“Oh, baby, I know it,” said Carla, practically purring. “Just come to the kitchen with me for a minute, OK?”
He wanted to think that the affection in her voice was fake. But was it?
Stupid, thought Jack, feeling small and anxious now. Stupid to fall for a woman already in a relationship and think that he would emerge from the aftermath intact. It didn’t matter whether or not she loved Ronnie. He’d never forget the sound of them together, laughing as they passed his closet.
Carla knew he was in here. Knew he’d heard every word. Did she want him to? Or was she just acting?
“Focus,” Jack muttered under his breath. The command grounded him, stopped the floor beneath his feet from spinning.
For an untold length of time, he waited. His knees shook, then grew sore. He spiraled between panic and anger, wished Boris were here to keep him company. Wished he had a drink in his hand, a cigarette in his pocket, anything to keep him occupied.
Voices carried, then faded into smoke.
He would make a terrible private eye. Only an hour or so of hiding, and already madness ate at him.
Then came footsteps, quick and sure.
The door creaked open.
“Come on, come on,” Carla whispered, beckoning him. “Club’s free, let’s go!”
Jack blinked at her, blinded by the hallway's dying lightbulb.
She grabbed him by the hand, pulled him free. He followed, disoriented, feet crashing against the floor like a drunkard’s.
The stairwell wasn’t far off, just through a steel door at the end of the corridor. Carla pressed a finger to her lips and clutched his hand tight as she guided him up the stairs. Their feet clanged against the metal steps.
“We gotta be quick, come on,” she said, tugging on his hand.
“I thought I was just backup,” protested Jack.
“Yeah, you are. You’re the cleaning guy, remember? We just hired you, and you needed a little help figuring out where to go.”
“Is anyone going to believe that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Carla with a wicked grin. “We’re not gonna get caught. They’re all leaving.”
They stumbled into a large room equipped with a single pool table, a dartboard, a ragged rug, and faded movie posters. Jack did a double take at the ordinariness of it all. No blood on the ceiling, no wall of knives. Just a typical billiards club.
The bar was well-stocked, but Jack had come to expect nothing less from Ronnie. Bitterly, he thought to snatch up the finest bottle of wine or whisky that he could find and bring it back to share with Boris, but that wasn’t why they were here.
“Could you have rubbed it in any harder?” Jack groused, crossing the room, searching for anything unusual, determined not to let his jealousy ruin a perfectly good opportunity to dig up dirt on Ronnie, to find some way to justify his rapidly growing hatred.
Before, he’d been more afraid of Ronnie than anything else. Now, Jack fought the urge to put his fist through that stupid, long nose.
The crunch would be incredibly satisfying.
“I didn’t want him to suspect anything!” Carla hissed.
“If that’s what it took to keep him from being suspicious, you must like him more than you say you do.”
“Not right now, Jack,” Carla sneered, hands on her hips. “Not right fucking now.”
She was right, but her words drove into him like needles. “Yeah, OK,” he said, trying to focus. Right, look for anything weird. He could do that.
There were no symbols on the walls. No strange artifacts on the wet bar. No ominous books bound in human skin. Jack heaved a sigh and caught his foot on the rug.
He went down like a sack of potatoes and only narrowly avoided smashing his forehead against the leg of a pool table.
