To Victor I hissed, "I said stand down! Or you'll see a court-martial, I swear to you, Victor Triumph!"
"Yes, Leader," said Victor.
The Merry Man with the clipboard asked me carefully, "Did he just call you 'Leader' ?"
At that moment, another man came over, stepping briskly. I assume from the way the Merry Man wordlessly deferred to him that he was a member of the staff, or maybe he just got out of the way because the guy was huge and heavily armed.
Could be a basketball player, if he wasn't already a linebacker. Heavy black boots, heavy black denim pants, heavy black leather jacket. Black on black on black. You get the picture. Every inch of the black leather jacket had a shining metal ring sewn to it, so he rang and glittered as he walked. Clipped among his rings were Japanese throwing stars, looking like harmless ornaments, lost in the glitter. The handle of a Bowie knife protruded from a sheath in his boot, a second was at his hip, a third up his sleeve. In his hand he carried not a spear (as I first had thought) but a harpoon with a sharpened steel togglehead and, incredibly, a loop of cable running through it, with the other end of the cord wrapping his spear hand.
He might have been a member of a biker gang. A really, really nasty biker gang. A biker gang of Eskimos, I should say, who harpooned seals between riots.
Oh, and he was handsome, in a rough way. Very rough. His face looked like something carved by rough hatchet blows out of a pine stump. His hair was done up in short gelled spikes, a look that went out of fashion in England after the defeat of the Rets. He had wide, high cheeks, blunt jaw, his mouth a single cruel slash beneath a proud nose, eyes like a wolf's eye beneath a wide overhanging brow, the forehead of a king or a philosopher: a warrior-king, though, or a Nietzschean philosopher. A scar ran from the corner of his eye across the muscles of his cheek, to where the deep lines formed brackets around his stern mouth. It was a big, ugly scar, but, somehow, it made his face look more striking, not less. I was sure he had gotten it at Heidelberg.
The crowd quieted down when he strode up. "May I help you?" he said in a tone that left no question that no help could possibly be forthcoming.
I said, "We are here to see Mr. Archer on a matter of very important, um, importance." (Boy, I could have said that better.)
Colin helped me. Sort of. Not. He chimed in, "Tell your boss that the world could be destroyed if he dicks around with us."
Tall, Dark, Scarred, and Handsome gave him a thoughtful look. "So... you can, um, destroy the world, issat right? Cute trick."
Colin grinned like an idiot. "Yeah, but we can only do it once."
He said, "Listen, kids. You know what my job here is?"
Vanity looked at his huge harpoon. She said gaily, "Let me guess. You seek the White Whale?"
She was doing that Vanity-thing she does with her eyelashes and bestowing the sweetest smile on him, so even his grim face softened, and he smiled back. "No, miss. I'm Mr. Nice Guy. I am here to see that the people who are invited into the club here have a nice time. Now you are blocking the line, and all of Mr. Archer's guests behind you might not have a nice time because of it. So I gotta make it right, okay?"
I thought this meant he was going to burn us to cinders with laser beams shooting from his eyes or something, but no. Instead, he led us a few steps to one side, and the Merry Man proceeded with the glittering people in line behind us. We were standing beside the doors, and long thin leaves from potted plants were poking me in the back.
"Now, your names are not on the list, are they?" said the huge man.
Quentin said quietly, "May we have your name, sir? Mr. Archer will be displeased if we are hindered, I assure you."
"I am Terro- ah, Terrance. Terrance, um, Miles. And Mr. Archer is my brother."
Quentin said, "If he's your brother, why isn't your last name-?"
"Stage name."
I said, "Listen. This is important. Do you know the world is run by pagan gods?"
"I know L.A. is, that's for sure. And one of the gods of L.A. says that no one gets in the Bull's-Eye Club unless they're properly dressed. We have a dress code."
I watched a couple go by. The man had glasses shaped like the number 2008, with an eye peering through each zero. His date was wearing see-through plastic pants.
"What about them?"
Tall and Dark said, "They're on the list. Dress code does not apply to Mr. Archer's special guests."
Victor said, "Leader, why don't we simply leave a cell phone number? Archer can call us, once he gets Boggin's message."
Before I could answer, Tall and Dark said, "Listen, you seem like nice kids. You go away and come back dressed properly, you can come in."
I said, 'Then we can see Mr. Archer?"
A shrug. "Maybe he'll see you, maybe not He's not here right now, but he might be back tonight."
Vanity said to me, "Amelia, my nice outfits are on the boat. And where are the boys going to get tuxedoes at this hour? We don't have that much money left, after all."
Tall and Dark said, "Kids, if you are not the kind of folk who can afford expensive suits with your pocket money, you're not getting into this club."
Vanity's face was flushed with anger. She stamped her foot and demanded, "What? Is there a tailor open at this hour?"
Her rosy-red features and low-cut blouse, well, they attracted his attention, and his craggy face softened once again with a smile. "Look, like I said, I'm Mr. Nice Guy. I stop fights, see? We like to have good-looking girls in the club. Here."
He took a card out of his pocket, leaned his harpoon against the wall, took out a ballpoint pen, and scribbled on the back. He proffered the card to Vanity. "Go to this address. Tuxedo shop, dresses, that sort of thing. Upscale, very nice. They keep late hours. Show the manager my card, and he'll fix you up, give you ten percent off. He owes me a favor. And meanwhile, you there, Little Miss Blond Girl." He offered me the pen and a blank card. "Write a message. Any crazy thing you like, gods blowing up the world, whatever. I'll put it on Mr. Archer's desk. I can't guarantee he'll read it, I can't guarantee he'll believe it, but write what you like. Don't bother putting down your phone number. He never makes calls. Hates phones. Likes to talk to people face-to-face, you know?"