Under the Surface (7 page)

“She's great,” Matt said, half-focused on the song, unfamiliar but definitely Maud. “What's this?”

“I recorded it at the Rusty Nickel one Sunday night a couple of years ago, when she was working on material for her last album. This is an early version of ‘Take Me Away.'”

He swept lime wedges into a plastic tub, then looked at her. “The Rusty Nickel, a couple of years ago. April, right?”

“It was warm, but raining cats and dogs,” she said in agreement as she found a second knife. “Were you there?”

“I was there,” he said slowly. “How did you get in? I heard the cops had to turn away a couple hundred people.”

“I know Maud. Back when she was busking on corners in SoMa and selling CDs from her guitar case, I helped her get some gigs at smaller venues so she could get the word out. She usually gives me a heads up when she's back in town.”

“You hang out with Maud Ward.”

“Not regularly or anything,” she started, but stopped when he cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, yes, I hang out with Maud Ward.”

“Her number's in your cell phone.”

“Yes.”

“Is there anyone in this town you don't know?”

“I don't know
you,
” she said, cocking her head and smiling at him. “Yet. Looks like we've already found something to talk about.”

“I don't get to many concerts anymore. Working too many nights.” He reduced another lime to wedges, his rhythm hypnotic, easy, automatic. She'd always been a sucker for hands. Not smooth, manicured, executive hands, but workingman's hands, the skin rough with scrapes and gouges and calluses. It made for such an erotic contrast, strong and tough, yet tightly controlled.

“Where did you get the idea to open Eye Candy?”

The question snapped her out of her fantasies. “I've wanted to own my own business for a long time,” she said, giving him the short version of her views on business and community involvement. “As for opening a nightclub … my dad's a pastor, which is a labor of love, so my brother and I were on our own for college tuition.” She scraped a dozen cut lemons into a tub and reached for more. “The summer before college I helped a girlfriend serve at a society wedding at the Metropolitan Club. The guy with the liquor contract for the Met also owned a club. He said he liked my work ethic, although in hindsight maybe my work ethic was icing on the cake.”

Chad smiled like he knew where this was going.

“He told me I could make two hundred a night in tips, working for him. I knew my parents would go through the roof if I did, and when I saw the uniform I almost didn't take the shift because the skirt was straight out of a French maid costume and came with fishnet tights and four-inch heels. But I gave it a shot, and he was right. My first night three different men, all old enough to be my father, gave me a twenty for a buck-fifty beer and told me to keep the change. I told myself it was a fluke, that there was no way a man would tip me twenty dollars to watch me bring him a beer, but it happened the next night, and the next night, and the next…”

A huff of laughter as he worked. “Sheltered much?”

“Not after a week at Platinum. I put myself through college with those tips. Eventually I ended up running private parties, including networking events at the Met, and along the way I discovered that I'm good at this. That's when I first got the idea to open Eye Candy. The real money's in the liquor, not the tips.”

“What did your parents think about that?”

It wasn't their first fight over her life choices. It wasn't the last either. “Imagine what you'd think a pastor and his wife would think of their daughter working as a cocktail waitress, then take that to a factor of ten.”

Despite his careful attention to the garnishes he was prepping, he seemed to be listening with his entire body. “Tips that good must have come in handy when it came time to buy this place,” he said, still focused on the rapidly diminishing pile of limes.

“They did.” So did a degree in finance with a minor in math, and some savvy insider investment advice given along with a ten from some of Lancaster's leading investment bankers when she brought them a cognac with a smile. They thought she was cute, in her little skirts and frilly tights, asking questions about the stock market and investment strategies, like an East Side girl could make something of herself.

This East Side girl would, and she'd bring the East Side with her when she did.

“Done?” he asked when she set down her knife. At her nod he gathered the empty boxes and took them to the storeroom while she dumped the final lemon slices into the last plastic tub and distributed them to each section of the bar. A moment later Chad reappeared. He slid her a look under thick reddish lashes as he took in her casual position, braced against the bar. “Taking a break?” he asked as he washed his hands.

