Hi guys - I know it's been a while, but I've tried something... to pick this up again!
As we should all know by now am trying to get back into that headspace, am hoping it makes sense and ties in, I haven't read it all but we'll see where this leads... if anyone's listening
So, without further ado... here we go!
***
“So what numbers are we talking here?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Seventy-thirty-”
“What? No I- I need that-”
“No, what you need to do is start paying me back the money you owe.”
“Come on man- you know me, you know I’m good for it.”
David Draiman chuckled. It was probably meant to be humorous but given the stern look carved on his face, despite the goading smile, the sound was downright cynical. Setting his drink down Dave reached out and slung an arm over the other man’s shoulder. He was taller but thin, with long scraggily dark hair and a disposition that screamed nervousness. Beneath David’s arm his shoulders tensed expectantly, causing another small ripple of laughter from the bald-headed man. He tried his best to laugh along too but was lost beneath the chaos of conversation and loud angry music that choked the surrounding air.
The Pit predictably was packed to capacity and it was standing room only inside the brooding little night club. Outside on the kerb above an impatient stream of people were lingering outside all dressed in their shiniest leather, latex, and obligatory black garb waiting to get in. A live band was playing up on the cramped little stage, some local act with a hard and heavy sound, with the obligatory black clothes, wild hair, painted faces and angst-ridden attitude that had the audience hooting out for more. For a moment David was distracted, watching some scantily clad vixen stride past and made eye contact with an alluring smile. He smirked as he reached out and slapped her *** taut beneath the skin-tight red latex mini that almost looked to be painted on. With a small yowl and a giggle she cast her eyes over her shoulder at him with a wink as she wove her way through the crowd before being swallowed up from view. With a s****** he picked up his drink again and ran a hand over his cleanly shaven head, looking out at nothing a moment as the man in front of him fought desperately to regain his attentions.
“Look, I know I owe you some money-”
“Some?” David sighed into his glass. His brows rose in feigned surprise. “You owe me more than that. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. If Fox had her way you’d be a missing man right about now. Relax. I’m not about to. It doesn’t make good business to kill off everyone that owes you, at least, not yet. I’m a business man. This is what I do. Foxxy, what can I say, she’s… temperamental. You know her. You know she has a short fuse. I only have a short fuse when someone provokes me – Now you’re not going to **** me off, are you? I hope not. Truth is, between you and me, I have bigger **** on my plate right now than you, little man, you’re the least of my problems…”
The young man looked at him silently. His mouth hung open, poised to speak. His eyes were screaming desperation no matter how hard he was trying to stand there looking confident. With his dark unkempt hair hanging down over his eyes and his loose faded casuals he stood out as it was as he watched his burly counterpart the way a fly would wandering too close to a spider’s web.
David continued smirking at him around the rim of his glass as the young man cleared his throat and bowed close to speak to him again.
“It’s just, business has been tight.”
“Tell me about it,” Dave agreed without looking at him.
“But with rising costs and everything-”
“We had an agreement. What happened to the next big blockbuster you were producing? What, the market finally tapped on themes of the undead?”
“No. I mean, I know but- things have been hard the last few months. First my girlfriend left me. She got this job up town-”
“Boo-******* hoo, get over it.”
“No, well I- I haven’t been able to write, and-”
“Pete,” David addressed, sliding his palm around the back of the younger man’s neck firmly, “I don’t care, alright. You run a ******* backdoor movie studio. How hard can it be? Without me you’d be out on the street with your hand held camera making real life zombie movies with bums and two bit whores, not in that fine little establishment you have thanks to me.”
“I know, and I really appreciate it, all your help, I do, I just-”
“Then start showing it,” Dave urged tugging his companion down closer to glare into his eyes. “All right? Look, I’m on your side, Pete, I am. Who was the one that squared your debts last quarter? When the bank was going to foreclose on your studio, who stepped in and saved it? Me. Who was the one that paid for the repairs when it got broken into?”
