Entering the Club’s huge recreation area was like walking into the world’s sleaziest circus, all bright lights and glaring primary colours, with all kinds of beasts on display. People sat at tables, or milled around in the open central area, or propped up the massive bar. Music blasted out of concealed speakers, almost drowned out by the sheer din of so many people shouting and laughing at once, doing their best to convince themselves and everyone around them that they were having a great time. There was a lot of looking around, to see what everyone else was doing, in case it looked like more fun, and a constant checking of who was with whom.
There were gambling tables—cards, craps, roulette—as well as display boards giving the odds for every kind of bet, on anyone and anything. And there were other games, not so nice. Like the great pit in one corner, for bare-knuckle fights, knife fights, or drunks who thought they could take on creatures of varying size and nastiness. The betting action was really hot around the pit, whose sides were dark with layers of dried blood. Expensively dressed women clutched at men’s arms, and oohed and aahed and squealed delightedly at the sight of blood. Men struck poses in expensive suits, and women stalked back and forth in the very latest fashions, all of it for show. To say Look at me. I’ve arrived. I belong here. Except they wouldn’t have needed to try so hard if they’d really believed it.
Sitting at their tables, the Boys watched the circus go by with the blank, expressionless faces of those who’d seen it all before. The Boys: Big Man, Mr. Big, the Big Guy . . . the men who ran everything, owned everything, and cared for nothing but themselves. You could all but smell the testosterone in the air. They were all big, fat, ugly men, crammed sloppily into exquisitely cut suits. Men who didn’t care about their appearance any more because they didn’t have to. Women were drawn to them by money, power, status, and even the harsh glamour of what they were. There have always been such women, sometimes coming completely cold-bloodedly, sometimes drawn like moths to a flame.
The women came and went, but the Boys remained. Accompanied by women in wine-stained blouses and smeared makeup, laughing at everything they thought might be funny, clinging to their meal ticket’s arm, snuggling up against them, kidding themselves they were important because their men were important.
And, of course, every Boy had his own little court, his circle of sycophants and admirers, business partners and advisors, and whole armies of stone-faced body-guards. Men to carry out commands, or run errands, to listen while their lord and master spoke, and never ever do or say anything other than what was expected of them. And if no-one in that circle was ever entirely comfortable or at ease, because they knew they could be replaced at any minute, or dragged off and shot on a moment’s whim. Well, that was the price they paid for being so close to the Boys. For believing, hoping, that power might trickle down, just like money.
The Boys Club—the only place to be if you were a part of every sick and dirty business in the Nightside.
The din was deafening, people laughing and shrieking and shouting above each other, all trying to convince themselves of what a great time they were having. Drinking and gambling and indulging themselves . . . but always keeping one eye on the Boys, who might or might not deign to notice them, do business with them, raise them up out of their empty little lives and into the Inner Circle . . . All the fun of the fair in the Boys Club, for nasty desperate little men and women.
Spangled girls swung on trapezes overhead, or danced long-leggedly on the raised stage. Waiters bustled back and forth, bearing the very best food and drink in the world to people the waiters knew didn’t appreciate it. There was even a heated indoor swimming pool, steam rising gently around young men and women showing off their perfect bodies in the briefest of costumes, for the enjoyment of the Boys. They, too, hoped to be noticed and made use of, in one way or another.
The scene was unrelentingly tacky and tasteless, but no expense had been spared, with every imaginable luxury laid on. The best of everything, or what these people thought of as the best. These large men, with their large appetites, indulging themselves to their limits, just because they could. And all around them, men on the way up and men on the way down, always ready to do anything that might be required of them. No matter how degrading. You left your pride behind when you went calling on the Boys.
Surprisingly, many of the body-guards were women. Beautiful women in beautiful clothes, with cold faces and colder eyes, all of them armed to the teeth. Presumably the latest fad or fashion. The Boys liked to keep up with such things. I even spotted a few combat sorceresses, with their Clan affiliations tattooed above their right eyes. Which meant they were professionally trained, and guaranteed incredibly dangerous.
The Walking Man strode right into the midst of everything, and people on every side fell back to give him room. They might not know who he was yet, but one predator can always recognise another. The Walking Man headed straight for the Boys themselves, and all the body-guards tensed, their hands suddenly full of many guns. The combat sorceresses eased gracefully into attack position. Chandra Singh and I strolled casually along beside the Walking Man, not deigning to notice any of it.
And then I stopped abruptly, as I recognised one of the body-guards. Tall and lithe, dark-skinned and elegant, Penny Dreadful dressed like a flapper from the 1920s, in a tight scarlet dress, long, swinging beads, and neat little hat. She nodded easily to me, and I nodded back. Penny and I had been friends and enemies, and about everything in between, at one time or another. Just two hard-working professionals, getting by in the Nightside. Penny Dreadful was an old-school enchantress. She could make you do anything. She could make you do awful things, to yourself, or to your friends or loved ones. She never killed anyone. Mostly, after she’d finished with them, they killed themselves.
Penny was the most amoral woman I have ever met, and I’ve met a few. She would work for anyone, good or bad, as long as she was paid in advance. Penny genuinely did not care. She was only ever in it for the money. The complete professional. She worked with me on a case once. After I paid her to do it. We got along okay.
“Hello, Penny,” I said. “Keeping busy?”
“You know how it is, John darling. A girl has to eat.”
She had a little girl’s voice, with a charming French accent. Word had it she’d danced at the Crazy Horse, in her younger days. She twirled her beads at me artlessly.
“Still,” I said. “The Boys Club? As a body-guard? A bit below you, isn’t it, Penny? You used to work for a much better class of scumbag.”
She shrugged. “The money’s good. Needs must, when your creditors bay at your heels. Please don’t start anything, John. I’d hate to have to stop you. Really I would.”
“If you’ve quite finished chatting up the staff,” said the Walking Man. “I have death and destruction to be about.”
“John Taylor,” said a slow, growling voice, and we all looked round. We’d ended up in front of Big Jake Rackham’s table. He sat sprawling in a vast overstuffed chair as though it were a throne, surrounded by the pinched, unfriendly faces of his court. He was large, rather than fat, with brute, powerful features and eyes that didn’t give a damn about anything. Big Jake Rackham ran the sex trade in the Nightside, taking his cut from every business that operated. No-one indulged in the sins of the flesh in the Nightside without putting money in Rackham’s pocket. He was middle-aged but looked older, the awful experiences of his life etched deep into his face. His hair was receding, so he wore it in a long, greasy ponytail down his back. It had been a long time since he’d beaten enemies and rivals to death with his bare hands, but no-one doubted he was still capable of it.