The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (14 page)

I pulled the darquelle from its iron mounting hooks and rushed for the front door. This thing was going to see me coming and know I wasn’t afraid of it. When I opened my front door, however, I found nothing. It was gone.

I stood like an idiot grimacing at the street for a while. The thing had been there. I could still smell it. A musky animal scent lingered in the humid summer night air, and either the thing was six feet of monster, or a pack of alley dogs had just sprayed down my stoop. Either was likely at that point.

I stepped back inside, locked my door, shuttered my windows, finished my whiskey, and then went to bed. It took forever to actually fall asleep, not so much for the dark faceless creature haunting the street corner, but for the plans I had the following night.

Seriously.

Saccharin butterflies. Rainbow loops.

he last time I put that much effort and angst into what I wore to the Druid Hill Club was the night I applied for membership. I had settled on my fourth shirt choice and my second pair of trousers. Ultimately it was pink silk with charcoal, respectively, though I opted out of the vest. The doorbell rang, and I stumbled down the stairs, suddenly worried about the volume of cologne with which I had anointed myself.

When I opened the door, I found Ches standing in a bronze and black gown, holding a black sequined clutch. Her hair was done up in ringlets. I had no idea her hair could even do that. What was most striking was the makeup on her eyes. Until that moment, I hadn’t really put together the fact that she never wore makeup at work. Now here she was, her eyes darkened, deep, pulled up into a feline kind of sexy.

I actually stammered.

“Come… come in.”

She tucked a stray ringlet behind her ear and grinned, bobbing her head in what I assumed was satisfaction.

“You look nice,” she said, hovering in the foyer.

“I clean up okay. But you? You’re like a goddess. And that’s not a line. Coming from a guy in my trade, that actually means something.”

“Thanks.”

“I’d offer a shot of something to pre-game, but…”

She held up a hand. “I’m a serious light-weight.”

“I seem to recall a bottle of wine that begs to differ.”

She squirmed. “Well, I’m not really. I was just being polite. Didn’t want to scare you off.”

“Who would that scare off?”

“Guys get scared off.”

I arched my brow at her. “By women who can drink?”

“Most guys confuse liver damage with penis length.”

“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but my liver’s basically a shriveled handful of anger at this point.”

She gave me a jab with her elbow as I escorted her to the car. I even held the door open. I wasn’t following any prescribed set of motions; it actually felt sexy doing it. The sky was still fairly bright with the high summer sun by the time we exited the Jones Falls and wound our way up the arboreal drive to the Club. Ches leaned forward in her seat as the old white-bricked manse slipped into view.

“Looks old,” she whispered.

“Wait until you see the inside.”

“What is it, a country club or something?”

“A gentleman’s club.”

“You mean a strip club.” Her voice snarled, and her eyes shot sideways at me in an expression that all but stated she was not okay with that.

“No, nothing like that. Kind of better, kind of worse. It’s a social club dating back to Reconstruction. You have to know someone to get an invitation to join.”

“Who did you know?”

“I did a job for a guy. He was so impressed with the product he ponied me up for the owners. Been a regular ever since.”

“What do you like about it?” she asked. “The secrecy?”

“My dad belonged to a club. He went every Saturday night. I always figured… never mind.”

“Is this place Men Only?”

I cringed. “Yeah. Male members only. We can bring guests, obviously.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Uh huh.”

I pulled up to the porte cochere, handed Ramon my keys, and had joined Ches at the front door by the time the car disappeared around the corner. She stood still, gripping her handbag.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Your ex. She worked here, didn’t she? You said she was a high-priced call girl. They have girls who work here, don’t they?”

I stiffened and simply nodded.

She sucked in a breath. “And you thought this would be a good idea?”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“You brought me on our first official date to a bordello where you met your ex-girlfriend. Why would that be weird?”

“It’s weird. I shouldn’t have―”

She lifted a hand. “Stop. This place is obviously important to you, and you wanted to share that with me. But you have to know this place is all kinds of wrong?”

I balled fists in my pockets. Not because I was mad at Ches, but because she was right, and I was being so completely stupid. “We don’t have to go in.”

She examined the doors, the concrete, my shoes, then finally took a long breath. “Well, at this point, I have to return this dress to the rental tomorrow, so I might as well get some use out of it. Besides, maybe I’ll luck out and find an old acquaintance to tell me a crushingly embarrassing story about you.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much a given.”

I offered my elbow, and as she laced her arm through it, we advanced through the doors.

“You can rent gowns?”

“You can rent a tux, can’t you?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know it worked for dresses, too.”

We paused at the coat room, and I found Kim standing stiff at the counter.

“Dorian Lake, plus one.”

“Hey Dorian,” she replied in a quiet voice.

“Kim, this is Francesca Baker.”

Ches smiled broadly and offered a hand. Kim stared at it for a split-second longer than was comfortable before giving it a quick, polite grip.

