There’s a commotion in front of me and again I let my attention drift. The greaseball with the blondes has turned on one of the serving staff and is berating her loudly. A flurry of snarled words that I can only imagine are Czech insults cuts through the silence of the audience. It doesn’t seem to bother him that he’s making a spectacle of himself, but the poor woman looks as if she’s about to break down. When he reaches out and flips up the tray in her hands, it’s clearly the last straw.
The tray crashes against her chest, plates and glasses flying and smashing to the ground. She’s covered with food; red wine and shards of broken glass mar the crisp white of her carefully starched shirt. Mouth open, eyes wide, tears finally come and she disintegrates, which sends him into another tirade. The girls with him crack up, their laughter adding to the cacophony. They’re like a pack of predators preying on the weak.
I can’t leave her to fend for herself. I have to do something. I stride to the front of the stage, and then step off it, straight into the open air. There’s a collective gasp. The move snares the attention of the audience, and the crying girl quickly gathers up the shattered crockery and disappears into the crowd. I can see her shoulders still shaking.
My unexpected leap has also distracted the asshole, who’s watching me with interest. The girls are back on each side of him, bracketing him like tacky golden bookends. The three of them make my blood boil.
To anyone looking on, I’m standing on pure air in front of his table. Sure, it’s all fucking ropes and pulleys, but I know it’s pretty damn convincing to anyone who doesn’t know the mechanics of it. I hover for a second, arms stretched out at my sides. My naked chest gleams beneath strobing lights that flash blue and red and gold. The move isn’t in my original show plan, but the team is used to my improvisations and they move slickly to coordinate.
I fix the guy with a charming grin and notice one of the girls flutter her lashes. Maybe I’ll take her out back and fuck her later, just to spite him. Pretending to be unimpressed, he’s reaching for his wine glass and about to put the rim to his lips. They’re too full for a man, pouting and wet with red liquor. He’s repulsive, and for a moment I feel sorry for the blondes – but I guess it’s a bed they made for themselves. A bed they have to share with him.
As they stare expectantly at me, I float downward, producing a deck of cards and fanning them out across the table. The girls clap their hands delightedly as the cards magically miss all the clutter on the table and splay out in front of them. For a few minutes, I toy with them, flipping cards, spinning coins, and then I drop dramatically to one knee and reach out a hand to a pair of those gigantic tits. The girl who owns them swallows hard as I trace a fingertip into her cleavage. She looks down and then gives a little shriek as a ridge appears beneath the tautly stretched skin over one silicone globe. I slide my finger up and the disk-shaped ridge moves up her chest.
Other guests have risen from their seats to get a closer view. More gasps and even a little scream or two as they watch the disk move up to her throat, then to her chin. The girl is panting slightly, chest heaving, eyes wide with alarm as I slide my hand over her chin to cup her mouth. I slide my fingers in and she gives a little cough, and I flip a bright, shiny coin from between her over-full lips. I give her a wink, flick the coin into the air and it disappears in a cloud of shimmering gold confetti.
There’s wild applause, and the asshole laughs loudly, lapping up the attention and clearly feeling as if he’s getting his own personal show. Which he is…and he’s paying for it. When I nimbly return to the raised stage, I’ve pocketed his gold money clip and a fat wad of notes. He won’t miss it for hours – every item they’re served is included in the price. And by then, it will be too late.
As the show comes to a close, the crowd goes wild. I give a final enigmatic smile, bow once and then disappear from the stage in a cloud of smoke. More theatrics, but hey, it’s what I do best.
My crew has our gear packed and ready to ship out within minutes. We’ve done this often enough to have the routine rolling like a well-oiled machine. I head towards the catering area and step into the darkness of the alley outside. It’s heavy with cigarette smoke hanging in the cold night air. A huddled figure hugs itself, slouching against the brick wall; a wine splattered white shirt beneath a face that’s drawn and pale.
The woman looks up sharply as I approach, her eyes still red-rimmed, mascara streaked despite attempts to fix it. She inhales a deep breath of smoke and exhales abruptly, not speaking as I stop in front of her. I reach for her free hand, press the wad of notes into her palm; she glances down, and her eyes widen. I put a finger to my lips, smile and then leave.
I’ve lost interest in bagging one of the asshole’s bimbos. I feel better about the evening already.
