I paused by the door, gritting my teeth, the buzzing of the EXIT light way less irritating than my impending assignment, and was about to barge in and make myself known when I caught the sound of Carson’s voice. His very happy voice. Which made me pause and listen through the crack I created by easing the way open instead.
“Check the betting line,” he said. “That’s a circled game. You sure you want to cover that? It could end in a push and we both know you’re already sitting on a big marker.”
Now, I wasn’t exactly a career criminal, but I knew betting lingo when I heard it. I’d dated a guy on the West coast who’d run numbers for a bookie, and he talked just like that. Just another excellent relationship choice for Petal Morgan. Informative, though, and serving me well now. No education was wasted, right? Even the illegal kind.
Carson fell quiet a minute, then laughed, clearly on the phone. “You know I’ve got your back, Jimmy. Just being sure. I just hate seeing you on my bottom sheet. But you tell me you’re good for it, I’m game. Consider it done.”
So, Carson was into illegal gambling, was he? I heard him sign off and hesitated another moment. If Reggie knew he was conducting business in After Hours, this might be the source of her unhappiness with his presence. She’d told him to play things straight and here he was taking bets in her back room. The phone rang again, a ridiculous rendition of the old 80s hit, “I Wanna Be Rich” by Calloway. Gary must have known about what he was up to. And though the arrogant asshat taking bets behind the door was clearly a source of excellent revenue, it was also possible one of my friend’s issues sat drinking her alcohol and doing business where he had no right to.
Because laundering illegal betting profits through After Hours would be simple if he had the right connections. I’m looking at you, Gary.
Here I was, jumping to conclusions again. Surely Reggie thought of this herself? Now determined to prove the guy with the overly friendly hands was the culprit, (because I couldn’t stand him, and how perfect would that be?) I chose to enter Room B with a real smile and an attitude that might get me what I wanted.
Daniel chose that very moment to move past me, though he didn’t try to touch me, even grimacing a little in apology as he stepped by and took a seat on the circular bench seat behind the heavy wooden table. The red velvet room with the dark paneled walls and lush carpeting of the same color felt a bit like a tomb, though time seemed to have spared it far more than the main bar. I approached the table, nodding to both men, noting the ice bucket and bottle of open champagne, three glasses with varying amounts inside before asking for their order.
Gary arrived while Daniel’s request for a whiskey followed Carson’s wink and rye and ginger order. I nodded to my kind of boss who ignored me as he sat next to Daniel, looking rather frazzled. It was busy out there, and he could hardly spare me to serve drinks to two people and yet, here I was.
Spoke volumes about their association, didn’t it? Maybe I wasn’t jumping to conclusions after all.
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Harris?” Look at me being all polite and professional.
He waved off my question and leaned toward Carson, though he didn’t speak, looking at me pointedly until I bobbed a weird little curtsy and left, closing the door slowly behind me. But despite my attempt at subterfuge, his voice was too low for me to catch what he was saying outside the hurried and angry whispering.
Everly was just exiting one of the other doors, her exhale of relief matching the widening of her big eyes as she grinned at me, hooking one arm through mine.
“The private rooms might be a bit of a risk, but it’s worth it.” She flashed a hundred-dollar bill at me with a wink. “Who do you have?”
“Carson Carrigan,” I said, doing my best to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I glanced with irritation at the EXIT sign and that ridiculous buzzing. “Someone needs to fix that.” Okay, so everything was pissing me off right now.
She eye-rolled, grinned. “Here, let me.” She trotted to the far end of the hall and, on her tiptoes, whacked the light with her tray. The buzzing stopped, all right, the light flickering out. Everly hunched her shoulders and giggled on her way back, a guilty kid who’d done a very bad thing and got away with it. “There, that’s better.” And probably illegal or something. At the very least, destruction of private property. So why was I grinning, too? “As for Carson, he’s all talk and a jerk to boot,” she spoke into my ear as she quickly led me toward the main bar, close enough I could make out what she said over the music and crowd, “and that friend of his covers for him far too often.” Who, Gary? No, she must have meant Daniel. “He’s nice, at least, and a good tipper if he catches Carson being a creep.” Yup, she meant Daniel. “Watch your back but have fun.” She left me to lean over the bar, placing her order while I waited my turn for Aiden and the two young men—so cliché—who had joined him for the evening to fill glasses with expensive alcohol for the rich and bored.
It was hard, as the night went on, not to let my mind wander toward Reggie and her complicit state of affairs as I observed openly Carson’s illegal betting activities unfolding while I delivered drink after drink, appetizers followed by a main course joined by more alcohol, all while Gary sat back and let him, Daniel at least having the courtesy to try to cover things up by dumping twenties on my tray.
To keep me quiet? More than likely. I chose to play dumb in light of the tips, though it was increasingly difficult to believe my friend didn’t know what was going on in her back room. Still, the discrepancy in her financials made me uncomfortable enough to believe someone was playing her, not the other way around.