“Getting help with prep certainly frees up some time,” she answered.

“Any time,” he said.

She reached for an orange, rolled it between her palms, then dug her blunt-cut fingernails into the rind, peeling away chunks to expose the juicy fruit underneath. The tangy scent rose into the charged air between them, mixing with the musky heat rising from his skin while he washed fruit residue from his hands. Eve realized he'd cut the stinging lemons without a wince or a complaint.

“This is a tough neighborhood. How did you decide to buy this building?”

“A good friend offered me the building for the right price. You know, usually I can't get a word in edgewise with guys. Tell me something about you.”

“Nothing interesting about me, boss.”

“You're working this tall, dark, and mysterious thing pretty hard,” she said. “Conversation goes both ways. Why bartending?”

He shrugged. “Desk jobs expect you to be there at eight a.m., caffeinated and ready to work. I'm not a morning person,” he said as he crossed the small distance between them and braced his hip on the counter.

“I'm not either,” she said distractedly as she peeled apart another section of orange. “Mornings suck.”

A thin trail of liquid escaped the rind and ran down her wrist; without thinking she lifted her inner arm to her mouth and licked off the juice. His eyes darkened, the pupils dilating into the hazel irises.

“Want some?” she asked innocently, offering him the orange.

“I'd say something about apples,” he replied as he pulled off a couple of sections, “but you've heard that before.”

“Eve gets the short end of the stick in that story,” she said. “Adam could have said no. He didn't. Yeah, she was temping but take some responsibility.”

His laugh seemed a little forced, and they both jumped when Natalie flung the door open. She tossed a casual wave to them, yodeling along to a song Eve vaguely recognized as a dance hit from the eighties.

“What the hell is she singing?” Chad asked, bracing one hand on the bar, the other on his hip.

“Pop, disco, hair bands, boy bands, punk, everything eighties,” she said, breathless. “The music died when Backstreet Boys broke up. On the plus side, we don't have to fight over who gets nights off to go to concerts.”

“She's gonna go deaf if she doesn't turn the volume down on those headphones.”

Natalie stopped mid-yodel in the middle of the dance floor. “What's he doing here so early?” she yelled at Eve.

Eve motioned for her to remove the earbuds.

“What's
he
doing here so early?” Nat said again as she wrapped the earbud cord around the iPod.

“We heard you the first time,” Eve said patiently. “He seems to think I need help with prep.”

“Help with prep, huh? Flirting with the boss, I think.”

“Just making myself useful,” Chad said. Nat continued up the stairs, letting herself into the office.

Eve rolled her eyes at the choirboy tone in his voice. “You could be more useful,” she said in a low undertone.

Another simmering hazel look through intriguingly reddish-brown lashes. “Slow, remember? Conversation. Getting to know you.”

“What about getting to know
you
?”

“Next time.”

“I'll hold you to it,” she said.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

This wasn't going to be easy.

A couple of hours into a crazy Saturday night, Matt told himself the conversation with Eve before Eye Candy opened had netted good information and background details, but he knew already that his plan to take things slow wouldn't hold up for long. Eve was smart, determined, ran her show like the motherfucking boss she was. No way in hell would she wait around for him like some sweet young thing.

No way in hell would a woman like that give a second chance to a professional liar.

At seven forty-two his partner arrived. Her blonde hair was done up in a fancy arrangement of curls and combs with butterflies on them, and her eyes were transformed by contacts that this time turned her average blue irises into the color of the Caribbean in travel ads. She wore a shimmery, barely there neon-blue dress, cracked her gum at Tom and got an apple martini and a wink in return, then disappeared into the crowd.

At eight nineteen Conn McCormick walked into the bar. Wearing jeans and a loose button-down, he steadfastly ignored the frank appraisals from the women at the bar and ordered a Rolling Rock from Matt. The anonymous exchange took seconds, then McCormick took up position against the railing surrounding the dance floor, giving himself a good view of both the door and the bar. As Matt watched, McCormick let himself get drawn into a conversation with a brunette Matt knew was half past toasted because he'd served her the last three of her four rum and Sprites. He almost wished he could listen in, just for the laughs.

