Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

MEETINGS WITH A CLIENT

My client’s name is Terri. I don’t know her last name; she’s smart enough to keep that a secret.

She’s a high-class prostitute—one of very few in Ilium. She only sleeps with the richest and most powerful, and she makes a ton of money doing it. I know she makes good money because she spends it all on clothes. She’s a shopping addict; the kind of prostitute that wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a white shirt, or walking the streets of Ilium’s warehouse district. The trademark of her impeccable style is her red lipstick—a deep, rich red. I have dreams about that lipstick. I’ve always told myself: one day, I will wear that same shade of lipstick. Unlike Terri, I don’t have the guts. Lipstick like that demands an elite level of confidence. Without confidence, you’ll end up looking like a rodeo clown.

Terri finds her clients where I find mine—where I found her—at the Holiday Inn. Not in the lounge, of course, and not in the hotel, either.

Few people know that Ilium's Holiday Inn is a front for the biggest criminal hangout in town. To find the secret hangout, you take the back service door, from the alley behind the hotel. There, you’ll find a long staircase. Down those stairs is a door and a doorman. If he decides you’re okay, you’ll be let into a large basement bar, filled with bootleggers, drug runners, prostitutes, and arms dealers—not to mention all of the wealthy men and women looking for bootleggers, drug runners, prostitutes, and firearms.

In a text message, Terri suggests we meet at the Holiday Inn, but I’m hesitant to agree. The last time I was in that underground bar, I went home with Freddie. As far as I know, Freddie’s been waiting for me there since he woke up on that motel floor.

“See you there,” I reply. If Freddie
is
looking for me, he won’t be staked out on a Wednesday afternoon, or so I’ve convinced myself. But when one of the passengers on the bus notices my trembling hands and asks if I’m okay, I realize I never convinced myself anything.

I’m relieved to find the hidden bar empty, save for a few bar regulars and two chatting prostitutes, one of whom happens to be my client, Terri. Also sitting in the bar is a man who never leaves: Lawrence.

Lawrence is a short man, the shortest man I know. There’s a solid possibility he’s the shortest man in the town of Ilium. His baldhead, his awkward slouch, and his oversized clothes don't help his small stature. Lawrence is a drug dealer with no boss and no employees. Everyone knows him, everyone knows he’s a compulsive gambler, and everyone knows that he always sits in the same spot at the bar, talking to no one but bookies and those looking for a hook-up. He sells everything: pot, coke, speed, ex, toast, crack, K; you name it, Lawrence sells it.

Everyone knows not to sit in the seat next to Lawrence, unless they plan on buying. Now, a vaguely familiar bug-eyed kid, no older than sixteen, occupies the seat, buying a sheet of acid from the miniature drug dealer. It takes me a moment to place him. His name is Peter Irons. His single mother lives in my apartment building, across the hall from me. She’s even more bug-eyed than Peter, with scabs all over her arms from god-knows how many heroin benders.

Standing in the doorway, scanning the faces of everyone in the bar to make sure Freddie’s isn’t one of them, I notice Terri waving me over. She nudges the empty chair in front of her with one of her heeled feet.

“Liv, sweetheart, how are you doing? Tell me everything. Liv, this is Mandy. Have you two met? Olivia is the one who sold me this darling dress. It’s Dolce and Gabbana,” Terri says with her seemingly never-ending cigarette between her fingers.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Terri’s friend, Erica, says. She reaches her hand out to me. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Really?” I ask, taking her hand, which is bony and light, like the rest of her body. She has a beautiful face, but she’s in desperate need of some bodyweight.

“What’s wrong, dear? What are you looking around for?” Terri asks.

“Huh? Nothing.” I snap my head back to Terri and make a conscious effort to keep my gaze glued to her.

“I’ve never seen you so jumpy,” she says.

“Am I jumpy?”

“I hope you don’t mind my bringing Erica along. We’ve got a gig together tonight. One of the regulars is feeling extra kinky.”

“Right—no worries,” I say. Knowing Terri, I can’t begin to imagine what that regular’s bill is going to look like.

“Long story short, we need some new digs—something special for the naughty little fellow.” Terri and Erica both laugh.

“Well, I think I have what you’re looking for.” I place my bag on the table and pull everything out.

