Free The City Under the Skin by Geoff Nicholson Page B

At the same time he didn’t want to destroy the feeling of connection he had with Marilyn, and he certainly didn’t want her to think he was a wimp.
    â€œLook, Zak,” Marilyn said, “you could help me on this. You know about maps, you know parts of the city that I don’t. I could really use your help.”
    The idea of being a help to Marilyn, even the idea of being “used” by her, did have a certain appeal.
    â€œI like to help.”
    The muscle-bound keyboard player was tinkling some unexpectedly conventional cocktail piano, a little Sinatra, and he was even singing, in a surprisingly sweet, light baritone. The lyrics insisted that love is the tender trap, and Zak was happy enough with that sentiment, but the line that really spoke to him was the one about hurrying to a spot that’s just a dot on the map. Most places are a dot on some map or other; some dots are bigger than others, and sometimes the size of the dot bears no relation to the importance of the place. In any case, there are very few you really need to hurry to. He wondered if the universe was sending him a message, and if so, what it said. He was pretty sure the sensible thing to do was go home and stay out of trouble. And after a couple more drinks he did go home, alone. No surprise there; and besides, Marilyn said she had to get up early the next morning. She had to see a woman about a tattoo.

 
    13. SUIT
    Billy Moore’s parking lot, early morning, the air pigeon-gray with haze, the lot empty except for his two trailers. There were no cars there because a dump truck was currently depositing a load of white one-inch pea gravel at the lot’s center and a small gang of day laborers were waiting with shovels and rakes. Billy Moore stood in the street watching, next to his Cadillac, with his daughter beside him: a man in a leather jacket, a girl in a camouflage hoodie and graffiti-patterned sneakers. Quite the family group, he thought. Billy Moore: landowner, entrepreneur, patriarch. Carla Moore: heiress.
    â€œHow’s it going, Sanjay?” Billy shouted to a young man in a short-sleeved pink shirt with a crimson bow tie, black suit pants, shoes glossy as a freshly buffed eggplant, who was supervising the laborers and largely being ignored by them. Sanjay raised two overoptimistic thumbs.
    â€œWho’s Sanjay?” Carla asked.
    â€œHe’s my employee,” Billy said, pleased though not yet comfortable with the term. “The world’s best-dressed parking attendant. He’s from one of those loser countries that had to change its name, used to be a student back home, now he’s here trying to better himself, paying his way through college. Eventually I’ll get him a little hut with a chair and a baseball bat in case of trouble. He’ll collect the money, keep an eye on the cars, and he can read his textbooks or whatever when things get quiet.”
    â€œLike all great plans it’s really simple,” said Carla.
    â€œYou know, sarcasm is really unattractive in a twelve-year-old.”
    â€œI don’t do it to be attractive.”
    A part of Billy was still fretting gently about having hit the guy and the girl at the map store. It had been necessary, sure, but it hardly fell within the boundaries of keeping out of trouble, let alone going straight. And behind that, there was a more shapeless kind of fretting about what Wrobleski was going to do with Genevieve and maybe Laurel, and the other women he might be told to haul in. It was better to be concerned with something practical and uncomplicated: the graveling of a parking lot.
    â€œYou really think you’re going to make a fortune in the parking business?” Carla asked.
    â€œYes and no.”
    â€œThen why?”
    â€œLet me explain,” said Billy, thinking it was no bad thing for a man to explain himself to his daughter. “Look, I know this isn’t the most desirable bit of land in the world.