In the Club

by Antonio Pagliarulo

  “It was a really smart move on Julian’s part,” Park said. “I mean, when you think about it. Delivering that blow to Damien’s head with Concetta’s stiletto turned his whole crime into something else. He probably figured the cause of death would be obvious, and it was—initially. Everyone points a finger at Concetta.”

  “But then at some point in the middle of all this, Julian would have had to jump into the DJ booth and knock the two DJs out and pop in the Requiem, which he’d planned on doing anyway,” Madison reminded them. “It certainly wasn’t on the original play list. Anyway, I guess he’ll tell us once we confront him. They always do.”

  “Which, by the way, we’re going to do very casually.” Park pointed at Madison and Lex. “Commencement is going on, the prime minister is at the school, and the school doesn’t need any more bad publicity. So we’re just going to find Julian, take him out into the hall, try to get him to surrender peacefully. There’ll be cops everywhere, so we really don’t have to worry.”

  Lex shot a glance at Madison. “What if he doesn’t surrender peacefully? I mean, what if he goes ballistic and starts to attack us? How do we keep our cool? How do we not create any more scenes?”

  “If he starts attacking us,” Park said simply, “we just start screaming. Screw the damn plan.” She sighed and stared out the window. She blinked several times. “Donnie? Am I seeing things, or are you going the wrong way?”

  “Major detour,” he called back from the front seat. “A bunch of streets are closed. I had to go to First and drive all the way back up. Now we’ll start heading south again. Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Park leaned back in the seat, but she didn’t close her eyes. She was exhausted and on edge. She kept her gaze trained on the street, on the rows of buildings and restaurants and stores.

  Horns blared everywhere as the traffic came to a halt.

  “Oh, man,” Lex said, irritated. “It’s freakin’ gridlock! We’re going to be so late.”

  Madison sighed. “It’ll move soon.”

  Park continued scanning the street. She wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when her eyes stopped on one of the building addresses.

  119 East Ninety-first Street.

  She sat up. Why did the address ring a bell? She stared at the building, half hoping the limo would move. But it didn’t. The cacophony of traffic continued.

  And then it hit her.

  Damien’s little black book.

  Her lips parting, she plunged an arm into her purse and pulled out the little black book. That was it. She had seen the address—119 East Ninety-first Street—last night while flipping through the book. In fact, the address had been Damien’s last entry. She flipped to the page and found it.

  There. Right there.

  “Donnie, pull over,” Park said.

  “Why?” Madison asked.

  Park held up the little black book. She pointed to the squat, ugly building directly beyond the windows of the limo. “That’s the address Damien wrote down. The one Lex thought was one of his parents’ apartments.”

  “That ugly thing?” Lex leaned over and stared out the window. “That’s impossible. English royalty wouldn’t live in a dump like that.”

  “It is unattractive,” Madison said. “But that’s probably because it’s a rent-controlled building.”

  Four stories high, the front steps and siding all riddled with cracks, the apartment building looked as though it hadn’t undergone maintenance in a hundred years.

  Donnie pulled the limo into a wide spot directly in front of a fire hydrant.

  Park popped open the door.

  “Wait.” Madison grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got a hunch,” Park said. “This may explain everything. Both of you, come on.”

  Lex sighed, annoyed. “Donnie, if we’re not back in ten minutes, please come and get us.”

  “Okay.”

  They dashed up the front steps of the building. The entrance was locked. Park looked at the apartment listings; there were five in all, and only one of the slots, apartment 2B, was missing a surname. She jammed her fingers against all the bells.

  “What are you doing?” Madison asked.

  Park turned to face her. “Let’s just hope someone’s expecting company so that we can get inside. I have a feeling—”

  The door buzzed.

  “Oh!” Park threw herself against it and stepped into the dingy hallway.

  “Ewww, it stinks in here,” Lex said.

