Black Tie: Book One of the Sparrow Archives

by Kieran Strange

  Cabe shrugged his broader shoulders, appearing behind Elliot in the mirror to check his own collar. He was going to need a few minutes up here to, ahem, yeah. To just sort of let everything... resettle.

  “To see if your life would actually be safe in my hands or not?” he guessed.

  Elliot met his eyes willingly in the mirror. “Partially, but not entirely. Keep going, Peaches. Try thinking outside of your little box.”

  Cabe clicked his teeth together in a quiet rhythm as the other man pivoted toward him to assist with fixing his bowtie. Which he was more than content to let him do, considering it was his fault it was askew in the first place. “‘Cuz you knew something was dodgy and you wanted to figure out what?”

  Elliot barked a short laugh as he pat Cabe’s shoulder, a clear sign that he was once again presentable. “You really are a suspicious fellow, aren’t you?” he asked, with only the most delicate dusting of accent mimicry. Enough to make it annoying. Cabe couldn’t help it; whenever he was flustered, or riled up, or drunk, it just had a tendency to come out more.

  “Don’t you think I have a good reason to be?”

  Elliot crossed the room to enter the depths of the walk-in closet, once again finding eye contact with his bodyguard once he had selected a signet ring from the velvet-lined box on a shelf. It was wide, silver, and hexagonal, with a smooth, domed, pink-and-teal gemstone face housed without any sign of the clamps in a raised silver setting. Cabe wasn’t normally a ring guy (it interfered too much with his grip), but it was such a unique and interesting piece that he couldn’t really help staring as Elliot slid it onto the middle finger of his left hand.

  “Yes and no,” the executive was saying, collecting his shoes and perching on the long ottoman at the end of the bed. “I’ve cooperated with you whenever you’ve needed me to, I’ve stayed away from all those sleazy media outlets and late-night shows James keeps insisting will try to goad a reaction... I even gave you the password to my Twitter account which takes an immeasurable amount of trust, you can ask your geeky friends about that if you don’t believe me.” He finished with one Oxford, and moved on to fastening the other. Cabe considered taking a stealth shot for later, so that he could prove to Faraj he actually did tie his own shoelaces. “Long story short, I’ve been playing nice for almost a whole week now, despite how easy it would’ve been to bait and catch this mole on my own.”

  “And believe me, sir, nobody appreciates your cooperation more than I do,” Cabe grated out flatly, his tone not entirely devoid of humor. “It’s made my job a lot easier.”

  “So why are you tense?”

  “No reason.”

  “Are you hiding something?”

  Only the fact that you’ll be interacting with my partner tonight believing her to be the sexy, charming journalist you owe for a glowing interview. Cabe shook his head carelessly. “Not particularly?”

  “Then relax.”

  Elliot wrapped up with his shoelaces and he stood with grace, looking every bit the trillion-dollar tomcat the media made him out to be. The splash of lilac across his otherwise monochromatic duds may have been a little too brazen and controversial for most, but by this point the public counted on a certain amount of showmanship from Elliot Wright. And the slick bastard always managed to pull it off with an absolutely flawless amount of class.

  “Just for the record,” the C.E.O. continued as Cabe followed suit and began to don his own Oxfords – one at a time, awkwardly on his knees on the carpet, of course, “not everything in my life revolves around ‘work’. I understand that you’re feeling substantially enlightened now that you’ve seen a couple of my truer shades, but not everything I put out into the universe is fictitious. It’s definitely no lie that I reserve a specific fraction of my time for ‘play’ every month, and let’s just say I wanted to put my feelers out there and see if it was something you might be interested in.”

  “If what was...?” Cabe started to ask, but the instant he glanced up and saw the way Elliot’s mouth was kinked at one side, he realized what the other man meant. “Ah.”

  Still smirking, Elliot slid a pair of lavender-tinted Raybans up to the bridge of his nose. “Agent Sparrow, please don’t crawl all over my floor in nine-hundred dollar evening trousers. At least,” he added as a cheeky afterthought, as he amassed his cellphone, keycard, and dinner jacket, ready to leave, “not until it’s time for you to take them off again.”

