Good Intentions (25 page)

her in their homeland against the wishes of his family and half a vil age of rival suitors. Even now when he looked at her, he saw that fiery young woman he’d married thirty years earlier with the intention of fullfil ing her dreams to go to the United States and make their fortune. Even now, he wanted nothing more than her happiness. And so it was with great trepidation that Ahmed returned to his— the— pool hall that morning hoping that the charming, affable Mr. Gorge might somehow reconsider the terms of his purchase. That was a foolish hope, of course, but for Emina, he had to try. Things looked wrong, somehow, when Ahmed pul ed up to the front of the hall . When he walked through the unlocked door he found debris and shattered furniture toward the back and center of the main room. “Hel o?” cal ed a voice from behind the bar. Ahmed looked up to see a tal , strikingly beautiful woman in a crisp, flattering business suit with the inventory binders in front of her. “Ah. hell o,” Ahmed blinked. “Is Mr. Gorge here? I’m the owner—former owner,” he corrected. She smiled. “You’re Mr. Kovac? It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, stepping out from behind the bar to offer her hand. “Cal me Lori. Mr. Gorge won’t be back, but I’m here to take care of his interests in the establishment.” Ahmed shook her hand, feeling even more confused. “Where is he?” “Oh, he has already moved on. You know how wealthy people are,” she added with a knowing wink. Ahmed nodded. He did not, in fact, know any wealthy people. Not real y. He’d made a few acquaintances in the local chamber of commerce, but on a personal level Ahmed was himself the most successful businessman he knew. “What…happened?” he asked, gesturing with his hand. “Ah. well . Mr. Gorge unfortunately took it upon himself to lock up after your bartender, Jim, left for the evening, but then forgot to do so. He left the door wide open. The register was bashed open and emptied, several bottles were stolen from behind the bar—a couple of them are smashed on the floor back there, too—and then there’s the table there.”

He looked around curiously, becoming quite stunned at the damage done to one particular pool table. It looked like someone had hacked at it with a meat cleaver. “Is that blood?!” he gasped. “No, no,” Lori said in a calming tone. “I thought so, too, but it’s not. Too dark and thick. Mr. Gorge has taken an interest in much seedier establishments than this one before, so I’ve learned to tel the difference,” she added by way of explanation. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t for the life of me tel you what it actually is, and the security video tapes were stolen, too. But if it’s not blood and it’s not something flammable—which it isn’t—then I guess it really doesn’t matter what it is beyond general vandalism.” “Huh,” Ahmed mumbled. He didn’t really know if he believed her or not, but she sounded confident. He wanted to believe her. The last thing he wanted was to find out some terrible crime had taken place in his pool hall , regardless of whether or not he had just sold it. “Ah, Ms. Lori?” Ahmed began, “I wonder…I wanted to ask Mr. Gorge some questions about the sale last night.” “Oh?” “Yes. It was very fast. Very fast. Too fast, you see. I hoped to work out things. Details I forgot.” “Lori” cocked her head curiously. “I don’t suppose you have the paperwork that Mr. Gorge gave you last night?” she asked. “I could get copies from him myself, but for convenience’s sake if you have your copy we could look it over now.” “Yes. Yes,” Ahmed said, pulling out the folded sheets of paper. He smoothed them out on one of the pool tables. “Is al very simple, you see. Maybe too simple, is my worry.” “You are concerned about the price?” “No. Yes. Ah, yes and no,” Ahmed smiled weakly. “Price is good, yes, but I have loans to pay off and such. I can do this, but I am unsure of details. I hoped Mr. Gorge would not feel is too late.”

Lori nodded, looking over the paperwork quickly. “It does seem like a fair price.” “Ah. well . I did not expect to sel until last night when Mr. Gorge came to me.” She smiled comfortingly. “Opportunity knocked, and you didn’t want to miss it.” “Yes.” “Mr. Kovac—” “Ahmed, please. Cal me Ahmed.” “Ahmed, then. It’s just Lori, by the way. Ahmed, I understand that this probably came on in a rush.” She sounded sympathetic. She’d had several thousand years to practice such mannerisms, after al . She had also learned to recognize opportunities. “Tel me, what sort of plans did you have for business after you sold the hall ?” His smile weakened a bit, showing vulnerability. “That is the real problem,” he acknowledged. “That is what I really have to talk with Mr. Gorge about.” Lori nodded, folding the sales papers back up without giving them back. She leaned on the pool table and looked at him thoughtful y. “Mr. Gorge has already passed ownership of the hall to a new party.” Ahmed blinked. “He has? So soon?” “Mr. Gorge had plans when he made the purchase. Most of them didn’t work out as he had intended, but I think they’l work out to your benefit as well as for the new owners. Tel me, Ahmed, how would you feel about staying on as manager? For a few years, at least?” *

