“Yeah. Big business for Pukekohe.”
“And on the phone, you said you pay cash? Maybe you could give me a job? I love kiwifruit!”
He shoots me a scathing look. “Unless you can bag four hundred an hour, you won’t keep up with the Fijians.”
“Are they the only people you pay cash?”
Thrasher’s eyes narrow. “Why?”
Easy tiger…
“Oh, no reason. Cece pays me straight from the till when I work here. That way, there’s no tax for either of us.”
Thrasher relaxes as much as a man with a septum crammed full of methamphetamines can. “Good way to do it. Keeps costs down.”
“That’s what Cece says!” I trace my cleavage absently. “Is that what you do? With the pickers at the kiwi farm?”
“Yeah, babe,” he tells my tits. “Cash-in-hand for all the foreigners.”
Glitter cannons explode in my head.Houston? This is Flute-Slut. We have fucking liftoff.
“That’ssoclever,” I giggle, praying my evil joy looks like cocaine giddiness because fuck knows I can’t control it. Off-the-books wages? For every non-citizen picker on his farm? That’sgottabe five years in the can. At least.
Thrasher laughs along with me, too dopey to know how fucked he is. “Yeah, Fijians’ll bust their asses for nothing. If you need cash, I’ll have to put you to work some other way.”
Fuckin’ barf.
“You should!” I simper. “I’m areallyhard worker.”
“I heard. You did overtime at the stag party, yeah?”
I’m confused until I remember Jake Graves-Holland and his big, fat mouth. Thrasher’s basically calling me a whore to my face… but I’m riding enough malicious joy to keep right on giggling. “That’s not a bad thing, is it?”
“Nah. Nothin’ like a girl who loves a good dicking.”
Dear Lord, why do you give with one hand and take so thoroughly with the other? Speaking of taking things…
I snatch Thrasher’s whiskey and gulp. “Oops, was that yours?”
He gives me a cold smile. “You drink like a Fijian. My guys pour half my payroll into their mouths.”
I stop giggling. Even on a hot streak,I can’t bimbo my way through this racistclown calling me a pisshead. Whatever his employees drink, it isn’t enough. If Thrasher Thompson was my boss, I’d be dead from alcohol poisoning on day three.
I don’t need to hear this dickweed’s xenophobic rants; I need details on the illegal labour scam he’s running.
“I guess I just really like tequila,” I say, playing with my A necklace. “Do you?”
“I like that dress. I wanna see what’s underneath it.”
His words are playful, but his eyes are cold as overpriced slate. I know what he’s really saying: ‘I’m done talking, Flute-Slut. You want more? Show more.’
I sense a fresh stack of poker chips hitting the table, a new hand dealt. How much can I get from him before he cashes out with my dignity? I cheat at cards, but I bet Thrasher does too, and his moral floor is in hell. If he can raise the stakes, so can I. My bimbo act is going to have to harden.
“I don’t take my dress off for anyone who asks, Daniel,” I say with only a trace of my former flirtiness. “You have to earn it.”
His eyes glitter like rhinestones. “Whaddya want?”
I want him to keep talking about under-the-table payouts. New Zealand’s one-party consent laws make it perfectly legal for me to record him on my phone without his knowledge. A little hard evidence, and I can flood every trade commission and newsroom on the North Island. But I doubt even Thrasher’s thick enough to let me revisit the topic of his business practices so soon after spilling the beans. And even if he is, it’s loud in here. There’s no guarantee of clean audio.
