Day 25 - Chapter 22 An end in sight

Last week was one of the busiest I’d had since starting my new job so the Nanowrimo pace slipped somewhat. Still, 36,000 odd words down, I’m confident of hitting the 50,000 word target by November 30, even if my writing buddies have pulled well ahead of me and will likely finish will well in excess of the 50,000 words expected of us. What I’m discovering is that 50,000 words will be a little less than two-thirds of Junket. It sure would be nice to be finishing the entire 1st draft come Sunday.

Anyway, here’s chapter 22 for you - it’s getting harder to post chapters without giving away important plot spoilers. This one doesn’t give away too much - the next one, chapter 23, is pivotal to the plot explaining what has made Steven the way he is and illuminating Pearse for what he is…

TWENTY-TWO

Budapest, August 5

After that text I’d received from Pearse in Chicago I’d waited for him to get back in touch. A day went past, me sitting on the bed in that dump of a motel room expecting the phone to go, or even a knock on the door.

There had been nothing. I’d texted him again with no response and his phone, predictably, went to voicemail. It seemed to be the fashionable thing to do these days – not answer your phone.

I was at an internet cafe near O’Hare, about to book a flight back to London when the invite to Hungary had come through from the Hungarian Development Agency, an organisation whose press list I’d been on for a couple of years but had so far yielded nothing. With Morgan presumably at Uncle Paul’s, I didn’t fancy heading back to the loft and I still didn’t know how safe it was anyway.

So I took the offer of a business class flight to Budapest and accommodation during the press tour which would focus on Hungary’s economic transformation five years after the country joined Europe’s increasingly less exclusive economic and political club - the European Union.

I paced up and down on the steps outside the convention centre, waiting for Pearse to show. He walked across the concourse slowly, looking around him, taking in the passing convention goers. Finally he was standing in front of me, a step higher.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

Pearse shrugged. “Fifth anniversary of Hungary getting EU status, it’s big news!”

He gestured with his hands, exaggerating.

“Bullshit,” I said sternly. “What happened in Shanghai?”

“Didn’t you get the videos?” he shot back.

He stepped down, level with me now.

“You were impressive in Shanghai. Handling those two beauties. How things turned that night…”

He started walking down the steps, I followed him.

“Look, the videos,” I said. “I don’t remember anything, I can’t even –“

“You’re saying that’s not you on the bed those two gook chicks riding you at the same time? That’s not you in the cellar, with her lying there on those sacks of rice like a -”

“Enough,” I said.

He shrugged. We reached the sidewalk, the entrance to the convention centre was choked with Skodas, taxi drivers waving at us, trying to win our business. Pearse walked through them and out onto the street. I followed.

“What the hell happened that night?” I said.

Pearse stopped abruptly and turned around.

“You came alive Steven.”

“I felt sick.”

“The next day? That’s normal the first time.”

“The first time what?” I said angrily.

A tram rumbled past just them, the concrete vibrating beneath our feet, the screeching of metal on metal.

“In Shanghai you opened a vein, you couldn’t get enough. You’re horrified at what happened, but at the same time you want more.”

He had to shout over the noise of the tram. His words hit me like a brick. I had to stifle a shudder. I felt light-headed, a montage of images from the videos blurring together, running through my head, replaying at speed.

“I’m not like you,” I managed, finally, once the noise had receded.

“Maybe you’re right Steven,” said Pearse. “After all, I’m a journalist, you’re a fraud.”

“What?” I said half-heartedly, knowing what was coming.

“Fake company, fake subscriber base, fake credentials. You fooled that lot back there, but I figured it out,” he said. There was no malice in his voice, just a cool frankness. He was enjoying this, but restraining himself.

“Is that why you tried to break into my apartment? To spy on me?”

He was determined to keep the upper hand.

“Come on Steve, you look like the kid whose mom just found a pile of Playboys underneath his bed. You think I’m going to rat you out, after what we’ve been through together?”

“We haven’t been through anything together,” I hissed.

“Well, the video tape…,” said Pearse, trailing off.

Pearse walked on and I followed him, watching the back of his suit jacket flap in the breeze. We came to a busy intersection and he went to cross, no regard for the cars nosing through. Horns blared at him. I jogged to keep up, scooting around the side of a small but fast-moving Peugeot.

“Bastard!” Someone shouted at me.

We got to the other side of the road and again Pearse stopped. We were in front of a squat, pale blue building. It was freshly-painted and well-maintained by Hungarian standards.

“Sixty Andrassey Avenue,” said Pearse. “The Nazis used it, then the Arrow Cross Party which did Himmler’s dirty work purging the Jews. Then the communists inherited it. How many people went in there and were never seen again?”

He stood squinting up at the building, its tall dark windows revealing little of what was inside.

“People let it happen Steven, again and again. Community, government, liberty? You’re fucking me up the arse.” He touched the smooth stone of the building, the former headquarters of successive secret police regimes.

“See Steven, in a world of supposed order people went into that building believing there was truth, justice, safety, between those walls. What did they get? They got nothing, because deep down we don’t really care. Society? Gimme a break. That’s why men like us Steven are so fucking rare. We understand this, you and I. We go after what we want, we take what we desire because we know it’s all bullshit. We’re all one step away from walking into that building and disappearing forever.”

We stood on the footpath in the afternoon sun, people passing by oblivious, both of us watching the pedestrians march along on their determined paths.

“Say Steven, you like art?” Pearse patted me on the shoulder.

“Come on, I know a good place.” He began walking and once again I found myself following him.