Erica picks up and inspects a short, black dress. “Lavallette?” she reads slowly. “What is all of this?”

“They’re new designers. Very high in demand right now,” I say. I’ve never heard of Lavallette either.

“Max Vettore?” Terri says, reading the sole of a black-heeled shoe.

“Especially Vettore,” I say. I’ve never heard of Max Vettore.

Terri stands up and tries one of the black shoes on. “Oh, I like it. It’s a bit big. Do you have other sizes?”

“No—what you see is what I have.”

“I can always stuff the toe,” she says.

“How much for the dress?” Erica asks.

“Three-fifty.”

“Three-fifty? It’s used,” Erica says. She looks at me with narrowed eyes. I hold my eye-contact.

“You’re holding a four-thousand-dollar handmade Lavallette dress. You’d be lucky to find one used for three thousand.”

“This is worth four grand?” Erica says, looking back at the dress, her eyes widening back out.

“On sale,” I say.

“The shoes?” Terri asks.

“A pair of Max Vettore heels? A grand.”

“A thousand dollars? Jesus, Liv—you’re supposed to be saving me money.”

“A grand
is
nothing. Those shoes are worth more than my car.” She doesn’t know that I don’t have a car. “You wanted different, this is different. I can go home and get the Gucci and Versace is you’d prefer.”

“No, sweetheart—this is good. This is great,” Terri says, looking back at the shoes and clothes on the table.

Behind me, I hear the bar door open. I’m tempted to look back, but I refrain. Maintain eye-contact or break the illusion. Freddie isn’t here, and he’s not going to show up.

Behind Terri is the centerpiece of the establishment: a raised cage, ten by ten feet, with a cement slab as a floor, still stained with Hannibal Hugo’s dried blood.

My hands tremble under the table. “Think it over. I’ll be right back,” I say, standing up and heading to the bathroom.

Terri and Erica are too occupied obsessing over the clothes to notice me leave. In the bathroom, I splash water on my face and look myself in the mirror. There’s no way he’s going to show his face in this place. I wasn’t the only person he ripped here. Sure, maybe he is out looking for me, but there are probably a dozen angry gangsters out looking for him, gangsters who hang around this very bar.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IRISH COFFEE

I was standing right here, right where I stand now, staring myself in the mirror, not an hour before I was in bed with the most disgusting human on the planet. Stashed away in my purse was every penny I had to my name, my whole life in a Louis Vuitton bag—less than a hundred bucks. My heart was still pounding from the big bust at James’s warehouse.

Making a sale was vital, but it was going to be difficult as I was only able to salvage a couple pairs of shoes and a couple of dresses. I was desperate to cut my losses—at least enough to afford rent, and survive another month.

I asked the bartender for the time and learned that my client was running late—probably not showing up at all. The festering paranoia in my gut slowed the ticking of the clock. After what felt like another hour, I asked the bartender the same question.

“Ten minutes since you asked me last,” was his snarky response. His patience with me had grown thin throughout the night. Since sitting down at the bar, I’d ordered nothing but water and the time.

I did a lap around the joint, hoping to find a new client—maybe a prostitute or some gangster’s date. But the bar was void of women that night, crowded instead with rowdy men, all excited for fight night. No one stood without a beer in hand. And with every beer that passed through those hands, the volume grew louder and louder. I worked the crowds, trying to convince men how much happier their wives would if they returned home with a pair of Louboutin shoes.

One man offered me fifty bucks, and in my desperation I accepted. Those shoes were worth fifteen hundred. When I looked back at the man, him and his buddies were drinking from heeled shoes, like German sailors at Oktoberfest.

When I returned to the bar, a man in a thick winter coat was in my seat. I took the only other open seat, right next to him. As I sat, the coat-clad man was mid-conversation with the bartender. I would later discover that the man in my seat was Freddie.

“It’s cold in ‘ere. Can ya turn up the heat?” Freddie asked. He had his arms wrapped around his body.

“Sorry—I can’t control that. Besides, I think it’s pretty warm in here,” the bartender replied.

“Really? Damn, I must be catchin’ a cold or somethin’.”

