52. Rafe
52
RAFE
The bar was a seedy place in the 19th arrondissement, small and dimly lit, packed with big dudes who bracketed their drinks with their forearms like they were in prison. There were a couple groups but even they looked suspicious of each other, like no one could really be trusted, not even the guys they’d walked in with.
“In the back,” Nolan said.
I followed his gaze to a booth at the back of the place, right next to the hallway that held the bathrooms, or the WCs as they called them in Paris, because everything was fancy in fucking Paris.
I clocked the place as I followed Nolan to the back, felt the eyes of the other men on us, appraising, wondering if we were going to be the ones to light the fuse on the invisible stick of dynamite in the middle of the room.
There was an exit at the end of the hall, past the restrooms. I tucked the knowledge away in case things went south, not so much with our contact, Ghost, but with one of the other powder kegs in the bar.
“Dude,” Ghost said, rising as we approached. “Thought I’d never see your ugly faces again.”
“You must be looking in a mirror,” I said, because giving each other shit was a habit from the time we’d served together in the SEALs.
We hadn’t been in the same unit but we’d crossed paths more than once, usually in passing, one unit on its way out, one unit on its way in. Rumor was, Ghost had gotten his nickname because of his ability to disappear into thin air and reappear like magic. Some of the guys in his unit had even been convinced he was supernatural, that it was the only explanation for the way he seemed to evaporate and resurface.
Ghost laughed and shook our hands, slapping us on the shoulders. “Come on now, you know you were always the Pretty Boys.”
The nickname rankled because I’d heard ore than enough of it during my time in the SEALs. Nolan, Jude, and I had been the Pretty Boys. The other guys hadn’t meant anything by it, but it wasn’t the kind of nickname you wanted in a line of work where your reputation alone could keep you alive.
Ghost lowered himself — all 6’4” of himself — back into the booth and Nolan and I slid into the seat across from him. He was leaner than he’d been in the military, still muscular but without the beefy look brought on by mess-hall food and too much booze during R & R.
His brown beard was more tailored, and he wore a fucking jacket over his T-shirt and jeans — not an outerwear jacket, a blazer. In a dive bar.
Fucking Paris.
He gestured at the two glasses full of beer sitting across from his almost empty one. “Got you started.”
“Thanks, man.” I took a drink of the beer to be polite, but we weren’t here to shoot the shit.
“How’s Paris treating you?” Nolan asked. He’d always been better than me at making small talk even when the stakes were high.
“Can’t complain,” Ghost said. “Fine food, fine wine, fine women.”
“You’re not still with Amélie?” Nolan asked.
Ghost frowned. “The fuck you talking about? Think I can’t admire other women just because I’ve got one of my own?”
I took another drink of my beer instead of responding because the truth was I wasn’t sure I’d noticed another woman since the day Lilah had fallen through our doorway, covered in snow and gasping for breath.
“Good for you,” Nolan said, playing along.
“You here on R & R?” Ghost asked.
Nolan shook his head. “Work. We need some intel, right up your alley.”
Ghost lifted his bushy eyebrows, his brown eyes gleaming. “Oh yeah?”
“Got wind of an event that happens twice a year at an estate outside the city,” I said. “Next one is coming up.”
A steel partition seemed to come down over his eyes, and he sat back in the booth, all signs of joviality gone. “Now why the fuck would you be asking me about that fucking place?”
“You know it,” I said.
“Yeah, I fucking know it. I do my job there, take the stack of cash they hand me on the way out, and try not to think about it until they call me the next time.”
“Why?” Nolan asked. “What goes on there?”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
The words were an echo of Gage’s at the beach. Once upon a time, they would have been my words too. Why ask for trouble? Take your money, have some fun, leave the heavy stuff to someone else for a change.
We’d had enough heavy stuff in the military.
Except leaving this alone wasn’t an option. At first it had been about restitution, about doing something for Lilah to make up for what we’d done to her in high school, but now she had that fucking brand on her neck, was listed in the Imperium Fratrum catalog like fucking inventory.
And that made it personal.
“Thing is, we really need to know,” I said. “We’ll owe you one. A big one.”
It was no small thing. Favors owed and collected were important in our line of work.
Ghost swore. “I’m going to need more beer.”
He got up, went to the bar, and returned with three fresh beers a minute later. “These are on you.”
I reached for my wallet and set a stack of euros in the middle of the table.
“Like I said, I don’t know what goes on there, but it’s some freaky kink.”
Nolan frowned. “What kind of kink?”
Ghost threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just saying, the place is covered in red velvet, fucked-up paintings on the wall, the fancy-ass kind you’d see at the Sistine Chapel, except these pictures are mostly people killing each other while they’re fucking.”
“What do you do there?” I asked.
He glared at me. “What do you fucking think?”
Bingo.
“You’re doing security,” Nolan said. “For the events.”
“Nah, bro. I don’t do anything ‘for the events.’ I come in a few days before, wire the place up, check the alarms, and then I take my money and beat a hasty fucking exit.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
His face turned hard. “The fuck you say.”
“You know more than you’re saying.” Doing security meant you saw things, knew things. You pretended not to because discretion was part of the gig, but it was impossible to be all up in someone’s business — in their house or their company — and not see or hear shit.
“It’s important,” Nolan said. “Life-or-death important.”
Ghost swore again. “You’re involved in this shit, aren’t you?”
“Define ‘involved,'” Nolan said.
Ghost sighed. “You ever tell anyone I told you this shit and I will literally hunt you down and cut off your balls.”
“You can try,” I said. “But we don’t plan on telling anyone.”
Ghost turned his beer glass in his hand. “Place is owned by some ancient old fuck. Rich. Richer than rich. He hosts some kind of fucked-up sex party twice a year.”
“Fucked-up how?” Nolan asked.
“Masks, group orgies, that kind of thing.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Masks?”
“It’s all on the DL,” Ghost said. “Like ‘tell anyone and the next day your housekeeper will find you floating in your bathtub with your wrists slit’ DL.”
“The masks are to shield the identities of the guests from each other?” Nolan asked.
“Probably,” Ghost said.
“Then how do you get in?” Nolan asked. “How do they know you’re allowed in?”
Ghost leaned forward and looked around, like he was afraid he was going to be overheard. “That’s the really fucked-up part, and I want to be clear that I don’t know if any of this is true. That’s why I haven’t gone to the police.”
That was bullshit too. Ghost was protecting his stack of cash, but whatever he needed to tell himself to sleep at night.
“Sure,” Nolan said, pacifying him. “We get it.”
“So rumor is, you get in with a girl, or a… a woman.”
“Just… any woman?” Nolan asked.
Ghost shook his head. “Nah, man. A woman with a number.”
My blood ran cold. “What kind of number?”
He touched the back of his neck. “A brand. On the back of her neck.”