  ◉

  Cabe had dropped into the third floor of the WrightTech tower several times since his initial probe of the building about a week ago. Totally for research purposes, of course, each and every one of them.

  The impressive nightclub Elliot and his P.R. crew had dubbed @HIVE spanned half the width of the level, with a massive venue constructed to have the atmosphere and acoustics of a truly colossal amphitheater on the south, attached to a hexagonal chrome bar under an overhanging V.I.P. balcony section only accessible via a security-guarded spiraling staircase on either side.

  The honeycomb-plate walls zigzagged up asymmetrically and, where they ended, a stunningly-mapped replica of the night sky peeked down at the Pacific Northwest’s most privileged from behind overlapping flange beams and draped purple fabric. The spacious booth couches were covered in luxurious white leather, and the round tables had been wrapped in white cloth and decorated with tall iris-flower centerpieces for the charity gala. A hexad of booths near the bar area were raised on their own platforms, offering a little more privacy. Mirrored walls in certain sections were going to make espionage and shadowing both easier and harder that night than it would’ve been without them.

  At the very back, a secondary exclusive section cordoned off by thick white drapes boasted a circular jacuzzi sunken into the dark deck, surrounded by a series of armchairs and couches to create booths of various sizes. Cabe was staunchly aware of this fact, as Elliot had gifted it to the visiting W.A.R.D. team for the majority of Wednesday night, and Cabe was fairly convinced he was still hungover from the affair.

  The Christmas charity gala itself would transpire in the nightclub (with assigned seating and generous access for press) following a meal, cabaret, and award ceremony Elliot had elected himself too busy to attend in the restaurant area. The restaurant itself was an exquisite grill and lounge type dealio, with stunning views of the river by virtue of floor-to-ceiling glass bi-fold doors, which slid and tucked neatly away and left the patio corner of the building naked against the elements, its patrons to be warmed by overhead heat lamps and thick sheepskin blankets left folded over the back of each chair. Prior to the revelry, most of the dinner and gala’s guests were invited to take full advantage of the third floor’s spa and health facilities (which apparently bore the signature in-house label *smile as a jab at Emiko by Elliot, who had known when he named it that his P.A. detested the presence of such a superficial facility in a company that prided itself on its charity work) or to attend a private vintage wine-tasting in the restaurant for a greatly appreciated additional donation.

  “What good is having all this money if I can’t invest some of it back into humanity?” Elliot had challenged him the first time he had asked about the charity gala, which (according to Ronnie) was quite the publicized annual event.

  “So, why not just donate the thousands of dollars it costs you to put on the gala to the charity you choose each year?” Cabe had pressed, which had earned him an eye-roll and a disappointed tut-tut-tut from the C.E.O. Of WrightTech.

  “Let’s say including advertising and licensing that it costs me about three hundred thousand dollars a year to throw this party,” he mathed as they had climbed into the elevator to meet Elliot’s driver downstairs in the lobby to attend whatever photo op was happening in the Milwaukie suburb that day. “I won’t include all of the revenue and awareness generated externally by those not attending the event itself, but bear in mind that last year, Internet and phone donations alone raised over a million dollars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

  “Imp
ressive,” Cabe said, not at all sardonically, as the younger man had very much already proven his point.

  “This year we’re aiming to shatter one-point-five with ease,” he remembered Elliot continuing, rattling on to himself as was commonplace for the brilliant young businessman. “We sell three hundred tickets to the event, fifty V.I.P. and the rest classic. They sell for one and five thousand dollars respectively. That’s almost an additional six-hundred thou’. Now add in the fifty press badges we offer up for two-K an outlet, plus I decide to hit up several of my buddies in the social media business, offer a few of the smarter ones exclusive rights to co-sponsor the event and stream it online, and bring in another million bucks apiece. Our silent auction has raised at least a half a mil’ each year on top of all that. I’m sure you’re starting to see where the benefit to all this magnificent camaraderie comes in.”

