The Cold Contact
Despite the fact that it was a silent night, it wasn't peaceful. He was suffocating under a thick blanket of rumble from the city, the occasional whizz of a car on the street, and the frantic, pounding beating of his heart with every breath. He did not sleep.
The fatigue that had plagued the weight of his body through the shift had been traded for a wired, snapping energy, a perilous hyper-awareness that left him fixed to the ceiling, each shadow within the tiny apartment appearing to be the outline of a pricey, black suit.
Adrian Veyra's words ran around and around in his head, without the persuasive inflections, the bitter, irrefutable fact: "You are wasting the best years of your passion."
And then the silence, the threatening insistence: "I want you, completely in front of me."
He also knew, somewhere at the bottom of things, that the offer wasn't about painting versus bartending; it was about ambition versus pride. To take it was to acknowledge that his independence, his tightfisted devotion to "doing it myself," hadn't worked out.
It was to walk of one's own free will beneath the shade of a man who trafficked in forces that Kai could not name, bartering obscurity for the promise of freedom. His fragile defenses began to unravel before the enticement of the enticement.
He pulled himself from bed before the light, the air inside the apartment still heavy with the stench of stale paint and hot coffee.
He moved his temporary studio to a small corner close to the window and forced himself to look at his current work, a canvas half-finished, of a chaotic city night scene too much in conformity with his existence.
He wanted to reach for a brush, to paint, but the hand shook. The calmness of the morning, his haven, turned into judgment. He had not placed the brush on the canvas in three days, paralyzed with change
and fatigue.
He knew what his battle was stripping him of.
He walked over to the low, rickety wooden table, pulling out the drawer beneath his rumpled bills. The card was where he'd shoved it: black, shiny, with the pale-silver words that drew in and caught the light. It wasn't a card; it was weight, the entire condensation of his dilemma on one slab of plastic.
His fingers followed the cold edge. He picked it up, rotating it, observing light seep through Adrian's embossed initials. Adrian had issued an ultimatum, pleading away from himself as magnanimity: call, or always be reminded that he wasn't tough enough to take his own life.
As the sun slowly crept around the buildings, casting dark striations on his floor, a hard, insistent rapping jolted his apartment door.
"Open up, it's me, Kai!"
It was Mara.
Kai swore under his breath, dumping the card on the drawer. He mussed the perpetually disheveled hair with a hand and shrugged into a thick sweatshirt, trying to hide the sleepless worried look chiseled into the face.
He opened the door to find Mara there, dressed in her practical layers as usual, her forehead creased with open concern. In her hand she was carrying a paper bag holding two steaming cups of coffee.
"You look like hell," she said, moving past him into the dark apartment without bothering to seek his permission. She set the coffees on the table. "You left your phone on silent. I came over here because I had to come and check if you hadn't keeled over from lack of sleep."
Kai stood with the closed door at his back. "Good, Mara. I was at work."
"No," she replied, her voice dipping to a firm, low timbre. She stood up, her eyes passing over his sleep-deprived eyes and tension in his shoulders. "You're not okay.
You're revved. You're all wound up on something, and it's not four hours' worth of rest. What happened at the club? Did your boss bother you?"
His chest constricted. Mara always made the best mirror for him, showing him things he'd rather not see. She understood the difference between this familiar tension and this dangerous, heightened state of agitation.
"Nothing happened," he overstated, hands safely deep in sweatshirt pockets. "It was a close night. The usual bunch."
She didn't believe him. She stepped towards the Corner Studio, her fingertips following the rim of the gigantic canvas. "You haven't painted. Not since Sunday. That isn't your process, Kai. You paint through your fingers when you're under pressure until they bleed. The silence. It tells me something is bigger than the canvas."
"It doesn't matter, kana. Drop it now."
She was standing tall to him, her face stern. "Listen, I know where that place is. It is crawling with predators on the lookout for vulnerability. I don't need the money. You leave tonight. I will pay your rent for four weeks, we can negotiate the tuition later. You will find another job somewhere else, somewhere with windows and sunlight."
Her conviction, her angry defensiveness, was the final weight on the scales. If he quit now, he'd be safe, but he'd also be retreating once and for all. He'd be admitting that Adrian Veyra and everything Adrian represented were too much for him even to attempt to overcome. His ambition would be dampened, gagged by good intentions.
He pushed back from the door, eyes flashing with intent that both of them were startled. "No," he growled, breaking into the silence. "I'm not quitting. I'm not backing out on this."
Mara stared at him, surprised. "From where? Some dreadful serving position?"
"No. From having to." Kai explained, the truth searing with a flavor of ash. "I'm not going back to earning pennies, waiting around and letting years go by to try to make a better life. If there's an offer of better, safer work paying me what I'm worth, then I'm taking it. I don't require your pity, Mara, or your cash."