“Oh wow, what a great shot,” breathed a voice behind Alex. He blinked, turning slightly from his computer terminal, and became very aware of long, curly black hair and pale, luscious cleavage framed in black fabric al looming thril ingly close to his left shoulder. He recovered very quickly and looked up at Onyx’s blue eyes. She was enthral ed by the picture of the angel statue on his screen. He had gotten the shot almost perfectly. There was just enough ambient light from the street and the exterior lights of the funeral parlor to let the angel’s features show, while still creating a near-silhouette effect with the moon. Al he’d had to do was play around with it in Photoshop a bit. “Aw, thanks,” he smiled. “Alex, where did you do this?” she asked, still looming. She seemed to be a bit closer than would be reasonable, real y. Onyx was a walking, talking work of delicate beauty wrapped in black satin and lace and knee-high Doc Marten boots. She was a little older, or at least Alex believed she was. She’d been in school before he’d gotten there, anyway, and carried herself like she was older. But he really didn’t know. He was just thril ed that she remembered his name. After al , he had really only managed passing conversations with Onyx and her apparent partner in crime, at least until now. “Uh,” Alex mumbled, “promise to keep it quiet?” Onyx’s eyes slid down to look at his, a conspiratorial smile playing at the red lips on her porcelain-perfect face. “How quiet?” Alex smirked. He kept his voice low. “Well , I guess you can tel Molly there, she seems cool.” Onyx gave it only a second’s thought before she hissed Mol y’s name. It was an open lab period for photography, rather than direct instruction, so a little quiet socializing in class wasn’t going to annoy anyone else. Molly paused only to save her work before coming over. Where Onyx was beautiful and delicate, Molly struck Alex as a girl whom he’d be happy to make out with in a mosh

pit. Her fire engine red hair was cut short. She wore no make-up and didn’t really need any. Alex suspected that she cleaned up quite wonderful y, but generally speaking Molly was al torn black band tshirts, dark cargo pants and spiky jewelry. He was probably wrong in labeling Molly as a Goth. He was probably wrong in that with Onyx, too, but it wasn’t like he was going to throw the labels at them directly. Real y, he just found them both enchantingly hot…hot enough to do silly things in the hopes of even marginally impressing or interesting them, and that seemed to have turned out wonderfully already. They weren’t on his mind when he woke up that morning. Lorelei had seen to that. Nor was he thinking about them, or really any other women, until he got to his photography class. He had decided that he clearly had more than enough on his hands with Lorelei and Rachel. But then Onyx flashed him a wave and a smile as he had entered the class, and suddenly he couldn’t see why he shouldn’t take advantage of the freedom Lorelei knowingly offered when it came to other women. “What’s up? Oh, shit, that’s nice,” Molly said as she came over to the screen. Alex just smiled, clicked over to the previous picture, and waited as they looked over his nighttime shot of the mausoleum. Mol y’s grin was unrestrained. “Where did you get these?” “Keep it to yourselves?” Alex asked. They both nodded. “Sacred Heart cemetery.” “No shit?” Onyx asked. “They just had a big fire, burned down the chapel.” “Yeah.” “Did you get permission to shoot on their property?” Molly asked. “Uuhhh…no. They don’t al ow you to get in there at night,” Alex said, dropping the line as nonchalantly as he had

rehearsed it in his head several nights past. “But if you climb the fence and stumble around in the dark anyway, you can get this really cool shot of this statue here.” He clicked over to another picture. “And you can sneak up on the chapel and get a pic of the steeple with the moon overhead, and it feels totally creepy. And there’s this mist and stuff, and you almost feel like you can hear ghosts.” “Um,” Onyx said, “that’s the chapel that burned down?” Alex just nodded. “Yeah. Freaked me the fuck out, too.” “Holy fuck, you were there that night?” Molly asked. “I left about an hour before,” Alex fibbed. “If I’d seen anything, I’d have cal ed 911,” he added, which wasn’t entirely untrue. He had, in fact, cal ed the cops when he saw what was going on. He just didn’t wait for them, or stick around to talk. “I mean, yeah, I was trespassing, but that chapel was kind of a nice building.” Molly snorted, but Onyx just looked at Alex. The redhead noticed the change in the way her friend looked at him, and flashed a quiet, knowing smile at her. There was a great deal within each glance between the two. Molly flashed a wordless query. Onyx gave a small , tentative nod of confirmation with bashfully eager eyes. Molly smirked in approval. Alex missed almost al of it. Almost. Without realizing that the two were throwing signals to one another with a sharp clarity just short of telepathy, Alex knew that they were both looking at him differently than they had before. What’s more, he knew it was an encouraging sign. “What’re you doing after class?” Onyx asked abruptly. Molly was already moving back to her workstation. Alex blinked. “Um. I’ve got my first aid class after this. Normally I work on Friday afternoon after that, but today my plans are pretty much flexible. Why?” Onyx shrugged, smiling a bit shyly. “Figured we could hang out. You seem cool.”