  “Starting to, yeah,” Cabe had replied, and the W.A.R.D. agent smirked even now, days later, at the recollection of the smug grin on the young C.E.O.’s face. There was nothing Elliot Wright liked more than being, well, right.

  The enormous, hexagonal stage was elevated almost six feet at the far end of the venue area, enshrouded in a colossal, bowl-shaped bandshell constructed of artistically-broken honeycomb panes of marbled-purple glass, which was no doubt as much for function with the acoustics of live music and speech as it was for fashion. In the past, this particular stage had been honored to host artists such as Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Metallica, and Muse; tonight it would be headlined by several current Billboard acts that had actually raised Cabe’s eyebrows in admiration when he first saw one of the flyers. There was a secured backstage area consisting of four private dressing rooms, a green room, back-of-house tech, gear storage facilities, and a loading dock; it was accessible only by means of the stage itself, left and right, and a cargo elevator that led to a delivery exit down in the parkade. At Cabe’s request, backstage security had been tightened exponentially for the gala event tonight.

  One of the dressing rooms had been set aside for Elliot Wright and his own personal entourage. The largest had been given to the headlining band, and the smallest would be home to the first support act for the night. The celebrity host for the evening, an outspoken LGBTQ+ actor known for her charity work for the minorities of America, would be given the luxury of the fourth dressing room.

  For the most part during soundcheck and setup, Elliot seemed to want to show his face and mingle. Cabe was a social guy, always had been, but when everyone he shook hands with was a suspect, it was hard to be his usual, ingratiating self. The majority of the technicians and staff milling about here, backstage, were the in-house @HIVE crew. The only third party-outlets with access to the backstage area were the two co-sponsors of the event (an infamous social media giant and M.T.V.), given that it was a clause they wanted included in the contract (which Elliot was unable to wriggle his way out of), and a couple approved, background-checked members of the headlining band’s management and tech team.

  Cabe stood resolutely in Elliot’s peripheral like an impenetrable stone statue as he cordially greeted each of the performing acts, obediently watching his back so that he could relax and be his usual, ingratiating self. He was typically introduced by Elliot as simply ‘Agent Sparrow’ without any further explanation; Elliot had admitted, when Cabe had pinned him down about it after shaking hands with someone he’d heard singing on the store P.A. system just yesterday, that he wouldn’t be adverse to any rumors floating around that international super-spy type figures had taken an interest in him since his announcement a week earlier.

  According to a quick text from Ronnie, #ifihadmyownjamesbond had been a top trend worldwide for about an hour now, ever since Cabe had been dragged into the headlining band’s live video stream after he and Elliot wandered into the luxurious green room. According to a stifled chuckle from Elliot, the WrightTech P.R. crew themselves were, for once, not the ones behind the trend.

  Great, thought Cabe bitterly, more fodder for The Wall. The Wall, of course, being the windowless one in the SoDo office staff room which had been separated using colorful craft paper into two sections: FAME and SHAME. Whilst some of the more eccentric and extraverted Field Agents who worked shifts undercover viewed it with a peculiar sense of pride, the last thing Cabe needed was more embarrassing screenshots and news clippings pertaining to his own character staring him in the face while he was reheating his noodles.

  It was just after eight when Elliot finally took the stage for his keynote speech. It was the first time all day that Elliot had stepped into the public eye without Cabe within reach of a single stride, and that fact made his bodyguard antsy. The camera tech, whose name was Elena or Helena or something like that, had run a line of neon green tape along the exact place on the stage floor where the camera’s line of vision ended, after she’d been annoyed with Cabe wandering into her shot during soundcheck. This was where the agent now hovered, biting his thumbnail absent-mindedly, anxiously, as he watched his client walk downstage to thunderous applause, toward the podium in the centre-front third.