“That was Mike’s crew,” Pete spat out nervously, unable to summon his eyes up from the floor that was lost beneath the shadows and red lights that swirled about erratically. “I told you. His friends came in and started breaking stuff, saying about how they wanted to run you and Foxxy out of town-”
“I know,” David pouted in a condescending way.
“But I wouldn’t let them. I mean, at first I paid them off because I thought they’d stay away but then they kept coming back and- come on, David, you know how hard it’s been lately. You know that I can’t-”
“Alright, alright, listen,” David said, jerking him by the neck a fraction to quieten him. “I’ll extend the loan, but there’s going to be conditions. And there will be interest. If you don’t meet deadline this time you know I won’t be held accountable for what happens, understand?”
Pete nodded as much as he was able looking terrified with Dave’s hand around the back of his neck like one false move could, and probably in all likelihood, would cost him his life. He smiled back deftly but it came off like a facial spasm. Tugging him again David shook a grunt of agreement from him. Then he patted his scalp and let go allowing Pete to stand upright again. Though he stood taller by a few solid inches Pete’s persona didn’t reflect it. Still sipping at his drink contentedly David continued to smile as he finally returned his attentions to the band that had just ended another song. The crowd cheered uproariously, the noise amplified by the cramped walls and low ceilings. Nodding his head in appreciation the smaller stocky man sighed before he drew closer to a skittish Pete again.
“One thing; if Fox gets wind of this the deal’s off, you hear me?”
“I thought you two were partners?” Pete wondered.
David’s eyes slid across at him dangerously. Pete immediately fell silent. Though the music continued to thunder all around them it seemed for a moment that they were two men alone stranded in some desolate wasteland. Sweeping the hair from his eyes Pete looked around, he looked anywhere, anywhere so he didn’t have to confront the glare David was affording him. The smile that remained like a permanent fixture over the gleaming arcs of metal that protruded from beneath his bottom lip seemed unfathomably colder accompanied by such a look. Sensing he had crossed some line Pete apologised but was drowned out for the most part by the grinding music. David drained the last mouthful of his drink and held it as he thought long and hard on his response. Then he swallowed it and exhaled loudly.
“Women,” he muttered, as if that one word made everything infinitely clearer. It didn’t, but Pete smiled tentatively anyway.
“Don’t worry, I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”
Pete blinked back silently. He didn’t say anything, though it was clear by the look on his face that the insult had been delivered just as it had meant to. He lowered his eyes with a defeated pout, the words he wanted to say bubbling up at the back of his throat. Just then someone could be heard calling out, made louder of course by a brief lull in the music.
“Dave-” another man beckoned. He burst through the crowd and snatched David by the shoulder. The two men bowed close, exchanging words before David looked up and frowned at his younger counterpart.
“His daughter?” he uttered, his frown darkening incredulously.
“That’s what she said,” the man answered.
Glimpsing down at his empty glass David appeared to consider his options a moment before he looked up at Pete.
Pete frowned, his young face still marred with worry and trepidation.
“What is it?” he asked. He only appeared to ask out of obligation rather than genuine concern as he stepped back a fraction, seemingly scared this new development would somehow affect him too. But David wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was looking around the room with his eyes narrowed, his mind ticking over. He shook his head and dismissed Pete’s gaze with his hand. Though Pete’s mouth looked poised to speak again the look on David’s face silenced it as he stood running a hand back and forth across his bald scalp.
“****!” he snapped. “Why now? What else can go *******-!”
“That’s not all,” the deliverer tentatively said.
David glared at him, his frown venomous as he watched the man bow close again and mutter something in his ear. Though Pete was arguably close he wasn’t able to hear what transpired over the grating music. Feeling physically sick and heavy at having found himself in such a predicament again, in this place, under these circumstances, and begging for mercy and aid again from a man that would have killed him for sport, Pete found himself slipping back into the crowd and hopefully into anonymity as the look on Fox’s right-hand man only progressively darkened.