“I’d like that,” Alex smiled back. “Mol y’s got a ton of mid-terms coming up, so she’s stuck here for awhile. I’m on my own.” “I’m free.” “I mean, I don’t have anything in mind. Like, no plans to go do anything interesting.” “Cool.” “I’m not saying it’s a date or anything,” Onyx said. “I mean. Um. I’m not sure what I’m saying right now. Do I sound like a babbling idiot?” several workstations away, as if able to hear every single word that Onyx was saying ever so quietly, Molly faked a cough that sounded suspiciously like laughter. “Onyx,” Alex said calmly, “I’d really like to hang out with you after class. We could go do whatever or nothing. You just seem really cool and I’d like to get to know you better.” She blinked, as if he had said that completely out of the blue. She smiled, looking a bit surprised. “Cool,” she said. Alex couldn’t help but grin back. It was nice to not be the only one who felt a little shy for once. * “We can open tonight on schedule,” Ahmed said proudly as he hung up the phone. “No one was told not to come in to work. He just sent everyone home early last night. Mr. Gorge promised full night’s pay for last night, though. With bonus to make up for lost tips.”

“That’s not a problem,” Lorelei smiled. She had already gone through the most pertinent financial statements and turned to a catalog for pool tables and furniture. “I don’t believe replacing what was damaged will be too expensive. Would you be will ing to handle that part of things, Ahmed?” she asked. “Of course,” he nodded, but frowned at the pool table. “These can cost a good deal, though. You cannot just have it fixed easy.” “No, but we could have a new one delivered by tonight.” Ahmed’s eyebrows rose, and he considered his words careful y. There were a couple of suppliers in the immediate area, but immediate delivery on cal would be an expensive proposition. “We can go one night without this table. Just cover it and list it as out of order.” “We could,” Lorelei nodded. Her phone hummed, and she picked it up. It would be Alex, of course. She had been enjoying the steady excitement of whatever flirtations he was engaged in, but at this point she doubted anything would be consummated. The clock had already dashed her idle hopes of him ravishing his literature professor in her office after class. No, he was probably calling to be picked up… …or, as it happened, texting her to say, “Surprise date w/Onyx. Not sure to where. Tel me if it’s inconvenient. I’l fix it.” Mindful of being in another’s company, Lorelei neither smiled broadly nor laughed out loud as she might have done otherwise. Instead, she al owed herself a small grin as she reached into her purse. Without looking at Ahmed—she was texting a reply with her other hand—she pul ed out the wrapped stack of cash that Rob Gorge had flashed around the night before and then left on the floor when the fight began. The boys had left it behind in al the excitement. Lorelei passed it to Ahmed. “That should cover the pool table and the other damaged items along with delivery costs,” she said. As she spoke she texted Alex: “Don’t worry about me. Enjoy. Take as long as you like. I wish you luck.” Shock was plain on Ahmed’s face. Lorelei looked up at him with a shrug. “Mr. Gorge knew there would be

changeover expenses. Have the pool table and the broken chairs replaced. I will need to see the receipts when al is said and done. Then take a thousand for yourself as a re-hire bonus and reserve the rest as bonuses for each employee who stays on.” The shock doubled. He looked up at Lorelei. “So much? It is very generous!” She simply shrugged. “I have learned, lately, the value and importance of rewarding loyalty.” * They had decided they were pals before getting even halfway through a fast-food lunch. They talked of music and books and school and the craziness of new adulthood. They caught on to one another’s wit and intel igence. Every legitimate excuse to touch one another, if entirely chastely, was seized upon. She was not quite two years older than him and didn’t seem to think it made any real difference. Alex could sense that much from her voice and her laughter. For al Onyx’s black garb and appreciation for things creepy and morose, for al the introversion she displayed for the world at large, she was very much alive and vibrant. There was open, unabashed excitement at this new connection, and neither of them were shy about showing it. “Gimme your left hand.” She didn’t really wait for it. She just pul ed it up to her eyes. She sat in the driver’s seat of her old, used car outside of a Dick’s Drive-In with Alex beside her. “Relax it. Like this.” “Are you reading my palm?” Alex blinked. “Yeah. Seriously, relax it,” Onyx grinned.