Chapter 43 All the Lonely People #2
Evan tried to imagine a legal action against RedLite with their Luxembourg holding company, endless phantom corps, and legion lawyers.
Building a case, pulling warrants, motions and filings, summonses and court delays.
It would take forever. And during that forever, Anca Dumitrescu would be uploaded anew, raped again and again over the course of perennial viewings.
“You think that works?” Evan said. “For people without money, resources, connections—you see them having a fair shot?”
“I don’t see the fair shot, Evan. I make it. I am it.” Mia’s pique showed in the flush coming up in her cheeks, muting those faint freckles. “In fact, that’s the only way it works. Anything else? Is a threat to that system.”
Her reaction seemed pointed, aimed directly at him.
“I offended you,” he observed.
“No,” she said, though he knew he had. “I just don’t have the luxury of ignoring all the rules. Like some people.”
“Allegedly,” he said.
Her nostrils flared. “Allegedly,” she conceded.
The band reemerged to scattered applause, their wigs now shaggy. John shaded his eyes, surveyed the spotty attendance with a hammy squint. “Glad to be back out among all you fine … dozens of people. From the looks of it, we’re already on a first-name basis with everyone here.”
Evan leaned in, spoke softly to Mia. “The rules,” he said, “sometimes take too long.”
“We can’t have people bombing around outside the law. Above all this.”
“Maybe the people who—theoretically—do that, maybe they can work with you.”
“What?” Mia cocked her head, trying to hear him over the nah nah nah nahs from “Hey Jude.” Leaning closer, she shouted into his ear. “Work with me? What are you talking about?”
“Bring certain situations to a head. Drag deviants out from the shadows. And leave them in the light.”
“I’m a sworn officer of the State of California.” She was yelling now over the music but also just yelling. “I took an oath to faithfully perform my duties and uphold the Constitution and the laws of this state. I will neither engage with illicit activities nor coordinate with criminals.”
“A similar arrangement might have been struck already with someone,” Evan said. “She’s federal.”
“Are you sleeping with her?” A flare of jealousy made Mia suddenly look much younger. Her eyes blazed, dark brown flecked with gold. There was so much to her, depth and fire.
He said, “No.”
“Don’t. Whatever you’re playing at is complicated enough.”
He eased back into his chair. The meaty scent wafting from the mass-produced lemon caper chicken was making him nauseated.
One table over, a blond girl had dandruff flakes shot through her cornrows.
The band was up there mustering their damndest, pushing everything they had through a foggy haze of mediocrity.
The biker king had grabbed the arm of one of his women, yanking her down to scold her.
The stylish kid with the tricky moves had made it into the dance circle of young women but they broke apart and re-formed, expelling him once more to the periphery.
The wash light caught him in the face, highlighting pitted acne scars along his jawline.
No one was dancing with the older gentleman anymore; he sat alone at a cocktail table gazing disconsolately toward the stage, pulling on a longneck bottle and tapping a cowboy boot.
It was all … What was it? It was sad. So real and so sad. Painful even, the kind of pain Evan couldn’t source, the kind of pain that suffused his body and his thoughts, soaking right into him.
“What?” Mia was slanting toward him, shoulders offset. He’d zoned out.
The band wailed off-key about all the lonely people. The asparagus leaked a faint smell of sewage. Dry mouth. He swallowed.
“I can’t”—his throat gummed up; he cleared it—“manage this. You’re right. I don’t know how … I can’t…”
Where doooo they all belong?
The guy with the do-rag pulled at a vape pen, the pouches around his eyes pronounced.
Ringo rat-a-tat-tatted, hands disconnected from the rest of him, head wagging along with the beat, the life force draining out of him.
George tried to catch his drummer’s eye and give him a scowl of a rebuke.
The young married couple were back at their table, having an argument.
She was crying and shaking her phone at him and he had his hands out wide, shoulders hoisted in an enduring shrug.
Evan looked away, down, the boiled potatoes on his plate cracked like eggs. His gorge lifted.
Forcing the words out: “… feel all this.”
Mia’s stare was unremitting. “I can. I do. This is where I have to exist. I can’t just fly above it, twisting arms and breaking legs and deciding that I’m better than this. There’s such arrogance in that.”
Evan felt the shields rise, the portcullis drop. He mentally ran the charted routes to the exits. Checked the stage platforms above for the glint of a scope, the billowing curtain at stage left for a protruding suppressor. “Yes, ma’am.”
Mia pulled her head back as if slapped. “‘Yes, ma’am’?”
She’d taken him here, out of his element, to prove a point. And she’d proven it. She wasn’t interested in anything else from him. He had only one mode left: respond respectfully and exfil. So: Yes, ma’am.
He stood and started out. Three steps away, he halted. His body temperature, up two to three degrees. Emotion tumbled in his chest. He steadied his breathing, walked back to Mia.
Her eyebrows were lifted in surprise, her expression deciding between dismay and indignation.
He leaned close so his voice could be heard over the music.
“Arrogant, maybe,” he said. “Also? I rappelled down nine stories, swung through your window, and took down two men intent on harming you and your son. And when Peter was taken I delivered him back into your arms. And you walked across the dead bodies I left so you could get to him.”
His gaze was level, dead-calm, and not one ounce aggressive.
Her eyes stabbed him. Her face was enflamed, lit like a great cat, her high cheekbones seemingly higher.
She opened her mouth to retort.
Closed it.
Nodded once, crisply.
She said, “I understand.”
He walked out.