Then, with a vicious swing and a sound David thrust his glass into the floor. Glass exploded. Only those closest to him saw it but few reacted – in truth, in this place, no one was game to. The noise was swallowed up by the movement, by the energy, by the raw atmosphere of the angry little club crowded to capacity. But Pete stood frozen to the spot, a tall reed at the mercy of the elements swaying all around him, watching as Dave scrunched his face up into a detestable mask and began shoving his way through the crowd in the opposite direction. No one stopped him, least of all the man that had come to deliver the news. He glimpsed at Pete and the look he was given was enough to send an ominous chill up the younger man’s spine. No longer able to see David through the crowd, and no longer relishing in the taste of the alcohol as he poised his glass before his lips, Pete reluctantly sat his drink aside and quickly made his way out of the club as fast as his legs could carry him. To **** with his money, he thought, he would come back if he had to, no he wouldn’t, this was a bad idea for the billionth time, knowing regardless that even if he could somehow make it on his own without David’s help or without the aid of Jos that one way or another David and the entire Greyfoxx Bennington posse would come calling anyway to exact their pound of flesh and Pete already knew before this deal that he was way in over his head – but there simply was no going back from it. He was like a gambler with an addiction looking for that last big score, the one lucky win that would clear his debts – as hard as he had tried no one had been willing to bank on him, and he had tried to sell his films and his scripts and his dreams to anyone who would share them, but none would listen. In his desperation he had made one dumb decision and he well knew one day it would cost him, but even if he was alone, destitute, bordering on bankrupt and permanently in some form of debt, he still had his ideals. Pete’s dreams lived on. In the back of his mind he could rationalise his need to keep coming back here as much as he could his reasons for leaving. It was survival, he thought, the survival instinct, he like millions of others in this city that never slept wanted a slice of that big old apple to himself and to carve a niche for himself in bright lights, he wanted to be something better, he wanted to leave something worthwhile behind, so if he had to suffer in order to realise his legacy then he was prepared to do it – but he didn’t want to face the brutality of payback tonight nor any night if he could at all help it. That’s why when he broke through the haggard faces of those waiting to get in to
The Pit he kept moving, ascending the sidewalk and hurriedly crossing the street. With his shoulders pitched and his chin sunk low, his pace picked up, leaving the music and the noise and the revelry of **** in New York behind him. That’s when he passed the parked car and saw, out of the corner of his eye, a strange amorphus shape laying on the back seat. Pete stopped, frowned closer to the window, and peered inside.
“Holy ****,” he gasped aloud, his breath causing a flash of condensation against the glass. With his hand held to his brow he stooped close enough for the tip of his nose to smear away the mist. The tiniest bloom of red could be seen against the material beneath which Pete was almost certain lay the body of a person. He was almost certain they weren’t asleep.”
“Holy ****,” he said again. With knees weak he stood up, looked around, and scoured the street for signs that anyone had noticed. That was when he saw movement in the alley just to the side of the club. With his heart hammering in his chest the young film entrepreneur took a step back and hesitated before casting another glimpse inside the car’s drawn window. Seeing a payphone on the corner and feeling change in his pocket Pete dashed towards it, his gaze fixed on the two fingers stealthily making their way up the fire escape several floors up the building. With his heart racing and his mind going a mile a minute he jabbed a few buttons as he gripped the receiver to his ear, practically able to see his heart as it fought to make its way outside of his chest. After a few rings a voice responded in professional curtness in his ear.
“Hello? Police!” he barked, briefly averting his eyes towards the car. When he looked back to the fire escape the two men had gone, but Pete remained staring into the dark scanning for movement. As scared and elated and terrified as he was in those few moments still the young man began to smile feeling his body shaking all over at the realisation of what had happened this night and the way the fates had intervened to make him a part of it. Relaying the car and make and model and number plate as best he could in the shadows and fighting hard to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible as the club patrons continued to mill across the street, Pete’s smile grew to a grin as he let his imagination wander and relished with excitement at a new plot that he was suddenly developing.
“I think I just saw two guys breaking into this place above the club,” he said.
He had no idea that the cavalry was already well on it’s way. He was still standing there several moments later when the first sirens sounded and the greatest turning point of the young film makers career was about to happen virtually in front of his very eyes.