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On the Level

E-BookEPUB0 - No protectionE-Book
Englisch
Cinnamon Presserschienen am25.09.2022
With bugs in her skin and noise in her head, Riz is real and the rest are fake. What matters to her: Mark Rothko's art. So despite the horror of family time, it's a fine thing that a major Rothko show coincides with the global conference where her so-called Dad is such a big wheel. Holed up with VIPs at a heavily guarded hotel, Riz collides with a sharp-dressed assassin she calls The Man. As she plunges into a world of covert deals and power plays, Riz is befriended and betrayed by Russian and Syrian agents. And emotionally bruised by the leader of a violent anti-capitalist group in town to protest the conference. Told in Riz's breathless, insistent voice, the edgy friendship between the isolated teen and the travelling killer drives a thrill-ride through riot-torn London.

Mark Wagstaff's work has appeared in journals and anthologies in the US and UK. He won the 39th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest with off-kilter romcom Attack of the Lonely Hearts published by Anvil Press. Mark's second short story collection Burn Lines was published by InkTears.mehr
Verfügbare Formate
TaschenbuchKartoniert, Paperback
EUR17,00
E-BookEPUB0 - No protectionE-Book
EUR6,49

Produkt

KlappentextWith bugs in her skin and noise in her head, Riz is real and the rest are fake. What matters to her: Mark Rothko's art. So despite the horror of family time, it's a fine thing that a major Rothko show coincides with the global conference where her so-called Dad is such a big wheel. Holed up with VIPs at a heavily guarded hotel, Riz collides with a sharp-dressed assassin she calls The Man. As she plunges into a world of covert deals and power plays, Riz is befriended and betrayed by Russian and Syrian agents. And emotionally bruised by the leader of a violent anti-capitalist group in town to protest the conference. Told in Riz's breathless, insistent voice, the edgy friendship between the isolated teen and the travelling killer drives a thrill-ride through riot-torn London.

Mark Wagstaff's work has appeared in journals and anthologies in the US and UK. He won the 39th Annual 3-Day Novel Contest with off-kilter romcom Attack of the Lonely Hearts published by Anvil Press. Mark's second short story collection Burn Lines was published by InkTears.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781788649537
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format Hinweis0 - No protection
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2022
Erscheinungsdatum25.09.2022
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse2003 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.15247482
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe


2




Through a ton of motels where I learned or didn´t learn Spanish, when vanilla-scented camareras asked how the world was treating me, I thought they meant I looked as crap from lack of sleep as I did that morning. As daylight dirtied the blinds, the grey slab building across the street was busy. Barriers blocked the road, dodged-around by presented-looking women in serious suits. Everyone accessorised with slab laminates. Every guy a cop.

I checked the hall door was super-locked, dragged an armchair against the charm school entrance, and caught a shower. Like always with hotels, the shower ran high Arctic one second, uptown Zambesi the next. Jinking the knobs made zero difference, the whole thing tediously hateful. 

Dumb as I am, I got very aware of my rawness, just tiles and plaster from the bathroom next door. Stupid, I felt shy. Through steam that softened the light into some gothic, misty morning, the water inside of the shower screen hung vivid as sunburnt ice. Those moments-regular to me-when I get overtaken by the massiveness of how things exist. When the way things exist gets under my skin and flays me. Sure gets distracting when I´m gunning my Harley down a wet highway. I get bewildered, I guess, by cracks across walls, how trees twist, the pathways of cuts in my skin. I get seasick from patterns of leaves. I get shipwrecked from Rothko.

Takes a while, after those moments, to come back level. When the shower burnt my flesh and cold from the air con hit, flung from fire to ice, I towelled and dressed, the neat cottons and linens I´d bought for the city stinging my skin.

Fixing my face, I got that sound again: his phone next door. I find this hard to put over without sounding hippy, but something to how his phone rang made me think these calls were more significant, somehow. I could no more imagine him take a courtesy call than watch game shows.

A different slab guy furnished the hall, though with the same troubled tailoring. Always, I´m uneasy with random heavies. The whole city muscled-up for the conference-I knew Dad´s job, he rolled with the grownups. That didn´t explain the guy stood watch in my hall. Behind his shades and waxy skin, seemed to me he was worked by wires. That made a brick of lead in my gut as I went downstairs. 

From the lift I tumbled into a tide of linen and handheld devices. Everyone so perky and focused, I wanted outsider cool but just felt uninvited. 

This goofball guarding the restaurant hassled me for ID. Name and room number.´

What?´

He looked me down. To prove you´re a guest.´

I have a suite. Riz Montgomery.´ 

So he checks his rinky list. I have an Amelia Montgomery.´ 

Take a razor to my heart. That is so much a typo. I´d fire the arse of who did that.´

Weirdly, the oaf seemed puzzled. Are you waiting for your party, Miss Montgomery?´

Yeah, sure, I want Mum and Dad and the twinklets of Satan to make my misery complete.´

I´d only just soiled the tablecloth with my midnight velvet nails when this sweet-chocolaty waitress tells me they cook eggs to order. I cannot begin the horror of any cooked breakfast. No, just coffee and toast and Wackios.´ Tell you, Wackios make a fine meal, straight from the pack. 