“How’s about a vodka? Russian soldiers used to drink vodka to warm themselves up. They say that’s how they beat the Nazis.”

“I can’t drink vodka—makes my joints sore. How’s about a coffee?” Everything about Freddie was pathetic. He moaned in response to everything, and a whininess in his voice made me, and everyone else around him, roll their eyes.

“You want a coffee?” the bartender asked with a sigh. The bar was busy, and everyone knows how big a pain it is to make a pot coffee.

Freddie smiled and rubbed his hands together to keep warm.

The bartender sighed again as he turned to make the coffee, a clumsy process that took far too long for its worth. By the time he'd finished, the bar had become overcrowded with thirty-plus customers. When I asked for the time again, I didn’t receive an answer.

My client wasn’t showing up. I still had a pair of shoes and a couple of dresses I needed to move. My prayers were answered when I noticed the stockier, rugged-looking man with a wispy white beard sitting on the other side of Freddie. In another life, the man could have been a pirate. In this life, he was a businessman of some sort, trading in his hook hand for a gold watch. When the bartender took his order, he pointed to a top-shelf scotch, revealing the gold wedding band around his finger.

He opened his wallet to pay for the drink, revealing a series of hundreds. He could afford a five hundred dollar pair of Gucci heels.

I hardly had to lie to the man before he bought me clean—fifteen hundred for two dresses and the Gucci heels. He didn’t even bother to check the shoe-size. Not bad for three minutes of work—and not a moment too soon, either. As I stuffed the cash into my purse, the bartender handed Freddie his coffee.

“Ouch!” Freddie pulled back his hand, dropping the coffee on the Chanel dresses and Gucci heels.

“Good Lord!” my buyer cried, jumping back from the bar to dodge the hot coffee. The clothes soaked with coffee and so was his lap. Steam rose up from his midsection; to my surprise, none rose up from his ears.

“It was so hot!” Freddie grabbed his burnt fingers with his hand.

I could see a vein throbbing in the man’s forehead. “This is ruined,” he said, holding up a brown dress, which was a white dress only seconds before.

My lips parted but no words came out. He was right—it was all ruined. My heart told me to give the man his money back, but my gut told me otherwise. I needed the money—even if it meant reducing myself to a scumbag.

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Freddie said, giving his burnt fingers all his attention. Even with the dim lights in the underground bar, you could see that his fingers were fine. “Hey, bartender. Could I get another one? And not so hot, this time.” He used a bar napkin to wipe the few drops of coffee from his hand.

“Excuse me, buddy. You owe me fifteen-hundred bucks.” My angered client was still wiping coffee from his lap.

“What? No. It’s not my fault the coffee was scalding. Take it up with the bartender. Besides, you shouldn’t leave fifteen-hundred bucks worth of shit on the counter.” It’s not shit. At least, it wasn’t shit, until he stained it brown and scented it with stale coffee.

My new client grabbed Freddie by the collar of his coat, pulling him up to his feet. Freddie winced his face away. “Don’t hit me! Please!” Freddie cried. The old guy was surprisingly strong for his age.

“You’re lucky I don’t smash your teeth in.” His grip tightened around Freddie’s collar.

“Ouch!” Freddie yelled.

Nearby heads turned towards the action. Their fight-hungry faces lit up at the possibility of an early brawl. My face was among them, excited to witness vengeance on behalf of the spoiled Chanel.

“I want my fifteen hundred bucks,” my client said through his teeth.

Freddie winced away, using his hands to protect his face from his new enemy. “I—I don’t have fifteen hundred. I have three hundred. It’s all I have.” His eyes shut tight and his teeth clenched together as he awaited a solid knock to the face at any moment.

“Give it to me.”

“Okay—here—take it,” Freddie whined, reaching for his wallet. “It’s all I have. Don’t hurt me. Please.”

The white-bearded man snatched the money from his frightened victim. “You’d better bring me the rest the second you have it.” With a loud grunt, he let go and Freddie scurried away.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“It’s not your fault the man’s a pathetic oaf,” the man said, taking his seat again.

Looking back on the incident, I have to give Freddie credit. He stayed in character and he went big. It was a convincing performance. He even had me convinced.

Minutes later, the bar erupted with cheering and hollering. Fight night was beginning.