Chapter Fourteen
They cross over Ninth Avenue, and before them stands the five-story pink Triangle Building.
Prospective patrons are milling at the black-painted doors at the base of the Triangle, mostly men in jeans, all with generous mustaches.
Lights flash in the dark windows; music is thrumming in the sidewalk.
Cars cruise around slowly, and a line of yellow cabs stretches away to the right.
Nomi realizes she should probably explain. “We’re not going to a gay club. There’s a bunch of clubs in this building—Big Mouth is mixed gay and straight. Mainly it’s just for people who like to dance. The entry’s around the other side, on Hudson.”
She ushers Noone through the crowd, where he’s getting a lot of appreciative looks, and up to the tip of the Triangle, skirting a tall double streetlamp at the end of the block.
On the Hudson side of the building, Nomi spots the door to Big Mouth with the regulation beefy guy standing out front.
Dealers mill along the external wall, and a line of people in hybrid fashion—jean shorts and afros, leather and Day-Glo, white suits and teased hair—have gathered nearby on the curb.
The security meat is letting people in two at a time.
Nomi turns to see Noone glowering at the club entry area in a way that suggests he’s having profound misgivings.
She pulls him to face her. “Listen, just follow my lead. We go in, have a drink, look for Janice—if we talk to her, great, if she’s not there, we go home. All good?”
“This seems like a very bad thing to be doing in my current state of altered consciousness.”
“Thousands of drug users would beg to differ.” She paws in his jacket pocket, pulls out his sunglasses. “Here, put these on if you’re worried about the lights. You look great, they’re going to let you in.”
The whites of his eyes flare. “You weren’t sure I’d get in?”
“I knew I’d get in—they always let in girls.” From her own pocket, she digs out cash. “You’ll have a good time. Come on! Baby’s first nightclub! It’s gonna be great, let’s go.”
The security guard lets them both through the doors, like she thought he would.
She pays the cover charge to the girl in goth makeup behind the wire cashier’s cage; she and Noone are given their wrist stamps.
People are coming in and out. They climb four flights of wide wooden stairs, lit by a dim green bulb, before reaching a balcony corridor where they find another door, heavy with sound insulation.
Nomi pulls on the handle; behind her, Noone takes an audible breath as the full wash of heat and sound and darting lights spills over them.
The entry is black. Most of the interior of the club is black, with exposed pipes near the low ceiling.
Music is pounding—maybe not tunes as good as some place like Paradise Garage, but the beat is seductive.
Probably close to two hundred people of all races and genders are crammed into the space, dancing, spilling drinks, laughing and waving their arms, making the sprung floor bounce; Nomi is relieved she’s not a cop anymore, because this place is a health-and-safety violation nightmare.
Noone seems to be hypnotized by the maelstrom.
Even though he needed to be coaxed out of his lair to come along, Nomi’s glad he’s here.
There’s a nonzero chance they’ll see Lamonte tonight, and if they do cross paths, she wants Noone’s brand of crazy on her side.
The downside is that she did not anticipate he would look so insanely hot in Saint Laurent, holy shit. It’s fucking distracting.
She ignores the disco ball flashes and points-pushes Noone around to the cloakroom window, unzips her jacket and hands it to the guy.
Underneath, the shortest dress she owns, bought at Lee’s Mardi Gras store last year: a fluttering black slip with string straps and a thigh-skimming slashed hem.
It looks indecent but still somehow manages to cover all her midriff scars.
Black leather boy shorts in case she falls on her ass.
This outfit is perfect with her small tits, and it makes her tattoos look big, which is right for this crowd.
She’s never been much for glamming up, but she’s glad she made the effort tonight, although she keeps bumping the fake lip ring with her teeth.
Noone has been gazing around the club with his sunglasses in place. Now he looks back, pauses, removes the sunglasses to blink at her.
“What?” Nomi half yells.
“You’re . . . in a dress.” He scans her. “I think.”
Nomi rolls her eyes. “Jesus—how much medication did you take, exactly? I shouldn’t have given you the schnapps.”
Noone breaks into a disarming laugh. “Too late now.”
“Stop staring at me and look around. We’re looking for Janice—Italian, long brown hair, roughly my height. She’ll either be working the floor or behind the bar.”
“There’s two bars,” Noone points out.
Nomi squints, shields her eyes against the laser lights, wishing she could wave the dry ice smoke away. “We might need to split up.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.” Noone leans closer. “You’re purple.”