  Dressed up to the nines out there, he was absolutely naked. From off-stage, it would take Cabe the better part of two seconds to reach him in the event of an emergency. Given the impending threat that the mole was going to make their move tonight, and that it was almost definitely someone who was present at this very gala, it wasn’t a fact Cabe found overly comforting right now.

  “I know, I know,” Elliot’s smooth, rich tenor was saying as it carried beautifully through the impressive speaker system. He was holding up a one hand, a gesture he was somehow able to play as both gracious and arrogant at the same time, before indicating toward the grand venue all around him. “It’s beautiful isn’t it, those of you actually seeing it with your eyes for the first time? An absolutely stunning example of modern innovation. People often tell me it’s much bigger than they imagined it would be, and the amenities are a lot more lavish. The club itself is lovely too, of course.”

  The quick turnaround was rewarded with the expected, unrestrained chortle of amusement from the crowd, even from those who had figured out it was coming, and a couple more flashbulbs went off in quick succession. Even hidden away in the safety of off-stage, Cabe felt blinded. He had no idea how Elliot was able to stand out there and casually talk as if he were standing and having a conversation with each member of the audience one-on-one... or whether it was the type of skill someone learned, or had to be born with.

  “All right, everybody. Welcome to the twenty-ninth annual WrightTech Christmas charity gala. I promise I won’t keep you all for too long here, I know we have some sterling entertainment coming your way a little later, nothing but the best here at-HIVE, but there’s a certain amount of praise and pandering that needs to be done before we get to the incessant drinks and donations part of the evening that we’re all waiting for.

  “I don’t think it would come as a surprise to any of you if I were to stand up here and tell you that I exist strictly as a man of scientific reason,” he continued, and as he did, Cabe found it more and more difficult to focus on his surroundings and not what the C.E.O. was saying. “And I have not, and will not, make any apologies for that fact. But at the same time, I also don’t bother to hide it from the world when I drink wine sometimes on a Friday night and start questioning my own spirituality.” Another rise of laughter floated up from the crowd. “And I feel that, whether you are an atheist, a Catholic, a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Jew, there are lessons you can learn, about yourself and the world around you, from reading any of these sacred texts. How many of you here have read the King James Bible?”

  It always astounded Cabe just how many Americans had actually read the Bible. As a child, growing up in a state school (which, like many other British state schools in the eighties and nineties, was run in alignment with the Church of England), Cabe had known a handful of hymns off by heart, along with most of the more mainstream stories from both Testaments of the Bible. But American
s took modern Christianity to an impressive new level.

  “Now, I want you to keep your hand up,” Elliot was saying into the microphone, surveying the sea of mostly raised arms, “if you’ve read the King James Bible, but you don’t personally identify as a Christian.”

  Along with Elliot, just under half of the room’s occupants left their hands aloft. A tiny smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, the attractive young C.E.O. gave a satisfactory cursory nod.

  “About what I had expected,” he said casually. “What do you think? Learned a lot? Loving thy neighbor, reaping what you sow, treating others the way you want them to treat you? Those are the kind of life lessons we can all take away from Christianity, regardless of whether or not we believe Jesus could walk on water and then turn it to wine.”

  Elliot punctuated his jab of humor with a pause to sip from a glass of water waiting in a strategic nook in the podium. Cabe himself had collected it personally from Flint, who was stationed at the bar, and had been watching it for the entire time it had been there.

  “How many of you have read the Quran?”

  Five years ago, when tensions had once again been growing between the Christian and Islamic sects of the world, an America infatuated with terrorism would’ve been a hostile place to publicly mention the sacred religious text of the Muslim faith, even in a state as blue as Oregon. Agent Faraj, who was high school senior at the time, still recalled several independent occasions where he had literally feared for his life at the hands of his own fellow nationals, all over the faith of his family and the color of his skin.

  Nowadays, while it still wasn’t exactly a serene existence living life as a practicing Muslim in most red or rural areas of America, the louder members of the far-right movement had definitely shifted their attention over to what they liked to call the ‘Anomaly threat’. Cabe was just convinced certain so-called news stations just got boners every time they got to say the word ‘threat’.