The Lights of Tenth Street (27 page)

He vanished out the door, and Tiffany turned and looked at the girls, a teasing smile on her face. “He’s going to see it all in a few minutes, you know.”

One of the girls tossed her hair as she finalized her preparations. “Under
my
terms, Sasha.”

“Yes, yes, of course. You’re going to do great. You going up now? Well, good luck!”

The music started pounding onstage, and Ronnie could hear Marco announcing the start of Amateur Night. The audience whistled and hooted, and she clutched her costume in tense fists, picturing all the men she’d gotten to know, all her regulars, seeing her out there tonight. Maybe Maris had been right. She turned to Tiffany, her head clearing despite the beer.

“How can I
do
this in front of these people I’ve waited on?”

Tiffany laughed. “Listen, they’re here for one reason only—to see the girls take their clothes off And you’re here for one reason, too—to take their money. They use you; you use them. It’s an even trade. I don’t know why Maris ever tried to talk you out of it. You’ve been busting your tail all this time, but you haven’t been getting a cut of the real action. Now you can.”

Tiffany glanced at the clock and helped Ronnie finish arranging her costume. “Remember what I said—from now on, you’re an actress. Make them think they’re the hottest stuff in the world and you are
unbearably
attracted to them. That you’d jump them in a second if it weren’t for club rules.” She snapped her fingers in Ronnie’s face and laughed. “You’ll get to be a darned good actress up there.”

“Do you have another beer?”

“Yeah.” Tiffany pulled one out of a small fridge at the side of the room. “Here you go. Cheers.”

Ronnie guzzled it, feeling the warmth rising in her skin, the inhibitions finally melting away. She realized Tiffany had taken her hand and was leading her toward the stage.

“There you are!” One of the production guys grabbed her by the arm. “Ready,
Ronnie? The last one is just finishing.”

He started to hustle her up a small flight of steps, then stopped and looked her up and down. He grinned and flinched as if he’d been burned by her touch. “
Yeow!
Ronnie, you look
hot!
Knock ’em dead!”

Ronnie pushed back the last fuzzy thought of retreat, and gave the guy a sweet grin.
Might as well start acting now
. She climbed the few stairs to the wings of the stage and straightened. Two minutes. Just two minutes.

She looked over her shoulder, to see Tiffany give her the thumbs-up. The last girl finished to the sound of whistles and cheering, and the stage went black.

“Did you see her at the end?” Brian waved a beer like the lord of the manor, one arm loosely about Ronnie’s shoulders as an animated crowd surrounded her. “She had them eating out of her hand. A natural she is, a natural!”

The DJ chimed in with an admiring but crude joke, and the crowd roared with laughter.

“Make way, make way, best friend coming through!” Tiffany said as she pushed back into the throng.

She passed another drink to Ronnie and made another rousing toast to Ronnie’s win. The crowd cheered again, drawing sideways grins from the other patrons of the all-night bar.

Ronnie was giddy. The Ecstasy was in her bloodstream, five hundred dollars was in her pocket, and all was right with the world.

Why
had she
waited this long?

Loriel hovered outside the pub, tears in his eyes, alone. He was laced with the desperate pain of the Father. The pain of
knowing
what was to come, of seeing the dreadful path looming ahead of a lost child … the road that so rarely gave up its willing prey. But if it didn’t … Loriel closed his eyes and prayed. The consequences were too great to imagine.

L
ook, Jordan.” Doug Turner stood at his desk, one ear pressed to the telephone, sorting through some papers. “I get what you’re saying; I’ve known all along. But the board needs my honest opinion tomorrow and I’m going to give it. That’s what you hired me for.”

He set a file folder down a little too hard. “Don’t threaten me, chief. If you’ll just calm down, you’ll realize that we’ll make
more
money if we don’t take such a big loss on this deal for the next three quarters. Especially since the risk is so high and we’re in such a vulnerable stage ourselves.”

Doug listened to another diatribe and tried to unclench his jaw. His boss was going to give him a heart attack at the age of thirty-two. He broke in when Jordan’s cell phone crackled, forcing Jordan to pause.