  “And practically none of the lights work.” Madison was looking at the mold-infested ceiling. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that there isn’t a doorman.”

  The hallway led directly to a staircase on the left; on the right was an apartment door with a welcome mat in front. Remembering the empty name slot, Park raced up the stairs to the second floor. Apartment 2B was just off the landing. She paused when she got to the door.

  “Oh God,” Lex said nervously. “I think I figured it out too.”

  “Well, it would be nice if someone explained it to me.” Madison slammed her purse against the staircase railing.

  Park held her breath and banged on the door. She put her finger to her lips, instructing Madison and Lex to stay quiet.

  A minute passed in silence.

  Park laced her fingers around the knob; it didn’t budge. She gestured her head at Lex. “Open the magic purse. I need a screwdriver. And something heavy.”

  “I don’t know if I have that,” Lex said. She started shuffling through the purse, handing Madison her makeup bag, her sunglasses case, her two emergency silk scarves, and a handful of pens. “Okay. Here’s something heavy.”

  Park smiled as Lex handed her a big steel paperweight with the Hamilton Holdings, Inc., insignia emblazoned on the front. The damn thing had to weigh four pounds, and it was solid.

  “My God,” Madison gasped. “You have more shit in that purse than a sewer! First thing tonight, you’re going to clean it out. You’re going to totally mess up your back.”

  Lex was still straining to sift her way down to the bottom of the purse. When she did, she yanked out her hand and revealed a small pair of pliers.

  Park stepped back and leveled the paperweight in her right hand. Then she slammed it against the little circular space directly above the knob.

  The door shook.

  She repeated the process several more times until a chunk of the old wood came splintering off.

  “Breaking and entering twice in one weekend is not smart,” Madison snapped. “We’re going to get busted.”

  Park ignored those words. A sheen of sweat had developed along her neck and she was almost out of breath. She jammed the paperweight against the space of the doorknob one last time, then jumped back when it gave way.

  She stood with her arms outstretched in a defensive position. But in this case, she was defending Madison and Lex from a potential blast. None came. Everything was silent around them.

  Handing the paperweight back to Lex, she nudged the door open with her toe.

  A narrow foyer came into view.

  Park inched her way inside, moving with her back to the wall. “Julian?” she called out, knowing she wouldn’t get a reply.

  Madison and Lex tiptoed inside the apartment.

  Just beyond the foyer was a big square room, a studio with three small windows and dingy patches of light. There was a tattered couch, two chairs, and a long large desk against the far wall. The air smelled sulfurous and musty.

  Park froze when she spotted the dozens of test tubes and chemical tray holders, the books on explosives, the portable burners, and two jequirity plants. There was a spatter of something powdery on the floor. She said, “Nobody move.”

  Lex froze beside her.

  Madison, still staring around the apartment, was shaking her head. “So this is it,” she whispered. “This is the clandestine lab where Julian operates.”

  “And there…” Park gulped and pointe
d. “Right there on the table is what looks like a completed stick of dynamite.”

  “What?” Madison cupped a hand to her mouth. The fear in her eyes was palpable.

  “Uh, Park?” Lex spoke quietly. “Didn’t you say that nitroglycerin is shock sensitive?”

  “Yes, you have to be very careful when transporting it.”

  “Or what?” Madison asked.

  “Or it’ll just blow up. The slightest movement could set it off.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, what are we supposed to do? Just stand here until the police arrive?” Madison snapped. She had backed herself up against the wall closest to the sealed window; leaning into it, she turned sideways, cowering, lifting her arms up over her head.

  Park nodded. She took a deep breath, then took a step toward the desk. She felt like she was standing in the laboratory where Frankenstein’s monster had been fused together, or in one of the classrooms at Hogwarts. But this was no fantasy. She stared down at the small open cardboard boxes and the pieces of paper strewn across the floor, trying to imagine the extent of danger that this small, nondescript studio apartment posed.

