Neon Nights Chapter 16

Since Marc had never been to a festival, he was surprised to learn that the daylight hours were as wild as night. When he pulled back up to the fairgrounds, he saw large pockets of people for whom the party was reaching its logical end and those for whom it was just beginning. The zombies who had floated through the steadily increasing heat of the day were desperate for a drink of water and a nap, and the others who had just woken up after being out all night looked fresher, dancing with the intensity of the first song of the day.

After sitting in traffic for a solid hour, it felt good to stretch his legs while he waited for Carly to arrive. Five minutes later, she met him at the front gate with a look of exasperation on her face.

"Geez, what took you so long? I've been here for ages," Marc said to her, deadpan.

"Are you serious? Traffic was a nightmare."

Marc's smirk widened, and she punched him on the arm ... hard.

"Ouch," Marc said. "You know, I used to love coming out to the fairgrounds as a kid."

He looked over at a man painted like a parrot who flapped his wings and emitted a loud cawing noise as he walked past.

"Not sure I feel quite the same way anymore."

They found Alec ten minutes later, twenty feet off the ground with a wrench in his hand, inspecting a section of the scaffolding on the new stage opening that night. He climbed down when he was done and extended his hand to both of them.

"You certainly know how to put on a show, Alec," Marc said. He extended his arm as he bowed to them.

"Did you see the parrot guy?" Carly asked. Alec's laugh bellowed above the music.

"We have some wild folks here, Detective. I saw the parrot guy. I'm curious if he could paint his ass himself or if he had to call in reinforcements."

"Little bit of both, probably," Marc said.

"I don't mean to rush, but tonight things will get pretty wild when DJ Illuminati goes on at nine. How can I help? How is the girl from the other night?"

"She died late last night."

Alec put his head down and sighed.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I don't know what to say."

"Something else, though, that we wanted to share," Marc said. "Last night, we arrested Avery Bass for dealing the pill here on the property and then proceeded to find Jameson Yates dead in his trailer at the campground."

Alec was taken aback but didn't seem like it would keep him from finishing his work.

"Get out of here."

Carly stepped in. "Nope, unfortunately, both are very true." "How is Lance doing?" Alec asked.

"Not great," Marc said. "Can you tell us about your time at Woods together?"

Alec pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and flipped a match over the book to strike it with his thumb.

"Typical frat life. Not much to tell. We became friends in freshman year like most kids do when they are going through something hard. Brad and I bonded over our love for liquor, and Lance and I over our love for beer. Like I said, nothing earth-shattering."

"Did you see the two kids at any of your other shows? Jameson followed the festival circuit over the last few years. They had another friend with them too, a kid named Ryan."

Alec took a long drag on the cigarette.

"Maybe twice," Alec said. "Once was in Atlanta, and the other was in Charlotte. That was last year, though, for maybe five minutes."

"Did you notice anything weird about their behavior there? Any issues with ODs at either show?"

Alec shrugged his shoulders.

"Unfortunately, we see this in any city we go to. The events are not without their faults, but the vast majority of people are here to feel the music, the community, and the energy. They don't need substances to do it. It's the few bad apples cliché."

A man wearing only a banana-printed bikini bottom with a monkey emoji t-shirt that read “Monkey feeding 3 o’clock" and an arrow pointing down to his crotch ran past.

"What about him?" Carly asked.

"I feel like there are plenty of reasons to arrest him, Detective. I don't know that drugs have anything to do with that guy.

Alec stubbed out his cigarette on the ground. “Can I speak frankly?" Alec asked.

They nodded.

"We want our attendees to be safe always, but we know that there is no way to keep drugs out of the hands of these kids. They are a part of a culture that tries to find an escape from reality. That culture is not exclusive to our world; that’s just youth as a whole. It never fails that we have someone OD at an event. I live for the music, but I hate this part of the business. I don't mean to sound cold; it's just a part of the jungle. We wouldn't be in business if we had to stop a show every time someone overdid it in the parking lot."

Carly pushed him.

"You guys have had some problems, though, over the last few years, have you not?"

Alec stiffened up, and Marc saw the veins in his neck bulge out. "Doesn't every business?" Alec fired back.

"Sure. Everyone has problems. You've had some significant ones over the last year," she said.

Alec adopted a Zen-like prayer pose with his hands.

"Okay, so I'm sure you didn't come all the way out here to kick a man while he is down, right? You'll excuse my tone then, detectives, when I ask what the hell you want from me?"

"Do you have any enemies, disgruntled employees, or people who want you to fail?" Marc asked.

"Where would you like me to start the list?" "Dealer's choice," Marc said.

His body slumped, and he sighed.

"I have all of those people in my life. Everyone does in some way. Others in the industry are jealous of my success. My employees probably hate my guts because I demand perfection in my shows. I also have two ex-wives and a current wife who are some of the nastiest people you would ever want to meet. Did any of them cause my problems over the last two years? Doubtful. Life is a rollercoaster, and right now, I'm headed downhill.”

"Thanks, Alec. I know there is a lot going on today. Can we grab a quick word with your head of operations? Our biggest concern is getting through the weekend without any more bodies."

"I have 40,000 people here right now, with another 10,000 walking through the doors as we speak. Could this wait until tomorrow?"

"Promise, ten minutes of his time, tops," Marc said, flashing the Boy Scouts sign.

Alec seemed to weigh his options and, after a long pause, motioned for them to follow him without another word.

They made their way through the crowd, which grew by the minute. Alec floated through the walls of people unfazed, effortlessly moving between bodies, while Marc and Carly struggled to keep pace and bumped and bashed through the crowd, having to hold hands to keep from getting separated.

