The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Tricksie

Previously: "Hijacked in Your Own Truck" 

The Warehouse is exactly and no more than what its name implies: a vast, squat shed, built of brick and cinderblock, looming out of the darkness of the city's decaying industrial district by the railroad tracks. Its sooty walls absorb rather than reflect the burning glow of the street lamps, and its only windows, high up under the eaves, glare blankly down over a broken and heaving parking lot crowded with cars and trucks.

Revelers as well. Knots and throngs of teenagers huddle and shuffle about the lot, laughing and shouting and dodging the cars creeping in and out looking for parking spaces. A pair of double doors in the front of the building are flung open, and a hard, driving beat, barely muffled by the building's walls, pulses out into the night.

You trail along behind those that came with you—almost all of them in letterman jackets with Eastman colors—trying to be with them if not exactly of them. But you shuffle in closer when a shrill police whistle sounds, and there bursts from inside the building a half dozen burly guys in red shirts. They are carrying someone between them, and as you cower away, they stop, swing him back, then hurl him bodily into the air. To the cheers and laughs of the crowd, he tumbles to the ground and lays very still.

Then another knot of red-shirted goons runs out, to toss another out next to the first. This one curses when he hits the ground, but also doesn't get up.

One of the Eastman guys catches your eye when you look around for their reaction. He grins. "More booze and girls for us, huh?" he says.

* * * * *

Given what you've just seen, it seems safest to linger close to the big guys that came with you, and you wind up in a large, saloon-like space. Kids cluster at wobbly tables and chairs, or huddle in booths. Along one wall is set up a makeshift bar—plywood planks on sawhorses and other supports—behind which a scuzzy lot high school boys are retailing food and drinks and cigarettes and other sundries. You're wondering what, if anything, you should get when you look up to find yourself standing next to Frank.

He seems nonplussed to find you by his side.

"I'll carry you first round!" he says, and even at a half-shout it's hard to hear him over the music roaring in from another room, and the loud chatter of this one. "What do you want?"

"Oh! Um, just a beer!"

"Two lagers!" he shouts at the barman, and glances around. "Make it three!" he corrects himself. He collects three brown bottles, hands over a couple of green bills, and moves away. You follow.

"You a regular out here?" he asks when you're standing alone off to the side. He hands you a bottle.

"Um, not really!"

"Only the second time for me!" he says. "My brother and I just moved to town!"

"Yeah, where from?"

"We move around a lot, we just moved here from—! Fffff-argo!" he cries, and flinches as a trio of revelers, running toward or away from something, go stampeding past. "What about you?" he asks as he glares after them.

"I'm from around here! I just never come out here!"

"Yeah!" he drawls, and his eyes harden as he continues glare at something behind you. "Not really my kind of scene, to be honest! My brother, though!" He trails off.

There's finally enough light that you can get a good look at him. He's half a head or more taller than you, with thick, black hair cut short and brushed neatly across his brow and scalp. He's darkly handsome as well, with a strong jaw, chin, nose, and cheekbones, and clear skin drawn tightly across them. His eyes are dark and flashing, and his brow, when it lowers, hardens his entire expression into a glower that would leave you quailing if it were directed at you. Except that he is polite and well-spoken, he reminds you of the worst of the jock-assholes back at Westside: the ones who don't even trouble over pissants like you, but only pick you up and put you down inside a garbage can or worse when you accidentally get in their way.

And maybe that is the kind of person he is, really. Because when he says, "Excuse me" and brushes past you, it's like being clipped by a diesel locomotive. You half-spin around, and stagger backward into one of his letterman-jacketed friends.

This one, though, only smiles and helps steady you on your feet.

* * * * *

You didn't come out to the Warehouse to hang out with jocks, though, and go searching for the girls who invited you out. You quickly find them, too.

They're loitering in a knot of other girls in the atrium outside the saloon. Justine—

—well, you think it's Justine. To be honest, all of the girls look kind of alike—

—is chattering loudly and quickly with the bunch of them, her eyes and teeth flashing as she gestures with one hand. She is wearing in a tight-fitting, low cut dress that glistens in the light like fish scales, and her long, dark hair is bound back on one side by a scaly hair clip of the same design and color. The tendons in her neck flex and bulge as she chatters excitedly.

