Chapter 7 — The Machine on Chicago Chronicles

Another Move — Monday, January 28, 1991, 4:58 PM

Mon, 28 Jan 1991 16:58:00 +0000

Kaspar and Sons / Succubus Club / Ontario Street

Chicago, Illinois

The phone rang at 6:40 PM and Sable knew before she picked up that it wasn’t the payphone line. The haven had two numbers. The first was for a life she’d already lived. The second was for the one she was building, and nobody called it yet except Claudine and the woman on the other end of it now.

Darius was in the kitchen with the newspaper open to Gulf war coverage and a glass of water he wasn’t going to touch. He looked up when it rang. Sable picked up.

The Mezzanine — Saturday, January 26, 1991, 4:55 PM

Sat, 26 Jan 1991 16:55:00 +0000

The Succubus Club, State Street Chicago, Illinois

The Labyrinth smelled like sweat and patchouli and something sharper underneath, copper or fear, the two indistinguishable at depth. Sable moved through the crowd in the sub-basement corridor, bodies pressing close in the dark, and found her mark in a side alcove where the black light turned everybody’s teeth blue. A graduate student, early twenties, buzzed on cheap champagne, talking to nobody about Debord. Sanguine type. He looked at her and forgot what he was saying.

The Faculty Club — Friday, January 25, 1991

Fri, 25 Jan 1991 21:00:00 +0000

Quadrangle Club, Hyde Park / Hyde Park payphone

Chicago, Illinois

The Quadrangle Club had been built to look like a private men’s club in a city where private men’s clubs meant something, and it still did, twenty-eight degrees outside and a head wind coming off the lake. The dining room Critias had reserved was lit by wall sconces and a single standing lamp in the corner, dark paneling, heavy curtains drawn, the kind of silence that costs money to maintain.

The Night's Work — Wednesday, 23 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Wed, 23 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

South Side / Lula’s / Church of Christ, 53rd / Succubus Club / Kaspar and Sons

Chicago, Illinois

She woke at four thirty-five and lay still in the dark and listened to South Pilsen for a minute before she moved.

The basement was the same as she’d left it — concrete and brick and the steel door’s three bolts thrown — and the sounds coming through the ceiling were the neighborhood settling into its Wednesday evening: a car on Cermak running loud, someone’s television, the clank of a radiator two floors up doing the math on how cold it was outside and deciding it was cold enough. Sable got dressed. The .38 went against her hip with the particular weight she’d stopped noticing, which she thought about sometimes and then put away without thinking about further.

The Session — Wednesday, 23 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Wed, 23 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Succubus Club / Rush Street / The Cave / State Street / Rush and Division

Chicago, Illinois

The Succubus Club ran on a different current on Primogen nights. The music was the same industrial grind from the speakers. The mortals on the dance floor still moved under lights that bruised their skin blue and violet. But the Kindred population had shifted. The elders were elsewhere, and what was left on the main floor was everyone who mattered enough to wait.

The Delivery — Tuesday, 22 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Tue, 22 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Wabash Avenue / Blue Island Avenue / Indiana Avenue

Chicago, Illinois

The delivery driver was parked on a side street off Wabash with his dome light on and a clipboard in his lap. Late thirties. Heavy through the shoulders. The Cutlass Ciera had a lender’s sticker in the rear window and an expired city sticker on the windshield, and the magnetic sign for Gino’s East was peeling off the driver’s door in the cold.