Chapter 4
Confession from an Old Friend
Arielle Nygard
I’m putting the oven on when the kitchen door opens and Tim Ledger steps inside. Tim was Steve’s best friend from the Las Vegas Police Department, and he’s become an invaluable part of my life since Steve’s death.
“Hi,” he says as he walks over to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “How’s things?” Over the years that I’ve known him, Tim’s made himself completely at home. He opens the fridge and takes out a beer. He’s done so much for me and Austin in the last two years that I feel the least I can do is keep a case of his favorite beer in the house, and a few chilling in the fridge.
“Same old, same old. Making a lasagna for dinner. You gonna eat with us?”
“I never say no to lasagna,” he says with a smile. “I’m surprised you have time to cook, what with your new job and all.” Tim’s not a huge fan of my caretaker job. I guess I can understand his concern. I’ve never met Samuel Foster, my employer – I was hired over the phone nearly two months ago. But I haven’t felt uneasy or threatened at all. And the money is so, so good. In the short time I’ve been taking care of Munchkin, I’ve been able to pay the bank enough to get them to stop threatening to foreclose on my house, which is a huge weight off my shoulders. Austin’s school, which caters specifically to special needs kids, is expensive, but they have been very understanding about outstanding fees. And I’ve been able to reduce that amount slightly, too.
“I made this on the weekend,” I admit. “It just needs to heat up. It shouldn’t be long.” I pour myself a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and take it to the kitchen table to sit with Tim. “How are things a work?”
Tim got promoted to detective a few months after Steve died. I remember the day I got the news. A drunk-and-disorderly call had turned fatal when the perpetrator pulled out a gun and shot at a young woman he had been harassing. Steve pushed her out of harm’s way and got a bullet to the chest for his trouble. He died on the scene. Tim said the job just wasn’t the same without his partner; he was glad when he could step out of the role he’d shared with my husband.In his free time – not that he has much – he moonlights as a private eye, which is probably how he’s saved enough to keep helping me out.
“Keeping me busy,” he replies. “I’ve got a missing persons case, and I’m trying to find where a grandmother stashed a box of heirlooms that her grandkids were promised in the old lady’s will.” He takes a pull from the beer bottle.
“Anything turn up?” I ask. It’s amazing what Tim can find out about people with just a few personal details.
“So far not much. I’ve got a couple more leads to run down, you know the drill.”
When the timer dings, Tim collects Austin from the TV room and we sit together to eat. While I clean up after dinner, Tim chats to Austin, just the way Steve used to. I watch out the corner of my eye as I wash the dishes. Tim removes his glasses and leans his tall frame down to Austin’s level. He asks my son about his day, tells him about the ‘treasure’ he’s looking for. Given that Austin doesn’t speak or make eye contact, it can be really hard to communicate with him, but Tim doesn’t mind the one-sided conversation. He’s known Austin since the day he was born, nine years ago, when Steve proudly showed off his son to his best friend. He loves Austin like a son; there isn’t anything he won’t do for my boy. Over the last two years, I’ve tested his commitment thoroughly and Tim has never let me down.
His help has been invaluable, especially once the crowds of mourners and well-wishers dissipated after the funeral. It was an awful time. I was alone with my grief. No distractions, nothing to focus my attention on. Just me and my loss. Except for Tim. He held me when I cried, bought groceries when I was too low to do it myself, calmed Austin’s tantrums when I wasn’t strong enough to face the task. And once the worst of the pain had subsided and I was trying my best to move on, Tim would take care of Austin so that I could get out of the house with friends. He took me out to dinner, insisting I get dressed up. He arranged family outings for the three of us. He had never missed a birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Mother’s Day. He’s been a faithful constant in our lives and I’m not sure what I would have done without him.
An hour later, I put Austin to bed in his favorite dinosaur onesie. His room is still decorated for a young child, with cartoonish pictures of spaceships, dinosaurs, and robots. But there’s a new poster on the wall now, one that leads me to believe that he’s maturing slowly. Atticus Colt performed a magic show at the hospital a few weeks ago, and Austin was absolutely entranced.
A few days later I bought a poster of the magician that was staring out at me from a shop window. It had a slightly dark and dangerous feel to it – Atticus Colt definitely isn’t a kiddies’ party magician – but it had white doves and playing cards and something about the whole image made me think Austin might like it.
When I showed him the poster, Austin recognized the man and started gesturing wildly, the same movements he’d made right after the show. And now, weeks later, he still touches the playing cards on the poster whenever he goes into his room.