  “Look at the corner of the desk,” Lex said. “It’s pieces of tinfoil wrapped around a fuse.”

  Park tried to control the trembling in her arms and legs. “Don’t go near that,” she warned. She patted the drops of sweat from her forehead. She was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe.

  “Park?” Lex whispered.

  “I’m okay.” Park looked at Madison, still backed against the wall, and blinked. And blinked again. And again. As if trying to make sense of what she was seeing. For a moment, the fearful expression on her face disappeared and was replaced by one of astonishment. “Madison,” she said quietly, “you’re…glittering.”

  “What?” Madison pressed herself deeper against the wall. Then she looked down at her clothes and gasped. The bottom of her shirt was glittering. The tips of her shoes were glittering. And there, in the ends of her hair, was a sparkle that caught the slats of light burning in through the shaded window.

  Flecks of glitter, as bright as diamonds. Twinkling like stars on a moonless night.

  “Holy shit,” Lex said.

  Gasping a second time, Madison stepped away from the wall and ran her hands down the side of her shirt. “It’s all over me,” she said. “Even on my shoulders. What the hell is it? I didn’t touch anything.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, Park went to Madison’s side and inspected the back of her blouse. A rainbow of glitter arced over the delicate fabric. Park turned and stared at the bare wall: it was a yellowish shade, the paint peeling and crumbling, tiny chips falling to the floor. She touched her hand to cold plaster, then inspected her palm.

  It was glittering.

  “It’s the paint,” she said. “These walls have glitter paint on them. Look.” She held up her hand. “It’s probably all over the place because the walls are so old. You so much as brush up against them and the glitter falls out with the paint chips.”

  A long line of light suddenly cut through the shadowy space. Lex had pulled down on one of the shades, and now she was inching it up over the window slowly, not wanting to disturb the air in the room. The light spread across the walls. The air churned with dust motes and tiny, shiny specks. The glitter was etched into the walls, an ingredient of the paint that had probably been white once upon a time, back when this apartment served as an actual living space and not a musty clandestine laboratory.

  “You’re right,” Lex said, her eyes widening. “It’s everywhere.” She glanced at her own palms and nodded when she saw the glittery specks on her fingertips. “I pulled up the shade, and now I’m glittering too.”

  “And I guess if you spend a lot of time here, you kind of become immune to it,” Madison suggested. “I mean, the paint on these walls is saturated with glitter, but if Park hadn’t mentioned it, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it myself.”

  “And Julian obviously didn’t notice it either.” Park backed away from the window. “It’s in the air. We’re, like, breathing it in.”

  “We’re also wasting time,” Lex snapped. “Come on—we either look around or we split. Personally, I feel like splitting. This place is creepy.”

  “I’m going to look through that pile of papers,” Madison said, making the decision for them as she pointed to the messy stack beside the couch. “Lex, see what you can find.”

  Park took several more steps toward the table. As it came fully into view, she saw the other test tubes and bottles of chemicals, the crystallized hairpins that had been used to measure a particular mixture’s detonation capacity. She was both transfixed and horrified. She would have reached out and grabbed for one of the books, but Lex’s voice broke through the silence.

  “We were wrong.”

  Park spun around quickly. “What?”

  Lex was standing beside one of the chairs. Her expression was stony, and her eyes were locked on the familiar Prada man-purse pressed into a corner of the room. She went to it and picked it up. Then she held it out like Exhibit A in a courtroom. “This isn’t Julian’s.”

  Park shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “That—that has to be a mistake. It—it can’t be.”

  “It’s Emmett McQueen’s purse.” Lex unzipped it and angrily dumped its contents onto the floor: a hairbrush, a bottle of hair spray, several pens, and the clearest proof of all—Emmett’s St. Cecilia’s Prep ID.

  “I d-don’t understand,” Park stammered. “Why is that here? Is Emmett part of this? Is it…two criminals we’re supposed to catch?”