Gary. It all came back to Gary. Why didn’t she do something about her husband?
On one of my final trips back to Room B with more than enough whiskey to drown a hardened alcoholic on my tray, my concerns were reinforced. Especially when I found Reggie with Daniel and Carson this time, Gary nowhere to be found, my friend in deep and angry conversation with the two men.
She noticed me before I was aware of her and pulled back, but it was obvious from her furious expression she was, in fact, in the know about his little betting business. Not so little if the number of calls he’d been taking and the tiny (in writing but big in digits) numbers he’d noted in the book before him told the tale.
Carson didn’t seem to notice or care why she retreated. Instead, he leaned toward her in turn and smirked.
“You threaten me again,” he said in a clear and rather amused voice, “and I’ll make sure it’s the last time. You hear me, Reg? Not even your Daddy will be able to keep you safe.”
Her cheeks turned ashen, eyes huge, and though I really barely knew her outside memory and recent interactions, it was obvious she waffled on the wall between furious and terrified. She rose without responding, striding past me and out the door while I quietly and quickly deposited the round of drinks before exiting after her.
I caught her near the far end of the hall, leaning into her where she paused to catch her breath, one hand pressed to her throat, a hand that trembled just a little.
“Reggie,” I said, mentally wondering what the comment about her father could have been about, but more worried about her physical safety than Carson’s specific words. “Call the cops. I’ll testify he’s been bookmaking all night.”
The look she flashed me caught me by surprise. Not the gratitude I’d expected, but rage, pure and flaming. She caught herself, though, shook her head, that trembling hand falling to grasp my wrist as she looked away, full lips in a grim line.
“No one threatens me in my place,” she said. And strode off without another word or any conscious realization she’d been gripping my arm so tight I was positive I’d be bruised in the morning.
The rest of the night passed faster than expected, the calls for more drinks from Room B silenced. Maybe I’d finally doused him in enough alcohol to make Carson pass out or, more likely, he’d left to take his nasty piece of work elsewhere. Whatever the case, I did see Daniel just before closing and he nodded to me as he headed for Reggie’s office, alone and head down. Whatever. I was sure if Everly was right he’d gone to apologize to her for what his friend said, though I was certain by now she’d never accept.
The other servers fled like a flock of birds when Aiden closed up shop, even Everly abandoning me to hurry downstairs to her dressing room to change and head home for the night. Which meant, naturally, the new girl got the best job of all.
End of shift cleanup.
I just hoped the pile of tips in my bustline was worth the mess I feared I had to deal with.
To my surprise, Luke and his bouncer partner handled the bathrooms, bless them, and Aiden and his bartender boys took the main bar. That left the back rooms to me, and I headed to the hall with trepidation. Surely, they wouldn’t send me back there if they had a chance to fob off a more awful job on the fresh meat?
Someone had turned out the light, the hallway dark and it took me a minute to find the switch. With the EXIT light now down for the count, it was so pitch black I couldn’t proceed without illumination. Room A at the far end had a stack of glasses to carry to the bar, and Room C the same, though a sticky puddle of something I didn’t dare try to identify took a few squirts of my cleaner bottle and three rags to wipe up. Gross.
Room D was across from C, so I slipped in there next, finding it clean and empty. Someone either got to it already or it hadn’t been used tonight. That left my least favorite of the whole kit and kaboodle, though I’d been in and out of B so many times tonight at least I knew I wasn’t in for a giant mess.
Optimism on my side, I slipped through the door and headed for the table, stopping in my tracks at the sight of Carson slumped over, passed out. Well, just freaking lovely. I hesitated, ready to call Luke in to have the giant bouncer deal with my unconscious patron before deciding it might be fun to wake him from a sound sleep.
I finished my approach, noting as I did something was very off, because Carson’s slump was unusual, right? Not the forward collapse of a man with his head in his arms, but a sideways twist further into the bench, an odd and uncomfortable position for someone passed out. Then again, I’d found myself in weird and painful sleeping arrangements after long nights of imbibing, so maybe I was wrong?
Why was the silver ice bucket on the bench under his head? Dear god, was he throwing up? Okay, that I just couldn’t handle. But no, he wasn’t moving, and his head was all the way in the bucket for some reason.
Hang on. The water level of the melted ice was at his collar. Didn’t that make it kind of hard to breathe—
I’m not stupid or anything. It wasn’t like I was slow on the uptake most days. But I was tired, and my feet hurt and it had been a long two nights. So, the fact it took me a minute to make the mental leap required wasn’t exactly a stretch, okay?
Okay.
Because when it finally hit me, that Carson wasn’t going to be touching me inappropriately ever again, nor tipping me heavily to keep me from complaining, I had a moment of guilty relief the cause of my discomfort was dead.
I was a horrible, horrible person.
***