“How’s the room tonight?” I asked.

Kim leaned forward, her eyes low. “Listen, Dorian… there’s a thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“I need you to show me your ID.”

My stomach tightened. I enjoyed this shtick with Kim, but in front of Ches, it felt awkward. I fished out my wallet and offered my laminated card for her inspection as usual.

What wasn’t usual was the way Kim turned into the coatroom and pulled a phone from the wall.

Ches leaned into me. “Everything’s okay, right?”

“I think so.” That was a lie.

Kim cradled the phone and kept my card. “Just a minute, please.”

“Kim? What’s up? Is this about the photos?”

Ches whispered, “Photos?”

“Interior décor. Nothing creepy.”

“Just a minute, please,” Kim repeated, turning away from me. I could already see the guilt building up in her eyes.

“Something’s wrong,” I muttered.

After an uncomfortable thirty seconds, I heard a door open and spotted Giancarlo the manager swooping down the entry hall with two security goons on his sides. I had only ever seen the security goons once before, when one of the girls was getting thrown around by a client. Said client left with a broken jaw and a ruined social life after that. I was hoping for neither at the moment.

“Giancarlo? What’s going on?”

His imposing frame stopped in front of me, his hands shoved into his pockets. Giancarlo was a beast of a man, but he was always fair and decent. I figured something had to be significantly wrong for him to block me this far forward.

“See, Dorian,” he mumbled, “I gotta turn you out.”

“What?”

He looked down at his shoes, then stepped to the coatroom. Kim held out my card as he snatched it.

“Membership’s revoked. Look, I’m real sorry about this.”

Giancarlo pulled his other hand from his pocket and produced a tiny pair of scissors. Without looking me in the face, he snipped my card in half and handed the pieces to one of the goons.

I looked over to Ches who was turning red and tucking her head to the side.

My blood pressure rose, but I knew getting smart wasn’t going to make this go away.

“Can I have a word?” I whispered, gesturing away from Ches.

Giancarlo gave her a look, then nodded. We withdrew to a potted palm near the entry doors, and I tried to whisper loud enough to be heard only by Giancarlo.

“What’s this about? I mean, I’ve caused my share of scenes in there, but you didn’t bounce me once for that.”

“Not once?”

“Okay, maybe that time with the Swedes. But I’ve been a saint lately.”

“Yeah, you’re a stand-up guy, Dorian. Which is why this sucks for me as much as you. But this comes from the owners, so there’s nothing I can do about it. You know how this goes.”

“The owners?” That son of a bitch. “McHenry, right?”

“I cannot comment on the identities of the owners.”

“Right.” I nodded toward Ches. “Timing really sucks. I mean, of all nights to do this to me, this was the absolute worst.”

Giancarlo pulled in a breath to ramp out another genuine, but fruitless apology, but I turned on my heel and approached Ches.

“I’m really embarrassed by this,” I said in as even a tone as I could muster. “We’re going to have to go.”

Ches looked over at the others then back to me. Her eyes were wide, focused, soft.

I led her back out the double-doors. The Audi was already waiting for me. Ramon had to know this would be a short visit. Who wasn’t in on this? I thought about Big Ben behind the bar. I tried to catch a glimpse of the side windows in case he was watching, but the Club was made to be seen, not seen into.

I shoulder-checked Ramon away from Ches’ door and closed it behind her. And without so much as a look behind me in the rearview mirror, I pulled back down the gravel drive.

Ches didn’t say anything for a long time, letting me stew in my own juices. And stew I did! This was personal. It was a warning shot from McHenry, a petulant act of a man-child. Still, Julian had seen this coming, or at least had a sense of where the winds were blowing. He stopped going to the Club a while back, probably because he knew McHenry was one of the owners. Hell, I played to that fact the first time I actually met McHenry. And now he had just taken the Club away from me. He had no way of knowing how personal that would have been. And if he did know, then he would regret this.

I exited the freeway, and Ches finally spoke up.

“Sorry.”

I shook my head, and gave her a smile with as much dignity as I could muster. “No, I’m sorry. This is all just some stupid misunderstanding.”

She put a hand on mine as I gripped the gear stick. Her face seemed contemplative. I was on the verge of squirming when she replied, “I don’t think so. I think that guy was just being rude.”

“Who, Giancarlo? Nah. He’s actually a pretty good guy. He had orders. It’s… complicated.”

“Well, you’re better off. You might not realize it yet, but you are.”

She was looking at me again, but this time I didn’t feel like squirming. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“I don’t know where we can get a table last minute Saturday night, though.”

“I do,” she chimed.

She gave me directions to what I assumed would be her apartment. Instead, she led me to the other side of Baltimore to a charming blue-painted brick face restaurant called the Blue Moon Café. I wound around an alarmingly narrow lot until I found a not-so-legal parking space between an SUV and some utility meters.