“Chief, I’ll do everything I can to present it in the best possible light. I’ve got all the glowing revenue projections and the nice little color pie charts and graphs you wanted. But at the end of the day, they’re going to ask for my honest opinion, and I’m going to have to give it. There’s no guarantee all those big revenue projections will ever materialize. And if they don’t, we’re going to be out of business.”

Jordan started to say something, but Doug forestalled him. “Since you’re the majority owner now, I would think you’d have an incentive to listen to me.” He forced himself to laugh, adopting a joking tone. “I don’t know why you’re holding on to this so tight, chief. You’re like a dog with a bone, man. You’ve got to let it go.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

When Jordan spoke again, his manner was stiff. He thanked Doug for his advice and hung up. Doug slowly put down the phone and wondered if his life span at the company was about to be drastically shortened.

“So what’s our first target?” Tyson put down his pen, sat back in his chair, and opened the floor for suggestions.

He and the others were spaced around a butcher-block table in the villa’s expansive kitchen; papers, beer bottles, and coffee mugs littering every conceivable surface around them. The windows were shut against the cool breezes of the night,
and flames flickered over gas logs in a nearby fireplace.

It was decision time.

The numbers had come in, the small group had convened in the islands, and the prospects were now identified.

Tyson stared around the circle, watching the firelight flickering on the hardened faces. He knew what they were thinking. No one wanted to be the first to step into the fray. Every suggestion had a consequence—an effect on a city, a military troop, a piece of infrastructure—and everyone knew that someone’s extended family, someone’s acquaintances, would end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They had taken to calling themselves the Security Group—S-Group for short. None of them gave a rip that their decisions would mean the opposite of homeland security. They existed to create and then exploit the system’s weaknesses. Once these deals went through, they’d be able to live for the rest of their lives down in these islands, immune to any wreckage at home. Besides it was all part of the inevitable cycle of destruction and rebirth. It was what made the economy grow, what capitalism was made of, what had increased American productivity during and after every war. The current system was broken, corrupt, choked by overzealous regulators of every stripe. It was time for a return to pure capitalism; survival of the fittest. Sure, there would be a few years of pain, but the nation would bounce back stronger for it. And it wasn’t as if someone else couldn’t come up with the same idea as they. If others were going to get rich, too, they figured they might as well get in on the action.

Sherry grabbed a roll of paper towels and mopped frantically at the kitchen table, which was a better option than strangling her son. She swept aside the neatly organized stacks of mail on the tabletop, trying to contain the spreading grape juice spill—perilously close to her checkbook and the expense reports she’d just spent an hour compiling.

Brandon was running around the kitchen with Blake Woodward, oblivious to the nightmare he’d just created. They had grabbed two flashlights and were stampeding out the door before Sherry trusted herself to speak.

“Brandon, Blake, grab a towel and come back here!”

They kept running, giving no sign that they had heard her. A door slammed as the two headed out into the dark.

Ring!
 … 
Ring!
 …

Sherry growled in exasperation and looked at the phone, which kept ringing. She pressed the speakerphone button with her elbow and went to dump the sopping paper towels in the garbage.

“Whoever you are, hold on a second!” A moment later, she was back, cleaning her hands on another towel. “Sorry. Who is this please?”

“It’s Lisa.” There was a pause. “It sounds like you’re having quite a day.”

“You could say that.”

“I won’t keep you then, but listen—were you all coming to home group on Friday?”

“I think so. Both of us have really enjoyed the last few weeks.” She grimaced. “Well, after Doug forgave me for being so insensitive that night. We’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone.”

“It’s mutual, you know. Well, if you’re going to be there, why don’t you all come over for dinner ahead of time? It’ll just be salad and pizza, but we’d love to have you.”

“It’s a deal.” Sherry felt a genuine smile rising on her face. “That would be fun.”

“See you Friday then.”

“Okay.” Sherry started to say good-bye, and then gave a strangled laugh. “Oh, and Lisa—”

“Yes?”