At eight forty-seven Lyle Murphy, easily identifiable from surveillance photos, walked in. Matt barely managed to restrain a double take as Lyle smiled, said a few words, and patted Cesar on the shoulder. The two guys with Lyle, one matching the description of Travis, the other unfamiliar to Matt, also didn't bother to produce IDs. Lyle wore pleated slacks, a preppy sweater, and a hat straight off Justin Timberlake's head. Alone he would have blended right in with the crowd, but his two companions wore the latest in homeboy fashion—baggy jeans, and loose rapper shirts.

They stuck out like two East Side gangbangers in an upscale nightclub.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd as the trio made their way to the back of the dance floor. Natalie, in conversation with Mario at the far end of the bar, looked up as the shift in energy eddied to the far ends of the room. Lyle said something to a blonde woman that made her draw back, jaw open in shock, then headed straight for Eve.

Stuck behind the bar, Matt did his best to track Lyle's movements, but distance, demanding customers, and the shifting crowd on the dance floor made it impossible to get an accurate read on their interaction. McCormick discreetly worked his way closer to Sorenson at the far end of the dance floor, only one customer separating them from Lyle and Eve. The crowd closed again, blocking Matt's view.

Then Eve, Lyle, and the two sore thumbs rose above the crowd, up the winding staircase to her office, Eve smiling over her shoulder at Lyle, as if nothing was wrong.

Except for the white-knuckled grip on her iPhone.

Matt's every instinct was to abandon his station and find out what the hell was going on in her office. Three thugs and one slender female alone in a confined space usually meant brutal trouble.

The raspberry daiquiri Matt extended across the bar to a customer nearly slipped from his grasp and onto her expensive-looking white top. “Omigod,” the woman gasped as the crushed ice and deep red juice sloshed to the rim of the glass.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, flashing all thousand watts at her as a distraction. Glass firmly in hand, she smiled back, mollified.

He looked up at the closed door and drawn curtains. No sign of movement, but the office was good-sized and in this noise no one would hear her scream. He'd give them another thirty seconds, then he was going up there. He'd think of a good reason to abandon his station on a busy Friday night and storm Eve's office, a place bartenders rarely went.

Then the mysterious door in Eve's office, the wooden staircase leading from the alley to a second-story door, and the best way to minimize the impact from the two out-of-place thugs clicked together in his brain. He caught McCormick's eye and tipped his head toward the front door. Sorenson and McCormick pushed through the crowd to the door as Matt brushed past Tom and Mario to the end of the bar, then down the hall to the storeroom. He tugged open the door to hear Eve's voice above him, on the staircase's landing. She'd taken Lyle and his friends through the office and out the back door. Smart. Thinking on her feet.

“Look,” she snapped, her voice sharp enough to slice through the brick walls lining the alley. “This isn't the strip club down by the warehouses you guys used back in the day, the one the cops raided the nights they weren't slipping dollar bills into thongs. If you want this to work, you have to fit in, and you have to treat my customers with some respect, or I'll go out of business and then we're all screwed. Understand?”

“Understood,” Lyle said. “Looks nice in there. You done good, Evie. Not bad for an East Side girl. It'll be even better when you get rid of that thing.”

Matt followed Lyle's glance to the brick wall behind Eye Candy. Get rid of what thing? The building?

“I have to get back to work,” she said, her voice warming from arctic to almost-friendly. Matt could hear the effort it took. “I'll call you later.”

But she didn't step back to let them in the building. There was a pause, then the sound of shuffling feet on wooden stairs, as Lyle and the two thugs trotted down the steps and turned the corner to the parking lot. Using the wooden stopper Matt wedged open the storeroom door, then followed them, sticking to the shadows, his running shoes making the slightest of scuffling noises in the dirt. He paused just outside the bright lights illuminating the crowded lot and watched Lyle get into the passenger seat of a Cadillac Escalade. The engine turned over and the SUV moved smoothly into traffic.