Mara's lips fell open. She saw the defiance of a rebel in his eyes, the raw audacity. "What do you mean? What proposition?"
He could no longer conceal it from her. He stood, went back to the table, pushed the drawer open on it, and drew out the black, smooth card. He laid it down gingerly on the weathered wood of the table, making the silver letters shine.
Mara paced slowly, reading the card. She read Adrian Veyra and paled immediately, the fears turning to genuine horror.
"Adrian Veyra," she breathed, the name weighed with incredulity. "You're saying Adrian Veyra? The man who holds half the financial district and gets rid of people the way other corporate men get rid of chessmen? Kai, this is no job offer.
This is a trap."
"It's an escape," Kai snapped, grabbing one of the chilled coffee mugs, craving the distraction of physical contact. "He offered solo work. Fewer hours, higher pay. Enough to cover my fees and have a respectable studio."
Mara shoved the coffee out of the way. She took the card, her hand quivering. "You don't accept money from men like this, Kai. Not when men look at you like this. Not when men recall your name without being told. This is not right. Get rid of it. Now."
She attempted to seize the card, but Kai was faster, closing his hand around her wrist with a sudden, unfamiliar grip, desperation cutting short the normal softness that was his.
"STOP!" Kai ordered. He removed the card from her. "Don't even consider it. I decide what risk I can tolerate. He informs me the offer is for tonight. I need to call tonight. I do not, I go back behind that desk tonight, and I dry up a little bit more with every shift."
She saw the raw, blinding intensity in his eyes and finally, with fear, surrendered the battle. She let go of her hand, panting. "All right. Then you go inform him that you are interested in working for him, and you tell him that you are interested in it on a contract, in writing, with a clear definition of duties, and you meet him somewhere in public. You don't go anywhere alone."
Kai nodded, appreciative of her shielded haven, though he was about to be leaving it. "Public place. Contact. Got it."
Mara stepped back, rapidly sitting down at the foot of his bed, her eyes fixed on him with the crazed, wordless despair of one seeing an open door to a friend, knowing that she could not prevent him from leaving.
He strolled over to the old, cracked rotary phone on the kitchen counter. He picked up the card once more. He was calm, but the ache in his head created the silence in the apartment as oppressive as a scream. He forced the fingers to dial the number, slow and careful, to memorize it.
It rang twice, then someone answered.
"Ummmm?"
The voice belonged to a stranger's professional, abrupt, utterly uncolored voice.
"I want to talk to Adrian Veyra. Tell him. Tell him it's Kai. Regarding the offer."
There was silence on the line, a lag that stretched time. Kai listened to a series of distant, clicking sounds, the kind that a person made when they typed a precise sentence.
Then the receiver clicked once more, and the static background dissolved, to be replaced by the low, comforting voice that counted.
"You called," he told Adrian. Not joy, or rapture. A flat statement, delivered in the cold satisfaction of a man whose prophecy was realized.
He clutched the phone, knuckles turning white. "Yes. I do private work. But I require a contract, with defined responsibilities. And I must negotiate it in a public, neutral setting."
Adrian let out a brief, half-audible breath beyond the line. "Already negotiating. Excellent." Genuine streak of approval, the first, unmistakable sign that
His defiance was the issue, and not the hindrance. "Your terms are acceptable, though unoriginal. The times for open, impartial places have passed, I fear. To remain in my service, you will have to learn the importance of discretion now."
Kai's skin chilled with a shiver. "No. That wasn't the bargain."
"The agreement was that you call," Adrian amended smoothly, the control back in his voice, as hard as tempered steel. "The terms are that you travel to me where I direct.".
Tomorrow, 10. Executive Offices, 45th floor, Veyra Tower. The address will be texted to your phone in a minute. You will come alone and you will come on time. Your first mission is simply to arrive.
Adrian sat, letting the weight of the seat for his throne empire stabilize. "Welcome, Kai. Don't be late."
And with a final, resounding click, the circuit died.
Slowly, Kai set the receiver back, his arm hanging. Mara remained leaning against the bed, her eyes wide and shocked staring at him. The heavy silence to come bore consequences. Kai had not won an award; he'd just walked out through the gate.
He no longer ran away from Adrian Veyra; now, he ran to him. A minute after, his battered, old cellphone on the counter rang with one mysterious text message: an address and a time, marking his utter defeat. Veyra Tower. 45th Floor. 10:00 AM.
Kai gazed at the card that remained sitting on the counter. The paper which never managed to slip from his fingers now felt less an ounce of freedom than a duty. He'd simply replaced exhaustion with a fairly more dangerous state of wakefulness.
To Be Continued