“Despite the craziness, I want you to know that I did still have my hour-long prayer time today … just in case you were wondering.”

“Me? Wondering?” Lisa laughed outright. “That’s great to hear. Imagine how you’d be today if you hadn’t had your cup filled this morning!”

By the time Doug left the office, Jordan had returned none of his calls or e-mails. Jordan was working at his home office most of the day, so Doug knew he was choosing to ignore his chief financial officer. Not a good sign.

As Doug drove away, he replayed the tense conversation over and over again. It got worse each time. The phone was slammed down instead of simply hung up, and Jordan’s quiet anger became vengeful fury. Doug’s mind began to turn with memories of previous employees Jordan had fired—sometimes on trumped-up excuses simply because they didn’t get along.

Doug pulled into his driveway and stared at his dream home. Would they be forced to downsize just because he insisted on telling the board the truth? What would Sherry say? He knew he and his family weren’t materialistic—at least not too badly—but Sherry loved their beautiful home. They probably didn’t have enough savings; they really needed to scale back their budget. Once the kids were in bed, he’d better go look through their expenses and see what they could cut.

He pushed open the kitchen door. Sherry was sitting stiffly at the table, surrounded by bills and papers. She got up and gave him a swift kiss, her body tense.

The kids came running, stampeding through the room, hollering. Sherry jerked around and hurried to the table to protect her work. Doug gave a private sigh when he noticed that Blake was in the mix. He liked Blake a lot, but on this night he would have preferred a calm home. He gave all the kids—including Blake—a hug, trying to hide his anxiety They immediately started telling him about their day, talking over one another, their words competing for dad’s attention.

“
Quiet!
”

The kids swung around to see Sherry standing by the table, her hands raised for silence. She pointed at the basement door.

“Downstairs!
Now.
”

The kids trooped out, their faces disappointed.

Doug and Sherry stared at each other for a minute, then Sherry frowned.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Oh …” Doug forced a laugh. “One of those days.”

“Was preparing for the board meeting tough?”

Doug stretched his neck, hoping she’d just drop it. “Yeah, you could say that.”

She stepped closer, staring into his face, her manner challenging.

“What’s wrong?”

Why did she always have to make like the Grand Inquisitor when he’d had a hard day?

“Well … I told Jordan that I’m going to have to give the board my true opinion tomorrow. I think they’ll probably reject the deal. Jordan’s furious. He didn’t return my phone calls all day.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, you know what you’re doing. Jordan isn’t a numbers guy; that’s why he needs you. He’s just going to have to realize that you’re right and he’s wrong.”

So glad
you
know how to handle my irrational boss
.

“Did you tell him he was wrong?”

Talk about a dog with a bone
 …

“I tried to, Sherry, but he didn’t want to hear it. Remember, he wouldn’t return my calls.”

“Well, how unprofessional is
that?
” Sherry put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe him sometimes. He just gets a bee in his bonnet and won’t listen to reason. Well, you just remind him that you’ve been working seventy-hour weeks to make this deal work—at the expense of time with your family—and that you’ve done everything he’s asked you to do. I can’t believe he’d be mad at you after all you’ve done for him!”

“I—”

“And another thing. You know the finances inside and out, and he’s just going to have to stop micromanaging the company and trust you to have a clue what you’re doing. You’re just going to have to stand up to him.”

“I’m not sure that—”

“That’s why he made you the CFO after all, isn’t it? Didn’t Jordan himself tell you last year that you’d saved the company a boatload of money on bad deals? Didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And the board trusts you, right? I mean, they specifically kept you in place when Jordan took over the company after his brother died. I bet they’ll be glad that you’re telling them the truth, rather than being a yes-man!
Somebody
has to look out for the interests of the company’s investors, if Jordan isn’t.”

“Sherry.”

“What?”

“Can we not talk about this right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like you’re attacking me.”

Sherry’s face reddened. “I’m not attacking
you
, I’m furious at Jordan. He—”