She gave me this practiced look. If you prefer cereal there´s a serve-yourself counter.´

Bottling my fear of the bright, chattering crowd, I went to the counter but found just muesli and crap. The toast she brought was cold. By the feel of it, it was cold the day before too. A slug of coffee and I´m making to walk, when I clock the tall woman I´d seen before-wearing the same or another sandy suit-her hands describing shapes with agile anger to a crew of dodgeball-headed cops. These officers-meaty guys with years on the street, I guess-looked suitably thrilled to have a strong, ethnic woman bossing them round. 

Now that woman did not have a laminate. She didn´t need one. The starch of her shirt and razor creases gave her whole ID. She broke off talking to intercept me. Hello. Amelia, isn´t it? I´m Detective Chief Inspector Salwa Abaid. I´m security command for the hotel.´

I was just trying to leave against the tide of starving delegates, I never thought I´d get recognised. How did she recognise me? Oh yes?´ I said, like an idiot. 

A flicker across her cheekbones hinted she made some decision about me. We won´t inconvenience you.´ A lie from any cop. Just the situation, you understand.´

Yeah, I mainlined rolling news. The loan fund guy? I heard he´s not popular.´

There are always challenges.´ Her smile so many ways worse than her scowl. Be assured, though. We have security arrangements for immediate family members of vital staff.´

With the laminate crowd making whoopee around us, a tiny, fatal delay crept between what she said and me getting what she said. Already, she turned away, giving her men instructions.

Excuse me.´

Her look said we were done.

What does that mean, family members?´

At school I was used to nasty, dried up women telling me I should consider the words just said. Usually while girls around me were laughing. Detective Chief Inspector Salwa Abaid was no way dried up: very fine bones, fine skin, powerful-guess I´m meant to say a strong role model. Her date palm eyes had exactly the look I knew from school. We, the police, the security services, we understand it´s not sufficient just to protect key personnel. For key personnel to function, they have to know their families are safe. We´ve got your back.´

I´d get a good laugh from the notion my family wanted me protected. What Abaid meant was wholly more disturbing. You have a file on me?´

She stroked down her jacket where she kept her gun. If you have concerns the liaison team are here to assist.´

By the time Mum messaged to say they started breakfast, I´d hit the street.

Grazed-looking guys in brown Harringtons, hoisting shoulder cameras, filmed gleaming women saying the same things over and over. You could only walk the hotel side of the street, single-file behind concrete barriers. Knightsbridge at the corner, that well-heeled, overplayed avenue ablaze with sunlight. You can´t do crisis without retail. High end traffic jammed both ways, and blondes-a city stacked with blondes. Girls every colour, all blonde. 

I already checked which Tube to get and once I made it onto that cramped cylinder of dirty metal, I had a whole city-girl thing going on. A clear shot of myself as a young woman riding the train, rushing beneath a landscape wholly high-rise. Some cool place I was part of: a chick with a mouthful of truth, intelligent eyes, the city mapped to her synapse. Not scared, not makeshift-the girl upstairs whose air con breaks, so she climbs in through your window. 

Each station brought a compelling flow of Black girls, pumped little chicas among mad old fools stained from years of glum weather. Tidy Arab women in serious jackets, dudes busting baggies and skateboards, looking straight at me so I looked away. Families that weren´t my problem, struggling luggage. A poised older woman, her guide dog comfortably sprawled against the seats. So naïve, I actually wondered how she got her makeup so perfect. 

So I should have felt cool-the roach in the jelly being I couldn´t enjoy it. For all I felt strong in my head right then, solo and independent, each time I saw someone a bit off someway, I thought how many friends Detective Abaid must have, the embrace of security freezing my spine. Would they follow me? Did they bug my clothes? I checked my pockets, scratched the seams. What if they bugged my lingerie? My secrets, all laid open. Maybe they´d always been watching, right since I was a kid. I slumped against the door, overwhelmed with anxiety and, at the next station, fell backwards off the train.

Walking up from Charing Cross, even I couldn´t miss the National, tricked up with almighty banners of Purple Brown 1957, the colour-render on tent canvas not exactly authentic. Willy-waving by the curators, for getting the Rothko gig ahead of Tate Modern. Though really it was the sponsors-some US bank squeezing the culture nipple-that wanted iconic Trafalgar Square, not a steam shed south of the river.

None of which meant spit to the miniskirt leggings and tie-dye flowing up to the door: art school chicks, nursing cartridge pads my x-ray eyes confirmed as portfolio work for glamourous lives under construction.

Glad at least of strong lashes and talked-up cheeks, defiantly freckled, I lined for the paydesk with the amateur beards and gents of a single nature. At least the crowd wasn´t touristy, none of that poor muscle tone you get with Monet or Renoir. I faced the elderly paydesk jockey.

Do you pay student rate?´

Er, yeah.´

Crabby old fingers pinched the air. Your student ID, please.´ 

That whole scene of ID remains, to this day, unexplored to me. Clearly I was a student, I got a tattoo-not that I planned on showing her that. So I played along, hunting my pockets till I got told to pony  or leave. I would have wished her herpes, but her looks and attitude guaranteed immunity.

Next came examination by gruff types with the x-ray thing. I got to empty my pockets?´

And unclip your belt.´ 

My belt?´

This...
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