” I lean in close. “You’re best friends with Nicola? And that’s Foster’s lawyer?”
She tightens her grip. “How did you get here?”
“You have Foster’s lawyer. What are you doing with him?”
“Dani. How did you get in here?” Her nails dig into my arm. She’s wearing a silver cuff studded with unpolished turquoise. The stones scrape my skin.
“You thought I wouldn’t figure things out?” I dig in my purse with my free hand, pull out the red card. “Thought I wouldn’t even think to search your place? Maybe you should have hidden this a bit better.”
She eyes the card, takes a deep breath. “Well, what, exactly, do you think you have discovered?”
I squeeze the card tight and put it back in my purse. “He did have help. You’re the cult. Foster’s network.”
“Dani, this is important. I was going to tell you everything, bring you into everything, when you were ready. When you understood.”
“I understand. You told him to hurt that girl. You’re going to get him to do it again, aren’t you? If he gets out. When Lewison gets him out.”
“Dani, these things you say. Unfounded accusations. We are an interest group.”
“Where did you get those pictures? They’re of Foster’s crime scene, aren’t they? What sort of
support
do you give?”