I walk over, tapping the girl on the shoulder. “What would you say if I paid you for tonight and me and you get out of here without looking back?”
Her eyes light up. “You’re serious?”
“Who the fuck are you?” the catering boss asks across her. “You can’t just walk out of here. I’ll see you never work again.”
“Come on,” I say, taking the girl’s hand and leading her straight out the back door.
“Where are we going?” she asks when we get outside.
“You’ll see,” I reply, dumping the jacket in the first trash bin I see. “Tell me something. Which one of these cars belongs to that bitch in there?”
2
“Who are you?” I ask as he brings the car skidding to a halt inches from the dumpster in front of us.
“No one.” His eyes flash, like he’s daring me to keep this conversation going. His face is doing things to me I don’t like. I want to reach over and kiss him. Why? Just because he’s hot? So what? “Why’d you ask?”
“You stole a car like it was the most natural thing in the world. Not just any car, either. My boss’s car. Then you drive like the bats of hell are chasing you, somehow managing not to get a scratch on the thing. Now you’re telling me there’s a club down this alleyway, a secret club that no one knows about? Who the fuck are you?”
“I tell you what. You let me buy you a drink and I might just tell you.”
“And if I say no?”
“Give me your address and consider yourself chauffeured home for no fee. I’ll even pay you cash for tonight’s work. How much were you due?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Fuck me, you were being robbed.” He reaches into his pocket and brings out a clip of banknotes. I’m talking more than I see in a year is in that one handful. He unfurls two fifty dollar bills and shoves them in my hand.
I again get that straight jolt of electricity coursing through me as our hands touch, same as when we walked out of the kitchen together. I look at the notes. “These are fake, right?”
“As real as the club we’re about to go to. Now you want that drink, or don’t you?”
I look at the banknotes and then back up at him. “I think you’re bluffing.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” He raises one eyebrow.
“In front of us is a brick wall with a door that I bet leads into a kitchen of some ramen place. You’re betting on me telling you to take me home. Not to call you on that one. That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Want to bet me those fifty’s?”
“I’ll go you one better than that. I’ll call your bluff. Let’s see you get us into an invisible club.”
“Fine by me. I could do with a drink.” He swings his door open, and then climbs out. “You coming?”
“To see your humiliation? Sure, why not.”
He’s already over by the door, hand curling into a fist, ready to knock. “Sure,” I tell him as I climb out. “Go through the motions. Then act shocked, like how it’s normally open at this time. Suggest we go get a nightcap at your place.”
“You got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Let’s just say I know how men like you operate.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yep. Don’t get fooled by any of your bullshit. Seen it all before.”
“Only I saw a groom back there with wandering hands who might disagree.”