going for a cab. Must get back.”
Nemo Skagg shook his head, groping around for another can. “It’s all right, mate. My digs aren’t far from here. Fancy stopping in for a drink? Afraid I must again impose upon you for that.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. All judgment fled, Chase decided he really would like to see where Nemo Skagg lived. He bought a bottle of Bell’s, at Nemo’s suggestion, and they struggled off into the gathering night.
Chase blindly followed Nemo Skagg through the various and numerous unexpected turnings of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Even if sober and by daylight, he’d not have had a clue as to w here he was being led. It was Chase’s vague notion that he was soon to be one of the chosen few to visit with a fallen angel in his particular corner of Hell. In this much he was correct.
Chase had been expecting something a little more grandiose. He wasn’t sure just what. Perhaps a decaying mansion. Nemo Skagg, however, was far past that romantic luxury. Instead, Nemo pushed aside a broken hoarding and slid past, waving for Chase to follow. Chase fumbled after him, weeds slapping his face. The way pitched downward on a path paved with refuse and broken masonry. Somewhere ahead Nemo scratched a match and lit a candle in the near-darkness.
It was the basement level of a construction site, or a demolition site to be accurate. A block of buildings had been torn down, much of their remains carted away, and nothing had yet risen in their place save for weeds. Weathered posters on the hoarding above spared passersby a vision of the pit. The envisioned office building had never materialized. Scruffy rats and feral cats prowled through the weeds and debris, avoiding the few squatters who lurked about.
Nemo Skagg had managed a sort of lean-to of scrap boards and slabs of hoarding—the lot stuck together against one foundation wall, where a doorway in the brick gave entrance to a vaulted cellar beneath the street above. Once it had served as some sort of storage area, Chase supposed, although whether for coal or fine wines was a secret known only to the encrusted bricks. Past the lean-to, Nemo’s candle revealed an uncertain interior of scraps of broken furniture, an infested mattress with rags of bedding, and a dead fire of charcoal and ashes with a litter of empty cans and dirty crockery. The rest of the grotto was crowded with a stack of decaying cardboard cartons and florist’s pots. Nemo Skagg had no fear of theft, for there plainly was nothing here to steal.
“Here. Find a seat.” Nemo lit a second candle and fumbled about for a pair of pilfered pub glasses. He poured from the bottle of Bell’s and handed one clouded glass to Chase. Chase sat down on a wooden crate, past caring about cleanliness. The whisky did not mask the odor of methylated spirits that clung to the glass with the dirt.
“To your very good health, Ryan,” Nemo Skagg toasted. “And to our friendship.”
Chase was trying to remember whether he’d mentioned the name of his hotel to Nemo. He decided he hadn’t, and that the day’s adventure would soon be behind him. He drank. His host refilled their glasses.
“ So, this is it,” Chase said, somewhat recklessly. “The end of fame and fortune. Good-bye house in Kensington. Hello squat in future carpark.”
“It was Chelsea,” Nemo replied, not taking offense. “The house was in Chelsea.”
“Now he gets his kicks in Chelsea, not in Kensington anymore,” sang Chase, past caring that he was past caring.
“Still,” Nemo went on, content with the Bell’s. “I did manage to carry away with me everything that really mattered.”
He scrambled back behind the stack of cardboard cartons, nearly spilling them over. After a bit of rummaging, he climbed out with the wreckage of an electric guitar. He presented it to Chase with a flourish, and refilled their glasses.
It was a custom-built guitar, of the sort that Nemo Skagg habitually smashed to bits onstage before hordes of screaming fans. Chase knew positively nothing about custom-built guitars, but it was plain that this one was a probable casualty of one such violent episode. The bowed neck still held most of the strings, and only a few knobs and bits dangled on wires from the abused body. Chase handed it back carefully. “Very nice.”
Nemo Skagg scraped the strings with his broken fingernails. As Chase’s eyes grew accustomed to the candlelight,