Did he just say she’s purple? God, the music is ridiculously loud. “What was that? Jesus Christ, I need a drink. Let’s go right, start with bar number one, work our way around to the couches on the far left side.”
To her surprise, Noone leads the way, carving through the crush of patrons. A minute ago, he seemed disoriented. Now, he’s straightened up, his shoulders have broadened, his jacket swings. Is he actually enjoying himself?
At the first bar, most of the bartenders have given up on wearing shirts in the club’s pulsing heat.
Noone waves a fifty-spot for attention. In the sea of Miami Vice pastels and postpunk dance wear, he looks darkly exotic in his black suit, damp hair swept off his face and those blue, sardonic eyes.
Nomi pleads for bottled water, and he adds it to the order, finesses his cuffs.
When the order arrives, he passes her the water and then turns to give her a tall glass and lean his elbow on the bar, posture relaxed, as he raises his own glass.
“Champagne?” Nomi’s never drunk champagne at a club. “What are we celebrating?”
“This.” Noone grins at the mess of bodies on the floor—the heaving gyration of harem pants, studded cuffs, mirror shades, black lace. “Mystery of Love,” by Mr. Fingers, is spinning, and people are getting into it. “It’s bizarre. You can’t see the colors, can you?”
“What?” She watches him quaff half his drink in one swallow. “Hey, slow down.”
“Why?”
“Just . . . pace yourself.”
“I like this. I didn’t think I would, but I do.” He smiles at the chaos of the club, then back at her, apparently fascinated by her dress. “This is nice too. Is it silk?”
“No idea.”
He rubs a corner of her hem between his fingers. “I think it is. It’s very soft.”
Now he’s closer, she can see his pupils are just teensy little pinpricks. “Oookay, my extremely stoned friend . . . Listen, I need you to stay focused for me. Can you do that?”
“I’m very focused. And there are no female bartenders here.”
“Fine. Then let’s do a circuit.”
She gathers her bottled water and the rest of her champagne, tugs on Noone’s sleeve to encourage him to follow—they have to push through the dancers in front of the DJ decks and mixing boards to go farther in.
Noone seems fine, but he touches her occasionally to steady himself, his large hand an ember burning between her bare shoulder blades, or over the silk at her lower back.
Eventually, they reach a point where the crowd thins out enough for Nomi to draw breath.
There are some video arcade games along the wall: A few folks are playing Pac-Man and Moon Cresta.
Farther ahead, a wall of banquette seats and tables, a handful of freestanding bar tables.
People are sitting or leaning, doing their best to flirt, or doing a bit more than that in the corners.
Other folks smoke and chat, oblivious. Laughter shrieks nearby.
Nomi spots a face she recognizes at a bar table. “Geri! Good to see you. Where’s Shannon and Rob?”
It’s not ideal for talking, but it’s not much worse than the Riverview.
She chats to Geri as Noone lights a cigarette and peruses the scene.
Hard to tell where his head is at. He seems alert, engaged, but his attention is floating all over the place, and his skin is gleaming with sweat, although that could be the humidity in the club.
Maybe a half dozen staff members in club tees wind through the throng, collecting glasses, cleaning up spills, doing minor crowd control. Janice could be on the floor, but Nomi needs to get closer.
She finishes her champagne and sets down the glass, pulls on Noone’s lapel to bring his ear to her mouth. “I’m going for a dance, to check out staff on the floor.”
“Have fun.”
She assesses his grin. “Look at me—do not leave this table, or I’ll never find you again. Stay here.”
She spends most of her dance time examining staff or casting back to ensure Noone hasn’t wandered off. At least the music is good: “Fascinated” by Company B bleeds into Touch’s “Without You,” and the heavy bass creates a sensual thump that resonates through the floor and spirals up her legs.
When the track is over, she leaves Geri and returns to Noone at the bar table, takes a long draft of water from her bottle. “It’s mad out there. I didn’t see Janice.”
“I don’t think she’s on floor detail,” he notes.
Nomi caps her water, faces the horde. “Jesus, look at it. I can’t believe you’ve gone from Guatemala to this.”
He seems more amused than appalled. “It’s like Día de Muertos. Fire and lunacy and lust all mixed together.”
“But Día de Muertos is only once a year—this party runs three nights per week. And this is just one club. The Vault and the Hellfire Club are on other floors. There are, like, five or six clubs within a block and a half of where we are now.”
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here,” he quotes.