She pays no attention to anyone but who she's talking to, but one of her friends—the one who came looking for you at Legends—spots you loitering uncertainly. She smiles and beckons you over.

Like Justine, she's wearing a low-riding dress that's been cut to sculpt and emphasize her breasts and the curve of her stomach and hips, but her dress glitters brightly, as though knitted from white gems. Her reddish-brown hair hangs loose about the side of her face in thick, heavy waves. It's a nice contrast to her small, pert nose and her small, pert mouth. Her eyes are large, though, and when you get close you see they are a dark green color.

"Hey!" she shouts, and puts out her hand to grasp your elbow and draw you still closer in. "You made it out!" The music here is even louder than in the saloon.

"Yeah!"

"I'd've bet money you wouldn't!"

"I wasn't going to stand you guys up!"

"I mean, when I saw who was going with you! You know Joe and them?"

"Uh, no! Not till tonight!"

"Beginner's luck, then, I guess! You might've wound up at the bottom of Russian Lake!"

"How's that?" you ask, but she's turned to nudge and talk into Justine's ear. Her friend falters in mid-sentence, and looks at you. Her eye brightens a little, then she dives over to shout something in the other girl's ear.

"Let's go get something to drink!" the girl says to you as Justine turns back to jabber at her other friend. "Get me something to drink!" she corrects herself after noticing the bottle in your hand. She guides you back toward the saloon, and her hand tickles its way all the way up your back. You shiver in delight all over.

She asks for a double whiskey from a bartender, which you pay for—and to your horror you see most of the rest of the money you've got left evaporate—then she guides you a weaving way across the floor to a half-occupied booth where a quartet of unhappy-looking girls are camping. "These seats taken?" she asks them, and she slides in when they shake their heads. You sit down next to her.

"Hey, my name's Tricia," she says. "Everyone calls me Trixie, though."

"I'm Will."

"So is this your first time out here? To the Warehouse?"

You feel yourself blushing slightly, but you nod your head.

"Yeah, I could tell," she says.

"Yeah?"

"Everyone has that kind of look on them the first time they're out here. Like they don't know where to put their feet."

You glance past her, at the other girls. Despite their glum expressions, they seem to be listening to you and Trixie with some interest.

Trixie follows your glance, then turns back to put her mouth to your ear. "It's not their first time," she says, and you fizz all over at the way her lips tickle your ear. "They're just miserable because no one's paying any attention to them."

Then she sits back. "Are you a junior, Will?"

"No, I'm a senior."

"Oh! I—! Well, most people, if they come out here, their first time is when they're juniors. I've been coming out here for a year now."

"Like, every weekend?"

"No, I couldn't afford that! But like, once a month, something like that." She shrugs. "You know, you don't got a lot of time to squeeze more visits in, if you're a senior. You know they don't let anyone but high school students in."

"They didn't card me at the door."

"They don't have to. They know who's graduated and who hasn't."

I don't think anyone here knows me, though, you think to yourself.

Maybe she's read your mind, for she says, "Don't think you're as anonymous as you probably think you are."

* * * * *

You spend a little more time talking, and decide pretty quickly that you like Trixie. She seems smart, steady, funny, sexy, and cool. She seems to like you too, for she asks you to dance, and doesn't shake you off afterward.

Things go sideways, though, when your phone buzzes with a text from your mom: Are you coming home soon? she asks.

Trixie must have caught your expression, because she grabs you by the hand—a huge thrill, that—and pulls you into the atrium.

"Listen," she says, "if you have to go you should just go. Because the thing is, Justine asked me to distract you. Yeah," she adds as you feel yourself start, "she spotted someone here she wanted to be with. She asked me to keep you out of the way."

* To stick around: "A Favor and Its Follow-Up" 
* To go home: "Spite and Sweets" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"