When they reached The Hive, Alec held his hand out in front of the giant tent.

"Welcome to the heartbeat of our little event here." Marc let out a whistle and tried to bite back his smile. "Wow."

A great operation, whether it was a restaurant or a military mission, existed on the razor's edge between chaos and coordination. Teammates running a relay and passing the baton crisply to the next runner, synchronized swimmers perfectly in tune with one another,

Special Forces operators focused only on the task at hand and the safety of their teammates.

The Hive was not that kind of operation.

Carly's jaw dropped as she looked at Marc. It was difficult for them both not to break into laughter.

"Things are a little crazy right now," Alec said, his pride hurt that the razzle-dazzle on the outside was upended by the disaster inside.

Neither of them ventured an objection.

Making their way to the back of the tent, they found a mountain of a man staring into space at a folding card table. On his laptop a screensaver of a woman in a bikini licking an ice cream cone ran on a loop. His mullet was extraordinary—a rambunctious tangle of curly brown hair down to his shoulders, sideburns shaved down to the skin, and a crisp part right down the center of his head.

The haircut seemed to say, “Hello, my barber retired down to the Keys last week, and cash has been tight, so I gave a blind homeless man three dollars to cut it."

The mountain didn’t move a muscle at the approach of the two visitors or his boss.

"Detective McKinley and Detective Hill, this is our head of festival operations, Jason Trailer."

Trailer ignored them and spoke to another person sitting at a screen ten feet away from him.

"Davey, we got a kid that's so messed up, he's already puked in three people's truck beds. Hey officers, why don't you two make yourselves useful and bring him in?"

Marc smiled at the man and opted to try a honey-over-vinegar strategy.

"Not really our area of expertise, Mr. Trailer," Marc said. Marc watched Alec's eyes tighten and his fists clench.

"Jason! They've got questions about a pill that's making its way through the show, something that should be on the top of your radar!" Alec shouted at him.

The man had two massive bottles of soda on his desk. One was a full-strength yellow soda that looked like someone's pee if they were afraid of water, and a diet version of the same brand for some inexplicable reason. Trailer rammed his paw-sized hand into a bag of nacho cheese chips, undoubtedly sending most of them into smithereens. Then he shoveled the orange shards into his mouth, the dust creating a mandarin haze across his jean shorts.

"Same shit, different show," Trailer said.

"How long have you worked for the festival?" Carly asked. "Do I need a lawyer here, boss?"

"No, these are simple questions," Alec responded with more than a tinge of irritation.

"I have been screwed by the police before. I don't take to trusting y'all one bit."

Marc had seen guys like him a thousand times before and knew the way to get something out of them was to finesse, not fight.

"Your feelings on that aside, this is an impressive thing you put together with your people. How long have you been in the business?"

"Grew up in the carnival business with my old man. He was a runner when he was ten, getting all the freaks whatever they needed to get out on stage, and kept at it until he was running that show's construction."

"You guys traveled around together?" Marc asked.

"Yeah. He was rattlesnake mean, and that life ain't for a kid. I saw some shit. It was slave labor, but it was better being with him than around the whore mother I had at home. The shows taught me everything I know in life. I ain't gonna be no doctor or lawyer, in case you hadn't noticed, but I can put together shit that others can't. That's why Alec brought me here."

Marc motioned to a chair across from him. "Mind if I sit?"

“You’re the police. I suspect you can do what you want."

Marc sat, and Alec took up the seat next to him. Carly walked away without another word to wander the tent.

"What? She don't like me or something?" Marc let it pass.

"Anything or anyone strange running around the show?" Marc asked.

Trailer sprayed soda out of his mouth, and it covered the screen.

"Strange? This whole thing is strange. It's a carnival, except it's got fake animals, not real ones."

"Fair enough. People who didn't seem to fit in? Conversations you may have heard or staff gossip. How about any of those things?” Marc asked.

Trailer looked down at the buzzing phone in front of him.

"Nothing, nada, zip. Listen, I got shit to do. Call Alec if you need to arrest me or something, okay?"

The man slid his chair away from the table and wobbled out of the tent like a bear on his way to hibernate for winter.

"Nice guy," Marc said.

Alec ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation.

"Sometimes you can't pick the people you need to do the job. Sometimes they are the best person to get it done, whether you like it or not."

Marc nodded his head.

"If you don't need anything else from me, I need to get back to work, please," Alec said.

Ever the entertainer, he doffed an imaginary cap at Marc and headed back out into the fray, eternally beholden to “the show must go on."

Marc spotted Carly in the opposite corner of the tent. She waved him over with both hands to join her at a bank of computer screens

where she stood next to an athletic guy with skinny jeans that looked painted on and honeybee-striped glasses.

"What's up?" Marc asked.

"This is Darron, and he is easily the most helpful guy in the organization."

"Damn, Detective. You're going to make me blush."

Carly's laugh sounded like the mall on a Friday night, and inexplicably, Marc felt a tiny pang of jealousy. The man extended his hand to Marc, and Marc took note of the flawless handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Darron," Marc said. "Show him number eleven, please," Carly said.

Silky smooth keystrokes flew over the numbers and letters on the board, and the largest screen in the center of the bank changed to a real-time image of a man in a black vest and sleeves of tattoos having a heated conversation with Jason Trailer out at the northwest corner of the parking lot. The man was about the same size but built for speed and power, not sloth and pizza, like Trailer.

"Didn't think we would see him here, did you?" she asked. "Nope, but some stuff is starting to add up."