“Since I agree with your assessment, I’d be stupid to take that bet.”
“Did you even look? Or are you just scared of losing?”
“I looked.”
“Prove it. What colour shirt is he wearing?”
“Pale blue with thin white stripes. Turned-up jeans and loafers, no socks. No wedding ring either. At first glance, his watch looks like a Rolex, but I’d bet it’s a cheap imitation since it doesn’t quite fit his image. He fidgets. Picks at his shirt cuffs.” Alaric took a seat and motioned for me to do the same before he continued speaking softly. “How many people are in here?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It doesn’t. I’m testing your powers of observation.”
Oh. I tried to picture the bar without looking around. “Seven.”
“Including us and the bartender?”
“No, excluding.”
“Close. Eight. We can rule out the two women sitting by the door because Stafford-Lyons is here to meet a man. Likewise the lady beneath the reproduction of Stubbs’s The Countess of Coningsby. The man by the door with the laptop is either hotel staff or here for a meeting—”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the document on his screen has the hotel’s logo at the top. The men next to the grandfather clock are here on a date, which leaves two. Our man by the window and the guy in the suit. But suit guy has a briefcase at his feet that’s too small to fit the painting, and he wouldn’t have brought it knowing he had to carry something sizeable.” Alaric smiled. “You shouldn’t interrupt. It makes you memorable for all the wrong reasons.”
No problem. I’d run out of things to say.
“Tell me,” he continued. “Why did you pick out the man by the window?”
“Because when the manager accused me of being a prostitute, he was more interested in gawking at the door than at me.”
Alaric’s expression hardened. “Rest assured I won’t leave a tip.”
“Forget it. Today’s not the first time some toffee-nosed twat has tried to kick me out of their fine establishment. Most of the time I deserve it, although I’m definitely not a hooker, Daddy.”
“It wouldn’t take much for you to blend in. You’ve already mastered the accent. Where’d you learn it?”
“A combination of Downton Abbey and Made in Chelsea.”
“You didn’t get tempted by House of Cards and Jersey Shore?”
“Like I can afford to pay for Netflix right now. But I can do Polish. To miejsce jest tak pretensjonalne.” This place is so pretentious.
Alaric smiled, genuinely it seemed. “You’re right. Czy chcesz później dostać burgery?”
Did he seriously just ask me if I wanted to get a burger afterwards? Or had I misunderstood? He didn’t miss my hesitation.
“Don’t freak out—this isn’t a Daddy situation.” He motioned at the empty crisp packet in front of me. “You just seem hungry, that’s all.”
Sometimes, it was the good things that crept up and caught me unawares. Not often, but occasionally. I quickly wiped my nose with my sleeve. Stupid sniffles.
“Allergies,” I said. “Probably the furniture polish.”
“Right. So, dinner?”
“Why are you being nice? I mean, Emmy’s properly mad at me, and she’s your ‘colleague.’”
“Emmy’s not mad at you. She’s mad at herself for letting you get close enough to do that sort of damage.”
“What about the car I took?”
“Emmy would be a hypocrite if she condemned you for that.”
“You mean she’s stolen a car?”
“You’re not the only one with a misspent youth.”
This day got stranger and stranger. “I didn’t mean to break her nose, honest. She grabbed me, and I just wanted to get away.”
“I know. You almost managed it too.”
“Yet here I am.”
“Here you are. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“About dinner?” My mouth watered at the thought because I bet when he said “burger” he didn’t mean the McDonald’s Saver Menu, but I had to turn him down. “Can’t. I have to work.”
“Work where? What do you do?”
“I’m a shot girl. You know, one of those bimbos who parades around in hot pants with tequila bottles on her belt? I serve overpriced alcohol to horny assholes from eight until the place closes.”
Technically, I was self-employed—Howie, the owner of Harlequin’s, liked to avoid paying taxes whenever possible—but I was there almost every night. The way it worked was that I bought a bottle of alcohol at full price from the bar, then sold it by the shot glass at a markup. If I smiled and flirted, the idiots I was serving didn’t even notice that the glasses weren’t full.
“You can’t take a night off?”
“No, Mr. Moneybags, I can’t take a night off. If I don’t work, I don’t eat, and Lenny… He’s not so good at looking after himself.”
“So I gathered.”
A subtle change came over Alaric, nothing I could pinpoint, more a shift in energy. I almost swung around to see what was happening behind me, but I realised at the last second that it would be a schoolgirl error. And I didn’t want to make another mistake in front of him.
“Our lady’s just walked in,” he murmured.
I grabbed my glass because I didn’t want my drink to go to waste, but Alaric stopped me from knocking it back with a tiny shake of his head.
“Don’t rush. There’s no hurry.”
I hated not being able to see, but then I realised that if I looked at the painting on the wall opposite, I could make out Bethany’s reflection in the glass. She stood just inside the doorway, eyes searching, and I groaned when she focused on me and Alaric. Look away, you daft mare. Thankfully, her gaze didn’t linger too long, and she headed to the bar. The asshole barman smiled at her.
“We were right,” Alaric murmured.
The preppy guy left his table by the window and joined Bethany. Her smile was tight, and they didn’t exchange more than a few words before he ordered her a drink, picked up the box she’d brought and tucked it under one arm, then strolled towards the lobby.
“Now you can finish your drink,” Alaric told me, draining his own glass.
It was weirdly exciting. I’d never had a partner in crime quite like this before, especially one so competent. Most of my tricks of the trade had been learned from kids I’d met on the street and an endless succession of housemates, and half of them were in jail now. The biggest miracle was that me and Lenny weren’t.
Alaric rose and studiously ignored Bethany as we left the bar. The preppy guy was on his way out the front door when we reached the lobby, but Alaric still found time to smile at the receptionist and ask the doorman if it was meant to rain. The painting was fifty metres ahead by the time we hit the pavement, and I was tempted to jog after it.
“Relax. It’s not a race.”
“What if he gets away?”
“This is a good distance. Trust me.”
Alaric kept his pace steady, but he had deceptively long strides, and I felt as if I was speed-walking in the bloody Olympics as I hurried along beside him. At least I’d worn trainers today. In my work uniform of high-heeled boots, I’d have broken a damn ankle.