The Spire by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online

In all the time they'd been there, the college had never enforced its drug and alcohol policy'draconian in theory'preferring ignorance to raids and spot inspections. Whatever surprises happened at the party, they would not involve the campus cops. As Carl Hall slipped into the basement, the two friends followed.
    The room was dark, the lights dimmed so low that Mark could see only shadowy forms. Tom Petty's 'Don't Back Down' blasted from the sound system'sooner or later, Mark could expect to hear the Smashing Pumpkins, the Gin Blossoms, Green Day, the Beastie Boys, and, inevitably, Kurt Cobain fronting Nirvana. A few of the shadows were dancing; others were drinking from paper cups full of beer or liquor; a guy and girl were sharing a joint next to an anonymous couple making out in a corner of the room. 'Right on schedule,' Steve murmured.
    Glancing around, Mark spotted a form he thought was Carl Hall facing the chubby outline of a guy who must be one of his customers. Instinctively, Mark felt less sanguine than he had sounded to Steve. By coming, Carl had crossed a line, undefined but real, introducing an element of unpredictability into an already combustible environment.
    'Mark,' Shawn Hale's voice called out. 'Hey, man.'
    Someone started clapping. Before Mark knew it, Shawn, Charlie Ware, and Jim Neeley had picked him up, one leg on Charlie's shoulder, the other on Shawn's, and were carrying him through the crush of bodies, yelling 'Ice Man . . . Ice Man . . . Ice Man' in a tribute to his coolheadedness against Ohio Lutheran. Some at the party cheered; others took no notice. Pleased but embarrassed, Mark jerked Shawn by the hair. 'Put me down,' he shouted above the din, 'before you three clowns drop me.'
    Shawn said something to the others. Abruptly, they tossed Mark to the floor. Stumbling forward, he found himself facing Angela Hall.
    Carl's twin sister was alone, her eyes half slits, dancing with no one. It was strange, Mark thought'though they had gone to high school together, then college, until three weeks ago his only impression of Angela had been that she was shy. But until three weeks ago, when Steve had asked Mark to come along, he had never been to the Alibi Club.
    THE CLUB WAS in the black section of Wayne, on the corner of a randomly zoned street that included a small grocery, a beauty shop, a shabby apartment building, and wooden houses and duplexes in various states of repair. Though near the border of Colored Town'as Wayne's older whites often called it'the street was a few blocks from fraternity row, marking an uneasy intersection of cultures where underage college kids sought out the Alibi Club for drinks and the drugs they could buy from Carl Hall, the son of the club's owner.
    A neatly maintained red-brick structure, the club had a blinking neon sign that beckoned customers at night, its reflection flashing in the windows on the second floor, where the proprietress lived with her family. Though its primary clientele was black, the shadowy convergence of race and class served the community as well as the college: since high school, Steve Tillman, like other whites, had come here for what he could not get elsewhere. Though this was unspoken, the police treated the Alibi Club as they did the campus: short of murder, they left it alone.
    What rules the club had'its own'were strictly enforced by a three-hundred-pound black man named Hugo. On the evening Steve first took Mark there, Hugo was at the door, his broad, impassive face revealing nothing as he nodded them inside.
    The room was dark and smoky. An old jukebox blared soul music; black working-class men hunched at the bar; black couples sat at tables; a pair of white college kids huddled in one corner, drinking what looked like screwdrivers and keeping to themselves. When Steve went to the end of the bar, Mark took the stool beside him, noting the incongruity of two young white faces in the mirror fronted by rows of liquor bottles. Then he saw Angela