  Madison stood up from where she’d been squatting. “No, it’s just one.” Her lips had gone ashen. “It’s Emmett, for God’s sake. It’s not Julian. And here’s the proof.” She waved several sheets of paper in the air. “These are the documents that were stolen from Mother Margaret’s office. Look. It’s all a bunch of financial info about the school. Receipts, credit slips, endowment reports—”

  “So what?” Park snapped. “How does that prove it’s Emmett who’s behind all this?”

  “This sheet explains it all.” Madison held out a single piece of paper and pointed to it. Her voice low and trembling, she said, “This is a receipt for a two-million-dollar check written by Emmett’s father, Warren McQueen, last October. And look—it bounced. The sheet has a note scrawled at the bottom, and it’s signed by Mother Margaret.”

  Lex shook her head. “And?”

  “And don’t you see what it says?” Madison said impatiently. “Look! It says right here that Mother Margaret reported the matter to the Internal Revenue Service for review. And look here—three more of his checks bounced in the two weeks before that. Warren McQueen was writing checks on a phony account because he already knew he was in financial trouble.”

  “And it was Mother Margaret who reported him to the IRS,” Park said. “And Mother Margaret who sparked the investigation that led to Warren McQueen’s disastrous downfall.”

  Madison shook the papers at them. “Exactly. Emmett must’ve suspected it, so he broke into the office and stole these documents to confirm his suspicions. Remember what he used to say back when his dad was on trial? He used to go around telling everyone that someone would pay for it one day.”

  “But why was that someone Damien?” Park asked.

  “Damien was an obstacle,” Madison said. “He probably figured out to some extent what Emmett was up to.”

  “About the dynamite?” Lex crinkled her nose.

  “I guess so! Look around you!” Madison flicked the pieces of paper to the floor. “Damien must’ve caught on. That’s why Damien was killed—because he knew Emmett was up to something totally sick! This address was in his little date book! And he knew that, more than anything, Emmett wanted revenge for what was done to his father, his family.”

  “Oh my God,” Lex whispered. “Emmett? How could it be? Why would he be doing this?”

  “Damien wrote this address down in his little black book becaus
e he must’ve suspected Emmett was up to something, and Damien probably followed him here one day.”

  “But there’s no way Damien knew what was in here,” Lex said. “He would never have kept this a secret.”

  “I don’t think so either.” Madison let out a long, disappointed breath. “But everything we suspected Julian did? Erase his name from the equation and replace it with Emmett’s freakin’ name! Dammit.” She unzipped her purse. “I guess we should just call the police.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Park said. She was backing away from the table slowly, a big sheet of paper in her hands. There was an urgency in her voice that neither Madison nor Lex had ever heard before.

  The sheet of paper was a diagram of the St. Cecilia’s Prep auditorium exactly as it would look today, at commencement. There were little doodles of chairs and tables, balloons strung along the ceiling. It was, at first glance, a celebratory image. But the words scrawled in Emmett’s hand along the side of the sheet told an entirely different story: impact, detonation, current from the live wire hits the switch. In the left corner of the diagram was a sketch of the podium; an arrow pointed to the adjustable microphone, and a second arrow, a few inches away, pointed to a wire running along the edge of the floor.

  “Holy shit,” Madison whispered. “Is that…?”

  “It’s why Emmett’s been experimenting with all these explosive things,” Park said, her voice rising. “This diagram spells it all out. It proves what he’s planning to do!” The words caught in her throat as she shook the paper in her hands.

  Madison raked her hands through her hair. “You don’t mean—”

  “Yes!” Park shrieked. “He’s planning to detonate a bomb at commencement. That’s his revenge—that’s what this is all about! Look—when someone moves the microphone on the podium, the movement will create a current that will detonate an explosive.”

  “Come on!” Lex turned around and bolted for the door. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she flew down to the first floor. “Hurry! Move! The ceremony starts in less than ten minutes!”