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“Where are you going?”
“Ladies’,” I call, rounding the corner and bypassing the ladies’, pushing into the fire exit door and breathing in the fresh, nighttime air. Deep breaths. I reach into my bag and pull out a fresh pack of cigarettes and a lighter, falling back against a brick wall and sliding down until I’m crouching. Relishing the quiet. Breathing in the fresh air. I hold a cigarette up in front of me and roll my eyes, lighting up and taking back my first hit. A familiar sense of relief engulfs me, the pressure leaving my body with my exhale of smoke.
“Oh, that feels good,” I murmur, dropping my head back. I’m not going in there until five minutes have passed. Or ten, just to be on the safe side. To be sure they’ve left for dinner and to discuss Allison’s status. So I start counting as I smoke my way through my Marlboro, one to sixty, ten times.
* * *
“Have you been stealing my fags, pumpkin? Wanna smoke like a big girl, do ya?” He shoves three cigarettes past my lips and lights each one. “Then smoke.” I cough my guts up, my eyes bursting with water, breathing hard. “Smoke, girl!” He picks them up off the floor and puts them back in my mouth.
“No, please.”
“Smoke!”
I yelp when he back-hands me across my cheek, all three cigarettes dropping to my bare feet. Two get shoved back past my lips. The other?
I grit my teeth, pain searing me.
But I manage to keep the cigarettes in my mouth.
* * *
I look at the end of my Marlboro. I didn’t want to smoke, I hadn’t been stealing his cigarettes, but I did from that day forward. So that if he forced cigarettes into my mouth again, I wouldn’t nearly choke to death. But the pain of being burned? My back twinges, as if reminding me. I pull on the end, taking the smoke deep into my lungs, focusing on counting.
On my sixth minute and second cigarette, I see a car turn into the alley off the main road, the headlights blinding, making me squint. It pulls over near a row of bins, the engine turns off, and the lights slowly fade to nothing. I push myself up to standing, taking one more drag of my cigarette and watching the car as I exhale, flicking the butt away. I only got to six minutes. I’ll take my chances. I turn toward the door.
“Hey, lady.”
“Shit!” I startle, flying around, finding a young guy, Spanish looking, his hands up, his eyes wide.
“Sorry, just wondered if I could bum a smoke.”
“Jesus, you made me jump.” I look down the alley toward the car as I rootle blindly through my bag for my packet. “Here.” I hand one over.
“Thanks.” He slips it between his lips. “Lighter?”
“Sure.” I give it to him, and he lights up, flicking his head to the door behind me. “It’s a strip joint, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You work here?”
“No.” I shake my head, eyes back on the car down the alley. No one’s gotten out. I feel uneasy.
He hands my lighter back. “Thanks,” I say, stuffing it inside my bag and turning toward the door.
“No, thank you.”
I frown, looking over my shoulder.
And come face to face with a flick knife.
18
BRAD
* * *
What a night. I sit with the men around the table, half listening, half not, my attention on the back of the club where Allison went to powder her nose and Pearl followed a few minutes after. Fuck’s sake, I don’t want to go for dinner with Allison, don’t even want to fuck her, whether that be at the Four Seasons or at the house. What I want to do is get Pearl in a room alone and find out who the fuck I killed in the men’s.
